---
title: "Stamford Select Board — January 2, 2025"
date: 2025-01-02
session: regular
speaker_labels: 1 cluster(s) named from the roll call and that meeting's chair in the minutes, 0 named from roster attendance, 5 of 6 clusters unnamed
voice_ids: {"SPEAKER_01":10,"SPEAKER_02":1,"SPEAKER_03":2,"SPEAKER_05":17,"SPEAKER_06":12,"SPEAKER_07":6}
duration_min: 116
audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQn1N3d9YhQ
audio_source: YouTube (@jgramlin78)
minutes: https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%201-2-25.pdf
minutes_pending: false
present: [Nancy L. Bushika, John Dunn, Douglas Wright]
absent: [Michael G. Denault, Kurt Gamari]
transcribed: 2026-10-12 (faster-whisper large-v3, CUDA; names corrected per data/name_fixes.json)
diarization: pyannote/speaker-diarization-3.1 (automated; cluster labels may over-split a single voice; unattributed paragraphs have no reliable speaker)
---

# Stamford Select Board — January 2, 2025

**Session:** Regular · **Duration:** 116 min · [Audio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQn1N3d9YhQ) · [Minutes](https://townofstamfordvermont.org/mediaItems/Sbd%20Minutes%201-2-25.pdf)

**Present:** Nancy L. Bushika, John Dunn, Douglas Wright
**Absent:** Michael G. Denault, Kurt Gamari

---
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Welcome to a meeting of the Stamford Select Room. If you have a matter to discuss that is not included on any agenda, you may do so by addressing the chairperson and stating your name and address. You will notice that all our meetings are recorded, and this is to aid with the summarization of the minutes. The visitors are welcome, and we allow five minutes of comments per visitor and 15 minutes per talk. Discussions will be held in a calm and civilized manner and respectful of others. Select Board members present are Nancy Bushika, Douglas Wright, John Dunn. Will there be any adding of items or removing items from tonight's agenda? I have additional correspondence that's come in since the agenda. Will there be any adjustments to the agenda, such as changing the order of items? And? And Jeb is recording tonight's meeting for his YouTube video. Before I forget, like I did last time, I just wanted to offer condolences to the Denault family, especially Teresa. I know she doesn't work for us anymore, but she was very close to us on the board for the recent passing of a family member. And second is to thank Lori for decorating the Christmas tree. And John. We thank you for donating it, and you and Mike for setting it up, and whoever helped there. Lori, you did a good job decorating it. It was a cute little one. Thank you. All right. Hearing of visitors.

**Speaker 1:** I just wanted to touch base with you guys. I don't see anything on the actual agenda regarding the conflict of interest. So I just wanted to check in and see if you guys had a chance to contact the FSA. I don't know if you guys had a chance to contact the FSA, but I just wanted to check in and see if you guys had a chance to actually review the new ethics stuff that has come out that took effect on the first. I guess I'm just checking in to see kind of where we stand. You said you were going to look in to see if you had the ability to vote on that both positions couldn't hold if you were the assessor or if you were the delinquent tax collector. You couldn't hold the JP. If you're the JP, you couldn't hold the tax collector.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Correct.

**Speaker 1:** Yes.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Regarding the ethics, there's a lot to read on that.

**Speaker 1:** Oh, yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And I think Doug's been reading on it, too, and I've been reading. And there's a lot to go on. There's a whole list of what the towns have to put on. I don't know if you've got it yet, Lori, but it's a preparation checklist from municipalities, what has to go on our website. So we're working on that. Where we have to post the whistleblower protection. It's got to be here, garage, probably the recycling shed because nobody can get into the garage, the complaint form, and the code of ethics is probably five or six pages long, a lot of reading. So we are working on that. Now, as far as the justice of the peace and the collector delinquent tax, I did find out about that. According to state law, there is no. The same person can hold both of those jobs, according to state law. But it comes down to how the pay is, which we have discussed before. And I asked the LCT, can the town create a policy prohibiting the same person from holding both offices? If the job is elected, no, you cannot. Because that's the people that are electing them. If we appoint JP, which we don't appoint anyway. If we appoint the delinquent taxes, then we can say you can't hold them. Then we can create our own policy.

**Speaker 1:** I think everybody's aware that there's no state guideline that those positions can't kind of coexist. The question was, I guess, that Mike proposed was, can the town put in an ordinance that says that neither one of those positions can be held? Can both be held by the same person?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, we cannot. I just said it. We cannot because we're electing positions. If they were appointed, then the town could do something. But because they're elected, it's a state law. We can't do anything.

**Speaker 1:** Okay, so what are we going to do moving forward as far as the conflict of interest that's going to arise? I can smell it. It's never gone away. And it's not going to. I'd be shocked if it did. Well, what are we going to do when that arises? Because, you know, it's one thing for me as a new elected JLP to sit on the board and say, I need you to recuse yourself. But I'm not the Lord Jesus Christ himself. I can't make her recuse herself. I can bring it up and ask her to. But like we've done before and like people have done before in the past and ask them to recuse themselves, this individual, it was a blatant no. And so then it was kind of left where people just had to kind of proceed forward. It was kind of just like, oh, they're allowed to.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That hasn't happened yet.

**Speaker 1:** It sure did. It happened between two people in town. When somebody came in for an appointment, they asked her to recuse herself and she blatantly said no, which is one wholeheartedly. If you look at multiple sections, I don't want to put names out there.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah.

**Speaker 1:** But there was an instance where a lawsuit happened between these two people. And. Just for that sake, they shouldn't have been mingling in that area. And then that person like never left. So I guess that's, I know it's in the past, but it still happened. But what are we going to do? It's like I'm beating a dead horse. Like, what are we going to do moving forward? Because this is not going to go away. You know, it's a conflict of interest.

**Speaker 2:** Okay. Well, first of all, I'm just starting to read this. They've got a little quiz online. I took that the other day. I'm still not an expert on it. But my understanding is far as them asking the person to leave the room. That's a public meeting. And if the person doesn't want to go, that's perfectly fine. That was a public meeting. All those hearings were public meetings. So she didn't have to go. My understanding is.

**Speaker 1:** How are they? I'm not to cut you off. But how are those public hearings? Because we had to schedule an appointment, but nobody else was in the room or nobody else knew. And when those were things, it wasn't like it was put out, like Peter Greenbush has an abatement hearing, come one, come all.

**Speaker 2:** No, that's more, that's more administrative. They are considered public meetings. And I think when we asked you to put in your name, let us know you're coming so we can prepare. It's more of an administrative thing than anything else. But those are public meetings.

**Speaker 3:** Do they have, so the grievance hearings, they have, they choose a day and the day is posted. And they have to be here from 10 to 2 or whatever the hours are that they post on their, their notice. They ask people to schedule them, but it's posted for anybody in town who wants to come.

**Speaker 1:** Because I was told by them that I had to actually schedule. Actually, when it came out, it was you have to schedule a meeting. So that kind of gets away from that. But I understand.

**Speaker 4:** It's only for the convenience of two years.

**Speaker 1:** So that's fine. So, so what, so. If she's sitting in that meeting and she has made statements and they were put on the assessment, and then she still didn't recuse herself from a vote or from any saying, is that, or is that not a conflict of interest?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think you're talking about two different meetings.

**Speaker 1:** I'm talking about both meetings that were held because she was in the abatement hearing that I sat on or that I had to sit for with the gentleman who did the assessment.

**Speaker 4:** Right.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And she has no opinion. On that one.

**Speaker 1:** She had a pretty good one in mind.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay.

**Speaker 1:** Okay. So again, like I said, I don't get into who else had their meeting. I can only speak for what happened for me. And she had an opinion in that meeting. And then she had an opinion in my assessment. And then it went from that abatement hearing. It went to the next JLP, the Board of Civil Authority. And she was there for that. And then also went on my site visit and gave her opinion and also cast a vote for said thing. So again, conflict. Of interest. We know that we've established that it's been agreed upon that that is a conflict of interest. So moving forward, where do we go? Like, what do we do to finish to now?

**Speaker 2:** I guess the best thing they can say just here right now, my understanding is that, say, like, what we're talking about stays on the board as a JLP. And they can go to meetings. They can go to on-site, you know, to check out the properties like you did with yours. The only thing they can't do is vote because that's the final decision. You can't assume because she expresses an opinion. You know, she's not the dictator that says, okay, this is what I say. There's other people involved with it.

**Speaker 1:** I'm aware. So it's a perceived, um, it's a, it's a perceived opinion. So would she? Like we talked about in the last meeting, she has been here for a significant amount of time. People in town respect her. I'd like to believe. Am I correct? So when she says something, they listen to it. Am I right?

**Speaker 2:** No, I don't know.

**Speaker 1:** I don't know.

**Speaker 5:** I mean, okay. Either way, let's get away from that.

**Speaker 1:** How about she voted on it? Because you just said that she, she should cast a vote. She can go to the site. She can, you know, have an opinion, but she voted on it.

**Speaker 4:** Right.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** From now on. We are aware of this.

**Speaker 6:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We're going to.

**Speaker 1:** But she was aware of that. She knew. How did she? How do you not know? I'm not gonna argue. How do you not know? I mean, it's, it's.

**Speaker 2:** The ethics just started.

**Speaker 1:** Just quoted ethics. You've always had ethics. You guys all have to do the ethics. Everybody that's appointed has to look at ethics. Like ethics is, you're, you're, uh, uh, voted in person. Like, you're not just, um, voted in by the board and said, hey, you're appointed by the board. Like everybody goes through ethics in any kind of way. Ethics in any kind of position, like lawyers go through ethics stuff. I went through ethics stuff for my business, for the state. Everybody goes, this is it. Ethics isn't new. Okay. So if there's a perceived conflict of interest where, where you know that you can benefit from a decision that you make, that's a conflict of interest. Period. And how do you not know that? Then you're, you're, if you're saying she didn't know that you're almost insinuating that she's not very smart. And I'd like to believe she's a very intelligent woman. Okay. I think we can all agree that she's an intelligent woman. Okay. So, I mean, I'm glad that moving forward, but now we're going to have to recuse ourselves from, I mean, I guess, so what, I guess what the ultimate thing is, is we're not going

**Speaker 4:** anywhere.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any, what was that?

**Speaker 1:** So ultimately what it's come down to is that we're not doing anything. As a town, as a select board, you're not going to do anything. It's kind of like you're done. We're done talking about this.

**Speaker 2:** No, no. We have not said that. What we are going to do, like we said, this new ethics policy, the state and municipal just became active yesterday, the first of the month. We are going to go through it. We get to have a town version of an ethics policy. We're going to go through all those things. So we are going to do it. But what has happened in the past, you know what I'm saying? The vote. Okay. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what the people are saying. I don't know what you're saying. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what you guys are saying. I don't know. I don't know. But we will move forward and do our best to get a ethics policy up and to go by it. And if there's a question, what happens, I don't know if you seem to have read a lot. So you probably know it. But if there's a complaint, the ethics board doesn't, doesn't investigate it themselves. What will happen in the next couple of days is that the board of directors will have to go through the process. That is what we are going to do. So what happens is that we're going to get to a decision. What happens? I don't know if you seem to have read a lot, so you probably know it, but if there's a complaint, the Ethics Board doesn't investigate it themselves. What will happen, you could write to the Ethics Board, and this is my understanding, you write to the Ethics Board, and then they would let us know and we investigate it.

**Speaker 1:** So I've contacted the Secretary of State, so ultimately I have to file my complaint with the Secretary of State?

**Speaker 2:** That's my understanding, reach through the policy, not with the Secretary of State.

**Speaker 1:** Well, I filed my complaint with the Secretary of State.

**Speaker 2:** You can go to the Ethics Board, the Chairman of the Ethics Board.

**Speaker 1:** But I have to file my complaint with the Secretary of State.

**Speaker 2:** Well, that could be because the Ethics Board was just coming up.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah, so I mean, I've spoken to people.

**Speaker 2:** We're talking procedure here. That's my understanding. I'm going to read, trust me, I'm going to read through it. But I'm going to read through it.

**Speaker 1:** Which is fine. I wholeheartedly believe that you guys as a board are going to, you know, hold the ethics laws that have just come out to a high standard. I have no doubt about that.

**Speaker 5:** What would make you doubt that we would?

**Speaker 1:** Nothing. I just said I believe that you guys are going to do that. I have no concerns there. But you guys aren't sitting in in all the meetings that she's sitting in. Okay, so again, we have a position. We have two. We have kind of three positions that are kind of like on the questioning block, because we have the delinquent tax collector doing the person that is the assistant assessor, plus then we have the person that's on the Board of Civil Authority. So you've got three kind of like, you know, so whatever. Nevertheless, I guess it's just going to come down to, you know, people policing ourselves and that specific board and then filing complaints when things don't happen. I just hate to see this turn into like something really big that it doesn't have to. Because I don't want it to be anything super big. I know it sounds kind of like I do, but I kind of just want some resolution and kind of just move forward. But we don't people don't want to give up their positions. And so I, you know, it's just going to be made known. And we already look really bad from the first freaking thing that just came out. So I can see it get even worse. So thank you for your time.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any other visitors? Reading and approval of records and orders from December 19th. We have a motion to accept when it's written.

**Speaker 2:** We accept. All in favor? All in favor. Aye.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We wanted to say something about December 12th. We had an agenda for December 12th. We were going to do a budget work session, but unfortunately, we didn't have a quorum. So there was no meeting just to finish that one up. Right, Lori? Yes. Road conditions. Well, we know they're where our crew is tonight. I don't have any word from them at all. No. No. You have signed the highway ordinance. You guys approved it at the last meeting. For publication as soon as you get it. Conditions. There was a notice you sent us about the better back road grant. Was that the Easter egg grant? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** Is that, 32,000 in the state pays 80%? 32,000 in the state pays 80%, 3,200. Or is that, the travel hacerlo? The road kanske?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah.

That I'll print it off. That I'm sorry for the black dots. I think we turned it off, but I'll have to print it off.

**Speaker 3:** I have words here for the road erosion grant, but it's much smaller. It's at 3,200? Yeah. No, maybe that's it. Then we added some extra zeros. Excellent.

**Speaker 8:** And how do you think we have a future as a government in Georgia? roles based upon.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

**Speaker 3:** It's 3,232, 20% state match, which is, or town match, which is 808. This is for VCRC to assess state and going through the inventory of our roads and erosion and culverts.

This is kind of the same time that we're going to have.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Because I know we already have the one for East Road.

**Speaker 3:** Right.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Thank you. Anything else anybody have on the highway?

**Speaker 7:** No, this is Sportsman Club Road. That was a little slushy, right, you said?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** And he put some stone in to try to resolve the issue.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** He did say it didn't break up like spring break up, but it was getting a little...

**Speaker 7:** I was up there today. It's all right. Yeah, it could be. This needs to freeze back up again.

Well, it's pretty tough back past Suzanne Drive if you keep going past my road.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, the turnaround is.

**Speaker 9:** Yeah, that little section is pretty tough. That's kind of... There's only really one house, and someone's going to be filling up there, too.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Anything on recycling? Discussion. Appointment of ethics liaison officer. Now, Mike wanted to wait until we had a full board here. Yeah, and we don't. And we don't again.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, let's hope that we don't. Oh, well, yeah. Go on around.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** He's going to be today, so he won't be coming today. Okay. Can we wait? We've got until the end of the month. As long as we keep reading, Doug.

**Speaker 2:** Uh-oh. I've got a feeling something's going to happen.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think. Well, we'll wait.

**Speaker 2:** And we'll keep reading.

**Speaker 10:** Full board.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay.

**Speaker 3:** Correspondence, Lori. Okay. I received an email request. For someone looking for an assessor-clerk job description. Which I know we talked about preparing. And I don't know if one has ever been formally prepared.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't believe we did that. I think that happened probably around the October, November, when we had election and all that stuff. I know that we talked about it because we had the reappointment. We had the re-appraisal. There was a whole lot of work, and we thought maybe that Sally might need some help there. But things have settled down a lot, and now especially with the state probably taking over reappraisals every so many years, I'd like to hold off and wait on this. But if you don't want to make a decision, we can wait until Kurt and Mike get here.

**Speaker 7:** How often is it? Every three years they want to do it, right?

**Speaker 3:** Three to four or six. Three to four. I heard four. I also heard six. But if the state makes us do this every four years, I'd like to wait and see what the rest are going to do.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That makes sense. Yeah. All right.

**Speaker 7:** Let's hold off on that.

**Speaker 11:** Anything else under correspondence?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Not that comes to mind. Were you going to read something? Or you're good with your game? Oh, what?

**Speaker 3:** The slide with the numeral?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. I'll read it then. I'm going to read it. You want to?

**Speaker 7:** Or just read it?

**Speaker 11:** Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it.

**Speaker 12:** I'm going to read it.

**Speaker 7:** I'm going to read it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'm going to read it. Okay. So, can you just give the highlight points on it? Correspondence from John Tiffany, the assessor? Let's see here. Do you guys read it enough? Okay. So, this is from John Tiffany, the NIMRC assessor, 1220.

**Speaker 7:** He states that during his free time, he likes to look at select board hearing minutes in the towns that he works in. And he came across 1121, and he said, I don't know, I don't know what that means. He says, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So, for us, select board hearing minutes in the towns that he works in, and he came across 1121, regarding conflict of interest situation. He states that he does not get influenced by any Lister or accessory clerk in town that he works in. He listens to what concerns they have on properties, but the assessment is based on the physical features of the property. including dwelling and outdoor the assessment is based on most recent reappraisal based on fair market value as required by the state of vermont he also states that the town's most recent assets values from reappraisal were reviewed by several of nimrick's appraisers including a senior appraiser who has over 40 years experience whom the state of vermont consults with quite regularly the reappraisal was tested by the state of vermont it passed their three-prong test if the data failed any one of these three prongs it would cause nimrick to review and correct the needed data to pass the test there are several towns that he works in as well as towns in which other nimrick assessors work in in which the assessor clerk also holds several other town offices two of the towns i work in the assessor clerk is also the tax collector in other towns that includes being a town clerk another assistant town clerk and the state above none of these positions influence nimbr's assessor assessment decisions merry christmas and happy new year john tiffany

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** anything else lori old business new business uh do we need to go into executive session regarding the pending or probable civil litigation and i'd like to start our budget work session

**Speaker 3:** we could start working on that right yep you restart i put uh the most recent budget papers in your box if you all have them you just want to start with the income and go right down yep you want to do receipts first the receipts first um the natural forest pill has come through until it goes to checkbook for december it won't show it's like 33 000 so probably if you keep the

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** same budget that would be 35 yeah that is the people that have their property in the current use the state pays a portion of their taxes but you have to have a forest plan and abide by what the forester says state-owned property uh we budgeted 200 they gave us 306. we never know what the state's going to pay us that's for the little garage xc right yes 23 we budgeted uh 150 they gave us 257 last year we budgeted 200 this and they gave us 306. you want to bump it up to 250 or keep it 200 keep it 200. okay uh sale of town-owned property done tax sale um those are two lots if somebody went on you never know if anyone's gonna come forward so we'll keep it zero and yeah i would keep that you know i was wrong on the national board the national boards all of the state land that we have here

for this use value is the one that on if you have your real estate and current use program but the state land and the state pays is whatever it is so that probably changed because of the assessment as far as i know i don't think

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** they go by our assessment do they do we have to pay a little taxes yeah i don't know if they

**Speaker 3:** do that when like national forest logs all over the country and then divides it all off and we just get a portion of whatever their income is whether they log in our time or not yeah so it's kind of random and you know they don't mean like they don't know how big they're in the town and

**Speaker 13:** they pay us what they want okay so that's use use value value use value is the one where if you have

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** your property in the forest management plan and that's when the state pays part of your taxes so use value last year we did we budgeted 10 000 they gave us 12. last year we budgeted 8 000 and they gave us 13. we probably could go up so we want to go like nine

**Speaker 3:** nine or ten yeah oh ten ten ten that's why there's a lot of withdrawals from current use municipal payment so i feel like i heard the auditor said we needed to begin including a education billing fee that's retained yes and we created a line item yes i'm wondering if it isn't that 43 000 that's that's the little bit that the state gives us for sending out their school property bills yeah i'm wondering if he's not making the connection that that's what that is and feeling like we should be budgeting for it we've never budgeted for it no and we said thank

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** you very much because it's 43000. $43,000 that we didn't know we were going to receive. So should we budget something there? What's the education billing fee? I think that's what they suggested.

**Speaker 3:** They suggested we bill, and he created this line item for us, but I wonder if he didn't realize that the $43,000 is what he's talking about. It's just we've never budgeted it. Unless there's two different things, and I don't know. I mean, I could clarify it this year, but it won't help for budgeting purposes at all

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** because they always figured it when they did their fund balance because they took all the income. We just never showed it here. If we show something here, that would be less that we have to raise in taxes. Right.

**Speaker 3:** So instead of it showing up on the fund balance side, it'll be on this side.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Can we do, like, Wendy? Can we go back and see how much we got other years? Yeah. Is that easy to pull, Laurie? No, let me just get a couple of time reports.

**Speaker 2:** It's not in there. What is in there?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Because Laurie sends out the bills for taxes, and it's a part on there where the state gives us money for that.

**Speaker 2:** Oh, because she sends it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, and does the paperwork. And if we don't bill anything, that $43,000 is for the good, just in case we don't.

**Speaker 2:** We'll need our $43,000.

I'm going to put a question in there.

**Speaker 2:** This is not my strongest suit, so that's why I'm asking a lot of questions here.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** She looks other years and see what we get. We can go back down. And sale interest. Sale interest. Laurie's got a fund that people gave us money when they sold their land to National Forest. This was many years ago. We asked them to give us money. We knew we were going to lose the taxes, because we knew we were going to lose the taxes. So they did. We invested it into, we invested funds. We have, right now we have $161,000. Well, no, we've got about $20,000 more in there, so $181,000. And we have been borrowing from that. We borrowed from that fund to pay one of the trucks, one of our sales.

**Speaker 7:** Weren't we talking about using that?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** Potentially for the fire truck.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that's what that interest is, and she takes it off as much as she can each year. But these are in CDs where they work. So instead of breaking the CD, whatever they came due, she took some off. So let's say, back to the municipal payment, okay. Did we lose all our game, or what happened? I guess budgeting was boring. Budgeting is boring.

**Speaker 3:** So, and. Well, last year, you have the number. In 2022, it was $25,800. 2021, it was $36,000. 2020, it was $35,000. Oh, that's, so it varies. I mean, if we got $25,000 in just a year before last, I don't know if you want to go higher than that, and then be sure. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, let's. We put $20,000 in there, question 20.

**Speaker 2:** That's municipal.

**Speaker 7:** What is it if you average them together?

**Speaker 3:** $33,000.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** $35,000.

**Speaker 7:** $430,000.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yep, yep.

**Speaker 7:** $207,000, that's a lot.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's the total. $107,000 might be the total, divide by four. Divide, yeah, $107,000.

**Speaker 7:** $26,000.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Just put $20,000 in. Keep it $20,000, at least something's in there.

**Speaker 3:** That's like $27,000 a year on average.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, so sounds like a good number to be saved, right?

**Speaker 14:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All right, $20,000 in it. But now, the next line down, education billing fee retained. Is that what you're saying? Maybe he meant those two. Well, that's what I'm saying.

**Speaker 3:** He wants us to budget for that, and he added a new line item in our budget for it. But I think when he, unless there's another fee I don't know about, I think it, we only need one line. I think you're right. I think it's because we've never budgeted for that $43,000. And you've always put it in municipal payment. Right, as opposed to education billing fee. Let's keep it one line, whatever one you choose. I mean, if they want to call it the education billing fee that we retained, and I'll just, going forward, move the number into there.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** However you feel, I already saved. But it's there somewhere.

**Speaker 2:** So what are we doing into that line?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Into which one, though?

**Speaker 2:** Okay, well, no, I just heard you say education billing fee retained, so.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We think these two are the same.

**Speaker 3:** Okay. Right, that's what the auditor thought to call it. We'll just take today.

**Speaker 8:** Mm-hmm.

**Speaker 3:** Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And keep $20,000 in the line item that's municipal payment, wherever you have it, okay? Yeah. So we'll take out that one. Well, that one won't show up in the town. We'll call it the county court education billing fee. Right. A lot of these are on Lori's chart of accounts. There's lots of them. Whether she uses them or not, you just can't get rid of some of them. Right. Land sale fund interest, we budgeted $725, and we took in $1,487. We should probably do more, because we're going to have a full $187,000 in there this year.

**Speaker 3:** Right. I mean, I don't know what the projected is for interest rates, if they're going to continue to go up or not.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Any idea, interest rates going up?

**Speaker 2:** I thought that's what he thinks they're going to bring down, is the interest rate. Right, you know, you hear that from politicians, if you're going to try to know. Yeah. But Trump says he's going to, that's what he thinks he's working for, so. And actually, we just got like a CD that we're dealing with. You know, how that really happened. He signed it up, and we were told that it is a lower rate than last year. I don't know.

**Speaker 14:** Well, maybe we want to go up, but not a tot up.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Let's go $1,000 now. Would $1,000 be, okay, some reasonable? Money market interest, let's keep it, let's keep it, was there a hundred? We budgeted, okay, we budgeted $125, and we took in $94. We're going to budget $100. And checking interest, we budgeted $100. We took in $71, so we go down to $70, we go to $75.

**Speaker 13:** I like either $70 or $75, I don't care.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Permits and fees, local fine. This is when the, oh, when the sheriff used to.

**Speaker 3:** See, we didn't budget anything because we didn't have a sheriff, but I think, you know, the first couple of months, they still, until town meeting when they were voted down. So you still have, like, January, February, maybe a little in March, but probably going forward, if they stopped and got a ticket on a town road, they'd turn over a portion of that to us. But without us having a sheriff on their contract, I don't think we'll get any more.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We better do zero. This is state police. That's what they write it under.

**Speaker 2:** Well, it depends what they write it under. The last person talking a long time ago now, but it depends what ordinance they write it under. If they write it under a town ordinance, that's my understanding the town gets some of the road. But if it's written under a state ordinance, the state police, well, the state gets everything.

**Speaker 3:** So if they pull you over on the state highway, the state gets the money, but if they pull you over on each road?

**Speaker 2:** Well, but see, while they still could ticket you, say, like, the speed limit is somebody goes through town 55 miles an hour, the state speed limit is 50. So they still could write you under, like, the basic rule type thing. It depends what they want to do, but, you know, the state police are probably going to go, you know. What I just gave is kind of an extreme example, but.

**Speaker 3:** So there might be some amount of money that we would still receive.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, if they wanted to write you, say, like, a stop sign or something like that. If you go through town. But I think there's a state version of that, too, so.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think just keep it zero and beer and wine license.

**Speaker 3:** So I would stick with the 185. We have extra income in there because when Bill Mott's changed hands, the new people had to get their license, so. Going forward, it'll just be the renewals.

**Speaker 7:** When they had, like, the wedding or something, too, off-site, did they have to apply? Did they have to apply for a license at that time, too, or no?

**Speaker 3:** The people who were hosting the wedding had to apply. And then the, she gave a lot of basic people who she paid and got our approval. But it didn't have to do with, this is for Bill Mott, who sells liquor,

**Speaker 15:** and the golf course who sells the beer.

**Speaker 3:** Right. I don't think we got any money out of it. We just had to do approval.

**Speaker 7:** Right. That's what I was asking.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Driveway permits. We budgeted 100 and we took in 120, so we must have six new driveways. We must have six new driveways.

**Speaker 16:** It's amazing.

**Speaker 3:** I think we're going to get six more.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Are we going to have a lot of driveways going in this year, or keep it 100? Drop it down. Keep it 100, okay. Fish and game license. We budgeted 200 and Lori took in 214 for her fee.

**Speaker 7:** That's because every time you sell a license, we get like two bucks or something.

**Speaker 3:** You get $1.50 per tab. And the state, when it's $101, the state gets all the rest. What? When I sell a hunting license, I get $101. Oh, yeah. We get $1.50 and the state gets all the rest. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's an adding problem. The computer can't add that.

**Speaker 12:** 200.

**Speaker 7:** Let's do it. I'll shoot the 200.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yep. Oh, yeah. Computer. Because the computer can't add it. Yeah. I don't know about that. Wildlife reports. We budgeted that Lori's going to be checking 30 here and there, and she checked in 39. Would you get one?

**Speaker 3:** Well, we've got paid for 39 so far. I've received turkey, archery. I've not received the hunting yet, so that's going to carry on into next year, which is probably how it is every year. But, yeah, the town gets $1 every time I check in a year.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Keep it 30? Yeah. What's the hunting predictions, Doug?

**Speaker 13:** None.

**Speaker 2:** What's the hunting predictions? I need to get out and put out the turkey.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Deed recordings.

**Speaker 3:** Oh, we misjudged that one, didn't we? I guess the boom of deed recordings is slowing down. For a while, everybody was just refinancing. Rates were low. Rates were low, and then the moves. How much, what date are you up to on recording? She's, I think, the very end of September now. So, in a week and a half's time, we've moved like eight weeks. And this is right up to date?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** This is right up to, yeah. All right, so.

**Speaker 7:** Do you want to, like, cut it out in half, or?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't know if I'd go half. Maybe 8,000, nine? Eight or seven?

**Speaker 11:** You're only cooking seven.

**Speaker 7:** Seventy-five.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Seventy-five, yeah. Seventy-five, okay. Did you have a couple more months? Well, not going on this, but we could have figured, yeah. All right. You lost a lot of time with elections and all that crap there that we had to go through. Which we won't have next year, yeah. Marriage license. We budgeted $50, $45, we already got. And how many people are going to get marriage license this year? Yeah. Zero. Save zero in the locker and two in the other one? Yeah. Fifty? Fifty. Okay. And these are all subject to change. When we review them again, or Flores finds something, or we look them over and say, gee, maybe we should have done something different. Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** I'll give you guys an updated version that you can review for the next meeting and decide how things are looking.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Copies of vital statistics. That's birth, deaths, and marriages. You can charge $10?

**Speaker 14:** Is that what it is?

**Speaker 3:** You charge $10. And, you know, people need, now they need to get their real licenses or they need to verify and renew the driver's license. We were getting an awful lot more of the marriage certificate requests and those things.

**Speaker 8:** Keep it 100?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Sure. Examination of records. When people come in to use the vault or look at our records, we can charge.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, the state allowed us to go from $2 up to $4. And it looks like it's still nowhere near.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Can we probably go 100 then? Yeah. 100. Okay. Certified and uncertified copies. That's not bad there. Okay. Let's keep that 25. Miscellaneous fee. That is Mike's favor. Okay. $25.29.

**Speaker 8:** You found 9 cents outside or something?

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. I can't tell you what that is off the top of my head. Let's go zero.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't think it's a big deal. Yeah, no. Now, this record restoration, we don't budget anything for it. Lori takes in the money and then she puts the record restoration and the technology money, which should be the same amount, in a separate fund. Any separate fund that we created many years ago that she can use to have her land record books Xeroxed, any technology she can take out of there. And we have the fund building up.

**Speaker 7:** Why is there a difference in the amount?

**Speaker 12:** It should be both the same.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, but it's budgeted for zero. The income was $12.96.

**Speaker 3:** Oh. I don't know about that computer, Lori. You know what it is? That was probably the number prior. And so the general ledger copies all the numbers over. But it just copies flat numbers. It doesn't put in the math, the calculations. So I have to go through and put in all the calculations. And if I miss it and I change a number, no, it's not adding. I think we're pretty good, though. We can figure this.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. We have to fix it. So record restoration has about $18,000 in it.

**Speaker 3:** So I think last time when we purchased the copier, we used money from the technology and record restoration funds. The red books in the vault that all the layer records go in,

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** that's what we used to purchase them. And you paid out this year $60,000. $1,600 in record restoration. We must have done some books. And you paid out $900 in technology expenses. So what Lori will do is take the money out of those funds and reimburse our general fund. Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** Is that a zero?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Now the excess weight permit.

**Speaker 3:** So once we decided we weren't going to huddle the people who did file them, but we were going to accept the ones that did, so it looks like $150 is a good number. Okay. They're about $10 each, so 15 people are honest.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, that's when someone comes over the bridge with an overweight current. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Cannabis local filing fee, $200. Yep. Penalties and interest. This would be the delinquent taxes. We budgeted, we've taken in $14,000, took in $24,000.

**Speaker 3:** So I guess we could never really anticipate who files their taxes late, but Sally had two really large filers or property owners not pay this year, so it really made a difference. I mean, I think both of their taxes were $12,000 to $14,000. And they were late. And they were late, so that made a big difference. Okay. I haven't gotten figures from her yet.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So we'll wait and see the penalty and interest. Sally kind of gives a good estimate of knowing what she can collect, who's going to pay up their taxes, and it's just the same ones every year that just don't want to pay on time.

**Speaker 3:** I think I usually turn over about $100,000 every year, and I think this year it's about $105,000. How is it? It's a little bit higher than the other one.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** The income tax revenue, $131,000 she took in. Yeah. Now, are we supposed to be budgeting for that, too? Let's see. They gave us notes from last year. No?

**Speaker 3:** I don't remember them saying.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No, I didn't.

Because we've already. . .

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. So we can budget zero there. We don't know how much we're going to pay if we're going to pay up or not.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. So the first one would be blank, Sally. The second line is a zero.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yep. Reimbursed tax sale expenses.

**Speaker 3:** So at a tax sale, nobody bid on it. The town acquired it. And then later on, there were two people who came forward and purchased the town's interest in a reduction period, so the town received that money. We can't ever bank on that. So I think . . .

**Speaker 7:** Keep it at zero? Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** Because somewhere we paid out, you know, expenses.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Right. Were you ever part of the select board? Select board tax. We paid out $1,500. Yeah. For property. $1,500. Yep. We took in. . . And then they reimbursed us $4,000. That's pretty darn good. Yeah. Well, by the time we pay attorney fee and all that. Yep.

**Speaker 3:** Dog license, Laurie. Oh, that was good. A lot of that was. . . It was the $50 property. It was the $50 fines you guys implemented there. Yeah. It made a difference. I don't know.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Keep it $1,500 or higher?

**Speaker 14:** I'd like to think people are going to pay on time

**Speaker 3:** and we will need to worry about the $50. Yeah. Is that $50?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yep. Receipt dog officer. Oh, yeah. That computer is really . . . Receipt dog officer. I'm just going to redo all of the calculations. Yeah. Receipt dog officer and . . . What's that other word there? Dog officer and . . . Oh.

**Speaker 2:** Dog officer and . . . I don't know.

**Speaker 3:** Okay.

**Speaker 14:** That's a zero.

**Speaker 3:** I think . . . Like if the dog officer peddles a dog and we get reimbursed on our costs, that's money covered in. And that could be reimbursed. Yeah. That could be reimbursed . . . You all have to see what that's supposed to mean.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Permits and appeals for Board of Adjustment at $90. Okay. that ninety dollars was for our sign i think that's that was us we were the only one that

**Speaker 14:** went to the zba let's do zero because it's really the normally the applicant would file

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** john i was going to ask you before the last snow could we get the sign in now because there was no snow

**Speaker 7:** i haven't heard any correspondence i'm wondering if we need to find somebody to do the sign

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** yeah whenever i thought well it's nice out you know we don't have any snow i know because yeah sometimes it doesn't even work thank you let's go permits and appeals zero permits and appeals to the zoning administrator yeah um keep it 1500 because we budget it coming in and then we pay well we paid she didn't submit her final hour she paid we paid out 1800 but it's not in the same years because she last year she had

**Speaker 3:** some so we have 2023 expenses in our 2024. yep my heart is even though the town looks like we're collecting it and it looks like we're paying it the people who apply pay these fees one is it's

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** coming in and going out we're okay we can't do one side and not the other we can't do one side without the other we either have to have them both or not okay recycling receipts um we budgeted 13

**Speaker 8:** oh we took in 12 380. oh that's close yep 12. right you better raise your well they don't get

**Speaker 3:** raised until november so we won't see much of that i don't see it i'm gonna say 12 000.

**Speaker 15:** you want 12 000. that's for some of the cards to the public yes yeah we have more seniors doing it

**Speaker 3:** than the younger people is that a problem

**Speaker 7:** whole business after you pay the people to come and get the stocks

**Speaker 3:** we can't afford to charge people what we have to charge our expenses are forty seven thousand

**Speaker 15:** five hundred dollars you take involved fall three so fifteen thousand we're taking in

**Speaker 17:** nobody would bring in uh trash if you charge them correctly exactly and they would be able to

**Speaker 3:** sign the roads and it would be a mess so i'm not picking it up right i've done enough people kind of squawk about having to pay a hundred dollars yeah they're already complaining about it now if we we have to put it up to a couple hundred dollars a car

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** you're better off you have the incinerator yes yes so should we keep it 13 or drop it to 12. yeah last Last year we budgeted $12,000 and we got $13,000, so we went up to $13,000 and now we're at $12,000. Recycling receipts demo, $3,000.

**Speaker 3:** This is the math you said. This is the demolition that we received and we charged separately for. You get rid of your microwave and your washing machines.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And I think since Carol's been on top of it, she's been on top of it. Yeah, we just got to charge maybe $10 for my paint cans. Who did that, Carol? $10.

**Speaker 16:** I know she's been running around by herself down there pretty much. I know. I know, I heard that too. Yeah. Yeah. She's trying to, you know, butt beat nice. I know. But it's not really helping. No.

**Speaker 7:** She's what a tip can. I'll get her that.

**Speaker 16:** But it's going to be the same. That's the great thing. I'm hearing loud, loud ones.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Recycling returns. This is when Dave brings stuff down to the junkyard and we get money back.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We budgeted zero. Let's keep it zero.

**Speaker 3:** What did we decide for the other one? $3,000?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Not $3,000? Yeah. Yeah. Recycling returns? Zero. Recycling slip grant.

**Speaker 3:** I can only take that out because we as a town don't do slip grants anymore. It's all through the alliance. Right, right. So I'll take that line out of the right now.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Recycling receipts, the hauler. It should be about $75. How do you get $100? Do you get another hauler? Oh, yeah. We got a hit. We got a fourth one. We're down to $3,000. We got a $5,000. We're down to $4,000. Yeah. And $3,000 you pay. My friend never pays off the phone.

**Speaker 3:** Well, wait until I set up the stuff. I haven't set up the stuff yet. So where are we at? $100. $100. Yeah. All right. Receipts, copier. Ted says it's a copier. We're moving. Keep it $10.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** $10. Receipt, fax. $50. DMV renewal fee. $15. Get right over here.

**Speaker 7:** What are those, like, temporary tax?

**Speaker 3:** Right. Where somebody pays down $3, and we will give them a little temporary. So we do a $15? Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Miscellaneous revenue, $19.62. One of them was a dog in there. You were going to move to dog or something.

**Speaker 3:** So I've moved that. If I did it, I should have, and I will look. But we received a refund for the household hazardous waste facility that they built in Bennington and each town had to pitch in so much, but they received more grant funds than they anticipated, so they gave money back to the towns, and I didn't have a place to put it, so I put it in this idea. But that amount was $19.15. So that would leave, like, $45. $45 extra, and most of that is the $5 people will pay to post their land. They don't have a revenue line item for land posting, so let's just keep it zero. Zero, okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And I think you said you had a dog in there, but you moved the dog and get the dog out of there. Yeah. We did those with dogs and figured that out.

**Speaker 3:** And highway receipts. This is going to be a fun one, too. So they prepaid two. Of the 2025 payments in 2024, because there was so much flooding in July, there were so many towns that were having a lot of trouble with their highways, so the state paid us early. So I really feel like you only want to budget $20,000. You don't want to budget for four payments next year, because we should only get two. Okay. Which is what we did last year, but they gave us extra payments because of the flooding. Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So nothing else that we need to budget for. Well, the miscellaneous receipts, what that is, but that will be a zero.

**Speaker 8:** We should put it back to a grant.

**Speaker 3:** We should, and I can look this up. I don't know if you want to put it here, what we anticipated it back from FEMA.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think so, because we don't know when they're going to pay and we don't know how much they're going to pay.

**Speaker 3:** We did get our class two grant. I don't know if we're going to budget for some of ours. Should we want to budget for grant funds, or if we don't, do they really want to wait until Dave is here to talk to them?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. This FEMA flood reimbursement, this $60,000, Lori said it came in in August. $8,700 was for one of the floods the year before last. 2022. 2022. And then we got $52,000 in October for $22,000. 2023, still 2022. 2022?

**Speaker 3:** Okay. 2022. It's all 2022. And there's another one yet to be received in 2022. Still for 2022.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All that FEMA work is, how do they ever keep track of big floods? I think we should just go zero. I'll tell you also why. Last year, the highway, when the auditors came, came through and did all their, whatever they do with their money, and tell us how much we have for a fund balance. The highway was in a deficit. And the town was in a positive. The towns are not supposed to run on a deficit. If we do, we're supposed to raise the money. But, as Lori let's just, we've got money on the town side to cover it if we had to. If we have to take a vote and move it, we can do that. But we've got enough to cover the highway. We've got enough to cover the highway. We've got enough to cover the highway. We've got enough to cover the highway. We've got enough to cover the highway deficit if we had to. So we didn't do anything with the highway deficit. And here it's $60,000. And I think that's going to help Dave's fund balance this year. And put us back in the positive. We're about to go to expenses.

**Speaker 3:** Are you still up short? It's up to these guys.

**Speaker 16:** I'm good.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay, we're not going to do. Keep going?

**Speaker 3:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. AO, salary. We budgeted $1,500. She took in $1,800. I mean, yes. We budgeted $1,500. We paid her $1,800. This $500 was from 2023. And then education fund, we budgeted $150. And she didn't use any for education. And expenses, we budgeted $50. And she spent $10.59 for expenses. Could be posters or postage.

**Speaker 3:** She's like, it's more fire-laden paraphernalia. So she'll be just fine.

**Speaker 12:** Can you just keep the same amounts, $1,500?

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, we're not talking about a bunch of money we're selling.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Auditor, do we know their amount? Oh, $26,500. $26,500. I think you gave that to me last time. And thank goodness we have the signed contract, because we can use some of that money for it. Yeah.

Yeah.

**Speaker 2:** So it's, the audit is $26,500. $26,500.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Postage, about, this is to mail out the town reports. $1,000. We budgeted it, and it cost us $1,100.

**Speaker 8:** Do you want to budget, like, $1,200?

**Speaker 14:** Stamps are not getting cheaper.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. $1,200? No. Some towns just say, well, you have to vote on it. Come and pick up your town report at the town office. Do you think people would do that? They're so used to getting them through the mail.

**Speaker 3:** Say what? We always mail the town reports to everybody. So there are some towns that are trying to save on postage and just say they're... We're going to mail them to the town office. Come and get them.

**Speaker 7:** That's not a bad idea.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Is it going to tie you up? Everybody's going to come and say, oh, all right. Oh, yeah. Oh, and then... Leave them at a box out there. Just hold, like, a stack or something. Exactly. Yeah, right there. Grab them. Just go into voters.

**Speaker 3:** There you go. You'd have to put it on the warrant, and you'd have to vote on it. You'd have to vote on it. If it fails, you're going to want to put money in there in case it fails. Yeah.

**Speaker 7:** If it helps save the town money, I think we should do it.

**Speaker 3:** With all the Facebook stuff we have now, I guess you could get the word out and... We do put a copy of the town report on the website now. Yeah. And maybe people won't even...

**Speaker 7:** The other thing is, how many people actually look at it? Like, you're spending stamps and something, and they're probably people who look at it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** They used to... First thing you looked at, birth, deaths, marriage... Oh, no, that was second, third, first, was the delinquent tax list. Yeah. And then birth, deaths, marriages, which aren't in there anymore. I think it's a good idea.

**Speaker 18:** Everything's electronic anyways.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Leave it in the hallway. Leave a stamp in a box. With their stickers, or take a sticker. Because you don't want to order more than...

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, so you have like a checklist with everybody's name in the town. Say, oop, John Donne came down and got his... He's got one, so I can't... I can't come down and get another one.

**Speaker 3:** Well, that's the hard part, is it's really only for registered voters. And, like, I don't know. I can't think of a... But sometimes there's, like, five registered voters in a household, and I just said one per household. But in actuality, all five of those people would be entitled to a report.

**Speaker 16:** Why can't you e-mail... Why can't you e-mail a PDF report to all the registered voters, and in that same e-mail, state to them, if you would like a hard copy, please e-mail me, and I will have it ready for you. You can come pick it up at the town.

**Speaker 3:** I have an e-mail list of maybe 70 or 80 people.

**Speaker 19:** I was going to say, it's not very big.

**Speaker 3:** It's not very big.

**Speaker 9:** And then the older group is never going to be there. Yeah, that's true. So the best thing is, I mean, if we're going to decide to go that direction, would be somebody who could, like, go to all the older people and be able to get all their books and then deliver them, because that's the only way those people are going to get it, if you don't deliver by mail.

**Speaker 3:** I mean, maybe... Maybe people who don't want it by mail and you want it... By state law, we have to forward it to every registered voter, unless the warrant allows us to just have it available here.

**Speaker 16:** So does every registered... The question is, does every registered voter require to have an e-mail address? Because if they don't, then that means you can't electronically do it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No.

**Speaker 16:** So you have to do both. Right. That's what I have to do with the health insurance, too.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh. Do you think we should put another paragraph in?

**Speaker 7:** I think we should put it on the warrant, yeah. You know, the other thing is, you could put it on the website, and they could download it themselves.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah.

**Speaker 9:** I think the other word we could go to is that, if we had, you know, people who said that they really wanted one, and then they have to be, like... So we have to get them made by X to be able to get them out to people. So then, by X, you need to say, I want a copy of this. And then... We're only making 50 instead of 500. Or 800.

**Speaker 20:** Often.

**Speaker 3:** I mean, technically, like you said, if there was a list of everybody on labels, either your label, either it's mailed to you, or if you let me know, you'll stop and pick it up, or you want to e-mail, then...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So, okay, so say we go at town meeting and say, the town reports are available here. Yeah. Pick them up. Yeah. Well, so-and-so said, I can't pick them up. So then she ended up mailing them again. Tons of phone calls and tons of... And there goes... Right.

**Speaker 16:** Sometimes you create more work than necessary.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, that's why you're doing it.

**Speaker 16:** Mm-hmm.

**Speaker 3:** That is true.

**Speaker 21:** So you do your work. Or hire somebody, temporarily, and just deliver them all, and you save yourself stamps. You probably pay less to the temporary person to take a couple hours.

**Speaker 3:** Done. We used to try to do that as an eighth-grade fundraiser. There you go. And have all the eighth-graders deliver them, but it didn't work out well.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Happened in one town that Cub Scouts or somebody said they were delivering them, and then they later, past the deadline of 10 days notice, they were found in somebody's trunk in the car.

Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So, and then we had one man that just walked around town, and he walked up and down the road and delivered them all. But I think you could put them in the mailboxes then, and maybe I'm not supposed to put them in the mailbox or tie them on. Yeah. Maybe we open the can of worms here. What do you think? Well, let's put up some more. We'll think about it. Yeah. Question mark article. We can think about it. And town reports. This is to print them up. We budgeted 24 and paid 21. I think still go 24. Board of Health salary, $25. Yeah. And expense is zero. Cemetery, we don't have their... We do not have their... We don't have their budget, yeah. Okay. Conservation commission salary. We budgeted $150, and only part of the board got paid. Conservation, that's still the same number. Yeah. Thank you.

Good night. Good night. $150.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And their expenses is zero. Delinquent tax collector salary, we budgeted $5,000. She took in six this year. Last year we budgeted five, and she only got paid four. So it's kind of a toss-up. Five?

**Speaker 7:** It depends on who doesn't pay the taxes, right?

**Speaker 3:** Right, right. And that number is really paid by the people who are late with their taxes.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, it's on the penalty and interest.

**Speaker 3:** So even though we're saying we're budgeting $5,000, it's not really coming out of our pocket? It's a little misleading? Because when they pay the 8%, 5% goes to her and 3% really goes into the town.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So under penalty and interest, we've kind of given ourselves a little leeway there last year, because we budgeted $14,000 and took in $24,000.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So some of that covers the salary for the delinquent tax collector.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Delinquent tax legal notices, zero. Yeah. The expense, we, the salary does not take the 8%. Right. We buy supplies for the delinquent tax collector. Postage, paper.

**Speaker 3:** The $150 at the bottom. Yeah. Sale. Office expense. Oh, that's where it is. Okay. Yep. Is this when, if somebody does not bid on a property, we have to... That's the one. Yeah. We have to, we acquire it and we have to pay for it. Which is kind of wiping out the taxes. And we're old. I don't know how all that works. But I think that's that out there. Are you talking about the expense? Tax sale or expense? Expense.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah. I thought we had printer and cartridge there. The tax sale.

**Speaker 3:** The tax office expense.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's still office. That's still the office. The $1,300. That should go down to $1,300.

**Speaker 14:** Well, I guess we'll look into both of these and see what most rumors be.

**Speaker 3:** Printer and supplies. I think the printer and supplies is the same.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah. Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yes. All right. Now we have to try to figure out this for the last one. Yeah. Because you would need probably a whole lot of supplies this year. Yeah.

**Speaker 3:** We could probably go back to $150.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't know. Let's see what she does. Yeah. Let's see what Sally puts in for a budget there. We shouldn't be doing this. And the dog officer, Luke, has not given me his budget. Yep. Well, we'll keep his salary $900. I think he capped it. Yeah. License books and tags. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Keep it to monetary. Do you have any dog expenses this year? We budgeted it. Wow. We budgeted $2,000. We didn't expend any.

**Speaker 7:** Most recently he did. He had to watch one for a few hours. Wasn't there a bite?

**Speaker 3:** I think if the people are willing you can have him quarantined at their home if they're cooperative. Then it wouldn't cost as many. But if he finds a stray dog that he's got to take in and feed every day and then there's costs. We've had vet costs. We've had all kinds of bad things.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Let's keep the $2,000 and the $1,000 and maybe Luke will give us some

**Speaker 3:** feedback.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Election and town meeting. Ballot clerks. We only have one election this year.

**Speaker 3:** Did we drop that down to like $3.25? $3.25, yeah. $3.25. Moderator. I know Paul doesn't want to do it anymore but I think he's still going to do this

**Speaker 8:** last term of the year.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** You have to pay him right. Or maybe he doesn't take his salary because he didn't. He did it.

**Speaker 3:** I think we've got a budget for it. Okay. The law enforcement elections. I think that that is going to be $600. So we're going to be over. And I don't know if you want to have that included because it's really a 2024 expense but I had to put it on the credit card and the credit card bill isn't going to be paid until January. So I don't know how you'd like

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** to show that. So it's going to show up next year and we can't count it next year. I think we've got to keep it until next year. I don't think we can put it in this because we're running these figures off your computer

**Speaker 3:** which is done for 2024. Like I know it's paid but you're right. The town has it paid for officially but it will be $600 when that happens. So we are going to have one election next year. They've been starting to cancel school for the March election.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Let's keep it there just in case they don't cancel them. Do you want to do $500

**Speaker 3:** or do you want to do $600?

**Speaker 2:** I'm going to go $600.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Legal notice, zero. Ballots. Keep $100. Election expenses and supplies. That's for three.

**Speaker 3:** I won't leave that much. I was thinking you could probably do like $75 for ballots and even $75 for election supplies and $50 for ballots.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So I won't have three. Ballots a year before are $22. Let's go $50

**Speaker 3:** and $50 for ballots and maybe $75 for election expenses.

**Speaker 2:** What did you say for ballots? $75?

**Speaker 3:** I mean there was an awful lot of postage and everything. There's a whole collection that we just aren't going to have.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Emergency management. The only thing we can put in is salary right now. Employee benefits. You'll fill all that. Or you might have some. I don't know if you have any.

**Speaker 3:** Health insurance, zero. I did not go through all of these. The only one I have is the last one, the unemployment.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** $114. Unemployment compensation, yeah.

**Speaker 2:** $124.

**Speaker 13:** So the other ones, Laura,

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** you'll fill in when you finish all 20, 24.

**Speaker 3:** I got it half done, but I wanted to question you on that last one and I didn't want to go through all the motions

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** so I'll have to redo it. Energy coordinator salary $25 and expenses are zero. We don't have that budget yet. I'm just gas there, yeah. Yeah, that hurts. Fire truck replacement, $157. That is from their account, but Laurie has to show it somewhere in there.

**Speaker 3:** I think going forward, and I still have not gotten anything from the bank on all the loan papers that were signed. She said she'd get it to you right away. So I don't have a monthly payment for that fire truck.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Maybe just give her a call and say wait a minute now. The fire department appropriation, that $61,425, that's their budget. They'll give us that. And the $50,000 for the fire truck replacement, that should be a zero.

**Speaker 3:** How many years did we say we would do it? That's the kicker.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Can we un-warrant it? I don't know. There was a warrant out three, four years ago. We said we were going to budget $50,000 a year for five years and went to town meeting. They said yes. So we only budgeted three years. There's two more years left on it. Oh, and the other thing is it wasn't a legal article too.

**Speaker 3:** Because you can't reserve it for somebody. You've got to do it every year, every year. So this should be zero then

**Speaker 8:** unless they come up with a more

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** article going forward. But why would they? Because the fire truck replacement fund, we've got to pay off this loan for $60,000 a year. $67,000. Whatever. So what happened is if what the fire truck department, fire trucks, is a loan for five years and we approve the loan for five years, we sign the papers and everything, that's okay to budget five years out. But just say, I'm going to pay $50,000 a year for a truck. The townspeople are voting yes this year. But then the next year maybe a different group of townspeople said no, we don't want to do this. There's no signed contract. There's no nothing in writing. So we should not have accepted that article that was presented that way. It should have been voted every year. But they wanted to do it because it was easier to do five years and push it all into one. They had said it's, you know, for what they wanted to do. They didn't just let it go. For the fire truck replacement, zero. Appropriation will wait for them. And the bank payment. Yep. It's about $60,000 I think. I don't have that paperwork with me. Forest fire warden, $50,000. And expenses, zero. Okay. Tax anticipation loan. Lori's got to borrow money.

**Speaker 3:** So here's the fun part of guessing what the interest rate will be.

**Speaker 8:** We're at it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Sometimes we're not. We said $70,000 last year and we paid $59,000 which was good.

**Speaker 3:** But who knows. So if interest rates on money go up then interest rates on loans go up. Then we paid $6,000 this year.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Will it be $6,500? Let's put $7,000 and we can discuss it again. I'll do a question. We've got to go through this again anyway.

**Speaker 3:** If we have any questions. Law enforcement, zero. We don't have them anymore. I guess it was going around in March.

**Speaker 7:** Just say you won't in the future.

**Speaker 15:** It might change your mind.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, just keep it zero. Library, I do not have any of their information yet.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** We don't have anything from the assessor, Sally, Lori, John, and the other guy from Nimbrick. We're going to work next week and figure out how much they're going to do how much the assessor clerk is going to do. Planning and development. The salary is $175. Oh. Oh. We've got more planning commissioners.

**Speaker 3:** We'll go back up. We came to assessor clerk, assessor fee. How about reappraisal, are we going to put money in? Oh.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah, because if we've got to reappraise in four to six years, $7,000 in the bucket.

**Speaker 7:** What did it cost, like a million dollars

**Speaker 17:** or something like that?

**Speaker 3:** It was $87,000, $86,000. But if we've got to pay $86,000 every six years or four or five years, that's going to hurt. And the state

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** doesn't give us a whole lot. Can we put $10,000 in there?

**Speaker 7:** So $86,000, that might go up too.

**Speaker 15:** Oh yeah.

**Speaker 3:** Every six years. Divided by six, what do you get?

**Speaker 7:** $14,300 something. $14,332.

**Speaker 3:** Should we put $15,000 in there? If you want the whole thing, we bought at least that much. If you just want to be close. Well, wait a minute,

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** because we still have money in there. Oh yeah, we did say, let's leave it in there because

**Speaker 7:** I don't know how much we have in there.

**Speaker 17:** Do you want to do $12,000?

**Speaker 7:** We don't have a lot,

**Speaker 3:** but I don't know how much we have.

**Speaker 7:** $17,000.

**Speaker 3:** If we are looking like we're getting a good amount in there, we can always drop it down.

**Speaker 2:** So are we going $15,000?

**Speaker 7:** It's better to have too much in there

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** than not enough. Go $15,000?

**Speaker 2:** It doesn't sound good, but I can get something.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, if it's going to happen.

**Speaker 2:** Yeah, pricey little business, I guess. Lose your mileage.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Reappraisal is expensive. Reappraisal is expensive. Reappraisal expense should be zero because we're done paying for that reappraisal. Yes. And abatements. Because we had to pay. Oh yeah, we abated that guy.

**Speaker 3:** We abated the guy if we were wrong because the assessments were off, so he paid a much higher amount than what he should have.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So let's go zero there because we don't want to be wrong anymore. We have to do it. We have to be fair. Did you hear that? Yeah, you guys were here then when we had to abate that.

**Speaker 13:** It was on the wrong property or something.

**Speaker 2:** I remember hearing talk about it, but I don't know.

**Speaker 3:** Maybe you didn't sit in on the abatement. So what do we have for a planning commission? We have nine members now, so we need to set aside $225. Is that nine times 25?

**Speaker 8:** Somebody catch.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Have to do it right. Salary, septic officer, $25. Yep. Preservation, zero. Their education, 100. Well, I don't know. Are they going to submit a budget to you? They never do. Bennington County Regional dues? $4,000. Planning commission expenses? $200. $200, okay. Unless you want to charge it. No, they didn't spend it. Grant expense planning commission. Oh. That's because of the grant. We pulled the carrot out. And we didn't do it.

**Speaker 14:** And so they billed us.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That's exactly what it is. Zero. Select board chair salary? $1,000. And we got paid $870. Keep it $1,000? Sure. Select board salary members? Keep it $45. Because I think we figured it close, but not everybody comes to every meeting. If everyone came to every meeting, yeah.

Administrative. Administrative.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That is Casey, right? That's me. Oh, yeah.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. I started that. I started that on the sheet. It might come to $62 if all the hours stay the same, but it's hard to guess because the hours vary. Some years I spend more time than others.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Let's just put a question there to you. Unless you don't give us one. Liability insurance. Usually it goes up every year.

**Speaker 7:** Usually it goes up every year.

**Speaker 3:** I've got two different numbers in here, so I'd have to sit down and figure it out. So let's skip that for now. Yep. Legal expenses? We definitely will incur expenses in the year coming up. We better put maybe $2,000

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** because we got that thing coming.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, is that going to be enough?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Way of going.

**Speaker 7:** I think $5,000.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Okay. Select an education fund when we take courses

**Speaker 8:** or online stuff.

**Speaker 3:** They seem to be cheaper now that they're not in person.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** They're not paying for lunches. Keep it $200. Select an office supplies. $100 is pretty good. Can we back up? Oh, we have to miss it. $2,352. $2,352. $2,352. Select board expenses.

**Speaker 7:** You use all her stuff.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, she charges them.

**Speaker 17:** She reads for the recorder.

**Speaker 3:** She charges us out. I charge you for postage and I charge you for envelopes

**Speaker 7:** occasionally. We're close to $100.

**Speaker 3:** We charge you for paper now and then.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Website and email maintenance. We get $700.

**Speaker 3:** Or are we going up higher? It doesn't have to be a bill yet. We'll go ahead and see. If we prepay, he usually gives us a discount.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** So we'll keep a question there on the $700. Select and tax sale purchases. Oh, that's what I was thinking about earlier. We had to buy the properties but then we got reimbursed for them.

**Speaker 3:** So one of these is the tax that we have to pay and one of these is what we have to purchase. Because we end up having to pay the tax bill a year later. That's right. But that is one that we normally know about because we know that we have purchased the property. This past year all of the properties sold and the town wasn't stuck with any of them. So we don't have to worry about taxes. But this coming spring is Sally planning on doing another tax sale that the town might end up having to acquire property?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I don't know how many properties are back delinquent. We'll have to question that. And we don't need anything for the community center purchase acquisition because that was the church. It was zero. It cost us $1,000 but that was for the inspection report. But we never offered to help pay for that report. Well, it's public so that's alright. Salary for if Dave and Mike or somebody else works at the recycling center to still keep maybe just $2,000 then? So the first one is

**Speaker 3:** I think Carol when she picks up the trash here at the school. And the second one is Carol and Buzz as monitors at the recycling center. And I do have line items for Dave and Mike but I don't include them because they've been zeroed out.

**Speaker 15:** Those are going to go off

**Speaker 7:** if I'm not mistaken, right?

**Speaker 3:** They are. And I should be able to calculate that right to the time we look at raises. So I will get that information

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** for you. The BC Bennington County Solid Waste Alliance. I have that. I don't have that. I haven't seen anything on that. They gave it to me in our last meeting. And it says $79.86. So $8,000. But! Another report. I think it said $5,000. So I better check to make sure.

**Speaker 3:** Well the bills are all over the place too and I haven't received any resolution. I did get a response. They said they'd look into it.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'll see what he put in there. Unless he's figuring Unless he's figuring this would be $79 would be the total and not counting any rebates, refunds. I'm sure it says $5,000. I'll look and see. Repair and maintenance at the recycling. That would be Dave and see what he's got. If he's figuring anything. So John, see how much it costs us for recycling? $47,000.

**Speaker 11:** Yeah, that's crazy.

**Speaker 7:** And we only take in $12,000.

**Speaker 3:** Yep. So those are the actual bills we pay Castella to pick up our trash and recycle from our

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** top post. Let's go $50,000. Keep it $50,000. Recycling electricity. $450. Is that a requirement

**Speaker 7:** that we have at the recycling center for the town? Or could we just be like, hey, you guys we're doing it to keep it off the streets. Otherwise they're going to be dumping it up West Road and Planet Lake Road.

**Speaker 3:** It's a service for our residents, but

**Speaker 15:** you're right. It's costing

**Speaker 7:** more than

**Speaker 3:** Well, if we all had to get the dumpster in our backyard, it'd be what? $75, $80 a month?

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, I'd pay $70 for a giant dumpster.

**Speaker 3:** A month? $70 a month?

**Speaker 7:** Yep. And just put it in a bag and throw it in there.

**Speaker 17:** $800.

**Speaker 15:** Whatever it is, it is.

**Speaker 3:** So you don't have to do anything. $70 a month. This is $95 a year. Correct.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** And if we did, we did talk about one time having private pick up. Everybody brings their trash out to the curb. But then, what happens when it's snowstorming, day and clouds, you don't get your bucket in in time. Yeah. And then you guys up on the hill, get your bucket out there, nobody makes it.

**Speaker 7:** There are some things, like mattresses, that's something you have to pay to get rid of.

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, I mean, I guess you could begin to increase fees every year, but

**Speaker 7:** The majority of people that are using it are the elderly people, right?

**Speaker 3:** Yeah. Even if people come with like a wall art bag or two, it's still trash. But still, you know, it all goes into the TAM and it's all got to be dumped.

**Speaker 7:** It all goes to the same place at the end.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** That was the point. Where does this go after Casella takes it? It goes to Palo, right? Does it still go to Palo?

**Speaker 7:** I don't know. Yeah, I think they have, is it TAM or Casella,

**Speaker 3:** or wherever they are. They have Sweet TAM, but TAM sold out to Casella. Do they burn it over there?

**Speaker 17:** No, I think they

**Speaker 7:** it goes out of state eventually. So yeah. So we're trying to follow rules and keep it in state,

**Speaker 12:** and then it ends up going

**Speaker 11:** This is what happened

**Speaker 12:** This is what happened when we used to

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** have somebody took it, the public used to take it, it's still in the state,

**Speaker 8:** so you can't take it out of state.

**Speaker 3:** Right, the public was taking it to that big incinerator there by, what is it, Wendy's? Yeah, yeah. And it was just fine. And then they said you're not allowed to take Vermont trash out of the house. That's state law.

**Speaker 7:** That's where like someone in North Adams has like second chance composting where he takes all the compostable stuff and he brings you back like good dirt. He'll make some arrangement. That's cool.

**Speaker 17:** He's making dirt out of it.

**Speaker 7:** I don't know what you would do with paint cans and stuff like that.

**Speaker 17:** Right.

**Speaker 3:** He must only do like food.

**Speaker 7:** Yeah, just like leaves, food items, trees. I think he's charging $10 a tree.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** There's money in trash, apparently. Yeah. Bennington County Taxes, $9,000 you pay $99? Come on. That's for, let's say, the judges

**Speaker 14:** and...

**Speaker 3:** Yeah, I guess we've got to up that to at least $10.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** ...

**Speaker 14:** ...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** ... ... ... Do you have any figures now that we should plug in or you're good?

**Speaker 3:** No, I don't.

**Speaker 14:** I planned on it, but

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** on my vacation I was sick, so I didn't do my work. Okay, town office salaries, we could keep those all the same as what we budgeted. Tree warden, library trustee, justice of the peace, keep them all the same then. Keep everything the same. What's with the ZVA expenses?

**Speaker 3:** Oh, that's our side of locations. Yeah, we don't know what we're...

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Oh, mowing. It wasn't bad. Oh, we haven't talked about mowing. I mean, do we know if, uh, yard work by Dan? I'll have to ask Mike if he's going to still do it or retire. Town lighting.

**Speaker 3:** You guys want to see your lawn proposal at the next meeting or do you want to put that off? You won't have a bid for this anyway, so we'll just have to guess.

**Speaker 7:** I'd like it if you added more stuff to the description. Particularly, like, where the sign was. Those overgrown things out there. The widening sign, he could take care of that. And the hedges in front of what used to be like a first grade classroom. They're so tall now, they're above like the windows.

**Speaker 3:** So, when you guys set out your request, this is what we want you to do, we've increased it. I mean, we've had complaints about the weeds coming up through the tracks and asked him to stay on top of it.

**Speaker 7:** You could add this. Yeah, just add a little bit more work to the job description.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Send it to us or even give it to us. It's kind of early yet.

**Speaker 11:** Yeah, let's get through this

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** stuff first. Yeah, I'd like to do something with those trees outside of Casey's window there. It's covering up the sign and they just look dead. Well, they got damaged in the store so I'm going to just take them out and let them mow there. And I've got to ask the school board, are they going to do the windows this year? They keep putting us off. Is this their building or our building? Get home in time to grab it. That's good. Town lighting. 46, 48, we better go 5000 for street lights. Security monitor. Are they going to bill us twice this year if they get caught up? I don't know. Let's still go 140 if they bill us twice.

**Speaker 11:** You guys will know why.

**Speaker 7:** What are the street lights that are on the... Which ones?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I can send you a list. List of lights. List of lights. I went around this year to check to make sure everything was on.

**Speaker 7:** Is that one across my where Rasheeka Road, is that on the list?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** No.

**Speaker 3:** I think that was France. We have some private pay street lights. If you head towards the property, it's probably there. I think that was because Frank always

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** paid for that.

**Speaker 7:** I'll send you the list. There's one on the corner where the horses are. That treacherous corner there.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Red Cross, have they sent us anything yet? That's a warrant anyway. Yeah, these are warrants. A flag, town flags, let's keep 800. Can you tell us about the other people requesting money

**Speaker 3:** from our... Right, the Red Cross, the Brock, the other two, Vermont Rural Fire Protection, Southwest of Brock, they normally greet up or not. At some point we did a social service agency policy and said anybody that we have paid will continue to pay. Does somebody do, or if you want to increase your amount, you have to do a petition to get on a warrant. And then once the voters approve it, then it can go on every year. Last year, Greet Up Vermont goofed up, I would say, and did not submit a request for their $50 warrant. So they didn't get any money, they weren't on the warrant. I think what's happening was she had some very active Greet Up Day coordinators who emailed back and forth personally, and I think it just never went to the town office and got lost in the shuffle, but I don't know that for sure. But they're going to try to do a warrant, a petition, so it can be on the warrant for this coming year. And I also have, oh, which one was that now? I want to say the Red Cross people. Somebody asked for more money. And so I emailed them and said, no, here's our policy. It asked me to say about where you need to do a petition. So I don't know what response I will get. I haven't heard anything back from them.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I think that was all we had.

**Speaker 16:** Okay.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Good first try. We can't do Dave. That's a lot. We usually go through all of that

**Speaker 3:** in one sitting, so.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Well, we got to the meeting, we got to the meeting early tonight, too,

so that was quick. It wasn't a whole lot. So are we going to do this again next Thursday? At what time?

**Speaker 3:** Thursday? Oh, we're still at December. Because you need this to serve around the year. Well, I'll do it that way.

**Speaker 7:** Do we do it at five or four? Or how's that?

**Speaker 15:** I can do it at

**Speaker 3:** five or four. And we can do it that way usually.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah.

**Speaker 2:** Five?

**Speaker 13:** Five.

**Speaker 2:** I'm good for anything.

**Speaker 7:** I'm good for anything. I'd just like to get out of here earlier on a non-schedule meeting day.

**Speaker 22:** Okay. So it's going to be four or five?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** I'll check with these two guys. I don't care either. I guess it would be Kurt if he can make next week

**Speaker 17:** and we have four or five.

**Speaker 3:** We'll shoot for five. If they both say they can do four,

**Speaker 2:** do you want to do four? Yeah.

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Anything else?

**Speaker 13:** Or do I have a motion to adjourn?

**Speaker 2:** Do you have a motion to adjourn?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** Yeah.

**Speaker 2:** Second? John?

**Nancy L. Bushika (Chair):** All in favor? Aye.

**Speaker 13:** Doug, I appreciate you

**Speaker 2:** doing that work on the ethics and conflict experience. No problem. That's what we do. I belong to the

Berkshire Safety Association.