Budget Workshop #1
so um department heads weren't part of that step and valuation increase I still have to get to my evaluation to receive the number you're seeing there I don't make that yet right and that's an annualized figure uh are we are we on air so anyway we are on air okay well welcome everybody to the uh Thursday August 1st uh 1st of two 20 2025 uh budget Workshop presentations by the town of Webster's department heads um I I I'm ask will the community be able to see Donna okay uh this is our first time having a department head uh present remotely um but before I get into that I just would like to to say that we are a little past um halftime uh of the 2025 budget process uh it started back in early May three months ago and uh that's when Paul Adams our finance director reached out to each of the department heads and asked them to uh submit their initial asked needs
wants uh for 2025 so here we are three months later these budget workshops uh really are the first time that the the board is in total and the community gets to to see what the proposed 25 budget uh is and then if everything goes as planned uh this will all culminate um in mid October with the board adopting the 2025 um budget so it's about a six-month process so we're about halfway through um with uh plenty of opportunity for the public to uh to see uh the proposed budget and to and to chime in so so with that all being said our first department head tonight and the first time I think this has ever happened is Donna comar uh who is the town assessor and she is wearing a wonderful hat I thought that she might be at the Kentucky Derby today um but Donna I'll hand the batan to you thank you yeah I heard that there was a summer theme this year so I dressed the part yeah um Paul did you want to kick off
since this is the first meeting did you want to kick off with any kind of General comments about um the salaries and things you want me to just jump right in with my Capital purchases well I I just uh we can start with the salaries Donna and it's not specific to the Assessor's salary but when I was going through the budget I noticed some very high increases that looked I don't know disproportionately higher than I'm used to seeing elsewhere um in in the private sector I'll compare it to and I was just wondering if I I was assuming but looking for clarification if that is um you know contractual or or why it's so high and the reason for that um the employees receive not only Cola which is 2% for 2025 and they also receive a grade step if they qualify for that uh that's if they have not reached the top step and if their evaluation process goes uh successfully so in some cases you'll see a fairly large increase year to year you know it could be six s% increase one year to the next yeah say
reach grade the top grade is just Cola what was a cola this year 2% 2% so um I know that Paul and I are accountants by trade we are we use acronyms like Cola so before everybody in the audience or at home thinks that we're giving Pepsi Cola or Coca-Cola to our uh employees is it it's cost of living adjustments which is a fancy way of saying what is the percentage uh hourly rate uh change from year-over-year or percentage increase in their salary uh most most of these and you'll hear this is a common theme through the 14 department heads presentations uh most of the uh cost of living adjustment colas and the step increases are contractual based on the three Union contracts that we have in town that being white collar which Donna's Department I think all of your employees are in the White Collar except for you and I think maybe you're a deputy is it is that correct yep yes is that correct Paul and the Tim okay um
there is also a blue collar Union which really encompasses the sewer department and the highway department and then we also have the uh the Thousand club which is the police Union um so uh a lot of these salaries uh and hourly are uh tied to the to the negotiated collective bargaining agreements that this board uh um uh signed off on uh back in 2023 I think was when we signed off on the blue and white collar um agreements and then earlier this year we signed off on the police Union agreement so if that's TMI I apologize but I figured uh I'd rather the community and everybody understands that because it does permeate through the whole budget right and and the the increase happens at the review versus like January 1st that's the new salary or it happens at a review cycle January 1st for Cola and then um Step increase on the anniversary date thank you Paul thank you Donna than to Don hi hi okay so there is one um salary that I could point out and show you that our
part-time employee line has decreased because one of our long-term positions that was a higher end position has vacated and so I have adjusted a budget to reflect that the assumption that the next person will have to go back through some more training and such so there is an unusual decrease in salary on that line we hope to fill that position um in 2025 so I asked to uh leave it in the budget for now but at a l a lower rate um if you jump down Paul to the point two which is the capital purchases I have one item there for $1,500 and that is kind of a placeholder number our office uses a lot of color and there's one color copier in the town hall so when it's down it kind of shuts down all the Departments um we're looking for a tabletop model that would be lesser expensive than the big Workhorse that you have in the DPW Wing um but we do use the color for our color bar system that we put the labels in our filing system and the colors match so we're just looking for the right kind of printer that we could put there that we would be able to print our labels and not have it overlapping with other people's jobs and things because the
labels themselves are specialty so that would be a big convenience to our department and an efficiency for others when uh the DPW printer is down and someone needed color to have some kind of a backup for for the town hall um other than that let's see um let me just highlight a few things pretty much this budget is pretty level year over-year just a few fluctuations of small amounts that uh amounts to outside of the salary changes I believe the change in my budget is about $8,700 at my my last estimate um so the computer equipment and Licensing things like uh Microsoft Office licensing and other softwares that we need to pay for that's pretty stable our memberships are stable year-over-year here there's two or three of us in the office that are are professional are members of certain professional organizations uh Deeds are pretty stable the computer expenses again that's quite stabilized office supplies that number is up a little bit there's been General increase in pricing um we've also put a $500 placeholder in there for a toner
purchases for that color copier um so if it turns out that we don't find the right one those two items would come out the 500 from the office supplies and the 1500 up above as I mentioned um and then we're we're going to we've run out of Supply some supplies we buy periodically like every couple of years we'll buy a large Supply so that's why my office supply line tends to fluctuate year-over-year depending on the activities and how much we've depleted our suppli when we order uh in a large Supply and we can kind of stash it away and get a better price break for it we will do that for some of our office supplies sometime so it's it's time to beef up some of those supplies um the next line is Staff training and conferences again very stable the um next one is contractual services so we have a uh vendor that we like to use who has written for us in the past a custom database to help us track and renew our exemptions um and that started when came out we started making appointments to renew because most of our renewable exemptions are with the senior citizen community and the disabled Community veterans don't need to renew their exemptions and
things so we wanted to make sure that we could control the flow of traffic into our office be able to accomplish all of our business so we set up a scheduler that we could get our thousands of people in and out the door in a timely fashion that we could get our work done they could be assured that they had a private meeting meeting with our staff and it's worked very very well um in fact I have a little statistic for you um by doing that we were able to cut down on a reminder mailers which is a courtesy that we at Webster provide to our our um renewable exemption holders but we were able to cut down on that reminder that went out in February saying hey you're down to 30 days left don't forget to apply before the deadline we reduced that by 75% in the last couple of years so it's really helped with the efficiency of the work through the office and I hear great things from our taxpayers saying so glad to know we could just come in and sit down with you and take care of our business as opposed to standing in a line gambling up the papers stapling them and saying we'll call you you know this this works much better so what I want to do then is um in light of the fact that the town is going to need a reevaluation we're going to need to traffic again many many more people than
we're accustomed seeing and I'm looking to construct starting now a schedu for those informal hearings that can double and stay on board with us for just standard grievance appointments what we find ourselves doing is um typing name address tax ID number what is the assessed value into the into all of our systems over and over again so what this database would do is it would read our assessment database it would extract it and then put it into the papers and the forms and the in the format that we need instead of typing it four or five times for every application because you need it in four or five places so that is going to be an investment um that's going to save a lot of frustration and time for the staff and the taxpayers alike so that is my big increase right there $5,000 asking for um for the ability to create this custom software the lady that we've worked with before uh did really a super job with the exemption renewal so I'm I know we're going to end up with a very good product moving along appraisal and legal contractual expenses that is when um a business owner has taken us to Supreme Court we may need some appraisals we may need expert witness or testimony and uh
that is the line that helps fund that along with any additional um attorney expenses that may come up because of those litigation cases uh reassessments $45,000 I've left that in stame as last year because as you know we weren't able to launch those first few phases and we have talked in the past and we will get into more details at other meetings but we've talked in the past how we might want to take a step a step-by-step approach and start building pieces of that together to save us on the large price tag all at once and so that is just the beginning of cleaning up our data and looking at some particular properties that we would like to revalue just certain ones but um this is the same budget that was there last year as you know we weren't able to launch that on the 24 rooll so this would be for the 2025 role so Donna in regards to that line and that amount of money in the step is the step to manage the expense of a re-evaluation over several years or or is is looking at that as a step function of re-evaluation more aligned with slowly getting from 52% up to
100% both um yeah there's there's a lot of work that needs to be done to prepare to launch the program so that's going to help afford that um as you know now we have a full-time staff appraiser so that is one of the big expenses that um we won't need to take on before we didn't have an appraiser on staff so looking forward to working closely with our own appraiser on staff but this money here will be for outside um other things data collection and where we need to do a large volume all at once reworking some of our computer models and things like that this is to get some of that price tag out of the way up front and get it polished so that we can use it confidently before we launch it out on the on the um on on the actual reevaluation of things the the actual plan plan itself I'm not prepared to get into today there have been some ideas talked around and we're going to talk with some stakeholders before we actually begin to involve the public but I guarantee that the public will be very involved and very informed when we begin that process so um I hope that answers your question it does thank you yes you're
welcome um software maintenance contracts we are currently uh taking a program that we have on our website if you go to the assessor pages on the town of Webster's website you will find image mayate online and there you can look up your property information it just gives the basic information in in easy to understand terms you don't need to know our jargon as as Tom uh pointed out earlier it'll say that you have a ranch house instead of telling you what code number we have to punch in we punch in two-digit code numbers for the property or the the building style for example so it'll give you a word Ranch duplex whatever and um that's a really great tool for you to use to make sure that we have the right information on file and I encourage people to look at that they are now hosting that on their um server out in uh UDA New York and off of our server so there's an increase in expense for that but also there was a program called Eagle View that we very much rely on in our office to get a bird's ey view if you will of the properties and it's overlaid with our property uh tax maps so we can see exactly what is situated on a particular property and how it has changed over the years that used to be
offered to us free from Monroe County but they have switched to a new program so if we wish to continue with the program that we are most familiar with that we know how to make it work and that has everything that we need and the new program is very different in many ways um if it still had the tools we'd be happy to make that switch but right now as we are embarking on talking more about a revaluation changing that tool and relearning that and having holes and the tools that we we like to use is not a good idea so this uh budget also includes an extra $3,000 for a program we never used to have to pay for um and and so that's that's the other larger increase in in my budget this year beyond that just automobile maintenance I hope $500 will cover whatever we need for tires and oil changes and the simple things like that any questions I can take from the board no but I have a comment about that software because I'm very familiar with it and I do angle view so that's also why I'm very familiar with it um and it was unfortunate that the county did decide to go with near map but the near map solution does not have as clear of um um
imagery and there the measurement which very specifically for assessing many departments a GIS department or Parks and Recreation or other departments might be very fine with that other solution but assessing specifically um the assessment department has the ability to measure those buildings right from their desk and they can get very accurate information without having to go into the field so that that uh piece of software is very important and and and Kristen was very integral in making sure that she had that tool to be able to do her job so exactly just add a little more color to that line item thank you very much and I appreciate your support and understanding that so we can we can reconcile things while somebody's on the phone they can be talking to us and we can pull up a picture of the property see with near Maps we would lose all the history because the county is just beginning with that so with the Eagle View um we can pull up the history and we can say oh yeah I see what you've done there and you know it's it's just very very helpful tool and our staff has learned to I can I can measure within a foot on a clear image I can I can measure within a foot from from my desk
measuring the the side of a building sometimes trees get in the way or the oblique is just a little off or something but generally speaking it is a very accurate uh tool for us and that is why we love it so and we're just not ready to part with it thank you Donna thank you Donna I have no questions Jenny or John no I have no questions um thanks for your comments and your input with respect to the software just goes to show that when you have a uh varied board that has different backgrounds it it it really helps the process in my opinion Jenny no thank you Donna great seeing you um thank you look forward to seeing you at the office I hope so too soon all right thanks for doing this okay all right thanks for letting me come in remote you got it you got it have a good night good night good night to the best of my knowledge the rest of the department heads are uh presenting iners starting with Paul Adams our finance director
that is correct um all right the finance department has currently uh four full-time employees and um each each of the full-time employees is up for not only a U cost of living increase but also a step increase uh so you see the the compensation of employees is actually up about $9,300 or about 5% uh we do have have some overtime costs I budget about 5,000 per year and we do have one part-time person uh Paula who retired about I don't know about a year year and a half ago came back part-time and she helps us with a lot of miscellaneous things such as the the grants and some Bank RS uh so she helps fill in the gaps working you know usually 10 hours a week but sometimes it's it's more than that so we've got Paul in there for part-time Capital purchases uh flat year-to year nothing specific just always something seems to come up uh the computer licensing and equipment I budgeted 7500 which is actually up um uh quite a bit
from the previous year uh Windows 10 is sun setting which means uh from what I understand we're going to need to get some new computers so I budgeted down only the license fees for the computers that we have but also $4,500 to replace three of the machines I've increased seminars and conferences by $2,000 I'm trying to encourage the employees to uh get some continuing education uh keeping their CPE up to speed that helps them uh develop as a professional the financial software tools that includes um our access database which is used for fixed assets and it also includes the software called lease crunch uh which we use to calculate uh the um present value of our leases uh it's it's a requirement of gby 87 which is they set the rules and regulations for governmental accounting financial consultants I've got a flat year to year a 10 ,800 this includes um lifetime benefit
Solutions uh it includes Municipal Solutions who serves as our bond consultant and it also includes our Actuarial Services about $4,500 per year uh office supplies I've got them Mak coming down about a th000 that's based on um history so from 59 to 4,900 our copy release that's expected to stay pretty flat not an expensive item and then our software license fees we due for a um an increase on that contract we'll be coming in 20125 will be coming to the end of a three-year contract this is uh with Tyler technology they provide munus software which controls payroll accounts payable uh general ledger budgeting capital projects the complete Financial package so uh I'm expecting a slight increase uh probably around 4% so I'm budgeting for that that will happen I think about three qus through the year so it's not going to have a full impact in 2025 and I think that will be another three-year contract uh computer systems admin
that's an expense that was in there for 24 but it's now included in this uh 76,000 that we paid to Tyler uh a couple of years ago we went to Tyler actually hosting our data where prior to that it was hosted on site on our servers and then we moved it to uh to the cloud which is controlled by Tyler was a little more expensive but uh it saves saves money in regard to equipment and uh various time and money that Steve and John and Our IT department have to devote to it uh a couple small items Bank admin and director's expenses no change there software conversion costs um I do I did budget $2,000 in case we need some training for munus um I know Kelsey and braon like to uh fully utilize the capability of munus so there's always something that they're getting into to learn so a training opportunity may come up and then lastly we have our audit and account accounting fees I'm expecting that to be up about $33,000 41,500 that's with our CPA firm meal Metar and
bar they provide an annual audit which cost about 30,000 and they also do agree upon procedure engagements for the court uh Town Clerk and receiver of taxes and there also may be a single audit which is driven by federal money um if it exceeds $750,000 um that that would be like um arpa money or federally based grant so in total the budget is up about 177,000 or about 3.4% so overall is pretty good I have a question about munus yeah does that by any chance have a module or some sort of feature where you can do expense approvals expense approvals because um yes and and I I'll tell you why I'm asking employee expense reim employee expense reimbursements all all the stack of paper we have to go through as a board member every every month you have to review the bills and sign off on the bills so my my thought around that is it's a lot of paper it's very manually
intensive and and it seems like this soft Ware has different features and functionalities and I know it does budgeting and it when it does a few other things does it do that yeah there are there are ways to automate that and to create workflow for purchase orders um we would have to obtain the module that would allow us to scan and capture images of the documents y we looked into that when we converted payroll a couple years ago it was expensive so we didn't do it but I mean something we could consider um mayd be a lot of SC scanning but it' be a lot less paper you're right we are scanning we are heavily paper driven yes and paper's expensive and scanning is free so the software might cost more up front but eventually you save it on paper right but eventually you're say but not only do you save on paper you save on time you improve the speed in which you have reimbursements you it's it's you improve employee productivity so there's lots of benefits to that something we can look into eventually I wasn't planning on roaching this but I I guess I can't help myself
that uh there are people in the room tonight councilman Cahill who is the it Le aen uh Denine Maher who is our town clerk tax receiver Chris boo who is our Parks and Rec commissioner and and yours truly uh are four of the eight people that are on a task force that is starting in August to basically discern what we have in internal uh it automations Innovations all that uh but also external how we customer service to our 45,000 citizens uh are we with the times are we how are we looking into the future of how we handle things and what Automation and it we have and part of that is and I know we just got a 45 ,000 Grant is that uh we are moving toward being less paper I will not go all the way to say paperless but we are moving toward less paper I think there has been unbelievable strides on this with munice modules from HR Kelsey you could talk to that uh in Bron's absence uh if you know not that we'll get knee deep waste deep tonight on that but we need to parley
that and move forward on and one of the things this task force is looking at is how we can Leverage The Power of 14 departments instead of 14 individual departments going off on their own and looking at ways to handle things like credit card payments or going paperless when maybe right in front of our nose is uh an option for those things that all 14 departments can use and that from a budgetary standpoint will cost less because certainly you're going to get the economies a scale and the discount of a large organization like the town of Webster versus a smaller organization like the finance department in the town of Webster so um we're off and running aren't we Denine yes we are right Chris I had a twist their arms please join this committee I won't get into why I thought that and Keith Mortimer our new town Engineers on that committee um it's going to be good obviously the IT staff is on that committee um veryy important pretty important pretty important um any other questions on the finance budget no no thank you Paul okay you're welcome I have Paul I have a comment
comment all right um in the munus paperwork um and you and I like the way you presented on the screen I don't think in the screen presentation is the transfer from the sewer fund of $60,000 uh it is not okay and I'm not sure how much of that is talked to when we do the sewer budget next uh next week but Patty is the liaison to the Sewer uh Department I think this is a something that is a hold over from the 30 plus years ago um that sanitary sewer plants back then we're making decisions on whether they go offline and just go to Monroe County pure Waters only a couple of uh sewer plants the village of Webster the town of Webster I think honey oi Falls Village decided not to go offline they decided to run their own sewer plants from what I've heard the reasoning was that they were really cash cows and they brought in enough uh money through the sewer plant that they helped subsidize other Town departments um actually there's a name for this it's called Uh an Enterprise fund right or a utility
correct something along those lines the town of Webster never went out and formally turned their U their sewer plant into a utility which really means they'd be a separate entity from the town they're they would not be on the tax bill the town tax bill you'd have a separate bill from that utility but kind of within that um because it it it was I guess for lack of better terms very supportable that because of the money that was coming from the sewer department and they're using resources of the rest of the town government they're using the finance department they're using some the other departments and so at least when I know Patty four years ago I think there was a quar million dollars that came out of the sewer budget a transfer fund balance to the finance department to DPW to various department now it's 150 it's down to 150 now um because we've over the years we've um our sewer plant at least the last couple years is not a cash cow it might have been back in the 990s anything but um the problem with a cash cow is that you better make sure as you're bringing in that cash that you
also maybe have put some of that cash away for reserves for when your infrastructure rots right unfortunately we didn't do that and so I think everybody knows we're building an $81 million sewer uh renovation project um it's not a cash C no hopefully in the future it it will be a a very vibrant running economic model for the town um but just thought that is a line item that is in the budget it is an align item that will be seen by the community uh if they explode out the budget a $60,000 transfer from the sewer fund over to finance there's my TMI explanation that's good information says you okay um Paul as usual fantastic all right you run a great show thank you um I appreciate it I have good people including Kelsey well who's next good people like to work with good people right he's a great boss yes could be working for braon oh boy we love Bron Kelsey are you you up I'm up all
right you can see right here sure Bron s vacation so Kelsey uh is going to fill in she handles the payroll for the town and uh quite a bit of the HR function as well we should say that she just passed her professional human re sources exam yesterday congratulations Chelsey nice work thank you saw that on LinkedIn she's certified yeah awesome yeah thank you for having me guys um so just at a quick glance um from the 2024 budget to 2025 budget um it actually decreased $2 um so that is always great regardless of the amount um so the first line for a director of personnel um it's only a 2% Cola uh for 2025 there are no step increases um for 2025 um for 2025 we do not anticipate any part-time employees um kind of the same for the past couple years for Capital purchases that Still Remains the Same um this helps with office equipment the ID badge that we
use um and a few other things as well for the computer equipment and license licensing um that's up a little over $100 um that has to do with um some Microsoft features that Brighton and I use and then we also use Adobe Acrobat software which helps streamline the HR process on boarding things um lots of digital signatures less paper nice yeah um for safety and Department Based training that Still Remains at 4500 uh that deals with per trainings that Brighton attends as well as um some shm trainings which shm trainings SHRM stands for the Society of human resource management so that way he can stay up to date on his um HR knowledge office supply Still Remains the Same at 500 uh Personnel legal expense this is the biggest increase for the HR budget of 4,000 um I would say in 2024 we spent a little bit more than we anticipated in legal expenses so we thought it would be a good idea for 2025 to increase that a little bit um obviously you can't always predict everything that's going to
happen in that year but just kind of a safety net um the software license fees that is our biggest decrease with $88,000 decrease so Brighton and I were looking at a recruitment module in our apparrel software um it didn't do everything that we thought it would do and didn't actually wasn't actually going to save us that much time um so unless they start um adding some more upgrades to that module then at this time we just kind of chopped it up as a lot um employee recognition Still Remains the Same Same with the director's expenses the employee recruitment has a $1,300 increase um just the general increase of posting job advertisements on uh indeed or any other websites some of the more we'll say technical skilled positions have uh a harder time finding qualified candidates so a couple times we might have to post them you know two times throughout the year to get a qualified candidate uh employee Wellness was an increase of 600 and that deals with our employee assistance program which is available to all of our employees as
well as all of their dependents and then this also helps fund uh the town wellness events that we um have throughout the year and then the last uh budget line is the background checks and that Still Remains the Same at the 2500 so as you can see $2 decrease from 2024 to 2025 but overall pretty pretty consistent we don't see that very often no that's outstanding y giving us $2 back every dollar counts yes it does just like with the garbage all the dollars count and I I just want to say thank you for saving $2 and for looking for ways to introduce more paperless features so you can save money there as as well and be more productive yeah it definitely helps thank you any other questions nope no not for HR but just in general what you were just saying Tom is office supply office supplies and all of that is going to be looked at with this task force of how to like save money because if you have each department buying their own office supplies would there be economies of scale ordering at a town level there would but I don't I don't think this it
Innovation this probably wouldn't have that as one of our things but take it under advis I think we're going to have a lot of bigger things to do than figure out if we can buy paper from uh a place uh Paul you would do we right now have individual departments buying paper or do we buy yeah they're generally bought off of state or Mono County contract so okay economies are scale that way not entirely but I think for the most part there'd be probably volume breaks if you bought more and didn't buy by Department not to say if you didn't go out bed yourself you make it a better price I will say this uh that human resources um you know I want to make sure everybody understands it just as recently as five or eight years ago it was under the finance department is that correct Paul right okay um which isn't unusual um it is for somebody that came from paychecks right but uh I think anybody who has a job or has in been been in management the last 20 years knows that human resources at an organization has got exponentially more complicated
and risky than it was in 2004 then today so the town as an organization is a microcosm of basically a lot of private Industries and whatever trying to uh invest more in Human Resources because if you don't invest in human resources for every dollar you don't invest you'll pay maybe uh $100,000 in uh legal fees or uh lawsuit settlements and all of that stuff um that's the world we live in unfortunately um Braden Connor who is our director of Human Resources when we hired him a couple years ago I basically said two things to him first of all I thought he'd only be here for two years he was overqualified for the position so I was realistic that he probably would use it as a stepping stone to go to someplace else he's told me and I'll take his word for it that something unusual happened he likes working here so he's been here four years now right is or is it five four four but his task his charge was twofold centralized Human Resources because when I walked in the door back in 2020 there was a semblance of the department head
was left to their own devices of managing the human resources of their Department that was very common back in the 1980s 1990s early 2000s that that is not fair to take uh Chris boo who has got a skill set of running parks and management and making you a human resource person uh not with all the complexities and legal legalities and things like that um so he was tasked was centralizing it and he was tasked with automating it because there was papers flying around like I'd never seen and I got to give the guy credit I think he's accomplished both now along those lines um you know I joked that you know hey you could have Brighton as your boss Kelsey I got to give Brighton a lot of credit I think he was the one that said you really should go and take this HR exam y you know what I mean he's I give him a lot of credit he's trying to bring up the next generation of HR and I think Kelsey pitching the budget today I think we might have our our uh our you know um bench right there to come in to be the the the person in the future thank you I apprciate that we got a deep bench we have a deep bench and I will also say that B I have said to Brighton all right
we're going to stay ahead of schedule Chief you'll be up there before 5:15 um to this guy's credit I said to him a couple of months ago I want you to think long and hard about proposing in the 2025 budget another full-time equivalent position in HR we've made such strides in HR in the last four or five years but the reality is we're a $47 million expense organization majority of that being payroll and benefits two 180 full-time positions 220 part-time positions and we have one HR person an extremely talented one and I said I think we need to talk about getting you know some semblance of a second position there he came back to me and said nah we don't need to do that in 20 202 he's very budget conscious he he grew up in this model in government um in a lot of ways because finance and HR were combined years ago I would say that when well five years ago there was a person in your department uh Paul that was half your department half HR yes okay Kelsey you do a lot in HR but your all of your
pay and everything is slotted in finance y so we we somewhat had have one and a half people in HR right now but it's just something I want the board and I want the community also to to know that this is something as we go on when you look at the metrics of our size as an organization um investing in more HR is going to save this town a lot of money and I know that sounds counterintuitive but the world is something else in 2024 and if you don't have your HR locked down you will pay you will pay so 5:15 Chief we're on time even with my monologue prefer me at the podium is this work you want to do the podium sure you want me whatever you prefer
all right good evening everyone good evening thanks Pa I appreciate that good evening good evening Chief hi Chief I'm good I got the silence sorry about that no it's all right just focused on Switching gears the transition yeah um so overall uh our 2025 budget is um like I think previous discussions uh mostly focused on Personnel um the other categories and areas of it are um intended to help improve officer confidence and well-being uh and making their jobs more um functional and efficient um so as I go through that's kind of the underlying theme it's a headcount neutral budget we're not looking to add uh any positions that weren't in our 24 uh budget um so I'm going to explain a couple things along the way here uh to help understand some of the significant increases so obviously first one is uh my salary set by um uh the white collar uh cost living contract uh 2% uh increase for um 24 to 25 um other components of that are long uh
longevity and education uh incentive that U reflect out of the 1,000 Club contract for the officer salaries it's a little misleading with the jump from 24 to 25 when we went into 2024 um it was the beginning of a contract year for the 1000 Club so that contract wasn't settled during the 24 budget process so uh the number you see for 2024 is the essentially the 2023 number um um plus the contractual and step increases that occurred that year it did not have any cost to living adjustment that was um because that that wasn't decided until later into the year after the budget was already uh in place so the 2024 number uh you actually uh would add 3% to that number uh under the officer based salaries um which would bring that number up to uh approximately 3,412 th000 uh and then in in 2025 there's a contractual 4% increase uh so that's where you get the additional amount of approximately 135,000 and then uh also contractual are step increases for officers uh time on the job and uh longevity for years of service so the the step increases
account for about 45,000 of that number and uh longevity is about 9,000 so that's where we get to the 3,600 uh 29,000 and change number so it's uh 2023 budget plus 3% then plus 4% plus uh contractual steps plus longevity increases so that's where that dollar amount comes from so that covers um 34 swarming Personnel from the captain down to the recruits the salary compensation for retirements we are budgeting that uh as we did in 2024 that's not a line that uh gets used used every year uh the way the contract works is upon uh completion of service for retirement purposes only uh there's buy out a sick time and a couple other Banks like vacation comp time things like that so typically um we budget for uh an expected number to leave during that contractual uh time period or the budget time frame um in 2025 we'll have two uh Personnel that are eligible to leave what we've seen in law enforcement recently is very few people stay Beyond The 20e Mark um some stay a couple years beyond that but we we typically see people leave closer to 20 than we uh had in previous years so
um we expect to at least use a portion of that if not all of it uh holiday pay again is another contractual uh benefit so because police officers can't take uh the day off on Town holidays like where other Town members they're uh obligated to work the road for public safety reasons uh they're compensated in different ways so they can either take that holiday pay that uh the other Town employees get and get uh straight pay uh during that pay period or they have the ability to um reflect that over to comp time that they can then take time off the road when Staffing allows um so the holiday pay we budget at 40,000 and then it'll come in um somewhere around that number or below depending on uh each calendar year how the officer is elect to receive that compensation so it's not a not a direct payout um because sometimes it benefits the taxpayer for the officers to be able to use that time for time off as opposed to getting uh direct paid compensation uh police overtime we've increased uh in the for the 25 budget uh we've seen significant use of the overtime um obviously we have an obligation to cover um our Public Safety responsibilities on the road uh we have a kind of a fixed headcount obviously because of the the long-term um expense
of employees and how it's a significant portion of our budget already so when we have uh unexpected absences absences um or absences uh that reduce coverage on the road we're still obligated to uh have that Staffing so we've seen an increase in um the our expenses when it comes to overtime so we're trying to budget that appropriately based on expectations uh we try to separate out a couple different types of overtime so there's a couple lines here related to overtime uh the police over time line the large number is uh for general purposes and then there's a couple specific uses that we have broken out for uh DWI uh and traffic safety we get reimbursed uh that over time as part of um County and state grants so we account for that out of a separate line in order to maintain accuracy there uh I'm going to skip the buyout for a second and go to reimbursable compensation um that uh is also uh an overtime line that's if uh uh a private party requests police presence and we're going to staff it with overtime we then build them examples of that would be like the Turkey Trot other other events where the special police in the past uh may have supplemented
Staffing uh without tax dollars uh we charge that cost back to the private entity in order to recoup that so we track that separately um and then uh skipping down a little further to the overtime school resource officers uh again that's reimbursed by the school district that's over time that uh is directly related to school events um that we build to them uh based on uh what they're asking of our officers to do so that uh um it's not reflected of our out of our tax dollars it's reimbursed through the school district so uh going back to clerical salaries uh because those were the the overtime lines that are um kind of spread out uh we have um four uh currently staffed fulltime clerical positions we have uh an authorized position from 2024 uh for an additional clerk that we haven't filled yet um we're in the process of working through that um job duties and descriptions right now and we'll have that position in place prior to the start 25 budget so um that uh dollar amount reflects um five full-time uh clerical staff so that would be uh uh four clerks and a and our property clerk
SL Quartermaster clerical overtime is um very rare U but we have a a at least a small money amount of money allotted to that in case it happens and uh our part-time employee wages uh that is our um fleet vehicle uh uh assistant uh basically uh with u the amount of vehicles that we have so I think uh we're 25 total vehicles in the department um there's a lot of of uh maintenance that has to happen to those vehicles from uh Tire changes oil changes uh mechanic uh issues uh we utilize this person to um shuttle Vehicles back and forth uh I know we had a discussion a couple months ago now I think it was about uh our contract for vehicle maintenance um he doesn't do the shuttling back and forth to Avon that's done by that vendor this is for like the trips uh in town to like goodye uh oil change what car washes those kinds of things so um he helps keep uh the fleet running at a very effective cost school crossing guards uh again that's a function that um uh has kind of
a limited application there's one crossing point on CLM road in front of Clem North and Clem South uh to help uh the students that live in the neighborhoods across the street uh across CLM Road safely so it's um staffed and funded by the police department Department uh and if uh we don't have a part-timer then on duty Road Patrol will go down and assist with Co covering that for child safety again that's a that's been a pretty steady uh cost across the the the years uh tobacco compliance again that's Grant reimbursed if we utilize that I reduced it because we do a lot of that with on duty Staffing um it hasn't really had a lot of overtime impact on that but it should it it'll be reimburse through uh the county program uh computer equipment and Licensing there's been a lot of conversation about that obviously we moved that to like a cost center uh to the Departments um a couple years ago um so for us we have um a number of uh computers to deal with we have 26 fixed computers in the in the department uh some of them are communal computers for the officers to use they're not assigned each individual one uh and then we have uh We've started our transition kind of a mobile work environment so as much as we can uh
We've started to uh change our uh administrative investigative staff over to mobile Work Platforms so that they can be uh functional in other areas than uh just our offices um obviously that ties into the it uh task force we were talking about as far as Automation and U the infrastructure of our Network and how to make that more efficient uh but we've started that uh process already so between uh the 26 six fix stations and the Seven mobile computers that we have um we have to keep a rotation going for uh replacing those in a in a effective manner with the updates that are happening through the the software services so that's uh where that dollar amount comes from as a combination of user licenses which will be about $20,000 uh about uh 13,500 for new computers and additional 2500 for equipment to support uh those computers uh next we get into our Capital purchasing section so for office um we've been working over the last couple years to update the facility um with some of the equipment some of the equipment uh that is currently still in service uh as far as Furniture goes uh
for the patrol officers is from the uh 1998 renovation that happened so we're um over that like 20 kind of 25e shelf life of some of the equipment that they officers are uh performing with uh some of it was more recent um but uh it it gets beat up uh over the year so we're going to continue to improve uh their work environment um with uh some uh new equipment uh desks and chairs and then we're also uh retrofitting um one of the old storage areas or office areas for a training environment to help with some of the inservice training requirements we have for officers um so we're working with both of those out of that Capital office line uh so for miscellaneous um when uh the became aware of the sewer renovation project and what they're doing down there for those who don't know we have a range uh Firearms range that's located at the sewer plant um as the project has progressed there we've uh kind of transition that range to be a little bit more functional uh so it required moving it to accommodate one of the um clarifiers that went in so when that happened we started to slowly over the
years kind of improve uh the conditions down there uh we have a little shed down there we have a barrier wall to protect um the clarifiers and all the the sewer uh operation uh we now have the ability or the opportunity I guess that would be the right word is to tie electrical into the building we have down there as part of the sewer project that's happening or the next phase of the sewer project so uh we originally we're going to tend to use drug asset seizure money for that expense uh when we went through the approval process this year to implement it um as it happens uh this year for 2025 they've changed the rules on uh drug acid seizure and what it can be used for and that project will no longer qualify for that expense so we've moved that expense into um this budget line here Capital uh purchase miscellaneous in order to install electrical to the range building down there all right for firearms uh in 24 we had a uh increase uh we uh like I said we we've been working to improve our officers capabilities um one of the new technology things uh that has been proven to have a difference in life and death confrontations is the uh Red Dot
Optics that are now um functional on on pistols so a number of years ago we installed them on our rifles because that was um the platform that uh they initially uh were designed for but now through technology they're um uh rugged and uh very effective on duty pistols so uh this year we're in the selection process and we're going to implement um the Red Dot Optics um so in 25 we've reduced that Capital expense back down to our um our regular kind of uh U program for purchasing uh other equipment like U the long rifles so tying to the officer confidence and defensibility uh we've done individual issue of Patrol rifles uh for officer um confidence in uh deploying those weapons uh and we're going to continue to purchase and outfit uh eight more rifles in 2020 uh five in order to uh complete that project for Technical Services Capital purchase um we're going to purchase and uh Implement a second speed trailer uh I think everybody in the board's aware of the number of speed complaints we get and it's probably the number one
consistent uh issue that we want to address with our community to help keep them safe um we have a uh current speed trailer that we uh worked with our communications director on to get um some online uh request uh and U reporting set up on and we've been in dat with requests to have the speed trailer deployed to help uh educate people and uh reduce speeds in neighborhoods um so we're going to outfit a second trailer um because obviously the the functional window for us in the the town of Webster weatherwise uh uh for getting trailers out and not having them implement or um impede the snow removal process uh is fairly limited so we want to try to maximize as much as we can during the good weather so we're going to implement a second trailer for that for um let's see where we're next the vehicle accessories so like I mentioned before we have um 25 uh total Vehicles so we have 13 Patrol six unmarked and six special purpose vehicles uh so we have uh a fairly consistent rotation of three vehicles a year in order to keep that Fleet um operational uh this year we're going to do two Marked One
unmarked uh so the vehicle setup ties directly to to that UNM marks don't require uh as much uh vehicle accessories as the patrol units do and the vehicles don't cost as much so the next two lines are both reduced to reflect um the needs it's not me I don't know um so that is um yeah so for two mark one Mark vehicle and the setup that goes along with it so it depends on uh what we're able to purchase on bid as far as the equipment as to what transfers one vehicle to the other sometimes not all the the equipment is compatible with uh the new Mak model that we're able to acquire uh so vehicle uh purchasing for police fleets has been very um tumultuous over the last couple years a couple of the major manufacturers have either slowed or stopped making uh Patrol ready Vehicles so um we have a mix of Ford and Dodge uh vehicles that we've been putting into service our UNM marks this year uh will probably start to transition uh to another manufacturer as well just because they're not not as available uh Capital purchase DWI equipment that typically goes towards um
uh radar units and uh roadside screening devices uh things like that so that'll continue to keep that um functional uh professional development um is for conferences and uh associations for uh the chief in order to uh keep current with information our court um uh I lost track where I was at court cost retired officers we haven't really seen a significant impact on that uh but there are times where officers who have retired uh are uh required to report and testifying cases that occurred uh during their employment and we uh required to compensate them for that so um there hasn't been a huge uh use of that uh but it's available if necessary with our cellular telephones um a couple what I think it was in the 24 budget cycle uh if I remember correctly um we saw a significant increase in the telephone system uh within the town hall uh prior to that all of our Patrol officers had voicemail systems um that were part of that network uh that was usually or used to be at a reduced rate um the provider of
that service stopped doing the Ed rate whole um uh account for each officer which uh they wouldn't utilize the other functions of it uh so we took advantage of that concept and some of the other impacts we've seen with uh police Communications and transitioned to um individual device issue for the officers for cello telephones so we moved to the first net platform to ensure Communications and um uh prior to imp mentation officers were using their personal phones frequently in related to to job duties and if that communication contained any um evidentiary value it subjected their personal devices potentially to Discovery and things like that as that um Court realm kind of uh progressed and evolved with um the communication so uh we tried to get ahead of that we've issued individual devices and that's worked out uh very effectively for us so but the increase in the line item is reflective of that uh office expense um so that uh a lot of uh report forms
uh a lot of the things we use are now uh electronic so as a county we went away from handwritten police reports we have a mobile uh Electronic Reporting System so um that is mostly paperless uh we have uh some forms though that aren't included within that County Network that do require individual U form purchase uh other than that it also includes things like um uh the destruction barrels and things for uh drug collection and destruction things like that um lease and Rental that's for copiers uh so uh that is uh pretty consistent based on the contract price of uh uh the monthly maintenance um the next line item service contracts that's that's like the evolution of everything else we've seen software is a service um it's uh where we uh utilize uh a lot of our software programs to uh either conduct investigations or facilitate investigation so some of those uh line items are uh related to um investigative options the officers have to look up information some of them are related to uh plate readers and uh the
automated systems on the cars uh provision is included in there that's our body camera uh vendor so the annual subscription for that and uh uh storage of uh data traffic logic which is the uh speed signs that uh we can put out or that are out in fixed locations that uh transmit uh speed collection data uh through a software uh program uh lexip our uh new policy manual that's uh in the process of being implemented um that takes us away from the old handwritten general orders uh and uh uh self-maintain to a service that maintains and updates those as the laws uh evolve and uh provides policy guidance uh that you can accept and Implement um along with a couple other so that's um it's kind of the the catchall for all the different uh software as a service uh systems that we use to facilitate the police department shipping expense that's a kind of nominal number there that um sometimes uh is related to investigation
sometimes is related to U testing of equipment and returning it things like that uh telephone expense again we uh transitioned away from the officers having accounts uh within that system and gone to the mobile devices so we've reduced that line item uh to reflect that uh computer expense uh so that was a line that was budgeted previously but it uh really isn't utilized the the stuff that was captured in that prior to can be uh associated with different U line items so I've zeroed that out in order to um make it more functional uh community service again we don't have a community service unit uh dedicated to that function uh we used to uh but our officers still perform that function um on duty uh in conjunction with everything else they do so we still uh buy equipment uh for uh tables of community events uh stickers and uh things for tours and uh kids to pass out to uh firearm expense that's the that's non- Capal purchase stuff that's uh the targets the ammunitions things that get expended within the budget year uh the the prices on that have fluctuated um but we're pretty consistent over the last couple years with um what we're
spending on that uh investigative expense has seen an increase um part of that is DNA testing and um some of the other uh investigations that we uh involved in that require like a third- party lab service in order to test um some of the evidence so we've seen an increase in utilizing uh some of those things um to facilitate some of the larger investigations uh technical service expenses those are things that uh again through the through the budget uh year get uh used up uh from the technical uh aspect of law enforcement processing crime scenes and things like that and the equipment that goes along with it uh miscellaneous equipment um typically covers things like um AED batteries AED units um the taser cartridges uh things uh we had an increased expense in 24 we' reduced that back down to expected uh expenditure in 25 uh which was more consistent with what it was in um where we at to now uh vehicle repair so the vehicle repair line is a little misleading a lot of our major uh vehicle
repairs are usually in conjunction with uh a fleet vehicle accident um and a lot of times that's uh um money that's uh recovered through the insurance process so which is record as Revenue yeah so that'll that'll show in the revenue um it's hard to project that though as to uh what the payouts are going to be from insurance companies and whether it's going to be uh completely covered uh so vehicle repairs uh typically uh are minimal for the maintenance of the vehicles sometimes there's transmission issues or brake issues or whatever but uh the larger expenses expenses um are uh usually related to a vehicle accident uh vehicle tires um so we do winter tires uh summer Tires uh we're uh pretty efficient with that we cut down expense a couple years ago by going to a um service that comes out twice a year to do the change over for us it greatly reduced both our time uh and expenses related to the tire change over uh so now most of that is just um the replacing of tires as they become uh worn out through use uh vehicle gasoline we've seen um uh somewhat of a decrease uh we budgeted um uh kind of reflective of where the cost
of fuel was over the last couple years um we're able to reduce our projection down a little bit for 2025 so we've cut out uh some of the expense there um vehicle oil um again it's a pretty consistent um because of the amount of uh service time our vehicles have uh essentially with our Patrol vehicles uh they run their entire shift the way the electronics and computer systems are integrated into the vehicle system now it's not like the old days where the car would turn off the computer would stay on um there is a a number of systems running in there that the car has to stay running so the idle time on the cars is fairly high so we um have a a frequent mainten schedule on oil change over in order to keep the vehicles from having a negative impact as a result of that uh clothing expense uh we've seen uh somewhat of increase with that um over the last couple years uh so that's uh pretty consistent uh with the cost of uh replacing uniforms and uh two years uh over the last two years we've uh changed uh our vendors and uh style uniforms but uh essentially a main portion of that
expense is the the replacement of U the ballistic vest uh they're on a 5-year rotation for each officer so as officers get hired and then every 5 years we have to replace that based on manufacturer recommendation so uh that is probably the largest component of that uh EAP is a is a it's not a new line but uh it's a new expense in my opinion so uh in the past we've relied on thirdparty vendors for EAP Services uh and I think over the last few years in in Public Safety in general the law enforcement specifically we've seen more of a focus on employee wellness and and officer Wellness um we have an opportunity to join a program that the sheriff department is actually uh running uh where it is a uh cost based on headcount where we can participate in that program so that's what I'm proposing for 2025 um essentially what it does it gives us access to uh I think it's four or five um uh uh EAP professionals that can help uh officers uh uh deal with stress deal with uh uh issues that they're being confronted with or also offer wellness events in order to alleviate uh anything from getting to a catastrophic um point so that's probably
the the only new item in the budget um that's uh different in concept than what we've done in the past um everything else is kind of Maintenance of the programs that we've had um physical expense uh again that depends on uh on the hiring process if we take trans we bear the cost of all of the um uh onboarding and and testing if it's a recruit through the academy hired through that process when County Bears the cost of that so there's some fluctuation in that line depending on on where we're hiring from at the time so the last uh three hires have all been recruits to the academy so we haven't had to expend uh a lot on the hiring process um or the onboarding process um training is a is a continual FOC focus of law enforcement um supervision and training are the two key components uh that an organization has to maintain uh in order to um be defensible through any kind of civil litigation so that's uh a pretty consistent and robust process we have each year uh we utilize as much as we can inhouse um uh HR has been great uh getting us um uh to improve our uh access to online training through like the Perma portal and things like that that uh we assigned uh probably more
training than the officers uh can can process in 24 through that per thing but it's been um some very interesting topics and it brings a different perspective to I think some of the officer thought process so that's what that is for uh miscellaneous expenses and uh supplies uh have been kind of consistent uh through um the years uh some of those things uh involve um uh Awards uh um miscellaneous uh uh items for the uh department and U there isn't really one big expense out of there to point you to say that that's really what um what that's for U and then the uniform cleaning is contractual uh that is between the 1,000 club and the town uh that outlines that uh the town will supplement $600 annually for the dry cleaning services that the um uh officers utilize so that brings our expenses uh again so it looks like uh $340,000 increase from 24 to 25 it's not it is on paper but it's not um uh the whole story
like I said the 3% on top of uh the 23 salaries is uh approximately 100,000 of that increase uh and then the 4% increase in uh our lar line um I think makes up the bulk of the rest of that so jumping into do do you want to talk about expenses first or you want to go right into revenues I just have it com B one being the school resource officer yeah pardon the revenues are minimal except for the school resource officer right so yeah why' that one go down uh so in 24 uh we had um for most of the year one officer assigned in 24 uh the the revenue that comes from that depends on which officers are signed and their seniority level what their what their pay is so there's a agreement between the school district and town that they pay 75% of the total expense of the of the officer so it depends on who's assigned there as to what the projected revenue is from that so it can vary yeah uh what was your question sir so um on police overtime we're spending a lot of money and instead of decreasing the amount of money we're spending in overtime we're planning to increase the amount of money
we're spending so I guess my question would be going down the road two three years do you envision that number continuing to go up or are you working with head counter some manner to bring that number down uh so we're always working to bring it down I mean that that is a functional goal uh of the organization is is to manage overtime outside of our Personnel expenses that is our our largest expense right um so do I see it in continuing to increase uh not necessarily no um I think that 2024 has shown us some of the um uh challenges that we face in law enforcement these days so uh during 2024 uh and into or so from 23 into 24 uh we had a number of officers that were on the books but out of work so our actual operational headcount on the road was down uh between five and six people right um and so uh in 20 the 23 budget most of the increased overtime was covered by non-ex expenditure of the Personnel line so uh there's hiring challenges uh so sometimes we don't fully expend the Personnel line uh so if you don't have that headcount uh you're
going to have an increase in overtime to cover it um not that we want to do it that way but actually is uh a if there's the right balance of it it's a better fiscal option to pay overtime than it is to add head count per se U headcount gives you one additional person on on one shift uh overtime is uh somewhat flexible if it's spread out uh and controlled in order to not pay a full salary and benefits um that only gives you uh essentially an 8 Hour impact in a 24-hour day so not saying that trying to maintain over time uh we're trying to reduce it every step of the way um the uh challenges are that sometimes we have long-term injuries so we had an officer out for um a little over a year uh that was uh injured making an arrest um during um some of our disciplinary processes we have officers who are being paid but not able to work the road um so we have to pay overtime to fill those positions um sometimes that's that's expensive so to cover a shift for a sergeant uh for8 hours it's $700 a day in overtime so that's where we can't staff extra
sergeants um but we have an obligation to have a supervisor on the road at all times so um those are some of the discussions we have behind the scenes in order to try to minimize the impact of that um but sometimes there's um uh I guess there's a couple categories that are built into that over time one is um critical events that uh require officers to stay beyond their shift U that aren't directly related to Staffing it's more related to uh operations uh there's times where it's for um the expected vacancies like vacation time uh training time uh when we take an officer off the road to go to school for a week um we don't have additional people especially at supervisory level in order to backfill those without overtime expense uh and then the third one is is kind of our unexpected vacancies where we have either an off-duty injury where officers um can't work the road because that's one of the challenges that we face that not every Department faces that if somebody uh sprains their ankle U they're going to be using sick time for a longer period of time in in law enforcement they would in maybe some other positions because they can't get fully cleared for Duty so I think uh hopefully to answer your question uh in a summary here yes we try to control it
two uh I don't think it's it continue to climb the way we've seen it um I think we were um perhaps lucky for a couple years with uh the covid era where there wasn't a lot of police training and there wasn't a lot of U additional operational requirements on the organization I think we're coming out of that or are fully out of that where uh we experience more uh similar to pre-co eras of overtime requirements for for law enforcement do you have the head count that you need right now though as far as operating officers so so we are fully staffed headcount wise and that's actually one of the current budget challenges that we have so we have uh 35 headcount but we only have 30 operational uh between U and again for law enforcement the training cycle is is long so we have two in the academy we have one on field training the two in the academy won't be out on the road for um an additional six months so we're we're expending out of the Personnel line to staff their POs to to pay their position but we're paying overtime for vacancies on the road yeah on top of that so it's a little bit different than 23 24 is a little bit of a heavier lift and a bigger burden based on um some of the
other challenges we've been dealing with thank you Chief appreciate it that's all I had uh so just to cover the revenues um the uh probably like the finance director said uh the school district is the biggest one uh we have an agreement that they cover 75% of the total cost uh not just salary but the benefits as well uh and then they essentially get 75% of the use of the officer by having them in the school during the school year in the summer that officer both officers um that agreements for two positions the officers come back to the road and work as traffic detail cars uh or supplement Road Staffing and the same thing on holiday breaks and weekends during the the the year um some of the other revenues there are Grant reimbursement uh expected reimbursement of overtime for the private events uh we have a fingerprinting um uh revenue from people that uh come in for like passports fingerprint or job applications and Licensing and things like that um and the one that's probably the the most unknown is police unclassified we try to utilize some of
the services that are out there to um get rid of surplused equipment uh in order to get revenue from that and so we see a little bit of that um that's in there you want me jump on the animal control if you want we're behind schedule but we can I'll talk faster animal controls a more effective um so we don't have a full-time animal control position we uh we we utilize that service through um part-time position so we have a Lead Animal control officer that uh is uh controlling or uh kind of running the organization and um uh coordinating the other part- timr uh couple uh basic expenses that that are attributed to their operation uh obviously the computer licensing equipment uh through either um new technology or replacing um uh some of the uh uh worn out equipment uh we're looking to transfer or not transfer allocate some of these expenses correctly in 24 some of these expenses were um directly tied to the police budget um since there already is an existing Animal Control budget we're going to try to uh have those more uh uh accounted for in their system um the big thing that we've seen kind of an
increase in is the employee vaccinations with a part-time staff that um uh sometimes has turnover uh getting the proper vaccinations uh can be expensive um and uh the animal control seminar has an expense of, 1500 but it actually has a projected Revenue higher than that um so that's in summary the the animal control budget in case they have any specific questions no okay don't you worry Paul we'll get back on track on the time okay um I brought a lot of words tonight sorry no but I mean you know in in hindsight uh when we set up the schedule a 15minute slot for for a department that is is large in the budget that's not practical all Department reports are not equal yes true yeah well I mean I triple that you know I hope you don't take that the wrong way smaller equally important but there's more there's more detail to some thank you uh but um does anybody else have any questions I just have one question about the speed trailer yes because they're fairly expensive and one
of the things we talked about that came up with the arpa funds and and I asked about were those smaller signs yeah what is the benefit of a trailer versus those smaller signs that can be placed in more places throughout the town uh typically data collection so a lot of the smaller U signs that you see uh don't actually collect and transmit data uh they're there for an awareness to reflect to that person at that moment what their speed is uh they have a a great benefit um the signs that we use actually have U cellular cards in them and uh send the data back to um the the network theof the software as a service so from our fixed locations and our trailer um they they go a little bit beyond just the awareness level they are help us with targeted enforcement so um the expense um I would try to divide out as to whether that location was intended to be awareness or whether it was uh intended to help assist with enforcement um so the the benefit of the trailer is that it allows us to rotate it every week to different locations and collect more data than we would be able to afford data collection signs that are that are put out there you about enforcement like is it taking
a picture of a license plate and then if they're going over a certain speed you're going to issue tickets no it no it's more the um helps us know when to schedule a detail and when to put a physical person out there to take enforcement action so a lot of I mean it's very valid a lot of people have concerns about speed in their neighborhoods sometimes we find that that's um a lack of Education to either the driver or the Observer as to what the actual speed of the vehicle is people aren't trained in in speed estimation so right sometimes the benefit of the sign is to one slow people down and make the driver aware because again when it comes to to Vehicle Safety it's voluntary compliance I mean the the person operating the vehicle has to voluntarily comply with whatever the rules are in order to ensure safety the goal of enforcement is to um have them voluntarily comply after the enforcement action so the um General complaints from people that there's car speeding in my neighborhood don't help us designate when we're going to actually pay an officer to go sit out there and try to fix no I think that's a great that's a great idea and to Jennifer's point I know that in Spence report as you enter into the village they have a sign with a light and it tells you how fast you're going and you get a mad face if you're going over 30
and you get to thank you if you're if you're under 30 but this is this is not what we're talking about you're talking about a Mobile Trailer that'll tell you exactly how fast you're going and then also we'll feed back information so that you will ultimately if necessary um set up a an officer with a speed gun right yeah and then there's a couple ways to to deal with that so sometimes it's when we see when we get the data and we we look at it is that there's um maybe some specific violators at very specific times and then when you go back to the people who have called in the complaints or look at and we say okay from this time to this time which vehicle is that and it ends up being most times somebody in their neighborhood that is the Violator but it allows us to then get down to a specific issue to deal with instead of trying to generally theforce it thank you very much yeah that was helpful just to put a ribbon on that and Jen I think you prefaced the question by saying that there was some arpa money potentially set aside for this um five months to the day because we're at August 1 we will have to call commit under whatever we're in contract we got about $750,000 or something like that need to be obligated by the end of this year your April 30th report I think we split
it up uh in five or six projects at about 125 150 per project and one of them we earmarked was these speed Signs Now Chief Paul correct me if I'm wrong on this or C you got the data collection ones like the the mobile ones that you can hook on the trailer and go around you have data collection ones that we can hook up to the speed sign uh and it'll collect data if that's the way we go those are exponentially more expensive because of the technology and this and that that's really more of a police department thing if the town board decides that we're going with ones that are just picking up solar whatever and just telling you what your speed is as you go byy it that's going to be the highway department they'll go and put them onto the signs they do not collect data they just tell you that you're going 37 miles hour and it's attached to a speed limit sign that say 30 MH is that pretty accurate that would be my advice yes okay well I that was I asked was accurate those are the two different yes those are the two different ones those you know we can have all the bells and the whistles in the world but you know the arpa money will pay for the the the
unit but then there would be operational cost going on and if cell phone 5G changes so there's analysis that has to be done in that and I just we have five months to go so I well it was just option on the list and it was one of the potential things and my thought it would be the L expensive ones that were more for awareness than data collection so that you don't have to worry about the ongoing maintenance yeah next week when Pat Stevens is in here we can we can bring it up again because that would fall in the highway department purview I think so all right thank you Chief thank you Chief thank you we're not going to short you Chris all right because we're the nor are we going to short the judges or um Bridget because uh the town board regular meeting is scheduled for 6:30 we can start that 5 or 10 minutes late we cannot start at 5 or 10 minutes early yeah I thought why is it at 6:30 I thought they all had to be 7:30 no okay they they we can as long as we give proper notice whever they can be any time that we want them to be we try to keep it consistent at 7:30 but we
figured we'd be done with this at 6:15 we were wrong and that we would roll into a meeting at 6:30 very simple a regular meeting with resolutions conducting town government business you posted that it starts at 6:30 better not start at 6:15 I got it but you can start at 6:45 I thought there was something magical about 7:30 so thank you for that clation Chris [Music] go all right so um before I get into the lines and I won't I'm not going to go through each one of the lines I'll hit on some of the highlights like I typically do where there's changes uh I do have a few bullets though I want to go over before I get into that um so just overall from a revenue standpoint um as you know or recall uh parks and rec department is actually broken into three departments um so between the three departments this year our revenue is uh our expectation for Revenue in 25 is uh 1.2 uh 1 million2 24,600 uh that's compared to our 24 budget which uh was budgeted for just over a million at 1 mil 53100 uh so that department wide between those three departments is about a 15%
increase in Revenue that we're expecting for 25 um from an expense standpoint U between again all three departments in 25 our estimation is going to be around 2,797 1872 compared to the 24 budget uh which was 2.5 uh 2.5 million so this is an increase in expense for 25 right around 10% now I will note uh and I'll go through this here in a minute we do have a very large Capital project in our parks department um that is uh around a $200,000 expense if we were to take that Capital project out fund it in a different way uh that would bring our expense for that department or for all three departments down to a 3% increase um so I'll go through that though as I get to it uh 25 budget does include uh the request for a a full-time position within our Recreation Department uh this position obviously would be assist would assist uh with creating of programs which obviously has an impact on our Revenue um currently our programming structure is made up of four uh full-time program staff within the recreation side of the uh the department um from
a benchmark standpoint Webster uh our department is one of the smallest um Recreation departments from a staffing standpoint U from similar size municipalities so as we continue to see our our programs increase in regards to the number and the number of attendance um it's putting a strain on our Recreation side uh so the time is is appropriate for us to be able to uh to look to to add another full-time person to the recreation side uh the parks department does have some Savings in full-time salaries of about $442,000 um as you may recall we uh no longer have a foreman position we replace that with a Geo position within the department so that's resulted in uh about a $42,000 savings uh within our full-time salaries um obviously we look to continue to cut costs uh where where possible uh in each one of our lines uh one good example this past year in the middle of the year we were able to switch our credit card processing from plug and pay to payre uh this line This did actually two things that aligned our credit card processor with our registration system and reduced our monthly costs uh we ran the figures uh this may uh the may this past May's
credit card fees were around $2,700 and a year ago they were uh about $ 3700 so that was a $1,000 Savings in year to year for just one month um year to date from a department standpoint we've produced just over 300 programs at 309 programs which is an increase of about 36 programs compared to the same period in 2023 uh we've had 39 special events that have been offered to the community on a monthly basis those ranged in everywhere from family events to senior activities U both of those are Department highs in I'd also always mention that quality of service is increased um from a fitness standpoint we've seen a steady increase in our fitness membership current membership billing base is at 512 uh which is about 50 more billable units than it was in 24 during the June installment building so we're continuing to see increase in our fitness membership insurance-based revenue is at an all-time high currently our revenue for our insurance-based uh revenue is at about 110% of our budget for 24 so that is uh that's very good and our current program line for web Parks uh Webster internal program line is at about 136%
of revenue for 24 so our Revenue continues to see uh see um very good numbers as we go through the year so those are some of the highlights as I go through these lines and again if there's questions anybody has specific to one of the lines please ask um a number of them are very uh similar from year to year as are just standard cost uh 6772 is where we'll start that's program for the agent that's our senior line from an expense standpoint no real major changes to that line obviously salary lines um is Chief and everybody has said so far in their presentation uh just from cost of cost of living step increases Etc as where we're seeing our our changes um the minimum wage act does have a large impact on our department as we have a number of part-time employees uh because we're not just straight full-time so we have a a large number of employees uh 12 plus uh that we have so the the minimum wage impact uh going to, 1550 next year does have an impact uh does have an impact on us so from again from an total expense standpoint for our senior slightly up and again most of that is attributed straight to salaries underneath that is
the revenue side um as you can see it does show an increase of about $25,000 uh most of that that we see is our reimbursement from the county we've seen the last two years that are reimbursable for the county has started to Trend upward so that's a positive sign that we're starting to see more activity in the uh uh in the facility especially on the senior side so we' budgeted accordingly for that um qu uh any questions on on program for the agent no um Recreation expense U we're going to do the same thing again salary wise uh kind of at the top um where we see most of our increase I will point out one z43 that is uh that is a part-time position last year that was budgeted in actually two different lines when it should have been in one we didn't catch it till after the budget had been improved the numbers were there but we we needed to put it into one line so that's why this year it shows as its own line uh one88 is where our new full-time recck position would be housed um it's an entry level position from C serve standpoint it be classified as a recck leader uh which is again an entry level Recreation position um
one92 uh that is a salary line part-time salary line that reduction uh we do show a reduction in that um part of that is from a staffing situation as well as we've combined um our facility cleaner and our morning fitness facility cleaner we've combined into one rle um so we're able to get uh a little more few more hours we're able to actually use one person to be able to take care of two services so we Show a show a savings on on our on our expense from that standpoint 97 is our is our summer Staffing this is obviously um one of our basic biggest expense again back to what I said earlier we have a member of part-time staff is where our seasonal staff is summer cam counselors uh program coordinators Etc um obviously that's a a big expense but again we show that on the revenue side as we show the increase in Revenue um and again it's been talked about quite a bit uh 20111 which is our um computer equipment and Licensing it's a significant jump but again we have 14 licenses that we have within our our department uh that we pay for in regards to Microsoft and then we have we have uh
budgeted for four computers to be replaced again has been mentioned with the uh with change in support for Windows 10 um we have started the process since all of our computers are operating Windows 10 uh to replace at least four of them for this coming year 40067 um I think Paul mentioned earlier a few years ago how the town changed and went over to cloud storage system this was huge for our department is our R track which is a registration system uh shifted over um to the cloud so we continue to have anual cost to be able to maintain that plus this year we've also allocated some funds into that line why there is a slight increase uh because we're looking to add one of the modules that rep track has that we currently don't have in our operation it's called a point of South um we're looking to Institute that as part of our our um registration model which would be uh huge benefit for our front office is uh as people come in and there's there's purchases for things like um a guest pass or a one day uh use for a you know for a yoga class rather than having to enter everybody in from a full system
standpoint we can actually do a point of sale which is much faster uh so it gets the person in and out faster plus it makes it a lot easier on our end from a record keeping standpoint so we've added that module into our our budget for 25 um 7020 from a revenue standpoint if you want to um move down to the revenue standpoint or Revenue lines um all lines in 25 are either the same um for 24 or have an increase overall we have about hundred and it's about $126,000 increase between all of our Revenue lines again um we're seeing from 203 where it's highlighted now that's our internal program uh we see that's the biggest uh impact and again this is also um taking into account an additional staff person so the ability to be able to offer additional programs especially during the summertime and we know that there's Revenue that we can generate from that um bunch of the other programs are very similar we're starting to see a a a number of those um areas starting to level off in regards to just Revenue wise and I think we're pretty we're pretty consistent now where we are from a rent uh Revenue standpoint uh Fitness membership we do
have a slight increase it's the first time since I've been on board that we've actually raised our fitness Fitness Revenue line uh again we're starting to see more members uh come in uh and plus with uh the package now that our Premier members are able to take advantage of uh we're starting to start starting to see more Premier Members than we have in the past so have we raised our prices or has it been pretty consistent we've raised it uh two years ago and we haven't touched it since we Benchmark every year and in all honesty I think where we are currently is a pretty fair um pretty fair fee uh we try not to be too high we don't want to be you know we don't want to have too low of a fitness um Revenue just because of the cost that goes into to be able to maintain that um but we also uh we also understand that uh that our taxpayers are are supporting this as well so we try to keep our our membership level somewhere in that middle and I think we do a pretty good job with that Jay does Jay does a pretty good has a pretty good uh understanding of what's out in the community and he has a pretty good feel for that uh those last two items those are County uh reimbursements those are for our um summer programs that we get reimbursed from it's about 7600 bucks
that we get every summer um and continue to put that in until that gets taken away by the county but that's gone down several years uh for last couple years it's maintained at about 3,800 uh per division so we've left that in again total revenue uh up from 24 to 25 about 125,000 jump into park any questions on Rec side I know I'm going really fast but I'm trying to keep your time going you're doing fabulous all right um Parks side um mentioned already the full-time you know savings that we have uh you can see that down there on one one0 parks for and goes from 73 on to zero we absorb that into our U full-time pars maintenance line with an additional Geo obviously that's not as high of a classified position so therefore we had some savings um 2059 that's the capital Improvement line that I mentioned at the beginning the large project is uh that we have planned for 25 is we'd like to redo the parking lot at the arbor um the parking lot at the Arboretum if you've been in there for a while is jarring I
was there I was there last week and I would agree yeah it needs uh it's it served its time well yes so we've had a few estimates uh comes in about $190,000 what we had from an outside estimate so obviously if we could do that internally with some Highway Assistance we can keep that cost down but we just needed a number to be able to put into the budget so I did include that and like I said earlier if that's included that's obviously a significant increase in that line you take that out it puts the parks department actually very much in line with uh a 3% increase so um typically that that line has about 25,000 20 to 25,000 that we use uh to you know do various Park Improvement projects or partk projects uh but this year uh we we've known for the last couple of years that we needed to do it and um you know this past year the town board approved that we improved the driveway to First Responders which has been such an improvement just in Access so uh it's time that we do the same at um at the arborita uh other than that uh 40101 uh the vehicle lease that's slightly down and the reason for that is we do not expect we do not have an ask for any additional vehicles um we do re we did receed two new vehicles this year
is part of our uh lease package one of those Vehicles we had outfit with plow lights Etc uh so next year that cost which is an upfront cost with our lease package we don't have to incur that so that's why we have a slight deduction in that line for next year 40242 is our maintenance supply that's just an increase because we see an increase uh in in needed supplies from a facility standpoint plus now that we purchase all the facility supplies for not only our department but also for Town Hall and court building we're seeing an increased usage so we try to keep that as in check as we possibly can but it's just uh part of the part of the operation 40248 is our lawn service uh it's a contract fee it's a set number however uh we we anticipate every year that uh that we can come under budget on that U for 25 we we know our not cost is going to be around 119,000 as we're able to save it's part of a it is a three-year uh contract we just did it renewed it this year uh went out to bid this year and renewed a contract so we're this next year will be year two of that um but again with our ability to be able to save mowings when season when the season gets dry or be
able to hold off on cuting uh we were able to stay underneath that that contract price rest of those are um pretty straight numbers The Refuge number I'm going to guess we're probably going to go down we actually just went out and did a bid cycle with um three different uh Waste Management CC and uh I think it was lilac uh to do a new um to do a new cost service um actually we ended up staying with waste manag but they reduced their fees for us so we're able to get a better rate on our our refug so we expect that our numbers for 25 will be under that budget thank you for doing that yep we do that we try to do that typically is whenever we see start to see some fluctuation or price increases and we started to see that with Waste Management that's an easy one because they do that every year yep I think it was done townwide about four or five years years ago but it would be it would be a great time to do it tell white again if there's time to do it because you can save easy 20% there I know it's not the largest budget item but there's still an opportunity there and I don't think it's a huge maybe I don't know but I doesn't seem like a huge effort the last thing I
will say on here for from a park standpoint the revenue line the lodge rentals is slightly up um by about $10,000 uh we are looking at next year into 25 changing some of our uh Lodge fee structure um we're a little unique and again I've explained to this board in the past that uh we're a little unique in that in Webster you actually reserve a lodge a year out so technically we're collecting fees a year prior so it's it's a sort of a it's a timing system so again we Benchmark all the uh the facilities in the area between municipalities the county uh lodges uh we have two enclosed lodges that we charge for between the curry and and Liberty and our fees are currently right about where I think they should be from a benchmark standpoint uh but there's some other features between um garbage collection and those kind of um add-ons that we may look to in 25 include into our costs so we may see some slight uh some slight adjustment to some of our fees in 25 which leads to the reason why we have some some increase in that Revenue any question no thank you very
much Chris thank you Chris thanks Chris yep thanks Chris judge Christine and Judge Tom Tom good are you all righty well our budget is not very extensive it's um it's up about $18,000 from last year in the two biggest uh hits are uh five computers that we need toh purchase apparently and uh the increase in security that's about $15,500 of the of the budget uh the rest of the figures are relatively unchanged or very Mally changed from the previous uh years uh in terms of uh Revenue uh revenues down it's we've discussed this with the board uh
before uh is that uh certainly there is a tremendous drop off in the amount of tickets that are being uh issued uh in terms of a fine set we judges certainly don't set fines with the idea of uh budget issues generally uh fins are set based on the uh the type of uh offense that's the person's convicted of the person's record and frankly ability of the defendant to pay the fine and certainly make an inquiry as to whether the person's working is on disability that type of thing uh so uh generally speaking um there's certainly no policy in terms of uh setting fines and certainly a few years back when the state of New York uh passed a law that uh does not allow us to um take someone's license for pay fair to pay a fine there certainly been a tremendous drop off uh in the amount of uh fines that are actually paid in order to close the the file we take civil judgments against those individuals and certainly there's a lot of them if anybody peruses The Daily
Record uh we're not alone you'll see the goes on and on for the various municipalities about civil judgments uh being paid and sometimes they're they're paid people when they sell their house when they apply for a credit card a loan that's when the issue comes up and they show up at the front window to pay off their fine but um other other than that uh like I say the computers are the big issue they're they're somewhat old and we're told by the IT people we need to replace five of them and uh the uh security is the other the other big issue it's sort of a wild card so yeah the security we're going to do an RFP I before the end of the year right so we'll see how that come turns out so other than that it's relatively stable yeah we and we were saying earlier about this it task force like if we wanted to the the credit card payments of the fines you're not going to be able to get into anything with the town because that goes right to Albany right well all the fines how that works is I'm glad you brought that up um fines have to be submitted to the town by the 10th of every month that's uh the rules that all town and Village courts are subject to
so the money comes to the town of Webster the town of Webster then submits it to the controller's office and then it's distributed to the state the county and the town by some formula after 21 years or 22 years in the bch I still have no idea how that it works yeah it circles back to us right but it's based on the the type of ticket that's being issued where it's issued that type that type of thing and uh so it's distributed by a particular formula to those three uh government agencies so it could take a couple of months to get the money back right yeah right so it's not like we're we're setting fines and boy those all coming into the town that's that's not the case a major portion remains with the state some goes to the county some comes to the town but again uh I think I can speak for uh judge Christine here that we're certainly don't set fines based on trying to uh equalize the budget so any any I don't want to short your guys time so they can't just to clarify so they can or they cannot pay by credit card they can't oh certainly they pay by credit card down they pay they can pay back credit card they can pay online too okay uh many times we tell people that if they come and they want to play the credit card we remind them that if they
uh pay by cash or Bank check they don't have that additional fee when we first started out with the credit card the the the the state picked up the credit card expense but that didn't that didn't last too long funded mandate right so so now the person paying that the fine is H picking up the credit card but we do the clerks do remind them that if they if they pay by cash or U Bank check they don't have that additional I don't two and a half% I think it is something to that but does okay so Albany said we're not going to pick up the credit card fee anymore right but do you still have to use their credit card fee service because you know what we'll find out the it task force because if the money from the credit card payments comes to the town and then we remit it to get our reimbursement of 10% 20% later on we'll talk about that at the it task force maybe they can be in with the leverage the economies a scale yes that's for another day um you got the memo didn't you so did Jennifer right pink day Chris CHR too does okay um he did yeah he does you
already there you're still there great um any questions for the thank you very much no appreciate it nice to see you both have a good night you too see you and last but not least our director of communications goad I can drive I can drive um and to the Drum family sorry we're going to be starting the regular Town board meeting a few minutes late make it interesting right sorry yeah I always got to keep things interesting all right well I'm going to first ask the board if you mind if I show this in a little bit of a different way um there's a bit of a different circumstance with the cable access budget being absorbed by the Communications Department so you'll see in this um at a glance that the budget is up significantly in the Communications Department from last year but that really doesn't um paint the whole picture of where we are so I'd love to take you through that I know Kim included this presentation as well as some attachments in your folder if you want to reference them throughout um so the first major change you'll see um between the communications
budget this year and the cable access budget and Communications budget last year is by that combination of budgets so some Assumption of duties and responsibilities from cable access that is now being taken care of by um the communications dep Department um so you'll see the 15,000 in um website design and maintenance and that's a um contractual cost that is annual going towards our next redesign um and then you'll also see that we have Capital purchases um and that goes towards the equipment in this room that we're going to be using to produce Our Town board meetings our zoning board meetings and um our planning board meetings as well as equipment that had previously been purchased by cable access to support digital um efforts so you'll actually see by the combination of these budget that's a cost Savings in 2025 of $4,500 so the next slide you'll see is um our second cause of additional Staffing and related costs so so the first line You'll see here is part-time personnel which was formerly $4,000 into the 2024 cable budget going um looking
towards 2025 um you'll see it's $5,000 and that represents the staff that is being cross trained to produce Town meetings um So currently there's four staff members who have stepped up and they're they're really catching on and doing a great job um the benefit of the Cross training is not just to have those extra hands but it's also to create this organizational knowledge where there's going to be no gaps in knowledge if somebody chooses or has to leave the count or town for any reason so that's a change of $1,000 um in 2020 um five um the next line You'll see is probably the most well definitely the most significant change um as far as Staffing in the Communications Department so that's um the ad administrative salaries line and that is to accommodate for a new position which is a Communications assistant position one of the handouts that I've given you is the roles and responsibilities in the communications department and that shows my role as director of communications and on the back side of that you'll see um the roles and responsibilities for an additional proposed um position for communications assistant but I'd like to
highlight some of the roles that that person would be doing and how that's different from the existing position in the Communications Department so that's going to be a heavy digital Focus um I think we all can agree that we're glued to our phones we're glued to our devices and there's a heavy shift in the landscape towards it more Digital World um and we can see businesses nonprofits and even other um government entities that are shifting to um really focusing on digital so I would love somebody to um really focus on video production still photography um to enhance our methods and to give us opportunities that currently don't exist with the Staffing model that we have um they'll also help in the primary drafting of proclamations and certificates and create plans for um digital and social media they'll draft articles for our town e newsletter and our Webster today newslet or um publication and they'll also um be heavily involved in the production of town meetings um you'll see the um communications director line so um that
accounts for the step raise as well as um the um Cola but also it I have put in there the 2024 um salary that was put in for the cable access programming coordinat so it really comes out to on Department headlines being a savings to the town of $ 61,62 um along with um a new hire would come the need for additional computer equipment and Licensing um which is still a cost savings from what was um what was budgeted for last year it's a savings of $200 and then similarly the um Communications um office supplies line has risen but as a net between cable access and um uh the Communications Department there still is a savings of $900 and so for the cause of additional Staffing and related costs that's a savings of
you'll see it is no longer in either cable or Communications but in other revenue and um it looks like Paul has projected it to be $20,000 more this year than in last year so I will let him speak to that line yeah overall um that's based on history we thought it would be trending down rather quickly but it's really held its own and uh it's been coming in higher than what we've been budged so I did bump it up slightly for 2025 I would imagine in future Years it'll come down slightly what exactly is that cable vision Fe yeah it's a contractual agreement we have with our Charter Communications it's based on subscriptions to cable TV uh and I think what's happening their subscribers has reduced but they keep raising the fees so the amount we get isn't dropping as quickly as we thought it would any Webster residents here have cable TV with spectrum look at that guy well want a line item there I think it's 5% is the franchise fee that was negotiated years ago or whatever and that line item for all the subscribers in
Webster essentially comes to the town of Webster when the calendar year is over which in 23 when it ended I think in March of 24 a couple months ago we got the check did we not we did for the 23 franchise fees and I think it was 500 and some, was 535s that yeah I I can say that we've been expecting a decrease in that for years yes and have not seen it so um but it's 5% so it's real simple if you are charging a spectrum client a 100 bucks that's $5 but if you charge the Spectrum client $200 that's $10 and I think because their subscribers are going down at a certain percentage but their fees they're charging to the subscribers is going up at a higher percentage I hope that it's more of a visual but that's why we've we've continued to get the $500,000 plus um so that's that I guess thank you Paul and Tom um and then there are some additional minor changes so the first cause of that is
adjustments based on 2024 actuals so last year we budgeted for $500 in seminars and conferences under the Communications Department line um we've budgeted nothing for that line this year so that's a savings of 500 whereas last year we had budgeted nothing for um cellular telephone and um the 600 projected for next year is just based on actuals from this year so that's a increase of $100 um and then the final um final change as you'll see is due to the elimination of certain costs from the cable access Department again this is minor um there's a savings of $2,700 due to the elimination of the lines um of $1,200 last year for telephone and internet and 1,500 for promotion um so in total that's a cost savings um between the two budgets of 8,888 which is a 165% savings um so I'd be happy to talk to any more of that and in addition I've added an attachment um just with the Communications Department being a new department and um I don't have a fancy
um Highway building going up so there's no tangible building or progress that you're going to be seeing but I wanted to provide the board with accomplishments for this year that the budget has supported as well as out uh objectives for next year that the budget will support um but please feel free to ask me any questions now or um coordinate with me going forward if you have any questions well Bridget I think it's totally appropriate that our communications director has got a stellar Report with communication it's great and I really appreciate it thanks Patty uh any questions comments no appreciate the handouts I'll be I any questions later I'll get with you all right appreciate it yeah thank you all thank you thanks Bridget thank you Bridget well Bridget and and all right actually I say do we just keep going and I start or do we uh we actually have we're going to switch the video feed um but that's going to be about a break two minute break two minute break is fine two minute break like this is the end of the workshop we'll be back for the town board meeting in two minutes I can get away with the pink uh y shirt
okay got a pink highlighter too pink I a pink pen anyway uh yeah so we'll wait for Jen and Jenny to come back and then we will start and uh I apologize again to the Drum family for the delay I'm sure if Eliza was running these board meetings there would they would be on time and structured better I could learn a lot from you Eliza but I you know what can I tell you no no not at all no no no no no you're holding production um we'll just wait for Jenny and then I'll get the action from you right you want more air oh really you'll just edit this out this time okay all righty well as
soon as Jenny oh now John's off he's right there is this kind of like hurting cats yes you'll edit that right okay but last won't edit it now now we can roll all right well welcome everybody to the August 1st 2024 Webster Town board meeting Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of alance 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 Denine can you do role please supervisor FL here councilwoman cataly present councilman kill here councilwoman W here councilwoman R here well we have a pretty short agenda tonight which I think everybody is going to appreciate because we just had a workshop that was two hours and 15 minutes but I got to tell you the the first item tonight I'm very excited
about and I'm hoping that Eliza drum and if she would like her family to join us at the podium El you look like a five star general with that all on so I gotta say that um I had the pleasure of meeting Eliza the first time a couple months ago Bridget Harvey our communications director and Kim Doyle uh in the supervisor's office Eliza came in and as part of your Eagle Scout becoming an eagle scout it was part of a merit badge merit badge uh was it that you had to interview asked some questions of an elected official yes I thought it was great all right she comes in I knew and I think Bridget and so did Kim after about an hour with this young lady that we like that woman's going to be the freaking president of the United States someday did she know did she know that you would talk for an hour As She interviewed you actually she's pretty good at that too aren't you you know that I mean I I kind of met my match and
I knew that it's very possible I'll be working for her someday so then I got invited to actually when she became an eagle scout wasn't that about a month or six weeks ago mon or something yeah and your brother's an eagle scout too um and um I gotta say uh she got up and gave her talk and whatever and once again I mean senior in high school correct graduated graduated now Rising freshman in college mature Beyond her years and I hope you'll get a chance to hear her talk I'll stop flapping my lips but the reason why we wanted to give uh to recognize Eliza um and I think you'll hear it in this proclamation of just why uh Eliza is as impressive as I have tried to describe this is a proclamation of Excellence presented to Eliza drum whereas it is the intent of the wster Town board to recognize the outstanding effort efforts contributions and Leadership traits within our community and whereas the journey to Eagle Scout is a challenging one lined with many tasks and responsibilities that only the strongest of Scouts are able to overcome and master and whereas
Eliza drum has worked diligently through the course of her involvement with the scouts it is through hard work service to the community and Leadership that she has earned this prestigious Rank and where Eliza earned her eagle out rank through her project supporting the Webster kowas Club through this project she built five benches as well as several bat and bird houses that will support Camp smile and whereas as the first Eagle in troop 425 the first female eagle in the town of Webster and the 34th female eagle in the Sena waterways Council Eliza is a true leader within the Boy Scouts of America Association the town of Webster is grateful for the countless hours of service she is provided to our community and is incredibly proud of this accomp of this accomplishment now therefore be it resolved that on the occasion of her Eagle Scout award as the supervisor of the town of Webster and be on behalf of the Webster Town board and the entire Webster Community we extend our sincerest congratulations to Eliza for her accomplishment and Leadership [Applause] [Music]
[Applause] um I know you want to hi um thank you so much I was not expecting this this is very cool um but thank you it's been an honor to serve as a scout in Webster and I love it so much um but yeah thank you I don't really know what to say and what are you doing next what am I doing next yeah going to college where are you going to college and you going for I'm going at Alfred State for interior design wonderful that's an outstanding College I just want to say where are you living down there where am I living yes uh in a dorm McKenzie or down was it called brand Brandon yeah I keep saying Brandon there's no I know where it is right across love location of that college yeah yeah well I can clearly tell from from your uniform and your sash that you are a very accomplished young woman and I just want to congratulate you on that thank you thank you thank you very much and congratulations D thank you yes and I hope everybody
knows that I think it's as of January 1st 2025 the Boy Scouts for America are now scouting America as of February February 1st okay2 gotcha it'll be scouting America gotcha okay thank you thank you bye bye bye take care I do believe that we saw Bridget a little bit of shyness out of Eliza today I never thought i' see I didn't either I mean she's incredible yeah very impressive okay well we're that's as much fun as we're going to have tonight and that because the next uh item on the agenda is the open to the floor each speaker will be allowed up to five minutes Dave if you want to do it you got to follow Eliza's uh do do do you want to um no really okay okay so now we'll move on to the next item which is the July 18th uh
board meeting's minutes de thank you timely and I thought very thorough and accurate I make a motion that we approve those second supervisor flarey I councilwoman caldi I councilman kahill I councilwoman w i councilwoman rght I this was you Jen yep I did inspect the bills seem to be in order didn't have any issues so I would move that we approve the bills um as submitted by the Director of Finance second councilwoman councilman Cahill I councilwoman w i supervisor flairy I councilwoman cataldi I councilwoman Wright I and I reviewed the prepaid warrants as submitted by Paul Adams the Director of Finance and make a motion we approve those second supervisor flarey I councilman kahill I councilwoman cataldi I councilwoman Wright I councilwoman w i and I approve the I went through the purchase orders and uh submitted by Paul Adams the Director of Finance and make a motion that we approve those second
supervisor flarey I councilman kahill I councilwoman caldi I councilwoman w i councilwoman Ray I now you're going get a break so the next two items up um are resolutions that are tied to contracts agreements that the Koch Fair life in the town of Webster are still in negotiations on um I think they uh showed on the website and social media uh as of about 24 4 hours ago is tabled so before I make the motion to table them I think it's important that either myself Andor Patty who is been right there at the table during these negotiations of these contracts I just uh want to give a quick update on this both of these I'm somewhat confident we will be bringing back to the August 15th Town board meeting um I've let Koch Fairlife uh and their attorneys know we need the final version with enough time for for really both the board members to review it before they're going to vote on it but also to have the community see it we upload
these things to the town website and social media um what the what the board and the community are going to see when the final versions are ready besides a lot of legal ease is that the the conveyance p pipe agreement is essentially around $7 million and uh 96% of that um is going to be paid for by Koch it's a a 10-year agreement because it'll match a 10-year bond correct um that's the best way to explain it the reason why they're not paying 100% of it is that several months ago the board made the Visionary I'll say uh decision to not just have that pipe built for flow of only Coke Fairlife but because it goes through an area of town that we think there'll be expansion and Redevelopment on the xerx site that the town decided to uh really it was for a very incrementally low cost couple hundred, to expand it from 2 million gallons a day to like 2.8 million gallons a day which gives a lot of lateral potential into that pipe for new
housing developments Andor for commercial industrial developments on the zerox campus in fact the an 800,000 gallons a day is tan amount to uh I think it's got to be around to 5,000 edus and onetime tie-in fee would be5 to6 million for anybody that ties into these in the future so the town paying $400,000 to create excess capacity for what could be5 $6 million of onetime tie-in fees not to mention added flow seemed like a good business decision building it for the future building it for the future um I would like to think that the the that that contract's final verbage will be done the next one with the one-time tie-in fee in the last couple of months we've done public hearings and we changed our code for more of a large industrial user um and and essentially for how much uh discharge into the system Coke Fair's going to do it ends up in our code being a$ 21.9 million onetime tie-in fee to our
uh sewer system so we have agreed to have Koch Fairlife pay that 2 21.9 million over 10 years at 2.19 million per year to be honest with you that agreement is pretty much done but we didn't want to peac meal it I didn't want to have that on today I want them I want to do them both at the same time um and I think that's how you felt too Patty absolutely um and even though it was done I still don't think there was enough time to give the board that agreement we just got it I know Monday or Tuesday yes so that's basically I mean do you have any questions comments before I you can do the table in because this is your department but but um yeah that's right because this is for me to sign it but that that's my explanation of why we're tabling it so I would move that we table the resolution authorizing the town supervisor to sign a contract with Koch Fairlife on a 10-year payment plan on 12,000 linear foot conveyance pipe upsize from TBO road to Phillips Road trunk line second councilwoman caldi I councilman Cahill I
supervisor flarey I councilman w i councilman Ray I and along with that for the reasons that the supervisor has has explained I would also move that we table the resolution to authorize the supervisor to sign a contract with coch Fairlife on a 10year payment plan on a one-time tie-in fee to the town sanitary sewers system second councilwoman cataldi I councilman Cahill I supervisor flarity I councilman when I councilwoman Wright I all right well hey between the two of them it's almost $30 million so let's measure twice cut once it is a generational yes agreement yep I totally agree so we're getting there though aren't we Patty we are okay Paul we're getting there okay um the next item up kind of a housekeeping we do this every year um and that's because some of the school taxes in are for Ontario residents uh I guess is the best way to explain it um don't
we do this also for Penfield I think but for tonight any questions by the board members of this resolution no no um Jenny it's your department okay I would move to authorize the oh sorry um appoint Shelly laca town of Ontario as the school tax collector for 2024 2025 school year for the portion of properties in the town of w located in the Wayne Central School District second councilman w i councilwoman Wright I supervisor flarey hi councilwoman cataldi I councilman kill I and Patty the next and last formal one is your department it is and it involves um recycling items from the sewer department and as we rebuild our Sewer Department I think we're going to be seeing more and more of these that are just uh out of date no longer working um and just not part of the new plan so I would move that we approve the following
items for recycling from the sewer department there are eight of them that are listed here and I'm just going to make one resolution that we recycle all of those second councilman cataldi hi councilman kahill hi supervisor flare I councilman w i councilman right I now uh uh that's the last item on the agenda we have been here uh for almost three hours now so I'm going to uh not go with the round table tonight but I am making a motion that we go into executive session uh under Section 105 uh section one sub chapter B discussions regarding proposed pending a current litigation I'd like to have the town board present for that executive session and invite uh chief of police um Dennis Coler and Captain Mark Reed second um supervisor flarey I councilman kahill I councilwoman cataldi I councilman w i councilman rght I and I guess