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so 24 actually reflects double coilover Flex column that would have been paid that was paid in 23 and cola that we expect to pay in 2024 so and you know I apologize I expunged my mind from the mortgage industry uh acronyms I'm still picking up on the government acronyms Cola cost of living adjustment layman terms your raise from year over year on your salary or hourly pay okay so jumping down to the computer equipment and Licensing line that is up a little bit from last year um we have a few more licenses and we're going to be replacing two computers in our office we have a set out a schedule so that two will be replaced each year we take those two old ones and replace the older equipment at the counter and the public facing computer out front to get those up to date last year well this year during the year that we replaced it we took out a 12 year old computer it wasn't going to be supported anymore so the computers that got replaced this year replaced out the counter next year we'll replace two more but the pricing on that went up a little bit so that's part of that increase there and we'll just keep flipping that out until we have new computers throughout the whole department two each year we'll make it so that computers will stay at about three or four years old throughout their lifetime as you know when you're not using modern equipment the the support to those operating systems and things are very important the membership line is pretty much the same as last year but with the addition of our appraiser um we're going to add her to our grar which is a Greater Rochester Association of Realtors licensing and some of our membership licensings across the state we now have two people in some of those lines and underneath memberships so that's that increase the Deeds have been pretty consistent um and and so I'm going to leave that about the same our computer expenses there are exactly the same and what that is is let me find that line 18.

um that is the amount that goes towards replacing the toner and our service towards our counter computer printer that's behind the counter there in our wing our department is responsible for that piece of equipment so that's going to cover the toner maintenance contract that we have with Toshiba office supplies turns out I overestimated a little bit last year so I'm just bringing that down to what I think will still give us everything that we need to get the job done training staff and conferences that line is up a little bit again for an additional person requiring training and the higher level training carries a higher price tag with it the contractual services are for a computer software engineer that is helping us with some custom software in our department right now what we have done starting with covid was we created we have a custom database there where we can make appointments for our more sensitive public facing people our senior citizens our disabled people all the people who need to renew exemptions now rather than having them come and stand at line at will as if they were going to the post office or Wegmans we make appointments for them so this helps manage those appointments as well as managing the appointment the processing of each of those applications and there are several different types of applications being managed so each year that just needs to be refreshed a little bit and data brought forward and that's what that is for appraisal and legal contractual expenses is for when we are at the Supreme Court level if there are any appraisals that we need to purchase or outside to attorney Council or experts that need to go to Supreme Court this is the line that would afford US that defense reassessments has been in the budget for a while but as you know as we have been trying to permanently fill positions we haven't been able to use it I hope to be able to utilize that later this year and going forward into 2024 so this being the 2024 budget that will um that will give us that in um Revenue that we need to get the other assistance from outside companies to help us polish up some assessments I will be giving the town board a presentation in a few months from now as to more details on what that plan is software maintenance contracts are things that we currently have like image me online if you go to the town's website and you go to the assessors Department we have imagemate online which will give you um Snippets of our soft up of our data that we have on file for each property you can look up your home and see that we have you down for a certain size home and the age of the home how big is your garage how many bedrooms bathrooms you have how much acreage do we have recorded for you um that that is some specialized software that we can put that out to the public it just puts it into some pretty easy to understand language and behind the scenes it helps us to do some of our assessment defense making comparisons um what else is in that line number 66.

I know there's a couple other things in there oh Apex so that's also the sketching software that we have to draw our properties yeah vehicle operating in lease expense when I was here this time last year we were talking about leasing a vehicle like the Department of Public Works was doing for the rest of the Town Hall and we have since come to the conclusion that since we're a department of one vehicle that maybe we don't need all the services that are built into that lease agreement we don't need a Fleet Maintenance and that type of thing it would actually be more cost affordable for us to buy a vehicle outright and so we are looking at that plan right now and I've budgeted for nothing on a lease of a vehicle for next year oh automobile maintenance then hoping to have a newer vehicle we won't buy a brand new vehicle off the lot we'll let somebody else enjoy that depreciation right off but we'll get a car that has very little mileage on it hopefully and pick that up I'm anticipating that there won't be too much past a couple of oil changes and put something in there in case there's a flat tire and I believe that concludes the lines on my budget Donna questions comments if you have any comments questions so I regarding the vehicle operating lease expected didn't the town enter into a lease or was that just a DPW Department I thought that program is for the whole town Hall department so as I misunderstood at least the vehicle issue it was my understanding that it's not management it's not a mandatory program okay yep it worked very well for that department they had several very old Vehicles they need to replace all at once some people are aware that when you are purchasing a vehicle you can't take out an installment loan if you are a government so we would have to buy it outright right and so for that department that needed to replace several Vehicles a leasing option was going to be more affordable on a year-over-year basis until they started to turn things over and that got them up and running on better Vehicles more immediately I think we currently have about 12 vehicles under leash across all the Departments through Enterprise Fleet Management Donna do you anticipate purchasing a car for the Department in 2024 in 2023 23 okay if no other questions I will I will say Don I know in our preliminary discussions I'm looking very forward to within the next couple of months I know you're going to put together a power or Workshop presentation and so the future if you want to call of the assessment party assessment party would you like to have a party Mr oh my goodness I'll tell you it's only 4 30.

it will be fun I'll tell you that the assessment department and and and the the revaluation that you are working with with the state Powers would be it is extremely um impressive and I will just leave it at that because I know that you'll put together that presentation it'll be great yeah and I'd be happy to bring that presentation to you just as soon as I have in writing the support of the state for for it it's it's a little bit different idea from the standard revaluation program that is out there now it's been a long time and by the time we really get underway it'll be you know give or take 20 years since the town of Webster has done a revaluation and we just don't want to double people's assessment overnight we are currently our most recent assessment role is at 58 percent so in order to get assessments up to 100 we would have to double them and that just sounds like a very frightening thing so what I'm trying to do is put together a plan that would address that as well as bring the assessments up to speed but since I'm going a little bit outside of the standard what a town would do for a reevaluation because most towns are closer to 100 when they do the revaluation and we're nowhere near 100 percent I want to make sure that we would have the support of the staff and that I am meeting their expectations in the plan that I have engineered for you yeah and I you know I one of the biggest things of this is going to be the engagement of the the community absolutely avoid what some of the other towns have gone through because it is a very misunderstood thing and someone hears oh my God my assessment's going up double you're going to jump to the conclusion your taxes are going up double and that's not the case that won't even be close to being the case right and it will not they we will not double them in one year and take a series of years to get there just to to make it more um understandable and to give us the time to do it well so when you look at one of these lines here with a software licensing fees oh that's that's somebody else's now but um when you're looking at the software licensing fees that I have there or one of the computer expenses on the IMO that I mentioned I'm going to be purchasing in 2024 a new plug-in version so that people from home and it has to be set up but it's in the budget so let me figure out how to get it deployed and we'll do an advertisement on that I would like people to look at the assessment records that we have on file and let us know if we have something wrong let's get the data right before we start putting out the values and there's going to be a feedback page on there where homeowners can sit at home or in the library and look at the information that we have on file for them and let us know if there's any corrections that need to be made so that's part of that budget as well when we get the workshop by the end of the year we'll start the process of educating yeah so board and citizens exactly thank you thank you okay next up this afternoon is Finance the finance the finance department uh first first section you have here is compensation which year to year is actually down twenty eight thousand dollars and I'll explain why um but I currently have four staff members uh Paula Friedman Kelsey Feeney Kim hendy and Tracy Brinker and Paula has decided to retire she'll actually be formally retiring in about two weeks but she's still like to work so she's going to come back part time so I've actually shifted a portion of her wages to part-time uh uh so you know we think we've gained some capacity over the last few years I think we have gain deficiencies with software Kim Handy's contributed quite a bit to that she's importing journal entries so it saves man hours so we think there's enough capacity so that we can actually Reduce by about a half a person and still make things work so we're going to give it a shot and it looks like it'll save the sound about 28 000.

uh furniture and Equipment that's just for minor purchases uh that may be capitalized computer equipment and leasing 4370 those are the license fees that are passed on to us uh Microsoft license fees Adobe a few other ones that that Steve passed down onto Us in in Prior years it actually was included in the I.T budget what we've we now have distributed those costs out to the various departments uh seminars and conferences 5500 for the year it's up slightly from 2023 it includes things like the gfoa conference Association of towns there's a Perma conference I go to and I've actually built in some additional monies for the staff because the staff like to attend some training as well and I think it's smart to to keep them educated and it's always good to to get with your peers and share ideas so that's up 1300 year to year the financial software tools that includes software that we use for fixed assets inventory we had been on an old outdated program so actually this year we had an access database built for fixed assets and it's working pretty well so I built in some money for maintenance there I think about thirteen hundred dollars and it also includes a software called lease crunch we have to comply with gas b87 gasby stands for government Accounting Standards Board they set the standards for accounting for all governments and beginning last year we had to account for leases and calculate the present value of each lease and there's a series of journal entries they have to be plugged at the end of the year for those leases so there's a software tool there which costs about three thousand a year which which helps us with that endeavor under financial consultants I've got that flat year to year that includes things like Municipal Solutions [Music] it also has lifetime Benefit services within there which handle our HSA and HRA accounts uh so there's a fee for that um office supplies it's been trending up slightly so I raised it about 800 a year to years or at about 50 50 900.

machine lease are the copy release we have a we have a it's actually a printer copier at least through Xerox we pay a small monthly fee and we pay per copy under software license fees seventy four thousand this is paid to Tyler technology they they actually host our financial Software System which includes everything from payroll to accounts payable to General accounting um we decided last year to actually move it to their hosted system and it formerly had been on our servers and so far it's working well computer system maintenance is the annual fee that we pay to munis that is for support for the software so that's about 7 500 a year there's some small Bank address uh director out of pocket out of pocket expenses as things like mileage and they also have some software conversion costs I did budget 3 000.

that's for continued training on the munis software product which is through Tyler uh we do have things come up from time to time and I think it's it's smart to continue training and to maximize the efficiency of the software and the other piece of my budget are the fees which are paid to our independent Auditors our CPA firm we use megal Metzger and bar we've been with them for a number of years they do an independent Financial audit they do agreed upon procedure engagements for the Town Clerk and for the justice court system and last year they were required to do a single audit which is a special audit that you're required to have for federal monies which which basically entails the arpa funds they were to receive from the federal government so since we spent over the 750 000 threshold we had to have a single audit so so year to year those costs are up slightly all right we expect to pay about 38.5 for those four engagements in 2024.

and that is the most of it so year to year year to year we're not we're actually down here to here mainly due to the uh reduction in salaries any questions or comments thank you Paul I don't have any thank you okay Paul you're welcome but I'm gonna I'm gonna ask one question sure there is a lying item there for those that are watching at home that you didn't go over and it's a transfer from the sewer fund over that actually reduces your budget by sixty thousand that's correct I think this transfer permeates into some of the other departments too and I know a couple years ago in aggregate the sewer Department was tithing I'll call it transferring over to town departments in aggregate a 250 000 right I think it was 255.

right um and the concept behind that is that the the sewer fund the sewer department um is almost like a pseudo Enterprise fund uh uh or a utility it's pseudo it's not we have not set it up as a utility over the years but if at a quarter million dollars a year over 30 years it's probably I I don't know if it was a quarter million back in 1990 uh but that's 7.5 million dollars that really was able to be utilized from the sewer department to come over and offset the Department's uh and the the rationale is that the sewer department needs to use the finance department to send out bills yeah and insurance costs things like that we also offset a portion of insurance and it and I think my speculation has been doing my research is that one of the attractions to maybe leadership back in the 90s in Webster to not get rid of the sewer plant when 30 other towns and Villages and municipalities did and go to the county and said this is a cash cow where this is great we're making money we can use it as a tool to leverage and this and that and and I get it I I've been in business but as we'll talk about later tonight um that cash cow gets milked clean doesn't it yeah and then you got to rebuild the sewer plant yes we do yeah so I don't really know if that was a question as much as it was a comment it was a comment okay it's a line on my budget so I'm glad you brought it up all right and by the way that transfer is now down to about 1 155 000 a year yes so we have reduced it by about a hundred thousand yeah I know that over the last couple years last few years the leadership of the sewer department is really been honest about can you explain why a quarter million dollars is coming out of my fund I think we just explained why it was yeah so anyway thank you Paul you're welcome all right next up tonight and we're a little bit ahead um which is good because I think Brayton conard and uh Community Personnel slash Human Resources uh it's kind of running a little double duty tonight aren't you at Brighton which she'll explain so you might need the extra seven minutes mm-hmm councilman Cahill I think I can do it in 15.

you got 10. okay all right so the um requested budget from the Department of Human Resources is two percent lower than the authorized 2023 uh budget um it's essentially a maintenance of effort budget and the most significant reduction is the removing of the budgeting of a part-time employee um we are leanly budgeted at one human resources professional for an organization this size but uh given the advancements in in technology Paul was talking about Tyler Tech and we're constantly working on efficiencies there as well as the partnership with the payroll uh manager um you know I'm quite confident that the town can continue to operate well and in compliance without the need for the part-time employee so that's why that's not going to be in this year's budget request and I wouldn't expect it to be back anytime soon um most of the line items are pretty uh identical there is a 500 increase in employee wellness and that is because we have a revitalized wellness committee uh Jay Verna out of Parks and Recreation Department leads that and does a fantastic job and he's recruited uh active participants from each of the Departments and they've got some plans for enhanced activities and so we put a little bit of extra money in there additionally that money is supplemented by a grant that we receive annually from flim hit that helps with that and the other expense that I would say is increasing is the line for legal counsel and um you know I guess I would just call that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and there are some things that it's good to run by a specialist in labor and employment law as opposed to a general counsel so that's in there as well so that is my update on human resources and I can go into Communications after you have an opportunity to ask any questions all done Braden all right so um moving on to the Communications Department uh Paul will get that budget line up there I can see the Communications Department is has salary for a director and then a total of twenty five hundred dollars for uh expenses this is the first year that we will be having a Communications Department so the level of expenses are unknown but we don't anticipate much overhead at all you know for the operation the new department will be responsible for the Strategic and comprehensive communication needs of the town of Webster including all internal and external Communications and public relations efforts there is no net increase in headcount for the town because the uh there was already in the 2023 budget a full-time position that is now being transferred to the Communications Department so this new department is not increasing the number of employees at all um it's going to be pay group 24 on the new pay group classification scales um so civil service has selected the title of coordinating director of communications for the position there is a civil service list in place for the position from an examination that was given last fall that's one of the reasons of why the recruitment has taken a while is we had to wait for exam results we are actively canvassing for the position and we'll see who's interested in applying and then that candidate will be subject to the same rigorous structured interview process that we've used successfully with department head positions over the last three years there is a search committee that's been established and had its first meeting includes a outside subject matter expert a retired member of the local media and we are currently in the process of A needs assessment with our department heads and with the town board so that we know what is the Prime Focus we should be looking for in candidates as well as you know kind of what should be the top priorities for the new department head with that I am available for questions that I do on time P that's the shortest I've ever been even to five o'clock yet thank you all right uh Jenny John Patty anybody uh no thank you Braden thank you Braden thank you I would just uh well he's gone so I guess that's that uh so nope we're good we're good we're out of schedule Police Department is next all right Chief Kohlmeyer yes sir I don't think just because we're 15 minutes ahead of schedule that we're gonna have you go 30 minutes but we'll see how this goes I will uh try not to I learned uh my first year not to be late uh and to be early because I missed the early window um all right so overall for the 2024 budget um it's a concept of trying to improve efficiencies and restructure the organization uh incorporate technology and help leverage uh what's available to us to be more efficient and deliver a better service so starting at the top um obviously my salary line is independent from the other officers there that's without the 30 retirement contribution on the back side because I'm already retired member officer salaries that is budgeting for 34 officers it's been a consistent hiring process to try to obtain that number 34.

we currently still have two openings uh with one person in the academy one person on fto so the projected goal in uh 2024 is to uh be at 34 by the time we get there by hiring by the end of the year turnover is a continual process on average I'd say we lose about three officers a year to transfers retirements or moving on to other professional occupations so that moves us to the next budget line uh for the compensation for retirements currently we have two eligible members to retire we've seen historically with Law Enforcement Officers typically don't stay more than a year or two beyond their retirement eligibility so when we have two eligible typically we'll see um at least one or one or two of those could exercise within a year or two the non-comp holiday pay is um kind of a fluid number so we decreased it in 24 from 23 just because it didn't get used as much or we don't project it to be used as much officers have the option of taking holiday pay and comp or pay within the pay period so if they take it within the pay period it comes out of that line if they take it into their comp bank then it'll either be used for time off or paid out at the end of the year through a different line we'll get to in a second here the police overtime line I increased this year I think as we get closer to the end of the year we'll have a better idea whether we can make some adjustments to that if necessary as we've seen reduced operational Staffing we've seen an increase in overtime need covering shifts the like I said the current situation right now is we're down for uh police officers operationally from our authorized Staffing the overtime is actually broken out into a couple different categories there if it's reimbursed so the DWI over time is Grant reimbursed um the comp buyout was what I referred to a minute ago when officers work overtime they have the option of taking in pay or compensatory time or their holidays and comp at the end of the year uh we have a mandated process process where we buy it down to 80 hours but the officers have an option of buying it down further so that would come out of that line and if you look at budgets over the previous couple years those numbers weren't separated out so one of the goals uh fiscally has been to kind of better identify where the costs are coming from and we created that line I think I believe at the beginning of last year in order to help separate out some of those expenses the reimbursable police compensation that was a new line in 23 we created uh in anticipation of having a higher request for officers to work public events that would be reimbursed but we haven't seen really a big impact with that so we've reduced that number down to be more manageable based on expectations for 24.

the clerical salaries is for three our existing three full-time clerical staff and then a request for one additional administrative person uh we have seen a increased workload on the administrative staff because of the discovery process that was implemented by New York State a couple years ago that has had a big impact on us uh and our success rate we have to get documents uh processed and moved to District Attorney's office within specified time frames in order to be disclosed to defense Council and if we don't meet those expectations cases get dismissed so those are increased importance on the administrative function of the police department as well sorry uh clerk overtime is minimal that's um based on meetings or emergency situations part-time employee wages that is for one part-time Fleet Maintenance person that's to maintain that position um next couple lines are pretty uh pretty consistent across the years over time for school resource officers uh that is completely reimbursed by the Webster Central School District so that number is put in there in anticipation of when the officers get used um but anything above or below that is reimbursed on the revenue side from the school district so that includes SRO overtime and also includes when the school district asks for additional officers at events to help with traffic for those that have been to some of the bigger football games or the graduation you'll see three or four five Webster Police Officers out there all those officers are being reimbursed by the school district for the the duties there yeah we build them twice a year it's basically for the period of September through June so then um as the finance director mentioned before computer equipment and Licensing that's a new approach for the town moving it to a cost center approach for each department so that incorporates our licensing replacement of computer hardware and we're making a request to have an increase there to cover some additional software licensing Plus Moving uh some of our administrative function to a more mobile work environment our investigators particularly giving them devices that they can work on and upgrading their their flow so that it's not tied to a office uh Capital purchase uh most of those items are consistent across the fiscal years without too much impact the Firearms purchasing we made an additional request to upgrade the Optics on the pistols the Technology's been there for a few years we wanted to get um I guess tested out in the law enforcement environment before we made a request to adopt that technology but that's one of our requests for for next year is to move that line up to incorporate that into the weapon system uh the vehicles uh we were budging at additional cost basically we're on a five-year rotation with our Fleet we see about three patrol cars a year to maintain a healthy uh Fleet that's between marked and unmarked Vehicles so that request is for three SUVs for next year which obviously had a Market impact for the additional cost uh professional development that is uh conferences that is primarily for the international Chiefs conference in order to get continuing education next expense that kind of had an increase uh the significant as the seller telephones one of the concerns that we've had with our work process is that the officers are using personal devices when they're working and that has some impact on the new discovery laws and potential exposure for the employee in the town it actually comes at a good time with the increased cost of the new provider for our telephone system we were able to get rid of all of the voicemail costs that were associated with the officers under a different line item so that we can move it to the mobile devices that they'll be issued moving forward so again it's part of the overall concept of moving the workforce to a more technology-oriented mobile work environment making them more efficient uh uh service contracts so the increase in service contracts so there's there's two uh large expenses in there uh one of them is the body warrant camera software uh so that's about fifteen thousand dollars a year uh goes to our body warrant camera um we were recently notified that New York State's giving us a forty thousand dollar Grant uh for body worn cameras that we can use retroactively for the for the cost that we uh incurred to implement the body worn cameras so it was about fifteen thousand dollars in 2021 for the equipment another 15 for the licensing and we're in a five-year contract for the licensing so the Forty thousand dollars helps us recover some of the costs that we that we underwent to purchase those uh and the initial year of those purchases was also done through drug asset seizure money so it wasn't uh out of uh tax dollars it was out of seizure funds from uh law enforcement investigations the other additional expense that's new this year is the lexapol policy software as we transition to a new policy manual uh that is uh I guess the word I want to use is that it it's vetted it's um updates are provided uh it stays and helps us maintain consistency with uh the laws and mandates that are being pushed out at a very rapid rate especially at the state level um we're recently informed our Human Resources Director found an opportunity to potentially save us 30 of that cost annually through a perma-grant that we're currently working on so we may be able to reduce that line item once we get confirmation that that's um going to be awarded to us telephone expense again is a new provider so the expense has gone up a little bit it would have gone up more significantly but we reduced the voicemail impact it used to be we were charged a discount rate for voicemail for the officers because they didn't use actual handsets or telephones but the new provider didn't have that discount so it would have been the entire licensing fee for each employee just to maintain a voicemail for them um one of the uh I guess it three remaining large impacts to us are vehicle repairs Again part of maintaining a healthy Fleet will help reduce that overall cost but we also have the impacts of just general wear and tear on the patrol Vehicles depending on the environments they're being operated in fuel cost again we're budgeting a little bit of an increase just on the expectation of inflation and clothing expense has been a consistent cost for US based on the five-year replacement cycle of ballistic vests for each officer that industry standard and then the expensive uniforms and equipment that keeps increasing under Revenue the most significant impact I mean obviously we're not a revenue generating entity for the town typically speaking that Revenue line is primarily the school district reimbursement for our two school resource officers they they the school district reimburses about 75 percent not about 75 percent of the total cost of the officer both salary and back-end costs so the rest of the revenue is um fairly minimal uh considering the total budget line any questions on the law enforcement side or do you want me to jump right into the animal control budget as well well you just answered my question because I was hoping you would do animal control ready to go yep um so for those who don't know our animal control unit doesn't consist of a full-time uh member it is uh part-time Personnel that both through the administrative function and the on-call we've had a continuing uh or continual recruitment process for that um so this is I guess my plug to the community anybody wants to help with the Animal Control process we're taking applications and for people on call to help with contained dogs the uh Main Animal control officer lead I would say is a part-time position and then we have a part-time assistance to help with both the administrative functioning and the uh on call everything else is pretty much just maintenance of the of the position to function and some of them are fluctuating depending on the number of dogs that we deal with primarily sometimes there's cats but primarily we're dealing with uh uncontained dogs reunification with the owners and then the boarding and health costs of um maintaining them especially if they don't get claimed and that's that well it's one of our bigger departments so any uh questions comments from the town board members okay um anything down here Jenny or Jen no okay uh similar assessment before the end of the year Chief oh I want to work with you we'll have a Workshop or whatever I mean the I guess the elephant in the room uh in the whole Community about you know policing and the things that are going on and the different crimes and property crimes and car thefts and and all that and it's affecting more than Webster it's affecting the whole Upstate area so uh we get a lot of calls and increase as do you and about this um backstage assemblyman Brian magdalo I think reached out to both of us on Tuesday saying he got a call from some constituents in Webster that are very concerned about all this and are asking what are we doing about it so it's a it's on everybody's mind and I think it's uh I think it's going to be important for us to put something together that kind of separates you know fact from fiction um so I'll work with you on that it's an on budget issue but maybe it is uh yeah so I'm glad you brought it up because there's two things I wanted to hit on that I didn't get my notes um one being that the officer salary line is without um contractual raises in it so it's a negotiation year for the police 1000 club which represents all the sworn members of the police department uh from Lieutenant down uh so the contract costs are dependent on negotiations that are going to take place between now and the end of the year so that that wasn't included in that um but to to your point about some of the things that we're trying to do uh internally to address um what I mean so for those that aren't aware that our most significant issue is property crime I mean obviously there's other types of crime that happen happen in town but our our biggest resource draw is property crime whether it's retail theft um or the recent issue that we've seen with stolen vehicles and theft from private property but resource alignment is one of the things that we're focused on trying to make sure that we're using the resources we have efficiently we're having internal conversations about how trying to identify shift structures and things that can help maximize our impact and get our officers on the road at the Times where we need them so retail theft pretty much is a a 99 type of problem that we're dealing with larcenya progress versus reports has a significant impact on us the increase in large knees in progress for 2022 was significant over the average the 10-year average prior to that and I'll have some of those statistics statistics put out publicly here by next week as to what's on that impact has been for us but resource alignment and being efficient is with our processes what we're focusing on right now just want to say is liaise under the police department I've seen some of those statistics that you've shared with us at a couple of meetings and I really appreciate the work that you've put into Gathering all of that information and putting it out so that you you can look at operating more efficiently and and protecting the community's safety as well so I really appreciate that you're taking a look at that proactively thank you thanks Jay thank you thank you again nice break aren't we between now and the next step is Parks and Recreation all right and Chris Bilo I take it that uh glad Morel is trusting you to talk about perks tonight right well actually I had I had Katie kind of on standby as as I await my first Grand grandson here any day so she was she was waiting in the wing so I said you know might as well go through the whole process anyways um so a couple of things before I actually get into it uh and I'm not going to go line by line for you but the 2024 budget does not include any additional full-time staff or any major or significant changes to the current Department structure obviously the the department I feel does a does an excellent job of providing programs and services to the community which as we go through 23 I like I'd always give a little bit of plug before I get into 24 figures uh what we're where we're currently at after the seven month Mark our expense is right around 53 percent for the department so we're actually doing well on the expense side in our Revenue collection is currently at 88 percent of Revenue so our budget for 23 should be pretty healthy and some of that is reflected in 24 some of the some of the revenue lines so I'll get started first 6772 which is program for the Aging it's our 55 plus program no major changes to the overall expenses the only significant or major change here would be uh to the 2000 line which is capital purchases it's the uh that that that request is for some improvements to the senior Lounge is some of that some of that furniture and some of the uh some of the amenities in there is is time to be replaced so we budgeted for fifteen hundred dollars to do some some minor changes in that room uh from a revenue standpoint again very very simple really only three lines in there slightly up as we we do see an increase uh in the senior Recreation which is our program that's not the lunch program that's our actual program activities for our seniors we're seeing a increase in that so we've we've budget accordingly so overall our our revenue for that Department's up by about eleven thousand dollars okay anything you need to add good okay from a recreation standpoint again I'm not going to go through each one of these lines several of these lines I'll go through or some of these lines I'll go through that have some some changes obviously uh these first you know 0.1 lines are all salary lines uh the 10087 administrative support staff line that is an increase that's basically as a result of as we budget for the increase in minimum wage uh really knows change to our current staff structure that's really what supports our building the buildings staff seven days a week for about 104 hours per week so that that does have an impact as we as we look at the minimum wage that's our seasonal personal uh Personnel line that increase again minimum wage is continues to drive those costs up additionally we also have now a second summer summer day campsite that we provide services for So that obviously increases the number of staff that we hire on a seasonal basis and actually once once the budget is adopted wherever this figure ends up one of the suggestions that we're going to look to try to do is we're going to break out of that seasonal line we're actually going to try to create that into two payroll lines or two payroll accounts one for our our summer camp and then one for the rest of our seasonal lines that'll help really with determining our costs as we provide that summer camp program which is obviously a major factor on you know in that line you know out of that hundred and twenty five thousand close to 100 of it is specifically for our summer camp program so we're going to look to try to break that out so we can track it a little bit closer as we go through the year as you go through two zero zero one one the computer licensing that's slightly up again as others have shared tonight that's for covering all the workstations that we have which is for 10 full-time in a part-time computer and a license and then we also have budgeted for a replacement of a laptop for the Department 4056 General repairs slightly up the reason for that increase is is I'll get into a revenue here in a few minutes we've run into in this past year about a about a five thousand five to six thousand dollar increase in what we have to purchase for membership cards for our facility that's a good thing that we have this problem because we have more members now in the building but that's a cost that used to be able to be incurred but once every once every two years now we're having to do it on an annual basis and unfortunately those cards are we can only get them from one place so that they enter they they work with our registration and our security system uh computer tech support that 19 000 is for the Vermont system which is the cloud-based which hosts our our registration software Rec track we put this in last year and I all I can tell you is that by having that based on the cloud it has improved efficiency and won the system we're no longer seeing downtime for having to do updates it's all done automatically and I know our I.T Department appreciates the fact that no longer do they have to manage those type of updates or changes so that's been a that's been a very nice and nice change for the Department 40227 day trips that has a slight increase and again what we're going to be doing is once this budget is finalized that day trips is actually specific to our summer camp program so what we did was we rolled supplies for our summer camp program into that so we took it out of our rec supply line and we moved it into this so this will actually be look to be renamed as a summer camp expense line since everything that's in there is specific to our summer camp program so that would cover things as supplies items that they need for Camp along with buses and entry into wherever their field trip may be for that for that trip regards to some of the other items down towards the bottom we're starting to see as everybody is utilities between Natural Gas and Electric especially an increase so we've budgeted accordingly water seems to be pretty typical our biggest use for water outside of the building is obviously our spray parks okay from a revenue side two zero zero three that's our program line we've increased that by Twenty Thousand so it's up to 300 and just as a note this budget line is increased about seventy five thousand dollars since 2019 and that's all in and is a matter of uh the staff and their efforts and running quality programs in the number of programs so that's uh we're continuing to see that line have significant increases 2011 which is our silver Revenue this continues to increase we're budgeting for about a 22 percent increase in 2024 we're seeing monthly return in our silver Revenue at a pace that we haven't seen yet so we track that on a monthly basis in the the revenue that's coming back from our from our silver revenue is is significant in I think we'll see that increase continued increase in 2024.

2035 is Fitness classes I will just bring this up as to how this why this looks the way it does uh in 23 we had a budget of 70 and we dropped it by 50 000 for 24. however you look at the next line Fitness membership there's a fifty thousand dollar increase so basically what we did is we moved it from one line to the other and the reason that we did that is in Fitness memberships in the past when we do our installment buildings a portion of that would be pulled out and go into the fitness class line which basically covers the uh the premier memberships so those people that have a premier membership it was being pulled out and put into the fitness class line well it really didn't give us a good indicator of what our fitness membership was so we've decided to leave the premier memberships in the fitness membership so we have a good indicator of actually what we're bringing in revenue-wise on a month-to-month and year basis in regards to dollars so we've we've left that in and what Fitness classes will now constitute from a revenue standpoint are for people that come in that may not be a member that will pay a drop-in fee pay a building use fee strength training any kind of those drop-in programs that though that Revenue will now go into that Fitness class line so that's why we reduced this such it's smart to isolate that exactly it just it kind of clouded it when you looked at some of the numbers you it wasn't really a clear picture especially on the fitness membership side so and then obviously those last two lines are the reimbursed from uh from the county the one note that I did have that I didn't make in my notes Here was in 2023 when I did this presentation we were talking about memberships we were at a installment building on a monthly basis we were at 370 when we ran our last monthly installment building we're at 473 so we're up over just under over 100 members per month since last year that's big Parks I'll do my best for Glenn here uh really again same kind of same thing same kind of concept for my uh from an expense standpoint this first few I will say that 10102 the part-time Park maintenance line that does have an increase and the reason for that is not only uh for taking into account wage increases but it also does include a requests to have a 20 to 25 hour week part-time facilities person to be able to assist with the facility needs around town as you know we we Institute a facilities a staff person a few years ago and that person has been managing a number of different facility issues around town whether it's from fixing items or working with contractors helping manage some of the various items that happen around town like HVAC issues those kind of things so we've been doing that with one person um one of the recommendations when we started that process was that this would sort of be a phase-in approach so this was this is our next request to be able to have somebody again from a part-time standpoint be able to assist with some of the smaller tasks things like uh you know the painting of you know doors and the exterior doors at the courthouse those kind of things that that needed to be done but it's difficult sometimes when the facilities person is spending a day with the HVAC contractor troubleshooting issues at Town Hall so that's the request for that 20011 is computer licensing this for the three three computers that we have in within our Parks Department 20059 is our Capital Improvement line and we have in there twenty five thousand that's up from last year that 25 000 is specific for one pro or one project as you know this year and we're in the process of wrapping up the uh the improvements to our tennis slash pickleball courts Outdoors at uh First Responders so this 25 000 is to do a new driveway and parking lot at that location if you've driven back there in the last year you could lose a filling in some of the potholes that are in there we do our best to be able to you know make do and fill where we can but this would sort of complete that project next year so the request is slightly higher than what we had in for 23.

uh 40 oh no I'm sorry 20064 is our Capital uh purchase Park Improvement that's the 20 000. uh that's the annual 20 000 that allows us to do various projects within all the parks uh most specifically uh the funds were used to help be able to upgrade and and change the signage at all of our town Parks uh to have a consistent look and so that's that's one of the type of projects one of the one of the areas that we're looking to use some of this funds for is to change out all of our um all of our kitchen apparatus at the two lodges uh replacing those with commercial grade refrigerators and stoves Etc because of the use that they take um I didn't talk about the capital purchase sorry go back to 20063 Capital purchase equipment that's for twenty thousand it's slightly down um we've been fortunate in with the town boards assistance the last few years to really uh improve the equipment that the park staff have at their disposal so this year there's not quite as much of an ask a few of those things actually relate specifically to the buildings we're looking to replace a floor machine the Viper machine that that is used on a daily basis throughout the throughout the rec center looking to purchase a gym floor protector so that when we have events in the gymnasium we have something that if we feel may do some damage or have some issue with our gym floor we've got a way to be able to protect that and then we also put in for a replacement of one of our softball fences at uh at the rec center at chayota we're looking to replace those we have three obviously with a b and c we're looking to place those one a year now I'll jump down to 40101 that's our vehicle lease that jumps significantly as you see last year we had one vehicle and that was our facilities van which I'm not sure people have seen around town but that was a must need or a must-have last year so obviously that lease continues and then this year we're looking to we have two vehicles two Park trucks that need to be worked out of service one is a 2013 and one is a 2016.

and one of those is a plow truck so this includes a retrofit or a outfit of that vehicle for full plow so there's one time this is part of this is part of the Enterprise Fleet program and we do have a one-time cost to be able to outfit that vehicle then we won't incur that cost on a monthly after the first first year so well in wool in total have three vehicles as part of the the fleet program in 2024. 40166 fuel Market increase again as everybody has seen I know the police just talked about it you know we're seeing that across the board the 40211 that was was a zero to a 2500 just real quick that was a uh that is an ask and a request for some funds that we can use so friends of Webster Trails as they're doing various projects tasks around town on Town property if they have something that we're able to support them with we have some funds available to it right now we've sort of you know just sort of figured where we could pull those funds from but if we have the ability to create a an expense line to be able to support some of those projects helps us as well as it helps friends of Webster trails and obviously everything that they do is uh is so important to what we have in all of our Park systems and then the last one on there that I'll just talk about real quick is 40248 Lawn Service I put 120 in there so it is a slight increase our contract with our current lawn service is up this year so we are actually we we are working on getting the bid package put together now our plan is to go out to bid with that sometime in early fall we're hoping by the early October we can have that out to bed so we can have that back by November so that'll really give us an idea but based on what we're what we're seeing from some of the other municipalities specifically Penfield who also contracts out their lawn service we figured this is probably a similar jump where we might need to be hopefully it comes back a little lower we're going to get a look to do a three-year bid as that seem to really benefit the town as we saw some significant cost savings uh the last three years with that so I believe it's been three years it is it's crazy so there's no option to extend there's nothing yeah okay and I can understand because they went how many years they went three years if it's a one year maybe but they went three years and it'll be it'll be time for them to reevaluate yeah then from a revenue standpoint I do have the lodge Park Lodge lodges slightly up to 110 000 and then the other thing that isn't here I don't have I don't think you have on here Paul is the sale of those two trucks that we are sending out for Parks correct so yeah we did not include any anticipated sales revenue but with there will be um something we could add in but yep so it's an uncertain amount so we chose to leave it out and that's it Katie no just the changes that Chris is you know proposing for the different budget lines really will help from a management perspective to kind of keep things um clear for both um Glenn myself and our staff so we anticipate a great 2024 as we end 2023 questions I had just one question it goes back to the recreation and you talked about the increase in Fitness memberships um I would hope that we've seen an increase since the pandemic where people were not participating in memberships do you have any idea where we are such as those numbers pre-covered evaluated them a couple months ago and were right at 2019 numbers I I believe yeah great so we've come back we have fantastic it took a bit but we did it yes I think actually when we had our initial initial budget meeting with we showed a graph to that in that group that showed at that time that we're actually at in the trend will be for the rest of this year that will actually be ahead of where we were in 2019.

fantastic and I remember I think it was during our budget meeting uh bill when you were there uh liaison that Chris didn't you say that where we're at the 2019 levels we've achieved that when a lot of our Xerox employees they never came back to that campus so to get back to those levels when you have your devoid of those people is a nice you know yeah I know I've said it I think every year that I've since I've been here with the townies and I was fortunate that I was I spent my first bunch of years on that in that same building as a Xerox person running programs for xra and the people that were participating in using the facility once the xra facility turned over and the town took it took took it took over ownership I think that carried over time and then obviously slowly started to dwindle but then when covert hit and people were gone those people haven't come back so the fact that we're able to be at 473 households or units billed now in a monthly installment building that that number was almost seen unattainable before considering now that those really aren't Xerox employees those are true residents but mostly residents so it's a testament to you know to Jay in the programs and the things that he does uh that he's bringing in in the number of programs that we uh that we've offered even as last year when we you know purchased the spin bikes so being able to offer those new programs it's a whole new clientele that's in that building future Economic Development will help well and it's funny because I was I was kind of hoping by now that now that we're a year out since Tessie bought 110 acres over there in a million and a half square feet of buildings and having met the testy management team and ownership uh back in October very impressive uh uh I was hoping by now that they'd have the plan for what they're going to do with that those buildings they don't but they didn't buy him to just hang out they're going to do something and I would imagine it'll bring employees back to the campus which is you know which is perfect for us one market to them yeah once those once those people are there it just gives us a whole nother well their buildings that's got to be about a nine iron from the facility maybe a heavy eight but yeah well I've seen you hit a call that's a that's a wedge for you Chris I still have a couple Xerox employees that walk over daily and work out so we it's always been a topic of conversation it's reaching those that that group of testing employees just just as a relationship we have the Xerox yeah yeah stay tuned uh I just mentioned I just wrote a note here um would we ever consider corporate memberships sure I would say it's not off the table by any stretch yeah same thing with programs or Services yet since we've got a couple large new players coming to town yeah I think it's great see you when I get here right yeah yeah well thanks thank you Christian Katie thank you and now doing double duty tonight both producing this and now going to come out from behind the door and present cable is Karen buck we're still a house it's 5 41.

nice um okay this is short and sweet because I don't have much of a budget repair in terms of lines the um the major change is the third line down the production assistant that was added last year that has been removed it's going to be going over to the new communications director line instead so I will just be maintaining the part-time staff line which is just two employees that it's more of a stipend because they only work a couple hours a week helping them here and there with television related things so that will stay a slight increase in the equipment line um that's about it and then in terms of promotion we added a little bit extra in there as part of planning for an open house next year for the town trying to get those back up and running and then the last part is the website design the maintenance line that is down but still because if we did the redesign last year the new fee will cover a partial payment every year for the next five years towards the next redesign because I put us into a five-year plan that locks in the price for the next five years and then once five years is up we automatically have paid down for the redesign so we're now on a payment plan which is a lot easier than trying to do it as a lump sum every couple of years so that that's it in terms of the budget and Karen before I gotta say that I I wish I would have looked at this closer because when you went over the part-time employees which is a stipend and it's flat from year to year I see that changing I know that John you're the liaison the cable now uh Brayton is I don't think in the room anymore but just in our discussion with you he is is he behind the beam yeah get out of here well uh it's a it's kind of evolving situation but we we we are going over uh we want to see if Karen is actually working seven days a week and doesn't have any chance to take vacations and stuff and within that we're like well then we might need to take some of these part-timers and I and see if they can increase their part-time hours especially during times to give uh Karen a break um so that I that's a possibility that that's going to go up that line item from 4 000 where it's at now to a number and we'll we'll keep with you Paul as this as this goes on so is that essentially how you understand it Brayton and hold on and absolutely Karen yeah okay right so let any questions beyond that no I just have a brief statement I just want to say thank you very much for these monitors I can now see yeah right what we're talking about whereas before we have to look at the screen and could see nothing and I think our audience is able to see these screens so thank you so much for uh getting these in for us Karen I greatly appreciate it yeah yes I was I was going to thank you for the same thing and compliment you I don't know how much you've shown up the actual board during this presentation but to those who didn't know these screens were here it probably looks a little weird that we're not squinting over at that screen but it's right here in front of us and it's fantastic much better and also thanks for the website too whatever informational you know with everything that's going on in the town I should also mention that on the screen we have Cablevision fees which I have being uh reduced by fifty thousand dollars year to year these are fees we received from our Charter Communications it's based on cable TV subscriptions that you know people are unplugging it's kind of been trending down it's uh it's not dropped as quickly as I thought I might but uh but I felt I need to reduce it by at least 50 000 year to year so well and I'm glad you brought that up because um um where is my friend Lauren Kelly sorry our rap for Charter Charter which is really Spectrum cable um a couple weeks ago I had reached out to her and with Paul's help um we showed what the last five year trend is on these uh on these uh fees and their their franchise fees it's essentially a percentage of the spectrum cable bill that is tied to the town and uh to give some perspective in 2018 the town got 614 000 from that and in 2022 we're down to 533 000.

so over that five years it's reduced by 13 and a half percent I'm not sure what it'll be for 2023 still trending down my question to our rap was like uh because I understand how it's charged to the Spectrum Bill and anybody that has Spectrum cable uh your bill always goes up so it could give a a false sense that this is only reducing over five years at 13 percent but my question was well how many cable subscribers have reduced over that period of time yeah I know I think it's more than 13 but we don't have the answer and the only reason I really want to get that information or we should get it is is just so we're not caught where there's a huge drop of this if we're budgeting around you know a half a million dollars plus of these franchise fees that's not an insignificant amount of money and and we're just trying to proactively get in front of it and uh as of now I don't have that information back from our rep of really what is our what's the subscriptions for cables and not not internet we don't get paid on internet connectivity it's cable TV that's how the franchise fees work so I don't really want to know if somebody has Spectrum internet and what they pay for that we don't get paid franchise fees on that we get it when they are Spectrum cable TV subscribers so we'll we'll keep hitting on that because uh half a million Buck is is nothing to sneeze at a lot of money yeah so any questions on that foreign well I think and I had a schedule unless the board or anybody else has any questions or comments I think that concludes the first budget workshop for 2024.

thanks that concludes it