The Selectboard and Town Plan an Override

A transcript of the Selectboard meeting for Monday, December 9, 2024

Here’s the full transcript of the Monday Selectboard meeting.

It looks good, much better than free transcription services, but it may still contain an occasional error that I did not catch (e.g., Rainey Read). Readers can check the accuracy of the transcription by comparing it with the timestamps here and the original video here.

I’ll have analysis tomorrow.

The Transcript

Jared Collingwood of 621 West Street Speaks in the Open Forum

Hi, my name is Jared Collingwood. I live at 621 West Street.

Dear members of the Selectboard, we, the undersigned, respectfully request that the town of Duxbury fund its town departments, including the schools, beyond the 2.5% level funding recommended by the School Committee. As members of the school community, we strongly believe that underfunding these departments will not have an immediate or detrimental effect but will harm our students and schools in the long term.

Many of us have been actively engaged in the school budget process—attending School Committee meetings, voicing our support for adequate funding for our schools, and expressing concerns about the consequences if funding is not increased. While we understand and appreciate the financial constraints of the town of Duxbury, we believe it's crucial to prioritize the future of our community and our children. Their education and well-being should not be sacrificed because we are unwilling to request additional funds from our town residents.

It is simply unacceptable to use the excuse that the requested funding exceeds our current budget. Our young citizens, who are unable to advocate for themselves, need us now more than ever to stand up, make difficult decisions, and invest in their future. The residents' voices deserve to be heard rather than ignored.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to your response and hope that you will take the necessary steps to ensure the future of Duxbury.

Signed,
Alden teachers: Anna Newcomb, Dawn Hastings Eli, Kelly Murray, Katelin Holt, Kirsten Baric, Jake Sheptyk, Lynn Rinkus, Lori Aldrich, Shannon Dole, Lindsey McNeil, Cynthia Scully, Rebecca Wigmore, Jamie Rossetti, Melissa Bateman, Doug Backlund, Carrie Fryer, Nicholas Tam, Courtney McDonough, Rachel Stadelman, Jenny Easter-Nelson, Abby Clemens, Paula Theophilis, Katherine Dunovan, Michelle McKay, Doug Sukala, Amy Ball, Jessica DeBona, Lori Devine, and Duxbury residents and Alden teachers, myself Jared Collingwood, Laura Neprude, Aaron Martin, Connie Roland, Karen McKenna, Annie Crago, Abby Armstrong, Jen Burns, Lisa Neesey, Aaron Mealy, Kathleen Hanlon, Kelly McWilliams, and Priscilla Neesey.

Thank you.

I will leave this here for you.

Selectboard Clerk Brian Glennon II

Thank you, Mr. Collingwood. We will be entertaining comments about the budget agenda item. We're happy to take many, and I'm sure we will hear many more. Are there any other items for open forum—things that are not on our agenda for this evening? Okay, hearing none, we'll move right into new business with the discussion regarding the town manager budget recommendations, and I would like to start, please, with Mary concerning revenues.

Is this for us? Testing? Okay, fantastic.

Finance Director Mary McKinnon

Well good evening everyone. My name is Mary McKinnon. I'm the town's finance director and I thank you all for coming out this evening. I for one am glad that we changed the venue in order to accommodate everybody here joining us tonight.

As we begin our discussion about the budget tonight, we need to remind ourselves of our objective and that is to build a balanced budget for FY26. A balanced budget is one where sustainable revenues are available to cover our expenditures. If you remember back to my very first presentation when I arrived here in Duxbury a little over a year ago, I made clear that we would be able to balance the budget for fiscal 25 but that FY26 was facing a structural deficit.

As a result for this year's budget directive, our department heads were asked to prepare two versions of their budget for the very first time. The first version was expected to be a conservative level funded budget with no more than a two and a half percent increase and the second version was to reflect a real needs budget that addresses the years of cuts and constraints that our departments have faced.

Our department heads did just that and what we found, our department heads did just that and what we found was that the inflationary pressures on so many areas of our budget made it very difficult and impossible in some cases to stay within the two and a half percent increase requested. In both cases or both variations of the budget we saw a structural deficit.

Under option one there is an almost 2.2 million dollar gap. The town manager needed to make reductions in many areas in order to prepare and deliver the balanced budget that you will see tonight. Before we get there I'd like to spend some time talking about revenues and how we got to this point. I believe some handouts are going around the room and one of those handouts should be a one-page budget summary.

What I am showing up here in terms of charts is an excerpt from those handouts so if you don't currently have them feel free to grab them on your way out the door. But that one-page budget summary is an estimate for our FY26 budget and it reflects both our revenues and our expenditure plans. So this chart at the top here is the excerpt from our budget summary document showing our funding sources available to support our operations.

What I've highlighted here with the green square is the revenue source called our property tax levy. In other words this is the amount generated from all real estate and personal property tax bills in the town of Duxbury. For FY26 that amount starts with the prior year's levy of $67,905,776. It is then increased by two and a half percent as per proposition two and a half. This results in an increase in available revenues of $1,697,644.

The next step is to add new growth projected for the fiscal year. New growth is all of the new construction, new housing starts or modifications to existing properties such as new decks, new roofs, new pools, something new to an existing structure that has not hit the tax rules before. For FY26 we are estimating $500,000 for new growth.

All of that told becomes our levy limit or the maximum amount that we can generate by taxation across the whole town. In this case that revenue source has grown by 3.24%. The amount of debt approved by voters for debt excluded projects is then added and in FY26 that amount is $5.8 million. That section in the green square represents 80% of the town's total revenues. That's very important to note. 80% of our revenues come from taxation and that 80% is restricted by proposition two and a half.

Our other funding sources are state aid, local receipts and other available funds. So let's take a look at those. State aid which covers or supports about 9.2% of our budget. For FY26 we project state aid to grow by 2.84% which equates to $241,000. This 2.84% increase is based on a five-year rolling average. However, at the same time that the state provides us funding in the form of state aid, they also take it away in the form of assessment charges. We'll see those in a minute.

Local receipts is the area of funding where we spend the most time trying to find ways to maximize this revenue source. It includes items that we control here at the local level. Things like transfer station permits, beach stickers, meals excised, cemetery fees, interest rates. We spend a lot of time discussing fees and at the end of the day this supports 9.6% of our budget. And we are seeing year over year declines in many of these revenue sources. Some of those include boat excise, penalties and interest, sewer revenues, transfer station revenues, departmental fees, building permit on over $700,000.

We've lost revenues from other sources which Rene will mention and for the last several years we have had unexpected sources of funds materialize such as COVID and ARPA monies. Those were temporary in nature but they helped the town stay afloat in turbulent waters. In FY 23 the state adjusted their chapter 70 formula and provided new student opportunity funds. Those funds are what has primarily carried the town for the last few years. It seems that with each year's budget cycle it becomes more and more difficult to balance the budget. Yet there seemed to be either a state or federal relief that somehow provided a small window of opportunity to balance our budget. However, those revenue streams no longer exist.

So the message with revenues is that when 80% of your budget is funded by property taxes and those revenues are constrained by 2.5% per year it becomes very difficult to support the inflationary increases along with state mandates and a competitive labor market. So now let's take a look at our expenses. You will see that the overall departmental expense budgets increased by a collective 1.93% or $1.7 million. And then in addition to the departmental budgets we have to factor in other charges that fall outside of the departments which include things like collective bargaining, the beach lease, those state aid charges that I mentioned a moment ago. And lastly our overlay account. This is the account that is a component of our budget that is used to support all of the abatements, exemptions and our beloved senior work off program in our budget.

And from all of these departmental budgets I need to remind everyone that we are a service organization. We provide education, public safety, culture and recreation, health and human services and so much more. If you look at our budget you will see that almost 74% of our budget is people. It's a very high level of service. And it's a very high level of wages and benefits for the people who provide the high caliber services here in the town of Duxbury. All of the other expenses comprise 26% of our spending. And so when we have to make reductions it becomes incredibly difficult and has a negative impact on our staff and the services that we provide.

Town Manager Rene Read

Good evening. The FY26 operating budget I present to you this evening is balanced, however not in a way that any of us would prefer.

By way of background, for many years the town of Duxbury has been able to provide remarkable high quality services to our residents while carefully managing expenses and meeting our fiduciary obligations. The town has developed and refined our financial management policies and those principles have set forth the broad framework for overall fiscal planning and management of the town of Duxbury's resources for both current and long term activities. At last year's March annual town meeting I explained that the revenues for our current FY25 budget environment were not keeping pace with the rising costs of maintaining our high quality services and that we were grappling with supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and fluctuations in the prices of goods and goods.

Some aspects of the FY20 budget were funded in part through the use of ARPA federal funds that we knew would not be a budget task force or SBTF with the understanding that sustainable would mean a financial forecast that uses realistic assumptions, what has happened and how did we get here. Since the time of their first update to the select board, the SBTF has been carefully outlining the key factors that have been contributing to the city's economic growth. The city of Duxbury's perennial challenge is 2.76% but from 2020 to 2023 is 2.76% but from 2020 to 2023 is 5%. Post pandemic pricing for goods and materials purchased by the town, increased service expectations, a competitive labor market, higher costs for current and future benefits, rising expenses for risk management such as school safety and cybersecurity, deferred maintenance of buildings and grounds, escalating vendor prices, expenditure growth has outpaced revenue growth, any new revenue sources if identified require time, they are not solutions for the budget gap in the short term.

The inability to grow revenues outside of the tax levy to a meaningful capacity. There are limited business opportunities, there are no commercial sectors large enough to shift the burden away from the business sector, no billboards or cannabis industry, parking meters or solar arrays, et cetera. I want to note the lack of these options is not necessarily negative nor should they be construed as options being endorsed or considered since they constitute much of the reason why people may choose to live in Duxbury however they are still factors in limited revenue growth. Also the loss of revenue sources over the years. Some of the estimated revenue loss examples include the Pilgrim Nuclear power Plant aid to the Fire Department on the order of $85,000 a year. Essar grant funding to the tune of $746,000. ARPA and COVID funding are exhausted and that was $4.5 million. Earmarks were reduced in 2024, a dollar amount of $67,500. Beach sticker revenues, five-year decline totaling $690,000. Members of the task force are here this evening and they will be providing their findings and recommendations shortly.

The FY26 budget process. As the SBTF was providing their updates to the board and continuing their review, the budget process commenced in August of this year and each department head was asked to prepare two budget scenarios for FY26 utilizing the following guidance. First, a level-funded budget which was a stabilized part of the budget process. argue that post FY26 budget requested needs which might have man spending, plus no more than a two-and-a-half increase plus number two, a to either reduce services to bring the FY26 budget into balance or to raise the limit on property tax growth to maintain services. The result and impacts of the option one budget, excuse me, the level funded budget, even with a 2.5% increase is balanced. However, to do so created tremendous challenges and results in very serious ramifications on each of our departments.

The end result is a cut and or a diminishment to services and programs in almost every department in addition to a reduction to staffing levels in several departments. In the school department alone, there would be a reduction in staff of 24 full-time positions and Dr. Klingelman is here this evening to provide additional information about those impacts shortly. Under the general government heading, employees in 13 positions across 11 town departments or divisions would be laid off.

These reductions will create extreme pressure on other employees to absorb the workload within their respective department. In the finance accounting department, there would be one position eliminated, the assistant town accountant. In the finance department in the assessor's office, an administrative assistant would be eliminated from that position. In the DPW management division, the DPW office manager would be laid off. Municipal services would be the administrative assistant to the Board of Health. That shouldn't say ZBA, by the way. The select board would be the administrative assistant to the select board. The fire department would lay off two firefighters. The police department would lay off two patrolmen positions. The DPW mechanic in the vehicle maintenance division. Another DPW employee, equipment operator in the highway division, a skilled laborer in the highway division and a skilled laborer in the lands and natural resources.

The impacts. In the Select Board Office, with the support staff reduced and the capacity of the remaining employees increased, the number of board meetings will need to be reduced to keep up with the workload, which is the loss of one minute taker and the loss of one meeting packet preparer and distributor. There will be a delay in preparing minutes, difficulty responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, liquor licensing will slow down, challenges providing customer support, et cetera. In the assessing department, reductions in staffing will result in office closures to walk-in customers one or two days a week to allow the remaining staff to keep up with the workload. Tonight you will hear from several of our department heads who would also be faced with these challenges as a result of the proposed reductions in the hours of layoffs. But even with all of the cuts to be made, the overall problem will remain. Any existing budget gaps or deficiencies would still not be corrected.

Last week, notice was provided to the employees of the potential layoffs in order to help them understand our tough financial position, explain to them that the town values them and the importance of their positions and to let them know that the recommended layoffs were in no way a result of their performance. Perhaps most importantly, I wanted to let each of them know personally all of these factors face to face so that they wouldn't be caught off guard or surprised when these decisions were discussed publicly. During our one-on-one meetings, we were careful to point out that possible layoffs are just that, providing their recommendation with that, excuse me, and with that, our work will continue on to the next steps related to the FY26 budget.

In closing, I want to extend my thanks and gratitude to all the department heads and staff members for the work they have done to help with this process, and I truly appreciate their efforts. Also, my sincerest thanks to our finance director, Mary McKinnon, as well as each of the sustainable budget task force members, and they are Mary McKinnon, our finance director, Dr. Danielle Klingeman, the school superintendent, Lisa Freely, the school department business director, Betsy Sullivan, the finance committee member, Alex Chen, fiscal advisory committee member, Laurel Deacon, school committee member, and Fernando Guitart, select board member.

And this is the most important part. I encourage all of our residents to stay informed, be involved, attend meetings, listen, ask questions, and offer solutions at any time. So the audience is aware we have about seven more speakers, then we'll have discussion among the board members, and then everyone will have an opportunity to address the town, ask questions, make comments. I appreciate that so many people have shown up tonight, given your time, and rest assured, we will provide plenty of time for you to make any presentations or comments you'd like to provide to us.

Danielle Klingaman, School Superintendent

Good evening. Is this working? Okay. We first presented the school department's anticipated FY26 budget needs to the school committee on November 6th. At that time, we shared our real needs budget scenario, and we shared that the level funded scenarios would be devastating to the school district. The level funded, or budget option one, will represent anywhere from 18 to 24 reductions in district staff members, including teachers, administrators, tutors, and other school personnel. Significant expense reductions, including learning materials and resources, will also be required in the level funded reduction scenario.

Throughout this FY26 budget process, I have shared that the real needs budget represents the current level of services that our students are receiving in the 2024-2025 school year. This school year is the first year in recent memory that our school district is adequately staffed with supports in place for students in the general education classroom setting, as well as for students who require small group intervention or extra support. Also in place this year is special education department infrastructure support, which has been severely lacking in recent years.

Our real needs budget also includes several consolidations of staffing due to enrollment numbers to demonstrate that we look for operational efficiencies in staffing whenever possible. Our real needs budget maintains equity and access to universal full-day kindergarten, keeps class size at appropriate levels, maintains our operational infrastructure, and allows for our educators to be compensated at appropriate levels.

We are not requesting additional staff members as part of our real needs budget. In fact, we have consolidated almost six FTEs. The level funded reduction budget will have a devastating impact on our school district and will be detrimental to our students and teachers. As I said, we will be facing the elimination of up to 24 positions across the district.

With the reduction budget, there will be inequity in access to high quality learning, class sizes will increase at many levels, course offerings will be impacted at the secondary level, there will be an increased financial burden on our school-aged families, and we our educators will not be compensated at appropriate levels, and our facility costs will continue to be underfunded. The district operations that our families have come to expect will suffer. We have worked hard to rebuild learning post-pandemic and have corrected some destructive gaps in our pre-K-12 educational programming.

We now have intervention opportunities at all levels, including at our middle and high school. We are seeing our students succeed academically as well as socially and emotionally. We have heard from our educators that current conditions enable them to focus on teaching and meeting the needs of their students. We are seeing improved assessment scores, gains in attendance, and now have career pathways and increased real-world opportunities for students.

We have moved up in the rankings as a top performing school district. Our current conditions allow us to be student-centered, and we are seeing, most importantly, increased levels of joy in our schools. Throughout the fall, I have shared with the school committee that Duxbury residents cite its high-quality school system as its most valued community asset. I have seen that pride in our schools in my day-to-day interactions with Duxbury residents. At this moment, I fear that the high-quality school system is at risk unless drastic measures are taken to ensure that appropriate funding for the schools becomes available in the coming months. Thank you.

Betsy Sullivan, Chair of the Finance Committee, member of the Sustainable Budget Task Force

I'm going to speak for a moment here because I want to see you. So a lot of what we did and a lot of what we have been working on has been already covered by Mary and Rene and Danielle. The Sustainable Task Force was not called together because we were surprised by what was facing us. Rather, it was because we knew that this was going to come to pass. I think the biggest question that we've heard from the community is why now?

know Mary's covered a bit of it, but I think it goes back further than that. We have made a conscious decision to live in a community that is predominantly residential, does not have a commercial tax base, values conservation land and the preservation of our natural resources. And I don't regret any of those choices. I think that we have chosen to live in a certain way and I think it's because many of us, that's why we're here and why we stay. This is the cost of that. The bill is due.

We are now at a point where because of COVID and because we have had inflation and we kept up from say 89 on inflation was around 3%. And our increases to our tax levy also around 3%. We'd also get every now and again a gift or a mitzvah from the federal government or from the state and we'd be able to do some of the things. We've done the building that we did and Mary pointed it out in our revenue with debt exclusions. And that means that some of the buildings that we have built, the high school, middle school, the police station, things that we needed to replace, there were not things that were done arbitrarily, but that debt exclusion was then a part above the levy. So it wasn't impacted by Prop 2.5.

COVID hits, everything shuts down. The budget only grows by less than half a percent, 0.4%. The next year, as Rene pointed out, we had a lot of money, as you can recall, from the federal government, from the state, COVID, ARPA, ESSA, all of the acronyms. And it helped us get through. But our tax levy did not continue to grow. These were on top of, other than the levy. And so when we came back, the levy then grew a little over 3%, but we had already lost a year and it's cumulative.

We have now faced, with inflation during that time being 5%, we have outgrown what we were able to raise as far as the levy. This task force has gotten together and I cannot say enough wonderful things about our finance director. We have challenged her to provide us with the data. I promised at the last town meeting as finance that we were going to have a data-driven examination of what we had, the monies that were available, and what we needed to do. And when I tell you that she came through for us with

Rene, it's unbelievable, the data and the research that this woman has done. We have talked to our department heads. Nobody's coming in and is looking for Santa Claus to come down the chimney. Basically, they have explained that over the course of years, and this is my expression, I call it duct tape budgeting. We have prided ourselves on being able to balance our budget. And by doing so, some things we realized during the task force had not been accomplished. Facilities and keeping up with some of these fabulous buildings that you've been so generous to give us have not been maintained or not been able to maintain in what I would, I, Betsy, would perceive to be an appropriate manner.

We have done a good job, but we haven't, we have built the buildings but we have not kept them up the way I think we should have. And it's caught up to us. There are things now that need to be replaced and looked at and we need to do that job. The police chief, and I have spoken with him on numerous occasions, I have two hats, finance task force, and he has the same number of sectors and patrol going on in town as we did back in the 70s when we had half the population we have today. That doesn't even make sense. So he's come up with a very modest plan as to how to make that better and at the same time make sure that our overtime is less of a burden for the town.

Fire chief, same thing. He's data on how many calls he gets, where he has to go, what happens when he gets there, the times that are acceptable to this community as far as what we can wait for, an ambulance to come up to the door or if there's smoke in the kitchen to put out the fire. And because of the fact that this new budget cuts his staff, that level of service isn't going to be out there. It's not a threat. It's just a fact. The schools have spent a great deal of time, they have explored their budget, and everybody is not happy with what this balanced budget has brought. I could go through every single department.

But the one thing that I would like everybody to remember is this is a definition of the problem. We were charged with defining our assets and what that would buy. What we could do with the monies that we had foreseeable for FY26. That is exactly what we did. Right now, the finance committee, the finance director, the schools, we are now having a different challenge. And that challenge is defining the solution. And we have the task force is recommending to the select board that a warrant article is added for an override. It's nothing any of us want, but it is something that is going to be necessary if we would like to continue to operate the way that we are operating in a meaningful and appropriate manner. And that's where we are now. I haven't got any great answers for you. Don't ask what the override is going to be because that's the solution. And we have taken since last May to define the problem so that we could come to you and answer any question about how did we get here, where is the dollars coming from, where are the dollars being spent.

And we have done that. And I will tell you that I personally, if anybody has a group, the Senior Center, somebody's house, I don't care. As obviously I don't have much fear of public speaking. I will be happy to come and answer any questions and talk to people about what we can do, why we are here, and where we would like to go. And in the meantime, we are going to work with Mary and Rene, Danielle, Lisa, everybody at the schools, Sheila, who joined us as the head of the DPW. What a fun time. And we are now going to be working to see what is it exactly that we need. Will the real needs budgets that these departments have offered to us be filled? I don't think so. Maybe not. In some cases, yes. In some cases, we are going to ask them to think about it a little bit. But we will be able to come back to you and once again, with data, tell you what we need and what that contribution from the taxpayers in this town will get you and what it will cost you.

I don't know what else. Everybody is covered with everything at the task force. If anybody has any questions later, I'm happy to try to answer them. But that's basically been the bundle of work to date. But we have, if you walk out of here with one thing, just this, we have defined the problem. We have defined where we are and now we need to figure out the solution. That's where we are. And we will get there before town meeting and be able to present to you exactly what that means. Ahead of time, we will have it done before March. It's not going to be a surprise party. But we will get that information and we will be able to share it with you.

And then, as always, town meeting will decide what we do next. We needed to pass a balanced budget because if we don't have a balanced budget on the books and an override does not prevail, we could not conduct business. We need to be able to conduct business even if it is at a much reduced level. So that is why the balanced budget was passed and it had to be. And it has to be passed again at town meeting because we have to have that in the bank. We have, then we move on to, I don't know what we call it, a contingency budget.

Does that work? And the contingency budget would be with the override and what that means. And we would hope at that point the task force hopes that we can be enough of persuasion, enough of information for all of you so that you will support that decision so that the community can continue to provide what everybody here wants to provide and what the community expects us to provide. Thank you.

Library Director, Denise Garvin

Hi. Thank you for having me here. Can you hear me? So the library is currently open for 22 Sundays a year. We do that during the school year so that the kids can come in. Sunday is actually our busiest day per hour. We have, in FY24, we had 57 people per hour on Sunday and that's compared to about 48 Monday through Saturday. So it's very used. The kids, the college kids, home on the weekend, they need to, you know, get that quiet time away from their families. And then we have the kids in high school who wait to the last minute all the time. We also host our very popular Sunday arts and culture series. The Friends of the Library hosts that. That's sort of a showcase thing for them.

So without that, they'd struggle a little bit with their PR. It might cut into the donations that they get, which would affect the library. Do you have any questions? We're going to take questions at the end. Okay, very good. I'm sure there will be questions. Sure. The other thing that we talked a lot about a couple years ago was the MAR. The budget that I submitted, the Option 1 budget, was $25,000 lower than our current budget. I took it right down to the bone. Because I was able to. We had a low year and that three-year average. For FY26, I could take some money out of the budget and we'd still be okay with the MAR. Cutting our Sunday hours takes about $23,000 out of the budget. We will not make the MAR. That puts our state aid in jeopardy. That's about $40,000 a year. Great. Thanks, Denise.

Municipal Services Director, Jim Waslewski

Good evening, everybody. I don't typically like to read from a letter, but as Betsy tells, I tend to speak a little, go on a little bit and ramble. But I do appreciate Betsy. She's incredibly eloquent and everyone else here has done an amazing job. I just wanted to briefly talk about some of the impacts that would happen in our department, specifically with the Board of Health and how that interplays, and I'm just going to read through this.

So we're facing the elimination of our administrative assistant on the Board of Health side. The elimination of the principal assistant position for the Board of Health would have a profound impact on the health department and it impacts the zoning board that I'll get into in a second and the public. This position is critical for ensuring compliance with health regulations, managing administrative operations, and providing essential support for licensing and public inquiries. The loss of this role will severely overburden existing staff, delay critical services, and jeopardize the health department's ability to meet its obligations.

The key detriments of eliminating the principal assistant position include the following. Delayed permit processing and renewals, septic, and this includes septic, food establishment, and other health permits that will be delayed, impacting homeowners, businesses, and contractors. Delayed Title V and inspection requests, scheduling and processing septic, reviews, perc tests, and inspections will slow down, risking compliance with state sanitary codes. Reduced office coverage, public inquiries via phone, email, walk-ins will face significant delays, leading to frustration and reduced service delivery. I'm going to go off script for one second. Our department, I've been a builder for 30 years, and I've worked with many other departments around, and we constantly get compliments about how well we execute in our department.

I'm talking from contractors and other people we deal with that are so appreciative on how quick we are to respond. I don't want to fall into that category that other communities have to deal with, and I've dealt with many of them as a builder. So this little role that we have here is an important key part that helps us to move everything that we move in there. Some of the other things are this position also would result in delayed alcohol licensing and fee management. That's processed through our department, through this person. That includes processing, tracking, managing liquor licenses, including coordinating with state agencies, and they'll fall behind, disrupting businesses that depend on these approvals. I'm not sure how we can handle that and absorb that in our department. Increased workload for the health inspector and health agent, critical field work and inspections will be reduced as these staff members will absorb the administrative duties, compromise and compliance efforts. The negative impact on the zoning board tasks, our health inspector, who is a fairly new position that we didn't have in town, is also tasked with handling the ZBA administrative function.

Without that position, she'll be absorbing a lot more of the duties in the health department, and then I've got this whole of who's going to handle my ZBA administrative assistant role. I don't have the answer to that right now, and I'm hoping we don't get to that point. But that's another big impact that is highly critical in the process of all these special premises that we have in town. The risk of noncompliance with state and local regulations, failure to maintain proper records, track deadlines, and meet reporting requirements could result in legal and financial consequences. Delayed Board of Health meeting coordination, agendas, meetings, and required legal notices will be delayed, hindering transparency and communication with the public, something we don't want. Comprised communicable disease and vaccine management. This is process reports, vaccine orders, stock management will face delays, public health risks. Disruption in financial work flows, managing escrow accounts, processing payments, and preparing deposits will slow down impact in departmental finances and work flows.

We hope that we don't get to that point. We hope that we continue to provide an excellent service to this community. It's a great community. When I left being a builder, was one of and wanted to get into this career, this town was one that I highly, I definitely wanted to work here because everyone here does an excellent job. We work together as a team to provide the best service we can for this town. And I don't want to see that impacted.

Public Works Director Sheila Sgarzi

Hello. I wasn't really prepared with this speech. I did provide Rene with kind of an overview of what we expect. It's really hard to predict just what the implications are going to be for DPW. If you look at those 13 positions being cut on the town side, five of them are in the DPW.

Okay. Full staff DPW is 49 full-time positions, two part-time positions. Cutting five positions is 10% of our staff. But it's just, it's not going to be a 10% reduction in services. Just the way the cuts happened, it's disproportionate across our department. We've got to cut in administration. So that's answering phone calls, processing payments, payroll. So residents will see that when there's no one available to answer the phone. Highway, that's two positions out of nine. That's a 22% reduction. These are your boots on the ground. These are the people that respond to snow and ice. That's a big hit. Lands and natural resources, one position. Vehicle maintenance, one out of three. 33% of the department. That means we may not be able to get to the police cars. We may not be able to keep them on the road. Snow and ice, things break all the time during storms. We don't have mechanics because we're going to have to send them out on the roads to plow. What happens? Snow and ice response. School is going to be closed more frequently or there'll be delayed openings.

Less people, we just can't do everything. Transfer station, the hours are going to be cut as a means to try to save overtime. So there's a lot of repercussions for us. Honestly, some of the fallout is happening right now. I've got my staff saying why us? Why five of our positions? Is this how the town feels about us? Morale is low. And that's the challenge to manage. It's hard for me to get up as a department head and say your jobs are safe. You're valued. So I wish I could be positive. Obviously this isn't a positive discussion. But it's particularly hard for us in the DPW.

Fire Chief Rob Reardon

I'm Rob Reardon, your fire chief. Until now you haven't had to worry whether a fire truck or ambulance would arrive when you call 911. With fewer firefighter paramedics, we can no longer guarantee that same level of response we have today. The proposed cuts to your fire department would return our shift staffing to 1979 levels, 50% of the time. We are not able to predict or plan when we respond to emergencies. And the inconsistencies of a staffing shortage would mean a level of unpredictable service we could provide to the town. Staffing matters when you or a loved one are having the worst day of your life. What level of care do you want when a loved one needs us?

Since 1979, we have seen an 181% increase in requests for services. That's a staggering number. Last year your firefighters responded to over 3,000 emergencies. Think of how much has changed since 1979, 45 years ago. One thing that has changed very little is our staffing at the fire department. In 1979, we had one ambulance that was staffed at the basic level support. Today we have three advanced life support ambulances staffed with paramedics that brings in over $1 million to this town.

Due to a current staffing shortage, last year we recalled firefighters 245 times from their homes. That's two of every three days we are bringing back firefighters. These firefighters had to drop everything and respond from their homes, leaving their families to protect yours. This is unsustainable. We have been telling you about this for years. Laying off two of our firefighter paramedics, they're dual jobs and only firefighters, if a fire comes in, they're on an engine. If there's an ambulance call, they jump on the ambulance. If we lay off two firefighter paramedics today, it means compromising the protection and security you rely on. To reduce the impact of an emergency, there needs to be a response of the right number of trained people with the right equipment in the right time.

This is not a scare tactic. We rely heavily on these other departments. It's not just us. If there's a snowstorm and we can't get through the roads, we're going to be delayed. We're looking at 60 mile an hour windstorm in two days. If we don't have police officers and the DPW to help us, all these departments we rely on heavily. It's not just your firefighter paramedics. As your fire chief, my top priority is ensuring we can protect lives and property when it matters most while safeguarding the well-being of our firefighters. Thank you for your continued support. And if you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them.

Police Chief Mike Carbone

I hate to have my back turned to everybody, but I guess that's the way to set this up. I'm chief Mike Carbone. First of all, a lot of what I'm going to say is we've already heard this numerous times. I've had this discussion with many of you. But I'd like to just first start off as first of all, we know the population in this town has doubled since and I'm talking about 1976.

The reason why I'm talking about 1976 because in 1976, we had the same patrol staff as we do today, the same amount of patrol staff as we do today as we as in 1976, which is crazy when you think about it. The population has doubled. The call volumes have more than doubled. Back in 1976, there was about 10,000 calls a year. In 2023, we took 27,000 calls. I guarantee you this year in 2024, we're probably like 30,000 calls.

Call complexity. The officers now, when they go to a call, it's not just like it was in 1976 when they went to a disturbance call and they said, hey, you go home and sleep it off and break up whatever's going on and that's it and maybe do a little quick report. Now, they arrive at the scene. It's usually a two officer response like it is to majority of the calls now, a two officer response. They arrive at a scene. They get statements from everybody, witnesses and so on and so forth. They may have to arrest the aggressor or whoever is the primary aggressor. Then there's a whole nother gamut to it about when you arrest somebody on disturbances, by law they have to be held for six hours now.

There's a whole dynamic now about what is mandated, what police officers have to do. A call back in 1976 might have taken half an hour, 45 minutes. Now it could take up to two hours, six hours, seven hours, depending upon the complexity of it. That means we're calling in more officers to cover the ones that are working and that happens at motor vehicle crashes. It happens at domestics.

It happens that somebody makes an arrest for an OUI. OUI is no longer a simple arrest. They take hours to handle.

But first of all, I just wanted to take a moment to address the potential ripple effects of laying off two officers for the police department. This decision would have far reaching consequences, not just for the department, but as a town as a whole. Here are some of my key concerns. First of all and first and foremost officer safety and public safety. Reducing staff means that fewer officers are available for patrol coverage, which would lead to longer response times and less proactive policing. That's just common sense. Less officers, it's going to take longer to get there. Calls aren't going to be handled like they should be.

As you know, and I've said this a million times, we are no longer just peacemakers. Police officers were referred to as the peacemaker. Well, now we're not only that. We're peacemakers and we're problem solvers. These officers go to calls now. They're required, if not mandated, to solve the problem or at least attempt to solve the problem. And that's the truth. And it's all good. It's the way it should be. But it takes time and it takes personnel to do that.

Officer safety. This increases the potential risk of crime rates and limits our ability to provide critical programs like school resource officers, traffic enforcement, and community policing. You cut my patrol staff, I'm going to have to cut services. And that's what this town wants. It's what this town has always had. Officers may face situations without adequate backup, increasing the likelihood of injuries and potentially exposing the town to liability issues. Officers, basically every call is a two officer response. If officers start to go to calls by themselves, you're going to see injuries and a lot of other bad things can happen. And we all know that.

And then let's just talk about the officers, the morale and retention. Fewer officers mean remaining staff will be faced increasing workloads in order to work additional shifts, leading to higher stress, burnout, and the risk of resignations or lateral moves to other agencies. That happens. Trust me, it happens. I see it in other departments.

Our police department has been moving forward in a positive manner for the last several years. We don't need to go backwards. This is a devastating situation we're in. And overtime costs. Well, vacant shifts have to be filled. Okay? The days of running light with one or two patrol cars in the town of Duxbury is over. We can't do that anymore. So shifts have to be filled. And all these vacant shifts, officers have vacation time, they have sick time, that's all contractual. They have to be filled. So that means significant increases in your overtime. And it will put a strain on the existing budget that's already a strained budget once it's even presented.

So as it stands, we are already struggling to meet the demands due to higher call volumes, population growth, mandated requirements, and the time required for modern day policing. Rather than reducing staff, we need to focus on increasing the staff to keep pace with these challenges. It's as simple as that. And, you know, I've had this conversation with Betsy numerous times, with town manager, and I just, I could go on and on, and I welcome anybody out there to contact my office, and I can go into detail about way calls are handled today, the complexity of the calls, and what it was like compared to 1976 and today, and how we're still dealing with the same patrol staff. It's just not feasible anymore. And I can't stress it enough. I really can't.

Brian Glennon II

Thanks, Mike. Are there any other department heads that we didn't call on who are here and wish to address the slack board? No? All right. So now, as promised, we'll get into comments and questions first from the board, and I know we have Mike McGee who's connected remotely as well. So I'll open the floor to questions from the board.

Fernando Guitart, Selectboard member

I'd like to opportunity to make a comment. So at the previous annual town meetings, when Rene Reed, our town manager, stood up to present that year's fiscal budget, his opening statement has always been, I'm pleased to present two-year balanced budget. I never fully appreciated until today what he truly meant by the word pleased. Thank goodness we got enough money to cover our expenses. Thank goodness.

So this coming fiscal year's budget, as we all know, is different. We have a structural deficit, simply put, revenues, i.e. money coming in from taxation, local receipts, and state aid is not enough to cover expenses, i.e. the services that we ask for and want.

Why? As Betsy Sullivan shared in the sustainable budget task force update, as well as our town manager and finance director, the town has experienced a reduction in revenue, money coming in with no viable options to augment. This has been coupled with an increase in the cost of services being provided, the result of inflationary pressures, the competitive labor markets, fixed cost increases, unfunded state mandates, aging infrastructure, and over the many years, conservative budgeting.

So next steps, right? Mass general law requires a balanced budget at the annual town meeting. So address the structural deficit and present that balanced budget at the meeting. The only option available to us is to reduce expenses. As we've heard, local government is a service-orientated organization. That means people. That's 75% of the budget, and that's why it's very painful. But like I said, that's only the first step. We now have a balanced budget, which is good to have. We need to have it for the annual town meeting. We know where we are. We understand the problem. We understand the impact on town and services. And as Betsy said, we now have the opportunity to work on the solution.

So what is that next step? Tonight, the sustainable budget task force is recommending to the select board the need for an operational override. And I, as a member of task force, support that recommendation that I've made with much thought and concern. This is a big deal, a big step for our community that will have significant financial impact on all residents.

The last override was over 30 years ago. It's a decision that's not been taken lightly, and it's important that we now sit down collectively to figure our way out of this. The Selectboard, School Committee, Finance Committee, Fiscal Advisory Committee, with the support of the Sustainable Budget Task Force, let's get together, roll up our sleeves, and work on developing that solution.

We need to be open and transparent as we do, seeking input from all, working with the community to address the issues and develop that sustainable solution, a budget that meets our current needs and those of the future. So I support the recommendation of an override. It's a difficult one, but it is, we need to work on it. We need to work on it together. We need to work as a community. We need to work with respect. We need to get it done.

Cynthia Ladd Fiorini

I don't really have much to say except to thank everybody, all the department heads and the task force, for their presentations tonight and the information that they're giving to the community. As Fernando said, transparency is going to be crucial as we go through this process. Mainly, I just want to, I mean, there's a lot of people here tonight that probably, a fair number of them have something they'd like to say and I'd like to listen.

Michael McGee, Selectboard Chair

I apologize I couldn't be there tonight. I am out of town on work, and I also wanted to recognize that Amy MacNab really wanted to be here tonight. She did have an important family event, and this is important to her, and I'm sure she will be very much part of our future discussions. I'm also very grateful for our Finance Committee and our School Committee on taking votes for this balanced budget. It is required by law, and it's important that we go into this together.

We need to be unified in how we approach our funding and our services in town here, so I'm grateful for the work that you've done, and I know that you had a lot of criticism and took a lot of pressure, but it's important that we go into this together. At this point, this is a process, and that's how I'm treating it.

This isn't just the only presentation we'll be getting over the next few months or that we've already gotten. The last meeting, we got an important presentation from our assessor. The next meeting, we're getting an important presentation regarding a classification study.

As Betsy talked about tonight, there is no warrant or article drafted yet. It's not before us, and I'm looking forward to hearing from this sustainable budget task force, who's worked tremendously hard over the last year. I think they know how many meetings, but probably in the 20s, digging into the data and understanding our town finances. So where we are is a process, and we have to understand that. I think we have that responsibility. We have that responsibility for to be transparent with our community, the people that are paying these taxes and care about their services and love their town just as I do.

It's also important to be empathetic to not only the people that receive these services, but our employees. It pains me to hear about a lack of morale and just to think about how folks are feeling right now about the danger of losing their position around the holidays. It's a terrible feeling, and I just can't imagine. I just understand that you are valued. I care about you. We all care about you. And this is you make Duxbury. You run Duxbury, and you're important to all of us and our children. So I just I look forward to future discussions on this and know that I'm ready to roll my sleeves and get through this.

Glennon

Thank you, Mike. And for myself, just briefly, I'll echo Mike's point about employee morale. We are a service oriented community. Our taxpayers are paying largely for services of all the things that folks a lot of folks in this room do for the people in this town. Duxbury works hard to be a great place to work, and I'm concerned as well about issues with morale, and I think Sheila hit the nail on head.

And I don't blame anybody in any departments for having question marks over their heads. It's not what we want to do here, but I think has been explained a couple of times.

This is pro forma in terms of putting together some numbers that we're required to do by law without getting too far ahead of ourselves, and we're not going to vote on anything tonight. I do think there's great sentiment in this town to support the folks who do the hard work day in and day out in Duxbury to provide the great services to maintain the fantastic facilities. There's certainly great need for additional capital and additional resources.

So I think what we'll be hearing going forward is not necessarily whether we should have a two and a half override, but how much. At least that's in my mind where we're going. And Betsy, you put it well in saying that we've made choices to be the town that we are.

We could certainly rezone half the town and be commercial and have fewer issues in terms of finance, but then the character of the is no longer the town that we know and love it to be. So we do have our hard choices, but I want the message to be clear just to echo Mike that speaking for myself, certainly, and I think my colleagues feel the same way, that the employees of the town, the team members are highly valued, and as a member of the board, I'm certainly going to do everything I can to make sure that the fiscal issue that's before us does not adversely affect the folks in this room who do great work for us.

Ultimately, it will be up to the voters, but I don't think anybody's going to deny that we have terrific people who we want to keep and who we very much value. I do have one question, and maybe, Fernando, this would be for you or Betsy, whoever would like to get to it, and then we'll take questions from the audience.

The Sustainable Budget Task Force, with the focus on the word sustainable, I know that we don't want to find ourselves in an issue for fiscal 27. Can one of you provide maybe a little bit of flavor at a high level as to what a sustainable budget means in terms of looking forward, you know, one, two, five years, rather than, you know, just kicking the can to 27? That's going to be an important question, I think, for the voters to appreciate.

Sullivan

Yes, I will address it, but I would like to refine my comments. We need to get to work on determining what this override will look like, which is inclusive of the sustainable aspect that is so important. It is a tremendous amount of work for your staff. It's a tremendous amount of work for the task force and for finance and for fiscal, because they're directly impacted with resources that are going to be available to them to maintain and to purchase equipment that we need in the future.

We need the selectmen to come out early and agree to the fact that we will have an article for town meeting. Not the number, because that has to be determined with a lot of hard work and research. We're not going to provide a number without having the level of data that we did to define the problem. But I think it would go a long way in showing leadership, helping morale, that if the select board could agree that an override was something that you could support and that you're willing to look at, and then let us do our work and come back to you and with those numbers and the explanations as to what we feel is necessary.

I don't mean to be preachy, but why would the leopard change its spots, right? I do want to, as far as sustainable, we've had a lot of conversations about the ability to come up with a number that will not only help us accommodate the changes that we've outlined tonight, but give us the ability to maintain that without coming back and having this fun time again in a year or two. I think that the most overused and reviled words in public office and in government today are the two words, trust me.

I think that we are going to have to define what we need and be completely transparent with the community and also to allow them the choice to give us some latitude so that we have a cushion that we can then work through the next few years and figure it out and not come back. I do not guarantee another 30 years before we do this again, but resetting the clock and giving us a bit of a cushion is something that I think that the community will be open to.

One of the toughest things is that when you do an override, if the override is X number of million dollars, it does not mean that you're going to use that complete levy. It gives us the ability to have some excess capacity. But again, it is incumbent upon us with your support to define what we're asking for and determine what the excess capacity would be and give them an idea. So that's a lot of words that didn't answer your question, but at least it defines the problem. Thank you.

MacKinnon

It has been said by several people in this room tonight, but I just want to underscore, emphasize the difficulty that we faced as we encountered this situation. There are a number of decisions that had to be made. None of them were easy. None of them were pleasant. As Sheila had articulated, as well as all of our department heads, these decisions and this balanced budget have a devastating impact on this community.

I am hopeful that this community recognizes the high caliber staff and the services that they provide day in and day out and that they will come to support an operational override so that our staff may continue to provide those services that make this community the special place that it is.

And I want everyone to know that it was none of these decisions were taken lightly and they were decisions that we did not want to have to make. And we hope that in just a few short months in March that the community will recognize and support the efforts to maintain what we have today and hopefully grow some of the departments that desperately need it. And we look forward to working with each and every one of you as closely as we can to provide information to answer questions.

And I hope that folks try to really research the issues that we're facing, try to avoid miscommunication, try to avoid misinformation. Unless you're sitting in the seat and having access to the data and validating it and verifying it, please don't assume that what you read or see is accurate. We're here and available to answer questions.

We will probably be having another 24 meetings of the Finance Committee that I so look forward to. And we welcome anybody to participate in that process and ask the officials who have the information so that you are getting accurate information.

Fiorini

Before you go, Mary, just to echo your point, so about public information, I know that you have publications on the Finance Department's webpage. Is that some place you would recommend residents go if they'd like to validate and double check information?

MacKinnon

That's a very good question. So right now there is information that is available on the sustainable budget task force page of our website. But coming in a few days will be additional information with respect to the operational override recommendation. And there will be a page on the town's website where folks can go and research all of the information that we've talked about here tonight.

Fiorini

I just wanted to raise something that has not been raised yet. And I am, I just want to acknowledge that there are probably people out there that are worried about an override. That have, you know, limited ability to shift funds around. That are on a limited budget. And I want to acknowledge that and I want to hear those voices as well. So just to raise that up.

Glennon

Thank you. Just to reiterate, Cindy, you're right. This is a big deal. And it will have a significant impact on people's finances. So we need to be extremely thoughtful about how we go about doing this.

At this time I'd invite members of the public to come up and speak and ask questions or ask for clarification or shout at us. That's okay too. »» If you could just introduce yourself with your name and your street please.

Adam Hauck, Appleton Lane

Hi, my name is Adam Hauck and I live on Appleton Lane. So this is the first time I've come to one of these meetings. Fairly new to Duxbury. I've only been here about three years. And we moved up here from Florida. And the whole problem with the budgeting is something that obviously drew my attention. One major reason was the fact that I had three young children in the school system at the moment. Just starting their path towards graduation. And that was, again, like I'm sure many people have commented on, a major reason for coming to Duxbury was what we'd heard, the reputation about the school system, the quality of the teachers. And I have to say that I have been extremely happy with the job that the school system has done. We've been very happy with everything about the town.

We really enjoy living here. And I think it speaks to, as everybody's mentioned, the quality of the services that are provided here. And frankly, to me, I don't think it kind of, one question I did want to have was about this proposition, two and a half. And when exactly was that coming to, when was that enacted? 1980. Okay. So that's been around for a while. Yeah. Yes. So my personal opinion, I believe that the idea of limiting, which if I understand correctly, any tax increases to 200%, frankly, I find that ridiculous. I think the notion that we can, we're basically tying our hands, you know, when it comes to being able to afford the quality of services that we want, right? I mean, it's obvious. And you get what you pay for. And if we want these great schools, we want these great police departments, fire departments, you know, everybody, everybody that we've ever interacted with, the library, have all been wonderful. And I can't, I can't say that enough that, you know, it's obvious to me that people really do care about providing good services to the community. And so to the idea that you would limit yourself to funding these things willingly is frankly absurd to me.

So I am speaking in favor of the idea of an override, obviously, and would strongly encourage the board to consider properly funding not only the fire police, but especially the schools, because they're clearly the elephant in the room, you know, by far the largest expenditure. I think that that good school community, we've seen, you know, the results of that, even in our own kids in just a short space of time, you know, and wonderful teachers, wonderful system that we have. And it's, it really does feel like that system that is really make what part of what makes such a vibrant town is having that sense of community, that sense of, you know, belonging and having a shared interest in, in the services that we have, you know, such a good place to raise a family. That's why we're here. And the idea that we would start to lose that is, seems unconscionable to me. I think that that's not where, but not what I want to see happen.

Read

So I just want to. Thank you. Thank you. I did want to mention, I don't know if you registered to vote, but the town clerk's sitting right back over there. Oh yeah. Oh yes. I, I've, I've, uh, as soon as first on the first thing I did when I got here was registered. So I've been, I've definitely not missed any.

Priscilla Nissi, Alden Elementary School Teacher

I'm Priscilla Nisi. My husband and I bought, I live on Perry drive. My husband and I bought our first house in Duxbury in 1983. And this will be my 24th year teaching third grade at Alden School. And, um, I just want to support Betsy's request for the select board to come to a vote and show that you have the intention, even if you don't come up with a number, but express your intention to go for the override because that is what parents and families and people who value this town and what it has stood for. And, uh, that's what's just required to keep it going the way we want it to.

Jen Weeden, 180 Union Bridge

Hi everyone. My name is Jen Weeden. I live at 180 Union Bridge. I, um, I've written to you all, I've spoken at the school committee meetings, so I'm not going to regurgitate what I've already said. So I'll keep it brief. So first is I think defining the problem is the easy part. I'm not saying this is easy, but the solution space is the one that's the trickiest. I'll say the quiet part out loud and that you already have a bit of a trust deficit with some folks in town who either don't understand because they haven't dug in or they don't have the capacity to understand the minutiae. There's whispers about misinformation or worries about asymmetry of info. This tells me that we also have a lot of ambiguity and fear about what's happening at the federal level with the change of administration and their policies and the downstream impacts of that on budgets.

So that tells me that the solution space, the engagement with the community needs to be pluralistic. It needs to be principled. It needs to be transparent. We've heard that word a lot tonight and I think there's a reason for that. And it needs to be proactive. I've heard a lot of like, I'm open to talk, please come talk. I think that's amazing, but I think you need to go a step forward and find a modern and inclusive way of communicating and addressing input from the community. Keep track of the input you get. Make it transparent to people. Have informed discussions on the trade-offs that you're making and why.

And also there's a lot of citizens here, including myself, who do free labor in terms of like coming up with solutions, engaging in communities. Leverage that instinct with people because there's a lot of people in Duxbury that want to know how to get involved. They don't know or they can't come to these meetings. So perhaps there's creative ways to do that. Also, by the way, I have a website set up to help support the override and all the facts to try to get information out there because that's ready to go. Because in a vacuum, people will create their own stories. Correct. People will create narratives that fit their agendas. And we need more than that. So it's going to take active, proactive engagement. It might include hearing things that are uncomfortable for you all. But I think there's a real opportunity here and I would implore you to take it seriously and to really grab it by the horns.

Jay Zysk, 11 Valley Street, husband of Chandler Elementary Teacher Courtney Zysk

Good evening. Jay Zisk, 11 Valley Street. I'd like to begin by thanking all of you across departments, all of you sitting at the table, members of the select board, town manager, the finance director, who have worked on the budget process amid what we know is a climate of very complex fiscal challenge. The work is difficult, but the work is essential, and we're all very grateful for your service. I like Jen, I'm going to truncate my remarks a little bit. Tonight I come to argue particularly for the merits of the real needs schools budget. But before I do so, I want to say that the real needs of one department can't discount another's. And I want to acknowledge what I've heard from the other departments, and particularly thank the first responders who are seated to my left. Thank you for your service.

The real needs of one department should not discount another's. And I want to impress upon the select board the urgency with which to meet this moment. To afford we, the citizens, the opportunity to vote, to exercise our right to vote, to invest in these needs for the good of everyone. Don't take that away from us. We're in this together. The needs are real, and the time is now. When it comes to the schools, the real needs budget that has been proposed will maintain the infrastructure that we need to operate our high performing schools, to continue investments in student support and intervention, to maintain small class sizes that optimize student success, to provide universal full day kindergarten, to compensate teachers and staff with market adjustments on par with comparable districts so that we can keep them, this is a retention issue as well, and provide necessary maintenance to keep our buildings safe and operational. This is not an inflated list of wants, but an honest and competent assessment of real needs. I want to commend the superintendent and her team for their thoroughness and transparency.

Now I've spent nearly 20 years in higher education as a faculty member and an administrator. Full disclosure, my wife is a 17-year veteran of the Duxbury Public Schools, but we both feel that it's as a parent of a Chandler first grader that I'm steadiest in my convictions that the students in this town are receiving an education of the highest quality. My daughter, I have watched it, has transformed academically and socially in just a year and a half and I know that day in and day out she, along with so many others in this town, walk into classrooms where lives are transformed for the better. Let us dwell on this fact.

At this very moment we have outstanding education and educators in this town. We have in our hands visible evidence of the returns of our investments in students, teachers and staff. And I know we all know this, I know you know it, I know I know it, but it bears saying those returns are the very faces of Duxbury's future. They have names, they have dreams, they have aspirations and they have needs. And the high-performing schools that serve them and that have won our town a veritable reputation for academic excellence do not do their work in a vacuum and they are not guaranteed. Their future of promise is ours if we can keep it. So I enjoin you, members of the select board, I enjoin all present and I enjoin those who are listening at home, take to heart and meet with reason the real needs of this town. I support an override to properly and adequately meet our collective needs. Schools, fire, police, library, public works, natural resources, recreation, town administration and I also appreciate to echo the points raised that some might not agree with me and that's okay. I invite disagreement but I don't invite misinformation. So I enjoin you as well for a transparent process and efficient tools that will help us all access information reliably and easily and to combat propaganda, the skewing of the facts and the fear that we all know is out because the reality is we need to invest in our town's progress and the only way to do it is to do it now and to do it together. We'll be stronger for it, we'll be safer for it, we'll be smarter for it. Thank you very much.

Patrick Dwyer, Union President, Duxbury Fire Local 2167

Hi, my name is Patrick Dwyer. I'm the union president of Duxbury Fire Local 2167. So I stand to lose 19 teachers, two cops, two firefighters and many other positions. That equates to bigger class sizes, less available personnel to respond to emergencies.

I can't speak specifically to all the other departments but as far as the fire department is concerned, the ambulance as the chief said generates about a million dollars in revenue for the town. Less guys equals less revenue. If we're not able to get that second ambulance on the road, this town's going to see a reduction in revenue. There's also a significant cost to hire new people. We have to pay for their academy, pay for their gear, pay for their training. We've already invested quite a lot of money in our two newest members and their quality guys. I don't know if you guys know but in the fire service, 20 years ago you'd have 50 candidates trying to get a job. That is not the case anymore. It's tough to find quality candidates. Luckily with our last two highs, we were able to find two quality candidates and if we do lose them, they're going to easily get a job somewhere else very quickly.

The town also did a recent compensation study. If the town's trying to retain people or hire people in the future, it's not going to look very good when you're laying people off. If we don't remain competitive with our contracts, which if we don't get an override here, I don't see that happening. I don't see that being very good in the future for the town. The cost of everything has increased dramatically over the last five years due to the government printing trillions of dollars. That's just the environment that we're currently in. It is what it is. You can't really do much about that. If the town doesn't pass the override, you're just going to see a reduction in services and that's kind of all there is to it. Thanks for your time tonight.

Caroline Panagiotopoulos, 358 Franklin Street

Hi, my name is Damien Panagiotopoulos. My name is Caroline Panagiotopoulos. We live at 358 Franklin Street. We came on behalf of the schools basically, but not to take away, as everyone else has echoed, we don't want to take away from all the other departments. I think that we fully support police, fire, DPW, library, everything. So what my son was planning to read was that he was here tonight because he strongly believes that the full needs budget should be supported. He's a fifth grader at Alden and has had a good educational experience. My family moved to Duxbury three years ago for the school systems and we've had a great experience with the school so far. He was here to say that he doesn't want to see any negative changes at the schools, that education is very important to him and his friends, and just wanted to raise that.

Matt Gambino, School Committee

I'm not going to be here for very long. Matt Gambino, Mayflower Street. As the select board begins its deliberation of a contingency budget, I'd like to impress upon members the importance of making your considerations in good faith. I say this because in the lead up to this meeting I've listened to and participated in a number of meetings of the finance committee, the fiscal advisory committee, and the School Committee of course. In those discussions there have been terms of phrase used like, I think we all know that none of the departments are going to get everything that they want.

As a matter of fact, no department in Duxbury was directed to develop a real wants budget. The task was to create a statement of real needs. If we trust our department heads to do their jobs, then let's please recognize each real needs budget as just that. A dispassionate objective statement of the minimum investment needed to provide sufficient services to the town. I encourage the select board to begin its consideration of a contingency budget with a mindset of scrutinizing the budget, asking questions, turning things over. But I implore you not to begin your work with the mindset of, well, this is just too much to begin with. In my mind that attitude puts the town in a position of negotiating against itself right out of the gate. And I don't think that's a good idea. So you have important work to do. The community is trusting you to do it in good faith.

Joe Polini, Union President, Duxbury Police

Thank you. Joe Polini, Summer Street. I'm the union president for Duxbury police officers. I had a nice long speech written out, but I don't want to sound like a broken record here. So I'll just say this as genuine as possible for the most part. I moved to this town myself and my family shortly after I started working here. I saw how beautiful, how wonderful the community of this town was. I wanted to raise my family in this town and I wanted to be a staple in this community. Having been working in the police department, I've made great friends throughout the community. I've engaged with so many people, learned so many things about people, and I'm proud to be a servant to this community. With not going through with this override, it's going to drastically affect the patrol officers in our union. Dropping two officers, we're already short-staffed as is right now. We're below the staffing meeting. I know the chief had talked about the 1978 study or the 1976, whatever the staffing study, we are below. We are short that. Officers are getting burnt out day in and day out. They're getting forced overtime. That's additional eight hours on top of the eight hours that they're already working. When you continue to make these officers have to keep working like that, it's going against their morale. It's going against their home lives. They can't even sustain their own home because now they're getting called in. Hey, you have to come in at 4 a.m. You've got to drop everything you're doing the night before and come in at 4 a.m. and work a shift. It's daunting and it's very challenging. Myself, I was just forced for an eight-hour shift two nights ago. It happens. It affects us dramatically. Also, as the fire mentioned for negotiations coming up, things along those, we want to stay fair and competitive and we want to bring the best quality candidates of law enforcement into this community. It's hard to find. I mean, if you guys have seen the private sector is crushing municipalities, you can get a job in the private sector and make hand over fist, but then you lose the quality of candidate of person that you're trying to bring here. We're trying to bring people that want to care, the people that want to support their communities. I do this as a public servant. Yes, I could make more money elsewhere. I could use my means in other positions, but I love the job that I do and I love the people that I serve and that's why I come up here to say, and on behalf of the Duxbury Police Union, we support the two and a half percent override.

Matt Breyer, Firefighter & Paramedic

Thank you. Hi, my name is Matt Breyer. I live on Lake Shore Drive. I'm also a full-time fire fighter paramedic for the town of Duxbury. Born and raised here in Duxbury, lifelong resident, love this town just as much as everybody here and cares deeply about this community and I have kids that go to the school. My mom lives here still and this town means a lot. That's why I'm back here and a lot of other people that I know have boomeranged back to this community. I'm speaking on behalf of the fire department. No, I'm not speaking on behalf of the fire department. I'm speaking on behalf of me, but about the fire department here and about my team members back there who are passionate about this town as well. Most of them don't live here, but they give everything to this community. They care so deeply about the lives they impact every single day. When people have their worst day, they call 911, the fire department and the police department shows up, right? We're there to help solve your problems and my team members back there, we need each and every one of them to do, complete our mission and save the lives that we've saved. We've saved countless lives and maybe we don't save lives every time, but if one of your loved ones falls down the stairs, they can't get up, but we respond to that. Simultaneously, another call goes on where some landscaper, a tree falls on them and then we respond to that simultaneously. We need a full contingency of firefighters and responders to be able to make these rescues. Otherwise, people are going to get hurt and they're not going to get the help they need. They're going to rely on mutual aid communities coming 15, 20 minutes away. People are going to be impacted by that and we are in full support of the two and a half override. I don't know when the vote happens, when do you, pardon my ignorance, but when do you make a decision whether this is going to go to a two and a half override or stay or not?

Read

Let me help out there a little bit. So we've got to put the warrant together and in the warrant there'll be an article, it'll probably be article 5A, which would be the budget we talked about this evening. Then there would most likely be in the budget 5B and why do I use the number 5? Because that's the budget article, it's always number 5. 5B most likely would be the contingency budget and that would be the one that would contemplate what the override dollar amount would be. And what has to happen is I bring the warrant to the board and they look at it and they recommend, they make a recommendation as to whether or not they want to go forward with an override and then they make a recommendation on that question itself. And then the finance committee reviews the question also. The fiscal advisory committee would review the same question and then decide what they want to recommend to the voters at town meeting. And then on March 8th, Saturday, March 8th is when the annual town meeting is, the voters would then get together and we would discuss the merits of the article. We'll explain what it is and what it isn't, what it includes, what people are looking for. And then the voters there will authorize its movement from the floor by a vote so there'll be a vote on that as to whether or not it should go forward on the ballot. And then there's a ballot question that happens two weeks later which would be March 22nd and that's Saturday morning. People will go to the ballot and they'll go to the polls and they'll vote on it, yay or nay, and we'll know. It's a simple majority so all it takes is one vote to swing it and then we'll know. Thanks for your explanation. Yeah, you're welcome.

Deidre Weiler

Hi, I wasn't going to speak because I'm going to get a side eye over here but here goes. I'm in sort of a unique, well my name is Deirdre Weiler, I live at 5 Shepard's Crook. I'm in a sort of unique position. I'm a lifelong resident of Duxbury, a proud graduate of Duxbury High School, the parent of three college students who are also graduates of Duxbury High School, and the spouse of a lifelong resident Duxbury alumni and your deputy chief. Additionally, I am the proud aunt of Caitlin Sheehan who is also an employee of the Duxbury Public School System and the daughter-in-law of Friend Weiler who's on your finance committee.

But having said that, I'm a corporate attorney practicing in Boston and so I have some difficult questions for the board. While I fully support the override, I believe we need to take a hard, long look at how we got here. I don't think a lot of people in town are privy to all of this. Fortunately for me, I've been listening to deputy chief and chief having long conversations with both the board and Ms. McKinnon, so I've been aware for months and I think there's lots of folks in this town that are not aware.

You know, having said that, I think that we need to come up with a number and we need to come up with a number quick. I don't think that, I mean obviously it's work, but is there a ballpark? Like I mean when you think about like the town of Hingham, they did last year. I think they had a ballpark number months before the town meeting. We are 90 days away from town meeting. That's not a lot of time to digest and I think that it falls short on you folks. Unfortunately, I'm not criticizing but I'm just saying 90 days away from town meeting shouldn't be acceptable to us. If this means it's an 8% tax increase, we all saw our assessments just increase.

I'm willing to pay it. Most of us are likely willing to pay it, but we shouldn't be held over a barrel 90 days before town meeting. This is what we're talking about when we're saying sustainable budgeting task force. I mean we have to make it sustainable so people can plan their budgets. In my department, we just had a riff. People were given four days. Leave Friday, you're out.

I mean like this is what happens in the world and I think in we are in different circumstances here because we're able to say June 1st. It's June 1st because there could be people may not vote for it.

Our community is aging. People are over 60. They may not be willing to pay this because they're not in the financial positions that people with young families who have just moved to this town have been in. They're on fixed incomes. It's very different. So I think the sooner you guys can come up with a ballpark, the better off for the community. And I would respectfully request that that be within a matter of days. Let me offer this.

As I had mentioned in my notes, part of the process was two budgets were submitted and when they were reviewed by the Finance Committee, they were reviewed in tandem. The first one that had to be approved was the option one, but the option two is right there. So we already know, have a general sense, probably call it 90 percent complete as to what everybody needs. So now it's a matter of further refinement and believe me, this isn't something we want to hesitate on because I agree with you and in fact I think anybody that's had a hand in this process would agree with you. I just don't want to get mixed up in the period of spreadsheets. One at a time, please. The more information and the sooner the better. I totally agree. I absolutely agree.

And then one other point I'd like to point out is that when we talk about like the DPW, right, and you talk about the police department and the fire department and I'm not putting more weight on those particular departments, but you look at what they all stood up here and said.

They're operating with the levels of personnel from 1976. The school department certainly isn't. So I think that we need to like instead of getting caught up in the myriad of these spreadsheets, just tell us what the dollar is and let's figure it out. Like it's too much. Like it's back and forth and too much. I agree.

And we have Selectboard members that aren't even here tonight. And to get to that, to be able and you see you arrive at the same conclusion that I do. What's the bumper sticker? And I'll tell you if the campaign wins. To get to the bumper sticker, I've got to have all the math that goes behind it. But I need the dollar. Why don't we have it tonight, 90 days before town meeting? That's what I'm saying. Because it's a multi-step process. This is the first step in that process. Presenting this budget, making sure this one goes forward. Without this one, I can't have the second one. Understood. I understand that. That's why. It's a procedural mechanism. Believe me, I'm well versed on proposition two and a half and how it works and all of that stuff. But what I'm saying is for the community, I think the community would benefit from those difficult conversations sooner rather than later.

I totally agree. However, the importance of this first budget was it needed to be singled out first. This exercise had to occur first. Agreed. 100% agree. But we sat here and listened to the DPW. That's heartbreaking to hear. It is. It is. But then you hear, like everybody's talking about, don't listen to misinformation. There's bits and pieces throughout the town about how we may soon have an assistant town manager. We may soon have an assistant HR director. And we're going to take away the DPW people that are fixing cars? These are the difficult conversations that need to be made. Agreed. And they will be happening. I personally don't, but for my relationship with my husband, don't believe if I was just sitting in my home would have that level of transparency.

That's my point. It may seem a silly analogy, but as I have told people, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? This is the first bite. But we got to take a big bite. We do. And this is the first one. I agree with you. Thank you. We hear you loud and clear. Thank you. Just as a sideline, the Finance Committee is starting tomorrow night to start working on the contingency budget, numbers that we've already seen and reviewed to help come up with exactly what you're asking for. So it's not, it's not. So tomorrow night, that's pretty good. 24 hours. The time is 10 minutes, four, nine. Lots of folks have come. If there's anything you'd like to say that hasn't been said already, please come up and speak to us. Yes, sir. Didn't mean to surprise you like that.

Jack Herron, Fire Department

My name is Jack Herron. I'm one of the captains here in the fire department. We have four shift captains. I'm one of four. I have five other guys underneath me on my shift. I know the select board kind of has an idea of how we operate, but for the people who are here, I'm going to tell you a story. I'm speaking on behalf of my guys on my shift. I'm about to lose two new guys. One is a Norwich University graduate in the Marine Corps pipeline. The other one is a Marine Corps veteran. Both young kids fit, paramedics ready to do this job. They came here specifically to be here. They're not from this community, but they're here because of what this community offers. They love their jobs. They save lives daily. I can't say enough about them.

To me, personally, I'm at the end of my career. I look at these young guys, people you're bringing into the community. We are so lucky with the people that come and apply for jobs through the fire department. I can't speak for the other departments, but the talent that comes in here and people that other jobs are hiring. I look at these kids here. We're going to lose them to Kingston, to Marshfield, to Pembroke, someplace else. If we can't support them, let them know that they're valued and that the select board is going to push for an override. Really push that word out there. I live in Pembroke. I would vote for override my own community. Obviously, I have a vested interest, but this town can't operate without it. I think you guys have seen that. What those numbers are going to look like, I don't know. I don't think you know tonight, but I really, really would push for the override.

Glennon

Thank you. Thank you. Is there anything further from the board? And Mike, on the screen, are you okay? Questions? No, thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay. Terrific. All right. There's nothing further. We'll move on to the next item on the agenda, which is the town manager's report.

Read

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Aside from the obvious budget work we've been doing, I have one update, and that is on the seawall. Northern construction completed placing concrete on November 27th. The last placement was the angled return wall. This week, they've been finishing sealing the joints and plugging the form tie holes in the wall, installing the crushed stone drainage trench behind the wall and back filling the wall. They have completed 576 feet of wall plus the 10-foot long return wall, and in the spring, they'll have another 2,284 feet to construct. Pat Brennan, our engineer, was down there this morning and says it looks like they may have the cobblestone completed by today. That's my report.