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11/30/2023 AC Minutes 2 legislature must be received before the MSBA Board will execute a funding agreement with the Town for the project. Mr. Bartenstein asked if there would be an item on the warrant for the 2024 annual town meeting about the Article 97 land. Ms. Kosnoff stated that this was expected at a special town meeting in the fall of 2024. Mr. Levine noted that this is expected to allow for just over a year prior to town meet- ing’s vote on the main appropriation for the high school project that would be contingent on a debt exclusion referendum. FY2025 Departmental Budget Requests Mr. Parker stated that the Select Board reviewed departmental operating budget and capital requests for FY2025 on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Ms. Kosnoff provided some highlights from the Select Board hearings. The impact of all program improvement requests (PIRs) on the General Fund, if they were all approved, would be roughly $1.7 million, most of which would involve annually recurring expenses. Some of the PIRs would support one-time expenses, while others, totaling $243,000, would be funded from sources, such as an enterprise fund or a grant, other than the General Fund. Ms. Kosnoff emphasized that her department is still working on producing a balanced budget, and is behind where she would normally like to be. This is due in part to delays in producing detailed final compensation numbers for FY2025 due to recent settlements of several labor union contracts. Ms. Kosnoff stated that the new settlements of labor contracts will significantly impact FY2025. The recent Fire Department union contract settlement covers FYs 2023, 2024, and 2025. Amounts were set aside in FYs 2023 and 2024 in the Salary Adjustment Account in anticipation of the settle- ment, but the anticipated increases were not nearly as large as the negotiated increases. The net re- sult is that roughly $600,000 from the revenue allocation of $1.7 million for the municipal side will be needed to satisfy the FY2025 contractual obligations for Fire Department compensation. There have also been settlements with other bargaining units this year. There is thus only about $1.1 mil- lion available for both the usual departmental expense increases for compensation, etc., beyond the increases for the Fire Department and the program improvement requests submitted in FY2025. At this time it is not clear that any part of this $1.1 million will be available to support PIRs. Many of the PIRs are for new staffing that have been previously submitted going back several years. Priority PIRs for the Select Board include a Fire Inspector and additional Building Inspection staff which are needed to keep up with the growth in construction. The Building Inspector request is for 0.6 FTE, which would qualify for benefits. It might be possible to partner with another town to spread the impact of the benefits expense for that position. Ms. Kosnoff stated that the Town needs to consider how it funds the services needed to safely support growth, since it is engaging in poli- cies that strongly encourage growth. Ms. Kosnoff stated that her department submitted a one-time PIR for a study of water and wastewater billing rates in order to transition to quarterly billing, and to consider a rate-setting pro- cess that smooths out rate changes by looking beyond near-term cash-flow needs. Any change would have to consider feedback from committees and the public. Ms. Kosnoff noted that another Select Board (SB) priority is increasing participation in the free food waste collection program, which has been supported by ARPA funds. The Board would like to expand the program in FY2025. This aligns with the Town’s sustainability goals, and it would re- duce tipping fees for regular trash service because food waste tends to be heavy. On the other hand, the FY2024 budget assumed that new trash collection fees would be added for certain items, but the