Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Wednesday, May 6th, 2026 budget and capital improvement program workshop.

Um town manager, was this meeting properly noticed?

Yes, it was.

Great.

Um we currently only have one counselor absent being counselor Peralt.

And we have nope and uh Councilor Hicks.

We have two counselors that are absent, and we have two that are on Zoom, Councilor Wilson and Councillor Teeney.

Just so everyone's aware.

Um adjustments to the agenda.

The agenda currently is council discussion on the 2026 budget and uh 2026-2027 budget and the 2027-2031 CIP.

Um so what we're gonna do tonight, uh the managers prepared a very brief presentation just showing um what was decided on Monday, um, how that kind of uh shakes out, and then a conversation around the capital improvement program.

I'll remind everyone that this is a workshop, so we can take no official action.

Um, but if there are some CIP um measures that we want to take straw votes on before um the official uh I guess votes on Monday to lock everything in on the warrants and resolutions will happen then.

So this is kind of the last point to give input around the CIP work uh program.

And as a reminder, just for the public, the CIP, uh this is just a plan.

Uh we will uh authorize each of these individual items as they come up throughout the year, but this is kind of the plan forward or the expectations that we're setting as a council.

Any questions before I get started.

Not seeing any, I'll turn it over to the town manager to do a presentation.

Thank you.

So maybe this will be my last presentation of this budget season.

I think I counted.

There's about 16 I've done.

So you'll see recognize a number of these slides.

So the first slide, this is what we looked at on Monday to determine the splits.

The next slide.

There's been some questions about what I ended up doing about that.

So as you know, the the vote was to remove the two firefighters that would have started in January for a hundred and thousand 100,737.

I also took the liberty of um reducing the budget by the amount of the fuel savings that we expect because we were able to lock in the fuel rates, and I added back the IT um software challenge that I shouldn't have cut in the first place.

Um that basically nets to that kind of nets to the same thing.

So the total adjustment was 103,961, and it's those three things, and that's what has changed from the manager's proposed budget.

And then the next slide is what you will be looking at on Monday.

So this comes to the 5.18% tax rate increase that the council sort of settled on on Monday.

Um, as you know, the school board will be uh taking up their budget on tomorrow night, and um they will put forward something.

Um if it's not this, we'll deal with that.

But this is what what the count what the council has addressed has directed that they would support in the final budget.

So if there's no more questions on the budget, we'll move into the CIP.

Yeah.

So the next slide.

I always include this one to remind everyone it's just a capital plan.

It in itself does not authorize funding.

It doesn't commit us to the doing these projects in any particular sequence, but it is an important part of our long-term financial planning.

And um it is not only a way to keep us all of us in the room that are paying attention to what we're doing in town, but also really the credit agencies uh um who do our bond rating, they really pay attention to this.

This is one of the things that they look at the most and they scour it carefully.

So the fact that we have a robust plan really means a lot to them.

And then the next slide, you've also seen this one before.

This is what is year one of the CIP.

So these are the things that are pretty solid, and these are the things that you will be asked to actually approve funding for on Monday.

Not all of them.

So you will be asked on Monday to approve the Riches Drive culvert, Noble Street Design and Engineering, the Brunswick High School Windows, and Harry Beecher Stowe School heat pumps.

All of that funding to come out of general fund balance.

From TIFF revenues, you will be asked to approve $25,000 to match the heads-up grant on the Federal Mason Water Street intersection, the $35,000 to match an MDOT grant on the Riverwalk.

You will not be asked to approve the Brunswick Landing Perimeter Trail.

That is something that's going to come to you in a separate action.

You will be asked to approve $625,000 for a match for the you also won't be asked to approve Alagash realignment.

That will definitely be in a separate action at some other date.

But you will be asked to approve the main DOT municipal partnership initiative match of $625,000 and an allocation of $200,000 from to the Cooks Corner Revitalization Program.

All of those are TIFF revenues.

And the last thing on the list is the fire department engine replacement.

That also is by ordinance and would not be coming to you on Monday.

So the things that are coming to you on Monday are everything from the general fund balance, the Federal Mason, Water Street intersection, the river walk, the MPI grant match, and the Cook's Corner.