Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Finance Committee and Select Board met jointly to make recommendations on the Annual Town Meeting warrant. They reviewed the draft warrant article by article, approving most routine items unanimously. The most extensive discussions concerned the $1 million procurement investigation reserve, Article 13 capital contingencies, ambulance funding, and police body cameras. The town manager said the updated draft warrant, explanations, and slides would be posted for the public.
Article 13 was divided into three scenarios: (1) citizen petition articles pass and the override ballot question passes; (2) citizen petition articles are withdrawn or fail and the override passes; and (3) the override fails, leaving only projects not funded by free cash. Two citizen petition articles total $565,000 — $490,000 for ambulance and $75,000 for RTE implementation.
Okay, it's five o'clock. Let's call the meeting to order. Pursuant to MGL 7C 3820F. After notifying the chair of the public body, any person may make a video audio recording of an open session of a meeting of a public body or may transmit the meeting through any meeting. The beginning of the meeting, the chair shall inform other attendees of any such recordings. Speaking is being recorded by the Birthroad, CTSB in the town of Great Burrington. Any member of the public wishing to speak at the meeting must receive permission of the chair. The listing of agenda items of those reasonably anticipated by the chair, which may be discussed at the meeting. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed. Other items not listed, may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. Okay. So A on the agenda is a continued discussion and possible vote on debt exclusion versus override. We accomplished that last night. So we will go to the next item, which is votes on the proposed budget for fiscal year, which um we did those ones. We didn't operate, but I um I included and printed out for everyone a copy of the draft warrant, which I felt would be a little easier for us to go through each article and talk about it that way, because those are the items within the budget that you do have to um actually vote on, so then we don't miss anything in that discussion. So and on you'll see in the draft warren, um, there is at the bottom of each article where FinCom and I think he traffic and select for votes, and that will also be included for the actual publication for voters to see. So um, and I will be also creating a cheat sheet um with the table of contents so they can look at it and see and then go to the pages where they're located. So it's gonna be a little different format. You see that already with what I'm presenting, but I figure Steve, if if you're I'm good. Okay, if you're good at that, then we'll we'll go through and I um created slides for each one so audience can follow on at home. Did also keep track of all the slides from yesterday to go over so we have access to that if you want. Okay, um just go quickly through and apologize for everybody whiplash, visual work flash. Okay, article one all right. So article one is um is the authorization to pay prior fiscal year invoices last night. I discussed that briefly that we have two different departments that had um fenty five invoices that are remaining um to be paid, and this requires a town meeting vote to do that. Um there's approximately five thousand three hundred and eighty-one dollars from the fire department, but the remainder of the 52,000 is from public works, and you can see all of the vendors um on the screen that the monies are owed. So discussion on this. I have a question. Um, why are those invoices coming over to the next year? What's the reason for that? Yeah, so um after July 15th, we're unable to process the prior year bills unless the money has been encumbered and it wasn't encumbered. It wasn't encumbered right. I see, okay. Anyone else start with Chris or from your book? Yes, I move that we recommend uh to pay authorization to pay prior fiscal years invoices in the amount of 52,524 and 45 cents. Do I have a motion?