The SCIG wasn’t able to fully assess the following ideas. These merits of these ideas have not been evaluated and should be considered in future work. In the Matrix (XLS file), these have a status of “Open: To Be Explored”.

Idea # Submitted Text
43 Phase out revenue stream from Belmont Light; taxpayers shouldn't overpay for electricity
47 Adopt performance pay for teachers
49 Convert all non-union salary increased to merit-based. Eliminate step increases and create merit pool.
57 Identify schools in cities and towns in Massachusetts and other high-performing states which have moved away from the step and lane system, and do an in-depth study on their systems and performance
91 Evaluate current fees charged for extra-curricular activities, rentals, etc.
100 Work more closely with and join our state legislators to lobby for changes at the state level in the current pension system and for additional healthcare reform to more effectively manage our burgeoning Other Post Employment Benefit (OPEB) Liability.
232 Look at expanding use of solar panels that could generate revenue. Install solar canopies in town-owned parking lots and other open spaces, including the DPW lot. This can be down with no capital investment by the town. Belmont Light could purchase the electricity generated by the solar canopies at guaranteed rates for future cost savings.
264 Provide a Hot Meal high school that saves our cafeteria employees from bagging snacks . Hire
Special Needs students to accomplish those repetition tasks. Increase of student morale would be increased if they knew they could chose a soup that costs less than bagged food !
265 Determine whether the Town can benefit from early adoption of flood mitigation infrastructure by taking advantage of pilot programs and other incentives early, rather than bear the full cost later.

Obviously while the town is critically financially strapped it is likely no one will want to hear about a growing need to build new expensive infrastructure. But there might be cost savings available from getting in early. If everyone will need to make these investments eventually--and investors know that--there might be the chance to tap into incentive or pilot programs available to early adopters. For instance, Eversource is running a pilot program for geothermal community investment, because they want to keep their digging, drilling and pipe laying expertise in demand in a future green economy. Flood mitigation involves pits and pipes too (and may combine with geothermal). Maybe they could be talked into pilot program type project. Google X/Alphabet also funds speculative green technology. The Mass Water Resource Authority gives grants for storm water management --- they funded the Alewife project, for instance. I'm sure there is more like this---especially with the Biden Administration pushing such investments. There are incentives and pilot programs to be had for towns that are willing to be ahead of the curve. So if the investment will have to be made eventually, there may be large cost saving to be won from early awareness.
274 Install solar canopies in town-owned parking lots and other open spaces, including the DPW lot. This can be down with no capital investment by the town. Belmont Light could purchase the electricity generated by the solar canopies at guaranteed rates for future cost savings. The MBTA and several other Massachusetts towns, schools, and companies have done this recently.
296 Town Hall and DPW workers would continue to have a shortened workday on Fridays in the summer, but the (unworked) afternoon hours would not be paid.
302 In 2006, the town hired Noresco, an energy services company, to implement energy conservation measures on all town/school buildings at no cost (through performance-based contracting), saving the town $125K every year since then. It's time to rehire Noresco to do phase 2 of the energy conservation measures.
310 Expanding upon the electric, autonomous transport idea for Belmont, the Transportation Committee and other interested residents should organize a SCRUM with Mr. Mark Fagan of HKS to understand how Belmont can prepare and drive a transition to electric, autonomous transport.

Companies involved in this emerging ecosystem include Motional (Boston-based), Waymo, Tesla, Cruise, and Zoox. Boston has also worked closely with the World Economic Forum and Boston Consulting Group to look at the impact of rapid autonomous vehicle adoption for downtown Boston and its impact on traffic, travel times, etc. That report is called "Reshaping Urban Mobility with Autonomous Vehicles Lessons from the City of Boston."
320 Delete digital files after specified time to save on energy/computing power storage. SCI-63 The Covid era has led to a proliferation of recorded zoom town committee hearings. It may seem small at first, but every recorded and saved 2 hour video is part of a real data hog in the aggregate, requiring a lot of energy and computing power to store them. My recommendation is to have the Select Board adopt a town-wide policy requiring the deletion of videos after an agreed amount of time. I would suggest a four or six month maximum storage policy. After that, the recorded digital file would be deleted and the public would have access to minutes officially adopted, same as we had pre-Covid zoom era. I expect that Belmont would save money as well as reduce its energy footprint, with money savings coming from less contractual hosting costs paid to whatever company (AWS?) hosts our various municipal websites.
323 The Town should subsidize and encourage water usage reductions by residents. This can be achieved with the installation of dual-flush toilets, or conversion of existing toilets to dual-flush with the installation of a new dual-flush valve. Such valves sell for ~$25 and can decrease water usage by up to 15%.
328 When an employee from the police or fire department decides to retire, there is often a lag time of manning reinforcement that requires already depleted platoons to be supplemented by overtime. Civil Service is the new boogie man to blame for these lag times and increased costs.

In reality, sick time is often being used by the retiring party at the end of their career because the town has refused to reward the employee's several decades career of health and reliability after the employee accumulates thousands of hours of unused sick time.

For example, 2000 hours of sick time paid to the employee at 15% of their hourly regular compensation ~$30/hour would be about $9000 (a pretty nice little gold watch). This figure, opposed to the 2000 hrs at time and a half ($100,000) is about $91,000 difference almost every time an employee retires.
359 Get rid of the Belmont Light. There is no need for a municipal company. Get Nstar to manage this. Much cheaper that way.
361 Offer a early retirement incentive to the senior Town Employees. These employees cost the most and some pay the least into the pension system. These high cost employees can be replaced with lower cost employees who will have less sick time, vacation time, and lower cost benefits.
389 I got chatting with the owner of Belmont Pharmacy and he suggested you reach out to him about the cost of prescription drug coverage for town employees. He may be able to provide prescription drugs at a better cost.
401 Hold a Belmont Vehicle showroom rodeo at one of the big parking lots in town. Have every Town-owned vehicle parked there for the weekend and label each with uses and year, mileage .
Require every vehicle that is paid for by The Town ( all departments) to be obviously labeled as a Town vehicle and do not allow the vehicles to be taken home nightly
417 It seems that our budget woes stem from having different town bodies negotiate with various unions and there is no top level strategy for desired outcome in terms of COLA increases, benefits and spending. From earlier town presentations, there are numerous annual budget increases exceeding the 2.5% tax levy increase. Are there firm stances taken in negotiations to cap spending increases to 2.5%. Is each union negotiation held to same end goal of capping spending? Is there top leadership ensuring an overall and near-equal negotiation strategy with each union, especially when performed by different bodies (Select Board with police/fire/DPW, School Committee with teachers).