The Select Board authorized the town administrator to submit the closeout report for a community-compact best-practices technology and succession planning grant tied to the town's Hub Connect modernization project, after asking staff to provide concrete numeric baselines for claimed percentage improvements and to attach supporting reports.

Nate described Hub Connect as a town-built integration of existing platforms (Laserfiche, VADAR, civic products and Microsoft 365 tools) that centralizes workflows, retention tagging and onboarding materials. He told the board the $40,000 grant funds have been expended and credited the project with several outcome claims in the presentation: a 61% reduction in staff turnover, 65% reduction in service-request response time, 50% reduction in payroll processing time, 100% compliance with Open Meeting Law postings and an 81% reduction in annual consulting costs. Several board members asked for the raw numbers and baseline years for each percentage.

A board member asked that the percentages be replaced with absolute counts (for example, prior and current minutes or hours) in the closeout submission to the Department of Local Services to avoid ambiguity. The town administrator agreed and said he has the underlying data and would revise the report. Board members also asked that the closeout include vendor- and system-related documentation (the Veil report and VADAR report) and that staff with subject-matter responsibilities be listed for continuity.

After discussion, the Select Board voted to authorize Nate to submit the grant closeout with the requested changes: replace percentages with numeric baselines or counts, and include the Veil and VADAR reports as appendices.

Ending: Staff will file the revised closeout to the Department of Local Services, retain the Hub Connect documentation as an institutional resource, and proceed with a stabilization and training plan funded by remaining grant resources where applicable.