The Fall River Committee on Ordinances & Legislation convened on December 7, 2021, to address several key municipal matters. The meeting began with the unanimous approval of the minutes from the November 23, 2021, meeting. Items three, four, and five, which were proposed ordinances, were subsequently tabled due to the hospitalization of Attorney Goldberg, who was working on them with the Corporation Council. A significant portion of the meeting was dedicated to a resolution concerning trash collection and a proposed cart program. The discussion aimed to clarify ambiguities in the existing ordinance regarding commercial refuse collection, explicitly stating that the city would not collect commercial trash. A timeline was established for sending 60-day notices to businesses by January 2022, with the collection of city-owned commercial carts expected to be completed by April 1, 2022. Concerns were raised about maintaining uniform collection days for private haulers, identifying carts at mixed-use properties, and preventing the misuse of public trash receptacles. This item was ultimately referred to the Corporation Council for legal review and then tabled in committee, both motions passing unanimously. The committee then moved to proposed ordinances for salary amendments, with Ms. Sahari providing updates and corrections for various management positions. Extensive discussion ensued regarding the city's financial constraints, the need to offer competitive salaries to retain talent (citing recent departures of an engineer, planner, and IT staff), and the perceived disparity between salaries for long-term career employees and temporary political appointments. Two amendments were passed: the Chief of Staff position was moved from Section 5302 to 5301 with a "not to exceed" salary of $90,000 (3-1 vote), and the Director of Minimum Housing's "not to exceed" salary was increased from $65,000 to $75,000 (3-1 vote). The overall proposed ordinances for salary amendments, as amended, were then forwarded to the full council for a first reading, also passing by a 3-1 vote.
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counselor dion will be joining us momentarily first who went to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible item one is citizen's input do we have
0:29any anything submitted item two is the minutes of the november 23rd 2021 meeting second motion to approve is made by council lee seconded by council pereira any discussion all in favor aye so voted items uh three four and five are all proposed ordinances however um i've spoke to uh our corporation council who was working with um attorney goldberg on this and attorney goldberg is in the hospital so what i'd
1:03like to do is table them so we don't open the table individually they're tabled so we just don't lift them and we're all set okay so then we will skip down to number six which would be the resolution trash collection and proposal for the cart program which was referred november 30th 2021 and if we could have i saw mr perry here and attorney ramsey come to the table
1:45yes
2:00so i did speak to a corporation counsel about this the other day and there isn't um what we did was we sent this straight from the city council meeting last tuesday here and we're looking to update our ordinance so that it reflects the unless the trust collection and the carts and you want to just bring everyone up to speed on that yes so um in the ordinance i mean there is some ambiguity
2:30when it comes to the commercial refuse collection so it states that businesses shall put their carts out for curbside collection um you know the same way that it would say for a private residential um but as we've discussed i believe that the the intent of that was you know for them to put and and i think council you pointed this out i was for them to put it out for a private hauler to collect not for
2:54city collection so i think you know some some easy language to implement would be along the lines of uh shall put out in in um the proper container for outside vendor to pick up something along those lines or something that just basically states a new ordinance piece that would state the city of fall river does not collect commercial refuse something as simple as that would clearly clearly stay and and remove any
3:25ambiguity from it uh and make that that determination so that way when we do move to get rid of the business collection uh it's clear and everybody is on board and they all realize it okay and i think it's important to keep the peace and about when they have to put theirs out for a private hauler so that they're not putting it out days ahead and leaving their barrels out there for an extended
3:46length of time so that still needs to be in there as long as it's clear that it's for their own private pickup right i i agree with that as well i think it's important for us to make sure that they understand we would like their trash put out on the same route collection days as the other businesses on the other residential collection in their areas so we don't want trash bins
4:08out on different areas of the street all days of the week so we'd like to keep that um uniformity so i think that's a good point on your end would that be up to their private hauler though what day they're picking up i mean i think as a city um i i have the right as the director and whether it be me or anybody else in that seat to dictate when that
4:26collection should be um i i don't see why we can't you know take the lead on that and let them know that you know you must place cart on curbside same day as residential pickup for private fender collection okay and then i just wanted to um go back to the conversation at the meeting on tuesday as to the timing of this we obviously need this in place before you send the letter out to the
4:47businesses but i've heard different dates on when that letter would go out to the businesses and you're going to give them 60 days so they can get something else in place yeah so february had been a month that was mentioned i think we need to push that back a little bit and let's say april um definitely have it in place for the beginning of the fiscal year and prior
5:06to that ideally so i think by may we should be able to have that and we'll gain may and june uh as far as revenue um that we'll save all right so i just heard february and then april and right right but it just automatically got bumped so every month it costs us money so i sending the you know having the ordinance adjusted i don't think is is that time consuming so it we need to give
5:31them the um their letter and their notice but i think as one member of the council we we should have a definite date on when that letter is going to go out and when it's going to be implemented right so i would say we send that letter out asap as soon as possible um we change the language get it passed through at the next council meeting and then we send a
5:52letter out and as you said i give them 60 days um which would do it would put us at january and february and then in april we'll start the process which is why i think i said may meaning that process will be complete so it'll be a two-week process for us to collect all the totes not every business is going to put it out every week so we'll follow the truck each week we'll take a
6:11separate private easy truck they will do just the businesses on each day's collection and our dpw staff will follow behind that truck and collect those totes from those businesses we'll run that same system a second week in consecutive in secession and then by that point we should have all of the bins off of the street so if you do the notice at the beginning of january so be given them january and february
6:34and then you do your pick up of the bins in march correct so by april we should be hopefully so by april 1st correct okay counselor dion um two things i know with private haulers because i have a private hauler have since day one um they had to agree to pick up trash on this on the um day that the city picks up so they had no leeway in that so
7:02i would think that would be something that we could follow through with in terms of businesses absolutely because they are being picked up on a regular trash city trash day as it is my question would be would we need to make an amendment to the easy contract or ratify it in some manner saying that now um uh exhibit h is excluded from from the contract we could amend the contract i think
7:26that'd be a question for corporation council i i think as long as there's an agreement in place between easy and the city in writing and we may not need to amend the contract make new copies pass them all to everybody i think we just have it on paper an addendum attached to the contract that states that as of this state we're ceasing commercial collection out to exhibit each yeah i'm just concerned with whatever
7:47i think that would be a legal question from the council okay basically what i have by yield counseling just started regarding the letter uh we asked a question at the meeting about hybrid places where uh businesses and residential and you said i believe you said you're going to leave at least one barrel or two so so when you look at the cards do you have a a barcode and you have a serial number
8:08those serial numbers are designated to those particular addresses so if there are five cards at a mixed-use property we will be able to identify which carts belong to the businesses and which cards belong to the residential and then at that point we'll take back the businesses and we'll leave the residential properties with their their existing cars will there be sort of that that language that you just stated will
8:28that be part of the letter that goes out to the businesses so that way they know we can certainly we can certainly put some language in there uh and another piece to this uh would be outreach so i've already spoken to my compliance division and let them know uh that we will be going out to each of these businesses and trying to talk to them letting them know what is happening why
8:48it's happening uh and what will what we'll be doing so that'll be part of that conversation and we can certainly put some some brief language in the letter that would designate that thank you before i address the council dana can become sufferer does it say on their business or commercial so we have two different so you have commercial uh it actually says commercial um you know and but but in
9:16the commercial ordinance stated placement of refuse from commercial establishments on sidewalks the first word in that subsection is business establishments stores uh restaurants laundries et cetera so it it uses both terms to describe it should be clarified if you're going to say commercial then are we looking at six families as being commercial so 16. are we doing that as well yeah so six tenement right right
9:42now we're not doing the six ten minutes it's part of the conversation um i'm not sure if you saw i just sent out the email today um for another task force meeting i suggest the dates of monday uh friday monday and tuesday so right now the six tenement have not but if you look that would be another ordinance we would need to change because when you look at the ordinance for trash collection it says the city
10:04shall collect residential residential properties up to six units so that would be another language change once we started thinking about the six tenement properties that we would have to revisit so current i'm sorry no i mean that's not on the agenda to go into that i just wanted to make sure that in that when you say commercial you were talking about businesses only yeah and interestingly enough i've learned
10:30recently that um and it was at a council meeting here when we had the um the assessor's office here to talk about the tax rate uh commercial property six tenements are considered commercial properties but they are taxed at a residential rate so it gets a little murky there so i think that'll be part of the discussion for that when we get when we get to that point all right i yield thank you have fun
10:55yeah i just have one more question this came up in a conversation today actually i've had people in the past uh comment how sometimes businesses will put their trash in barrels that are on the sidewalk or located in front of other people's properties and i'm sure you've come across that um so i'm thinking with this change that might occur a little bit more and it's not only businesses residential people do it as well
11:22is there some type of cover or something that we could put on the barrels that would allow only for disposal of something up to a certain size as opposed to people being able to actually put trash bags inside of a barrel yeah so if you um so if you look at 62-43 separation of garbage rubbish disposal garbage from commercial establishments subsection b of that states commercial and business
11:50establishments shall segregate their garbage in watertight containers made of material and equipment with suitable handles for tight fitting covers so i mean if you're putting something other than just trash in the car for abc or clean way or whatever company they choose i think if that's where you're heading with this i may be misinterpreting it no i think i wasn't clear on my question i'm sorry so we have little
12:16barrels right receptacles regular on the streets for people to put trash in okay like the city the city reception south main street okay yeah so i guess there are situations in times where people businesses whatever are putting trash bags full of trash in those so they don't um have to deal with it themselves so i guess my question is is there a way to put some type of cover that would allow
12:40for an object only up to a certain size to alleviate or eliminate that problem yeah so some of those receptacles that you see have a a metal frame that goes around the top the hole is much smaller it's it's probably about a six or an eight inch hole and you throw those in we we've had many of those over the years they break they they get ripped off things of that nature um so i mean
13:03we could look at you know trying to replace those on something along those lines trying to replace the barrel but honestly it's you know it's it's a problem where we see that people just on consciences they just don't care um the business is right there they throw their trash right out and the receptacle that's in front of their business so at that point it's tasked our compliance division to get out there and try to
13:25identify who did this um it's it's a tough find sometimes because people are smart enough to know not to put certain things in there that'll identify them but it's it's a fight we continue to fight changing every one of the barrels would be you know a little bit of a task so we'll see if we can we can try to to repair and or replace some of those or something we can look at see how many
13:47of them are actually broken uh and then go from there even that though that metal frame can just be lifted up you have to put a lock you put a lock it's time consuming when you go to empty it but if it's going to help settle the issue that's something we can surely look at well if compliance can deal with the bulk of the problem um and i don't think it's rampant excuse me
14:07i didn't mean to interrupt but i don't think it's rampant there are several areas where it does happen it's not rampant but there are certain barrels that continue it continues to happen and those particular ones we've pretty much identified who they are you may have a coach pull up on a saturday night when nobody's around and just throw it in we can't you know necessarily stop that but
14:26we can look at trying to cover them better okay thank you that i yield anything further people can put locks on the regular bumps people can pull locks on the regular one that they have now right i'd ask that they don't um those bins the carts don't belong to the resident um they belong to the city and if they're drilling holes in them and putting locks with hasps on them i mean it's going to
14:49be tough for us you know when we take them back or their brakes now we're going to take it we're going to take the hats off we've got unscrew it's got holes in it uh possibly not watertight anymore things of that nature so i would ask people not to do that um years ago when i actually worked on the trucks and collected trash some people would put lids on their regular trash barrels and
15:07actually put locks on them and it hampered our collection process people would drill holes in them and tie tie rope or string and then the barrels kind of the lid is hanging on the barrel while you're trying to dump it so we don't have those traditional barrels anymore but i i i think that would hamper us more we need to just work with people to try to get them to
15:26comply guys i have seen that happen but i i don't think it's you know all over the place but i've seen it happen yeah but you do have to actually do something to it in order to make the lock so it's almost like damaging the property that's right exactly yeah all right thank you thank you brother so we would need uh two motions on this we need a motion to refer to corporation council motion to refer
15:48motion referred to cooperation counseling made by council lee seconded by councillor dion any discussion all in favor all right so voted and the second motion would be a motion to table in committee motion a table motion motion table made by council lee seconded by council dion any discussion all in favor aye aye still voted thank you thank you because we have also have the compost you want me to wait for that
16:14that's remaining on the table until remaining on the table okay so you're good with me yeah all right thank you guys have a good night
16:32i don't think you're gonna need me for seven but i'll stick around for 10 minutes or so yeah i think we're all set on cyber schedule as long as mrs sahatti is here okay all right thank you thank you sir thanks item seven is the provost ordinances salary amendments which was referred november 30th 2021 sahari is joining us and i believe she has a couple of updates she's going to share with us on
16:55the schedule that's before us
17:05oh thank you
17:22um yes thank you um so the there are a couple of changes uh on page two actually but all three of them are on page two so on page two um starting with the commissioner for recreational facilities slash director of recreational facilities it's the fifth item down that is the nancy smith position that was created back in 2019 and the appointment letter apparently had been missed and not going down to or went down to
17:55the city clerk's office but that is the position the next position is the old position when she was considered an administrator so we will be sending down um for the next city council meeting and ordinance change to remove that position and the third one um in that row is the assistant commissioner and that's chris pirano so that's just to kind of put them in order as to who they are so chris is actually considered
18:25an assistant commissioner so on the one that's with our our um agenda i don't see the assistant commissioner on page two right that's the correction it wasn't because it was on here before no i don't believe it was okay so the the first one is parks the first one is parks the second one is vacant and will be removed and the third one the assistant is chris and which of these are filled in the budget um
19:06parks and chris fancy okay the other one that's vacant it's not that's correct it doesn't have a line item in the budget okay and then the other change um under asset manager it's a couple of items down so it's asset manager slash gis the salary was just incorrect that individual is actually making 630 59.77 which is the maximum is that um asset manager slash gis and that has on
19:36the other one it has it as uh 45 right i grabbed the wrong information when i first filled in the current salaries okay and that's it that's the only changes okay i did have is anyone any discussion are you still making those changes the only thing i can say that i we did do um with the recommendation of council kadeem initially is you'll notice that the assistant to the director is always the same percentage
20:19as the director so that was a recommendation of council kadeem so that is one thing that changed from back in the original um presentations that you received on these salary ordinances back starting sometime last watch i do have one question the director of municipal buildings and code enforcement that is our our building inspector correct yes that's correct in the current not to exceed is 91
20:50um i'm sorry yeah the current not to exceed is 91. current salary is 89. in this um the recommended is 120. okay so we'll be able to give what a prior administration had had promised that individual that's correct okay actually i believe what the prior administration because i was here during that time i believe the prior administration agreed to give that individual the same increases that asme
21:21would have gotten so that would have brought that particular employee to 96 348 and he's only currently earning 89 320.
21:32okay so it's going to go to that and so that's more than what was so is that in the budget because i don't remember that amount being in the budget i remember being lower some amount i didn't bring my budget book with me but there is an amount in other personnel services to accommodate i believe to the 96. okay okay but i could have i can check that i can pull my my budget book too because
21:55i'd like to make sure that that's there or and if it's not that we'll be able to to move it one because it was promised years ago and two because that person works 24 7.
22:13anytime anything is happening um answers every call and if there's anything happening fire car into a building anything it's that's a 24 7 position and now that is deserve it and i i upset to learn that that something was promised by a prior administration and not given do you have any questions constantly no do you do yeah so in the in ordinance not to exceed these date back to 2017 which is four years ago right um
22:46so based on the recommended and where we are now i think the thing i always have have an issue or a problem with is it's like i've said in the past it allows for everything to be brought up to the max at any point in time is that fair to say and not to exceed that's correct to pay somebody based on what their resume requires basically so assuming that this would go through um
23:19are we going to are we going to update every year is it going to be a two three or four year process again i think i'm concerned with the process and where we're at at that time for like like for example so we're already either at the not to exceed or in some cases above them not to exceed and now we're we're making uh ordinance conform to the salaries versus the salaries conformed to ordinance so
23:48if i if i may so section in and as you might be able to speak to me on the section i think it's 305 so section 305 in the ordinance allows these not to exceeds to increase based on what the ask me contract has been adjusted to so whatever the not to exceed is if somebody is at that maximum to begin with they are earning the same increase that the asthmy contract is earning each year and
24:19that is spelled out in a separate section within the ordinance so we wouldn't be going back to or coming back to the city council on an annual basis in this particular instance it was three years ago or actually four years ago now because it was seven one seventeen um i would expect the same thing would happen going forward um if you look at the recommended amounts they all are higher if you will
24:50so that they can accommodate for those increases and i think my other issue is the fact that at the present time um with deficits etc um you know are we able to i and i get it believe me i get that fall river is lower than a lot of places when it comes to paying people a salary i'm not discounting that at all but it's still the fact of whether we're lower than other communities or not
25:24can we afford it and if we can't what do we do about that well right now the only thing we can afford if you look at it from a budgetary point of view is whatever's in the budget for fiscal 22.
25:38for fiscal 23 it would be within the mayor's purview to increase any salaries that he felt he wanted to increase assuming there was revenue to support the okay appropriations i okay so i guess in that same vein um this year we had increases that though they may have been in the budget we weren't able to afford it and the money wasn't there to pay it so i i think that's what i worry about moving forward
26:13and i also worry about the fact that we have individuals who have been with the city a long time um i don't i don't want to refer to anybody that sounds like i'm sliding them at all but isn't in the upper echelon so to speak and they're the ones who get the insignificant small raises and i feel like it's it's just not always fair um you know some of those i think some
26:42of those people need to be brought up to speed i think a little quicker than the people at the top of the um the ladder and not to say the people the top of the ladder don't earn don't earn their pay um i don't know i just have a hard time with this whole thing and especially with this year with the deficits and um us just not being in the best place
27:04i guess for know what yield council i agree that i think some of our hardest workers are the lowest paid however that's up to the unions to be able to negotiate that for their workers and negotiate that with the city but to do this an ordinance style does not mean that you know anybody is going to get the maximum it just gives a space for it to go to and when people are getting
27:30one and a half percent or what have you then that also goes towards the directors and these salaries just need to be um in line with that so that we're not coming back here this has been going on or for all the years that i've been here changing the ordinances and updating them and yes you can only give people what money we have in the budget to give but i absolutely 100 believe that
27:59some of our workers here should be getting paid more we shouldn't have a single mother working here with two kids who needs a second job or who's on food stamps that really gets me people should be paid a decent salary and maybe that's something that we look at in the budget that we talk to that we address with this may any mayor that you know when they're going in for negotiations that we talk about but
28:23like every year things go up and how do we get the money in and try to pay for it to give these people that then money needs to be raised through taxes or generated because things go up or you need to come up with some solutions i think uh council lien counselor dion were on a thread with me that somebody had sent us about these pieces of steel that are put in it's like a
28:52turbine in water pipes in main water pipes that would increase water i know we're not here to talk about water but and generate things like that to generate electricity to be able to lessen the amount of money they're spending for electricity on any of our municipal buildings those are some of the things we look at because i know we don't want to go into taxpayers pocket but the fact is if you want to pay people
29:16then you need to the money needs to come in to be able to do that right but we've done this where we've had a table and you really can't do the table because some people come in with different experience that's why the ordinance they changed to do it to ordinance that ordinance was better um and that's where we stand so i'm okay with that uh i know that you know we're not going to just be
29:41giving out a lot and sometimes what happens is you have one person that has one job and then somebody leaves and then you make one person do two jobs so then you've got to give them a little bit more to do that job and that happened here with with nancy smith when then nancy did parks and then she did cemeteries and that kind of got a little bit mixed
30:00up but now she's not doing park so it should go back to what it was before and i think that you know administrations need to keep an eye on that handle on that but with that idea and you were right counselor we are currently negotiating with a number of the unions and i agree they need people need more money i agree as well council prayer and mrs sahari though in certain instances
30:26though isn't it what they come in at this their steps and then that's it once they get to the top there's there's nothing higher than that like i'm thinking of the the clerks that would be correct so what is their top step the clerks that's correct do you know what the top step is on top of your head well it depends on whether what what classification they're in because ask me we'll include everybody from the
30:51people that work for paul got a tradesman at the water treatment plant that he has spoken about to clerks in this building who work in our individual offices so it really just depends what what category they are and what grade they are in in the union so for instance the ones um i don't mean to get off topic but to council para's point the ones that are the clubs are in this building there's only four
31:16four steps approximately and if i remember correctly the fourth step isn't very much you're correct um so how does that get changed that's what we're negotiating now okay all right and then i have can i can i just now what what mr sahara said about afscme and the different unions and i agree with you that clerks here are in the same union as the workers that we had at the water department yet the water department is
31:42to trade where they need to have certain licenses etc so if it's going to be across the board that they're going to get a one percent that's nothing i mean not that clerks that work here don't do a good job but if you're a clerk in one office versus being at the water department where you need to have all this afscme is all lumped together we have them with i believe they're with dispatchers clerics yeah mechanics
32:08electricians it's a hard union to negotiate but i believe they also have mou's that they can put right which is what we just did with the electricians and mechanics and with the water as well so that that can be addressed in that way but i just remember seeing the um the steps for for instance for the clerks in this building and it's nothing nothing and then i had somebody from the water department tell me that
32:32if they wanted to get out of afscme and join another union they have to be without a union for one year before getting another union so nobody wants to be you know not represented for an entire year so it's it's kind of a struggle for them but i mean i've said that i think people um you know deserve more how crazy with the water department for what we're paying people but now we're paying a
32:57company for three months seventy five thousand dollars for three months but we the director couldn't get allows the eight thousand dollar raise so we're having the same problem in it right now i.t i mean my niece is in it she makes three figures right you know that's the problem and we just lost another employee in i.t so mississaugi i just have a i just wanted to clarify two other things in the personnel section
33:24the last one for per contract 5302 any of these that are currently not to exceed are going to be changing to just a straight per contract that's the intention that's correct okay so for instance the the last page the director of community mean is the very top one um it's a knock to exceed that's gonna which is out of ordinance that's gonna be changing to a per contract that's correct okay
33:54um and then well right now i believe his contract included the ask me increases so technically he's being underpaid um what he could be paid as of seven one twenty i see that okay um but that not to exceed will not come into play anymore for this correct now no page makes this now because this would have increased each of those years because that was the ordinance in 17.
34:29so those are going to change so that will be a per contract it will no longer be a not to exceed right and then the bottom line is those three for whatever reason um just got overlooked the last time the rest of these went to per contract because if you're per contract it doesn't make any sense that you're not to exceed correct so that was that one and which other one the chief of staff
34:53chief of staff and director of financial scientific services okay and then the last question i had um and it's just the one that jumps out at me because it's a big jump is uh under the the request by mr furland the administrator um is jumping up to 140 i'm not saying that they're good getting this i want people to understand that they're not getting this um but that would be the new
35:19ceiling on that would be the new ceiling and a lot of these ceilings were actually looked at um with comps and what were com the same position paid for being paid in comparable um communities the communities in particular that i used um that i had access to was new bedford lowell lawrence and brockton now where the were there their own funds um that wouldn't that would only come
35:49before us in their budget if they wanted to make those adjustments correct that's correct so that would be part of their budget for the new year and the reason i'm asking that is you know the the water rates were were just approved and um and i'm not saying anybody doesn't deserve to be paid adequately but it just is not hitting me right that now where these are in front of us for um
36:17big jumps again not that that's what they'd be getting um but we're going from the current knot to exceed is 103 to 140 89 to 112 and then the rest are 82 69 and 72 moving up to 95. and you can see that a number of those people aren't being paid the maximum right now anyway okay so i wouldn't expect that the mayor would um approve those increases to with the exception of the administrator
36:48he is actually being paid the maximum but the others that you just read from are all under the ordinance except for this project specialist oh i'm sorry and the project manager there at ordinance so do you think it's necessary at this time to to push those recommended up that high um it's really up to this committee and full council you can reduce those if you show to so choose okay
37:16um all yields for now constantly just uh not really not really inclined to see the increases that high um just not in one department but in you know many others during a situation where we're talking about you know financial struggles and we're depending a lot on one time money and things like that and so i i'm just voicing that opinion that i'm not obviously inclined to do so are we voting for
37:45these separately or are we voting for these all together we you can make amendments counselor if you if you wanted to we can vote as amendment as is as if you wanted to make amendments normally you would vote for the the table that goes into correct section 5301 so you wouldn't vote each one of them i just want to um certainly let you know and i agree that we have some financial issues i
38:12certainly brought those forward to the council um but there we've also done some comps and we definitely need to be conscious of the fact that we are probably the lowest paid community in all of these management positions and what happens is we lose them so we lost our engineer we lost our planner we lost somebody in i.t this week um so i mean you've got to be cautious and and i get
38:44it because we obviously have to raise revenue in order to fund these positions but on the flip side of that um you've you've heard mr ferlin talk about his staff we're increasing those the chief couldn't keep his mechanics and electricians and we're increasing those so at some point the city of fall river has to step up and be comparable to other communities it's i just don't see it as
39:10a sustainable model long term to keep on increasing and then we you know the the people who are tasked with paying these salaries paying these increases um it's not like we're seeing a lot of growth you know it's not like we're seeing people we're not an affluent city you know as and comparable if we're going to compare to other towns and other places even where the city planner went other places
39:38they're going to places that can actually have that they have the tax base to afford it they're not going to to some extent actually our city planner went to time so that's about the same in terms of comparable um they don't have the same challenges that we have i believe they do there's a cso and there's a cso issue in time like that isn't foreign but they have financial issues oh i'm not i'm not
40:01every single every town can claim that they have a financial issue but we are very unique here and that's the reason why things are the way they are but okay i mean all right we'll see we'll see but i we're gonna we're gonna know all about our financial issues next year i know but um the other thing too uh if when we start to see these infrastructural um investments the way that we were talking
40:26about with the water department and i and i was also an insurer and i was i was on that same uh chain and it's that link that was sent to us was the same exact link that i brought up during the summer time about their their in-pipe uh turbines that again when mr furling comes to the floor and he tells us something about the fixed cost electricity costs and things like that
40:49those are the kind of things that we try to bring up to try to bite into so that way we can bring these costs down a little more you know but i would i would argue to some of the homeowners and business owners in the city that you know when we tell them they're on the low end when they're scraping by when they're trying to do what they can do to put food on the
41:08table i think it's i'm not saying that you are insulting anyone but it isn't so i think that they would feel insulted if i told them oh no you're good you know and compared to other places you're fine this is this is where they live this is where they have to spend their money this is where they have to pay their bills and i can't we can't keep on pointing
41:24everywhere else to make it to make a justification to add more to the taxpayer i think it's just it just argue you can't argue your way to this it's real life people actually live these lives and and have to pay these bills every single day so i'm i'm going to get off the soapbox on this i just i'll yield and i'll just go on that but it's just i hear it all the time it's
41:45it is what it is i guess are there any that you're considering amending negative counseling yeah i guess um my only comment would be that yes we may be uh lower we may pay less than other communities but our income per capita is much lower than most i don't know what the average income per capita is in taunton but i know that in fall river you're looking at twenty eight thousand thirty thousand
42:15which is in this day and age absolutely horrible horrible and it's always fine to say we need to step up but if you don't have a dime left in your pocket you can't take it out of your pocket i think we need to start concentrating on creating the revenues finding a way to step up you know and i've always said it i don't care if we come up with something that nets us
42:45fifty thousand extra dollars in a year uh in our budget it's still fifty thousand dollars and that fifty thousand might fund three or four of these positions for the recommended up to i don't think we do enough of that i think we need to do more of that i don't know again as much as i i understand some of these people i i think too some of these sailings are just
43:15too high at this point in time um i don't really know where to go from there but uh you know does how many cities compare to us in the number of non-profits who aren't contributing to the community uh how many other uh i know we're only i believe at this point second to boston in terms of facilities that are helping uh you know with addiction etc like other communities they're not stepping up
43:49we're taking the load and not to say that with that we shouldn't be helping people but the fact is forward is always taking the big bite and everybody else is sitting back letting us do it so sometimes to compare one community to another is not fair because they're not stepping up and doing what we're doing in other areas that are actually in the long run to a certain extent hurting us a bit financially so
44:16with that i'll yield that's a priority maybe those non-profits should be paying for us to get rid of their trash because their directors are making 300 000 or better and we are taking it and that's a fight that i've had for years and i hear from other people well you're the city so the towns come in and i just i don't buy it i think that there is drug addiction behavior all
44:45over in cities and in towns and we shouldn't be the only ones doing the right thing by trying to help people that we they should other communities should be doing likewise as far as the ordinances here and what their limit is the up to this amount doesn't mean that that's the amount anybody's going to get it's only to cover us to be within the ordinance um when union contracts come in and it gets
45:14increased the question that i have is in the water department all of the ones here who votes on that is that just a vote of the water board and not a vote of the council or anything is it just the water board that votes well you vote the ordinance right so they don't vote the ordinance but paul will answer i guess the question as to who votes their increase in their salaries yeah yeah so
45:41thank you good yeah good evening um so all city uh all water department employees um the uh ordinance that's set by the council um but any raises uh per the mayor so all the water department employees are higher than may as well so again that's how that would be not that the water boy takes a vote it's too bad nope it wouldn't be the water board that that sets anybody's pay rate okay with that i
46:06yield thank you thank you mr phil excellent um someone says the only i would have recommendations for amendments just based on what most of them are being recommended at compared to um and there's just a few that stick out uh that are more than than the others so um the director of uh buildings like we just talked about that one and i don't see these as going past even when that increase is given as
46:40in the next three years it going past that so i'm like right now it's it's at 96 and the recommended is 120 and they're recommended not to exceed um so for me like i don't think seeing how it goes with the ask me contract i don't see it getting to 120 or needing to be at 120 at this time does that make sense i think um i would be more comfortable if it was
47:08110 and on the flip side of that i feel as if the um and this would be an internal thing along those same lines of reasoning with the director of municipal buildings and code enforcement the director of minimum housing is low it's the note say seems low um but it is low compared to the amount of work coming out of that office especially in the city and i talk to them all the time about empty vacant
47:34buildings and what they do to track these owners down try and find them reach out to them send them their fines for their vacant buildings clean up the properties listen um you know to the neighbors complaints and it's we always see it every spring when the grass is six feet high but this is a you know a year-round issue with the amount of vacant buildings that that they deal with besides all of the things
47:58that minimum housing deals with uh i was in their office the other day they're getting no heat calls they deal with landlords tenants all of that they end up being uh an intermediary of sorts so that one would be one that i i i would agree with that it that it seems low maybe not to recommend it is fine but i i feel and i'm just would like to say that folks that that salary
48:21currently is low um and then the other one that i questioned and i know you said you did this on a percentage basis but the assistant purchasing agent um i know that it's vacant the current not to exceed is 38 and was it just the percentage basis that we used to move it to the 68. um in those those well the percentage yes um well we move the purchasing agent two comps
48:48so and we don't have one of those at the moment either because it's included it's included in tammy's salary okay but if we did then the 85 is the average based on the comps that we looked at and so using council khadeem's recommendation the 80 is consistent so it was the recommendations so i see one is 70 of the directors and the 80 is it supposed to be 80 or 70 i think um
49:20we used 80 for all of them except that one and honestly i'm not 100 sure why that one was chosen to be oh because that's not an assistant that's a project manager okay sorry i knew there had to be a reason and then the only other one that jumps out is the community utilities the current is 108.
49:44um even if there was a bump given there i think um having that actually they're out of ordinance right now because the current no he's in because it's one away oh with the ask me got it okay so the 140 to me just it's just the highest one so unfortunately it jumps out um i'm just i'm not comfortable with that number there i know we get to vote on it i'm just not um comfortable with that
50:12number hanging out there compared to all of the other ones do you have a recommendation for that one i mean it looks like if so say it just went by the afscme it went what up three maybe four thousand so if it went just by the ask me it would be the current plus four thousand would be 112 and then if there was any uh other increase you know part of the administration um
50:41i don't know what what that would be that wouldn't be my um my place to say but i mean i would think 125 would get us through but unless there have been conversations that i'm not privy to
51:00i just know that people will see this and jump to the conclusion even though every counselor here has said it that these are not uh that this is what all of these people are going to be getting you know the second that we vote on this and that's not the case did you have any thoughts on that one no i can certainly break you want to make a motion to bring that to 125.
51:24unless um mr fellain did you want to address any of these here yeah if you want i can talk a little bit about comparables in the communities and what our job entails which i think some of you know what our job entails in water and sewer department uh the administrator myself i oversee the water and sewer department 40 million a year budget over 100 we employees currently doing about 70 million dollars uh in
51:53construction uh which is overseen by myself some of my staff comparables for my position so a deputy administrator in some of the other communities they didn't have administrative salaries her contract and stuff like that but i run through some of the deputies um brockton two hundred and six thousand um lowell two hundred and three thousand taught in a hundred and forty four thousand
52:30lauren's 223 000 i'm sorry those those were the deputy administrators not the administrator you know again it's 40 million dollars in the budget is probably the second largest after the school department uh portion of the budget that we do manage with all the construction we probably have some of the most construction going on uh dollarwise city throughout the city besides the big durfee project that that
53:03just included you guys we've talked about our operators down here in there in their issues just to talk about some of the other increases that were in here director of water department that one was recommended to be increased again because of uh comparables comparables you're talking one to 150 in other communities on the low side direct and that's just for director of water department director of
53:34distribution and maintenance again same comparables director of premium resources had right around the same variables you know again i do both water and sewer department so it's not just overseeing water department as some of those directors do so when you're looking at just a director that oversees a water department within a community making a hundred and fifty thousand a year um the
54:03comparables just to talk to some of the other communities that we that we compare compared to uh you look into bedford the benefit has cso issues they have an older water system which they haven't upgraded as much as we have in recent past years their water rates comparable to us their sewer rate is you look at time what did you say the comparables um so comparables but in bedford uh what we had here was a deputy
54:37administrator of 206 000 uh director of water department 145 000 director of water distribution maintenance at 154 000.
54:49and director of driving resources so did they just have a deputy and not an administrator of community community utilities yeah there wasn't anything that i could find so they they have a little bit of a different structure there they have a department of infrastructure which oversees roadways and parks uh i don't think they include cemeteries but roadways parks water sewer i think there's one other organization
55:13that they oversee so they have a uh they have a uh ministry i don't think it's called an administrator but they have somebody that oversees it's called the commissioner commissioner of uh department of infrastructure at one point yeah that's right yeah yes yes i don't know who the commissioner is now but that's their structure so again uh you know our director of treatment and resources we just uh we just lost that
55:41first person for uh one of the communities that i mentioned before um again it was a uh small amount that uh uh that was uh that was requested by them you know and again to speak as to you said none of these are what people are making you know or are to make if this audience is approved uh this is all based on you know every year my budget comes down here my rates come
56:09down here uh and everything is scrutinized uh and everything is discussed so again this is looking at comparables you know to find replacements for myself i don't have a deputy at this time or any of the other directors i think you'd be i think you'd be real real tough to find them at any these not to exceeds so the communities that don't have so we we're certain and i understand we're set
56:38up a little bit different so we have an administrator and a deputy those salaries combined would be about two hundred thousand are these folks doing both jobs so the so new bedford for instance that's making 206. you said they just have a deputy administrator they don't have an administrator so that is their their top spot are they doing both positions they have a commissioner as well that's on top of the deputies
57:09that's my understanding of disruption but their commissioner just as as mr furland just indicated i believe um is oversees a much bigger group of departments okay okay so that's correct right
57:38um and this is strictly the position it has nothing nothing at all to do with the individual um so the mayor runs for office and i'm not talking this mayor just mayor as a term knows what his salary is doesn't matter how many years are in office that's the salary they receive because the mayor gets paid this much money to run a city i think underpaid quite frankly but that's beside the point city council
58:07makes x number of dollars to be city councillors i believe there are positions in the mayor's office that are what i would consider political positions because when the mayor goes the person and the position goes in other words they're not career positions and i think that that posit two i consider two positions to be that and i think they're both overpaid we have people who work for the city 20 25 30 years
58:36who are in who are directors that don't make as much as positions i would consider political positions that i would feel those positions should be lowered you accept the position you know this is what you're going to make if the maze serves one term two terms five terms this is your salary it doesn't go up it and that that's just my feelings on um those positions that we just um i
59:06think some of i i just think compared to what other people are doing and not to say they don't work but then they're not career positions that it's not something that they expect to be there for 5 10 15 20 years their political positions and i think something like that can be reduced to uh help in terms of budgetary needs as well so with that which positions one specifically would be chief of staff correct which is
59:37if this passes it's going to change from not to exceed to a contract correct so then the only say that the council has in that is during the budget that's correct
59:56if you look through the list you have administrators that make 86 85 after 30 years 75 65 and you have a chief of staff making 84.
1:00:12again has nothing to do with the individual to me it's the position it's it kind of goes with whoever's mayor at the time did you want to make an amendment to this salary schedule i i think that one should be reduced but i don't know what the opinion is of anybody else i mean i would take that into consideration um i think the first thing would be for it not to go under um
1:00:38section 5302 it's currently in section 5301 it's currently in 302 what i believe i'm hearing said it should be moved to 301 it's currently in 302 because it's currently by contract but it has a not to exceed right so with that said don't we don't know i wasn't here in 17 when this was done i don't know what the real intention was was that it doesn't should it have been per contract with no
1:01:09not to exceed or should it have been in 301 with the not to exceed right and i would agree with um counselor dion that's a position that you come into whoever does it and you know that it's usually go comes and goes with the administration and when it's put in the perspective of we have uh department heads that have been here for an awfully long time um as employees of the city and and they're not
1:01:43making that or or making something similar to that i would agree on that so that recommendation would need to be similar to the city engineer but in the reverse so we just moved the city engineer out of 301 and put the city engineer in 302 what your recommendation would be is to move that position out of 302 and put it in 301 and then assign and not to exceed correct and i wouldn't um whatever this
1:02:16this position is already paying if they're already getting that i wouldn't reduce their salary um i think it would be something that we'd have to take up with or or put some caveat in there that that person gets it until you change it and then change it for the next one because it's not fair to take take anything away from anybody but i'd but i do agree with that line of of thinking we have people
1:02:40that we're losing um because they're going other places where they make more and they've been with the city an awfully long time and that that is a um a very good salary in my opinion so my so the amendment can i say something before we make a decision on this sure um the way i look at it the man gets a budget for his office and then the mayor decides where he
1:03:07wants to spend that money on salaries etc not you know that some other mayor come in might get a different chief of staff who maybe doesn't have the experience maybe they're not bilingual maybe they're trilingual they're going to look at that that's up to the mayor and how he's going to establish he or she is going to establish that office if the council doesn't like that during budget time you can reduce
1:03:30from the means budget you know what i mean for us to limit it here i don't think sound good but is it something that's really going to help i gotta give him a stipend after you know we're gonna give you this but the stipends i hate to be honest with you we shouldn't be giving stipends i don't i just i agree 100 we shouldn't be giving stipends but when people want
1:03:54more money that's the way that they went around us to do that if they have the salary amount in there you know in their budget in their budget right so i don't know i just think whatever man comes in they do their own office we always got as counselors we always got an increase every year the cost of living increase but when the ninth and so did the mayor but when the
1:04:18nine c cuts came in a motion a resolution was filed on the floor for us not to take the cost of living any longer and we didn't it was i think a unanimous vote and we didn't take the cost of living but if you look at counselors that work all over new bedford gets what 20 24.
1:04:38i mean obviously we do it because we love it we're not doing it for the money but if you looked at you know the work that you do that we all do you know maybe we get a dollar an hour but we do it because we do and we did that for the nine c cuts primarily we're not taking anything but to be able to give that to people who worked here to give that percentage to
1:05:02them i just think that that anybody in the mayor's office a man decides how he wants to spend the money um on salaries to give to people and if he's spending it foolishly he won't get he or she wouldn't get reelected that's you know we can't have control over everything and sometimes i think you know we want to stifle or control control yes we want people to watch their pennies to you know
1:05:28save money so that we don't have to burden the taxpayers but we can't control everything unless you want to run from here and then control it that's it but that i yield so i would agree with your counselor except for the fact that so what if we made changes at budget time then it becomes often it a very uncomfortable conversation because it ends up involving a person in that position and i think it should be
1:05:55something that should just be across the board well it would be a problem with positions in 302 anyway because they're by contract so the contract so we wouldn't have any choice right and we wouldn't have any um say over that because yeah i don't think this says anything and not from my perspective anyways has nothing to do with control has nothing to do with anything beyond the fact of equity and fairness
1:06:24you talk you're worried about people leaving the city for other positions who aren't being paid enough money but don't want to decrease someone who is here temporarily to me that that just doesn't make sense to me that's backwards thinking i would rather take that just for sake of numbers take 10 grand and give it to a different department head that we're trying to keep here that
1:06:51we know is there's going to be longevity uh so from my perspective it has nothing to do with control or anything otherwise i think myself personally the state rep makes 70 grand so a chief of staff can't be happy making 70 grand for two four or six years that that i mean and again has nothing to do with the person um you know it's it's more for me geared towards keeping
1:07:18quality people who want to work for the city and stay with the city in an engineering position or a planning position or something um something of that nature with that i yield so mrs saudi we would have to at this time if we wanted if if it was the will of the committee move that make an amendment to move this out of 302 and put it back in 301 and then we could
1:07:47address it at that time because i also think if if this position is currently getting the absolute increases um well actually this position right now um the contract is now written that they get cpi okay so in some some years it's less than ask me and in other years it's more than asked me oh but and and if that's how the contract was written then that's how it we need to address that in the
1:08:17if it moves to 301 so that um that is put in there and then it's changed for a next chief of staff if this person was to to leave that would be my recommendation would be to amend this to move this into 301 and then we can address the not to exceed at that time it would come back down in that section correct um i don't know can they do it on the floor
1:08:46this evening you can okay there's a recommendation to the full body okay um i'll make the motions so a motion made to move the chief of staff position out of section 5302 and into section 5301 it's been made by councillor dion second significant by constantly any discussion question so could we when she brings it back down for 5301 can we make determinant at that time or do we have to do it now
1:09:21if you're making it if you're recommending the amendment now this would be the time okay so um so we would want to address the increases that were made in that contract we wouldn't want to um if they've already been given then we can we shouldn't take it away so we would want them not to exceed um to be able to to take those into consideration and that would be for
1:09:47the duration of the contract is it a one year or two year contract um i believe it's up for renewal right now because it would be two-year with the term of the mayor okay and that's what's in the contract is the cpi cpi is in the contract so what what um cpi for this year um i believe is going to be a little over three percent so what would that have to look that up
1:10:11for you to be exact but it's been running a little high so what number would you have as the not to exceed to address the terms of the contract well if the particular position is being paid 84 now and let's just assume the cpi is three we don't know what the cpi is going to be for next year if you assume another three then whatever that calculates out to be i can
1:10:37calculate that and five percent would be 4200 yeah but it's on top of the so let me just if you don't mind but right now that's the cell we're making right right you can't reduce the salary no we're not reducing it but if that if this is moving forward but we want to make sure if if that person was present would be 89 144 if you have made the assumption that both
1:10:59your cpi is going to be three so you might want to go to 90.
1:11:04okay so would the amendment be to move it to section 5301 with a not to exceed of 90 000.
1:11:15yes for any further discussion do we need a real call on that you don't have to but you can if you'd like broca on the amendment councils kadeem dion yes lee pereira yes chair of the boulevard yes motion carries on the environment the discussion moving forward we'll change that right yes and we'll have to figure out how to that'll be how to address that because this is just for this person's classroom
1:11:50this would take us to theoretically this is going to take us through the next two years at which time um we would have to have an amendment to this particular position reducing the not to exceed from 90 to whatever whatever okay um and then the other amendment i would i would i would because this is for three years correct i would correct request that the minimum director of minimum housing that that not to exceed um
1:12:28and it could be the will of the committee as well is moved to either it's currently at 65 and it would it's moved to either 70 or 75.
1:12:41i'd suggest 75 based on the fact that i don't have the comps on that but if i recall looking at it so my motion would be to uh for the director minimum housing to amend the recommended 65 not to exceed to 75
1:13:12this is an fyi and that would be current salary is at 53 and that would take it through the next three years if 75 yeah so the recommended is 65 which is low it's structured minimum housing again it's up to the administration if if they were to increase this position as they see fit uh but it is incredibly low and it would have to be for the 23 budget at this point right right
1:13:54well anything would have to be for the 23 but we don't address these for three years so this would take it through the next three years if well some of them you know as i indicated earlier this evening if you look in the budget book some of them the other personnel services have been addressed i believe the position right above it we've included an amount to compensate for that shortfall okay
1:14:19certainly not to the not to exceed of even if we adjust it to the 110 to something that is um more comparable to what that person should be paid okay i'm sorry are you talking about the minimum housing you check about the one above it okay i believe the one above it is definitely in the budget for i'm not sure from what amount but it's in the other personnel services i'd
1:14:48have to pull my work i couldn't okay because i know the worksheet that came down to us just had the smaller whatever was promised which i think was three thousand and something yeah several years ago okay i believe you're correct okay so if one of the other counselors would like to make that amendment that would be lovely if not we'll move along what's the amendment for to increase the recommended on director
1:15:16of housing um to not to exceed 75. okay i'll make the motion um amendment made for not to exceed for director of minimum housing stands at inspectional services to be 75 000 made by council pereira is our second i can second it okay second roll call i guess any discussions roll call on the motion houses kadeem dion yes lee no pereira yes shayla liberty level yes
1:15:58the one above it so what would so this is going to keep with the apps me i personally think the rest of it should stay yeah we've worked on it i'd make a motion now actually just items i apologize you have one other question or before you make that motion cal counselor and it's the the veterans service director i know we did the comps on that one the current salary um
1:16:28is 64. the recommended not to exceed is only 70 and i know even that 70 is is low compared to other communities but i believe this position is also getting a stipend is that correct uh i believe it's just an auto stipend for travel so do you know what that is well in this particular case um i believe she's getting 2 500.
1:16:57so i mean i would rather see it in the salary so that normal auto allowances are 15.60 but i believe in her case when she was hired the agreement was 2500.
1:17:11okay i just don't agree with you i don't like stipends so right and i don't think this if she's at 64 or whoever goes into this position is that 64 with the increases over i think we're going to be past that 70.
1:17:25um that would be the only other one i would i would motion that that either move to 75 or 80 so that we are fine for the next three years and i'd rather take that stipend out and put it in the salary i agree you know this is the concern i have we're looking now at increasing someone who just got here versus someone who had been here for a long time and wanted a raise and it
1:17:53would have gotten a raise would have stayed which position is that the director of veteran services right no but which position so we're gone and now you know this is what it came in at and there is a stipend for travel and the stipend for travel was 25 because she lived further away correct i'm not sure what the purpose was but they but they got a spike if the stipend is higher her stipend is higher than
1:18:22this general stipend 4.
1:18:24so my concern about it is not the is that it's going to be over if you were to put the stipend in the salary because if the stipend is not in the salary they don't get no but that stipend is an auto stipend so it's supposed to be separate gas so it's supposed to be in lieu of going to the um garage and filling up okay so that's another policy that the
1:18:53city really needs to work on because we have some individuals that go fill up some don't and some get stipends and where is that policy it's not anything that we have not read it's not written okay so this is a policy that years ago if you were supposed to have a card and when they had the card they would go and they would swipe and you know how much gas they put in then the policy
1:19:15changed to having a gas attendant there and then that we needed another worker so we took them off of that so then the policy is people go and fill up and nobody knows who's taking what all right so this is separate outside of salary just for gas so the 70 will cover it for the um but nothing's in writing on that the stipend her current stipend um i believe
1:19:42and don't hold me to this but i believe her stipend because it was higher is in writing okay but the others that receive a stipend it's not no it's policy unwritten policy unwritten policy okay it actually might be in the espy contract right it's in the assb contract so they're following the contract so even though they're not ask me employees so mr hardy this um not to exceed 70 my concern is that it's only
1:20:14it will that will take into consideration this afscme increases for the next three years and that will be fine we won't be short my concern well we may i mean i can't guarantee you what asthma is going to settle out i would think the answer to your question is yes you should be fine but i don't have that crystal ball with what the aspie contract is going to settle out okay because it seems as if the
1:20:40other ones were raised quite a bit to make sure it covers that well a lot of the others were raised based on cops too so in this particular case um i believe the few communities that we looked at the veterans agent was being paid around the seven day mark around 70. i don't have a cops with me but okay counseling well just to your point miss counsel for her um
1:21:07i liked the person before and i like the person now i like them both all the same um none of these none of my no votes are personal at all i like i like mr furling i like everyone that you know works and and i know they all work hard and i know i know a lot of stories that how hard you work so i it does not fall it doesn't fall in deaf ears
1:21:28you know what my focus is i hope you know what my focus is um and regarding the veterans service office i mean i'm a veteran myself and i i would love to see you know veterans taking that position being paid um you know a good salary it's just that again my focus is on the the people who have to pay these salaries and the condition of the city not just the condition of the city government
1:21:52but the condition of what mr council of dion mentioned that you know we have a very low um in income uh income amongst amongst families and amongst individuals and foreign it's not high it's not high in the state at all um and and comparing it we should start comparing those numbers to other communities before we start to raise up everything on everybody so um again no no shot at miss britto
1:22:19because i do appreciate her but i'm voting no to this as well like there's no way there's no way i could justify it there's no amendment on the table oh i thought there was i thought we were going to do ten thousand there's just discussion increase okay nope it's just a question all right from 64 to 70 is the assumption of three percent increases each year and asks me and that will cover it it's quite unlikely
1:22:44okay three for each year but that will take you to 69 997. and that was based on um comps as well yes okay i make a motion that we send with the amendments we've made to full council for approval emotion made by is there any further anything else from the council before a motion made by council pereira to i would approve as an amendment pass through first meeting as amended is there a second
1:23:31because at the end you have a question so administrator community utilities recommended is 140 and not to exceed is a recommended right current salary is 108.
1:23:57current not to exceed per ordinance is 103 that does get to asked me increases and then the recommended in this chart is not to exceed 140 not that it will be going to 140.
1:24:11i feel like i have to keep saying that and again i mean this is an uh this applies to us to all the positions as far as that's where i become not comfortable because right there's nothing saying it's going to get that high but there's nothing stopping it from getting that high and i think that's quite a well in the case of all of them it would be the budget right not being passed would stop that
1:24:37the water department budget comes down separate but again it would be a vote of the council on that budget as well we'll be able to make changes on that one as we are the the other budget so any of the recommendations so anything that we're agreeing to in here during the budget process can be amended at that time yes the council can vote now and give the reasons why or give recommendations prior to the
1:25:05adoption of the budget for the administration to change different things and just to be clear just to be fair is that remember that you vote the three categories in the budget so if it happens to be a budget with a number of individuals in it you would be voting to decrease salaries and wages the total i mean you could certainly during discussion discuss the particular position that you're looking at but it's
1:25:30decreasing overall number it's not that's correct it's not the line item individual number that's correct so you're not taking a person and saying i want to reduce this position you're reducing based on the appropriation order salaries and wages in total for that department and that how they structure it is up to right so in mr furland's case what are sewer you do it for water you do a pursuer
1:25:56on the city side you would do it for the at the department level okay so um just to address that so then the administer is administrator of community utilities which one is that under sure it's on it's in sewer as a whole yes and the the deputy administrator i know it's vacant but where is that also so just to you know kind of put names to them because i know to some extent
1:26:27that's how i have to do this so the administrator was terry sullivan and mr ferlin was the deputy yep and they're both under sewer so when he stepped up that deputy position was not filled correct and we only have mr sullivan on a consulting basis right that's correct is that is the deputy position not filled because we can't find anybody uh so my hope is to advertise in the near future potentially
1:27:01when i moved up to the position it was advertised there wasn't any candidates at that time that could fill that position okay and was the pay scale the reasoning um you know i would say that the pay scale would definitely be part of the reason to try to get somebody you know somebody that hasn't you know that's an engineer somebody that has the licenses that are required for that position of water license
1:27:29distribution and treatment as well as sewer licenses as well as so evaluators construction supervisors license we're all requirements and recommendations for that position so that get a qualified candidate at the what we were advertising that was you know finding that same issue advertising right now for the director of water treatment okay um um so when we seem to have some discrepancy so to speak and
1:28:02some differences of opinion um on some of these would i know we have emotion on the floor this is just a question um would it make sense to send it to full council with again it would be require a second motion if the first one failed i get that part but uh with a negative recommendation would that apply in this situation a negative recommendation that would be it so it would be in
1:28:33the amendment passed it would be you would want to send it with a negative recommendation well i think there's changes we want to see that need to be discussed moving forward further can you expand on that a little bit um i just want to make sure i'm answering you yeah like well in terms of some of the discussion we've had that we feel like some are a little high some are a little low um
1:28:58that maybe we're out of you know line on on some of these positions um if there's any others that you want to amend you can certainly do that now and we can send it with further amendments i just feel like we've kind of had a like on the veterans one i think some of us feel it should be higher some of us feel it shouldn't be higher on the chief of staff we had a
1:29:25difference of opinion um the chief of staff has been amended though it's been amended yeah all right i'll just yield and see where we go all right so the motion on the floor was to send through first reading as amendment as amended made by counselor ferrara is there a second i'll second it for the discussion welcome on the motion council kadeem dion yes lee no ferreira yes shayla libby lebeau yes
1:30:12all in favor
1:30:35you