2.8.2022 Fall River City Council - Committee on Ordinances and Legislation

will now come to ornamental clerk will you call

here pursuant 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 acknowledgeable and permissible first item on the agenda is citizen input seeing that we don't have any citizens

that want to share their input with us we'll move on to item number two proposed ordinance traffic handicap parking which was referred on december 14 2021 and december 28 2021 can i get a motion for emergency premium through all readings second motion was made by counselor kilby seconded by council dion discussion hearing none madam clerk we call the role

yes yes motion to adopt motion to adopt made by council dion second second by council raposa any discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed so voted motion carries unanimously third item is a proposed ordinance traffic miscellaneous referred to the committee on december 14 2021.

motion to adopt second first reading was made by councillor kilby seconded by counselor dion discussion hearing nine all those in favor aye opposed so voted motion carries unanimously item number four is a resolution to discuss the establishment of an ordinance to require any stipend above two thousand dollars require city council approval this was tabled on may 30th 2019 i would

need a emotional emotion from the table was made by counselor kilby second by counselor dion all those in favor opposed so voted motion carries is there any discussion i will just start off originally with the uh origi the resolution going back to 2019 uh there was some concern that there were stipends that were uh being handed out uh to employees that were above and beyond their salaries that at the time

city council was not aware of that being said obviously the administration does have the authority to issue stipends as long as the there is an appropriation associated with that i think some of the concerns there were in particular there was a snow stipend that was given to the chief of staff that really kind of pushed this resolution forward especially with the fact that the council felt that the duties that were

associated with the snow stipend really did fall within the job description and responsibilities of the chief of staff at the time so i think it was really trying to create an awareness that would give us at least some type of oversight or safety net with regards to the approval of stipends moving forward so the resolution was for the amount of two thousand dollars would be required by the um

the city council there was a memo i'm sorry there was a memo that was drafted by then corporation counsel uh judge macy and i won't read the entire memo but uh because it goes into contract employees union employees uh ordinance employees and obviously stipends that are collectively collectively uh bargains are are allowable and that really is through the the administration but with respect to

employees and ordinance uh and those not falling under uh individual contracts or collective bargaining agreements uh that would stipulate stipends did say with respect to stipends so-called there is no definition of the term either in the charter or ordinance however if the stipend is a payment to an employee to increase their salary for the same task as contained in their job description it is considered salaries

and wages regardless of what is called and needs to be addressed by ordinance payment for a task or tasks outside of the regular job description may be given additional compensation without an ordinance change as a matter of executive action so yeah payment for the task or tasks outside of the regular job description may be given additional compensation without an ordinance change as a matter of executive action

so long as the amount is within the budget of appropriation so one i'm just really looking to clean this item up really kind of get some i guess direction from the from this committee on if we want to move forward with having a ordinance drafted that would require any stipend above the amount of two thousand dollars um come back down to the council for approval regardless of funding counselor

dion had her hand up first so counsel damn yeah i think my only comment would be precedent was set and because precedent was set moving forward you don't know what will it won't happen i think it's reasonable to set a limit so um i think we should pursue it that's basically my only comment that i yield counsel kelly yeah oh i'm sorry i'm going to totally understand the intent of the the resolution i agree with it

um however uh thank you council chairman kadeem for reading council macy's comments um the intent i think which is right there um however according to macy's opinion he doesn't really think it's necessary um those are bad times that we went through and i would just hope that if any future stipends came down from that category of employees that you just spoke spoke about then we would begin giving written notice

of that fact so um my my opinion would be to give this leap withdrawal but to send a letter to the administration um that any future stipends that are within that category of employees the city council received written notice of the same so i yield okay absolutely so so i think the crux of this the purpose of this and the crux of this is based off of a conflict of interest right

this is this was meant to try to address a mayor being in a position to sort of use a stipend system to break a conflict you know conflict of interest so i think did was there any language about that about if a stipend was used to sort of give a favor to someone rather than the actual job description uh no i don't think there was any real discussion about it i think it was just overall

um i think folks were a little concerned about the circumventing of salaries that were established in ordinance right so there was a lot of that coming down and i i think some of it is just uh administratively um you know the mechanics requires that the administration bring back updates obviously for the pay scales that are in ordinance so you would have increases or cost of living adjustments that were

made that would put people outside of of what was an ordinance so obviously there's a conflict there trying to obviously for those that may be below it but looking to get some additional monies without having to come down to the council you could potentially go about it by implementing a stipend so i think i think that's where some of some of the mindset was at the time of that and obviously

again i think being straightforward is a ten thousand dollars snow stipend for a chief of staff that wasn't performing snow duties right right and i think i mean i remember i remember seeing that and you specifically asking over and over again like what were the duties that this person was doing that was different from what they normally did and the fact that there was not even

a lot of snow that that day you know for it to be a 10 000 stipend was just you know a lot so i don't i don't know i don't think we should be necessarily ignoring the opportunity for something like this to happen again i don't know if maybe this is the venue or the avenue to address it but i do think that if we had a situation like that there should be

something some kind of teeth to something that we can do to address that a situation like that so maybe maybe the language in in this specific resolution doesn't fully address that situation but i think we need to at least maybe explore the opportunity to find a way to address something if it comes down the line again because that was egregious i don't i don't think anyone could deny that and i think we need to

figure out a way to address those things now i was thinking through conflict of interest just of simple fact of this person received ten thousand dollars for something that clearly in my in most people's opinions it wasn't valid you know but how do we address that i think i think the council who wrote this resolution obviously was making an honest attempt at that um maybe we just need to figure out an avenue that

actually does directly address that kind of issue yep thank you and i just want to clarify i think the again that the stipend discussion is for those that are outside of um an individual contract which would obviously highlight any stipends that that individual will be getting or the collective bargaining agreements that are um that are in place that would also highlight the different stipends that

are uh provided to the employees before i recognize counselor dion uh council proposal you haven't spoken yet so typically what we just everybody's gotta speak once before i go move on to the to the second person so that's the only reason i ask so you're good counselor diem thank you um yeah it just kind of sparked my memory i also think if i wasn't on the council at the time but i feel like i recall that

stipends were to a certain extent also being used to circumvent the fact that the city council would not vote to increase people's salaries if i remember correctly so granted in the budget whatever the administration has in a line item they're allowed to spend at their discretion however i think they were being used indiscriminately and simply because they were trying to circumvent

so i think also this conversation might um have some purpose in in on negating that or or putting that more in an even field that that can't be done with that i yield thank you could i just ask the city administrator to come down just a couple of basic questions and you may not have the answers i know you're fairly fairly new to the position but you have one right there is this your first official meeting

it is nice thanks for having me thanks for being here helping out so the uh i guess the first question would be um just so we can get an understanding and again you may not have this this answered but do you know roughly how many individuals or employees are receiving stipends that would fall outside of the collective bargaining agreement or individual contracts i do so um i had uh jen argo um do a uh

a little survey of stipends uh she's obviously here tonight too and can answer some questions uh the council would like regarding how many stipends are being paid now this does not include uh police and fire those would be within collective bargaining agreements that are relevant to those particular bargaining units so with regard to stipends that are are here some of them are even again within

either aspen or teamsters but what i can see is that there are three stipends within the clerks and city council office and so i would suggest that those are well within the knowledge and understanding of the council and really have to do with being here at meetings aside from that there is a head custodian's that falls outside of the 2 000 threshold and at this time i do not know whether it is part of

his collective bargaining agreement i am aware that that particular union is really comprised of two persons um and so that's the law unit and so uh not a lot of our value and um as uh head custodian he does have a stipend for being on call yeah i believe i believe that's rolled into the collective bargaining agreement so and i just i didn't have a chance to take a look at that agreement

aside from that i see a junior civil engineer on call stipend that would not be rolled into a collective bargaining agreement i don't believe that that position is actually filled with this time but my understanding of having discussed it earlier today is that if we were to fill that position similar to what happened in 2018 with a number of positions uh stipends that were being paid uh really

sort of muddying the waters with regard to how people were really being paid it would get rolled into the junior civil engineer salary we just haven't had a chance to fill that position and we may or may not fill that position in the near future and then finally there are two employees within solid waste that do get a snow stipend there has been ongoing discussion about the fact that with regard to snow services

there are essentially three sort of categories of employees there are certain employees that would be entitled to overtime as part of their services for snow there are other employees that are on salary and wouldn't be entitled over time because of their status as exempt employees and so they would essentially be paid on an hourly basis similar to civilian contractors and their civilian contractors

the sort of fourth slightly more nebulous group uh would be the ones that have these stipends that as far as i can tell are rolled into their collective bargaining as teamsters or as aspie employees so there are very very few that really would come under what's described in this particular resolution um in fact i can only see maybe four or five total in the city um that do and would continue in the future

to fall under what's being described in this particular resolution okay but that doesn't present i guess i'm sorry does not prevent the administration from creating additional stipends if it so chose too right so i think we just got to keep that in the back of our minds as well just you know obviously this is you know while the times are going well now it's really trying to plan for you know the

worst case situation to make sure that we've got safety nets in place to make sure that things don't transpire like they did in the past do you have um have you given any any consideration or thought to the two thousand dollar amount is is that unreasonable because i think i would i would want to allow some flexibility for the administration to be able to obviously conduct the day-to-day but also try to

strike a balance with regard to a dollar amount so that you know we can again the city council can feel comfortable and and you know report back to the constituents that we're confident enough that there are safety measures in place right so um is is 2000 a good number or is it kind of low what what's your take if you've given it any consideration so i thought about it a little bit um and

and i would um i would connect my my thoughts on this to the question of why would a stipend be paid in the first place and i can only come up with really two reasons um and and this is going along with judge macy's thought that it doesn't really matter what you call it if it's outside of the of the salary or whatever the the you know description job description the pre-determined pay

structure of somebody if it's payment outside of that whatever it's called stipend allowance whatever it's it's this thing we're talking about um and those two those two uh instances where i would uh imagine that a stipend might be paid are either someone's being asked to do something outside of their job description that's the obvious one or a person is incurring certain personal costs associated with their job that

maybe the city would try to offset so a good example is i know that some of the inspectors and some of the other folks that use personal vehicles to carry out their their work have in the past received certain allowances or stipends if you will um which i would argue legally is not truly a stipend it's more of an allowance that is part of the job description but it is outside of the traditional

either hourly or salary paycheck so using those two instances where something some additional stipend might be paid the question is is two thousand dollars the appropriate amount and i would argue that it might be low um again i don't have any particular situation in mind where i would imagine that somebody would be paid more than two thousand dollars but just looking at some of the stipends that have been

uh paid here none of them seem surprising or outrageous some of them are certainly over two thousand dollars uh and i could certainly see that if we take you know the amount of somebody's time spent doing things outside of their work if you're imagining that they might spend a few hours a week doing this thing and giving them you know some sort of workable wage attached to those few

hours per week i would imagine it might add up to more than two thousand dollars because if you divide that out that's either a fairly small amount of time or a small hourly rate for the time um so if the council is inclined to to think about something higher than that uh maybe three or four thousand dollars is a more appropriate mortgage council lee and again i know that we're talking

about two thousand dollars ten thousand dollars whatever it is um but again and this is just about the situation that inspired the resolution in the first place is if a mayor wanted to circumvent this say we come to a conclusion that it's two thousand dollars now they do uh a stipend for they do five or six stipends for a thousand dollars a piece yeah just to just to get that money to where they needs to go

for whatever reason what that's you know what i'm saying like where are we how would we be able to address something like that i think that's really what we're trying to really get to the bottom of yeah i i guess i would suggest that that at that point somebody doing that is is just more more in your face of trying to circumvent because as it currently stands there's no ordinance that's silent on stipends right so

i think when we go back to the same point that i brought up about the ten thousand dollar snowstipe and everybody was aware that there was snow stipends but who was getting it so you know once we started digging through and found out that there were individuals that potentially should not have gotten it we come to the fact that now we've got to create at least something in ordinance because number one there's no

definition and it's silent right so once we put that in there and we what i guess this committee and the city council agrees to as having a safety net in place um then it just becomes more egregious and from an administrative standpoint if that's what you're gonna be doing if you're gonna constantly be handing out you know five different uh two thousand dollar stipends or three thousand dollar

stipends to individuals and and i think at that point the city council would have more um i guess more issue uh or heartache with regard to this going on and i think hopefully at that point we we have the ability to hold the administration combo through various measures whether it's finance committee or other other departments to really deal with it but you know i think one of the things is that we can't over

you you don't want to you know death by a thousand paper cuts right you want to try to create uh ordinances that are that are clear defined uh but we can't really try to micromanage and anticipate every single item because i think if somebody wants to abuse a policy or an ordinance they're gonna find a way to do it it's just gonna make sure that you know the average person uh looking at it from

a reasonable lens would say that there is a mechanism in place that would help to eliminate the abuse of this and i i think maybe two right you know whether it's whatever the dollar amount is i think that does that but again to me i just want to be able to strike the balance with the administration because i think it's important for an administration whether it's this one or future administrations

to be able to have flexibility because at the end of the day things do come up uh you have situations where you know you might not be able especially now in the job setting that we're seeing it's it's very hard and difficult to you know fill some of these these positions that are open and vacant you know you've cfos you've got uh clerks are being you know i'm going out for the third time on

a clerical staff you know in seacock so it just it's it's repeating and there's not a whole lot of candidates right now coming in so if you want to pay somebody to pick up the the extra duties and you want to be able to give them a stipend you want to have that flexibility without having to come back down to the council and you know dragging that on so yep by you by the way thank you

any other discussion comes with kelly i'm getting a clear message i think my colleagues want to keep this here where it is and it would have been nice to get a draft ordinance um before us tonight to at least consider and tweak um instead of prolonging this i mean this resolution was passed in 2000 july 12 200 2018.

um so item number four i'm looking at the resolution when i was looking at the agenda this morning i flipped the page and i said i'd like to see a proposed ordinance and we could do this from the floor we could change it tweak it suggest something we can send to the council because what's going to happen is it's going to be put off to another meeting council lee brought up some very good

points in terms of what he would like to see so it looks like this is going to be tabled again um and i'll support that and i think the council gave a message in terms a little bit maybe the numbers a little low and um so i don't want to go on and on here but again it would have been nice to get a proposed ordinance uh after all this time has gone by in my

opinion so that i do yeah i don't disagree with you i think it was just tabled and then no action was taken by the ordinance committee at the time so um but tonight it's on the agenda tonight it's not difficult i'm sorry no no but i but i think i prefer to have as opposed to us trying to draft an ordinance just to work with the administration and see if they can

draft some language for us uh to review but but again i think it would have been a little bit uh premature to to assume that the count the committee wanted to move in that direction that that's all so but i agree with you i think if we can have something it's it's just more detail that we can actually say okay this works this doesn't work but so if the if the intent of the committee

just to move this conversation forward is is to go ahead and prolong that i would just ask for a motion to have the administration work and draft on a motion made okay so motion to have the administration draft an ordinance on the stipends and have that presented to the ordinance committee um and we'll table this item so we'll we'll take that motion first motion was made by council lee second by council raposo

discussion council dion yeah i just have one question council lee brought up the fact of that you know one person could get x number of stipends if we agree on a dollar amount that you feel is fair that everybody feels is fair would it be sensible or prudent to say the stipend would be not so much per dollar amount per stipend but per person so in other words you have somebody

that's working in in a specific specific area they do extra duty you feel they deserve a thousand dollars for the work they did as a stipend down the road they might do more that you might feel they need they they deserve another thousand dollars so there would be a cap on the individual to meet the number that's determined is fair am i you are so that's that's clear um i can't speak

to the mayor because we haven't really uh discussed in depth what this might look like um but um at your pleasure i can certainly uh at whatever date you identify i can bring back a draft with the administration's input as to what that might look like it could certainly have a cap on the aggregate it could indicate that you know stipends to the same person cannot be given uh contemporaneously uh so there's a

there's a number of different ways to do that and not to say that i'm saying that i mean say the the dollar figure was five thousand it doesn't matter what the dollar number is not to say that it can't be given all at once you know not to say it has to be doled out but just in the event should there be a limit for aggregate that's the question certainly at the very least i'm sorry

at the very least um whatever uh the administration asked me to bring back before the council it'll give you something to work with because it's starting to kill these council abilities uh comment is well taken that it would certainly be much easier to have a draft to work with as opposed to just talking about this in the abstract so i can i can uh consult with the administration

and do that okay with that i yield thank you thank you council proposal and i'm just thinking about some level of consistency when you talk about those stipends um you know if you're doing a certain job getting a stipend for a set amount the next time you do that same job it's relatively close to or the same level of stipend you're going to be receiving versus one time being at a

thousand next time being at two thousand when you're really doing the same same role without a yield any further discussion on the motion um so the motion just to be clear that we're voting on is to refer this to the administration for a draft ordinance to come back before ordinance committee seeing no other discussion all those in favor all right opposed so voted motion carries unanimously sorry motion to

table motion stable motion motion table made by uh council raposo second by council of dion all those in favor aye opposed so voted motion carries unanimously uh item number five um committee on ordinance and legislation discussed uh the establishment of an ordinance requiring all collective bargaining agreements include cost analysis this was adopted on march 5th 2019 i was the council that actually

sponsored this this resolution so the the intent behind this was originally the council was receiving uh collective bargaining agreements that were coming down before uh the city council without any uh cost associated with it so year one cost year two cost and then total cost for contract uh so part of my concern was is that once the city council approves a collective bargaining agreement

for the first year essentially that's what we're doing for the first year in funding associated with that the city is now obligated for the entire collective bargaining agreement so from my standpoint as a council without getting that type of information for the total cost of the of the cbas it was hard for us to be able to really truly take an educated vote as to whether or not we want to to

approve this and then again committing long-term um you know obviously financial liabilities based on the agreements that were put in place by the agreements and the negotiations that were taking place and and i fully recognize that we're not here to negotiate the collective bargaining agreement however as the legislative body we provide appropriation for so i think that's an important factor into this

i will say that i really will live it up to the um to this committee as to whether or not we want to really truly draft an ordinance that would state that i would tell you that the obvious um and i guess the most reasonable presentation of any collective bargaining agreement would include uh costs associated with it for the total contract and uh year-over-year breakdowns and we started to see that a little bit

after this resolution came in so i'm comfortable with what's been presented thus far but so we can either take this as an item just to clean up and do a leave to withdraw or if if the committee feels strongly that we want to try to get a draft ordinance in place we can do that counselor kilby had his hand up um again i think it's a wonderful resolution it speaks to accountability it speaks to communication

the only first question i had obviously is uh we we cannot interview with collective bargaining so this would be after the agreements are settled then we would get an analysis before we vote in terms of the financial impact so that begs another question in my mind in terms of um and i should know the answer to this question but we approve collective bargaining agreements we do okay remember those on the school

committee we'd ratify contrary motion and ratify motion to ratify motion um so that's the school committee has the authority to to ratify on the top on the city side the legislative body needs to appropriate and ratify okay um so we we actually get a cop again i've been around a while but i should know they answer this question so we i don't remember ever getting the actual contract the union contracts in front of me

and voting on the contract so already vote on the overall appropriation during budget time so they they origin so it's twofold so originally they weren't sending us the contract then counselors started asking for a copy of the contract so what they were doing was just sending the contract with no redline changes so there wasn't i prefer to see an mou right so the mou will really tell you exactly what the

change is from uh one contract to the next contract so that really gives you the highlight so you'll be able to see that so from my standpoint i would present the mou or the moea depending on how they want to phrase it along with each funding for each year but they they were sending the contracts down but no red line changed so it was hard to really unless you had a copy of the prior uh

expiring contract you want to be able to do the analysis you'd have to go line by line okay um so i guess uh and i should again i'm repeating i should know this um it's the purview of the mayor and council chairman you speak about this quite often with regards to staying in our lane our job is a job the mayor's job is because executive is his or her job um so um

i think you know my my question is whether whether or not we have the authority to obviously we have the authority to get information um but do we we approve these contracts yeah so we we approve the we ratified we ratify the contract and we provide appropriation the first year my concern becomes once we do that we are obligated to fund year two and year three or and sometimes on all contracts or three year contracts

but depending on the terms right so they don't typically exceed three years so once you do that so let's just say year one is only a ten thousand dollar increase but year two has a five hundred thousand dollar increase and we can't afford it we're now obligated it doesn't come back to the city council we're obligated to fund that so the administration will have to go in and fund that

so if we don't have the funding that just means that you're going to have layoffs and but you're still going to have to you know live up to all the agreements that were in place so if you agree to a cost of living adjustment of five percent you still have to pay five percent but it may not be on 100 employees it may only be on 50 employees because you have to

lay off 50 employees to be able to cover the cost so that's that's where the concern comes from a legislative body to make sure that from a fiduciary responsibility we know what the true cost is going out to the to the term of the contract and we're comfortable with making sure that we're going to be able to fund it so to your point though we're not getting into the weeds of

saying no we don't like the fact that you gave a stipend it's either your you approve the entire contract you don't get to to pick and choose and and say okay we're going to remove this language or that language so it so i'm sorry if i monopolize it too much time here so after the police the fire um all the other unions are at the bargaining table and after a number of number of months or

hope maybe a number of weeks uh they the team both teams settle the contract um do we have the ability to say no go back to the bombing table i don't think we do you do you only you do if you don't approve the appropriation so so they've got to get the union has to get it ratified so if the union doesn't get it ratified then they have to go back to the

administration and it really kind of starts negotiations all over so it will never get to us and then when it comes to us if we don't vote for the appropriation essentially the administration will go back and i would hope that the council would say why they're not doing it so if it's because they're concerned about you know the dollar amount they've got to reduce which and i'll throw out arbitrary number 100 000

that would be on the administration to figure out how they do that i love the spirit of resolution like i said before if i'm using that word a lot but i do and i just don't want to cross lanes too much without rule and the administration's role but the sharing of information is i think very very very important we can move to a different type of form of government if we'd like

but we have what we have right now so that's all i'll say in this matter listen to my colleagues oh i just had some questions constantly yeah i just had some questions because again this was this was passed um in march and i just i just wanted to know um cost cost analysis on the cba so is is there a is there a president is there a template that we is there other

area of you know other town or other area that actually has um approved or disapproved of cbas with or without a cost analysis is that something is are we asking for something that is unprecedented or is that something that is common in most cba presentations to city councils uh i can't speak for other communities but i know like when you get to towns town meetings have to approve so i think they have to approve the

ratification of a contract so it really is up to that i guess executive branches on how much information they provide um but you know you constituents can get up and ask ask questions so i don't think it's unreasonable i would i would tell you that we're not asking i would hope that we're not asking for any information that hasn't already been done right so if you're gonna agree to

let's just call it a two and a half percent increase for cost of living adjustment you would want to know what that cost would be right so you would have a dollar amount saying okay that's going to cost us 500 000 okay if you've increased the a stipend from a thousand dollars to 2 000 you know you have so many employees that's going to cost us you know 10 000. if you've given another holiday that's

going to have a dollar dollar amount attached to it so i would think before any type of agreement is in place i would think that the administration is already doing that because even the removal of language is going to cost money the adding of language costs you money so you want to be able to go in there with some type of you know if and i'm not trying to give strategy uh uh

strategy plans out for for the union but typically you'll go in and say okay we've got a hundred thousand dollars now how we divvy up the pie whether it's through uh cost of living adjustments or stipends or other type of adjustments we have a hundred thousand dollars to play with so i would think that those analysis are being done and and i and i'm in agreement with the with it i just was curious if there was

any kind of precedent sent somewhere in a different area because then we would have some kind of foundation to build off of you know i think the administration whatever whoever it is at the time when you're when you're presenting to the seat when they when they're done with all the unions and everything and they are presented to the city council that there is some sort of template in place

that we can at least follow to find it but it seems like we're going to be building this from scratch which is great i have no problem with that i was just asking out of curiosity if if you you having experience where you are in in two different areas if that's how it's presented to your town council or anything like that but it doesn't i mean it doesn't matter i think we have a

responsibility regardless of anything if we're going to approve something whether it be a budget or a cba how much is it going to cost the taxpayers year to year i think we need to know that information period so i'm in 100 support my question was more out of is this being done in other areas so that way maybe we can find that foundation to build on but i think this is great that we're doing

it right from the ground up this is this is something we need so i was i'm not in disagreement at all i'm actually in full support of it so i yield on that thank you council dmg have you had them yeah i just want to bring up i think we've already been through this with the last police and fire contract the language was changed in the contracts to bring people from other divisions into the

fire department they would come in at a higher um at a higher level which gave them in essence more seniority than others we had a question about that we had a question about how it monetarily affected it house if it affected seniority down the road um and we ultimately tabled it we sent it to kp law to get an opinion on um how it either adversely or didn't adversely affect

um the money et cetera so i think we basically already did this and that was just an example of how how it does take place and what our responsibilities were with that i yield any other discussion seeing none i'll make the motion to uh have a draft ordinance okay motion to uh refer this to the administration for a draft audience was made by council seconded by council dion discussion

hearing none all those in favor aye aye opposed so voted motion carries uh thank you motion to table motion table was made by counsel kill be seconded by counselor dion all those in favor all right so vote in motion carries item number six is a communication regarding a proposed amendment for expense and travel policy uh this was referred to the committee on december 16 2019 we do have a letter in here from then

acting mayor cliff ponte with regard to uh making some some changes uh to the ordinance so council can we yes thank you um i reviewed this it's nice to have a draft ordinance um so i uh i think it totally makes sense and um i'm going to ask my colleague to support a motion to send this full council with a powerful recommendation i think he was looking to uh there's a couple of things right i think

there's an ordinance in place already and i think he was looking to strike city council so could i could i just ask that we have a new draft that's apollo i think that's the policy i think that's an administrative policy right so that wouldn't be so i think we have a couple of things i think they were looking to do an internal policy on just reimbursements and expenditures which

really is outside of the jurisdiction of the city council but i think thanks and then i think he was looking to strike city council um from the ordinance 2-3-8-4 so i would i would just ask that we just refer this to the administration as well i don't know that this policy has been implemented so before we go and change the ordinance i would just ask the administration if they could just review what the

expenditure and reimbursement policies are and then make recommendations on uh amendments to ordinance 2-384 or any other additional ordinance that they feel would be applicable i would make them a motion to refer to the administration uh motion was made by council dion is there a second second second concept uh second by council raposo uh councilman i would probably urge the administration

to cooperate with the school department because there's a lot more there's much more conferences and travel and different things and there's a solid policy in place so i think it would probably make sense too i mean cooperate across corporate communicate with them thank you any further discussion hearing none on the motion all those in favor aye opposed so voted motion carries motion's a table motion to the table

motion was made by councillor dion seconded by council kilby all those in favor opposed so voted motion carries item number seven uh developed a strategy to allow continuous operations of the city council through telecommunications or other forms of technology during times of an emergency this was tabled on february 4th 2021.

can i just make a motion to lift it from the table motion to lift from the table was made by council dion seconded by counselor kibbly all those in favor aye opposed so voter motion carries i think this is really a housekeeping matter we've been going through zoom so i think there really is no need for this one is there a motion to grant leaf to a draw motion was made by councillor kilby

second second second by counselor dion all those in favor post so voted motion carries item number eight is a proposed ordinance director of human resources was referred to the committee on december 14 2021

so here there's a request from mayor coogan he's respectfully asking for the removal of section 5.73 requiring the approval of city council of the director of human resource contract each time it's renewed so i believe and i'll let the administrator correct me if i'm wrong but i think they're looking for the uh approval of the um appointment i was drawing a blank on the uh the word the the appointment and not

the renewal of a contract is that correct that's my understanding um discussion yeah i believe this is one of the only positions that that's done with um the others all fall into the the category and the execution that you're looking for in regard to this position so um i if any i don't know if anybody else has any comment but i would make a motion to approve motion to approve was made by council

dion is there a second second by consulate kilby discussion hearing none all those in favor opposed so voted motion carries unanimously item number nine is the proposed ordinance commissioner of cemeteries and trees the director of cemeteries and trees referred to committee on december 14 2021

so we're looking to adjust the commissioner of cemeteries and trees of cemetery i'm sorry commissioner of cemeteries and trees director of cemetery trees is that accurate with the not to exceed salary of 75 000 and then also the removal of the commissioner of recreational facilities and cemeteries administrator administrator recreational facilities cemeteries and trees in section 50-301

salary schedules for executive officers department heads and non-personnel non-union personnel counselor can we totally understand obviously what's happening here but the other alternative would be to not adopt this and save money is it a so if we adopt this it's a non-cost into the budget right no i believe it's going from i think what they're looking to do is to increase it from 66 439 to 75 eliminating um

all the other the other positions right so if this and i'm not saying i'm you know i'm going to vote here but this individual i think he's doing a very good job you know i do a lot of driving around so it's nothing against him i'll probably end up supporting it but just being a doubles advocate asking a question um if this individual stood where he was we would have a savings on the other side

so is it is it somewhat of a reward for good work taking on new responsibilities so um yes so we're really looking to just raise the cap on the position and not affect or raise here um i don't think there's been any conversation in the administration as to where this person's salary should go or if it even should be embraced and i'm not saying one way or the other i'm just saying that practicality that's probably

good that could happen um and uh i would say that uh that as a division head um this particular person um not that this applies only to that to the person who's in the position right now it's anybody going forward um but i think the idea is that with a cap of 66 439 even though the person in the position is being paid significantly less than that uh i believe he's at 58 000 right now

a cap of 75 allows us to going forward attract uh the very best candidates um for these positions i think this is an issue that we have sort of across the board in a lot of positions in the cities that there are people who just are not going to come here because the salaries are lower now the reality is that you know this is not a city with a ton of money and you know we

we have amazing people that are doing incredible work here in city hall and across the city and i think we want to just make sure that now and in the future we can attract the very best people we can to continue doing that work i know mr eaton who had this position prior and uh he did a fine job as well he handled trees as well he went he was a little over 60 and that was

quite a while ago so i i understand uh so okay i just asked my questions i'll be supporting this thank you for you thank you any further discussion so just before we take the motion um can i just get a clarification on the actual job title um so commissioner of cemeteries and trees and then director of cemeteries trees is that so so i believe it's director of cemeteries and trees

um and i think that the reference to the commissioner of cemeteries and trees is to make sure that whether it's in the ordinance right now or any sort of historical reference yeah so whether it's a commissioner or a director it's covering the same thing okay all right uh what was the motion uh would it be a motion to refer full counsel with a positive recommendation so yeah motion to adopt the

request for a salary change not to exceed 75 thousand dollars with the title change to reflect uh as presented which would be commissioner of cemeteries and trees and director of cemeteries and trees what was made by councillor kilby is there a second seeing no second is there a motion motion second motion to leave uh grant leaf to withdraw was made by council kilby seconded by council lee there's no

discussion on uh grant leave to withdraw madam clerk we call the roll on the motion to give the proposed ordinance to withdrawal counseling yes how's the kill yes yes yes no motion carries item number 10 is a proposed ordinance deputy police chief the mayor is asking that we remove the deputy police 20-year position and the deputy police 25-year position in the deputy police 28-year position from section

50-301 salary schedules for executive officers department heads and non-union personnel and adding the deputy police position per contract in section 50 30 i'm sorry 50-302 salary schedule for contract personnel so essentially making this a a contract position council lee well i actually appreciate this it's an attempt to make things more efficient i think it's a good move um overall i only had

one question the once the contract is agreed upon is it something that the city council approves as well uh no i think this one would be just is would this be considered an appointment as well or would that i don't believe it requires city council the appointment or the appointment okay well again i'm still going to support this i think it's a good move uh money-wise i also think it's a good move organization

further discussion motions motion to approve motion approval was made by councillor dion seconded by council lead discussion hearing none all those in favor aye aye opposed so voted motion carries that's all we have for business motion was made by counselor kilby seconded by counselor raposo all those in favor aye post so vote emotion carries counsel on ordinance uh subcommittee ordinance is now

addressed oh i'm sorry i'll tell you

i've been working all day

you