6.15.2022 Fall River City Counci

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first item is citizen's input first person signed up to speak is james irvine address 1197 roberson street subject revolving economic major problem if you want to come down to the table okay and when you're ready speak into the microphone and you'll have three minutes sir right here yep um the city of fall river has had for a long time mayors that have just come in and out of office regularly um um

there's only i i don't keep track of the corruption cases i just keep track of well there's been one recently but they're the water problem i just realized uh that needs to be fixed if my idea for the money to flow for the city would work there would need to be cuts in all departments for there to be future extra money to flow uh as everyone knows the liquor business is a big business

but you need zoning for distilleries of other companies to come in that takes time and uh the mayor's office they when people don't see the mayor's office doing anything they vote the mayor out they've been doing that over and over again since the uh the mills left so the liquor business is good uh if we were to make cuts but we put money towards the water and we made some cuts to some employees uh

in budgets other places and um uh that would uh and give the mayor's office uh uh employees so they could uh get off and call and get businesses flowing and the the juice of economics go growing again and fall river that would be a wonderful thing and the the flush the money flush in fall river i just uh i know uh some people don't like alcohol uh being a business in some areas but

it's a money maker for sure and uh cream liqueur especially um cream liqueur goes down smoothly um and uh and it's an it's a nice of liquor also the soda business uh uh bottling companies from all over so so does another business um uh there's many soda companies all over the country 30 seconds and um and that's basically um and also around the world if you just uh if we get their uh uh bottling plants here

uh we have a uh and also the bourbon companies uh just uh bottling uh plants or and distilleries just uh for the companies we just need the businesses time for the businesses to come in thank you sir thank you thank you for the time and god bless you all thank you the next person signed up to speak is robert camara 127 gangnam street subject is budget and the law you have three minutes when you're ready

mr kamara council president counselors good evening uh before i begin and you start to clock on me so i can see that sort of damocles hanging over my head um i'd just like to say something for the record i think i know at the last meeting i was at the cape at a macra seminar i was i was in i was at the cape at a macra seminar for retiree for the retirement boards in the state

and i sent that to someone i shall remain nameless to get to make sure that he came here to tell you that was just for your reference there's a lot of i have videotapes i have uh sites from the laws there's case law there's a whole bunch of things in there that would be way too long for me to deal with here so i would i told him to come here and respect

respectfully ask you to read that particular thing and because it's weight it's it's way too uh uh long for me to deal with so i'm here to talk about the budget in the law uh the ra the reality is uh we're talking about this the ordinances and in the letter it talks about 43 chapter one it says ordinances of permanent regulations permanent not discretionary permanent 4433a clearly states that if you change

an ordinance you have to fund it if it's done in the middle of the year you need a supplemental appropriation and it needs two-thirds vote of the council so what i'm here to say is that you know we see we are seeing violence uh ordinances being violated and they're being violated in the budget that has been sent to you because you have salaries that are above ordinance so i don't know what what the

attempt is to have you de facto increase that but that's not true in my opinion because if you look at the law you have to physically take a vote and it says it when you fund things in a budget in in 44 section 33a and that's my problem there are protocols the protocols are the law that we follow in government if you want to deal with health care you'll deal with it under chapter 32 b

sections 21 through 23 and other appropriate sections of chapter 150 e if if you're dealing with if you're dealing with labor it's 150 e that's the collective bargaining law when you're dealing with government you're dealing with these chapters and i am saying tonight that if you vote on a budget with misappropriated funds it's not going to be legal the fact is we have salaries in it at ten thousand

dollars over what they are an ordinance that's the taxpayers money and this has been going on for a very very long time and it's time for the end you have a fiduciary obligation and i get they say i gave you a whole bunch of stuff at the hearing about fiduciary responsibility because there are four duties the duty of care the duty of loyalty the duty of impartiality and a duty of accountability

and the duty of care clearly states that uh these are sections it says prior to making a business decision all material information shall be reasonably available to them so you know what the audience does so they are reasonably available and um actually that site is uh it's also cite a court case moran versus household intern inc um there's also there's also it's there's also another section that says you must

cast a critical eye on the numbers not just do a perfunctory uh look at the numbers you have a fiduciary a legal responsibility plus you all swore an oath and a video is of the mayor swearing an oath to uphold the constitution and he's violating part of the first article seven ten seconds state laws uh he's violating 41 43 44 and a whole bunch of others and he's also violating the city ordinances which he swore

thank you mr camaro and that is you know there's a problem it's problematic when a government is not following the law i'm here to say that everything above ordinance should be taken out of this budget and thank you i'm sorry that is three minutes okay well i will leave then and i'll close with a quote okay see how many of you know where it's from governments are instituted among men

deriving their just power from the consent of the governed so as i rise here today i'm telling you you have neither the consent of the law or the consent of the govern thank you thank you the next person signed up to speak is nelson vasquez 210 sunset hill subject is accountability when you're ready you have three minutes mr vazquez

so now that the eyes are dotted and the t's are crossed i hereby uh find paul coogan guilty for committing wrongdoing while he's in office last year he broke the law last year he utilized funds that required a two-thirds vote from this council and disregarded it this year is carrying over with this he's not living within the confines within ordinances the man has no respect for the law and i just find it

quite disrespectful because he campaigned on following the law you know and also i found him guilty for violating his oath that he swore to uphold so help him god you see back in 1970 president nixon issued initiated an executive order to counter inflation to put a freeze on all wages in in prices to counter inflation like what we're dealing with today and you see this company right here that i talked about on monday

for 30 years has kept the price at 99 cents because those in power have greater responsibility to look out for those to give people a break and the fact is he still proceeded to come down with that budget and quite frankly that is another indictment on paul coogan for his lack of leadership and a true lack of compassion for those who cannot afford it because what i said on monday those numbers are not up for

discussion 27 of the people in the state are working families 19 of disabled americans 38 are senior citizens and i said it that 38 of the seniors are going to get hit twice due to inflation 10 this year 10 percent next year and i put in and i said in this chamber that paul ought to initiate a moratorium just like what nixon did to give people a break he didn't listen to me so

what i'm waiting for to see is is when the people hold him accountable for his actions i'm looking forward to see what this counter does because we will fight for the taxpayers we will give them back their money i just think it's quite disrespectful that he goes above the law without giving a damn and give and given given the times we are living in that's what you have to do because when people get those bills in

the mail especially the seniors 30 seconds they're gonna be crying because they can't afford it we have somebody up there who just goes around thinking he could just do whatever he wants and not follow the law and he's he is literally violating his oath broke the law he's also showing lack of compassion and he will be held accountable so i look forward i look forward to seeing uh what this council does to put up a

vote of no confidence against him thank you mr vasquez because that's what used to happen thank you next person signed up to speak is colin dyas 560 race street and the subject is accountability

three minutes mr diaz thank you council president and members of the city council i wanted to talk about um was brought up at the last few city council meetings some salaries that are in the budget and i do have a question and i think it's a similar question that was asked by a counselor in c3 if not the same exact question in that is can you have a budget where proposed salaries violate city ordinance

you have the mayor's chief of staff position with a proposed salary of over the maximum allowed 78 thousand dollars not to exceed and then you have the mayor's special media position which is bound to receive a ten percent pay raise which is the above maximum allowed four percent in any year the fact that the mayor and the administration can once again violate city ordinance is reprehensible

and it's the city council's duty as the legislative body to provide a check to the overreach by this administration again why hasn't this issue been addressed and what is the response of the administration to why they think they can provide salaries that violate city ordinance and another topic i want to address and i won't go too much into it and i won't say any names however myself like others last night

were disgusted on how our council president was treated and i'm not going to go into specifics about the union negotiation i don't know who's right i don't know what happened so he said she said which is the subject i'm not privy to however we citizens were just scolded for calling out the mayor a few weeks ago so why do we get to call out the council president who i have confidence in

i don't have confidence on the man on the sixth floor and again i think we should all come together respect our leadership and hold the administration accountable and do our job as the city council thank you thank you madam clerk is there anything further no madam president thank you item two is a continuation of the discussion fiscal year 2023 municipal budget starting with the community service that members of the

administration want to come down it will be inspectional services

funny thank you

uh

just be great

good evening i feel like we were just here directing your attention to page 221 of the budget

for uh just the sake of time unless the council directs me otherwise i'm going to dispense with a longer kind of summary and allow the department heads for this department and subsequent departments to jump right into their budget just as a very quick introduction it's a 1.2 percent proposed increase in the inspectional services budget and we can see some small increase in salaries and wages i'll defer to mr

hathaway our building inspector and the department head to elaborate good evening good evening is there any questions in regards to counselor and c3 council vice president i only have one comment on your budget and i'm well aware that the city council does not have the ability to increase however my comment is last year in facilities maintenance they had a hundred thousand dollar line item for upgrades

that was cut to fifty thousand the other fifty thousand was transferred to mr hathaway's department and it is not in this year's budget it's something that was seriously needed it's very difficult difficult for him to perform his duties without being able to adequately take care of buildings etc and i found very dismayed that for whatever reason that 50 000 dollar amount is not in this year's budget and

that is my only comment on his budget with that i yield counsel what line item was that in last year it doesn't exist last year last year it was in facilities maintenance a hundred thousand it was not in his budget and then the administration agreed to cut the hundred thousand to fifty which is why this year facilities maintenance their line item is fifty thousand and the other 50 000 that was put in his

budget last year it no longer exists again just a point of information i i think i think the transfer was meant to go into the demos right the building right yes vacancy buildings and which is a separate account yes correct so yes the counselor in c3s was was that transferred into that special revenue account yes this last again last year was there any discussion of it being there this year it is

you usually if if there's a case for it then the money would be asked to be transferred at a later date right now i don't think we've identified it we've got a balance in that account of about 50 50 53 000 and uh he's got a couple of cases he's looking at and when he's at that point we'll talk about the money we'll talk about what funds might be needed if i may so last year um

we i was fortunate enough to get an additional allotment of money and we put that into the cleanup account and the revolving account for demolition uh so that if there was any issues i could just address them because my budget for that those accounts were very low so the council voted at some point during this process last year to give me an additional 50 which came from the uh maintenance department it's budget

correct correct so i guess basically so my stance is that i would hope that that practice would continue because it was very necessary if i can just if you can just look at the next page on page 222 we were planning on transferring 15 000 as a minimum to the vacant lot account and and 15 000 to the uh demolition account right in the budget you know right which is for a total of

30 000 correct and last year so i guess my point was last year that was a 50 000 transfer yeah total yeah yes so i would have hoped that that would have remained at the the same level again i realized we can't increase however i just felt it necessary to to bring that up with that i yield thank you anything further from mr hathaway counselor in seat six council pereira yeah i i noticed that in your

uh budget you don't have any vacancies here but are you fully staffed with all the workers that you need two inspectors plumbing and gas inspectors too i am currently down one plumbing inspector uh due to the fact that that he just um he resigned from the city to take a a position uh in the plumbing trade uh at a school at the vocational school um he it's it's an advance for him uh

believe it or not through versus being an inspector so uh yes i do have that vacancy and it is currently being filled as we speak as far as the minimum housing sanitation several two years ago

two inspectors they fill in very graciously um to sanitation or vice versa when there's uh help is needed so right now uh things are going okay well um i've received bad news that i'm losing another and possibly losing another inspector in another category um and that could happen this week and it's it's it's heartbreaking but these are very hard working individuals and i i encourage them to better themselves

if they if they feel the need to so that's what's happening i also have a opening for a clerk that be in the minimum housing section i lost the current clerk that i had to a job within this building in another department uh because of the pay scale so um that position is open and is filled uh sh that individual happens to be a she and she should be starting within the next couple of weeks

um so as far as building inspectors uh i have two i have not asked for an advanced an additional one as of yet or as of this year i just know with all the building and uh you know that type of work that's going on around in the city and they need to be inspected and you know food truck events that we have and those need to be inspected and restaurants need to be inspected

i just wondered how your staff was doing with just the minimum people you have working and now with having others out sure you're replacing them quickly though to keep up um we're doing our best to hire as fast as and rapidly as we can because it's it um hurts the other person that's covering for the second person uh while we're out and and um we're holding our own it's just heartbreaking to see that uh these

experienced dedicated people um have to leave because they have i have tremendous respect for them due to the fact of their experience their knowledge and their honesty and sincerity to this to the city and it bothers me that they have to leave but i can't control that are they leaving because of salary because we're kind of hearing that from different departments so they are i mean that's the catch-22 people are

hurting everything is higher but we're losing people all the time because we can't yes pay them and then to have somebody come in that doesn't have the experience that your people have already and the knowledge even the knowledge of the city if i know where all the streets are in the city and you know just know my way around somebody coming in to do that who doesn't takes them longer to get places to to do things

but with that i yield thank you mr hathaway thank you anything further from the council for mr hathaway nothing thank you mr hathaway thank you next department is health and human services

drawing your attention to uh beginning on page 227 of the budget um probably the most complicated flow chart we have in city government and i'm going to defer to tess curran who is our director of health and human services and board of health agent i think it would be helpful if you don't mind tests to start with a conversation about city employees versus grant funded departments just so we really understand

what that department is doing sure so in the org chart um you can see the the color key so that light blue color is all city funded positions within the council on aging there's two grant funded colorado color codes so those are the that's the state formula grant which is that orange color and then cda funded positions are that kind of reddish pink color with the yellow in coa being cfc

workers that that come to support the um council on aging and then within hhs that dark blue color are all um additional grant funded positions that are all mass department of public health grants counselor and c4 counselor kilby thank you madam president yeah the only question i have is um post covid um hopefully which will be soon and i give you a lot of credit for all the hard work that you've done

to uh to protect the people river and um thanks we have a great team in the health department to be you know bristol community college and other venues we're uh we're giving out the you know the the shots so post covid um are these grants gonna are gonna go away so we're gonna lose it is a complicated float job but are we gonna lose a lot of a lot of our these employees um so

not not right now so the mass in motion grant we are actually just refunded for that grant so um that will start and we'll have the opportunity to have at least six years six additional years um with that grant and that we actually received additional funding so we'll be able to bring on more folks which is a great opportunity for us the tobacco control grant that you know has been a long-standing grant and won't

i don't anticipate that leaving anytime soon the contact racing grant will end as it stands right now at the end of the next fiscal year um so so that will be expiring june 30th 2023 and then our shared services grant which is that vacant epidemiologist position that's again an opportunity that will potentially be a long-standing opportunity with the capacity to have at least about 10 years

um for that grant and that's a a grant with swansea and seacon okay so i think it's a very stable department and uh thank you very much i yield thank you counselor and seat six house of ferrara uh miss current on the flow chart you have three vacant part-time senior aides by cfc and with a lot of the elderly that are struggling men struggling many of the elderly are looking for little part-time jobs do you see

those three positions being filled quickly or so see those those we all work with cfc so cfc really has to to kind of provide those employees so if people are interested who are in that cfc program context would be able to yes okay but all the grant funded and city funded coa positions we had yeah they are we had a number of vacancies but at this time they're all full

thank you very much and i thank you for all the work that you did these past two years with coved and i know that when i called with questions that people had or concerns um you were always right spot on so i thank you for that i know it was a difficult time thank you with that iu thank you anything further for help thank you thank you thank you next department is library

so drawing your attention to page 232 of the budget actually i'm sorry 230 um of the budget no i'm sorry i i yeah yeah i was right okay um so 230 5. there we are sorry about that i think i might be missing a page in mine um that said um the library department head was scheduled to leave on vacation this afternoon was here as you know i think as you saw last night

and unfortunately couldn't change her plans so she asked me to go through the uh proposed budget for fy23 couple things to to take note of there is a 3.2 percent increase one of the important things to note is that there were during fy 22 there were two part-time positions that became a full-time position uh that was at um the request of the library it was just becoming too difficult to fill part-time

positions i believe they lost four part-time people in fy 22 who you know needed more hours as you might imagine and they weren't set up to at that point to make that position full time moving forward they're looking for the two part times to become a full-time position in addition um there is um there's a the municipal appropriation requirement uh so you're drawing your attention to 239 page 239

um so there are certain increases that the library budget has in order to make uh its minimum contribution in order to get its municipal appropriation requirement grant of i think approximately two hundred thousand dollars um so i believe that the the budget is set up at um the one point six six six six eight seven i believe is approximately fourteen dollars more than they needed

to have in order to make the percentage for the the mar and that's basically a requirement that they spend a certain percentage of their budget on library materials that they spend a certain that they have a certain amount in their budget uh which is where some of the increases came from uh and then in an able once they're able to do that and show that they've spent the correct percentages in the correct amounts

there's approximately 200 thousand dollars that they receive that in the past they've used for i believe some debt service and going forward they need for other expenses just to maintain the library uh do you have any questions about the library councilman seat seven councillor poso i'm interested about the bookmobile program i noticed there's two vacancies is that still the case so the bookmobile is going to be

delivered in january um so i believe that's been delayed once or twice since we originally decided to pull the trigger in the bookmobile those two vacancies are going to be bookmobile drivers that we're going to hire for once we have a date certain for the welcome pill to arrive so we don't know for sure when that bookmobile will be we're anticipating midwinter um but at this point we don't have a date certainly all

right because as of right now we only have one functional library it's the main library correct that's correct okay all right i yield thank you thank you anything further on library no no i just counseled six i feel badly um that she's not here because the library has run a lot of really good programs and did a lot through covet but they've done some great programs with kids and um

you know kudos to them for doing a good job and i can't wait to get the bookmobile because i think it needs to move around go to different areas of the city with that i yield thank you anything further on library saying nothing thank you go to financial director of financial services

so i'm not sure if anybody i'm not sure if anybody has any specific questions but what it looks like is a small increase in the director financial services salary is actually not because there was um the budget for 2022 was amended and money was taken out because obvious there was not someone in place so it's actually a small it's pretty level funded and i can just keep moving along unless

anybody has specific questions okay counselor and c3 council vice president sorry before we start um under other supplies fy was a hundred dollars it's up to 2400. yeah so the prior director of financial services was utilizing by purchasing things on her own through her other business so i mean we we will have supply needs and to update some things and conferences was 300 now it's that's up 2200 so again

the conferences were being paid for utilizing uh another company that she participated in that she so so she took the burden on herself instead of putting it on the city is that what you're saying basically um and the other one's only a hundred dollars in state in-state travel mileage a hundred dollars which with the price of gas i suppose that's a reasonable number he only you can only

fill your tank once with that now so um i believe that's all i have thank you i yield thank you counselor at c2 i'm just curious how many conferences do you attend the year well as i was supposed to attend two as of right now but i only attended one because i'm here this week so i didn't go to that one um probably at least three to four trainings a year anyone else in

the department attend the conferences just yourself so no um within my whole block there will be other to others attending professional development training how many people at least three to four three to four and then five including myself are those overnight conferences or some of them are overnight conferences yes and how many people do you think will attend to me just give me number three four well

about five including myself and how many conferences a year five people gonna go to three conferences five people will go to at least two conferences okay and you think three two thousand five hundred dollars will cover that well no there i have some money budgeted in their blocks if we keep going how much is budgeting in their blocks

so in my in the assessor's budget which is six thousand okay all right because that's because it's a pretty good bargain for five people to stay overnight oh no we keep moving along all right yeah so these are all state-run and we're required to go to these conferences for certain certain certifications so i understand i just didn't see the amount oh yeah how many people are going

to go and attend to stay overnight for three conferences for 2 500.

all right with that i yield thank you thank you anything further from the council nope seeing them we'll move on to the next assessors yeah if you have any questions

good afternoon everyone my name is richard gonzalez chairman of the board city forward assessor's office um what i'd like to do before we get into my budget um i came across an article um june 1st and as i come here every year and i'm not picking on anyone but joe camara every year asked me you know how are we in comparison to new bedford you always ask that question what's the tax rate uh

what's the values how what percentage we go up so so there's a competition there far river versus new bedford yeah that's the basketball days that's good yeah right yeah but but it carries over and everything we do twin cities you got it so let me let me just show you the uh give you just a quick synopsis of what i found june 1st in the uh it's actually uh ed's newspaper dom dot chronicle

it states let me find the top piece of the article it says national brands new bedford is trying to move them into their city so it says the city of new bedford is actively recruiting the following companies to move in starbucks boston market chipotle chick-fil-a guess what yeah so we're doing something right they're here uh and that's a tribute to the administration it's a tribute to the council

citizens of fall river and the investors because they have the faith in investing in our city what new bedford doesn't have and maybe they'll get someday we got amazon and amazon is bringing in in value well and i should say in value well over 58 million and and i don't have the taxes in front of me but also a good amount in personal property and that's only 25 so i i i think um

as the business i mentioned credit again should be given to the city administration city council and most important my office or the office that that i i'm chairman of the board of assessors and let me tell you something that other and and again i don't want to point out members but sean sits on as a member um linda sits on as a member council president sits on as a member it's called the tif committee now we

sit and listen to a lot of tiffs and it's so complicated in our business because now we have tiffs ties abatements exemptions and pilots so and then with all that going on um these things are not status quo they change a lot of times we have to come back we we give a tiff we come back and corporation changed their corporation they changed it from a real estate to a condo

we have to go back and redo the tiff because our job and my position is to protect the city of fall river so when we sign into a tif agreement and not only do we have to monitor them every year we make sure that the policies governing this are correct so there's a lot that goes on in my in the office there's a there's a tremendous burden on the staff currently

uh i thank you for approving the funds to do the on-site reinspection process that we were mandated to do by the d.o.r they started in the south end a few months ago it was around april we have well over 9000 properties to do they already currently went to 3300 so they're a third of the way but the hottest is yet to come because once they start getting to the center of the city what the multi deck

is that's going to take some time we monitor them on a bi-weekly basis we haven't heard of any complaints yet we have the supervisor come in and give us a bi-weekly update the board of assessors does a tremendous job in monitoring and asking them questions to try to find any problems and try to have the quick fix now i want to just bring out one more piece of data information last year i came to the council

and i had asked the council to go to a june 30th growth we were always january 1st and one of the reasons was to tie in with another item that we have called supplement billing what supplement billing is if you build a new house and it's not done in the current fiscal year you get charged for what you have but if you finish it in the fiscal year there's an occupancy permit we go out there we

tax you for the rest of the date of the occupancy to the date of the fiscal year so that uh moving that date from january 1 to june 30th last year we enjoyed one of the largest new growths we've ever had 3 million 379 723 now a lot of cities and towns would give their right arm for that number part of that number i understand was amazon but it shows all the hard work and all the

dedication and commitment that the elected officials have and the confidence they have in the board of assessors last six years we have averaged 2 million 156 948 000 in new growth again you can look around that is a awful high number and again i believe that's because the investors have the confidence in the government and have the confidence in the city of fall river and with that

questions counselors heat for council kilby just one question i believe the the rebound's coming up so are we adequately staffed for that well and i know we're getting some we're getting some help that'll be concerned on the rebound the reval will be for fy24 now it was a surprise to interrupt you however the work starts before that and that's why we have the crew out there now okay good so one of the things that

uh i i want to point out is that it was unaware to myself that we had a deadline this deadline of the crew had really had to be done last year so the administration and myself met with dor which monitors our department quite a bit and we were able to get an extension and that extension started this april and again i thank you ladies and gentlemen for providing the funding and allowing us to go through

so we can start this and continue but next year for fy 24 we have to think about what we might need in addition because there's going to be more of stat crunching when you when you're doing a reval it's it's a five-year project now you do it once every five years needs to be three it really used to be three we were able to get it to five and by the

way the dor has the say on who goes to five and who doesn't go to five we passed that grade so we're at a five um and and and what will happen at that there's going to be some added um investigations that we normally don't do in a non-reval year that we're going to have to do in the revalue and this costs money but but what i want to make a point is

after that this project of the inspections are completed at some point we have to make a commitment and how we're going to address because this inspection is over 10 years so how are we going to address this down the road in the 10-year process because this was an awful lot of money and to just sit back and not not do nothing and it's not that we didn't do nothing it's just that we

didn't commit to the dollar amount for the staffing causes us to come up with these big numbers down the road so we may have to have an ongoing process moving forward and and it's been talking the last time i came here about a data lister down the road and we may have to address that maybe a couple years down the road there's no need to address it now because we have a crew of six people as

data listers to complete the project okay great um just as by the way a comment um i just want people to realize that city government starts with your department thank you and um it's all based on fairness it's based on uh you know individual property illness paying a fair tax a fair assessment and there's tremendous accountability council great dean would attest to this that uh he's more schooled in this than i am

but uh for the uh the amount of people in your office and the size of this city you're one of the most overachieving staffs in that department it's a tribute to that it's very the accountability from the state is just it's tremendous in terms of again one wanting people with a fair value and plus the abatements and the uh the field work that has to be done and it's just monumental so thank you madam president

thank you counselor and c2 council camara thank you mr stagger i know you talked about people having confidence and the elected officials and in everyone that's here and stuff but do you think a lot of that new growth also has to do with the price of the value of land in the city being a lot less expensive than other places no let me tell you why council uh we have to that part of it is the

inflation pot we have to extract that so when we calculate new growth uh and i i'm trying to do this explain this as quick as possible so you can do new growth two ways the dor says you can either do new growth on existing tables so that sales that we come up with the inflation of the of what the sales is driving the market up doesn't affect new growth or you can adjust your tables with the

inflation and then go back in and put the new growth so the new growth is not any inflation it's just simply the cost of the deck and it's the cost of the deck in comparison to the either the new value of that right so you're talking about the value and the new growth but what i'm talking about is everything in this region is cheaper than other parts of the state electricity is cheaper than boston

brockton every it's it's more economical feasible the wages that you pay people are less than other parts of the state so a lot of people who came here invested here are doing it because it's it's it's worth the bank to their book absolutely i agree and and i think i just want to make it clear that new growth has to be when we calculate it when we calculate it has to be apples

to apples so basically it has to be old table to old table or new table to new table and dor is very very uh precisely instant but i i was just saying like i heard what you were saying that people have confidence in the elected officials and i think a lot of it had to do with you know they're looking at their wallet and how much they can save if they bring a business

here if they buy tenant houses here and fix them up and if you're looking at the rest of the state this was a great place and still is a great place to live raise a family and economically feasible to do so in a great area and up until a few years ago it wasn't that known to too many people until outside people started investing in here coming here and saying hey

there's a great bargain and you can you know sell your house at a pretty penny up in dorchester and roslindale and move down the south coast so we have beautiful waterways we have close proximity to newport rhode island and providence and and when you want to go to boston it's only 45 miles so it's a great place to live it's a great place to invest in and i think it's i appreciate you saying

you know they had a conference in us i don't think they know who we are i think it's a problem they're looking at their wallet this is a great place to live the bargains they're really good and the school department's made a lot of changes we've invested in our education brand new buildings uh paid our teachers a good amount now we're getting good educators we're making progress there as

well so i think it's a lot of things that bring people to this community and and as council kilby said your department has done a great job with what you have i've seen it over the years and it's a tribute to you and everybody that works there with that ideal thank you thank you councilman c one consecutive team thank you um so my question you actually kind of touched base on a little bit just in

fiscal year 2018 we had budgeted the residential data lister but we never hired them so what was what was the reason so it's off the books now so i just want to have a conversation in terms of because i know you were talking about the the 10 year reval and trying to get get that completed i i think by not back in 18 the reason that i i mean i i really just

don't know i wasn't privy to the actual uh decision why not 18 uh last year this current fiscal year fy22 well the reason why for 22 was because dor sprung it out in 21 that we had to have a full measuring list and there's no way by hiring one data list could do 9 000 houses within within a year so we didn't want to be in i i mean i think

and i go back to the olden days and and it's like the grateful dead concert i got ed here and myself and you remember the meetings we had with the dor saying you guys can't set a tax rate uh the weeks that we spent the months that we spent going back and forth and back and forth and you know he learns from that and and i think that i said there's no way what can we do

and pretty much the issue was guys you're gonna get a pass one year get it done and i think as a tribute the olden days i don't want to go back yeah just just in terms of the grateful dead comment i'm the only one that's still employed that's who i'm tired i'm just saying potentially so um i guess i guess where where i was going with this if the intent was

and still is to get the data lists listed so we can we can make sure that the inspections we're meeting the i guess our target right arbitrary target number so whatever the number of households and businesses divided up over a 10-year will will dictate how many inspections we should be doing in a given year right absolutely so whatever that number is if we feel like we need two uh listers to go out there and actually

start doing that or three listers um over a number of periods i i think we should stop building it into the budget and i'm just i guess i'm a little disappointed that we didn't we didn't pull the trigger even i know it wasn't going to help you with the list but i think it would have got us at least your office another some assistance in getting to the point where we're going to have enough

inspectors to go out there and do you know the listing so um outside of that so it really is just a statement in terms of that but do you so my one non budgetary question that i'm allowed to to have tonight um so do you know how many inspections we should be targeting in a given year well i mean if we if we do the raw numbers just simply divide 14 000 by 10 years

okay it's about smarter 1400 right okay but remember remember and this is what you know always in the back of my mind cost is always in the back of my mind i'm not a spender so when we sit down and we have 1400 we don't simply have to just say well we need somebody dedicated for 1400 because we have an administrator and in this budget there is two assistants so

you if you do the math there's three people right there so maybe we're looking at 300 a year and the dor would give us all kind of passes in the sense that abatements the abatements that we go on that counts as an inspection sales analysis we have well over 400 sales a year and building permits there's like a thousand right so so we can we can meet our quota

that's why i'm i i think we have to sit back 24 is a fiscal year let us let us digest what needs to be done moving forward about the lister and after we've got a full measuring list which they're doing a wonderful job we can move forward okay with that yield thank you thank you counselor and seat six council player yeah mr gonzalez you said there's two assistants but in the budget it looks like there's one

vacancy an assistant assessed at you no yeah so after we submitted this um actually we now have filled the filled the assistant assessor and we have a vacancy for an assessor okay so we'll look at hiring because he's obviously need yes you know how much do you have set aside for different exemptions i think we use what almost 900 000 yeah in total so because statutories are around what

five hundred thousand about five we have nine hundred thousand in this budget i think it's we use the the five-year average of the you know abatements and and statutory exemptions and i think it's around ninth yeah i have to look at it with the abatements the abatements people will come in if they if they feel they're paying too much on taxes they'll come in part of the problem is that some of the

people that want to come in for abatements if they own multi-family houses but haven't sent in the paperwork of what their rents are and all of that it causes a bit of an issue but the exemptions for a lot of the elderly people over a certain age are you going to be doing anything or is nellie are going to be doing anything like that to let people know what some of the exemptions are because

quite frankly i know a lot of elderly people that have called me that are on social security and own you know a two family or own a single-family home and are really struggling but now they've gotten older so they fall under the categories to be able to put in for exemptions that's a good great question counselor um at about maybe two or three board meetings ago the board voted that after around the end of summer

we want to do neighborhood take our meetings to the neighborhoods and by taking our meetings to the neighborhoods we can address those issues those type of issues i'd like to address neighborhoods in terms of nell went out to the flynn association a few maybe a couple of months ago maybe and i thought that was a great idea what i'd like to do is extend it to all our neighborhood associations

and at the same time give out any type we have publications uh hand out those publications and make sure the word is out let's make it a point the board of assessors does not deny anyone deserving of an abatement and an exemption no i think that's good i just know that there's a lot of people out there struggling and if they are eligible for an exemption and they can get it but

they don't know about it you know they've always prided themselves in just paying their bill and now times are tough for some people so i just think if we can get that message out there i want those people to know that as a council we're trying to help them as well and i just wondered how much you had set aside for that but thank you mr gonzalez i appreciate your time

with that i yield thank you anything further on assessors thank you mr consoles thank you next category is auditor okay so as you can see the audit department um has an increase this is we've actually um there was a reactivation and a reorganization where we've now filled the assistant city auditor position that was vacant since 2020.

so it appeared so what it looks like there's actually one increase in a position but we're actually filling back to uh previous levels so that's what's causing the major increase um there as well as we're utilizing other purchase services where we have some consulting and training actually that's in there which because we have very a very new young staff in that department so we do need to be

providing extra training to them there as well so i don't know if anybody has any other questions about this counselor in seat seven counselor pozo yeah my question was around the consulting actually um what is it a long-term thing they were looking to do or just kind of short term to get everybody up to par i'm looking at um utilizing some a couple hours here and there to keep to

get them up to date to have them to be able to have a mentor available to work with them within the department or outside the department as far as the consultant to be the mentor or someone within no an outside consultant to come in so for the next year essentially or oh the next few months at least a few months okay and that's going to be enough to do that well i'll have to re-evaluate it as

we move along i yield thank you thank you anything further on auditor seeing none treasure collector

so the treasurer collector actually has a small decrease and we've actually reorganized and uh this department a little bit as well where we will be adding um i'm sorry no the collect if we just do collectors first it's actually a vacant position that we've been able to fill recently so that's kind of exciting because that gets it gets very busy through the summer with that position but other than

that all of the other categories there's actually a small one percent decrease in the collectors department i don't know if anybody has any questions regarding collectors specifically any questions so if we move along to the treasurer's department we have an increase in this department as well where we have actually um through a reorganization we've reactivated positions that were in

the budget um through up to fy 2020 and i think because of covid things were not filled or eliminated but there is a definite need and the collectors department is very important to the city because they help make sure that we bring in the money and people are paying their taxes and at this point it was i actually was informed today that we're at our lowest where is it should be collected uh yeah it's a

section of treasury section double dipping service yeah sorry we're at the lowest balance of um taxes owed since 2010 right now and that's attributed to our treasurer collector and working value diligently counselor and seat seven council proposal so the other purchase services for the city treasurer shredding and consulting went about up about 33 000 so i'm assuming it's not the shredding

so i'll go with the consulting so me huh that's in case i decide to come in you know a few days a week if she needs his support or if the city needs his support so that that line item is particularly it's an estimate okay well that's that's what i'm asking so the shredding is just the it's not the shredding small amount i can clearly realize that um yeah i'm i'm just curious when i look at

last year to this year yeah that so we were basically saying the increase from fy 22 of 2500 which became 20 to 500 which is now 55 000 right is all because of you right cool i yield thank you anything further on treasurer collector counselor c2 i just have to ask the question how much more consulting are you going to be doing well hopefully 10 years ago you totally ready to retire i know i'm

working on it i've got friday bridges giving me fridays off now so i'm that's happy right just for now there's a lot of work to be done but but it's getting there a lot of new people in the city in the finance department all at one time yeah my point is we should just like hire people no i know that would be a problem no i don't want to be hired no

no hire people oh hi well no but you have but there's still believe me there's not a lot of how can i put this experienced people that can really oh i know that you know hit the ground running that's all i'm saying yeah i mean it's good people but it takes a little bit of time to make sure that we need to put some of these procedures back in place you have to be the longest running

consultant in the history of the city i mean you just have to be in different departments counselor i mean there was a guy i'm just letting you know seriously i mean i know you do a good job and i understand it but it's funny how i just sit and see you come back every year and it's like we need to hire this person so i can retire and then you're back again

and the person that we hired he retired like there's been a lot of yeah there's been a lot of a lot of changes yeah and you've been throughout all of them all right with that idea good luck to you councilman seat seven counselor puzzles yeah i get i guess i'm i'm curious i'm not i'm not convinced that there's a game plan long term as far as how how to counsel

see two's point you've been here a while you can tell you're not not really well not really but you've been what i mean i guess my question becomes what is your timetable as far as getting everyone up to speed when are you going to be in a position where you're not going to have to rely on more consulting i guess is my question what is your game plan my game

plan yes going forward so my game plan right now is i have a very new young staff that does not have a lot of experience so i do need to utilize and as we we have been cutting back so my game plan is to keep i mean i also just arrived so you know i've got a lot of gaps to fill in a lot of posit i have a couple of

positions that i need key positions that i need to hire so we're already pulling back uh ed's time and i will continue to do that and then maybe bring him back when we notice that we want to implement something and i need some resources to help to help do that and help bring staff up to par i can't do it alone it's that would be unrealistic nor do i expect you to but again i'm

just trying to get an idea of how long i mean if you're if you're looking to train your staff right and what you want to accomplish how long do you think that's going to be i don't know i've only been here six weeks well i've not been here much longer than you so join the club so i can i can speak this a little bit thank you sure um just just for some context i'm not

trying to avoid the question but i think it's important for the council as well as anyone who's watching uh just to kind of understand a little bit of history uh and i haven't really been here that long either um but that to some extent illustrates the point so last year we lost mary sahatti as a cfo that was a significant loss to the city she had done some really remarkable work

and not only that the work was was really complex and i think uh in part one of the things we observed is that the the the complexity of the work um really required uh all of the time of the department heads in auditors in uh cfo and treasure collector and really didn't afford the opportunity we would want for people to be able to manage and for people to bring people up

and so taking a step back and sort of evaluating what's needed we're realizing that bridgette needed to hit the ground running she's been here six weeks and has really spent every minute of that six weeks doing a incredible deep dive into the budget into where the budget has been where it's going trying to make a plan trying to really understand uh you know in a very uh you know um complete way uh what it is we're

presenting to you uh here tonight and last night and who knows when what other time um and at the same time what ed has been doing is he's been uh working with some of the younger newer people we have a brand new auditor we have a brand new assistant auditor uh we have a young treasure collector who's doing an amazing job um uh but he's still uh you know growing and developing in his position uh we

have a new uh assistant treasurer we have a new cfo um who has a ton of experience but has certainly her hands full so it's just it's unfortunate timing um you know and i'm not going to give you excuses that all hiring is hard hiring time for everybody anybody here who has to hire people can tell you it's hard that's life that's just the way it is um what's really hard and perhaps more important is then

making sure that you invest in the people you get and that's what ed's been doing and i'll tell you what it's an invaluable education for those people i don't see this intense intensive consulting relationship we have with ed uh continuing in perpetuity uh we're going to draw that down because i think ed wants to go home and retire that's right perhaps more importantly we want some of these young people to become

increasingly independent and increasingly competent they're already really talented really smart and they're going to get there so i see it as as you know less than half the year of the fiscal year i think by january we're going to be in a really good shape that's what i was looking for thank you sir yeah it i think for me obviously educating and investing in professional development to get a young staff up and

running is critical i also share a concern in this idea that we're getting a return on our investment so again young people coming in learning which is perfectly acceptable we want to make sure we retain those people that we invest so much time and effort and money into to do the job to the best of their ability not become great i've been trained in fall river now i'm going to leave right

it's it's important and critical that that investment shows the fruits of that labor i will say that one of the things i've observed uh is that the the focus on team building so not just not just skills building not just paying people a certain amount but on team building so so they develop a real affinity for the people they work with uh has been a focus of bridget's uh both in her own immediate department in the

the the treasury collector's offices that she's in as well as the honors department um and i feel like that's yielding incredible results uh i think we talk a lot about retaining people with money and that's certainly an incredibly important thing people need to pay their bills and buy groceries and support their families um but almost as important people need to come to work every day and not feel

frustrated that they don't have the knowledge or the skills to do what they need to do and that's the investment that that is making in them and i think people who are working in the city and i believe this very sincerely if you were to talk to them you know now versus six months ago i think a lot of folks in a lot of different departments are feeling um just more consistency more security more

just an understanding and a clarity of what's expected than they have and i attribute a large part of that to ed's work and bridget's work over the last um certainly at over the last you know seven months or so and bridgette even since she's been here for six weeks and lastly just a quick question as far as we do we're doing the internal consulting and ed you're working with this young staff are we sending this

young staff out to do other field experiences to get something so we're we're actually um coordinating and providing some mentors ed's helped hook some of them up with some you know people in other municipalities we've made some connections at the last conference i was at that we're going to be going out to visit two cities and invite them here they've actually implemented the munis that we're going to be doing so

and they're doing some of the things that i would like to implement um so we're making connection and that's really how you do it you have to stop making connections making friends around the state and so we're doing that i'm helping them make those connections so that we can you know all work together and everybody's harmonious and i'm very much about team building but i'm also very much about utilizing

free assets by getting making those you know other co colleagues and professional relationships great thank you i yield thank you council receipt for council kilby i'm all set thank you thank you councilman seat one council kadeem thank you i just want to i guess kind of jump on the conversation with regard to the consultants and the training um quite frankly i don't even think the

amount that's budgeted is even adequate so you know when we start looking at the city of florida i think forever has done a terrible job in terms of training we just questioned conferences twenty five hundred dollars you want my honest opinion it should be ten thousand dollars in her budget ten thousand dollars in every financial depart department for training um that's the only way we're gonna build

a farm system within so when people leave you talk about department heads we hire department heads to fill these positions but we never train them to be department heads right we hire them to be subject matter experts but not to be managers and supervisors right so you just i just go through and i look at human resources zero training for department heads there is no training i don't know that

of any training that department heads have taken for management or leadership right so you know i think the city administrator mentioned about investing right we are not doing a good enough job of investing in our employees right so that's why when i constantly talk about capital improvement you know salaries come into it there's a whole lot that comes into making sure we retain people because i

think counselor c7 talks about the retention right you don't want to invest and you can never avoid this but you don't want to invest in training only to have folks leave right but the problem with that is if you don't have if you don't check all the boxes then you're never going to stop that revolving door so checking the boxes is making sure number one we have the investments in training and that we got

the proper training going and that we're actually pushing to make sure that you know folks and department heads are signed up to whatever association it is you know i i know nick was here talking about sherm he's on with the massachusetts um municipal hr that that's where you start to learn and interact with your colleagues you get invaluable training that may not be necessarily expensive for the city but there is

training that needs to take place that you should be and we should be sending people the collin center at umass boston they they do a leadership training and department heads can get certified and it's and it's a i believe it's a five-week program of one friday every single month when i went to see conch the first thing i did was make sure that we did that we i hired them to come in specifically for

all my department heads so every friday all the department heads were required to have this training for leadership to understand how to manage people right this is something we're not doing so i would say that if if we're going to talk about it we talk about it with the police department we talk about with the fire department there is legitimate training and that's why when you look at

police fire ems they have required training dispatch has required training we don't have the required training unless you've got a certification which again you know as a treasurer an accountant you have to go get some uh continuing education credits but we're talking about an hour two hours i think we just need to internally do a better job as counselors to make sure that we're pushing that message so that when

we get folks in we can retain them but we're also making sure that we're constantly building uh their skill set and and that deals with managing people and the subject that they're they're talking about so i would say i know we look at consultants and we kind of it's got that negative aspect to it but i i think we need to make sure that to your point though when when we have ed here ed should be

making sure that he's passing on the knowledge that it's not just hoarding the knowledge right to make sure that when it's not job security right and i know ed doesn't do that right so it's really making sure that we're passing this knowledge off and working on it so with that i just i think i'd like to see more training in the budgets moving forward can i just comment on that

so yeah it definitely doesn't want to be here so um but there's so there's also um a new as we all know there's a skills gap between electricians uh you know any of the yeah but there's also a massive skills gap in accountants and so because of that the state is talking about that in their bill is about i think about 200 million that they're going to be giving out in grants to try

to fill skills gap within municipal government because the problem is years ago they used to be you know the departments were heavier and then as budgets got we kept cutting and cutting and cutting well you're not teaching anybody you're not growing them up like people are not coming down and then you know moving up the ranks they're leaving so i'd like to try to stop that and that's what i'm trying to also

incorporate but with this team building is teaching the other the lower staff were like helping doing a lot of cross-training and that's my goal so that we don't lose people and if we do lose someone we've got somebody right there that's ready to like pick up and you know learn a few more things and they can start moving up so that we can keep people in the city to keep that institutional knowledge that frankly

we've lost a lot of it in the finance department counselor and c8 council washington um so i just want to speak to the frustrations about having a new can you just speak into the microphone yep so i just want to speak to the frustration of having a new baby staff i run and develop programs often so it's extremely frustrating um to have new staff in and out all the time so i just

want to question first of all the city is so fortunate um to have ed and have that institutional knowledge we would be lost just being here and learning everything that you do is amazing so to have that is just amazing that you still want to come back all the time i mean that's just i know you say you want to go but we are very fortunate and you're very fortunate and your department is

i'm from the school that you have to go slow to go fast and so i believe that in order to sustain your staff and plan for sustainability right away with your staff you spend the time and the effort i know that there is always a dollar amount attached to consulting but to have a good consultant really you can't put a dollar amount to that into someone that has that institutional knowledge so i

just question and i caution people to go slow in this area to be able to go fast and to retain your staff because someone spoke to it i don't know but it can become very frustrating if you're not sure of your job and you're new and and you don't want to make a mistake and so to have that knowledge to rely on is you really can't put a dollar amount on it and this

department's very important to the city i know yeah some people don't always think that the accounting is important but it really is that's the lifeline so i do and so i just question that so i can understand that and i yield thank you counselor seat seven counselor pozo yeah and i echo what counselor kadeem said i think for what i'm just looking at and no offense to you ed but i'm looking at transition right

eventually you're gonna wean off but that's going to have to be replaced with long-term professional development so once the institutional knowledge is built back up and we're in a comfortable position where you can you know reduce to to nothing something comes in to replace that and that's continuing training into what council kadeem said that's what i'm trying to advocate for because as an

educator and as a principal i use consultants to come in and help teachers but that's not the long-term solution right once you get them up to where you want them to be there's other trainings that you're going to institute so that that's that's all i'm getting at yeah and that's and that's part of you know developing you know your staff at the upper level but and making them understand that my

expectation is they're teaching the staff belief beneath them absolutely it's not about you know it's my it's not a job security thing nothing no it angers me more well a lot of people advantage like that and then and i'm not insinuating that again i'm just looking for you to tell me that you know ed is here ed is helping your young staff get where they need to be but in the long

term planning when we do this again next year and the year after that we're going to supplement his consulting with something else that's going to help continue to build them to a higher level because they're going to be great but we want them to be better than great so your full support will be there when i have conferences at a higher level well i mean and i'll tell you i mean conferences conferences are fabulous

right to go off for two days and and by the first day you're already burnt out because you heard so much but i'm talking about on on-site continuing training not only within the building but also to going to other places and seeing other people and kind of networking with other treasurers and auditors and what have you and we've already started doing that in just these short six weeks and i'm a

very happy city councillor you know that i yield thank you i just have one quick comment if you don't mind counseling sure and then the only comment i wanted to make is so a few months back we started some intensive training with the in the assessor's office with the with the assistant clerical staff i mean it's expensive but it's necessary you need to really make sure because the

assessor's office is a pivotal point it generates you know obviously your real estate tax revenue and it's getting more complicated rather than what i call the just the real estate it's pilots it stiffs it's you name it solar farms whatever hell else comes down the pike and the laws are constantly being upgraded so we did start training with that that department you know and it is expensive it's you

know it's like sometimes well what some people think is expensive i don't you know like six hundred dollars for an employee to take one course but these courses are specialized in what they do you know as far as uh working with uh you know parcels and personal property things like that so i mean that's an important part of it it's just that the budget has to have money in it

it's like we heard the other night you know on ocean trading we need to really identify all these different levels because there's a lot of different levels of training absolutely thank you thank you councilman c-2 council camareo thank you i just don't want to go much further but ed how much time do you spend the day training people in the department well i mean obviously i don't i don't

it's ten to two yeah i mean i've tried to do that but with the budget process and the new you know people being replaced and the vacancies starting to be refilled you know some weeks i've had to up it like tonight sitting here you know what i mean i mean i had to up it a little bit but then i'll go back to you know tuning it down so i'm really not

spending i mean you know in the first several months i mean i try to spend like not even as like 20 hours a week sometimes 21. you know i don't want to work full-time you know i understand i get it and i and i know i hope you understand that i think yeah i know that yeah i i think you're doing a good job right now and i'm trying to yeah

obviously i'm not looking for a career i don't know i think i think that's my colleague sergeant c one and my colleagues you know what is the plan going forward and that's that's part of the plan you know we have to train these people yeah absolutely quicker and sooner and i think what you said as i was going to mention it cross-training if someone's not in a department someone

should be able to step in and just pick right up where that one person was left off if they call in sick if they can't make it to work whatever happens they go on vacation and we need to do that in other departments too i mean it's just something that we need to have um so that people are able to do the job i know in the elections office years ago when

someone wasn't dating with short staff they'd pull people from the clerk's office to go work up there and and fill in that position and that's you know a type of yeah and i'm instituting a lot of that in my in the departments now we've i've been talking to our collective treasurer about doing that within just the collective treasurer's office because there's times that that line gets wrapped around right so you go

over and help them out too yeah and it's something that needs to be done more of i think it's just a good it's important that people be able to do more than just one specific thing and everyone likes to specialize in one thing but i think if you can have people jump in when someone's you know overwhelmed it's it's a significant breakthrough so just want to make sure we're you know

heading down that path and you know and maybe i'll see you here for the next 15 20 years who knows well then he'll be here and i won't be so neither am i with that i yield thank you thank you anything further on treasurer collector concerns heat six the only question that i had was tell me a little bit about what's going on with tax title and how that's moving i know that in

speaking with matt thomas a lot of this tax title work and in boston the courts with covet everything is kind of backed up but how are we doing with that oh with foreclosures or what have you one quick comment he is an invaluable asset to the city he is and you know until the city administrator and a cfo and continues to you know as you are many of my colleagues respect councillor in seat number one

um because he was a city administrator and continues to do a good job in seacock and you're all looking at his mentor when sean first came on there was a good mentor about things from so i'm glad you you taught him well yeah so that's perfect example of what you can do for others in the city thank you so again i spoke that we have our lowest um since 2010.

9.6 million in total and 1.9 million of that's outstanding from fy 22 and my treasurer collector has a commitment that he'd like to get that cut in half by the end of the summer good good that's the only question i had thank you very much i yield anything further on treasurer collector see nothing next is debt service

debt service page 153 i don't know what kind of questions everybody's going to have i mean this is our payment 153 153 so right now that the city has a outstanding obligation next year of 13.9 million in debt but what we do have outstanding though inc and the grand total is about 398 million but as of next year as of right now it's 13.9 million and we have about 39 million in short-term debt outstanding

that we'll have to be looking at to la you know put that into long-term debt in the fall any questions on debt service counselors no just just a couple of quick comments madam president if you don't mind you know the city is going to have to be looking in in february of 23 to go into the long-term market this past well i spent a couple of months january february trying to not only teach the people get

them involved but in the treasury is to strengthen their skill set but to also go out and take care of the borrowing needs for the city at the time right now the city's we did some long-term borrowing and we also did some refunding that hadn't been done in years since sean was city administrator in fall river and the refunding saved the city about i can't remember the number now i

was little about a million dollars and it was where we found a bond no actually it's called refunding okay and the reason they do that is because you can't change the deal with the with the bond holders you gotta figure out a way and basically when the bond was probably it could have been 2012 i don't remember the exactly you know i get sticking too many new numbers in my head

but uh uh we hit that like 10 year a little over halfway point we were able to refund it some of the savings will go to water and sewer and then the rest of it will tailor down to the various bonds that we refunded they don't treat it like a refinancing but you know sometimes i like to think it's a it's a big numbers game you know where all you're really doing is shorten it up

but the point is is you're saving money for sure you know but you do have about 39 million dollars in short-term debt it's really going to have to be long-term debt in next february so i think the city in the next couple of years is really gonna have to manage the borrowing debt general fund borrowing debt counseling seat five did you have your hand up yeah good uh did that service on uh directory school

that scott's 123.

yes well 50 oh no it actually started i'm sorry it actually started in fiscal 22. so the payback bill's coming out now does that reflect uh an increase the bills that are being processed right now are really estimated bills for next year okay they're ready to go they're going to be i don't know if they're going to print it yet but they're going to be printed very shortly they're on track

and normally the way it works is you would take 50 of minus the exemptions of what you build last year and the final bill and you get send that to the taxpayers as an estimated bill so there is an increase you'll they'll see a slight increase in this estimated bill for next year and then it'll be reconciled when the cities when the city sets the uh the tax rate and does the class tax

classification right so the december bill is going to be the that's right yeah and that's where you'll see the real first impact of the of the of the fifty percent of that exclusion on the durfee it'll be in europe 65 right well that's on that's only on the median price of a 270 thousand dollar house that's valued at fy 22 rates yeah we have a chat i think that we uh i think i

don't know if we'll pass it out or you know with the reval and everything else when does that start uh kicking in uh getting the monies uh from the reevaluation in the city uh some of the you know three deckers uh you know 250 000 now they go 450 for yeah the 450 degree right figure when did they stop paying the taxes on that the rebalance it would be implemented in

fiscal 24 so i believe the first fiscal time my god fiscal 24.

yeah i mean the real you won't really see the effect of that reveal until that following time when you do tax classification and tax rate you know for the for the city so it'll be a couple of years before you would actually see any impact of that of a full revaluation and then it would go five years out when it kicks in we'll know to be always like a new suit but but proportionately as the values

will go up you know from from a revaluation you should see the tax rate you know proportionally come down except for this is crazy where we live i mean you know as far as values go you know what's going on in the real estate market is absolutely nuts well i'm hoping that uh we can get enough money you know what is the attraction for you two people to come to fall river

what is the attraction for somebody else around to come to fall river i mean we can't keep them we used to have people come in for four five months gone get another job get a job we lost a lot of people here uh because the money is better somewhere else so how do you and you say hey listen here's what we've got for you uh and why are you coming to far about

challenge you know why are you coming to fall river i mean what's the attraction i mean your boat here your boat came to fall river yeah one guy had the job he turned it down you come up and you're happy with 130 000. i'm glad somebody's happy you know what i mean you know you seem to be doing a good job you're still smiling after how many uh two months you've been here

it's been a little longer than yeah all right get to know it i started in january and and good luck to you you know and you're right it's training you're training you start somebody at this level and then they move to that level and you make sure they get enough money to to live and survive uh and forward just don't seem to attract them type of people and we don't seem to keep that type of people

so i'm hoping you two guys be a little longer you know but uh i gotta say with the plans that people have for the city in the route 79 project and a lot of things that are happening i i think we're really on the cusp of of something amazing and i know people have heard that before um but i just i really believe that i think this place and you know both geographically the

people that are being drawn to fall river kind of where we are in proximity to you know to providence to boston to the cape to southern rhode island i mean is there a better location in massachusetts there really isn't um so i i don't think it's a hard question to answer while we're here because you can always come to fall river and travel to the flint or the cape or newport yesterday it was great

with that idea let's just keep up the good work let's try to get these people in and let them get acquainted stay here for five ten eight years until they retire you don't see that too much we have guys working here for 30 years 32 years don't retire and they didn't want to retire i think we got a girl in the water department's got about 45 50 years colleen how many years she's in the

water department one time long time so you don't want to leave yeah you know the water must be good with that i heal thank you counselor counselor and seat c2 counselor kamara thank you um and when you talk about refunding right are we extending the life of that loan no no so it stays in the same area that's right okay yeah and that's sort of where it sort of shortens it up and

the formula is crazy how they calculate calculate the uh the interest rate the interest rate it's really crazy yeah it's like a it's almost like a mortgage well it's a little different because there's several interest rates involved in a bond like one point one two like all like probably i couldn't even guess right now and so what you're doing is you're reducing your total interest that you're

paying so you're keeping the life of the bond but you're reducing the total principal and interest that you're going to be paying yeah for the same one that yes same balance you're not i don't know the good news is that that net effect is you save like a million dollars on the 10 year balance on just interest alone hey i mean saving money is i mean it's a good thing you know we

were growing the bond mark the city was going in the bond market anyway so it wasn't like we were adding additional expenses of of borrowing you know we were going to go in the bond market anyway going to be more expensive to borrow in the future i can tell you that yeah unfortunately i mean that's why we want to utilize you know funds appropriately and invest the opera money like we should so that we're

not going out and incurring more debt because the interest market the interest rate's already climbing oh yeah with that you'll thank you thank you very much thank you counselor and seat three council vice president dion thank you what is the interest rate on uh the durfee project i know initially it was 4.5 i think it went down since then going to be a mixture it is a mix i know it's a mixed rate

it's a mixed rate i mean like we can get the information for you but it's not just one it's not like your mortgage what you're going to pay 3.25 percent right there's going to be several because it's broken out into pieces the way a bond works so i don't have that here i can get that for you plus the original number had it i believe a 10 million dollar uh addition to it

came in 10 million dollars higher no but right now the way it's structured the bulk of the dervy uh high school has been borrowed there's still a 16 and a half 16.5 million million dollar piece that will be after long term borrowed in february of 23.

nope um so at this point what is it uh what is the dollar amount per hundred thousand you know i have that in this book but it's gotten so thick i'm trying to think i think it is uh like the total debt or just the payment for the year yeah the pain you know the you know the payment the effect on on someone's paying the uh i don't know what's in your initial presentation

that's what i thought it wasn't it wasn't the initial presentation well i see 65 i see yeah i didn't put a copy in in this book i didn't know you were talking about just the dirt yeah yeah just the dura yeah i mean we have that but we actually made up a chart you know with the a single family two family three i have that right yeah right that shot should be 133 dollars the year

65.50 is 50 on the 2 million 250 000 but that doesn't tell me how much per hundred thousand oh i'm sorry per hundred thousand because at one time we were told the dollar amount of sixty nine dollars per hundred thousand so i'm just curious what the dollar amount ended up coming out so people can calculate i can't see it yeah but yeah if you you want it yeah if you just look at the

very yeah we should be able to take that first line just divide by three and then my other question is you addressed single two family three family commercial industrial what category did four five and six families go into commercial they are all in commercial all right i believe the rule is up to four you use a microphone

can we you said four five and six families were all considered commercial for this purpose right four ten minutes well only because none of them are addressed here that's why yeah and i think that was that's perfect i think that was the break point because the majority of them sorry can you just come back to the table and talk to the mic thank you so just just to cut to the chase because

we got some more stuff to do today um it might my understanding is that it's less than what was originally estimated per hundred thousand right um it ends up i think being about forty five dollars per hundred thousand um residential all right so obviously that that's different when you get to commercial um so i think it ends up you know we're we're looking at maybe ten dollars per hundred

that per hundred thousand less than what was originally estimated and there's any number of reasons why that is the case considering that money is slightly more expensive to borrow now than it was but uh bottom line is is i know that there's been a lot of conversation as to why it was hard to get to that number and at the end of the day like ed and bridget said it's a variable it's a

it's a blended interest rate so this multiple interest rate because it's a bond um and so you can give that answer six months ago and it really would have been a different answer so this is the closest we can get right now okay thank you that are you thank you counselor and seat six council prayer yeah the question i have or the comment that i want to make it is that when you just

talked about the tax bills going out the first bills to go out and estimate estimates that is so hard for people to get an understanding of i know because it's estimated and then the last bills that they get i reckon i reconciled so those bills are higher so they think that their tax bill went up a tremendous amount when it's not at all what it is is there any way to fix that

not really when they when they when they when they allowed like fall river to adopt the court i think it was a documentary yeah yeah maybe the administration it's been a while quite a while ago they adopted this been a while and uh jack madeira said we were going to be sending out monthly bills at the rate we were going well and i hate to tell you this but in

the city of new bedford they send out monthly water and sewer bills yeah okay the i mean anyways uh the when they put the quarterly tax billing system in you know prior to that was i thought it was a big deal when they went twice a year i do remember slightly being annual that might been before my time but uh the quarterly the only way they could do it and the whole idea was to generate

cash flow so that the city could bring in you know revenue you know with the billing period and that's how it came to work on on being estimated the first two bills you know the first one i think the first one's due august first and then it's whatever the hell it is in november every one month and then one thing that um the reason why fall river did so well during the pandemic is because a

significant amount of the homeowners escrow their taxes right which so essentially they are kind of paying it monthly um so it helps not be and the way the banks figure your escrow balance what it has to be hopefully it won't be as much of a hit then their mortgage goes up after when the tax goes up i know they call me oh it's like okay then i try to explain that that was an

estimated bill but you know right without yield thank you thank you anything further on debt service seeing none assessments pension state and county assessments and reserves page 305

so

good those are all the assessments we have

four so the retirement contributions i mean i don't know if anybody has any questions but we don't have a choice we're told what to pay right um so there's a you know small increase but that's because the state of massachusetts requires what you what you contribute to try to get the oppub i think it's what 20 36 they want it to pay people right fully funded and who knows what that'll happen with the

interest rates but um i mean and then then the the uh the following on 305 is the assessments um i mean most of the assessments has come through on the ch on the cherry sheet that we get from the state every year matter of fact we're waiting right now for the conference committee between the house ways and means and senate ways and means so that we we obviously we have an interest because we want the senate

version to to prevail which hopefully it will you know and maybe th that's where we're anticipating some some increase in unrestricted state aid and and it was one other category i think it was state only and that they finally they're going to make an adjustment on you know for uh for for this year because a lot of times yeah for a lot of a lot of times it goes flat for a few years and you don't

really see an increase right and uh retirement as you know because of the actuarial schedule we get a schedule every year from the retirement board i think next january they will update it again uh for the next you know actuarial they keep uh obviously they keep changing it you know and upgrading and updating it councilman seat four council kill me thank you uh yeah the only question i

have is that the years i was on the school committee and probably council kids game two tested us we uh we had a vote come before us on participating in school choice right and maybe this is a question for the school obama if if it's not you know in you guys wheelhouse okay but i see school choice there 1.2 million dollars to participate in school choice obviously which means that individuals

in the school department can choose to go to somerset dartmouth or another high school but we have to fund um that's that per pupil expenditure the money follows the charge right because if you accept it i'm not sure we didn't fall over except if you accept it it's gonna work both ways yeah that's right it has to yeah that's right it has to work both ways we have students that leave the district

more than coming in so the school committee made a decision to participate in school choice that allocation is for that right yeah so it's reciprocal though so they well yeah i didn't if i remember right you you can't be one way it's got to be two-way two-way operation i know as a result of these numbers that we're looking at right now i know we always for the 10 years i was on the school

committee we always chose not to participate in school choice but for me i'm looking at that number that's uh that's an alarming alarming number so but if you look i'm trying to think now if you look on the revenue side if you look in the front of the budget book you know where i think there might be a line in there for it might have some reference to school choice i have to

take a look at it it's right now i really don't you know unless you get involved with the school committee on it yeah it's just a general question yeah uh but i can follow up yeah with the department so thank you thank you any other questions on pension council receipt seven counts are puzzled just just curious what what are the offsets 305.

the offsets are really charges that we charge back for example uh we're charging back some library grants for their share of the pension and you know the schools we have a small chargeback for certain people when they send the city the assessment they send the entire assessment and then what we do is we calculate where we can recover pension pension money okay and then they also send us like we get to see the uh

i think it's the housing authority and and i think there might be some is there something on there for diamond they don't have that sheet in front of me but you know there's a there's a hole and then what we do is we look at the city's portion and then break it up and then the budget you'll see there's like an allocation to the schools and allocations but the combination of both

those numbers are what the city of fall river share is and the rest we try to recover as much as we can i yield thank you thank you anything further anything further on state and county assessments or reserves

the administration have anything on state and county assessments already no matter president thank you very much thank you

next section is uh public safety excuse me i'm sorry concerns eight three counseled again um before we do public safety there's something i'd like to touch on from last night it'll be brief um what department on the uh solid waste um we started we had somewhat of a little bit of a conversation it kind of got interrupted and um it bothered me when i left because i knew that part of the conversation was correct

and that one of my statements you corrected you were you were right and correcting it i was wrong but i knew there was another component to this so when i went home i pulled out my folder i just want to read uh easy shall collect and haul except for waste at least once per week from every residential dwelling within fall river that has city collection service limited to two three four five and six family buildings

special businesses on exhibit age which we agreed on and it also states um let's see and their successors okay so we agreed on that that was the accurate statement when i said other businesses as well i was incorrect in terms of the pink bins however what happened with this was suddenly trash carts started going out to other businesses that's where it fell off the rail i believe this is outside of ordinance

that this shouldn't be an issue however if we take that away exhibit h has 71 businesses on it the city of fall river is picking up trash at 266 businesses so we're picking up recyclables and trash at 195 businesses that were never included in this contract which means way back when when we started discussing this letters could have immediately gone out to tell 195 businesses we're not going to pick up your trash or

recyclables anymore so when i look at this even if i drop it down to 150 000 that we could potentially save over a 10-year period would be a million and a half dollars we're in our sixth year of the contract and not to be a debbie downer or anything but i would suggest the fact that all of this is outside of city ordinance i would much rather take the chance on 71 businesses

suing the city of fall river than the taxpayers of fall river whose money has been misappropriated and literally thrown in the trash because that's what happened with this and with that i yield thank you the administration do you have a response at this point i don't uh i don't disagree at all counselor diane at all um there are some uh significant problems um with um some of the choices that were made

with regard to trash going back some period of time the administration does very much want to fix this but i think we're just trying to do it in a way that one is exposes the city as little as possible to litigation but i think the bigger concern is to know where we go next um and i think that's that's really where uh the trash committee comes in uh that's where there's there's some voices

that we we probably need to be more intentional about hearing from uh in order to figure out you know where you go because to to say you know this is out of ordinance you know we don't like this agreement you know whatever we're gonna say um but then not know where we go from here i think has the potential to be a disaster um you know trash has been sort of a third rail

around here in different ways for a long time and part of the reason that's been the case i think and this is just anecdotal and my own sort of understanding of what the history is i wasn't you know really around for it or involved in city government no you weren't no you weren't but my understanding is that you know a number of folks at different times looked at certain solutions uh didn't really understand the full

implications of those solutions jumped into them uh realized that there was a significant number of residents like no this isn't what we want this you know disproportionately affects us in in x y and z ways um and there just wasn't the buy-in the education the understanding of what the implications of the next steps were um so i'm not saying that we we're not going to do anything i'm not saying

that we are going to do something i'm just saying that we are working really hard to understand what the right next step would be and what that is actually going to cost what that would look like what steps we need to go through to do it and frankly i think with the rising cost of of trash and the difficulty in both pickup and hauling away i would i would venture to say that all of the

contractors who were involved in this as well want to fix the issue i don't think this works for anybody and that's just you know anecdotal but i think it needs to be fixed but it needs to be fixed in a thoughtful way and and i think we're going to look to the committee the trash committee to help with that because it's you know something i think has to has to happen

we need to make sure that some of the obvious inequities are resolved the the commercial trash is an easy one but resolved in a way that doesn't open the city to litigation thank you you know i think i think another part of what bothers me about this whole thing is um you know in the past granted you're saying that number's much lower in the past 300 000 was put out

was was the number that was stated um but it doesn't matter whether it's 150 200 250 300 000 that represents monies that can be used for the people that everybody talks about that you want to retain these people you want to pay people better if we have 150 200 000 you know that's how many inspectors or how many firemen or how many i mean we can utilize those funds it just it just

i don't know just it just drives me crazy but with that i yield thank you thank you it's um eight o'clock the council is going to take a 15-minute recess okay

city council is now back in session next item on the fiscal year 2023 municipal budget is public safety uh police department is first chief

good evening so we're going to propose the budget tonight that uh that we went over and i think is a solid and uh conservative uh approach to the budget obviously our goals and our objectives and the vision that we had a lot of those big items were taken from the capital side of the budget obviously moved to the city side we're talking about body-worn cameras tasers cruisers public dispatch radio systems

beyond that our big goal here always every year and the most important thing that we have is manpower obviously we have several vacancies i think we're out 19 at this point and that's with a academy of eight that's graduating uh next week uh this saturday we have a an additional 15 candidates taking the physical assessment center so we're looking to close that gap uh by next year but that is the biggest goal for us

although unfortunately that's not something that we can just throw money at that's a long process that is affected by academies number of seats in the academy and it also comes down to qualified candidates so that's where our issue is regarding the budget but um on the other side um on page 269 and we're highlighting some of the things that we thought were really good going forward uh we're going

to be completing nearly a five year program uh to ensure that every police officer has their own portable radio this goes back several chiefs they had some really good vision with this and we'll be completing that with the passing of this budget most of the increases that you'll see most of them are cost related increases other than maybe gasoline and heat and that hasn't been different for anyone across the board

we have more more issues with gasoline obviously we're running cars 24 7.

and natural heat if you go back and you look at our previous budgets every year for the last two to three years natural heat heating has been budgeted at 30 000 which we've never met so this year we took a good approach to it looked at the standings and where we are in the current time and we made our best guess there so beyond that prior to going forward i

just want to make sure that you're aware on page 271 there is a line there for body-worn cameras uh after our submission we were alerted that we were going to be getting opera money for the bodyboard camera program so there's 278 thousand dollars that's a line item that should be stricken and secondly uh there uh there were two pages that were missing uh covering dispatchers and summary page and i

believe i gave that and notified seth and bridget regarding those missing items those were handed out and um they were included in the total salaries though yeah so it doesn't change the bottom line it doesn't change the numbers it just we just happened to leave out unfortunately dispatchers uh who are sort of a critical part of this uh this whole thing do a really remarkable job

really just a technical difficulty with the linking of right so with that if you have any questions i'd be more than happy to uh do my best to answer thank you counselor and seat five counselor pelletier thank you uh how many men sure are you we will be short with the graduation of eight uh next week we'll be short 19.

that's 19 vacancies 19.

how does that affect uh does that affect your overtime of course it does it certainly uh overtime goes up uh certainly exponentially uh but it goes up as we can't fill seats uh as you remember last year there were money there was money allocated for 12 one main cars so that went up and the biggest piece uh the way i like to think about it's beyond just the money uh when we're talking

about police departments it's wear and tear on our guys so as we're forcing them to work you know it's getting a little uh chippy so but we're we're making it right now we're doing well uh not too rat on anybody but uh sometimes you know some of the guys say hey i can't do this double 16 hours that's correct they're getting bigger but sometimes that happens sometimes in the middle of summer that does happen but

you know we've had open dialogue with the union's regarding uh preservation of certain days off so we've had a very very excellent positive uh discussion with them and we do our best to preserve guys there have been rules in the past where we make sure if depending on how busy it is where they at least get one day off you know we we can't force them for both days so that there's a little

give and play with that does this affect uh call-ins because they're tired i can't comment today i don't feel good but you can't just i mean if they thought you don't feel good they don't come in but it makes a bigger burden on the department as well right correct the more the more men we have the more men and women we have uh the more we can share the burden of policing the city

we're all human beings and and i i i have uh profound respect for the anyone who puts on uh the badge and the gun on a daily basis and gets out there and then unfortunately has to sacrifice some of their family time beyond that tour of duty i was talking to you a few minutes ago wondering if you had people from the outside that could come to fall river and

could they or why would they go sure uh the the reasons are various uh but we do have people who come to fall river we've had our offices from somerset um right now we're doing a background investigation and i think it looks really good that we have an officer coming in a little after july from brookline massachusetts he happens to be living closer to fall river knew that there were openings

and thought it was a better fit for him and his background so far what we have is that he's a very good officer there that's a civil service department and prior to an officer coming from a civil service department the chiefs have to sign off and agree to it uh the agreement that we made and able to look at this police officer was that he was willing to stay there until after the u.s open

and he comes in as what what kind is what step is a certain step or does he pass anybody just no he is his seniority that's all there's all rules and regulations as to where he falls into play uh he may keep because of civil service time he'll get some vacations he won't get the seniority but he'll get vacations but he loves four rooms i guess well vegas can't be choosers uh the other thing you know

i find the little things uh like we had an accident on pickham street in uh cook street this week it's almost in front of my house i heard the bang going out there and pretty banged up and needed neither went to a drug but the response time was crazy about 45 minutes i guess if there's no blood they don't rush i guess right correct it's a priority level that's how they

get stacked in the calls and if there is an injury it certainly bumps it up in the in the stack yeah it's unfortunate but we only have so many police officers out there and unfortunately it's a priority system and uh if you want a good eye opener you can watch a documentary on netflix called flint where uh they were decimated and talk about a stack of priority calls that they never got to but we're not

we're not nearly uh there so we work the best we can we prioritize and if there's no injury or there's no uh fear of loss of life then unfortunately it can wait i know that's a real burden for you know for the citizen who's sitting there in a car accident who just wants to get in and go but unfortunately that's you know the process that we have to follow so how many sectors we have

12 12 sectors and um does and you've got 12 sectors is there more in the south end and tonight then or just about even no it's it's broken up by number calls that's i mean basically uh we haven't done a a plan uh in years uh looking at the sectors to see how many calls per sector i mean that's that's something that we kind of do on an eyeball and it probably hasn't changed in

probably 40 years well you must be pretty busy me living on peckham street with the avenue that's all i hear the sirens but it could be you or the fire department or ems and they're out there they they've working their tails off you know my my men and women certainly are yeah well i'd like to tell you congratulations and do what you got to do to keep the city safe and the people safe

and whatever we can do is the cameras i think they're very important good crews are important and good people that work for you are important i've got a lot of those you know and you hear a few minor things from the department and sometimes things go wrong within the department but there's people there to straighten things out and i'm sure it bothers you when it happens but if something happens then they have

to rectify the situation not cover her up and not put it under under the rug and i'm sure you wouldn't do that that's correct i i mean i'm managing approximately 200 employees and i can't control uh i can't control many of them yeah but all i can control ultimately and it's really a simple approach is just follow and react to what's in front of you and that's and really we're going to

get i'll go off the topic a little bit but we're going into accreditation for state accreditation i'm hoping next week i'll be sitting in front of a panel for state accreditation and uh you know accreditation in order to you know the the issue accreditation you have rules there are uh the the number of standards that we're following and the big picture isn't that you break you have some officers who may break

some of those rules the big picture here is do you have rules did they break the rules and were they disciplined did the department react the way they're supposed to react and uh i guarantee for the time that i'm here i'm hoping for the next seven years uh hopefully then i'll be passing on to a new chief uh that that's exactly what we're gonna do it's just a very simple plan and uh very basic and

that's it well very good good luck and i feel better already are you thank you thank you councilman seat six counselor yeah the question i have um chief the retirements how many retirements do you have and what's the buyout because i don't see anything on page 267 for buyouts is it somewhere right so all the way i understand it is that for years uh the way it's been is that they're never they haven't been

purchased they haven't been budgeting for buyouts uh that's a philosophy that they've uh the city has um i guess instructed us to go by sometimes it works out in the department's favor there may be some extra mortgages on our side um more so than not it evens itself off how many retirements do you have coming up ballpark you have to be exact i have i can tell you right now that i have

four people who are taking time off the top of my head and then i know i have another nine that could walk in tomorrow and tell me that they're done and that would be on top of the 19 vacancies that you have that's correct there's really a push i think because of police reform and everything else that's happened there are very few people that want to enter that profession it's getting more and more dangerous

mean when i was a kid we had a walking beat when he went by and he said you know get off that fence kids jumped today they don't and the level of respect which i think is taught should be taught at home the level of respect has decreased among some um and and i think the police reform has really hurt us too because fall river is a city that has lots of feasts and

different processions and parades and events throughout the summer and if we can't use auxiliary then we're taking police officers again to work overtime and it's got to be exhausting because it's not just going out to a traffic accident you know you're going out to a number of different incidents as that occur and every incident you go out on for the most part you have to write a report

submit that report then there's days you got to go to court and you have to sit there you'll get there you'll sit there for two hours and either defense attorney or the district attorney they're not available so now you sat there for two or three hours for nothing because the case isn't going to be heard and i think that we're burning out a lot of offices is there anything that we can do to

maybe work with the state delegation to say look this police reform act of not allowing auxiliaries um it's really hurting us and financially it's hurting us and it's tiring out our offices is there something we can do to help well i think when you talk about police reform i think we're getting way off but budgetary items but when it comes to police reform uh you know when you think about police

reform what what did we really want from the legislature we wanted people to we wanted police officers to be nice to people we wanted uh police officers not to use choke holds we wanted police officers not to use neck restraints those were the big pieces uh they weren't concerned about the police department firing twice a year another unfunded mandate what does that have to do with police

reform you ask and i i'd love to give you an answer but i don't have one just i just know that that's part of our certification process they've sent down a multiple page questionnaire that every police officer had to fill out that had to do with everything under the sun from group affiliations to taxes i can tell you right now i'm super happy with the the unions that we have and uh

my police officers because they they saw what it was and they did the right thing and we got it done we didn't have to ask for extensions we didn't have to play any games with the state uh that all happened this week so on top of budget week it was a very busy week but uh we got it done and you know is there some things are there some things that people can do

um different organizations that have festivals for example i did notice at the day of portugal i noticed some individual with shirts on that said security so we can't have a security guard putting up a horse and blocking a street correct you need to have a police officer there but basically for procession they block off the street for the crown to come into the church and it's usually someone who lives within

walking distance from the church that has this procession and if you have a police officer there i don't know if there's a minimum of hours that they need to get paid i just think it tires them out as well so to speak directly to to your question concert is auxiliary so just so you understand that i mean obviously the state has their mandate regarding you know what we can we've got

a legal opinion as to you know why we can't use them we're looking at something creative going forward and we're looking to put together basically repurposing retooling renaming different units but something that will fit where we're not having an issue with post so we are looking to get back to a volunteer traffic unit just maybe not in the same way that we use the auxiliaries so

by this time next year i'm hoping that we have something pretty robust that's functioning and able to take that off of our street offices yeah i just think that you don't want them to burn out either and that's a job that you go to work you have to be extremely an alert during your entire shift and i feel bad for some of the men and women in the police department i'm fortunate that i have a very

dedicated force you know i feel bad like a lot of people point fingers at them but yet don't see all the good work that they do having worked you know for years with dss and dealing with police officers all the time and at the da's office i've met some really good men and women in the police department that have done a phenomenal job and maybe that's why i just feel like i know these people and

i worry about them i worry about their safety and if there's something we can do please let me know if it is something to go and speak in boston and say you know we need auxiliaries they're not you know i don't get why they were taken out or we need a volunteer group to do uh some traffic stuff to help out then that would be good and when can you hire again

you have to wait for another exam right well there's going to be a new exam that's going to be certified july 1. oh god we have an academy uh lieutenant jt hoy did a phenomenal job and was able to secure us i think 10 seats definitively if there's any other fallout from other agencies or somebody who doesn't pass a physical we may be able to be in a good spot too and that's in july that's in

july we have 15 candidates now here's the game we have 15 candidates taking the physical assessment on saturday and this is what i talk about the difficulty in quality candidates we've gone to the point now where we what used to happen was we would send everybody to this test and let's see what we get we now get these folks earlier we help train them we give them physical fitness plans

the last testing the mock test that we did with them i think almost a week and a half ago i can tell you we're going to get eight uh individuals that are physically fit before they even get into the academy they're gonna i don't have any doubt that we'll net at least eight maybe nine maybe ten uh we'll we'll see where that goes i'll know more saturday so you'll know that on saturday and then

july one there's another no there's a new list and this is so then you'll interview those and decide who's good procedurally a little different but basically yes well good luck to you chief thank you and and i appreciate the sentiment thank you yeah you healed counselor i yield thank you councilman seat one counselor kadeem thank you so i don't necessarily have any specific questions to the budget

that's before us however i was gonna go down the line with police reform and post um number one i i think you know my colleague and see um six did ask the question as to what can we do you know i my response maybe it's not the most politically risky correct response is i'd follow up with the local delegation for the ones that actually supported the police reform and give them a condescending thank you

and tell them to actually participate in some of the post-commission meetings that are that are taking place because it is a travesty um i've taken it upon myself to actually sit on some of these and what we're going through and what's going on is is it it's just so unfortunate that elected officials continue to do what they do and just re become reactionary to a situation and not correct it

so my real question to you chief was have we already started to look at the financial impacts that the police reform law has is going to have on on our our department in terms of are we anticipating with some of the surveys that are going on that they're going to be decertification of police officers do we are we hearing of any police officers who are considering early retirement because they obviously

do not want to be in the in the profession anymore so so to to be frank with you i mean that's always going to be an open question depends on how how much further they go uh we've uh kind of survived the first wave if you will with with uh but i don't see even though it's troublesome i don't see the officers that we have and the quality of what we do have really being

bothered over the top 181 181 sworn police officers um i think there's only three i can't get into it for personal reasons but there's only three that that i can't attest to regarding their uh fitness for duty or their moral character which is a whole another issue uh regarding what is the state's term for moral character and what what is the guideline what's the rubric because they

were very general with it yeah they're still debating that but correct but with that said uh they you know anybody who doesn't get tested to they're going uh they will not be recertified and they will get a hearing for 90 days and some state panel will talk to these people for you know for a period of time and then we'll get a ruling yeah and then and then you've got all the ia forms

that went up there and you get a list of individuals you know and here's my issue police officers that deal with a community like us there is so much interaction and there are going to be complaints and and when you get a complaint you investigate the complaint right so every department is now required to submit those and and tell you exactly you know what the finding was was there a suspension was unfounded but the

bottom line is is that you've got officer names attached to ia reports that are now going to become public record okay so we we've always talked about trying to protect offices and public safety officials with not releasing names not giving addresses imagine how easy it's going to be because the post commission has already stated it's going to be public record we've already got news news media that

are looking requesting to try to get the surveys that are being done from i think it was a through h that needed to be submitted correct um i'm telling you it's it's an unfortunate situation but i know my concern is is we're hearing i know you're saying our guys are good but there's still a lot of uncertainty and until everything shakes out and we see what the regs are going to come down

from from the post commission we really truly don't understand what the impact is going to be that being said we're not anticipating or you're not hearing you know folks because of police reform looking to do maybe an earlier retirement than they they would want to or actually leave the profession whatsoever that would necessarily impact the staffing levels correct and i think at this point from

what we understand of the game if there's anyone at this point that wants to leave because of what we're facing right now it might be in our best interest to let them leave if that's the case so we're not really being harmed but in it more of an overarching view to speak to what you just said counselor you're right it makes it more difficult to attract young people to come to this job knowing full well

uh you know what lies in front of you uh very difficult so i'm sure when it comes to i don't think we're gonna have people uh leaving in droves because of this right but i'm sure you know the the guys who who might be at retirement level who say you know what this is i love this job and i want to stay until i'm 65.

my best guess is you're going to see those numbers dwindling and listen i want to be very clear because i don't want to be misconstrued we don't want to see any officers doing a george floyd anything like that we we want we want accountability across across the board right there's a way to do that and i and i will tell you that the police reform bill that was passed in massachusetts

was not the way to do it right so i i think there was there was a way to hold people accountable have more transparency they absolutely missed the boat and and we're just kind of reactionary to it um in terms of bridge academy because my colleague in six uh seat six mentioned about it uh so i are we looking for those auxiliary auxiliary officers or reserve officers are we looking to get them through is

there any academy for the auxiliary folks there is none so they didn't even take their part so correct so and if that's exactly it so the auxiliary's never had any formal training post through mptc through post uh basically their position is if you are a police officer wearing a police uniform carrying police like weapons you mentioned gun particularly but the legal opinion is you now fall into some other

issues if you're carrying handcuffs no gun but you're counting handcuffs wearing a police uniform that uh you know we're getting to some risky area so they don't have any training the po when you're talking about bridge academy there are some people who uh we had uh especially our environmental guys some of those guys went to reserve academies uh back some time they had to go to the bridge academy

which is an additional 200 hours that would then match uh what full-time police officers go through when he had so it was just the environmental offices that needed the bridge correct i'm not aware of anybody else in our department at this point okay yeah i was just trying to figure out if there was going to be significant cost with the getting those folks to through the bridge academy and additional training

yeah the bridge academy if you're already in queue i think you're all set but the state is not going to allow new people who have no training to go to the bridges the bridge academy is admit it's only a supplement so that's only going to serve uh reserve police officers maybe in some small towns at uh higher reserves that they'll get a benefit there will send them to the bridge academy which is

an additional 200 hours we are not going to benefit that because i benefit from that because most of our officers are full-time police officers i've gone to a regular academy and i think we only had two environmental police officers that had reserve academy one has left one in state and he's going to the bridge academy and just for clarification you had mentioned that with down 19 19 positions you had four that are

out on time so when you say out on time that they've got retirement but they've got they've got time left accumulated so of those four how long are they still on the payroll and we're not able to to fill those positions uh because i know they vary right correct it varies and i i i really couldn't give you a specific number right now as to the exact number um but

we do have you know four plus people uh that are taking time um could be six months you know for a patrol it's usually less so they're nearing uh vacated they're nearing retirement so we're anywhere from six months to six to eight months six to eight months you know not being obviously going through retirement not showing we're talking patrol level time okay all right without yell thank you

counselor ncaa council washington hi chief hi i am just a few questions the state accreditation is that a new accreditation or is that a re-accreditation that's that's a reaccreditation it's a regression correct so is is there extra funding with that that comes when you have that or is it what no the the biggest benefit you get is uh it's insurance basically that you have the policies that are within the top uh 10

you know the in the best practices of policing uh in the country you're certifying that your department is following these standards do they come with trainings and yes they do they do okay so i am concerned about the 19 you're down 19 men and women that's very concerning and scary i'm sure for you um so going on what my colleagues were saying is eight so you have eight got men and women in a class right correct

they graduate i believe next week i think the 24th so is that aligned with like normal classes that you had or do you are you seeing a decrease in the people well i think the the the best thing that's going to happen for us uh and and we've looked at you know an algorithm if you will of police officers who are retiring and i think what we go back to chief duper and

under chief cardoza a little bit we couldn't get academies we couldn't get academy classes we couldn't get candidates fast enough to replace attrition so what you're seeing especially when you look at our i'll give you an example is if you look at our salary total salaries you'll see that there's a decrease that's because our older police officers have now left and we are with a young thunder and heard

with our police officers out there we have a very young police force right now and in five years that's going to benefit us greatly uh right now uh it's a little bit of uh of an issue for supervision uh they're making they're certainly earning their money but uh my best guess is this year is the year that we finally start to see a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel

where we're now having academies kovit's over we're now getting candidates uh the state now ran a test every year where it used to be every two years so this july will be that first list that's now being merged with the old one so it keeps restocking uh the list so i think the way it'll go by this year will be in a very good position compared to this year i absolutely love the idea of the like

the pre-training before the they go into the is it so the 15 possible candidates that you were saying that you had correct they're in like this pre-training is that pre-exam or post exam that's pre-exam pre-exam that's pri that we've done their background we we believe these candidates going forward could be potential candidates uh i believe they do their medical background and then they just have to

pass the physical but the physical is one of it is one of those issues that uh we lose a lot of candidates soon does it cost a lot of money to run that i love that idea i think that's great that you're doing that does it cost lieutenant and uh lieutenant i'm sorry sergeant galvao are the guys who really kind of spearhead that and i give them a ton of credit for

putting that program together is it is a lot of costs associated with doing that no just just the time for the office i just love that idea and has that been going on for a long time i can't tell you one but it's not that long it's not that long i i love that with that i yield thank you thank you councilman seat 3 council vice president dion good evening

i only have two questions i'm looking at the emergency response active shooter a decrease of 69 000 that's correct and why would that go down that much well first off i want to say thank you to the council from last year for supporting uh purchasing the active shooter equipment we spent um yeah we spent a little bit more than 75 i think when you get to light item i think we spent probably 79 to 80

thousand dollars in inactive shooter equipment which is exactly what we wanted prior to prior to uh these incidents that we're seeing uh uvalde what have you um if you noticed uh you know there was an article and some departments were you know repurposing people putting people here putting people there getting equipment uh and to be honest with you the leadership that you had last year

and the sergeants and lieutenants they made the right calls and they were on the money we had people who had been alice trained we had people who have been asher trained which is very similar we had equipment we also have the swat commander who works day shift uh group seven which is five days a week he's working during the days when uh schools are in in play he's got a a designated uh vehicle that has uh

extra equipment in it uh and and to be honest with we've just been the the leadership of the department uh in some areas has been fantastic and really put us in a position uh to succeed and this is one of those areas where um you know maybe next year we'll come back and ask for for more of them but right now uh we listen to our commanders and the equipment that they needed and

it they just didn't uh put in for this year so that's that's good all the way around correct we're happy there's no negatives to that one and on the police training um there's a reduction in that dollar amount as well correct we also had some training uh through opera as well so you have to take that into effect so we've done some uh some de-escalation interview interrogation training uh

there's procedural address this training a lot of things that that are probably in the uh days of uh police reform so our guys have done a ton of training uh also mptc uh has a new uh cadis portal over the last year they've offered a ton of training so our guys are taking as much as they can but keep in mind the shortages and the work so we still have

a ton of guys going to a ton of training a matter of fact guys go into a ton of leadership training as well uh obviously if you want to change some of the culture or some issues uh obviously education and particular leadership with your command staff has to be paramount so we're planning on getting our all our captains and then we'll work through lieutenants and sergeants to get them all uh trilogy trained which is a

program through uh fbi leader so we just graduated i think last week was uh captain dave murphy i was a trilogy recipient for completing his last cast through his last class through uh fbi leader so that's a sufficient number for the for the rest of the training that we require for this uh year correct very good thank you without a yield thank you counselor and c2 council camaro thanks chief welcome um thank you i'm

glad to hear we got a young force we've got a young chief as far as i'm concerned that's good so it's a young department um i hope you stick around in seven years quite honestly no chance okay we'll have to start grooming the next guy pretty soon uh walking beats and uh bike patrols are we looking to expand that and where where they're going to focus on most part of the

walking dead i would love to expand it um but to be honest with everyone here is you know and i anticipate some of the questions what questions are going to be asked and i think individually and and i can't tell you how appreciative i am of the council individual members because everybody's asked at some point when i've run into them what do you need and really uh you know it's bodies

bodies is the big thing here so you know you could you could give me a budget for 254 police officers unfortunately i can't fill them so really we're going to take a measured approach we're going to try to measure out where what's attainable what's sustainable where can we fill those gaps and then maybe build from there but beyond that uh getting specific to your question and walking beats uh we

had two guys out there tonight uh we had an appropriation last year we didn't uh i don't think we put a major dent in it uh last year but it's due to this situation where people last year were getting ordered in at a high rate i don't think we're going to hit that rate this year i'm looking at lowering that rate this year within uniform division but we'll see we'll see how that goes

because i think it's very effective and i see the walk-in beats and i mean it's something that the neighborhoods seem to do a lot better when there's peop they know that this police officer is constantly walking around the neighborhood and the bike patrols as well um i think it's very effective but listen as i said you know if there's anything you see throughout the year don't be afraid to come back here and

this council is very generous as far as public safety goes i think it's if you don't have a safe community you don't have a community nobody wants to come to a community that's not safe it doesn't matter and for years we've had a reputation that we're probably not as safe as a lot of surrounding communities and i think that's a false perception uh i know people that have come here from other

communities that have said i used to think foreign was a dangerous place and then one individual he started a business here and he had to put a fence because the people that invested in his business said well if you're going to start a business for a river i want to fence around the perimeter property said it cost him like 27 000 and after being here for over a year he

said i couldn't i didn't have to build that fence at all there's no crime like what these people thought there was and it's it's small crime it's not major crime like other cities have of of our sides so we're very fortunate that the police department has an outstanding job in preventing a lot of that from happening and i appreciate that sentiment counselor but and i have to tell you one of the one of the reasons

why there is a piece of this misnomer if you will um we do a fantastic job of data mining and and when you get into reporting fbi reporting we report everything and you know maybe sometimes we we might even overcharge with some things but as you charge criminally unfortunately it makes your crime stats look a particular way i don't want to sit here and accuse other communities of not doing that

but i would suggest take a look and when you start to look at the list of dangerous communities it's staggering to look at numbers and then to look at communities and and i always say uh and what doesn't get reported i think anybody who's ever taken a simple stats class in college you know the uh the old phrase of garbage and garbage out and whenever we start looking at numbers right that's unfortunately how we have

to look at them yeah no i agree so listen like i said if there's you find throughout the year and i know you're working within the budget and you want to try to stay within that budget but if there's something that you feel you need don't hesitate to approach administration i want to come in the administration too also for working very closely and you know you told me they've

been very good they've given us a lot of pretty much everything we need and that's what the focus has been and it's very it's something to be you know commended upon so there's anything that you need throughout the year i don't care if a cruiser breaks down don't wait till next year just come in and let's let's ask for it because if you don't ask you're never going to get it at

least what we can say is no and i don't see it happening thank you all right with that i yield thank you thank you counselor and seat seven councilor posa real quick um animal control services went down ten thousand dollars that's correct just curious it's just less less of a need essentially or exactly we sat down with uh every uh commander in every division uh i know lieutenant john montz in particular for this

particular uh line item uh sat down with our aco people and uh basically sometimes you know we do the right things and we we support people and we spend the money the year prior next year they don't have the same need and i think i think when you look at the big picture when you have that uh when you're talking about budgets espec especially expenditures it makes sense and when you're dealing

with honest people it shouldn't always be going up i would imagine i guess there's going to be some years where you gave them everything they needed and they didn't need as much than the following year and and i think that's one of these cases here fair enough oh we just killed off all the cats this year i don't know maybe i don't know i don't know i'm sorry kelso dion i didn't want to stop oh

it's okay and then just for i think for the administration just on the budget here on page 271 it it obviously on the total capital it does nothing but right above that it does list the number of 739.

you just yeah okay that's on she wanted to double check it's it's down below it's zero thank you keep up a good work chief thank you thank you counselor nc one counselor kadeem thank you i wasn't going to bring this up but i i'm going to kick myself if i don't bring it up so i had asked about you know how many individuals were currently out you said

four how long it was so when i go to page 274 um i just gotta gotta ask i mean we've got a chief and two deputies both of our deputies are out if you remember correctly i said patrol level no no i know and that's why i backed off i was like you know what i don't think the chief really wants to answer the question so i i didn't i

didn't say anything i was like yes yes yes and then i yielded the floor so now i'm back right so um your your staff right it's just you i know you got captains i know you got lieutenants you know i know you got a command staff however you know the upper ranks to oversee the entire department it's just yourself right so those two individuals how long are those two individuals on the books but not working

i think uh off the top of my head i think deputy collin is slated to retire somewhere in december of 23 and uh deputy duper is somewhere in early of 24. okay so you're going to be out with staff 2024 and 2023 correct are we backfilling or do well i've been working i've been working with the administration on a plan to figure out how we're going to get uh some type of backfill in those positions

okay because you're absolutely right and uh you know i can't be uh gracious or humble enough and appreciative of uh some of my command staff who uh with that shortage who have been picking up all that work that's been uh been left but we have guys who are really dedicated and do an unbelievable job yeah we're getting there but uh is it sustainable long term uh absolutely not but uh the administration has been uh

really good with you know having conversation and trying to work out something no and i recognize that and i was just going to point out that you know in fairness to the administration i did have a conversation with them on friday um and there was discussion about that particular situation but i think it's important for my colleagues to understand it i don't think it's fair to you

so i would i would absolutely support even if it's a temporary backfill right if we we know these individuals because listen we're not gonna this is something we've been talking about for a very long time we're just not gonna correct that at this moment however we shouldn't let it impact your department right we know there's a lot going on there's a lot of change coming on you've got your

accreditation i know you've got folks that are that are assigned specifically for accreditation we've got the whole post coming on i mean there's there is a a whole lot it's like an avalanche going and unfortunately or fortunately enough you're the individual um and maybe in seven years they'll be completed i don't know um but either way you apparently you won't be here in seven years so uh that being

said i just want to make sure that you've got the support that you need and i think you know to the administration um if it's if you need something from the city council to actually get an additional appropriation to even a temporary backfill to kind of offset that i personally as one council would absolutely support that because i think you absolutely need at least one maybe not both right i i

think at least one to be able to help offset you know something going on even even if it's just a promotion from a temporary you know service out of rank to fill that position and and and for transparency purposes and that's exactly the situation that chief cardoza was in uh deputy collin had left and he had uh just one deputy there uh and there was a fifth captain that was made to help alleviate some of those

duties so the structure and i'm working with the administration we're talking about long-term plans on what the structure should look like and how do we want to go forward but whether that's one deputy five captains or that's going back to the way it has been for the last uh hundred plus years of two deputies and uh four captains listen and this is this is something that the this

administration has inherited i mean this is again a long-standing problem i just want to you know obviously throw that out there and make sure that i'm vocally advocating for you and just getting on the record because i appreciate it i know me i appreciate it because i appreciate it and this is unfortunate bridgette doesn't believe me no i i i i appreciate it and it's it is unfortunately this is the situation

where we're in and everybody's aware of uh the comp time issues of the past that we've had uh and and basically how how it worked and unfortunately uh i'm just the guy at the end of the road and all of a sudden there's a can and there's nowhere else for it to go so herein lies the issue of how do we now deal with those years of kicking it okay

without a yield thank you chief can you just clarify when did um chief duper deputy chief duper go out uh i i couldn't give you an exact answer on that couple of months weeks months i don't i i wish i could give you a better answer it's months maybe two two months maybe six weeks anything further on please no no thank you chief thank you thank you next to the fire department

madam president so i have a uh a budget here i think it's uh effective yet conservative i think it addresses the probabilities that we're going to face could address some of the possibilities as well um but that's with appropriate overtime um some of the capital um proposals i had in the budget i know it's been taken out some of them have been addressed as well through cda and ems as well so um

with that i'm open for questions counselor seat seven counselor opposing uh more of just a comment um so as you well know the sunday of the parish feast we had a fire on aldon street and it you know it becomes real when it's right in front of you and 10 feet in front of you i just want to commend the job well done you guys did as soon as it seems that fire started it

was out and they were on it and obviously we were all kind of there celebrating having a great time and that kind of um put a damper in that but the reality is kind of witnessing itself and and the processes you all went through to handle that situation was great so it is greatly appreciated job well done thank you thank you councillor uh proposal thanks for the video as well

you're welcome it did help paul not a problem not a problem i yield thank you thank you counselor at c5 did you have your hand raised yeah i did um being around for a long time i've seen many chiefs many firefighters and many problems that you had but you know this time with the ems and all that that they got something straightened out that's benefit to them in the city that they won't be looking outside uh

looking for another position because they should be well satisfied with what's going on and and what they're getting so i feel good about that the men are not going to go anywhere because they get everything they want in fall river uh let's hope so well i hope so too we hope for the best and uh you know i seen many big fires in fall river in the jobs that you men have done

and notre dame up there and the island fires and all that man uh fantastic you could have lost most of the flint and we lost seven eight houses i guess and that was uh i remember when when when i got notified around nine o'clock or whatever we went up there and the towers just coming down and it was awful it was awful but you guys work hard it's a tough job uh

you know you go out when you have to go out now you got uh 24 hour shifts is that what you got yes sir yeah what is it four twenty two two twenty four hour shifts yes how many two twenty four hour shifts away two one on one it's an average of uh 42 hour work week yeah and that works well nobody's busy yes okay i'm complaining all right keep out the good work and uh

let me go buy my house put the side means a little a little lower you know what i mean see what i can do about that what's that idea thank you thank you counselor anything further for fire no more questions thank you thank you they're doing a great job thank you

love to thank you thank you mr kilby i'd love to leave but the next department is emergency management agency okay good budget evacuation now now this man is seen all over the place good evening everywhere any questions for me no counselor seat six council pereira i think that you you and your whole team do a phenomenal job at every event that you're at always there to support the fire department um

it's just a great teamwork between your department and the fire department i give you a lot of credit you've worked really hard and have some wonderful people very dedicated working for you and you keep promoting and really make people feel that everything that they're doing is so appreciated and i think that's what a great leader does shows appreciation to people beneath them and brings them on their side with them

so rick uh congratulations job well done with your your group thank you you're welcome your yield counselor i do counselor at seat five you're gonna say for a little guy you do a good job congratulations keep it up thank you i heal thank you anything further for emergency management agency seeing none thank you that's it next one is emergency medical services thank you

i know

no questions does anyone on the council have any questions for ems i guess i jumped the gun with the ems you know how i feel about it and i'm glad that uh the department is getting what they want and what the city deserves and we can keep our men in fall river high yield thank you thank you counselor anything further keep please keep your assignments down when you go by his household yeah yeah

healthier seat six yeah just a question about the ambulance the cost of ambulance now with the city with the new aetna plan um that the city has the workers have is there a higher charge than we were getting before how are you doing with that ambulance i know you know you're doing really you were doing well at making sure that you got reimbursed from the unions i mean the unions the health insurance companies

and the conversation that we were having the other day yeah i did say that the city has changed the retiree plan to the aetna aetna medicare advantage program and what's happened is with that the medicare advantage program unfortunately city employees former city employees who are retired don't realize that when they took the ambulance before there was no copay but now there is a copay of 280 dollars

which is a co-pay for anybody who takes the ambulance who has that aetna medicare risk until they reach a deductible so it is confusing yeah i was surprised about that because that's what i have that way you have we are medicare with me right he's not older old enough i use the ambulance and uh using my premium pays for everything not because i'm a counselor but uh a right to providence was seventeen hundred dollars

and uh they never charged me anything my insurance so i'd have given you a ride for a grin i'd be scared i won't make it no i didn't realize that and that was concerning so if you're already on your medics or whatever and you have the city's converted from medicare right to that edna medicare supplement plan but there is an advocate that works in human resources that will work with people who have

co-pays and i haven't yet reached their deductible and i've had some experience with her and she's very pleasant and she will help study city employees try to rectify any barriers they have to end that's great that that's good to hear i go to my retirement board meetings occasionally i haven't um heard that but again i think uh you know meeting all of you i know day of portugal you were there and other

people from ems i think you do a great job tim mr aloe vera you have you and beth have you know great individuals working for you it's so nice to see i mean we ask a lot of questions during budget time on all you know other little departments but we really need to be proud of our public safety departments police fire ems mr again and and his whole group of people and

how well you all work together as a team so i for one appreciate that and thank you with that idea thank you the same anything further anyone have anything do we need a motion to refer to full console or we do if we're done with um the budget second second motion for the budget to fulfillment thank you thank you thank you has been made by council kadeem seconded by council vice president dion motion

all those in favor aye aye aye aye any opposed this is both both municipal budget and the enterprise yes yes second emotional journey finance made by council kilby seconded by council came all those in favor aye aye finances adjourned fall river city council now come to order madam clerk councilors kadeem here camaro here dion here kilby pereira raposo yeah washington here and president libby lebeau here everybody

please stand for a moment of silent prayer remain standing for a salute to the united states flag america into the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all first you 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 is there any citizens input for this meeting madam clerk no there's not item two is the proposed fiscal year 2023 municipal budget council prairie yeah i just have a question of um tony atkins um seth when mr pacheco mr um camaro was here that was a question that i had asked

during our hearings about the ordinances and people getting paid above salary ordinances and the legal opinion was that they had gotten the colas yes but that nobody got a salary increase it was just the cola which put them over that's right and but that is not that their salary went up it was the cola so um that just a concern i have and i want to share it so so that you can voice your opinion what

was told to me previously thank you counselor you're welcome and i appreciate the opportunity to clarify that because i think there's a lot of different opinions and frankly information that i don't believe is correct um around just out in the social media sphere don't don't listen to social media i don't but you certainly hear enough of uh what's what people are talking about uh and just to be clear um the the

suggestion is that because there are a number of positions in ordinance that are capped by ordinance and a number of uh city employees who are working in those positions making more than the cap um that it's automatically against ordinance against the law however if you look at each of those positions what you find is that those people making more money than what the position is capped at an ordinance came

as a result not of a raise or um and any sort of arbitrary increase it was a cola that was given uniformly to a cost of living adjustment to members of city government and that's a different increase than a race and so it's not discretionary it's not open to a question regarding merit and it really does not reflect an increase in salary and violation of ordinance what it reflects is a cost of living adjustment to the

base salary that somebody was hired at which ostensibly and i will say i've looked at it was in fact within ordinance at the time of the higher okay so thank you for that thank you appreciate it all right thank you counselor in seat eight council washington i just want to follow up on that um so just to be clear on that because i had some questions so if you brought so you give these colas

and if you brought someone in their salary that person leaves so they are capped over ordinance because of the cola you bring someone new in they don't start with that over the ordinance salary they go you go right back down right absolutely okay the only option we have and it's the only option we would even entertain is hiring somebody within the ordinance uh we work very hard to it's the reason why

um as soon as mr mcelini became hr director and i became city administrator we realized there were quite a few positions where cola adjustments had brought people out of ordinance and that just couldn't that couldn't be allowed to continue happening because frankly it just it creates some sort of challenging situations when you're trying to either replace people times of change people are looking for

higher salaries but the only option we have is to bring somebody to replace uh you know an employee who leaves uh within the cap that's listed in the ordinance so and i want to say because i was hearing a lot of that like we're breaking the law are we breaking the law doing this and so um we're not because it's looking into it you can do colas but my this is not the first time you

if i'm correct the um administration brought this down in front of the council last year right so have has this been an ongoing talk for for like bringing this down i can't i apologize for jumping the gun there i'm sorry go ahead um i can't speak to what was brought down last year i know that there was an effort to look at some of these positions bring certain things up to

i don't know that all of those represented positions that by virtue of cola had gone above ordinance um i think there might have been kind of a a combination of different reasons why very good reasons uh for many of them why folks needed to be brought up what was recently introduced um i would say maybe february or march uh and i believe is is now before the ordinance was referred to the ordinance

committee by this council um was a list of a bunch of positions maybe 30 positions or so that because of cola were out of ordinance needed to be increased uh and we were seeking the council's approval to do that okay and i just um and i uh counselor dion had said um and i like what she had said i think what was my first meeting or like my third

now but um when she had said we we really need to either work within the ordinance or try to fix the ordinance and i think that that's something going forward it looks like it's been put on the table and tabled and tabled but um in order to keep talking about losing people for money like we need to to bring that forward but i just i guess i wanted to make it clear because you know

being new here and coming in you know just at the end of the budget hearings we're not breaking the law by what we're looking at kohler's outside of that ordinance but we do need to look at the ordinance and and our limit and so i yield correct thank you counselor counselor and seat too council commander i know we're going to vote on the budget and we're going to go into that but i just

want to put this out there so this is not known it's been going on for a long time the problem i have with it is if the ordinance says not to be paid in excess of eighty thousand dollars cola kicks in and it's like okay so now they're over the eighty thousand dollars that's the salary it's not it's this out eighty thousand or beyond eighty five thousand whatever it's going to be whatever kicks into

them so now that has not become their salary and the way it got there was because it was increased through cola right but what if the council now notice decides that we're not going to pay someone 85 000 how do you take it away from that person because we choose the ordinance of what it's going to pay at the top what do we do then so it's like it's put in without council approval

not saying that it's this administration that's doing it it's been done for a while and we would sit at the audience table when i was in the audience committee and we'd say okay we have to adjust these so we're well some people didn't agree that it shouldn't be it shouldn't be this high we capped it out at this because we were saying well let's hire someone at 70. we'll cap it at 80. but

then after a few years they're beyond the 80 and we're saying you know maybe it shouldn't be 80 maybe it should be 90. maybe should be 70. but now you're taken out of the council's hands completely because the way it's put in you're going to give them the cost of living increase and it's going to throw them over the salary it just doesn't make sense that the council doesn't get that opportunity

first to decide whether or not we want to legitimately pay that to that individual because sometimes individual that inherits that salary they come from somewhere else someone leaves they feel the position at that salary where the council put it at and next thing you know within a year they're making they're out of uh compliance with what the council of the ordinance says and they're making a

moment of that and that's where the problem comes in you're taking it out of the hands of the counselors to adjust and ultimately decide what that salary is going to be so how do we fix that how do you go back and say well you were making 80.

cola kicked in now you're making 84.

but the council agreed six months ago or a year ago that it shouldn't pay more than 80.

what do you do so first let me say that that my answer as to whether we're breaking the law or not is is strictly a legal answer i'm not saying whether we are not because i don't know if we are or not right i'm not an attorney i'm not a lawyer i don't know but you can make both sides of the argument that yes you can absolutely you can say hey he's right and he's right he

can be like gilligan's island what gilligan always said yeah he's right and he's right it just goes back and forth you know everyone's vote they're both right you just made the other argument well you started and essentially invariably and exactly correctly made what the other argument is which is that hey it doesn't matter how it got there that's their salary and if their salaries are ordinance it's over

ordinance um which is what people are saying is breaking the law so and so that's where we depart right so so i i would say um according to those people i'm not saying i agree with it yeah and so i think there is an equitable answer which is which is the answer we're talking about is is is it right to take it out of the hands of the council and unilaterally increase somebody's uh

salary above what was contemplated when the position was created but certainly understood i'm a big checks and balances person i believe that there's a problem with that on the other hand if you are doing an adjustment that is that is uniform across the board for everybody that then there becomes the question of well if somebody can't get that uniform adjustment that that similar treatment

to every person in the city of a certain percentage because they are now at the top of the ordinance well then there's there's another equitable problem um that some people because they still have room because of where the ordinance was set they get the adjustment other people don't i think that's sort of equally problematic so so you're right it's it's it's difficult um the question i think

that you're asking is how do we solve that and the only way i can think of to solving that is we regularly uh audit and look at the caps or make everything by contract and have the contracts approved by the council the caps themselves um just you know whether you're talking about inflation or just the difficulty in getting municipal employees those those themselves are probably more and more quickly

outdated right than they are we should look at them on a regular basis and so that's probably the solution either look at a regular basis or remove caps entirely and uh create checks and balances for individual contracts i mean i'm glad my council brought up the subject um and i'm i'm glad i had the opportunity to talk on it but i mean it's something that probably not going to fix today and when you know but we

should have this discussion going forward and trying to do what is right for all parties certainly and it is not and i just want to be really clear it's not the position of the administration that you know we're going to bring people up and give them money regardless what the county that is listen like i said it's happened before this administration would say it's happened for a long time or many many years ago

um and we've just kept dealing with it as it comes along we want to do it right and we want to figure out a way to make it sustainable with that i yield thank you thank you sir thank you councilman seat three council vice president tian um i'm having a little bit of a difficult time under i don't want to say understanding but agreeing with the fact that because it's a cola

it doesn't and it adds up and brings the salary over ordinance it's not violating ordinance um because if that were the case we'd never have to adjust ordinance you wouldn't have to say well bring ordinance up to a higher level so that it's above what this person's being paid and that's i i don't even know where to go with this whole thing we had this discussion a year ago

so there was a whole year to discuss the ordinances change the ordinances that's right have the discussions it didn't happen right so now here we are a year later having the same discussion we had a year ago 10 years ago last year we've had 10 years ago so i mean it to me it wouldn't have to be adjusted if it were correct maybe that's the best way to say it and to say that nobody's hired

out of ordinance you weren't here not your fault not a correct statement the ordinance was set to 2017 per contract seventy eight thousand seven hundred and eighty dollars the person was hired in twenty twenty at eighty thousand three fifty six that's being hired out of ordinance it sure sounds like it is what position are we talking about the chief of staff so now in 2023 the annual salary is eighty

seven thousand one thirty one last year with cola the total salary so last year's annual salary was eighty four zero two five with cola was eighty five thousand two ninety two and this year is eighty seven thousand one thirty one the annual salary that's a two thousand dollar increase over what their total salary was last year that's more than cola and with my math because with cola their

total salary is eighty eight thousand four forty five all right now is that just base salary or does that also include any increases in whether it's uh holidays cola other things that are just functional this is the base which is eighty seven thousand one 000 131 and after longevity holiday cp whatever it is they get because some of them get what get a percentage some of them don't it's 88 445.

so this started in 2020 this person was clearly hired outside of ordinance and it's the nothing but going up and going up and the total salary last year is almost two thousand dollars lower than the base salary this year that's out of ordinance i understand the concern uh i think i would i i don't want to lose sleep uh the way counselor kadeem uh might lose sleep but i think i'd be really remiss in

in not saying that the person we're talking about uh is i'm not talking about a person i'm talking about a physician but i don't want to talk about when we single out a person we're talking about a person respectfully and what we're talking about as a person who who not only works incredibly hard is amazingly effective really understands this city in a way that not a lot of people do um and

and i i your point is well taken i i certainly understand that what we're talking about is is um the question of of you know are we flouting the ordinance uh by virtue of assigning people certain salaries but i just i just need to make the point that the person we're talking about is just an unbelievably valuable member of city government is uh just generous and decent to literally

everyone that walks in the door whether or not they respond in kind uh and i just think it's a shame to to single that per particular person number one i was not singling an individual oh it's a position it's a position you made the statement nobody's hired outside of ordinance this position i don't care who the person was because at the time nobody knew who the mayor was going to be it's a political

position i get a person is has is an expertise has a good expertise it does an excellent job that has nothing to do with the with the uh doesn't have anything to do with anything because i can tell you that there's two positions inside the budget of people who have been here for over 25 years who are also wonderful people who also do a heck of a good job one of which is a revenue generator

and they don't make that money and that's a career so this has nothing to do with an individual okay this is strictly are we violating ordinance it was it was a perfect example is what it was when you made the statement nobody gets hired outside of ordinance this position no matter who was receiving it because nobody knew who was going to be the mayor until 2020 until the 2019 election

i don't care who it is it's they were hired outside of ordinance and it's done nothing but go up and we're still and it's more out of ordinance now because as i said the total salary last year was 85 000 and it's gone up eight to two thousand dollars as the base salary so i have a hard time agreeing that we don't pay people outside of ordinance and i have the whole list of

of the ordinances and the pays and i can probably pull out a few more i'm not going to that was just one example um just so just so i understand um just because i want to know the whole context and like you said i wasn't here prior to the hiring in 2020 what was was the prior chief of staff being paid within ordinance or outside of ordinance within orbit

and the position was empty for a year or a year and a half she was kicking back africa okay so i i uh i'll have to look at that i appreciate that my understanding was that um she was being paid at a similar rate to what the new chief of staff was hired at so i'll take a look and try to understand the history of it um i think i think the problem with that

one was correct there was a snow stipend involved which made it but that's that's a whole nother issue and honestly and and you know i look at 33a um mass general law and it does state the annual budget shall include sums sufficient to pay the salaries of officers and employees fixed by law or by ordinance i i i just can't wrap my head around if it's not a big deal and you're not

violating ordinance by people getting these raises for whatever reason then why do you need to have ordinances why do you need to have a cap and why does it need to be adjusted it needs to be adjusted because it's higher than what set an ordinance that's just my personal feeling i'm not an attorney i'm not a judge but that's just my personal opinion and with that i yield thank you counselor

counselor and c8 council washington i just i just i'll just make this last comment but i i do agree with councillor dion and she's bringing up some really good points um but i think there's blame and the and the you know people that are coming up to citizens input bringing up some good points but i do want to say that um how do we fix it because it was brought down to the council 420

it was table for 2021 a year ago so then it was tabled i don't know all the lingo so yeah i'm sorry i'm but uh it was tabled on 6 3 6 21 leave to withdraw 7 13 of 2021 brought back down tables again so how do we stop we're not going to solve it tonight but i guess we i i think kind of everybody's right and everybody wants

the same thing and and how do we stay within the law how do we fix it from if it's been brought down we i think it's more than one person that's maybe outside of um ordinance how do we fix it where do we go from here where do we put it i don't i don't you know so i'll yield on that but i think kind of everybody's a little bit right and does blink to go around

how do we fix it so we can fix the issue so that's i'll leave it there thank you it is back in ordnance councillor in c1 oh thank you um i just i i don't want to back and forth i'm just going to state my my opinion i don't think there's any exemption from the fact that um you can circumvent uh the salaries that are in there i mean a cost of living adjustment is just that

it's an increase i mean the individuals are getting taxed on that retirement's going to include that it's an increase right it's a raise um you know i think you go ask any of the collective bargaining units you got a cost of living adjustment what did you get for a raise two and a half percent they don't tell you i gotta cost a living adjustment they say i got a raise right that's

that's what the cost of living adjustment is so what i will say is and i think my colleagues have said it this has been an ongoing issue for decades right decades we finally got to a point where we brought everything back in line and then you've got the cost of living adjustments that are that are now pushing them back out and we just got to come back and it's an ordinance again and we'll

to answer your question we'll get back to the table but we've got to get back to the table because the reason you know this history behind um the last time it was in in council right there was no agreement between the administration on certain on certain um positions where they needed to be so we were back and forth we requested information we didn't get the information so we gave it grant leave to withdraw because

we weren't getting the necessary information from the administration at the time now i'm a little bit more confident that we'll be able to work with this administration to correct it i don't know that we need to to really delay it what i will say is it is a violation of of ordinance right we'll correct it um moving forward i think there are some some folks who who say you can't build a

budget on that right so i think that needs to be corrected as well because i don't think just because you have and this is my opinion a salary that has been increased as long as the individual is not getting paid that increase it's but it's budgeted knowing or anticipating that there's going to be a change in ordinance i don't think that's a violation of the law that that to me is allowable in a budget

a budget's a living document that allows you to be able to project what you want to see so you know there's there's a correction on both sides but i think we just need to get back to the table and it's an ordinance we've i personally had a conversation as recent as friday with the administration talking about what do we want to see first because there's a couple of things on the table right now there's a reorg

that we're discussing there's cost of living adjustments uh i mean the upgrades on the salaries so there's a lot that needs to be done both of them are going to take a little bit of conversation and just looking for a priority from the from the administration as to what we want to handle first so i anticipate within the next couple of months to be dealing with the riog some additional new positions being put

into ordinance and adjustments and i think some of the adjustments might take a little longer because they might need to be piecemeals because we may not all agree on what the administration put forth for specific positions because we're looking at specific positions so it is going to be somewhat of a um you know comprehensive approach to that and time consuming so it's not going to be a quick fix

so with that i yield thank you can i say thank you thank you thank you counselor and c3 council vice president yeah the only other comment i would make is at the last city council meeting the statement was made we are paying people out of ordinance so people have been receiving pay outside of ordinance so it's fine to say and i'll it's fine to say the fact that it it's in here isn't an issue

but people have been being paid outside of ordinance so i'm sure with this budget their salary wasn't going to go down so proving this budget is just keeping the problem going and it is a problem at this point unfortunately um with that i yield so can i think councilman see one quickly i get i guess on i mean that's a philosophical difference so what what i was saying i want to be clear if there's a proposed

increase that's above ordinance that's not a violation because it's in the budget that's what i was trying to clarify i'm not disagreeing that you know people who are being paid outside of orphan ordinance it's a violation that's exactly what it is um unfortunately so now we're dealing with the budget it's a line-item budget we're making appropriations you know so i mean how do you we we that

just reject the budget which then again if it gets rejected you know i i mean we get to square one and back and forth and at some point you know i feel like my hands are tied but i i think there's a conservative conservative effort to make sure that we've got everything it's an ordinance right so it's not like we don't have anything before the city council the administration sent something down good faith

i would say that you know moving forward we need to make sure we people who are on the cusp of going over the ordinance uh allotment that has been approved by the council should not be bumped up right so i think we should just grandfathering everybody that's where they're at work on the ordinance and move forward on it that's all i'm saying just to correct us so there's no violations

until it happens again are you making that much form of emotion right it's really one thing emotional did you make that in the form of emotion that we're going to grandfather everybody in no a little confused confused about what when you said let's just grandfather everything i'm like we're going to vote at this point at this point what i'm saying is because we need to get a budget passed right let's pass the

budget we've got we've got the request down into ordinance and let's work on it yeah and let's unless listen unless we're taking every w we not paying people is that what we're saying because we're violating the law so are we taking money back from employees so no if we're not going to do that so why are we going back and forth saying things right so let's be realistic there's a violation

we're not taking back money from you know staffing as staff at all so let's correct the issue it's before us and we'll deal with it within the next month or so correct anything further councilman c3 um the chief did request that the line item on page 271 and his budget for body cams be reduced by 278 000 i think we should address that and the appropriation should be reduced by that same dollar amount yes

madam clerk we're going to go line by line correct i'm sorry we're going to go line by line yes so we can reduce it when we get to that line i just wanted to clean it up so we can stop the process

um

you know to uh reduce that line item that's really the maintenance for the body cams i mean the problem i have is is that to get this to get back on track with the with the followers budget at some point in time you need to budget some money for ongoing expenses you can charge the body cams to to offer funds to purchase them but again you know next year you're still going to have to maintain

these body cams so i mean i i i can i understand it if as long as you understand that that expense is not a one-time expense that's going to be an ongoing expense for the city in the police department that's all i need to point out and you don't necessarily met a president have to do a you know a line item you can you can cut if you wanted to reduce that expense

for the police for public safety in the police you can do that you don't think we will just you know change the line item well according to cooperation council we do have to do it by the line but that's that's what that's all i'm not sure i agree with that because you don't really have to go each individual line i mean that's but i'm just telling you that's my only

that's my only objective let me can i ask you one question yes on that right so he feels that in this fiscal 23 right that dollar amount is not necessary because it's already covered right you're saying moving forward next year we're going to need that money and i'm saying that i'm not sure that we have do we are we been authorized to charge that maintenance for first year to opera funds i'm not aware of that

it took five years so it's not gonna be expensive excuse me can i finish i do have the floor thank you yeah because what point of clarification because my current seat of classification it's a five-year grant it's no expensive city for the next five years oh that's even that's great so therefore the money is not necessary for for the next five years we're going to be able to charge a grant

for the maintenance of the of the body cams that's what i was told by the chief yes then i'm good with it i don't have a problem so thank you counselor and seat three you still have the floor so what i was going to say was um if that if it were the case that the money wasn't needed but i didn't get to go there um at the end of the fiscal year that

money would be turned back anyways right so it would still be taken essentially be out of the budget and then it would go to next year's budget if you decide you want to reduce it my suggestion is where you've got a balanced budget is to transfer that to the reserve fund okay has the same effect okay thank you take care of it from the council did you have your hand raised

no a long time ago but you i haven't been calling on me so i'm good to go let's go that was actually the counselor in six months seven hours uh no i'm good thank you i yield let's go madam clerk first one second had my hand raised before how many times it is what it is i'm too old to care you have a question madam clerk yes yep thank you for your recess

council take a two minute recess

so

do

my do

you

so

city council back in session the committee on finance at a meeting held on june 15th voted unanimously to refer the attached orders to the full council for action this is the fy 23 municipal budget and ems enterprise we need a motion accept the committee's report motion accepted communities report motion to accept the committee's report made by kelsey kamara seconded by council prayer any discussion

clerk you need to go line by the line yes that's the council's wish to do the enterprise fund first or the doesn't matter whatever you choose whichever you choose surprise us surprise us oh we'll do the ems first because that's the easy one good call i was thinking is there a motion to adopt the ems enterprise second should it excuse me it should be noted that we've got that uh the insert that

that was adjusted because that was often initially they gave us a corrected page yes this would be in the amount of hundred fifty 9651 thousand dollars promotional dot made by councillor camara seconded by councillor kelby on the motion to adopt councillors kadeem yes camaro yes dion yes kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes and president la la guillermo yes

and the municipal budget in the amount of 360 136 excuse me 360 million 136 387 motion to adopt second emotional dot made by councillor camara seconded by counselor kilby any discussion madam clerk good oh i'm sorry concern c5 give me that figure again please 360 million 136 387 is the total thank you

counselor c3 did you have a question yeah that was my question if there was going to be any she's going to go line by line that's the total amount so the first item would be item a1 from the general fund for mayor salaries the amount of two hundred ninety two thousand seven hundred twenty dollars second emotional drop made by kelsey kilby seconded by council washington any discussion accounts are in seat three

at this point can the line item be reduced do you are you making them up you can make a moment i would make a motion to reduce that line item by six thousand dollars there's a motion to reduce the line item a one by six thousand dollars is there a second a a1 there's no second so we have a motion to adopt has been made and seconded any discussion any further discussion bottom click

on the motion to adopt in the amount of two hundred ninety two thousand seven hundred twenty dollars counselors kadeem yes camaro yes dion no kilby yeah pelletier yes pereira yes raposo yes washington yes and president libby lebeau yes

item a2 from the general fund for mayor expenses the amount of twenty seven thousand one hundred dollars motion adopt me by council kilby signify

yes pelletier yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes and president lalibi label yes item a3 from the general fund for the city council salaries the amount of 277 thousand six hundred forty nine dollars motion promotion adopt made by councillor posozo seconded by councillor pelletier any discussion madam clerk counselors kadeem yes mcmahon yes dionne no kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes proposal yes

washington yes and president yes item a4 from the general fund for city council expenses the amount of one hundred seventy six thousand five hundred dollars motion up exactly no doubt made by councillor kilby second by council raposo any discussion madam clerk consists kadeem yes camara yes dion nope kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes president-elect yes

a5 from the general fund for city clerk salaries the amount of three hundred forty five thousand ninety eight dollars motion two dot second motion not dot made by councillor pozzo second by council washington any discussion madam clerk cal says kadeem yes camaro yes diane no kilby yes volunteer yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes president libby lebeau item a6 motion to adopt from the general fund

for city clerk expenses the amount of fifty one thousand seven hundred seventy three dollars motion to adopt emotional doubt made by council raposo second seconded by councillor pelletier any discussion madam quick conscious kadeem yes camara yes dion no kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes and president la liberty label yes from the general fund for elections salaries the amount of 250

574 dollars motion to adopt motion drop in my counselor proposal second second by council prayer any discussion madam clerk counselors kadeem yes mara yes dion nope kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes president-elect lebeau yes item a8 from the general fund for elections expenses the amount of 95 785 dollars motion to adopt emotional job made by counselor raposo

again secondhand by counselor pelletier any discussion madam clerk counselors kadeem yes kamara yes dion no kilby pelletier yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes president la liberty label yes item a9 from the general fund for veterans benefits salaries the amount of two hundred ninety three thousand seven hundred eighty one dollars motion to adopt motion to adopt made by councillor pozo

second second by council washington any discussion madam clerk counselors kadeem yes camara yes dion no kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes raposo yes washington yes president lality label yes item a10 from the general fund for veterans benefits expenses the amount of two million two hundred seventy eight thousand nine excuse me three hundred sixty five dollars motion to adopt motion adopt made by

counselor proposal seconded by counselor kelly any discussion madam clerk counselors kadeem yes camara yes dion no kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes proposal yes what washington yes and president lola b lebeau yes item b10 from the general fund for administrative services salaries the amount of one million five hundred eighteen thousand six hundred seventy dollars motion to adopt

motion adopt me by counselor proposal seconded by councillor pereira any discussion madam clerk cultures kadeem yes camara yes dion no kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes president liberty labeau yes item b2 from the general fund for administrative services expenses the amount of two million eight hundred ninety thousand five hundred seventy excuse me two million eight hundred ninety

thousand eight hundred seventy two dollars motion to adopt emotional adopt me by counselor the puzzle second by council pereira any discussion madam clerk council is kadeem yes camara yes dion no kilby yep pelletier yes herrera yes raposo yes washington yes president liberty labeau yes item b3 from the general fund for claims and damages the amount of 850 000 motion to adopt motion me by counselor pozo

second second invite council washington any discussion counselor in c3 um i want to make sure because we had a um four hundred thousand dollar reduction was it was that in that line did you get the new page counselor oh sorry know

they gave it to us tonight with the police pages is that the one um

thank you anything further we madam clerk so that was b3 from the general fund for claims and damages the amount of 850 000 and the motion on the floor was to adopt yes counselors kadeem yes camara yes dion no kilby pelletier yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes and president la la vila beau yeah

item c one from the general fund for financial services salaries the amount of one million four hundred sixty four thousand six hundred fifty four dollars motion to adopt emotional job made by counselor proposal second by counselor kelby any discussion madam clerk counselors kadeem yes yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes and president-elect yes item c2 from the general fund for financial

services expenses the amount of three hundred ninety four thousand eight hundred eighty-five dollars motion to adopt second motion to adopt made by councillor poso so i had to buy counselor pelletier a new discussion counselors kadeem yes kamara yes dion no philby pelletier yes pereira raposo yes washington yes and president la liberty level yes i'm a yes i have to get sushi oh i'm sorry

item d1 from the general fund for facilities salaries the amount of eight hundred thirty five thousand two hundred twenty dollars motion to adopt

yes herrera yes raposo yes washington yes president la liberty lebanon yes item d2 from the general fund for facilities expense one million nine hundred seventy seven thousand two hundred dollars emotional adopt second emotional job made by councillor pelletier seconded by councillor pereira any discussion uh concerned seat seven just a quick question and maybe i'm just confused um on the on page 163 it states

one thousand nine hundred seventy one million nine hundred seventy four thousand two hundred one page uh page 163 the bottom line number for i'm looking at the right one here yeah facilities yeah 1974 200 yeah states on total expenses one million nine seven four two hundred so we're off this is three thousand dollars three thousand dollars over that you gotta include the armory though get a what armory

so the armory has three thousand three thousand one sixty four next page counselor yep do you see it uh armory three thousand uh yeah gotcha okay is it three thousand anything yeah it's yeah 3 000 for armory expenses so that to oh yeah okay i see it two buyer thank you anything further madam clerk on the motion to adopt counselors kadeem yes camaro yes dion no kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes raposo yes

washington yes president law liberty label yes

item d three from the general fund for facilities transfer to revolving fifteen thousand dollars motion to adopt original adult made by council opposo any discussion madam clerk causes kadeem yes camara yes dion nope kilby pelletier yes pereira yes raposo yes washington yes president labeau yes

item e1 from the general fund for community maintenance salaries the amount of four million nine hundred ninety six thousand two hundred thirty eight dollars made them quick yes can we take e1 2 and three together so we're doing each group did you get something that said we need to do line item madam clerk juice salaries and expenses unless somebody has an issue then they would just have to call it separated correct

in corporation council's opinion that's only i suppose necessary if you're going to amend it if you're not going to amend it you can do it we're not going to amend that we're going to vote it yes or no you're making a motion to take i make a motion to take e 1 2 and 3 together second okay motion made to take items e one two and three together by castle camara second by council kill

me any discussion all those in favor all right any opposed i oppose counsel and see roll call

um

on the roll call counselors kadeem yes camaro yes diane no kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes raposo no washington yes and president libby lebo yes motion adopt second e one two and three ocean adoptee one two and three after madam clerk reads made by councillor camara second by council kelly any discussion

that would be from the general fund for community maintenance salaries the amount of four million nine hundred ninety six thousand two hundred thirty eight dollars from the general fund for community maintenance expenses 12 million four hundred ninety nine thousand one hundred thirteen dollars from the general fund for community maintenance capital seventeen million four ninety five three hundred fifty one

dollars no that's just the total amount of clerks that was just the same that's just the total there's a total of the two capital was zero sorry 17 million 495 no no capital that is that line item is zero that 17 is a subtitle it's the subtotal of the two lines you read the subtotal of e1 and e2 that's why we shouldn't do that like this no all you got to say is the seventh capitalism

you're saying that the capital was 17 million you're giving us the subtotal i'm sorry 17 no it's just zero line three is nothing trust us trust us sorry yep

yes okay i thought you were perfect moving on okay motion to take f one two three and four together second second motion to take f one two three and four together after reading made by council camara second by council kilby any discussion all those in favor any opposed madam clerk from the general fund for community services salaries two million five hundred forty five thousand six hundred eighty four dollars

from the general fund for community services expenses one million eighteen thousand six hundred eighty dollars from the general fund for community service transfer to demo lean revolving fund 15 000 from the general fund to commute for community services transfer to vacant lot revolving fund 15 000. motion to adapt second promotion adopted by councillor pereira seconded by councillor pelletier any discussion

adam clerk councillors kadeem yes camara yes dion no kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes raposo yes washington yes and president la liberty label yes i want you to take g one two and three together second motion to take g one two and three together after reading made by councillor camara seconded by councillor pereira any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed adam clear from the general fund for school

appropriation 140 million four hundred eighty seven thousand seven hundred ninety two dollars from the general fund for school transportation ten million seventy thousand dollars and from the general fund for education all other four million four hundred fifty one thousand eight hundred twenty three dollars motion to adopt emotional doubt made by councillor pereira second second about

council of washington any discussion council vice presidential yeah on the only thing i'm going to say is i i will be supporting this saying yes on this because by law we have to um we have to fund this with that i yield thank you anything further nope on the motion to adapt counselors kadeem yes kamara yes dion yes kilby yes pelletier yes herrera yes raposo yes washington yes president yes next we're on item h

one two three four five six seven eight so items h one through eight is there a motion to take item h one through eight together okay motion made by councillor kilby second second second and by council washington any discussion i'm sorry counselor c3 council vice president yeah um this is just about taking the items together well because item two was going to be reduced okay so here's your motion is your um

you're gonna be voting no i'm taking them together correct counselor in seat seven same same yep adam click roll call on taking these items together homie brad did just a second okay i'm taking the items together counselors kadeem no camara no diane no kilby pelletier no ferrero yes proposal no is there one of these that we were reducing washington mm-hmm no oh and president-elect okay no madam president yeah

this is this is exactly the rationale why we should just go by line by line and avoid that unnecessary movement i yield you feel better though that you said it so good good adam quick because

h1 from the general fund for police salaries the amount of 22 million 92 two thousand five hundred forty six dollars so moved emotional dot made by council kadeem seconded by councillor pereira any discussion adam clerk on the motion to adopt counselors kadeem yes camara yes dion no kilby yeah bellatier yes pereira yes raposo yes washington yes and president lo liberty label yes h2 from the general fund for police

expenses the amount of two million three hundred seventy seven thousand four hundred forty five dollars motion to reduce that item by two hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars motion to reduce the item by 278 thousand dollars made by council vice president dion second seconded by counselor kadeem any discussion just met a president does that have to that motion have to include what the new total will be

the appropriation is reduced and the thing so we'll reduce it and then we'll okay vote on it thank you motion made to reduce it has been made and seconded madam clerk you need a line a roll call on that one yes on the motion to reduce the line item by 278 thousand dollars counselors kadeem yes camaro yes dion yes kilby yes

h3 to h8 do you need a motion to adopt expenses as amended please expect it you freaked or you want we adopted by the two sayings motion to take items h three three through eight together has been made by counselor kadeem second invite counselor camara any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed madam clerk from the general fund for police excuse me from the general fund for harbor

master salaries the amount of twenty five hundred dollars from the general fund for harbor master expenses the amount of twenty eight thousand eight hundred dollars from the general fund for fire and emergency services salaries the amount of 16 million 96 280 from the general fund for fire and emergency services expenses the amount of one million ninety seven thousand two hundred sixty one dollars

and from the general fund for fire and emergencies oh that's it i'm sorry second total motion adopt me by council prayer second by counsel kadeem any discussion on the motion to adopt counselors kadeem yes

yes pereira yes proposal yes washington yes president-elect yes motion take items i one through three motion to take items i one through three together made by council kadeem saying it by council camaro any discussion all those in favor all right any opposed

on the motion to adopt counselors kadeem yes camaro yes dion yes kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes raposo yes washington yes and president libby label yes

we on number four uh motion to increase item number four by 278 thousand dollars promotion increase item i4 by 278 thousand dollars made by counselor team seconded by council kilby any discussion counselor in c2 council camara yeah i just want to make it perfectly clear to people who are watching us on tv we are not increasing the budget we are just taking the money that we took from one

account transferring into the reserve account so this is not an increase to the budget it's just shifting the money from where it wasn't needed in the police department that the chief told us he didn't need it we could take it out to put it into this account just want to clarify that so people understand that we are not increasing the budget thank you can you think further madam claire

on the motion council is kadeem yes camara yes dion no kilby yes pelletier yes pereira yes proposal washington yes president libby lebeau yes

washington all those in favor all you right

do

you