6.3.2024 Fall River City Council - Public Hearing & Committee on Finance

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public will come to order CL will call the RO Council cadine Dion here Hart here Kilby here fera here hty here propo here Samson here president C here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting May transmit this meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or UNP

perceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible motion open the public hearing second motion open to public hearing has been made in second and all in favor I any oppos motion carries this time I like to call for the proponents to come down there any proponents to this public hearing

you presentation you want to show us I do and I've also um provided a print out of it to all good you yeah we also got some additional information these PL pages are to be replaced with these yes we edited some yes

yeah so I was just going to do a Qui I was just going to do um a quick overview of the budget as a whole and I know we're going to get into departments individually so I just wanted to say um this budget was a collaboration with all of our department heads um and the directors it shows there was a you know great commitment to the city as well as an understanding of the limited resources

that we have to go around and we know um to continue to improve Financial stability of the city we have challenges ahead we know paying for the city share of diamond is not sustainable for the next 20 plus years and we are facing deficits without additional resources our overall um 25 budget summary of revenues is we are G we're using the governor's recommended budget we feel comfortable

with that because as the Senate has restored that and we're hearing um but conference committee will not come out till like mid to late July which is very late this year but that's what we're being told so we are doing a 2 and a half% increase in the tax levy we have new growth estimated at 1.7 million and we're utilizing 2.3 million of free cash to transition and stabilize in the

budget budget and that is free cash of this year from the 24 year and we have the full dery debt exclusion included education we are funding at 100% of net School spending so again we have total general fund resources of 373 million which is an increase of 15.9 million a large part of that increas is due to Chapter 70 education Aid of 11.9 million our locally net of Assessments using the

Governor's budget is a small increase of 672 th000 and our increase of real estate taxes of 75 million include our new growth we have nominal increases in local receipts we are seeing departmental revenues start to level off and our indirect costs from Enterprise funds are increasing by about 835,000 due mostly to pension and health cost increase that the city is then recovering back into the local

budget and I this is just a quick depiction of it shows like where the money um most of our money comes from our education and our real estate taxes with very small percentage of local receipts and our general government net of Assessments of our local Aid we want to get a little bit into the now the expenditure side of this so again education is increasing 12.2 million which includes public charter in

all of our vocational schools the full rivers is 11.8 um and we have about 5 54,000 increase in our transportation so our retirement obligations are increasing 2.8 million and in less than 10 years our pension obligations has almost doubled climbing at a 7.5% year-over-year rate the total of all of the other expenditures is increasing about $848,000 which includes a reduction in public safety with a pause in funding

vacant positions which we are working um very collaboratively and and as a team with both of our fire and police Chiefs this is an illustration of where the funds are spent as you can see our biggest expenditure is education Public Safety Retirement and health insurance it shows that we have limited resources to expand Services because our required spending on education Debt Service

pension and insurance leave less for all the other areas but our city departments have continued to stay within the budget and take advantage of Grants and earmarks to enhance their departments just a quick overview um by each um block so our general government is increasing 2.7% it's attributed to contractual um raises and increases in costs we added a part-time driver and Veterans to

increase rides which I I think everyone is very is aware of that our administrative Services has a 12.4% um due mostly from Mis but that increase is due to our munus which is our general ledger and all of our um receivable that was being paid for by a grant for three years so this is the first year it's coming back into the budget and that's a large increase um that so offer is about

a $600,000 annual expenditure and say that again Bridget I'm sorry I'm sorry so our munice is so the big increase in administrative Services is due to Bringing software back into the general fund budget that was paid for with a grant that was a three-year Grant right so that's over $600,000 annually so that's back in the budget which is why that one that line went up and our financial services um is

6.8% that is a large increase due to the cyclical inspections for Real Estate budgeted assessors which is about 65,000 we have contractual increases um in there and we have a reduction in our Auditor's expense actually of 14% um and treasury of 1% our collector's expense is increasing um there's some new tax title Law changes that are all happening right now which would actually increase

the expenditures to the city and we have a small increase in our debt assessment our facility maintenance um is a 7.2% increase which is attributed to contractual raises and increase in electrical and plumbing supplies and Community maintenance of 4.7 which is again contractual raises increase due mostly for a contract for the repairs and maintenance of pruning Solid Waste increases for the increases due to

contracts of collection and ra Rising disposal costs and we are doing a deep dive analysis into trash collection and as you know we have um transitioned out of doing any commercial trash pickup and our traffic department is increasing with a new ticket enforcement system uh Community Services is a 6.8% increase year-over-year and that again is due to Rising utility costs some contractual increases and increase in

the books and subscriptions at the library and our fire and EMA it's about a 6.8% increase but we have a reduction of we're not funding 13 positions there are contractual increases that have been budgeted and we are continuously monitoring the Staffing with the fire chief police dispatches Harbor Master um it's actually going down by0 2% overall so we have contractual increases but we

are red we have a reduction of 14 unfunded Patrol positions we are going to be utilizing grant funding um for overtime and we have and many other positions in the police budget and we are continuously again monitoring Staffing with the police chief we meet with um the police and fire chief quarterly and we have um an increase in pension and you know other our increase in pension is 7.4% overall and we have

an increase in property insurance of 28% reduction in Medicare due to a large retro retray that was planned and paid last year so we actually have a reduction in our Medicare for this year and our unemployment we have level

funded so we do have concerns and we're not going to shy away from them we have Capital expend our cap Capital expenditures for equipment we have utilized ARP and grant funding and we've done that to to make big purchases that last more than you know SE more than a few years we have additional infrastructure investment above previous budgets we're utilizing earmarks and prior funding authorizations capacity to

fund additional projects our resources to fund the city share of diamond debt assessment expected to be around 6 and a half million annually for the next 20 to 30 years and our hiring and retention can continue to be challenges for all of our departments interest rates we've had 11 rate hikes since March of 22 and there's optimism in the market that could lead to the FED to lower the

interest rates which would help us when we go to do our next borrowing in February concerns over US debt and Market responses could then also increase treasury so again we're monitoring this daily um so I just wanted to kind of go over you know we've done a there's a lot of um there's always a lot of negativity and I just wanted to to talk about how all of these department heads and along

with the grant writer and the you know the mayor's office and administration they really go after additional funding to get to do Investments and so this is just you know just in calendar year 23 there was $10.9 million in Grants and this is a calendar year um so again the 1.6 million in the streetcape improvements along Pleasant Street to revitalize the Flint we didn't have to borrow do a borrowing for that to do

that project you know and then there's a $99,000 just a small one plant um planting trees in like EJ neighborhoods and we had another another 147,000 to upgrade smoke heat and um carbon monoxide detectors and four fire stations and then another $959,000 for infrastructure improvements to the Ferry Street sewer pump station to support water development and the 2.4 million cops hiring program to hire 19 officers

for a three-year period and then another 1.4 million in staff and overtime for the Fall River Police and Fall River fire and just this year calendar year alone because the federal government does calendar year we just have another 4.1 million award the city allowing for additional Investments and 3.9 million is funding um 10 electric school buses and another 106,000 that was um made

available for the veteran Center on Pine Street to do wheelchair height counters and then in Government Center and then a $35,000 firefighter safety equipment grant program and then I just wanted to kind of before we get into questions just leave off I was actually reading an article in the herald last week and Fall Rivers been rated against one of the top 100 places in the country to live so I

thought that was very promising especially with our Route 79 and now I just have we have any questions or we want to Sure counc C to um I just want to uh ask so you stated that uh the resources to fund the City sheriff diamond is expected to be 6.5 million annual ually but in this budget uh on page 206 it's 4,778 63 so so that so that 4 million that includes the T that's the tuitions

for the um for the students that attend diamond and then there's there's a short-term ban that's out of around 840,000 that's in that budget when they finally do finish the project and they long-term everything the full assessment is going to be approximately six and a half million is what they're providing and that's going to occur when um it could be TW there's we're 26 fiscal 26 we're expecting and then the you

know I have to preface every comment that I make tonight and in the next few days um one of the things I've noticed are the inequities and a lot of unfairness in this budget in terms of salaries um and that's something that bothers me that we have people that work for the city uh who still qualify for food stamps who still qualify for fuel assistance and you just made mention of

something let's see right here uh we had a major increase uh budget in the assesses department of 65,000 you call that a major uh increase but yet we don't consider a $155,000 raise for one employee in this city a major increase I do that's an inequity and those are the things I'm going to talk about over the next few days um among many of the things I'm going to point out and with that I'll

yield thank you counc any further questions is public hearing it is a public hearing but that's fine Council for counc could reserve for okay now you good C you want to ask it now f um the interest rate increases I remember uh brid you were in front of us uh a month or two ago and we had a a very good savings because we refinanced am I wrong no we invested so we invest

so we watched our so we've been um monitoring our cash flow we've invested we actually had last year we made about three and a half million in investment income and this year it's going to be closer to 5 million okay so I misunderstood apologize no my my my mistake thank you than counc SE five CC Vice per you have your hand up I I did I think that a lot of the questions I have

for for specific departments but one of the things that I'll say is that on the city Side if you're a clerk if you're an electrician if you're a custodian you're getting less money than on the school department side so I see people on the city Side jumping over to the school side and I don't blame them because they can make more money there so that to me is an inequity I I agree with my

colleague in seat number two that you know these people haven't seen raises and you're cutting the budget and I look at some departments not having the number of people that I think they need um but I'll reserve my questions for when each person comes up from that department to see if in fact they do need extra help and you know what their feelings are they working on those departments and I know you're trying to

cut the budget to make up the money for Diamond I get it but people expect Services here too they do we pay for services and I just don't feel that a lot of the taxpayers feel like we're getting them um that's a concern of mine with that I you thank you than c c c six ccy thank you um just a question Revenue um are you only expecting to use $2.3

million of onetime money from free cash from the prior year in this budget so it's free cash from the current year so the 204r that we're now that's what we're budgeting yes so you're only using for onetime money 2.3 million for in this budget yes all right and did you take any um and we can get into it within specific departments but did you take any Capital out of this budget that

you're using oper for or any onetime money that so there's no capital in this budget so you are so how up and the investment from arpa to to finish funding equipment purchases and what do you have a number on that if you don't if you could have it when we go over revenues I would appreciate that just in terms of what you're expecting to pull out of the municipal budget we don't

have it right now there's nothing to pull out because it's already but you haven't been using my point is you haven't been using money to fund the municipal budgets the last couple of years because of arper you've pulled out Capital so I would like to know how much money please when we get your revenues your are using in Opera or onetime money that would generally be in the budget if

we didn't have it like going into next year we're going to see that on the other thing I have in and this will one second council do you understand this question I understand okay okay than make it clear thank you my other question in terms of Revenue is you're expecting a $1.7 million increase of New Growth uh did you do an an like where did you come up with that so we went we

we went over that with our assessors and the chair of the board of assessors and we looked at the averages over the last last several five years as well as um information that they are aware of now averages of what exactly of New Growth okay if you can when we get to revenue uh in anticipation of my question uh would you please be able to get just me or on my colleagues as well

over what your what what your breakdown of New Growth has been over the last four or five years and where that average came from and for that I'll yield for now thank you thank you councelor any further questions no thank you very much for coming down motion no no no no we're not close yet we need to go three opponents first sorry these are the proponents oh so you guys can as

opponents you can departure now please thank you are there any opponents to this public hearing any opponents at all seeing none I'll entertain a motion now close public motion close public as M second all in favor I any opposed public hearing is now closed about 6 o'clock we get right

into City counc Community finance will come to order the clerk will call the RO council's kadim here Dion here Hart here Kilby here Ferrera here Ponte here propo here Samson here president CRA here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised such

recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible we have cz's input time however no one has signed up to speak in citizens input time so we'll move on to item number two School dep school department presentation and discussion of the proposed fiscal year 2025 budget please come

down and if you could just state your name and address for the record please although we know who you are people at home are watching right now not know Maria PS superintendent of schools Uh Kevin almea Chief Financial Officer Kent Pico Chief Operating Officer you want to just open up to questions do you have a small presentation you want to anything you wanted to say or question well I um

certainly we were here in April so our we've presented our budget to all of you um just a reminder that our budget was intentional um it's a it was a different type of budget than we've done in the past um you know as we know um Sr funds are going to expire um and um we were very strategic in regards to uh how we um uh allocated our funds certainly we

did not we intentionally did not add new positions unless they are compliance driven if we if we have special Leed positions that we need or um ESL positions for instance those are positions that we have to um to to support children but otherwise we are um absorbing positions that we had um uh added during with Esser funds and they were sitting in in our Esser budget and now we are absorbing those are the new

positions that we are um adding to our budget our budget has been um uh we had input from all of our department heads our principles um and we have gone over um each item we are in the process of uh negotiating with all nine units so we had to be very careful about um what we spend how we spend uh in anticipation of those negotiations thank you Council seat 7 Council poso superintendent pots

nice to see you and hope you have a good rest of the school year thank you very much you also thank you so a few questions and Mr alme I think you'll be able to answer them pretty quickly for me um looking for first our enrollment Trends currently going into right now into next year what are we looking like so we are en moment currently is uh just under 11,200 um we have 553 prek students our

um from K to 6 we range from a low of 886 to a high of 966 in a grade level U could you repeat the prek that was going to be my question there's 553 prek students currently um and dery high school currently has 2,460 students at this time and if I can just add I know Mr Kadeem I think it was Mr kadim that asked the question about the 9 through2

the difference um that we had so I just it was October to October enrollment October 1st 2022 in comparison to October 1st 2023 that's why it showed a 68 uh loss in grades 9 through 12 that was for that time period thank you excellent thank you um next following up on the prek statistic I know there's been a lot of talk about the need for prek in the city um do you

have any update on where that may stand at this point have we found any more space Have you continued using the spaces you've used this year you can summarize we are we're continuing we still um we have rented one more year of uh 300 Eastern Avenue we have classrooms there we also um uh are renting for the next year Bishop Conley high school that first floor we're moving our classrooms

that are currently at 25 one on the second on the main floor we're moving those there and we also have room to grow um if it we need to I will say our pre there you're right there's been a lot of discussion about prek we're not talking about Universal pre that's that's a an issue that's uh Citywide that's not something that falls just on us that falls that Universal prek means that every four-year-old will have

access to a uh classroom seat um if the parents so choose and that could be in our schools it could be in private care um so we're talking about compliance-driven prek our kids um are being referred at um uh High rates uh we think that this is also a byproduct of of covid kids who who didn't attend uh school or were in isolation at home Etc but they're coming with needs once they

reach three years three um they may have gotten uh early intervention up to age three once they reach uh 3 years old we are obligated to provide them services so we have to find classrooms for them we have and in some of those the three-year-olds are in halfday sessions four-year-olds are in full day sessions but um some of our classrooms we have to have half uh of the um classrooms are

peer for models and half are students with disabilities um that require uh intervention so our numbers are we are um uh keeping ahead of or staying um um uh on Pace with our students who need we need to provide pre- services too so the the agreement at the old Conley site is is that a year one year one year and how many seats are being added for through there it's uh we're moving classrooms

and we're adding an additional classroom I will say that that's a temporary site while we work at the pace um where we have our parent um uh engagement Center uh we are going to uh build out those class rooms and hopefully by the end of next summer we'll be moving classrooms over there okay so are we looking at a classroom or two essentially at the Conley site or at Conley to add to what

we already have right now we're looking at two additional classrooms and then we'll see what the numbers look like okay and you're continuing at at the old the old um yes sany desert church we have one more year that one one more year okay as far as the and I I tried looking this up and I missed it the current per pupil allocation per student what is what is that looking like for next year's

budget so for next year it's $1,532 okay 19532 you said yes as far as open positions that remain in the district as of today how many do you have remaining open uh right now we have about 80 I want to say um 801 but obviously now we're starting a new year right so as we get resignations we're going to start updating the site um we do have um unfilled positions that

have gone and we have to reassess those but we have I I will say the highest need is Special Needs ESL teachers um par Professionals of course and I know I know the district put a lot of effort in you know advertising and and getting job fairs out do you feel those efforts were fruitful in recruiting staff we had better turnout than we've had in years um so uh whether we and we participated

in in many different uh places we um had we put up Billboards I know that that was talked about uh for advertisement um and we uh held our annual fair at dery high school which um I think that we had about a 100 uh potential applicants that came through in that uh morning uh we also have had many uh fairs at um uh Morton for instance from 4 to six um that have yielded some potential

applicants so and we also went to Bridgewater State and to the mark conference so we have yielded um the although we still have um a need because everybody you know everybody has a need um it's more promising than it's been in the past good to Mr alme I'm curious about the electric buses as far as net savings we're looking at I know it's good for the environment clearly but I'm wondering what what is

the net savings we're going to look at down the road Mr Pico maybe you can answer that sure I I I think that the it's a tough number to quantify right now only because we're not we don't have a locked in electric rate at the at the vendor um but the the city has a portion that it will receive um on a a per day basis um as far as kind of a

payback of of the lease uh as far as savings I think the fuel savings will be a piece also in this mix so it'll be difficult until we go through the first year we do have uh the charging stations set up at one of our venders um route route six and Westport the buses will be arriving very shortly um we'll do our test runs all summer long uh and be

ready to get started uh there's a second round that we've been approved for uh and uh those buses um have been or will be ordered uh the charges were going to be on the same site uh it's the same vendor for those particular size buses and there's a third round that currently exists um that we've applied for and we hopeful that we'll get um another 10 so it'll be 30 buses total the the next bus

uh round will be the lodger uh yellow bus uh 70 7771 passenger and um those deals are all yet to be struck so we so it's tough to like I said it's tough to quantify we're going to see how all this um plays out I what I expect other than the feel-good piece of this because that is the the the start of it all um there'll be a lot of

testing done at dery high school um we have um two locations that buses are picking and dropping off so we're going to do some air samples at the side where SRTA drops off and then where where our buses will be dropping off the electric buses will'll also be able to take reading so we're looking to put all of this stuff together and and to have some kind of quantification of what we're

we're actually getting from the electric buses so would the idea be down the road that hopefully that may help the transportation overall number I would think between between that piece and and um the transportation director who is extremely aggressive in her efforts to consolidate um um come up with some some different methods as far as pickup whether it's on our door-to-door service

or whether it is um on our root service I I think there's some improvements that we can make um and that's what she's going to be working on most of the summer to see where we can pick up a couple of um bus savings the issue is is that the the um the amount of buses that we use most of the time especially on door to-door service you time out before you fill

up so an 18 a bus with 18 students on it could hold 40 students but we don't have enough time to pick up the students because of the nature of the route and the amount of time it takes to do door-to-door service so we're we're looking at a couple of options possibly um as opposed to a door too um maybe consolidating three or four blocks if they're in within distance and we're

comfortable that the student is safe making those transitions from a door to door to maybe walking a block um to a stop that's a huge savings it's you know five minutes and five minutes will allow us five minutes one more stop or two more stops so that's the kind of stuff we're working on this summer to try and cut that number and and with with what you're working on is there any

redistricting of schools for next year we actually are in the process we're going to look at the lines um one of the things that we've learned in this whole prek um research uh piece is that um as you look at it our uh it's Antiquated our zones are Antiquated we have some schools that have very very large zones and some schools that have smaller areas so we need to go back to the drawing

board and look at um you know I I I think everybody heard about the whole Fons a piece like there there really are twice as many kids that could go to that school that can fit in the school um so we have to go back and redraw lines and and um uh make sure that they're more realistic to the neighborhoods that they serve and is that the plan for next

school year y that that's a plan that I uh we are in they're going to work through the summer and start working I don't think that that's something that will start for August I think that's work that can't be done overnight no but I think that that's work that's started right now and that will because there's a lot of other work that has to happen with families also okay and my last

question was in relation to the kids trans trans um transitioning from middle school to high school do you have a sense how many leave the district and go to the Diamonds the two charters and Aggie of the world H honestly the numbers ranged over the years um anywhere from 100 to 175 kids a year roughly 175 on the high end that number has gone down the last last couple years because of the new dery uh

but historically that's been the change CU I I guess my curiosity was with with diamond building a new building coming soon has that initially affected this incoming freshman class going to dery we will get you those numbers though that's um good data for us to we'll get you we'll send the whole council's numbers yeah and if possible it' be you know from the middle schools of the city to yeah the eighth graders y

um to Diamond to Atlantis to Argy and to brist agie and also any of those who may do school choice to out of districts like a Westport Dartmouth what have you uh that's all I have thank you very much folks I yield thank you Council counc C3 Council hot thank you Mr President good to see you guys Madame superintendent Mr Mr Pico um just to kind of piggyback what Mr repos was talking about with

regarding uh uh prek what what is um what it at 251 right now there we have um prek classrooms we have um seven classrooms there seven classrooms there seven currently for a total of what we have SE we have 33 total prek classrooms throughout the district seven of them are housed at um we're maxed out at 300 uh Eastern Avenue and we're going to 251 actually we have one that CU we have

downstairs too 11 yes we have 11 because we have some downstairs I thought you were saying Eastern Avenue Eastern Avenue we have some classrooms there we have 251 and we have classrooms in buildings and Eastern now is going to remain as is right for next year yeah right right and for um so you did say that 2501 are going to be moved to Conley the ones that are on the main

floor we we have four classrooms that are on the ground floor that will remain there okay all right and what'll happen with the 2501 those classrooms they're going to Conley okay no I know that but the the main because because uh stone school is moving into that building stone school gotcha okay now when you when you're talking about the um expansion of the prek and you look at

different buildings that you're going to go to and Conley is is one of them what kind of are there any repairs that have to be made beforeand con Conley's ready to move in the school is in great shape um so we'll be building a small area outside of play area that we'll need to fence off uh we'll have some infrastructure work as far as it but other than that it's ready to bathrooms

are fine yes yes all right that's good um and you did talk about the uh at least Kevin you did about the enrollment um and I'm just curious about dery how what's the capacity of dery 257 and how many are there now almost 24 24 maybe we have probably 75 to 100 okay 20 2460 okay what like I mean just the hypothetical what happens if we're getting more uh PE you want more people

to come to the city and with they happen to be high school kids and what happens if we end up exceeding the 2500 well we're not going to build a new school I don't think that's an option I I I do believe that um we are we have the luxury right now at dery um with the enrollment that before this year's enrollment that we had some space that we were able to have dual purposes with

so those those areas are starting to turn into classrooms um they were designed to be classroom plus so to speak they're a little larger than uh some of the other rooms so I think that what we're doing is is reallocating some of those spaces when not doing construction to reallocate but we're able to use some of those spaces that were designed for other things um so I we do have the capacity at

2570 um this this jump may be exactly what um what council reposal said about the diamond piece right now Diamond's capacity is going to raise by only 50 yeah that that you know they're again they're going to be probably at500 Max so it shouldn't affect us so to speak um and we did pick up some kids I'm sure from Cony okay with Cony closing and and they the question about too the um

drawing the lines for the schools and foner is a that's it's not I won't say it's a problem but you're right that neighborhood is congested and has a large amount of uh students that people that live there and go there it's a densely populated area right so one of the ways that we're addressing some of that is we actually are um taking some of those kids that belong long at fansa

and stone is moving to 251 and we're opening up westall as uh uh an elementary school P to 5 2unit school and we're able to take about 300 students that typically would be able to go to fanska but are not we're sending kids all over the place because there's no more room at fans now could that so westall right now is empty no uh westall right now is Stone I'm sorry it's Stone

okay so Stone's going to the 251 and okay gotcha now um so will fonsica students you said some some of those students be going to this uh West Hall what we've done is we've drawn a line we have um about 300 a little over 300 students who actually live within a mile within walking distance of westall and those are the kids that we're going to um um uh populate uh westall with and

what's the capacity of westall uh well it was always a two Unit School um so it's I I would say it's about three uh it's it's going to be uh very similar to a Watson or a tany in the low threes it will be bus free hopefully we won't have transportation needs there we're drawing the district so it's one mile from the school and that'll take us to roughly that population okay and just one other

thing um I know that when I was on the school committee you formed a committee for The Chronic absenteeism um how is that coming along yeah we actually um our attendance is actually rebounding um all schools have seen Improvement in their chronic absenteeism um I don't have last week's date uh data but I certainly have uh from the last time when we were here um so uh I will say um

there's a 12o difference from uh we're talking march to March U because we were gathering this for March 31st for the April meeting so there's a 12o difference in in our um attendance I think that um every school is working really hard at um bringing kids to school that's you have to create uh habits again good habits again right um uh when kids were allowed to stay home there were a lot of bad habits that

needed to be broken so we have to U bring them back and we have to give them um you know engage them and give them good reasons to be in school right so um but I think that we are uh we have seen um really really good improvement in our schools and we're hoping that we're going to close out the year in in a very good place that's great and we're just

staying on top of it like you like you said all right and that that's pretty much all I had to ask uh to have some questions but I did want to say one other thing you're going to be very missed Maria um I'm personally sad that you're going I think you get another three in you but you want to go you want to go and that's your choice but um you were a fantastic superintendent um I'm

going to miss you I know the uh the teachers staff parents are going to miss you you've done a great great job you took over at a time when we needed someone uh that was you know born in the city taking over as the super superintendent and you did that and you accomplished it so I'm glad for you for retiring but I'm also going to be sad to see you go so good luck and best wishes

to you thank you appreciate all right thank you I yield thank you coun C C4 counc kby yes my questions have been answered um asked I'm Sorry by Council pres CC Hut but I want to Echo the sentiments to you Miss Pont um I remember when you applying for the position and uh I can't tell you how many many teachers U called me um saying how much they really would be excited um if you became superintendent

how much I'll you how much they love you people who work for you how much they love you so it is the cons Hart said it is sad to see you go you're making a right decision for yourself and your family like we all make um that comes that's the priority so I wish you nothing but the best thank you but it's absolutely the truth I appreciate it I've been lucky to work

even in my business people would come in and some teachers would come in and they would say how much they really appreciated working with you as a teacher working with you as a principal working with you as superintendent of the school so you're one in the million and I hope uh the next person um you're available to uh help that person out in order to help with the transition after you retire and maybe you can it's

up to you but uh there may be a role right so who knows it's not a question I I will do whatever I need to do to support my district well I'd love to see that thank you Mr President thank you Council counc C to council um the $19,000 average I mean the 19,000 per student is that an average because I know different classifications get paid a different dollar a mon it is it's an average

okay um in terms of the number of students now this is I'm doing this from memory I could be like so far off base um I believe I remember our enrollment being under 10,000 last year it was it was around it was around 10,000 but it was not under y okay so it's actually gone up a thousand from last year to this year I don't know that it's gone up a thousand it's gone up

less than that um but um if if you were looking at the previous October the previous October was probably 10,000 uh probably around 10,000 so do you think the new the influx of people with all the market rate housing Etc the new growth attributed to a certain extent to that increase so I think there's a number of factors I do think that by our our increase in the prek prek has helped has

benefited that I do think that uh dery high school has really helped us increase because at one point we were near 2,000 kids at dery high school and right now we're almost at 2500 kids at dery High School uh we've seen a little influx in some of the grades so the Middle School numbers are a little high right now uh the number in some cases close to 900 which is pretty high for

the middle schools so we've seen a little increase because of that and um at one time there was being work done on the Wy school and and you I I was I always bring this up um they was going to be utilized again is has is that still put to the back burner what's going on with that so the Wy we um we put in an application to msba to do a um

um accelerator repair program it was a shuted building so msba didn't look too kindly on it um and they also felt that the school capacity wise it was a single Unit School um twostory building so we wouldn't have been able to in theory utilize ize the full value of what msba was going to put into it so we were denied that without using msba as soon as we touch these buildings um we're we're bringing them

up to standards elevator ada8 um capabilties on so it's it's we never spent any dollars on it other than the feasibility we didn't even get to that feasibility round so it was just the application status with that building the same exact thing with um 1207 and glob Street we would run into the same problem there so um both of those buildings have been sitting um vacant uh and the the thought

of of Wy School U becoming an educational facility per se we were going to use it if if msba would have partnered with us we were going to use it as an Annex to Stone because Stones numbers were increasing and we were concerned that the capacity at Stone was going to be a problem um but now that stone is moving to 2501 we have the capacity to do um to do an increase if

we needed to if the the need arose across the district and as you know stone school we do have outer District students that come to to us from stone school that paid the towns pay tuition for them to to attend our school so the capacity now it would eliminate any need for us to have an additional building at Wy so essentially they've outlived their useful purpose in terms of educational

needs right um but they're sound buildings the the um I don't think that we would have a need again I'm I'm speaking from where I sit not necessarily um where everyone else does but I would I would believe that the Wy school um does not serve a purpose to us we have some furniture There we don't use it as much as we used to the globe Street piece still has a possibility and

I don't know you know um if there would ever be an opportunity to add another Elementary School to that site um we if if our population grows we've done some some demographic studies we did a demographic study that shows that we're going to increase short in the near future and then it's going to level off so I don't know if there would be a need to add another additional

School in the in the report um that was uh generated probably in the late 90s um mid to late 90s there were supposed to be two more SCH schools built in Fall River one was downtown um at the old MB barding site and the other one was to be named so as we see our our enrollment going up and the class sizes we're struggling with you know uh class size reduction then there could be

a possibility in the future of an additional School financially I don't know how that happens um but um that would be on the horizon so the globe Street property isn't an ideal location and it's um a sizable lot that we could possibly do something with that building and the ultimate goal would be to to use the the current building as a centerpiece and build to that building um so that we wouldn't lose that that

architecture of that building Wy is just a little different situation so I know it's not within your prview I fully understand that but it's uh it's sounding to me like we have at least one building that we perhaps could turn into affordable housing and possibly too in the future it' be nice to utilize a city building for a change and put it to a good a good use um my last question is

the compliance driven prek I don't know if I missed it wasn't paying attention or didn't understand can you explain to me what that means right we we our need for expansion at this time has been compliance driven we have students who uh many of our kids um have gotten early intervention uh Services once they age Out 3 years old by the district has an obligation the legal obligation to provide them

services so they have to enter prek and that's why we need classrooms as they age out and that it's a rolling um enrollment so as students as children um be um are turn three then they um come to us okay thank you with that I yield thank you councelor could you do me a favor for people who are home and might have a student at the stone school can you tell

them where they're moving to 2501 what is that location some they must they some people probably don't know what it is so 2501 is the actual address of South Main Street it's um Townson Hill for River rights but it it um is the former Atlantis building so the former Atlantis School exactly on corner of summit in South Main thank you so much for that explanation CC C5 Council vice president Pereira um one of the

questions I had when everyone was talking about transportation's been an issue what uh reimbursement do we get from mckenny vento 80% does that sound right it's in the 70s like 75% and what does diamond get uh Diamond gets 80% 80% MH what is for River get from McKinny vento it's we get 0% for transportation but mckenny vento almost 80% Diamond 80% I think that's unfair um with the new addition or not

new addition but the remodeling that's going where the parent Center was are you going to um have solar panels on that as well the hope is is solar panels on the building and and uh canopies in the parking lot canopies in the parking lot is a great idea that must have been your idea Ken no it was not U it was the people who are putting the canopies up I

would like to take ver about it it's got nothing to do with me I I just nod my head when they said it when you said that I that's as much as I can get credit for it but it it is um it would it's a big parking lot it's five a little over 500 parking places right uh the canopies would not be uh quite as large as bcc's but it it on the on the

same vein but it'll be similar to what uh Bristol Community College has I'm a big proponent and Maria from St Michael School what was it second grade you've come along first grade first grade you've come a long way thank you um and that's why you're so good because you've come right up the ranks all the way um but I really am a proponent of k28 especially when a parent has a child

in six seventh grade and they've got a child in second grade and now you're going to two different schools and picking up kids and it's crazy what is the forecast on that uh will it be happening will we do one school maybe next year or anybody have any insight on that or is that left to the next group that comes forward well it definitely will be left to the next group because it would have to happen

within the next month um but I'm a big proponent of uh KDA also I I do think that um Middle School in K to 8 is different than Middle School in a straight out middle um and uh there's a lot of opportunity for building community in a k to8 um I know that that's what we I experienced that at um uh Doran uh I think that we have uh certainly uh thought about because it's

more than just saying we're going to take two schools cuz we thought about okay so if we took let's say and I'm just G I don't want anybody thinking we're g to change uh do anything let's say talet right if we took talbet and fonsica right because they feeda feeds into talet there's uh a lot of work that has to be done in retrofitting um a talet let's say right to make it ready

to take little ones right so it's not just about just just saying we're going to and and it would have to be a phase in and phase out so you know you're you're going to uh the eighth graders are going to leave you're not filling it those seventh graders will roll over and then you're going to take start at the bottom there but there's a lot of pre-work that has to happen in order to

to take on a project like that that that's um but I would love to see that in the future I I just think that um I taught middle schools and middle schoolers and you know that's when everybody's hormones are surging and they know more than their parents sixth seventh and eighth grade they know more than anybody uh and you have that much uh in one building causes a little Fiasco if they were separated and then

when they went to high school their low man on the totem pole they're not going in there you know um I think that would be a better thing I I do know some people that teach kindergarten within our system and I was pretty amazed to hear that um some of the children that are coming in don't know colors don't know their their alphabet um so that's why I think prek would be

great um but how many languages do you see spoken in the fora school department through our students I I I can't tell you the number but it's certainly become much more diverse than what it used to be uh many of our students you can walk in any of our buildings and your your you're going to hear multiple languages I think it depends on school if you go into talit you're going to hear a lot of languages

over in the whole system five 10 no more than that yeah I I would say over 10 languages I don't I think that people need to understand that the job that the teachers and the you know the staff have to do in our schools because we have so much diversity and all these different languages that are spoken and every child has a right to a good education and to get those teachers that speak

those certain languages it's really been a challenge um for the school department I just don't like when I hear people say negative things about the for of a school department because I've been in there and I hear I see wonderful things happening I went in with a veteran a couple of weeks ago to do a show on Memorial Day and the girls that interviewed us were phenomenal and through the school as we

were walking of course he had on his uniform um students got out of the way some thanked him for his service you don't think that kids are respectful they are we have so many good kids my push would be to try to see if the state would fund us more with Transportation um I wish that we could pay our teachers more um I don't know what they're asking for in this

contract but they deserve it and it's unfortunate I wish that we had an open pocket book and could do more for many of our employees that are good employees um and I also would push for K through a and you talked about Doren School uh the 12th there is the the um playground there dedicated to our former colleague here Alfredo Alves at 11: in the morning so um he did a lot with that school very

good to us when he was on the city council yes but Maria again as many people have said I thank you for your service and I think you're going to miss all of us as much as we miss you um no because it's hard to it's hard to leave all right all right I'll say some I'll say some I'm on that side good St Michael's together we've been together a

long time um but I really thank you for your service and enjoy your family because they are the most important with that IU Mr President thank you thank you Council councilman seat six Council py thank you um so just a couple of questions budget related here so I I want to hit the transportation I know it's something that we talk about and the city does have a a hand in this more

so than the municipal of the the school department budget um because it's you know we we have a little bit of a say in this so when you go back to 2022 um we had about $10.7 million allocated towards TR Transportation now I'm going way back to 2022 when you go to 2025 in your proposed budget You're Expecting 11.3 so my question is what if if if money was an issue from on

the city Side what have we done differently in in fiscal year plus you uh fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2025 that we wouldn't be able to do the same thing that we did in 2022 and 2025 it's about

$555,000 am I looking at in correct numbers Mr can you no so my my my just trying to understand the question my my question is in 2022 yep we spent 5 uh 10.7 million in transportation in the proposed budget this year you're expecting to spend 11.3 million my question is if the mayor would have just said to you and the school department would have said to you we got to do what we have to do with

2022 numbers why wouldn't we be able to do what we did in 2022 and 2025 there's a it's a a large increase there and I understand you know there's been several things the contract the contracts increased contract increases every year it's like a cppi a cola we have a cola every year in addition we've expanded prek prek is very very expensive uh you know for every every every vehicle we put on the road you're

talking $50 to $60,000 a vehicle more or less how many vehicles do you think you've added since 2022 oh we've opened just over the last several years we've opened I believe 11 classrooms in the in the last couple years so you know we talking some DEC in and not each classroom is just one one vehicle there's multiple Vehicles usually in each classroom so millions of dollars that have been added just because of

prek it's a costly Endeavor and special ed and Special Ed's also gone up we seen a big increase in special ed over the last in a couple years since Co because kids weren't going out of District as as often as as much as they are now and so we've seen a large increase in a of District uh Transportation as well so there multiple factors so you don't uh you don't feel that there's any cost

savings on the transportation side for the city that we can look into in 2025 if I could I think exactly what we were talking about earlier I think that we're looking into ways of reconfiguring bus stops or um asking those parents who have door to-door service if their child is um is can safely maneuver two blocks down the road and then A student two blocks down the road further could come

to that one stop so you've made three stops which is about 13 minutes 14 minutes into one stop which allows us to put four more students on that bus or three more students on that bus and those are the savings that we're looking at right now to see if some of this stuff is available um and then the um the a district we try and and partner with um other communities so if we're

going through Somerset and we can pick up a student who's going to the exact same place and we can safely transport those two students to the location then we're partnering up with them so we're looking at all all of these other pieces getting some Buy in from the bus companies also so this this whole piece is I'm just I'm just asking because you know going into future fiscal years

we're going to be handu a little bit from the city's finances you know the school Department's going to feel it as well I mean look listen I mean I think there's probably a couple people here that remember um back in 2006 2005 where you know every school committee meeting around this time there were pink slipping people people were throwing their laptops and leaving I mean we're at a completely different time uh and

that goes back to administrations and school committee members who have had to make tough decisions over the years but going into next fiscal year I worry about the utilization of onetime money and where where the city and school is going to be so if the mayor goes to you next year and says you got to cut your transportation a million dollars is that something that can be done I I probably

this time next year I'm going to be able to have a handle on what we can do I really I couldn't tell you today I mean are we work but are we working towards that we are we are with all of those initiatives that I talked about plus there's other methods I don't know what the impact is going to be with the electric bus there is going to be some

positive impact with that so the hope is is that getting getting some of the funds back whether it be two or $300,000 a year on a contract um is going to add up uh and then as we add those those other uh allotments of buses that are coming through 30 electric buses is going to make a very positive impact on the city both in its environment but also on uh those contracts so but it's

very difficult to quantify it right now okay all right and I'll I'll Circle back to you around this time next year and hopefully that that number isn't $12.3 million for transportation I'll remember this hope so or less or less or less yeah okay uh quickly um Esser money um have you used Esser money at all in this m in in your budget how much we we have positions that are still being funded

through Esser and be funded through September 30th um and so we have uh I think we're down to about $8 million left roughly at this time so what about the year that it's got to be spent so it's G to M spent there's no question about that but but my my question is in the year the budget that's before us now are you utilizing Esser for those positions yes so so it's

not this June it's next June no no it's through September so we it's for positions just through September just for one month of the school year technically yes you've absorbed that going into next fiscal year next F year okay um in school resource offices somebody asked me a question I've got the answer do a school department pick up the tab on school resource 100% of the tab we do M crossing guards crossing

guards the city pays for it but we do it is reported on the end of the day report it is reported back it's reported on the end of the year report got it and your indirect cost agreement any progress there still working on it all right thank you I yield thank you thank you coun I don't want to translate for Kevin but when he tells you it will be spent that means it's

already spent he'll just tell you how he spent it later absolutely Council in Cate Council Samson I just I have a comment and a question um my comment I don't want to miss the opportunity Miss Pon to tell you um my assessment of you you um were and are the quintessential leader you have shown your leadership abilities your passion for the kids your leadership team shines through every time you come

down here every time I see you out in the community you have loved what you do and your staff loves you and that shows what type of leader you have been and it is a loss for the city you come down here you answer the tough questions you never give us a hard time you actually say that's a good question you either have the answer or you go back and get

it you go back to your team it is a loss for the city of Fall River I am happy that you are retiring um if you wanted to reconsider I think we'd be thrilled about that but you you are the definition of an excellent leader here in the city of Fall River and you are leaving such a legacy and I have children in the school department and I am glad that they have been able to go

in these schools under your leadership so I thank you for that thank you I do have a question because I I didn't hear this before and Council Pereira brought it up and I'm just curious about it and I like more information um I'm probably going to say it wrong but this Martin Vinnie Vin what is that and I'm sure people at home are like what why why do we pay and Diamond doesn't pay

that just doesn't seem fair can you just give me some insight on that sure so mckin vento is essentially homeless students um and the state funds about 75% currently uh the way it's set up uh of the transportation that's provided that we provide so we incur the expense this year and they reimburse us the following year for the for about 75% of the expenses we incurred and why would

Diamond not have to pay and we would have to pay so Diamond uh so as far as Diamond goes they get Regional Transportation and the regional transportation is reimbursed at about 80% so whatever they provide for transportation they get 80% back and there's no room to fix that change that negotiate that is just the way it is it would be something that would have to happen at the state level at the state

level it it keeps coming back over and over again they keep trying to change that okay with that I thank you very much that question Mr President what's the rationale uh why the regional district gets reimbursed so I think so I think it has kids are kids right kids from other cities so it's it's because of that it's because it's kids from other cities that and so they're going they're doing a large radius you know to

get all these kids so thank you it C C5 it's almost like mckenny vento if a child is removed from parents or a home in Far River and they're placed in Swansea and we have to go pick them up because that child was in school in Far River they have the right to still remain in their school with their friends their teachers their work so they have to pick them up but we have

been fighting this I Sean how many years ago did we go to Boston to try to fight for transportation 2014 15 2014 uh maybe it's time to go again I mean we have gone and we have tried it doesn't make sense but one of the questions that I wanted to ask Maria um Laura brought up something about uh or or U I don't know was it you I don't know somebody brought up something about uh the

SRO how many SRO do you have them at all the schools the middle schools and the high school what happens when those offices get a promotion and they leave and you get a newb in what does that do to the school because I know they bond well with the children right we have seven SRO um and we have two at the high school um one at each of the middle

schools but they also um are divided up to support um the elementaries and the k um we just went through that um some of them got promoted and um took on other positions and then the the um lieutenants uh they they have a training where they come they Shadow the other one and build that relationship and then take over um yes it is um I we've had very positive relationships with rros so

it is always hard especially some of them that have been there a long time and now they're moving on to uh a different position certainly we we know that that happen happens but um there there's a a training in place and they um you know then they start building relationships with the schools again and there are some SRO that have really really truly become mentors to some of the students there um which is beautiful

and when they leave like that if we could pay them more they'd stay I mean uh officer Riley was at diamond diamond Gee forever but that's the relation ship you know but I guess people have to move on anyway thank you with that I Y Mr President thank you Council counc C3 counc do you have a followup the counc yeah just a real quick question um with uh for Kenny uh probably back maybe

about a year ago I don't know if it was two years ago in the facilities and operation subcommittee we brought up a the an idea that we'd let some the residents um maybe walk the track if they wanted to um I think there was some issues to it but do you know where is that the only issues we have is that there's with with all of everything on high alert and you know and Safety and

Security we students use the the track in the course of the day whether it's for fed classes or whether it's you you know um part of something else so that has been always the hesitation to allow people who we haven't passed through our security system to be on oper property and then the students going outside being with them and not knowing what what where we are at so that's to

be totally honest we don't get a lot of requests right to come on the property um other than rentals and things like that but we don't have a lot of community requests to use any of those pieces okay all right thank you are you they need to be Cory checked as well to be in a school property thank you CC CC seat seven ccos do you have yeah I just had question that I remember

to ask the status of the nle auditorium at I'll call dery 2.0 um what I went through the budget looking for any movement on that is there plans thoughts please so the Kent Pico thought um is that we the roof is going to be started very shortly there um via suppression system and then that building becomes a viable building again you shutter a building change of occupancy because technically it's not

an educational facility uh completely you have to bring things up to Cod you spend a certain amount of money over the 30% threshold of the value you trigger a whole bunch of things so the hope the hope for the building is is that once the roof and fire suppression system come in school department is roughly 50% occupant of that building the remaining 50% would in my thoughts would be um a situ

the city would enter into an agreement with some agency to rent the auditorium and operate the auditorium for Events maybe get a naming of that building the the Nagel Auditorium is in the new school so this one would have an opportunity for some company or a bank um to have the building named Performing Art Center and the city would reap the benefit of having a facility um that's

comparable to um to New Bedford um and uh be able to generate both the interest and um and um be able to maintain that whole building and and uh turn it into uh quite the little Enterprise so that would be the hope that would happen to that building obviously naming rights would give us an internal funding source um that we could continue to to do what we need to do both on the inside and the

outside of that building solar Ro solar canopies outside the parking is no none of the performing art centers rival can rival at parking um right off right out of the gate so I I think that the building has so much potential and the hope is and it's happening because we're putting a roof on that so many City buildings fall to the Wayside when we don't do small things and the roof is

one of them former police station is a perfect example a roof on that building when it was first you know shuttered 100,000 maybe 200,000 would have saved the building and and that building would be sold for a decent amount of money with this building here we are occupying portion of it for our parent engagement Center um we do have back office we have our our special ed Department there hopefully it'll have 14

classrooms very shortly of prek which will make that side of the building completely occupied an educational piece and back office and then um the opposite side would be a different time frame of operation um with a complete parking lot at its disposal and um a nice um entity for the city to have events so and as far as the timeline on the roof and the fire suppression did you mention the roof um the bids were

opened bids were accepted we have a low bder um probably going to be within contract and the next 20 days um by the time they mobilize I would say mid July the roof would start it would probably be finished by um Halloween the latest on that time frame uh in the meantime the the specifications for the fire suppression system are being built uh and once that package is ready to go out

to bid it would go out to bid and both projects would run simultaneously so that I would say that hopefully um by early 25 um the next phase of that building could start excellent thank you I yield thank you counselor there being no further questions I would ask everyone to leave Maria can you just hold on for one second

please Maria is cringing we have a citation for okay I know a lot of my colleagues have stated what a wonderful job you done and I was fortunate to see witness it firsthand not only as a city counselor but as uh you were the principal my son Jose of AK and cus and I saw you did the high school and you're phenomenal and we are all going to miss

you um I think you're an asset to this Community Asset to the city everyone who has ever worked with you has nothing but great things to say about you myself included um I really respect what you've done all throughout your tenure as a started as a teacher and worked your way up and it's phenomenal good for you we have an official resolution from the entire city council it simply says it's

an official resolution be a result that the city council hereby ex accommodation to Maria PS superintendent the for public schools in recognition of your retirement after 39 years of as an educator in a for R Public School System started in 1985 till 202 for be it further resolved at the for of City councils best wishes for continued success and this resolution be entered into the records of the city council

like I said it's adopted by the entire city council signed by myself and the city clerk Allison buad so thank you very much again really appreciate and hope you have a wonderful time long I I do want to say one thing to answer Council pera's question about are you going to miss us I know you're going to miss us a lot more than you miss the school committee some

a pleasure all right no more hugs and kisses next we I go item number three Public Safety Council want to take a break or you want to just keep going okay Public Safety First we bring down the police for Police Department oh maybe I thought we were St

fire welcome Chief again could you just PL state your name and what department you went to people at home who don't recognize you'll know who you are please sure thank you good evening Chief Paul Garin follower of the police department Seth aen City administrator thank you gentlemen con seat 6 C party thank you Mr President first I want to acknowledge a couple things um since we

are uh duly complimentary tonight I want to just make a comment that say to say that Chief I I um I feel from afar and both from where we are now the work that you've done within your department needs to be commended um I think for before and this is no disrespect to Prior Chiefs I think you've done a fine job of of trying to restore a little bit of hope uh and leadership within your

department and I know that's not something that's been done alone uh but from what I hear uh and from what I see uh you need to be publicly commended uh for the work that you're doing I know not every day is easy so on behalf of myself I guess thank you for that thank you I I just want to say before you say obviously that acknowledgement doesn't go just for me it obviously goes to the

to the good men and women who are out there every day but more so uh I'm also extremely proud to be part of the leadership lineage that I've been a part of here at the former police department and thank you for your work um with that being said I noticed that um the other thing I want to say is um you are the only department head that called me uh no disrespect to

any of the others that had a discussion with me do you need anything um I haven't really heard from the administration alone but you took the time to reach out to me uh and I appreciate that very very much as well you're welcome I was lonely um with that being said um um I noticed that your department and we spoke about this on the phone um you are they are there's unfunded positions and

there's positions that are being removed from the budget so could you for the Public's own edification uh explain that sure so the overall proposal so total budget last fisal year was 183 in Patrol that's 160 Municipal budgeted positions with I'm sorry 161 ipal budgeted positions with 22 granted positions this year minus the 14 vacancies that will bring us down to 147 Municipal side positions for patrol and 22 uh

Patrol offices that will beond grants School housing Etc 32 sergeants 13 lieutenants four captains two deputies and one Chief so that will give us a total sworn of 22 those numbers please sorry sir could you could you please just repeat those numbers some of the councils were writing them down as you was saying them and I spoke faster than they could write problem so 14 vacancies have been

removed that will leave us with 147 Municipal 22 granted positions for a total of 169 Control Officers we have 32 sergeants 13 lieutenants four captains two deputies one Chief that's a total of 52 Superior officers plus the 169 Patrol that's 221 total sworn members so what happens throughout the year if you need if you fill the positions that are currently unfilled which would be 11 correct

correct and you happen to have an academy in the middle of the year that and you get 10 more just saying where you recruit just just and and I'll walk you right through that because right now we just get certified uh for a new uh Civil Service list the next Academy is in August there's no way in uh human possible speed that we're going to have uh candidates uh checked for the

backgrounds and their Medicals done so that we can then get potential seats in the academy in August it's just not going to happen the next Academy after that is in December so we have these 11 vacancies but keep in mind we also have some vacancies in budget um in granting positions as well housing there's two in CDA and there's still a position uh for the commission on disability that hasn't been approved

yet so we're still uh inflex with that also I expect during the year that I'm probably going to lose maybe three people who are actually still in the building um due to retirements and then there's going to be an additional 11 people who are either leaving us through medical uh retirement or who are actually out of the building right now who are using their time so that's going to give me by

January of 25 I'm going to have probably close to 29 vacancies that we'll be looking to fill okay interesting and you spoke about the 22 granted positions correct on grants when does the grant expire those those are yearly uh positions like Housing Authority the schools um so every year you know we're making sure that uh our M us are up to date uh but I don't have any feeling at

this point that you know the service and the funding is is going to stop for any of those so it's is it concerning or is it not concerning to you that we're removing 14 vacant positions from your budget are you concerned about that in the future I I don't think there'd be a public safety head who would sit here and tell you they're not concerned about removing any positions um I think we went down this

route uh last year at this time with our vacancies um but the reality is in the average of what we've been able to hire so for the last four years uh from 2021 through uh 2024 um our high Mark was 18 uh candidates one year and the fouryear average is approximately 4 14.25 candidates per year so so you know based on those Trends I don't think we're going to have any issues this year

next year I think it's going to be year three uh from here where we're finally going to be looking at okay where are we with getting more people that's I think where we're going to be looking to the administration to say hey can you know where can we you know move here and I appreciate that in terms of your comp time um how are you feeling that you're managing that in do you

think you have enough resources available to get you through the fiscal year well the the comp when you say comp time your overtime your your within your department I mean it seems it's all there in the budget uh the comp time as you know with uh the recent contracts uh We've did away with administrative comp time uh there have been caps and limits that have put on uh the uh comp time uh

if you will and that's huge for us because you know we just went through some leadership issues where you we had people at the very top uh of the Apex who had a year and a half to two years uh of time on the books and when you're trying to change a place and the next two people under you are gone for a year it's awfully difficult so I appreciate the contract decisions that have been

made uh to kind of curtail the uh comp time issues and it wasn't that long ago I remember that we were probably anywhere between $5 and $6 million in unfunded liability when it came to comp time so those numbers have dropped drastically um so I I would imagine in the next 3 to 5 years um we're going to be really uh on point when it comes to comp time okay

in terms of cap my final question to you is because we spoke on the phone for quite a while in terms of capital needs within your department is there anything that you need uh or your officers need at this time that is not in this budget yeah um no the answer is no I mean there's you know our equipment is always difficult um the one piece that I can tell you that we always need cars always

a difficult uh situation but um through the last groupings of opa um and burn Jag grants and our detail funds um we have probably 10 to 20 cars that are on order the issue is since covid especially in the policing field getting police cruisers it's just taking an extraordinary amount of time from purchase to getting the car in the system so once we get all these cars in we're going to be in a great position

okay iel thank you Than You counc counc CD Council Simpson hi I do appreciate your call as well I just have a um a quick question so your 22 granted positions is that separate from what the CFO gave us um this year is 19 new um officers hiring program is that different yes it is so we uh were lucky enough to be awarded I believe it was at 3.2 million 2.4 2.4 sorry thank

you uh $2.4 million uh award from the cops Grant um but it was for hiring new police officers what happens after you receive the award they then send you a package um that goes into great detail to what they consider to be a new police officer so um we haven't started any of that funding yet but they looked at a formula and they looked at our vacancies and basically uh in layman's terms what

they're saying is okay we want you to hire x amount of your vac IES and then after that we'll consider that to be new officers okay you got excuse my ignorance I'm going to try to follow this so yeah so it it it it's it's gets a little dicey in there but you know once you understand what the contract rules are okay and we haven't started to expend any of that money but just to let

you know that the city has contacted cop's office in Washington DC and there is an exemption process in play that based on fiscal need they can re work your your award to maybe let you allow you to hire new people as you have them but depends on what they agree to so we have I wrote down 14 but it's 11 new police officer positions we have two new police officers right now that just graduated

at the end of May uh that are in fto as we speak and we have 11 uh police officers in the academy right now uh I'm expecting them to to graduate Late July all right so they will be in the cruises all summer long that's fantastic news I noticed that your leather um budget went up and that's because of all the new recruits correct correct that that reflection is based on us now paying for

all our new recruits all their gear which is a so that's a good number to raise that it it is a good number so okay so this was given to us about the great things that are happening um those 11 police officers in the cruises this summer are we going to be able to use part of this $2.4 million for it or or is that a 19 after that I would imagine

it's going to be after that and depending on um what changes that cops Grant Office in DC makes to our exemption request and so then I my question would lead does that is that a little intimidating to you that it's a three-year period and we're so tight on our budgets we got 2.4 that in three years when Diamond comes on board we have all these expenses that we won't

won't be able to retain them if so do we have a sustainability plan for that I don't think that's a question really for me I think that' probably be more the the administration in the sense that I think um I know I've worked you know in collaboration with the administration we have our quarterly budget meetings um you know obviously that doesn't encounter our you know articulate all

the phone calls uh weekly that go back and forth um but you know that's when i' what I've been told by the mayor is you know if we get to that point where we have Academy seats we have um candidates who are good candidates and we have this in play that we'll then have another discussion and see if we can reor some of the budget to you know accompany more police officers okay thank you that's

all I have with that I yell council president counc C7 C propos evening Chief just a quick question that I got to mention to you earlier um page 245 um on the signal we have four vacancies are those filled to this point or they still open the signal operator positions those are still vacant still V any any plan are they posted planning to be filled constant it's it's uh just like police

officer we are constantly hiring uh signal operators uh but just like policing where they they they hop all over the place it's kind of almost a new trend I'm I'm looking at in policing where it used to be a sense where you'd hire get hired by one community and you'd stay there for your whole life but it seems like we're almost going private sector style which is you have maybe a

realtor or a someone who's in sales and they just go back and forth between companies based on uh benefits and pay and I wonder if that's where this new generation is bringing um this career um so but that is one of the things that we're just constantly training and hiring and trying to retain as many people as possible of course and then on the next page on page 46 is the

911 grant for that same position how long is that Grant in play yearly uh we are uh redoing that Grant every year so we haven't had any issues with it we've had it for quite a while we've continued to get it year after year yes excellent thank you Chief I yield thank you coun C5 C pero okay on day shift on the streets we have how many people how many offices on the

street day shift I don't I don't have that in front of me counc I can get that to you I could get you a breakdown of the actual uh shifts I have 27 that's which is really 25 because you've got one that's going out and you've got one that is working on comp time who will be leaving then night watch We Have A and B A and B is just some come in for the

midnight some come in midnight to 8 there's 32 mhm on aat and there's 27 on bat mhm because you have three people that are out some have been there been sick one retired two are out sick and leaving um when you talk I mean that that's scarying numbers to me um I remember being here when we had 40 people on every ship it's it's been as low as 2322 that was a while ago just to give

you some perspective but people people are concerned so am I um dispatches the dispatches that we have can they go somewhere else and ditch be dispatchers part-time in some towns or do they need a sign off from you does this Chief need to not just you any Chief correct they there's been a past practice prior to me being the chief of allowing dispatchers to go and do that exact same thing which is they' work a

part time for another Community right but they they're giving you obviously the rules are that obviously Fall River comes first and obviously any if we need to call you in then obviously you have to come here you to come in so you're allowing dispatchers to do that at this point okay um I Heard the ausy wants an SRO they haven't had one have you heard from I've heard it about a thousand times you have

I have payo I'm sorry and are they getting one no they are not not yet why we don't have the Manpower Atlantis has one right correct so they came uh I mean ultimately just comes down to chronologically how we gave out uh sro's at some point they came late to the table and ask for positions that we don't have so at some point they have asked for one every year once I would

imagine maybe within the next year based on what we hire that's been the issue every every year um is do we have enough to supply those low numbers in uniform that you pointed out and at the same time give somebody over to uh this other school the issue is that if they have an issue at the school and they call us we respond right but I think they want what the

other one has they they do I've had multiple conversations I'm and I really want to give them one it's not that we're you know they have two schools they it's not but it's not like having a difficult conversation where there's personality conflicts or anything like that this is strictly we just didn't have the manpower to give them that's all how many officers do you have working on uh the commission for

disability that their main goal was to ticket people who are parked in handicap spots we went from two down to one and right now we're still reworking uh theou with the commission on disability but they give 128,000 a year to the police department don't they they pay for those two offices the old the old was 1281 128 per year you're absolutely correct on that so if it's 128 that was for two officers correct

but now they're telling me they're not getting two officers they're only getting one are we reimbursing the commission on disability since we didn't have the two offices no no we're not reimbursing that because they've they've gotten everything that they didn't have there were times where we didn't charge them to make that difference up so when they went down to one that one officer

wasn't charged to them for a period of time and you got to keep in mind that this is a whole separate conversation than the budget but theou um 128 that's two police officers that does not cover cover two police officers it barely covers one and we're not even talking into the Fringe and the retirement piece of it yet so so doing another with them we are we're actually in the middle of

it uh I know there was a meeting last week um so we're still trying to hammer that out and I support the commission on disability and we want to continue that program but based on our Manpower numbers I don't think it was you know per well I don't think it was just really the right thing to do to have two people doing nothing but those citations now how many warrants have we

issued you know how um they they were people that just did social media uh gang activities did that kind of thing and I know two of them have moved out other people have moved out other people have moved in but I'm only going to know how successful that is by the number of warrants what guns have we taken off the street before they get on the street what's your list of

warrants that you've I was you get information for me I I can get that for you I didn't prepare for that as you know that really didn't fall into the budget yeah I'd like to considerations do we have somebody working with DEA now we do we still do yes how about with the FBI or ATF uh we we don't have somebody working as a task force agent there but we talk

to them constant conly I'm in constant conversation with Matthew a who's over in Lakeville and I deal with Jim Ferguson from the ATF constantly they're constantly talking to our MCD and our vice Commander so um we're not at any loss for not having a task force agent uh assigned to those uh locations sometimes they bring in more manpower when there's an issue here you know like ATF certainly has more knowledge of

what's on the streets than any police department has because that's all that they do that's all that they arguable well I think that's all that they do and you know people transport guns from one place to another and I've worked with them and I was pretty impressed on what they knew we don't get any kind of um we wouldn't get any kind of money from them like we'd get from

DEA I imagine if you're doing any search on with them and money's come available I imagine you're you're going to get into some type of uh money sharing uh system just like the DEA um if it's money sharing bring it on we use the money but but keep in mind when we talk about money sharing we're still paying for that police officer so if you're paying $130,000 for that police officer and

they don't come in and cover their costs then we're at a loss so that's one less person that's going door too for 911 that's one less police officer who's part of the community that's one police officer who's dealing with high level drug trafficking that isn't what any of our citizens really complain about our citizens complain mostly about the street level the indiscret drug dealing

that's where we have our vice unit and our Patrol officers they're the ones that really make that difference they make the difference with um other agencies that are also supporting I believe because having worked at the DA's office I've worked with both and together the information you get the Intel you get from both um successes in coll with your partners throughout the community

absolutely um now on our budget it has an officer as a captain but I know that person is no longer a captain is a deputy so that Captain's Position will stay vacant correct so when we started this budget uh I mean we're talking February February is a while and we're in flux uh between people retiring and being promoted so you're absolutely right there are some people who are listed at ranks below um but they have

been promoted and I think at this point there's one sergeant that I believe is just retired a l in the last few days that we're now going through that process of promoting the sergeant yeah another 60 days but the captains correct but the captains lieutenants they've all been promoted so right as as of this moment right now we're uh our Command Staff is actually full so do you have four captains or

three captains if that one got promoted Ed or did we promote another sergeant to captain four captains so you have four captains now correct so when on budget one of the captains got promoted correct and the way the contract is I think it's like 30 days you have to promote 30 days to call 30 days to make correct 6 but it's like we're still promoting everybody here but we have less staff than we had

before I know we're out another Lieutenant who unfortunately is ill um and I'll tell you what really is bothersome to me is that we have individuals that have been here in FL river that we've trained and this Council made an effort at saying at at some meeting when you have people coming in to be police officers and they have to pay for all their equipment and training Etc that we would

pay for that so we have police officers that are totally trained and then they leave us and go someplace else we've had some enforcements we have some Swansea there's more going to Somerset we have some in Westport I don't I don't understand um you're you're probably accurate on that but I think with the last contract I think with the last but I think with the last contract that we signed our wages

are very competitive and we don't see the Rumblings of people going to other communities uh not quite as much as we had two years ago so that's that's changed quite a bit to me there's a lot that is they're leaving uh and we don't have a police commission like we did before that did exit interviews with people to see why they're leaving what can we do to try to get people to stay um I don't

know the city just so you know counselor I sit down with probably 95% I can't say 100 because I'm sure some people leave out the door and you just you know for whatever timing purpose you don't get a chance to talk to them and and that's that's that falls on me but I sit down with all of them and we discuss exactly why they're leaving you know for you know for the people who have left what

their concerns are um and there are things that um there's been some people who've talked about leaving who are unbelievable police officers and you know we've we've offered them just about everything we can without breaking the bank without you know putting ourselves in bad fiscal situations um but there are some things and there are some things you just can't do some people may

want to go to another community and not be involved in urban policing some people want to go and do Suburban type policing and not answer as many calls and not be involved in you know maybe homicides or uh child abuse cases and you know what um I have to support them if they if they've given their just due here to us and they're worth their salt and their people that I respect for the

work that they've done here I have to make it I guess I have to just accept that they want to go somewhere else it's not always you know that we've done something wrong sometimes people just need change it's a very difficult job when you go to Chief's meeting meetings I know they have them periodically are you finding that other Chiefs are saying the same thing that they've got people

moving around this this has happen in particular when you're looking at Urban policing um you know you look at cities like Taunton New Bedford they're in Brockton they're all going through the same exact thing New Bedford is in a in a probably a worse situation because of they have some towns around them that have been constantly purging from their ranks um so this is this is in fact

going around nationally it's going around na uh regionally um but it's something that I think nationally you're starting to see public sentiment toward our career uh change a little bit so it's seemingly right now nationally that uh Suburban type uh police departments are starting to be able to hire again and I think you know as time continues it's going to affect Urban centers as

well I mean we set nine to the academy and we have two coming out and by the time I mean they what five five and a half months in the academy they come out and they have to Shadow somebody for what three months so we're not it's it's it's a police you always say it's a police it's a police officer baby um it takes N9 months uh from hiring them putting them in the academy to our

training for them to come out to single service so six months in academy and mon now right we have 11 who are intending to graduate in July well and I applaud the officers that we helping the people that were hired get ready for physical training uh because some of them it was the physical aspect that they weren't good at so that would be a way um you know to keep some

um now if if offices I know a lot of people have talked me about trainings and I know trainings cost us money but if an individual wanted to go for some sort of training and pay for it on their own on a vacation day or they've got four comp days that they're taking and they go to a training they can do that if they pay for it on their own we don't

have the money I apologize for interrupting so this issue right now is the subject of a of a bargaining potential grievance artion you're bargaining with the unions now there well there is a there is a union action ongoing uh on the issue of training so I I would ask that we not speak to that at this point I think it would be oh I hit a soft spot and I didn't even know it

okay not a soft spot I just want to avoid any sort of I had no idea about that thank you pretty much Brad um I I just really wish that we could get officers to stay I've never done a ride along because I've worked with them and gotone into different thing I didn't really but I think that um I'm ready to kind of do one because I I think it's about time

um because it's different and summertime and crime and I know we want to make our city very safe but sometimes I feel that people are nervous and feeling that it's not safe I mean I had people hey there was a lady here two weeks ago even if you walk on the quicker Shan rail trail and there's people sleeping around that area that they come out that they're afraid and I don't we can't have police

on every single Corner in every single you know crevice of Far River uh and policing is a tough job and I certainly applaud the men and women who are not afraid to go out and do that and um you know they're a bad and good in every profession but I think by far the few bad are outweighed by the numbers of good that we have I agree so with that

I'll y thank you Chief but I'll look for those warrants and sure number just curious on that when when you say warrants what do you in particular looking at well because you know you go you send warrants out I mean they used to do I don't know Operation Blue Thunder and this and that you'd get a bunch of warrants to go get people that didn't show up for court to bring them

in and they did that and it was like a PR piece I think um because if you really care that they didn't come out you'd be there when they didn't show up for court you'd be there that night looking for them and bring looking at the number of warrants that the for police department is applied for what that they apply for arrest warrants when no for suspicion of different gun activities and things like that okay gun

activities drug activities once they know they'll go in and they'll get a search warrant cuz now they got probably cause and they get that off the street before it gets on the street warrant numbers that that's a lot of just surveillance and a lot of Intel stuff that ATF and uh DEA and FBI can share with you that's that's the collaboration I think you're looking for so and I agree with

you 100% Chief with that I Y thank you so much thank you coun c c too good evening good evening um if I'm not m Aken when we when it was determined that the city would start paying for the academy and paying for the equipment um doesn't that require a five-year commitment by the um person entering the academy that's correct okay so we are getting a return on a investment in that respect yes if

somebody doesn't if if they accept the the grant if you will um if they don't make the five years then we ask that they pay it back right and just just to add we have had a number of folks wash out of the academy and they have paid back the money so we're not we're not letting that lapse we're not you know we are pursuing that getting M staying on top of it

excellent um on page 227 Chief um there's two line items uh replacement of Staffing and overtime replacement of Staffing now to me it's redundant but I'm sure there's an exp explanation as to what the difference is between the two uh let's see 1 2 3 4 5 6 7even eight lines down is the replacement and then one two three four five six seven lines under that is overtime replacement so overtime replacement of

Staffing the one that's further down the uh 110 yeah that's dispatch okay okay and the other one would be umman okay be nice if they labeled things that way I agree um so let's cross that off now confidential employee police I think we pretty much all know what a confidential informant is but what is confidential employee police a a conf the confidential informant uh now you have me tripping on

my words the confidential employee that's uh a person who works in the chief's office uh that was set up I think under Jack suer I think John Fagan was uh the chief's um executive assistant if you will um that's lieutenant John Marts who's in that position right now uh and that increase is based on the contract compression of the contract and he's at TOP Step okay I see page 231 so it talks about animal control

salaries Animal Control expenses and unless I clearly missed it I see no names and no positions listed with any uh salary amount

either page 247 councelor okay so we have four positions and three of full or three or we have only three and they're all four all right so why would we have that on 231 and then it's way down on 247 okay I just didn't find it so we'll take that one off the list page

241 uh specifically body camera officer it's two patrolman sure um don't they all wear body cameras now why is that a separate line item yeah uh so those two positions were originally created um when we first got the body cameras uh axon was uh telling us that it was going to take an additional two uh persons to do nothing but the public record uh request uh stuff to uh send out so they Tech even

there there as body camera officers it should be removed and it should be vacancies okay so that that those two positions should be removed from the budget is what you're saying no what I'm saying is those two positions should be listed as vacancies as vacancies oh okay so that would actually give you two more funded vacancies that would give us that would bring me to 11 all right now so two people are being

promoted one two um deputy chief yes and one to Captain so that opens two positions for patrolman correct no it because they bumps up bump up yeah so from Lieutenant so it'll trickle up from you know ESS tenant to sergeants then from Patrol up to to those positions as well so that would actually end up totaling 13 vacancies if you count those two as vacc it may yep as it

trickles up it may end up trickling into a vacancy at some point page 245 you have 1 two three four vacancy signal operator you and I had this conversation the other day I said to you what is a signal operator and we have so many of them and you your response was they're dispatchers why don't we call them dispatchers I think I think that's a contractual issue for them for reti their retirement class class

ification and I think that's always a bargaining what classification are they in for retirement purposes so that so that was negotiated some administrations in the past retire a higher level higher it put them into a particular retirement classification I don't I don't know what the background was why they went from what they were previously to singal operator but I know it was just a

classification for retirement okay so I would anticipate that those are four vacancies that we absolutely want to fill yes and my last question would be 247 environmental police um it shows one two five positions I believe we have two and again unless I missed it I don't see names that go um with the two positions that are filled correct the the top two are positions that are filled um the

obviously the second one which is the 20 year uh that is uh environmental police officer Medeiros and with officer Brum being the the one on the top okay um so I guess that probably was an oversight when the budget was put together fair to say now the other three positions are we anticipating that we'll fill all three environmental police positions or we're waiting right now to see civil service

is uh promulgating some rules uh going forward where they're looking to allow communities who are civil service communities to hire 50 up to 50% of your force uh non- Civil Service it hasn't been all ironed out all the rules uh that they're intending to apply aren't there yet but um I think it may be a situation where we may want to try to put more on the police side because

it's going to allow the way I see it uh the way it's kind of shaking out at this point is it looks like it's going to allow communities like Fall River new bford and Taunton to hold their own test and just hire right from there interesting um so I guess that so the answer to the question would be yes we anticipate we'd like we would fill those this year I I I

try have to fill every vacancy I can and anything I can fill because I know last year I know last year when the subject came up we only had one at the time and I asked the further into the year I asked question and uh basically the response was well filling those particular positions aren't a priority and we never did fill them so that's why I was asking this year if uh and it

wasn't you who said it wasn't a priority but no was you and that would be an accurate it' be an accurate statement because I mean we've had the situation where we've hired environmental police officers and as you know with post now they're forced to get Academy trained and then once we we make them uh go through the training for the Academy uh they become you know pray for any other department who's looking for an

Academy trained person so we can't do the same thing with them pay for the academy and and and uh in turn get a five-year commitment from them we could we're not there yet civil because civil service we still have to go through Civil Service um but those rules that civil service has seems to be uh like in flux right now they haven't come out with it yet but I know that they're working on

that okay thank you with that I yield thank you councel councel seat one Council kadim thank you Mr President Chief welcome sir promise only budgetary questions for you um so first question I I have is just on on Revenue I know we're not specifically talking about revenues but I want to just stay focused on the police Revenue um so just local receipts the police department for fy4 head and

it just says Police Department Revenue 278,00 um it's down by 230,000 do you know what that was that's we're going to a new software system for our all our data all our uh scheduling um it's also going to handle all our details um we're looking to get out of the detail collections business um it it puts I think police officers in a precarious position when we may have a vendor who

doesn't pay for their detail now to have somebody with a badge and gun knocking on the door asking for money um so we have a a new it's called on duty system that we're looking forward to uh implementing their system does all the collections it does everything that uh we have in place but they go the next step further they do all the collections um they do all the scheduling all the

Manpower that goes with you know uh having people take the phone calls um they do everything and the best part is that on a weekly basis if we had you know $100,000 in detail money come in they give you here's the uh the input for munice and here's $100,000 for the line item so they go after all the collections and our people are whole and nobody's ever worried about where uh

details detail money is so do they they guarantee the uh the money coming in as well or do correct so they chase correct they do all the chasing and they they we've vetted them and they're in several large departments like Quincy um and they have other larger scales out of state uh that they work with and never never any issues so where did we capture that I guess wouldn't that money still

be there though if we were going to capture it there's I'm sorry that's okay there's an administrative fee um that we were collecting before that they now collect so they they keep the administration administrative fee they do okay I see what you're saying but it frees up a clerk to actually do some other things and the chief has some some different plans for the cour that was doing that work so there is some offset

just the markup on the details and that's that's the 230 correct okay and then um on page 46 there was another one um Police Department 260 down to 183 so was about a 7 $77,000 decrease that means fines

I'm gonna have to get back to on that one counselor okay and then just moving off of Revenue going down to the actual operational budget for salaries and expenses um I know my colleague in C6 had mentioned uh the Staffing levels asked you the question as to whether or not you were comfortable with the Staffing levels I guess the question um I guess maybe to you Chief and then to to the

administrator uh is what is the Staffing levels what I guess what's the goal for our staffing levels uh overall like so perfect world we had all the bodies that we could potentially filled uh all these vacancies what is it that we would be capping our staffing levels at for the police department in a perfect world I think we'd like to get back to the 252 that that we had before the 9C cut so that

we're fully staffed um and I think anytime you talk about police departments the more police officers you have the more you can do I mean it's just it's that simple um but at the same point based on the hiring and retention issues that we've had in our abilities um we're not going to have any I don't think we're going to have much impact based on the vacancies that we're already going to uh that are going to

come into play so I think it's going to be year three um that you know hopefully that we're we've made up the difference here we don't have as many uh natural retirements occurring in the next two years um so we're hoping that we're going to be able to make you know especially come September we're going to start making some major strides toward um I guess decreasing that Gap so I guess Seth from from your

standpoint over a three-year period I mean so at 252 I getting back to to the before the N SE Cuts I I recognize that but I I think where where do we look for a Target the only reason I asked that just so you know where I'm coming from you know when we start talking about removing the uh 14 fund dep positions and and I there's nine City councilors we all have different opinions I for one

even if we're not going to fill the positions uh immediately for the fiscal year and I know we're tying up some some monies uh going into this I prefer to keep them there so we don't lose those positions I think once you start removing these these positions and I recognize we've got competing interest to trying to balance the budget I I fully recognize that uh but from my my standpoint if it's 14

uh vacancies that are going to remain vacant and it's just simply due to the fact that there are so many vacancies that we'll never be able to fill them uh for this fiscal year i' rather see that money either used later on for either internal transfers or allow that to float through free cash I just again it's you know you get to the 169 where we're at and then you get a couple of

years where you've got some difficult uh budgetary decisions and you're trying to get back to the the staff levels that we were at right um whether it's you know 183 or the 252 I think I think that becomes a little bit more of a challenge but if it's already budgeted for allocated for uh within the the operational budget from my standpoint it just makes it a little bit easier to

fill those vacancies I just I just don't want to lose Staffing and right you know I know from this Administration standpoint you we may be committed to it but you know future administrations we we never know what's going to happen in the future they may not necessarily be committed to it so it's just trying to figure out you know what's the you know the ideal number is 252 but what's the

realistic Staffing number for that we can anticipate um well just a couple things uh the chief did mention that in year three you know we're we're moving towards I mean we already have an unbelievably young Department uh and we're moving towards fewer and fewer retirements which means fewer and fewer significant buyouts with guys that have accumulated a ton of comp time you're going to have more and more officers who

either aren't close to R retirement or if they do uh retire haven't accumulated all the comp time because of the some of the contractual changes um in addition to that I think what you're also going to see and the chief and I were talking about this this afternoon is um you know there's a little bit of a swing in the opposite direction with regard to Recruitment and so you know the first

places that are going to fill up are going to be the towns and then once the towns are you have a full complement then you're going to see people you know move more towards the cities um so I think in year three you're also to start to see a slightly easier uh recruitment landscape um and so if we look at those 14 I I feel like the 14 is the swing um

so if you actually look at that 183 um and you know that's that basically includes the um uh the 22 granted positions so housing um CDA and schools if you go to 183 plus your 49 superiors your your kind of midway between where we are now and the 252 I think that's probably a safe place to look at as a goal without overc committing uh and trying to get back to

uh a compliment that may not be financially feasible or frankly may not be operationally feasible to even fill those positions at least in the next three years so I would say the 14 is your swing okay so the the 183 is is is the target but you're you're saying saying I guess if I'm hearing you right and I I've heard what the chief had mentioned and I and I recognize it we're a younger

Department as as we get the retirements you're going to obviously open up you're GNA have to fill those so you're constantly going to be catching up so you're going to be playing catchup for at least three years before you get to the point where you're going to need to fill these 14 well forecasting forecasting the next three years uh we're all're going to be very minimal uh when I we talk about natural retirements

that's you know users who have hit you know age 55 and have 32 years of service um I think there's only maybe one to two in the next three years um then we finally start hitting a few more classes of four fours and fives um that may come into play but the next two years we really have an opportunity uh obviously to make ground and hiring up uh those vacancies because of the lack of

retirement on the other end so what about in terms of Staffing from like iods you know just mandatory retirements or anything like that is is there anything in the do you I guess do you have individuals that are just taking up those types of spaces that we need to try to to work on we do and that's when I I mentioned that we have 11 uh 11 FTE that are either on time uh we call it

terminal leave so they're they're about to retire but they may have you know maybe a couple months of time or more than that but they're just not in the building uh we also have uh within that 11 several of those uh that are you know people who are on medical leave and we're expecting that they're going to retire MH okay and then I guess I also just having conversations with you um

because you did call me as well uh you know I I do want to recognize uh yourself and the administration for doing away with the unfunded liability for the comp time and especially for the training I think that's significant right to help kind of reduce that extended time when somebody's ready to to either leave through retirement or move on you know that they've got months or even years left on the books before

before we actually get them off the book so um I do want to recognize that so thank you for the efforts on that uh just on page 228 the vation buyback so that went from the middle of the page or maybe a quarter a quarter way down um it's 9,725 it's 58,000 so was a $497,000 increase so was that it's contractual every year um they're you know every year by April

1 they have to let us know uh if they're intending on um buying back any vacation uh contractually I think superi also have up to two weeks uh per year that they can cash in so you know it's a it's a moving Target every year some years uh you have individuals who who take it and then other years they don't so it it's uh it varies okay um sorry I had one more question I just

can't find the

line I'll get back to that one page 229 other Communications can you just so 229 other Communications um this is all through our single division but it's you know obviously new radios um there's new mobile radios for the cars in there um we we obviously anticipating anywhere between 10 to 20 within the next fiscal year uh to come in um so that's going to replace some of those radios um there's antennas for

portable radios that we have uh the so there is some breakage there over the course of of a year um there's some major expense expenses in that item as well um obviously converting uh the our radio system over to digital from uh the old system uh there's some additional cost for propane up at the new copicut uh radio station that we have over there new uh satellite site um so can we anticipate this bm150

going on like are you going to maintain that in terms of radio Replacements things of that nature or it I don't think it's going to be at 150 every year I expect that'll probably get cut down by at least 25% next year that obviously but you going to keep at least a built-in budget to to the typical radio replacement it's yeah it's constant absolutely and I did find the other one

I was I was looking for I was on the wrong page um so was traffic signal maintenance uh it's up almost 100% I'm assuming I mean I I I see I see the notes there but are we just putting more money towards the repairs of the S traffic signals that we have throughout the city cor correct and we do have two electricians right now and uh as a team they're jelling uh I can tell you our

electrician uh signal uh operator uh Chris hathway is is topnotch um he does a ton when he's by himself and when he has somebody that's competent with him light out um so we do have a a large increase there um but it is Project centered so it's uh I know multiple locations uh I know in particular South Main Street and South Main at King Philip and Bedford at E Avenue uh we do

have some major underground conduit Replacements uh that that are big money it can't just has to be a whole replacement so like I said it's all specific to projects that uh we're doing with our traffic signals okay and then sorry sorry to bounce around but just going back to salaries so I know you have overtime broken out you've got comp time you've got replacement Staffing but what is overtime police

Quinn so if you have the Quinn Bill and you're now working overtime it's an offset from you actually capture yeah you capture that okay correct right and then my my final question for you Chief uh I know you mentioned this but I just want to I guess confirm it make sure so you have two Deputy police Chiefs so you gonna You're Gonna Fill that vacancy that you currently have or are you gonna correct

they're uh there's not a signed contract because they're not in ordinance anymore uh one deputy chief is uh in position has a signed contract um and one has just been promoted through civil service and we're just waiting on the finality of the contract okay all right thank you I thank you counc counc seat five CC vice president per I just have um a comment to make about the training that

we pay for officers and then they can leave you know they have to stay for five years but how much does it cost for that training do you remember what it was it was about between $9 and $10,000 right but if I was trained and then I found I could make more money somewhere else like in secon where weren't you giving an incentive to police officers seeon I was the incentive was to come work with

me was it 10 or 20 10 10,000 so there you go so you know I think that's that's another issue and one thing I thought of and when you say that I'm not sure what do you mean that that's another issue well because if you sign up if I'm a police officer working for you and then I just did training and I have to stay there for five years but I apply to

seock they're going to give me a $10,000 bonus for signing up and I'm going to get paid more money there than here and I'm in a town not in a city so off five years to hold somebody when you got other towns that are giving incentives it's part of the competitive process that we're in exactly exactly there's nothing we can do to stop that you know there's nothing to stop them

from moving um but one of the things I think it was pretty Innovative that if it's under 50 the the low 50 uh can be called in if we need extra police officers they can be called in so so what you're talking about is a a pilot program that um that we're trying to do for the summer um just the way our watches are situated with bodies you could have three people who work the

same schedule who've been to the academy the same but based on our seniority the bottom person always when it's an opening for overtime the bottom person will always get ordered in right um there's one particular also who she did a great job and she she took a beating last year I can tell you that but did it with a smile on her face and I have a ton of respect for her but um we worked

with the Union we're working with the Union to put something together where it'll be uh based on the number of hours that you forced in and it'll go to the next person in senori in Reverse SEI basically so people that are over 50 any officer that's over the number 50 is Inari correct the junior sign up for it the Junior 50 people and then any police officer beyond that who wishes to

be considered uh for this forcein situation they can put their name in and then they'd be compensated for it correct I think that's that's Innovative to try I mean they would make decent money and anything on auxiliary because some towns never got rid of their auxiliaries I know you're in con change the shirts y well I know you're in constant contact with Captain Fado and I know that you uh you and she

have had multiple conversations about bring people in um but I other than one person I haven't heard that anyone else is uh put up put in for it maybe we've got to do a good PR piece try to get people to want to come in but we've worked with the churches especially uh for the feasts and for the processions and we're always constantly looking for volunteers and sometimes we get them one

one procession we did get quite a few unfortunately it was uh a major rain event and obviously a safety decision had to be made but um we certainly appreciate everybody who works with us I did talk to deputy chief too um you know when he's looking at helping out and doing something uh I'm kind of impressed with JT and the things that he's doing um so sometimes you can't judge a book

by a cover I'm very impressed so far anybody who shows up to work I'm happy with yep I'm very impressed with what I see um with him with that I Y thank you thank you coun councel C3 councel H thank you Mr President Chief Seth how you doing um just a couple quick questions because A lot's been covered um I did want to just just briefly go over with you uh Chief uh the Quinn bill

and the I mean educated force is the best Force I think and how many of our officers are uh involved as far as getting there I know there there's the um the associates just like a certain percent than the bachelors and then the Masters and the PHD or correct how many how many are involved in it and is they are they doing I couldn't give you that number off the top of my head uh but we

do have a number of officers who who were hired uh by a particular date who are getting the full Quinn Bill and then after a particular date of a contract there was a modified education incentive that spawned from from that uh Quinn Bill and so years ago it was uh I think with mayor Lambert I I worked with him a little bit on that um is it still I I

don't maybe just to get a little more educated on it this are we still funding or maybe to Seth are we still funding the uh 50/50 or what's the what's the split was 50 from the state and then the city matched it right but it it also depends on when you were hired right so y there's the 50/50 but but some of the officers only get half Quinn and actually the majority of the officers

get half Quinn because it's such a young Force um and the tradeoff with half Quinn um is that you get it sooner so you get it at 5 10 and uh 12 and A2 okay and then with the those few officers left that have the full quit the the older officers that have been around for longer still the 5050 but they get theirs at the 1020 and 25 so it's delayed a little bit more so there's

kind of an offset there okay and now so the young the young officers coming on are they getting involved in the educational part of the uh so they are yeah I'm I'm so sorry but yeah no as as people are coming on uh especially during our onboarding process uh we have meetings uh they have an admin week when they first get on um their benefits are the union comes in

and talks to them um I know Lieutenant galve does a great job with them but he does a great job with explaining all their benefits and particularly explains because we've had some people fall through the cracks but we explain all their benefits and the timeline that goes along with those benefits okay you know that's great I like to hear that um the other thing is uh Chief as far as

the The Walking beat um is it how is it going in this in the city how many people how many do we have involved in that we've uh you know the city uh there's some an expenditure here for walking beats and I think we're almost uh U at the end of our walking beat money but we we've really done it uh I think done a great job with making sure

that we're not out there rainy days and like we're looking for high visibility impact uh beats and our guys been doing a great job and they're getting as they're doing that they're getting involved in the community absolutely the community I think so is there can we can we keep that going or are we going to be yes our Our intention is to continue that it's in the budget no I think

that's a great idea that that's pretty much all I had uh but I will say this Chief since I got back on the city council and I've been on the uh uh sub Public Safety chairman and um I've been in touch with you several times met with you over for three hours in your office um the door's wide open as far as uh I'm concerned and I I appreciate the time

that you give me um and I also appreciate the call backs that you give me so I think uh you're doing a great job and I know it's not just you it's your staff and the patrolman but um I'm looking forward to meeting with you more times thank you appreciate that thank you councelor counc C to did you have your hand up yeah just I had one other question that I I missed that we touched

on in our conversation on page 227 it was two line items for salaries and wages permanent yes so for some reason uh and that's different from last year um but the second salaries and wages permanent is that's the dispatchers somehow it was buil out differently okay so we have dispatches in three different places correct with nothing that indicates their dispatches correct we we'll make sure next year we take care

of that mental no okay all right thanks with that I yield thank you councelor maybe no further questions want thank you very much Chief coming down thanks Chief thank you and also thank you for the great work menum for our city we really appreciate it Seth you can stay there we're going to have the fire department come down next I'll stay

here and again if you could just say your name and what the position you hold and so people at home know who they're talking to sure I'm Jeffrey bacon uh fire chief baric Castro administrative assistant to the fire chief Seth aen still the city administrator even after all that as of now right for now over yet I'm gonna ask you this is my first haset hasn't passed yet you can go easy go easy on me you

know I'm a newcomer here so he's after you all right we'll start one newcomer to another Council C Council Samson good morning oh good evening I should say well we're getting there right I I just have a a few uh questions questions um the educational uh line item on page 227 it went down why why is that what page counselor I'm sorry 227 I don't have 27 I think 227 were Poli wait wrong hold

on I'm out of water here maybe 211 yeah hold on I'm just happy to know that that's why I don't have a 227 so that I missed that question for the chief then the police chief um here we are here we are yes there we go okay um your overtime went down and I found that interesting okay so the reason that the overtime went down was because there was money added

into that line item um prior to this being printed out so our original allocation for overtime in fiscal year 24 was actually 448 uh 468 and then um probably about a month ago um we moved some money into that overtime uh line item to get us through the remainder of the fiscal year so that number that you're seeing is actually inflated by $1,000 so our overtime did go up um is it 15% 18% 18% I'm sorry

perfect and um again excuse my ignorance here but the what is uh DCA stien mean it's gone up 129% all right so the district Chief Aid is a position that was on the fire department for a 100 years um it's essentially the aid to the district Chief the district there's two districts in the city the North End and the South End there's two cars car two and car three car three is in the South End Car

2 is in the North End each one of those is a command vehicle that the district Chief is in 24 hours a day seven days a week that District Chief always had an aid and what that person's job was was one to drive them to a fire call but also to be their assistant on any kind of an emergency that were the second set of eyes and ears um that position went

away uh probably about 8 to 10 years ago um so one of the one of the benefits of having a district Chief Aid in then this will not create a new position this DCA was in the new M uh M mou sorry that um that we you voted on about a month ago right um so one of the benefits of having the DCA on paper is it's going to and you got to trust me on

this it's going to limit the number of District Chiefs that are on vacation in the busiest months of the year the June July August and what that does for us is it keeps the citizens safer um and it and it allows our Command Staff to be present and not on vacation through those months um so I I totally think that that's absolutely necessary I just didn't understand the what that meant so um is

it uh another firefighter that goes along with them it's is it it is and this this won't be somebody riding in the car with them it's just going to be they have certain duties one of the the reasons that the district Chief Aid was always in our contract was they have the duty of uh calling overtimes anytime that we need overtime during a shift the DCA was still in our contract to do that

and we were paying them that percentage when they made those overtime calls so one of the things I looked at was that um a district Chief overtime uh cost significantly more than the DCA 2.9% stien so in three or four District Chief overtimes we will pay for that entire Year's worth of DCA stiens yeah it's not a lot of money it it went up about $10,000 but now I like that you're um making improvements bringing

things back and I you said you know trust me here I do and I know that your your department um really stands behind you your guys really really stand behind you you're one of them it stands out and um so welcome AB board you're doing a great job and that's all I got so I yield council president thank you counc ch7 Council propos on good evening Chief good evening two questions sure Academy

class yes how's that looking so uh We've recently started I've been mentioning all along um and we've recently started talking about put putting uh a class through the academy in anticipation of retirements coming okay um and so we're working on a number what that might be I'm trying to get a realistic number of who will be retiring in the next six to nine months and once we have that we're

going to look at sending recruits to the state academy okay so I know it mentioned in your salaries details you mentioned estimated cost of 8 to 10 anticipated retirement so that's kind of a guesstimate I'm assuming it is so uh the best we can do is look at who would be eligible to retire uh and use the numbers based on that obviously there are some people who will retire the day they're eligible and there are some

people that retirement scares the Daylights out of them and they want to work until they're 65 years old so we got to go by when we figure our budget we need to go by who could potentially retire okay my other question is in regards to the 13 vacant positions that are not funded so is there any intention on your end to seek grants to fill any of those positions uh yeah so we just

passed the a round of Grants and we did not submit for it but um the next time that comes around I'm always open to submitting for for the grants it's called safer it's uh it's to the so you're aware yeah and you do you have currently any firefighters on that Grant we do not do not okay that's all I have thank you Chief right you councelor I do sir thank you

coun seed seven coun seat six coun Pony please thank you Mr President so a couple of quick questions for you Chief in terms of your trucks um Capital needs within your department um I know the current ones that're currently about 8 years old as of right now right takes about two years to build them right now yes thereabouts right so where are where are you in terms of capital needs

maintenance for your trucks is there anything that's needed yeah so we actually run a contract for a pumping apparatus and a ladder truck um and those are expected uh unfortunately since covid it's not a a quick turnaround so they're two years out uh right now um uh so once those come in we will have a viable front line um and spare apparatus Fleet as well we're one new pump away from having uh

top-of-the-line uh ready Reserve apparatus as well as our Frontline apparatus but I'm confident in uh and a fiveyear plan that that if we can continue to look down the road and keep replacing one pump every two or three years that will uh will be in good good shape going down the road so are you going to be placing in an order soon well that's something we're going to work on there was there was a pump in

my Capital plan um and uh and we'll see we'll see where that goes okay has the administration given you any kind of a commitment in terms of where they're going to go with that in your Capital plan are you talking about the the two that are on order or the next order the next order because it takes two years to two plus years to build we have not had that conversation yet okay fair enough

thank you um Center Street the center Station y center Station sorry sure three years ago uh or thereabouts um CPA was approved to start doing some repairs there nothing has started what's going on with that do you want to speak to that sure yeah so um so there's the CPA project that I is in the divine the design phase the Divine phase would be very different the design phase uh there's also been a significant

investment by EMS in that building uh so for the last year there's actually been quite a bit done including uh new ventilation uh improvements of living quarters uh and a number of other uh remodeling projects the CPA funding is uh going to be uh fascia the The Rusted uh emblems that are all around um really you know all the historical elements on the outside of the building uh as well

as some HVAC work and some other things that um as far as I know is is already scheduled to sort of work in with the work that's already being done so it's coming from two sources uh EMS has started and has been doing it for about a year um I expect the um uh the CPA funding to uh begin very soon because the the design has been going on uh for

the better part of the year as well okay uh on on that it was a further question I had regarding EMS now I understand EMS was supposed to uh put some money into some of the stations that station being one specifically but it's my understanding that they're only putting money into where they're staying in these stations is that true so so like I know so as far as the set the station

goes that is not true they're uh they have money put aside to renovate the entire second floor of the center Station okay that's going to be new dorms and quarters a new gym uh new bathroom facilities so uh as far as the other stations go they have been very good with us with working with us to upgrade the focus is on their uh their areas because their areas are the ones

that have need to been uh to be brought up to accommodate female Medics um but they've also been very good with us with uh with any needs that we have Elsewhere on the station while they're doing some of those upgrades and you and your department and EMS are working well as you mentioned to make sure that everything's getting updated as quick as possible right yeah so as far as the

senta station goes there really hasn't been a lot of that work done um it's in the design phase I was in a meeting with facilities in the engineering company about a month ago with the Ms and uh it sounds like it's uh finally going to start rolling soon what was that we have another meeting too with facilities coming up oh very good next week I think yeah all right I'm sure through the public safety

uh committee um you can give your updates there I'm just curious to see that get moving cuz you know you know it kind of reminds me of uh my first term on the council when we started talking about the Veterans building you know it took a long time and then finally after some push push push push it finally started happening there so uh with that being said um I know that the firefighters um their

contract is up June 30th 2025 correct and at that point um you're going to be looking at another 15.5% increase to their pay I believe as negotiated is that correct no no that's not that that wasn't part of your Collective bargain agree the agreement two years plus one nope okay we just signed the uh uh the contract that was in front of you about a month ago that was a one-year contract with a 0.5 Cola

that's that was the what it was a one-year contract with a 0 five cola5 Cola not 15.5 I'm sure my guys would love if you'd like to make that happen forun think Seth would like it very much starts with the executive branch yeah the agreement that was that came about as a result of the arbitrators award that would expire uh at the end of June uh that collectively was in that 15

range but the the next the agreement that's already in place that brings us to 2025 was a05 was a05 okay um I know you mentioned to my colleague in CI um your um your overtime but you know do you have enough overtime to get you through this budget with Manpower down so the tricky part with our overtime is the um M mpss Grant the mass Public Safety and Staffing Grant that's a

calendar year Grant so if everything goes the way it's gone in the last few years and we haven't had any issue getting these grants and we get the grant again and we find out in December then we'll be fine we'll have no problem whatsoever if not you're going to need how much from the council uh well it's a again it's a tricky game because I got to see how much we're gonna have to spend through

the fall um so it would be the shortfall if you will would be about $300,000 to get us from January to July how much grants are you using within your department for overtime any at all that's the only one that's the only one that's the eops it's the yep okay y it's a 750 roughly,000 Grant this year and when do you get the notification of the award we would apply for that uh October

November and we hear about it in December okay which will get you through until the pretty much January until the end of the fiscal year right okay so you're going to there there's a strong likelihood that you're going to exhaust the money that you have budgeted right now between now and December so because that Grant came in later for us we actually didn't receive the funding until recently uh we're probably going

to be able to survive the second half of the Year mostly using that Grant without going into our Municipal overtime budget it's my game plan plan right now and really hopefully we'll have as much of the municipal overtime budget as we can to get us through from January to June okay last question you have everything that you need within your department to get you through the year with without any issue in terms of

capital needs anything generally speaking that you need from the council yeah listen I'm still learning but uh I will not be shy I promise you that if there's anything else that comes up I will uh be more than happy to come and talk to you guys about it but nothing but nothing right now specifically you have everything that you need within the budget yeah okay all right thank you Mr

President I yield thank you councelor Chief if it's okay I just want to let you know we're all still leing as well all right awesome We're All in This Together El Council C5 Council Vice PR Chief I just want to say that uh in speaking with a lot of the firefighters everybody seems to be very satisfied and they describe you as being fair and levelheaded I think fair and levelheaded is a compliment for a

manager of so many uh individuals with different personalities so thank you I appreciate that I um I thank you for that thank you and our fire department I think I don't seem to be Prejudice but I think that ours is the best in Massachusetts so I wouldn't argue that no I think they're the best for you know the fires that we've had here in the city and the way that they have um

handled them and I like that they're proactive in looking at certain buildings that are vacing vacant and knowing if this there's a to this building this is how we're going to attack it I think that's good one suggestion I would have though is now the state changed the law uh where the fire extinguishers that you have not fire extinguishers fire alarms that you have in your house M you know before

you'd have a fire alarm now it's got to be voice activated fire and CO2 uh Co but you only know that when you're going to sell a piece of property um I wish that there was some way we could throw that into people's tax bills to know these are the new ones if you're replacing uh one that you would know I mean we would always replace make sure batteries were in some of them were

wired but we'd every year around the holidays my husband would put new batteries in and we'd get everybody new fire extinguishers fill them up again from the guys over on Bedford Street and you know keep them downstairs by the washers and dryers because you want to make sure if something happens I there's lives in there and I don't want firefighters getting injured you have as much precaution as possible but then I

found out and it was like $1,200 to get all new ones and this and that you it kind of shocked me I didn't know that they had changed even in with within my own home yeah so uh this came up at the last public safety meeting we discussed it and I think you're going to see this Sumer we're going to try to make a public education push um wherever we can

to just inform the public and we do have answers for people we have ways of them to get the answers if you're selling a house if you're replacing your detectors right you know you can call our fire prevention Bureau and they are more than happy to talk you through every single thing you need on the phone I mean they are much better yeah I went downstairs and in the bathroom downstairs I saw

um Co or something and I was like oh my God this cop in there whatever um I called the police department said who do I call do I call fire department do I call the gas company I think it said gas so they had to notify fire and told me to not by gas company which I did my husband wasn't home but all of a sudden the fire trucks appeared there um and it

looked like I needed to put a new battery in the one downstairs and my husband said this is what happens when I leave a home alone and I did feel badly luckily I was baking butter horns so I sent a whole thing of butter horns to the station cuz I felt so bad and they didn't get to me up yeah I felt terrible I'm going to need the names of

who you gave those two cuz I didn't get a single one of them you didn't get one I will make sure that this week or next I will drop some off for you I appreciate that but um but they were you know they didn't make fun of me or ridicule me they said you did the right thing um just to be safe so we strive for that level of professional they were

very professional but thank you so much for your service well appreciated thank you homeone one two or three Home Alone one first one you come i y Mr President thank you counc C to good evening good evening I was so 2024 your compliment was 200 2025 the 195 oh well in our appropriation they tell us a different story okay so 195 there's the appropriation in the actual Staffing um I meant Staffing in the

graphs I'm sorry so charts and graphs shows page on counselor 20 Page 20 fire oh it's because it's with the FEMA as well right that's why so it was 200 down to 187 so it's actually 195 on the fire in the fire department at the beginning of fiscal year 24 yes and now you're at 187 so how long is the academy for the fire department number one and how long does it take

them to get online so we have uh we have two different portions to our Academy um we have an EMT training so we have to train every uh every new recruit to the EMT level that's roughly nine weeks and our acad the the state academy I believe Echoes that I believe it's also nine weeks um there's also a two to three month period minimum to just to vet all the candidates and get them actually

hired so I think similar to the police Poli Department we'd probably look at like a 9mon turnaround from the time we call for the list to the time that we actually see bodies in the company because I guess my concern is having zero funded vacancies um zero vac yeah fund yeah no funded vacancies um and you know you have retirements coming up m to me it would make more sense if we had some positions

available that you could get people in the academy now they'd come online when people retired you'd be filling those spaces and you could get more people in an academy so we would have more of an ongoing um backfill yeah we're actually working on that program right now with the administration to get people proactively um we've always been a reactive Department we wait until people

retire and we usually put a very large class through once a year and it just made more sense to me to be in a consant state of hiring for a lot of reasons um and we're working with the administration right now to commit to we just got to find that number that uh of anticipated retirements like what are we really looking at who's going to be retiring in the next 6 to nine months

and see if we can uh if we can process some recruits and get things moving on that I mean I can't we can't increase the budget we can only decrease the budget but if I could increase it I certainly would like to see you get at least four funded vacancies so you could get people in an academy and keep it now I thought we did um in-house training we always did you're talking so what happened

well in uh I would guess in 2003 to 2004 we kind of changed the way that we did our training uh I was probably the last class that was trained the Fall River class so it was just essentially all you need to know to be a firefighter in Fall River exactly how we worked what hose we carried in 2003 2004 we switched to training firefighter one and two which is a nationally recognized standard um

and we've done that ever since so we all of our firefighters hired since then have firefighter one and to the National Standard um for us to do that uh it's essentially the academy does that better than we could do it they have more instructors they have better equipment they have better facilities um so for us to send the recruits to the academy just made sense to me uh there were some

issues why guys didn't want to do it in the past and one of one of them is just because we the way we've always done it but some Chiefs um there are a couple hurdles to that uh there was a waiting list for the last four years years since Co for the academy and and somewh sometimes upwards of six to n months uh that that waiting list has gone down significantly so uh I'm comfortable with

I I just think it benefits the city it benefits my department to have new faces coming in on a regular basis rather than a huge group just to take for instance last year we had a group of uh 12 to 14 that came in late spring to my to to the companies and now you enter your high vacation period with guys with less than three months on the job and you're

asking them to do things that you shouldn't ask them to do it puts them in an unsafe place so if you're constantly hiring then you don't have that issue so there were a lot of benefits to that and there's no cost for the city to send to the academy so on page 212 um and I'm going to make the comparison I'm not this has this is nothing against the police department I'm just curious

um on page 12 under office equipment Furniture maintenance your bud your budget is $500 yeah I I think that's that's kind of an older line item uh it does a lot of that work that um that you would consider to be in that line item um we do maintain a few things that we have in our office and that's probably that's why we have that line item still in there under radio repairs and maintenance the

next line for radio repairs and maintenance 19,600 um the police department for communications has 150,000 how many radios do you have by comparison are you going to be switching to digital as well I think that the the reason that you're seeing that discrepancy is that all of our Communications equipment goes through the police department our Dispatch Center is in the police department they

have all the big stuff they have the the repeaters and they're responsible for all of that on their end and we are just end users essentially with our equipment so we don't need um hundreds of thousands of dollars we are mainly just buying and servicing the units that we have not the not the higher end utilize yep okay um building and maintenance supplies 14,600 cleaning of Fire Department

headquarters Pest Control irrigation system um how many stations do we have we have six stations plus our headquarters facility so do we have a line item for building and maintenance supplies in all buildings or only one just our headquarters um the firefighters clean the stations daily so we have a line item for cleaning supplies for the stations um our headquarters is cleaned by a professional cleaning company

that's the that's the difference and what do you have in terms of maintenance uh let's see because I saw let's see I also saw it let me me just bear with me for a second yeah no problem um yeah CU again with the police department other uh r&m supplies are building repairs not covered by DCM building remodeling of offices rugs blinds Furnitures tile Etc we don't have a line item like that

similar to that for the fire department never have we are um we we make requests through facilities maintenance and they uh they provide what they can and what we need isn't that a little unfair unfair in what way that it's built in for the F for the police department to do that but not for the fire department and they have to request everything well the police department has one building

correct um and so their the maintenance for that building is budgeted whereas the rest of the fire department or the rest of the fire stations are con considered City buildings so we Factor it into uh facilities maintenance so um I think a good example is you know something as easy as painting um we have a painter Who's lead paint certified and all that stuff he's actually done quite

a bit of work in the Central Station um you know he's over in different stations quite a bit uh it similar situation we have our it guys go and service the fire station as well as the police station so there is a lot of overlap in Services when it comes to kind of that nonf fire or police specific maintenance and repair yeah we have one painter in the city correct correct it's a lot of area

to cover for one individual I don't even know how he can get half of what he needs to get done done when you consider how many buildings we have uh I guess that's another discussion for another day like I don't know maybe Thursday um or Wednesday Wednesday I won't be here Thursday yeah um okay with that I yield thank you thank you Council C1 Council Kim thank you Mr President

uh just to start with Revenue so page 46 uh the fire department the local receipts went up by 65,000 what is that just permit that's the EMS call uh stpe so we receive money from Ems for the calls that we do with them okay appreciate that and then just in terms of the FTE full FTE so uh what's been presented to us is that there's 13 unfunded positions but 12.5% of them

were reduced did you did you keep a half a a part-time position was that that parttime Clerk's part-time clerk position right is that is that what it was did you keep that's still in the budget did you eliminate I I guess did you eliminate a part-time position then that position was vacated a couple years ago and just hasn't been filled okay so you're not so we're just reducing that

we're not filling that is that what it is so there 13 so when you in the presentation I let me let me pull it up

um so if you look on page

20 so the difference from last year to this year is 12.5 positions and then it says we have 13 positions that are unfunded

difference so that half position is a part-time cork position that I don't think has been filled for probably two years I just I remember when uh she left it was my probably my first six eight months as City administrator um and so the 13 unfunded positions I believe include it's a little weird that it says 13 as opposed to 12.5 so it must just be looking at bodies versus whether

full-time okay and then so you actually have the the actual ft fire FTE firefighter FTE uh Remains the Same is what we talked about so that's the the reduction of um not funding down from what 195 to 182 18 187 182 oh that's right I keep using the wrong numbers so then just going to the I guess the salaries um so salaries wages permanent uh TW fiscal year 24 was 16.9 million

we're seeing a 10% reduction 15.1 million um and the difference just so I understand that so the the Delta is just solely the Retro is that what it is and then obviously the 14 or yeah I believe those $2 and5 million dollar moved into our budget for the Retro payment for the Retro okay and then the vacant positions Perfect all right and then your retirement bio I know we talked a little

bit about that were those just historical are those actual retirements that you've to the best I know people can recant on their retirements but is it actual re and the difference being that in fiscal year 24 we had uh five or six firefighters that uh either resigned or moved to other departments uh or and they had five to six years on the job where this year's retirements 10 to 12

retirements are going to be officers first of all that with 30 plus years on the job so just anticipating larger buyouts gotta and then um just a couple of quick questions the homeland security stien can you just I guess I'm not familiar that that's misnamed uh it was in the last mou that is a technology stien that uh okay that the firefighters received for using their uh personal cell phones

for recall and overtimes gotta and then what's what's the auto allowance so the there's a right to know officer the chief training officer assistant training officer and administrative assist assistant they each get $100 um for uh using their uh their own personal and then uh there's an additional $10 whenever an employee is required to use personal uh their personal vehicle to move between

assignments during their shift um so that's kind of a little bit unpredictable but uh it is uh if they're reassigned to another station that sort of thing okay cover a shortfall we increased that based on the fact that since we have short Manpower there's going to be more daily details moving and then I think you spoke about this but the DCA Sten that's the district Chief perfect yep okay and then I guess

the question and maybe this is more for Seth electricity and gas um the auto uh fuel gas um so I see the increase in in the fire but I didn't see an increase in police is there did we just was it not budgeted is there more usage or so um I actually think police have their own police don't use the DCM pumps um so this actually reflects Fire's use of the

pumps at the DCM with the fob and and that whole system police have their own system okay um so I believe in the police budget it's it's not as clearly marked out as it is here uh I can find it for you and show you actually where the they're and then I guess the only other question I have my final question is just on the parts and accessories on page

212 um so we got a 5% % reduction I just know that the cost associated with maintenance has skyrocketed so it's not actually a 5% reduction okay that was another line item that had uh we purchased a new command vehicle that uh the previous Chief was under the impression was going to be a capital uh outlay but uh was not funded so um we had to about a month ago we had to move uh

$53,000 into that line item to pay for that vehicle so what you're actually seeing is an increase of 15% I believe okay yes correct all right so it's just the transfer that's thrown it off yeah the transfer thr it off okay appreciate that I Y thank you councelor counc C3 councel hot thank you Mr President gentlemen welcome um just one quick question uh and then I just have a comment to make but I remember talking

to uh the the former chief chief St Martin and it was up at that event that that you held on last uh September or August um mostly like a training um a class or something like that it was a legislative day right y exactly and um we talked about the train coming in yes um and the concerns about that um and he said that there's you know more than likely we've got to let people know do

uh about the train and the safety concerns of facing it as far as the public going on the track and whatnot and he did tell me that there's been a lot of uh um notice Flyers going out even maybe possibly training he might have said uh now is that just the fire department and is that also the police also doing that I don't know if it's a question for the chief or Seth but it

was a it's a concern because the train is coming down and there's going to be some obviously some uh unfortunate situations so what what are we doing to at least in the Fall River area so kis who is the um the the vendor for uh for the MBTA uh they have a a quarterly safety meeting in Freetown and I was at the one last month so they are uh launching um Mass

emailings uh social media campaign as they get closer to uh to actual start date um so they are pushing that we have done live trainings police were there um EMS was there um we're pushing to have more trainings as we uh as they get closer they can't tell us a date I guess it's all up in the air right now because of a change in leadership at the MBTA um but we were fortunate enough last uh

last week two weeks ago um they took us on a ride from Freetown to uh to the end of the line and the reason for that was I had requested better access uh we don't have any grade level Crossings in Fall River so um the towns that do have better access for their uh apparatus if there is an event on the tracks uh so we're looking at spots to request to get

some larger Gates put in so that if there is an event we're able to access the track better so um the tracks are ready to go I actually think they told us that day that sometime in the next month or two they're going to be bringing some trains down uh at slower than full speed uh to test all of the crossings in Aon it and to test the infrastructure of the tracks coming down

and they will also offer us training once they have trains here we'll be able to go to the lay down yard at the old St Vincent and be able to uh to to access the trains to see how uh the sh where the shut offs are if we had to get a patient off what the easiest way to do that so they've they've been they've been excellent with us as far as

training is concerned we also have uh a good amount of equipment coming in through the Bristol County Fire Chiefs through the MBTA for uh for accessing trains for cutting into trains if we need to for derailments and things like that so that equipment we're expecting some sometime in the next month and we're actively writing an sop uh for response for any train incidents yeah because that that is a concern because I

did in fact just by bringing this up I over this just this weekend I went to um I think it was East Freetown for a little Le game and I took the m road and that that's where the railroad crossing was so there's easy access for them to do that for Fall River there's not so what where do you think the I know you mentioned at St Vincent is but what what

do you I mean hype like in the in the future where do you think that um entrance might be for for us so we've located several areas along the railway where if the day they start trains if they don't give us access through Gates we're going to be able to cut fence and get in there if we have to okay um everywhere where there's a switch there is a heater that requires a propane tank

and each one of those areas requires access from a street so a truck can fill it up those are our best spots and we've we've located those and I'm in the process of putting together a package to send to the m to request better access at those areas okay so yeah maybe just uh at some point we'll have a meeting um for the public safety yeah next meeting

I'd love to come talk to you about it y absolutely and um it's just a concern I I had it with Chief St Martin so I figured I'd bring it up here tonight but also too just so like I said to the chief um you the door for me uh as far as I'm concerned with you the door has been wide open um for me with you with your communication I I'm getting it all

the time with you um so I I like that that fact and you're always accessible to me so I appreciate that very much thank you a thank you counc counc seat one Council uh thank you Mr President I was no I was just going to follow up with my colleague and ask the chief but he he answered the question because I know uh new Beford had training with MBTA with they had this mock training it

was a derailment they didn't know exactly how many people were going to be on there but I just want to make sure that we were going to have something similar to that we had that training maybe nine months ago almost a year ago maybe the same training that b for just had recently okay uh and I'm working with Chief Krueger closely uh what we decided to do what the Bristol County

Fire Chiefs decided to do was to uh get most of the equipment to Lakeville Fall River and New Bedford because we're the only fully staffed fire departments in the area that would be able to respond without having to recall um so we will be writing automatic Aid agreements with all of the communities along the rail line and uh anticipate that Fall River will be responding to almost any train

incident in this new South Coast rail area okay thank you very quickly councel well you have the four uh just your gasoline question M 229 actually has the police gasoline it's about double what the fire gasoline is because the cars are just running 24/7 365 um and I believe there's also been a recent uh RFP to combine all the gasoline purchases which brought some of the pricing down perfect thank

you thanks for explaining that C2 did you have a followup question yeah just in listening to this convers so the fact that we've brought in thousands of units with the market rate housing the increase the train I mean again that just points to me that your compliment should be increased it shouldn't be it should not stay at the level that it's at yeah so uh I think the thing to focus on and I've had some

I honestly have had great partnership with the administration since I started since my first interview we talked and I said listen we need to trust one another that's the only way this is going to going to work when you tell me the sky is falling I need to believe it and when I tell you I can't do that I need you to believe me and what we're focused on right now is our daily Staffing number

that number at 35 and that's how we can appropriately protect every area of the city regardless of the pop population density and all that so once we once that number moves that's when I start getting concerned so if we can keep 35 on our daily Staffing at 182 firefighters then the city is just asfe safe as it was a year ago um so the the the administration's made a commitment

to that and we we we uh I know we have quarterly budget meetings but we talk multiple times a week and uh and they're open to listening to my ramblings about some of the crazy ideas I have and I'm open to listening to them and it's it's been a good relationship thus far all right so you feel comfortable at this point in time that yeah and Echo the sentiment of Chief gin I mean if you

told me I could have 245 firefighters which I hadn't I'd absolutely love it but I know that that's not a reality and I know there are tough times coming so uh I want to work with the administration to get us through this yeah because I mean the last thing we want is anybody to be in Jeopardy um no matter what a financial situation is we have to figure it out

yeah and I I consider the citizens but I also have to consider the the Staffing of the Fall River fire department they're my number one priority to get them home safe so exactly exactly and yeah that's yeah it's it's everybody's safety yep with that I yield thank you thank you there you no further questions thank you very much for coming down gentlemen thank you you thanks guys good

job Chief keep up the good thank you I'm gonna stay here because I think you're gonna call uh EMA down next we are Barrett do you want to stick just in case next we have Emergency Management

agency good evening everyone uh Richard AA EMA director Chief Inspector Services welcome Mr Agia thank you have any questions for Mr agya good job Mr AG hey he's on the record question Rick you are um incredible at getting grants and bringing money in um to the EMS division can you tell us what grants you were able to get this year because I know you're just so um since um being

appointed director U 2004 at the present date I pray have received over $340,000 in grant money from Mima and from the state um most recently I just received a grant for 52,800 um Emergency Management agencies uh are very deeply involved with the railroad as well I've been on the Public Safety Committee for two years so I know the ins and outs of how the railroad is going to work as far as Public Safety

goes um part of my job uh for M was to do an evacuation plan for the North End which I have worked on the chief knows very well he has seen that as well uh evacuation points where we're going to evacuate to So within that Grant we were allowed to buy a Polaris so I purchased a Polaris it was $35,000 um and we're going to put a medical skit on in the event if we have

to access the railroads um this was through Mima so I took advantage of it and I had money left over so I purchased a trail at the house the Polaris as well and we can very easily move it back and forth if we have to move back and forth in different areas it's not only going to be used for the railroad but different events within the city as well so um besides my um little budget here

um I do very well with Mima you to write the grants uh as we all know how to write those of us who have written grants and um I've been very successful at it because every time I write a grant we get free money from them so it's a great thing it doesn't cost the city a lot of money for the stuff that I purchase um through uh M and

FEMA and I will tell you that Jasmine up in the mayor's office is excellent at locating grants and writing grants she's very very very good and I'm sure she'd collaborate with you on on anything I call her a Wordsmith that's what I told her when I sat with her she's fantastic um but when I look at the annual salary I say can't you give EMS more money EMA EMA I'm sorry more money he uh he's in

my office every day telling me that it's not about the money he just loves what he does so I mean why give him more money still is that what you're saying Miss AA you should that negotiation yeah he's not a good negotiator negotiat he does love what he does no no I did get an increase in my salary this year which I appreciate okay good um and and he does it with so many volunteers who are

extremely dedicated yeah and unfortunately we lost Tony career Tony which was very very sad a man that did a lot volunteered a lot um with Rick's group no I just I I know that you've applied for Grants I was a little surprised at the number I thought it was a little lower so you surprised me by it being higher and I'm glad you got the Polaris you got a trailer you're always

looking for free money you're my kind of guy it's a beautiful thing get free money there you go you're my kind of guy well thank you uh Mr agan thank you to extend that thanks to your group of volunteers they do a fantastic job certainly will thank you thank you I yield thank you all right I think they all fur the questions if you want someone to show you how to ride that

pull out some sagy just let me know I'll take it for a ride thank you thank you for coming down good job gentlemen thank you guys thank you too next we move on to item number four General government we'll begin with the mayor's office does anyone have any questions from Mr Akin May's office let see C C4 just make a comment I think the mayor F needs a raise I think whoever

the mayor is yeah I AG I think it's uh the amount of time and effort and responsibility um so I know um there was a resolution put forward for increases but uh again we can't increase the budget but whether whoever the mayor is once again um I think um if you look at the rest of the budget uh the top individuals that uh you know that run the city and you look

at that so talk about not being in it for the money like to Chief a fire chief just said I think it's just um totally um I know it's some it's probably not politically popular to you know for you know to say this no no but to something like that it's aid but it's a it's a fact and I I don't know the comparisons with other communities Gateway cities are peer communities but I'm sure it's

substantial that's all the questions I have for that office and I think it's um compared to previous administrations I think it's really um downsized somewhat compared to the Past i y thank you thank you got here um his salary went up 3700 what I said his salary went up 3,700 he got a little bit Publications huh no the mayor 3 $3,699 increase but um I I jump on this every year and

I'm going to do it again I because I can't help it I'm sure Mr Akens is expecting it I have an issue with political positions it's not the person it's never been the person I don't care I don't got if it was my sister I'd be saying it I don't they're political positions they're not careers just for the sake of argument had there' been a different outcome in November there'd be a different person

in that position I don't think anybody in a political position should be coming in at $100,000 it's wrong we have we have city employees who have dedicated 15 20 30 40 years who aren't even close to that we have department heads that are 20 $30,000 off from that I just have a very difficult time time accepting the fact that a political position is Mak is is their total salary whoever that person

may be is over $100,000 are you speaking about the mayor's position or a different political position I'm talking about the political position I'm talking about the chief of staff position so just just for the record uh not that we want to get into a conversation about an individual but correct and this has nothing to do with the individual herself uh but I think it's important to note that the chief of

staff's position since she's been here in this Administration has never received an actual discretionary raise every increase has been a cost of living increase based upon the governmental cost of living percentage which is the same with me in fact um there are some people whose contracts include only a cost of living increase that is set by the federal government that has nothing

to do with the mayor whether you know he you know whether you hold a sign or not it doesn't matter um and the chief of staff uh answers the phone literally at all hours of the night um and I think when we start to compare you know one employee for the City versus another employee for the city we end up inevitably asking the question well you know is every employee

exactly the same and I don't think they are right I mean I think the reason why our Corporation Council gets paid more than other you know some other employees you in the cities because that person has a lot degree and has experience erience the chief of staff is required to have an understanding of the political landscape and the constituent services in the city that nobody else in the building has uh and she's

exceptional at it um and so I understand what you're saying I understand political position uh and and everything uh and we've had this conversation uh and I and I I appreciate your advocacy for that position but I have to say that one there is never been a discretionary raise and to uh the uh qualifications and skills that she brings to that position um are unlike what anyone else in that building has and they're

absolutely necessary to make sure that we understand how to respond to constituent requests and in response to that i' never said she got a raise and you're right it's an increase but the increase um not so long ago that position was at 78,000 today we're over a 100,000 um I purposely didn't even wasn't even originally mentioning what position it was except that it was a political position because I knew it

would get into the she the she I'm not talking about the she I'm talking about the position and if Tomorrow there's a he in it who is equally as qualified I don't think they should be getting $100,000 either that's just it's it's the position I've taken I say it every single year um I don't think any political it should be this is how much it pays this is what

you get no matter if the May is here two years or 20 well maybe not 20 but um and you either want to do it or you don't and you have to admit there's there are if you if you look I believe in ordinance there there are um could be the word I'm looking for I'm having a Senor moment um qualifications yes okay not every not every chief of staff has met the

qualifications but they still all got the pay I can't speak to that but I I can say that in January of 24 the cost of living increase set by the government was 3.5% in January of 23 it was like 7.8% which was insane prior to that it was 6.5% it's all over the map so so we can see that in this time of of really almost out of control inflation getting

more and more under control because it looks like next year it'll be probably closer to two and a half or 2.7% um you can see how a $70,000 salary increases without really anybody make taking any affirmative step to make that happen so and I'm not I I wasn't using she I was just because I mean you know we live in a time of of ambiguous pronouns and I understand that this is

this is to identify especially for the folks watching at home what we're talking about and I just wanted it to be very very clear that you know there there's not a you know there's not some sort of you know you know back room patronage rate ra it just it's not happening uh this is a person who you know as part never and that has never ever ever been implied but and I know it

hasn't I'm acknowledging that but I also think you know there may be Folks at home that don't understand kind of who and what we're really talking about or what the nature of that position is so I just wanted to make it clear so basically that's all I have to say and with that I yield thank you C SE seven c yeah I just had a quick question Seth the event resource coordinator the mayor's office how is

that funded uh are we talking about uh hold on let me just get to it the Special Pro projects and media coordinator no not not not Lauren um Samantha oh Samantha I apologize thank you those two uh uh job description or uh titles are a little bit similar that is entirely through arpa okay I thought um and it's it's basically there's been a lot of conversation about the um um through the

the Chamber of Commerce the arpa money it was given for tourism this is part of that um she uh basically coordinates all of our events meets with anybody holding an event and she is exceptional yes I I was just because I'm as I'm looking through I didn't I noticed she wasn't in there so I just wanted to clarify yes thank you thank you sir appreciate that I yield thank you any other questions c

c 5 Vice President perero and I'm just going to add right now that I think we need a tourism director I love the trolley I think it's great but 12 stops on Saturdays and Sundays one of them is at the purchas street dining area I don't know how many things are open on a Saturday in P Street one at pugalia Market I go there all the time but I can't see getting off a trolley and

waiting for the trial to go all around the city and come back for me hey if I'm in there a half hour 45 minutes I'm good I got to be there for almost an hour I think we need a tourism director not just an event coordinator or somebody to plug up whatever events are happening in the city and put it online you can teach a monkey to do that we need a tourism director that brings

tourism in I've said it all the time I don't know where you'd stick that in this budget but you can send the message again to the mayor and I think some of us agree with the tourism director I just can't get the May to agree so but that's what you need you've got to promote this city new bedford's got a whole web page a whole movie thing a whole new um new whole media campaign

going on you go to Virginia for lovers you go to midle beach you go to Florida right they have all these things what do we have City there we'll try we'll try I'm so sick of that you need somebody who knows what they're doing they have an office an office and we give oppa money and when it's gone oh well then it's gone you want to bring tourism in because they spend

money and we have so many great attractions here we really do Tom Norton Pier was fabulous this weekend it was very good you've got to do things like that dery the auditorium we talked about earlier tonight that's going to have more seats than the Zan theater and parking Galore we have competent people in this City that have been working in the arch for a long time that would bring things here what is wrong with

us get people together you don't have activities for the Youth have a band playing here give kids something to do it just really frustrates me that you know we have to search for what's happening in the city we shouldn't have to do that we don't even have a dedicated web page Why do I have to go to Diva FL River page I should go to the city of for River Event calendar and see

everything that we have and I know that we do have things here because I am out and about I know on the 6th we're going to have a dedication for dday 80th anniversary who else knows that we had the water department go and visit the the new building we heard about that on a Tuesday for an event that was happening on Saturday I mean people paid for that building like there's no PR stuff just my

rant and you can again tell the May when I see him I'll tell him again um but you know I just we have beautiful Parks but we don't have a bathroom I can't figure that if 10% of the population is not the nicest they do bad things we punish the other 90% come on we're better than that but I just think we should have a tourism director other than that I agree with

Brad I think that the mayor's salary at 122 you have the superintendent chief of police some police offic firefighters making more than the mayor who wants to run for that office and put up with everything that a May has to put up with for 122,000 you get calls 24/7 I know we all get calls 24/7 and we're not making anywhere near that we do it because we love it but come on for

the mayor this is a job he should be getting paid say about the 247 with that I yield thank CC counc C4 counc kby well I I would just contrary to councilman C to uh just a quick comment I know she brought that up last time in terms of the uh Chief of Staff position she does a good job my opinion is that if any position in the city deserves to be

political it's that one let's think practically here mayor Joseph CRA whatever mayor Cliff Pont if you're mayor of f don't you want to choose a person that you have to work intimately with and close with so I have absolutely no problem with that position you you follow my I'm sorry to use your an example Council council president but um that's a position that has to be it has to

be u a political decision on the part of the mayor so they have the person that you uh stand side by side with every day the person you trust the person it's just for me it's totally totally appropriate um maybe with the exception of the the previous mayor but that's another story so I yield thank you thank you coun coun C coun Samson I just want to uh talk about that for a minute thank

you council president um I do think I have to agree with councelor Kilby on this I think that that is a political visent rightfully so you bring in your best your best team um to support and um that it's $100,000 salary but that's a 24-hour job that person doesn't get to clock out at 4 o'clock and shut her phone off she doesn't get to stay home on snowstorms and not be out she you

know she he whoever that person is I haven't always been favorable of every um Chief of Staff that's been in that position um but it doesn't mean that they didn't deserve that salary uh that is rightfully so on that I also do think that the mayor's salary is grossly underpaid I absolutely 122,000 um another seven day a week 24hour a day that person deserves to be compensated so absolutely and lastly

I'll say since I've been here and it's only been two two and a half years um have heard councelor Pereira talk about um a tourism director and I wanted to gouge my eyes out in the beginning because she kept talking about talking about it and talking about it and I was like if I hear about tourism director all my time I'm going to scream but I have uh jumped on the board with her and

I do think and that's a lot of consideration that is something that you know the city needs to consider and look at and I don't know how we would fit that in the budget where we would fit that in the budget but when we're talking about you know giving money away to you know this art thing and this oper and this person and I think that we need to bring that in house and and focus and

I think that it's something that really should be considered now and so I've come uh you know I did a 180 there um but I think she's right and she's got some really good historical knowledge and she's passionate and I support that decision with her and so that's what I wanted to say about this and with that council president I yield thank you councelor any further questions thank you all right we'll move on to the

next is Mr Akens going to do veterans slow down coun you are city clerk's coming up next ah come on Alison any question for city clerk then we have our own city council I got a quick question on that Council seat 6 counc py thank you I noticed that you have um accounting auditing and legal $145,000 that's most likely for the AIT audit correct which we've received three bids for not withstanding we haven't

made a decision on that but that's a 5-year contract correct okay so if the council were to go with the lowest bidder which was $864,000 divide that by five that's 172,000 so we're going to be shy going into the next year uh what are we going to do with what would we do there if we if we have to honor the contract we have to get the money you want to come

down and even if you want to the second again it would just go reduce all the counsil salaries by 100% that's fine that's we'll go to plan B brid you want to answer the question please yeah so again um we had not opened the uh the budget the prices and what the city um Clerk and I discussed is we would amend the budget as needed but also in those prices comes we those

would actually go down 10,000 a year or we have to look at what we would Char we charge back to the um Fall River retirement and to Diamond for part of the the expense okay that makes more sense then so okay that so we didn't fix that number yet we we negotiate that with them right right right okay that make that makes more sense I forgot about that but I that's okay um because that number was

just glaring uh to me um okay thank you thank counc counc five CC vice president per we're on the city clerks right no uh well we were yeah we're in the city council now there were no question for the clerk but you can ask one if you have one for her um yeah just that oh you had your hand up councelor I didn't see it I asked if you

no say anything no go ahead C all right there two vacant positions um but didn't aren't we having somebody starting did they start this Monday or next Monday we had two retirements one was at the end of March right and that was filled by an internal candidate on April 1st the other was just last Friday and another internal candidate applied and was awarded the position and she started today so the

BAC p uh position they're no longer vacant you fill them correct okay good thank you I yield thank CC CC t7 counc propos you that was my question thank you good any other questions from city clerk city council mayor's office no all right we'll move on to the next one elections just on the city council one yep C a vacancy under Lauren but we have filled that as well yes again this the budget

is prepared well in advance has been and he's doing wonderful I think so we're fortunate we're very fortunate to have good staff next we have City elections Mr President just quickly um Alison I know we we've had conversations about just concerns about the turnover uh with the folks in your office and the potential salary increases have you had those conversations ad yes I have and the um the

administration and human resources are working with the asby Union okay um to to change some of those positions so that they're more of a an office manager type position or you know whatever is applicable project specialist um you know just to try to M just to try to keep some of the staff on board yep okay thank you I Y counc C4 counc kby yeah to that point um of course it's negotiations with with

the Union I've been through this on the school committee if there if the union agrees to label them executive secretaries then they're independent from the union and it there was one particular year on the school committee where it was it was taken with a resentment by a lot because I mean no Union wants to lose a a member of their Union but that's the key if they're labeled executive Secret

secretaries then it's U it's a whole different scenario so and it should be a thank you than7 Council proposal did you have your hands up moving to elections when we're ready okay hold on please counc C8 coun Samson do you have a question for or have elections no just for elections all right C7 go ahead thank you Mr Lions good evening Hi councelor how are you good thank you uh

this question first to Mr Akens I'm just interested on the increases in the department are these Union increases coal increases can you speak to them please specifically with regard to salary yes please um so in that department there are uh three personnel in addition to Mr Lions um they are all technically in the union one doesn't matter they're technically in the union okay um and so there's an

anticipated increase as a result of ongoing appsme negotiations I believe that we will settle that contract um at least in principle prior to its expiration at the end of this month um at which point it will be submitted to the council uh they are modest uh but that is the majority there um Mr Lions is going to speak to the significant reimbursement that his office gets for a lot of the time and overtime uh that's

part of this um but then there was also uh a negotiated uh increase with Mr Lions through the mayor um also premised upon the idea that there is a re uh reimbursement that comes from the Secretary of State's office okay and before we get to that and just um maybe either of you can answer this one of the um individuals I believe was there a job classification change from last year's

budget to this year's um I'm referring to the third name on the list um there was not counselor I have one 11a Clerk and two Nona clerks okay um so if you want to speak to that first uh point you made Mr aens regarding Mr Lions I'm with the inre yes no with Mr to the reimbursements um so for State elections um I'm expecting um reimbursements from auditor daglio um so for our November 2023 municipal election

the state auditor is reimbursing my office um for just under $222,000 and for the past presidential primary um it's going to be just under I believe $62,000 um the auditor has yet to approve the reimbursements I believe I was told by her office um I was told by her office it's expected for her to sign off on that I believe within about a month okay on the pole workers line item

I'm assuming that's to equate for an increase hourly for those individuals um there are hourly rates going to remain the same at $17 an hour for the wardens and clerks um for the larger precincts I did add an additional Deputy Warden and I will be adding one additional pole worker for the larger precincts because we do have the state primary and a very large um state election um in November

in addition to um inperson early voting which will be reimbursed by the state auditor um for both elections it's one week for the state primary and 14 consecutive days for the banial state election okay so I know we talked maybe last year now because we did the changes on the precincts and I think I mentioned you at the time about consolidation of you know like for example where I vote to BCC there's

three PR precincts in one yes cafeteria there y so and I had brought up the idea of consolidating that now has based on what you saw in the last election did you feel that what you have is sufficient do you feel it was too much too little um I think it's very sufficient the only problem that I ran into unfortunately at BCC was the simple fact that campus security did not have

the parking lot reserved as I expected I did have a follow-up meeting with um Jan who is the director of um facilities for the campus um I'm going to be having a meeting with um Sergeant jenta who assigns the police officers we're going to have an officer stationed in the parking lot as well as two posts with campus security at the entrance as well as right outside of Building G to offer

transportation to people might require it because I was very disappointed counselor as you can imagine when I arrived there on Election morning and the lot was full and usually reserved means on hold for someone and in our cas case it should have been half of the lot should have been reserved for voters on Election Day and all of the handicap spaces in particular um were utilized by

staff as well as by students so I was a bit taken back by that so I addressed that concern with BCC and it's been rectified um awesome well in advance of the upcoming State primary yeah I mean but by the time I got down there it was already dark out so I mean I kind of pulled in the back but it mentions what reminds me is to the signage that when

we went along that path was great except the big flashy sign that's the greatest thing that's sitting out there at na so yes actually one is going to be put posted right outside of the entrance of BCC for the state primary and November as well excellent the last thing I just want to mention and I mentioned this last year and I still find it amazing that we have precincts that charge $100

and then we have one who charges a thousand yes I still can't get over that so I know last time when we talked about the redistricting of of the precincts um I had mentioned to would it be possible to look at an alternative location in that Precinct thus not charging US $ th000 to do so so I two questions one have you made any leeway and I think we talked

about this a few months ago yeah have you made any a leeway and finding another location and two have we ever gone back to that individual place and say Hey listen like 100 thousand it's kind of unproportional so two-part question for you in regards to Precinct 7A United Methodist Church I'm assuming um there's one location we had this conversation a number of times counselor that I would love to relocate it's

Precinct 7A um initially I wanted to relocate that Precinct down to the Morton Middle School but unfortunately that's making a relatively bad situation even worse because of the parking situation and there's really nothing else in that vicinity of the of Highland Avenue that could really accommodate upholding Precinct aside from the Morton Middle School which would be difficult

to move down to that section of the city unfortunately um in addition to what they're charging I mean they've been charging my department since we've been using it at least for $500 during covid it was $700 because they wanted additional funds to clean the polling Precinct but I was able to get that back down to 500 after uh the 2022 elections um unfortunately because we're boxed into that one location it's very

difficult to find somewhere else within that polling Precinct to find a physical location to you know accommodate they got no wiggle room on that you know what I mean it's I mean it was just I mean it was very difficult I mean that was when I had that conversation and that's what their insist upon um charging the city and the great thing about our new locations with um St Anthony of the

desert church and Good sheeper Parish they're not charging the city anything and then when it comes to Blessed Trinity and Calvary Temple they only charge $50 per election to give to their custodian yeah yeah 100 thousand another zero I guess in my head um all right that's all I have thank you Mr Li how y to thank you counc SE eight counc Samson good evening this is another another uh difficult one for me because

um I'm going to agree with counselor too this is where it bothers me where salaries need to be raised um and uh Ryan I'm going to speak to you for a minute because you are an amazing employee you do a phenomenal job you are everywhere all the time at all the polls you know I can speak for myself you know my colleague back there on the charter commission is is here you're at the

charter Review Committee and we're you're all you have the answer you're figuring out you're passionate about what you do you really are amazing you lead your people up there you're always positive and this to you know these are areas where I think that we need to increase the salary I look at your Clerk's positions and they work so hard and so it it is tough and I understand that that's a tough pill to swallow when

we're talking about salaries and and they need to be higher so my question for the administrator is when we're looking at reimbursements at 62,000 coming back and 22,000 coming back into his department where does that money go why can't we put that back into salaries within his Department if he's if they're getting that back and historically if there's a track record of them continuously getting that every election

um have we looked at being able to put that back into that department so regardless of how of of kind of where it goes we can't disrupt the pay scale because these are appsme members so if they're a 9A Clerk or an 11a headqu work um they have to be paid in accordance with with what a 9A or R A and whatever step they're in I can tell you that um

we have we have very few eight a left in the city um and there are a number of nine A's all of those are going to be combined into a higher level we're calling it a 10A yeah I don't want this to become like a spinal tap thing where this one goes to 11 but it is actually a significant bump uh for everybody at the lowest end of the pay scale we're

proposing uh an increase um and for 11 a we're doing the same thing we're also talking about creating a 12 so you can remain in the union but continue to grow these are all very well-known proposals that I think are that are being discussed right now I don't know if you can discuss or not you're making changes will they will those changes be within the next year two years is it just being discussed is

it or it's it's currently and I I've probably said too much with regard to something that's subject to ongoing negotiation but I I just want the Council to understand that with regard to what amounts to some of our lowest paid employees um the city is is very serious about trying to increase that and make sure that everyone uh is able to make a livable wage because I I look at and then um and I understand that

about um and thank you for about the um the unions but I just feel that maybe the overtime budget is low I know it looked like like it went up a little bit but you know during the elections you you guys are working so much and you know I just I don't know if there s people get snow stiens is there voting stiping I don't for those offices like I

don't know what they can get I mean different departments get stiens for different reasons and so um is there a place to put in a a stien is that a contract issue too that that we can put in a stien for that department um because that that's a tough pill for me to swallow here and it's going to be tough on the next one too but um they work really hard and all departments

work really hard um but I I you know that's where I'm at with that so I mean they are you know there is significant overtime to be earned and that overtime you know we don't certainly scrimp on one because it's needed uh I mean these guys are literally here it's unbelievable the hours the weekends it's crazy uh and I think especially for anybody watching and maybe if anyone doesn't know the the scope and

responsibility of Elections has just grown massively uh with mail and balloting and and just it used to just be you know there's a day and everyone comes and they votes they vote now the actual in-person voting is is multiple days the mailin is a whole different thing uh I visit you know uh Ryan's office you know at least once or twice a week and and he's always happy always happy and they've got these these just

mountains of mail that they're opening and and you know reconciling and it's just unbelievable um and you know that's that's after they've sent out you know thousands of ballots so the overtime is necessary that is where the reimbursement is so important um because that's been able to offset you know the the overtime budget I I appreciate that and I guess I um well and I just want to

say that it's a tough time to work in elections like it's a tough time to be a police officer it's a tough time to be an election it it really really is and you get hate where you don't deserve it and I want to say as a counselor that I am grateful that you are still hanging in there and working for our city and you do a tremendous this job with that I

yield thank you very much coun counc to am I going to need to put a call out to maintenance to widen that door before this meeting ends probably probably tomorrow is going to be impossible to be around what's that tomorrow it will be impossible to live with a meeting because Ryan's head is getting bigger and bigger and bigger question do you have questions for yes I do so um I guess my issue is

this and most of my comments I don't want them misinterpreted because for the most part there are many positions that I feel that the pay is not adequate my question is if if the increases are based on asme contracts you need to explain to me how four positions in this department got increases but they range from 65% to 155% how does that happen that's that's that's what confuses me um I'm not sure I'm

following you I apologize okay so just for the sake of just for numbers I don't want to talk about people or positions so one particular position in 202 FY 2024 was 33,6 A4 which is deplorable in this day and age it's been brought up to 38946 which is a 15.5% increase but another position only came up by 7% yours increased by 6.5 so his had the lowest increase and

we and we had as much as 15 and a half I don't understand when we have asme contracts and and and they agree on this percentage how we're so all over the place and it's throughout this entire budget book sure cuz believe it or not yeah I'm sure you believe it I literally wrote in the column how much every person in the city's salary increased and what the percentage was and it R

goes from 1.6 all the way to 15.5 I I I don't understand that so a couple things uh one is that within every grade in asme specifically to clerks right so let's take out inspectors and dispatchers there's a bunch of other asme sort of f amilies there but the biggest one is clerks um a 9A clerk has um five or six steps that they can be at so when you see them here

you don't necessarily know what step they're at you can sort of guess based upon whether somebody is at 41158 or 38946 the 38946 is probably a step maybe one or two the the 41158 is probably a step five okay and I and I can I I understand that but let's just assumed the step one or two which was 33,000 how it went up 15.5% you follow what I'm trying to ask

do yeah and I I I think that one I could be absolutely wrong about this but I thought that was a part-time position last year or was it parttime for part of the Year previously previous school year it's the first time having it as a fulltime position so this is the first full budget year where it's a full-time position I think what you're probably seeing is something that doesn't

represent the full year last year um but I I'll verify that and make sure that that I'm right about that uh but there was some changes that we made not necessarily in grades but in the actual number of hours that this person was working so that's a 15% jump is is is huge unusual right yeah that's not supposed to happen unless somebody changes grades and that's why I was

baffled by it I I don't remember off the top of my head but we'll get to it um one there's one department where consistently top to bottom 1.6 1.6 1.6 um so yeah yeah and I can probably guess what department that is and we'll talk about that on Wednesday maybe but um Mr Lion's um uh position is C by ordinance um so that's really the limitation there is that the increase there is the

maximum he could get uh and you'll see uh a request from the administration coming down for his and a few other positions to go so his his was brought to the not to exceed correct which which explains why it's a 6 and a half% that's right okay thank you with that I yield you C C5 thank you so um are you trying to say that the mayor is going to be bringing

down some positions to be contracted positions versus by ordinance there will be a request yes and will that be one of them Mr Lions position as well the vsso Mr lions and a few others okay um but Mr Lions you're not in askme I'm not no so the reason that it got cut at that point was because you've already reached the max number corre okay going back to uh what council proposer said about BCC golf

carts you need one on either end yes that is the plan counselor to bring people back and forth we were all very amazed how popular they they were on Election Day So the plan is to have two golf carts located right outside of building g at the entrance by the handicap parking and also one on the other side as people are driving in or when people are done voting yes that

they can get back to their car correct because I did see some people with canes and they were having a time walking and of course it like a hurricane that day it was horrible but so the rain did not help but that's it other than that thank you very much you're welcome are you Mr President well that explains moving um what' you say it was 7A just move 7A to four over Country

Club the golf carts over there in the North End You' be all set very tempting Mr President or you can uh maybe move it to a little theater in their Golf Cars we have I'll let Council Council and SE seven Council POS yeah and just a followup on the election and you probably don't have this so maybe you can get this for me of how many rides did the elections office provide the day

of the we did not have any requests we did get some at first but then People canceled um so we do have the driver for the duration of the day I made that arrangement with um director Hamilton at the time and I will have that conversation with the new vso in the near future thank you I thank you any further questions for elections okay we'll move on to Veterans thank you very

much Mr Lions finally veterans thank you very much councel Council and seat seven counc oppos on thank you counc so a few things um Seth if you want to give an update on the status of a new vso we have a new vso um very exciting uh we interviewed um six or seven folks uh really qualified incredibly decent people with a great commitment to Veterans uh each of them with a different experience uh in the service

different branch of service we had uh Marines we had Air Force we had Navy we had Army um and uh we selected a gentleman uh who this week is uh in in vso training uh on Cape Cod it's a Regional vso training uh we we're able to get him in there immediately so he would come in with some context and also be able to have some interaction with some other local vsos uh including our

former vsso he's already been in touch uh pretty uh significantly with uh former vso Hamilton who is um giving a great deal of her time to try to make sure he hits the ground running and um this is a gentleman who um uh was the president of the student veterans association at BCC um has a lot of close relationships with different veterans organizations already um has served as both a uh Naval

petty officer as well as a marine um he's stationed with Marines as a naval petty officer but he has both those experiences which I think because of the uh number of Marines we have uh in our veterans group uh different groups is is kind of an important uh uh additional qualification to have um I will be inviting him down to meet with you all and asking him to reach out to each of

you to introduce himself uh his name is Talis Ferris uh he's an exceptional man uh with a uh real uh love and heart for veterans and and serving and and reaching out to Veterans I'm really excited about um what he might be able to do for the city so with that said the annual salary that's in the budget is that accurate it is uh so he has accepted uh an annual salary that is within that

statutory cap um of course with the inclusion of the auto allowance uh his position will be one that I will be bringing down and asking this Council to remove from uh an ordinance cap to a byy contract and at that point if that were to happen that's a that you would negotiate a contract with that individual no uh we have terms that we've agreed to um and those terms are

set um I think uh depending on what this Council deems to do and depending on the financial situation um you know I I would not be against in six months having a conversation with him uh about maybe renegotiating the terms of that contract because I think that um the way that's Set uh is just is lower than what most other vsos are making um I think it's no secret uh that um you know vso

Hamilton uh one of the reasons why she was lured away to Foxboro is that they could offer significantly more money um and you know when you're just trying to you know pay bills by groceries and put gas in your car that that kind of thing makes a difference um so yeah I will be off I will be asking the council to raise that but I do not have an immediate uh plan to try to raise the

terms our terms are our terms Fair the last question I had what kind of goes back to last year when there were two vacant there was a full-time vacant position now is a halftime vacant position um because according to the details it mentions that the vacant investigator's job was made two two part-time positions one has been filled the other one we hope to fill soon so I go back to last year and I asked the

question of is there an intention to fill the positions and so a year P one of them was half filled yep so give me an idea of of the second one the intention is to fill it or is there something in the pipeline that it will be filled shortly there's nothing in the pipeline that it will be filled shortly and at this point um there is not a specific intention to

fill that position okay if Mr Ferris comes in uh and identifies to us a need that he sees we'll certainly have a conversation about that um because I think the person who's running a department is in the best possible position to tell me what he or she thinks they need in that department and how best to support the people within it to make sure everyone um is able to do

the work that we're asking them to do um we there is um a position in here a senior account clerk uh that recently moved from the veterans department to the clerk's Department um and so there is at this point an intention to to backfill that uh because the job descriptions the way they're prescribed within that department each has uh you know very specific responsibilities with regard to chapter 115 veteran Outreach

rides uh and and medical and all the other aspects of veteran services it's fair so with respect to the new vso obviously let let him get settled and determine if that position is needed but I would advocate in the idea that if it's not that money be turned back into direct Aid to vets which I think would be useful I know there is an increase of 3% but I'd love to see that 23,000 get

moved over to Aid directly to vets um in in the program that Council Dion and I worked on together through arpa money um we saw some Aid go out to vets and obviously with that money the one time money that will dry up if we could commit a little more extra Aid to our vets I think that would be useful absolutely but I'll again in respect to the new vso I'll let them make that

decision before we Advocate on that behalf with that a yeld thank you thank you councelor C5 C so you are saying that the senior account clerk Position will be filled that's the intention yes that's the intention because there were some good candidates that may fill into that um the memorial monuments there's no way $2,500 are going to clean monuments in the city and they need to be cleaned and that's the

responsibility of the city whether it's through the park department or the Veterans office I think you have to make a decision and I think it should be through the Veterans office and pay them enough to do that um and I know that there's not a lot for quarters money I think they gave quarters money last year just gave everybody money and thought that that would just keep everybody happy but I

think they want more respect than than money um for the vet ceremonies that they have and the parades did we give any money this year to the Children's Parade from the city right no I think it was all I thought it was all our onetime money to the Children's Parade this year for this coming year yeah it wasn't it was not budgeted money it wasn't budgeted CPA some Mone uh but it was for

the veterans parades you give $20,000 for two parades you know how expensive it is to put on a parade every ban you have to pay you have to get Transportation so you can't say you care about veterans and then not fund them um so I would look at saying that some of that needs to be um needs to be increased a little especially The Monuments I'm very concerned with The Monuments because we do have monuments

all over the city um and we need to keep them clean I mean the Polish monument in front of Blessed Trinity Church Father Rob clean that up but that really needs like a pressure washer or something it you know needs some help there so we want to keep things pristine especially if we have a trolley going around the city and people are seeing our monuments we want to make sure they're clean

absolutely I love the trolley but I'm glad that that position is getting filled to and uh concerned with The Monuments and I think they need a little bit more money maybe they can take it from someplace else I like the idea that they're working with the um uh Council on Aging too for rides and transportation that good move to do that um but that's all I have to say about

that and I'm glad that uh and by the way tyos Ferris his nickname is Doc Doc so I think it's going to be a lot easier for everybody to say Doc when you meet him and I I I think that he'll be exceptional in that job so and I'm glad Michelle was willing to give him support and that was the primary reason of her leaving was funding when you're putting a child through

PhD doctoral program I don't blame her right no I don't blame her but she did love for River and will help in any way she can so that's a wonderful thing I agree with that I yield thank you thank you thank you coun I just want to point out I know we talked about the try a couple of times but we do also now have a water taxi yes let's remind the public

of that as well C C4 I wish we could all go on it or we can't cuz it's only six so before we leave that's all right we can take turns I think it's a good idea let's try it I know it's approaching 10:00 but I think you received uh a lot of input with regards some large items that are probably not doable within the budget but some smaller items uh as

Council PR just uh mentioned so you do have the ability to make some changes make some changes maybe offer some amendments we can increase the budget but it'd be nice to see that the input that you get comes back in the form of amendment with certain certain things that I think a council we we feel we feel important so I don't think I ever seen that before but it would be a nice

thing maybe to uh to throw that around okay so I you think the council should let them know what kind of changes they're looking for Council Cate Council Samson I'll make this uh real quick because a lot of the questions were answered I want to take this time you're a veteran and so thank you for your service I don't want to leave that out so um the veterans agent I'm glad you're

coming before us I mean just the surrounding towns are paying $10,000 more than what we're paying they poach our great staff so we need to increase that it's a it's a low number um The Monuments that is too low I mean we have beautiful monuments in this city Bicentennial Park is just a tourism attraction and so we we really need to in it's $25,000 it's not enough I know that you know that I don't

know how we're going to increase but that that's just not enough to to take care of what we have um so those are my two sticking points I that I really want to get bought tonight that um I will yield thank you coun any further questions jur Finance question one more for order isn't oh sorry no that's for tomorrow Council that's that's another we're done for today we're done for today everyone

done oh you just came to uh be here got to love you guys motion to adjourn has been made and second all in favor I oppose city council meeting nowour see everybody tomorrow night o hey hey hey hey hey hey hey he hey hey

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