6.6.2023 Fall River City Council

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to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting to any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or perceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible before we begin Council prayer will you come up and please and get the citation out

hi Mr Beanie we have to kind of speak into these microphones yeah but um they put this all together they have to be first citation and the Durfee Alumni Association did this because you've done so much for the school so be it results in recognition of exemplary contributions to the public education and the history of Fall River via 3000 the city of Fall River extends best wishes for continued success and that

this resolution and these are some of the examples of the scrimshaw that Mr Feeney does he has a company here in Fall River the Historical Society carries if you want to go buy something that is done go to the Historical Society but I I think it sometimes we don't look at the positives that we have in Fall River and I'd like Mr Feeney to kind of tell us the story

people we actually just started off where Walmart is with Max gold and the old Essex manufacturer what we do now is is I have I employ between seven and ten people all locals what we do is we make a product which actually make scrimshaw I don't know if you guys know what that is yeah well yeah well we use various materials we use whale Ivory which I can only sell in Massachusetts

we use woolly mammoth husk well I go to Alaska a couple times a year actually you did the mammoth with natives we make a whole line of Sterling Jewelry using that and then I make a whole line of jade jewelry it's all in Sterling or Sterling plated with 14 characters most of our space that we have we're in 1A Street which is right behind the registry it's the old trainer Mill and

what we do there is in that space is we do a whole reproduction line which is what we have here we call it Eco Library I trademarked the name and we donate monthly to um one place is called the sheltered Foundation trust they did a lot of research to see who actually helps the animals and they actually help elephants variety of animals but you can direct where the money goes so I direct it to

the orphanage so when a mother dies they have planes that go around the continent of Africa bring them back to try to raise them up and put them in a different herd take take money off my credit card every month so okay sometimes I forget but the space there is just making primarily that product what I did is I brought some pieces along I don't know if you guys want to see them um

um we make the bookmark that they do very well the bookmarks are similar to The busts that the Whalers used to use of course it stays in the old days and we saw a lot of these we sell them all over the country so I've got some for all of you guys all right but we do a lot of different things we make boxes of course the jewelry bracelets um one of our better items it doesn't

a coaster set s Braga Bridge the lighthouse big Mamie and the show it to you oh you guys wanted me to pass this around yeah just give it to one person and they'll pay well I'll do it yeah and give everybody a bookmark yes okay all right you have a place in the bathroom

yeah I know we almost bought a building there but my oldest son didn't own that accent so I said you know this is absolutely beautiful thank you this whole story on the back tell us about how the Whalers use them and what they use can you replace it a place where you're selling in the train that you don't treated milk like I said we take money anytime so people can give them a little tour

people like to see we have full Mammoth husks in there like to see that the mammoth's about 25 800 years old with carbon dating to verify the age well I do want to thank you for coming in sharing a little bit of your story how you weren't from Fall River about your feet landed here yeah I love the community loves the community stayed here and I just watched for people to hear out

there that we are doing some really good things on behalf of the council thank you thank you so very much and I will make sure

thank you thanks guys thank you very much is thank you Linda you said I could have a courses no I am I have one already so I leave that one to Joe I like the dirty ones too we have one individual that signed up for Citizens time his name is Tom Santos he is a Somerset native I believe we need some motion wave the rules a million seconds all in favor

aye aye the subject matter is dcms the Celtics have three minutes please greetings thank you council president thank you to the council members for allowing me to speak those of you that don't know me my name is Tom Santos I reside in the city three times in my lifetime I come and lose that in Somerset and within the past few months myself went to fairies and Mario do what we resurrected the Portuguese Portuguese

veterans in the city we came out with uh Portugal American veterans in Bristol County as there was as there was a little um back back fees with regards to compliance with the state so we created a new Charter the reason I'm here is I'm here to Express gratitude to the following employees from the DCM as many of you may or may not know the pdpabc embarked on a major recovery and renovation of Santos score at the

corner of Columbia and Broadway with the help of DCM this project included removing old stumps old fencing and a couple of dilapidated flagpoles that were dancing in the wind every time the wind blow over 10 miles 10 miles an hour flat flag hadn't flown in that corner for years the polls were unsafe the organization purchased three new flag poles two benches new fencing for the area fresh landscape

new signage and a plaque to own a Corporal George F Santos in the Portuguese American veterans of Bristol County the DCM crew was invaluable with their skilled labor resetting pavers straightening out the existing handrails these employees as a former Municipal Employee myself they're an asset to the city they provided skilled labor above and beyond anything that that I asked for them they

did they bent over backwards to make this project happen this project was started at the end of March and it was completed before two weeks before Memorial Day including hanging the hanging the plaque on the on the stone um their talents and hard work I can't I can't think of the words just to say they they were unbelievable Charlie Denver news Darren Medeiros Jerry Souza Steve McArthur David Prue and Chris aggia

outstanding employees they're an asset to your city they represent they represent the city they wear the sleeve they wear their hearts on the sleeve and if you go by that corner you can see their hard work that corner that's that street corner is an asset to the city now coming in when 79 is done down below that's one of three one of two thoroughfares into this straight into the city 30 seconds please

that's all I have to say thank you concentrate six country vice president Tom I thank you very much that corner does look a lot better and I know Walter Cabral was thrilled at being able to help out or do anything he could do there because it certainly enhances his business jobs Market cleans up that whole area so thank you and the employees of the city many of us know

how hot they work and it's nice to have somebody come forward and say it publicly because we do appreciate them but thank you for your hard work not a problem it was a pleasure doing this um just so everybody knows today marks the 79th anniversary of D-Day yes and many many of the veterans in this city if you look at the plaques a good portion of passed during 1944 including including George

thank you very much thank you thank you thank you thank you we'll continue on with item number two continue discussion the proposed fiscal year 2024 Municipal budget as follows departments carried over from June 1st 2023 committee on finance agenda first we'll have General government Board of Elections come down please

thank you

you could just introduce yourselves again for the record please and to take the titles Bridget Allman director of financial services administrator Ryan Lyons chairman and director of The Board of Elections

the questions for you under professional salaries I'm just trying to differentiate between the salaries and wages of permanent positions and professional salaries with the increase of 39 percent Mr Lyons you can speak a little bit to that please sure um the professional salary line item or for my poll workers and we do have three elections for FY 23 our preliminary municipal election the

November general election and the March presidential primary hence the 115 000 increase makes sense in total good as far as the pull what do the poll workers get is there a wage set or yes I pay my Checkers 15 an hour to coincide with the minimum wage and I pay my wardens and clerk 17 an hour okay is the overtime factored into that as well because the additional election that's going to be happening uh no there

is an overtime line item for my clerks in my office as well as for um DPW okay and then lastly other professionals other personal services can you define what that thirty three thousand dollars is that is actually for a new full-time position in place of the former part-time senior rate position in my office so that position is that the head Clerk of 9A is that what that vacant position you're referring to as

yes it is okay and what's the nine age if I my ass oh that's the classification for I had Clark all right thank you very much thank you Council concerts vice president Pearl Mr Lyons I think you've done a great job I think that we have to realize that over the years elections have gotten a little bit different uh where you have early voting mail-in voting and I know that you and I

have talked because when I go through the budget I do contact or you know the directors and division heads and I was impressed when you said that um the mail-in ballots that come in are going to stay at City Hall in election Central rather than police officers bringing them over and then to the different precincts and having them counted there and bring them back that just you know

that just makes a tremendous workload I'm sorry to interrupt constantly no no it is so I think that you've done a great job you had some big shoes to fill and I think that Kelly was a great mentor to you and I'm very happy with what you've done in elections it seems to be a happy office where people are constantly working and doing well so I thank you for that I have no further

questions I'm Mr President thank you very much good evening hi uh basically just two questions maybe three questions so I see you have a vague on page 79 you do have one vacancy uh head clerk are you anticipating to fill that or has that already been filled all right it should be filled with the approval of the budgets for FY 23. it's too big to be built um office equipment and Furniture maintenance 7 500 to 24

000.

um so it shows up Replacements these were have these Replacements already been done or is that the projected cost at the 24 000 to do all of this that is the projected cost if the budget is approved by the Council of February 23.

and not to be facetious but we okay dollars a piece I'm sure it's possible that was the number that was quoted by WB Mason but I'm sure I can find something cheaper than that but I want to be air on the side of caution but it was roughly the average cost for an L-shaped desk which is required for my department is about fifteen hundred dollars give or take wow well basically that's all I have thank

you very much thank you culture and seat seven control sorry I had one more question on the building rentals it seems that one of one of the rentals is very much unproportional to the rest of them so is is I'm assuming that's not defined by you that's defined by the site in which yes okay that is the required amount that uh United Methodist Church charges the Board of Elections wow pretty good

deal it's 500 per election yeah is that's per election per election oh okay so any in that particular ward has there been any other options other than that or unfortunately not there was no other physical location in Precinct 7A that can hold of holding Three Saints I wish there was no I understand okay okay you're welcome thank you Council 25 Council Ryan you got any extra money in there in case of an emergency

in terms of additional help in the office no in case we have an emergency recount new election that we went through many times in the past and uh you know do you figure on that uh I did not I would have to come before you to request money for a special election if something happens

well you'd have to come in for more money I would yes I'd have to request money from the council to hold a special election once you adopt the date for us or order a special election if there is you never know we haven't had one in a while with that ideal okay thank you congressman debut no further questions thank you Mr President um so just in terms of the professional salaries uh so the 83 to

115 so I guess I recognize that obviously there are city city elections on the state elections those change but just going back in the various budgets so we we saw FY 22 or 63 000 budget and then there was a 20 000 increase of FY 23 and then a 32 000 increase so what what's the driving cost and factors behind that between FY 22 and this year yeah so so I

guess over two years we've seen a 55 000 increase well I did add additional monies for extra help in my office to help with the bill by mail process and to help with the advanced processing of balance before election day I had to take that into account so roughly I came to 115 000 so it solely just the hourly rate for yes for the additional Staffing to come in this early voting and everything included in that

well there's no in-person early voting it would just be to help with um the advanced uh processing of ballots as well as all of the prep work to prepare the ballots for mailing so the if there were early voting would State cover that they would reimburse the city for a state election but that would be for next year next year and then I guess this is a minor detail

but why are we covering I guess ftes and the other Personnel Services and not capturing it in the permanent salaries even though it's a vacant position is there a reason for that so the position has been a part-time position we haven't come before the council yet to try to create the full-time position so rather than assuming anything or presuming we put that in the budget to make sure there was money for it and

provided the council one approves the budget and two approves the creation of this other position we would then fund it that way and transfer between what happens so is there a new is it a new job description it's not it's just a it's just an additional full-time purchase so it doesn't really require Council approval on the job description per se right that's true okay uh however it is it is

a change from a part-time position to a full-time position s all right yield thank you so I guess now there being no further questions here Mr Lions thank you very much thank you thank you the next general government categories veterans

I do want to State the council the Pam for Liberty could not be it today she did have a prior commitment and she could not attend today's meeting please State your naming Department Michelle Hamilton I'm the director of veteran services thank you thank you accountancy seven counts proposal hello Mrs Hamilton how are you good just the only question I had was in regards to the Head clerk slash investigator so

that position is still vacant who is currently doing the role all of the folks who process the chapter 115 do their own investigations at this point okay so is that something that eventually you'd like to fill to do that or is that going to be changed what is that how's that going to work out for you in a perfect world I'd love to fill that position okay um right now

we're pretty okay the way we are okay daddy yield thank you thank you so does that mean you'll be looking to look into where you are we're going to keep it the way we are right now okay can't you see three counts coming thank you Mr President so um what what the question I was going to ask on that vacancy what are the duties of a an investigator so the clerks Who currently work chapter

115 they intake all of the paperwork they interview the veteran they go through and validate everything okay so for them to also take the next step and make sure that the lease is true that the bank accounts are correct it's kind of all-inclusive and efficient that way okay so it actually is a head clerk validator so it just validates applications for benefits applications for benefits along with the financial

aspects of all of that as well yes sir okay oh that's the only question I had but I just want to give you some accolades for Memorial Day celebration thank you it was wonderful thank you it was a lot it was really really nice and I think the The Limited things I went to a couple maybe three or four unlike Council prayer it goes to all of that Urban stuff but uh it's I I think over

the last 15 years a real city is really transformed uh in terms of celebrating our veterans there's so many locations and features of the city that it's it's wonderful it really is so but I really just want to I meant to call you but I just want to give you uh no I appreciate it sitting here it's uh what a wonderful weekend event it was and the weather was wonderful and everything

went fine thank you so much thank you I just have one question training you have 25 000 last year this year 2500.

so last year was a king error in the budget twenty five thousand dollars was not correct they meant for it to be 2500. the Veterans Administration pays for most of our training um we do have to go to various events and get trained on specific things within the veteran Community but that 2500 is just fine for that line item thank you for explaining that counseling seat six Council vice president like I

said I do um speak to people but I I want to say this publicly because I got a call that they chopped a million dollars out of the veterans budget no they didn't no then it was well they chopped 200 000. no they didn't um so while uh Mrs Hamilton is here the money that was deducted was a lot of the chapter 115 Monies that we get reimbursed 75 by this yes

but we don't have the number of veterans with the chapter 115 that we had last year that is correct so I just think that that needs to be clarified for the public the other thing I like that you did was a lot of the subscriptions usually everybody in the office would get you know have a subscription for everyone in the office when everyone in the office isn't going to all of these things so

um it's not necessary smart and you are pot but the one question I have when we do or when you do the chapter 115 that has to be recorded on a monthly basis to um Ian shackney over in collectors Treasures to then be submitted to the state to get our reimbursement is that up to date because previously it was you know submitting four four months at one time and then it takes us time to get it

back so is that pretty caught up we're pretty caught up we're up to March good okay so we're up to March um what ends up happening is each of the clerks all of their information gets sent to the VA in a timely manner monthly okay but what happens is they might not have a certain piece of paper or the rent changed and we want you to go back and fix that so there's a

little bit of back and forth between the office and the Veterans Administration which holds up the final report so it isn't that the paperwork and that the submissions aren't done in a timely manner it's that there are updates that happen to those submissions therefore the month isn't closed out until we have everything gone through fixed corrected and just made that it balances because

we don't want to submit something and then have to go back and fix a budget that is not correct and I can see it being a couple of months off yeah but to you know to then submit four months at one time or five months at one time yeah we don't do that we submit on a monthly basis to the veterans administration thank you and I do work with you a lot

with the veterans and I'm very happy to have you in Fall River and you've done a very good job thank you I appreciate that I yield Mr President any further questions nope come to see one Council thank you just so just looking at the salaries is a seven percent increase is that just the difference between the salary for the new veterans agent compared to last year or what's driving the seven percent

that's part of it um so there is an increase uh between the veterans agent last year um there's also a reclassification of one of the clerks that's in the works uh so it's a it's an aggregate of a couple different things so you you had mentioned the vacancy we're not looking to fill the vacancy not currently so what does that mean does that mean for the fiscal year not looking to fill

it or I I would say for the fiscal year we're not looking to fill it however if we start picking up and I do anticipate within the next year or so that we're going to have more Vietnam veterans fall on our chapter 115. um guidelines which means we would have an increase in the number of veterans where we would service therefore the clerks would have a little bit harder time validating all that at that point the

clerks would go through and do their part and then maybe we would revisit the investigator position so can I ask the administration then so why wouldn't we just remove the 40 call it 41 000 from the budget so we can either reallocate to another department and then revisit for fiscal year 25. so there's two things going on just for context so that position um had been vacant uh when BSO Hamilton took a position

um in putting together the budget there was a feeling that she hadn't had enough time with her staff to really know whether she was going to need that position or not um I think uh I know that that position was filled under vso Hague but for a period of time it was not filled uh under vso Britto and so because uh vso Hamilton um is so new to the position she just

hasn't had a chance to really get to know the staff enough to know if she wants to fill it the second reason is that if you look at the number of veterans that we served last year it was a significant low over the the 10-year average and the question is is it because there are fewer veterans services or was there less Outreach and therefore fewer veterans aware of the availability of services

that's a that's still an outstanding question and I think that the Outreach that vso Hamilton has already started to do is going to result in more veterans receiving chapter 115 benefits and more of a burden on the staff to respond to that so the only reason we wouldn't take it out this year but may in fact take it out next year is that I I don't know that she wants to

lose the position in case she learns over the next year that one the need is more and two that she wants that position for her office to run the way she wants it to run yeah I just feel I mean it's it it's just a wasted position just to tie up forty forty one thousand dollars when you've got other departments who obviously are not getting everything that they're requesting right so I fully would

respect that if she came back before us and for fiscal year 25 saying that she needed the additional position that we would put that in there but just to to keep the 41 000 and I know we can transfer at some point but me personally I just prefer to see that removed if it's not needed or we don't think it's going to be filled or if we think it's going to be filled six months

uh throughout the year then let's just do a half year higher and only budgeting twenty thousand so we know it's a mid-year higher that's just my own personal opinion on that but just on the so page 81 so talking about the performance measure so this is this slide's identical to the one that was presented last year so I was just wondering do we have FY 23 projections in terms of um

the number of forms that are going to be submitted for the vs21a so in 20 because I'm just looking at the numbers so FY 20 were we were looking at 2757 and then 21 year to day so I don't even know what 21 finished at in terms of that number but it was I'm assuming that probably April time period um it was just under 1200 and then the projected for FY 22 was going to be

2800. do we know what those numbers are we don't at this point um I expect that we'll have that probably in the next 30 to 60 days but at this point we uh we don't have a projection what about the so I mean where several several years behind right where I'm a 24 budget right so we should know what the 21 number was right the final number 22 we should know

roughly maybe uh I guess them as to where we are in 23.

and then some some type of projection for 24.

I can get that information for you uh but I I don't have it available right now I apologize

I'm just I'm struggling because I'm not I I don't want to be that person but we got a budget document and we've got performance measures and we're two years out of date on the performance measures that's that's the only thing I mean we're not even close to I don't even we don't have actuals for 21 we projected for 22.

um no yet a date for 23 and we've got no projections for 24.

I mean I don't know why the slide would be in there then if it's if it's just not there with with that I yield thank you maybe we need to hire someone to fix this we are in the process of working through it I just don't have the numbers we haven't gotten through it yet um I don't want to speak to any issues from from uh the past we're moving forward and vso Hamilton's doing

a great job um but we're trying to resolve uh uh finding information that we didn't have uh prior to her arrival so and council president thank you um so how do we I guess how do we project right so I mean if we're looking at the budget I mean it's all going to be based on projections on numbers that we anticipated so what were the numbers that we use for the for the budget you

know I know we're talking about potentially uh some Vietnam veterans coming on but you know there's also concerns that I have with regards to Veterans not being able to meet the guidelines right the requirements for the guidelines so I think that's a that's a major issue so just in terms of and I know what folks are saying out there about trying to cut or that the veterans budget is being cut it's not

necessarily being cut it's the numbers are not what they used to be because there are veterans that are no longer able to meet the guidelines that are before us right so that being said similar to the situation we're not making Cuts we're adjusting the budget to to adjust for the demand that's coming before us and I just again when we got a very lean budget for various departments I just want to be able to

make sure that the analysis that we're doing is captured and we we have an estimated number of veterans that we're going to serve and that we know exactly what we need in there and then if it is a reduction because of the number of veterans being serviced then I think a reallocation at that point uh needs it to be needs to take place I mean because again and I recognize there's a lot of needs across

the city um and we've got a it's a balancing act and we've got to try to figure out how to allocate these monies and and we all have our personal preferences as to which departments we want to see get money it's just you know I think as we go through this um if we can find ways to reallocate some monies that are just sitting there right because it's one thing to to just have

it and say okay we're giving this to the veterans but at the end of the year we're you know we're giving back three four hundred thousand dollars and that's I mean that's not accurate numbers and just making that up as an example I'd rather see that three four hundred thousand dollars be reallocated to a department that could could utilize it to provide the services um that they feel the department

provides to the residents that's that's the only thing no question I mean the point is well taken I I have no um I mean there's no way to disagree with that you're absolutely right um the reduction as you can see the eight percent thereabouts uh reduction in this budget reflects the eight percent reduction from the state in the chapter 115 benefits um which as it turns out is a little bit of a blunt

instrument in in terms of projections and planning um what we really need and we don't have the numbers available to us right now and we will soon unfortunately um is the actual numbers the actuals uh from what we did last year and what we did the year before uh it just wasn't um that numbers those numbers are are not available right now but I expect that we'll be able to get to the bottom of

them uh soon and then perhaps come before uh this Council if we have to but I don't think it'll be your request for an increase it if anything it's probably less of a need uh than more Mr President thank you

collect that data from so the state has um their own records of what was actually submitted but then within the office there's there's records as well I think in addition to just what the state has for chapter 115 there's all the other sort of ancillary Veterans Services and that are in contact that the BSO has and that's actually where some of the the issue is so I shall you're doing a great job

where how difficult is it for you to find that information is it getting it from your clerks is it the state I have a con I know how many veterans each of my Clerk's service through chapter 115 right now the problem that we've had in the past was a lot of veterans who come into the office aren't 115 veterans they may be VA veterans they may just be veterans

who need help with things so we are on the phone all of us constantly nobody ever kept track of how many people did they talk to on the phone how many people did they service at the front window how many people did they service at the front window that didn't qualify for chapter 115. so once I started probably a month because I've been here three months probably a month after I

started we were like we need to really start keeping track of this because nobody has any idea of the number of people that we speak to in any given day so I mean I can tell you that in our office we probably do five VA claims a week and those are just plain VA claims um for chapter 115 we do 240 a month currently because I had them print me out how many

clients they have right now and none of that facilitate none of that takes into consideration the amount of Veteran contact that takes place in the office that doesn't bring financial gain to a veteran right so those systems were in place before is that where you're thinking some of the lack of this information came yes ma'am then it just was lost and you're putting those infrastructures in place right now yeah

okay that that makes sense I I yield thank you good evening hi how long have you been with us now three months three months and you seem to have a very good handle on what you're doing I'm working hard and um I guess more of a comment I have um when I see somebody who seems so capable and seems to feel so comfortable in their position and then to have somebody else say well

we kept the money in there because we didn't think she knows her staff well enough and that she's in a position to make that determination yet um that didn't strike me well I think you're very confident and you do know you're not going to need that position and I you know you're seeing your staff every day you know what they're accomplishing you know they're getting the job done without any difficulty um

so I guess I feel like more I'm defending you than anything uh that well that was in my opinion that was that was that's what I'm saying but it was contrary to what she said and it just struck me oh I don't agree that I felt bad for her that you were now saying you didn't think that she was going to know where staff well enough it's not what I

said what I said was that there's a belief that Michelle has not had the chance to to make the decision on her own so that that's really what it comes down to is I want the department has to be able to say hey I have the right people in the right spots and at this point three months in getting to know the job you know getting to know chapter 115 getting to know all the different

facets and just getting to know the veterans that decision just hadn't been made yet it was just a bad timing thing I have all the faith in the world in vso Hamilton she's unbelievable um and is exactly the person that we need at the right time but I think the three of us agree at this table after a lot of conversation that uh there's a lot of information that needs to be figured out because

there was not a lot of history Left Behind unfortunately to to base some of these decisions on well I think I um have to agree with my colleague in seat one that that position that those monies uh should be removed from this particular budget um obviously if she needs it down the road we wouldn't hesitate to to let her have it um when the situation arises that in the test necessitates um the extra dollars

um do we do we receive federal funding I'm not sure what you're asking me do we receive federal like we get State funding and city funding for your department yes ma'am do we get Federal money no no federal money no State and and any VA claims regular claims that are veterans administration claims those go through the VA and those payments and things like that are made directly to

the veterans we don't get any Financial um impact on that okay thank you with that I yield okay for the questions just want to Echo a lot of what my colleagues have said you are doing a phenomenal job in the short time you've been here and I can see you know the council's points I agree with it as well um but I can see how it happened to be there if you came here three months ago

this budget was probably being formulated when you first started arrived and I probably felt that let's leave it there in case you do find it you do need it but I will tell you in a few months if you find you don't need it please let us know so we can move it out of there to where it's needed yeah absolutely thank you so much thank you thank you keep up the good work thank you

next we'll continue to facilities um facilities

if you could please just state your name and position for the record please Al Oliveira director of City operations Charlie and me direct the department Community maintenance thank you accountancy seven counts proposal good evening gentlemen just the two questions first is other Professional Services an increase of a hundred thousand dollars you define what that is please sure page 141. sure we're

embarking on a capital project plan uh part of that we we have some Design Services OPM Services that's all part of the Professional Services

is there any more to that than just what you just explained or is it just did that well I mean we have some projects um that we're earmarking and part of that we have to have designer we just completed a design specifications for uh on-call Architects and we're completing right now OPM anything over 1.5 million we have to have an owner's project manager on site for any project that we have

and then the move of the print and mail room under facilities and removed from what was I believe Mis that number that's captured there of 154 153 that's just the expenses themselves where does the salary line item come over I think that's that's the piece I'm missing did that come over into yes facility salaries it did okay help me within wages and salaries permanent under facility sellers the bottom four um

bottom four under the salary section those are that's part of the security telephone mail Clerk and the print services those four came on board okay all right and then under on that page 142 the carpenter electrician the plumber the vac tech and I'm not sure what that last one is but custodian maybe what is it evening custodian okay are those all vacant positions currently so yes so we're we're right now uh

embarking on a uh a re-org of the reorg this whole department is going to be reorganized with the funds that we currently have it'll be uh no no additional funds but we're going to have to reorganize this facilities group we have uh we've had it in the past we've had two Carpenters we had two electricians two plumbers I have a full plan to reorganize this and we're working through right now with

the collective bargaining group so when you when you mention the reorg of the reorg are you looking at a savings at all are you looking at Net Zero Zero okay and when do we expect to hear more about that we should hear more about that once we uh once we're completed working with the unionized look and then that's processor already started it has okay all right that is actually yeah thank you gentlemen Washington

good evening gentlemen just have a quick question the um reduction in the office space upgrades please tell me that's not to the Lewiston Street if you're not the reduction there no what you're looking at right now is just the facilities end right now we have we have a larger plan year marked for the Lewiston Street project okay is that part of the other Professional Services okay good I just

want to stay I was down there with tour and your guys and women deserve the best down there and it's very archaic so I'm glad that that you're still moving forward with those plans to get those people to break room so all right with that I yield council president thank you good evening good evening so salaries and wages permanent there's an increase of 228 136.33 increase um what drives that increase so

there's a there's a combination of we we have the the those four folks that we talked about from The Print Shop mail shop uh telephone and security we've included that into this budget we also added a couple more facilities projects such as a facilities tech and evening custodian those funds the evening custodian funds will be saved from the private custodial group that we have we'll have one less they I just

feel we need coverage for someone that works for us instead of an outsider working here after hours so there's a savings where well just it just a one-to-one on that end um and then we we're reducing plumber one plumber reducing an electrician so what we're adding is a a facilities tech someone who understands a little bit of HVAC electric um someone that could visit the um Armory somewhere that can visit the uh

fire stations police stations just to do a little bit of inspection of the mechanical systems um my first few months in here we found some major some major issues and that's what we're trying to do so we're trying to make sure that we're we're saving the taxpayer dollars instead of going for large capital projects so essentially you've created four new positions with the security the

telephone the mail Clerk and The Print Service now those were already Mis yes so the five vacant ones the only thing you're technically filling is the um position you just spoke of the facilities tech that's the only odd odd position so the other four will not be filled but you're reorgan part of the riog we we will have some of those positions filled yes so in other words for example we have a a carpenter that um

we have senior custodians those positions are all going to be filled under this under this program

okay I initially understood you to say that you were eliminating the carpenter Etc but no we're not going to eliminate we're just going to re-org positions and titles okay um Cemetery you have on page 147 one vacancy um director's position is vacant and a Mio lab vacant I assume you're going to fill the director's position we we interviewed for the food okay for that employee stop very well speak as part as part of

the as part of the rioga of facilities we're also going to reorg DCM uh in within their groups and it'll be a zero increase on additional funds so we're going to utilize that those funds for a reorg of the positions yes we're not going to hire a director for this I'm not going to hire a director but you're going to use the 67 750 in another manner correct

okay um I have a few questions on Solid Waste so one of my pet peeves so let me start with do we have any intention or have we 've taken the business trash off the table or are we still picking up and do we still intend to pick up business trash there is Zeke we are at this time and have been discussing our options and how to address the business trash and we have a couple of

promising uh possibilities on how to directly uh goet go at it and uh we have implemented a couple of okay let me just give you a little background here because this really really bothers me this Council although there were a couple of members that weren't here in the beginning in 2020 started talking about and asking for the business trash to be removed we know that in the easy disposal contract

there were 78 businesses that were they had recycle cards not trash carts recycle cards pink cards they purchased part of a program because at the time you made money with recyclables when the easy disposal contract was negotiated those 78 businesses were going to be allowed to have their recyclables picked up then that morphed into trash and recycle now we have over 200 approximately 266 businesses

that are getting trash and recycle picked up multiple cards multiple cards that they weren't even involved in the easy contract um which represents a significant amount of money and all we we just can constantly and continue and this and this actually is from a city council meeting August of 2022.

uh councilman Michelle Dion stated that she would like to discuss a matter from yesterday's meeting with God in solid waste we got into the business trash and the city administrator stated that there was some significant problems with choices that we made with regards to Solid Waste and Recycling but that the administration wanted to uh correct the matter well we're now in 2024 um and we still have done nothing it's

still hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table and I I just I have no patience with that anymore um the second thing I'd like to touch on are the six families the city allows 295 gallon recycle carts for every six family at least that's what it says in your paperwork I didn't make it up we have 69 6 I think they deserve more I don't think that's that's that's

adequate for a six family we have 69 six families out of hundreds that have three we have 19 that have four two that have five two that have six one that has seven and forty that only have one where's the equity where when are we going to follow our own policies when are we and that represents 126 carts that are being picked up at how much is is it for a ton for recycle now

110 126 carts at a hundred and ten dollars uh per ton that are being picked up every week yeah yeah add that to the over 200 of the business cards now we're looking at close to 400 cars I just clarification how many Cuts make a ton it depends it depends counselor on the uh what type of car if it's a recycle cart or if it's a solid waste caught in

um exactly how full it is uh some of some people overload their Cuts some are filler uh filled with a large portion of organic Organics which weigh more than regular household trash it it depends right so I mean the councils throw out numbers of so many cuts and so much money per ton but there's a difference there of how many contacts actually would make up a ton it's a variable I

don't know it will differ depending on what type of uh ingredients and what type of material is in each car well they they have an average obviously if you fill your cot with cans it's not going to be as heavy as it will be if you fill them with bottles the point is we're looking at 400 carts that should not be out there that cost the taxpayer dollars no matter how you slice it you

know I'm trying to figure out how much money it is per cup in the past we were quoted we started at 300 000 just for the business cards it went down to 200 000 I don't know what number they're going to quote now I was not in 2020 so I want to find out what the numbers are what the cut time what the prices are so easy disposal at this point we're in year eight 4.9 million

dollars for that contract and it costs us another just shy of 4.9 million for disposal Etc so we're over well almost 10 million dollars just just for trash Council can I tackle the commercial end of it the first part um we acknowledge we we understand what what we're up against we're currently in negotiation with with easy at this point so for me to get in deep of what our next plans are it really wouldn't make

any sense but we understand what's going on and we will make a decision shortly on that the next thing I'd like to touch on if I may because moving forward it's going to affect our budget I imagine the pilot program for cardboard um unfortunately I have a couple of issues that I'd like to bring up now because we weren't part of the discussion so we couldn't weigh in on anything um

so cardboard I know it's only 400 houses but it could extend to the entire city so now we have again um we've purchased carts I don't know what the dollar amount is on that I don't know if we've bonded for anything um but the point is so you're going to be picking up cardboard and recycle every other week so instead of recycle being picked up every week it's going to be

every other week now you have eight weeks and B weeks that's correct correct we're we're in the middle of trying to do a pilot program to understand the needs and we're trying to just take we're trying to segregate at the curb that's our mindset at this point we're trying to reap everything we can on the recycles and to be able to segregate at the curb would would be a major savings

to us that's why we started a pilot program to understand if it's feasible to perform that work or if we're just we're just not even going to go down that road we just need to figure out what the next steps are Council okay because what my issue is the other week you're picking up picking up Cycles in a press release that stated anybody that has overflow and you can't wait

two weeks to for your recycle be picked up well you're welcome to bring it yourself down to uh Lewiston Street well people paying more taxes more money for Less services and a PowerPoint that was presented um the city was told that you know we're doing a balancing act and our tax dollars we're going to put into good use and one of the things we're doing is enhancing services not when you take away two weeks out of

a month of picking up recycles you're not enhancing Services you're you're cutting down on services and I get can we make money on cardboard sure but I I don't I just don't think we're doing Justice to the to our residents or taxpayers who are paying for that and in the easy disposal contract frequency of collection uh is once per week so I don't know how we sign a contract at the taxpayers

expense and then go against again go against our own contract basically that's what I have to say On Solid Waste on page 166 you have a vacancy administrative head clerk under Solid Waste is that position going to be filled it was filmed Council we feel that um about three weeks ago okay so I can take that one off my list um and I only have a couple more things and then I will turn it over

thank you let's see page 1169 oh yes one on page 169 I found this interesting the water and sewer uh CSO charge that um the department pays to the city water rate sewer rates went up every ball of residents bills have gone up but the Departments went down is is stayed flat stayed level at 21 700. why would this why would yours not increase your portion to the city when the residents

um all of their bills have gone up so this is a budget to budget I know we looked at the actual expense expenses so the actual expenses may have been lower so we budgeted like trying to go we looked at the last few years of actual expenses so you based this year on last year we based this year on the last several years and looked at what the future is so okay because what last year's was

revised to 21-7 and it's exactly the same for 2024.

um on page 170 there's another vacancy motor equipment repairman ER we promoted one of our in-house employees to a motor equipment repairment but we also had four employees me the other employment outside and fortunately they got better paying jobs but uh so we are advertising for four additional drivers at this time this is the police and update so that position you are looking to fill

in addition to the others so yeah we we filled the mechanics job and we're looking great at this time for four additional CDL drivers okay at the top of that page this just wasn't clear to me and maybe I'm just being dense we have you sir who is the director of community maintenance Cheryl Moniz director of community maintenance and in between a manager can you explain how we have two directives of hearing

maintenance and what the managers function would be or is this some type of it wasn't printed clearly because print something went wrong there it's the big joke down the bond right now everybody 's laugh for some reason it must have floated down so her position is what Mr Clark okay and the manager is vacant and so we attaining a new manager but I haven't appointed anybody yet is it possible that that won't be filled

we have the directors of the operations we have the director of streets and highways do we need a manager as well well we we interviewed for the job we just haven't announcing anybody okay well with that I yield thank you yeah just to follow my colleague's line of questioning so what what exactly is obviously you're the director of community maintenance but what is the manager's role going to be

would be to assist in managing uh the Department of community meeting streets I always so solid waste and help process all the administrative work so that would be directly below you directly below me which would help me to assist both of all five divisions okay and when do you anticipate you just mentioned that you've interviewed is that correct we did and when do you expect that decision to be made um

hopefully soon soon okay if I could just go back to the solid waste question for a minute on page 165.

you have Solid Waste Disposal and then Solid Waste Disposal other what is the difference between those two things page 165.

it's always disposal I guess I guess my bigger question is what what is the other part of those two line items collection well there's everything down so I'll release other that contains mattresses uh oil uh access disposal soil disposal types of uh Mercury items like that do those so you collect fees to obviously for City residents to bring those things forward correct do those zero out or does it cost the city more

to get rid of than we take in it oftentimes mattresses we even out tires we often even know but the paint the paint when we get paint or oil itself oil we take in free and it's it's cold it's DP picks a proportion of it a large portion of it that we pay out particularly for our maintenance our maintenance division that oil and anti-freeze that's all co-mingled together okay and then kind of the same question

recycling slash yard waste recycling recycling other what's the other so I recycling other is um we get Thai is yacht yard waste I mean more recycling always but we get tires um different uh CRT where we electronic disposal um we also get computer monitors computer computer well anything that's Electronics we have to dispose of that so that's part of the that's part of the other yeah those

other those other items I guess and again same question the fees we charge for that less or more than what we're taking in would residents pay less than what the cost because we include the hauling and you just yeah in the labor but it's just for us to charge the actual price I think would be offsetting with frame more illegal dumping into people would be hard anymore but well I guess my only point to this is

that a lot of places especially locally like Staples for example takes in electronic recycling we need a victim yeah two laptops come in and we I dispatch it we all divert them to do it okay some don't want the inconvenience of going two places yeah which makes sense so my question as far as the thirty thousand dollar increase is it just because of the cost of hauling it and disposing of it is that what that 30

000 increase fuel charges and Hauling charges have gone we all move fuel going up falling going up anything that goes on the truck a whale it's all going up and that's that carries a large portion of what we see in our increases and Mr Oliver up to you if I could to my colleagues question C2 you said your currently in negotiations the easy contracts yeah do you have a timetable

or a rough estimate of when you believe you're going to see the end of this conversation we don't we don't have one but we'll we're currently on the table we're currently meeting to try to drive all the parameters and make it an acceptable contract and the contract is it because it's expiring or you're renegotiating it we're trying to renegotiate so it's not just with easy it's not just as easy but it's also with

Republic uh we've been talking so we have both pickup and Disposal and in order for this to work we have to negotiate with both parties and you know as I think you know if anybody who follows Solid Waste especially in Massachusetts knows it's getting harder and harder and more and more expensive to dispose there's fewer and fewer places for it to go municipalities and towns are sending it farther and farther away

and so prior to the easy contract expiring we wanted to see if we could renegotiate some of the terms of that contract to deal with commercial which I would agree is is nowhere close to what it was intended to be when the contract was was first executed and at the same time see if we can find some some creative ways to cap some of those costs to manage some of those costs because everywhere you look the

only way those prices are going is up everyone sort of agrees on that and so we're trying to figure out a way how can we lock something in that's more favorable to the city that helps us manage our solid way solid waste the it's the issue of the of Our Generation really if we don't find a way to manage it we're in serious trouble and that's what we're trying to do with with easy

and Republic I would hope that we will have something uh in the next I think we had hoped to have it before July 1st um time is getting short uh we've probably met six or seven times now um and it gotten very deep into the contract so it's it's very much about details at this point and when you say or negotiate the contract with easy are you looking to renegotiate and extend or is it going to

be renegotiated to the whatever term or the contract is left I can't speak to that at this point it really depends on whether there can be a meeting of the minds between the parties as to what you know something that is is you know beneficial to both sides okay and can you share with us the contract and dates for both easy and Republic so easy has um I believe two more years

Republic I believe expires in 10 months so sometime in early 24. that's correct quarter one of 24. and then easy is two years so we're talking sometime in 26. yes sir roughly 25 25 thank you no it's 26.

2060 expiration all right so it gets a little over two years then 26. somewhere roughly but it should be early 26 is that I believe it's June of 26th if I remember correctly but I'll find that it's in here all right okay yeah all right and Mr Oliveira back to you just a question about the pilot program do we anticipate that if successful will that bring additional Revenue to the city because of the value

of cardboard is is that kind of your long-term vision and plan that if successful it will bring additional Revenue to the city that that would be definitely the goal that we're looking at anything that we can reap finances on so with the citizens um can get that tax break would be outstanding okay I guess one of the concerns that I think about when it comes to cardboard is just what happens

how are you going to manage cardboard that ends up being contaminated where does that turn into how does that turn into play now because that now that just goes into disposal right just just straight trash we would divert that Council in in the overall picture of this pilot program is not just the um the separating the corrugated in for the fee for the be it being a commodity commodity but it's

also a waste diversion it's diverting that that command that commodity from the co-mingle uh stream because all that weight we're actually taking on that with that cardboard from that co-mingle that's wheat we're taking away from the tonnage of co-mingle that we're sending up there paying a hundred and ten dollars a ton form so if we take in one day the one that this the portion of this route if we take two tons of

corrugated from all the Amazon deliveries that just my wife gets alone and she gets all that club corrugated from one from one day right two tongues so that's two tongues not only we are going to cash in yeah it's two tons we diverted from the co-mingle so now we went here and we went here and if we and if it doesn't work out we have cots for the add to our recycle

because they're the same color it's just no lip that's different that's it yeah I mean I I see I see the long-term idea because like you just said more people are shopping online more people are getting stuff shipped to their home I mean I wouldn't be shocked if I have five boxes in my front door today so I get the feeling I guess my long-term idea is that you know how can

we like you just said divert from the waist to yeah I mean we're going to drop the load on our floor at Lewiston Street and we're gonna open it up like we do now when the when the recycle trucks we we move all the contamination as much as we can get reload it with the motor and with and we'll send it over to Mid City and cash it and how long is the pilot

program is still over what is the timeline for the pilot 10 months we're gonna we're gonna run it as well as long as we as long as we can if it's successful we're going to at least give it six months at least and then we'll know especially we'll know it we all sleep monitor it and uh we'll know okay so six months time we'll be able to ask you you know what you returned and what

the long-term plan was we'll have the stats also I look forward to that conversation I yield thank you point of information it is June of 26th the original contract was signed June 10th 16.

thank you Council a quick question as far as cardboard goes can people take cardboard to Lewiston Street on Saturdays or we have Lewiston streets open to receive recycle days both co-mingle and cardboard every day during regular business hours so what a regular businesses 7 A.M to 2 30 on weekdays and seven to noon on Saturdays now if you have a city resident and you have a couple of bags of extra trash you're

also able to come down there and throw it in the Overflow so if you have overflow co-mingle you can bring it down if you have more cardboard than you need you can fit your car you can bring that down everyone comes downtown or somewhere down Plymouth Avenue at some point they get down there what about a business as an abundance of cardboard can they go down on Saturday you have a business and you have

corrugated you can you can bring your corrugated in we're willing to take that car we are willing to take it and I mean how do you want them to package just throw them back in a pickup truck and go down take it down if you can you're going to load it into a container you load the container if the container is full and you get there you let the other attendant know and know what

they'll empty the container and you can be rolled it right from there

thank you so my New Year's resolution was try not to get frustrated at Council meetings and here I am six months I'm good and and one thing about me is is I don't like going to amusement parks I don't mind roller coasters too much but you know the Merry-Go-Round gets me really really dizzy so I try to stay away from that and I get frustrated when I get dizzy um so needless to say I'm extremely

dizzy uh with with this budget I'm just I guess I'm confused that the messaging that we've been getting in the past is now changing or we're having the same conversations over and over again so I'll try to address some of the concerns that I have um because it's just not making sense to me so I'll start with the evening custodian so we privatized that was going to save money and now we're going back to employing

custodians for what purpose what what's the reasoning behind the need to have an evening of sodium at City Hall So currently we have privates you know in the building at the end of the day we have privates in the building we don't have anyone that's a city employee overseeing that group but the company's bonded the company is buying okay so I will say that I've got private still in

town of seconk at night they have keys they go to the police department they do that so I I guess I'm still struggling to understand how the city in one year makes a determination that we're going to go privatize the reason for behind privatization is that it was going to save money and now we're going in a different direction I just that's what I'm trying to figure out and and the actual need

for custodial Services between a private and then hiring somebody full-time with additional benefits and things of that nature I just you know the messaging to me is I I've and I'm I apologize if I come across you know as an obstructionist or whatever the case might be I'm just I'm just getting a little bit frustrated because you know we we get a message one year we do it for a couple of years we shift right it

goes back to the trash we've been talking trash since 2020. I've got to hear that you know we're going to negotiate with easy well I don't understand how that has anything to do with the fact that we're picking up business trash right if we stop business traffic saves money so go negotiate with easy still save money so I I almost feel like we're being told things and we're just supposed to accept them

and not really think for ourselves like okay that makes sense you know so that's where I'm getting a little frustrated so I didn't mean to drop from one topic to another but staying on the custodian how does having a private company versus an employee coming back so doing the opposite what the plan was makes sense the thought process is having a city representative here after hours with the with the uh

part-time with the uh uh cleaning company there's no there's no consistency on our end there's no making sure that everything's buttoned up there's if there if we have some type of a leak I mean we've had throughout throughout the winter we've had issues that popped up we didn't find out to the last moment that they go in they do the cleaning that's what they're hired for is the clean and not maintain this

building at all having someone on our end that I can call at any point in time that they can call me at any time they can call our Representatives at any time if something does happen I don't have that confident at this point with that with any firm that's a no but I I don't I don't know that was the point I mean if are we looking to have somebody 24 7 just to monitor the

building they're not they'll be they'll be cleaning they'll be doing they'll be one of the cleaning folks is going to be eliminated that person will be cleaning but we'll be here closing the building up and did you say that was Net Zero it will be Net Zero we'll we'll say we're going to save on that end because they're right they're raising their rates and we're going to at least get someone on our end all

right so just help me understand and because I still I still don't agree with that I mean that's that's on you that's a decision you you're gonna make um I'm not here I don't know that you need somebody to monitor the building I can probably tell you that there's a 80 of the municipalities do not have somebody at nights in all the buildings right so I so if there's there is a leak

there's a leak like I that's why we have insurance and hopefully it's not as bad as we anticipate but there was a lot of a lot of discussion that was had and some of my colleagues not all of them that were here but some of them had concerns about going to the privatization and again it was about saving money so now if we eliminate one person it's net zero right so to me it

doesn't make any sense how is it Net Zero and how is it not costing us because then that means the privatization didn't save us money Net Zero on on the whole budget Sean I mean it works out we can I can make it happen that way um having someone here is vital I believe it's vital it's vital for the taxpayers it's vital for everyone closing this building up making sure it's properly closed making sure that

they are inspecting making sure if you're in a council meeting guess what if if the if it's too hot if it's too cold we'll be able to control that having someone represent the city to me is vital at the end of the day I would argue that it's not necessarily right does health insurance this pension there's a lot of fringe benefits that go with that so I don't know that the 48

000 is not zero but I'm not here to to beat it up I'm just saying that we're moving in a different direction than what we were told from privatization so um how many is it going to be a union position are they going into into law how many they're going into law initially initially I battled that but when I saw the benefits to it it just it made so much sense

so then there's other benefits that the custodial person is not going to get that they're going to receive in the union so I I don't know I I don't I don't see that I don't see the knee personally but that that's on that so yeah how many individuals I'm talking about one One Less on the on the private firm with one has one closing closing the building down here and I recognize we're only talking about

one but at the end of the day when we made when the argument was put to us it was a cost savings that we didn't need the individuals that we was going to be there I I don't I don't see it um then you talked about the re-aug to the riyog uh and you and you said that that was going to be net zero right just looking at the FY 23 and I'm assuming we're gonna

you said you're gonna adjust some of the job classifications that that were there but the electrician and it was electrician maintenance so I'm assuming you're going to go from electrician maintenance to um electrician electrician one the electrician maintenance position was 55 809 and the electrician one position is seventy one thousand twenty three dollars I'm sorry that's not the entire 73 445.

so that's a 20 000 increase so how is that Net Zero can you repeat the question so the electrician position right so unless I'm your your statement the question was going on with the position instead of vacant here and you said there was a re-out to the rioc and that it was going to be Net Zero but you were making some adjustments to the classifications um so what we have here is a carpenter

two electrician one a plumber one facility Tech and then you got that evening custodian so when you said you got to make some adjustments to the job descriptions a similar job description that was budgeted in fy23 which was vacant is electrician slash maintenance that's at 55 809 so it was 54 789 but when you get the longevity how they pay clothing allowance it comes out to 55 809.

your electrician that you have budgeted with all those the snow stipend clothing allowance which by the way the evening custodian Net Zero is going to get a snow step in of 1250 dollars um so I would still argue that's not zero but um the electrician won salary is 73 445 so almost about a 20 000 increase so we're not even we we currently don't have an in-house electrician we increased the electrician rate to

make sure that we can get electrician and plumber so that part I I have to get electrician in here I have to get a plumber in here I can't find anyone at the the uh at the rate that we were paying someone at that time no I recognize that but your statement was it was Net Zero though I'm just I'm just going off what you said I was just trying to figure out

what I'm looking at this it doesn't seem like necessarily I'm just trying to understand how it's cost neutral maybe maybe the way I explained it no one really understood what that meant but Net Zero meant the the positions that I currently have here I'm going to reorganize this department for the same cost that we currently are asking for right so for example if the bottom line is 957 000 I'm going to reorganize this

department with the correct amount of people in here that's going to include that that cost

I I guess the you know the other concern that I have is just salaries and I guess I could talk about them and I'll and I guess I will talk about them individually but the salary percentages are pretty significant and then when you look at individual salaries you know some folks again six percent some folks got 12 percent you're seeing ten thousand dollar increases like this budget is a 33 increase and I know and I

recognize that four positions um are coming from Mis over here so that that's a little skewed but I'm just curious does the administration have a an analysis on salary so year over year FY 23 to FY 24 percentages for the total City what that percentage increases we do not but these These are union positions that were re part of abscme that were reorganized and that was increases that were approved previously

no I listen I recognize that but there's also individual contracts that are seeing increases and and you don't necessarily see the increases unless you compare the FY 23 budget right so they kind of so the FY 23 budget had no raises in it at all if you remember so those were so those FY 23 budgets were really based on FY 22 salaries yeah so I'll get into like when I have

individual questions I think this one in particular is probably going to be the 33 is going to be for the most part is is the four that are coming over from Mis so I'm comfortable with it but as I was going through um and then when I'm looking at salaries in FY 23 the salary budgets are actually sometimes lower because you've got a revised budget so there's some reductions in those percentages are

still pretty significant um so I'm just curious total overall budget what the percentage increase looks like it because they gotta believe it's it's well over six percent just on salaries year over year with with all the increases that uh that occur on every single Department yeah fire if not more right so I think police and fire you're going to have that's going to skew it that's a large budget right yeah it's

troll got more than 14 so I mean I guess I'm just concerned with the increase that increases across the war that that I was I wasn't expecting to see that I guess is is what I'm saying I mean most of the positions are union positions that are already have cbas in place and those that's what you're seeing reflected and it's it's a roll-up of two years in most cases

so if I look at so just the so page 140.

so salaries and wages that is going to be the new so it's going to be Mr Oliveira's position right so so the FY 24 of the heading's a little excuse so the FY 23 revised budget is 70 000 but the FY 23 original budget was budgeted at 95 300 right yeah and then we so then you went you went down to 70. well that position was a new position created when you

approved the reord so that position didn't exist that we took money from other forget what the name of the position was and the person yeah director of facilities project manager yeah so we transferred funds from that and moved it into um to this line and again it was only Mr Oliveira started it'll be six months when we get to the end of the year so it's half no I recognize that but but I mean we

had a director of facilities at 95 3 right so there was but you also created another position in that um I think that was Mr denby's position okay so just I thought so too I just um I mean if I misspoke so no no so um so I think councilor Dion is right uh to a certain extent John's position John Perry's position um was taken over essentially by Mr denmead um and then the director of facilities

that position went away project manager position Went Away director of community operations essentially became um what was the director of facilities plus uh and also took over DCM or overseas DCM cemeteries trees Parks um and so the 95 000 thereabouts plus the project matter position constituted the majority of the new director of community operations position uh and then Mr denmy took over John Perry's position

right and during those re-awgs we were we were told and I specifically asked because I went back and forth I said well you're going to create a new position and I was told no we're not going to create any new positions but the individuals would do what they do but now on streets and highways we've got a manager position which is that I actually think that position existed that was an existing position

a manager yeah manager of streets and highways which budget was that was that that's new to me last year's budget streets and highways yeah it's been I believe it's there's been a manager's position so I arrived there in 2000.

it was just for a while it was never filled who's the last person on John was it Melinda who's Melinda so the last person to have that position independently was Melinda Warren yeah and then John Perry sort of absorbed that position and didn't fill it but that's what I'm talking about so you streets and highways have gone from 33.5 ftes to to 41. right so so when I and this is what I'm talking about when when

folks tell me that it was in there right so if I don't if I'm not looking after the FY 23 budget I'm gonna take your word for that the manager's positions in here it's not in here right this this is I guess that's what exactly what I'm talking about like please don't say things that are not accurate right so there's a director of community maintenance a head administrator administrative clerk a head clerk a

part-time head clerk a manager of operations Workshop comp workers oh this work is comp permit there's an asphalt laborer several of those positions concrete labor are several of those positions Meo laborers Meo laborer two several of those positions emio Meo laborer 2A sweeper uh motor equipment repair man several of those positions special CL BS supervisor a WF uh supervisor of concrete a wrf

motor equipment working form and CDL working form and CDL that's it so when we're doing the reaug I I was told we're not adding another position and now we've got essentially what a manager would constitute in the system I just feel like I'm I'm so um so like I try to support the administration and then I feel like once we do that I get sold a bill of goods because that was a conversation I had

when we were doing the ryog and that's why I was trying to support it that we weren't going to add additional departments that's why we were getting Al was going to oversee it so all right so if if it's not in last year's uh budget I apologize but looking back so when the idea of the filling the manager position was first presented that was my first question because we had represented to this Council we

weren't creating positions does it exist um and I know going back five six seven years more than that that position has been filled Melinda Warren was the last person that killed it by herself it was then left unfilled so I don't know why it doesn't it doesn't make it into last year's budget I apologize that it appears that way uh it appears that that it's being misrepresented that's not the intent at all

um the intent here was to try to do um to try to allow Mr Olivera to organize and constitute his Department in the way that he feels he's going to best be able to get the mission done without adding any new people that is the intent um but if it's not in 22 22 3 23 23. thank you um then uh then I apologize because that's absolutely not uh What uh what we're trying to do here

and I don't want my comments to be interpreted that I'm not trying to support Mr Oliveira right so I want to support the department um and I want to make sure that we're getting there I guess what I don't want to do and I'm a little concerned about it is just growing a little too much right because we're totally able to do something within the structure and then we're we're adding new bodies and new

bodies and and you know I keep hearing that you know Diamond's gonna come on Diamond's going to come on I'm telling you I Diamond's nice we're digging our own hole right and I understand salaries and we talk about being competitive I mean but the salaries are significant right so it's not even gradual um it's you know year over year and I get there are some Roll-Ups I recognize that

um but I'm a little concerned about that and then I'm also concerned that you know getting to the trash I mean we've been talking about that since 2000 so how does how does negotiating with Easy in other contractors impacts us from stopping collection on business trash well I mean that was the statement that was just made yep right so can you explain that to me it's constantly it's how we address it

it's how we address it and that's been the discussion amongst the group that meets on this is how we how we address it I appreciate that but how does that how does the easy negotiating with easy impact the picking up of business trash it it's what they have in the contract those they what they have in the contract in the appendix those uh would cause a yeah no I don't I don't think

you're understanding and it was only 78 businesses and we're collecting 266 businesses I uh when you did your study Council I I piggybacked it and I went out and I did my study along uh when Mr Perry was upstairs and I understand it's it it's the addressing it and how we I mentioned how we address it when uh we come out of this contract negotiation but what's up with all the respect I

think yeah misunderstanding my question because I'm not talking about how we address it right because I know how we address it we send out notifications to the businesses and say that we no longer are going to be picking up commercial trash right per the ordinance we're going to follow the ordinance so my question is how does the negotiation or ongoing ongoing negotiation or future negotiations with easy disposal

impact the collection of business trash because we were just told just hold off let us negotiate with easy I don't I can't find the correlation between negotiating with easy and us making a determination internally because if the administration doesn't want to stop picking up business trash then you need to say that as opposed to just kicking it down the road and hoping that the city council is going to have

amnesia or dementia and forget to ask about it but we're going around and around so and again being told that there's an impact on negotiations I'm just trying to understand how is it impacted so acknowledging as Council Dion very clearly set out that what easy is doing with regard to business trash is significantly more than they ever agreed to do at the start that said there remains at least legally

some level of obligation for easy to pick up some version of business trash it's not what they're doing now but it is some version of business trash if the idea is that part of the negotiation is to release them from picking up any business trash should say okay we are going to support you and you are going to acknowledge no more business trash being picked up that creates an opportunity for us to negotiate some

other side of the contract now I'm I'm sort of exposing the position here but that's part of it they say okay we're not going to we're going to take no action to enforce any part of the contract that speaks to business trash and you are going to not pick up business trash but we need to get a better term on some other part of the contract that's you know in super rudimentary terms that's part of what

we're talking about yeah but but I get it so I so easy comes in right if they're if they're doing the contract they're not picking up business trash with the exception of schedule a and I'm not sure what the schedule is but it's not all the business trash so so easy is essentially do picking up more right so if you went to him and said Hey listen stop picking up business trash they

would be happy with that right because that's less man hours that's less truckloads so it's a benefit to them right and quite frankly I've said this before you know when we started having some change that they're picking up more trash and the fact that they haven't come to the city saying Hey listen we want more we got rid of pays you throw right the fact that they didn't knock on the door saying we want more um

you know we want we want a significant increase already an increase in the payment that we're receiving for our contract because it was a pay as you throw there was limits you know now everybody's doing it everybody came off privates came back on so they're picking up more trash to tell them that you're not picking up businesses I don't I don't know that's part of the negotiation and that's the

thing so for me it's it's what I what I truly feel is and I think a lot of my colleagues share this is that the administration whether that's you folks at the table or the mayor does not want to tell businesses that we're not picking up trash and if that's the case then just say it because I don't want to continue to have this conversation about why when are we going

to stop picking up trash when we know that there's a a savings to the city for not picking up trash right so and then we have to identified it at least about two hundred thousand dollars whether that was accurate I'm not sure that wasn't that wasn't my numbers that's probably Fair that's probably a close number okay and I think it was it was ironically enough school committee man Agia that

that had mentioned every time we come back that you know he keeps bringing it up that every year for the last uh you know three years you know 200 000 that's almost over half a million dollars that we could have saved over the three-year period right so um I recognize that but that's all the questions I had for facilities I know I kind of went into some of the other stuff because another member went into

that but I'll hold off until we get to those departments I yields yeah when I asked about the CSO I forgot to ask on page 141 other supplies slash print shop supplies FY 23 budget zero now it's 354 153 dollars because it's not so that the 353 000 is in the Mis budget in FY 23.

so that is the line item from the Mis but why did that get switched to in The reorg Print Shop went over to facilities print shop went over the facilities so just give me one second the page was that

was that let's see so it went from 268 530 from them and now we're at 300 and whatever we just said are there other departments that also went over the facilities um the security the telephone switchboard and the mail Clerk and The Print Shop all four of those came over so those four total at 350. okay now in terms uh just one last question on the sewer which I want to get to that

at a later date because I have a lot more with that but um doesn't Mr Berlin normally generally calculate the Wastewater fee yes so did he do these calculations or did we just look at past years and and and decide we would plug in numbers no um it's my understanding all of they all had conversations with Mr Farland so it's not just I mean it's based on water usage as well I mean

yeah well I thought a few minutes ago you said well we did yeah historical usage and and costs and they I don't I mean shots for every single department head reaching out but they were all told to reach out to Mr furland to help them build their budget around their water their water expense okay so the assumption is they all reached out and came back with a number after speaking with Mr Ferlin that's the

Assumption that's what they were instructed to do okay all right thank you I'll yield for now on that concentrate six kinds of Vice Presidents most of my a lot of my questions have been answered I was also concerned with the trash that we need to do something with um Mr Oliveira did we look at that rhodachopa that chops up all the um garbage and Lodge items so that we can pack it

quicker it's easier to get rid of we haven't looked at that specific item but we are looking at all means of working with uh recyclables okay because I think that would be a good thing um Mr Denman how's that composting program going that's saving us any money taking alleviating a lot of things from going in the trash what's your feelings on that the compost is the compost is a sewing and people people

are buying them and it's not going as as uh is productive being as productive as I would like how many uh compost and bins have we put out there probably sold around 30. 30. I'm okay yeah yeah now uh how about stipends we have any stipends anywhere besides I know you do the snow the only statements we have are employee Staples they're built into this cbas but um we don't have any there's no other stipends

and maybe none for management or anything like any one so for purchasing now who's doing purchasing Mr Oliveira are you all right I'm the interim purchasing agent as well as Rebecca um from Treasure you get additional money for doing that I don't know how about Rebecca Rebecca doesn't also are we looking at maybe getting a purchasing agent we are still actively looking for perfect okay

we've interviewed several people um and we extended one offer that person was made a better offer by where they worked and didn't come because I know that cleaning up properties there hasn't been any um any bids done on that and they're just going you know I don't know to who or to what but there should be bids there should be a bid process there unless it's an emergency and I can't venture to see we

have that many emergencies around the city so I would keep an eye on that we are still actively bidding like we are getting bids out yeah working there um as a clerk and we're working with her Rebecca and I uh constantly we're working with her whether I'm writing the specs whether um Rebecca's looking at the financials and we are we are keeping the uh the purchasing it's almost like boarding up

a house or going and and mowing the lawn I mean you know some people that bought houses from out of town they just collect the rents here and they don't take care of the yacht and to be honest with you the fees that you pay for a fine first of all we don't even have an ordinance that talks to the height of grass um so that's something that they think we

need to look at but what the fine is it's cheaper for them to just keep paying a fine by the city than hiring a landscaper to take care of their property just you know other people who live on the sides get frustrated um you know just people just don't take pride in what we used to take pride in those are the only oh one comment on the cemeteries the person that's the interim

up there doing a marvelous job I hope that we hire somebody in-house because I I think it's always good to promote within um those are the only questions I had everything else was that I had was already talked about that there's no need to rehab thank you so much with that IU Mr President does anyone else have any questions for facilities or Community maintenance oh my God that we do in all the Departments

they came down together I'm all set with facilities if that changes and even table who comes up next yeah can't you see one Council team thank you um sorry

so for uh Cemetery salaries can you can you just explain that maybe you might have done that already it might just be the um adjustments that were done with the collector bargaining agreements but if you could just the revised FY 23 budget so you've got it represented as 342 949 um and then last year we had originally budgeted 377 so what was the what was the reduction for the 23 bringing it down by that 30 000.

I believe that was a new hire but it was that the just the director moving is that is that what that was the director moving so I think the reduction is that uh Mr perrano moved from um cemeteries over to engineering and planning uh but that was only for a portion of the year so it was an offset okay

and that salary was that that's the salary he was at a close to is that yes yeah so is that I'm assuming that that would be the I guess what the increase would be you reduced his salary on that that end say that again so when he left you must have reflected the salaries right because it was 377 000 now it's represented as 342 5523 so just looking at

the 342 versus the 365 for the six six percent is that just bringing that back up to the salary it should be four years with the caveat that there we might have actually lost one more person towards the end of the year um to account for the reduction but I'm not certain I have to just look at the can you go from what page you're looking at oh I'm sorry uh 146. so

revised doesn't say 377 497. oh did I'm sorry did you give me a revise on Cemetery no but oh I don't know how you have the wrong page when 146. yeah I got 342 949 just salaries and wages right not not full much oh yeah I'm sorry up top salaries I'm sorry yeah okay I'm gonna get the bottom number no no no in FY 23. the top 342 okay yeah

I'm sorry the numbers just happen to be the same hmm but I I think that's so I think I'm okay so I think it's Chris going to engineering producing that down and then now we're making the correction for FY 24 24 yeah all right should I keep going you might as well um I guess just moving apart Parks 151 uh the 11 percent foreign foreign for that one yeah correct salaries yes 712 000.787 000 yeah

page 151 yeah first line the teamsters or 13th Street yeah yeah okay sure that was the C the CBA the bargaining console that actually I don't want to contradict Mr tenby but that that can't be 11 because the CV these are these are asked me I switched it in my head for a minute and the apps me increase um had a total fiscal impact for all three and a half years of 326 000 so

that can't be that I can answer that oh great okay so as we had said before we didn't just come down and revise and we because if there was vacancies um we didn't just transfer money into these budgets so some of this you're seeing is still at a lower rate because if we had some vacancies well he didn't come down and ask to increase all these budgets to roll up everything

I'm sorry I didn't follow that all right so there's been vacancies so those vacancies those vacancy savings covered a lot of these increases in Celsius budget in this year's in the current Year's budget yes so we didn't we haven't come down and asked you for um the full transfers as if every position had been filled all year so that we've had vacancy savings that covered some of these increases

so we haven't so you're saying the FY 23 budget is not fully reflective of the full CDA at FY 23. yes gotcha so that's 645 should have been higher had you come down had we come down and all the positions were well and I and I did say that in a previous meeting that we weren't going to come down and transfer money into budgets that didn't need to be transferred because if there was vacancy savings okay

and then you know how I feel about Parks I won't I won't go into that whole conversation about parks and we we have been having a lot of conversations about funding for Parks yeah and you know I mean my theory and I think your theory probably is and you try to do the same thing and you are professional role is you try to maximize every opportunity for every all funds and you know there's

funds that we can use for parks and I can't use we can't use them in other departments so we're going to try to maximize all of the outside resources we can good sorry I'm just going through nearing on behind I think that's a solid waste I oh the only thing I do have on solid waste so so what so there was the increase and I I think I made a statement about it but I never really

followed up with the question so page 170.

so last year the FTE is worth 33.5 um and now we're at 41. so what do we what are the increases no we went up to 39 calls calls in the uh we lost three from eight now we're at we're actually at 36 and we uh we posted up for the last four we were we're at as high as the 39 the spring brought on construction in uh us through four of our new CDL drivers that

were here for about six months so you were budget to go but the budget only had you for 33.5 ftus uh last year that would have been the last year well the current year that we're in yeah whoa no we we rolled up as uh up to 39.

total totally throughout the DCM Lewiston Street just give me one second I'm sorry

we have eight so this is one more position yeah with the director would be um yeah see you're

so you would you had 38 so you were 33.5 the streets in the highway so did you combine then you got the 4.5 but that was director of Maintenance so so you took the 4.5 plus the 33 is that what it was yes added it so you were at 38 so now you're at repositions so you were at 38 ftes last year so what are the three positions well they entered last we have we we split

one between streets and highways at in uh to Clark it's always is there is a head of Ministry of correctly split so that that'll consists of one and they split half their time and so we just added the manager didn't have one from last year so I so for example if you go down to the one two three four positions they represented that as a one it's really a point five FTE so that person is split

half here and half in another spot so that forty thousand is that what it is like 40. yeah so the 20 see the 21 632 oh so that's really a 0.5 position because they're split between streets and highways and so it's misrepresented as a one as a full one because it's 0.5 here and 0.5 in another spot and then yeah you had the manager shouldn't have been what were the other

the last is it uh Jason and James oh the motor is that the vacancy the motor equipment repairman which I don't think is any longer a vacancy but I think it would be that but then we're in the last week like Mr denmead said and we're down is it three years

okay that's that's all I had for the for that I yield

you know one of the meetings we sat down here with everybody the facilities and what do you need we'll give you anything you need we'll give it this we'll give it up let's talk about the bathrooms yeah we'll address that we'll address this we'll address that how much money did you give an extra it don't seem that you gave it too much I mean you got here uh building maintenance twenty twenty thousand

but uh everything that we wanted it seemed like you guys are really going to take care the box but you haven't done nothing really I wouldn't agree but I understand what you're saying thank you I said I wouldn't agree with that so we're using we're trying to use arpa money for as many of the capital things as we can um things that are going to last you know what I mean his budget is what

it is all I find it's 3 000 that's box you're going to spend money we'll argue more than Mr Kadima about the parks and some of my other colleagues and uh yeah we'll do it we'll do it it's always we'll do it then we don't know then we pass the budget and then they don't get nothing that's what happened that's what happened with everything you're looking for this person you get rid of one

replace them you get and ridden another one that probably stays two three months can't do the job this would need the same thing there's no see that's going on they don't do right we had people in certain positions for so long you can't keep anybody here just can't keep them he's trying to get electricians and conferences well if we took care of the ones who've done the job maybe this day so

that's the problem with Foreigner it's going to go on and go on so you know with the proxy ain't gonna get nothing then we're going to hire somebody Carpenter how long is he going to stay until he finds a job another ten thousand that's why I always say the clerk they're not going to get nothing you better off going on the outside and that's a proof because you see it happening to every single Department you

got someone you can't keep them because you can't pay them enough money we'll train them and they go someplace else so you know it's about time Administration knows that I mean he can do what he wants but uh they won't stay and and said you you know I mean you know better we lost a lot of good help good help coming in you're hiring them they don't stay too long

you could say I'm right or wrong I mean we can see you know what I mean so you know I don't know what's gonna happen next year but this is a shame you're talking about the products you're going to take care of you know take care of it so it goes on and it goes on that's enough for you thank you cousin CA Council Washington I just have a quick question over on solid waste on 166.

um the uh one FTE for three of the positions are not are those supposed to be 0.5 so that would be the head clerk the special c l and the Libra those are under minimum wage so that so that first person so half of our salaries represented here so she's 0.5 and really here and then if you go over to page 170. she's the other half of that is listed there so she splits her time yeah

okay I was just confused because it says one the one ft if that's just why I was confused is that the same thing for the two gentlemen at the bottom is that um are those are they represented somewhere else as well they work half the half the time for solid waste and half the streets and highways that makes more sense okay with that I yield council president thank you just a quick comment

um jumping off of the parks I know we have more Parks we've created more Parks yeah we don't have additional employees within that department to keep up with the new parks I know that there's talk about Columbia Street the the little thing the the empty space of land that's across from Santa Cristo church that maybe the city will take that and you're going to clean it up and fix it up and put the so

that's something else that they've got to go and clean the other thing is I forgot to mention before when my colleague and see number two was concerned about the desk price for the um elections department but Mr Oliveira we got desks from Salter School we did correct we did if they were donated they were donated was it donated by former mayor Flanagan it was but this Council Mr Akins this Council never

voted to accept that anytime there's a gift that comes to the city that's true we need to accept it and that was done without the council approval so I hope that on the next agenda I see that there because I think you just heard Mr Lyons say how much a desk would cost and if we got some donated I'd like to I didn't always agree with uh will Flanagan but we're friends and I

think that he deserves a thank you like we sent to other people with that I yield thank you Mr President did you have your hand up come to see two did you have your hands up okay I just wanted to ask um in the um on page 189 um the demo account an inspectional for the um yeah Mr Hathaways uh demo account how much money is actually in that account it shows that you transfer

20 000 into it but how much money is actually in that account it is available on his budget right now I would have to get that get back to you on that I don't have that off I don't know that off shot my head okay with that I yield any further questions for Community maintenance accountancy seven Council proposal yeah I just want to follow up on the comment about Parks so when we

had that meeting we discussed some of the ideas that you had what has been put into place regarding parks and there's a discussion about Premier Fields there was a discussion about fees and all this other stuff like what progress have we made about that if any at this point

yeah well there's still a discussion Council about fees and it is we're still looking into uh if we could generate what the procedures would be this storm the procedure moving parts department over the Lewis industry but um as far as as far as that goes and we're still we always are yeah opportunity fees we've been putting numbers together on the days of the different events and course analysis but

um I don't think we're afraid to where we can start establishing a solid number so there's two concrete efforts um the first and I'm going to ask Mr Oliveira to elaborate on this is an analysis of all playgrounds and playground equipment throughout the city which implicates some parks as well as additional ancillary playground uh facilities um if I may where is that stand currently the analysis of all the

playgrounds across the city I will throw that to Mr Oliver and he can speak to it sure uh we procured that recently we were ready to award the the low bidder um local guy well I shouldn't say local he's from dividend um is probably one or two very good inspectors around Mr LaRue is very very uh professional and anything that he does part of the spec detailed um any any entrances to each Park a

playground and any exits making sure that the compaction of the materials that they have and making sure that um any warranty items are corrected and taken care of if there's any repairs that we get the repairs done immediately that's the first phase second phase we have them as a consultant for any new playground to make sure that we have the right materials the right site so that's

going to be starting within the next 30 days or so okay and I guess back to my original Point how does it translate back to discovering what we have how we can best utilize it and back to the comment that was made some time ago about a premier field or access to an outside group to come in and use these facilities at a cost where we would then drive and render generate Revenue where where are

we with that have we made any movement on that is the question I have we've had internal discussions at this point and figuring out what the next steps are What fields we're looking at what sites what potential sports events that we're looking to make Premiere um we've had those internal discussions part of the plan is also to reach out and get an architect which you already did an RFQ for on-call Architects so we

have that ready to go once we make the decision what the next steps are I mean I I guess I'll just Echo what has been said in the fact that again we're spending a lot of money grants and all these other things Mr perrino did that great presentation to talk about all the investment we've had but now we're not on the other side generating the revenue to support the parks to keep

them up to date and I had this conversation with an individual yesterday enabled meeting that we spend a lot of money to put these beautiful parks in and then we're not putting the back money to keep it maintained and like I look at the Park's budget and I'm looking at there's two positions that are still open right the last two that are listed there so that in and of itself when you read

the description of parks the amount of people we have and the amount of parks we have are no way equal by any means you have a lot of parks and not enough people to maintain them so where's where's the answer to that is my is my problem because again beautiful Parks great places to go but not enough people to surely maintain them until two three it's down the road

we have okay now we gotta fix this or now we gotta find money to fix that when you know what I mean I'm trying to Logic the idea that if we take care of it in the long term instead of just the patchy of the patch there will be better off but right now the parks department does not have enough people to support the amount of parks we have

so my question to you is going to be how do we fix that so we we're evaluating at that at this point we we don't have the right answer right now to figure out what capacity uh all our team is performing but we are evaluating that and we'll have an answer shortly okay because I I mean we're entering it's June we're entering the summer season can we respectfully look at a plan going

into the next spring to say this is what our plan is when when organizations are looking for places to play teams are doing whatever they're doing we have to have something available to say Bang but right now we don't have that and until we have that we're going to continue to have a parks department that's understaffed to not be able to do the job fully and that wasn't any different than last year

you know what I'm saying and I see that so we I will put together a plan and I had we've talked internally to make sure that we we capture every fee that we're capable of capturing from those we'll have will have sufficient funds to increase our Parks Department that's what I believe I'm hearing from from everyone here so that that's on that that part is on me at this point so

to council penalty is point what in the short term has been added to Park's budget this year to help expand them really nothing at this point no not no additional except for the positions that um are vacant at this point I think the the idea for this year is to try to maintain rather than expand until we actually have a plan as to how we're going to expand mother and I did meet with

Mr Dion so we're looking at some cdbg money we know that there's some Opera money that we're looking at and there's CPA preservation money that we're also I know that Al had a conversation with Sandy Dennis so we're looking at those other sources to be able to funnel into the parks department that are available to be able to use in those departments which is fine but again I think it falls short of this

idea that there's not enough budgeted staff in the parks department to maintain the many parks that we have that's the point I'm trying to make loud and clear here and that's what I hope to see and again Mr Oliveira I know you've been here six months and it is a lot of of there's a lot of what's going on and a lot of things you're trying to do and I respect that

but I will hope to see come in the spring we will have a better plan to address how we will properly maintain our Parks so kids and our families and the residents of the city can continue to enjoy them without having to deal with some of the issues they face because I see some parks in great condition some parks not in great condition and I don't think it's the fault of the Parks Department

because I see those individuals hauling out there in the summer trying to maintain I'll use father trabasso spark I'm there during the summer the hot days watching them up and down the field taking care of that other than father travas was having a big plate of grass it's underutilized it's a gold mine waiting to happen now I've spoken to director Smith many of times parking is a huge issue there we know that but

other than just cutting that piece of grass what else can we do with it what else can we utilize and that's what I'm hoping to see and I know it takes time and I know you mentioned that you you have some of that in the process I would like to see before the spring what is the plan for that what is the plan for Davis that sits there and it's very open and very available

Columbus Park that's right now very much underutilized that that leak that was there many moons ago no longer you know some some kids go on that but again it's not getting maybe the attention needs or it just needs to be re-envisioned I want to see some re-envisioning going on with the parks to best utilize what is in front of us that's my only request so my hope to you is that come the spring we can

have that discussion and see what really the you know year two three year plan is going forward hey yo thank you thank you just a quick question do we have a fertilization program in place for any of our box fertilizing we don't fertilize no at all at all and there's any reason for that what was that is there a reason that we don't do it or just kids can't afford to do it or just

um Manpower watering everything everything every type of fertilizer that we have to put it must be organic must be safe for children so there is a major cost there's some major labor associated with that and um there's also a major benefit yeah strengthens the lawn and it helps a lot and it prevents a lot of stuff from dying off quick and receding it and doing it over water sun and fertilizer you see

all right just curious any further questions nope thank you thank you thank you Joshua thank you next we have engineering

thank you sir good evening Dan aggiel the director of engineering and planning

concerts region all set this is good a common congratulations congratulations but I think I told you before privately and uh the wonderful job that you do and how busy you are and how many uh infrastructure stuff that's going on in the city and uh um they're very uh very impressed with your work and your ability thank you too C2 yeah I'd like to point out that Mr agya's department is the only one on

salaries and wages that went down 11 percent but yet delivers well if I can add so you're you're looking at it and this is in defense of not just this Administration but past Administrations although it appears as it's a reduction now to bring me to the city and to include my salary in the 23 budget was a substantial increase from what past pay standards were for the city engineer yes

um so although yes we have made some improvements from last year to this year we're only taking a snapshot of two years so I appreciate the but it's still it's still a reduction in the Savings in the FY 24 budget it is um I mean if I if I'm gonna talk if I'm going to complain about the increases I have to comment on on you know somebody who's doing a great job and uh doing it

at a cost savings for the taxpayer just have to with that I yield thank you thank you any questions nope all I have to say all I have to say is I noticed Oliveira is wondering how he got off so easy because when you call him he calls back so thank you for answering those questions so eloquently and I wasn't sure did you invite me here for engineering and planning I mean they're

basically the same but we invited you to talk to you yeah yeah thanks we've done thank you thank you have a nice night Mr President yes can I actually ask a question about traffic well traffic is that is that coming up next yeah I'm sorry never mind I like I think they're back sorry Mustang yeah next we'll continue on to the city Administration thank you sorry point about it did you have questions about traffic I did

Mr President if I may traffic is now under engineering so we invited Miss Pereira in case there was a question so I'm not crazy all right so I'd like to sorry Mrs Ferrer I'd like to talk to you thank you Council too

it's for I promise I'll keep it simple for you quick you know so I remember last year I'm sorry you should introduce the first go ahead Laura Ferrara director of traffic and parking thank you do I have the floor council president yes you do now thank you sir um so I know last year we discussed briefly about the changeover from the coin operated um parking meters to now the digital

ones so and I'm kind of looking this over and obviously with the digital age there's additional charges with the credit and all that I'm just curious on an update on I know you mentioned last year and I'm not going to quote you that there was a plan to expand those meters and I've seen some of them change I know at Rock Street the old ones are cut off with the new kiosk

Turin so where does that plan stand is there a continued expansion just want to highlight that a little bit uh yes so right now we have 19 kiosks that are up and running and we just installed 23 that we're going to stop programming this this end of the week because we have to call the company and they program it right over you know computers so we'll be doing South Main up until

Colombian Rodman so those who hopefully I'm hoping to get them already running by Friday and then next week will be the back of the courthouse um High Street Pleasant Street where the kiosks already installed they just have to be programmed and as far as how how has it been going so far very well very well um the ones on North Main we didn't go all the way we just went to a section

they've been working really really well um there's been no issues um people are using it every day when I run my reports every morning there's more credit card is being used more and more so my percentage on credit card the company did it for us um they say we're up with just the 19 kiosks who have 80 percent of using credit card okay and how many kiosks I'm sure to say that back how many traditional coin

meters do we still have in place originally we had a little over a thousand we're down to almost 650.

we also ordered some more digital meters to go on streets that the volume of vehicles is not that much but it'll be much easier we got rid of all the cranks from Boston we don't have those we're trying to get rid of those completely okay so what is the long-term plan the long-term plan is to replace all the traditional coins with kiosks or or just more in high traffic areas we're

going to put the digital ones and leave the traditional that's the goal to put it on because you know like you mentioned in the beginning you know we do pay to have these kiosks so you want to make sure that they're you know bringing in some money as well so the areas that there is no volume at all we're not going to put kiosks we're not going to put at the bottom of Bank unless

in the future um businesses open up it's it's very easy to install the kiosk and take out the meters and last question just on on meteors alone are there plans with this new development going on down Duvall are there plans to do any meters down there it is an ordinance um because a couple of years back we did want to we did want to put me meet us down there so it went

into ordinance and it got approved so depending on the administration and how it's going to look down there once the completion of 79 is done that's something that we can you know put kiosks down there and not meters okay and then just lastly on on the credit card usage is there a quota that we have to hit per se on how much is user just we pay for what what gets used no um

it's the person unfortunately it's the person that pays for the credit that they use but there's no there's no certain amount is the parking fee that a person pays is the fee from the credit card company built into that it gets built to the to the individual yeah yeah the city's not responsible for that okay cool cool thank you because of C6 customers just one question Laura um the handicap signs that are on the

school department property like at Sylvia school who replaces those your department or Al Oliveira okay what happens is when the schools went up whoever com you know the contractor was did all the HPS if one Falls or they need another one my guys have done it in the past where we've gone down there and we've just put up a sign for them the more we fix what's up I guess they robbed two of them because they're

pretty sturdy and they're screwed on so they robbed two of them from Sylvia school and when people go to see the kids play especially the grandparents they've complained about it if you could just check into that we'll take care of it with that idea I have one question could you just give us the hours of operations for the meters what is the latest that the immediate people have to

worry about putting in on the weekends as well do they have to put the meters on weekends Saturdays Sundays what's in ordinance right now is 9 to 6 P.M Monday through Saturday with no um no usage of meat it's on Sundays or holiday so nine nine to six pm Monday through Saturday six days a week nine to six okay thank you for clarifying that

Laura just another question on the kiosks to have them in multi-language no because I I've had that brought to my attention that some individuals didn't couldn't read the instructions on them uh we live in a multicultural community and I don't know if that's something in ordering new ones that I can look into it yeah okay okay thank you and Lord just last question what is the amount

per hour that the meters charge it's what we went into ordinance about two years ago so it's 25 cents every 15 minutes two hours the limit okay thank you thanks for the questions Vegas

now we'll do administrative Services City Administration Hotsy come to C2 counselor um so administrative services are we just doing those three departments or is there is human resources tomorrow as far as I know no one other than what's on this list was invited oh but we can discuss yes you can discuss any of the department got you Administration councilman um talk tonight and whatever we don't

finish tonight we can do tomorrow concert in C2

um so we've established I had a few questions that we already established uh we don't have an auditor yet correct that's correct what we are actively looking we're actively looking we have an assistant auditor Cedric Souza who's doing a great job um and uh is really coming along he finishes them his MBA at the end of the summer uh and he's been a really good addition to the city so but he's our assistant

we love to promote from within and we love to promote you know people that are you know loyal and dedicated to the city he certainly is I think it's just a matter of making sure that he's up to the task because we don't want to put somebody in a position they're not ready for him we're providing a lot of training in opportunities for them um this is probably way off topic I just

noticed it in the it's been talked about so many times are we going to have a bookmobile yes we are in fact the bookmobile if you look in the library budget there are uh three personnel budgeted for the bookmobile yes those vacancies is what I noticed I expect the bookmobile to be delivered hopefully in the next 30 days uh and I know that you've heard that one before because the bookmobile has been delayed several

times um but we met with um the director of the library probably two months ago um looked at some designs it's actually pretty remarkable there's just they've kind of thought of everything and it's air conditioned and controlled and they've got a great uh plan for when they're going to put the thing into operation and go around to parks and do summer things and activities it's pretty

exciting and I do hope it arrives uh right now with the July delivery date point of clarification if I could council president it's like my colleague and C2 I know I received the survey at the school regarding the bookmobile and when we would you know what would be the best time for it to arrive and how could it best service you so I know I was happy to see that because I think the

the wheels are turning no pun intended to um figure out how to best you know go to the schools in all the different places that it would serve so yeah well you know I have my I made a list of all the vacancies um all the vacant positions total 2 million six hundred eighty one thousand six hundred and six dollars that's an extremely large number I don't believe for a minute that they're all

going to be filled I believe that that number can be lowered as we're going along there was some I didn't even I did not count the purchasing salary in that number I didn't account I didn't count order in that so I didn't put every single the two the lieutenant in the captain's position I didn't none of those are even in the number yep and that's how big this number is

um as we're going along I'm checking off the ones that can be legitimately eliminated so of course we'll get to that at a later date um so I guess it was probably last year because you've only been here a year I said to you uh you know people who are per contract there's people have a contract for a reason both sides debate or discuss settle on a dollar amount this is how much you earn this is

what you make there shouldn't be any extras no cpis etc etc at the time you said to me I agree and we're eliminating that I don't know if you remember that yeah but I remember that so we have 24 per contract positions in this city five out of 24 have a CPI and holiday pay okay and the positions are positions Chief of Staff mayor's office City administrator cooperation Council director of

financial services Director of Human Resources my question is if per contract it is shouldn't have it why do these five positions have it and 19 others don't so I can say that I think and I I hope there's no exceptions to this but I think any of the contracts that I've been involved in negotiating since I took the position um are a significantly different form than what's been given in the past and

so they don't most of them I don't believe have CBI they don't have all of the things that that you have raised concerns about um I will say that in terms of guidance that I've seen around when CBI is appropriate in a contract um in a union environment Whenever there is somebody that is part of the bargaining team it actually takes part in negotiating what the Union contract is or what the union contracts are if

there's multiple and there's eight in this particular municipality the CPI is the appropriate way that they should receive any sort of adjustment rather than attaching it to any particular collective bargaining agreement so as you probably know non-union contract employees any sort of adjustment that they get is tied to the CVA so if the CBA of that year is 1.5 percent one percent whatever it is that

would be what their what their cost of living adjustment is the same way any Union employee would be accept if you are part of the bargaining team I think it would be considered a conflict of interest to essentially be bargaining for your own cost of living adjustment so you just sort of leave caution to the wind and whatever the CPI is for that year I think for 10 years prior to last year it

was one percent two percent last year was 3.9 percent and this year it was seven percent those are anomalies but the the idea behind the few that have the CPI is that they have sort of an interest in how the contracts come out so therefore they shouldn't have Reliance for their adjustments on the contract but I guess my point is I don't think anybody who has a contract should be getting a CPI it you know you're

agreeing to work for this dollar amount and that's the dollar amount that you should work for because it increases that number every year every year so your contract just for the sake of argument if your contract's 130 two years from now you're up to 140 something thousand well you're exceeding your contract and I'm not saying you I'm saying anybody that that's per contract who gets a CPI

it just I just can't agree with it and that was the comment I made last year supposedly we were stopping that practice but here we are um you know well all the contracts I mean it's not the hugest number in in the budget but it does uh equal almost eighteen thousand dollars that could go to something else or another department sure no I understand the principle um all the contracts you noted were

um negotiated either at the time or shortly before you and I had that conversation I think back in what August I think of 22 um actually I I think it was um no I'm sorry it would have been part of budget negotiation so it would have been I believe it was June of 22. yeah I believe so um and so at that point um CFO uh HR law myself and chief of staff

I think we're all settled contracts um so I'm just I'm not saying that that it changes the point uh and I absolutely understand what you're saying because you're right you agree to something and and you know you should live with what you agree to uh I think the counter argument to that is that over the course of a three-year contract a lot can change in the economy and the idea of

being stuck with a single number creates you know less uh I think incentive for people to to stay if they think they can get more in other places if there's at least the chance of getting something a little bit more to uh coincide with inflation and changes in the economy maybe that's not the worst thing I think that would be the counter argument um that said none of the contracts that you uh indicated were settled

um uh at the time or after you and I spoke um so for whatever that's worth okay with that with us right now thank you thank you no I don't have any um questions on this the I did have one I wrote down the book mobile that we have is it handicap accessible I believe it is yes you believe it is or you know what it is I

know it is yes I know it is it's the lawyer in me I apologize and the trolley that we don't have a trolley well didn't we put in to buy one I do I don't believe we did if I'm wrong I'll check on that I don't lie to I heard it who told you and I can check check with the may I think that we were going to get trolleys I know there was a conversation about

trying to find and purchase trolleys I don't know that we don't want somebody else's second hand I 100 have a money don't give it to you know some of the non-profits who never wanted to give us a pilot for anything but things that we could use here you want to talk tourism you gave them over a million dollars let him buy a few trolleys as far as so the last I

heard about the trolleys uh it was a conversation with the mayor and Jasmine Pereira the grant writer this is probably two months ago we were actually looking at Grants because there's a number of Grants out there to purchase trolleys no and that was that was what was happening before nobody wanted to listen to her I guess but she had to grant to get two I think they were like sixty thousand a piece

but you want people to visit forever you want to have them go around I just want to make sure they're handicapped and I'm glad the bookmobile is with that I yield my questions that I have is for the Law Department concerts uh thank you so are we going through all the departments on the city Administration or we just taken the city administrative budget first we have City Administration

services at City Administration we can take it first and have management information systems and Law Department okay I just thought after that we'll do Financial Services yeah I just wasn't sure if it was staying with one Department first it's up to you Council I really if you want to call someone went down and then people can answer questions and want to call them that's fine I I think I think I think City

Administration for the most part outside the legal I think whatever the will of the council is well I'm just saying if they don't have questions for some of the people that are here they don't have to sit here and wait the reason the people he is because they were asked to be here because I know but if we're not going to have questions for them we're going to have questions there

has to be here with questions I have I.T and laws of questions that I have no I I recognize that some people were asking Library questions I just want to make sure oh oh no no they're gonna have to be in track I couldn't stop it no no it's okay I just want to make sure and then the last time we were sticking to the administration first and then moving

on quilt not necessarily that but I just want to make sure I'm following them Administration and then I'll move on I'll yield and we can go out to the next Department uh so Seth just for I guess your budget um for the expenses other purchase services so it says Consulting what was that let me just open up 89. yep foreign

our former grant writer uh she retired but uh because we we hired uh Jasmine uh who has been absolutely phenomenal incredibly responsive very very smart um really a great fit uh she has been working with Jane and Jane has been billing us as a consultant to make sure that the transition was smooth and that we didn't leave any opportunities uh on investigating um as we all know the city relies on

um grants for a lot of the the good things we're able to do um they're an important thing for I think every city especially Gateway cities and we just needed to make sure that there wasn't any balls dropped and to Jasmine's credit she's been working with Jane closely but really coming along on her own and she's a real gift to the city okay um the only other question I had I'm just

trying to find it so just on your so yours your salary from I guess this year I didn't put it down but it looked like you got a six percent increase I think there was a so the CPI this year uh I think was six point something percent uh so that reflects that um so I agreed to uh I believe 130 000 um with you know without Fringe but uh

130 000 uh when I moved from uh see uh Corporation council's office to City administrator uh and then uh cost of living was part of my contract so it was it was just the CPA so I guess to piggyback on counselor and C two's Point not that I agreed with everything that she had said but in terms of the CPI does it not make more sense for the administration to and I know I guess

you're essentially negotiating against yourself unless CPI comes in less right there are times that it's under what you're giving unions but for contractual employees so you you negotiate a first year base and then year two and three is percentage-based so it's two percent three percent as opposed to the CPI which could potentially fluctuate right nine percent fifteen percent or I could

go the other way too right that has it works both ways but at least there's some continuity for those that are in individual contract agreements that they know what their percentage is similar to like a collective bargain agreement as opposed to just the uncertainty of of the CPI and you can also from from I think from my standpoint you cap right what those cost of living adjustments are gonna are gonna be

um and that would pretty much be consistent with other other unions for the most part yeah there's no question that the CPI essentially presents an unfunded reliability uh that's just you know the reality one way or the other right um you know I think if you look at you know the 10-year average it's you know two percent if that uh and then the last two years were wild all right almost

four percent uh and I think in some parts of the country people would argue it's actually more and we just use the lower part of the average uh and then this past year it was close to seven percent that's all that I had for City Administration I yield thank you councilman any further questions for the administration for the questions we'll have management information systems

good thanks sir can you please just state your name and department for the record Tyler and Taylor director of management information systems thank you Council G2 Council good evening on page 98 Professional Services 478 300 dollars so those Services would be so so those Services would include the Cyber primary care which was supplemental to our cyber insurance it's a Consulting based on new technologies

and recommendations policies to adhere to the Cyber Insurance itself it also includes the Management Services from mcsi electrical contracting work if new cable runs need to be done or if new buildings are constructed take for example the new water department building electrical services from that and security services including penetration testing from outside companies to see how vulnerable we are

if we have any open holes penetration testing and vulnerability scanning as well now there's a number of services that were cut remote services on page 99 um why would those all be cut so there is a a lot of variance in the previous budget a lot of it I realigned into those Professional Services it seemed like it fit more into Professional Services as one whole group as opposed to spread out

as it was previously so would it make sense just well maybe I guess I suppose because of FY 23 is noted so moving forward that those may just be eliminated altogether correct okay another question I have and actually probably my last question um this past year Citi offer dollars for Gold golf was 559 933 dollars that was requested by your department and then we also voted for Bristol County funds one million thirty

four thousand six oh four for Capital Improvements how so how does that affect the fy24 budget so the open gov includes a three-year contract for the new online permitting system that we're going to be implementing it's going to be a huge value to Residents a lot of the the current systems that we use are really paper-based and have to come into City Hall for uh that 500 000 covers not just

the building's department but the ability to expand other departments as well City Clerks DBW being able to schedule trash pickups online instead of having to come in and get tags so that 500 000 does cover three years with the ability to add on additional service areas I have a factored those into this 24 FY 24 budget yet because it was the three-year contract now when the million dollars in Bristol

um I must so we're the um I guess saying in the fy25 budget some of um were there would there be similar Capital Improvements that would need to be done that were covered by this in this budget and will be will be needing funding the next time I'm not sure if I'm forming my question correctly I know what I want to ask but I don't feel like it's coming out right

so a lot of the money that I'm using from that Arbor are one-time costs but for construction and implementation costs from from the companies themselves there are recurring costs that will be incurred in the coming fiscal years and I have budgeted for those okay so very good thank you with that I yield seven Council proposal first I want to say I appreciate the revisions because when I first looked at

it I said to City administrator I said I'd like to know more about what's going on here because it wasn't very clear a few questions the website and maybe this question is more directed to you Seth where do we stand right now as far as that process is concerned so right now there's actually two things ongoing Tyler and a gentleman named Austin who's another Network admin a member of the

staff in in it I've been going and meeting with every single department head to make sure that the information on the current site even though it's presented horribly is at least up to date the current site is is not an effective site but at the very least what we know is that the new site is actually going to transition a lot of that information to it and so it needs

to be accurate so they were they've been doing a full revision of the information on the old site to make sure that what makes it over to the new site is accurate I expect the new site to launch I would say before the end of the summer is what we're hearing they're in the transitioning phase right now that just started so they need from what I understand six weeks or so seven weeks

to do the transition and and uh I think we're going to be watching hopefully before Summer's over uh which is really exciting there's a few aspects of that that may not launch at the same time so there's some additional functionality which really includes building workflows for all of the permitting some of that we're going to be able to use uh workflows that have already been built

in other towns and then adapt them to the way we do things and be able to get online permitting up in a couple different departments very quickly others may take a little bit of time as we try to figure out what we want to put online and what we want to make somebody you know ask somebody to come into the building to do especially more complicated building projects that might require more complicated plans

so as far as the perming process is concerned is that part of the website already purchased or is that to come so that's that's the software that Tyler just talked about for three years and I'll I'll step away yeah so the new website is separate from the online permitting uh open gov is the software company that is going to be handling all of that online permitting um it is a separate function from the

new website however but there's sort of a plan to sort of launch them together okay right yeah it'll almost be a separate website but it'll which makes sense for what it's for what it's being done that separation probably won't be clear to the to the resident I mean it'll feel like when they're paying for something that they're on our website but they're going to be on our credit card

um uh you know processor when they're doing a permit they're going to feel like they're on our website but it's going to be open gov so it should be fairly seamless so when a resident in in the near future when a resident goes to do the online parting permitting process does the software company that runs open gov it's correct called do they get a a cut of that permitting fee or we just

pay them for the software that's it so we only pay software okay cool one thing I learned in talking to the city administrator was that your department yourself and your four Network admins not only do the computer work for the Mis work for Hall we also do a police fire departments so we do it for the fire department the police are sort of on their own they have Kevin and Dino

who've been really helpful they do come to us when they need help but for the most part they are self-sufficient okay so the one of the questions I had was regarding one of the software line items of 101 500 which is labeled police software so that is that just the purchase of the software and the individual and Mis that the police department manages it or how does that work um if you're talking about the the line

item with the the 30 000 increase yeah um that was sort of like I said another um reorganization of the software it was sort of all encompassed in that first line item from fy23 okay and I've separated them out to be police exclusive software that we already have okay so I guess my question there then is the first line of software increased one percent the second one increased you know some

crazy amount but it looks worse than it is the third one didn't change the fourth one increased dramatically so where's the reallocation so there have been a software resistance as well okay in conjunction with the women okay so that's fine that's what I was trying to try to get at um mtsi they are on a per needed basis or they or they contracted because I know before your arrival we talked about this last

year they were much more active kind of playing the active role in in absence of an Mis director so what is their role right now daily basis as needed what what does it look like so mtsis was called the managed service provider and I'm sure you've heard that term yeah a lot of times they handle a lot of the patch management with the software that they provide the tools and utilities that

they have available to them and just the infrastructure and team that they have is just a lot better than like a four-man team can really handle they have a multitude of businesses um you know in their care and it's a lot easier for them to have a dedicated team to handle a patch management monitoring whereas a lot of my team is handling the daily issues of day-to-day break fixes and any other

small units related or you know City specific issues okay going to page 100.

um and I don't I don't have the other FY 23 budget in front of me but Comcast business obviously is the internet cost that is the internet cost to who the city in general city hall um that would be all just City police everything wrapped in I will say that that's another reallocation a few line up a few lines up it was under telecommunications okay I just put into Comcast business got it all right

um one more two more things so did the city transition to Microsoft 365 no no yet I actually uh just put in my letter of award for the 365 migration project excellent so we're going to be solving the problem where some computers are running office 2007. great and such a good year though it was a good year but I know 365 is going to be a huge upgrade and Towers

done a ton of work to get us there yeah I mean it obviously the the whole system has changed of how office is delivered anyway but 365 allows you to get all the upgrades and keeps things up to date and it's subscription based which some people don't like but the reality is you're getting the new and the best as years progress so I'm I completely from one Mis guy to another I get that

um so as far as that rollout is concerned what are you looking at as far as getting everybody on it uh can you rephrase the question just as far as getting all of the computers and all the people using Microsoft 365. when do you envision that's going to be so all of that is part of the project handling all of the new software deployments email migration all of that was included in the bid um

comes to about I want to say rough after 1500 work hours from the bid but it's going to be all handled by the company so you guys won't actually be doing that yourselves a company will be coming in and banging it out the the company that's used to working with 365 migrations instead of having to trade up my team to really handle that transition the bid also includes training admin training

for my staff as well so once we're set up and established they're going to run through that with us and we can manage it on our own and then the intention is that your department is going to train Municipal Employees to use it who's going to train the Municipal Employees to use the software so they're all you I mean like my whole like they're all using like Excel and and Outlook and they're just using older versions

I don't know that it's going to be such a huge lift test well I mean if you use the Microsoft Office 2007.

now you're using Microsoft 365 I think there's going to be some changeover so my my so my department I needed it um so I've already we've transitioned and it hasn't been a big change for us I mean we I think we did it pretty smoothly I think we'll we'll assess basically the same way we do with munis so the mutis upgrade was was complete a couple months ago and we've been assessing the

Departments doing more training HR just went through three days of training Auditors did some training basically we just assess after and said all right we need to focus on these areas I think we'll do a similar thing here and my last question more of a statement to to Yousef is again from one Mis guy to another here my only bigger concern is that with the the major transition moving forward to

online permitting a new website and really moving from paper to a digital process I guess my question to you and maybe it's Food For Thought do we have enough staff in Mis to really move this forward do we have enough staff to support the problems that will come up I'd like to add on that um we did just hire a new network admin Austin Reef he had an HR background he's very detail-oriented I've been having

him work on what's called knowledge-based materials so just the user guides for all employees and not just internally for it we're actually going to be deploying a Fall River specific knowledge base that any employee can put into their web browser and it'll have a repository of user guides to access so I would probably have Austin work on a lot of knowledge-based materials before that and can take it from there

I'm going to tell you there's a lot of good things happening and I think you know we're moving technology wise a huge step forward so kudos to you Tyler for for what you're doing um and I hope that you will continue to do so and what however we can support you to do that um but I think the investment is well worth it and it will it will reap great rewards for everybody especially with the city

website and what have you so um thank you for all your detailed information explanation I appreciate it Mr President of that at yield thank you Council any further questions I said that I had a question for Mis but my colleague asked you the questions that I had so I'm glad to see that the permitting is coming online because they asked me that all the time when's it going to happen

thank you Tyler I thought I yell Mr President any further present thank you very much for coming down thank you next we have the load upon it

all right good evening Helen accountancy three counts Kobe thank you the only question I have is a vacancy assistant Corporation Council um how long has that been vacant now I've been trying to fill that for quite a while now um put a job offer out approximately six months ago for somebody who's pretty green got turned down I think he was making more money being a non-lawyer in Boston than being

a lawyer in Fall River um had a job offer I was sure they were going to take with somebody very experienced about a month ago he said at the last minute he got a job offer making much more money on it in Quincy so still working on it I sent an email I believe it was just yesterday to the forget the gentleman's name I think his last name is Quinn UMass law asking him

to send me somebody a recent graduate who was wants to learn um so we're still working on it okay and how many hours a week is that for 65. we have Mr hollyark who's been there for some time he's 86.

hey Mr Alex part time we're looking for full-time and you're looking for full-time correct and do you know every salary we are we've looked I mean this is for somebody with very little to no experience something with a law degree we've spoken with people in the DA's office and you know a lot of times the DA's offices are competition for somebody with no experience that comes in so we think that 65 actually is

competitive for somebody at entry level I disagree with you on that I mean you're not going to find I mean entry level so there's training involved so what happened to someone I have a great deal of respect for uh Mr attorney O'Neill she was she was seleated to to work in your office here she did she worked with us and she retired she retired okay that would have been such a great addition she was uh

assistant Corporation Council way back when Ed Lambert was mayor and um just has a wealth and knowledge so okay that's the only question he had on a vacancy I do disagree with you that you're gonna find someone for sixty five thousand dollars full-time um you can pay you can hire a paralegal qualified paralegal for that yeah I'm sorry the mistake is maybe you can comment you're an attorney I'm an attorney so I mean

it's a full-time job there are certain jobs and I think assistant Corporation Council would qualify where you know you can move up the ladder pretty quickly but coming in with no experience I mean it'll be a liability to the office for a period of time until we train them up and get them so that they can do real legal work um you know the idea is somebody comes

in does a nice job we can bump them up okay so um our outside resourcing looking at this here so I must be paying outside it's staying consistent from last year um frankly this this is the one if there's any concern this is probably the line of that concerns me a bit I don't know if it's the right phrase of lucked out but we did luck out a little bit the last fiscal year a couple big

cases just didn't move along and I'm confident they will be moving along in this next fiscal year for example and I don't want to get the details too much and we've had a case pretty much stayed all year because there's a police officer on trial now that that's resolved that'll go forward thank you Mr President thank you customer service is that you see you lost the individual to Boston for a lot

more money anything else visual to Quincy for a lot more money excuse me did you say you lost two individuals one with the boss I want to cause you to earn more money well I mean that was their final say was uh I mean one actually said they had turned down four jobs was prepared to take our job and then got a last minute job offer to Quincy for more money correct yeah to my

counselor c3's point they're leaving you to go get more money somewhere else so that's that's his point 65 000 probably isn't enough for a full-time attorney um and I understand what you're saying maybe come right out of law school it's one thing I know the District Attorney's office probably doesn't pay that much but they lose a lot of people there too it's a little turn over there as well

um and that's the main reason and that's full time correct them so I just I just you know I know it's hard to adjust and I certainly don't want to give money away and that there's any other counselor up there but I think if you're looking to get someone who just really need it you know every time I talk to someone says I can't find help I ask the first question what are you paying

nine out of ten times they're not paying enough to get the help they need so just maybe just take a look at that but it's your department and we'll support it um any other questions how much have we spent on outside lawyers this year foreign because in the outside Professional Services does include depositions includes experts things of that nature I just ran that this morning um we have spent 182 853 dollars

so 182 000.

on legal expenses uh using out of town attorneys it's as I said it's it's mostly outside legal but it does include deposition costs transcripts expert Witnesses for example we spent 7 500 I believe this week on an expert so it's not all legal expense it's not all attorneys and what do we spending the 367 five on Professional Services that's what I'm talking about the the total as of today is 180 called 183 000

just slightly less than that but you have a revised from 23 of 367.5 that's his budget and then he's saying he only spent 182. out of that out of that amount right I was expecting to spend much more this fiscal year but I'm confident it will be more expensive next year well I think it's going to be no you have a lot of lawsuits coming up in the Heavy Hitters yeah are you going to

handle that are we going to farm that out to somebody else depends on what it is I mean the the biggest problem honestly is conflicts of interest so for example when you have a police officer who is have criminal charges against them you cannot have one lawyer represent both that officer and other police officers for the city that gets costly because now you have to have two lawyers sometimes you need more than two

lawyers and all of the suits that we have settled on do you ever listen to that I do know yeah who does um I've asked for it before I can get it for you um it may be in these documents I had a few things printed out for me today but I don't know if settlements are in here yeah if you have them I'd like to see them of how much we're you know settling

things out for um today everybody's just inclined to want to sue for everything the nature of the Beast but I'm curious to see how much we we have and I I gotta I have to say I agree with the council president and also with Council Kilby and having worked in the DA's office you're not going to get somebody good for 65. and to say well you know we want to have

somebody come in and training we don't have room to be training get somebody who's maybe on their way out you know older experienced maybe doesn't want to be schlepping back and forth to core and doing all that stuff on a daily basis you know uh this isn't a situation where I think you should get an intern or somebody fresh out of college because of the cases that we're going to have coming up

but with that ideas Washington just going back thinking about the president just going back to that vacant position um I think you said this but how long has it been vacant for since Mrs O'Neill left honestly don't recall I think that attorney O'Neil retired Before Christmas just an estimate I'm just curious now was that position filled under that Satoshi a full-time under that 65 000.

she was part-time she was part-time she was part-time so then my question would be could we be creative with that position if that is built in could that instead being a 40-hour position that may be an attractive salary to someone that is like my counter on seat six um said on their way out retiring in maybe a 30-hour position that you know which is more flexible than a 40-hour position at

65 that's just that's just a low number now we have looked for both honestly and in fact the the person that I was very close to obtaining was going to be full-time for significantly more than 65.

um now I've no problem coming back to the city council and asking to increase it if I find the right person but for right now you know we've we've put our ads out for somebody with experience it didn't work as well as I would have hoped so now we're trying for the uh the kind of Greener route so that so you would not hesitate to come back to us then that's that's not a

solid because that's just such a low number so uh you know um but I'm glad to know that you've been creative and then you're looking at other options so um with that I yield council president thank you thank you to Joanna just a couple of questions um are you is your position full time or part-time full-time it is full-time did you when you initially started was it part-time I've always been full-time

okay because my predecessor was part-time all right well maybe that's an adjustment we need to make because in ordinance it shows Corporation Council is part-time it didn't catch that oversight yeah fixed it so we might need to adjust we might need to fix that

the ordinance uh 2022-23 uh Corporation Council part-time so I guess we need to amend that okay I thought it was odd when I saw it but that's why I wanted to ask um so I was looking at the judgments um how many lawsuits are pending there's a few smaller ones that I don't have in front of me um I would say approximately 10 okay and how many have been litigated and settled in the last year yes

probably five but I mean these are ballpark I mean they're estimates yeah so 400 000 in judgments for fy24 you think is I do um I think it's reasonable once again if you know if something happens where big case gets resolved I'm more than happy to come down here um you know and ask for the allocation for it but I think that is inappropriate amount not knowing what's going to happen with some of the bigger cases

right yeah because it's less than half of last year's judgment so that's it that's all I have with that ideal thank you there'd be enough further questions thank you Mr stormzy thank you so you're only going to work 20 hours a week now my overtime foreign

Services director of financial services it's the last I don't have any questions I just I just gotta HR question can we before we I guess we move on to financial services sure

so I I think I know the risk response to this but um so I was going to ask you a similar question with regards to next contract so is that so it looks like he got a 12 increase so is that a was that the CPI combination um so when he stepped into the job um I think the mayor was concerned that even though he had been here for 10 years uh he didn't have any managerial

executive level experience so there was a short kind of trial period uh with an agreement going in that he would increase that and then the CPI was an additional increase and that was in the his because he's an individual contract right he does yeah so that that was just captured in that contract yes sir I yields thank you councilor content C2 um I'm gonna go back to the uh can we look

into the charges for the Cs for the CSO on some of the Departments because it it just seems to be all over the place if I look at facilities it went down ten thousand dollars I don't understand how it can go down ten thousand dollars again when the rates have been increased Parks went up almost 23 000.

streets and highways state level Library state level the police department state level and then fire went down almost five thousand dollars so I just I just it just seems very inconsistent and uh just perhaps if Mr Ferlin could take a look at them and and see if he feels comfortable with that I'd appreciate it okay so the last time we were here I believe you were on vacation so we weren't um

Emma where's my page here it is where in the budget um are the dollar amounts reflected that we pay to I'm sure you were anticipating this question because it was asked and it's been discussed reflected for example for Miss Aya Capone clocks in Lawson and Allen anytime we have Consultants where where are those dollars represented in them well Mr agaponi was working across multiple

departments in financial services so he is reflected in Treasury significantly treasury collectors Auditors there's uh some bills and Auditors and we actually didn't we didn't reflect any of his in assessors but he did you know help coordinate some of the re-tax recapilation so essentially he gets paid by each department according to how many hours he works in each department is that what it is no he bills this for

hours the majority of his time was just billed through uh treasury collectors and treasurers and Clifton Larson so so a lot of what Clifton Larson when we were doing the munis upgrade and we had new employees a significant amount of that was built through NIS this year because they were helping set up like templates and show best ways to use munis in the financial services and and in Auditors and then we

switched a little bit because when we no longer had an auditor and we had some you know we needed some technical services they were helping provide some technical services but a lot of what they did was help teach and do munis training with our Auditors Department now why would Mr ayakaponi's Services be needed mostly in Treasury and collections when I could be wrong but I feel like that department has been

I don't know if I want to call it intact or how to freeze it longer than some of the others well so I would um so right when I was getting hired you had a assistant Treasurer leave you had an assistant collector that was we knew it was retiring um there was three cashier positions that needed to be replaced when I was coming on board and we had three new people in a senior accountants

and treasury so that those departments were not intact okay I can tell you that all of my departments were not intact when I came on board I didn't realize that the collective Treasurer was so decimated yeah I mean I would have been happy to if you want to give me a call anytime I can go over that in detail with you so how much longer do you feel we're going

to need his services so Mr iacaponi has been we've transferred him to 100 working with um our Auditor's Department and so I just took a point of clarification we actually did hire another staff accountant that we have that we recently hired a few months ago so we are doing training um with that individual and the assistant auditor so he's right now working with them two days a week

and not even full days mind you then he comes in like ten to two um 4.5 million dollars of Opera funding 800 000 in um free cash has been infused into this budget um 2.7 I believe represents the three percent impact fee from the cannabis so the remaining um it's 4.5 so the remaining 2.8 million what does that what do those dollars what where are those dollars being plugged in in this in this budget well

so if you look at the new growth went down 1.7 million we do know that we have some tiffs coming off and I think it's about 700 000 and I'm probably using the wrong terminology coming off they're going from a 100 down to a 75 reduction in in our taxes and and again you know next year we know that we're going to be doing the full diamond I mean the full Durfee debt

exclusion which is about 2.6 million right now so New Growth went down yes it went down 1.7 million from last year from last year well from 23 to 24.

it was it was a pretty high number last year it was so what three 3.7 million yeah so I mean and that was the you know the thought of last year when we we decided to not Implement using any of the Lost Revenue into the budget because we have as New Growth came in so we didn't need to use it so with the we had a lot of investment with utilities running I think it's gas pipes

and obviously there was a lot of people doing construction during covid new additions new construction so with Opera funding disappearing are we going to be introducing Capital Improvements into our budget again we're going to need you to introduce Capital Improvements into our budget again but we also the Opera funding is allowing us to slow down and not take on additional debt right now

which is I think is important because you know we're already over at the at one point they tried you know keeping it to 10 million so by slowing down now as we have to you know increase in a lot of these Capital Improvements well like equipment how they have longer lifespans in a year or two some of them are pretty big equipment that to be honest with you we were renting and I thought that's pretty ridiculous

um so granted that equipment has a longer lifespan than two or three years but in the scheme of things would you still consider it long term so I would love to have more money you know but I mean right now we will have to do some Capital we will have to borrow at some point in the next few years but right now I think we should be you know utilizing the Opera money

is the best way for us to you know slow the the uh especially with interest rates going up and then as we you know start to build more budgets and see what our needs are we'll have to make decisions excuse me I mean I don't know I think it's going to be interesting um the amount of Opera funding and free cash is less I believe than what diamond is going to be uh

I think some of you struggle I think I think we're still I think we still have created a structural deficit going into the next budget season but we're not there yet um back in January counselor and C six had put in a resolution about um tax exemptions um real estate taxes and and exemptions and during the discussion it was mentioned that um see it she asked that the administration worked

on creating a list of exemptions that can assist senior property owners and present a list to the committee on finance for the fiscal year 2024 budget which at the time you were in the assessor I believe didn't feel um that that you'd be able to do that that expediently but there was also comments that you'd come back to us and to give us some information what happened with that so I mean I actually do have our

assessor and our um the board of this the chair of the board of the assessors so there actually is some bills at the state level so we're waiting to see what what happens with those before we prematurely do things but roughly the one that's there I mean if we were to increase it to the full amount that's in front of that that's an extra 400 and 80 yeah 480 000 that we would need in

the budget to be able to offer that that full exemption if we were to take it so I I mean we we are investigating some other ways to try to you know help out some seniors but we also I think we need to see I mean I think we all agree we need to see what happens at the state level yeah well you know I think it's important you know

when it's on the city Side we say whoa let's go slow because we don't want to take too much of a hit but yet somehow we expect seniors to take hit after hit after hit and their pockets are empty so I hope we can actually work together on this and try to come up with something that's uh conducive to both sides and then my last question is um let's see how you

so you so your your salary I believe was 137. it was revised to 157 which was twenty thousand dollars more than an uh initial my salary is not 157. no you revised salary for 23. so the budget 150 so I'm not getting 157 000. so the budget so originally they had budgeted more from my position I actually came in um and agreed to come in at 135 000 and

I and my contract does have CPI and I knew that was in there and I also had an idea of what CPI was going to be um and so that was part of we know I agreed to come in a little bit lower knowing that it would be increased but I'm not I mean so this revised number never was paid no I'm I'm not getting paid of 157 000 I'm at a show

why wouldn't we adjust that because it's misleading well we can adjust that down but it'd also be a turn back but I mean originally you had your the former CFO and what was budgeted was it going to be higher yeah so that actually represents well no you're at 148 this year I'm at 144 right now 144 change yeah 140 144 450 after CPI and holiday it's one of 448 628. that'll be next year yeah right

okay thank you with that I yield thank you it's a quick question do we know when the stage is going to move forward or pull the trigger on what they're looking to do we're just going to wait forever I don't have an answer for when they're going to close everyone I don't think it makes any sense to to wait forever there's been a number of things including cannabis guidelines including tax exemptions for seniors

we've been waiting on for months um I think at some point especially since it's been six months since we first talked about this uh we probably need to Circle back with the assessor come before the council and make some decisions I agree on how we can do this all right great thank you thank you accountancy seven counts proposal two questions on the assessor's office and then one to the auditor

um the increase in computer services I'm reading right into this revolves all around Patriot Properties yes yes okay and what what exactly is so I see to come down because they can better speaking of course come down please please and thank you

please just give your names and what comment you with for the record thank you thank you good evening uh Daniel Lane admin assistant Assessor Richard Gonzalez chairman of the board of assessors good evening gentlemen I think so to my to my question as far as the increase for revolving our Patriot Properties I see maintenance support and Cloud hosting which of one of those three things significantly increased I'm

assuming it's the whole thing so it is the cloud hosting so we're we're hoping to upgrade the software so the current Patriot software was put in in 2004 and has not been upgraded since um I worked for Patriot Properties for 11 years before coming here and they've upgraded the software numerous times so we've put in the budget and it's now a cloud-based system and so that is what the 17 000

is for okay so we should so we should essentially be seeing a better experience when it comes to that that software platform for sure good for other purchase Services can you just clarify what some of those sure short-term titles are there so rrc is uh our personal property vendor we have to go out to bid every year last year I believe they just did an extended contract just extended the previous one

um the next item there is Randy Mercier uh I believe I'm saying his last name correct he is the munis vendor that comes in and he was just in last week did the rollover of the software into munis for the tax bills that are going to be printed this week so and he'll come in again in the fall as well and that's a consulting fee that is a consulting fee that is correct okay he's

invaluable he's wonderful yeah um so Attorney Services is Matt Thomas Matt helps with all the ATB cases that that we have on file other services is Carlos yeah it's going to be for the Regal um council members this year is a revalue as you well know we went out last year and resourced 300 000 you guys approved it I thank you for it one of the things that is now reval time for us

we have a lot of work coming up we've got to get our new values certified so we need this additional Hub we have an awful lot of work in expertise that Dan might need training on and that's what college comes in and then General Consulting so that's kind of like overlaps I think the general consultant will come in is you know as Dan spoke we have ATB cases so you need expert Witnesses and that

that's what that way that comes in and the training is for just the general department that's correct yes just for residents at home ATB is a appellate tax board so when there's an appeal of uh of a tax decision from the city I'm sorry it goes to the Appellate Tax Board right not that it's uh no that's my job there was a new chapter point that new judge because I'm sorry Andrews

silly I know it's been a long night but we're going to get almost thrown thank you my last question has to do with the auditor's office so to miss Mrs almond I think this question is to you now um professional other purchase Services professional training and Technical Services for whom and to whom is my question so that would be for um most of the staff accountant the assistant auditor and we have um

we're actually trying to clean up a lot of the historical information with payroll so it's uh additional training for both payroll supervisor and the payroll uh project manager and who's going to be providing those services so right now we um we have in there um Ed will be doing some hopefully we won't I mean I've got two I've got all brand new people that have only been there just a year and we

will be having Clifton Larson um do some training actually there's a another training we're going to be sending them to the Cedric and I went over today um my God I just forgot his name it's a guy that does all the training oh I can get the name for you but there's another service that provides a lot of training that we're going to be sending them to their like online um live classes

it's elite I just can't think of the name right now that's okay I can get it and then my last question obviously is the vacancy at the city artist position maybe it's you Seth I'll ask this question um what is the current plan as far as that's concerned where where are we at with either hiring or training up where where do we step so that job has been posted uh for a number of

months we did interview some candidates we in fact made an offer um uh the woman accepted and that had the decline based upon a long-term family emergency which is really unfortunate um and uh in the meantime while we are you know always hopeful for an experienced Dynamic candidate um we're working with the staff that we have working to train up uh Mr Souza who's the assistant auditor Dynamic dedicated smart guy

great addition to the city and um you know there's just that job is huge uh the the title kind of doesn't do it a good service like it's not really an Auditor's position it's a city accountant position and Municipal accounting is incredibly in-depth um and so you know there's a lot for uh him to learn uh but I think he's doing really everything we could ever possibly ask to learn it so that's the plan in

the meantime while we still have the position open I mean I just want to add something to that so there's in the state of Massachusetts there's a three-year certification process so I just want to kind of I mean it takes three years to be a certified City account in our town okay Town account so it's not just a you know a quick let me just throw somebody up there for a

few weeks no no I understand that and also you know I mean when you go to college none of the curriculum is geared towards government it's all geared towards Private Industry correct so I guess the follow-up in that statement is that something that we are investing into Mr Susan we're addressing it into um we're investing the same training because there should be cross-training and we're investing into both of my the

accounts that we have hired in that department which is Mr Susan who um she's uh Jessica Dumont who is also you know I mean a long time you know Fall River resident graduated from Diamond has her master's degree um you know worked in some at a smaller public firm so I mean I feel like we've got some promise happening in that department but I don't want to you know

set them up to fail either no and I I absolutely agree with them I'm glad to hear that there's investment happening from under because obviously we haven't been able to find that City auditor you've already expressed that so the fact that we're doing it from from within is exactly what I'd hoped to to happen so kudos to that um that's all I have I yield thank you come to Washington to you just mentioned every year

certification process does anybody in that office have a three year certification process not right now how many applications have come in for someone with that certification well we had one application and they were had worked in uh more than 20 years in several municipalities and they were a CPA so they didn't need

the person that you just literally shut me off the person that you just um we're going to give the position to did they have that three yes or no they were they were CPA so they so you don't need it if you're a CPA I would still want them to go through go through it but they could it's they can shortcut the three years in their CPA so they don't need that so the person well

they don't need the full three-year training so is it so it's a combination of like years of service and municipalities um I can get you the whole formula so if you have like this this and this then you can then take the test without going through the full three years but the people that are in the auditor tomorrow right now don't have that so they would both they all they both need to go

through full the full three years okay so then it leads me back to the um increase in professional training so miss Aiken said that we are investing in the staff that we have um are we investing in the staff we have and what you're saying is that well they don't have this three-year certification so we shouldn't look at them or could they take a position so I already sent the assistant auditor he did the first

year we sent him um in the fall oh so he so I've already started the process of training yeah so we are currently training we are currently investing we I mean make no mistake there's like significant investment so I think that's what that makes me happy to hear I think my colleagues to hear that um the assistant auditor it's not like we don't have anybody in that position they assist in order is one year into a

three-year certification okay um that is what I was trying to get at because that I was just confused with that statement so that answers my question um with that I yield council president thank you how to teach seven count proposal quick question and the treasurer's um list page 134 that last senior accountant is that filled oh as of yesterday it is filled oh that's great news okay filled as of yesterday

fifth that's great cool thank you if I may very quickly uh the two gentlemen from assessors actually brought the bill that is pending at the state house uh regarding um uh subs or offsets for elderly if you want copies of that uh that might be helpful yeah

I don't know if it'll pass or not and just for the record there's extra copies so anybody watching that would want a copy will make those available so thank you thank you there'd be enough further questions is there any other questions for any of the Departments they're okay who knows that okay I'll entertain a motion to adjun financing motion to refer to full Council second estimating second in all in favor aye

motion to gen Finance as we made it second in all in favor do you want to go right at the regular meeting thank you councilman thank you the cops would like to take a two minute break you want to go right into the regular meeting what was that we keep going keep going okay we'll keep going okay

see the council please come to order the clerk will call the road yeah Dion here Kilby here uh Liberty Pelletier yes here proposal here Washington here president Camaro here remember to come to the Channel please rise for a moment of Silent prayer

please remain standing for a suit to the flag thank you pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all real quick I'm sorry pursuit of the open meeting the Lord any person may make an audio or a video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting to any

medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or perceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible Adam Clark the first item before you is a communication from the mayor in an order establishing spending limits of revolving funds for fy24

motion has been made and seconded all in favor aye any opposed motion carries the second is a the mayor's Communication in an order transferring the sum of Sixteen thousand dollars from the library salaries to the operating Reserve fund push to accept place on file approved and adoption motion has been made and seconded all in favor aye any opposed motion carries Committee on Public Safety at a meeting

held on May 31st voted unanimously to recommend the accompanying resolution be granted leave to withdraw this was the resolution that related to Traffic noise and air pollution in the area of Northeast Alternatives motion Grant leap to withdraw second motion hasn't made and seconded all in favor aye any opposed motion carries I have a citation aye motion carries item four is the application for the

renewal of an auto repair shop license at 801 Bay Street all in favor aye any opposed motion carries item five is an order transferring an auto repair shop license number 161 at 714 Globe Street from Henry Gauthier to Jewel Saeed doing business as Henry's Tire Enterprises motion to adopt has made it seconded all in favor aye any opposed motion carries got to leave police Chiefs report on licenses

to adopt second motion to adopt has remained executive all in favor aye any opposed motion carries we have a number of claims motion to forward Corporation Council second most refer to cooperation Council hasn't made in second at all in favor any opposed carries we have a the Attorney General's response to an open meeting law complaint that was filed by Patrick Higgins alleging a violation on January 24th

as well that's second motion to reduction placed on fire has a million seconds all in favor aye any opposed motion counties we have drain layer licenses any opposed motion carries we have minutes of the public city council public hearing held on May 30th motion will take 10 through 12 together item 10 through 12 together has been made and seconded all in favor aye any opposed motion carries motion to approve

items 10 through 12. motion so made motion has been made and seconded all in favor all right any opposed ocean carries

Council will take a one minute recess

foreign

thank you foreign

the committee on finance at a meeting held on June 6th voted unanimously to recommend the accompanying order be referred to the full Council for Action this is the fy24 budget order must do adapt motion to adopt hasn't made executive on the motion roll call

council's just a point about it before we call so the motion what was the motion exactly to adopt the appropriation and budget appropriation order so we're not going appropriation by appropriation just all of them is that oh is that the motion no I'm just trying to understand what this is I'm just reading the um the committee's report oh okay so that was the committee's report was to adopt the budget order to

adopt the fr-24 budget so I guess um so typically we do the appropriation audits when we and we go down so like City Administration salaries expenses is that are we certainly do that we can no no I'm not saying I'm just trying to make sure that I understand what the vote is before before I take a vote so if we take if we take if the motion to adopt that said we're not going

by the appropriation order right right correct thank you we don't have to we can no I'm okay I'm okay

um

the appropriation order would be the amount which is 380 million 138 114 dollars supposed to do that to your motion too that hasn't been executed council's kadim no Dion no Kilby yes well Liberty Pelletier yes Pereira yes proposal no Washington yes president Camaro yes promotion carries what's the numbers motion to adjourn beautiful five okay just if I could just quickly I just wanna articulate what my no vote was um

you know we still had another a number of departments that we needed to go through we didn't discussed revenues we didn't discussed health insurance we didn't discussed any of that so every Department was no no but I listen I got to be honest with you it was it was broken down by departments right so I I I was under the assumption we were following the order you know when we had the administration that said city city

administrator budget said law all this other stuff so that's what I was keeping my my lines of question to right and then there was a there was another meeting scheduled for tomorrow which I said that I wasn't going to be here for and I was okay with that because we needed to get it scheduled so I just assumed all these other departments were going to be discussed on that on that

day so that's just so every Council was asked who they would like to attend no I recognize that and they all came today there was no one else scheduled to come tomorrow so there would be no I would I would hope that uh the finance director and the city administrator would have been here to answer this question right and it would have been correct right so no in the dominance today the answer same questions

right but I didn't know that we had that opportunity to do it right so Healthcare is Healthcare like I I thought that was still going to be a discussion it wasn't it wasn't there listen it's neither here nor there that's that's the reason I voted it down though that's I still had questions on some of the other ones I think it was we just kind of rushed it through that's just my take with that I yields

thank you councilman hi any opposed motion carries say come to me is now agenda

the cameras

anything foreign

foreign