Fall River City Council 6 10 24

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city council commune finance will come to order the clerk will call the RO Council Kad Dion here here kby here Herrera here ponti here raoso here Samson here president here just want to let everyone know that councilor kadim did reach out to me said he's not feeling good he's under the weather he would like to make the meeting but he just can't make it tonight he's not feeling well pursuant to the open meeting law

any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit this meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and not deemed acknowledged and permissible we're going to begin um since it's input time I don't believe there's anyone that signed up to speak before us so that's

item number one we will move on to item number two which is a continuation the discussion we had from yes last week's um meeting we have members from the park Department come down we were down at the park Department last time

continue discussion I believe councel and SE number two had the floor could you all just please state your name and what department you went for the record so we will know the public at home will know who we talking to and please put the microphones close to you when you're speaking into the microphones make it easy

want to begin Mr Akens would you just name an introduction Seth Aken City administrator Bridget almond City CFO Nancy Smith Park director Al Ola City operations director thank you counc C2 counc D good evening everybody um if I may I just want to backtrack just a tad with Mr Olivera at the last meeting your the overtime in your department was discussed and you were explaining how you had to work

outside of hours for certain projects or whatever the case may be because you had to have the um wherever the work was going to be done had to be empty correct so and I believe that one up uh I didn't look would shame on me I think that went up 18,000 from last year to this year was it 30,000 to 48,000 let me check let me look so I'm not I'm

going to make sure I'm not saying anything incorrect see 27,200 to 40,000 27 to 40 all right so it went up 13,000 okay um so what what page is that Mr aler page 138 thank you so I thought about this over the weekend and would it help you if instead of having that overtime account for those situations would it make more sense to have a say 11 to S shift so that they'd

be four hours when people were working in the city they'd be four hours after everybody vacated their offices and they would get a a shift differential for the second four hours instead of instead of overtime so we don't we don't have projects every day we don't have projects every weekend we have projects as needed uh we did look into that we thought that maybe that would be a viable uh way of doing things but we

don't use it every day plus it's a collective bargaining issue that we'd have to take some time and and plan that accordingly so uh that was the thought process along with that okay but there was enough of an increase to increase that account by 13,000 correct now if we if we did didn't do the work in house we would have to uh uh perform that with a vendor and by doing that we'd have to do

prevailing wage rates and 13,000 would probably go in one project I could I I do plan on coming down at some point and making a presentation on the amount of money that we've saved by doing things in in house currently the the budget did exceed only because of the projects that we did but the shortest of staff so we were able to use salary savings to do that and then my second question in

backtracking did you get a chance since last Wednesday um for these Capital items with the uh Opera 47 for the vehicles and different equipment to be able to identify um how many of them we've actually procured how many physically can be used or seen you have that would be that would be the arpa person coming down but uh I did not but I can I I can follow back up

on that right now I don't I don't have that document but I could yeah cuz I brought this up last week and uh the city administrator said wasn't a fair question give you a chance to look at it and and up and give us the update so if I recall the question was actually what departments they went to not whether it was procured or purchased well what well I think I yeah okay cor respect I think

those are really different question correct but still it it would still be applicable as to what departments then I guess the followup would be are they here I mean I would assume and I could be a incorrect I would assume Hustler mower replacement would be parks department I would assume truck with a snowplow would be uh streets and highways could be wrong or or various departments within within City

operations yes so I believe attorney home actually sent out a revised list did you not receive that um as opposed to this one we got on Wednesday yeah yeah immediately after that meeting uh actually the next morning I did ask you revised list I thought it was sent out um she did send it out okay she did uh I can just I can tell you right now that uh that what went the DCM is the

front end loader Okay one minute please just so I can mark it so the front end loader was DCM yep okay and we have and we and we have phys physical ownership of it it's here yet that's that's these are all in different levels of procurement and purchase some things we have some things we don't and I didn't ask for them information because that wasn't um the question uh two brine systems uh DCM backhoe uh

heavy duty trailer um triaxle dump that still DCM DCM yeah I I'll change the category when I get to the Ford 550 dump two of them Ford 350 dump two of them those those last two were were uh POS have been issued for those last two two Explorer hybrids in house audit Ford F250 Superduty one Ford F250 Superduty crew cab one a Clark Forklift one that's DCM M Parks Park dump truck crew

cab hustle or mower replacement two that's DCM also these are parks Parks oh that's par okay I didn't hear you Chang the category I'm sorry I did uh one Kabota m this is facilities a Ventra Rider City operations battery operated weed whackers with charger three of them battery operated chainsaw with charger two battery operated trimmer with charger two battery operated Backpack Blower with charger two

cemeteries Ford F350 utility truck with snowplow and backo okay excellent fire department aerial ladder truck well I know those aren't coming in for a year and a half to two years because it's it takes that long correct for them to be um yeah there's still aror purchases do you want me to keep going um no I think I'm good on the others because we're addressing um M Al's department so okay

um I mean the trolley is the trolley I know I remember what the open government um the police cruises obviously is the police department so some of them are self-explanatory okay all righty oh there's also um so we're in the process of looking at money that's been dispersed from arpa and hasn't been spent uh either by outside agencies or internal um you know more programmatic things where there's an

estimate as to what was going to be used and they didn't use it all um there's been a significant amount we've been able to CLA back but there's 205,000 of that that the mayor has set aside um for Parks projects since we're talking about parks in in DCM and City operations um it's not the full 300,000 that was originally that real that would have taken care of uh the list uh that

director Smith talked about uh last week uh but we're looking at about 205,000 in arpa money to do some of those projects um those decisions will be made uh between the mayor and I imagine director Smith and director olera uh in the next week two weeks uh at the very most and started because obviously we need to commit those funds forth with um but uh from the list uh we'll be able to commit

205,000 that's the the arpa expense that is not on the list that you got yeah that was just a recent um something that came up recently yeah the um attorney hum has been spending probably the last month looking at every project every expense every um every expenditure through arpa to determine if there's any leftovers there that should be clawed back and put towards an immediate and better use um and uh

amongst what she's found and I don't know the total number uh the 205 is is committed uh in the way that I just said and then we also had identified about $43,000 of some funds that were from capital projects from the last few from you know a few years ago yeah the inactive projects yes and so and um dur uh Al's also working on some specs to then we'll have to reallocate

that money yeah the inactive projects I was going to bring that up $44,100 and 23 cents yep okay so we don't so again that's money that was bonded so we have to you know do that a different way right and it's going to go for Lake and it came from Park so can remain in Parks yeah but it still has to be like a like kind you know project so

yeah okay so in light of some of the comments and statements Mrs Smith could you kind of give us a brief overview of some of the projects that you felt were okay so true transparency full transparency I emailed Mrs Smith I asked her could she please send me her budget the projects her reasons for the projects Etc so I have that here but I would like her to kind of so everybody

else knows also um what some of the projects were that you felt were important um and we'll start with that okay well there were several projects um some of them exceeded the $300,000 but much of the projects were um rehab of the tennis basketball court um um some playground installation um I did note that there were sidewalks and roadways both throughout Kennedy and Lafayette Park um in addition to um

parking lot properties of parks um that needed repairs or lighting um so that those were big projects so I knew that they wouldn't be able to be put in in our actual budget um I did um get estimates for the cck filling per court so it was broken down to the different courts um so some of them ran from $12,000 repairs to other courts that needed 40 you know maybe $440,000

repairs and depending on how we did those repairs would be able to maybe stretch the dollar a little bit more um I also took into consideration I had spoken with the um building um inspector about the Kennedy Park Pool building I thought that that should be demolished or something done with it if they're going to save it they're going to save it if they're going to I I recommended de demolition because that's

was my conversation with the um with the building inspector so um it's no one has been in there since 2009 when the pool Building closed um and the the roof there's um you can see the sky if you go inside there I mean it's just it's in deplorable condition I also recommended um remov and replace bement of the Mason Street fencing um at Lafayette Park um that was approximately 32,000 um for the

estimate that I had gotten um I did have an increase of water in sewer because that's just goes with the territory um and the other is the study that I had put in but um I did have a breakdown per Court like I said um that was probably the majority of that 300,000 that was going to do Court repairs so it's pretty evident that um Mr aliver would you do you consider

basically this to be reasonable in terms of um the what the what the cost would be for for example Highland Park basketball courts crack fill pav seam depression color coat and restripe um I'm I assume you've seen this these yes so for the most part I mean do consider these to be reasonable um requests based on the fact that we own them we should be maintaining them and the cost to get

us back up to Snuff um so that when we Mo as moving forward we can simply maintain them I do I mean there there are some things that I I have comments on but um but yeah we need to we need to make sure we bring everything up to uh where it should be um I had numbers discussions on what it takes to um to bring the basketball courts and and um up to up to

speed at this point and that's exactly what you do they treat they treat the um the basketball courts um like tennis courts so it has to be done U pristine and from that point on we just maintain it and with periodic inspections we we can't let it to get to this degradable type of situation so I think then that we all can pretty much agree that $75,000 for maintenance for 25 pox truly

isn't an adequate amount of money based on the needs of the city so that that 75 is for operational these are capital items that we have to work on the operational budget is the 75 additional funds are needed for any other items beyond the operational day-to-day repairs so there's a all repairs are considered cap Capital items no no I mean small small repairs you have the small repairs medium repairs and large

Capital item repairs that budget doesn't doesn't suffice a full-fledged repair such as this we can't we can't put these items in a a u operational budget can I just add to what please so I mean again arpa one of the easiest ways to spend arpa money is in open space which is Parks so we did know I mean an attorney home has been working on I I don't know how many weeks months

so we did know that and the mayor had had said to um Mrs Smith when we met with her that we were going to like identify other sources of of money to be able to do these things and we also know that there's you know many of times there's ear marks available for parks and open space there's other opportunities available for open space that we want to be able to take

advantage of and not have to use taxpayer dollars so we did say that we were going to identify other sources of funds to do these bigger projects with and that's what we're we're doing is we're looking to find those other sources of funds to get those done this year well can I address that certainly which is fine and I understand that but when this is to a point we're at this point that this becomes a

capital project because we're at this point however I do have other things playground flooring or fix you know for example Small Things fix fencing for5,000 fix and if that's going to come from this $75,000 as we talked about and I have ball field materials of $ 15,000 now I have to fix the fence that's another 10,000 that 75,000 just doesn't cut it I understand that right now we're

talking big money because we have not invested in these Parks but I think that these courts could be done one at a time in the future when these cracks appear then you address that particular court at that time and that's the kind of money that I came here forward looking for now no Department more than myself uses Community Development funding Community preservation funding every

single project that we have done over the last 10 12 years other than a Kennedy Park back stop that these ta that the taxpayers put in my budget $100,000 other than that every Improvement in the park system has come from an alternative Source I mean there are other departments that have historical buildings I don't see that in their budget seek alternative sources they have the opportunity also to to

pursue CPC funding or perhaps CDA funding I mean it just seems that it's always it it's always the parks department that's sent on on the chase to find other funding well I would agree with you because year after year after year Council kadim comments on that and counc kadim wants a master plan and Council kadim has asked many times for the same thing over and over and over and it still has never come to fruition

um so to I I I agree with that and also um this money that we're talking about the Opera funding that we're going to be using to upgrade um I received a call from the Opera director this just this week stating that the money is coming from um an endeavor that the counselor in C7 and myself um had advocated for so that money is being rescinded so this decision with this

$200,000 is actually very recent um and I I also touched base with the mayor on it um after speaking with her so I'm really glad that we have that money I'm glad we're going to be able to upgrade our Parx I think in the future we need need a larger budget to maintain our Parks we cannot continue to let them deteriorate year after year like we have and we spoke about idle funds in

park projects so when that did when we did have that conversation in the mayor's office I went back and I looked into these um budget reports that are are sent to the Council of the idle projects I did see that in a in a 2019 there was 53,3 $331 and it said City Park repairs basketball courts Abbot Court Kennedy Park Maplewood Park North Park and Ruggles Park that money would not have

had to be repurposed that money was left over money from that original project so when I went into that so that was in 20 19 we'll call it so then when I went into 2020 that same city p repairs was down to $38,000 so some of that $53,000 went somewhere and it didn't go to those Court repairs I went into 2021 City Park repairs the 38,000 became $35,000 and then after that I went into

2022 and the $35,000 was gone so I don't know where these particular funding if we have to repurpose them then we should have somewhere where these funds were repurposed these fund funds would not have had to be repurposed when I came here last year and asked for the courts to be done there would have been some well I'm lying I take it back because by 2022 they were gone so right now I'm showing

39,000 in Thomas 2 park I'm going to venture to say that that was when the buildings division bought the splash pads because when they bought them they bought the splash pads separately and they had a different person install them so I had all said before there was a little bit of an accounting issue with the with the previous Buildings Department not utilizing their grant funding using their own budget so this

$39,000 is in chew poac so is it simply for splash pads or can we repurpose that to the ball field I don't know does anybody know the answer that's what we're looking at right now and so and I I mean I understand what you're looking at but I the people sitting at the table were not here in 2019 no you were not again and like and I and I and I'm not

accusing anybody but I'm saying the money was there there was $53,000 for these and I I can't tell you how many times I've come down to this Council and they're like there are idle Park funds there are idle Park funds I think this past time even Council Pony said that so I went into the idle Park funds and saw what was there so at this point there's probably like I guess

another 40 some thousand in idle Park funds so there was a I mean I do believe and I don't remember when it was but there was some a park fund that had deficit so I believe that it got netted with that and again we have to pull the loan authorizations and then look at that and that's what we're doing is is we want to make sure we're doing things correctly I don't know what happened in

2019 or you know even 20 you know and up until 22 I mean I came at the end of 22 as well as Mr aliv came in 23 23 so I mean again we have to like look into those and go back through the history of that stuff without just making snap decisions and that's what we're doing and and Mr Smith I mean I'd be more than happy to look at what you're bringing

forward I just that's the first time I'm hearing about going back to 2019 well it was when we had the conversation in the mayor's office about the the idle funds so I went in and kind of investigated where these idle funds were and I and I I just think that it seems like it seems like I put my budget forward I asked for the money and we're getting the money in

the 11th hour because I ran into the bank with a gun and a mask that's not what happened um well I think from my point of view I think some of my line of questioning and where I'm going with this is we have 25 Parks most of our parks are beautiful parks are very important outdoor space very important so I think maybe you know we call this Ground Zero moving

forward we invest the money I mean if you have it maintain it what happens if you don't maintain your house you have to um so I I think that's that's a lot of what I'm pushing for and and trying to say um I think it's unfortunate you know again we had three skate parks what happened two of them aren't any good it it three of them aren't any good we're

building a brand new one it's just a shame that we have so much and we don't we choose apparently not to take care of it to to a certain extent um so something else I'd like to get into right now because I want to give other people obviously the opportunity to um speak back to the vacancies um we had received initially on page 151 um the total salary number at the bottom

77968 was actually incorrect should have been 9914 900 um because there were four vac four funded vacancies three of those for whatever reason didn't make it into that number so so then on Wednesday we' we've got this other page where the four vacancies are still there the line item has been decreased all the light item line items across have been decreased so that it does total 779

th000 and and then with two asteres funds will be transferred from Reserve if positions are able to be filled well my comment on this is this is the only Department I've seen this in we have other departments that have funded vacancies so should should we put all funded vacancies in the reserve account and call it if if somebody gets hired we'll transfer the funds no this is different and here's why and yes please

explain so when we uh so the budgets were submitted they started working on the budgets putting it together including the total appropriation uh there was a conversation uh with the parks department um and uh the conclusion was that they just needed more people uh and the agreement was three more people that was added in um and it was added in pretty late in the game um so the idea was that uh we're

going to hire for those positions we're going to advertise for those positions we're going to uh we want to give uh director Smith uh every opportunity to to have her full compliment of people to do the work she needs to do um but rather than change the entire appropriation and and basically you know it's sort of a a domino effect right you change you know you add three positions

and all of a sudden you're changing the appropriation you're changing everything if we uh if we're able to hire for those positions which one of those was vacant already at the start of the budget and had been vacant for a little bit I'm not saying a long time but had been vacant for some period of time we always have a little bit of trouble you know filling vacancies generally uh

because it's just a tough economy out there um you know given that there's other places whether it's private uh private companies or towns um you know hiring at really you know inflated uh you know salaries over what they were a few years ago even a year ago um so the decision was made to add those three positions because they're important but to not change the appropriation uh and

to come down to this Council and let you know if we're able to fill so is the reserve fund reflected in the budget yes yes is the re Reserve Fund in the appropriation yes yes so if you're going to put those positions in the reserve fund then that appropriation needs to go up $135,000 whether you're leaving the funded vacancies in her budget or putting it in the reserve fund the appropriation is

wrong no okay I me reasonable people can can disagree I understand what you're saying but we just happen to make a decision to try to do it in a way that didn't shift a whole bunch of things and have us you know replacing 10 pages in the budget that's that's all and these were new positions added you know other departments didn't add new positions so these were brand new positions that

weren't in her were in the budget and this is what and when we talked about it and the mayor said you know we'll if if we can fill them then we'll we'll transfer you the money but that was you know so if they brand new positions never in the budget then wouldn't they have had to go to ordinance first well I don't think so no no no because the the positions exist in ordinance

it's just a matter they already exist in ordinance we just haven't funded just a regular labor just a number of them like there's no specific number of laborers in ordinance that you're limited to in the parks department so if we want to add in a labor we can add a labor um in this situation we're trying to be responsive to the request of the department well I think the 135,000 it

whether whether it's in the reserve fund or in the OR in this budget it's there it's in the budget it's in the appro it should be in the appropriation so if that's the case personally I think it should stay exactly where it is let's put a deadline any any funded vacancies that aren't filled by the third quarter move all the money into the reserve fund because you haven't filled the vacancies you know in full

transparency people should be able to open this budget anybody open the budget and go to all the Departments and say okay we have 19 FTE in this department they shouldn't have to look at it and say well let's see do we have 19 15 16 how many do we have people people need to know how many people working in the city how many ftds we have and how much money is dedicated to those positions

and I think taking it and put in the reserve fund is muddying the waters and making this not as straightforward as it should be we wouldn't want to muddy the waters uh so with that um I will yield for now thank you coun I I just have a question ncy you said that the money was in there $50,000 at one point yes to do the repairs to the Box yes and then at the

end of the year it got smaller the next following year was less and then the following after that was gone completely yes so when you had the money in the budget why didn't you do the work with it no it's not in my budget it's in idle Park funds and those were projects that were not done in the park department they were done in the facilities department or when Mr Pacho was here I think he was

the one who did the basketball courts that's how far back that I think that money went but the this money is not money that I have um but they W for the same but it w for the same purpose to fix the basketball court so that's what the money was there for is that no that was a grant what it and that's what I think um Miss almond is saying is it was grant

money for that project and that's why it has to somewhat if it's not the same thing would have to be repurposed because what happened was obviously that through whatever accounting $53,000 was left in that account after that project was complete so those be start to become idle funds I understand that what you get inactive capital projects that I got this from the from the reports that are sent to the

council yeah no I understand how it works I get it but I'm saying was couldn't you find another like project on the basketball court in the city to use that money for if if I had access to it yes I never had it in my access at my access I get it so another department had it and they were doing the work point of information it's in capital projects so the money is in capital

projects money that was authorized money that was not used it's un so it's projects that aren't that weren't I mean so it was sitting there it had it had to be transferred no I understand that but my point I'm trying to get it is okay so if I'm working in a park Department there's a capital project there and it's no one's use it why wouldn't you push to get it

used well I'll be honest with you when Maplewood par pleas be honest when mwood par lighting project was short funding I did send a request I didn't get an answer is there fun funding available that we could subsidize this project with because it's 450,000 the CPC money that we have is 400 is there money available and other Park projects that we would be able to use I never got a response and you have

a follow up why you didn't get a response I mean I don't know people ask question Toc and they gave me I just I don't give up that easy my point is if someone I ask a question and at work and I don't get an answer I'll wait a day or two and then I call him says hey can I get an answer to the question is that money available I just don't say never

ask again and wait a couple years and then say oh now the money's gone Mr aliv and I went before the CPC and we got we asked them for an additional $50,000 and that so we didn't need to uze utilize that money we CP Then I then that's good I'm glad you use CPC money for that because that's what it's meant for that's the case I'm happy with it okay Council and Cate Council Samson thank

you council president right along the same lines as council president there are so many things that are bothering me about this conversation right now there's either a lack of communication or a lack of accountability and I'm trying to figure out which it is because I do not like hearing well I wasn't here in 2019 well he wasn't here until 2023 it doesn't matter you're here now so either

you never knew about these projects and this is the first time you're hearing of it or uh NY you haven't asked for the money so I mean I'm not understanding where the problem is Parks our biggest thing we've talked about we're we're looking at a skate park right I think the majority of us voted for a skate park we want to do better things in the Parks and here we you have these

projects and you're saying that the money was once there it's not there so I guess I'm asking you directly you said so Miss alond said this is the first time I'm hearing of it and you're like no I'm not so the the greater public is listening when have you asked for these things to be done have you said look the money was taken out of my budget you're the department head it wasn't taken out

of my budget these projects were done through the facilities maintenance department never ever ever Park funds ever Mrs Smith I'm Not Your department head right I am not you that is your department you are going to Advocate you know where the money was where it wasn't you just sat here and said said here's where it was you have your meeting did you advise them look this is where the

money was at one time they're sitting in idle projects we really need to get this done and you directed them in the right direction if you did that then that's a problem on the other end the council has directed them to these idle projects as well because I mean I'm not going to sit here and take a beaten I have hold on no one giving a she's asking questions please let's not take it to the next

level it's not necessary I feel like we're all being have had conversations about these idle funds these idle funds go back to the point where Council along was on this board and we kept on asking can we use these idle funds can we use these idle funds but the idle funds need to be transferred by the council to be used for these other projects I just can't go

in and and and I can ask all I want and the conversations have been had but the conversation sometimes end and the council picked up the conversation and said how about these projects how about this money and and and obviously it's not only me asking for that and it not happening so my I so I guess I should say I you can't take my questions personal because it is

our job to figure out what it is so if my head is spinning with the communication that's going on around here I've got to try to make sense of it and my head is spinning because you're saying one thing Miss almond is saying another thing so I'm trying to make sense of it so what you're saying to me is that you have asked for these funds and you have been said no so then miss

almond I ask you have they asked you for these funds directed you and you're saying hey I I wasn't here in 2018 because that is a big problem our parks are so important to this city so what I meant by is her the dollar amounts are different from what she showing me in 2019 those the balances are not the same balances today so I would have to go investigate like what got spent or what

was used out of that that's what was the point and Mr Smith has not personally asked me but I've been working with Mr olera with the amounts that we have available that are left in that we've worked with the city auditor to see what the balance is left and we he's working on identifying projects to then use those funds for so I'm we have used a we have been cleaning up a lot of those idle

funds so I'm going to ask that there's some better communication so I have an email I actually have an email that I sent to miss p and and this was in regard to that but first I sent it to um the city auditor and he was like that's not a question I can answer you need to send it to the CFO and I did and I didn't get an answer back and in the

meantime we were scurrying around to try to get the money from somewhere and we ended up getting it from CPC so I did not pursue that email any further so miss Amon I'm going to ask you would this be a project that um the new person that you hired would look at so she was hired to look at get pass Grants Pass like stuff like this no so we we actually um we pulled all the loan

authorizations and we're reviewing all those loan authorizations for all of these Idol funds so we we've already started working on this okay so that's a much better answer than I wasn't here in 2019 so I appreciate that answer I meant just the balances are have changed so the dollar amounts that Miss Smith is is telling you is from 2019 the CH those numbers have changed well so when people

are at home or listening it's just a better answer so I appreciate you're looking into it the other thing I have Miss Smith when you were here um before a few months ago we talked about possibly looking at maybe the sheriff's apartment coming to do work because you have these positions that you need you they I don't even know if you had all of those laborers positions in there but

they're added did you make any progress looking at possibly having some of the sheriff department now I know there was question we can't do it in the Parks but there are City own off the highways off you know the ramps that people can clean up did have we we normally use the cedar kids in the summer those programs we normally utilize them in the summer so so I did not reach out to the Sheriff's

Office that would probably be something that we have to have a conversation with Mr olera Mr olera it's all you counselor I did contact the Sheriff's Office and the sheriff's office we had a set date and time to meet and we did talk over the phone all activities from the sheriff's office has been ceased due to lack of Staffing on their end um but we did we did talk to them about that well

thank you I appreciate that so um I I guess I'm going to yield for now council president thank you very much thank you Council Council te five Council vice president pero I'm I'm quick um n you had a foreman retire yes is there another person already in that position no when will there be someone in that position well we were hold not doing any of that because there was all this talk

of reorganizations and we were not going to promote someone if if positions were going to be shifted and changed so um it's basically one body he is being paid service out of rank for that position right now until we can Mr ala when when are you figuring out a miss aens when are you figuring out this reorg and when there's going to be a foreman there anybody know well there is a foreman

there he's paid service the the person is acting in the Foreman's capacity so you have an acting Foreman yes okay um I know we've talked about capital projects when was britland Park done I think uh John Mitchell was mayor 20 po not the turf turf was 2015 2015 yes so the turf needs to be done again yes what's the amount to redo that field with Turf more or less I would say at least 200 to to

rehabit maybe more it it would depend on the condition of the the field that I mean I I would even go as far as saying 350 to be safe 500,000 500,000 are we looking at doing that that's a complete redo no that's a that's a Turf that's the turf project we all the drainage is all set and then the uh the type of turf is going to be selected and that's

that's the that's the normal um it was 500,000 when we did it so it maybe if we're going to do as in 2015 I would say that you're going to go more than you're probably going to do your 700 like your skate like your skate park so I just want to clarify when you we talk about the turf we talk about the soccer Turf not baseball Turf the soccer field soccer field $500,000 to do the soccer

field turf that's what you're saying yes that's about the cost yes I'd like to see that quote wow lot of money to do that um some of the fields grass seeds a lot less expensive some of the Fe pardon grass seeds a lot less expensive yeah but then you need the manpower to keep it mowed and keep it fertilized and everything else um part of what I see in the Parks and we have done pickle ball

courts and Ecuadorian volleyball Etc but some of the parks we need kind of a master plan on what parks are being used what parks are not being used if we had a nice softball field you'd have traveling teams come in that brings Economic Development tourism to the area uh people come I mean we all know Brian Bishop he does a lot of work around here um he's all over the place with softball

and he would certainly have them come here if we had a location and you know they usually come and stay a week and and play ball um I have many people that ask me about football we had kids at Morton that play flag football and they tried to get onto the dery field and were quickly scurried away from there but what Fields do we have for softball uh for soccer um you know I I think we

need to look at that and I know ethnically the city changes and we have very few little leagues I don't know we don't have the coaches or what have you Maplewood Park is pretty up and and coming there you know they're pretty active Kennedy Park at the top they're active but Lafayette Park isn't now um so what could we repurpose that to so that people could use it and would have somewhere to go behind britland Park

there's all that grass area back there I mean that's levels pretty much levels can we put some soccer nets there like how are we going to get a list of what parks are being utilized which on are and what it's going to cost us to repurpose some of these Parks so that people can use them would you be doing that or would there be a consultant that comes into to do

that I I would think that we could say what we wanted to repurpose them for but I think what the best thing would be is to have someone who is like a planner an urban like like we do an open space plan and that's what we were talking about and they tell you what you know this is the demographic here this is what's being used because maybe some of the

fields are not being used but what that does help do is for an individual who who is not a member of a league like I had a request this week some family or a group wants to go play kickball so the field that you were talking about at the bottom of Kennedy Park that's not utilized by a league is somewhere that they can go and not worry about a league

coming in or a coach coming in or what so we do have some of those fields that do need to stay open and you and I have and I agree with that and you and I have talked about this issue before and a good point was about parking that you know when we do these fields we need to make sure that there's adequate parking I mean years ago if you went to Lafayette Park and

watch the game there was always parking available but now the multif family houses around there it's not where one family has one car they have two three four cars sometimes so we need um to look look at that um I know CPC funding too has been used by the cemetery department for the north burial grounds they had redone that and that does give us a lot of money

um is it hard to get people to come in and work because of the pay well we raised the pay now and that's why I had that one vacant position as I said I utilized that to help fund those increases our top labor TOP Step was getting $16 an hour and then that's when we up we up them to 20 because that was our maximum step until the they can renegotiate right

but since I've been $20 can I fill them a lot easier sure no one was working for $16 an hour no person was going to be able to support their family on $16 an hour I mean some jobs for kids are paying more than $16 an hour so there was no I was not getting anybody but now at 20 yes I I am able to interview and get people to work I mean that's what

I'm I'm looking at at how we can repurpose fields for people to be able to use them and I know we have to have some that are free that uh but it just seems that we need to have a plan of which park is going to be what and if there is money and I do remember uh when Council long was here talking about that but you know to say that you know the

council has to allow the money that's true but the council usually gets it from the mayor and at that time jel was a mayor and he did not bring that down even though we had spoken to him about it um I know Council long had spoken to him about it because we spoke about it um I um this Council probably remembers that a couple well more than a couple months ago maybe six months ago you

authorized their Bristol County arpa funds for an open space and Recreation plan through serit right remember that so that we're a couple months into that um it has a group of community members and City people who are all working on on that which how long is that going to take for us to get we're I mean we're probably a few still a few months out uh before we start doing that but part of

that is going to include public hearings similar to the opioid funds right uh it's going to include a lot of public input um and I think that while it's not specifically a park plan it's a much broader plan right it is going to yield some really I think important insights especially from folks that we normally don't hear from um you know different Community uh leaders um who are part of

that process and sered I think does a remarkable job you know leading these type of uh of exercises they do um so what we're going to have is a renewed plan it's going to it's going to take a deep dive into all the open space and Recreation um and at the same time there's going to be public input that goes with that so I think we're going to get some some from that plus I know that

uh Mr Olivera um has been you know there was a um there was a inspection of all of the playground equipment uh with some steps to how we improve or have to replace those um there's also a lot of preventative maintenance things that are going on to try to assess what we're need and some of those playgrounds I think uh Miss Smith was right a lot of the money that comes from that comes

from um CDA money or from you Community Development uh talking about that what's going on at Lafayette Park with the equipment there the the children children's equipment there I'm not sure the at the park that I know of needing the repairs and we and I've ordered that um matter of fact I'm waiting for them to come in probably next week I've ordered the pieces the parts for that was pesy Park I didn't

have any um big issues at Lafayette that we didn't correct in housee so I'm not sure I think swings and stuff like that I don't know if they broke or they weren't safe they took some some things down well so so here's the case and point with that we're talk about swings from that $75,000 that we were talking about that's what I buy I had to buy this replacement equipment I had to buy the

swings we have to we have to buy the you know the Nets these are the things that come from that $75,000 so in in all actuality when you if a a bucket swing for you have to buy a commercial grade bucket swing and they're they're $145 some of them I mean it all depends what you're buying these these are the things that come from that $75,000 so it doesn't last a long time I

I will I mean are there other accounts that we use yes um but in all in all the money that we get I think we could use a little a little bit more I remember the the basketball nets U Manny Pula used to go around and buy nets and put Nets at all of the basketball I mean he passed away just a few a few weeks ago or a month ago

um but did a lot um the mayor does that now the mayor calls me he's going around now checking checking Nets he's and he let me he said he's going to be become the new Manny Pula that's good he's tall enough he can reach them in that's what he said I only need a short step ladder and who who's that the mayor but um have you gotten any grants from the the grant uh writer at City

Hall are there any grants that are available for par um we have we applied for one F lafette Park we didn't get the grant any grants available for Homestead Park since we have omstead Parx that's something the grant is that something uh miss a you can look into seeing if Jasmine can look at what types of Grants there should be grants for omad Parks as well and I'm interested in seeing a plan

of What U that's a good point of what we can do to get that done all right uh I yield with ny's questioning but I wanted to ask you um remember when you were here I don't know last week and we talked about the litter control people that you had at DCM yes or DPW DCM um so I asked for a list and how much did we make and I I did get a list um

but from July to December there were 254 citations given from January to May 458 so 712 of those 136 tickets were paid totaling $ 14,150 we have three people who are working and getting benefits for $4,150 maybe we need to revisit that it just I mean they should be making more in you know or making close to um and I don't see that you know illegal dumping there was one in August one here I think we

need to highlight when we catch illegal dumping and you know who does it you need to highlight that you need to get the media involved or whatever so people know we're watching that um sidewalk I I laughed when I looked at this and I saw uh snow and ice removal there were two in January and 40 in February but then I have to say forting in February what about the

city you know we have to make sure if you expect the residents to have to make sure their snow and their sidewalks are cleared the city needs to do that too and unfortunately I don't think you have enough manpower you know even at the park department for them to go around and clean the snow all around all these Parks so Manpower is important and I hope that uh Mrs Smith gets more

individuals there I think she needs that but just look at that because maybe that's not so good I like the concrete crew maybe we need another concrete crew then you could handle Lafayette Park rather than bid it out do it little by little I know there are other side works that you're doing throughout the city but you know everybody can use a park so there's got to be a balance I don't know

where that balance is but I think that we need to kind of look at that if I don't think it's money well spent um other than that ials for now Mr President thank you thank you councelor councel SE six counc part thank you Mr President so um first off a couple things um I wanted to hit your uh parks department uh buildings and ground maintenance for 75,000 and maybe you were speaking about this with my

colleague in seat too City will look to outside funds to do as many identified projects what does that mean what project I didn't put that in so that so originally U Mrs Smith put over an extra 300 I forgot the exact number in and when we met with the mayor with Mrs Smith um we pulled out though that fund again because of that the open space that's being done and because we said we want

to utilize these other funds that we have sitting and use other you know a marks or grants or arpa funds as much as we can because again we want to keep this a very lean budget and so that that's what it meant it's cuz we took that 300 and something thousand out of her budget I think it was actually 250 we took out y it was 300,000 for um repairs and it was 250,000 for the study

that I had put in okay so I guess my plan is is there a plan in this fiscal year to address those specific needs for the plan and for those repairs are you are you going to be just hoping to use all the money well we've already identified like 240 or 200 just about 200 just under 250,000 of funds that we've already identified outside funds to use and as Mr Akin said and I don't

know all about that serpent um open space but so yeah so I mean I don't think there was I don't believe hope is ever a plan um and so we're certainly not hoping uh with regard to this open space and Recreation plan we're doing it um I'm on the committee uh we've met several times um I just confirmed looking through my records uh it's actually supposed to be done at the very

beginning of calendar year 25 so maybe six months or so uh until we're uh complete with that and I think it'll yield some really good results it'll certainly include Parks as well as other open space um and you know areas including you know the Dave's Beach area and the picnic area and all the other important areas that may not be Parks but are critically important Open Spaces in the city um so that's that's

certainly more than you know a speculative idea it is happening uh and it's moving forward um and it's being done uh with uh folks that know how to do it with regard to um uh the other identified projects uh a couple things have happened uh one is that the the mayor um commissioned uh attorney hum to start looking at arpa to see what unused funds there were there um and she was

able to call back some money including the 205 I just mentioned uh he directed the financial team to start looking at um any of just the outstanding monies uh you know that either were bonded at some point or or borrowed or just are there in any capacity looking for for uh unused funds there and that was raised by yourself uh Council not that long ago we talked about Street streetscapes

among other things um you know that uh you know um is is part of an effort that the mayor's commissioner Financial team and then finally um he and I met with Community preservation to look at going back I believe the 2018 every project that had leftover funds in it that was a city project so as everyone knows just for whoever is watching uh and whoever might be in the audience that doesn't

know um Community preservation grants funding both to City departments as well as private entities out out in the community um some of them are nonprofits but just non City entities we looking looking just in the city projects uh we are able to find um a pretty significant amount of money uh that right now is being verified by CPC of leftover monies that weren't completely used up going

back those many years with uh agreement by CPC uh to accept a proposal from the city for use of those monies even though they're it's not the traditional way it has to be in by a certain time and then vet it uh they would consider it through their vetting process but they would allow us to do it once they certify the amount of funds that are available uh and those are significant as well so I

think we've been able to find hundreds of thousands of dollars the question now is is um you know where to put those to uh at the same time no matter what improvements we do to the parks it doesn't matter if we're not going to maintain them uh you know that's the thing that I learned almost immediately getting in front of this Council um and you know realizing that you know we can

have the greatest parks in the world but if we're not maintaining and making sure that not only do we have nice things but we keep them nice then what are we doing um and so Mr ol I think has done a really nice job instituting not just in park but across his entire department preventative maintenance inspections uh you know surveys trying to figure out how are we using what we have and how

are we taking care of it uh and it's been the start of some really good things and I think we're actually going to start to see it pay dividends very soon so all right so there was a lot there um I'll just say that I think with the resources that the park department has limited in in its sense does a fairly good job of maintaining our Parks I think so J the

with with with not enough Staffing which we've always talked about and limited resources I think they do a really good job so I I think we need to credit that Department more with doing everything they that they do do with with what they need for more but I I want to I want to touch on something that was said by a colleague of mine and we spoke about the reserve fund right under General government you have

$846,000 of Reserve money what what exactly are you intending to do with that because usually at prior budgets under prior administrations I do remember there being another page under other and insurance that kind of break that used to break down what we were doing with that what is the plan with that so the reserve fund is is exactly that it's a contingency we have um collective

bargaining that's going on right now so but didn't didn't didn't we have a discussion last week that you included collective bargaining increases under individual names of people in abme certainly however um the problem with collective bargaining is that you can't really count on I mean that's the problem but the reality of collective bargaining is you can't count on it ending up the way you think uh and I

think a great example is the uh the fire arbitration um you know both sides worked uh really seriously to try to get to an agreement it ended up we couldn't do it it went to arbitration it wasn't what we thought um so I think that can happen anytime you're in Collective baring so Reserve can be used for that uh that's certainly something we talk about all the time sure so I guess my my

question is if this is a lean budget why do we have a reserve account assigned to possible asme for example collective bargaining negotiations and you've also attempted to increase asme employees under their specific salary line item that doesn't make sense so it sounds to me that you have reserve and then you also have added that to their salary line sry not at all um first of all I

mean our side the city side is about $191 million if you take out the two things we can't control mainly being um uh retirement you know Pion you know pension increases that sort of thing we're about $875,000 over last year um that's less than a percent I mean if that's not a lean budget I don't know what is but but I think reasonable people again can disagree as to what a

lean budget is I would say this certainly is one I I want to just clear something up and I'm sorry to interrupt you but this isn't making any sense we've had we had discussions last week that specifically stated that there are some individuals who are asme employees that have if you call it a I that they're getting paid $75,000 in this budget that wasn't the discussion the discussion was that there are a number

of people who follow the askme raise they're not as me employees they're they're not part of the Union but because of the way they're they're set up in and you I think you would have gotten the the chart today uh those folks that's not who you asked for you didn't ask that's not yeah they're not in there but there are a number of folks who follow ask me that are set by

ordinance capped by ordinance um there are raises in there speculating as to what we think the asme ra is but but not asme the asme employees are a whole different thing they're actually in the union none of them are making $75,000 I understand that so then you're saying that you have $846,000 of Reserve I I can add to it okay so we also have um the cops Grant where you know depending

on what the response is from the uh the request that we did we would then have to fund 40% of those positions so that part of that is in reserves so I have to be you know it's a small contingency and if you look at past budgets which I have looked at past budgets you did have con you did.3 million one year I saw that but that was when there was many more collective

bargaining negotiation and contracts open at that time with all due respect so I'm try what I'm trying to understand is because maybe I'm confused or maybe I misunderstood what was said last week so are you saying that if I'm looking at parks for example if I were to look at individuals who are asme employees that they have a a the line the number on their budget does not include askme potential increases to

it yes Miss M yes 2% okay so then if I'm looking at the parts department and there's a 2% increase within the salary line and then you have a reserve account how much extra meat are you putting in the budget under salaries for the possible unknown because you have a reserve account that's open for $800,000 and you got salary lines of individual employees that are expecting a step

increase but they you're also carrying it over in your appropriation order I don't understand no the the the asme increase is reflected in the actual salaries in the under their specific line item yes okay and the reserve the 875,000 part of that could be unknowns in asking bargaining part of that could be unknowns in um the police Grant if we're not actually able to use that fully uh

because there's some limitations to the police Grant there's any number of contingencies that are built into that just so I understand is is it your position that you would you're saying we should have no contingency at all I think I agree with I agree with the contingency because we've done that in Prior years but what we didn't do in Prior years was have a contingency and then also inre the individual employees

in the Departments what a what you may consider a increase in Collective marketing negotiations if why would you why would you say you have the employee for example um head clerk in the park Department okay I'm assuming that that is a I'm just using this as an example a salary of $41,000 yes okay so I don't know how much point point of information is that the actual salary because we

don't have actuals in this budget or is that just what was budgeted last year for that salary for that employee was the actual salary what was budgeted so so what I have for the actual salary that I submitted was 4,352 that's what I submitted based on 26.1 whatever and then that with the contingency went to 411 so it was 4,352 that I submitted based on 26.1 weeks you're putting how you have a you

have a you have a total annual salary in your department of $733,000 are you going to that but that's that's with the contingency how much 2.5% whatever they put I didn't submit how much was it we budgeted uh 2% so there's so 2% so if I subtract out 2% of $733,000 779 that would that's what s Sten step increases please don't interrupt let theer do you understand what I'm trying

to say here how how this isn't this isn't lean in any way shape or form if you've put into salary lines a 2% increase for individual employees and then you have a reserve account that's not lean that's not a lean budget you're you're expecting to negotiate with a union and give them maybe a 2% increase maybe I mean we've all said it but maybe you're you're hoping for hope hope it's

not three but it's let's say it's two why would you also have a reserve account with almost a million dollars in it well it's not a million it's 800 but so you also have you have um police officers who then if they get education that we then have to increase their budget and there's different things that happen that you need you should have a reserve I mean and it's a and we've reduced the reserve from prior

years yes but there and we also have again that cops grant that we've talked about that the reserve you can't compare this to Prior years because prior years the prior financed person who was in your seat put $2.3 million in in a reserve account for a collective bargaining when police was open fire was open appsme was open and and anything else that was open I don't know if there's anything

else and they were still open long after they should have been sure and it flew through to free cash and you did whatever they they did in that Municipal budget but what I'm trying to understand and I can't wrap my head around it is you would put does every single Department in this budget have a 2% increase under salaries no just the asme ones all right and then it's the only

that's the only open contract and so I would have to go through what pretty well that's pretty much all a city hall that's the city clerk's office that's the parks department that's um that's cemeteries that's trees that's but we also have Teamsters we have police we have fire we have law we have police superiors right I know that's police and fire but I'm saying if you go through I mean I'm just

looking at 15 positions right here in the parks department and you have a 2% increase so of this how many did we did you budget 2% increases for every Department that has an asme employee whoever was an asme employee and again you have you have individuals that will either move up into positions or different positions and again you have the Quinn bill with police that then changes salaries that

we may not know about all of those right now yeah but you you're getting two bites at the Apple you're getting it by inflating the salaries in the budget and having a reserve account well I don't feel that we've inflated salaries I think we've course you did you did it by 2% well and again we're not done collective bargaining so I mean again this budget we only went up just 800 I

think it's $848,000 if you don't include pension you don't include education my point it's a very small increase yeah but you have $2.3 million of free cash that you're rolling into this budget from last year so that means that there was $2.3 million of money that wasn't spent last year no it's this year we're using this year's not last year's you're you're using the certifi for 2024 right

in 2025 budget so what that what does that tell us that tells us that there was savings and duly noted Savings in 2024's budget that you're using to balance your budget in 2025 so there was savings and we also again we made investment income of over three and a half million dollars which the city has never done that before right with the interest rates is high you capitalize on the money markets I

get that I'm just trying to understand here that this this in my opinion we can disagree here that there is not there there is this isn't as lean as we we want to say that it is there is positions in the budget that you have a reserve account for and you you specifically put an increase under the individual people and I have no I would I would spend hours going through the budget because

it's not like it it's noted XX this is an asme employee I'd have to go through every single employee and find out which Union they're in to find out how much money is is is possibly uh hidden in the budget in terms of increased salaries that may or may not happen not withstanding the fact the budget well it's take exception to the characterization of hidden maybe that's that's the bad word don't anything I'm

sorry other Administrations hidden things we do not hide things sir okay well we do not hide things you don't not hide things we do not hide things okay so then how do you have an employee let's let's keep it at a a reasonable how do you have an employee need to be changing your that is a department head that is in your budget that is getting paid x amount but there but you have

increased in their budget $15,000 first of all the 15,000 and I've acknowledged this was an estimate it was an over estimate no question about it and that's a person that did not get any increase for FY 24 and was looking at likely an increase in fy2 during this budget so there was probably more of an increase budgeted for that person potentially who hadn't even negotiated with the mayor at this point there's

nothing hidden there there's we're just trying to make sure that we can cover the costs if in fact the mayor sees fit to to give that person an increase that's it will I'll retract my that it was hidden but it isn't entirely entirely accurate and complete I agree with that it's not clear it should clear not clear it's very convoluted and it's it's it's confusing like H how is a council that

we're expected to vote on an appropriation order that has a reserve account of $800,000 and some asme employees not all at a 2% increase are are you talking about the the managers that are not askme employees but I'm talking about askme and and managers I'm talking when you say some all the askme employees have the estimated 2% the ones who are tied to ask me but are not askme employees

who are managers so break down for me what came into that $800,000 in your reserve account like how how is it constituted yes where where did that number come from 2% no how how can it be 2% and you add 2% to an individual employee that doesn't make sense because we looked so again we I think we've answered this we've looked at the you know the police budget and we're trying to utilize funds

funds that we don't want to give up grant funding and we we need that that money if we want to keep funding the police we they gave us that money we want to be able to utilize it so if the F we can't fund the full position okay otherwise we would have been increasing this budget so the the 14 positions that were're not funding a patrol so you so are you saying that the patrol you're

pulling that out of the specific department but you're putting it into the reserve account we did not put no we did not fund another that that would be over a million dollars just in police so so we what we did is we we allocated for some of it in reserve fund because we that Grant covers 60% and again what depending on the the a patrolman the Quinn bill I don't know

exactly how much that new patrol officer is going to cost because there could be other again they could have a master's degree so I mean you have to build I mean we built a small contingency in there mhm and I I stand by that this is a conservative budget okay well I can I respectfully disagree on the comments of it's lean and it's conservative if you have increases for some un for the asme union

and you also have a reserve account that we really can't you can't really tell me what you're going to plan to do with it other than just keeping a line item we have the St we have the stabilization account too I mean I mean we have all these so I mean so just can I address this so the stabilization account I mean you don't want to keep pulling money from there that stabilization account

should should be in my opinion and and gfoa and you talked to mass do that stabilization fund for a city this size should be almost $30 million I mean we would like to in the long-term planning with this Administration is to build that stabilization up over the next three to four years so we can get to 20 million so that we can have you know investment income and then be able to

use that investment income to buy police cruisers and the yearly equipment so that we're not constantly bonding for all this equipment because that's what's been happening over the last 10 15 years easily is there's a loan authorization for trash trucks and police trucks there's loan authorizations for um I don't know what whatever kind of trucks are in sanitation where they bought

they're just like they have the Sanders on the back and the plows I mean everything was a loan authorization we're trying to get away from that so we're trying to do the right thing we're trying to Institute best practices and move the city forward and you know a comment was made to me um not too long ago there was a former counselor Alves and because this city didn't have the proper Reserves

and his comment was is that when the state gets a cold full River gets pneumonia so we're trying to prevent that we're trying to put this city in a in a position who made that comment Al Al Al he made it to you no I was told about the comment that he made and with the last to recover yes and so I mean let let's you know let's try I mean

we're doing we feel like we're doing good things and we're trying to build up this stabilization so that you can put a best practice in place and you can use an investment income and you're not just always pulling down on the principal and where you have nothing for an emergency and then you want to try to replenish the stabilization fund I mean where our stabilization fund is still much lower

than other Gateway cities yeah and I I I hear you I remember uh and some of my colleagues can remember here when I first got on here years ago that we had like $2 million in stabilization so so I were I I remember those days right you were using it to pay uh net School spending eligible expenses I think at one point there was a couple hundred thousand only in 2015 that sounds about

right but to the work of councils who were asking questions like we're asking here have uncovered things that weren't necessarily unethical or anybody's trying to do anything wrong here or or spin a message that we're not trying to be positive that's not what I'm trying to say I'm trying to do my job to understand why there's some managers that have a salary but it says another thing in your budget I'm trying to

understand why you have a reserve account and then you have asked me employees that also get a 2% increase just it doesn't make any sense to me and you know and I would you can come into my office anytime and we can sit and go through like every single thing I mean I have no problem sitting with counselors I mean this councelors that call me and they come and talk to me all the

time okay so I mean I extend that invitation to you as well I would on that note it would have been lovely to have budget briefings we didn't have I didn't have that courtesy to get a phone call to have budget briefings and sit down with the administration and say what do you want it's so funny no nothing sir oh okay no that that's surprising to me because I I do know that the 64 reached

out to everybody at this at this I don't remember this this is with all honesty this is the first time I've never been asked to go to the mayor's office to go over a budget councelor come pick up your budget let's sit down I I know the chief of staff emailed everybody maybe maybe but made the request she did reach out and said if anyone has questions about the budget please make an

appointment to see the May that's I'm sorry Mr President it's just a little different than usually I what's so different about the council it's an invitation to discuss the budget and then okay instead of a specific it was just done differently so um it is what it is I'll yield for now thank you couple things I just want to point out though prior years when we' get the budget we would have the actuals in

there salaries expenses this year we don't have it in there it makes it more confusing as the council mentioned to see what the actual cost was and what the new cost is and then with the increase in it is that a reason that the actuals are weren in this budget you mean actuals as far as what the salary start yeah everything I mean I mean we can change that practice going forward this was something that we

felt comfortable we felt that we were getting close to um negotiation but what would be the point of changing it was there just a couple years ago well I think the idea was that with with department heads most of them don't actually negotiate any sort of increase until the first of the year so we would be mid budget by the time that happen so that's that's the reason they're but I

mean it if we have if we have the actual cies actual expenses for electricity gas if we had all the actuals for the year it helps us better determine you know what the increases could be should be sounds reasonable we we don't even have any idea what some of the actual Sals are as we were talking before some of them have changed so it just helps to do the budget we've always had it in the

budgets in the past that I've been a part of and it just it went away last year I didn't make a a case about it but same thing here we go this year no more actuals and I think we should put them back in there going forward yeah I just I mean we kind of I mean we kept with historically similar styles of 22 23 I mean I'm talking about 2019 18 then not

they were always in there historically then they would disappeared in 23 24 so I take that into envis and look to you know add some more things and more appreciate it it just makes it you know more it it makes it a lot clearer uh and another thing too stabilization account $30 million I heard you says where we should be at how many communities like for River you said there are a lot of

them that have it what's new bord stabilization account in lals and they have $30 million so New Bedford stabilization account I actually we pulled that information so right now New Bedford has um 13 million LOL has 14 million and Brockton has 4.3 but their free cash for example Lynn has 25 million sitting in free cash and New Bedford has 12.6 million sitting in free cash and L has 15.4 million in free

cash and Brockton so and what do we have in stabilization and free cash so we have 10 um at the end of we have around $10 million in stabilization in stabilization and our free cash was um 15.5 million this year so we got more than that so all Lawrence was 43.2 million in free cash and L was 15.4 you want to get into the tax base of what those compan what those cities rais as

well in in revenue and with the tax bases compared to ours so all of these Brockton for River Lawrence l ly these are all Gateway cities I understand the Gateway say but you know the taxes per resident it's a lot higher than ours are you know the residents and Commercial ratings are they're a lot higher higher than ours a lot higher than what we are well so we we tried to pull similar data

so again um this the do income per capita is very similar in all of these communities M right around 20 to 24,000 what's the tax rate um I did not pull the individual tax rate yeah on these but what I'm saying I suggest you do that because you'll notice a big difference but my point is we're not in terrible shape we're at $25 million would probably what was New Bedford again New Bedford had um similar but

they have a little bit more 12.6 million of free cash and 13.8 million of stabilization right but they raise a lot more money right what is their overall budget so they raise a lot more money a lot more money so I think we're doing pretty good considering that we raised less money yet we're right there with there have free cash yeah and the LA and we've we've made some changes over the

last couple years to try to do this hey Kudos but we're there but you're saying we should be at 30 we're not that far behind and we haven't done anything I mean it's it's not we're not in terrible horrible shape and I'm not trying to beat up the budget I'm not trying to say that you know this terrible I would like to see it done a little bit differently um and and people spoke about this over

and over and over diamond high school watch out diamond high school it's going to kill us diamond high school oh my God what are we going to pay in Diamond next year do we know what's going to cost us so there's approximately just over um 600,000 we were originally told you know in December it was going to be 800 and some odd thousand and it's included in the assessment um we have a meeting

later on Thursday again because you know we don't have final amortizations from them y so you know there's a lot of assumptions being made I mean originally they thought NE fiscal 25 was going to be over $2 million was going to be the assessment which is now changed because they've just ban they haven't T any the long term yet they will need to longterm so what it what the what did the change

go from 2 million to what to um they it was 800 some thousand then they had a premium that brought it down to just over 620 something thousand but again and then we also have the assessment with the students in there which went down from the current year we're in to next year but again they could have students right up till October that could then change that assessment sure

so could our our students as well but do we have a line item in this budget 2025 for diamond High School what yeah and it's it's included in the what's the amount in that line item it's in the the total amount in that assessment it's 4 million hold

on so it's under the dime in the it's included in the 4,778 63 4,778 so it's roughly just under $5 million and when's that meeting Thursday yes okay I'm sure they know today what that assessment's going to be so um well when was the last time you spoke to anyone from Diamond we've been we've been having continual conversations with that okay so when was the last time you spoke to anyone there yesterday last

week um we've had some emails going back and forth as of recently um I can pull up my last meeting I'm just I'm just curious you don't have to be I mean was it has it been a week or two weeks um there's been uh emails going back and forth over the last two week specific to what the funding is specific to the funding specific to the reimbursement rate all right I just want

to show we extend communication with them and make sure we get as close of a number as accurate as possible to make sure also attends their Capital project meetings okay all right coun five Council Vice PR do you have a followup I just have a comment to make about Reserve fund and putting all asme at 2% I don't have a problem with putting asme at 2% because you know that they're going to commit and negotiate and

they're going to get at least 2% at least I don't think that they should be given less than that because we have all sat here and said our workers deserve to get paid better than they are being paid uh now they all know it's 2% if what happens if it's 3% then you come in and you take money from the reserve to fill that but I really hope that they do get

a raise because they deserve it and you know it just I know somebody that was working uh on a on a weekend and they work here and they were working because the pay here wasn't enough and they love their job and they want to stay here but we've all said that Mrs Smith just said herself at $16 an hour it's tough to get somebody now that it's it's 20 maybe she'll get you

know get more people to want to apply I mean I know kids that are working at McDonald's for $16 an hour and that's not as heavy as the work that they do in the park department so I think you know we expect a lot of out of our employees but I think you have to give people a living wage and and I don't think we do that and when we have CPI or we do you

know a certain percentage so if this group gets 2% or 3% % the manager up on top gets 2 or 3% well 2% of $440,000 versus 2% of 80,000 or 120,000 is a big difference dou you know what I mean so I just I'm just a shout out to our employeers who are working and I don't have a problem with that being in there because you know they're going to

get at least 2% at least if they're going to get 1% then you're going to put that money that money is going to come off the um the budget but honestly I feel they deserve the 2% if not more with that I yield thank you than you all right there be no further questions or Cy 2 Cy 3 I'm sorry you haven't spoken yet yeah just real quick thank you Mr President Nancy

I know um I wasn't here L excuse me I wasn't here last meeting um but last time you were here we talked about a fee structure um and I think you were thinking about using the school department template to talk to Ken Pico has that started it's just very difficult because to have to charge that fee structure you need to be able to maintain what you're charging the people for so the conversation What's Happening

Here with this conversation and I I would be well I'm just wondering if it's start have you actually started it at least conversations with is it BL um the girl in the office she's sent I've had her listing sent to us okay it is blle yes BL that's right yes it is um so I have had conversations with that but it's very difficult but it what the conversation that I've been

listening to with you know there's 2% increase in in the asme thing and and the park salaries or whatever and this is padded and this is extra and then in the end I can't get three positions funded we can put 15,000 we can put you know 6 point whatever whatever raises we were talking about and we can put 2% for every me employee and I can tell you that it's usually one and a half one and

a half and I don't even remember seeing a a two in a long time but that's um I just don't understand I would be remiss if I didn't say that why it's why are we able to put this cushion but we're not able to fund $130 some thousand to give us three more people I don't understand that but I get the I was just asking about the fees yeah so they have disc

and work um yes but it's very diff anticipate it happening I don't anticipate it happening if you can't maintain the fields that people we're asking people to rent okay right like I'm just bringing that up because I know you brought it up at that meeting so that was one of your I think it was one of the goals for the park board park department so it's not a goal anymore well I think until we can discover

either Premier fields that are Turf and don't require as much maintenance that would the first field that I think we just discussed that happening to was britland Park because it would be a field that did not have to have the maintenance we would be able to have numerous games on those fields without it having to be you know seated or or groomed or whatever it's just the The Grooming

machine that would be used so it would be a lot easier to do a field like that so I think before we bite off more than we can chew I think we need to do it with one field main mainly maybe a turf field and see if that works because the maintenance and the upkeep of the Manpower that would have to go in it to turn that field over day after day after

day we would be able to accommodate that with Turf not so much um grass and and lo okay thank you I Y thank you c c to yeah just a couple more questions um number one Mrs Smith the two mowers yeah do you have them not yet they're going to be purchased from what I understand Mr um Akin said that we're going to get those because I had to I purchased my own the

last time they weren't reimbursed so I do not have them but my understanding is that we're going to be able to buy them how many mowers do you have right now probably about eight but 25 Fields councelor I'm in the process of of assessing whether we're going to move into the uh battery operated type or the gas type we've had a presentation from a vendor to assess to see if it it's a a

viable situation we are getting a loner to be able to drive a zero turn so we're in the process of trying to revamp and trying to move into the next age at this point and that is one of the items that we're looking at all battery operated there's major savings and there's uh it's better on the employee and that's what we're assessing at this point okay and how long are these talks going

to take it just happened about a couple weeks ago uh we had we actually were able to touch utilize ride we were able to do um that and trying to get together with the department heads to see what the assessment is from that uh presentation one last thing the we the laner that we are going to get um we're utilizing that at the cemetery the cemetery is going to be able to give me

feedback on the uh zero turn battery operated who cuts W grass what was that who cuts more grass I would say the parks cut more grass so why wouldn't we try it in the Parks as opposed to the cemetery Miss Smith Miss Smith had that opportunity we uh and it was not presented and she did not take a uh uh a liking to the type of um device so um I believe that was that was when

where we're at I think there's concerns about the durability of the battery situation um so we're going to basically use it in a small venue first before we actually let them loose on the parks because the battery might not last long enough yes and I don't want to be stranded par that go out in in all different fields and whatever with the cemetery I felt that that was the best

place to try to you try this out because you wouldn't have to send you know the we were told the battery May last 6 hours depending so 6 hours is my total day so I don't want to be like running back to the to the garage with no battery power so that was the conversation it wasn't that I wasn't open to it I was not 100% sure that it was going to work

for our particular department at the time and if we were going to invest in this I didn't want I said don't invest in two or three or four let's invest in one see how it works see what the battery life is and and what it can do now one more thing while I have the floor I have a question because my understanding is we have outsourced work that um from my understanding is there are

two groundskeeping people in the facilities department and they used to maintain the fire department police department Hunter uh uh Street parking lot cash street parking lot now it came to my attention that this is now being outsourced and those positions are funded so I don't know are the I just want to know because that that's what's coming back to me from my my Workforce when you say maintain what do you mean

by maintain cut cut and and service grass cutting grass cutting so there are two people in that department are they doing that work is it being outsourced and if it is being outsourced then are those POs why are those positions still filled I mean I'm looking to fill my positions as well and we're we're supposed to be one department so I don't know if how true it is if this is true

but I I mean that's what I'm getting back this is this work is being outsourced and the positions are still being funded so if we can look into that that would be great because let's going answer right now did we ask Mr sorry this is a Personnel of Union issue and I I prefer we not get into it um okay fair enough thank you appreciate it all right so can we back up here so would you

agree Mr Olivera eight eight lawnmowers is not adequate to cut grass in 25 Parks medians in the city and I don't even know what else the park the park board cuts grass like all over the place would you agree with that what was the question lawn mes are not adequate for the amount of grass that needs to be cut if the if the director um has said that she doesn't believe that's enough then I

believe that at this point but I'm still making my assessments I asked for a cutting schedule and and that's what I'm waiting on to make an assessment I don't make assessments on this is beliefs I'm trying to assess every single thing that we do prior to U moving on anything at this point I guess I considered my question to be based on what I assumed your expertise was um 25 Parks eight

lawnmowers so I was asking more in that regard then I mean I have one lawnmower I have one lawn but if I own 10 houses I probably have three lawnmowers correct but the having a cutting schedule that so that shows the Staffing the the locations of cutting that's where I get my numbers and that's where I evaluate and I do a my analysis I can't do my analysis without seeing the proper

schedule and the in the location you don't cut 25 locations at one time you don't you don't cut 10 at one time maybe you do but that's what I'm trying to assess at this point but yes if there's a need we we're definitely going to pick that up absolutely okay back to the budget um Miss Alman so would it be fair to say somebody's total salary in 2024 okay now wait minute let me start over this

has nothing to do with again whether I think somebody deserves the pay doesn't deserve the pay if I think they're making too much got too much this has nothing to do with that this is strictly a numbers conversation so somebody's total salary in 24 is 49765 is it safe to assume that an fy2 their annual salary should start at at least that number is it an asme employee excuse me

asme employee like what kind of employee is it an as employee what's the title councelor um it's a it's a it's a maintenance Craftsman but I don't think it matters whether it's asks me not asks me my question is what if I'm making 49,7 65 in the fy2 24 budget I should be able to assume that in the fy2 budget I'm going to make at least 49,7 65 well C you don't know if that was

money that he made when he was working overtime or she I don't know what you're talking about but if they longevity holiday over time paying there as well some people their salaries reflect overtime payment that they had guaranteed to get F this isn't the only one okay just if you want to see who it is so the okay let's go can't go by that so let's do it page 151 in the FY 25

budget I've got page 152 in the FY 24 budget in the FY 24 budget this individual was at 49765 for the ending number the total number ending total salary so that also includes longevity snow stien clothing allowance and tree stien what gets yes which is which they're also re so then the ending is 50,5 so which right now which is also listed in the 2025 budget the tree stip and all those things are haven't changed

right so as of right now I don't believe that I was not made aware of any of those stiens being adjusted so the annual salary the starting is where the adjustment was made okay and then you still add those other things so the ending salary on that position is 50319 in the 20 that's been budgeted 2 can I go back to my original question mhm if my salary is 49765 with all those line items which

were the same in 24 as they are in 25 the tree stiping the clothing allowance the snow stiping everything's the same so my annual salary annual in 25 should be the same as my total salary was in 24 is that correct should I anticipate if I was making 4 9,765 that my starting annual salary in 25 should be 49765 no it doesn't start including the longevity the snow stien the clothing

allowance and the tree Sten it starts at with without those items I understand that so I I'd have to go look at I'd have to go look at that particular person and that particular item and so when so somebody starts at an annual salary of 45242 you add in all of those stiens their salary goes up to 4 9765 right okay so that's considered their salary mhm so next year their starting salary should be

that I don't even know how to get to where I'm trying to get to at this point start all right so this person's so this can you let her answer can you let her tell you how it starts so she's not getting what I'm trying to ask her well maybe let us say what she wants to say and you I want to try it a different waybe you should understand what she's

trying to tell you I want to try it a different way and then maybe she can clarify it for me so let's just do total salary total salary in 2024 total salary in 2025 this individual salary went up $554 1.1% increase over their total salary last year but if you go down one line item from that the next individual salary went up $469 which is 11.3% well I can explain that because

that was one of the people that went from $16 to 20 Okay so that's why his salary increased by so much but we've been hearing 2% 2% 2% but yet the top that number one but I think where you have to get the 2% stay in this First Column of annual salary and that's where the 2% changes not the total salary I think the annual when you go right after their title and you go annual salary

45969 for that Craftsman person that you're talking about that is their annual salary and yes if they were 45242 in 2024 they should be the same in 2025 is that what you're saying yes yes but if in except if they they put the 2% in so that's why it's that other figure and so again and there's so there's been things that have happened from 24 to 25 that happened where like you voted to

increase certain salaries there's other things that have been have been negotiated so all of those things happen throughout the year so again what happened at the end what we budgeted in 24 there's been things that have changed so we start off with what is now the beginning you know and we we did explain that we did the ASE increase but again you had those other ones where you increase the salaries I mean we had to

adjust that we can't right so I guess it all comes down to and I think it's been been a reoccurring theme in these budget discuss questions is that the detail we got was not sufficient and some of Mr Akin made the statement a lot of these salaries are mockers they're not actual salaries they're not the final numbers they're mockers is was that how you refer to it so I said I said placeholders but

placeholders specifically with regard to the managers is what we were talking about at the time because I hate to be taken out of context yep um the uh the managers who will negotiate their any sort of increase if any cuz not everyone you know could get with you can't count on that right you assume that maybe once a year there's a conversation but you know that's not certain depending on the financial

situation of the city um that's going to happen in December January and so there's a placeholder assuming that there might be some increase we want to be able to afford it that's that's all with these there is a 2% assumed knowing that any Union Worth or salt with good negotiators is going to come in asking for you know who knows 10 10 and 10 that's not what anybody's asking for but but

that could be the start and maybe the city comes in looking at you know half half half and then we try to meet in the middle um you don't know where it's going to end that's ongoing will we start this in January and February uh the hope is that we're pretty good at understanding where it's going to end up based on what the city can afford and what the best thing is for our employees

so they are placeholders to some extent but they're educated and they're not willy-nilly they're not just taken out of the air um and I think for the most part part you know the 15,000 one that's that's an excessive outlier U the rest and you got the chart that I sent today um the majority of those are very very close to what that percentage is likely to be if I were to guess right now right

around that 3% CPI um if I were to guess where the asme contract is going to end up it's in that two to 3% range at the very most um considering that most years it's 1% again not commenting on what we've actually agreed because we do have an agreement in principle but it's not before the council and hasn't been voted by the as me body but just sort of speculating if they start here and we

start there we meet in the middle and it's traditionally um where we are plus the commitment by this Administration to try to pay our folks a better wage uh which they tried to do each year so all right with that I yield thank you C any other questions no all right Nancy thank you for coming down thank you for coming n

next we move on to community service planning thanks for coming down as well Alan

counc C4 Council Kobe thank you council president uh planning department the question I have I'm just again um it's something that's been brought up I discussed with Council vice president perea just looking at the mission statement of the plan Department to advance the city's Economic Development and enhance the quality of life for resid so it's an important job that's been uh left vacant for some time now we

had a recent uh resignation um and Mr pirano Page 156 his salary is 72,000 uh was 949 and uh we have a very capable uh of course Dan aiar who um really does Yan's work but I just question whether or not he just has the uh the ability to um you know to carry on that this very important position so uh and and that is um a stien I would I would call it uh $ 27,2

144 so just doing a quick math if you combine that that's over $100,000 at least 103 so which would definitely fund um a city planner um with Benefits um I believe um who was our last City plan planner would go to back to Kenny right mhm um he started out um at 85 of course I don't know if we're going to attract anybody at that salary but it's definitely in there I mean so and I know

the uh when you put the budget together Bridget um we you probably didn't know that Mr piranha was going to send his papers in um so question is um I'm not I'm not going to PL place a condition on my vote whether or not going to vote for the budget based on this but is is there an intention for the administration to advertise for a city planner to lighten

a load of M agar who's out all the time but with the new streets that have being put in with the sidewalks that being put in all the time so he's stretched and um you know uh what what's the plan for that uh for that position I think it's important like play mentioned the um the person agent um that's another one I mean I from my understand it's required by State Statute we haven't

filled that in sometime so that that's u a question that I have for for this position I and I think it's it's very important that we do have a city planner because it's a long question but common as well um a lot of the questions that been asked over the last couple of days during the budget hearings is planning planning for Parks Capital plan for Parks Capital plan for this Capital plan for

that Council goodine um always States it that we we uh we request over and over again that so that that's the office that would really put that all together so mistakens please so I can't well first of all um Mr agar does uh bear a tremendous burden but he carries it so light that he almost floats away it's really uh remarkable um and uh with regard to the work he's doing it's it's it's

really I mean we're incredibly fortunate to have him he brings a level of expertise uh and frankly a level of institutional knowledge that uh I don't really know uh where we might find anything to compare to it um if he were to ever uh leave us and he's given me his assurances that that will never happen um with regard to advertising and securing a planner uh there are some kind of ongoing I don't want to say

conversations because it feels like it's like an episode of The West Wing all we do is sit around all day and have conversations but it's it's not that um but we we often refer to that um it's more just a conversation with Mr Ager as to what his department needs whether there's any talent inhouse that we can use to lighten that load and what that looks like um you know Mr pirano filled

an important role for a time uh and moved on to become a planner and I can't sit here and say we are definit going to advertise for a planner but I will say that if we can identify the right person we are absolutely open to hiring the planner because you're absolutely right the money through different kind of variations within the budget we would have to come before the council for the

permission uh is there uh and I think it would certainly be the right person we be a great partner for Mr aguar because his expertise is is that deep sorry to interrupt to stop you there so if we advertise position at the salary with the comp combination of those two U positions we advertise that we have no obligation to hire someone so are we going to advertise for a city planner

and that's the only way really you're going to get a an idea of what's out there who's going to apply it may be an individual that is phenomenal and I would uh suggest to you that there's not many Gateway cities with all we have going on in the city right now all the development and everything else there probably I don't think there's a Gateway City without a city planner right we're

the only one really I would I would like to do the research for that but that'll take some time but um yeah critic but we can advertise it we have to advertise it and see what's out there critically important position I can't uh sit here uh right now and represent to you that we will advertise it because the mayor has not given me the authorization to to do that um I just don't I'm not saying

he says no but we just have made up our mind I will I tell you that in the last two weeks uh I was approached by an employee here who has a close relationship with a planner in another uh city or town um who you know based upon the recommendation might be interested in in looking at this city where uh frankly because of the reputation of Mr agar and because of the

reputation of what the city is starting to do and some of the directions that it's moving in that it hasn't moved in the past it's a person that wouldn't have considered coming to Fall River before that would now consider that which is which is really exciting uh I think we're able to attract uh Talent um that otherwise might have just been scared Away by kind of false you know rumor and and reputation but rumor and

reputation nonetheless um and in addition to that uh I know that there's there's other folks that have relationships um in the in the industry uh that have also brought to my attention planners that are potentially interested so there's there's other ways that we might attract but uh I will absolutely I can guarantee this I will bring it to the mayor um and I will uh explain to him that the council is

genuinely interested in us advertising for a planner that they believe it's important and that we could support Mr jagar by doing so Mr yagar uh I know it's above your pay grade but you see a need for to free you up um and uh work with a qualified city planner um in that office so for the record my name is Dan agar I'm the director of engineering and planning for the city of Fall River and

I state that due to the reorganization that took place when I came here when I came to the city there was a city planner there was also an assistant city planner two positions that the city was unable to fill I was hired as the city engineer and conservation agent no cross activities with the planning department so to be clear I am the city engineer and conservation agent under the Eng engineering budget line item

because of my past work history and expertise when we had Mr Kenny that left and our assistant planner was given the position of planner not at my ad advise however took was the case soon left because she could not handle the position at that time we advertised for both positions city planner and assistant planner two positions MH it was decided through this Rog that I could take on those planner

responsibilities by hiring a qualified excuse me assistant planner and having them work towards the direction of becoming a planner planners just don't appear at that time when Mr parano came on it was under the guise of taking on assistant planner responsibilities working towards in a number of years taking on full responsibility now if if we want to go back and attempt to hire a

planner I think we also need to look at hiring an assistant planner as well the two positions so what you don't see in this budget is a full line item for city planner at 990,000 and a line item for assistant city planner at 70,000 what you see is me covering the position of planner for seven hours a week so you're telling me that uh the the point that I'm making and I think

all the many of my co my colleagues are probably thinking the same way I hope it's valid we we have to do something that department well if you feel that the department isn't performing I didn't say that well I I think you are can get better no but I think you are because if it's performing Beyond how this department has ever performed for less money I don't see why that would not be I'm

SAG I respect you I didn't say that my friend because understand completely and this and this will be the case and we've had these discussions yeah if we move towards the direction of hiring a planner yes my duties in the planning department cease I don't walk to that side of the building anymore I stay in the engineering department so all of the expertise that I bring to this city in planning

ends my my duties in the planning department end well it's still a colleague would be potential colleague of yours that you would work with on a day-to-day basis no two different departments planning and Engineering that's why I said when I came here it was engineering specific duties to city engineer and conservation agent there there was never a cross let's call it a cross contamination of

departments where the city engineer and the planner worked on the same things only in an engineering advisement role to the planning board so zoning board of appeals planning board those would no longer be my responsibility they would now be the responsibility of whoever the city decided and I brought this up to Seth at any point in time and the city wants to move in the direction of hiring

a planner and an assistant planner and and staff the rest of those positions that are empty I have no problems with that don't pay me a 7 hour a week stien I'll go do my city engineer position with without without quarrel no issues if I can jump in just for a moment I don't want this to turn into an ulate no no it's not my style anyway but uh I

didn't imply that and um it seemed like u i i uh said something that offended you and that that wasn't my attention well it does offend me wow because it because it no because it is it appears to be tonight no but it appears to be a reflection on on what I've been able to get done in that office over the last two and a half years clear clear reflection of that no it's not I'm not

gonna go back and forth with you but this the first time I've seen this piece of you but uh your personality i y i yeld okay thank you Seth you can make a comment if you want I I just wanted to say that that um you know I do I I try very hard to make sure that any of the input from the council gets to the mayor because I think it's important that the

mayor understands you know what the uh you know what the will of the council is because that's it's an important part as as the elected body um but when I say that there there's conversation going on as to how to fill that position that's it that what's happening you know right there is that you know we have an incredibly capable person who's doing the work right uh and in fact while he

was doing the work trained another person so well that he himself became a planner uh the proof you know if there's ever a pudding that the proof is in that's that's the pudding right there uh and I hope Mr Pano who I'm sure is watching doesn't get offended by being called the pudding but it's neither here nor there the bottom line here is that U that is the conversation that right now

things are going really really well uh Mr agar is incredibly effective as I said it's just a question of you know what do you do if Mr Yager isn't here like what do we do with that position because you have to plan for the positions you have not just the Personnel you have in in that moment and that's always the that's always the tension so anyway thank you I just meant

I I think from listening to what councilor K was talking he didn't mean to offend anyone he just said that the city has always had a planner and when the city has a good planner and a good engineer and good department heads everything runs well when a city has a planner that may not fill that criteria which I think is prior I want I want to say no offense to anyone I was there

prior but I think some of the plans we've had in the past weren't as good as the ones were there prior so when he came in and brought his expertise that's wonderful but I also think the city should have a planner and an engineer that can work on those positions because as you said when Mr Agia leaves then we're going to have to find another individ idual that can do engineering

and planning to keep up at this pace it's going to be very difficult so and who knows what the planner that comes in what type of expertise they have so I I wouldn't take it as an insult to anyone that's filling that rule for seven hours now and saying hey look but at some point I think the council is right that we should be looking at a qualified very good planner to help assist this city I

don't think it's a a disrespect to anyone and then I don't know why someone would take it that way Council I think was right on point councilor in seat five Council vice president pero um I agree I said it at the last meeting that we had this city needs a planner we want to revitalize the Flint you've got all the stuff going out in the the Waterfront that there needs to be a planner in your

engineering department what are the other monies that are there what else are we paying for are we talking the planning budget now or the engineering she said engineering engineering right but what who who are you I'm I'm trying to doing both currently I just what are the like how much are we paying Byron homes Byron holes presid point of order we're on planning currently we stay in

the order he's C both departments we need to follow the order that we're in please well he's doing both so that's why we have planning questions then we go to engineering council do you have any questions for well hold on Community Services planning Community maintenance engineering you want you want to yield so that anyone who has specific questions to community planning yeah but I you know I just wanted to ask

that's fine we'll just we'll do we'll do the council's way all right I'm gonna I'm doing planning okay but I would add to Mr Agia being upset I think that he's done a great job absolutely balancing to hold everything together but if we get a plan and now I'm just engineering Jim hner and Byron Holmes work together all the time you know you work with other people too CU he does have expertise and

other people do but that's what happens because when um when Mrs alond came in she wasn't doing purchasing that's not on her job description now she's doing purchasing Mr Agia came in and he was doing two engineering and conservation all of a sudden now you got toss to planning too um and that's not right but it is what it is and we have to bend to help one another with that I yield and

then I'll go back to engineering councel two Council Dion good evening um I actually only had one question on page 186 there's an individual who's on two line items with two different salaries are they doing two different positions or do they only have one position and for whatever reason it got separated I'm assuming it's the head administrative clerk correct so it's broken up because she has a step

increase in the middle of the Year oh okay okay pay that was basically that was the only question that I had um I would like to say that um in all my dealings with you I've experienced nothing but professionalism um an expertise that forwarder is really lucky to have and you're right you've done everything very conservatively your your budgets everything you save the city as much possible as much as you can

and um and you hold everybody to the letter of the law you know we have so many times we complain people don't follow ordinance people don't follow ordinance we don't follow this you're right down the middle and I really appreciate that and with that I yield thank you counc counc seat seven Council propos on hi Mr agar so back to the question about the head administrative clerk so

are those both one FTE each or should that be one FTE regardless of Step increase or not it's it's a combined one position okay so the total ft is the department should be four not five because that particular person though listed twice should be one so we have two clerks assistant planner believe that's all that's listed in planning and myself yeah as end so yourself because the licensing clerk is

is listed separately correct so you have yourself the head clerk that's vacant yep the assistant planner which is vacant yep and then this individual that's listed twice n f each that's correct so it should be that way it should be four it should be four okay I did not prepare this do that's okay that just that's what was confusing me so that shouldn't be an F that's just a step increase okay

keep up the good work sir thank you I yield thank you councelor counc C6 Council Ponty thank you Mr President so I'm going to just um I want to comment here because if you recall from my colleagues we had a meeting recently um that Mr agier was here at with Mr foler and we were talking about redistricting or that whole District change that we had down the Waterfront right Mr agier came down here and was

was phenomenal in his presentation acting essentially as a temporary city planner speaking about ordinances and Zoning it was a tremendous resource to us as a body as we were able to make a decision and if we listen to ourselves talk right now we can't talk out of both sides of our mouth what do I mean by that we can't sit here and say that we have a diamond high school that's coming

on the books or a waterfront that needs to get developed and developed well and say we have all these future expenses coming on next fiscal year and when we have a department that's before us right now that's saving us us maybe $200,000 a year with benefits for $27,000 we should be celebrating is what we should be doing what this administration's doing with planning and Engineering is far Superior than any

community in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts I would put the planning department up right now and the engineering department up right now against any planning department in any part of this state right now and would blow them out of the water nobody is doing the development on our Waterfront nobody is able to do the redistricting that we've done within the Departments to help developers succeed nobody's

going before the planning board and not caring about what political consequences might come but doing the right thing that's exactly what this Council needs and honestly we should be urging the administration to do more of this with other departments so I got to tell you right now as currently before us we shouldn't be having any discussions about having a planner the the person

that's here is capable of doing that job and do it well and and the these are the conversations we should be having we could sit here and talk about how the parks need more people and how we might need a planner or assistant planner but the way things are going right now why why would we break something like this these are the these are the conversations that we should be having

with the purchasing department we should be having these conversations with other departments how can we consolidate and reorganize to save taxpayers money and if we can have two departments with one person running it who has far more experience than anybody running these departments would make us spin if we were in a room talking about planning and ordinances and zoning and and and

different kinds of classifications that we know nothing about so we were very complimentary of the current uh acting temporary city planner when he was down here talking about the Waterfront and how we had to expand that zone so that we had enough affordable housing in the city we were all we were saying how wonderful of a job that he did and and for us to sit here and advocate for a

city planner when this department is running lean this department is running lean without a question of a doubt this is what we should be celebrating we shouldn't be advocating for the administration that we need a planner I I I don't see how that that's even that is that's prob that's that is probably that's that's an injustice and I can see how a department head would come down here and feel dis disrespected

when he when he works as hard as he does with the resources that he has to do his job and and this is the kind of stuff that we should be talking more about in budgets not let's add more people when we don't I mean a city planner is going to be $120,000 a year plus mistaken would you agree with that I would an assistant city planner in your knowledge in municipal government what do you

think that's a 80 80 85 right we're we're not hiring a paralal we're not hiring a a clerk with no disrespect to what they do we're hiring we have an educated person who who's an engineer who who who should be running this department and he's doing a fine job doing it and this is what we need to celebrate Mr President can I make a comment please sure absolutely um I

think part of the problem here is that in a budget like this where this position is listed as temporary city planner I think that that's a problem when you look at at the organizational chart that was put together with City administrator a and myself the mayor the rest of the administration when I came on and I refer to myself as the director of engineering and planning so to oversee both departments

and it was intended when that happened to bring on an assistant planner to provide assistance to me as the director of engineering and planning and that's what we had implemented and has been going very well do I miss not having Mr pirano around in only a week absolutely 100% so wholeheartedly we need to provide or come up with filling the role of that assistant planner if this is the

organizational schedule that we plan plan on following if it's not then then we circle the wagons and come up with with with a different scenario so so is your belief that we should have a director for engineering and planning always going forward and just have two assistance I no I do not well there you go that's the point the council was making and so was on the CC myself

that's the point I have to clarify I yes you do you do I apologize no no Brad hold on I apologize I just want to see what is since he want to make a comment I just want to know what his belief was so you can finish let me let me finish my comment so when we discussed how I felt engineering and planning should be run it should be run with a director of both

departments an assistant planner planning department ultimately potentially an assistant city engineer to cover the end of the engineering part grand scheme of things High overview yeah right that's that's the way that that's the way that the real world Works yep but we don't need a department head for engineering cor a department head for planning you have one and you create different levels of management in a

system where we don't have 100 clerks and one manager there's no middle ground and no room for improvement and no room for people to move up so ultimately five years from now when the budget allows would I like to see everything Under One Roof absolutely and I thought that was was the direction that we were moving in so because of this being two separate departments technically two different locations in

the budget line item it's impossible to put everything into one position right now where is what it should be so Mr agar your vision for planning right now today where we sit today is what if you if you were to summarize I know there's a paragraph written here but yeah as as the as the person in charge the director of engineering and planning yep what is your vision for the planning department

right now well for the planning specifically would be exactly what we've been doing staff-wise I think we need an assistant planner 100% because there are day-to-day dealings with this contract that contract with all of the OPA dollars that we've been spending we need somebody that deals with the day-to-day things engineering we're not going to go to engineering cuz we're on planning

right now so we'll finish I know he's asking you you should I should the question engineering cuz counc 7 is going to get very upset if we get off to the engineering so in planning Mr President with all due respect we have an agenda to follow so I'm I agree with C I'm tell not to answer enging questions I'm I'm backing up your plan agenda I'm backing up so question planning yeah chart would

be a director of engineering and planning subset planner two clerks call it a day that's what we would need for staff which is is what we have now or what we did just have when Mr pirano was here MH and moving forward with everything that we've been doing the way we've done it for the last two years yeah which again I think as you stated has been supremely efficient better than it's ever been so

um I yield for now thank you counc Council TD Council Samson um I just want to thank you council president I just want to say that this is exactly this department is doing is exactly what I'm hoping that Mr Aliva does in his Department cut the fat rearrange departments I think sometimes we can be topheavy and you are a perfect example of combining and doing it proficient so I think you are absolutely doing I I

think we've done this in maybe a couple of areas we're doing it with um the auditor Department as well so I honestly think that this is brilliant you've done a great job you're doing it well and I think that other departments um you've paved the way for that and you can see that if it's done correctly and it's the correct department head with under the correct leadership and that's the big

thing right leadership um right skill set round Peg round holes you were doing it absolutely correctly you are saving the city a ton of money hey in 10 years if we have to go back you've saved the city 10 years of a lot of money so I think this is exactly where where I like to see more things headed in that direction so with that I yield council president thank you very much three

counc heart Thank you Mr President Mr Agia good evening um so is that what the the what your talking about is that in the RoR now or do we have to like we have to tweak it a little bit it is in the RoR now right but for the the director of in the organizational chart that were presented two years ago that's how it was generally said up gotcha but for Budget purposes it doesn't show up

that way we operate that way daily okay in in my office when when you would walk up to either counter you see the same staff you get the same level of expertise and the same amount of attention whether it's the engineering department or planning they both independently deal with separate things 100% but as one group everyone even the clerks there is cross training that has gone on where someone in the engineering

department has the ability and knowledge to cover what's going on in the planning department and vice versa because we don't have enough clerks just to sit around and wait for someone to walk in the door when someone comes to the counter whoever's there needs to be able to provide a service and that's how we operate yeah no I get you so and I when I I just get on the council I didn't I I

didn't really know you um I've got to know you now and I think I mean I'm very impressed with your knowledge and what you uh what you've done um and well little I know that because I've just been here a short period of time and I think you're probably right about the assistant city planner and I don't I don't know why I mean I wouldn't want to disturb anything that's going on right

now I think you I think what you what Mr Pont talked about as far as far as the redistricting down at the um Waterfront is is fantastic and I think uh that's going to be a you know a gem for the city and I you know with you behind it and the other people that are helping out I I don't have a problem with that at all so I mean I I you know as far as

I'm concerned I want you to uh keep doing what you're doing and um I I don't have a problem with it at all so I I yield thank you Council counc seat for Council Kobe yes you settle down now all right you're smiling okay that's no slight against you I asked a question well there was no intended slate no but I I'm sorry you interet that way I respond yeah but I

just have to say my final piece on this you know how I feel about you absolutely that's why I was very surprising to hear this I just asked a general question in terms of that department what the needs potentially are and the answer you gave to some others after is the answer I was looking for so you know we'll have we'll have a conversation tomorrow I'll give you a call like you know when I do

call you you're right there but it's a I mean I'm a counselor I have a right to ask a question about a department and a legitimate question and I got the answer but you know I yeah if anybody who knows me I don't deliberately try to rile people but my questions are made in good faith without any uh any slight tou anybody say it was if I offended you I'm

not going to say sorry though I'll I'll see when I call you tomorrow I will all right all right certainly okay a thank you thank you C five c yeah I I like what Dan said about him overseeing planning and Engineering because one person alone can't do it all and for people to sit here and say you know we have collected treasury merge people together merge people together if you

work 40 hours a week and she works 40 hours a week he's not going to be able to do 80 hours worth of week a week he's not going to be able to do it because it's humanly impossible but that scenario of having two assistants one in planning one um one in planning and one in engineering I think that works but for you to just do it all yourself Dan I

think you're a great guy you always answer my calls we always you know get to the bottom of whatever but it's too much for any one person I didn't without a Mr President thank you councelor I'm going to make something very clear when the council raises their hand I write down their name in The order they raise their hand if the council doesn't think I see them and they raised the hand again and another

counselor that raised the hand in between when they raiseed the hand once or twice yeah I don't care who speaks if you raise your hand you're going to speak in the order I write it down so when the councelor says oh he called on her she just raised her hand I saw it that's childish it's foolish and we don't need it in this chamber counceling seat seven councel proposal not going to put up with

it I'm also not going to be spoken to like that either not going to put up with it com I'm also not going to be spoken to like that just for the record I'm going to stick to a budget question Mr AG we could please how many members on the board of appeals board of appeals there are five and one alternate okay so the alternates get paid less than the permanent members because I'm

looking at the line I'm seeing 900 and then some of the board of appeals is 750 are those the alternate members I'm just curious for that second 7 page 186 yes you are correct okay so Eric Kelly is the board of appeals alternate and gets paid $750 that's set by ordinance okay if you'd like to change it we can just was wondering why they were uneven yeah um you mentioned you didn't prepare this document who did

the finance department okay so miss Alman I'm just curious was it just the math error on the end there where the first one two three line items there are don't match the beginning I'm assuming just a Excel problem I questioned the same thing why they weren't 900 I I didn't know if it was for a specific reason that they weren't you know I don't I'm yeah it was Excel grounding

you know so that's so again like you know we we get information from from the Departments and then we go through it and then it gets you know put into this document that's fine I'm just curious and then lastly Mr a council proposal just just so you know the documents that I submitted they're all 900 thank you sir and then lastly just the vacant board ofs position has that been filled

of yet um we we have a a tentative member that has shown interest however they currently sit on another board so before we can attempt to move them over we need to fill the position that they're in and where it's just an alternate position in zoning where he is currently needed um due to a lack of filling of another space he's he's been stuck in that position for about two months now

excellent thank you sir I yield thank you thank you there be no further questions move on to community maintenance and Engineering now I can ask engineering absolutely coun C5 C pres okay you want to go first no I do not I'm good I'm G to go to the restroom actually somebody's in there but it's okay there's a line there too sorry your and I'm the child okay technical consulting services for

$45,000 y tell me what that is what page so it says Costa would serve surve and whatever yeah so as you know and we had we had raised this last year right as you all know the city has adopted a practice of being very aggressive with the acceptance of streets with that comes along a costly surveying plan and legal description for the streets that that we take in for instance Mohawk Drive and Gate House

Drive before you tomorrow the preparation of just those two Street plans was $15,000 so this line item is what what page are we on uh page 159 159 so you do those I do no no no that gets sent out is prepared by a professional land surveyor that's that's been the practice so what's what's the this engineering department in the city of Fall River uhhuh does not pre prepare any recordable survey plans it's

not the type of engine in Department that that's done that's all done by Consultants okay is that is that uh 45,000 is that what Mr Holmes gets who used to be our engineer no no no he he does not Mr Holmes gets gets paid nothing from the budget line items that that you see here where does he get paid from so when when I came on the city has two engineering Consultants one is by

the name of the company called gcg and they do all of the preparation of bid documents and construction inspections for all the roadways that we build that project are you talking about bids um all of it so anything having to do with Street reconstruction gets funded from chapter 90 okay right which is outside of City budgeting that that's money appropriated from the state so they get chap 9 money

chapter 90 funds design and Engineering for our roadway construction projects that's an allowable expense Mr Holmes also does work for the administration of the chapter 90 program as well that was in place when I came here he's been here that has not changed well he was he was here as the city engineer right then when he left we had Jr fry and then there was a Chris Gallagher as well at that point in time Chris

Gallagher was our engineer different Chris Gallagher oh that's right that's right I remember for a short period of time I remember him now so at that point in time Mr Holmes was utilized as a consultant through chapter 90 to review the chapter 90 documents for payment and all of those well he had to be utilized because he has a seal no and those other ones didn't no it has nothing to do with

that no no just has to deal with his level of expertise and information with knowing the chapter 90 program so they've always kept him on board okay that's the only thing I was looking looking at was that other than that I really don't have um the only line item salar questions what is it is what you would see which would be the the four employees that are currently under the engineering

department no that's a that's a a good department is hardly I don't know how much longer we're going to have uh Mr Sylvia as a junior civil engineer I keep asking them to to keep staying on another year another year so so fingers fingers crossed um but again some something you also don't see in either of these budgets and and you'll see in planning for instance and I'll refer to

it only the same way over the last year working with the council and through ordinance we've been able to increase the fees so you don't see Revenue in in these budget reports which is a very important thing um which it would help provide a look at okay if engineering brought in $100,000 last year I know it's before the council tomorrow tomorrow when we when we look at the increase in fees from

96 you would then understand an anticipated Revenue increase as well right so while we've been able to minimize our expenses through salary and different types of things we've also work towards increasing Revenue um which is a positive you know in in any Department it is a positive I I got a call today from someone about Stafford Road how finally that was done and now they're doing the the last piece but

they said you know there's already four Cuts in that street if there's emergencies we have to do it so sometimes I don't think people understand like when they did Robison Street two weeks later there was a a cut and I called and asked you why was this C and it was a water pipe broke because sometimes the heavy equipment on the street causes an issue but I think it's important that people know that not that

we're not coordinating cuz I know you are coordinating with the gas company and the water department so but I can tell you one person's job I would never take in this building and that's Paul furland because because what he's brought into is an infrastructure system that you can't see it's below the ground right so every day it's a call we've got a water break here we've got a sewer break here and he just informs me

because he's digging in a street that I'm responsible for so when we look at a 5year street for instance we do hold whether it's in-house or an outside contractor to a higher standard for restoration of that roadway but understand no one goes into one of these streets other than an extreme emergency without coming before the council for approval first um we had Kennedy Street I think at the last

meeting well I think that sometimes when you have a street less than five years and they can't go into it the problem that the council has at least for me I'll speak for myself is that when somebody comes up and wants to the street open they've already been given a building permit they've already built the house now they have to hook up to water and seore because nobody at planning or at zoning says to them this

Treet is less than 5 years old you're not going to be able to cut into it not since but since you've been there it has changed because we have had less people um coming here so absolutely but we had talked about that and and I know that that uh now that's a little bit if it's an emergency you have to do it I mean but I don't have anything else and I I'm

glad we did a lot of streets and people are happy it's good to do streets but sometimes we repair a street and then people decide that that looks like a drag strip and they keep going faster and faster I mean Eastern Avenue's got a problem it's you can bring that up down there are many communities that are now putting those little strips across just kind of slow slow the traffic down but thank you Mr

Agia with that I you Mr President thank you Council coun C7 Council propos on thank you Mr President Mr AG question on the um the en call stien Y I noticed on 159 it mentions inspector on call stien but that stien is assigned to the Head clerk is that essentially the same person that's correct and I I had emailed CFO about that um it should be one light item down for the inspector is

the on call stien it did C cause a bit of a Ruckus In my my department when they read this online and saw who was getting the stien the other one did not so not only did someone knew get it the person who was getting it wasn't getting and we obviously we all know that it was one line down and what that's obiously they're not going to get paid based on

you know so so the total FY 25 total salary for the second person on that list should be 44 and when you look at page 159 you will see the line item for other stiens and it does reference inspector on that's why I was confused because it didn't didn't match the person so the total fy2 total salary for the head admin clerk should be 44 329 and then the now you're going to make me 40 well

it would be this 44 4429 plus 200 right I know it's Logistics but I just want to make sure my numbers are right here the total is correct total is correct the total is correct okay and then for the third person what is the FY 25 total salary for that individual please 48617 plus 1,000 plus 3349 plus 900 plus 2600 m whatever that comes out to be I

can't add my head a lot of things I have 56466 564 what you have Mr aen again 56 466 466 thank you very much okay right 564 yes thank you sir and then Mr agard to the second question I had you don't have a city vehicle correct I do not I get a stien of 12 s okay that makes sense does does anyone in your department have a does is is

there a city vehicle for your department inspector Silva does and that's funded through DCM it's actually letter DCM gotcha all right so we're very thankful for that he's the drive excellent I thank you sir thank you councelor C3 councel H thank you Mr President Mr Ria um so you talked about the uh when you when the city's going to repave a city uh a street and um so how like what

what's the priority what what streets a priority other than others when that when that happens and the list comes out and sum they usually we have a we call it the Christmas list right that that everybody wants their streets paved so maybe 50 or 60 streets that people call complain there are some streets that have been on the list for for 10 years that we just don't get to when we get

that list we we perform an analys of one has the gas company been in there yet because they're they rip up all the streets so if gas company hasn't been in there yet we're not even going to look at it cuz they're going to be there within the next few years so that automatically takes them off of the short list yeah that was my question too with that because it does happen

occasionally um so to to NE negate that from happening you that's what that's what you guys that's what you guys have done if yeah so we have we get the list I speak with the gas company they tell us what our two-year plan is we meet these are the streets that they want to do they change it often all of a sudden they want to do a new street so we work

with that we work with the Water and Sewer Department to check have you done water recently have you done sewer recently have you had a lot of breaks should we go do water and sewer first before we look at repaving so we we look at all of the things that are under the ground or that should be under the ground before we qualify a Street then we might have a list of 20 that meet all

of the criteria for us to to deal with we then look at how they spread amongst the city because we want to make sure that everybody gets the same amount of attention then we look at the dollars and cents and we can we perform preliminary analysis for cost of each and then figure out which streets we can do this year for how much money okay and so so there is a process yep no

absolutely uh just sometimes you don't think there is because it but you can't control what the gas if the gas company has to get in there they have to get in there yeah but what we've so like New Boston Road for instance um from Eastern Avenue West um to almost to Oak grve Avenue the city had done a number of years ago not that long ago then the gas company just came in and redid it so

when we allow the gas company to go into a street that's a five year Street we require that they repave the whole street so we basically stop from scratch um so it's always nice when they it's in the fifth year and it's in the last year of our fiveyear qualifying and they want to rip it up great then it starts all over over again for 5 years for that

street so and we get a new Street for that for that se and what goes into um the acceptance of a street so the proc we don't do we don't do it ourselves we well yes we get involved in it but we we all get involved in it right um the process is that any 10 registered voters not could be nobody on the street 10 registered voters submit a form to the clerk's office requesting acceptance

of the street that immediately comes to the council Council then refers it to the planning board for a recommendation so with the planning board with myself we look at the street we discuss what kind of shape is it in you know are we are we taking on a burden then comes back to the council the council under that recommendation makes yes or an A then they send it to the engineering

department to have the street and the documents laid out on paper recorded at the registry of deeds now since I've been here I think there's been one Street and I've said this to the council often I don't think we should be accepting all the streets that we accept what we accept is headaches and problems because as soon as a street becomes accepted everyone on that street the first question they ask is when are you

going to repay them we shouldn't be taking a street that needs to be repaved we just shouldn't be you know accepting a subdivision Road that's brand new and complete that's easy because we we've looked at everything we've inspected it all it's a brand new street but we often in inherit headaches 300t little dead ends that are full of potholes and the gas companies dug up now they're on me

when are you going to pave their street and I explained to them well we're going to put it on the list the 10-page list of all the other streets and we'll we'll provide an analysis every year and we'll get to it when we can so when you accept streets it puts a burden on my department as well and that's why two years ago that line item for the 45,000 for the roadway acceptance stuff I

believe it was only 25 within year one you guys had sent I don't know six streets down to me and we were depleted I had to hold streets over to the following year in order to be able to get the Monies to come in so with what we had budgeted for this year with the 45 and what we've just paid the last bills from Mohawk and gate house we were

pretty much on par but we can control to make sure that we're under the 45 if we end up getting through a process where we're at $80,000 for Street acceptances then we don't accept the last three we let it sit and we wait and and we don't do them all at once because that's when you end up getting in a hole we'll do two or three pay the bill how much money

is left okay we can take on two more and that's the way we look at it and um there's four in your department four employees four total employees yes including myself is that enough yeah um yeah I I think I think it is when when we have the ability to have again we're in the same corner of the of the universe right so it's easy to to have staff that can provide services to each

department when needed covering Vacations or sick days things like that so um I think it's I think it's enough if it was considered one entire department even easier okay all right thank you how you thank you councilor there be no further questions thank you Mr Agia for coming down thank you very much thank you Mr AG next we're going to move on to administrative Services we'll have the

city administrator Human Resources management information system and Law Department please all come down to the

table seems crazy one by one by

one as the councils are called down you can ask your questions to anyone at the table if you like just so that we can in the interest of time address them while they're here instead of doing across the board it's all part of administrative Services counc SE 7 Council oppos on thank you Mr President good evening everybody um to Human Resources um one of the comments in the uh page 95 regarding the medical exam

fees I know I noted that it says we may be able to charge the water department for their exams which wouldn't require as much in this line item is that going to happen something we've discussed internally I know uh in the past we've never covered the water Department's exam we've always covered the water Department's exam fees but I think as we looked at possibly charging some of the Enterprise funds for their direct

services so Mr furland was gracious enough this year to cover uh all of the water department exam fees excellent thank you sir do you want us to stick to that one Mr President no you can ask anyone that's have to any question this way we can just you can go right down whatever questions you have this be excuse me Mr President but can everybody stay that St their name please state your name and

what department you went for the people at home know who talking to good point coun Nick molini Director of Human Resources tylera Director of management information systems Alan rsey Corporation Council thank you to Mis Mr Ana hello sir hello a few questions for you first is on page 99 is the three line items for computer equipment um can you break few there's a few questions I have so

can you break down what those three line items are and and explain the reductions uh so it does seem to be missing here but uh those are sectioned out for City Hall fire and police so the first one's City Hall correct second one's fire yep third one's police correct okay um and I just did the reductions as I didn't need to make as many purchases as I did uh this year um obviously with this big

munice bill that I'm sure you're all aware of um I tried my best to make Cuts where I could um I was really all there is to it so then obviously my next question is obviously that drives it's no longer paid for the grant so that's increase the massive increase explains that but you noted The Office 365 license I remember last year asking you the question about some offices were

running like office I don't know 2003 I don't know what whatever it was are we all good with that now are we all 365 365 oh that's excellent good news can you break down those four line items of software other than the first one which we know what it is so two three and four what software is that so the first software line item is uh what I would consider software used by all of the

Departments within the city uh City Hall fire and police okay uh the following three would be City fire and police which are software is exclusively used uh buy those sort of to just break them out a little bit more um I do have the list of softwares if you would like to see that but for security purposes I didn't really want to post it out there yeah that's fine I I guess I'm just

curious maybe to the CFO is there a reason why those are not better labeled how it works yeah so they come in they that's part of munus and we are working and that is one of the um things that our new position is going to be helping work on is realign munice and so that the um object codes will be uniforms that we can you know pull things across and you know getting our descriptions

better better within munus because again the budgeting used to be done outside of munus and we're starting to utilize munus to do budgeting in so we there's a a lot of lines to go through to then it's a it's a pretty big project fair enough no I just good good to know I agree we we we've we've been talking about it we wanted so that it's a lot more self-explanatory save some time

right all the way around um Mr antea back to the budget line items here so the next one is rentals and leases yep what exactly does mis rent and lease correct those would be the RICO printers so that includes the leasing for them and the maintenance and printer ink uh for any of the printers across City Hall police and fire so City Hall that's the recurring theme Here City Hall police

and fire okay and then Professional Services can you touch on that a little bit please so most of that is the uh managed uh excuse me um you're aware of the MTS yeah pretty much all of that uh falls under the services that they provide I know last year obviously you were just coming on do they are they even in the building anymore as much as they used to be um they are still in the

building they do a lot of the stuff behind the scenes the software and updates maintenance that they do um really doesn't pertain a lot to the onsite that they are um their contract is actually coming up this fiscal year and I do have a bid out for um new uh managed service provider uh just to make sure that we're getting the best rates possible for that but uh for a city of

this size um a managed service provider is almost necessary that the amount of work behind the scenes that you would need a dedicated team to take care of um really can't be done with just a small in-house team no oh I know that I mean my background is the same as yours so I I understand that rationale um when is that contract expiring uh this fiscal year this so in a couple of weeks couple

weeks okay good enough okay and then and I noticed I noted that the city website where is that oh the city website line item itself so old website removed from budget so the 7205 is is the is that the maintenance for the new City website so that's just the posting cost just costs so was the I'm sorry was the The Old City website more expensive essentially um so we were actually

paying for both at the time for like a transition period kind of thing um now the oldb say's completely gone there's only one day that makes sense okay and then the last one I think this is the CFO alond the office supplies they're obviously just one is in one is out so can you explain that I think that was my error I think they put put it on the wrong line when I was uh entering it

but and that's again yeah part of we want to realign yeah yeah the whole thing gotcha thank you very much Sor yield thank you const six Kazan thank you Mr President I want to go to law please um page 103 I first off want to um ask uh and also commend uh under under other Professional Services looking at the most uh recently uh recent quarter update Mr Ramsey it appears that your your department with

other Professional Services uh it has come down tremendously I I see you have a 4% drop off and it doesn't really look like you're going to probably spend unless something crazy changes between now and the end of the year all of all of that which is probably the reason that came down I'm assuming no um actually don't give me enough credit I mean you're giving me too much credit um

I think some bills are probably getting entered in lawyers sometimes get a little lazy and then June hits and we get a lot of bills I have noticed a significant number of bills coming in so I think we're actually are going to be very close to that 367 for outside litigation this year um the main um factor in that is I've been talking I think years probably all four years I've

been here the uh police involv sh on Airport Road saying once Discovery hits it's going to get expensive it's hit so it's been a very expensive case for this city to date and so uh we'll be very near that that 367 but the one thing I hope everybody understands in my budget it is essentially the same budget it's no real increase but there's there's one thing to note is um we talked for years

all said I wouldn't be able to hire somebody for $65,000 as an full-time assistant Corporation counsel uh We've hired attorney Ken for debt and what I would requesting this Council to approve is to increase that line atem by 50,000 so it' be at 115 that same 50,000 would be reduced from outside litigation so the idea is that yes we're going to hire a full-time assistant Corporation councel at a fair

rate but reducing outside litigation costs by that same 50,000 so that's why the reduction is for I've added in for the assistant full-time assistant corpor Council position but your uh salaries shows 102 not sure why that came across like that um it it should be 110 was my expectation 110 115 what is it well the 115 would have given some a little leeway as far as if there's any kind of

increases that come in January but the um the one of the agreements I had with attorney for debt was when he came on his effective salary was 100,000 because I had 50,000 left in my budget but he started in January so over the course of year you can see how that would project to 100 um but one of his agreements that come on that I would support and the mayor would support and we would request

this Council to support a salary of $110,000 for attorney for debt are you going to redo the appropriation order to reflect that um so I'm sorry but that I wasn't aware of that if need be it can be taken care of later it's it's it's better to do now if it's not too much legis effort but there are contracts that um expire in January so I do anticipate in January probably having

come before this Council because of just new contracts that come up and then we can fix it at that point if it's too much trouble now so um one thing that I've always had conversations with you about in my prior ten year here is the amount of outside legal uh that you've had to essentially sub out a little bit um have you do you feel that in your budget this year that you've brought more of that

inhouse and you're subbing less out once attorney foret came in yes very much so um you know the the costs that have gone up this year I mean it's the same budget from the prior year but we're going to spend more of it this year it's only because these discover the discovery has really taken off I mean um discovery on one specific case or more than one there's more than one but it's one

that's taken the bulk of it um we've had I mean to give you an example I have a list here of the two biggest costs um there's one Law Firm that's approximately $154,000 but they are covering six cases for us um two of them involving fatalities and one's the police involved shooting um the other is Clifford and Kenny that's about 95,000 that's higher for them this year but a lot of that is

because of the fire arbitration and they and they do our Collective for everybody they do our collective bargaining negotiations correct and they don't do a single lawsuit so there's nothing I really Farm out to them a law lawsuit wise but they they they've been Union negotiations collected bargaining and we had the the fire arbitration was expensive so how much are you planning

because it's not really broken out here that other professional service is kind of just like one number how much do you budget uh in this fiscal year for outside legal for collective bargaining did you say 85,000 no I mean it's not it's not that specific as I said uh Clifford and Kenny our bill as of June 5th um their their total was 95,000 in change I've always asked this um do you

feel that the city would be better positioned to have another associate Corporation counsel or an associate pargal aspiring attorney maybe out of law school whatnot I'm probably not doing collective bargaining but have you ever thought about bringing that in house I've always always wanted to see that happen and it could provide more resour ources to your department um it's personally no I mean I do see both sides

in fact I've had a conversation a couple years ago with the uh city solic of Taunton and he finds it very difficult to do that in-house because we represent our police officers we represent our our fire department I represent them on on many things during the course of the year to then be on the other side it's a little bit more difficult it's almost like in in a sports realm where you know

you have an organization like the red sock saying that a certain player is not worth that amount in arbitration and then and then you know the day once it's over then you're best friends and then they want to go out in the field and perform it's a very difficult position sometimes I think to have the inside Council which is representing all the employees of the city of Fall River then

go in say we have no money for you okay so where are we going to find in this budget um $155,000 to make sure that the assistant Corporation Council can get 115,000 and not 102 is said I there are two options I don't I'll leave it up to the CFO what is easier to do as I said it would be it's fine with me to let it ride until January and then we can make the fixes

there because you're going to just come back to us for a transfer unless you can do unless you can do it under administrative Services you can transfer it between salaries within your department so you're telling the you have a contract that's coming up in January there is an agreement in place with attorney for debt that with this council's approval I need the council's approval because it's an appropriation

the mayor support it my office supports it I'd like to I'd like to hire him and give him a contract once his budgets passes for 110 okay but right now it's before us at 102 so so I wasn't yeah again this is unfortunately the first time I'm being made aware of this um I think we I just want to conf confirm that go ahead that the com mayor is yeah mayor's

in support of of this um the one thing I will say is that the Clifford and Kenny bill is is extraordinarily High because of the arbitration Sure Fire abration uh probably by a third uh if we're If we're honest and um the way that collective bargaining happens um when I came in as City administrator all of the contracts were open um we settled a bunch of them we'll have several next year we'll

settle to this year so we have them on a schedule now and uh director molini and I do all the collective paring with Clifford and Kenny Clifford and Kenny I think is um you know we're going to probably keep them involved with police and fire uh but we haven't involved them at all with apps me uh and it's been fine um you know I but don't but but with that though don't you feel that all the

bargaining units are back up for negotiation this fiscal year in 2025 so don't you feel that you would be re I don't want to leave the department short I mean I've been critical of the law Department's finances in the past I think this is is pretty lean within this department but don't you feel that um that going back to the bargaining table with pretty much every Union in 2025 is going to reopen the outside

Council for Clifford and Kenny or whoever you use uh just with regard to Fire and Police uh you know that's the those are the because basically every fire uh fighter and every police officer is their own separate um is is basically their own separate salary code because they have so many different variables that you know those are incredibly challenging cvas to negotiate and draft

uh the rest are actually you Teamsters um we've done uh mostly just actually in house uh for the most part ask me we doing in house um superiors we've done largely uh in house so um yeah okay so I'm just I think there'll be a reduction not not an eradication and I would agree I've had this conversation with Seth numerous times where you know the bills getting kind of high are we still needing them I

still using and they've done an excellent job and I don't mean to suggest Clifford county has done an excellent job for the city um but I do think I've seen a significant reduction in the last four to six months and I think that Trend will continue where that bill should be reduced in in fiscal 2025 all right the the person who's the ass uh the assistant Corporation counsel is currently getting paid what you're

saying is in this budget of 102 correct he is currently under a contract a six-month contract that pays him $50,000 yeah when when did the six-month contract begin in January his exact date was I WR I wrote Jan January 24th by believe is January 3rd of this year so he has a six-month contract so at the end of this month that's correct he as he he's no longer a contracted employee within your department unless he gets

paid his extra amount of money that he's duly noted so I think it's probably in our best interest for um if the council so chooses um to have a a revised appropriation order so I would I mean I would recommend moving it from other Professional Services and moving it up into the salaries just reducing other Professional Services and increasing his salaries it's 8,000 we have to we would

move and then it would it would keep the appropriation but that's what he already did with his um proposed budget down 14% that was included in in in that wasn't it what what if if I take if we take uh $8,000 out of other Professional Services that's going to give him $8,000 less to work with this fiscal year well again if we were going to come down and ask for another appropriation when he

negotiates in January that is that that's where you would be coming out of other Professional Services to make that I think right now I think it makes sense to do it like that okay so why wouldn't it just make sense to get at a revised appropriation order or the council can just well that wouldn't change the yeah I mean we we will change that but I'm just saying that's where we would move

it from so in total it won't change legal services but we will I so you want to leave it way it is and then you'll end up doing it in house within salaries you're going from expenses to salaries so you need the council's correct that's what I'm asking you for so I would just change the appropriation by 8,000 on both those lines right that's what I'm saying we're saying the same thing okay

I Yi thank you thank you Council counc C Council Samson um thank you council president I feel like well first of all counselor Ramsey I want to commend you you again I appreciate the fact that you are um taking money out of the consultant putting it here to fund this I think that that position is very warranted of 110 and should be so and um I'm all about that so I just feel like there's a

communication issue like once again here we are um we're sitting in front of us to to approve the budget and I've got the contracts that were just given to us um Mr fet at 110 it looks like as of July one of this year we can negotiate his salary which should be happening and then now we're talking about January I just I just it's it's very disheartening to me to sit here and

hear well I never heard that I don't I don't know that so there's there's clearly some type of communication issue when the budgets are put together I don't know I don't know it's just very disheartening that has to be fixed because if we're confused I know I'm confused going back and forth I just just can't imagine what the public is saying so um I I would definitely agree to that 11

10 salary I think it's very appropriate I I like the Rog in that department I think it's needed and I wish we had that before us tonight so we could approve that with that I yield I would ask the council if if this is going to be a problem I have a very lengthy analysis I can give for attorney for debt I don't feel the need to waste everybody's time

it unless there is an issue but I I do want to note because you know it's 110 it's a lot of money I get it it is actually below um Market you know I have a comparison to Bedford uh New Bedford and Brockton and I do want to point out I think sometimes the fairest way to look at a legal budget because what we don't know is what the claims and

judgments are going to be any given year and you know if you do a comparison to Fall River Brockton into Bedford um some of them have insurance thrown in and things that that are thrown in their budget that's not in mine and vice versa um but I've looked at it as best as I could to figure out to try to compare apples to apples and I think the best

way to do that is you strip out claimed in judgments so for example Brockton had in their budget you know one and a half million for judgments so you you remove that from their budget um if you remove my budget is 550,000 for claims in judgment remove that and let's remove the 300,000 I see from new bedfords so I think you know given a clear comparison Fall River if you take out the judgment

it's $854,000 that's the legal department um brockton's is 1.5 million so almost double and new bedford's is 2.2 million almost triple and this budget's very lean um I've held off on hiring a full-time assistant Corporation counsel as long as I can attorney for debt is a wonderful fit he brings about 30 years of legal experience to the city of Fall River um civil litigation Municipal law is a little bit new for

him but he's eager he's is willing to learn that's actually the only other addition I had is 3,000 extra for training because I want him to go to as many training as I can I I think he's a great addition to my office and I hope you support him absolutely absolutely absolutely yeah may I choose the I'm sorry I absolutely will be supporting that and you've done a great job with

that a y council president thank you so much thank you Council counc C4 counc yes to my point your point with about attorney for de he is uh he's a a very very competent attorney trial attorney um very uh I can't say enough about him I've known him for uh at least 26 years and I'm sure Mr Akin will attest to the same same thing he's just such a quality individual and a

hardworking um attorney so I I was really happy when he was brought on board and of course he I'll be supporting that when it comes across my desk so thank you thank you c c C5 C I I really don't have any questions for uh Human Resources I think Nick does a very good job his staff very accommodating same thing with mis uh some of the people will tell me oh if I had a

problem with my computer Tyler's there right away I just wish that we had one page Tyler that said events happening and that it was a calendar and you could see all the things happening in Fall River yeah the limitations of the the city yeah because we don't have a tourism director to be able to do that but Mr Akens has promised me that they will figure out in this budget right a way to get a tourism

director um do you didn't say that was I dreaming no I said I would talk to the mayor about it oh and that I would Express to him how serious you were about the tourism director and I think we voted on it on this Council and I remind him each time I see him perhaps she'll have better luck than I um but you know we're looking at that the only

issue that I have with law is that as a counselor I want to know how many lawsuits have we settled what are we paying people I put in a resolution for that and maybe we have to go into executive session but I want to kind of get my my handle around that because I think that it's not as bad as people believe it to be um and I would just

like to know that other than that I have had the opportunity to see attorney for that work in my previous life and I think he's an awesome attorney and everything that I've asked him for or questioned him he's great at research and calls you right back so kudos to him and I have no problem um you know with him getting that additional money other than that I really don't have any uh

questions I do have uh some dreams for what I think I would like like to see in the budget changed I'd like to see us getting at least one Carpenter and one electrici pull the money together I would like to see one more person traffic other people are going to come down we have one more after this so oh who else is coming down um we have insurance and insurance and pensions oh um I'd

like to see one person in traffic I'd like to see cemetery and trees put together and I'd like to see um Chris get that position he's been doing them both again as my colleagues to my left said you have people that can do two things at once that would be a good fit for him I'd like to see another building inspector I'd like to see a purchasing agent and an assistant planner assistant

engineer that's my wish list for the future I think the budget is very lean it's only like 800 85,000 off of uh what it was last year um and I don't have a problem with money being in there for stiens I mean for negotiations we know that people are going to get raises and they deserve them um but you know so far I've got to say I'm pretty happy with all the Departments and the

response that I get and I'm in this city hall a lot during the week and I get compliments from constituents on how well they're treated here at City Hall and that's something I wasn't getting before they would criticize the way they were spoken to by employees or whatever I'm not getting that I'm getting people talking about how helpful people are and I think that says a lot for the city and I I truly appreciate

the hard work of all the employees at City Hall um and that they truly care about the city and it's it's really good to see with that Mr president I yield thank you C just have a question instead of going to Executive session is there any way you can make your way up to the law department and then he can tell you what the lawsuits are and this way because you're the one that want because

he's not telling me he wants to give me a sheet with numbers that's not what I want so if it's an executive session you can all hear it I'm not in favor of executive sessions and I'm not favor of knowing I'll they shouldn't something maybe I haveco with me can have your room Che thank you counselor thank you Mr President is there any coun c to coun D good

job good job I I think what was the actual CPI in the in FY 24 3.5% 3.5 ier goodness 3.5 the only reason I asked that is because it was budgeted at 2.5 last year yeah so we you underestimated last year it was trending down and then it went back up okay yeah because if you looked if you looked to the FY 24 budget all the cpis were 2.5 I

want to say the last two or three months of the year what spiked it so the year before that was it s something yes seven so again like that's part of budgeting is you know you just do Part of Me Part of me saying that is I can actually reconcile and and bring myself because when I see a little bit of an increase we're going to use you as an example cuz you're up I appreciate that

he um so I'm back to the annual salary is higher than the total but when you consider that CPI was only at 2.5 it would make sense that you would start with a little bit of a BM so at least the people with cpis I can understand it and justify it okay um obviously I'd like in the budget more specificity and and uh things a little clearer like for instance with that $133,000 on call

stien that needs to really thoroughly be explained I get we got a verbal statement but all right so that's off track I just want to address make one more comment so earlier you there was a discussion about the stabilization fund and how much money is in it today versus how much money was it in years past and in years past we only had 200,000 I just want to point out that in

years past we didn't have Opera funding either we didn't have Opa funding to plug holes in a budget we didn't have Opa funding that we could invest to make more money you added would you say 15 million this year because of no not 15 million so we've added um there was about just over three and a half million um for 23 and we'll probably close out around over four closer to five million in

investment even this year right but part of that investment was because we had the OPA funding so that that is that's a very big part part of it and we've also taken other strategies to um hold departments accountable where the city is not acting at like fronting so much money and then waiting a significant amount of time to get reimbursed from from different either grants or um you

know put for capital projects so we're we're holding um departments more accountable with cash flows on projects so again like we don't we want to be able to make like have the money working for the city and not where we're pushing it out and we're so thin that we're not able to invest money either but again I think in part we didn't have that Advantage exactly so we like treading

water every year and so when you have an opportunity I think you should take that opportunity and and put it to work and do what's best for the city and help put us in a better financial position I agree I agree so and that's and that's why you know things were removed and um Capital was you capital projects were used for arpa to try to help put like help set us up

at least so that we can spend the next couple years trying to get you know not we don't want to go backwards no I think that everybody here remembers and we all I mean we've looked at it you you lived it I don't think we want to go back to that I mean I think we want to go forward and do what's and have like Good Financial sound policies no and again

it's no fault of it's just that's what happened and and it's you know it was it was over periods and periods of time this didn't just happen over one or two years this was like 20 years of you know this a Gateway City falling into that so now we had an opportunity and we should keep moving forward with that same conservatism and you know putting things to work that we can put to work no I do

agree with you I just I just wanted to make that point that that's what helped us of course and we haven't shed that springboarded us forward so to speak exactly and so we've you know and again that investment income is is you know returns back and it'll help us in years to come MH just a quick comment U Council upon actually asked a couple nights ago what's your plan for c for

capital projects and the biggest part of the plan to the extent that there is one is a healthy stabilization fund and the reason that can be part of the plan is that with a healthy stabilization fund there's actually the possibility of generating interest from the stabilization fund that you can actually use to fund your capital projects uh and your Capital you know your your trucks

and your you know durable goods and that sort of thing it's it's a on a very small scale that there's actually a guy named Charlie Munger do anyone know who that that is it's one of the founders of birkshire hathway and he used he was he died that's right and he used to give a speech all the time which is save $100,000 he goes do whatever you got to

do you know make coffee at home take the bus whatever you can do save 100,000 and if you can do that then you can generate income from the 100,000 you can reinvest the 100 th like it's always it starts and you know CFO almond is essentially doing that she's trying to create a stabilization fund that allows us to then not use the fund but use the benefit of the fund the interest

from the fund the revenue generated by the fund to then do the things that we always used to borrow before uh and we won't hopefully need to borrow in the future that to me is the is really the most structurally sound plan that we have and that's that's all because of c i we all talked about you know you know we don't want to keep increasing borrowing so we we've put you know we've

slowed that down significantly we've used our funding I mean the mayor committed you know funds to the Nagle Auditorium which you know we would have been having to borrow for so we're trying to do all that and yes AR ARA funds did allow that but we would be foolish if we didn't take advantage of that and put put the money to work I mean I know other communities did not

put this money to work and who got more oper funding than we did and did not invest their money the way we did okay thank you with that I you thank you6 thank you Mr President so um what kind interest rate are we getting right now in our stabilization account so the stabilization account um can also invest in the legalist so it's a combination so it's not just a flat interest rate so I

mean we can get you the details on I'm just like are you looking at five because interest we to what you said uh work when interest rates are high yeah this this process only works if interest rates are going to stay in the area that it's at now there's no way in my opinion and I'm not anybody anywhere will believe that we're ever going to get back to a two or 3% increas rate for a

very long time unless inflation totally drops and that isn't going to happen um even with a change of president if there is if that does happen I don't see interest rates going back to pretty much zero so um in in the in the case that where we're at today if you have $20 million in stabilization and you get 5% interest it's a million dollars a year now I like where you're going with your philosophy

of reinvesting that now that million dollars could do us quite a bit um um I'm not saying that's something that we would use for you know consistent operations but year over year I mean I remember when the prior Administration got a million bucks from a landfill it was like oh my God like we just you know won the lottery or something that was one it was that was

it done yeah it was done and and so we just got to hope that the interest rates remain where they're at so again I obviously I can't I don't have a crystal ball of course but everything that I've been paying attention to and every you know professional development I've gone to does not see you know basically the treasury notes coming down below like four to 5% in the next couple years um

they don't see mortgage rates coming down below four to 5% going to happen so not at least for a few years so I mean at least we know we feel comfortable that we're going to be able to generate a decent amount of investment income if we stay the course now what kind of Investments uh on that does the city do on an annual basis in terms of getting Returns on investments with interest

rates CDs or anything along those lines so um we have not um locked in any money in CDs because we have not had to we we've um negotiated with our banks we're getting um you know anywhere from like four and a half to five and a quarter percent just on on money markets that are fully collateralized or um FDIC with diff insurance we have um about 34,000 that's in us treasuries which I

mean you can't get any safer than that nope so we were you know we were able to get into us treasuries um early last year so we got in at a very good time and you're doing all that money management yourself within your I'm doing that money management with myself and our Treasurer and we also are we use um Rockland Trust and we are also using um my God I just forgot their name bakos

Bristol County SS well we have those are regular accounts um as soon as that comes to me I will yeah no problem I I I I it's another like local Municipal I mean municipal um right investment firm that's widely used amongst you know most like almost all the municipalities and the name just escaped me right now they're not they're not out of Sweden are they no they're out of Massachusetts uh so again we we have we

have stayed so there's another you know I mean we there's another whole program called iny where they take the sweep the money out and they invest it all over and we have not participated in that we um we want to know who where our money is and uh Banks it is so all of our money is within Massachusetts banks that are have Rock and mortar in Massachusetts okay what remind me that

number of money that's going to be in stabilization at the end of the year or going into next year rather um so we're actually working on Clos in like all of our projections right now so I don't have the exact dollar amount that we plan on trans but you're expecting to use 2.3 of of yeah we've already we've already accounted for that okay so again we're like getting down to the wire with

our projections and getting incumbrances and thank you I yield thank you Council but I think you did say earlier that we were roughly around 25 combined free cash and stabilization well so we started out with 15 you know of free cash um we we had to give schools two point or just about three million dollar of that and we had some other small adjustments but so is it safe to say

we're roughly 15 in 11 or where we what so no your 15 is now um reduced and I so it's about 11 if we give out four I'm just trying to get a number more or less where we're at yeah I'll get you an ex yeah I'll get you an exact because the comparisons that you made to the other communities I think were in fairly decent shape yeah and I and again I don't know

what they've utilized out of their free cash in the you know in the current budget any further questions so everyone at the table free to leave thank you very much for coming down appreciate it keep up to good work gentlemen thank you thank you thank you C C7 CC poso I had two questions um I'm assuming she's answering Insurance well we are you talking about the next One Insurance

okay so we're just going to say goodbye these guys and we have I'm assuming she's answer insurance and set as well so I just going to wait for them to leave fair

enough okay now we're doing insurance and others pensions C cat 7 C proposal so on excuse me on page 253 um I again I think it's just the clerical error under Medicare insurance FY 24 proposed says a m79 then below it says 780,000 it should be 780,000 both of those items so there was a there was a transfer into um the Medicare okay Insurance last year because we had all the we had Retros so

that that revised it was a revised number that increased okay so that so that's correct then the MTH oh I'm yeah I see what you're saying the total L didn't okay so that's should be 780 or a million 79 it's a million 79 so then the the line below it is incorrect the total because those are you know carried over as hard coded on okay all right and then I just had

another question going back to um just as we wrap up here on the assessments page on 258 I don't know if you'd be able to answer this so the school department sent us a um a chart on the going eighth graders going to high school and I'm referring to the Charter School sending tuition so on FY 25's budgets an increase of 1.2 million obviously they haven't graduated yet but is there an anticipation that

more of our public school students are going to the Charter next year which explains the increase or so those so those come right from the cherry sheet okay and then what'll end up happening is throughout the year that will get adjusted so then is if that goes down or up then the revenue goes down or up so th that will keep that will fluctuate but again we used what the what's on the

cherry sheet gotcha so they're basing it off of you know the numbers that they had are they anticipating an increase essentially is that how I read that that's how I would read it yeah okay I mean I know that the tuition rate per child did increase yeah that per pupil allocation but it it seems like the trend at least in the past year is that it actually went down from what we were

sending from for public schools to the charter schools so but that's I was just curious so it really fluctuates essentially yeah and so like I you know October one so again last year until October one so last year that number was higher originally and then when we closed out the year and got the final numbers to do the end of year report which we do you know over the summer with the school department that then

changed got it thank you I Y Mr thank you con any further questions no further questions pions C2 the yeah I just had the one on the uh transfer to the employer trust fund the health dental and life that that it's only increased by 7% isn't that very low no so so the way the way that um they used to do the insurance is they used to try to base it on claims

and not actually build something in where you were building in you know a reserve which we're self-insured so what we've done is we've spent the last two years going back and forth with our health consultant talking to the schools and we're building it based on a working rate which is best practice so you know if they say that this is the amount for a family plan which then builds in um

like all of your stop loss and like it builds in all of those expenses and then also so that you're putting in a little bit extra so that you can weather those storms of up and down unfortunately um because of the way it was being done and being based on claims is what caused the net School spending to to be down was the health insurance and then prior administrations were transferring money from the

employer Health Trust Fund to the schools to cover that difference so we've changed the methodology as far as like how we're doing accounting for it and we're trying to go forward with and we we did spent a lot of time on this we also called many communities and we found one community that had done it that way and when they were under State oversight they changed it to using the

working rate okay thank you with that I that was the only question thank you Council there be no further questions motion to refer the municipal budget to full Council second motion fer Mr budet to full Council has been made and seconded all in favor I counc C2 on the motion yeah I um I don't know if this is the appropriate time or not but we had dis I had brought up before about making

a motion that we go line by line with the item at the time I had stated that we had gotten when we had that debacle a couple of years back uh we had got an opinion from The Corporation Council on how to proceed and um if anybody wants a copy the clerk has copies for everybody of of that opinion but I think the most this one here if the city council wishes to

reduce the budget what is the procedure under GLC 4432 any item in the mayor's proposed annual budget that the city council has not voted within 45 days of its receipt of the budget to approve reduce or reject take effect is the appropriation for that purpose for the fiscal year therefore a vote proping purporting to reduce the entire budget or to reduce categories of spending by a

total amount percentage without actually voting to reduce particular line items by specific dollar amounts is ineffective without that specificity in individual line items a city council reduction in the budget would make all the Appropriations ambiguous City auditor would have no basis for deciding which line items should be reduced and therefore no authority to refuse to pay bills from any of the line items on the

grounds that they were incurred in excessive appropriation if the city council wishes to reduce the budget by a particular amount or percentage in total of for certain purposes it must vote to reduce each and every applicable line item by specific dollar amounts as necessary to achieve that end so I want to be in compliance I don't want to get in the same situation we did a couple years ago so I would

make a motion that we that situation a couple years ago I don't we didn't do it within the 45 days we made the budget passed by default we made a motion to reject the entire budget all right uh so yeah yeah all right so I don't know if it would be applicable to make a motion to when we do do the budget tomorrow that we do it line by line we'll do it

line by line C I'm fine with that okay Council thank you Council se6 Council party did you have something yeah thank you so um a couple things on the motion to refer to fall Council for Action um which is what's on the floor right now um my our colleague in seat two is is is accurate in my opinion with what she's saying um what happened years a couple years ago was the council

rejected the municipal budget in the committee on on finance and didn't act and didn't refer the budget to the full Council within its certain threshold within it within it within it time we we didn't do that um so the budget passed um however back in 200 I don't know 14 or so um when the right around the time the charter changed um we got a a legal opinion from Judge Macy at the time that

the city council has the ability to take the appropriation order that is currently on in our budget and we can go through if the council wanted to take mayor's office salaries that's 310,000 if the council wanted to reject that to 300 even we have the ability to do that under the appropriation order so I think tomorrow um when we have this in full Council if the council decides that they

want to reduce a line item in the appropriation order they can do that they can reduce reject or approve the appropriation line so then the clerk essentially would read for the purposes of General government they would have that specific number and the council can approve it is that correct through the president through the clerk isn't that what we did last the the clerk will have

to readjust the numbers to reflect what the council's vote will be right so the council just for everybody's edification the council will have to if they want to reduce reject or approve to my colleague and se2 we would do that within the appropriation order I do got a question though um there was some discussion tonight with law is there going to be a plan to send a revised appropriation

order down to this Council for tomorrow or are we just going to deal with it when we deal with it January deal with it January yes yes they they will bring down a tomation okay I just want to make one thing clear too when the council does reduce reduce line Ed by line num that reduce will come off the total of the entire budget as well right cler's going to adjust those numbers to reflect

what the reduction will be yeah right Mr President so we just have $412,000 for the annual budget 400 sorry 42 money million dollar um yeah right um that that that is what you know if we decide to reduce it we would do it then now I remember I um I was pretty AV AVID for um the prior the jel administration overestimating their revenues if you recall years ago so I wanted to at that

time reduce the um Revenue but we can't essentially reduce the revenue so we had to find if it was a million dollars in Revenue we had to find a million dollars of expenses and we went through that budget at that time and did that so I mean whatever the will of the council is going to be if if there's if there's going to be I just wanted to make it clear that's what we will be doing

that's how we have to do it if we want to do we can we can adopt the whole I believe the whole appropriation order at once and not go through it right but if the council wants to reduce any line them this is how we have to do it so I just wanted to make that clear I do have some concerns uh but I'll reserve my comments on my concerns tomorrow I heed

thank you5 coun I just think that if there's any particular line item that a council wants to reduced for whatever reason go to that line item if other line items are fine got to go down the list you can we've done it that way in the past that's how we've done it in the past too seems like sometimes things change with different administrations but we've taken one line and saying this

department here we think needs to be reduced because of whatever and maybe we can get a legal opinion from attorney before tomorrow yeah we even took muffin money out of the School departments once the opinion I just read is his opinion clarification of his opinion no it's not it's let him speak yeah hold on one second come attorney wants to come down just clarify because she did just

read his legal opinion right to the microphone please first before you start yeah no speak into the micophone corporation counsel no just speak into it there were two things that I just wanted to clarify you could do it either way uh the way councelor prayer or councel Dion has suggested it um you know for efficiency if you wanted to I'm not do it any way you want but for efficiency you could say hey let's look

at these three or four line items which I had a little question on reduce them or reject them whatever you want to do with it and then say and then we approve the rest that that would be perfectly fine and just the other thing wanted to clarify uh Council Pon you do have the ability to reduce to the extent that it's not already a contractual obligation the city has so for example

I've had a contract for two and a half years it's a three-year contract you couldn't reduce my salary because it's in contract um but for example attorney for debt which I'm asking to increase is that you could reject that yes so that's why going line by line if you do intend to reduce you want to have that conversation to make sure that the administration will let you know you know these are the Bare Bones you can't

reduce below this level but you can reduce to that level does that make sense yes I'm not sure I explain that perfectly can hold on to CC D youed um chairman I just have one question for clarification purposes so I do have reductions I want to make okay my question is I don't necessarily um want to change the appropriation so what I mean by that is there's a couple of line items that I

would reduce but want to put the money in the reserve fund so in the event down the road something came up then they would have we would have the ability to transfer the money for for another purpose can can that be done no no um is similar it's different but similar to the council cannot add to a budget so you would essentially be adding to um a part of the budget that you want to add

to and you can't do that um I mean a simple way to think of it is but we just did it from we went from 102 to 110 you're looking to increase the reserve fund you can't do that point of information the reason we're able to do that now is the that's why I specifically ask the administration if they're going to come down with an appropriate to make the changes they're going to make that

change now just for as another point of information I believe that if the council re reduces a line and we can't reappropriate the money it'll it'll it will flow through to free cash going into the next year that's what that will end up doing that's correct and I just okay with that with that I yield go ahead just want to make it clear if you were to reduce the salary you can't pick

one specific salary and reduce it you have to reduce the line item for salar is within that department doesn't mean that they'll take it out of where that's they can move it around and it doesn't mean it's going to get reduced so just want to make it clear okay my reduction has nothing to do with a Sal I'm just saying I'm not not your specific I'm just being put out across for everyone do you yeld

counselor I do counc prayer did you have something your hand raised or not yeah I I just have a question on the pensions because this year you can't speak on pensions can you no but that's why I'm saying I have a question um I want that to be separate from the budget do you know what I mean so that I have to abstain from that portion oh you okay because there was a increase or whatever

so I don't want to you can obain during that vote councel of the for that pardon you can obain on the on the vote that the not the entire bu yeah any further questions Mr rsey thank you so much Atty Ry for coming appreciate it thank you anyone else nope motion to adjourn motion hold on motion to refer to the we having discussion we didn't take the final vote hasn't made and seconded

all in favor I any opposed motion carries motion to adjourn motion to adjourn as remain second all in favor I any opposed motion carries city council meeting is now J tomorrow night heyy hey hey hey hey hey hey hey