This four of a city council committee on finance meeting will now be called to order at six o'clock on June 1st. Madam Clerk, roll call please. Councilor Skiddeen. Here. Canuo? Here. Dion? Here. Hart? Here. Peckham? Here. Carrera? Here. Raposo? Here. President Ponte? Here. Pursuant to the open meeting, will any person make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium? Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those
present, and are deemed acknowledged and permissible. Today, June 1st, Monday, we have our budget presentation. The first department that's going to come before us is the school department. You can make your way down to the table now. City operations will follow, which will be the director of operations, facilities, streets, highways, solid waste, parks, cemeteries, trees, and snow removal. Thank
you. Super power. And welcome back. If you can please identify yourself for the record, please, starting with Mr. Almeida. Mr. President, motion to lift from the table. Motion to lift the item from the table. Thank you, Counselor. It has been made by Counselor Raposo. Seconded by Counselor Dion. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Mr. Almeida. Sure. Kevin Almeida, Chief Financial Officer. Kathleen Smith, Interim Superintendent. Liz will go. Interim Deputy Superintendent. Ken Pacheco, Chief Operating Officer. Any brief overview for us at all, Madam Superintendent? Yes, I would like to make a statement,
President. Thank you. Thank you. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. Today actually marks my one month anniversary in Fall River. In that short time, I have had the privilege of working closely with the team at the administration building, school leaders across the district, our school committee, and leaders in the city of Fall River. What I have seen so far is a community deeply committed to its students. And I will tell you I got to do some shopping and went to a Portuguese restaurant last week. This is a big week in our district as graduation
season is officially here. Over the past several days, I've had the opportunity to attend National College Signing Day, Senior Awards nights, and a series of celebrations that honor the hard work and accomplishments of our students. All of it leads to Friday night under the lights at McAldrich Field where 650 seniors from Durfee and Stone schools will walk across the stage and receive their high school diplomas. These graduates are leaving a state of the art high school facility equipped with modern classrooms, updated technology, and
expanded career and technical education program that reflects our district's commitment to preparing students for the future. And the celebrations don't end there. Next week I'll proudly stand with students from the Robert L. Madero School as they receive their high school diplomas that they've worked so hard to earn. Although I arrived after the budget process was already well underway, and in fact already presented to and approved by the school committee, I want to acknowledge the strong foundation that has been built. FY27, our operating budget is
an estimated $213 million. Our current enrollment is about 11,000 students and just over 2,500 hardworking Fall River Public School staff members. And I want to tell you, while many districts across the states are losing students, here in Fall River we are gaining students. We are not facing a deficit, unlike several neighboring and statewide districts. The district has been physically responsible even during a period of rising costs statewide. We are not laying off teachers. In fact, we are adding some positions
next school year to better meet the needs of our students. One of our early priorities has been working with the team to centralize our youngest learners into one location at the former Bishop Conley High School on Ellsbury Street and to convert the space into our early learning center. This will finally allow one central location for our three to five year olds Previously we had 333 students housed at one spot and students housed throughout the district. You will now bring 600 plus students together
in an anticipated, I'm sorry, 33 classrooms for FY26-27. Improved access for these students to services such as occupational therapy and physical therapy. Create space for intervention and acceleration for our students that are ages 3 to 5. Allow for more consistent programming and support in one facility. Over the last few years, Fall River has taken major steps to balance enrollment and improve our access. Redistricting to ensure more equitable class sizes, averaging around 28 students in each class.
Reopening of Westall as a neighborhood school, and I believe it's the second school year that this school has been open. Purchasing the former Atlantis Charter School building on South Main Street, where the Stone School is currently located, and also houses the Fall River Learning Pre-K classrooms on the first floor. These classes, of course, will move to Bishop Conley and your early childhood center next year. This year we are implementing updated school boundaries, redistricting. Families will receive notification this week, and we are committed to
supporting them throughout this transition. We are also working towards greater inclusion for students receiving special education services. This is not only the best practice, but it is also what our students and our families deserve. It requires thoughtful planning, staffing, and professional development, and we are moving in that direction. Fall River has made significant capital investments, many of which will include reimbursements from the MSBA, the Massachusetts School Building Authority, National Grid, the Massachusetts CEC, the Clean Energy Center, and other partners. Investing in renewable energy with
the addition of a canopy at the Pace parking lot on Ray Street. We've installed new windows at the Henry Lord Community School, the Robert L. Medeiros Resiliency Preparatory Academy, and will receive more than $2 million in grant money for energy-efficient updates at the William S. Green Elementary School. I do want to talk about what I call my big rocks. So coming into the district as your interim superintendent, one of the goals for this year is to look at, and I'm going to be meeting with
the school committee, I believe for our first retreat on June 17th. I plan to have retreats for the next couple of months because it's important for our working relationship. We're looking at creating a strong expanded human resource department for recruiting and hiring for all positions. Selections of highly qualified teachers and personnel. Ensure we have Desi Lisinger in place. Monitoring our training, collective bargaining with all our units, educator and staff evaluation. And some of this is the result of a district review and things that we need to improve in the district. I'm going to be reviewing all departments for efficiency
and effectiveness throughout the district. And most importantly, improving relationships among school committee, superintendent, central departments for a high functioning relationship that supports our students and families. preparation again to recruit and attract a permanent superintendent of schools for your district and also creating and you've heard me talk about this individually a strong collaborative partnership with the mayor and you the city council and across all city departments. I want to thank our educators, our hardworking staff, and our families, and this community. We cannot
do this work alone. I look forward to continuing to work closely with all our district and school leaders, school committee, city council, and all for the benefit of our students in the Fall River Public Schools. So thank you for this opportunity this evening. Thank you, Madam Superintendent. Councilman C1, Councilor Kadeem. Thank you, Mr. President. Can I just request that the CFO come down too, because I've got questions from the schools, but I- That's the music for her to come here. You have your own theme song. Ms. Arpke? Yes, so I do just have general questions, but
I think it's going to go back and forth between the school side and the city side. So first off, while Ms. Arpke is coming down, I do want to thank you for the statement that you just provided. In the short time, I know it's been a month for you, a little bit longer for the deputy superintendent. but I've had a opportunity to meet with both of you on a number of occasions and I can tell you that the messaging that you've put out there is refreshing, number one. Some of the challenges is that we get messaging but no delivery on what's being said. And I can see that there's definitely, from your standpoint, the two
of you are really looking to make that impact with the statement that's been made and making sure that there's changes on the school side. So as one counselor, whatever you need, the support is always here from the city council to the school department, as we always try to do is have that partnership. So thank you for that. So just in terms of budget questions, I noticed that we are 100% in net school spending. So when I look at the city budget taking the $212,582,416 plus the $85,000 of the city share gets
us where we need to be with net school spending. I guess my question is, did I understand the school committee Meeting that I watched that they voted for an additional two million dollars to be appropriated. So that would essentially a 1% So what ended up happening since the last meeting that we had here was the school committee the night? It was either the night after or two nights after voted to approve an additional three million dollars in the budget Which
would have brought it to brought the budget to 101 percent of no school spending but when the budget was submitted to the mayor's office, it was brought back down to what was initially put in. So you've already made the cuts that you need to do to get in line with the budget? Our budget reflects the initial budget, which was the 100% of net school spending. And was there any of the additional 1% that was in the other $3 million, was it Was it just looking for
a blanket funding, or was there specific allocations that were already being made? Was there, like, an attempt for additional teachers or programming or anything like that? We were looking at the additional 1%. It kind of just happened that night. When it happened that night, it kind of caught us off guard a little bit. It was great to hear. But, you know, with it not going through the mayor's budget, it never really fully went through. But we would have definitely come up with a plan. Mm-hmm. And then my second question, just a general question with regards to, and I just heard the superintendent talking about additional hiring for teachers and things like that, and I know
that the Student Opportunity Act has provided some significant increases in funding over the last several years, and obviously that will be tailing off a little bit, but The school department, I think it was Mr. Aguiar, or I forget which committee member asked the question, just looking at from a sustainability standpoint to do a forecast to make sure that the number of hires that the school department has is sustainable in the future. Has that been done? And should there be any concern from the council standpoint with regard to, especially if we're going to year over year, uh be at 100 in
that school spending i know our our goal personally is to get above that number but when we can get above that number i'm not quite sure so i just want to make sure that uh to the superintendent's point there is no layoffs in the future that's possible so that's the plan so what's have we done that evaluation not a not a full four to five years now is that something the school department is planning on doing yes okay and then just The majority of my
questions are just regarding transportation. So I guess for my colleagues and for you folks, so the two documents I'm going to be going off of is the document that's on page 116, which highlights the educational component for the budget, on the Far River budget, and then the last page on the school's budget, which is transportation. So I guess before, and I've got several questions regarding transportation, but before I get into that, I think the city council recognizes that transportation is
a significant expense for the city that is not net school spending eligible, which has always been an issue for us. So when you start looking at the gross transportation costs, they total approximately $16.1 million, according to the city operating budget annually. And with the exception of the McKinney-Vento, which is the homeless transportation, and then the circuit breaker transportation for sped transportation, we receive no reimbursements or direct aid from the state whatsoever. to offset that cost. And I know
that's been a major contention with the mayor and I think this city council. When you look at the governor's budget and the house budget, they both have $112.3 million for regional school transportation. So zero transportation costs associated for districts. And that for me is a significant concern. And then when you look at the Senate ways and means, that number actually increases to $114.7 million for the same purposes. So why I'm on that soapbox is because when we start to look at the actual budget for Fall
River, that represents approximately 3.3% of our total budget. When you look at the tax levy, which we've been having conversations about the tax levy, that equates to 10% of our tax levy with zero reimbursement coming from the state. So I know from my standpoint, I'd like to make a motion right now that the city council sends to the delegation that that they requesting them to take a hard look at funding or providing reimbursement for transportation for at least gateway communities because when we start
looking at those costs and the competing interests with that especially for gateway cities that are struggling to meet 100 percent in that school spending If we have some type of reimbursement, then we can potentially reallocate that money to the schools so that we can get above 100% in that school spending, or we can have a reallocation of those costs to other departments, whether that's police or fire. So from my standpoint, I'd like to make that motion, and hopefully my colleagues would support a letter going to the to the local delegation regarding that motion made by council of khadim seconded by
council vice president dion uh very quickly on the motion to send the letter only we are not in full council but this council would be make sure we have that letter drafted madam clerk for our june was it night next full council meeting or actually wednesdays can we add it to the agenda get that done You can send a letter as a committee on finance. As a committee on finance, fair enough. Motion has been made by Councilor Kadim, seconded by Council Vice President Deon. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Councilor, Councilman Seek. I just had a
question on the. On the letter? Yes. Okay, go ahead. Did we want, I would ask my colleague in seat number one, would we also want to include in that letter the crossing guard cost as well, since that is also very much related to the schools. Well, I think the crossing guards are really more of an indirect cost agreement between the city. I think the more pertinent piece is the transportation costs. And when we start talking about education and graduation rates, and I've had this conversation with local delegation in the past, We can't talk about graduation rates if we can't get
students to school, right? So the fundamental component of education is transportation, especially when you deal with gateway cities and communities, right? That to me is the most important thing. I think we need to address that first so that nobody is losing sight of what the real issue is. And then once we deal with that, then we can deal with some other issues. But to me, that's the pertinent issue. You yield, Councillor? I do. Councillor on the motion only. Councillor on C7, Councillor Perret. I like the idea of just for gateway cities because I forgot how many years ago we went to Boston. Ten years ago we went on. Did you go too? Yeah, the three
of us, yep. Yeah, the three of us went to Boston trying to fight to get this transportation issue resolved and it was around the entire state. So maybe just going with the gateway cities would be better. So I'm in favor of that. Without a U. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor in seat one, you have the floor. We've taken them. Motion has been, you're right, thank you. Motion has been made and seconded. Harry, no further discussions. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? On sending the letter? The ayes have it. Councillor? Thank you. So getting back to my question with regard to
transportation. So when I look at the city budget, school transportation, we have a number of $16.1 million. Can you just explain how that's derived? Because then when I look at the actual sheet that's provided by the school department, do you have, I'm sorry, do you have that? - I do. - You do. I'm not sure that the numbers tie out on the school side, which I guess I was gonna look for some explanation on that as well. But total projected for FY27 is
$17 million. There is a little bit of a discrepancy there, and I'm just curious what that discrepancy looks like or why it's there and what the actual true total projected FY27 transportation number is. So the number you see reflected in the school submitted budget is what their numbers are for the projected budget. When we had this and we're putting the budget together, there was a conversation between the mayor and I about the numbers that were in there. There was a conversation about the, I'm gonna
say reorganization of the school transportation and the way that the plans are expected to change in FY27. And those costs aren't included in that $17 million number at this time. So part of that was where we were following this year for FY26, the proposed estimates that I had looked at, the projected estimates, sorry, that I had looked at for FY26 showed that we were coming in under and then with the amount of increase that was in there. So we figured between the projection for 26 potentially
being a little bit high plus the changes that are expected to reduce it, we would reduce the number by about 900,000, I think it is. - To be clear, are you talking about the redistricting that the school department is beginning to work on? - So part of it, I think part of it's that, but part of it's the transportation changes that would follow. - You're talking about the redistricting that's happening, yes. which would include changes to where students are being transported to. So that $17
million number didn't reflect any of that. Okay, so I guess can we take a step back? So can we focus on the school document itself? So you've got a total projected FY27 cost of just $17 million, a little over $17 million. But when I go and look at, so the total salaries for operating transportation, that doesn't come over to the, to the city side, right? That's captured on the school side? No, it's part of the transportation. Oh,
so we pay not just, so we pay for salaries as well? Yes. All right, so we, I guess I got a question as to, so why are we paying for a transportation coordinator? I thought we would just pay the expense of busing. So I see the couriers, and I guess the couriers would do transportation, right? So the coordinator of transportation, $90,000, we're paying that as well? Yes, she's the one that oversees
the transportation. It's always been that way. Okay, so I guess that's a discussion for another day. So that totals $456,000. Then we get student transportation, $11.5 million rounded up. We got the homeless transportation of $2.1 million. Then we got general supplies of $4,500. That totals $13.6 million. So if I add those two subtotals up,
that gets to the 13.8. So what is the $4 million difference, so the 17 to the 13.8? So the difference, it should be about $3.2 million. And so $1.8 million is coming from Circuit Breaker. And then $1.4 million I initially had had in the McKinney-Vento account. So I guess how do
you get into the $17 million, though? Because it doesn't add up, right? So the total expense for operating is $13.6 million plus the $456 million. So the $13.8 million is essentially half operating. We only charge transportation for half the couriers because they spend half the day delivering mail in the district. And so when you take half the courier's salary, so the two items together add up to just over $14 million, the eligible portion versus the non-eligible portion.
Yep. And so that's how you get to the 13.8 is when you take half the courier's salary out. So the two added together equal to just over $14 million. And half of the courier salary backed out gets you to the $13.8 million. Right. Then if you go down a couple lines, the total projected FY27 is $17 million. Correct. So the additional money, the $1.8, the $1.4, is just cost of transportation coming out of those funds for the $17 million. Mr. President, point of
clarification, if I could. Your point of clarification? In the school department budget, it says the McKinney-Vento is 1.4 reimbursement. The city document says 2 million. Which one is it? I was getting there. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So I had put in the 1.4 million. That's what I put in. Councilman C-1 has the floor. What's the answer to his question? He put in one of them. Yeah, I believe that our colleague in C-1 is going down that road with the question. We'll make sure we get the clarification.
Thank you. So, Sean, Council Kadeem, so because we fund a portion of transportation out of the Circuit Breaker account and the McKinney-Vento account, it's not shown in your totals above? So that's what I'm saying. So that's all net, the reimbursement. That's the difference. Correct. Exactly. Okay. Because the math does work out when you get the total projected, the $17 million minus the $1.8 million minus the $1.4 million gets you to $13.8 million. Exactly. But then when I tied up, I thought we were
seeing all the costs associated with it. No, it's not. So it's net of the— Those pieces are backed up, yes. Okay. All right. So now, I guess, Emily, can you explain again? So if the total projected for FY27 was $17 million— And then we've got the 16.1. So where's the million dollar difference? It's the 900,000. So it's, I don't have a specific necessarily line item. It's just in general with the total transportation costs potentially being reduced.
I think it's that the 11 plus million dollar line item, like the general transportation costs being less with the changes that are expected. So you're saying you're just expecting less transportation? Is that what you're saying? Correct with the redistricting. I mean that that statement that didn't come from me that that would change the transportation costs That was something that had come out of meetings that that would potentially change the costs in this number didn't reflect So how did you get the nine hundred thousand? I guess that's what I'm saying So if
we're saying we're redistricting where where's the documentation to show that it's a nine hundred thousand dollar savings. There isn't anything There's nothing that factors in any number at that point. So so yes, it's an estimated reduction but it's also based on the fact that What I last saw was that we are also coming in under budget from the FY26 budget to what we're actually landing at as the projected budget for 26. So between the two, it felt like an amount that wasn't unreasonable to expect a savings of in that time period. There's also a commitment from the administration that if
these estimates are wrong, since we don't actually have any of those documents and any of those numbers yet, that we will come down and revisit this. But where are these numbers coming from? You folks have contracts, do you not? So I would assume that the more accurate number would be coming from the schools than from the city in terms of just randomly reducing 900,000. So you've got bus routes, you know the number of buses that we have, there's a current contract that you have for transportation,
correct? If any, Mr. Almeida, somebody on the school side, please answer the question. I think the hope would be that through the redistricting we'd see some of the savings, I think is what the hope is. So the hope is the redistricting, but we don't know if that's going to be realized. Or is it guaranteed that it's going to be realized? Do we know when the redistricting is going to take place? How long is the redistricting going to take? I mean, can we do this mid-year? Is there a tiering? I mean, I just... I understand what we're trying to do.
It just seems like we're trying to balance the budget, though, on transportation. So that's my concern. All I can say is we can certainly report back to you as we go along and watch this budget with transportation in timely manners, but we do not have that information. So my understanding is just what the Chief Financial Officer has stated, that the understanding on the city side is if it is not able to take us to the end of the year, we would be back here requesting that additional funding. Well, before then, once we knew that that wasn't what was taking place,
we would come back down. And you're assuming that the City Council is going to vote to support that, right? So that's the problem. We're here building a budget with actual costs associated with it. So it's one thing if it's an unforeseen circumstance, but to, I guess, make... projections that we're gonna have a savings when we don't really know where the routes are gonna go or the redistricting is gonna take place or even if the school committee supports the redistricting there's a lot of unknowns and that's a million dollars so it's a million dollars there and then when we start
talking about the circuit break of funds so it seems like the only number for the reimbursement that matches the schools is the circuit break of funds for the sped transportation so the 1.8 million dollars The McKinney-Vento, when we get into the McKinney-Vento, that is $2 million versus the 1.4. So I guess the 1.4 is actual? It's roughly about
$1.4 million, yes, from this past year. So I ask because the state level funded the McKinney-Vento transportation, and so it originally... So the level of funding from FY25 to 26, that was at $28.6 million. This fiscal year, they put in an additional $6.5 million, again, into $35.2 million. So that's a 22.7% increase. So if I apply the 22,
again, not knowing, obviously, where the transportation population, I mean, the homeless population is going to be, but assuming that there's some consistency there. If you apply that 22.7% increase to the reimbursements, we would be closer to the 1.4, which is closer. It would actually be 1.5, which is closer to the 1.4 that you folks have estimated. And then you're at $2 million. So you're taking an additional $600,000. So the $900,000 plus the $600,000 gives us a $1.5 million
swing in terms of where we're hoping we're going to have some savings. So there is also a fund balance in the McKinney-Vento account that's old outstanding money of a few million dollars that hasn't been necessarily utilized at that rate. So it's not like it's an expected increase in one year from the state. It's the fact that there is money available. And then if we are able to, if the costs are actually coming in lower this year than what was originally projected, we could take less of that Again and not and have even more of that money remaining in that
and who will appreciate who appropriates that money the McKinney-Vento money Where's that? Where's that money? I don't parks is on the city side. This is the school side We shift the expense over for what was originally budgeted for in the previous year. So it's a Special revenue fund. So that would require an appropriation. I my understanding is that it doesn't know it does. I It doesn't. It's for a special... The money that comes in is used specifically for transportation. I think
it's the way that it's... I'm going to say I know it's not necessarily a grant, but it's set up in the sense of like a grant fund that was... So you're charging the account directly? Yes. So I know that there are some accounts that can get charged, but there's also special revenue accounts. So we just talked about PEG access, right? So the PEG access is a special revenue account, requires an appropriation. which is specifically for cable-related services, out of the special revenue account. And that's a
conversation for another day. I mean, the city council has never appropriated that money, so we need to start appropriating that money, but I don't know that. I thought that that was appropriated through a revolving fund each year. What's that? The cable access money. - Cable can only be a special revenue account or an enterprise fund. - Right, so a revolving fund is a special revenue fund. - No, it's a separate, so the revolving funds are separate under Massachusetts General Law. This one's specific to special revenue. it's on the list for the revolving funds each year I thought was is cable
I think I'm pretty sure the cable one is as part of your revolving funds yeah so revolvings chapter 50 I mean section 53 peg taxes is gonna be 54 and like three quarters or 54 F three quarters whatever it is but that that calls for a specific special revenue fund it's not a revolving fund so it's got to get appropriated out of there that's That's my understanding, but that's not the conversation we're having here. So I guess if we can get a clarification that the city
has the ability to charge off that revenue account without having the appropriation, that would be appreciated. But I still guess I'm concerned with the difference that we have in terms of projections. So $2 million versus the $1.4 million, I don't know how much is in that. account a balance would would be helpful to to know and I think what's the The regulations is that you can only have one year's worth in that account. Yes So I
don't know how we close to that not close to it Do we know? As of as of today, I checked the account and there was just over 800,000 in the account Yeah, I I just don't know that I'm comfortable with with how this has been projected I just I just think that we're We're just rolling the dice and I'm not suggesting that this was done intentionally, but it feels
like we're just balancing this budget based on transportation, hoping that things change, that we're gonna utilize. I mean, if the intent was to utilize the additional McKinney-Vento, we should have pulled that money and then put it in this budget so that we know that's what it is. And I guess how do we get to the McKinney-Vento in terms of the appropriation? Who makes that determination in terms of the reimbursement portion of it? So you've got the $1.4 versus the $2 million. What's the logic behind it? Like how do we identify how much is
going to be used for the reimbursement? Typically I base it on what was received in the previous year. That's what I base the number on. And when you say what we received in terms of what we received reimbursement so McKinney-Vento is always it's always delayed So when so I filed for example, I filed at the FY 25 ends of the airport in the fall this past fall and We won't receive the funding until sometime hopefully before the end of the month and depending on timing with the state. Sometimes it's beginning of July, but that's typically the
time frame. But we would have already spent the money last fiscal year in FY25, so it's like a year behind. Where are we with FY26 and then FY27? I know 25, it was 75% of, I think, like 68% or something like that. above the cost now. It's supposed to be 100%. They're trying to get as close to 100% as possible, but we haven't heard yet as to what the exact number is yet. For 27 or for 26? For 26. For 26. Yeah. All right. That's
all the questions I have for now. Thank you, Counselor. Before I acknowledge... other colleagues i want to just ask a point of information the school committee mr alameda or madam superintendent um what did they vote on for two the both two items net school spending i believe that was 101 percent of net school spending correct yes they voted uh the school committee um a couple nights after we met here or the night after uh voted an additional three million dollars On top of the $212 million
figure that you have here in the budget. And what was submitted to the council was the $212,582,416. And just for my own edification and to the public, what changed between the school committee vote and the vote that you sent? Was it the mayor's decision that sent it to us? Or did the school administration have another meeting with the school committee? It was changed at the city level. Okay, and same thing for transportation. What did the school committee vote on for transportation? What amount? The 16.1? So
the school committee voted on a total, the total transportation of 17 million with the two reimbursements backed out. The Circuit Breaker and the McKinney-Vento reimbursement backed out for a total of that. I'm sorry, I don't have it right in front of me. 13,850. Yeah, 13,850,000. 048 is what the school committee voted on. And we're at 12-350-048. Yes. Councilor in seat 8, Councilor Raposo. So I guess to my colleague's question, which number are we
actually going to go with when it comes to this budget right now? What the appropriation order says is what the administration sends down. Okay. So it's going to be short, right? That's what I'm gathering here. Mr. Almeida? Yes. Hey, it's less than what we had moved forward, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So we're running the possibility that it's going to be short. And to Ms. Arpy's point, this is a situation where
it may very well be a situation where you have to come down and ask for additional. Point of clarification, is it going to be short of 100% of the school spending or 101% of the school spending? No, the transportation is not eligible. No, no, no, but I thought you were talking about the overall budget. No, no, I'm talking about the transportation. I apologize. Council? Yes, so I guess, I mean, I guess I'm confused at this point. I would rather be in a position where we fund it versus run the risk of it being short and then having to come out
to have that conversation to Councilor Gadeem's point. We're going to have to assume the City Council is going to support a transfer for that. So I don't know if anybody has an answer for me now. I don't think anybody does right now. Well, I think this is important. If I may, Councilor, for a moment. You may, sir. The school committee voted on one number. I'm not trying to make this complicated. I just want some clear answers from the city side. The school department voted on one number. And then the administration changed that number and I don't know if any of
my colleagues understood or was clear on our colleague in seat one's question what analysis was done to take a difference of value from a school committee vote in the city side. Are we just banking on a redistricting? No, it's also the fact of where this year's Budgeted number is falling to what looks like it is actually going to happen So the current so that everybody wants to talk about what's projected for FY 27 But if you look at what was projected for FY 26 to what we're actually looking that we're gonna land at It's not the same number either. So
that's the other part of the basis that we're talking about. I So you're referring to the fact that FY26 revised was 13,238, and then FY26 projected was 12,483. Correct. So you're counting that difference in the projection of the following FY27 projected budget. Correct. Okay. But point of information, can I just? You make sure. But what those conversations had with the school department, I know the numbers are coming in.
actuals are coming in lower, but did you folks have conversations to figure that out? Not in advance of submitting the budget, no. Councilman Seedate has the floor. Yeah, so my larger question on my list of questions was when we talk about the redistricting, and obviously there's a lot of parts involved, Madam Superintendent, I guess the question becomes how do we predict what the savings is going to be? At this point here, we would
have to go back and certainly come up with a solution to share that information with you. I don't have that right now. We're talking, but I don't have that figure. Okay. All right. I think that's something we're going to have to revisit because I think that has a lot to do with, I mean, obviously redistricting, the whole idea of it is to have some savings, clean up bus routes, put kids in lesser places, things like that. Yeah. We're still registering students. Yeah, you know we're in the process right now. Yeah, well, I know that process is complicated in of itself,
but I guess it's tough to understand You know the idea behind registering was to save money But we're not exactly sure what at least an estimate or somewhat of a ballpark prediction of what that could possibly be even if it's even if it's lowest level and - Some of it was saving money, some of it was, as we said, balancing equitable class sizes. - Correct. - And there were a number of reasons. - Sure. All right, I guess I'll revisit that. Maybe you can get back to us on that. That'd be helpful, most certainly. - We will do that. -
Thank you. I wanna move on the same page, on page 116, in regards to the Diamond Regional Tuition, and I'm not sure which CFO wants to answer this, but-- - Agree with me. well miss arpke if you could so the projected for fy26 of just over 4 million and then the fy27 proposed budget which is over that number about 300 000 with the new diamond building did we anticipate additional seats opening up for fall river um no no so what so what what is this the
change in that number essentially costs go up every year the the increase typically happens each year the um Think that there was some additional funding as it was mentioned for the regional school transportation that's been happening So some of those numbers seem to be going down a little bit, but it's based on the per pupil enrollment and that is almost a year offset but When they built the new school, I think that they said that the total number of students that was gonna be increased in
the school was, I mean, nominal, maybe 100 students total. So it wasn't like they were expecting a huge population increase. But then the biggest part of the diamond is obviously the debt is increasing. So it is a full year of debt payments coming on, and that's the debt schedule that accounts for it with that 5.2 million. Do you know what the per pupil allocation for that number is? I do. The diamond regional tuition? I do, if you could give me one second. Sure. As you do this, the number that, I'm sorry, this is confusing for the council and
the public. The number you presented to the school committee, did that not include the number for redistricting for the school committee vote, Mr. Pacheco, Mr. Almeida? Can you say that one more time, please? Yeah, the amount of money that the school committee voted on for the transportation item in the analysis that you did in your budget deliberations with the schools, did that include the redistricting? Yes. So the redistricting has not been incorporated in those numbers. Unfortunately, it's a
very fluid situation, redistricting. So we do know that we're going to have students who are currently getting transportation that are not going to receive transportation. One of the schools, for instance, probably the easiest one would be the Rivera School. A lot more students are going to be allowed to have transportation that as their home school in their neighborhood due to us moving a program that was taking up quite a few classrooms. So that alone should,
we're gonna see that difference. We also should see the difference on the pre-K piece because we are putting everything in one location. So what that would allow us to do is take these routes that are spread out across the city have a more concentration in each of those neighborhoods and allow those buses to be coming to Bishop Conley with 15 to 25 to 35 students as opposed to 10 and 12 and 14 students. Okay, thank you. So those kinds of things have... So
the answer is no. It does not include the changes. It does not include the changes. That's all I need to tell you. Thank you. We do have information. Councilor Raposo? I'm just waiting on... - Ms. Arpke's answer on the per pupil. - So the per pupil for, I'm gonna say the base of the budget, just the foundation, it's about $3,734 per student. When you factor in the debt, we're paying about $8,797 per student.
- So the base is 3,734 you said? - Yeah. - Per student? And then-- - Once you factor in the transportation and the capital. So the total actual regional assessment is $8,797,000. - 8,797, 8,797, right? - 8,797, yes. - Got it, okay. And what about for Bristol Aggie? Do you have that information as well? - I do. Because obviously that number hasn't changed much. No. Sorry.
But of course there's more people in that pot when it comes to Bristol Aggie. I don't think that one made it into my folder. But I do have it in a general sense. I can get it for you. But that didn't seem to make it into my folder. I'm sorry. Okay. of everything else but that's fine yeah i mean obviously the number hasn't changed but i'm just curious in comparison to diamond obviously it's apples and watermelons but i'm just curious more than anything else if you can get back to that on that uh madam superintendent now that you are in
place currently um the indirect cost agreement has there been any movement on that about Revisiting that situation. We actually just had conversation about it today Not only do I think that is required and very important the other thing that I insist on going forward You heard me talk about it a little in my opening statements is regular and ongoing You know collaboration in conversation with the school CFO and the city CFO. Okay excellent One question I did ask when the presentation was first made, and
this was before you came in, was the reduction of the 11 paraprofessionals. And at the time, the discussion was it was the reduction of the 11 paraprofessionals, particularly around special education, and the plan is to hire special education teachers in place of those powers. Is that still the plan going forward? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And I did ask at the time, and the deputy superintendent did give me some information, I was curious of where the reductions were taking place and where the planned new hires for
special education were going to be placed. Do you have a sense of where those would be? You may not have that answer now. I don't have it right now. I actually thought I provided it, but I'll get that for you. Yeah, because you had kind of given me a breakdown of the reductions plus the additions, but it didn't specify where those were. Thank you, Mr. Almeida. The next question is around the lunch budget, which tends to be a pretty decent-sized account. What is the plan to spend down that money for the lunch budget? Budget can I sorry I do have
that Bristol Aggie number. Go ahead. Sorry. It's nine thousand nine hundred and seventeen dollars per student Say that one more time nine thousand nine thousand nine hundred and seventeen dollars per student per student. Yep that the tuition is four thousand six hundred and seventeen and the debt is five thousand three hundred and We just have naturally less students at Bristol-Lagie. Yeah, we have 56 students versus 1,102. 1,102. That's very helpful. Thank you very much. All right. Back to my question about the lunch budget.
Mr. Almeida? Mr. Pacheco. Sorry. So it looks like it's going to be initially a lot of major renovations in the schools, new lines, new equipment in the kitchens, and that could amount to anywhere from 250 to 300 per building, 18 buildings. Other than Durfee, 17 buildings will have some work to do. We do have some small work that we're going to do at... Bishop Conley and some major kitchen renovations will go on at
some of our middle schools. Talbot for sure with the full renovation which could be well over a million million and a half in that one kitchen so between all of those kitchens we do have some other equipment needs some transportation needs within the kitchen and nutrition area and that's probably we're going to get to at least somewhere around three and a half to four million okay Because as I was going through the school department budget presentations in the binder,
I noticed that there were some outside requests that necessarily were maybe not funded. I wasn't clear if they were requested and not funded or they were requested and funded, but essentially there's enough money in that lunch budget to cover any sort of renovations when it comes to any kitchens across the district. And the goal in that particular budget is Pool of money is to spend it down to a certain level. Yes Yes, you're supposed to keep at least three three months in reserve within the account So three months of operating expenses and what is that operating expenses? It's roughly four
million dollars, you know, four to four to five million three months three months. Okay Awesome. My last question was in regards to the fine arts department there was a request for a $10,000 stipend and Was that granted out of curiosity? The school committee approved it through their budget deliberations. Awesome. That's all I got. I yield. Thank you. Consolidation 7, Consular Pereira. The questions that I have pertain to the health care insurance, and I would like the city administrator to
come down as well if that could be allowed. I'm really confused on how the city side budgets health care and the school side budgets health care. And I think it should be premium based versus claims based. And I don't know why we have to pay for some that are under grants, how grants are paid out differently. And I'm wondering. I know we have Gallagher that assists with the health care
and I'm wondering what Gallagher's recommendations on this if anybody would know. So I can just touch base first on the school grants. So the school grants are not funded through this section. It is funded through the grants at that point in time. I shouldn't just say school grants, all of our grants they do submit and for their employees that are enrolled in different programs. So yeah, so that is covered by the grants at that point. Do you wanna? - Has there been
a conversation with the Gallagher? - Yes. - What's Gallagher's position on this? - We just had a meeting the other day with a few of the council and this member of the school committee with Gallagher spoke with them about how they do their computations which includes the working rate and how they come to that rate. And there was some talk about the rebates and the reimbursements because there's been quite a bit of discussion about that. Can you share that with us? What are they thinking we
need to change? Primarily, they're saying that those go back into the health care account to lower the cost of the premiums for the employees. This year, without those rebates and taking into consideration that money going back into the account, the increase would have been as high as 15% for the employees. with the amounts for the reimbursements and the rebates being taken into consideration, the insurance went up 8.6%. - 8.4. - 8.4, sorry. - Are we changing that? Are we gonna look at that? - Well, I mean, we've always done it the same way. I mean, the rebates, and it's always
gone back into the healthcare, 75/25. - And they weren't keeping some of the rebates or stop loss, and that wasn't-- - No, that's never gone over to the school department side. No, when we talk to Gallagher, just so you know, what they give us is a number that they think we need to budget in a total sense. This is what we think your health care costs are going to be. What's Gallagher saying the number is for this year? So I have all those documents. I don't have them today because we were doing the full health care presentation on Wednesday, but
I do plan on having and sharing all of those documents the way I did last year. I'll have copies sent to you guys beforehand, but I have this document. snippets of each of the pages that reach out to it but I can say that we are fully funding to what they've suggested this year. Okay I'll wait till Wednesday. The other thing I don't know who can answer maybe Kevin when you talk about transportation what are the contracts like with transportation so even if we're going to do some redistricting and we're going to be saving or assumed saving on transportation. What
does the contract say relative to the price of gas? Because sometimes in the contract it says if gas goes up so much, you pay more. So in the end, we may not-- be saving as much as people think we're going to be able to save. Can anybody comment on that? Madam Superintendent? Sure. So we do have an escalator. There is an escalator in the contract. If the gas goes over a certain diesel, any fuel goes over a certain percentage, that we make up that difference. We
do have a little bit of a break with the electric buses in play, which would Curbs some of that cost, but there is an escalator in place. I have to say that a few of the bus companies have never charged us the escalator at the end of the day, but it is in place and the fuel prices now are pretty hefty. Even diesel. Yes. I never stopped paying more for diesel than premium. New world we live in, I guess. The other questions have been answered
primarily budget related, but one of the, I received a few calls, three actually over the weekend, regarding pink slips. And I called one of the school committee people and said, "What's going on with pink slips?" And they said, "Well, I think it's about people getting licensed. They have five years to become licensed as a teacher." So we're not giving pink slips, so the money that's in the budget for teachers, can somebody... I'm going to have you deputy superintendent. We've been working again
as the human resource department. We're reviewing licensure. You heard me mention that. And I will tell you, Liz will talk deeply about it, but I will tell you every employee is valuable to us. We're going to work closely with them to make sure, and I'm sure all of you are aware when you talk about accountability, we have to have highly qualified teachers. That's the goal. You look around the districts that surround you. That is the goal of every district. It's about five years. Five years to get a license? You're talking a new teacher coming in to get their master's degree
to become highly qualified. So it's a little bit more complicated than that. And Liz will talk about the numbers. But we are, again, invested in making sure every teacher that is working towards their licensure we're going to support, whether it's passing MTEL, whether it's courses they need to take. So we are looking at this number. I believe the number was about 175? 178. So I'll let Liz talk about it. She worked deeply with the HR office, but please understand that, and I want to say that publicly, that every teacher is important to us. We're going to work with our professionals
and make sure that we can get them properly licensed. Thank you. So we have 178 teachers that are on a waiver, and so what we've done is we've gone through each teacher, each employee, each teacher, and found out where they were on the waiver process, and so we can ask for a waiver each year from the districts, from the superintendent's level, and we ask for it through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. So what I did is I went through all 178, sent them a letter saying, where are you in the process of becoming highly qualified and certified
as a teacher, third elementary certification, the silos of high school chemistry teacher, biology teacher, physics teacher, where are you in getting your certificate? What I'm waiting for is, and we received, after those letters went out on Friday, received probably over half maybe three quarters of a lot of teachers sending back information on geez you know I just took my mtel three weeks ago I'm taking my mtel in two weeks I am in process right now at Bridgewater State getting my finishing up my master's degree
so that I can get my certification in this area as long as we the district see progress towards certification We will accept that and we will continue to work with that teacher to make sure that they get a waiver and that they stay with us in Fall River. We want to work with our teachers. We want them to be part of the Fall River community and the school district. However, we need highly qualified certified teachers that work with us. So our goal is to make
sure that when we hire and we recruit teachers that we're bringing in certified, highly qualified teachers. There are times that we can't find a certified teacher in chemistry. but they have a general science degree and they may be at Bridgewater State, they may be at Assumption, they may be at Stonehill getting that certain UMass Dartmouth getting their certification. So we can waver them as a general science teacher to teach chemistry in hopes that they will progress into certification in
the area of biology chemistry. This is not an I gotcha. This isn't I'm going to cut you. I'm not going to cut you loose from the boat and throw you over. That's not what we're doing. What we're doing is to make sure that we have certified teachers teaching our most vulnerable students, the kids of Fall River. We want to make sure that we're highly qualified, that we have a teaching force that can maintain certification and to move forward with professional development and everything else
that we offer in the District of Fall River. We are meeting with principals tomorrow in regards just to this. I can tell you this, we've got spreadsheets that are out whether a teacher was where they were in their certification and their progress. Tomorrow I'll talk to all the principals. We'll know every teacher by tomorrow. My hopes are next week is the 10th. My hopes are Wednesday is the 10th, Friday the 12th that pretty much every teacher will know that
we'll rescind and then they'll be back. As long as I see progress and someone says, you know, I'm in my last course at Bridgewater State, I'll have my, or I paid for my course and here's my bursar office slip, I want to make sure that that you want to be a teacher, that you want to be here in Fall River, and that you want to be part of the solution. And that's what we want to do. We want to be part of the
solution. We don't want to be anybody's problem. What we want to do is how can we help you get certified? We're going to offer, we've already talked about offering a class in MTELs. We want to offer courses for our paraprofessionals. We're offering safety care training on a weekly basis right now. So we are certifying people ongoing all times, and we're not going to just cut people loose from our deck. And usually, I mean, even to take the certification test, you can go to Dartmouth. Pearson is the one that really does all the supervised testing or what have you. And our
chief academic officer is working with two colleges right now to see if we can offer that course prior to to start that course prior to next year's opening for September 1st. So we're we our goal is that you belong to Fall River Public Schools. We want you to be here. So let us support you. Let us find a great avenue for you to take and let's get you certified as soon as possible. That's our goal. And those are difficult to do. I did all of
that up at UMass Dartmouth and the Portuguese certification in math and science and history. They're in a closet right now, but thank you for that explanation. Now, I do see on the screen here in our packets, are you going to be doing a presentation on Bishop Conley? I don't believe there's a presentation. I wanted to just to send you the updated information that we had. We did a presentation about a month ago, my first time here. This is an updated presentation, and there were some
questions asked when you... when we invited you a couple of weeks ago to come up to the school district to sit with us, and many of you did to come up, and we talked about it, and we got some information from the CFO from the city side about what was coming off your debt. for the city and I added that to the presentation. Just because a lot of people now that we're in budget season, I'm hearing people say, we don't need to buy it, let them continue to rent it. And I just wanted to have, Mr. Pacheco obviously would know
the cost. How much do you think we can get from SBA as reimbursement and things like that? I just think that it's good for the public to see you know, weighing both sides, which is more beneficial to the city, because we do have to do repairs there, we understand, but... So, I mean, obviously, the MSPA component is after the fact so we have to own it in order to to get involved in MSPA right but but if MSPA was involved that building this is
going to be an 80% reimbursement of the reimbursable items right so anything that's that fits the criteria and most of the work that that building needs we've done in other schools windows roof heating systems, that kind of work. So those items would be definitely reimbursable and the building already has elevators, which is good, but fire protection, things like that. So all of those items are reimbursable items that MSBA could be involved in. So I would say if we have a $20 million price tag, you know
then then we're we should be able to um get 16 million dollars of that do you see the value in us acquiring that property to both the superintendent superintendent smith I think it is a huge value to the city, never mind the location, the opportunities that I shared earlier in my opening statement about developing a pre-K three to five center, all of our services in one place, all of our students. It's a wonderful gift to the city if you're able to do that, certainly. Just
a point of clarification. So you said the reimbursement of 80% is at the end of the note? That's separate from the purchase. Okay. Separate from the purchase. The purchase is not allocated. I want to refocus the conversations to budget, please. We're not really talking about Conley right now. We do plan the next full council meeting to have, when this is on the Finance Committee, we'll have a full presentation and be prepared to answer all of this. That's fine. Thank you, Mr. President. My other questions were answered. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman, seat three, Councilman Canyol. Thank you. I have
a few questions. First, on the McKinney-Vento reimbursement, the FY26 revised budget was showing $1.2 million, but the projected is $1 million, which is a $227,000 difference. Are we expecting less money from that this year? I think it's based on the idea that if the projected costs are less, we would transfer less of the expenses. So it's not that we expect to receive less from the reimbursement. It's more about utilizing
less of it if the costs are less than we anticipated. And then back to the overall transportation cost. Have we looked at like a per student transportation cost compared to peer districts? I have not, but I don't know that that is readily available, you know, amongst other districts, but it's something I will look into. Okay. I think it would just be as we think about where we are spending our dollars, you know, what they're spending per pupil. I
know there's obviously geographic and other factors, but I think it would be good just to have a sense of where we are at from a spending perspective and the best way, you know, when you guys are thinking about your routes and things. Do you use technology, like, or is someone manually trying to figure these routes out? No, it's through technology. Okay. Yes. My third question is around vacancies. How many vacant positions do you guys have right now? I would say probably over -- at this point, probably over 40. And then someone -- you can bring
up the slide. I don't know the slide number, but just a minute ago you had the net positions up on the -- Yes. Yep. You can bring that back up. And the reason I'm asking is just it doesn't quite match the document that was put in front of us in terms of-- - Is that the foundation enrollment in that school spending? - Some positions. - Probably 27 positions, I think. - Then that
positions where you add and subtracted from the different unions. - Hold on, we gotta find it. Number 3434. - Yeah, this is the one here. So when I look at this, the paraprofessionals matches with the negative 11, but like if I take FREA unit B, you show 10 FTE net positions up here, it's 13. Unit A was eight positions on this, but it's five up there. So can you just help me understand the discrepancies between
what I'm looking at on the slide and what's in front of me? Sure. So this slide presentation was the original slide presentation we had done to the school committee. And through the school committee process, there were additional positions that were added. So the net number of positions went from 15 to 20 through the process. And I can I can share with you an update, you know in an email with the document us with it Or is this what this is
the correct one is what you're saying? It should be 20. It's just 20. Yeah, that's the correct. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Constancy one consulate Kadeem So I'm still struggling with the discrepancy in the transportation so just going back I So fiscal year 25, we had a budget. The actuals came in $600,000 and higher. FY26, we had a budget amount, and the actuals came in close to $1.4 million
lower. And then if I look at FY27 to 26, we're projecting, well, FY26 is $1.6 or $1.7 million lower than what's being projected in FY27. So I guess my issue is, is at no point we have projections. significant swings in terms of what the actuals are based on what the projected budget is and there's been no conversation between the schools and the city to identify what those the difference is. I mean it could be a
one-off. Is it reoccurring that there's zero conversation with that? I'm going to say that I'd have to re-look at the projected numbers that are here. I don't know that I you know fully agree with the projected numbers that are there. So I'd have to revisit that. But I guess I guess on the city side I mean What are we doing? I mean, if a department came in, any other department outside of the school department, if there was a $1.4 million difference between what was budgeted
and actual, will we not have a conversation to see what the driving factors were regarding that surplus? Or we're off on our forecasts? That is typically how it works with the city departments. We do have those conversations frequently, but we also, through the whole budget process, have a lot more conversations. It's a lot more of a joint effort with every other department. So we just are, I'm going to say, used to operating differently. I think everybody at this table agrees that we want to shift how we operate together, and I don't think there's any discrepancy on that, but we just
haven't worked in that way for years. - Yeah, but I guess that's not an excuse. I mean, this is 3% of our entire budget. And so, I mean, we're talking about anywhere from 14 to 16 million dollars. I just, I can't fathom anybody who puts together a budget that would not have a conversation, even if it's with a different department, to have a sit down and say, My projections are often compared to yours. What is causing that and where do we need to be? And I
think at the end of the day, obviously there's a balanced budget that needs to be presented. And for the schools, they are just, they don't need to necessarily present balanced budgets, right? They're looking at an appropriation coming from the city, but it is, it is a partnership and it's cooperation. And I think even just at that, I think there would be somebody, and I know the mayor serves as the chairman of the school committee, but I would think that there would be some conversation regarding transportation, how we can reduce costs, what that looks like moving forward, and just challenging what's
being put forth in a good way, not in a negative way. I struggle that we are now here Presenting a budget the numbers are off. We don't know why they're off what the actuals are I'm hearing from the schools that they don't know if that they necessarily agree with the actuals that are being presented here That to me is just concerning across the board just so to be clear those conversations about reducing Transportation costs and what we can do do that those have been conversations that are actively happening with the school committee With the school administration that's that's been happening
for at least a year now. So it's not a like a new idea that was popped into this budget. That has been a conversation that's been taking place. There's just not hard numbers from it. And I think that part of the problem is there isn't gonna be hard numbers until more things happen. - Okay, so then I guess I'm gonna ask the question for FY26, we've got $15.8 million in the projected actuals coming in at 14.4.
What's driving that? - I mean, you keep saying that there's discussions, right? So when you have quarterly budget meetings are you not looking at this and saying okay what what's what literally is driving the fact that our projections are higher than what it is that you don't pick up the telephone and have a conversation with mr alameda and say why am i off am i missing something i just don't know that i i don't know how i i i personally i can only speak for myself i personally would not accept that i'd be having a conversation saying i
need to tie out why our numbers are at 15.8 million dollars that's what we projected and we are now coming we're expecting to close the year at 14.4 million dollars if i am looking to forecast talk about missing a number you missed a number completely. So there's got to be something that is driving this. And year over year, we've got two years that 1.7 million, 1.4 million, and the year prior we had to, you know, the actuals came in 600,000 more. So population
didn't change that much. There was no change in routes or anything like that. So there's got to be some discussion, some conversation. I can tell you that transportation over the last several years has increased significantly. Mainly due to two factors one the pre-k expansion and the growth of pre-k and two are on a district cost of special office special that has increased and so Those two factors in general have caused the increase. We've also seen Additional increases within district transportation additional kids, you know
going door-to-door and things like that that have happened over the last several years So that's that's what's caused the transition But the budget book that I have before me is not showing increases. That's I guess that's what I'm saying. I I understand. So we're 25 actuals, 14.8 million. We're projected to be 14.4 in 26. We projected 15.8. We're now projecting 16.1. You're at 17. we're thinking that are we going to be a million dollars
off we're going to be million dollars higher like i just i don't have faith in the numbers that are before me and i don't i just don't know how you expect you know the city council to vote on something so from my standpoint there's a lot of conversations or questions that i have with regards to what conversations were had with the school committee is the school committee aware of the transportation is there any changes in transportation How were those conversations had between the city administration, the school administration, and then to the city council where we are? I mean, we come here and we're a legislative body, and the expectation is that these budget conversations are
had well in advance to these meetings that are before us. I mean, I don't know that I'm going to get an answer. I don't want to belabor the point other than to say that I'm extremely disappointed in these numbers that are before us. It's nice to say we're going to communicate, but we've had two years of close to a million and a half dollars, and we can't explain why it happened. With that, I yield. Councilman C-5, Council
Hart. Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening, everyone. Just a few questions and maybe one point or one statement. We're talking about transportation and getting students to the schools. And my question is that I wanted to know, because when I was on the school committee, chronic absenteeism was a big problem when I was there. The percentage was very high. When I left, I think they were going to be forming a committee or some kind of group to make
it better. I wanted to know if that has been going on. Has it been improving? What's the chronic absenteeism right now? Do we know that? Or have an idea about it? Yeah, Dr. Bernard has been working. She has a full task force on this. Attendance has increased. They're doing much better. There's always work to be done in attendance. And it's more so in gateway cities. I get it. But I know that that was a big deal that they wanted to work on because it was pretty high demand. Six years ago possibly maybe a little bit more than
that Yeah, and I know that they were they you know had a full-court press and wanted to do something about it But obviously you want to we want to get those kids to school and they weren't getting there So I just wanted to see if that was improving and by what numbers do you know? I don't know. Okay. I don't know the numbers but I can tell you that in transportation meetings as we as I'm getting to learn the district I What I'm hearing is we're picking up, you know, almost door to door, which is unheard of. And we're picking up a lot of kids to get them here. Our Tier 2 and Tier 3
buses are packed for middle and elementary schools. And I think, too, the key component was getting the – Attendance officers obviously involved. And they are. And they were heavily involved. They are very heavily involved. I know that they are, and I know they're doing a good job. Within the school department budget, have we looked to hire more attendance officers, or is it still the same number? At this time, it's the same number. Same number? Okay. All right. And the other question I had was, Superintendent, you mentioned about the pre-K and how we're going to put everybody at Conley, which is
a great idea. I'm all for it. With those places where they were, they're no longer going to be there. I know there was one school, was it on Eastern Ave, the church? I can't think of the church. St. Anthony of the Desert. Was it one of them there? We haven't been there. All right, since about a couple of years? Two years. So where were they? If you can remind me. They're now at Bishop Connolly. No, I know, but where were they before? Now we're getting them
out of those particular buildings. What buildings were they, Kenny? So they were in St. Anthony of the Desert. They were also at, and currently still are at 2501. So we do have classrooms there, so they will be also moving. Okay. And then we have classrooms moving from Fonseca also, and I want to say... Sylvia, too. So those, in total, we're moving 13 more classrooms into Conley. Okay, and that number at Conley, you said, Superintendent, is about 600 plus? I think it's over 600. Is that the
full capacity, or can you have more? We're close to capacity is what I'm hearing, because we have some room. That'll be 33 classrooms. 33, right, okay. Now, where the priests are staying, You mentioned, I think someone mentioned that, maybe Liz you did, when you were here. Is that going to be, are we still considering that for teachers to reside there? I think there's going to be an ongoing conversation with us. We'd love to do something like that. However, we do have children in that that building.
So we just want to make sure for safety purposes what we're going to do and how we would do that. I want to redirect the questions for budget related. We have a discussion on Conley. So if we could just... Yeah, right. I just wanted to know the... It's kind of part of the budget a little bit, but... So the other question I had, thank you, Your Honor. I'll rephrase my questions. The other question I had was kind of important because we're dealing with it tonight. And I wanted to wish Kevin fairly well. I'm really
going to miss you at the school department and for the city. You're always a class act when I was on the school committee. You're a good person, honest, and very good at what you do. Thank you. And you're going to be missed in this district severely. Now, since you're leaving, and there seems to be some kind of a communication not there, and hopefully it'll get improved by what Councilor Kadeem was saying, what's the transition? What are we doing when you're leaving? What's going to happen? We're going to hire someone else, but what's the... Presently, there is a job ad that
has gone out. We have applicants. I actually went to MSBA. They had a recent conference to talk to their executive director. We've reached out to organizations to make sure. It's not an easy position to fill, and I'm so glad you said that. I just recently got to know Kevin Almeida. I knew his reputation before I even came here. I would say I came here because I knew he was going to be here. So again, we are trying to attract candidates. We'll be interviewing, obviously, with our school committee. It's a very, very important position. And any of you that know
my history, unfortunately knowing Brockton, you know, early on, you know, we had very, very difficult budgets. And I would say I was tied to the hip to the city CFO. We had plenty of arguments and discussions about funding, but it was on a very, very regular basis. And that is what I intend to make sure happens between the city and the schools so that we're putting forward a budget that is – budget that not only makes sense money-wise, you know, fiscally responsible, but also that we both understand, you know, the movement in some of those figures. So I will commit
that that will happen this year. Yeah, I think it's important to have that smooth transition. There's no question about it. And as far as the transition goes, you know, Kevin is available. He and I have had this discussion, and we will continue to make sure that there is as best transition as possible. Thank you very much. I yield, and good luck, Kevin. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor in seat six, Councilor Beckham. Good evening. Just to touch upon what Councillor Kadim was saying. Ms. Arpachee, when you came up with this number for the McKinney-Vento reimbursement, you said
that you had taken your own notes or your own paperwork. IT'S FROM OUR ACCOUNTING SYSTEM. SO IT'S
ONE JOINT ACCOUNTING SYSTEM. SO IT'S NOT MY
OWN PAPERWORK. IT'S FROM THE SYSTEM THAT SHOWS
THE NUMBERS IN THERE. OKAY. AND THAT WAS
A CONVERSATION THAT YOU DIDN'T HAVE, RIGHT? CORRECT.
THEY'RE JUST NUMBERS IN THE SYSTEM THAT WERE
PULLED. IT'S NOT -- YOU DON'T HAVE THOSE
WITH YOU? I DON'T. I HAVE A LOT
OF OTHER THINGS WITH ME, BUT APPARENTLY NOT.
COUNCIL PRESIDENT, CAN WE TAKE A FIVE-MINUTE RECESS
SO SHE CAN GO AND RETRIEVE THOSE UP
ON THE SIXth floor? I'D LIKE TO SEE
THEM. SURE. FIVE-MINUTE RECESS IT IS. THANK YOU.
As far as city council meetings, now back in order. Councilor Peckham, you have the floor. I just wanted that information. If she has it, I'll yield the floor. Council
President, thank you. Ms. Arpke, do you have that? Do you want me to pass copies to everybody? Sure, if you can, and then maybe clarify it. Yeah, clarify it.
And if you can just please state your name and roll for the record, please, because you're at the table. I just need to have it for the record, please. My apologies. Yes, sorry. It's Debbie Sardina. I'm the communication specialist for Farrer Public Schools. Thank you. Well, while we pass that out, Consular in Seat 8, Consular Raposo. We'll pass them down. Just give them all. Okay, we'll pass them down. Consular Raposo, you have the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. I just had two quick
questions on the, I think it's page 50 in the school department budget book. It's the list of the unfunded positions and expenses. So just two quick questions on that. Mr. Pacheco, I think this mainly applies to you, I believe, was the proposed custodial shift that was in there that I guess didn't happen, essentially. Can you just explain that to me? It looks like there was a look for 14 custodial additions, but 16 subtractions, part-time. So it's a five-year plan. Yep. So we're going to move a
few each year. Okay. And we're just going from part-time to full-time. Yeah. Which will be a reduction in what we currently have now. The part-time custodians, a second shift only. What we're looking to do is sometimes that need is first shift. So when we go with the full-timers, they would end up being floating in nature and move around. It wasn't a dire need to do it this year. Okay. We would have liked to do it, but we have sufficient custodians in all the buildings.
This was strictly for coverage purposes. Okay. And my other question was actually the last item, Madam Deputy, I don't know if you can answer this. I know obviously Fall River had an issue cybersecurity-wise a year, two years ago? Last year. Yeah, last year. So looks like that particular position was not funded. Just out of curiosity more than anything else. Mr. Almeida? So we had spoken about it and, you know, I had spoken to the chief operating officer Chief Information Officer, and he has
staff that he's going to delineate some of the duties to with not getting this. Got it. Thank you. I yield. Consul C1, Consulate Kadeem, did you want to speak? If you want me to. Yeah, sure. You're the last one I have on my list. No, I thought I was done, but I can you I guess Emily can you walk us through the yeah? So there's two different pages that I was good that I gave to everybody so there's a trial balance And that one's specifically
for the McKinney-Vento Fund and then there's also a year-to-date budget report for transportation That's the second page that was provided to everybody so reading some of this accounting stuff here. So the fund balance for McKinney-Vento is about just over 800,000 like you said. I know I had referenced a couple million dollars. That was in the SPED. Account that I was looking at so I was just I misremembered at that point so there are the two funding so it's from the circuit breaker funding that that
is the one that has like the three to four million dollar balance I didn't print that trial balance report for you just because that is misleading because I know it's used for more than just Transportation so I didn't want to share that with everybody and have you anticipate that that's what that was for So those are just the two documents that are before you so I guess the transportation homeless students, so is it a deficit of $700,000? So with the encumbrance, if you put the
full encumbrance in there plus the year-to-date expended, that's what's reflecting that negative $700,000. But I will say that when I looked through the detail of these even today as well as a couple of weeks ago, the bills are paid through April already. So you're missing May and June bills. So you're saying the encumbrances need to be removed? Is that what it is? They will probably end up being a little bit less than what is in there. I think that encumbrances are based on the
contracts, and obviously all of the contracted amounts may not be fully expended each time. And then? And this doesn't include the transfers from the circuit breaker. Is that correct, Kevin? The circuit break transfers aren't in there. Correct. So when I look at the McKinney-Vento account, this is the special revenue account? No. So I'm sorry, which one are you talking about? The year-to-date or the trial balance? Year-to-date. The year-to-date. So that is just this expense. It's all living. I believe it all lives in here, and then it's done at the end of the year, just so that we can keep a
better track of it in totality. Okay. which is why it looks like it'd be over budget but but there are other funds that would be really covering that right so the account is not in the negative correct not at all expenses for the year not I mean technically even the year expenses for the year are not based on this I guess based on this report I guess correct so I recognize that you may not have lower the encumbrances that you probably should have and things of that nature so okay thank you anything further for the schools Thank you. Councilman C
to Council of Camara. Yeah, I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that. I know Mr. Almeida is not going to be around. I just want to say good luck to you, Mr. Almeida. I've known you for a long, long time, and you've been nothing more than a professional, great at what you do. We don't always agree on the numbers. Sometimes it goes back and forth, but overall, I think... YOU WERE A GOD SENT TO THE CITY WHEN THEY NEEDED IT. ESPECIALLY IN THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE WHEN THERE WAS SO MUCH TURNOVER WITH SUPERINTENDENTS AND CITY ADMINISTRATORS AND EVERYTHING GOING ON. AS IT IS RIGHT NOW. I MEAN, THINK ABOUT IT. WE HAD A NEW SUPERINTENDENT. WE
HAD A SUPERINTENDENT LET GO JUST FOUR OR FIVE MONTHS AGO. AND NOW WE HAVE A BUDGET THAT WAS PUT TOGETHER BY MR. BRIAN REPOSO. Acting superintendent we have an interim superintendent. We are now we just curious What's the plan for getting a new superintendent to give some leadership? Are you one year contract with the city or? I believe on the school committee agenda for this Wednesday the 3rd, there will be discussion about retaining myself as interim superintendent for at least the foreseeable future, probably the rest of this year. Same for the deputy superintendent. That really has been our charge. That's
my commitment. You heard me talk about First of all, you know, looking at some stabilization in the district, looking at, I talked about the big rocks, you know, developing the relationships. You know, I'm just saying I wish you all a lot of luck because there's a lot of, you know, confusion. There's a lot of... Well, I hope there's not confusion. I feel we're making progress. I'm happy to come to work every day. I'm working with people that are committed and dedicated. I'm pleased to be working with the school committee and This week we're focused on, like I said, graduating our
seniors, coming to budget, to have a school committee meeting. But I assure you, and I think I said this when I met all of you when I came a couple of weeks ago, I look forward to coming before you to providing a state of the schools, hopefully sometime in November so you can see the progress. Thank you. I would look forward to that, too. And is there anything we can ever do, myself, just let us know how we can help you? I appreciate it. Students of our community, and we're all willing to chip in and do what we have to do to keep them. You have a great community supporting your students and teachers. Thank you. With that, I yield. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilor. Hearing nothing
further from the schools, thank you so much. Thank you. We're going to do City Director of Operations. Well, that department anyway, the Director of Facilities and Community Maintenance. I'm going to be in the facilities. Am I down? I will. I will. So the trial balance is showing 8 million? I mean 8.4? Is that? The trial balance is showing 800. It's showing 800? I just checked
the portfolio. Oh, ending balance right there, 8. All right, welcome. Just state your name and role for the record, please. Al Oliver, Director of City Operations. Chris Hathaway, Director of Community Amendments. Ann O'Neill, she's an interim city administrator. Emily Arp, PCFO. Thank you. Councilor Nsifo, Council Vice President Diehl. So, I'm going to start off with a couple of questions, and I'm letting people know. I know when I ask
these questions, some people are going to be curious as to how I believe these are budget questions, but you absolutely will see that they are completely related to the budget. So my first question that I'm going to direct to Mr. Oliveira is ARPA 64 and ARPA 64A and ARPA 47. The first one is Lewiston Street. The other one is the capital improvement, which was the equipment
and vehicles for the various departments. Will both of those projects be completed by September 30th? Yes. Absolutely, no doubt. Absolutely, no doubt. Okay. Well, I'm glad to hear that because right now as it stands, if they aren't completed, we would be on the hook for $9.1 million. And I was going to ask the CFO how she saw in this budget we could ever recuperate from that. So I'm glad to hear that, and I'll hold you to it.
I just want to be clear, those ARPA funds are not required to be expended fully until December 31st. Not true, sorry. They're not the Bristol County ones. The Bristol County ones are the ones that have the earlier date. Excuse me, excuse me, okay. So, these have to be done by September 30th, not December. They fall under the category, anything that falls under the category of transportation, surface, or Title I has to be done by September 30th. And how I know this is, is I put a
phone call out to the former director of ARPA, and I had a lengthy conversation with her, and we went over all of this. So all my facts, all my information came from her, and were, believe me, She knows off the top of her head. You bring up a subject, she will tell you the number of the project, how much it started at, how much was expended, if it's been completed, not completed, and that's all right at the top of her head.
So I'm going to say I beg to differ with you. She was the expert in the field, so I'm going to go with her and not take a chance that this city lose millions of dollars if the projects aren't completed. So if I could counselor yes, please the DCM project phase three we started phase one phase two phase three Because if we were working on some funding and the design factor phase three is the actual building itself and
we're Proposing that it's going to be June July phase three to be completed phase two Which is the salt shed is in progress right now. We're expecting to be done in before September. So that's where we're at right now and we're in transition to get phase one out of the way as well. So we're on target. Okay, and there's a total of three phases, is that what you're saying? Three phases, correct. Okay, and in terms of the
vehicles and the equipment, because I know not all the funds had been expended and there were a number of vehicles that hadn't been ordered yet. Where are we with those? Correct. The new DCM director and I have been in communication and we've delineated what vehicles are going to be specced out. We do have the specifications. We're proposing to get that out very shortly. Okay. Okay, because that yeah that started at 1.6 and we've expended a million so there was there's still money there obviously All right. I appreciate that. Um, so
where do I begin? So I guess I'll start on page 76 so in the FY 26 budget you had 17.5 employees Oh, so I guess this is just strictly discussing facilities, correct? Just facilities right now, yes. Yep, we're just doing facilities. And it's my understanding that moving forward, you will be the director of facilities. That is the plan at this point, yes. That's the, yes. And capital projects. Facilities capital projects. So
streets and highways, sanitation, parks, cemeteries, trees, snow removal will be under DCM? Yes. Okay. So I want to keep it separate. So you have one less full-time employee. Overall, the wages went up $122,000 over last year. So... The one position was transferred over to the police department, the electrician, when we moved over the street lights, repairs, and management. So when that happened, one
of the electricians was moved over. So that's, I'm going to say, the one less employee that you're referring to there. As for the number that you're saying, the $125,000 increase, that's from the projected amount to the proposed budget. The budget numbers are only up about $2,000. So I just want to be clear that the projected number, and I think it's from due to vacancies, that they have in a number of roles. Well, you do have two vacancies. There's still an electrician and a plumber one. Correct. Correct. Do you anticipate you're gonna be able to fill those this
year? So the rates, we could not find anybody to be an electrician or be a plumber at those rates. So for a while now, I've been trying to increase that with the unions and it hasn't happened at this point. Building rentals have almost doubled. This is page 77, I'm sorry. FY25, 34,950. FY26 is projected for, well, it was gonna be 57, 750, then it was projected for
70,000, and the proposed budget for 27 is 70,000. So from 25 to 27, it's almost doubled. What are the increased, What are the rentals that have driven that? - So in FY25, to be clear, there was rental space that was done through facilities, but there was also about $20,000, $21,000 in parking, traffic and parking that you would see under building rentals. In FY26, we merged those together. So that was, I'm gonna say, step one of the increase in FY26. Then the increase from the
revised budget to the projected was a need for additional space that I think Al can speak better to at that point and then obviously from there it's being maintained but yeah, so we there was a Building adjacent to it that we looked at possibly renting and also some surrounding parking spots for that for that building with the the owner did not charge us for that initially but I Now we needed to park our vehicles there. But that other space is a space that we're doing a
lot of maintenance, repairing certain vehicles, repairing certain parts of equipment. So that was the need for that. Now we're doing work with parks, and we have the library van in there. We have multiple types. We have the trolley in there. So there was a need to utilize additional space. And same page, other professional services is up to $100,000 now. In FY26, it's projected at 61,708. What would other professional services be and
what drives that number? That's on page 77 also. It's one, two, three, the third one under the building rental. This is your T2. Other professional services. Yes, those are for our architects. So being the capital projects division, any time there's a design needed, whether it's structural, whether it's an architect, we are the ones that are utilizing a fund out of that, and I procure all that through the purchasing
department. As a matter of fact, I need to do an RFQ for both design services and for OPM services that's coming up on a three-year cycle. Okay, thank you. And then on page 78. So I noticed when I was going through this, and as we get to the different departments, Ms. Arpke, there were people who last year had longevity, and then
in the 27 budget, they don't. There were some people who got more last year and are getting less this year. There are some people who's... longevity doubled. It's not a huge number, but I noticed it as I was going through this budget. So my question is, once somebody gets to the point where they're getting longevity, Does it increase every year, and how does it increase when it does? So
it doesn't technically increase every year. It's on a schedule. I think the first, after five years, is $200. I think after nine years, it goes up to $400. I think after 15... maybe five or 600 and then I think there's two more steps. So it also depends on the bargaining unit, right? So different bargaining units have different structures with that. So I can get you all of the different schedules for it. So there is some of that. The other part of it is the longevity. The departments are kind of putting in on their own and telling me who has what.
The dates that we have in our system are kind of, I'm going to say inconsistent in one place. This is the date that's used in another person's. It's this date that's used. So We're working on cleaning some of that up because it's hard for me to validate all of these on my own at this point. So we've been taking, I'm going to say, the department's word at what the longevity is. So where that's a budget item, it wouldn't be in Munis that it would just carry over? I don't quite understand that. So some of it's in Munis and some of it populates on its own and some of it isn't quite set up right to
trigger that way and the department's put it in manually each time. Okay. In all fairness, Councillor, it is a contractual issue with the collective bargaining. So we have two bargaining units right in this budget right here. We have the law division and we have AFSCME. But when somebody receives it, they don't lose it. Correct. Correct. So those should just be like an automatic... Correct. I know one that was pointed out to me after the fact that they are supposed to have it and it's not in here. And again, why it's not, I can't speak to what happened that it wasn't
included in there. Not specifically in this department. I'm just saying... No, this department actually is fine. And then there's another position. I know that it was all being charged to one department, but she's technically... Split between her whole pay split between two departments. So I corrected it this year and split it out So that could be one that seems like it was decreased, but it's really now I'm gonna say properly put between the two positions So those are little nuances that I know of but I'm happy if you have the full detail list of the ones that seem off I could go through that. Yeah as we go through the apartments I'll let you know
which ones I found and then you can determine. Yeah, you know what the situation is and So in terms of facilities, there's 16.5 full-time employees. So we have the issue with the administrative assistance position who initially it was called a stipend for $13,000 and now for whatever reason it's being referred to as service out of rank. I don't know why. You know, because you
were Director of Operations and you oversaw everything in the city, she had more duties, more responsibilities, and that was why that was put into the budget. Is she going to be changing departments? Is she going to stay strictly in facilities? Because I would think if she's staying strictly in facilities, those demands aren't going to exist any longer. And I would say that that needs to be reduced or eliminated. That's a significant amount of money. So, Council, that clerk has not changed the type of work. She's
working specifically with capital projects. She pays the vendors. She makes sure that she assists me with the change orders. That's all she's doing at this point. She's doing a little bit of facilities work, but She's predominantly working in the capital division, so she hasn't changed anything. So anything that happens with May coming over full time, she's still going to be having to pay those invoices, and we have to pay within 30 days or else it's a violation of the law. So her and I are working
very close to make sure that we are paying our vendors and we are getting the change orders and we are meeting our capital. capital objectives. So her, go ahead. It is a service out of rank because I think the first times that you saw it, it was in there as a stipend and it was, I think, more misrepresented then because the reason she gets that is because that role and those duties are more in line with a project manager and And that's kind of where that stipend change came from this department hasn't had a project manager for many years We've had conversations about whether we were going to add one back in whether we were
going to restructure So I think that's from my understanding I would this was all well before my time but in the conversations from last year's budget to this year That's kind of been the conversation is it's a service at a rank because it's it's for performing duties that are more like a project manager than an administrative assistant within the Union so If that is the case and legitimately this person is acting as a project specialist, then why wouldn't you just take that step, transition this position to
that position and have a base salary that's gonna reflect it. - That's a not a me conversation. I'm not sure what those conversations have been like on the back end and the decision on why it's a service at a rank rather than changing the position over. - Because she strictly, her position, right, or the work, I don't wanna keep saying her. I wanna refer to the position. The position is the administrative assistant. I want to stay with that. I think its majority is the projects, but it is technically partial. Part of the work is also the facilities work
still. So she's about 90% the capital, and she's about 10% facilities. She does do a lot of training with other clerks. She's helped train a few other clerks. So she is a valuable asset to the department. Okay. then we have a second administrative assistant an administrative clerk and a head administrative clerk so essentially we have three two administrative assistants two clerks for sixteen point five employees so two of those work
out of so the second administrative assistant is the one that manages the print shop Okay. And then the administrative clerk is the other one that works out of the print shop half the time. Mail services. Mail services. That does what I'm sorry. Mail services. So one oversees mail services and the other one does the mail services? So one is the print shop. Oh, print shop. She does the print shop and the other one does the mail services. And then there is another actual clerk. We did have three at one point and we merged some of those
duties. Okay. Okay, very good. Thank you with that. I yield Thank You Constance eat a consular proposal So I guess I'm gonna go back to the electrician FY 21 we zeroed out or the administration zeroed out those positions in the budget FY 22 23 24 25 26 and now Those vacant positions continue to be funded and for now the time I've been on this council the the The answer has always been the same. The wages are too low. We can't get it
there. It's a union thing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But we continue to fund it, and this budget's $104,809. And there hasn't been a solution in six years, Mr. Lavera. So, Councillor, I cannot change the union policy on that. We've knocked on that door several times, and I can meet again with the HR director and try to find out if we can increase those wages because I'm not going to find an electrician for those costs. When I get applications, one of the first things I
do, I check the reference. I check their abilities and their licenses, and then I ask. Give them the upfront information. This is what the job paid. Yeah, which no you're not gonna attract anybody So I guess my question is you're doing how are you getting electrical work done outsourcing it? So we do go out to bid and we do have as needed bill will contact someone That that wins the bid and we do that for both plumbing and electrical. Where is where is that reflected in the facilities expenses line? I That would be under the electric parts
and materials, I believe. Electric supplies. Supplies is probably, it should be supplies and service is probably a better accurate title. So, okay. So electrical, so page 77, electrical supplies, which should be electrical supplies slash services. You spent $106,000. So far projected FY26 and FY27 your proposed budget is $125,000 which is the same as FY26. So clearly, I guess my larger question, why don't you just zero them
out of the budget? Zero those positions. What was the question? Why can't you just zero those positions in the budget? Because at some point, I'd like the union to upgrade, allow us to upgrade. Sure, it's been six years, though. It hasn't changed. I agree. So why do we keep just putting in there and pretending like it's going to change? It's not. That's my front. It goes to we turn over the money, right, at the end of the year. So those positions go unfilled for six years. So just zero them out. If you're going to go subcontracting, so be it. Budget
it that way and move on. Well, I believe the city should have their own electrician. 100%. And plumbing. But how do we get past the stopgap of this problem? It's been six years. And every year I ask this question. And every year I get the same answer. I guess, I mean, how long does it... You know, the reality is I agree with you. Having an in-house electrician makes more sense, more gets done, you know, versus having to get a contractor, schedule and all that, but nothing's changed. That's my frustration I'm sharing with you today. What can we do to change
it, Mr. Oliver, is my question. I will do it again with the HR director and see if we can ask the union again to allow us to increase those positions. I'm probably going to tell you I'm going to look to cut those both because it's been six years of just turning over that money. Nothing has changed. So I don't feel comfortable. Granted, one petition got moved over to the police department. Awesome. Is that filled? Yes. And what
are they paying? Is it different? Is it a different rate, Mr. Hathaway? We had to take on an apprentice for that. which obviously brings a lesser cost. We had a co-op student from Diamond that was already working for us, so he's the apprentice that we took on. Okay. And he works under the other electrician. Got it. But because the facility doesn't have an electrician themselves, you can't do that. I can only hire a journeyman. Of course. That makes sense. All right. I hope you
can have those conversations because it's frustrating, I tell you. I yield. Thank you, Councilman. Sixth, Council of Peckham. So I'm gonna go back to the administrative speaking to your microphone console, sorry, how's that better? So with this real real Mr. Olivera, what are your responsibilities going to be so I will be I
would be the facilities director and also be involved with all capital projects throughout the city and I Involved in what aspect? Involved? Well, I initiate the projects. I procure the designer services. I oversee the architects, the owners, project managers, if it's required. We work with the administration and try to figure out what we want as a project. And
from there, we procure it. Go out to bid and I oversee the project from beginning to completion. Okay complete the punch list and Make payments as required any change orders as required. So every those are the things you said that the Person getting the thirteen thousand dollar out of rank stipend was doing so what she does is she actually processes the payments after it's been approved and Any change orders we update change orders
and put those through signatures throughout the city To make sure that the project is being funded properly if there's any additional funds So she is the person that does the administrative component to that Okay, you don't feel that you would have any time to do the administrative component to that in your new role. I Not even close. I appreciate that. I have to ask. Could I also be clear that this doesn't include anything with the proposed reorg, so nothing's been changed in
that, so I just want to be clear for the rest of this. I'm going to touch upon that as well. So I notice in the book, and I'm going to bounce to streets and highways just because I have to circle back, so you've got the $99,800 for interim director of community maintenance, so that's going to change as well, correct? Correct. So Mr. Hathaway's salary is not in this book? No, because he wasn't approved until after this was published. Where I want to go with that is, so Mr. Hathaway steps in at $144,000, roughly $144,000. And that's a new salary, right,
added to this book on top of what we've had previously? It would be just the additional $45,000. It's not the total salary. On top of the $99,800? Yeah. No, it's on top of the $95,000. So that longevity and some of those stipends would stay with that employee salary. as he's a union position, those would change, and they wouldn't necessarily be the same as the draft. So it's a $45,000 pay increase to this line. Correct. $95,000 in term, I get it, okay. Supervisor of Concrete and Asphalt,
vacancy, $73,535. What do we do with that? So my understanding is that there's the potential that the current interim would be stepping into that role, stepping down into that role. Okay. So he was the working foreman on the admin side. The person who was the supervisor of concrete and asphalt is now the director of parks. So I think it was just waiting to have that interim, that director of DCM filled before those other positions would be decided on. They didn't know where he'd be stepping back
down into to fill those other positions. Okay. See, this I'm okay, I guess, with. But when I go back to facilities, so I've got, let's say, $144,000 for interim director of community maintenance, and then we're going to knock that individual back to supervisor of concrete and asphalt for $73,535. And then on top of that, Mr. Oliver, you're getting $144,200. Correct, and I haven't received an increase in the last two years, Councilor. Yes. I just have a problem with the salaries, especially with a reorg. If we
move things around because they weren't working, I have a tough time accepting the fact that everybody's going to keep the same pay. Well, I mean, I... When you say things weren't working, I mean, I was keeping the ship afloat. I understand. No, Mr. Oliver, and credit to doer, and you deserve the credit for trying to hold five or six positions at once and it didn't come to fruition. My problem was the ultimate decision or the deciding factor in rectifying that was just to throw more money at the problem. I wish we would have done some more in-depth looks at how
is this going to affect the budget in the future. And this isn't anything against you, Mr. Oliver. It's just the... just at face value, we're constantly spending money and there's no, it doesn't seem like there's any time or effort to slow things down and make sure things work or make sense or are gonna be efficient. It's we're just gonna throw money at the problem and hope it works. So I have a problem, it's just two positions at 144. So are you guys gonna coincide with each other or is one of you gonna be a lead? How is this going to
work? Two separate departments? Are you going to pick each other's brains or city administrator? Two separate departments. Department of Community Maintenance, led by the director, Chris Hathaway, Director of Facilities, Maintenance, and Capital Projects, headed by Al Oliveira. And as we stated earlier today, I mean, Mr. Oliveira's position, when he was initially hired, he had a department head for maintenance. DCM and a department head in parks then those positions people were moved around they left so mr. Olivera became the Chief operations officer, but he was
also the director of parks. He was the director of DCM for a time So he really if you took all those positions together he was leading all those departments that salary of the 144 and Really would have been a lot higher because when you looked at what the director of parks made the director of DCM made and then mr. Oliveris Salary he was in effect and includes the director of cemeteries. All right assistant with the procurement world. Yeah Yes. I would also like to remind everybody
that the part of the reorg would be that the director of cemeteries position would be, I'm going to say removed, so that 65,000 would be able to come out of the budget. And when I say come out, it would shift over and cover some of those other changes. So parks is going to be entirely intragible. How is that going to work? So the cemeteries is going to be removed? That's what you said? The director of cemeteries position, sorry. Just the director of cemeteries position as part of the reorg to be removed. And at that point, we would obviously unfund that. current vacancy okay I just have one
last thing so counselor Dion had brought up the DCM project the incinerator what do we have going into that money wise I know it's out but money 16 and change correct correct closing amount do you know 16.8 I believe I
don't have it here Council Dion probably has it surprised oh The original budget was $14,944. It was brought up to $16,219,213. And so far we've expended $8,073,520.81. Thank you. You're welcome. So about eight in change left. Yes. So we got
about half that project spent. And I still, so I spoke with the mayor, and this isn't budget related, but it is a lot of money we're spending, so I'm going to throw it out there. I had spoken to the mayor about whether or not that Building was safe and the land around it and he told me it was He told me that he had a conversation with somebody from DEP. I believe it was a female I'm gonna request that in writing. I would like something in writing if you don't mind to ask the mayor I would like something back from DEP Because if we got another eight million into this project I
was asking about this probably close to nine months ago ten months ago and and I got a verbal answer, I would like it in writing just that that land is safe and adequate for us to be spending $16 million on and that our employees are going to be safe. So if that's possible. So if we can just justify that, Counselor. You're referring to what part is not safe? The incinerator with all the chemicals in it. Okay. So at that point, the conversation that we had with the Mass DEP person, they had to approve this project. and the word was that
this was filled in at some point and their verb their words to me was specific it's already capped let's leave it alone so if you want us to get a letter absolutely yeah I don't verb you know the verbal agreements won't fly so yeah I would like in writing if you don't mind okay with that I'll thank you thank you counselor and see one councilman Thank you. Just to go back on the $13,000 service out of rank. So I guess I
was a little confused. I heard what was said to my Councilor Dion and then to Councilor Peckham. But what you were explaining to Councilor Peckham was just an administrative role. So where's the service out of rank? So all the tasks you identified are just what your administrative assistant should be doing. Well, it's not. It's all construction projects. It has nothing to do. So not every clerk understands what a change order really is, a payment schedule is for contractors. They get the recs in, and they
have to assess what the dollar amount is, and they purchase. That's worth $13,000 to explain a change order? Well, I mean, I assist. They get requisitions. They get invoices. Everything you said, my understanding of the $13,000 was that there was going to be a project manager, right? So that was the position that I assumed was the $13,000. So now that we're going to do this RE-ORG, you now become the project manager for these projects. Why would we be paying still in the budget $13,000 for a
service out of rank for an administrative staff who is performing administrative functions? I can just say from our side of things, it may be changing with the rework. Like I said, none of this reflects the rework at this point in time. So that could be something that's changing that I... But that's not the way Mr. Olivera had it. So, Councilor, I believe this is a deed. for someone. - Listen, I think there's a need for a lot of our ask me units to be paid $13,000, but what I don't agree with is making up reasons for paying somebody $13,000. So
if we're gonna do this, we should be doing, wage adjustments we should be doing it across the board for all um you know administrative assistance and the in the work that they do but to try to then come back down to the city council and justify that 13 000 for service out of rank which is be to be performing services outside of the rank there is and it's just administrative i mean it's change orders it's you know I don't know how we
justify it. And I think when we start looking at ways to cut in the budget, I mean, to me, I don't know how we justify $13,000 for a service out of rank. My understanding is that there's a side letter agreement with the union for this position to be receiving this. I can confirm that with HR, but like I said, this is what I was provided as actuals that have been going out the door, and we can... For what position? For that position specifically, for that person performing those duties. What duties, though? So I guess... Like I said, that was before my time. Whatever he's speaking to is that, but we can try and get that
information to share. So now that... Is the message to all the other administrative assistants just identify duties that you don't currently do and say you don't understand what a change order is? I mean, I think everybody here understands what a change order is and probably has never processed a change order. I don't know why. First of all, I don't understand how an administrative system would even process a change order, right? So the change order is going to be processed... by the architect, right, reviewed. If you've got the OPM yourself, you're going to sign off on it. Where does the administrative
assistant come in reviewing change orders? Well, she's not reviewing. She's working with me to put those change orders through to activate those through the budget. What's that entail? It entails signing a change order that goes back to the architect and the OPM. But internally, we've got to move some monies internally, work with the CFO. We'll work with the CFO and get that changed over. That takes like two seconds, right? I mean, I do that myself. I manage all my building projects by myself, plus manage doing
town administrator work, plus finance work and all this other stuff. I mean, change orders are not... time consuming whatsoever. The heavy lifting is done by the architect, the OPM to make sure that the change orders are done. Conversations that you agree with the change order, you sign it, you go in, you make the adjustment. I'm not even sure what adjustments would be made. If it's funded in a project, if it's a separate fund, then the money's already there and you're just doing an accounting of it, which is going to be done by the CFO or somebody in the finance department.
I don't understand where $13,000 comes in to justify it. I'm not taking away that Our clerical staff are significantly underpaid because I will say that across the board. However, I'm going to say this again. When we start looking at places that could be trimmed, I don't know how we still, when we have a reorg coming down, and I know you're saying the reorg wasn't included, but it sounds like the intent is to keep $13,000 for a service out of rank. Now it sounds like we've got a side letter of agreement that Well that side letter,
council, that side letter was-- Can you assign other duties to your administrative assistant? There's language in there, right? All the job descriptions as other duties assigned. Absolutely, as needed. So why would we have a side letter? Like I said, all of that was done before my time. I can't speak to that part of it. Or whether it's staying in the reorg, I know that that might be, you know, Al's understanding of it, but I don't know what the conversations have been and what that would look like at that point in time. So I can make sure that we speak with the HR director and check back. If we can get that answer before the
budget, because I will be making a recommendation that we cut $13,000 from that account because it's not -- one thing is for a service out of rank to be performing a very job-specific task, you know, you get a vacancy and now somebody's filling in and performing all those tasks, then you get a service out of rank. That's what a service out of rank is. But to then get $13,000 for conducting administrative functions is not service out of rank, right? I think one it's, it's a way around what we have for union contracts and salaries. Like I just, I think we
need to be fair across the board. I mean, I don't know what else, I mean, I'm sure there are administrative assistants out there that are, that are performing a lot more than just, you know, processing bills and all this other stuff. I, I'm sure of that. So that's number one. Number two, I don't disagree with my colleague in seat eight. Um, In terms of the electrician, I mean, if we're not able to fill it and we can't get the hourly rate to where
it needs to be, what are you currently doing for electricians now when you have electrical work? We have a contractor on call. And that's out of which line item? That is out of electrical supplies. So the $125,000? Yes. And that's inclusive of parts and labor? Yes. So why wouldn't we just, to my colleague's point, eliminate the $53,000, just put it into the 125, just call it 175, and
then we're done. We're not trying to hire, and then you've got additional electrical services that are being performed. I mean, he asked the question. I was just curious for the response. That will work. That will definitely work. And then for salaries, I noticed... - Is this one of the groups that actually have been settled? - I believe
a decent number of the positions in this one has been, correct me if these are AFSCME? So some of these are AFSCME is what I should say. So the custodians are not part of AFSCME. They are in their own separate bargaining. So they received a 5% increase? So AFSCME, yes. It's really the 2.5% from FY26 and then the 2.5% from FY27. So it is ultimately 5% over the two years. And then there was an individual that received 6.7%. Is there? It could be a step
that was... - A step on that. - Part of their budget or if something in the CBA adjusted their salary rate, that would be the other. - So the individual receiving the $13,000 stipend also received the 6.7? - So it would be a step. Those positions have steps in them, so she probably was also up due for a step. - Is she not a top step already? - No. She might be now, I could pull it. I don't know off the top of my head what step. But I know that that position has steps. And then my last question, I
see that the administrative assistance, and I think you clarified a little bit about it, but there was, I guess, a little bit of a reorg. So in FY26, we had one administrative assistant, which was top level administrative, the head administrative clerk, which is middle level, was one, and then we had two admin clerks. And then for FY27, that essentially flipped. So there's two at the top level, one in the middle level, and one at the lower end. Correct. That was part of the CBA that was put in front of you that those positions would be I'm gonna say were reevaluated
and moved. So the head admin clerk was moved up to the administrative clerk and then one of the administrative clerks was moved up to a head admin clerk. - And so the one that was moved up to the administrative assistant, is that individual in the print shop? - Yes. thank you i yield thank you councilman c3 council canuel thank you so we just learned that from the electrical supplies we're paying an electrician is it safe to say we're doing the same thing
in the plumbing supplies yes correct okay i have a note to make that a better title of supplies and services Under tools, last year's, oh, this year's revised budget is $20,000. Current project is $14,000. We're showing that going up $10,000 for next year. Is there something we're looking to purchase, or this one seems like it's been under the last couple years. What's the extra $10,000 for? So just to upgrade all our tools at this point, we want to
use the safe tools and get the better tools that We need to work with, we're doing a lot of in-house work now. We're doing a lot of build-outs. We're doing a lot of upgrades. So just getting better tools will help the folks out right now. Will that result in a reduction in the tool rental cost potentially? What tools are we renting? So when we have the tool rental, that's like a lift that we don't own. Genie lifts, we have those, but we don't have any
higher lifts to get to the top of buildings and stuff like that. So it would be a specialty thing. type of tool that we're going to write. That's not necessarily worth investing in owning one. Yeah, sure. And then circling back to the other professional services discussion, my colleague in C4 had mentioned this goes up to $100,000. I think you had talked about how this is for capital or architectural designs. And my question is, when I look at
the appropriation order for community services, capital, $0. For facilities, capital, $0. For fire and emergency services, capital, $0. Police capital, $0. I'm not seeing any capital dollars in the several of these major buckets. When I do look at the capital book that was provided to us, it looks like from the operating budgets for FY27, you look to $1.758 million in capital projects for this year. Where is this money that you guys were seeking for capital? Is it built into
the budget? So some of those items that you're referring to are just naturally baked into the budget. They're just not in that capital line item because they probably don't fully meet the threshold to be in the capital and are within like the R&M for buildings and maintenance type of line items. So that's part of that. The other thing with the architectural work is a lot of those projects, so more than what's in the operating budget, there are several other capital projects that we are working on and working towards. Sometimes to get them to the point of funding and to come down here with numbers for you of what is needed and what the costs are,
we need to do some of that legwork to start working on designs and having somebody spec out what it would look like to do that work and how much it would be so that we actually have an order to put in front of you for costs. So that's what that money is intended for, is to kind of do some of the legwork that's required to get to that point. - Isn't the leg of work required, already kind of done for us in this book here, no? - No, no, these are design services. Wherever we have some type of a deed, whether, like for an example, I'll give you an example. The parking garage, it's going
out to bid very shortly. We needed someone to do a structural analysis to see if it was even worth it. We did a feasibility. Then they just, so there's a professional service that we need to get out and get some information to present to everyone. At that point, if it's a thumbs up, we're moving forward, then we're going to have to go into the design services of that so we can procure the project. And then there's the construction administrative cost that is separate on this. But all those design services are in that architectural service number. Okay. So to be clear,
some of that stuff, once it gets to being an approved project, once it's in front of you, we would fund it through the project and all of that at that point. Those higher level and more costly portions of it would be done through that level. This is more of the, I'm going to say, baby steps to get to a full project being put in front of you. So I guess my ultimate question to you, Ms. Harpke, is of the $1.758 million that was shown to us as the operating budget capital items, how much of that is baked into this budget right now? So I had started reviewing that. I want to say that the number
is closer to the 1.4 that's fully baked in. Some of it isn't, but some of the estimates, I'm going to say we weren't quite sure of anyhow or how much. how quickly we would actually get to them in one year. So some of that is baked in and then some of it might not fully be baked in yet, but that was because of, I'm gonna say where the project was at. - So if we're, Only have 1.4 baked into this budget, but we have 1.758 on our list of capital to do. We have $358,000 you'll be coming to look for
us later. So this plan was put together, I mean, six, seven, eight months ago now. So it's going to be revised. So we're going to do it again in the fall, and we'll come down with an updated number. So that number will probably shift later. at that point in time. So as much as this is a plan and we have in there what we plan for each fiscal year, I can tell you that we'll probably almost never to the penny hit all of that because things are going to continue to shift as we get closer to it, as other things happen, as other costs come in. it's not that we're definitely gonna spend the 1.7
in operating, it's that it might shift and we'll have an update for you with that. So when we did this first needs assessment, this was put together and submitted by the departments in October of last year. So it just could be a little bit out of date at this point by the time we put the budget together. - What I'm hearing from you is you are building in to the '27 plan and futuristically the capital projects and that you won't be just coming before us and saying, - Here's free cash, we're looking to put this together. - Correct, correct. So that's, I mean, what's in this plan before you, there's 1.7 that's within the operating
budget, there's 18 million that's in debt, there's 15 million in external funding, there's 2.3 million in free cash, so. The plan is to always have that mix of funding and that exact dollar value that's going to land between those categories and within each year will probably continue to shift around as we go down the plan and as it starts to become real. So it's never going to be a perfect map. It's always going to be kind of updating. And once it's put in front of you to approve, that's when it will become real and actual. So I can tell you that almost everything in the FY26 is accurate, except for the fact that even that
debt. So we have the... for Conley it's going to be down before you at the next meeting. So that timing is already right there. We've got two meetings left in the year. We've got one month of the year left. So that was already almost going to be pushed to the next one at that rate. So it's just a constant moving target that's not going to be a perfect number put in front of you to live and die on. My last question is around – let me just make sure I get this line right. Generator service. This is an item
that was $1,000.25. Revised budget this year, $10,000. We're projecting $11,600. This is showing more than double for next year at $25,000. What's the source of the $15,000 increase? So before I left here in 2012, I had established a generator preventive maintenance plan. and we've been trying to revive that, but this is a full revision now. They've been doing the inspections, and every time you do an inspection, there's always gonna be
issues that pop up. We're finding that some of these things that weren't done in the past are now coming up to fruition, and those preventive maintenance plans have to be updated. generators need to be up up in par so that's that's the field that we have to go right now so you're replacing any generators or is this just it's just the preventer maintenance do the preventive maintenance and just do repairs and some we find we're finding with one of the other generators that uh at one of the other buildings that we have to do an extensive repair So we did
an analysis to see if it was even worth it. So we are using local company now that's very diligent in some of the preventive maintenance. That's all I have. Thank you. Anything further on facilities? Councilor in seat six. With the increases in expenses and what are the odds of level funding this? - Level funding, so we actually, the expenses have decreased. So the budget for
FY26 was 2.238 and the proposed for FY27 is 2.181. So we did slightly decrease from that. - I believe the council is asking the question with respect to the expense line under facilities. - Yeah, it's 250, I did the math. - Your FY2007 proposed budget is 3.1 million and you projected 2.8 of your expenses. So that's due to the salary side. So if you look at just the expenses, there's that. So if you wanted to look at the whole, obviously some of
that's with the vacancy savings. So if you, I'm going to say, cut that money for those positions that are chronically not filled, that obviously is the other. Yeah, that's under salaries. $100,000 that I wasn't. I think the councilor's question is with respect to page 77 under a proposed budget. So one is projected, right? And then the other one is FY26 versus FY27, if you look at those two. So that is still a decrease, the 3.2 to the 3.1.
Okay. You're talking about level funding it to the actuals? Yeah. Okay. The problem is those actuals are, like you said, some of them are actuals, some of them are projected. So you have almost through April, most of April's in there as actuals, and then you have two months that are projected. So I could pull a report to get you an updated number of where we're at year-to-date, and then obviously somebody, I can provide it, he can help provide it, or you guys can do what you would like to estimate what that last month is. Obviously we're still missing a month of June expenses. Okay. Yeah, if you don't mind, I'd appreciate that. um that's
all i got thank you with that councilman c1 council dean thank you so i know we talked about the electrician so the plumber is that is that the same situation as the electrician so you have services for plumbing obviously correct and then the only thing i would request is can can we get for before the next meeting the um job description for administrative services i'm sorry administrative assistant Yes. Will do. Thank you. Anything further on facilities? We're going to go to streets
and highways. Streets and highways. Councilor in seat four, Council Vice President Deon. Yeah, this is one of those with the longevity. So there are three of them. If you go on page 81, concrete foreman CDL. It's the one, two, three. Yeah. Yeah. In the FY26 budget, they received $600, and in this budget, they're receiving $500. I'm going to have to pull the detail. I don't want to answer anything. Well, I'm just letting you know so you
can make notes so you can look into it. I'm not asking for the explanation. I wanted everybody else to be clear that I wasn't going to try and answer for right now. Yes. Nope, I'm just going to notify you of the ones that I found so you can look into them, adjust them, whatever the case may be. If you go down one, two, three, four, five, six steps special C/L-VA, whatever that position is. Last year they received 500, this year they're receiving 1,000. So I can actually answer to that one. Okay. Don't expect this moving forward though.
So this position was historically, there was two of these positions. Both positions were split between streets and highways and solid waste. So there's two of the exact same positions, exact same salaries, and both of them were split in half between the two departments. So we had made the decision for funding to make this all easier that we're just gonna put one in one and one in another. So half of his last year, if you look at the budget book for last year and look at solid waste, there was another 500 in there. So it's now just all appropriately in the one line item with him. And you'll see that he doesn't show up in
both budgets now. It'll be a whole nother position fully funded. Because it was kind of confusing having two halves in both rather than one whole. So that's the shift on that one. So that one is accurate. He's been here for a very long time. Okay. And then way down near the bottom. One, two. Let me see. One, two, three, four. Up five up the bottom. Male laborer 2A. Okay. Last year they received $200 and this year they're receiving nothing. So is that the last MEO laborer to listed? Yes, correct. Okay. That might be missing. We'll look
into that one. Okay. And that's it. That's all I have for streets and highways. Thank you, Councilor. In seat eight, Councilor Raposo. Just one question on page 80, the R&M on the vehicle. Can you just... Provide an idea of what that looks like as far as the revised budget from FY 26 going up 50 grand page 7 page 80 I'm sorry RNM vehicles. Yes, sir. So it's repair and maintenance on vehicles. Correct. Why the 50,000 increase? We've
been overspending in that line item the last couple of years. Any particular reason? I guess I'm concerned, is it the aging fleet? Is that requiring additional costs of repairs at this point? Well, we have a new mechanic now over there. So, I mean, he is working very, very difficult. I mean, very... very hard to get those vehicles up to par. I'm not saying that the other guy didn't have that ability, but he's been working very hard to get those vehicles up and running. So there's been
a lot of maintenance associated with that. - But is that also associated to an aging fleet of some of the vehicles that you have? - Absolutely. - Okay. - I yield. - Councilman C7, Councilor Perera. Some of the questions that I have relate to the figures that are in this book. Does this include a contract? Have they settled that contract with the team? No, it has not been settled. It has not been settled. Correct. So it does not. It includes their existing contract as it was last ratified. But no contract. Correct. And I want to ask, I know you haven't
been there long, Chris, to know a lot of the equipment or what's going on, but... A grader, do we have a grader that is workable - Not currently, no. - No. Is the mechanic able to fix that or do we need to get a new one? - I believe that's a 1978 or a '79. I don't believe that's repairable at this point. I was there, today was my first day, so you gotta bear with me. - Oh. - But I don't think, at this point, I don't believe that that's repairable. - So if I could, Councilor, you did
mention that to me at one point and I did look into that and the cost of that piece of equipment, It's not something we're going to be using too, too much. So having that just stay status quo and paying $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, it just doesn't make sense at this point. To purchase one? To purchase one, yes. Okay. Because some places like I know around Sauter Pond, you know, certain streets that are still like dirt streets and up around the reservation that need
a grader to go up there. we can rent one and utilize it that way is that kind of what you're saying that would be that would be the goal or we just have a contractor do that um at that point so we'd have to assess what's what's the best and when you talk about contractors doing things when you know you look at the individuals that you have working on on streets Mr Aggie I was here one day last week talking about contractors that come in and do cuts and things on the street and if they're sinking then they have
to go back and finish them up. I think we need to do a lot of that. Some work ends up falling on guys because they missed getting that contractor. But when you look at asphalt or concrete, is it better to have more individuals putting in concrete sidewalks versus having a contractor come in and do it. What's -- has anybody ever done an assessment? What is it, the cost factor of having an outside company come in? Or they've never had a
contract crew before or an -- now you do. What is the difference in that? So Mr. Aguiar is utilizing Chapter 90 money to get a lot of that work done with contractors. Some of the work that we're doing is we're doing the sidewalks and we're doing some roadways with some asphalt, but we're not doing high volume type of work at this point. So could it happen? I'm sure we could do that, but it's just being able to get the right equipment and focusing on
some of the labor that we have. I look at some things like water department will go in because there's a lead service. And then instead of putting cement, they'll put tar. Why? They'll put asphalt. If it was cemented before, leave it cemented. I mean, I think having tar on sidewalks isn't very appealing and that's not what was there before. Doesn't happen all the time. Maybe they ran out and they're going to come back and fix that and they don't. But I would just wonder what the
cost factor is. I'd love to see sidewalks from Bedford Street all the way up to Stonehaven Road. Kids are walking in the street. And you know, you just built a new school and there's no sidewalks for kids to walk on. We're gonna wait till somebody gets hit by a car because a lot of those kids are young drivers and right at that corner it's difficult even if it was just one side all the way up. We did near the water department, we did that and they had a pretty good thing this weekend, the water department showing off, showcasing the building.
Too bad it was raining, people couldn't go but Mr. Hathaway, I would ask you more, but I really good luck to you. I hope you do well and I wait to see that whole area with a new building look clean and welcoming and because really it looks like a dump and it shouldn't. It should look much more professional. with that I yield thank you and good luck to you all right next we're going to nothing further on streets and highways
very good solid waste of constant seating councilor opposed solid waste yep go ahead thank you Emily does this these numbers reflect the new trash contract so it is it reflects the trash contract as it was I'm going to say submitted for the bid. It is not the negotiated trash contract still. So obviously the timing of when this was submitted, I know that they're working on those negotiations now. So this doesn't reflect anything that's changed potentially from the negotiations. It's just as it was
bidded, not as it was awarded, not as it was contracted yet. Okay. Who's negotiating that contract right now? It's the administration at this point. Yeah. Who's in the room for that? - Well, it would of course be the Corporation Counselor, whoever his designee will be, myself, and of course Mr. Hathaway as the new Director of DCM. - That was kind of, that was what I was leaning, it's his day one, so he's part of those conversations as of today? - We actually have a meeting
tomorrow, yes. - Sweet. - To discuss it. - Any-- - I'm also part of the meeting. - Oh, now, I'm sorry. And we have an idea when that's going to be settled any any sense of idea before July 1? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah the wallets. Okay, so So so what are our do we have any concerns that what's printed here and what will be negotiated will be significantly different No, if anything it could it could potentially be less but I don't think it would be significant I think some of the other things that would potentially be reduced are I'm gonna say
in other management areas So not necessarily a direct cost But that's my understanding at this point. - Okay, that's fair. So let me just ask some questions on the actual numbers that are here. Clarify the difference between recycling and other recycling. - So recycling is, I'm gonna say traditional pure recycling, what you would put in your bin at home recycling. The other recycling is mattresses, 'cause those are technically recycled, tire disposal, and then electronic recycling. So I'm gonna say recycling in the
terms of the state definition and things like that, but not stuff that you would drop into your bin. And this question is driven mainly because of the new trash contract, and I guess I'm curious. As far as yard waste disposal, Mr. Oliveira or Mr. Hathaway, whoever can answer the question, with the new proposed trash contract, how is yard waste being handled? Is it any differently than it is being currently handled? Right now there's no change. There's going to be no change at this
point. So the difference is that we were contracting out to dispose on our own with all these different companies to dispose of this, to dispose of that. So with them taking it on, that is one of the biggest things that I'm going to say could potentially change back down. But that is as it is proposed now. So it is a little bit different. But that's one of the few areas that I think could be a change. So we're looking at a $100,000 increase for yard waste, but it could be potentially less. depending on how negotiations go? Correct. I don't know
if there was, that's the only one that seemed, I'm going to say, out of line from what I think we expected based on where rates have been. So I don't know if there was, I'm going to say some misunderstanding with the amount of yard waste that is being disposed of because we haven't been doing yard waste, we haven't been paying by tonnage. So I don't know if there was some confusion into the numbers that were provided versus what they bid on. So that's one of the, really only discrepancies that I saw. - Yeah, 'cause it just seems like it sticks
out more than anything else. - Correct. - In comparison to prior years. Okay, and then I would be remiss not to ask the question about the cardboard pilot, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Where does that fall in this budget? So it was part of the specification, and it was part of the specification to increase the cardboard pilot to different areas of the city. But that's one of the discussions we're going to have tomorrow with the team that we have at this point.
And is there an associated expense for the cardboard pilot itself? None at all. So it's a zero? It's a zero. Okay. But we're not making anything on it either? No. Well, that's what we're trying to drive to see if the commodity has increased, and at this point, it's not. So the pilot's been going on for how long now? About a year or so. Just a year? Has it been longer than that? A year and a half? No. I think it's only been like a year. So have we recognized any... any money from that pilot at all? Or is it just
kind of zero? - No, it's just a breakout right now. - So just the expenses that it costs to get the bins and-- - There was an additional expense. - No cost. - There was no-- - It's completely zero. - There was no additional expenses, correct, and there was no profit gained from that. There have been some savings. We sometimes, with the disposal of it, depending on the commodity rate at that point, will get, I'm going to say, a very nominal credit. Yeah. But you won't see an impact of that nominal level. Yeah. Because obviously, I mean, all the things that we talk about in solid waste, we know that it keeps going up. We
know it's... It's just becoming more and more painful to get rid of trash. And I mean, I really want, I would love for a cardboard pilot to become a full-blown thing that actually helps this bottom line. But I guess... So in the specifications, that was something that was driven in, was that component. And when you say driven in, clarify for me. So that is it... It was stressed. It was stressed in the specification that... to make sure that we have all type of recycling component
in that they will work with us to accommodate the city on its full recycling program. So tomorrow when we meet, we're gonna have a better discussion on that and other issues that we wanna take up. - Okay. also clarify what the definition other waste disposal is that like the paints and things like that correct so that's the other waste is contaminated materials disposal okay and one last question and i think it's connected back to numbers and cents here cart replacements have
been zeroed out from the budget i know there was a pretty active a pretty active um what's the word i'm looking for Project I guess to kind of audit all the bins across the city and to pull back bins that Were not are not necessary has that been fully completed to this point? So if I could take a step back really quick before he answers that part on the budgeting part So we do have other funds that we receive I'm gonna say some grant funds from some friends from the state special directed and - Yeah, for the trash each year
that we get. So most of the cart replacements are typically paid out of that because there was some excess here, we decided to kind of do more this year since we had really depleted our resources on it. So that's why you see that there's a line item expense in there but it's not necessarily budgeted because we do have other sources that typically pay for that. And that's kind of the plan moving forward. And obviously if there's other savings allowed within what our planned expenses are, we can do the same as needed. Okay. So, and that's great, but I guess the
question becomes, you know, have we slowed down the expenditure of replacement carts because we've pulled back excess carts that are out there? So back to my original question. Has that audit been done and have we pulled back everything that needs to be pulled back at this point? So we did. We pulled all the carts back from, I believe, the commercial end of that project. And we've already reused those. Well, not just the commercial, though. So I'm clarifying that houses that were somehow, someway, to the grace of God, got an extra bin, and they shouldn't have got an extra bin. Has
that audit been done? That hasn't been completed. Okay. Where are we at with that? Any sense? Well, we're trying to get a handle on that at this point. So we are working on trying to get a handle on that. Okay. Not for discussion to prolong tonight, but can you get... provide to us an idea of what that looks like. Because I know there was a lot of talk about that when we, in subcommittee, we talked about the savings, obviously, involved in that. And, you know, barcoding and scanning, and they were auditing. But I'm actually kind of surprised to hear it's
not done yet. Well, it's going to be part of the new contract. So it will be part of the new contract. We will work with the contractor to get that audited. Wasn't that what the current contractor was doing, along with litter enforcement? It was, it was, but we didn't get a chance to complete that. When we got a price from ReRig, who's the company that we use, it was a substantial cost. So we just looked at waiting till this point to work with a contractor. Because that has everything to do with connection to the trash cost. No. Pulling back extra
bins, no? No. So having excessive bins out there and people filling them doesn't equate back to the overall trash cost? What they do is they contact our compliance guys that say, hey, these people have more bins than they're supposed to. Yeah. So that part we're able to capture, but-- everyone's pretty much, we're just worried on the numbers at this point, the scanning numbers. Those are some of the things that we're working on. We feel good with the amount of carts that are out there right now.
And then when we do some additional cutbacks on the amount of residents that we have, we'll have some more carts coming back at that point. So we do the maintenance on those carts and in the actual new spec, the contract will be able to do that. - Okay. And to the interim city administrator, related back to numbers and cents here, last time we discussed solid waste, the conversation about possible ordinance changes to those who are abusing said system. Is that we coming anywhere close to
fruition for that? - We are, this is part of our meeting for tomorrow so that we can get those down there as soon as possible so that we can discuss again changes that need to be made as far as possible changes in fines and also as far as multiple repeat offenders the ability to pull bins. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman C4, Council Vice President Dion. Would you like me to drive around the city for
you again? Sorry, I couldn't resist on that one. Could you repeat that? I didn't hear it. I asked him if he wanted me to drive around the city for him again. The last time I noted all the businesses for them and gave them all the addresses, well, whatever. So I would like to double back to the yard waste. How did you explain how this is being handled differently to drive that cost? Because I know before we were paying under $1,000. $300 a truck load versus paying
by the ton. So this is almost double. So we were doing separate contracts. We had a collection contract, we had a disposal contract for recycling, a disposal contract for solid waste, a disposal contract for yard waste. This new contract that we bid out and awarded is for all of it in one, so that we don't have five separate contracts now to manage and to dispose of. It's all in the one. But it was the same company, correct? EZ was picking up all of it? Yeah, but the disposal of yard waste had nothing to do with them. So we told them
where to go and we paid them directly with that vendor what it cost to dispose of it. So this is the true disposal cost. It's not the collection cost. So you're right. That doesn't change. It's the disposal cost. So the company that we had been using to dispose of yard waste in the contract that we had set up with them was to pay X amount per truckload and all of that. I don't know what their setup is, if they're going to be using something different. And again, I don't know if part of what it is is... the amount that was provided to them could be off from what the actuals are. So because we were
paying by truckload, if they were given, I'm going to say inaccurate information, or if they were doing it by tons or by truckload. So I'm worried that there could be a discrepancy in the way they submitted it and the way they submitted their proposal. So that'll be worked out through the contract negotiation. So I'm not sure if there is, I don't think any of us are sure if there's truly a cost increase for the disposal or if it's some understanding that needs to be worked out on what our data looks like. Yeah, because I would suggest, I mean, it almost double, um, I understand you want to deal with fewer contracts, but if we can
save $120,000 and if we could renegotiate with the company that was doing our yard waste before, I mean, why wouldn't we do that? That's still a possibility. It'll be part of the contract negotiations, but I didn't want to manipulate too much of what the bid was because we don't know yet, so I was trying to just include some of it. To be honest with you, I did pull back some of the number that was in there. It was actually even higher in the bid. Yeah, it was. But I thought that that really wasn't accurate, so... So that does still stand as an option, and it is something that we can do if that's what's necessary,
but we just don't know yet. Okay. But it is still a possibility. So, again, I hope prior to any conversation as to what's going to happen with this budget that we could see – potential remedy for that. I mean, where you're going to be having meetings, etc. And is Attorney Thomas still staying on with this? Because I know he was involved with the contract and, you know, doing the matrix, etc., etc. Yes. Okay, so, yeah, that would be something I'd be very interested in him pursuing. Him and I have had conversations about that already as well, so I think he's
aware that I flagged that as a concern as well, so. Okay, good, good, because, yeah, I mean, that's significant. Yeah. I mean... And the longevity in this department was fine. So I yield. I was actually told that one of them is missing. The one person that doesn't have longevity is actually supposed to have longevity. So it's actually not fine. But that's besides the point right now. Oh, well, that's a case of I wouldn't know that because it wasn't in 2026. Correct. So I can only compare apples to apples. No, I know. I just wanted to let you know that I
mentioned that I know that one person was missing. That is the one that I know was missing. Okay, good. Good. Even better. Thank you. I yield. Councilman C6, Council of Peckham. So I just have a question. I'm going to go back to the solid waste collection line. So I know we're at 1053 right now, the year projection for 27. Correct. So what's, I'm seeing solid waste disposal. It goes from 3-2 to 3-4 over fiscal year 26. And then now we're at 3.5. So
there's a slow, steady increase there. But the FY25 actuals go from 5 million to 8.4 to 8.4 and now jump to 10.5 or 10.05. What's the reason for that huge jump? Is that what you're going to or I'm assuming what we're going to use within the negotiations for this contract? Yeah. So the actual collection piece is a pretty firm number. So I... I don't necessarily want to relive it, but if you want to talk about what, re-look at what happened last year, there was a change.
We do have a 10-year contract that's currently expiring. There was a change to that for the last two years of it. So for FY25 and FY26, there was a change because we were acting very much outside of the scope of the contract. So the contractor had come to us for an increase because they were performing duties far outside of the scope. So that's part of that change is what I'll say for now. Somebody else can probably give you more on that. The $10 million number is just what was submitted in the bid for the collection at this point. So I'm going to say that that could potentially change. Obviously we wouldn't necessarily have a go
up, but it could go down in these negotiations. I don't know how likely that is or what the intent is on that. So that is just as it's bid at this point. Okay. Well, you projected the revised budget FY26 at 3.4. Okay. So that's the solid waste disposal. Yeah. I'm sorry. Sorry. My apologies. No, that's also me. So I will tell you that the solid waste disposal is based on tonnage, right? And I think I've commented on it a couple of times that we have been actually trending in the decrease of that total tonnage. I believe, I don't have the
numbers in front of me, but I believe we were at almost 30,000 tons one year. Then we were slowly going down to 29 to 28. So we're more on track with that 27 to 28. So there has been a decrease as we hoped and as we intended to see. So there is some of that that is happening there. That projected number could also be off. I can re-pull it and make sure it's completely accurate, but I do think that we are on trend. It'll definitely be under the 3.4. I don't know if it'll be that significantly under, but that is
part of it. The other thing I can say is that we pay right now, I believe it's 122 per ton. This new contract is 125 per ton, so that alone will be a natural slight increase. Okay. There's about a $500,000 difference in this one. I would ultimately like to see the FY27 proposed number be around 9 million. I'm sorry. You're talking about the solid waste collection? Yeah, sorry, back to collection. I'm sorry. So what I was getting at with that, and I apologize, the $500,000, so you've got a $500,000 swing in the solid waste disposal. I'd be okay with
that if we bumped the solid waste collection number down quite a bit because I don't see it. It's not making sense to me anyway. I would rather see that number a lot lower. It's a $1.6 million increase in FY27 from 26. So I'd also like to be clear on something with these estimates, which I think is going along with what you're looking for. So this new contract is going to fully pull out the school disposal costs and putting it into their budget. We've been estimating. So
some of the numbers, we have very few numbers that are actual. We pick up a dumpster, we dump it. We know exactly what those tons are. But there's a lot of numbers that we don't have exact like that with the school collections that will be shifting over to them. We don't know what that's really going to do to the tonnage. So right now, I can tell you that recycling is fully... our typical average estimate because we don't have good tonnage numbers to pull it out for that. The other piece of it is the solid waste disposal. We are at, the budgeted number is 28,000 tons. Like I said, we've been i'm going to say right
around that we could potentially be losing more of that i think the estimated amount is probably closer to a thousand tons per year for schools so there there could be a potential decrease bigger than what we have in here because of those changes that we don't know at this point what that tonnage actually is we i mean this recycling alone you know we're at about I think it's 7,000 tons per year is our average. That could drop down to 6,000. That could drop down to 6,900.
I don't know. All right. It's just to see it on paper, that's a $5 million swing in a couple of years. That's insanity. And this is why I go back to we really need to concentrate on what we have for money. Because I go back to we have no idea how many people live here and how much trash we're getting rid of. So this number is just going to climb over the years. I think a big part of the collection cost increase was the fact that the contract, the 10-year contract that we were in, was all based on the pay
as you throw in the purple bags. And obviously we all know that for the last more than you know two years we haven't been on that system so i can tell you that that's part of that increase alone with the collections again i'd like to see that number a lot lower between those two lines i'd like to see at least a million dollars come down if we can make that happen um to be clear counselor you have that ability when the item comes before us to reduce that um under the appropriation order by a million dollars. You can make that
motion. - Yeah, understood. - I would also like to say that once we do fully negotiate the contract, if there are decreases that are, I'm gonna say probably more than $100,000, we would obviously come down and let you know and probably ask for a revision. The council also has the ability to give you a ceiling up to, for example, to our colleagues, 0.9 million to negotiate with. And if it goes over that, you have to come back and answer that. That's the only power of the purse strings, and I quote, that we can use. No, I completely agree. I just wanted to say that if you don't opt to do that, we will let you
know if there is a significant difference from what's budgeted. Okay. Okay. All right. With that, I yield thank
you, Council President. Thank you, Councilor. That will
conclude solid waste. We're going to go to
park. Councilman Smeder, you have to use the
restroom. Two minutes? Two-minute break. Two-minute recess. City Council meeting is now back in order. Councilman C4, Council Vice President
Dionne. So I'll start with the easy one, the longevity. So if we go to the bottom of the list, the meal laborer two, the bottom bottom is a vacancy. Right above that. Last year they received $500, this year they're receiving zero. If you go to the top of the meal laborer two, the very first one, last year they received 400 and this year they're receiving a thousand so is that a
correct jump was something whatever if it was skewed last year this year I don't know yeah Martins no no no the one under Martins Amaral and then let's see one to the third one under that one last year received a thousand and this year is only receiving 500 It probably you're saying Rodericks or prayer. I'm sorry Pereira Pereira, I'm sorry. I counted wrong. I'm sorry. Yeah last year was a thousand this year's only
500 Okay, so that's I think that's the end of what I have So the numbers should be correct this year because I did them I checked the longevity with Union contract. I so they could have been wrong they could have been wrong last year or out of place last year okay so the one that's just above the vacancy i don't believe that individual should be at zero but from to my knowledge that individual is working for the city for about 15 years yeah i'll it it could be something in the way that this pulled through if they're out of order
now from where they should be so if the longevity isn't matching up but i'll i'll pull that and get back to you yeah that could be my mistake in the final Yeah, I would appreciate that. So can you tell me what parks is AFSCME, correct? Yes. Okay. Cemetery, are they AFSCME? Yes. They are. Litter enforcement, solid waste, are they AFSCME? Teamsters. They're teamsters, okay. So the reason I'm
asking these questions, my colleague in seat one talks about equity and fairness. Some of us speak to that quite often. I'm trying to understand why, if both positions are under AFSCME, why the foreman of parks is the absolute lowest paid foreman in the entire budget, A. And B, cemetery foreman who oversees, I think,
what are there, eight people in cemeteries, I believe? I believe so. There's eight full-time people in cemeteries, 17 in parks, and the foreman in parks is being paid $5,600 a year less. How does that happen if they're in the same union and they're both foreman positions? How does that happen? How are they not at the same level? I don't understand that. These ones have steps. Parks doesn't have steps. I think cemeteries are still with steps.
the steps were eliminated in parkside i think at 23. so the vacancies probably had a step one and if it was then somebody was hired into it they had steps they would probably get up to that level but um i can pull the full contract and let you know what it says because they're they're specifically detailed in there because i think in 23 nancy she did a side letter i remember this that they got rid of all the steps in parks to bring everybody up to the max step because of the the low pace to eliminate all the steps. I
don't know if that's the reason why. So if they were bringing everybody up to max pay at that time, that was the max pay? It's never increased since? Well, it would have the COLA. The COLA. But otherwise, no. Yeah, well, if you could look at that, because, I mean... I mean... We're talking about the working foremen in cemeteries, just to be clear? Yeah, uh... - Yes, yes, yes. - So yeah, we'll-- - 'Cause then I don't know, streets
and highways, Teamsters? - So streets and highways are Teamsters. - All right. Facilities, Teamsters, or AFSCME? - AFSCME. - Okay, so we have a working foreman in facilities who is earning $31,000 more than a foreman in parks. I mean, they do oversee different things is what I can say. That they do have rather different job descriptions. I know they're all called foreman, but sometimes the job descriptions are vastly different between them. But I can pull their union contract and make sure
to share that full contract. So maybe we need to look at, again, fairness, equity, and comps. I mean, to me, that's one of those. It's like the poor clerks on the bottom. that there's no fairness or equity when when you're at that level um so that's something i want to point out yeah if you could just sort of look into that that would be greatly appreciated yeah um oh i know i have just one other question and i don't know if mr hathaway mr oliveira
i don't even I know his first name and his last name. Isn't that awful? I just want to say, he pointed out. Medeiros? Medeiros, yeah. The working foreman and the foreman, as much as there's a one word different, it's very different jobs. So the foreman is technically scheduling more type office work, and then the working foreman is more on the ground. A working foreman technically... Is four hours half the day at least working on the ground and other duties besides that with office, scheduling, things like
that. And working with the foreman. I know it's one word difference on the title. But it's still more responsibility, right? The foreman is more responsible. The foreman is the most, yes. So if I'm going to work every day and my responsibilities exceed the people I'm overseeing, and I'm only making $1,500 more than they are a year. That's crazy. And I'm not pointing any fingers at anybody. I'm just simply saying that, I don't know. - I wanna just share something that we struggle with at the
CBA is you have to have the whole union body vote on this change. And so if you're changing one position that one person holds, and need everybody to approve, I'm gonna say a $5,000 increase for them, when you have, I'm gonna say 20 people holding another position that are only seeing a COLA increase, getting that contract to pass in that way is one of the difficulties that we see here. Same thing with like the electrician and the plumber, right? You don't even have somebody in those positions within the union body to advocate for themselves and to say why they need
that. I'm not trying to make excuses, don't get me wrong, but I just want to be clear that some of these things that you guys continuously ask for, we don't necessarily disagree with, but these are the reasons that it's difficult for us to get these things done. Okay, so I have a question. And again, if I'm wrong, please tell me. But if memory serves me correctly, last budget or the budget before... With the AFSCME contract, within that contract it was written that after the contract was signed, approved, everybody got their increases. If there was anybody who felt they weren't treated correctly and wanted a raise, they could go into the mayor's office and say, Mayor,
I want to see more money than I got in my contract. That they could negotiate their own contract and bring it up. I don't know if Councilman Seat 1 recalls that. Or anybody else? And maybe you might want to look into that. Not with the union positions. No, it was. I can remember because we sat here and said, how do you renegotiate after the fact? The reclassification. That was a reclassification, but you weren't able to use it on a year that we negotiated a contract. Okay.
So no one negotiated their increase. What they did is they just had some concerns, and they would vent those concerns, and the HR department would be part of that. But it was no... City administration. Yeah. - My other understanding though is you're talking about a reclass, so you're talking about moving them to a different position, not necessarily changing that base salary, is that correct? - That was essentially what it was, yeah. - Yeah. - For additional duties. - So something like this could actually argue that I should be, my position should be this position as opposed to this. Yeah, it
was-- It's based on what's existing in the contract. I think it was over and above additional duties over and above the posted job classification. If you were doing those, it would come with an increase in pay. I don't remember correctly those came as-- Miss, speaking to the microphone. Those came at the request of the department head or division manager. They determined what employees, I mean the employees could go to their immediate supervisor and tell them that they'd like to be considered for reclassification. But the decision
on who moved forward was within their departments. Okay, thank you. Yes. So I have one question and I don't know who's going to answer this. So the other night on our desks, we received a letter from the chair of the RDA writing on behalf of our board, a discussion they had at their meeting. They're concerned about the maintenance of the new Deval Street corridor. This right of revitalization of Dahl Street has resulted in improvements. Where is it? Although the 20 acres allocated for
development will not be the city's responsibility, there is significant new maintenance and oversight the city needs to plan for in its 2027 budget. So what they're saying is they've basically heard that the city is going to be responsible for the north end and the south end of the 79 corridor. So my question is, Is it parks? Is it DCM? Who is going to do the landscaping, the maintenance? I assume obviously highways and streets would do the snow removal. But in terms of the landscaping and maintenance, who is that going to fall under? And has anybody incorporated that into their budget?
Within the next couple of days, that's one of my plans is to have a conversation with the administration about that. Because that's something that needs to be talked about. Yep, because that's definitely going to affect this budget. It might affect your budget. I don't know whose budget it's going to affect. We just received that letter, Counsel. Okay, good, good. So it is- Yeah, we're actually having those conversations because it's even the new trash barrels were placed down in that area. Right now, what we have on Main Street is picked up by EASY when they do their route in this area.
Those barrels down there are going to require additional maintenance, so that's something we're going to have to speak to EASY about in their contract as well because some of those barrels where they're positioned, they may not be able to get a larger truck in there, and it's not something they can just do on their regular route. That's too highly traveled area. Even right now, we're seeing where those need to be emptied on a routine schedule. Yeah, I'm curious because I know parks at the present time, they don't just take care of parks, they take care of islands, they take care
of emptying trash barrels all around the city. So are you going to need more men? Again, obviously, it's definitely going to have an impact on the budget one way or another in somebody's department. I haven't even received that letter, so it'd be great if I could get a copy at some point, too. You're welcome to have mine. I don't need it now. I mean, DCM used to take care of the Duval Street North area and the Lindsay Street area. I mean, we always cut that previously and did the brush cutting and things down there, so... Okay, thank you with that
I yield Thank You constancy seven consular per hour Is in the summertime why are we not hiring? Seasonal help in the summertime to be able to take care of the grass. You're not paying vacation time You're not paying insurance, but there's a lot of people that would work, you know seasonally Because you are going to need more manpower. I mean, in your department, Mr. Medeiros, there's 12 people that are really working. 13, I'm missing one. 13. It
would be 13 fully staffed. 13, you're right, I did write 13. Of actually people on the ground. But 13 people for all of the parks that we have. And then we have to do some of the islands. And now you're going to do the east and west side of 79. It's crazy how many people we have in the cemetery department to do the cemeteries as well. You need more manpower and maybe seasonal would, I've said it every time we have these budget
hearings, but falls on deaf ears. I just wanted to say it again. With that, I yield. Consul and Seat 8, Consular Raposo. Quick question on the civic celebrations. What does that 45,000 go toward? Fireworks. That's simply it. Fireworks. Every year. Fireworks. Fireworks. It's one contract, one sign, one that's, and then if there's ever overage, then it would be covered. The barge. The barge. Yeah. It's all inclusive, yes. Yeah, just as a side, because I look at civic celebrations and I think about
event planning in the city, and it's something I've mentioned to the mayor before, that there's really no budget for events that go on in the city. I mean, obviously we kind of, and it was kind of, I think you made that conversation with me in saying that We get donations from nonprofits and the banks and things like that with that help, but I think there should be some skin in the game from the city as far as enhancing our events in the city, but that's why I was just kind of, if any part of that could be divvied to that.
Yeah, that pretty much takes up the fireworks, the barge. Got it. - Got it. - Takes up all the money. - I know that we do use certain grants and earmarks and things like that as well for some of those other events, support items, so. - Fair enough. - Thank you. - Thank you, anything further? Cemeteries. Cemeteries is on page, after this we have one more department. And that's it, page 89. Anything on cemeteries? - No. - Councilman, seat four, Council Vice President Deon. - Yep, one longevity, one, two, three. Meal laborer two. Last year was 400, this year's 200.
Sorry, I thought I was done with them. I'll take a look and let you know. Okay, thanks. With that, I yield. Constance Seabate, Consular Raposo. Quick question on the burial supplies. Have the fees been looked at and readjusted for cemeteries in the past number of years? Last year it was. I don't know when they were last adjusted. Not during my time. I believe they were last year, yeah, because Mr. Pirano was here. Can you just clarify for me when those fees are
last adjusted to relate to new expenses that are going on in the city? Trees, anything for trees? Councilor Nassir, Councilor Raposo. Just the quick question on page 92 on the other purchase services, decrease of 100,000, which is great. Why? So we have a lot of, we have a grant for almost a million dollars for a lot of tree work that we realized could be more utilized for this. That number for the projected for 26 has actually since gone down because
of those conversations. The timing of that to this budget isn't working out well right now because some of these conversations happened in the middle of our meetings with the departments. And so we had adjusted that and I missed adjusting the projected, but it's for that contracted services for tree removal, trimming, stump removal for large areas and storm related emergencies. So just kind of above and beyond what they can do in house. But like I said, we do have grant funds of about, it's a five year grant, a million dollars that we can tap into. It's only for certain areas. So
we still do need some of this money for that as well. And then the other part of it, Is there is some leftover ARPA money that we didn't realize was remaining that we plan to tap into for now? So is there any any possibility of maybe reducing that a little bit more while we have that coverage those grant funds? So that grant the grant funds don't cover the whole city is the problem. It's not eligible for every area. It's certain income restricted areas and then the ARPA funds that are left over I think the amount was only like 35 to 50,000 so it's not significant. So is there any wiggle room in that number at
all? It could be but we're gonna be we're losing some severe services at this point so we have some issues that pop up with trees we have some trees that go down and that's our vendor at that point but yes we're in year three of year five so we we currently have meetings periodically to make sure that we keep that grant it's a federal grant and And we're doing a lot of work at this point with that. I pulled the number this morning so that the year-to-date number, I'm going to say, with those contracted, I'm sorry, the grant money is
being pulled out of it, we're at $71,000 for the year. So I don't know how much more wiggle room there would be with that $100,000. Well, that's actually very helpful you mention that. That satisfies what I need. I yield. Thank you. Snow removal. Councilman Seek, three. Councilman Canuel. Thank you. So we're increasing spending in most areas because we recognize inflation, rising operating costs, whether it be fuel, electricity, gas. Why does this logic not apply to snow and ice removal? If contractor costs have
increased and we're already competing for plows, we didn't have enough last year, how does a flat budget improve our preparedness for next year? What's the strategy behind hoping for a mild winter? I wish I brought the legal guidance on it that's around the snow and ice budget. So that is a very, I'm going to say unique budget within the city, within all mutualities. Once that number goes up, there's no going back down ever. It is set at that amount moving forward. You can never decrease it
again. So it's one of those budgets that I can tell you citywide, statewide, nobody increases it anymore because once you do, you're stuck. If you decrease it, you are penalized by the state. You are required to increase it and cover it. So it is something that has historically not gone up with that in mind. You can also see that even just in '25, we weren't over budget. We were actually under budget at that point. So I know that this year there was a big storm. I'm not saying that that's never gonna happen again, but that is not the status quo
that is expected. But even following that logic, in '25, your salt and sand expenditures were $229,000. So at least on the salt and sand, I would argue that that's not going to go down in price. I buy a new bucket every year. I feel like it goes up a dollar. Correct, but the other line items also then haven't fully been expended. So we could move around that number within those line items if you'd like, but that won't change the bottom line. So if we want to adjust within those line items, we can, but... So you think $526,000 is
sufficient given all the things we've discussed in the Public Works Subcommittee where we need to attract more private plows and we're having trouble competing with the state who have basically no obstacles, right? No parked cars, nice highways to plow and we're paying the same rate as the state. How are we going to attract more? So council you you're you're 100 correct right so we we know what we just ran into this this last season but I think when we look at the the
guidelines that uh this RP is talking about do we want to handcuff ourselves I think that's the the key the key driver to that I know in communication with Mr Hathaway he does have lots of plans and we're going to be presenting that to the city administrator very shortly but I mean I think The key component to that is that law that we have to technically follow. We can probably add more money to that, but I think it's going to hinder us at some point.
So let me ask. So you're saying this law, which is the first I've heard of that, could exist. It definitely exists. It's not a could. So I guess my question is, if you did set a higher number, couldn't the council then lower the number? No. There's no question about that. Just a point of information. It's the only account that you can... you can legally deficit spend. It needs to be raised and appropriate next year. Nobody raises this, nobody. And there's no recommendation to raise it because essentially what you're doing is allocating money that you may not need. So if it
doesn't snow next year, then you have to allocate. If we raise it by $500,000, we're going to have to raise that entire amount and allocate it for that department with that. Thank you for your point of information. Councilman C-3? Thank you. I will yield then. Thank you. Very good. Anything else on Councilman C-4, Council Vice President Leon? So I have a question. After the snowstorm, you felt that we would get some significant reimbursement, either from the state level, federal level, whatever the case may be. Has that come to fruition would be the first half of that question. That is what
I do have printed here. Oh, very good. We got an email today. So it says FY26 deficits in snow and ice. We are aware that legislation is pending and a supplemental budget for FY26 that must allow the amortization of any deficits during the FY27 tax rate setting if legislation is signed into law, instructions will follow under separate cover. So essentially they're telling us it's still pending for a supplemental in FY26. They will continue to provide guidance. They know that we, I'm going to say, are stuck
with what they're doing, but I can tell you that Once we get those numbers, if we don't fully cover it with whatever they're giving us, which we probably won't, we will come down with year-end transfers to cover it with other surplus left over. We don't want to have to raise this in next year's taxes to cover it. We will cover it with either one-time money or whatever we have in surplus in other departments. Okay, but vendors have all been paid. The plow drivers? Yeah, my understanding
is that everything's now been paid. I still am going to keep with the caveat of somebody could pop up saying that we missed a $500 bill or a thousand. So there's always a chance that there could be a number missing. But otherwise, I'm going to say yes, they've all been paid otherwise. Okay, thank you with that. As far as Stonewall, I'm done, but I do have one more question after, which isn't a specific department. It's not a specific department. It's DCM related. Okay. This is the last department, so ask it. So, Mr. Hathaway, so Signal Division used
to be in the police department. Yes. Because you were the person who oversaw Signal Division. Yes. And you were the electrician. So now you're here, according to the reorg and the ordinance that I saw, I believe, signal division is coming to the city side. Yes. So does that mean the police department's budget is being cut by that dollar amount and that money is being put in our budget as well? That would be ideal. Obviously we haven't put that in front of
you because the ordinance has not passed, but once it is we would send down, I'm going to say, an amendment. So at this point what it really would be is moving money between buckets. It's not anything at this point in time more than that. So will that also involve I mean, I don't know what you had under you for staff I have no idea. I don't know move the staff as well. So everything come everything so everything okay, and there'll be the offset Yes Okay, thank you with that I yield there's no further departments before us tonight Motion to table
has been made by consular repose those seconded by consular Peckham all those in favor Opposed the ayes have it motion to adjourn has been made by consular Kadeem seconded by consular repose all those in favor Opposed the ayes have it good night