WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=a7XBzuW8T2k

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: a7XBzuW8T2k):
- 00:00:00: Meeting Called to Order; Minutes Review Postponed
- 00:01:04: Police Department Policy and Procedures Contract Approval
- 00:03:14: New Chief of Staff Position for Mayor's Office Discussion
- 00:11:43: Public Comment - Councilor Edglin: Funding Source Questions
- 00:14:44: Public Comment - Councilor Heglund: Day to Day Breakdown
- 00:20:17: Public Comment - Councilor Mack: Budget Concerns, Timeline
- 00:27:24: Response and Clarification; Continued Discussion Requested
- 00:28:58: Water Rate Ordinance: Multi-Year Schedule and Funding
- 00:35:52: Water Rate Ordinance: Further Discussion
- 00:36:28: Non-Union Compensation Schedule, Department Head Steps
- 00:38:04: Department Head Recommendations
- 00:39:07: Non-Essential Spending Freeze Explanation
- 00:49:47: Health Insurance Payments and Trust Fund Discussion


Part: 1

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Uh to call the Tuesday, April 14th, 2026 meeting of the Gardener City Council's finance committee to order. The assistant clerk will please call the role. >> Councelor Dalit, >> present. >> Councelor Hicklund, >> present. >> Councelor Mack, >> present. >> Announcement of open meeting recordings. The open meeting recording notice is up

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on the wall over there. Is anyone here recording other than staff? Noted that there are none. Uh on to the review and approval of meeting minutes. We have the March 31st 1st, 2026 meeting minutes before us.

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>> Move to dispense with the reading of the minutes and accept them as presented. >> Second. >> Motion made by councelor Hegman, second by councelor Mack to dispense with the reading of the minutes and accept them as presented. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. Those opposed. Motion carries.

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Subsection two, we have department updates with the clerk's office. Uh the city clerk is not available for today's meeting um short notice. So we're going to postpone that update until um a future meeting. Um subsection 3 first time on the agenda. We have item 11813

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a measure authorizing a contract of up to 5 years for police department policy and procedures rules and regulations system. We have the mayor here also uh the chief deputy chief and the purchasing director as well to discuss this. I don't know who's taking taking the lead. I'll take the lead on this

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one, Mr. Chairman. Uh this uh that you see before you uh is a request for uh contract not to exceed 5 years for the reporting system for the police department. Uh as listed before, this does help us maintain our requirements for the new post commission uh under the

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police reform law. Uh as well as some other uh just various best practices for us to make sure that our officers are receiving the different requirements they're supposed to be receiving for their policies, procedures, regulations, and things of that nature. Uh this is something that uh we can go up to 5 years but anytime we go for something

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over a threeyear period we need legislative approval for and we normally get better rates the longer we go up for a contract for >> any further from exactly why we're receiving a 5-year contract to lock in the place for a longer longer time frame. >> Keep the price static. >> Thank you chief.

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>> Yeah we've done this before. So it's just it's required by master law. So >> um yeah anytime it's been more than three years as the mayor noted we just have to get your approval. Yeah, this comes as state this come these type of things come before us all quite often um in order to try and get a better price.

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Um it's it happens for you know waste collection among other things that we do this for. Um I don't I don't have any further questions about it unless there's any from the committee. >> No, this is just the first time this one's coming before us. Correct. >> Yes, that's what I got. >> We try to group them but sometimes something will pop up and this is one of

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the ones that we got. So >> no further questions. If there's no objection where it is, I think procedural for us to do this, I would move to the measure move to recommend to the full council that the measure be authorized pending suspension of the rules. >> I I agree. Yeah.

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>> Yeah, I'll second that motion. >> Okay. Motion made by council Edglin, second by councelor Mack to um sus recommend and suspension of the rules to the full council and adoption of the measure. Um is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed. Motion carries.

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>> Thank you everyone. Uh item 11814, a measure accepting the job description of a new chief of staff position for the mayor's office. Mr. Mayor, >> thank you, Mr. Chairman. This uh believe it or not, relates to item 11728, the discussion of the current state of

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municipal facilities management. Uh this is a large larger conversation that I you starting off from the bat. I do anticipate there to be a lot of questions. I do anticipate this to be more of a conversation. I do anticipate there to be, you know, potential changes, if anything else, uh, to this

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one, but I felt it needed to at least start the conversation. This is something that's been on the agenda for about a year now. Uh and it's one of those things that in speaking with our building commissioner uh in who has overseen uh the municipal facilities that we have here uh about how that

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relates to her job uh in speaking to the people who have held the maintenance positions that we've had here though there's been a great amount of turnover listening to what they've said in their exit interviews and in looking at the biggest expenses that we've had in this fiscal year. Uh the majority of which have fallen under deferred maintenance.

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Uh you look at the boiler problem that we had uh in this winter where there was a boiler leak with the natural gas system causing city hall to be closed for a couple days and a large bill uh that caused uh you know substantial cost to be incurred in that manner. Uh at the Pleasant Street building uh some roof

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leaks that went into that building because of deferred maintenance at uh the portico of the police station needing to be repointed on an emergency basis because of deferred maintenance. Uh and that's probably one of our newest buildings that we have. um digging into the way that facilities had operated in

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the past. Prior to 2009, uh all facilities custodians reported directly to the mayor's office. Um under the change that the previous administration had at the time, there was just the mayor and the executive secretary position. Uh the previous uh

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mayor felt that with the duties of the office uh and with the staffing levels that it had at that time that it was inadequate to deal with both facilities and the management of the city as a whole. Uh so he reassigned those custodial duties to the building department at the time under the former commissioner. Um when that happened we

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also lost the centralized point of contact for the custodial and maintenance staff that we had uh making it so that it became a more deferred system a more communicatively dispersed system uh for lack of a better term in which the message was watered down

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because there was a game of telephone when it came to the bottom. Do I think this is uh the perfect solution for it? I think this is a solution to the problem that we have. I think this is a way to deal with the bigger problems that we have of not addressing a maintenance issue until it becomes a

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maintenance emergency by allowing a greater amount of direct oversight uh for the uh maintenance and management of facilities that we have. I think adding in the uh oversight of the Waterford Community Center does play a big role uh

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in making sure that we are setting that building up for sustainable success, especi especially when it comes to the custodial and maintenance services of that building once it's opened fully to the public. uh making sure that we're meeting all requirements not only just for the department of public health but for the USDA uh with growing places as

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one of our tenants and our landlord duties and maintaining the bathroom facilities to a certain level that's uh required in order for them to maintain their USDA license. But honestly the biggest thing is schedule making sure the schedule of the common places is

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maintained in a uh neutral manner. uh being, you know, if one of the tenants over at the facility was the one overseeing that specific calendar for the shared spaces, it may cause, you know, their uh their programming to be prioritized over another tenants's programming, and

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it helps even out the spread that we have. Uh so that's why the waterfront was thrown in there, too. And then one of the other things that we've seen and one of the things that we've received the biggest amount of complaints about uh because I figured if we were fixing one problem, we might as well look at all the big the three other problems that we see. And right now the biggest three uh that we foresee coming is the continued deferred maintenance of our

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buildings. The management of the Waterford Community Center once open and the third one is our communications are very dispersed. Uh if you look at the various different uh platforms in which the city issues communications out to the public um we have our website, we have some social media platforms. We

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have Facebook and Instagram for city hall and then several of our other departments and boards and commissions also have their own social media platforms. What happens when we have a dispersed system like that is that the message also gets watered down. While something may be seen on the disability commission's Facebook page, that doesn't mean it's being shared on the city

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hall's Facebook page because unless someone's actively daily and constantly checking that Facebook page, it may not be something that's seen. If we're putting out information somewhere, it should be consistent across the board. If we have a City of Gardener Facebook, that should be the main point of contact. And it's not just the Facebook,

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it's uh messaging on the website. If someone says it's good enough to put on Facebook, it should be good enough to put on the website. Not everyone has Facebook, so most more people have access to the website. Uh if someone's looking at promoting events, be it through the signage that we have around the city and the Victorian signps and

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our A-frames that we have around the city, making sure that that's under a regulated process. Right now, we have uh if a nonprofit in the city wants to advertise an event or a charitable event around the city, uh then the DPW will make a sign and put that in a signage that we have. But right now we don't

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charge for that. There's no regulations with that. It's just on a first come first-s serve basis for that matter. It's something that just needs to be centralized because right now it's a very decentralized system. If you want something on uh the city's Facebook or a department's Facebook page, you go to someone from that department and they'll

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put it up on Facebook. But that doesn't mean it's getting to the science department to make the sign for it. That doesn't mean it's getting to the people who are administrators of the website to put on the website. And it just is watering down the message. And right now when there's a lot of information coming in terms of the city's finances, in terms of city events, in terms of city

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opportunities, in terms of uh feedback, we're going to be releasing a parks and playgrounds um survey of what people want to see in the different playgrounds that we have here in the city. If we issue that out on the city's Facebook, we want to make sure that's hitting everyone it possibly could. So, it's going out on the recck department's

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Facebook page and it's going out on the Disability Commission's Facebook page because while we're asking for opinions on parks and playgrounds, that's just as much of a uh a reason for us to reach out through that population because we want to make sure that people who are looking for the information issued by

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the disability commission also do have a say in what we see in our playgrounds to make sure the equipment is fully accessible. All of those communications uh looking to centralize. So, putting those in the central point of contact too, I feel like improves our operations. Uh, I do have a letter here uh that Commissioner McDonald also wrote

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um that I did forward to the clerk's office immediately before the uh the meeting so people could see this as well from uh the commissioner about uh the conflict of interest that almost appears when we have the building department overseeing our facilities management and as if uh we have something that requires

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a building plumbing or electrical permit. It's something that's being overseen by the commissioner that then has to sign off on the permit that was issued for the work that was done there, too. So, it's one of those it creates an institutional conflict there, whether it's legal or not. It's we you go

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through the channels to make sure it's the contractor who's pulling the project and we're overseeing the project, but it does go into that gray area of the people who are inspecting the permitted work are then overseeing the work before it's permitted. And so, it's one of those things that uh this there's a lot of different things that led to this

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discussion. Um, and looking back at how it has historically been done before all of these different duties had been dispersed out, this is, you know, it was centralized in the mayor's office. Now that we have the additional position of the executive aid in the mayor's office, adding these potential duties in there,

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doing the potential uh pay increase of the position, the reclassification of the position by the title, all of those things fell into this as a way to make sure we're addressing those issues because they have been some of the larger issues that we've seen over the course of several years uh here in the

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city. Uh that's led to some of the decisions that we're being made now in terms of the bigger cost issues that we even be having now. Uh so that's what's before you now. Uh as I said earlier, I do expect there to be several different questions, comments, concerns, edits, and things of that nature. I'm certainly

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happy to take anything back in writing if you'd like those responses in writing for a pre a future meeting. I'm certainly happy to take any feedback on this as well as this is really just a first draft. Uh and I'm certainly happy to uh answer any questions that may come up along the way. Thank you, >> Mr. Mayor. Um appreciate you getting

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this to us. Thank you. Um obviously there's some significant amount of thought put into this of um and those are the issues you brought up are things that do need to be addressed in the city. Um I think you know here and across the across the Commonwealth that

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there's fiscal concerns with with u changes and this is obviously an increase to a change in the position and increase in pay um and where what what will be the source of this increase in pay for the the new position? So, looking at the funding

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that we receive from building rentals, uh, from, uh, different other funding sourc are are are there some places that we're going to be taking out of our general receipts in terms our local receipts? Probably a small portion of that is, but the $30,000 increase that this would equate to. I think the position of executive aid right now pays

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around 58,000. So, we're looking closer to 26ish uh,,000 for this. Uh, I think about 10,000 of this. And this would all be allocated in the local receipts revenue section of the budget. So it wouldn't specifically be dedicated for this position. Uh but our revenue has gone up now that we've leased portions of the

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building. We weren't leasing sections of the building uh before at the Waterford Community Center before we had these leases. The additional place that we're not seeing expenses anymore is through the sale of the Prospect Street School and Helen May Solder School areas. Right now, we were uh not only not collecting

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tax revenue on those, but we were paying for the energy and utility on those because we needed to have active fire alarm systems. So, we did receive an electrical bill at both locations and we were receiving a heating bill at the Helen May Solder Building. Those when you added them together came to around $80,000. So, a portion of that savings

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that we have by not having those expenses in the budget anymore are where uh we'd be allocating for those basically cost moving measures at that point. >> Okay. um need first pass and obviously said this is the first draft and we're here for more discussions. Um I think on

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the funding part just again I think the mayor's at least to start with and there's other sources that you're talking about now but that the mayor's budget would have to be a net zero um on some where where it comes out from other parts um also um you're talking about

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where the funding comes from those other spots a breakdown of that and how how you foresee that even being allocated elsewhere um if some of it's coming to fund for this in in the in your proposal where you know where is the other portion going that's you know we don't have these expenses obviously other

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other expenses have gone up um they need to cover things elsewhere >> um and uh >> maybe a how to how to word best like a breakdown of of the role of the daily role of >> sure >> um what the position would be doing what the position is currently doing and what

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the new position would be taking um taking on top of it >> um some of the questions I have to start with um councilors. I don't know, would you like to to go next? >> Sure. Uh thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the presentation. I do, you know, I do think

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this was really well thought out. I thought the job description itself was well put together. I haven't had a chance to this. I had a chance to compare to the old job description, which I thank you, counselor Matt, for requesting that as well. >> Um >> would a redlinined copy also be helpful

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so you can see exactly explicitly what was added >> to it? We can certainly add that conversation that we had this morning actually. >> I I think it's a good start. I think it's well put together. I'm not, you know, outright opposed to the idea. Um I think as the city's growing there is

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potential for this. I think learning more about the dayto-day. >> I think these are all good projects that you I think the Waterford is going to project is the community center is going to need, you know, a centralized person to oversee it. I like the idea, and we've talked about this before,

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consolidating the social media. It is a bit of a wild west right now. Um, and the signs and and saints could certainly use, I think, a little more structure to them, >> especially for organizations that aren't city based. >> Um, but I think all those things are are things, you know, having been an aid

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myself on aid could do, like any aid could do. So, what justifies the change to like the what in the day-to-day is the chief of staff going to do that's different? Um cuz I think any you know you and or staffer could easily you know oversee those things too.

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>> Uh so for me on terms of job description I would really like to see that dayto-day difference breakdown as well. >> Um I don't know if council Mac I have salary thoughts after but >> oh I have a lot of thoughts. >> Okay then I'll just I I second you know our

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chair as well. I think big for me the biggest thing for me probably when we have potential cuts coming it's nice to see that there is some thought into other sources for this um but I would really love and need to see I think a version of your budget

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>> and I can think of some things off the top of my head that could go >> to make this happen um however you want to be creative about it that way it's not coming up from obviously other departments which I don't think you were intending >> um >> or >> prevents some of these other savings to

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free up other needs we might have. >> Yeah. >> Um >> yeah, the reasoning for the uh Helen May school street school is those actually came out of the mayor's and classified budget. Uh so where those were in the realm of the mayor's department. That's where those ideas of those savings came from. >> That's good to know.

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>> But can I als I can also show you that in do a written response showing where that comes from and where all that isn't you know allocated for and everything of that nature as was said earlier too. >> Mhm. No, I think it'd be helpful because we're undergoing to a lot of other staff changes and salary changes and want to be mindful of all of that and how it

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fits into the big picture. >> Um, with the facilities portion, do you foresee any need for experience or training in those areas? Is there going to be a staff shuffling or are they just going to is this just a title and a job duty, but nothing on the other end's

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changing? >> No, I think there there needs to be some type of consolidated point and uh centralization of the custodial and facility staff that we have. Uh in terms of the specific training and the specific experience in the maintenance field, I feel like where we have right

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now the union position of a maintenance manager codified that requires all of those in the job description. I feel like having that person report to this position uh makes it so that we have that met uh in terms of making sure that if a department needs something done, they're reaching out to the one

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centralized person and then that person's working with the manager to work with the staff that's underneath them. Uh right now we have two individuals with the maintenance manager title within the union facility staff that we have and that's um the city hall maintenance manager and the senior center Greenwood Pool maintenance

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manager. Uh right now that's how those two positions are codified right now. Uh the city hall one because the uh tech custodians uh report to that individual and the senior center one because they conducted uh services for more than just the senior center. The senior center

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building and uh the pool building. Uh the uh maintenance manager at city hall where that also doubles to cover the police station as we've said in the past that also adds that uh you know back up there so that can be brought in. Right now we have way we've got seven different authorities overseeing

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different custodial staff and the manager is overseeing one person not the rest of the custodians that used to report to the manager and have a centralized system. So what's happening at the police station isn't known here at city hall when the staff are talking. I think having that point that the

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department heads could then reach to say this is what's going on. It's then something that can be done in a a a weekly meeting or employee meeting setting that can be, you know, talked out saying, "This is the schedule of the week. These are the priorities. These are the things to put on the back burner." Because if we have two priorities at city hall, but there's a

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back burner job that's being done at a different facility, have that done together uh at our facility until the back burner, making sure we're hitting all the priority points first because that's where we're seeing a lot of the deferred maintenance come up from is we don't have the manpower right now, but we really do. it's just not being

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utilized in an efficient manner. Um, so that's where I would see that come together as a duty of this position and making sure that the, you know, scheduling, the priority list, the, uh, working collaboratively between the facilities, the working with the

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various different department heads that we have would be something new that's not being done right now and be the big a big portion of the job duties and added functions of this position. >> Thank you. That's it for me at the moment. Thank you. >> Thank you, Council. Council Mac. >> Okay. Um

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I I had a lot of the same questions about budget, where it's coming from, what the mayor's uh department salary is going to um reduce in order to help this position. Um and I do I seriously wonder with the budget situation if this is the best

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time for something like this to be proposed. Um, I think that the city of Gardener needs to be looked at as a whole as to what our priorities are. Is this is this where we need to focus? Um, are we actually utilizing the staff we

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have before we create a new position? I think that's a question that needs to be answered cuz I'm not convinced that we are. Um, I think that you went months without an executive aid. >> Mhm. >> And now, you know, so now we're going to

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go from an executive aid to a chief of staff. Personally, I don't care for the title. There are very few cities that have chiefs of staff in Massachusetts. Boston, Springfield, Lawrence, Brightree, Burlington, and I might be missing one. >> We've got the survey, too. I can certainly

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>> Okay. Excuse me. >> We've got a survey of all the different titles in the office. So, I I I I just don't I just don't like it because that almost when I read the job description, it's bringing us more towards a city manager almost position in addition to the mayor. I don't like the in the job

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description and and when we have it line to line, I don't like the amount of um responsibilities being reallocated to this new position that I feel the mayor should be overseeing. is part of the man's responsibility. It's part of the executive department in the leadership

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role. Um and I I mean and that that's um one of my main concerns. I do believe when it comes to communication, I think that's actually something your executive aid should be doing and should have been doing all along. I feel I feel that's part goes in your department. You have

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two people and it just needs to be streamlined who's doing what. I have previously mentioned in the mayor's department about the signage and just coming up with a a very simple form that goes to the mayor's office for approval. I don't think that's something that needs to be you know um uh you know comp

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complicated is some of the stuff I think we're making bigger than it and harder than it needs to be. um some of the things in the job description and in in your letter. Um I feel that the mayor needs to be hands-on and key projects, you know. Um if things

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go wrong, it it falls on your lap. >> Um and that includes, you know, Waterford Street, Mackie Park, all of those things that were mentioned. Um you know, right now to me, one of the biggest concerns I have is the completion of the community center. I

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mean, it's been delayed so long. I mean, like I really feel like we should be getting a timeline of, you know, how close we are and how things are going to be done. Um, and I do think that although I'm not against a facilities manager,

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um, I just think it's it's different than a administrative role. I mean, we have, you know, department heads, I I think department heads should always have access to the mayor. Um, and if sometimes when you add in a a middleman, there's a loss of

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communication and there's a loss of translation. Um, but like at the school department, they have a facilities manager who oversees the other two staff members, but he's hands-on. He's out there and as somebody was saying, he knows if something's happening at police station.

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You know, the last thing you I feel we Gardner needs is somebody who's going to show up in a sport coat and tie and say, "Okay, what's going on? And who are we going to call?" It needs somebody who has experience at that level and and has building experience and knows what to do because sometimes you can save money

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that way with that additional knowledge and um and networking. So, um, and and finally, I will just say that, um, you know, I ask around and I I see what's

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going on in the city and, um, I know for a while, like I'll just use an example, the fire department has been after emergency service coordinator um, position. And to me, when I look at our ambulance system and the amount of calls they have, the money that they have to

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do for insurance reimbursement, the money that they're asking for that really could be self-unded because it's the amount of money that the city's taking in, which is over a million dollars, how much they get from Medicare, their CIC reimbursements and

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everything. um like to me that services a lot of people and that's a service that we need and it's a service that I can see increasing in in the immediate future. So to me, like that's just one

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example of how I think and and I think and I'm just guessing that it's probably $50 to $60,000, but the person I believe who's currently doing it is getting paid overtime to do it. So is that truly money well spent by the city? So I think we have a lot to

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step back and look at. We have to go through this budget process. Um, you know, I I'm I'm not, you know, is something that has been discussed, but I thought of, you know, more of a facilities manager than, you know, more of a a staffing chief of staff position.

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Um, but I I personally just think it's something that needs to um be kind of put on the back burner for now. a lot. I mean, I I have two pages of questions I could submit um or thoughts um until we're entire we're done the

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entire budget process and we have an the ability to see where things stand across the city. And that's just my my opinion. >> Thank you, Council Me. >> Thank you for that. That actually made me think of a couple of things. You know, when I you talk about the funding

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sources, too. we look at some of the other examples we've seen with HR, with economic development, you know, combining positions and actually or eliminating money within the department, >> I think is really something that I would want to see explored as an option because again, that savings we're

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having, which is great in those other departments or that rental increase that we're seeing, could maybe help offset some of those other areas where we need help and assistance. Uh and and or maybe if you know it's something we look at, you know, does our maintenance manager

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role need to be beefed up into do we have money instead of for a chief of staff to increase that salary? Um could these other projects like the Waterford oversight be a stipend? >> Um so I I think some other options or

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consideration or thoughts review of that would be also helpful um in exploring this. Okay. >> Any further questions? I >> Sam, anything to add further? >> No, I'll be sure to get all response to all of those things for your next meeting in writing. That way, you have

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all of those there, too. If you have any other questions that you'd like included in those responses, please feel free to submit them for me. Like I said, I know this is new. I figured this would be more of a discussion. As I said at the beginning, uh, but where this is something that been on the agenda for over a year now, if you're going to get you something to at least start the conversation and keep it moving forward in that manner,

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>> we I I appreciate it. Thank you. I think at battle health some council Mack obviously has has some to send to you as well as she said and um sure councelor heck may have some additional questions um but look forward to disc just continuing to discuss this and see where we get

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>> can I just make a request >> um because on our agenda has been facilities manager and I think most of the discussions about been oversight of buildings >> um I would like to be see uh a second um consideration from the mayor for a

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submission of just a facilities manager without the chief of staff position and just see what that could look like and that would cost. Um so we can get a really a true picture >> um of because that's what technically has been on our agenda is a facilities

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manager and that's that's what I would like to see just a building facilities manager >> position. It it is on our agenda coming up. Um we can make discuss it further um when we get to the item. Um I think we can address it there and

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>> talk about it then. >> Um so there's nothing further. This item will remain on our agenda. >> Um item 11815 an ordinance to amend the code of the city of gardener section 8 of chapter 625 there of entitled water rates. Mr. Mayor,

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>> thank you very much Mr. Chairman. uh the uh letter that I've included here as well as the letter and subsequent information from the DPW director uh who wasn't able to be here today uh basically look at the schedule for the water rates going forward for the next four fiscal years.

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Excuse me. The uh current schedule of water rates was set in uh 2019 loaded on in June of 2019. Uh the schedule looks at a 5-year outlook uh on where rates are going based off of costs that are associated with these rates.

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The costs associated with these rates go towards loan payments for the uh water line replacement projects that we have done. Uh go to the maintenance go to covering the u annual costs of the enterprise budget. Funding the enterprise budget itself and uh the retained earnings of that that are the

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free cash expenditures uh for lack of a better term of an enterprise. That's what retained earnings stands for. So if something comes up mid year and we need to appropriate those retained earnings, that's where that comes from. Uh so this current schedule you have before you here uh is what is projected to be needed to fund the enterprise account uh

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in both its uh operating budget, its debt service payments and then the recommended cushion of a 3 to 5%. Uh so that there's uh enough retained earnings there to cover any potential uh expenditures that come uh up and may arise throughout a given fiscal year. Uh

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the current rate schedule that we have for those does end at the beginning of the next fiscal year, fiscal 27. Uh which is why uh we put these up before you know uh so that we can get those in before the fiscal year uh begins so that the billing may uh continue on the quarterly basis that it currently is. Uh

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but this is the rate schedule that's uh done through the math that the director does. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. >> Councilor Max, this in front of um public services as well. >> This has not been public. Okay. I didn't think so, but I wanted to verify >> it's not on our agenda for this week either.

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>> Okay. I just wanted to verify before um I assume this would be something that was discussed um at some point there as well. Um I don't have any I guess particular questions on it. Um as of right now, this is the rate changes are something that come before us. Um guess my

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question to get if we were to pass these um to be in place in time for the um it would be for place by July before July 1st. >> Otherwise, it'd be >> somewhat retroactive in the difference to go back to July 1st. >> Go back. Okay. And so, um, there would

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need to be at least a few meetings here and a few meetings, maybe in another committee as well as a couple on the full council in order to move this forward. Um, questions though from the committee. >> I I just have um so this actually should have been reviewed in 2024 because it's

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a fiveyear, >> correct? >> Is there a reason why? uh because we try not to do sewer rates and water rates in the same year so that both rate payers don't because most individuals are on both water and sewer. We had to do sewer up in 2024 which is why we're here now for water. >> My other question was um with the

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projects that were outlined, you know, to use up the enterprise fund um and and you might not be able to speak to these uh what's the you know what's the timeline for them? Do they all have to be done at once? I mean are we you know what I mean? I just hate to see us, you know, all of a

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sudden they're listed and exhaust um the enterprise fund until, you know, if things can if you know, we know things can break and things can happen, but if one or two of them could be put off real so we don't put ourselves in a difficult situation. >> Yeah, the projects are always lined up in a schedule to make sure that we don't

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bite off more than we can chew. And it's mainly it's we try to do two at a time is the best practice we do. We may end up doing three at a time or if one's a larger project, we may do one first and then go to the other ones after that. uh but we try to do uh spread them out as much as we can so that this we the staff capacity that we have can also handle

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it. Um in some cases we may need a uh engineer to review one of the projects. Uh if it's a larger project like we just had with the James Street pump station uh where that required you know a construction oversight engineer because of the size of that project that's there that would also be something that would come out of the uh retained earnings of the enterprise account as a one-time

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payment out of the enterprise. Uh so there's various different aspects of the project like that that are phased into the schedule. Uh but none of they wouldn't be like this the rates didn't change so we start them all on day one. That's something that we have the plan for. >> Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Chairman. Uh could you just a couple quick things?

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>> Yeah. >> I think it was in there but how those percentages and rates were determined and talk about that like how you know whatever the value was. Yeah. 2015 1510 I think. >> Yes. Yeah. Uh so the the bigger hit in the first year was because we had to wait the couple years from the last

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five-year look that we had in 2024 because again we didn't want to do sewer and water at the same time and do a double hit with the rate payers that we have. Um are there a couple of people who are on water but not on sewer and vice versa? Yes, but not enough that it would make a unnoticeable difference if we changed both in the same year. So

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that's why the uh first year of the 20 is a little higher and we go to 1515 after that. And then we build in the capital costs of what the uh bond council and bond uh loan advisers that we have said if we went out for a loan for those various different projects. Uh what would one the legal required

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lifespan of those loans be? Some are 15 years, some are 10 years, some are 20 years. What would the likely interest rates be if those loans were taken out? What is the annual operating costs of the um the enterprise itself? uh in terms of its budget and then adding in

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that cushion of a three to five percent for retained earnings so that you have coverage for those one-time costs that would come up and then uh plop all of those into that graph and that's where we get the rates that you see before you here today. >> Okay. Um so is there a I mean I guess

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obviously I I think it's frontloaded to get the account where it needs to be. >> Yes. >> Is that is there is that really better then? I don't think I don't know if I see things being cheaper in 2030 where it's now 10%. Is there is it worth looking at a more evenly distributed set

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or is this really the best way to >> I would be fine with a more distributed set? I think it was more one of those we know we need to get the account up to where it needs to be in 27 and then we're just looking for something a little lighter in the later years. If it's easier to do, you know, the same number across the board and maybe a

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little higher in the later years to get the account up higher than it should be, I don't think that's any issue at all. Honestly, I think it puts us in a more sustainable spot. It was just trying to make it a little more palatable. in the end, but it might be the right decision that has to be made in the longer term for the sustainability of the enterprise. >> Just thinking too for obviously the

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people paying the bills. I don't know if it's easier to budget a more consistent percentage or if people would prefer to see a decrease later, but it's frontloaded heavy one year, you know, budgets are tight for everybody. So, I don't know what would be easier, but it might be worth if you don't mind seeing

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what look like. >> Sure. >> Thank you, Council. >> Anything further from the uh >> No, thank you. That was it. Thank you. No, I'm just going to request that the clerk's office make a note to put this item on the May 7th uh public service committee meeting uh agenda. Um because

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I just don't want it to get forgotten. Thank you. >> Thank you, Council Mech. Um as we discussed that the other committee needs to be on it. Um it needs to without a waving the rules need to stay with us another meeting at least anyway. Um we'll have this item stay with stay with

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the committee. Uh item uh 11816, an ordinance to amend the attachment F of chapter 8 of the code of the city of guarder. Therefore entitled primary non-UN compensation compensation schedule. Um I believe this has to do with the proposed um chief of

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staff. Correct. So um there's no objection. We just keep it on our our agenda. Mhm. >> Uh item 11817, a measure ratifying the mayor's recommendation for steps for various department head positions. Uh this item relates to uh the additional

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um department heads that got added to the ordinance for the step pro step process in the um um in the ordinance for pay. Um and the mayor here is recommending where they should uh start according to their experience and time with the city. So Mr. Mayor,

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>> uh that's exactly it, Mr. Chairman. Uh this does include the 75% of prior years of service and other positions held with the city. Uh as that's what you see before you here today. Uh everyone here but director Stevens did hold a previous position with the city prior to being promoted. Um director Ellis for some

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time was in the community development planning department. Director Cormier was also in the community development and planning department before and uh director lovelette uh was the assistant director of that department prior to her promotion. Uh so that is where those years of service came from. And then obviously director Stevenson at this

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time in the position as community development planning director. Um where that one did fall within the category of uh years of service in the position just was years of service in the position. It was the only one not included to make it a more complete package and make it so that only one person wasn't left out and

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the council could actually see where everyone fell. That's why that's included in this. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um do any questions? >> No. Um, so the only increases are with the senior center director and the uh director of purchasing and civil enforcement. Um, and and I did do have a salary chart. I did look up to just to

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see what the the difference was. I'm glad to see this. And um, this is retroactive >> to July one >> to July one. Um, and um, I'm I'm in favor of this. I think it's um, well deserved. Thank you. >> Um, I agree. Also in favor of this. Um,

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I would entertain waving the rules again for this one like like we've had in the previous time to get this up to the full council. >> I agree. I think I think they've waited long enough. This is just a formality. So, I would move to recommend to the full council the measure be adopted pending suspension of the rules.

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>> Second motion made by councelor Hegman, second by councelor Mack to recommend passage of the measure of the full council um with the waiver of the um of the rules or suspension of the rules. Is there any further discussion? See, you're hearing none. All those in

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favor say I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion carries. And then item 11818, a communication from the mayor regarding the current non-essential spending freeze. Mr. Mayor, >> thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I understand this was a question at a previous meeting, so happy to explain

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this further. This is something that we actually annually do. We normally annually do a spending freeze, however, only in uh May and June. uh what the purpose of doing the annual spending freeze and spending freeze might be too strong of a term for it uh but it's the term that's traditionally been used here

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in communicating that out is that when we look at getting towards the end of the year to close the books because of the way the budget is voted on the budget appropriation is done in one expense appropriation and one salary appropriation as the spending freeze uh

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for non-essential non-public service related uh yes you have the email that I did send out to the department heads was issued here uh goes forward is if at the end of the year we see that one account is over and one account is under we can go take from one account to fill the gap in the other one and we normally have

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require that departments justify those overages that we have here. So for instance in the uh public building maintenance budget we know there's going to be an overage this year because of the boiler issue that we had in Perry Auditorium. That's what paid for the emergency repair to be done. the um the team that came in to test the air levels

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in the building to make sure there was no natural gas left in the building, things of that nature. Uh so we can document that that's there and we can find if there's uh funding left over and a different expense budget in somewhere else, we can move that money over. But if we let you know a

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uh you know go without a check on all of the expenditures that happen at the end of the year, we don't have as predictable of there's this much money here but there's not this much money here. This allows us to get a more cleaner picture of where we're ending the fiscal year so that we can close the books in the correct manner. Um those

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changes if we ever do have to make any are um recorded if you ever see something that says revised budget. That includes any transfers from one account to a different account. It would be a reduction in one account and an increase in a different account. Uh that also includes if we ever do a supplemental budget and appropriate additional

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funding into that account. That's what a revised budget would be. So if you ever see the term on any spreadsheets that are issued that say revised budget, that does account for those transfers. So you can see where those occur. Those transfers that are expense to expense and salary to salary salary occur uh with uh sign off from the mayor's office

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uh as the executive as they within the scope of the appropriation that's done saying this much for salaries, this much for expenses. uh as we've seen in several different occasions in the past, if we ever want to go from salaries to expenses or expenses to salaries, that does require council vote because that goes cross through the appropriations

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that were made in the original budget. Uh however, we do this spending freeze on an earlier basis if there are certain triggers that best practice say caused the pause to occur and that's what we saw earlier this year and why this was issued so early this year. increased

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snow and ice costs this year are in at a much higher level than they were last year. Once we hit within $20,000 of the previous year's um this is the Department of Revenue says once you get close to last year's

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um amount that you've spent in snow and ice, that's when you should start looking at this. My own personal view of this is once we get within $20,000 of that number because that gives us a little basically one extra storm of time uh to be able to see when we get there. Uh additionally, uh I also look at the

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past 3 or 4 years of averages of what we spent in snow and ice so that we can track to be like, okay, maybe we're getting to a point there. You know, last year we may still be within that $20,000 range, but two years we're above that already. So, we're already catching those different flags that we may have there. The current snow and ice balance

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last I checked, which may have been we may have salted once between then, I do have to check the records that we've had, uh, is currently at $85,000, which is $100,000 higher than what we spent last year. So, it's one of those things that we were inching closer to that. That was trigger number one. Trigger number two is that we had several

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injuries in the police department which were uh where the police department has uh minimum staffing levels as those uh officers were out on injury lead, we had to have extra overtime shifts to cover those to meet those minimum staffing levels per shift. That meant that our overtime costs at the police department are currently projected to be over

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budget. Uh so knowing that that was coming down the pike, that's another situation where we want to make sure we're watching those costs and we need to have that minimum staffing level per shift per meet certain public safety manage uh measures and union contractual obligations. So that's why the freeze,

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if you'll notice, is a non public safety related freezes. We want to make sure if you call 911, you still get the services you require if you call 911 without someone being like, "Well, we can't get to you because there's a spending freeze." That's different. That's an emergency that needs to be handled. But that doesn't mean that um someone in the

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DPW needs to take a voluntary overtime shift at the same time for something that really isn't urgent, may not even be necessary, may be a nice to have, but not a need to have to get out to um do things after hours to do uh you know certain things that would require an

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additional overtime shift to get that done. Are those able to be approved if there's a onetime basis and there's a written justification for it? Yes, there is. So, if there's ever an instance, as you see in the email that I sent out, that I say, you know, if an expenditure is under $1,000, that doesn't require

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the additional check. If there's a written documented need that, you know, we really need to get this done, this is really going to be helpful, it's really not a want to have, it's a need to have, then the mayor can approve that. But what this does is it adds that extra mayoral check on those expenditures that are being made to make sure it's

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something that we actually need and where it's just another financial uh balance and check on the department heads and the purchases that they're making to make sure that we're staying within our means and we're not dealing with situations like we're seeing out in several different communities of the state that they're saying not only are they projecting a deficit for next year, but they currently are in a deficit

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because of the way costs are increases during the current fiscal year and are looking at mid-year cuts or other ways to appropriate to the budget through various different means. Um, I don't believe we're there yet. And I think that this check allows us to make it so that we insulate ourselves from getting to that point. Uh, and this allows uh

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just one of those best practice things that when we hit certain triggers that raise a couple of red flags along the way, or maybe they're not red flags yet, but that they're orange color in between the yellow and the red that make you want to stop and think, this allows us the extra time to stop and think and review what's actually being done. So, how this is implemented is if a

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department wants to make an expenditure out of an expense account that is over $1,000 uh by city policy anyway, they have to submit a u requisition through the city's munis system and through the city's purchasing department. When the

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uh when we're not in the spending freeze, that requisition goes from the department head to the purchasing office. The purchasing office makes sure all required uh procurement laws are followed and then approves it and sends it out for payment. When we are in the midst of a spending freeze that goes from the department head to the mayor's

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office. I then sign off on each of those expenditures over $1,000. And that's when I sign on. That's when the purchase office gets it then for them to approve to make sure all the required procurement laws are followed. And then they send it off to the auditor's office for payment. So that's the extra check and balance that's there to just make sure that this is really something that

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we we need to do, not something we want to do that's extra at the time. Uh obviously grants are excluded uh because if there's certain requirements for the grants on timelines and things of that, those expenditures are included plus those aren't coming out of the general fund. If something's included in the enterprise account, that's also

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something that's separate because that's out of the budget that's paying for where we're seeing these increases. If we were seeing spending increases in the enterprise accounts to hit certain uh flag levels that would cause some concerns for us, we do this in the enterprise, but we haven't seen that yet. So that's why this is just for general fund expenditures.

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>> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate the explanation. Is there further questions from the committee? >> Dr. Thank you. I was one of the people requesting this. I really do appreciate the info. I think it's really helpful to have that and hear that process. Um is it typical that anything really gets denied or is it just to add that extra

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over? There's been a couple. There's been a couple. It's um not so much this year. I I haven't denied I found a need to deny something yet this year. The main times you see certain denials on certain things uh tend to be in the annual freeze that we put out at the end of the fiscal year

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where people are starting to realize, oh, I I didn't spend that much out of my budget this year. Maybe I can try to run that account out. And maybe it's like you don't need, and this is an absurd example, but just for uh illustration purposes, you don't need to buy 50 cases of pencil at the end of the year just to run your budget to zero. It's one of

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those if you have the money in the end, you have the money in the end. If you needed to spend it on something, it's something that should have been a conversation earlier. So, one keeps uh spending, you know, more accurate. Uh but also it's the denials tend to come at the end of the year when the the

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phrase Christmas in July came from government from you know the July one fiscal year thing. So you try to buy everything before July 1st so that you have it all for July. We're trying to prevent a Christmas in July by the end of the year spending freeze and that's where you tend to see the denials come from. >> Thank you.

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>> Yes. Thank you. I I heard about this at a the public service committee that there was a reason I'm like over top I had no idea. Um, so that's why, you know, um, I I'm glad to receive this.

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Um, but as as councelor Heg just asked. So, but even with this in effect, there haven't been any denial. >> I haven't seen a need. Correct. I haven't seen any need right now. It's just one of those it's we want to have the extra watch where we're seeing certain costs increase.

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>> And are but is in outside of the spending is how about has there been denial in overtime? >> Not giving yet. Okay. Sorry. >> Quite frankly, the I don't think the only I think the only overtime opportunities that have arisen that's

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come to my desk so far have been through the public safety departments that are required to have them. Um I have not received additional overtime requests. It's the only one that I've received so far that I did approve uh was for DPWs when we had the high snow banks on the sidewalks after we had the big snowstorm uh to have them come in on an overtime

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shift at night. uh that's now covered under the snow and ice account to get rid of the snow banks in the downtown and the south gardener center so that we could dig out the parking meters for lack of a better term. >> Thank you. >> I think my last thought for us was I you know I think it'd be helpful for the

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rest of the council to hear this and get an update. >> So my thought was again pending suspension of the rules move the communication be placed on the full council agenda. >> I agree. I think that makes sense. >> I'll second that motion. Motion made by councelor Heglund, second by councelor

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Mack to uh recommend suspension of the rules and place the communication on the full council agenda. So any further discussion? >> None. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. >> Motion carries. >> To subsection 4 in subcommittee, we have

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item 1182, discussions regarding the city's health insurance payments and trust fund. Uh update, Mr. Mayor. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I actually do have a a fair update on this one for you. Uh just because of what we've been allowing our employees to attend. We've had three different employee sessions

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that we've had uh we had one last week, one yesterday, and one earlier today. Uh today's information session was recorded for upload to the city's YouTube so that that link can be sent out. We will be making a dedicated page on the mayor's department website that has the presentation in a PDF format that was

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issued as a PowerPoint at that um presentation as well as the video of the presentation so that the information can be explained to our retirees uh both from city and teachers and to our active employees. The city currently has four options available to us for health

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insurance for fiscal year 2027 and they each have different rate options associated with those. Uh the reasons for those options and the reason why we're looking into this more is we received a projected health insurance rate for next year of 12 and a half% from Bluec Cross Blue Shield. We then began to look into all the different

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options available to us because where the city pays uh 12 excuse me 75% of the health insurance premium cost that equates to about a $1.4 million increase in the fiscal 27 budget for us. And when you look at the historical uh trends in the city's budget for our health insurance required share, which is

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considered a non-discretionary fund and is something that we are required to pay the minimum amount for based on the contract and the rates that we set and is not an account that can really be cut because it does have different financial ramifications due to the general laws. Um we started to take a look into those

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and if from 2019 to the projected 2027 rate in that time frame, the city's insurance budget has gone up $5.5 million. What that means for us is we're we have been able to sustain those increases in recent years because of the financial decisions that we've made to

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try to make the city more financially sustainable. However, we're getting to a point where we're hitting that teetering point and we want to make sure that we're making the decisions now that we're not in a situation like several other communities around the Commonwealth have been for the last 3, four, 5 years where they've been having to make tough decisions, seek overrides,

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and do other uh drastic budget cuts to cover these insurance costs. Uh the main reasons that we're hearing for the increase in costs that we're receiving for our insurance are three-fold. Uh two actually relate to the CO9 pandemic. And while that does seem like

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it was a lifetime away, thank God, uh there's a lot of things that we're still seeing residual effects of that. The first being that people weren't going to elective procedures and screenings when everything was shut down. A lot of people didn't feel safe going into hospitals or doctor's offices while we

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were either in the shutdown or shortly coming after out of the shutdown. So, a lot of them went together. So, we have people who were going for these appointments on a regularly scheduled basis and now the people who put them off that now want to catch up and go to those hitting at the same time. So, we're almost being doubled in that hit that we

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have on the city's insurance side. The second tier of that comes from people who uh then were part of that first tier that are catching up that did not catch a uh diagnosis early where it was a less substantial treatment, a more affordable

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treatment, something that was more preventative and are now dealing with a larger health issue on the other end that tends to have a larger cost associated with dealing with the procedure to then treat that. people weren't going for colonoscopies and mammograms and skin checks and things of that nature during that time frame as

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much. And now that they're catching up with those, they're catching those further along in the diagnosis than an earlier treatment and they're dealing with those. So the elective procedures, elective screenings, elective surgeries, and now catchup surgeries, procedures, for lack of a better term, are the larger side of the drivers. And then the

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second, the third and last tier of that is prescription costs. Uh we do have a city employee who is on an annual injection that does cost for that one injection on an annual basis for that one employees uh diagnosis $700,000 a year. And when you reach that uh mark,

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while most of that is paid for the insurance, and thank God that that employee is able to receive that medication because if it saves their life and it's worth every penny, it is something that then is allocated for in our rates. Our rates are set by uh averaging out a 5-year look back and a 5-year look out of our claims costs that

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are coming in on a monthly basis and then seeing where our trust fund falls and then projecting, okay, in order to get the trust where it needs to be and meet those claims, this is where we think the city should be falling in the next year. And when the actuaries look at that, those are the materials that go into uh looking in that matter. Our

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trust fund right now has a balance of about $2.1 million, which if you would have asked me in 2023 what our goal was to hit the trust fund, in fact, if you would have asked me over a year and a half ago what the goal was, that was our goal. Uh, your trust fund should have a uh a balance uh of equivalent to about 5

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months of claims. So, that's your incurred but not reported uh number, your IBNR number, those are costs that we know we've incurred but haven't been build for yet. If someone goes for a procedure on June uh June 20th and we're not build until July 20th from the provider, that's an incurred but not

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reported yet because we know it's been hap it's know it's something that's been happened. We know it's a uh procedure that took place but we have not received the bill for it yet. Uh you want to have that plus an additional 3 months worth of claims in the trust fund. when claims were down

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low, that's where we got our IBNR of $600,000, which is where we got the $2 million number. Our IBNR number, because of how much claims have gone up in the last year and a half, is now $1.3 million. So that means right now our health trust fund really should be at a

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level of 44 million to $4.5 million. So that 12 increase is covering claims and a projected enough balance to get us to that four $4.5 million in the trust fund. Uh so that's what comes into that. So if that's option one for the city. If we don't do any plan change designs, if

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we don't do uh any co-ay changes, any deductible changes, we just stay with the way things are right now with Blue Cross, we're going to go up 12.5%. If we were to make certain plan design changes that match the group insurance commission's benchmark, that means it's

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the middle of the road average plan that the group insurance commission has. State law allows us to make that change through what's called the public employee committee. The public employee committee is made of the presidents and stewards of the various employment unions that the city has and one

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representative the retirees on a weighted vote in which the retirees receive a 10% weight uh and the remaining uh employee unions receive a weighted vote on their share of the active employees that are eligible for health insurance. If someone is part-time and not eligible for health

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insurance, they are not counted toward that population total. If someone is eligible for insurance, but say they're on their spouse's insurance, they are counted in that population total because they could join our insurance at any time as an active employee. Uh so that share is then divided up

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amongst the remaining 90% of the weighted vote. Uh so to illustrate this, um if the GA unit A um president goes to this public employee committee meeting and votes. That one vote from

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that one individual counts as 49.6, excuse me, 41.6% of the vote. So that almost counts if you have 100 vote totals, that's 41.6%. That's 41.6 votes. GA unit B is 16.0%. So that would be 16 votes for that

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person. So you add up that 100 votes in the end and you need a majority of that 100 votes to make any plan change designs to meet the GIC's benchmark plan. Deductibles for individuals would go medical deductibles for individuals would go from 300 to 600 and for family

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plans from 900 to a,000. There would be an increased specialty co-pay from $35 per specialty co-pay to $60 per specialty copay. And there would be a new annual prescription deductible added of $100 for an individual and $200

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per family. If those plan changes are approved by 50% of the weighted vote of the public employee committee, then that would result in a 10% increase of insurance rates next year, which can save the city's budget side between 300 and $350,000 is what we project uh right

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now. Option three is the public employee committee would vote whether or not to leave Blue Cross and join the group insurance commission. If that was to happen, uh we would then uh maintain our 75% share of those insurance plans, but

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would uh have eight different plans for our active employees to choose from and four different plans for our retirees to choose from. And the rate of what the city would be saving is variable uh because it's very plan dependent. Uh so for instance, if I as a member of the

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city's insurance when we joined the GRC chose the Harvard Pilgrim Plan, but my co-worker chose the Fallon Health Plan, my rate may go up 8%, their rate may go up 4%. Because it's plan dependent between the eight different plans. So there's really no way for us to

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determine what type of savings, if any, we would be seeing if we joined the group insurance commission because it's uh dependent on what the employees choose in the end. We have around 650 subscribers on the active plan and around 260 in the retiree plan. Uh so

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that's uh option three. And option four is if we wanted to go higher than the group insurance commission's benchmark. So say we wanted to go from that 300 to 600 on an individual. Say we wanted to go to 750 and not 600. Then we have to uh not call a meeting of the public

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employee committee and the city would have to sit individually with the 12 different employee unions that we have and um negotiate basically a plan proposal with all 12 that is identical with each other. And we receive 100% unanimous consent of separate

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negotiations between each union. If 11 say yes and one say no, it doesn't pass. If they all say yes, but one says but we want a 800 deductible and 750, no plan change happens because they have to be identical plans that they all unanimously agree to. Uh so those are

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the four options before us and they each have different timelines. If we were to simply do a 12% change, no plan changes, no nothing, that all that requires is mayoral approval. So, if that's what the uh consensus is from the group, I'd simply call up uh Blue Cross and say, "This is what we're doing. Go." The

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rates go into effect July 1. If we go with option two, there's an A and B sub plan with that. Uh state law requires that we have a 60-day window for any plan, change, design, notifications. Plan design, change notifications. I don't know why I always flip those two

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in my head. Um, so if right now the public employee committee has a meeting scheduled for the end of next week, if they feel like they've received enough information from the members that they represent and they take take a vote and we have everything by May 1st, open

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enrollment will be May 1st for a 30-day period. Come July 1st, we have a 10% rate increase. Say they don't feel that they've received enough input yet because we are tracking this information. We know how many people are eligible in our retirees for both teachers and schools. We know how many

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people are eligible in each of the subgroups of the unions. And we can, you know, we can see uh, you know, the retirees signed in who was here. We can see how much feedback we get from, you know, I heard from this many people or I heard from this many people. if we're actually getting an adequate and

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sufficient not even like sufficient enough response from the people in all of those groups to be able to actually make an informed decision at that table and they want to you know add additional time to it that's something that can be done and say they don't meet until May 15th at that point it's something that

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they can take the time to vote to assess that process out but what that means is that 60-day timeline then counts from the May 15th date and not the May 1st date and what that means is come July 1st because we're still within that 60 days, we would have the 12 1.5% increase

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until July 15th, which would be the 60-day mark, in which case it would then drop to 10. So, there are some flexibility with that. It just changes the creative math of the process, if you will. Option three, uh if the uh public employee committee votes to leave Blue Cross and go to the group insurance

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commission, the group insurance commission does have over 650,000 subscribers to it. Uh so there tend to be more smoother rate increases but we do lose all local control. Uh if we join this GIC in terms of rate setting deductions co-pays all of that plan

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design um then the earliest we could join is January 1st and the reason for that is uh first of all the city has to negotiate with the public employee committee if there are any savings in the first year of joining the group insurance commission. We can give up to

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25% no more than 25% but can go less than 25% that's why it's up to as a refund to the insurance subscribers and that can either be done as a holiday or a refund check or there's a couple other different options that are there that way that the way that savings with the percentage of that and the way it's

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given would then have to be negotiated through the public employee committee if that process is done by July 1st we have to send a certified letter to the group insurance commission saying that we have completed our negotiations here is the negotiation packet that we've signed off on and we'd like to join the group insurance commission. The earliest we could do that is July 1, the January

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1st. And the reason for that is the group insurance commission then sends people out to the city to meet individually with the insurance subscribers to figure out which one of the eight active plans or four retiree plans is the best fit for them. And that's how they enroll and sign into those plans. And that's why it's the earliest we can get in is January 1st.

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If we do not have that uh public employee committee negotiation done by July 1st, the earliest we can get into that is the following January f excuse me the following July 1st. So a year from now and we'd have a year with a 12.5% rate increase. If we join the group insurance commission we are locked

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in for a minimum of 3 years under our current system. We are an annual contract with Blue Cross that is renewable and we are able to go out for bid on an annual basis. Uh but with the GIC statute, there's a minimum three-year commitment. Uh and option four would all depend on however long the negotiations take uh with if we were

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to do the break the glass option is what I've been referring to it. So there are several different options that are out there with us. We are actively uh soliciting feedback from our insurance subscribers and from those uh who would be affected um to get all the information out there as much as we

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could. uh we understand that some of the retirees uh were having a hard time of getting the information if they received it at all. Uh so that's why we're making sure that the recording and the slides are actively available on the city's website and will be once the recording is edited uh to the point where the

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audio is, you know, make sure that's at the right volume and uploaded to the city's YouTube, an email will go out to all active and retired subscribers to make sure that they have access to all of this information with a link to the YouTube, a link to the PowerPoint that was given, and a link to all the individual different plans and rates for

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each of the options so that they can review that individually on their basis, to so that they feel adequately informed of those and again we are tracking how much feedback we do receive to make sure it is an adequate and substantial feedback so that we know that this is actually getting to people. Um I'm

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hoping people who did get the information actually do respond and it's not one of those situations where h whatever they decide they decide and so I'm not just going to respond. We want that feedback and quite frankly we need that feedback. or we are asking people to be active and respond to it whether

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or not you have a vested interest in one option or the other or the other. This is something that is quite big and quite frankly is one of the reasons why after we've hit $5.5 million in a six-year period and looking at a million and a half increase in one single year, I wanted to solicit information from the

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various employee groups that we have uh to make it so that it was a collaborative decision and not one just made in the mayor's office by itself when it affects this many people. While that is an option that we did have available for us, I felt like this was too big of an uh a situation to deal with that on the own where we had to have the increased input out there. Uh

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but we also have to make a decision to make sure that we don't end up in similar situations like uh other communities are having where they're facing overrides or receiverhip because of the way the health trust is going. Uh I we're not there yet, but I never want us to get there and I want to make sure that we make those decisions now before we get there. >> Thank you. There's a lot of a lot of

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information. um appreciate the um the programs that the city's been put on to for all the groups that come and u the outreach that's going to happen to keep them informed. You talked about gathering uh feedback. Is there particular way you're gathering that feedback from the uh insured?

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>> So it's uh depends on what group that they're in. So for instance, the active employees that are in unions, we've asked them to reach out directly to their union president or steward, whichever title they use for that unit. uh so that they can know because that individual is who's voting at the table. The mayor serves as a non- voting chair

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of the public employee committee. Uh but when you go to the public employee committee, no elected officials or non-union personnel are represented in that group. The decision that that committee makes is binding towards any elected officials on health insurance or any non-union employees on health

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insurance, but they don't have a seat at the table. Uh so where it's uh it's not a decision that I make. have asked them to reach out directly to their specific uh union representative who is their representative to the public employee committee for the city non-teer

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retirees. Uh the retirement board has split up the 260 members of the uh retirees that we have that are in insurance have called them individually uh and uh told them either about the meetings or the process that's happening. They're going to be sending them the information there.

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they've uh been requested to let Cheryl Bossi who is the retirement board administrator know what their option is between one two three and four or if they were at the meetings that we've had the information sessions they actually had a tally vote there uh where they could vote on you know option 1 through

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4 on the list that are there and that will be given to uh Mr. Francis Seir who is the retirees representative to the public employee committee. The teachers where those are on a different retirement system are represented through the gardener educators association. Uh so we've instructed any

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retired teachers to reach out to the two uh union stewards of the uh GA to let them know what they'd feel on option A or uh you know option one through option four so that when they go to vote at this meeting they have an understanding of where their members would like to see the plan move forward.

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>> Thank you for the questions. Um, so when do you expect the email blast to go out? After >> we should have the video recording by tomorrow morning is what we're hearing. >> And that's going to go to all retirees. Yes. >> City and teachers and teachers. >> Okay. All right. Um, I just I just had

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another question when you were speaking that kind. So, so there's a possibility there could be no savings to the city. >> There is. I'm glad you bring that up. That's actually a very good point, counselor. uh in that there have been municipalities that have joined the

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group insurance commission and left. Uh there are I'll use Wuset school district as an example. They joined the group insurance commission 3 years ago and have just decided to leave because quite frankly just like our prices are increasing so are theirs. Um and so they really didn't see any savings. What they

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uh you know what some municipalities have chosen to do is leave the GIC and join a different consortium. So for instance, the Massachusetts interlocal interlocal insurance agency or MYA uh that is the Massachusetts Municipal Association's health insurance and property insurance uh options for the

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city does have a consortium of municipalities has about 153 municipalities in that system there. They have closed off applications for addition into that system right now because their costs are also going up. So they're looking to stabilize before they add any more members to it. If we were to leave the group insurance

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commission, then our two options are find another consortium to join like Maya or like something else, which is why I bring that example up, or go back to being self-insured, where we'd almost have to double rates because the trust dissolves when we join the GIC or join

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another consortium. If we go back to being