all --------- right we're going to start the meeting it is uh April 23rd at 6 PM we're at the fire station for the public safety commission meeting um let's see we're recording this
meeting if anybody in the public is recording this meeting in the room or on Zoom please notify the chair at this time anybody in the room recording anybody on Zoom recording okay great i will take a roll call of the members uh Commissioner
Illinois here Commissioner Burge Commissioner Dixon Commissioner Javez here and Commissioner Moscarov is here excellent all right we'll move on to public comments is there anybody in the room that would
wish to give public comments anybody on Zoom at this time wish to give public comments all right great we're moving really fast through this all right uh now we have to approve a whole stack of meeting minutes
let's start with January 27th uh it's uh Commissioner Jarvis um Burge and myself I believe right so um any discussion on these meeting minutes is uh we just have to change uh
Brian's correct Brian's spelling of his name yeah I'll correct that and I'll send them off everybody's fine with any other corrections on the January 27th commission of Burge she's thinking Nope are you sure
about that yep okay um I'll approve i I you going to approve them yep yep tonight okay january 27th approves let's move on to March 5th uh I was
there uh Commissioner Burge uh Commissioner Dixon and Commissioner Jarvis any discussion on March 5th meeting minutes just a couple of name corrections that's all will you let me know yeah I will
okay that's important i rush through these being the secretary the acting secretary any other uh questions on this one okay all in favor of approving these
great moving right along march 26th uh five of us were there um all five of us at the table were there any um any comments or input
on minutes okay correct we have the the first thing we have is Chief Straan with his dog that's important i didn't get the dog's name so we'll have to have What is it daisy daisy we'll have to put that in there
is it really any any other corrections commissioner Burge my editor i'm trying to catch up here okay I'll give you a minute few years few years there's a lot of uh a lot of a lot of uh meeting minutes to uh look at we've been
behind a little bit you tell me when you're ready okay i'll be one and I'll circle it okay great all right um all in favor approving March 26 meeting minutes i I Okay we are caught up on meeting minutes
great excellent job commissioners all right um we will invite Mark up from emergency services for the updates and again when you're up here please just state who you are and your name we all
know you obviously but the people in Zoom world might not know who you are uh hello everyone my name is Mark LBR i'm one of the operation supervisors for AMR uh let me hand these out first this is the airway alert stuff thank you yeah
go over in a second oh great quick highlights great thank you excellent thanks for bringing this up i appreciate that no problem so updates regarding uh the Greenfield
operation status quo uh as usual um we are looking I've talked about before where we are kind of rejiggling the schedule a bit um the deployments not really change like the number of trucks aren't changing just kind of shipment wise moving people
around it's what we do annually but that's pretty much it everything else has been the same uh in regards to earn while you learn program like I talked about last time um so the next class starts June 9th and the deadline if you look at the first one not the paramedic program but we'll talk about the earn
while you learn which is the EMT program so that's taking people uh right off the street no experience um it was started in Buffalo maybe about close to 8 to 10 years ago the Buffalo AMR operation it's kind of expanded across the country um so this class is Monday through Friday
it runs about I believe 12 weeks um and basically someone would come into AMR if they pass all the pre-screening the drug tests uh they get paid i don't know exactly how much it is i know I might be slightly above minimum wage or a little bit more uh but they do receive
full-time benefits they are a full-time employee uh the field people who are EMTs and paramedics are union these people are non-union at the time while they go through the class but basically it's Monday through Friday we pay for their entire tuition we pay for their books you pay for their CPR um and then
basically this current class actually just finished their dactic portion so now they're actually they passed their national written uh now they need to go on to their practical which is actually going to be this uh weekend if they pass their practical they'll actually be certified uh as EMTs at the national level and then they just pay the state
to get their state uh at that point they are then they go through some ride time with us on the field working as an EMT with a preceptor and then once they clear that process they are upgraded to EMT uh with the EMT pay which their starting rates just around $24 give or
minus couple and change um and then they get in slot into a full-time shift and then the only requirement that we ask them is they stay with us full-time working as an EMT um and then after that one year they can do whatever they want they can go part-time they can stay
full-time they can go PDM um there's no real penalty for them after that one-year period uh if they do leave after that one year or before the one-year period uh there is a financial contract they do sign that they basically pay the difference of how much the class cost and how much that we kind
of invested into them um so depending on so if they had left six months early it would be a prrated six you know half of what they would uh what we would charge them basically um I don't know if there's any questions on the EMT we did have someone someone currently working full-time in Greenfield maybe two three
years ago did the class he lives just in Vermont so he actually travel all the way down to Springfield to do the class and then he elected instead of being in Springfield hey could I do my full-time service and be full-time in Greenfield like yeah sure that's it works out for you so uh it is open to everyone the only thing is that we do have the classes in uh sorry classes in
Springfield so we would have to travel that I don't know if there's any questions on the EMT program before I move on to the paramedic program so we do have some what was that um I just had a quick question um if somebody is interested
they would just reach out to looks like Emily or is there or it looks like applying is through the uh they can apply through it they certainly I I know it's not on this one they can reach out to Emily Chandler um for the EMT or paramedic program she is the program
director for all of our uh EMT and paramedic programs um I believe there even might be a link that they can contact someone for the EMT side but they can just um contact that email address did you say how many slots that were
open for this i didn't I was looking for I know we've had like 20 we are starting to push up actually almost completely uh I know it's crazy to say because it's been a struggle in EMS over the last 10 to 15 years but we are almost pushing completely full staff uh at this time so
I think this next class might be somewhere between 12 and 15 slots that we might have the kind of juggle is is sometimes I think a couple years prior we were kind of up around this and we're like oh should we run an earn while you learn class decided to skip the summer class and what happened was there was a
lot of kids that uh hit their one-year mark and they decided to go part-time for him and we're like oh my god so there was like a four or five month period where we were kind of short staff just a little bit in Springfield but uh we're just going to continue to do them and you know we'll we'll find spots well it's a great program so um it'd be nice
to get some of these uh flyers up somewhere in Greenfield yep you know where the public can see it um it's a great opportunity so thanks for explaining it to us no problem um I mean I can bring more you guys are also more than welcome to photo copy of them hand them wherever you like so um and then in
regards quickly for the paramedic program um so what we offer in Springfield is if you are a full-time EMT with us we do offer it might be enter eight to 10 sponsored spots out of
maybe the 25 30 person class where you can be an earn while you learn paramedic student uh so basically uh if you're sponsored you're working your full-time shift you do come off one of your two regular full-time shifts to basically work uh you get paid while you're in
class and we do classes every Wednesday for eight 8 to nine hours and then one Friday a month um and so they're paid in class didactic for paramedic is pretty much one full year of inclassroom after that they do hospital time which is
around 250 hoursish and field time 250 hoursish so depending on how fast someone goes through that process it could take anyone from anywhere from four to eight to nine months to get through their clinical and field internship uh and then after that they have to test out with the medical
director for the program after they do that they then take their practical written test through the national registry after they do that they end up getting certified at the national level and at the state level but then they have to go back and do 30 ALS level calls with a paramedic preceptor so they ride again for probably about three to
four weeks more and they're actually writing out the calls typing the calls it's kind of more of a the preceptor sits back and just watches them and make sure that they're good after that process they then have to go through another clearance meeting with the AMR medical director uh so it's a pretty
intensive process from start to finish about two and a half years uh to have a paramedic on the on the road uh and so if you're learn paramedic the only thing we ask from you is once you uh are certified you get upgraded and you get promoted to paramedic pay uh you have to
do two full years of full-time service with us and then after that two years if you want to stay full-time sure you can go part-time in whatever you'd like or leave the company completely go with fire service uh and then the same thing applies you sign a contract so if you break that contract early you just pay
the prrated rate of whatever the the money uh monetization is we do have people that don't do earn and they just pay for the class itself out of pocket um and they just come take the class whether they're a full-time person i think this past year we're only sponsoring eight and I think like 20
people applied for it through the full-time players so they people were still accepted they just had to pay out of pocket and I believe we don't do like federal grants or anything like that unlike Greenfield Community College because they are a state college so they do take grants uh but we do have a
payment plan that we enroll people in basically saying they have to pay this much a month for the 18 months uh I don't know the exact payment plan but it's something they'll do a monthly or bimonthly payment plan for them so and and again if they commit to the two years it's this buy this you're you're
have finance you're paying for their We pay for the tuition which I actually just QR code and scann it so the tuition is $10,000 to take the class out of pocket uh we pay their tuition they get paid while they're actually taking while they're in class so all the hours they
work on the road plus whatever they do in class they get paid for that they get paid for their field clinical internship they get paid for their hospital clinical internship and they obviously get paid when they do like their FDO ride time and obviously their upgrade time too so it is a very big financial
commitment on top of still getting benefits still getting your PTO still getting you know your 401k match medical dental all that other stuff so it is a pretty big figure when you see it sure after the fact so that's why we require the two years for the paramedic full time
very good and the other question was so what's the starting pay on that the medics the union just ratified their contract like three months ago and I believe the starting pay for a medic is just around $30 an hour so um and then there's like
a small little weekend differential it's double time and a half for holiday pays and all that stuff so FTO pay it's like a$150 an hour sure if you end up seeing FDL all the time if do do you get folks that go through the
EMT the first program and then want to immediately go into this program yep we've had this the paramedic program has been going on for three or four years now the earn while you learn portion we've always had a paramedic program but it's always been kind of that pay out of pocket um but we've had EMTs that have
gone through the ENT way and then parlayed that after a year of getting some experience and they've now graduated into learn paramedics and working for us full time uh and currently in Greenfield we did have one uh full-time EMT up in Greenfield uh she went through the NYU Learn program so
she you know got off one or two of her Greenfield shifts and she got paid and she's currently a paramedic worker that's great excellent well thank you for that info no problem um yeah I got the stats sent over
um by an email i remember did I forward them yeah you did yep did you Did you take a look at them or just stay right there in Okay i didn't know if you wanted to touch base with them real quick um it's just the uh ALOS 158 BLS
94 and QRV1 totaling 253 right yeah I think that's usually around the number i think we usually have around here i don't think anything's different the QRV is a fly car so we probably had that up here from Springfield to meet some ALS
coverage came up to cover so that's probably why that there's that one response yeah no no no big changes it doesn't Great all right anything else Mark i don't think so all right well thank you for coming and supplying us
information have uh enjoy your Would you like me to leave these i'll leave them right there enjoy your evening sorry I got to run yeah no softball softball season and they love it so thank you see you all right we'll invite the fire
department up okay the almost sworn in new deputy not too far off right uh all right so you have your monthly report in front of you I think and uh so to your point I assume the
duties and responsibilities of the deputy chief's position on Sunday the 20th uh there will be an official swearing in April 30th at 4:30 p.m and that will be at the John Zan Community
Center uh in addition to myself we will also be swearing in um one of our call force members that just started the two firefighters that came before you a couple months ago that have
been working with us and um Brian McCarthy who actually started back in the summer but his wife and kids live a very busy life so we haven't uh had a formal ceremony for him so we will be
doing that as well 30th our last of the three hires that uh came before you Avery Nye will be starting May 5th uh his swearing in will be at a a
later date um he comes from North Adams Fire Department so we're hoping that his onboarding process is much more efficient than the other two um the statue that was purchased
uh for our memorial um that was funded through a private donation that is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow uh and then once it's here on site we can better judge uh we have a couple sites that the chief's kind of
weighing out options on so once we have it uh on site we'll be able to determine where it's going to go uh and then we're navigating through the budget process so the chief's at Ways and Means tonight and I'm done with
this so I'll be joining him um our two hires that started uh probably six weeks ago now uh we sort of changed the process that they follow for a training perspective
we're kind of frontloading all of their EMS experience uh or EMS training because we are sending them to the fire academy so we didn't want them to kind of be half started with the EMS and then lose all of that progress while they're away so
we're trying to hit the ground running hard with that uh try to get them through that process before they leave in July to the academy uh that'll be in Springfield for 12 weeks uh like I said we had another uh
call force member that had some previous military experience and call time in a neighboring uh call department um so he just started uh end of last month I believe
um we've got more and more folks that have been working with the tri-state tri-state's the mutual aid organization that we belong to um they have a training detachment and that is basically set up
to kind of fill in the gaps that the state training council can't fill for us um but we've we've uh been able to allow a good handful of our folks to work with that program to try to bring up the
skills uh for a lot of the volunteer and call force departments around the county and uh myself and another uh hazmat technician firefighter Danak uh spent
most of our Monday or all of our Monday out at the Boston Marathon providing hazmat coverage and uh lastly our response statistics for the last month uh we took a brief look at our first quarter
responses and compared to this same time period last year our call volume has increased 23% and if we spell that out over the calendar year uh we're looking at overall an increase around 19% from last
year um which if we carry the same pace last year was 500 calls more than the year previous this year is looking like an additional 600 calls over that so already beginning to be a very busy year
for us uh brush season has already become quite busy not only in Greenfield but a lot of the county so hoping for more rain and continue to tamp down fire
season any questions did you get any information from the chief with respect to the um auctioning of the the truck that will become the only letter oh uh I can share some of
that um so I don't know if we ever got a number back from our vendor because they had been waiting for they auction or they use a third party auction um that they have great success with but we were told by them pretty openly that
we would have better luck trying to sell it private sale uh so there's actually a brand new uh auction page that's fire department specific that is like Carvana for fire trucks and uh so we got permission from
some of the procurement folks in the city and we've listed it on that page and firefighter or Captain Culie sorry had uh put a lot of time and effort into finding comparable ladders that had similar engine hours and all the stuff
and uh the value that we have it listed at we believe is 125,000 and that's significantly more than what we were looking at for a trade value through the dealer so if we're at all successful with that it's a lot more
money uh going back to the city than what we had planned as well as as you know our cost to purchase the ladder came in under what we were expecting to spend so all in all we're looking pretty good it'd be great if you can get that amount for Yeah i don't know uh if we've
gotten any any hits on it it went on I think the end of last week um but like I said it's it's a basically an auction page or a for sale page that's specific for fire trucks
so anything else thank you thank you good luck tonight have fun over there thanks all right got to find my my agenda dispatch dispatch dispatch yep
all by yourself this time huh by myself you have to go over there go to that one no okay no she's covering that so uh Cindy Hunter dispatch supervisor Grillville Police and Fire uh so first I would just like to recognize
that last week was National Telecommunicators Week um we celebrate dispatchers for that week but we try to recognize them every day every week every month of the year um so I tried to do a little something for everybody every
day but I think they were pleased with what we did um we decorated the office and put up some stuff and so but I would just like to recognize all of the dispatchers they do a fantastic job and um under stressful conditions sometimes as you all know so appreciate all of
them for the month we have uh 1,423 911 calls uh we have about 2,600 documented calls for service um our big thing this month was our third 911 workstation was uh
installed last week very excited about that so yeah very excited um so thank you to Tucker from CompTECH Jared from IT he came spent most of the day with us Ed and Tyson from Central Maintenance uh and in particular dispatchers Colin Orel
and Bern Brunette our trainee um dispatcher Orel actually went up to Shelurn control that day uh because they had to roll our 911 traffic up to them so he actually took the rollovers up there so and thank you to Shelurn as well for hosting our dispatcher we appreciate that
um so let's see uh we have a new old predium coming back to us um Ludma Sherikova get that right uh she left us um because of her full-time job but she has decided that she missed it and we
happily are having her back as a pdeium uh she's already signed up for a bunch of shifts so I'm encouraged so that's a good thing um she's very enthusiastic she's a very good dispatcher and we're happy to have her back she didn't leave too long ago right no of last month like
a month or so maybe a month and a half yeah it was very short-lived that she left us so is she Is she still doing her full-time job she is however I think she would be We've had the discussion about coming back perhaps full-time if there was an opening so she is open to that
great uh we don't want to lose any dispatchers but in case you know so we'll see what happens um she's also working on her master's degree as well so she's pretty busy but uh so last month um I know that we had talked about that we hosted uh
progressive law enforcement consultants they did a class for us uh we have actually asked them to come back uh if they can fit it into their schedule for next month um there are two classes they're four-hour classes each uh the first is uh dispatch response to
domestic and sexual violence safety and evidentiary concerns uh the second is dispatch communications during major incidents and large scale events um I can give you all a handout to just describes what those classes are that's great thank you
uh they did a fantastic job the first time everyone was very excited about it feedback was great um is this open to all of Franklin County yes actually neighbors it is open to our neighbors so the state 911 actually puts it on their website so it's open to the
entire state and we're host we're hosting here we hosted it here um I think we had five or six other agencies that sent dispatchers um they had I think about 25 students in the last class so yeah it was very good response to that and they do a fantastic job
they've done some roundts at GCC um that I've been to and they do a great job the last one you just had um how did the dispatchers like that class they I got very great I got great feedback uh in regards to that class um part of the
problem is I think we've talked about in the past is that people forget that Western Mass exists when it comes to training for dispatchers um normally you have to travel down Route Two a couple of hours to find a class in person and so they were excited to not have to travel that far um our dispatchers were
excited as well so and I think everybody agrees that you get a lot more out of the inperson training as opposed to watching a Zoom or Oh yeah uh some of our trainings are pre-recorded which is even worse so yeah the in person is is much better
uh let's see uh so Trevor Brunette our current trainee he is about to come off training he has one more five-day rotation and then he will May 1st he will be on the schedule training great uh so we will be having a shift bid and we'll get everybody moved around to
where they want and he's excited he's done a great job uh through his training um I would also like to recognize his trainers uh Megan Cullen uh Joshell uh they've done a fantastic job uh getting him through the training also Ami foot as well on second shift um he's had
great things to say about all of his trainers so happy to hear that great unfortunately we lost a trainee today um I believe that you guys met him at the last meeting nick Gordon you lost him that quickly well that
quickly was Chris's fault the right thing so it was quick so the way we have left it with him is he so he had just graduated from college uh he was he was offered an IT job uh
obviously not with us um and he has accepted it it's a temporary six-month position uh it potentially will turn into a full-time position for him uh so I've left the door open for him that if he wants to return we would be more than happy to have him come back and finish the training um unfortunately he only
got a couple of weeks into it but seems like he seems like a great guy i think he's a good fit for the office and again I I advised him you know if you want to come back we're more than happy so with that said with Trevor coming off training uh our vacation relief spot is
now filled knock on knock on some wood that that stays the case because as you know we have a we never be able we never seem to be able to keep our staffing at that level so we're excited for that vacations are coming it's summer and uh
so yeah um and with uh Trevor getting off training and unfortunately Nick leaving but we did have both of them attend the CIT training the critical incident training so everyone is up to speed with mental health training uh in regards to training I've
also been talking with Captain Pulley Fire Department um we are working on setting up an active shooter training uh for the dispatchers um I I believe it will in it will include other agencies of course um I don't know how soon that's going to be able to happen but it
will be an in-person uh live training and I think I've been to that training and it's very very informative it's great for the dispatcher to see it from the perspective that you get uh so hopefully we can make that happen sometime soon is it will it be through
the same folks uh no um it's it's I I don't remember the uh the company or the agency that it's through uh I should have noted that but I will find out for the next meeting it would be here we post hopefully it'll be in Greenfield um the one that I went to was actually in
Springfield at a abandoned school um but when you went inside it was very eerie because it was set up exactly as a school the furniture was there the kids pictures on the walls and um so assumingly it would be in a school on a weekend that was when they usually hold those so that's great yeah so hopefully
we can get that set up um and I'm very uh grateful to Captain Kulie for working with us to get some training going that's great keep us informed of that absolutely i think that's all I have unless you have any questions some of these uh actually we can Yes we
can i mean we wouldn't participate but we could um Commissioner Moscow actually for our last training here that was held here had inquired did I'm not sure no I traveled i had to end up traveling that week but but yes we could you know we could observe yeah the the trainers are
usually pretty open to that and I mean this company in particular was very happy to hear of the interest so um I will let you guys know when the dates will be for that or the date for that class for those classes and yeah we'd be happy to have you guys come and observe
so right well thank you for all the efforts police Department the Honorable Deputy Chief good to see you Chris good to see you good to see everybody good to see you here Megan hi
he's not on the agenda but I am going to ask her a few questions perfect because I have things to say too you can't put us in the same room and not have a conversation this time like to remind everybody it's a beautiful night out tonight so by noted
you're up sir all right well welcome thank you just stay for the zoom folks let everyone know chris Green Greenfield Police Department uh Tyler Mario Megan Clear Rfield Police i'll start off with introductions uh we opened up our police app uh a little over a month ago we have
one certified officer uh Tyler here that he is lettering over from Ammeris uh police he'll be starting next month uh May 12th will be his first date and I'll let him talk about himself for a minute all right uh my name is Tyler Evan i'm
born and raised in Turners graduated from Turner High School in 2019 um I have a 2-year-old um I also run a AU basketball program which is a travel basketball program i have three
different age groups um I have a 10th grade a ninth grade and a seventh grade team they're all out of Brent County um graduated the police academy in December did my time in Ammerst and now
I'm transferred over to Greenfield and how long were you at there in Emer um from May 4th to uh last day will be um the 3rd
well we're glad you're here we're glad also that's the only certified applicant we had um when it was open we've had have well let Megan talk about the the the process we're going to be having in in May anyway but we only had about a
dozen for that so we'll talk about that i don't we don't have to do a recommendation to the mayor right he's all set because be sworn in on the 12th sworn in on the 12th okay if you want to i I don't know if that necessary or not
for entry patrol uh I I don't think I don't think we have to no well then the trust is the trust is in the catch will suffer but we welcome you uh and the only advice I think we could all say is really pay attention to your trainers
they're great they have a lot of knowledge and ask questions and don't feel you know if you don't understand something just tell them can you go over it again and you'll just be a success with the folks that we have on our team thank you he said that because I'm your first two days training so he's coming
from a really great department so and he made it through their program so I anticipate he's going to do well well welcome to Greenfield thanks Violet shake our hands please he's a stickler for that yes
he just Good luck best of luck thank you we'll see you on the streets thank you welcome to the department and you can actually head out he has to work tonight sure there you go have a good night you don't want me to be next
what would you like to do next it's all you well hit the books okay hit the books um March yeah nice weather is coming see uptick in calls uh we had 4,06 calls
which is up 165 from last month uh time on calls obviously more calls more time spent on them we were up 180 189 hours not dollars um we had 7 1722
total it was busy for March it was y uh downtown was really busy we're up 74 calls downtown but we also uh attribute that to our very active business district
officer uh she's out there every day um doing her thing um been killing it i haven't heard anything negative yet about her efforts downtown uh incident reports down seven
reports 157 for the month accidents were down eight and total 55 uh arrest and summons were up six uh 44 for the month and citations uh issued were up 82 uh
the increase in traffic we have a traffic rant going on right now this month was distracted driving so if you're on your phones texting and talking on your phones you probably were stopped at some point because we had a lot of uh a lot of focus on that next
month is I believe um uh what is next month i believe it's speed uh speeding speeding and seat belt law is next month so there'll be a more emphasis on watching you know yep patrick CL especially
i noticed you looked when you said that yeah he's still close to the stop sign i know he doesn't have enough time to get any speed on it i do i can't I hear them and I can't get from my house to the road fast enough i don't understand it um when did you start f the focus
program for that that's you never you never mentioned that before yeah that that that was the um same grant I talked about where we got equipment coming which I'll we have two new speed signs coming you know the ones you see that uh show your speed and if you're going too fast it gives you the the flashing
lights and all that stuff so under the grant I was able to get two uh two more of those uh and Lieutenant Haskins who has our traffic data officer is going to figure out what streets are they're going to be mounted up for it's they're they're really good you know I you see
them on Wildwood and um Silver Street has them yeah Silver Street yep yeah they do work in front of the high school they they even remind you know us at times it's like oh how fast are they going i got two that are slightly bigger than the ones you currently see but they're uh it's 10 it was 10 grand for
both but it's covered under the grant so I asked for them a couple years ago to see if you guys can get into them so I'm glad to see they're here because they do work yeah we like them and they're solar too you know they have batteries but they're solar so it's really set up and
just tuneups once in a while uh the grant uh runs for a year and every month it has some kind of specialty like this was distracted driving then we have speeding uh one month will be pedestrians so crosswalk violation stuff and I forget the others but every month
there's a just a a focus uh for enforcement or education depending on what it is so So this month was distractive driving yes so what do you think when you pull people over for that and you tell them
you think you were distracted are they surprised some people are honest but I can't really fight it but you know most people are pretty good at that when they're like "Yeah sorry i was I was texting like you know or people are just so preoccupied that just curious." I'm
not saying this to encourage people to do it but we as a department offer a lot of written warnings for educational purposes rather than the the fines so if you looked at our percentage people people are really getting breaks out
there you know despite the grant and all that kind of stuff we're we're more of hey we're watching please stop you know we don't need to give you $15 ticket to you know drive it home you know so that's great that's a good I didn't
realize that there was a focus like that um Hunter Ziggmont you met him a while ago he's he's out of training on Solo Patrol now solo patrol just started right for him soul patrol yeah he's off his FTO okay uh I think that two weeks
ago I think he I think two weeks ago he was he was finally out of the program and then he he rode with uh a couple other trainers just to get more experience because he was really knew nothing new and he came from a department
that wasn't very busy you know he was solo there but it was like like a um one call every couple days kind of area you know so and when you get here and you're looking at what's 4,000 calls for a month it's a little bit different it's a it's there's a learning curve but yeah
he's out he's on patrol what shift is he on 311 right now working currently uh Patty West who has been with us forever you know she's retiring next month that's going to be a huge loss she's batch number one may Yep it's
gonna be sad because she is she's definitely the glue you know on for the department you know she's she's awesome well that's her day is that the day she's going to be that's her walk out final radio call can you let us know what time that
starts so we can be there 2:30 I think yeah end of day but I'll get you the time get us the information she's actually the first person that I trained part of her training yeah you were you were there when she
when she was there i started a year after her so you must have just retired you had a lot of time i have been that wasn't it was there wasn't an FPO program she spent a lot of There wasn't one when I was there either it was sit in the
passenger seat and be quiet for a little while and then here's your radio and keys and don't get yourself in trouble right can we jump back to Hunter for a second sure so what is what is the he's he's just got out on his own he's solo um
he's on the 3 to11 shift what is the uh is there anything that the sergeant on duty is you know looking at for a new person like that i mean are they spending a little extra time are they checking on things like well how does that work after the sergeant has been assigned since
he's been off his training to keep an extra special eye on him to make sure he's doing the job correctly and that that's like Tyler Tyler's been well he's he's brand new too but um Hunter Yeah Hunter got a little extended supervision
just to make sure he's got it all going on and it was not because he did anything wrong we just want to make sure that summertime's coming and it's going to ramp up out there we want you know we want Hunter to succeed he's also working a shift where there's a lot of field training officers working all the time
anyway so everybody's really jumping on and and making sure that you know he's not going to calls by himself if he you know something that might need a little extra questions or anything people are being really supportive okay great that's what I was curious okay thank you yep yeah that goes for any trainee we
have if we think that a little extra supervision you know I might not be sitting right next to you but they may go to the calls and shadow them a little a little bit more than normal you know we we take care of all that stuff um potentially losing one officer to the state police next month it's not
official official but it's probably if you had $2 to bet you probably put on him going and then that'll lead us into the May 1st interviews where we'll be picking two people out of the candidates that
are there i'm I'm sure some of you are helping us out with those interviews and we're going to send two to the academy in July that's our goal so that's the goal yeah do you hear those spots reserved no we you can't so I just talked to the director um you can't reserve them so
once we have our interviews we have uh six candidates that are interviewing on May 1st um and then we have a second group of people that we can reach out to interview if necessary um we've had 19 applicants since it opened obviously we hired Tyler from that original thing but
uh six out of those applicants are are in this first round of interviews so and then once we get that o those offers accepted and their fit works are then we can send that through to hold the spots there's 48 open spots in the Holio Academy at the moment so they will fill up but the directors seem to think
that we'd be in a good spot if we were to get that taken care of early we're going to move extremely after the interview decisions will be made yeah so we've already done our pre-screening um priority even though we've already started some of the background process for those people because we're not going to interview people that wouldn't uh be
fit for the job to begin with our substation uh the the rough plumbing electrical is done uh the finished work is going to be started by the company there and so you're not coming you're not coming here to tell us there's another challenge
is there some wood is this wood that's equivalent to saying the quiet word i don't know if there can be another challenge really i I don't know there is finish work finish work is great finish yeah finish work i'm sure they're going to insulate it and do the finished work inside and then we'll start getting all
the tech in there and you know all that stuff so when will Maria be able to sit in her office maria's going to have a bench outside it's summer time it's nice i always have a bench and an umbrella she can finish work you can get
a like a um icy slurpee machine make some extra money to support it ice cream alley outside she's going to be outside right wow well we found a storage place for all your stuff though and the mini split was installed we
cannot uh according to the town we cannot get a mini split there okay so we're going to go with a baseboard electric heat uh and an air conditioner like the the one that's in there it's we'll just buy a new one and mount it into the wall okay it's not a fire department it's not a huge area so and
we were hoping for the mini split but I don't I forget maybe where the condenser has to hang would be a hazard you know for potential hazard but anyway we scrubbed it baseboard heat air conditioner that's would be mounted
somewhere up on the exterior but that's fine it's It's not an overly big area but on a serious note maybe the What do you think the end of May or Yeah I like that i like that yeah because the plumbing set yeah I
think that's that's probably reasonable we already bought we already bought the tech so um I'm looking I made a suggestion to buy more a camera or two more you can't ever have too many cameras they're they're way it's all rough now it's it just makes sense to
put your have your wires run to wherever you need to go so that's good news um the report stations we have got all our bids uh we're waiting on the contractor who has to pull a permit because we're building those L walls i don't I don't have a diagram to show you
but essentially anyway it's been in our station it's it's going to be where the where the officers do the reports in the back to the watch me offices uh we're going to get rid of all that and we're going to build two uh it's going to be four stations instead of three stations
it's going to be two set back against the wall and then uh one and one on the wing so it' be walking into a T kind of uh but to build that 4 foot L we need a permit to get that going so we're waiting for the
contractor to show up and submit his paperwork and once that starts that's when the sled chambers come in and we'll start knocking it down and uh we got some good good bids that it's going to it'll look nice for them you know and we're increasing that by one station and
then down by the other uh spot where the body camera is when you first enter in there that's all going away into our new ops room which uh the Megan's in charge of getting all that done so that'll be cleared out it's going to be like a
evidence processing area so instead of processing all your evidence on a a 6- inch wide uh counter thing that's been there now we're going to have an area with a dedicated computer you can have all your supplies do it safely you know
and not contaminate anything and store it away so it's going to be I think it's going to be real nice by the time it's done plus we the carpeting that's been there since 19 when was Kaiser here 19 What 70 been there oh that however old Kaiser
was that's the carpet that was 80 it's really nice mid80s so that's that's not that long ago because I was born in the 80s okay it's like 20 years that's why I wouldn't tell you when I was born well that'll be really nice it won't be like a dispatch room but it'll it'll be
definitely nice um cruisers city council just approved us for three full cruisers uh we spoke with MHQ today that's a That's a huge home run to It was an electric truck yep yep we already talked to them
um they're putting the bid together and we're going to get going you know it's a yes so we're not going to wait jump on it while it's hot so yep one electric truck and uh two more u legal explorers and where were the where's the charger going for that we're
toying with two different ideas we're kind of I don't know if they're coming off a pole off the street or they're going to run it from the north end of the station and trench from our existing uh electrical room along the side of the
hill to the parking lot so that being said I think that first that first spot where the flag pole is might be where the charging station sits we'll move we have four handicap U designated areas in the parking lot up close and that there's one up there but no one really
uses it at all so we're going to dedic two two vehicle charger so one works we probably get another one next time around too so we'll have that dedicated for that and then push everything down a little bit great yep and Carol Comm is working on the grant
for that so that'll be there'll be a won't be a total cost for the for the city to buy it all she has it all figured out you can always pocket here and use these two we could um my thought was to get the Zoey and ecarve for
downtown because you have you have um plugins here you have plugins down at city hall i mean you just make kind of makes sense yep we'll see if they stand up to the police work but we'll get we're going to give it an honest go on it great yep uh we
recently traded in five of our used cars toward the purchase of two um well newer used unmarks uh three huh three five five for two yeah five five for two five for two yeah yep
we got rid of five and traded for two upgraded just newer ones for but I thought I saw three yesterday we did one uh probably six months ago we had other cars we got another escape but it was it was a while ago
so yeah so that's great we're decreasing our our fleet but we're we're not spending we're using our leap money or our other monies to to buy these so they look nice yeah they're very nice one John's one is mine for now went in and
he goes "This is really nice." For no I'll wait to see out outfits and see where Yeah it's getting getting outfitted on Sunday well I think that's a that was a good uh decision you know as Ford had them available they're nice they'll last a lot longer the mileage is
low so that's that was a good decision mileage is between Mine's 29 and Maze is 50 yeah yeah but 21 and a 22 we traded in a couple 14s a 17 that I mean they just those things were worked pretty
hard so they had some hard miles on them as far as the budget report goes uh the chief is currently at what he's means right now um we checked it today we check it all the time and we're tracking right along so doing well even though we had that that those payouts and all that
kind of stuff we're still doing extremely well for it co response we're still waiting uh for our lead co-responder Caitlyn to get back from um maternity leave it's been Katherine but Katherine's been busy too
uh 27 calls in the month of March 22 in person five remote six sections three voluntary sections no one was hurt this month that'll change for next month and all rest are summones and she's on her she's she's doing this
when she comes back she's not going to be in the field though right because she was promoted she will yeah she will be a little bit in the field until we get the newest co-responder that um she's getting her degree for her final to be graduated from her program or master's degree and then she'll start in I think
end of May or June somewhere in there but Caitlyn is a is a supervisor but I think she'll fill in the holes until what's her name christina i think it's Christina gets gets out on her own and we already we already determined that she's going to be our next prosper
anyway so we have an intern that's also been uh working with Catherine recently too to to learn the job oh great they do uh they do a lot of they bring them to us to see what the job's about because we are like kind of like the hub of the
crisis and they see hope in hopes that they stick around in the area and continue to work so last month the chief talked about uh the state and the governor cutting the budget from 18 million to three yep
so we can we put a a I mean Greenfield should put a group letter together or I mean you got you folks have said you're you reached out to the the our state senators i mean is that cut gonna happen it's very hopeful though i didn't go to
the chief's meeting today but the chief obviously did and it look I'm optimistic that it won't be as drastic as what said we we won't it's going to be a stressful few months until the final gables hit but there's a lot of push toward keeping
that money where it is to fund this these programs i mean I find it a little ironic that you know so many people are pushing pushing pushing social work less police and now they're cutting the state's cutting the budget for that when you know they could clearly see that it's working so it' be interesting to
see i hope it doesn't affect us too much yeah we had a meeting yesterday where they talked about that in the event it does affect us long term it sounds like CSO will work to absorb that funding to make sure uh that they're still part of a program might look a little different
but the conversation was that they don't want it to be gone uh it just might have to have some adjustments if we lose that funding and you can you said that our representatives they're clearly on it they're on it they're on it they're they totally
support the program there from what the chief said there is a good push so it if some it won't be as dramatic I don't think if it if it happens at all as once was said i I hope not but this next few months is really
going to we'll figure out where it lies but we'll we'll figure it out no matter what because if CSO is on board with us then it's just going to be some minor adjustments you're going to get the same services probably but it's just a little different for how we operate internally
which is that's our problem but they the people out there won't won't realize there's a change yeah that's my hope that's the important thing we'll figure it out absolutely any comments and questions
you done with him you ready for me we're ready are you done yes sir are you going to wait the means or you stay oh she's done she's she's a fast talker i am yeah so um as we talked about briefly we have those uh those interviews coming up uh in that in the event that um that
doesn't go well we'll obviously we have that second round of people that we can pick from uh to move the process along to get them hired um as far as our special unit stuff uh we've have a full calendar coming up uh this weekend alone
we have the uh GCC like healthy day uh at with the nursing program uh and then we also had the healthy kids day at YMCA on Saturday so we have a couple different groups of people that will be present at those um we've done a couple things frank's been everywhere
everywhere and anywhere um he's he's on break right now he's on vacation so he's he's getting much deserve breaks he had a lot of pets yesterday at four corners um but overall you know we have a lot of things on the calendar zoe's been fantastic downtown um she's been really a big help we talked about the uh
farmers market that's coming up so you'll see her at that occasionally on Saturdays uh she's not available obviously one of us will be popping in at some point um but overall I think we've we've definitely you're going to see a lot of police out and about at all these public events and uh things like
that so my loaded calendar if you ever want to know what's there I can I can share it with you that's excellent really looking forward to the interviews that's just one additional thing on the downtown the sheriff's office has posted the position that they're going to assist us because
obviously we need to hire people so they're going to hopefully send someone our way to assist Zoe with her downtown efforts so we'll be working with them some more are they still on shifts with us have they got in no still still um the personnel just changed like their
shifts okay like uh Ben Goody the K9 is now 311 and Captain Matt B O B O B O B O B O B O B O B O B O B Odwin is now it's now days so same same coverage they just swapped hours and stuff like that and the the the new incoming sheriff
sheriff is on board with the program yes very much she's been super I I when I worked at the jail and I started there she was there I worked with her years ago motor that's Well thank you Megan for the updates appreciate all the busyiness around town
i think it's making a huge difference having you downtown and going to all these events we're keeping at it we've got a Rimtown coming up in in May so we're preparing for that that's going to be busy for the
city in and of itself well that's I mean that's literally you're just going to see thousands more people in the city which is great but we've we've got a lot on our to get prepared for that i mean if if a commissioner wants to observe I
did it you know um what they do and what takes place uh you're more than willing to go up there for a few hours and be at the trailer you don't have to be but it's a good experience but take you around if you haven't experienced it i have not been to Wormtown
check it out it's great people it's never been an interest of mine but it might be from this perspective yeah i I I I used to work them for the fire department then I used and I used to be up there and I tell you it's not as the bad rap that they that
they go there they do a lot for the kids they have they have a children's part of it and they do a lot of arts and crafts during the day so it's not as bad as a wrap that they get we try to pick off the bad apples right away and that ruins the weekends for everybody else um and
they try they do their best in getting rid of the bad apples while they're there too they don't want them there either so they have internal security they do so with us they have also internal security and yeah they don't want they don't want the negative stuff do you have the dates for that it's
Memorial Day weekend yep so Thursday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday everybody's got to be out um Monday i think I kicked everybody out by like noon time on Monday so but if you do have an hour or two it's really good experience to see how the department
handles do you Does it come twice a year yes they come in September strange Creek same thing same same idea um same company different name one's a big venue the other's a little smaller but It's It's I
don't know it's probably eight this one's the big one yeah this is the big one 8,000 10,000 i don't know it's a lot there's a lot of people it's probably 10,000 people back so if anybody that lives on Widen Roads listening it's coming so please adjust your roots home at least for the opening day anyway
country Club extension up over there it is a nightmare working through that stuff client any other uh updates concerns best of luck with your budget thank you all right thank you for your
time i just want to know why does police go last every time I've been here that's me that's cuz time is you know I just he shows up you want to keep him here the whole time i put an end page on your report for you
we can mix it up i talked to the other commissioners offline about that oh there you go thank you so no you didn't get one i was waiting for the flip you uh I can tell you off the story offline but um before we
adjourn um Mr gary if you could do me a favor see that little box right there that little tablet red button yeah so after Don't touch it now but when I when the meeting's adjourned if you could just stop the recording for us so it's not recording
can you see that the tablet there yeah it says I think it says stop recording right we're in meeting all right so commissioners have any new business or anything they want to bring up trying to come back to life here you
Yeah you were in Florida that's great thanks for coming back and joining the meeting just moving forward i just have a point though yes go for it um so he and I have known each other for probably that many years and uh I saw a picture of you in
the paper with a great smile so I cut it out and I put it on my refrigerator so no more grumpy Chris trying it's on your refrigerator yeah my wife who's that i didn't see that you don't have to know i didn't see that picture i'm going to cut it out too i
can get your copy it wouldn't go on merge ready just beware there'll be 47 calls warning you up front oh that was a great picture of you that's great
all right well thank you for that um just for the commissioners again we are a seven person commission and the quorum is four so I ask for every month for at least four of us to show up so um even
though we don't have seven it's still four that have for us to have a quorum um if we if we can't and we're not doing any voting um for the meeting um then the mayor could fill in but she can't she's not a voting member so she can make the quarum if we really needed it
but we will have a sixth uh Mr gary Brath is uh will be joining us he's been approved um he can get sworn in on after the 28th or 9th of this month so next meeting we'll have a sixth uh public safety commissioner and he's in the back
of the room if you haven't met so all right adjournment do I have anybody making a motion second all in favor i thank you Part: 2
um I'm going to call this meeting again to order uh Ways and Means fiscal year 2026 budget discussion meeting Wednesday April 23rd 2025 this meeting is being recorded by the Ways and Means Committee if any other persons present or doing the same
you must notify the chairperson at this time i'll do a roll call of members i'm here uh here councelor Master Tero yes councelor Browns here councelor Barry I'm still here wow second verse same as the first
look at that um all right uh so we have approval of minutes which there are none we have public comment is there anyone i didn't see anybody sign on that sheet um do you
want to do public comment no oh no no no right it's brave but yeah it's a smart choice um anyone on line that I see a comment there from
Matt Conway thank you um I guess we'll address that when it comes i don't see anybody online put your hand up on the Zoom thingy if you want to do public comment going once going twice sold to
nobody thank you all right public comments done uh there are no public hearings or motions and we will go right into budget discussion because that's what we're all here for um I think you will love that this is in
reverse order this year alphabetically veteran services please veterans come up first first and foremost you have you have endured many hours of waiting so it's I think it's only worth it
all right hello everybody um so we're on page 164 and 165 and 166 and the budget book um our our biggest changes this year um we're actually going down in our uh ordinary
benefits um last year we upped it quite a bit because we expected to gain more people because of the Hero Act that was passed that actually made more veterans eligible for Chapter 115 but even though
they were eligible they didn't come in to do on the paperwork so uh we knocked it down another $15,000 this year because uh we're actually going to be pretty much over for this year that's our our major change this year um salaries right around
3% everything else pretty much stayed a little bit stable um it's just the the bottom parts that you see on our expense on 165 that's the stuff that fluctuates that's all our chapter 115 benefit stuff everything else pretty much stays the same
this is the only department that has a a net a minus before its number to start with it was a it was a chapter 115 that did it because like I said we we expected a big gain and it was a nothing we actually unfortunately we lose
veterans when they pass away and spouses to pass away they come off the roll that's how we actually got lower we've had some people pass away on us yep but in theory we should have people joining the ranks if they know about the program yeah yes and no yeah yeah so the
big change was u council Perry was last year uh something that was a um not honorable are now eligible it was a big change to kind of match things with the VA the state did um and then the other reason too is we've gone down
is the inflation rate isn't as bad as last year so we didn't have to raise it up as much as we always do every year so it actually kind of brought it down so but we got the word out there we did a thing with uh GCC TV to talk about um Chapter 115 anytime a veteran comes in
our office we're always talking they It's funny their reactions we say "Well how much money do you make?" And they're like "What are you asking that for?" Because we want to see if they're eligible for a full game did did you say that non honor non-armorable discharge is no longer eligible they are eligible
they were not before you had okay so now like if you have a a disarmable discharge you're not but if you have a general or just under honor under other than honorable conditions they're now eligible which they want are there any other
questions on this budget thank you appreciate it sure i'm glad to be able to get you out of here i can't stay for the beginning of Thank you very much thanks for coming we'll see you
i guess we're moving on to treasure collection it's a weird says treasure but okay yeah treasure collector budget if there's anyone who wants to speak on that it
doesn't look like it here he's not here you want to all right well I mean if you want to pull the sword by all means this is long a
fight so uh treasure collector um as you know they've been in a lot of flux over the past year and a half too uh we finally found uh someone to actually take the job as treasure collector uh Mandy Whitten so very happy about that
uh FDEES have not changed in that office however um due to the need for uh due to the high traffic and the high public contact uh within that office uh we have a treasure assistant treasurer
uh right now uh to kind of well when one wants to take a vacation the other one will be there so uh that that helps um and frankly not much else has changed in that department uh we are working to improve customer relations i think
you'll find that when people go in there now they're a lot happier yeah they smile this now so that's that's a good thing and um and then we pay their taxes we try to make it pleasant for them you
know and uh and then what we also have been trying and we're working on with that department is to bring them into the 21st century uh a lot of the processes in that department are very manual very um uh clerical oriented when
we don't have to do that we could bring that in the 21 into the 21st century so we're we're working on that this is page 81 to 85 for anyone who's looking for it um as far as in the in the budget
book whether it be here or in the ether know if you could answer for looking at the past history yeah I know the expense line used to really high like 52 61 45
22 through 24 and then there was a huge cut back in 25 and then it's got gone up a little bit again but it looks like it's kind of been all over the place with expenses yeah yeah i don't know that history uh
right there especially um right turn 24 to 25 but the there has been a tremendous amount of turnover right and I noticed that it's gone up well oh never mind it's it's not even worth it headphones never mind
but you don't have any insight onto that that like expense line i mean obviously with these type of departments we only deal with salary wages and then expense line mhm um and with an expense line going from over $60,000 two years ago to
now 27 and then 35 uh last year and then now into this year do you you don't have do you I mean it because on paper it looks like a 33% increase this year which is really not
yes if you look at 2022 2023 uh those were I mean it's almost it's like a 40% decrease really um it's almost half of what the budget was in 2023 for this department is there do you
know of And I'm you know I'm totally throwing you on the spot here oh no it's okay um is there any do you do you have any knowledge as to why that that has almost gone in half not off the top of my head uh from 23 to 24 to 25 but I
I can find that out for you yeah I'll let you know exactly what's going on with that because mayor have just say this i entered this one for Mandy because everybody was brand new when we were putting this in yep so I know that I went up on her printing
charges because she was up mhm and the other expense I believe were for um like bonding etc expenses and I don't think that we were taking that right out of that um line item so do they get because I'm seeing I mean I know you've only
been here for for the last two cycles so let's just say while you've been here the budget for the expenses has been significantly lower uh-huh um do you know why they were much higher earlier or was it just something that
got shifted to a different I don't actually remember but I think it had to do with the borrowing and what I do remember was because I told her she was brand new i'd entered so I went back and looked at what we'd used for the last three years which is what I always do right go into the little things and look
at the boxes and see what whatever people put in there did they use it right and so that's why I went up on the printing and the other one so I I feel like I had to I had to come up here i'm actually the person that entered that budget okay no I think it's
important to to like point out again the reason I'm saying this is is to have some sort of clarity on that and of course that would be relitigating the past but also for folks to know of course this year with with some I don't know what word I want to
use here controversy in in how we're going to spend our money yep this one showing a 33% increase is not actually a 33% increase at all it's it's it's only reflecting what was last year which was already a dramatic decrease from the
other years what was the do we even know what the other chart was from the year before i kept to get the other three was 61,000 yeah we had to do that 52 61 and then it went to 45 and then all the way down to 27 and now we're looking at 35
which is still lower than it was four years ago so I mean with a look back like that I think it's important to point that out we can get that I can get that answer to you by next okay thank you okay i know this is finance but the customer service part is very
important so thank you for mentioning that you know people walking into the office that's the first impression they get so it's important to have a cheerful friendly customer especially when you give them the money exactly yes no it's
they're a good group down there and they uh they're genuinely pleasant to be around so it's all right i'll work on that other question it would just be good to know i mean it's I don't think it's like you
know worth writing home about but um we got retirement next i believe that's 181 to 186 that's that's grouped in with insurance and Medicare I believe who wants to handle that one is that
would that be you Mayor you want to handle insurance and retirement oh sure sure you do yeah insurance it's my favorite all third subject okay of course it is so um insurance costs for the second time
in a row are up 16 and a half percent um and the reason for that is because we're outspending the premiums that we take in we've had a lot of meetings on this the premiums that the city pays for health insurance I actually know by
heart $9 million and the expenses are $9.3 million which makes us not um like a community that anybody else would like to give health insurance to because we're outspending what comes in
so the insurance company isn't making money on us so um we met last year with the IA that's abbreviation for the insurance advisory committee like the head of each union to see if we could if anyone was
interested in changing the uh you know balance of how we pay that because the city pays 80% of health insurance and um the employee pays 20 which is very very good compared to like a lot of other comm
um And you know we uh you know we had some unions that were interested but we needed everybody to be interested in that and they asked us to go and look at other insurance companies and I forget what the names of them were actually but none of them want us
because of that so um that was the best that there was we have a lot of you know people that are they're sick so there's like 10 you know 10 folks that they're having their worst year ever and the really costing the city a lot but we're hoping they we have a medium age of the
workforce i don't actually know that but I'm sure that somebody could find that um and then yes older workforce and we are not the only municipality that is dealing with that right um so additionally you'll actually see that
it's in the book it says it's up 20% not 17 i'd like you to note that that wasn't um what was entered last year actually wasn't the full amount that went up so we had to cover for that as well and we are in the minus right now this year in
health insurance which is unusual you know we're you know you do the whole budget and we hope at the end that it all balances out but in that one particular thing in health insurance we're in in the finest you give me some less free cash this year that's what you're saying on that yeah we don't know how it's going to be i don't I don't
know how all of it comes about but most of it and and then so that's why that's up as high as it is and then on the retirement um you know we have this uh it's like an actuarial scale so every
municipality is supposed to be finished I think by 2035 paying for their retirement and you know that was up about I don't know half million I think a little goes down that page whatever it is so we're we're essentially being like
penalized because some folks are above the limit of infirm well no I like I mean that's what it sounds like like No it's they're they're drawing down on the insurance it's you
would have just a three or like for years for 10 years I think they said this is the health insurance person our insurance went up about three or 4% right and then when you know when people
when people having bad years that we're we're using all the insurance the all the money that goes in plus so that's why the premium went up i I have a question health insurance okay um there's other municipalities and and
obviously corporations that do this too a buyback program we t we did talk about that um we about three or four or five people brought that up to us and um actually I
can't explain all of the reasons why we were not going to do that but um I asked about it because other people asked about it you had to have a big pot of money aside to be paying all the people if they weren't going to do that but I think the attorney thought that wasn't
the best thing to do to and I actually don't I can write that out better than I can say it but because I remember asking Diana about that why we weren't you know and the answer was no that wasn't that wouldn't have worked for us
and I can tell you why so in theory the assurance percentage could drop next year it could it depends on you know how the users how much of the premium the users use i guess that would be the best way to say that right
i think that's one question I get asked from folks you know at times are like I mean and once you go down you're never going to go back up is what I keep telling them like we have a pretty good a really good system in Greenfield where we're we are
covering 80% y right of our employees health insurance which is almost unheard of nowadays um and so there you know there are some folks who who will say to me well why don't we drop it why don't we go to 75 or 70 or whatever and that would make up
for the the increases and you know I I have to talk to them about you know well that's a a citywide position you have unions that are involved in it um uh it's not as it's not as cut and dried
as as it may seem um and that is to be frank with some of our positions that we have in our our municipality we don't pay the highest rate so our benefits
become a reason why people would want to work here um even if our wage rates aren't as high they at least know that they get that part of it um so it it's almost like you know I remember going to
to you know restaurants at certain points it's like you know every so often the the cost has to go up on the dish you get but they were doing they were increasing the cost and then like lowering the portion at the same time
i'm like you can't do both like so that's what I feel like we would be doing is increasing the cost and lowering the portion and giving someone a smaller meal at a higher price um to come and work here so I I understand why we don't but that's a hard it's a hard
nugget to like to send home to folks when they're asking that when they see that the costs of everything's going up and then you know we're running into things with this 20% inflation on uh on on health insurance that you know folks
are concerned about schools they're concerned about services and where are we going to find the money and all this stuff it's it's I think it's important for that to be um more of a a public knowledge because I don't think
a lot of people get that part of it i don't think they understand how it works so to speak and and I don't know if as a city as a council as a mayor like if if how we can make that more forthcoming
with the dissemination of the information we have really good health insurance we have really good health insurance we cover like our employees very well i'll make a little announce right now we're all watching out there too
when we hire next year when we hire an employee and if they're on a family plan the city will be paying $28,000 of their health insurance it's just them plus one person it's $20,000 so so um
that is a really good benefit that we give um to the employees that's why I you know every time that we're adding another full FTE or someone you know who is going to be taking the benefits I I think long
and hard about it um and um additionally in this economy to get you know all unions to vote for a change I couldn't even ask i thought when eggs are $10 a dozen I can't ask for a different you know ratio of the health
insurance people's they're to go to try to buy food right now it is it's unbelievable so um so anyway so I just think it's I like I said I I appreciate it i I think it's important for people to hear those type of things like this
isn't this isn't like 1 plus 1 is two no you know um it is difficult it's difficult to navigate the finances for for a city so it's um it's not it's not you know swapping cars for for kids or whatever people want to say
um there's a lot more ingrained in that and so I appreciate what you do um ahead of time presenting this budget and and the work that you and you know Stephen do to to really like solidify you make
like you're making critical decisions um and I'm sure that none of them are easy i have an answer to the uh the increase in accounting so the mayor's right that was the bond issuance cost so in uh 23
it was as high as $25,000 it went down to 15 it's down to 10 now and the reason is is because we use a lot of bond premiums in order to pay its cost of bond issuance so we're getting money bond like bond premiums
so that and that is that a normal place for that money to land in that in the colle treasury collector department yes that because they're doing they're the ones doing bond issuance but if you look back in the past years like when it was 25,000 Yeah i think only uh only about
2500 spent out of that that's just like a weird Yeah weird pocket that that has to be set in even though that's not really their department that's being funded it's just to fund the bonds exactly okay
well you learned something in your fourth year right do you have any other uh questions about the retirement insurance and whatnot all right thank you mayor thank you Stephen
uh can't not do this it's parks and wreck man it's parks and wreck there's a whole series about it it's hilarious can't do recreation parks uh but anyway thanks for joining us Chrissy of
course i am also happy that you're going in reverse order yeah I know you you you have set out for a long time as well yeah so I mean mine's pretty simple pretty straightforward uh we have people and we have a few supplies
i don't know if you have any in-depth questions but um I just want to thank you because I know you guys do a lot of good old and but the morale that you guys provide to the city and to the public who come to your
events is just it money can't buy it you got even though you guys are operating on a shoestring budget and you know breaking piggy banks to find a couple pennies to help pay for stuff you do a great job thank you you have a great
team couldn't do it without them and our commission recession so is there anything different in this year um that you want to point out to us um the only thing particular um the
mayor and I um found a discrepancy so we're working on um an error with our because right now it says three and a half or 3.49 people um we're correcting that to get it four to four
okay oh yeah it looks like you lost 51 person very specific otherwise um all the expenses and everything are exactly the same and are those seemingly
um working out I guess um like do you do you notice um obviously the salaries we can't really speak to because they're just they're salaries but uh as far as the expenses you guys have incurred to do
what you're doing have you seen it let's just say in the past two three years uh it's it's been covered well enough we um we do have the revolving so if there's something that
is not covered There we we have um the revolving to cover some stuff um but this is just like mostly the office expenses that you see that are in here um each program is self-sufficient to cover its cost of operation for like T-ball which is starting um those
individual programs okay and special events and just for folks to know the revolving uh comes from is funded by all of our program programs and then cycles back through cycles back through so they're essentially paying for
themselves exactly okay like right now it's getting higher because camp enrollment is happening because camp is just around the corner and then you know we pay all our staff out of that and then it comes back up when it's time for upper school enrollment but I imagine
there's certainly not a surplus at the end of the year no I can definitely more operating here we definitely pinch pennies and reuse and get a lot of donations as much
as possible all right do some of the fundraisers make an eight but the dawn thing this winter and the uh cornhole thing that's actually come up to that is eight yeah well thanks for the um push for cornhole cornhole which I hope you all will be
registering um cornhole tournament is not this weekend but next weekend and that's a a fireworks fundraiser for the fireworks um and last month well actually I guess it's still April we did the mini golf and then in June we're doing a trivia
um tournament I guess you call it tournament we're doing the botchi tournament yep um I think that's later in the summer i don't have I don't have this little book right here quite all moonrise but Cool all right i like that it's at the front
and it's short and sweet thank you guys again thank you very much um all right we're moving on to planning 95 i believe 95 yeah thank you for being on top
it is yeah to 102 put anything here i said I I would cover planning we have to hear from you again any questions about it do you folks have questions on planning yeah well it's more of a statement
understand how ironic yep what you got we have a there's a wonderful new Jessica's the um new conservation person and she's she's fabulous i just want to tell
you that very nice and hope you all get a chance to meet her there sometime yeah Chris no you know the accomplishments and the goals are impressive so it's nice to see that department turning stuff out and doing
good work [Music] guess I'll ask the crazy elephant in the room on this uh the same as we were running into with the U treasure collector why is the do you know or can you speak to why the expenses are
down um well it says 38% this year but it's actually like I don't know like Jesus like 50 almost 50 yeah it's less than 50 it's like it was 13,000 in 2023 and now it's 3,800 uh do we know
what yields I think pretty much across a lot of budgets that expenses are have been decreased um I think that is like pervasive through them we um the the department heads themselves and then me
also helping with that yeah right i just go back and look i can't I actually can't remember each one but Sure um I go we go back through and look at if they hadn't used something in three years or it was less than that amount
you know um it would go down a little bit because we don't want to be having that if we we don't want to be taxing the taxpayers if we're not going to use that we want people to have enough right but well certainly can't speak but um I I don't think that I had anything to do
with Eric's because he entered his so that he must have seen the same pattern himself and done that you know by himself because I didn't have anything to do with that one and nor did I have to make a reduction there that I recall it certainly makes sense with the
timeline because I'm I'm remembering uh like I said in my four years here when I'm seeing actuals from FY 2022 and 2023 and 2024 and I'm seeing this gigantic almost a doubling of the
expenses line from 2022 to 2023 it's not surprising to me why we had like almost 4.8 8 million in free cash was we were severely overt taxed during that time period and so we
all paid for it um and then it came back as free cash and then it's like everyone's like "Yay free cash we can spend it somewhere." But it's like you you essentially drained us not you the city itself like
irresponsibly spent I think needs to be pointed out during that time period i mean that's that's almost double and then we're and then coming to you know sorry to use the term but a come to Jesus moment like two years later three
years later we need 3,800 to run the expenses of this department which was half the amount of 2022 which is a less than a quarter of the amount that was put in in 2023 like that's I think it's very important for people to know that
that's that's the history of where our money's gone um and I don't think it should be it shouldn't be forgotten or left out without without being explained
that our uh our tax rate could have been a lot lower three years ago than it was and we still would have been able to cover a bunch because I'm certainly not in the business of having my taxes raised paid for and then
looking at a $5 million free cash uh in October like I never want that to be $5 million um ever again because it's not that's irresponsible uh budgeting in my opinion
um you want to budget a little bit over uh everyone does because you want to plan on unexpected things but when it's that high like I'm glad to see that's what all that to say i'm glad to
see that we're back down to realistic numbers because we shouldn't be overbudgeting just for the sake of of doing that that's that's irresponsible fiscally to you know all of us who are taxpayers in the
city so if I see that with the rest of the other departments I I'll be happy every time and some of them were tough and I I said if they're behind I I don't want people to ever do without we can always come back to you if you know
something else or if there's some way to transfer something because I did a couple and like I don't know if I'm going to have and I thought we we're all working together to make sure the the wonderful departments have had what they need but also that it's responsible
thank you again i bet you'll be seeing you here back up why did you move because you're probably back up uh licensing yeah 9395 hi there i'm uh Matt Conway communications director i work uh
closely with the board of license commissioners and the licensing commissioner so I will be presenting the budget for you this evening uh the biggest increase you'll see is the licensing coordinator position had an increase in salary uh it pretty much is more in line of of par with other
administrative positions of this ilk um advertising expenses is for legal notices in the paper for board of license work office supplies for general office supplies there's about a third of it as a cushion in case there's any uh
major expense like a printer or something like that uh and then the mileage reimbursement that's something that can probably be cut the coordinator said it was used more frequently during the pandemic sure very small potatoes when it really comes
down to it right yeah for sure so this was so the salary part was an increase because of did you say because of like um putting it more in line with what folks make or was the the hours
increased or uh yeah more the former category uh more parody for what other kind of administrative type coordinators make um and you can kind of see the increase through the years and what the the previous salary was i welcome anybody else have questions on
this budget all right well thanks Matt appreciate it thank you and we'll move to the library i actually prepared a PowerPoint presentation oh i am going to put it in
um unless you want it i don't know if you can show it on the screen i can share it with you at another time 169 um yes sorry we are 169 to 73 73 really like this table of contents super
cool helps so thank you for the people don't know what a table of contents is well that's true or the Dewey decimal system or the Dewey decimals do I have to read the whole book no I need to use the index in the table of contents
okay we need right um so one of the slides that I had on my presentation was our funding sources for the library so our large contribution of course is the municipal allocation um
and then we get state aid through the master support of library commissioners we have the friends of the Greenfield Public Library who provide the sponsorship for all of our programs and then of course the foundation that was created um to help source funding for
the new building and they have decided to continue fundraising and they are supporting um professional development for the staff as well as any uh tech needs for the public um the city allocation does not cover expenses for
um technology that is used by the public only what is used for staff and every five years as I'm sure many of you know you have to upgrade the technology and that is very expensive so we are very grateful to have um the foundation
looking at ways to help support that otherwise we use funds from our state aid um the reason I bring up state aid is because my budget every year has to be also taken into consideration the requirements for state aid which is um
through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and we have to see an increase of at least 2.5% in our um allocation in order to be eligible for state aid in addition to that we have to be open x number of
hours x number of days x number of evenings so there's quite a range of requirements that we have um in addition to trying to balance the books um and
there is an option for us if we do not receive um if we're not able to meet that 2 and a half% increase we can apply for a waiver from the uh master sporting library commissioners they only allow you to apply for that four times before
they descertify you descertification is huge because that means we lose access to the consortium that means our patrons our community members cannot use any other public library in central western Massachusetts without paying out of
pocket so there are a lot of things that are contingent upon our budget um I neglected to pick up a budget book oops I have forgotten but I have gone online and I printed my pages okay um so I do know what is there um when I was
preparing the budget I went a little bit higher than normal uh with a hope that perhaps we could have an additional staff member um I request partline i also requested an increase in our substitute
per DM budget that's the temp wages um we are seeing huge numbers of people in the library we're over 13,000 a month at this point and when you have people who are sick or on vacation or personal time we don't have enough bodies to help
everyone we call in our temp um staff and those are people who are just paid on an hourly um basis they're not part-time nor full-time they're just temporary and uh staff members so uh I
know that this is a hard fiscal year it's a hard then of course after we did the budget then the federal government cut the Institute for Museum and Library Services i was going to ask you about that so we don't receive direct federal
aid but many of the um funds that are shared with the state of Massachusetts through that organization have been cut which means it's all going to trickle down to to us that TV land trickle down economics see how it works yes yes very
very rural libraries the very rural and you might have heard that on the radio yesterday there was actually something on uh the public radio about the rural and small libraries we are considered a rural and small library um even though we are a population of close to 20,000
we are still considered rural small so um I think in general terms the budget is very fair for us i did work with the mayor i did not want to lose staff um so I made some big cuts to our materials um
the one that's really going to be hit is the electronic resources which sadly is going to affect folks who are living on a tight budget that's for ebooks and audiobooks and uh streaming platforms those are very very expensive everything
is going up as we know go away all together it is not at this point it's just it's going to be cut back where is that 15 173 173 yes oh yeah so I went through with the mayor and we
did what we thought was um reasonable i if I've done my math correctly and math was not my forte um I and we are still going to meet our requirement for state 8 fortunately um the FY26 state budget
is level funded which means we should be okay for FY26 with our state aid because of course if the trickle down effect happens everything gets cut and the state is going to cut which then will cut money to the MBLC and it goes on and
on so I think we're going to be okay for FY26 um our friends are busy really busy fundraising uh the numbers through our door really we can thank the programming as well we get a lot of people coming to
the library for free programming and so I'm really grateful to the friends for all their hard work fundraising um to support those programs that are free to the public and they are all ages and that's great
um I think that's it when you were here last year you were talking about some of the building issues that were left over from Oh we still have some building issues but they're getting resolved okay are you concerned about or is it just going no I think we are good um those
panels get replaced that we talked about most of them have been replaced i'm waiting for another issue those were put in those were put in that's been good um we are doing signage in internally we
had gone out to bid and that was a disaster um and we decided that we could do it inhouse for under $4,000 versus almost a h 100,000 for an outside firm so we now have signs telling people
what's on what floor where to find the bathroom that's the biggest question we get is where is the bathroom um and uh and it's going to be fantastic there are a couple of other projects that are close to conclusion um so yeah and you
know it's a very heavily used building so I feel like it's already falling apart and that's not a criticism of the city that's just the way things were made these days right um so it's been kind of a quiet year but there have been
a few controversies when you cited the numbers did you include some of the uh visitors who stayed there for other Those are based on door count so we actually probably the best investment we ever made was in an electronic door um
count system software system and it tells us by the second um and you know we're we're open to everyone that's part of the mission that is the mission of libraries in general um we I would say 99.9% of the time everything is
fantastic and then there's that time when it's not and I think you know we we all recognize that there's a lot of um uncertainty in in the world and you know people who have a more difficult time
than others and honestly that is not a problem until it's a problem and you know um we have the wonderful who come and help us when it becomes something that we can't take care of we do a lot of training on
deescalation but it's hard i I won't deny that it's hard and the thing about the library is that it affects every single person who's in the library and I like to say that we serve ages zero to 100 plus and when
something that can be scary happens it affects everyone um and that's really hard we want to maintain a safe and enjoyable environment for everyone i only mentioned because it came up at the community relations uh committee meeting months ago where people representing
that community uh were empowered to talk about it in a proactive way in a positive way in a positive way saying that they understand the issue and they raised a few issues that they thought maybe they could intervene but so there is discussion going on which is
encouraging the police department sure and and so what we see in our library is no different what what any library sees across the country it's just I think because we're a new library and I think there's becoming more need in our community rather than less need it and
we our doors are open and it's a big space and and people know that they can come in and out and that's fantastic like I'm happy for that when there are issues you know sometimes there are issues because folks want to come in with their dogs on a cold day and rules
say state law we cannot have pets that are not service dogs and that is not an emotional support animal that's a service dog and and I totally understand with folks where are you supposed to go when it's freezing cold and you're temporarily living outside and you have
pets and we're open to the public but and that's when sometimes conflict happens so I'm like I'm sorry you can't have your pets here and that sometimes makes people upset and I agree with them it's upsetting but it's also upsetting for people who might not like pets to
have pets in the building right so we have to find a middle ground and I don't think that um I think it's a community issue and it's a community solution we can support during our opening hours
people as much as we possibly can and outside of that I think really as a community we can work together to to find solutions um every time I go in there customer service is excellent people are caring people are concerned people are
asking in day out that sort of stuff so it's it's a nice customer service is like the number one thing when we we get a lot of applicants for our positions and we get people with PhDs and MDs i'm not kidding and to do like a part-time evening job and they all say "I love
books." And typically what I look for is someone who's had customer service who knows who's done uh you know working in a shop in a restaurant um in a hospital places that you where you interact and a quick you have to be
quick on your feet and you have to be able to serve all different populations and that is so much more important than you know I mean loving books is great too but it's we don't read on the Um a lot of people find that they're
like "Oh it must be nice to sit read books all day." It's like we actually don't do that we select a lot of books oh yeah books it's been a year since I read a book i listen to books i listen to a lot of audio books while I'm making dinner or
walking my dogs but um so that's the situation library and I feel confident that um we're going to be okay and in fact I think we're going to see higher numbers i'll be perfectly honest if if you know if things if people start
experiencing harder times moving forward econ harder economic times I envision us becoming even busier than we already are and I I hope we're ready for that i'm really pleased that the mayor did increase our temporary line budget line
because we need to know that we can get people to cover when some I also think it's important to point out that um I mean a $35,000 cut to your expenses is is not not nothing right i mean it's it's about
20% Yep of your overall so again one positive for the folks out there just just wanting to say like when we're when we're talking about when we when the cuts are being made to certain departments they might be overshadowed by the the hyperbole and the narrative
that that wants to get put out there but these are things we're talking about like you just lost 20% of your expenses budget like that and and and you're saying we'll make it work and that's what we're encouraging all departments
to do nobody wants to have to take a cup from what they think they're going to need but this is how it works as a whole is you know unfortunately yes it's $35,000 which is a lot of money to me it's not a lot of
money on the you know $67 million budget or whatever but like you know I think that's what we spoke about also is that the human capital for me right now is more important to be able to serve people and I think that because we're part of a consortium and we share our
materials just like Christy said about the rec department if there's a group of people who knows how to use a little bit of money to go a long way it's libraries um we're used to this right when it's like you know what gets cut in schools it's usually the music the library the
arts right so we're we're kind of used to that um I think what we need to remember is that we have to have a community mentality and not a me mentality so if we need to reduce the number of
we need to reduce the number of ebooks you can borrow then we have to do that right because it's for everyone it's not just for you and yes it may impact you it might make you upset but in the grand scheme of things we'll all get
something right we may have to wait a little bit for it but we'll all get a piece of the pie we just might not have a bigger piece of like you were saying before like the bigger charge for a smaller amount of food right we're just trying to to find the balance for
everyone and we just did um the Masters Board of Library Commissioners just shared with us a way to calculate our return on investment and I know that's a real financial term ROI roi roi but we plugged in all of our numbers from fiscal year 24 and that was actually on
my slide i will send it to you all um our return on investment is 604% wow and the amount of money we get from um tax dollars is very small compared for each person right do you want to
repeat that number just for you know the the the haters the haters out there i actually had to send it to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners to make sure we had done the math correctly i was like this is the formula oh and it came out and they said oh yeah that's really really good
604% in return on investment so we you know everything is going to go up books go up every year paper better than the NASDAQ's doing so yeah so and actually just as an aside one of our biggest advocates to reinstate the Institute
Museum of Library Services is publishing houses why do you think that is we're their biggest purchasers libraries and if we lose budgets and we lose money they lose a lot of their clients so they are active active pushing pushing
pushing to get the um that department reestablished so we'll see what happens and thank you for the bumpers i community community yeah thanks everyone all right thank you
80 seconds you didn't even need your slides look at that i'm gonna send them to you they're good though it's cool 87 all right we got it on 80 would you say 87 Mike thank you
deacon you're going to take this over right away aren't you no I am not we got a Fernando here but No he said he couldn't come he's not in TV land either mayor would you like or Stephen would you like to which one of you would like
to fall in the sword of it fernando Fernando's doing a great job he was one of the two um departments that did get um a an added person back i had cut that last year and I think um many people
throughout the town will be glad that we're adding a fourth person there they were a three medium team for 18 almost 18,000 people and you know he works from um dawn till dusk he would do a better job presenting on himself um but you know he gets a lot of things
accomplished and um you know helped with uh you know dispatch and moving those things around and um he's working on cyber security this year and he was just fabulous because we had all kinds of new
people and you wouldn't realize how much time that takes to get everybody uh you know up going with their computers so that's why there was an increase there in in the um wages and um then
there was something I could actually the worst person to be talking about it so I just like is the fourth is the four is the fourth person the support administrator like the let's just say the lowest paid position that's listed here okay so that's added all right can I look on your book uh yeah that's
person that that that we're that hasn't been filled yet but we're Well yes i eliminated it last year and they really need it he is they're quite behind the age they're you know he's working as hard as they all teams they're all working I know we want the library to
have their it up so we can use it for these meetings that's true but you know this what we actually all need is like more hours in the day yes so um and then all of these things you know the equipment the hardware and the software
whatever it was um you know uh they needed all those things the only thing we eliminated the training there because they don't even have time to go to the training see I eliminated that he's gave that one up the training line for 5,000 but all the softwares and everything
they're expensive and I shouldn't be explaining about them the other two is under communication gotcha and me does anybody else have any just I'm just I I don't know why it is why it
is but uh the internet communication down $2,000 is do you know why I did that or I went I actually I was on everybody but I cut this one I cut there I said so why did I go down but is it
you or him yeah no me was you obvious they put it on the left and then I went I said yeah that one I I tried to reduce a couple of other ones and I really couldn't so that one I think it's just two line items there I don't
actually communicating if there's a decrease I can't tell you exactly what it was it was that I looked back three years I thought you're not going to go over there and we're going to try to make it with that and there was one other line item that he said no you you should not do that and I thought
I'm just going to agree with him because he knew a lot more than I did about this obviously it was a great the whole team does a great job we were all in a training today aws oh I don't even know what that stands for
i don't want to pay them any money but that's just the world i don't know what it is okay but if there's anything specific that you have a question I'll make sure we find out the answer and write it to you i don't know what AWS Jeff Bezos
will send you the bill he does that sounds like root beer the way of it um are there any other questions for it budget
how about human resources who wants to handle that one so um yeah Diana I'm her 85 85 can we share the book i know I have my book up here but we might as well be in this together um they still
have the same number of people um uh salary line increase just commencement with the level of work that they have to do they did three contracts this year um police you have no idea police fire and
um dispatch just the work that they do for negotiations is unbelievable and it's one of the I actually wasn't expecting this it's one of the things that you spend the most time on
or is HR issues it's enormous and um they're fabulous they do every eye and cross every tea and they're you know Diana will be the one that's helping me with the response on that health insurance um they work a lot with that
with all of our benefits and they make sure that everybody's taken care of if they're you know they're out you know they're injured or this that and the other thing she make sure that everybody's taken care of and now it's open enrollment time and so their expenses um yeah their expenses are down
so much that I'm hoping that that they can manage with that i I've told everybody if they don't think they can you can come to our office for paper slips but share like we're gonna figure out whatever it is so and that's their salary can you tell me because I've seen
this multiple times what's the 26.1 acral i've never seen that and that's like 0.1 short of a a marathon so this the person last year the when we were all entering our uh budgets in the year you know you have to enter it into
munness then you don't put in just 26 times whatever it is you enter it 26 one there's a few extra days spills over what is that a cruel mean
because like the other one had like an a line through it like in it there was nothing in that acrruel line but this one has I mean it's only $1,73 but like what what would that be diana showed me how to do mine when I first got in that she told me there's like a little
there's a little formula you got to account for the leap year or whatever there's a little formula and that's what you're supposed to put in like where the dollar per hour yeah where it doesn't come out exactly times 26.1 but why is it only in certain budgets and not others i would just tell you those people are very they're exact and
they know the formula um not that you know that's why really that's I think so I actually think so I learned from her some people just okay some people put it into the normal FD salaries okay
yeah well hey I mean I'm um because I'm all for the extra transparency that's fine really really good you know she gets a A for the day yes she really does let me tell you great job there great
cool uh there any other human resources questions on this budget 150 you want to stick around for help oh help is here right here oh look at that hey Mike how you doing how we doing
everybody good good welcome to the party it's riveting glad to be here yeah it's the best part of my day right here you can't top what uh what what would you like to tell us about the health budget okay so in my
budget um most of my staff was staying the same the only thing was we had an issue with a um it was part of the staff that got left out in the last budget um there was a couple people dealing in it i believe
they thought it was a grant position somehow it was left out of the budget but it was a green field position that was for part-time inspector um but we changed the part-time inspector position into an admin assistant position for part-time um the only little difference
there is going to be though the number is higher i believe it's 42,100 um since it is going to be part-time that is going to drop down to about 27,000 a year um so there will be some savings on that one um the higher number got put in I think we we were
hoping to get a full-time but we're going to we're going to do a parttime 27 yeah so we'll do a part-time admin instead so that will go down to about 27,000 um other than that the staff um will remain the same um just adding that
admin for part-time and then uh the only other changes that I made were our legal expenses went up 8,000 so now we're at uh 16,000 um pages and telephone stayed the same office supplies stayed the same
nursing medical supplies stayed the same uh clothing and uniform went up 500 uh because I'm hoping to have some more staff so they'll need more clothing and uniforms uh the meetings and seminars went up 1,500 uh that's also because I'm hoping to have a full complement of
staff so they'll also need to go to more seminars and meetings to get their CEUs up and then we went up $300 on the dues and memberships of mostly for the same reason if we have more staff uh there'll be more dues and memberships to pay uh
other than that those are pretty much the changes that we made for this year's budget right so so what was submitted and what I'm seeing here you were saying the 42100 position the clerical one is only going to be 27 grand so it will be
about $28 an hour okay so we're looking at like possibly reducing this this uh uh salaries and wages budget by 15,000 or so yeah it'll be about
14,436 I think I have okay is there any way before our May meeting where we actually have to do the the the tabulations on the paper that we do uh
when we go for the full budget is there a way could you send us what that adjustment would be because right now all we have is what's in the book which would have been 421 but if if there is a place to save you know some money and you know there's going to be savings it
would be you know behooving to all of us uh to know what that is and not have like a a roundish number but if you knew what that salary was going to be um we would know exactly what we could drop that budget um which would be off of the
to because we have to do it off the total 60s something million you know dollar amount and even though it's only going to be 15 grand or or roughly around there um it would be helpful to have that so we're not shortch changing you either on what you you expect
uh certainly I can uh I can work with Stephen and get you an exact number and get that out to you guys super that'd be awesome how's it going in general uh it's good uh we're busy um we're getting through our licensing season um so everybody
we're trying to get everyone on a renewal uh every January to get all the license and food permits renewed um so we've been working through that uh I have some stragglers but other than that it seems to be going good um we've been collecting a lot more fees this year so
I'm happy to say that we've pretty much doubled what we've taken in last year already to this date this year um so that's looking good uh and I'm hoping to get those in the inspector position and the admin position posted after the budget gets approved and hopefully I can
get staff in there um and then I'll have a full compliment to staff which will definitely be helpful and out of my ignorance I want to ask you um do the fees that you collect go into the general fund or do you guys have a revolving account that that goes
back into so most of our fees go into the general fund um the only revolving fees that we kind of keep are any kind of tobacco violations um they they go back into tobacco enforcement gotcha cool anybody else have any other questions
all right anything else cool well thanks for uh thanks for joining us and hanging on for as long as you had to no problem uh if you have eight so you're like in the middle of the the department yeah if you have any other questions feel free to reach out to me and I will get that change number
to you as soon as possible super thanks so much all right thank you all right Carol i know you're chomping at the bit over there oh my god come on join us now the party can start that's right 108 my god what's a different view
here so I guess if if I can I was doing some calculations which seems to be the bane of my existence should be count but um trying to calculate how much money has been saved
by the projects that we've done and it's I that I always say that's the only place I'm conservative because I don't want to overpromise things or whatever but we're over $5 million in savings since the energy department or since we started doing these types of projects a
lot of it's the solar farms and and the street lights were huge it's like two million of it but it's just uh something I think worth highlighting did you say it's like a 600% increase or No I'm just joking yes 604 what's it 604 yeah 604
those numbers stay with me i can't remember my phone number and so I I also have some other news i guess you know one of the things the mayor asked us to level fund I have to say wasn't easy but um it's level funded within $100 I think
which was kind of a surprise but um as you know we pay all the utility bills and so some of that is at the whims of mother nature and uh but we also are
continually working on different projects and things are changing that can increase or decrease but uh the one thing I do want to say you know these are always made and I challenge myself to get as close as possible so I did just do a checking in today and we're
doing pretty good overall there there are definitely some issues and I'm spending more time on on uh like I track all the energy but I don't operate the buildings so it's a uh has to be a collaborative effort and there's
different people involved depending on what what's going on but um I would say that's almost 100% of my time these days is just trying to get on top of things and get them back in to where they should be and um and I guess the other
thing I just want to say is if did I say that i don't think I did but but in checking through the the budget I was very excited to see that we're we're kind of on target with everything else there were no surprises which that's
always a good thing and um and the other thing I just want to say is I know the rates because I also um procure the energy but both of our contracts uh electricity and gas will be coming up at the beginning of
2026 and I just say that I don't need to gamble anymore because that's like nerve-wracking enough trying to predict and you know contract but um especially given the market right now is incredibly volatile so even our brokers are sort of like
So just going to do the best we can and again with electricity it's for the whole Greenfield Light and Power so there's a um not that it's not already high stakes but it's for the whole community so uh we always do the best we can
and and I guess I I don't know in the budget I'm seeing it just shows what I don't know you you can see what it was last year and if you have any questions I'll be as ready as I can one thing I'd love to see is completing
city vehicle fleet inventory oh good god so does that mean that that all vehicles in the city would come through you when they're talking about purchasing a vehicle that's already a policy okay and we just sent out a refresher on that because
there have been so many uh personnel changes but just to remind everyone and I'm I'm here as a resource but we also have a commitment to the state as a green community that we have to uh comply and they're not they don't play
so we have to make sure that anything we buy uh meets the minimum fuel efficiency requirement and now the next stage is to to start replacing which we've already started with zero emission vehicles which are in our case electric
we have two another one coming hopefully July i calculated the amount of savings based on the actual usage of that car that that'll be replaced with electric i wish I had that with me sorry it's been one of those days but the amount of money each year that we're going to save
just in fuel even though we're paying for the electricity or whatever it's it's it's dramatic and that's actual that's real numbers so those those kinds of things tend to play out and so hopefully we'll just continue
is there um I noticed there's a lot of um dashes with no information on on multiple buildings i don't know what like like Federal Street School has no electricity anymore or I I hate newness
sorry yeah no friendly man we all hate it every year I try to take things out that are no longer in existence so for instance the old fire station had oil the new fire station does not correct so that should be Yep that makes sense propane for the fire station which is
listed later again wood pellets i I've I can't tell you how many years I've been taking that out and every year it shows up in the budget book so not Well there's there's also like electricity at Federal Street at middle school at this building solar credits solar credits so
they're just offset completely and that's where we And that's where we put them i look or just Yeah yep so I keep on top of that okay it covers a same thing with the library
114 main 114 Main should definitely be out of there i mean we haven't been in there since what nobody's been in there nobody to clean it either it's nasty this place is a a shopping mall i love it yeah yeah yeah it's like I mean the
old library is still here so I I apolog I mean I I did my part and I just defaulted to whatever they call it a full list or something that's fine it I mean it happens every year and if this is the worst of this
budget book then that's not actually bad because we've had really shitty budget books sometimes it it underplays the fact that we have several accounts that could we should pay nothing on because the solar credits cover the whole bill sure
no that's that's that's positive news are there any other questions on energy budget from you folks just thank you very much i know you're taking a lot of incoming from hungry and all this stuff so thank you you're doing
Oh I appreciate it thank you what what yeah i've had unfortunately a lot of practice yeah yeah yeah sarcasm doesn't hurt thank you Carol i appreciate it all
right thank you but if if you do have any questions I'm just around the corner we'll find you all right uh council on aging 162 hi everyone hello there hi um thank you
for inviting me i um I greatly uh respect and admire your process and I know it's a tough year um I'm happy to answer any questions our budget is small as you can see uh the 2% increase
reflects contractual obligations um payraises for staff uh level funded for the um operating expenses and um I will say well I'm so proud of my staff because they do a great job um we all
cover for each other we're operating uh with with 2.8 eight FTEES um not that many years ago we had five FTEEs um and we are um our productivity
is really good i I I don't know how we do it but um we're doing all those jobs even though we lost a couple of of staff along the way um I welcome any questions uh I do like to if I could just take the
opportunity to talk a little bit about the department i know that ways and means understands what we do but I think folks may be watching at home um the senior center is in the organizational structure the council on aging is in the human services division so we're
alongside the health department veterans human rights disability access um and we approach our mission through that lens of human services so just to differentiate we're not a culture and recreation department and and that informs how we go about providing our
services there are over 5,000 residents age 60 plus in Greenfield and we're seeing and this will not surprise you um since the pandemic and it's been escalating um increases in economic concerns um related to housing food
security healthcare access and cost transportation um all of that relates to being able to safely age in place which if you are an older person or you know an older person we all want to stay at home we none of
us wants to go off and live in a facility um so that's sort of where we come in and we're helping people stay at home with those supports around the edges like our lunch program so you know we had 40 people in for lunch yesterday
and 30 something in today um a free meal uh we are about to launch our um our farm shares program it's 10 weeks of fresh pro produce at a dollar a week um and that does include eggs they get
fresh eggs in that which totally makes it worth it um last year we distributed $7,000 worth of farmers market coupons and so that's that helped the seniors but also that's money that goes directly
to our local farmers so um you know elder law consults bereavement support of course we do a lot of fun things too but the nuts and bolts of what we do are those supportive um services digital literacy has been a
big push for us in the last year and we are just launching a service to help people figure out their online social security portal there's a lot of buzz about that and we're addressing that need i think we're the first senior center to be doing that but I could be
wrong so um so that's sort of a thumbnail of what we've been up to at the senior center i think you already did but do you want to respond to the letter to the editor that was in the paper last week uh I actually didn't read it but some of
my seniors have talked to me about there was a question maybe about bingo and dances yeah they're just complaining they were complaining that there wasn't enough services enough services yeah w services at the actual physical building
okay um you know I think for the number of staff we have and the amount that we do provide I think we're doing okay but we always like to hear from our constituents and the best place for me and the best way for us to address that
is a phone call a sit down and have a dialogue uh and most of the programs that we have a lot of the peer-led programs came to be because someone came and said "Hey how come you don't have
this cribage canasta maong ramy cube um chiang class pilates um and we said hey that's a great idea let's see if we can make that happen as long as it's financially feasible."
Thank you thank you i did have a question do you know how many people applied for the uh senior tax work uh that changes every year but lately it's been between 50 and 80 that
apply and there is room for just 20 um so I I'm noticing that uh bring more on a financial thing because that's what we're here for um is the some portions of of your staff is
paid for with grants some of it says just other and I don't know what that means if it doesn't say exactly what the source is um but are you running into I see some is through CDBG which is Fed right i don't know what the COA formula
grant is if that's a federal thing are you are have you seen any changes or projecting any changes to uh with the with the feds right now for
the next you know year as far as anything that you've heard having to do with these right sure that's a great question so um the other is um is is a roundabout it's the block
grant so the block grant CDBG um was actually a partnership with Lifepath so Lifepath applied for the block grant um then we would that's for our food services coordinator who I don't know how he feeds all those people at only 12
hours a week but he does he has a lot of good volunteers um that money has been discontinued actually Life Path will not as far as I know will not be getting that block grant because that is really that Yeah so that could be a change um
we may been be able to finagle away because it is only 12 hours a week um to cover that um maybe through the state formula grant so that's the um the um formerly called Executive Office of
Elder Affairs they're called age now aging and independence um those funds we are optimistic that the FY26 will be pretty stable it's the FY27 I think that
we're all really worried about because it's a big question mark who knows and will the state have to make up some of the losses in the federal funds and then is that going to then spread across all the different areas whether it's our department or libraries
um schools what have you so what the other part that I'm mentioning is the the council engineing formula grants that that are a portion of uh your activity director and your fiscal office manager and then the part
that's not sourced that still says other is I believe part of your salary um are those do you know that those are are are going to be funded through the that is that is the state formula grant and um
so far as the state budget moves to the legislature that's line item 9110-9002 in the state budget and that looks to be funded uh level funded as as um as in the current year uh so that
looks okay perfect that's good news yeah fingers crossed good news and it's time good news yeah sweet anyone else have um any questions for home
all right well thank you for attending as always and uh we look forward to uh you know all of the uh all the services that you you help provide to the community and and keeping
that funding there um we're going to skip past community economic development it was already not until 8:00 at night see it's always it's it's nice to have fun at these really boring meetings at
8:00 no 71 page 71 um so even 71 is a boring number jokes i'm not feeling the love tonight um my
budget is pretty self-explanatory and straightforward but I will flag a couple of things um since you have was talking with Hope about grant funded positions you'll note that my staff um we have three of us whose salaries are paid
either all or in full through CDBG funding um one is paid 100% one is paid 50% and mine is paid uh 60/40 split 60% to the city uh 40% to CDBG we are feeling um very confident about that for
FY26 because it's uh there are federal funds that get paid from HUD to the state and that payment has already been made um as Hope said FY27 is um just the big question mark and I'm This feels like a
a unlikely program to be cut but I feel like every day something unlikely happens so um anything is possible uh another thing to flag for you just in this uh graph of salary and wages and expenses i think there was a typo because it makes it look like I
requested like $300,000 worth of expenses um Oh that I had them no we didn't um so I'm I just didn't want you to look at that and think I don't know i was doing something crazy um what I will say about my
expenses the the what the mayor and I sold on was 20,000 of that 20,000 the vast majority of it are um required fees that we pay so my department pays all of the the licensing and annual fees for the kiosk on the common we also pay it
for visit greenfield ma and we pay an annual um d fee for the lunt property which has somehow wound up as a line item i think planning and my department have sort of tag teamed um and so it's been in my department for a couple of
years so um I think we cut sort of all of the extraneous dollars but there are certain things that um are coming out of my department that were just uncutable um what sorry what the um kiosk what the
kiosk um it's we it's a small annual fee what I call the giant cell phone yes sorry the giant cell phone out there yeah um I I would have to get you the exact breakdown i have it in my budget but there is I believe an annual fee and then we set aside some dollars so that when things need need upgrading or they
break or whatever um there is a line item that's just for that kiosk similarly a line item just for visit greenfield ma yeah that's okay you'll be unsurprised to know Christian was the first one to catch it
um and I guess I would also just highlight that I have a wonderful team who brings in a lot of grant dollars um both to our department and to a lot of the departments across the city through CDBG funding and other um grants and I'm just proud of the work that they do so
happy to feel else were so easy after such a rocky start um the clerk I think she actually told me she was not going to present anything anyway 88 but it's
88 88 to 93 um I didn't particularly have anything coming out of this department um I know they got a couple hits um on some services
but it seemed uh no stamps for them this year you get stamps printing it yeah yeah they they they they got stamps galore this they can't print there's no
ink but I I know Kathy said she was going to come tonight uh if anybody has any questions I guess we could we could grill the mayor a little further if we want to put up enough with us she doesn't have to come
all right and uh we can move on to the inspections and hey Mark I see you up there how you doing you're still on mute 122 thank you i think you're still on mute
yes there we go how about now hey there you are hi how's everybody tonight well thank you um uh tonight uh talking about the department of inspections and
enforcement budget that is actually broken down into three parts uh the first part is the building inspections which is found on page 122 through 125 building portion is page
123 uh you can see there is an increase for salary and wages that increases to cover contractual agreements between the city and the union um the expense items you'll notice
there is a 43% reduction uh that came out of one one line item which was the legal services uh the mayor feels that uh if the building department needs legal services that uh
they can cover the attorney fees from other places than than that budget so there's a $3,000 reduction there um so the budget is pretty straightforward um do you have any questions on that
portion of the budget i do only on the expenses um I'm just looking back at like the four-year look back so to speak um even if I were to eliminate the $3,000 in legal from right now that would make it
you know $5,300 well she dropped $2,700 off there um overall only is 3,000 maybe it's just misprinted it's misprinted at the top okay a typo
yeah it's a typo at the top um but um I'm also looking at I I I'm seeing uh last year's budget had 8,300 um which would have been the same as this year's ask but why was that
a a $6,000 jump from 24 actuals 22 actuals 23 had somewhere in the middle there it was in like the $4,600 range but what do you have any idea about why there would be such
a a drastic uh influx in in the the expenses request to begin with uh I do not have that answer uh what I can say is is that it's difficult to budget uh for cases that we may have to
take to court for enforcement so it is difficult to uh budget for those right but that would be what I'm saying is that that would be taking legal out all together so if we were to drop three
grand off of I mean obviously 2024 and 2022 they were only $2,000 in actual expenses but even with dropping three grand off to $8,300 that would still be $5,300 is there is there a reason have the like I don't I don't know what your
your obligations are in here but have like the meetings and seminars gone up significantly or the uniforms or what what would have caused the what I'm saying is to eliminate three grand from the legal part from the conversation
um the ask still would have been $5,800 which is a significant it's it's more than twice what the actual expenses were in all three of the the the prior years but almost double what the actuals were
for 22 and 24 23 being a slightly higher year but um I just didn't know if you had like like what what changed in the rest of that um uh budgeting even if we took legal out of the the
question um I don't have that answer i can look into it further okay you can get back to you on that um it uh the expense line items have been pretty uh level funded for the last few
years we have you know we do have uh clothing allowment yep um meeting and seminars to continue our education for uh certifications yep
and then office supplies things of that nature just the the daily office uh materials that we need to operate um but that essentially that essentially the reason I'm asking is if I take those
three line items together that's $3,700 just on supplies uniforms and meetings and that's $3,700 without anything else but the actuals in 24 were
2,300 the actuals in 22 were 2,000 the actuals in 23 were a little bit higher they were 4,600 so that's why I meaning did did those things go because I'm not I don't have that part here um listed as to what the asks were the prior years so that's why I'm just wondering did those
things significantly go up as opposed to previous years because I would I would literally look at this and be like wow well we're at least going to need $3,700 straight away um and then when I'm seeing the actuals from 24 it's only $2,300 for the whole year so it's one of
those things where is it is it overbudgeted or is it because something changed I guess is the question well I don't believe it's over budgeted okay what I can do is I'll look into it and uh get you that information okay okay
cool cool any other questions about the building inspections portion of the budget if not then I'll go on to the second part which is weights and measures sure weights and measures uh that's
a contractual agreement between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the city for inspections of weights and measuring devices if there's no questions on that portion then I'll go to the third which is for
the Furcog uh there's contractual agreement between the city of Greenfield and the Furcog for electrical plumbing and gas inspections i I have a question regarding uh yeah you obviously do the building
inspecting inspecting in town the plumbing and electrical does the town get any of that income generated from the inspections or is it go for
for it's just them we don't get any of that for the electrical plumbing and gas we collect all the fees associated with those permits and the city keeps those
fees and it goes to the general fund okay so the inspectors So we try I So how does it work obvious we don't we don't supply those inspectors for top outs right
correct the they have to get paid those guys right or those people doing the the wiring plumbing and gas inspector the plumbing and gas inspector are the same same uh inspector uh those are county employees through
the county inspection program the city of Greenfield contracts with the county for their inspectors to perform the inspections for electrical plumbing and gas work right i get that but we collect the fees we
collect the fees we do all the data entry process the permits data entry and the inspectors do the inspections off the top of your head and you know I'm putting you real on the spot here
Mark but off the top of your head um we're you know we see 103 grand we pay to Furcog do the inspections for us do you roughly know what we generate in permitting fees or maybe I'll throw
Stephen on the the the line here on what we collect on on inspection fees like I mean is it a worthwhile investment I guess is what I'm I'm asking no it's a very good question uh I don't have that information with me right now but I can
get that uh information and get that to you as well great as well as yours but you you know surely it's I know that and you can so you can look on the computer correct me if I'm wrong
but so far they they've done a great job building inspection plumbing and electrical because we're actually working on sorting that all out financially they're up um they're like I think 100,000 more so far this year that's for the three i'm thinking those
are through the city but I don't know if we separate out Mark um the ones that we do with Hurac 29
oh great really yep holy crap never had this before that's why I was just asking oh cherry sheets look at that receipts all right where is it is this and that and that in but is that only inclusive of the building department or is that I
mean are we talking now board of health licenses it's everything right so it's it's not parsed out no it's not right so we're looking at roughly like a half a million is expected
building inspections health and right now i just looked today it was $429,000 what what we've generated so far but not that's that's not revenue that's what we've taken in but not what we've expended we've taken Right okay i can't
tell you the other part sure let's put it here but maybe not right that's why I'm like like are licenses and purposes that also include like dog dog licenses like No that's in a different category it is yep that's in That's under goes under the clerk that
closes to the general fund that's not under But this is under local receipts oh maybe it's under local receipts so local receipts that's what I mean like I mean I get it like I don't I don't really I guess I don't really I do know that much just for the building inspection just for building inspections
plumbing and electrical so far this year 429 which is up significantly from Okay cool no just good to know that we're you know if we're investing 100 100 grand into a county inspection program and
we're actually you know still benefiting from financially from having them there not just you know uh personally I guess you'd say again I can get you some figures and uh
get those to you to help you out yeah that' be cool i mean yeah if you have a moment sometime I'm sure you're very busy and working hard over there i know it's uh so it seems like a a silly ask in a way
but we all try to do our due diligence as we can right we'll get you those numbers sweet right thank you you're welcome while we're on this page I just have a Oh yeah curiosity question regarding Yep because
maybe I should know this but I don't um mar we don't get any revenue for mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar mar marijuana anymore we don't do that um that's a good question go ahead somebody else answer no I think we don't
so marijuana we don't do that um there's one part they used to have those little agreements with the what do they call those little HCA agreements I think with each municipal that's over right so we don't get
that I think that there's still and I don't know this could be wrong so I'm not sure about the answer to this I think there's still something where we were taxing the sales the actual sales over the amount that um you could that
didn't go away now where that goes like does that just go in like as tax and come in i haven't seen that separated out so I don't know that i'm actually watching that one myself but um that marijuana revenue that we used to be
getting from each one of those I forget what it was called what was that it was We had a little through like the through like the host agreement yes host i knew it was Yeah host agreement those they decided that really wasn't great they it wasn't quite kosher in the state and
they they they didn't want people to be doing those with the because they couldn't find the impact that that actually had on the community but you could tax a little bit over whatever the regular tax was for purchasing marijuana
what pot that goes into I don't actually know pun intended yeah and we can try to find out try to find out but but we all can we're collecting an extra tax
yeah i just I that those three um and you know we have all there's three things that we're watching to see exactly where it goes that will come from the state and you like you can't tell exactly where it comes from the meals tax the lodging tax and that one
it's like trying to there's sending it to try to try to have it come in and to post it to the right thing is a little tricky so but I'll try to find out i don't know i don't know who we are with that or what we got
we're going to hit assessors here anybody on on for them where's she at i don't see anybody once you're hidden you want to do accessories all right part of Randy will be played by Stephen
Half have any larger version of Randy i just sent an email out it's not Randy but it's not Chuck
yay in the assessors department yet again they've had a lot of flux but thank goodness Randy has stayed with us and done an amazing job um uh re-evaluating and and finding uh value
that uh we didn't know existed before so kudos to him uh the FTEEs have not changed in that office actually he just uh was able to hire a um a clerk uh to help out uh
so not a lot of changes in the budget except for the expenses um you can you see that uh property assessments went from 55 to 35 uh because he has a full slate of folks he won't need as much RRG
um contracted services in the future uh so you know he's he's done a fantastic job with that i was going to gripe on the amount their elected officials get uh stipens like higher than ours but I won't
I mean it's pretty this this is like maybe the easiest budget like literally across the board it's one of the easiest ones to look at be like "Yep the engine of the city." Yeah you get a $20,000 cut to generate more
revenue i don't really know how we say no think I'm next you next accounting oh you're not even listed on here they didn't they didn't they didn't even get it on the agenda actually say anything i
don't know i don't know if like by by open meeting law if I'm even allowed to entertain you talking about it because it's not on the agenda oh that I will Yeah we'll sit down uh John I know you've been here a while i know the public safety folks have been
here a while i'm going to ask if we can do like a five minute break to stretch our legs wait what what you want to hit pause on there can you hit pause on there can we hit pause on stand up recording
well all right welcome John hi how's everybody doing better than before um so just before we start just a little quick bookkeeping thing get I don't know why it's been the same since GET started
pays our retirement directly so when you look at our total expense number you need to add $175,470 last year you all did two orders for GET it doesn't really matter to us if you do them or combine them into one that That's your prerogative
but the proper way 204 to 206 and if you look down hold on at the bottom of 206 it says that the budget for GEID is
$2,215,000356 that doesn't include 175,470 for retirement so the full number is 2,390 826 and it's the way it's been
done it's been some years the council has voted separate orders some year they do it together it doesn't matter to us but if you want to do it separately the the number is 175 or 70 so 2,390 last
year was 2,326 it's about a 64,000 increase there's a lot that's sort of looped around for that the biggest issues we have are like everyone else in town retirement and healthcare
has gone up for us it's around $35,000 in total increase the other really big increase we have is if you go to OSP Group we are at I can't
$84,000 that's um a pretty big increase and it is because we have very old trucks and the maintenance cost to keep them on the road is getting to be heavy but uh a specialty truck like a splicer
truck set even used can run $130,000 so it makes sense for us to continue to work to repair them and keep them on the road uh at some point maybe next year maybe the year after that we're going to come and say this is a
bond issue for us because we have to like anybody else access capital for different things but at the moment for this upcoming year we are instead choosing to handle that out of operating funds um even at
2,390 you can see that um we are projecting to have a really good year um the total number up on top uh is uh what I would say is it's 2 million i'm jumping back and between the two 2
million 547350 i will say last month we took in um we had net invoices not the cash in net invoices of 204,822 that there's two things about
that that means we are now officially doing over a 100 times as much business per month as we were when I started and it also means our annualized from this going forward before any new business before any price increase before anything is
2,457864 so we already have the revenue to cover the 2,390 at 2 months before the year even starts we've had very few years where we've ever had it drop we've grown consistently since we've started since
I've been there seven years ago and we'll grow about 90 something,000 in this current fiscal year versus the previous and we're not projecting more than that even though if you were out on um the roads today uh
Berneston Road you would have seen a police detail and she said people out working on Berneston Road headed up north so make ready is a nightmare and I will never say anything different but we're How is it going up on I know it's not a
financial question up in the meadows the Meadows is actually the farthest I don't know if you remember we have to start at Seance Street which is the the house we have there so we're going to go up and then work our way over to the Meadows that we have put a bunch of strand which
is just wire essentially so we've done that work there too there still are a few holes that we have to figure out are we going to go through the make ready process or are we going to actually just drop down and and dig a conduit to to bypass them because the make ready
process is incredibly time consuming and expensive so e even however that works out we we have to go Berneston Road and work our way over to that area so we're going to go up Berneston then we're going to go out to Bon Road and we're
going to do um East Log Plane and I can't remember road West Log and I'm sorry I'm blanking on the others it's all good no no you're going But you're going to go the Barton Road route from 5 and 10 and then the Meadows now we're
going to start but the first thing we need to do is go to the what we call the local convergence point because that will drive a huge portion of the north we will then after we get that set up and the laterals pulled there then we
will go to uh and build out from Colin um and uh build up to the meadows and then up beyond the meadows up Green River Road up to Arnold Lane and that area too so how far do you go right now just out of curiosity i know it's a
little bit I'm giving a little bit of brevity here uh we currently go uh just beyond the route 2 interchange and we get up to like Stonley Burnham School and just How about on the western edge on the western edge we get out to the
road beyond um whole rain but we haven't gone pretty much GCC there pretty much yeah but we haven't gone north from there yeah um we also will go out east Log Plane Road but we've found a way to pay for that with a grant as well that
will connect over to like Lamp Black and Adams Road and then down Adams Road and down to the Greenfield Office Park and that same grant will actually get us out it will be a Stark it's not everything but it'll get us out um Wisdom Way and
down towards the uh we're set to connect up the uh recycling center the transfer station and we'll be able to pull off of that in addition to that we are um soon to start with the Weldon we found a way
to not do make ready work for the Weldon so we're going to start that soon and we've just met with MAPC which is who have been deputized from the Mass Broadband Institute and we are working on uh full coverage grant covered
programs for the Winslow for all of GHA which would be Morgan Allen House it would be the Winslow house it would be we already cover Elm Terrace right but we would be able to do f we would be
able to connect to every place on Elm Terrace there's digital equity money um that would allow them to have two years of free internet yes um and then we also have internet out at Oak Courts but we'd
also be be able to do everyone at Oak Courts too so between Oakarts Elm Terrace the Winsslow House and Morgan Allen added onto the Weldon we're capturing we've really been trying to work not just for low mod income but senior low mod income and that really
gets us a really good It's in total it's about it's almost 400 dwellings yeah apartments oh for sure i know GJ has like 300 on their own yes they do and if you add that to the 105 at the weld then you
get So um again financially for us we uh we're going to finish this year in the black put some money into retained earnings next year we have a chance to finish well into the black we need to do that we need to build up our retained earnings that's something we know we
need to do that's something we know that EO is interested in enterprise funds doing so we feel that operationally we're we're set for a good year part of that is because this year we have about $517,000 of primary debt service this is
the last year of a three-year stretch where there was a little bonding error in FY22 that led to us having to pay back the bonds in three years instead of the normal 15 that was that added about $120,000 a year of expense that goes
away so we are at uh 382,000 hold on i can tell you the exact number is 3822 yep so that's a a nice drop down we um that is what's left of the principal
and it should drop generally speaking by about 11 or 12,000 a year as we really get to the point where the original 5 million bonds and early bonding we did are getting paid off so we're at that point now where we've grown like I said to a point
204822 last month is actually higher than the first projected month of next year so we're getting to revenue goals a little faster um we there are quite a few people up north who we know want service so once we get service up and
running as we go we will pull laterals which means going from the main road pulling off into neighborhoods and we anticipate that we will have some really good new customs next year which would is not particularly reflected in this so
I think it's a pretty conservative budget and after years of work we paid this year we started a year early doing indirects we're paying indirects next year but we don't have indirects plus the elevated bonds that's really helpful
that was going to be my question was having to do the indirects i know this is a new addition to your budget um we pay it in fiscal 25 we're paying it this year yes exactly so it's a it's a well it's a new addition to me being like by me saying that for four years it was it
was something we knew was going to happen but the city was covering for a period of time right and we had talked about that previously so the and maybe Stephen maybe you can answer this better the 175470 he's talking about in retirement is that already reflected in
the retirement budget so it's not an addition to anything that they've already put in there perfect and I worked with the mayor last year I believe indirects were 143 and just everybody's in the same boat when you get a huge increase and that went up to
165,000 no I just wanted to make sure that like what we got what we got for numbers even though I know you're saying it's it's adding to what your number is on on on page 206 it's already been included into other one that's why I was That's why I
just want to confirm that that it wasn't going to be an addition to No the 2,398.6 includes both of the indirects that's also included in the 2,250 and 356 you just don't see the retirement
right because that goes the other we pay that directly so it shows up in retirement but it doesn't show up in the budget book i don't know why we pay it directly it just means is not the other two enterprise funds it just comes out of
their indirect so I did subtract it because I didn't want to charge the taxpayers for something that we were getting sure no and that makes sense i just want to make sure it was already covered before is and this is something where that's good we're comfortable whatever you guys think best way to do
it this is fine so great so it sounds like something Hanks got down i think everybody's working hard trying to work together and I think everybody wants we save Greenfield people a lot of money we save them we think about $1.2
million a year uh we have worked with the city and added a lot of BLS we haven't changed what we charge Greenfield for seven years because I think that's part of our mission eventually i'd like to see us work that down from where we are now but I I think
we've we're at a point where everybody knows people are working hard and on all sides so that's a good thing so in a few years you're going to be buying fire trucks right we actually want we have to right we
have to figure out how to uh address how it works sorry sorry i was just um so any other questions there's a few other things that have gone up and down we last year we had merchant account
fees which are what we charge uh for we we get charged for credit card fees last year we thought we could offset that as an expense but we've worked with the state and what we have to do is leave it as so that is bumped up a
little bit because now what we do to be in compliance with the the uh division of banks directives about how you can pass through fees we leave the fees in total and we reflect it it's up uh we have a line on it called processing fee
and we do that and that means when it happens the our third party can take out the process fees we don't see it geek gets none of that money it's a complete pass through of processing costs we did offer people an option to not pay any
processing fees by switching over to a electronic checks and hundreds of people have taken advantage of that we do talk to people regular ly about because we're trying to do everything we can to keep every portion of internet and internet
and TV as inexpensive as possible that's all I have any other questions if people have thank you very much thanks for hanging around have a good night folks all right fire's up
second guy public safety oh public right right never mind i'm going to need you to put on your real eyes before you ask me those questions uh before we get going uh uh I've asked
uh Deputy Macgyver uh who has taken the role as deputy chief as of Sunday this week uh to join us uh so he can be a familiar face to the council um I grew up next door to him i don't So I'm super thrilled to have him here
uh with me uh just a couple things uh there's a there's a couple things that may be a little bit confusing within the budget book that I want to just point out when we submitted our budget uh it is on page 116 and 117 for the part that we're talking about um when we submitted
the the budget book uh we do it in like December January we have to finalize it by that time so things change within that time frame one of them being is the deputy chief so if you look at the at our staff our staff is a chief of department a deputy chief an office
manager uh an administrative assistant to fire prevention and then uh it has um uh one two three four five six seven captains listed one of those captains is the deputy chief's job so it's six
captains so there are four shifts that work uh uh an average of 401 hours a week over an 8week schedule each shift has a captain each shift has a lieutenant so that so that deputy chief is one of the captains combined
right so you add that 25 correct to the 90 that's correct right okay so basically take the last captain and add the deputy chief's line and that's the deputy chief's line of if that makes sense and then uh the the um that
upgrade we are not replacing the captain um we will still have uh a captain in charge of fire prevention uh and then an administrative captain that uh basically is there's a bunch of stuff that he does including training and assists with fire
prevention and a lot of other other things um so that's our our command staff and then you'll the the list of firefighters there uh with two firefighters now coming out of the revolving account we are for the first time um
uh in a very long time at what we used to be 20 years ago um I will point out and I point out this every year uh when I do my budget presentation when I first got on the department 30 years ago now
uh u you know we were running an average of between 800 and a,000 calls a year we are on track for this year this year uh 2025 to be uh over 37 to 3,800 calls um
that's a dramatic shift and when I first started we had seven on a shift we still have seven on a shift and we're doing a tremendous amount more volume um you would think that it's the ambulance and you would be right in that
regards that the ambulance has seen a big uptick in in the amount of calls but we are still averaging um you know shy of 2,000 fire calls a year um that's everything from car accidents to what we call smells and bells those are your
your smoke detectors going off u uh to structure fires i'm chirping downstairs by the way to take a look at it uh so um so that's our that's our staffing um
now what is as important uh as the amount of firefighters and staff that we have is that because we are such a small department and we strive to have a fire truck available when you call it um our
overtime is is always comes into question and so um we were in in excess of $300,000 in overtime uh our budget this year uh reflects a decrease from last year's overtime which was a
decrease from the year before's overtime and so our goal as staff increases overtime does decrease however I really need to make this clear we were way over budget with our overtime the fact that we've been trying to come back in line
with overtime um uh we have reduced the amount of overtime considerable um based off of the numbers and then you add in the contractual increases every time you give a raise the overtime goes up so uh overtime is a challenge i have
a breakdown of overtime um I we track every penny we spend on overtime and the majority of of of stuff that we do is emermergency um related it's either covering shifts that are short or it's recall which
means pulling back firefighters if they get committed on a call if we're going to be committed for 15 or 20 minutes uh we recall firefighters to staff the firehouse if we go out of town we were staff firefighters um and then if we have a a larger event uh we we we bring
in more help so a structure fire for us could be anywhere from a an additional group recall uh uh to the whole department recall and I have it broken down uh and and I'm happy to share uh but basically uh you know our shift
bills uh we we did about a 702 hours worth of shift bills we were up in the thousands for that when when the staffing um we've seen an uptick in the last couple months because I have three firefighters that
are out injured um uh one of them that's been a long-term injury one of them that uh u lucky to be here with us uh uh he was involved in a uh structural collapse where the building fell on him uh he still hasn't returned back to work we're
hoping that that's going to change and then we have a health mental health related uh firefighter that's been out for a little bit so our overtime's crept up a little bit with that um to offset that we have hired two new firefighters they're in the training process they're going to the academy uh and when the
summer's over hopefully we have just about everybody up to speed in in our in our shifts staff yes um I had asked you this and I don't see it in here maybe I Okay look um
receipts or trips ambulance yeah i sent it to the clerk's office okay uh maybe I got I didn't see it it was a while ago do you know copy ahead what you brought in uh so our ambulance receipts not what's in
the account but our receipts has been averaging somewhere around 325 to 350 some years it's been more some years it's been less um we were really conservative about that revolving account uh I um because we knew that
that there's there's challenges with predicting emergency calls and so I didn't want to build out an account where we we put have a lot of things um that that are charged to that and we don't meet the revenue to support that
and so we we've kept that um we've kept that uh pretty well in check i will tell you that we are spending more than we're bringing in uh more than we're bringing in now uh with the budget that we're going to uh
which means that that's going to deplete over over a year or two we've taken $300,000 out of that for the the fire apparatus i'm happy to report I'll change the subject real quick on that the I'm happy to report that the fire truck came in at 1.83 83 which means the
savings is going back to the city to for the city the mayor has a bunch of projects she wants to get done uh that may help out with a project in addition to that the sale of the ladder truck is going to go the the funding for that is going back to the city um so there is
some positives uh with that as well but to go back to the ambulance revenue account uh we are taking two firefighters out of that position when you take the firefighters out of that position you take the whole firefighters out of that which means you're paying their holidays you're paying their uh
fringe benefits you're paying you're paying everything with that um we have some accounting stuff that we're working on uh for this fiscal year uh you you if you look at it we really haven't touched that account um we're going to do that at the end of
the year because one of the things that we didn't do is when you when the contract was signed we didn't come for a financial order asking for that increase into our budget and um uh the mayor wanted to do it uh rightfully so right
away to show it i asked if we could wait because uh in my opinion I I just I didn't want to go back and ask city council for two transfers if we were short another way uh and she reluctantly
uh agreed to that but she wanted to have it seen right away that that that account is being used and it is is being used appropriate as it was budgeted for um so uh I will follow up and get the uh
another up to date for you um we get we get it monthly but Yep yep and and the private ambulance services charge substantially more than you guys do
um that could be true yes so we have no control over what what they charge well my point is is why don't you guys charge more so that's a great question that's a very lengthy conversation that I'll try to narrow in two seconds
uh the you have to understand the difference with service well this is a great question because people have have it all the time the primary ambulance service is what we call an ALS service they are paramedic service which means that they can issue medication they can do things like uh a
doctor or a nurse can do out in the field we provide a basic level uh and you'll notice when we get to talking with that we call in a lot of intercepts that is ALS support for us so it's a usually an out of town ambulance that comes in and
assists us uh and and they charge us a fee and we charge for the overall fee but their fees long story short their fees are what they charge they're a private ambulance company we have a zerobased contract with them which means that we don't subsidize them at all
um what we do do is for us to be able to have that zerobased contract the workload is shared with the fire department and the fire department does collect revenues and pays for the ambulance most of the ambulance portion of it obviously not salaries but it does
help with the salary line items so hope I answered that we just looked for interrupting but so far this year Stephen look at the revenue thus far this year is $335,800
is that from January for the fiscal year so we're going to be a little bit higher this year but year uh which goes back to what I said at the beginning our call volume is everly increasing and so you know and
one of the positives if you will is that you do see an increase in revenue when the ambulance is more active um uh if we were to take that over full-time we would have to talk about staffing increasing staffing and there's just not enough budget capital right now to be
able to even talk about doing that level of service for us but it's definitely something we've run the numbers and it just doesn't work out right right now is is some of the overtime pay a judgment call whereas you think you're gonna be over in terms for two hours and it turns
out you're only there for a half an hour or something like that or so does it happen a lot it does happen does it happen a lot it doesn't so yes it is a judgment call um for example
uh last week we had multiple fires on the railroad track um and so I got on the air and I pulled the hook and I had the whole department come back uh and we used everybody and we used mutual aid um but it was it was the guys were so quick
they got it over so you know it it's a little bit yes simple answer it's it's a judgment call we're really good about predicting what we need for resources um the mutual aid part of it we are talking with our uh uh some of our neighbors
about automatic aid uh and we couldn't support from an overtime standpoint going out of service every time if we're going so we're talking about different different options with that um but but yes sometimes it's a judgment call my f
my captains are very cognizant about the budget and uh but at the end of the day they have my authority to say hey we're we can't leave this emergency right that means the city's uncovered right and so
um you know people talk sometimes about call fire departments and why don't we use call and and and the reality is is what's acceptable time limit to get an emergency apparatus an ambulance or a fire truck to your house Right because that's what it comes down to so if we
don't recall people during an emergency like and we wait for the next emergency right well take me I live on Berneston Road how long is it going to take me to go from Burner Road to the firehouse grab a fire truck and then go to the next emergency i don't think the
citizens in the in the city expect that kind of response because that's about a half hour plus response at that point so they expect when they call 911 an ambulance or a firetruck or a police officer is going to show up when they call they don't like when they're pretty
good at that late what's that they don't even like when the pizza gets delivered that late i haven't scrutinized the contract because it's just you know prints too small do you guys what you have when you call somebody in is there a minimum three
three hours yep but again we we are we're very cognizant about we have different levels of what that recall looks looks like right so if our ambulance goes to Springfield on a patient transport we call two people in
to staff that ambulance if if they're down staff right if they have if they have seven people working those two two firefighters go to Springfield we don't call anybody it all depends on how many people are working and what we do is we maintain an engine company of three and
a second piece ambulance of two um and so if they're committed for like a a motor vehicle accident where they're extricating somebody from a car they can't leave that and they're not going to be able to leave that for 20 minutes or so the officer may initiate an engine
recall which is three firefighters back to staff the next engine so I it it it it's complicated uh but it's been fine-tuned over the years when I first got on the department if we went across this certain line in town which
was Silver Street in North you would automatically go committed and they would recall firefighters back if I did that today it'd be close to $500,000 in overtime which is that just doesn't make sense so what we do is we we know we
have call back when we know that we're going to need it right instead of waiting to say you know there's a report of a fire in a building we're getting multiple calls on that we don't wait to have people come back sure because when you show up with three guys on a fire
there's not much they can do by themselves um so that's why they need that's why we depend heavily on call back and our call back isn't really So our mutual aid we spent 279 hours of overtime uh in a in in a
half a year um our call back our regular call back outside of what we call a box alarm um is about 300 so it's about 600 hours of overtime a year for our regular call back to make sure that that firehouse is
staffed and that's really our goal is to make sure that when you call 911 you have a fire truck or you have an ambulance that's going to be headed your way right away so it's a model that we've we've strived since I've been there it's something that I I I I
continue to this day what would be the um only because these are very like generic terms um but and I'm sure that they I'm going to hear the contractually obligated I'm sure answer but uh there's a line item here for
incentive pay what is that incentive so we have education incentive education incentive yep that's primarily what that incentive pay is for okay so we pay firefighters um similar to um
the our our brothers up on High Street uh if they have higher education there's an incentive for that great okay no that makes sense it's just when you get it's like a blanket term so I'm like what is that incentive yeah no no great
any questions on that oh I will show out uh that our expenditures we did have a major line item uh moved to another uh revolving account uh for this year um um the
the it's uh being charged to our firerevention account um that is for this year and next year it's going to have to we're going to have to figure out a way to get it back in the budget because I don't I don't project that that account will be able to support it for
You talking about $80,000 it's Yeah so the the the computer program that we do and it's all-encompassing it's one computer program it It's $42,000 for everything um that's being uh uh um taken out of one of the revolving
accounts this year uh which um uh I support the mayor on on on that move uh um we had to make some changes uh was um um you know a necessary move that we had to make so but next year it's it's we're
going to we're going to have to be aware of that so other than that any questions on the overall operating budget on that does anybody have anything else on like we got the
ambulance and the fire and the enterprise fund it's separate but yeah so we have two accounts the fire prevention account um uh that's listed there that's where that 41 uh 41,000 has been transferred over
that's why it's at 86,000 this year uh our revenues for I believe it was last calendar year was 40 yes sorry about that 61 uh revenues um according to our records
uh that we brought in for that account was 46,000 last year uh we're going to be spending 86,000 i think there's 90,000 in there right now um so um um and then the ambulance revenue
account we've uh we've talked about that we uh we've increased that to almost 400,000 um so we're going to be you know spending about equal to what we're we're taking in for that and we're we are going to have to
go back to that account at the end of this fiscal year um because we are going to have some overages within the department because of the contract but we're trying to make that very very minimal as possible
right now we're I mean budgeting even right but you're saying there's right now about 90,000 in the account before this next budget year is that what you just said i believe there's 90 90,000 in
it,000 from software 5,000 that's not listed in here it is it is so the total budget that we're going to be using out of that is 86,000 86 right using out of that is a revolving
account,000 but it was a way to offset I'm not this so this is I'm seeing 61 and I'm seeing like the funding source of 393 grand uh the top of
61580 for fire oh fire prevention okay sorry I was I jumped out ambulance it's okay That makes that makes a lot more sense to me now so the third I'll just get to tell you real quick the line items with that the overtime self-explanatory there
are uh every time there's an event in town uh and they're all on the weekends every food truck every event needs to have an inspection um so uh that's primarily what that that overtime is used for contractual services is a
computer program that we talked about uh supplies are self-evident and then the uh fire department vehicles are leases currently there's two leases uh for the smaller vehicles uh that this account uh for the last 15 years have paid for all
the smaller vehicles all the administrative vehicles that that we have within the department yeah someone asked that question about last year so leing is cheaper than buying depends on when you do it when we did it yes if you were to do it now I don't
believe that that's going to be the case so the you know as interest rates fluctuate or whatever and that's why when we you know when we talked about the truck u and and the mayor was adamant uh about purchasing the truck versus leasing it just didn't make any
sense the interest rates were were too high and and the cost would have been too much so um we we've been able to like I said been creative and and and and save some money off of that purchase but
yeah then the last one is uh 1585 you'll see that there's two firefighters that come out of that um there's uh training overtime uh so every firefighter that's in which they're all EMTs except for one um they
all have to maintain their certification the certification's a minimum of 20 hours per person uh a year for training uh that's where that uh training comes from uh overtime we talked about the overtime if if uh that's primarily when
the ambulance gets committed for a long period of time such as they're taking a patient to Springfield or they're taking a patient uh to uh um North Northampton or if we go mutually uh with our ambulance which we
go uh we go you know probably 40 times a year out of town these are fire related fire or car accident what's that that's it's related to a car accident or a fire if you're transporting someone you're not just transporting someone because
they asked for a ride no so uh I want to make it clear for the gut public no so it's an emergency call right if you are um what we call a STEMI or a heart attack or whatever you may back past Franklin and go right to the appropriate care facility which is
Springfield if it's a trauma call you're going to the trauma center you're not you're not even going to Franklin right uh that it doesn't happen that much but it does happen and then um based off of medical need patients have requested to go to Northampton versus Franklin
there's a whole process that they need approval it gets complicated but that does happen yeah so you were saying the training portion I'm seeing like on the second on 62 there's an EMS training there line and
then there's the training overtime on the first page is that what is the differentiation between those two um yep hold on one second ems training the the overtime is the
overtime the training is we have a thirdparty vendor that provides the training and and data collection like a contracted service correct okay specifically for training gotcha so um happy to answer any other
questions on that uh the last thing I'll end with is uh mutual aid is always a discussion so we always try to prepare to have that um because we do do a lot of mutual aid so uh our mutual aid uh out of town for fires uh was 48 times
means that we assisted anybody from Bradboro Vermont to anybody in Franklin County for for mutual aid we did it 40 48 times we received mutual aid 45 times here's the here's the caveat that we've added when it's a fire and we have
something Uh like the fire we had I'll take the last fire we had on School Street that went to a second alarm when we go to a second alarm that's two different alarm levels that's a first alarm and a second alarm combined together that's 14 mutual aid companies that are moving throughout
the county when we have a second alarm so it may sound like we give a lot of mutual aid out we receive a lot more in because we take a piece by piece right we're sending one piece out of town we don't send multiple pieces when we have a fire and we're moving 14 companies
throughout Franklin County and the surrounding areas we get a lot more in than we give out so for example with that Turner Falls comes and assists us with a fire we're taking an engine company and back filling falls and it just you know it
just it's a it's a very complex system but it it works well to get the resources that you need up is that computerized i mean is there a formula how does that work i mean we have alarm cards uh that we update regularly it's kept at Shelurn control they are the mutual aid coordination center and all
we have to do is call our dispatch and say you know transmit the second alarm for uh structural and they have the list of who we predetermined of what we what we have uh coming in now the last fire we had we went to a second alarm before
my second alarm assignment was there is when the when the structural collapse happened and injured a couple of firefighters so we were scrambling a little bit because uh our our our mutual aid components weren't weren't in place yet but um uh and that fire uh it sounds
like a lot of resources were there but everybody worked um on a cold Sunday morning at 5:30 or 6 wherever it was yeah yeah it's a it's a lesson uh for us in the fire service that
um things go bad quick and uh you know we're hoping that our firefighter will make a speedy recovery and come back soon don't I have other questions i don't know any others either with our budget going next year just so you know
I've already been in talks uh and we are going to be going through the process again of looking at what we can do to eliminate some of the overtime it's going to be really tight next year for the overtime as it is every year and we are looking at possibly making some
adjustments i don't know where I because any adjustment we make with overtime at the end of the day comes down to coverage of the city thank you thank you last but certainly not least for hanging out guys at least you
guys are warmed up now yeah i mean you got first last year so yeah these are just the list of things we have accomplished in the last year and what we hope to accomplish in the coming year i didn't need to read it over you
guys can read back on that we got a We got another week to We're on page 112 yes sir yes we are um in referencing some of the earlier conversation you'll look at the budget and you'll see that it absolutely looks like I swung for the
fences on this um what you see though is actually I had put a request for three cruisers in the budget request that's the biggest increase that was ultimately removed and went through capital so that
was the biggest thing we did add i added or at least hoped to add in several areas of expenses um simply because over the past several years we had been cut quite a bit in a lot of different areas so trying to
rebuild some of those funding sources for um training equipment things of that nature but you know and again the mayor and I talked I'm not opposed to any part of this i think in terms of expenses for next year it's definitely going to be tight but I
think everybody's doing their part and we usually do our part as well um a a concern I have and the mayor's aware of it now is if you look at the expenses you guys can direct me as you will but I'm jumping down to expenses the vehicle
repairs and maintenance line which is the first one I put in for $32,000 the reason why I put that in there is I don't have the ability to change the titles so vehicle repair and maintenance is says vehicle repair and maintenance but it actually includes in
it the substation rent so what happened now was the substation rent being about $12,000 leaves us about $6,000 left of cruiser maintenance which I believe we're over budget on already at the $20,000 for this year because we have super old cars
that we're trying to replace i don't anticipate our maintenance is going to get much better next year because the cars continue to age we will have five new of a 12 marked unit fleet there's still seven well over five years old they'll be moving into six years old
they're better um we're we're battling it but we're getting there i do believe our crews are taking much better care of the cars they understand where we are um we make sure they're cleaned and maintained regularly um but they're m they're machines and we're going to have
to keep up with that machine so um I I think we know we have a plan we'll figure that out um but that was one I want to point out in particular because that's we're it highly likely we're going to go over on that one only because it combines the uh
substation and a cruiser man so in in terms of salaries at the top not to jump you all over the place but the salaries are are really just contraction bit of that is a contractual number so
um and I believe one of them and I HR reached out today the court administrator is actually a little low for what he'll be getting next year so that's going to have to be a slight adjustment i don't know wasn't there a third um wasn't there a third uh
patrol uh person with the the cops grant or has that just not been filmed that only seen two on there it's two two WTE on the bottom so when you see patrol step three with grant there's two yep that takes into account both Porsches
that's about all we have left on that grant you're going to see this year it's over okay and in fact I think after putting in for next the next quarter that's about all we're going to have left oh yeah it's going to be about it for 26 so we'll exhaust that in FY26
one of those one of those is covered as step seven with the grant they don't really care about the steps i take it from their overall salary gotcha it's just the balance of what you're seeing there gotcha and again they are so one of them Officer Baron who's
covered by the grant we hired him he was a 10-year officer from Ammer PD so we start him commensurate with his experience he started at step seven right so So we So we paid him and then the other 40 grand was from the grant that's right to supplement yep yep and
we've done that for the last two plus fiscal years we've gotten about 90,000 per fiscal year towards officers salaries but again um that will run out in the next fiscal year i I'm not sure i haven't seen it
reposted yet but we'll be definitely energetically looking for that the the crew right now is you know they've been put on notice with with deputy chief as well is we're going to be looking for grants to offset our expenses we've done a pretty good job finding
money like that um I had written a lot of grants in the past a lot of the speed signs and things of that nature that you see around town in the trailers are grants that I had written previously we just got two more of those speed signs delivered today um the deputy chief took over doing grants and he's got some of those um so we're going to continue to
keep working on traffic enforcement stuff uh and and those signs work well i think it works better and I get yelled at all the time is the the cars that we put out in the middle of the road i think it works i'm gonna hit that with
a slow down it works it works magically and this city pays nothing for that enforcement so it's great yeah um so again expenses are are down but I think everybody's expenses are down like I said um Carol talked a little bit um we
did order we started the conversation today about three new cars that we appreciate this crew approving for capital um one of them will be a an electric vehicle so that's going to be a patrol car it'll be a patrol truck truck it's going to be the Ford yep yep yep we
already talked about that mhq doesn't have it in stock uh but what we what we heard from them was only going to be about a month longer than a normal car i believe they do have some hybrids still in place i'm not sure um they're not really recommending them at this point
there's been a really heavy increase in maintenance required on these hybrids i think they put the cart before the horse a little bit on the hybrids um particularly when you're talking about upfitting all the police accessories into them i think that's where we really run into the problems is it really burdens the system so um in fact the
last two we got were were straight gas cars that was my fear when I was bringing this up at the last council meeting is I'm happy to hear that one of the three that we're going to purchase is going to be you know electric vehicle however that is something we ran into
not only in this industry in a lot of industries is you know putting the car before the horse like we we we want it to work and you know so when I said there really isn't the technology there and you know it was alluded to that like
well Stampton has one i'm like yeah but E has one like if we have one car and we try it out great has one i don't want to I don't want to put our three purchases of new cruisers all into a hope like okay we do one out of three that's that
sounds reasonable to me and if it if it ends up we find out great that works out we go to purchase ones in the next year or two years uh to replace our fleet and it and it actually is functional but we ran into that with hybrid cars there we've run into it in so many other
um so many other parts of like business and parts of the world where our aspirations are are bigger than what we can actually attain and I'll say this for anyone listening out there who thinks they're going to bring the goddamn gas
blower ban up that ain't happening it's not going to happen it just doesn't exist for for that exact reason is is I I like this method of trying out with one of the three purchases that we have but if we all of a sudden invest a bunch of money and getting three electric
cruisers and we find out they're now we have three shitty cruisers for the next $300,000 and again so when I was approached on this I've never been contrary to what many have said now and there's many on both sides of this issue
the vast majority will come to me and say it'll never work i can't I'm not going to say that right i I won't say that and and some say it's the only way it's the And I'm not going to say that either what I need to do and Carol and I worked very well together on this was give me one
give me one we will put it through the paces legitimately like we're putting through any other patrol car and we're going to report back to you this one's going to be a truck a pickup truck pickup truck but it'll be used exactly like any other car right it's on an F-150 frame but it's an SUV it's it's
it's what it is so what we're going to do is we're going to hopefully create in the midst of this without any other people we're going to designate a person per shift to basically own this truck as a road safety unit and and if there's been a lot of incidents over the years
that we've been on that people although they think they want to see they shouldn't see and so we've spent a little bit of money again on grants where I bought through grants what we call our scene our scene um screens i
see right we can put these up around major traumatic accidents or we had a person pass away in his car on the side of Federal Street we don't want people driving by and people don't want to see that i can assure you so the individuals assigned to this truck the road safety truck will be responsible to bring that
stuff to these scenes when we have a micro burst that shuts down 40 streets in Greenfield this will be loaded with police tape stansions you know folding road clothes stuff all the stuff required flares the whole gamut they'll
be the first to go they'll they'll set this up now we do have DPW the conversations have happened in the past but they usually like like the fire chief said "Call a firefighter." Well it's even slower for DPW and that's not a criticism they're home watching TV and they're called they have to come in get
to the DPW grab their truck put the stuff in the truck as they empty their trucks at the end of shift we're already out there rolling so in safety in scene safety this truck and the the the individuals in the truck will be spreading out the safety stuff to to secure the scenes of these things so we have a plan for the truck and at the end
of this I want to give an accurate report a straight accurate report as to whether or not electric vehicle actually works for police departments i want to see it in the heat i want to see it in the cold and it's going to be deployed just like every other car um Carol's working with us she's hopefully going to secure some funding to put a twoplay
charger at the PD uh we'll do that on High Street side so that we're not trenching across the driveway to put a charger in our sal it doesn't make any sense we'll park this right along the high street side of the yard and they'll have two places for it so it'll start
our array maybe and if this vehicle works we already have a second that we can do if we acquire enough so um we're doing everything in in my opinion we're doing everything to try to make this police department match the city uh I
take I've taken the entire last year we've reflected upon things that we've done um one of the very first things I did was not replacing myself as the lieutenant i dropped that position we had three lieutenants i dropped that position i said I want to put that on
the bottom out on the ground out on the road so that's where we started because what we wanted to create was that downtown business district person we wanted to create and expand on our community impact unit stuff and that's what we've done and and again some of
the expenses that I requested in here was to augment those operations right so um I'll give you one example was um this one that's down it's it's under uh prisoner meals so I had asked for $2,500
in prisoner meals that again I can't change the titles of them um but what I was what that was actually for was for the CIU the community impact unit um now Lieutenant Batinsky set up a lot of initiatives throughout the course of last year that got us really involved
with um the unhoused um children all over the place we did trunk or treat and I ended up sending one of the lieutenants with my debit card to BJ's to buy more candy because it was bigger hit than we ever anticipated it was going to be and I certainly didn't want
to run out of candy right so we're doing all kinds of things like that so I put that in there but I understand again we're all doing our part that was cut down to 500 we're not going to hit the taxpayers with that if we could help it but um a lot of the requests were quite simply because we're trying to expand on
those services i was kind of hoping to to pull on more civilians as the civilian liaison thing that we could have maybe pulled from some of those um areas there that would have been people sitting in the substation or walking around with our downtown business district individuals that we have
working um so again it was very responsibly reviewed and cut and this is where we're at i did like I said I did shoot for the fences and you know we ended up where we ended up we'll get through it sure we can get
through it with this but expenses will be paid okay every department it's happened to every department mhm have a question there's a pretty big cut in the schooling tuition if you could
talk about that from 25,000 to 10 um I know what the mayor did on most of these things she's going to look at where we're at right now on our current budget year with respect to those items um and again I don't have the actual wording of
what's in there i'm hoping that means schooling and tuition um my assumption was everything keeps getting more and more expensive but we likely didn't we didn't spend to that extent this year so she cut again it's that's
fine we we can we do pursue as much as we can the online training that we get so we have to do uh each officer must do at least 40 hours of inservice training a year and then on top of that they have
to do the firearm CPR defensive tactics so we got quite a bit of training that we do i'm a proponent of getting out of the building to do it um there's a lot to be said about um
being present in other venues with other police professionals uh the problem with that is if you do it that way that cost so you're driving there um they have to pay for the venues you're paying for the classes um the alternative is sitting
behind your computer and watching those 48 16 hour online drag on classes i don't I I personally don't think most get most out of it particularly if you can imagine yourself as a patrol officer
they're shooting back and forth in between calls so they'll have this video on they'll pause it they'll run out on a call by the time they get back and shut them down so they have to log back in and restart the entire So again my plan was to try to spend a little bit more money on good
training and get these individuals out of the building but um we'll do what we have to do we're going to live we're going to make it so I actually have good news really you want to share that one you want to leave with that well two good
things so the the MPTC Mass Police Training Commission increased the rate for an academy um they doubled it they doubled the rate right so we budget
for that if you see academy training 32,000 um that was for the way it works you've seen that we offer that sign on bonus that worked good for about five minutes so we already can't get anybody else um but the academy tuition went after these
numbers were written down doubled well the delegation went to work and managed to offset it it went back to what they were charging us so we're safe there um the only other concern we have is co-response uh for any of you up to
speed on the co-response program co-response is really a jail diversion program but it's more than that it's actually a hospital diversion and a jail diversion it's really um it it combines civilian um crisis technicians with
police officers and right now we live that program off grant money $300,000 a year total 200 to CSO 100 to us um what we're able to do with that money is buy all the gear and equipment we need um the deputy chief buys a lot of those
little knickknacks we give young people the little squeezy hats and all that kind of stuff what that we also do at the truck or treat that grant pays for a lot of those things as long as you have a little thing on it that says full response on it so we put everything in our world says co-response so the grant
pays for it um but they're threatening a massive cut that's too bad massive cut to the tune of 18 right now it's 18 million and they're going on to 2.8 million I think wow the state so the delegation is working hard on that one
we'll know in the next uh few months i think we would continue to do this program uh I think cso would continue to do what we're doing like you know come on up anytime and take a look we have an office dedicated to our corresponders they have their own room they mix with
us and and if anybody knows how our culture was historically you don't let anybody in the door and and they are part of us they are in fact a part of our agency uh in fact officers on a regular basis are calling for them so
this is not something we need we should go backwards on no I really not agree and we should add to it i think CSO would continue to keep it going and we'd certainly be able to do that i think so not all is lost if the grant funding is
gone we just probably wouldn't be able to do as many shifts with them as we're able to do right now because that's overtime stuff that people so any question i was just thinking about last year when we were sitting here green green
no he's green he's green a few incidents have happened in the community in the last few weeks and it just shows how far and it's mostly because of you guys you know so thank you very much just the culture is different the attitude is different you don't hear as much
negativity to still those who can't help themselves but in general it's a more positive you know hopeful growing uh atmosphere for the city because of the concussion i appreciate I appreciate all those who care and who have reached out i
appreciate the contact we really are we really are trying to do the right thing there's no I said it day one and taking this position i have no ulterior motives i don't the city spends a lot of money on a police department and as a result of that they deserve a police department
that does what they need it to do um I don't believe we're wasting money uh we're doing everything in our power to save money one example was the dispatch center you know as we're out there smiling and waving and hanging out with people and doing our walks on Main Street we actually went to work and that
you can notice I don't leave anything alone i'm beat up on everything I do but I look like that when we were tearing the dispatch center apart too so uh we we brought our tools in we went to work on it um when when things happen that you're sort of suggested it's hard i'm a
human i take things personal and I know he takes them more personal than me we'll be in a funk for a week that I got to rub his head but I bring him back it's hard i got I got I don't know
if everybody here I have seen that dispatch center and it's looks like freaking Star Trek in there anybody please come up and take we're very proud of that we're slowly trying to make the rest of the department look at least something similar to that it's not a
quick process but we're definitely proud of the dispenser does look good so what on that on that note um I know you're you were you were around uh during the let's just say the uh capital needs
request of you know three years ago or whatever that had like a a five phase plan or or whatever it was um and so we we funded part of that to begin with uh
amid amidst contention um the second year we had asked for an update and nothing had even been spent and so it was essentially like well if you're not doing anything with this we're not going to approve you for any more money um and then we that kind of
obviously got lost with the last uh uh gentleman who was in your position uh what as far as that assessment that was made by those architects going forward do you do you
foresee or what do you foresee of those needs that were at the time being uh realistically put forward like next year the year after or whatever or or are we just going to do like a a a full revamp of the capital
needs assessment i think as far as the grounds the physical grounds are concerned it's probably going to we're going to have to revisit it i think um what I can say in all fairness that was not the past chief's it wasn't his fault it was not
his fault um engineering the actual firm dragged us out over two years right so what happened was he had a very good plan of how we were going to proceed we were I I was put in charge of trying to coordinate all that stuff and I got to
the point of having screaming matches like come on right i get that you have these other big projects going on but we're also in that position where we need these things done or we're going to lose our opportunity to do that right um and then of course things just got worse meaning we finally got the engineers to drop the plans and then no one would
build it so we just kept getting hit from every direction we we could go in what I can tell you is this it that was not his i know he took a lot of public beating for that and in all fairness I will say it was definitely not Rob Hay delaying that project okay um it was
100% the engineers not putting it us on the top of their list at all right um so what we did is we did do the drainage there the detectives offices which are the the basically all the offices that are along the bank in the back of the PD had water infiltration in there so we
had to do a water infiltration mitigation so they ran um drainage around the back of that that didn't go without issue so they pulled up the entire generator wire and that caused about $25,000 worth of additional fund for us so but it got done that part got
done what we really need I said what we really really need is that sally port that's off the back of our building it's so far out of it's horrible it's out the door just fell off the other day like it literally just fell the person door fell
out into the it's gone um central maintenance came up and put a new door on but it shouldn't have got put there in the first place it's a metal building on asphalt you're not supposed to do that it's it's it's in violation of code birds fly in and out of it all the time even if the doors are closed because
it's not really sealed to the building um it's not it's not really as safe um snow when the winter comes firing off the side of that um I've been trying to get a um a cover over the entrance way but some officer is going to get taken
out some year i just crossed my fingers every year that they they haven't yet because on metal roofs if you're aware they come down in a blanket yeah corrugated metal they're coming down in a blanket when they want when that snow comes it comes all together and it's a tons of snow so uh but these are things
we're going to have to talk about what we are doing was we're going to take that money and kind of continue on the report station area so the report station area and I welcome any of you to come up and hang out um he's been up quite a few he knows where we're at right now and he knows what our building
is all about we haven't touched the vast majority of this building in over a quarter century working on 30 years so Chris and I were in the academy when we did the transfer to this new building and look how old he is
and he was a young B just keep taking it from he'll get it back yeah we're at we're at like 30 years and we're working with the same countertops the same report stations the and they're all the edging on them are peeling off and so we have a plan again we took it we didn't
go to an engineering firm we drafted this up oursel on graph paper and we have a plan to enhance and sort of to add a little bit of pride for for the officers redoing their reports they should and we're going to try to mirror
a little bit of what we did in dispatch in terms of the aesthetics there uh it's not going to be as cutting edge but it'll be fresh um so we're going to take we're hoping to use a little bit of money from that capital to do that not a lot um and we're also now looking at
part of the original capital was redoing the lockers that was a much bigger process there's a couple million dollar capital requests to tear down walls re sort of re like we were going to make like three lockers and hallways one big locker one
big genderneutral locker there's no way we're going to be able to get that done but the lockers I call them they're tin foil now right so we're accredited we have to lock them they secure their weapons in there they secure a lot of gear in these lockers and you can walk up to any of one of them and just grab
the handle and plink it open because it's been ripped open for 28 29 years um so we he just met with the locker supplier who was part of that original capital and we're getting prices to replace at least just the lockers not
tearing walls down not redoing HVAC not doing any of that just getting ourselves some safe lockers and it's likely that's it's a six figure ask we have 40 plus lock but the rest of it I think we're
gonna have to start from scratch right sally port we really do need a new sal like a three bay deputy the retired deputy chief put together what we would definitely find to be a worthwhile sally port for that building it was there was a bay that was heated so we could wash
and maintain our cruisers in the winter there was a bay that we had storage in and then the third bay was one that we actually could safely bring um arresties in and out of the building right now where we bring arresties in and out of the building is also storage it's also the cleaning area and it's also where
several individuals have gotten hurt because they got thrown into that stuff by the arrests i think it's going to speak a lot of volumes to have a newer presentation for that um not only has
the maybe the temperature gone down nationally right now but certainly locally um with that I think there's a lot more as I think you were alluding to there's a lot more trust
um and and a big difference in uh in public response in the last year or so um that I think that that would be something that would be that would be
good to see is is a fresh look at that and a fresh um kind of presentation on what what is actually needed um there was a lot of course I' I've cautioned a lot of folks um and I I have to remind myself
of this often as well is you know we're not in those departments we're not in the departments we shouldn't be making those um logistical decisions you know we we rely on our uh the directors of
certain departments or whatever chiefs in this in this department um to make those calls and ultimately yes it comes down to a financial thing and that's where we come in um I I wasn't a big fan of where some
of the talks went a few years ago um they seemed a little spiteful um they seemed a little bit self-motivating uh but I won't say well I say that without without
um not saying that uh the the response uh from from the previous uh administration if you will didn't help um and I think that
that's something that we've all um gained uh now and I I think that it's a it's like I said it's a good at a good time and uh it's good good place to do like a good start over
um and so having a fresh look at those whatever those capital requests might be because we all we all know I'm sure you know more than anybody else um there's not going to be a new building there's not going to be a new building in this town for like at least 10 years
because that's fair point and and we did talk about that the committee came off to look around and and essentially the common sense approach to that is I wouldn't anticipate putting millions into this building if even in 10 years they're going to buy it right but what I
said was only put into it what you can get something back from right so if you put an addition on this building I'm assuming it increases its market value so you it's not a loss if if you do that right um and and certainly if those areas that you enhance on those building
aren't super like exclusively police type things like a three bay garage isn't just something a police department could use right so I and again I said that's something we would have to look at you know it's already got a cell area that's our police thing it's got a booking area that could use some enhancements in it but if if and again
what we talked about was like an outdoor moving the sally port from against the hill to the middle yeah right so so cruisers pull in and go through and then come out the other side right um my proposal on that although when I talked to Carol about it was I'd like to do that but with a solar array right so get
it away from the mountain put it out there and now we can run our chargers through that system a new but again capital would that have a value to something other than a police department in 10 years when the police department vacates to a new building so I think I
think common sense would have to go to work and say only the city shouldn't spend all this money unless it's something they can get a return on their investment and that's fair right and and lockers is probably not that although what I said was we can move lockers right yeah yeah
yep is great terms we love in fin you guys and and uh it's sheriff's book you have two different booking systems Correct used sheriff yeah like for inance if you make an arrest and you got
you bring an arresty through your salary port when he ends up at the Elm Street College he's going to go through their sal so they they spoke him a whole other different way so it's well I mean there's a heck of a lot
more cutting edge but yeah but I guess my point is is for you guys to bring them directly to the to the Elm Street Sally port makes no sense right i No no actually I I spent years
fighting that fight and the plan has finally came into alignment with certain administrative changes up there and I finally got my way whereas they agreed to do direct books we call them direct books so we're not doing what you're saying anymore because that's a waste of time and a massive amount of liability
every time you put somebody in a car and take them out and put them back in and take them out that's a problem right so the jail finally agreed just bring them straight to us so we actually set up a computer system in their facility so that officers if they they make an arrest in the field they put them in
their car and they drive straight there we had to go to our house first all the time right so so basically just you have your own little like it doesn't work so that was good um that's not there yet so they try to log onto that computer and
it takes you about three days for the home screen to finally show up so we scrap that but what they do is we do the paperwork we'll call for bail we leave the person with the jail and then the officers have to go back and do the
reports at at PD because our software simply will not process fast enough in their facility until we get the right tech in place for it to do that um but we're working with the sheriff every day on a million different issues all of which I think are going to benefit the
city part of it is that and and she's more than willing to put the technology in to make that work so we're working together more and more great job on that one good job it's been good they're everywhere i mean you guys work hand to hand oh we're doing they're
they're part of us now too chefs cool it's a positive note to land on isn't it if there is no other questions um then uh our next budget meeting will
be a week from today April 30th at right here 6:30 and on Zoom unless something else happens we have to post it differently um we're going to do uh it looks like tech the Franktown Tech School will be
able to attend this one um we're going to have a brief presentation from the mayor on the operating budget and then we are going to do our deliberations and recommendations to bring to full counsel in May and
if spoiler alert if we can get all that done next week and Tammy if you're listening don't give me anything else for May we might just be able to skip our regular meeting in May and go straight to full counsel so and that also goes for you too your
financial so hold off until um or at least make it like so pedestrian that we can just give it a full and uh with that I would take a motion to adjurnn you're doing that second all
right and all in favor i All right well done opposed any abstensions [Laughter] and we are journ [Music]