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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=2MR9V5IsqNU

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Good morning. Welcome to the June 9th Ways and Means Subcommittee budget hearing. Please rise to salute the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nationy

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and justice for all. Roll call of the members. Councelor Aenzio >> here. >> Here. Council McKenna >> here. >> Here. Council Mccurio >> here. >> Here. Council Noelski absent. And Chairman Kaggleandro >> here. >> Here. Quorum is present.

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>> Thank you, Madam Clerk. Just a reminder to everyone, uh, we are strictly speaking about the budget. We don't need mission statements. And, uh, on the council side, let's go easy on the bouquet throwing, please. And thank you. Uh we're going to start uh in the order that you all showed up

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this morning. Thank you all for being here on time. First is going to be veteran services. Veteran services is page 97, section 297. >> Good morning, sir. Name and address for the record. >> Good morning. on Danny Hernandez, 295

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Crescent A River, Mass. >> Uh, and is there anything that you'd like to discuss regarding your budget? Anything that jumps out? >> No, no, no questions. >> All right, great. Does anyone on the council have any questions? >> Councelor Arenzio. >> Thank you. Uh, thank you, Mr. Hernandez,

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for coming. So, I You're going to be going to part-time. Was the this a full-time position last year? >> It's a full-time position, but I because I work full-time for the railroad. >> Okay. I so I make my I I committed to at least 25 hours. >> Okay. >> And then adjust accordingly.

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>> Okay. And you feel you'll be able to handle a >> Yes. Yes. >> Great. Thank you very much. >> No problem. >> I'm all set. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you very much. Have a great day. >> Thank you. >> We're going to move back to uh the

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solicitor's office. >> Page 31. Good morning. Uh name and address for the record, sir. Paul Cape, city solicitor for the solicitor's office. I also oversee the license commission budget, but there's not much to it as you guys already know.

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>> Um, anything that jumps out? Anything you want to let us know before we go to questions? >> Nope. I think it's pretty straightforward. Thank you. >> All right. Does anyone have any questions for this department? Councelor Arenzio. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hi, Mr. Capzy.

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Thank you for coming. Um, >> thank you. Are we still insured uh in if if lawsuits from employees and what have you, do we still carry that insurance? >> We do. >> Okay. And that >> we still have it. >> All right. And we're going to continue to >> Yeah. Actually, currently right now,

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we're we're shopping around to see if we can get better rates, but we are still covered. >> Okay. >> And we will continue to be covered for employee matters. >> Okay. and your outside legal services. Does that include the money for the lawyer for the eminent domain case or is that a separate >> That right now includes that money, but

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I'm also working with uh the budget department to sort of establish the the funds necessary for that particular case. >> Okay. And monies that we've borrowed or what have you, can that go towards >> um Yes, council. We we did get uh

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clearance from our bond council that if the money runs out in our solicitor's um legal defense line, we're able to use some of the bonded authorization money to uh defend our case. >> All right. Thank you very much. I'm all set. >> Thank you, councelor. Any other counselors? Council

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>> Mur. Yeah. Thank you. Uh so the $340,000 you feel as though that's going to be enough in the budget for outside services for this coming uh fiscal year? >> You know, I do we do the best we can with estimating it. It's really hard to predict because you don't always know what's going to come down the pike. But yeah, that should suffice for this year.

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>> Okay, >> anyone else? >> Thank you very much. Have a good day. >> Uh, actually, Mr. Capezy, I'm sorry. Um, does anyone have any questions regarding the license commission? >> Oh, yeah, the license commission. Sorry about that. There's there's really nothing there.

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>> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Next up's going to be elder services. We determined that you won the race uh you versus Claudia, so you'll be next. >> Uh number page number is 94. >> Thank you for being here. Um, anything

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that >> Turn on my mic so you can all hear me. >> Uh, anything that to discuss on your end? Anything new? Anything? >> No, I think it's perfect. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. All right. Um, any counselors? Councelor Arenzio.

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>> Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you. Um, how are we going to stretch this out till 3:00? I mean, >> okay. I thought there was key around 11:30 asking questions. >> Um I just have one question. There's a line item there for 45,000 for rent

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rentals. What uh what particular things you're renting? >> So it's not rentals. That 45,000 is uh the fee that we pay to Mystic Valley Elder Service on an annual basis to provide uh meals on wheels services for

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our seniors. It it's Mystic Valley. >> Oh, okay. Very good. Thank you. I believe that's it. Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. >> Next up will be the mayor's office. That

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is page four. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. Claudia Korea from the mayor's office. >> Morning. Um our usual our budget is pretty straightforward. No major changes. So, I'm here if you have any questions.

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>> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Any counselors? >> Have a good day. Have a good day. >> You too. Thank you. >> Oh, yes. I'm going to do HR. >> Okay. So, human resources is uh unable to attend today, but you're going to speak on their behalf. So, let's go to

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page seven. Take care of that now. Any counselors with questions regarding human resources >> batting a thousand. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Councelor Aenzio.

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>> Um I noticed that there's a couple of positions paid with other. Last year it was 190. This year it's 93. Is that the OPA funds dropping out? >> Yes, counselor. >> Okay. And then that goes all the OPA funds for salaries expire December 31st

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of 2026. Is that correct? >> Yes, counselor. any um any of the OPA positions that we have chose to fund through fiscal year 27, you'll see that half of the salary will be paid with the OPA funds through um December 31st and then general fund will pick up the

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second half so we can have that job the full complement of the fiscal year. >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> Thank you counselor. Any other counselors? to be just to be totally uh clear the uh two of the positions their other sources

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are um uh subsidies from the health insurance trust which uh a big portion of their job is managing the health insurance trust. >> Thank you reach. >> Thank you. All set. Have a good day. >> Thanks. You too. >> Next up is the assessor.

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Assessor is page 25. Page 25, guys. Assessor's office. >> Morning. Dana Brancher 40, chairman of the Riviera Board of Assessors, 281 Broadway. Um, there really isn't a substantial net change uh to our budget aside from uh

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CBAs and the salaries. Uh the one change we did have is we were able to drop uh the reevaluation by 30,000 and we added a part-time position for that same amount. Um, so over the last two fiscal years, we actually lost two full-time

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clerks. Um, we did the best we could throughout the last two years to see uh, you know, if we could if we could ride it out without replacing that person. So, I was able to negotiate with the budget director and the mayor to get a a half a part-time person uh, to replace

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those full two uh, full-time people. But, um, we think that that'll be enough and and we'll make do. Um, my staff's been doing an incredible job uh without them, but we certainly could use the aid of the of the part-time individual. Uh, and again, the net change is pretty much

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zero. >> Thank you very much, sir. Any counselors? Councelor Arenzio. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, Dana. Uh, the revaluation, I know last year it went up because it it uh there was an

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odd year. Can you explain that? Uh so actually next year we'll see a considerable increase because that's a full revaluation. These are just intram years. Okay. Um but there isn't a situation where uh next year is a full list and measure where every 10 years the state requires us to go visit every

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single house, measure it and inspect it. We uh have been fortunate enough to do that inhouse. Um so we have one individual >> pretty much no other city in town really our size can do that. We have one individual who's dedicated to just doing that pretty much and he does our building permits. >> Okay.

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>> With the loss of the two individuals in the office, he had to take some time to kind of be in the office as well. Kind of more hybrid. >> Okay. >> Um so we built in some money last year to contract some of those services out. Um we didn't actually end up using it all. We were still kind of able to balance it out. Okay.

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>> And now we feel that we can drop that if we add that part-time person and be able to to do it all in house, which is a much greater advantage. can side gives us better data. It's more consistent. We got one person doing all the work. He knows the city in and out. So, you know,

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it's it's much more beneficial for us to do it that way. >> Oh, great. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, counselors. Councelor Mccurio, >> thank you, Dana, for being here. And I just want to commend you for uh you're working so hard >> doing more with less staff, and we really appreciate that when it comes to

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budget time. So, keep up the good work. You're doing a great job. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it, counselor. breaking the rules already. >> I any any other questions? >> Thank you, sir. Have a great day. >> You as well. >> We're going to move on to Health and

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Human Services. That begins on page 91. Good morning. >> Hello, Lauren Buck, director of public health, 281 Broadway. Um, for public health, my budget is almost identical to last year's. We have the same grants. Um we always have fluctuation in the school

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nurse category based on leaving people leaving people coming in but other than that it's almost identical. >> Will you also be speaking in regards to the commission on disabilities in the HRC as well? >> Um commission on disability. I got it rich.

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>> Um the HRC was a $1,000 line item that we actually just put right in the human resource budget. So, there's no HRC to worry about. And um I I did um you know, I don't know if Ralph if Ralph's not here. I can't see behind me, but um I can certainly help out with that, but

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that's a that's a pretty standard budget there for the the Commission on Disabilities. Not much there other than um some stipens for the >> Just trying to condense. >> No, no, I got you. I got you. Just making sure you uh we got it. >> Thank you very much. Um

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so, anyhelio. >> Thank you, Mr. chairman. Uh thank you, Miss Buck. Um it looks like the you lost about three full-time positions. It looked like full-time positions last year was 16.64.

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Now this year it's 13. Did you lose some part some full-time? >> Most of that fluctuation is due to school n the school nurses. So we again we hire school nurses when we need to. Sometimes they leave and sometimes we refill them here. Sometimes the city the

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school refills them. So most of that fluctuation is is there. We did decrease hours of some of our positions. I think just one of our positions, >> but our staffing is essentially the same as last year. >> Okay. And the explain the uh the nurse.

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So we pay for the school nurses because I I noticed in the school budget there was some controversy over nurses aids. >> Uhhuh. So the school department pays for the nurs's aids and you pay and and it looked like there was a reduction of one

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nurse. Does does that mean the school department >> go? Yeah. Go ahead. >> Thank you. Um council because of um to work in the school department and be part of that teachers union you have to be certified as a teacher. >> Yeah.

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>> Some of the nurses they they're not out they're not able to hire certified uh desi nurses. So that um kind of the end around that the Commonwealth plays is that they come on as city employees and then they work with the schools and and those uh dollars are exchanged and uh

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refunded back to us through the schedule 19 between the city and the school department. >> Okay. So so the schools have enough nurses >> and we're working toward agreements where any future school nurse has to be desi certified. So we're trying to phase out this so you might see those nurses gradually decrease to the point where hopefully we won't have to do that

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anymore and they'll all be certified desi nurses. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. And um the the building on Revia Street, I know that's vacant now. Are we >> Oh, you're talking about 437 Rev Street. Yes. So, that was previously uh like a

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mutually paid for um kind of satellite office between us and Health Innovations. And we've actually been able to condense our operations and we use um 123 Shirley now as a main base for our our SUDI office which is what what was previously operating at 437 and

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the chief of police has generously let us use that for a couple of days a week to do outreach there. So we're at 123 shortly. >> Okay, great. Um let's see here. And the rodent control program is still in in full swing. That's a free service

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to the constituents constituents. >> Yep. Yep. So that program is still ongoing. We have funding uh through the budget and we have a revolving fund that we use to pay for it and we use the extermination services primarily of B&B, but we do use MD Weaver for some of our municipal spots. Yep. It's it's running year round.

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>> Okay, great. Thank you. I'm all set. Uh Mr. Chen, >> quick question. >> Thank you, councelor. Councelor Mccurio, >> thank you. Uh um thank you for being here. I appreciate it. Um the regional nurse, can you tell tell me a little bit what her role is?

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>> Sure. Um we have a regional so we have a grant um it's called public health excellence. We have a in our region where uh partners with uh so it's river Chelsea and Winthre. So our regional nurse does work in all three communities. We have her here two days a week. Chelsea has her one day a week.

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Winthre has her one day a week. Um she's an amazing asset to the city and to all three of our cities. She runs our childhood immunization program which is in a partnership with River Public Schools. any children enrolling in the pick who need um vaccines who don't have the ability to get into a primary care um can come to us and get vaccines with

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us and do the whole series through us. Uh she runs our communicable disease program. So she is the one primarily um reaching out to people who have anything that comes through the state communicable disease uh software program. She reaches out to them, does

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contact tracing, you know, infection prevention measures with them. Um, and then she also spearheads any special initiatives. This year we're doing a community baby shower. She spearheaded that completely um and does special projects. She's a really big asset to the to the city and the city doesn't

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have to pay for her. We have a grant who that completely um pays for her salary. >> Okay. And does the and the uh deputy director of uh uh physicians, can you explain his role a little bit please?

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>> Oh uh that's the deput deputy director of public health. So that's my deputy director. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. >> That's all I have. Thank you. >> Thank you, counselor. Any other questions? I don't think there's anything veterans already came up, but that's all that

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falls under that. So, have a great day. Thank you very much. >> Thank you very much. >> Next up is 311. 311 is on page 10. Seems awful to talk. How many nurses does this freaking city need? >> Uh, good morning.

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>> Nick Romano, uh, 41 Steven Street. >> Page. >> Uh, Mr. Chairman, committee members. >> Page 10. >> Thank you. >> Stay on top of it. >> I'm sorry. >> Wow. Thank you.

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>> Uh, thank you for for your time today. I represent the River 301 office uh and the River Consumer Affairs Office. Together, they're under the constituent services department. Uh the budget before you today is level funded from

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previous fiscal years. Uh one staffing change to note is we we had a full-time ORPA position that historically was a call taker for a few years. Um with that expiring, we divided that position into

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two part-time positions. This way here we can extend the funds and uh meet the demands of the department. So >> thank you very much. Any counselors have questions? Councelor Oenzio. >> Thank you. Thank you, Nick. Um the

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consumer advocate, that's that's completely paid by grant money, right? Yes. >> And do we still service all the other cities and towns? >> Yes. Uh completely paid through the local consumer program uh which is the fund the grant through the AG. Okay.

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>> And um represent 13 communities under our program. >> Okay. Thank you. And the total salary from other sources. What other sources is that? >> Yeah. So for my position um that other sources is also from the AG's grant.

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>> Okay. Okay. >> Since I also technically u work in that. >> Okay. Great. >> That capacity also. So >> Okay. And then >> is that the other position that few bucks there that 25,000 is that APA?

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That's half of an APA fund. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you, counselor. Councelor McKenna. >> Thank you. Um Mr. Chairman, um hi. Hi. Thank you for coming. Um what do you do you have a person on? I'm I'm confused, but uh do you have a

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person on during the weekends? >> Uh no. So we don't have weekend staff, but we do have like the 301 app for example. You know, you can submit requests whenever parking enforcement

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has staff. It goes to staff that are working on the weekends. Uh and we have the Piper which is our AI chatbot which you can text with questions or entering uh service requests. So

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>> So those e those So someone calls 311 on a Saturday or Sunday and those go directly to like um the department heads are or did the do the department heads have to go to 311 to see if they're listed or do they go on their computers?

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That's what I'm confused about. >> Yeah. So, typically on the weekends, the we get a lot of activity on our app and it will automatically route to the departments that the requests are going to. If it's an emergency, they can

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always reach the DPW after hours phone. So, say if there's like a water mane break or a tree falls down, they can always get in touch with somebody in the DPW for someone to respond to that. So, >> thank you very much. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, counselor. Any other

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questions from the council? >> Have a great day, sir. >> Thank you. >> Next up is purchasing. Purchasing is on page 19. >> Morning, counselors. Uh, Cardi, >> morning. >> Uh, purchasing agent for the city of

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Rivera, 281 Broadway. Um, I just have a couple little changes to share. My rental account is up about $8,500. That's bringing on more copers in the in the city for that's the uh that's the

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off the excuse me, that's the account we use to pay all of the copers um in city hall and outside of city hall. That's just cover three new ones. >> That's it. >> Thank you very much, councilors. Councelor Aenzio,

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>> thank you. And thank you, Michael. Um, I had a question about the rentals and leases, but you uh you answered that. Uh, the postage 165,000. Do you absorb all the all the uh mailings for all the departments? >> Yeah, so we do all the mailings for all

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the the the whole city except for the school department, right? >> Um, >> other than property tax and the quarterly water bills. >> Okay. >> Those go out through a service, but we do reimburse that company for the postage. So ultimately, yes, we pay for all the postage.

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>> Okay. And and the and the various departments don't reimburse you. You you >> No, the only reimbursements are ever like when the ele when there's a like a federal election. >> Okay. >> Um and the property tax bills, >> not the property tax, the water bills

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get reimbured through their um through their fund. >> Yeah. So they reimburse us, too. >> Thank Thank you very much. I'm all set. Uh >> thank you, counselor. Councelor McKenna. All right, sounds like everyone's good. Thank you very much. Have a great day.

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>> Next up is elections. Election department is or election commission rather is page 37. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. Danielle Petrantonio McDonald elections. Um so we did ask for just a couple uh changes in a couple

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areas this year. um we asked to increase our pole worker cost. Um that's one account that that um tends to get overdrawn. Um and this year we do we are legally mandated by the state to have two full weeks um of early voting and uh

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a full week of early voting for the primary. So uh that's more than double what we had last year. Um and a state election will be bigger, more mail and ballots um you know to handle. Uh so we will need you know a full a full pole

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worker staff. Um our printing and mailing account we asked to increase it by $10,000. Um that's for our census and confirmation cards. Uh the costs are increasing every year um from the vendors and the amount of cards that and

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census forms that we send out increases every year as the population grows. Um and our contracted services uh that is because we added uh the addition of 42 pole pads um to the office this year. So

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that's for you know software licensing and programming um for the two elections. Uh that was a new cost that we didn't have um prior. So that's why there was the such an increase in that account. Um and then our postage costs um to cover the increased postage for

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the census and confirmation cards. Um that account has been short the last few years. So um we're hoping that this uh increase will will cover that from now on. >> Thank you very much. Open it to

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councils. Councelor Oenzio. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Danielle. Um, I have a non-budget question I want to slide in there. Uh, uh, on your website, you used to have the historical data for election results going years back. That seems to have

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dropped off your website. Is there any >> that I'm not I'll have to look into. Um, >> yeah, I know that they go back a few years. I I actually just worked um on making the results more user friendly. I kind of put them in a um

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>> in a more of like an Excel sheet so that with the winners highlighted so that they're easier to read. >> Um >> so I have been working on that. I don't know how long since I've been here it hasn't changed. So I'll I'll have to see what it was before and when it when it

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changed. >> All right. Thank you. >> I'll let you know. >> All right. >> Uh sorry, Council Murion. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So the uh the postage is uh 255. So the purchasing doesn't do your postage. >> No. So this is for like our census and our confirmation card. So we order them

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um through a vendor. They print them, they mail them out, and we pay for the postage that way. Okay. >> Um so that's what that's for. >> And the printing and mailing, >> is that the same? >> That's Yeah, that's for the actual printing of the the census and the confirmation card. So they the the

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vendors give us two bills. It's like for the actual census forms and then what the postage is going to be. So they're two um different invoices, two different accounts. >> Great. Thank you for letting me understand that. Appreciate it. >> Thank you, counselor. Any other counselors? Permission to speak from the

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chair. >> Just a a quick question. Have So we're we're increasing the amount of money for pole workers. Um has there been any discussion regarding centralizing voting and offering transportation to get people there? And not that I would agree with that. I'm just curious if that's

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>> Yeah. Don't you think that's something that we would be able to to to make like one polling location? You mean? Yeah. I I have to look into it to be sure, but I'm pretty sure it's about distance. So, how far you know the voters are? I don't think that's something that we could just decide to do. I think that we'd

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have to get permission and the state would have to be involved as we >> have to tighten the belt and, you know, close these financial gaps that are coming up. I'm just curious what ideas. I don't Yeah, >> that's all I I don't agree with >> early voting is is centralized. So, that's in the one place, but I think for the polls, um I don't think that's some

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a decision that we could just make. >> Okay, good. Thank you for the information and uh I believe you're all set. Have a great day. So that does it for the department heads that are were in attendance and I know that we have a couple department heads out and um Mr. Visque will be speaking

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on behalf of them. So we're going to go to the top of the list. We're going to just going to go to auditing page 13. >> 13. Page 13. >> Good morning Mr. Chairman. Richard Visqueke, city auditor, CFO 2 on

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Broadway. Um, like we discussed uh with Kathy Bowden is uh scheduled day off today. So, I'm happy to answer all the questions on the treasury and the debt service and and such. Um, I could speak on retirement as the chairman of the retirement board and also we did have uh

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something to come up with our IT department. So, I'm happy to speak on that unless you want to defer that until tomorrow. But um I'll start with the auditing department. We're probably the biggest change that you'll see in the budget where um for fiscal year 2027, we

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decided that um we become a little too big to have auditing and budgeting all mashed into one office. We um so we separated the department. So now I have an auditing accounting department and I have my budget and finance department. So, um, we have two full-time employees

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plus myself in, um, the budget department and the audit department is, uh, three full-time employees and half of me. So, it's a it's a bit of a change. So, there may be some questions on that, but um, uh, with the $330 million budget along with a $493 million

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high school and $50 million uh, McMack and McKinley projects, um, it was getting too much to have one person alone handling all that money. So, we do have a budget analyst now, which is a new position. We did get um a grant from the Department of Revenue that had her um on our staff for three months. She

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now is a full-time employee and she's part of the 27 budget. But um that's kind of a summary of auditing and budgeting. So, I can go through we tried to allocate the cost as best we could between audit costs and budgeting costs and and that's represented in the way these budgets are split apart. So, um

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happy to try to answer any questions on that and clarify any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone have questions for auditing? Councelor Arjenzio. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Visque. I just have one small question on your receipts like uh room occupancy tax. Um a few

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months ago, we voted for community impact fee for um short-term rentals. Has that uh started up yet or we got that going? >> You mean the modified fees that we've uh charged um as part of the fee survey? I

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missed the first part of Oh, it it was the uh community impact fee and and it came up before the council uh so that we start to be able to charge that for short-term rentals. >> Um >> you know, council, I' I'd have to double check on that. I know we talked about it, but I'm not sure where we are in the

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implementation of that. So, >> can I do some research and get that back to you? >> Sure. Madam clerk, am I correct we voted for >> Okay. I know there was a lot of conversation about fees when we did the fee study, but um I'm having trouble remembering exactly what the

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>> Yeah, because the states say the city is allows up I believe or something to that effect on community impact. And I believe the money collected there's not a lot of short-term rental now, but half the money collected has to go to the affordable housing trust fund if my memory

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>> I think we heard we broke up about 50 illegal ones for the World Cup. So, I think I believe the software is doing its its role and making sure we monitor it. So, >> all right. >> Some big changes I'm going to be proposing in a month or so. So,

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>> while the clerk is looking at it, >> do you have any additional questions or >> uh No, that's it. >> Council. >> Oh, we have the answer. Go ahead, Madam Clerk. >> Sure. So, Massachusetts General Laws, chapter 64G, sections

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um looks like section 3D B and 3DA were uh both accepted uh relative to a community impact fee for short-term rentals. That was back in September of 25. >> Okay, great. >> I will follow up on that and uh and get back to you with some uh status update.

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>> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you, Councelor President Zambo. Good morning, Mr. CFO. >> Good morning. >> So, uh, I'm interested in hearing about this budget analyst because he better be a genius because we're going to need,

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uh, all the help in the world. I I think we need divine intervention, but that's a whole another story because we're in big trouble. So, I'm hoping this guy's super call guy or woman or this person, is that correct?

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Person. Yeah, this person is is super qualified because we need all the help we can get. Not nothing against you, Mr. CFO. I I you know that I respect you more than anybody and I think that you're uh one of the if not the top one

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of the top uh CFOs in the state. So >> I I I appreciate that council. And I think um um it it is a woman her name is May Long. She came through the department of revenues um internship program that uh she was worked with us

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for 3 months sat in all the departments and then uh I convinced the mayor I said you know I think May would be good to keep around and help us out with some of these larger projects. So uh >> she may not be the expert that you'll go for just yet but what she's going to do is she's going to give me capacity to um

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pay attention to some of these bigger things. >> It's it's a step in the right direction. >> Thank you. I think we need more steps in that direction, but we'll deal with all that later as it as it transpires. >> No, it's starting to ramp up now. So, >> well, I know. And it's uh

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I'm I'm not totally optimistic on where we're going to go with this, but that we'll leave that for another day. >> Thank you. >> But thank you for what you do. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Any other counselors? All right. So we'll

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>> I'm sorry councelor Arenzio >> I'm just looking at the preparation of GAP what >> for >> that's a fancy acronym for general audit and accountant principles. So that's the our our financial statements are

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prepared in in that format for the um it's it's an an accountant >> okay >> nerd term. All right. And special engagements, >> that's basically if um if I feel like we have to have some special attention on a particular department, like I did a uh an audit on the health insurance trust

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in fiscal year 2026 to try to really hone in on that. So again, as we get bigger and we have more things going on, >> um you know, read the papers. There's a lot of stuff going on in in municipalities about fraud, waste, and abuse. So um we like to budget a little money in case we need another set of eyes looking at some of the way we do

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operations around here. So that money would be for that purpose. >> Okay, perfect. Thank you. I'm all >> Thank you, councelor. Councelor Mccurio. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, M. Uh, Mr. Visque. Uh, the annual audit service. Can you explain that just a little bit? >> Sure. We um because we're a community

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that gets over a million dollars in federal funding, we're required by law to get a um independent annual audit every year. And and basically those are the costs of doing so. >> And that's an that's the preparation, the gap in the annual audit service. So those two combined are really the cost of the audit. for six um $72,000. We do

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also um have a little bit of money in the um water and so department for the audit. So I think the it's about $115,000 but retirement pays a portion of it, water and so pays a portion of it and we pay the balance of anything that falls under the general government

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>> and they and they basically audit pretty much all the work that you do uh are the >> they audit the entire city. So they first and foremost they look at any federal grants that come in and they they it's random. So they don't it's impossible to look at every transaction of everything in the city. I mean the

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cost would the benefit but they do their sample test and they look for um things that may not um comply with uh the uh gap principles. They they look for revenues hitting expense lines, expenses hitting revenue lines. just they do a general audit and make sure that we uh

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we're we're compliant and we fall in uh in compliance with uh the the GAP principles and uh the GFOA I mean not the GFOA the um the the government accounting standards boards the Gazsby which is what we fall under. So basically it's it's a lot of legal stuff that we're required to do because we get

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federal money >> and they do all that work for you. >> Yes. >> Well, thank you for letting me understand a little bit. No problem. >> Appreciate it. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you, counselor. Uh I believe we'll move on. So this isn't this is a new department we're going to go to. It's the uh CFO/budgeting office budget. This

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is on page 16. >> Sure. So there's not a lot of history there. Like I said, but basically we took my salary. We split it between the two departments because I serve as department head on both and um assistant budget director. That's uh the position

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that's been here forever. Um and budget analyst is that new position that we uh just spoke of with council president. So um otherwise it's a it's a pretty modest um um budget and like I said we more or less bifocated the budgets between these

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two so not too much change just more of an allocation of funds but happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you. Any counselors? All right. So we'll close that department out. We're going to move to page 22 info. I know Mr. Basos is out.

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Mr. Visi. >> Yeah, sure. The um info techch department is um you know, I got to give a great shout out to George and uh his crew. They've uh they've been tasked with doing a lot of um innovation with regard to the especially the financial

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software system that we use here. We've implemented time clocks throughout the city through time and attendance for all of our hourly employees. We are now um fully integrated on our collections and uh uh treasury package and um we just keep building upon the um the system

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that we pay for. So you'll see some increases in the uh uh contracted services because the more um services we get through Munis, the more that software costs, but otherwise it's the same for employees and uh everything else is accounted for accordingly. But happy to answer any questions on the

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budget. >> Thank you sir. Any questions from the council? Councelor Arenzia, >> the telephone and communications line item went from 79 down to 43 of >> Yeah, I'm glad you pointed that out,

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council. We um we did get a um grant from the ETP fund through uh run through the school department to replace the phone system citywide. So that's the schools, that's public safety, city hall, etc. So, we're basically replacing the whole phone system and um all that

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hard cost and and and some of the soft costs are paid for with that grant. But the the the good news is that once we get it all up and running, our uh annual cost will be decreased to the level you see budget. So, we're going to have annual savings on operating costs once we get all the new software in because

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we we get to use more digital uh service which provides a saving for us. >> Oh, great. Okay. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome, >> Councelor Mccurio. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman, uh, Mr. Visqueke, uh, under supported service, Thrive, can you can you tell us a little

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about that service, please? >> I'll do my best. I'm not an expert on, but Thrive is our third party, um, >> uh, basically malware um, provider, our internet security, and everything that runs in the background of the city's financial software system to make sure that that when we get hacked in and

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we're not get, you know, uh, the the the fishing scams and all the stuff that you read about on there. So, uh, basically, uh, I I know what I I'm involved with them as far as paying the contract and stuff, but the menu of what they do to provide those services and how technical they I would have to defer, but

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basically Thrive is the contract service we use to have uh, internet security and protect all of our backend software >> and and do they uh provide an insurance package for the system uh, for the city of Riviera? >> We we buy cyber security and uh, we can get to that, but we have cyber security

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as part of our property and casualty insurance which is um, budgeted there. So, I think they're they're providing what we need to protect ourselves. But we have um we do uh buy insurance in the property casualty line of our our budget. >> Okay, great. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome.

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>> Thank you, counselor. Any other counselors? All right, we will move on from that. The next department will be the treasurer collector on page 28. Miss Bowden is out today, so Mr. Visque is here on her behalf.

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Um again, uh treasur's office really hasn't had um many changes at all. Same staffing level. Um more or less the same operating budget in 2026. And um yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions on the treasur's budget. Thank you very much.

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Any questions from the council? All right, we can move on from the treasur collector. The next department would be planning and community development which is on page 49. And I don't see a representative from that

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department. Do we want to for which department? Treasurer. >> We're going to actually go back to the treasurer's office real quick. Yep. Counciloman Curio. >> Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the

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leeway. Um Mr. Visque, banking services. I see that line item at 185,000 uh for monthly charges of the uh treasury bank accounts. Can you explain that a little bit what that entails? >> Yeah, basically um you know over the 500

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or so funds we have we have about 30 different bank accounts, our checking accounts for our accounts payable warrants, our payroll and all the different uh funds that all different several bank accounts that we're required to have by law is basically annual service. request is um monthly

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fees for collecting lockbox services which is basically when you mail your checks it goes to a PO box that all goes to a system and that sorts through all so we don't have to manually process every single check so some of the banking fees are the monthly services but also the services they provide for like um brinks pickups lockbox services

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etc so basically the whole menu of our banking services for the managing the money of the state I mean of the city >> great thank you >> you're welcome >> thank you counselor um so planning and community development. I >> I I guess Tom is um um predisposed right now, so I'm not sure if we may be able

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to sneak him on tomorrow or maybe we can pro provide um that budget >> for Let's Let me put it to the subcommittee. I don't know who has questions or if there's any questions regarding that budget. Let's go to page 49 real quick and uh we'll just decide as a subcommittee if we want to table

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this till tomorrow's hearing or we can. >> Okay, so let's let's move planning and community development to tomorrow morning. >> Thank you for that. Apologize for that. >> Nope. All good. All right. So, we're going to move on. Um, conservation commission.

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>> I think that would be what planning because that's kind of combined with those two. >> Anyone have question? >> Unless unless it's a board board salaries in a small. >> It's pretty standard. There's a the chair makes double what everybody else makes. Very minimal. >> I don't think those budgets have changed in my eight years here. So, it's pretty

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uh they're pretty predictable. I would like to see some sort of a gas stipen at some point for these boards because they do travel. >> Well, there I mean we we'll reimburse any uh employee for mileage at you know per the per the IRS rate. So if someone you know if someone's going back and

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forth a half a mile every day, it's a little bit of a task, but you know if there's if there's meetings or some reason someone has to travel, we we reimburse at the uh federal reimbursement rate. So >> that's good to know. Thank you very much. Um, I guess does anyone have any questions regarding the Conservation Commission or the Zoning Board of

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Appeals budgets? No. All right. So, we can cross those two off the list. Concom and ZBA. Uh, I guess we'll uh go to the dreaded clerk's office now. >> Do you want me to do all those fixed costs while I'm up here? Those are all

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on the treasury. The last block of them looking for It's over the >> speaking in regards to debt service and all that good stuff. >> That whole last block is all okay fixed cost that I can do on behalf of Kathy and myself as retirement and health

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insurance. So >> let's do that then. Let's move to debt service page uh 115 section 215. Yeah, debt surface basically represents all the debt service that's due for fiscal year 2027. And the big spike is the beginning of debt service with

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regard to the construction of the new high school. There's a $3.1 million debt um interest payment due in July. Any questions regarding the debt service on page 115? >> Councelor Arenzio.

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>> Uh, thank you, Mr. Fiske. So, I know we we borrow and we bond a lot of money. Is there any ceiling that we're going to reach at some point that uh I mean, are we paying things off from years ago? And

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>> yeah, I think about um a couple months ago I gave everybody a a a big long sheet with all the debt service and you can see what falls off. But I'm happy to um summarize that for you. But we Yeah, definitely the debt. >> So we still have capacity. >> Oh yeah, we have capacity to bond and we um we actually are ramping up to do a

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large borrowing in July when we go to pay $3.1 million debt service. We're going to have to borrow, you know, we may have to borrow another hundred million dollars to get us through 27. I mean, yeah, fiscal year 27. So, but yeah, we have capacity. We're not we're not at risk of being at the our debt ceiling or anything like that. So,

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>> and I I noticed in the capital plan, uh are we looking to borrow 3 million for street sidewalk that >> I mean that's a placeholder for um you know, we we we're drawing down about maybe four years ago we did a $5 million bond. >> I think I remember yesterday maybe about

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$200,000 left in that account. We do get chapter um 90 money from the state. We did, I think, get another um extra 300,000 as part of a supplemental budget. So, so we have some money. We have some money on our our sidewalk repairs um budgets, too. But yeah, at some point when that goes to zero, we'll

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have to think about um you know, getting some capital and seeing a half we go. So, we did put it in there as a placeholder whether it's going to be 3 million or more or less or if we can pay as we go. We kind of just like to keep it there to make people aware that, you know, we're getting to the point where we may need to get some more funding for roadways. But um okay,

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>> we've been doing our best to try to work with, you know, reimbursements from the um national grid and again the state aid money and uh some of the other funds that we have. But yeah, it looks like we're getting ready to maybe need to replenish our funds for roads. >> Okay. And the um the ride share money, where did that land?

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>> Well, the ride share money cancels this year, unfortunately. I don't know if you heard that, but that uh that deal went away with um Uber and and Lyft to the Commonwealth. We used to get well we still we'll get it this year 10 cents >> per ride which was about $120 $130,000 I

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think the last year but um >> if I think the legislator is trying to get that uh reenacted so um feel free to call your legislators but uh I believe that first agreement expires at the end of this fiscal year. So um oh >> maybe something you want to you know ask

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around about if if you hear anything let me know but they did uh that is it is about to expire. So, I did kind of pull that out of the capital plan if you notice because we don't know what the future of that is. >> Okay. Has the community development office I I know the um traffic calming

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group has some funds that that's available to them to do some >> Yeah, we kind of like we as part of the getting that money. It was always like is it the engineer, is it planning? Is it highway? Who gets that money? We made a conscious decision to give that to the planning department to do planning initiatives, traffic calming, speed

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humps and stuff like that. But um again, Tom may have some more information on the future of that, but I I do know that um at one point, the last I heard it was not um it wasn't going to it was set to expire on June 30th. >> Okay, great. Thanks for that information. >> Okay, you're welcome. >> Okay.

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>> Thank you, councelor. Councelor McKenna. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um Rich, I I don't know if you said it or not, but how much do we get in chapter uh 90 uh money? We typically get about 800,000 a year, but the supplemental budget, I believe,

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got us uh for this year about 1.15 million. I'll um I'll ask Chris Charmel to bring you an exact number tomorrow on that, but I think we got about 1.1 million committed for fiscal year. Okay. >> Uh coming up. Yes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, councelor. Councel Murio.

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>> Thank you. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Miscake, one quick question. Uh the $22.6 6 million um uh bond debt that we have right now. Is that does that that that does does that include the uh McKinley school project in the McMack and Little League project or is that

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scheduled for 2028? >> Yeah. No, we've um with the M um McMack and Field, we repurposed $2.2 million worth the bonds to start that project. So, we're winding those dollars down. Part of my 2027 borrowing will take some uh short-term debt. We usually borrow

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short-term debt till the project's complete. Then, we'll kind of fully finance it. So in 2027, we'll be uh looking to borrow uh money to cover the cost of the uh McMack and Field and also a portion of the McKinley as far as the schedule of construction. So when we

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borrow in 27 fiscal year, you won't see some of that debt service coming on till fiscal year 28 >> until 28. And is that the same for the McKinley school project also? >> Yes, both. Yes. >> Okay. All right. >> Okay. Thank Thank you, Mr. Visque. >> Thank you, counselor. Uh if there's no more questions, we will move to we have

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three three left. We have employee benefits, property and casualty insurance, and retirement and pension. Guess we can take those all up simultaneously. They're all on page 117. >> Yeah. I mean, in summary, pretty much everything there is a fixed cost. Um the

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one uh bit of good news that we had this year that helped us a lot with preserving um full-time jobs was um a renegotiation of our u public employee committee agreement with uh all of our union heads on uh modifying our health

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insurance plan for seniors which um is estimated to save the seniors about $1,200 a month on their premium. but it'll save the city over a million dollars in in in savings by carving out prescription drug plans into a a Medicare supplement plan. We were one of the few communities left in the

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Commonwealth that actually have a medics plan with prescription drugs embedded in it, like an active plan. So, those savings uh brought us under 1% on our health insurance budget, which um which was a big help. But otherwise, uh the health insurance and uh property

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casualty insurance are pretty much fixed costs. And then our retirement assessment is just the amount of money we have to appropriate every year to uh fulfill our obligation to meet our unfunded obligation. >> Yeah.

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>> Thank you, sir. >> I'll repeat any of that if you need it. >> Any questions from the council? >> All right. I think you're off the clock with us today, Mr. >> If any other questions come up regard any of that, I'll be here out there tomorrow as well. >> Thank you very much. Uh we have two

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departments left. We'll go to the uh city clerk's department which is on uh page 35. Page 35. Let's just discuss the cuts we're going to make now. Good. Uh good morning committee members.

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Uh the city clerk's office budget is level funded this year again except for any contractual salary increases or any salary set by ordinance. >> Thank you madam clerk. Any questions? >> All right we can close that. And the

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last is the city council on page one. >> Anyone here? >> I want to cut the salaries. I'm going to go with there's no questions on this >> and that would uh that would take care

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of day one of the budget hearings and uh that we will see you tomorrow at 9:00. This meeting is adjourned. >> Thank you.