Okay, I'd like to call the January 16th finance committee. Budget review. Meeting to order. Councilor Sullivan? Here. Councilor Dean? Here. Councilor Figgy. Here. Uh, do I hear a motion for the approval? The committee meeting Minutes. So moved. Second. Motion made any corrections? Additions? Deletions. No. Seeing none. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Well done on the minutes. I must say they've done a great job calling me Mrs. B. Mrs. B It wasn't this true story. You were liberated woman.
And I didn't even ask you to change on the minutes. First up tonight is animal control. Margaret, you wanna come on up and join us? Good evening. Evening. Give us a little overview. Get the highlights and low lights and, uh, What more highlights and low lights. Alright, well let's see. So last year, whatever you want. A little last year review. Was that? Wow. You want do? Alright. Well, um, last year we employed two, um, Westfield residents as kennel attendants and we didn't previously have that position, so we were able to do that with our budget.
We installed a large shade awning in our play yard outside, which, uh, improves the quality of stay for our dogs and for our visitors coming to adopt. Um, we had a list of items from the State Department of Labor standards that we needed to get in compliance with. Mm-hmm. Um, so we were able to use our budget to get in compliance there. So that has been since closed out. Um, so some goals for next year that we're hoping to achieve are the outdoor player fencing, um, is falling apart. Uh, and so we are looking to hopefully fix that.
Um, we also struggle in the extreme temperatures of the winter in the summer to keep the shelter at an appropriate temperature. Um, so I'm going to hopefully look into improving, uh, that this fiscal year. Um, so the budget that I had proposed had contractual increases in pay for our full-time staff. Um, I had asked for an increase for purchase of service, um, and our supply line and our replacement equipment line.
Um, the mayor had reduced what I had requested. Um, purchase of service by 3000, um, supplies by a thousand in replacement equipment by a thousand based on our past use. Um, that is pretty much what I have. Okay. Did your replacement for equipment go up? Replacement equipment? Yeah, It got cut. It, it got cut, but it was overall increased. Oh, I see. Yeah. So it did end up getting, it went from 1500 to 500, 2000, 2000.
Okay. But I had requested 3000. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah. Um, so our purchase of service from this year ultimately did go down a little. Um, and our supply line stayed the same from this previous year. Okay. And loss of the equipment, is the lease is done or you don't have a vehicle? Oh, the equipment vehicles. Yeah. We finished the last payment on our, um, F-150 that we have. So no more vehicle payments? No. How are, how is your fleet Pretty good? It's pretty good right now. Okay. Um, yeah, we have one vehicle that I take around
this old canine vehicle. Um, that'll probably be the next one to leave, but that's not as urgent as the other two that we have for our animal control officers to use. Any questions? Nope. I'm good. Alright. Well thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you guys. Thanks Martin. Thank you. Next is police. How you doing? Move up like this? Yeah, Bring back memories. Beating up here. Flashbacks. Um, so yeah, I think you've seen our budget. Um, we don't, we don't have any major capital really
anything other than to keep our building from falling apart. Um, you know, we're hopefully still, I think we're still moving forward. Everything's looking good for a new station in a few years. So obviously in light of that we're not looking at making any major renovations or, or major improvements to the building. Um, just kind of keeping everything fixed. So there was no, you know, significant capital issues that we, that we had to look at. Um, We didn't wear my glasses tonight, so, uh, we did, we're still, we're still sitting at, uh, at, at 66 patrolmen right now. Um, we, we've tried to up that, um, that's kind of where
that, that money has gone in and out of the budget, I think four times from the start of this year's budget talks till, till today. Uh, as of right the second it is out. That was, that was one of the big things that kind of came out. What's the charter number? The charter number right now is 70, 70 patrol officers. It's 70 officers, nine sergeants, five lieutenants, two captains and chief. Um, so we can have up to 70. Um, but right now we're funded at at 66. But the good news is we are actually getting way close to that number. Finally. Uh, we do still have a couple military deployments
and, and one or two, um, like longer term injuries. Um, but we are finally getting close to with the next group that's gonna go into the academy. Um, we should be, again, they're not all on the street right now, but for the first time in a long time we're actually getting close to what that number should be. So, yeah. So that's good news. Um, So the 4,536,000 5 5 8 60 4 cents, that covers 66 patrol I believe. So it Covers the patrolmen, everything all the way up to the captains plus the, uh, maintenance staff. It should be every, it Should be everywhere. They're all
separate. They're all Separate. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I think if you're looking at the same thing, I you, you are, you're correct about that. That's the, the 66 patrol? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Correct. Correct. So that Even though it's 70 by ordinance Correct. And I, this, this might have been an old one 'cause Yeah, we did, like I said, I I, I changed that number three or four different times. Okay. Okay. Depending on what version. So that, that 70 right. Is actually representative of 66 patrol right there. Okay. So I just don't want to get where we're cutting any money. Right. For people That and, and that, that number right there. So the number you're looking at counselor with, um, four
or five for the, the chiefs and the, the captains that does include, um, contractual raises, the patrolmen and the supervisors, uh, that anything in full-time hourly does not. 'cause we're, we're in the middle of negotiations right now. So that actually does not, that only includes, um, step raises if, if someone is, if an officer's hitting their step that was factored in. Otherwise it's, it's, it's not in that number. So There's no cost of load. So the, the chief is the chief, the two captains are fully funded? Correct. Five lieutenants are fully funded. Correct. And the nine sergeants are fully funded? Correct. Okay. And 66 patrol 60.
Okay. Difference. Uh, we did, and our, our, our overtime is, is kind of going level to what it was last year. Um, we had initially gotten an extra $20,000 put into that the first time, the first, uh, round, uh, to kind of cover again because we've lost so many, you know, we don't have the auxiliaries anymore, we don't have the part-timers. There's a lot of events that, that take place that we've, and we've done our best to try and rearrange and, and change locations and, and do different things. Um, so there was an extra 20,000 that was put in so that we could try and cover some more of those, uh,
those parade type events and things like that where, uh, the, the cities gonna absorb it anyway if we have to hire. Um, that was taken back out again to, to get back down to the number we need to get to. So, so, and this the current 25 budget, are you gonna spend the four 20? Oh yeah, but we'll over four 20. Okay. Yeah, we're well over that four 20. Um, and then I think there was some, there was also some more, some money cut out of, uh, supplies and purchase services. I know some of it, um, the, the plowing, our plowing budget, I believe we were the only department left that was still had the plumbing in our budget, not in the city budget
so much like the, the medical last year that was taken out and put into the city budget, that was kind of moved out of our, out of our arena. Um, and then we were able to cut, uh, a little bit on gas kind of based on the last couple of years. Our gas budget was where we pulled things out. And then we're just kind of really banking on that gas getting down about 2000 gallon food tanks. Right. So overall your budget is, is 1.97% lower than the last year, uh, right now before, uh, before contracts are settled?
Yeah. Any questions? Any other questions? Nope. I mean, I, chief and I have talked about this several times, community policing, you know, we've gotta have a presence Downtown. Yeah. So, so the, the good news is, again, with those numbers finally creeping back to where we need them to be. And again, we're even better if we could Yeah. Squeeze in those extra four. But, um, with those numbers, we did just put somebody back in community policing. So we went from one to two. We're looking at putting a third, uh, potentially a third one in there. Uh, maybe with, with some grant funding and donations, maybe even with a, a possibly with a comfort dog. But I, I don't wanna jump out special, but,
but anyway, there might be a third person with or without a comfort dog going back into between policing. So that stuff is, is starting to come back up with the numbers coming back up. Um, you know, something happens and all of a sudden there's a mass exodus or Yeah, yeah. Huge retirement or something like that, that can change tomorrow. But I mean, it's Something that's, Things have been going in the right direction over the last, Visually it's important. It doesn't have to be there eight hours a day, that kind of thing. If there's a way to circle in and out, that kind Of stuff. And it's amazing. Again, I, I used to the police unit, it was so nice when we had five officers in there. Yeah. Um, and even just, you know,
it's been one guy for a long time now. Um, we put the second guy in there and even that's made a huge difference. And um, you know, so again, once we're able to get hopefully back up to that full five, it'd be great. And that, that is the way we've been moving. And like I said, we're trying to get stock those, those, uh, those bureaus back up again. It Works when you guys are there. It's, it Definitely, IIII watch it work and It's still, it's still I think a safe place. It's just to keep that constant and consistent. Yep. Yep. 'cause there are hours of the day or night that things Change and it, it, it really does boil down to kind
of the, if you look at the major crimes, those aren't fluctuating tremendously. Right. But when you start to look at that quality of life stuff. Correct. Um, that, that we are able to address when we have those other officers in there. I mean that's, yeah, that's usually what everybody's really concerned with and that's the important why, why we try to deal with that quality of life level stuff before it turns into something more major. Uh, you know, I always love when people tell us, oh, it wouldn't bother me for this in whatever city. Well, well good, well then feel free to go to that city, but we're not gonna let that stuff happen here. So. No, I appreciate that. Thanks. Why did education go down so much?
So every year we budget for anticipated degrees. Um, I think a lot of those anticipated degrees were kind of pulled out. So if, if some of those anticipated degrees happen, we may have to come back. So people have now sit there going for, they say, yeah, I believe I should get a degree. Um, not to be fair there, I've been a couple officers that we've been anticipating for several years keep saying, oh no, I'm still working on it. Um, and they are, they're just going really, really slow doing it. So, um, so again, hopefully it's the cost. Hopefully that stays good. Yeah. Um, if, if all of a sudden, you know, seven officers come
through me next year and say, oh, got my degree, we may, we may be sitting back here again. Okay. Uh, question, does a dog officer get a stipend to be the dog officer? Yes. Yes. Yeah. They get a stipend, uh, every week They get a stipend for kennel care. Okay. Yeah. It's, it is not so much a is a second to the officer or is it just, it's like a to pay for the, They get like, Um, the care, the animal, I wanna say It's been a while since we've done it. I think it was two and a half hours they got a week or every Two weeks maybe. So it's not, it's not necessarily a stipend.
They come in and put in for overtime for the, the, the stuff that they have to do. So it's not, we have bureau differential and, and, and drill differential shift differential. There's not like a differential for the can officer. They just put in for their time. 'cause after your last presentation when we approved the dog, everything, I thought it was not gonna have any additional increase in expense. But it does, and it's two and a half hours every two weeks of overtime. It's, it's a little more. Right, right. Not that I'm begrudging it. Yep. I think we need to be out there. Let let it know.
I see the boxes have been repainted. Uh oh, like the intersections. Yeah, I did see a lot of those. One at Arnold needs somebody down there. It took me four lights to get out of Arnold. Of Arnold. Okay. Coming Out of Arnold. Taking A left. Yeah, because was that when they were doing construction over on the, the other side of the bridge? Just today. Oh, okay. Alright. Alright. So I think it's great because when I talked to traffic before, they were waiting for the boxes to be painted. Yep. So they're wide open now. You can really tell where they are. So I'm not out looking for tickets, I'm looking for a little education
because the cars just, they just keep going. I'm not gonna block the box to get out. Right. Right. But that's just, that's just one of my pet peeves. So if you could work on that as well, and I agree with, with councilor being the presence downtown, even if it's for an hour Yeah. At different times It might. Well, and that's what, and again, when we had the full contingent community policing was much easier to say, okay, I want you to spend 20% of your day just walking your neighborhood. You know, and now it's just the two guys in there because they have, they have one little area assigned
to 'em, but they end up bouncing to some of the other areas to, you know, to address different quality of life and different needs. Um, so it's, it's busy. It makes it a little more difficult for, to just take an hour and, and ride around their neighborhood or walk around the neighborhood or Any other questions on police? I'm good. Traffic control. These are your crossing guards. Correct. Not confused with, With those guys here. These, these are the school school crossing guards Right. For people. Right. Um, they that, I mean it's, it's fairly cut and dried that went down because we actually were able to eliminate one position
with Avenue Gibb. With Avenue Gibbs closing. Um, so even though we do have, I believe there's two crossing yards at Franklin Avenue now with, uh, Westwood River. Mm-hmm. Um, we were able to eliminate one position. So that's why that actually dropped. Um, there was nobody really taken away from us. It was just that we didn't, we didn't need that one extra person. Yeah. The, um, the revision of the women's locker room downstairs. Yes. Will any of that stuff be able to be used in the new station? Yeah. Yes. Probably not. Maybe not for the actual locker rooms.
Um, but yes, the, the lockers and things that we were buying down there will, those are all really nice. So we will find a use for them at a new station. Good. Good. And did you have new, uh, roll call furniture? Uh, chairs. Chairs, yeah. And those will go with you as well? Probably Those will find the use. Yeah. Yeah. Better we donate To others, as I say, with us or another city department. It will we'll find. Well as long, as, long as they're not, like they're Not gonna get thrown out. Well, I'd rather 'em be thrown out as be stacked in sterile in different buildings. I agree. I agree. And we have one department that seems to love to hoard these old desks. Desks. There's a lot of desks.
You got a desk, right? I didn't see, I didn't give it all. Yeah. I mean, honestly, in, in, in Three, In three-ish years, if, if all that equipment is still good, I mean, there's no reason it couldn't be used in one of the, in one of the classrooms in the building. So. Well I want just give kudos out to the older gentleman that's the crossing guard at the middle school. He does an excellent job. He's been there forever. I don't know how much longer he can go. Right. Hang on to that Guy. I just appreciate word referring to me as the older gentleman. Gentleman. Oh, there you go. There you go. There you go. They shoulda known.
Okay, so we got police, animal control, traffic. Any other questions? I'm good. Nope. All set? All set. Thank you all. Thank you Captain. Thank you. I call a lot worse. Thanks. Okay, next up is on chief. Thank you guys. See you. Thanks guys. Appreciate you. Uh, adjusting to the new time zone. Evening. Evening. Alright. It's, So I give you that, Call it coding and everything. Those are specifically from my grants, but I'm just gonna go over quickly my, um, budget first.
Okay. So, um, differences from last year to this coming is, um, you'll see the 6% raise contractual step increases. This is before, um, negotiated contracts. Um, I am not at all putting money into my per diem salaries. Um, because I don't have any per diems right now on staff. Um, I have enough full-time to cover what I need, um, overtime is staying the exact same. Um, so on the next page you will see that I spend, um, nearly 150,000 on overtime, but I don't ask for more money
because I get it replenished through my grants. Um, holiday is just slightly, um, more because I do have more dispatchers than I did, um, last year, and less of them are taking comp time for their holidays. Shift differential. CTO stipends and lead stipends are exactly the same. Purchase of services went down drastically, almost by, uh, $10,000. That's because I have two contracts, um, that I no longer pay. Um, and then really everything else stays pretty much the same except for outstate travel. The mayor cut back completely. What did you do out of state travel?
Uh, that was for conferences and anything, uh, either in New York, Connecticut or like New Hampshire or Vermont, um, that I could send dispatchers to for training. Okay. So how are you going to make up that training if you can't send them anymore? It's, it, they'll either just take online courses or they'll stay in state. So There's a way of doing that. Yeah. Okay. Good. A lot of the, a lot of We don't wanna stop training. Yeah. I mean the conferences not so much, but we can do without a conference. Um, one year. Um, so then the next page is, uh, fiscal year. This fiscal year. Um, I wanted to show you what my grants look like currently.
So this isn't what I applied for. Um, I actually got a lot more funding in my grants, but I can't spend it all. Um, so if you see under grants, there's different columns for each grant. So the important incentive grant is, is what brings in the most training grant. That's specifically for, um, continuing education and training new hires. The EMD grant is, is so you can see definitely smaller than the rest. Um, that's just for EMD protocol that we have in the dispatch center. And then I have a TURP grant, which is the telecommunicate Telecommunicator Emergency Response Team grant. That is for the two people in house
that I have on the TURP team. So they respond to dis different dispatch centers to help out, um, in their centers if need be. Um, so under 2020 fives column, you'll see that the 1.1 that, that's my actual budget. Um, and then my total grant reimbursements thus far for what I also estimate them to be till the end of this month is the $978,000. And then Southwick, um, the assessment fee for doing their dispatch services is a hundred thousand dollars. So I estimate that the state has only spent $23,000 on my,
on my, um, budget this year. So a couple things that I did not anticipate paying for this year that were not covered by grants were CAD costs, um, out from the both fire departments, both Southwick and um, Westfield to move the remaining of, uh, remaining invoices that they had with their CAD vendor to my invoices, which is all under my budget. What's cat stand for? I'm sorry. Computer aided Dispatch. It's, uh, what we track all of our calls for service and our responders on, that's a very sizable contract that we have. So this year it's about $70,000.
Um, promotional items are, is pretty small. We've been doing a lot of career fairs and nine one education initiatives. And then I also purchased, um, or I'm sorry, I paid for a software program, um, that was about $12,000 that I'm no longer funding. Um, what I thought was going to be a great, um, problem solving for my department. It was not. Um, and especially with the budget cuts, I decided not to fund it again this year. Um, so then the next page is this year's fiscal grant or this, this fiscal year's grants that I applied for. So the amounts that you see under those grants are the
amount of money that I applied for. Again, it's going to end up being what it was like this year where I probably won't be able to spend all of that. Um, as you can see, my full-time salaries and my overtime will probably just get to the amount of money that I spend within my support and incentive grant and my training grant for personnel. Um, so when you see that my total grant reimbursements and the assessment fee from Southwick is, is about $80,000 more than my actual budget. It will probably be something again, like this year
where I've maybe spent maybe 10, $20,000 out of my actual budget that I can't get reimbursed for about my grants. So just on the money that you are not able to spend, has anyone taken a look? Are there other, does it have to come from your department or are there other budgets within the city that could pick that Up? Unfortunately, no. It has to come from my budget and a lot of the things that are eligible have to be something that, uh, I would say the majority of my grants have to pay for something that is housed and used within the dispatch center.
So that's why I pay for the CAD system. Although that full $70,000 that I pay for, for the CAD system actually does not get reimbursed because there's certain components of it that live down at the police departments and fire departments. So the, the grants will not pay for those portions. Thank you. Same thing with radio vendors. Um, I have have a couple consoles, backup consoles at at police fire and in Southwood police, the grants will not pay for those as well. Okay. Are all four dispatchers positions full? Um, so I have, I have three full consoles,
um, that I, I have dispatchers sitting at between, um, eight, uh, 8:00 AM and midnight. And then my lead dispatchers usually fill the fourth console and then I drop down to two dispatchers. Let me, so you, you're funding 14 dispatchers? Oh yes. Budget, Yes. I'm Sorry. All positions fall. Yep. Yes. Yep. And those two of those are lead dispatchers that received the lead stipend. Okay. Thank you. Any, any conversation about grant funding year after year after year? Has there been any talk about, okay.
Yep. So yep. So just last year, um, the state nine one commission actually, um, brought forward the, so the surcharge on cell phone and landlines, the dollar 50 for each line. That's actually what funds all of this, these grant programs that is going to continue for the next five years. They just, they just passed that. Um, so we'll see it for the next five years. And ultimately that they're not looking to ever go away with those because that's what funds the PSAPs within Massachusetts Such, just make sure and nobody else is looking to partner with us
as far as the regional stuff goes. Um, so actually yes, um, I've, uh, I've had conversations with Granby Mass and I've had conversations with um, Palmer as well. Um, Been on the outskirts, Definitely on the outskirts. Not something that they're really, uh, looking to do right now, but it's, it's definitely a conversation for if it's needed. That's good. Thank you for doing all that. Thank you very much. You're Welcome. Appreciate it. You're Welcome. I like the uh, Go. I'm glad that Very readable For you guys. Thank you. Thank
You. Thank you. Alright, ambulance and fire. Oh, thanks. Good evening gentlemen. Good evening counselors. I'd like to provide a brief update on the Westfield Fire Department's fiscal year 26 budget. Personnel side of the budget was level funded with only increases reflecting contractually obligated raises. The ambulance budget filed the same approach. Um, However, I have added funds to the purchase and services and supply light items in both budgets to cover costs associated
with the department software program first due and the increase in costs to our supplies. I wanted, I want to acknowledge that counselor be and Figi were instrumental in requesting a comprehensive review of the fire department by Mayor McCabe. And that review conducted by MRI recommended adding at least seven additional personnel across various ranks and responsibilities, as well as expanding the use of modules within the first two platform. With those recommendations in mind, I sought to implement the most fiscally responsible steps possible.
I proposed the addition of two cost-effective positions to the fire prevention office and assistant fire prevention officer and a clerk. While Mayor McCabe initially approved these positions, they were unfortunately removed in the final stages of budget balancing due to broader financial constraints outside of his control. I wanted to make sure you were aware of these efforts and the rationale behind the decisions made. Thank you for your continuance for, so If You look at either one of my budgets, um, they are really compared to last year, bare bones.
Um, the fire budget actually went down, uh, actually went, it went up by 0.42% overall. So less, uh, less than a half a percent. And the ambulance budget actually went down by 13.19, which that is a little bit misleading because we had $600,000 worth of, uh, fire truck from free cash. Uh, actually not from free cash taken out of that, that was put into the ambulance. So, um, full-time salary positions.
Can I stop you for a second? Absolutely. You said the ambulance budget went down 13.9%? It did, but that was, like I said, that was because of the $600,000 that was taken on the, That's what I got is only is a 15 a 0.15 increase. That's what it says here. That wrong? No, that's what I'm reading. Okay. Maybe the mayor submit budget. Yeah. So maybe the numbers haven't caught up with each Other. Right. Which one? Uh, what did you have for 5.40? Four 0%. So These are what the auditor I got
0.42. It's probably the same. What? What'd you say? The ambulance went down 13.9. That's what I said. That's what we got. What says did you say the 600 on that one? Well, I just got, that's The, that's Apparently the of adjustments. That's the reason. It's based on this last year's budget and the money was put in and now it's Less. So I think what happened is under equipment vehicles mm-hmm. 450,000 is what's budgeted or what An ambulance. Yeah, that's firetruck and two ambulance.
Right. And I think that now it's zero. So that might be why we have a 0.15 up and you got a 0.139 down. But some something's it had to be some adjustments made since we got these pages. What I'm looking at, So it it, do you want me to continue? Yeah, Yeah, Absolutely. So, um, if you look at the, the fire budget, um, my salaried employees, which is myself, the deputies and the captains that went up 0.38%. So, uh, just a little over a third of a percent.
Um, 'cause there's no raises in here other than contractually obligated raises. Um, the full-time hourly only went up by 0.24. Um, and if you go and you look at, um, out of grade, uh, we had a deputy chief that was sick last year for over six months, um, and was out. And in years past, I had put out of grade money into my budget and the mayor, because we hadn't used it the last two years, he cut, he cut it out last year and we had to find that somewhere.
So we actually found that out of, uh, full-time, hourly, full-time salary to make up it. So that's why it looks like it's, it's minus 100%. Mm-hmm. It went from 14,000 projected to six and then now zero. That, that's because we had to actually put money into that. And now that money's not there anymore. Um, um, education, uh, went up 0.82% percent. And if you, if you look really the biggest jumps are just like I said, purchase of services and supplies. Um, so, uh, councilor Sullivan, if you remember, uh,
I asked the mayor for money to implement this first due and it was for an 18 month to start it off. And then I said I was gonna put it in my budget and you asked me to split it between both ambulance and fire. And that's exactly what I did. Plus due to the MRI review, we were, um, we were told that we should go and expand fire, uh, first do to include the fire prevention modules and the NIF fers module, which, um, is the National Fire Incident Reporting System. Um, and which is now turned into NRIs.
And so that'll help us do that rather than do it on pen and paper. And it's all gonna be electronic. So, um, those are in both budgets. Those are the big ones that stand out. Um, purchases services went up by 8.29% and supplies went up by 6.82%. Um, and that was in fire. And then Ambulance purchase services went up 7.9399999999999995% and supplies
went up by supplies only went up by 0.92 on the ambulance side. But the purchase of services would be the first deal. Um, you can also see that in ambulance. Um, it looks at the very top line salaried employees. The percent change went from, uh, went down by 25.36%. The reason that is our EMS superintendent, which is paid out of that, he was deployed to Iraq for a year. We needed to put somebody in that position. We had to pay the difference between what he made and for this person had to get paid the same amount
of money, but we still have to pay the military the difference. So that, that's what that comes up to. That's why it's this year it's minus 25.36. Yeah. Between you and the police department, that that's a real hard one to figure Just on the positions in fire. Yes. So obviously yourself, the, uh, five deputies Yep. Mechanic, nine captains and 48 firefighters. They all filled positions. 10 Captain, 10 captains. Right. I got Nine. We have nine captains. Well, what's, what's the, uh, mechanic grade?
Oh, oh, it, that's a captain's grade. We don't count. Well, I counted the captain. The mechanics separate, but either, Yeah. Right. So with with with the, the pay, it would be 10 at Captains Ray. Yep. So, but some of these aren't filled. Um, the, the officer positions are the fire, not all the firefighter positions are. Two years ago, mayor McCabe cut two people out of my budget and he has not given those back. Okay. So I used to, used to have seven to two firefighters. Were now at seven firefighters. Okay. So lemme go back and ask the same question I just asked. Sure. Police department. So the $3 million,
$3,001,090, is that paying for 48 positions or something less than that? So 70 minus 25, which is 45. 45 positions. So the 3 million is paying for 45 even though full staffing would be 48. So you're not Correct. Okay. So you're not paying for any unfilled positions. Correct. Budget, we are not, uh, in this new position, in this new budget, we are not paying for any new One more time.
Okay. So what we've got in front of us says Sure. That the $3 million Yep. Is paying for 48 positions. Yep. But you're telling us that there's really only 45 because there's three vacancies. And so why we currently have four vacancies, but in the budget the mayor approved all but two positions that he cut two years ago. Okay. So is there, therefore, is there some unfilled positions funded in this budget? There are no new positions in This budget. Not new. Okay. Unfilled, Existing unfilled, yes, there is un yes and no.
We just hired four firefighters, um, last Monday. So those positions are not yet filled in this new, in this new budget. So that means you're gonna go up to 52? We're gonna fighters We are not no. The uh, the numbers right. Just Right. So it takes you to 48, right? Yes. Oh, okay. So as of Monday Yep. All 48 are, will be filled and are fully funded in the 26th budget Proposal. Correct. Okay. Thanks. Okay. If you want to,
I just got a question on the ambulance. Sure. Okay. So just the Conversation we had last year. Well, uh, so what, what's the current, the current balance is around $2 million in, I don't know, I'd have to ask Vicky. Yeah, my guess is it's over $2 million. Right. So in the ambulance budget, is there a reason why we couldn't pay for the firefighters that we're covering? And I understand that's because we effectively use the ambulance account, so I'm all in on that. But could we fund the health insurance and the retirement benefits for the fi for the firefighters
that are being paid out of the ambulance account? 'cause I don't think those are paid for here. I don't believe they are. I believe all the benefits are out of the fire budget, not outta the ambulance budget. So I, I don't know if that can be done. That's not really in my, And I can't cut it. I mean, and I don't want to cut it and I can't add it into the ambulance budget, so I'm hamstrung there. So just so you'll know, I have already raised it with the mayor as to why that can't happen. Mm-hmm. Because that'll obviously have the effect of taking some money off the general fund, putting it onto the ambulance, which I try to watch that we don't overtax that. Mm-hmm. Probably portraits of words overuse it.
Um, but I don't know why that can't come out Of that. I don't think that's a, a poor use of words. We, well I know the tax confuses everything. It's property tax versus so whatever. So I know we always go through that. Okay, thank you. Yes. But just so you know, I've asked the mayor that question Understood. Which I think I did last year. He didn't change it, but that's okay. His prerogative. So it was the conversation we had last year. It is, I think the year before That it is so happen. We weren't sure the amount it was like we were doing, I know we were doing the math, but it's, I think it's like $250,000 plus
or minus Rough math. Okay. Thank you. I've got, and we are fortunate to have the ambulance account. Thank you for very fortunate managing it Well. You welcome. So just so I'm clear in this budget, all the positions that are budgeted are filled. You have no vacancies Gonna be I will have vacancies. I will have vacancies, but through retirement, through attrition. Okay. But this budget covers everybody, including the four people that were hired last Monday.
Once those four positions come on board, we will be full for positions other than the two positions that were cut two years ago. And we're Assuming they start July one, is that what we're assuming? Oh, no, I'm thinking probably August 1st is the, because we're at the end of year, I can't give, get physical so that we actually have physical schedule for July 1st. Does the budget reflect the 11 months instead of 12? Um, it does not because the budget was done back in January, February. And just as a disclaimer, I read the review
that was done of your department. I think it has some very positive recommendations, but I'm very leery of any, any evaluation that recommends that to improve a department you gotta have more men and you gotta have more money. As soon as I see those two things the same with the DPW review, that's a red flag for me because I think there's things we can do with what we have existing to improve ourselves. Not that it's all ERs and everything, but I, I just wanted to make the sense you brought that up. Well, there's a lot we're doing right now that
doesn't cost any money. Right. And we're, and we're doing those things right now. It's the, the ones that cause the money are the ones that really stand out the most. Right. Any, uh, vehicles, bigger Equipment? No, I'm not gonna ask you for any. And, and, and, uh, I think I already told Ralph this, this would be my last budget hearing, uh, in front of the finance for the city council. Um, that's Why you look so happy. I, yeah. That's why I'm so relaxed right now is, um, I, I've already, um, told the fire Commission at the April meeting that my plan is
to leave in April of 2026 to retire. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. And don't work a day longer. Yeah. I'd love to get your opinion about civil service with position. Not now. Okay. Totally. Yeah. Can't get conversation. Love to hear it time for a different day. Think we all, any further questions? I got none. No, I'm all set. I'm all set. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks Judy. Have have a wonderful evening. You too. Next up is uh, Carissa building.
Good. You wanna start, Start with the building department. Um, building pretty much, um, there will be an increase. I know mine and, uh, my local building official, um, contracts were settled those in front of, um, now. Um, so there will be an increase there. Um, other than that, basically just salaries, um, in order to cut, we cut or purchase a service secure account. Um, that account is just typically Funded just in case I have to board to secure a building
that we can't get ahold of the owner in the middle of the night. Um, we've really never had to use it. Um, we decided that's where I would cut it, um, because I really couldn't afford to cut supplies for continuing ed for my purchase of service. Purchase of service pretty much pays for our department cell phones, our vehicle maintenance, so our, our alternate inspectors for electrical and plumbing when they're on vacation. Um, some of our continuing education and our department uniforms, um, that we, that we get for, for the inspectors. Um, same thing with supplies.
It pays for the gas, uh, for the vehicles and our office supplies and our code books. I believe electrical's gonna need a new code book this year. And they're pretty expensive. So Some of them range like 500 bucks a book. Um, so that's it for, for building. I know electrical and plumbing are the, um, in building, but they have their own line items. Those salaries are contractual. Um, both of them just renewed, uh, for three year contracts. So those increases are contractual based on their PSAs. Any questions on buildings, plumbing or electric?
No, just staffing. Oh, we're Good right now. We're full staff. I'd love to increase, um, public prop or code enforcement with another full-time code enforcement officer, however we talked about it, but just couldn't put it in the budget. Um, this, this year. Any discussion mid-year? Maybe? Um, possibly. Um, I don't know. Yeah, I I guess mayor will have to wait and see where we are financially. 'cause unfortunately code enforcement, unlike the inspectors, it doesn't pay for itself.
No. I like, you know, with at least our salaries and stuff, our permit fees and stuff compensate for that. Um, so Just maybe we should talk about it again. I would love to, You know, least to have your kind of discussion. I would love to. Okay. I think that would be a great, great. I Mean, Justin's doing a really good job right now. Yes. Um, But he's only 19 hours a week. He's only 19 hours a week. And we could really benefit from another full-time on top of having Justin part-time. I, I can agree with that. I think that's been a area that's been identified
for improvement for a lot. It's the Times. It really is. That's what it comes down to. We we're not here to look for Things, you know what I mean? No, exactly. I mean, it's the Chronic people that are Just, we, we act on the complaints that come into the office because obviously Justin doesn't have time to drive around and it search for things. Um, that's, you know, not what we do. Um, that also does put the city in a liable situation. Um, but even just acting on the, the complaints that do come in on a regular basis is a lot. Yeah. And he takes care of all the, He's super responsive. The conversations we have. That's great. And he takes care of all the, uh,
special conditions in our special permits and stuff too. So, Which is, which is more and more involved every day. Yeah. Yeah. More special permits with conditions that get issued. That's hard to keep up on those. Okay. Do you have anything else that you I'm good. Any other departments or, Uh, we got public properties. Yep. Um, Jose is not contractual. Um, but I did give him a slight increase, um, just because he's, you know, he's been here for a long time.
He's a great job. It's really helpful having here part, part-time at work, uh, at night. Uh, he covers if, um, our other full-time employee is off on vacation. Um, so it, it kind of saves Chris and I from having to come back and to walk up the building and take care of everything. So I think give him a slight increase even though he isn't bound by any type of contract. Um, I did ask for, um, $3,300 in overtime. I know the merit did cut that down to 2000. Um, that covers snow removal
and I learned this year that it also covers, uh, Chris and Andy coming in to help the election. Um, because Kate needs help moving all the boxes and stuff for the election. So, um, I did cut a little bit out of purchase and service. Purchase of service. Um, that takes care of our elevator contract, our, um, uniform contracts, cell phones, uh, the sprinkler, uh, alarm testing, maintenance boiler inspections, um, and then the regular maintenance and repairs for city hall that are not,
uh, within the systems. Those are taken care of by, um, facilities. Um, and then same thing, what supplies, it's just cut back a little bit just to kind of level on the budget. That takes care of, um, our maintenance supplies and the toiletries and cleaning supplies for Sea Hall. Now how long is that elevator gonna be down for repairs? Approximately six weeks. Six weeks. I have graciously handed that over to our new facilities director. Say that's probably a wise move. Any questions on public properties? I'm good. All good. The last one I think is late measures. He's
No, he's not here. He's not here? No, that's not Her. Oh, it's not you? No, they wanted to put him under me, but he's not there yet. Okay. Great job. Very good. Thanks. Thank you so much. Appreciate It. Thank you guys. Have a good night. You too. Alright, you too. We haven't cut, we haven't cut anything. I might know. I'm kind of antsy. Not me. Reconciliation is coming. It is. It's not me. Reconciliation. Alright, ID, Alright. Um, so thank you, um, again for,
for help letting you reschedule and come here tonight Least we could do. Um, so prior year highlights last year we did a, a lot of work in fiscal 24 going into fiscal 25. Um, and sorry, fiscal 25, we hired an IT communication specialist last year who's dedicated support for public safety. We provided summer and fall co-op experiences with the WTA. We had two volunteers that were absolutely wonderful and going on record saying that, that Marilyn and Bill helped us tremendously.
Um, basically in fiscal 25, we put rolled out 1100 student Chromebooks, 200 teacher Chromebooks, plus 400 dedicated Chromebooks for Westfield River and 50 interactive touch touch boards, um, interactive boards. So without the help of our two volunteers and also the students from the WTA, they came over to, um, the new school. They helped us unbox and assemble a lot of the parts and pieces for those touch views that went into all the classrooms. So we received tremendous help from them.
Um, all in all, we still handled our standard service desk request. Um, as Peter had said in his, uh, budget hearing, we worked with the Janie this year to renegotiate the contracts for the connectivity between the schools and the city to the GE and to to the internet. We've upgraded our ring to a hundred gig, that's our municipal ring around town. All our school sites and all our major city sites. Police, fire, city hall, um, water and coa all connect at 10 gigs to this ring.
Um, the remaining sites connect at one gig, but they're the smaller sites. So they, they don't have, and some of these sites have less than 10 people in them, so that's why we left them where they were. Um, and as Peter said, there was a, a cost savings to it and it position positions us well for the future. Um, we coordinated the municipal cybersecurity grant program as usual, and we are also working on a cyber incident recovery plan with another vendor right now and holding tabletop exercises for the municipality as a whole. Um, Rick was looking for some more training.
You want more training? I think you need more training. I, I take one more cyber, uh, in addition to the new school, we also worked with, uh, the city. We're working with the city right now to upgrade the neck road facility. Um, they're moving into a new administrative building, so we're in the final stages of that. We also worked at the technology center setting up the new generator that we had requested last year out of free cash. Um, so that's coming to fruition. It's, it's in it's installed. It just needs final testing and we're hoping that'll get done within the next week or two. Um, we also, along the lines,
we upgraded 300 wifi access points for the school system. We purchased those out of with E-Rate funding. We applied for that last year. Um, it's, we get an E-Rate fund of, of an approximate 85% discount. So we purchased approximately $242,000 worth of equipment for 36,000. Um, this year's plan is that we are still going to be working on our cybersecurity input, uh, infrastructure plan, incident recovery plan, I'm sorry, and tabletops. Those are estimated October, November completion.
That was the grant. I came before you earlier in January. No, actually I came before you first in September. And then the grant got delayed until January and I came back in January with the state side of that grant. Um, the federal portion of that grant got extended until December. So we're going to push some of that training off into October, November due to the fact that everyone will be gone on summer vacation. Um, this year we have 750 student Chromebooks to do. They're all lining the walls of the technology center right now and we can't wait for July 1st to come
to take advantage of our volunteers. Again, not take advantage, but to use them. Um, right now we are doing in the midst of doing a server platform overhaul, um, our server platform, uh, we utilize a common, it's called VMware. It's a virtualization software. And like many other communities we're migrating away from it. We're hoping we started this project now when I get into the budget, the nitty gritty of the budget, we started this project now to get this off the table so we can get it done. This fiscal year, um, that is scheduled
for completion the first week of July. Um, windows 10 conversions coming up. That's by October. We have to get everyone off. We are at less than 10% left to convert. Most of it is school department. We're going to be doing that over the summer months. Uh, we are working on a city hall camera project and a wifi refresh. We've already replaced 90% of the wifis in the building, the wireless access points in this building. And there is a potential for a camera project in to help with the security of the building. Um, also on the school side, we have the closing of Fort Meadow School and repurposing
of technology from there. So as far as my budget goes, is there any questions on, on what we've done so far? I guess? Nope. Okay. Sounds like you've been busy. Yes. So as far as my budget goes, um, my personnel side of the budget there really, there's a small increase. It's approximately overall is a 1.5% increase of my budget for the personnel side. We've restructured the team due to the change of the projects and the amount of skill needed for certain things. We've moved one of one of our network technicians into the network administrative role. Um, but other than that, there's only,
it's only reflected salary. Um, step raises. Most of my team, there's a good portion of my team that are already on the highest step in our union scales. So there's not much increases for them until they get to the contractual raises down, down the line. But right now, um, the technicians team do have steps and some of the network admins have steps. Other than that, you'll see that there is money in that reserve for salary increase. That's, that's to take care of that movement of my team member in there. It happened after the budget was submitted. So that's to take care of that. We did have a little bit of overtime last year.
Um, that was our clerical help at the start of the school year, but we moved most of that into, into the part-time salary. So we were able to fund those student workers over the summer as well. It takes approximately $10,000 to fund a student for a full year. So we're dropped that down to 7,500. We should be able to get three quarters of the year of that. Does that hurt? Excuse me? Does that hurt? It does. It does. Um, obviously not having that extra set of hands there. Mm, it does hurt. Um, but the benefit is, is that we will have that person
during the school year, so we'll be able to fund 'em during, we just won't have them over the summer. Um, we will reach out again to the Council on Aging and the veterans, um, services to see if there's any other additional ones. As the generations are getting older, we're getting people with technology backgrounds that are entering into that era, era. So they're willing to come and help us. Good. Excellent. Um, so on the expenses side of the house, um, you can see that I did have a decrease in it. It's, it's an overall decrease of one, um, 1.16%.
Overall. 98% of my budget is purchase of services. So that's all the contracts that I have out there for server support, for vendor support, for warranties, for, um, the cloud services, for the website, hosting copier leases, et cetera. And that's, they're all divvied up between the purchase of services, which is all the general city support. Um, IRC, which is the school side of the house, which is why it's so much smaller. And then cybersecurity, we started breaking out cybersecurity as, as its own separate line. That's 98% of my budget.
The first one, the purchase of service line, it did go down $8,700 in actuality when I submitted my, from when I submitted my budget to the mayor to when we, we worked with the mayor through his cuts and everything, we renegotiated a lot of the contracts and we actually dropped in about $50,000 from my initial ask. So from my initial ask, it dropped down about 50,000. Part of that was with the movement of my staff, you can see that it only went up $5,000 for that. With the, for a $5,000 movement, I was able
to cut almost $30,000 out of my budget for next year so we could get some of the work done this year. So that's where that goes. Um, we rest of everything on here. We're trimming down our supply line. It's going down, um, it's going down significantly. It's almost in half. It's just a little over half. Um, we're finding fewer and fewer people are printing. So we have less and less need for copier, for toner for the printers because the copiers are covered by cliff charge contracts. So it's all included. Um, we're also finding that as we're replacing the devices,
we don't need as many parts. So that's coming down quite a bit in state travel. We, there's still some travel for instate, so that's still there. We did cut it in half. I would say travel. Um, the mayor did leave this in the budget. We cut it in half. We go to two to three major conferences a year. The Muni conference, um, the MSI sub conference. And I really would like to send our new person to the, um, our new public safety support to the Motorola conference because we're going to have to start changing radio systems soon or upgrading our radio system.
So I'd really like to get 'em out to that one. So I think that's the reason why I left it in there. But if you didn't, that's in there. Um, but what I did find out, and this just happened last week as well, is Ms. Isaac, which is the multi-state information sharing and analysis center. They provide a lot of our cybersecurity. They work with department Homeland Security, with um, CIS, which is a center for internet security and csaw, which is a cybersecurity town cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency. It's all part of DHS.
They recently were affected by the federal cuts in federal cuts in the budget. So they went from a 90% free service to all the states and tribal communities to what are we gonna do to survive here. And just last week they announced that they're announcing a funding program for it where we have to pay for a subscription to a membership for it. The lowest price that I've seen so far for a community like ours is $5,000, which is obviously not in my budget because we didn't know about it until just last week. I'm hoping that the state takes it on and then offers it to the cities
at hopefully a discounted rate. But I don't know that one for fact yet. It's just, it literally came out last Tuesday the 10th. So that's where that goes. So if that would happen, that money would probably go towards that. Um, the replacement equipment, we, it looks like it went down, uh, looks like it went up, but normally that's funded at $10,000. Um, it's really hard to judge this account because some of this is for replacement equipment for devices that break, or devices that go south. For example, this wonderful storm we just had at the airport
or the air that we just had, the airport got hit hard with it. We think there was a lightning strike near our, our building somewhere because we lost cameras on our tower. We lost three of our gates and we lost our intercom phones to call into the building. We're a secure building. We have to have the, the gates working and we have to have the intercoms working. So now I'm gonna have to go and replace all that. And that alone is around $5,000 just for that. So that's why I kind of have to leave some money in that account. But it did come down from what I budgeted last year. Um, there was some money movement in here,
so usually I budget about 10,000 in there. So I brought it down to six this year. Uh, the only other thing, um, the increase that you see on the school side, there's an increase in security cameras and digital signage mainly due to the new school. Um, the new school has many more cameras, many more digital signs, and any other school in the district. So there's all licenses that we have to take into account. And, um, there the digitally signage and then it, this is partially offset by the, um, wireless access access point replacements too.
So, so the increase went up, but it didn't go as up as high as it should have gone. So I got nothing. No, you playing catch up for a lot of years. Yeah. Do you have any open positions? I do not. Right now we are staffed, we are fully staffed at 13 employees, and then we usually have our one part-time co-op and then we have the two volunteers. Are you asking if I can use more? Yeah, No, the answer to that I can tell you. Like I said, I think we covered most of my, I have my specific end of year that happened with our, with our change in the money and decrease there.
And I think I mentioned it all here, so, um, but yeah. Great. Great job. Thank you. Thank You. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Glad we could accommodate you. Thank you. That's, that's it. Motion adjourn. Motion made. And second as will adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All done.