Good evening. I'd like to call the special city council meeting of June 17th, 2026 to order. Roll call, Madam City Clerk. Oneski? Here. Adams? Here. Ally? He will not be with us. Bean? Here. Beltrandi? Here. Burns? Here. Fannian? Here. Figgy? Here. Harris? Here. Knoppich? Here. Matthews-Kane? Here. Mello? Here. Morganelli? He will not be with us. Item one, communications from the mayor. Councilor Knoppich. Yes, Mr. President. Thank you. A motion to have Madam City Clerk refer that item to the finance committee, please. Second. Second. Motion made and seconded. Madam City Clerk. One, submitting an amendment to the proposed fiscal year '27 budget to include
$100,000 increase to the reserve for unforeseen salary account in preparation for collective bargaining agreements that are currently under negotiation for fiscal year '27. Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Oh, Councilor? Where did the increase in the dollar side come from? If we're increasing the expense, we've got to increase the revenue. Where is that coming from? We don't know yet. We don't know yet. We'll know more. You'll know more to come in- There's an extra $100,000 coming in from free cash into the budget for tomorrow. Okay. That's my question. Yeah. It's going to come from free cash. Thank you.
You good? I'm good. Okay. Everybody all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Now in the hands of finance. Reports of committees. Finance committee, item two. Councilor Knoppich. Thank you, Mr. President. The finance committee has met many times and on Monday night it did propose a series of cuts which I'd like to share, but before we do that, I'd like to just give a little background. First, if you don't mind, I'd like to thank all of the departments that put together their budget, and I know there was some last-minute activities that took place to track down some more information. We can't get to good decision-making on our end without the assistance of the staff. And I know it can be challenging at some
points dealing with us part-timers, but we have a job to do and I want to thank all the staff, particularly Vicky, who's been taking a lot of questions that I've had for months now, and it's ended up being a really good product that I think you're going to hear tonight with some good choices. So, I wanted to say that and make sure that everybody knows we do appreciate that effort that goes in day in and day out. So that being said, a couple of other things. I think some of you knew that I've been working with the mayor's office and the auditor to really understand what's in front of the city
over the next five years and what's different historically than how we've approached budgeting in the past. Well, after, I think it was the 18th iteration of my projection here, it boils down to this. There's a document in the budget share drive that Kate loaded in, and what it has is a couple of things as a backdrop. First of all, on the budget that we're going to propose to vote on, it's going to be made up of $2 million in free cash and $1.25 million in the debt decline stabilization account. So right out of the gate, when you think about what's it take to finance
the city of Westfield, we're down using really one-time cash sources to do 3.25 million. So not really a great financial practice if you were in the accounting business. Going forward on my projections, a couple of things was I carried the debt decline number at 1.25 million for the next, I think it's the next three years, so four out of five years. And we anticipated that. That's why that account is there. But no more free cash borrowing going forward because that's really not a good trend in the end anyhow. The other thing that I attached to that projection document was the entire new
growth history from the city since 2001, and I think that's an interesting document. We are in a very slow economic time right now, there's no question about that, but the average growth over that period is over a million dollars and I think the last three years or five years has definitely been skewed a little bit because of some one-time tax related implications from a property tax owner. So that all being said, what's the real number? Well, the budget's postulated on 200,000. I had a lot of back and forth with Ashley about that number. I understand her position, I understand the mayor's position.
Obviously, I've got to be good with that because that's what they put forward. I think it's going to come in a little bit better than that. I don't think it's going to be a lot better than that. I think next year's going to probably be a little bit better than that. But when you carry that number for this year and then for my projection to carry out the next four years, I used $400,000, which is still very modest compared to our historic return. So there's that. Okay? The other issue was the gas and electric in lieu of tax payment. I attached the entire history that I had, thanks to Vicky getting that information for me, from 1981, and it's all over the board.
And you can see that though there's a formula in place and we worked this out with the Ginnie some years ago, it's been really capped and stagnated for over a decade now. It's coming in at about 530 to $550,000 and I'm not going to rehash what I said the other night. I think it's very clear, though, that the intent of the council and the Ginnie commission that sat back in the mid-2000s was that there needed to be some sort of formula approach to take the politics out of it. The formula approach was predicated on the property tax, if you will, if it was
a private utility, which it's not, and has great benefit for being in the city of Westfield. And so don't the ratepayers and so don't the taxpayers. But that all being said, the indicator that we came up with back then was Recommended by the consultant was use the plant value. As the plant value grows, because it's become more, if you will, its footprint more robust, then there should be more coming back towards the city, but it's been stuck, and it's linked to the CIP rate at 70%. And that's kind of an interesting caveat, because that went up pretty close to 40 for a while. Now it's back, I think it's under 30 now.
So that would obviously tinker with the numbers. But I think the message is clear. That number, I would personally request that the mayor and Jeannie, his appointment on the Jeannie Commission, work together to get the commission in the room to talk about going forward. And it's not about a shakedown of the gas electric, it's literally about the spirit of things and what's fair as it relates to how to operate the city. Now, that all being said, the other last massive problem we have is local aid, whether it's school aid, special ed aid, unrestricted
local aid, and Chapter 90 roadway aid. It's all terrible. Okay? It is way behind historic growth patterns, and that's clearly what changed the dynamic when this council used to sit years ago, when we used to look at do we need to go to 2.5% or not? It typically took the strategy, well, we've got pretty good new growth, and we're going to have X amount of state aid, and it's going to compound and grow year after year if we control expenses to the extent possible. And that strategy worked for the city for years and years and years and years. But it's clear it's broken at the state level.
There is language, and I mentioned this the other night, in the state budget in the Senate side, to revisit the school aid formula. But there's not language like that in the house budget, and there's not language to look at the local aid budget. So, there's no guarantee that they're going to do anything magnanimous for us next year. So that's just what it is out there. There's very little this body controls. The one thing it does control, though, is the spending. And I've said this before, tonight's the night, and tomorrow on the ratification on it, if you don't put the spending set at an appropriate level, you're going to deal with it in the fall when you set the tax
rate. And so what the goal that I had for the committee, and I want to thank the committee members, Councilor Harris and Councilor Bean, it was a pretty robust goal, and I had a conversation with the mayor about this a while before we went down this road. I would like to try to get in front of this body $1.5 million, thereabouts, worth of cuts to get you to a chance where you could vote for a 2.5% levy increase. The thought being that last year was somewhere like 6 or 6.5%. If we just did 4% again, and again, it makes wonderful financial sense to do that, because the city is definitely trending into the ditch.
But that would be 10.5%, 5.25% for year over year. Everybody is screaming about affordability, and that's just not something that Proposition 2.5 postulated years ago as a sustainable strategy at the local level. So this gets us to a point where even with 2.5% on top of 6.5, that's still over 4% year over year. That's still pretty healthy. But I would caution, read the report that I put in there, because if we stay at 2.5%, and I think the days of going under 2.5%, frankly, and being financially prudent to keep all the things
going forward in the city that need to go forward, I think are over for this foreseeable future. And in my projection, I put city expense side growth at 2.5%, which is generally kind of modest. I want to thank the departments. When we were going over all these hearings, and we brought them in, contractually driven, most of the expenses are on that. They're fixed. You can't do much about it, and the contracts are pretty modest, and they're certainly in line with our peers. And then on the expense side, it's generally, again, very tight. So it's not like there's swimming around in a lot of extra cash. So that's where we're at. So when you look at it, the delta in
five years from now, if we don't do anything or if you go to 4% and nothing changes really with local aid, I did boost the local receipts up 3% year over year. There's going to be a delta of three or four or $5 million somewhere in there by the time five years closes from now, which simply makes doing this job every year that much harder when you have that kind of delta. Right? And again, I'll start with we are going to use, to make the budget balanced, $3 million this year, right? $3,250,000. So, that's not a really great start on the effort. So we have a lot of work to do.
The good thing is, though, the projection spreadsheet, it just gets better when you update it with more information. It gets more true, more accurate, and so as we go forward, and I get more information, I'll just keep updating it. And then you'll always be able to check in where we're at. So that all being said, I had proposed to the subcommittee that we try to set that target to get to 1.5 million, and this is what we came up with. And this document is in the shared drive. I'm sorry, I don't have the account numbers. In the budget book, it obviously doesn't supply that. But on the budget book, it's on page 85.
The first one that we talked about Monday night was the health insurance benefit line for employee health benefits and the employer side share. Now, recall that the city, I believe it's a 77/23% split, which is still pretty good in this day and age. Some communities, many communities, are a 50/50 split. That's a state minimum. So, if you really run into trouble, that's obviously a place where you'd have to go. But the health insurance appropriation, and you hear it, especially if you're still in business, it's crazy these numbers that are turning out. So we dove a little deeper. I want to thank Annie Larkham.
She answered a lot of questions I had on this topic, and what it came down to was this: There was a 15% proposed increase in the line for that versus a 12%. And I said, "Well, where did that come from?" It came from during the negotiation process that the trust committee members have. The vote came down to three to 2%. Excuse me, three to two, with two being in favor, two members of the 12%, three being in favor of 15%. Essentially 15% they felt gave them Six months working capital in the trust fund potentially. Okay. Now that all being said, I did ask one of the members who voted
for the 12%, what the rationale was about that, and when I was comfortable with the explanation. And so interestingly, in preparation for tonight, I was digging up some old newspaper articles. This body in the June of 2013 cut $2 million from that line item back when that line was $14 million. Now it's $23 plus million, right? So we've had a long history of doing this. So one of the things with these cuts, what I wanted to do is make sure that the city's business still goes on without doing detrimental damage to it that would be hard to recover from.
I'm comfortable, the committee's comfortable. We talked about this. The savings on this cut, it was proposed a three to zero vote, $637,009.44. That's the 12% increase, and again, with the caveat, and one of the things I asked the auditor the other night was, "Where do you think free cash is going to be next year? And where are we going to end this year?" So she thinks, and she gave me an email on this, I think it's about $5 million we're going to end, Vicky, right? To carry over to the next- To carry over. So that's a pretty good head start. Back in 2014, by the way, we certified $6 million, and it
was only because we had $4 million in a bond premium because we refinanced a bunch of bonds. So we had a long history of not turning a lot of good free cash over the years. That's a pretty good number. And then when you couple it with what's likely to occur for next year, it's going to be somewhere maybe total seven, eight, nine, 10 million, something like that altogether. That's a really good number. Okay? So, we're comfortable with this. If the trust has an issue, it's never going to not get a monthly sum going into it. But they have had to come back to us in the past for an appropriation, and that's
fine. There's a long history of doing that. So that was the first cut. The second one, and some of these have a little bit longer story on them than others, and this happens to be one of them. The police department, I want to thank Captain Hall. He did a nice presentation. And interestingly enough, in the review of his expenses, he found what we all thought was to be an unanticipated expense item. That reduction was related to gasoline, which was counterintuitive because the price of gasoline is so much. But he did such a great job explaining things that he let us in on the cost of four cruisers, right? So, obviously, we asked about that. So in the past, this body, years ago, and again,
I'm going to reiterate this, the city has done a really good job putting things that recur back in the budget and paying for it the appropriate way out of the appropriation. However, the history's been we didn't always have that kind of money. In the past, we used to tell the police, "Run the cruisers 20,000 or 30,000 more miles per year, and then come see us on free cash, and we'll give you four cruisers." Sometimes it was five. Long story short, we proposed at the committee level, and it was three-zero in favor to cut two cruisers, and that total cut was $127,027.80.
I communicated that. I was asked by Councilor Harris to contact the police with that information. So I did. The chief got back to me really quickly, and he said, "Look, the way the lead time is on buying these things, we really need to have that money in the account. Can you take it, if you need to take it, out of the overtime account?" Which was a pretty good trade-off. So that was going to be something I was going to propose tonight, that we could do that swap, and that swap would be $127,027.80 out of the police overtime account. And you know that the idea again would be that they would come back to us on the appropriation, when free
cash gets certified, so that would refill that. Now, interestingly enough, the treasurer, Mr. Barnes, sent me an email late today. And actually, it was in the morning, but I got down to checking it out later today. And he has found in his budget $150,000. So I would propose tonight, I know the members haven't really had a chance to hear this. I would propose that we swap $127,027.80, take the police out of the equation, take Mr. Barnes up on his offer of $100,000 from the long-term
interest debt account and $50,000 on the interest on temporary notes account. That gets you to $150,000, and that's a pretty good swap because that's more of a cut than what the police cruiser or overtime swap was going to do. Okay? So there's that one. So that's one and two. Number three, you know what? I'm going to take number three out of order because there was a lot of conversation in subcommittee on that. I'm going to go to number five on my list. Engineering. So, that was a tough one. We've made a lot of progress in the city in improving streets and sidewalks. But I did look at historically in that spending, it was like five million, four
million, five million two years ago, four million last year. And they're asking for, I think that the actual number is... They have one. It's 1.8 million plus 598, so it's two million in change in that account already. So what we proposed, again, with the caveat that that's typically good one-time spending, a proposed cut of $598,462.76 with the idea that if we cut that now, they could come back when free cash gets certified if they really want to do these projects. It would be up to the body to take that vote from free cash.
Now, and again, you know how it works. This is probably going to result in a few less streets being paved this fall, but you can catch them next year, and that's fine, okay? So that was moving the ball. That was engineering cuts on 167 in your budget book. So then I'll go to the assistant fire chief because that's another one that was a little bit complicated. So that's in on the budget, and that's on page, I think it's 104 in your budget book. The chief, and I want to be very clear here, did a very good job explaining the needs of that position, okay? None of the members had an issue with that. There's a couple things that came up.
Well, first of all, it was a recommendation of the study committee that took place a couple years ago. I get that. The second thing, though, that was interesting on the conversation was we had asked earlier in the year about the performance of the ambulance account. Well, the commission members were there, and they had mentioned that they had recently taken a vote to increase the ambulance rate fee. I forget at which level, but whatever it was, and it was projected to generate about 500,000 more dollars per year. And they pay out of that account now, as you know, some fire equipment, some vehicles, 25 personnel positions, paramedic
positions. Okay. And I believe the EMS stipends are paid out of that and things. So when it came down to this position, though, it was proposed to be not civil service, and of course, the fire department's civil service. And so the question was, "Well, how are you going to do that?" It has to be bargained through. So the bargaining isn't complete yet. So if it doesn't get completed, technically, you'd be appropriating money against something that doesn't even exist yet, because you'd have a non-civil service position created. And I think that's kind of problematic. And again, this is no knock against the chief. This is just the way sometimes it works in process and negotiations in city
budgeting. So there's that. Then there was the component we asked the chief further, like how long or what does it look like to bring somebody on board? There's some hiring policies that have to be initiated to be developed so personnel understands that. That has to be negotiated through a little bit. And then lastly, the job description, the commission has to work on that. And then you can get in position once you have the money appropriated to actually do a hire, right? And then there's an interview process. So that's going to be kind of a lengthy thing. And again, it all begins with it hasn't gotten itself through the collective
bargaining process. My understanding is it's close. It could come by the end of the fiscal year, but that's great. But what we did say is because all things being equal, you wouldn't really be ready right away in July 1 for this position. Why don't we just do, and this was the original proposal, a half-year cut, so 170,000, split it in half, and do the hire and calibrate it for January 1. And so that was the original proposal. Unfortunately, I was working on the wrong number. I had 175 in my number, but the cut that went through committee was voted on was 87,500,
and that actually ended up being two to one. Councilor Harris was a no-vote council meeting. Myself voted for yes. But there was a lot of discussion on that, and I'll turn that over to the members pretty quick on that so they can talk a little bit about that. So interestingly, though, the last caveat on that situation is this position would have a lot of interaction with the medical side of the fire department. So there is the concept that all or some or most or whatever, 50% of that dollar value could come from that fund, which has now got a
proper rate structure on it that's going to generate some revenue, and it would all look better in January anyways on that fund. And the ambulance fund is doing pretty well right now. So, not the end of the world. I know people get disappointed by things, but I think it's a more sound strategy to sound it out the way we did it. And then the last one was the economic development director position in the mayor's office. Now, when I first looked at this iteration, I was under the impression it was at 100,000, but it was at 50,000. The mayor cut it back. The mayor did do a lot of cuts, by the way.
When I first sat with him and the auditor back in February, I think the number was like $17 million. The red was ridiculous. And he did a lot of cutting, and it's a hard job. The number one hardest job is being in that position to make it all work. I get it. Believe me, I get it. And that was a lot of cuts. And this happened to be one of them. I think it started out at 100 grand, got it to 50. In the end, we had a pretty good debate about that, what to do with it. And it ended up being, I want to say, an interesting vote, two to one to cut it. Councilor Bean was the no vote.
Councilor Harris and Councilor Konopka and myself, we voted to cut it for now with the caveat that if things get better financially, whatnot, all this stuff, it could come back in January. I was under the impression going into the meeting Monday night it was going to be a January thing anyways, but because it was only 50 grand in it, I went with Councilor Harris and just cut it, and we can redo it down the line. There's also a question about the job description. I think it needs to be visited a little bit. There was some interest on what the job description should look like. So the last thing I've got in this before we can take a vote to advance them to tomorrow night would be
Councilor Fanion sent some Excel sheet, and she did a lot of work to go through that. When I first saw that, I was like, "Wow, that's going to take a while to decipher that." But I sent it. We brought it up at committee. I read every single line item in committee, and so there's a video record of it and what the question was about it. I checked back. I told Councilor Fanion I would go to the departments, and we'd have them hunt down those answers for her. So she has a document, and you all have it now in the shared drive, that explains everything on that topic, and I'll let Councilor
Fanion talk about that particular interest. I think it was a good exercise. I always go back to this. It's the people's money. We represent the people. If there's a question as to how it's to be used, that's our job to figure that out and ask those questions. So it's now been done, and that's where we sit tonight. So again, the goal is let's get us around 1.5 million. We're there, but there's some debate that needs to be done. And we've done it in a thoughtful manner. It doesn't really harm the city's mission. It doesn't cut any existing staff, except on the school side's a different issue for sure.
But I think the committee would agree that we got an opportunity for this body to vote for a 2.5% levy increase and still move the ball forward Councilor Pean I'm sure we're just going to talk about every line item as it comes up for a vote, but I just wanted to kind of straighten out a, looks like a discrepancy though, on D on your shared drive, 875 for the- Yeah ... assistant chief. It went at 175. So the motion was 170 cut. Yes. Right, okay. So you, in your- Yeah, well, it was- Speech, it was, okay ... it was going to be a 50% of 87. I just want everybody to understand it was amended, or not amended, it was
made as a $170,000 cut. We ended up doing 100, just cut the whole thing- Correct ... but it's not done yet. Correct. So it just says two to one on this list. So I just wanted to make sure everybody understands that. So that was the only thing I saw. Councilor Fanon. Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to thank the finance committee for taking all the questions that I had and to getting them to the department heads. I'd like to thank the department heads for their prompt answers to these questions. Most of the questions revolved around conferences and subscriptions, and through their answers, most of them were mandatory. If they were not mandatory, they were necessary to run the department.
They gave valuable information and valuable assistance to the departments. So therefore, I don't have any recommendations for any cuts of those, because it is something that the departments are needing. But through the budget, there wasn't a lot of explanation, and I just felt that there should've been an explanation, and now that we know what these things are. There were some departments that use lots of acronyms that I had no idea what those things were, and I thank the departments for giving us those answers. There was also some questions on some clerical overtime that was put into the budget. This was never done in the past, so I was concerned about that.
But through the auditor, it was said that when someone does do a clerical overtime or any kind of overtime, they have to be paid promptly, so therefore they don't have time to come back for an appropriation. My suggestion was to come back for an appropriation, but the way the payroll rules and contracts are, they do have to be paid promptly. So, I thank everybody for those answers. Anybody else? Councilors. Mayor just came. Okay. I'd just like to clarify, are we now okay with paying for four cruisers? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I was going to give you a quick recap before we went out to votes. No, that's all right. Just wanted to make sure that was- You got some amendments you're going to do anyways.
Yep. Yes, Councilor Matthews. Thank you, Mr. President. So my question's more about process. Are we voting on all these recommendations as a whole, or are we voting on them- Individually ... one by one? Individually. Okay. And will we have the chance to speak when we vote on the issue? Yes. Are we talking about all of them now or? Well, we're going to do them one at a time. Okay. All right. Thank you. Just a process comment. Everybody understands that they can also make their own cuts at this given time. This is just the committee's recommendation, and even the committee members at this time could make another motion to cut something else. So this is the time for cuts. I'm assuming some councilors have other cuts to make, so and then it would hit the
floor for the full vote. Thank you. Why don't we ask that question? Does anybody have other cuts that they're going to bring forward? Looks like you did a good job. We'll just find out. The votes go down. All right, Mr. President, thank you. So before we take the votes, I want to just clarify where we presently are with the total amounts based on this narrative I just gave you this evening. So if you do everything, like the 170 that the assistant chief's position was, you pull that out, you leave the police untouched on that one, you take in the treasurer's commentary for 150,000, it appears right now, if my math is correct, if we
do all of that, we'd be at 1.60547220, which is 100,000 more, 105,000 more than, 1.5 million. Okay? Which, if you're somebody that might be inclined to hang on to the mayor's position, you could probably make that motion, right? We don't cut that. You get to vote. It's going to be a majority vote. That's still above 1.5 million. Again, the goal was 2.5%, 1.5 million thereabouts, and there's now some additional wiggle
room on that. So, with that all being said, I'll start with the first one. Please. Thank you. Mr. President, a motion, or a recommendation on a three to zero vote by the finance committee to cut recommendation to the council, the sum of $637,009, $637 and 9.44 from the health insurance appropriation. Second. Motion made and seconded. Discussion on this cut. Councilor. Thank you, Mr. President. First, I'd like to thank the finance committee and Councilor Knapek for all the hard work you did. This is one, I was at the meeting when you discussed it, and I went home and
thought a lot about it. Because I understand, health insurance right now is really challenging. And one of the questions raised during the finance discussion was like, could this ever get zeroed out? And so I was trying to look at comparable cities. And sometimes it's hard to find one. But I found a city, Methuen, is self-insured, and they're 50,000 population. We're about 40. So they're self-insured. In 2025, they had a $4.4 million shortfall. They had to cobble together transfers of 725K from an enterprise fund, 756K from the general fund, and 2.9 out of their
stabilization fund. And then in '26, they had to transfer another $5 million from free cash into their health insurance accounts. So some cities are really facing significant challenges where they're having like a $6 million year. And if you look at what our balance has been in the past, like 2018, we had a roughly $10 million balance. 2019, we were at 13 million. 2020, we were at 15 million. 21, we were at 16 million. 22, we were at 16 million. 23, we were at 14 million. And then we really start to go down.
24, we're at 11 million. 2025, we're at six million. And the current healthcare trust balance is 4.9 million, correct? Yes, without June in it. Without June in that. So you can hear, we've gone from 16 to roughly five, and we could have a $5 or $6 million year this upcoming year. And I'm just really concerned that we're cutting this too close. And we cut this sum last year, we had to put all that money back in out of free cash, and then we had to put another $1
million in. So if we were back up at those numbers like the 16, 14, even $11 million, I wouldn't be as concerned. But I'm really concerned that we're at 4.9 and we're going to cut this money. And here's another. The trust balance decreased by $2 million in fiscal year '24, six million in fiscal year '25, and two million in fiscal year '26. So if we have another $2 million year, we'll be fine. If we have a $6 million year, we could be in Methuen's position. So I totally understand the exercise of wanting to cut.
I would love to be able to support this cut, but I'm worried. For me personally, it's just too risky. I'm not a risk-taker. So I'll be a no. I hope you just think about where the trust balance is when you make this decision. Thanks. Councilor Figgie. Thank you. One of the biggest withdrawal items on that particular item were all the holidays we had, the health insurance holidays. And every time we have one of those, it's 1.5 million that does not go into that fund. So I think the committee has decided there will be no more holidays. So with that in mind, I think we're in a better position than we were before.
Okay. Yes. Can I ask the auditor when's the last time we had a holiday? Because I don't think we've done that in four years. So last time we had a premium holiday, well, we had one and a half premium holidays in FY '24. Okay. Part of that reason was because we had $16 million in the trust. We wanted to give it back to the people with money in there. So we had premium holidays in '12, '13, '14, '15, one and a half in '17, one in '18, one in '20, one in '22, and one and a half in FY '24.
Okay, thanks. So more recently than I remembered. So- Well, I still think that's a big issue, because we took all that money out. We could've had 20 million in there. Mm-hmm. But we didn't, and we kept going down. Anything further on this item? No. Roll call, Madam City Clerk. Oneski? Yes. Adams? Yes. Bean? Yes. Beltrandi? Yes. Burns? Yes. Fannian? Yes. Figgie? Yes. Harris? Yes. Knoppich? Yes. Matthews-Kane? No. Mello? Yes. Thank you. IB, sir. Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. I think on item number two, because we actually voted it in subcommittee, we should vote to rescind that vote, so that our recommendation-- What I would ask the members, I think this is probably the best way to do it,
I will read what the vote was, and then the entire council membership, if you don't want to cut the police department, vote no, would be my suggestion on how that would work. So the committee recommended to do the cut. We sent it to the floor. You heard the narrative on this. We don't want to apparently do that, but we haven't taken a vote yet. A no vote would prevent the cut from happening. Make sense? Yes. Okay. One question. Yes. And that was the ultimate decision, swapping that 150? Well, because this information came late today, it didn't have a chance to get--
I'm bringing it to you from an email I got from the treasurer today. So it's a live conversation as a-- Yeah, I'm introducing it as my role as a council member, as a potential cut to substitute for the police situation. Got it. Thank you. So to-- Sorry. Go ahead, please. So to reiterate, this will keep the four needed cruisers. Yes. Yes. The council- If we- ... has to vote to not accept it. If we vote no. Yeah. All right. Mr. President, so the Finance Committee voted three to zero in favor to reduce the police department vehicle account by the sum of
$127,027.80. Voted three-zero in favor of that. Do I have a second? Second. Motion made and seconded. Any further discussion on this? Yes, Mr. President. A no vote will stop that from happening. Roll call, Madam Secretary. Oneski? No. Adams? No. Bean? No. Beltrandi? No. Burns? No. Fannian? No. Figgie? No. Harris? No. Knoppich? No. Matthews-Kane? No. Mello? No. Okay. Thank you. Item C, sir. Yes, thank you. The next item is the mayor's $50,000 for the economic development position cut from the mayor's budget. It's a full cut because it was only 50,000 in the
appropriation. The Finance Committee voted on a two to one vote to cut the 50,000. I have probably been the loudest voice to have this position put into the budget. I'm going to be a no on this reduction because you look at our new growth, and I think without an economic development coordinator or whatever you want to call them, that number has really drastically reduced, and I think it would be only increased if we had this position. Councilor Bean Thank you, Mr. President. Yeah, obviously I was the no vote in committee and
been banging this drum for a number of years. I think the correlation of new growth, and not having that position filled, and moving the city forward is a big part of it. We're a great city. We have a lot of resources. There's a way to, including open land and zoned open land and all our utilities, so forth and so on. So I'm not going to reiterate what I had to say about that. But, I also agree that we could address the job description when the time comes and put some sort of language in there on the grant writer's position. How that will work,
I'm not too sure. We're looking at a $100,000 a year position. I know that seems like a lot of money, but in this role, and if you look across Massachusetts and Connecticut, you're spending much more money than that on these positions, especially someone that's well-versed. And then you throw the grant writer's position in. But I think it is what it is. It'll get it started, and I really think there's a true correlation when the mayor puts in $200,000 for new growth. And it's a real issue for me. We can't cut our way out of these things. We have to grow. We have to be on top
of the kind of industry that we want and hopefully reduce the taxes that are being paid on the residential side, and commercial side for that matter. Thank you. Councilor Harris. Thank you, Mr. President. And I totally respect Councilor Bean's, and we have done this for many years. I'm in the opposite position. I do not think that this position is necessary, and I'll tell you why. A few years ago, the Boston papers, and the other committee members have heard this, the Boston papers put a big article in the paper, front page articles, saying how wonderful Westfield is, what a great place it is to go because of the
trains, because of the airports, because of the infrastructure, because of the city-owned gas and electric, because of the working-class people, their work ethic, low crime, great police force, great fire force. All the big companies who want to come here, even small companies, they already know about Westfield. They have their own scouts that go out across Massachusetts and scout out where's a good position, where's a good fit for them. I also think that there should be a little more community development involvement,
but Mr. Bean did point out that Mr. Miller has a full plate. But I just think between the mayor, community development, and like I say, this is not the old days where you had to go out and solicit business. With the internet and everything, it's just open for people on the other side to come here. Hasn't happened. That doesn't mean Westfield's not a great place to come to. So that's my position. So I'm definitely for cutting it. Councilor Ondisch. Thank you, Mr. President. $50,000 isn't enough for this position. I would, quite frankly, if we could, vote to
increase it. I'd increase it. This position is an 80 to 90 to $100,000 a year position. If it was that much in the budget, I would- Just half a year. Pardon me? Because 50 is a half year. Yeah. Oh, half year? The general. Oh, okay. We're looking for January 1 start. I'll leave it in then. I'm for leaving it in at 100,000. Got it. Thank you. Councilor Mellis. Thank you, Mr. President. I agree that we definitely need an advancement person, and I agree that we need a grant writing person. But if we're still tinkering with a job description and gonna move stuff
around, nobody's getting hired right away. So I'm fine with this cut. Thank you. Councilor Adams. I agree with Councilor Bean. And what's pretty disheartening, I heard it from the mayor, I think, everything's dead out there. You know what? That's like giving up on the city. Mm. That's like giving up on our city. That ain't the answer I want to hear. There are plenty of opportunities out there, I think, for the city, but somebody other than the mayor, because the mayor has a million things to do. And I'm not trying to take it off his plate, but somebody that actually knows how to bring in business. I don't know if the mayor knows how to bring in business.
He was a captain of a police department. What does he know about bringing in business? He doesn't. But somebody who's trained and has done it, knows the little things to do, and it directly has impact on our budget. And we've all been complaining about the growth. Well, because we haven't had anybody in there to sell the city. I propose to put the $100,000 towards this, like Councilor Knapik says, we got an extra 106,000. We got to try to do something for our city or we're giving up on the people and our city, and that's not fair, and we're not doing our job if we don't do that. Yes, sir. Councilor Knapik. Thank you, Mr. President. It is a half-year position. It was, like I said,
I thought it was in at 100, so I supported a 50,000 because I knew there was a rework needed on the job description. So I did vote to cut it because that was the 50. But I am gonna exercise my prerogative to change my mind and support it because I do know, being in that chair, it is a needed position. I just, like I said, I'd miscued it, thought it was 100 grand, but I am supportive of it. But I do believe I would request that the mayor send us the job description. I think there's a 30-day requirement for us to review it, but wait till after we get back from recess, and then send it in. Let's take a quick look at it through personnel, see what you gotta do, get it back
on the street, and get it in position so it can get a hire. Councilor Figgie Councilor across the way is correct. It's a two-meeting minimum. Mm-hmm. Once the job description comes in, we cannot change it. We either vote yes or no on it. So we need to have dialogue with- Yep ... the mayor before the job description lies on our desk. So, thank you for that. So a no vote would be to not enact the cut. Anything further? We didn't have a second on this, by the way. Second. Motion made and seconded. Roll call, Madam City Clerk. Oneski? No. Adams? No. Bean? No. Beltrandi? No. Burns? No. Fannin? No. Figgie? No. Harris? Yes. Knavick? No. Matheson-Kane? Yes. Mello?
Yes. Three yes, eight no. Okay. Item four, fire department assistant chief. The motion is a recommendation from the finance committee to the council to cut the sum of $170,000 for this position. The vote was two to one. Second. You're voting to cut 87,500, though, correct? The 170. If you look at the budget book- ... because we were originally told 175, and it's on 104. It's in that 170. We were corrected. Yeah. So it'll be the entire $170,000. So what's on our sheet that I'm looking
at, which is an email from you, it says a cut of 87,500. So that doesn't- Right. So we talked about that in committee. Once we had further conversation in that, it ended up being the entire line item, 170. Thank you. So that's what we're cutting, is 170, just so everybody knows. Correct me if I'm not right, Mike. You are correct. Anything further? Roll call. Councilor Adams. Can we have a discussion on that real quickly? Yeah. So I guess I have the utmost respect for the new chief, and I had a conversation. I had about a 45-minute conversation with him.
I really don't think with him just getting this job, that we need to create another job when he hasn't even had the chance to warm up his seat. And here's another thing we have to think about. When I thought of this position, if they take it from within, it won't be 177,000 because the firemen get 30% more for education, which is about $50,000 more. So you've got to add 50,000 to 177. And once you get this job, you'll never get rid of it. You will never get rid of it. The fireman will have this job. Even if it doesn't work out,
good luck getting rid of it. So we better really think long and hard when we do. And I sat here when they did the study, and this job was supposed to be from the outside. This job wasn't supposed to be from the inside. This was a retired fire chief. Somebody could write grants. The intent was you might need some help, but it wasn't from the inside, because from the inside, that is a big number. So I definitely will be a no. And the reason is, I think the chief and the men down there can figure out how to run a good department, and they probably won't need this job.
Councilor Matheson-Kane. Thank you, Mr. President. Mm-hmm. I was at the meeting where the fire chief presented, and I was at the meeting where this was discussed, and I feel like the choice to cut half of it and start funding it in January is the best decision, and I'd like to talk about why. First of all, when the fire chief presented, he talked about he sees it as a money-generating position for two reasons. One is that we have to keep track of the ambulance fees, and we have to make sure they
are in sync with the other surrounding communities, and we are always lower than our surrounding communities. And he feels like we lost about half a million dollars last year because we did not raise the fees enough, quickly enough. And the other thing is he would like this person to write a lot of grants. They don't have the time to write all the grants that are available to them. And so those are two ways that not having this position funded leaves money off the table. The next thing is, I want you to think about all the times that this
position has been recommended. So there was, I guess, a study in the '90s, and I was told that back then they recommended we have an assistant chief. We have this new study, they recommend they have an assistant chief, and if you look at the surrounding communities, they all have an assistant chief. So Chicopee, Holyoke, and Northampton, which are either our size or bigger, they all have an assistant chief. And if you look at the communities around us that are smaller, they also have an assistant chief. So, West Springfield has an assistant chief, Agawam has an assistant chief, and even Southampton,
which is tiny compared to us, they all have an assistant chief. This is something typical that a fire department needs. And the last point I want to make, I want to make kind of carefully, but one of the roles the assistant chief would serve is kind of a buffer between the chief and the people on the front lines. And this was recommended to us back in the '90s to have this. And a good assistant chief, if there was a volatile situation, if there was some sort of trouble and somebody was going to make a rash decision, they'd be the second person to
oversee that and help the best decision be made. And if we had followed the recommendation in the '90s and had the assistant chief, we could have saved a lot of money. I see cutting this as penny-wise and pound-foolish, and I would like to make a motion To recommend. So right now it's fully at- ... 170. 85 would be the number you want. Yeah. So I'd like to make a motion to cut it to 85,000 so we can fund it and start in January. And I hope somebody will second it. Second. Motion made and seconded. Further discussion on the amendment. And- Councilor- What do we have a discussion on now?
Thank you. That or- What? The 85? Yes. Or do we have a discussion, do we keep the other discussion going? So we're discussing her motion to change it to 87.5. 85. Yes. Mr. President, I'd like to follow up on that. I had a discussion with the chief. First thing you said was you would need a grant writer. You know what he told me? What? They spent $1,500 on a grant writer to get a $40,000 or $50,000 loan. They paid a professional person to write a grant for them, and it's working just fine. The second thing, he's already gone up on the ambulance fee. You don't have to hire someone to figure out that it need to go up.
The chief has already proposed to do that. So on the two things you've said, it makes no sense. Hagan. Thank you, Mr. President. I agree with Councilor Adams. The new chief, Bishop, I think he's going to be a great chief. He has the potential. He's got the drive, and he's already, in the two months he's been there, found these two items. He's found that the grant writing is insufficient and that the ambulance fees are too low. So I think just knowing that puts it on the radar. So every month, two
months, six months, puts it on his calendar, and he checks to see if the ambulance fees are in line with everyone else's. And I think this money can come in without an assistant chief. Thank you. Councilor Bernsten and Matthews-Kane for the second time. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. President. Again, I agree with Councilor Winiarski and Councilor Adams. I too spent some time with the chief, and I told him straight out that I couldn't support this. Again, I understand you talk about the discipline. I thought that was left up to the fire commission. That was my thought on that. And he, "Whatever." He said the day-to-day
with that, I thought that's what we hired the chief for. As far as grants, Councilor Bean had a great idea adding grants to the community development person. I'd suppose they could write a grant to just... And who are they going to hire? Are they going to take a deputy chief off the line? How do you know he can write a grant? That's what one of them is going to get, let's face it. And then we're going to have another deputy chief. So I can't, in good conscience, vote for $170,000, I don't care what department it is, new job, old job, that we're going to stick it on the taxpayers again.
We raised their rates this year, including trash, water, which we had to do it, and now we're looking at least two and a half percent. So, maybe this can come up. You look at the DPW, they had a study there last year also, right? They recommended two more deputy superintendents. We don't have them, and they certainly need it. You got one gentleman over there, he's running the whole show, five, six departments, and all those departments are very important. Those are life-sustaining. Water, sewage.
So I'm definitely, and I hate to say it because I'm a big supporter of police and fire, I hate to do this, but, I can't support that. I can't even support half a year, because it's just like Councilor Adams said, once it's there, you're not getting rid of it, because it's going to be part of the union, and then boom, boom, boom, you'll never get rid of it. Thank you. Councilor Matthews-Kane, Melillo, Figgie, and then Harris. Can you remember that order? Thank you, Mr. President. I also spoke with the fire chief. Yes, they did just raise the ambulance rates, but he's assuming
that once the lowest people in the area raise their rates, which was us, the surrounding communities are going to raise theirs. And when we are at the lowest again, he'd like to raise them. He needs somebody to keep an eye on that. He can't do everything. And there were grants that he wanted to apply for that they have applied for in the past, and he told me it was the fire safety grant. They weren't able to apply this round. They just don't have enough manpower to get all this done. So I think it's a wise investment. I hope you'll consider funding it for half the year. Councilor Melillo. Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate the comments from all the
councilors across the way. I have not discussed this with the fire chief, but I am not inclined to make any new positions anywhere, especially when we're so top-heavy already. And if you go ask anybody down at the Stop & Shop or the Big Y, they're going to tell you that we are top-heavy and pay our top people way too much, and it's a burden on them. And one more higher-level position, it is going to break that camel's back. I am not down for it. So I only have an 87.5 cut on the
page in front of me. If somebody needs to reduce it to that on the chance that there's going to be some impressive job description later, that may be one thing, but I am a no vote on any other hire order, anybody, until regular tax-paying citizens are not worried about how they're going to make their ends meet. No new jobs I'm not for it. Thank you. Councilor Figgie. Thank you, Mr. President. Couple things about studies that are done. In my opinion, any study that solves a problem by adding personnel didn't do a thorough job evaluating that
department. We already have a command position in charge of the ambulance. Why couldn't that position take over the responsibility of the FEATs? It just doesn't make sense. And until they look at the command structure to see if they actually need all those deputy chiefs in those areas, I think they need to look from within to evolve that department to where it could be, so that I am against a new position at this point in time. Councilor Harris. Thank you, Mr. President. Well, I've heard many people that have talked with the fire chief and
have listened to information that I did not have before, so I am going to be a yes vote on cutting it. However, he gave an excellent presentation, and I think that perhaps in the spring to the next budget season, perhaps, we might want to revisit this because the idea is excellent, and the pamphlet he gave us was excellent. And I like the idea that he's trying to change the whole atmosphere in the fire department, and everybody here has complained at one time or another about the fire department in the last few years. So I love that about it. However,
the information I've received, I am going to vote yes to cut it. Councilor Knapik. Thank you, Mr. President. Just a couple of things. One is, I'm not going to support it, not because I don't necessarily agree that it's not a needed job. It's because we're not done with negotiations yet to get the chief's position out of civil service. That, to me, is the number one situation that has to happen to put money into an account for a job that doesn't right now exist. So there's that. The second component is the commission's going to need time to establish the hiring protocols. As it was explained to us, apparently, just like any other city
job, when there's a vacancy, it gets opened up, so anybody within the city could apply, so a deputy could apply. But like in many instances, as folks know, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they don't even take the chief's exam, so they're not in a position to be the new chief. And that's happened many times over the years. So I don't know exactly who's going to be the person, and then the commission's in charge of the hiring. There's got to be, obviously, some sort of interview process. I don't know what that looks like. They have to work with personnel. So that's all got to be created. The job description's got to be created. So it's undone. It's not finished.
And then the second thing is, I'm going to think that this position probably doesn't become a fire side union. It's probably going to join the association of department head and assistant if it's going to be in an association at all. I'm just speculating on that point. But there's enough here undone, not yet finished- Jay ... that I can't support. I appreciate the argument, but I don't support appropriations on something that's not quite over the finish line yet. And I do agree, everybody's comment, let's give the chief some time. I think we've all seen he's done some interesting things since he's taken over.
Maybe he'll come back. Maybe there'll be a change of heart. Maybe the rank and file positions will get funded. I don't know yet, but let's give it some time to go through, let the negotiation get done, and see where we are in January, February, and we can take a look at it again. Hear a motion to amend? My motion to amend to 85. We have a second, Councilor Harris? Did you second that motion to amend? I'll second it, and then we'll take the regular vote? Well, we're going to vote on the amendment. Vote on the amendment, then we'll vote on the- Then we'll vote on the original. Okay. Yes. Roll call now, Jamie. Oneski? No. Adams? No. Bean? No. Beltrandi? No. Burns? No. Fanian?
No. Figgie? No. Harris? No. Knapik? No. Matthews-Kane? Yes. Mello? I'm going to give you a yes, but no. All right, so back to the original. A motion to cut 170,000 from the fire department personnel line- Second ... for the assistant chief position. Motion made and seconded. We already did the discussion. No, I just want to explain my vote. Okay. I would not want to fund it for the full year. I'd only want to fund it for the half year, so I'm going to be a yes on this cut. Does that make- Got it. Yeah. Just to explain my vote. Anything further? Roll call, Madison. Oneski? Yes. Adams? Yes. Bean? Yes. Beltrandi? Yes. Burns? Yes. Fanian? Yes. Figgie? Yes. Harris? Yes. Knapik?
Yes. Matthews-Kane? Yes. Mello? Yes. Item E, Councilor Knapik. Thank you, Mr. President. The last item is the finance committee bit and voted three-zero in favor of a cut from the engineering expense line items, which is, by the way, if you were looking to follow along in your book, page, I think it's 167. The sum of $598,462.76. Second. Second. Motion made and seconded. Further discussion, councilor? No. Like I said, we did mention that like anything else, road paving is near and dear, particularly to the ward councilors' hearts, and sidewalks, and things of this nature. So this gets us to that magic number of 2.5%.
And, certainly, once free cash is certified, road improvement, pavement, sidewalks are all legit use for free cash. So, I would entertain that to come forward from the mayor's office to supplement that budget. But there's still plenty of money to get some work done this fall, so. Councilor Figgie. Thank you. And according to the paper today, Westville just received $500,000 from the state for snow and ice- Yes ... to be used for roads. Well, I did not know that. Yes, I heard. Thank you for telling me. So I think this is a justifiable reduction. Anything further? Don't go under two and a half percent. That's a problem. Remember that.
And you can't believe I'm saying that, but it's true. I really can't believe you're saying that. I know. It really breaks my heart that I have this feeling today. What is happening? I know. Right. Welcome back, councilor. Yeah, thank you. Roll call, Madam City Clerk. Oneski? Yes. Adams? Yes. Bean? Yes. Beltrandi? Yes. Burns? Yes. Fannin? Yes. Figgy? Yes. Harris? Yes. Kneppik? Yes. Matthews-Kane? Yes. Mello? Yes. Mr. President, that is the finish on the report from the finance committee. I want to thank all the council members. Do we need to vote on the treasury 150,000? Oh, yes, we do. I'm sorry. Oh, that's a good catch there, Mr. Ward 2 Councilor. Thank you. And former finance. And former finance. Yeah, so I'll make that- I'll second.
Wow, you just saved the day on that one. So, as a individual council member, I will make a motion for the council to consider the cut of $100,000 in the interest on long-term debt account as recommended by the treasurer. Second. Motion made and seconded. Further discussion? Nope. What was the amount again? 100,000. Didn't you say- There's two components ... two different ones. Got it. Thank you. Roll call, Madam City Clerk. Oneski? Yes. Adams? Yes. Bean? Yes. Beltrandi? Yes. Burns? Yes. Fannin? Yes. Figgy? Yes. Harris? Yes. Kneppik? Yes. Matthews-Kane?
Yes. Mello? Yes. Thank you. Mr. President, I would propose to the council to vote in the affirmative of a cut of $50,000 from the treasury interest on temporary notes account. Second. Motion made and seconded. Further discussion, sir? Nope. Anyone else? Roll call, Madam Secretary. Oneski? Yes. Adams? Yes. Bean? Yes. Beltrandi? Yes. Burns? Yes. Fannin? Yes. Figgy? Yes. Harris? Yes. Kneppik? Yes. Matthews-Kane? Yes. Mello? Yes. Thank you. Budget reconciliation. The budget has been reconciled. Okay. Thank you to the council members for bearing with us in this effort. Councilor Oneski.
Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to thank the finance committee for all of this. Yeah. I went to most of the meetings. Great questions, very thorough, very efficient. So, thank you, councilors. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yes. Thank you too from the chair. You've been a great membership. Councilor Figgy. You inherited a great committee. I'm going to say that to my good friend from Ward 2, we did actually have a really good script to follow, so thank you for that. And you know what? And I will mention, in my nine previous years on the city council, I never once served on finance. Because I didn't want to serve on finance back then because of this exercise
in May and June that would go on. Right. But you left good DNA on this topic, and it made our life a lot easier. And, again, the departments were very responsive. The mayor's been really great to work on. Like I said, I'll just leave everybody with this concept. There are some hard decisions in the future that have to be made. And I'm a two and a half percenter in less. That's baked into my DNA for forever. And it's been hard to come to the idea that this is where it's heading if we don't make positive steps to change the dynamic. The great news for this city is we're not like those other ones that are having
these debt exclusions and override votes. And there's a lot of folks along the way that got us to the position where we have some levy capacity, and we're having, actually, a pretty productive, thoughtful discussion, and we're not facing the cliff right now. So, we have some time. So, thank you. Councilor Mello. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to say thank you as well because this was not as challenging a budget season for me as it usually is. And that was a pretty easy cut of like 1.555 million, right? Thereabouts, yeah.
I really appreciate you guys working for that and for us not having to fight about it. That was really helpful, so thank you. Councilor Adams. Yeah, and I will say the same thing. If you look at it, what is our budget, 180 million? Yeah, it's 180, yeah. Any corporation with $180 million budget would normally have about 20 people that all had master's degree and doctorate school over these budgets. We have people that volunteer to do this that are doing the best they can do, and I think they come up with a great number. But most companies that have these kind of budgets have a lot of
people in the room that know a lot about finance. And I give credit to the councilor to my right, who went through it a lot. But we don't have the degrees that those people do that run these companies, and I think we've come up with a pretty good number that the city, I hope, will be happy with. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Councilor Harris. Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion made and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Good night, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. See you tomorrow night. Oh