Good evening. I'd like to call the Special City Council meeting to order for June 30th, 2025. Roll call. Medicine. Depart. Fanny. Here Gie. Here Harris. Here. Matthews. Kane. Here. Meow. Here. Morgan Alley. I have not heard from him. Ky He will not be with us. Sullivan. Here. Adams. Here. Allie? Here. Bean. Here. Beltran Here. Burns here. Okay. First item is vote on the fiscal year 2026. Budget. Officer Figy. Thank you Mr. President. I'd like to make a motion to approve the fiscal year 2026.
Budget as presented. Second. Second. Motion made it seconded. Any further discussion? Counselor? I think we, uh, just to recap a little bit, I think we had a good, uh, a good process this year. It was jam packed. We tried some different things. They seem to be received positively. And I'd like to thank all the counselors for their input. Thank you. And I once again, would like to thank the finance committee for what they did. Um, very good job. And thank you again. Council Saltman. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to also thank, um, particularly the chair Finance Councilor Figgy, um, for doing a lot of the work, setting up all the meetings.
I think it was a very good process. Um, you know, I, and I also want to thank him for making some of my motions for additional cuts to the budgets, which was a little bit over a million dollar cut. Um, I appreciate the fact that they did not pass. So I will be voting yes on all these appropriations. Um, and I want to thank, uh, the council for their consideration of those cuts. Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing none? Roll call. Madam City Clerk. Fanon. Yes. Fige? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews. Kane? Yes. Mellow? No. Sullivan? Yes.
Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Bean? Yes. Yes. Burns? Yes. Communications from the mayor. Item one. Councillor Fige. Thank you'd like to make a motion. Okay. I'd like to make a motion for I, me to consideration and approval of the appropriation and the amount of $2 million from free cash account to the fund. Balance reserved for expenditures account. Uh, so moved. Second. Motion made it. Second. Do you wanna suspend the rules counselor for immediate Consideration? Well, it came through on the memo from the mayor's immediate consideration, but it didn't make it onto the
agenda. So yes. I I think we should do it. The rules Second. Second. Motion made it seconded to suspend the rules. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Now under suspension counselor Appropriation of $2 million from free cash of the fund. Balance reserve for expenditures account to reduce FY 26 tax rate. Second. Motion. Made it seconded. Further discussion. Councilor Figy. Yeah. This's. $2 million from free cash has been incorporated into the budget to lower the, the, uh, overall tax rate for FY 26. Uh, and um, it's always been in there.
It's always been on that line item that, that page of of revenue. So this has just formalizing and approving it. Uh, so it can be part of the budget. Any discussion on the 2 million Seeing number? We'll call Madam City Clerk. Fanon? Yes. Fige? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews. Kane? Yes. Meow. Yes. Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Bean? Yes. Beltran? Yes. Burns? Yes. Reports of city officers. Item two, city auditor. Vicki Lay Morro. Submitting the FY 26 Order of Appropriations. Hello again. Hello.
Long time? No see, I know it's been a week. Well, maybe a little less than a week. Um, so I'm gonna go through these orders of appropriations. Do you want me to read them in total for each department or do you want me to break 'em out? Total. In total. Okay, perfect. Um, In order of appropriation for fiscal year 2026 is amended. Ordered that the following sums be and hereby are granted and appropriated for the purposes and objects Hereinafter stated
and be it further ordered that all amounts herein specified shall be devoted to the purposes designated in this order. And in conformity with the line item budget as submitted by the mayor and is determined by the city Council appropriations as follows, legislative $208,000 Mayor $296,303 and 1 cents. Auditor Department $461,085 and 94 cents. Purchasing $998,838 and 27 cents.
Assessor $431,513 and 96 cents. Treasurer $1,777,271 and 17 cents Collector $284,506 and 35 cents Law $505,241 and 94 cents. Personnel $425,630 and 35 cents Severance $501,111 and 80 cents.
Payroll 156480 cents. Planning Board $17,500. Zoning Board of Appeals $9,075 Community Development, $291,609 and 50 cents Westfield Redevelopment Authority, $10,000 Public Property and Buildings department $134,547 and 90 cents off street parking. $33,537 Airports
$1,087,058 and 13 cents Police Department $9,141,707 and 83 cents. Fire Department $5,860,461 and 1 cents. Public Safety Communications, $1,126,803 and 70 cents. Building Department $312,555 and 99 cents. Plumbing Inspector, $72,848.
Weights and measures $77,948 Electrical inspector. Seventy two thousand eight hundred and forty eight thousand seventy two thousand eight hundred forty eight dollars. Emergency Management, $29,501 and 38 cents Animal Control. $29,501 and 38 cents. Oh no wait, that's emergency management starting Animal Control. $300,040 and 70 cents. That's better Traffic control. $44,823 and 55 cents.
Flood Control. $317,200. Westfield Public Schools $75,566,339. I wasn't there. Engineering $4,690,769 and 42 cents. Public Work Administration. $340,658 and 70 72 cents Public Works $2,713,971 and 86 cents. Snow removal. $400,365
Waste Collection and Disposal. $3,222,740 and 81 cents Sanitary landfill. $578,190 and 87 cents. Land and Natural Resources, $1,078,032 and 77 cents Health $661,890 and 55 cents. Counsel on Aging. $592,565 and 36 cents Veterans
$692,329 and 10 cents. Committee for Citizens with Disabilities. $5,700 The Westfield Athan AUM, $1,151,941 Park and Recreation, $407,803 and 61 cents Historical Commission. $6,250 Debt service. Seven thousand seven million forty nine thousand three hundred eighty dollars
and 32 cents. Um, contributory retirement. $14,725,797. Non-contributory retirement, $40,135 and 60 cents. Insurance, $22,115,340 and 79 cents. Medicaid Medicare Department. $16,200 Certification and legal $1,200 unclassified expenses $2,400 and reserve for unforeseen $213,932
and 46 cents, which is all for the general funds. Okay. Any questions on this? Roll call? Madam City Club Danon? Yes. Fige? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews Kane? Yes. Mellow? No. Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Yes. Beltran? Yes. Burns? Yes. Next item And order. Appropri appropriating money for the water department that the following sum be in hereby are granted and voted from the income of the water department from enterprise receipts in the
amount of $7,846,553 and 19 cents and 275,000 be appropriated in the general fund budget for fiscal year 2026 and it be further ordered that all amounts here and specified shall be devoted to the purposes designated in this order and in conformity with the line item budget as submitted by the mayor and as determined by the city council. Thank You. Any questions on the amount for the water roll call Madam c. Clerk Fanon? Yes. Biggie? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews Kane? Yes. Meow. No.
Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Bean. Yes. Rey? Yes. Burns. Yes. Next item please. In order appropriating money for the sewage and wastewater treatment department that the following sums be in hereby are granted and voted from the income of the sewage and wastewater department from enterprise receipts in the amount of $6,515,499 and 34 cents and 280,000 to be appropriated in the general fund for fiscal year 2026.
And to be further ordered that all amount's hearing specified shall be devoted to the purposes designated in this order and in conformity with the line item budget as submitted by the mayor and is determined by the city council. So moved. Any questions? Roll call Madam City Clerk Ion. Yes. Figgy? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews. Kane. Yes. Meower? Yes. Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Dean? Yes. Beltran? Yes. Burns? Yes. Next item please. In order appropriating money for
Order before you've got, we have to make a motion to accept these. So we haven't done that at all. So you're reading off, you're making the motion and we're just roll calling votes. So, okay. You know what I mean? I I can yell you so moved. I just didn't want anything to Nope, That's Fine. Yeah. Okay. That's all. Okay. It's not you Vicky, it's No, that's fine. It's kind of the process. Unless I'm missing something. If anybody disagrees with that. Nope. You're, she Can't make a note In order appropriating money for ambulance services in the fire department that the following sums being hereby are granted
and voted from the income of the ambulance fee receipts for fiscal year 2026 and it further ordered that all amounts here and specified shall be devoted to the purposes designated in this order. And in conformity with the line item budget as submitted by the mayor and as determined by the city council. The ambulance, um, total for the year is $3,912,518 and 29 cents. So moved. Second. Motion made it second. And any discussion? No. Seeing none. Roll call please. Canyon. Yes. Vi. Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews. Kane. Yes.
Miller? Yes. Sullivan. Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. B Yes. Belt. Randy? Yes. Burns? Yes. Next item please. An order appropriating money for gas and electric depreciation account whereas MGL chapter 1 64 subsection 57 does not require each manager of each municipal lighting plan to annually furnish the mayor with an estimate of depreciation attributable, attributable to the physical plan. And whereas the amount of such depreciation once appropriated from certain of the income
of the municipal light plan is deposited into account under the supervision of the city treasurer and where is funds so appropriated or thereafter available for expenditure for payments of cost related to the physical plant in excess of ordinary repairs. And whereas the manager has determined the depreciation amount at now, therefore, in consideration of the foregoing, it is hereby ordered that $7,713,066 appropriated from sales of electricity and gas to private consumer
or for the service of an installation of appliances and jobing for the fiscal year to end June 30th, 2026 to be appropriated to the depreciation account. So second. Second. Just made it second. And any discussion on the June? I just got one. Is there some reason why that number doesn't match with the depreciation number Seven millions? You, you ordered that 7,250,200 $448 and we're the motion is actually gonna be to depreciation of 7,000,713. Yes. That's what I that's what I did read. The, I must have made an error when I printed that out.
So the order up top is that that 7,000,250 is wrong? Correct. Okay, so it should be the seven, seven, yes. 13. Okay. Yep. So the motion is the 7, 7 13. Yes. Okay. Yes. Any further discussion? I Just a question. So because that was depreciation those two numbers 'cause the other numbers haven't matched up, but this is depreciation, so it be number. Alright, full call Madam City court ion Yes. Biggie? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews. Kane. Yes. Mellow? Yes. Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Bean. Yes. Shandy?
Yes. Burns? Yes. Next item In order appropriating money for the Community Preservation Act that the following sums being hereby are granted and voted from the income of the community preservation, preservation receipts for fiscal year 2026 and it be further ordered that all amounts here and specified shall be devoted to the purposes designated in this order and in conformity with the line item budget as submitted by the mayor and is determined by city council community preservation total for personnel and expenses.
$6,300 into the undesignated fund balance. 340,000 fund balance for open space 79,000 fund balance reserve for historic 79,000 fund balance reserve for community housing. 79,000. So moved second. Motion made it second in any discussion on this item? Yeah, just a brief one if you don't mind, Mr. President. Uh, so and this is, this is more of a budget question. So are we able through CPAI probably should know this to
like a grant administer, can we charge a a, an administrative fee with CPA? Because you said the expenses are like 6,000 Yes. For personnel service and expenses. Those are for, um, we don't charge an administrative fee or anything. Right? Like we can't really You can't or we Don't, we don't. You can't basically you, it's not like, um, police detail or anything like that. Someone comes to the CPC and says, Hey, you know, we have this historical building that we wanna re refurbish. It goes through the, you know, the, their committee
and they say, yes, we're gonna give you a hundred grand, then it comes to you guys and you, we give them a hundred grand. The expenses are for advertising. Um, they have to belong to, um, the CPC organization kind of like the MMA. So that's what those expenses are for. There's just a lot of, a lot more expenses associated with that committee than just 6,000 bucks. That's why I was curious, especially with employees, you know, percentage that, who works on that on a, on a day to day like Jayski or Peter Miller. So that's why I was curious that we couldn't
charge back to that account. I've never asked that question to be honest. So mm-hmm. Just curious. It's like any other grant in my mind, but it's not a grant So No, it's a, well it's 1% surcharge on Yeah. The taxes after you subtract a hundred grand from your valuation. Yeah, I was here When you came in. That one hurt. But yeah, councilor Matthews came. Thank you. Um, I was surprised there's only three categories. 'cause there I thought there were historically four categories, open space, historic recreation and housing and there's no category for recreation. It's under open space and recreation. It's all one.
It's both. It's both. Yes. And these are estimates based on the 10% of whatever revenues that you, um, collect each year, which also can include your match that the state gives you, which the match is getting less and less because there's a bigger pool of people. And if you're that 1% at the bottom, the 3% people get whoever, whatever community has 3%. If they've adopted 3% gets a bigger chunk of all the money that the state has collected and then they go down to the 1% and then once that happens, they'll go back up. If there's any money left over with, there's usually not.
But if there's more people, more communities that are opting for CPC money, the percentage of the state match gets less and less so. But these are just estimates of 79, 79, 79 by state statute you have to put 10% away in three of those categories. Um, and, and that you never used to be able to do recreation. That was mostly in like the last maybe five or six, seven years. You could do recreation, something like that. Um, I know you couldn't really fix anything at a school playground, but now you are able to do those types of things where before it was just
Bad example. We good? Everybody good? Roll call please. Madam City Clerk. Fanon. Yes. Fay? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews. Kane. Yes. Meow. Yes. Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Bean? Yes. Be Randy? Yes. Burns? Yes. Next item please. An order appropriating money for stormwater services in the public works department that the following sums bean. Here we are granted and voted from the income of stormwater fees receipts for fiscal year 2026 and it be further ordered that all amounts here and specified shall be devoted
to the purposes designated in this order and in conformity with the line item budget as submitted by the mayor and is determined by the city council total $882,679 and 72 cents. So second Motion made it second. And any discussion on storm water? Seeing none will call Fanny. Yes. Biggie? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews Kain? Yes. Meow. Yes. Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Be yes. Randy? Yes. Burns? Yes. Next item please. In order appropriating money
for PEG access and cable related fund that the following sums being hereby are granted and voted from the income of the PEG access receipts for the fiscal year 2026 and it be further ordered that all amounts here specified shall be devoted to the purposes designated in this order. And in conformity with the line item budget as submitted by the mayor and is determined by the city council. The total is $377,927 and 14 cents. So second. Motion made it second. Any discussion on this item? Seeing none, roll call please. Any yes, Vicky? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews. Kane? Yes.
Meow. Yes. Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Be yes. Rey? Yes. Burns. Yes. Next item please. An order of appropriation for fiscal year 2026 as amended that the following sums being hereby are granted and appropriated for the purposes and objects here, here and after stated. And it further ordered that all amounts here and specified shall be devoted to the purposes designated in this order estimated by the mayor and as determined by the City Council Workers' Compensation Fund. $200,000 an unemployment of $50,000.
So moved. Second Motion made it seconded. Further discussion on this item. Seeing none. Roll call please Can. Yes. Peggy? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews. Kane. Yes. Meow. Yes. Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Dean? Yes. Yes. Burns? Yes. And next item, An order of appropriation for fiscal year 2026 As amended. But the following sums being here right or granted. An appropriated for the purposes and objects herein after stated. And be it further ordered that all amounts herein specified shall be devoted to the purposes designated in this order as submitted
by the mayor and as determined by the city council. Ope Fund. $250,000. So second. Motion made it second. And I need discussion on the EP fund. Seeing none. Roll call please. Fanon? Yes. Fige? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthew Ca? Yes. Ms. Yes. Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Bean. Yes. Beltran? Yes. Burns? Yes. And finally, An order of appropriation for fiscal year 2026 is amended that the following sums be in here. We are granted and appropriated for the purposes and objects here and after stated
and it be further ordered that all amounts here and specified shall be devoted to the purposes designated in this order as submitted by the mayor and as determined by the city council debt decline fund. $200,000. Second Motion. She made it. Second. I need any discussion on the debt decline. I have a question. Yes. Council. So this money here, um, thinking, um, so how does this money get used? Or is this just like a, like a reserve toward that? I mean, so yeah. So we put this money in a, it is a specific, um, stabilization fund that you can only use for debt decline. And the premise was that we wanted to keep the debt service
to the fiscal year budgets about $7 million. Um, and so if it happens to be that we need $8 million for the debt service, we would appropriate it out of this fund to put into the budget so that we wouldn't take money away from somebody else. Or if it went below and we had extra money, we didn't want the, the departments to take that million dollars, you know, in the hole. And then we are stuck not being able to pay for the debt the next year if we borrow for something larger. Okay. Thank you. Anything further? Roll call please. Any yes, gie? Yes. Harris? Yes. Matthews. Kane? Yes. Yes.
Sullivan? Yes. Adams? Yes. Allie? Yes. Beam? Yes. Belt. Randy? Yes. Burns? Yes. Thank you. You're very welcome. Councilor Harris. Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion made it seconded. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We are now adjourned. Thank you everyone.