Finance, Budget, Audit & Bonding Subcommittee - Special Meeting

Um, we have uh myself as the chair, council mcclair, we have the mayor, Anthony Harrington, we have Joe Merritt on the line, councelor Merritt, and we have the deputy mayor, Cindy Ly, uh, and Elizabeth Waterhouse is uh, absent. Um, and uh, I want to send my condolences out to Liz and her family um, on the loss of her husband uh, Q. Uh, Waterhouse, who have also served on the many boards of commission. Johnson,

Q. Johnson, excuse me, Q. Johnson um served on many boards and commissions uh for the uh town of Bloomfield. And so I'm just going to uh as a chair askked for a two-minute mo a moment of silence in honor of Q Waterhouse Johnson. Thank you. Uh, next item on the agenda is uh I'm going to turn it over to our finance CFO, director of CFO, Mr. Daryl Heel, for the discussion status update regarding the 2024 2025 standing audit update. And I know we just met like three weeks ago, but if you have any updates, it would be useful cuz I think I saw something on Facebook, when are we going to finish the audit and get an update? So, if you can answer those people on Facebook, I think that would be helpful.

Ask them several times every month. Um, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, good evening, uh, committee. It's always a pleasure to be before you, including this month. Um, with my first agenda item, the update on the fiscal 24 audit. Um, we have made significant progress. Um, thank you, uh, Mr. Chairman, for recognizing the number of times that this committee's met. in recent weeks. I I think it's four or five times in the past six weeks.

Um we've made significant progress. Um as I believe I reported the last time on the 24 audit. Um we and this actually goes back a couple months. We completed the work that should have been done in 24. And at my last report, um I don't recall it's been a very busy year but month as well. Um, when we completed the work that should have been done in 24, uh, I believe I reported out that we were working towards getting all of our information to CLA, Clifton, Larson, Allen, our external auditors, with the primary deliverable being the trial balance. So, after we completed the work that should have been done in 24 and moved on to preparing the trial balance, we identified work that was done in 24 that needed correction. and completion. Where we stand today, our list of uh 99 deliverables are down to single digit. Um, as I've reported out previously, the there's a couple of three items that will uh be the very last items, the management discussion and analysis and the statistical tables. Um, I missed my deputy uh who is I believe online. she can answer if she was able to get to submitting the trial balance to CLA today and if it's not wasn't uh done before um closed business today it will be tomorrow right so that's a significant milestone for um the audit of fiscal 24 because that signifies that our deliverables have been submitted and CLA can move on with the actual audit of fiscal 24 um as I believe I reported out last time. We are in audit season across the state, across the country. Um, most

municipalities have the June 30th uh fiscal end. Um, I mention that because it's not as though we are sitting late behind the December 31st filing date where our external auditors are available. Um, we are in coordination with them. Um, they know where we are. They are prepared for us, but they're going to be managing their resources with all of their accounts statewide, including ours, um to work to get our fiscal 25 audit completed. I'm sorry, 24 audit completed. Um while most of their efforts are with regard to the fiscal 25 for their other other clients. Um so, you know, we've made good progress. Um, as I've reported out in recent months, I I get the impression that some people think that there's like a a magic clock that says how long things are going to take and it's never anything different, which is not real world. Um, as we've seen with our work, which was significantly more than anticipated, um, as CLA goes through their work, I'm optimistic that they will have a better experience than I've heard they had in prior years with regard to the completeness of the deliverables that we've provided, uh, which will hopefully compress the time that they need to get through their audit work. Um, as they progress through their audit work, we will, uh, continue to complete the last several deliverables. the MDNA and the statistical tables uh and answer and be responsive to any questions that they have with regard to 24. But at the same time uh what little time is freed up, we will shift to fiscal 25 uh and begin working to uh be compliant for the first time in several years. Um,

yes. I was going to say thank you for the update, but if you're not done, I'll let you continue.

Well, I mean, in in in full disclosure, we know that Moody's has uh communicated um the potential for them withdrawing our rating. Um, I did want to say a few words about that. Um, Moody's is we haven't used Moody's as a rating agency on any of our bond issues since 2013. Um, that bond issue was a refunding issue. The final maturity is in not this year, not next year, but 2028. So there are three principal payments left. One of which for this year fiscal 26 is already budgeted and it is the largest amount uh of principal remaining. Um next year I believe there's 800,000 of principal and in fiscal 28 there's 790,000 of principal. So, while I nor I'm sure anyone in Bloomfield wants Moody's to uh take that action, we uh are not alone uh across the country. I believe they have 109 uh at least from their press release that uh they have listed municipalities across the country, 109 that Moody's has uh on their list for potential withdrawal of the ratings. We're one of those 109. I understand of those 109 uh in a conversation with our financial advisor that there's approximately 25 of them in Connecticut, which uh signifies a growing issue in Connecticut with late audits. Um and didn't fact check it, but I trust our financial adviser who shared that just a few years ago from Moody's perspective, there were, you know, three or six municipalities that were late in filing their audits. Um the following year that single digit grew to around 25 or 30

uh were late filing their audits. Um and now it's just grown. Um because one of the primary questions that I have for Moody's is knowing that the fiscal the town of Bloomfield's fiscal 2020 audit was is dated October 27th and usually it's filed either that day or in the the days immediately following. Why a month and a half earlier this year uh is Moody's uh threatening with respect but threatening to withdraw the town's rating seems outside of their process except that the town has been late filing its audit for three now four years running. Um if Moody's withdraws its rating, uh we have a variety of options. Um, and I'm comfortable that if we have to take any action uh, as a result of Moody's withdrawing its rating, which is again only for that single remaining bond issue and the three maturities that are left, everything else is rated by standard and pores. Um, if Moody's takes action with regard to withdrawing the town's rating, um, I do not believe there will be any negative other than having them withdraw the rating. um which is primarily a continuing disclosure issue because when we issue bonds, we commit to providing the audit um when it's filed with the state and then they reference the state statutes that the filing deadline is December 31st, you become non-compliant on June 30th. Um, so that that's why they're pushing. But I did want to provide a little bit of perspective that um for anyone who thinks the sky is falling, it is not.

So can you also provide an update on the outcome of the 99 virtual meeting with OPM? Did you have a meeting with OPM related to the audit? No. No. I I got an email, what's today? Tuesday. I got an email Friday from I assume a resident asking about a meeting with OPM about the audit on thought they said 910. Um I'm not aware of OPM reaching out to the town to schedule a meeting. I did not participate in a meeting with OPM about the audit. I don't know where this is coming from someone with the keyboard.

Did Vanessa uh participate from CLA? I do not believe our external auditors would have participated in a meeting with OPM without the town being represented. It is our audit. They're our consultant. They're working for us. Good. Thank you. I just wanted to, you know, because there's so much misinformation out there and people don't care about the misinformation and the residents don't like understand where to get the true source of their facts from because they rely so much on social media, which is a dangerous thing. So, I'm so happy that I was able to articulate, you were able to articulate that for the record so that when that comes out, we can direct them to this meeting and say the finance uh finance uh subcommittee addressed it and the finance director addressed it that he was not aware of any communications to the town from OPM saying that they wanted to participate uh or wanted the town to participate in some virtual meeting um and that some alleged damage information need to is going to come out. I don't it's just unfortunate that there's no secret pot of money. There's no corruption. There is no mis appropriation of funding. This is just a matter of the previous administration of finance staff didn't do the work and the competent folks like Donna and yourself. Not saying that the previous staff wasn't competent, but

you're trying to catch up and you're trying to put SOPs in place so that you don't find yourself in this predicament next year or the year after, right? And so you're trying to make sure that Munis is the true source document, not only for yourself, but for the board of education. I think it's going to take time. And once we get to a point where that information is updated and everybody's using that true that true source repository, I think we're going to not have these problems. I think munis will be able to spit out the reports and the bank reconciliation connecting it to the banks that we use will all happen so that when m uh CLA or whoever the auditor vendor is ask you for this information you can just hit a button

well well I don't make it that easy even embracing technology will be significantly uh more efficient than it has been and I I do want to say that I've I've been very intentional and deliberate in uh my remarks particular particularly about my predecessors and prior staff. Y um and it's not picking on your words, but it's not as though they didn't do any work last year, right? The fact pattern tells me what was going on, which was in late October 202,

the town filed its 22 audit. So that's the beginning of fiscal 24. So the first quarter plus a month they were working on the 22 audit and then did what they could in 24 but were working on the 23 audit. Right? And the 23 audit was filed in late June 24. Right? So, it's not as though they weren't doing work in 24, but they weren't doing the day job work because they were focused on the audit. Everything is connected. You've heard me say it in front of this committee multiple times over the past year. When I'm working on the budget, I'm not working on the audit. When I'm working on the audit, I'm not doing the day job. Right? We don't have the staffing resources. And I'm not playing on the agenda items tonight, but I I don't really take issue with my predecessors developing and going back more than just a few years, at least a decade or more, developing workarounds to get things done. It's just that it caught up with us. And you know, it's not lost on me that the the recent delays in filing um began after the onset of the pandemic, right? The 2021 audit, right? So the full fiscal year after the audits uh after the pandemic started is when we got behind and we haven't been able to catch up until now for a variety of reasons that

not the least of which is um embracing munice right and when I get to talking about the August financial report um you'll I'll point out a couple of things with regard to Munice and how we are making progress positive progress. So before we go to councelor Merritt um sorry councel merr I just want to talk about because there was this um I giggle you don't need me I do I have a question about a list of his trial balance I mean you talk

I didn't talk I have one question he's been here talking uh uh director he um can you submit the I know you mentioned the list of like the trial balance that's outstanding can you just submit because there was some people talking about you know the finan Finance committee didn't have the director put up a list of outstanding items and when they're due. Um I know you have a work plan. If you could just at next month's meeting when you give the update show the the proposal or the plan so that they can sure be satisfied. Council Merritt. Thank you. I I wanted to ask my understanding was you were going to hire some consultants to help catch up.

Yes. And they have been here for a while. Yes. And they are doing the job. Absolutely. Do we have that in the budget? We have the $30,000 that this committee uh was going to recommend to the council to pro provide from its contingency um in that meeting. The C committee fell short of making the recommendation. Excuse me. And my suggestion was that we bring the staff in and see if we needed the 30,000 or if it would be something less. um they've been here. Um we've scaled back to to one. We had two. Um and we are going to exhaust that 30,000.

So So um and you're going to keep them long enough to get going on the 25. We can only keep them until we run out of money, right? We have $30,000. Once that 30,000 is gone, we don't have funding to I don't think there's much choice. I think we're going to have to ask for more money to get that done. where you're getting the money from. I Somebody may disagree with me, but Well, I just want to know where you're getting the money from because we only have $150,000 in the council contingency. 30,000 is used. That's 120 places we can get it without. I just think we're going to have to do it. I mean,

uh Well, anyway, so that was my main question. So, um how long have they been here? Um I believe they came on about 10 days after that finance committee meeting. Oh the celebration. Okay. How many? Well I mean the meeting happened and we reached out and started looking at resumes picked someone and then they they started on Monday. That's all I have for now. Thank you council mayor. Just so FYI, um I think we only have budgeted in the council contingency. Is it 150? And so if we use 30,000 that leaves us 120, 10,000 is we have some reserves we can go to.

Hold on, let me let me finish. 10,000 of that, right, is contractually um um taken up. So that leaves us with 110. I understand. Right. And so then you have on the the agenda the custodian, we have the senior accountant, we have software. Um, we only allow a half of 1%. Um, and that money comes from the fund balance. Remember, fund balance is at what 16.5 or projected is scheduled to change. And so, the more you go into the fund balance, I understand all that. I just I understand that. Thank you. Don't need to lecture me on it. Oh, no. I'm not lecturing. I'm just trying to like prioritize and let you know that, you know, things are tight right now. And so, needs.

Yes. And we put $3.4 4 million in for fund balance to balance this year's budget. I understand that. Yes. Thank you. All right. Deputy uh excuse me, Mr. Mayor. Uh my question is how much more time do we have utilizing the 30,000? Um it's been a week or 10 days since I looked at that information. We are near the end. We are what? Near the end. Exhausting that 30,000. So, you need to come up with something before you have to stop. Um, that would be the affirmative. Just

Well, I I just I pause because I I'm sure the committee and those who watch regularly know my response for the first 10 11 months, which was the value is in current staff learning the things,

not having consultants learn it. and then leave. Right? So, the way we've been utilizing the consultants, temporary staff, is uh having them do things that we're already aware of, right? An extra set of hands. What's the old saying? You know, one person works the speed of one, but two people working together work the speed of can work the speed of three individuals. So, it's definitely been helpful. Um, and we're at the point where we're getting ready to submit the trial balance. So, with regard to fiscal 24 uh 24's audit, we're we're at I'm sure CLA is listening and I don't want to say we're at the end because we're not, but this is a milestone that we're crossing over where we're providing everything that's requested, right? So, we're in that last trunch, if you will, of time to complete the 24 audit. Um, you know, could we use them? Absolutely. Right. We we requested a budget modification to add the senior accountant. We need the staff, but without the funding. Um, and you know, my opinion on paying consultants versus paying staff is I'd rather use the money to pay staff, right? Because they're here every day and will be here every day going forward, which is just very different than a temporary staff or a consultant.

Another accountant, uh, they would help right away. If we hired, Absolutely. So that in some sense it would be a substitute for having these. Yes. So okay. Well in and just very different right I mean consultants or temporary staff come in and we identify um work for them right with a new FTE. Yes we're identifying work for them but it's the long run. It's these are things that they are going to be responsible for going forward. Not

here you go, work on this, let me know when it's done. I can give you something else. That's not how we interact with our our our staff, our employees. Right. So, I agree. Just how how that work gets done is very different. I mean, it's going to be here for a while, not visiting firemen. So, yeah. So, so I know that's on the agenda, but where would the money come from? We'll look we'll talk about it when we begin. Well, I I'm just asking him to be prepared to to discuss it cuz I I just I know I um it's going to have to come from reserves. Obviously, it can't come from reserves because you're going to set yourself up for failure in the next budget season. That's what I'm trying to tell.

I But we'll get there. Okay. Fine.

Is that any other questions for Do you want me to respond to your last question? So, you know, there The annual budget is developed to do all the things that we need to do all year. And there are two contingency buckets, council and the t town town manager. I believe there are 150,000 and 100,000. Outside of that, it's the unassigned fund balance that's available. The unassigned fund balance, right, charter language, it's available and can be used. The challenge is when we get to the town council's general fund fund balance policy that repeats some of the things that are in the charter but very explicitly requires that any use of fund balance be only for one-time expenditures right to not create the budget challenge. So, um, could council, if they chose to appropriate additional fund balance, they could, um, and that could go a number of different ways. they could choose to in full public view uh to recognize that the council's general fund fund balance policy requires it for only one-time uses cast that aside or if council were to appropriate from fund balance would only be for this year, right? Which is you can't encumber future council. So you couldn't appropriate fund balance for next year, but it does create the challenge in the budget that we have a position that we don't want to expire on June 30th. We would have next year's budget before then. So we would know. But then in the 27 budget development, there'd be a budget modification asking that that if council were to approve it during this year, the addition of a senior accountant, that that senior

account be embedded in the department's budget in the fiscal 27 budget. So are there resources available? Yes, there's resources available, right? And it's very intentional, right? We we we have an unassigned fund balance. It's our savings account and you know the council year-over-year appropriates a portion of it to keep the mill rate down including this year's budget at 3.75 million but what the financial performance for the town has shown in recent years is that fund balance gets appropriated and we don't use it. Now, the fiscal 24 audit only includes I'm sorry, the the fiscal 24 budget only included $195,000 of fund balance for operations. believe it was a 2.5 $2.7 million number because there were appropriations for capital uh in the number, but there was only $195,000 for operations and then I think it went up to 2.5 2.75 million uh in 20 fiscal 25. Um, so I I mention that because as we work to complete the fiscal 24 audit, um, you know, I'm an internal optimist, but I continue to be optimistic that the conservative financial information that I presented last month with regard to fiscal 25 uh, is going to be higher, meaning the 1.5 million of surplus generated from fiscal 25 operations uh could could be a higher number. And similarly for 24, right, we're working off of projections. I've intentionally made them conservative so that if 24 or 25 is different than my projections, it's higher, which is to the good. Now, the fiscal 24 audit will know in fairly

short order the next couple of months. And then we can take the projection for 24 out and put the actual fund balance in. And I do believe that that's going to have an a positive impact on the town's compliance with its policy range between 15 and 20%.

Thank you. Um, if I recall in the last meeting, we were talking about some uh costs that were not going to play out. For instance, I don't want to just state the police department, but I'm going to use them as an example. There are a couple of positions that okay

that were not going to be filled and that there was possibility that somewhere along the line throughout the town that some positions uh that would not be filled would then create an opportunity for cost savings, vacancy savings, right? Are is that the money that you're talking about that we may possibly

No. No. So that's this year. That's 26. And um for for clarity or in the interest of clarity, you know, in the budget process, there's a wide variety of assumptions uh that go into the budget including with regard to personnel. If a position is vacant when we're developing the budget, one of the qu primary questions is what assumption are we using for when it will be filled? Will it be filled July 1 or at some point after July 1? If it's some point after July 1, then that gets baked into the budget to reduce the budget. So, what you're referring to uh is a department that agreed to hold two vacancies for a period of time during fiscal 26 to meet their budget directive. Um, your second example is vacancy savings. We didn't plan on someone leaving for whatever reason, but they did leave during the year and that position remained vacant until we were able to backfill it. So, the whole time that that position is vacant, well, we budgeted for that person's salary. Now, we're generating vacancy savings. It just happens naturally every year in every organization. There are some places that go through very elaborate projections based on uh past actuals over a long period of time. I've worked in some places where they look back 10 years and say every year we know we're going to have this much vacancy savings. They start planning for it, but planning for it in a conservative way. So to put some numbers to it, if you know we know we're going to have a half million dollars of vacancy savings, we budget for $250,000 some of it because we know we're going to have some, but we don't know what the number is. There's some danger in that, of course, because if it doesn't happen, there's a hole in the budget. But using

the past as the best predictor of the future that half million dollars more or less you know 400,000 600,000 the $250,000 that gets baked into the budget becomes reality and some and that is one of the main things that we look to during the fourth quarter. Where are all departments and offices townwide with regard to vacancy savings and then who needs money, right? what departments need additional funding, what departments have funding to give. A lot of that is because of vacancy vacancy savings, not because we were supposed to buy our microphone or recarpet the floor and we didn't do it right. We do the things that we're planning on doing in the budget um when it's time to do them. So, vacancy savings versus budgeting for a position that's vacant. Um, yes. Th those are the two examples you're referring to.

Any other questions related to the audit? I know we went all over the place. Any other questions? We can go do covering the agenda. So, yeah. I'm just I'm just asking if anybody else has questions related to the audits. If not, we'll move to commercial building fees. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh who is John Coleman's here for commercial building fees? Mr. Chairman, member of this committee. Quite frankly, I'm not sure what the what the topic is or what the purpose of this stuff. You can refresh my memory. Yes. So, uh the inclusionary zoning um Okay, that's the one.

No. Uh the new law uh uh zoning policy requires that a percentage of the commercial building permit fees goes into the affordable correct trust fund.

The town staff have commercial building fees already in the budget right for this fiscal year. So if they project I wanted some clarity. If they project a million dollars of commercial building permit fees, they can't use all of the million dollars because a percentage of that needs to go into the affordable housing trust fund. So would that put a gap in their budget projections because they're taking money now out because the inclusionary zoning law was not passed prior to budget development. Does that make sense?

That that makes sense. But the two things, one, the council needs to pass an ordinance because to put that process in place because only the zoning regulations um do not have do not provide the authority uh to move money around. They only they set the policy, but you actually have to pass an ordinance that says these fees are going to go to this way. in terms of whether the budget itself um had the premises that there was going to be a percentage shift into the fund. I would defer to the uh director of finance. So for your first question, I think we established the that fund through the housing affordable housing trust fund ordinance. I think it's already in there and it's already done. Okay.

Um and so that's done. We can check with legal and Ashley, but I know it's in there because it established the commercial linkage fee and we preempted um the zoning board the the TPZ with passing that ordinance. We just updated it. And so then when you did it, I think the two comes together and that's why I have a concern about it and was wondering if we needed to increase it a little bit so that it comes out net for what he has in the budget so we don't disproportionately impact the budget. Again, I would defer to, you know, we have it in the we have it in the zoning regulations and um it's, you know, it's it's part of not an addition to. So, it is it is a subtraction from the from the B from the fees. I you know, we have not I'm not aware of a number actually being calculated to date of of what that number is. We can certainly obviously give you what the uh commercial building fees have been up till now and what the and what the number transfer is, but I'm um not aware of I'm not familiar with whether the finance department has actually calculated that into their budget deliberations.

I'm trying to track this for you guys because I know it's going to be an issue come fourth quarter because everybody's going to say, "Oh, we didn't know that we had to do this." And that's why I'm putting it on the agenda because the inclusionary zoning policy says that a certain percentage of new commercial fees uh goes into the affordable housing trust fund and our budget development we have x amount. And so if you don't gross up then you're going to find yourself at the end of the fiscal year having a deficit in that line item because if you budget a million 20% of that $200,000 would have to go into the affordable housing trust fund. So, you would get $800,000, but you budgeted for a million dollar. So, I just want you all to be to be to be mindful and you should track it. Um, because I know we established that in the affordable housing trust fund, the commercial linkage fee.

So, don't know who wants to to to to deal with that, but I don't want it to be come fourth quarter because I won't be here. Um, but I'll be watching. um it comes to the fourth quarter and you're like, "Oh, we didn't know about this building permit fee that needed to go into the affordable housing trust fund." I will coordinate with the director of finance. Perfect. Between the two of us, we'll and then maybe at the next month meeting, the last meeting, we could get an update and determine whether we need to gross up to run some projections to see if we need to gross up the build commercial building fee so that the affordable housing trust fund gets what it needs and then you meet your budget number and the budget. I think it's 20%. Or it needs to go No, it's 10. It's either 10 or 12%.

10 or 12% of it need to go into the the affordable housing trust fund. So, I just want to make sure that everybody keeps an eye on it. We will do that. Sir, I think you may need to gross up the commercial building permit fees so that you can make your money. The next item on the agenda, the small development uh development fund, but we're going to table that. Is there a motion to table that? Moved by the mayor. Second. Secondary table. Say it again. We're tableabling the small business development um fund. We're going to allow the staff more time to discuss that. Okay. Fine. Thank you. Work with that. Yeah. We're working on developing the policies and procedures. Yep. Perfect. I move we vote.

All right. No discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion pass. Next item on the agenda is the discussion new business of action regarding the staffing of a custodian for presser. This is Council Merritt. Turn it over to you.

Uh, yes. Uh, I should mention that when I brought this up to ask for it to put on the agenda, I didn't realize there was already one uh custodian for the library. We didn't actually come up with one. I I didn't know that. And but they still need another person, another half a person for the library maybe because they're not covered on the weekends and something else. But um anyway, I Well, I have a question because I know he I'll let them speak to it. Yeah, but I know he if you want to present this. I don't know if you have this electronically because I see Victor has two buildings and two shifts.

Almost every almost every custodian has two shifts. Myself and Glenn Gity, the assistant director, online as well. Okay. Is Glenn on? Yes. Oh, I don't see him. Oh, I see Glenn. Oh, sorry. My I Let me put my glasses on. Come with old age. Hey, Glenn. Um, okay. So, why can't um Mr. Floyd or Mrs. Floyd um get some weekend hours cuz everybody has two shifts. So, why don't we just create some weekend hours instead of adding a whole another position?

Well, currently we already have a weekend overtime. police department, they already get four hours every Saturday. So that already takes a custodian every Saturday four hours to cover the PD separate overtime. Can I interrupt, please? Yes, Mr. Manager.

Okay. Thank you. And and and good evening uh Mr. Chair and council and citizens and and staff. Uh thank you for the opportunity to speak about uh uh gaps that we have in our staffing. And what I would like uh Mr. Childress to do um is uh basically to present um where we are right now and and what is a challenge of where we are right now because I believe uh last week when we spoke about the amount of square footage that is ideal for industry standards for um each individual to be responsible for. We are in excess of that uh times two. So, what I would like you to have is is not only a picture of of what's happening right now, but a bigger picture, a more accurate picture of the actual challenge that exists. This is not something that's going to be resolved with overtime. because once we have one staff member who is on leave or gets injured or workman's comp or something like that, everything becomes instantly out of whack and it creates extreme challenges in the system. Yesterday, I can tell you that um town hall here uh and and this is no knock against the facility staff. to do the best they have or what they have. But if if there's one absence, next thing you know, you know, we're not seeing the the level of service that that we should have at um at our at our headquarters here for the town of Bloomfield. And uh and and that uh has a domino effect uh down the line to other buildings as well. So I would ask for Mr. Chilis uh to please just lay out uh the overall concern and why this is necessary. Yes, we do have uh one custodian at the library right now assigned, but that library has grown. All right, that library has grown significantly in square footage, significantly in latrine

facilities. It's not the same library. So, what we're using from what we used to have is not adequate to what today's uh situation is. So, without uh any further discussion, Mr. Childress, please present uh the actual concern and the gap and and the remedy. Sir,

uh yes, sir. I provided some handouts tonight to the council uh just stating the facts that you know every custodian basically covers uh two buildings with the exception of the new library. Uh my that being said the reality is with my staff we currently we are barely able to meet the most basic needs cleaning bathrooms and emptying trash. This leaves little note or no time for deeper maintenance that is equally as important such as scrubbing, waxing, and maintaining our floors in areas that need daily attention. On average, each custodian responsible for is responsible for covering 30,000 up to 40,000 square feet every night. Industry best practice suggests that one custodian should be responsible for no more than 18 to 20,000 square feet. So every custodian is covering double what they should. My staff are doing the best they can do with the time that they have. My team is scheduled thin maintaining five existing buildings. We also have the responsibility for two new additional facilities. The remodeled 6,312 ft went library and the brand new 34,000 square ft Proer Library. Proser is particularly is a showcase facility with beautiful glass, woodwork and the newest innovations. These buildings deserve to be cared for at the highest standard so they maintain as impressive in the years ahead as they are on the opening day. And as you can see, I've I made the bullet point bulletin for uh the community impact, the staffing challenges that we have, uh the impact on the on the building maintenance. We just want to maintain these buildings as nice as they are. So, right now, my staff doesn't have the ability.

Thank you so much for that. Quick question. Where's the money coming from? I see Glenn has his hand up, but I'll let him go and I defer my question until after he goes.

Yeah. Good evening, committee members. Um, so I mean Matt does an excellent job utilizing the staff that he has and we want to provide that certain standard to Bloomfield. Um, so I think the perception can be somewhat warped if we just look at a list of names and two square foot numbers. Um, what our custodians do translates um, it has an impact on all town of Bloomfield employees at the end of the day. Just an example, sorry my dog just snuck in the room. As an example, uh during COVID, you know, our typical process for detail cleaning was wiping down all surfaces, door knobs, counters, surfaces, um double cleaning on restrooms, and I'll tell you, it makes a big difference. Uh with flu season, colds coming up, we're going to see a lot more of our staff absent this winter. I can almost guarantee that. Um, and additionally, we're at a uh pivotal moment where the life cycle costs of our facilities, our buildings are probably the most expensive assets we have in town, aside from our uh structural work, roads and bridges. Uh, and right now with the gap that we have, uh, we we contribute to a replacement costs. I mean, look what we've put in for capital just for carpeting over the years. $25,000 a year. um you know these it has a t-fold impact. You start with floors but you contribute to sick building syndrome if you're not cleaning properly um you know your ventilation becomes compromised has a direct impact on air quality and you know your employees. So um I know you're going towards you know where where's the money coming from but this is why we we requested the modification. This is not something we can absorb in our operating budget. Uh we had significant cuts in our overtime about $40,000 and the nature of DPW is tricky. Um

we're very dependent on the seasons, the weather, and god forbid we have a harsh winter. Um we may not be cutting grass next summer, you know. Um it's a very careful balancing act. Uh but we're at a position now we feel responsible to present a serious problem uh a gap in our services. I just wanted to add that. Um, I'm all for making sure we have clean facilities. Where is the money coming from? Well, council contingency is the only thing I can think of.

So, council contingency for the accountant and council contingency for the facility with $110,000 left. Somebody provide guidance. Where's the money coming from? If this is That's not an easy conversation, you know. Definitely not. Um, it's a need, right? The accountant is a need and then the council uh the the custodian is a need. Somebody need they've done this great research where it's coming from the software.

Where is it coming from? Have you identified it? Have you managed the budget to be able to put this in there? You can't keep saying go to council contingency with $110,000 and then we have up to what half of 1% from fund balance and then you're going to find yourself going under the 15%. Right? Because you're taking money from there. We don't have the full number of what

the fund balance is because the 24 audit isn't complete. You put 3.75 million in the budget this year to to do it. Yes, we don't um um always use the money, but we're in the first quarter of the year. We don't know what's coming in the second, third, or the 12th quarter. Where's the money coming from? I'm happy to support these items if somebody identify where the money is coming from. That's that's and with all due respect, that's not a fair question for for this audience at this time in that these were um requests whether it be for accounting or whether it be for custodian that were put forth to the council and the council determined at that time it did not want to fund these. So now we're at a point where, you know, reality is hitting us and we're we're asking for uh support and if the town does not have the support to provide for this, then it just doesn't have it right. But asking these gentlemen where it's coming from, it it's not an avenue I I I think it's going to be productive to go down. So we we bring these we bring you these concerns as a way to uh see if there's a way in which we can accomplish goal. If there's not, then there's not. and we will just have to do the best with what we have and uh we just want to make sure that expectations are are managed for for our visiting public when they come in and things aren't quite the way we will want them to be. So if if you're telling me there's no way that we can make this happen, hear you loud and clear, right? That the services that we provide to the public right now, we determined to be absolutely necessary. So, I'm not looking to cut services uh by any means uh to um to get us through this hump we have right now. So, uh we are where we are, right? And there's no magical way in which we can get ourselves out of it. And uh and if that is the case, I accept that and and we'll drive on.

So, I So, deputy uh excuse me, uh councelor Merritt, then the deputy mayor, and then I'll go. I uh I I I think something really good has come out of this being on the agenda and that is you've done a fantastic job. I congratulate you on showing the need and it's very thorough and it is I think a good investment of your time because certain way that what you've done here will yield some results. I don't think it's going to be sooner because what's been said here, we just went through this in the budget and I don't think we're going to be able to do anything. When I put it on there, I did not realize, as I said before, that you had one one custodian already for the new library. And that's what I thought. I heard prior information that you didn't have somebody. And I thought it was a real almost desperate emergency. It's still an emergency, but it's not quite as desperate as it was. But knowing what you provide us here is such so good that I suspect something will reap some reward sooner or later, but it won't be quite now because we just don't have the money. So, I I think we can Well,

I think the deputy mayor has her hand up, so I want to give her the floor. Deputy mayor. Uh maybe she's struggling to find the mute button. Deputy Mayor, you have the floor. Deputy Mayor Lloyd. Yep. Yep. Other things were happening at the bottom of the screen. Um so it sounded like Council Merritt was really trying to finish up a sent I can wait for him to be able to do that. Deputy Mayor, can you repeat that? You were a little low. We couldn't hear you in the room. I said it sounded like councelor Merritt was trying to finish up a thought. So, I'm happy to wait for him to finish doing that.

No, I think he just was making a a side remark. I think you're fine to go.

Okay. Thank you. Um, first I will state that I appreciate again like um Council Me said, laying out the facts as it relates most in particularly to the industry standard. And so with this information, um, I'm I'm kind of making a presumption, maybe I shouldn't, but with the number of staff we have and the number of facilities, it sounds like this has been the case for a very long time that our staff have been working far beyond the industry standard as it relates to the amount of territory that they should be covering as um, a maintenance person. So I'll state that first. Second, I will state that I don't believe that it's anyone who does not want to fund this um just in response to um the town manager. Um that that was a verbiage I heard. I don't think there's anybody here that doesn't want to, but if we all reflect back to budget season, it was terribly terribly terribly difficult to make these decisions. And I'll specifically relate to the just extreme criticism uh slush fund or whatever terminology was used for our few hundreds of thousands of dollar um council contingency monies that previously existed and that was cut significantly because of it being such a tough budget year notwithstanding the criticism. And so now here we are with a need and and many needs at that and lacking the funding to do it. So I I think that's a lesson in and of itself that we need to do what we need to do and go with our best mind versus being more reactionary to criticism and stand on business when it comes to doing what we know is best for the masses, the 22,000, the patrons

of the library and our town buildings. Um, notwithstanding that though, that money is for one-time expenses. So, we do have a significant challenge because these will be recurring expenses. So, I I echo um Council McCclary to say where's the money coming from, but not to challenge the directors, but to work with our finance staff directly to see how we can crunch some numbers before we can make a final decision on it. um that the 24 audit is coming uh fast and furious to a close and I think that may give us some numbers that we didn't expect to have. You've been having really good returns on our monies. Um Council McClary, I significantly credit you for some of your remix and suggestions and things that have transpired to bump up our numbers on our rates of return. So, I want to say thank you for that and hoping that we can um working with the staff, look at some numbers and some pockets of money um and and try to figure out how we can do this because our buildings and their beauty is as important as our audit getting in as it is um the software that we need. I I just want to say we do recognize the need um amidst trying to balance a budget in an extremely tough budget year for a public that had to suffer such an extraordinary increase in their property taxes due to a reval. It it was just like a perfect storm. And so um I feel for and um empathize with all of these requests. I just really want to make sure that's clear and I'm sure everybody on the dis feels the same way. I'm I'm hoping we can find a way to figure out some of these challenges.

Uh I agree. And then I'll go to the town manager after my remarks. Um I totally agree. I wasn't challenging the directors, Glenn, or this gentleman standing in front of me um to find the money. I was I said at the town council meeting, maybe we need to start looking at a matrix study, figuring out what departments have over who are over staffed versus the departments that are understaffed. And I guarantee you when you do that matrix study and you do the assessment of the whole organization and where you have bodies, I'm assure you it's going to show you that more people need to be here versus X or somewhere else. And so I would I have one more meeting left as the finance chair and as a council person and this is just for the record for the future. I would just applaud you all to please look at over the next two years doing the matrix study to rightsize the organization to make sure that we're not over staff in certain areas and understaffing other areas because we cannot continue to say that we need more positions. This is 80 thou roughly $80,000. Where's the $80,000 come from? If you can identify it somewhere in the budget outside of council contingency because we got $110,000 left. You need the accountant. I hear fund balance, but you go to fund balance and you go through four years or three years of phase in and you don't have that meal rate subst that fund balance to help keep the meal rate low, then you're going to find yourself raising taxes and nobody's going to be here. So, I'm telling you, you got to manage, you got to budget, you got to look at the numbers. I know there is tons of needs all over the organization and as council deputy mayor Lloyd said we had to look at very very significant um cuts and not even cuts but not including some things that we wanted to include in this budget year because of the revile. We had $350,000 uh budgeted for our town council contingency. It wasn't council merit. He

was saying keep it but it was other member a member of his party saying that was a slush fund. If we had that $350,000, it would have been very easy to say, "Here's $89,000 for a custodian. Here's $95,000 for accountant one time and as you get to budget next year, you look at it. You can determine whether you have the capacity to do so by managing budgets by no travel, tightening up your budget, etc. But it's not for me to manage. I'm not the finance director or the town manager or staff. I'm just the policy maker. All I was asking was tell me where the money is coming from and I'm happy to put a motion on the floor to send it to council. Mr. Manager.

Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and then thank you, Deputy Mayor. Uh just in case I did uh speak um out of turn by saying the council did not want to do something. Uh it it's been painfully clear. It's not a matter of what you wanted to or or what you didn't want to, is what we could afford and where we placed our priorities. And uh collectively we made a decision during the budget season and we placed those priorities where we placed them, right? And and that was council's decision. Um but I I I I was trying to make the point that these were uh items that we've brought up and and we knew would would come back uh very quickly to be impactful and now we're at this point now. So uh that's the point I was trying to make. So if it uh came across as if which he did not want to do, I stand corrected with that cuz uh that was not the terminology. I know we we're faced with very challenging uh budget process and and I just want to make sure that I I stand clear on where my thoughts are with that. Thank you,

Deputy Mayor.

Yep. Just one moment. And I thank you for that, Mr. Town Manager. And I know that wasn't your heart or your intent and and words are important. And I know that's not what you were intending, but because everything we say gets criticized down to even colloquialisms or, you know, not just a specific word that people want to hear, I just wanted to address it. But I know that you're well aware of what we chose and how we chose and why we had to choose and make the decisions that we did back in May. So, thank you for the clarification. I didn't take it that way. Some may have. So, I just wanted to for the public's sake let them know you, you know, that that's kind of not what happened, but I know that you knew our true intent because you were certainly there going through the trenches with us, the public, and and all the staff and everyone else involved in the process. So, thank you for that.

Okay. Um, so, Mr. Manager, what is your will and pleasure? Are you going to come back to us with the number like cuz there's a number of these positions on here. Should we just um hold them until I see the the memo um for like the additional custodian one year request is 77 and then ongoing for year two is 79. I'm going to get to you council Merritt. I just want to know um are you going to identify the 130 for the account in well 110 to 130 for the account in end and then for the software stuff 10 to 17,000 for the next month's finance committee are you going to identify that in the budget where you can get that from show the impact where it's coming from how it's going to affect fund balance etc and make a prop uh request to us because I think

I I would I would do that you would do that right let them go back and come back to us with where this money is coming from I I I I think the decision is ours and I I'd like to speak to that. Okay. But I don't know that this is the right time to do it. I I'll wait till we go through the other items on the agenda. So if we can move on to the next item that Oh, we can move to the senior accountant. Yeah. Okay. I'm happy. Okay. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Good job. Appreciate it.

I have some talking to do on this subject. G. Um, I feel you don't want to discourage you because we're we're blowing the same horn. I think um I I really feel strongly that uh hiring an accountant, which is one of the areas I before we even get into that, let me bring this up because you brought up the subject that we probably have too many people in some places and too few in another. And I agree with you and I know that's true. And uh uh so one of the things towns do in a situation like that that I think works I've heard it works was brought in brought up by one of our applicants for town manager back last year and where she said they put in a policy that when somebody left the job left an opening instead of automatically rehiring somebody require the manager of that department to do a study of how can we live without that? Can we do do the job somewhere different and avoid hiring a person? So that way you show up and look at it say I mean sometimes jobs have been around for hundreds years and times change. Sometimes computers make it so you really don't need somebody there. So look at that job opening and see if it really has to be filled or maybe it could be filled by a halftime person some other way. But she said that that really saved them a lot of instead of just adding people all the time. And we know that we've added more more employees in this town in the last few years than we ever had back. And the population hasn't grown that much. I mean, it shouldn't have to, but we we had a lot in the last 10 years and and

maybe we ought to question that. We we don't really have a top number. We look at the individual cases and it seems justified the time, but let's put a policy in like that where we automatically study if there's something we can do besides just automatically re refilling a job that maybe doesn't need to be refilled. So I just throw that out because I I think that that's an important step. I mean that that would accomplish some if you're talking about uh of doing a matrix study because those I half the time you don't believe studies anyway. But that would be a good start. But my feeling about this auditor is um I care more about I'm not an auditor uh accountant is I care I think it's more important that we get our accounting department up to date our finance department and get all these things done um as soon as possible. And the way to do it as you heard is not to keep temporary people here. they're going to stop pay fast. So, we got to get really catch up with them unless we add 30,000 after 30,000. And we can't afford that. It'd be cheaper to hire a full-time person that gives us a permanent solution to the problem. And that person is not just a visiting firm and they they will be around as they learn to do the job and you get a good person and they'll they'll do many of the things that the part-time people are doing right now. And I I would strongly recommend that we move to instead of maybe we should keep the the consultants here for a while, but as soon as we can get a a full-time uh accountant in which I I'm absolutely sure we need for the long term as well

as the short term. And I the thinking that we can we have we've been behind for 10 years. Agree. I agree with you with the accountant. I just need them to let us know where it's coming from. We can move it to council. I have no I will go on to something else. When I started on this council back thousand years ago, um 1975, believe it or not, and and on this committee as well. Um that's 50. I'm just saying 50 years could that's older than not old man. I know that.

Anyway, there was we did lineto line budgeting. We had no reserves. There were no reserves. I mean, if you really got desperate, you you would out ask for more money from the taxpayer. But we never I don't think that ever happened. But that's that's the way we operate. That's the way the board of ed operates. If you find out you're running out of money, you just stop spending money. And that's the one way of budgeting. But that's not considered proper now. all the restraints to our spending this these reserves and what do we how many million do we have according to the update 16.9187%

67 I think it's 15.8 8 15 it equates to 15. Is that percentage or as of that's just in millions as of the 831? Well, it depends. Okay. Anyway, so I all the rules applying to that are ours and we can change them. Okay. They are they're not ordinances. I don't believe that. All it is is our policies that we've set and we can always set those rules aside. I hear you, but I'm going to push back a little bit because I I Well, I'm just pointing that out. Yeah, I will.

You can say now you can say that uh it would hurt our bond rating if we don't maintain this. And that's usually the thing that comes up. But I'm telling you more, it's more likely to hurt our bond writing as you've heard tonight if we we don't get our finance department in shape, staff it correctly. And uh that's going to hurt us a lot more. And the bomb people care more about that than they do about whether we have uh reserves reserves of a certain percentage. And I I think that makes all the sense in the world. Now, you can object to spending money on the reserves, but I I think of I I first of all, I think that like the four million that we took out, we can always it's kind of an adjunct to our reserves. So, that is really not there and we shouldn't require the reserves to be a percentage of that anyway. Why would you need the reserves to cover that? Doesn't make sense. Anyway, so I bring that up is I would say that we need that person behind that person and much as I care and have often brought up the need to keep reserves especially when we're going to have bonding problems but we don't apparently now except for that one instance and and that that problem is caused by our finance department not by the level of our reserves. So I I'm sorry. I just feel strongly that I like the idea of keeping reserves as healthy as possible, but it's a rainy day fund and this is a rainy day. So I'm saying, okay, and if it involves spending money for something isn't a one-time thing, it isn't. Hiring a accountant is a full-time job and it's going to go year to year. But it's also something that will that I think we should do.

Uh Mr. Mayor,

thank you. Um, hearing all of these views, I have to say that the most important item that I think that needs to be addressed here, taking nothing away from our custodial u crew who is in desperate need of assistance with additional staff. But this position right here fundamentally I believe is the most important item that we need to address because of all of the things that our finance director has stated. We are potentially going to I I forget the name of the company

CLA. No, no, no. The Moody Moody's.

Right. Right. We want to make sure that we keep our standards high. We already know that it's been four years that we've failed to meet the standard relative to audit. And if this position is going to help us expedite the completion of that, I think we need to find the dollars to do that because when we go to doors, a lot of those people have been asking those same questions about the audit. Now, we have great people working in these positions now, but it's not enough. We know that we need more help. We need it now. And I understand that we're challenged with where these funds are going to be coming from. Hopefully beyond this meeting, maybe between the manager and finance, we can find out where we can locate this fund these funds. But I absolutely agree that we need to find or staff this senior accountant so we can move forward. Let our residents know that we're making as much progress as possible to complete this audit. Okay.

Okay. I'll go. Can I go council mirror or do you write another I have another idea? Go ahead.

Thank you. I I would also point out that if we we don't want we obviously don't want the part- timerrs that are working there to stop until we but we can't afford to keep throwing $30,000 every month at them or every three weeks a can't afford to. And uh I I think hiring a full-time person would in some sense end up being cheaper because if we hire that person and they leave at that point um I mean we don't then we don't need all these people. So you end up coming ahead of the game in many different directions. So I would recommend that we go on to I would move that

I have some questions. I want to say my remarks and then I'll turn it back over to you for your motion. Is that okay? I will wait. Perfect. Soon how five months have changed.

Nothing has changed for 5 months. The de the CFO and his staff been talking about the audit work meeting to be done and when we were in budget season and he had the the this same position in the budget and I went over to him and I said, "Is this a senior accountant important?" And he said, "It's very very important." I think we were sitting right over there crunching numbers. I got up. I went to the caucus room to both caucus, Republicans and Democrats and said it is a non-starter for the director of finance CFO. He really needs this position. Everybody was looking at the numbers and was like nope. Can he do with the budget software? And we vowed to give him the budget software dollars. So what I would recommend is that we take the money from the budget software, portions of the money from the budget software and give Oh, can't do that. He's shaking his head because he's already purchased it. It's out the door, right? And so if we would have just kept it in there as I was advocating for five months ago and everybody in my caucus and in the Republican caucus except councelor Merritt, he was on board with me at the time saying we need an accountant. Everybody else was like no because they were looking at the bottom line. I guarantee you come February, March of next year, you're going to be looking at the bottom line and you keep expending that that that that fixed cost and it keeps going up and it's keep going up and it keeps going up. I think it is an important position, but you need to do the matrix study to understand whether you're overstaffed because if you keep adding positions every year, you're going to get that fixed cost. And in year two of the phase in fixed cost, OPED, health care, insurance, all of that stuff is going to keep ballooning. It's not going to go away, folks. It's not going to go away until you solve the issues of what is the new structure of the organization and what should the organization be. I believe in

this accountant. I believed in it five months ago when I was advocating for it. When I asked the staff, "What do you need?" They said, "We need that accountant." And eight of the nine people, well, seven of the nine people on this diet said, "Nope, we're not going to do it because it will raise taxes." And they put it in that delta that we had to cut of about $1.8 million. The manager was advocating for it. DPW has been advocating for maintainers, seven maintainers for the last four years, and we cut it. And that has to do with direct quality of life in this community. So, in my last two meetings, I'm going to keep saying this. Do the matrix study. Understand what the organization is looking is going to need to look like. Understand the growth of Bloomfield in the next 10 years with the development coming on because it's not going to just end here. You're going to have social services. You're going to have leisure services. You're going to have every other department coming in saying, "We need more staff. And you're just going to keep throwing the money at it because the staff isn't made up to handle the 21st, 22nd century of where Bloomfield is going." And so I just applaud you to just continue to do that study because it's going to add to the bottom line come February, March. And if this budget year was anything like what's going to happen in next year and the year after and the year after, good luck to whoever is the finance chair because um I think that was one of the reasons why it that drove me out the budget because it was very very very very very very very tough and when we are in crisis I heard council mayor say reserves don't matter. Reserves matter and it matters to Democrats because when we are in crisis and when we head to recessionary times, the things that we care about for poor working-class people are the first to be cut. And so I am going to hold tight as long as I'm here to make sure we have every reserves that we need because when we hit tough times, poor working-class people who don't have the disposable income rely on government

and government needs to be there to be able to support them. And so that's my little two cents about this. If the manager and the finance director finds the money and it doesn't significantly impact us in a negative way, I'm all for putting a motion on the floor to move the tax accountant because I do believe as I believe five months ago that Mr. Hill and his team needed this accountant. Okay. I would then make a motion.

Well, deputy mayor has her hand up. Just in response to you talking about a matrix study um as a part of the standard standardization initiative, we also know we need to look at job duties, job descriptions, current roles versus modern-day needs of organizations. And I think that we could even on a micro level start endeavoring what you're talking about and then as well start looking at those positions from an attrition model perspective. So, I I hear what you're saying and I do think we have the capacity to start doing that, but that unfortunately doesn't impact us right now. Um, and I think it'll be a great endeavor to undertake because we are heavier in some areas than we have ever been in years, but we also are very short in others. And I think that the standardization initiative as a sidebar can address some of those concerns.

Well, I don't know. I and I'm going to go to you council mayor for your for your um for your motion but I think we should pull up the draft because we have a draft version of that matrix study. I don't know who has it, but it's somewhere within the organization. I think we if that is a point to deputy mayor's point, we should just turn that document over to them and let them digest it and restart it up and figure out where we need to start right sizing. And obviously, this has to be in conjunction with the union, but I think it's something that we really, really, really need to focus on. Council Merritt,

I towards that end I would make a formal request the town manager that he take it as a personal duty to find some position that doesn't need to be filled in town. So that would that would offset the account.

I think we only have one vacant position and I think this mini bus there may be some create they'll be creating all the time. So, do we need to fill that? Right. Maybe you can. Anyway, simultaneously, I re we can't wait for that obviously with the accountant. We can't keep kicking $30,000 out the door for these part- timerrs. I think we all agree on that. So, this is rather urgent decision and I and I don't want to pass up on your suggestion. I just say let's do this and go on with the matrix study or the process of looking for jobs that don't not do not need to be filled. There must be somebody in the whole organization is is isn't uh

so is that a motion to move the tax into the council the the tax council for consideration? Yep. and have the manager and finance director find the money and present it to the council at the next council meeting. That would be good. All right. Is there That's a motion. Is there a second? Could I uh Mr. Manager?

Yeah. Okay. So, when you you speak with with certain, you know, um matter of fact as as if certain things can be done. Uh, I would rather and you know and I don't know if I'm out of order or or not. I'm not trying to be, but um when you talk about have the manager find the money, I think it would be more appropriate to to have me look to see if that money can be found, right? Because when you when you speak to the affirmative as if there's money out there that I can find it, it then if I if I can't find it, then then you know I'm put in a situation where I cannot achieve success. And so I would rather make effort to to u try you know my damnedest to accomplish this uh and and and then give you the results of that uh versus um you know you give me a directive to make this happen. And

could I amend my motion? You can amend your motion. Thank you. I was going to amend it to say that uh if if the uh if the money can't be found by the manager, and I don't see how he could right away, but um that we would take the money from Mr. Hers. Is there a second? Second.

Second by the the mayor. Any discussion? May I have discussion? I won't support that going into the reserves because it's going to set the next council up for failure. I know this budget, you have $3.75 million that you automatically next year have to use to balance the budget or you make cuts. 3.75 million. And then if this year you're in the first quarter of this year, you don't know what's going to happen. The Feds are meeting on tomorrow and there's a 99% probability that they're going to cut interest rates by 25 to 50% basis points. And that's because they're looking at the unemployment rate and we are headed into uh recessionary times. We do not know what's coming down the line. And so to go into the reserves at this point in the first quarter of the fiscal year, I think is a bad bad bad move because you don't know what tomorrow looks like. And I know it sounds like gloom and doom, but if you just go in the reserves for everything and you get to budget season, I guarantee you're going to have to raise taxes on people. So I don't think that that should be an option at all. You're at 16.918% uh million dollars.

May I attempt to Yes, ma'am. Yes, Mr. Mayor. Uh my thought was following up on the conversation about individuals in town who uh uh or departments that had people leaving that were not going to reinstate or replace. Mhm. That was more of the thought because I do believe the finance department has found or will find dollars based on just that concept, but he can't say right now because the audit isn't complete. He doesn't know.

Well, he doesn't know who's going to leave and if there isn't going to be any uh people leaving. And so to bank on that when you don't actually have those actual savings and it's projection or on the whim that somebody are you're hedging that somebody may leave. You don't have a crystal ball to say somebody in police or social services or leisure services is going to leave. And I think that is just terrible budgeting unless you're going to put a hiring freeze in place where you know that if somebody leaves they can't be hired so that you can get this $100,000 to $120,000 in savings. I think I think we just let the manager identify in his budget, look at the budget, let him identify and make recommendations where he can and if he can't do it, he comes back to council and he continues to work to put a if they want this position,

right? He'll go and he'll look and manage the budget, right? So let's not put any if if I think the motion should be we move this to council and the man and let the manager does do his his work and then he presents to us where he believes is the best possible position for this these monies to come from but I don't think it should come from well the council will make that determination too. So I mean do all we need to do is move it to council. Okay. Okay. So, we're just moving this with a positive recommendation to council. Is there uh you accept that friendly amount? Yep. All right. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I.

I will vote I for the sake of moving this to the council. So, the motion passes for the senior accounting position. Sending it to council. Next item on the agenda is the discussion of possible action regarding obtaining software for freedom of information FOI and our town clerk is here. Welcome.

Thank you very much. Um thank you councilors for hearing me tonight. I am here as town clerk for just two weeks now and I have spent all of that two weeks working on FOIS. We are currently holding about 30 outstanding freedom of information requests across multiple departments and I'm the third clerk handling some of these requests most of these requests. Um when we are transitioning from clerk to clerk to clerk and is my utmost goal to not have a fourth clerk involved in these um records become fragmented and inconsistent. So the current process relies on manual tracking which is prone to errors and delays and inconsistencies and this is critical for the amount of requests that are on our hand right now. So key benefits of obtaining um foyer software management um is for consistency and accountability. Centralized systems ensure requests are logged, tracked, and responded to uniformly. An automated reminding system reaches out to each department that is involved in each request. It will send timely reminders. We will have the capability to set expected due dates and each department will be available will be able to reply to these requests within the management software versus many emails being exchanged. I I'm sure you're all very familiar with a train of emails and finding

information that too leads to potentially missed emails. If someone's requesting communications, it's not in the best interest of what the town is facing. down. Um, it also provides continuity in the event of staff turnover, whether it would be for the situation that my office found with going from now on to a third clerk or any other department that is involved in that request. So, these software programs, these um management programs, they reduce time spent on coordinating across departments. They streamline communication with the requesters. It frees staff to focus on core duties and not chasing paperwork. And just for a little perspective, um, as I said, I've been very focused on these for the past two weeks because I do believe that people requesting information do need their information and of course it cannot be answered immediately, but they deserve their information. and the town just finished a recanvas and we are headed into an election. And for a town clerk to be spending all of their time on FOI requests is detrimental in many aspects, but I'm just going to use that election as what we're looking at now. So when it comes to legal and risk reduction, it creates an audit trail for every action that's taken. It reduces the risk of comply of complaints and penalties to the foye commission which really can add an expense to legal fees. Um and it standardizes templates to improve compliance with state law.

So we want to establish public trust within the community. So getting a management program would create faster consistent responses and that would increase the public's confidence in us. Requesters can track their status and that can reduce additional emails which are then subject to FOYA. Um it demonstrates the town's commitment to openness. So I would say the key takeaway is that right now foyer requests are a liability to this town. And with the tracking program, they can become an opportunity to improve um improve transparency, efficiency, and trust and all while reducing legal risk.

Great. Uh before I go to you, uh councelor Merritt, is this a possible um item that you can share cost with the board of education and you can share the the because they get FOIs. So is this something that 17, let's be can let's use the more aggressive 17,000. Can you split that in half with the board of education? Oh, I can't speak for the how the budget works. I'm here.

Okay. Sorry that a little maybe maybe the manager can answer that question. Have you talked to the superintendent about splitting this cost because I do think this is a a useful tool to increase in transparency and if you're the fourth town clerk to uh third town clerk to have to handle these 30 FOIs. I know there's been a lot of issues within the community about lack of transparency. Um, and I uh FOIS, Mr. Manager, have you talked to the superintendent of schools about splitting the cost of this? I

I have spoken to Dr. Youngberg about the program and the benefits that we believe it would have for us. uh they are not in the same position where they're being um overwhelmed uh with a number of voyer requests and and I and I don't mean to u be negative in any way you know it is our citizens uh right to to request information uh but uh it can be overwhelming and that's what we're feeling I have discussed this with her uh they are not at the um magnitude of requests that we are receiving so um I I we have not spoken about the what that dollar split would look like being that uh they're they're a fraction a small fraction of of what we actually get. So um we we haven't gotten to that point yet, but um I I'm willing to have that discussion to see if there is a willingness to engage in some cost sharing with this, what that would actually look like. Um I'm sure Dr. Youngberg would know her her budget best uh to determine what she can afford. So to answer your question, I will have that discussion and um and let her know where we stand. We just had some final analysis today as to which vendor we were going with to prepare for this meeting. So we have not yet had the time to to circle back to to Dr. Youngberg to see their their willingness and and ability to engage in a partnership.

Thank you for that. Uh cuz just cuz they're not there today doesn't mean that they're not going to be here tomorrow. and they will probably need it because you know it just takes one incident over at the board of ed or somewhere for people not to have confidence in them and then they're inundated with foi requests and then they're asking their board for additional support and so it's safe in my opinion it's safe to have it then to be sorry and not to have it and so you know you're talking about what 1350 uh no you're talking about 7 no 8 16 850 50 8 $8,500 a piece, right? For 168 $8,000 is 16. 500 is 7 a,000. So that's 17,000, right? So

17,000 $8,500 from the the town in the board. I think if makes sense. Yeah, I can't speak for Yeah, I know you can, but that's just my to the manager. Council Mary, I was going to ask is uh are we in a temporary situation where we've been flooded with these or I don't ever recall this problem before. is associated with the fact we just had a primary that had a lot of people asking questions or is it I mean is it come around in the last couple months or is it something that last year we had a lot of eth I don't recall ever having this problem before?

It's a good question. Um I don't have the experience over years in this town but I did um check in with my deputy and the assessment is about previously 40 a year but they are coming in fast and furious and no they are not related to the primary. Okay. Yeah. So this has been going on for some time.

For some time. So, I do have a few that are backdated to 2024. Um, those have been my focus. We want to be able to get rid of those. But, um, I can't predict if this will slow down, but from what I'm seeing, it is possibly a trend. Well, we know it's a problem. Yeah, it is a problem. Okay. I Do you want to make a motion to refer this to the town council, too? Anybody has any willingness to recommend this? I would pass it up to the county council because I think they it's important enough to come to their attention.

There is a motion to pass this up to the town council and second by the the mayor. Although uh discussion I think this is another one identifying where the funds is going to come from to Mr. Manager. I you know we don't manage the budget dayto-day. So is that 17,000 every year or is it 17,000 one time? I believe it's 17,000 annually. It's an annual subscription. Annually. Okay. So, she would have to put that in her subscription budget for the next budget year. So, we can give her the $17,000. Just identify where it comes from. Can you find some cost savings in your budget for travel or anything else? Overtime or

we cut out we cut out all um uh travel for conferences as part of last uh budget. So, there there is no uh travel. I'm not even going to one conference this year. So uh you know those things have been um dwindled down to the absolute necessities uh just to maintain certifications and and licenses.

Is this is this something that we can ask our department heads to um find some money in their budget to support it because it's going to impact every department um uh across the organization. I'm just trying to figure out if they got any surplus or anything else to in their budget that they can find to kind of help support this. But we can we can do a lot of things to support every initiative here. It's just going to have a consequence impacting services as was presented last uh budget uh season. Uh I can cut I can cut and cut and cut but that there's a consequence to that. So when we start talking about impacting uh departments then that talks about impacting services. So, I'll provide to you uh a mechanism or or a method to uh get to go with um uh creating uh money for for um positions, but I I can almost guarantee you that's going to cut some services. And uh if that's where we are, that's where we are. You know, at the end of the day, the finance is the most critical aspect of of every town's um operations, right? That's our center of gravity. That's our core. and um and if it has to impact other um um um other activities, other services, then then that's the decision that the council will make uh when you see what it looks like.

And I think to the point of the manager, the center point of the finances comes from the residents of Bloomfield through their tax levy. And so I think you've been out on the doors, you've heard uh their remarks about services and how much taxes they pay. And so, you know, I know I may be sounding doom and gloom like a fiscal conservative, but ultimately that's what I am. Did we already vote? No. Oh, there was discussion. Um, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. I. Those opposed. All right. Eyes have it. It's going to council monthly finance report. Thank you for August. Director he

wait before we do that can I just ask a question? Can we just send the custodian since we sent everything else? So can I move a motion to send the c staff custodian for PROER library to the council for consideration because you send everything else without a budget fiscal note. Um moved by the mayor seconded by council Merritt. I I don't agree. Oh, you don't agree? I'll second it since we sent everything else. Uh any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. The custodian is going to council too. It's not fair to public works who does the work if we're going to send everything else. Um monthly report.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um month two of fiscal 26 is behind us. Uh you have the printed report in the agenda package. Uh I'll be brief um as it is only the second period but as I mentioned earlier I will point out several examples of uh Munice being embraced across the town and the benefits that provides not only the council committee uh but the general public. Uh total revenues are just over 58% uh compared to 45% for the same period last year. Uh tax collection is up at 61.7% uh compared to 49 1.5% last year. building permits or building and demolition permits was discussed earlier which is in that line along with a variety of things. The prior conversation was about commercial building permits but that's up uh at 19% of budget just over $245,000. Um the real estate conveyance tax is uh up uh at $374,000 or 62% 62.4% 4% of budget uh which is significantly higher than last year. I believe both of those line items uh are examples of munis being embraced particularly the building demolitions. Um that's 7200 uh for the same period last year. Um I'm I'm almost 100% certain that was a delay in information being entered in Munice uh because I believe it is the third period where building demolition permits revenue uh got caught up uh in a meaningful way. Um expenditures are at 9.1% excluding incumbrances and the sentence continues uh to identify the percentage with incumbrances. That is a direct use of embracing Munis. Um particularly purchase orders, right? When we enter a purchase order for things that we know we're going to spend this year, MUN

encumbers the money. So while we're only in the second period of the fiscal year, we've uh got purchase orders in place identifying outgoing expend well expenditures going out uh to the tune of 28.4%. So that incumbrance is added to the actuals, right? So the 9.1 excluding encumbrances, that 9.1% are our actuals. The difference between the two is the amount of the incumbrance. It's a little bit clearer uh to look at when you flip past the first page uh of the report, which the first page shows the revenues and expenditures uh townwide. Uh just to briefly touch on that um 66 million uh has been received already and actually you back out the 3.75 million of fund balance. So just under 63 million just over 62 million um it has come in this fiscal year uh which is the direct contributor to the positive variance at the bottom which is not abnormal for the second period of the fiscal year. Um but turning to the expenditure detail which is where the fourth column from the right shows the incumbrances. So as you look across uh town administration all town departments and offices including our fixed charges uh you will see various levels of incumbrance and that percent used is the actual and incumbrance combined. So flipping to the second page of the expenditure detail at the very bottom where it shows fixed charges. All right. Um those are insuranceances and things. Um actuals year-to date. Uh incumbrances actuals are just over 4 million. Encumbrances are just over 3.5

million. So about 50% of the budget we know is going out. And um I do feel good that the town is moving in a positive way, embracing technology, embracing Munis, getting information into Munis more timely. But there's still progress that to be made, which we will continue to make each day, each week, each month, uh going forward throughout the fiscal year. Um so when we get to this point next year, I'll be making very similar comments, right? But we'll see our encumbrances won't be in the 20s. The encumbrances will likely be in the 40s, right? Maybe even 50s because town policy and guideline is any expenditure over $500 requires purchase order, right? And that's what we're working towards. That is not what we've been doing previously. So, I'm um feeling good about the budget for fiscal 26 at least through the second period. Um, as has been mentioned previously in this meeting and other meetings, we know the 26 budget development was difficult, uh, including about $3 million that was cut out of it from the manager's proposed budget. As we talk about finding money and looking at departments, we we are thin, right? Um, and even the conversations about or the comments about having more people in one area, not enough people in another area. Um, there's a lot of different ways to go about that. Uh, staffing analysis. Um, I've always been a fan of looking at what staff is required to provide the level of service desired. Right? So I I don't quickly jump to there's too many people in one place and not enough people in another place. I

know my department. I know that I have some peers that have a similar reality to me. Um I I haven't spent enough time with uh staffing to know if there are departments townwide that have more staff than they need. I think public works is a good example, right? We look at, you know, the population of the town and, oh well, we haven't grown that much or the budget hasn't grown that much, so why is staffing up? Um, the conversation about the custodian is a very interesting one. We have half the people we need, right? By best practice, people can have an opinion about the best practice, but that's an area uh in one of our very forward- facing departments where we don't have anywhere near enough staff. But the conversation always suggests, I mean, it's just the nature of being in government in this country where, oh, we're overstaffed. There's there's fat, there's waste, we can cut, we can cut, we can cut. Um, as the manager did a yman's job through the budget development process, yes, we can cut, but when we cut, we're cutting services. And what service is it that we want cut, right? So, if we want to cut the budget and thin things out, we can do that. But it's going to be an open public conversation from my perspective about what it is that we're not going to do any longer because it's not as though there's, you know, waste and fat sitting all over the town that we can cut with no implications. We just cut $3 million out, right? So manager mentioned travel only for license and certifications. I've mentioned previously to this committee that at the very end of the budget development process, we had to make significant reductions in police and public works overtime to balance the budget. So, when we're finding money, the first place we're finding money is how to restore the overtime in police

and public works, right? Um, so as we get to the fourth quarter and we look at where those two departments in particular, but the entire town stands, um, we we've got some budget mitigation to to deal with throughout the year. The good thing is that the town's financial performance suggests that we have the wherewithal to do it, right? But where that's going to come from um, will uh, be identified as we progress throughout the year. So I want to say something and then I'll go to council merit. I hear you talk about like at cutting services but I always go back to the assessment that Stanley Hawthon did when he was here during the budget de development process where we looked at comparable towns. Um and there are certain ge uh comparative woo towns who are geographically larger than us and population wise larger than us and they are doing and they're doing more they're doing yman's work with the level of staff that they have versus what we have and so when you look at the amount of staff which I can pull out my laptop if you guys want me to and send it to you I can put the whole spreadsheet that I did for budget season of our staffing from 2007 all the way to 2025 and it significantly grows for both the town side and the board of education side. And so I look at those d that data and I say why is it that they keep saying they need more staff, more staff, more staff. And every year councils have been gradually incrementally given more staff and giving more staff. And so what did that tell me is that maybe we need to look at the makeup of like you said staffing analysis to make sure that we have those staff persons in the right area. You may need 375 people on the town side, but how those 375 people are dispersed amongst the departments, that's up for the manager to determine

and look at that staffing analysis to say we need 350 for a population of 22,000 when West Herford doesn't have nearly half of what we have and they are geographically larger and populationally ly situated larger than us and they're doing it. Same thing with Simsbury, same thing with Windsor, same thing with Rocky Hill, same thing with the surrounding town. So that's why I have a difficult um choice of moving things forward because I'm looking at the data. And so um I hear you, but I see other towns doing it who are serving more people populationwise, per capita, and landwise. That's it. To me, it's simple to answer to to respond to that. Council mccclary, it's it's all

I was going to come up with a response to that. It's all I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I I have sorry to hard in here, but I was going to suggest the same thing. We had our um recreation chair uh David Moscow did an excellent job a few years ago in comparing how many people we had in each department with what Windsor had and some other towns around us and that was very useful and I think it's been continued on. I think we have remnants of it. Maybe it ought to be updated uh because that was three or four years ago. But we we had uh couple years ago we had a large number of people. But u I I think I think you can do that and learn something from it. And how many people do they have in finance or in the accounting part of it in uh in inventor for example. I mean, if they can do it and I was going to ask the same thing about that software for FOI, does somebody else have it and does it work and maybe we ought to somebody ought to ask that question on that subject. But it to compare with other towns is very useful and you can't it's not perfect and obviously, but if you if you learn that everybody has more staff in finance or accounting than we do, that may be an answer. We have only two or three people working on this um our problems right now and that may not be enough when you start saying it. Everybody else had four or five people and just bring that up. That was it may the reversal will be true too in some cases but I wouldn't generalize on it.

Agree. Any uh additional questions related to Mr. Manager? Did you want to go? No, I I I just would caution us uh to believe we're we're we're looking at apples to apples with with every municipality because we're not. You know, the fact of the matter is we can look at from one PD to another. Windsor has approximately probably 10 to 20 more cops. They have a pension over there. We don't have that. We're we're not paying as much uh for our our police services as the town of Windsor is. But but yet um they're they're they're doing it right. but what we choose uh that that's not where we want to put our money. So there's there's many ways of of looking at this from community to community. But unless you're truly looking at apples to apples, the services we're providing, what we're subsidizing, what we provide for for trash pickup, I can tell you right now, Windsor and Simsbury don't do trash pickup. Right now, I can save you $3 million by not having Bloomfield do trash pickup. But that's not a discussion that anyone wants to have because it's threatening in nature whenever I say it. But these are realities. So we we really need to just come to an understanding of what do we value as a community for our quality of life and then understand that there's a price for this quality of life that we we come to know, love, and and expect here in Bloomfield. And so it's either one way or the other, but you you can't have it one way and then complain it costs money because that's just not based in reality. And I can tell you our taxes are much higher than than than city of West Harford as well. So, you know, we just really have to look at this from from where we are and and and not um look at these as if we're we're talking about apples to apples comparison because we're not.

I agree but disagree and that's I'm going to leave it. But is that uh any other questions related to the financial report? If not, we'll move to Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. of CFO. Um, we'll move to public comment, Gail Riley. Thank you. Make sure the mic is on.

Gail Riley, Maple Avenue. I sit here tonight and I'm frustrated because Mr. Hill DPW have asked for months during budget season for these positions. I feel it's critical for the finance department to get what they want. So hopefully our audits won't be so late. But then I look at what you guys did for the fourth quarter transfers. I'm not saying Kevin Michael Oliver's program wasn't worthy isn't worthy. I feel that's a board of education program. You transferred $182,000 so he could send 10 kids to do that trades thing. Trades are a wonderful We need the trades, but that should be coming out of the board of education, I feel. And I'm sorry, I feel the same thing about your program, Mr. Harrington. That should be paid for by the board of ed. You knew these two departments wanted these positions, especially his being so critical, and you gave $182,000 to that trades program where he's used 20,000 plus of it. He said, "That's my frustration as a town, as a resident here. I've lived here all my life and this is frustrating. You say you want to do something that's for the better good of all people." I'm sorry. 182,000 for 10 students is not for the better good of the residents of Bloomfield.

Thank you. So, I usually don't comment on public comment, but it's not just for the 10 students. Um, we got a request from the the schools to build the little library library. We got a request from senior services for those same kids to go and fix the the uh the pergolo and the the benches and stuff that's over at 330 Park Avenue that is going to go towards the town. So, don't just look at it. We're not going to get in the back and forth. You're out of order. We're not going to get in the back and forth. Okay. I'm just providing the facts. And you said to the during the budget season, they asked for it. But you're the one on Facebook every day saying taxes is too high. We raise taxes. You are. Correct yourself.

You are. And so is there any other public comment? Is there any other public comment? There is not me. Is there any other public comment? If not, we'll move to the next agenda item. The approval of the August, my fax is correct. I can pull it up. August 28th, 2025 and September 3rd, 2025. Is there a motion? So moved. Thank you. Any discussion? No discussions. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Thank you. The motion is passed. We adjourn. Thank you, staff. Thank you, public. I appreciate it. She's