City Council - Regular Meeting

As far as city council committee on finance meeting will be called to order at 6.02 PM. Madam clerk roll call please.

Councilor Skiddeam here. Kamara here. Cannual here. Dion here. Hart here. Peckham here. Pereira here. Raposo here. President Ponte here.

Pursuant to the open meeting, Laura, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present, and are deemed acknowledged and permissible. First item on our agenda on the Committee on Finance is Citizens Input. Hearing none. Next item is departments that were carried over from June 2nd, Committee on Finance Agenda, which there are none. Next item is insurance and other governmental expenditures.

Motion to lift from the table.

Motion to lift the item from the table has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Dion. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? The ayes have it. And if you can, just introduce yourself for the record, please. I'm gonna try to make sure you got your microphone on. Why don't you start, Mr. McElhinney?

Nick McElhinney, Director of Human Resources.

Emily Arpke, CFO.

Anne O'Neil-Sousa, Interim City Administrator.

Okay, very good. Councilman C-4, Council Vice President Dionne.

Thank you. Good evening. So I guess I'm going to start with.

And for the record, this is insurance and other governmental expenditures for the record.

Yeah. Well, we just got some information on our desk, so I'm trying to look at that.

And so we can we can go through that. So what we've provided was It's something that I started providing last year. So last year I provided it for the health insurance amount that was in your budget book. I also had gone back and created one for FY25 with the same backup documents. So all it is, you can see that the first page of that document is what I'm going to say, like a screenshot of the top of page 25. 141 so it's it's that same exact page. There's nothing different in it. It's just a screen grab of it And then there's a little red box around it that kind of walks you through the numbers So then each additional page you can see in that same box highlighted what number is reflected on that page that Gallagher provides so it's it's just a you know, very concrete way of showing you exactly where these numbers are coming from for your own knowledge and understanding of what they're sharing with us.

So with that, um, I know this one sheet here from Gallagher. The first, so let me see, it'd be the second page of the handout you gave us. I have that same thing right here. This one here shows the increase for this year, but the final column is the final column. So I guess, Mike, let's start out with What did you determine, if you can give me the number as opposed to me figuring it out here. I know that when you start talking the employer trust fund, it obviously involves a multitude of line items. But in the end result, there's a bottom line to it. And dental and life insurance are included in the final numbers. Correct. So can you tell me what dental, and life insurance, what that number is in this budget?

Yep, so if you, it is on the first page of that handout. It's actually on every page of the handout, to be clear, in the red box, but the dental estimate for FY27 is $799,250, and I'm speaking specifically for the employer share on all of this. Yep. And so the life insurance.

And life insurance is what?

So the life insurance is $289,237. OK. So of all of the numbers that we have that make up that calculation, the life insurance is not provided by Gallagher.

Right, correct. So would you agree that in that top box for employer trust fund, the That is all basically the city's share. This is just the city's share, yes. Right.

I shouldn't say the city's share. The employer's share.

The employer's share. The employer's share. So this Gallagher is the employer. This sheet that you just talked about is the employer's share. And so is this first box on the expense detail. Correct. OK. It's all employer's share. OK. So that totals $1,088,487. Correct. Can I just point of clarification?

I know what you're saying, but when you get to the second page of the Gallagher, they're giving you the total cost, and then they break out the city share, right? Correct.

So if you're looking at that second page, there's a yellow box around it. There's a number that says $62 million, and then below that, the city share is $47 million. So if you take that calculation, it's exactly 75% of what that $62 million number is.

So you can see the total healthcare costs and then the number in red is the city share. I just wanted to clarify that.

But I guess, so where I'm going with this is, so if you look at Gallagher, $46,210,572 is the employee,

Yes, so that's not the number that I'm using in that top calculation.

No, you're using $49,685,710 as the remaining project costs after community development, BCTC, school boards. No, sorry, no.

So if you backtrack all the way up to the top of that where it says the $58 million? Yep. So that's the number that we're talking about. So $58 million is the total cost. So that is Blue Cross Blue Shield, for the active plans, there's an Aetna cost for the retirees, which is $9.8 million. And then there's the dental estimates of almost $800,000, and then the life insurance of the $289,000. So all of that makes up that $58 million number. So because of the way that we have some of that prescription rebates and the stop loss insurance in there, that's why we use that higher $47 million number and not the lower $46 million number.

Okay, so if we start at the 48 million, use the deductions that you have here in this box. You get to 49 million, correct? Correct. Okay, so we agree on that. So then we need to deduct 1,088,487 from that 49 million. Why? Because that's not included in this box, and you're telling me we start at 58,000,

58 million.

58 million.

I mean, 58 million.

So the 58 million includes dental and life insurance on the employer side. So the sheet that I have, if you look at the red box that's on it, it shows the total costs in that box. And it shows all four numbers that add up to make that 58 million. OK.

So. I guess I'm trying to get at this a different way.

If my colleague's looking to get the detail for health insurance, that would be the second page that's provided. That's going to show you the detail. Well, I think that page you're on right now.

So Gallagher has us at $46 million. This is showing us at $49 million. And I'm trying to understand the difference in the $3 million between Gallagher and the city and remaining homes.

Counselor in seat one, your point of information?

Yeah. Can you just, so if we're on the second page. Yeah.

we should be looking at the middle box that's highlighted in yellow yep that's highlighted in yellow is that 47 million dollar number so if you look at the the very middle of it that says 47 with the yellow box around it if you look at this red box this red box is the same exact box that's on every page of this document and it's just highlighting which number is related to it to build to that 58 million dollar number so this is just step one is that 47. And then the next page would be the Aetna costs. And then the next one's the dental. And like I said, there is nothing for life insurance that's on here. But all of those are what build up to that $58 million.

Right. And I'm not trying to take away from my colleagues. No, go ahead. I just want to clarify it. So if you go down, Blue Care Elect is one of the health insurances that you can take. So now they break it down, individual, family plan. And then in that, you can see the city share, the employee share, and then the biweekly cost. And then you've got the network blue, and then you've got the access blue saver that goes all the way down. And then the percentages on the side are what the increases are from last year. So Blue Carrier Elect is seeing a 10.5% increase from last year. So all the plans are, essentially. Then the total cost for all those plans is $62.8 million. Our share is the 47%. That's what's highlighted in that red box up top. Then she's taken the Aetna plan, which is the retiree healthcare plan, she's adding that. And then there's the dental and the life insurance, which comes outside of Gallagher, that's added to the 58, if that's clear.

Okay, so can we agree, column two, 47,110,572. Correct. Does not include health or dental. We all agree with that? That is health.

It does not include the Aetna. I didn't mean health. You know what I mean, sorry. The Aetna or the dental or the life.

It's not life insurance, okay. Correct. So if we add 1,088,487 to 47,110,572, we come up with 48,199, not 49,685. Yeah, so. Can you please?

Say those numbers again, Counselor, please.

I know what you're saying, but what's in here, they are our external from the general fund that provides their cost of it. So the redevelopment authority is not a general fund entity, but we are. let them use insurance through our stuff. So they pay us directly for those costs. This total number that Gallagher gives us, it's just an employer share for our plan. So that includes anything that's funded through the plan. They don't care what the funding source is. So the redevelopment authority, BCTC, that we provide health insurance through, CDA, they have to pay their portion of it. So those are the deductions that you're seeing from that $58 million number. We're taking out the costs that are not the general fund's costs in that sense and not the city's costs even.

Right, which is bringing you to $49,685,000.

It's bringing it to the $49,000,000, yes.

Right, after those deductions. Correct.

So then it shows below that that's what we're suggesting as a funding amount.

I will say- I could be being dense. However, when you tell me that Gallagher's numbers don't include dental and health, and you add dental and health, it does not come to 49 million. And I understand you're taking those other reductions. I understand you're starting at 58 million with dental and health. I understand you're taking out the BCTC, the RDA, the school grants, et cetera, et cetera. And it brings you down to the 49 million. But the number you come down to if you add dental and health to Gallagher's 47 should match that number.

They shouldn't be off by a million dollars. No, because all of those entities, BCTC, CDA, redevelopment authority, they all have dental, health, life. They have all of those insurances. So they're paying different parts of all of that. It's not just one of those insurances. So it doesn't work out to be the same in that sense.

Okay, so where can we see what their share is that they're actually paying? That's that number. Wait a minute. Is what they're actually paying the RDA minus 14,942? Are you backing out their share?

Is that their share? Yeah, 14,942. I'm going to say it's never perfect because it's based on what their current enrollment is and then the new rates. So could their enrollment change? Sure. But otherwise, yes, it's based on their current enrollment and the new rates. So it is an exact number.

So they're contributing, and then you're backing out their contribution, is essentially what you're telling me.

I'm taking the total cost, and then I'm backing out their portion of it.

Correct, which brings you to $49,685,000. Correct. So if you take all those numbers away, and we're at 49,685, and then you take the numbers you quoted me of 1,088,000 and add it to the 47,000, it's a million dollar discrepancy.

The 47,000, that 47 million is not the whole city share. It's all of those agencies included in that.

Council on seat one. So point of information. So that $1,188 million is just solely the dental, the $799,250, and the life insurance of $289,237. But that number is already captured in the $58 million.

Yeah. I understand that. What's the confusion, if you understand? But we don't agree if we make all those deductions, the numbers in the end, if you add this to that or deduct that from that, they should match?

No, because part of that is their health insurance. So part of what BCTC is paying for is health insurance. Part of it's health insurance, part of it's dental, part of it's life. So you have to take that big number and take out all of their portions. So that's what's happening there. So it shouldn't be some of that dental and life insurance number that I gave you is part of BCTC and part CDA and part RDA.

whatever their 75% contribution is.

For their employees taking any of those benefits.

All right. I'll leave this alone right now. Like I say, I could be completely misunderstanding it, and I don't have a problem if I am admitting I am. So in terms of health insurance, So, when I look at the enterprise accounts, they pay the city council, for example, health insurance for city council.

They contribute a portion of, that's from their indirects, correct.

Okay. How many people receive health insurance in the City Council?

The employees of the City Council.

Two.

Two of them, yes.

Two. And according to this, the indirect cost for two employees is $82,853. Councilor, what are you looking at, if I may ask? This was something that was sent in an email today. This is a calculation of the indirect FY27. So I would beg to say that that number is way off.

um i mean it i can re-look at that calculation there is a chance that that could be wrong the way that was pulled in so i mean that it is what would we say an average of 25 000 for indirect cost benefits for in general benefits being added on to employees so you're right that seems like there's more in there than there should be but that i can re-look at that line and adjust it if we need to

Well, I think we need to, because if you look at, let's go back to the information you gave us. So let's say we have two, let's say we have two employees in city council, both of which receive benefits. It's 28 for the most expensive, most expensive. single plan is 28.35 a month times 12 months would be $34,000.

not eighty three thousand dollars i can like i said if it would have been if you could have called me when i was still at my desk i could have pulled that and corrected it but i i didn't know and i don't have that back end detail to correct that right so i guess i i guess the problem is i didn't have it early on either and i've been like all day looking at this and trying to figure this all out so i'm sorry that no it's okay i just apologize that i don't have it i just don't have anything in front of me to be able to change that or correct that okay so um under under mayor and city administrator

No, that's not where I want to go. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Mr. President, just through you, I hate to keep interrupting, but what is it? What are you looking at?

I am looking at indirect calculations for FY27 for the enterprise.

That was sent just to her when she called me today. For the enterprise. I haven't sent it to everybody yet.

Oh, could we get this so everybody can look at it? Because it's very important. And the reason I'm looking at it is I feel like a recess.

Would you like us to have a recess to allow this to be printed? Yes. Because candidly, you're the only one that has that. That's what I was going to ask. I was going to do a two-minute recess. Yes.

Everybody received this information. Do you have copies? I will go make them. No, she'll make them.

Two-minute recess. As far as City Council Committee on Finance meeting, there's no back and order.

So I'm gonna let people get this look at it a little bit. I'm gonna go back to another question.

Okay.

So let's go back just for a second. So we're looking, so the $47 million that we're going back and forth on, that's when the rate was going up 10.5%. That's not the final number. And health went up 88.6%. So it's actually 46 million. So we still have a million dollar discrepancy. Because we're basing it on, you're giving us numbers and telling us this is right and this works, but you're basing it on the numbers from when health insurance was going up 10.5%.

Correct. We budgeted higher to be conservative, given that the other column is putting things at risk and is assuming that we'll have some of these other savings come in. And so to make sure that we have enough, and in the talks of rebuilding a fund balance and getting back to where we need to be, we went with the higher number to be conservative. safe and conservative with it so okay so i was thinking 900 000 i was thinking incorrectly i was stating it incorrectly but in the end result it's a difference of a million dollars it's nine hundred thousand dollars more than what it should be okay so at least so we agree on that now no that was intentional right no nine hundred thousand dollars more than what i'm gonna say gallagher said we needed to do okay so i guess that would lead me to ask

How often, and I know you haven't been here long, so I can't even, I'm not gonna please blame anywhere. These are just gonna be some overall statements, I suppose. I think Mr. McElhinney would be more aware of some of this. None of his fault either. Can you tell me how many times, how many times over the years has Gallagher underestimated healthcare?

Gallagher doesn't underestimate. They provide a number of where we should be at. So we get carrier projections that usually come in much higher. That's directly from the insurance carriers. Gallagher takes a look at it and says, this is based on our analysis where we're comfortable with you budgeting at. Um, and then it's up to the city from that point to budget accordingly. There have been times I'm aware of where we haven't budgeted to that number. And then there are times that we have, I couldn't give you an exact number historically of how many times we've gone. directly to that number. What I can say is this year we're going directly to that number.

So I guess my point is I can tell you that in FY21, at the end of the year, there was a $6.6 million surplus. FY22, there was a $3.4 million surplus. FY23, a $4.6 million surplus. FY24, $3.3 million surplus. FY25 is the only iffy year because of the GLP-1s, and we don't even know yet that we're gonna end up in a deficit. We could end up with break even, a little under, a little over. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, and that surplus is if the city had budgeted directly or exactly to the number that Gallagher had provided.

Right, so I guess the answer to the question is, They're really good at what they do. Yes. Very. And I think we can certainly trust their numbers. So to me, there's some room with that $900,000 number. I guess that's my point there.

Can we back up for one second? Sure. Just so when you look at those columns, Gallagher's suggestion was 10.5%. And that's why we're budgeting to 10.5%. When you see that final elected number, We did two things. We worked with the PEC to put in a copay for the weight loss drugs after October 1st. So we are essentially eliminating those drugs. People are getting 12 scripts of those drugs. And then after that 12 scripts, they're done. October 1, if you haven't had your 12 fills yet, you'll have a $50 copay after that. Same access to 12 scripts. You're done after the 12 scripts. The PEC... Because the employee trust has had a healthy balance, puts money at risk to lower that rate. So they've elected the 8.4% increase. So that's why you see that final elected number. But you're putting money at risk when you do that. So they can draw a little bit of money off that employee trust fund. What the city is saying is we're not putting that money at risk. We're going to budget exactly to the 10.5 that Gallagher is saying we should be at. And if claims work out, we're not gonna draw down, we're not putting anything at risk. If we have a good year, we're rebuilding that employer trust fund.

Okay, on that note, let me ask you this question. In those agreements with the PEC, in those discussions, not only did you and did they agree, because once upon a time they had a $50 copay, they reduced it to zero. This year, because of the 10.5% increase, they agreed to go back to the $50 copay. Also, they and the city also agreed that they would put in either $200,000 or $250,000. The city would contribute $1 million, and that's what brought this down to 8.5%. Gallagher is not still saying we're at 10.5%. Gallagher is saying because of those agreements and because of those actions, it reduced it from 10.5% to 8.6%.

The rate, yes.

Right. That's a whole different conversation. That's a whole different story. So in reality, The increase is 8.6. Gallegos is not suggesting we're still at 10.5. So we've reduced it by a million dollars and we're still adding $900,000.

They're putting it at risk. It's literally called at risk. It's saying to draw from the fund balance. We've been talking about rebuilding our fund balance. So we don't want to draw from that fund balance, but we set one rate for the city. So we are setting a rate, and that is the rate that you see. So that rate is what is elected for health care insurance. But we are funding to more than that so that we don't draw down on our fund balance. The employee side has a fund balance to draw on, and they want to draw down on it. We don't have that luxury at this point. So we are saying that we don't actually want to draw on that money.

Okay, so I guess in that line, and I was gonna say this later on, but I'll say it now. Based on what you're saying, I think, What we should be doing is we should always be carrying a minimum balance in the employee trust fund, which should be 3% to 5% of the gross claims, plus three months of incurred but not reported claims. So every year, we would have a minimum balance in the health care fund. So we wouldn't have to worry about that. And that can be done year after year. Correct.

We've been working towards that. That's why we wanted to go with the higher number because we're still trying to get up to that threshold.

We just transferred $5 million.

And that number that you said, that three and a half and the three months of claims, we need at least $10 million in that fund.

Best practice of three months of claims would be $10.65 million based on averages. So we still want to build that account up.

So if we start doing that every year, we will get there and we will consistently have a minimum balance, which is what we should have. And then the city council should get a breakdown of what makes up free cash. The surplus attributed from healthcare should be transferred to the trust fund when free cash is certified.

There is no free cash that is created from the healthcare trust fund. Everything goes into the healthcare trust fund and it all lives in there and there's no free cash from the healthcare trust fund.

I would beg to disagree with that because every year that we had a surplus, again, you weren't here at the time. When we had a surplus of $1.79 million or 3.3 million, that wasn't put in the employer trust fund. That was free cash went back into the budget and was used to...

You're right. I'm sorry. In the most recent years, since I want to say even 2022 or 2023, we have transferred every single dollar that is appropriated directly into the fund, no questions asked. So you're right. Before then, that could have been different, but that does not happen anymore.

Okay, so let's get back to the enterprise funds, because I think there's a lot of deductions that can be made in the enterprise funds. So we start with the city council, page one, 82,853, and we're looking at, what did I say, 33,427 is the cost for the most expensive plan for a single plan. So that would be 50,000 higher than it needs to be.

Could I just be clear at what you're getting at with this? You want to reduce the indirect charges within the enterprise funds?

I'm saying that the enterprise funds shouldn't be on the hook for $82,000 when the actual cost is only $33,000. Potentially, yes.

I think that that number could maybe be corrected. But to be clear, they're not being charged $82,000. This is breaking out what the total cost of having the city council department is. And then below, they only take a certain percentage of that that they're then covering. So you're right, that $82,000 maybe needs to be corrected. I can relook at the back end calculations. But they don't actually just pay that whole line item.

But would you agree? that it comes out of the indirects. So if that number is lowered, their percentage is also lowered.

Like I said, yes. I just want to be clear that that whole line item is not the total amount that they're paying. They're just paying a portion of it. I just wanted to make sure that everybody was clear on that. But I agree, if we correct that, it would change the numbers.

Okay. So if we go to page five of six, the six pages, page five of six, we have... Now this is under water and sewer. We have two environmental police, correct?

So technically, technically we don't have any individual environmental police anymore. They're all now part of patrol. And my understanding, the last count was that there was five, four or five. Is that correct? Four to five.

Where are they now? Are they in the police department or environmental police?

They're in the police department. They've always been in the police department, but instead of being labeled as environmental police in the budget, as a separate thing, they are patrolmen that focus on environmental police.

Okay, so shouldn't then their health come out of that budget as opposed to?

It does, that's what I'm saying with this. This is just saying the total cost of having that department for the city is that total number at the end. The total cost for the personnel and for the healthcare and the retirement and the Medicare is that number. So then what happens is we take that total number, I'm gonna round it and say $500,000, And we say that the general fund is responsible for 84% of that. Then from there, water's covering 5.7% and sewer's covering 10.3%. because they're using that much of their time for it. That is what that breakout is. So then it's taking that $500,000 number and giving 5.7% to water and 10% to sewer. And these are the departments and these are the individuals and the positions that these departments have agreed with their indirect cost agreement that they are covering a share of because they share the benefit of that work that's being done in the general fund.

So under EMS, facilities director, It's showing EMS's share is 18.6%, right? Correct. Okay. So what number is that 18.6%? Because this is simply showing facilities directors 46,000 for insurance, which really it's not, because the most expensive plan is only 40,123 for the year, so that's over by 6,000. What is their share? What's the 18-point share? Where is it? How much was EMS charged for that?

So that 18.6%, it's of the dispatchers. It's a portion of the dispatchers and of the facilities director. So the bigger number from that is taking a portion of the dispatchers.

Can I just point of clarification? Your point? So we were just talking about, if we go back up to Waterman Sewer, general fund share of 83.95%, 5.72%, 10.33%. How are you coming up with those percentages? Can you just explain that? So...

It's based on their budget. So I think that those percentages, it's a little bit different on these ones, because now you're looking at just their portion. So if you look at the first page again, you can see that we're taking all of those numbers and breaking up all of the departments that are sharing it. So with that, you're then just, I'm gonna say condensing it to be just between general fund, water, sewer. So you're taking their total budgets without their debt portions of it, and then you're saying that the rest of that operating budget is how much time, is how much of their share is. So especially considering like the assessors and collectors, right, especially with collectors, the amount of money they collect, so the amount of revenue they bring in is the portion of their time that you would say that they spend citywide. So if they're collecting all of the city's money, however much is related to water is what they do and sewer is what they do.

So I'm sorry, I didn't follow that.

It's a spreadsheet that has a lot of formulas and data in it that I think it'd be easier if you could see the formulas. I want to be clear, I didn't create this. This is something that's been used. This is something I've seen used in other communities exactly like this. So this is how it's been calculated, I'm going to say, in many places by using this. So it kind of walks you through some on the methodology up top, but I mean, I can send you the full document as an Excel so you can read the formulas and understand better what it's doing, but... Wouldn't you just take...

I guess like for water sewer EMS, just take their total budget and then divide that by the total dollar amount, which would be the general fund and the enterprise funds and get a percentage on that?

That's what I was trying to say, but it may not have been clear.

Oh, okay.

But I was saying that for that section that you're looking at, it's different because EMS doesn't take a share of that. So then it's doing that same idea but with less departments. Does that make sense?

Sorry.

That's OK. So let me ask you this. And again, I keep referring to everything at the top tier, the most expensive. We have people in all three categories. We have three tiers. So these numbers could yet still be lower.

So the, the healthcare, the way that that's calculation is working, it's taking the total healthcare budget. I'm going to say less these outside entities, right? So with just the general fund, the school department, water, sewer, EMS, it's taking their salaries and taking all that it costs us to fund healthcare and dividing it amongst that. So it's saying that on average for this amount of salary, this is what we're paying in benefits. So it's not a perfect ratio ever. It's never, you know, Nick has this much in health insurance, you have this much in life insurance, it's based on what the average cost is by salary. To do it individually with that level of specificity when projecting out for FY27, it's, I'm gonna say near impossible. So there's a calculation that shows on the health insurance side that's saying, this is what the salaries are, this is what the total budgeted number is at cost, and this is how we're kind of splitting it out. by salary basis, so it's not a perfect calculation, and again, I can re-look at how we're doing that, but I can tell you right now that especially when forecasting forward, it'll never be perfect and exact, not knowing what the way plans change and who's gonna be enrolled and who's gonna do, and there's other costs that are other than just a basic health insurance plan that are included in that.

Okay, so let me ask you, EMS share. 18.6%. We have the police share, the fire share, EMS share. Retirement, $527,370. And then there's a note that says, plus fire. What is that plus fire for EMS? Is that the five people, the five, bleh. Yes. The five firemen they used to pay for.

Correct. And that they're now not, so they were paying as a direct, So they directly took those employees as much as they were fire employees and they were taking them off of their rigs and paying for them because they were using them. Now they are not doing that. She has agreed to still pay for them, but it can't be as a direct expense. She agreed to have it included in her indirect cost calculation. And so that's what that is.

So EMS is paying retirement and health care for five people that they don't pay salaries for. For a small portion of it.

No, it's for their salaries, and it's for all of their benefits, including part of their salaries.

And that's $336,420. Correct.

That's what they've been, if you look back at past budgets, that's what they were covering. All right.

I can say as one person, I've been looking at this today for hours, trying to make sense out of all of it. I think, honestly, I need longer to digest it and go over it. It's probably more conversation for another day. And I'm just gonna point to one more thing, let other people speak. I have to find the other page. I keep confusing myself. I've done this to myself three times. I have to figure out On page 142 in the budget, it shows general government pension contribution at 33 million, school pension contribution at 10 million.

You're talking about for FY26? FY27. FY27 is 11 million for school?

Well, in this budget book on page 142, it says school pension contribution, $10,069,316. That's for FY26. FY26 revised budget. Oh, I'm sorry. All right, my error. I got you now. So 33 and 11, OK. But if I look at pension under indirect calculation on page 3 of 6, It shows general fund at $22 million and school at $18 million.

So to be clear on that one, we don't use this sheet for schools. This is data that I thought I was clear with you on the phone that we have not been using. It's data that I've been looking at as we're going through our indirect cost agreement with them to see if we should be adjusting it or not. So that is not an actual number. We're working through that as we're revisiting our indirect cost agreement with them about what their share should be. So that is not a final number. firm, it's not actual at this point. But it is part of the reason that we're having these conversations that on the back end about the indirect costs, because I am coming up with different numbers than what we have been doing. So I we are looking at that as a team. And this is not an official member at all. So and had I known this was going to be shared to the rest of the council, I would have had that pulled out. But I thought I was just sending it to you.

Oh, okay, so it's an indirect calculation, it's not real?

That, just for schools at this point, like I said, I'm working through that at this, either way, that total number is being shared between us and schools right now, but I am unclear if more of it should be shifted to schools.

Okay, I will yield for now, thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilman C-1, Councilor Kadim.

So I feel like we're just talking words. I'm so confused. I don't know. I guess this is the first time I'm seeing this indirect cost agreement, and it's not making sense to me.

It's not an agreement. It's a calculation sheet. I mean, I'm sorry. Sorry.

Yeah, I'm thinking about indirect.

I wasn't expecting it to be shared tonight and I would have loved to be able to have a presentation and full information on it. We have been talking about this, I've been talking about sharing it, we've been talking about getting back to it, but this isn't really the way I intended for this to become the conversation on this item.

That's fine, the council can ask the questions, that's okay.

No, I know, I just, I feel bad because he's saying it's kind of thrown him in and it's confusing to understand at a quick moment. Health insurance, generally speaking, is confusing.

Well, this is indirect. I'm talking about the indirect costs. Indirect costs, generally speaking.

Council? I'm just trying to figure out. So if I'm looking at page 146 for EMS, the indirect costs, the charges is $5.2 million? Yes. OK. So the document that I have here, the five of six.

Five of six?

Yeah, on the document that you just So under EMS, can you just explain that portion to me, how this ties into page 146? So the dispatchers.

So page, if you look at six of six, that's what really more of what is tying into the numbers that you'll see. So part one, part four, and part five, those add together to make up transfers to general fund. Part three is the transfers to the health insurance. And part two is retirement. Sorry, that was really out of order, but that's why my brain works down the list.

So part five is additional support. So EMS is being charged $863,000.

Correct. That's their portion of the dispatchers and their fire shared squad. So if you look back at past budgets, they were kind of in there as a direct charge, but they're not a direct charge. So if you look at their salary expenses, that's been changed to not being included as part of a direct cost, and it's being shifted over to their indirects.

So how do you get that? So with the retirement, that's 527, 370. Is it in that column?

No. The pension that you're seeing within those departments, so within dispatch, within, you know, city collector and sorry not collector but in the financial services and all of that that's just part of the basic transfers to the health to the general fund so in essence that's a revenue source for us and then we make all of our payments into the healthcare trust fund and some of that is covering some of that it's not like a it's a it's covering it as a revenue it's not a direct transfer so all right so i guess let me take a step back i really need to try to understand this so

Page five of six is solely part five, the additional departmental support. So when I get to EMS, I'm just going to be focused on EMS. You're taking the dispatchers. That's the total budget across. So if I go into this and I look at dispatching, the $2.6 million would be all of this, right? All the charges associated with dispatch. Is that correct?

Yes.

And then facilities director is the same thing. across the board so then when we add those up 2.8 million dollars correct what are we doing with that number so that number is so if you look at

So I happen to just call it like a police share and a fire share because obviously we don't charge them for any of that in an indirect way. But taking the fact that those are supporting some of these public safety items, right, we are adding them together saying this is what that costs. And if we were divvying it out, so that should still come up to the 100%. So between police and fire, I'm going to call it at the general fund share. And then EMS is because they use the portion of the dispatchers for their time. So that's... That's where that's pulling in from.

So when you say police share 44.13% of dispatches and facility director of that $2.8 million is attributed to the police department. Is that?

Yeah, but it's the facilities director part makes it a little bit less clear because it's just grabbing the general fund portion and it was easier to pull it out in that sense. But yes, it's to show that we're breaking it out between the public safety department. So dispatching.

So 44%. that 2.8 million dollars is police so if i take that 44.13 i haven't done the math multiply that by the 2.8 i'm getting the 1.2 correct and then same with fire 37 correct percent and then ems correct and then those all add up to a hundred percent correct so no other department uses the facilities director

No, but that's what I'm saying. The facilities one just seems misleading because it doesn't really matter. We're not actually charging them anything, right? We're never going to charge police and fire for use of dispatch and facilities. But that's making up the rest of the general fund share.

No, but what you're doing is that if there's other departments, it should lower the EMS. So you're overcharging EMS because you're charging EMS. So you may not be charging police and fire, but you're charging EMS. And so you're saying that the facilities director only applies to three departments. So if we shut down tomorrow, you're saying that Al Olivera has to stay on there because 100% of his time is going to solely police, fire, and EMS.

I can correct it. When I shared this, there wasn't any feedback before now. So I'm happy to take the feedback and we can adjust this calculation sheet.

I mean, did Beth not have it?

She did.

Oh, she did have an issue.

No.

Oh, she did. Oh. No. I'm sorry.

I've shared this with the pertinent internal people and nobody had comments or concerns like this.

I'm happy to make these adjustments as everybody would wish, but I... No, I think this document, and I know you didn't put this together, I think this document is extremely just convoluted and confusing. So I know what we're trying to do. So the indirect costs agreement, I fully understand. So we're essentially saying that In the general fund, all the departments that are currently operating, if we were to close government completely to the public and just had water, sewer, and EMS operate, we would need to figure out what that cost would be for those departments. So we take the appropriate share from the treasurer's office, the collector's office, the finance director, and apply it to all those departments for their share. associated with that i'm just when we go through it it just seems like it's a little heavy to just the enterprise funds and i and i get we're trying to get some money back into the general fund for for revenue and it's just taken from the enterprise fund shifting it but from my standpoint it's it's a little heavy-handed with with regards to that and it's just it's hard we I mean, I don't think we would have ever had this conversation because we don't get the documentation to see how the indirect costs are made up. So it's just now that we've got this document, there's a lot of questions that come into, you know, how we're calculating that indirect costs. And so when we get to the first page, like the city council, you know, $544,000 budget.

Well, the audit's in that, so that's a huge factor of it.

Right, right. Yep. $170,000. So when I look at page one, if I was just to go through, add up all the enterprise funds, add up the general funds, and then I take the school department budget, that coming out to the 52% of the total budget. Water is coming out to 3.57. Sewer is coming out to 7.10. EMS is coming out to 3.62%, right? And so then those, so the city council budget is getting charged to three, let me just call it 4% to EMS, 7% to sewer, and another 4% to water?

Correct.

And then so all these other departments will find, so essentially what we're charging to these departments are the city council, the city clerk, All the financial services. Not all of it.

You're missing assessors and collectors.

Oh, I'm sorry. Right. So I would think the collectors would be in there, right?

The collectors are not in EMS because we don't collect EMS revenues at the window to take the payments for fees. We obviously manage their money, which is why treasurer's is included, but the collectors don't actually take payments at the window. We only do that for water and sewer.

But they do for water and sewer, right? Correct.

So that's why they're on that separate breakout on the back page.

All right. I haven't gotten that far. Okay. And then so we're taking the mayor, city administrator, HR, MIS, and law. And then we're doing snow and ice as well. What's the logic behind snow and ice?

That's how it's always been included as one of the departments. So I was not going to disclude it without changing indirect cost agreements.

okay all right i yield on this thank you thank you anything further on insurance the constant c3 indirect insurance other government to the item constant c3 counselor can you please thank you i do want to ask about serta um specifically the regional transit authority line on page 142

This is a massive increase of 37.5%, $624,000, not consistent with any other increase we've seen in the past. I know that this is a number that is provided to us, but I wanted to direct my question, I believe, the acting city administrator because I believe you sit on the represent the city on the sort of board really trying to understand why we had such a massive increase I believe this is the largest of any increase compared to any neighboring community in terms of both percent and dollar amount and I just kind of want to understand you know did they do a mass redistribution because this is not an increase I would expect

I mean, it's not something that we voted on. We voted on the budget, but we didn't vote on any assessments to come to the communities. I know free fares has played into it in the past and they have extended those free fares and they have done the micro transit in the MBTA communities as well to provide transportation near the MBTA stations and such. So I'm thinking that probably has something to do with it. I mean, I can get a breakdown. in the assessment, but it's not something that we vote on as the sort of board.

Okay. Yeah, because I mean, I think when I'm looking at the cost here, this is just a massive cost that Fall River is incurring, additional this year than any other year. And I think even just from our 25 spend to 26, you know, the increase was just 41,000 and change year over year. But we're going from 41,000 year over year to 624,000. and it just feels like they're shifting the burden to Fall River in particular. I'd like to really get a breakdown. This is something, just to confirm, which commission votes on this? Is the Board of Commissioners for Still County, or who assesses this to us?

I'm imagining.

The state gives it to us in our cherry sheets. So the state is providing us with this assessment. The state is taking it directly from our revenues. It's done at the state level in that sense.

I know the free fares definitely impact. But that's existed, right? Nothing changed. I'm trying to think of what changed.

There could be a funding source that was helping cover that if they had certain grant funds to start that program and that offer. And if that changed.

and but they decided to extend it without that same funding you know source so we can do our best to to get information on that but i want to be clear that that you would have to go to the state to have that changed understood okay i just think we should be questioning this number not just accepting it just just such a massive increase i think we should really press them from the city level on finding out why this went up so much because i'm not seeing this type of increase in any neighboring communities And this is a big amount of money to people. So with that, I yield.

Anything further? I'm sorry, Councilman Situ, Councilman Kamara.

I just actually want to go back to health care, if I can, for one quick question. Of course. On the city council health care, this is $82,000. Is that for councilors or for the court?

No, it's just, it's... It's not. It's based on the salaries that are in there and a breakout of the salary. So the way that that's calculated, it's based on the salary. So we say we're funding health insurance for the health care trust fund by this amount. These are all of the salaries. matching up to people that are within that eligibility to take that health insurance and we divide it out across the salaries and then we take these salaries and estimate it so it's a i'm going to say a very rough calculation in that sense of health care costs this per salary so that's what that number is so it's not necessarily saying that any one person is taking any one insurance right because you have to it's also part for retirees and all of that so it's It's more than just existing active employees taking current insurance.

Because I don't think any city council had health insurance from the city right now.

I don't know. And to be honest with you, that wouldn't necessarily change this number. It's based on the salaries. Gotcha.

With that, I yield. Thank you.

Councilman C-1, Councilman Lacavine. Thank you. I actually meant to ask the question the last time. So in terms of that forecast, why wouldn't we just take the working rate like we would today? I'm sorry. Can we? So you're saying the health care for the indirect costs?

So it's taking that total amount though, that 49, it's really the 58 million, or the 49 million, I'm sorry, it's the 49 million, and then it's saying what are all of the salaries for school, city, water, sewer, EMS, and it's dividing it based on the salary rate in that sense.

Yeah, so you're taking the salary rate as opposed to the individuals, right? So why wouldn't you just take the individuals that take health care and then get the working rate, similar to what we would do on the school side? Because these numbers are extremely inflated.

I'm going to say this is how the form was set up. And it made sense to me in that sense to do it in that way. So I can tell you that when I was in New Bedford, we used a very similar form. And when we would do it at the end of the year, we would go back and we would pull actuals. And we would adjust what we set the indirects at. And we would adjust it for what actually happened. But we haven't been doing any of that here. And I'm just trying to get back to having an actual calculation sheet to make these numbers. So we could do that to get those actuals. But when projecting forward to say what it's going to be for the year, it's been the way that it was set up. And so I just continued with it.

And here's my issue. So my issue, not to say that I don't have the issue with EMS, because I do have the issue with EMS, because I think they're being overcharged as well. However, I don't have the same concern with EMS, because... how they're driving their revenue is completely different than water and sewer. So by having these numbers, and I'm going to say inflated, I don't mean anything by it, but higher numbers than what we need, we're charging the indirect costs to go into the general fund. So that means that's going on to the rates, right? So water and sewer rates. So the higher these numbers are, the higher the rates are going to be on water and sewer. So that's an additional tax. So we're already doing the two and a half, and then we're driving and adding additional rate increases because we have these additional indirect costs agreement. I'm sorry, I keep going back to the schools. The indirect costs coming in from the enterprise funds into the general fund. So for me, I just want to, just as one city councilor, and I understand the retirement portion, I understand we've got to pay for that. To me, that just seems a little excessive because we've already got two and a half percent being charged as a levy. My personal opinion would be that you, or at least for the health insurance that we're not looking at, the retiree portion of that. So the Aetna plan, we're just looking at active plans. You're taking the working rate or the per employee per month rate that you would have and multiply it by the number of individuals that are in that department that use the healthcare so that we can capture that exact snapshot so that we're not increasing the water and sewer rates because that's inherently what we're doing.

I mean, we didn't this year, but yes. Can I ask for a point of clarification? Sure, Council. The enterprise funds, doesn't community development and the grants that they have and also BCTC, they give money back to the city through the enterprise fund? They have the working rate. Mike Dion's grants and things like that. Doesn't that go back to the working rate? So those departments pay 75% of the working rate. That's how we've done it in the past. Is that what you're doing?

Yeah, that's why we're taking the 49, not the full $58 million number. We're taking the 49 million, which is after all of that comes back out of it, and saying that this is what our salaries are, so that's how we're breaking that cost out of the 49 million up by the salaries that are in there. Thank you.

So that's just my take on this and why we should just kind of narrow it down. And I understand that we're struggling to have our revenues keep pace with our expenses, but I don't want to see it on the backs of the taxpayers again and just duplicating it, because it's just an additional tax above the 2.5 percent from my standpoint. Obviously, it's allowable because what you're really supposed to be doing in the enterprise fund is making sure it's, number one, self-sufficient, capturing all the costs. But from my standpoint, I think it should be reasonable because we know that any increase in the indirect costs are going to have a direct impact on what the rates are. And again, we can argue that with EMS, but when you get to EMS, I just think it's not fair that, you know, I understand EMS is generating additional revenue and all this other stuff, but to try to say that, you know, 18% of the facilities director expenses for 208,000 is going to EMS, I mean, EMS has one building, right? and they got one facility over i mean he also oversees all of the fire stations that they're in too i i get it but i mean the argument would be that they got the new facility how how many people are really in these other facilities how long are they really there for if they're on the 9-1-1 so i mean we're saying i i don't know that it's 18 is what i'm saying like i don't know that that number is is the right number so um you know you got every single other department that's in in this building i mean i would think that a good majority of time would be spent in this building. You got the library.

Yeah, I can re-look at that facilities one for sure. I definitely can re-look at that one. But the dispatch part, you're not disagreeing with, is that correct? Just before I go back and?

No, no, I think the dispatch is pretty straightforward with that. You're getting the 911 calls out of that.

That's fine. I just wanted to make sure that I was not going to go back and not do everything.

All right, with that, I yield. Thank you, Councilman C4, Councilor Dionne.

Yeah, I just want to say that I think to base it on salaries across the board definitely inflates all the numbers. That is not the way to go. So let's take, again, city council, it's the easiest one to do. Two employees. 30,000 a year, not 83,000. There is not one city council that receives healthcare. In 2017, the charter was voted on, was accepted, and in that charter, it said anybody not on city healthcare prior to that charter was not eligible. So to base it on all the salaries in city council, when nine people aren't even eligible, You just can't, and I think that should go through, I think the entire thing should be that way.

I don't think any- Yeah, but nobody else will have that same issue. All of these other departments have people that are fully eligible for health insurance.

I understand that, but would you agree that not every single employee in the city of Fall River has city healthcare? Correct. Okay. So I guess that's my point. As opposed to saying, based on entire salaries in one department, you have to take the step to identify how many employees do we actually have on healthcare. And then the numbers have to be based on that number, not on the entire department, I guess is what I'm saying. Because yes, that's driving numbers. It's inflating numbers, honestly. And again, I'm not trying to be accusatory or anything. It's just a fact, I guess, is the best way to put it. So with that, I yield.

Thank you. Councilor C6, Councilor Peckham.

Just one question. If we go to page 140 on the debt service, I just want to get some clarification on these numbers.

Yeah.

So the Durfee High School debt exclusion FY25 actuals you have is $5,517,614. Yes. And then if I go back to page 23, Durfee debt exclusion FY25 actuals 2583005. I'm sorry. You said 20? Mm-hmm. 23. 2580. I'm sorry. Yeah, page 23. I apologize.

I don't, 23, Darfee debt exclusion. I, so, That number being in there is, I'm going to say hard, because the way it works is you're looking at actual. So that bolded number, that 139, is actual receipts that we had of tax payments for that year. But the way that it's calculated, you're right, that amount would have been part of the debt exclusion. It's the debt that's eligible for the exclusion. We may not have either one collected at all or two taken that full amount that's eligible. So I'm just breaking up the debt payments based on the Durfee debt exclusion. But that doesn't mean we take every penny of that every year, nor does it mean that we collect it. So that's why that calculation could look weird. So I can look at that again. For FY25 actuals, just when you're talking about the 25 actuals, it kind of skews it. If you look, I pulled it out for 26 projected because it's to say what portion we've collected that was from the exclusion or not is is a hard

If you go to FY26 revised, on page 23, you've got $5,147,245.

So that is how we budget.

And then on page 140, it's $5,183,155.

Right. So that means that I'm going to say we didn't take the full exclusion. I know it's a $40,000 only short change, but that means we didn't take the full exclusion when calculating the rate. for the levy, so the total levy is that bolded number, and to get to that, you have your new growth, that's a firm number, your two and a half percent, that's a firm number, so then it means that that exclusion, whatever, doesn't add up to that is the difference. So it means that we took 40,000 less than what we could have for that exclusion.

What page are you looking at?

23 and 140. Yeah. Three quarters of the way down on 140 will be the debt exclusion for Durfee High School. And it's just confusing to me.

It is confusing. I'm going to be very clear with that. Because the debt exclusion is the total debt amount that we are allowed to exclude. What we actually take is always going to be, I'm going to say, some pennies off. When we calculate this, this levy is based off of the budget, the full budgeted numbers. And for us to end up exactly as we should to the penny every time, it doesn't always happen that way. So sometimes we don't take, I'm gonna say technically speaking, the full amount that we could. And that's what that 40,000 is.

Yeah, point of clarification. Wasn't it in FY25 that the administration took some action to reduce that impact on the taxpayers?

I don't think it was. I think the number that looks skewed is because we didn't receive the full receipts, but I will look at that. It could be that, but I don't know if that's what it is.

If my memory serves me right, I think there was action taken by the administration to lessen the blow on the taxpayers for the Durfee debt exclusion.

Isn't that what page 23 says with the minus 1.2 million?

It might be it, but I don't want to say that for sure. I would rather pull it to confirm that.

Can we check to see if that last overlay is a 1.25?

That last overlay is 1.2. It was 1.25. That was for sure. I know that that overlay is correct. That is a firm number. We take it. We pull it out. And I can pull that report to show you exactly what it was.

All right. With that, I yield. Thank you, Council President.

You're welcome, Councilor. Anything further? Any other questions? Councilor in seat four, Council Vice President Dionne. Yeah.

Sorry. I just spotted this. So this was on our desk when we came in today. I hadn't looked at it. So if I look at the appropriation order that you gave us for EMS. Okay.

To be clear, what I had the clerk do is just make extra copies of the appropriation order. This wasn't from them. Oh, okay. There's no change. So I just have to correct, Madam Clerk? Yes. Yeah, I just wanted consulates to have extra copies.

All right, so this is the appropriation order. Sorry, I just didn't know. I didn't know either. I stand corrected.

It's the same appropriation order in our books.

Yeah, okay. So when I'm looking, I guess my point is, and again, if I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me, but if I'm looking at this... The departmental receipts and the departmental expenses, direct and indirect expenses versus the receipts, is identical, $18,038,739, correct? Correct, because they have a balanced budget. They have an entirely balanced budget, which means that, I hate to say it, I almost wanna say that, yeah, we're gonna find that the AMS budget is inflated because I don't know where the talks are for contractual talks, but this tells me that any increase through a contract, they can't afford to pay it. They're gonna have to come down for a transfer or additional monies.

Correct? So when we did the overtime change that we discussed some yesterday with the FLSA and all of that, So that change from paying them the way we had been with the straight 42 hours every week to changing it to being 24 and then 48 and having the overtime that resulted in a, I think it was a 4.5% base pay increase. I'm going to say naturally without any CBA, without anything, just by changing that they all got an increase of 4.5%. So I can tell you that even without having come down for anything to be changed, they have already started to realize what is now in their CBA. So it is mostly already baked in because of that. So there isn't actually a much more dollar value that will be coming down. when it does come down. And there is not a concern about being able to afford it from the chief's perspective on the revenues that they have coming in. So I mean, I'm not going to fully speak to that for her. But because the majority of it's already included in their base budget, the way the overtime change,

So to say mostly covered before they come down indicates they will be needing to come down at some point.

I mean, we always have to come down with the CBA to have it be approved and technically funded in that sense. So yes, we always have to come down with that. All right.

With that, I yield. Thank you.

Anything further any other questions constancy 7 Council per day 3.

Department that haven't had the contracts renewed great 3.

Yeah so EMS will be down later this month to be teamsters it's for teamsters both police unions and then fire.

Is there anything in this budget for those raises for the negotiation?

Yes, there is a $400,000 line item at this point in time.

And that's for all of those? Correct. So if they got a 2.5%, what would that give us in all the people that are there?

I don't have that full number in front of me, but I can tell you that when we looked at, when we did it for AFSCME, it was for 2.5%, it was about 144, 144,000.

Well AFSCME is small, but police and fire are large.

I mean AFSCME is actually probably more people, obviously lesser salaries, but it's more people. So I was just trying to say to give you some perspective, I would say a 2.5% within police and fire has got to be upwards of 200 to 250,000.

So 250, two to 250, but we have 400 in there.

Correct. It's not a perfect number to estimate that. If I knew an exact number to put in there, it wouldn't be an estimate anymore at that point. So we will have to have those conversations as contracts begin to settle.

And the debt exclusion for Durfee and the payment for Diamond, That was coming out of the budget. So you have 1.7 for diamond this year. That was in the budget, but they had gotten another payment as well, correct?

I'm not sure I'm following. I'm sorry.

How much have we paid diamond last year?

And what are we paying them this year? So this year in FY26? Yes. And then FY27? Yeah. Sorry. We are at

We had given them 4.6, I thought.

Yeah, I don't want to misspeak at this point. My brain clearly has too much in it. Yeah, so it's 4.5 this year. Right. Next year is 5.2.

5.2. But didn't we take 1.7? 1.7, was that too?

To transfer into the stabilization fund for Diamond. For Diamond. So that would be probably for an FY28 payment.

I'm just feeling that... A LOT OF THIS BUDGET DEPENDS, AND WHEN WE WERE QUESTIONING YOU ON DIFFERENT THINGS, OH, WE'LL COME DOWN FOR THAT LATER. YOU KNOW, WE CAN COME DOWN FOR THAT LATER. FOR EXAMPLE, THE PARKING GARAGES. THEY'RE LIKE $5 MILLION FOR PARKING GARAGES. THAT'S OUR CAPITAL.

YEAH.

there's like five million dollars for parking garage has that contract been signed already so the contract has been awarded we were we should have something down for the next meeting on tuesday but here's my thought we sign a contract with a contractor to fix that you know we awarded the bid we didn't sign the contract fully yet i'm sorry we awarded the bid so it wasn't signed it was just correct we need to have funding in order to fully execute a contract So where will that money come out of? Free cash? It'll be most likely debt. If it's stabilization, you need two-thirds of a vote. No, it's debt.

It's debt. It'll be out of debt. Yes. Okay. I just think things should be done before we even award, make sure we have the money there.

It's not fair to the contractor, just my thoughts.

Correct, but that's why our contract hasn't fully been signed. The award is subject to appropriation, that's how they typically work. Okay, with that I yield, thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

Any further on insurance or other government? Hearing none, that will conclude our budget deliberations from a Committee on Finance perspective. Is there a motion to refer the budget?

Motion to refer to full council. Second.

Motion to refer the item to full council has been made by Council Vice President Dion, seconded by Councilor Raposo. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Motion to adjourn the Committee on Finance has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Council Vice President Dion. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. This former City Council meeting will now be called to order at 721 p.m. We're gonna do roll call first?

Yes, where am I standing?

Madam Clerk, roll call, please.

I don't know. Councilor Skidding? Here. Camara? Here. Cannual? Here. Deon? Here. Hart? Here. Peckham? Here. Pereira? Here. Raposo? Here. President Ponte?

Here. If everybody in the chamber can now please rise for a moment of silent prayer. Thank you and a salute to the flag.

I pledge allegiance to the flag,

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible. First item on our agenda, Madam Clerk.

The Committee on Finance at a meeting held on June 3rd, 2026 voted unanimously to recommend that the following appropriation order be recommended to the full council for action. This is the FY2027 appropriation order.

If I may just state for the public and the council's edification on a conversation that I had with the mayor today and our council vice president can also speak on this. I'm not taking the floor, just more of an announcement. After speaking to some councilors, I got the consensus that the city council as a body or as a majority would like to have seen outside council for the city council in the city council budget. Now, not all of you were in favor of that, but a majority of you were. based on conversations we've had and deliberations we've had in this chamber. I spoke to the mayor on multiple occasions today and over the last week. The mayor's position right now is that he wants to work on a compromise with the city council on this. He's heard from you all privately. He did mention that he would give the corporation council $40,000 in an account, but it would be run through the corporation council's office. and at this point, not the city council budget. He did ask today for the city council policy that was adopted the last time we had council. I believe the clerk's office did send that over to the mayor's office today, so they saw the policy when it came to that. But at this point, the mayor is not giving the city council budget, the city council $40,000 in its budget for outside council. He wants that to go through corporation council.

um council vice president like to give you the floor as well because i know you had a conversation yeah i spoke with the mayor and i also spoke with acting city administrator um over here uh today they both asked me my position on that my my answer to them was i was adamant i wanted the 40 000 line item in the city council budget not in the law department budget because i feel like in the law department budget it is not at our discretion and that was my preference, that I was not gonna speak for everyone, but I believed that as a whole, if we were gonna move forward with this, that I believe it was the general consensus of this council that that line item be put in city council budget because precedent has been set. When we had it before, it was in the city council budget, and I see no reason for that to change. And that was basically my conversations with them.

And just so we're clear for everybody, the mayor is trying to compromise with us on this matter. But he did say after speaking with Corporation Council is where he what he indicated to me.

That would be correct. That would be correct. Very good.

You yield?

I yield.

Councilman Seat 2, Councilor Camara.

Thank you, Mr. President. So the policy that you referred to right now when you said it was voted on by the council, you're not talking about this current council, are you? There's no policy that we have.

The only policy that has been adopted by a council was I think it was in the year 2021 where the council adopted a policy, and it's been the only policy to date that we have.

But that policy doesn't exist right now.

The policy is still adopted as a city council. We haven't. I don't believe there's been any vote to delete it or rescind it in any way, shape, or form. It's still of a policy of the city council.

But that was a different city council.

It was, yes.

So, I mean, I don't know how new councils would have to be reminded by a policy that was voted on by a different council that directly affected it. the involvement of the city council and corporation council. So it's just my opinion, but I mean, I probably have to re relook at that policy and maybe take a new vote on a new policy or maybe the same one, but at least we'd like to take a vote on it.

I agree.

Just want to make it clear. Thank you.

If I can just counselor, um, I will tell you that if this goes through, I have every anticipation to add it to the agenda. and have input from this new council. That would never be fair to any of you to just adopt a policy that is by another council if this goes through. I just want you to know.

Appreciate that.

Thank you. Thank you.

I agree. I thought that the policy that was adopted, I thought it wasn't a good policy. You had to get permission from the vice president or president to use it. That's not right. We all get elected, we all get voted on, and we're all here. And I don't think that it should be two people determining whether or not why I want to speak to an attorney is any of anybody's business. as long as it has obviously something to do with city. I would suggest that if we do it, that if it's $40,000, everybody gets $4,000 a piece if you needed to contact an attorney. Whoever doesn't use the money, the money goes back. If somebody has expired their $4,000 and I haven't used an attorney, I can give money TO ONE OF MY COLLEAGUES IF THEY'RE LOOKING TO PURSUE SOME LEGAL MATTER. BUT I THINK GETTING $40,000, IT DOESN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO ME IF IT'S IN THE COUNCIL BUDGET OR IF IT'S IN THE LAW OFFICE BUDGET. IT'S OUR $40,000 AND THEY'RE NOT GOING TO STOP US FROM USING IT. SO TO ME THAT REALLY DOESN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE. But I just think the way that that $40,000 is distributed is the important thing. With that, I yield.

Thank you, Council. And just for the record, citizens' input was the first item on our agenda, and nobody did sign up. I want the record to reflect that. Anything further? Council Vice President? Council Seat 4? Yeah.

No, I agree. I agree with both Council Seat 2 and Council Seat 7. And I think any of us looking through it, I definitely believe there can be modifications. This is something that hasn't been done in years. and i so i feel like you know we're more at a square one stop from scratch there's nothing wrong with taking the policy looking at it seeing what we think is good if we think nothing's good we throw in a shredder we vote it out and we stop from scratch if we identify areas that we think are good and then we have modifications we want to make there's no reason as a body we can't do that and i agree modifications can be made so with that i yield thank you constancy to council camara

Yeah, I know we keep talking $40,000 and $4,000 for each councilor. They're close too. But there's nothing to prohibit any city councilor from getting a legal opinion from any attorney that they wanted to free of charge as well. And they could present that at any time if they had a discrepancy with anything that's going on. There's nothing that prohibits that. With that, I yield. Thank you.

I just wanted to give you guys that update because I know it was a pressing item and I didn't want anybody to be caught off guard about that. So I think it's the appropriate thing to do as a council As which we've done in the past is we have our appropriation order before us the city clerk has the ability to We're gonna have her read into the record Each appropriation order and the City Council has that ability to reduce reject or approve if they find it necessary counselor and c4

I was going to make a motion. I'm waiting.

Sure. I just wanted to let you know that's what we're going to do.

I would make a motion that we go through the appropriation order line by line and we vote to reject, accept or reduce each line item in the appropriation order.

Motion made by Council Vice President Dion to have the clerk read each appropriation line item in the appropriation order. and the council will have the ability to reject, reduce, or approve each of those items. Motion has been made by Council Vice President Deon, seconded by?

Second.

Seconded by Councilor Kadima. Is there discussion on that procedural mechanism? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Madam Clerk.

Item A1 from the General Fund for Mayor's Salaries in the amount of $314,803. motion.

Motion to reject has been made by Council of Kadeem seconded by Council of Peckham is their discussion hearing on all those in favor. So is a local up roll call madam clerk will call this.

On the motion to reject a line item a one council's Kadeem yes, Camara no. Can you will yes. Yes.

Parts know.

Peckham yes. Pereira.

No.

Raposo. Yes. President Ponte.

Yes.

Motion carries 68-3.

Motion to take items A2-10 together. Second.

Motion to take items A2-10 together has been made by Councilor Kadim, seconded by Councilor Raposo. Discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Madam Clerk? For the record?

Item A2 from the General Fund for Mayor Expenses in the amount of $20,250. Item A3 from the General Fund for City Council Salaries, $250,664. from the general fund for city council expenses, $170,700. From the general fund for city clerk salaries, $381,990. From the general fund for city clerk expenses, $35,875. line item a seven from the general fund for elections salaries and the amount of $367,638. A8 from the General Fund for Elections Expenses, $104,300. A9 from the General Fund for Veterans Benefits Salaries, $301,077. A10 from the General Fund for Veterans Benefits Expenses, $1,756,055. Motion to reject. second to reject has been made by counselor Dion seconded by second council of Peckham discussion on the rejection hearing on roll call vote please on rejecting line items eight two through eight ten counselors Kadeem yes Camara no can you yes Dion yes Hart Oh Peckham yes Pereira? Yes. Raposo? Yes. President Ponte? Yes. Motion carries, seven yays, two nays.

Motion to take items B1 to B3 together. Second.

Motion to take items B1 to B3 together after reading has been made by Councilor Kadim, seconded by Councilor Peckham. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Madam Clerk?

Section B for the purpose of administration, B1 from the General Fund for Administrative Services Salaries, $1,544,380. B2 from the General Fund for Administrative Services Expenses, $3,792,805. B3 from the General Fund for Judgments and Claims, $350,000.

Motion to reject. Second.

Motion to reject has been made by Councilor Canual, seconded by Councilor Peckham. Is there discussion on the rejection? Hearing none, roll call vote, please.

On rejecting items B1 through B3, Councilor Skadeem? Yes. Kamara?

Yes. We'll send it back.

Canual?

Yes.

Dion? Yes. Hart?

No.

Peckham? Yes. Pereira? Yes. Raposo? Yes. President Ponte? Yes. Motion carries eight yeas, one nay. Section C for the purpose of financial services, line item C1 from the General Fund for Financial Services Salaries, $1,893,476. Motion to reject. Second.

Motion to reject has been made by Consular Kadim, seconded by Consular Peckham. Discussion? Roll call vote.

On rejecting line item C1, Councilors Kadim. Yes. Camara. Yes. Canuel. Yes. Deon. Yes. Hart. Yes. Peckham. Yes. Pereira. Yes. Raposo. Yes. President Ponte. Yes. Motion carries nine yeas. Line item C2 from the General Fund for Financial Services Expenses.

Motion to reject.

Motion to reject after reading has been made by Councilor Peckham. Seconded by Councilor Cagnuol. Discussion? Roll call vote.

In the amount of $344,990, item C-2, Councilor Skiddeam. Yes. Camara yes can you all yes the on yes, heart, yes, Peckham, yes, Pereira, yes, proposal, yes, president.

Yes, we should take and he's 93 together each I take items D one to D three together has been made by consular oppose a second by consul vice president the on discussion hearing none all those in favor I oppose the eyes have it madam clerk.

Section D for the purpose of facilities maintenance. Line item D1 from the General Fund for Facilities Salaries in the amount of $1,115,023. Line item D2 from the General Fund for Facilities Expenses, $2,181,465. And there is no appropriation for line item D3 from the General Fund for Facilities Capital. Motion to reject. Second.

Motion to reject has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Council Vice President Deon. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Motion to take E1, 2, and 3 together.

Second.

Motion to take items E1, 2, and 3 together has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Peckham. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Section E for the purpose of community maintenance. Line item E1 from the General Fund for Community Maintenance Salaries, $5,655,974. E2 from the General Fund for Community Maintenance Expenses, $17,891,532. E3 from the General Fund for Community Maintenance Capital has no appropriation. Motion to reject.

Motion to reject has been made by Council of Peckham, seconded by Council Vice President Deon. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? We don't necessarily need a roll call. Motion has been made and seconded. Hearing no further discussions, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing no opposition, the ayes have it.

Motion to take item F1, 2, and 3 together.

Second. Motion to take items F1, 2, and 3 together. Has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Peckham. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Section F, for the purpose of community service. Line item F1, from the General Fund for Community Services Salaries. $2,918,265. F2, from the General Fund for Community Services Expenses, $680,631. F3, from the General Fund for Community Services Transfers, $30,000. Motion to reject. Second.

Motion to reject has been made by Council of Peckham, seconded by Council Vice President Dionne. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Motion to adopt G1. Motion to adopt G1 has been made by Councilor Kadim, seconded by?

Second.

Seconded by Council Vice President Deon. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Motion to reject G2. Motion to reject G2. Second. Has been made by Councilor Kadim, seconded by Councilor Raposo. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Motion to approve G3.

Motion to approve G3, General Fund Education Assessments in the amount of $10,225,442 has been made by Councilor Kadim, seconded by Council Vice President Dion. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Just for the record, if I may, just for the public zone edification, G1 means from the general fund for school appropriation and the amount of 212,582,416 that was approved by this council and the item G2 from the general fund for school transportation, the amount of 12,350,048 was rejected. We didn't introduce that, and I want the record to reflect that.

Next.

Mr. President, would you like me to introduce G3? Yes, please, if you can, please reintroduce G3. G3 from the General Fund for Education Assessments, $10,225,442, also approved.

was also approved. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Motion to take H1 through A together. Second. Motion to take items H1 through A8 together, which is community protection, has been made by Consular Kadeem, seconded by Consular Raposo. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Madam Clerk.

Section H, for the purpose of community protection. H1, from the General Fund for Police Salaries. $24,780,499. H2 from the general fund for police expenses, $2,130,062. H3 from the general fund for police capital, no appropriation, and no appropriation also for H4 from the general fund for Harbor Masses salaries. H5 from the General Fund for Harbormaster Expenses, $35,500. H6 from the General Fund for Fire and Emergency Services Salaries, $20,021,736. H7 from the General Fund for Fire and Emergency Services Expenses, $1,187,798. h8 from the general fund for fire and emergency services capital has motion to approve second motion to approve has been made by council of camara seconded by council of pereira's their discussion hearing none roll call vote on a pro on approval on approving line items h1 through h8 counselors khadim no camara yes cannula no dion no hart yes peckham no Pereira? Yes. Raposo? No. President Ponte? No. Motion fails, three yeas, six nays.

Do we have to make a motion to reject? Motion to reject.

Second. Motion to reject has been made by Councilor Deon, seconded by Councilor Raposo. Discussion, sorry, Councilor Peckham. Discussion? Hearing none, roll call.

On rejecting line items H1 through H8. Councilor Skadeem? Yes. Camara? No. Canuel?

Yes.

Dion yes heart no Peckham yes Pereira no Raposo yes president Monty yes motion carries 6 yeas 3 nays section I for the purpose of other governmental expenses I won from the general fund for debt service thirteen million seven hundred nineteen thousand nine hundred forty six dollars

Motion to reject. Second. Motion to reject has been made by Councilor Kadim, seconded by Councilor Peckham. Discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

I, too, from the General Fund for Insurance, $52,402,162.

Motion to reject. Second. Motion to reject has been made by Councilor Peckham, seconded by Councilor Raposo. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

I-3 from the General Fund for Pension Contributions, $45,191,673. Motion to reject. Second.

Motion to reject has been made by Councilor Peckham, seconded by Councilor Raposo. Discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. aye four from the general fund for reserve fund four hundred thousand one hundred seventy three dollars motion to reject motion to reject has been made by council of peckham seconded by consular reposo is there discussion hearing down all those in favor aye opposed the eyes have it that's all we have So the council has in its part rejected most of the appropriation order items. Is it the will of this council at all to give the administration any kind of an indication on what items they want to see rejected? Council in C2, Councilor Kamara. Thank you.

Madam Clerk, I just have a question. For the purpose of community protection, was that rejected? Was that passed for rejection or did that pass? Rejected.

Rejected.

H-1 through H-8 was initially the motion to approve failed to carry, and then it was rejected, yes.

What was the roll call?

Six yays, three nays. Thank you. You're welcome.

So as I mentioned, Councilman C-1, Councilman Kadeem?

Yeah, if we're looking for recommended cuts, I've got a couple that I'd like to offer up. The first I would like to do is $100,000 from legal salaries that essentially would eliminate one of the open positions, the paralegal that was there, and essentially an assistant corporation counsel, part-time assistant corporation counsel as well. We've heard throughout this budget, and I think what we've seen is that there's $700,000 in outside legal services and and the number of questions that were asked in terms of the attorneys that were actually working, what we've heard was Matt Thomas, who's outside legal. So from my standpoint, I think the salary itself, the salary line item itself is extremely inflated. And I like to see that cut. That's the first one.

Would you like as a council to make that in the form of a motion? Sure. So under administrative services salaries, is that the under the section counselor?

Administrative services salaries.

It is on the appropriation order. Page three. So what was that amount, counselor? $100,000. $100,000. So just so we're aware, and for the public's edification, these are suggested cuts that the council is asking the administration to cut and send us back down for another appropriation order. We've already acted on it. This is just us working for them to hear us as a body to make necessary cuts. There's a motion on the floor to reduce the under administration from the general fund for administrative service salaries. Has been made by Councilor Kadim. Second. Second by Council Vice President Deon. Discussion? Councilor in seat eight. Councilor Raposo.

Yeah, I guess I'm just curious. Is a motion necessary for this?

It's not necessary, but I think it'd be more organized if people want to take the floor. If you don't want to act on it, we can. I mean, I don't see many people raise their hands, but we'll be speaking as one body instead of one individual. Thank you. Motion to reduce has been suggested reduce has been made by Councilor Kadeem, seconded by Council Vice President Dion. Is there discussion? Hearing none, roll call on the suggestion.

Councilor Kadeem? Yes. Camara?

What are we reporting on whether or not we wanna suggest to reduce those amounts to these departments? Yes. Yes. Present.

Can you move? Yes. Dion? Yes. Hart? No. Peckham?

Yes.

Ferreira? Yes. Raposo? Yes. President Ponting. Yes. Motion carries seven ayes, one nay.

Councilor in seat one. Councilor in seat one, you have a four.

Thank you. And then I'd also like to reduce $200,000 from administrative services expenses coming out from outside legal counsel. That budget currently has $700,000. The Corporation Counsel was before us basically saying that he's not sure if two of the cases can move forward. Reducing that amount by $200,000 seems prudent. If there is a need, then if there's other cases, he can always come back down to us. But that budget, from my standpoint, seems to be excessive. So my recommendation and my motion is to reduce that by $200,000.

The suggested reduction from the General Fund for Administrative Service Expenses for $200,000 has been made by Councilor Kadim. Second. Seconded by Council Vice President Dionne. Is there discussion? Hearing none, will Councilor Seek to? Councilor Kamara.

I just want to say when the corporation comes in front of us, I asked the question, what would happen if we were to cut that amount from what you have it at? And he said it could be very detrimental to the city, so I can't support it. Sorry.

With that, I yield. Thank you, Councilman Seaforth. Council Vice President Dionne.

Yeah, that didn't get full support that night when that was suggested. But when it was suggested that night, it was cutting the entire $700,000. And this is only cutting $200,000. He clearly stated to us that he believes one of those cases will be litigated this year. 500,000 is more than enough to cover that. We kind of were given the impression it was 350,000 per case, but nobody knows. The other one, he said it could, it may not. He doesn't think it will. It might be litigated this year. And he can always come down for an appropriation if that does come to fruition. And he has on more than one occasion stated that anytime he's asked for more money because it's been necessarily to litigate or have outside counsel for a case that the city council has never denied the request. So just my position in terms of that, I think it's a fair request and I yield.

Thank you. Council C2, Council Kamara.

I appreciate my colleagues. recollection of that meeting. I saw a completely different with that idea. Thank you.

Thank you. Anything further on the on the motion on the suggests I think thank you.

Constancy three console can you Yeah, I didn't support the reduction of the 700,000 because that would be detrimental. Giving half a million dollars into this fund to provide plenty of money for him to manage with my colleagues that I don't want to over budget in this area because I don't want to just to be turned over to free cash. If he needs more, he can come back down, explain it to us and I'll fully support that.

Thank you, Councilor. Anything further on the suggested motion, on the suggested reduction? Hearing none, roll call vote, please. Just to be clear, the motion is to reduce from the general fund administrative service expenses by $200,000. Has been made and seconded. Roll call, please.

Councilor Skiddeen?

Yes.

Camara? No. Canual? Yes. Dion? Yes. Hart? No. Peckham? Yes. Pereira? Yes. Raposo? Yes. President Ponte? Yes. Motion carries, seven yays, two nays.

Okay. Consular in seat eight, Consular Raposo first.

Okay, I got a few for myself as well. So if we're gonna go to... Bear with me one second here, please. Make a motion to reduce the financial services salaries by 70,000, which essentially equates to the current vacancy of the financial analyst and compliance manager.

Motion to suggest a reduction in the amount for under financial services from the general fund for financial services salaries in the amount of $70,000 has been made by Councilor Raposo, seconded by Councilor Pereira. Is there discussion? Hearing none, discussion on the motion?

Councilor Cede? And just it goes back to the conversation we had some nights ago that I think there is some plan to changes around anyway so at this point let's let's reduce it and then when if there's gonna be a reorg change in financial services then we'll address that as we need to appropriately I yield understood council in seat six council of Peckham on the motion thank you anything further on the motion only hearing none roll call please yes yes yes yes

Hart.

Yes.

Peckham. Yes. Pereira. Yes. Raposo. Yes. President Ponte.

Yes. Councilman Seed 8, you still have the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. Next up is going to be a motion to reduce Suggested reduction, of course, in community service salaries in the amount of $36,000, and this would be the vacancy currently in the city planning department for the administrative clerk vacancy. Second.

motion to suggest the reduction of thirty six thousand dollars for the purposes of community service for the general fund for community service salaries has been made by consular reposo seconded by consular peckham discussion councilman seat three consular cannula is it thirty six thousand evening or the exact amount thirty six thousand three hundred six dollars and seventy one cents one second counselor you are correct so i'll amend to 36 306 71. what is that position that is the administrative clerk vacancy currently in the city planning department noted uh the the motion is 36 306 71 36 306 dollars and 71 cents thank you very much um constant seat three do you yield yes thank you council c2 consular camara does this council have the ability to reduce the budget Reduce, reject or approve each appropriation order.

Why don't we just reduce it if we want to have them reduce it? Why are we suggesting that they reduce it? Why don't we just reduce it? And we're making recommendations and suggestions that hopefully they'll do it. If we want to really put some teeth into this, why don't we just make the motion to reduce it?

Because the city council currently, I can just, if I may, the reason i believe that a vote occurred is because the city council i think is taking a firm stance and you guys can speak for yourselves uh to have forty thousand dollars for outside council in the city council budget so we can't add thousand dollars this goes away

I mean I'm I'm I've spoke to many of you and I'm believe that is what the council wants and we can't add that item in the city I'm not talking about adding any items I'm talking about we have the ability to reduce the budget we do we're making suggestions to them to reduce it yep if we really want to put some teeth into this and reduce it like we're saying we want to do we can just make that motion and vote on it accordingly and it's reduced and we save the taxpayers the money we want to save them why are we asking suggesting that they reduce it for us we have the ability to reduce correct

We do.

So I'm just curious why we're not just reducing it.

Because we can't add.

We're not adding. No one wants to add.

We do. We have to add $40,000 to the city council budget for outside council. We don't have to add it. We would like to.

Some councils would like it, but that's not a necessity. So if that's the strategy, because we can't add $40,000, we're going to make all these suggestions that they reduce it, then I don't think there's really intent here that the council wants to reduce it. Because if we'd wanted to reduce it, save the taxpayers money, we would just make the motion to reduce it. And then we'd vote on it accordingly and appropriately, and it would be reduced. Done. Once and over again. We would save the taxpayers' money that way. Regardless of what the administration wants to do, we would do it here. We have the ability to do it, but we're not doing it. We're making suggestions. and hopefully you can continue to get the $40,000 that you're trying to get into this budget by making suggestions instead of just reducing it. I get it. I see what's going on. I think it's just good luck with your strategy. With that, I yield.

Thank you, Councilman Sita. Councilor Raposo.

Yeah, I just want to correct my counselor there for a minute. These reductions have nothing to do necessarily directly with that. These are discussions that we've had. Just one at a time. Council City has the floor. Well, you said if that's the strategy, but I'm going to defend myself because I'm making the motions currently that these are reductions that I've written down through the week that we've discussed of things that we don't necessarily need. I'll use the one that we're currently talking about. We had the conversation with Mr. Aguiar. He said he could live without that particular vacancy. So that's...

That's exactly what, okay, you have the floor.

But my point is, is like, we're going through this process and in a sense of collaboration, we're giving the administration, these are the things we're indicating to reduce. You are right. We could surely just make the motions and reduce it. But I will say, at this current moment, we're giving them the opportunity to go back. We've rejected, you know, 99% of the budget. Correct. These are our suggested reductions. Let them go back. And then ultimately, will they answer to those reductions?

Or give you the $40,000.

If I may just be clear on this. Just because we're asking for the $40,000 doesn't mean there is other rejections that will not come from this council.

These would have happened regardless.

Okay. Just making it clear. Maybe I misspoke and I apologize if I did. This isn't like a tit for tat. Like if the city council doesn't get its $40,000, all these reductions go away. I'm not taking that in any way, shape or form as any kind of a compromise. just a point of order sure councilman c5 your point of order that's what i thought you said okay well i apologize if i said that that was not my intention if i misspoke i hope i clarified that okay yep i agree councilman c8 you have the floor still oh yeah i think you just clarified sorry if i misspoke but i want to make that clear counselor in c2 consular camara i guess i'm just i don't know i guess i'm confused as to why if we want to eliminate this position that the planner said

He didn't need. Why don't we just reduce it for $39,000? Is that the amount? What is it?

3630671, sir. 3630671.

So why don't we just say I make the motion and reduce it? 3630671. That's my only question. And then guess what? We vote on it and it gets reduced or it doesn't get reduced. End of story. And we continue on to the next item. And if we sincerely think that that should be reduced, which I agree with some of these, right? So let's just reduce them. Why are we asking them to suggestion that they reduce it? That's all. very, very clear with that idea. Thank you.

Thank you. Council. Let's see one council.

No, so I was just going to clarify too. So it's not one or the other. Uh, from my standpoint, I voted no on the, on the budget because the 40,000 coming into the city council is what I want to see. That's number one. Even with that, the, the recommended recommend recommended cuts that I'm making, I still want to see above and beyond the 40,000 for outside legal coming into council. That's it.

without a yield. Thank you. And by the way, for the record, we could have just rejected this and left. We're trying to be helpful as a council in letting people speak to let the finance team and the administration know where you all stand as individual counselors. We could have just rejected it, adjourned, and would have been done. So, Consulency IV, Council Vice President Dionne.

Yeah, so for my part, yeah, there is no connection between the $40,000 and the reducing dollar amounts in specific line items. It's two separate issues. I believe that there are items that can be reduced. BUT I ALSO REMEMBER IN THE PAST, ONE YEAR WE DID DO THAT. WE DID MAKE REDUCTIONS. WE SENT IT BACK TO THE ADMINISTRATION FOR THOSE REDUCTIONS TO TAKE PLACE. WE SENT THE BUDGET BACK. THEY TURNED AROUND, SENT THE BUDGET BACK TO US WITH NO REDUCTIONS WHATSOEVER. SO FOR ME, I FEEL LIKE IT'S APPROPRIATE TO SAY WHAT WE WANT TO SEE REDUCED, SEND IT TO THEM FOR ACTION, AND THEN IF THEY TAKE NO ACTION, Then we have yet another conversation. If they take action, do I as one council say, okay, well, they reduced this, this, and this, but not that. Maybe I'm okay with that. Yeah, I think it's just more complex than we're making it. I'll go with the majority, how the majority want to proceed. If the majority want to proceed the way we're proceeding, I support it. If the majority say, you know what, he's right, Let's not do it? Okay, I'll support that too. That's my stance, and with that I yield.

Thank you. Anything further on this item? Councilman Cittu.

Just one last remark. I don't want to belittle this and go on and on, but my only comment was if we sincerely want to make reductions to this budget and save taxpayers' monies, we have the ability to do it right now. That's my only comment. I was just trying to make it clear. With that, I yield. Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor. Counselor, I see that you have the floor still for your motions that you suggested reductions on.

The motion was made in second. It's the Madam Clerk, correct?

Madam Clerk, do we vote on that? No. We did not vote on the 36,000.

Not as amended. It should be 36,306.71.

We amended the, you amended your motion. I don't need an amendment motion. We have the record reflected. Thank you. Motion has been made and seconded. Roll call. Councilman, seat three, do you have a question?

Yeah, what is this one specifically?

All right, this is your, the $36,306.71. Madam Clerk, for the record, please.

The motion on the floor was made and seconded as a suggested reduction to the Mayor line item F1 in the amount of $36,306.71. This is for the vacancy in the City Planning Department for the Administrative Clerk position.

Hearing no further discussion, roll call, please. Councils Kadim. Yes.

Camara. Yes. Canual. Yes. Deon. Yes. Hart.

Yes.

Peckham. Yes. Pereira. Yes. Raposo. Yes. President Ponte. Yes.

Council in seat eight.

Yeah, I got a few, sorry. So this is gonna be in community maintenance expenses. So I'll make a motion to reduce E2 general funds for community maintenance expense by $15,000. Particularly, this is a reduction to the other purchase services for $15,000.

$15,000 under community maintenance for the general fund for community maintenance expenses. The suggested $15,000 reduction has been made by Councilor Raposo.

Second.

Seconded by Councilor Kadim. Discussion?

Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Roll call vote, please.

Councilor, what page is that on?

This would be on page 106, other purchase services.

Just a point of clarification, what are the other purchase services? $15,000.

So this was, may I, Mr. President? Of course, Council. This was the discussion that we had with Mr. Hathaway regarding the additional funding that was put in to the budget. He mentioned trailers, for example, what have you. But the rationale here is that FY25 was $42,978. FY26 projected was $41,473. And I feel that $15,000 is a good middle between those numbers that we need to address. Thank you.

Harry Harry no further just as you have another anybody have any other comments on this item or motion to confirm us to see using 15,000 from 68,000.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you madam clerk for the clarification roll call, please.

Councils could be yes. Can you will yes. Yes. No. Pereira?

No.

Raposo? Yes. President Ponte?

Yes.

Motion carries, five yays, three nays.

Next up on the list here, bear with me one second please, I just want to get the right pages and all that good stuff. So make a motion for reduction in community services salaries in the amount of $1,675. This is particular to the position of director of minimum housing because the salary is now going to be out of ordinance. This would be on page 111.

Motion to take under community services salaries. $1,675 has been made by Councilor Raposo. Seconded by Councilor Cagnuol. Is there discussion? Hearing none, roll call.

So that's reducing $1,675 from the minimum housing director position in the budget at $69,175.

$1,675. $1,675. Thank you.

Councilors Kadim?

Yes.

Camara? Yes. Canuel?

Yes.

Deon? Yes. Hart?

No.

Peckham?

Yes.

Pereira? No. Raposo? Yes. President Ponte? Yes. Motion carries, seven yays, two nays.

Make a motion. Let's see.

Madam Clerk, just for clarification, for facilities and community maintenance,

salaries that would be under D1 or E1.

Facilities maintenance is D1.

Thank you. I'll make a motion to reduce from the general fund for facilities salaries in the amount of $104,809.34. This reflects the two vacancies in the facilities department, one for electrician, one for plumber, one that for now six fiscal years has been unfilled and it's unsustainable, doesn't make any sense. Second.

Motion has been made by Consular Raposo and the amount of $104,809.34 has been made by Consular Raposo to suggest the reduction from general funds for facilities salaries as is seconded by Consular Canual. Is there discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

Mr. President, could I have clarification on that amount, please? Absolutely. Could you repeat that number?

Council, just so I'm clear, I have 104809.34.

Yeah, so let me just, I'll announce both of them and then the total. So one position is $54,356, I'm sorry, $54,356.70. The other position of $50,452.64. And if my mathematics is correct, should be $104,809.34. Thank you. Is that good, Mr. Cannell? Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. It is. I got one more. Just bear with me a second. I should have wrote these down. I apologize.

I can get back to you if you'd like. Yeah, sorry. I'm looking for the page in Florida. I'm missing it. I'll put it back. I yield. Thank you. Consul in C6, Consul of Peckham.

Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to reduce from the general fund facility salaries the director of city operations $144,200. I'd like to reduce it by 70%. It's a savings of $100,940. The reason for that is the reorg, and I don't know how long that position, if it's going to be filled, and I'd like to leave 30% until they figure out that reorg and move that individual to wherever they're moving them.

All right, so what is the actual cut that you're suggesting, amount-wise?

I'm sorry? Director of City Operations. So the cut would be $100,940.

You want to reduce that amount? Yes, sir. By how much? By $100,940. That'll bring it to 70%. You got that number, Madam Clark?

$1,949. $100,000. $100,000. Consular? $100,940. $70,000.

for the Director of City Operations. Yes, ma'am.