City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. so so

june 2nd 2026 lowell city council meeting come to order city prayer dear god today as this session opens we pray that your presence will be before us and everyone who serves in the decision-making process of our city we pray for direction which will lead our city to be strong and unified may we continue the legacy of our founders may we be granted this day the wisdom to make decisions which will be for the good of our city We also pray for your special blessing on all those who are working to transform our city and make it a better place to live and work. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Council Rourke.

Here.

Council Scott. Council Chau.

Here.

Council DeCoto.

Here.

Mayor Gitche.

Here.

Council Duran. Council Leang. Here. Council McDonough.

Here.

Council Mercier. Here. Council Noon. Here. Council Robinson. Here. I am present.

Thank you. Any moment of silence. You all set?

City Council, Marcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This evening, I have a moment of silence and docking chamber for Margaret M. Peggy Ryan. I'd like to offer a moment of silence and dock in chamber for Margaret M. Ryan, beloved wife, mother, grandmother. Peggy was a resident of the Belvedere section of Lowell. She attended the Immaculate Conception School keith hall and graduated from lowell state teachers college in 1959 peggy was a dedicated educator throughout her life and worked in lowell public schools as a teacher for over 40 years peggy was the wife of edward ted ryan who passed away in 2022 peggy was deeply loyal to her husband ted her sons edward ed ryan Terrence Ryan, our City of Lowell parking director, and her five grandchildren, as well as her lifelong friends in Lowell. we offer our condolences to her family relatives and her many friends i'd also like to offer a moment of silence and docking chamber to all those who passed away since our last city council meeting may they all rest in peace amen thank you

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, I also have one. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to have a moment in the darkened chambers for Julia Judy Feely, who passed away on Sunday, May 17th. Born on September 6th, 1931 in Lowell, Massachusetts, she was the daughter of the late William F. Brooks and Ellen Hovey Brooks. She was also the beloved wife of the late Paul Feely. Judy was a graduate of Lowell High School, class of 1948, and was a longtime parishioner of St. Margaret's church in Lowell, and prior to that at the former Sacred Heart and St. Peter's churches in Lowell. She worked for almost 40 years as a bookkeeper for Rosenblooms. Judy enjoyed staying active and especially loved going to the gym at SLS Fitness, and she wore her SLS apparel with great pride. She also enjoyed games of all kinds and was always eager to participate in family activities, including baseball, bowling, and cornhole. Most of all, she cherished time spent with her family and friends. Thursday night dinners with her children and grandchildren were the highlight of everyone's week. And her Thanksgiving Christmas dinners, potato salad, spaghetti sauce, chocolate cream pie, and many other classics were legendary and might be imitated but never equaled. Judy Nana Feely was the undisputed matriarch of her family. She was the glue that held the family together. She was the one who made sure we were all okay. She was survived by her four sons, Paul Feely and his wife, Lisa of Lowell, William Feely of Lowell, David Feely and his wife, Estella of California, Robert Feely and his wife, Christina of Chester, and her daughter, Deborah Feely Houston of Lowell. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Seeing no one else, if we could please darken the chambers. 2.1 mayor's business communication remote zoom participation motion to accept and place on file by council of noon seconded by council of durand all in favor signify by saying aye any opposed so ordered three unfinished business 3.1 general public hearings the following general public hearings were continued from city council meet regular meeting fy 2027 budget hearing may 26 2026 to june 2nd 2026 at 6 pm per council vote for general public hearings 4.1 fy 2027 budget approval appropriation order continue the hearing we're going to continue with the law department which would be page 406 Law, personal services, $1,504,837. Law, ordinary expenses, $1,312,522. Councilor Noon. Mr. Mayor, move to approve. Move to approve by Councilor Noon, seconded by Councilor Rook. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, roll call, Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Rook. Yes. yes council scott council chow yes council dakoto yes mayor gitche yes council duran yes council liang yes council mcdonough yes council mercia yes council noon yes council robinson yes 11 years 11 years motion passed

Next would be elections, page 259. Elections, personal services, $525,209. Elections, ordinary expenses, $93,712. Motion to approve by Council Rourke, seconded by Councilor Scott. Councilor McDonough.

I just have one question about the voting machine supplies. It's up $30,000. I'm assuming this is a somewhat annual expense, meaning not yearly it's the same, but probably every four to five years are we spending a decent amount of money on the voting machine supplies? Looks like we usually, we spent, we budgeted 14,000 and change last year up to 44,000 this year.

Mr. Rosenberry?

So this is actually an annual software licensing fee and annual maintenance on our tabulators as well as our tabulation software equipment that we have in our high-speed tabulator. Unfortunately, I think it was maybe due to the shuffle between moving this office from law to clerk. It didn't make it in the budget last year for the appropriation. We were able to work with the vendor and pay that out of free cash later in the year. But going forward, we're hopeful to get those full licensing fees for our voting equipment in the budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor McDonough. Any other questions? Vice Mayor Noon, if you would come up here for a minute. I just have a quick question.

Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Through you to Manager Golden. Is this department one of the ones that have taken on a upper funded position now into the general fund? Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Through you to the council, yes.

Do you know which other departments besides MIS and this one have done that?

Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. There's one in DPD. There's one in elections. And I'll have to get back to you. I know there's one more. Hold on one sec. Mr. Vice Mayor, to your question, Mr. Mayor, it's one in DPD, one in elections, and then just MIS. Everybody else was either absorbed in last fiscal year or is currently either being laid off or whatever the case may be with those positions.

Thank you. Mr. Vice Mayor. Are there any other questions?

We'll move for approval, Mr. Mayor. Already been.

Roll call.

Council Rourke? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto? Yes. Mayor Gitche?

No.

Council Duran? Yes. Council Liang? Yes. Council McDonough? Present. Council Mercier? Yes. Council Noon?

Yes.

Council Robinson? Yes.

nine years motion passes next one is page 419 planning and development personal services four million fifty one thousand three hundred and twenty seven dollars planning and development ordinary expenses two hundred and forty seven thousand eight hundred and eighty six dollars move approval by councillor mercier seconded by council liang I'm sorry, Councilor Duran. Councilor Duran. Okay. Council Leung.

This is page 419, right?

419, yes. 419, yes.

Can you explain a little bit the, I think it's transportation monthly allowance? And yeah, transportation money allowance and what that is.

Assistant City Manager Baez-Rose.

Sure. So in the contract for all of the inspectors, there's a set amount that they're due for the fact that they use their own personal vehicles for all of the travel necessary for their jobs day in and day out. And so there's a reimbursement factored into the contracts that allow them to get reimbursed for the Their transportation, their daily transportation for work.

So that's different from the transportation reimbursement in seminar?

Yes, that is different. Oh, sorry. Yes, that is different. So that is if somebody has to travel to a conference in Western Mass or something like that, they could get reimbursed, which is different than just the day-to-day travel for their daily inspection work.

Thank you.

All set, Councilor Yang?

Yeah, I'm all set. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Durant.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. My apologies to everybody for being late today. At last week's session, several folks spoke about the role of the historic board administrator, and I wanted to just understand how the city will respond to the needs that we have apparently under things like the jam plan and other perhaps federal obligations without

that that position being filled so just curious what we are going to do and how we're going to live up to our obligations thank you assistant city manager sure thank you through the mayor um yeah we have land use staff that that works for the city now it had been a team of four it is now down to a team of three um the land use staff that exists will be expected to absorb the continued administration of the historic board You know, there's a meeting scheduled next week. Work continues. Permits are already being approved. We met with the chair and vice chair of the historic board to talk them through kind of what the plan is and how it will be staffed, provided a memo. to them to share with the board members essentially and the plan will be that the historic board will be staffed similarly to how our other boards are staffed on a rotating basis with the existing land use board team that we have.

And the reaction from the Historic Board in light of, again, what we've understood in terms of their particular relationship in terms of either approving the administrator or whatever, I wanted to just understand how they've reacted.

Through the mayor. Change is hard. And so I think it's an adjustment period for everybody on both sides. I think the conversation went really well. I think they have an understanding of how we plan to move this forward. I do think staff administration across all boards having consistency across the boards makes a lot of sense. And so the folks that we have are very well equipped on administering. We will rely on expertise that we have on the historic board itself and also seek out additional outside help as needed. But day-to-day functionality is not something that we're going to suffer. Like I said, permits are already being approved for administrative things. you know, the administration of the board itself will continue. I think the conversation that we had with the chair and the vice chair went well. We are having our first meeting next Monday, on the 8th, whenever that is. I think it's Monday. And so, you know, I think it'll be an adjustment period on both sides, but work continues.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Jermaine. Councilor McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm having a hard time with this one because I don't even know if I have a question or if I just really want to express my profound disappointment in the cutting of the historic board administrator. I guess the question I'll start with is, Mr. Mayor, through you to the manager or whoever can best answer this, how long has this historic board administrator position existed in the city of Lowell?

Assistant City Manager Baez-Rose.

I think since 1994, maybe sooner than that.

That'd be 32 years.

That's that long ago now, huh? I'm not 12? Are you? Look, I have to be a little bit funny every now and then. OK, I'm going to go back. At least 32 years. I know I've seen numbers get thrown out that are older than that, but I can live with 32 years is still a very long time. i have a very very hard time as somebody who represents one of the historic districts with not a lot of other and someone can come and say well there's still the planning board and there's still the okay sure there are a few other land use boards but but the one of the primary ways that the downtown and parts of the acre are the review, the oversight is by the historic board and through the historic board administrator. I also think that I know I received, I'm sure we all received, but I received a number of emails and letters and phone calls from property developers across the state who do business in the city of Lowell. And I mean, to see that much support from developers who presumably are getting hung up by all of these rules, it really tells me that the position seems to have really mattered to more than just people that live here, more than just people that visit, but also to people that were doing or have been doing business in Lowell. I think that the historic district, the historic buildings and the the aesthetic the quality of life everything that goes with it is really tied to this position um outside of any individual person in the role and i personally i i i will throw my one vote into the into the no pile i i can't support this particular department's budget without a historic board administrator and i also won't be able to support the entire budget and that's one vote that's all i got thank you thank you council mcdonough council of noon

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I share my colleague, you know, worry and urge. You know, we have speakers spoke and those who sign in letter, are sending letter or even through email or letter to us and supporting This position is three decades of experience and knowledge. It's not an easy thing to part way with, especially when you do need this position in the development of downtown, the Hampton Canal District and the Acre. Look, I will support this, however, I urge the managers to make plan to invite this position back because if you looked at it, historical board get fee that account for a special revenue, right? Three-fourth of that could pay for this position already. Three-fourths of this could pay for this position already. And this position is needed. It's needed in the historical board. You can't tell me that you're going to have a senior planner to substitute this position that's been around for three decades. Everyone spoke highly of this position, the need for this position, of all the renovation development that happened in this city. You know, we should be the one who say no to this position is the developer, but the developer embraced this person is right there. We need this position. We talk about ABBA. Mr Mayor, this position need more than ABBA. So I will support this. budget right here at the PD, but I do urge you, Mr. Manager, to make plan to bring this position back, giving that three-thirds of this position is paid for by historical board fee. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Noon, Councilor Robinson.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. After going through this department, again, based on what we've talked about for the past four plus years, one of the things I see cut is code enforcement. I mean, we have more than we can keep up with as is, and we're constantly getting complaints and concerns about issues in the community. And they've been addressing it. We've made tremendous progress. Between that and the historic board member being cut from this department, I'd like to make a motion to cut $153,285 from the bottom line on this department.

Motion by Councillor Robinson to cut $153,285 FROM THE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT BOTTOM LINE. IS THERE A SECOND? SECOND BY COUNSELOR MCDONOUGH. ANYBODY ON THIS? WHAT WAS THE TOTAL OF THE MONTH? $153,285. I WANT TO DO A ROLL CALL. BEFORE THE ROLL CALL, COUNSELOR

Thank you very much. I was trying to understand the rationale for cutting further from the budget in light of the losses there. So maybe Councillor Robinson could fill us in as to why the motion is being made.

Councillor Robinson.

Thank you, Mister Mayor. If we look at it, the historic board member that was cut dealt with our development and our construction community as well as the public. If we look at a code enforcement, they're out there in the community issuing fines where need be and working to correct issues that neighborhoods deal with on a daily basis. I see in the budget we have a vacancy, $78,000 funded. There's one cut. with no impact mind you to service in that position because it's a vacant position in addition i see we have through economic development and everybody that's been working tirelessly with our downtown economic development special uh we have plenty of economic development positions that that weathered this storm and we need it we need more than what we currently have but i think there are other positions that we can get by without and that it's just my own personal thinking, and I'm not going to sit here and point out individual positions, but I think with that cut, we could still function and provide the services that we're responsible to do and potentially give the administration an opportunity to look at the priorities of what the public and the council have been saying to try to bring back a position or two in this area. Thank you.

Councilor Duran. um well thank you for the answer i'm not sure i understand it better but thank you thank you

council mercy would it be on the cut or do you want to talk on the budget piece first because well close the cut I want to talk about this vote that we're going to take a roll call on we just had four city councilists say and and we know that we can't add to the budget we can't bring people back that isn't our purpose and we can't do it we have to follow the rules but we can Express our feeling and that's what I'm trying to do because I had so many developers call me I had people that were just so upset to think that someone of historic value and knowledge was let go but I'll tell And I think he worked 30 years, for God's sakes. It's a shame that someone puts their life into the city and they're gone. Bye, see you later. Having said that, I thought Lowell was a historic city. Of course, we might have someone else that could take his place. I'm not irreplaceable either. I want to think that I am, but I'm not. But the fact is, four city council has said oh i'd like to uh he's a great man and now we want to cut 153 000 from the bottom line i don't see the parallel i i don't understand that that don't make sense to me so i won't be supporting that cut 153 000 now

council of dakota was this on the 153 000 cut or on the department itself on the department itself so can i go to council absolutely thank you mr mayor i i think one i'll say i seconded the motion mostly to hear what councillor robinson had to say about where this cut was going to come from and after hearing it i have a better idea and i think to that i would say that it's we we can cut from the budget we can't add we can suggest and request and be upset but we can't write anything in ourselves i think that the entire city budget as well as each department's budget is a matter of choice making and priorities and i agree with i think that the spirit of this motion motion which is you know We can't add the position, but we are also looking at a 4.6-something percent rate increase. I think it's irresponsible for us as a council to be asking for positions to go back in now or at a later date without freeing up some of the money, if not more than the money, that would cover those positions. So obviously, I guess I will be supporting this. And I also would, I guess, encourage everyone to try and I guess that's how I'm thinking about it. So I'm just trying to explain my thinking a little bit here. So thank you.

Just for a point of preference. If you cut, you're cutting the bottom line of the budget. You're not cutting. So it's not something that could be added in because of a cut. So I just want to make that clear is if you're cutting a number, it can't be added in. Mr. Manager, quick question. Council Robinson highlighted $153,285. Would that be something you would look at to put this position back in? Is that a place you would look at?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. That's something that we can't do because, as you just stated, it cuts it from the bottom line.

If it was left there without a cut.

We believe we have. a ways and an opportunity to do this and i've made that very clear to the people uh outside of the chamber that we are trying to get this back and so obviously this has been an extremely difficult year nobody wants to see anybody get cut let alone myself but there is a way to solve this problem and i've committed to some of the councils who have taken the time to call me and ask these questions. But I think I can actually stay committed to this to make this happen if we move forward with the discussions back and forth. I hope that helps.

Yeah, my hope is that we do this in open session and not from phone calls. And I think that that's the important piece is the public understands where we're going with this. So you're saying that if there's no cuts within this, there may be a way of doing this, but if the cuts are in there, it would be extremely hard to do this. Is that what I'm hearing? Within this department?

Mr. Mayor, through you to the council, it would make it a lot easier, but I don't want to take the council's ability away to cut a portion of the budget. It would make it easier to bring some of this back in the future.

Thank you.

The conversations, quite frankly, just with any, I didn't mean to, but the councilors do call, everyone does call, and I think it's extremely important that the constituents in the community stay involved. I've received the same phone calls and but hearing from council is extremely important is just as important from from the people live in the city about how important this stuff is I do appreciate the phone calls that come from council is because they're listening directly to the people and I think that's how this is supposed to work.

Thank you, you'll set. Also Dakota.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Since we all heard about the layoffs, I received 53 texts, emails, or voicemails, and two-thirds of those phone calls were concerning the historic board administrator. I guess my question is to the assistant city manager. That department is now down to three people. It is your contention that we will have no hiccups at all in this because I am in learning and speaking with other people about this position that the person who was handling it, his workload was quite extensive. So I'd like to hear it from you on what your thoughts are.

Assistant City Manager Baez-Rosa.

so we have a number of boards that the land use board staff manage zoning planning conservation commission community preservation council and historic board and we had one staff member that did one board and three staff members that were doing the rest and so Cuts are not easy to make. And I had to make some difficult decisions. And one of the decisions that was made was that we were looking for staff that could kind of cover a lot of bases. With limited capacity, you need people that can cover a lot of bases. And having specialists when things are flowing well and money is not tight is an okay thing. But when things need to get sort of reduced further, I need people that can cover a lot of bases. I think one thing that's important about the historic board process is that it is one step in the development process. It is very rare for people to go to the historic board and go straight to a permit for major development. For minor development, that is done at the administrative level, and that is a staff person that can handle those things. But generally speaking, for large projects, people are going to the historic board first And then we'll continue on to the other board. So if I lost staff capacity on the other side, the impact would sort of be very similar to the development community. And so is there going to be impact? I think any department that lost staff is going to feel some impact. But I think that we have the ability with the staff that we have to manage the projects that are coming in. And I feel strongly that we've got a good team, that we have a plan in place for how to address this. And if we lost a staff member that was doing, you know, the other land use boards, then the planning board would take that much longer to get through. And so it's not... If I didn't have to get any cuts, that would have been great for the department. But that wasn't the reality of the budget that I was asked to put together for the department. And so in the space of needing to make cuts, I tried to spread them out across all of the teams that work in the planning department. If you look at our cuts, I think maybe economic development was the only team that was didn't have our position zeroed out. And so none of this is ideal. I think we have a plan in place. I will not say that there is going to be no impact. I think that would be naive. But I think that we have a good plan in place, and we have good staff, and we have the capacity to continue moving projects forward. And I think as far as we're concerned, the work continues. There has been no delay in historic board sort of administration. We've got a meeting with a full agenda on Monday.

Okay.

Obviously, it's a concern of myself and my colleagues and the public that are here. I know Mr. Arcella and Mr. Foss spoke eloquently last week about that position. But we do have quite a few projects coming down the road, and I'm glad to hear your response. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Councilor DeCotto. Councilor Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My comment is on the motion that's on the floor as far as doing the additional cuts. I just don't understand the rationale for it either to make additional cuts when we're trying to bring positions back within this department. the budget was brought forward to us as a reflection of what the department head saw as priorities um so cutting additional funds from that to me puts her further in the hole to be able to bring positions back you know she might want to bring back the two positions that end up getting cut from the 150 something thousand before we could ever bring back the historic position um so i just don't understand the rationale of it so i won't be supporting it thank you council mercy

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm just telling you that some time ago, we had the doors open in the city of Lowell. And people were very interested in the structures and the history of the different places that they visited. And we and the Bridge Club opened up and took part of the doors open on Pawtucket Street. and not knowing that much about the building our director went to the city and asked steve stowell could you help us with that he was amazing and when i told the director that he is no longer working for the city i thought i'd have to call an ambulance he was just beside himself I also want to thank the library director for being there all day long. Thank you so much for all your efforts to help us. She knew the history as well. So I just want to say he made a big impact on a lot of people. I'm going to tell you. And to cut 153,000 from the bottom line, I didn't know the manager was Houdini. But anyway, good luck.

Thank you, Council. Marcia, Council Robinson.

Thank you. I appreciate my colleagues' comments, you know, listen to this, and again, it's I agree in 90% of it, but something that really stands out is, yes, the budget is presented to us as the department head's priorities, as well as the administration sees it and tries to reflect on what they think the priorities are. But where are the priorities from the public and the counselors that are fielding these calls, as was mentioned earlier? We had endless people speaking up about the historic person that was cut. I'd say that's a public priority. In addition, one of the main reasons I also brought this proposed cut forward is, in Centerville, especially in my district, and I'm sure many other councilors feel this way. Code enforcement has been the major driver to improvements in our neighborhoods, whether it's disorderly homes, whether it's the rodent situation that we deal with in the dense portions of our neighborhood, whether it's trash. All of these things, when they do the neighborhood walks, we all get the reports. That's code enforcement right there. When there's porches that people are partying on that are failing, code enforcement catches that and prevents tragedies. Code enforcement's job is combined in so many areas, and we all benefit. Code enforcement makes all of us look good, as well as protects and keeps the residents, especially in the densely populated neighborhoods, safe and in a somewhat quality of life condition. BECAUSE THAT'S WHO YOU'RE CALLING WHEN THERE'S RUBBISH, DEBRIS, EVEN BROKEN RECYCLING, AND I'M SURE THEY FEEL A LOT OF THAT. WHEN WE HAVE SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT UNITS THAT HAVE PRIVATE DUMPSTERS, CODE ENFORCEMENT COMES OUT THERE AND ENFORCES IT. SO CODE ENFORCEMENT IS VITAL TO DENSE PORTIONS OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD. THAT'S WHY I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO WITHDRAW MY PROPOSED CUTS, BUT I REALLY WANT TO EMPHASIZE I'M REALLY PRIORITIZING AND I HOPE THERE'S A WAY TO WORK BACK AND REINSTATE WHATEVER WAY THAT LOOKS LIKE CODE ENFORCEMENT IS SOMETHING THAT I THINK THIS CITY WITH MORE POTENTIAL UNITS COMING ONLINE HOW CAN WE TURN AWAY FROM CODE ENFORCEMENT AND I GET IT BUT AGAIN IF A BUDGET'S A REFLECTION OF PRIORITIES I think loud and clear we've heard from the public as well as a lot of the neighborhoods that are dense and populated that code enforcement and the historic piece are the public's priorities it might make it more difficult and more challenging in a department where someone has to do double duties but I don't see someone working inside doing turning the tools and doing the tasks they do going outside to enforce ordinances for code enforcement so I think that's something and I'd like to make that motion to withdraw those proposed cuts motion by Council no you don't need a motion you're withdrawing your motion and Councilor McDonough are you okay withdraw withdraw on the second so the motion has been withdrawn Vice Mayor Noon would you come up for a minute absolutely

Mr. Mayor, the floor is yours.

Thank you. I wish we were in the same place as we were last week when we had a piece of paper that told us the firefighters were coming back with this position also because it would be very easy to support this. But we don't have that, and I'm not understanding why we don't have that. I'm sitting here and we've had discussions and we know there's areas we certainly could have done the same thing we did with the fire department and brought back where we were going to reduce and where these things are coming from so that we all can be part of this. I don't have that so I won't be supporting this because this budget has still opera funded positions That's got switched over to the general fund and we've talked about this for four years How this was going to be a cost that we can't absorb and then we just cut a position that we need as the council said But we took on opera positions in this budget So I think that as we look at it, hopefully we all understand if we can come back for one department, I wish Mr. Stoll was up here telling us of the great meeting he had with the manager and how historic buildings in the city meant a lot. And that's why we're back in this stage. But I guess that that didn't happen. And here we are tonight without that supplemental piece. If we're going to treat one group of employees a certain way, we should treat them all the same way. And that's just my opinion. And I won't support this part of the budget based off of the opposition's going over. I didn't support MIS for that reason. And I didn't support the other elections for that reason. And I won't support this for that reason because we talked about taking one-time funds and creating continual costs in that end. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. As you heading to back here. Okay, Councilor Scott, all set. Mr. Mayor, it's all yours.

Are there any other questions? Mr. McDonough?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I understand the points that were made about the proposed cuts. I also understand that we cannot directly add a position to the budget. I also understand that, as several of you have now said, there was a tremendous public outcry around this position, as well as a few other places in the budget. And I would just say that we're nowhere near the end of this month. We're nowhere near the end of this month. Mr. Mayor, we are under no obligation to pass DPD's version of a budget that is missing positions that we would want to see in a budget that we support. We might not be able to put it there, but we don't have to vote yes on the budget this uh on this department's budget mr mayor i i guess that's all i'm saying and i've heard several colleagues say that they you know there's a sentiment that we can support it with an urging that hopefully we get something back but i i think when we have almost a month left i think we can afford to not approve dpd's budget tonight so thank you council newton and council scott

Oh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, look, I wish the managers and his team has a supplemental budget, just like he did with the firefighter. But I support it because trust. I trust that you see the need for this position as all of us sitting here and those who are written to us either through email, text, or even call us about the importance of some of this position, particularly this one position that's been around for three decades. That individual has the institutional, experience knowledge and all that and have done and went out of his way to help developers and others to meet the need of historical what's important for the city so i do vote i'm going to vote just on this because i put trust on the manager and his team to do his utmost to invite this position back thank you

Thank you, Council Noon. Council Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm actually a little bit confused over the comments about how there should have been a supplemental budget here this evening like there was for the firefighters. The firefighters, obviously, there was a legal case as well involved with that. There was a lot of public support. On this particular position, I have received emails, I've received calls, just like I have on the senior center, on other positions that haven't been included in the budget. um and I guess my thing is why we think this would be the necessarily the priority position to bring back um I have a lot of concerns over positions that aren't in the budget around the library um you know around the senior center position so I guess that's just not a fair thing that it's almost to me every position that we lost was very important so I'm not really sure about the prioritization that's happening on the council floor right now so thank you

Council Scott I can answer that it came from the manager saying he received calls from all of Council from councillors, and it became a prior. That's why I said what I said I Agree with you there are many of people in this budget the same way And I feel for every single one of them whether it's a veteran's office whether it's the treasurer's office Whether it's this position I agree with you council juror Thank You mr. Mayor

Oh, sorry. I was trying to understand better the timing issue, just so it's clear in my head that Councilor McDonough raised. I'm assuming we should not be voting on the budget on June 30th, which is two meetings from now. So trying to understand what our timing you know, what our deadlines really are. I mean, it would be just helpful to for the whole, you know, for me to know and maybe for others to know. Thank you. CFO Baldwin.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll try to give a broad overview and please, Mr. Solicitor, if I miss anything, correct me. But the statute requires for a budget that in a planning form of government, the city manager deliver a balanced budget to the council within 170 days of the annual organization of the council. That happened, and the council accepted the budget, which satisfies the chief executive, the city manager, and a planning form of government's responsibility under the statute. Once it is delivered to the council, it belongs to the council. We have the hearings. There is a 45-day clock that starts ticking after the council accepts it, within which the council must approve, reject, or reduce the budget. And so I suppose I don't necessarily know in each individual line item whether it applies to each one. I would consider the budget as a whole. But perhaps we could look into that further. Something like this has not happened in my experience here. So there's a 40, I guess to tighten that up, 45 days is the window within which the council must act on the budget under the statute.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Joann. Councillor Liang.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is really, I guess, tough of all the position that being lost. Also, the budget, I mean, I asked a lot of questions just because it's not transparent enough. I DO UNDERSTAND THERE'S A LOT OF LINE ITEM HERE THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXPLAINED PROBABLY BETTER AND IN WRITING. MY QUESTION ALSO IS TO THE CITY MANAGER. ONCE THE BUDGET IS APPROVED, HOW MUCH LEEWAY DO YOU HAVE IN TERMS OF MOVING FUND AROUND? FOR EXAMPLE, I USED TO APPLY FOR THE FEDERAL GRANTS. ANYTHING UNDER 25%, YOU DON'T NEED AN EXTRA APPROVAL FROM THE GOVERNMENT OR FROM THE GRANTORS. In this case, I don't know much about the city budget, but I'm asking is that if it's approved, let's say this department or other department, there's a two piece to this question. One is that can the department heads move the fund around if it's unspent? Or whether it's, let's say there's a need in another line item. So is that possible also within the entire city budget for the city managers to, let's say, move from line item A to line item B, but as long as it's not over the approved budget line?

Manager Golden? CFO Baldwin?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, if I may. Those are very good questions, and I'll offer some answers to them, but some further sort of guidance on how the city operates. So the funds that are appropriated per department After they are appropriated by the council, they belong to the department head. So on the appropriation order, there are two categories for each department. Personal services, which is the category we use for all types of salaries and wages, and then ordinary expenses, which is everything else. So the funds on the appropriation order are broken up by each department within those two categories. within those categories departments have flexibility to transfer funds without a vote of the council so if a department wanted to transfer for example funds from a salary and wages permanent salaries for full-time employees to a temporary account that doesn't require a vote of the council because it's all appropriated under personal services on the other side ordinary expenses uh if if the department head wanted to i'm looking at the chief of police wanted to transfer from police cars to repair and maintenance of vehicles that would be something that they could do as an internal transfer the department head signs it they send it to myself and mr ball we sign it it gets forwarded to the auditor she enters it into the MUNA system. So there is that flexibility there that exists throughout the year. To transfer between one of those lines, between departments, an intra-departmental transfer, or to transfer between departments, an inter-departmental transfer, would require a vote of the council, but we do those with some regularity throughout the year. So if there's For example, in the police department, again, just because I'm looking at you, Chief, if there are a number of officers that were unable to hire in the first half of the year, we expect there to be a certain surplus available. We could calculate, verify with the auditor, and then present a transfer to the council so that those funds could either be used by the police department for ordinary expenses or for another department so that they could use them for whatever the need may be. To your question about other funding sources, whether they be grants or et cetera, each time a department is awarded a grant, it comes before the council with a vote to apply, accept, expend. Those are on the agenda with some frequency. Those funds are appropriated and accounted for in special revenue funds, so they live Outside of the general fund and the main operating fund, typically, unless the grant allows for it, you can't use it for, and I'm painting with a very broad brush right now because every grant has its own rules and requirements. Sometimes they would allow you to, if it's unspent, to use it on something else. Most of them require, if it's unspent, for you to send them back to the granting agency.

so those are some of the ins and outs of the sort of annual fiscal cycle i hope that addresses some of your questions but i'm happy to expand thank you um so within a department the department head can just move the fun around let's say just take out the personnel uh anything else within that would they the department head can just you know do as he wish in terms of like what's needed within inside that department

As long as they're within that statutory classification of personal services to personal services or ordinary expenses to ordinary expenses, then the answer to your question is yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Lee and Council Chow.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to make a brief comment before we take the vote. And I want to thank Councilor Duran for bringing up the conversation about the historic board administrator. It's a very important conversation. I, too, just want to throw in my support for this position. From my understanding, that is a unique position, I think, as the Assistant City Manager mentioned, there is a line, there's a process of multiple departments before they come to conclusion, but I think as we all know, a person with that type of skill set, that unique knowledge, there might be things that other personnel might not be able to catch, and there's so many more. much more important projects coming in the future. When we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars and two billions of dollars potentially from the frontrunner city, definitely we need somebody who can move the project forward with confidence and would have a lot of trust. I want to thank the city manager for having the opportunity to explain to us. We did talk to the councillors on the telephone or in person and with the constituents to see what the best path is after making decisions. As we all know, the budget and the conversation and meetings are very, very fluid. A lot of things can happen, a lot of decisions, a lot of information could come up last minute during the meeting and so forth. So just like the firefighters negotiation process and time frame, sometimes you just need a little bit more time to talk and to think or to get a second, third, or maybe a tenth opinion. Having heard what the city manager mentioned, I do believe that the time provided will come to know that The administration and the city, we do need somebody like that, a person with that expertise in this position. And as of now, I will support the budget for the department because I do believe that we all understand now how important, how unique that position is. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor Chow. Seeing no other questions, roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Council Rourke? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto?

Yes.

Mayor Gitche?

No.

Council Duran? Yes. Council Liang? No. Council McDonough?

No.

Council Mercier? Yes. Council Noon? Yes. Council Robinson? Yes.

Eight yays. Eight yays. Motion passes. Page 451, police. Personal services, $35,356,876. Police ordinary expenses, $1,909,662. Motion to accept by Councilor Decoto, seconded by Councilor Chau. Any comments? Councilor Noon.

thank you mr mayor i um i think you know cutting uh position is a difficult thing for any department head and of course the manager um you know we have a difficult year this year but i saw a cut in one of the position in the police department and you know that is a police department a revolving door when you have victims and families of either domestic violence, sexual assault, and other crimes that come through the police department and sometimes come in and need assistance. The police department do have a family division that we have a title called Director of Family Service or Victim Service. Before they get to court, before they go to the district attorney office and having an immediate, you know, more like a first responder to assist family, especially when the position happened to be that the individual carried those position happened to be. a bilingual, fluent in both language, and not just working in that department as director of victim service, but also out there in the community and building the relationship, a bridge between the law enforcement and the community, particularly the minority community. And this position does not, oftentimes it can get grand for this position. However, this position was one of the position that was cut. I know we can, I cannot, I'm just expressing because the community talk about it. That's our priority. Our priority is to help and work bridging the culture and the gap, the family and community, building the trust with the law enforcement community, particularly with the minority community. I would. I would support this budget. I would again urge, strongly urge the manager to find way to invite this position back. Because why else would we do translation material that's important to the community so the community have access, understand what's going on in this city? Meanwhile, we go on the other end. Yes, I understand a difficult time. Believe me, I do. But I would urge that this position stand alone. One of those bridge, taking it out is not going to help. Building those bridge that already been built, strengthening it, not just build it, strengthen that. Again, I strongly urge the managers and the administrations to find ways to invite this position back. Thank you.

Thank you council and new council Robinson.

Thank you, Mister mayor through you to Mister manager or maybe the chief I'm just curious as far as staffing levels because again I see we have budgeted vacancies and I understand how difficult I see we have about a quarter of a million they get it budgeted begin dispatches and I know that's a tough tough position that takes training and everything we up to speed have any of those vacancies been filled since this was reported out

Superintendent Huron. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council, for the question. As far as the positions, the vacant positions in dispatch, we are actually, I believe our last position is being filled on Monday. So that's one of the areas that is vital to our organization, and it just takes time sometimes to get through the hiring process.

I totally understand. And then I just also have another question. I noticed we have three vacant police officer positions fully funded, and is that coming through the academy, or where are we on those?

So our actual number right now is approximately 220. We have about actual 10 vacancies right now, and we have five currently in the police academy. I'm also anticipating additional retirements this year, which will strain us a little bit, and we'll have to work with the administration to see if we can get another class coming this year. hopefully as soon as October, getting another class of officers, hopefully in the range of 10 officers to keep up with that attrition and be in that sweet spot about staffing, which will help our sick time and our vacation time and our overtime.

GREATLY APPRECIATED AND I JUST LIKE TO SAY I I THINK WITH THIS PLANNING AND REALLY HOLDING THE LINE ON STAFFING LEVELS IN THE PD I I THINK WE NEED TO MOVE TOWARDS THAT DIRECTION AND TRY TO DO SOMETHING SIMILAR MOVING FORWARD WITH THE FIRE DEPARTMENT AS WELL UM SHOOT FOR THAT NUMBER AND TRY TO DO WHATEVER WE HAVE TO DO TO HOLD THAT LINE I THINK we see it helps it definitely helps offset the unfunded mandates or liabilities that come along with the overtime so if we can start working in that direction in other departments I think that'd be great thank you manager Golden there's plenty of counselors before him so Council McDonough Council McDonough

you mr mayor i tried to give it back i did i don't know if l2c caught it um i agree with my colleague on the victim services position where i where i think i disagree is with where we're going to go next um at the last meeting uh one of the my colleagues said if we want no layoffs why don't we just do a eight eight and a half percent Tax hike and and I actually I don't agree. I don't want to go to an eight and a half percent rate hike But I agree with the sentiment and I'm having a difficult time And this is not the first department that's happened then with this idea that you know, we can approve the whole budget But also, you know, we really want all of these positions to come back and then we're gonna just find money Later, I think that happened last Tuesday night $700,000 is added to the bottom line and I appreciate you know looking at a different projection for state aid but that even if all of that money materializes, if my math is working, that's spent pretty much entirely at the fire department. So as we continue to look at departments, and the council wants to continue to approve the budget with this hope that we're going to add positions back, my fear is it's not a lack of trust in the manager's ability to add a position back. I fully believe that if we're told a position's coming back, it's coming back. My concern is that we're already looking at a 4.6% projected rate increase. And without further cuts and just continuing to improve on what the position will come back later, we're just compounding the problem we're just kicking a can down the road and that's really where my problem is so that that's all i have to say i i just i that's it council mcdonough you better hope that it doesn't go from five percent to four percent in your state tax council yang

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I agree with my colleague about the Director of Victim Services, and I hope there should be a way to work that out. I mean, the overtime from last year and this year remains the same. So I'm assuming not a lot of stuff changed. TO ME IS THAT WHEN I READ THE BUDGET, I MEAN, AT SOME POINT WE AGREED THAT THERE WAS NO RAISES, THERE WAS NO INCREASE. BUT I SEE INCREASE ALL OVER THE PLACE. BUT I DO UNDERSTAND IT'S A COMPLICATED THING. MY QUESTION IS ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CALM TIME AND OVER TIME. CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT'S CALM TIME AND WHAT'S OVER TIME?

CFO Baldwin.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I may have the chief help me with this a little bit. All of these pay types are driven in each individual department by the collective bargaining agreement with the employees. Comp time means something different to every department, which is why I'm maybe going to lean on the chief. Typically, overtime is time and a half. There may be... special circumstances where it's double time for dispatchers if they're forced and maybe for officers as well. But comp time Please, Chief.

Getting into the weeds a little bit too much there. Basically, comp time is compensatory time. That's time that we owe somebody at a rate of time and a half, may not be able to get overtime, but they're able to get comp time. And they're able to take that as time off instead of getting paid, although there are situations where they may get paid out of their comp time as well. I believe some of our officers have some comp time ability as well, too.

Well, thank you. I thought it's like calm time. You just give it back the time and not in terms of financial. And another question is the police rental substation. Do we utilize these stations a lot? How active are we using these stations?

Well, there's only one that we're paying rent to, and that's the Bridge Street location with Degmar. And that's highly utilized with our crime analysis unit as well as our neighborhood response unit. And our neighbors person, quite frankly.

Oh, okay. So this $43,000 here is the one that's out there. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Leang. Council Rook.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Since we probably already violated about 19 different times as a planning form of government, I make a motion that we raise taxes to 7.5% and bring back every laid off employee to the city.

Motion by Councillor Rourke to raise the taxes to 7.5% and bring back all the laid off employees. Is there a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councillor DeCotto. Any discussion on the motion? Councillor Duran.

So I have a number of questions about that approach. So first of all, is that even possible under the city council's rights? Right.

Mr. Solicitor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No, it is not. But I suspect Councilor Rourke knows that.

Councilman Rourke?

Obviously, Mr. Mayor, I'll withdraw the motion, but it was me to make a point. You know, I understand, again, it's been said many times, Mr. Mayor, by yourself just a few minutes ago, it stinks. It's lousy to go through this. I don't think any councilor sitting here has enjoyed this process whatsoever. And if we haven't enjoyed it, I couldn't imagine department heads of the administration enjoying it you know at all you know it's just it's a terrible situation to go through um but this is what's before us here and we have to you know look at and go forward on um and again i just you know want to stress that Just try to watch what we say because you don't want to pit one employee against another or that department against another department. All department heads, again, have a very difficult job in this process. And I actually think it was Councilor Legge that made an incredible post just a little while ago talking about the difficulties of layoffs and how it affects people and their families and the situation. So I just want to get that point out, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you, Councilor Rook. Councilor DeCoto.

Boy, I was glad he was kidding.

No, you weren't. You made the second.

I know I did. I know I did. If I get the chief up for one second. Good evening, Chief. Good evening. Can you explain to the public SW police allowance? It's not a huge line item increase, but it's about 18,000. Could you explain to everyone what exactly that is? Which category? SW police allowance.

So that would be a line item that we use to fund bulletproof vests.

They've gone up $18,000 since last year?

Well, it's actually underfunded. Okay. What we need.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor DeCoto. Councilor Noon?

Oh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to, you know, Councilor Robinson brought up overtime with the police department. I just want to commend the chief and his team for really, you know, put a muscle on overtime. They do a great job. If you look at the number back in 2018, the overtime is $951,000. In 2026, the overtime is $922,000. It's amazing. It's a good job. It doesn't mean that they don't have overtime, they don't have short staff, but the chief and his team have done a great job. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no other questions, roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Council Rourke? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto? Yes. Mayor Gitche? Yes. Council Duran? Yes. Council Liang? Yes. Council McDonough? No. Council Mercier? Yes. Council Noon?

Yes.

Council Robinson? Yes.

10 years. Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. How much did we cut from the budget so far?

$15,000?

15,000. I'd like to make a motion that we accept the bottom line of the budget.

Motion by Council Marisi to accept the bottom line of the budget. Is there a second? Seconded by Council Chau. Any discussion? Roll call, Mr. McDonough.

Can I make an amendment? I'm asking. Yes.

To the make of the motion.

So I would motion to amend the motion to accept the bottom line by reducing. Sorry, we skipped ahead. So I got to get my page reducing further, reducing that bottom line before the vote by We start with $60,000, which is the overtime budget in the facilities department, which is currently unstaffed and has never been staffed. So I'd be looking for a $60,000 reduction from the bottom line. I'm just letting you know where I found that money, because if we take this vote and it passes, we're not going to get to it. So the facilities department has a $60,000 overtime budget with no employees.

Motion to amend by a 60,000, so it would come to 75,000 in the end. Reduction to the overall. Seconded by Councilor Scott. Seconded by Councilor Noon.

On the motion.

On the motion. Councilor Scott.

On the amendment, I guess that actually was a cut that I was going to propose I don't know if we want to vote on comes a mercy is motion. First I guess I won't bother at that point if no one wants to continue. I mean I I wanted to propose a cut for 708,000 728 for the facilities that we're not we haven't filled the position we have to use the old time over time and there's still money in the capital fund that they can use so that was my second that.

Well, let's just vote down the piece and go through the budget before we all pick our places where we want to make our cuts. That's why we're here, is to go by line items. So if you disagree with Councilor Mercy's motion, then just vote no, and then we'll go through the rest of it. But to go through each one and start picking apart, it's going to be a long process.

So what was the amendment, Mr. Mayor?

There is no amendment. There is no amendment. We're just going to go on your motion to take a vote on the bottom line. If people want a further cut, that's why you would vote no on your motion.

Mr. Mayor, can we make a second, make an amendment, friendly amendment to Councilor Murcia, a motion to support a bottom line with the cut of what Councilor Scott was talking about on the facility department that we put. One other question. half a million for building improvement, and one staff there, because there's nobody there.

Councilor Newman, by the time we're done talking about this, we'll be through this. We have the Lowell School Department, Greater Lowell Tech, Essex Aggie, Public Works, and then you're basically veterans and library. Okay. And then We're pretty much at the place. So taking a vote on Council of Mercy's motion would be the appropriate piece. But if people want to not do this.

Can we hear from Mr. St. Cyr before we take a vote on the amendment?

So then you just vote no on Council of Mercy's motion. It's a pretty straightforward motion.

Is there a way to move the motion on the floor as presented?

Yeah. Mr. Mayor, I believe that the make of the motion after she heard her other councilor's comment, she has the right to accept the amendment or not. It's up to the make of the motion. Is that correct?

There is no amendment. It didn't get seconded, Councillor Chao. So there's no amendment. We're talking about the motion on the floor. So if people want to go through the line, let's just finish the budget.

Well, we could be here all night, and I don't mind that, but we're nickel and dime at $5,000 here. We already did a whole night already, and we just cut $15,000. Are we going to do the same thing and cut maybe $10,000 more? I think I did look at the budget. You know, things go up. I'm sorry they do, but gas has gone up. My electricity has gone up. Not that I don't feel bad for the taxpayer, but I am one myself. I don't have a person helping me, but let's... go on the vote either it passes or it don't i'm not trying to rush this it's nickel and diamond i'm i don't see any more cuts so i don't know what the problem is either you vote it or you don't it's up to you i i'm voting go ahead let's go lastly thank you very much uh if councilman made that motion to make that one cut and then approve the budget as is i would support our second day and support it would say that again council duran

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I think I'm confused by the, and perhaps even where we are with our motions, but a cut of $60,000 in overtime I get the point that this one page or one small section of the DPW budget or facilities budget doesn't have people associated with it right now. But that's not what we're voting on on this paper. The paper, it has personal services for all of public works. not just that those sub this is the one department that's kind of broken up differently in the big budget book so i am assuming and maybe this is a question for mr saints here but uh i'll let you handle that if that's appropriate is i'm assuming this covers sort of other things so i i just i maybe this it would be helpful to understand how this department is is dealt with

There was a motion by Councillor Robinson to take a roll call. So let's take the roll call on the motion by Councillor Mercer and then you can come back and do whatever you like. There was a motion on the floor.

We can add a friendly amendment to my motion to cut the bottom line and she made a suggestion for a facility place that isn't even in existence. So if you want to cut that money, I don't have a problem with that.

And Council Noon made a motion, and it was seconded by Council Rourke.

So let's do the amendment first. Why can't we vote on that? Yeah.

So, Mr. Mayor, could you repeat what we're voting on?

I'm trying to get that right now. That's what we're working on. There's a motion on the floor to accept the bottom line. It was motion to move the motion by Council Robinson. So we're trying to move it, but people are still trying to talk on something that's already been asked to move, the motion. So, Councilor Marcia.

I made a motion. People amended it. It's a friendly amendment. We could do that first and roll call. And what was the price? $700?

Nothing has been amended. There has been no second to any amendment. So nothing has been amended.

Ms. Mayor, I'll make a motion to amend. approve the bottom line and amend $208,728 from the Public Works General Personal Services Fund and $500,000 from the Public Works General Ordinary Expenses Fund.

Right. That's the friendly amendment. Second. Can she get a second?

By Councillor Rook.

Right.

Roll call. No, wait. It's not a roll call. It's not this simple.

It is that simple.

We're cutting $500,000. Shouldn't we know where that's coming from before we take a vote? Exactly. Or should we just vote on something we have no idea where the $500,000 is coming from? I want to know from the manager, what does that do for the $500,000 cut? Where does the $208,000? What is the cut? I don't know those answers. So it's not as simple as a roll call, counsel.

Can we hear from Mr. St. Cyr? I think that's important.

Counselor Dakota.

Can we have Mr. St. Cyr explain this? Because this is a major cut to his department. I'd like to know how he feels about it.

Good evening, everyone. Basically, in looking at that number, it's a pooled number. It's not strictly just for what is happening at Lowell High School. So you should be aware of that within that $500,000. Those are numbers that are used across the entire district for repairs. That number was $1 million this year. And it's down to the $500,000. So this is, this would be awful.

It would be awful. It would be awful to cut that.

All right. Indeed. Counselor DeCoto has the floor. Counselor DeCoto? Counselor DeCoto, do you have any other questions?

No, I'm satisfied with Mr. St. Cyr. That would be a devastation, devastating to his department.

Vice Mayor Nguyen, could you take the podium for a minute, please?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Do you have the floor, Mr. Mayor? Thank you, Vice Mayor Noon. In our ability to try to rush through this meeting, we almost just had an opportunity to cut maintenance of our schools. If you take a walk through the schools, I've been through 10 of them so far. I got one tomorrow and one on Thursday. When you walk through, you go to the Sullivan School, you go to the cafeteria, there's probably 40 tiles missing from the cafeteria floor that need to be replaced. You walk through some of these schools, you look up at the ceiling, there's ceiling tiles falling down. There's other areas throughout all of these schools that need this money, and cutting this money would be devastating to the whole process of what the DPW does. And as the commissioner just stated, we've cut already $500,000 from this line item. It would be something that would just be devastating to what we've been working on for four years. And in a rush, we have seven departments left, a library department. You're looking at the smallest departments to run through, veterans. There's not a lot left if we just come in here and start looking and saying, okay, here we go. But people should have a voice to speak and we should have department heads here to say what their need is for these funds and not before we do these types of cuts. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. So this account, this line in particular, was funding that had not been in the budget two years ago. We funded $1 million last year and $500,000 this year. So this was new funding, a new funding with the intent of a shared facilities department going forward. So my question is around that. I mean, obviously, this is a tough financial time. This is a new funding, just like we keep talking about opera funding and other things that were not in the budget prior. Is there free cash that you have that can be allocated right now towards school repairs? And also, is there money in your capital budget right now for school repairs as well?

Well, you know, we can speak to the auditor about the rules that go around what would have to happen as far as something that's capital. It doesn't just run into repairs. It should be something that's longer term, and certainly it's usually a more considerable expense, greater than $25,000, and has a long life to it. So we certainly have capital work that we have planned and more planned, as you know, from the capital plan that we have tonight. I guess I would say, though, you know, to look at this million dollars, I think it's a place where for a very long time we have not been able to put that money into the schools to make the repairs that are necessary. And it's exactly as Mayor Gitche says, that there is only so much to go through. So far this year, we've spent $980,000, plus there is more encumbered. in just that line. And that's just making great progress in the direction that we've made with capital improvements that have gone on with the MSBA program, with the ARP program that we have with doing boilers and all of that. And that was preventative maintenance that was not happening previously.

And I understand that these are, like I said, long overdue repairs. And we've put a lot of money into our municipal buildings. I still feel like this is an area that we can allocate free cash to for future repairs. It's still an area, like I said, it was not in the budget in prior years. So it's an area definitely that I'm looking to cut. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wouldn't say that it wasn't in the budget. It was a lower number. I think it was about $265,000, $250,000 was what that number was. And it was grossly underfunded. And I understand the constraints that every department has to live with, but we're watching the buildings decay. And none of the repairs that go on are inexpensive. It's amazing the numbers that come through for what you would have to have done professionally oftentimes.

Just for a small point, you maintain how many buildings in the city?

There's 65 total. I would say there's 42 that are really substantial buildings.

So you're talking about $10,000 a building?

Correct.

Councilor McDonough.

Mr. Mayor, thank you. I have a question. We're able to charge the various DPW school projects against our net school spending. Mr. Mayor, through you to probably the CFO, but we're able to charge this particular spending on school projects would be charged against the net school spending obligation that the city has. Is that correct?

CFO Baldwin.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We charge the $250,000 in the lands and buildings division to the maintenance of effort. I think this may be our first year with this account. We will have a discussion with the schools. It is written specifically into the agreement that the other account is the one that we will use, but it is of the same, it's the same thing. So we would make the argument to them that this should count as well, but it's one of those things in negotiation.

And so I guess my question then, Mr. Mayor, through you to the probably CFO again, would be even if we cut this money, and I guess if we didn't charge it last year, maybe it's not necessarily built in to this year's formula. Where my question was going is if you cut this money on school building maintenance and we're hitting our minimum net school spending, is where my question was is if we were using this money as part of meeting minimum net school spending then we could cut the money and still have to pay the money because we would be it would affect the net school spending number but if it sounds like it's not currently in the calculation so my question is irrelevant so maybe thank you thank you council mcdonough council robinson

Thank you. I just have a couple quick questions. We've been trying and pushing for obviously centralized facilities for quite some time. Through you to Mr. Saint-Cyr, where are we with directive plan services that's funded with the facilities personnel list? Is that still moving along?

council robinson council robinson can can we just when we get to dpw we can all talk about this basically we're just talking about the bottom line cut of the 500 000 which is just maintenance and not it doesn't include the facilities piece so can we can we get through this and then come back around is that right with you it's fine with me it's taken us a lot longer now than it would have if we went through these line items we'd be almost done so what what is next the vote on yeah if we can just take a roll call on what's before us And that would be the cut of the $500,000 and the 208,728 bottom line. So $708,728 from the bottom line. Roll call.

Mr. Mayor, before we take the vote, personal service is the 208 figure. We know what the 500 is. That's pretty much for projects across the school districts.

But the 208 is- We can do this if we go line by line item. We'd be at the same place. That's what I'm saying to you.

If we just go back- No, I'd like to hear what is exactly the 208 figure. The 500, I'm clear on what that is.

Mr. CFO.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the 208728 is the sum of one position for $148,726 and then an overtime budget of 60,000.

And that's where my question came into play when I asked about that personal services cut that is proposed before me to take a vote on. I was asking, what is the plan on that vacancy because that's rolled into the personal services?

so if i could hear what is the plan on that personal services director of plant services that we're being asked to take a a vote to cut thank you mr may through to the council in regards to the director of plant services um that job has closed there were a number of people that applied for it and um i believe we're getting close to potentially offering somebody something depending on what the council does

And so we will see a stand up potentially if that that number stays of somewhat of introduction to a centralized facilities through that position correct.

That would just a May 3 to the council that would be at the high school and potentially the campus in the downtown area by the campus, I mean police department by department City Hall low-life so facilities were in the region we're kind of working towards this depending on what the council does OK, thank you.

Roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Mr. Mayor, if I could just a point of clarification. I just want to make sure everyone knows what we're voting on because some people are talking about voting on a cut. I am pretty confident we're voting on the bottom line final vote. I just want to make sure my colleagues are on there. I'll say the same thing for the third time. Thank you.

Okay, so we're voting on the bottom line number being cut by $708,728 and finishing the night. Roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Council Rourke? No. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? No. Council Decoto?

No.

Mayor Gitche?

No.

Council Duran? No. Council Liang? Yes. Council McDonough? No. Council Mercier? No. Council Noon?

Yes.

Council Robinson? No. Motion fails.

Thank you. Now we'll go back to the original way. And I'm sorry, Councilor Mercier. I didn't want this to go this way. Lowell Public Schools single line appropriation, $287,966,413. Move approval by Councilor Noon, seconded by Councilor Liang. Any questions? Roll call.

Council Rourke? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto? Yes. Mayor Gitche? Yes. Council Duran? Yes. Council Leang? Yes. Council McDonough? Yes. Council Mercier? Yes. Council Noon? Yes. Council Robinson?

Yes.

Greater Little Technical High School, single line appropriation, $10,234,756. Motion to approve by Council Robinson, seconded by Council Rook. I will recuse myself from this vote. Any questions on it? Roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Council Rourke. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chau. Yes. Council Dakota. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Council Duran. Yes. Council Leang. Yes. Council McDonough. Yes. Council Mercier. Yes. Council Noon.

Yes.

Council Robinson. Yes. And Yates.

10 yeas. Essex Agricultural High School single line appropriation, $127,194. Motion. Motion approved by Councilor Noon, seconded by Councilor Marcia, roll call. Sorry, Councilor Duran.

Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to know how many students we have going to Essex Agricultural. There wasn't anything in the budget book that I could find about it.

CFO Baldwin.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We believe there's five. We get a letter from the Essex Agricultural High School twice a year, once coming up soon and then once mid-year to true up the enrollment. This is a higher number than what has been carried in the budget for a few years, but it's an assessment. It's a regional school, agricultural school, and so it's either four or five, but I believe it's five.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor, it gets trued up after the same with the schools with their enrollment figures after the October enrollment deadline. That's when we have the final number, and we'd be happy to bring back a report if that's something the council would be interested in.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Duran. Roll call.

Council Rook. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chow. Yes. Council Dakota. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Council Duran. Yes. Council Leang. Yes. Council McDonough. Yes. Council Mercier. Yes. Council Noonan. Yes. Council Robinson.

Yes.

11 years.

Thank you. Page 472, Public Works General, Personnel Services, $6,852,269. Public Works General, Ordinary Expenses, $5,525,034. Public Works, City Building Utilities, Ordinary Expenses, $716,000. Motion to accept by consulate.

Mr. Mayor Make a motion on the individual line to cut to await.

Can we can have a motion to accept then you can cut motion except by a council child seconded by councillor rook Council Scott make a motion to cut to await 728. This is the personnel line motion by council Scott to cut to await Seven twenty eight nine, correct.

I

Is there a SEC seconded by Council McDonough? Any discussion on the motion?

Well, I would just again comment that I just don't feel comfortable with us adding a new position right now while we're in the middle of cutting so many positions. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Scott. Councillor McDonough. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would also ask, there's the unfilled facilities position that Councillor Scott, I think, is talking about. There's also, under the sustainability part of DPW, it's not whatever we call that mini department inside the department, there's also an LHS facilities person, and that one is staffed. So I guess I'm looking for what the difference is between the facilities person under DPW and sustainability and what the proposed facilities person is, who I kind of think, at least I thought, that was the same job. So thank you. Commissioner Sancia?

Thank you. There's actually, you know, as the department is moving forward, the work that gets carried out by the person that has that title right now is actually much more broad and it goes across all of the schools. And he's not just at Lowell High School. for the course of the day are going through the construction portion of it and so much of it and that's exactly what the sustainability side has is running the HVAC technicians and all of that through the entire city. So that responsibility falls to them. So we'd be seeing, we'd be looking for at some point a change in title as far as that is concerned as the facility person comes on board. But there was more going on with putting together this complete facility group. Does that answer your question?

Thank you. I think so. I think it was probably a title confusion where it was Facilities Director Plant Services position, which was vacant. And I think that's what we're looking at cutting. And then where I got confused was, okay, I see the same very, very similar job title again in the budget with a person. And I just was like, did we fill it? Did we not fill it? But okay, no, the explanation makes sense. So thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Just we want to make a record, Clerk Geary, that Councilor Marcia will be recusing herself from this portion. No other, seeing no other questions, roll call.

This is for the cut.

Yeah, on the cut, yeah.

Councilor Rourke, yes.

Wait, could we know what the motion is?

It's the motion on the cut of the $208,728 that's on the floor.

Council Rourke? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? No. Council Decoto? No. Mayor Gitche?

Yes.

Council Duran? No. Council Liang?

Yes.

Council McDonough?

Yes.

Council Marcia? Council Noon?

Yes.

Council Robinson? Yes. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Motion succeeds.

Motion succeeds. Now, the bottom line. CFO Baldwin for that. Mr. Manager.

Mr. Mayor, so with the cut, the personnel services line is 6,643,541. 6,643,541. Okay.

So the motion would be for the Public Works General Personal Services of $6,643,541 by Councilor Robinson, seconded by Councilor Rourke. Roll call.

Councilor Rourke. Yes. Councilor Scott. Yes. Councilor Chau.

Yes.

Councilor Decoto. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Councilor Duran.

Yes.

Councilor Liang. Yes. Councilor McDonough.

Yes.

Councilor Murcia. Councilor Noon. Yes. Councilor Robinson. Yes.

So we'll also need a roll call on the public works. General ordinary expenses of $5,525,034 in public works, city billing utilities, ordinary expenses of $716,000. Motion by Councilor Noon, seconded by Councilor Duran. Roll call.

Council Rourke? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto? Yes. Mayor Gitche? Yes. Council Duran? Yes. Council Liang? Yes. Council McDonough? Yes. Council Marcia? Council Noon? Yes. Council Robinson? Yes.

11 years. 10 years. 10 years. Page 524, parks and cemetery. We'll do them together. There's no objections. Parks, personal services, $2,181,128. Parks, ordinary expenses, $693,985. Cemetery, personal services, $72,469. Cemetery, ordinary expenses, $207,100. Motion to accept by Councilor McDonough, seconded by Councilor Duran, Councilor Robinson.

Thank you, Mister Mayor. I just have a couple quick questions on this. I see two line items, improvement to parks and playgrounds, 70,000 proposed, as well as, there was one more. It's that money again what what would that encompass all this to a proven to parks and playgrounds one for 70,000 proven to parks and playgrounds another for 20,000 proven to parks and playgrounds and of the 4,000 I mean we have a bunch of coats for improvement to parks and playgrounds listed all.

Major golden.

Thank you very much, Mr. May, through the council. Counselor, the way it's broken out in our new system, each piece has, you know, like, say, for instance, flags, fertilization.

Itemized almost.

Itemized down. Maybe it's all truncated in a different manner. And they're just different project codes. And that's within the new system of CleoGov. It should all be rolled up into one. It just isn't.

so like receptacles or trash receptacles would be one fertilization okay okay it's subdivided out and gives us okay all right yeah flags right yeah we looked at this we've been looking at this ourselves maybe by next year hopefully we'll be able to consolidate the improvements that's correct okay and with that none of this would encompass though stuff that we've been kind of missing out with the cdbg uh i mean our community preservation correct none of that would cover any of those larger uh mr may three to the council no that's this is all general appropriations cdg or any of the cpc funds no no i mean i mean the 70 000 say improvement to parks and playground that account what we use that for would the community preservation be an alternative use for things that we're budgeting with that 70k cfo bone uh thank you mr mayor it

It's difficult to say exactly, but I'll offer some context that these accounts in the Parks Department are for replacement of small projects, whereas the CPA would be for a larger project. and again you know these are split up into project codes based on there was a city auditor many years ago that insisted that parks do this when tom bell guard was the commissioner we haven't collapsed it again although they are they're fungible and can be used um at the commissioner's discretion these would you know if a slide breaks or a um a bench or something along right a bench in a park needs to be replaced a small ticket item this would be the account that would be used uh to replace that in a park we would look to the CPA if it was a larger project so if there was a replacement or a major rehabilitation of a park that was hundreds of thousand uh excuse me hundreds of thousands into the millions you know that is something we would look for the city to apply to the Community Preservation Act for funding for this is for routine maintenance of you know playground equipment other routine repairs to the various city parks okay perfect thank you thank you council robinson council mcdonough

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just have a couple of questions. One is, the first one, I assume, is going to be the easiest, I hope, maybe, which is pool maintenance. I'm just curious why it went up $15,000. I guess I'm just looking for, I don't think we own that many pools. We're running out of pools. I feel like we have less pools, but we're spending more money, which is OK.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, actually the, the costs that are involved, they're just a single pump for one of our pools. We have two. It's over $10,000. Just sort of, yeah. Yeah. That's why I asked.

I figured it's a real cost.

Yeah. The cost of the equipment is very, very expensive.

Thank you. The next question I had was around, it's really the only question I have left, is around the cemeteries. I assume it's all cemeteries, although there were a number of cuts. And I understand that they're probably nice to have, but they quickly become a major problem, I guess. So I just want to make sure that there's a plan in place. There was a cut. um in the botanical gardens there was also a cut in cemetery flowers and it looked like a couple of other areas of ongoing improvement and i know that you know i think even just since i've been on the council we've approved a number of new plantings and new projects and so i just want to make sure that we aren't setting money on fire having put in paid a lot of money for these plantings. And now if we're cutting, if those line items are the maintenance of those plantings, I would want to make sure we're keeping it looking like we paid for. So thank you.

Yeah, I'm happy to address that. Some of the things that we're doing, and the Cemetery Commission has been really supportive with some of the programs we've taken on. If you've seen what's happened at West Lawn and so on, it looks terrific. But we're also looking at things that are not just there annually. So that's what we've gotten away from. So we've been able to back away some of those things, and that's where this number, the cut, comes from.

Thank you. That makes a lot of sense. I'm happy to know that. I just wanted to get the clarification point in public. So thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Robinson.

Thank you. Just one more question. Overtime account $175,000 and then we have $10,000 for overtime special events. Wouldn't that just be one account or is it, I mean, I don't understand why is there a differentiation between the two?

CFO Baldwin.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is a classification is the answer. We classify in several departments the special events separate from regular overtime. This is something that has existed since I came here, but it comes in handy because oftentimes we are asked by cultural organizations or by funders and grantors how much we spend on special events. And so in making grant applications or there's an event later this week where the manager has to talk to a group about how much we are spending, it makes it a lot easier for us to calculate that when we have them specified in specific accounts rather than going through every department's overtime account and talking to the department head, well, how much of this was for a special event versus your regular additional duties throughout the week. So, again, the ClearGov system just takes the MUNIS accounts and plugs them in. I think one of the things we've learned through this public hearing is that there's an opportunity to consolidate some areas, but it will take a revamp of our chart of accounts, which is somewhat of a larger undertaking. That's the reason why we are going to consolidate some of these. But just like we do for overtime in the police department related to special events or different pay types, those are all segregated out in our chart of accounts for internal purposes mostly, but sometimes for purposes of public-facing information requests.

Thank you. So I just have a question. What is 175,000 budgeted regular overtime look like in the department?

CFO Bowen?

I would say that $175,000 is pretty standard for the Parks Department in a year. When we went through COVID, there was a drop in the overtime. I can't necessarily, maybe the Commissioner, Mr. St. Cyr, can help me out here. I don't know specifically which projects they're working on, but That is a number that we believe is in line to fund the types of activities necessary in a year's worth of parks upkeep. That 175 is pretty true to the actuals going back a number of years. I'm not sure if that's your question, though.

No. Maybe Mr. Sancia can answer. So what would $175K in overtime budget look like? I mean, if it's project specific, that's one thing. But just to have a blank check of $175,000 and say work overtime, I don't understand what that looks like.

Yeah, so thank you, Counselor. So a lot of that is actually kind of dictated by the use that goes on within parks. So in particular, for things that's around the schools, the work that goes on over at Cauley, which is, you know, they're there for practices, they're there for weekends, Shedd Park, the same thing. So there are many times that they're ending up having to maintain those places when they're open. And so that accounts for chunks of it that way, um, splash parks, you know, is another place that, you know, the maintenance that goes along with it and through the course of the day. Um, and even things that, that, um, as we lead into say, uh, um, you know, something that's going on like folk fest or things like that, there's the preparation that has to happen, as you know, you know, and bringing barriers downtown and, and, and getting all of that part set up. Um, so there are many, many opportunities. It's a daily event. I can tell you at, at shed. AND AT CAULEY EVERY DAY AFTER SCHOOL BECAUSE OF SPORTS THAT GO ON. AND SO THAT'S WHERE A GOOD CHUNK OF THAT GOES.

THANK YOU. AND DIDN'T WE JUST ADJUST USAGE FEES TO TRY TO HELP OFFSET AND STABILIZE SOME OF THOSE EXPENSES? BECAUSE, AGAIN, IT'S 175 IS I GET IT IF THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES TO DO BUSINESS, NO PROBLEMS, BUT IT'S JUST THAT SEEMS HIGH TO BUDGET FOR OVERTIME AND THEN POTENTIALLY We don't receive any offset for like say folk festival set up for any of the other events that we have. There's no other offset that comes in. We're just basically scheduling that out upfront and then have to transfer in.

CFO Ball?

So we have transferred in, just looking back at the history here, so in 2025, we budgeted $130,000 in overtime and had to transfer in $50,000. In 2024, we budgeted in $130,000, had to transfer in $100,000. It is occurring to me as I'm saying to this, I think some of that overtime may go to, but correct me if I'm wrong, go towards some of the trash pickup.

Yes.

So a portion of that. So dating back a number of years, I think this goes back to 2020 or 2021. We exercise the option with waste management to eliminate the park barrel pickup as part of the contract. And so between parks and streets, they picked up that not to be literal about it but they they uh took on that responsibility and used overtime to fund some of the saturday pickups in the parks so while some of that is for you know park maintenance uh off hours off regular schedule it is also to fund the uh the trash picker um with the parks employees attached to it okay thank you for the clarification any other questions council liang

This is just a quick one. I sort of have three things coming at you. One is the increase in licenses. I'm not sure how that go up threefold. Two is the, could you tell me the difference between the professional services up top for 30 grand and at 172 on the bottom? Yeah, and you remember all that.

CFO Baldwin.

Thank you. The professional services one, I know. So I'm happy to answer that one. So if you look at the page, the top part is for the parks division. The bottom part is for the cemetery division. And so the top for professional services for $30,000 is used by the parks department. The professional services under cemetery is what goes to fund the contract with the private company for maintenance of the cemeteries. So that cuts the lawns, et cetera. But we have a company under contract. They are funded with that $172,000. And then I'm sorry, Counselor, if you could repeat the first question.

No, no. Just basically the license is how come it goes up between $5,000 and $15,000?

I'd have to lean on the Commissioner for that one.

Yeah, and what we found is that it was underfunded in previous years, and there's also the other portion that by their job description, we are having to get people licensed as a CDL driver and so on.

It's not a good time to do this.

Okay.

Yeah, I got you. Yeah. And what is this miscellaneous charge for $2,000?

I'm actually going to call on Mr. Flynn.

Good evening, everyone. So the miscellaneous charge actually was to take care of miscellaneous employee reimbursements. in that listing where it had all the park improvements and playgrounds and no other description, one of those lines was set up for employee reimbursement. So, if they're obligated to get either boots or some other certification or some other sort of stipend through their collective bargaining agreement, We decided to put it in some miscellaneous category just so it would be a little easier to track rather than having it be part of the park improvements number because essentially it really isn't a park improvements number, so to speak.

Okay. It just curious to me. I mean, we're in a crunch and also a time of need and all of a sudden I see this thing going up. I know it's not a lot, but it's just a really bad timing to just add in this thing up. But thank you.

Sure. Any other questions? Roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Council Rourke. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chau. Yes. Council Decoto.

Yes.

Mayor Gitche. Yes. Council Duran.

Yes.

Council Liang. Yes. Council McDonough. Yes. Council Mercier. Yes. Council Noon.

Yes.

Council Robinson.

Ten years. Ten years. Page 368, Health Department. Personnel services, $4,426,770. Health Department ordinary expenses, $148,620. Motion will accept by Councilor Scott, seconded by Councilor Duran. Any questions? Councilor Scott. Move for approval. Any questions? Move for approval by Council Scott, seconded by Council Duran. Any questions, Council Marcia? Council McDonough.

Thank you. Sorry, getting my line item. So I have a question. On page 368 is listed, Mr. Mayor, I guess through you to the appropriate person here, computer equipment and software is going from $8,000 to $48,000. The health department is not the only department with a computer and software budget. Where my confusion comes in is, We have a tech department whose budget, and we already voted on it, so I'm not looking to go back, but their budget has gone up significantly. I would have thought that that included a lot of the software for our individual departments. So I'm just wondering where this increase from $6,000, $7,000, $8,000, and now this year $48,000.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Manager, Council. So this is the health where this is a service for the software through the school nurses. So we had to with the cyber breach, we had to put the software into the cloud. So this is a significant increase by putting the software into the cloud. So this is what services the just under 15,000 students. The software has been licensed through the health department since it was initiated. And it is through the school department and through the clinical nurse managers.

I think I'm just going to stay confused. I don't know that I even have a follow-up question. I get it. I guess I'm wondering. So if it's the $40,000 and it's the school nurses, that sounds like possibly, I guess, net school spending money. But how long have we had the software?

So we've had the software since Great question. I believe since probably 2011. But since when we had the cyber breach, we were out of software for a while, updating the software. It took a while to get a new contract and upgrade the software. So the school nurses were actually without software. So when a student came into the school nurse office, they didn't know if the child had allergies or what they had or what prescriptions they had. So that's why the software is now, we put it into the cloud. So it was a little painful for the time they did not have the software.

So the software is back new this year?

We had it last year. It was paid for through ARPA last year. Yep. We were able to save the city some money through ARPA last year.

Okay. No, that makes sense. Thank you. I was just trying to figure out where it, you know, when we started paying it and how. Okay. The other question I have is, everyone's going to get whatever, is that I understand that you were handed a budget and had to make it work, and all the department heads did, and you guys did the best you could. I guess I'm trying to understand losing the... So Assistant Syringe Coordinator and the Director of Homeless Initiatives, both of those positions seem to have been really very significant to the work of your department and also to the concerns both of the public and of the council. So I do want to just express that I'm sad to see those positions go and I guess ask i don't really see anywhere else you could cut so i i just am expressing my sadness mr mayor i don't know what else to say thank you thank you council mcdonough council robinson thank you um i just have one question and it's actually the opposite direction um i noticed there's some savings um

we had a lease premise rental lease 237 and 24 236 and 25 237 and 26 and i noticed there's nothing this year so it is cfo baldwin

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I think this is a matter that we need to talk to the council in executive session because of a number of factors that relate to this. So it was not budgeted with the presumption that the health department would be moving, but there are a lot of moving pieces. So I believe we will have an executive session about that later this month. And we'll bring the council up to date as to the overall strategy.

Okay, thank you.

Seeing no other questions, roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Council Rourke? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto? Yes. Mayor Gitche? Yes. Council Duran? Yes. Council Liang? Yes. Council McDonough?

No.

Council Mercia? Yes. Council Noon? Yes. Council Robinson? Yes. San Yates?

Thank you. Page 356, Council and Aging. Council and Aging Personnel Services, $585,281. Council and Aging Ordinary Expenses, $145,494. Motion approved by Councillor Dakota, seconded by Councillor Chau. Any questions on this roll call?

Councillor Rourke? Yes. Councillor Scott? Yes. Councillor Chau? Yes. Councillor Dakota? Yes. Mayor Gitche? Yes. Councillor Duran?

Yes.

Councillor Liang? Yes. Councillor McDonough?

Yes.

Councillor Marcia? Yes. Councillor Noon? Yes. Councillor Robinson? Yes. 11 years.

11 years. Page 393, veterans. Veterans personal services, $157,065. Veterans ordinary expenses, $295,970. Motion to approve by Councilor Liang, seconded by Councilor Duran. Any questions? Seeing none, roll call.

Council Rock. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto? Yes. Mayor Gitche? Yes. Council Duran? Yes. Council Liang? Yes. Council McDonough? Yes. Council Marcia? Yes. Council Noon? Yes. Council Robinson? Yes. 11.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Page 533, recreation. Recreation personal services, $709,889. Recreation ordinary expenses, $92,550. Motion to approve by Council Rourke, seconded by Council Robinson. Move to approve, roll call.

Council Rourke? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto? Yes. Mayor Gitche? Yes. Council Duran? Yes. Council Liang? Yes. Council McDonough?

Yes.

Council Mercier? Yes. Council Noon? Yes. Council Robinson? Yes.

11 years. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Page 383, library. Library personal services, $1,618,888. Library ordinary expenses, $536,478. Move to approve by Council Robinson, seconded by Council Rook. Any questions? Council Robinson.

Thank you. Again, I know it's been brought up in every department that's come forward us. And I mean, we were just here not too long ago celebrating the ROI on the library, the return on investment. So again, down the line, if there's any way we could look at the bookmobile and positions like that, is there grants available to help offset some of this? Any mechanism we can, I think would be greatly appreciated because for what what a shoestring budget they've been operating on that the results to the community and impact on the community has been tremendous and and I do get it it is it's a tough budget season and I just hope that there is any other alternative funding stream out there that could maybe help us out with that thank you thank you Council Robinson Council of McDonough you got the floor Council of McDonough

OK. I'm going to give back. I'm not going to take the floor. I'm going to let the library director respond, I think. It looks like she wants to.

Thank you, Councilor McDonough. Director Woolley.

Thank you, everyone. And yes, I'm glad to be able to kind of put people's minds at ease. When I became director, one of the biggest things that I wanted to do was make sure all my staff were cross-trained. And when we got a heads-up with some federal funding cuts, I pushed even harder to make sure that my staff were prepared to absorb this. So, in the past nine months, 16 of my staff have gone out on the bookmobile and or outreach services. As such, I am working with the city to fill what is currently in the budget as an open position. We actually just had the person accepted today for a promotion, so I have some internal moves that are happening this month quite quickly. So we actually announced to the community to tell us where you want the bookmobile, so we don't anticipate any decrease in Bookmobile services at all as well as we were meeting with the staff this week to kind of come up with creative ways to maintain if not Expand the library services that we can because we have been cross training for almost a year and every job in the library not all of them yet, but every job in the library has a plan with a Manual that goes on how to do the job. So there should be no gaps in services. I

Thank you. Councilor McDonough?

Thank you. I personally, I commend the library director for making it work. I think that, you know, we're talking about the library budget right now. It's not, this comment I think applies beyond the library, but it certainly applies to the library. I think it's hard when we look at Budgets and we see departments that are already operating on kind of a shoestring. When we look for more. Right. And I'm glad that the library director has said that we're going to be able to continue some of these services without a major interruption. But I just I think when we look at. that roi that was mentioned earlier and how much the library has been able to do with so little already it is it is hard to think about you know reducing that um but i also understand that it's uh it's a very very tight budget year and money had to come from somewhere so thank you thank you council mcdonough council scott

Thank you. I'd also just like to commend the library director for all of her work that she's done as far as cross training and coming up with these class savings and efficiencies that are definitely much needed right now. But we definitely appreciate the library and all the services that you've been providing. Thank you.

Thank you, again. I just want to let you know we did meet the municipal appropriation requirement, which means we will be fully eligible for all state aid, too. So, state aid, it does help subsidize everything that I need to be able to do and get creative with maintaining services. Since my last kind of presentation, I did a comparison of June through May, and our circulation is up 10% this year over last year, which was already a growth. THE COMMUNITY IS NOT LETTING US OFF THE HOOK, SO WE'RE GOING TO STEP UP.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just think it's great that the library staff is one of the departments that is modeling the kind of cross-training and flexibility that we need in the city as things get tough and as we all need to stretch. And it is a good reminder that we are a UNESCO learning city, and this is a great example of that. Thank you.

Thank you again.

Councillor Noon. I promise you the last question may be a stupid question, but the question on the expenditures, it dawned on me to say bookmobile and gas. Does the bookmobile operate without gas? There's no expenditure here. Mr. Baldwin? Through you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. CFO?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It does take gas to run. We will work with the library director, either to utilize the pumps that are at JFK. She has many creative ideas. It may be possible to use state aid to fund some of the gasoline charges. Maybe we'll be able to find a more sustainable fuel, too.

Mr. Mayor, through you too, Mr. Baldwin, I know he'll find a way to operate that bookmobile without gas. Thank you.

We're recruiting you to push it. Right. See no other questions, roll call.

Council Rourke, yes. Council Scott, yes. Council Chau, yes. Council Decoto, yes. Mayor Gitche, yes. Council Duran, yes. Council Liang, yes. Council McDonough, yes. Yes. Councilor Mercier. Yes. Councilor Noon. Yes. Councilor Robinson. Yes. Levin-Yays.

Levin-Yays. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Unclassified debt service, $23,966,499, moved to approve by Councilor Mercier, seconded by Councilor Noon. Any questions on this? Roll call. Yes.

Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto? Yes. Mayor Gitche? Yes. Council Duran? Yes. Council Liang? Yes. Council McDonough? Yes. Council Marcia? Yes. Council Noon? Yes. Council Robinson? Yes. 11 yays.

11 yays. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Unclassified unemployment, $700,000. Move approval by Council Liang, seconded by Council Chau. Any questions? Roll call.

Council Roy? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council Decoto? Yes. Mayor Gitche? Yes. Council Duran? Yes. Council Liang?

Yes.

Council McDonough? Yes. Council Mercier? Yes. Council Noon?

Yes.

Council Robinson? Yes.

11 years. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Unclassified health insurance, $33,932,671. Move approval by Councilor Scott, seconded by Councilor Decoto. Seeing no questions, roll call.

Council Rourke. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chau. Yes. Council Ducotto.

Yes.

Mayor Gitche. Yes. Council Duran. Yes. Council Liang. Yes. Council McDonough. Yes. Council Mercier. Yes. Council Noon. Yes. Council Robinson. Yes. 11.

11 years. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Unclassified retirement, $39,659,061. Move approval by Council of Noon, seconded by Council of Robinson. Seeing no questions, roll call.

Council of Roark. Yes. Council of Scott. Yes. Council of Chow. Yes. Council of Dakota. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Council of Duran. Yes. Council of Liang. Yes. Council of McDonough. Yes. Council of Mercia. Yes. Council of Noon. Yes. Council of Robinson. Yes.

11 years.

11 years, thank you, Mr. Clerk. Unclassified Medicare tax, $4 million. Move approval by Councilor Rourke, seconded by Councilor Robinson. Seeing no questions, roll call.

Council Rourke? Yes. Council Scott? Yes. Council Chau? Yes. Council DeCoto? Yes. Mayor Gitche? Yes. Council Duran?

Yes.

Council Leang? Yes. Council McDonough? Yes. Council Murcia? Yes. Council Noon? Yes. Council Robinson? Yes. That's 11 yeas.

11 yeas, thank you, Mr. Clerk. Unclassified workman's comp, $1,250,000. Move to approval by Councilor Duran, seconded by Councilor Liang. Seeing no questions, roll call.

Councilor Rourke. Yes. Councilor Scott. Yes. Councilor Chau. Yes. Councilor Ducoto. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Councilor Duran. Yes. Councilor Liang. Yes. Councilor McDonough. Yes. Councilor Murcia. Yes. Councilor Noon. Yes. Councilor Robinson. Yes.

Levin, yes. 11 years. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Unclassified, Northern Middlesex, $43,164. Move approval by Council of Dakota, seconded by Council of McDonough. Seeing no questions, roll call.

Council Rourke. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chau. Yes. Council Dakota. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Council Duran. Abstain. Council Leang. Yes. Council McDonough. Yes. Council Murcia. Yes. Council Noon. Yes. Council Robinson. Yes. Ten yays.

Ten yays. Motion passes. Page 569, wastewater. Wastewater personal services, $4,799,728. Wastewater ordinary expenses, $12,263,900. wastewater debt service nine million eight hundred and seventeen thousand five hundred ninety one dollars for a total of twenty six million eight hundred eighty one thousand two hundred nineteen dollars move approval by councillor noon seconded by council rook any questions council join us

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I am confused because the numbers in the binder don't match the numbers here. They do for personal services, and this is true for each of the enterprise funds, but the ordinary expenses don't match. And so I'm confused. CFO Bowen.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the way that they're presented in the department detail in the budget is different than the order, so generally speaking. I believe part of the variance for each is the indirect costs, which are shown as an ordinary expense in each department's detail. But for purposes of the appropriation order, They're not appropriations pursuant to the rules of the Department of Revenue. So they're shown there on the appropriation order at the bottom, but they're lumped together in line number 202775. And that includes the indirect costs, which are the, I'll call them overhead because that is probably the best word I can use to describe them. It's a reimbursement from each enterprise fund to the general fund for services provided to it by the general fund. Think of things maybe comparable to net school spending, but the treasurer's office, the auditor's office, payroll, HR, et cetera, which support the departments, that's the difference for each three. And they're shown on line number 202775 in the appropriation order. But the amounts that are voted on as appropriations by the council are just for salary and wages, ordinary expenses, and then each department has its own, each of the enterprise funds has its own debt service apart from the general fund.

Okay, thank you.

Council Lee Yang.

I just, on page 569, it is just a curious question on improving improved sewage. So 2025 was 27,000 and then last year was 125, now 110. It's like a whiplash. Can you explain the jump and back to 110?

Council Yang, these guys bring paperwork with them.

That's good. Director Fox.

Thank you, Mayor, Manager, and the Council. Yeah, so I think it was the past fiscal year we created a new division within wastewater called Collection Systems. And so that was part of our heavy cleaning line item. And so that line item changed as we created that division. uh so that improving the sewage what you see right now that supports our collection system that includes sealant of manholes the purchase of frames and covers and also equipment repairs for that collection system equipment thank you anything else counseling hold on one second um no i'm good thanks thank you counseling council jordan

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the CFO explained that the indirect cost of the enterprise funds, the $20 million that we'll get to, or perhaps not later, reflects the difference in the ordinary expenses between what's on our sheet here for all four enterprises and what's in the book. But I think the numbers added together are higher than $20 million, but maybe... but I'm trying to do the math on the fly so I am trying to understand and again maybe I'm missing something but but just if I look at wastewater with 12 million in ordinary expenses and yet we've got 32 million uh in ordinary expenses in the book that's immediately 20 million and then each of the other Enterprise funds has some differential so that would bring us above 20 the 20 million that's in line 75. Thank you.

CFO Baldwin.

So on the bottom of the page, the 32-754 is adding the personal services and then all of the lines for ordinary expenses, including debt service and including the indirect costs. So you would need to subtract out the indirect costs.

Okay.

Subtract out the debt service. I get it. To line them up. It's a very good question because it is a presentation, again, that we can do a better job with next year. So we'll take that as a note. And because there is a set, so you'll notice on the second page, page 569, because of the account we use, this is the account that Councilor Liang just asked Mr. Fox a question about. Because it's classified under a public works category in Munis and uses that code, it gets lumped in on the page as a separate sort of division, so you'd have to add that $110,000 on top of it as well. All of that is to say I apologize for the confusion. The numbers in the order are correct.

Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, roll call, Mr. Clark.

Council Rook. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chau. Yes. Council Decoto. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Councilor Duran. Yes. Councilor Liang. Yes. Councilor McDonough. Yes. Councilor Mercier. Yes. Councilor Noon. Yes. Councilor Robinson. Yes. 11 years.

11 years. Motion passes. Page 588. Parking. Parking personal services $609,994. Parking ordinary expenses $5,180,535. Parking debt services $5,109,213. Parking total $10,899,742. Motion to approve by Councilor Decoto, seconded by Councilor Mercier. Any questions on it? Councilor McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a few questions. The first question, Mr. Mayor, through you, is the council added a number of parking enforcement officers. I'm just wondering how many, I believe from watching past meetings, that this was to do enforcement outside of downtown and in the neighborhoods. I could be wrong. I'm wondering if we have the number of parking citations that have been issued by the parking department outside of downtown.

It's a very low number because we really haven't gotten to that point. Okay, we've been asked to go outside of the downtown, and we started up around the north campus, but I know I have to hit South Lowell and the other areas outside of the downtown, and that was gonna be, we were gonna use that seventh officer that we were gonna hire to do some of that special stuff, but we did not hire that seventh person, so we do have currently six officers out there going from eight o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night.

I guess that's why I wasn't on the council when some of these positions were added. But I feel as though I'm remembering there being five parking enforcement officers with an addition of two with the expectation being that there would be more enforcement in the neighborhood. So we still have one additional officer. My question, I guess, really is, I've got six people running around four streets, and they all happen to be.

Oh, trust me, there are more than four streets that we cover. including north and south campus and outside of the downtown.

Well, I guess I'm not going to keep going. I would like to hope that at some point the number of enforcement officers will match a level of enforcement in the neighborhoods where if you take a ride in your car and you see 17 cars on the sidewalk, I would hope at some point we can get around to that even on a weekly basis. My next question, I won't try and zero out the vacant enforcement officer, Mr. Mayor. I stopped myself. My next question is probably to the CFO, which would be the increase in indirect costs from $880,000 to over $2.1 million. I'm just trying to figure out, wrap my head around what changed.

CFO Baldwin?

Thank you. There is a policy in the back of the budget book that describes the calculation we use for determining the indirect cost for the enterprise, and it's standard across all three. What happens and happened with the parking department is the product of that calculation is higher than what the fund could afford. In several of the last few years, we've had to apply a discount to the enterprise and taken less to maintain solvency in the fund as best we could. I mean, we still had to subsidize the fund. But so fast forward to this year, there was a retained earnings amount certified by the Department of Revenue for parking. So it can afford this year its full freight for the indirect costs. And that's why it's back to a larger number.

okay um so i guess my my follow-up there and i had asked this at an earlier meeting but it goes beyond the schools and i understand that there's there are things that the city or the school department received from all of our enterprise funds that are not necessarily reflected in the costs i just also know that personally and also many of my constituents, residents in District 4, have seen their parking increases almost double in the last, I think, five years. It might be off by a year. But they've gone up from about $60 a month to about $97 a month is the resident rate. And I know the school department, I believe, uses about $900,000 in parking that they don't pay and the city doesn't pay. And so I'm wondering, in addition to that money, and we've talked about that before, is how much parking does the city use and not account for in the enterprise fund? As an example, we all get those hanging placards that would allow us to park anywhere and not pay. I would imagine city employees are parking all over the place in city-owned parking, and the city's not. There's no accounting of that in the Enterprise Fund, is what I'm asking.

CFO Ball?

sure and i'll i'll lean on uh mr ryan if if i miss anything but uh so as far as municipal employees in the downtown the city hall employees park in the lot on moody street uh if if that gets full which it often does get full um around nine o'clock in the morning uh there is parking on uh moody street at the friends lot and then in and around there are a few available spaces on the street in the general city hall vicinity

um i don't have a number because i think it varies i don't know if mr ryan does the health department uh parks in the garage we have a small amount of health department employees to pocket uh the uh don's garage on john street and we do have uh city people that pocket the aoc garage

So other than those, the library, same situation as City Hall in those designated areas. DPW is an offsite facility. Water and wastewater are offsite facilities with their own parking. I'm not sure if I'm forgetting anyone, Mr. Ryan.

no primarily teachers uh students and staff from the high school park at the ayoc garage we do have a few city employees that park there but most of the city employees park moody street dummer street and this market street up in this area close to city hall

I think that largely gets to the core of my question. I guess I really just wanted to call attention to how much indirect service goes the other way. Just because so often the conversation, and I'm glad we ran a surplus this year, but that so often the conversation about the parking enterprise is about how we're losing money or not bringing enough revenue. And so I think just calling attention both for my colleagues and also for the public that you know downtown businesses and residents their customers and their visitors are contributing a lot of money towards parking for city and school services that isn't really accounted for in this um and so just while i have the floor i do also want to commend and thank uh the manager and the administration one for the the trial program that i is now going and also for uh not having a rate increase this year on parking so thank you

We're all hoping once the Hamilton Canal District gets bumped up that we're going to try to hold the line, which is Council Scott.

Thank Mr. Mayor. Just one quick question. Well, Mr. Ryan's here. Professional services subcontractors. I know it was raised last year, but could you just talk about that? It had gone originally from 2,035,000 in 2025 and we're up to 3.1 million this year.

That is the three-year LAS contract that goes out to bid every three years. It will finish up at the end of 2027. We will go out to bid again on that. The last time we went out, the only team to provide a bid was LAS Parking.

okay and is that typical because that is a quite a substantial increase you know year over year um is it typical are they really like the only player in town basically i mean is this kind of a monopoly of you know we open it up we have an rfp process we open it up i post it on linkedin you know i put it places that

parking people will find it, the different associations and the city posts it. So it is advertised, and we did have like four or five vendors that came in and looked, and we only had the one bid that came in.

Okay, maybe we can have more conversation about how we can increase that number of bidders, I guess, or the outreach on it, because that is a substantial increase that, you know, you'd like to have a few bids, I imagine. Absolutely. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Roll call, Mr. Clerk.

Council Rock. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chau. Yes. Council Decoto. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Council Duran. Yes. Council Liang. Yes. Council McDonough. Yes. Council Mercier. Yes. Council Noon. Yes. Council Robinson. Yes. It's 11.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Water Enterprise, page 578. Water, personal services, $3,392,743. Water, ordinary expenses, $5,353,355. Water, debt services, $4,000,000. $229,478. Overall Water Enterprise Fund, $12,975,576. Move approval by Councilor Scott, seconded by Councilor Rourke. Any questions? Councilor McDonough.

Thank you. Just one question, similar to the last question, which is just the $3.4-ish million increase in indirect services. Again, just wondering what has changed. And I understand that that's the general fund, but we all wind up paying it one way or the other, whether it's in a tax rate or in your water fee. So that's really why I'm asking.

It's page 577.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So same, similar situation as before. So there was a discount applied in prior years. Same calculation for same departments that provide overhead services to the water department, etc. This year, the water enterprise, again, had a decent amount of retained earnings. So we were able to take the full amount of the $6.8 million, which is the product of the calculation. So I believe we took only roughly half last year of what.

Councilor McDonough, you have the phone?

Oh, you're right. I still have it. I always put my hand back up. I'm not sure. It's okay. It might be a me problem. But I'm not sure I understand. And what I also don't understand, just while I have this point then, is if there was retained earning, we have another vote, I think tonight, I hope tonight, for a fee increase on water and sewer. So I'm just wondering if... if there was a surplus this year why are we i mean i guess there's there's increased costs coming online from the sewer separation project so it could balance out but i guess i'm just looking for that a little bit of an explanation thank you cfo

Thank you. So the retained earnings are one year behind, like free cash. So that was certified as of 7-1-2025. So it's the operating surplus as of the end of fiscal year 25. The rate increase that is proposed before the council, the ordinance is on the agenda later on, that is prospective and to be implemented July 1. so you know we don't talk a lot about the overhead or retained earnings necessarily i would be more than happy to provide a report to the council it in my mind it's easier to see it than to necessarily describe it the way that we do it is pursuant to the policy like i said it's it's just easier to see so perhaps i could bring you a report that we could talk about any other questions

Councilman Yang.

Thank you. I DO WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INDIRECT COST, THE FORMULA. IT'S MY FAULT THAT I DIDN'T GO THROUGH IT. I WANTED TO SEE WHAT'S INVOLVED WITH THAT AS WELL BECAUSE SOMETIME IT JUST MAY BE SOME OTHER TIME. I JUST WANTED, BUT MY QUESTION FOR TODAY ALSO IS JUST EXPLAINING A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE PROFESSIONAL SERVICE IN THIS ONE. IT JUST KEEPS GOING UP FROM 2024 FROM 209K TO 295K.

CFO Baldwin. Okay, I'm sorry. Director Fox.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Manager of the Council. So, the question being the increase in professional services. And so at the water treatment facility, we have a new sampling that we do for PFAS, known as the Forever Chemical, and that has been an increase in cost that we've had to deal with. Some of the other things coming out of professional services are software cost, instrumentation, calibration, and lab analysis and printing.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. I just maybe in the future we can have itemized a little bit more so that it's process go faster and easier. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Through you to Director Fox, do we have a certified lab person?

Excuse me?

Do we have a certified lab person at the Water Department? right now uh we have um that position is filled and so but the lab itself is not certified no okay so they can't so we have a lab that was always certified and now we don't that's why the numbers are up because we're sending out things that we used to do in-house now are costing us money and we have the same positions correct there has been an increase due to the fact that we don't have a certified lab and that's one thing we have to If we're here and we're sending out lab samples that we're supposed to have a certified lab person there, that's why you're seeing the increase in costs, Council Yang. And then the indirect cost at 34% is extremely high for any community around here to see. It used to be around 18 to 20% for the city to charge off on the indirect cost back from the water department for as long as I was there. Now we went from 23% up to 34%. So there's a lot of funding that's in costs that are going towards, whether it's our legal department, whether it's our payroll or whatever it's getting charged off to, but it's 35% of their budget at the $19 million. And if you look at the $12 million, it's almost 50%. it's a lot of money that's being indirect costed out of there and when you look at these positions we put a certified lab person in there to be certified so we could cut these things down because it doesn't make sense if we're paying someone to be certified the same amount of money that we're paying people who were certified and now we have to send it out we're paying double the cost in my opinion and i think that that's where you're seeing the increases um council liang so i think we really need to start looking at this and get the person certified so that we don't have to send these out because these costs are costing the taxpayer a lot more money that that's just my opinion on those things that's all thank you thank you mr man Are there any other questions? Roll call.

Council Rourke. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chow. Yes. Council Nicoto.

Yes.

Mayor Gitche.

Yes.

Council Duran. Yes. Council Liang. Yes. Council McDonough. Yes. Council Mercier. Yes. Council Noon. Yes. Council Robinson.

Yes.

Eleven yeas.

Eleven yeas passes. page 594 solid waste and recycling solid waste and recycling personnel services three hundred eight thousand three hundred ten dollars solid waste and recycling ordinary expenses nine million two hundred thirty thousand four hundred sixty dollars for a total of the solid waste enterprise fund for $9,538,770. Motion to approve by Councilor Decoto, seconded by Councilor Liang. Any questions? Councilor Mercy is going to recuse herself from this portion. Any questions?

I just have one question. So this is obviously a new fund for us, right? So if you could just talk a little about the indirect cost transfer to general fund, just talk about that line.

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for the question, Counselor. So this is our first year of the Solid Waste and Recycling Enterprise Fund. We approached the calculation very similar to how we allocate the indirect costs to all other departments. receives the same benefit uh you know there's some dpw some treasury uh also a pro rata share and i neglected to mention this earlier one of the major drivers of the indirect costs because they share in a pro rata way the retirement and health insurance for the city those are part of the calculations as well so the amount the Um, for this year in the indirect cost for solid waste and recycling is $388,000. Uh, it includes what had previously been appropriated in the general fund for the trash, uh, the trash contract, disposal collection, overflow bags. Uh, it will include those revenues that were also part of the, uh, the general fund before. So the, the general fund revenues were reduced by the, uh, $6 MILLION, OR MAYBE IT'S A LITTLE HIGHER THAN THAT, WITH THE REVISED FEE THAT WAS APPROVED BY THE COUNCIL THIS YEAR. SO, LIKE I SAID, THIS IS OUR FIRST YEAR. IT'S GOING TO BE CLOSE TO BREAK EVEN, AND, YOU KNOW, BECAUSE WE HAVE A COLLECTION RATE OF ABOUT 92%, IT MAY NOT GENERATE, IT MAY NOT OPERATE ON A BREAK EVEN FOR THE FIRST YEAR, BUT WE EXPECT COME YEAR TWO, IF THERE ARE Charges that are billed and not paid. We will get those in subsequent years as we lean them to the tax bill when they come in from the leaning process, they will go to the enterprise fund. But the point I'm driving towards here is if the fund does end up in a deficit for 2027, then we would need to raise that on the 2028. Tax rate from the general fund, and I am not anticipating that will happen, but I think it's, it's important in these 1st, few years for us to keep a close eye on the performance of this fund. The finance department intends to provide reports to the council. So we can, we can keep an eye on it. We must. let it run for three years at a minimum but then on year four if it's not working we could present the council with a vote to rescind the enterprise fund go back to the way it is but we have to give it at least three years under the statute so i hope that provides some information it does and just to clarify just for people that have asked me about this there's no park collection trash collection or anything that's part of this fund this is just strictly residential trash collection correct That's right. It's only the residential component. So none of the parks collection is paid for out of this fund for this year.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Scott. Seeing no other questions, roll call.

Council Rook. Yes. Council Scott. Yes. Council Chow. Yes. Council Ducotto. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Council Duran. Yes. Council Liang. Yes. Council McDonough. Yes. Council Marcia. Council Noon. Yes. Council Robinson. Yes. Ten years.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Before we take a motion to accept this, I just want to thank all the department heads for spending your last two Tuesdays here and all your hard work on these budgets. It's not easy when we go through these times, and that's on behalf of the City Council for all of you. Thank you. Motion to adopt the FY2027 budget approved. and approve the appropriation order of $577,861,191 by Councillor Rook, seconded by Councillor Scott. Roll call. Councillor Rook. Yes. Councillor Scott. Yes.

Councillor Chau. Yes. Councillor Cotto. Yes. Mayor Gitche. Yes. Councilor Duran. Yes. Councilor Liang.

Yes.

Councilor McDonough. No. Councilor Marcia. Yes. Councilor Noon.

Yes.

Councilor Robinson. Yes. Dan Yates.

4.2, order. 2027 capital plan loan order. Give second reading. order to borrow $25,045,020 to pay costs of various capital improvements and purchases as described below any related architectural and engineering services and connection there within in all other costs incidental and related there too. Motion to open the hearing. Anybody in favor? In favor? In favor? That portion of the meeting is closed. Any opposed? Opposed? Opposed? That portion of the hearing is closed. Motion to adopt by Councilor Rook, seconded by Councilor Scott. Adopt and refer to the clerk's office for 20 days. Motion by Councilor O'Rourke, seconded by Councilor Scott. Any discussion? Roll call.

Councilor O'Rourke? Yes. Councilor Scott? Yes. Councilor Chau? Yes. Councilor Decoto?

Yes.

Mayor Gitche? Yes. Councilor Duran? Yes. Councilor Liang?

Yes.

Councilor McDonough?

Yes.

Councilor Mercier? Yes. Councilor Noon?

Yes.

Councilor Robinson? Yes. 11 yes.

Thank you. 4.3, order, parking capital plan loan order. Give second reading. Order to borrow $5 million to pay cost of the various capital improvements and purchases described below, any related architecture and engineering services in connection therewithin, and all order costs incidental and related hereunto. We're going to open the meeting to anyone wishing to speak in favor. In favor? In favor? That portion of the hearing is closed. Anyone wishing to speak in opposition? Opposition? Opposition? That portion of the hearing is closed. Motion to adopt and refer to the clerk's office for 20 days by Councilor Robinson, seconded by Councilor Noon. Any questions? Councilor Duran.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It may be too late to ask the parking department head, but I was curious. This includes some elevator work, but the Downs Garage elevator has been out for a while, and I'm trying to just understand how we are going to handle that.

Mr. CFO? Mr. Ball.

Thank you Mister mayor so right now currently there's an assessment that is going on that study has been I believe completed as of this point in time and we are going to be going out to bid to fix that elevator, I believe.

And can I ask a follow-up so that's not part of the capital plan though right now so I don't know the so will how we fund whatever might come back from that bid.