City Council - Regular Meeting

So elijan donde... Good evening and welcome to the special meeting of the Lawrence City Council. Today is Monday, June 15, 2026. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Act of 2022, this meeting will be hybrid, allowing participation both in person at the city council chambers as well as remotely. We have two links that was provided to anybody that requested for the Zoom meetings. This meeting is also being transmitted live through the YouTube Lawrence City Council page as well as the Facebook Lawrence City Council page. Madam Clerk, Rocco.

Councillor Gonzalez. Present. Councillor Miguel. Present. Councillor Marmo. Present. Councillor Infante. Present. Councillor Del Rosario.

Present.

Councillor Reyes. Present. Councillor LaPlante. Present. Councillor Vice President. Present. Councillor President Rodriguez.

Present. Please join me for a moment of silence. Now join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Now we are going to open public participation. The rules for public participation are as follows. You're gonna have two and a half minutes to speak. At the two-minute mark, you're gonna hear a beep or an indication that you still have 30 seconds to go. Please refer to this council as a whole. The first person that we have on the list is H. Malik. Name and address for the record, please.

Good evening, honourable members. We, the citizens, support all the parents in our demonstration of the support for public transportation of their children in the Lawrence public school. In the week that passed by, one of the honourable police officers was injured. We pray for the safety of all the police officers. Lawrence Police, with the impeccable leadership by Honourable Chief Maurice Aguilar, are doing an excellent job to protect our citizens. Thank you Lawrence Police for keeping Lawrence a safe city. Lawrence is a beautiful city because of our best DPW workers and leadership. Thank you for keeping Lawrence a beautiful city. We the citizens support our inspection department and their union. Thank you for excellent job. Lawrence Public School with the impeccable leadership by Honourable Superintendent Ralph Guerrero and excellent leadership by Honourable Director Wu doing excellent job. We support our teachers and their union. Lawrence will rise because of our teachers again. We support public transportation of all children of the Lawrence to the school. Lawrence, always strong. Lawrence, always united. We are proud of our veterans. Thank you for your sacrifices. Thank you for everything you have done for this nation. We must hire two new positions in our veterans' department. We must create the best commission on elders. In this important meeting, as we honor the police officers and the first responders, we are thanking our firefighters with the impeccable leadership by Honorable Chief Delaney. Lawrence Police Officer, thank you for an excellent job. We encourage this honorable council to support the parents' transportation of their children to the public schools.

The next person that we have is Mayra Ortiz. Name my address for the record.

Good evening, Councilor Mayra Ortiz, 45 Norris Street, Vice Chair of MIVA. I'm standing before you first and foremost as a resident of Lawrence thanking you all for the efforts that you made this budget season to correct the errors of last season. I appreciate all of the notifications that we received, the public opportunities to know when hearings are. It was a 360 from last year's hearing. Now, what I want for the public record and for you all to understand is that what is before you and the difficult decisions that we are facing didn't come with this year's administration. This comes with a history of mismanagement and not meeting the Chapter 70 obligations for our Lawrence public schools. I stood in front of you as a candidate for the Lawrence School Committee and told you about an $11 million deficit with Chapter 70. I stand before you now with the last check of a $19 million deficit of Chapter 70 money. And now our children, our public school children, counselor, are being faced with needing sponsorships from New Balance to walk to school. Our eighth graders, who are already intimidated about going into Lawrence High School, a very big place, are not secured transportation, which is a public good, which MIVA, and in my position in MIVA, I've been working hard to be sure that we have adequate service with the fair share of dollars that raise up one. And we didn't win these dollars for them to be misappropriated or for us to make up for chapter 70 money. It's totally different. Our children need access, equitable access to the Lawrence High School. Our Lawrence School Committee is already disenfranchised. We are under receivership and now we're under siege for our children not to have a safe path to school. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Ortiz. The next person that we have is Mercedes Hernandez. Name and address for the record, please.

Good evening, my name is Mercedes Hernandez Rondon, president of 6 Hamlet Street. On behalf of the families of Abbey Lawrence Academy, as their parent-teacher organization president, I am here today to express our strong opposition to the proposal to eliminate funding for school transportation for general education students in grade nine to 12 who currently receive this service. Last year, current school year, school transportation was provided for more than 1,800 high school students. Continuing this service is critical to ensuring safe, equitable, and reliable access to education for all our students. Eliminating school transportation would create significant barriers to attendance, likely resulting in increased tardiness and and could ultimately contribute to higher drop-off rates within our community. The city made a commitment to provide transportation for Lawrence students in grade 9 to 12, and many families have come to depend on this service. For numerous students, school transportation is not a convenience. It is a necessity that enables them to attend school consistently and actively participate fully in their education. We respectfully urge the City and the Honorable City Council Members to reconsider this proposal and prioritize the needs of our students by maintaining safe, dependable school bus transportation. Preserving this service is essential to supporting regular attendance, academic achievement, and equal access to the educational opportunities that every Lawrence student deserves. We thank you for your time and attention to our request. And lastly add that when school transportation is provided to students, they're safe because school transportation is an expansion of the educational building. Providing transportation to students using public transportation does not provide that safety for the students and the families, thank you.

Thank you, the next person that we have is Nicole Spring. Name and address for the record, please.

Good evening, my name is Nicole Spring, 36 Sterns Ave. The Abbott families and myself strongly oppose removal of transportation for general students in grades nine to 12 who are currently receiving it. We urge the city to fulfill its commitment to provide transportation to the high school students and continue to provide the school bus for our students. As mentioned previously, this drastic change will result in increased tardiness, absenteeism, causing students to miss valuable instructional time, and ultimately diminishing the quality of education they receive. Presently, students additionally rely on school busing to get them to the LHS campus for the arts academy, theater, JROTC, GLTS after dark, sports, and LHS clubs. The decision to remove the school busing services will have a significant impact on the social and mental well-being of our children as transportation barriers may limit their ability to participate in school activities, extracurricular programs, and opportunities to engage with their peers. I urge you to make the decision to continue to provide the school bus transportation for our students to ensure their academic success and continued engagement in the school community. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. The next person that we have is Jaylee Perez. Name and address for the record, please.

Jaylee Perez, 688 Lowell Street. It's an honor to meet and speak with you all today. My name is Jaylee Perez. I am currently going into 11th grade at Abbott Lawrence Academy. I have lived in Lawrence for the last seven years of my life and am proud to call myself a Lawrence resident. In my time at school, I have applied myself to academics the hardest I possibly could. In addition, my attendance was great as I took the bus in the morning to the LHS campus. After being known as a hardworking student all my life, this year, it all changed. As a student who lives in North Lawrence, who goes to Abbott Lawrence Academy, I've been unable to receive transportation this entire year. As a result, my mom has had to pay countless lifts, Ubers, and taxis in order to get me to school because she can't take me. I also had to take a job this school year to be able to help me mama pay these expenses. Every week my family spends 50 plus dollars to get me to school. What I also soon learned was when you order rides, they don't always come on time. So I began to come late to school. I had meetings with the principal and teachers about my commitment to my classes. What happened to you? Why aren't you trying hard enough? My teachers were saying this to me and I was no longer being seen as this hardworking student because it seemed like I no longer cared because I was coming late to class. except this year I worked harder than ever. Without provided transportation, the amount of tardies began to accumulate. Now in my personal record, I will always have lacked the commitment to come to school on time because of something I couldn't control. This affects my college acceptance and without transportation for anyone, I can't even imagine how many more students will be affected by this. It feels like the work I did coming into high school has been nullified because of my attendance this year. Espero que mi historia puede llegar a ti. Yes, my future has been forever changed, pero espero que nadie más tenga que pasar lo que mi familia pasó este año. Gracias.

All right, the next person is Angel Dominguez.

Angel Dominguez, 300 Canal Street.

Aisha Abdul, 590 El Corte. Aisha Abdul- Hello, everybody. Hello, council members. My name is Aisha Abdul, and this is Angel Dominguez, and we are rising seniors at Avalanche Academy. As senior class vice president and president, we serve to represent students at Avalanche Academy. This year, Abbott has moved from the main campus in South Lawrence to the middle of North Lawrence. Many students living in South Lawrence rely on the buses to get from school and home.

We're here today to discuss public transportation and its possibility of being removed. For many students, the transportation that the city provides is the only way school is accessible. Without transportation, many students within the Lawrence community will be unable to make it to school and forced to find new ways of arriving at school.

Around 3,000 students rely on buses every day in Lawrence in order to not only go to school, but come home. Additionally, many of these students rely on transportation for certain sports, theater, and other commitments. For instance, both me and Angel are a part of theater, where we get to come together not only as students from LHS or from Abbott, but as a cast, as a family. But without the bus to get to Lawrence High, there would be no way we could participate.

As students, our education should be the priority. However, without buses, getting to school becomes an obstacle rather than something that should be heavily accessible for all students that need it. For example, a junior at Abilene's Academy says she has to pay upwards of $100 on Ubers per week alone, which discourages her and others fear for their safety while riding on the city's public transportation.

Every day before school and after school, cars pile up, causing unmovable traffic throughout Lawrence. Without buses to get to school, the traffic would force students and parents to leave home much earlier to beat it. Besides the fact that not all students and parents may have cars to get to school, the carbon emissions from the excess cars will affect the atmosphere in the long run. We understand that many factors We understand that many factors go into the decisions such as this. However, we hope that the district members hear our concerns and emphasize with students and parents within the Lawrence community that transportation is a necessity, not a want. Thank you.

Thank you. The next person that we have is John Regal.

Hold for the end, please. Hold. Good evening, John Regal, 22 Hilltop Avenue. I'm also the chair of the Republican Committee in Lawrence, and I got many calls over the weekend once everybody started seeing the poster about the school bus problem. I don't have to say much because you guys seen it here. The proof is here. People are not happy, parents are not happy. I'm not happy to see the bus going away, if it goes away. Number one, safety, safety-wise. How we gonna make sure that our kids going to MIBA, I'm not saying the MIBA buses are not good, but we need to think about the safety of the kids. A lot of kids doesn't feel safe going to school in some way or the other one. Now we're going to put this burden into the kids and to the parents to send kids, hey, go take the public bus. How are they going to get there? Do they feel safe? Do they feel safe enough to make it to school on the public bus? You know what I mean? like the kids say, they're gonna have to spend more money, they're gonna have to get there earlier, they're gonna have, I mean, this is a bigger problem. Why fix, why trying to fix something that is now, it's okay, it's okay, it's now completely broken, leave it the way it is. People, parents are happy with it, let's fix the problem. You know there's a problem, fix the problem, but don't try to take something away that is there. Leave it alone. Don't take the money away from the kids. It's not for me, but it's for the parents. The parents are here.

Look at every single one of them right here.

Look at them to their face and say you're going to take the public transportation away, the buses away, so the kids can make it to the school on time and safe. Please tell me that. Once again, they're there. They're right here. I don't have to say much. Thank you.

All right, the next person is Flip. Luani Hermang. Liani. Liani.

Good evening, my name is Leonie Herman, 334 Prospect Street. I am a rising senior at Lawrence High School. For many people, a school bus may seem just like another expense in the district's budget, but for many students in Lawrence, it is the difference between having reliable access to education and facing significant barriers just to get to school. Over 3,000 students depend on school buses every day to get to and from school. Taking away this service would place an enormous burden on students and families throughout our city. While some may suggest that students use public transportation instead, we must consider the reality of that option. Many students would have to wake up extremely early to catch multiple buses and still arrive at school in time for breakfast and the start of classes. Breakfast programs exist because we recognize that students learn best when their basic needs are met. We should not force students to choose between getting enough sleep and having access to a meal before school. Another proposed alternative is walking. However, many students live far from their schools and would need to walk an hour or more each day. Expecting students to make these long commutes, especially during harsh New England winters, heavy rains, or extreme heat, is simply unrealistic and inequitable. We must also remember that education extends beyond the classroom. Many students participate in sports, clubs, after school tutoring, student government and other extracurricular activities that help them develop leadership skills, build community and prepare for their futures. Reliable transportation allows students to take advantage of these opportunities. Without it, many students would be forced to give up activities that are essential to their personal growth and success. Transportation should never become another obstacle preventing students from reaching their full potential. School buses are not a luxury. They are an investment in attendance, academic achievement, student safety, and educational equity. Every student deserves a fair opportunity to succeed regardless of where they live or their family's transportation situation. I urge you to reconsider this proposal and work together to find solutions that preserve transportation services for Lawrence students. The cost of eliminating buses may save money in the short term, but in the long term, cost to students, families, and our community will be far greater. Please remember that behind every budget decision are real students whose education and well-being are at stake. We are not asking for convenience. We are asking for access, safety, and equal opportunity. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. The next person. Let's hold to the end with applause. Justin Tan is the next person. Name and address for the record, please.

Name and address for the record. My name is Justin Tan. I live in Farnham Street 99.

This is my... Andre Felice, 50 Allen Street.

Hello, committee. Regarding the scandalous and scrutiny in our school's own system, we advise you not to remove the school bus transportation as it will allow us to have the health and what we need in class in general. We have multiple days where we can't make it to school because it's cold and we can't walk in the winter. The snow was harsh this year, as you might know, and the heat is unbearable this year. Through that, we also would like to ask that you might be inclined to get rid of it because, I don't know, the money that costs to transport these buses actively. But walking in these weathers is not ideal, especially due to the snow and the ice this year, especially for kids who ride the scooters that they might buy. And not everybody can afford these scooters as well. So it's not just because we can't walk, it's the fact that it's unhealthy and unhazardous to walk. We also would like to address some of the sidewalk issues that we can't walk on, or with the ice, it makes it unbearable to walk on them. As well as the students that may take after school programs, we take sports programs, college programs, or any clubs after school. We are starting varsity, and we would like to have our teammates on the court or on the team as fast as possible as our teams count. And we matter as a student government, and we should be able to walk to school every single day and take the bus. The bus itself has its issues. Yes, we regard that. But it is the only way students may have the way to go to school actively. I know some of my friends are not the always active, going to school every single day, but that doesn't matter as we are trying. Lawrence is healing as a whole, and we love to see growth, especially LHS. Regarding its security and protection, the buses itself will be needed to let LHS grow. It's its own thing, and we should let everything become, you know, safe. Was that my time to go?

No, you still have 30 seconds. Okay.

The buses itself will lower attendance rates, which is something we all do not like in LHS. Students, teachers, all suffer from having low attendance. And removing the buses will shut down any chance for LHS to heal overnight. Even if we have security and up the bathroom quality, the fact that our students will be there to inhabit these corridors is horrible. Thank you so much.

Wow. All these names are gonna be submitted for the record. So, now we are going to public hearing. Madame Clerk.

No, public hearing first.

Madam Clerk, please read the notice for item 22826, which is the proposed fiscal year 2027 municipal budget. Madam Clerk, please read the notice.

It's a long one, so bear with me.

document number 228-26 notice is hereby given that the Lawrence City Council will hold a public hearing on Monday June 15th at 7pm said hearing may continue Wednesday June 17th 2026 at 7pm if needed the purpose of the hearing is to gather testimony information and public input concerning the proposed 2027 fiscal year appropriation order and appropriation order enterprise funds as presented herein for consideration of approval by the Lawrence City Council for the City of Lawrence Massachusetts said public hearing to be conducted at a meeting of the Lawrence City Council in the City Council Chambers 200 Common Street Lawrence Mass notice of the meeting Notice of the meeting of the Lawrence City Council and said public hearing shall be published in advance as required by law on the City Council website, www.cityoflawrence.com forward slash agenda center and city clerk public meeting notice. www.cityoflawrence.com forward slash document center. The proposed FY2027 budget for the city of Lawrence to be presented for consideration of approval is as follows. City of Lawrence, fiscal year 2027, appropriation order, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In order concerning appropriations for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026, ordered that the following sums designated as personnel services, purchase of services, professional services, supplies and other charges and expenses, capital outlay, intergovernmental and debt services are hereby appropriated separately for each department in the general fund and that $7 million of the debt reserve be appropriated to support the general fund operating budget. Sorry. The City Council, $520. Mayor's Office, $1,166,264. Administration and Finance, $4,794,181. City Attorney, $797,275. City Clerk Elections and Annual Listing, $1,080,220. Office of Planning and Development, $1,768,299. Police Department, $18,817,167. Fire Department, $15,742,026. National Services, $2,371,766. Emergency Management, $105,000. Lawrence Public Schools, $317,451,163. Educational Assessments, $51,243,879. Greater Lawrence Technical School, Department of Public Works, $15,612,349. Cemetery, $614,997. Health and Human Services, $1,568,479.

Library, $1,736,579.

Debt services, $14,919,772. Intergovernmental assessments, $2,052,817. Employee benefits. $31,513,207. Risk management, $744,000. Other financing sources and uses is $1,391,064 for total general fund of $489,903,032. less amounts not required to be appropriated as state and county assessments, which is a negative $53,140,083 for a total appropriated general fund of $436,762,949. City of Lawrence fiscal year appropriation order also includes enterprise funds for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in order concerning appropriations of the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026, order that the following sums designated as personal services, purchase of services, professional services, supplies, other charges and expenses, capital outlay, intergovernmental and debt services are hereby appropriated separately in the parking enterprise fund of the City of Lawrence. Parking, garage, lots and enterprises, 1,320,000, $520, order that the following sums designated as personal services, purchase of services, professional services, supplies, other charges and expenses, capital outlay, intergovernmental and debt services are hereby appropriated separately in an Airport Enterprise Fund of the City of Lawrence, Airport Enterprises, $782,919. order that the following sums designated as personal services purchase of services professional services supplies other charges and expenses capital lay intergovernmental and debt services are hereby appropriated separately in a sewer and water enterprise fund of the city of lawrence water and sewer enterprise fund is 21 million eight hundred ninety seven thousand two hundred ninety three dollars total enterprise funds of twenty four million seven hundred and thirty two dollars a copy of the proposed fy27 budget in its entirety is posted on the city of lawrence website at www.cityoflawrence.com document center view 52052 mayor's recommended fy2027 budget a copy may also be viewed in the clerk's office 200 common street room 107 lawrence mass during normal business hours attest eileen o'connor burnell city clerk

Public hearing is now open for the item 228-26, the proposed fiscal year 2027 municipal budget. Anybody that wishes to speak, now you have the opportunity. Please make a line. Name and address for the record, please.

My name is Ismael Rondon, 6 Hanley Street. I am a parent of a student in the Lauren Public School, president of ELPA, a member of the school site council for the Lauren High School Academies, coordinator of the Hispanic Parent Group, and a member of the Abbott Lauren Academy PTO. I'm going to continue speaking in Spanish, which is the primary language of the more than 80% of the family and the student in the Laran Public School and the community.

Is this timed? Is this timed? No? OK. If you're going to speak in Spanish, . You can just sign your names and use me because there's so many of them. You're welcome. Excellent.

Good evening. My name is Ismael Rondon. I live at 6 Hamlet Street. I am a parent of students.

The next.

Okay. Those of us are representative sample of all the families of students in the academies and programs at the Lawrence High School and the district schools.

Después de reunirnos con las familias, proveerles información y escuchar sus opiniones y preocupaciones, quienes nos dirigimos a ustedes somos portavoces de las familias y como tales hemos venido ante ustedes a presentarles las voces de las familias de las Escuelas Públicas de Lawrence.

After meeting with families, providing them with information and listening to their opinions and concerns, those of us addressing you are spokespeople for the families and such as we have come here before you to present the voices of the families.

Las familias de las escuelas públicas de Loren y la comunidad escolar nos oponemos firmemente a la eliminación del servicio de transporte escolar a la decisión de administración de la ciudad de no incluir en el presupuesto del próximo año escolar los fondos para proveer servicios de transporte escolar a los estudiantes de educación general de grado 9 a 12 que vienen recibiendo dicho servicio desde la construcción de la Lawrence High School en la parte sur de la ciudad.

The families of Lawrence Public Schools and the school community strongly opposed to the elimination of school transportation services and the city administration's decision not to include funding next year's budget to provide school transportation to ninth and 12th grade general education students who have been receiving this service since the construction of Lawrence High School in the south part of the city.

We believe that removing school transport to these students so that they can use public transport, among other things, could hinder access to education that our students have the right to, which could also increase the rate of school disruption, delays, and absences.

We believe that taking away school transportations from these students, forcing them to use public transportation, among other things, could hinder access to education to which our students are entitled, which could increase dropout rates.

Removing school transport for 9th to 12th grade general education students also increases the risk of being involved in incidents and inappropriate situations of various kinds. It could affect the academic performance of our students and the performance of our schools, which are still under state control.

Taking away school transportation from 9th and 12th grade general education students also increases the risk of them becoming involved in various types of incidents in inappropriate situations, which could affect the academic performance of our students and the performance of our schools that are still under the state control.

The ELPAD and the group of Hispanic parents and other organizations that we have joined together to express our firm opposition to the decision to remove school transport to high school students from grades 9 to 12, we have fulfilled our duty to bring to you the voices of families and the school community. para que su decisión sobre este asunto en particular esté alineada con la voluntad de las familias y la comunidad en sentido general.

The ELPAC, the Hispanic Parents Group, and the organizations that have joined together to express our opposition to the decision to eliminate school transportation for general education students in grades nine through 12 have fulfilled our duty to bring the voices of families and the school community before you so your decision on this particular matter aligns with the will of families and the community at large.

Honorable Councilors, Finally, I would like to reiterate that the families and the school community firmly oppose the elimination of school transport to 9 to 12 grade general education students and that we hope that their votes reflect what the families of the students of the public schools of Lawrence think and feel.

Honorable council members, finally, I would like to reiterate the families and the school community strongly oppose the elimination of school transportation for general education students in grades nine through 12, and we hope that your votes will reflect that the families of students in Lawrence Public Schools thinks and feel.

Thank you in advance for listening to the voices of families. Thank you very much.

Thank you. The next person.

Order. Let's hold to the end, please, so we can move on. It's easier.

So...

The next person, name and address for the record, please.

Good evening, honorable members. In this important budget hearing, we the citizens, first of all, grateful to all honorable member council for working so hard through the subcommittees after subcommittee hearing, listening to all the leaders of all our city government, Your dedication and sacrifice in this important budget of season that supports safety and prosperity for our city is really important. We are grateful for your hard work. Laurentian, proud of you, and we thank you. Also, we the citizens are grateful to the Honorable Mayor Brian de Peña for proposing the most citizen-focused budget. The leader that always helping Lawrence have a safe and prosper. The leader is always working to have a better Lawrence. In this important budget hearing, we must know that transportation for our city of immigrants is very important. As you know, our education is the most important powerful weapon to change the world. This change is happening in our city if we support transportation for the children of Lawrence. because impeccable performance for the children of the Lawrence is possible. They attend the school in a regular way and does not burden our parents. In a season that changes with snow and ice, with the heat, we respectfully request from this honorable council create a situation that parents of the Lawrence have a good transportation to their schools. We don't want to decrease the performance of our students. We don't want to fall from that behind because the students get behind. So very important in this budget hearing, we respectfully request to provide the ample transportation for the children of the Lawrence. The next in this great budget is the police department. We must know the police department with a budget of a little more than 18 million, one of the best police departments in the nation. The union of pride and honour with the impeccable leadership by Honourable Maurice Aguilar doing an excellent job to protect our citizens. We, the citizens, are proud of this union of pride and honor, but for creating the championship of the first responder. Lawrence police officers, thank you for excellent job. We must hire more police officers. The population of more than 90,000 are united and strong. With one word we say, Lawrence police office, thank you. Because of you and your dedication and sacrifices, we have a strong and safe Lawrence. Lawrence Fire Department, with a budget of only 15 million, has an impeccable leadership by honor of Chief Delaney, one of the best fire department in the nation. Fire after fire, the brave man and woman of the Lawrence Fire Department always there to create the best fire department in the nation. We are proud of you. Every city across this great nation, when you go visit, the most important department is the veterans department. In this important budget hearing, we must know the most important department in our city hall is our veterans department. We thank you for your service. Thank you for your sacrifices. There are two empty positions in the Veterans Department. We have to listen. These are the people who created freedom and justice for all Americans. In this important budget hearing, we must know that our Veterans Department needs to fill two empty positions. In our nation, this great nation, because of the sacrifices of our veterans, we have to pay attention to their needs. Lawrence Public School, with a budget of more than $317 million, is one of the best public schools in the nation. But right now, we have a problem with the public transportation of our children. And tonight, this honorable council can make a decision, make it available, transportation for the children of Lawrence. Lawrence Public School with the impeccable leadership by Honorable Director Boo, Honorable Superintendent Ralph Guerrero on a way to become the best public school in the nation. We cannot stop this progress for the city of immigrant. We have to know the children of the Lawrence because of our great teachers, because of a great education, they are able to go to the best universities and Ivy League schools. As the great leader Nelson Mandela said, education indeed the most powerful weapon to change the world. This change only possible if we support our teachers and the union. We the citizens tonight respectfully request do not interrupt transportation of our best children to the Lawrence public school. Children of the Lawrence in their important hearing, we must know that children of the Lawrence going to most prestigious universities, as Ben Franklin said, any investment in education has thousands of return. One of the most important departments of DPW, the best union of the men, the hardworking people, with a budget of only 15 million. Doesn't matter how bad weather it is, how good weather, that these hardworking departments, they're making Lawrence beautiful. They deserve best compensation. Our inspection department with a budget of 2 million, with a city of 90,000, we support them. We need to hire more inspectors. Very important issue that in Lawrence at now in this budget hearing. We have a school that educating children of Lawrence as English as a second language. They are operating in this tonight in this budget for renewing the lease were very important to children that emigrant from another city to be educated. So we need pay attention to the education as a second language renew their contract and lease for that department. Very important commissioner in this city hall, Honorable Commissioner Rodriguez, I as a citizen of the 50 years never see the revolutionary changes in admission accepting inclusion of the disabled people. Honorable Rodriguez has changed this city hall, transformed this city hall, He is deserved to the best compensation that he has. He changed the meaning of the inclusion for the disabled citizen. As we said always, Lawrence always strong, Lawrence always unite. In this important budget hearing, we respectfully request honor the need of the citizen and parent of this great city and allow the public transportation for the children of Lawrence. Thank you.

Next person, Rich.

Excuse me. Good evening, councillors. Rich Russell, 34 Cross Street, numbers fanatic. I point out that the federal cost of living people living on social security and military uh... disability pensions was two point eight percent remember that two point eight percent uh... this is for page twenty of the financial budget book uh... let's see uh... the administration and finance they get a six point four five percent increase The city clerk, this is not a slam at the city clerk's office. They do a wonderful job. 2.7, that's close enough to 2.8. Planning and development, 1.3%. Wow. The police department, as understaffed as we are in the job that they're doing, they only got a 1.6% increase. The fire department, led by Chief Delaney, They got a .9% increase. Inspectional service got a 6.1% increase. I wonder why. Let's see, the only thing I'll say about the school department is we have to give them what they want, it's the state law. They send a blank check over and they say sign it, we'll put in the numbers. Let's see, Public Works, they got a 2.1% increase. The cemetery, they got a 6.1% increase. I wonder why. Health and Human Services got a 10% increase in their budget. The library got a 1.8% increase. That was from pages 20 and 21. this is from page twenty eight this is the mayor's office the mayor's office is trying to come out smelling roses saying they cut this they cut their positions they cut their salaries uh... they went from ten people to nine people but if you follow through the rest of the budget book that one person that, let's see, what was it? Data entry clerk making $68,640. He got slid or she got slid over into another department making about $65,000. Is that a gross savings or is that a gross injustice? I say it's an injustice. So they went from nine employees to eight employees saying they saved $68,640. for a net savings of $27,606 in the budget. Depending on your financial finagling, yeah, you did. But look at the bottom line, that $68,000 or $65,000 went elsewhere. Okay, since the mayor started writing budgets or approving budgets, The city's budget has gone up almost $144 million in five budgets. That's almost $29 million a year. This budget increase was 4.32% versus the 2.8% cost of living. Last year's budget was 5.93% increase versus a 2.5% increase in the federal COLA. The 25 budget, that was an 8.42%, and the federal COLA was 8.7. Okay, so you guys were close. FY24, 9.1% versus a 5.9% COLA. Why? Why don't politicians make it a law that city budgets have to remain within the COLA, the federal COLA? Because they can rob the taxpayers blind, okay? So in conclusion, Google is projecting a 3.8 to 4.7 cost of living increase for next year. assuming a four percent cola and based on the city percentage increasing by about fifty percent more so we're looking at about a six percent increase in the city budget next year the city budget is going to hit five hundred and twenty million dollars half a billion dollars for seven square miles come on let's be real about this Has that money really helped the citizens of Lawrence, or has it helped enrich certain employees? Think it over. Do your duty. You were elected to represent us, the citizens. Do your duty and think of us, not the people upstairs, not the power brokers that want to make Lawrence what they want it. Think of us, we're the ones that have to foot the bill. Bottom line, the city budget should have to stay within the federal COLA limits. That's my opinion, I'll stick with it and I appreciate the time to express my concerns.

Thank you, the next person.

Order, order.

Next person, please.

Clayney Rojas for Union Street. May I have a translator, please?

Sure.

I'll say my broken English for another moment.

It's not quite broken.

I'm a school bus driver. Soy una chofera de guagua. Yo estoy viendo que están reduciendo el servicio escolar solamente a recoger niños de la parada y llevarlo a la escuela.

I'm seeing that they're reducing the budget for the school kids. Just picking them up at the bus stops and bringing them to school.

I'm sorry? Address. Oh, closer? Oh, you speak English. Sorry.

Oh my, I was like memorizing everything and I was repeating it. You've never seen the faces of kids that have never been to the museum of science. You've never seen the faces of kids that have never been to the aquarium. Because their parents can't take them.

Some people don't really. because some parents don't have the resources.

Maybe you don't have the, oh. Because some parents don't have the resources. Maybe you have the resources, but some parents don't have the money or the time to take their kids to those certain places.

You never seen seniors going to this place in Boston to pick up their dresses, makeup, shoes, everything. It's an experience. Es una experiencia para ellos que de otra forma ellos no podrían tenerla.

It's an experience for them that in other cases they wouldn't be able to have.

Otra cosa es, lo que yo veo es que ustedes le están robando más oportunidades a los estudiantes que son los más desventajados. Los estudiantes de Lorenz,

Something else is that you're taking opportunities away from the kids that need it the most, the kids in Lawrence. . So it's a fact that kids that have these opportunities to go to those places, they have a better outcome. Like you, maybe you went to a courthouse and you went to the VA.

I'll ask of you please to reconsider because these kids don't only need to go to school, but they do need the service. Ustedes podrán, pudiéramos estar teniendo cientos de niños caminando de la Lawrence High, cruzando los puentes, cruzando las calles, haciendo grupos. Son jóvenes y están en la edad más vulnerable para andar

We will be having hundreds of kids crossing the bridges, and this is the youth, this is their most vulnerable stage, and we could have kids just in the streets.

Me gustaría saber cuál es el plan. ¿Tienen más guagua a Amoeba? ¿Tienen más choferes para Amoeba? ¿Cuáles rutas van a ustedes a quitar de las personas que la usan para ir a trabajar, para rediseñarla para dos veces al día, rediseñarla para ir a la escuela, a la Loren High?

I would also want to know your plan for the Amiibo buses. Are you going to have more buses? Are you going to have more people driving those buses? I would also want to know the routes you'll be taking off of other people that need it for transportation for work and giving it to kids twice a day. At this moment, Amiibo has three routes, the eight, the nine, and the 29.

In the 26th. So, what is the plan? Because we all have economic problems. We understand that the city has serious economic problems. But I personally don't believe that

I really want to know the plan because I know that we all have money problems and the city has serious money problems and issues, but I really want to know if that will be the best solution to the problem, which will be taking away the kids' transportation.

Y les ruego, por favor, no tomen una decisión apresurada. No lo hagan porque tienen cuña política y ya tienen compromiso con alguien que prometieron cosas. Piensen en los niños que se van a afectar porque le están quitando un lugar seguro. Sus papás se van a trabajar porque saben que sus hijos están en las paradas y van a coger el autobús y van a llegar a la escuela.

And I urge you to think about those kids that need the transportation and for their safety. And the parents, they go to work thinking that their kids will be safe, that they will be at the bus stops, and that they will be going to school.

And please, political speaking, I don't know what you do, I don't know what compromises you have, but please, think about the students of Lawrence. They need the buses, the buses are, we are not perfect, the buses are not perfect. I don't think anything is. It's true, there is problem, there is situation. Drivers, tenemos problemas con choferes, no nacen en las matas, es un trabajo serio. Ser un chofer de guagua es un trabajo serio.

Being a bus driver is a serious job. We could have problems between each other, between bus drivers, but it is a serious job.

Nosotros transportamos cuánto vale su hijo, cuánto vale su nieto, cuánto vale su hermano.

We provide transportation. How much is your brother worth? How much is your grandchild worth? How much is your child worth?

That's what we transport. We transport the most, la cosa más valiosa que anybody pueda tener.

We give transportation to the most valuable thing that you could have.

And taking transportation away from those kids at their most vulnerable stages, which could make them lean to a not so good path, and making the parents worry for their kids, transportation and the security is not great.

Thank you for your time. Thank you.

The next person. Order, order, order. The next person. Order. The next person, please. Name my orders for the record.

Good evening. My name is Nat Stevenson, and I'm a co-secretary for the Abbott Lawrence Academy PTO, along with my wife Erica here. So I wanted to say good evening to the honorable elected officials from Lawrence, members of the PTO, and citizens of Lawrence. I'd like to talk about the bottom line for parents. our children's safety. Our daughter attends Abbott Lawrence Academy, and she relies on the school bus to get to and from school safely. I wanna jog everyone's memory for a moment. Last year, the PTO fought for the funding of school transportation, and we won.

Do you mind stating your address, please? I'm sorry, what? Do you mind stating your address, please? Your address. My address, oh yeah.

392 South Broadway, yeah. So I just wanna remember, I want to jog everyone's memory that for a moment that Last year the PTO fought for the funding of school transportation and we won. But here we are again. We should not have to fight for this service. That should be a right for all of Lawrence students. If you cut this funding, you're forcing her, my daughter, and hundreds of other children off of a protected school bus and onto public city transit. The reality of public transportation is that it is open to the general public. Our kids shouldn't have to navigate crowded routes alongside total strangers in unpredictable situations just to get an education. A dedicated school bus provides a safe, supervised environment. So as a public school teacher, I know how much stability and peace matters. So some might say that there is no money. They say we have no money for the school transport, but as we've heard from Ms. Bernal, listed the budget for the city of Lawrence, and also we had the other citizen who spoke, who gave us sort of a nice little analysis of how the budget's going up and down. So I'll tell you one thing. There is always money. and how our society spends its money is how we demonstrate our values. Please show that Lawrence supports its children by retaining the school transportation funding. Thank you.

Thank you. The next person, please. Name and address for the record.

392 South Broadway. My name is Erika Stevenson. I am a co-secretary from the PTO from Lawrence for AVID Academy. I am here tonight to state clearly that we are fundamentally opposed to eliminating school transportation funding for next year. This is a glaring matter of geographic equity. Right now, North Lawrence students get buses across to the river to the main Lawrence High Campus, yet Bayou want to cut the transportation for South Lawrence families whose kids attend Abbott Academy on the north side. Equity, eliminating these buses forces a massive crisis onto families among the many logistic and financial issues. Parents will have to face a result of loss in school transportation. We are looking at severe conflicts to work in parents who cannot leave their jobs for mine afternoon pickups. And also, it's a vital inter-campus link preventing Abbott Lawrence Academy students from getting across town to Lawrence to high school to participate in sports, theater, and other extra activities. She said it in English. Oh, same thing.

I beg you to think about the kids of Lawrence because they are the future.

In your seat. Go ahead.

It's important that they think that all the people here are asking for un servicio que es fundamental para ellos, que es prácticamente básico. Nosotros no deberíamos estar peleando aquí cada año exigiendo un servicio que es elemental para que ellos puedan transportarse y tener la educación necesaria.

Okay, it's important for you to think about this as a necessity and something basic that these kids need. It's not okay for us to be here every year fighting for this, for something that is a necessity, something they need. I urge you to please think about your decision.

Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you. The next person. Name and address for the record, please.

Willete Maldonado, 49 Crestwood Circle. First of all, I feel that the mayor should be here to hear our concerns because he's the one that did the budget. And as our mayor, I feel it disrespectful to us that he can't even sit here longer than five minutes to hear our concerns. Okay, so I'm here tonight as both a concerned parent a member of Abbott PTO and a taxpayer to express my strong opposition to the proposal to eliminate transportation funding for designated school buses serving students in grades nine through 12 who already received this service. First and foremost, my concern is for the safety of our children. Removing these buses would place a significant number of students onto public streets, increasing the risk of accidents and exposing them to unsafe situations, including potential harassment or other harmful behavior. It would also contribute to increased congestion and traffic challenges throughout the community, affecting not only students but residents as well. This issue is not just the radical for me it is deeply personal. Earlier this year my daughter and a friend when nearly struck by a speeding vehicle and a crosswalk outside their school in front of the state the school safety officer. In addition. My child experienced a traumatic incident at a very young age that continues to affect her many years later emotionally today. Because of this, she has expressed real fear about relying on public transportation and states that if her past experience, if her past experience were to happen again or even worse, there is nothing anyone can do or say to ever take back what has happened or the effect it will have on her emotionally. As a parent, it is incredibly difficult to witness that fear and know that removing dedicated school transportation could make her and many other students feel vulnerable on a daily basis. Beyond safety concerns, there are serious logistical concerns to consider. Abbott Academy and LHS together serve more than 3,200 students who rely on transportation each day. Public buses, which run roughly every 30 minutes, have a maximum capacity of approximately 35 passengers per trip. Based on these figures alone and the routes of our students, it is difficult to see how the public transportation system could absorb such a significant increase in student ridership while continuing to serve the general public effectively. Additionally, we must consider the impact of weather and seasonal conditions. During the winter months, students would be expected to wait outside in cold temperatures and darkness due to earlier sunsets. These conditions are not only uncomfortable, but potentially unsafe, and they could negatively impact attendance and student success. We must also take into consideration after school sports and activities. In closing, as a mother, I firmly believe that eliminating funding for designated school transportation is neither a safe nor practical solution. As a taxpayer, I demand that our voices be heard and that the mayor reconsider his proposal prioritizing a budget that ensures our children have access to designated school buses that are both safe and reliable because at the end of the day our tax dollars pay for it. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you.

The next person. The next person, please. Name and address for the record.

Good evening, city council members. My name is Mehdi Benafoun, 86 Beacon Street, South Lawrence. Sorry about that. Good evening, city council member of this chamber. My name is Mehdi Benafoun, 86 Beacon Street, South Lawrence. I'm a concerned parent for an ILA student. First of all, I want to say thank you for giving us the opportunity tonight to discuss and express our concern regarding our student transportation. The Abbott family and myself strongly oppose the removal of transportation for students in grade 9 and 12 who are currently receiving it. and we urge the city to fulfill its commitment to provide transportation to high school students. Today we are here, all here, for one purpose and one purpose only, is to provide transportation for our students. Transportation should be a permanent aspect and a priority. I'm sorry, just like.

Yes. Sorry about that. Sorry about that.

Sorry about that, council. We urge the city to fulfill its commitment to provide transportation to high school students. Today we're all here for one purpose and one purpose only, is to provide transportation for our students. Transportation should be a permanent aspect and priority, not a temporary option for our students. Because by eliminating the service, things will end to a lot of consequences. that can damage the structure of our students daily, routine, all around the educational field, which result in a lot of negativities. First, safety, like everyone mentioned here, drop off from school, tardiness and absenteeism, concentration in classrooms, missing their daily activities like clubs after school programs and sports and et cetera. Loss of access to educational opportunities. Losing wages because some students have to go to school, and when they're done, they have to go to some part-time. Some of them have part-time jobs to go to. Some students have part-time jobs to go to after school. And then that can cause a lot of things to students, like bad behavior. And bad behavior can... Throw people to a lot of things, drugs, gangs, violence, et cetera, you know what I mean? Traffic congestion and build up. Loss of income for taxpayers. When parents start struggling between making ends meet and driving their kids daily to school or to another job. School losing money, school will lose money and fund after student drop off. Grow of mental and physical health. issues for our future generation. We are respectively asking all city members, council, to consider all these matters and make a solid decision and send a promising commitment in favor of our students, transportation, to ensure safe, permanent funding and equal access to education field. Thank you, and may God bless all of us.

Thank you. The next person, name among others for the record, please.

Luis Robles, 183 Abbott Street. Got to get a new prescription, so bear with me if I'm a little slow. It's the glasses. Good evening. I hope you guys have some funds in your budget, because I kind of messed up the sticker for the handicap. Sorry about that. So basically, I'm a parent for a student that goes to the Abbott Lawrence Academy. I live in the South. And every single parent that we spoke to from the Abbott, from the multilingual families, from the ELPAC, and from our meetings that we have done, every single parent is opposed, strongly opposed, to the elimination of the school buses. to be clear, we're not talking about public transportation, the elimination of school buses, we strongly oppose that, and we just want the city to fulfill its commitment. So as you can see, there hasn't been any insults, nobody's going crazy, this is nothing personal, this is just families advocating for their students. Police, fire, teachers, everybody have their unions to represent them, to negotiate with the mayor, parents, we don't have a union, we have to come together and fight for the things that we want. It is not ethical to balance the budget on the backs of our students, especially when the administration has promised that we are in good health, we have a surplus of funds, and apart from that, now all of a sudden we have a deficit. So we just want the current services for the students who are receiving it to continue receiving it. Even the students, the families that have students that don't receive transportation because they quote unquote live too close, they're upset that they don't have transportation. So imagine now the people that live further away across the bridge. So we're not asking for anything crazy. It's just the same thing that the city has been providing for years. There was no notification sent, there was no intention, there was no getting together with families, with schools, with parents saying we have the intention to do this so that we can be prepared, none of that. And we can make the argument that we didn't know that this was gonna happen because the same thing happened last year. And if you remember, students and other people had to come and advocate for the same thing as well. So we knew ahead of time that we had enough time to get with families. And all of a sudden, now, at the end of the school year, we want to come back and do the same thing again so abruptly. There are several, I can't even understand my own handwriting now. There are several second order consequences that we also have to consider when it comes to what is being incentivized. So we can assume that families are just gonna happily take the MIVA transportation, which we know is not gonna happen. So what are we gonna incentivize? We're gonna incentivize more kids to be on scooters and e-bikes, which we already have an issue. With that, multiple accidents have already occurred with teenagers and now we're gonna potentially increase the accidents because now we're bringing more e-bikes and scooters because that's what will be incentivized. We complain about congestion during those school pick up and drop off times. There will be more congestion because some parents are just gonna drop their kids off rather than just going straight to work. And there's also the cost, as you know, we are a low-income community, so we like to compare us, oh, Somerville is doing this, this, we're a low-income community, and so we can't be using fallacies, saying, well, these two cities do it, so we can do it. Well, I can give you two cities that also provide school bus, so why don't we copy them? We can't pick and choose which city we're trying to model when it's convenient for us. So for students, this will be higher stress, financial burdens for family, private buses and logistics issues. So we can say, oh, well, you know, there's people that say, well, just have the parents pay for a private bus. Well, right now, let's say you try to get a private bus for a kid who's in elementary school. You have to call like 10 companies to see if they actually have a spot. And this is from going to the south to the south or north to north. Now, these companies, most of them, they don't like to cross the bridge. And we're talking about crossing the bridge in this case. So most of them will not agree, will not give you a seat to go from South Lawrence to north because they like to stick within the south or within the north, within that particular route of where they pick up the kid. So that might not even be an option. But now if you got high school kids competing for seats in private buses, now the elementary school kids might not have that available to them anymore. And of course, with more demand, you guys know the laws of supply and demand. A lot of you studied this in school. When there's more demand, the prices go up. So you can say, well, oh, Uber is only $10. Well, Uber works by supply and demand. So if you have now double or triple the amount of people asking for Ubers in the morning, which I've done this two or three times, and it doesn't work because They cancel you in the morning. They know you might be doing it for a student. And they come late because now they're in traffic. So the kid ends up going late to school. But now the cost is increasing because now there's more people competing for the same Uber. So the algorithm is going to increase the prices. And we already know people are already struggling with their bills as it is. Apart from that, we trust the school buses because it's an extension of the school. If a kid is being bullied in the school bus, we know where to go. We go to the school. If an incident happens in the school bus, we know that the school is responsible. Are we going to be now saying, well, Meva is sending us to the school, but the school is sending us to Meva, and now nobody is responsible if something happens to one of our kids? Schools, they have a stop sign that comes out. Some people don't respect it, and they drive by. But for the most part, most people do. I've never seen anybody stop for MIVA when MIVA is dropping somebody off. People just pass MIVA straight. I'm going to leave it like that because I know the time is about value and there's more people waiting. So thank you so much for this opportunity. And please reconsider redoing your budget. Thank you.

Thank you. Next person. Name and address for the record, please.

I am Justin Tong, 994 Arnhem Street.

Andre Feliz, 50 Island Street.

We think this idea is actually unethical for the entire Massachusetts Department in general. I feel like if we were to scrap the idea that there's no more buses, there would be no reason for a school to even exist because attendance is very keen on So not only will removing that type of transition allow that to happen, it will also allow a down spiral in LHS's own image as LHS has been shown to be a very violent area. It's also because it's also completely disgusting. If you were to have went to LHS recently, bathrooms have not been working correctly. not only will you destroy another image of LHS, but it will completely override what we've been trying to make for years. And listen, the protection of everybody has been at stake for years, and adding that protection from security was a great idea, but having no students there makes no sense, as we would love to have our students be there constantly and ready to learn. And to be frank, you guys have done an amazing job this year. We love you guys, but decision is out of anybody's question, and it is very unethical.

Audrey? As a student, we're both student athletes here. I believe that if removing the transportation cost or anything like that, it removes any future student athletes.

Can you speak a little louder, please?

Right here. As a student-athlete, we're both here trying to oppose all of this because we believe that we both know amazing student-athletes that they play, they're amazing, they're talented, they could go and have a bright future, but they can't do it because of rides. But eliminating the cost of any transportation, any transportation they had isn't going to remove any future or any Lawrence kid that comes out of Lawrence. So I believe that... This is like a bad cause. This is not something we should do. We're all students who want to do something in the future, and there's many kids that have talent that could fight for or have the name Lawrence under them.

And we agree that LHS can change for the better, but this isn't one way to start it. And we would love to start it by fixing everything almost wrong with LHS, mainly fixing the issues that concur with the teachers and inhabitants of that are unethical and unlearnable, and fixing the other areas that maybe could be done over time, but this is not the step to a better Lawrence. I rest my case.

Thank you. All right, next person, please, name and address for the record.

Buenas tardes, mi nombre es Gloricela Miranda, vivo en el 671 de la S Street. Mi hijo va a la Lawrence High, y es un poco hard.

Mi hijo va a la Lawrence High, and it's a little hard. Gloricela Miranda. Mi nombre es, my name is Gloricela Miranda. 671 de la S Street. And my address is 661 X Street.

Mi hijo va a la Lawrence High.

My son goes to the Lawrence High School.

Yo estoy aquí porque no soy solamente yo, son más padres aquí de low income y que trabajan mucho.

I'm here because it's not only me. I'm here and there's also other parents of low income.

Y que se les hace muy difícil pagar la transportación.

And it will be very difficult for them to pay for transportation.

Y más que son, aquí la ciudad de Lawrence está basada como que es low income también.

Yeah, and the city of Lawrence is based on low income.

And public transportation is not safe for the kids. Who can assure the parents of the security for the kids on public transportation? Which you could also see on TV that they have beat elderly people. I would like for you to think about this again.

We've never seen this in the city of Lawrence before.

So taxis don't give priority to students, so they always will be late to school since they always pick up other people. Oh, and a lot of kids don't know the rules for the buses either. And I'm saying this from experience.

My son tried to take the public transportation and he got lost, so I had to send him a taxi.

Oh, and I send him via taxi, and then I get messages from the school saying that my son is late. Si quisiera que reconciliaran, todos somos padres y de verdad que es hard para los padres que son low income y los que trabajan para las rentas caras que hay aquí en Lorenz.

So I would like you to reconsider, since me and other parents in Lawrence are low income, and the rent already in Lawrence is pretty high, so we would have to get another cost added to our budget.

Y otra cosa es que los taxis cobran ocho pesos para ida y ocho pesos para vuelta.

And taxis cost $8 to go and $8 to go back in one day.

Imagínate en un año.

Imagine in a year.

Muy caro.

And it's very expensive.

Gracias y espero que somos padres que reconciliemos esos puntos. Thank you. And we're parents. I hope you'll reconsider. Thank you.

Thank you. Next person. Name and address for the record, please.

Good evening, once again, John Regal, 22 Hilltop Ave. I'm gonna go just to give you an idea. You guys wanna cut budget, let's say for our school buses. Let's start on the top, school administration, just a lot of them that makes a lot of money. So if we're gonna cut Budget, let's cut there. I think that's a good idea where we could save some money instead of paying thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars in school administration. Let's cut there before we start cutting what we really need for our kids. So think about that, and thank you.

Thank you. The next person, please. Name and address for the record.

How y'all doing? My name is Nathan. I live on 182 Common Street. And I just wanted to come today and look y'all in the eyes, and hopefully the mayor, I don't know if he's here. And I could tell by the looks on your faces that you actually don't agree with cutting the school buses. I can't imagine you would. You guys are human beings. You wouldn't want the kids at Lawrence walking to school or taking public transportation. You've seen the support of all the families and teachers and community members and even the students themselves telling you that they got to get jobs just to pay for Ubers to go to school. So I just want to sit here and look at y'all and hope that you do the right thing. And I don't want to hear about there's no money. There's a $60 million police station that just got built. Last time I was in this room, it did not look like this. So I know y'all could find the money, especially while we're still under state receivership. If it's not on you, the state should be providing the buses since they are still in control of the school system. I KNOW THE SCHOOL COMMITTEE DOESN'T WANT THE SCHOOL BUSES TO BE TAKEN OUT AND BE REPLACED WITH THE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. MEVA CAN'T ACCOMMODATE 3,000 MORE PASSENGERS EVERY DAY. SO WHAT ARE WE REALLY DOING HERE? YOU KNOW? THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. NEXT PERSON, PLEASE. NAME AND ADDRESS FOR THE RECORD. AND TITLE.

Good evening, my name is Eli Aquin-Ganel, I'm on the school committee and I live at 27 Cross Street in Lawrence. I guess a couple points is just, first off, as a school committee member, I'm very curious about the NRT contract, North Reading Transportation, is that what it's called? I know that we've been using them as our main vendor for transportation for a while. And I wonder, you know, what are the details around, you know, what are the other options that are available for Lawrence? What's more, are there other companies that might be more affordable? Are there other companies that might be more reliable? My apologies to anybody who's representing NRT here, but when I used to work at Lawrence High School, we had various issues with the, sometimes buses won't show up, sometimes They would call us and tell us that they don't have a driver. And so they don't have the greatest record serving Lawrence Public Schools. So I wonder what we're doing to look at other options. And also just what the fair process is when it comes to bidding for these contracts. Why is it that we always have the same company over and over again? What are the options there? And then secondly, I work currently for Somerville Public Schools and the students in Somerville, granted it's a smaller community, I think it's about four square miles, they actually do use the public system for transportation to the schools. But I don't think that they implemented it so quickly as it's being proposed or suggested that we do it. So I do realize that there might be some benefits like Councilor LaPlante on Monday, you said that this might be a creative option. I think that there are benefits to using the public system, the MIVA system. However, there's no way that we will be ready to transition into that system in the next three months or whatever it is when school starts. We have serious questions about capacity. Nate just shared about do we know if Meva can transport, what is it, 1,800 students back and forth? Well, the ones who live in North, at least, I think. Do they have enough buses? Are there enough bus stops near where students live? Do we need to add bus stops? So I guess my point is, as a researcher, I would just strongly encourage that if there is an option being considered to transition to Meva, that first a pilot session, a pilot opportunity would be implemented first. This needs to be tested out. We don't want to put our kids in a situation where we don't know exactly what the outcome is gonna be. We have serious questions about safety, we have serious questions about capacity, and it's my estimation that there's no way that we would be ready for that transition come late August. So I hope that we can, at least for the short term, figure out how to find the funding for transportation for general education, thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else that wishes to speak? Name and address for the record and title, please.

Jonathan Guzman. Do you want me to turn this off?

Yes, use one.

Jonathan Guzman, Lawrence School Committee, elected at large, 39 Lynn Street, Lawrence, Mass. Good evening, Council President Rodriguez and members of the City Council. Thank you for the opportunity in providing this to the community. It's always good to understand that you uphold transparency all the time, that when you're going to take a huge decision and make a decision within our district, that you always provide the opportunity for the community to come and talk before you. I'm always going to applaud you to that and that you're able to, you know, not limit people when they come before you to speak. I would like to begin addressing the transportation. As we all know, it is the responsibility of the city of Lawrence to take this on, not Chapter 70, not Lawrence Public Schools, when it comes to our secondary education. What we do recognize is that it's a necessity, not a luxury. Our students need this in order to get to school. This responsibility is established under Massachusetts law for many elementary students, particularly those in kindergarten through grade six who live more than two miles from their school, making them eligible for transportation and allowing the state to require services if it's not provided. These requirements are considered within Lawrence public school policy. Additional transportation obligations assist for special education students and students experiencing homelessness. While transportation for many secondary students may not be mandated by statute, it remains an essential service that provides equitable access to educational opportunity, extracurricular activities, athletics, and other essential services for our students. As you know, NRT has once again increased the transportation budget. Their contract continues to increase year after year, bringing the total today to $13.4 million. This increase comes despite the substantial support provided by LPS and the city to assist NRT to obtain electrical buses and the necessary infrastructure through federal grant opportunities through the EPA in which LPS serves as a key partner. These investment benefit not only student transportation, but also reduce energy maintenance and fuel costs. So you will think that you will see a reduction on this year's budget or bill. Despite these realities, the DePena administration has proposed only $11.7 million for transportation, leaving $1.7 million in shortfall. In previous years, unrestricted funding sources were available to assort these costs. However, that is no longer the case, and Chapter 7 funding cannot be used to cover this gap. This unfunded obligation places an unsustainable burden on LPS and requires immediate attention from both the administration and the Lawrence City Council. I also want to be clear that the suggestion that the Merrimack Valley Transit, MEVA, can replace this service is not realistic. While MEVA routes provide valuable supplemental transportation, and are utilized by many students today, they do not provide a comprehensive substitute for transportation services required by our district. Fully funding student transportation remains essential today. Additionally, I respectfully request that through your deliberation conversation, that you ask these simple questions about the FY20 transportation expenditure. What is the city total school transportation up-to-date spending for fiscal year 2026? And how much money is the City of Lawrence currently owing NRT? Another significant concern is approximately 1.3 million in lease expenses currently charged to LPS. As these leases exceed the allowable timeframe for Chapter 70 reimbursement, they can no longer be supported through the school funding and become a municipal responsibility. Failure to address this issue may result on student relocation, disruption of educational programming, and an increase in hardship for families. We are rapidly reaching the limits of available spaces within our district, and we continue to have an inaction that could ultimately result in difficult decisions regarding the availability of educational facilities. I also have a serious concern regarding the transparency and public engagement surrounding the LPS fiscal year 27 budget process. The initial budget for LPS was posted on May 12, 2026. Without no public announcement, no outreach efforts, no flyer, the school committee received a limited 20-page budget summary, the same one that was posted on May 12th. While a more detailed itemized budget was not provided until May 27, 2026, approximately at 2.35 p.m., only hours before the actual public hearing on March 27. Our families received notice of such hearing on May 23rd, just three days beforehand, and no remote public participation was allowed. Given that the budget had been publicly available online since May 12th, the sequence of events raises legitimate concerns regarding whether the meaningful public participation was ever intended. Furthermore, the budget submitted by the Chief Financial Officer to the City Council in early May already reflected projected spending level, suggesting a substantial coordination before any public input occurred. Staffing decisions have also generated significant uncertainty. Employees have reported receiving non-renewal notices despite positions evaluations and possessing the appropriate licensure for their positions, other than having informed that they may reapply for their position and seek licensure waiver if they're close to completing certification requirements. This raises important questions. If these employees are rehired, will their year of service and salary placement be honored? Will they be required to restart at a lower salary level? If staffing changes are solely related to licensure requirements, why do school-by-school budget documents show substantial reductions on FTEs and staffing allocations? The available information strongly suggests the budgetary consideration are also influencing these decisions, not only licensure. I continue to support school-based autonomy, and I believe principals should have meaningful opportunities to advocate for the needs of their students. every school serves a unique population with significant needs and local decisions making it essential. However, while the school committee members name appear on this budget document posted on the district website on June 1st, 2026, it is important for the public to understand that the school committee did not vote or approve this budget. Our role remains to be an advisory. I cannot support a budget that claims to value workforce diversity while many of the non-renewals affect diverse educators and staff members who are in the progress towards full effectiveness and long-term career within our district. I would like to call out some additional budget concerns that include the school budget shows salary reductions despite no corresponding reductions in the FTEs, increased increases in assistant principal positions, while frontline instructional staff declines. Teacher reduction in schools with stable or increased student enrollment. Schools serving more than 500 students with only two counselors, while smaller schools have significant more counseling support. significant inconsistency between staffing allocation and salary expenditure, the dramatic reduction in instructional support salaries at the Tarbox School, for example, approximately $2 million to $417,000. The Leahy Middle School reduction from a nine instructional support position to two, while maintaining a salary allocation approximately of $348,000. but the superintendent's office budget shows an overall reduction of approximately $3.6 million due to professional service reallocation and administrative salaries within the office increased by approximately 636,000. Similarly, curriculum and instruction salaries increased from approximately 361K to 922,000. though the addition of multiple central office leadership position. Community members participated in a survey that I completed and consistently identified that central office spending as an area that could be scrutinized before reducing reductions are made to direct student spending. I also request clarification on other particular expenditures in the budget. Why is the district funding approximately $98,000 for a central Catholic nurse salary? Is AVID Academy scheduled to receive approximately $1.8 million in furniture funding during FY26 or FY27? Given the current physical constraints, is now the appropriate time for such expenditure? Is the City of Lawrence allocating approximately $70 million to education? And does this mean that we're meeting the state requirement minimum of school spending levels? Additionally, I urge the city of Lawrence to release LPS from the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding that diverts approximately $4 million from the district for administrative services that could be performed internally by LPS. Finally, I hope we all are advocating with our legislators and our delegation regarding the future of the Student Opportunity Act. If we do not do something now, you're gonna be having a lot of more conversations of a lot of more cuts that could be happening in 2028. Thank you for your attention to this important matters. I look forward to seeing your answers to these particular questions to serve our students and our families of Lawrence Public Schools, thank you.

Thank you. Next person, please. Name and address for the record.

Hello, my name is Sara Perez, 19 McKinley Ave, Lawrence, Massachusetts. I bought my house in 2010 and I used to pay taxes of $3,000 then. It's up to $7,000 now. And looking at the budget, I'm going to give you some ideas why the budget is so high and why I don't want to continue to be a proof the way it is. First, an auto increase of 2.5% on salaries that people that are not on the union, non-union employees, which means all these people that have been hired without having their license, certifications, their education to hold those positions. So they automatically are going to get an increase this year. That I found it really disgusting because we have a lot of people in Lawrence that went through college, that have experience, and nobody's getting the opportunity to find a job in the city. We're hiring friends because of political friends and favors and stuff, and we're not looking at us. All of us are being affected by this issue. An increase of 2.5% should be a no-go. That will save some money for the college, for the school transportation. We're paying a lot of money on lawyers and lawsuits. We have a lot of lawsuits. And because we're hiring people that are not prepared to do their job for their positions, we have to hire consultants to do their job. So we're paying a salary and paying consultants, which makes no sense. Multiple investigations. Some of them, they will need it, and some of them will just not need it at all. I don't want to go into the deep end, which ones I think it should have been done in Jordan. Studies, we do a lot of studies. That's where the money is going. It's got the studies, consultants, hiring people with a really high salary, or we hire somebody for a position, and a couple months later, they come back to this board here, and they ask, they change their name, and now with the name change, it's another $25,000 increase. We can have that. This is the poorest city in the whole Massachusetts. 341 cities, and we are like the lowest number. I would say number one, but we are like the lowest one. So I'm hearing about all these parents here. I raised my kids here. My four kids went to Lawrence schools. and I said, this is really concerning. We know how things are around the city and the gangs and stuff, and we cannot be throwing these kids out there to drive. What if they decided to drive to school? What if we have 500 cars the kids are driving to school now? Where we gonna park all those cars? That's a question. What's the plan? We're talking about MIBA. Can MIBA accommodate another 1,800 to 2,000 students? Remember, the school buses, they work in the morning, and then they get a time off, and then they come back in the afternoon. So they drive from 7 to 9 and then they do all this stuff and then come back like 3 to 6 or 3 to 4. Can MIVA accommodate that? Can the drivers accommodate that? So I heard somebody say, let's do a pilot program first. and not automatically remove all the school buses. Let's try it private, let's do 25%, try it with Amoeba and see if it works, and then expand it to the whole classroom or the whole high school. That's another issue. Stipends, stipends is a problem. A stipend is a problem because if I'm paying $145,000 a year to get me some grant between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., why I have to pay you a stipend for doing your job? for managing the grant, then they should be managing the grant after work hours, so they're double dipping. Because if I'm paying you to get a grant, and you're gonna manage the grant, and you're gonna work eight to five with the salary, then why I'm paying you on a stipend? It makes no sense to me. So that should be looked at too, to save some money. So I'm giving you a lot of ideas, where can we save some money to keep the school buses. because it's totally unacceptable that we expect the parents to come up with Ubers or drive the kids to school. And we are talking about mental instability, a lot of mental issues in the area. Imagine those parents that have an extra worry now. The kids are going to get to school. Are they going to get to school? Are they going to stop by their friends? They're not going to go to school. Like, it's a lot to put on parents, and it's a serious responsibility. And we can cut just unpaid people that we pay and a lot of people that don't do the job. We call it in Dominicans. If we start cutting those out, we're going to have a million dollars extra. right? So I think we should sit down, chill out, and really review this budget and start following the money. That's what I do on Facebook. I follow the money. I look at the agendas and I follow the money and the money is missing. The money is missing. I don't get any FOIA requests. Nobody want to tell me what everything is because I speak. I speak for the people and I'm educating my people to make good decisions when we vote And we have to educate people. And that's what I'm doing. I don't hate anybody. I'm just trying to tell my people, listen, you guys need to follow the money. We need to follow the money. The money is drained out of the city. If this city, the way it's been run, will be a private business, we will bankrupt by now. We'll be closed by now. And that needs to stop. That needs to stop. We need to start accountability, fiscal responsibility, and really look at the budget. Not only the budget, look at the grants, too, because I didn't see the grant in there. We get a lot of money, and we do projects, and then we don't see the projects or the money. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. Good night. Thank you.

Anybody else from the public that wishes to speak?

Yeah.

Name and address for the record, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. Good evening, councillors, elected officials, and appointed officials, department heads. Here for the Bill Collins One Platte Court. Here for the FY27 budget hearing, as I do every year. It's mostly the same subject. Could I have an interpreter, please? Thank you. I believe the other 80% of Laurentians should know what's going on in this city. Thank you. Okay, first of all, I'm speaking, invoking the provision of Mass General Law, Chapter 149, Section 185.

All comments are gonna be covered by that. 149, section 185.

I was gonna talk about the Peter principle, but I think that's over a lot of people's heads here. It's a management principle that seems like the city hall hierarchy ascribes to. The main comment I want to make, it's a tough crowd here. It's a crowd. And I think all these people did outstanding work.

Council President, the reason why we have interpreters is who aren't able to speak English so that they can speak to us. When people are here, it's a public hearing and a public meeting, and they're speaking to the council.

That's who they're speaking to. That's your interpretation. I'm going to allow him to talk to the people. The people are here.

Thank you, Mr. President. And, Council President, we also would have had it in translation services. We would have had that in the air, and we would have been able to do that in a different language. but we don't have them here tonight. Yeah, we don't have it today. That would have been the fix.

We have a city employee that is actually helping out with their translation, and the people are here, the people that we're doing the public hearing for.

May I continue?

Yes.

Thank you. And that's exactly why I asked for an interpreter, and I appreciate the help, because everybody should know, you know, roll in the same direction in this city. So basically the main thing I want to talk about is the elder services. The city doesn't even have the dignity or respect to call it elder services anymore. They call that building the center, even though it is funded by state funds.

Servicios de viejo. See, I know a little bit about it.

So the elder services, for some reason the name was dropped a long time ago, by mass general law and city ordinance, there was supposed to be a board of nine members meeting monthly.

And they haven't done that in 10 years. Noticing that, I put it on the city council agenda

over a year ago.

And I'm referring to city ordinance 2.120. 2.120. Right.

It was referred to the mayor in March of 25. There was no response.

And it was tabled.

It was once again referred in August of 25 to the HR director.

Once again, no response.

Elderly people in this city, in my opinion, have no value. They're not valued, they're not thought of, they're not considered. We used to have painting programs, we had a computer, teach them how to use the computer. There was all kinds of programs for the elderly. There's basically nothing now, but somehow in 10 years they have doubled their staff and produced less work.

Yo siento que la persona mayor de edad en esta ciudad no tiene ningún valor y nadie le pone atención. Antes teníamos programas de pintura, de enseñar a usar computadoras y de alguna manera le han subido el presupuesto por dos y hay menos programas.

The new mission statement for the elder services department at large should be delay, deny, wait until they die.

Appreciate that.

I'll be moving on to veteran services momentarily, but first, I have something. I hope the camera operator can zoom in on, just to back up what I'm saying. Fortunately, I don't have a lot of organization here tonight, but here is a picture of the calendar for the center. The important thing to notice is the line below the calendar.

And it says there are no published events in the current month.

That calendar has had those words for years. It's shameful. And I'm glad you were able to capture this graphic on the screen, because everything I'm saying, I can back up with facts.

Moving on to a document tabled at the council, 151.24. And that was put on by myself also because I realized we have a veterans advisory board in the city. It's been in the books for over 10 years.

They've never had a public meeting. They have never had a public meeting. In 10 years of having this board organized by the city council, never had a public meeting.

It was referred to the mayor in April of 24 from the committee, from the ordinance committee here.

After hearing no response, it was once again referred in May of 25. Further hearing no response, it was once again by myself, I petitioned the council to send another letter, this time to the HR director, also in May of 25.

Once again, shameful, shameful performance by the leaders of the city to have two boards that are in the e-books, their ordinance, that are unfilled for over a decade. And I happen to be

a member of both of those groups, a senior and a veteran. So it doubly affects me.

Additionally, there are two ordinance positions in the Veterans Department, and by state law, they are for veterans only. Y adicionalmente hay dos posiciones en este departamento.

Deputy director and an assistant director.

Que son el deputy director y el asistente.

So we have one man, our director, doing a superlative job as director, doing the job of three veterans. He cannot continue that.

Y hay una persona haciendo el trabajo de tres veteranos.

He cannot do the outreach required of that office.

Y no puede hacer el trabajo que se necesita de esa oficina.

He cannot visit the nursing homes, the hospitals, the homebound veterans. One man can't do that job. Y un hombre no puede hacer ese trabajo.

Or one woman, to be the case. O una mujer, en este caso.

De visitar a los ancianos, de ir a los hospitales, una sola persona no puede hacer todo ese trabajo de esa oficina.

It just so happens, coincidentally, that the leader of that department, the person above him in a supervisory capacity, is the so-called Director of Elderly Affairs. Last year at the budget hearing, she refuted my claims of how many veterans live in Lawrence, and she used a number that I believe was in the 800 range, 800 veterans.

This year for the FY27 hearing, when she appeared on that subject, she mentioned there are over 3,000. Mysteriously, the number has multiplied.

It should be noted that statewide, a common figure we all use in veterans groups is 10% of the population are generally veterans. So that would put it around 10,000, the real number.

Y hay que notar que los veteranos son el 10% de la población aquí en Lawrence. Eso pondría el número en los 10,000.

One person cannot perform that kind of work, day-to-day work and outreach.

Una persona no puede hacer ese trabajo del día a día.

Once again, it's delay, deny, wait until we die. That's the kind of service we're getting from our city government.

Thank you, councilors, appreciate your time.

I hope it's all not for naught. Hope something happens from this, thank you.

Yeah, I'm good, I'm good.

Usually I use a walker, so. Just help him. No, I don't need water. I'm fine, really. I usually use a walker, but I don't. Thanks. No, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, yeah. Thank you.

There you go. That's why he almost turned.

Did you get a public hearing? Did you get a public hearing then? Is it still open? Name and address for the record, please.

Good night. My name is Marisol Rodriguez. And my address is 27 Hoffman Street. En esta noche, primero que nada, es mi primera vez que vengo al consejo. Me interesó bastante con lo que está pasando con lo de las guaguas escolares. Como bus driver, yo soy chofera de guagua escolar.

before anything this is my first time i'm speaking here before the council and i was super interested in coming here tonight because i'm a bus driver so with um the new ordinance i wanted to come and speak before you

Lamentablemente, siento mucho lo que está sucediendo con los estudiantes que tengan que perder su beneficio de transporte. Lo más importante es que nuestros niños, yo estoy por mis nietos. Yo soy una abuela orgullosa y yo abogo por mis nietos que viven aquí en Lawrence.

It's very sad that the kids could lose this service. I'm here for my grandchildren. My grandchildren go to the schools of Lawrence.

It would be very sad if MIVA would be the people that would take the contract for the transportation for the kids. They need safe transportation, and MIVA would not give them that. Si ustedes se fijan, la compañía de transporte público se monta mucha gente de diferentes nacionalidades, de diferentes, ¿verdad? No es por ser, como dicen, un ultra... If you look at the people that get on public transportation, not to judge, it's a lot of people that are drunks and drug addicts, and you are asking the parents to bring their kids on public transportation. We live in Lawrence, which is, in air quotes, a population that's

We'll say low income, but I doubt it because we see a lot of buildings being built, a lot of luxuries, and you want the worst for our kids. Council, I urge you to think about this decision, because maybe one of your kids wouldn't have to take public transportation, but all of these people have kids, grandchildren, friends. It could be one of your neighbors that would have to take the public transportation.

And let's change the topic.

Changing the topic. That man that gave that speech, he reached my heart. We will get to that age someday. Thank you so much.

Anybody else from the public that wishes to speak? Name and address for the record, please.

Good afternoon, my name is Rochelle Ortiz and I live in Lawrence, 1037 Exeter Street. So I'm just here to support everything that has been said already in regards of the transportation. So I'm just supporting all these patterns who are being opposed to the removal of those that school's transportation. So I won't repeat all the concerns. I just want to express what has been said already. So I simply want my voice to be counted among those who believe that taking transportation away from those students is really a wrong decision. For this reason already mentioned by other parents, especially safety, reliability and access to education, I do strongly oppose to that proposal. So I would like you to reconsider that and please have that into consideration. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else from the public that wishes to speak? Anybody else from the public that wishes to speak?

I know. Luis Robles, 183 Abbott Street. As I was sitting there, I remembered how my son even ended up in Abbott Lawrence Academy. I remember when he got accepted to multiple high schools. We were going through the pros and cons, and he ended up with his top two choices were GLTS and Abbott Lawrence Academy. Had he known that he would not have transportation to Abbott Lawrence Academy, I can assure you he would have went to GLTS. So think about all the kids who accepted an offer to go to Abbott and rejected other offers. thinking that they have transportation and live in the south, who will not be met with a surprise if the budget is approved as is. So just take that into consideration. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else from the public that wishes to speak? I'm going to repeat it two more times. Anybody else from the public that wishes to speak? Anybody else from the public that wishes to speak?

Well, I tell you, Mel Donato, 49 Crestwood Circle, I just wanted, I know that it's not the city, I'm sorry, the council who makes the budget, and I know that some of you do support us as parents and our concerns, so I just wanted to thank you.

Thank you. At this point, public hearing is now closed. Thank you, everybody, for your comments. So, Madam Chair, from the Budget and Finance Committee. Mr. President.

Mr. President, through you, the Budget and Finance Committee has sent up officially the FY, the mayor's proposed FY27 budget as a committee report, and I make that as a formal motion.

Second. Motion to accept this item as a committee report. Discussion. Discussion. On the committee report, Madam Chair from the Budget and Finance Committee.

Thank you, quickly. I want to take a moment to thank the committee members of the Budget and Finance Committee. We had long nights, but we asked excellent questions. We engaged with the departments in a great way. I also want to especially thank our CAFL We actually started planning for this back in February. And as you heard earlier in this meeting, when it began, this budget hearing was a lot better. The process was a lot better. I have been the chair of three budget hearing process. fy 24 fy 25 i'm sorry fy 25 fy 26 and now this one and this was by far the most organized we have been and i just want to thank everyone that's been part of it and has given me a genuine support to improve this process year after year so thank you for that And that is all I want to say.

Thank you to you, Council President. And I would like to say, I mean, congratulate you guys. Great job. But I want to add one thing. While I was watching the meetings, every department head actually thanked the employees that they manage. Every department head was the best department ever. Unfortunately, our department did not say thank you to the people that actually Do our job. I mean, Bill Collins on the back. If I missed that, I'm sorry, but it seems like I missed that. Bill Collins on the back. John on the back. Those are the people that you guys have them see us. And most definitely, most definitely Maria and the minutes taker and Teresa. Teresa, our secretary. Teresa is the only secretary here in the city of Lawrence that has nine bosses. Nine of us with different attitude, different set of minds, and different dates. I mean, today I'm happy and I talk to Teresa. Tomorrow I'm mad and I talk to Teresa. Teresa had taken everything from us, and it was not a single comment by saying, this is the best secretary we have, while all of the department heads had the best department ever. And fortunately, also, Teresa is the only confident secretary that is below, way below, Everybody else, when it comes to salary, while she deal with nine of us, and sometimes with the city clerk. So it's tons of work when it comes to a legal secretary, and she hasn't been recognized at all from none of us. And that's okay, because we have our daily life, and it goes through. But I just want to recognize those that work with us here, and they will miss that budget hearing. Thank you.

All right. Anybody else before we call the vote for that committee report? Councilor Marmon. Councilor Marmon.

Councilors, I wanted to briefly engage with you guys to give you a little bit of what my experience and perspective was as a member of the Budget and Finance Committee, primarily for those that are not part of that committee. I know that these meetings are lengthy and maybe you didn't get to see all the budget hearings. These are hearings that take four plus hours. Long nights, and I also, you know, I too wanted to thank my colleagues in the Budget and Finance Committee. We all asked great questions. And I appreciate that we all come from different backgrounds and experiences that allows us to see things differently and ask certain questions that maybe one of us did not think of asking. Those that know me know that I'm very vocal when it comes to pretty much every budget hearing that I've been a part of. But being that this is my third budget hearing as well, I've learned with the experience that I've gained on how to manage myself and pick and choose my battles. But I must say that one of the things, there were many things that we've questioned. And I'll speak once again based on my experience and perspective, the things that I was vocal on, my disappointment with the veterans department, my disappointment was deeply rooted also with the transportation. I want to thank the mayor in taking the opportunity to contact me in trying to gain an understanding as to what my sentiments were regarding this budget and the CAFO was a witness to me being very transparent as to what were my concerns and it was the mayor's department regarding the advertising. It is my perspective that there's a misuse of funds. It is my perspective based on my experience with past budget approvals that we approved a budget where there were positions, my opinion, were sometimes not even necessary or not a priority. I expressed my concerns with transportation, and many of the things that were discussed tonight were pretty much what I had reiterated. I believe that bus drivers are, you know, they are mandated reporters. And not, I remember when I was a student, I did not grow up here in Lawrence, I came here in the eighth grade, and that change, which I believe there's a lot of students that moved to the city of Lawrence that don't grow up here, those that are coming from a different country, that's a big change, so let alone shifting to a brand new high school, that is a scary experience. And I have concerns when it comes to the public safety issues to which, although MEVA was presented to us as an option, there's so many details that we had many questions that we have yet to know the answers to. If we're gonna try to make this a priority, I think that we should be reminiscent to also acknowledge the fact that they did bring up issues and concerns regarding sidewalks. We're not blind to the challenges that our city faces. Let's not forget the horrible experience that we had with the winter season where sidewalks are not plowed accordingly. If we're also gonna make public safety a priority, then let's start adding speed bumps at least nearby schools. With the bus stop, when are we using school buses, there's only one stop. Versus Meva, there's several stops. So honestly, as vocal as I was during those budget sessions and being against moving forward, I think that is important for you guys to gain an understanding as to why I would not feel comfortable in approving this budget. And once again, some of you may not have been a witness or attended these meetings, so I just wanted you guys to have a little bit of a background as to why I'm moving forward in not approving this budget.

ANYBODY ELSE? ANY OTHER COUNSELORS BEFORE WE GO FOR THE VOTE FOR THE COMMITTEE REPORT?

I'VE GOT A QUESTION. WE HAVE A MEMO THAT WAS GIVEN TO US BY E-MAIL.

WE'LL GO TO THAT IN A SECOND.

I JUST THINK IT'S IMPORTANT BEFORE WE ACTUALLY HAVE A MOTION, AFTER WE DO THIS MOTION, SOMEONE IS GOING TO MAKE A MOTION TO SUPPORT WHATEVER THE MOTION IS. I just think it's important now that we at least acknowledge that there's this information here.

Yeah, we will go through that in a second. That's part of the plan. Anybody else?

I wasn't aware of the plan.

Well, I do have a plan as a chair. So that's going to be part reading in a second.

I'm sorry, what's the plan?

We're going to read the memo to the record in a few seconds.

Oh, you're going to read it before the vote?

yes thank you because we're gonna we we take the we're taking the vote on the committee report not on any anything else and then eventually we're going to entertain a motion for the uh for the purpose of the discussing the budget Anybody else for that, or any other councilors that wishes to speak?

Council President.

Madam Chair, for the other finance committee.

Thank you. I was going to this for the second motion, but since we're talking about transportation, I'm going to say it now and get it out of the way. Throughout public participation, it was a two-hour public hearing and public participation process. I was not surprised to hear and to see that many of today's public participants were from District E or live in District E. Since the year that I started being a city councilor, I have met with all the superintendents at least once, others more than once pertaining to transportation. We didn't hear much from, now it's, let me backtrack, now we have a situation that's going to affect the entire South Lawrence, but before it mainly affected District E and the families that lived closer to the Andover line, and also in the middle, in the middle of the district, and I heard from those families quite often, and every time I tried to advocate for transportation, I was always given the runabout. I was always given the reason. At that time, I found it as an excuse, but the three mile radius rule for bus transportations. I also... brought to the city's attention that, and even till this day, we have students that are still using the dangerous footbridge to cross from District E to Lawrence High. So I just want to say at least from your counselor, your district counselor, I've been mentioning this since 2022. And I'm not surprised to see many of my constituents here tonight. And mind you, I did not reach out to my constituents to come tonight. They came on their own. So I just wanted to make sure that I publicly stated that, that I hear you, and I've been trying to work with it, and sometimes a lot of the work happens behind the scenes that it's not always pictures and, you know, publicized on social media.

Any other councillors?

Can I continue with transportation?

Do you want to?

Yes, I want to just touch a little bit on transportation, and I'm going to piggyback what District Councilor Lee said, but I've been also voicing the problem with transportation since I got elected. I was a bus driver. I was a school bus driver. I drove for me for a few years, so I know the concern. Me and Council President also a few years ago talked about this. Right now we have the issue. We had it last year for the money, but what we do is we fix it today, but we don't prepare for next year. How are we going to prepare for next year that this doesn't happen again? And I'm going to tell you how. We've got to break the monopoly. NRT has a monopoly. NRT is the only company that bids for the school department transportation. We don't know what it is. For years, it's the only company. And nobody has stopped in trying to find out why is that. But I can tell you how we can fix that. How can we fix that? Let's break the bids by schools. How many buses per school? I mean, let's say, put it for example, Tarbell School, how many buses do they need? Ten buses? Let's make a bid for ten buses. Because what it's going to do, it's going to bring companies and also local companies that are going to bid. They have ten buses. They're going to bid for that contract. And what is that going to bring? It's going to bring the costs down. That's one thing. Right, so we gotta break those. And I know special eds and all that stuff is an issue, but we gotta start working on that. We cannot prepare a bid that the first line says you need 300 buses to apply. Who has 300 buses? Who has 300 buses? Only NRT. And you have tons of drivers here that have six, five, 10 buses that are waiting to bid for a contract that is not gonna cost you millions and millions of dollars, okay? Second of all, They talk about the contract for the NRT. Who is actually checking the penalties when they leave the kids, when they go back late, when they don't pick them up in the winter? They should be paying. Every time there is a penalty, there should be a penalty on them. It's on the contract. Who's enforcing those contracts at Lawrence Public Schools? Nobody is. So they owe us money if you come to that. Now the deficit to make this contract is $1.7 million, right? Somehow, in combination with the state, we gave them three electrical buses, $400,000 each. That's over a million dollars right there. They cannot give you a break? They cannot work with us to serve these kids while we give them, I mean, three buses, $400,000 each, right? is $1.2 million. We gave it to them, plus what that saved them, gas, all kinds of stuff, maintenance and all that stuff, it's over $2 million. But if we don't, charge them for the penalties every time they leave our kids in the winter time. If we don't break this monopoly and divide the contract and allow all the companies to bid for it, we're not gonna, next year we're gonna be here asking for more money. So I encourage that Lawrence Public School, whoever write the contract, to revise the contract, figure it out how much they owe us on penalty, try to charge them. If not, divide the contract bidding. Poor school, not poor district. Poor school, their schools, they only needs five buses. But you're not allowing a small company to bid for it. And you're denying yourself all saving while you go crazy and sign contract. I mean, the school member Jonathan Guzman says that the contract, the expenses on the money, NRT went up the prices. They're not thinking about kids. It's a business. They want to run their business. And they know we're going to find the money. They know that we have to find the money. But starting today, we've got to be thinking for next year. We're going to deal with what we need to do to try to get that transportation, right? But what are we going to do next year? When the prices are going to go up, NRTA is going to continue with their monopoly. It's a monopoly that they have. They're the only company that they bid for a contract. So let's start dividing the contract for school, what the school needs, what the island, and how many buses do they need. So you allow other companies to come in and compete. When they compete, prices go down. But when you only have one place, one company, one entity bidding for a contract, it's going to go up and up and up. And you're not going to give them, even local business, you're not giving the local drivers here a fair chance to grow their company. I mean, I was a driver. I probably had a dream of maybe become a bus company owner. But how could I compete? When you are throwing a bid for 300 buses, how am I gonna compete? How am I gonna get 300 buses when it's not for sure that I'm gonna get the contract? Okay, so let's start with that. And also, penalize NRT. Penalize them every time they leave our kids. Who is in charge of this contract? Who's verifying what they do? I mean, some of the kids, again, some of the kids go, they saying they gonna go late if they use MiBA, but they be late at school. Sometimes there's no drivers. Short on drivers. Athletics, sometimes they don't make it to the game. And who's penalizing NRT for that? So let's start thinking of next year, how we're going to deal with this. And again, I wanted my sincere apology to you, Noah. Today, and I'm going to say it loud, the administration put you on the spot. And people are saying that Amoeba's not safe. I was a proud driver of Amoeba. And I know how safe it is. And we tried. As a driver, we tried. and we don't have that many incidents, or you don't have any incidents throughout the year. I mean, and I agree, you might not have the capability to move our kids around, and you might be waiting to help, but we need to start thinking of next year, and how the first thing we need to do to save money when it comes to this, and we're not talking about is break that monopoly the NRT has. And yes, they're driving for NRT here, and maybe NRT is going to call me tomorrow like they did the last time that I was talking about them, and lawyer called me. You put them in a position that we're going to sue you, sue me. Sue me, because I'm talking about a monopoly. Isn't it weird? Have anybody asked why the only one bidding for the contracts here in our district? Nobody asked those questions, and when I raise those questions, nobody pay attention. So let's start looking into that. So next year, we're not here about talking about money or kids losing their transportation. Let's divide those bidding process by a school, how many buses every school need, and you're gonna give opportunity to all the companies that come in and compete, and we're gonna get better prices.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Rosario. Anybody else? Any other councilors, second round? Councilor Mamo.

I think it's important for me to state that our counselor here, my colleague, amazing points. And you would think that the administration or whatever department is tasked with making that type of analysis, that we pay the big bucks to come up with these solutions. you know, why hasn't it been presented before us? Why hasn't that been an option? And that's the reason why there's so many concerns when it comes to this budget. Because time and time again, we have been approving a budget, once again, with a budget where there's several departments on positions with inflated salaries. Yet, we, you know, if they're gonna be in these positions, then we look to them to come up with these type of solutions. but I appreciate that as a counselor and as a colleague that we do also have a responsibility to come up with suggestions and solutions and I appreciate that you're being vocal about it.

Thank you, any other councilors before we go for?

Councilor President.

Councilor Infante.

Thank you. I meant to say this during when I first spoke, but you, to my colleagues, you also heard from one of my constituents who stated that her daughter almost got hit by a speeding car in front of Lawrence Catholic Academy. That is key, because it's not just in school zones that we're seeing the speeding, it's all across the city. And again, since the beginning of my time as counselors, I've been advocating for the speed bumps, and I know many, we hear this, and I know it's not a big deal, however, Every single time I have brought up, throughout the five years, every single time I have brought up speed bumps to this administration, I get told it is costly to implement and remove the speed bumps, the temporary speed bumps. And throughout these years, I was told that the city was going to present a plan for speed humps. It is now, we're now in 2026 and we have yet to see that plan. And I'm saying this and what I'm saying now so that nobody from the administration goes and say, oh, I don't go and speak to people because what I'm saying now, I've said it various times. And now it's time to figure out a plan because it's getting worse. If it was bad back then when we were all discussing this, now it's getting worse. And I don't want to wait, and this is a statement that I've also said before, I don't want to wait until a major tragedy happens. Imagine if my constituent's daughter would have gotten hit by this car. That's what we need to be thinking about, not what next building we're gonna redevelop. We can't continue to grow, and I've also said this multiple times, we cannot continue to grow the city when the foundation of the city, the cracks in our foundation, keeps getting deeper and deeper. Thank you.

All right. Madam Clerk, please read the memo that we received regarding the budget process.

So from the Office of the City Attorney, it's a memorandum, and it reads to City Council and President Giovanni Rodriguez from City Attorney Timothy P. Hooten regarding budget meeting 6-15-2026. I have been asked to review the budget requirements and votes. One, the city budget requires a two-third vote of approval for six members. Rule eight, the affirmative vote of six members shall be required to adopt an appropriation order. Sub two, to amend the budget takes five votes or a simple majority. It is not an appropriation order. Let me know if you have any questions.

All right, councillors. Madame Claire, please call the roll for the... Committee report only.

To accept the committee report.

To accept the committee report. That was the motion.

I understand. I'm calling the roll to accept the committee report. Thank you. I was confused. Council LaPlante. Yes. Council Del Rosario. Yes. Councilor Reyes. Yes. Councilor Infante. Yes. Councilor Marmo. Yes. Councilor Miguel. Yes. Councilor Gonzalez. Yes. Council Vice President Levy. Yes. Council President Rodriguez.

Yes. Now we have this item and we accept that as a committee report. Any motions?

Motion to approve for the purpose of discussion. Second.

There is a motion to approve with the purpose of discussion. It's been seconded by Councillor Rosario. The motion was made by Cancellors. Before we proceed with the discussion and potentially any cut or anything to the budget, I would like to read us the following. We, as Council, can only reduce the budget by cutting it. Approving the budget or a denial of the budget. When it comes to a specific allocation, we are only allowed to discuss and make those three that I just mentioned to what was presented on the budget. We are not allowed as a council to add anything to the budget. When it comes to the specific client item of the transportation, on page 103 of the City of Lawrence budget, this allocation was presented to us of $11.7 million. Based on the needs of the transportation for the Lawrence Public School, as per page 38, of the Lawrence Public School budget, these have a need of $13.7 million. So we as council, we're not cutting this line item, or we're not reducing it. It was presented as $11.7 million only. So to make sure that we're clear when it comes to that specifics. Councillors, any discussions when it comes to the fiscal year 2027 budget? Or I believe that potentially the administration should come in front of us to present the budget with a specific statement or whatever you decide.

Good evening, Council President, Councillors. First of all, I would like to thank the Budget and Finance Committee. Indeed, we have, the process went smoother this year compared to others, and I appreciate it, especially you, Chair, and also committee members that that brought forth your concern, but also the professional way that it was handled. I think we all grow through the process. Second of all, I would like to thank all the directors, all the department heads, and the employees of the City of Lawrence in general. because this budget process didn't start in March. It started basically right after the election of 2025 in which all the department heads were requested one way or the other to prepare and to write down all the priorities, identify, you know, whether it's the incoming, the incumbent would have been, in this case, would it be Mayor DePena, or it would have been another mayor, because it's not only the mayor that sets the vision. It's in conjunction also with the different department heads that works on a daily basis with our constituents. I'm going to try to shorten the budget because some of them are really repetitive. I'm just only going to read four paragraphs in which states the following on behalf of the mayor. Lawrence enters fiscal year 2027 from a position of strength. Independent credit agencies continue to recognize the city's sound financial management and improving physical condition. Yet, we understand that maintaining the momentum requires discipline, strength, strategic investment, and a commitment to sustainable growth. This budget is more than a spending plan. This is a reflection of the Mayor's vision for Lawrence, a vision grounded in physical responsibility, economic opportunity, and commitment to improving the quality of life for our residents. Now before discussing the budget in great detail, I would like to note that the appropriation document before you includes a revision based on the latest cherry sheet estimates issued by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue Division of local services. These updated state revenue and assessment figures require adjustments to the Lawrence public school appropriation requests and have incorporated into the budget presented this evening. As a result of these updated estimates, the Lawrence public school appropriation request was revised from 319.3 million to approximately 318 million. These revisions reflect updated charter tuition reimbursement, charter school tuition, school choice and special education assessment, as well as updated lease estimates. The administration believes it is important that the budget before the council reflects the most current and accurate financial information available. We look forward to working collaboratively with you during this budget review process and respectfully request your consideration and support for the 2027 operating budget.

Thank you. Now let's put away some numbers. Ms. Caffo, do you mind putting this in perspective when it comes to numbers?

Good evening, Councilors, Ramona Ceballos, Budget and Finance Department. Okay, so.

So tell us what that means that the advisor just read.

Okay, so the budget presented to the city council, if we all go to the school department page, page 103. The total for the school department reads 317,451,163. The numbers received today from the CFO of the school reads $318,045,957. The variance is $594,794. Can you repeat the number again? 318? $318,045,957. 900.

957.

Today, we have a different number when it comes to water specific.

That's from Chapter 70. Okay. So it's a combination of numbers. As we've talked during the budget process, the cherry sheet announcements that come from the state, the one that was used to create the budget was the governor's proposal, which came at the end of January. Then there's another reiteration of the cherry sheet, and it's the House budget. And then the Senate budget is the latest one we received. There is one more, which will be the final budget, which won't be here probably till the end of June, the beginning of July.

So usually, typically, we use the governor's budget to be able to do our budget. Yes. So we're changing it now to the House budget?

It's the Senate budget. The school, the CFO of the school, I'm not sure if you would like to hear from him. This is an email that we received today. It was addressed to the city council and the mayor. So he can explain further if you'd like to hear the CFO.

It's a million dollars already. So, Ms. Calfo, do you mind just repeating the number, 318.

$318,045,957. And the variation is? The variance is $594,794. I used the calculator. I'm getting a different number. Okay, so it's the, are you doing the 317 million? 319. No, 317. That's on page 103.

451, 163. I see. Minus this one. And then you have a negative of.

Oh, it's a negative.

Yes. Yeah, that's the discrepancy. Give us one second. All right. So now, can you keep on going on the different sherry sheets and the budget that now is going to be used?

Yes. So the first submission of the sherry sheet, which is what we use for the state aid, it's the governor's, which is issued usually at the beginning of February, the end of January. That's what we base the budget on. then in sometime between April and May. Second.

There's a motion to pass then, properly second. Discussion? There is none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes have it. Go ahead.

Between April and May, we get another submission. This is the House budget. Then sometime between the end of May and the beginning of June, we get the Senate. The Senate number is what the change that I read the numbers from comes from. So the Senate number includes, a reduction on charter school assessment. Actually, if I go through the email that was sent from the CFO, I can tell you what numbers changed. The charter school assessment decreased from $50,111,032 to $49,348,916. School choice sending tuition decreased from 1,132,847 to 1,095,857. Special education changed slightly only from 46,394 to 46,596.

All right.

So I just want to clarify. The difference of $594,794 includes the full funding of the transportation as requested from the school. It also includes the full funding of the leases as requested from the school. So basically, we're funding 100% of what we're asked from the school, and there is a variance of $594,794 $794.

So just to go over a few things here that you just mentioned. Last year when we went over the budget, the budget of fiscal year 2026, later on when the budget was approved for the state house, we have a deficit of $1.4 million because that amount of money, the charter reimbursement increase. So what is the difference between this budget that we have today and what happened last year? I mean, what happened if the same situation occurred in fiscal year 2027?

Last year, it was based on the governor's budget.

Mm-hmm.

This year, we're actually getting closer to what the final budget is. The Senate has changed the governor's number. The school believes it's a good assumption as to what will happen. I'm not sure. But it's based on historical records of what has happened for the final budget compared to the different budgets that the state passes. For example, the governor's budget compared to previous years. How does that compare to the final budget? How does the house budget compare? How does the Senate budget? So based on that information from historical years, the school department believes that assuming the Senate budget is a good view of what will happen at the end in terms of the full funding for the school.

All right, what I see here is that we have new numbers that reflect different needs perhaps that we might be able to cover with the current budget that we discussed for three weeks. So if that means that we're going to have to look at the new numbers and analyze everything and be able to figure it out that 594,794 that is missing? That's what we're discussing here?

So at this point, I'm not an attorney, I'll rely to the city clerk, but we need to make a decision on the current budget as presented to you. The council needs to make a decision on this budget. And then if needed, the administration, we can have a conversation as to what the next step will be.

Yeah, we can come up with a solution. Councillors, any questions?

Just to reiterate, and I think this is kind of outlined in what we talked about at the beginning of the conversation. As a council, you have the ability to approve, reject, or to cut, or reduce. You cannot add to the budget. However, the mayor who is here can add to the budget, and you can accept changes from the mayor. You just cannot propose those changes yourself.

That's correct. Cancellor Reyes.

If we can take that portion in consideration with the funding we left from the public school for transportation, is the major can offer different funding?

Well, essentially, they can. But I think that we should look at the numbers once they present it. So right now, we received an email today And essentially we have analyzed the budget for three weeks with different numbers. So what are the implications of those numbers? And if there is a missing amount of 594, 797, 794, so are we going to be able to fund that amount to fully budget for the needs? So the administration need to come up with a plan. if this council decide to make a determination on the budget.

If I may, Council President? Sure. The budget, as it stands, includes the Prop 2 1⁄2 of last year's levy, as well as the new growth. That is a total of $3,900,192. That equates to, yep, I'm sorry?

What you're saying is that, yes, we are increasing the taxes for 2.5%, and we also have the new growth of $1.5 million.

That's correct. So the total is $3,900,192. The average single family tax bill for the city of Lawrence, for someone, the average single house, let's say, is assessed or valued at $479,209. That's just the average assessed value of a single family home. Such family home, the current tax bill, our current tax rate for residential is $8.54. The current bill is $4,140. What does this 3.9 million equal to for someone that owns a residence that's about that cost or that value? The additional will be $201. Now, if we were to increase the 594,000, the total is going to increase from 3,900,000 to 4,494,986. Instead of the additional monies being 201, then Sorry, the 172 goes to 201. So there's a difference of, let's say, the 3.9%, I mean, sorry, 3.9 million is 4.2%. The 4.4 million is 4.85%. Just to kind of give you an idea what that would mean.

Council President, do you still want the floor?

I want to ask for clarification on this explanation.

I try to figure out what does that mean because we try to find out what is the more better way to we can keep in our transportation for our youth and our community. When you're talking about the different amount for the tax increase, when you offer the two different amounts, one amount is we have transportation, another amount is including transportation or something separate?

Sure. So if we go back to page 103, the original number as recommended per the mayor was $317,451,163. That number had a little bit of a gap in transportation as well as leases. The school CFO submitted an email today addressed to this body, the counselors, as well as the administration, based on the new numbers received from the state, the Senate version of the cherry sheet. The new numbers are 318 million, $45,957. That includes 100% funding transportation and 100% funding the leases. Okay. This leaves a variance of $594,794. And I just gave an approximate amount of what that means if we were to tap into the tax levy capacity. Our tax levy capacity at the moment is $13 million, which means the city has not taxed the city residents for $13 million. If the administration wishes to amend or supplement the budget to include that $594,000, the difference in taxes would be the numbers I just read, which I can read if you'd like me to.

Okay. Yeah, I'm good. Thank you.

Actually, thank you. The CAFO just answered the question I was going to ask, so I'm good.

All right, so, councilors, any other questions?

Yeah, there's some.

Councillor LaPlante.

I just want to, I got two sets of numbers, one with the 590, what is it, the 594, 794, and one without. So, if we had, just as it is, with the two and a half plus the new growth, what's the additional amount that the taxpayers, an average single-family taxpayer would be paying? What is that number?

With the 3.9 million dollars, correct? 3.9, that's right. Yes. So the increase will be, again, I don't want people to think this is how much their tax is going to increase by. This is a very complicated formula as it comes to the assessed value of your property. This is for a property that's valued at the average. in Lawrence is $479,000. If your house's value at that, then the additional tax increase will be $172. Now, if your house is valued a million two, the additional will be $525.

And on the flip side, there's where the $201 come in. If there's an increase in taxes, if I had a 594 or 794, then that's going to be a 201 total additional taxes? That's correct. There we go.

Yes.

Okay.

Councillors, any other questions? A lot of numbers, a lot of saying, and a few documents. So I think that, you know, we should receive that information and read it through and potentially analyze it.

Council President.

Councilman Infante.

Thank you. We also received, speaking of that, I mean, this update of the school, we received it at like 5-something p.m. majority of us work full-time jobs we are not here in city hall 9 30 to 4 30 or i mean 9 to 4 30 or until 7 pm on tuesdays we've received a bunch of memos today as well like a lot of documents throughout the day I get the notifications on my phone, but if I'm busy with my job, I'm not going to open that because during that time, my priority is my day job. So some of us work for the state that they have to keep a distance between their public service and their state position. So I agree, I think a lot was thrown at us last minute, now that I'm thinking through it, and I would like more time at least.

I got a question as well. Councillor Blunt. Councillor Blunt. Thanks, so the assertion that we've heard is because of the new numbers that were given to us by the school department is that we have the busing's been taken care of, and the school lease issue has been taken care of, but there is a deficit of 594, almost $600,000. If we were to pass this budget today, would it be unbalanced? Because there's a deficit of almost $600,000?

that means we wouldn't be funding 100% of both.

That's important, go ahead.

Right.

That's important to say, so that bears repeating, so I'm gonna interpret it the way that I heard it, which means that, maybe it's fully funded the leases, maybe the transportation, or maybe you do most of it, but you're going to still be a little short on those amounts of the $600,000. And that's where... If we vote on this, that's where we have to be creative, I think, again. You know, I think that if we're... And I don't know what's the priority here. The people in this room would probably say the bus is the priority. Other people may say it's the leases. It's all... So I understand the difference, right? But we have to, I think, come to an understanding as to... WHO'S GOING TO MAKE THE CALL AS TO WHICH GETS MORE MONEY IF WE PASS THIS BUDGET THE WAY IT IS? THE ADMINISTRATION?

PROBABLY THE SCHOOL.

THE SCHOOL MAKES THE CALL?

THAT'S AN IMPORTANT QUESTION.

That's an important question.

Yeah, I agree.

They need to figure it out once they get to us and then we analyze it.

We reduce, approve, or deny. But we're not here to allocate. So if we start going into other directions, and then we're going to start doing something that is not within our prerogative. We have a budget that we have a need of about $600,000 to support. the need of the community. So we have the decision to make whether we approve this budget, we deny the budget, or we reduce the budget. And then after that, the administration will figure it out as to what they need to do when it comes to that specific amount that they wanna fund. If they wanna increase the levy limit, And then they tap into that and then they're going to come in front of us. We're going to analyze that at that moment. We cannot do that right now because that has not been proposed. So I think that that's fair. And I think that once we receive, we have plenty of time. If we deny the budget today or make any changes on the budget today, the 45 days begins. And or perhaps if we don't do nothing and then we have until the 25th, I believe.

27th. 27th.

And we have a meeting on two days. So we can reconvene in two days, making a decision today, because we're not leaving without making a decision. And then we can proceed. Any other questions?

Yes, I, oh, no, go ahead, that's okay.

I go after you.

Councilor, either or.

I'll be brief. Maybe it's somewhat of a comment, and it's based on my understanding as to what's being presented to us. The first budget, as someone in the public had mentioned, was off of the backs of the students that were gonna be the ones primarily affected by this budget. then with these new numbers, and I want to be corrected if I'm wrong, Now it's coming out of the backs of the residents or the taxpayers. And I've had discussions with the mayor and I know that... I wanna be corrected if I'm wrong, based on what I'm understanding, because tapping into the tax levy capacity, it's raising property taxes. So again, I know that this isn't a favorable route for some of us either. These two options I'm not comfortable with. And what makes me a little bit more uncomfortable about it is because I feel like if I was to at least see some efforts from the administration to make cuts on things that are not necessary, and if that, even upon doing that, we are still falling short, and we have to now do this, then I'll be all for it, but because I don't see that, and this is what we're resorting to, is where I'm struggling with. But I'll just leave it to that because it's something that I need to marinate on. It's information that, as our Madam Chair for Budget mentioned, It's a lot of documentation that we received today, not allowing us sufficient time to review these documents and to make, for me, to make a decision today.

No, and Councillor Mahmoud, it is important to recognize the following. We don't know what is they're going to present to us. If we get to that point, the first thing we need to do is make a determination on this budget so the administration can proceed with the next option. potentially they can come out in front of us with another budget that is not what we're discussing because we cannot we cannot say this is what they want to do because we it's not a paper so it's the same one then then eventually they might find another way um so let's allow them to do that so a vote yes to this budget means that we're going to approve the budget as presented with the numbers on the school side of about 317, 451, 163. If we vote no on the budget, that means that the budget is denied and they're going to present something new. So yes means approve it as is, no means is deny, and they're gonna present another budget, potentially in two days.

So any other questions?

And then it will be the same thing. Because then when we approve it, if we approve it, that's when the split need to happen. Councilors, any other questions? Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Just to clarify, this is a vote on the FY26 budget to approve or to deny it. It's the last time we sat with you, Councilman.

A vote yes means approving. A vote no means denying. Exactly. With the new numbers. With the new numbers. No, with the old numbers. Because the budget is presented right now. They haven't presented the new budget. So the numbers that were just read to us, that's not a budget. Once they present it, we analyze it.

So this is not part of it?

That's not part of the, this is not part of it yet. Once they present it to us and then we analyze the and we make a determination at that point.

Okay. So I'm gonna start with you, Councilor Gonzalez. This is on the budget. No. Councilor Miguel? No. Councilor Mambo? No. Councilor Infante? No. Councilor Reyes? No. Councilor Del Rosario? No. Councilor LaPlante? No. Councilor Vice President Levy? No. Councilor President Rodriguez? No.

What's the count? I need to do the process. I need to do the process. Motion fails. So that means that this budget that it was presented, fiscal year 2027, has been denied. And a new special meeting for the budget fiscal year 2027 will be on Wednesday at 7 p.m. Wednesday or Thursday? Wednesday.

Wednesday.

Wednesday. Next Wednesday is two days.

Do you want to recess from this meeting?

Yeah, we're going to recess.

Okay.

It's the same meeting, though, because otherwise you have to repost for a new meeting. This is already posted. Yeah.

So at this point, I will entertain a motion to recess. Motion to recess. Second. Properly second. Discussion? There is none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes have it.