Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Yeah, it's novel. I have six o'clock. So, uh, seeing at 6:00, uh, the April 7th, 2025 meeting of the Garter City Council finance committee will come to order. The clerk will please call the role. Council Delaw, present. Council Heckler, present. On to the announcement of open meeting recordings. Any person may make a video audio recording of an open session of a meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium subject to reasonable requirements of the chair as to the number, placement, and operational equipment used so as to not interfere with the conduct of the meeting. Any person intending to make this recording shall notify the chair for all documents and exhibits used or referenced at the meeting must be submitted in duplicate to the city clerk has become part of the meeting minutes. Is there anyone recording other than staff? There's none. reading uh on to section one, the review and approval of meeting minutes of February 12th, 2025 and February 26th, 2025. Mr. Chairman, yes. Move to dispense with the reading of the minutes and accept as presented. Second motion by council Hegeland, second by councelor general to wave the reading of the minutes and accept them as presented. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say I. I. Opposed. The motion carries. Uh, first time on the agenda, item 11515, a resolution of disapproval and opposition to the proposed building department fee increases submitted by President Tyros who is here present. Um, like to come up and speak to your item. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Prepared some remarks for this evening. It'd be fair to ask why I feel it was necessary to propose this resolution. And I understand some people may think it premature. However, I think this is a serious issue. This proposal

put forward and sent to the council by the building commissioner is potentially damaging to the image of gardener. And as a matter of public record, I feel we need to quickly and decisively reject this proposal before there's any inkling that we are going to give it any consideration. Building costs are already expensive. Permitting fees are already expensive. And navigating city bureaucracy can already be burdensome. This proposal would substantially increase costs and give nothing additionally to the residents or businesses in return. So again, I realize this is not the typical way we would do this, but I certainly have no intention of supporting fee increases. There may be an appetite for that. I guess we'll find out. In 2022, we raised fees for the first time in 14 years. I thought then, given the time that had passed, it made sense to do so. At that time, we discussed conducting another review after five years had passed, which put this proposal at least two years ahead of schedule. I am deeply concerned about the proposal requesting a substantial pay increase submitted shortly after the fee increase proposal. These are two proposals which are included in our packet seem to be paired together as just a few hours after the fee increase proposal, the building commissioner put forward a follow-up proposal to substantially increase his own salary. I do not want any of our constituents to think, not even for one second, that we would consider raising fees paid by residents solely to increase the salary of a department head. Such a scenario would present a clear conflict of interest, establishing a link between fees and fines collected by government entity and their salaries of those imposing them is undeniably bad policy. This has been demonstrated time and time again. Frankly, I'm disappointed that this concept was put into words, let alone presented on city letterhead. The other reason we should deal with this issue now concerns the credibility of this council. When we last took up this issue, the mayor and the council at the time said it was best

practice to review this every 5 years, which again puts this proposal at least 2 to 3 years in advance. There's a lot of fee increases listed here, far too many to take the time to list this evening, but as examples, this proposal includes a 50% increase to the minimum building permit fee, a 28 1.5 increase to the fee by square footage for new single family and two family permits. It nearly doubles the fee for signs and it triples the fees for fences, just to name a few. Not just being talked about, but written down, submitted to the clerk, made public record. How do we think our constituents will feel about this happening? When we say we have to raise fees, we say we won't consider it for another 5 years at least as a matter of best practice and then the time, energy, effort, and resources are spent on this for no good reason. My hope is we will preemptively reject this, that the mayor will also reject this out of hand, and we can send a clear message to the residents and businesses of Gardner that we will not allow them to be squeezed to boost salaries. This is a bad proposal for our constituents. I hope you will join me in voting in favor of this resolution. To be clear, a yes vote would support this resolution. A no vote would oppose it. I also want to be clear that I intend to lead the council through a fair and public publicly debated consideration of the broader issue of non-union salaries that must be addressed when a complete proposal is put forward. However, this sort of scheme I think we have to immediately reject. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. President, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Uh, just as a means of background, so this proposal uh that the council president referenced was sent via email to myself and the previous council president at the end of December. Um, department heads do periodically review their fees as a matter of practice uh in terms of the operations for the department, but it's up to us for the policym decisions of it. Uh, and when those policy decisions

get made, there's a lot of things that have to be weighed out with it. the uh state of the economy and the fees uh relationship to the rising cost of everything that's happening in the world right now. Uh I think the cost of uh building construction, the cost of uh just general we've heard of groceries, we've seen fluctuations in the economy, we've seen different things like that. That's why you haven't seen me propose the uh ordinance to the council on behalf of the administration. Um because it's probably not the right time to do something like this and this isn't something that I was planning to put forward and it's something that I don't think is the right time right now for this to happen at this moment. Um the practice of reviewing a uh fee structure every 5 years is beneficial so we don't get stuck behind like we were before. Uh and that's exactly what I said in 2022 when those fees were increased back then. Um we are able to have fees that are commensurate to the operations of the department. And do our building department fees cover the full operational cost of the building department budget? No. Um but again uh there's the operational side of things but there's also the policy side of things and that's the part that we take over when it comes to seeing the relationship between what those costs are with what we're already uh the financial burden that's already placed on the residents uh of the city here with everything that's going on. Um I'm sure the building commissioner uh who is here can uh if there's any further questions with uh you know the reasons why what got us to this point. Um but like I said a normal practice I can understand why a review would be conducted in the longer term of things on but there's also the regular schedule that we have set for that too. So I am was not planning on submitting this item before the council and I'm okay with uh not having it go forward if that be the will of the council as well. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Anything further questions? Thank you. Um you know thank you councelor Tyrros. looking through the packet. Um, I guess it was requested that this come before the council and where department heads don't

have that option to put things on our agenda. Um, I appreciate you bringing it up. Um, so that it's not ignored. I think that part is important. Um, I don't know if this would be best for the mayor, for the commissioner, for for councelor Tyrus, but do we know does this connect at all to the working group who is also looking at I understand pay raises? It does not. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Uh, I think that's it for my questions. Okay. Thank you. Um, as stated, we are on a plan for 5 years um, of reviewing these. It's best practice. Um, I'm not going to say we we would never go back beforehand. There may be extenduating circumstances that would arise where we may need to. So, obviously, um, wouldn't state that things can change. There could be issues, that could be changed in state law. You don't know what could come up. Um however um we did say that I unless there's um anything further to add from the building commissioner that there is a significant reason to raise these uh fees and it's not before us um I I I don't see it something that it isn't something that I'd be supporting. um the um timing with the salary um whether or not on purpose is troublesome um and um I know there's a separate item on our agenda dealing with that as well dealing with salary increases which we've discussed here um on multiple occasions um you know corporate world we would be increasing salaries um and um we don't have a proposal for us in front of that u for that anyway um so that's all I have um there's nothing further Are there any further statements? Mr. If I could add just one last thing, Mr. Chairman. Um, over the past 5 years, I feel like the city has been more development friendly and open for business than we have been in quite some time. Uh, and that's one of the reasons why, at least from the administration, you know, something like this would require a lot more thought, hadn't been put forward yet where, you know, a lot more thinking that has to be done because we want to make sure that

we continue to stay open for business and friendly for development, for new businesses coming in, new housing developments, and everything else in between. just like I said during my state of the city address. Um so I want to make sure that that's clear too is that those are all factors that come into play when it comes to decisions like this. Um and it's not something that's lost on us either. Yeah, additional barriers are not uh not going to be a good thing. Um so appreciate that. Uh anything further? One just actually made me think of this. How are the because I was in New York 22 when this came up the last time. How are the fees set? Is there a state cap? Is it up to us entirely? Is there uh Mr. Chairman, if I may, the uh the fees are set by uh ordinance and those fees don't have a state cap. It's uh based on whatever is set on the local level. Uh you do want to try to have fees that are commensurate with the services offered with the department. And that's not just salaries. That's the other um it's the hardware and the software, the department that's there with it, the uh those costs that are there. you try to at least aim for an 80% to 90% uh is best practice for what your fees lie over the course of a certain period of time. Um when we looked at fees in 2022 that 80 to 90% on our end was closer to 15 to 20%. Uh so the bump that we did back then did bring us back up closer to where we needed to be. Uh but again even then uh the original proposal was higher than what was uh presented to the city council because we do have to take those thoughts into account. Uh and that's why department heads do periodically review the revenue that their department head takes in uh excuse me that their department takes in the cost of their operations particularly when it comes to this time of year with the operating budget cycle. Um but there's also times that proposals just don't move forward because there's other circumstances around the full picture that are outside of the department and that's where um our role comes into play. So that's that's kind of the longer answer to your question that there's no state cap but those are the little factors that uh play into it. That was great. Thank you. Appreciate

it. That's for me. Yeah. I didn't entertain a a motion. I would uh move to send the resolution to the full council for discussion and review. Uh second motion made by councelor Heglin, seconded by councelor Dowitz to send the motion to the full council for further to send the resolution to the um council for further uh discussion and review. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. Item 11516, a proposal by President Tyrros at the city council discuss the creation of a special committee for the Waterford Community Center project. President Tyros. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm proposing this item to task the finance committee with holding discussions and providing a recommendation to the full council to the creation of a special committee for the Waterford Community Center project. This project is now in a stage where I believe we have multiple entities operating at the center with more to come that we as a city will have to have established policies, procedures, and have the ability to make decisions that are made in the best interest of establishing the operations of the community center. This is something that the city has never undergone to this point before in its history. I believe we have a great opportunity ahead of us. And just like there was a school building committee for the uh elementary school project. I'm proposing this committee to almost be the same sort of building out the community center. Even though the building's already there, there's a lot that goes with the building that needs to be decided and thought of. And I believe a special committee of community leaders uh would be the best option. I'd like to test the finance committee with this. You add anything to it at all? Sure thing, Mr. chairman. Uh building committees are actually common practice outside of just schools. We had a building committee for the new police station. Um there was a building committee in the 1930s when this building was constructed. Um and it's just to allow more eyes on a project uh as it moves forward. Um when the council president approached me to say that this

was something that he was going to be putting forward, um I likened it to the CDBG steering committee where again it's just something to just make sure we have all of our eyes dotted and tees crossed and put more eyes on something. And it also brings something into more of a public discussion too so that the members of the public at large um are able to see exactly what's happening on um here in this building for their benefit in their backyard. Um I have no objections to this. Um no particular questions. You answer the one I have is kind of with the makeup which community leaders I think sounds great. I think it is a good idea as well. Um but I think it certainly we'd benefit some time especially if they counselor um to give it some more thought. I think so. But thank you both. I appreciate that. I I want to agree with that that more time I think is necessary here just to think about who how we going to compose it, who's going to appoint people. Um what's exactly is it going to entail? Um again, councelor Max's not here. Um I'm sure she would have been put on it. This is a something the project itself that's exciting for the city. Um and we want to make sure it stays on track. Um and things um progress there. we have, you know, tenants and utilize the building to um its maximum. Um so a little more time on this. I appreciate the presentation of the item by council Tyrros, but um if there's no further object objection, I'll keep this on our our calendar. Agreed. Okay. Next item, item 11517, proposal by President Tyros, that the city council discuss the city's current sexual harassment policy. President, thank you, Mr. Chair. had recently come to my attention that the city's sexual harassment policy is 20 years old. Uh when I had spoken with the mayor and director uh human resource director Morse on this issue, I was pleased to hear that they had already prioritized this work and are working on updating this and many other policies in the employee handbook. And u the mayor and I agreed. I thought it would be a good opportunity for the council to get

an update on this work and for the full public uh to as well. And I'd like to test the finance committee to lead uh that update with questions and discussions in your subcommittee to bring to the full council on this. Thank you, President Harris. Mayor unanimous. Sure, Mr. Chairman. Um this is another one that when the council president approached me to say that this is something he wanted to put forward, we had a very productive discussion on and that it's not just the city sexual harassment policy that's 20 years old. It's the city's employee handbook that's 20 years old except for the social media policy that's 15 years uh years old at this point. Um, so Director Morse actually brought this up in her interview for the position and that, you know, there's a lot of policies that we just need a refresher on. And it's not recreating the wheel, but social media has changed a lot in the past 15 years. There's new laws and regulations and uh codes and guidelines and everything else that's changed in the last 20 years. I was 10 20 years ago. Uh, so it's one of those things that we've already begun the process there. There's a lot of policies that are already done. In fact, I Uh we should be done with the review of the um sexual harassment policy that the council president put forward uh I'd say by the time the finance committee meets next. Um it's with the city solicitors for a final review right now. Um so I'm happy to present this as well as any of the other policies that are in the handbook that we've begun reviewing right now uh forward to the city council at any time. uh we've looked at everything from uh hybrid working for positions to sexual harassment policies to social media policies to um time off notifications and everything in between. Um so if that's you know while uh I while it's something that's been an executive function in the past I really appreciate the council president bring this forward uh and showing the collaborative work that's being done right now because there's a lot that is happening behind the scenes that normally doesn't make it to this floor. Um but maybe should and just to show that there's progress being made on everything, not just the bigger projects that you see the construction fences

around in the community. Um thank you. I think this would obviously this sexual harassment policy in particular being 20 years old. Um and it's already being worked on. I know it's something that um the HR director had mentioned she was working on all the policies. Um this being one of them was a lot to do. Um it takes time to do all these things. You said it's with the um solicitor for review at this point. Um I think the other um policies would be helpful to see in front of the council as well. And if the um council president is amunable to it, I would maybe widen the scope of this of getting just updates on on the policies, HR policies and how they're going and what the how we're falling more in line with the current times. Um I I don't know if there's information, you know, who's in your top eight on my space. That's probably not a great thing to have. Um, but I just as I think the oldest policy we had was the uh the dress code came from the early 1990s and listed out specifically which items or clothing were work appropriate and were not work appropriate. Um, I didn't know half the names on the list. Uh, so it's one of those things that it's just there's a lot of work that just needed to be updated and we're updating. No, Jenos. Council, thank you. Um, no, thank you both for presentation. Council President Tyres, thanks for putting this forward. And I want to give a some some commendation to, you know, Director Morris as well. Um, I was a little shocked that it was 20 years as well, working for the school department. The school committee reviews the policies I think annually, pretty regularly. We're trained on them as staff every year. Um, and have to prove that we've done that training. Um, so I think her initiative to get this ball rolling and to update these things with your support, Mr. Mayor. um and the fact that you're willing to sort of include the council as well and what is an executive function um really appreciate all of that. So thank you stated this is something we we leave on here. I may expand the scope a bit to to encompass all policies without highlighting though obviously this one because president brought that to our

attention but with no objection we leave it on our calendar. Agreed. Uh, next item, item 11518, a proposal by President Tyrros that the city council discuss the current state of facilities management for all municipal buildings. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, it had recently come to my mind, uh, thinking about the Waterford Community Center and certain operational aspects of it. um that you know anytime we have a major change to our city's municipal building footprint structure, number of buildings uh and their use, it's always a good time to take a step back and evaluate how things are currently being done. If there's uh good reason to keep doing them that way and if there's efficiencies gained by changing the way that we manage certain aspects of how we operate the city. Um you know, mayor and I had spoke on this one. I think it's good um from an awareness perspective to understand how sort of this is done today and if there's any opportunities for improvement with the the Watford Community Center being the impetus of this one. Okay. Thank you. Anything to add on this one? Sure thing, Mr. Chairman. Uh right now the city's facility staff uh is are are all union positions within the ASME union of the city. Uh, aside from the maintenance staff that's lo uh assigned to Levi Hwood Memorial Library, um, the way that the state law sets up public library systems is that the city is required to pay the operations, expenses, budgets, and salaries of all personnel at the library. Um, so that's why if you look in the non-union compensation ordinance, you'll see library positions that say facilities maintenance technician and other titles that mimic the titles that we have here at city hall for our custodial and maintenance staff. Uh, they are not in the union. When the initial cards were collected and the uh election was done to create the ask me union, they were not part of that initial uh uh process that was done uh for that. So that's why they are not considered members of the ask me union.

uh any changes that we make in terms of baseline positions or even the uh manager positions here um at city hall, the senior center and the police station would be have to be negotiated with the union as those are union employees. Um however uh on top of them they report to the building commissioner um who serves as the city's uh facilities director. Uh there are other municipalities that have standalone facilities directors that are paid um you know as their own full-time position. There's facilities managers that are assigned to different department heads. Um but here in Gardener it's assigned as part of the duties of the building commissioner. Um, again, this is one that when the council president and I spoke, it was more just an explanation on what we currently have here and then begin saying, does this fit what we have in the long term? And I'm absolutely okay doing a study to check efficiencies is something that we've done pretty habitually uh in the past here when it comes to reviewing just is there anything else that we could be doing different that we don't know that we're doing different than other places that's there. Um, when I was in Rutland, it fell under the DPW. When I came here, it fell under the building department. I know in um the uh one of the towns closer to Worcester, it falls under the planning department. It's really um depending on where you go to fit the needs of the of the community and what had just really been done in the past is what's happened here. Um what has union, what doesn't have unions, and everything else in between there, too. So, I'm happy to um you know provide any further information that the finance committee and the council would like to see in terms of how the structure of the system currently runs. uh happy to conduct any investigations on the administration side on if there's any efficiencies that could be gained and if something could be done differently um and have that discussion along with the council. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um thank you both again. Appreciate that information. That's really helpful. Um I'm glad to be looking at this. I think giving another school example, too. I know they're set up where they have their janitorial services contracted out, but then they

have Wayne who's their maintenance and facilities director and then within that there's a team of people who are able to help with repairs on all the buildings. So, it does keep it a little more concise and fluid and they work pretty well coher cohesively together. Um, so I think this is something I'm interested to see where it goes. Um, I'm curious to sort of draft more questions I think to bring to our committee and I'd be happy to do that. um you know for instance what is our current structure and how does it compare to the schools and what are our current titles and roles and just some things off the top of my head um so yeah I look forward to discussing this more if I could just add Mr. chairman too. City Hall used to have a contracted janitorial service. Um that was gone away with due to the um quality of the services we were receiving, but also just the cost of that contract that were there. Uh I've been very happy with the janitorial staff that we have now. In fact, our uh maintenance manager uh Phil has been um a godscent to this building over the course of the past several months as well. Um but then as councelor Heglin said too, the schools maintained that contract and that's kind of where the split happened where those custodial staff joined the city hall union here uh where the other uh the school department maintained their union excuse me maintain their contract that they had there too. So there's it's really building dependent is what I'm trying to say by this. So if it's easier to just see as a like comprehensive picture of this is where all the facilities maintenance custodial and everything else in between for um any of our city facilities um from the schools to the animal shelter to the pool and everything um we're happy to provide that. Yeah, I think a breakdown of each building or groups of buildings that are under whoever they're under and how it's administered would be helpful here. a great council head that um more time on this is um obviously we have nothing really to that we're looking into it so there's nothing really to to do yet um hopefully councelor Mack um will then

have time to you know see this uh meeting and formulate some questions as well um but I think this is something that would remain on our calendar unless there's an objection no okay um we'll keep this on the on the calendar um hopefully and come back with some answers to a few questions ever asked about the organization management and um we can continue discussion at the future meeting. Thank you president. Thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee. Uh in subcommittee item 11477 discussions in regard to internal workings groups review of the salary set. Mr. Mayor, are there any further updates to this? Uh a couple stuff uh Mr. Chairman actually this time. Um, we do have, you know, what the working group proposed there, too. But, uh, as I've said in, you know, several of these meetings in the past, any proposal or changes to the salary ordinances themselves wouldn't come up until the, uh, FY26 budget, uh, is presented to the city council. Um, just to make sure that we can afford whatever um, whatever the ordinance amendment may look like moving forward, uh, the city auditor and I have been meeting regular regularly to discuss the FY26 budget and it is something we plan to submit to the city council in May. Uh and that is um you know moving forward um with the same schedule that we said before when we said we were going to get it to the city council at one of the two meetings in May. Um the you know salary study itself, the proposal from the working group, internal conversations between the auditor and I. All of those things are still being you know looked at as part of the process here too. Right now we only have the governor's budget for our local aid. Normally we get the house and senate and we normally have a more reliable number when one of those two numbers come out. Um, but I just want to reiterate and just make it clear that uh any ordinance proposal to any of the salary structures for the city wouldn't come out until the FY26 budget comes out with it to make sure that we can afford it and fund it. Okay. So, me and Lisa both longer um depending on some of them outside factors. Um,

thank you. Any questions, council? None for me tonight. There's no objections. I'll keep this item on our calendar. Sounds good. Uh, next item is 11482. discussions regarding the city's health insurance payments and trust fund. Um, any further update or updates from the auditor? I do actually, Mr. Chairman. Uh, the city's trust fund currently has a balance of about $1.4 million. Um, that's taking into account the cost that we had from Blue Cross Blue Shield over the course of the last month in terms of our shore up payments and our regular monthly deposits that we required to give them there, too. Um, again, you want to be anywhere between$1 million and $2 million. 2 million is your ideal healthy trust fund, but you really just so long as you're over a million, you're pretty good. Um the uh city auditor, the city human resources director, the city treasurer, and myself uh have reviewed different options for health insurance moving forward in terms of moving to the group insurance commission or the GIC if that's as referred to sometimes, the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Agency or MYA as that's referred to because we like to give everything acronyms. [Music] um couple other different uh health insurance uh companies, a couple different health insurance brokers that's there. Uh at the time uh at this time we're seeing that the lowest um potential increase is actually coming from remaining with Blue Cross Blue Shield for this current fiscal year. Uh however, in the longer term, rather than doing a yearby-year look, which is what the city's practice has been for the past 30 something years, we're going to start doing a three or four or five year outlook with it to see do we is staying with the same plan coverage that we have now really the best interest that we have. Um but a lot of the potential plan changes that we could look into, and I say plan changes not in terms of substance, but in terms of carriers. uh the GIC, Maya, and anything like that do require a minimum six-month notice before going into uh those systems, particularly with the GIC that's in the statute, uh that even if we wanted to go into the GIC right now, the earliest we

could get in is January 1st because they go on a six-month basis on a July 1st to January 1st uh notification system. Uh so right now, the city's plan is to maintain Blue Cross Blue Shield for fiscal year 26. Uh we are going to have open enrollment for our uh employees uh from May 1st through May 30th or May 31st before the June 1st um start of the June month. That way all of the rates are in and employees are put in place before the new fiscal year starts on July 1st. The reason why we have to do that in May instead of in June is because uh the school department gets a what's called a balloon payment at the end of the school year where the teachers and staff of the schools get their payment in a lump sum uh for the summertime at the end of the fiscal year. Uh so with all of that those in play that's there. Uh in terms of rates and adjustments to rates we don't have those yet. We just have proposed rates at this time. Uh we will have those before the May 1st open enrollment date. Uh but I just want to say that and we you know we've looked at I mean option A through Z uh at this point. So that's why we've decided to stay with Bluec Cross for this current fiscal year. I can tell you we're likely going to be looking at the group insurance commission in the longer term, but due to their timelines, it wouldn't line up right now for the fiscal year. Thank you. No, any questions? None. Thank you. The updates I was looking for. Um, as we have in passion, we'll leave this on the the agenda for future discussions. Sounds good. And item 11507. If I just could add to that too, um if it would be helpful to get the auditor and director Morse here once we get the rates in to further go into the process, I'm happy to coordinate that as well. That would be great. Thank you. Um item on 11507, a report from the Ronald F. Cormier Memorial Committee. Um we had this in front of us previous time um and discussed um options. I know there was some information being gathered on cost. Um this has been a big part of council max obviously proposal um to do this. Um I don't know if there's any updates you

have in regards to anything Mr. Mayor. Um so my my thought is to keep it on the uh on the calendar unless there's an objection or any further discussion. Agreed. All right. So we'll leave it 11507 on the calendar. With the rest um I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Motion made by councelor Hagen. Seconded by councelor Low to adjourn. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. The meeting stands adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.