Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, Bloomfield. This is our call to order and we're going to do our roll call, Councilman Cooper [snorts] here. Uh, councelor Death and Brown, Council Mahan, Council Oliver Present, Council Merritt. Council Meritt, the whole thing. Oh, okay. Oh, give me all of this back. That was Joe's. Okay. Okay.

That's yours. Thank you. I'm like, there's too many papers. Okay, my bad, Joe. Hey.

Council Mahan here. Uh, councelor Waterhouse is out. Councelor Goodwin here. Uh, Deputy Mayor Lloyd present. Scenario

and Mayor Anthony Harrington is present. So, we have councelor Cooper that we do anticipate him uh coming online and councelor waterhouse uh is absent. Okay. So, would you like to provide the intro or it was enough?

Okay. So moving to item three, discussion and possible action regarding the FY2026 budget council [snorts] deliberations part three. Like to thank uh finance for providing these documents for the council and for our residents. Uh, Deputy Mayor Lloyd will take the floor at this time. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. As we begin discussion and possible action regarding the FY2026 budget council deliberations part three, I'd like to thank you for giving me the floor for a moment. On this evening's meeting, we're hoping to level set so that we can not only responsibly address this budget, but do it thoughtfully with the comments and input from the public in mind. In addition, with conversations amongst ourselves, emails, phone calls, text, we hope to be able to deliver to the public as responsible a budget as we can. And as we move through that discussion, I think we know that yesterday we could have been a little more efficient and we want to be as efficient as we can and not shortch changing anyone because I know you guys are as invested and will spend as much time as it takes to get through this as we will. But to be more efficient, we'd like to level set this evening uh with a cadence. We want everyone to be heard and so on the dis as we start the discussions we find that no one will be left out and every counselor will have

ability to speak share their thoughts add drop based on input that we've received and we will start in a cadence so that no one is missed. It was a lot of cross talking yesterday and so from a parliamentarian perspective you don't have to do it this way but to have it orderly and to absolutely ensure everyone has an opportunity to speak. We will start at the right of the dis your left and we will move through the dis giving everyone an opportunity to speak. If we need to double back because there's further conversation that someone wants to add, we will absolutely allow those thoughts to be articulated and that person to be heard. Starting with uh Director Hill in a moment, but when he is done, we will move to the budget itself. Many of you have expressed extreme concern over things that were proposed only proposed to be removed and we've heard those comments right so we need to start at a level set putting those things back that were of significant concern to the community I think that's fair to do because then you as a community get to see the impact of what that looks like on the budget and then as we as counselors move through that the size. Uh page 26 for those who have budget books or have it electronically, you will begin to see the impact of those reductions or putting them back in and what it does to the budget. At that point, it's fair and right to move to modifications. the things that the department directors, staff, uh, town manager have determined are needs of this town and some of them are significant needs and we need to as well fairly and fully consider those things. And this does not take away any counselor who wants to dig in further into the budget because if I show you my book, who would think a kindergartener

with a crayon was in it? Page after page highlighting things that were questions or concerns and do we need it? Councelor Betham Brown mentioned yesterday that she has gone through it line by line, department by department and many of us have and so the those things as well are not off the table for discussion and can be requested to be taken out or added in as that counselor deems necessary. So I just want everyone to be respectful and to be respected and we thank you so much for your cooperation. I thank you counselors for the thoughtful and sometimes uh tough conversations even ones we may not have liked but we heard it and we have to take that into consideration as we move forward with this conversation. So before Director Hill comes back up I will turn it back over to you Mr. Mayor.

Thank you very much. And as uh Deputy Mayor Lloyd mentioned, we will start from my right requesting each counselor to have an opportunity to speak. This call Uh once we have gone through each counselor and there uh remains some additional questions, we will go through the same process as deputy mayor had mentioned. We'll now give the floor to our finance director, Mr. Daryl Hill.

Final personal privilege. Yes.

Thank you. Um, if I could, Director Hill, there were several concerns that were brought up over the last few days. Um, and so one of the things that Mayor Harrington uh stepped up and assumed responsibility for was a misstatement on the town attorney's increase. So, if you could, because I understand you've based on that feedback and that incident looked into some of the concerns around that, I'm going to ask at some point before you leave, if you could please address that because that directly impacts one of the major line items that we need to look at and that way we can give the public a full understanding of what it looks like and where we are at today. Thank you.

Sure. Thank you, Madame Deputy Mayor. Um, mayor, uh, madame deputy mayor, members of council, as always, it's a pleasure to be before you, um, especially for two nights in a row. Um, in response to the deputy mayor's remarks just now, uh, Miss Rogers, could you pull up the, uh, town attorney adopted budget history, it's in the email I just sent. um from last night's conversation and I believe some other remarks with regard to the level of budget for the town attorney uh going back a number of years. Um I look back at the adopted budgets um going back to 2016 and the graphic that's shown represents the annual adopted budget for the town attorney uh for what's that 11 years uh 2016 through 2026. Um you'll see that in 2016 it was just above 213,000. Um and then for the next 3 years it decreased uh well two of the years decreased from 213,000 205 187 the 187 repeats for 2018 and 19 then it increases in 2020 to be two just over 22,000 and then in 2021 there's roughly a $78,000 increase to the $280,000 level followed by uh several years of lower amounts at 266 6 266,000 254,000 uh and then in 2004 uh the growth from 250 [clears throat] 254,000 to 262,000 I'll call it 265,000 and the current fiscal year which is budgeted at 268,500. Um the proposed budget you would think I'd have that in front

of me I don't. Um I believe it increases to 293,000 from memory. Um so I believe that the comment that was made was reducing the budget to a prior year in the neighborhood of 200 I'm sorry 2020 at 175,000 I believe and believe the comment was also uh caveed with that amount was adjusted uh for inflation going back to 2020. So, um, not exactly sure where that information's come from. This information has come from the, uh, adopted budget books, uh, going back again [clears throat] to 2016. In addition, uh, Miss Rogers, can you pull up the MDC file? In addition, there's been uh I spoke to it last night about the way the metropolitan district uh lays its ad valorum tax on member towns. Um the image that's coming up and I believe it's the third page. That right there um this reflects the ad valorum from the metropolitan district uh that was adopted or approved at their meeting on December 8th, 2025. And the table that's shown, if you can make that a little bit larger, just focusing on the table, um has the installment date for each of the member towns. Um as you may recall last night, I mentioned that the MDC is on their fiscal year is the same as the calendar year. Our fiscal year is July 1 through June 30. So we are staggered with only two quarters that are the same in this uh what's on the screen [snorts] 7:15 2026 and the October 21st 2026 fall within our fiscal year 2027. What is not included in MDC's adalorum because of their fiscal year being on

the calendar year are the third and fourth quarter of our fiscal 2027. So, as is shown in the fourth line from the bottom with Bloomfield next to it, the first two quarters of calendar 2026 or the first two quarters of MDC's fiscal year, that $898,587 is the same as the third and fourth quarter of MDC's 2025 fiscal year. Hence our budget having the same amount uh for all four quarters of installments to MDC. But what you'll notice is in the third column from the right and the second column from the right is for Bloomfield our payment increases from 898,000 to 1,57,000. So in the second half of MDC's fiscal year, our payment increases.

Thank you. Um and that increase for the third and fourth quarter of MDC's fiscal year, the first and second quarter of our fiscal year is what is assumed to continue for our third and fourth quarter uh of fiscal 2027. We will not know what our using this schedule January and April payments for MDC uh will be until they lay their tax uh at the end of this calendar year. It usually happens in the beginning of December. Uh but the expectation is that that 1,57,000 will repeat in the first two quarters of next fiscal year and then any adjustments would be made in MDC's third and fourth quarter. Um I think MDC does that intentionally recognizing that I think all of the member towns uh have a different fiscal year which is the same as ours July 1 through June 30. So for consistency and predictability, they tend to have their installment schedule mimic this where the first two quarters of their fiscal year are the same and in the last two fiscal years of their quarter last two quarters of their fiscal year are the same. So that as we budget all member towns budget, we are continuing those last two quarters of MDC's fiscal year. I'm hopeful that uh clarifies any suggestion that um looking at the history is what has been laid by MDC on all member towns including the town of Bloomfield. Um Mr. Rogers, can you pull up the last file I emailed uh which speaks to the unassigned fund balance? Uh, as everyone's aware, our fiscal year 2024 audit is complete. Uh, the 2024 audit uh includes and reflects an

unassigned fund balance of TW. Wow, that's small. Um, can you make the tan color larger and center it for me if possible? Um, so in the middle column, I'll I'll speak through it, but uh fiscal year 2024's unassigned fund balance is known. It is audited. It is 21,76,594. Uh the town's unassigned fund balance policy which takes that unassigned amount and divides it by the subsequent year's uh budgeted revenues um which is shown under 2025. It's the 110 million 196. Uh so using the audited fiscal 2024 unassigned fund balance of 21.7 million divided by the fiscal 2025 adopted budget revenues, we arrive at a 19.7% uh fund balance consistent with the town's fund balance policy. Rolling that forward to 2025, which is unaudited. And you may remember uh every time I say unudited, I say it will change. Um but as of last Friday, our revenues and expenditures are as shown uh at just under 111,400,000 for revenue uh and 108,000 108,400,000 for expenses. That best available information for fiscal year 2025 [clears throat] suggests that we would not only not need the 2.75 million of fund balance appropriated, but based on the revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year, uh we would be adding just under $3 million to the fund balance. That on top of or added to the fiscal 2024 audited fund balance would bring us

to just under $24.7 million. That $24.7 million divided by the current fiscal year's adopted budget revenue of 113.6 million 113.6 million arrives at a unassigned fund balance policy calculation of 21.7%. As of fiscal year 2025 end on the right hand side of the page uh inside the the dark outline uh is fiscal year 2026. And as I've presented to the finance committee for the last 2 or 3 months and explained, I think I mentioned it last night, I refer to it as the bookends.

Um the left side to FY fiscal year 2026A assumes that we need to utilize all of the 3.75 million appropriated in the current year's budget. And the fiscal year 2026b in the far right hand column assumes that we don't need any of the 3.75 million of fund balance appropriated in the current fiscal year. Those two bookends have an assumption for our revenues and expenditures. the use of that 3.75 million or not using that 3.75 million which arrives at a ratio of 17.9% on the low end and 21.1% on the high end. But as we all know there was also the transfer from unassigned fund balance to the economic development trust of $4 million. As we back that out of the unassigned fund balance, we arrive at a lower ratio of 14.5% [clears throat] and an upper ratio of 17.7%. Off to the right, you slide the uh page a little bit to the right so you can see that green box. Army, right? Yes, that little green box is the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget. Our general fund balance policy uses the subsequent year's revenues, budgeted revenues for the calculation. Um, and all that we have as of now is the proposed budget, which is that $17.1 million. So, utilizing the proposed revenue budget for the calculation is how we arrive at the 14.5 and the 17.7% bookends. Once we have an adopted budget, of course, the calculation will be updated. Uh we'll also uh have even more uh

we'll be closer to audited fiscal 2025 numbers. Um and uh but that is not going to happen before uh the budget process ends. As hopefully all are aware, we're working to complete the 2025 audit by the end of June um likely into the first week or two of July. Um so that information is provided as background. I'm happy to answer any questions that the council may have. Uh but should you not have any, I'm happy to move on to uh the town council deliberations scenarios that have been uh distributed uh this evening there.

Walk you through how they are laid out. There is a question u councelor dean Brown. Thank you. I'm just trying to understand if you could go back to the MDC information. I'm trying to understand because I'm looking at the MDC's um adopted budget for 2026 and for July and October their numbers are different than the numbers that they've placed in this memo. Can you tell me what the difference is?

Um uh which numbers are you referring? in their adopted budget um their 2026 installment schedule um for uh July 15th it's 984,499 for October 21st it's 984,499 so I'm just trying to figure out what's the difference why is this memo different from what's in their budget book um I do not know what you're referring to with regard to their budget Um so

I've not looked at MDC's budget. Each member town receives the ad valorum which is for us to utilize in budget development um for the current their current fiscal year our uh budget development fiscal 2027. So, and I understand I I look at the paragraph above the 53 million and the 13 million per quarter do match, but you're referring to their their their budget book, a different document. I'm happy to go back and look at that. I don't know what it says. Okay.

I I'm just trying to understand the difference, especially since it's in their adopted budget. So, I'm just trying to understand that. So, that would be helpful if we can find out why there's a difference. Thank you. Um,

thank you for the question. I'll go back and and look at MDC's budget book uh to try and understand uh find the difference and understand what the difference is and if I'm unable to identify and understand why uh the the difference that you're referring to is there. I'm happy to reach out to the MDC to better understand. Uh but the payments that the town of Bloomfield are responsible for are not based on the MDC's adopted budget book based on the adalorum tax that they lay on the town which is what this document refers to.

So I'm sorry that is what I'm looking at. It's in their operating budget revenues book is the advalorum tax. Um again I I don't have NDC's budget book but okay what is was shown on the screen and what we're responsible to pay is not their budget book but the ad balorum that they lay on the town which is what this refers to. So how they translate this into their budget book and do their sausage making I I have no idea. Okay.

Councelor Oliver. Uh yeah, I I don't think this is a question for you. I think it's a question for MDC. Um but I'm looking at the amount that East Harford pays compared to us. We're half the population almost exactly. Um but yet we're paying 900,000 over half of that cost. So is that something for MDC or is that something for here? Um East Hartford's payment. I think that's East Harford has 50,000 people. We have 21,000. They're paying 6 million and we're paying 3.9 million.

Yeah, I I believe that MDC's calculations are based on assessed values, not population. I want to confirm that, but uh I I do believe that it's known how they allocate their expenses to member towns and it's consistent for all member towns. I may have misspoken, but I do believe that it is based on assessed values for each of the towns and how they relate to each other. Happy to confirm that as well. So the value of the h so the value of your house depends on how much they charge us for water and sewage.

Um no I believe it is the assessed values for the town right so homes businesses everything that's you know again however they slice and dice the assessed if it's assessed value one and how and what parts of the assessed value they look at is part of their structure. Um, it is not a I'm sorry. I don't believe it's a variable. I think it's a known item. Um, I I just don't recall what it is. Thank you. Thank you, uh, Deputy Mayor Lloyd.

Okay. I just want to say thank you for preemptively presenting these other two documents on the MDC as well as the fund balance. Although it's been presented in previous um, finance committee meetings, everybody does not get an opportunity to watch those. It does bear repeating. So, thank you for that as well. Thank you for going into the MDC explanation. Um, I do appreciate councelor Death and Brown and councelor Oliver's questions. Um, because it's not an easy thing to understand the way they chop it up and it's on a different cadence than how we do our fiscal year, right? So, I can understand it's been confusing and as well um these questions kind of mirror some of the input we've had including some email questions that I think we'd all received. So, it does bear investigating and we hope that you'll have the time to do that. And again, thank you for going back. I'm hoping that we don't have to use the 3.75 million on 26 and and I doubt it'll be zero, but we can be hopeful and hopefully it'll be somewhere in between so we can retain that 15% um base on our unassigned fund balance. Thank you, Director Hill.

You're welcome. Councelor Merritt comments. Okay, councelor Waterhouse. Okay, Councelor Mahan,

my apologies. I forgot we were going one by one. Um I to uh councelor Beaton Brown's um point. Um it does so it states that on uh B20 well page 43, but it's B21 of the of MDC's operating budget. um the the figures and so I guess the question that that I have because it says it's under the category uh sore tax on member municipalities now is the advalorum something separate from that sore tax or does the advalorum uh uh comprise of more things than that that sore tax or are we are we looking at the wrong thing by looking at the the MDC's budget because I I just pulled it up and that's what it says but perhaps you and uh you know help educate us on this if we're wrong.

Um I'm I couldn't hear the word that you were saying that it's called on the budget book. Yeah. So tax on uh member municipalities sore sore. Okay. Sewer. Okay. Thank you. I was wondering as well. Thank you so much. Yes. I believe those are separate. Um there's the adorum and the sewer tax.

Okay. Okay. So what is uh what does the advorum comprise of? Does it does it comprise of the the sewer plus something else or [sighs and gasps] so? Uh MDC is what? Water and sewer. One is for water and one is for sewer. Um I may be mixing them up. Which is which? I believe the adorum is sewer and the no you're referring to sewer and saying it has a different number than what's shown on this right and that's that's

okay so the advalorum comprised of soore but the soar number doesn't necessarily uh encapsulate everything that we're taxed on by MDC well the tax by MDC is the adorum [clears throat] and then we are charged for sewer or water whichever one right there's there's the two that MDC charges for one has been adalorum and one is a fee a user fee that we pay

okay and I think this is what the confusion has been uh with residents because this is the this has been the the number that has been uh posed that uh that has been the the difference between what's being presented here and uh what most of our our residents I believe are looking at. So that's this is why I'm asking these questions to see if we can try to clarify this and perhaps move on from this issue if there is no issue. I don't believe there is an issue. Um I've not looked at the budget book. Um,

trying to use my personal perhaps I'd recommend that if you can take a look at their at their budget book and then let us know if this is something that we're looking at. Sure, I'm happy to. Yeah, it's page 43. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, councelor Goodwin,

I don't have a comment right now. I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. I said, "Oh, I don't have a question at this point." Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Director Hill may continue. Thank you sir.

Okay. Um so there are uh the handouts that look like this. Um which um when I sit down I'll take the base case and convert them to PDFs. Actually as uh the council is going through its cuts and ads tonight. This is what I will be sharing my screen uh to show not only in the room but those watching online. The very first page is from the adopted or from our budget books. Uh each budget book contains in the revenue section a page that I refer to as the calculation of the mill rate.

The top half of the page it has all the expenditures. The middle of the page has the revenues uh with assessed values. And then at the bottom right, it shows the mill rate uh and increase. It also compares left to right the current fiscal year with the proposed fiscal year. So for council's deliberations, it's ads and cuts. This is the page that we'll be looking at. Uh but the next two pages I prepared uh and those some of those in the room uh have these and can follow along. Uh the first are the budget modifications which are are the budget modifications page from the proposed budget book. What I've added is off to the right hand side of the page those green highlighted columns and then the information at the very bottom that has the title town council deliberations with ads and reductions. Um [clears throat] so in the green columns on the far right of the budget modifications um the second column from the right I've shown whether or not the budget modification has been included. Uh and this goes back to the scenario one. And I've called it scenario two because there is one adjustment uh from what was discussed uh last night um showing which budget modification request by budget modification request what's been included and what's not been included. If it's been included in the far right hand column there's a value. If it's not been included it says not included. And at the very bottom there is a total of 551,000 for the budget modifications that have been included in scenario two. Um, of importance and reference on this page and the next page which are the reductions at the very top and bottom of those green highlighted columns you'll see mill rate and percent increase. Those are referring to the very first page bottom right so that we don't have

to go back and forth to look and see what the impact of any ads or cuts are. Uh as I enter any of the council's ads or cuts, the value of them um the mill rate and the percent increase will automatically update. Similarly on the last page for the reductions far right hand side has the green highlighted columns two of them where I've indicated uh if the reductions included in the town manager's proposed budget continue to be eliminated or have been restored. They've been restored. There's a value in the far right hand column that reflects the amount that was restored. You can see that at the very bottom at or the bottom of the the columns in the inside the highlighted green box there's a total of just over or just under 4.1 million. Similarly at the top and bottom of the page are the mill rate and percent increases. Um so again we don't have to flip back and forth to see what the impact on the mill rate is and the percentage increase of any ads and cuts. And based on last night's conversation, this is the change from scenario one to scenario two. On the bottom right, you'll see two red numbers. One removes the management non-union general wage increase or cost of living adjustment. Those are the same thing GWI and COLA uh which is the just over 206,000 eliminated or cut as well as the management 1% merit that $4,671. So the difference between scenario one discussed last night and scenario two uh is the elimination of the GWI for management non-union and the 1% merit

for management which arrives at a mill rate of 35.51 and an increase of 6.41%. uh which is of course slightly down from uh the scenario one which was I don't have it up here with me it's in my book of 6.7% I believe which must be 6.6% 6% again every 100,000 is decimal 1%. Every million is roughly one full percentage point. So that is the scenario two. Um and then there were uh comments by various counselors, three counselors in particular uh with regard to and actually there was a fourth counselor. Um but the fourth one isn't shown because there weren't amounts uh there were concepts uh that were included and those concepts need to be valued. um in the three scenario additional scenarios provided at the top of each sheet all three sheets in each packet is the counselor's name. So we have a counselor Mahan scenario, councelor Merritt scenario and counselor Oliver scenario. Um, I'll take them in the reverse order as I just stated them. Uh, because the councelor Oliver scenario, the adjustment from the, uh, I'll say base scenario two I just presented is the removal of the digital forensics program in the police department from the budget modifications list, which is $19,130. Uh, which brings the mill rate down to 35.51. a reduction of decimal 01 and the percent increase down to 6.39%.

The other uh comments by councelor Oliver are already included in scenario 2. Similarly for councelor Merritt um there's no adjustment to the budget modification but there is on the third page um restoring library part-time hours. Uh that 50,000 is at the bottom right up top it still shows it being eliminated but the ad is to put it back in. Mhm.

So, I've added that 50,000 which brings the mill rate up to 35.53 and the percent increase up to 6.46%. [cough] [clears throat] In the third and final scenario uh is councelor Mahans which first and foremost on the very first page you'll see that there is not the one yellow highlighted cell for the general fund balance applied of 1.5 million but up on the second line where the board of education operations are um that is a change from the base case scenario 2 uh which reduced the board of ed by 1.5 million. Uh councelor Mahan's scenario adds 500,000 back into that. So the increase is 2.91%. The budget modifications are unchanged. And then on on [clears throat] the third page, you will see at the bottom right uh the listing of the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven cuts and one ad. It's really eight cuts because you will see that there is a blank line with no value for an ad or reduction for the board of education reduction by 1 million. That's addressed on the very first page. Um, but the reductions are shown in the right hand column. The addition of the one police cruiser at 76,000, just over 76,000 is included in the ads. When you take all of the additions and reductions, the mill rate falls to 34.8 and the percent increase falls to 4.29%. I would focus your attention on what is being uh added or reduced. Mhm.

Um capping tuition reimbursement uh which the comment was uh to cap it at 100,000. The budget was 169031. Hence the removal of the 69031. Um I do not know that that is achievable is included. Just a just a correction there. I said cap it moving forward for future contract. So that was a concept as well. So I think councelor Betham Brown had the right idea last night with us coming into council with our that that was incorrect. Okay. But please channel that through me. Thank you.

I'll let you guys continue to mischaracterize my statement. Um well I apologize if there was an error uh in looking at the video. No continue. But the assumption and for the entire council, right, the assumption is that the reductions that you're referring to are for the 27 budget, not another budget. So, um I would ask if you're referring to something other than the 27 budget to make that clear as you articulate your ads and cut.

Rewatch the video just for a moment. We're going to have each counselor have an opportunity to go back and discuss the things that they want to talk about. But until then, we're uh going to allow Director Hill to speak and finish his presentation. Thank you. And I won't go through them. They're shown on the page. Um, but if any of these are incorrect, I'm happy to pull them up and adjust uh as I will do with the tuition to restore that 69,000 uh cut and happy to show on screen uh where the mill rate and percent increase uh land for that scenario. Um, and with that, council, I'm happy to take any questions or uh begin what I would refer to as scenario three with any ads or cuts uh that council wishes to see. So, you're going to ask Okay. As we move forward. Oh, thank you, Councelor Cooper. You're here. Um,

yes, sir. We're doing now. We're not taking uh hand raises. We're going to go through the DAS and uh with each individual counselor having an opportunity to to speak. So, the next person to speak will be I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. Just just a quick interjection. Are these going to be um are these going to be uh shown um on screen where we can see it? Because at this point I'm unable to see those uh scenarios.

Uh thank you councelor. I um short on time. Uh was able to produce them to bring the hard copies into the room. Um, if I have time as council goes through uh its deliberations determining what cuts and ads they'd like to see, I will work to PDF each of them. Uh, and happy to send the email to the entire council so you have um each of them what four different scenarios uh scenario two base case and then the three individual counselor scenarios. Um, but if not able to do that during the meeting, I will do it immediately following the meeting. Um, and Mr. Mayor, if I may, one one last comment. So, at the on the each of the scenarios, including the what I'm referring to as the base case scenario two, you'll notice that at the very top it says town manager proposed FY 2027 budget and then right below it, it says town council deliberations. Uh, I left it that way because the town council deliberations are on the town manager's post proposed budget. Um, after the council's deliberations are completed, uh, we of course will then work to update the book from the town manager's proposed to the town council recommended.

Thank you. Thank you, M. Mr. Mayor. Again, I should, you know, and I'm forgive me for not being present. Are we starting at a certain point in any of these through you, Mr. Mayor, to Director Hill? Are we starting at a a 5% overall budget? Are we starting at a 4%? I know there was prior to this there was some [clears throat] others, but so I'm just at a loss. Okay. Deputy mayor wouldn't be made an introduction from the beginning. So here we go.

Thank you for the question, Council Cooper. Um, the first thing I'm going to do is ask if there's anyone available to possibly go and scan these scenarios and do a quick email to councelor Cooper so he can follow along. That would be greatly appreciated. And to email councelor Goodwin, my apologies, councelor Goodwin, I'm so sorry. Um, additionally, I think to answer your question, Council Cooper, um, in the introduction, we kind of level set so that we could ensure to have an efficient meeting no matter how long it takes, but also recognizing that, uh, we want the public as well as each other to be able to effectively follow along.

Uh, Director Hill came up and did some initial scenarios based on things that had been called out over the last couple of meetings. And as we proceed at this point, um, possibly with these scenarios in mind or with your own ideas in mind, we will start with reductions. If the counselors have any other ideas on reductions, not just from page 26, proposed reductions, but anything else in the book that a counselor may have seen that they want to inquire about it being adjusted or reduced. From that point, we will then go to the modifications. Some of the scenarios present almost no modification approval and then some of the scenarios that you guys will receive show maybe half of the modifications being uh added into the budget. So then we'll go through each counselor in order so that we can all have fair opportunity to address our concerns on the modifications that we'd like to see. At that point we'll know what the percentage increase is and then we can still add and drop from that point. But to be efficient, we want to move in order as well as starting with reductions, if there be any further reductions or say if we favor a particular scenario that you and Councelor Goodwin will be receiving shortly.

Mhm. And then additions or what we call modifications and then we can deliberate on a consensus to get to an increase that we all can agree upon. Okay. Thank you so much for the question. Thank you. Thank you. So at this time uh we will turn to councelor de and brown. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Um I'm I would like to start from um councelor Mahan's scenario and I'm only starting with counselor Mahan's scenario because it is the least Mhm.

um the least painful for our um taxpayers. Um, and my uh my thought is to take away or to modify down and then hopefully by the time we're finished we can build back and hopefully build back better. Um, so I would like to know if we uh did bulk waste pickup on a quarterly basis, how much would that save us? Yeah, he's

think so. Okay. Bulky waste is I remember Christmas trees and it's weekly. bulky waste I believe is $40,000 a quarter. And how often do we pick up? It's once a month, right? Once a month. So, is there any way that we can cut that in half? I mean, sure, we can reduce the the number of pickup, right? Right. So, okay. I'd like to reduce bulk waste pickup.

So, a cut of $20,000. Yes, I'm going to take every penny. Director Hill, um I see here that uh in this scenario, we have the one police cruiser. I'd like to take that out. I would like to take out um the boards and commission's budget increase. You could bear with me one second to catch up. Mr. Mayor,

were there any other Yes, he said one. He said one second. Mr. Mayor, may I ask a question? Oh, sure. Thank you. Um, for the public that is online, maybe they don't have access to the video. If we could call out the number when we're saying cut whatever like I think the board and commission it's either 10 or 20,000. If we could call out that number that would be really helpful.

Okay. So the boards and commission budget increase is $10,50 in that same area. Personal cost increase boards and commission support $10,000. 10,800 10,000 10,000 flat.

The first number was $10,50 and then 10,000 flat. Now I'm going to go to the budget book operations and communications. I'd like to see that roll back to 2026 revised budget 632,98. Call [clears throat] it out again, please.

I'm sorry. I'm going to go back. 632 098.

So, are you you're reducing their budget to that? Yep. I'm rolling it back to it by that. I'm really I'm rolling it back to that. So that would be an addition to my budget.

That's an addition to your budget. Is reducing ops and cons by 300,000.

Okay, I will go with his budget. Okay, I didn't see that. Okay. So, finance.

Rolling it back to 2026 budgeted numbers and how much of a reduction is that from? So that's what you want, right? So I can't just tell you what the 20 26 budgeted numbers was, revised budget. Happy to do that. That would slow us down because then I have to calculate I have to find it. Okay. And do the calculation each time. So let me do that. Correct. I'm sorry.

You said 2026 numbers, right? So I'm reducing it by is that the 13673? Yep.

Reducing it by 136,773. human resources. I'm reducing it by the 127 353 boards and commissions planning and zoning on reducing it by $1,000. Um, I really do want to uh also look at uh bodies, but I'll I'll probably wait for my this my second wave. Zoning board of appeals, I'm reducing it by $300. advertising and technical supplies. I'm reducing it by $1,400 in the ZBA light nine item ZBA by $300.

I'm reducing zoning board of appeals by $300. Then they have advertising and technical supplies. I'm reducing that by $1,400. You're reducing

$1,700. Well, I'm just reading it how you broke it out in the book. Board of tax review. I'm reducing that by 283. Inland wetlands. I'm reducing it by $2,100.

$2,100. advertising and technical supplies pulling in the wetlands.

Mhm.

You're reducing in the wetlands by how much? 2100. I'm not quite sure. Economic development comp commission um development agency. There's $200 there. I'm not quite sure why. Um, so taking it away. Can add it back if we need to commission on aging. I'm reducing that by $2,000. I'm not caught quite sure what the advisory commission on handicap is. I've never heard of it before. So, I'm just wiping out that budget.

How much is that?

It was 250. Conservation Energy and Environment Committee. I'm uh reducing that by 750. beautifification. I'm reducing it by 1600 public art commission. I'm reducing it by 2,00 Um, Mr. chair, I do have some um some positions as well that I would like to look at, but I would uh appreciate the opportunity to take that back on my second goround. Um I'm not quite sure, and this is this feels a little funny because I used to work there. Um, the health district

there is a $14,000 increase. I'd like to take that away for right now. Sorry, it was 14,641.

And I'll stop right there. Mr. Chair, thank you so much. Thank you, Councelor Oliver.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I wasn't going to go through each department. Um, I would like to see some of the education training probably hold for a while if we can get away with that. Um, but I would like to also make a point of clarification. Um, the deductions I asked for last last uh yesterday's meeting uh regarding the police department, I was confused. I thought that whole thing was 300,000 and apparently it's 20,000. Um, so if they if they feel the need to have that, I'm not really um opposed to that all the way, but I just was a little confused and thought it was 300,000. Okay. So point clar point of clarification um I would like to minus the training uh besides any mandatory training that needs to take place.

You have a value. Well, it looks that uh 2026 that they it cost uh so the actuals so averages for the past two years anywhere from 31,000 to 26,000 and we're asking for 169,000. So I would say take off 100,000 that still leaves 60,000 uh which is what we gave them. We gave them We would leave them 69,000. We gave them 68,000 last year. Remove 100,000. Yes, please.

Excuse me. Uh, councelor Oliver. Yes, we have the HR director here and I'm just wondering if there could be a a rendering of response as far as if it is majorly [clears throat] impactful to your operation. Um, good evening. It's not impacting my department personally. It's impacting all departments and it's union mandatory in their contracts.

Okay. Like OSHA 10 and well it's in a tuition reimbursement program that's contracted negotiated in their contracts. So Oh, so tuition reimbursement and this are the same thing. Yes. Are they in the line item is the same thing? tuition reimbursement slashtraining. The only thing that's training for my department is like $1,000 or something like that. Oh, I just saw HR education and training on page 52, right? It comes out of my budget, but it's not for my department only. So, all of the trainings increased from last year are going to be $100,000 more.

It's the education tuition reimbursement that's increased. So that HR and education training won't be found in other departments. It might be found as training but not education as in um tuition reimbursement. All right. I guess I need to look through this a little bit better. Maybe I misunderstood it. I apologize. No problem. Um, maybe I'll I'll continue to look through this and let I don't want to hold anybody up. I don't want to. Okay.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Lloyd.

Thank you. So since we're starting with a baseline of councelor Mahan scenario being the most conservative as a budget percentage increase. I will go to excuse me deputy mayor. Yes. Can you hear me? Um I have no issue using uh council mahans as the base as long as everyone understands that. So, councelor Bam Brown indicated councelor Mahan she was building on. So, I have that.

Councelor Oliver's I went to his scenario. I was going to go to your scenario which is the same as the base case scenario too unless we want to build everybody's into councelor Mahan's scenario. So, I'm sorry. He was he was addressing me. I'm sorry. Um although you have four scenarios for us to contemplate four at once. That would add more difficulty for you. Right.

I have a model built for each counselor, right? And I'm happy to do it by counselor or I'm happy to build it all in one as long as everybody understands that it's building in one. So if later on in the meeting you come and say, "Well, what was mine?" It's not mine anymore. It's everybody's together in one. I get that. And that is the ultimate goal. That is the ultimate goal. So if we use the unlabeled model, which was the first one you discussed, I'm good with that for now on the first round. of comments on cuts. Okay. So, I will defer to council me. Thank you. Pass on the first round.

I need lots of help. I need I'm going to pass on the first round. Thank [clears throat] you. Uh councelor Waterhouse back on the second round for me. Okay. Councelor Mahan,

thank you. Um, let me see. So I um I'm not sure what the dollar amount was for this but the uh next request FOI management software is to my understanding that um this is the the um let me get my bearings on this. the FOI um management software. Is that our subscription to it or is this a new software?

There's a part two. I don't know if this Well, here's my problem. I don't know if this has made our FOI management uh situation better. Um, it certainly in my time as a counselor, I have seen our management of FY requests get worse, not better, even post this software. So, I'm not sure what the dollar amount is attributed uh to this, but I would like to see that uh potentially eliminated. I'm not sure if that's that was included in my budget. I would not like it to be.

Sure. So the the FOYI management software was uh procured this fiscal year and appears as a bud budget modification to in the fuller light of day full transparency make it clear that it's an ad to next year's budget. So that's the software we have already uh which has been helpful given the five or 6x increase in the foyer requests that we've received and are working to respond to. So it has uh made uh uh uh achieved efficiencies and made tracking and responding to FOI requests uh improvements. So uh you want to cut the 19,000.

Thank you for the number. Um, I feel like a lot of I feel like a lot of the stress that is coming from these foyer requests is self-imposed because we are pushing items off the foyer requests that and I I've made this point before that previously were not foyer request. We got an email from a resident earlier today uh Aaron Behringer still no response to it. Um, but that's something that I fear is going to be pushed off to a foyer request that could be very simply answered because the the information is readily available when luckily uh when I requested contracts I was able to receive it. I mean that information is is at a fingertip to put it into a queue and to bring it into the uh the foyer queue would just exacerbate this problem that I feel like a lot of uh I don't want to say all town manager but our town manager and and other folks have said is a is a major issue I think can be easily solved without having to uh uh expend $19,000 on software. So, yeah, I would like to see um that cut. Um

I'm I'm trying to uh just understand here uh at the top of my budget where it says the um uh the part-time hours for the library. Uh in my budget, is that taken out or am I or was that put back in the $50,000? Okay. I want to see that back in. That's That's never something that I would agree to. Um, let's see. Okay, I think that's all for now. I do want to see where we are now with those cuts. I uh in that addition, I would like to see where we are now, what our mill rate would be, and then we can decide I'm sorry, I can't see it. Is it there?

No. because then I can we can then decide if we need to cut more or if we're okay here or if we need if we can add some stuff back in. But I think that's the idea that councelor Bethan Brown who's been through quite a few budget processes uh I think that's the idea that she had let's you know cut and then see what we can bring back in if need be. Thank you. Uh councelor I'm sorry. I didn't get an answer to my question. Uh, Mayor Harrington, just want to know what the current mill rate would be. So, is that

Sorry, M Harrington. I just wanted that answer. My apologies. Thank you for being so gracious. And Deputy Mayor, too. It's two for one today. Okay.

Oh, I'm sorry. I meant I was trying to uh build on council beat and brown's reductions. So, council beat them browns reductions which he added to to my budget scenario plus the 50,000 for the library. Where do we end off? Are we all set?

Not yet. The way you want to answer. Well, while he's Well, not right. Mr. Mayor. Yes. We're just [clears throat] waiting on an answer and I'm going to get to both of you and uh I'm not in a rush. Not in a rush for that.

Right. There was just a question about the the 1.5 from the operations. That's not We're gonna We're going to need to wait until Okay. Okay. It's your opportunity. Okay. Thanks.

Okay. It just may affect the numbers that he's putting in now, but I can wait. I'll wait. [cough and clears throat] I I just want to know sorry again. Um what would that look like for uh you know we have the different um [clears throat] we use the different examples of the house values and what that what that dollar amount would equate to. What would what would that look like? I think we typically use like 200 and 400. Yeah. And so then uh what would what does that equate out to for like at a 200,000 and 400,000 house value? What is the dollar amount that it works out to?

[clears throat]

Mr. Mayor. Yes, Council Cooper.

Yes, sir. There is a I just want to make a quick point of order. Uh there is 1.5 million. It looks like that's being added from the town operations and through you to Mr. Hill. That money is part of the um [snorts] the fund for uh town center economic development. And I think that may have been our issue previously. That money should not be part of the town operations either subtracted or added

if I'm not mistaken. If it it is not and it should not be added to these scenarios. Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair. Yes. That money is unassigned fund balance. It has nothing to do with the $4 million.

If it's in the scenario, and I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, if it's in the It should not be part of the scenario. Build your own. I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. I was just advising councelor Cooper just to build his own. I don't need your advice, sir. I know. Excuse me. Excuse me. Let's stop. Stop. Councelor Cooper, we'll ask for you to make that adjustment when we get to you.

Uh, Mr. Mayor, point of order. If though that adjustment is not made in this scenario, it's going to be wrong. then now and it'll be wrong then. No, you will have your turn in this scenario. We're just going through each counselor. So, you'll have your uh opportunity soon as we finish this question with council. Everyone who gives numbers in this scenario the numbers will be wrong and I I strongly feel

you can ask excuse me you can ask for the adjustment when it gets to your turn. Just be patient for a moment. We're going to see this first round through. So, we're waiting for a question that council Mahan had requested to be answered. Then we're going to move to councelor Goodwin. Then we're going to move to you. [clears throat] So the Mahan I'm call it Mahan scenario one right there's the base and then there's what councelor debate and brown and others have amended. uh which is what is resulted in the mill rate at 34.82 and these are the values updated with the 38.42 for 27 proposed. The impacts are shown annually and monthly for two home values. [cough and laughter] Thank you very much. Uh, Director Hill, Council Mahan, may we move forward.

Yes. Okay. Uh, councelor Goodwin,

thank you. So, [clears throat] I would like to um replace the 1.5 million that's currently proposed to come from the center development fund balance um and to actually ask that to come from our unassigned fund balance because I'm not sure that that's already represented in the scenario. So my question would be uh is taking money from the unassigned fund balance already in the scenario and I apologize what we received and councelor Cooper maybe it's different on your screen the way it came in um some of the lines are actually cut off on the edge and I think through the scanning that was missing. So, I will apologize in advance if some of my questions um are redundancies, but I can't fully see the last uh bars in the scenarios. So, that would be my first question. Is fund balance added into the scenario already?

Uh yes, it is. Let me get it back up so I'm looking at the right correct one. And if I could have the dollar amount in the current um council man's proposal of the fund balance because I don't see it. I can't find it. Store library hours. Okay. Um so in the base scenario two okay [clears throat] yes

there is $1.5 million of unassigned fund balance applied um which is added to the $665,000 included in the town manager's proposed budget to reduce debt service expense. Okay. Okay. So the 1.5 uh from the center fund balance would be in addition to that. Correct.

Okay. Correct. Okay. Um I don't have an answer for the for the find but I want to restore the 1.5 from the center fund balance. Um my second question is about you mentioned earlier the cola um impact and I don't that's another one that I can't tell [clears throat] whether or not that's already in scenario too a freezing of the increase in cola and the July one um the GWI and

uh 1% merit for management are excluded uh in all scenarios shown.

Okay. I would like to include those in the scenario there. If we're continuing to work off of that this as a base, I would like to include those. Um so that presents a bit of a challenge. Um the revised councelor Mahan scenario is reducing the economic development fund by the 1.5 million. Um I'm happy to open councelor Goodwin's scenario and adjust it however you direct. but believe that removing the 1.5 million from the economic development fund in the Mahan scenario one that somebody's going to speak up and ask that it be added back in.

Um

I'm not going to support a reduction of that fund. And so I think there's a balance between and I'm willing to hold it in the parking lot for now. Um, but I wouldn't propose eliminating it for the same reasons I said last night about there the possibilities of what's already in the works. And I would not want us to make an error to reduce the $4 million and then that cause us to miss out on an opportunity to develop the center of town. If there weren't already things moving in the right direction, I could be persuaded otherwise, but that's a concern for me. So, we can parking mod it. I don't know in how to in this best scenario, uh, what to do with it, but I'm going to say let's put a hold or a good win scenario where that is not excluded. Um going back to the GWI is that so that was the issue around in terms of restoring that but what about the GWI

um the

so that would be the cola and then the July one increases So this is the current working um Mahan one scenario um that has in these two lines at the top the GWI and the merit removed. Okay. Thanks. That's what I I was asking. Yes, that is. Yeah, because I couldn't I can't It's Yeah, how it's showing up on my screen. I can't see that page that you have. Okay. Um and then my other question. This is a proposal that again may not it may be in the scenario. So please forgive me um if it's already there. Currently in the town manager's office budget unless it was changed in the modification there was a 6.3% and that was I'm imagining some of had to do with this the FTE grew from 3 to four in the FY6 budget. Is that correct?

Yes. There was a position uh um the risk manager.

Yes. taken from fixed charges and moved to the town manager's office. Uh so I say that because it was budget neutral overall although it increase reduced fixed charges and increased the town manager's budget. I would like to propose and this is without a dollar amount. And so if that doesn't work in our scenario building, um a reduction of one FTE in the town manager's office with the ability for the town manager to come up with some scenarios about how one FTE could be reduced, but I think a dollar amount would be between$1red and $130,000 in salary and benefits, if not more. if we reduced one FTE. Um, councelor Goodwin, would you like me to build your scenario or add this to Mahan one?

I'm saying add it to his. And the the one I'm pausing on is the 1.5 million because I want to figure out through our deliberations what to do with that. So I'm willing to hold on asking for that change, but I'm just stating publicly that I will recommend it at some point in our scenario building to restore it. I want to I'm trying to make suggestions within the scenario that you're working on currently. Um, and I'm willing to mayor or whomever because you are physically there if it would be beneficial to hold to a second round. Um, as we're continuing to build out these with these suggestions, I'm more than happy to do that so that we can continue to move forward. Thank you,

Councelor Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, so just a point of clarification. I'm going to go back to that $1.5 million. Um, the the $4 million that uh councelor Mahan wants to reduce that 4 million is not part of the town operating budget. And is that is that correct, Mr. Hill? because we have in the town operating budget 36 425486.

Yes. So for cuts and ads um so here right so that's a yes right so that's a yes so does that include he didn't answer the question so I'm sorry I'm sorry Mr. Hill. Um, so if and when I'm talking I don't want to be interrupted. My brother B is my training.

So is if the 4 million is not included in the 36425486 and the operating budget. That means that taking that 1.5 and either adding or subtracting makes the numbers off because that is part of the 4 million, not part of the town operating budget. And I think that the numbers that we will continue to put in will be incorrect using that 1.5. Um I think I understand uh the point you're making. Um the way that I've built the model, it is purely looking at ads and cuts with it being a sumicient. So on this very first page where it the ads and cuts are either adding to or reducing from uh town government operations. Uh but the way the rest of the model works with regard to the revenue side of the ledger, I can either reduce it in operations or add it as fund balance applied. The net effect will be the same thing for this model. So, so we would we would have if if there was a reduction uh in that 4 million of 1.5 million, we would need to um yeah, we would need to have some clarity around where those funds are coming from, right? Um that's I think that that we definitely will need some clarity around that. Okay. Um, the other the other piece is

uh the other piece is uh I'm going to agree with councelor Goodwin that that is not something that I'm looking to do. um not looking to decrease the the 4 million for town center uh plan, but we do need to have a distinction um in the numbers with that money not being part of the operational budget, right? Because again, if you everything that we would put in would would be off [snorts] by this $1.5 million. Council Cooper.

Yes. I'm sorry. Were you waiting for response or Yeah. I'm Well, I'm I'm hoping that, you know, that will at some point we can, you know, Director Hill can can, you know, break that out. I know that this, you know, it's it becomes a little uh burdensome, but I think that this one point is is extremely important. Number one, um and number two, um who knows how the uh deliberations will go for the 1.5 million. So, if you want, we can take a break. Uh Mr. Mayor, until there's clarity, I'm fine.

Sorry. is there's a lack of clarity about these numbers in the 1.5 million.

Yeah. So, because you were saying that what you would have to do, you you're you're going to basically show it with the 1.5 million and without the 1.5 million because that's what I I'd like to see. I'd like to see it broken out because again that 1.5 million is not part of the town operating budget. Right. Um so I am happy to demonstrate that the 34.68 mills and 3.92% increase. So, I hold my breast, take it out of there and add it there.

I'm sorry. I got my new glasses. It's going to take me a minute. Arrives at the same place. Where we at? So, I've taken the $1.5 million cut from operations and placed it in general fund balance applied. Although it wouldn't come from unassigned, it would come from the economic development trust. But that $1.5 million reduction in operating expenses is funded by increasing by 1.5 million the fund balance.

Awesome. Thank you. I mean, I just Yeah, I you No, you you that's that is that is um you know, it looks it's a one time one time add in, but I see what you're I see what you're doing. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Um with the advice from uh council, we would like to take a pause a recess for 10 minutes. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, councelor Goodwin.

No, I so I just wanted a clarifying question about what just happened. So, does that mean that in this scenario now it would be 3 million from the fund balance, the unassigned fund balance?

No. So, um, Councelor Cooper was questioning that the $1.5 million reduction cut to the economic development trust was being applied to operations, which wouldn't be reducing operations expenditures. Uh, my response was the way the model's built, you know, cuts are cuts and ads are ads. Um, the expenditures and revenues are working together. So, it's not double counting. Uh, and what I demonstrated was if I remove the $ 1.5 million cut and increase the fund balance, uh, and I say fund balance us, it's assigned fund balance assigned to the economic development trust. If I increase that by 1.5 million, we arrive at the same mill rate and same percentage increase. Okay.

As was previously shown by the reduction in operating expenditures. Thank you. Thank you. We'd like to take a 10-minute recess and we will be back. All those in favor? I I what? 8:16.

Thank you. We will now return for our second opportunity uh for each counselor. I have a point of clarification. Sure. Maybe it's just me, but when we go through this second round, then what what do we do when we have this long list of ad cuts? Would you like me to vote?

We vote on the ad cut. [gasps] So the impetus from the beginning was to take a list of things that we want to remove if we are in agreement. for example to page 26 which is the recommended reductions as well as any other reductions [clears throat] that we may find throughout this 150 some odd pages. Then go back and give direction on what we want to see added in because it's all going to come together under one umbrella. Quite interestingly, Council Mahan's uh scenario is very similar to mine on the cuts and the ads. So, we were quite shocked and enamored by that earlier. Um, so we need to have him add in and take out and then that's going to enable us to get to a starting point for the budget increase. At that point, somebody may change their mind and say, "You know what? I want to not to pick on anybody. I want to give the library back that PTE that they put on their reduction list if someone put it up for the chopping block and then he can make those individual adjustments till we get to the point that we're all happy with what that budget looks like, what we have to work with as an operational budget as well as staff and capacity to serve the public. So there were I thought I had a few things to additionally cut or offer up for cuts, but they're already in council Mahan's model. You're in his scenario. We were aligned on every single uh recommendation for reduction. So I may pass on my term, but then we have to do the ads. Everybody is not aligned on the budget mods. There's also a question of the G the general wage increase, the 1% merit increase. That's going to have to be crunched as well. And then I still do

have a question about that economic development trust fund that was established by council, but I'll save that for later. So we will begin with councelor Deathan Brown. Thank you. So, I would like to add $2,250 back to boards and commissions for advertisement. [clears throat] I'm sorry, we're we're still on reductions. We're still on reductions. We'll get to ads. I thought we we did one pass on reductions.

So, there's two passes. If you like another opportunity, councelor Dean Brown, anybody can defer and and pass, but if you want another opportunity, I think fair to go through twice. Okay, something else may have come up. Somebody may have looked on another page in the recess. I think it's fair to go through for a second time. I'm not rushing anybody. Okay, so may have something else. Back in public works, we restored $488,000 plus. Um, how much was the urban forestry program? $50,000. $50,000. Like to reduce that by $50,000. It's it's it's not included in mine.

It's not included. Oh, wait a minute. So when I see scenario one restored,

it looks like only custodial was restored. Show it only the this is Shamar's model. Mhm. So only thing restored is the custo. Everything else is is gone on his model. Okay. That's why it's 353, not 48. Okay. So then I need to wait until I can add back the striping. Okay. If you need to add it back in. It's already out on. I want to add it back in, but I'll wait for my second round for my first round of ads. Thank you. Yes. Okay. [snorts] So, no more reductions on my part.

Okay, Council Holliver,

I'm good. Thank you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I would like to add because it does say restored. I'd like to add the part-time hours in operations and comms for $20,000 to reduce to reduce. I'm sorry. To take it out. Take it out. reducing reducing [clears throat] part-time hours.

Um, so the assumption is that that is not part of reducing 300,000 from ops and coms. Correct.

Question uh regarding the in senior services the contractual services. Do we know what those for or are? It's for 20,400.

Okay. Actual Would you like me to speak to that? Yes, please. Um, this is Evette. Um, and I'm um just responding to the question. Can you just repeat the question for me again? Uh, there's a reduction in contractual services and I just wondered what those contractual services are. Th those would be some of the programs that we offer. Um, so it could be anything from uh painting to um some type of exercise program, anything like that. Um, that's what the reduction would would be.

Bingo, things of that sort. Bingo is not included. Bingo is has nothing to do I'm sorry. Better not. Okay. Not but but services for our seniors. Correct. Okay. Would that happen to be individuals who come in and do what is the exercise? Oh my goodness. The various programs. It could be aerobics. It could be tai chi chiong. Okay. Okay. Pilates. Okay. I would move to restore those services. Oh, excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Sorry.

Excuse me. And this is this is uh Yes.

I don't want to take anything else here. We cap tuition reimbursement at $100,000 or no, it's eliminated. I'm looking here 100,000 so it is aus 69 okay okay but contractually we can't do that which we found out in the previous meeting so that's why I said moving forward for all new hires we need to explore capping that but that that seems to have got lost

it's been removed Thank you. Thank you, Director Hill. He's on it. He's on it. Thank you. I have nothing else. Deputy Mayor Lloyd.

Thank you. And thank you to the directors and managers in the room. Um because I had the same question as Mayor Harrington regarding some of the broader titled items. So, I did want to know um for example the contractual services. So, when you say painting, we definitely know bingo better not come off the table. I get that. But painting and there's other kind of services that are offered at no expense. Is that what you're saying?

Okay. So, with regard to bingo, it's a self- sustaining um event. There's no cost. There's no staff that runs it. It's all volunteer. So that's the difference in in what would be somebody doing a Pilates class, a a painting class, um teaching um what is it? Um opportunities to get together and to discuss things that are are on people's minds. We have someone who comes in and and talks about those things. Um there's a number of programs that would be part of that that we would have to eliminate because the cost of the instructor um it does not cover the majority of the class.

So for instance we used to have a class um a very large class um for painting. the instructor retired. Um the the last two um replacement instructors don't carry the same number of people and so therefore it's a it's a charge that ends up being something we're carrying so that the the individuals who are still remaining in the class would have an opportunity. Okay. So if I understand you correctly like you said Pilates, painting these are things that the town is absorbing the cost. So the participation is free or significantly reduced.

I would say it's reduced in in some cases classes are paid for entirely but that is not the norm. Um many people who are participating are are individuals who are um in the Alice families and people who are are needing assistance from social and youth services just in order to survive. And so we've made a um a service available to them even if they can't fully afford it. Everyone pays something but not everyone pays the same thing. Does that make sense? Understood. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Are you I defer to you, Mr. Mayor, until you're finished.

I'm also

Okay. Thank you for that explanation as well. Um, one of the reductions that was I think recommended for elimination I want to better understand in um ops and comps $20,000 has put in uh put on the table or on the chart our running list for reduced part-time hours. If we could get an explanation of what those part-time hours serve, not who but the purpose they serve, that would be really helpful for me to weigh in on that. right now in the model we are using uh councelor Mahan's model it was restored um but we do have a recommendation as well to remove it so I'd like to better understand

Hi this is India Rogers, director of operations and communications. So that would be um affecting the support that we give to currently to our boards and commissions as well as our social media and our um video reels that we do as well as some of our website management. Um and this is a PTE a part-timer or full-timer managing that? It's two part- timerrs. Okay. So those duties will be removed and thus leave their hours reduced.

Okay. And repeat again what those reductions look like in services to the community. We won't be able to um post as as uh often as we should post to communicate for certain meetings. Um um promoting our social media for certain events. Um they also support boards and commissions community events as far as um going out to the store and purchasing items to um have food available um flyers, marketing, promotions, um a few things, a lot of things. Give us a couple more if you can think of it.

Um let me see. Um I would say also assisting um with SOP development um on the administrative and operational front. So, it's a wide variety of things that they do in the um department. Um some of our administrative um tasks that we do as far as um I'm just trying to think when when it comes to both of them and what they do. Um

I've seen the work. I'm just trying to think it's so much it's so much that they do. Um so yeah it would be it will be a significant reduction for us in our department. Okay. Um thank you for that explanation on on the overarching scenario as well as council man's scenario. It was recommended for um restoration. So before I that on my turn I figured I would ask for clarity. That was your question. I'm sorry. That's okay. I may just I know. I wanted to know if he had anything else to add.

Absolutely. So, uh I apologize. Uh I know I have a very capable staff that's trying to uh just stands ready to engage. Uh but uh now that uh Miss India Rogers is here and um I got a quick update as to where we are right now. where are we right now in in this uh deliberation and um and I wanted it by name. So I is a question uh to somehow validate the the value of uh our two part- timerrs. Is that where we're at right now? We're trying to gain an awareness of of the value. Is that what you're seeking them?

Uh I think there's value to anything that they do to enhance uh our interface with the public whether it's electronic, face to face, whatever. But for the public to see a line item, reduce part-time hours, they don't know what it means. And so, just like we asked um the senior services director, what are your, you know, contractual obligations? We would not have any idea what that means for the public unless we ask. So, I'm not asking you for a justification. I'm asking you what does that $20,000 do to service the town? And I think I've heard that from Miss Rogers. If you can think anything that she forgot then I'll take that answer. Okay. I I can't.

It would be a reduction elimination of our weekly um and monthly publications are this week in Bloomfield that Romano manages. He also manages um our um in Bloom as well with Brian Wolf assistants. Um actually they both do it together. In addition to that, he it would also eliminate um um community participation when it just comes to supporting all of our events. Okay. Thank you for the explanation.

Yeah. When when when I think of operations and communications, I think of that department as a multiaceted uh jack of all trades, right? And anybody who understands operations know uh your mission is the next one that comes through the door. And I can tell you it's a varied mission. Uh depends on depending on what's happening. Uh we do not have the the capacity to have full-time talent um uh to assist us. Uh but when I tell you about the part-time talent that we have there, it's absolutely second to none. uh what uh Miss Len uh what she does in managing the boards and commissions. Uh she does the work of a full-time staff and and there would have been efforts to get her full-time if if she uh so had the desire to to serve in that capacity, but but she doesn't. But she does a tremendous lot of work and and managing things, bringing things to my attention that are happening at each and every board and commission meeting that I don't have the bandwidth to attend. I I get those synopsis. Uh you and and Mr. Mayor should see an email forwarded tonight of a concern from a a recent um committee meeting that occurred and um and hopefully you'll have the chance to to see that. I would not know about that had she not been there to to bring that information back to me and it's critical information. Um when we talk about uh a town's need uh to establish and promote its brand, uh there's no other person that's doing it with the uh capabilities and exception of um of the other part-timer uh especially in his limited capacity. uh when you look at our our our Tik Tok things that are coming on and if we are not communicating in this day and age in which the public is the many ways in which the public is trying to receive this information we're we're at a loss and right now you look and see all those Tik Tok things that are

happening we're meeting the public where they are at uh he's running the the dog on um what what you call it little drones right he's running the drone program and we have that going on we're meeting our citizens where they are where they expect us to and in 2026 and beyond. And um and I can't tell you um just how much value just the other day that individual who who does that I'm trying not to say people by name I apologize for the first name I stated but uh that individual actually won employee of the quarter. So when you talk about the value that uh that he brings to the community not only does it happen to the community is recognized also by his peers right. So we know that value and um and that value is on display for the entire uh community to see and um and he brings it every day. So um if you want to risk uh our ability to promote who we are and and send our message with confidence and and exceptionalism, uh then we do so understanding the consequence of not having that medium available to us. And we one time did not have it and I understand that. But, uh, we're we're competing against other municipalities and showing who we are for, um, for people to come and invest in us. And if we don't do an exceptional job, they're just going to bypass us and go on to the next uh, community that they may feel better suited uh, to uh, have their talents and um, and money invested in.

Okay. Thank you. And um I don't think I was done, but I will defer a couple of seconds for councelor Mahan who you so he doesn't have to wait for his second round and you have to come back up. I will defer and then I'll reclaim my time. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. That very gracious of you, Deputy Mayor. Everyone's being very uh kind tonight. I appreciate that as you guys build on uh my budget platform. Um [laughter] um so you know we have very talented uh staff of course across um across our town but um I I'm thinking specifically uh with our library. We have a lot of folks that are uh very tech-savvy that are um that are doing a lot of um forwardfacing social media post. I'm not too good at social media. I I try my best. Um, but you know, we have we have folks in in the library that are good with Tik Toks and so on so forth. Have we considered a collaboration between operations and uh some of the staff at the library to um help out with that communication because perhaps we're doing things that are are duplicated. My idea originally uh when this department was formed was that or the idea that was pitched to us was that operations was going to handle communication for the entire town, everybody. Um but we still have of course operations does the mass majority but each department is still doing quite a bit of their own communication or most departments are doing quite a bit of their own communication. Um so have we thought of morphing some of these um duplicated responsibilities to a as a cost saving cost savings.

Absolutely. When we we don't consider things in in silos, we consider uh things uh collectively and um we support the library as they need our support in doing so. So, uh, it's more of us supporting them, uh, versus us asking them. Right now, they're they're sort of staffed sort of scarcely. Uh, if if we want, um, that library to truly function with the amount of days that the the citizens of this community so desire, uh, their mission is one that is already stretched thin, uh, with the staffing they have. So in terms of uh what they're doing uh and and if they have the the the skill set uh to u enhance what we're doing here um right now I don't believe that skill set exists to uh provide the singular focus on on the town. They're one department. We cover all other departments and we also function in an effort to assist the board of ed as well that does not have a um uh a a truly functioning uh comm's department uh any longer. So I was just recently talking to Dr. Youngberg and and telling her that it may be an opportunity for us to maybe plus her up uh with uh not this budget uh with a half FTA employee that could work in concert with um our ops and comms here so that we can uh be uh even that much more robust and engage in collaborative services. So to answer your question, um to add more to the library's ruck right now, uh I think would be an extraordinary ask and um right now our our our ops and comms department is is uh directed to support all departments.

I I'm hoping I answered your question. you did. But I'm hoping that I mean in the in the scenario with the um ad that I proposed in my last goround was to restore some of those part-time hours. I'm hoping some of those could be utilized to uh bolster some of the efforts and operations. The part-time hours where in the library

Okay. So this is a specific skill set that we're talking about that exists here and um so and and this is the challenge is that we don't know what we don't know. So when we when and and I would ask for uh any cuts that be made for any staff to really truly understand the second and third order of effects because it get has to pass more than just the site or the sniff test. It has to be a part of a critical analysis to understand what does this really mean. I think at a national level, we recently experienced what happens when cuts are made just based on a site in a sniff test, right? What happened when when when at a national level cuts were made, next thing you know, we we lost nuclear scientists that weren't prepared to engage, right? We go into a country during time of war and we lose our our intel analysts that can deal with the country that we engaged in war with because there was no forethought to understand what happens if these things are removed. So, I'm hopeful and and I I'll probably go as far to say that um I'm confident that all the cuts that are being thought of in terms of staff, there's been some type of deliberative uh discussion and understanding of the impact of the organization and that we don't have to turn around and say, well, if someone that skill set left the door because as I've been saying from the moment we started this, what are you willing to lose? What are you willing to do without? So as you take away staff, my understanding is you comprehend you comprehend that loss

reclaiming my time.

Thank you ma'am. So, thank you for that segue. Um, my next question so that I could have that better understanding and and let's also recognize that this particular year with the budget uh being started a little later in deference to wanting to make sure we got 2024 audit in accepted, right? We we had a little delay. So, we we haven't had as much time to do that deep dive and the way it's presented doesn't allow that. So, the segue is perfect to the library director. If you might help us understand cuz you're asking for two positions on the mods, which I'm not going to address now because we're not on mods, but I want to understand reducing the part-time hours 50,000. How does that impact your library right now? the mods notwithstanding, what does that take away from you? Or second part of the question, if you're able to retain that person, does that allow you in any capacity to enhance additional hours? Okay, cuz I want to understand what are you losing when you reduce part-time hours. Good. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Are you all set with me, Madam Deputy Mayor?

Oh, yes. Thank you, Mr. Tommy Anderson. You're welcome. May I hear anything? Matt asked that uh our superintendent also gets an opportunity to to speak. We haven't got to that part yet. Got it. Okay. I absolutely hope that we can do that tonight as well. Thank you.

So, thank you, Deputy Mayor, for the question. Um, as you see, I just provided um something that's readily available through library board minutes, but these are monthly metrics um that we collect. Um, most of this is done through very sophisticated software systems. Um, and I know the uh deputy mayor had asked me before about our door counts. That's also all done through software. Um when we built the libraries, we knew if you build it, they will come. We projected increases in use across all metrics, including program attendance, materials borrowed, use of online resources, and people physical bodies walking through the door. What we did not predict was that some of these metrics would be hitting us so hard already. Um, so those increases in numbers have happened faster than expected. Um, and to be clear, I've been asking for more staff for years and um, I just spoke with my uh, direct counterpart in Manchester. As we know, they are also getting ready to open a brand new library. He is getting four new positions for that library. If you build new libraries, you see an increase in use. This is happening. We have we are running and I it's in the budget book um FTE comparables to local libraries around us. Bloomfield Public Library has been running on less FTE for years when compared to other libraries, including towns that only have one building. I oversee two physical buildings. Currently, we are at 48 hours um of service a week. Prior to uh COVID and all of these the the building projects,

we were at 55 hours. Right now, it's a capacity problem. We do have full um part-time staff currently um but we do not have enough availability with the part-time staff in that um everyone has multiple positions and multiple jobs the the the part-time people. So, I'm having issues staffing our buildings appropriately and I do have concerns because as we have increases in use, I worry about the things that happen when I do not have enough staff on the floor to make sure that we are having safe places at all times. We're now getting into warm weather and I would like for, you know, more frequent walkounds um of both of our facilities. Um and and these are the things that I worry about. Also, as last week, uh the uh students were um out of school and we had increased programming. Uh we had almost 3,000 visits to our facilities. And I just want people to realize how many people that is walking through the door and the staff needed to appropriately serve the people coming in. I want to draw your attention to the number of new library cards a month. And now this is one true metric that only reflects Bloomfield residents. You have to be a Bloomfield resident to get a card in uh and and you'll see um in October 115 new library cards, November 214, December 181, January 241, February 192, March 229. these are new users to the library system that we need to help and we need to have the resources and the capability and capacity to do so. And so when I hear about library burnout on a national scale, also it's National Library Workers Day, so thank you American Library Association for that.

Um and I did do a social media post about that um today. Um, but when when we talk about burnout across the field and then I think about my staff and what we've been going through with moving, with opening, with making sure that we are giving Bloomfield residents the library experience they deserve. Also helping our friends with the board of ed and making sure we're having a community where we are raising readers because the library plays a huge role in making sure that when students start in our school system, they are ready to learn. that 0 to5 time period is so important in in creating kids ready to learn and we play a big role in that. So when I talk about the need for the two budget mods and the 50,000 part-time hours added, I still think we're still we're still below what we're seeing in surrounding communities. Um and so these metrics, the study room use um you you see that drastic increase 383 uses last month and that's um a 100red uses more than in December. The digital circulation, buying books, being able to catalog books, having the books on the shelves ready, that's a whole process that needs to be done. So, it's not only frontfacing service positions, it's also making sure that the people are there to do the behind thescenes work so that when you walk in the library, you have no idea how you get your materials, but they are ready for you when you need them. And that's what we do at Bloomfield Public Library. And I'm very proud of the work that is done. And I think that, you know, when you come into Bloomfield, you see that library and it is a beacon of the future and what we can be because we are that great in Bloomfield. and I want to continue that in the library and these funds and those budget mods that's going

to help us do that. Um, as far as increasing hours, I'm very hesitant to put a dollar value on that because the answer is as more people are coming in and we have to have more bodies on the floor and those are the things we're trying to work out right now. And it's it's complicated, but also we have a good grasp on it and we're slowly figuring it out. But I do know when I look at these numbers, I'm worried about summer reading because summer is the busy time for libraries. And so when I see these these numbers and and the visits and 3,000 people in our buildings last week, we are going to be wowed and amazed uh this summer at Bloomfield Public Library. Let me know if I can say anything else.

Thank you. Um I I think your handout is quite robust to give a visual to what you explained in your um presentation um your your division presentation. So I thank you for that. Um so while we're in the last round of cuts, a reduction was proposed for 50,000. Um on a few of the scenarios, it was eliminated. I would like to recommend to put back in the part-time hours up to 50,000. Everything else um all the models seem to be Shamara.

No, we are on reductions and so you can approve or disapprove of the reduction. I do not approve of the 50,000. It's not a mod. It's it's Was it put back in director Hill? Yes. Okay, perfect. So, I'm in align with that. But I wanted as well, I did want to give any of the directors the opportunity to speak specifically to what these three or four words are saying because some people don't get it. They don't Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this. Thank you.

And maybe one day we can do some shared services like we do with the board, right, with it. We're undertaking a new endeavor. Maybe there's some opportunity for that. But I will tell you, your communication and your marketing outreach is obviously effective. Obviously. So maybe one day we can move into that and it'll be a cost savings and an enhancement hopefully for marketing communications for town and library side, but we're not there. So thank you for that robust explanation. I don't have any more cuts. Councelor Merritt.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um I um I would like to address uh a cut u of the uh economic development funds um where some a million and a half was taken out and uh I would like to point out that if we take any of that 4 million out we're we're yelling stop to the center project. you just it it can't continue. The lowest the lowest uh grant that we could we were applying for is $4 million and requires us to have a $4 million matching amount and that's that that's what we've got. If you start taking away from part of that, we can't match. We won't get that. We might as well stop. That's the smallest one. So I if if I I I just think it's totally unnecessary because that 4 million is actually we're using it as a reserve now. U if we can put it back in if we need it because we're not spending it for the time being. So unless we get one of those grants, uh it's not not being used. So I I would really like to reduce cut that to zero the taking money out and if I mean if you want to take it out of reserves that amount fine but um I I taking it out you you're you're decreasing u anyway I that's one thing um the other thing is I like to point out with the part-time hours uh sometimes our I I noticed on one person we talking about hiring the full-time employee. Uh benefits are like $50,000 a year. I

mean, we don't have that with part-time employees. They're the most economic employees we have because of that. And uh I I think some of them are very very helpful. I think it's it's really a shame not to it's convenient for them to be part-time many times and they don't need the benefits many times. But anyway, from a point of view of of the town and taxpayers and they're the it's a shame to cut them on. I I know I I have somebody who does the minutes and organizes my committee and she does a fantastic job. I I I'm just overwhelmed by it. So, I would hate to lose her because she she's running a committee for me. It's uh it's important. So, I and she's part-time. So, I I I just hate to see part- timerrs cut. Um I I'd also like to talk to we talked about uh all non union employees um not getting any increases. And I I we we've addressed the same issue year after year and it's always been comes out that I mean unless you want all union employees because that that's just unfair and you're penalizing the non-unions. We have a lot of non-UN I'm not talking about managers. I'm I'm talking about uh non-union uh car positions or say in the library where there aren't unions. Those people should get their normal increases just as the contract people should. Um so I I think that is something we really that is a a a cut that should not be there. Um I don't know how to divide that number out but uh I just think that's we have done the say I remember

saying the same thing last year and we we did correct that last year. Um um I think that's all I have for now. Thank you. Councelor Elizabeth Waterhouse. Yes. It's

it's more of a question um of reallocating money that we have in uh we had in Ken's barbershop program. There was like $80,000 there. Could we reallocate that? Because the cuts we're making now to me they seem like they're to fix today's problems like this year. like it's not going to fix down the road. What's going to fix down the road is looking into our benefits and stuff and the matrix study which I know we need to do these in order to get there. So, would we how do you put it into the budget of reallocating the monies from the barber shop? And I don't know if Mike had any monies left over in woodworking if we could somehow culminate funds from there so we can get an analysis of benefits done and do a matrix study. Is that in ad drops or is that in like a conversation? How do we get that in here?

So, uh thank you for the question. the the council initiatives uh as the I'll say the council and the prior councils are aware in fourth quarter transfers for 20ou fiscal year 2024 and fiscal year 2025 were moved to fund 23 uh which is where they've been since the fourth quarter transfers in those two fiscal years and where the expenditures are charged against it. any amount that's uh available and unspent in any of those council initiative uh budgets uh is subject to council action. So if the council were to uh pass a resolution uh repurposing those funds uh that's what we would do uh with any money previously identified for a different purpose from the housing trust fund. There is an open question with regard to the structure of the ordinance that created the house affordable housing trust fund and whether or not it allows funds to be removed as they were dedicated for that purpose. If uh the ordinance that created the affordable housing trust allows for monies to be withdrawn, then it would only be council that would be able to withdraw.

Okay. Are we all set? You have additional questions. I have no more uh takeaways at the moment.

Okay. Thank you, Council Mahan. Um Okay. Uh I just going back to uh the handout from yesterday regarding the Where is this? the um estimated furlow analysis um and so we have um I believe it's uh one day two days 3 days 4 days and 5 days um and so and just to make sure that I'm understanding this properly before um I make this point um these are of course the the totals if we decide to furlow So management only, non-union only, um so on so forth for those amount of days throughout a fiscal year.

Apologize. What's the question? Um just to I just want to make sure I'm following this correctly that the uh the totals that are here um are stating how much we would save if we furled those different categories of employees for those specific days in a fiscal year. Yes.

Okay. And um and so and and practically how would that what would that look like Tom manager? Uh practically how would how would those days be? Do you have any idea of how those days would be chosen? How they'd be allocated through the fiscal year before? I would like to know that information before I make my as well.

Okay. Thank you for your question, sir. Um, and and with uh the dis uh permission, I I I think uh Miss Rogers wants to put a little bit more meat on the bones as it pertains to her department if there's ability to go backwards, but I want to answer Council Mahan's question first. Um when we talk about furlows um first and foremost it is my understanding uh that this is not something the town of Bloomfield has ever done before in the past. If we want to uh truly um get the the most impact uh to a furlow then it is my belief that we should do so um in an effort that uh impacts all employees right as uh councelor Merritt has says and and as I have said before in the past um it's very challenging uh when the same employees are are being um the target of cost savings for the town. So on one hand, we're talking about um not having any gross wage in increases for employees. We know they're going to be um faced with a increase in insurance expenses and and by that alone uh we're going to be reducing the take-home salaries of our of our managerial staff uh because that's the only one that um uh is desired to to impact with um with uh impact on the budget. So now uh we're talking about the potential to furlow uh set employees as well and hope to impact this budget. I would uh ask this council if you're truly looking for cost savings and you want to get the most impact out of that and you're going to have to uh have that ability to to go after all

town staff. Not that that's my desire. Sorry, town manager. that that so that's that's not quite my question. I was getting I was getting wrong to that. Okay. I just how you would allocate those days. Well, that's a question that I'll get to once I once I finish letting you understand the the scenario before I can fully explain if you can speak specifically to how the days would be allocated. I need to get to that if I can speak. Sir, you're more than welcome, but please on the target. Excuse me. Excuse me. Give me a Let the manager continue speaking. asked a very targeted question. It it's pontificating

trying to set an understanding uh because what we're doing is not uh anything we've done before. And my recommendation is if we do so, we do so with an attempt to impact all employees so that it can get this council the bang for the buck that you so need with a reduction in staff, with a reduction in in dollars. So, doing so uh to get to where I was trying to go, uh please understand this is something that's going to have to take place fairly quickly because if we're talking about making an impact on this, I'm going to have to sit down with each of our three bargaining units and ask them um about their ability to have a compromise to make this happen. Um so and we all know if you're in a union uh type in and work uh situation when we ask for something they're going to be looking for something in return right so what we are going to be contemplating here is a one through how many days you want to consider and once we get that uh determined uh we have to then make a determination are these people going to be um working without pay, right? And there's uh there's uh we've started some discussions already with um with our our town labor attorney on this and and my understanding is you you can't have people work without pay. So, we'll be giving people time off and that's going to impact the mission of the town or or and um and how are we going to do this? Because if we do this in a way that we set um let's just say we're talking about 1 to five days. Um if we do this in a way that uh requires folks to to take the five days within a pay period

then there is going to be um an impact of unemployment benefits uh that we're we're not postured for at this time. uh but staff will be able to um take advantage of if they're they're losing 5 days pay in a pay period. So there's how this is going to be done is yet to be told. Uh you have been provided uh the bottom line benefit of each day uh for not um for not working and uh does that does that uh formula right now include all staff or just um management non-union? All three by categories.

All three by category is included there. So, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So, so as we look at this, it's going to take some work and it's work that we're prepared to to do. Um, but as you look at it and you look at the value associated with it um based on union um management only, non-union um uh non-management, then you can see the dollar amount right there based on each of the days. So, you look at this and and you tell me, right, uh, what's that dollar amount you're trying to get to, and then I'll get to work. And I know that I'm going to have to make certain that the guidance that I give, especially for our union um, uh, staff, is one that we are not um, allowing for a situation to occur where we take an an officer. Um, I believe right now they're they're still running four uh minimum uh on days and five minimum in the evenings and and three minimum on nights plus a boss for each um plus a boss for each shift that we're not impacting that where somebody takes a furlow day during the day. Now I got to go behind that and fill it with time and a half, right? Because that's going to be counterproductive. So, this is going to take time and effort and and it's not an easy answer that's going to be something that I could just say this is how we're going to do it, right? Because first and foremost, I have to get union compliance and I got to see what they're going to be asking on the tail end and then we can take it from there. But if you give me the starting point, then that's where we'll go. But I'll ask you once again to to be understanding if you're taking furlow days, right? if you're asking people to not get paid uh um their salaries that you also understand the

impact that would have on people who are not getting uh a gross wage increase as well a general wage increase as well.

Thank you. So to to follow up on that um what I would uh what I would like to thank you town manager and thank you town manager for your response. Um what I would like that I'll be more patient next time. My apologies. Um what I would like to see is um uh that that 5day uh let's go down to 4day managementon uh furlow. Um and and what I would ask and implore the town manager to do is to uh try to for us to not have the four days in one pay period to space it out over the fiscal year. Um perhaps we can do an extended weekend. Perhaps we you know there's there's many different ways that we can that we can tackle this um that I think would allow for us to uh get the benefit without with uh minimizing the impact of not having our management staff there because obviously our our management staff they're crucial uh to the mission that we have here for team Bloomfield. Um but um I I see the cost savings here and 4 days can uh 4 days can be very meaningful um for for this budget and can allow us to look at some things that were that were missing in this budget that we can possibly fund with that $90,000. So that's that's what I would like to see in my scenario. four days of a management only furlow or at least we won't have to deal with the we wouldn't have to deal with the negotiations with the union. Um that would allow for I believe the least amount of disruption especially if we can space it out over the fiscal year.

Thank you. and hopefully not everyone take have those four days at the same time. I just want to also add that piece as well. Let's not have all managers out on you know the the same same Monday you know everyone has different days allocated through the year and perhaps that can be discussed chosen so on so forth but um [snorts] I I'm I'm sure there's a way that this can be done to minimize the impact.

Thank you. uh we'll be moving to councelor Goodwin and uh of course if if this is to move forward uh it would be strategically analyzed and put together. Uh, councelor Goodwin.

Um, I'm going to continue uh with what council uh man was just saying, man was just saying. Um, however, I would push for all employees um in alignment with what the town manager was saying. Um, that way this is distributed against all employees. And yes, while I do understand that it would require some negotiation, it would require some strategic planning, so on and so forth, um I do think it could be figured out and work force scenarios could be drafted. So I would say not just management um but all employees as the scenario provides for us and I would stick to the four days.

Thank you. Are there any other Uh just trying to see if uh councelor Goodwin had any additional comments. You're [clears throat] all set. No. Yep. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Uh councelor Cooper.

Thanks. Uh Mr. Mayor, so you know, I I did have a couple of questions just on some of the cuts that were proposed. I know we had uh inland wetlands uh 2,000, aging 2,000, conservation and energy 750, beautifification 1,600, public arts 2,000, health district 14,641. Um and also bulk waste. I'll start with bulk waste really quick. I we don't I it can probably because a lot of people I don't think in the town uh use it all the time. It's just not something that that every household in the town of Bloomfield uses uh that once a month. And if we were going to cut um you know I want I would think that maybe we could cut uh thoughtfully um say through the winter months right like a January, February, March um where folks are probably not going to use it um especially in the cold weather. Uh, and that leaves us nine months through the year. Uh, you know, April, May, June, July, August, you know, all through the rest of the year. And see what see what that might be. Um, uh, if if I'm not mistaken, I think that was about $220 something,000. Um, right. Um, but but without those months, just, you know, maybe just to see what they are. I'm not saying that not saying do it now, but that's something I'd like to see. Um, and for those those other um uh boards uh in in in committees um like inland wetlands, you know, what about is that the 202100 is that for advertising? You know, is

that something that them uh they might be using? uh because you want to ensure that uh that folks they are still able to get out and publish what they need to publish. It's that was just a figure. I don't know what that figure is tied to. Um uh conservation and energy, there's a cut of $750. Um just want to know what that that cut for conservation and energy is. Beautification $1,600. that is uh something that we have volunteers who come out and do and they do um a very good job. Um and for that amount of money um I think Bloomfield is getting off cheap. Um let me just put it out there. We're getting off really really cheap for the folks who come out and do beautifification around the town. Um those are very pretty projects. Uh and I think that ties into a quality of life. Um I I just question that cut. um public art. Um is that something that uh again should be should be cut? It's a we're talking about uh again beautifification of the town of Bloomfield. I I know in the in the scheme of things, we're trying to cut money, but I think these amounts are are minuscule, but the return on investment is huge. Um and and lastly, uh which um Health District, uh we're we're talking about cutting $14,641 from Health District. Um Health District provides uh a quite a an array of services that, you know, we don't know about. I mean, they're they're still giving out flu flu shots, uh COVID shots, uh and a few other things.

They're providing uh radon kits uh for uh Bloomfield households. And so does is any of that money tied to either the equipment or the uh medicines that you know that they're able to to pass out? Are some of these things are they um you know, are they statemandated? is anything that we need to provide here in the town of Bloomfield that we receive through the um West Harford Bloomfield Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health Health District um that this money is tied to. So, those are just things that I wanted to to question um in in you know our reductions and I'm going to go back to it and I'm going to hammer on this until we get it right. um the $4 million um as as a few have said, but I'm I'm going to hammer it home. You know, it's like, you know, your child saving up for $4,000 and said, "I have this for, you know, uh for college, and you know, your your kid takes a gap year and and you say, "Well, you're never going to college. Give me that money. I'm going to spend it." Right? Um you know, you you need to we down in Bloomfield needs to have something. We need to have something to show that we are interested. And just like the services that we're restoring for the senior center, just like we're restoring for the pool, just like we're restoring for all these other things, I do not see um the care being being given to the folks who have complained for years about the town center. Where is their advocacy? And I tell you, if if you want to answer that question, it's right here. I'm going to advocate um for that money, those funds to remain exactly where they are. And that, you know, if we use anything, we use money out of our rainy day fund, not of out of the economic development trust fund. It's, you know, it's the economic development trust fund. It's not the fund to use to

balance um the town of Bloomfield budget. I just that is anathema to what it was for and how it will help the town of Bloomfield, how it will satisfy its residents, how it will help us with businesses, how it will help us move forward into the future. And so at any point at any time um if there is a whatever the consensus is or or or not the consensus but whatever the vote is mine will always be a no a negative and yet on taking any money from the economic development trust fund in an attempt to balance the Bloomfield budget because if we do it now we're going to have to do it again uh next year and and next whatever and there won't be any money left and so if anything that does come along we're not going have anything to to to put in the pot or say this is what we have to show that we're interested to show that we have something um to to put up uh in order for us to move forward and to partner with um whether it be state uh uh uh funding uh or um uh uh um business funding um you know developer funding um to get this thing moving forward. And so I'm always going to be against it, always uh and don't see the need for that to be part of the solution. Um it's bad enough that we're tapping our rainy day fund to try and balance this budget, but looking to um a whole other um uh source um as a funding source um outside of what it was built for, what we voted on uh it for uh is just beyond the pale for me. So uh thanks. That's it. All I have right now for this round.

Thank you, Councelor Cooper. We're going to now uh level set with uh Deputy Mayor Lloyd.

So, that was all the suggested reduction from FATH that we addressed as well as any other additional um reductions that were taken from the remainder of the budget book. Um, I might say as we enter into looking at the modifications or the requests for additional staff, services, supplies, and things of that nature, um, that we think about one, we're starting with the councelor Mahan scenario, but I'm also looking at the cross reference to the first scenario presented by director Hill and everything is the same. I think when we get to Council Mahan, he may say he didn't mean for something to be included, but primarily everything is the same. So, if there's anything on here that says included, it's already baked in to Council Mahan's scenario. If it's something that you decide that you no longer want it included, now is the time to articulate that so that the adjustment can be made. Um, and when we make these adjustments, there was a correction on yesterday, I think, that the only ones for the public who are looking at this information, and if they did not hear this, the only modifications that are already built into the budget in the department specific numbers in the budget book is it. So there's one through five and these are primarily necessary for us to stay in compliance now with our insurance and requirements around cyber security. So those were baked in they are already reflected in the numbers for it. The remainder are not put in correct director Hill on the proposed budget. on the proposed budget.

I apologize. In the proposed budget, it's the IT mods that are are critical. And so, as we look at the information most recently handed out today, the remainder that have been identified as included, you've included them so that you could come to the new proposed budget increase, mill rate, etc. um not proposed but the proposed here in my hand

the working model for town scenarios presented today so my apologies I want to be clear not the town manager's proposed budget but has been worked into these proposals or what we're calling scenarios council mahan scenario or whomever else that you're referencing at this moment but we're working off of councelor mahans and there's a lot of overlap between the other scenarios so I would invite the counselors at this point that if you see something that it says included, it is included in the scenario. If you want it out, we need to identify that and that way we can start crunching the numbers for our overarching increase. I don't know that we'll get there tonight, but it it's certainly a place to start. So, there's a lot of things included. There's actually only 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 eight items that have not been built into the scenarios here. Mr. Mayor,

thank you. and we will start with councelor Devon Brown.

Thank you. Um just a point of clarification um for councelor Goodwin with the reductions the reductions that were taken from any department was the amount that was being added for 2027. So for most of those departments, we just took out or I suggested us taking out the extra amount for 2027 and rolling those department back to 2026. So it's not like all of their budget was taken out. It was just the increases. Um, I would like to add $2,250 back to boards and comms. And that's for um notices in the uh newspaper on here. And I think I'm not sure if we added it back for HR. Did we add back HR?

The education. Yes. Cuz I thought it had to be it was contractual requirement. Okay. Um, a clarifying question. We talked about bulk waste and the amount that I wrote down was $40,000. Is that $40,000 per quarter or $40,000 period? Um, that uh number is roughly per quarter. So, it's $40,000 per quarter. Okay. in the that's what I thought cut it in half we want to which will reduce the amount of service we receive

right so I think I think I had put $20,000 in there because I thought the total was $40,000 but I think we need to cut that in half not by $20,000 um before I move to adjusting the um bulky waist pickup your restoring boards and commissions advertising was what amount for $2,250.

And I think a couple things that I just want to um voice counselor waterhouse and the town manager said something really profound. One, we can't just budget for this. And I've said it before, we can't just budget for this year. We have to look ahead. And the town manager talked about getting I want to say getting the bang for your buck is is basically what I got from him. So, while I am trying to go through this budget and capture savings, I'm going to admonish the town council. We're gonna have to make some hard decisions and we're gonna have to make some decisions that have substantial amounts of cash. And if we're going to sit here and okay, we took this out, but we got to put it back in. We took this out, we're going to be at the same 11% that the financial director said that we were going to be at if we put all this stuff back. And this is what I'm not nada nona yet going to vote on a budget with a 11% increase. I'm not doing it. So we're going to have to make some very hard decisions to level set rightsize now to help us in the future. And while I'm not trying to touch the economic development fund, I say it again, you don't want to balance the budget on the economic development fund because we're going to keep on doing it. Keep on doing because and then we're not going to have any money. It's the same thing's going to happen with the rainy day fund or the unassigned fund balance. So counselors, really, we got to make some decisions here.

And to be honest with you, I would rather services, right? And I'm sure our residents would rather services as well. I believe people will pay for services. But I'm not going to saddle our residents with an exorbitant tax increase. Not going to do it because it's not just going to be this year. We're already starting the next two years already with an increase. So, we got to be mindful. That's all I'm saying. Thank you.

Thank you, Councelor Oliver. Uh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Was there anything that you were adding, Councelor Dean Brown? Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. I would like to um add in uh the forensic stuff for the police because if they if they if it's something necessary that they need. The only reason I reduced it was because I thought it was $300,000. So I I don't have a problem for the $20,000 spend. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah, but I asked him here and he took it off here, so I wasn't sure. We overrode you. Anyway, so I thought it was 300.

I have concerns about the um ZBA, Board of Tax Review, and the Wetlands uh Commission on Aging, Beautifification, Art Commission. I think beautifification and art commission have already been brought back in, right? Or no? No. Okay. I think those are very important uh commissions and I did receive information just identifying the importance of uh maintaining these services. uh TPZ, IWC and ZBA will it will affect their ability to receive applications and functions and meet their statutory requirements since these funds are for required posting and publishing notices. The only way for them to fully function would be to require the applicant to pay for the notice costs. A s a significant portion of the applicants are town residents and businesses. Reduction in other volunteer committees only sticks it to those volunteers. So I would move to restore those. Um I know that the plan is if we add then we need to also look to reduce in some area. going to reduce percentage increase on the scenario.

I mean these ads are very minimal. So uh that was planning and zoning ZBA. What was the ad? There was something for 1400. Trying to look to see what that was. I only wrote ad. Oh, the health district was 14,641. Um, Mr. Mayor, [clears throat] planning and zoning ZBA and

something at Yeah, those then there was one following that for $1,400. Beautification was 1,600, right? It was up. It was f was following uh planning and zoning in ZBA advertising. Yes. What was can can the advertising be delineated to any extent? I mean maybe not. Okay.

Oh. Oh. Okay. Understood. So yes, that uh border tax review inland wetlands And in addition, I just want to make, you know, the statement regarding the economic development fund. It is absolutely imperative that we maintain that $4 million because we have two current proposals with the congress with with the congressional uh area as well as the senatorial. So one is for four million, one is for 11.4 million and then we still plan to reapply to CIF um in June. So, um I believe it is imperative that we maintain that 4 million because we cannot receive any of that funding unless we can show uh that we've made an invest in investment ourselves. it the the application process included $4 million on behalf of the town. And so we can't really viably uh stand to retrieve this funding unless we maintain that those dollars. Uh I know it is a very tough period and there's a whole lot of cuts to be made. Um, I want to also uh make mention in reference to our board of ed. Um, there's different scenarios I'm I'm seeing. I know they had 17 1.7 million baked into their budget.

um which is yes for attrition and um I know our um u I guess 800,000 has already been secured at the last meeting that we had. So we are looking um to at least I I think there there was a $1.2 $2 million uh uh figure that was mentioned. I know initially earlier today we were talking about trying to add 900,000 and uh but the 1.2 I think would seemingly help a bit more with that ask. So that is one other area that we'd like to address. Um, and I'm just this way. Um, this one I I would also um encourage us to uh bring back the the part-time librarian uh position that was already added, right? Okay. um the senior accountant we were speaking in reference to that so there's a total ask of what is included oh capped at 110 okay okay that takes care of that um I'll move forward Mr. Mayor, if I may, um the and I apologize, I'm working to share my screen again. Uh so that my question is obvious and supported. Um so there is a reduction. There's well the

five highlighted yellow items are general. General general meaning it just says reduce this department or office. I believe a counselor mentioned that those reductions are the increases uh from 26 to 27's proposed budget

focusing [clears throat] on the department of finance selfishly but as an example for the other departments as well excuse me [clears throat] and actually the the middle yellow highlighted it isn't a department I don't believe I believe it's just operations um so without specificity for any of them um what to reduce uh isn't clear. And for finance, the senior accountant is added and then we're cutting 136,000.

That reduction of 136,000 if it is the increase from fiscal 2026 adopted to 2027 proposed that is primarily contractual for union employees. So my question for the council is how would we cut that? And the same question for all five highlighted areas. Good question, Mr. Chair. Yes.

I'm sorry. So, just looking at this screen, right? So, the $300,000 coming out of ops and comms, that's union employee money. No, I was speaking to the finance department and that $136,000 primarily being uh contractual for for labor, right? Salaries and fringe benefits are the bulk of the increases across all departments. Yeah. Um the reduction to ops and comms of 300,000 is just a number

without any idea of what it is that the council intends to have reduced or removed. So, you want us to tell you what we're what you want us to tell you want us to put something towards those numbers? Um, I would like some clarity with regard to what council wants to add and cut. So, you're saying the bulk back to finance the bulk of the 136,000 is union increases.

Um, it is salary and fringe bene benefit increases for union members. There are other increases in there, but the bulk of the 136 is primarily for salaries and fringe benefits for union people. So, can you tell me how many employees are union? And you said the bulk of it. So what's the balance of it? Um there are 12 and a half FTEs in the finance department and four of us are non-union. Four and a half of us are non-union which means eight are union members.

And then what's the what's the balance of what's in there? What's in that increase? Um let me turn to page 44 where the department of finance starts. Um I mean the the categories are broken out for what's increasing and decreasing. Um the again the bulk across all of the divisions administration, assessor, tax collector, central office and accounting. Central office doesn't have any FTEEs. Um but looking at finance administration um there is a $58,000 increase and of that 58,000

so very for professional services

um which is related to our contract with CLA for the external audit which is partially offset by a $5,000 reduction in education and training in the accounting division. Similarly, um the salaries and fringe benefits are the primary increase um with staff turnover. Um the some of the elections have changed. So it's counting and control. I believe all of the increases are salaries and fringe benefits in the assessor's office. Um I mean I don't want to take up council's time to to turn pages through the budget book that everyone has.

So can I ask a question and this is just really for educational purposes. Um if we're now looking at reductions as salaries and increases and we need to find savings in this budget. Just a question. What would you as the finance director propose? Just a question because we got to cut

response to what's what question. I mean as I've said from the beginning right we can look at the budget two ways we can look at the percentage increase or the services that we receive. I believe the best way is to look at the services and you identify services that we don't want and then we don't provide them and that in turn reduces the increase but it's about the service not the number. So we're trying to chase the services with the reductions in a number and trying to find out so how do we reduce those things which is why I'm asking the question.

So in listening to the residents of the town of Bloomfield they would rather pay for services than salaries. So that's why we chase a number. How do how do you get services without the people who provide the service? Well, we can't have we can't have both because if we have both, I completely agree. We're at 11% increase. So, we can't have both.

If we can't have the if we don't have the service, then we don't need the people. That's a service question, not a number question. If there's a service that Bloomfield doesn't want and doesn't want to pay for, let us know. We'll cut it. But it's very difficult and hence my question for these five uh highlighted areas. It's a number and that number has people tied to it. So trying to achieve the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each of the five lines is going to result in people rights, layoffs. Because in my department, which is my example, I don't have any other areas that I can cut $136,000 from without affecting a body or eliminating all townwide mailing, eliminating paper in town hall, right? The the things that are in my budget to cut $136,000, I have to get to bodies. And I think sometimes we have to learn to do more with less.

We're doing that already. Thank you. Uh point of privilege, Madam Chair. Excuse point of privilege. Uh the town manager wanted to respond to one of the areas and I wanted to give him my opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, um I did have a a conversation with uh councelor dean Brown um offline and um and I plan to make a call tomorrow to see what the potential impact is of a $14,000 uh dollar um reduction uh as it pertains to um the health department. Uh I just want to make sure that that matter is uh something that we're u fully aware of and uh will not uh impact our ability to uh provide necessary service. So um she was in agreement with that and um so that that's my plan.

Okay. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

And thank you for that, Mr. town manager because certainly when we say cut $14,000. Um although council deba Brown has worked there before, she doesn't know what the director is necessarily allocating that for. So I think that was important. Um I wish she was here tonight so we could button that up but she's not and we appreciate you getting back to us as soon as you find out. Thank you so much. I think that's really important clarity that needs to be um received. So um as I mentioned before most of the models or the scenarios that have been presented are kind of in alignment as to the budget mods and different items have been included. I do have a question on a few of them. I do understand from a safety issue that was articulated to us by director Lane as well as being understaffed in comparison to other similarly situated libraries and other towns. I I do understand the justification I think behind a full-time library 2 request and a full-time library assistant position. Um what I would like to understand better, although it's not a lot of money, but it is money nonetheless. Um as well as maybe some other nuance things that need to be shared. Um personnel cost increases, boards and commissions. This is for operation and communications. Miss Rogers, if you could join us at the podium. Um I want to understand because this has come up. Um there is on the reductions and offer of hours which equate to services um support for all the myriad of things that you mentioned. So how does that differentiate from the budget mod for personnel cost increase for boards and commission support? if you could explain the onboard software annual subscription. Um, I might be familiar but not sure that I am. And then I think I understand

the board and commission budget increases which a few of them council debum brown has specifically um indicated a few that she wanted to see reduced but if you could speak to those I would appreciate it.

Okay. So thank you for your first question regarding the onboy software. We did purchase that this year to ma better manage our boards and commission which will make it easier for residents to apply for and engage with our boards and commissions and also improve transparency and centralizing agendas, documents and streamlining communication. Um it will reduce administrative delays allowing faster and more efficient resident service. I'm sorry. It would allow um faster and more efficient services to our residents. Um, regarding the personnel cost increase for the $10,000 for boards and commission support, we do manage the 48 boards and commissions that the town has. Um, we provide the administrative support, making sure we um have our meetings secured, appointments, records handled and accurate time frame, as well as improving our transparency and compliance with public meeting laws. Right now, we're working on a draft SOP for boards and commissions for an appointment process. and we need to button that up so that we can begin appointing our um volunteers. And um I just want to speak really quick to my budget because I know the number that you all see and your book was a little bit different from what I presented last Tuesday. Um there's $88,000 in that budget that I don't touch because it doesn't belong to me. Um, it's a general government government budget line item that supports all of our regional organizational memberships like CCM and CROG. So, when you talk about a $320,000 cut from my budget, it would decimate my department and I will be one of those people to be leaving. So, it would be me um my other FT that I have and two part- timerrs because also in that budget is 55,000 for the clerk of council. So, I just wanted to give a little color to that um and what that meant. And in addition to that, we support um within that budget just for your consideration. Um and I'm know I'm doing double duty right now because I'm filling in for the clerk of council as we speak. So I'm sorry. I apologize

earlier for um me not being as prepared as I needed to be. Um and that number. We also support all of our boards and commissions. Like I just stated, we support every town department um in promoting their um programming as well as um their marketing materials and other program support that we provide special events um in the town food truck festival. Also, we support the council fully as well with that clerk of council position. I manage all of your council initiatives. We do all of our board and commission oversight that you do as well as um other communications in a variety of mediums for everyone in town to have access to and understand. So, I just wanted to make sure I explain myself um and my budget and how it looks to you.

Okay. So, um the draft of the SOP, which that goes back to your PE your part-time hours,

was drafted. First of all, let's talk about that for just 20 seconds or less. Um we didn't have a robust policy and procedure for applying to boards and commissions. um the information could be put in electronically or in paper copy and brought to the clerk's office and so the public realized that there was a delay in even getting responses back to their applications among other things. So to have more cohesivity around that, a SOP initiative was started and we do I want to publicly thank the public for um their input on that process because the PTE employee part-timer did a most incredible job in taking the information and input and suggestions from the public and synergizing that into a document that created a really solid standard operating marketing procedure that is going to allow us to be more effective in applying for and serving on boards of commissions. So with that said, you are now saying that process will be even further streamlined in concert with the SOP due to this software. It will more automate the process instead of a lot of tangible tactile human interaction with it.

Correct. And it's also public facing so the public can see exactly how many vacancies are there, what party they're from, um how long the terms are, etc. Okay. So that's really critical because I don't even understand when we lose somebody on a non um elected position. I I'm not even fully versed on the 48 boards and commissions and how many Dems and how many Republicans or independents are currently serving and the requirements to that. So all of that will be available at a click and a point. Yes, ma'am. And currently it's 150 volunteers for those 48 boards and commissions and we need more cuz I understand there's a lot of vacancies. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So,

and a lot of them are statutoily required whether it's ordinance, state statute, or um something on the federal level

which I know we have a lot of them. So, thank you for adding that piece because there's been talk about reducing some of our boards and commissions, but I'm not really sure that we can reduce too many of them. So, thank you for that. And at a cost of only $3,000, it has a 0.0001 impact on the budget, but I did want to better understand it because we do right now have a short a small gap in that process. So this will resolve one of our pain points or problems we have and it will make it easier and better for the public as they interact and endeavor to volunteer. So thank you for that. So I will agree with all of those items being included. I appreciate your further um explanation on those items because I think it is a hot button and we need to understand. So I appreciate your explanation on that. Um I think um again I'm good with the library. Um

everything else I don't know that the chief is on. I heard it the other night. I just have one more question because it says nonincluded on the PD. Uh Mr. Tom manager maybe you could reexlain what the striker proare is. It is $6,000 but I don't recall. Yeah. is the striker proare. I think it was something that is needed for BVA because I know the the name striker as it relates to equipment and equipment management. No, that was a lot more than 600.

It is a apologize Mr. Mayor if I may. Uh I believe it's a CIP project and the 6,000 for striker procer is just the support for that larger CIP. Could you tell us what page because I know there was a further explanation in the budget mod on the PD um matter of fact page is it 81

that that was that $300,000 uh item um that uh was part of their CIP and um and and what that really comes down to is a um is something that really probably should be included in an operational budget. Uh because the the way is that the one that was framed as is over time the body cameras. Yes.

Yeah. Body cameras over time but but we took the value of the entire contract as a CIP. But if we were to be able to do it on a yearly basis, which would mean increasing that line item in their budget by 70,000, then they would be able to have um state-of-the-art cameras with all the capabilities that they need that would be under warranty. So that that $6,000 is uh represents the I believe the warranty for those body cams.

Um and I'll also go to page 84. I know the name Striker as it relates to emergency medical equipment. Um, and so it says it also funds a preventative maintenance and service plan for EMS patient handling and transport equipment. Okay. Well, I'm I'm mistaken in what I just said then because I I was talking about another program that that deals with the actual um that deals with the actual body uh camera. Yep. And I remember that and I don't have a question on that. It was the striker procure. So, um, answered my own question with page 84 for anybody else that's interested watching or in the room. Um, I think I am

good with everything. The custodian is back in um the maintainer too was recommendation of one position and not to cut the one position and I am in agreement with at this point unfortunately not including the horiculturalist um PTE. So, um I yield my time. Thank you. Uh, madame deputy mayor, if I may confirm any ads. Is it the two library budget mods? So, I did not add them in at this time. Um, back on the reductions, I did not accept that 50,000 PTE reduction on the budget mods for the addin, I am sticking with the not included as presented in the scenarios.

I didn't miss, but I do not want them to lose a PTE. I don't want them to lose the staff that was offered up. Councelor Merritt. Yeah, I I have a couple of questions. I I I I know we have uh I I have a few questions. I know we have enough support for the four million on the council to keep it uh for the economic development uh fund. Uh but I don't think you show are you showing that that we are not going to cut that um

the $ 1.5 million reduction from the uh economic development trust um I believe it's still in um but there

how do we get rid of it if we give a few do we need to vote on it? there were um believe counselors on both sides of it. Uh I did add to I'm getting ready to share my screen again. Um so for the reduced ZB P&Z and reduced ZBA, you'll see that it has a cut and a reduction. I mean and an add, right? because counselors once somebody said cut it, somebody said add it. In fairness, I didn't want to do it with a big number without calling it out like this. So,

um there were counselors on both sides of that question as well. So, where there are numbers shown in ads and cuts, the council would need to decide which side or neither.

Well, how how do we plan to resolve that? we take a vote. I don't know. Anyway, that's one question I have. Um, so we've got to resolve that kind of question before we go anywhere. The other question I have is your yellows up there. I I I think your concern is that these big reductions without any specific targeting of what what they mean just taking it out of a department. Now you got a ridiculous situation where we we seem to have a consensus that we need to hire a a person uh a new person new position in finance for accounting account and no question the support for that of the council and yet I mean are we telling you to know yet now you can take that out? I mean that doesn't make sense to me. Do you do you want to take it out of do you mean that for other parts of your finance department other than uh other than uh accounting? I mean [clears throat] whoever proposed that should be more specific what what areas they want out because it does no good. I I think all of those yellows should be taken out until somebody provides something more specific. they just don't serve any purpose. So, uh it's reduced ops and where where operations is that supposed to come from? I

mean, we have other things. So, does does anybody have any I I I just I think we ought to get rid of all of those until somebody comes up with something more specific.

Thank Thank you for that, Council Merritt. I um I shaded them yellow and put the question marks next to them for that very reason. Um the one in the middle reduce operations budget uh is you know the most challenging right there are three departments or offices that are identified to be reduced and then generally just operations um which I don't know what that means hence the question mark um the reduced town attorney that that of course is a contract um and that number is either eliminating the town attorney or eliminating the labor lawyer or cutting both of them in half.

Some understanding with regard to what the council's intent is for the uh the items that are shaded in yellow. Of course, only if they move forward gives you something more specific unless somebody does. Yeah, I I spoke to the finance line. Um, uh, Miss Matias, uh, shared that the bulk of that $127,000 increase in human resources is, uh, the increase in education and training that was discussed earlier, which is contractual,

right? So, that that should be worded more precisely. Um, my other um, I I don't understand the furlow thing. I don't really object to it because I just don't understand it. Um, as that may be my problem. I I if if the majority of the council thinks that's a practical thing, fine. Um, I I I think we need those. I don't I I'm used to furlows being used in a manufacturing environment where you just don't have the work. So, we have the work. So, I don't know why we do that. I think everybody's pretty busy. So, I mean, I can't see a manager who may come in extra time and I mean, seven days a week for a job and what are you going to send them home on unpaid vacation one one day every quarter? I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me. But, but I'll leave that up to the majority here. But, um I do you include the telecom million dollars that we're getting. You brought that. That's all in there. Okay. Mhm.

Um, yes it is. I repeat I repeat my comments about non-union treatment and that would apply generally to all sorts of things where we need to be fair. Um I I don't understand. I'm I'm looking at uh the mayhem scenario and it has amount to be raised by current taxes as percent change 4.39%. That means that would mean to me a tax increase over which

but people are talking about an 11% increase. So I I I maybe my shrunken 84 year old brain just doesn't comprehend that. But um that was [snorts] changed. So I I I wish somebody could explain. I I just need to explain because I don't see anything wrong with a 4.39% tax increase. particularly I think if we need it uh so we're taking out so darn much of services here and and hurting our organization I I just don't think it's necessary so anyway that's all that's all I have thank you uh

certainly a long way from voting for any budget councelor waterhouse thank you Mr. Mayor, um I would like to add um the striping machine. Um I know it's going to save our DPW time, you know, especially since we're taking people away. If that's going to save them time, set it and go. I think it's worth it. Yeah. Okay. Were they buying the extra one? No. No. the one that they wanted to they were going to It's a lease. Yeah, it's a lease.

Okay. So, it's Let's give them a number. 17. No, you got it. Yeah, you got it. Can I give some color to that for uh Council Oliver? It It's a lease. We We didn't uh buy the machine, but it's a lease to own. Y

so I believe the number that I got was in either 3 or 4 years will own the machine. Um and it's a very simple machine, pretty compact, but it's it's very intelligent and it saves quite a bit of time. So the the argument that's being made is that while it's being set to stripe out any of the fields, um the maintainer can also be doing uh something else. they can be um maintaining the fields or doing whatever else besides um going uh striping out the field. In addition, it doesn't waste material. So um in where you know human error obviously we'll go over things twice or we'll find we'll do something in a way that may not be the most efficient. This maps out the most efficient route with uh and that's in terms of uh time um effort and uh materials used. It's just efficient overall. Thank you. Um councelor Waterhouse.

Uh that's it for now. I'll wait for my second round. Okay. Uh Council Mahan,

thank you. Um I just want to know where we are currently. What does the uh Oh, is that it there with with uh what folks added back in? Um let's see. Oh, yeah. I can look at this screen as well. Okay. Um do you mind just scrolling up a bit? Okay. There's a few things that and that 35.18 is that um so that that factors in everything that was added back in not just the the cuts that were initially made. Um sorry

yes and I'll remind that the the ads and cuts columns that have numbers in both need to be resolved because with the numbers appearing in both columns they are not reduced or added.

Yeah. they're negating themselves. Can we Can I see what it looks like with uh the [clears throat] economic development uh funds in the uh in the budget? Um and it it seems like I mean my colleagues may want to use that 1.5 from somewhere else, but right now I have the appetite to use it from Economic Development Trust. Um, there's a few other things that [clears throat] I just wanted to see so I can get an idea of where that where that brings us. Um, can you uh undo the uh undo the additions from the mayor for the um for the boards and commissions except for the advertising dollars which I think was to the tune of $2,200 something like that. That was for um

that was for so the two this one 2250 was to restore boards and commiss advertising. Okay. I do want to see that in there. Can we uh reduce the can see what it looks like with the reduction for uh planning and zoning and CBA at 1,700. I know this is just these are pennies but you know everything counts. Just want to see what it looks like. All right, keep going. Let me adjust the Well, it's not going to move the motor vehicle.

I agreed with the striping store boards and commissions. I mean, this is this is pretty much I mean, obviously, we need to figure out what the unemployment adjustment would be. Um, but this is pretty much where I want it to be. I also want to take out the um funding for the FYI management software, but even if we didn't do that, I'm more comfortable at this 34.67 where everything is currently set. Um Oh, but we have to we have to rectify a few things. So, um, when I was saying when I mentioned the reduction in the the 500,000 from operations, I was talking about the, um, strategic, um, operations and communications budget. Um, and it looks like it was duplicated. So, let's uh, can we add that? Can we get rid of that $500,000 line? Just want to see what that would do. Um, and so the 300 was what was recommended from, I believe, council to beat them brown. Um, what would it look like if we brought the, uh, town attorney's budget to I just had it. Oh, here it is. Here we go. Uh, 250,000. We'll do uh 255. My apologies.

That that's a reduction of how much?

Oh, that would be a reduction of uh 38,640. I and I I do have questions around that contract because that I mean what the mayor discussed I I don't know if you guys want to really get into that right now. Um but from what the mayor discussed he didn't have an idea of that there was an um increase and what the town attorney's hourly rate was. He just uh blindly agreed to it when he was intermar. So I don't I don't know if you guys really want to get into that aspect of things right now. Let's stick to this. Um, there was also a couple other questions. Reduce finance budget. I think that's going to be a reduction of one FTE. And so that would be up to you. What would you I know you'd probably say you couldn't lose anything. Um, but 136 that would end up most likely being a um one FT. Um, let's see. Yeah, for finance it would uh it cancels out the addition of the senior uh accountant budget modification.

Okay. So, it's essentially denying the senior accountant. Okay. Okay. So, then that would be that full 170 something. Can can we bump it up to that? Delta. But if if the desire is to not approve the senior accountant, then why not not approve the senior accountant instead of adding it and then taking it out? So that's what I'm saying. Can we Can we do that? Oh, just not for cuts and ads. I'll do whatever you want me to do. Okay. Yeah, let's let's do that. Oh yeah. Um

I know you won't agree with that, but I'm just trying to see [clears throat] what this number looks like, Joe. And then we can always work from there. Uh HR. Oh, so and there was a suggestion from councelor Goodwin to remove an FTE from the town manager's budget from the town manager's office. It's on the list.

It is. Where is that reflected? I didn't see it. Remove one FTE from T. Oh, there it is. Okay, cool. All right. And so that's where it brings us a reduction of 2.5 million. And then what does the mill rate work out to be? 34.89. Hold on. Let me iterate the motor vehicle. Oh, that that's it there. Yes.

Okay. Um, is it possible to I mean, of course, keep this, but then uh open another tab with similar items so then folks can add their stuff on without uh without uh you know destroying what we've made here. I think 34 are more palatable.

Excuse me. Um, counselor, there are serious concerns with the timing right now. Um, if you have more to say, I would like to get to the two other counselors and then we can I just I just want to see where we were first so I can potentially add that. That's what I was hoping to do, but I want to see where we were first. Okay. It wouldn't be fruitful to add without knowing where we are. You got to start the GPS from somewhere, you know. Um, speaking of GPS sidebar, I want to know how much it costs for DPW.

I will save that to my second round of adul.

Yes. Are you set? Take a look. Yeah, I think uh I think I'm fine. Okay, Council Goodwin.

Yeah, I want to first of all begin to say I am not supportive of creating a whole another new scenario because in this scenario other people's ads have already been asked to be removed in this scenario which I think is actually not fair to the process to then say okay now let's go back to another thing. I think we have to have a process and actually follow through with it. Shamar, I appreciate what you've offered and I just don't think we can create, you know, your budget. It's actually all of us working together to be able to do this. So, back to the ads. I want to go down to the line where I asked for all employees and not just management for the fur furlow because if you go down um in the spreadsheet originally I had asked for the scenario where all employees and not just management which is what the town manager sort of talked about could we spread this across all employees not just one set uh a group. So, if that number could just be adjusted, and I think based on some of the other modifications, the three-day scenario that you sent us uh for all employees, I would like to see that number adjusted if that's possible.

And I apologize, [clears throat] uh, councelor Goodwin, I was trying to keep my no laptop battery from dying. Um, but adjustments. So for the furlow um it's right now it just says 4day management only and I'm asking can you add in the number from your scenario for the three days for all employees that 215 215,099 3 days all employees mutually [clears throat] exclusive or are the four management days part of the three all employees three days If I heard correctly. Correct.

In addition to the four instead of that's what instead of Yeah. After Yeah. After that was proposed, I proposed to Yeah. Um apolog I don't recall who added the four days of management only furlow. I did. Councelor. Yeah. Mhm. Are you receptive to that being changed as councelor Goodwin or should I put both of them on for council to decide when you get to voting? I I couldn't agree to that, but uh councelor Goodwin wants to see that. Depends on the consensus of the council.

I'm fine with that. We'll probably will be here and I think that um you know, we have another day, so why not?

Yeah. And with that swap out, I would add back the things that just got re reduced in terms of the TPZ and the ZBA. Um, and I would throw back in the committee on aging as well. I think we again we can't I want to be thoughtful about asking folks to volunteer their time and their intention but then also not giving them the financial ability to be able to serve once they've agreed to serve. So I think particularly any place where our town folks are volunteering their time and investing those are the things that we can reinvest in. So I'm just I'll just say publicly to everybody as the conversation continues using the furlow days for all staff gives the wiggle room to think about all of the resident facing opportunities and volunteer uh things and then yeah so that that's what I would offer to shift that number and then add those things back in that I named that were just removed again after this is the ad period

and if you would be so kind to repeat the boards and commissions that you're TPZ ZBA and the committee on aging commission on aging sorry right there thank you thank you uh councelor Cooper and And

uh thanks uh Mr. Mayor. Um I did have a question. There were I guess it looks like in the mods there were two there were two police vehicles that were already um taken off and I know there was a request to have another police vehicle removed. Uh yes, there was a uh one police cruiser was added back in. Okay. And then it was removed. So

So I guess out of out of fairness, as I've been treating the others that had competing interest, I should show that that way.

Yeah. If you you want to put that to the side, I mean, that's that's fine. I um the the reason why I would like to see it back in is because I think the chief said that they he there is a vehicle that is used every that is turned around every two years. And so that might be a vehicle that could be useful. Um how do I say this? Uh there's that might just be the vehicle the replacement that we're we could use instead of not um funding two vehicles but still getting them one vehicle because there was a command vehicle that is turned over like every two years when um and he was did seem like as if he was I can't say what you know he his his mind thought was but I it seemed as if he was amenable um to using that command vehicle in place uh if if there was not um room for two um patrol vehicles. So, um I' I'd like to see that uh that vehicle put back in. I think that there will they do have money in their budget for that uh command vehicle, which they can put a patrol. It's it's maybe a few more,000 out of his budget, but they add it and then they take it back out. So I um I've u showing the police crews are added and um removed. Um I recall uh one comment distinctly that chief made with regard to the I think he referred to them as administration vehicles or supervisor. They're built different. They're not built like the police cruisers. Um

Right. Right. I don't I don't know that we could take an administration police administration vehicle and put it on patrol because I don't think it meets patrol's requirements.

Uh his his budget will probably just have to find the money to make it work. But I think that the if you're going to have guys out on the street, then they need vehicles and they need safe vehicles to patrol the streets, you know. Um, I don't think a vehicle, a command vehicle that's two years or less in age is going to fall apart. Um, a patrol vehicle probably a different story. We we have former police officers here in and you know, and you guys feel free to weigh in, but that's my thoughts on it. I think that we cannot and I know that there was there was also um talk from our maintenance folks about you know letting these things go beyond um what they normally um are built for and it becomes a matter of uh uh maintenance costs rising because you're dealing with older vehicles

back or not. So for me that's uh an ad if you want to put that back in. So the the for council and the public's benefit the ones that I've outlined um uh we would need a vote by council to determine if they're in or out. It's just those are we are we said councelor Cooper. I'm good. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. turn it over to uh deputy mayor to uh line us up.

Okay. So um I think everyone has given robust input on reductions, ads and drops at this point as we have gone through the scenarios as well as the budget sometimes line by line. Um we have an amazing starting point for our budget. Um, I think some of the thoughts, all the thoughts are coming from uh what we perceive to be by each individual a responsible position and in reacting to the needs of our public and their concerns. So, at this point, we would now move into gaining consensus and whittling down that list, finalizing that list as an example for the public. Are we going to Some say add a police cruiser, some say not. So at this point we have a robust list. We have to go through that list and decide as a council are we adding a car or we not. And we need to do that by consensus and I would recommend by a solid vote. So

that's I ain't even get there. That's what I'm saying. So my recommendation for the counselors that have to leave one has left. People have to get up at 3:00 in the morning. Um, I would love the fact that we already have a third day on the schedule for this week if we could reconvene till 6:30 tomorrow. Do we have a motion? So moved. Second. I. Okay. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion to adjurnn. Any abstensions? So moved. Motion to adjurnn. All in favor? that you