City Council - workshop

um SIRENS Bye.

good evening this is the city of newburgh city council work session for july 9th 2026 the time is 6 0 6 p.m First item for tonight, we'll have a work session presentation from PKF O'Connor Davies on the 2025 audit.

Good evening. Mayor, members of the city council, happy to be here. My name is Jeff Shaver. I'm a partner with PKF O'Connor Davies. To my right is Mark Callanan. He's a director. He was in charge of supervising the audit when we were here during field work. The slides are up. In terms of the agenda, I'll briefly speak about the audit and then I'll show you some financial highlights. We'll focus on the general fund. We'll show you water, sewer, and sanitation funds and cap off by showing you some long-term liabilities. I'd like to start off by presenting a certificate of achievement that the city received for the 2024 financial statements. The city started the program with GFOA several years ago. has received the award every year it does take gfoa about nine months to finish reviewing the financial statements it means that you know it it's your excellence in financial reporting is is the reason why they award this certificate and it's a diligent review as i said the city should be proud of achieving that award once again it was submitted again for december 2025 we won't find out those results for until next year most likely so congratulations to the city on that we finished the audit Uh, financial statements have been reviewed by management. We've issued what's known as an unmodified opinion on the financial statements that sometimes referred to as a clean opinion. And that's the most favorable opinion that you can receive. What that means is the financial statements are fairly stated in all material respects. And the note disclosures are complete and accurate, consistent with the prior period. would be required to um sorry we would be required to inform the city council if we identified any material weaknesses in your internal controls i'm happy to report there were none we also are required to do a federal single audit or compliance audit that's a federal federal requirement because the city expends more than one million dollars per year in federal awards so we've issued also an unmodified report over compliance in that regard from that i'm going to take you into some financial highlights this is the general fund budget to actual summary The details are all in the financial statements. We've just summarized and taken some snapshots for the highlights here tonight. This is a four column presentation. Original budget in the first column. The final budget, which would encompass any transfers or amendments during the year in the second column. The third column is your actual revenues and expenditures. The fourth column is the variance between the final budget and the actual results. You can see on the revenue line item, the top line item, the original budget for revenues were $68,355,000. That was increased to $73,590,000. Actual revenues for the year, $65,274,000. A shortfall of $8.3 million from the final budgeted amount. From the expenditure side, the original budget anticipated expenditures of $71.8 million. It was revised to $73.5 million. The actual expenditures were $64 million, some $9.4 million less than what was anticipated in the final budget. there were also positive positive budgetary variances in other financing sources and uses which in the case of the city is mostly transfers to other funds of 606 000. so the total budgetary surplus you can see in the variance column in the net change in fund balance line was 1.728 million that's the net amount that the city had a favorable variance with its budget at the end of the year However, keep in mind, when the city council adopts its budget, it typically allocates certain amounts of fund balance to balance the budget. So that's a planned use of fund balance. And that's the balancing figure in the original budget category, the bottom line. 3,295,000 anticipated use of fund balance. That was revised through amendments during the year to 4.7 million. So based on the revised spending plan, of the city if you had collected every dollar in that plan and spent every dollar your fund balance would decrease by 4.7 million that didn't happen you'd beat your budget by that 1.7 million the difference between those two numbers becomes an actual change in fund balance the d in this case it's a decrease of fund balance three million dollar three million twenty five

Quick question because I know you're going to move quickly through this arm. Just curious about the negative budget variance of a point 3 million because I don't next slide that's amazing.

Okay, okay. So you see the actual revenues. I'm sorry the actual fund balance at the end of the year. for the general fund twenty seven million five hundred sixty eight thousand the next slide has some of the answers that the mayor was alluding to we've picked out some of the major revenue categories I'll highlight non property taxes That includes sales tax, utilities gross receipts tax, and franchise fees. There was a $200,000 shortfall in the sales tax line and also a $200,000 shortfall in the franchise fees line. Where the bulk of that variance comes from is in the state aid category, and you see that's $9,162,000. There's two grants being budgeted for. uh chips chips funding it's a reimbursement type grant and also some some other highway related or transportation related state grants budgeted at 6.3 million because you the city didn't expend all those funds you don't collect all that revenue so the deficiency in the revenues is offset by a surplus on the expenditures so it's a reimbursement type grant that you don't spend you don't you don't get the revenues I have talked to the administration and the new comptroller about you. The city could budget for those differently since it's a reimbursement grant. The city does have a grants fund where kind of is a perfect place to put reimbursement type grants that are operational in nature. alternatively if it's capital in nature highway improvements and such road improvements could be could be accounted for in the capital projects fund which would eliminate some of the distortions that you're seeing here in the budget to actual so that was the the primary reason was the state grants that were not expended next slide here we've highlighted a few major expenditures i'll take you to the transportation light item that is the offset to the unspent grants that i just mentioned so that total department had underspending of 10 million dollars over 9 million of that relates to those two grants i just mentioned there is a negative variance in the general government support category i wanted to highlight 2.3 million dollars when you look at the general government support category it covers all the general administrative functions of the city like the city council's budget city manager's budget comptroller those those types of departments the city has been including within that general government support category as a miscellaneous contractual item a negative amount in the budget the negative amount in the budget represents an estimate of vacancy savings or unfilled positions so it may budget full amount of salaries anticipated in police and fire for instance but take a negative amount in the miscellaneous contractual to indicate that naturally throughout the year positions will go unfilled savings will occur so if this if those estimated savings don't bear out and you don't achieve those you do have a net deficiency you could have a net deficiency in your budget so that's why that negative in the general government support category Next slide is the general fund fund balance, 2025 in the first column, two extra years, just for comparative purposes. As I said before, the total general fund fund balance, $27,568,000. He says one minute. If you need to cut us off, that's fine. Okay. We have different categories of fund balance. The non-spendable fund balance represents prepaid expenditures or bills that have been paid in advance. The restricted funds consist of legally restricted funds, so it can't only be spent for these purposes. The insurance and capital improvements, the city established capital reserve funds several years ago, so that 832,000 is restricted for that purpose. In the assigned category, the bulk of your funds are in assigned for subsequent years expenditures. That's the $3,006,246,000. That is the use of fund balance in the 2026 adopted budget. So the planned use of fund balance, as I mentioned before on the first slide, that would have been in 25's budget. In 26's budget, that number is $3,006,000. The unassigned fund balance is, I sometimes refer to it unrestricted right it's unrestricted i sometimes call it um residual because it's the difference between the total fund balance and all the other categories it's totally unrestricted no earmarks no encumbrances available for use at the discretion of the council and that number is 21 million 140 000. would say of the various categories it's probably the most important category the City Council would want to pay attention to one metric that we look at is the percentage of the unassigned fund balance to your total budget just to give you a benchmark you're currently at 29% which is still considered a healthy amount of unassigned fund balance to carry sure

for some reason i thought we had a higher unrestricted fund balance for 2025. that's the total 27 million i mean i'm sorry yeah 20 uh 21 million 140 000 that's the total that's general for general fund general just general fund okay i don't know why i thought it was double that

no no okay never never never double that if you include water sewer sanitation you start getting towards those numbers oh okay yeah gotcha yeah mark mark's going to take you through on the next enterprise funds okay all right so if you add those in you you probably get close to that but okay general fund this is general fund only right okay um so i'm going to pass it to mark next slide to show you those enterprise funds

So on this next slide, we go through, this is just the fund balance we're showing here for the water sewer sanitation fund. And we just wanted to point out, so the water sewer sanitation fund is accounted for slightly different than the general fund in that it's a full accrual, they're full accrual funds, meaning it shows your long-term debt, it shows your capital assets, whereas And the general fund side, you're just showing your current year expenditures, not your long term. So what we try to do on this slide is those top few lines under net position, the net investment in capital assets and the unrestricted, is what's going to show up in the financial statement report. This bottom half of this slide, what we tried to do is we tried to convert it from what the full accrual method is to what a modified accrual would show. So the bottom is more accounted for like the general fund. So what we did was we took, you can see the main piece of your net position in those funds is the net investment in capital assets. And then the only other piece you have there is unrestricted. so in if it was accounted for like we account for the general fund you would add we add back below some of the the long-term obligations for those funds so your two just for example for your water fund you have 2.2 million dollars in unrestricted if it was accounted for like it was the general fund you would add back the pension liabilities, the compensated absences, and the OPEB. So your 2.2 unrestricted number, if it was accounted for like the general fund, would be more like 10.1 million. Yes. You said pension liability.

What was the second one?

Compensated absences and then your other post-employment benefits. so this this slide shows you up top what it what it looks like in the financial statement so in the water fund just looking at your unrestricted amount your water funds 2.2 million your sewer funds 8.6 and your sanitation funds 590 000 about but again if you accounted for it like the general fund those numbers would look more like water fund 10.1 sewer fund close 10.3 million and then sanitation fund 6.8 million so that's what that's kind of what we're showing on this slide And then on the next two slides, this one first. So this is showing the city's long-term debt amounts. This first slide is the governmental funds, which is mainly your general fund. And as you can see, the first column shows where it was last year. The second to the last column shows where it is at the end of December 31st, 2025. And then the last column is there, what's going to be due within one year. So starting from the top, your total bonds payable at the end of the year was $23.6 million. Again, this is just for the governmental funds. The business type funds are on the next slide. Along with a premium, your total bonds payable is $23.9 million. You have a small amount of retirement incentives left, 62,000. Your claims payable, that's workers' compensation, general liability. You have a long-term liability of 1.8 million. your compensated absences at year-end are about a little less than five million the next two lines there are your net pension liabilities for both ers and pfrs which are um 3.9 million and 18.7 million dollars respectively and then that last line there you can see is the the largest long-term debt piece for the city and that's your other post-employment benefits it's 145.9 million it's a very large number but what that basically is saying is the city hires out an actuary they put together their calculations what that's saying is that that is the estimate that they come up with for all the post employment benefits for individuals that have already retired and all the individuals that work for the city that will have a future payment so city year to year is just paying that out as it goes but for gasby purposes an actuary puts together an estimate of what your cost will be forever basically yeah so that's why yeah so your total long-term debt for your governmental funds is 199.5 million dollars The next slide is the same exact type of long-term debt, just for your business type. This is your water, sewer, sanitation numbers. Total bonds with the premium, about 12.7 million. Loans payable, which is loans payable to the EFC of about 25 million. Compensated absence, 841,000. your pension liability for ers is 1.2 million and then that the largest for here again is the opeb number at a little more than 12 million so your total long-term debt for your business type funds is 51.8 million dollars and that's that's basically all we have for you tonight so we we can open it up to any questions you may have

We'll run through council order. Council member McLemore.

Thank you for the presentation. I was looking in this book, this one, the City of Newburgh report to the governance. Sure. Can I ask questions out of that as well? Sure, anything you'd like. Okay. All right. So I was looking at a lot of the recommendations that you guys... stated in in your book and in the audit I'm sorry and I was just trying to figure out why some of these things that you recommended are not done as far as On the 12th page, it says the audit readiness, year-end accounting, and timely account reconciliation. It says during the audit, we noted that the city required assistance with certain year-end bookkeeping, accounting procedures, account analysis, and reconciliations necessary to prepare the records for audit. We also noted numerous posting errors requiring correction as well as delays in completing timely analysis and reconciliations for certain accounts including account payable, accrued liabilities, all of that stuff, right? Could you, I don't know if it's up to you to tell us like why these things aren't done or certain

it's hard for us to answer the why we were only sharing what we're what we've experienced what we saw while we're here during the audit one factor i can say is there was some turnover um you know during like kind of in the middle of the audit process so that's not that's never helpful for any organization to have to deal with that so having a consistent staff that's comfortable with what they've done in the past and know what to do could be one indicator and other things that just maybe the city needs additional, city personnel need additional training in order to get up to speed to do some of these things. We come in and as part of the audit, in order to produce these documents, make sure everything is the way we think they should be. So we work with the city to get the audit done and get the books up to where they need to be.

Because, I mean, thank you. And even like under the outstanding checks discrepancy, misstated cash balances and reduced the reliability of financial reporting, reconciliation by approximately, you know, 36,000. it's different things like that that i'm reading and um you know i see your recommendations and things like that but it's it's baffling me i mean i'm not a controller or accountant or anything of the sort um but reading your recommendations i'm trying to figure out why these things aren't in place for us to be responsible in the accounting or the finances. And I know you, like you say, you can't really answer them, but just going through this is, Shocking to me that some of these things aren't being done as the government now the one thing that I did like that I Did read is that there was no Highlighted a lot of a lot of stuff you found no knowledge of any fraud or suspected fraud that affects the city and financial statements, so I'm glad that that's in here because sometimes we have the narrative that There's corruption or there's fraud or there's this or somebody's pocketing none of us up here are pocketing anything Or any body in the city, but I'm still in all I'm glad that that's noted. I was just baffled as far as You know why certain things aren't done. I'm looking even at backdating of transactions um even that section right there why are we backdating checks why are we doing certain things um i respect that i would expect an individual to do something like that but not a government um but i think i think that one was administrative um what's the word i'm looking for

to make things easier. They tried to make things easier doing it quicker, which wasn't necessarily the right way. So in that case, we we don't we don't like if cash is moved in in one period the day it's moved it should be recorded in the general ledger and you never should deviate from that practice you know they they decide the city decided it wanted to record cash transfers like between funds it's really between funds in advance of them actually happening so that's i believe the essence of what that comment was about

Then we have credit card. Simple things to me, but it says during our audit procedure, we noted that the city's credit card account is not recorded in the general ledger, that's on page 14, or included in the city's accounting record. As a result credit card liabilities and related expenditures are not fully reflected in the city's financial Records until payment is made so they're not recording a liability when the card is charged They record when the bills are ready to be paid.

That's when it that's when it hits the Expenditures let yeah

And so, you know, it just says that your recommendation was we recommend that the city records the credit card account and all related transactions within the county system. Monthly reconciliation should be performed between credit card statements and the general ledger and outstanding balances should be properly recorded as liabilities at month end and year end. So I understand that it's just Once again, even though they're minor things and little tweaks here and there, and I'm glad there's nothing major that is going on so we can get rid of these misstatements and interpretations of what people presume or presume. or assume that you know that the government is doing but it is I think we definitely should look at these things and make sure that we correct these these matters and make sure that you know we move towards your recommendations because they seem simple so thank you that's basically what I wanted to I wanted to ask you as I was reading your audit. Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Shakur.

Yes, I have some of the same issues they see that he would discuss about but I just like to know. According to where we at with last year and how we better this year or do what do I just want to give recommendations right now. And what's on the go to the recommendation and then see if these recommendations are they better than what we did last year what we need to improve on this year. Thank you.

i always look at the last year's recommendations when i'm reviewing the current year i don't recall offhand exactly what we did a year ago but i think you see some of the same ones so some of the same issues that we saw in 24 we saw again in 25 and some of them were we may have been new um i don't have that analysis to tell you that right here now but yes i just want to know if we had the same recommendations last year did we did we make up for those or did our these newer recommendations or we need to improve on so there were some that were addressed and some that weren't or some that maybe showed itself in a different way so we decided to repeat or repeat and add to a comment or something like that so the city's always trying to pay attention to the to our comments again when there's turnover makes it difficult because the person coming in is not familiar with the comments that were there last year so they got a lot of getting up to speed to do so it's harder for anyone coming in fresh to to fix those to fix some of those recommendations i'd urge the city to continue to work towards addressing all these items thank you for your presentation council member stewart

Thank you, Jason. Thank you for your presentation. It's good to hear that the unmodified version of the audit is a clean audit. When I got the report, I started to look at it. And one of the things my colleagues asked for were the management letters that were from previous years. So I wanted to see what uh the what the management letter said versus what we're hearing today um one of the things that i wanted to point out that i felt like was of concern to me was the vacancy um the vacancy and the budget yes And do it the vacancy budgeting the underspending of the vacancies that has been repeated right year over year So that's not a one-time thing. It's now considered a pattern of underspending and under budgeting with these vacancies Not it is a pattern in that it's been budgeted that way for several years and

I would need to do further analysis to say whether those vacancy savings were achieved because if you budgeted to save three or four million dollars and you actually did that's not an issue financially so i i don't have an analysis to to say that i bring it up um to the council so they're aware of the practice so when when you when you look at positions in the budget whatever the face value is there's also an estimate somewhere else for savings that's not in that one line item so that's an important thing for management and the City Council to be aware of that's why I pointed it out right so my concern was after learning being a new council person and just looking at the budget and looking at the actual budgets and what was actually funded the underspending just

That I think what I was looking at and the way I interpret it was, is that it was stated as conservative budgeting, right? I don't, to me, it didn't seem like that. It looked like it was done purposely to say like, look, we're saving money or we're doing underspending, but here we're not filling these positions, right? So it's like vacancy padding. You have these positions that go unfilled and they're purposely unfilled so that it can look as though the budget is you know, you're under budget or you are not going over budget or you're not doing these things. But these are positions that one go vacant. And I know this is not for you. This is just your observation. I know this is a an operational thing. But when we have positions that are budgeted for and they go unfilled, repeatedly that is not conservative budgeting that content that looks like a pattern of pretty much padding the budget so I just wanted to point out that that was really concerning to me and I just you said that you would have to do a little more digging to see if that pattern actually

well I'd have to do digging to determine whether this it's really not it's really not part of the audit to determine whether the vacancy savings that the city achieved that's really more of an operational measure so someone would have to go through all your personnel line items every line item look at what you spent in the aggregate with that negative to see whether you at the end of the year overspent or underspent all the payroll lines. Because from my point of view, from a financial condition point of view, the aggregate if you budgeted positives and negatives budgeted 50 million dollars for salaries that's really your budget and if it has a negative amount in it so be it you really don't want to spend more than that 50 million before you start having issues so that analysis would need to be done how close did you come to that whatever that net number was to see whether those vacancy savings are realistic

OK, that's it didn't seem realistic to me. So that's why I'm asking. And I was pointing it out because it just seemed like it was every time, every year, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025. Like it's always the same thing, the underspend of the budget. And it's like, hey, we got a great budget. And it's like, yeah, well, not really. If you're not really filling these positions to get where we need to be in terms of providing services to the city and doing what we need done. And if we're budgeting for it, why isn't it getting done? So again, I'm pointing it out as a part of what I've observed in the management letters and also the underspending, the pattern of underspending for the budget. I had another question in terms of the unrestricted fund balance. on we received information that our unrestricted fund balance was very different from what you presented today so we were um we were presented with a fiscal plan of like a multi-year plan estimate and what we saw was for 2025 it was 33.8 million dollars So I just wanted to see how that discrepancy happened or if you noticed that it was not really included, it wasn't calculated properly or something like that.

Was that only general fund? I haven't seen that analysis, so I can't speak to it.

So this came from the, this is the multi-year, this is the fiscal year one.

Was it a projection at a certain point in time?

Yes.

We don't look at projections as part of the audit, but the projection could have been too high. It could have been inaccurate. That would be my instinct. I can't say that for sure. Okay.

all right just checking um that's all I have for now I was just the vacancy is just every year there is all of these vacancies when we have positions that need to be filled is concerning to me councilmember Zaria

I was concerned about the vacancy rate also. I think it looks like it's growing every year. I think it went from 1 million three years ago and it's up to 4.9 million. I mean, I had a question and we were looking, we received a multi-year financial plan which had some lofty estimates and one of those estimates, and I know you don't have that and you don't look forward, but this is just general. the state aid on that multi-year financial plan was i think overstated um and it has it estimated i know there was a big gap like 10 million dollars in highway funding is it is it is that like federal state funding so uh going forward um should we assume we don't that is not a reoccurring revenue item Because our multi-year plan does have it as a reoccurring, which is concerning.

If it's funding that is there every year, it could be recurring. That's really outside of what we do as audit. We only look at what happened.

in terms of the internal controls you uh i think segregation of duties has been something that came up is it because of specific positions or job functions i know that's like a repeated thing that came up again this year and your segregation of duties matters management letter um i believe

We noted there was one employee with rights in the system. It doesn't mean that the person is doing anything with it. What we look for is, in this case, it's accounts payable. So it's a better situation if the accounts payable person, the person in charge of writing checks for the city, can't modify a vendor name. so it's just it's it's just a a better control if there's a reason there might be a reason why the city doesn't feel like it can take that access away I I don't I'm not sure what the answer is to that but it's about access within the accounting software and and having the ability to modify a vendor it'd be better for segregation of duties for internal controls if someone with uh check cutting abilities couldn't modify a vendor name and same with payroll we didn't see the same situation with payroll but if a payroll person could modify someone writing checks for payroll could also modify employee names and such that would be an issue likewise got it um

Yeah, because I think that came up for a second year in the row. It did say, again, segregation of duties. So, I mean, as a council person, I would like to ask the executive team that our internal controls, I mean, these matters, it went from one matter to three matters to eight matters that you guys have cited over the last three years. So it's like growing concern. And you guys are not looking for fraud. You're looking at the that's numbers you're not looking for fraud that's correct so just because these numbers line up doesn't mean there is no fraud and internal having weak internal controls does open the door for the potential correct that's why you want inter strong yes so as a council person and us as a body with fiduciary responsibility for the city i really want to see a comprehensive uh action plan for how we're gonna make sure that we don't have these other matters because like uh councilman mclemore said these things seem simple and we do it in our day-to-day life as a city we have the responsibility to be stewards of the taxpayer and i would love to see a plan to address these things i don't know if that's beyond do you guys consult on internal controls or you just cite them as as auditors it that's more of a got it consulting okay okay i have a couple other questions but as a council person i would love to see an action plan for addressing these internal controls because it's on us and to protect the taxpayers dollar and i do not want to open it up and you guys have mentioned some of these things two years in a row the segregation of duties there's no reason why that shouldn't have been addressed in my opinion and if we don't have if we have sent over a staff turnover and we don't have standard operating procedures then we should create them i did have a question about inter-fund revenue i think that As a homeowner, my water rates and sewer rates have been rising. And is it common practice to have interfund revenue for municipalities? And is there some type of cost rate allocation for it? Because it looks like across the board, we're like taken from one pot to put to the other and they're not allocated as a percentage of an indirect cost rate, they're just across the board a specific number.

I'll say it is common practice because, you know, like the general fund has administrative functions like the accounting department works, does work for water, sewer and sanitation, and all the administrative functions do work for water, sewer, sanitation. So the intention of the Interfund revenues is to allocate those costs back to those rate paying funds, back to the general fund, which incurs the costs.

so it is it is a common practice uh we see it at i would say most most of our municipalities that we audit um i mean the the amount of growth in that practice here is 55 so like 2021 interfund revenue taking from our enterprise funds to fund our general fund has gone up 55 so you Does it go up with inflation?

It should be reviewed as part of the budget process because it's a budgeted amount. It's like, hey, how are we allocating these costs? Is it a percentage of all the administrative functions? Is it a straight dollar amount or indirect cost rate, as you say?

yeah i mean that's i think this is another council a previous council member brought up this concern of kind of tapping into these funds and it looks like heavy reliance from 2021 it was 3.3 million we're at five that's a 55 growth there's no i wonder i mean i'm new so i'm learning but it seems to me that some type of percentage or indirect cost rate should be informing these numbers and 55% growth over time it seems like the vacancy factor inter fund revenue is filling gaps in my opinion that I think we we should I would love to learn more how that's calculated well and if other cities have a percentage rate

Yeah, I just want to give you context. Councilman is a little with the inter fund revenue at a rate of 55% as was stated by Mister shaver chamber shaver shaver I'm sorry is common practice if you to put it into context if you look at those enterprise funds which are water, sewage and sanitation. They are to function independently and pay for themselves. And if you do an analysis of where we were with those enterprise funds in 2016, 2017, 2018, they were functioning in the negative. I think at least sanitation and sewer, with the exception of water. I don't think water was functioning in the negative, but I know for a fact that those enterprise funds are enterprise funds, and they're supposed to pay for themselves.

and the fact that they are part of the inter fund revenue and that some of it is being cycled into the general fund at a rate of 55 that's a really great thing uh in terms of you know that's a positive thing but as a person as a homeowner who's seen their rates go up eight percent ten percent right and we have projected them going up like we're kind of intermingling the multi-year financial plan looking forward with your audit presentation so i apologize But these are contextual things so that we plan going forward. We're coming into budget season. So I apologize. But we have projected 29% increase in water rates within the next three years. So I think this practice of we have a stable water fund now and sewer fund, but we're going to continue raising the rates even though they are stable, that is not

transparent accountable practices and how long can we do that right and you're right and one of the things when we look at the multi-year financial plan and projections um we we said as a council collectively and i think unanimously to never ever raise any one of those enterprise funds particularly the water fund in double digits so unfortunately And we did do a cost analysis in terms of those enterprise funds here in Newburgh compared to Poughkeepsie, compared to Beacon, Middletown, and other municipalities that are similar to us in terms of demographics and geographic locale. So we've had to increase those rates, but again, looking at historical context, 2016 2017 those funds all the way probably up to 2018 were functioning in the negative and yeah but now we're on good footing hopefully we won't I'm saying yeah I'm saying in the last three years we've gone from tapping those funds and in practice they're supposed to have a indirect cost rate and there is a cost for managing those funds

it is not sustainable to me to go to rise 55 and have a plan to raise rates if it's self-funded we don't need to be tapping into these funds and they should i mean i mean this so i'm just like i wanted to ask if that is best practice because i've seen that grow over time and essentially these things vacancy factor inter-fund revenue changes are helping make the budget whole and the underspending that we had i guess we had a budget that's higher we underspend by 9.8 million so that helped us have a balanced budget but we going forward now that we're not under state review we appreciate your findings and we know what we have to work on and we can't continue to have more findings these internal controls are things that we need to address immediately but i'm just saying this is a concern outside of the audit i thank you guys we just have a plan And it just revealed so much that the plan was understated by millions of dollars. So the estimate of 33 million, which my colleague brought up, is actually 27 million. The state aid, we assume, for four or five years going forward is actually half that. So we can't rely on recurring revenues that don't exist. And thank you for sharing. manage them differently and have them be grants I think that helps our assessment because these wiggle room things of moving inter-fund balances vacancy rate state aid being stated in a different place when you come to give us a budget as a council it's hard to even know if these are real numbers because we have a budget that has been wiggled around so I think that This helps, having what the actual numbers are, because projecting forward, we need to reassess our multi-year financial plan, because it doesn't make sense, now that you guys have actually looked through our books. and for internal controls as a council person to the executive office and the finance team we need to have a plan to remedy those things because it does open the door for potential fraud and yeah i mean i think this this is thank you for your presentation i appreciate the work you guys have done for the last decade managing our books and i'm just concerned as a new council member looking at the trends here um but

this has helped kind of give a clearer picture as we go into budget season that's all I have thank you Mayor Harvey thank you I want to thank you all as well for detailed audit I always look forward to this every year but I do share the sentiment and the concern of my colleagues on City Council in terms of the multi-year financial plan i know those are projections i know those aren't actuals and i know and understand that when we look at the reconciliation process and those internal controls that you recommended need to be tightened that does um attribute to high turnover in the comptroller's office it does attribute to the city manager who was the CEO the CFO and the COO that's the chief executive officer chief financial officer and the chief operating officer all in one and now I understand that you know these internal controls have to be done and and meticulously observed in and those things have to be supervised on a regular basis um one of the things that uh mr morris and i talked about um a couple weeks ago um he's he's finalizing i think the rfp for a consultant for the budget is going to be concluding july 15th what's the date on that mr morris

I believe it's July 17th, I have to look at the date, but it's middle of July.

Okay, so middle of July, we're gonna be able to close out on the consultant RFP. We're gonna be able to decide on who's gonna come in to do that consultant work for our fiscal year budget 2027. And then we're gonna further discuss if there needs to be ongoing consultation from someone, an expert, an accounting firm to look at these internal controls and also provide some training because in our comptroller's department, they're new, our comptroller, deputy comptroller or assistant comptroller they're new individuals and we want to give them time and space and in the training that's needed for the proper internal control supervisory recommendations that you've made this just being more specific to the some things that jumped out to me looking at the general fund in the major expenditures page which is page number seven um i'd like to know what was the total uh unspent chips funds for the fiscal year 2025 because it's not listed here uh how much because chips funds that's the federal those are federal grant fund no state oh state i'm sorry for our milling and paving yes so what what is the total unspent chips funds 3.3 million Now that's a problem because $3.3 million of not being spent when we got roads that are really, really bad. That's an internal control that we got to look at how and why we didn't spend $3.3 million in 2025 on milling and paving roads. That's a problem for me. So that's an internal control that we want to address with these roads, especially the way I get verbally abused on social media, phone calls and emails about our roads. The other thing I'd like to note specifically on that same page with the General Fund of Major Expenditures, you list item number two um fire was under budget 612 221 dollars which is a little more than half a million which is amazing that is amazing um and congratulations to the executive team and our fire chief and everyone else involved and keeping that uh overtime budget because it used to be I think at the high level, 1.8 million in 2021 and 1.7 million in 2020 over, not under. So that's a really major... That's a major accomplishment. But in this particular item, I don't see anywhere listed where the police budget was. Do we have any totals on the police budget for fiscal year 2025? $40,000. $40,000. Under. Oh, under. Oh, wow.

I didn't highlight it because I felt it was an insignificant number.

No, that's significant because, and the reason why, to put it in context for our new council members, anything under in public safety is very significant where we were you know just a few years ago um and police and fire and then with police because they were not full strength and and um uh council uh member um Zorilla Macklemore and Stewart they all mentioned about the vacancies and the budgeting and how we weren't filling these vacancies but I knew that in the police department they were not at full strength I don't know if they are at this they're still not at full strength and for them to be under 40k that's very significant for the executive team and our police chief and the work and the leadership that they're under because for years they were over with overtime so I want to give kudos to them and then the last question I have deals with those internal controls 167 outstanding checks over a year old in the disbursement accounting amounted to 97,000 $94.68 that is a major major issue you're talking about close to 100 K am I correct. Yes, okay and the tracking of outstanding checks is an important control procedure that ensures that all outgoing checks are accounted for now if you can break that down into layman's terms please my understanding is that they're not paying their accounts their you know the debts right no no what is that so it means the city wrote a check to a vendor for

167 checks totaling about $97,000. The person never cashed the check. The person never cashed the check? It's just sitting there uncashed. So it's just maybe it needs to be voided and reissued. Maybe it just needs to be voided. I consider the outstanding check comment to be probably the most minor of all these okay or one of the most minor ones but it is a good practice to review those periodically because you don't want them to just grow and grow and grow they'll just they'll never go away if you don't address them right

yeah real real quick and I just before I know there's a couple more my challenge is even as mayor of the city you know I'm not involved with those internal controls directly So when it comes now, I know I took some I took accounting classes. I know what debits and credits and Reconciliations are right and how things are supposed to check and balance But again, I'm not privy to that information unless it comes to me and the council on those quarterly financials right so that's something that we got to look at i know um we're doing some charter review um you know we're in the process of doing a charter review but and um i don't know if michelle kelson wants to weigh in on this um but with those internal controls as the charter is written now none of the council members unless we sit down with the city manager and or the comptroller you know are going to know if those internal controls are improved upon and if they're being properly supervised kelson you want to weigh in on that they're not legal issues these are all operational issues you need to i mean

Ideally, you need to hire a city manager who's going to implement these things.

Okay.

Whoever else, I'm done. Thank you, Dr. Moore. I had just a quick question because the mayor, I had wrote something down, but the mayor had triggered something in me. The fire is under budget $612,221, right? it's awesome except for the fact that is this because of decrease in personnel or because they've been internal control um why is this and that's one of the questions that because if we're saying that the police and we know that they're not at full strength but they're only under 40,000 That's a significant difference between fire and police. I'm not saying that it's bad. I'm not saying that it's bad. But at the same time, is it because they're not fully staffed? What could that be?

It could be they're not fully staffed. It could be there's contractual costs budgeted for it. Maybe they didn't spend all of it, which would be favorable to the city. um or benefits you know it could be an over the estimates for benefits being too high it could be any of those items any of the costs related to those departments could be underspent the city has all that they there's lots of codes that go in here so they track this the salary codes um the the contractual code and you know so the information is there and we just don't go into that level of detail here and i certainly don't um have any recollection of that specific uh i can't answer that question specifically without really digging into the records because i know this is something that um we need to look at in our budget as well that's coming up uh personnel concerns but i just wanted to know i mean it's it's it's over a half an

know when we go through the budget this year we'll find out with that yeah i just wanted to make sure that you know see what the difference is and why but i know you can't answer the why so all right um go ahead oh i just had a final question uh i as a i have a non-profit and we have we send stale checks to unclaimed funds it's not a common practice with with cities municipalities shouldn't we

don't see many doing that but even though that is the proper that I believe that is the legal the proper procedure to send the comptroller makes you tell it to them yeah because then it's unclaimed funds and someone would have to go to the state the state comptroller always likes to talk about the website where you can go on and look for your unclaimed funds But if you can determine that the check should be voided and reissued, then you wouldn't have to send it to the state. You would just say, oh, it got lost. Let's reissue a new check. Or, oh, we paid it with that bill. We didn't need to. If you can determine how it happened, you wouldn't need to do that. But if it's really just unclaimed, you wrote a check to a vendor, they never... for some unknown reason never cashed it, it should go to the state for unclaimed funds. Okay, I was just curious.

Thank you.

Council Member Stewart.

thank you so I think this is just all for us getting this or for me I'll speak for myself that this is just the precursor for the next like 60 days that we will have to prepare for for and when we start budget season so this is helping to clear up or even educate me on a lot of things that we need to prepare for budget season so I had my question it was a comment based off of what the mayor said and we talked about segregation of duties and why that's important and the segregation of duties for me comes from the city manager's office and the role that the city manager would play in terms of being the CEO the CFO and the COO like all of those like we really need to as we move forward in this conversation of city manager hiring and also in regards to what we look like and for our budget like the person who is doing the budget executing the budget and you know overseeing the budget there's no controls there's not enough systems control for me in terms of oversight, checks and balances. It just doesn't exist. And to me, that is an open area for manipulation of numbers because there is no oversight and checks and balances. So that's something that I look forward to talking about a little more as we go into budget season. But these numbers give a better understanding of the realistic numbers of going into budget season. But it gives me an opportunity to look to see where those system controls need to be tightened up and how we can work with the executive office to ensure that they are and figure out what mechanisms we can put into place so that we know that they are tightened up. um that like the mayor was talking about we we don't know we wouldn't know but we need to put the um i guess again the mechanisms in place so that we do get these reports we do know that they're being taken care of and it's something that we can actually hold someone accountable for because if we don't have those mechanisms in place then we won't know One of the things that we talked about was the narrative. The number was insignificant for the police department in terms of the underspending, but the narrative is really important because overtime is a big deal. So overtime, and when we talk about the number being insignificant, it's cool. fire same thing it's you know it is what it is I think we have budgeted for two new fire people that will change next year in terms of the 600,000 it will be different next year once you have fill in more vacancies but the narrative that the overtime and the spending is out of control I think that's something that the public would is going to take a little bit of have a little pause for concern for it. So I'm okay with that. I think next year we'll see something different with the two new hires of the fire department and we'll see what personnel, what it looks like after that. This is just the beginning of the conversation.

All right. Thank you, Jeff and Mark. Thank you. Before we move on, I'll just address some of the council comments on this item. So we'll be developing a corrective action plan for the recommendations in the management report. The comment regarding the interfund transfers, this year we're going to be looking at some best management practices to see if we can better allocate those interfund transfers between water and sewer to general fund. um and then mayor you had a comment about the the chips funding um i had a conversation with jeff and mark yesterday about how that's budgeted and moving forward we can better budget the the grant reimbursement money that we get from state dot and that could be chips pave new york pop has a number new york state dot touring route funds it has a number of different names for different programs they all generally work the same way they're you spend the money you get reimbursed so there may be better ways that we can budget for them in the annual budget. So it doesn't show these strange skews in the numbers. So we talked a little bit about that. The reason you see those high numbers are because number one, they're cumulative numbers. So we get allocations every year from the state for these programs. They don't go away, they accumulate. and the city's tactic is to use most of these funds to build its bridges to pave larger streets to do 88 curb ramps so a lot of these funds are already allocated for existing projects but either in the process of being spent down or not yet spent down so it funds the walsh road bridge it funds the bridge that's structurally deficient on the quesadilla creek a little bit road over quesadilla creek also funds all the matching funds for the Broadway project and the balance of funds that we don't have with grants so these funds look like they're a lot but most of the vast majority of them are already allocated to existing projects there thank you for that point of clarification because that makes me feel so much better

assemblyman Jacobson he calls me from time to time and he complains quite a bit and I'm sure he's said that to some of the other council members as well but he feels that we could put in more or budget in more of our funds like at least a million instead of just waiting for reimbursement and matching the reimbursement allocations that's coming from CHIPS and PAVE New York so I Sometimes when he's saying that, I don't really understand why he's saying that, but I guess he's basically asking us, when budget season comes, we need to put more skin in the game with our funds, our general funds. that and that allocation so like let's say pave New York has given us a million dollars and chips has given us two million you know we should put in another million so now we got four million to do 88 curd ramps and and milling paving so do you have a response to that or so so for instance last year in this work this year we have eight hundred thousand dollars allocated of city money for paving work right

we're we're actually going to do more than that and use some of the paved new york and other things that can't be used for bridges and curb ramps okay um if the city council were to allocate more than 800 000 then that's going to come from general fund and you'd have to raise taxes That's the danger. I think there's a misconception among some people about how that money is used. Some people think we spend the $800,000 and then get reimbursed for it. That's not the case.

Okay.

Thank you for that point of clarification, too, because when he's talking to me about it, sometimes in the rhetoric, I get a little bit lost because I don't think the way he's describing it is our allocation and how we do it. So now I understand. You're right. If we do more, than what we're already doing that's going to increase taxes and we don't want to do that. Okay, thank you.

And I just wanted to say on that, I want people to be realistic with the numbers. A million dollars for paving is not a lot of paving, right? It's a couple of, maybe a couple of blocks or something. If you add an ADA and all of that other stuff, it is not a lot of money. So I understand that it is a big issue, but the budget that we are working with, it does not allow for us to just go and do every street because it would be extremely expensive and people would have to pay for it. I do know that it is a headache, but we're working with what we have. And that's why I appreciated the updated plan, the paving plan to prioritize streets that really needed to get paved. But it is expensive. When we say, you know, people think a million dollars is a lot of money. It's not. When we're talking about cost, when we're talking about prevailing wage and materials and all of that, it can get you but so far when we say, oh, add another million dollars. It's like, okay, add another million dollars. Whose pocket is it going to come out of?

Absolutely correct. Thanks for bringing that up. And remember, in the city, we have many more curb ramps that we have to reconstruct than, say, in the adjacent towns, where they have long road miles without sidewalks or curb ramps. And we can't pave the road until we do the curb ramps, and that is where the majority of the effort and the money goes to.

Yep. And we could have a billion dollars, and if we don't have the people to do the work, and then we have a large vacancy rate, then this all kind of ties back into not having a large vacancy, so...

And I also want to make a final comment because Councilman Zavala was in my office yesterday briefly and we were talking about looking at that multi-year financial plan and some of the discrepancies and one of the things that he said that I agree with and I'm sure some of my colleagues agree with when we talk about revitalizing our city and we got people that want to build market rate housing and commercial development on our waterfront that's going to get full tax rateables to increase our tax budget our budget so we can do more roads and we can hire more police officers and we can hire more firefighters for public safety that's the conversation the bigger conversation that we have to have when we talk about development and we're talking about expanding the tax break uh the tax burden you know, and developing, you know, so that's something we got to think about, you know, and, you know, Councilman Zorilla said, we got to develop, we got to continue to develop, especially if it's going to bring ratables so we can pay for more personnel and these roads and these ADA compliant curbs, because that's required by the federal government, so.

Okay, thank you. Moving on to, thank you, Jeff and Mark. Moving on to item number two, we're gonna hear from the DPW superintendent.

Item number two on the agenda is a budget or creation of a budget line for overtime related to 300 Broadway. That's the city court. i just want to remind everything everybody that the expenditures at that building are reimbursed by the understate contract but there's no budget line currently to to pay out over time when the work is needed so i'd like to create the budget line and then transfer uh 15 000 out of another budget line under the city court to cover any overtime expenses that for the rest of the year any questions on this item all right thank you chad

Moving on to item three. Item three is a resolution to accept an award from the 2025 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for lead line replacement. This is a grant in the amount of approximately $1.9 million and interest-free financing in an amount up to $2.7 million. Any questions on this item? Moving on to item four. Item four is a resolution authorizing an application to the CFA grant program. This particular item is a New York State EFC engineering planning grant submission in the amount of $50,000 with a required 20% match. This application is to study the existing biosolids operation at the city's wastewater treatment plant in hopes that we could improve efficiency to reduce costs and reduce odors at the wastewater treatment plant. Any questions on this item? Item number five is a grant application to the New York State DECWQIP program for the South Interceptor Sewer Improvements Project. This is a long-term control plan phase five project. This is the last project on the long-term control plan. This grant is in an amount up to $10 million with a required 25% match. Any questions on this program? Council Member Stewart.

Yes, not specifically this. I see we have a lot of grants that we're applying to. Do we have dedicated staff to look at these grants and just oversee and monitor them or are they based off of the department that will?

So we have a grants administrator. The reimbursements to these grants, if we are awarded, is generally handed by the grants administrator. The grant applications and the grant documents a lot of times are handled by the individual departments that apply for the grants.

okay and they they monitor the deliverables and all of that stuff and report it out report back to um us the funders and whoever else there's a tremendous amount of grant reporting with each grant yes okay thank you any additional questions on this item

council members i know we've talked about this in the past but incorporating kind of the cassay creek greenway plan into the engineering plan so that we could have double the benefits of like new infrastructure but also uh long-term use after the fact i know there's a lot to figure it out but just hoping we could incorporate it into the the plans and i know that you've mentioned it in the past For the match, is this, are we getting the match through bonding and that mechanism that we did before where we?

Yes, so previously the city council authorized a bond resolution for this project in the amount of $15.8 million. That bond resolution allows the city to apply for financing through the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation, which we are doing. And the city's tactic that has worked well for other infrastructure projects similar to this one is to then, after applying for financing, then try to apply for as many grants as we can to reduce the overall ending number that the city actually borrows for the project once it's completed.

Thank you.

Item number six is a grant application for the same project, the South Interceptor Sewer Improvements Project to the New York State EFC WIA program. That's the Water Infrastructure Improvements Project grant program. This is in an amount not to exceed $3.9 million with a 25% match. Any questions on this? Item number seven is a grant application to the New York State EFC WIA program again. This is for a different project. This is for the West Trunk Sewer Rehabilitation Contract 3 project. This grant application is an amount not to exceed $4.4 million with a required 25% match. So similarly for this program, For this project, sorry, the City Council previously authorized a grant resolution for the total project costs in an amount up to $17.6 million. And now we're in the process of knocking that number down by trying to find and apply for grants. Council Member Stewart.

So two things. Applying for grants is absolutely part of the lifeblood or getting grants is part of how we help to manage the city in the budget. I want everyone to understand what that means is when we apply for these grants, we have to be very mindful of how we are executing these grants, how we are utilizing the money and the funding so that we don't pretty much get blacklisted by people who say yes to grants for us in the city. That is important for us to know that, you know, we don't want to just not do the right thing with our grant funding and do we just want to make sure because we rely heavily on grants, we just want to make sure we're doing right by the city to make sure that we are, you know,

favorable or looked at favorably to actually get some of these grants so there was a period of time where the city was not managing its grants well as you have uh cautioned the city has implemented uh process and procedures hired a grants administrator to make sure that We are applying for grants that there is a budgeted match if it's not in-kind services, that we are meeting the deadlines, we are coming to council for approvals, and that the projects are being managed so that the reimbursements are, we can provide the documentation to obtain the reimbursement after the expenditures. So we're very mindful of these things and the city has completely flipped its reputation among the funding sources and generally in the last since the consolidated funding application process has been implemented the city has been generally successful in receiving multiple awards per funding cycle

And we want to keep that reputation. That's why I mentioned it because I don't think a lot of people in the public understand that your reputation really does play a role in receiving grants that we utilize for the city so that it doesn't come out of taxpayer pockets, out of taxpayer dollars.

mayor harvey yeah and you know to support what council member stewart is saying um we also and miss kelson just mentioned want to be mindful of any matches that are required and each one of these that are being um uh... these one of the resolutions that i don't go for vote on monday have matches and luckily they are only twenty five percent matches uh... or less uh... but looking at those cost-benefit analysis and making sure that we can afford those matches if we are granted i'm really excited about that because my question is mister morris uh... these uh... resolutions for these potential grants are for the master control plan that you've maintained for a number of years, am I correct?

Some of the grants are for the South Interceptor Improvements Project, which is a long-term CSO control plan project. One of the grants to the WEA program is for the West Trunk Sewer Project. That is not a long-term control plan project. That is a deficiency that we found in an existing sewer that's approximately six foot diameter, built in the 1880s, and we need to fix that before there's a collapse.

Before that collapse. I'm really impressed by that, and thank you for that response. But yeah, and it's really exciting to know that we are working on the southern interceptor because we completed that $30 million north interceptor relocation, $32 million, and that was a big, big deal. And we got some kind of award, right, from the DEC. And that was really great. And lastly, I want to say with the lead line replacement program,

you know this is a 3.9 million now is that did we are we applying for that or or we just received it so in addition to the 2.5 previously received a grant for lead service line inventory right and part of that inventory work requires us to survey the lead lines that are in the city right and then send those to the state department of health as part of an inventory And when that's done, we enter that information, what's called the IUP, the Intended Use Plan through New York State EFC. And when there's awards by politicians and the New York State Department of Health, they look at that IUP to determine what projects are available and then a lot of times issue their awards on that. So although we didn't specifically apply for that, the New York State government looked at the intended use plan to see the projects that might qualify and in this case we were awarded through that process.

So the city did um base it did important ground work ground level work that qualified it for priorities for additional fundings to take the next step right in we inventoried we know there are issues now we're getting money to actually undertake the repair and the improvement

so it's part of a you know it's part of a good process yeah the intended use plan which was good now when I was up at the Rockefeller Institute think tank we talked about the inventory mandate now there was a there was a state mandate but there was also a federal mandate am I correct yes it's uh us epa mandate yeah us yes us what uh us epa epa environment yes the environmental protection agency so the us epa uh mandate i think that came under the biden administration when he was when he did that that three trillion dollar um infrastructure um a bill so With this intended use plan and the $3.9 million grant for the inventory, will that also qualify for what's being mandated from the U.S. EPA?

So the mandate is for the inventory work. Right. So we submitted that inventory work and it's still a work in progress. Okay. This grant that we've been awarded is for replacement money. There's no mandate for replacement at this time. Okay. But it's a best practice and it's required when... the city's lead testing in the drinking water exceeds a certain threshold we've not exceeded that certain threshold so we don't have to replace lead lines but when there is a leak on an existing lead line we'd like to have money in reserve to give to those homeowners or those property owners because it is a very expensive process so in the past we've used this type of money for that program

Right, so I think we're up to like 2.5 million that we gave lead line replacement to homeowners and that 3.9 potentially will add to the 2.5, correct?

Right now it's a grant of $1.9 million. If the city elects to borrow additional money, which I would caution it because there's a number of issues with that, it could be up to close to $4 million. $4 million. But right now we have $1.9 million in grant money.

Grant money. That's excellent news.

And I just want to caution again that this money is more difficult to use and more expensive and time-consuming than previous lead line money. Really? Yes. because of the avenue it comes through. This comes through New York State EFC and through the New York State Department of Health, and it comes with a lot of red tape associated with it. So if you recall a council meeting ago, we had a resolution of support for Councilman Jacobson's CLEAR program. That program eliminates a lot of the red tape and allows for a direct reimbursement when a lead line is replaced. And that's the intent of his program, to eliminate the red tape associated with this grant program. Gotcha.

Thank you.

And it's a big deal because people come out of pocket with a lot of money to replace lead lines. They will curse the water department out when they see those numbers of what it looks like to replace lines. So to be able to provide some relief is absolutely great.

Thank you. Moving on to item number eight. Item eight is an agreement with Quest for asbestos testing at the recreation department. This is for asbestos and lead testing at two Quonset huts that were previously located at the rec. This work was already done and the Quonset huts were determined to be free of lead and asbestos and they were subsequently demolished. This cost is in the amount of $923 and it's coming from the engineering's 2026 budget. Any questions on this?

Yes. What if there is asbestos that's found? What happens?

If there's asbestos and it's going to be disturbed through a renovation or a demolition project, then it has to be abated.

Okay. I thought it was already taken down.

There was no asbestos found. Okay. It was clear. Moving on to item nine. Item nine is under finance. I'll go through this item real quick. This is a resolution by the city to accept donations in support of the city of Newburgh's annual events for 2026. So this is a catch-all resolution so that the city can accept donations from different entities for its various events that it hosts throughout the year. Any questions on this item?

Will we get a report on when donations come in and what they are used for, who they're from?

Yes. Moving on to item number 10, we'll hear from the IT director.

Good evening, everyone. Item number 10 is a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a service order for a firewall installation at the swimming pool, the aquatic center, at a cost of $1,202. Any questions?

Okay. Thank you very much.

I'm sorry. I don't have a question specifically about this, but it's something that was mentioned previously. There was a letter or memo that you sent to the previous city manager in regards to some thoughts or ideas that you had. And I requested for us to be able to receive it. Were you able to send that? I did. You did? Yeah. Did we get it? I don't remember.

I sent, there were several of them. I'm not sure exactly which one you're referring to. Does it have to do with the pool?

No, not the pool. It was for the wiring and the other IT stuff that you sent. Okay. I'll check for it. Thank you.

Mayor Harvey.

Yeah, how you doing, Mr. Muhammad? I'm fine, sir. Good, good. I just want to flag, because it came up in previous discussions, about I want to say a $3 million grant. it was i forget the exact amount but we we have an existing grant that we received a few years ago to purchase new cameras for um our video surveillance uh on on the streets so i want to know um hopefully we can get an update on that i've i met with um miss helen riley she's the grant manager And we still have to either purchase or use that grant funding for 30 more cameras. That's what it was. I think it was for 30 more cameras. We need to get an update on that. We need to get those cameras purchased. And I don't know if there's a sunset clause or a knockout clause with that particular grant. And every so often, even when Mr. Venning was here, I kept asking about that grant that we received for purchasing more cameras.

Yes, I heard of that grant myself. It's not an IT grant. I think it's a police department grant. I have no control over it. I can only do what I'm told to do with the funds that I have. So at this moment, I cannot provide an update, but I can get one for you if that's what you're asking.

OK. So what I'll do is I'll consult with Mr. Morris and Chief Rolla because I know if we have that grant funding and Ms. Helen Riley has said that we got to spend it, we want to make sure that we don't lose that funding so we can purchase those cameras to add to whatever. And I think it is important for you to be aware

I have made a proposal for utilizing the funds and what we can do with it. It's not my grant, and I presented it to the prior city manager.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

I just checked my emails. I don't have that, what you sent. Can you resend it?

I can. I usually send stuff to you guys via the city manager, so...

not sure if it was followed but i can thank you you're very welcome any additional questions okay thank you next we'll hear from the water superintendent for item number 11. good evening

item number 11 is a proposal with ryan briggs biggs clark davis for phase two of a concrete analysis at the water filtration plant any questions on this item all right thank you item number 12 is a personnel book amendment to add a position of bilingual clerk um this morning um one of my staff members who has 57 years of dedicated service to the city walked into my office and said i'm done i'm going to retire october 14th so i think that that gentleman's done his time I have another young lady who told me that she's very close to retiring, who's got 30-something years. And rumor is that I have two others that are possibly going all in the same division. So possibly four of my seven out of the administrative division will be retiring this year. So I'm trying to get ahead of that and get people trained up so that there's no breakdown of customer service.

Any questions on this item?

Do we have an existing bilingual cork, or this will just be a new cork? This will be the first one ever. Oh, awesome.

Thank you for trying to get ahead of... That's right.

Congratulations to those who are looking to retire. I think this is something that we should definitely jump on and I'm in full support of it.

Thank you. Is there a retirement party we should know about? It's 57 years. The city manager will let you know. 57 years is a long time. Let's thank them for the service or her.

Do we have a grade for this position, for the bilingual position yet? 15-1. 15-1. And how was that determined? Like how did you come up with 15-1?

So looking at the advanced skills that I'm going to need with the meter technology and things of that nature, looked through a bunch of different titles and I thought that one best fit what I need out of that person.

the grade and step are fixed in the CSE a correct act by title and this one is yes so once the job description is once the job description is adopted and classified by the Civil Service Commission it's added to the contract at a great and step so I we have account clerks we've created the position of bilingual clerk so that we can add the language assistance but the position the wage and the green step is the grade factor is determined by the CSE a contract and then the step ladder is also in the contract okay you will see a change in the 27 budget out of either that I will be making some changes taking some titles out just so I can keep the money kind of flat

So is that this is more of a promotional type.

No, this is this is an order by little that this is going to go out as a proper competitive title.

Yes, I want to make sure that people know that it's going to be competitive. So it's open for everyone to to fill fill out the applications resumes or whatever they have to do to

Yeah, only two of my titles out of all my titles in my department are non-competitive, but everything else is competitive. All right.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you for telling us that. All right.

Thank you, Wayne. Thank you. Moving on to item 13, we'll hear from the Director of Planning and Development.

Good evening. Item 13 is the sale of 60 Hasbrook to Raven Garcia for $50,000. This is a single family home on Hasbrook Street. It was first listed for sale by the city in October of 2024. That was immediately following a series of break-ins. you drove by this property it is the first that the city did and I think maybe the most successful we did with the metal boarding known as the dog system so it looks like a fortress right now but the the break-ins and the occupants destroyed the interior it needs to be an all-new electric all-new um plumbing it was on the market again since october of 2024 um and this is the only offer we received we received it earlier this year um we waited 30 more days as we we tend to do um and the property um is proposed to go to raymond garcia this would be his first project in this in the city of newburgh he's done renovation projects in other places and he um is a new windsor resident and connected with some of the small scale renovators here so give him a chance because it's a property that is a disaster right now and we're happy to take off our hands any questions just circle back circle back you said he's a new I was trying to listen he's a New Windsor resident correct okay he lives in New Windsor okay and he's and he's looking to purchase this property he will not live in it I'm sorry it'll be an invest he will be an investor he's looking to purchase it renovate it and rent it out

Any additional questions? Okay, moving on to item 14.

item 14 is an extension of time to close for 30 Bankard Avenue this has been in front of you for an extension previously this city the council made a offer to sell this property to a member of the police department he will live there he we came once before before you because there were issues with his title company believe and so they need an extension for that at this point that portion is resolved but the he needs another signature another person on the mortgage and so that we will now be selling this to two people it is the police officer and his mother and it's a two unit and she has personal reasons that she will be living on site as well any questions councilmember Stewart

Is this something that, Kelsen, that we talked about before, something that you work for? Yes.

So if you look, the resolution kind of reiterates the timeline. The property was authorized for sale in October of 2025 to the purchaser who is a police officer. He needed some additional time to close administratively. The city manager can grant one extension of 60 days. In the spring of, earlier this spring, we thought he had some, for his financing, he needed to be employed by the city for a full year. hadn't quite met that requirement and there were some additional issues trying to resolve title so you get title insurance which we all find to be beneficial so we thought everything would be completed by June 19th which was the end of the previous extension however the financing requirements are much tighter than anticipated he does need the support of the additional grantee the additional grantee is parent and the parent will be living in the other unit so it will be owner-occupied it meets all of our policy disposition factors and we are recommending that you approve the second extension I just wanted to make sure because I'm like I thought we heard it from you before and that it wasn't yes and in April you heard it from me because Miss Church was on her childcare leave of absence okay

Thank you. Any additional questions? All right, moving on to item 15.

item 15 is participation and cooperation in New York State DEC climate ready quarters program the city of Newburgh was invited because we're a climate smart community to participate in this program a climate ready corridor is a solution to what's known as heat island effects so this is looking to study quarters in Newark or a corridor in Newburgh that we can implement best practices to make it a cooler place to be So I don't know if there's further questions with that. One question that was pre-asked is does this add additional points to some of our things like climate smart community? Yes, it does. It qualifies for two of the programs.

Councilman McLemore.

What do you mean a cooler place to be?

I'm sorry, I did not hear that.

You said it's going to be a cooler place to be temperature-wise cool or cool like me?

Temperature-wise. This is all temperature-related.

Oh, I thought you were talking about me.

Yeah, things like, you know, an obvious one is how does tree canopy and greening affect the temperature of a corridor? How do awnings on streets affect the temperature of a corridor? You know, bioswales, things like that.

Understood. I just needed you to laugh a little bit.

No, this will be looking at just kind of best practice ideas.

great moving on to item 16. i just want to thank thank you for agreeing to be part of this study i hope that we can make jonathan uh our climate smart community coordinator in the future because we have been doing and you guys have been doing a lot of things that get us points we just haven't put them all together but i'm excited for this thank you thank you

um item 16 and 17 i'll do together item 16 is to an agreement to retain edr for grant writing assistance and item 17 is apply for and accept if awarded that brownfield opportunity area grant as i gave an update i think at the last meeting there was a question on where we are with the with the boa area the brownfield opportunity area the city has applied for numerous grants over the past year to do the next step which would be the master plan we were unsuccessful in those grants and we had some exit interviews specifically on this boa grant which is item 17 and one of the recommendations was to look for some technical assistance so this is a contract to for them to assist the city in writing that and it'll take some of the the heat off of we do write our own grants and there's a bunch on here so we'll have some help but also some recommended technical assistance this is the item 17 that the boa grant requires a 10% match so the city will budget $40,000 as a match in the 2027 budget any questions

Thank you, Ali. I want to say thank you, as was mentioned just a moment ago, for the due diligence through your department, following through with the smart climate plan and what we want to do to move forward on that. As far as the BOA is concerned, because they get calls from CDAC members, is there any way or space for them to be involved with this?

Absolutely, they would be integral in the master plan.

Okay, all right. And then also, if there's other development items and things like that, because I don't want them to get too restless, they've called me and say, hey, we need more work. So this is good news, and so I support it. Thank you.

Council Member Stewart.

The retainer grant, it doesn't have a dollar amount to it. Item seven, oh, sorry, it is for $8,000.

Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Zaria.

I think this is an example of all the important groundwork you guys have done to get us to the next level. And as we look at the multi-year financial plan, I think diversifying revenue and stuff like that makes me think, if we don't get this grant, is it possible? When will we find out if we don't get it?

So I plan, the grant is for $400,000. That would get us all the way to the finish line of rezoning. I plan to put in my budget a line item to start the master planning. So if we don't get it, we will not, short answer to your question, we will not find out until about December. That'll give us some work that we'll be able, if it's funded, that would allow us some work to do in 27 to move us forward.

okay if we get the grant then that line just wouldn't be drawn on the general fund we would use the grant funds that's what I was gonna ask I'm like can we include it in the budget either way because it seems like we need to move on indeed indeed thank you councilmember Shakur yes so as we move forward because I know I'm on that on that um are we the ones are going to implement that or

We would, so there's recommendations to make that stronger for the master planning process. So you were on as a council member and then there were also descendants of Urban Renewal. Mr. Staples was on as that descendant member. The recommendation was to have a strong, yes, plus so a stronger committee to lead that next step we were doing conceptual with the boa and once we get into the specifics I think it's important to have a descendants individual committee that works on this thank you any additional questions customers area

Oh, yeah, last question. I know that one of the recommendations was having a strong community benefits plan. Is that like mapped out during the master planning or is that? Yes. Okay. Yes.

Okay, great. Thank you. Item number 18.

Item number 18 is to apply for and accept if awarded a $200,000 grant through the New York State African-American Heritage Grant Program. This would be for the construction in the Newburgh Colored Burial Ground Memorial. I think Jason talked on this earlier about budgeting, but then also going after grants. So as some of you know, the previous council did allocate the funds to construct the burial ground. However, this grant came up. It's a perfect match. In fact, they suggested we apply. So it'll offset a small portion of it.

the construction mayor Harvey I want to give you your flowers for sending that grant to us we we were yes we it required a pre-application not everybody is even eligible to apply for this grant so miss Church submitted the pre-application and we were approved to come back and submit a full application so again if we get the grant funds offsets tax dollars to complete this project council member shakur yes so would that grant supplement what we already had for that that's the supplement right yes

I just want to say this is this has been a long time so I'm glad that we're having some movement on this and thank you to the mayor for finding this but and thank you for there's no but in that I'm just grateful that that we're moving forward with this with the colored a newer color burial ground memorial so thank you.

is is there a timeline oh sorry no go ahead i was wondering if there's a timeline for like starting construction i mean as uh as i visit the park there's a lot of questionable shady activity going on where that's going to be and it's really concerning the things i've seen up there i was just curious if there's a timeline

for the city's working with the designers on the final design at this point we hope to bid as soon as that's complete so and it's funded so shorter rather than longer but it's relative wait hold on before mayor speak i i didn't hear what he say all i heard was timeline on starting at construction and so on oh okay yeah all right

no i yeah but i want to i was asking about the timeline but also about the top of the park there there's a lot of questionable activity and a lot of things that are happening there and a lot of people have been complaining about that location up there so we can talk when we want now or do we have to go and you know is there some type of order or we should go thank you mayor harvey

thank you I want to piggyback on what was said councilman Zaria because one of the reasons why we really are excited about getting started on this project is because if the new council members have not seen the design I don't know if they have if okay If you've seen the design, it's going to be really, really well lit. It's going to be, you know, areas where people can sit, people can read the stone tablets, read the history of African American former slaves and the entire dedication. yeah there's like water fountains and it's really a beautiful beautiful design and maybe at some point ali we can bring it up and present represent it to the council and for the public we do have 1.9 million dollars that's been set aside these grants came before my desk and some of my friends in albany they heard about what was going on and they were like, oh, this would be perfect, so I was happy to share it. And I'm hoping, you know, we'll get these grants to add, as Councilman Shakur mentioned, to supplement what already funding is there. I'm always the one asking for when shovels are going to be put in the ground. And this Colored Burial project, is that how we're saying it, Colored Burial?

Yes, we have been very clearly told that that is the appropriate language to use.

So the colored burial project, it goes back probably to 2007. When we first discovered the remains of the former slaves under the courthouse when the courthouse was being remodeled or renovated and given back to the city from the school district in addition to the gas station adjacent from the courthouse across the street on 9W, there was some work done over there and there were remains discovered. So this really goes back, this colored burial project goes back to like 2007 and so to councilman's a real as a realist point I can't talk tonight to see shovels get put in the ground on this would really really be amazing so if if there's any way we can expedite you know the final design and the bidding list we would love to see we can get to it thank you item 19.

Item 19 is the same grant. Apply for and accept if awarded $50,000. This would be for an educational consultant. So as Ms. Kelson noted, there was a pre-approval process. We put together two applications, one under the construction portion of the grant and one under the education portion of the grant. We were pre-approved to apply for each of those. So the $50,000 would go towards an educational consultant for local African-American history. This would specifically do two things. One, keeping on the burial ground, landscape architects designed This, it was thoughtfully done, but there will be a series of educational panels. They were designed, again, by landscape architects, so they are currently blank. They designed the structure, but noted that we needed an educational consultant to design how, if you go there, how you can read about the history and things like that. So this will do that. And then there is also a portion of the mid-century urban renewal grant that we have through National Park Service that wasn't able to be completed. And that was to create curriculum based on the findings. So we did the oral histories. We hired the historians. hired the consultant to look at the historic district and that was all done, but we were not able to fund the last portion, which was to create curriculum. And so we would also use this to create curriculum based on mid-century urban renewal history and on this burial ground. So that's the two parts of this grant.

thank you I'm really excited about this because there is an educational component to this obviously I'm an educator a history teacher and I just to give you an example so for the last several years, I've called the Garden Club of Orange in Dutchess County. Pam Bremen used to be the president of the organization. So now there's a new president who's also a part of the Downey Park Planning Committee. And we have 50 um eighth graders that are going into the ninth grade in our bridge program for the p tech uh nfa p tech program and we're bringing 50 kids as we've done for several years from nfa north walking to downey park to do a tour of downey park and learn the history of andrew jackson downey and the olmsteads and knowing why this park exist, why it's important, why it was designed by the same designer, the Volks Brothers, as the designer of Central Park in New York City. And so if and when this comes to full fruition, there are so many opportunities for kids and even our local community adults, young adults, who are interested in green spaces and interested in local history. There's that educational component I'm really super, super excited about. And so yeah, we're bringing 50 kids to Downing Park next Tuesday with the Orange and Dutchess, Garden Club of Orange and Dutchess and the Downing Park Planning Committee. they're gonna give us a lot of like leaflets and you know give the history of the park so when this is constructed there are really wonderful educational opportunities for our young people and for our local community as well so item 20.

Item 22, schedule a public hearing for this fiscal year 2025 CDBG CAPER. That's a Community Development Block Grant Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report. That is the retrospecting, so looking back a year annual report that we do for HUD for our CDBG funds. Normally this would be done in February and March. Obviously I was out on leave, so we are doing that now. It will be held at the August council meeting, not on Monday in the one in August.

Any questions? Councilman Zaria.

CAPER is the annual report on a consolidated plan for like five years?

No, it's on the one year of your five-year plan, and it's looking back. Confusingly, we also do an annual action plan every year, and that's for the next year. So there's two plans done each year as part of your five-year plan.

Okay. When does that start again, the five-year?

We're in year two.

Oh, got it. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? All right, thank you, Allie. Moving on to item number 21. Item 21 is an agreement with Hill Treekeepers for beech tree treatment in the city of Newburgh. This is in an amount of $4,360, and it's coming from the CAC's budget line. Any questions on this item? Council member Shakur.

Actually, how many trees are there involved in there? Fifteen trees. Fifteen. And location? Are they various places?

Throughout the city, various locations. Okay. All right. Moving on to item number 22.

Item number 22 is an application for the Environmental Protection Fund grant to the State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation. So this is a grant that is connected to the new City Parks Delano Hitch project. So we had our cooperation agreement. We submitted our application for New York Plays. now there should be a little bit more community engagement and we will be submitting this grant application at the end of the month that will contribute more money toward the match that's required under New York plays if we're awarded this grant so this is just the next step in that process of the Delano Hitch Park playground project

any questions i just want to let everyone know that they are having a community engagement center session july 15th on wednesday at 6 p.m at the rec center so if people want to see the draft plans and and make comments of what you would like to see i personally would like to have the have it find a way to connect to the sacred greenway as well there is a master plan for that but i'm going to share my comments at the community engagement session july 15th wednesday at 6 p.m at the rec center

council member mclemore thank you for that information but how how besides saying it here are we getting that information out where how is the communication being distributed spread throughout the entire community so that way everyone is aware of of this information and they can have that discussion there's flyers posted on the city's website social media and they're also available and posted at the aquatic center and at the activity center

I also last time I paid my personal funds to boost the Facebook post to make sure everybody in the community got it and that's how there was a lot of engagement and I plan to use them again to make sure we get as many people as possible also if we could all help spread the word that would be great right and and you know that's that's great do we have anybody else that or any other other type of promotional means as far as going out handing out flyers or anything like that throughout the community

So I'm just trying to hit all avenues so people don't come back and say that they did not know.

I would encourage anyone who has the Facebook post to repost it and share it.

And if you want additional flyers to distribute in the community, I'm sure we can print up some more within City Hall. Okay?

And our council people are talking to everybody in the city, so they should get the message.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

any additional questions okay moving on to item number 23 this is a resolution to apply for to the new york state office of children and family services youth development program grants youth sports and education program this is for various programs at the city's recreation department for the 2027 calendar year Item number 24, we'll hear from Fire.

This is a resolution for the city manager to apply and accept, if awarded, a fiscal year 2025 Department of Homeland Security Assistance to Firefighters grant. This will be for $50,000 with a 10% match of approximately $4,545. This will be to purchase extrication tools, hydraulic extrication tools. Currently, all our tools are 20 years old. and they can be maintained but they cannot be repaired if they break. So we are looking to go to battery operated hydraulics with this grant.

Questions? Mayor Harvey?

thanks chief i definitely support this uh grant application i wanted to um just mention to you and to the council members that um i'm going to re-engage the new bergen large city school district for looking at potential pathways now that they're they're going to be opening up the cte building the career technical education building and I know they already have like EMS training and they also have security license training which would fall under PD but if just want to make you aware I'm going to re-engage the superintendent and her executive team on figuring out how we can create clear pathways from career technical education in a number free Academy to the civil service exam for fire and potentially recruitment to our wonderful all paid fire department which would which would help you know, get some of our local kids from the three municipalities, New Windsor, the town of Newburgh, and the city. And I've been trying to get that going for a number of years, but now that you're in the new leadership position, I want to make sure you're aware, and also Chief Rolla, because I know they can go directly from CTE, NFA, academy field to the fire academy at 18 years of age. Am I correct?

If they, with us, they'd have to pass the test, but we do. Right, if they pass the test. Currently, we've had four, the last year, we had four interns from the NFA West. Oh, wow. We did have four interns. One, Cameron Ford. Yes. that you're aware of. He just graduated and he was part of our program for two years. And one of our other, we have several past members that said they are going to take the next available test and try to get on a job with us.

So that is already moving. Thank you for that update because yeah i've been i've been wanting to help in that effort because i know if they pass the civil service exam you know at 18 they can get into fire service and do 20 years and be done before they're 40 if they go directly from high school to fire so that's awesome and i know some of our kids also volunteer uh in the other municipalities that have volunteer firefighters thank you okay yep yep councilmember mclemore

So, Chief, I just wanted to know, because we do have this grant, you said 20 years. These tools have not been replaced in 20 years. So what's the lifespan of some of these tools, and why did it take us 20 years for this to come up?

So the lifespan is basically like everything else up to the manufacturer. The tools still work. The problem is the manufacturer stopped supporting them. So we can still get the parts to maintain O-rings, things like that, but the major parts are not being produced. We're getting to the part now where they're 20 years old. The first set came with the 2005 ladder truck. then we bought used to replace our older equipment but it's all the same age so even though we may have only had the second set for 15 years it's still 20 years old they still perform but they are starting to leak and it became a concern from some of the members and we thought this was the time now to switch to the hydraulic battery operated that just about everybody else is going to And it's very expensive. As you can see, we're applying for $50,000. That gets us one spreader, one cutter, and a small and a large RAM. You're only getting four pieces of equipment, batteries and chargers that go with that. So it's very expensive.

thank you and i and i definitely agree with what the mayor said um as far as with that because even with me um coming going from nfa to becoming a police officer now i see that in my son coming you know it's it's it's transitional and i think that that's something important thank you

It is, it's very, I ran into one of our past interns from time to time and then I talked to him and he's gonna take it and it's gonna be kinda neat if I get to see any of these people that went through the internship program take and pass the test and come on.

and we see that in the police department as well so you know a lot of newberg residents are on the police department so i think that's commendable that we're hiring our our newberg residents um to to you know to work for our city this is what we call home so any additional questions all right item number 25.

Item number 25 is to sign an agreement with the New York State Division of Homeland Security so that we can send members of the fire department, new members, probationary members to the fire academy at Montour Falls. We currently have six openings. we can typically only get two to four in the Westchester County Academy and last last year I was only in this in the Winter in the spring session. I was only able to get three in We're going to try to split and get a couple in Westchester and a couple at Montour Falls and we need to sign this agreement to send our members there Any questions All right, thank you chief

Moving on to items 26, we'll hear from the police chief.

Good evening. I just want to give the council a quick update on the PD bike unit and foot post. We found ourselves in a situation where most of the bike unit personnel had retired or been promoted, so they were therefore unavailable. We also had to service all of our bikes. We have about seven. They needed normal servicing from wear and tear to be able to put out. I'm proud to say in the last month we were able to get all the bikes serviced as well as get five new officers certified and a sergeant to oversee the unit. Since then we've been able to accomplish several bike details throughout the city and we plan on maintaining that throughout the summer and into the fall. As far as foot posts, we also made a conscious effort in the coming into June and into July to get officers out. We have been able to accomplish several dedicated foot posts as well as more intermittent as available foot posts as well as we're in the season now of the events where PD is handling and being a big part of the barbecues that are going on outside we were just part of the armory event against violence and june 27th we were able to be a large part of the puerto rican day celebration event the pride on the green event and several other community events where we're trying to get out there and we'll continue that throughout the summer where you go councilmember mclemore

I want to say thank you for that, Chief, for the update, because that's community policing. That's something that we've been asking for as far as interaction with the community, and we've seen it. Matter of fact, on Johnson Street, I've seen a video of the officers playing football with some of the children, the people in the neighborhood. That's something that's important. You guys were out there today. So I've seen you over and over and over, not personally you, but the men and women that are working. I've seen you guys and this is something that's going to help us further prevent and deter certain activities and quality of life situations. Thank you once again for having your guys out there. Just a little bit of encouragement to keep having them do these things that will foster relationships and interaction with our community because it means a great deal, especially to those. those children who are been fed a negative narrative about police and you know I think that it would transform their minds to see that policing isn't something that is antagonistic but it is also beneficial to each and every one of us so thank you once again for having your your guys out there once again keep having them out there it's good to see them and that's great community policing

there are be.

Chief roller, thank you for the update. I was just speaking before the meeting started tonight. The council mission core about some of those same items about the full patrol. The bike unit. I'm excited about that. There was a is a retired police captain from Newark, New Jersey, who former Captain Peppers, his son played for the New York Giants, but that's not relevant. But he used to do, I guess, a bi-monthly Captain's Corner event or something like that, where he would have like social workers and potential employers like people from the Labor Department and and various different agencies doing like a you know an event like a community blitz right where he and all these different agencies would come out they would feed the community and they would do like a You know, if people needed mental health, had mental health concerns, you had an agency that dealt with mental health. You had another agency that dealt with Department of Social Services or another agency that dealt with the labor and potential employment, right? And he called it the captain's corner. It was like a community blitz event. And I would love, you know, I've got about a year and a half left as mayor. I would love for you and I and the council and the city manager maybe potentially looking at something like that because we all do get some discretionary funds. And just like they do the movie events where PD is, you know, grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, you know, that would be some of the stuff that we could join PD with doing. And having like, you know, those different agencies present for the community, like a community blitz. You know, obviously you want to try to do it in warm weather, so it would be spring, summer, or early fall before the winter. So maybe it's something like that. We can put our heads together with council members and do something like that in each ward, you know, one ward per whatever, you know. But I would love to explore that. But I thank you for all the work that you're doing in your leadership role, especially like tonight with the movie nights. people really love that um the kids love it um and I I too as Councilman McLemore mentioned I saw the video with some of your officers um throwing the football you know that that went viral by the way and it was really a good look for our police department because it shows um our men and women in uniform in a different light And that's really awesome, man. So keep up the great work on that effort. And I just want to say thank you and put that ideal in your head. Council Member Stewart.

yes I just wanted to echo what Councilman Macklemore said and now also the mayor about what it looks like for community policing it is not an easy thing to do it's not an easy fix is not a quick fix this is something that I liked what you said when you came to the community meeting for the Mullins it's a partnership with the community and i want to share that the meeting that we had at the mullins chief roller showed up with several of his officers and it was really a great interaction between the police department and the community and one of the things that was highlighted was how responsive they have been in the mullins with the community members and really showing an exemplary way of how the community works with the police department to get the outcome that they are looking for. We had the chief came and it was similar to the football situation. The residents were texting. It was like, wow, they out here playing basketball with the kids on the court. and some of them are walking around they're handing out water and just being engaged it really just allowed the residents to feel seen and also have a different level of trust for those officers because they were talking to them about getting rid of some elements that were there and they partnered with the residents to actually get rid of it in that moment and that was really great to see that the residents stepped up, police stepped up, they called them, they were right there. And that's what we want to see. But every time, just like I said, during that meeting, we want to make sure that we highlight when we do see it, we recognize it. And, you know, sometimes we get a bad rap for the police community relations and we hold them accountable as we should. But when there is good happening, we also want to highlight that as well to make sure that people know that it's not an all bad situation and it's not just like one bad pill will spoil the whole bottle so thank you for showing up that day I know you had something to do but the residents really appreciate it and your guys stayed to the end and engaged with all of the residents and they are still talking about that today so thank you

Councilmember Shakur.

Yes. The police, they were having fun on Liberty Street and South William Street. They were out there shaking hands and having fun and everything. But come to find out, they were working with the field studio because a homeowner who came home at 4.30 and wanted to park her car in the blocks where we live, I went over and asked the police officer could, you know, the lady could remove the cone and he was like, no, you can't do that. We were working for the for the film studio.

But how the department that we our taxes paid them every day to work in our community. But that day they were working for the film people. It was fun and everything. But as a councilman, when I asked him could we just move that, basically he said they were working for the film company. So when do our taxes come in? When do they work for us? because they were having fun out there. I had never seen them in the community having fun like that. So I'd like to know how much they were paid, and I would like to hire them and put them in certain parts of our community and interact with our kids and stuff like they were interacting with that studio and stuff. Because it was all smiles and everything. But I don't see them smiling in our community, walking and patrolling and doing this every day when we see their taxes. So how did they do that for that day, but they don't do it every day with the money we're paying them? So how is that not possible? Because I haven't seen that in our community.

Councilmember Stewart.

Yes, I just have one quick question about the foot patrol. What is that going to be extended into Ward 3? Because I know when sometimes when we have initiatives with patrol and different things, I don't really see, I don't really know. I would like to see more visibility to see if they are extended out to the west end for foot patrol and also bike patrol.

The primary foot post is two officers assigned to Broadway. We try and have them cover the extent of Broadway. We also have our radio patrol cars trying to do intermittent stop and walks, and we try and spread that out through the city. We also try and focus those walks in areas where there's a lot of businesses and a lot of foot traffic, but we can certainly look at those locations and make sure we're spreading it out.

council members um i i i know this the streets are getting hot and there's shootings in different areas of the city i was driving down south street and it was mid-afternoon and then i found out i got an email about another shooting um so i know You guys are going out there and risking your lives and I wake up sometimes at 3 in the morning and see sirens flying by my house and know you guys are answering to calls while I'm resting in my bed. So I just wanted to thank you and the rest of the team that are... There's no easy answers to these questions. They're so interlaced with economics, family dynamics, historic things that there's no really easy answers and I know for a fact that you can't arrest people out of these problems and that they're deep. So I don't have the easy answer, but I do wanna thank you and the team that sacrificed your lives leaving home and going into situations that you don't know what's gonna happen to protect us.

All right, moving on to item number 27, we'll hear from Corporation Counsel.

Item number 27 is the continuation of the administration of the Newburgh Arts and Cultural Commission Art Biz program for 2026. So previously, the council approved a contract to hire an administrator to help us run the program. We put out a call for the teaching artists who will be actually conducting the classes for the students. And the cultural commission has a subcommittee. They solicited the applications, reviewed the applications. They have recommended five of the applications, five artists who are gonna conduct the art workshops, one each of the Saturdays. So those individuals are Judy Thomas, who will be working with printing and different types of print projects. Roxanne Contreras, who will be working with binding, book binding, and those kinds of storytelling workshops. Adam Edwards, who will be doing a drum making workshop, which I find to be the most interesting of all of them, something new and different. Cesar Castro, who will be working on casting and mold making. And Ashley Van Houten, who will be working on making vases. And so the point is for, yeah, Coil Pot Vases is her project. uh so you have in your packets the teaching artist contract that we're asking you to approve the application of each of the recommended artists and a full list of all the artists who were recommended and who also applied so there'll be one workshop starting on the 18th of july one each weekend and then the students who participate and who create a project will be able to show those uh works in a curated art show on the last week of the program so tonight so this step in the process is the approval of the teaching artist contracts we'll get them signed they've already submitted uh supply lists and we're uh soliciting uh students and kids in the community to come out and participate in these workshops councilmember mclemore

Yes, I just wanted to say I'm definitely in favor, but I like the workshop, Adam Edwards workshop. Which one? With the drums. That is amazing because I've been a drummer all my life. So I would love to see. They're talking about making the drums in a workshop, hands-on workshop, where the students build their own frame drums. I even got my drums. I got artwork.

The goal was to come up with a diversified list of artists in our community and a diversified list of different art projects so that the students, the kids can see the breadth of what artists are, what they do and the different types of materials and how broad the spectrum really is.

Music is life, so yeah.

I have two questions. This is great. I'm sad that we can't be a part, like, participate. I love the vase making whole thing. That's great. And bookbinding. The show at the end, where does that take place?

So this is the first day that we're doing, that the program is gonna include an art show. I'm not sure we have a specified location. The Arts and Cultural Commission will meet in two weeks and I will have more information about specific detail they're looking at a couple of different facilities in the city that would have the appropriate space once we have nailed down a location that can accommodate if we need a facility agreement or some other approval we'll definitely bring that to council but as soon as we have that information we'll be working on public relations and getting that information out to the community so people can come and view just like they do other student art shows that we have in the various school districts where the students are just presented either in the school pursuant to another program or out in some of the shopping malls Orange County also displays a number of County students art projects in in in the malls thank you are we able to pop in to see like when they have in this um yeah as soon as I'll get all the locations together from I from the project manager and we'll get you the location of where the workshops are gonna take place so if you have the time and you can stop by and see how many students are participating in what they're actually doing yeah we'll get you all that information any additional questions

Moving on to item number 28. Item number 28 is the City of Newburgh's Hometown Heroes Military Banner Program. I will let Councilmember McLemore introduce this as this is his initiative.

So first of all, I wanted to thank the Christian Ministerial Fellowship, especially Reverend Nelson McAllister, who wanted this program to come forth. uh for a while and um um i let him know that we were actually initiating this so he is extremely excited and happy um so thank you once again thank you for your hard work on this um to the executive team um for putting this in motion this the hometown heroes military banner program recognizes those who are currently serving or who have honorably served in the United States Armed Forces and pays tribute to our living and deceased veterans. The purpose of this is to make sure that we give honor and tribute to those who have served and so I've been getting a lot of phone calls and And so I'm grateful that this program is going forward, especially for those who really want to honor their family members.

Any questions? Council Member Stewart.

yes so we've gotten a couple of responses in regards to the program so I wanted to look a little more into it who will be administering this this program like who's going to do it so the applications will be submitted to the city clerk and from the city clerk they will be reviewed and implemented by the superintendent Public Works okay uh from what i saw and what i was reading is that there is a um there is payment that is required for them to put up banners right correct and so what it was what it seemed i asked my uncle and he was like yeah that's that pay for play kind of thing if you have money then you're able to get up a banner so i just wanted to see is there a criteria for the banners that are put up or the people who that are elected I'm sorry not elected the people that are recommended to go on the banners and what if a family doesn't have the funds to do it is there like sponsorship or something so this is not a recommendation there's not as if there's not a per se selection period there are you have there is eligibility criteria which is in the program

So you have to have military service record, currently serving, past serving, honorable discharge. There is criteria. There's links to the website that tell you how you determine whether it's credible military service you have to be a city of Newburgh resident or immediate family member of a city of Newburgh resident this is not a program unique to the city of Newburgh these programs exist all over the state and it is not a taxpayer funded program so it is funded by those who wish to honor their loved ones or some other or or themselves who have provided the service so there may be an an interpretation or a perspective that it is somehow pay to play um and i and it's not intended exclude anybody because we're not the city is not exercising any discretion in who can apply and who can submit an application and get a banner the criteria is here if you have issues about the criteria you can make comments on the criteria but when there's no committee that is going to say yay or nay you're either eligible or you're not

No, the reason why I ask is because what if you have a family that would like to honor their person that they don't have the money to do it? Is there another option like sponsorship or something that is available for them to do it?

We're not gonna ask where the funding source comes in, if they have a sponsor who can make the payment. We're not gonna be vetting this.

No, I know that. I'm asking, if a family says, Councilman McLemore, I would like to do it, but I don't think we can cover this cost. Is there another option? Is there something else that we can find for a family that says that they may not have the cost? What is the actual cost for a banner? $375 75 so what if they don't have that is there like some sponsorship that they can apply for or get or something like that.

The city is not running a sponsorship right if there's something privately private like if you know what I was going to say privately but that's something that we can all look into and make sure that we you know see if we can recommend if they have yeah.

it was just about the equity of you know if you got 375 dollars then you can do it but what if you don't have 375 dollars then that means you can't honor your loved one and you know in the banner program so we just want to see if there was an option for people who don't have the money to actually do it yeah council members are real how are people going to find out about this are going to be going to be flyers and i'm just kidding

Are you trying to play with me? Are you trying to play with me? I've already talked to the Christian .

Any additional questions? All right, moving on to item number 29, city manager search, RFP. At this point, the city council has all the responses to the proposals. There were 12. We can discuss the details of the individual proposals in executive session if you so choose. Yes, okay. Moving on to item number 30, charter review commission budget.

so this item was requested by councilmember Monteverde who is not present at the work session tonight in your materials you have a resolution that was drafted by some other person that councilmember Monteverde wanted you to consider I have also drafted a resolution that I think is actually appropriate based on what the purpose is so I Under the state law and the local law, the commission can undertake, if they choose, to hire consultants and experts and whoever they want. The city is obligated to fund the payment of those expenses. um we the city does if you're going to do that now you would have to amend the 2026 budget to create a line similar to what we did for the public works department because there is no line right now so the comptroller has provided a proposed budget line as of right now there is no funding source available to transfer into this line at this time but I don't know that all of this other additional information that's in this resolution is necessary or appropriate and since council members Monteverde is not present tonight I don't know whether the rest of the council members want to discuss the item defer the item that's entirely up to you comments or questions

we going in order or council members area i mean i do think it's important to uh to fund the commission um as far as where it comes from where it comes from i don't think we have do we just state our opinion or

So there's, again, the 2025, the 2026 budget did not contemplate this. The council created a charter review commission. We are in the, process right now of receiving applications for people who would like to be appointed to this Commission the earliest that council would be able to appoint the Commission members would be August and that might be a little aggressive but that August council meeting is a possibility assuming that that's the timeline the Commission would have to organize itself have a meeting and determine its processes and that's not going to happen until the fall my recommendation previously is that you could is that you should address this in your 2027 budget process um to the extent that the commission may in fact occur incur an expense in 2026 you would have time to amend the 2026 budget at that time you don't need to do it now and i don't know where in the 2026 budget there would be money to transfer that's something that you would have to examine with the controller

well I mean I think our deputy departed with minimum days notice and we have a line to pay for a deputy and we haven't replaced them so it sounds like there's there's a budget line for a deputy that doesn't exist right now it's vacant it will be vacant there's not gonna be any that gets us back to vacancy budgeting okay that's exactly what vacancy budgeting is well I think yeah mean in my opinion I think we should this is really important and I think we should tap into the general fund or ask the enterprise funds to give not just kidding that was that was a bad joke too I would I would personally I think it's important to fund this and I don't I don't want to bring on a charter review with no guidance and have regular members of the community that are that are being tasked with reviewing our charter and not have a consultant and legal.

So let's understand how the process works. The council is not going to be retaining the consultants. The way the state law reads and the way the local law reads is the commission gets to decide this, okay?

Yes, but they need funding.

maybe they do they haven't been established yet they haven't had a discussion you are pre you are establishing a predetermination of what the commission should or shouldn't do and i think that's inappropriate

So, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Let's take a step back. The conversation was is that there will be a consultant or there may be a consultant. So, I don't think that it is predetermining anything. The conversation was is that the commission, once it is established, could possibly have a consultant. So, this is not... saying it's a predetermination is basically saying that if they do get one, we should be able to allocate money for it. I don't think it was.

That's not what this resolution says.

I know that, but I'm just remarking on that because it seemed like it was like a heavy pushback on it. The commission is going to be established once the commission is established. If the commission feels like they need a consultant to help them with that process, then they will let us know if that is the case. And then we will, the council will talk about allocating a funding source for that or allocating funding for it. So I don't think it's a predetermination of anything. It is If they need it, we will talk about or determine if we can find money for them to have it.

just like we prepare for every other project we establish we apply for bonds and then we apply for grants when we decide as a council to create a commission they will need funding and this is not predetermining this is laying down the groundwork like we do for every single project we envision so well you you got that's fine that's what my resolution proposes to do

okay but you have two versions of a resolution in here and you said that yours was pretty much um the recommendation the recommended one and that's fine so we look at the two you figure out which one you're gonna have uh do we have to determine that now for monday um if you want to adopt a resolution i can't so either i can establish i can so the right now the draft

contemplates two things it contemplates establishing creating the budget line and transferring some unknown amount of money from some unknown place yes the second page mayor second page you can so I These are the steps kind of consolidated with some blanks because I don't have access to the information or the authority to fill in those blanks. You don't have to do all of those things at the same time. So you could have a resolution amending the budget to just create the budget line and have it be blank and at some future council meeting transfer money from line from some other source to that new budget line so it could be done in one resolution it could be done in multiple resolutions i don't think you need to do all of it on monday night you don't have to do any of it on monday night you could do it next month you could probably even do it in early september and still be ahead of the game okay that's you know so I get well I need some direction about what the council's preference is as we head into Monday night and preparing the voting meeting agenda so we can't move on until I have some of that direction

don't have any issues going with the one that you drafted I read it it seemed like it was concise you have expertise in putting these Commission's together and know how to do it I'm fine with it and again I appreciate that and again the question is I don't have

can't tell you sitting here right now that you have X number of dollars from X budget line to transfer in okay so that I'm not in position to do for Monday night what I could do is modify this and at least establish the budget line so that it's present it's there and you can work with again the comptroller you can work with the city manager to see where we might have specific amount of money and I can prepare a second resolution for a future council meeting but the actual dollar actual for the actual dollar transfer yes okay I think that's the best route create the line item and wait till there's a majority of us here to discuss

Are there any objections to moving forward with Michelle's resolution? OK. Great. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I need a motion to go into executive session. Second.

Opposed?