Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody.

Well, that's because there's too many people talking behind you, Emily. I'm going to pull out the old Dr. Martin trick and go like this and make everybody be quiet. For those of you who remember Dr. Martin. Good evening and welcome to the June 10th, 2026 Portsmouth Town Council meeting tonight. We'll be specifically reviewing, it's a public hearing for our budget that has been provisionally approved. It's been advertised for a month. So if anybody has any questions, you're allowed to come up and speak. If in event of an emergency... We would ask you to please exit through the door you came, the exit that is behind you over your left shoulder or behind Mr. Reese. We will exit in an orderly fashion, head over to the school committee building, and we will wait for further instructions from our first responders. Now, if you would all please rise and join me for a Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence for our men and women in harm's way.

Pledge of Allegiance. We do applaud Adam.

Thank you, everyone. So on Monday night, there were a couple of adjustments made to the budget. Mr. President. Oh, roll call. We're all here.

I don't do a lot for most meetings, but this is one. Mr. Gleason?

Here.

Ms. Plank? Here. Ms. McDowell?

Here.

Ms. Patton? Here. Mr. Payero?

Here.

Mr. Reese? Here. Mr. Hamilton?

I am here. Okay. I'll start over again. Monday night, we made a couple of adjustments to the budget. We moved some money out of the civic support fund. from the Prudence Island School Foundation to our contingency fund. And we also set the final sticker fee for curbside pickup at $569. And those adjustments were made and loaded up yesterday and today. We're going to do this plain and simple. Right from the top of the budget, we're going to look at our revenues. Nothing in the revenues has changed as of yet. The budget has passed, but there's really no extra money for us in the budget from this General Assembly. So unfortunately, with the General Assembly heading out of Dodge by tomorrow or Friday and the budget being passed through the Senate and the house, I don't see any changes coming up anytime soon. I haven't heard if the governor hasn't signed it as of yet, right? So I don't see any chance for us to have a bump in our revenues from the state level. So that being said, that's where we will start on our revenue page, which is up in the screen in front of you. So our total revenue summary for fiscal year 2027 is $79,166,565, which represents a 2.69% increase over 2026. Anybody have any questions on the revenues? No? Okay. We're going to roll down to our first department. First up is our wonderful town council budget. Mr. Morris, you have a question? No, you would have to have changed out all your pages.

I was asked, were we given the new pages?

For the two changes from last night? No. No. But all the previous changes, yes, you should have those. Mr. Morris, I'm sorry. Go ahead. You have a question?

A comment, please. Sure. Local property tax.

We're past that, but sure. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. President. Larry Fitzmaurice, 50 Christian Court. I want to say that the Portsmouth Concerned Citizen is very pleased with this budget. It represents a second year of a very moderate tax increase. We calculate what we think is the most important number, and that is the year-over-year tax increases for people who own houses. In other words, not new houses, established ones. And this year being a re-evaluation, it varies from one house to another. But generally speaking, it looks like it's around 1%. So that following the current year is 0.7%. constitutes a very small increase two years in a row. And as far as I can remember, This is the best two years in a row the taxpayers have had. So I want to thank the council for that. Especially want to thank the majority's leadership in this area, both this year and last year to make this happen. So it's a very positive thing. And I want to acknowledge that it is because we stand up here most of the time and say we don't like the the budget as it is so this year we're willing to take it it's a good budget i want to thank that all the people involved with making these decisions i also see three copies of the budget present i want to acknowledge that and that's about it Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Morris. I think the only other year that would have been better was the two years in a row would have been the one year that we had a decrease back in.

Yeah, but that wasn't followed by a good year.

No, it wasn't. But a decrease is always good.

But it is important to recognize that one year we actually did have a decrease in property.

Hopefully we'll have one again.

It's possible, but it's not.

Hopefully we'll have that again someday. But thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Appreciate that. All right. So now we'll go on to our town council budget, uh, page, which is on Kathy already. It's beaten me too. Very good. Town council budget is set at $16,698, which represents a 8.24% decrease over the previous year because, uh, the $2,000, the thousand dollars for the post-prom and the $500 for the, um, Portions of the Education Foundation were moved into civic support out of the Town Council budget. That's the primary driving factor there. Any questions on the Town Council? Anybody in the audience want to vote us a raise? No, just kidding. Next up, we have our Town Administrator's budget, which is set to increase by 5.94%. To a total of $398,493. Just give us a page number. We are on page 27 of the book. And if you're following along online, it's number 33 of the PDF. Thank you. Unfortunately, I hate when PDFs do that. I have the PDF up. It's 27. It's 27, but if you look at the number up top, it's 33. Oh, sorry. So if you look at the top, you go 33, I'm on 27, and you'd be back in the revenue section. Any questions on the town administrator's budget?

Okay.

Kathy, will you just let me know if there's a hand up? I don't have Zoom up and running, please. Thank you. Oh, I do have Zoom up and running. Okay. All right. Next up, we have our town clerk budget. Total for the town clerk is $559,677, which is a 3.35% increase of $18.147. Primary drivers were benefits and longevity pay for clerks and the town clerk who have stuck around for a long time and run the department very well. Any questions on the town clerk budget? Next we have canvassing, which always goes up in an election year. So this year we have an increase of 28.55% to $403,760, primarily for election expenses due to upcoming primaries and also the general election in November. Anyone with questions on canvassing? Next up we have finance. which has a 4.5% increase to a total of 1,175,282. Again, primary drivers on that are benefits and salary increases. Any questions on finance? HR budget has a increase of 7.66%. for a total of $2,244,694. Primary drivers on that is a large increase in our OPEB expenses to help cover other post-employment benefits. It's the biggest driver in that budget. Any questions on HR? Legal expenses. Legal expenses have been broken out a little bit cleaner. We have our solicitor, our assistant solicitor for prosecution, which is the primary driver for increase this year. The increase is 11.29% for a total of $289,900. Any questions on legal expenses? IT is next. We have a decrease in IT. We have removed to a contract-based IT support and also relying on our friends at the school department for help as well. So we have a decrease there of $16,676 or 4.002%, total of $397,728. Any questions on IT? Tax office. We have a decrease of 2.32. Total budget of $587,811. Primary driver on that was this was a big revaluation year, so we haven't put as much money aside for the next evaluations. We do put money aside because every three years we have to go through this. Any questions on tax?

Planning.

Our planning office has been reconfigured over the past two years to include the functioning of the planning board as well. Expenses went up a modest 0.63% at $565,352. Any questions for planning? All right. Building officials which also falls underneath a planning department in general That budget increased by ten point four nine percent Primary driver and that was a raise for our contract services, which are outside contractors who do our electrical and plumbing inspections Made the total amount to be four hundred thirty one thousand eight one hundred thirty one thousand fifty eight dollars Any questions on the building official budget Planning board is now underneath the planning department, so we don't have to check on that. Economic development, modest increase of 2.78%, 53,741, primarily due to increases in a salary. Any questions for our economic development for Mr. Talipsky? Our police department, who do a fantastic job for us and, uh, I think we all appreciate them. Came in with a modest increase of 0.21% at $8,530,224, which is an increase of just over $18,000. Any questions for our police budget? Prudence Island Public Safety Officer, our one gentleman, Joe, who lives out there and maintains peace on Prudence Island, a modest increase of 5.11%. to $138,759. Any questions on prudence?

All right.

Animal control. This year, it went up by 5.58%. Primarily, Dreherifer is there. Longevity for $143,258. I think we all think she does a wonderful job. So any questions on animal control? Our Harbormaster budget, 6.94% increase to $145,032. Primary driver on that is, again, the Harbormaster salary and then also an establishment of an abandoned boat fund of $5,000 for all the wonderful abandoned boats that we have laying around. And also the reserve fund, which was increased a little bit to help purchase a new boat or repair the existing one if it breaks. questions for our master fire department one another wonderful department of ours everybody loves the fire department luckily i didn't have to call them last night i just held my thumb together and went to the hospital fire department budget increase of 2.63 percent um primary drivers on that are salaries and health benefits which was a large increase um Total $8,426,793. Questions on fire department? Prudence Island Fire Department, which was pulled out of the civic support and now falls underneath the fire department budget, was a four point four six percent increase at two hundred twenty four thousand five hundred ninety seven dollars. Primarily drivers was increased for the chief above and beyond what he requested. And stipends were also increased for our volunteers. Any questions on Prudence Island? Uh, safety fire grants. This was a safer grants will be, that'll be the last year. We'll see this in the budget. It's just a carryover from 2024. Uh, emergency management for Mr. Ray Perry, uh, has an increase of zero. The $69,250. Uh, Ray does a fantastic job and probably puts in more than the, uh, allotted time that he's supposed to be here. Any questions on emergency management? Public Works, an increase of 4.73% to $3,571,375. Public Works did yeoman's work this year, getting us through snowstorms that miraculously disappeared two weeks later, but managed to get us all out in two to three days. Any questions on Public Works? Snow removal, which took a beating last year, was a 13% increase to cover some of the new expenses, specifically for the overtime. Total increase, $18,532 to $161,205. Kayla, did we exhaust the reserve?

At this point, we did, but I have not moved any money over to the reserve. Everything is in the general fund still, hoping that the general fund will absorb it.

Okay, great. Any questions on snow removal? Road improvements. We are again committed to repairing the town roads in town. We reiterate that the town roads. Please don't call us about East Main Road, West Main Road and other state roads. This is the repair of town roads, although we are seeing some nice work on the state roads this year. So road improvements, a modest increase of $404 to $1,170,404. So that'll see a good amount of roads being paved, repaired, and taken care of. Prudence Island Transfer Station is a total of $137,712 for a 8.23% increase. Any questions on the transfer station on Prudence Highland? The recreation budget has an increase of 9.27% to $451,132. Primary drivers on that are some camp expenses and also health insurance as well. Any questions on recreation? All right. Parks, which is primarily Melville at this point in time, is at 49,219, which is 173,000, 173.44%, because we have added the park steward position into this budget. We have a part-time park steward who's doing a great job of cleaning up the park, maintaining trails, and working with DPW to coordinate any major repairs. Any questions on the parks? Civic support. This is where we saw the adjustment on Monday night where $25,000 was removed from the Prudence Island School Foundation and put into the contingency fund. So they went from $50,571 to $25,571. Should they actually need the extra $25,000, it is in the budget, but they will have to come back to us and request it. And the other primary driver for the increase of the 1.38% to $921,010 was the extra $16,000. Now the senior center is back open full-time. Any questions on the civic support? School department. The total school budget for fiscal year 2027 is $49,733,662. I tried to get away real cheap with the schools this year. I think Chris just had a heart attack. For a 3.11% increase. Primary drivers there, again, is cut in state aid funding. The formula, they gave us a whole $66,000 more. We did get a little bit of a good dump in the cost of higher special education costs. But in our local appropriation, it went up 2.9%. Primary driver on that was health care benefits. Any questions about the school department, Mr. Gleason? In general, they're doing a good job, wouldn't you say? I would say that schools are doing a great job. I could tell you what I would like to see cut and moved around, but they don't. Not tonight. Thank you, school department. Please save us all. Yes. Nope. Doing a great job. It's been a great academic year and a great sports year. And a lot of kids going to very great schools. They get nice higher educations coming up next year, which is fantastic. Capital Improvement Plan. Various projects throughout the town. I'm not going to go through them all, but for $847,941, they cover things from Glen Manor repairs, painting of the building here, IT replacements, equipment for the police department, and recreation upgrades to our fields. Any questions on the CIP? We now have added in the public safety capital improvement plan status. That was not in the original budget, but it is now. Scroll down one more page. There we go. So that shows you 2023 when we started it. We used opera money to get it kick-started it. And then we've been adding in about $600,000 a year over the past couple of years in order to help maintain a fund to take care of purchases of large equipment and also general expenses for gasoline and diesel for our trucks and police cars.

I have a question for this. On page 70, if we can go back, under the recreation for cogshell, demo, baseball fields, I just wanted to see. Oh, okay, it is. The Glen Park playground was out of that. Okay. The updated part. That's fine. Okay. Thank you.

And again, that 162 is a placeholder to help pay for... a hopeful grant, a congressional-directed spending, which used to be called earmarks. And if we don't get that, that will stay in there to start a fund to take down Cogshell and move into a new baseball field. So it won't be spent on anything else. That's the direction from this council back in April. Any questions on the public safety capital improvement? Debt service, we don't have a lot falling off this year. We've got a couple of years for that to fall off. We will be seeing a increase in the next few years, which is why there's some extra money in some capital in other areas. If the school department's bond requests for new upgrades to the middle school roof, Eighth grade wing, I'm going to miss all these projects, but those are the primary big drivers, those two projects. It's give or take $11 million to replace the roof at the middle school. So those are the primary drivers, so the bond will be going forward in November, and if it is approved, we'll have to make an interest payment at the end of next fiscal year of 28, right? June 30, 2028. Yes. Yes. So we'll have to use some money that's in the budget this year and then more money for next year to try and make that as least painful as possible. So our total debt service for FY27 drops about $106. $15,000, give or take. I'm just doing that math off the top of my head. Next year, it drops down another $16,000. The next big thing to drop off, I believe, is the... What drops off next? Nothing big. The 2015 pond, I think, is the next one to drop off. It's about $160,000. So... Any questions on debt service? Capital leases, we're just about done with. We don't do them anymore because of the Public Safety Grant Fund or Improvement Fund. Sorry. Enterprise funds for the Glen Farm Equestrian Center. I believe most of the council is going on a tour Friday on that to review what is happening down there at the Glen. Next up, we have the Enterprise Fund for the Transfer Station, which was updated. The sticker price is actually $325. It's highlighted in a box in the corner, which is an increase over $290 from last year, but it covers the increase in a $86,000 increase. Deficit over a couple of years and then also establishes a $20 per sticker fee capital improvement fund so that at some point when the Rams fall apart, we can replace those or any other major work that needs to be done. Curbside on Monday night was set at $569.00. which is we were able to split the deficit over two years, which took out $45 out of the cost. Septic loan program is pretty much defunct at this point, has been closed down. Arthur Daniel Howell House is still being repaired until it's set to be a B&B. And I believe there's that tour on Friday as well for the town council. Let's see the progress on that project, which now has a roof and windows and is not falling apart inside as much anymore. And then special revenue funds. These are just basic funds that we have held over for all kinds of different things. You could see the safer grant that was in there that has been used up for the fire project. Our town-wide contingency, which is $24,000. If that $25,000 for the Prudence Island schools aren't used, that's where that would go. And other various funds that we have that are restricted for use specifically for those operations. And then we have our pensions. Our pensions... probably took a little bit hit today, but are up significantly over last year. So we are closing the gap of our deficit, hopefully a little bit faster than anticipated. And maybe we'll beat that 2041 target. And that covers our budget. Any questions by anyone? There will be a final reading of the budget ordinance where any other massage numbers. So at this point, our tax rate. Before I can look it up, Matt, can you give it to me? Just it's going to be nine point. All right. So about 984 if we if we round up. So which is down from 1327 and change last year. Any questions? Comments? I would like to thank the staff, the council, the school department, the school staff for all the hard work of putting this budget together. I know it's not easy. It's a lot of late nights and a lot of staring at numbers and spreadsheets and your eyes can go cross-eyed. So it takes a lot to build this budget. I think it's a responsible budget for this year. It sets us up for success in the future years, especially if the anticipated school department bond is passed in November.

Hearing no questions, I have a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All those in favor?

Aye.