Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening, everyone. I am Ben Wheeler. I use he, him pronouns. I'm a counselor at large and finance committee chair. It's 6pm and I'd like to call to order the Thursday, September 3rd, 2026 meeting of the finance committee of the Somerville City Council. This meeting of a city council committee will be conducted via remote participation following chapter two of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Acts of 2025. We will post an audio video recording and a comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. We are joined by City, by Clerk Madeline Letellier. Before we begin, Clerk Letellier, should we promote one member? Oh, have you already done that? You have, thanks for taking care of it. Okay, Clerk, could you please call the roll to establish quorum?

And this is roll call. Councillor Link.

Present.

Councillor Schreiber. Present. Councillor Hart. Present. Councillor Scott. Present. Councillor Wheeler.

Present. Thank you.

All five councillors present. We have quorum.

Thank you so much. We will be taking up our 14-item agenda in the order posted. As a general note to everybody, if I pronounce your name wrong or get your title wrong or use the wrong pronouns for you, please don't hesitate to interrupt me. I want to get it right. Okay, so we will start off with Item 1, 26-1214, Approval of the Minutes of the Finance Committee Meeting of July 7, 2026. Clerk, I had one question about this item. Just glancing over it, the very last item, the body-worn camera grant 26-0378, I saw that it says result recommended to be approved. And then it shows the ayes and nays. And I wasn't, since the result of that was a recommendation to not be approved, but that's the negative of being approved, I wasn't sure if that phrasing was a statement about the final result, or that was a statement about sort of what was up for vote with the ayes and nays. So I just wanted to double check that before we approve the minutes.

I think that's something we can discuss offline. The minutes themselves are accurate in terms of the disposition, but I think I understand your question, but I think that's something we can discuss outside.

Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Any other discussion of that? Seeing none, that item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Okay, Department of Public Works items. Item two, 26-1316, requesting approval of a transfer of $60,000 from the DPW admin salaries and wages temp account to the DPW admin professional and technical services account to support temporary clerical staffing. And I believe we have Department of Public Works Director of Finance and Administration, Megan Huckenpahler. Director Huckenpahler, could you please tell us about this transfer?

Hi, yes, good evening. We are requesting this transfer because it's going from a personal services prime account to ordinary maintenance, which is where we pay our temp agency. We have found ourselves in a situation where three out of our five clerical positions are currently vacant. And due to the volume of what we process in the department, we can't afford to leave them open. So we have begun the process and already hired one temp. And depending on how long these positions remain vacant, potentially hiring another to help support the work and keep everything moving and on track to support our operations.

Thank you, Director. Members of the committee, any questions or comments for Director Akinpahler on this item? Council Link.

Thank you, Chair. Through you, just out of curiosity, so you said we've hired one temp. Are these temp positions going to be, like, are they temp to hire, or do we have to go through the entire process twice? I'm sorry.

Yep. Through the chair. Great question. They are not tempted to hire at the time that requires another fee to the agency, which is, I think, like 50 percent of the annual salary of that position. so they are um at this point both posted to the general public and we uh would welcome any folks you know looking but I know we're not the only folks across the city looking for a clerk position so we may be waiting a while good luck to you

And Director Achenpauler, what's the title of those positions, just to make sure I'm looking at the right thing on our jobs website? Are those clerk?

Yes, we have, the person we have temp right now is filling in for our principal clerk position. And we also have one vacant head clerk with a third head clerk for, is vacant temporarily as a member's out on a medical leave.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions from the committee? Seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Thank you, Director. Okay, public space and urban forestry, item 326-1255, requesting approval to accept and expend a $187,200 municipal vulnerability preparedness grant with no new match required from the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to the Public Space and Urban Forestry Division for the Green and Cool Somerville Sustainable Sidewalk and Trees Project. And I believe we have Planning and Strategy Director of Finance Administration, Alan Anasio. Director Anasio, could you please tell us about this grant?

Sure, thank you. Through you, the Chair. One quick item to clarify for full disclosure. There technically is a small match associated with this grant. We are not asking for any additional funds to be appropriated because the match can be met through in-kind staff time and a small cash contribution from our existing P&T. The purpose of the grant is for what we are going to call the cool green Somerville program. It'll be in conjunction with OSC, sustainability environment and the engineering department. We're gonna look to focus on finding narrow infrastructure contained sidewalks and find opportunities to expand the tree canopy and ways that we can plant more trees and create more heat resiliency in those kind of what have traditionally been narrow, unplantable areas because of infrastructure constraints.

Thank you, Director. Any comments or questions from members of the committee? Councillor Hart.

Thank you. And Thank you, Director Inasio. It's great to hear about this program, and I'm very excited. I appreciate the city staff who got the grant, got the funding, and that are going to work on making Somerville more resilient. I'm just curious if you could say more about how you're going to identify these stretches of sidewalk, and if you're looking for input from city residents, or just how you're going to go about that, if you know.

Thank you. Unfortunately, didn't have too much time to get into detail with Ms. Bukele, who was our primary project manager on this. I do know that we are going to work with engineering and OSC to identify the best spaces. But with that being said, if you have any areas you think fit the description of areas that have been typically constrained by impervious sidewalk or other kind of like infrastructure barriers, or if you have community members that feel they have an area that qualifies, please feel free to pass it along myself or Ms. Bukele or the PSUF team, and we will take those into consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Hart. I see Councilor Link.

Thank you, Chair. So I'm really excited about this as well. I think that it's going to be awesome. Hopefully we can, you know, I think board one definitely needs more urban canopy, but the whole city does. And I'm just curious, though, with the Is it common, this is me just trying to understand, common to describe it as with no new match? Is it because there's not a new match? I just want to make sure when I'm looking at these in the future, not trying to call anything out. I just want to know, is this standard practice? So I know to look carefully.

Yeah, thank you. Through the chair, what no new match means is that we are only asking you to vote on the grant acceptance. We are not asking you to appropriate additional funds in order to receive the grant.

Got it. Okay, that's what I assumed, but I just wanted to make sure from this new context. Okay, awesome. Thank you very much. Yeah, this is great.

Thank you, Councillor Link. I didn't realize that I didn't understand that, but I didn't understand that. And I appreciate these questions. I appreciate that answer. Any other comments or questions about this item? I just wanted to echo what my colleague, Councilor Hart, asked about how we're going to go about determining the need in different areas. I certainly hear from residents in a variety of different neighborhoods in the city about large stretches where there's just not tree canopy. And so I'm excited for this. I hope the process continues. you know, make sure that every area of the city gets attention, you know, in relation to the absence of trees that it experiences. Thank you very much. And I just also wanted to share. Reading about this item made me look up a couple things. I just didn't know what municipal vulnerability preparedness was. Just wanted to share with people. It looks like that is a climate resilience grant program of this Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, this Massachusetts State Office. And it is giving funding and technical support for climate resilience and adaptation projects, a variety of different types to municipalities. Okay, and seeing no more questions or discussion, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. And stick around, director, because we have a bunch of questions related to strategy and planning. Item four, 26-1242, requesting approval to pay a prior year invoice totaling $3,572 using available funds in the professional technical services account for the implementation of ArcGIS urban module. Director Inasio, could you please tell us about this prior to your invoice?

Thank you. Through the chair, yes. Through the morays of the year-end close, there was a minor clerical error. Planning and zoning is implementing a new module into our GIS system. I'm not a planner, so I'll do the best I can. It's like the geographical spatial mapping tool that's common amongst most planning and urban planning professionals. So we are also helping to use it to improve our permitting process. So we are working with the ArcGIS company in setting up that purchase order. It was mistakenly tagged to the incorrect contract, so we weren't able to pay it at the end of FY26, so now we'll have to pay it in FY27, but it's a relatively small amount we can absorb in our P&T.

Thank you, Director. Any questions or comments from members of the committee? Seeing none. I had one quick question. So I guess this is a $75,000 project. Is that full amount already budgeted? Is that already paid?

Correct. It's budgeted for FY27. It may, I can confirm with the planning and zoning team, a little bit may end up spilling into FY28, but I believe the majority, if not all of it, will be completed in FY27. It's just the software implementation and integration module.

Thank you, Director. Okay, seeing no further discussion or questions, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Okay. I said mobility for this item and infrastructure for the next, but then there's a bunch of blue bikes items and infrastructure. It's kind of a, this is going to be a mix of some infrastructure and some mobility related items. Item five, 26-1241, requesting approval to accept and expend a $284,700 grant with no new match required from the Mass Gaming Commission to the Strategy and Development Department for Eastern Washington Street Transit Priority Project. Director Anasio, could you please tell us about this grant?

Thank you again, Chair. Yes, through you. This is from the Gaming Commission. This is the separate funds, not the direct funds the city gets annually from its casino mitigation agreement, but the larger state bucket. So specifically, there's an annual grant process. for continued mitigation improvements for casino-related items. This particular year, we were awarded an award to improve the bus station feeding into Sullivan Square. So specifically, there are going to be some pedestrian and traffic safety improvements undertaken around the Washington Street and Myrtle Street intersection of Washington Street, which I believe is near the Cobble Hill intersection. development area. And that's basically it. I can definitely, any further detailed questions, I can circle back with Director Rawson and the mobility team. I think they have a scheduled, it's in design right now. And construction, I believe, could begin as early as late 2027.

Thank you, director. And yeah, I've heard tell of this project, but I have not seen specifics yet. I imagine the committee will be interested to know how we're gonna spend this money specifically. Any questions or comments from members of the committee? I am seeing none. So this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Item six, 26-1226, requesting approval of a transfer of 315,000 from the Sewer Enterprise Debt Service Account to the Morrison Avenue and Greater Davis Square Area Sewer Separation Design Capital Fund to fund required project expenditures. So I believe for this one, we have Infrastructure and Asset Management Director of Finance, Michael Richards. If that is the case, then Director Richards, could you please tell us about this transfer?

Yes, Chairman, can you hear and see me?

We can hear you. Oh, now I can see you too.

Okay, perfect. Forgive me, I'm on my phone. My computer is having some issues and restarting. So yes, this transfer is a procedural transfer to account for payment on debt service on borrowing related to the Morrison Ave sewer separation project. This is a design bond that was initiated a few years ago. There are terms on short-term borrowing versus long-term borrowing. And the intention is that we're paying off from our available debt service account to make that payment to avoid going long-term on borrowing.

Thank you, Director. Can I just try to... I want to understand this just a little better, just in the description. So just to be clear, in no way is this an overage is this essentially a fully expected transfer or is this the result of timing getting tricky?

Yes. So this is an expected payment. We do have to make payments on our short-term borrowing. If we elect not to make those payments on short-term borrowing, that rolls into a long-term debt, which has different and longer repayment plans. So given that we have the available debt service cash on hand right now to avoid that, we've elected to do so.

Thank you. Any questions or comments from members of the committee on this item? I am seeing none. So this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. And the next two items I'd like to take up together, since they both relate to the same actual item or same purpose. Item 7, 26-1250, requesting approval to appropriate $332,497 from the Tufts Street Soil Project Stabilization Fund for remediation efforts at 50 Tufts Street. and item 826-1249, requesting approval to create the Tuff Street Soil Project Stabilization Fund and accept a payment into this fund of $332,497 from the UniFirst Corporation to pay for cleanup and soil disposal costs associated with remediation work at 50 Tuff Street. So sorry, I may have put those in the wrong order, but I think as long as we're taking them up together and we approve them together, I think that's okay. Please correct me if I'm wrong, clerk. Director Richards, could you please tell us about these requests?

Yes, thank you, Chair. So there is a property adjacent to the Tufts Street resurfacing project that we're working on that had an agreement, I believe, decades in the past with... some contaminated soils and contaminated waste on the property that the property owner was responsible for removing. This, as I understand, this waste has not yet been removed or not to the effect that was necessary to complete our project. We are accepting there is an agreement between the city and the vendor here in this instance, that we will accept that payment to apply to our contracts for necessary soil disposals under our work. So we're receiving that payment from them directly to perform the same work.

Thank you. Any comments or questions on this item from members of the committee or these items? Councilor Strezzo.

And so on this, I assume through you, Chair, through Director Richards, I am assuming that this is the soil remediation from the polluted soil that happened, what was that, 1970 or 1980, from the train derailment?

Hello.

Director Richards, this may be a connectivity glitch. We might have to give Director Richards a moment. Director Richards, are you there and able to hear us?

I don't recall the specific cause, but it is...

Sorry, Director Richards. We sort of lost you mid-sentence. We heard you don't recall the specific cod.

I can't hear you. Can you hear me now?

Ish.

Yeah. It's like a 5 out of 10.

I have to really concentrate. But I can't.

we but if we keep struggling through i think we'll communicate somehow but we might have to sort of keep talking can you hear us yeah all right we may have dropped down to a one out of ten uh yeah i know silly um well uh it i i had a few questions uh on that about the soil remediation and just the oh We lost him completely, which might be for the best if he's trying to reconnect another way. We may have to just hold these thoughts a moment. Although, Counselor Streza, you have the floor. If you want to articulate some of these questions now, please be my guest.

Should I sing? Can I sing? No, I'm kidding.

I'm not going to stop you.

All right. Well, I would love either if we have Director Inascio here as well. I don't know.

We did have Director Richards reconnect, although I'm not seeing Director Richards yet.

Okay.

Director Richards, can you hear us?

It might be better not to turn on the video.

That is a very good point. It might be better to keep the video off if you're having connectivity issues. So the timing worked out, the computer's back. Okay. Fantastic. Councillor Strezza, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through you too, Director Richards, did you hear the question or do you need me to repeat anything?

Through the chair. The question was regarding, is this the property and the spill in the 1970s in the train yard?

Correct. Is this remediation in this project related to soil remediation from the toxic chemical spill that happened in 1979 or 1980? I believe it was 1980 in this region.

Through the chair, I'm not familiar with the exact specifics. It was if it was related to that incident, but I am aware that it was the decades long incident that occurred on that property. So, if that was hasn't been communicated to me directly from the project manager, if that was related to a train yard incident or not, but just kind of. Reading the tea leaves here sounds like that is the property.

Mr. Chair, through you to Director Richards, can we have some more follow up on that? Or if I may, please, could you just submit something in writing, just confirming or expanding on that if we can, and then also have any residents in the region been informed, including the ward counselor, on any of the activity of this, and will they in any way be exposed to anything that is stirred up in this process because of the toxic soil-ish area and the processes that have been involved in this decade-long situation?

Through the chair, yes, I will provide that.

Okay, thank you. So and I do also through you, Mr. Chair, through the director, I do want to find out if the residents are being informed or how they're being informed. And and how long also this will continue on the process, the remediation project, etc.

Richard, I will provide that with our response as well.

Okay. Mr. Chair, through you, to Director Richards, do you know how long that would take to do that? And is there a what item is this? I'm looking at this. I don't see it.

Items seven and eight.

Yeah, okay. I'm curious if we may, if we could Mr. Chair, because of this, and we're still trying to find out more details about this, can we possibly put these agenda items either on hold or on the table for follow-up, or is there an expedited need to get this approved?

Director Richards, do you have any thoughts on timing?

Through the chair, we have received a check, the first payment for work that's underway right now. So we do have a live check. However, that has been deposited kind of in escrow. So it's not at risk of lapsing for risk of deposit.

It's a very pretty exciting check too.

The work is underway right now, but I will get that information from our project manager and have a response to you by early next week.

I'll also just point out, if I may, Councilor Strezzo, since these items, if we were to approve these two items today in this committee, they wouldn't actually be approved by the council until the council meeting next week, assuming, you know, dependent on what the whole council thinks. And we would have an opportunity then if- That's right, Mr.

Chair, you sure do raise a good point. Mm-hmm. I get what you're saying.

So if we're on the same page on that, then I'm inclined to think we could lay these on the table to be approved today. Mr.

Chair, I agree. That sounds super.

Excellent. And that's something that I will make sure to follow up with IGA about to try to get us some answers to those questions and to make sure thinking is being done about how to mitigate exposure to the neighborhood. Thank you, Councilor Strezzo. Any other questions or comments from members of the committee? There was something I just wanted to check on, Director Richards. With an agreement like this, is there also any agreement on the part of the city to release the property owner from further liabilities in exchange for this payment, or... You know, if it turns out that it costs more than $330,000 to remediate this, you know, can we expect that there will be an ability to access more of that?

Yeah, through you, Jared. That's a great question. And I believe I attached the city's agreement to the item, but that doesn't detail the legal responsibilities between the city and the property and the property owner. If that's not in there, that's not provided. I can follow up with legal.

I think that I saw attachments for that. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like in Legistar, those didn't have attached documents. There was just sort of a brief text description for those two.

Okay. I will remedy that and provide you with a copy of the agreement that the solicitor arrived at with the property owner.

Thank you very much. Let me make just a quick note. Okay, thank you very much for that. Any other comments or questions from members of the committee? I'm seeing Councilor Link.

Thank you, Chair. Just a quick question because I got a little confused. It sounds like it has worker or we're speaking about this like it's a future project, but it sounds like it has work already for the remediation already started.

Through the chair. So work on the project for the street resurfacing has begun. And there is an ancillary work related to our right of way that we need to work on. And so the agreement is to accept these funds to pay for services that we are rendering as part of our project.

Okay. So it sounds like maybe we have started doing the remediation then.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

And just to follow on what Councilor Link is saying, sometimes the role of this committee, it can seem like we're deciding whether or not to do something. But in many cases, the administration is already deciding how to administer. And then only when there are these specific kinds of transfers that happen. that can't happen without the city council's approval. Do they come before us? And in many cases, the thing itself is underway already is part of just the way this system works.

Just to clarify, though, I didn't mean to undercut that. I think it is good that we're asking questions about it being like, you know, are residents notified and stuff like that.

Absolutely. And just to be clear, I was not saying that with the assumption that Councillor Link needs to know it and more narrating my own emerging understanding of how all this works. Okay, I am not seeing any other questions or comments from members of the committee. So this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting with the asterisk that I and any other counselors who want to be part of this as well will be following up through Intergovernmental Affairs with a series of questions and looking forward to seeing this written agreement. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Chair. Okay, Item 9, 26-1248, requesting approval to accept and expend a $366,729.25 grant with no new match required from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to the Mobility Division for new e-bikes, replacement batteries, and two new docking stations as part of the Blue Bikes bike share system. So I think we have strategy and planning director of finance and administration, Alan Anasio, back for this one. Director Anasio, could you please tell us about this grant?

Sure. Thank you. And just a preview. So item number nine, item number 10 are very closely related.

And, you know, why don't we just take them up together for good measure? Thank you for that. For reminding me of that, item 10, 26-1243, requesting approval to accept and expend an $85,933.60 grant with no new match required from the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization to the Mobility Division for the Blue Bike State of Good Repair Equipment Replacement. And please carry on, Director.

Thank you. Through the chair. Yes, MAPC plays sort of a coordinating or a liaison role in the Blue Bikes Network system. They help us coordinate with Lyft and the... network sponsor. And so there is a grant opportunity. The first grant is focused on allowing us to expand the station, specifically to get some new e-bike equipment. So that will allow us to expand our e-bike offerings in the network. And the second one, the smaller grant, is just a pot of funds, grant funds that's available to sort of improve the state of good repair and just make overall improvements and upgrades to the existing bike infrastructure on the network. For the first grant, let me read my notes here. I think we're going to try to focus the new stations on the Blessing of the Bay and Junction Park areas. And like I said, the other one's just a general refresh and upgrade of existing equipment.

Thank you, Director, and sorry. Because there's a couple of different places that I've heard referred to with similar names. Specifically, where is Junction Park that you're referring to?

Junction Park is along the community path. It is between Central and Lowell. And it's the new sort of linear park that goes along the community path. Thank you.

Members of the committee, any questions or comments for Director Anasio about these? I am not seeing any hands. I wanted to ask, so just looking at item 10, my understanding is that the blue bikes get a lot of wear and tear, the docks get a lot of wear and tear. Even just looking at our local match, 20% of the total, being $21,000 and change for 40 bikes and docks. So that's us spending about $500 each. Is that right? Am I thinking about that correctly?

Yes, I'd have to... I can certainly... We can confirm the math on that. One thing I would like to note, though, is this one has absolutely no city funds. The way the match will work... There is a match. The way the match will work on this is as part of being in the Blue Bikes network, there's transactional revenue that the city has sort of like a... an off-site account for you know i think it's like rides that originate or end and sort of like the uber accounts um and the uber funds we receive there's a small pot of money that's set aside specifically for somerville state of good repair stuff that's off of the transactional revenue from the system and so that's where actually we're taking the match for this

Okay, thanks. Alright, that's helpful that the award letter, you know, says 21,400 and change is the required local matching contribution. Are you saying that matching contribution isn't actually going to be cash paid by us? It's going to be money that would be designated for us that we'll just kind of get diverted back into?

Correct. It will decrease our... It will decrease our pot of the transactional funds that we get set aside in the Blue Birks network. It's just not coming off the general fund or stabilization funds or like anything like that. It's staying strictly within our Blue Bikes network account.

Thank you. I know things cost more money than they used to. And complicated equipment that has to bear the brunt of public use costs a lot. I'm just a little surprised. I have not actually looked at the numbers on what is... you know, one blue bike dock and one blue bike sort of cost. And this is suggesting that's something in the ballpark of $2,500 for one. Now we are, thankfully we are not having to pay that, which is great. I just thought that was notable. Sounds like from our city's financial perspective, in my opinion, this makes sense. And I just always try to notice when numbers are a lot bigger than I expected.

Uh, certainly that's, that's definitely in the bar park and, and, uh, through the cherry exactly to, to your point, um, that definitely has caught my eye over the years. And then I'm always reminded that to your very specific point, this is, um, a little bit specialized, more heavy duty industrial equipment than necessarily like your average bike. And, you know, they also do try to factor in for the additional wear and tear of public use. So that's also why they're a little bit more expensive.

Thank you, Director. Seeing no other questions or comments, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Okay, that brings us to police department items. Item 11, 26-1256, requesting approval to accept and expend a $20,239 grant with no new match required from the United States Bureau of Justice Assistance to the Police Department for overtime related to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association in World Cup 2026 Summer Games. And I believe for this one, we have budget manager, Mike Mastroboni, Michael Mastroboni. Manager Mastroboni, could you please tell us about this grant?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm here on behalf of Emily Wisdom. So accepting this $20,000 grant will allow the police department to be reimbursed for overtime costs associated with the increased officer visibility due to the FIFA World Cup events in and around the community. This is a reimbursement for those expenses that we have incurred.

Thank you, Manager Mastroboni. Any questions or comments from members of the committee on this item? I am seeing none. I'm always curious with these just to hopefully hear a summary of, you know, how was this used? Where and when did officers deploy? I know your intimate knowledge of police department scheduling is limited, manager, but those are things that I would look forward to being able to chat with officers finance director wisdom or police chief Benford about.

Mr. Chair, would you like me to have them reach out to you or is this something you want in writing in advance of the final approval at city council?

I'm not going to say I want that in writing necessarily. In my mind, it's something that I'd be more interested in just hearing about it in a sort of conversational setting. And it may be something that I just bring up the next time I have the opportunity to talk to them.

Sounds great. Well, they'll be ready to follow up.

I appreciate that. Any other comments or questions from members of the committee? Seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. Okay, moving on to item 12, 26-1220, requesting approval to accept and expand a $12,000 grant with no new match required from the Mass Department of Mental Health to the Police Department to partially fund the operation of the Jail Arrest Diversion Program. Budget Manager Master Boney, could you please tell us about this grant?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, bear with me. I have a note that I'm gonna read through on this one. So this $12,000 grant is part of a Department of Mental Health Initiative, Jail and Arrest Diversion Program that the SPD, through CORE, has been receiving for years. This request represents an award for the Q1 salary for the Jail Diversion Clinical Coordinator who oversees the assessment, clinical support, referrals, and follow-up to Somerville residents who face behavioral health or addiction challenges and are at risk for incarceration. At this time, the SPD has recently received an amended award for the full year grant application, which is being reviewed. That amended award is expected to come before the council in the near future.

Thank you. Any questions or comments about this item from members of the committee? Councilor Link.

Thank you, Chair, through you. I'm just curious. So is this a Because now we have core and SPD is separate. Where is this money going? Which organization?

So these resources go to the core budget. These are grant funds for core.

Perfect. That's what I had assumed. I just wanted to make sure I understood it correctly. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Link. And as a sort of follow-up question to that, I know the reorganization of some divisions, including CORE, that's something that was in progress or in early stages, perhaps, when the process around this grant began. I don't know if this is something where we would expect a similar grant happening a year in the future for the funds to be sort of more distinct or the categorization to be more distinct. I don't have an opinion one way or another, but I'm just curious about what we're going to see with these kind of reorganized separations. You know, if we're not gonna see a grant going to the police department, but it's going to be going to this separate department.

Mr. Chair, I suspect, you know, I think that's a subtle but important difference, right, when you see to the police department to partially fund the operation. You know, the police administration administers E911 Animal Control Corps as well as the main police budget, right? So I think, you know, I hear what you're saying, and I think I'll talk to Emily about sort of how we want to present these in the future.

Thank you, and again, I don't have an opinion about this. I'm trying to track these changes that we're seeing and to anticipate how documents are going to be different. I didn't mean to derail that for so long. I saw a hand from Councilor Hart. Councilor Hart, do you have questions or comments?

Sure. Through you, Chair, to Director Mastroponi, do you know if the clinical coordinator position is a full-time position?

My understanding is that it is, yes. The general diversion clinical coordinator, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Hart. Councilor Link.

Thank you, Chair. Sorry for our two rounds here. I'm just curious. I meant to ask, and I think I'm probably queuing this up to the director to pass along, but there's a... so one of the requirements is that we have to, um, enter, uh, the, like the clinical hours, the referrals received, but also the individuals worked with. So I'm just curious if there's more details about, um, I don't know what the, uh, it says JDPM, which I'm, I just have to assume this jail diversion program database, but like, uh, you know, who, I guess the exact level of detail and, um, you know, I'd love to know more about that actual database just to make sure it's not, I mean, this is obviously a program that we wouldn't want to get in the way of. It's a good program, but I would like to know where those names are going.

Thank you through the chair. I will pass that along and have someone reach out to you. I mean, I would share this is a Department of Mental Health grant, right? So that being said, we'll reach out and follow up. I understand the sort of sensitivity around that. I think, you know, we deal with that same concern pretty frequently here on the city side. Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilor Link. I had a question. So just looking at the grant application documents, my understanding is, and I'm sorry if you said this already, this is part of a larger grant amount that we were seeking. Is this a sort of short-term portion of that?

That's right, Mr. Chair, this is the Q1. This is, what would that be, July, August, September. We expect to have the full year application soon. Sometimes these things get a little wonky, but yeah, we expect an amended award for the full year grant application that's currently being reviewed. We'll see that soon.

Okay, any other questions or comments about this item from members of the committee? I am seeing none. So this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. That brings us to item 13, 26-1219, requesting approval to accept and expend a $65,000 grant with no new match required from the Mass Department of Mental Health to the Police Department for operational funding for the Metro Boston Crisis Intervention Training and Technical Assistance Center. Manager Mastroboni, could you please tell us about this grant?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Pretty similar paragraph I'm going to read to you here. This is also part of that same DMH jail diversion program that CORE has consistently received, which is awesome. They are at the sort of I'm going off script here. They're at the leading edge of training folks, police officers in the Boston area. That's something that we're super proud of. But this specific request, again, represents Q1 of the operational funds needed to operate that Metro Boston crisis intervention training and technical assistance center. So what this program does is it provides certification, recertification, development opportunities, mental health first aid training to the Boston Metro region, as well as folks across the Northeast. At this time, again, we recently received an amended award for the full year. What you're approving right now is Q1. We also expect that to come before the council very soon.

Thank you, Manager Mastroboni. Any questions or comments from members of the committee? Oh, yeah, Councilor Hart.

Thank you. Through you, Chair, to Director Mastroboni. Could you just, I just want to be sure I'm understanding this. This is the, so who's doing the training for who? I just want to be sure I'm following.

Great questions. These are great questions.

So this is, you know, a lot of our staff work at the, I'm sorry, train at the Metro Boston Crisis Intervention Training and Technical Assistance, CITAC, I think they call it. Our staff run that training. They're the best at it. They're great at what they do. That's just the location at which they do that training. It's our staff, it's our resources. And I've actually just received word that, you know, DMH is doing a lot of this, giving folks a little bit of money at a time rather than all of it together. So I would just share that information. But yeah, this is our staff running those trainings. This is for the materials and the operational needs for that offering.

And if I can ask a follow-up question through you, Chair. So are there, our staff are doing, Somerville staff are leading the training just for Somerville police or for police throughout the metro region?

Other police throughout the metro region folks come to us because we've been doing it longer than most people.

Okay. And then do we get, you know, do they pay for those services?

I don't believe that they do. I'm not aware of any revenue that's generated from this. I think like, you know, we generally use mental health grants to pay for a lot of the project. So it's not like we're sort of outlaying cash to run the program, but yeah, we train across the region.

Okay, thank you.

Manager Mastromonio, sorry, I'm not seeing other hands or questions or comments from members of the committee. Just just to follow up on this. So, you know, just to be sort of clear, the staff, the city staff who are teaching, are those sworn police officers? Are they civilian employees of the police department? This is the core team.

Oh, this is the core team.

Okay, great. It would be great no matter what, but great to understand who's actually doing this. I have not known.

But I suspect that there are officers who participate in the training sharing their experience as well. I can't say that for sure, but I suspect there are as well, not to say it's just them. It's a group effort. But the CORE team is the group that leads it.

Thank you. I'll just add, I have heard that this is a service that Somerville is providing and that it has a tremendous amount of respect in the region. So I'm excited to hear more about it.

Mr. Chair, sorry if I may. There are definitely, I'm hearing there are definitely officers that take part in doing that training. Again, it's led by CORE.

Great, thank you. Glad to get a clearer picture. Any other comments or questions from members of the committee? Okay, seeing none, this item is laid on the table to recommend approval at the end of the meeting. And that brings us to our last item, item 14, 26-1234, requesting approval to use available funds in the police salaries account in the amount of $8,800 to fund fiscal year 2027 cost of living increases for the deputy chief positions. Manager Mastroboni, could you please tell us about this request?

Mr. Chair, my understanding is Chief Administrative Officer Wells is handling this one.

Thank you so much. Chief Administrative Officer Wells, are you here? I am not seeing you in the people who are. Great news.

I am here and I will take care of this one.

Thank you. Okay.

So as part of the fiscal 27 budget process, we develop salaries, salary tables, salary expectations for every department. This includes the police. There's this sort of we identified this opportunity for improvement after the budget where we have a contract with the chief. It has you know, there's there's an obvious sort of outline that we have for that compensation. We have the collective bargainings that that take care of our patrol officers and our superiors. You'll notice that leaves out our two deputies. So we identified that throughout in our initial budget projections and what we shared with you that the deputy police chief cost of living increases were not incorporated into the proposal. So we want to come back to you and make sure that you're aware of that update in order to fund the fiscal 27 cost of living increases for deputy chiefs. The proportional increase to these is consistent with our other non-union staff. And we have put into place a control and a reminder for next year that we're going to have them on a salary table so that this does not happen again. And that's why we're here back to sort of update the appropriation that was part of the FY27 general fund budget.

I'm just catching up with a note. Any questions or comments on this from members of the committee? Councillor Langton.

Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I'm glad to, I'll just, just a comment. You know, I'm glad to hear that we're, glad to hear that we're, we're adding this in to a table that means that this won't happen again, because I feel like as it stands, because of the fact that we're always so behind on these contracts, it's kind of like a, it's already a kind of a little surprise, you know, to the budget. once the actual contracts get signed. It'd be nice to get closer to the actual budget every year.

That's my goal as well. I won't bore everyone.

I appreciate the work. Thank you very much. To make it better.

Thank you, Councillor Link. Any other questions or comments? I just wanted to make sure I'm totally clear about how a decision like this just gets made to understand the processes. Is this sort of, at the end of the day, purely at the discretion of the mayor when it comes to... I understand that there are, besides collective bargaining situations, You know, there are categories of staff. You mentioned non-union staff who we have in many departments. And there are decisions about cost of living increases that apply broadly to those staff. I have not thought before about how do we handle these kind of senior positions who may not be part of a collective bargaining unit and maybe in somewhat a sort of unique situation without sort of a standard process for how salary is negotiated in any kind of way as a group. But is this sort of at the end of the day, is this a decision on the part of the mayor?

Can I ask a clarifying question? Are you talking about for all non-union or these positions specifically?

I was thinking of these positions specifically.

We treat non-union staff who don't have a contract, like for example, public safety chiefs consistently across the board. So there's no, at least at this point, we're not giving different folks different raises. At some point in the recent past and potentially the recent future, we had a performance management program that was somewhat tied to the number of steps that folks would get. But for the past few years, it's consistent across the board.

Thanks, and then to take the alternate answer I could have given you of if we're talking about non-union staff you know, in the city staff more generally. You know, I understand the mayor consults with the finance team. I'm forgetting the name of the body of sort of budget people who chime in on budget that I'm sure you are. Maybe the Municipal Compensation Advisory Board. Oh, well, there's that too. I was thinking more the group that just meets about the budget in general in the spring within the administration. if I am thinking of- That's just us, that's finance.

You know, for non-union, we take into account economic conditions. We take a look at wage growth and we make that decision on a year by year basis, but under the constraints of the salary ordinance and through the process that we've outlined in that ordinance as well.

Thank you. I see Councilor Strezzo.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Is this the last agenda item we have before us?

Yes, this is.

Okay, then I'd like to move to approve following all of the items.

Thank you, Councillor Strezza. There is a motion to approve. I see Councillor Scott.

I saw that Councillor Scott had his hand up after I saw it, so I'm happy to make the motion after it's finished.

Thank you. I appreciate that, Councillor Strezza. Let's consider that on pause and come back to it. Councillor Scott?

I'm happy to speak on the motion. It's fine. I just wanted to kind of put a little point of information there. For the most part, yes, these salaries are at the discretion of the mayor, just like all the other non-union salaries in the city. One exception to that by statute was the police, by the fire chief. I'm sorry, the fire chief's salary was established at twice, at a ceiling of being twice the pay of a private in the fire department. The administration was capped on what they could raise the fire chief salary, which led to the deputy chiefs getting paid more than the fire chief. But, and I wanna say, was it two years ago, Director Mastromoni? And maybe three years ago, the city changed its interpretation of what the salary of a private was to what the maximum salary of a private potentially could be, which allowed them to raise the fire chief's salary to the place they wanted it. But it's pretty much a piece of trivia, but hopefully trivia that'll be helpful for folks in the future.

Thank you, Counselor Scott. Definitely news to me, and I appreciate knowing about some of these different approaches that we've taken that suggest things that we could consider in the future. Okay, any other comments or questions?

Move to crew.

uh so i hear uh counselor strezzo's move uh to approve um let's lay this item on the table to recommend approval with everything at the end of the meeting and then that brings us to the end of tonight's agenda i hope uh counselor strezzo um this is fulfilling your motion um so having heard this move to approve all the items that i was saying yes yes yes excellent um okay i hear a motion to approve all the items on the table and then to adjourn Could the clerk please read the agenda item numbers of the items up for recommendation to approve and call the roll on recommending approval of those items and adjournment.

So for approval on agenda items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and on adjournment. Counselor Link.

Yes.

Counselor Schrezo. Yes.

Yes.

Councillor Hart? Yes. Councillor Scott? Yes. Councillor Wheeler?

Yes.

Those items are recommended to be approved and we are adjourned.

Thank you everyone and everyone have a great night.