Common Council - Special Meeting

will come to order. The city clerk will call the role. Burmaster Var Urban Beatress Philosophical Testa Medical Drew present.

Please rise for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence for the deceased members of the common council. To the flag of the United States of America to the republic, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The agenda for this special meeting is to discuss budget amendments. There's no public comment period. Okay. I have a motion and second um to place um ordinances one through 23 into committee.

Motion to introduce into committee. Thank you. We do have four pieces of legislation. Um proposed ordinance number seven. I have a motion and a second to introduce. Motion second. Sorry. Do you have a motion and a second to pull from committee? No, I I'm still seconding. I'd like to vote on those tonight. Yes. I'm still in committee. So, I'll be voting now.

You're telling them how to vote? No, he asked what these are the ones we already have a motion and a second to remove proposed legislation 7 8 9 and 10. Mr. President, can uh I'm just going to there was a request to open it for discussion. Uh and I don't know do you want the floor council? No, just a couple questions to to clarify. Uh can anyone give a synopsis or update? I I know we put these in committee came through ENA. Could you just give us a summary again of uh the proposals?

These ones were we had the one vacant position for 45,000. We reduced that line. That's not really part of this uh but we reduced it. So everybody else is taking on extra duties. Uh but as our table of organization stands now, we have one of the secretaries under the common council department. So we're just trying to move that person into the city clerk's department. I asked for a copy of the table of organizations. Still didn't receive it. That was at the last meeting. I don't own it. Like go ask your mayor. You actually you actually proposed these and approved it from ENA. Did you not? Uh are you already representative? I didn't put these in, but yeah. Did you vote for them? Yes.

And are you sponsoring? Are you are you putting them in? Because my name's on it and I wanted to see the copy of the table of organization before I voted on it. That's all. I'm sure we can get it for you right now. I don't I'm sure we could get it for you right now. Okay, if you can. I would appreciate it. That's all. You could go look and get it yourself as well. No, I don't. You are ENA represent. Do you have a copy of table of organization? No, I don't. Okay. I actually don't either cuz it's on my How did you vote for it for the budget director to give us the copy? Okay, that's it. That's what I just asked. I just wanted to see the table of organizations.

It's not that big of a deal. It's not changing any of the funds. It's transferring a person from one department to the other. Guys, what are we doing? We're in the middle of a special meeting and I mean and they're having side discussions. I don't know why we're having a side discussion in the middle of it. Why not just say it publicly if you got something to say? I'm point of order. Mr. President right now. We're going to leave it in committee.

Jack, you want We're going to leave it in committee until we get full. So, we we do have a we do have a committee meeting after this. If this is going to stay in committee, maybe we could get the table of organization and discuss it then.

Okay. I have a motion and a second to adjurnn. I'll take a motion. Second.

Okay. Ajourn. motion second. Yeah.

So, Mr. President, I just want to say one second. I I just want to say one thing. I want to ask one thing because I'm totally confused. So, Council Person Colossa put amendments in two weeks ago. They've been sitting in committee. We've been asking for amendments and all of a sudden today if she doesn't send an email out asking, we would have never got these amendments. You think these came in within 4 minutes? Wait a second. I have the floor. I'm talking I'm trying to just get trying to get clarification. That's all I'm asking for. So, I get these amendments that I read through.

Okay. And there's six names on them and they're all set. So, what is the purpose of a meeting after to discuss it when you guys must have already had a meeting and they're already set? And then I just and again I'm not trying to be a wise guy. I'm trying to understand where we're going. And at the end of the day here, let's let's look at both scenarios. We had to the mayor came down with amendments on with the other funding that brings the budget to the taxpayer to zero. Okay? And he he asked to put basically kept remember this amendment that you guys are started with is our budget that we approved from last year. ours. Every one of you, except Heather, she's not here, voted for this budget last year. Okay? He didn't go. It's the same budget. All right? You're going to come down with a 0% increase. The only thing that's different is he's putting a million dollars in a contingency fund. So, when he solves the police and the fire contracts, we don't got to go into the fund balance. We're going through nickel and dimming all stuff. When Mayor Paul Mary or the past administration came down with a 0% increase, I sat here and no, nobody said a word. Okay. So, the taxpayer either way, anybody that's watching is getting a 0% tax increase. But what are we doing? What's going to happen when we solve these fire and police contracts? Okay, that's the only difference here. It's zero either way, but we're playing a political game so we can Okay, we're not saving the taxpayer anything. We're cutting health HSA funds. We're cutting stuff that really is not that important. It's more important to have money for a rainy day in my opinion. So my my main question is

what's the purpose of having the six o'clock meeting? You guys got the votes. The we don't have a say in any of it. You didn't give us a chance to go over these amendments and talk to you about it. You got six of us here and you guys got the majority. So, we're going to play the majority game. That's that's if anybody can answer me, that's fine. Like I said, I sat here for four years. I watched Okay. I watched when we had budget hearing. Nobody said a word. They went through the played the game d and it was over. Okay. Last week, I sat here for three hours while the police, the firemen were grilled. Okay. Over stuff that was our budget that we started with last year. Okay? Doesn't make any sense, guys. It really doesn't. So, we got to play the game. You guys got the the votes. Do what you got to do. I just want to make sure the people know what's going on. Thank you.

Yeah. We we'll start with U. Council personel and we'll go all the way around if you want to comment.

Sure. uh the the proposed budget amendments it reflects uh obviously taking the tax levy down or the the tax increase down to 0% as well removes all the reserve accounts. We did leave the 900,000 of C cit and then uh that really u the state aim funding increase really took care of that much alone. uh we had already I don't know I was looking at a lot of budget amendments I know my a lot of colleagues were we were already trying to get that down that 2.9% down even before we knew about the state aid so it was just like these budget amendments are just kind of looking towards that and since we had a million dollars didn't really make sense to cut taxes we if this is a temporary thing so that's why we were looking to you know everybody cares more about paving so one of the amendments is to add this $1 million towards the paving uh the mayor told Listen, ENA, we had $782,000 left now in the contingency line for those contracts. So, I know um those are coming up, but yeah, that's what these ones for. And when we say cut for like HSA and HA, these were the accounts that weren't being used. Um

well, this isn't we put those ones in the main accounts. I don't know why, but these ones were like haven't been used. They've been transferring money out of them. Um but yeah that that's what I have. Thank you council person person Burmaster. Councilman Bar.

Thank you Mr. President. Uh just a comment on Councilman Beatus. I mean the point of introducing these is to open it up for discussion on these. I mean you know looking starting at the back um infrastructure repairs. We want to open it up for discussion. Right now I have a reduction of $75,000. If during discussions you say, "You know what? I think $100,000 makes more sense or $50,000 makes more sense or cut less. That's the point. I mean, it's malleable. It's open. It's it's based on us meeting and discussing it. This is what's proposed right now. It doesn't mean it's what's going to pass. And of course, your opinion matters on it."

Well, the point is it's got to go in and be discussed at some point. We have a committee meeting at 6. And again, if if you look through these and you say, "You know what? this street lighting electric I see you're reducing it by $45,000 you know I think we could reduce it by 60,000 I'll say okay that's a good idea let's look at the numbers I mean that's the whole point of this so we are discussing it as long as you're talking so it okay is as long as you're bringing something up like infrastructure the city's infrastructure is crushing is crushed we got I just got calls yesterday drains collapsing why would we cut anything and then and but my point is you see my point. We put ours in two weeks ago. Where where have these been so we could look at them before?

Well, last year I think the criticism was that ours came in too early. Now the criticism is it's too late. I don't think we came we didn't say that at all. We the criticism last year was we never had a chance to talk about it. So it it is what it is. I'm just telling you just it's a little bit disheartening. No. Well, I mean that's why the whole thing Joe is it was our budget from last year. Okay. You agree with that? Mostly. Mostly there are numbers that change

our budget from last year. We have three major contracts going coming out. Okay. These are minor stuff that you guys are putting in. Either way, it's zero. Okay. Why wouldn't you why wouldn't you put money in a in a in a an account for a rainy day instead of I mean we both agreed both proposals not going to cut the fund balance. It's going to use the money from the state to do what we have to do. Why would we cut stuff? For example, the three the three first proposals. We just bonded for $5 million because we're short cash and you guys want to cut $400, 200, and 200 on on uh property tax revenue.

No, so that was to account for the 0%. That was just math. That was just math to get to 0%. So there I mean it's math. What What are you do what are we doing it for? Well, so so that was so you don't need to ret reduce the tax levy when you already got it to zero. the budget that we had last year. So, we received this at 2.9%. The increase at 2.9%. What those numbers do is just balance it to 0% after we recently received the TMA funding cuz we got this from ENA before we received that extra funding. So, now we're just trying to balance it back to zero

before. Listen, Joe, in the end of the day, we know the deal here, okay? So, we'll do what we have to do and I'll sit there and I'll listen to everything you guys got to say, but at the end of the day, to me, I want to protect the taxpayer on if we're at zero and the estimates are high, okay, I'd rather take that million dollars and put it in a bank account because we're going to settle the police and fire regardless. It's going to settle. And when it settles, tell me where we're getting that money from. Our fund balance. Are you talking about the specific one that's allocated to paving in the proposal? That million dollar

all of it. I'm saying right now we should take what the mayor's proposal in my mind cuz that's I sat here for four years when it was zeros. Nobody fought the other administration. They said, "Okay, okay. Now we got this money." He came through. He put the money in a fund. Okay. That he's only thing he's doing is proposing instead of 800,000 1.8 8 million for the um what's the word I mean the fund okay for to the purpose of that the contingency fund contingency fund I'm sorry the purpose of that is for when these contracts are being solved now you got money in the bank cuz you're going to solve them

okay they're going to settle the contracts what are we going to do after well and look we also had uh we also had proposals from the mayor on proposed amendments for the pilot programs each of them a specific amount so I if and no one's introduced those yet. And if someone wants to introduce those proposals from what the mayor had sent to us, I mean, that's again why we're meeting and I'm sure we're going to have some special meetings before our deadline on the 20th to introduce additional uh amendments if it comes to that, too. So, I mean, that's again, that's why we're here to talk about this. Okay, Councilman Nurvin, good. Council person call us more time. Why would why would you call a meeting a week ago?

Okay, we we get it. No, I know I know you get it, but like Rocky, I mean, it would be nice to actually go through a budget amendment. You have a special meeting, then you have a committee meeting. Again, no department heads here, and I don't blame him for not being here because who had enough time to go through to see whether or not you're taking $17,000 away from I don't remember. I can't even remember. Uh holiday holiday pay, right? And you were also short on the money that you cut last year in salary lines. The holiday pay was 350,000 over budget, right? And they've told you a million times that it gets transferred in and out. Thank you. I and I don't care if people interrupt me. You know what I mean? If people got to say something, they're more than welcome to. I don't I'm not sensitive to that.

But the the the thing that I'm saying is that we went through you cut salary lines last year. Salary lines are under are under budgeted inside Munis right now. So I mean again, you keep No, they are. They are. They are. And I will show you. That was because of the police services though. No, it's not. That's what they said on the floor that the overtime was being No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's overtime. That's not police salary lines that the money's actually paid out of. You keep getting it confused and it's very frustrating how you can't separate police special services to what's actually paid out of the salary lines. Okay, those are two separate play.

So, the amount of money that we took out of that last year is also under budgeted. So my whole point my whole point is when we're making amendments and and we don't have people here to actually defend those amendments. My thing is you should have just put in an amendment, have the special meeting, introduce them, and then give people the opportunity to come back and explain how wrong you are. I mean, and that's happened how many times now? And that's that's very frustrating to sit here and watch. You can keep looking at Joe. Joe's not saving you on this, Katie. You keep looking at him as he's going to answer your questions. questions, but please I'll take the floor back since I was addressed. Mr. President, I'd like to speak when I have a moment. It is the the I think the point is no one's asking us to vote on these tonight. You say no and you say no department heads are here.

No point to have any committee meeting after this because well this is for our this is for our discussion. No one says we can't have another committee meeting next week to bring department heads in.

We have a lot of discussions that nobody pays attention to what people say to them. So, I understand if you kind of want to continue to have discussions amongst yourselves, but you just came and told you that that that the that the healthcare was was was over on a number of lines. Okay. And now you're taking another $700,000 out of it. I mean, you just you want to give increased safety gear because Jack made a misspoke on something that he said. And then you want to take away 200 and something thousand $700,000 out of their healthcare lines. I mean, it's just it's getting to the point where it's like, guys, you're going to do what you want to do. I'm well aware you got six names on It's veto proof, but enough's enough. Okay? And I'm just not going to sit here and be subjected to it because no matter how many times it's explained to you, it could be explained by Frank Mola. It could be explained by Michael. It could be explained by the auditors. Could be explained by the budget director. Nobody wants to listen. So what's the point? Do what you got to do and then you again take the consequences after you keep cutting these lines and that's it. And and that's all I got to say. Thank you,

Councilman Latico.

Thank you, Mr. President. On election day in November and prior to that when I was going doortodoor, the residents of the city man made a mandate. They wanted us to have a zero tax increase and they wanted us to fix their streets more than we've been fixing them right along. That's what this budget does. We worked very hard on it and I think that this is a good budget. We left money in there for for the administration to have to move money around if be, but this is a good solid budget and it's for the people of the city of Udica who want their roads fixed an additional million dollars to the roads.

So we w we weren't getting that in chip funding. Thank you, Mr. President. May I have the floor again? I'm pretty sure that there that the that the mayor and the engineering department have been al advocating for extra chip funding. Okay, which we we did receive last year. Okay, so we did pave an extra million dollars last year. There is a possibility that we could pay even an extra $2 million this year depending on how chip funding makes. Jake, if you don't mind, could you explain to me who who you worked on these amendments with and where? I don't explain anything to you. You don't? I mean, you you do, though, because here's the thing. You submit amendments with six people's names on it, which means that the six of you had to meet in order to do it, which again, that's there's an entire body. So, why didn't you call Joe Beatric and ask him if he wanted his name on it? Mr. President, can I have the floor when when they're all

So, why didn't you have the discussions with them to explain it so that you were comfortable submitting those amendments, guys? It's a joke. It's a joke. Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn. Mr. President, I request the floor. Then we're done. Yeah. I just want to add that there are six names on here, but I would love nine. Whatever we do if you want. I just got to finish a couple things. No. Yeah. Just one thing. I'm sorry. I'll go back. I get it though. And that's it.

It's just um Yeah, I'm open to suggestions and working on these things. This wasn't like a shove this in your face thing. This was the point where we're supposed to come and talk. Uh it's I'm very if you show me numbers and data I will go for it. I'm very persuadable with that. Uh I've talked with a lot of different departments with these. It's Yeah. I don't know what Oh. Oh, that's what I wanted to say. Uh Councilman Beach, you brought up how like the mayor's wanted to put a million dollars into contingency. I Oh, it was five It was about $500,000 more. The reason I didn't like the mayor's proposal is because it still left fund balance lines. It was about another $600,000 on those fund balance lines. He was taking zero out of the fund balance.

He he rearranged it to still have 1.6 million actually on the fund balance. So that's where I wasn't open to that one. Okay. So just just two things. Yeah. And then then we're going to end there. We're just going to go back and forth back and forth. You you want to talk you just got done saying and I don't want to get aggravated, but you just got done saying you're welcome to listening to the numbers.

They've been here at this table giving you the numbers. If if we listened to you last year, we would have been down 300,000 in sales tax. Okay. You underate. Wait, wait, wait. And then my other question is, and then you could finish. My other question is, anybody, any one of you people here ever put your name on a piece of legislation and didn't vote on it? That's my point. Okay? It didn't come out one person where we could all talk about it and sway each other. It's sent to us at time today 1:30 to us 23 amendments with six names on it. So that tells me that tells me you guys already know what you're doing which is listen you won at the polls in November. You have the seats you're right to do it. I'm just telling you shouldn't be I think I believe this lady right here ran on no party politics. Okay. I haven't seen it in three months. Okay. So to be honest with you, you should just I'm just saying my point. Nobody can explain it to me. Why in the past previous four years before this administration when there was zero budgets, there was no very very minimal amendments to the mayor's budget. They went along with it. But yet here, anything that comes up, we go we we go after we change everything. At the end of the day, the bottom line, zero zero. I understand your point, Jack, about the paving. Okay, you're right. Okay. You know what I You know what worries me more than anything? We had two bond proposals. One to bond for 5 million, one to bond for 2.5 million. The reason to do that was to get the money up front and then pay the other half off so we could start paving. Now, you want to do over a million dollars more. We haven't passed that the the plan from upstairs to make sense to get it done. Now you're not even going to be able to pay $5 million the way we keep waiting for the

contract. And we borrowed $5 million for RAM because we don't have enough money. That's the other thing. And we borrowed $5 million what two a month ago because we were short. You know what? And something you guys should all look at. You got $3.5 million from the governor and AIM funding. That's a temporary thing. The way you guys keep going on saying how strong the city is, we can cut here, cut there. there's a good chance you're going to lose that funding. So, that's that's all I got to say. Let's adjourn. And I I just

I was just I was addressed. So, I said, uh, why am I not listening to the numbers? And we sat here and when they went through the numbers, one of the pays that were overbudgeted for was holiday pay by $350,000. That was part of this. Uh, we talked about in the past, nobody wanted to increase taxes. Uh, the 20 Who said $350,000? They were over, right? Deputy Chief Nunan. It was the holiday pay in the spreadsheets. Deputy Chief Newton was over $300,000. As long as No, I just want to say because you keep saying they So, was it Deputy Chief Newton because that was who was here the $350,000. Okay. So, it didn't come from the police department. It came from Elmir. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. It's in It's in our email. I just want to say that. No, that's it.

It's in our email with that. And then, uh, with the paving, I just want to put on record that I am still asking for the last two years of paving of how much how many streets we did, how many miles, and specifically how much each street cost, whether it was repaired or mail and fill. You just had log a login that logged into what is it Tyler? I I can't get Okay, so it's munus. But they still had a login that you were just logged in on on the actual computer that gave you an entire spreadsheet of how much the city's actually spent and what they have done. Your login's right in there. It's on the history of that computer. So, how don't you know? I don't know why everything has to be a fight. Those It's not a fight, but you just said you don't give the streets and on that computer you were just logged in. Those don't give you the streets, Mr. President. I mean, enough's enough. It's on the computer. I can print out the history on that login for you.

So, does anybody want to make a special meeting or another committee meeting then? But just for clarification, were you not on the computer just looking at the entire spreadsheet in the login that you have access to? No, you can't see. Can we have a motion? You can't see on there. We're dishonest. How'd you get that login? Can you actually hand