We are going to have a long evening this evening, so when we get started, we're running a little bit late.

But this time I like to call this meeting to order, and I asked the clerk to please call the role.

Those will be at the end of the meeting.

This is going to be at the beginning of the meeting.

People, I'm gonna give people four four minutes to speak as per the council rules.

If there was a large amount of larger amount of people, I may have to alter it.

Um, the other program I may include a lot of people who were here, some who are online, and some on social media have spoke a lot about the budget increase that was proposed.

The seven point for tax increase.

Know this that the members of the city council are going to deliberate over every line of this budget, every department to ensure that we're with we're not relying solely on the backs of the taxpayers.

We're going to be looking for savings in this budget.

I also want to add this, that was the mayor's proposed budget to solve the financial situation that we are in.

But know that if we go above the cap, this council will have to have a strong majority.

From what I understand the charter, this this council would have to approve of a resolution of a seven-nine majority, a very high majority.

So know this that nothing is written in stone right now.

And if we don't, at the end of all our deliberations, go beyond that cap.

We will be asking the departments to look for additional savings because we just don't have the money.

That's the that's the harsh, and I'm gonna say very harsh reality of this budget.

Okay, now that I put everybody in a dour mood, um not my intention, but that's the reality.

Um, let me begin with the per first public speaker, um the vice chairman of the school committee, please, Anthony Melillo, and I believe he has some uh you said you had some documentation.

There won't be a necessary for a motion.

You can pass them out.

Thank you, so if no one has an objection, I see none.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anthony Malillo, 33 Harvard Street, Cranston, Rhode Island.

As council president said, I'm vice chairman of the Cranston School Committee.

Good evening, Council President, Finance Chair, members of the City Council, members of the school committee, superintendent Nora Massey, and members of our community.

Before I begin this evening, I think it's important to start tonight with a few, what I like to call myths versus facts.

Because public understanding matters when we talk about the future of public schools.

Myth number one.

During COVID, the school district added over 100 positions using federal funds.

Fact.

In reality, over the last four years, Cranston Public Schools has reduced their staff by 95 positions.

This is not growth, that is contraction.

This is the district making difficult decisions to live with it within its means.

Fact.

Over the last six years, the school department has received an average of approximately one million dollars per year.

While any support is appreciated, that level of increase has not kept pace with the real costs we face.

Costs that continue to rise every year.

And that brings me to the heart of why we are really here this evening.

Responsibility.

Costs are rising, mandates continue to increase.

The financial pressures are real and significant.

But I want to be very clear about something.

It's not my fault that decades of infrastructure needs have finally caught up with us.

But it is our responsibility to fix it.

But it's our fault, our responsibility to manage them.

It's not your fault that contractual obligations must be honored.

These are ratified contractual obligations, by the way.

It's not my fault that utility costs, transportation expenses, and fleet maintenance continue to climb.

But again, it is our responsibility to address them.

None of us created these challenges alone.

Many of these issues have developed over years, even decades, but today we are the leaders entrusted with solving them.

And the truth is responsibility does not belong to one body, one department, one administration.

It belongs to all of us.

The school committee, the city council, the mayor's office, and our state partners.

When we work together, Cranston succeeds.

Because at the end of the day, this is not about budgets and spreadsheets.

This is about 11,000 students who make up 11% of our city's population, but 100% of our future.

The responsibility we carry is not small, but it is an honor.

So tonight I ask that we continue to work together, not assigning signing blame for the past, but accepting responsibility for the future.

Because it may not be our fault, but it's absolutely our responsibility.

Thank you.

And I have backup documentation for the uh 95 positions that were cut in the um the funding over the last I think I think I've got the last 10 years.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Miller.

Next speaker, uh Catherine Crowley, school committee member.

Good evening.

Catherine Carley's School Committee Ward 6.

Good evening.

Thank you for tonight's opportunity to speak.

I am fully aware of the tension which is existing between the revenue needed to operate the city departments and schools and the impact of the city and the impact to the city's taxpayers.

Of course, I am one of them.

As a school committee member, I feel obligated to speak for the schools and most importantly, for the children, the teachers of the city of Cranston.

Let me first provide some insight into what a structural deficit is.

When the mayor spoke last night, he said the school department had had a structural deficit for the last four years.

Simply put, it is the negative difference between what a city department needs to function properly and the amount of revenue available to finance those needs.

When the school district projects the expenses to operate schools for a year, and the city indicates it's only going to provide an amount less than needed to cover those expenses, that creates a structural deficit.

Now I know the auditors referred to a structural deficit in their report.

A simple way of explaining that, and Joe Balducci explained that last year, is that we were never given what we asked for last year.

As a result of that, and over past years, and this is my first full year on the school committee, that also occurred.

So the school department goes to a fund, which is called various names in various school districts, but it's a fund we have for expenses projects, we can call that in case of emergencies.

Auditors do not like that when that number goes down because they feel that the school department is unable to fund those things.

It's as simple as that.

So over the years, any business manager and superintendent would take the monies they had in that account, transfer it over to pay the bills, and our operating budget was always balanced.

So I think people need to understand you throw that term out, and being a former superintendent, I'm familiar with that.

And it doesn't mean what it sounds like.

We weren't in deficit.

The mayor's proposal to increase the school district's budget by 1.5 million is inadequate to support the needs of this district this year.

As a taxpayer, I too am very conscious of the tax rates.

I also understand costs to taxpayers for nearly everything they buy is going up.

I'm sure you're very well aware of that.

Here is the conundrum.

The same cost increases are occurring in the schools to maintain the same quality of education for our children.

The schools need more funding.

It would be hard for me to believe that there is anyone in the city of Cranston who would suggest the quality of the education in the city should be lowered.

Yet it will be unless schools are properly funded.

Understanding cuts to educational programming having the potential of impacting the quality of the education.

The school district is doing everything in its power to reduce its costs.

Studies are in place to reduce the number of schools in the city within the next year or two.

Thank you, Mr.

Thank you, Ms.

Growing.

I need you to finish up the four minutes of rest.

I'm over my three minutes.

You're you're over your four minutes.

Four minutes, Mr.

What will the impact the quality of cage and for new teachers will want to apply in Cranston if we're no in this kind of a situation, financial situation, we won't be able to attract good teachers.

That being said, with my over 40 years in public education, I am impalled about the conditions of the schools.

Cutting myself short, I'm going to give you some examples of what is currently happening.

Ms.

Crowley, I'm gonna need you to finish up.

I'm sorry.

Okay, I'm gonna give this to uh Kissy, and she can pass it out and make copies.

You have to know that we are in danger of 10, seven elementary elementary schools needing roofs and various other mechanical and electrical systems very much.

Ms.

Crowley, would you like to give the document?

Thank you so much.

Next speaker would be Keith Catone, school committee member.

Good evening, Keith Catone, 61 Windsor Road, Ward 1, representative on the school committee.

I'll try not to repeat things that my colleagues said so and try to stay within my limit here.

Um I think I I think what I want to focus on maybe is where uh Mrs.

Crowley just left off around the talking about the the deficits that were claimed in this chamber last night that the school district has supposedly run for the last three or four years.

Um, and as far as our accounting practices, and I'm sure Mr.

Balduji can go more into detail.

We've only we only recorded a deficit in the last FY25.

In fact, we had surpluses in FY24, 23, and 22.

Um the surplus, though, in FY24, and a lot of you were part of that budget as school committee members.

The surplus there was the one that we should have been worried about because that surplus was because we used two and a half million dollars of our fund balance of our reserve to balance that budget that year.

That was in the budget that we put it there to stave off the kinds of decisions that we're going to be faced with this year, um, and and have sense to stave off those decisions that would harm children, harm the education of children, hurt our employees, and and so on and so forth.

That was that was the cry that year.

Three years ago, we sat we stood here and talked about that.

Many of you on this side of the the whatever this is barrier.

That's when we needed to make corrections.

We did not in FY25 make barely any correction.

Last year, the mayor and city council did a much better job in finding funds, and so hopefully this year when we close the books, it's not as bad of a situation.

But we're we're we're really at a stage where essentially when we look at to the extent that the city budget is balanced at all, which of course we realize now it's not, but the extent that it is balanced at all has been balanced on the backs of the schools because the schools are filling gaps that should otherwise be filled by the city or could otherwise be filled by the city.

Um, and at this point, we're we're out of a reserve.

We don't have gaps to fill, or we don't have the funds to fill the gaps that might exist.

So I understand we we're not, we can't just print money.

Um, last year, when we were in this chamber, there were residents who talked about who said and and testified that they'd be willing to pay more taxes if it meant sustaining the high quality of our schools.

I think one of the things that we're facing as a city, and when it comes to taxes is an issue of distrust by the public at this stage.

That folks are willing to pay taxes if they feel like those taxes are going to services and to a body and to a city government, school committee, city council, and mayor's office, all included that are good stewards of those dollars.

That's our challenge collectively.

I'm not I'm looking at y'all, but I'm looking at all of us.

Collectively, our challenge is how are we ensuring to the public that we're going to be stewards, good trustful stewards of these dollars?

We have to start by being transparent and telling the truth.

Claiming deficits that aren't there on the school side is not a good look.

Claiming that a budget includes no layoffs when you know structurally that there will be and will continue to be layoffs as a result of that proposed budget on the school side.

30 seconds, Mr.

does not engender trust.

So we need to be clear about the decisions that are before us.

Um I think I won't you all know the details in terms of what the consequences will be uh if the school the our school committee budget is not fully funded.

So I'm happy to work with everyone to figure out how to get as close as we can.

Thank you.

Perfect timing.

I was just about to stop.

Thank you, Mr.

Knutong.

I'm gonna mispronounce the next name.

It's Valerie, it's smudged on the paper.

Valerie.

It's smudged, I should have been able to say it correctly.

I do apologize.

It's okay.

I haven't been here in a while.

It's not because I haven't been listening at home.

I just haven't been.

So good evening, President Wall and esteemed city council.

This better, much better.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I listened to the mayor's budget presentation this morning and found myself deeply troubled.

I say to all government, state, federal, local, the days of going to the taxpayer to dig yourselves out of holes is over.

We have nothing left to give.

Should you need to come to the taxpayer for more and more, I want to hear you did your part.

Buying out some employees, so I'm thankful and happy for them, it's not good enough.

Unfortunately, for all of you, the buck does literally stop here.

You will have to make painful, tough decisions, and we expect you to make them.

One of the things I do love about Cranston is the schools.

They are underfunded, and you expect them to cut staff and programs.

My children both graduated from Cranston West, got great educations, and went on to West Point, where they were on the dean's list every semester.

So they were fully prepared from Cranston West for the rigor of West Point.

Mayor Hopkins told us what his budget did and didn't do, and I would like to tell you what that $42 a month does to many of us, especially seniors.

Our budgets are already strained to the max.

Then I go out and I when I go out, I plan a pass so that I use the lease gas.

And the movies have long since gone.

Eating out is a thing of the past.

All I have left is breakfast after church.

That may be on the chopping block if my taxes are gonna go up.

So my discussion for retirement just took a turn for the worse.

Out there, and God forbid you have a health crisis.

If you have a health crisis, which we just did in our household, you're choosing between medicine and food, medicine, and health care.

So I'm sure that the young people and the young families have to make tough choices.

Food or the electric bill, gas in the car to get to work, and it goes on and on, making tough choices and painful cuts.

Please take a look at this and fix it.

Because to put it simply, I know very few people who can afford this, and many people it will hurt.

And I know it's a hard job, and I'm sorry it's you have it, but here we are, and we need something done because we simply can't afford it.

There is nothing left.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker, uh councilman Steven Steikos.

Stephen Steichos 37 Ferncrest Avenue.

Excuse me.

Um, I have a couple of observations, and it's the first one is in line with some of the comments from the school committee.

The school funding has gone up 4.3 percent, not 4.3 percent a year, but a total of 4.3 percent from 2024 to 2027.

Meanwhile, the fire department has gone up 15.6 percent, and the police department has gone up 12.5 percent.

So what has happened is the decision is made, has been made whether intentionally or unintentionally, but that the money is going to go that there is is going to go to police and fire, and it's not gonna go to the schools, and I would hope you change that direction.

There's another uh big expense in the city budget is debt for debt service payment on the principal and the interest, and that is at an all-time high in this budget of 12.5 million.

So when you get that capital budget, and I think the capital budget in the handout is incorrect.

I think it's a goof.

Should look at that, but it's important to cut, it's important to cut those capital projects that are not essential.

Um, other points.

Um, if you look in the audit that was done of the 2025 um budget year, the ice rink has a cash balance of six hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars.

Now that has been set up as an enterprise fund, and uh uh director Strom, who I have a lot of respect for, and I have uh disagreed that that shouldn't be in it.

Why should the ice rink be in a separate fund from the parks department or any other department?

So I don't think that's ever been approved by the council, but either way, there's six hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars at the end of as of the end of last year that's there in the uh cash balance for the ice rink.

There's also if you uh again look in the audit, there's a five an eight hundred and fifty-two thousand dollar cash balance in the charter school account.

That money says in the audit is restricted.

I don't know why it's restricted, but that would be something I would suggest that you look at, especially considering that the charter school, as I understand it, is no longer independent, it's part of the school department.

So could they use that $852,000?

Uh two other items that I think you should look at are um tax breaks, which the finance committee has been uh discussing, and one of those is a tax break 30 seconds, Mr.

Steichos.

Tax break for veterans, and I'd like to point out that that tax break does not help the veterans who are in most in need.

If you rent, you don't get a property tax break.

Um, and so you should look at that.

I think it should be income limited, and there should be some provision for people who rent.

Thank you, Mr.

Steikos.

Thank you.

Last one, can I put it?

Last point you got it.

All right, thank you.

The last one's the elderly tax break for anybody who is the owner-occupied house who's over 65.

We've got a lot of people in this community who have enough money who are over 65.

I am eligible for that tax break.

I don't take it because my kids got a good education and thank you, Mr.

Steikos.

Thank you.

That's not the way it works.

All right, so look at that one.

Also, income limited.

Thank you.

Next speaker would be uh Stephen Fryas.

Anyone can commence.

Is this appropriate?

Thank you, sir.

And council member start out.

I'll start out.

My name is Stephen Fryers 107 Garden Hills Drive.

I'm here in my personal capacity.

Uh, first I'll start out with a couple of high housekeeping items.

First, last night I notified the administration that the capital budget for FY27 was incorrect.

I've now been informed.

Uh I reminded them this morning.

I hope you've gotten a correct copy today, so that there are no problems.

I apologize for any inconvenience.

I believe there was a problem with the transition between the finance department and the planning department.

Second, I want to reiterate something you said earlier.

Uh, Council President, the charter and state law both say four fifths vote to go over four percent tax levy.

Um so a seven out of nine vote.

The other thing I would also indicate is that the charter requires you guys to address this budget by May 15th.

Um in the prior resolution, you guys waived the April 1st requirement.

I don't I don't believe you have the authority to do that, by the way, to waive that April 1st requirement.

Um it's only happened once before, and that was during the pandemic of 2020 when there was a national real estate emergency.

So I would just stick to the May 15th if possible.

In regards to the substance of you tonight, uh, very quickly, um I've been debating about whether to say something and what to say for a while.

And I'll just say it this way based on my own view.

This was a failure in local government, this budgetary problem.

Um failure by both city and schools, executive and legislative, and both parties.

The failure there goes back to we were over reliant on one-time revenue sources for ARPA, the federal funds.

And I warned about this in 2022 in writing, and here that if you do not get rid of the structures, then this reliance, you will end up with a major structural deficit that you'll have to end up paying for or have multiple years of tax increases.

If the city had raised taxes by about two or three percent in 2021 or 2024, you'd be at about a two or three percent increase now.

From my own historical view, I think that would be tolerable to most taxpayers.

Personally, I'm more of a fiscal conservative.

I like more of the 2010s when there was like a tax increase once every couple years.

Now you're at the stage of what to do.

I do not recommend you going further above eight percent.

That's what the tax rate effect is, the levy of 7.44, especially in an environment where we have this ill-conceived war in the Middle East that has led to gas prices going above the levels it has.

And I believe grocery prices will be going up higher in the fall because of the lack of fertilizer.

So I think you need to look at spending cuts.

The people behind me and for the rest of this week will be advocating one of two things more money and don't cut me.

So I'll be the voice of those that want spending cuts.

Okay, where do you cut?

Everybody talks about spending cuts.

First, you have to look at the schools.

I respect the individuals in the school department.

They've done a good job indicating my children, and I still have children in the schools.

The problem I have is when I look at the audit, which is an independent third party, they refer to the school department as having 1,554 jobs as fiscal year 25.

And they refer to an increase of additional personnel staff post-COVID-19 pandemic.

School department can explain why the audit says one thing and what they present to you is another.

I don't know the answer.

I'm only telling you what I see in the audit.

I also know that in the 2010s, they had staff levels of between 1,431 to 1,462.

30 seconds, Mr.

Bryce.

Okay, moving on then.

By the way, when it comes to the city needing more funding, I give move more funding schools.

I actually think the state is not contributing enough.

On the fire department, a lot of departments have had cuts.

One department that has not had cuts is the fire.

It's gone up by eight positions.

There are vacancies.

In the 20209-10 recession, the recession, they had a 1% increase and 15 vacancies.

And lastly, you'd probably have to eliminate up 20 positions in the city to eliminate the six million dollar spending to go 4% living.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Perfect.

Thank you.

As fast as I can.

If anyone has any questions, just call me.

I couldn't go any faster than that.

Thank you, Mr.

Fries.

Mr.

Strom, the before the meeting, just so this clarification, as a council, we're not supposed to respond to the speakers, but did you hand it out just before here?

You handed out a uh amended budget where the capital budget was there was an error, am I correct?

That's what you told me you gave it.

So just for the last two speakers.

Council president, just the capital budget.

Yeah.

And both speakers referred to that, and that was the case.

So that has been rectified.

We do have and I assume I'll ask um Director Ranzuli.

That also is been updated online.

So thank you for that.

Uh next speaker would be Anna Madeiris.

School committee member Anna Madeiris.

Good evening.

Anna Medeiris, I am at 21 Bridgeton Court.

I've been a resident for 14 years.

And honestly, I did not want my children to attend Cranston Public Schools.

And they didn't for the first three years.

So it's kind of crazy today that I'm standing in front of you as a school committee representative for Ward 2.

I'm also the president of the Eden Park PTP, an active member of the Park View PTPV, and a member of the Cranston Public Schools Wellness Committee, among other things.

My first experience with Cranston Public Schools was with Mrs.

Roxanne Gustavson.

My oldest was enrolled in private school and in need of reading services.

Came from the district to work with my son.

She was incredible.

Our experience with her actually prompted me to look further into Cranston Public Schools and the resources and services that are provided by Cranston that our private school didn't.

So I took the leap and fast forward about seven years.

I'm here before you as an advocate for all of these students and the schools, asking for all of the financial support that you can give or find to allow the schools the opportunity to do their jobs and to provide necessary services for the children in our community.

So last night, the mayor asked us to think about the last time that we were proud of Cranston.

After almost two years of depressing school committee meetings regarding our financial state, my initial internal response was pretty pessimistic.

But you know, pretty quickly after that, I was able to recall some moments when I was uh proud of Cranston and proud of the work that we do here.

Um, despite some of the obstacles.

Um, and I'd like to share those, uh, some of those with you as I think that they're truly undervalued, uh, and maybe because you can't physically see them uh with your eyes while strolling through Knightsville.

One was this past Monday at our school committee meeting.

Um, I got to sit on the stage recognizing and celebrating a number of students and athletes for their outstanding achievements this year, giving them the validation that their hard work has paid off and that their time here in Cranston has been meaningful and well spent.

Our parents, friends, the school committee, the executive team, we were all so proud.

And it was definitely one of those this is why moments.

Two, Mrs.

Weir's Parkview Orchestra Festival field trip, which happened just about two weeks ago.

I got to watch three school buses of students overcome the anxiety of getting on the stage to perform with their instruments and then be so proud of themselves once it was over.

Cheering each other on in support of the friends they've made in class and progressed with over the years, representing Cranston positively as good citizens while being visitors at another school among other schools.

And I have an eighth grader in the program, so seeing the growth from the group from when they started and the songs were completely unrecognizable to now was actually pretty cool.

Um three, watching peer-to-peer assemblies at both east and west.

Uh sitting in the auditoriums with the students and witnessing um them support one another openly without hesitation, is incredible.

Uh the level of comfort and willingness to be vulnerable and the support systems in place, that doesn't happen by accident.

Uh that is a result of the intentional investment in social emotional learning and wellness efforts across the district, and they're worth every single penny.

So for me, it's really nice to have beautiful parks, uh, pickleball carts if you're into that, truly, but they're exactly nice to have.

Um, it's not what comes to mind when I think of my pride of Cranston, uh, especially when I know the reality of where a majority of our students spend their days and the environment that our teachers are expected to shape our children in.

Uh and a quick final story was that I was recently part of a subcommittee that's main focus was to attract and increase uh enrollment.

Uh, but we really couldn't escape the reality of our financial situation.

Um, and we really had to ask ourselves, but why?

Uh why would we try to get people to come here with schools that are at risk of closing and the staff already staff already being reduced?

Uh sure, Gladstone and Eden Park are really beautiful, um, but since the entire district cannot go there, oh, you'll probably end up um in one of our other schools, maybe the one with the giant hole in the roof uh where it leaks on everyone, or maybe the one with no heat, or even better, um, all the heat with classrooms um at max capacity.

I mean, please, it's not about the buildings, it's about the people and what happens inside of them.

Uh, so I won't act like I know the answers or how to handle this really heavy task ahead of all of you.

Um, I have to finish.

I'm sorry, you're gonna have to finish.

I'm almost done.

Um, I understand that in many ways uh your hands are tied, uh, but please know that every single dollar counts.

Uh so I really urge you uh to do everything you can to help us get as close as possible to our ass so that we can do right by the students and the families that are counting on all of us.

Thank you, Ms.

Madeiris.

Thank you.

Next uh speaker would be Mr.

Dominic Fusco, he is the chairman of the Cranston School Committee.

Mr.

Fusco.

Thank you, Council President, members of the uh city council, school committee.

And as just her chairperson of the school committee, I'm extremely proud of my school committee tonight, of our school committee.

They've come together.

We've worked hard to make Cranston schools the best they can be.

And I think we've done a damn good job.

The past 20 years, I've I figured it out.

I've stood here before this committee as a parent as a school committee member, and once again as chairperson of the Cranston School Committee.

And each year I have the same request.

Do what you can to fund our budget.

However, it's not enough.

Several years ago, it was a different story.

We had a council that was adversarial toward the schools.

Didn't work out well.

They said that we got more money from the state, so they didn't need to fund us, which I understand, but all it did was exasperate the problem.

As you know, the school department is the largest department in the city.

We employ just under 1,200 workers now, maintain 20 buildings, and most importantly, we educate 11,000 students.

The schools do not have any way of generating funds.

We must live with what we're what was deemed appropriate by the city and state.

As Mr.

Fry has said, the state failed as well.

It's easy to criticize and saying you should be living within your budget.

If we had reliable funding sources, maybe we could.

Oh, if I ran my household like that, I'd be homeless.

Or if I ran my business like that, I'd be out of business.

Difference is we're not a household.

We're not a business.

We are educators.

If you're a working family running a budget, I suspect you might receive a raise from your employer each year.

If you were a business, you could look for ways to increase revenues, raise prices, cut costs.

Unfortunately, the schools do not have that option.

We can't simply turn around and say, I'm gonna skip an oil delivery this month.

This year the schools took a novel approach, going with a zero base budget.

They looked at everything and said, what is it gonna cost to run that?

Of course, you had to make an assumption that outside factors will remain consistent, which we know is not the case.

Inflation, energy costs are fluctuating wildly.

And to further demonstrate some of this, during our budget hearings, one of my colleagues asked, what percentage of the budget do we actually control?

Less than 10%.

We've tried to get creative.

Yes, when we had SR funds available, we use them.

We got additional programming.

We use them to fill some positions, but unlike our neighbors to the immediate south, no offense, right?

But we knew we had to start putting those back those positions back into our budget, and we did, or we eliminated them.

This is why we're not in the same position as them.

Most of our budget goes towards salaries and benefits.

Like the city, we're grappling with rising health care costs.

As a self-insured district, we've seen medical claims spike, turning a once healthy surplus into a deficit.

We must now repay.

Cranston public schools are truly the poster child of what doing more with less.

Think about this.

30 seconds, Mr.

Fusco.

Cranston is the second largest school district.

On average, we spend $19,950 per student, well below the state average of 228.

Many other cities and towns are spending closer to 25,000 per student.

And we're when we're showing results.

As a matter of fact, right now, next door, almost 100 students are being inducted into National Honor Society.

We're doing the job.

We're doing with less, but we can't do it anymore.

It's the time to do something.

As you've heard, we have no choice now but to close schools, increase class sizes, cut programs.

Something we don't want to do.

If you can help us, we greatly appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh next and next speaker would be Jonathan Francis.

Good evening.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh, my name's Jonathan Francis, um, local 1363 president, um, 35 Fifth Avenue.

Uh, I just wanted to come up here and talk.

Um, I understand the city where we're hurting to put it lightly.

Um, I think everybody in this room wants to try to achieve the same goal.

I know for the fire department and the police department, we've been taking a beaten lately in the papers over our overtime budgets and staffing.

I'd just like to clear a couple misconceptions up.

I just want to make sure if that's that's within the rules of the speaking.

Uh if you I think you're fine.

Okay.

Um so uh a comment was made here tonight that uh the fire department has expanded by eight positions without any vacancies.

Uh that is a half-true statement.

Yes, the fire department has expanded by eight spots.

We put on a fifth rescue that is severely needed.

Uh the last time a rescue was added in the city of Cranston, it was 1984, and we were doing roughly 8,000 runs a year.

We added this rescue uh at the beginning of this year, and the city is doing currently 18,000 runs.

Um that is the true part.

The false part is the vacancies.

Currently, the city of Cranston, um, as of tomorrow when the chief of the department retires, we are going to be down 12 members.

Now that may not seem a lot, uh, like a lot to some people who are not in the profession, but that's additional shifts that we are required to work.

On top of that, we are at the mercy of the state retirement board when it comes to occupational injuries and illnesses, which severely impacts our overtime as well.

We already operate at minimum manning.

The minimum manning is 43 firefighters per shift.

The national standard is to have four firefighters per truck.

We currently fall short of that standard on half of the half of the trucks in this city.

That leads to injuries at fire on the fire ground, which again increases that overtime budget.

Um fire departments always been willing to work with the city, and we always stand with everybody in the city.

Um the misconception that we're driving up the overtime budget, it's not true.

There are some factors that do attribute it to it.

However, the mechanism for the fire department to reduce that number has been stripped from us over the last few years.

We used to operate with I'm gonna say air quotes additional manpower.

And what that means is instead of having the minimum 43 firefighters per shift, we had roughly 46 or 47.

So if there was a vacancy during that tour, that spot would not be filled with overtime.

So some of these are out of our hands in terms of control.

Yes, we utilize sick time and vacation.

However, the those spots used to be able to be controlled when we had the additional manpower.

Uh, I'd like to thank you all for your time.

I'd like to thank you all for your hard work.

Um, all the members of the school department and the public that spoke tonight, you all present great arguments, and I want you guys to know that's the city of Cranston Fire Department.

We all stand with you, and we are willing to work with the council.

If anybody has any questions, I will be in attendance tonight.

Thank you, Mr.

Francis.

Thank you.

Mr.

Lima, is there anyone online who would like to speak about fiscal budget 26 2026-27?

A reminder to the public, please use the raise hand function.

Please hit the raise hand button.

I see no public comment online.

Okay.

So I'm gonna go back to the chambers.

I did put a sign-out sheet sign-up sheet out earlier.

I know some additional people have entered the chambers.

Is anybody did not have an opportunity to speak on the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget?

Please step up to the podium and state your name and address for the record.

And once again, you will have four minutes to speak.

You can put that right down, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Sally Finkel, and I live at 55 Roger Williams Circle, Cranston, Rhode Island 02905.

I'm a seventh grader at Parkview Middle School.

I've been going to school for eight years, but I didn't really have fun until sixth grade.

I always did fine at school, but every day seemed super repetitive.

The difference was that I had sports.

I ran cross-country and chat and played basketball my first year.

It made each day seem a little different.

If money is taken away from schools, our middle school sports are at risk.

Sports give kids like me ways to meet others with similar interests and give us motivation to come to school each day.

So I ask you on behalf of my friends, coaches, teammates, and every kid in Cranston on a team, please fully fund our schools.

Before we go to committee, I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn.

Is there a second?

All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed signify by saying nay.

The eyes have it.

Motion carries this meeting is adjourned.

But three minutes, we're going to start the find it uh the special city council meeting.

Okay, let's go the Finance Committee meeting to order.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're about to start the meeting.

If we could quiet down and take our seats.

Seeing none, um, just for the record, we will be we might be taking a break, so not for lunch, but we might take a break depending on how we how we do tonight.

Um I guess we're gonna start with public hearings and public comment.

We'll begin with the police.

Chief.

Good evening.

So the budget that you have in front of you, um, obviously one of the concerns last year was the overtime.

Um, I think the mayor mentioned it last night in his budget that it was um not a realistic number that was put forward last year.

Um, we do have um currently six vacancies at the police department.

We've had some of those vacancies for a while.

So uh I think as um the president of the uh fire uh fire union mentioned when you have a vacancy, there's contractual obligations and safety issues where if somebody calls out sick or you're down a few officers, that leads to um that triggers overtime.

So some of that did occur last year.

Um some of the other numbers in our budget were not calculated correctly.

Um, some of the ones that we don't have really control over, that included like the um crossing guards, although that falls under the uh police department budget.

We really have no role in the contract and the funding of that particular uh particular line item, and there's some other line items such as uh pensions and things of that nature that were uh underestimated and came over quite a bit, so it really impacted our budget.

The um most of the items in our budget line items are not discretionary, they're set uh based on like holiday pay, um longevity, those are all contractual obligations, and some of those were also underfunded.

Um so unfortunately, we didn't come in on budget as we hoped, and I think somebody mentioned um everything's more expensive, um, police vehicles, computers, firearms, ammunition.

We can go on and on.

Basically, every single thing that we purchase, gas and oil, we know that's really gone through the roof as well.

Uh things that we have no control over.

So um we're gonna you know do our best to keep the budget in you know in line this year.

Um, you know, we um the union is in the process of uh negotiations for a new contract, but obviously that's gonna impact the um the bottom line regarding salaries and overtime, but that's uh those negotiations have just begun.

Uh so we just have to be mindful of that as well.

So that's my uh basic overview of um our budget.

Um elaborate further.

Thank you, Colonel.

Um, when I look at the actuals for this year, 26.

It looks like right now we should be at around 77 percent based on 20 weeks during the fiscal year.

Uh excuse me, 40 weeks of the fiscal year, based on 52 weeks for the year.

They director, can you please speak up a little bit?

Oh sorry.

Can you hear me?

You have to hold it out, yes.

The uh between overtime and salaries, uh they uh currently at 77.62 percent.

So they're right on schedule for you know uh a little bit under in salaries and a little over on uh overtime.

But when you blend the two together, it's like 77.62 percent, and for the it should be around 77.

So I think they did an admirable job so far.

Uh the the items that are um really over is special duty and IOD as far as blue cross, those two generate most of the uh overage for that department.

The rest everything else is pretty well in line, and um uh we'll be watching it carefully this year.

Hopefully, because we have a uh an executive uh uh document that's we're trying to have all departments, unless it's an emergency or something of a uh of uh necessary nature that we're not gonna be spending between now and the end of the fiscal year, June 30th.

So with that in mind, uh the total budget currently, and there are some things that are more seasonal, obviously.

They're at 81% as a total budget, and it should be around, like I said, 77%.

So uh I'm hoping we can make up that difference at the between now and the end of the fiscal year.

Thank you, Director.

Our auditor.

Colonel, um, just some general questions moving forward with the budget that's current.

Obviously, as Director Strom stated in previous budgets, some of the numbers were miscalculated moving forward.

We're either under revenue or over in expenditures.

Do you feel working with the director that the budget that you were presented is more accurate and will be more consistent, and we won't have any holes or major um items coming forward?

Absolutely.

Um I've worked with Director Strom for many years before he left the city, and he's very interactive.

He actually sits down, we go over things that we project that we didn't have those conversations with the really the previous finance director.

And I think having our input and coming up with realistic numbers on the revenue side as well as the uh debit side is going to lead to uh a balanced budget.

We've never gone over in the past, and unfortunately, we had a uh some underestimates uh that were done last year.

As always, the one question how many officers are currently on long-term IOD, which are trying to be put into the state program?

Um, we have one that's been an IO IOD for years that the uh state retirement refuses to acknowledge as a uh for a retirement.

And I think we have three officers that have been out a few months, but we expect all those officers to come back in the very future.

Thank you.

This time many members of the council, Councilwoman Horroid.

Sorry, Colonel, I got to this about 2 30 last night in the morning.

So I have lots of questions for you.

I'm sorry.

Any line items that were reduced in your budget?

Yes.

You explain them to me.

Well, one area that is always um important is vehicles.

So um patrol vehicle replacement patrol vehicles uh under 53210.

Um that was reduced uh, I believe 250,000, roughly.

So from basically every year we try to purchase eight vehicles to keep the fleet healthy, and in this particular budget, um, because of the reduction, we'll probably be able to purchase six vehicles because of the cost.

So you'll be short two vehicles.

Yes.

Do you is there a federal grant in the works, or do you get federal money besides city money for vehicles usually?

We try to.

Um, we did apply for some grants with uh Congress and Magazina's office, and we missed the deadline for Senator Reed's office because we're kind of depending on uh the uh the grant we were hopeful for it.

And that grant was actually for four school resource officer vehicles, and um which really do need replacement at some point in the very near future.

So unfortunately, um each community gets three projects, and we didn't make the cut.

We were the third in line.

So unfortunately, we're able to get those vehicles.

Explain that to me.

You didn't make the cut, and there's only three.

So a city or town can get two grants.

That's what waves explained to me that they focus on spreading the grant money across the federal appropriation monies, and typically it's two grants per uh city, and I believe um uh maybe fire and um mayor's office received those two approval for two projects, and our our project did not make that into that realm.

Since you brought up grants, who writes your grant requests and the information for your grants?

Is it in within your department or the city grant writer?

Uh combination of both.

So Captain Sean Parker is in charge of grants, but we obviously use Lisa and Dozier.

Uh she does a really great job for us.

And is your department always actively looking for grants, or do you wait to be notified by federal officials or by the grant writer, or is it something someone on your department is always have an eye out for?

We always have an eye out.

We're on all the uh just grants and federal federal grant websites, and we get emails and you know, we'll always look up for state and federal grants on a regular basis.

Our rating grants something that your department could handle on their own without assistance from a grant writer.

Yes, we we've always more or less done did it that way in in the past, but I will say people that do grants um you know a little bit better, and they have contacts to get the grants through.

So um lease has been very successful for us.

I mean, we've gotten um uh grants for K9 vehicles, as you know, through Congress and Magazina.

We were just awarded a uh, I think it's 1.61.7 million dollar grant, um, also from I believe um I think that might be Congress and Magazine or um to replace all our portable radios that are end of life.

So we have been very successful, but um, there's only so much money to go around, and a lot of times smaller police departments actually have an advantage.

They'll they'll they'll usually cap it at certain number of size of our departments.

Vehicles are actually considered your police officers' office space because they do not have an office space at your police department.

That's where their computer is and all their equipment, correct?

Yeah, they spend their entire shift in the vehicle, yes, for the most part.

How are the SROs?

Do they have a vehicle now, but it needs to be replaced?

Yes, they have high mileage or older vehicles that have been in circulation probably, you know, five or six years, and um they use those vehicles exclusively to patrol the schools.

And since there's only four SROs and there's over 20 schools, you can imagine they're constantly driving back and forth, and they also do some patrolling as well.

Okay.

The other I have a few more questions.

I think the mayor stated last night that the fire department went on about 13,000 calls, which uh John Francis corrected tonight, and I think it's closer to 18,000 calls.

Do you know about how many calls um your police department responded to this year?

Only in the city, I'm asking at this question.

I'm gonna break it up in two parts.

Just over 83,000.

83,000.

I was very active in watching the news when there was a horrible incident at Brown University, and I did happen to notice some of the faces, and so they were Cranston police.

Um, do you know about how many of our offices responded there?

And was it for a week, week and a half?

Um, we probably had maybe 10 to 11 officers that were working that night, and it was just that night.

They were helping search buildings and you know, securing the area.

So um we also responded for Tucket, the active shooter in Petucket.

Um, that was, you know, the shooter was um deceased pretty quickly, and that was uh less of a lift for our department and didn't really trigger a lot of overtime.

So when you send 10 eleven um uh from Cranson, weather, if they were on duty, that means we have to replace them with overtime, correct?

Yes, and as well as um if they're working beyond the ship.

So some of those officers worked late into the night because that shooter was not, didn't know if he was still in the area.

Yes.

Do you have a lot?

Do you feel you have enough manpower right now with those vacant positions, or is this escalating into overtime and some overtime not wanted by the men where they're held?

We've been down bigger numbers in the past before.

Um, you know, what happens is some officers when it gets busy, like the summertime when officers take vacations or during the holidays, that's when the younger officers get held for you know two shifts in a row.

And you know, yes, nobody likes to be held, but at the end of the day, uh public safety is not really being impacted.

It's just the officers get tired if they keep continually get held past their shifts.

Do you believe we will be reimbursed for the calls in Pa Tucket or Providence um through federal money?

But could that take up to I'm under the assumption a few years if we see the money?

We did apply um through Rhode Island EMA, and we we got all our overtime numbers and how much it cost.

And you know, we're we're in queue.

I don't know, you know, I think the state's trying to, because it was an emergency that they might be able to get money, but I you know never count that happening for sure, but hopefully we do.

Do you know about how many times your officers have had to leave the city of Cranston to go to um neighboring cities and towns, and we've had to call another officer here, like for major events.

Doesn't happen that often.

And if for instance they go to um Bristol to help out with the Fourth of July parade, well, Bristol pays for those officers directly.

So that's not really much of a cost.

I know fire is much more, they do a lot more mutual aid, and and that that's costly, but we don't have a lot of that.

Do you make chance how many calls your police have to respond to to the Howard Av complex?

I don't have an exact number, but um we've studied this in the past, and it's actually not that much.

I know the fire goes there all the time, but state police pretty much patrol or respond to the calls on the state state property.

Once in a while, we'll have to go and assist, but it's it's not that frequently.

Thank you.

I am not aware what special duty overtime or average.

Can you explain that to me?

Yes.

So um we have care details.

We do speed enforcement in the city.

Um we have uh national highway safety traffic administration money uh that comes through Rhoda and DOT, where they do speed enforcement, clicker tickets, seatbelt um enforcement, um pedestrian safety enforcement.

So there's a number of things.

So what happens with that is the city pays the officer up front, and then we are reimbursed 100% by uh by the state or federal funds through the state.

And that's one of the issues that I had was the money was not going back into that account.

We were getting reimbursed, but it was going somewhere else, and it's not reflected.

So it looks like that was actually overspent.

We're probably close to 200,000 dollars is reimbursed back to the police department.

This will be my last question, I believe.

Let me make sure I was tired last night.

I noticed that your uniform budget was cut by 25,000.

We haven't dressed down day here in Cranston.

Absolutely not, not as long as I'm the chief.

Uh no, um, I think um there's certain discretionary some officers they they don't put in for new uniforms that every every fall and every summer they can.

But like, you know, I have a whole closet full of uniforms.

I'm not out in the street, but um some officers don't use their slips, and then um we also have to um provide when new officers come on the job, they've provided um uniforms.

We haven't hired in a little bit a little while now, so we haven't had to outfit any new officers.

I lagged.

There is one more question.

Sorry.

Um, I know there's mandates that officers have to buy certain equipment to have on them, and they have to use their own money to put it out, and then they get reimbursed.

Are any of your offices as of today waiting to be reimbursed from administration?

Thankfully, no.

Uh under the last finance director, we had a lot of issues.

Okay.

And I was, you know, very close to getting grievances, and I'll be honest, it was very frustrating because it's always been no problem, and uh it turned into a problem.

But I know um when Director Strom's here, and then actually since he's been here and since um there's been a change, there's been no issues, everybody's paid up to date.

That's all it took three weeks.

Thank you.

That's all for me now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilwoman Vizier.

Councilwoman Heroyan or President, Vice President Heroyan uh asked all my questions.

Thank you.

Moving on to Councilman Ritz.

Just have a few few things.

You know, safety is very important to me, and I'm happy to hear that you know this this is a budget you feel like you can operate in and look quickly, uh formed a relationship we have here too.

But you also know the uh situation we're in over here too.

I didn't know if there's any programs that we have in here that are maybe underperforming where they were supposed to be that possibly we could hold for this year, or if there's any software upgrades or or anything that we could put off at least for one year to try and soften a little bit of this this tax increase.

So that's the that's the conversation I had with Director Strom and those programs have already been removed.

This is a bare bones.

I hate to say it.

Yeah, yeah.

Unfortunately, um you look at IT, anybody that works um, you know, with a computer, um, what's what's driving the cost up there is a couple things.

Uh, number one is Microsoft, like you can't buy programs anymore.

Everything's a subscription database.

And because we're a government agency, believe it or not, we have to pay a higher fee.

And then also we have to get multi-factor um uh authentication um like duo and other stuff like that to make sure that our systems are secure because we're handling very confidential information, and um some of the vehicles will have internet in the vehicle and the cars, the patrol cars.

So we're gonna have to have that two-factor.

Um, so that's what drove up the uh cost and technology, unfortunately, doesn't last as we know, you know, a year or two in a laptop or a computer, you're buying a new one of us, right?

Chief, um I would like to thank you and the men and women of the department um for your service.

Um you your department is the front line of our city and you represent it well, and the men and women that I've seen out in the public represent the city very well.

Um I just want to ask you about line um number five, three, two, one, two, the explorer program.

I see that every year we put five thousand dollars in, but you've been trending closer to two.

Um I'm concerned with that because the explorer program is a program that mentors young high school students to uh join law enforcement.

So I just are you is your department actively seeking, or do you wait for the uh students to come to you?

So we um recruit in the schools a lot of our school resource officers um and the people that run that program actively recruit.

And the reason why, like sometimes the cost fluctuates because a lot of the um explorers they come in, um, they get their uniforms and they get everything up front, and then sometimes they're in they're in the program for three or four years.

So it depends on you know the numbers and when somebody's coming in, but that's a very active program, one that I'm very proud of that actually was reinvigorated when I came back as chief.

And we actually hired for the first time.

run that program actively recruit and the reason why like sometimes the cost fluctuates because a lot of the um explorers they come in um they get their uniforms and they get everything up front and then sometimes they're in they're in the program for three or four years so it depends on you know the numbers and when somebody's coming in but that's a very active program one that I'm very proud of that actually was reinvigorated when I came back as chief and we actually hired for the first time um he actually went to another department first but we hired a Francine police explorer on our department is the first one so I always bring that up so well chief thank you and um I'll always be in support of that and if you ever need any help with that please reach out councilman cavalry thank you chairman uh I'm gonna switch first of all thank you very much what you do keeping our city safe and uh we do a wonderful job and uh I want to switch it up to revenue uh I'm looking at 2025 it says 1.5 million dollars in revenue but then in 26 it was budgeted 1.88 and then now in 2020 in the 2027 it's down to uh what about 1.4 was the revenue on 88 just inflated in that's why it's so low now it's the big difference is there a specific revenue line item you're looking at page four of the of this packet I don't think I don't think that's you're looking at the total of all revenue not just okay so I can tell you that um I think but um I think some of some of the projections weren't realistic um when we yes and um so we dialed a lot of those those revenue projections back like for instance the VIN station brings in the half a million dollars a year I think it was very ambitious if you will the numbers that Mrs.

Dallas used and I don't know how we how he calculated those because you know we didn't have a part in that but the end of the day um we expect you know details for instance um that the season for details starts now because of the warmer weather because a lot of road construction things like that so some of that will catch up if you will there'll be an influx of money on um like car fees um detail administrative fees things of that nature so will we hit the exact projections i i don't know and there's a good chance we may not this year but I think we dialed it back more conservative next year okay and uh as far as like traffic tickets and stuff like that is that go under that's not under this revenue is that considered revenue that's revenue that goes to the courts and that they have their own budget and things of that nature so you do the work they get the money yeah well you know we obviously we don't write tickets to create revenue we do it for safety reasons but um the city makes up pretty well like we I have a directive that all tickets that can be written um to the municipal court are written there first rather than go to the traffic tribunal tickets that go to the traffic tribunal I believe we get less percentage of the money that the city gets less money in the general fund for for those tickets so we do try to keep any violations in the court here in Cranston.

Okay I mean I think all of us here well they can they could balance the budget if you give everybody a ticket this speeding so we hear it over and over again that's why I asked that question thank you very much councilman can I just say one thing also uh certain times of year we have more activity and so some of these detailed cars and things of that nature will probably start to pick up starting say now to the end of the June so there should be more revenue and activity based on that just to to add just one piece that I'd like director Stram said we're running at roughly 40 weeks and 76 77% just one of the the uh revenue centers from the previous budget is currently running at 34% is projected to be 400,000 under so that's the adjustments that were made on behalf of the revenue side to make sure they were accurate going forward for fiscal year 27 just to elaborate on what Director said we're supposed to be 40 weeks in which is roughly 77% of the budget we have one line item here which is uh police detail for cars the actual budget number was 700,000 it it's running at uh 241 for 40 weeks and if you annualize it it's about 313.

So it's gonna be roughly 400,000 under budget.

So for that reduction in the current budget that was submitted it was a a good adjustment so at least we can attain the numbers going forward and not have these surprises.

Continue, council.

The the program where the citizens wrote uh wrote wrote along with the offices.

Is that still intact, or did you have to take that out?

No, that's a citizens police academy, and uh we usually run it in the springtime, so I'll be coming up, but that there's minimal cost, and I think the the investment is worth um the cost of that.

It's mostly comp time, it's not overtime when the officers come up.

And um educate the citizens on what we do is really important.

So I know that program is well uh well attended, and uh most people I'm I'm glad to hear that's going.

Um I'm gonna sign up for it.

Thank you.

We'll see you there.

Mayor Trevogente, I want to ask a follow-up question from councilwoman Ryan.

With a 33 million dollar budget, why is it necessary that any police officer buy his own equipment?

Well, um, at the end of the day, um that's contractual.

So it's based on the contract, so you know they can buy, say they don't need a uniform and they want to buy a flashlight.

They they can buy a flashlight, submit that receipt, and they're getting reimbursed for it.

But there's a lot of equipment that you know the city's my follow-up question.

What line item does that reimbursement come from?

The you the uniform um and equipment, right?

Correct.

Um here.

Um it's under a 51405, which is uniforms.

So is there any other area that they buy buy things?

Uh they usually go to one of the vendors, so we have a few vendors like uniform stores, but that uniform store sells boots, it sells you know, belts, it sells flashlights, it sells a lot of different types of equipment.

So they can get reimbursed instead of they can use their voucher, if you will, for the for those items.

So I'm so you you stay within your budget though, with those items.

Yeah, actually, we we're we're under budget for that line.

Yeah, that's good to hear.

Yes, right.

My next question is that as you know, but we're faced with a 10 million dollar problem right now.

And my question to you is that with your 33 million dollar budget, you feel confident that you can live within that budget because we don't have any legal room, and the taxpayers are not gonna be happy with us without the final decision.

I understand that, and yes, um, you know, we understand that it's there's gonna be certain discretionary overtime and details and things like that that we're gonna have to cut back on.

But at the end of the day, I'm confident with this budget.

I I would I didn't have the same level of confidence last year with that budget, but this year I have confidence.

I'm not familiar with the police department.

I know the fire department has minimum manning.

Does the police have minimum manning as well?

We do in the patrol division.

Um we have 10 officers on um patrol officers on first shift and second shift, and eight on the uh third shift plus the supervisors.

All right.

And I would you or your overtime budget is two million two fifty with minimum manning, you're confident you can live within that particular figure.

Yes.

Very good.

As you know, the gun range is a sore spot in more five.

Uh whatever you're doing lately, it's working.

So please keep it up because I have a night heard one complaint thus far.

I know the summer months are coming, so hopefully you can continue to keep them happy.

Do you have a restricted fund with the gun range?

Restricted there's a revenue fund you generate revenue.

Is that a restricted fund?

In the budget, um, right?

It's uh yeah, it's there.

Okay, here you bought it it's it's a it's a it's a it's a revenue line item.

It's not restricted.

No, no, it's not restricted, not protected, so to speak.

Where in the budget would I find that?

I think I see it.

It's in there somewhere.

It's in the revenue.

Is it training center rental?

Yes.

Okay.

There's no training center rental, and though there's no nothing in there though.

It's zeroed out.

It's got zero out.

That's good.

It's been zeroed out for years.

Yeah.

Because we don't we don't really you don't rent it out, rent it out anymore, really.

We still have we still have departments that you cooperate with that utilize our gun range.

Yes.

So I assume you generate revenue from that.

They they do pay, so I don't know why it would be zero.

I know that's a couple of departments.

Why is it zeroed out?

You generate revenue.

Must be going somewhere else because I know we have collecting my money.

So please it may be on the other revenue.

Other other revenue.

Okay.

I I didn't realize that.

We still pay rent.

That building.

We pay one million for each year.

Yes.

How many more years do we have left?

We had maybe um chief of staff already.

Is it like a year and a half or a half?

Roughly a year and a half, and then I think the buyout is about a million.

Yeah.

So uh yeah, so we're almost at the end of the uh end of the lease, if you will.

What is the school safety initiative?

115,000.

What is that?

So that's under started under Mayor Fung.

And uh so every day there's two officers that are on detail.

The city is split into uh east and west, and those officers randomly conduct security checks at all those different schools, they walk the halls, they show up, and just to make sure that you know we have a presence at every single school.

Are they on duty police officers or off-duty?

That's a detail on those are on the office in uniform.

All right, thank you.

Councilman.

Thank you.

I want to echo um what councilman Enderha said, Councilman Campo Piano said, you know, there's three things that I'm proud of in our city.

Uh well, there's a lot of things I'm proud of in our city, but um, since becoming a councilman, I've become increasingly proud of our police department, our fire department, our school system.

And while we're at it, we might as well throw the public employees in there as well.

So that's a kudos to the people that are in charge of those departments, especially you, Chief Winquist.

Um, over the past year, I've asked you a lot of questions, and I've always met with a smile and a very cogent and competent answer from you and the members of your department, and I appreciate that very much.

Thank you.

Um, and I would be remiss if I didn't say that.

Um Councilman Campo Piano asked a good question because it was the same question I was gonna ask about the revenue.

Um, and I was gonna follow up and see where we were and that on why it was different.

So we got we got that answer.

Um and then councilman Ritz, Councilman Traff asked the rest of my questions, but except for two.

Um I'm looking at, you know, I looked at every line item, and most of these things that I look at are um contractually obligated, so there's not much we can you know wiggle out of a lot of these things.

Um I'm concerned about five two zero one two, which is gasoline and oil.

Um, because I don't want to wind up underfunding anything, uh and I don't think anybody on the council wants to underfund stuff um and wind up with a problem down the road.

So my question is um is the what is it 12,500 increase in that line item over the adopted budget last year adequate?

Because if you look at the actuals for the three years previous, four years previous, it's more than 260,000.

Well, um that's a great question.

We don't know what's gonna happen with the price of gasoline and oil with everything going on throughout the world, but obviously we're gonna we have the same number of cars and pretty much get the same amount of gas mileage, so that's a great question.

I I don't know if that's I don't know if and I don't expect you nor whatever we want to call Bob in this meeting interim director Strom.

Um have those answers as far as you know oil futures at your fingertips.

But um I would just say that's something that uh upon final adoption we should we should look at and make sure that that's not gonna cause any issues.

Um that's the one that jumps out to me.

I also had another question.

I got a call from two constituents actually with respect to the bear cat.

And the question was, and I already know the answer to this question, but I want to I want to put it on the record.

The question was um why are we spending 400,000 dollars two years in a row on the bear cat?

And that's not accurate, is it?

We it's it's paid for was last year and it was 400,000 total.

Is that right?

That's correct.

Okay, hoping to get delivery by June 30th.

Okay, and um is any of that money bonded out, or was that just a capital improvement?

That was uh opera money, opera money.

Okay, all right.

That concludes my questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Any council people on that side, any more questions?

Seeing none on this side before I end with the president, councilwoman Raziri.

Um, I just have a couple follow-up questions.

Um are any of the cars energy efficient?

Um, and then we don't have we we have actually a few hybrids, but they're good or not, they're more expensive up front, and by the time most cars last four or five years because of mileage, you really don't end up with much of a cost savings because of the the upfront cost.

So um, you know, we use the regular flood explorer police vehicle.

So I don't know if they're considered them efficient or not, but that's what 99% of police departments use across the country because of their safety ratings and their producive uh to all weather conditions, obviously the blizzard and everything we had this summer.

So where this went together.

And my last question um is back to what councilman and dohar mentioned.

Um, have you received any applicants from the criminal justice program at East?

Not that I'm aware of no, and that'd be great if uh we didn't.

Um the question we've seen that in the news a lot where Providence Well it are using speed cameras and it's getting lots of revenue.

Has that been considered in Cranson?

And if not, why?

And would we consider that, especially in school zones?

Because when we live in three or four streets away, I got two emails by 6 30 this morning about speeding.

Right.

So obviously, like I mentioned before, um, anything we do from the police department side, we don't view it for revenue purposes.

I know you're right, but I know you have you have a different role.

Um personally, and I talked to the mayor about this.

I'm not a big fan of speed cameras, and I'll tell you why, because the purpose of an interaction with a police officer is to change their behavior.

So if they're speeding and they get a ticket later in the mail, sometimes a week or two weeks later, and actually goes to the uh registered owner of the vehicle.

I don't feel that that's as um fact as an officer being on in detail, stopping somebody, maybe they give a warning for the first time, and then they give a ticket.

So um right now, state law, you can only use them in school zones.

I know there's a lot of legislators that are trying to expand the use of the cameras.

Um, you know, red light cameras is something I think is something that may be considered, and we're all gonna have um school bus cameras because the law passed, I think by 2028.

Every bus and the fleet will have to have these cameras, and a lot of revenue will come in for that as well.

But I know like I I travel through a lot of these places where these cameras are, and I can tell you the perception of the average citizen that it's just a money grab.

And what do people slow down 100%?

Sometimes they're crawling and they're they're staring at the speedometers and you know, so on and so forth.

So I do believe they're effective in that capacity, but I just I do feel there's no replacement for an officer that's out there.

And we we do go out to a lot of areas.

If there's a complaint about speeding, we have a list of locations, and we have officers that go out and they do write a lot of tickets in those zones.

I know speed bumps is another thing that was discussed, and speed humps, and you know, uh, there's a lot of creativity out there, but um, and those and and those speed cameras, you know who makes the money is is the companies, they're the ones that make those, yeah.

So you get a small percentage of it and a lot of work involved with it too.

Welcome.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh strong supporters in War Three of Speed Bunts.

Uh, Councilman Ritz, anything?

Mayor Trefficanthi.

The floor is yours, Mr.

President.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

If we could go back to the salary schedule, and it's kind of a two-fold question.

I look at there's an increase in the salary schedule of approximately a little over 200,000.

And if I remember from the beginning, right now we have a full force of officers on the police force.

So we're down six officers, four are by um agreement or part of the contract.

Two or not.

So we have not replaced that.

Obviously, contract negotiations beginning.

Um technically me not filling those positions could be a grievance.

So that that's two positions about 200,000 of a savings.

So I'm not sure where the union stands on that.

Um, I haven't received a lot of complaints about that because I think they they know they're going into negotiations, but we'll have to see if they're gonna push that if they want those filled.

I also want to mention that at the end of this contract, which ends June 30th, there's a concession, not concession, but there's a clause in there that the department actually increases in size by three officers.

So it actually goes from 153 to 156.

But technically, you would have nine vacancies.

So it depends on what's agreed agreed on in the next contract, of what how many vacancies they'd be willing to hold open.

So and pretty much it's like you took my fire read my mind because I know you're currently in contract negotiations.

Who who's negotiating are you on the negotiations, Mr.

Strom or is that will you be on that negotiation?

Um I would say yes, but I'm not on the as okay because I should be though.

Because that that will absolutely have a great impact on our our our first line the salary line so when we say is this within our budget I'm saying yes but it sounds a little like no if we have nine officers that could come on board in the next next during the this next year at my am I correct?

Yeah we I don't think we included um funding funding the positions I think you might have funded um practically what we have now but I don't know if you fund that's really two to those the the three north that could be added I'm not sure if that's happened but um I I think they'll I'm confident that you know I don't think the union will push the fund nine positions but I can't speak to them and they're their negotiations.

I think at some point and and thank you for you it's the honesty because it at some point we're gonna have to know that figure because we certainly that could be roughly I'm gonna say that could be about n or gross about nine hundred thousand dollars.

That's so that's that's a significant number so uh Mr.

Strom and maybe uh the administration perhaps we could get how that is going to impact our budget because we remember we want this the budget projections and assumptions to be quite accurate.

We know what happens when they aren't so I appreciate that because that was one of the big things I know we're in contract negotiations.

So we're gonna have to revisit that perhaps to get an answer for me on that because when we vote on this budget we're gonna need to figure that it's somewhat realistic.

That's right right now it looks like there's uh eight positions that have not been funded that I can say real quick and there is a contingency line item for the next police contract now I gotta find out because I'm fairly new on the arrival that I gotta find out what that contingency was directed for.

So certainly as we're in the hearings I I put that question on record so I'll put it with during the hearings if you could get back to me because that's going to have an impact on just that one line but also it's gonna have impact on the entire budget.

Okay.

So thank you.

Um the other thing I'm gonna ask and it's just for my own edification if we go down to and pardon me I'm reading my reading glasses it needs to be stronger uh 51302 the hospitalization line that's a pretty could you explain what it is I mean that's a substantial line um Mr.

Strom what is that the hospitalization is that some type of insurance fund that's our health care insurance that's our health care insurance okay and we approximately 10% this year.

Okay.

And so I assume the next line the hospital buyback is those people who are not taking the health care that is correct and they get a certain buyout for that aspect okay and that has gone up okay yeah yeah good question who do we get our health care from do you know that oh mostly from blue cross but we do have I believe some that are still with United Health.

Okay.

Thank you so blue cross and United Health for the most part um I want to revisit the car situation all right because I'm not did I hear correctly generally we buy six new vehicles every year eight eight new vehicles and this year we bought back six six what does that mean does that mean the officers who didn't get new cars are driving how old are the cars that they're driving now they're a few years old but you know the miles you put a lot of miles up you do put a lot of miles in yeah are you worried about them I mean I I'd love to get eight I got you know but obviously I know what time the sign of the time we're in it um when I first got to the department the fleet was in deplorable condition and that's why I pushed great every year because that percentage is we have a lot of cars but that percentage always keeps the fleet healthy yeah and unfortunately like the average patrol car um that's gone up considerably about 70 thousand dollars each right um all if you know radios um all the data terminals light packages cages you know like there's a lot that goes into fifty no thank you thank you on that and looking at um and this would probably more for director strum so I don't I see I think I see our overtime once again and I heard the chief speak of it it seems to be more in line with the historical average I look at the act actual in uh 2025 um that was you know 20 you know 2.3 you've got 2.2 and I know uh the chief said that's pretty much in line with what you need um what is the 2000 you made an increase uh an adjustment in the 2026 budget

push rate every year because that percentage is we have a lot of cars but that percentage always keeps the fleet healthy yeah and unfortunately like the average patrol car uh that's gone up considerably about 70 000 each right um all if you know radios um all the data terminals light packages cages you know like there's a lot that goes no thank you thank you on that and looking at um and this would probably more for director strum so i don't know i see i think i see our overtime once again and i heard the chief speak of it it seems to be more in line with the historical average i look at the act actual in uh 2025 um that was you know 20 you know 2.3 you've got 2.2 and i know uh the chief said that's pretty much in line with what you need um what is the 2000 you made an increase uh an adjustment in the 2026 budget uh correct director uh acting director strong we'll say and if i'm if when we went over the monthly reports uh we we noticed an adjustment in the overtime and a lot i think that had to do with changing the poorly budgeted last year's budget if you recall the actual yeah right now we're running uh 1.7 million through 40 weeks right so we what we did was we took the number of weeks my formula for the number of weeks and then divide that into it and then um multiply it by 52 weeks to come out with the close to 2.2.

So you you feel confident that that we're on the right track again thank you um last item I'll go to is there's so many good questions were asked um if I could ask so we could have a report on I know Councilman Trafficaney mentioned we do take revenue in at the range I would like to know that figure I'd like to know where to find it I'm not really sure why it wouldn't be included in that line because we were both it both looking yeah we could you could have that figure for us please Mr.

Strom um and I uh my time I'm I'm set thank you so much all right we will end with Mayor Trevor Kanti a quick follow up Bob within the 33 million dollar police budget we're currently negotiating a contract with the police department correct yes I believe the money for that that proposed contract for 2627 within that 33 million dollars yeah yes or no say that again uh council we're negotiating a new contract with the Prince of police department yes they have their gross budget right now is 33 million dollars in change yes once we settle that contract is the money for that contract within that 33 million dollars it is and it's also includes that contingency line item the of 700 so we did make um depending on what we negotiate we're hoping that will be sufficient director moretti thank you chair um just a couple of things to note listen to some of the questions um just overall whether it be this department or any other department just to reiterate that yeah this budget we approach it as a what we would believe is a sounding a little crass or unsophisticated but basically best guess budget that's what a budget is it's a best guess um yeah along with some analysis that led to the that those estimates so but there's uh no conservativism extra conservativism in nor do we did we believe there's anywhere where we don't think it's attainable so there is a risk you know being higher or or lower but there's uh you know the approach was not to uh have any fluff in there uh and vice versa to leave anybody short whether it be the police department or any other department um that was just the overall approach just a couple of comments um as to the um the the gasoline in the field you're gonna just just kind of cut to it throughout the entire this is pretty pervasive in the whole budget um it is speculating on oil futures that's really it um the assumption fundamentally is saying that it's the that the war is not going to be prolonged throughout the entire budget process that you know if within some time this year that it should be resolved with with the uh pricing to go down to pre-war pricing um again best guess but anyone's guess as to with oil futures uh and how long that's gonna last for but that's fundamentally it to say um a bit higher uh you know in the short term but to revert um by way of example six months from now to hopefully this will all be in the past um but that'll that might answer the councilman's question and the council's questions uh for all the departments um as to the the number of positions um we we don't know and and frankly um it is an estimate what we think we may arrive at you know after negotiations with with uh the IBPO um it's our preliminary discussions that they're you know the relationship is very good they're very understanding and they also they know uh that you know I believe that there'd be some leniency coming from them but um how do we we how do we say it differently the more we expose the thought process and where we are and reflect it here

Um it's our preliminary discussions that they're you know the relationship is very good, they're very understanding, and they also they know uh that you know I believe that there'd be some leniency coming from them, but um how do we how do we say it differently?

The more we expose the thought process and where we are and reflect it here, we're kind of lessening the city's position in negotiations.

Um so perhaps if it gets to a certain point you want to go into an executive session, that may be the more wise thing to do than indicate where we're currently with the with bargaining.

Um and lastly, um, as to the cars, you know, and when the NCAA double double A tournament for those basketball teams that were on the bubble in terms of making it to the NCA tournament or not, it's kind of I'll say the police cars.

Uh that was I'd say the number one item that didn't make the cut.

Um in terms of the entire budget process, all departments should this council uh discover you know that there is there are funds that perhaps would be available.

The administration would support any that'd be the top priority coming from the administration to fund the police department for those vehicles as you're picking up uh on that as the colonel's indicating.

That's what we would like it funded, but that's indicative of we feel as if this budget can't sustain it, that they can get by the buttons so desirable.

But it's something we could live with, but obviously it's not the way we want to do business.

But but if there, as I mentioned, if there's if there is uh that opportunity should arise, the uh the mayor would fully endorse any funds going to the police department for that reason.

And something to mention that the colonel alluded to during the uh budget uh process.

Uh there was uh uh uh to find out after the fact, after the mayor sub you know submitted his budget.

Um the I believe the police administration thought that they may be getting uh funding for the SRO vehicles, and the colonel pointed it out just a couple of days ago after a day ago or two uh after the budget was submitted about the I'll say the need or desire for those extra SRO cars, and that would lend more uh rationale uh to be able to afford uh more funding to police.

But that came to light in the very uh after the so we were doing the butter review with the police administration that didn't come up, not to put them throw them under the bus, but they legitimately thought there was a good opportunity for that funding.

So I just wanted to point those things out um to put things in perspective as this budget was prepared.

Mr.

President, thank you.

Um and you know, and thank you for that explanation, uh Director Maretti.

Listen, I may take I can understand, and I'm gonna use quotations, uh, the best guess principle here, especially with the gas situation.

I certainly would understand that.

Um and I know in no way want to get in the way of contractual negotiating as a union person.

I understand uh quite well how important you know that is, and I welcome the idea.

I think council members certainly welcome the idea to have an executive session.

Obviously, it's not on the agenda this evening, if it's amenable to you know, to have that discussion, because I don't think, and I'm just gonna say the best guess is going to be adequate with when we're talking about personnel.

I think we're gonna have to be a lot closer.

All right.

So in my view, uh that's not gonna be enough because that's about a million dollars.

And um we would be remiss if we wouldn't look at it.

So I appreciate your your idea in a future um finance committee hearing, we will definitely have an executive session.

So we have a we want to have a good budget, and thank you for that.

Councilman Bernano, we'll finish with you.

My only question would be, and I don't know if this is something that you think is better to wait until the executive session to answer if you can't answer it now.

But uh Director Strom said I gotta find out what's in the contingency fund and what it's there for.

Is that something you you can answer, or you think we should do that in executive session?

Executive okay, thank you.

Yeah, with that, Chief.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your service.

Thank the men and women of the department for us.

Thanks.

I I also have the uh Harbor Master and the uh animal control.

I don't know if you want to.

Yeah, let's go.

Animal control.

Chief, do you want to say anything?

Or I can tell you that um you know they the animal shelter is near and dear to my heart, I'll be honest with you.

Um I'm a big animal person and um take a lot of pride in our shelter.

Um it's one of the better shelters, I believe, in the state of Rhode Island, and we're very successful in getting a lot of animals adopted from our shelter and taking good care of them when they're temporarily in our in our uh possession.

Um what we found though is um anybody does have a pet has brought a pet to uh to a uh veterinarian lately, and you can see what the bills are.

If you can even get your into a vet because they're all corporately owned now.

So, you know, we do get some discounts from different vets, but at the end of the day, the dogs we get often have decent health issues.

Sometimes that's why they're being put out as strays, or if they're um being surrendered to the shelter, and um we never want to turn away any person that has to surrender the dog, unfortunately, due to the economy, and we want to make sure that we get them good homes.

So um at the end of the day, the there was an increase in the amount.

Um I think it was uh is it ten, I think it's ten thousand dollars increase for care of animals.

But basically beyond that it's uh staffing and you know, pretty much stagnant numbers overall.

I just wanted to bring that to your attention and um again we're doing a good job there, and it seems that we're getting a lot more animals coming in just because of the um economy and people not being able to keep their apartments or their homes or whatever it may be.

So just want to bring that to your attention.

Last year it was over 300 animals that came to the shelter, so cats, dogs, you name it.

So um it's a busy place.

I do see uh I just see the the couple of lines.

This budget is almost in line with the same one.

You're the the cost you described, the expenditures, you can see you're right.

The hospitalization uh is pretty much where you're you're getting it, a little bit of pension uh contributions with people that put you know seniority, obviously.

Um your salary schedule seems to be almost exactly the same with the small you know, whoever the you know very small increase.

I want to go over to the revenues on this one.

All right.

Um historical average, we're pretty far down on this one.

Um is there a reason why?

I mean, I'm looking 24.

We've got and that's impound fees, right?

We've got 24, we've got 3900 in change, five thousand and twenty-five.

The actual actual is thirty, five hundred, and we're trending down another two thousand dollars for this year.

Is something happening that we're seeing less animals or that what I no, I wouldn't say we're seeing less animals.

Um sometimes you know, we our adoption fees actually went up.

So um to be to be equal to uh surrounding shelters.

But you know, for instance, um we adopt a um a dog to a veteran, they don't pay, that's actually um part of the ordinance and the money would be in state law.

So there are been situations like that where a veteran has adopted, but I don't know why.

I don't know why that would be down to that level to be honest with you.

So logically, if that's the case, if I'm reading you, our revenue should be higher.

Yes.

And I don't I don't know you know why they're not.

Mr.

Strom could you help me out?

I believe we we budgeted based on the activity for this year, and this year it's about 1500.

So that's that's why we so 1500 at 77 approximately 77% of the year.

Well less than 1500 right now.

And this should be currently.

So we're going a little we're being very conservative on this.

Yes, I see.

Okay.

I mean if it was something where we had some uh data that would think that we could go up to two thousand or twenty-five.

I don't think that's stretching it, but we were just uh putting in a number that was more accurate to what the trend is right now.

Okay.

No, thank you.

Thank you.

And that's all the questions I have.

That's mayor traffic.

Chief, do we have a tr uh think about having a collaborative with neighboring towns for the animal control uh I know that generates a revenue?

They do that in um Smithfield and North Providence and you know, um I think I think it's a great idea.

Obviously, you have different unions, you're right.

So we got our employees are teamsters.

I don't know what other cities and towns have, and we're pretty busy shelter and a busy we'll have a lot of animal control calls.

So a big enough city, I don't know if it would really benefit us as much as maybe a smaller city or town, but and it'd probably be take building a new facility and you know, but that's a lot of money, I think.

But we have a very good shelter, and it works well for us, but I don't know if um it's a thought down the road, absolutely.

Consumer Ritz.

Just one question.

I was just wondering if you knew the average time that we have um a pet in our care before adoption.

Do you have that number?

I just don't know exactly what it is, but um, you know, it depends on the time of year.

I can tell you, like, you know, how around the holidays in the winter time, some of those dogs cats, they stay there a while.

Um, for small dogs, they go quickly, and you know, we have a lot of bigger dogs.

Um, so you know, I but we've adopted a lot out.

I'd say, you know, probably anywhere from like a month to like maybe six weeks as an average.

I just if I I was just wondering like what we do to promote the animals that we have there, like is that it people usually go to the website to find out and go.

I just know if there's more we could do to promote it more to maybe speed up that time frame.

We are on um TikTok, um, Facebook, Instagram, we're on all the social media, that's where you get your attraction from.

We also have a website um with um part of the under the police department's website, and uh we go on um Studio 10, Mario Valario.

We're in all the news publications, Providence Journal.

Uh we really do a lot of promotions, and um a lot of shelters are over capacity.

We've helped other shelters out as well.

Providence is a good example.

So we're we're actually, I think our numbers are pretty good, and it and the staff really takes a lot of pride in getting these dogs adopted pretty quickly in the cats as well.

All right, seeing any other councilmen members seeing none, we'll move on to Harbor Master.

So Chief, you could tell us about that uh ghost uh harbor master.

So yeah, so we don't we don't currently have a harbor master.

We didn't have one last year.

Unfortunately, Mr.

Westcott was the previous harbor master, he passed away.

Um still we're still collecting um mooring fees.

Um people on the honor system, I guess, because we really can't get out there.

We the police department does not have a boat, so we used to have a boat that is in uh was in disrepair.

Um but the harbor master in the past is actually Mr.

Westcock used to take his own boat out.

And uh, but it's a function that falls under the police department, but um there's a lot a lot of activity.

We don't have a huge busy waterfront, and we have the yacht club and everything like that.

But at the end of the day, um we made it okay with not having a harbor master over the last year, and DEM has boats out in the water and surrounding communities do as well.

But so this is just the budget that's been sitting there.

We we just maintain the same amount of what we put in for that's the question.

So the the Harbor Master is an appointment of the council and um and they work under the the direction, if you will, of the police department.

So I guess that's a question uh for the council and the mayor's office if they're seeking to that.

There was some discussions about the police maybe taking over that role, but there would be a cost of that, obviously, for a boat training, and uh it's a seasonal thing, as you know, so I don't know if the cost would be worth it, but that'd be up to the council and uh the mayor's office.

Thank you, Councilman Cabalbiano.

Thank you, Chairman.

Uh as you know, this is in councilwoman Graziano's ward, and she asked me to tell you that she has a candidate that would be interesting that if it wasn't zeroed out, I don't know if we would have to put that on to bring that back, or if we can do that in during the budget hearing.

There is a stipend, so the the person who's a harbor master gets the stipend of um looks like so no, it wasn't it wasn't zeroed out, it's just it hasn't hasn't been used last year.

We didn't use we didn't pay anybody because we didn't have a harbor master, but it's still technically it's there.

So I did hear there was somebody in the equity area that actually was friendly with Mr.

Westcott and might be willing to do it, and they have their own vote.

So, but that that would have to go to the council first, and then we would bet that person and uh you know just give you background check here.

Hopefully, it's the same person.

Uh I guess we could take it up at a council meeting if it's not zeroed up.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

So right now we're in the situation.

So I was under the assumption when the former harbor master passed away that the police were taking over this.

And we had some conversation when um council president Marino was here, but that is not the case.

We just don't have a harbor master.

There was discussions with um former president um of the council, and there was uh a study that we did uh for the mayor's office on what the cost would be, and um you know that was submitted.

Um I need uh it I just don't know where what happened afterwards, it kind of just by the time you got through it, like the season was already half like pretty much half over.

So that's where it ended.

So right now in pretty much you're saying some all the functions of the harbor harbor master, we believe are being done by someone from where there's nobody locally doing those functions.

Um I can tell you that somehow mooring fees have been coming into the clerk's office, I believe.

And um, but nobody's actively checking to see what moorings are registered and what money's coming in.

That's part of the harbor masters.

Well, it it in the true fiscal responsibility sense.

I like the fact that we're making the same amount of money and we're not paying anyone, but is any you know that that that kind of works out good.

But if we're supposed to have one, and if I don't know what the duties of a harbor master really is, I'm not really a nautical person, but I guess I certainly would be open to it, but that's there's a stipend of $3,500, so it's gonna pretty much wipe out that that profit we made.

Um, but I guess we can look into that.

But so there was some confusion on that.

I I don't have any questions, but yeah, I think you've answered them all.

Unless the director has director.

If I can embellish, um if I recall, I'll be within approximate numbers.

Uh to put things in perspective, it when we did have the harbor master, I believe the city collected approximately six thousand dollars, maybe sixty five hundred dollars in in uh mooring fees.

Um, and you know, giving that stipend of about thirty, five hundred.

Um, I believe last year without a harbor master, people came forward, and I believe we collected approximately thirty five hundred dollars in in fees.

So I think we're talking without a harbor master, maybe being short, maybe two thousand dollars and the twenty five hundred dollars.

The reason why I believe we didn't move forward, there was uh even though there were thoughts of the police taking over, you're probably gonna have to have a budget of I'm just throwing out that probably ten thousand, fifteen thousand dollars.

Um, so the cost benefit, I'm not sure if that you can get much of a payback on that.

Um, something to consider.

The other thing is the city would have to buy a boat.

Um, so if you want to buy a boat and you want to pay the officers or or c compensate them and in comp time, which translates in some cases to overtime to collect that uh six thousand dollars, sixty five hundred and embellish the function.

Uh you could do that.

But um, I would find it in this time if you want to do that.

I would say this is the time the council to put it in the budget if you feel that's the uh wise to do so.

Thank you, Director.

Councilwoman was here.

Is it dangerous that we don't have one?

We have we have a limited um you know, shoreline.

I know Edge would obviously have that there, and um, I can't think of any incident that we've really um when we had a harbor master, he actually just mostly collected mooring fees if a vessel sunk.

He would you would call us, and you know, we'd have to have that vessel towed out of there.

But um during the summer months, DEMs out there, they have voting um offices out on the water, and then we could also get mutual aid from other communities if we needed.

So I haven't really seen any incidents that we've you know, haven't been able to respond to council members.

I just looking at the budget.

So in the the binder budget, it says total for school system.

So it's under the police market.

Was it under the school system before?

Is that just an error?

No.

Are you looking at revenues or are you looking at expenses?

Okay, that that that looks like an error.

See here.

That's an error.

Councilman.

I was gonna say in the budget book on page 22.

Is that what you're looking at?

It does say um total for Harbor Master, 470 dollars.

Yeah, I think it's just a typo.

The big Bible here it says, yeah.

Right.

Councilman.

I just want to say one thing.

We're netting thirty five hundred dollars with the harbor master, we're netting twenty five hundred dollars.

Excuse me, we're netting thirty five hundred dollars without a harbor master, and we're netting twenty five hundred dollars paying the harbor master, even though we're getting more expense.

And as small as it is, we have to chip away at this deficit a dollar at a time.

Um this isn't arrogant.

Okay, I've never been I've lived in Cranston for my entire life.

I've never been to the beach in Cranston.

And um, you know, I I I don't think they're you know, I don't think the tall ships are coming into Edgewood.

So that's I said it was that funny, but that's my um feeling on it.

Let's move on.

I I just want to mention this to uh councilwoman Bazari's concern.

Um certainly have the fire department as a response team in terms of public safety.

I just want to point that out because they have uh an aquatic team.

I'll use the word aquatic.

So I just want to say if they had you have you have rescue capabilities.

Well, I would tend to disagree with Councilmanotto, which is very rarely, but I would rely a lot on our councilwoman Graziano because that's her area.

And um with that, Chief, again, thank you for your service.

Thank the men and women and councilwoman.

What else you got?

Does the fire department have a boat and could the police go on it if needed for an emergency?

We actually do that, and we have a dive thing as well, so we have worked closely with the fire department, and they've been gracious enough to let us come aboard the vessel and work together on some three type of situations.

Okay, Chief.

That's it.

Thank you.

Just for note, um, Councilman Council President Walsh said in the first meeting that there will be public comment and without objection, I will like to add that towards the end of the meeting.

So uh there will be public comment with uh if there's no objection.

Seeing none.

Uh let's take a three minute recess and we'll be moving on to the schools.

Okay, at this time I would like to reconvene the school, I mean the special finance committee meeting.

Uh we are moving on to the school department and school health insurance.

Madam Superintendent, thank you for coming today.

And the floor is yours.

Thank you.

You're gonna hold it.

We have to hold it.

Just hold it the whole time.

Uh good evening, council members.

Thank you for allowing us to be here and discuss our budget with you.

Um, I realize we had the second department here this evening, so um we will try to be as efficient as possible with our answers.

And I also acknowledge that we all understand this is a very difficult budget year for everyone.

So we truly understand the dilemma you are all in.

We understand the difficulties with all departments.

So I just want to make that clear that we are here as part of the city, not as an enemy of the city.

Um, however, I do need to be very clear that Cranston Public Schools has been underfunded by the city for well over a decade.

And this is not blaming or pointing fingers at anyone, uh, which we know is not a useful exercise, but tonight we are here to present you with facts and numbers, and we've heard a lot of numbers already um over the past couple of hours.

So since 2009, we have received an 18% increase in our city allotment.

18.2 to be exact.

Since this increase spans 16 years, and you average that out, the average annual increase is a po approximately one point one percent.

And the school committee often refers to this as level funding because in real terms it does not keep pace with operational cost increases.

If you look at the average inflation rate over that same period of time with an average of 2.57% per year, the gap is considerable.

So if you look at the inflation rate since 2009, the cumulative price increase has been approximately 56 to 58 percent.

So if you apply that math to our school department, if the school funding had kept pace with just inflation, the city's contribution would need to be roughly 38% higher than it was in 2009, rather than the current 18% that we are uh looking at here.

In fact, we have reduced our workforce by six percent over the past three years and going into the fourth year with a considerable uh reduction in workforce.

And yet we continue to service our students as well as we possibly can.

The pension in the pension increase from the 2425 um year was not budgeted because after the General Assembly approved the COLA increases in June, we learned of the fiscal impact after our budget was approved by the school committee.

So there was no way to anticipate a nearly 1.3 million dollar increase to our budget.

We were notified of the cost of this the day after our budget was approved on or about June 26th, and only three or four days before our budget went into effect for the next fiscal year.

When you have an uh budget that is extremely tight, an unexpent unexpected expense like this just cannot be absorbed.

Our students and their families, and in fact, all Cranston residents want world-class, high-quality services, facilities, and resources, and of course they deserve that.

However, funding these amenities needs consistent, accurate fiscal accountability.

As the old saying goes, you can't have champagne on a beer budget.

So as we go into this uh budget deliberation, and I I fully realize the difficult task you have ahead of you because we have the same task on our own side here.

Um if the schools are not funded, if the state doesn't um increase their um state aid to us, which we don't know if that will happen, and if that is combined with um the 1.5 million dollars that we have already been allocated in the mayor's budget, significant cuts will need to be made that will affect all of your constituents.

Class sizes will be higher, schools will need to close, the grass won't get cut, the garbage won't get emptied.

And listening to that um seventh or eighth grader earlier kind of broke my heart, but she's a very astute young woman.

She knows what might happen, and she called it out for all of us.

So when our community partners and other organizations complain about our rental fees increasing and our inability to fund buses for field trips, I need you to remember that those kinds of cuts are what we are down to.

We won't make copies of things for families.

We are down as uh Mr.

Balducci has often said, especially this past year, we're down to the bone marrow.

So while I understand fully as a taxpayer, as you all know, that continuing to tax our residents is not going to help us.

I need to assure all of you, and for those of you who are watching, that we are doing our best to cut staff, cut programming, cut um excess buildings as we build buildings where we're consolidating, and then uh this coming year we are putting together um a committee to look at how we can potentially close more buildings and consolidate schools.

So I assure you that um we are not lax in our duties.

We are taking it very uh a very responsible and serious approach to making sure that we can provide the service that our constituents want and demand, but also be fiscally responsible uh while we are doing that.

Thank you.

At this time, I'm gonna start with Mayor Traffic, Mr.

Chairman.

If I may just for a second digress from uh a budgetary situation, you know, as an elected official in the city for the past 43 years, I had the pleasure of working in all three branches of government.

The executive branch, legislative branch, and I'll call it the educational branch.

And during that period of time, I had the privilege and the honor of working with working alongside several several dozen knowledgeable ethical caring service-oriented people.

I say this with all sincerity, because numbers to emulate those characteristics, Mr.

Joseph Balducci.

Mr.

Balducci's leaving is after 27 years of service to the city.

He's gonna be dearly missed request of school department from this city.

I want to honor him tonight for those 27 years of service and say thank you, Joe.

Thank you for being the person that you are.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

Not that I praised you, Joe gonna go after you.

I knew that was gonna be short-lived.

I want the council to know that I met with the superintendent and Joe Balducci uh earlier in the week, and we formulated some questions, which Joe is gonna go through with you.

And I think it'll be helpful for you to know you know what's going on behind the scenes and the kind of situation that you're in the present time.

So I'll I'll start with the first question.

Joe is it the revenue page.

Yes.

Wait 14.14.

That's correct.

That's correct.

Sure.

So basically, um, when we develop this budget, we look at the expenditure side first.

So what we have to budget for contractual obligations, fixed costs, mandates, um, they run the gamut, um, you know, utilities and all of that.

So that's how we build the budget.

I believe Chairman Fuseville mentioned that this year we took a different approach um as far as compared to prior years, we did a zero base, um, and that's how we developed the expenditure side.

Then we looked at the revenue side.

Um, again, we time our deliberation of the budget so that we know when when the governor's gonna come up with his budget, what uh he's gonna put put in his budget.

So that's how the two point uh two million dollar revenue line came about.

Then in some years, we tried to come in with a reasonable ask of new city dollars, somewhere around two and a half.

Uh, but the last couple of years, unfortunately, we've had to go to the cap, four percent.

Uh so there's the four million dollars.

But unfortunately, when you compare the revenue side of the budget compared to the expenditure side, it's out of balance.

So, thus that created that um what we call that budget savings to be determined account to keep the budget balanced on paper right now, but then it's our task to go find approximately three million dollars in savings.

However, I might I have to reiterate that that's assuming a four million dollar ask from the city.

So anything less than that is gonna add to the three million dollars.

Right now it's uh it's early in the um general assembly's um process and deliberating a state budget.

Let's assume that two million dollars turns out to be three million dollars.

Then again, it's it's always gonna go against that budget savings to be determined figure.

So um in speaking with the superintendent and the executive staff, um right now, not knowing what we're gonna receive from the um the mayor.

We started with a potential shortfall of seven million dollars.

Zero percent, zero new dollars coming from the city and trying to find three million dollars internal savings.

So we've been trying to chip away at that.

Um good news right now.

The city, I mean the mayor's proposed to give us 1.5 million.

So that again helps, but that's the position we're in right now.

So when the superintendent mentioned that we're looking at everything, staffing, potentially closing schools, redistricting lines, everything is on the table right now to try to keep next year's uh budget in balance.

I hope I answer your question.

Joe, you've answered as far as my satisfaction goes.

Joe, the school committee has ratified the all the contracts, correct?

Yes, they have talking about the teachers, the TAs, administrative assistance, the laborers, the custodians, and the teams.

Correct.

Correct.

City council is also ratified those very same contracts.

They have the administration basically has ratified those very same contracts.

They have.

And my response, Mr.

Trafficanti, if you find me interrupting for one second.

Usually the question is either posed to me, can this can the school department afford this uh contract?

My answer has always been with reasonable increases from both the city and the state government.

The point I'm trying to make, Joe, is that on the city side, we've covered our contracts.

You have with the budget.

On the school department side, we have not.

You're getting one point 1.5 million dollars.

Right now, you're 2.5 million dollars short of meeting your contract.

Am I correct?

So the first question on the list of questions is what do we need to meet our contractual obligations between salary and benefits?

We need approximately four 4.2 million dollars in new city in new funding, whether they come from state or local.

So if you go beyond the first page that lists the questions, um the documents behind it, you will see that they're tabbed to coincide with the question.

So the first few few pages is tied to question number two.

Um so I will focus on the top half of that first.

So basically the way that we received uh state funding is in a couple of different ways.

Revenue in the door to us, and then state support to help us pay for non-public transportation, what we call it an offset.

So if you look at the governor's budget, first column to the left, you will see formula aid at 82.5 million dollars, high cost special ed tuition in support of uh high cost tuitions 1.5.

So for a total uh increase of 84 uh points uh uh 76,000 dollars.

When you compare that to the year we're in at 82 million dollars, you will see uh 2 million 51,000.

If you refer back to the revenue page that Mr.

Trafficanti referred to earlier, you will see that as the increase in state aid, uh, just over $2 million.

The other support that we receive from the state is to help us um pay for the non-public transportation, and in the governor's budget, he's scheduled to give us uh $763,000.

Currently, we're receiving just over a million.

So that support is actually going down uh 241,000.

So when you net the increase of uh 2 million 51,000, you reduce it by 241,000.

That's the 1.8 million when the governor uh prepared his documents, and again, if you look statewide, that's the figure tied to transit public schools, and this is how we get there.

Sure.

So if you again, if you just go to the supporting documents that were attached, if you go to it's a one-page document.

What we did was, and actually, again, going left to right, I started off with 2425 fiscal year, middle is 2324, and the far right is 2223.

So, how charter schools affect our budget is two ways.

When you look at what I defined as the tuition expense, so Cranston is obligated to curr uh send out the door, approximately 8600 for every student leaving Cranston to go to an outside charter schools, which are listed on the far left.

Which we change that.

That's one of the because state aid follows the students.

The other important piece to note is that we are losing state aid because again, that aid is going to the charter schools listed down the left-hand side.

So again, just looking at 24-25 between expenses going out the door, lost aid not coming to Cranston, it affected this budget by 7.2 million dollars, 7.2, 23, 24, 6.3, 22, 23, 5.7.

So for a total budgetary impact over the last three years, 19.3 million dollars.

So that's the effect that external charter schools have on a local LEA of the under the current structure and how charter schools are set up.

You're welcome.

In our budget, the biggest um cost is staff, people.

We really don't have other discretionary spending.

Um we've stopped buying furniture, um, except for our new schools, of course, because they're in the bonds.

Um our equipment is limited.

We did use ESSER money back in 2020, 2021 to buy Chromebooks.

Again, those one-time revenue.

If you all, you know, those of you on the count on the committee remember that.

Um those Chromebooks now are starting to fail.

So any of that discretionary funding is limited.

Our cost cutting measures will be in staff.

That's where the largest percentage of our money is everything.

Um if possible, um, when folks retire, they would um we will try not to replace people and reduce staff by attrition, but we are also laying people off and trying to consolidate any positions that we can currently we have laid off 40 people, 40.

Depending on retirements, um I I can't estimate how many people will be brought back from that list, but there will definitely be people at the end of June who will not have a job.

Mr.

President, I believe you have a follow-up question.

Well, just because one of uh Councilman Traffic Handy's question, I'm looking at the document the council was provided.

Um, and I probably need Director Strom's uh assistance on this.

Um Director, if you have can you look at revenues for the school department on page nine?

We're quoting different figures.

The school department says last year's state aid was eighty-two eighty-two million twenty four thousand nine hundred and thirty-two.

Right.

That's that's in your document.

The document that we have, and it changes it by by more than a million dollars.

The document that we have has the state Rhode Island school aid at 80 million dollars, 735, 694.

And when we showed the the current change, that makes the current change in state aid on our budget.

Three roughly 3.3 million dollars.

Do you see that?

So that's gonna affect us.

Is there or less there's a reason?

Step, please.

The top, I think the top one.

Yeah, that one, yeah.

All right, thank you.

I had a discussion uh with um CFO, Mr.

Balducci, and we went over this.

Basically, what happened was that the figure was not correct in the budget book.

It should be 82 million for a lot.

So this figure isn't correct.

That 80 is wrong.

Okay, but we're gonna do what they call a fourth quarter transfer to correct that for this fiscal yeah.

Okay, and then next year, the 84 is correct as it currently stands.

I see.

So that's Mr.

Belducci's assessment of state aid as it currently stands is is correct.

I just wanted to make sure that is correct, because it looked like I found more than a million dollars are gonna be a hero.

Yeah, I I wish you did.

Um, and if I could just add, I wish I was it it's just a timing when you think about it.

The city has to adopt city council has to adopt its final budget by May 15th.

Usually the um you know, state doesn't wrap up their budget until well into June.

So there's always a timing difference.

So given that unfortunately our ask in prior years has never been met.

So we have to go back to the drawing board because then by then we know the city council's final appropriation, May 15th.

We know what the city's final state aid is going to be, because they're usually mid-June, and then prior to June 30th, we have to adopt the balanced budget to align with both city appropriation and state aid.

So we go back to the drawing board, so we know what the final numbers are.

Unfortunately, because of the city charter, the city can't fix the current year budget until it goes into the fourth quarter, which we are now in.

So to Mr.

Strom's uh, you know, he's correct.

So again, sometime before now in June 30th, the city will realign their budget to agree to the final state aid numbers.

And it's just a math to be honest with you, because then the the other side of that is just to fix the city, the uh school appropriation on the expense side.

Right.

So it has zero bottom line effect, it's just increasing revenue and then increase in the city appropriation on the expense side.

That's correct.

Revenues and expenses offset one another.

Correct.

Okay.

And we've done this a number of years, we have to do this because, like you mentioned, you know, the budget is passed, say May 15th.

Sometimes we don't get the final numbers till as Mr.

Balducci said till uh June.

And so we the budget has already been passed.

So then we rectify any difference fourth quarter.

So am I gonna see a similar change on the well, what listen, it's still Mr.

Traffic Candy's floor.

When I come around, I'll have a similar question on the expenditure.

Mayor proceed.

Mayor Trafficanti.

Mr.

Traffic, if I could just interrupt before you go to your next question.

When you ask the superintendent, what are we trying?

What are we trying to do to make up that three million dollars?

One of the things we're introducing again this year, like we did in the last few years, is a retirement incentive.

So right now, when a teacher retires, they only carry with them into retirement um the single help plan for help plan and dental a single plan.

So try to entice them to leave.

If they currently have a family plan, we're basically going to give them that family plan for three years out.

So again, all they have to do is pay their 20% cost year.

So and again, that's um that's an incentive because again, once you leave, you only have to carry single.

If you do want to pay for family, you have to pay the differential full vote.

So that can be expensive.

So that's another way we're trying to get teachers to uh retire, and then we make a decision whether the position is warranted for replacement or not.

You could just speak into the mic, gonna push the button.

Yeah, he he asked how many people are taking advantage of the retirement incentive, and just so we're clear, it is a uh narrow scope of employees, it's not for everyone, it's um you have to be 62 as of all right June 1st, June 30th of this year.

So it is a small window of time that people would be able to avail themselves of the family plan.

I don't want people to think it's I understand at infinitum that they're allowed to take that.

Joe, the audience let it they make mention of the fact that you had operating deficits.

So, Mr.

Mr.

Treffanti, I'm sorry, so you asked how many people would have taken advantage of that.

Mr.

Crudale just informed me that 12 individuals um and they do have until May 11th as the deadline to notify us.

That's good.

All right, thank you, Joe.

Yeah, well, I mentioned the auditor's letter, we mentioned the operating deficits for the past couple of years, Joe.

You want to elaborate on that, Joe.

Yes, so um again, if you go to number seven, as far as the supporting documentation.

Um he is correct.

So from a from a gap, what I'll define as a gap statement.

So generally generally accepted accounting principles is the is a method by which at the end of the day at the end of the year, our financial statements are reported on.

However, myself and Mr.

Schramm, I mean, we live in the budgetary world, so that's how we're um scored on how we did how well we did against budget.

So I'm gonna walk you through um again a few years, four years, um, starting with 2024-2005 25 is the most recent year, because again, the 25-26 year was not completed, so I don't have the results of operations.

So, from a purely gap standpoint, yes, we ran a 3.9 million dollar uh deficit as reported in the audit report.

However, we the school department for the last several years has maintained what we call a capital reserve fund.

So those are funds that we set aside to manage the the cost of small priced capital projects from an auditing standpoint and a financial accounting standpoint.

A capital reserve fund within a school department is not considered a standalone separate fund.

So the activity of that fund, good or bad, year over year, is then rolled into basically the operations of our general fund.

So you have to peel back that activity to get to the true budgetary results of operations.

So if you look at 2425, you'll see the first adjustments.

The capital reserve fund we brought in 166,000 worth of housing aid, we spent 1.2 million.

So remove that activity.

The next reclassification to go from budgetary to GAP is basically what we call uh current year encumbrances and prior year encumbrances.

That's just a timing of when prior year encumbrances are expended in the current year.

Current year encumbrances are removed from the current year and moved into the subsequent year.

So that year over year change amounted to about an $80,000 adjustment.

So making taking those two adjustments into consideration from a pure budgetary standpoint, we ran a $2.9 million deficit.

That's further reported in not sure what page of the city report and order report and then also the school department order report.

So again, he is correct from a gap standpoint 3.9 from a pure budgetary standpoint, results of operations, 2.9.

23, 24, you go through that same scenario.

From a gap standpoint, 1.8.

You do the same activity, remove the capital reserve activity out, you make the same adjustments on the encumbrances.

The key difference here, and I believe our school committee member Keith Catone mentioned that we purposely use $2.5 million of our rainy day fund to balance the budget because again, we did not receive full funding from the city.

But again, we still had a budgetary gap.

So again, a decision was made to use one time use of rainy day funds 2.5 million.

So looking at it from a budgetary standpoint, because again, we consciously did make that decision.

So again, if you look at it from a budgetary using one-time revenue, we ran a $215,000 deficit.

Without it, we would have been in the hole.

Um 22 23, sorry.

Um 22 23, same scenario.

We went from a 651 gap to a 255 budgetary 212.

We actually, from a gap standpoint, ran up ran a surplus, but when you took out the activity, we barely broke up broke even at a $33,000 budgetary surplus.

So it again, I understand from an accounting standpoint.

Um information is presented, but I'll say there's a story behind the numbers.

So you have to peel back and get to what the the world I live in, which is the budgetary world.

You're welcome.

Mayor, if you could just hold this mic down.

So several years ago, um, the state added a categorical department with what they refer to as high cost special education tuition revenue support.

So and again, if you look at the background, uh, the backup for question number eight.

This is a we annually all school systems have to produce this report, which is defined as again the uh Cranson extraordinary special education cost worksheet.

So Ride gives us a figure.

They may use okay, transcent or everybody give us all special ed related costs above 26,000 dollars is the base that they use for that particular year.

I may be off on the number, but let's just say that's the number.

So what we have to do is we have to go student by student, and we have to identify tuition services, transportation, any reimbursements if that student is Medicaid eligible.

We have to again note that so we don't so to speak double dip, uh, and we take that into consideration.

So the column to the far right, and again, you will see.

I mean, the I am not providing with the names of the students, but again, these are individual students that we had to provide services, some type of service for.

If you go to the last page, you will see that we provide the state a cost of 13, just over 13 million dollars of expenses.

The second half of the backup documentation is the governor.

I'm gonna use the governor's 2027 um allocation that he's gonna give Cranson for high cost special education categorical.

In his budget, he's giving us 1.5 million.

We are providing in cost of 13 million dollars, and of that, he the state is allocating 1.5.

It's important to go to the last page of the state aid allocation, the one I just identified, 1.5.

The state in total for all LEAs in Rhode Island is only allocating 20 million dollars for this category.

This is an example where, in my opinion, they need to do a better job.

May I jump in for a moment if you are looking at that sheet that Joe is just referring to?

So the first page and a half identifies that column C is the highest cost special education for all of the um say traditional districts.

If you continue on and you look down the charter schools that we just alluded to, you see a lot of zeros there.

Which means they do not carry the same costs in that category that we do.

And that's something significant that again, I think citizens need to be aware of that we are paying a per pupil expenditure that assumes high cost special education in it for us, but they are seeking that same revenue and don't have the costs that we have.

So when you have time to look at that uh governor's recommended education aid worksheet, it really is eye-opening health care costs, Joe.

I'm sorry, keep on forgetting these the mic.

Sure.

So um health care is always a challenge.

Um excuse me, director.

I think that's the next thing, right?

Uh yes.

Yeah, so if we could just hold off on that, mayor, that's the next topic.

Oh, okay.

Joe, I I'm gonna go back to the very first question uh about the contract.

You're looking for 4.2 million dollars.

Does that 4.2 million dollars cover both salary and benefits or just salary?

No, if I had to break it down, I would probably say 4 million, approximately 4 million is uh tied to salaries, uh 200 and some odd dollars is the associated uh benefits increases, and the reason why it's only 200,000 because someone said, Well, that's the the map doesn't work.

Uh, one of the the bigger um uh benefits is certified pension.

So that actually that rate is going down this year compared to next year, so that's good news because again, um certified pension is a percent of payroll.

So again, we're actually seeing a decrease.

Uh it is going up because salaries are going up, but this increase could have been worse uh if the rate had also gone up, but it's it's you know uh it's not going up as much because the rate went down.

So when you look at the salary increase on a smaller percentage on certified pension, if that makes sense, that's the reason why it's only a couple hundred thousand dollars.

So the two million dollars you're receiving in state aid is basically going to take care of additional salary accounts, benefits, purchase services, supplies, materials, utilities.

Am I correct in saying that?

Almost because again, um, right now, again, we we've we've had we have that budget savings to be determined figure of three million dollars.

So the if again it the map just seemed to work, but the the ask of the new city dollars is pretty close to what we need for contractual allocations.

I follow you.

Joe, it's looking at a chart here.

It's so disappointing.

Cranston's a spending per student 19,950, and here we have West Ward spending $2,700 more than Cranston.

We have Woolwick.

We're the second largest.

We have Warwick spending $4,900 more than Cranston.

We have situate situate Rhode Island spending $4,946 more than Cranston per pupil, and lastly, Newport.

Newport is spending $11,000, $15 more than the per pupil Cranston.

That's shocking.

I was really surprised by this.

That I mean, that's that's good or bad.

I mean, we we actually say we think we're doing a good job with the budget we're given.

I I know I know the mayor's proposing a $7.4 million tax levy increase, which would generate if I heard them correctly, roughly around $15.

$15 million.

And what's disappointing is that we cannot basically give the school department enough money to basically support their contract, which we ratified.

Uh and we can only give you a portion, a small portion of that 1.5 million dollars of the four million dollars you actually need.

I know I speak for this entire council, Joe.

I'm sure we're gonna need to make every effort to try to find additional balance to help help the school department out because it's critical to this community.

Yes, and again, just for the record, um again, when and I'm gonna pick on our largest bargaining group, which is which is the teachers.

Um, again, in the last teacher contract, um, I think we we believe we we negotiated a fair uh contract for both the teachers and then also the taxpayers of Princeton.

Uh this year, the first year of the contract, it's 3.75, and then in the second and the third year, I believe it's 2.75.

Um, so again, and that's coming off of the previous three-year contract.

We had the top step received a three percent in the first year, steps one to eleven received zero in the second year all um top step one percent, steps one to eleven zero, the third year of the contract, top step only, one point five uh one to eleven zero.

Yes, and I'm I stand corrected.

Actually, in the older one, I believe it was a one across the board and then a one point five across the board.

But in this most one, when I mentioned three and a half, three point seven five, two point seven five, that was just for top step only.

Uh steps one to eleven received as a thank you, Joe.

Yeah, please put questions.

Councilwoman Baziri.

Um so I noticed uh in the line items that there was a decrease in additional city appropriation.

Um can you kind of walk us through what that's gonna look like and how it's gonna impact us?

Sorry.

Um, I noticed there was a decrease in the additional city appropriation.

How is that gonna impact us that was his proposal?

We'll we'll work on that while I go to council president Wall.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um first I'm gonna start and also thank Mr.

Balducci for being so patient with me when I first came into the budget process.

You know, make many foolish questions I asked, you clear you you schooled me and taught me a great deal to the point where last the last budget cycle year, last contract.

I felt like I was able to say your words before you had a chance to say them.

So thank you, and you greatly appreciate it.

I know everybody in the city has great respect for you.

Um so it's good to be before you tonight.

I do have a question.

Um, Mr.

Strom, I maybe I'm I just have to ask it again because I need the numbers to be accurate.

And you guys, you may not have the school department may not have our budget, but on page 22 where they talk about the uh the city's uh expenditures for the school department, Mr.

Strom.

Yes, the main effort, we have it this year listed at 101 915.

I know how my glasses on 05 okay.

That means of effort that includes what the 1.5 increase.

No, that's not included.

That means of effort of 101915.

It includes probably a year of 99.

You see that 99?

Yep, plus the two million right underneath of 2 million six brings it to the 1019, and now we're adding another 1.5 to that.

So if I add 1.5 million that so we're gonna see it'll be 1034, yeah, 1003, yeah, approximately 103.4.

Right.

All right, yep.

And the school department is looking for 105.

105.

So we're we I just wanted to make sure those numbers were the same.

That's the only thing.

So sometimes it's confusing when you compare this binder.

It's easy for you, but not and the binder that we receive.

Um question.

I don't know.

I don't know really who to pose this to.

Um it's a follow-up to Mr.

Traffic Canny's question.

Legally, we all, as he mentioned in the onset, the council and this the whole city and every every elected person okay, okay.

These contracts, and they're gonna cost the school department about a little more than four million dollars.

Just the contractual increases.

And the school department itself has more employees than all of the rest of the departments in the city combined.

They are a department of people, people who have contracts, right?

Being one who sat in your chairs, negotiated on every every uh every one of the contractual um negotiating teams.

I realize how difficult it is, how thoughtful the superintendent is when you came, we always ask questions, and and and I appreciate that answer because I heard the answer many times, given reasonable, yeah, a reasonable budgetary increases.

I think going forward, I think we have to define what our idea of reasonable is because we all felt that that was a good answer.

And right now, we're gonna be we're gonna be short them two point two point five million dollars approximately for contracts, basically to cover the contracts that this body approved of.

It's just a commentary.

Um, I know we're supposed to be going in the other direction, saving money.

We we may we we voted ratified those contracts, so I'm having kind of a conundrum.

So this is this is not on you, Mr.

Strom.

This is uh on the people in the room.

Um and we we're gonna have to find something like say we covered the contracts for the city, as Mr.

Trafford Kenny rightly put out, we covered them.

Um, and we're not gonna cover contracts for the school department.

Somehow I just don't see that as right.

That's my commentary tonight.

I see your budget.

I read it over when you gave it to us two months ago.

Seemed like a reasonable budget.

Um, but right now I'm kind of in this process, I'm still kind of working through how do we fix this.

This is a terrible problem.

How do we fix it?

Because it's not going to be fixed.

You're still gonna, and how are you gonna make up that 2.5 million dollars?

And I don't have an answer.

So thank you.

I don't want I'm not gonna take the whole idea, but I wanted to make that commentary because it's it's concerning.

Calls mirritz.

Just kind of have some some comments.

You know, I'm a product of Cranston schools myself.

My children are in Cranston schools, so I know the education I get and the education they get.

I mean, people move to Cranston for the schools, they stay here for the schools.

Um, so I know how important this is.

I was a school committee member, so I have looked at this budget for years.

I know it's an honest budget, and it was a bare bones budget.

I know how hard you guys work.

I was in a school recently, and two teachers are talking about knocking over there.

Copy paper allotment.

So real world, they're uh they're they're they're running a tight ship over there.

Um, yeah, you know, as Mayor Traff said, you know, we're gonna work as hard as we can to get close to the four million.

Um, you know, I am on board with the meeting we had before with looking at uh bond, you know, between 30 and 50 million dollars work on those projects, too.

I I think that that'll help a lot here.

Um, you know, when we look at those pieces of it too.

I I think the the voters would support something like that.

So you know, whatever we can do to get that out there.

As far as that goes, I also am struggling with a seven percent tax increase.

So it's a it's a balancing act here that that we have, and it's it's getting you guys the the most money we can and trying to support your best we can, but I can't support that seven percent tax increase.

So it's it's somewhere in the middle.

So I I guess it's more of an ask, you know, as we try to get you closer.

Anything we can do with holding on, I know how bad the buildings are, but holding off on those pieces of it a little bit longer till we can try and get that bond money to try and help that bigger piece is is really the ask.

As far as my questions, I did have two or three.

They kind of aligns with with what Mayor Traff asked, so I will give the rest of my time to my my PI here.

Thank you.

Councilman Bernoto.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um I say it all the time.

I'm gonna say it again because I know people want to hear it.

Uh I am also a product of Cranston Public Schools.

My mother taught the district, my father was the Cranston Public Schools legal counsel for probably two decades.

Um, like I said, both my sister and I graduated from Cranston East, both of my parents graduated from Cranston East.

My children both attend Garden City School.

I sleep next to a Cranston Public Schools teacher every night.

Every night, every night, except two nights of our marriage.

Every night, every night, except two nights of our marriage, I've I've been home.

I had to go to a conference once.

Um, in case you wanted to know.

I sleep on the left side of the bed.

Anyway, two dogs in between us too.

Anyhow.

Um, many of my questions were answered.

One of them was how many layoffs and how many callbacks.

So we don't we can't estimate the amount of callbacks at this at this juncture.

Depends on what happens, is basically what you said.

Yes, it's um extremely variable depending on who retires, where the needs are, where we can consolidate, where we can close classrooms, and um where at the end of the budget cycle, we absolutely need to have a teacher.

Okay.

Um, and is the the number of 40 layoffs in the school department of teachers?

That is a that's not an estimate, that it's 40 at this point.

Sorry, Mike.

That person's my wife, by the way.

I didn't know I just want to clear that up too.

Um I can confidently say at this point, we're looking at probably not bringing 12 of those back.

So we can be confident that we'll be cutting at least 12 languages, probably three calls.

I can't answer that at this point because we have a job selection process, we have to wait the next one to see who could possibly bring that.

If you can, if you could just state your name and job titles for people online that don't know you.

They took the microwave away from the podium, so I'm trying to squeeze it in that.

Mike Crudale, uh 35 Rock would have chief human resources officer.

Um, but once again, we have a job selection process, so we have to let that play out to see who we could possibly recall.

But again, I am confident that um at this point we won't be bringing at least 12 teachers back, which will have uh you know direct correlation to class size and the number of students we see in classes.

I can I could tell you because of that person, my wife.

Um the class sizes are already at the limit.

Correct.

In many cases, they are, yes.

Yeah.

So um, and that there are certain there are certain areas um where teachers have you know up to 120 students.

Um when five years ago they had 80, 90.

So, you know, these aren't really questions, but I'm you know, if I'm unac inaccurate, please let please let me know.

I want to paint a picture for that's correct.

Yeah, I want to paint a picture for the people that are out there.

Um so the people of Cranston know what is going on in the school system, and this is a direct direct uh result of nearly two decades of not funding the schools properly.

That is correct.

How how I forgot, superintendent, not a massive how long have you been the superintendent?

Since 2015.

Okay.

Um, and how many do you know how about how many employees this how many teachers the school department had when you took over?

Off the top of my head, I do not know.

All right, can you answer whether or not it's more or less now?

I or the same.

It depends.

Um, if you're talking just certified staff, um things have shifted.

Um we have documents over the past recent years that have indicated our support staff has increased, but our certified classroom teachers have decreased.

Um, and I think it's important for everyone to realize that if we have students who present themselves to us who have special education, or um they're multi-language learners, they have additional needs, and legally we are obligated to provide them services.

In addition, we also service students that we do not receive any state aid for.

So we service students from the age of three all the way through 22.

There are certain categories of students that we service either in our schools or in other schools.

For example, if we have a student who needs literacy services or special education services, and that child goes to um Immaculate Conception, St.

Mary's, in some cases, St.

Pius in Providence, but the student lives in Cranston.

We have to service that student.

Those additional out of um say district students, we have to provide them a service.

We are not given state aid for them.

So when we're looking at all the state aid coming in and the local appropriation, there are certain costs that are not covered by that, that not covered by the state, that is entirely borne by Cranston, including sports transportation.

Those are costs that are huge impacts to our budgets that are entirely subsidized by Cranston taxpayers, not from the state.

That is that's not good.

And that's not a understatement of the night.

And um, that's not a recipe for success in education for sure.

I don't know if this body can do anything about that, obviously, but you know, that's that's not good.

Um the Harbor Master job is looking better and better, isn't it, Chris?

Yeah.

Uh well, you missed it, but that's okay.

Um we are a lot of the stuff, a lot of the things that we consider here on the council.

Um, we look at our our peer cities and towns.

Um and Cranston has, you know, sort of usurped Warwick as the second largest municipality in the state.

Um how are we doing as far as funding and levels of teachers versus levels of students in comparison to our peer uh cities and towns?

So our district has maintained a relatively stable enrollment.

Um that was pointed out, I believe, by the auditor general that compared to many school districts, we have not experienced a significant decline in population.

However, despite that, we have and I do have some documents here put together for us by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.

That shows us, excuse me, that our enrollment has remained stable, but our staffing is declining compared to other districts.

Um, and Warwick sadly has lost a significant amount of population, and their budget is still significantly higher than ours.

Um, and they have you know within a standard deviation of the population as well, as far as actual human beings.

There's a joke that we have with the Warwick City Council that if you know you open if you unlocked every door in Cranston, they would have more people because we kind of count the people up or at the ACI.

So they we joke about that back and forth.

So Warwick and Cranston, very similar in numbers as far as uh population.

Um you talked about the retirement incentive.

I have just a couple more questions.

Um Mr.

Balducci talked about the raises that uh teachers are getting, but at least as far as my household is concerned, I believe the health care costs rose that the uh the teachers uh and the and the members of the Cranston Teachers Alliance contribute to the health care almost the exact amount as uh oh, that's next.

Okay, I'll I'll come back to that then.

Um I have two more questions.

Um, what is the difference in salary between a first year teacher and then top step teacher?

Excuse me, one second.

It doesn't have to be exact for the penny.

So in the fiscal year we're in right now, a stop a top, I'm sorry, uh step one teacher is gonna be making $51,132.

A top step, which is the 11th step, is gonna be making $92,995.

In the last year of their contract, 2728, first step, it's actually still going to be making 51 uh 132 because again, as I mentioned earlier, the only group that got a raise was the top step.

The top step teacher, because again, they are the only group that will be getting a raise is going to be making $98,180 in the third and final year of the contract.

Significant difference.

And I think that we can point to the fact that people can no longer retire at the age that they thought they could have a significant impact on not only Cranston schools, but but uh every municipal or state salute, every municipal or state employee in Rhode Island.

And yeah, all right, you know, let's let's let's do pension reform.

But now that that's you know, 10, 12 years, we're 10 or 12 years into it, we're seeing that you know, we rob Peter to pay Paul because the teachers are staying longer and we have to pay somebody 40,000 more for 10, 12, 15 more years instead of paying less.

Can I just add to that?

Absolutely with the ink, so about 80 percent of our teaching, just strictly certified teachers, 80 percent are at top step.

With that, you also have increased health implications for our um staff and then.

Yeah, no, I I won't go into detail about that, but um and our longevity is only for people who have worked 20 years or more.

So when we look at longevity um in our budget, that is only for staff members who have been teachers for over 20 years.

I'm just gonna I'm gonna wrap up and I I thank the committee's intelligence for letting me speak a little longer than than most people probably would.

Um Chris, may I just elaborate on one thing you said?

Yeah, yeah.

Keep in mind, Chris, uh even though teachers are staying longer, we're losing our younger teachers because of layoffs.

We're losing uh a much younger staff.

That's what that's very unfortunate.

That's the future of the city.

And and at $51,000, they can go to another district for $61,000 and not have a 30-person classroom.

Um I just want to mention a couple things, and and and I don't I want I'm saying this for the public's uh knowledge.

My sister-in-law works at Cranston West, my wife works at Hope Islands, and because of budget constraints, and I'm not blaming, I'm not laying blame on anybody, by the way.

So I don't want anybody to take it this way, but because you're but because of budget constraints, my wife's heat in her classroom was at 85 degrees for three months during the summer.

I can't work in 85 degrees.

I feel like it's 85 degrees in here now, but I don't know anybody who can who can who can do that.

Okay.

So what does she do?

She opened the windows, which makes the heat crank more.

Okay.

I know what I pay for heat in my house, and I'm sure that you know heat's expensive.

Um, my sister-in-law works at Cranston West.

Uh, walls have collapsed, ceilings have fallen in where a student just got up to hand their paper in on a ceiling collapsed.

What if that student was sitting there?

Okay, and there are leaks.

Rains inside.

I don't think that's supposed to happen.

A shade fell.

We don't have shades in here, but a shade fell.

Pull shade.

You know how long that took to get appropriated?

A shade that you can buy on Amazon for five bucks.

It took a it took three months to get a shade.

And you know what the kicker is?

There was a student with a disability with her eyes, I don't know exactly what it was, that was in that classroom that had to deal with that.

Uh and and her for lack of a better term, disability, and she she wasn't in her best learning environment because of a five dollar shade.

That is not what I am proud of about our city today.

And I have children, my children would have children, I hope.

And you know, there are people that don't have kids in the schools and they forget about it.

You know, I I've heard a few times from people who probably should have paid more attention in school that because they don't send their kids to school, they they don't want to hear about the school department.

I don't know anybody that can be proud of what I just said, and we as a body need to do better with that.

Mr.

Malillo said it wasn't our fault, but it's our responsibility, and that's a that's a pretty damn good quote.

So um, I hope, you know, I don't want I'm and I echo councilman Ritz.

I don't like 7.5%.

I don't like six percent, I don't like five percent.

Okay, but we it's a balance, and it always should be a balance.

And especially now we need to work together to achieve a balance um to get our city back to the way it should be.

And frankly, you know, we we all need to do better.

Thank you.

Councilman Cambubiano.

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank you for uh the wonderful work you're doing for our students, especially for my two granddaughters.

Thank you.

I have a question.

I don't know if you're using as a generic term when you say teachers when you talk about the layoffs.

Um the school systems are made up of many different employees.

Is it just teachers you're targeting?

Because that directly affects school size, or is it other areas?

All staff.

This was a little confused when you keep saying teachers.

All staff.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Mr.

President.

So but just to follow up.

Um we right now you have 40 teachers.

That was just one collective bargaining year, right?

35 teachers on layout.

35 teachers on layout.

And in all probability, at the end of this cycle, you're gonna have 12 who are actually laid off and not going to be called back.

So to follow up on councilman Camp Bianca's question, what other employees are laid off?

And what numbers are because there are, he's correct.

We have a lot there's what, six different collective bargaining units.

Tell us a little bit more about the other layoffs.

So we are like the city trying to do it by attrition and not lay people off.

We have until June 1st to do that.

Um, so again, it really depends on what happens here.

Um, we are trying to reallocate staff with retirements.

So if um an administrative assistant retires, if we can not fill the job, disperse the um duties to other folks, consolidate uh redeploy people, we are doing that as well.

Um, but we will again we're not that we're holding back, but we need to see where our finance are our finances are.

I don't want to lay people off and not um be serious about that.

We need to make sure that if that's going to happen, it happens before June 1st.

And because of contractual language and also the state law, you had to notify those teachers at an earlier date.

It's a different parameters.

That's something I know of quite well.

Correct.

Yes.

Uh teachers teachers need to be notified by March 1st.

Other staff, we use June 1st.

Thank you.

That's I just want to follow up.

So that that could be additional layoffs outside that that those on teachers, but as I said before, your department of people you put people in.

Most of your expenses are in the people, people who work with the kids work in the schools.

And I will again stress that we have legal obligations that we do not have the ability to just circumvent or shirk.

Can I follow up one more thing?

Is that all right?

And and the question is if you do lay off teachers and your class sizes grow.

Those the teachers don't contractually, they don't just take the kids.

There is a cost associated with that.

If we go over the contractual cap, which is a limit set by the contract depending on the level.

So K1 and 2 have a certain number, three, four, five, on and on.

At the secondary level, that uh student number is 30 students per classroom.

And um, I don't think anyone in this room thinks having 30 students in a in a classroom is a good thing.

And as you go over that number, you have to pay those teachers per student.

That's a contractual number.

So there's savings, but that savings will be less.

So if I'm an if I'm a high school English teacher and I have 32 students in my class for a semester, we have to pay for those extra two students, which are beyond the contractual agreement.

So we have to pay the teacher a certain amount of money.

Thanks, Superintendent.

Councilmember Ziri.

In say the elementary schools, will you have to send the kids to other schools if they can't host them in, say, I don't know, Glenn Hills or Garden City or something like that?

Will they have to go to a different school than they're districted for?

We really try not to do that because we recognize that many families want their children to go to their neighborhood school.

So in that case, we we weigh whether or not moving a child because then we have to provide transportation as well, which is better for the child for the class.

I mean, if if you have a classroom and there's 25 students, and three more students want to be there, that's difficult.

If it's one student, we may, you know, so it's really made on a case-by-case basis.

Um at the at the secondary level, I don't want to say it's easier, but we have more ability to spread students out at the elementary level, it's a little trickier.

Madam Clerk, please note for the record that councilwoman Graziano is here.

Councilmember Graziano, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

I just want to apologize.

I had to work for a couple hours during the meeting.

Um, thank you for everything you guys do.

I'm obviously one of the supporting people that wants to make this budget work.

We but we have a really like large road again ahead of us.

And um it couldn't come at a worse time for you all.

And that puts all of us in a precarious situation.

So and I I apologize um for if this has already been said, but um, can you give me like a little bit of a breakdown on there was some mention about selling buildings and how that'll affect you all with um the construction projections that you gave us for the schools that needed immediate attention that would go out to bonding and um what schools would be sold and where that money would be going?

So right now, once um Gladstone opens, the students who are Gladstone students are housed at Barrows and Waterman.

We will vacate those buildings.

Um they the school committee votes to then turn those buildings back to city care.

They're always city buildings, and let's keep that in mind.

We have care and control when we have them as our schools, they are always city city buildings.

So when the students move back into the new Gladstone, those two buildings will return back to the city.

They can sell the building, sell the property, and use that money however the city sees fit.

The other buildings that we are keeping is uh we are keeping Arlington and we are moving our preschool students into Arlington.

That building will require some um maintenance and renovations, and we are hoping also to keep the early childhood center, which is on Sprague Avenue.

Um we will use that building as well, but we are hoping to centralize all of our services for the preschools at Arlington.

So through the chair, um so there was mention last night at the administration's proposal that $750,000 of the sale of Chester Barrows would be headed to assisting in the structural repairs of the schools.

Is that true?

No.

Um initially we had planned on using barrows to expand our in-district special education programs.

So right now we have special education programs that are not um located within our our school buildings for for a certain population of students.

We were hoping to use barrows to expand our ability to service those students without putting them in an out of district tuition, you know, that list that we just looked at.

So the sale of barrows um was discussed as providing us with kind of an offset to that special ed tuition that we were hoping to avoid by using barrows, but the city is going to take barrows and sell.

Am I am I making sense?

It's very late.

I just want to make sure I'm not talking in circles to you.

Sorry, I did get a little okay.

But but they're selling barrows.

So if the city sells barrows, the the school department, the agreement we have is that the school department would receive $750,000 in a one-time um payment, if you will, to offset special education tuitions that we would have avoided had we used the building to uh provide our own special education services.

But doesn't this pose an issue down the road for next year when you need that money and we don't have a building to sell?

Um absolutely yes, a quick answer.

Absolutely.

Mr.

Chairman, Mr.

Wagyu.

We appreciate the one time contribution.

That money is not gonna be part of the maintenance of effort.

You're right, it will not be there the following year.

But that will be a concern going forward.

Next question.

I sorry, mind if I keep going.

Um so that number that is a number one concern that now we're still 750,000 down for your program.

Um Watermen, what what is happening with that?

So Waterman will be vacated um completely, and the city will take care and control of that probably at the end of the summer once all of our uh staff have moved their things out of there.

Okay, but the status of where it goes from there is still unknown.

That would be under the city's view.

I I believe the idea would be to sell those properties and replenish the rainy day fund.

Okay.

Um okay, I mean, I I looked over briefly.

Um it was mentioned tonight earlier.

Um, out of district busing.

What is we're we're negative on that number?

We actually I'm asking some reimbursement, but we don't get full reimbursement.

Is that correct?

So the only reimbursement we receive is for the uh parochial and private uh busing that we have to uh accommodate and uh right now in the governor's budget, it actually is going down.

Currently, we receive a million dollars in support.

Yep.

And in the governor's budget, that's down to about 763,000.

Okay.

That support is going down about 240,000.

240,000 for this is private schools and Catholic schools.

Correct.

Yes.

So you just lost $800,000 or seven seven sixty.

Um we lost 200,000.

So we're gonna get 760-ish thousand dollars as per as per the governor's budget what next year.

But currently we're receiving a million.

So we're losing about 200 and some odd thousands.

Oh, okay.

Um I apologize.

I thought you said you were going down to 240.

No, that's what you're gonna be losing.

Yes, thank you.

And correct.

That isn't um we talk about it being in the governor's budget.

That isn't cash in the door.

What they do is they establish um a kind of a credit and we work off that credit.

We do still incur costs beyond the credit that we get.

Um in explaining it, I used to say it's like a gift card for transportation.

Once that gift card is used, the additional costs then fall back on the district.

Okay, and that cost is incorporated into the new budget.

That loss.

Yes, yes, okay.

Um, and just just to put this on the record.

So Madam Councilman, give me a second.

Can uh you guys lower it down over there so we could continue this, continue, councilwoman.

Um, and just just to get an idea, so there is also a concern.

I I I might have missed the first part of it about um like this the state of what's happening with the city, and would that put your bonding that you're proposing to do the structural um repairs to um the school system?

Would that potentially impact that if we can't get this sort of under control and keep our bond rating?

It's my understanding that um not having a robust rainy day fund could compromise your bonding authority.

Thank you.

Finally, thank you.

No, I don't I was gonna call councilman the council president because I believe we had a question.

But you know what?

Um I'll let you go.

Thank you so much for being so polite and courteous.

So you ask all your questions, Councilwoman Heroin or the followers.

I will.

I take pride in knowing the budget.

Okay, my first question is I am not a Cranston High School graduate.

I do not have children in the school department.

Okay, well, um but I do realize how important the education is for the Cranston residents, and we deserve and we owe it to them to give it to them and with the leadership we have.

So thank you.

And a shout out to any teacher that went vacation and is working for $51,000.

My question starts with children in DCYF custody and that are homeless.

It's our obligation to provide for them.

Um, do you know about how many homeless children we have in the school department at this time or DCYF children?

And do we get state aid for them because they're homeless and there's no address with them?

Um I want to say children in foster care are around 40.

Oh, hello, Mrs.

Paul.

Around 40 students in foster care and about 80 students identifying as homeless at this time.

Do we get state aid for them?

Yes, we do.

Okay.

Second of all, early, you stated you would be putting together a committee this summer to work on things.

Will a member from council be on that committee?

Would you like to be on absolutely ask all my questions?

Okay.

The school department, when you receive a grant, who writes the grants?

Is it your do you have someone on your staff or do you use the city grant writer?

We do all of our um grants submissions on our own.

Okay, thank you.

Um I kind of have questions everywhere.

This was a big one that really stuck out with uh special ed extreme care, the 20 million.

Is that in stone that all we will get reimbursed with the whole state?

Like could it change when the governor actually presents his budget?

I believe that's a categorical fund.

So that's one lump sum of money that gets dispersed throughout the whole state.

That is up to um anybody who has an effect on the budget.

Okay.

Um most of those, I'm assuming it's probably Medicaid.

Does the like advocates fight for more money in that budget so the children get what they need?

We have often said that the high cost schedule high cost special education needs to be um funded more through the state.

Um, I know you're all familiar with the work the Rhode Island Foundation did recently with a report suggesting that the state take on more of that responsibility for students who have extreme needs, and that would help all the districts with this cost.

But at this time, there is only 20 million set aside for the entire state, and Cranston alone has 13 million dollars in so think about that disparity.

We have 32 cities and towns that doesn't equal okay.

Yeah, 34 school departments, but we have a couple of regionals, yeah.

Also, how is our enrollment?

Has it declined and gone up is in the last five years?

It's been pretty steady.

Um, maybe a 200 student swing either way.

Um again, we we do maintain a pretty um steady enrollment.

I know we talked about class sizes in the state law and being high school students.

What is the uh state law for like a first and second grade?

Because I can't imagine 30 first grades in one class.

There is no state law.

That is a local decision and usually based on a contractual agreement.

Um I think that's all I have actually.

Mr.

President.

I just wanted to revisit the uh the building sale money, the 750,000.

So that is going to go in and someone uh someone's gonna speak to this matter.

I just want to be clear because it sounded to me, and I want to know it's a little clarification.

Is this going toward the school department's maintenance for effort?

And if not, let's perhaps get that on the record.

Hi, thank you.

The the agreement as I understand it as the mayor explained it to me, was it was supposed to be $750,000, a one-time payment, which was understood, and I'm looking at an email that says that, but it was supposed to be on it was in the speech as the mayor understood it to go into a restricted account to pay to fix things in buildings, not to subsidize any tuition because then we would be actively helping to create a structural deficit, which is not our goal.

So the solicitor should get something in writing with your legal, but that's what it was meant to be paid for.

We're selling a building, capital, paying for something, capital.

That's I believe also in our charter somewhere you're supposed to pay for capital expenses with sales of buildings.

So I just want to.

So I just want to get that on the record.

Also, while I'm standing here, you have a grant writer as a position, though, correct?

Uh we have a fiscal uh grant um supervisor.

Basically, he'll handles all the accounting associated with the school departments.

Um worth of grants, correct?

Because so most of the grants come from ride, right?

No, actually, we do have a number of private grants um the foundations, chaplain so forth.

We have state grants, and of course we have the federal grants.

Okay, but a majority of them are the state ride stuff.

I just remember asking that question when I was on the council.

Yes, dollar-wise, the majority of federal grants, Title I, Title II, IDEA, yes.

And that that grant person manages that just and applies for them.

Absolutely.

Okay, so essentially a grant writer for those grants.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

So just to circle back to Solicitor Millet, is solicitor?

Is there a document coming to the superintendent regarding that 700?

All right, so before the budget's over, we'll have that in writing.

Just so going forward, there's no confusion.

Yes, thank you.

So the chairman can council also ask for a copy of that legal letter.

No, can council also get a copy of that letter?

Thank you.

I I just want to remind the council of this.

I don't know if you heard Joe correctly.

If we don't find the 2.5 million dollars for the contract that they're short right now.

Right now, they're making they're proposing making three million dollars in cuts.

Three million dollars in cuts on the school side, which is going to impact classroom.

There's no doubt about it.

Classroom teachers are going to be laid off.

I and I realize that many of what many of us were not here during 23, 24, and 24, 25.

It makes absolutely no difference.

We're here now.

We have to we we have to find this money somehow.

And I know 7.4% tax levy is not gonna be pretty, and it's not gonna sit well with the general public, but we don't have a choice.

It's gonna generate $15 million of that $50 million.

13.5 is going to the city side to take care of the problems that occurred on the city side.

What the school of partners is asking that for us to do is to find the 2.5 million dollars of a contract that we all ratified.

That's what I want to say.

Seeing none, uh Madam Superintendent.

Everyone here's thinking that we're gonna get this money, but let's say we don't get it, and you don't get nothing.

Walk me through a day at stadium in November with no money this year.

I won't say it's just specific to stadium.

But over the stadiums in Ward 3, that's why.

Yeah, I know I I got you.

Um every single school will have to have the maximum number of students in classrooms by state law.

We have until June 1st to lay off all certified staff.

So folks who um kind of escaped a layoff on February, you know, by February or March 1st.

Um we will have to revisit that, cut deeper into our staff, and cut I mean, cut staffing.

We will have to look at our transportation, cut bus routes.

Um again, the services that people enjoy, and I don't want to say take for granted because I don't think anyone takes uh what we do for granted, but we will look significantly different to our customers, to our constituents.

Um the school buildings and um the the $750,000 for school buildings, whatever that's for would will be great because we need that.

Um the buildings are in dire need, but our operations, our day-to-day, how we do things will look different.

Um I worry about the safety of kids when you have that many students in large classrooms without the appropriate staff to serve them.

I worry about the quality of the education in that in that time.

Um I don't know if we it would be almost it would be morally impossible to start closing schools before September.

Um, but that will be the road we have to take over the summer with that organizational um group that we're talking about to really look at staff, uh look at enrollment, and again, there's a lot of development on the western side of the city that is impacting our schools.

So we have to look at where our students are and make sure we have the schools open.

We can't close.

We we can't just shut down and say, hey, everybody, you you have to go somewhere else.

Um we have a list of things that we will be cutting.

It will significantly impact not just our schools but our rec programs, the our partners throughout the community.

Um, there will be significant ripple effects throughout the the city if this happens.

And I please don't misunderstand me.

I'm not trying to I don't want to sound threatening when I say that.

I'm just being realistic that what we do impacts a lot of other organizations and agencies within the the city.

Well, madam superintendent, while everyone here is thanking you.

I want to apologize to you to the school, the teachers of the school department, to the teachers' aides, to the laborers, to our school board, especially Mr.

Malillo works his behind off.

We've been here for an hour negotiating our kids' futures, and everybody on this council needs to decide which way they're voting because as everybody heard in the beginning of this on the beginning of the first meeting, we need seven votes, and I could count, and I don't see seven votes here yet.

And I could count, and I don't see seven votes here yet.

So I want to apologize to you to all the teachers to everyone.

With all due respect, Mrs.

Fusco.

On behalf of the residents of War 3, I apologize because we shouldn't be here right now for an hour negotiating our kids' futures.

I'm pretty sure Mr.

Fusco agrees with me.

So thank you.

Um is there any other questions?

Seeing none, I guess we could move on to the health side of this.

Um I'm gonna start with Mr.

Bernardo.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I don't know if you guys know this, but I'm a product crazy.

Oh, never mind.

Um I had uh I had one question I was gonna ask before.

Um wait a second.

Oh, wait a minute.

It's a school night, Mr.

Banana.

They have to I know it is.

Should we take a recess?

No.

No, I just want I just wanted everybody to kind of file out so people could hear.

So my my only question, you know.

They were all right here.

We were also set.

I started asked this question before.

Um, and it was about the teachers' raises and uh the health care costs associated with it.

And what unfortunately, a lot of people in the public uh glom on to is when somebody in a public position gets a raise, but they you know, either the media doesn't report it or um it doesn't it doesn't permeate that there's there were health care costs that rose almost one dollar for one dollar, at least it was in my house.

So I just wanted you to sort of expound on that um a little bit and how uh and then I I do have one more question about the age of of people, and you mentioned it before, but sure what was the what was the actual um for the last two budget years we've had to increase the health line item um 15 percent one year, 10% the following year.

Um so I agree with you.

Unfortunately, while we did give out raises, uh these those impact on the increased cost of health pretty much erased uh the raises in some cases.

Um we're self-insured, so we are with one of three collaborators that are in Rhode Island.

We're part of the WB Health Collaborative.

There is a group, there was a group actually uh referred to as RIMIC that handled the northern northern section of the state.

Uh they have since dissolved.

Oh, so now there are two collaborators, the one we belong to and uh the trust, the Rhode Island Interlocal Risk Management Trust has the other collaborative.

Um so again, how a collaborative works again.

We submit we um put in approximately 2.5 million dollars into a fund, and then on a monthly basis, the fund pays the actual claims to Blue Cross and Delta Dental.

Um, for the last few years, the claims have outplaced the revenue.

So France and Public Skews in that fund we're we have a cumulative deficit of just over nine million dollars.

So we are trying to erase that deficit.

How we're doing it.

Um we are in year two of a three-year contract with Blue Cross.

Where we the collaborative uh enjoy all the RX rebates.

We have in past years bluepross used to keep the rebates.

Um, in under that arrangement, Cranston alone is scheduled to get uh annually 4.5 million dollars.

So we hope that 4.5 million outpaces the increase in claims.

We're not there yet, but what that's the game point.

Um, but um in next year's budget, the good news is we're only budgeting a three three and a half percent raise uh increase in the health area.

I've been told by the collaborative right now, health is the working rates as we call it or the premium that we're charged is on the health side is going up three percent on the dental side one percent.

But the dental portion of the overall claims is so in insignificant when you blend the three and a half percent budgetary, that will cover the claims in increase.

So hopefully that answers the question.

Yeah, yes, it does.

But what I was yes, it does in very, very uh uh good detail.

My my point was to to sort of elucidate that, yeah.

All right, teachers got a raise, but in many cases, at least a teacher with a family plan.

All right, teachers got a raise, but in many cases, at least a teacher with a family plan, um, that raise was virtually erased by the increase in health care costs.

So, you know, I I don't know uh who out there, whether it's in private sector, public sector, whether you're you know um uh a got uh uh sanitation engineer, a school teacher or a doctor um who wants to work for the same amount of money over or who can afford to work for the same amount of money over six or or nine years, two or three contracts.

Um I I uh I I developed a follow-up question, and with Cranson being self-insured, um this is this has been a question since I got on the council, both on the city side and the school side.

Does that actually save us money in 2026?

I know when it was implemented, probably around the time I was born, it it did, but is that in 2026 um something that's sustainable for the future to be self-insured?

I believe in the model.

I believe we are a large enough district where that that model works.

Are we hitting a bump in the road?

Absolutely.

Um, but however, our only alternative is to have just pay the uh the money into blue books, and we have if we have a good year, I doubt blue costs is gonna roll our way to the buying because they're just gonna increase it.

So I think we as a collaborative, we're trying to make decisions to try to um maintain costs.

I'll give you I'll give you an example.

So we prince and public schools are obligated for the first 200 250,000 dollars worth of health claims for each individual cover.

Then we go purchase what we call uh reinsurance, or we go out to the market.

So for dollar one above the 250 up to unlimited, woo cross will cover that expense.

We several years ago, as a collaborative, we said, let's fill the gap.

Well, let's increase the gap.

So Francis obligated for 250, the collaborative is obligated from 250 now up to 650,000.

So instead of just sending them on the bluepross and say, hey, hopefully we have a good year.

So now we've taken on some additional risk, but if we manage it properly, the collaborative, hopefully, we'll have a surplus at the end of the year.

Then we go buy insurance from 650 up to a million dollars.

When you do that, just like car insurance, if the logs are deductible, the lower your premium.

So that's how we're managing that piece of the operations, and it seems to work.

Okay, thank you.

Um, one last question.

Um previously, if you worked 33 years, you could retire.

32, I'm sorry, didn't matter how old you were.

Um now it's the rule of is it 90 or 95?

I don't know, 95.

Um, I'll be dead by the time I get to that point.

So I don't know if I'm going to be able to retire.

But um with that rule of 95, is it possible to estimate how many how how many more dollars are spent on health care for individuals that would have previously retired?

And has that ever been thought about?

I understand if I don't know.

Okay, that's fine.

It's it's a tough question to answer.

But it's money it suffice it to say, there are dollars going out for those people, and it's not insignificant.

One would think that as someone gets older, the need for health care increases.

Um, so if they still remain as an active employee on our books, one would think that those costs have increased so has the school department or do you know of any anybody that's looked at that to determine how much more that's costing?

I don't think we have, but I also want to remind you that when folks could retire at the age of 58, 50, you know, 58, 59.

Back in the day, as they say, they got health care for life.

We don't do that anymore.

So if you retire and you're not 65, you're you're only provided the opportunity to purchase your individual health care by giving us a co-share, um, up until age 65.

So you combine the two, and I I understand while I am in that group that probably could have already been retired or within a couple of years of it, and that now it's extended out.

I think the idea was to increase the number of years people contribute to the pension fund before they start to draw from it.

So the health care in many ways in many cases were was also provided to r to folks post-retirement.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Superintendent.

Councilman Rosietto.

Thank you.

Um Councilman Banano did ask a couple of my questions regarding the um self-insuring.

Um so you're in year two.

Um you're projected to get uh four point five million back in um reimbursement.

Um year three would assume the same thing so that if there's no real issues, you would cover that nine million gap.

As long as the claims don't continue to uppace the monthly contribution.

Do you envision after year three contract is done if you're not seeing well two questions?

If you're not if you don't make up the nine million in the next two years, you'll owe it.

Yeah.

So again, the RX contract that we tell me that push with boot costs um beginning in September, the collaborative will always already start the process of sending out another another RFP.

Um we did this is our first RX contract.

Um we decide to state as a collaborative, we decide to stay with blue plus.

Um but there was a national firm at the time as a as an organization, they were willing to give us 31 million dollars back.

Bluecross did shop in their pencil and did go from their original um RFP response from 25 million up to 30 million.

So we actually again, as we said, we gave Bluecross the hometown discount and we stayed with blue books.

But I think now that we've done this as a collaborative, we know that market space a lot better.

So I think we're gonna be more aggressive in looking at possibly um a national firm to take a that's what I was sort of getting at.

But in the end, it is still possible you could owe some money.

Yes.

Um and then when you're assessing overall health care versus the budget, do you feel like this is a huge weight and burden on the entire budget?

Or do you feel like it it's managed well enough that it's not a huge burden on the overall budget?

Like is it is it causing significant increases in the budget, or are we just looking at the fact of exactly what you're saying?

Like we need to increase staff um for salaries, we have increased costs due to inflation.

Is is this a big burden on that budget?

The last few years, yes, it has been.

Um but prior to that, and Councilman Trump can't you as a school committee member you would remember because you would always ask me that question, how much did we have um in reserves at the collaborative?

And again, as a superintendent back in the day, we had 6.5 million in excess reserves that we could then use and we did it strategically, we would say, okay, um, the underwriters of Blue Cross is saying you should be increasing your your rates by five percent.

And we went we didn't want to pass down that additional burden to the teachers that we would say, no, we'll eat that five percent, but we have six million dollars in the jobs.

We've lost that luxury, so to answer your question, yes, it has been a budgetary concern.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Seeing none.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we'll take uh five minute recess and then we'll come in and with fire.

Ready to go.

Clerk Clerk, we're about to start.

Or I guess we're live.

Chief, I'd like to welcome you.

Um for right now the floor, the floor is yours.

Great, thank you.

Um my first time here, so I don't know what really the Well, you just give a little speech and then we'll ask you a bunch of questions.

Okay.

If you want to skip that, that's fine.

Um I worked uh hard with uh Bob.

Just gotta hit the oh no, you're not you're on, yep, you're good.

Okay.

I worked hard with uh Bob Stromman Director Maretti to uh trim as much as I can off the budget, and uh we're doing as best we can to save money.

Thank you, Chief.

Um Chief and Director, you know, as I asked the same question with reference to the fire, I mean the police, the there was some unestimated expenditures in the previous budget in the current year we're in.

Do you feel that the budget that has been presented and put together by you and Bob Schramm is what is adequate to cover those expenditures?

For the most part, yes.

The only thing that I'm worried about, as everybody's mentioned, is the cost of fuel.

We know with this conflict in the Middle East, uh fuel prices have gone up dramatically.

And as far as I can tell, there's no site to the end, and that's the only place that I have concerns.

And and just uh on one specific line item, I actually have a a question that is the opposite of what I usually ask.

So your overtime in the new budget is six point three million, and the actual for fiscal twenty-five was six million seventy-three thousand.

And you're trending this year moving forward at about six point one, maybe a little bit more.

Just a general question.

Do you actually think that the six point three might be a little strong and that it actually might not go to that number on overtime?

At this point in time, uh summertime is usually the time where we have the most overtime.

Everybody's on vacation during the nice weather.

And it's mostly the senior guys, and we we do end up with a lot of overtime during the summer months.

I think six point three million is probably right on target.

Uh July one, there is a contractual raise to everybody's salary, and which will also increase the cost of overtime.

Um we run five short right now.

We're twelve firefighters short, and we are waiting for the fiscal year to start so we can hire people.

Uh contractually, we are the administration's able to keep us five short, which also increases over time.

So I think six point three is a good target, and we will try to stay under that.

And just one last question.

It it it looks like in the revenue end there are no uh grants um for the fit for the budgetary period.

Right now we see that correct.

We do have two grants right now.

Um, and we have two grants that just expired.

Uh the safer grant I just put in for the last um few thousand dollars, a couple hundred thousand dollars, and that grant is ended.

Uh, unfortunately, Department of Homeland Security is closed, so we cannot apply for any more grants through Department of Homeland Security.

Um, but we have applied for a 1 million 250,000 dollar grant through Seth Magazina's office, and that's in the final stages of selection, and we also have a $545,000 grant that I applied for through the Department of Homeland Security for the cybersecurity grant, and we are in the final selection on that, but we has been on hold since Department of Homeland Security's closed.

Thank you.

That makes a lot more sense then.

Councilman Ritz.

A few questions here.

Um so the injured on the on the on duty, that number jumps around a lot.

So I was just wondering, it it does move around.

I uh is it different policies and procedures that's kind of bringing that number back down?

Yes.

Um it was up as high as 22.

Then I got promoted into this spot, and my spot is uh assistant chief uh in the administration, and my job is basically to police uh IODs, sick leave, that sort of thing, and any kind of personnel issues.

Uh, I've been working quite diligently to bring the number down.

And the problem we have is as councilman Bonano said, the pension reform.

Pension reform keeps our firefighters there longer.

This is a very physical job.

Older people tend to get injured more easily when they're doing a physical job.

So that's keeping our numbers fluctuating greatly.

And right now I have I have 15 firefighters on occupational injury, seven of those are waiting for decisions from the pension board.

Three of those are waiting for MRIs, two are in physical therapy, one had surgery, and two have a cardiac issue, they're waiting for a cardiologist clearance to come back to work.

Chief, how many for the pension board?

In total or IOD that's on waiting for the pension from the state.

Seven.

Culture.

Uh a couple more.

On you have a very detailed budget, but uh with the department departmental expenses.

Do you know what else is in that category?

Because you have a lot of stuff laid out there.

I just didn't know what else was in that group.

I don't know if that's for Bob or Departmental Expenses is basically for a lot there.

Um paper, um, office supplies.

Um else that we do in that.

Um, yeah, we have but we have six fire stations.

So, you know, we have 43 firefighters on duty every single day, every single night.

So those expenses are for like toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning supplies, that sort of stuff.

And then uh the my other one was just a replacement fire truck.

So it has 250,000 budget in there.

I I assume a fire truck costs more than that.

Is that just the maintenance or that's replacement vehicles?

Vehicles.

That is for our staff vehicles.

Um right now we haven't replaced the staff vehicle in three years.

And last year we had to abandon or I should say scrap five vehicles, and the year before that, four, because it wouldn't pass inspection, they're all rotted.

So right now I'm down seven vehicles that I I need to replace, and we're in a spot where if I don't replace something, my inspection guy or invest my inspection guys can't go out and do inspections for house sales and stuff because I they don't have anything to drive.

No, no, this year we're two.

Okay.

Follow up on the IOD.

We've been trying for years to try to get some of these uh firefighters who are definitely disabled, have doctors' letters that say they can't come back.

And the state of Rhode Island has not allowed them to physically uh you know retire uh as a disability candidate.

And that's for us also because some of them I believe Chief can verify it.

They've been out three, four or five years.

And they're still collecting the pay, but we can utilize their services and we have to fill that position with overtime usually.

Sure.

No, it makes sense.

Yeah, I and then and that number's going in the right direction.

I just was wondering if that's an accurate one, and if not, you know, if something else could cause it to spike up over there.

And then my last one, you know, public safety, like I said, to the police development is very important to me.

Or in a tough budget thing.

I'm sure you guys went through it, but is there anything, any programs or anything we can hold over to next year while we try and sort through this?

I really worked hard and made had had to make some really difficult decisions to come up with this plan.

Um with the help of Director Moretti and Bob Strom.

I think this is as bare bones as we can get, to be honest with you.

And I and even then lowering the fuel budget, um, even with my concern, and again, it's all oil futures, and I'm hoping that the price of diesel and gasoline does come down significantly so we can make it work.

Our auditor has uh follow-up on this director Strom, is it a fair assessment to say those seven um firefighters that are on IOD cost the city about 700,000 dollars annually?

So to put it in perspective, if you take just the 700,000 at time and a half, if that's the overtime, that's over a million dollars right there.

Yeah, you'd have to pay those guys too.

So you pay them their salary, and you pay somebody time and a half to work your spot.

The floor is yours, councilman Ritz.

Moving on to Councilman Campo Bion.

Thank you, Chairman.

Uh thank you for what you do for us to keep us safe.

Uh you know, car guy, I got two car questions.

When you scrap the the vehicles, do they show up in revenue?

Um, I don't have I don't know that answer.

Well, I give them back to um uh Mark uh Mark Casey, and we send them out and they send them out to auction, I guess.

Yeah, councilman, we do have what they call uh scrap sales, and that's part of it.

It's under uh uh revenue under finance, so it's in that category.

Okay, all right.

All of our vehicles are registered to the city of Cranster, not in the fire department.

All right, my next question.

I see $55,000 in tires and tubes, and I see $260,000 worth of fuel.

And I'm trying to figure out how you can wear out $55,000 worth of tires on like 88,000 miles when you calculate how far you went.

Okay, so truck tires are very different from car tires.

A truck weighs tens of thousands of pounds, which puts extra pressure on tires, they don't last as long as a car tire does, and they cost probably 10 times the amount as a car tire.

And as far as fuel goes, on average we use 55,000 gallons of diesel every year.

So it's a lot of a lot of fuel in lights up there.

Well, yeah, that's why I'm I'm saying you can't get many miles to the gallon, so it's they must wear out really quick.

Well, don't forget we have 10 fire engines, four ladder trucks, two special hazards, hazmat truck, and ten rescues that we plus all the cars that we have to replace tires for traffic answer, Chief.

Um yes, but by contract, the city administration can hold open five firefighter positions and not fund them.

I guess we could come back to it.

So they are they are funded but not filled at the present time.

Okay, all right.

Uh okay, okay.

Check that out for me.

Uh Chief, in your severance, has six hundred thousand dollars based on anticipated retirements.

Are you anticipating certain numbers amount of men leaving in in the forthcoming year?

Yes, I'm anticipating two people leaving in July, and I'm expecting uh two more people in August.

And this year, the chief is retiring tomorrow.

Oh, tomorrow.

Okay.

So that's understandable then.

Now I'm a little curious about this annuity.

496,000.

Well, what is that?

Is that a separate pension?

That's uh some contractual, that's a contractual um thing that the uh firefighters did with the administration when we went from a city pension to the state pension.

So there's actually two separate pensions then.

One one is these uh this is for the regular.

Yeah, it's it's like it's like a 401k.

Yeah, I know I know what you mean.

I knew I should have been on firefighter.

Councilman, uh also um they have a full compliment.

Every every uh position has been funded, yeah, but maybe not filled.

All right, very good.

I I just want to compliment your um repair shop.

Uh I know those those guys that work there, they do they do a heck of a job with the engines and the uh the ladders and the ambulances.

They work the tail off and they do a heck of a job for you.

I want to compliment them.

They do.

I agree with you, sir.

Uh I believe Councilwoman Horroy has a statement to say.

I just want to thank you guys for all you do.

Um, especially um and he's been fabulous with me with my fire safety inspections being safety chair.

I don't have any questions because, like Chris, who has the bonus of the significant other, I have that bonus.

So I'm not gonna waste anyone's time.

So thank you.

Thank you.

It's okay.

I got big shoulders.

Um I'm I'm looking for the um rescue revenue.

And I don't know where it is.

Yeah, like the rescue revenue.

The the the bill, I can't find it in here, and I just I'm sure it is.

I'm not questioning it's not.

I just don't know where it is.

Page five.

Okay.

So last year, um no, so page five is city clerk.

Anyway, last year at the end of the budget, um the third party rescue wasn't funded properly, and there was a small discrepancy.

And in the contract we have for the billing.

So I wanted to make sure that that was rectified in this budget.

Um I wish I could find where the hell it is so I could point it out.

Other revenues.

Okay.

Thank you for letting me know.

Um that was the only question I I had.

Um so most people don't know how this works.

Um can you explain that a little bit when you go on a rescue run and how it works and and uh and and the mutual aid, there's no reimbursement unless it's from an insurance company or uh or a uh patient, is that right?

Well, what we do is when we send a rescue out for a run, uh there's two types of ways to bill, either advanced life support or basic life support.

There are two different billing categories.

We bill the recipient appropriately, and if the recipient is a Cranston resident, just what their insurance pays we collect.

We don't go after the Cranston resident unless there's two occasions.

They were involved in a motor vehicle accident where they weren't at fault and they could be suing.

We want to be reimbursed as part of their settlement.

And if they don't pay their taxes, the city goes after them for that because they're not currently in taxes.

Um other than that, if we go out of town mutual aid, some communities don't give reciprocity.

If we have Warwick come to our city to take care of one of our residents while we are all busy doing other things, other people, they'll still bill us, bill them, I should say, and expect them to pay the bill.

So if we go to war, consequently, we do the same thing.

If we go to Warwick and pick up a walk resident, we go there for them for the full amount.

And I see a Cranston Rescue probably daily.

So who pays for that?

That would be the Medicare or if the person that we go to has insurance, but most likely it's Medicare or Medicaid on Fuse or whatever.

Okay, but there is some reimbursement to the city from either federal government or somebody on those runs.

Because it is a lot, at least two or three a day.

So have a medical five or three that um that it reason.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Um, you know, I'm very proud of the people we've we've interviewed tonight, the police, school department, and the fire department.

All three of you are constantly making our city um look good.

And uh, you know, the mayor said think of uh think of the thing you're proud of about Cranston, and uh those three are what I'm proud of for sure.

So thank you guys for your service and uh dedication to our city.

Thank you, Council Benato, you just alienated canvassing law department executive.

Um Councilwoman Graziano.

Um okay, I'll start off with the easy questions.

Um there's a couple items here, like, and I think I talk about this every year, so we can laugh about it.

Um, but the uniform cleaning, is it is it possible to seek out another entity that's less money so we can reduce that line item?

It's not that I don't think you need to do it, it's that do we shop it out?

Uniform cleaning is um something that is contractual and it's paid to the member to get the uniforms clean, right?

But whatever the company is, do you guys shop around for contractual payment to each firefighter?

It's a line item bugs.

What is the 70?

So, like it fluctuates.

So, what what are you anticipating uh for this year for equipment repairs that you came up with 375?

Um equipment repairs is repairs to our fire trucks, and um our fire trucks are aging in every year.

It's seems to be more and more costly to repair them.

Uh, right now the shop rate when we have to send something out is more than 200 an hour to get somebody to fix a try fire truck.

So, and we're again that old stuff and it breaks.

I get that, but like last year it was 300, the year before it was 400.

How do you come up with that number?

That's all I'm asking three.

So what you're at right now, what's the what yeah?

We had to send ladder one and ladder three out to get them fixed.

So ladder one was fifteen thousand, ladder three was twenty-two thousand okay.

Just uh just as a point, wasn't there either last year or the previous year?

One of the fire trucks you opted to rebuild it, and we did it.

You did the repairs to get longer service out of it because you didn't want to buy a new one because the expense was so high.

Yes.

Okay.

Um, some of the other council members asked my questions, but I guess I'll go back to and I'm sorry, I'm gonna revisit it.

So last year we obviously underfunded the overtime significantly.

So but I I actually did clawed AI and I went back and looked at the meeting minutes from all you were not here for doing this, but like through all of the um questions and everything we asked, and it actually brought up um Mr.

DeMo, myself, and some other members that asked about the overtime budget, and and we said we had concerns that it was two million less than the year before.

So and I know we're projected, I understand the projections that you're projecting out more money this year.

I guess when we say you're gonna make that number, tell me you're gonna make that number.

I just don't want to be over budget again next year by millions of dollars.

I want and I just want to get like I mean again, it's a fair number, but I can't definitely say that we're gonna hit that number.

We could be over and hopefully we'll be on them.

That's that would be a fair estimate of what our overtime is.

I just want to let you know how traumatized I am from last year, and that we asked the same question, and we were told that you could you could reduce by two million, and that was not real life, and so I'm still traumatized from last year.

But if you look at prior years, it's it's in the ballpark.

You know what I'm saying?

I just wanted to put it on the record again for the second year that I'm asking that question.

The one thing to coincide with Director Schraub.

I don't know if it was about four to five years ago.

There was a chemical fire on Elmwood Avenue, and I believe there was eight to ten or twelve firefighters that went on IOD for a long period of time, which really increased the um overtime at that point.

All I'm trying to state is that you they can't control something that happens that brings the numbers up, injured on duty, or you know, additional help.

So sometimes, but it based on being here for as long as I have this budgeted number is probably the most accurate budget number that we've had in many years.

We've been close, but I think this one will probably be the closest.

And I get that, but you understand where I'm coming from from the last year being completely underfunded and asking the same questions and being told that we're gonna meet that number.

Um, that's just alarming to me sitting here the second year and being in this position.

Um that helps not to interrupt, but I'm going to that helps the firefighters too.

Because the public, the public doesn't realize um, and they they might blame the firefighters when it was when it was the the budget numbers that that weren't it.

And they don't deserve that.

They don't deserve that.

So um I just want to throw that in there.

Yeah, and I think my point is like if I said, hey, you're not meeting that number, and you say I am, I have to come up with the two million dollars to to fund your budget.

Do you know what I'm saying?

And like where am I coming up with that two million dollars?

So I just want to make that point that you know it la like that last year we would have had to come up with another two million dollars, even though you're we were told it was okay.

Um not saying that's anyone's fault.

I'm just saying that like here we are, and so that's just frustrating.

Um councilman, can I just interject for a minute just the time?

Okay, okay, just because we include that moment.

Okay.

Okay.

Um don't answer I I apologize that I'm going to also revisit what what we were talking about with the five positions, those are funded in this budget.

Do they are they contractually required to be funded?

No, they're not contractually required to be funded there by the contract, they can leave them vacant to save money.

But usually yes, right now we're we have 12 openings, and we can't hire until the new year.

Yep.

Nobody has money for that.

And uh once we get our list established, which we just did last week, then we can get this in place.

But it's up to the administration to give us permission to hire those five that they can keep open by contract.

Madam Clerk may entertain a motion to extend this meeting a half hour.

So move this chair.

So a second, any discussion.

Well, those in favor say aye.

All right.

Any nays, eyes have it.

I believe we can continue.

The floor is yours, uh, councilman Graziano.

You I'm still here.

Um do you know how much those five positions equal in the salary line item?

It's about three hundred and fifty thousand approximately that's just base salary.

It doesn't include benefits versus one four hundred and ten thousand based on what's in the budget.

I did 30 percent for ten.

So I think we send 100,000 per person, including salary and benefits.

So it's about five hundred dollars of rough estimate.

I've I'd done the numbers where I've took every position on the fire on the job and divided it into the salaries, and it comes out to about a hundred thousand dollars per firefighter.

And that's just an average over the from private to chief.

Thank you.

I I I do want to say I'm grateful for all the work that the fire department does.

Um, I am grateful for the work that police and schools and every person working at City Hall does.

Um, but I just want to say, you know, we're gonna have to pinch back a little bit.

We were told that this is a collaboration that we all have to figure this out together.

Um, and I just want to say, like, you know, there's gonna have to be a little bit of give back from everybody as a team because I think we're a team.

Oh, thank you.

Mr.

President.

No, you know what?

You did a great job asking your questions.

I don't have a single one.

The items I was gonna look at, and they were already already went over.

Salary, you explained the salary pretty well.

Budget fully funded.

Seems realistic.

I can see where the numbers increased.

You know, you went, you know, your budget went up a significant amount.

I can kind of see where it is.

Um, I'll ask it again.

You uh, but I believe it sounded like you said that the overtime, the assumption that over time barring some something you know extraordinary is going to be enough.

It appears that it goes with the historical average, which we should have done in the past.

So I have nothing nothing further to say, and I also thank you for all you guys for your service to the city.

Seeing that, Chief, I'd like to thank the men and women of the fire department for their involvement in the community.

I go, I attend numerous community events, and they make our city proud.

And everybody's always you know happy to see the fire engine.

So with that, we're moving on to fire alarm.

Fire alarm.

Does anyone have any questions for on this topic?

Fire alarm.

Councilman Ritz.

I just had one question.

I saw the computer maintenance and repairs at the jump.

I'm assuming we're probably doing a new computer system or some upgrades there.

I'm good.

It was answered by the uh the crowd.

I council member, if you could just repeat the question.

I I just asked it, just one question.

You were jumping from the computer maintenance 112,000 to 142.

I just assume you must be upgrading the computer system that we have for.

Right now uh we had increases in all our licenses, and it's come out to just over 30,000.

So I think at again, we trimmed it down to 30, and we'll figure out the few thousand dollars over that.

Um, what is cable maintenance and repairs?

That is the wires that are strung up on the polls.

We have a fiber optic loop that goes around the city that all the city buildings are connected through, and we use it for like city hall use it to access the internet.

Um, and to we go VPN in to do our our um payroll and stuff like that.

Chief, isn't the system new?

Wasn't that a part of an upgrade you did a couple years ago?

The fire alarm.

Oh, which system is that?

The fire alarm system.

Some capital improvements to that.

And that's why the licenses are kicking back in again.

I'm not I'm not 100% sure.

I'm sorry.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions for fire alarm?

Seeing that, Chief, thank you very much for today.

Thank you all for your time.

Okay, we'll move it on to canvassing.

Um there he is, mom man.

Oh, yeah, okay.

All right, welcome to the finance committee meeting.

We are now on canvassing.

Oh, good afternoon, uh, good evening, uh chairman, uh, members of the committee, uh Nick Lima, registrar director of elections.

Uh, and I want to first thank you, Chairman and Council President and the committee and council for allowing me to appear virtually.

I'm currently attending the United States Election Assistance Commission meeting uh in Chicago.

Uh in I'm doing so in my official capacity, but uh as uh federal government agent as a member of the EAC Standards Board appointed by the Secretary of State.

So my travel here is uh paid for entirely by the federal government.

Um I know that the city has uh an incredibly difficult budget situation this year.

Uh back in the fall, I started working on our department's budget.

And while we one of we are one of the smallest budgets uh in the city, one of the smallest departments in the city, uh, as you know, we also do have a significant impact in the conduct of elections for the city's 60,000 registered voters.

Initially, uh I was looking at a budget of around 265,000 in our primary uh operational line item, which is the elections line item, uh, which in your budget is uh 1108, 52610.

Um, however, I met with uh uh acting director strong a couple weeks ago, and uh I was going basically going back from from ground zero, uh building up from a zero base budgeting, was able to cut about fifty thousand dollars uh from that uh initial request.

Uh and that comes from a couple of areas, which I want the council to understand because uh this is the 12th budget that I've managed as uh department head of the canvassing authority, and it is absolutely the tightest budget that I will ever have to work with to conduct an election.

But I also have confidence both because of the experience of our staff who have about 80 years of experience between the four of us, uh, but also now poll workers in in our board of canvassers that we can conduct an election uh with a budget that is essentially the lowest operating uh elections budget we've had since 2018.