Good evening.

I will call the special budget meeting to order September twenty fourth, twenty twenty five.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the role of the council?

Councilman Fogerty.

Councilman Lawson.

Council Vice President Riga.

Yeah.

Councilwoman Sousa.

Council President Rodericks.

Please rise for the pledge.

So he could not make it.

Councilwoman Sousa said she would be tied up at work.

So we do have the quorum with my self and the two francs that are here.

I I did ask the council if we could streamline the process and see which departments and department heads uh should or directors should should be here tonight.

And I I thank the directors of all the departments.

I think just about everyone is here, but we are going to key in tonight.

Uh on the lucky uh director of the DPW, uh, because so much uh goes on there.

And there were some uh questions, not concerns, just some questions about the IT department and maybe some of a miscellaneous nature.

And I know there are other department heads here, so if if you do have a question, um you can ask it now.

But then later on, when we adjourn, we'll set the next round for the next hearing.

So before I open this as a public hearing, I would invite uh Mayor DeSilva to come forward.

Thank you, Council President, members of the council.

Uh before I start, I want to thank and uh show a great sense of appreciation to our department as we're here today.

Uh we've been working on this budget now for weeks, months, uh trying to craft a responsible budget that keeps the taxpayers uh in mind, but at the same time uh allows us to still perform the quality services that our community has come to rely on.

I will say this.

If you ask me if I could use more people in the police department, yes.

Can I use more people on the fire department?

Yes.

Could I use another 40 or 50 people to service our community through various departments?

Absolutely.

But you have to live within your means, you have to live within a budget, and realities exist, and that's what we try to work with as realities.

So we're gonna start off by uh talking about some of the issues that drove this budget.

Uh the budget is increasing, and if you look uh on the screen uh quickly, the main issues that are are impacting the budget are debt service, health care costs, pension fund contributions, school support, and labor costs.

We're gonna go on to the next uh screen.

This is important because a lot of people uh sometimes I hear from both uh people in the community and and others who may be in elected office that no, we don't we we gotta do more for the schools.

Uh I take great pride in that the last seven years.

We've always budgeted for the schools what they've asked for.

And in addition to budgeting for the schools, what we they've asked for, we've also increased the debt service to the city through investment in a new East Province High School, a new Martin Middle School, and major improvements to Waddington and other schools.

If you look at this graph, you'll see that our current debt service in 2026 is 17,788,183.

That's in the budget.

That's what we pay in debt service.

And if you look at those uh the pie chart, you can see what each pie chart indicates as where that money is going to.

When you see a Rybek uh reference, that's all school construction.

Some of these bonds predate our administration by many, many years, but we're still paying on them.

We're still paying interest.

Next.

Another uh impact on the budget this year has been uh the ever rising cost of health care, as you can see here.

Uh our total health care cost this year is 7 million, 261,396.

That's a significant amount of money.

It's increased by 7.65%.

That's a $504,000 increase on the budget.

Next.

This one is always uh a challenge.

Uh our administration has made the annual required contribution required by our fiscal advisors uh every single year.

And this year, the pension fund for the police and fire department, which is classified as in critical condition, uh is getting another $900,000 of funding.

That's that's the increase in the budget because we're making the required annual contribution.

That's a 6.6% increase.

Um I certainly would never support not making this payment and kicking it down the road because it would cause uh further problems for the uh for the pension uh plan.

But if you look closely in 2024, our payment into the pension plan was 10 million nine forty-six.

This year, three late three years later, our payment is $13,627.