So that any and all decisions made by us will always be for the betterment and greater happiness of all our fellow citizens.

So help us God.

Amen.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God.

Invisible with liberty and justice for all.

Let's start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance, please.

Augman O'Brien is present.

Alderman Greg.

Present.

Alderman Moran.

Otterman Thibault.

Otherwise.

Alderman Sullivan here.

Hogan Clements.

Here.

Other and Senate.

Here.

Altum and Jetty.

Here.

Alderman Thibault.

Here.

Altaman Clay.

Autumn Dowd.

Present.

Ottawa Women Kelly.

Altaman Wilshire.

I am here.

We have two five.

Ten Alderman present.

Thank you.

Also in attendance this evening is Mayor Jim Donchus.

Is it customary for these hearings?

I'm going to turn this meeting over to the chair of the budget review committee, Alderman Dowd.

Okay, this evening we have 10 public hearings to hear before we go in the budget.

And before we get into the first public hearing, I'm gonna give the mayor and the city uh CFO a chance to speak on some of these.

Um I'm also going to ask that when you come up and speak that you be very succinct.

We have 10 of these to go through tonight, and with the weather conditions, we want to get through this as quickly as possible.

And if the person in front of you agrees with what you said, please just come up and say you agree with the previous speaker.

If you get off topic, I'm gonna have to ask you to sit down.

So your discussions have to be succinct with the person with a resolution that we're talking about at the time and nothing else.

Right now I'll let uh the mayor speak on on these resolutions.

Oh well, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um well, I want to say first that um we're here based upon the fact that uh we delivered the budget that we said we would.

Uh we passed a budget that uh was a maintained services budget uh with uh uh t higher tax increase than we all had hoped we all would have wanted, six percent, but it is what we or five point nine percent, but it is what we anticipated because of the increased drivers of cost such as health care, such as the busing contract for the schools, such as special ed, uh electricity costs, and many other things that went up uh much much more than the rate of inflation.

Um but uh so and in addition to that we div developed a surplus that uh enables us to undertake some additional or meet some additional needs.

Uh as you will hear from the CFO Don Enright, uh we still we have a uh a uh fund balance uh of over 40 million dollars, and we have um uh an additional thirty-one million dollars of uh uh the of the uh uh fund balance.

Uh and we are anticipating that we use eight million dollars of that, will which will reduce that to um 23 million or a total of sixty-three million dollars.

Now some of the items that and um CFL CFON right will uh go through the details of that uh for you.

But some of the items that we are talking about is first, certainly the special ed needs to special ed expenses need to be met.

The school department, you will hear from them regarding how these costs have escalated, the ability the problems of hiring special ed teachers and the necessity of contracting out that service because of the legal obligation to provide education special ed to our special ed students.

And that you see from R25215 is a $3 million amount.

Another a couple more that are of significance are the appropriation for the capital equipment reserve fund, that's a million and a half dollars.

You will recall that we budgeted $2.5 million, but in order to make the equipment purchases that we need this year, we need to allocate another $1.5 million to that purpose.

Number three, the third rather significant item, more than a million dollars, is the $1.5 million proposed for the so-called benefits self-insurance fund.

Now, I think we all realize that the city is self-insured when it comes to health benefits for city employees, but we need to maintain a large enough balance in that account to meet the insurance needs or the costs of health care as they arise during the course of the year.

Now we have seen our our health our health costs are going up double digits.

We have seen what has happened across the state with other entities of government who have who are suffering even worse than we are.

But you will hear some of you will hear more of the details of that, I think from Director Cummings as that public hearing is called.

And then there are a couple of items related to the issues that uh the Board of Alderman discussed with the downtown businesses uh over the course of a couple of meetings, specifically the continuation of the police officers uh uh doing the downtown patrols, which have proven to be uh very effective, and the clean team that would help to clean up uh some of the uh necessary do the necessary cleanup to keep the downtown clean uh as a result of some of the uh unhoused individuals that uh populate the downtown.

And finally, there is money uh allocated or suggested for the resource center that uh we've talked about for uh on a number of different occasions.

So as you as you will hear as we go through the public hearings, each of the departments uh that would uh be involved with these expenditures will give you the details, but I think that uh Mr.

Chair is an overview, and I will um turn now to uh Ms.

Enright to just talk about the two about the fund balance and where we are financially.

Senator, you can come up and take one of the seats up here, so you don't have to stand good evening.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor.

Don Enright, Chief Financial Officer.

Before you this evening, you have 10 resolutions for supplemental appropriations, each for specific and unique purposes, totaling $8 million for appropriations.

If approved, these appropriations will be funded from the anticipated June 30th, 2025 assigned fund balance, which is expected to be $31.5 million.

After passage of the 8.1 assigned fund balance, the balance will be approximately $23.4 million.

The unassigned fund balance is anticipated to be about $41.1 million, which is $11.4% of the general fund operating FY26 budget.

The requirement within within our guidelines is 10%.

We are carrying $11.4.

The rating agencies look upon those amounts very favorably.

They like to see between 15 and 20 percent in total fund balance assigned and unassigned.

If we waiver from that, they always question why it's going down.

It shows that we have strong uh financial stability when we are able to sustain that that amount.

If these get approved, we will still be within the favorable level of fund balance.

The other thing that always comes up when we talk about supplemental appropriations is in terms of the spending cap space.

Right now we are under the cap by $14.9 million.

So we have a the capacity to still supplementally appropriate $14.9 million.

In front of you, you only have $8 million, which would bring the cap space down to $6.8 million if all were approved.

I would be happy to answer any questions that anyone may have in relation to this.

Do any of the aldermen at this point have a question?

Alderman O'Brien.

Thank you.

One of the items set is before us is for the lead paint, it seems like the uh the feds are kind of washing on us a little bit with the uh money appropriated.

If the feds uh do repay us at a later date, we can accept that cash and then put it back into the supplemental funds.

Is that correct?

Mr.

Chair, I could address that.

So um I think uh Director Sullivan is here and can address that as well, but we don't anticipate needing that money actually actually needing it at this time uh because of the fact that the government shutdown is over, and therefore we will not seek uh that those funds and would just ask you to uh kill that particular resolution.

So follow up, Mr.

Chair.

Yes, go ahead.

Uh so you're asking to uh feed a lot.

We'll we'll withdraw it, or you can um you can definitely postpone.

And definitely postpone it or whatever.

Okay.

Any other questions for the Alderman Clemens?

Just to clarify one point.

The assigned and unassigned combined are is what totals the eleven point four percent above the recommendation, or is it just the unassigned?

It is only the unassigned fund balance that is the eleven point four.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Any other questions?

Okay.

Thank you, Don.

All right, so we'll start the public hearings.

The first is R 25214 relative to the supplemental appropriation of $59,499.98 of unanticipated revenue from the United States Internal Revenue Service into Capital Equipment Reserve Fund.

Is there anyone here that's going to give us an overview of that?

Hello.

Hey.

Um, for a quick review of name and I apologize.

Doria Brown, I work for the City of Nashua Energy Manager.

Okay.

No address except for 229 Main Street.

The City has received $59,499.98 in rebate funding from the Inflation Reduction Act's clean vehicle program for the purchase of eight electric vehicles between the years of 2023 and 2024.

Once accepted, these funds would go back to the city's capital equipment reserve fund where it will help support more purchases of vehicles for the city's fleet.

Okay.

Any questions from the Alderman from Dorian?

No.

Thank you.

So now I'll open up uh R 25214 testimony in favor.

Seeing none testimony in opposition.

Okay, since this is a public hearing, not one of your little committee meetings.

I'll start off by saying I have serious some questions about this.

You give us your name and address, please.

Fred T Boom 24 Cheyenne Drive.

So this is uh anticipated.

Um what?

This is money that was rebated from the from the government when we bought electric vehicles.

They had a rebate program.

We applied for it, we got the money, and it's money that comes back to us.

We're not expending it.

We're taking it and putting it in the capital reserve fund.

Okay, I understand this comes from the sale of electric vehicles that ordinarily got text, but the city does not get taxed.

I understand there's a special provision, the RS code that even though the community does not get taxed, it still gets a rebate.

However, have you received a rebate?

Sure.

Doria, we've gotten the money, right?

Um we have not received the rebate yet, but we have a call mic with you.

Yeah, you can stay.

Thank you.

Um we have not received the rebate yet, but we have received uh approval for the funds from the IRS.

So given the situation, funds can any time be canceled by the current administration.

Until you have the money in hand, you do not have the money in hand.

So why are you jumping ahead with this particular supplemental appropriation?

You should wait till you actually have the money and then transfer it into fund balance.

That's the normal way these things are done.

I don't know why you're doing a supplemental appropriation.

It takes two-thirds of a vote.

It takes a public hearing.

I don't know why you do a supplemental appropriation when we just got through with a six percent tax increase.

And as far as the gap goes, that's a completely erroneous calculation.

It's currently in the review of court superior court.

The main thing on this resolution, you should stop it and hold it until you get the money in hand, and then decide to put it into fund balance.

And then the annual appropriation process, when that's supposed to happen, you're supposed to have only one annual appropriation, unless you have a very special need reason for a supplemental.

Supplemental requires a third vote in special public hearing.

Previous administration before Donchus rarely went over a million dollars in the entire year supplemental.

The street of there was none.

And the Lowe's, I think the most was like half a million dollars.

You're getting off topic.

And we'll take your comments into consideration when it comes before us for a vote.

Sir, this is a public hearing.

They explained that we have ten to go through tonight, and that we were going to limit the comments to the resolution at hand.

And I'm a was told by legal that we can do that, so please keep your comments exactly to this resolution.

It says in the proceedings, you cannot restrict the comments by the public.

This is a public hearing, not a committee meeting, Mr.

Chairman.

And I did not schedule ten public hearings in one evening.

Anyone else in opposition?

Good evening.

My name is Paula Johnson, Alderman Five electricity the ward alderman.

And I look forward to sitting with all of you on this board.

And I think this was a horrible way you treated Mr.

T-Boom, and I think we need to start having some conduct in this chamber.

I agree with him on this.

You got $59 million of money that hasn't even entered the city by check.

It's $59,000.

$59,000, excuse me.

$59,000.

I mean, we're putting the court before the horse.

We've got something.

We're talking about something we don't even have in hand.

I think you should probably indefinitely postpone this piece of land.

R25-214.

And I'm going to say this.

And when I sit on this board, I'm going to have respect for the people who sit in the audience because you know what?

My taxes just went up 6 percent, and I'm not happy.

And I'm seeing how all this money on supplemental budgets here.

A budget is a budget.

This all should have been put in the budget, not after the fact.

And I'll tell you, where I work, I had a lot of people today saying to me they can't wait to see me on the board.

Because this is nonsense.

Absolute nonsense.

A budget is a budget, just like I make a budget in my house, and if I can't afford it, I can't buy it.

But what's coming before this board tonight?

This it's absolutely outrageous that these issues, money that's needed, was never put in a budget.

Thank you.

Anyone else in opposition?

Good evening, Lori Ortolano, 41 Berkeley.

Um you know, I I've got some questions here.

Why did you schedule 10 of these resolutions in one night only to tell us if we come out we're gonna be clipped off, told to be quiet, sit down, be focused in direct.

Nobody schedule it.

Schedule five of them if you're that concerned about your hours and time.

But you know what?

You're making 9,000 a year.

You're elected to do this job, and what you really are telling us is get out, we don't want to hear from you.

And I'm really concerned that you just stated that Attorney Bolton, council or counsel, I don't know if it was corporation counsel, told you that you could put limitations on this public hearing.

Under what regulation were you given that?

Because when you open the meeting up and said that, I want to know what the regulation is or the law that permits you to do that.

Do you have the citation?

No.

And his counsel, we said decided we would not do that.

You would not do what?

Limit your time.

I didn't give you a time limit.

You said it has to be very specific to this topic.

It does have to be specific to the resolution.

Okay, and where is that written?

What is the law that says that in this hearing?

I would suggest you ask legal.

Anyone here?

No.

Okay.

So, you know, that's a problem.

Regarding these assigned fund balance and unassigned fund balance that the CFO just talked about.

Um please keep your comment specific to this particular resolution.

Well, there'll be no place for me to ask this because you didn't allow us to ask comments when she was up here.

She got to service you, but not us.

Now my question is very general.

What is the difference between the unassigned fund balance and the assigned fund balance?

How does one get created over the other?

I just want to understand.

Unassigned is at 40 million and is used to create the amount that we have to have to um, you know, be looked at appropriately when we go to bond of having enough money to uh float emergencies, I would imagine.

What is an unassigned or unanticipated fund balance versus an assigned fund balance?

What's the difference?

The um the unassigned is just a general um surplus that is held pursuant to the the requirements of the ordinance and pursuant to the desires of the bonding agencies.

Uh and is intended to really be held just for indefinitely.

The assigned fund balance, as the name suggests, assigned, uh, is for uh unanticipated liabilities.

So we began accumulating this money to help us with uh things like you see before us that we wanted to uh in other words, we accumulated money in advance to meet needs like those UC.

For example, if special ed goes way over, there's some money we can use to uh to meet that expense without having to go into the so-called unassigned, which is there and necessary to meet the minimum required by the ordinance.

Okay.

And does the unassigned money or unanticipated fund balance that 40 million, does that come from extra bond money, or is that just money that gets pushed into there to make certain you meet that percentage amount that the bond agency is gonna look for?

It did not come from bonded money, it's just money that's been accumulated cash over the years.

Okay.

So you really try to sit that close to the 11% or 15, and then you work off that 30, which is there to deal with emergencies that come up during the year that you want to address.

Is that correct?

I mean, all right.

I appreciate you giving me an answer to that.

Um, as we go through, I'm going to speak to these, but I'm I'm gonna share that $8 million of you know additional funding that's come up to do projects like this.

I I do have some comments I want to make on specific ones of these.

Thank you.

Anyone else in opposition?

Seeing no one, anyone else in favor?

Seeing no one anyone else in opposition seeing none.

I'll close the public hearing on resolution R25214 at 726 p.m.

And open the public hearing in resolution R25215 at 726 p.m.

R25215 is relative to the supplemental appropriation of three million dollars of assigned fund balance in the fund 707 for special education expendable trust fund, good evening.

Uh Crystal De Grey, Chief Operating Officer School District Mario Randrade, Superintendent of Schools.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor, for the outline uh related to the supplemental uh money for uh in front of you tonight related to special education.

So as folks hopefully are aware, uh over the last several years, the Nashua School District has seen significant increases related to special education, uh, whether it is contract services out of district tuition, a lot of these are um expenses that unfortunately at times are variable costs and unanticipated.

As a result, we have uh seen ESSER funding diminish, which means we need to go ahead and absorb these costs more frequently and our operating budget in conjunction with the city as a proactive approach, our solution would be to go ahead and ask for three million dollars of a supplemental transfer into our um trust fund for special education.

The purpose of this these funds would be to possibly address some of the current year funds, but primarily to go ahead and focus on future special education expenses for years to come.

Uh hopefully that would drive down the increases that the school district will be coming forward with.

Um Dr.

Andre, anything I missed?

No, great job summarizing it.

Any of the board members have any questions before they bow?

Thank you, uh Mr.

Chair.

So you you had said that this would be for future special ed costs as well, not just this year.

So if some of its future couldn't that be put into next year's budget, like why do it this way, I guess.

I'm just trying to clarify why you're doing the the chunk all right now.

Yep, absolutely.

Thank you.

Um so my understanding is the trust fund is utilized for unanticipated funds.

Um as of current year, we are definitely seeing substantial increases.

Um I gave a presentation to the Board of Ed back on uh September 9th and more recently in November to show what some of those increases have been.

I am hopeful that we as a school district potentially needs that money for future years.

My understanding is there's some funds available right now, um, and that is why we're coming forward uh again with the partnership with city to ask for some of those funds.

Um I can reassure you that from a budget standpoint, we absolutely will not only be looking at operating budget in fiscal year 27, um, but also our special revenue special education accounts as well.

Okay, thank you.

Uh thank you.

So um, I I I didn't uh tell you I was gonna ask you this, so this is coming out of the blue, and if you don't know the answer, I I understand.

But you know, I was wondering since you're here and you're talking about special education, can you clarify for us?

You know, I I'm under the impression that the funding that has come from the federal government and the state government, you know, has uh has been reduced, and uh part of the reason we're you know, we you know uh part of the reason we're we're in a shortfall as far as special education is concerned is is because of that.

But I hear the governor and Senator Avard, you know, talking about how much money the state has increased in what they pay for special education.

So you know, can you clarify uh or has the state been increasing the money?

Is and and if so, what you know, why are we talking about a shortfall if they're increasing the money?

So I don't know if you can answer that, but let me see.

Let me start and I'll let Dr.

Andre to add some clarity if needed.

Um so a couple of things to answer your question.

From a state adequacy aid standpoint, we have seen an increase over the last several years.

With that being said, it's been a challenge to truly find special educators.

It's been a challenge to find some of the support staff.

Therefore, we have had to contract service uh some of the the teachers, paraeducators, etc.

With that being said, that comes with a substantial cost.

Um from a financial standpoint, we as a district can move our wages to offset some of those contract service cost, but unfortunately it's not a one-for-one ratio.

With that being said, I think we as a district are also stepping back to say where can we potentially make sure we're cutting costs, but also from a federal standpoint, we're meeting the needs of our students in front of us.

The other piece I would add is unfortunately we have seen a drastic increase in our student population who are identified as special needs or special education, and our enrollment has drastically dropped.

Um because of those several factors, we're seeing a substantial increase related to special education.

The increase in Medicaid reimbursement.

Yep.

Uh yeah, good point, sorry.

So Medicaid reimbursement as well uh over the years has decreased and diminished.

Uh we as a district, and since I stepped in as COO have made um an effort to be bringing as much money back into the district as possible.

Um so over the years, Medicaid reimbursement has been anywhere as low as 65% up to 92%.

Um so that is a variable uh reimbursement as well.

So just to piggyback on that, so you are correct, and if we talk to the mayor or we talk to the commissioner, on paper, the revenue stream has increased from the state.

So we have to be really careful when saying the state's not supporting us because they can argue back to say we've seen increases.

To Mr.

Gray's point, the revenues I'm keeping up with the expenses, and I hate to say students are an expense, but like that's just it's not balancing out, it's increasing um very quickly.

So the amount of reimbursement coming in, whether it's Medicaid or from the state is not keeping up.

Um I I said this last spring during our budget presentation.

We had a hundred um new referrals in district for intensive needs programs.

So it's not just reading IEPs or math IEPs, we're asking for students who might read require one-to-one nursing.

Uh we just we're going through a situation just this week that might require special transportation outside of uh for a student that it's six thousand dollars per month to transport one kid.

That's coming in December.

So you do the math and you add a couple more kids, those are some of the unanticipated um costs coming through that's hard to budget.

So we do our uh best of it.

But um really this this um act is working.

I want to thank the um the city.

We meet every Thursday and we talk about some possibilities, and this is a proactive approach to offset some of the increases to our uh operational um budget year over year, but to have that room that we don't turn into another district that mid year we're talking about major cuts or stopping other services.

So I think this is a really proactive approach to offset some of the costs, and at the end of the day, our responsibility is to our students to make sure that they get what they want.

And so again, I think this is a good way to be working in collaboration with the city to be proactive to support our uh students and our families.

Well, said Oldman Jenny, or I just have one follow up.

Follow up if I may.

Uh so just to clarify the city's obligation to you know provide these uh special services for special needs students, including you you mentioned the transportation to you know, if the student, if we can't service the student here, we have to send them someplace else and we have to transport them.

Is that a choice that we make, or is that required some so it's it's through an IEP process, so it's in collaboration with families to um really look at the data to provide uh the least restrictive um learning environment for the student.

So sometimes it could be in Nashware or it could be in a different um location could be out of district, but it is um a choice through the IEP process of in which becomes once the IEP the um individual education plan is signed, it is now becomes a binding document.

Okay, but is that imposed upon us by law?

So there is federal law around IDEA on how we um provide services for students with disabilities.

So yes, it is a federal mandate at that point.

Okay, all said, thank you.

Just one other thing.

If somebody comes into the district tomorrow that you're unaware of and they require this this funding, we have to provide it right away.

That's correct.

The other thing is the the non public schools in Ashwood, if they have an IEP person, we have to cover that expense as well.

That is correct.

So not just the public schools.

Alderman Sullivan.

Thank you.

Uh I see that the money is going to be transferred into fund number 7074, which uh from everything that I see has a balance of uh 233,000 in it.

We also have fund 2257, which is a special revenue fund that has over three and a half million of it.

Three and a half million, sorry.

Uh is the end of October.

Um could someone please help me understand the difference between the special revenue fund that has three and a half million that's titled special ed local and the um expendable trust fund and why we couldn't use some of that money.

Absolutely.

Um so the special education special revenue account is truly to be utilized for special education services, contract services, transportation.

Um we did a substantial increase, I think it was about 1.2, 1.3 million dollars being spent in that special revenue account for this fiscal year.

For future fiscal years of FY27, I am going to propose that we actually increase that because to your point there is a fund balance in there.

I can't guarantee at this time that we're not going to come forward and ask for a supplemental appropriation for this current year related to some of that fund balance that is sitting there.

But that special revenue account does hold all of the revenue that comes in for our signs of learning program, our Brenton Wood program.

Um my understanding is the trust fund money has always been looked at as like that emergency account.

Um my suggestion was in partnership with uh the city was to go ahead and move uh the money into the trust fund because that money does roll over year over year.

Um so I think based off of the cost we are currently seeing right now related to special education for out-of-district tuition in contract services, as of a week ago, we were roughly about 2.5 million dollars we were looking at.

So my fear is if we do go ahead and use all of the money that is sitting in the special revenue account, then there is nothing for future years.

I think it's gonna be a conjunction of operating budget, special revenue, and trust fund.

Sorry, Dr.

If you want to talk about creating a structural deficit.

Oh, yes, yep.

Um, sort of Dr.

Andread's point, um, what I'm trying to ensure we are not doing is creating a deficit, a structural deficit.

Special ed costs has drastically increased over the last several years.

I truly do believe that because of the ESSER funds, it kind of masks some of this, and this is why we're seeing a lot more coming into operating contract services, uh special revenue and the trust fund.

All said Alliman Solomon?

Yep.

Any other questions?

Seeing none, thank you.

Thank you.

So now I'll call for testimony in favor of R25215.

Seeing none asked for testimony in opposition.

Well, we're gonna be up here ten times.

The second time three million dollars.

Let me start first out following up on Ms.

Arlana's question about assigned fund balance.

Who assigns the assigned fund balance?

I mean, I can I I would try to answer, but I don't really understand the question in the sense that money goes into that based upon a vote of the Board of Aldermen.

So, you know, if there is 40 million dollars in there at the beginning of the year, the Board of Aldermen may vote at the end to increase the uh unassigned fund balance from 40 million to 40 million five hundred thousand or something.

But over the years it has been accumulated.

And I believe that you as an alderman, didn't you want, weren't you part of creating the minimum uh uh uh assigned fund balance?

Unassigned fund balance.

I could be wrong about that, but it's certainly a good fiscal practice.

It's like having a strong balance sheet uh as a private company, and uh the ordinance requires 10 percent, and the bond the bond rating agencies like to see more.

When I was an alderman, we didn't call it unassigned fund balance and assigned fund balance.

We only had one fund balance.

And it was called a use.

Excuse me, you did not have assigned at the time, but the unassigned was something that you helped to establish as a legal requirement.

Exactly.

We only had one balance called the designated.

But the question was not that.

The question was who assigns the assigned fund balance as opposed to the fact that you have an unassigned fund fund balance, which nobody assigns.

It's just a fund that takes any excess revenue or any excess sources of revenue from whatever source, there goes into unassigned fund balance.

It's it's also however, you debt your assigned fund balance gets assigned.

So the question is who does the assignment?

You mean when money within the assigned fund balance needs to be expended?

Who decides that?

Is that the question?

No.

The question is simply this.

You now have two fund balances.

One is called an unassigned fund balance.

I think she said it was $40 million in there.

And my question was I understand what the unassigned fund balance is.

It takes all expended to revenues, unexpected to revenues, mines up an unassigned fund balance.

My question was not that.

We are talking about taking all kinds of money out of the assigned fund balance.

So my question is who assigns the money into the assigned fund balance to be assigned, as an example, assigned to special education.

That would be the Board of Alderman.

I mean, it's all the the money that money like this doesn't move around or does is not allocated or in any way uh obligated without a vote of the Board of Alderman.

I'm not talking about that.

In fact, I don't get it.

The appropriation is happening tonight if you vote to approve this.

I'm talking about excess money coming into the assigned fund balance.

How is it getting a few?

It's a it's a decision made at the end of the year.

And by whom?

The Board of Aldermen.

Through actions of the Board of Aldermen.

I've never seen an action of the Board of Alderman seeing take a vote on assigned fund balance.

Well, we're kind of beyond tonight, but we can't, sir.

It's talking about taking three million dollars out of the assigned fund balance.

And I want to know who established the assigned fund balance.

Board of Alderman.

I did give an answer to the Board of Alderman.

That's the Board of Alderman assigned the assigned fund balance.

Is that true?

Do you have comments relative to being against us giving the money to special education students?

Yeah, first of all, because it comes out of an assigned fund balance.

I don't know.

So the next question is is the assigned fund balance a single fund?

Or is it assignments made?

Like this is special education, this is capital.

It's a single fund.

It's a single fund.

Single fund.

Okay.

I didn't know that.

Now let's get to the question.

We are barely five months into the new budget.

Approved the budget before one July, took effect one July.

July, August, September approved November.

You're five months into the new budget.

And already the school department is coming in with a three million dollar over its request.

Over what they've budgeted.

So my first question on this particular budget is how much was funded in the annual budget for special education?

I don't think they came in and said that they had overspent.

This money is set aside in if in anticipation of expenditures that happen all the time.

And so that they don't overrun and you end up in a situation like there are in Claremont.

Mr.

Chairman, have you ever heard of an annual budget?

The annual budget is supposed to establish the need for the following year in total, not for five months of the following year, not for seven months, for the entire 12 months of the following year.

You don't come in five months into the new year and say I need more money.

That's completely completely uncontrolled budgeting.

This is on top of a six percent tax increase.

So my question is how much was budgeted in special education during the annual budget?

A very simple question.

So we can see how much percentage-wise, this three million dollars represents out of that annual budget five months into the into the annual year.

It's a reasonable question.

Shouldn't it take a lot of negativism on your part, Mr.

Chairman?

No, who's got an answer?

Let's have some answers.

Okay.

All right.

So I believe the question at hand is uh how much did we budget in special uh education?

So for fiscal year 26, uh we went ahead and budgeted 1.7 million dollars in our operating budget related to special education contract services.

We went ahead and budgeted 500,000 in our special revenue account, totaling 2.2 million dollars of a budget based off of our student needs, what is required in an IEP, and um the students that are currently identified, we are already seeing roughly four million dollars coming in for contract services.

I just want to clarify.

I didn't stand up here and say that the three million dollars would be used for this year.

I am hopeful it will be for future years.

One other um piece of information, so out of district is the other cost.

Let me give you that so we have a full picture.

Uh fiscal year 26 operating budget for special education out of district tuition.

We went ahead and budgeted 6.2 million dollars special revenue out of district tuition.

We went ahead and budgeted 526 million, which is a total of 6.7 million dollars.

I just want to share that last year's added district tuition cost was 7.2 million dollars, and last year's budget was six point two million.

Okay, thank you.

So you're telling me you've got 2.2 million dollars your budget of special revenue funding.

2.2 million, not out of district stuff, just special revenue.

That's what we're talking about here, right?

Special ed.

Special ed.

We're not talking about out of district stuff, we're talking about special ed, right?

Well, when we talk for clarity, when we talk special education, the expendable trust has special education contract services and has special education out of district tuition.

So it is all cost related to special education.

So the total budget is eight million.

No, I would tell you your total budget in operating and special revenue was close.

Yep.

8.8 million.

So five, and you're just chief financial officer for the school department, right?

Yes, I recognize you.

So you're telling me five months into your program, you want three million dollars more, which is almost what 40 percent of your budget?

So which is yeah.

No, that's in that inaccurate.

That's inaccurate.

Three million dollars eight million, that's 40 percent.

But the the request is to set up uh education trust fund.

We are not requesting the the money to offset the cost for this year.

This is a potential of future years.

So we're not saying we're in a sub like we're in a deficit in these lines right now.

I want to be crystal clear.

I'm glad you've mentioned that.

So it wasn't clear at all.

Well, that's where the the aspect of so we're monitoring our uh costs, but this is again a proactive approach to offset.

So if we to your aspect, if the three million dollars does not go into this at trust, and we want to move things next next year to the operating budget.

Right?

So that'll be a uh increase over and on top of whatever I'm gonna ask.

So instead of asking for the mayor's guideline says three percent coming in, I might be asking for a nine percent increase to operating.

Is that what you're asking us to do?

Yeah, to come in with a nine percent increase.

No, I'm uh I just want to be clear.

Like I just understand so this is uh uh trust fund to offset any kind of you know operational, and again, being proactive on variables that come in.

So this is not saying we are so far behind in our budget this year that we're not managing it.

This is a proactive approach to look at multiple year funding or or uh uh uh account to offset unrealistic okay, all right.

I just want to make sure that Mr.

Gray is doing a wonderful job in forecasting.

So are are we all set?

We have a lot of things to cover tonight.

So you just uh clarified what this is about, which is certainly not in the resolution, okay?

It doesn't say a thing about being proactive.

Doesn't say a thing about what you need now.

This is a supplemental appropriation.

This requires a two-thirds vote.

It requires a public hearing.

It's a special situation.

This is not a place where you do proactive funding in the following years.

Where you do proactive following for funding for following years, Mr.

Superintendent, is doing the annual budget process.

So whatever you need now as an emergency, you would approve.

Anything else that may be whatever the proactivity is that holds to the annual budget.

And on top of that, you reason you don't do it because it affects the spending cap.

This is this is absolutely out of control budgeting.

Anyone else in opposition?

Laurie Orlando 41 Berkeley Street.

So, okay, I got a lot of clarifying information there.

Um does the school district ever have a fund balance at the end of the year?

Can anyone answer that?

I'm sure Mr.

Gray can, but they always do because you never want to end up in a negative.

Right.

And you can't at that size budget, budget to the closest dollars.

So they always have money left at the end.

Usually in budgets like we've had lately, not very much.

I know.

I I think I thought I remember last year there was about what was the balance last year.

That's irrelevant to this particular resolution.

No.

Actually, you don't let me complete my thought because you're a narrow thinker.

And don't interrupt me.

My thought is this.

If they have fund balances at the end of the year, why don't we wait and let them see what the year-end fund balance is and fund their expendable trust fund?

Why are we doing it now?

Use your balance at the end.

They're already telling us that they don't need the money now.

It's just a ready-day fund in case they need the money.

Their special education population is going up.

So create it from their balance in another six months.

I think this shouldn't be approved by you folks.

This isn't this is not right.

The other reason I want to tell you I don't support it, is because nearly three years ago you had a study done on your school building utilization by a gentleman who was nationally recognized.

And he said, hey, we've got way too many school buildings opened and operating in Nashua, given the capacity of those buildings.

That's irrelevant to this resolution.

Please don't interrupt me because I'm going to tell you why.

I am going to interrupt you if you get off topic, and I told you that at the beginning.

Well, let me stay on top.

So the topic is this.

That report showed that one of the reasons to close schools was because the delivery of special education services is more costly when you're running around to a bunch of underutilized school buildings trying to bring resources, reading specialists, speech therapists to facilities that are under staff under resourced, uh, under uh capacity greatly.

You're asking for three million dollars to be able to treat a growing population of students without addressing the efficiency of services to those students based on the utilization of your buildings.

And I think you got to get real here at the school at the school board, isn't real.

That board isn't doing its job to look at closing schools.

This better be the year that this board of aldermen comes in with two schools that you're going to close because that report is three years old and you all just approved $400,000 to Harriman to do a big building study.

That I went to the last public meeting of the school district to contribute to that.

There were 12 people there.

And the idea that you're going to spend, you know, five years figuring out all the needs of the school and come back.

Well, that becomes an eight-year process from when the very experienced gentleman came in here and said, you got way too many buildings.

The whole time while the population is dropping, stop making taxpayers fund buildings and facilities and repairs that we don't need and consolidate so you can handle your special education population much more efficiency, efficiently, because the three million dollars you're asking for will be wasted in this building structure.

And I think I had the right to tie those thoughts together.

You are far too narrow-minded, Mr.

Dowd, and you're cutting people off who want to communicate important points.

Please don't continue to do that.

Or remove yourself as a chair and let somebody with more civility take over.

Anyone else in opposition?

My name is Paula Johnson.

I'm not an opposition, I'm not for this.

But being that I sat on the board, at the end of the year, you have this policy.

If you don't use it, you lose it.

And at the end of the year, there were times we say there were projects that we could get done because we had a surplus at the end.

What about if you did it with the school district rather than saying this is for future right now, which you really can't determine, what about if we allow them their surplus to take and put it into a fund?

So this way they're not asking for more, and you're not coming in with a supplemental appropriation that really is not needed at this point.

It's for future, just in case.

Well, there's a lot of just in cases right now.

But I think this is a conversation that really needs to be sat down with the board, with both boards.

Where special ed is getting out of control because we have more kids in the population that having special needs.

We don't want to hurt the kids, but we would have to say something has to come under control here.

Because when I sat on the board during COVID, when we had to wear all those masks and everything, and parents were screaming at us.

I kept asking because I was a chair of a finance and ops.

We're adding all these positions under the ESSA funds.

What's going to happen when the money dries up?

So money's drying up.

We have positions.

Are we keeping all the positions?

And that eats away at the budget where you need in other areas.

So I would think about this very carefully and think about at the end of the year, like Mr.

T-Boom said, we're five months into a budget.

We're looking at future.

But is $3 million right now the way we need to go?

Maybe a million?

Amend it.

And then at the end of the year, before the budget season is up, ask them what is your surplus.

And instead of taking it away, put it in that trust fund so you have it as you're starting to grow it.

Thank you very much.

Anyone else in opposition?

Seeing no one testimony in favor.

Seeing no one, once again, testimony in opposition.

Seeing no one.

And open up the res the uh public hearing on R25216 at 7.59 p.m.

Relative to the supplemental appropriation of $300,000 of assigned fund balance into anticipated fund 7090 resource center expendable trust fund.

Good evening and thank you.

Bobby Bagley, Director for the Division of Public Health and Community Services.

Latonya Mussioli, Housing Services Officer for the Division of Public Health and Community Services.

And we're here to speak about the $300,000 for the resource center expendable trust fund.

For a number of years, we've been looking at interventions or things that need to be put in place here in the city of Nashua to address the meeting the needs of our growing unhoused population and other individuals that are in vulnerable settings and involved and in vulnerable situations that need additional support.

From some of the research that Latina has been able to do and looking at other states and also in looking at what's happening here in New Hampshire, what we found that is a best practice is to have a resource center that allows for individuals to have their needs met in one setting.

Nashua has great community partners.

We've been collaborating for a number of years to address the needs of this um of this population of individuals that are unhoused or individuals that are in situations where their housing is unstable.

We have had the opportunity with some of our community partners to identify points of contact are really that are really really important for getting these needs addressed.

What we found is that when we have a place where individuals can come and it's one place rather than referring them to other places where they could get lost by setting up a resource center, it allows for their direct service needs to be met in that particular place.

What we're looking at is doing this with this amount of money here in this resource expendable trust fund that will allow for us to set this up, work with our community partners and be able to meet the needs of our community to address what continues to be a growing issue.

In 2023, we saw our unhoused population increase to the point in time count up by 50 something percent.

We did a mid-year uh count, and we saw that that number was up even higher.

And so we do need to have something in place in regards to the city as a plan to be able to address this issue.

I'm gonna um ask Latanya to speak to some to other information that she's gathered with some of the um opportunities that she's had, not just with the research, but then also working with some of the individuals on the commission that she serves on at the statewide level.

Thank you.

I think it's important to note that um a lot of the work that we've been doing over the past few years has been street outreach that will significantly be impacted by the recent decision for no camping on public property.

So we need a place where we can meet people where they're at and offer these outreach services.

We know as Director Bagley stated that homelessness is continuing to increase.

This problem's only going to get worse given the current um cuts to the federal level for the housing and urban development department.

Um so right now I currently sit as the vice chair of the Greater Nashua Continuum of Care that looks at ending homelessness in our community, and we are anticipating some cuts for our permanent supportive housing opportunities for folks in Nashua, and unfortunately, these are some of the most vulnerable people.

Um so again, it's something that we really need to get behind so that we can make sure that we have something to support folks if they do become unhoused because we are anticipating that.

Um I also sit on the Governor's Council of Housing Stability, and we are really looking at creating more structure around supporting folks that are experiencing housing instability across the straight state, and just having uh a more regional approach to addressing homelessness.

Um, we know that our counterparts in Manchester and Concord currently have drop-in centers, and Nashua does not.

Um and given our population in relation to both of those communities, it's something that's completely necessary.

Um, as Director Bagley stated, folks are often ready to engage once they feel that they have a place that they can go and once they build relationships with the staff.

So if we're not able to meet them on the street to do that, this would give us the opportunity to do so we can have some favorable outcomes to get folks connected to resources such as sometimes folks need an ID, so then they can apply for social security benefits.

Um, so it might be somebody with a disability that's not able to apply for those benefits because of the barrier of getting the ID.

Um, it might be assisting folks into housing, it might be assisting folks in connecting with recovery resources, mental health resources, um, or other resources that might be available throughout the community.

So we're really looking to partner with all of our community nonprofits and other organizations to support individuals at the resource center.

All said.

So just for those that haven't read the legislation, we haven't approved this expendable trust fund yet.

But only and if we approve the expendable trust fund.

Questions from the board.

Thank you.

So you know, so we recently had the the debate about the no camping ordinance, and during that debate, uh there was no talk about where are these people going to go.

So you know we talked about opening a warming station, and we talked the mayor talked about uh somebody talked about Elm Street, somebody I think the mayor talked about uh that the city had an eye on a lease of some other building.

You know, so where does that all stand?

You know, do we have a warming center yet?

Um what about these other buildings that we're talked about?

And is 300,000 enough to do what you need to do?

Yes, so we did open the warming station on December 1st, which was very timely because then we had this lovely snowstorm on the second, uh, which gave an opportunity for people to be inside safely and protected from the elements.

Um things went are going well.

We're only on day four, um, and things are going very, very well.

We started out with 16 individuals on the first night, and uh last night were up to 37 individuals, and so the need is definitely there.

We do anticipate with knowing how many individuals were at the encampment, just one encampment on Pine Street extension of up to 70 individuals, and there's several other encampments, but the weather being the way that it is, we'll probably see more individuals um visiting the the warming station.

Some folks have found other places to go, some folks have uh left the area, um, but we do anticipate that the warming station will be utilized in the way that we anticipated for this year.

Um, as you mentioned with the resource center, we are looking into uh finding a space where uh we can set this up, and so that is still in the works as of right now.

And just to add first some perspective, um, last year, our opening week of the warming station, we're at three times the amount of people that we had last year.

So this is continuing to grow well said, okay.

Uh my last question was you know, the this where does how did you come up with 300,000?

And is that a realistic number to do what we need to do?

Yes, so the 300,000 is based on uh budgeting for additional staffing support, and so we need to have at least two full-time individuals that will support the community health workers that we have at the division, so that'll offset some of the cost because these folks are already on staff.

So we would be hiring those two additional individuals because the resource center would be open seven days a week, so from nine to five, seven days a week.

Um it also takes into account providing support for our partners.

So with our nonprofit organizations, if they have restricted funding when we ask them to uh contribute time in a space such as a warming station if uh the resource center, and that's not already we keep talking about budgets.

If it's not already allocated in their budgets, there may be some additional funding that they're going to need to support sending staff to this particular site.

Um, even then, and it may have to even bring extra staff on as well.

And so we're anticipating um supporting our partnering organizations as well.

Operational costs with regards to having supplies and taking care of maintenance, um providing for other things such as coffee and snacks, because again it's open um for that period of time.

There's that cost that's included in there as well.

Because the resource center is going to be open over the weekends for the period of time that it is, we're also looking at um having some type of security staffing with us as well, and we've learned that from the experience that the library is having right now when they are providing additional support for individuals in the community.

Um so between the staffing um and the partner costs, that's a little over 140, 170, 200,000 at an annual cost, and then we're also looking at if you hire um individuals, we have to pay benefits, so uh taxes, FICA, and other things, so that's going to be another 35,000, 40,000 uh dollars for that.

Um so the total operational cost comes to about 246, 247,000 a year, um, and then the lease agreement.

Um, we're looking at anywhere between 90 to um 100,000.

And so we're hoping to offset some of that cost with some additional funding, so that 300,000 will get us close to what we need.

Thank you.

Well, is that old and jetty?

Yes, I am.

Any other questions?

Seeing none, thank you.

Thank you.

I'll now open the public hearing in R25216 testimony in favor.

Gloria Ortolano 41 Berkeley Street.

I have a couple of questions about this in general.

I understand the need for it, and the 300,000 dollars was just explained as two additional staff people plus partners.

Do we actually have a location for this resource center?

Where is it?

Mayor?

So um the there's the city is in negotiations with an owner.

Um, but because that deal has not been closed and the terms have not been finalized.

Uh I'd rather not discuss the unless it were in a non-public session.

That's totally fine.

But there was a meeting today.

Okay.

Uh between uh one of our legal team and the owner.

Good exemption reason for confidentiality.

I can appreciate that.

Um is it a downtown?

Is it a uh uh you know, this district location?

Is this what we're focused on?

Can you I don't know if you can say that or not?

Yes.

Okay.

Um so this 300,000 just sort of gets you going with a couple staff people, and then I take it there'd be additional spending that needs to happen to actually work an arrangement for this building, leasing it, buying it, or giving it for free.

Is that correct?

Maybe it'll be free.

I think Ms.

Bagley addressed that, but Miranda's within the 300,000.

Okay, rent is in the 300,000.

Okay.

Um, I listened to that whole um long process of passing those resolutions and and moving people out of the encampments, and so I think you do have to move on this, and it was a commitment we made to those people to have resources set up for them.

So I I think you gotta live by it.

Um, but I also think that this should have been planned.

This there was a ball dropped here for us not to realize how bad it had gotten downtown.

Um this all came festered in August, just a couple months after the budget was approved.

And you know, I don't think it's appropriate that this became the emergency issue it did to expand these assigned funds, but it did, and um, we're here, and I think this is one you gotta do.

Anyone else testimony in favor?

Good evening, Paula Johnson again.

Um they were saying that the feds are cutting money, that which they really aren't.

They're read they're setting up the program differently with HUD.

If anybody read it, I will just read you a little bit.

Yes, the president is clamping down on homelessness by limiting how HUD monies are spent.

Instead of spending 80 percent on permanent housing for some, he wants more money going to temporary shelters to get people off the streets and into rehab.

And I think that's a good plan, and I think that's what needs to be done here with a lot of the homeless people that we've seen, and some of them came and spoke to us over several meetings.

You know, we don't look at everything the right way.

We we closed the encampments, and where did they go?

I don't know.

I know my friend Ken sent me like a message saying goodbye, you know.

He was closing up his tent and he was going from where he lived.

So where'd they go?

Where'd they move to?

So we need to have these shelters.

We need to have some type of um continuum of care programs that will deliver more homeless funding, and they're talking about $3.9 billion than the previous high that was under the previous administration.

I don't want to talk names here.

The new policy will serve a wider variety of people, transitional housing services, which we need, the middle class homeless, non-disabled individuals with a shot at a working class existence.

Because of housing first influence, America now has only 85,000 units of tradition transitional housing down from around 200,000, 15 years ago.

So, how do we get the people off the streets and how do we make them feel that they're worthy and worthwhile to become part of the population?

And worthwhile to become part of the population.

I think this money is worthwhile, but I think there also has to be a bigger plan in place.

And if there is money that we can get from the federal government, I think this is a worthwhile thing for federal grants, because it's not just helping one person, it's helping this the community that we saw come in here that had no place to go.

And so this is something that we should be applying for the grant, and I've said this for a long time.

This is where grant money should be going to helping these people, our homeless people, our veterans, our seniors, and we saw people come before us that owned a business and couldn't afford an apartment.

Because when you're self-employed, the business always comes before your money.

And so I hope we take a good look at this, and I hope that we can get some of this funding.

Thank you.

Anyone else testimony in uh in favor uh Bob Keating Five Coburn Woods and uh member of Granite State Organizing Project.

Um I'm speaking in uh support of this for several reasons.

Uh first uh appreciating the uh uh the idea of the 300,000 uh to direct it to the to the homeless.

I'm speaking of in favor of it and in support of the public health department, which I think is uh doing a tremendous job over a long period of time for the most vulnerable people uh in our community, certainly amongst the most vulnerable.

Uh they do have a word of caution or uh about this is the the larger plan that the public health has presented uh twice, uh I think is uh is a much better uh plan in that we're talking about being able to house people.

Um with the resource center, um it's a day program, and uh there's needs in the day, um but particularly the issues are are at night.

That's why with the warming station open up, um I I feel better already knowing that that's happened.

It's it's gets colder and colder and colder.

Um, and so there really is now a place uh if people are willing to be sheltered, not housed, but sheltered.

So that's good.

So the $300,000 uh I in support of the idea of the resource center in the broadest sense, uh, with a lot of discretion to to the health department about how to uh how to use that.

And what I mean by is taking that $300,000, let's say uh April 15th, not let's say in April 15th, the warming um center is going to close.

Um where do the people go there at that point?

Uh the ordinance is you know already in effect for uh uh for RVs and uh that they've given notice on December 1st that they have 15 days to go.

We're gonna run the whole thing again, that there isn't any place for people to go.

So I think is think about maybe some of that money could be allocated to have Elm Street continue so that people will have a place to go.

We won't have to say there isn't a place for people to go.

There would be a place for people to go.

Secondly, the the thrust is you've heard uh again and again is about permanent housing and taking that money and nine thousand dollars you can house somebody uh in the in the city in a studio.

Um so you look at that, there would be over 30 people that could be housed for the year uh for 300,000 dollars.

So that's my concern is the larger plan that the public health department has presented uh uh over the last two years is a one that goes toward more permanent uh solutions.

Uh taking 300,000, I think it's if there's enough money to be allocated, then fine.

But given that there's competing issues about how money is uh going to be used, I think the resource center would be much broader that would be more helpful and would have a greater impact about being able to have people at least minimally uh out of the elements on and have a place and in a larger sense the efforts that we've continued to make uh which is to house people as much as possible.

And finally, um Bagley and Latanya spoken about and uh and Paul or uh Johnson also spoke about is that we're in the most radical proposal, not proposal that the the HUD has made, which would potentially have a hundred and seventy thousand people uh who are in housing now in the country, sixty-five households here in Nashore uh that would be directly affected.

Um they would lose that housing.

Uh so we're looking at a place that any money the city does may have to be directed to uh preserving the people who are currently uh in places.

I mean that's that's what we're looking at.

So uh I think this moving forward is to give as much latitude to say how that money could be expended.

That won't uh solve all of the issues.

I think there does need to be a capital project, uh a significant capital project to to address the issue that uh uh the public health department has brought for uh brought forth to to be able to have the capacity to uh house uh people.

So 300,000, I could be 30 um people.

So with just so you're aware we're establishing two expendable trust funds, one that can be funded by city funding, the other one by public funds.

Right.

And and that will continue.

Right.

And that money doesn't expire at the end of the year, it goes on if there's any money left in the account.

Yeah, and and I'm sure that the public health will be actively looking at that and other sources of income.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

I I I appreciate the flexibility that's being shown and and the response.

I think that's you know that's good.

So thank you.

Any other testimony in favor?

Hi, how are you?

Um my name is Tonya Nisley.

I am part of the Grand Estate also.

I'm a resident council member, very active member in the community.

Um although I am in favor of a resource center, I would have to ask how is that gonna help anybody have a place to sleep?

Unless we're putting some bedrooms or some small apartments in this resource center, all it's doing is gonna give them another gathering space to get information, only to be told that there's no place for them to sleep.

So again, I'm wondering with this amazing proposal why you couldn't include some some shelter beds or even some transitional housing within it, especially if it's gonna be a new renovation or even a new building.

I don't think that we are thinking enough outside of the box to help these people in a way that would actually be life transformative.

We I feel like the help that we're offering them is very limited, and it will only get them to a certain point before they start reaching roadblock after roadblock.

So again, unless some of these fundings are gonna go for actual beds or actual apartments or places for somebody to sleep, or even at the resource center, if you hadn't extra parking lot, so some of the homeless people that are lucky enough to actually have an RV that they would be able to actually park it legally and actually give them a spot that they could safely with permission have their traveling home.

I guess that's all I'm having saying, and please think of the human beings that are being affected by this, because again, this is just a small, small part of what we need to do, because building the housing is the most important thing that we need to do for people, because it's not gonna just be the homeless people in the next few years.

If all of the funding keeps getting cut, people like me that are in Nashua Housing Authority right now.

I'm on, I'm disabled and I have income-based housing.

If all the fund of all the funding gets cut from the HUD for different the housing programs, where is that gonna put all of your people that are in the housing authority that are on income-based housing?

They're all gonna be homeless also because a large, large percentage of the human beings that are in that situation that everyone is not thinking about because they are in a place right now is they're mostly disabled and marginalized also.

So if the funding is cut, you're not just gonna have the homeless people that are having their immediate issues.

You're gonna have all of the other people that are having issues, and we're lucky enough to be barely hanging on in the little bit of supportive systems that we have right now.

So again, unless we're increasing the supportive services and we're actually thinking about how we're going to support and help the human beings, we're failing our city.

Thank you so much.

Any other one testimony in favor?

My name is Bill Ferrio.

My home is number 35, Indian Rock Road.

So I'm not sure if I'm in favor of a power post because I had a couple of questions that I wanted to bring up to help help me understand it better.

Maybe the mayor can explain explain why was it such a large surplus in the 2025 budget?

Well, first revenues exceeded expectations, the budgeted numbers, and in some cases expenditures that were budgeted or money that was budgeted was not spent.

Now, there's a I think a common misunderstanding regarding this the total surplus number.

And you're thinking probably of this $46 million number, right?

But at the end I was thinking about the eight plus the six or the seven plus eight and six, it's because the revenue exceeded um what was budgeted, and because the money wasn't spent in various departments.

That's kind of a general answer.

Can you be a little more specific than that?

Where did you get additional revenue, for example?

Automobile registration is one source of revenue.

That much?

$13 million?

That's one of them.

I don't have all the details in front of me.

Can you give an example where the expenditures were less than planned?

School department.

So you talk a lot about how the uh majority of the budget is union labor.

70 percent, I think you tossed out, I think one of the elements said 90 percent.

So doesn't that mean that a large portion of that surplus came from that?

Um I think our public hearing is on the resource center.

Yeah, but the hi here's the thing.

If you didn't have this surplus available to you, then you couldn't you couldn't try and spend this 300K.

Well, that's correct.

So I was trying to understand why you couldn't budget with a little more fidelity, a little more accurately.

You have been doing this since forever.

Ninety percent of the budget is union labor.

You should be able to estimate that quite accurately.

I mean, I I get that you disagree regarding the fact that there should be a surplus, but actually we plan for this to have a surplus every year, and to we plan to have a surplus every year on the theory that that's a lot better than a deficit.

So that's been going on for decades, and I expect unless things radically change, it will continue for decades.

Okay.

I was gonna ask about the um the 300K, and where the 300K, what the basis was for the 300K.

But um, one of the all the men asked that, and uh the woman explained it quite well.

And I was gonna ask about the schedule.

So, if I understand correctly, the 300K is for 12 months.

Is that correct?

Okay.

So realistically, when could you start?

Is it gonna happen in this budget season?

Very late in the budget season, right?

So it's unlikely you are gonna spend much of that 300K in this budget season, isn't that correct?

The budget season goes till July 1st.

Right.

So we're gonna be able to do that.

So by the time we are halfway through and the years to start.

I mean, it could be January 1.

Okay, so you'd have like four or five months.

So you'd spend less than half of this 300K?

Is that right?

So if the audience for this resource is predominantly the people that were just removed from uh the milliard, why couldn't you take maybe half of that money and put beds enclosures in Elm Street?

You do that immediately.

You don't have to wait till January.

You don't have to rent buildings.

It's actually a deviation from the resolution that is before us.

Excuse me.

I said that's a deviation between before the this resolution is to do the expendable.

Okay.

Well, the residence fund for the uh supplemental appropriation for so for the resource center.

Okay, great.

And that's what public health asked us for.

That's what is before us, and anything beyond that, you'd have to discuss with the public health department.

So part of that resolution is 300K.

All right?

So why couldn't that 300K be 150K and then take the the additional 150K surplus and use it to put beds, partitions, food in Elm Street?

I think they covered what the expenses are gonna be.

You know, if we're talking about a shelter, we're talking money that is far, far in excess of 300,000.

I just will cite the example of the shelter over on Spring Street.

Capital cost $9 million.

Operating costs, I'm not sure what it is.

I'm sure it exceeds a million dollars a year.

So this is $300,000.

It's not nine or $10 million, which is what we would need if we were.

And that the $9 million was what, 10 years ago?

That's probably $15 or $20 million today.

Well, that's what you need for a shelter.

You've got to have a building and you've got to have maybe I'm not suggesting.

Maybe I'm not suggesting the shelter.

I mean, this is $300,000.

I gave you that answer.

That's really all I can say about this at this point.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

All right.

Testimony in opposition.

Seeing none, once again, testimony in favor.

Mr.

Chair.

Threat Tum 24 Cheyenne.

Is this opposition or in favor?

Opposition, sir.

I'll tell you why.

I'm not so much in opposition of the general intent that it was expressed as a shelter.

Well, you ask us to take a look at the resolution.

Take a look at this resolution.

It doesn't say anything about shelters.

Doesn't say anything about housing.

Same thing about it says access to essential services.

What does that mean?

That's point number one.

Point number two.

And resource center, whatever that is, hasn't even been adopted yet by the Board of Alban.

And already asking for funding.

That's totally opposite.

The physical note says that it will only be appropriated if we pass the expendable trust fund at another meeting.

Right.

So it's not.

So we're getting towards the end of the year.

We have to expend this money before the end of the year.

And we're trying to get the trying to get this resource center set up now, not later.

My point is you first passed the resolution for expendable trust fund for a resource center.

If you're not the end of the year, the end of the year is next July.

This year.

You're not going to set up a building before the end of this year.

There's nothing in this resolution that tells you what you're doing for 300,000.

I think it was explained by Director Bagley.

It might have been explained, but it should be in this resolution.

What is explained as no legal formality?

That's point number one.

Point number two is where is your budget?

See, see, start reading some stuff before you approve a resolution for 300,000.

Now maybe 300,000 is done a lot of money to you.

But it is a lot of money to me.

I built an entire memorial for less than 300,000.

It took years.

So where is your budget?

Again, the resolution says that in future years it will be funded by allocations from the budget for that year.

It says you're taking the money out of the assigned fund balance.

Right here in the resolution.

And I just earned it.

And I asked earlier, 300,000 and asked earlier.

Who sets up the assigned fund balance?

There's no answer.

Not the board of all.

So the resolution that is put putting this expendable trust fund in place, which isn't part of this, explains that it will be funded by future budget in future budgets.

You appropriating $300,000.

It says $300,000.

That's that's the money that will go into it as soon as we establish the trust fund.

Exactly.

And then you can start spending it to rent the building or whatever it is that you plan to do that's not identified in this resolution.

So Beck again.

Nothing is specified here.

There's no budget presented to you to say what $300,000 is enough, or some people here said is nowhere near enough.

Because it's either nowhere near enough or too much because you don't know what it is.

Except for what people tell you, but that's not legally binding.

This would be legally binding.

This resolution needs to be tabled until A, you get a budget, B, you approve the resource center.

C identify an approval of the resource center.

What is exactly that you're trying to do with this money?

Even though it may not be sufficient, or maybe it's too much.

You need to table this.

The purpose of the supplemental appropriation is to do with the emergencies.

Every one of these resolutions.

Table it.

Anyone else in opposition?

If not, testimony in favor.

Hello, my name is Tori Markowitz.

And um I live in Manchester, but I work here in Nashua as a community organizer for the Granite State Organizing Project.

And I just wanted to echo what some of the folks were earlier were saying about the resource center being a good step in the right direction, but it not being 300,000 not being enough money set aside to really deal with the problem of homelessness and for us to create more we need to create more shelter beds and more transitional housing and more permanent housing so that the people that we displace from the encampment at Pine Street do have a place to go.

And that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Testimony in favor.

My name's Tom Sheehan.

I live at 1309 circle.

Um I will keep my remarks brief.

But this is a big problem.

I'm all in favor of spending the money, if we have the money on starting a resource center.

I think that's good, but I would also like to see more long-term planning on what to do about the homeless problem.

It's really I feel for the people who uh whose house caught on fire.

Not too recently.

And just my first thought was where are they gonna live?

So and where are the people in the encampments gonna live?

They have to live somewhere.

So build a resource center, but it's only nine to five.

We need more soluted at this problem.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anyone else in favor?

Seeing no one else, you once again testimony opposition.

Seeing none, I will close the public hearing in our 25216 at 838 p.m.

And I will open the public hearing on our 25217 at 838 p.m.

Relative to the supplemental appropriation of 220,000 of assigned fund balance into fund 7080 police overtime expendable trust fund.

Chief?

Good evening.

Kevin Morke, Chief of Police.

Uh, this trust fund asking for 220,000 will cover our overtime for the offices of the Sky Medal incident.

Uh we'll also cover, as the mayor spoke about earlier, businesses uh having meetings and wanting more attention downtown.

Um so what we did is we used to have um an area, we call it sector one, which covers main street.

We had an officer down there, whether he's on bike, foot, on first and second shift, due to our understaffed, understaff um being understaffed.

Uh we have to take that out and put it, put that officer into a different sector or part of the state answer call.

So uh it looks a little brighter.

We've hired uh we're down to as of next Tuesday, we'll be down to 12 offices at this time last year.

We're up over 20.

Um we have seven in the academy right now.

We just hired another certified guy.

So in March, we'll have eight officers that will be uh on the street.

So eight more houses on the street.

So that's a we're looking, it's becoming promising here.

Uh so this this like I said, this 220,000 dollars will cover the main street patrols, two offices.

Um first and second shift until the next fiscal year.

I'm thinking with those eight officers getting out of the academy coming into the patrol division, we'll be able to uh provide an officer of first and second shift full-time down there and not ask for not have this problem that we have right now.

So thank you.

Alderman, and you have any questions?

No.

Thank you, Chief.

Thanks.

Well now open up testimony in favor of R25217.

Mr.

Chair, I'm sorry, um I was uh late in the in asking to be recognized.

All right, Alderman Jetty.

Um so Chief uh so could could you just explain uh so since we're down Tuesday will be 12 right now it's 14, so we gotta get till Tuesday.

Okay, so we've been down 14, we're gonna be down 12, and then uh we're gonna be down, I mean we're gonna be uh it's gonna go down to eight in March.

So now it'll still be twelve.

So they're not they're they're in the academy right now, so I we can't put them on the street because they're not fully trained as they get out of the academy, which is December 16th, they graduate, they then go on a 12-week uh field training program.

So that will bring you to the beginning of March, so then they will be sufficient, they'll be out there by themselves.

So the people that are in the academy, we're paying them now.

Yes.

Okay.

So uh my my question was gonna be with the money that we're saving by not having a full staff, which sounds like it's less than what I initially thought, but that money that we're saving that's not enough to pay for the uh the extra officers that we need uh downtown and uh the the overtime that we needed for SkyMetal that there's not enough money there to make up that.

So we do have an ETF account, but with what's ETF?

The expandable trust the trust fund?

Okay.

Okay, so if we if we were to go and didn't get this uh supplement appropriation, we're already uh spend eighty percent of it, and that's right now, then I would have to stop sector one, um, which is the downtown route, and the sky metal would go into that that overtime would go in there.

So I've already spent 80 percent and we're five months in.

And if I was a betting man of 30 years of law enforcement, something else is gonna happen.

So we're gonna go over that expendable trust fund.

And when we put this money in, if we don't use it, we just carry it over to next year.

So we won't be asking you for more money, it's already in there.

Okay, I understand.

So 30 years of law enforcement means you you're not a betting man, right?

No, I would not bet that I'm not gonna spend another dime on this.

Well, you you won the uh football football challenge, so uh money involved no money.

I wish there was that wasn't all set, Alderman Jenny?

Yes, thank you.

Any other questions?

All right.

Um testimony in favor.

Lori Ordelano, 2023 Naki Loeb winner for First Amendment in 2025, New England First Amendment coalition award.

We seem to be about titles in here.

I have a question for Chief Ruck.

Has the downtown patrolling started?

Um and has there been an improvement in our situation downtown with dealing with a lot of these uh issues that have come up?

Can he give us some update on the results?

Yes.

Good.

Okay.

That's all my question was there been favorable.

You're doing it, has there been favorable results?

Yes, there's been a lot of positive feedback from the business owners downtown.

Perfect.

Did you want to address your uh letter?

Um sure.

Uh so first thing um the director, executive director for the Great American Downtown, or now the downtown Nashua Association, formerly known as Great American Downtown, um uh provided you a letter um in support of this um legislation because uh they the business owners have seen a very significant um difference in behavior in downtown.

Um and so they I I spoke to at least eight businesses myself specifically about this, and they were all saying this has done wonders for their um customers feeling safe downtown.

So um just a quick support and then um the letter I think is provided to you.

It's gonna be brought in in the under the budget meeting.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Any other testimony in favor?

See no additional testimony in opposition okay.

Fred T boom, 24 Cheyenne at the risk of getting arrested.

Um question for the Chief.

How much, Chief, did your budget?

Going to lose weight.

You're going to lose weight with sounding back and forth.

How much did your budget in the overtime in the annual budget?

I don't have that at the top of my head.

Was it close to this number?

I mean the ETF account?

Yeah, the overtime account.

Yeah, said 200.

About 200,000?

And now you want 220,000 more.

Well, let's I think the question and the answer are on you're not you're talking about different things.

I'm talking about.

The trust fund is 200.

The budget for overtime is over a million.

It's like a million two or something like that.

The annual budget is what he's asking.

1.5 million.

Yeah.

So why wasn't that enough?

Why do you have to come five months into the budget and ask for more money?

I can't predict crime when it happens.

Someone gets shot, it's Guy Meadow.

1.5 million.

You have to predict something.

Well, I also testified that we were down last year at the at some point over 20 offices.

Yeah, but you were over.

How many of those were missing when the annual budget was adopted?

Under 20.

And how many are the overall?

14.

So if you're getting better, you shouldn't need less overtime.

Not true.

No, that I don't understand.

Well, you can come to my office and I'll show you how it works.

I'm afraid to come to your office.

If you cover overtime because you don't have enough staff, but now you got more staff, you shouldn't need less overtime.

Yeah, but you have 20 short last year.

Alderman, the former Alliance T-Boom, would you please get to the point?

The point is if the chief was short 20 staff, when you set his annual budget, and you set the overtime at 1.5 million.

And now he's at 14.

No.

Six less.

No.

He should need less overtime than he had predicted back to be 100%.

No, it's correct.

Overtime happens.

I can't predict that.

But you set up a budget.

The purpose of a supplemental budget is for liabilities as somebody pointed out.

Not just because you anticipate some additional money, you didn't anticipate beside the annual budget.

Unless you're most totally missed a point of annual budget, or you tried to meet some kind of a criteria, but by Mayor Dunches, you have no idea that you're going to meet.

This money is covering what was expended on a major crime, not normal overtime.

Normal overtime is used for a number of different items, and I think you need to get familiar with that before you start criticizing how they're spending their money.

It's just police overtime, sir.

Yes, for that particular incident.

Well, for the town patrols.

But I think there's the being down officers doesn't necessarily save money because the sectors get filled with overtime.

So it can cost more to have less officers than uh to have a full conference.

It costs more to fill a sector with overtime than it does uh an officer that is straight time.

If he predicted 20.

Alderman Clemens, do you have something you want to add?

I there is.

I I think I can partially answer some of Mr.

T boom's questions.

I I believe, and Mayor, you can correct me if I'm wrong on the numbers.

You can update me, but we as a board went in and authorized, or you as the mayor, with our support authorized $90,000, I believe, from that overtime for the downtown patrols, isn't that correct?

I think what happened is the police department's own initiative did a pilot for two months, three months.

Two months.

Two months uh to see how it would work without additional funds.

And it seemed to have worked well, as you've heard, but to continue it, uh they do not have enough money to fund the next six months.

So this would cover the additional six months plus what the chief has mentioned uh regarding the sky meadow incident.

Thank you.

So it's a sky meadows that cause you to worry about crime that didn't exist.

Or you didn't anticipate doing the budget setting, the annual budget.

It's the additional crime that worries you.

Mr.

T Boom, can you summarize what you are trying to get across and trying to get across it's a very simple point.

The police chief sets a budget based on his needs for the following year, and doing the annual budget profit, one you chair.

Yes.

Overtime is not it's a variable.

You don't understand variables.

And we are asking him for to do something which he didn't plan for.

What he didn't plan for was this two two officer downtown patrol.

We're asking him to do that, which was not part of the original budget because it wasn't part of the plan.

But why did he do it?

Because we asked him to.

Who asked him to?

The the city, the board of alderman, the city, the mayor.

We asked him in order to correct a problem downtown to assign additional officers.

He did that, and it did it went very well.

Okay.

So he did that on his own with his own money.

So meaning the police department's current budget.

But to continue something, a service that was not planned for another six months, they need the money, and this would provide that.

Okay.

I think I will understand it better.

None of this is explained in the resolution.

None of it is stated in the resolution.

And none, in fact, were very well explained by you.

Thank you.

Any testimony in favor?

Seeing none, once again, testimony in opposition.

Seeing none.

I'll close the public hearing in R 25217 at 8.52 p.m.

We'll open the public hearing on R 25218 at 852.

And it's relative to the supplemental appropriation of 1,500,000 of assigned fund balance into the fund 7026 capital equipment reserve fund.

I believe the mayor explained that in great detail, and our new financial team will uh explain it even more.

I'm a little short for your mic.

Good evening.

I'm Diane Maholland.

I'm the new treasurer tax collector for the City of Nashua.

We are looking for a supplemental appropriation of 1.5 million of assigned fund balance into the fund 7026 capital equipment reserve fund.

During the fiscal year 26 budget process, we were asking for $5 million to purchase equipment.

Being the first year of budgeting SURF, we felt it was more prudent to budget half $2.5 million with the anticipation to be able to fund the city's needs.

With increased cost of vehicles, we have realized we do not have enough to to be able to satisfy this city's purchasing needs without the additional funding.

I'll try to answer questions, but I've been here three weeks.

Any of the aldermen have any questions they'd like to ask?

Seeing none, thank you very much and welcome aboard.

Thank you.

All right, I'll now call for testimony in favor of R 25218.

Seeing none.

Testimony in opposition.

Fred T Boom 24 Cheyenne.

I have a question for you.

Whoever spoke just now.

Your budgeted two and a half million dollars, but you expected to need more.

Why did you not budget at the annual budget what you think you needed?

And then the ultimate decide whether they thought you should have it.

Why should you take a budget?

They say, well, we've got the certain percentage increase, et cetera, et cetera, and then come back in the middle of the year and ask for another one and a half million.

Can you explain your action at all?

Well, I think that would probably be best explained by the bank.

She wasn't even here.

The reason was that if we put an additional 1.5 in the budget, the tax rate would have been nearly a percent higher.

So we did it this way to uh we thought to have a favorable impact on the tax rate.

So you tried to lower the tax rate.

If we if we had budgeted $4 million, the budget would have been a million and a half dollars higher, which would have mean the tax rate was higher.

Yeah, understand the tax rate.

We knew we needed more than two and a half, but we we thought we would make it up at the end of the year out of the surplus.

I would only say that that is very deceptive.

Wait, it is not deceptive because we explained that we were doing this all the way through the budget process.

We explained this many times.

So it was not deceptive, it was all on the table.

In fact, in previous years we budgeted budgeted zero and took it all from surplus.

This year we went to a $2.5 million appropriation with a million and a half from surplus.

It has been many years discussed many times every year.

So it's not deceptive.

You were in a school doing a presentation.

You said, here's my budget, but I expect to go as a supplement for another one and a half million.

Yes.

I think we said two and a half at the time.

But yes, we said we would go for a supplemental.

I said two and a half, but in fact, we think we can do it for one and a half.

Well, I personally being pretty familiar with this process.

I think that's an inappropriate use of supplemental appropriations to try to take money that you expect to spend and not spend it in the annual budget.

Because this is still money reserved and not just tax money.

You can take a resolution and offset the tax rate with spending from the unassigned fund balance.

I think you took four million or some such number.

But doing it this way, I don't think is honest.

It's not the intent of supplemental appropriations to cover things that you knew during the annual budget you needed, but didn't budget.

I think it's a dishonest process.

Further testimony in opposition.

Laurie Ordolano, 41 Berkeley Street.

Um I think Mr.

T Boom makes a point, and I'm only going to say this.

Um I understand what the mayor is saying that, oh, if we budgeted for the $4 million instead of $2.5, it adds to the tax rate.

But at the same time, we had supplemental revenue left, which we used or supplemental appropriations to reduce the tax rate.

We bought down like six million dollars to drop it.

You would there was more you could have dropped it by.

So if you budget the way you're supposed to budget, because the need was there at the time you did the budget for you know April and May of 2025, then John Sullivan would have come in and said, I don't want 6,000 off, I want $7,500.

I mean six million off, take $7.5 million off, and reduce it.

Because you had the surplus to do that.

So I think it is very deceptive to say I'm just going to march in in the middle of the year, throw in the extra $1.5 million, use the supplemental money, do the budgeting the way the budgeting is supposed to be done, and then use all that surplus, buy the tax rate down and buy it down by what you are supposed to.

You could have done that, because you had the money to buy it down.

You just would have added another 1.5 million.

And I the other question I have about these resolutions, because it's difficult for me.

I came out, I printed them all, I put them all together.

They're so general.

Like this capital, you know, equipment reserve fund, sir, for 1.5 million doesn't say what it is used for.

None of them say the purpose.

Is that done deliberately?

Why?

Why did it say for police cars?

Or I would love to know when I'm coming in here what I'm doing this for.

Why don't why don't we tell people?

Well, we do.

There is a detailed the there is a schedule of vehicles to be purchased.

Individual vehicles are listed in the budget adopted by the Board of Alderman.

And you can see there all of the vehicles that are planned.

So part of that commitment was funded through the budget, and this will enable the city to buy all of the budget, the vehicles that are needed and listed in the annual budget.

I am just going to say that's very complex for me to try to go back to the budget and the surf listing to figure out how many police cars are actually being bought for the 1.5 million that go to this.

And I don't necessarily know if I looked at that equipment list, I'd know they were police cars that we were picking.

It says, you know, of individual dump trucks and how do I know how do I know from this resolution here?

Nothing in this resolution legislation says it's police cars.

It doesn't.

You would have to have to look at the list of equipment that has already been adopted.

You would have to do that.

Okay.

Well, how do I know it would be a dump truck or something?

Because it's in the list.

It's in the surf list.

There is a list.

Okay, I understand that.

I thought there might be a lot of people.

But since we don't fund it fund it all, my belief is that there might be other pieces of equipment in there that I wouldn't know what I am picking.

So I'm going to tell you, telling me to go to that list to figure out what you wrote here is very difficult.

It is just not a reasonable way to know what I'm coming in to speak to.

That's the only point I'm going to make.

And I do think there is something to be said with budgeting for what you need, using surplus to buy down the tax rate.

You just would have bought it down another 1.5 million, and you could have, because you had the money to do that.

Thank you.

Anyone else testimony in opposition?

Seeing no one else testimony in favor.

My name is Bill Ferriero, my home is number 35 Indian Rock Road.

So when you add the 1.5 million, are you still underfunded for the vehicles you need to buy in the remaining six or eight months of the 2026 budget year?

No.

Overfunded.

No.

So you have exactly the amount.

It's exactly $4 million you plan to spend in the remaining six to eight months.

We will have enough to buy the equipment that is listed.

And if there is money left over, it will be used to buy money for next year.

Okay.

So you think this time in this budget year to spend most of that $4 million?

Yes.

Thank you.

This is testimony.

Anyone else testimony in favor?

Seeing no one testimony in opposition again.

No one.

I'll close the public hearing on our 25218 at 902 p.m.

Oh my.

And I will open the public hearing in our 25219 at 902 p.m.

The next is R 25219 relative to the supplemental appropriation of a 1,500,000 of assigned fund balance into Fund 6600 benefits self-insurance fund.

Thank you.

Good evening.

For the record, Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

Some of this has already been covered this evening, especially by the Mayor's comments at the at the opening.

I would encourage you all to attend that.

That is where we go into more detail.

But the story is not going to change.

We are continuing to see health care costs rise.

We are seeing double-digit increases.

We do have an obligation to pay for it with our employees.

And I would ask for your favorable uh consideration of this appropriation this evening.

Thank you.

Any of the aldermen have any questions for Director Cummings?

Seeing done.

I'll now call for testimony in favor of R 25219.

My name is Bill Ferriero.

My home is number 35 in the INROC Road.

How is this fund typically funded?

So the city for a long time has been self-insured.

So we do not buy insurance from a commercial carrier.

Because it it's less expensive to just pay it on our own.

So we estimate the amount that will be needed for health claims at the beginning of the year.

And we put enough money into cover what we consider what we what our consultants tell us is likely the level of expenses that is likely to arise.

But we also keep in mind that we don't we want to make sure there's enough, we want to make sure there is enough money in the fund to cover expenses, even if they go higher than anticipated at the beginning of the year.

And but your question was I have forgotten the question now.

What was the question?

So we typically fund it out of the budget, but um expenses are running high, and we want to make sure we have got enough to cover it with hopefully a little bit left over at the end of the year.

So this is the so we need this to do that.

Is it partially funded by employee contributions?

Yes.

Okay.

They pay 20 percent of the anticipated expenses, plus they have uh you know co-pays and things like that.

Will it still be underfunded to a plan?

To the plan for 2026?

No, we anticipate if we do this, we'll be fine.

Fine.

We could have money left over.

We want to have money left over.

It's always money left over.

Um but we just want to make sure we have got enough.

I mean, it can be this is anything can happen.

One person gets cancer, it could cost a million dollars.

Uh you know, so we don't you don't know what's going to happen.

But you said you had some kind of consultants that are.

Yeah, we have consulting who are working.

Yes, definitely.

Mr.

Cummings can give you all the details, but yes.

It's um carefully planned.

Okay.

And projected based on the next year.

Would you do different next year?

Pardon?

What would you do different next year?

I'm not sure we do anything different.

We can never tell how many claims you are going to have on health.

We we work with a consultant every year to form an estimate as to how much the annual cost will be.

Okay.

And we estimate that and we budget and charge employees based upon that estimate.

So the consultant wasn't that accurate this year.

Director Cummings, would you like to step in?

Excuse me.

Yep, thank you.

Again, Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

We are run one we are running uh 100 percent accurate to plan as of today.

Now the account doesn't necessarily read that because we have some uh obligations at the first part of the year that makes the uh account run in the deficit, but when you project it out over a 12-month period, we would be running 100 percent uh to plan.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other testimony in favor?

Seeing none?

Testimony in opposition?

Seeing none.

Wait, I know you're in a hurry.

Next time don't schedule 10 public hearings in one evening if you're in a hurry.

Now I'd like to follow up on that last question, in fact.

And it's really the same as name and address, please.

Name and address.

Now, the same as the school question.

How much did you budget, Mr.

Cummings?

When you set up the uh self-insurance fund.

Director Cummings.

Again, Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

I'm not exactly sure of the question.

I could answer it two ways.

You could say that the total budget is about 60-ish million dollars, a little less healthcare c health care claims are about 54.

Uh the employer per portion would be about 35-ish million.

Thank you.

No, no.

So how is it your budget for the cities?

35 of city funds.

So the city side would be 35 million, and that would be approximately a 10 percent increase that was in the budget.

Okay.

So 35 million.

And you said you were right on plan.

I mean, you are five months into the year.

Your annual plan.

Then why do you need another one and a half million?

Because by the time we get to the end of this year, we won't have a little bit of that surplus that we're talking about needing, and we are trying to accurately fund this uh uh uh plan year over year within the budget and not have it uh in have more than we need uh uh set aside in the operational budget.

So the total here is like the total here is like sixty million dollars.

Yes.

So even if there is a variance of a couple of percent, we're you know, it's over a million dollars extra.

So we don't know for sure what is gonna happen in the next seven months.

Yeah.

And we just want to make sure we have enough money at the end.

That is not a purpose for the mind you have made it clear that that is not a purpose, but that's not my thinking.

So you know for years, Mr.

Mayor Donchus.

Years and years and years.

Now I go back all the way to 1993, before our new objective city hole.

And for years, dozen years, how millions of years.

What is this 19th century or 20th?

19th century, sir.

Okay.

And for years, our supplemental appropriations were less than a million.

They were only done in absolute necessity.

Now you're getting to the point as well, we are 100% on target.

There's what, 60 million.

But I'd like to have another one and a half million just so I won't go over.

Who gives a damn?

If we go over, it's it's bad.

Who gives a damn about doing one and a half million now?

You may be 10 million over.

Who knows?

You set an annual budget and you see to be 10 over.

It's just we we want to make sure if something goes wrong, there's enough money there.

We could have a bad case, we don't know for sure.

Lightning could hit this building.

It could.

And it could go.

And when do we budget?

It could.

And Mr.

The Chairman could have a heart attack.

The budget for his sign to be changed.

Who?

You know, where do you stop?

It makes no sense, Mr.

Mayor.

Yes, it's a good question.

And if you if that's your line of thinking, you shouldn't have been re-elected.

Um we any other testimony in opposition.

Seeing no one else testimony again in favor.

Seeing no one, once again, testimony in opposition.

Seeing no one.

I'll call close the public hearing on R25219 at 911 p.m.

and open the public hearing on R25220 relative to the supplemental appropriation of 200,000 for assigned fund balance in the Department 194 contingency account 7010 general contingency for the intended purpose of covering expenses to clean up Main Street and the riverfront.

Yes?

Liz Hannem, Economic Development Director.

Um this is uh another response to um some of the things we've seen um uh as a result of our increase in the homeless population or transient population downtown.

Um this solution came out of several um meetings with our downtown business owners as well as the board.

Um and we are looking to add this service in addition to existing um DPW uh cleanings downtown they they do once a week uh street cleanings.

Um this would be additional staff for downtown.

Um we are hoping to start this as soon as possible um so that we can uh see how it works for the first six months and appropriate um these additional staff in the 27 budget.

Um so we do anticipate um additional staff in that next the the coming budget um but this was this came up as part of that um summer summertime issues so um yeah thank you any questions from any of the aldermen Senate thank you Mr.

Chairman so just to be clear because we've had a dozen meetings or so on this topic this is not the clean team model this is just additional public works staff uh for the the rest of this fiscal year yes um because uh because of our um union policy we couldn't do the same thing that Manchester does.

Um we have to use DPW staff um for this work um and so for this year we are likely going to just use um uh overtime uh for our existing staff uh we don't want to create a position um and then if it doesn't get funded in July have to fire people um so we are um using existing staff for the next six months um and then we will appropriate for um the the annual budget at that point thank you all right any other questions seeing none thank you I'll now call for testimony in favor of our 25220 seeing none testimony in opposition to R2522 Cheyenne Drive is another reason in the annual budget you have an item called general contingency now if you've got a problem cleaning up Main Street there's always been a problem cleaning up Main Street now maybe there's a series more dirt in Main Street and there's nothing wrong with hiring somebody part-time to clean it up this has got nothing to do with funding next year this is taking money out of the assigned fund balance taxpayers' money mostly maybe grant money that didn't get spent this is not an item for a supplemental appropriation and I want to say one other thing while I'm at it mayor when is the last time you had the uh CAFA report the Carol Anderson Finan the well they call it combined annual financial combined annual

Taxpayers' money.

Mostly, maybe grant money.

This is not an item for a supplemental appropriation.

And I want to say one other thing while I'm at it.

Mayor when it's the last time you had the uh CAFA report, the Carol Anderson Financial, the well, they call it combined annual financial combined annual financial report.

That's not part of this resolution, Mr.

T-Boom.

It is.

And you know it isn't.

It says assigned fund balance.

Yes.

Who sets up the assigned fund balance?

I think that was asked and answered before.

Yeah, you said Board of Alderman.

That's the wrong answer.

If you stopped interrupting me, like interrupted Portalano, then I would give you the answer.

If you read the CAFA report, it gives you the answer.

The chief financial officer sets the assigned fund balance.

It's not appropriated money.

It gets appropriated when this board votes to appropriate the money, for example, to have a fund cleanup.

But it's based upon the budget act, the actions that are taken by the Board of Alderman.

But we could debate that later.

That's it.

That's called appropriation.

Once again, testimony in favor.

Seeing none, once again, testimony in opposition.

Seeing none, close the public hearing on our 2520 at 9.17 p.m.

And at 9.17 p.m.

we will open the public hearing on our 2522 relative to the supplemental appropriation of 325,000 of assigned fund balance into Department 194 contingency account 7010 general contingency for the intended purpose of covering community development block grant and lead program expenses due to the federal government shutdown.

I believe is this the one that we are no longer it's correct, Mr.

Chair Matt Sulvin Community Development Director.

Uh this resolution supplemental appropriation is no longer necessary with the federal government having been opened up.

I will, however, address the next resolution as it's a separate before we get there.

Sure.

Barring any uh objections from any of the aldermen, we will not have the public hearing in this because we are not going to be public hearing.

We have to have the public hearing still, even if we're going to not do it, yes.

We're gonna donate uh duly notice yes.

All right.

So testimony in favor.

None testimony in opposition.

None testimony in favor again.

None testimony in opposition.

None.

I'll now close the public hearing in our 252 at 9.18 p.m.

And at 918 p.m.

open up the public hearing on our 2523 relative to the supplemental appropriation of 95,784 and four cents of assigned fund balance into grant project activity 1092 FY2020 lead paint hazard control grant.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, Matt Sulvin Community Development Director for the City of Nashua.

Uh as many are aware, uh, certainly on this committee, the city has over the past years had a lead hazard or lead abatement control grant in place.

Uh currently we're in the process of implementing a 7.7 million dollar lead hazard control grant.

But this resolution actually relates to the city's 2020 4.9 million dollar lead hazard control grant.

Uh recently, at the end of calendar year 2024, we were going through the close-out process for that 2020 grant and through a series of negotiations with HUD, who was fully operational at that point in time.

Uh, a set of expenses were identified related to both a hazard mid uh lead hazard remediation and other expenses within the grant that HUD was not able to reimburse the city for.

And we went back and forth for a series of months, uh actually beyond the closeout period of the grant.

But ultimately, and this goes to actually Alderman O'Brien's question at the beginning of the evening.

Uh HUD is adamant that these $95,000 in change of expenses cannot be reimbursed to the city.

And again, it's directly related to unit remediation, uh, and again, it's part of a $4 million, $4.9 million dollar grant.

But ultimately, these expenses will not be paid by the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development.

I hesitate to attribute these as sort of a kind of match to the program because that's not fair.

But ultimately, uh through negotiations with HUD, we are unable to uh expend these funds using HUD monies and instead need to cover these costs with city funds.

I'm happy to answer questions uh about these specifics, although I will admit that uh these program expenses that HUD was uncomfortable reimbursing are across both the remediation, personnel, and other expense lines.

Uh and they were related specifically to how things were billed to the healthy homes versus lead hazard sides of the grant.

And I can try to answer questions as they come up tonight, but uh at the risk of saying so it's it's a bit complex, but ultimately these expenses do need to be covered.

Happy to answer in request any questions.

So when you say these expenses have to be covered, this is 2020.

This was five years ago.

Isn't there a statute of limitations on this?

Uh if I may, Mr.

Chair, the the short answer is no.

And and Alderman Jetty, your question actually raises an even more complicated issue, and that is that these expenses occurred over a period of years and were included with a set of drawdowns.

Um and ultimately we were not able to draw these monies down in the final close out period.

So it's uh the answer is no, there's not a statute of limitations.

Predominantly these expenses were at the end of the grant, though, um precedent to the close-out period, but towards the end of the grant.

And so most of them were in the last three months of implementation.

Uh, but again, no, there's not a statute of limitation on the funding.

Thank you.

All set.

Yes.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Director Sullivan.

I'll now open up uh the public hearing R25-2023.

Testimony in favor.

Seeing none.

Testimony in opposition.

Oh boy.

I have a question for Mr.

Sullivan.

Was that money spent before the grants were received?

Matt Sulvan community development director.

Oh, sorry.

Uh the the monies were not expended precedent to the grant being received.

The monies were expended precedent to the specific monies being drawn down from the federal government.

The city received the grant back in 2020.

Uh these expenses happened uh approximately between calendar years 23 and 24.

So did you know at that time that the money was not granted?

Or did you know you were going over the grant?

Or was it just a miscommunication between you and the and your federal government?

Um so at the this is not a case where we overexpended the grant, in fact, uh and these were simply expenses that were not eligible to be reimbursed.

So there was no over expenditure.

We were accurately tracking the budget, overall budget of the grant, but ultimately in reviewing the expenses HUD did not feel comfortable reimbursing based on um the nature of the expenses.

So uh there was no over expenditure, we were tracking the grant budget.

It was really a matter of whether or not the expenses were valid under HUD's interpretation.

Correct.

Yep, that's correct.

So taxpayers defund the difference.

That the answer is yes.

Yes.

Yep.

Yeah.

Okay, I believe it.

Any other testimony in opposition?

Seeing none, once again, testimony in favor.

Seeing none, once again, testimony in opposition.

Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing in R25223 at 9.24 p.m.

And at 9.24 p.m., we'll open the public hearing.

On what are last one?

R25, 224, relative to the supplemental appropriation of $900,000 of assigned fund balance into capital project activity, police department roof repair and replacement.

Chief.

Kevin Rock, Chief of Police, and with me is project manager Tim Lamia.

I'll try to be more thorough on this one.

So a few months ago we came and asked for $600,000 for the our roof.

Uh as you know our building, if you don't know, it's two buildings in one.

Back in the 70s, they built one portion of the building, and then in the late 90s, 99, 2000, 2001, they built the other section of the building.

So when we came, we thought we would be able to repair the roof.

Um we started having leaks.

Uh we're up to about nine leaks.

It's caused some damage, minor damage in the building, but it's it's time for a new roof.

So we came and asked for 600,000.

We thought that would cover it.

Um as we had brought in recon services and did some testing on it.

Um there's some asbestos up there, and Tim can get into the details.

That's not my game on the roofs, but um so when we realized that we we needed the $900,000 for the from the SARPS 2 fund it, we think with other buildings going on in the city.

We're thinking about 1.5 million dollars will cover uh the roof, and I think we have to repair the whole roof and go down to the pavement to repair a whole new roof.

Mr.

Laman, do you want to add anything or you're all set?

Uh no, haven't answered any questions.

Uh and I can tell you being on the joint committee and having two schools that had the same kind of roof, that's the issue.

It's uh a stone ballast roof, all the stones have to be taken off the roof.

The uh they have to put old new membrane down.

They also have to check, I believe they have to check insulation for the where the leaks are, make sure that doesn't need to be replaced.

I do have a question.

Could we put solar there?

Uh we've done it on other buildings.

Um again, Tim will me our project manager uh for the project, and I I'd say we we certainly have not evaluated the roof for that type of structural load.

So we would there's you know, we could we we could look into something like that, but we have not even considered uh what type of loading that roof can handle, especially at the age it is and the uh the multi-levels it is.

So it would be something um a little bit different that we haven't explored yet today.

It's usually a load-bearing issue on the roof with the with a solar, and it would have to be evaluated, and it could be done after the roof's completed.

Doesn't have to be done at the same time.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

Any questions?

Any of the aldermen?

Alderman Jetty?

Um I'm not sure this is germane to this resolution, but the mayor brings up a good point.

Um, when you say that uh I'm troubled by maybe I just don't understand.

When you say we're gonna go ahead and replace the roof and then we'll evaluate it afterwards, if there's some kind of strengthening that could be accomplished while we're up there redoing the roof to accommodate solar, wouldn't that be something that we would in order to uh I know the answer.

I'm gonna let Tim Lemir, who's uh an engineer, answer it for me.

Sure.

If if the roof is not capable of handing the weight lots to fix it would require Yeah, uh well uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

And I would just simply um add that it's two very different types of projects where one is uh a non-structural repair of roof membrane material, and the other would involve uh potentially a reconstruction of the roof structurally, which um if that's the type of project the city's pursuing, it's um it's uh it's a completely different project, a structural renovation project that would be um certainly probably over a year in design services in millions in construction costs.

So there's not really uh a cost-effective uh benefit to the city to pivot and do that now uh and put off a leaking, a currently leaking roof if if it would not be a cost-benefit analysis.

We had to do that in Maine Dunslam Burchill Schools, it can handle the load, and to make it be able to handle the load was triple the price.

You'll never get a payback from solar is that you agree with that.

I can't speak to the uh payback you one might get from solar specifically, but I would I agree with certainly can agree to the structural uh points he's making, and and I would trust that he's correct about the solar payback.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, Alliman Dibodeau.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um so along that line of questioning.

I mean, if it's something that we're even contemplating, so I haven't heard no, we're not interested.

Now we're just gonna throw away a million and a half dollars.

No.

No, no, no, no.

Why not?

So this can be evaluated afterwards.

You can put it what they're saying is you can put the issue of whether and Doria is Doria Brown's getting up here, but the issue of whether the roof can handle solar can be evaluated after the roof is replaced.

And if if the roof is strong enough to hold it, you can put solar on top of the new roof, no without you know, without a without a big problem.

So what they what they have to do is when they when they tear up take all the rocks off and tear off the membrane and check where the leaks are and everything, they'll be able to see what the structural load capability of the roof is and be able to determine whether it could handle solar.

And if it can't, that's when you'd get into them much larger.

If it can't, I mean it's just not worth the money.

But if it can, it's worth pursuing it.

If it's strong enough, it's worth pursuing the solar alternative.

Yes.

When it comes to solar for city buildings, um, this is Dori Brown, Energy Manager.

I apologize.

Um we are going to release an RFP next year for city buildings that have newer roofs, and we would include this building in the RFP if it has the roof work done.

Um it would help us inform if solar could be done on that building and what the ROI for that work would be for reinforcing the roof.

So that would be something that comes later.

Um I wouldn't advise delaying a roof project um to reinforce for solar at this time.

Thank you.

All the questions asked and answered.

All right.

So I'll now take testimony in favor of R 2524.

Seeing none testimony in opposition.

He's back.

Okay, first T boom.

Don't go away.

So I'm trying to figure out why a roof that was estimated to be six hundred thousand, now costs one point five million.

And you're telling me there's a structural issue.

No, are you structural engineer?

Uh no, that's not that's not what we're saying.

That's not what you're saying.

No.

And what are you saying?

No.

Again, some of you are the owner's project manager for the roof.

Um, and as the the chief uh testified, the um 600,000 was approved, and during our preconstruction services for hazardous waste testing, the there was asbestos discovered.

And the roof will be more costly than the original 600,000, and that's the same.

Oh, it was the asbastics.

Correct.

Now that raise another question.

You're the project engineer.

So did you have anything to do with the proposal by the contractor that did the job?

There is no uh we we have not estimated this out with construction yet.

So this is we're not out to construction.

So you're talking about this is a budget.

Your estimated correct is not a contractor estimate.

Correct.

So you estimated you estimated the additional need for 900,000?

Uh I did not personally estimate the need for 900,000, but that who did I'm not aware.

Well, so only gotta I mean you can start with 600,000, you find that it's vegetables now you say you need 900,000 more.

Well, we're aware of how you go up with that.

Yeah, what we're aware of is what a you know commercial roof placement generally costs 600,000.

And now if being in line with other roofs in the city that have been done with asbestos, and as the chairman even recognized with some of the school roofs, we we have a general budget of what we're expecting, but it's it's a budget.

Who set that budget?

Who who set the additional nine hundred thousand?

I'll ask you the camp.

Oh, so we we've got a budgeted number from a roofing contractor to give us a um a general budget that they would expect, but it has not been estimated.

Why don't you do what normal people do?

Wow.

Send out yes, now send out an RFP.

Say, here's the roof we want build.

He has to build, you know, you guys do ask for money.

This is another problem I have this if mayor notch's administration.

You ask for money before you have any idea what the cost is going to be.

The normal process is to get an RFP out, get the return, normal contractors, and then you come before the board and say, I'd like to bomb the money, or in this extreme case, which is an extreme case, ask for supplemental appropriation.

You don't just go out and get it to somebody, you're not you don't you don't have an engineering background, right?

I do.

You don't go out and do that.

Sullivan, you're an engineering background.

No, I'm not.

You're not.

Well, I don't know who else.

Well, CV.

I am.

Who?

Yeah, you work for BAE.

Correct.

No, you go to BE and find out how they do bid.

You get an RFP out, you found out what the cost is, and you bid.

That's one of the reasons we had with Mr.

Cummings.

I think Director Cummings can answer.

Turn into 25 million.

12 and a half million estimate turned into 25 million because you did it with RFP.

Director Cummings, do you want to by that?

Yeah, I would like you to address that.

Thank you.

Again, Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

So just a couple of clarifying points.

And I think our OPM Tim Lumir isn't necessarily familiar with our processes, and so he may have uh not used some of the right verbiage when he wanted to express some of his sentiments.

Yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

So first and foremost, um what what uh I believe um Mr.

Lamir was trying to suggest is we don't have a contract ready yet.

But what we do have is we're using the same uh vendor uh that is doing the fire roofs right now, and they've actually gone up and done some exploratory uh uh work and they've done the design, and we are at a place now where they gave us a budget estimate, so using his verbiage, to be able to prepare us to be able to come back before you through a finance committee process for the contract, but it is is under it's with the understanding that we are using um uh a reputable contractor who we did procure and the fire department is using, and we're gonna be utilizing that uh uh service and our policies within our procurement allows us to do this, and that's why we believe it's probably the most efficient way to move forward.

Thank you.

The most efficient way to move forward, Mr.

Cummings.

You should know this better than anybody with your performance arts center.

Double the price.

The most efficient way to do it, and I think the school board would know it, the school special outfit would know that.

You go out for an RFP, you write it up exactly the way you want it.

You may get consulting on how to write the RFP.

That I don't doubt.

But then you go out and get the cost and get the cheapest cost.

The best cost, maybe not the cheapest.

That's the process.

In fact, that's what the procurement policies call for.

Not so off-the-wall guy.

So uh I appreciate you recognizing me.

Just one caveat to that.

So that may have been true back in 1985.

However, in today's days, our contractors won't hold pricing.

And so we work with them very early on in projects to develop budget estimates, and then once we understand what that is, and we know we have the monies readily available through a bona fide source of funds, we will then go through a contracting process.

And that's what we always do, and that's what we will do with this as well.

Thank you.

And as a final point I'll make when you go to that process, you get a qualified maximum bid.

You know what that is?

You certainly know what that is.

A maximum qualified estimate.

And the schools do it all the time.

Not to exceed.

And you don't go over that.

And if you go over that, the contract is liable for that over it.

Alderman O'Brien and I are on the joint committee with the police commission as an evaluating heard all the testimony and and all of the uh estimates from the contractor, the contractor when they when they hired him to come take a look at the roof.

Uh did all these samples and found out that there was asbestos.

The 600,000 was a an estimate uh based on the the square footage of the roof and actual potential cost to replace it.

It probably would have been less than 600,000 if they if we came in under budget.

And when the roofing contractor went up there and found out there was asbestos, then he gave us an estimate of what it was going to cost to fix it.

And based on my experience with two types of similar roofs that were done, I I think we can do it for a little less.

What you never know, you have all unknown unknowns when you start doing a roof like that, and hopefully it will come in under the money, but uh I'm pretty sure it will, but you you you don't know when you're working with a roof that's covered with stones what you're gonna find when you take all the stones off.

We did that on Franklin Street, we did that on Maine Dunstable.

I feel very comfortable with the way the way we're going on this.

So you do not believe in qualified maximum price?

I never said that.

That's what I'm saying.

That's the process.

Not I think it's okay.

I guess it's okay.

Some yo yo gave me a free estimate.

That's okay.

You go by estimates from contractors, qualified to do a job, you put them on the qualified maximum price, and you move.

And that's what the policy in in NASA actually asks for in the procurement specifications.

Anyone in else in opposition?

Seeing none, testimony in favor again.

Seeing none.

And once again, testimony in opposition.

Seeing none.

I'll close the public hearing on R24, R25224 at 9.40 p.m.

Alden O'Brien, your favorite motion.

Yes, it is.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, I'd like to make the motion that the December 4th, 2025 special meeting of the Board of Alderman be adjourned.

Do you want to handle that or do you want me to handle it?

All right, the motion on the floor is to adjourn all in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

We're adjourned at 9.41 p.m.

We're gonna go right into budget in about 90 seconds.

Two minutes.

I mean say the ratio.

Take care.

You're not on budget so you can escape, for example.

Like run, right?

Expand the trust.

For a minute, I was like, worry what I'm saying.