All right, I'd like to call the budget review committee to order.

It's April 16th, 2026.

We're in the aldermatic chamber at 7 p.m.

And the meeting has been noticed in two places, including the city's website in accordance with the requirements of RSA 91-A colon 2 2.

The clerk please call the roll.

Honorment Large Michael B.

O'Brien Sr.

is present.

All the women at large, Hushana Kelly.

I'm here.

Alderman at large, Alicia Gregg.

Here.

I turned it off.

Alderman Derek Tiabo.

Here.

Alderman Paula Johnson.

Present.

Alderman Tim Senate.

Here.

And Alderman Richard A.

Dowd.

Present.

Okay.

You have full board.

Thank you.

Seven in attendance.

Also in attendance is we have attorney Bolton from the legal department.

Bobby Bagley from the Public Health and Community Sturves Division.

Jill Stanfield, who is from the parking manager, Jennifer McCormick, the library director, Mr.

Dan Healy, who is the city clerk, and I think I got pretty much everybody.

Okay.

Okay.

Communications.

Yes, we have uh several from Kenneth J.

Lanoux, Superintendent of Englewood Suburban Cemetery.

Reason, fiscal year 2027 operating budget.

Further communication from National Office of Emergency Management, reason fiscal year 27, Department Budget.

We also have communication from Robert Mack, the welfare officer.

Reason, welfare administration, and general assistance budgets for fiscal year 2027.

We also have from Donna L.

Graham, legislative uh legislative affairs manager, reason fiscal year 2027 operating budget.

And late that it did not get on to the agenda from Chairman Dowd of the Budget Committee.

Okay.

Yeah, most of the people who have been here for a while know most of those guidelines, but uh for the new people, that's what we've been following.

So, and if there are any comments on them, you can get them back to me.

All right.

Um so if there's no objection, I'll accept the communications and place them on file.

Unfinished business.

There is none.

New business resolutions.

Before us this evening is our 26, 2028, relative to the adoption of fiscal year 2027 proposed budget for the city of Nashua General Enterprise, special revenue, and grant funds.

Okay.

Motion on the floor is to take our 26028.

Up for discussion.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Also, just for the new people.

Every one of these meetings we have on the budget, we open open it with opening the legislation at the end of the meeting.

We put it on the table and bring it off the table at the next meeting.

Okay.

So we have several people on here, but if there's no objections, I'd like to have the city clerk uh go first so he can uh go home and recover.

Recovering.

You can come up and sit down if you want to.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Um so Dan Healy, uh City Clerk.

Um, and this year, um, you'll notice that my budget went up more than the recommended three percent by the mayor.

The uh biggest reason for that is we went from having one election last fiscal year to two elections.

So the elections, you know, with staff paying staff, police detail, um, programming, the tabulators.

Uh that comes out to close to 60 or 70,000 uh right there.

Um and then the next big expense that I have on here is under equipment, and it's the poll pads, the remainder of the poll pads that we need to get all the wards equipped with them.

So last year in the budget, I put in for 28 poll pads, which were approved, and we used them in wards one, eight, and nine, and it went pretty well.

And now with the poll pads in use, I can see throughout the day in live time who's checked in, how many voters have checked in, and you start to get statistics on that.

So we can start to get trends, but uh while it was helpful for the last election, it was only a third of the polling sites they had it, so it wasn't really an accurate representation of who's voted in the whole city.

But um once we get those in place, um then we can start tracking that right from the office, and you can put in your ballot inventory with that, and so you can see if a polling place is running low on ballots based on how many people have checked in.

Uh, there is an annual maintenance cost with the the poll pads, um similar to the tabulators, it's $325 per year.

Um, with what we have right now, that's costing $9,100.

Um and then the last thing I'd like to point out is in other contracted services, five, five, six, nine, nine.

I'd originally budgeted twenty thousand four hundred and eighty-three.

I'd like to decrease that by ten thousand dollars and eighty-three, ten thousand eighty-three dollars.

And the reason for that is around the time that I was preparing my budget, I was working with um a vendor on digitizing records.

Um I've since talked with IT, and we're gonna try to do that in-house.

They've set me up with a a scanner to start scanning some of our records.

So we're gonna see how that goes.

But I put that in because of the timing, but I'm actually we're gonna try to do it in-house.

Um, so that line, I don't know if it's already been adjusted or not, but I originally budgeted.

Yeah, it hasn't been adjusted.

So, number again to this.

Thank you.

Um, yeah, so it's other contracted services, and right now it's 20,483.

And in there I had budgeted 10,083.

So I've taken a note and at our budget wrap-up, we'll make a motion to cut that back to 10.

Yeah, because we're we're gonna try the in-house digitizing and and see how how that goes, and then if it doesn't work out well, or we're not getting many records scanned, I might try to put this in the budget next year.

But we have a lot of records over at Court Street that um I'd like to start bringing over to City Hall and scanning, so we have them here if if someone wants to review them.

But right now, if someone asks for older minutes, we take the trip over to Court Street, we find the box that it's in, and then bring it back and make copies.

So I'd like to get it so some of these records that people are requesting, we can just pull pull right up.

But um, so again, we're gonna try that in in-house first.

Um, and those are really my my big expenses, the elections and um the poll pads.

Now, with the poll pads for this year, um, the 63,000, that will get us the remainder of what we need.

So then next year that line item would be gone because we would have the the amount that we do need.

There is one thing I forgot to mention with that is so on election day, the paper checklist is still still need to be marked in the background.

So voters can check in a lot quicker with the poll pads, but we need um staff in the background that actually mark the paper checklists.

Now there's trials going into place with printers, um vendors working on a high-speed printer that would do away with that requirement.

So if you could print the checklist, I I think in 30 minutes or whatever it is, if the you know something goes down, that's that's gonna replace the marking in the background.

They're not quite there yet, it's coming soon, but um, we would then need a printer at each polling place, or we stick with marking the checklist.

But that's eventually where it's gonna lead.

Um the general election in in 2024, um, ward four had a line out the door for one segment of letters, the poll pads at all locations, they can go to any any line.

So it wouldn't that first line wouldn't have been wrapped down the hogs, it would have been spread out.

So again, that's those my my big expenses.

Um we open any questions on the okay.

Also, just uh for the new people.

We do not when we're going through the budgets of the different divisions and and and departments.

We don't talk fringe benefits, we have a separate section on fringes and benefits, as they're all automatically calculated by the personnel in the in that group.

All right, yes, all the one morgan.

I'm sorry, I'm looking I'm looking at you, but I'm seeing Amber's sign.

Okay, sorry, I moved over because there's not all three of us stuck together is a little bit small tight.

Um so my question is around the salaries.

Your proposed is about 10,000 higher than the mayor's.

Is that what he was talking about about not escalating as quickly as possible?

Yes, so the the departments don't submit the salaries, it comes from the the finance department based off of um the unaffiliated contract.

Well, mine being the unaffiliated contract, and then uh my employees being their contract.

Um but that comes from finance and the mayor on Tuesday.

Yeah, that was one of the cuts, the recommendation over the two years instead of the one year.

So that's the departments have nothing to do with uh the salary part.

Yeah, we're gonna have questions on that because I think it's gonna take legislation if they want to do that.

I see because we made the legislation to give them that, and the mayor by himself cannot take it away.

That would have to be done by legislation from this board.

But we will see that in every budget.

You're gonna see it in almost every budget.

A lot of them already the budget resolution is the legislation that will do it.

So we don't have to we can change it on that is in the budget resolution.

But they didn't change the numbers in the budget.

No, right.

The or did they the modification to the legislation that you previously passed is part of the budget resolution that got introduced on Tuesday?

So if we pass the resolution as it's written, it happens.

It happens.

Yeah, it's right.

You don't need a separate piece of legislation.

No, but we can assume the mayor's taken out of the legislation.

You can modify it, amend it pretty much any way you want.

Okay.

Okay.

Any other questions for the city clerk?

Well the minute.

Thank you, uh Mr.

Chair.

Um so question obviously through the chair to to you.

Um uh Mr.

Clerk.

Um, so we didn't talk revenues at all.

So your revenues you're projecting that we revenues are gonna go up 15,000.

Uh so I have two questions with that.

One, why?

And two, do you think there's any one of your fees or licenses that are being under I guess are is too low currently, and that you would want to raise at all.

Just skimming through what the the numbers are.

So the the things that went up according to the two budget years is uh finance financing statement recordings went up from six to fourteen thousand, and state of voter checklists, uh sale of voter checklists went up by two thousand.

Dodge licenses went up too.

And dog licenses.

Yeah, so we we seem to be getting more people into license dogs who are doing more robocalls, more mailers.

Um, so I believe the dog licenses are going up.

Over the past few years, we've been getting uh UCC fees.

Well, we've been getting them all the time from the state, but it seems like that the amount is higher.

So quarterly, we're getting like six thousand dollar checks from the state for the UCC fees.

Um I've on marriage licenses too.

I don't know if I increase that, but we seem to be trending a little bit higher for marriage licenses, and then a lot of our revenue um people wait to the last minute for their dogs.

So some of this uh dog tech licenses technically end April 30th, so you know, taxi and all that stuff is coming up.

So I'm pretty confident with our numbers.

Um one of the things that I changed for marriage license is we used to require a certified birth certificate.

Now we just take a copy of a birth certificate when they come in, because we really just need the information.

So we're turning less people away.

So I think that number could go up.

But I'm I'm pretty confident with the the revenues.

And the fees are good.

You think nothing needs to be increased at all next year?

Um I don't believe so.

And then I guess you mentioned sale of the checklist and part of that too.

Um they can purchase voters, can purchase us the checklist at the state, and sometimes they purchase the whole uh state list, and we get a portion.

They send us a check for that if if they're pulling the national voter lists.

So we've seen an increase in that.

A lot more a lot more people are interested in the voter list.

So thank you.

Any other questions for the city clerk?

See none?

Thank you.

And thank you again for letting me go first.

All right, we'll revert to the uh regular agenda, and the first item is going to be the mayor's office, uh Department 101.

Appropriations are on page 28.

Good evening for the record, Megan Carron, chief of staff.

Um I do have a little bit of a cold, so just bear with me.

Um I did want to make a more general administrative note that um you kind of touched on earlier.

Um as Mayor Donchus shared, um, he made a number of cuts uh from that department departments brought to our budget meetings.

And these cuts are reflected in the differences between the department proposed and the mayor proposed, which is a deviation from past practice in terms of budget book presentation.

So these differences do reflect the salary adjustments to the unaffiliated employees that he spoke to on Tuesday, and I want to just clarify that.

So the department proposed figure is uh reflects what the full implementation of the new compensation plan would be.

The mayor proposed reflects that adjustment that he made, which removes this year's step increase for unaffiliated employees.

So in other words, employees are uh have been moved to the new compensation plan and will receive the cost of living adjustment, but do not receive the step increase this year.

That makes sense.

Um the differences are also inclusive of any other cuts that he may have made to department budgets, but I did want to clarify that that's the I don't want to say the majority, but that's definitely part of the discrepancy in the figures that that are represented here.

Um I also wanted to expand um on the mayor's comments on the three new training officer positions in the fire department.

Um if you remember last year, Mayor Donchis proposed a budget that with no new positions, and obviously that put a strain on some of our departments, and um, but at that time we felt it was necessary.

Um and so this year um, you know, as as a result, a number of departments proposed new positions to address some critical service needs.

Um we decided to move forward with a number of departments um or I'm sorry, a number of positions that we believed is needed to provide the level of service that our residents um deserve and expect.

And really, we view these positions as investments in terms of our long-term operational goals.

But I do want to say that we're being mindful um in terms of uh the immediate impact and trying to minimize that impact to the taxpayer.

So with that being said, most of the new positions that you'll learn about, not all but most, um, are uh being implemented mid-year.

Um we've proposed adding a communications manager, uh facilities manager, um, additional staff in our parking uh department and our parts department, and we've also added a recreation superintendent and staff for the resource center.

Uh so with that being said, I am gonna now get to the mayor's office budget.

Um I think you said page 28.

Um overall, the mayor's office uh uh budget is uh at an overall increase of 5.5 percent, and that actually does include benefits.

Um before moving forward in terms of cuts, I did want to call attention to a count 51403, which is wages and interns.

If you notice, um it's proposed at 149,001.

Uh that is not accurate.

That was a clerical error on our end.

Um that should actually be in the line below it, 51500.

Um, so respectfully I I um request that when you make amendments that you reduce the wages interns line by that amount and then add it to the line below it, wages elected officials.

Um besides salaries and wages, um we reduced various lines by 12 percent overall.

Um that includes the two digits of other services, supplies, other expenses, equipment.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Old McKelly.

Thank you.

Overall notes, you talked about the implementing of the half.

I know the mayor rattled off the number, but do you remember or can you get back to me on like how much that saves over the whole affiliated?

So for um for the general fund, it's about 420,000.

And we do have some unaffiliated employees that are paid out of the enterprise fund.

I believe that's 150 115,000 uh thousand savings.

Yes.

That's a pretty tumor.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

This might be a question for you.

I thought in years past the book also showed like how much has been used up to a certain point this year.

Yes, and it does it this year.

So yeah, I I can speak to that.

Um a couple of reasons, and um I'm not sure if CFO Enri would want to add anything.

I I think I'll cover it.

Um I don't want to get too in the weeds here because the more I talk about it, I I think the more confusing it'll be.

Um when we start our budget, the actuals were from October 31st, and the actuals are changing all the time.

So that data is not going to be reflective of it's not going to be an accurate depiction.

With that said, you can find actuals on a monthly basis on the finance on our on our website.

So it's not it's not here in a column, but it is readily available.

Um Johnson.

Thank you very much.

Could you just go through the positions again?

I didn't get them all.

Yes.

Yep.

Um, I just want to make sure.

So we've added uh communications manager.

Uh we've also added a facilities manager.

Uh we've added additional staff in our parks department.

I believe it's two park foreman.

Um in our parking department.

We've added a recreation superintendent, and I want to confirm, but I'm pretty sure it's two resource center specialists for the proposed resource center.

Yes.

I'm getting confirmation that it's due.

I just wanted to make sure.

Can I continue?

Continue.

Thank you.

These are all management positions, right?

Basically, supervisor management positions.

Um, no, no, not all, but some, yes.

Yes.

So the salaries are going to start higher originally.

They're going to be in the management salaries.

Um, where am I going to be able to find these salaries?

Um well depends.

Send it to us.

What your proposed salaries are going to be for all these new positions, please.

Yes.

I'd appreciate that.

And may I continue?

Yes, go ahead.

Okay, I'm gonna piggyback on Alderman T-Bot's question.

Because I got an email from a constituent who's really concerned about the actuals, because in every book, every time I've been on every board, we had the actuals, and they were usually around March 31st, like it was last year.

So I'm going to request through the chair for all of us on this committee that by the time we're wrapping up on this that we get a copy of the actual what's exactly left in the line items before we make our final decision on the budget, because that's only fair to see how much they have used to this point almost by the time the year is up.

And we've done it all the time in all budgets.

Okay, I think when we get to that point, the CFO, we could see how much that's going to take the effort.

Because you're talking about every employee in the city of national.

I want to I I want to see what the line items are at the end of the year.

Because when I was even on this, I was on the I was the chair the last year I was on the board of ed, and we had actuals, so we knew by the time the budget was wrapping up.

We had an idea how much was used out of the line items, because you need to see it.

Because you know, you can come to the almost at the end because it's gonna this year's budget is gonna kind of go almost to the end of the fiscal year.

And so when we're getting in June, we should be able to see what's left in each line item to see if they've actually used all the money, because if they haven't, and they have quite a bit of money left over, well, then maybe they don't need all that money for next year going into the budget, and that's called transparency.

And I think that's what we need on this because I'm looking at this, and I mean, to me, this is just a summary budget.

It's not telling me very much.

And I've done budgets between the board before here and twice on the board of education, and so this budget isn't saying very much.

I've got the last two years of the budget.

And if we go back even further, we're going to see all those actuals and how the budget was prepared.

And so I think it's only fair to us and to the citizens to be able to see exactly what's in this budget.

So that's why I'm requesting that towards the end.

And the other thing, Ms.

Chairman, that I did send an email to um CFO and right because on this budget, you don't see anybody's salaries.

There's no salaries in this budget anymore.

Not individual salaries.

I didn't see any individual salaries.

There used to be, but there's not anymore.

Last year there were none the year before that.

It was like if there were 10 positions, it would give you the salaries for all ten.

It wouldn't give you the individuals.

Well, how I don't know how much each one of them is being paid.

I'd like to see, which you know, all the department heads, what their salary is and their managers.

That's that's transparency.

The people have the right, and we have the right to know we're doing this budget for the citizens in the city.

Yes, so you can request it.

I'd like to recognize the CFO.

Thank you.

Don En Wright CFO.

Um I just like to comment on the salaries on the FTE schedule on the back in the back of your book.

Um it was compiled with um the salaries as put forward in the ordinance for the unaffiliated, and with the kind time constraint to get the budget book out to you.

We did not have the time, it's a manual process to adjust all of those salaries, but we are prepared to provide the salaries in the back of the final approved budget book.

Okay.

So there were there were actually two questions.

One was that the salaries.

Um is it possible to get a list of of the salaries as proposed in the budget for all positions in the city as proposed?

If that's a very time consuming, we can we can work on getting that together, um, but we do not have that at this given moment.

What we have is the department proposed salaries, right?

Um, in we do have those numbers available.

Plus, that would change if we made any changes to the legislation associated with getting those salaries.

The other thing I'd ask the asker of the question can we eliminate the school department?

Because that would have to be done by the school at CFO.

You can ask them when they come in.

May I respond to that?

I have their budget book already.

They have all their salaries in?

I they might.

I've been going through all that.

So we'll check on that before we don't.

We do not provide um the salaries for the uh school department.

Yeah, that's why I know.

So that's why I said separate them out.

And the other thing is the uh salaries for the new positions.

So that we'll take that as an action item.

Okay, thank you.

Can I may I just respond?

Um do you want to continue with questions?

Yeah, I'll kill you than you.

Okay.

Um I was going to say that I think that the budget book has in the nine years I've gone here, it has changed dramatically, and and for the good in most cases.

It's been a lot more clarity brought in, and that has been, you know, a lot of the work that you did, uh, Miss Karen.

So I've always appreciated that.

Um my questions were twofold.

Um you said that we had to reduce the salaries for the interns, does that mean you don't pay it the interns at all?

Um it means that we don't have any, so that's the mayor's salary, and so that should be in the line below for wages elected officials.

Yep.

So it's just switching it.

So we don't have any interns.

You're not planning on having any interns?

No, we're not.

So that becomes zero.

Okay.

Yes.

And then my second question, I think I answered.

Um, but you I know you're gonna come into personnel to talk about strategic communications as a new department.

I was looking at it for it under the mayor's office, but it looks like it's not sitting under the mayor's office, it's its own department.

Is that the case?

Yes, department 104.

Yep, and it'll only have one employee that's getting paid 122 to 11.

Yes, um, not one twenty, that's total department budget.

Okay, so there's other things in that department.

Yes.

Okay, we'll get to that.

Thank you.

Well, Brian.

Yeah, uh, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I uh I just really have a comment.

You know, I'm a citizen of the United States, and if you want to know my salary of my pension, that's my business.

It's not yours.

The thing is, yes, I was a public uh safety employee as a firefighter for 35 years.

I remember the Nashville telegraph publishing the top wage earners every single year.

I took umbrage to that, because you don't want to know why.

The telegraph wasn't in my driveway for at two o'clock in the morning when I got a call back for a three-all arm fire.

But when I went back to that three alarm fire, was I on the core uh clock?

The answer is yes.

I was doing my bloody job.

If somebody called in sick or got injured, I did the shift coverage.

We didn't call it overtime because we didn't get the overtime budget on hour one.

We got it halfway through the shift.

It became time time and half.

So the thing is when you come down to salaries and stuff, lie is figures and figures lie.

It doesn't really show really a hundred percent.

And I have a problem with that.

Because if you're gonna look at salaries, then the next question are you gonna accuse people of doing something wrong?

What is the need and what is the want?

And if you don't have evidence, yes, you can ask for the general, but when you stop putting, as what the telegraph did, stop putting people's names associated.

And I complained, and how did I win?

When I ran for office, I said, you've got to publish my name and my salary to the telegraph, and they said, Well, yeah, that's what we do.

Sunshine week, what we're gonna do.

And I said, Okay, I'm running a post.

I want to see my opponents salary.

That's equal time.

And they said, next thing you know, the whole program stopped.

So I'm very learning with this.

Where does it go?

Where does the rules of common sense and privacy begin?

Privacy begin and privacy ends.

Because unless you want to come up with an what are you telling our employees that they have milk in the system?

You know, there's people that look at the budget and fill out what they pay every single week by hours submitted.

So either somebody's lying or non-soractive.

Thank you.

I think in the past we used to list positions, not names.

Yes, yes.

That's what I'm that's what I'm looking for, the positions.

And I I also think we used to list it by how many were in that particular category.

Like if they were 10 people, it was 100,000 divided by 10, not individual.

At least we haven't done that in by individual long as long as I can remember back.

But yes, Oliver Johnson.

Thank you.

I'm not asking for the names of the employees.

I'm asking for the department heads, the director of this department.

You're not going to put the name to it.

We're just going to look at the department heads.

We're going to look at the managers, just like you do all the time, like we've done in the past.

I don't want everybody's name.

I don't want the employees' name.

I don't care about saying their names.

That's not what I'm asking for.

So you took it the wrong way.

I'm not asking for it, because I would never go to somebody's house and ring the doorbell and say, you don't deserve your money.

I'm not going to do that.

So don't get so upset about this.

And uh let's calm down.

No.

I have the right to speak, Alderman Johnson.

But the thing is, I take, you know, I didn't know where you were going to go with it.

But I'll tell you, I do take umbrage.

Uh to the city employees out there.

I got your backs.

I was there myself.

I understand.

I was harassed for years because people knew what Michael O'Brien made on the fire department.

But they weren't at the end of my driveway.

See when I get called back every time to work.

You know, it's a lot of fun getting called back on Christmas Eve.

And I have.

Thank you.

So the other thing on the salaries, it's going to be a little convoluted in the contractual raises are one thing.

The unaffiliated cost differences or something else.

So the the salaries for uh union people are in the contract.

So I'm not sure we need to publish those, but Alderman Greg.

Yes, thank you, um, Mr.

Chair Chairman.

So just for clarification, then, because I know she asked for the um my colleague um from Ward 5 asked for the uh salaries of these new positions.

Would we just group them together then and not isolate them because otherwise we would know when somebody gets hired that that's their salary, or how is that I just want to have this be like a blanket.

This is how we're going to do this, and so we have this clarification.

Yeah, I think on the new positions, we we probably want the salary because we'll be authorizing a whole new person with a whole new salary, and we don't know who it is yet.

So it's it's it's a it's the position.

On the existing people, it's a little different.

But on the in new positions, um we always want to know what that's costing us because that's an addition to the budget.

Great, thank you.

If if I'm if I may uh just respond to that.

Oh, uh if you if you flip back to the um in the back page is actually the last section of the supplemental information.

Um you'll see the layout of all of the positions and FTEs, and basically what it will look like is another column with the total.

So, for example, I'm looking at uh what is this fire rescue.

Um I think that'll be your page 246 or 247.

The first line is administrative assistant two, and there's four FTE.

So the next column will be the total of those four salaries.

Now, obviously, you will be able, even though there's not a name, you'll be able to deduce if there's one FTE, then you know who that person is, that's their salary, and that's okay.

Um I I I just I want to stress that actually the whole point of this budget book is to be more transparent.

And so this was always the intention to share salaries, but with that change that um Mayor Donchus requested, we needed to make sure that we had our our numbers right in terms of the figures, and not so much the supplemental here, because all of these supplemental pages, these are manual.

These are me.

So we're typing these pages in one by one.

Um and this is quite frankly the most time consuming part of it.

Um I know that folks, if you go to the debt service pages, don't like how small the figures are, but you know, um, we've heard from residents they want all of this information.

So um again, you know, there's never I I want to be very clear for the public, there was never any intent to skirt around salaries.

That's that that's we're happy to provide that.

Um if you'd like, I believe we can provide the proposed um the proposed salaries.

So all in this is what we are looking at for each position.

You talking about the new positions or all positions?

Uh all, yes.

All right.

Aldwin Tebow.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I mean, I think the reason we need the salaries for these new positions is a couple of things.

They're in different departments.

And just because there's new positions on there doesn't mean they have to continue to be new positions.

We we can make a decision to say we don't think we should have a facilities manager and make an amendment to get rid of that.

But you know, if you're telling me the facilities manager is gonna work for 10 grand, I might say, yeah, that's a good idea, but if he's gonna be 200 grand, I might say we need to take that off of there.

So we need to if we lump them all together, then we don't know how much they they make, and then we don't know if we should approve them or not approve them, because they are new positions in the budget.

So that's how that's how I'm looking at them.

So thank you.

All of them Kelly.

I was gonna echo similar.

I would love to see the new salaries again for that sort of um, but I also know that we just did a comprehensive study on our salaries for unaffiliated and made sure that we were benchmarked appropriately for the states.

So I don't feel like it's my job to evaluate whether we're paying people appropriately.

We already just did that and we had a full study that was independent that said this is what we're doing.

Any other questions on the mayor's office?

Thanks, Megan.

Thank you.

And you do note in the guidelines I put out if you have questions after we have one of these meetings, you can always call the person and talk to them.

If you put it in writing and ask for that in writing, I expect it to go through Donna Graham and I expect the answers to go back through Donna Graham.

So the entire board has the written answers.

The next is the board of Alderman.

That was a memo.

Um I believe that that was modified because it didn't put the ink the uh stipend in, and it's been added.

So you you all have a copy of that?

Uh so if you have any questions on the board of Alderman on appropriations on page 30, you can talk to Donna.

So next is the legal department, page 35.

I'm here.

If you have no presentation, though are there questions for attorney Bolton.

Or no questions.

He was asked to be here, so otherwise we would have just got a letter.

So somebody come up with a question.

Oh Debo?

Yeah.

Um thank you.

Uh the outside corporation council.

Is that in a different part of the budget?

When we hire special counsel outside.

Yeah.

Like last year we had 500,000.

We reduced it a little bit.

That's in the risk budget.

Risk.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Unless you want to stay and listen to the rest of the five, I will take my leave.

All right.

Have a good evening.

Next is the city.

We already covered the city clerk, so we're good with the that portion of general government.

Next is uh parking operations 166 and 168 on revenues on page 43 as well as appropriations.

I'll do that to take a seat.

Logistical question before can I ask a little justice before Ms.

Karen Lease.

We had the issue last year when we were making the digital budget that the page numbers didn't match.

Has that been fixed?

You're asking Megan?

Yeah.

Megan?

Because there's a problem.

We'd be like the page, but if you download it from online, it was a totally different page.

For the record, Megan Cairn, Chief of Staff.

The answer is yes and no.

So I was trying to explain this to CFON, right?

Um earlier today, and it's the same thing.

The more I talk about it, the more confusing it might be.

So the pages that you all have, and I believe the first 50 folks, all the pages are the same.

What happens is we'll see an edit that might need to be changed, and it could throw off the pages a little bit from the original.

Additionally, the PDF version that is posted.

So we're talking about the print.

That's we'll call that uh version one.

The PDF version that is uploaded onto our website is also formatted a little differently, um, in number differently.

That's uh version two.

Version three is the digital budget book, which allows anyone to go in and create their own PDF.

So if you're creating your own PDF from the digital budget book, your pages are gonna be all wonky.

They'll be according to your index, but not the same.

Uh this year, uh the first print and the PDF uh uploaded, probably like two to three pages off, but very much in the sit in the same nothing too crazy.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's it.

Thanks.

Parking.

Good evening.

Jill Stansfield parking manager.

I also have our violations quarter uh coordinator, Matt Downing with us tonight.

Um, and I do see a few new faces.

Um, so nice to meet you.

Um so I want to give just a quick overview of what our department does.

And this is also in the budget book, but I wanted to read it aloud so the folks that are watching TV can also um hear.

So the parking department manages and operates the city's parking system, including garages, surface lots, and on-street parking.

Core services include enforcement of parking regulations to promote turnover and access, administration of permit programs, maintenance and capital upkeep of parking infrastructure and customer service.

In addition, the department provides snow removal services within the downtown parking system to ensure continued accessibility during winter weather events.

The department plays a critical role in supporting downtown economic activity by maintaining safe, available and well-managed parking resources.

So uh with that being said, I wanted to just kind of give a quick update.

Our our parking garages are currently under renovation, and there's been a lot of uh really great enhancements, improvements with lighting, security cameras.

Uh the project is uh slated to be completed in the February of next year time frame.

So we're looking forward to that as our office right now is currently um at the hunt building.

So and our violations coordinator does spend um Thursday afternoons at the city clerk's office.

Um their office has been kind enough to lend us a chair for four hours uh during the week.

So that's been very helpful.

And Matt's done a great job kind of dealing with the you know not having an office and being able to kind of coordinate that with our customers, so that's been really great.

Um so we did we were hoping this year to come in and add the staffing that was suggested under the parking study that was done uh or completed back at the end of 2000 uh 2023, and um we did hold off because of the budget um you know constrictions last year.

We were hoping to bring those positions on this year, but understanding the the budget constraints, um we did drop that down um to make sure we were in um compliance with the three percent guideline by the mayor.

So between both sides of our house, both the operations and enforcement side, we are at the three percent for this year, and we are on target this year to meet our revenue projections for fiscal year 26.

Um then I was just gonna go through a couple of the lines that um you'll see some differences in the amounts.

Um so for property services, we were able to go down about 20,000 this year.

Our towing services line item, we were able to lower that as the uh towing contract for the city was finalized, and some of those uh tow charges will now be paid directly to the tow companies uh for vehicles that are towed.

Uh so we were able to lower that line item.

And um some of the other areas where we were able to um lower uh grounds and maintenance.

We did lower a little bit as we are under construction right now, so some of that stuff won't be um being done like it'll be kind of sort of being done under the project as far as um some of the facade cleaning and stuff like that.

So we're able to lower that a little bit.

Uh credit card fees we were also able to lower a bit because our um pay station um and our mobile payment app they are the um merchant of record for credit card transactions, so those fees are paid directly by the parker to the credit to the um to our vendor who then pays the credit card fees.

So we've eliminated that sort of being the middleman of the credit card fees.

Um so we're just bringing in our revenue now, which is good.

Uh we were able to lower our clothing line a little bit, which was good.

Um a couple of areas where we did have to go up, um snow operations.

We do um plow the sidewalks downtown, and we did have to increase uh we also do our surface lots.

We have 18 surface lots that we're responsible for.

So our uh snow contract that we do every year, we did increase that by five thousand dollars.

Um and I think that's pretty much it.

There are a couple of other smaller um increases and decreases.

So if you have any questions, please feel free to let me know.

Questions for parking, all of them in the Senate.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I actually had a question regarding your revenue.

Um excuse me, it is flat from 26 to 27.

Um, and it just feels like there's within the parking department and parking enforcement, there's a lot of um outside factors that would be affecting your revenue, especially currently uh the parking garages being under uh construction, the ongoing outdoor dining, and the whether there's an increase or a decrease in the buy-in for that.

Um as well as the parking violations.

I am I correct in understanding you brought on at least a couple new employees.

Yes, so um we actually did not bring on what we had positions that weren't filled, so we now have them filled.

All right.

Um we are actually running about a quarter ahead this year.

So last year, um, and the reason that has stayed the way it is is because our um under the parking study recommendations, we increased our fees and fines.

That wasn't done until January of 25.

So it was like a mid-year increase.

So we didn't really see the realization for that particular year.

This year we are on track to meet those numbers.

All right, so is there any estimation that 27 in terms of revenue could be higher, lower based on the factors that are directly affecting you?

I believe it's actually gonna be right on track this year.

Okay, so you do think it'll be comparable to fiscal 26.

Looking ahead to fiscal 27.

Your budget is flat for revenue.

Right.

So you anticipate fiscal 27 being so right on track with what you anticipate closing 26 weeks.

Yes, and the reason is because we increased our fees and fines middle of last fiscal year.

So I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, but um our fees and fines it would drive it up.

Yeah, so that that is exactly right.

So we didn't fully hit that last year, if that makes sense.

I think we may have lost each.

Maybe I'm not sure.

Director Cummings would like the add is two cents.

Uh thank you, uh Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

I think technically in FY26, actuals were actually a little less than what was actually uh it budgeted for by a couple hundred thousand dollars.

So um, and then I believe that was due to some of the uh fines uh and and um permit changes that came about, so we didn't give capture all the money that was originally projected, but now that that's in place, we're anticipating actually making the number in FY27, and as um manager Stansfield alluded to, they've already gotten to that point um that this year, so there's confidence that the numbers look accurate now that they've stabilized.

Thank you.

Question though, didn't we just raise our parking fees?

Is that infected in the 26 budget?

And if not, is it going to be reflected in the 27 budget?

So that's that's that's the exact issue here.

So it was uh reflected in the FY26 budget, but it was delayed in its implementation.

And so it so it happened in the budget was was written in a way that anticipated it happening faster than what it actually did.

So there was a little bit of a lag, and we've actually because it's now been done, it's gonna be more accurate moving forward.

Thank you.

Follow up Alderman Senate?

Just a follow-up comment on that.

I was actually gonna save it for uh comments at the end, but uh I guess I'm gonna complain.

Um that explanation makes sense to me.

And and this is not a complaint to you, um manager Stansfield, so don't worry.

Um but um it was noted earlier during the uh the presentation of the mayor's office budget.

Um we have a lot less columns in front of us, and you know, I I understand the the logistics of well when this was prepared, we only had numbers through October, and it's April now.

Um at least numbers through Q3 uh 331 would make these discussions go a lot easier.

These desks are only so big.

I could I've already got stuff spread out here now.

I gotta add a computer to go look up the actuals myself if I want to actually ask um intelligent directed questions, and so um I will bear that in mind going forward, but I think that this budget process is going to be a lot more tedious if we have to do a lot more background research to get the information that was previously in front of us.

That's all I've got.

Oh Kelly.

So I wanted to ask questions.

I actually had the same exact notes around why didn't you decrease the P parking meter fees or um specifically the lease garage and lots?

I'm assuming that some of those spaces are not available, so are people still paying for them?

What's going on with like at they're very much under construction?

Um Mount Downing Parking Enforcement uh violations coordinator.

Um so we did see with the change of meter fees, parking fees, permit fees, um, there was some decrease in permit activity.

Um, but the price change, the assortment of permits does balance that out.

So our permanent environment is still stable from the last year or so, and from here on out we do expect it to get better as the garages finish up.

We have more uh staff to handle additional permit uh configurations and uh other uh things that might help us manage our system.

If I may, just to follow up on that.

So I apologize, Alderman Senate.

I must have misunderstood what you were saying, but thank you, Director Cummings, for coming up and clarifying that.

I actually I actually do have my actuals through March of this year.

So if that's something you would like me to share, I can certainly share that.

Through Donna, if you would.

I do I do so and I have it um I have it broken down too as well, but our total year-to-date revenue um right now we're at 1.338.

Um, and then if you want, I can break that down further.

Um, but it does, as our violations coordinator Matt had just stated, it does balance out.

So I apologize.

I did not, I must have misunderstood what you were asking me, but we we are on track.

It's just the way the revenues coming in is different because of the the changeover.

The stenographer's benefit that 1.338 is million, right?

Correct.

Not a dollar and I'd love to know the actuals of the parking meter fees to date.

Or as of three, whatever.

It's as of March 31st.

It's uh 379,929.

Interesting.

This time last year it was 319.

Is that all just because the fees went up?

Yes.

Or because you were able to bring people on.

Say that again.

Both.

Or because you were able to bring people in.

Yeah, I think you've got to either speak up or bring your mic closer.

Sorry, the book's so big.

I know.

Um that's right.

I have one other question.

So you talked about the sidewalks, which was interesting to me.

I DPW also gets money for sidewalks.

So do you guys split it?

What if they get more money like they asked for because we had so many snow?

Do you get some of that?

So Public Works does the majority of the sidewalks in the city.

We are responsible for the sidewalks downtown.

So Main Street and the side streets and kind of the most inner part of the downtown area.

So when there's an exceptionally horrible year and we give DPW more money, that doesn't come to you.

You're you're managing downtown with the same amount of money.

Correct.

How's that going?

Um this year we did okay.

We were actually down a staff member for a good chunk of the season.

And uh luckily our violations coordinator um has been in the maintenance position previously, so he stepped up and helped out where we needed some help.

So we did okay this year.

It was it was a close year.

It was a really rough snow year.

Yes, it was okay.

Thank you.

Oh, Brian.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um Director Stanfield, uh, I just would like to commend you and everybody in the parking department for the job that you do.

It's kind of like one of these thankless jobs by people.

You're never right, you're always wrong.

You know, even though they're over the meter, you know what I mean by three hours, but anyways.

Um but that being the case, we don't really have parking for revenue as you stated for revenue generation.

It's more to keep the flush on Main Street to have fair and equitable parking for the businesses, so everybody can get you know some time and everything.

So to that regard how we technically, because the lack of strength in your division, we're leaving money, potential money in the street.

Where you say, perhaps maybe in the future, if you were fully staffed, we could have an enterprise fund where you may be self-sufficient.

You might kind of think, you know, rightly along those lines.

Yes, absolutely, and that is still the goal of the department.

Okay.

Um T bill?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I I'm gonna beat a dead horse.

Um, I mean, I think the reason why I like to see that most up to date is because it gives me a sense of were we on target last year or were we off target, and what reasons were that?

Not just I'm not talking parking in general, I'm just talking in general, because I want to know if there's something we can cut, if there's something we need to add.

And so I think that's what helps, and it does feel like it's almost like man, a part of this is missing this year, and I'm a little lost.

So now that I know I have to go to the website, I'll go there, but it's it definitely feels like we're we're a little lost here on that.

So just wanted to throw that up there.

And some of the ones that we don't really need are like the we're like zero, but there was like subscriptions, uh licenses, uh, seminars, because they hadn't occurred yet.

So there was a zero in the in the column, but it was going to be spent before the end of the year.

So and that was always explained to us.

Yeah, so I mean, salaries we definitely should have.

Um I can't think of the others, but I mean there's some that we definitely should see, yeah.

Yeah, so all right.

Um other questions for parking.

I have one.

Do you anticipate any other days where you're gonna close the garage um not the entire garage?

So I don't know if you're talking about this past Monday.

Um, I'm talking about the other question I was gonna ask is when they close the garage, do you notify the businesses in the area?

Because we do.

Yes, we do.

We notify all of our customers.

People working at the SURF didn't know, and they feel very nervous about not being able to park in the garage when they leave at night.

So the garage was never closed.

So I'm not sure if there's a specific date that you're talking about.

The night I asked them it was closed because I I came down and it was blocked off entirely, the entrance.

Do you know what day that was?

I mean, they've had to block off one at a time because they're in they're installing islands for the new gates, but they have always had at least one entrance open.

I don't know if the other one was open, but the one closest to Fort Engage, for instance, was totally closed.

Yeah, that was closed for about a week while they did the work.

The you could still walk past all the construction.

Um right now the South Transit side is completely closed.

Um, and then as soon as they do the handicap ramp, we might have some pedestrian capabilities there until they do all that work.

So when you notify those businesses, you probably should post it because if you just send the letter to whoever owns it, the people that work there probably never hear it.

Okay.

It is also any construction updates are posted on the parking page as soon as I find out about them because I know we want to keep you guys safe.

You know, there's stairs missing right now in some of the stairwells while they do their work.

So that's good info, but most of these people don't even live in Nashville, so they're not on the looking in our pages.

So understandable.

All right.

If there are no other questions for parking, thank you, Jill.

Thank you.

Next is the public library.

Department 179, revenue owner 54, appropriations on 55.

Yeah.

So good evening, everybody.

Uh Jennifer McCormick, I'm the director at the public library.

I'm joined tonight by Linda Laflamme, who's the chair of our Board of Trustees.

And uh I've been sitting here for two seconds and I've already lost my place.

Um you will see that our budget came in quite a bit below the mayor's three percent guidelines.

When we prepared our budget this year, we had several goals.

Uh, first of all, to maintain our current level of services, including our hours of operation, to begin laying down groundwork for a potential move to a temporary location, and to set aside funds for the negotiated salary increases.

And the budget you're looking at met all of those goals within the mayor's guidance, mostly because of several budget lines and salaries that were shifted to the city's newly formed facility maintenance department.

Um, specifically two full-time and one part-time position that had previously been budgeted.

Our lines for uh HVAC maintenance, buildings and grounds maintenance, and cleaning and janitorial supplies.

I'd like to give you a few highlights and happy to answer questions at the end.

This in the salary portion at maintains all of our current positions, excluding those three that are moving to the new facilities department.

There are new, no new positions added.

It includes an overtime budget sufficient to fund up to fifty 50, excuse me, 50 Sundays during the year.

And for those aldermen who are new, Sunday hours at the library are additional hours for our staff above and beyond their 40 hours.

And by contract, those are all paid at the overtime rate.

And we are also included a contingency for contract negotiations in the amount of 53,000.

On the operating side, we have a few increases.

Um in other contracted services, we added an amount in there.

We anticipate hiring a consultant to help us plan moving storage and preservation of our historical and special collections as we get ready for the renovation.

And that includes not only rare books and historic documents, but our art collection.

Utilities increased as recommended by the purchasing department based on their negotiated rates.

Software licensing and tech operations and subscriptions, those are all various software licenses, and we included a two or three percent anticipated increase in those.

And our computer budget um increased a bit.

We are moving to a laptop model for staff as quickly as possible, and for our public computers, and that will help us be more flexible in whatever temporary location we are in.

And it's also sort of state of the art in general for libraries.

It allows your space to be more flexible even in our new building.

And not included in this budget, but there's some other numbers that I thought might be of interest to this body.

Besides our appropriated budget, the library spends funds from our trusts and from the Friends to maintain our programs and services.

And in 2026, the Board of Trustees approved over 128,000 in expenditures from the trust funds they administer.

And those funds were spent on things like the study done of our HVAC system, an appraisal of our art collection, a large number of books, audio books, a good deal of digital content, and even some staff training.

For 2026, the calendar year, our friends of the library have committed $37,000 to fund programs and services.

In calendar year 2025, their commitment was more than 42,000.

And they do it by calendar year, so I can't be too precise about how the expenditures went.

And that pays for things like our museum pass program, a great deal of our concert series, incentives for our summer reading program.

They're buying a new mobile portable, forgive me, puppet theater for the youth services department and a variety of other equipment.

And I I that's it for me, Linda.

Do you want to add anything?

No, once it once again, um Jen and her staff have done a I think a fantastic job of coming in under the uh requirement and also recommendation, excuse me, and also maximizing what we need.

And this is a budget, I think as you you heard her talking that that really not only looks to the expenditures in the coming year, but is focused on the future and trying to lay that groundwork for the big changes we know are coming, such as our renovation and what happens to all stuff in the building, and where we might move temporarily.

So, no, I think questions?

All said questions, all of them said it.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, I got really excited when you were saying portable movable and then stopped.

I thought you were going to say you were bringing back the bookmobile.

Um we have ideas.

Um that aside, I I just wanted to ask a general question.

A couple of years ago, you guys had gone um you you did away with uh late fees, and I just wanted to kind of follow up on that and just ensure that that's that still hasn't been a detriment to the operations of the library.

No, it has not.

It is not.

We continue to um see materials returned in a timely fashion.

We have no more lost materials.

It's been a success.

That's good to hear.

I I will return my book soon, I swear.

Other questions seeing none.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

So that was we come in on the budget.

Okay.

Uh next on the agenda is the public health and community services.

Um they're uh 171, 172, 173, 174, 175.

A couple of them are memos that you have in your package.

Uh, community services is appropriations on 128, community health uh appropriations and revenues on 133, and environmental health is on 138 and 139.

Director Bagley, how are you this evening?

Good evening, thank you.

Um, Bobby Badley, director and chief public health official for our division of public health and community services, and I'm joined this evening by Kim Bernard, who is our chief public health nurse and Heidi Peake, who is on the uh Zoom, and we're going to cover our uh budgets that have been uh proposed.

Um, and for the division um overall, um, as the chief public health strategist for the city, um, there's been a lot of opportunity for you to hear about the work that we've been doing with our unhouse population, but there's so many other things that we do at the division, and so um you know our goal is to make sure that we have the budget to continue to provide those needed services that go across from uh babies and the cradle all the way up to our older adults uh with some of the services that we provide.

You know, with our mission of protecting, promoting, and preserving the health.

So I'm gonna go through the community services budget first.

I will say that across the board through all of the departments, we were not able to come in at the 3%.

Um and the reason is because of course of the salary increases, even though there was that change that was done.

But then there were some also some much needed uh services or some supplies that were needed.

So we're gonna cover that.

Um and so under community services, which is on uh page one thirty.

I think that's correct in your book.

128.

Appropriations.

All right.

All right, so mine's is a little different.

All righty.

Assuming you don't have one of the PDF books, you have one of our books.

It's one of the things.

I have the PDF, yeah.

All right.

Um so as we uh go through the appropriations and some of the details, you'll see there that under 51, and I'll do uh 51300.

You see that there's an overtime that um has been added there, and that's to cover the cost of hours of our staff.

Um when we do run the warming station, because it does run 24, it runs the 12 hours for the period of time that we have that open.

Um we do cover holidays, um, we cover extra hours when there's a snowstorm and we don't close the uh warming station in the 12 hour period, we might keep it open for a little bit longer, and so that's to adjust for the salaries for that staff, and that's my staff and inside.

Um, and it's also we are looking and included um additional funding there for the resource center staff as well, and so that's why you'll see that at that amount there.

Uh, the other increase that you'll see on here um under 55 where it says employee training certifications, you'll see that that's up just a little bit, and that's because we have a wonderful set of community health workers that are all certified, and in order for them to maintain that certification, they have to do certain um educational contact hours and training.

I'm also certified as a public health uh professional, so I also have to do the same thing.

So you'll see that that's up just a little bit.

And then also for other staff that are there, it's really important that we stay on top of uh as subject matter experts.

You have to continue with their education, and so you'll see that's why that's increased as well.

Um, and then you'll see under other services 55, 699, other contracted services.

That was also added.

Um, our expectation is for the resource center will have service providers that are there that may need to be reimbursed or at least compensated for time that they spend with us when they don't have sometimes they're they have restricted funds that they're working under, and this allows for them to be able to support us.

Um it also allow for us to have service providers there for the warming station as well, especially for that mental health piece, which we have found to be very very helpful, especially in this fiscal year.

So we plan to implement that for next year as well.

Um supplies and materials under 61, 6100, 611.

Uh, under office supplies, you'll see that there is an increase there as well.

Um, and that it's again to allow for us to make the purchase and supplies that we need for uh the resource center what's that is up and running.

And so my budget came in at about 17 percent over because of those additional uh things that are needed there.

Any questions, Brian?

Uh thank you, Miss Bagley with Dean.

We're increasing your division.

Yeah, I know.

You do a wonderful job, and you even go out of the board as a Nashua.

You am I correct in assisting, like if Merrimack needed a public health officer or something like that, you would send somebody up.

So, sorry, Bobby Bagley.

With the um regional work that we do, um Alderman O'Brien, that is usually funded through our grant.

So the grant activities that we receive funding for that allows for us to do the regional public health work with some of that staff.

Um because we are looked at as the lead for our regional public health regions, we do then, but that's sort of in kind that will provide some of that support services.

Our health officer does not typically work outside of the city of Nashua, but because of that subject matter expertise, we'll provide some support to other health off other health officers if they need other information.

But typically Heidi Peak and she could speak to this does not go outside of the boundaries of the city of NASHARE to provide direct services.

That would come from the other staff, the grant funded staff.

Okay, because where I was going with this, we're increasing you to the resource center, which I support.

But however, it's gonna see if we can get additional fundings from other communities if their residents are taking advantage of what the taxpayers are national funded.

So I wonder if we could surcharge is what I'm looking at.

I don't know the proper terminology, but yes, Director Bagley.

So in so and we have thought about that because again, this whole situation that our state is in with regards to services that are needed for individuals that are transit coming from different communities to the city of Nashua.

Um we do need to look like look at a statewide approach and even look at getting some grant funding that will help support the services that we provide to individuals, whether they're transiently coming through uh Nashua, um you know, or they come to Nashville and stay from other towns, and so we do have to look at some of the support from uh some of the state uh grants that are offered.

Follow up, I I agree with you 100%.

Um here Nashville is faced with a state problem in a way, and it's gonna cost locally the national tax phase to fix what the state is not doing.

But however, the 400 wise men that live up there in Concord don't see that, you know.

They're all right in a little bedroom type of communities and don't need to understand the needs and wants with one exception.

Uh but oh yes, but I'm not speaking, you know.

Okay.

All right, let me correct that.

Mr.

Chairman, can I correct that?

Correct.

399, you know.

Thanks for making me the exception.

You know, I was up there for 16 years, and they wish Nashua didn't exist.

You know what I mean?

And uh, so I understand the problem.

What the heck?

We'll have to wait for a school vouchers that's gonna really help us out.

Yeah, that's gonna work out good.

Okay.

Yes, Alderman McKelly.

Uh, thank you.

Um obviously I am very supportive and excited for the resource center.

Uh, I did have a couple questions.

I appreciate that you put it in the budget so that we are now going to be tracking it going forward.

We did put 300,000 into the fund to help start that off.

Were you planning on using that to offset the first year costs?

And then my second question is where will it be operating if 14 Mulberry Street does get bought?

We're saying it will be online until next year.

Yes, Dr.

Bagan.

So the fund that was set up for the 300,000 was supposed to be in addition to some of the support services, uh, staffing supplies that would be needed for the resource center because the resource center during the day, and then you also have uh the warming station you know at night.

So you you you that fund was supposed to help cover some of those things.

Um we are, yes, the resource center.

If we could get that up and running, I mean we're gonna do it as soon as we can, but we've heard the different projections of the timing of that depending on um you know the architect, the design, and some of all of those other moving parts, and so I'm hoping that we'll have some of this that we'll be able to implement and use some of the funding in 2027 for, but it's hard to really gauge as we talked about the timing of this of when that will actually get started.

But we're still gonna be running that warming station.

Um we're gonna actually start that earlier this year, so it's gonna cost us a little bit more than it did last year.

Um we actually funded that 100% through the opiate abatement funds.

Um we haven't gotten any new funding from the opioid abatement settlements uh at least this year.

Um, and so there is going to be the expectation that some of the funding that we have in this budget will need to use for that.

We had a great deal of donations that were offered to support uh at least some of the snacks and things that were provided.

Um but there's some other costs that we're going to, especially with comes to salaries that we're gonna need to use some of this funding for.

We're gonna start in November instead of in December, and we'll probably run uh through to April 15th as well.

But with those snow days, holidays, you're looking at increased costs, increased supply use, and all those things.

Follow up.

Follow up.

Uh thank you.

I know that the delays in opening the warming station were sometimes for staffing issues, trying to get everybody on.

So are you planning on starting a bit earlier this year in terms of getting the additional volunteers and staff on yes, Director Bagley?

So we did open on time.

So we we said we were gonna open December 1st this year, and we were able to do that.

Uh for starting mid-November, we'll just back up our process a little bit earlier.

We started in August this past year, um, and this time we'll start a little bit earlier, so we'll start probably in about July with that.

And we actually uh did a little bit of a meet uh a meeting with our uh volunte some of the volunteers and most of the staff this evening and the majority of them are willing to come back and in fact ask.

Do we have to like get off of you know payroll now and get rehired?

And the answer to that is yes, but we'll start the process early, and they just want us to make sure that we let them know as soon as the positions are open so that they can apply so that we can start on time.

Follow up.

Thank you, and thank you for all the work that you do.

You mentioned at the top that we've been talking a lot about the services for the unhoused, and I know that's been a lot on your mind.

So I would love to just give you the floor to tell me one thing that you did this year that was not connected to that that you'd love to share because you guys do great work.

Um yeah, so we had some very exciting things happen in other areas with infectious disease of which uh that was and in fact that's really that's really in in the community health department, so she can add on to that.

Um but there was quite a bit of work done with that.

We did a great deal of work with policy advocating going to the state house and speaking on speaking up on behalf of some of the uh issues that impact uh our ability to be able to do our work, and that went across every department.

So from community health, environmental health, uh the house our housing services officer and myself, we've all been up to the state house, and that is a big part of you know the core functions of pol of public health is policy development.

Uh we were also able to engage our community partners for our public health advisory council to get quite a big work, quite a bit of work done for our community health improvement plan.

We've been working on our strategic plan for uh this year, which in the budget book you'll see some of the strategic goals that we have for 20 up until 2030.

Um we're quite uh involved in a number of committees and um sit on a number of boards and sit on a number of commissions at the state house as well.

This allows for us to be present at tables so that public health is not forgotten because if you're not at the table, you're gonna be on the menu, and so we prefer to be at the table so our voices can be heard, and so that the needs and things that we are um really focused on addressing can be brought to the attention in all the spaces and places that we need to be.

So we've been quite uh busy about and around in a number of places to address a number of different issues, whether it had to do with immunizations, vaccinations, SCD, HIV, hepatitis C, um, and a lot of stuff has been around housing because that's that's the that's been the biggest issue for not just us in Nashville but across the state.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and I'll apologize in advance if you went over this.

I've been scribbling scribbling in the uh margins here, but I don't have any notes on this one.

You have a line um 6820 indirect cost allocation that in 26 was a um a negative to your um appropriations of 254 um this coming year it'll be a negative 2671.

Could you um could you speak to that a little bit?

Sure.

This indirect um cost allocation is usually the um amount, either three percent or five percent that we write um against the grants that we get.

We have a smaller number of grants this year.

Um in comparison to what we've had over the past five years during COVID, we had an excess of over a million dollars in grants that we don't have going into this fiscal year.

All right, thank you so much.

Yes, Alman Johnson.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for coming tonight, Ms.

Bagley.

All right, we've had a lot of conversations, we had great conversations lately after the meeting.

In this budget, if it was to get cold earlier this year, let's say mid-October, end October, is there enough money in here for emergency if you had to open up the warming shelter sooner?

I would say direct bagley.

Um I would say that between the um the funds that we have in the um opiate abatement funds, we could use that.

There is an expectation there should be another portion of a settlement starting.

I just don't know when that money is coming through.

So we can't anticipate that.

I do believe that it's supposed to be um in the summer.

And so, yes, that would be there would be some more funds available for that.

I am hoping that it does not get cold in the middle of October.

Thank you.

All set.

Yes.

Any other questions for community services?

Yes, all of them given.

I just one final final question.

How are you feeling staff wise with all of the competing needs?

Are you feeling like you're able to beat them or what would be a wish list if you were feeling like you're running dead?

Director Begin.

At this time right now, we are in a position where we're staff with the amount of staff that we need to have.

It's different.

The year that we had the eight community health workers, that was off coming off of the flow of COVID.

Although most of the emergent response ended in like 22, all of the rebound things that needed to happen continued on for a number of years, and so uh those eight community health workers were really important at that time.

We do find right now with the five that we have, we're able to meet the need in addressing and making connections with folks in the community.

Again, not just for uh those individuals that are unhoused, but for other individuals that we provide services to as well.

In addition to the five community health workers that we have on community services, we also have two community health workers in the community health department as well.

Thank you very much.

Well said.

All right, we'll move on to community health.

All right.

Thank you.

My name is Kim Bernard.

I'm the chief public health nurse.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to present my budget for the fiscal year 27.

Um I do want to just start off.

I've heard some comments while I was um waiting to present.

Um just want to let you know that the actuals as of 415 of my current FY26 budget have been spent down by 75.96 percent.

And we are on track to hit our revenue goal within 10 percent of what is listed.

So I'm just gonna start with revenue.

Um just I just want to preface as well that no one is turned away for ability to pay at our clinics.

We um ask for a small fee, but again, we don't turn anyone away.

We are a safety net for those individuals that need us.

Immunizations, um, that is a administrative fee.

And um, it's the same.

Public health fees, this is also an administrative fee for our sexual wellness clinic.

These fees go directly into our um special special fund that we have to cover costs regarding our sexual wellness program.

Prescription drug rebates, that is through our sexual wellness program through a company AVITA, where we are able to provide HIV prep for clients that um need it.

And we um are right now our year-to-date revenue is 73,000, and so I propose 100,000 for fiscal year 27.

Medicare um replacement or medical Medicare reimbursements are for non-immunization clients.

Um, and these is something that we've been trying to work on for several years.

Um I know I mentioned it last year as well.

So we are trying to roll that out.

We've had a few hiccups trying to get that program um trying to get enrolled in the program.

So that is um something we're hoping to roll out in FY27.

And the vaccine administration fees, um, that line is actually replaced by the vax care line.

You'll see that I had allocated $30,000 in that line, it was a lofty goal at the time.

I wasn't sure what we were going to be seeing with this program.

So currently um we are seeing we just started this program in the fall, and I'll I'll explain a little bit more of what it is in a bit.

And we have um received sixty, seven hundred dollars.

So I think I'll be I think we'll be on we'll be on track for sure for the 10,000.

So that's the um revenue.

Appropriations.

I'll skip down to the detailed items.

Um wages part-time.

That actually is covered by a grant, so we do not need that funding.

Overtime, we tried to decrease that line a little bit to stay within um closer to budget, and I ask our our employees that are um that are uh hourly to flex their time as appropriate so they are not over time.

So before I get into the nitty-gritty here, I just want to also note that we have about 320,000 in grant funding, and that the grants are flat funded, so it doesn't take into account salary increases, so there may be less in our operational lines, so I may be asking for an increase in my city budget to cover that.

Under 54 property services, both our disposal services and our security services prices have increased, so that's reflective in the proposed amount.

Equipment repairs and maintenance.

I've been tracking over the past few years, and um I was able to decrease that by a few hundred dollars.

Telephone cellular, some of our grants will not cover this cost, so that's why I've increased that by a little bit.

Mileage reimbursements.

I do have some grant funding, so I was able to decrease that by a few hundred dollars.

Postage and delivery.

Thought it would be fully covered by our grants, but I did put a hundred dollars in there to cover for the next year.

Software subscription services.

So this is our electronic medical record or EMR.

And we've had decreased funding, decreased funding in the lines for grants, and we've also brought on a new program that I'm going to speak about too, so that's why that there is an increase there.

Moving on to office supplies, decreased that line because I can I do have some money in the grants.

Medical supplies, I increased because there are decreased funds in the grants.

The vaccine and medicine line, you'll see a significant decrease, and that is because of the new vax care program.

Um we do not no longer need to purchase flu vaccine privately.

We get that through the vax care program.

So I left a thousand dollars in there to cover any medications that we may need.

Miscellaneous supplies are not some things are not covered by grants, we're not allowed to use them for specific things.

So this covers, and I've been watching our our line this year, and we are very close to that total.

Under other expenses, that indirect cost allocation is the same reasoning that Bobby gave for her budgets and program expenses and special events.

Program expenses again.

We're seeing that we are very close to hitting our limit this year, and this offsets grant funding for us so that we can utilize those funds for all of our grants.

I mean all of our programs that we have in place.

And special events was a new line that we added last year, and that is for our summer events and our Valentine's Day testing event and other events that we have that we need to purchase supplies that aren't covered under grant funding.

Um a few things that I just wanted to highlight for our that our department has accomplished this year is um, and then it'll explain a few of the lines that I previously spoke about, that we implemented an electronic medical records program.

We worked with the association of public health laboratories to connect the New Hampshire State Lab with our electronic medical record, and that has resulted in saving our staff about 15 minutes per test to put the data in.

And it's we've seen a 94% improvement with the time, the burden on the tests.

So this was the we are the first uh department in the country to implement this program through this through the association of public health laboratories.

Also, we've implemented a new hepatitis C program.

Um this is funded under the opioid abatement program, but we're pretty proud to have been rolling this out using the mobile van, and this will bridge the gap between community members and that need hepatitis C treatment and case management.

We see a lot that clients get connected and then they're lost to follow-up and they're not continuing their meds and they're not continuing to get tested to make sure that they're treated properly.

And one other thing that I wanted to highlight is that is the vax care, excuse me, the vax care program.

Excuse me.

So this excuse me.

So this program provides a more equitable immunization program for our citizens.

We we rolled this out through in the fall of 2025, and basically this is for adults only.

All children in the state of New Hampshire are covered under the state programs, but this is for adults that do have insurance.

And when I say insurance, I also mean Medicaid.

So what we were seeing was that we could not treat, we could not care for our clients that had Medicaid.

We couldn't give them vaccines through the 317 program, which is the state immunization program for those that don't have insurance or are underinsured.

So with this program, we're able to treat to treat all clients.

So we can any any individual that comes in, whether they have insurance or they don't are eligible to receive vaccines at our clinic.

And we've seen an in between September to October last year when we um rolled this program out.

We saw an 89% increase in our vaccine administration rates.

Questions.

Okay.

Good presentation.

All right.

The next is environmental health.

That's on page 138-139.

Good evening all.

Can you hear me all right?

Yes, fine.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Um I'm hoping that this doesn't lag uh and I don't sound like there's something wrong with what I'm trying to say.

Uh let's thank you for allowing us to come and uh present our budget, and uh just give you some details about what we do some inner workings in our departments.

Um I'll start with the revenues on I believe that's 140.

Um we have um we've received revenue from licensing the pools and the spas, food service licenses, solid waste haulers, uh septic license fees, plan review fees, that's primarily for divisions, uh pre-planning board tech review, and then violation revenue.

Um that has jumped uh quite a bit, but it is due to some ongoing non-compliance with um abilities, and unfortunately, the only thing a lot of um food service people will pay attention to is a monetary fine.

Our fines aren't huge, but um a lot of that also is due to uh concerns about rodents and some inactivity of not responding to immediately to um infestations and cleaning um making sure that there is no source of food or water for the rodents.

Um let's see, and I'll skip to the detailed pages.

Um we have um an overtime budget.

We typically use that money for um weekend events where we go out and inspect the food service and after hours emergency calls, and um as Alderman O'Brien was referencing, those calls happen uh very sometimes when not real optimal times.

Um let's see, and then I'll go right down to um 53 professional and technical services that went up by a whopping 100 according to our mosquito vendor.

This is only for mosquito trapping identification and then transport to the New Hampshire lab.

Uh, and it's really worth every penny.

We tried to do that years and years ago in-house, and it took um two FTEs about two days every week to work on that alone.

So this is money well spent.

Um let's see, equipment repairs and maintenance.

That just gives us a starting point to try and address something.

Um similar to our vehicle repairs and maintenance.

We have two newer cars.

Uh so those are really good.

We had um our third older car needed some work, but um they're well maintained thanks to DPW.

Um let's see, down to other services, 55 telephone cellular, that went down by 600.

Uh, our dues and memberships are important so that we can um maintain um national environmental health association is where we are credentialed, and um membership is very beneficial uh to avail ourselves of trainings, etc.

My sense we do have the three vehicles, but for like an emergency call, they will get much for that, and two of us drive around a fair amount, and so we don't have city vehicles signed to us, so that's what that increases for.

And then 55,400 conferences and seminars.

And that is to support any of those niha credentials.

Let's see.

Postage went down a little bit.

And protective clothing, that's that's a little thing to have the city seal and an identifier when we're going into places.

And the rest is largely the same.

The miscellaneous, there are a lot of things that aren't specific to those lines, like the paper that we use for printing licenses, or if we were purchasing a stamp for something, those types of things.

And then laboratory equipment that is kind of a placeholder that gives us we'd have to come back to the board if one of our big pieces of equipment no longer worked.

So that just starts that for us.

And see, I'll talk a little bit about what we've done over the past year.

We finished out a NIHA, National Environmental Health Association and FDA flexible model grant.

Um 2025 TRAF 2 development.

And so we've met a couple of standards, partially met a couple of standards, and had you know their improvements to the department, they help us standardize things a little bit.

And it's been beneficial for us.

And we're trying very hard to try to protect people's tenancy.

We don't want more people to be just lose their housing and try to scramble to, you know, we we try to protect that, and I think that just having an awareness of what's going on.

It's important that we we do that and be mindful of that because there are some agencies that expect expect that we're going to condemn property.

Um we are very cautious about doing that in this current economy.

Um rodents again, we we try to get in front of that.

We've had some uh pretty impressive stations uh on the periphery of Nashua where it's a little bit more um suburban, and they're everywhere.

Um Northeast is especially impacted, and um we've learned a lot for Rat Academy in New York City that uh a lot of our guys have um taken some of their online trainings, so it's very helpful.

It would be really nice if they would go away, um, but we don't see that in the near future, and we we give a lot of advice guidance to things that are not under our um not under our jurisdiction, and uh so let's see, and done.

Oh, Bobby just texted me, so I wasn't supposed to say that.

Um of the big things that I really appreciate back to the budget is and I I skimmed right over it because we have put money in for our software, and we're very excited about this.

The current program Civic Government does not work for our needs, it's a very duplicative software, and so are hoping to have something that is tailored specifically for our needs, and will also support um better um better effectiveness.

It we're the software you using, you go through one screen, then you go to another, then you go to another, and it takes a long time for our inspectors to come in and get there, and and it takes a long time to process a license.

There are many steps to it, and uh this will move us away from paper inspections.

We are to the best of my knowledge the last remaining entity within the state who is conducting paper inspection.

So sorry for that blip, and I believe that's about it, other than um we license about 525 food service facilities and over a hundred pools and spas.

And we are in the complaint season, so you respond to all kinds of uh issues about that, and we our rabies activities keep us busy.

So if anyone has any questions, I would be happy to.

Actually, I got a call from Alderman Morgan this this afternoon, and I think you just covered it, but I just want to be sure it was my understanding in talking to her that when you go out and do an inspection, you're writing on a piece of paper that has a carbon copy associated with it, and then you give a copy of to the restaurant, and then you or place your inspecting, and then you have to go back and manually add it into the computer, but with the new software, you'll just add it into the computer directly and be able to print it.

Um so I think you covered that, but it sounds like it's in your budget, so I'm sure she'll be happy.

Thank you.

Questions?

Old woman Kelly.

Well, my first question was gonna be about the sub subscription, so thank you for covering that.

Uh like my one big circle on the page.

I was like, what is this for?

Um, but thank you for the work that you do.

I had a question, it's just a little weird in your performance measures.

For FY24, you said you had 146 pools, but then in the following years, only 49.

Did the city lose 100 pools?

Um wait a minute.

It's on F-Y24.

You yeah, it's under your highlights and the performance measures.

A lot of polls.

Okay, the no, those are um this number of inspections, and uh so and then FY25.

Uh, I think we were short staffed, and we haven't hit pool season yet this year, so as of this date now we have 49 again.

I see.

Um, but no uh we try to do the outdoor ones annually and then go back for site visits, and then uh the indoor ones are sometimes a little trickier, especially the spas.

So we try to do those a couple of times a year, and based on any complaints that we receive.

Understood, thank you.

All said, yep.

Any other questions seeing none?

Thank you, Director Bagley and Staff.

Thank you very much for your presentation.

Thank you.

I think all right, that uh wraps up what we're covering tonight.

So Alderman O'Brien, yes, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I would like to make the motion to table uh 26-28, which is the uh budget for the city of Nashville for fiscal year 2027 to the next meeting of the uh budget committee.

All right, motion on the floor is the table, the budget till the next meeting.

All those in favor signify by saying I proposed motion.

Carries our next meeting is the 5th of May, and that's education.

Our next meeting is the 5th of May, and that's education.

So might want to uh hone up on questions for that meeting.

Okay, new business ordinances.

There are none.

Table and committee.

There is none.

General discussion.

Seeing none.

Remarks by Alderman.

And we should have public comment, but unless the CFO wants to speak, there's nobody here, so no public comment.

Alderman O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I would like to make a motion to adjourn.

Motion on the floor is to adjourn.

All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Okay.

Motion carries.

We're adjourned at 850.