Bristol.

You're on mute.

All right, let's try this time.

Can you hear me?

I can hear you.

Yep.

Okay.

All right.

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

It's April 27th, 2026.

We're in City Hall.

It's 7 p.m.

The in the automatic chamber, and the meeting's been duly noticed in two places, including the city's website in accordance with the requirements of RSA 91-A.

Would the clerk please call the rule?

Absolutely.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Alderman Johnson.

Present.

Autumn Cable.

I am here.

Other than here.

Woman Kelly.

Altuman O'Brien is present.

Otherwise Senate, I'm here.

And Chairman Otterman Dow present.

Okay.

Yeah, also in attendance.

COO of the school department.

Paula Johnson.

Yeah.

I already called sure.

Okay.

First item on the agenda is public comment for only something that's on the act being acted on this evening on the agenda.

And that is the school principal's contract.

We won't be discussing anything else.

Is there any public comment?

Seeing none.

Communications.

There are none.

Unfinished business.

There is none.

New business resolutions before us this evening is odd-26-021.

Approving the cost items of a collective bargaining agreement between a National Board of Education and the National Association of School Principals from July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2030.

Mr.

Chairman, I would like to make the motion to recommend final passage.

Motion on the floor is recommendational passage.

Sure, thank you.

You can hear me okay now.

Yes.

Okay, excellent.

Good evening, everybody.

Um, so the contract that is in front of you this evening again is the NASC, which was our principal's innocence assistant principals contract.

Uh this is a four-year contract.

It currently consists of about 42 employees.

Again, this is all of our principals and assistant principals through the school district.

A couple things just to note.

Um in year one, which is fiscal year 2027 of the contract, uh, we are eliminating some steps.

Um, so this contract now will be uh 10 steps in total for all of um the units that fall with under NAS.

Um, in year one, we also are giving a slightly higher increase to our assistant elementary principals in order to go ahead and do some retention and uh recruit into these positions.

So in year one, it is slightly higher for that factor.

Again, the assistant elementary principals are getting a slightly higher increase, and all other employees are getting a three percent increase in year one in year two through year four of the contract.

You were looking at roughly a two and a half percent increase.

Um couple other things to note that assistant elementary principals to go ahead and hopefully support that increase that they're getting in year one.

We will go ahead and extend their workday.

So our um assistant elementary principals currently work a hundred and ninety nine days.

We will go ahead and extend that to 204 days.

The other thing to note is uh year one of the contract looks pretty substantial from an overall increase.

If folks are following along with me on the costing sheet, if you look at fiscal year 2027 and kind of move midway down the page, you're seeing an overall percentage year over year, and that's rate around a 60 percent.

That looks a little alarming.

The reason for that is the educational benefits.

We did go ahead and negotiate that if every eligible principal decides to go ahead and do some professional development or some educational benefit, they could get up to $500 per employee.

If everybody does it, it would be a maximum of $20,000.

Um, so that is why in year one there's a pretty substantial increase.

Again, not everybody sometimes does uh the professional development, but it's there and it should be included in the cost items.

And then as you see year over year, you're sitting right around uh 3 uh.4, 3.3, 3.5% increase, but that does not include the benefits.

I'd be happy to answer any questions if there's questions at this time.

Any of the ultimate, have any questions?

Alliman Johnson?

Yes.

On the first year, what is the increase?

The percentage?

Yeah, so the percentage on year one for fiscal year 27.

Uh, right at the top, you'll see a 5.7% increase in totality.

That is just for uh the base pay.

And then if you look at the other costs, which is your longevity, your additional hours, your educational benefits, that's where you're seeing roughly that uh 66%.

How much so in totality year one is a six percent increase.

Yes, follow-up.

I yeah, I lost what you said, the percentage, it just didn't come through.

Eight, what was the percentage overall overall percentage in year one without benefits is a 6.02 percent.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, and the question I always ask is this uh increase in cost uh is covered under your budget request for FY27.

That is correct, yes, it is okay.

Any other questions on seeing none over here?

Oldman Johnson Johnson?

Yeah, thank you.

I know that it's not kind of a question, it's more I think of the comment.

Is that I know you can't do a two-year contract because you'd be negotiating all the time.

And a three-year contract is more beneficial, but how do we know as we're going out in the years, what happens if we can't afford these contracts that things in the city um just don't go right to pay out these contracts.

And you know, I guess what my problem is because I've sat with these contracts on the board of and the board of Alderman in the past, and I was on the principal's contract negotiating team, and I was also on the custodians.

And my concern is that you know the percentage that we start out with, because when you start out with this percentage, every union, if it's high, it's gonna start out usually at that percentage, and we watch it go out, and we watch all these increases and the benefits and the steps, and it gets to the point that eventually you're paying more, and we have to retain our employees, but you're paying more in salary and benefits than you're being able to pay in the rest of the city because what is the percentage of the budget?

Most of it, it's usually about 80 to 85 percent of the budget is salary and benefits.

So and when you look at this on the payout on this, this is high on the principals because the system principals have to catch up to the principals, and and then what's gonna happen is that when the teachers come, they're gonna get another step increase and it's gonna rise, and then the principal's got to get higher because management has to make more than if it was your hourly employees or your lowest salary employees.

So I'm not gonna be supporting this tonight.

So the answer your first question the only people that can change this contract would be the board of education in concert with the principals union.

I know because it's a contract, the only way you could save money would be to reduce people.

Um the other part is the first year is because the assistant principals across the board are being asked to work five more work days.

So uh we have to if you're gonna work the days, you gotta pay them.

Question Alderman Senate.

Uh yes, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh, through you to uh Mr.

Gray.

Uh this could be a silly question, but it's just something that jumped out at me.

I was hoping you could speak to it.

Under the other salary costs, it looks like year over year everything has a little bump in it, but I noticed from 28 to 29.

Um you've got a uh it stays flat.

How did that manage to stay flat where everything else has a little bump or a spike in it across the way?

Mr.

Gray?

Yeah, that's great.

Yep, that's great question, and I'm not sure if it came through.

I apologize, the school vacation, so we're traveling this week.

But with that being said, in fiscal year 2027, right?

You see that if you're following along on the cost of the city.

Right?

And that's because of the educational benefits.

In year two of the contract or FY28, you see a little bit of an increase based off of the forecast as of now, based off of the employees who were in play.

You'll see a couple more payouts in longevity come through in FY2028.

Same thing in FY29.

You see another principal again, as long as uh that individual stays, you see uh payout um in longevity, another person qualifying um in fiscal year 29, and then in fiscal year 30, you actually have two more folks that are qualifying for that first longevity payment.

So that's why it looks um a little misleading in the sense of it's a lower percentage from fiscal year 28 to 29 in totality.

Um, because you do have a couple more folks who are qualifying for longevity.

All right, perfect.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions?

None.

Okay.

Motion on the floor is to recommend the full board final passage of R 26021.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Nay.

Motion carries.

Okay.

New business ordinances.

There is none.

We're not taking anything off of the table this evening.

General discussion.

Seeing none.

Public comment.

You have three minutes, please give your name and address for the record.

My name is Bill Ferrio.

My home is number 35 in the Inrock Road.

So I picked up my copy of the mayor's budget, the budget book a couple weeks ago.

And I'm flipping through this thing, and there's no actuals in this book.

There's no basis at all for any of these numbers.

Now I know you talked about this internally here, but this is kind of useless.

You should reject this immediately.

So I contacted the mayor's office and had email conversation with uh Megan, who I guess is the mayor's chief of staff, and she told me the same thing that she told you that there was the actuals not in the book because they started early, and whatever.

There was no good explanation.

It makes no sense.

She did say the same thing.

She told you that eventually when they get around to it, they're gonna put add actuals to the digital book online someplace.

This is ridiculous.

You should have rejected this immediately.

You cannot do a professional review or develop a budget without looking at historical actuals, not just for this year, but for preceding years as well.

How did they develop the budget without looking at actuals?

If they started several months ago before the before actuals were developed, what did they use?

I mean, you should have no confidence at all in this.

So I asked Megan, can I have a spreadsheet?

And her response to me was no bill, there is no spreadsheet.

So there is a spreadsheet, and I remind her that the tool that they use can output a spread, can convert to a spreadsheet very easily.

So it's concerning that the mayor's chief of staff doesn't know how to use the budget tool.

So she sent me the spreadsheet eventually.

You should ask for the spreadsheet.

And if you can create the spreadsheet, which you can, it's very simple to add columns to that spreadsheet to show historical actuals.

She can go in there and manipulate it and add actuals to date for this year and actuals to date for preceding years.

I'm not gonna ask her to do that because she'll turn it into some right to no thing, and it will take forever.

But this is ridiculous for you to try and review the budget.

One minute based on this book.

It's useless.

Let me show you one more thing.

Here's the mayor's priorities in developing his budget.

No actuals, no basis for any of the numbers.

But on page 167, top of the page.

Big color photograph of trash.

That was important.

That was one of his priorities to get this in the book.

He didn't want you to see the actuals.

He doesn't want any basis.

It's useless.

You talk about line by line.

You can't do anything with this ball.

30 seconds.

You can't.

You talk about scrutiny.

This there's no scrutiny you can do with this book.

You really have to start over.

And ask her to update the book to show actions.

Thank you.

Lori Ordelano.

Everything that Bill said here I concur with.

I don't understand why we don't have spend down where we are, where we stand in the budget.

This city has got a 400 million dollar budget, 300 and something million dollar budget, and you don't have any actuals in here.

You don't have spend down in where you are.

It's absurd.

I mean, it's so irresponsible.

I really think the finance office is a total dumpster fire.

And your CFO is absolutely the wrong person.

You obviously couldn't hire somebody who is a qualified CFO, and we took what we could take.

We're in trouble.

This should be very problematic to all of you.

Secondly, at the first meeting, it was addressed about salaries, making salaries public.

I wrote it on email to get all salaries for the entire city of people.

City of Rochester, I sent you the email.

Totally public on their HR site.

Every individual, their position, really wonderful spreadsheet.

Goes all the way out with benefits, every position.

Anyone who feels that as a city employee, you don't want somebody to know your salary, get out of city business.

Because all over the state, those are given.

And my grandfather was a firefighter.

So I know how hard firefighters work and the hours that you have to keep when a call comes in.

But you know what?

You're still a city employee.

And I want to see all the management positions.

We have management positions in this city where the people are managers managing nobody.

Your finance office is one of the first places you ought to look.

Your community development office is the place you ought to look.

I believe you've got 40 million dollars of fat in this budget.

Or and let's talk about legal.

Okay, why is it the legal budget never goes up?

In seven years since I've been here, the budget is pretty much flat line.

But Lori has inflicted a tremendous amount of damage on the city with her legal cases.

How would you see that?

How do you find it?

You can't.

Because Bolton buries all of that stuff all over the place.

And it's not done correctly.

Why do we have an overlay account for assessing?

No town or city in this state has an overlay account.

You take our tax dollars, you peel it out of this budget, you put it in a private space for half a million dollars to pay out attorneys on abatements.

It's friends paying friends.

It's Bolton running out the bill to pay his friends around the city who are doing abatement work.

Manchester handles their abatements in one year.

You go down to the um clerk's office and look at those files, they go out three, four, five years that abatement fights are going on.

Total freaking waste of taxpayer money.

Contracts, I asked them to give me Bolton, all the contracts of people hired for services.

I learned HR.

Bolton hires a uh employment specialist.

She's been paid 50,000 in the last two years to deal with all your issues.

Never given to me.

You're too focused about the damage I gave and not focused on the damage you're doing.

This budget is a joke.

Any other public comment?

Seeing none.

Remarks by Alderman, Oldman Johnson.

Thank you very much.

Um, I just want to let everybody know because when it was when I had asked for all this, the managers and the salaries of the employees in the budget book.

I was told we couldn't do that, but I got, like I said, I got the Board of Edge complete um printed budget book and the names every employee with everybody's salary.

I checked with Dory Clark, and she said every employee's name and all that is all public information with um the budget.

I just want to say that many of us around this question was upset too, but the fact that we got this thing called the summary budget, that there was no actuals, and I sent you, Mr.

Chairman, a list of what we discussed that night.

And um, I'm looking for March 31st, but I'm really looking for May 31st for the end of the year.

I'd like to see their spend down.

I want to see what each account has left, because that's going to tell us whether or not they're asking for too much money or not enough money.

Um I'm not happy about with this with the budget.

I think that um we really need to take a look.

But for a mayor to present a budget with nothing in there, it's pretty sad at this point in time.

And it's not like you, Mr.

Chairman, and other members of this board have never had and had budgetary.

And I expect more from the mayor because he's seasoned here that he should have known better, that he has to provide the board with all this information because again, and I'm gonna say it over and over again.

We are here representing the people, and it shouldn't be party line, it should always be nonpartisan in this chamber because when we ran there was no D, no R, or no I next to our names on that ballot.

And we should be working here as a team for the good of the people of this city.

So I hope come where we're in budgetary time that we're gonna work as a team to make sure we're not spending more than we have to and giving big tax bills because I can't consciously give my constituents an 8% increase after years of increases and our reassessments on our property.

I think it's time that the people of Nashville get a little bit of a break in their taxes this year.

Thank you.

So you had sent me a request for information.

I requested it and was told it would be provided, and I sent you that email.

Yes.

So the information that you requested will be coming.

Thank you.

I appreciate this.

I just want to let the other members of the board know that I sent it to.

I didn't want to make it a round table, Robin.

Yeah, and when that information comes in, it will be distributed to everybody on the board, not just budget.

No, I know.

We share.

Alan Thibault.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I mean, I I don't want eight percent either, but it's not that the other towns and cities in the state aren't way over budget and way over tax increases too.

They are so I I just I'm not looking to get to eight percent.

I don't that's not my goal.

I don't want it to be eight percent.

Um but it's a problem that every town and city is having this this term and probably the last one as well.

So um it's not unique to Nashville.

It's not like Nash was going crazy when every other town and city in the state is like just you know, giving out one percent tax increases.

That's just not happening.

Um, some of them are up to like 13 percent, which is just nuts.

Um, and you know, Meghan Karen is the chief of staff of the mayor, and I just uh just want to say that she does good work, and so I you know uh I don't want her name to to get dismirched dispersed or whatever that word is um because I think she does a good job.

So anyone else?

Also, she's covering all aspects of the mayor's office right now.

The mayor's out of town.

And most of that information shouldn't be coming out of the CFO, not not of somebody working in the mayor's office.

So exactly the um CFO is is working on the answers, and we will have more information soon.

Anything else?

Seeing none, Alderman Senate.

Motion to adjourn.

Motion is to adjourn.

All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, motion carries, we're adjourned at 7.22 p.m.