And the first item we have a couple items.

We have one item before the uh public hearing on the budget.

I mean the wrap up on the budget.

So but we do have public comment.

Anyone would like to speak in public comment on anything that's active on the agenda this evening.

Uh yes, thank you.

My name is Fred T-Boom, and I don't intend to come to any more budget meetings, but just a wrap-up.

So what I did is I mentioned the uh during public hearing, I mentioned the uh tax rate.

So I went and sharpened the pencil, did some more calculating and turns out that uh given the proposed budget, you're facing a tax rate increase of 7.95%.

Now I may be up by a few tenths of a percent on that because uh donor and right to CFO will have more accurate data since you feel like to note the exemptions, but now use the value that's on the MS1 form, which assigns a settlement value of the city of 16 billion, got 16 billion.

So 7.95 percent tax rate increase is a very large number.

To get this number reduced down to 3%, which I think is a reasonable number and limit for rate of inflation, you've got to cut $14 million, and a rough rule to use is it's about $2.89 million dollars for every percent and either increase or reduction in the tax rate.

2.89 million.

Now I suggest that uh you ask uh CFO and right to produce the actual calculation that should have an actual exemptions and slightly more accurate figures.

But this is a sad situation.

8% on top of 6% last year, it's just unacceptable.

You have to cut, and then I can suggest some cuts.

I think you need to cut the school department by bottom line by about five million dollars.

You heard that the top level in the school department is a highly paid and uh redundant positions in terms of what they do.

That came out of the public hearing.

Uh they never addressed the uh the administrative staff, they only laid off two people, I think, and the 35s.

The other cut you should do in administrative services of about 1.5 million.

That is the second largest increase.

I think it's just an attempt by uh Cummings to uh power his department.

It's I think it's over three million dollar increase, a ridiculous increase.

1.5 million cut in the administrative services, then cut from all the other departments another 1.5 million, and you're at uh six million.

No, you're at eight million, and where do you get the remaining six million?

You get that from a transfer from the fund balance.

It's a large transfer, but that's how you get to 14 million again.

Five million dollars school department, one point five million dollars administrative services, one point five million of the other departments is six million dollar transfer.

That would be acceptable if you think that spending all this money is appropriate to do a survey of the city and find out what city residents think about tax increase.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else public comment?

See new one communications.

Uh we have uh from Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services and Don Enright CFO regarding communication reduce in fiscal year 27 budget down by 288,679 dollars through a technical amendment.

There being no objection, I'll accept the communication and place it on file.

Without objection, I'd like to suspend the rules to allow for three documents that were received from CFO and right after the agenda was prepared.

Uh trust fund zero balances closed, proposed closures for trust funds and trust fund financial report as of March 31st, 2026.

There being no objection, I'll accept those and place them on file.

Unfinished business.

Nine first item on the agenda.

Discontinuing 11 expendable trust funds.

Mr.

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

Okay.

The motion is to recommend to the full board final passage of 026039.

Are there any questions?

I think we had an explanation of the public hearing, but uh is there any additional questions?

Seeing none, please uh call for the vote.

Okay.

We have to do it by roll call.

By roll call.

Um large, Alicia Greg.

Yes.

Alderman Derek Tim Thibodeau.

Yes.

Sorry, Dave Messenger.

We missed some all of the I'll get it someday.

Um Paula Johnson.

Yes.

Alderman at large.

Michael O'Brien votes.

Yes.

Alderman Tim Senate.

Yes.

And Alderman Dowd.

Yes.

You have one.

Six.

Okay, the motion passes.

New business ordinances.

Um for us this evening.

Oh, there is none.

Yeah.

Table in committee.

Um Mr.

Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to uh move, remove from the table uh 26028.

Okay, the motion is to remove our 26028, the budget from the table.

Any discussion?

No discussion.

No discussion, I think.

Sorry.

Um the clerk please call the rule.

Audiment Greg?

Yes.

No.

Yes.

Paula Johnson.

Yes.

Alderman O'Brien votes yes.

Alderman Senate.

Yes.

And Alderman Dowd.

Yes.

You have six years.

Motion carries.

All right.

So first item is um also before us this evening is R-26-028 relative to the adoption of the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget for the City of Nashua, General, Enterprise Special Revenue, and Grant Fund.

Mr.

Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to amend R-26028 by replacing it with the golden rod copy of the amendments proposed by CFO and right.

Okay, the motion on the floor is to uh approve the amendment 026028 to the mayor's budget or the goldenrod copy.

All the I mean CFON right, do you want to have discussion?

Thank you.

So in front of you this evening, I have um compiled a memo outlining um some of the information that was requested during the budget hearings.

Um attached to the memo, you'll also find two schedules, and um one of the schedules is just the golden rod with additional information to help um navigate through the budget and in relation to where these adjustments um have been made and the total amount of the adjustments for each department um to correct the previous um information about the FICA MEDI and pension amounts, they have not been reduced.

Uh they have not been adjusted with this amendment, so the numbers have been provided in schedule A for all of you to have if you so choose to amend further as we go through this process.

Schedule B is actually a schedule of the salary adjustments that have been made between from the department recommended to the mayor's budget, and um it has been broken out between the position adjustments as well as what the unaffiliated adjustment of no step being included by department so as we go through this evening.

Um I foresee that we will be accepting the golden rod as presented and then further making um amendments as you so choose.

Question the Alman Johnson.

Thank you very much.

So let me get this straight.

So this copy that we just have now, which was over here.

So any salary increases in this budget has been adjusted out.

So let's say hypothetically, somebody got an adjustment of $7200.

Is that actual in this budget, or the adjustment is over on here that they didn't get that actual increase?

Is that right?

Don right, CFO.

Um let me just make sure that I understand the question correctly.

Um your question is the schedule B that has been provided to you.

The adjustments that are there are those salary adjustments in the printed proposed budget.

May I continue?

Okay.

So anything that's on here is in this budget.

So the adjustments were made when you made the budget.

I was just gonna ask you.

Done and right.

CFO the position adjustments and the unaffiliated adjustments have been made to the budget.

The FICA Medi intention have not.

I'm not worried about that at this point because I don't deal with that.

I don't I just look at what the gross figure is gonna be, not the net figure.

Thank you very much.

That's why we don't have phones in the channel.

Okay.

Okay.

Are you all set, Alderman Johnson?

Yes, thank you very much.

Any other questions?

All right.

So the motion on the floor is to replace the mayor's budget by replacing it with the goldenrod copy of R26028.

Mr.

Chairman, yes, I don't think replaces the right word.

I think you want to amend in accordance with okay.

Amend our 26028 by replacing it with a goldenrod copy.

There are any additional place.

This is important to get right.

You can't replace this entire book with that few pages of the goldenrod copy.

Okay, you have to amend this in accordance with what is written on the goldenrod copy.

So I'm just reading what was on here.

So that's I don't have need to it, but all right.

We we are very likely to be in court over this.

It has to be done correctly, sir.

All right, so motion to amend our 26028 with a goldenrod copy.

Any additional questions?

Seeing none, would the clerk please call the roll?

Sure.

Alderman Greg.

Yes, Alderman Thiberough says yes.

Uh Alderman uh Paula Johnson.

Yes.

Yes.

And Alderman Dowd.

Yes.

We have uh one, two, three, four, five, yes, it's motion carries.

Um did you want to give us an update now on where we stand relative to the numbers and the percentage?

Certainly.

Done and right, CFO.

Um so the total budget, uh, general fund budget right now is 383,999, 636 as stated in the goldenrod, which is a 6.34 percent increase over FY26 budget.

All right, still does anyone have any questions before we started within the from the mayor?

Yes, Mr.

Chair.

So I first just wanted to thank all of our department heads for coming in and uh helping you out with uh any questions you have for them.

So I usually just stop in on the first night of the wrap up to see if you have questions.

I when I was an alderman, I never loved it when the mayor stuck around and argued over various changes that the committee wanted to make, so I probably won't do that.

But uh if you have questions, I can answer them now.

If you don't, you know that's fine.

Um you wouldn't necessarily have anything you wanted to direct to me, but it's possible.

So here I am.

Any questions for the mayor?

Alderman Johnson?

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms.

Mayor, for being here this evening.

I'm sure you have better things to do than to sit down with us.

Oh, good, then you'll enjoy being with us tonight.

Um the strategic communications manager.

How important is that to you?

I mean, I think it would contribute to our ability, our as a group, ability to communicate with the residents about what's going on.

I mean, one thing that we've definitely suffered from is the uh reduction, I don't want to say demise exactly, but the reduction of coverage as a result of the telegraph going once per week rather than daily.

I mean, there was a time when every committee, you know, the board of alderman in general was covered rather intensively, but so it is very difficult for people to figure out what's going on.

And uh there is you know social media, but most of that is people, I mean, some of it, let's put it that way, is people saying things that are you know aren't even true, uh, you know, no basis for it.

So I do think it would help both the Board of Alderman and the you know, this administration, the people that work in city government to be able to communicate in that fashion with uh with residents.

Follow up.

Yes, thank you.

Don't you have an events planner and a communications person in your staff?

Well, there's a person who spends a little time doing um communications, but uh basically she's working on um you know economic development and uh these events.

I mean, the effort of city events is to you know expand the activities, build build a stronger business climate, build a stronger uh downtown economy, and uh which is an important part of uh the small business economy in in Nashua, add jobs, provide livings for people.

So as you'll see this year, there's a great increase in the uh things going on downtown, and so that's her primary focus.

May I continue?

Follow-up?

Yes, thank you.

But isn't that what we have the economic development director doing the same thing that you're kind of describing here, downtown jobs, um which are we overlapping here?

Because if there's an overlap, then we don't need to pay the economic development director as much as we're paying her if we're gonna overlap, or she the assistant to the economic development director, because I'm trying to get this sorted out right now, because I don't see jobs coming, and I haven't seen businesses, and I've been asking that for a long time, even before I got on the board from the economic development director.

And that's part of her job description, which I've read very carefully.

And the person you have in your office is kind of doing the same thing.

And so I'm struggling to fund this position at this point in time.

Mr.

T Boom says almost 8% increase.

Ms.

Zenright says 6.34.

Well, there's six or eight, that's way too much to ask the citizens of the city at this point in time to pay more.

So I'm struggling.

It doesn't sound like a lot, $50,000, but it is because you take the $50,000 and then you add your benefits on top of that, because I'm sure we're going to probably have to offer health care if they don't have health care, and we're gonna have to offer anything else.

So $50,000 is just one piece of the puzzle.

So I guess I want you to convince me why I should keep this position in rather than making the motion to eliminate this position.

Well, I'm not sure I'm gonna convince you, but um in response to those questions.

Um Mr.

T Boom's 8%, he was referring to the tax rate, the 6.4 that uh Ms.

Enright is speaking about is the increase in the budget.

Uh but Mr.

T boom is is you know, we don't know exactly, but he's close regarding what the tax rate could be.

Um but specifically uh, which is in line with a lot of in terms of a 6.4 percent increase.

It's in line with cities and towns in New Hampshire given the skyrocketing costs that we and they are facing.

But specifically you've asked about this um person who works with the economic development director.

I mean, most cities of our size have a much much more effort, much you know, more people in economic development than we have.

So you're we're saying we have what, a person and a half, a person and three quarters.

Um typically, you know, it's much more than that.

And so uh and I think that in terms of your asking if the efforts are being double you know overlapping.

Um these things take a lot of time.

I mean, and especially these events that we're trying to uh stimulate.

News b new businesses have located here, like for example CAN 1.

They they employ a couple hundred people.

They're talking about expanding that.

Uh, this is over on Burke Street, they've located here in the last couple of years.

Um there are other businesses we could point to.

I mean uh there's new businesses who have opened downtown and the like.

But going back to um these what you've referred to as the overlap, um I'm saying that most cities of our size have a greater economic development staff than what we do.

May I just continue?

Continue.

Yes.

And I know you brought up other cities and towns that that taxes um probably going up higher.

I represent what Fiverr Nashua, so what Merrimack goes up and what Manchester goes up, I'm focusing on Nashua.

Well, that's good.

And I mean I agree with you that 8 percent is is all is very high.

That would happen.

The question that you know that you, as a member of the budget committee and the board of Alderman confront is okay, you can cut $50,000, but that won't that, I mean it sounds good or whatever, but it but that will not reduce the tax rate.

If you want to reduce the tax rate, you've got to do what Mr.

T Boom said.

You've got to cut 10 million, 20 million from the budget.

That would reduce the tax rate.

The trouble that you have in doing that is you're gonna have mass layoffs to make that happen.

Up to now, the Board of Alderman has never has decided, you know, year by year to maintain the current service level rather than to try to reduce the tax rate through service service reductions and layoffs.

But that, I mean, so what I'm asking you is if you really want to make a difference, you've got to propose something significant.

Cut a lay off cops, close a fire station, lay off a hundred teachers.

That is what you need to try to do if you're serious about making a significant change in the tax rate.

Now, up to this point, neither I nor the Board of Alderman has thought that that is a advisable thing to do.

But you s if you're saying you want to reduce the tax rate, this $50,000, you've got to do something far more significant than that.

May I continue, please?

Yes.

Thank you.

But Mr.

Mayor, you gave a directive, three percent to the departments.

You gave us a budget that wasn't three percent with the departments, and you said to us fix it.

So you basically I didn't say fix it.

Well, you gave it to us, so what are we supposed to do?

I mean, we can all sit here and just pass the budget the way you're gonna be.

If you're serious, Ms.

Johnson.

We wanted to make reduction.

If you're serious, Ms.

Johnson, three percent in the budget is about twelve million dollars.

So make a motion as an alderman to cut twelve cut twelve million dollars and identify where you want to make those cuts.

Now, if you're serious, that's what you need to do.

But why if you gave your departments a directive?

Three percent.

And none of them came in basically a three percent.

I mean, but why say that?

You could have just said here's give us the budget, and just said they each department gave came in and gave us whatever they wanted.

But you said three percent.

I did.

You did.

You didn't have a lot of different things.

And I you know, it would be nice if we could have done three percent.

I did but that's what you're doing.

Wait, wait, wait.

If you ask me a question, I I get I think I get to answer it, right?

So I did reduce the budget by and Ms.

Enright has the exact figure which I don't have right in front of me, but by several, you know, some a million plus dollars.

But I just go back to it's easy to talk about the tax rate, but if you, Alderman Johnson are serious about Mr.

T-Boom's suggestion, you need to make a motion to cut 12 million dollars and identify where you think that that cut should be made.

So I don't know if you are serious, but if you are, that's what you need to do.

I'm probably not gonna do 12 million, but I am gonna make reductions.

Okay, and we'll see if there are anything that's significant enough to make a material difference.

I'm sure it's not going to pass anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Well, the I can tell you.

Thank you.

Also Alderman Greg.

Um thank you.

I have a couple of things.

First, I wanted to say I understand the mayor's uh positioning on giving us a lofty goal of the departments of three percent, but um it's just not a tenable solution with inflation now, is at 4.2 percent.

We have seen that continue to rise.

So when we're looking at costs and stuff, we're already in the hole.

We're talking about cutting if we tried to keep it three percent anyway.

I also wanted to make sure that my colleague from Ward 5 uh saw the um the paper that we have, the correspondence from um uh the chief of staff, Megan Carron, about that particular position that she's talking about, because we did talk about it in the meeting, and I think that um she got the uh kind of the idea that none of us are really in favor of that and that we weren't ready for that.

I believe that Alderman Johnson even agreed with that, but she has reduced that and is it's for uh contracted services to figure out the assessment on how we best communicate.

So I just wanted to make sure that we're talking about the same thing.

The communications director is not a thing anymore.

Well, it is until somebody makes a motion to make that.

So we do that, yes.

But that's what she's suggesting.

So we already are on that one.

So by the way, we we're one second.

We're gonna take motions and approve or disapprove of the motions tonight for the people that are here.

We are gonna have another wrap-up session tomorrow night because we have people in the budget committee that are missing at the end of tomorrow night.

Uh we should be making a motion to recommend final passage of uh FY27 budget.

So just want to keep that in mind.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So I think that 3% is a red herring.

It's it's the mayor said it the other day.

Do you want me to give him a six percent you know, uh bottom line?

Because then they would come back with 10%.

You have to have a goal, it's a guideline.

He kept saying it every time he's spoken, he said 3% is a guideline that I want them to try to get to.

The three percent is being used by people that do not like the mayor to try to say the budget's 3%.

Go around every other city in town.

You will not find any budget at 3%.

None.

And the reason why we also you're right, we care about Nashville.

That's what we care about.

We're here.

But if every other city in town was running a budget of 4%, we would be way off, and we would be saying, geez, we should be we should be finding ways because if everybody else can do it, we should be able to do it.

Everyone else is not able to do it, so there's got to be a reason for that, right?

So that's why we compare.

Not to say we care about those cities and towns, but because we're looking to to the light things to see if like things have the same issues.

Um, and this 50,000, Alderman Johnson said we're gonna have to pay them benefits.

Well, if it's a contracted position, we probably don't pay them benefits.

If I'm am I wrong on that?

I think we don't pay them the benefits and stuff.

Right.

So we wouldn't, so it would be a 50,000.

So and the mayor is absolutely right.

50,000 is a drop in the bucket in a budget this size.

I'm not saying we need this, I'm not saying we pass this.

But I'm saying he's exactly right.

You really want to cut the budget, start cutting the budget.

You're cutting 10 million, millions of dollars off this thing to get it down, and you will services will be hurt, people will be hurt.

If that's what you want to do, let's pass that.

But we're gonna it's the city will have problems.

I guarantee it.

Thank you.

Always Lopez.

I just had a question about project because I'm not actually on the committee.

Um so if I want to, and I do um want to reallocate the funds that were proposed uh for the Office of Strategic Communication to the community um public health general fund so they could use it for a warming patient that I'm not a committee member, I can't make that motion.

Right, you can make it at the full board meeting when we pass the budget.

But I think the motion associated with this particular question is gonna probably come up tonight from somebody.

All right, do we want to get into making motions?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Yeah, unless anyone else has any other questions for the mayor.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, Alderman Senate.

Uh no questions, I just assumed you were going to motions.

Thank you.

Alderman Senate.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I will um I guess I'll just get the ball rolling.

I apologize if my page numbers aren't accurate.

I'm working off the reprinted pages that uh Miss Enright provided us a week or so ago with the um the actuals involved in them.

Um the department of the line.

What's that?

The department and the line's the most important.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I understand that.

I just want to make it as clear as I can for everybody.

All right, so I would make a motion.

Uh I'm on page 57, which is the Office of Strategic Communications.

Um I would like to make a motion to reduce lines.

That's 5100 52100 521505230 5599 61100 61299 61830 and 7180.

I'd like to reduce that to zero.

Um if it's all the lines, you should probably just do a bottom line cut, and you can't give lines that fast because the clerk can't write as fast as you were talking.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I apologize, Alderman O'Brien.

So if it's everybody in that group, you can do the last line item and do the entire amount in one motion.

That is my intended motion is to reduce all lines for the office of strategic communications to zero.

Well, that's the summary line.

Yes, sir.

No, what is the summary line?

Oh, well, bear with me a second.

My book here.

Summary line is total expenditures on page 58.

It is 58 on the new pages.

Yep.

Okay, so does anybody have any questions on that motion?

Oh, yes, Alderman.

T B.

So we're saying that the the memo we get today of the just reducing this from the 122,000 to the 50,000, we're saying we're not going to do that.

We're getting rid of everything.

Is that what this motion is?

So right now his motion is to eliminate all the funds that were allocated in that particular department.

Um somebody else can make a motion to add the 50,000 later if they want to, but I believe you're taking everything in that line, right?

That's all my motion is right now.

Is just the reduction to zero, yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

What's the uh department?

Pardon number 104.

104.

Thank you.

So Ms.

Enray, are you sure you have that?

Yep.

Okay.

Department 104, a total reduction of 122,211.

How am I repeat that?

122, 211.

Okay.

Are there any questions on that motion?

Seeing none would be believe Alderman Lopez has his hand up.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Alderman Lopez.

I know it's hard to be up here.

Um, I just wanted to clarify that that would have been the first part of a motion that I would have done board again.

Um I'm just because in previous years, we've been told at the full board we have to do that to the committee.

But as of this point, just for any committee members who didn't catch the budget has been reduced if that passes by that much.

That doesn't mean you can't put it back into another department and add something that we might need to add later.

Yeah, that's the whole process.

And um, by the way, if any line item in the mayor's budget, not even the goldenrod copy.

If anything's added, we need 10 votes to pass it at the full board level.

So you heard the motion.

If there are no additional questions, the clerk please call the rule.

Um Greg.

Yes.

Alderman Johnson.

Yes.

Alderman O'Brien.

No.

Alderman um Senate.

Yes.

Alderman Dow.

Yes.

You have uh you're forgetting one of us.

Which one?

T both.

That would be me.

T Ball.

Oh no.

Instead of messing it up, you just vote no.

You have thank you, Derek.

Um you have one, two, three, four years and two nays.

A motion carries.

Uh and by the way, if anybody wants to make a motion later to put the 50k in, they can do that.

But right now that's the only motion that we what we need to um amend that amount because the amount had already been amended by the goldenrod.

So it is not 1212.

What's the right number?

The total amount is 87,211.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Next motion.

Thank you.

I know that uh Miss De Gray from the school department is here.

I'd like to ask a couple questions, Mr.

Gray.

I can hear you.

Can you folks hear me?

Yes, we can.

Good evening.

Um I'd like to know about some of the positions that you have open in your budget.

And I know it's only a bottom line reduction, but I want to get this information.

Um they were crossing guards, and there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, I believe nine of them that haven't been filled, and they've been open since 2021 to 2025.

I've calculated that is accurate.

Oh, sorry.

That's okay.

That is accurate, right?

Yeah, so that's accurate.

The crossing guard positions are still out there posted.

Uh we as a department and uh a city could go ahead and make the suggestion to have some of these crossing guard positions either moved to other locations or taken down.

I just want to make you aware that of course if we go ahead and remove these crossing guard positions, um, and something happens, we just want to make sure that we're looking at it from a safety standpoint.

May I continue?

Okay, I know over the years, and even when I was on the board, that we can't fill these positions for whatever reason, and we are filling the positions and we're allocating the money in them.

Am I correct?

That is correct.

There are funds allocated for these crossing guard positions.

Okay, and yet since 2021, we can't, and we keep and the school district keeps increasing the salaries.

Am I correct?

Yeah, there is an increase in totality.

I would say from a budgetary standpoint, you're talking, in my opinion, immaterial.

Um, I could get you an exact cost if you would like of those specific crossing guard positions, but yes, year over year there is a small increase.

And yet we can't get anybody to fill these positions for whatever reason.

So who's handling these positions at this point in time?

Because at one time I believed there was custodians that were going out.

So these positions are uh we are trying to go ahead and fill them.

Um as you mentioned, they've been posted for quite some time.

Um these positions you usually get filled with a mix of recruiting efforts from HR as well as from plant operations.

Um we do sometimes some folks step to these positions because they're only a couple hours a week, realistically.

Um some folks either are janitors before, so they go ahead and do the crossing guard before and after school hours.

Sometimes you'll find our lunch monitors are stepping into these positions as well.

Okay, may I continue?

Continue.

Yeah, and how many positions was eliminated this year?

So, in total, in order to hit our six percent that we had uh the board of education put forward, we eliminated roughly 50 positions.

50 positions, and how many of them were teaching positions?

So the teaching positions that we had identified for elimination, um there was about 21, I believe 21 teaching positions, and the rest of them were the remainder.

Yeah, but so yeah, so uh 21 teaching positions.

Um we had identified 18 paraeducators and behavioral tech positions.

We originally said we would make six clerical positions.

Unfortunately, at this point, we're not going to be able to do those six positions.

Um we've eliminated some instructional coaching positions.

Um we've also eliminated some of our administrators, and then we've eliminated some of our tech integrators.

May I continue?

Continue.

Thank you.

Because I went on the school um site last night, and I went through all your open positions.

And so the 21 teaching positions, so I can get this straight because I say that you're hiring.

What were these teaching positions for?

So let me just clarify for you.

Um we actually had an email communication back and forth if I'm accurate, uh, about all the open positions that are posted on the website.

Um, so we currently now, or back then we had about 280 vacancies, which represented about 6.9 million dollars in wages.

Um, as I mentioned, there are several teaching positions out there.

We are struggling to hire intensive needs teachers.

There are several nursing positions, uh, several paraeducated positions.

I think to answer your specific question, if I heard it correctly, you were asking which positions we are eliminating for next year.

Right.

One of the positions that we are eliminating is kind of a mix, and most of them are at the high school level because we are moving from a four-black schedule that was discussed to a five-block schedule.

Um with that, there's some reductions and kind of all positions.

Uh, you got a couple positions, a couple English positions being reduced, social studies science, etc.

that are being uh eliminated.

Thank you.

I'm gonna make a motion to eliminate, and I'm gonna explain why.

400,000 dollars from the bottom line at this point in time 400,000, 200, 400, 400, bottom line 4 million 400,000.

Bottom line of the board of education's budget.

Yeah, no, how do you want to record that?

May I speak on my motion?

Go ahead.

Okay.

I'm starting with 400,000 because I believe they just did another study, which was a duplicate of the original study that was done.

And I feel that if the board of education, the school district had extra money to spend, it's ridiculous.

They did a redistricting study in 2023 when I was on the board, and the Harriman study was basically almost identical on that study.

And the mere fact that they had 400,000 to spend on a duplicate study, then 400,000 can't possibly hurt them in the budget at this point in time.

Duplicate study on that that money was allocated by the board of Alderman, not the board of it.

I'm gonna still take 400,000 the all and you have a question.

Yes, I did.

Um through you to uh Mr.

Gray.

I just um I I know we don't have a lot of um line item, we don't have any over line item oversight on the uh educational budget.

I was um and I know you don't have a crystal ball.

I was just wondering what you felt the impact of a 400,000 dollar reduction to your bottom line budget would um imply, would look like what pain points would that cause you, if any, uh if you could just speak to the overall impact of that a bit.

Sure, just for clarity, um, so I understand the motion that's on the table.

It's a 400,000 dollar reduction to our bottom line, which would be the bottom line, the mayor's proposal, which the mayor has already cut us, 668,000.

So in totality, what the board of education originally approved, we're basically talking just over a 1.

Uh 1 million dollar cut to answer your question.

Um really would have to take a step back and look at you know, 400,000.

Is there some positions that we can eliminate?

Um, or is there some type of technology uh infrastructure and or I would say other positions at this point we do own the majority of our teaching positions?

There'd be no eliminations at the teaching level at this time just for the new board members.

We do a bottom line cut to the board of education, even if we've given them a suggestion where to do it, they do not have to do that.

Um and uh we'd have to live with it.

But so Alderman Tibetou, thank you.

Um you're right.

We can't we can't cut certain items on there.

So a million dollars, they already have to cut the 600,000, right?

That's already have to be cut.

They haven't allocated those cuts yet.

Now we're putting 400,000 on top of it, it's 1.1 million.

They can they've already hired the teachers for the next semester, they're not gonna cut teachers, so they're gonna cut programs, they're gonna cut other things that that would hurt our students and hurt the school system.

Uh, because we can't say, get rid of this, get rid of that, get rid of this.

So I wouldn't support this.

I I don't think it's the right thing to do.

Um every year uh someone tries to get one or two million out of the school extra out of the school system, and we always say usually we vote against it because we don't have the power of line item there, and uh, do we want a uh uh uh athletic program getting cut?

If you know, if you could say you cut um, I don't know, volleyball.

The lacrosse kids might not care.

The volleyball parents and kids will care, right?

So, or the art program or the the field trip that that needs to happen, right?

Something's gonna get cut.

It's not gonna be staff or teachers because that's already they've already been hired.

So I think that um, you know, I won't support this anyone else.

I you know, I was on the board of it for 10 years and chair of budget, and this is the biggest effort the school district has made to reduce their budget by this amount of money in in a year where all their expenses are significantly increasing, including special education and out of district placement.

They have a very difficult budget, and I think they've done enough, and I won't support any additional cuts to the bottom line.

Any other comments?

All right, motion is to cut 400,000 dollars from the bottom line of the Board of Education budget scholar roll uh Alderman Tibodeau that would be all uh no, I'm not gonna vote for that, nobrian.

I just made it uh French Franco.

Okay, still no.

He uh no I Alderman O'Brien folks uh no and gray, notime Senate, no and Alderman Johnson, yes.

You have five nays and only one nay, yay.

Motion fails.

Any other motions?

Alderman T both, thank you, uh Mr.

Chair.

I want to add uh 75,000 to deferred maintenance um for the fire department, and I'm gonna let Alderman O'Brien speak to it.

Yeah, thank you, uh Alderman Tebow for doing that and submitting the paperwork.

Uh I spent some nice time down at Mass General today, so uh I was kind of running out of time, and I very much appreciate that you put it in.

But we gotta look at this smartly on number one group that's before us in all the budget that owns buildings, is the school department, all uh elementary schools and uh high school schools and the middle schools.

What do you think is the next biggest group?

It's only one police station, and we consolidated to for efficiency a lot of public works underneath one particular roof, but you know, if we put a fire station out where public works is that's gonna run citywide, I don't want to fight that conflicts.

So we did strategically where we put them in the neighborhood.

Well, because it's not a reduction uh uh redundancy in the system.

What it is that they had to take respond as quickly and as efficiently as possible, but they're buildings, they have roofs on them, they have uh toilets and kitchens and other things so the you know employees can live and work, demand 24 hours a day, and any building that has people in it 24 hours a day suffers some permanented maintenance type of problems by supporting this.

Demand 24 hours a day, and any building that has people in it 24 hours a day suffers some permanented maintenance type of problems by supporting this.

It's what the chief asked for for all his buildings, and there's six stations, yes, but there's uh also uh the training facility that they do own.

So if you take that money that we're putting in and divide it up to over the seven, we're not asking a heck of a lot of money for structure.

So uh to me, you want to fire us, we're gonna be rebuilding, and we are, and you looked at the plans and you saw the cost that it's gonna cost us to replace uh the Pine Hill station.

How can we vent a cost in the future if we spent a little money on paint and upkeep and everything else?

So this is not a new position or anything else like that.

Just makes common sense.

We're in this chamber, we're the landlord.

So we're giving the money to the chief to do his job and manage the stations.

Uh the chair.

Ms.

Enright.

Thank you, Chair.

Don Enright, CFO.

Um, I would just like some clarification on this um this particular increase.

Um right now the fire department uh has 150,000 in the capital improvements budget for deferred maintenance.

Is that where you would like to add the 75,000?

Yes, because it's an overall, and like in my time, I was captain at the airport station.

We had no money to pave the park a lot that had potholes in it, you know.

So it funding this account coupled with what what's already on the books, well, gives the chief to make prudent decisions of where the requires need to be made.

I think the original ask and where it got transferred out of their account into the deferred into the capital, it somehow got shortchanged to 75k, and that's what they're adding back.

Yes, understood.

So um the the chief said it when he was here, you know, they've they've neglected the fire department when it comes to deferred maintenance for many many many years, and they'd like to finally get back to uh us taking care of the fire departments and when it comes to the the structures and we toured some of us toward the Pine Hill Um and it was it was terrible as it has to go, and so you don't want them to get in those conditions.

People live in these places, it's not just it's not just a place to go to work, it's a place to sleep, and it's a place to live with with your other fireman brothers, right, and sisters, and uh you know um you you want the place to be livable, and you want a place that works functionally so you can help uh the people in the city when they need it.

Um, and so I don't think this is a huge ask for a little bit of money to go back into their deferred maintenance so they can do some of these uh what seem like simple things but things that still cost money to keep up their their fire station.

So thank you.

Yeah, by the way, we asked all of the representations from all the divisions to be here.

So if we have questions of any of the divisions, like we did with the school department, there are representatives here to answer them.

Um I certainly agree with the deferred maintenance uh uh the in I know Haldeman Johnson has always uh indicated that too that you know if we let our buildings go, we end up in a position like Manchester with a billion dollar building problem just on schools alone.

So this is why we had to pass money to repair their roofs, replace their roofs because they didn't have the money to do the patching like we do in some of our schools.

So I'm certainly in favor of this.

Any other questions?

Alman Johnson, yes.

I'm not gonna support this unless we find the money in the budget to move it over to deferred maintenance.

I'm not adding into the budget at this point in time.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

So the motion is to add 75,000, and I believe it's page 22 in the book for the deferred maintenance for the fire department.

The clerk please call the rule.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh and Tebo.

Yes.

Haldamin O'Brien Bolt CS.

Alderman Greg.

Yes.

Hollerman Downs.

Yes.

Alderman Senate.

Yes.

Alderman Johnson.

No.

You have one, two, three, four.

Five years, one nay.

Motion carries.

I had asked Ms.

Enright to keep a running tally of where we're at.

I don't think we've made enough major changes where we need to test your math strike right now, but as we go through, we'll have continual updates.

Alderman Town.

Yeah, I'd like to make another motion.

Um I'd like to make a motion to add uh 50,000 to Office of Strategic Communications.

Uh 55 other services.

This is uh on my book, it's page 54, but I don't think you have the same book up there.

Um it's the Office of Strategic Communications Department 104.

Um, and it's going to be under 55 699, other contracted services.

Um and I'd like to speak to it, please.

Yes, go ahead.

So um when we when uh Miss Karen came and presented this to us, I think all of us wanted didn't think that we should go this route of strategic communications of having a person in there to do this until we really knew what the issue was that needed to be solved when it came to communications.

I mean, I meant uh I heard clearly from all the women at large, Shoshana Kelly, that she thought it would be best to have a contracted services in there to assess the situation.

So I think some of us agreed that that would be the better route than paying that whole 120,000 plus uh number to bring in somebody that was going to be here, and then we have to have them in the books every year where we could contract this out to figure out what the issue is, what we need, someone that knew communications better than just hiring someone and hoping that they're the right person.

So I got the message in that meeting that we would prefer the 50,000 to a contracted service than hiring an actual person.

Ms.

Johnson's shaking her head.

I don't think she wants anything.

I think she'd cut the whole budget if she could, but um, you can shake your head all you want.

Um, but that's what I heard.

That's what I heard from Alderwoman Kelly.

Uh, she's in the business of communications, and I don't know if she still wants it, so I don't want to speak for her, but I remember her she's the one that suggested it.

So I want to add that to the budget.

Okay, so the motion is to add 50k to Department 104 for a to hire a commercial vendor to uh design a solution to our current situation with communications.

Um, I think we all at that meeting said that was the way we should go, and we didn't want to hire a new person and bring them in and become part of the team that they're trying to work with somebody outside that can evaluate what needs to be done, and oh, by the way, go out and ask the citizens what they would like to see and hear from City Hall.

So I think uh Alderman Lopez.

I see two hands.

I can't put another one.

Uh so um I just wanted to clarify um or point out um that I had it suggested at the meeting in the meeting that that would be where I would want to find for the resource center.

Um, again, as it was discussed earlier.

I'm gonna have to make the motion with the full board.

Uh there's really no around way around.

I'm not a committee member.

Um, but I can update use the intervening time to hit the other department uh potentially.

Um, I do want to point out that there's no um nothing personal intended if somebody makes a motion to create a program that they believe make if I believe that there's a higher priority or something else that needs to be done.

It's not necessarily because I don't agree that theoretically that that office shouldn't have an assessment done and our communication be evaluated.

I just think there are probably in my mind higher priority.

Um, in that meeting that we were in the committee meeting uh for personal administrative affairs.

We also pointed out that there are a lot of other staff members that do have communication role in the city.

Um, and I do think communication needs to be improved.

Um I don't necessarily actually blame the the city exclusively.

And I think that's probably the strategic part of the office.

So I I don't mean any disrespect to the effort there.

I just think that that's creating a position that we don't have is the most logical place to start with, making sure we have funds, something that we I believe we should have and need to be planning to have.

So I consider it uh a major budgetary priority to find a way to leave money available for us to get started on the warming station as soon as possible instead of go through the whole massage and campaign that we've had in the past, where once we propose something, then it has to go through the legislative process.

People get to hem and hall over whether it's going to happen, and that slows down the process to the point where at the point by the time we actually make a decision legislatively, it's getting too late.

The first time we tried to do the warming station, we were halfway through the winter before we could even get it up and running.

So my priority isn't necessarily to undermine this effort.

It is probably one thing I would be looking at um at the full board meeting, unless we'll have better ideas.

Um I will try to take a deeper dive to get the other departments I think have any gives.

Alderman Greg.

Um thank you.

So I actually won't be in support of this because I think you know, we've been talking for years about the communications issues in the city, and while that is ongoing, I think we have to look at timing and we have to look at practicality in what we're asking from our taxpayers on this.

And I think this is one of those things that unfortunately um we'll have to wait a little bit longer if it was up to me.

Um, because we are talking about you know giving the fire fire department more money and you know, not cutting so much from the school department, and they've already sacrificed a lot.

So this is just on the priority list.

This is not one that I see out there.

Almond Tiba, thank you.

Again, 50,000 is such a it's a it doesn't change the percent of tax rate at all.

Um for one thing.

Second thing is I think we could play the take back, but Alderman Lopez said add 50,000 to a resource center.

The resource center we were talking about was gonna be like five 4.9 million.

50,000 is not gonna put putting that away somewhere is certainly not going to go towards that.

Later on, he started talking about the resource center or the I mean the warming station later on.

Well, did we not budget for the is the warming station not in here?

Because if it's not in here and we ask for it every year, I've been asking for it for four five years to make sure it's in the budget.

If it's not in the budget, we shouldn't be doing an appropriate uh a supplemental appropriation to do this come November.

It should be in Health and Human Services budget.

And if it's not, then we should be putting it in right now.

We shouldn't be saying, why don't we take 50,000 here and 40,000 here and a million from here?

Let's what does it cost to do a warming station?

Put it in the budget.

And I if Director Bagley can come up and explain, is the is the warming station in the budget?

Let's finish this motion.

Well, it's he's going to take that motion and take the 50,000.

And people might vote differently if they know that it's in the budget, so we don't have to take that 50,000 later.

Maybe they maybe the they'll vote for it now.

We we can call her up after we have this.

Okay.

Because the okay, let's vote.

That's fine.

Let's vote.

His motion won't be till the full board meeting.

Well, my vote, my motion's now.

I know.

Um, and but there's sort of unrelated.

No, he tied them together.

So I mean, we he's well, I'll bow to the committee.

Does the committee want to hear from Director Bagley right now?

Yes.

Not on the committee.

Can I not say a personal privilege since I was talked about and I feel like it was not on the budget committee?

I asked, you know, uh, as a parliamentary procedure, Derek, you could read your manual and then you'd know.

That's you're not part of the budget committee, Tom.

We're gonna bring up Director Bagley, and would you ask answer the question as to whether the warming center is in the budget?

But that is not what I was referring to.

But that were you referring to then?

All right, let's well, am I allowed or no?

Am I just to be talked about?

Gentlemen, decorum, please.

Yeah, it's not I'm calling for decorum.

My words were re-invented.

I wanted to clarify them.

You can clarify afterwards.

Hang on.

Bobby Badley, director for the division of public health and community services.

The warming station is not in this budget.

The warming station is financed by the um opiate abatement funds, and we also receive 50,000 dollars from uh CDBG to cover the warming station.

So it's not in this budget.

So my question is so then do you need extra money from those things?

For the warming station?

I mean, if you're already got those that money, do you need extra money in the budget?

For the warming station, no.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

I have two things to add.

Um so firstly, I just spoke when I was saying warming station, I meant resource center.

And secondly, the resource center that Alderman Keep it, I guess it's thinking it too.

Uh was referring to and the price package you're talking about was for buying a resource center, not staffing a resource pack.

The resource center staffing was removed from this budget because we don't have a physical one.

But if we don't have a physical one, we because we don't have the physical, and we wouldn't put the staff in on the budget side.

But if we don't have any staffing, um then we are not able to locate anything because we will do the same thing we just went through where we try to move the location and then we have to put the money into there to staff it in the first place.

It has been stated that people want to know why this isn't in the budget, they want to know why things aren't being done.

People who say that do this and shoot down any opportunity they can using everything, including you don't have the right to clarify your motion because you're not on a committee, instead of actually listening.

So to clarify, I was I meant to speak to the resource center, which locked its personnel staff funding because we don't have a physical resource center.

Now if we have the staffing, we could identify a building.

We have one that could potentially be done now, but if we don't, then it's another hurdle that later on people can go ahead and vote again and then act as though they supported everything they possibly can.

All right, we need to move on.

All right, so the motion on the floor is to add 50k to Department 104 to hire an outside consultant.

Um I think it's fun line item 5569.

There's no additional discussion.

The clerk please call the rule and uh tributal.

Yes.

Can you get the name right, please?

It's not that difficult.

You know, maybe I let it go quite a bit.

Come on.

You have you have, yes.

Okay, and I apologize.

As I always do.

Okay.

Vote is yes.

Okay, thank you.

Brian.

Uh votes, yes.

Alderman Greg.

No.

Alderman Dowd.

Yes.

Alderman Senate.

No.

And Alderman Johnson.

No.

Motion fails.

Motion fails.

One, two, three.

Any other motions?

Alderman Johnson.

I'm not gonna make a motion right now.

I just want to know.

Public works wanted to add positions.

I think there was two foreman and somebody for recreation.

There was three positions.

I was questioning that.

Am I correct?

Yeah.

Okay.

So they want to add three positions.

Okay.

I'll have to speak to the is the director here.

Anybody from public?

DP.

Yeah, there she's come on up.

The director's out of town.

She can't.

Yes.

Hi, Carolina Connor, assistant directory.

Could you repeat your question?

Yes.

How many new positions did they want?

Did they want it?

Um they had two that are funded for parks and the budget.

They're what is funded through the TIFF.

For a third, that's a groundsman one position.

And the superintendent for parks for recreation, excuse me.

Superintendent.

Do you have the salaries on these positions?

Oh let me just grab my phone.

Okay.

Hold on, second.

I believe it's 110.

The superintendent was approximately 117.

And that was excuse me again.

The superintendent, that was pox.

Recreation.

And that was 117.

Mm-hmm.

And the grounds and uh one are about 50,000.

Grounds and 50,000.

Yep.

Each.

Each times two, that's a hundred thousand.

And that was it?

Yep.

These three positions.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yes, I'm gonna make a motion to eliminate these three positions in the budget.

And may I speak on my motion?

Okay, you're gonna give us the page and line and I think they're separate, so you'll have to move that.

I think they're separate lines, so you'd have to listen to them.

I couldn't find them in the budget.

206 and 210.206 and 210.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

So 210.

Mr.

Chairman, while we're looking, can I speak to the the groundsmen's positions?

Um the two positions there.

Um one would be funded through the general fund um through the parks department, and one would be funded through the riverfront TIFF.

Uh we did this so that uh we could um keep maintenance of the riverfront in-house uh because it was very expensive uh as a consulting fee.

Um and that's why we added those positions this year because it's it's a very large area to keep clean and maintain.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but if it's coming out of the TIFF, it's not part of the general this budget.

Correct, yes.

So there's um the two positions uh I think the two positions, each of them are half funded by the riverfront TIFF.

Okay, so if you find it 2151.

I'll let you know that the recruitment currently the recreation is covered by uh communications and recreation position, um, and that that'll be broken out, and the community position is going to be back to its former setup.

So they won't if you don't have a rec superintendent, you won't have anyone managing the recreation.

You want some more time to think about that motion?

Yeah, why don't I take a look at this?

Because you know what?

This is getting I know what public works, they're broken out into different areas.

The director's broken out into like three areas, and everybody seems like well, the supervisors and foreman not only do but like streets, let's say hypothetically, they'll be in another part, so they the pay doesn't come from one specific location if you have a look at their budget, some of them like the director and some of the other people.

Okay.

Does anybody else have a motion or waiting for that?

Do you say a question?

You have a question, not a motion.

Yeah.

No, I'm not allowed to do motions.

I just have a a question.

Um, the superintendent of recreation.

That is um that position um does all the all of the games in the is yes, please.

If you can just explain what that position is, and I know the communications person um is doing both for the record, just state your name and position so that they have it on the wall O'Connor, assistant director of public work.

Um yes, that that position the recreation would manage your pools, your all your um recreation activities, your camps, everything that goes on biddy basketball, all the events for the case.

May I just ask one more question, please?

Quickly, yeah.

Yep, yeah.

Um that that's the scheduling of the all the games and when people want, does it also include if they wanted to rent the fields and so on?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

That's all I wanted to ask you.

So current, thank you.

So currently somebody else is doing that job right now, they're doing that combined.

When she was in here and talked about it, she said that she would like to not do that anymore, so you're hiring somebody else.

So if we don't have that position, then she won't continue doing it anyway.

She's just five or that she's decided that they're not doing it at all.

You could you said nobody would be managing over editing.

Yes, she would be that position that person would be phasing out for doing that.

Okay, all right, thanks.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um if you are entertaining um other motions at this time.

I'd um I'd like to go to administrative services.

Uh the department number is 111 human resources.

The account is 53142 consulting services.

I would like to make a motion to reduce that number by 50,000, and I'd like to speak to it, please.

Okay.

Um, so I understand that our human resources department has a number of um vulnerabilities at the moment.

We're all aware that Ms.

Trask has uh recently uh retired, which leaves us with a vacancy in the um in the position of the human resources director.

Uh last year I made an attempt to cut this uh division down with the and I was countered that the need existed for a human resources audit, which would lead to a um an eventual handbook for employees for the city of Nashua.

Um we learned during the review of the administrative services division budget that that did not happen.

Um the events that have transpired over the past year have since taken place.

I agree now more than I did last year that the audit is needed.

Um so my intent is to leave a hundred thousand dollars in this uh uh line item, with the intent being that that audit take priority at this time.

I feel this is probably the most opportune time to conduct that human resources audit, especially in lieu of the presence of a human resources manager.

We can identify the any inefficiencies and the vulnerabilities that exist in the human resources um mainframe and construction and uh structure within the city.

Um I feel that needs to be the sole priority here right now.

Uh I'm intending to leave the money here to conduct that um, but I don't think that we should be um raising it as much as are over the previous year's budget.

Thank you.

Would you like director Cummings want to mention it?

Talk to us at all, or uh good evening, Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

Um I understand the motion at hand uh with one clarification.

Uh if I understood it, it is to try to reduce the budget back to what it was in FY26.

If and and I guess that's a clarification that I want to make because in FY26, it was for 125,000.

What's proposed right now is 150,000.

So it it sounds like it's a reduction of 25,000.

Um, and I just want to make sure that I'm I'm understanding that correctly.

But putting that aside, uh, certainly uh understand that um uh there's a desire to get this audit done by Alderman uh uh uh uh Senate.

I can tell you it is an ambition of mine as well.

I will certainly prioritize it.

I do believe the previous time we went out for an RFP and tried to get this funded.

Um we had to cobble funds together.

We didn't have enough in this line item, so it may be a little tight if we reduce it by 25,000, but I think we can figure it out.

And I think you know, we can we can certainly try to to make it work, and I can report back to you all if uh if that's if that's not the case.

Um so I hope that is a satisfactory answer.

Thank you.

Alderman Senate.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um just clarify no the motion I did make is to reduce the line item by 50,000.

Uh the end result would be 100,000.

Um, and my behind that, and I understand that costs do change, but this was the express purpose last year that we were unable to reduce this line at all with the intent that a human resources audit at that time would cost us $75,000.

I think a $25,000 buffer over that previous year's cost is reasonable, uh bordering on generous, and so just to clarify, my motion is to reduce the line by $50,000.

It currently is proposed at 150 to leave it with 100,000 dollars.

Is it is that what you're seeing, Ms.

Henry?

Yeah, okay.

Yes.

I guess my only uh response to that would be is there's more than just that one item that's funded by that contracted services line.

So uh if we are put in that position, we will have to reduce some of our other contracts, and we just need to be aware of that.

I don't know them off the top of my head.

I I would have to pull it, but I understand what the intention is.

Thank you.

Any other questions on this?

No.

All right.

Motion on the floor, my ultimate Senate is to reduce Department 11, human resources.

Did we get the line item?

53142.

53142 by the amount of 50,000 dollars.

There's no further questions.

The clerk please call the roll.

No.

No.

Alderman Greg.

Yes.

Otherwise.

Yes.

Otherwise, Senate.

Yes.

Otterman Johnson.

Yes.

We have uh four to four years two nations.

Motion carries.

Any other motion?

Alderman Johnson.

Yes, I'd like to make a motion on page 167, the library.

Total expenditures.

I'd like to level fund it for it is right now a 2026 amount.

I don't want it to increase.

I'm on level.

Keep it at um 2026 adopted budget amount.

Can we get the amounts through the record?

It's 4,108,344.

Being reduced from what's the actual reduction?

14,000.

167.

Okay, thank you.

What's the amount?

14,000.

Yeah, 14,536.

So I have a reduction to um library department 179 to bring it back to the 26th budget line item amounts, a reduction of $14,536.

Could you repeat that?

$14,000 five hundred thirty-six dollars.

Okay.

Motion is to reduce the Department 179, the library to the FY26 level.

So and that would be in a reduction of the 27 budget by $14,536 out of Alderman Senate.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um couple of things.

Uh first, through you to the maker of the motion.

Um I don't think it's very common that we have a um a bottom line uh uh in a situation where we do have line item control.

So I just want to clarify just from my own edification is the intent uh um each uh that this cut would just be uniform across that we would reduce each line item to the uh fiscal year 2026 adopted budget.

Yes.

Okay, thank you for that.

Um if I could follow up, Mr.

Chair.

Follow up, go ahead.

All right, thank you.

Um I'm not sure if uh director McCormick or if anybody from the library is present.

Um, but if they are, if they could just uh take a moment and speak to um I guess what what we sometimes refer to as the uncontrollables, but the um the salaries, wages, uh benefits lift, uh things like that is uh is there any anticipated adverse effect on this?

Is there a um you know uh a baked-in cost for the uh benefits, pensions, what have you, is a uh any employees that maybe have been uh promised or assured a raise that will now be going without uh if they could just speak to the general implications of this, it would be depreciated.

Ms.

McCormick is here and ready to answer your question.

Thank you.

Uh Jennifer McCormick, library director.

Too short for this microphone.

Um so like every other city division, I uh salaries and wages make up on a magnitude of 80, 82 percent of our budget.

Uh uh reduction of I think the amount we're talking about is 14,000.

I believe I I would have to work with my board of trustees to make a decision about that.

I would anticipate that that money would come potentially come from our Sunday hours, which would mean a loss of services to the community at 14,000.

Um, I would say that's eight to ten Sundays we would have to close.

Okay.

So when I look at this and we just say we're just gonna revert to the 2016 adopted budget.

This is a ridiculous way to do that.

Why don't we just look at the line items and take things where we can take things?

Like, so for instance, like HVAC maintenance back in 2026 was 25,000, but we don't we're not budgeting for it now.

So do we add that?

Do we add that to the budget now?

Because that's what the 2026 budget had.

Um so if we're keeping it just like 2026, we're now adding some things that aren't in it now, and we're trying to reduce salaries when we already have people on the books that are hired.

Like I would rather like look at line items and get that 14,000 than try to do it this just the line bottom line cut, it doesn't make any sense.

I don't want the library to close because of 14,000.

We are so nickel and diming this budget right now.

We've got 14,000 here, 25,000 here, 50,000 here.

None of that is going to reduce the tax rate.

I'll tell you that right now.

Um people can feel good about hey, I reduce the the budget, but it's not going to actually change the tax rate unless we start really hacking this up, but I haven't seen any of those big cuts yet.

We're not going to reduce the tax rate.

So uh 14,000, fine, but I wouldn't take it from salary benefits, so we close.

I would actually look at the line items and say, what can I get rid of on the line items or what can I nickel and dime now?

Can I ask the question of Miss McCormick?

Um if do we have line item on this, or do you always have to go to the Board of Trustees to get things cut on this?

Uh so your question is Jennifer McCormick, Library Director.

Your question is do the board of aldermen have line item control over that?

I don't know that I'm qualified to answer that question.

It is my understanding that the trustees ultimately have that line item control, but attorney Bolton maybe can help.

You can cut individual lines, but the Board of Library trustees can transfer between lines as they determine.

So if you say you wanted to cut the book budget by $3,000, they may at some point add that back in by taking it from elsewhere.

Thank you for that.

Um so my my I wouldn't cut this because I don't want to see library the library close extra days.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I apologize for taking another bite at the apple of this one, but I um I did some quick maths in my book here.

And when I look at this, our amendment here is a reduction of 14,536.

Um it almost seems incongruous to do it this way because when I look at the bottom line of fringe benefits, bridge benefits are up 72,541.

So it's it's an incongruous net between the two.

When I go across the other division or uh the other subdepartments here, uh between fiscal 26 adopted and what the mayor has proposed here, salaries and wages are actually down.

Um property services are down, other services are maybe about the net of this um of this total amendment.

Yeah, it's about 14 and change.

Uh supplies and materials are down, contingency is up, but if I'm not mistaken, that may have been I'm not uh speak on that actually.

That's um I I don't have the correct recollection there.

But you know, overall uh in most areas other than what I'm seeing as the needs of functionality of the library, this budget um already has a significant number of credits.

Uh I I would be inclined to agree with my colleague from Ward 8 that if cuts were to be made and proposed here, then they'd be done uh by line items so that we can have a better picture of what this is, but already the the library's hours are already reduced.

I can't even go on my alternating Fridays uh that I have off, so um I'd certainly not like to see more reduced hours where it's already at its limits.

Uh thank you.

Okay.

Based on the population that the library serves, I think it's probably is really ingenuous to try and cut their salary when when they try to keep their cost as low as they possibly can, and to have it closed on Sundays or other weekends, maybe.

Um I I think kids suffer and families suffer.

And I don't think that's the place we want to save $14,000.

All of them, Greg.

Um, thank you.

I just wanted to point out, you know, first of all, I wouldn't call it nickel and diming when we're scrutinizing the budget.

We are looking for ways that we can save whether that adds up or in places, but this in particular is just, I mean, even their electric bill, which they have no control over, is over um that like $35,000.

That's up.

So one this is not a place where I would say that we should be cutting.

I think it's not um in the best interest of anybody in this city.

Uh but I just think it's important to look as we're scrutinizing, look at these particular line items and and what there is control over and what there is not.

Any other questions on this motion?

If not, would the clerk please call the rule?

Uh uh TFO.

No.

Alderman Greg?

No.

Harvard and Dow.

No.

Other and Senate.

No.

Autumn and Johnson.

Yes.

You have uh one, two, three, four, five nays, one yay.

Okay, motion fails.

Other motions.

None.

I'm gonna make a motion.

Um bear with me one second.

I'm gonna make a motion to on page two twenty two, at least in the book I've got in the uh capital improvements area, the school system deferred maintenance.

I'd like to add two hundred thousand dollars, and I'll talk to it.

Um the Harriman study uh and Sean Smith is uh they've now put together uh an extensive list of deferred maintenance items to tackle and um uh other capital projects that are funded differently by bonds, but in deferred maintenance in the year 2025, um Mr.

Smith and his department their deferred maintenance were 89,206 in FY because last year we did give them quite a bit of money.

Uh I believe it was well over 500, and in FY26, the total expenditures uh are 562,484 dollars.

The FY 2027 request through the capital improvements, because that's where deferred maintenance goes, it was 1,210,000.

Now 200,000 of that number was for partial roof repairs on bicentennial.

There's a motion we have going through the board right now to do the entire roof using monies that were uh reallocating monies from the school other school projects with bonded money that we already have in place.

So we take that 200,000 up, which brings us down to a million ten thousand, and one of the items they were going to do in uh 2027 is the additional site work pavement repairs, staff parking and loop roads at Nashville High North, which are in terrible shape.

Last year we saved a lot of money by combining the paving project with the uh cities doing the street, uh use the same company just added on and did the two bus loop, the bus loop and the emergency loop and uh get that done because that was a really bad shape.

So that comes down to 510,000.

The mayor is set aside uh for school deferred maintenance $300,000 on over a billion dollars worth of infrastructure in the school system.

That's ridiculous.

Um if and even though they could use more, if if we add the 200,000, it brings up to 500,000.

You know, that's reasonable to get some of these things done.

Um when Heron put together their list of deferred maintenance items now through the next 10 years, comes out to $13,430,000.

So we can't keep shortchanging the deferred maintenance again.

We'll end up with a situation like they have in Manchester, where it's therefore the school building project's gonna cost a billion dollars.

We've taken care of our schools very well over the years and have stayed ahead of it and and kept them viable.

Um so much as I hate to add any money to the budget.

I think this is critical.

This is this is we should never be shortchanging maintaining our buildings.

Um we approved the fire deferred maintenance for six buildings.

This is for 20 buildings.

So that's my motion.

Discussion?

Aldman Johnson.

Do you know what buildings are going to be taken care of with this?

Where you said the parking lot, right?

Is that what we're doing?

Uh the balance of it, I think is roof repairs at other school elementary schools.

So let me let me ask this question because I asked Ms.

Enright.

With the 1.6 million dollars that's been sitting that we've had, which was money that we didn't use for other projects since 2019.

How come we didn't use that for other school projects in the meantime?

For a number of reasons.

One, um, it has to be reallocated.

First thing we had to do was uh make sure that all the invoices were paid, that all the numbers were exactly correct, and uh Crystal and Don spent quite a bit of time making sure we had an exact number, which wasn't that long ago, and the number one capital project for the school system this year is the bicentennial roof.

It's leaking, it's causing problems.

The water's getting inside the school that can cause mold.

So uh I put in the legislation that's coming before the next board meeting.

Oh, it wasn't the last board meeting, it referred to to uh budget, and that's to reallocate that money.

That saves us we we've already bonded the money, so the deferred payments are already in the budget system, it's not adding to that.

It's it's not adding anything to this budget, and it's at a lower interest rate because if we wait and have to put a separate bond out to do the bicentennial roof, the interest rate's gonna be a lot higher.

So there's a lot of pluses to doing it now.

The money's already there, and and uh it's been worked out in great detail by Ms.

Enright, and uh the legislation is before us now.

Yes, but some of the bond money is from 2019.

That's plenty of time that we could have worked everything out because if you look back on the dates of it, it's one of them is 2019 because I had a little discussion with Miss Enright and I had sent her an email.

Am I correct?

Yes.

And so why didn't we use that money on other projects rather than going out to bond because we pay principal and interest on some of this money for all these years that it could have been used on other projects?

We had money left over at the McCarthy School.

We allocate we reallocated that by legislation that came through the board to do the uh security vestibule update project, and we have money left over from that, and we have money left over from the main dunstable project, but we just got all the invoices paid.

We want to make sure everything was paid before we started spending it, and so now we have an opportunity to get more out of that money than we originally thought we could, and we can get a major project on it by Centennial.

It's the number one project for the school system.

Yeah, but when I looked at it, the dates went back to 2019, 2022, and like 2023, if I'm correct, there were backdates on some of these bonds.

My question is we have money left over from way back.

And then we went out to bond that some of that money could have been used on other projects we could have reallocated.

None of that money was sitting there.

The projects were all ongoing, or the money was reallocated.

I'll wait till the I'll wait till the legislation comes up and I'll have the papers in front of me.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Any other questions?

Clerk, please call them.

Alderman Thibault.

Yes.

Alderman O'Brien votes yes.

Alderman Craig.

Yes.

Alderman Dow.

Yes.

Alderman Senate.

Yes.

Alderman Johnson.

No.

Yeah.

Five to one.

Five to one.

Motion carries.

And can I just ask you for the record?

Yeah.

That was for what is the amount?

200,000?

200,000.

Very good.

Thank you.

All right.

Now again, just to remind everybody, we are going to have another wrap-up session tomorrow night.

And uh I think we will have a couple of them.

One other member of the budget committee.

Um but before I wrap things up, are there any other motions anybody wants to make?

Oh you're Brian.

Yes, uh, mine's not a motion, but Mr.

Chairman, you know how much I love infrastructure, but uh just have a question, and maybe Director Cummings or Don.

But uh we've heard in the past that the heating system within this building, and we also heard that the AC in this building is critical.

And is that something that we want to handle within the budget?

Or would that be a futuristic bond?

Are we addressing that particular reason?

And the reason I ask, because if that heating system shuts down in February, and we're closing shuttering the doors, and we're sending people home.

And uh I don't think the taxpayers want us to run the city like that.

Well, I can tell you right now the air conditioning is working pretty good.

I have to agree.

I believe that's already funded.

You want to come up and address that?

Yes.

Yes, good evening, Mr.

Chairman.

Happy to address the question for the record Tim Cummings Director of Administrative Services.

Uh so to answer the very specific question, the what we would refer to as the phase one elements of the City Hall HVAC program have not only been funded but has been completed completed, which is part of the reason why you're feeling maybe some additional air uh in in the building these days.

Uh so the emergency aspects or elements have been taken away.

Now I say it's phase one because we are not done.

We have additional phases that do need to be uh uh addressed, but we have certainly taken care of the emergency.

I would not recommend at this time adding in additional monies for the project at uh in the FY27 budget.

Um I think we need to study potentially design a solution, uh, and then come back to you all when we have some better uh information.

Thank you.

Uh while you're there, Mr.

Chairman.

Follow up.

Uh Mr.

Cummings, that also can be spoken to the uh heating system.

Uh yes, sir.

Both both it's one system handles it all.

Okay, outstanding.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, before we go anywhere, um Ms.

Enray, can you give us where we're at?

Don Enright, CFO.

Um at this given moment, we have a general fund uh appropriation of 384, 137, 425, which is a 6.38% increase.

And we started at six.

Uh the number I think the number was the one after the uh first amendment.

I can get it.

That's why they wrote it down so it's 6.34.

I believe it was.

I believe it was though.

All the motions we made haven't really significantly adjusted.

Then any the current budget numbers.

So we'll have another wrap-up session tomorrow night.

And hopefully if we get to this point, like we're at right now, we will pass the budget on to the full board of Alderman.

So if there are no other actions, uh Alderman O'Brien.

Yes, uh, Mr.

Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to table uh 26-028.

Okay.

Motion on the floor is the table.

And that would be roll five roll call.

Yes, my roll call.

Okay.

Umderman Thiabo.

Yes.

Alderman O'Brien votes, yes.

Alderman Greg.

Yes.

Alderman Dowd.

Yes.

Alderman Senate.

Yes.

Alderman Johnson.

Yes.

Okay.

Motion carries, correct?

Motion is so we'll take it up again tomorrow night.

Uh public comment.

No one for public comment.

General discussion.

Alderman Tebow.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, first, I just want to apologize to Alderman Lopez.

I was only going by the words he said, so I'm sorry about that.

Um, and uh sorry about you know, I did ask Director Bagley if she would speak, so I didn't think it was right for him to speak there.

He could have cleared it up after, but I am sorry that I I snapped at him.

Um the other thing here too is is you know, the budget we keep talking about reducing it, and yet all we did tonight was increase it.

So um it's not as easy as people think to reduce the budget by millions and millions and millions of dollars.

Um I mean, I guess I'm glad we reduced a couple of things because it helped you know, kind of balance some of the stuff we did add.

Um, one alderman online today said you they could cut five million, so I'm looking forward to that conversation.

Um, because it's going to cost services and jobs.

So if that's the the if that's you know, I think the mayor says it all the time.

If that's how we feel we should do, then that's what we should do.

But I think generally Nashua in general doesn't want to see services go down.

I they don't want to see people lose their jobs that are needed jobs.

Um they want to still be safe in the city by having cops and firemen and public service.

Um so I think you know we can keep trying to do it tomorrow.

I look forward to discussions on any any cuts that people want to make.

Uh I'm certainly open-minded to it, but at the same time, we don't want to cut the things that make the city run the way it runs every day.

So I hope to have good conversations tomorrow and then in two weeks when we go to the board with it.

Thank you.

Yeah, I appreciate all of the departments came in this evening.

I I know it's uh makes a long day for you.

Um hopefully uh this goes quickly tomorrow night and we move forward.

Uh I just want to say that you know we've been voted the safest city a number of times, and that's because of all of our departments, but specifically the police on the fire.

Um there's so many things lately where the fire department's had to respond and save lives and and property, and and uh you know, it if you tried to decimate the fire department, people would suffer.

Big time.

And police department is is busy every single day.

I know Alderman Wilsh and I attend the commission's meeting.

We see all the actions that they do.

There's a lot more than you hear about in the in the newspaper, and uh here are times that they're at risk, and just like the firemen when they're in a fire, you know, these guys risk their lives, and and they do it for the people of Nashua.

So I think supporting them is very important.

Uh any other remarks by Alderman.

None Alderman.

I believe Alderman Lopez is endeavoring to raise his hand.

Oh I'm glad it's a hand there.

Go ahead.

Alderman Lopez.

You're on mute.

Yeah, no, I think sorry.

Um even with a giant screen, I can still barely see the uh icons.

Um, so I wanted to apologize to Alderman uh Tebo as well.

Um my whole purpose in making that comment was just to clarify that I weren't trying to make it a personal disagreement with what trying to do with the uh communication thing, and I I meant that target, and I had really one job discussing all of this is make sure I don't confuse warming station with resource center, and I did that wrong too.

So I apologize for the confusion of that cause.

I apologize to the chair if I was referee it.

Um I felt if I could correct what I was trying to say effectively before Director Bagley came up, maybe she might have a different answer, but at the end of the day, I didn't say what I was trying to say when I was trying to say it, and so um that's on me.

I think it's important that we put something towards staffing for the resource center, even if we put it with uh a consultation model or outsourcing or something like that, because I don't want to have to wait until an opportunity comes and then have our hand.

That being said, I think it's important for the public to know too that there are constraints on how we do things.

We have to have 10 votes if we increase the budget any significant amount or any amount really at all.

And that could put very delicate, very sensitive issue, right in the crosshairs where it's competing against things like firefighters and police fire camps.

So I don't want to die on the hill if it will maintain goodwill.

I do want to encourage the alderman as a board to find solutions to seek them because I can't find them easily.

No, everyone's been saying that.

Um so it's not my intention to cause division.

We do have to work together, and I would encourage the public to be mindset as well.

That the only way we're gonna be able to make a decision here is collecting.

Okay.

With that, Alderman O'Brien, do you have a motion?

Oh, yes, I do.

I would like to make the motion to adjourn by roll call.

Okay, go and rule Alderman uh Alicia Greg.

Yes.

Alderman Derek Tibetal.

Yes.

I'm sure table.

Yes, the answer is still yes.

We're gonna have you got answered twice.

Yes, I've put it up here phonetically.

Thank you.

I I apologize.

Long day for me.

Alderman Paula Johnson.

Yes.

Alderman O'Brien.

I got my name right.

Thank you.

Alderman Senate.

Yes.

Alderman Dowd.

Yes.

Uh okay, motion carries.

We're adjourned at 9.07 p.m.