She'll just listen to the the um video.

Okay.

I'll let her know.

All set.

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

It's June 11th, 2026.

Meetings being held in the aldermatic chamber at 7.05 p.m.

And the meetings were duly noticed in two places, including the city's website in accordance with the requirements of IRSA 91-A, colon 2, 2.

Would the clerk please call the rule?

Thank you.

Alder Women at Large, Shoshana Kelly.

Here.

Alderman at large, Alicia Greg.

Here.

Alderman Derek Tebow is here.

Alderman Paula Johnson.

Present.

Alderman at large, Michael B.

O'Brien, Clerk.

Alderman Tim Sant, Vice Chairman.

Here.

And Alderman Richard A.

Dowd, Chairman.

Here.

We have six here, one absent.

We also have CFO Don Enright and Diane Mulholland, Treasurer Tax Collector.

We have attorney Steve our city council, Steve Bolton, and uh Mayor Jim Donchus.

No offense, I'm not going to go through every city head that department person that's here because you're all here, but um welcome.

We have other alderman here.

Oh, yeah, okay.

Let me go through them here.

What do we got?

We got Alderman Jimmer Van, all the men, uh Trish Clee, all the women at large and President Um Laurie Wilshire.

And I think I got everyone, right?

Okay, perfect.

Um Brian is uh has a medical issue and is not here this evening, and in accordance with the rules of of the Board of Alderman, Alden Wilshire is going to be sitting in as a voting member tonight of this committee.

Okay.

First item on the agenda is public comment.

Anyone that wishes to speak in public comment.

Only on items ru on this agenda.

Um is there anything on the budget?

No.

On the budget.

Yes, that's on the agenda.

Yeah, so speaking about putting something into the budget.

Um my name is uh Bob Keating.

I live at uh five uh Coburn uh Woods Drive here in Nashville.

Uh on Tuesday night I I spoke about the uh uh ending homeless plan and I wanted uh start with that again and uh um Chris Conis that some of you uh know from years she uh worked in the mayor's office uh coordinated that was in leadership at uh House of Representatives and was also the president of the board of uh National Soup Kitchen and uh shelter and was an incredible human being.

Uh we had a meeting at her house which uh became the the launching of the idea of ending homelessness in our community.

And one of the things, many things that Chris uh said and did that uh stayed with me, and one of the things she said, uh I'm concerned.

No, so this is back in 2003.

She said there will be people uh soon that will not know that homelessness is not normal.

Um and for those people who who uh grew up in uh you know from maybe the early 60s uh and down, um we're in communities that with very few homelessness.

Uh the larger cities, it just didn't exist.

And I think her uh um prophecy, if you will, has really come through that we have reached the point in time that uh uh we see this as uh as a normal uh thing.

And as my sister-in-law would say uh at various times in family events, it's just not normal.

And I hope we just keep that in perspective.

So what I'm speaking here is that our budget of 383 million dollars, and it's a pressive document, has no new monies, despite all of the uh efforts that we have uh discussed, the multitudinous of people who have spoken, including people who have been homeless.

One minute and there is no new money there.

And the budget certainly reflects our values, and as many people have said, uh a budget is a moral document.

And so with that, uh continue to say there's still time here uh that for no cost, as it was uh stated yesterday on Elm Street could uh offset the uh ordinance by having uh people not have to be living out in the woods or hiding between uh um buildings.

Uh so I'm hoping that that would be the first thing that would do here, and secondly, uh having to walk in and see that uh we're looking at the infrastructure, and there was 17 million dollars for the hydroelectric plant and uh the fishways, uh which are good things, but um, I think we could at least uh uh pursue having that kind of money that's available for uh housing people here in our community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else public comment?

Seeing none, move on communications?

Uh there is none.

Unfinished business?

None.

New business resolutions?

None.

New business ordinances?

None.

Table in committee?

I'd like to make a motion to remove from the table our 26-028 relative to the adoption of the fiscal year 2027 proposed budget for the city of Nashua General Enterprise Special Revenue and Grant Funds.

Okay.

So the motion is to remove the budget from the table, R25028.

Uh and I don't think we have anybody from the committee online.

So all in favor signify by saying aye.

Opposed?

Motion carries.

Oh, go talk to the TV guys.

Oh, you know what?

Is it put on the clerk's deep hands?

There you go.

Okay.

Okay.

So last evening we made some motion.

I think everybody got a copy of what was uh approved last night.

And before we get started, uh the mayor is asked to address the budget committee.

Um thank you, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So I just wanted to briefly report on something we found today.

So last night we were talking um about the city's economic development efforts and uh got into the issue of uh well how our department and its size and its costs compared to other cities of similar size in this area.

Um and I had the general idea, as I said at the time, that ours is significantly smaller than other communities, but we looked at the issue uh or investigated the issue in detail.

So down the road in Lowell, they have five and a half people in economic development and four and a half in city events.

So they have a staff of ten compared to our one and a half.

So they they put forth six or seven times as much effort as we do.

Up the river in Manchester, four and a half people in economic development, plus they have an annual budget of 300,000 for city events, so they have three times as many people, plus they spend that money on city events, plus they spend a million dollars on a city marketing campaign compared to our one and a half people.

So we looked at you know, a smaller community like Dover, New Hampshire, one-third our size, three people in economic development, city one-third our size, three people, they have a department twice as large.

So the statement that we are you know smaller and uh expending less resources on economic development as other communities is very very true.

Um, very sometimes various aldermen at various times have suggested that we should be doing more, and they point to these other cities.

Well, uh they're doing this, and we're not, you know, the whole Manchester marketing marketing plan.

Uh you know, if you want us to do more, we need more, a lot more resources, not less.

So if you want us to do less, cut cut economic development.

But if you want to get anywhere close to what our competing cities, I mean, even to begin to approach our commiting commun are the cities on which you know we do compete, uh, you would need to add money.

And I'm not really suggesting that we should add money, but uh you should understand that uh you know we have we we are considerably more uh uh lean in this area than uh communities right around us and that's my uh my report for the night.

Does anybody have any questions for the mayor before we get all in it?

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I know through this process of discovery and how we compare it to other municipalities and a lot of different aspects, um, it's come up that uh certain things that we we'd like to see, like whether it was a marketing plan or something like that for the city, it's just something that's never been in place.

Um I guess my question would be uh in regard to how lean our economic development department is, how long has our uh department been at one and a half people or less?

Is that sort of been the story all along?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Wait, do I have to any other questions?

No, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

All right, so we'll uh start back in by addressing motions on the budget, and at the end of the evening, hopefully we'll address a but uh uh motion to approve our budget going forward to the full board on the 23rd of this month.

Any other motions?

Alderman Kelly.

Uh thank you, and thank you for my colleagues for um doing some great work last night.

I tracked everything, so um I have fewer motions to make.

Um, but I will start with a motion um in department 152 line 5110.

I'd like to increase that by 9,743, and I'd like to speak to it.

You say the department can see it was department 152 in the amount 9,743 to salary and wages.

Line item again, sorry.

Sorry, I I I gotta write all this down.

You know, I'm trying.

What's the line item?

Five one one zero zero.

Page number.

Okay, relevant.

We got four different things.

I'm just going by the script.

I don't know what to tell you.

Okay, forget the page number.

All right, all right, that's fine.

I'm sure that Ms.

Enright will find it.

Yeah.

Are we done with logistics?

I'll I'll speak to it.

Yeah, I mean I had to write it down.

What do you want me to do?

Okay, but so this is to reinstate the unaffiliated wage increases that this board has worked through for a number of years.

I think that we have as a board approved this multiple times, and I'd like to see it returned.

Go ahead and speak to it.

Huh?

Are you speaking to it?

Do you want to add something?

That's what I just what is happening?

Am I I thought you just said at the end you wanted to again speak to it, so I didn't know.

No, no, that's it.

That was right.

That was my statement.

All right.

Uh discussion.

Follow the team up.

Yeah, um, I'm just gonna say I I the mayor had a reason to do it.

I don't want to add this back in at this time.

Trying to add less to the budget, not more.

So it's 9,743.

Uh-huh.

And what specifically on the wages, which wages for that would be returning the wages that the city, this I'm sorry, the board of aldermen agreed on for the unaffiliated class of firefighters.

Um, just the firefighter ones?

Correct.

Oh, okay.

That's the fire is 152.

Oh, that's a huge.

Do you want me to say the name of the department?

I'm happy to do that too.

Okay.

That's about to go to Ms.

Enray, because I didn't think that number was right.

Okay.

That's different.

I take back my words.

Oh, sorry.

No, I'm good.

You're good.

I do have a question.

Thank you.

Now that's clarification.

So this is the money that it seems like every year we we put back in.

I know we did last year.

I know Alderman O'Brien um pushed it back in.

We all voted to put it back in, and yet it never goes back into their pockets.

So what will voting for this again?

Will it allow it to go to them this time?

Like how I don't know.

I'm just trying to figure out if they're gonna actually get this because didn't they not get it last year?

Or am I wrong on that?

Am I getting this confused with something else?

I would ask Chief that I think but it has definitely gone back and forth a few times.

Chief Buxton, is it possible that you could come up and speak to that?

I just want to make sure that we're not just voting yes on this and you don't you guys don't get what you're supposed to be getting.

I know something was supposed to happen, I don't know if it ever did.

Mr.

Chairman, yeah.

What drives this reduction is in the resolution itself.

Toward the end of it, it talks about how specifically the firefighters will be treated and that the prior ordinance will be modified.

So if you want to undo that, it might be that you strike that language from the resolution itself.

Oh I was not ready for that.

So we that's probably not something we're doing tonight in the budget, though, right?

We're just gonna we can approve this and then have to fix that later.

If you don't take it out of the resolution body of the resolution, all right, the law will be changed, and whether you have it in the budget or not, they can't get that salary because the ordinance provides for what salary they will get.

So can we could I ask a question?

Three can we pass this and then make amendments to the full budget resolution at the end.

You can do it in any order you want, but that's what I would like.

Get it done right.

You may not accomplish what you're trying to accomplish.

I see.

Understood.

Okay, so I don't know if I need that question answered now because I think so.

I guess my question to you would be has that money gotten to the unaffiliated over the last year.

Steve Buxton fire chief.

Uh so yes, the ordinance we passed last year, we did receive the money for that, and we have received the compensation.

Uh we built our budget this year.

Uh the numbers that were submitted by uh my staff uh reflected those increases according to the resolution, and then an adjustment was made in the mayor's proposed budget.

Okay, but we still have to do what legal has said.

Uh that's on comprehend everything that uh attorney Bolton said.

I just want to make sure we're doing the right thing.

Yeah, there's a line in the original mayor's or uh ordinance for the budget that that strikes the money from the budget.

So in addition to what the motion is the overall budget, they have to strike that line to make it effective.

I got you understood.

I understand now.

I got you.

Are we on the same page?

Yeah, uh yes, and oh, yes, Ms.

Lenrite.

Don and right, CFO.

I would just like make an amendment to that amount.

Schedule B that was passed out last evening, has the amounts for each department for the unaffiliated, and the amount was 11,009.

Is that correct?

I would guess that she has the most up-to-date information.

I will change that to 11,000.

$9,000 and $9.

$11,000 nine dollars.

11,000 and $9.

Okay.

I assume the maker of the motion is agreeable to that.

I would like to amend it to the appropriate amount.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions on this?

Um go out to the board, but when we make motions, if do we want to do it by roll call?

Or do we want to do it just yes and nays?

But we don't know the count, we can yeah, I would do it afterwards.

May I speak to this one more time, please?

Thank you.

Uh Don and right, CFO.

Um, you are looking at uh reinstating the unaffiliated.

If you look at schedule B, there are um FICA medi and pension costs that do associate with them.

So you may want to consider um adding those into the um the amount.

Okay.

Can you calculate that?

Or shall I do it as a separate motion?

I can get it.

Yeah.

Where's the these two numbers?

Okay.

The total is 14,417.

Okay.

That I see that now.

14,000 400 and 17.

That includes 11,000?

That includes yeah, that includes the wages total FICA and oh, I apologize.

We have to do it by lines.

Oh, so we do have to do it in separately.

I apologize.

Yes.

So the motion is to change 51100 by increasing it eleven thousand nine dollars.

Okay, any further discussion.

We decide how we want to vote.

I think we said unless it was unclear, we could just do straight up.

All right, I'm just gonna say all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Nay.

Motion passes.

Okay, so then if I'm right.

You want to do the FICA one?

Yeah.

So if I'm right, then the next motion is I would like to increase under fire department 152 line 52100.

And I want to increase it by 121 dollars.

Is that correct?

Okay.

No.

Well, that's probably the smallest amount of budget motion I've ever heard of.

We we have to do them separately.

There's no line items.

Any discussion?

121, right?

Yeah.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Nay.

Motion carries.

I could excuse me.

I apologize.

That total was 160, not 121.

121 is police.

Oh 160.

We do not be happy.

So we'll have to vote on that again.

Since it's 160 versus this one.

The 121.

Yeah, 160.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Nay.

Motion carries.

Now that I'm on the right line.

Next motion.

Department 15252150.

The amount is 3248.

I got this title.

What does that do?

That I'm sorry, that is to increase the pension cost and match the unaffiliated salary increase.

Yep.

Does everybody understand the motion or have any questions?

See none, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Nay.

Motion carries.

I thought I started with my easy one.

Although we're in trouble.

I know.

Okay.

I don't want to take up all the time if other people have motions, but I have a few more.

You want to see if anybody else has a motion?

I'm looking at any.

Anyone else have a motion?

Oh, I got a question about these motions here.

Um so is that all we need to add?

Because it seemed like it went from 14 11,000 to 14,000, but we only put like 192 dollars back in.

Do we need more?

McDonald said 14,000.

And I said, does that include 11?

That the delta would be 3,000, right?

We do have this.

I didn't have it until just now, but I was just following that's what we're good.

I just want to make sure we're good on those ones.

14, 417.

Yeah.

The total is uh 14,417.

Yeah.

The delta of that is 3,000.

So did we put that 3,000 back in somewhere?

The pension the last one was 337.

Oh, 3248.

Oh my god.

Yeah, that was the pension.

Yep.

Oh my god.

Okay.

When you say 3248, I was thinking 32.48 cents.

All right, we're good.

Anyone else with a motion?

I have many more.

All right.

We'll go back to you on here.

Okay.

Um, so my next motion is under risk, department 128.

Line item 53130.

I'd like to reduce that item by 110,000 dollars.

And I'd like to speak to it.

I got it.

You got all the info?

Yep.

All right, speak to it.

Um, so this line item appears to be for encampments.

We put out at a ban on encampments, so I think that the budget doesn't make sense to me.

Oh yeah, I got I got the budget book right in front of me.

Sorry, I'll put a little closer.

Do you want to say it again?

You have a delicate voice.

I do, but unless I like mean right in.

Um, so my um explanation is that this is a line item and risk under encampments, and my understanding is if our camping ban is doing what it should be doing, we shouldn't need to have money for encampments.

Okay.

Would anyone from the I was gonna ask that exact question?

Anyone from the city like to address this?

Like to know what it has.

Anyone from risk or in here Mr.

Director Cummings?

I'm happy to answer any questions if there's a a question.

The motion is to reduce 110,000 from risk because of uh because it's for encampment, and since we've passed the legislation that doesn't allow it, does that money need to be in the budget?

Oh well, that is certainly a decision for you to make again.

Tim Cummings Director of Administrative Services.

I I will note that uh just because there's the camping uh uh prohibition out there that does not negate the fact that we still have to go out and clean um and and whatnot certain areas of the city, and certainly we wouldn't have the resources to be able to do that.

Uh I will tell you that I was with Director Bagley this morning, actually, on uh uh an unhoused uh uh meeting where we were talking about hot spots within the city uh that we know that we need to watch and we will potentially need to you know clean up based on uh the activity that's occurring there.

It's these monies here that would actually be available to us to be able to undertake such actions, absent these monies, we wouldn't be able to to do that.

We certainly could come back before you and do a supplemental appropriation if that's what you so desire to do, but we wouldn't be so responsive or be able to react if we we were to get phone calls from you all because we would have to go through a certain process.

Thank you.

I got a question, Dr.

Cummings.

Um why would this fall under risk and not maybe another department that seems like cleaning up would be more I don't know apt to be in another department I can't answer that question uh I can tell you that over the years this is where it's been and we've just been consistent over the years in terms of its its funding source.

Um I certainly could see an argument being made that it being DPW but for whatever reason many years ago it was placed in the risk uh department and we've kept it there over the years and we're happy to have it there.

So do other departments when they get involved, whether it's EPW, police or fire, then take go to risk and get reimbursed?

Is that the way it's been working?

Not reimbursed, uh but what happens is lots of times, again, Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services, and I'll use DPW as an example, and we work as a coordinated team here.

So police may be the the first um front line that brings it to the attention.

DPW does as much as they can.

Um we try to contain costs as much as possible and you know provide the services in-house, but when it gets to a certain point and it can't be done, DPW works very closely with risk, and then we do it uh we we coordinate it and it becomes a you know uh uh a contracted service type type vendor situation.

Okay, just to follow up.

Um so without me looking because I'm trying to clerk at the same time.

Do you know how much you've used uh this year of this particular uh line item?

How much?

Three thousand.

Three thousand up to 331.

Yes.

And if I could, sorry.

Is that accurate or do you do you know more stuff coming in?

Uh I'm gonna have to get back on that because I know we've done some cleanup, so I'm I'm I'm not a hundred percent sure.

So let me check on that and only because I mean I don't want to wipe this out completely, but uh if you haven't used it, you know, I'd be like, oh well, why are we putting it on there?

But if you're saying 95,000, maybe we reduce the 95,000 secret.

You had a comment.

I had a point of order that I've been trying to ask.

Can I can I say order?

Okay.

So you said that it's been in the board budget book.

I'm looking at 2025.

It was not line item in the 2025 risk budget.

I'm sorry, 2026 risk budget as encampments.

So it lives someone else somewhere else, or I'm missing it.

If I may, I'll address both questions.

It wasn't up the FY25 budget.

I believe it might have just been rolled up so it's not being displayed.

Um then secondly, I just confirmed yes, it sounds like we've only spent about three thousand dollars this year.

Thank you.

So the uh just one thing, the motion that you're making and completely takes that to zero.

Yes.

Ulliman Johnson?

Well, I was just before um we had a point of order.

Because I remember sitting here, we talked about DPW with um economic development director and also direct a photo, and I had questioned about the cleanup with these encampments and the waste on the streets, and I kept worrying that that we were gonna have to do hazmat because of the encampments.

And so if I did say that because we were talking about human feces.

And um and my concern was how are we going to do all this cleanup?

So we have it in the budget, and it we're not using it.

So the money had to come from elsewhere.

When we when we had um direct the photo and the director of economic development.

We talked about that.

We because we were talking about the area.

Well, it was first main street, and then we were going up West Pearl Street, and we were going all over the city, and a lot of us were concerned with what specific area were we going to clean up.

Yeah, that money that we approve for that cleanup was for a small area for the till the end of the year.

Yeah, right.

So but that's what if we're talking about that.

We're talking about the encampment money too.

So we don't so this is not going to be used at all.

So we have money elsewhere if we needed to do any of the cleanup.

Yeah, I think that's a good question.

I just want to make sure before we vote to remove this from the budget.

That's all.

Because we went around the coming.

Yes, yes, thank you.

Um I I think that's fair to say.

I'm not exactly sure how those monies were appropriated and if they were limited to be in a certain area, but absent that.

Yes.

So I think you might want to check on that before you go too far.

I also just wanted to add, I wanted to just check this.

Um when we do do a cleanup, um, it's there's a chance that it gets prohibitively expensive because we are removing um hazardous material uh at uh at um certain points in times, and that's one of the reasons why we use a vendor.

It's not uncommon for if we're doing a cleanup for it to run in the 25,000 dollar range.

So I just want you to be aware of that as well.

So, you know, it it sounds as though last year we didn't necessarily go in that direction because we're able to do it in-house, as I said, we try to do it in-house as much as possible.

But when we have had to uh contract out, it's you know, it can go from uh a 10 to a uh $30,000 type expenditure for a single cleanup.

And I so we're doing when we have done it, we've done two or three a year.

Thank you.

Okay, I get Alderman McGreg, and then uh Alderman Kelly, then Alderman Klee.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I think you know, in looking at this too, for six months of this, we did not have a camping van.

And if if half a year they only use like three thousand of this, I think this is a wise cut for us.

Okay, Alderman Kelly.

I'm good.

Good.

Yes, Alderman Klee.

I I'm not commenting on on the the 110.

That's not my comment, but to the um the query about the um the money that was used for the cleanup.

If I remember correctly, we had a very specific area, including the streets, main street, and so on.

So that money cannot be used for because it was very specific location.

That's that's the only comment that I want to make.

I'm not commenting on this one ten one other.

Okay, thank you.

Alderman Town.

Thank you, uh Mr.

Chair.

Yeah, um, and that wasn't for cleanup for encampments, it was clean up for just the the river front and main street.

Um so that would to me that was com different um than this.

I mean, I guess we can risk uh you know uh supplemental appropriation if the we need the money.

Um but I think we have to if we vote to take off this money.

Um so part of the the encampment that was cleaned up, the mine falls advice, you know, the mine falls committee did a lot of that cleanup themselves, which again takes away the money that the city has to spend on that, right?

If an encampment somewhere else, it's not maybe Greeley Park or Mine Falls, that's when the city might have to step in and do the uh cleanup.

Um we're lucky to have such great committees that and and community people that come out and help us clean those those two areas, right?

So I think that's probably one of the reasons why we barely used any money because I think the Mine Falls people really came out and did a did a great job there.

But that being said, there could be another time.

I'm okay with with voting with this if we're okay that if sometime in the year we need to make a supplemental appropriation because something has happened that's been out of our control and we need to clean it up, that we're okay doing that.

And if we if we're okay doing that, I'm fine with this cut, I'll vote for it.

Um but I just want to make sure that we're we're we're we're thinking about that if it comes up and we're making sure that we we do what's necessary if that happens and we don't just say, well, we're not gonna make supplemental appropriations, just push that aside.

We want to make sure maybe it's only 25,000, and we've saved ourselves still 80, 90,000, 100,000, right?

So I think um I I will I will support this if if that's the the mindset we have going into it.

I have a question for Director Bagley.

If there's hazardous material somewhere in the city that needs to be addressed, does that fall under your division and and do you have funding to do that?

And if not, who clean who cleans that up Bobby Backley, Director of Division of Public Health and Community Services.

Uh no, we don't have um money in our budget for cleaning up hazardous materials.

We actually will work with DPW.

I I also want to speak to I think that that amount that we were looking at for the cleanup wasn't just for a debris, it also included campers and those things as well.

I think that is why that number was higher.

Because the impounding of the movement of those campers was also included in that amount.

Is that correct?

You're 100% correct.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

And did you have something directly?

Well, no, I just wanted to echo and follow along with what Director Bagley said to make sure everyone understands that we get asked on from time to time to remove uh campers, abandoned vehicles from the roadway, and that was the monies we had identified to use be to to tow and then um and and then uh if they're campers in particular, we have to remove them and and and and dispose of them as well.

Thank you.

Alderman Teble?

Yeah, that brings up another question for you, Director Cummings.

Um so if we've only if we only use three thousand last year when it was you know camping world out there with the the campers, and there was a lot of them that we know a good amount that we had to move.

If we only use three thousand, and we're pretty much for the most part cleaned up now, there might be one somewhere here and there throughout the city.

Wouldn't we say we st we still wouldn't need a ton of money to to do that?

Like so it I just want to be clear the reason why we're able to to no avoid using some of the money is because we actually were able to have the owners move the vehicles or charge them for the the for the vehicles being moved because they weren't abandoned.

Um but it's there was a couple that we did have to uh move, and I believe we we ended up having to to pay for it.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That was the same question.

Okay, any other questions on this I'm inclined to uh go along with this, but you I think we ought to keep in mind that if we do have issues during the year, we may have to do a supplemental appropriation to cover some of the expense.

Uh I I think we've significantly reduced uh because the legislation we we passed.

Um I probably would have preferred that we instead of cutting like 110 that we cut a hundred, but uh I'll go along.

Alan Wilson?

I I too am of the uh I I'd hate to cut that line that 110 completely.

I'd be okay with a lesser amount, but I'm not gonna support the 110.

Yeah, I think I may lean out.

I can support amending it to cutting it by 100,000, leaving 10,000 in there for rapid response.

All right.

So the amount is reduced from 110 to 100,000 in the motion.

Any other discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Aye.

Okay, that passes.

Uh any other motions?

I'll take a break.

I have a couple I'd like to make a motion to cut the administrative services, which is on page 60, the bottom line by 1.5 million dollars.

What's the the line number, please?

It's just it's not a line number.

Oh, it's just bottom.

For for which I'm sorry.

Administrative services.

Department.

The whole thing.

Yeah, but what department number?

Administrative services, department 42.

Would you like to speak to the intent of your motion?

I'm trying to reduce the budget.

And to reduce it by 1.5 million dollars because we need to bring the budget more in line, because right now it has increased by 6.34 percent, and we're looking at a possible 8 percent increase.

And I think that's way too much for all of the citizens of the city to be able to handle.

So we need to bring the budget down.

Yes, thank you.

Ms.

Enray?

Uh Don Enright, CFO.

Um, what department are we talking about?

Are you are you speaking of to a division?

Just administrative services division.

Division, not division.

Yeah, okay.

Administrative services division.

Bottom line commercial.

1.5.

Could uh someone from the city staff come up and explain all of the areas that will be eliminated from administrative services?

This is Department 106, right?

There's no party in the whole thing.

If I may, Mr.

Chairman.

Yes, Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

I'm not a hundred percent clear on the uh uh amendment being offered, but if I if I think I think I understand it and I am seeking clarity first, it sounds as though this is a bottom line cut to the entire division.

The entire division.

Yep.

Of a pro and it sounds like it's at 1.5 million dollars.

4.5 million dollars.

Okay.

So with that being said, I'll just speak generically.

Um I think what this body needs to be prepared for is there would be a significant reduction in services within the division of admin services.

Um and you just need to be aware of that uh as just a general comment.

I can't begin to tell you right now what exact uh items we would cut um to be able to make the number because the division of admin services in particular has statutory requirements uh where we have to provide certain amount of funding um to be in compliance with with state law, and so we would have to look to see where we would have areas available to us to cut.

Um we can certainly undertake that.

Um but because of that, I would note that, and I'll give this as an example.

One of the biggest drivers of the admin services budget is insurance, and particularly the workers' comp insurance, which is covered in uh admin services, and uh I would suggest we would have an obligation to continue to fund that, and that's at a three million dollar increase.

So we would have to offset it in other departments to be able to make this work if that's your if that's your desire.

Thank you.

Comments Alderman Tebow.

Yeah, it I just I mean I think I have trouble supporting something that's just a bottom line.

I would prefer if if we're gonna cut things that we know where we're cutting them from, because I don't want to let it up to I mean that's what we have the problem we have with education, right?

So I would prefer to look at it and I I said the same thing to Alderman Sullivan today.

I said, can you break that out into to pieces?

Because I'm more apt to vote for something if it's a piece of something that we I think maybe we don't need it, but to just say cut 1.5 in your department and let it go, that's where I kind of like I struggle with that piece of it.

I would much rather see it from places so that it's easier to figure out.

If we're leaving in other hands, it's like then we're not doing the work than we're letting them do it.

So yes, thank you very much.

First of all, I didn't create their budget, so I don't know which real area I'm going to be able to cut.

They know their budget.

I'm not an accountant, they've done the whole thing.

But here's the issue.

If the mayor did his work and he kept every department to three percent, which was his directive, we wouldn't be sitting here have to figure out how we're gonna be really reduced this budget for the taxpayers of the city this year.

And I spoke about that last night too with the mayor.

He gave every department a directive three percent.

How many came in at three percent?

Maybe one or two, and that was it.

And we're sitting here, and I'm making I made small motions last night to see if they would even pass.

In the library, 14,000.

And that didn't even pass last night.

I don't expect any of my motions to pass tonight, even if they were a small motion.

But I'm not in their department.

It is their job to figure out what line item would need to be reduced.

Not me, them.

That's their job.

They created the budget, and they created it over the mayor's directive.

So it's their responsibility to correct their budget.

It's absolutely our job to do a budget.

Can I make a observation?

In Department 106, the total expenditure is 765,000 and change.

A bottom line cut of a million and a half gives you a negative number.

It's 22 million.

It's a whole division.

She's trying to cut the whole division.

I thought I'd heard someone talk about the bottom line of department 106.

Yeah, page 56 at the bottom.

22 million.

She didn't.

Oh, but just so you know, you can't have a negative.

I mean, it is absolutely our job to cut line items.

That's what our we're being tasked with.

Um just like the boy, it's their task to cut line items on their budget.

Um I can, you know, you could make a motion that would pass.

Uh Alderman Kelly did it.

Um we and we we cut 100,000 out of a department.

So you can actually absolutely make a motion.

Cutting library days open, that wasn't you know, necessarily, or just saying, you know, cut 400,000 out of education.

Those aren't serious requests.

If you have specific things that we can actually talk about, maybe we could pass one of your motions.

I absolutely I think we could.

Um just say cut 1.5.

Why don't I just say I'm gonna make a motion to cut 1.5 out of the police?

Guys, come figure it out.

Figure out how you're gonna do that.

I mean, it's that's not really what we should be doing.

We should be looking at the line items and saying we don't think like the encampment, we don't think that money can be used, so let's cut it back.

I don't know why that isn't our job.

If you want to really cut the 3%, put a motion to cut the school department by 3%.

And if we approve that, you see what kind of chaos that would create.

It would be bad.

So if you think that that every department should really be at 3%, I mean we got people from this the board of ed, they'll tell you that would absolute chaos.

If we cut the police to three percent, the fire to three percent, DPW by three percent, or two or three percent.

You know what that would be for our city?

It wouldn't be a good good the services would not be maybe happening like they should be, and then you'd be getting calls all day saying, why isn't my street being plowed?

Why aren't there any cops on my street?

Why is this not happening?

You would get it.

That's just the facts.

I don't know.

You know, so I I think our job tonight is to look at motions.

If we want to make reductions or additions, there should be specific line items and there should be specific reasons for doing it.

I don't think a cut just to say we're reducing the the overall city budget is a valid reason because you're not taking into account what's being reduced and cut.

So to me, I'm not gonna support that type of cut.

Owman Senate and then Alderman Kelly.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I want to uh at least first assure my colleague from Ward 5 that any vote that I make on any of the motions I'm intending to make fully on the merit and the strength of them.

Um I myself moved 137,000 out of the budget last night.

Again, small, you know, drop we call them drop in the bucket uh motions, but uh I can certainly be in favor of those.

I can be in favor of more, but I struggle because I am an accountant with bottom line cuts because our biggest lament every year, I've this is my third budget.

Um every year we lament the fact that we don't have this line item authority over the school department's budget, and that that's our biggest pain point in doing this.

The rest of the budget we do have line item authority on, and I know everything that I have here is line item.

I know many of my colleagues have brought forward line items.

That's where we think we should.

That's where I think we should be making these cuts.

It especially with administrative services, who is a department I'll fully cop that I pick on a lot.

Um, you know, there's a lot within administrative services that if we just did a blanket cut and left them to adjust, we put at risk.

One of the things that pops up, and I know people say, well, it's just because it's in your ward, but we have the Arlington Street Community Center that falls under the administrative services division, and a couple of years ago, we accepted a grant for that was essentially to be forgiven so long as we continue to use that facility as a community center for the next I want to say five, ten years.

If we were to make a blanket cut, left it to the will of what we can and can't do to you know distribute those cuts, and then that winds up shut down because of other things that we have to.

We're on the hook for that X million amount of dollars that we were granted.

We have to pay it back.

Those were the terms of the grant, and so this is why I feel like we need to be really cautious and really careful and really deliberate about the motions that we're making.

I'm happy to make cuts because I agree that this budget is huge.

We just need to do it the correct way.

Thank you.

Alderman Kelly.

I had a question little wow, I can't speak.

Logistical question through you to corporation counsel.

I I don't even know where I stand here, but if if we were to make a bottom line cut, then the budget's not finished.

So what happens then?

Does that division have to come up with what they would cut and then we have to approve it at the full board?

They would have to allocate the money.

I don't think it would necessarily require further action by the board of law.

Okay, so the bottom line would be enough.

We they would just have to abide by that.

Well, I mean, you can't create a situation where you're forced to do something that contradicts state or local law.

So for example, uh obvious things are you've got some bargaining unit employees that are covered by collective bargaining agreements.

You've got unaffiliated employees that are covered by the ordinance that you folks pass that is to be modified by language in this budget resolution, but it's not being modified to take those people down to no salary at all, being modified to take them down to some extent.

You have to pay those.

It's the law of the uh state statutes concerning collective bargaining agreements.

So you can't take it down so much that that can't happen.

I can't speak directly to you know this division, but there may be other federal and state mandates that have to be adhered to.

So if you don't allocate enough money to take care of all of those things, the city could end up in violation of the law.

Uh I don't think you want to be in that situation.

So it it does seem like you risk that when you're pulling out big numbers without knowing exactly if the obligations can be met with what's left.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh thank you.

Um I I worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I was in fiscal and finance.

Um I dealt with budgets.

Uh I worked for them for 20 plus years.

And um when we made um department um budget cuts, we made them line item by line item.

And the reason for it was I worked very closely with the director.

Um, I worked with the um chief fiscal officer and so on.

And the reason why we didn't just tell them cut 1.5 off the bottom line is because we wanted to ensure that we would look at all the line items of the budget and we would say, we want to cut this, tell me why we can't cut it.

We would make them justify each item.

If they couldn't, so to what um attorney Bolton said, you know, we're telling them 1.5, but do we really know that they have 1.5 in um applicable cuts that would not create the problem that was just brought to us?

So I don't think that we should be doing bottom lines.

I'm not on your committee.

I'm just telling you that, you know, it was mentioned that we do this to the school department, but that's because of another type of agreement with it.

We should do each line item, we should look at their budget, and I know you all have done that as have I, and look at each line item and then question and say, you know, I want to cut this and make them justify it, and then the board can I mean the committee can determine it.

So thank you.

Yes, question through the chair to the attorney Balton.

When does this budget have to be passed by August 1st?

August 1st.

And you can extend it if you need to past August 1st.

It's been done before it violates the law.

But it was done before.

It's in violation of full law.

But we were on the board together when that happened.

That was we didn't pass the target.

But we did.

Other people who voted against it were willing to let it violate the law.

So the reason I'm asking that is that there's no rush that we have to pass it tonight because uh, Mr.

Chairman, you said that hopefully we'd pass it tonight.

So we have up until August 1st that we can sit down and go through the budget even more and work on it.

So there's no rush tonight.

It'll depend on the vote of this committee what we do tonight.

Right, I got it.

But but there is no rush if it doesn't get passed tonight to send it to the full board.

We have up until August 1st.

Well, then you're uh just can't go.

Then you get it goes to the full board, it gets extended even further.

You're still in violation of the law.

I don't think we want to go there.

So that's a hypothetical, so we'll see what happens.

But Alderman Senate.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, through you to um attorney Bolton as well.

I apologize for putting you on the spot tonight.

Um, in consideration of this motion, the um the mayor's proposed for the total division is 22,627, 326.

Suppose this passes, and suppose at the end of this meeting that the board um or this committee elects to send this budget to the board for final consideration.

With that in mind, without the breakout of what that 1.5 million dollar cut looks like, is the division on the hook to have that breakout prepared by the full board meeting at which this would be voted on?

There's no requirement for that.

I mean, if you ask for that, I'm sure they would endeavor to do so, which is no law that requires that.

Thank you for that answer.

And the reason I asked that is just because the other concern that this brings up, and again, I don't have a crystal ball, I don't know what's gonna happen at the end of this meeting.

But if this were to pass, and then if we sent this budget to the full board as is, and those 1.5 million dollar in adjustments aren't made, then in my opinion at least, we have a very non-transparent budget because we have a bottom line number, but no clarity and no information to share with our constituents or the folks out there who watch this budget process how that breaks out.

How much of that money that's left now, that 21 million that it would be will be allocated to assessing, would be allocated to human resources.

And so I think that's a concern, especially with how hot of a topic uh transparency is in the city and all the discussions that we have in and around that.

Um for that reason again, I would I would just like to see cuts proposed be detail oriented.

Thank you.

Any further discussion on this motion seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Nay.

Motion fails.

Any other motions?

Alderman Kelly, Elderwoman Kelly.

At the risk of being ironic, my next um motion is to the mayor's office 101.

I would like to propose a bottom line reduction of 12,947 and 49 cents, and I'd like to speak to it.

Let me just make sure that's right.

12, 94, 7, and 47 cents.

49.

49 cents.

I think I did my math right, I'll ask.

Sorry.

So this after having that whole discussion about bottom line, the mayor's budget is a tight budget.

It is 6051 94 all over all in.

And it was suggested that if the mayor's three percent um cut is there, then the mayor, as the leader of the city should also follow the same rules.

Uh so I wanted to entertain what that would look like.

So I think I predicated it correctly.

I took that 605, I re I removed fringe benefits because that was pre-fringe benefits, is the is the goal, right?

And then I just took the three percent.

Ms.

Android, does that track while she's looking it up, Alderman Greg?

Yeah, while she's looking that up, I just wanted to ask my um colleague.

I can talk directly, my colleague have to do it through you through the chair to the colleague.

Um would you because he set this goal before we knew what inflation rates were going to be, would you consider changing that instead to like 4.2 percent because that's what the inflation rate was is now that we're looking at because right now what we're looking at is um with the budget that we have and can taking into consideration the 4.2 percent, we're really only two percent higher than that overall, which is the like 5.8 million or something.

So I just wondered if you were we were going to consider a cut if we would make it a little more reasonable and match the inflation.

I'd entertain that, but you'd have to do the math.

One other one other thing.

Uh when you have the total budget of the mayor's office, uh his salary isn't involved because he's an elected official.

So I'm assuming that a cut like this is going to mean somebody would have to be released.

I don't if I could respond to that.

This is why the the bottom line conversation was very interesting, right?

Because the the mayor's budget beyond salary and wages is really only $15,850.

And so if this motion were something we wanted to pass, they would have to make decisions on where that comes from.

And saying it has to come from salaries because they're unaffiliated, then that's you know, a $15,000 reduction.

That's not a full-time person, but that's a whole thing they have to look at.

Okay, and then it gets into FICA and pension and all that fun stuff.

You want to talk before Megan comes in.

Yeah, because I might actually ask a question too, Megan.

Okay.

In in my question, it may end up being she has to answer it.

Um, I'm not gonna support again any overall line item.

I like I I need to know where where it's gonna come from.

We're having the same situation we had in the last one, even though this is smaller.

I said it was ironic.

What?

That's why I said it was ironic.

I mean I don't I don't get it.

I don't know why we're making we are allowed to make line items, that's what we should be doing.

Um, but my my question to uh Miss Karen is these interns.

We haven't had them before or in a while.

Is that something that's foreinterns, right?

So uh for the record, Megan Karen, chief of staff.

Um I had explained um during our budget meeting on the April 16th that the money you see in the intern line is actually supposed to be under wages elected officials.

Gotcha.

Sorry about that.

That was okay.

Um you are correct.

We last year we cut, I think it was last year we cut um interns.

Um we no longer have interns.

We cut that by ten thousand dollars.

Okay, thank you.

So it with this this potential cut, what would I mean what would you be looking at cutting?

Because how would this impact the mayor's office?

So I mean, obviously, as Alderwoman Kelly said, the mayor's office is one of one of the smallest budgets.

Um I can say that in preparation um for this proposed budget, um, we did cut 12.4 percent of the non-salary and benefit um expenses, um, which is two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars.

So that's not a lot, but it is twelve point seven or twelve point four percent of our total non-salary expenses.

So I mean, yes, you're kind of hamstringing our office to be honest.

It's it's very hard to run the day-to-day operations of of an office.

Yeah, with and then look at where would they get the dollars?

I mean, I'll certainly speak to any line item cuts that the budget committee would like to see.

Oh well.

Um, yeah, so I again I think I think again, this is the easy way.

I can just say, hey, department, Matt Sullivan cut cut 50,000 out of your budget right now, like line item.

Instead of actually looking at it and going, is is this what we need?

Is this what we not need?

So I'm probably no line items tonight, whether it's it's small or big.

I'm probably gonna I mean, no totals, bottom lines, am I gonna probably support?

Um I mean, we we got rid of the the StratCom, even though you know, and I said it last night, Alman Kelly was advised you to go with contractors, you did.

We still denied it.

Um so I mean the mayor's office, I mean those are small offices.

So are we we at this point talking like getting rid of your supply budget?

Are you going to Donna trying to get a highlighter because you don't have one or a pen?

Like, is that where we are with that kind of money without going into salaries?

Well, for the record, Donna's always welcome to share any highlighters or I actually learned a few weeks ago that she still has a typewriter.

Um so we're always learning something new.

Wow.

Um and our office does have 11 by 17 paper, which I've also learned is kind of a hot commodity around City Hall.

So just a little glimpse into daily operations, yeah, it's tight.

I mean you know, a cut like that to our office is not the same to PD or fire or or DBW.

Um so yeah, again, I I'd be happy to speak to any line item cuts.

Um thank you.

Okay.

All woman Kelly.

Um thank you.

I did consider taking it out of line item 51.

I'm sorry, 510.

If that's where it came from, how would you accommodate that?

511.

That's your wages full-time.

Well, we we'd have to reduce staff.

But nobody's salary's 12,000.

No, but we wouldn't have enough for to pay the staff.

So I mean, I guess we would have to look at part-time a part-time position, but I follow up, please.

Follow up.

I did not follow your intern conversation.

Are you saying that the interns went away completely, or they moved to the elected officials?

Yep.

So if you look at um 51403 wages interns, and then you look below 51500 wages elected officials, and you see that that flip-flop.

What can you be just clear?

Sorry.

Yes, so understand 51403 is proposed for 149,000 and 13.

It's actually the mayor's salary, which should be in 515.

And if you look at FY 2026, that was a salary last year.

So we did not carry any funds for interns last year.

We didn't have any.

I see.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

Um short of cutting staff or reducing hours or something.

I was kind of looking through the um even the line items and trying to come up with 12,000.

Um I mean, there's there's $7,000 in other services, which is telephone cellular dues, memberships, mileage, reimbursement, conferences, and seminars, and then looking at supplies, which is $4,300 of office supplies, miscellaneous supplies, subscriptions, you know, and and so on.

So truly looking at this, if you did cut almost $13,000, it would have to come from staff.

And and and it would mean reducing staff hours, you know, not necessarily a full FTE, but you'd have to take someone from a 40-hour job to maybe 30 hours or something.

Am I correct with that?

Correct.

Yeah.

Woman Greg.

Um, thank you.

As much as I um agree with and appreciate the accountability piece on this, looking, hearing um what Miss Karen said, and then also looking kind of at the budget and seeing I was doing the same thing, where could we cut this, or where I just don't think unfortunately we can do this.

I think it's something you know to have a conversation about, maybe, but um I I don't think that that we can do this.

There's no way to bring that down, unfortunately.

Prices have just gone up so much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Two points.

Um, first to Miss Karen while you're um still at the uh podium there.

Um considering the I I guess it would be an error with the um mayor's uh salary being reported in interns.

Um I don't have it on hand.

Is that something that we corrected in the goldenrod copy, or is that an adjustment that still needs to be made?

Ms.

Enright?

Don't right CFO.

That is not in the goldenrod copy because it fell within the two-digit, so we felt that it was an immaterial correction to be made, and it can be done after the budget is passed.

This is a transfer between accounts within the department.

Correct.

Okay, understood on that point.

Um my second point is simply um I suppose with respect to both colleagues to my right, um I I have to be consistent in my rationale.

So for the multitude of reasons I expressed on the uh previous motion, I I have to um follow suit on this motion as well.

Any other discussion?

Oh uh Ms.

Enright.

Don't I write CFO, thank you?

Um in doing the calculation, a five percent increase over the 26.

Um, there should be a reduction to um this 605194 of 5,415 35, if that is the motion um at hand, not the 12,000.

How did you calculate that?

You calculated three percent off of the 26, subtracting the um the fringe benefits, so you calculate the three percent from that, add it to the total of the five seventy-three nine sixteen, and that is the amount of three percent increase.

Then if you take, if you subtract that from the six oh five one ninety-four, you come up with the five thousand four fifteen five thousand.

Four fifteen.

Still can't do it.

Okay.

Are you changing your motion or leaving it as is?

Just call the vote.

Call the vote.

If there's no other discussion, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, fails.

Any other motions?

Yes, I'd like to make a motion.

And no one's gonna support this.

I'm like to make a motion with the school department to cut the bottom line by four million dollars.

Which one?

School department.

School department.

And I'd like to, if possible, to have Dr.

Andre come up.

I see he's in there in the audience.

I'm here as well.

Okay.

Uh I'll let uh Dr.

Andrew and you uh want Crystal or when the question comes up, you decide who to answer.

Uh Mario Andrew, superintendent of schools.

Good evening.

I guess what bothers me here with the school district.

When was it?

Was it in the fall that you got three million dollars because for future with special ed?

That's correct.

Okay.

And the board never had any kind of restrictions asking you what any um guidelines asking you also to please inform, keep us informed how the money was going to be spent and how long did you think it was going to take to spend the money, the three million dollars?

Because I thought when the three million dollars, and I was not happy with that because I felt that we were just giving them three million dollars with open-ended, and how long was it going to take to be spent?

How long did it take for this three million dollars for special ed to be spent?

This uh school year within a year.

Within a year, within a year.

And what is your plans now to make sure this doesn't happen again with all the money that you're getting in this budget to insure?

So insuring, I want to be clear.

So this is um students who have IEPs that we're supporting.

So we're once an IEP is is signed, we're legally obligated to provide those services.

So and what was happening and continues to happen, and we need to be clear, is that um a lot of the the money is spent on contracted services on um positions or people that we don't have.

So we're hoping this year coming forward is that we're um recruiting and retaining more special educators and paraeducators.

We're also looking at um in the last month you heard about our a reconfiguration of our classrooms so that we're able to put students in different classrooms that were able to provide better services.

But again, this is all special education related that were mandated to provide those services.

And I get that because I've sat on the board twice, and and the reason I'm asking all this is because last night I spoke about the 400,000 dollars that was given for that second study.

And in the process of study one and study two, nothing has been done to change anything with the school, basically.

You still have a school that we have to do maintenance on the school that's open, that's falling apart, basically.

We all know which school it is, Mount Pleasant.

We've talked about that extensively when I was on the board, and we keep doing studies after studies, and nothing is I don't see anything being done.

And people ask about this.

Our student population is down to 9500, plus they're looking by 2030 is going to be maybe 8200 students.

What is our plan?

We keep giving more and more money on a it's almost and we the population is dropping, and people say, how can you need more money?

And I get it with special ed, because I've been on the board and I've heard everything all along with special ed.

And I went along with a lot on the board.

I was excited about this study that came through, the first redistricting study, because we had a redistrict for the middle school, and we held back on the elementary schools because we felt it was too much at one time.

But yet when your population is dropping and your costs keep rising, where are we looking to control the cost outside of special ed?

That's a given because the federal government and I said it the other night to Mr.

Hoffman.

I turned to him and I said, you know, the federal government was supposed to pay us 100 percent.

They never did.

We're what about 30 to 40 percent that the government pays.

We've got two ex-governors that are in Washington.

Why haven't they been fighting for special ed to get the more money?

Because it would take the burden off of us, the taxpayers if you got the federal end of this.

Even if you got 70 percent of it, it's still better than what we're getting now.

So I have a hard time with this, and I know with the special needs kids, you know, that's a whole different ball game.

But what is being done in the district to make the adjustments for the declining population because in another with 2026 and another four years, we can be down to 8200 kids, and we should be starting to make that adjustment now to prepare ourselves.

We've got a middle school that isn't doesn't have most of the kids in it.

We get a specific question.

So that's basically my question, you know, because you know you see it.

A lot of people haven't been on the board and seen the first hand, and so that's what I'm trying to figure out here.

I make I'm making a motion to reduce the budget by four million dollars.

I see the declining population.

What are we doing, keeping all the schools open that we can't afford it anymore because of declining population here?

That would help.

If I may, Mr.

Chair.

Yes.

So a couple of quick points.

Um we are doing work, and I in and we have a changing population.

So in a couple of weeks, I'm gonna be proud to actually present some of our academic data, someone that are showing that we're making progress over the last four years.

We also know over the last four years we um settled uh DOJ settlement because we have a change in our ELL population.

So over the last three years, we added about 30 ELL teachers, which was needed.

This year in this budget, we're reducing approximately 52 positions.

So we are changing.

And what's going to end up changing this year and moving forward is that the reduction in our teaching force will come from regular ed teachers.

So specifically at the high school.

Our elective, our arts, our CTE programs.

We are obligated to provide a minimum basic education, your English, your language, your English, math, science, social studies, and so forth.

But we are really proud of the comprehensive programs that we have and we want to maintain that.

This year, if we made no cuts to the to our budget, we'd be at an 8%.

We've already cut millions of dollars to come in at the 6%.

We again eliminated about 52 positions, another $4 million.

We need to have those teachers in front of our students.

We have about an average class size going into the in September, about 20 20 students per every teacher.

If we eliminate another four million dollars, that is gonna come from other areas, and it'll be extracurriculars.

It'll be our sports before and after school programs, administrators, custodians, technology, plan ops, but they will not come from teachers because we need teachers in front of students.

We will just uh decimate our program.

But I want to be clear we are making progress and we are moving forward with our student achievement, and again, this year we already eliminated 52 positions.

Thank you, uh Mr.

President.

I'm sorry, I know I'm bad.

Um so I just want to say uh to the people raising their hands.

We're Alderman Downs writing a list.

He has an order of of everyone on on there, so don't worry, you guys are gonna be everybody will be called.

Um so I will give mad props to uh to Alderman Johnson because I said make a big cut, she made a big cut, so I'll give her credit.

I mean that's I respect her for doing that.

I don't agree with it.

I and I won't vote for it because it's again, I mean it's a bottom line where we actually don't have bottom line.

So you know, this is more uh more appropriate, I think, than some of the other uh cuts.

So um, but I want you to tell me um what would losing four million look like in the school system next year because obviously we can't we can't really close the school tomorrow or let go more teachers because they probably already signed on for the fall, right?

Um, you know, I was at the school today for a presentation on AP history from the history of Nashua, volume three, and I thought the kids did a great job.

But I talked to a parent there that said, you know, my kids upset because they lost their their favorite social studies teacher because she was on the young side, right?

So she was only been there a couple years.

I don't mean young in age, but young in terms and so you know it's terrible to hear, right?

So um so what would four million look like if we just took that out of your budget right now?

So to be clear, we will not eliminate any teachers because by um contract and by law we need to notify teachers that they're gonna be um not returning by the second Tuesday in May.

It's like the second week in May.

So we um already reduced like we laid off teachers, and then based on our schedule and our enrollment, we call some teachers back because we need a third grade teacher, we need um a high school teacher.

So we looked at our master schedules at the high school, our middle school in our elementary schools, and we come up with a uh a ratio ensuring that every 20 or 24 students has a teacher in front of them all all the time.

Again, at the high school, we eliminated about 17 um teachers in in each building.

Um that was mostly your electives, your social studies classes, some of your art classes, um, your math, ELA.

We changed the schedule at the high school to ensure that we still can um offer a comprehensive uh program of studies.

Um again, we're really proud of our schools and in our offering, so we didn't didn't want to change too much there.

So the cuts are gonna come from things that are not teaching staff.

We would have to look at the number of administrators, and I think we're pretty lean on administrators right now.

Um we will look at our plan ops, our custodians.

Um again, I don't want to say this because it this would be horrible.

Our sports programs, that's over a million dollars.

Do we offer uh sports at the high school?

Um that's not contractually obligated to run.

That's not my recommendation.

I don't want that in Facebook.

I'm not saying we're cutting sports, but that's something that you would have to look at.

Um but our plan ops, you know, we will look at our uh any maintenance programs going on.

We would stop any kind of technology programs, but the following year we're gonna be asking to make up those gaps.

So um it would not be teachers, it would be all the um other areas, but four million would be really difficult.

Um I thought again when we presented our budget.

Um we were trying to be responsible in saying this is our minimum.

We didn't come in higher um any higher, but we went in with uh a number of cuts already.

Um to Miss Johnson's point, I think a conversation about closing a school is gonna come up.

It's about a 1.7 million dollar savings.

But I again I think that's a community kind of conversation.

We're hoping um to have a lot more community conversations between now and September, October, so that the community is prepared if we should do so.

Um but that's why we did not eliminate uh building this year because we would think we would possibly use that savings next year.

Follow up.

Dr.

Harry.

In the end, though, the final decision on what gets cut if the four million were to pass would be strictly up to the board of education.

That's correct.

Follow up to that.

Um follow-up comment.

Just so again, I mean, I don't want you to cut sports, my kids got one more year.

Um I'm not saying that.

I'm just like those are the things that you would have to be drastically.

That's exactly what I want you to say, because I want you to tell us how the impact so you're up there, you're fighting for this four million now, right?

So you're up there saying why it's important that you have that four million in your budget.

If you if if if you have trouble saying it, then people might think, well, okay, we don't need that.

We can we can give the four million.

You're up there, you're you're selling it, right?

You're selling it to us.

And and if those things are in jeopardy of getting cut, we need to know that.

And that's why I asked that question.

I wanted to know what it what the impact would be.

And I think you said up here at one point, if you had, I think I asked this question to you if you had to go to the three percent, what would it look like?

And you said nuclear.

Oh that's what you said.

Absolutely.

So um uh thank you for that.

I appreciate that answer.

Okay, I have Oliver Munkelly.

Uh thank you.

And I want to thank the school department for all the work they did.

I'm struggling with the conversation around this because they have done a ton of work to communicate to us what they're going to do.

And they were one of the few departments that said we're going to reduce our staff to do what's right for this budget season.

Um so I understand that you know they are the biggest budget, and we were we were telling our colleagues like make a make a bold move.

But I think that they've reiterated multiple times why they did this the way they did this.

They've talked about what would happen to their budget.

They have a study going on right now.

They actually just in the ad hoc explain to us when they're gonna make some decisions on what school buildings are gonna close.

So I think we should vote on this.

And stop making them dance.

Yeah.

They did present the study.

We had a study back in 2023, and we knew what had to be done back then.

And now we're at this point now that even back then we knew where where we were going to be with the student population.

And I'm not asking cut teachers, but administrators, how many administrators do we have to the student population at this point?

We have about um 50 school-based administrators, um, about 10 directors, two assistant superintendents, um, one superintendent.

So in total, about 70 uh administrators, which again I think it's a lean staff.

All said, Yes, I'm all set.

Alderman Clee.

Uh thank you.

Um uh Mr.

Chairman.

Um I remember at one of the meetings um yourself or uh Ms.

Grace spoke about that the type of students that you have are while the numbers are going down, the um needs of the students presently within the school system are more costly and have a greater need.

So even trying to put more students per teacher and so on, it's gonna be devastating to these students.

Um I correct in remembering that you are absolutely correct.

Okay.

Um the other thing is you mentioned the 1.7 million dollar savings to eliminate uh school building, and this is something I reiterate, and and I'm not talking about any particular school.

I'm just saying that if you were to do that, I just want the re rest of the world to hear that that just gets transferred from the school department to the city.

So the taxpayers are still on the hook for maybe not a 1.7 million, maybe it's only 700,000, but we're still on the hook for that amount until we get rid of it.

So um and again, I'm not saying don't eliminate I I saw the plan, I respect every all the work that's been done.

And the other thing I want to ask you is did you not say at the ad hoc committee meeting that the um the study won't be complete until this summer?

Is that correct?

So we're still in the preliminary portion of that study or I think the majority of it is done, but we're still waiting to get the final numbers.

Mr.

Chairman, if I may um so yes, the the study's not complete, and then there's two different studies.

The one a couple of years ago is more a demographic redistricting.

The Harriman uh facility study is over 2,000 pages long.

It's going into the mechanical electrical plumbing, really giving us a really uh a detailed plan of what the buildings need going forward.

Um one of the reasons why we held off making a recommendation on this year of closing a school is why would we spend $300,000 on uh on a plan and then make recommendations before the plan is done.

And then secondly, it's you know, whether it's uh Mount Pleasant or a different school, um and I remember a couple of years ago with uh Mr.

Um Thibu um call called me out on it.

It's like we're like don't pass the buck.

Like this is a school decision um if we're closing a school, but I also think it's a uh one Nashua conversation, right?

Because if we close a school, what happens to that building?

So I think we need to be planning together as a community on what does the vision of Nashville look like.

So if we do close a school, there is a plan behind it.

So because at the bottom at the end of the day, it's only one budget, and we're one department of this one budget.

So however the money's split, I think it's really we need to be proud of the plan going forward, no matter if we're closing a school, keeping a school open, but we all need to be in agreement because it is at the end of the day one budget.

Thank you.

Yes, I am.

Thank you.

Um I just wanted to point out I too think that the school did a great job at really cutting things.

They gave up staff and they really worked very hard before they presented our budget, which I think was incredibly respectable.

What I don't want to get lost in these conversations is the fact that while needs continue to rise, health care costs are at an all-time high that we're covering um special needs have gone up.

And not even just special education, but kids that have greater needs, um, just impacts from the last uh half a dozen years.

We have a state and a federal um government majority that continue to pay less than what they even promised.

When the special education laws were passed federally, they promised a 40% um funding, and they have less, they were funding less than 12 percent.

When that happens, when we have state and federal governments that are not paying what they are either legally required to or said they were going to, that then falls on all of the taxpayers.

So I think the school has done a great job educating our next generation with very very little, and I just want to make sure that we're not saying you know, pointing the blame at some administrative bloat or anything else.

They're really working with very, very little and doing a very good job.

Any other discussion?

If not, the motion on the floor is to cut four million dollars from the bottom line of the school department.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye opposed, nay motion fails.

Any other motions?

Woman Kelly.

Alderman Senate can go.

I've been doing all the work tonight.

Go ahead and Senate done.

I'm not saying I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way.

Talking.

Thank you.

All right.

Um I would like to make a motion.

I am in administrative services.

Um I'll start with 51100 wages full time.

I would like to make a reduction of $55,000.

I'm just gonna look to the clerk for my campus.

Um department is that 106?

Um 129.

I'm sorry, city buildings.

I should have built you clarify.

129?

Yes.

Okay.

So that's the entirety of the motion, or you have to do that.

No, I've got four lines here within that.

Oh, to go with like a you did that right.

What's that?

No, I don't need that.

Four separate lines.

Yes.

Started with one though, right?

Yes, I did.

Okay.

Um are you good?

Yeah, I'm good.

Okay, the next would be five, two one zero zero.

So this is all in one motion.

Yes, sir.

Um 5210, I would reduce by 3,886.

What is the explanation?

Oh, FICO Medicare.

Yep.

3,000.

Uh 886.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um the next would be 52150 pension expense.

I would reduce by 7,013.

Yeah.

And then $5230, which is benefits, I would reduce by $20,000.

$20,000?

Yes.

You want to speak to why?

Yes.

So the um the four lines that I just suggested a reduction on are representative of a um of a full-time position that is uh being contemplated uh being created for the city buildings department.

Um it is funded at a half year at a total of $85,899.

I believe the uh job title is facilities manager.

I given the constraints of the fiscal year 27 budget and where we're trying to make lien cuts.

I I'm concerned with this um particular uh department, the city buildings that I feel there's not a complete amount of clarity yet as to where this um where this division or department sorry stands today, and I'm concerned about a redundancy uh by creating another management position given the fact that the city already has a buildings manager, and so for that reason I am proposing that we cut this from the uh fiscal year 27 proposed budget and perhaps reconsider in fiscal 28.

So that's one position and all the lines that are affected by reduced positions.

Yes, okay.

Uh for and it is funded at half a year.

I believe the expectation would be that this position would not be filled for at least six months.

Director Cummings, do you want to address this?

So I think this falls under you.

So again, uh Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services.

Um I understand the motion at hand is to reduce uh the proposed new facilities manager position, which was only funded at half.

I originally had proposed a full year uh in recognition of uh all the constraints and in working with the mayor.

It was understood it was going to be reduced down to a half half year proposal of funding, and then uh it's the correlating FICA medi and benefit costs that that that go along with it, it is what is being represented in the motion here at hand.

I believe I have laid out to this body um on a couple different occasions the plan and the work to try to build a facilities department here.

Um I would suggest to you that this is probably admin services uh number one priority.

Um there I think it's a little bit of a misconception to believe we have a a duplication of effort with a quote unquote building manager and a facilities manager.

Uh I had come gone before the personnel administration committee on two different occasions.

I have outlined the plan.

I I presented what would be the buildings manager would actually be transformed and it would it would report to the building uh to the facilities manager.

That building uh manager would be act more like uh a foreman, if you will, uh and uh and have a crew underneath them, but then there would be a facilities manager to oversee the buildings uh within general government.

Right now we do not have a facilities manager in in the city that and we do and we don't have it managed in in a successful way.

It's been uh as I understand it, there was an initiative that was started 20 years ago to try to do this under previous administrations.

Um and so what happened was is that uh the the department got housed and put alongside the risk department and then it never moved forward from there.

Uh I would respectfully submit to you all that the city of Nashua now needs to do this more than ever with the amount of deferred capital maintenance that you have.

This is small money that you're gonna be putting out to potentially stop uh and cost the and do a cost containment for larger dollars that you would have to put out later on down the road, and you need to actively manage your facilities to try to contain those costs.

That's what uh the department would ultimately be charged to do.

If this uh doesn't occur, we will just be slowed in trying to roll out these types of efficiencies, and I would encourage you not to move in this direction.

Thank you.

So if I understand the position, don't go away.

Um we did this because we were experiencing lots of issues with our buildings that had not been tracked like school department does.

We did this because we were experiencing lots of issues with our buildings that had not been tracked like school department does the Hunt building, the library, fire stations, this building.

And we've had to go out and issue bonds to correct, because if you don't spend $35 today, it's $350,000 later.

So you're trying to uh uh develop a new department ultimately, like the school department has for to oversee all the city buildings, and I think at that meeting you pointed out how many buildings we have, and I don't remember the number, but it's more than six or so I understand you know it's funded at a half year and it's a savings to the budget.

Um I certainly understand where we're going with this, um, but it would delay addressing the long-term problem another year, and from everything we've been told next year's budget is not gonna even be as good as this one.

So anyway, somebody else had their hand up McKelly.

Uh thank you.

So I'm gonna support this motion, and I hate to say that because I think there's a couple of positions that have been put forward that are smart, including strategic communications.

I just can't support telling the school department that they get a reduced staff and then allow I'm not saying they're luxury at all.

Uh, but we have every time we have a budget season, we talk about well, can you hold on to that fire truck one more year?

Can you do these things?

And I think supporting and maintaining our assets is really important, and we've been talking that for a long time, but I think a year to kind of come up with a plan, and I actually think there could be potential to consolidate um just like we're doing with IT.

We have facilities.

Why don't we have an un citywide facilities, school, and city?

Well, we're telling you why I later.

Okay.

I mean, I'm not the expert, I'm just I'm talking about the realities.

Thank you.

With all the renovations we've been doing and looking at um our fire stations, our police station, all of the facilities that we own as a city.

And we don't do a good job maintaining and upkeeping them.

I think what's going on in the admin services department is trying to get a grip on getting that all in one place, getting one person to oversee it, and I this is important.

We spend all this money renovating and upkeeping things, not upkeeping things, renovating but not maintaining.

And that's one of our biggest downfalls in this city.

We build it and then we just run it into the ground and then we rebuild it.

Um, especially our schools, but this isn't about the schools.

Uh, but same with all our other buildings, our library and and all the buildings that are important to our constituents.

I think this is good money, it's short money for what we're gonna get.

We've been talking about this at least 20 years.

And um, I think now is the right time to do it.

Uh thank you.

Um, Mr.

Chairman, I I want to echo um the president's words.

Um I that's exactly what I had written here was we're playing up, we're playing catch up.

Um, and one of my biggest complaints, and I've only been here nine years, and I've been hearing about we we need to do this, we need to do this on the school side and on the city side.

And even one of my my colleague from Ward 5 is constantly saying, you know, we don't take care of our buildings.

Well, we need a plan, and I think that this position is going to help us to to get that plan.

I think it will do that.

I I don't I the building manager to me is someone who literally makes sure that they're cleaned and and so on.

A facilities uh manager is actually going to be looking at the the annual maintenance that's needed, create a 30-50-year plan schedule as to um what needs to be done for upkeep.

Um our buildings should last longer than they do.

Um, and we have not done uh a good job in the past.

I think we're really working towards it, and I think this is one of those steps forwards.

And I don't think we can compare this to cutting teachers.

Well, it breaks my heart that we cut teachers, we can't they're apples and oranges.

Um so I again I'm not on this committee, but I um I I really respect it because I think we do need to make cuts, but I just don't think this is the one we can do.

Senate.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, if I could through you to uh Director Cummings, um, just sort of piggybacking off the last point.

A lot of this, at least to me, rings similar to the Harriman study that we just spent a little bit of time discussing.

And I feel that historically the city has reached outside its bounds to um to conduct those studies.

Is that not what would happen in this case?

I I feel like that's a a lofty goal for one individual with a foreman and then a maintenance crew working beneath them.

Well uh Director Cummings?

Uh thank you.

I I think you could analogize it very similarly to uh what Sean Smith does.

And you have uh a director of plan ops um who worked with an outside contractor to help develop a plan.

Um I think um that is a noble goal and would be uh something that that this you know uh uh municipalities should look should look at doing for general government.

We have the fire department that actually just did it on their own.

Um and I and I applaud them for that.

Um and I think we we have an obligation in general government to also do something uh of a similar exercise.

It's more than that though.

You really need someone to actively manage the buildings and treat them in a certain way and stay on top of it to achieve the efficiencies so you don't have the deferred capital maintenance buildup.

Um and so it would be having someone work uh day in and day out to bring about these efficiencies.

Um and and this would be the start of moving in in in that direction.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh correct question for Director Cummings.

Um sorry.

Um so what does this look like in other similar sized towns and cities?

Because you know, the mayor earlier was saying in other towns and cities for some of these departments they're you know, we're less or more or whatever.

How does this type of position look in other places?

Uh if I may, uh Mr.

Chairman.

Again, uh Tim Cummings, Director of Administrative Services, in the PowerPoint presentation that we presented to the personnel administration uh few months back, we actually did a comparative analysis to show some other municipalities.

Um I can say Nashua is is um behind um compared to how other municipalities manage these assets.

They look at it as these buildings as assets, they want to steward them as best as they can because they know that it is better in the long run to maintain what they have than to build new.

Um I the best example I can give you and it's very uh very wise of this body to spend money on the parking garages in the downtown maintaining those parking garages, spending 10 or 15 million dollars uh now to keep the life of the those those buildings which are already 50 years old, um is is a lot smarter than trying to build a new construction uh new construction on a parking garage today.

Um you can and that's a very similar analogy to construction of of vertical buildings um uh through throughout uh the the area.

And so spending the money now will help us preserve these buildings um and we should start to proactively do that, and that's all that this this is trying to seed us to start to do.

Thank you.

Um so the the parking garages would fall under this?

No, I was just using that as an example.

See, see I I I thought it was very wise that we spent money, 10 million dollars, 15 million, I forget the exact number right now.

I think it was 15 million dollars.

But what I know is to reconstruct uh a parking garage of that size, that's a $50 million undertaking.

And so spending $15 million to get another 20 years, 30 years out of that building is makes a lot more sense than spending 50 million.

And putting this under Sean Smith would just be way too much on someone's plate.

That would just be incredible, right?

Yeah.

So I uh again I wouldn't recommend doing that right now.

I think I think in fairness, the schools have done a uh a great job of building out a program, but on the general government side, we haven't done that yet.

And so we're so far behind.

If we were to catch up with them a little bit, then I think you could probably have that conversation, but we need to start putting forward a a plan that gets us to have to be able to have that conversation.

Just so Mr.

Smith knows I didn't advocate for that.

Uh let's see.

Okay, Alderman Senate.

Thank you.

Um through you to Director Cummings, uh, how many buildings would fall under this individual?

Uh, how many buildings would fall under this individual?

That's why you say uh I'm gonna have to double check the number, but I want to say 14 off the top of my head.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks.

All right, thank you.

Um it's 50, it's like 85,000, but uh almost 86.

I I think that if you take the amount of money that we've had to spend on buildings and we're going to have to be spending on buildings coming up, I think the long term this saves us money.

Um this is a half a year.

Um the longer we wait, the more issues we're gonna have with buildings.

So but it's up to everybody on the here to vote the way they want to vote.

So any other comments.

So I want to reiterate the motion.

Yeah, uh, the motion is by all the Alderman Senate was to reduce uh Department 129 uh line items 51100 52100 52150 5230 for the amounts of 55,000 uh 3886, uh so 3,886, 7,013, and 20,000 on the last item.

Okay, there's no further discussion.

All those in favor signify by saying aye, aye, aye, nay, uh those we do division, division, yeah.

Those in favor two, those against fails.

Okay, any other motions?

Oh, these are no longer conversations.

Okay, thank you.

Um I would like to make a motion in Department 183, line item 43400.

Other contracted services, I'd like to reduce it.

I think my my number is right, but I know you guys changed it last night by 129,000 dollars, and I'd like to speak to that.

What department is it?

I think what's the name?

Economic development.

Okay, thanks.

And what was the line?

Fourth uh five three four hundred.

I'm twisting numbers now.

Yeah, you said four three four.

You said four three.

Oh wow, it's getting late.

Sorry.

It's okay.

Oh, okay.

You want to speak on this?

Yes, yes, please.

Um, so this line item is other contracted services.

I've I've made no bones about the uncontracted services thing that I don't love.

It kind of feels like a black box.

We don't get a whole lot of information as to um what it's going to, and I I think in a in lean budget season.

Um I just see this as an appropriate place to try to pull down.

No, I'm just gonna also say this.

I'm not usually a cut here, cut there person.

I am trying to do an over a larger cut to the budget because I do know it's it is a rough year for everybody.

Yes, you want to address that then Liz Hannem, economic development director.

Um, if I understand the motion, it is to take the newly restored 129,000 dollars um down to zero again?

Correct.

Okay.

Um so that would uh decimate my entire uh economic development program.

That would leave me with just uh 25,000 for consulting services and then the marketing money um to do for the year.

So that would mean I would not be able to do any other programming.

Um and I provided um everybody with an outline of what was budgeted for that other contracted services.

Um and I I don't have another way to make it specific.

Um that's the only line item that I can use to do all of the programming for my budget.

Um so essentially that would 129,000 would cut my budget from 10% increase to um it would cut my budget to a negative 10% ish.

Um probably more than that, actually, closer to um reducing my budget by 15%.

So that would cut 25% of what was restored last night out of my budget discussion?

I have a quite just a question about the motion itself.

Um so the 129,000, you said 53400.

Is that where we put it in last night?

It wasn't five, five, six, nine, nine.

It should be five five six nine nine.

Okay, that's what I thought.

Okay, so it was restored to five five six nine.

I did the best I could.

So let me update the motion.

Six nine nine nine.

Five five six nine nine other contracted services.

Okay, thank you.

I fixed it.

Thank you.

Okay.

That was my only thing.

Okay.

Any other discussion?

Okay.

Seeing none.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Nay.

Motion fails.

Any other motions?

A little woman Kelly.

Ready for this one?

This is my last one.

Okay.

Department 150, please.

I want to reduce the mayoral budget by 900,000 dollars.

And I'd like to speak to it.

Bottom line.

And speak.

Yep, I'm good.

You're good?

You ready?

Okay.

Um, so this is for body one cameras.

I was uh proponent of them when we did them five years ago.

Um actually I think it was six years ago.

Um and I just I have some concerns around this this cost that's gonna just keep escalating.

We talked about technology changing.

So is this gonna be a constant you know, subscription model where we're constantly seeing this go up every year?

Um I think there's hidden personnel tax there because they have to redact all of that stuff if somebody requests that they're right to know.

Um and I did a little geeky dig, um, found some statistics around whether there's actually significant effect on reducing you know officer use of force, those types of things, and so far um the statistics are pretty neutral.

Um so in a in a budget year where I'm I'm trying to find a a place to go.

The other thing that I considered was that the police department said they could do what they needed to do with 295,000 and then the mayor restored this.

So what that says to me is that the police department can f figure something out for at least a year.

Well, the deputies want to come up and address that.

Brian Kenning, Deputy Chief of Police.

Um my best answer to that question is we have uh is I want to make sure I understand the correct understand correctly whether or not we need body cams or whether the ones we have are sufficient enough to go forward.

The motion is to remove the money that would allow you to engage to the new contract.

Okay.

Um we are in the last year of our contract with our current uh body worn camera company.

I can tell you that since the time we've had these cameras, uh it's been it's become evident that they are outdated.

Um they are not reliable, they are not uh they're not sufficient.

Uh we have um we have a vendor uh that Manchester used, Manchester uh has already left this vendor.

We have a vendor that Hudson used, they have already left this vendor.

Um it's it's not reliable.

I can tell you we've had uh officer-involved shootings in the past two years that we have no body camera footage of.

So at the end of the day, it's really a question to the city on whether they want that transparency of having body-worn cameras because our technology now is very limited.

We have on a daily basis, we have um I I over I review all the use of force incidents that come in come into the city or come into the police department.

And on a daily basis, I see reports where body run cameras are out of battery, they have overheated, and the technology just doesn't work for us.

So I think we're at a point where we need to look at additional vendors and um and they're more expensive.

Our own our own vendor at the end of this year is gonna be much more expensive because we're in the last year of our of our contract.

Follow-up.

Uh yes, but one thing, Debbie, the reason they're in the the budget this year is because these are are uh leased, they're not we're not purchasing, right?

Correct.

So it that's why it's not a bond to go ahead and buy the cameras and the that this is so uh it's it's in the line item because uh of of the way we have to pay for them.

And the first year is nine hundred thousand, but is the subsequent years less?

It would it would be a uh I don't know the dollar amount because we haven't signed with a different company as of yet.

Um but it would be something similar.

And also we have to have an overlap period to change them out because you can't just call all the officers in and change your body.

Correct.

That's really the crux of it, Alderman.

Um we have it's it's not so simple.

Knowing what I know now, it's not as simple as leaving one vendor and the next day going to another vendor.

There's you have there's all the installation, there's the training of the new officers, which is weeks or even months.

There's date data transfers from one company to the next.

It's a super super complicated process.

If we were to go to the end of this lease and start fresh on a new one, um, there'd be a gap in body camera service to the city, to be quite honest.

So there would be months, potentially a year where we don't have any body one footage to reveal to the court or the public.

And it's also not just the cameras themselves.

I think when we talked about it before, um, it's computers and this storage of the data and and correct.

There's uh there's evidence, evidence storage related to this.

It comes as a whole package.

There's evidence related things, there's uh one of the vendors that we would like to engage, uh handles all of our tasers.

So there's certain savings if you bundle things together, things like that.

So there's advantages to going to other vendors than the one we have now.

Um, we haven't signed with a particular vendor, the mayor mentioned the other night, or one of the vendors we were looking at going to, and it's the industry leader.

Uh they're the most reliable company there is that uh the cameras don't fail, uh at least not nearly as much, and that there's ways to wear them where if you go to a critical incident where you need the body camera the most, that we don't have failures.

So we we've had two officer-involved shootings, and unfortunately we have very limited video of that because officers put on extra gear.

If you look at me right now, I'm wearing a body one camera, it's an internal body one camera.

If I were to go on an officer involved shooting, I would probably put additional ballistic protection on, and it's gonna block my camera.

There are other vendors where I can simply magnet off the camera, put on my additional protection, and put it right back on.

There are options to wear on a helmet for the SWAT team, things like that.

So uh the technology we have now just isn't modern day with what most agencies are going with.

Okay, hold on, Kelly.

Thank you.

So the way you just described it sound like it's a it's pretty pertinent to your budget.

So I'm just what I'm trying to understand is your proposed budget to us is 295,000 and some odd dollars, which to me says we could make something, we could figure something out.

And then it that was restored by the mayor.

So why why was that decision made?

In order to the numbers person is approaching.

In order to finish out our contract with our current vendor, that's the 295 dollars.

In order for us to engage a new one, it's gonna cost that's the additional money that's been put in.

But why wasn't it put in your budget?

If you had to, if you knew you were changing, it should have been in your budget.

Am I not right?

Karen Smith Business Manager.

I prepared the budget, and the amount of money that we put in was for our current contract, and the funding that we would need would be from whatever source of funds the city could make available.

Um my understanding was we went to capital improvements for this.

I was unaware that you could not fund a uh item that is leased through capital improvements.

So um the city was kind enough to make sure that we're gonna have funding for something that's important, and they put the money in uh the budget to make sure that we have funding in the time that we're gonna need to replace these Samsung.

Okay, thank you.

Additional questions all set.

I actually have a couple of additional questions if I could.

Um, so this 900,000 is to get the cams or the lease, get the software.

Do you have any idea how much of time from existing employees goes into redacting or pulling um current body footage?

And is that predicated in the cost of having the cameras?

Right now we have a full-time body one camera manager who handles all that himself.

It would be our intention to have this employee do the same with the new vendor.

So nothing would change, it's it wouldn't be more efficient for that person, it would be the same.

We estimate it would be about the same, yes.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Any other discussion?

If none all those in favor, indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Nay.

Item fails.

I'm done.

Anyone else?

Alderman Senate.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um at the risk of redundancy.

I'm gonna retread a couple of uh old motions.

Um maybe a little more drawn back.

Um Department 183 uh economic development.

Uh line 55, 699, other contracted services.

I would reduce by 29,000.

And I have one other line in that division.

Can I package or no?

All right, good.

That one what's that?

What's that?

Yeah.

Okay.

The other line would be the same department.

Line 5340 marketing and public relations.

I would reduce by 23,457.

What's that number again?

23,457.

That's that one.

And these are people.

They're these are not people, no console.

This is uh other contracted service and marketing and public relations.

Um if I could just briefly speak to it.

I recognize the need uh to do work in this arena.

Well, certainly.

Um it's my understanding that the um the other contracted services from reviewing previous reviews uh review sessions would be going towards the support of the business recruitment plan as well as the activate Nashua uh plan, which from my understanding addresses um various walkways downtown, library walk, um I think the next proposed ones are the river walk to high street connection as well as the Richard LaRose walkway.

And then the um the marketing and public relations is driven towards the business recruitment plan with a skills gap analysis going on that we will at some point during this fiscal year begin to implement again.

I think these are um lofty goals.

Uh I am in general support of them.

I would just like to dial back our commitment to them a bit.

Um my intent here is to leave 100,000 in the budget for the other contracted services.

Um understanding, at least through March, which is the information that we had available to us, was that 66.9,000 was spent.

So I think um a hundred thousand is reasonable, generous.

And then, oh my god, I just reduced my window.

And then the marketing and public relations, I'm leaving with $50,000 in the budget, which actually still constitutes a sizable lift from the previous year's adopted budget of $32,000.

My intent here is to trim where we can while still supporting our goals for the downtown.

Thank you.

Um I mean the mayor said it pretty well when he was talking about uh what we have for economic development and marketing compared to other, you know, similar or even lower, like Dover, for instance.

Um, and that seems to be the department we easily, and I don't want to say pick on's not the right word, but the one we go to when we need to cut, because when you think of you know, fire police and other DPW, obviously this is one that's I don't want to say close your ears, Liza, not as important.

I guess so I get why we I get why we always go to it, but I think it does serve a purpose, and and her department is one of the the the you know least amount budget-wise to begin with.

Um I would like um her I would like to have um director Hannum come up.

I think I have a question in here.

Um so this doesn't reduce it like it like early and earlier is uh so it it cuts one a little bit less than before, and then it cuts one that we didn't talk about earlier, which was marketing.

Um I've always talked about trying to market Nashua more and try to make it um like other cities and towns, but I I get why we haven't been able to do it.

It you know, it's um and I know you don't have a lot of staff and a lot of to really promote the city.

I mean, I think business economics too, because that we want to bring in more businesses here somehow, and I I know it's hard to bring in a big business, but trying to get those little small businesses in here to fill up some of the space.

So um, could you get by with with these two cuts, one of the cuts, none of the cuts, and obviously, you know, in a perfect world you want no no cuts, but could you get by with these these two or just one of them?

And if you could get by with them, what would that impact in your because before you said oh I would uh I would have nothing to do basically you cut my whole budget.

Um but how would these cuts impact you?

Um, if I have to choose a sacrificial lamb, I I would choose um the I had planned the Financial Empowerment Center for 25,000 out of the other contracted services budget line item, and we're kind of in a uh place where we don't really know what to do with that yet.

Um so I I would probably throw that onto the fire uh 25,000 versus the 29 just because I have others other stuff I have it kind of pretty pretty tightly budgeted.

Um but um I do have I do think that marketing is a very expensive endeavor and I would fight for that 73,000 if I could.

Um we have started the marketing strategic plan.

We're about two weeks away from finishing the skills gap analysis.

Um and while I I can get away with um pushing off, it just means uh further and further down the line that we are actually recruiting.

So the the less money I have in the budget um the farther away we are from actually recruiting businesses and recruiting bigger businesses and having that strategy.

So uh I certainly can get away with whatever.

Um but uh it's just pushing off the inevitable and and leaving me with less to actually accomplish the goal that you've given me.

Um and I actually already took a uh a cut from when I what I proposed to the mayor, I proposed a hundred.

Um so that would be half of what I proposed to the mayor.

Um because uh one we have all the the materials now to actually do a plan to start recruiting, but also um physical collateral is very expensive uh to design.

Um, you know, I I actually brought Manchester's uh just in case anyone is ripped, but their collateral is pretty impressive.

Um but they spent a million dollars on this.

So um I am hoping that uh we could restore at least the marketing side um of that and I would uh be okay with the 25,000 cut from the other contracted services.

And follow up.

Follow up.

Um so when when Alliman Senate was talking about the the current like what you've spent so far, uh you kind of gave a look.

So the question I had there is what has been spent since the budget book was printed with that number, like all but two thousand dollars.

Okay.

So I have two thousand dollars left to spend over the last next two weeks.

Alright, so you did get to what you were basically almost okay.

I just wanted to make sure you I have like $51 left in marketing.

Again, don't I to all the departments don't make me catch you looking funny and come up and say, you know, fight for your department, right?

Fight for the money that you're spending, because we do get the budget books and the money, some of these but some of these departments look like they haven't spent some stuff, right?

That's that's we know they may have, yeah.

So yeah, so I I do have I have two thousand just over two thousand dollars left in other contracted services.

Um and I think I have three hundred dollars left in um supplies budget right now, um and fifty-one dollars left in marketing.

Great, thank you.

Appreciate that.

All will?

Um yes.

Forgive me if you've answered this at a different time.

So 25,000 is for you're saying sacrificial lamb, 73,000 is for marketing.

Of that 73,000, what is labor strategy, etc.

And what is production costs?

So I don't have an exact breakout breakdown yet.

Um so we've started the marketing plan, um, and that was what but I gave them a hundred thousand dollars as part of this the start, um, and we've cut that down to 75 now.

Um so we are probably it's a th it's a three-month strategy plan, and we're about a month into it.

So I won't know for about two months what how what the breakdown of that is.

Um, but they are planning to the 75,000.

I follow up follow-up.

Someone could ask, not me, because I know the difference, but we have a city uh print shop.

Can you not print it at the city print shop?

We certainly could, but it's not going to be it's gonna be on regular paper.

We don't we don't print on the glossy paper or anything like that.

So um it's gonna be pretty uh lackluster, if you will, uh, if we do it in-house.

Um and we certainly can do a lot of the stuff in-house.

So I wouldn't I would make sure that anything we can do in-house um and looks good, we would do in-house.

So I I would make sure that as part of the strategy, we make sure that we're spending our money wisely and and strategically for prints.

Follow up.

Since you don't exactly know because you're still working on the strategy, would you be open to zeroing this for now and then talking about a supplemental when you have a full plan as to how that's gonna be?

I knowing how supplementals usually go, uh I would not recommend that.

Um I would lose that, I would lose the marketing line item in my budget, so it wouldn't even be there wouldn't even be a place to go.

Um so uh and then I would never have it again in the future unless you restored it at some point.

So once you zero out that line item, then I have no marketing money.

Uh even to do uh $50 on a Facebook ad.

So um I I would I would caution you against doing that.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um just so I can follow where we're at so far.

Um I had proposed uh cutting 29,000 from other contracted services and 23,457 from marketing and public relations.

You had said that of the two you would prefer if you had to give one up, which one?

The other contracted services.

Um the 29,000.

Yeah, I would prefer 25, but uh I I can manage with the 29.

Okay, so that is the if again just restricted situation if you had to pick one of the two cuts.

Yeah, you would pick the 29,000 and maintain the 234 in marketing and public relations.

Yes.

I would continue?

Yes, continue.

Just to prove that I'm not a completely rotten person.

What uh what I would like to do.

You're not gonna vote on that.

No, no, no, no, no.

Because that that would be unanimous.

Um I would like to um amend my motion, and I I still would like to put both forward, but I would like to take them separately.

So that rather than voting on the totality, I would give my colleagues the option to juggle it.

So I'm going to amend my emotion first to propose a $29,000 cut in economic development to $55699, other contracted services only.

Okay, was that was the one that she she wanted to keep?

That was the one she said she could live with.

That's the one she said she could live with.

I just want to be sure economic mobility center.

So you're requesting that we cut the 29,000.

Yes.

Uh I'll I'll just clarify.

Liz Adam, economic development director, that that is the one that I could live without if I needed to.

All right.

So just one standing.

One single line, and the other one's dropped.

Does everybody understand clean?

Uh no, I understand.

I just speaker.

I have you on my list.

Okay, thank you.

Um I I want to thank um director Hannah for being willing to drop that program that she she wants.

And and I know this is really a tight budget and um and so on, but I just want all of us to think about the fact that we have an economic development person that we bring in and the entire department, I think is like a 400,000 dollar um budget.

Um this is 13 well now that it's separated, it's not 13%, but even just cutting the 29 or 25,000, we're telling her don't continue on with this program, which is supposed to help bring business in and is supposed to help us market towards the businesses that we need.

Um that's my concern.

Um this is supposed to help businesses, I I believe find um staffing and so on.

Could you kind of explain what that program is a little bit?

Yeah, um Liz Hannem, economic development director.

So the um the financial empowerment center that I'm that we're kind of trying to figure out what to do with is um one-on-one financial counseling for individuals and businesses.

Um and so it would be a way for uh entrepreneurs, um, especially those who do not have financial advisors or are not um currently bankable with with traditional banks, um, it would give them technical assistance to be able to either increase their credit scores so they can be bankable, um, increase savings, decrease debt.

So that was the the idea behind that um as kind of a uh building block to an entrepreneurship program.

May I ask one more question?

Yes, thank you.

Um in reality, well, I think this is a good program, and I understand that we need to make cuts.

Do you believe that this is something that you would be kicking off soon if if you had the money, or do you think it's something that it's six months down the road before you could develop something like that?

So I we we actually are ready and we put it out to our RFP um for an operator already, um, but we didn't get any um response.

Um so that's why we're kind of I'm kind of okay with uh holding off on that is because we're reevaluating.

Do we the the model that we're using through cities for financial empowerment are is very restrictive, and I think that's probably why we didn't get any bids.

Um and so do we reevaluate, do we partner with another nonprofit?

Like uh we're kind of in the uh rebuilding phase, but if we had a uh bidder, we probably could have kicked it off in the next two months.

Okay, but you don't have a bidder, so by losing this, it's not going to really have a a major effect on the I can always use that money.

I know, but I'm just saying is that for this particular program.

So if you were to lose for this particular program, I think that's that's why I I feel like um I need to reevaluate and and that could take up to a year, I think.

So good.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, anyone else.

Okay.

Um, I don't know how many times I've heard that we should be bringing companies into Nashua repeatedly.

Um that's not this that's not this is the economic mobility center.

That's what we're talking about.

So were we talking about economic mobility center?

We're still on that line item.

Yes, I'm not done.

Am I wrong?

So just to be clear, um the 25,000 is under other contracted services, and so if we decide not to move forward with the financial empowerment center, I could reuse this 25,000 towards um business recruitment or towards marketing material or towards the activate Nashua program.

So you're just cutting it's basically a line item, uh bottom line item because I don't I don't have multiple line items in my budget.

Um I I have to fit everything into that other contracted services or consulting services.

Okay.

Okay, so I could reuse it.

I I was directing it to the entire economic development, not this specific motion.

Um I I think we can live with this particular cut because I think at some point, because of the fact that we have repeatedly asked to have more companies marketed into the city.

Um course, I think we have a better position.

We have more housing.

Um I think that we can probably live with this particular motion, but I think somewhere during the year we may be in a position where we are going to have things that can bring people into the comp and of the city, and we may have to do a supplemental appropriation.

I just want people to keep that in mind when we get there during the year.

All right, any other discussion on this motion?

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Any other motions?

Well, we split the second one, he split, yeah.

Yeah, um, for the sake of argument, I will slightly die on my hill of uh proposing a uh reduction of 23,457 uh to economic development line 5340 marketing and public relations.

23,457?

23457, that's correct.

Thank you.

All right, does everybody understand the current motion?

Oh all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, fails.

Any other motions?

Alwyn Greg.

Um thank you.

So uh since we're struggling with some cuts, I'd actually like to make um an increase.

And so it would be um Department 126 Financial Services, line 41200 to 4120.

The motor vehicle permit fee.

Um, I think we continually, and I've heard the mayor talk about it, we've had constituents talk about it, we continually um budget quite a bit under on this.

So um in this year where we're struggling to find uh cuts and um struggling with inflation, I think it would be nice to bring this up closer to what we actually get.

So I would like to increase that by 500,000.

That's a revenue line.

Is that what you're talking about?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, sorry, line is it 4120?

Okay.

All right, so you said add.

Yeah, because but it's a revenue and because it's a line, yeah.

So rather than right now, we continually I think he's budgeting 3.4 million as revenue on that.

But we generally get maybe I'm saying this wrong, but we generally um take in 14 to 15 million.

So we get a line item with a certain number, and you want to reduce that number.

Increase.

She wants to increase.

The revenue projection from it, yeah.

The revenue increase.

Increase the revenue.

Revenue, okay.

Yeah.

Sorry if I didn't.

I might be getting tired.

I probably didn't word that all.

Well, I think I already spoke to it.

I just I would like to bring this closer to our actual, and I understand that there are different reasons why we stay so far below, but I think this is an important year to get a little bit closer and um do that gap to kind of help out with the budget.

Yeah, is there somebody uh thank you, Mr.

Chair?

Is there somebody that can speak to this?

Because I I want to know what happens if we don't get to that number.

Like if we if we don't, if we add this 500,000, and then we don't end up getting to that number.

Is that the clerk?

Is that all the I mean is that um, you can end up in the rent.

That's what I wanted to hear.

I will tell you what then generally does happen.

What happens is you have a surplus, which is what you want.

And then you look and see if there are some unmet needs, and you apply some of the surplus to that, but typically the surplus is enough that most of it you use to reduce the taxes.

So same is true of money that is unspent.

So when you have like positions that don't get filled, well, you don't spend that money.

So that is another place to generate surplus.

So you look at the surplus and you say, okay, we can buy down the tax rate, we can meet some unmet needs.

But if you budget everything too close, particularly on your revenue, you're not going to have a surplus.

And if you have a deficit, that's a real issue.

Um we're consistently.

I looked back at the last um few years, we're consistently way above this, so I actually, you know, I I think I could have safely even said a million, but I wanted to be a little more cautious with that and said 500,000.

So to get us closer, but not take us too close.

Alan McKelly.

Uh thank you.

One of the things that I asked for in next year's budget book, which I know is going to be beautiful, uh, was uh running average instead of instead of a year to date, or in addition to, because I think knowing what's come in from a revenue perspective, or you know, what you know we've done on salt can go here, here, here, here.

So I guess I would ask through you to our CFO, does that make more sense?

And then can we align some of these projections that are maybe a little bit low or um request by budgets where it's like oh we're never spending that line item is then right?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um we we can consider all the options of of presenting the data that that is in the book for next year.

Um I'm open to all of the suggestions that that are coming forward.

Um I think there's a lot of room for improvement.

So I'm follow-up, just I want to clarify my question.

Do you recommend adjusting line items like that due to historical data?

Is that right?

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So changing the revenue line item in that manner is um is it would be changing the way that we budget in total, and you never want to come close to um you never want to not collect what you what you budget for.

And the historical way that we have done it in utilizing the excess that we do collect against the tax rate assures that we are not going to ever be in the red and still be able to support the tax rate um to that capacity without having any true financial crisis on our hands by not by over budgeting the revenue line item.

Thank you.

What's that?

Alan Johnson?

Thank you.

When I was chair of finance and ops on the board of education, we used to get a monthly report on um expenses, and also you can throw revenue on there.

And this way you can track it monthly in the budget committee whenever you have the meeting, so you could see where you are on target, and you could see what your expenses are against budget.

having any true financial crisis on our hands by not by over budgeting the revenue line item thank you yeah that's it alderman john thank you when i was chair finance and ops on the board of education we used to get a monthly report on um expenses and also you can throw revenue on there and this way you can track it monthly in the budget committee whenever you have the meeting so you could see where you are on target and you could see what your expenses are against budget so then when you're coming down when we say well where's our actuals for March 31st which is great but you still have March April May to June so when I asked when we didn't get march and I said May May brought us closer to when the fiscal year was ending so we had a better picture of where we are now but that I'll tell you when I was a chair of that committee that helped us a lot every month we saw the expenses the credit card everything see I am praising the school district yeah no but um it but it does help you especially when you're on these committees and also towards the end of the year you have a clearer picture to see what your revenue is on motor vehicle you get that clearer picture that you could say okay so we're above we have three million dollars more so maybe we can take 1.5 towards the end of the and apply it towards um revenue end on the budget so that's the changes to next year though Alderman Kelly I'm saying I just want to comment on that I think there's nuance to how a budget gets spent um that that doesn't necessarily predicate so a a department might know that they're not going to spend all of the budget on conferences until March so it looks like they're not spending it but they know that it's coming up so I think there's nuance there that we have to talk about and figure out what we can get to but like just the year to date doesn't necessarily give us a clear picture of what's going on that is my opinion after being on the budget committee for nine years but I'm wondering if that um you know CFO and right has some suggestions on how we could better keep track of that you have anything specific right now or you want to wait you can talk to it when we talk about the budget debrief it's fine okay um I've been involved in budgets uh on the board of Alderman for like 16 years now so and I've always been cautioned about uh cutting to our anticipated revenues because we often need the money at the end of the year we're applying six million towards the tax rate already this year um so if we don't have the monies available that becomes a problem so anyway my thoughts any other quick thoughts all the week lean uh just just a comment um we've gotten into this cycle of um taking um excess um funds excess revenue and so on and then we apply it to the the tax rate um we bite down usually it's been like about four million dollars when I first started I think it was like one or two million dollars in the last couple of years it's been four million dollars and because we've gotten into this this cycle which is a concern I think we all had about getting there and continuing to increase the these doing this is that um we when we don't do it the next year because we don't have enough money because we didn't I hate to say over budget but we didn't um do this what happens is that um the taxpayers are going to get hit with a really big tax boost um because we do we take for about four million dollars and we've been applying it to it so I'm not speaking you know whether or not we should do this I don't think it's that significant but um when we're playing with the revenues like this that is my concern is that we won't have enough to buy down the tax rate um and then then we're gonna I would like us not to buy down the tax rate I would like the budget to be a little bit more clearer but I also know that um a deficit in any form um I remember one year I believe it was the school department um had had a uh uh a deficit because it you know something that hadn't been anticipated or something like that and I mean it was everywhere and it was catastrophic and so on so I'd rather have too much money on hand and then do what we're doing and buying down the the the budget it's it's a cycle um that we've created and it is what it is so any other discussion if I could ultimately Kelly could potentially have done been done in the wrap up but I do think that there's been discussions around I don't want to always do these supplementals but if we're going to conservatively underfund revenues we need to be more open to supplementals.

Yes.

I have more motions.

I know I said I was done, but I'm a liar.

That failed.

Okay, yeah, you didn't say it.

That's what I was like.

Yeah.

I'm trying to, I'm trying to move this.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

I do.

So I would like to go to the mayor's office 101.

And I would like to add a line item, which is 55699.

I know I just said I hate on other contracted services, but I'm going to explain.

Um and I would like to put 50,000 in that line item.

And I would like to speak to my motion.

Okay.

So when you're ready.

Uh we talked a lot about the Office of Street Strategic Communication.

Uh this is my area of expertise.

We had a long discussion about it.

Um, the chief of staff for the mayor said that they would go back and look at it and see if it could be contracted.

And I said I would support that.

I know you guys discussed it last night.

Um, but I think it's a good move, and it allows us to get some strategic information in that we can then predicate what the next steps are.

Comments all of the TV.

Yeah, um, to the maker of the motion.

Is this what we you said this is what we cut last night?

So you guys it if I could um so you guys cut the whole budget of strategic communications, and then I my understanding is that 50,000 was requested to stay in there.

I personally feel like keeping that department just for the other contracted services is a little clunky.

So my thinking is we add other contracted services to the mayor's office with the intention of that being the money to to start the study.

Any other discussion?

All right, motion is to add 50,000 to the mayor's office.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Oppose?

Nay.

Can I say the division, please?

Division.

All those in favor.

Three.

All those opposed.

Somebody not voted.

I thought it was three three last night.

Yeah, it was three.

Yeah, yeah, it fails.

Failed.

Yep.

Yeah.

So any other motions?

Alderman Kelly.

We're running out of motion space.

I know, I know.

Um an alderman in the sun on the committee asked us to entertain a motion.

I appreciate that the idea of that is that we would do the the work in the committee.

It is quite a lengthy motion.

So I would like to at least make the motion to discuss it and see if there.

I have some questions for uh corporation counsel around it.

So I will make the Alderman Sullivan motion.

I don't even know how to put it.

I don't know.

I don't know how to put it.

I don't know either.

It's multiple departments over.

I could put the total item.

Um send it to you.

I I had a thought.

Um, I know that there was concern about how that communication was received.

We received follow-up from it is absolutely an illegal motion, uh, an illegal communication.

Um with that in mind, um, would we not be able to accept that communication here at the committee level?

You can do it.

If you get in the practice of doing things like that, it is going to create problems, and we're going to be in court, and it has the possibility of negating all your work on the budget.

I because violations of the right to know law can cause the court to nullify actions taken.

I I I appreciate that answer, and that's honestly just what I was looking for was the implications of doing so.

I I thought that accepting that communication here at the community committee level would at least be a prudent first step to get it on the table to discuss.

But with that in mind, uh at least I'm going to refrain from making that motion at this time.

Thank you.

Can I ask a follow-up question to corporation counsel?

What so what I'm struggling with is we say do the work in the committee.

So if an alderman who's not on a committee would like to ask someone to make a motion, what is the legal way to do that?

Ask one person.

Ask one person, not the whole board.

Okay.

Out of meeting communications with a majority of the committee.

Okay.

Okay.

With that being said, I'll withdraw my motion and recommend Alderman Sullivan makes his own motions.

We can make the motions at the full board meeting.

Yep.

That's I'm worth drawing.

Thank you.

And we've already cut some things out of here, like the interns were never on there.

It's good.

I just thought I'd do it.

Alan Johnson?

Yes, I'd like to make a motion to move the hydroelectric operations into a special revenue fund.

Um move it to place Hydroelectric Operations Department 141 pages 180 181 in the FY27 proposed budget and all the associated revenues and expenses into a special revenue fund.

Question of the corporation council, is that something we can do in the budget committee?

Or does that require a full something from the full board of all that?

Well, the budget committee can recommend just about anything to the full board of all of them that within the authority of the full board to do.

I think what's being proposed in a simple few sentences is much more complicated than can be analyzed in this forum this evening.

I think I think to be fair.

Pretty big undertaking.

Yeah.

My suggestion would be it should be done by a resolution through the full board and not as part of the budget.

Okay.

Thank you.

Alderman McKelly.

I just want to add the comment that um this came up, I don't even remember what meeting was.

We're on meeting eight of the week, I don't know.

Um and one of the discussions that I remember, make sure I'm call me if I'm I'm right on this, uh, was that because um the hydro dams go up and down, sometimes there's a lot of water, sometimes not, doing an enterprise fund would be very fiscally they would run in the red some years and not.

Um so it was really while it's the intent of it seems to make sense because it is so volatile, it would be really hard for them to maintain that.

So there's a lot of details involved in doing that, so I suggest we do it differently than in the budget committee.

Any other motions?

Well, we have to dispose of this motion.

We didn't vote on it.

Yeah, she put a motion out there.

Did you want to continue with that motion?

I'll withdraw it for right now.

Thank you.

Any other motions?

Alderman Kelly.

I would like to just ask through you to corporation counsel if we can make the really weird edit thing at the full board um around the um compensation at the beginning of the meeting.

There's some update unless you have it ready for me.

Um that sounded hairy in the resolution itself at the end.

There's a line about the firefighters getting the cost of living this year and the returning next year to the procedure that was adopted uh by the board of all right.

So I'll make it if you delete that sentence you accomplish what you want.

Okay, I think I know what the motion is then.

Thank you.

Thank you for your piece.

Okay, so my motion would be to amend R26028 by removing section two, uh, which reads the language and the unaffiliated employees' personnel policies, separate compensation structure for fire department, chief officer section will not apply or be in effect for fiscal year 2027, but instead on July 1st, 2026, the fire fire fire department chief officers will receive a two percent increase over their current salaries.

Is that correct?

Yes, so it's the resolution R26-1.

Yeah, it's the whole budget.

Budget it's the budget.

It's on the original budget.

Okay.

Does everybody understand what the motion is?

All right.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Okay.

Is Enright can you give us a where we're at type of uh I have it, I think.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um at this given moment we have a total um general fund budget of 384 million dollars.

384 million twenty-two thousand eight hundred and forty-two dollars, and that is an increase of six point three six percent.

Ms.

Henry, if I could yes, could you could have you been tracking?

I just want to know for my nerdiness, uh, what the effect was from all of our motions.

The number I have is negative 265.473.

But I might have missed something.

Yes, it is a negative 265.473 for the two evenings.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

So do we need to make a motion to recommend final passage?

I was just going to have Alderman T Bow do that.

You can do it.

I'd like to make a motion to recommend final passage to the full board, 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 Funds.

Anyone as amended by the proposed amendment by the budget.

Yes.

Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Nay.

Motion carries.

Yes.

Public comment.

Seeing none.

General discussion by any of the aldermen.

Seeing none.

Remarks by Alderman.

I don't know why we use both these on that.

None.

Alderman Thibault.

I'd like to make a motion to adjourn.

Motion on the floor is to adjourn.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Aye.

All right, stay.

That's all right.

Motion carries and returned to 94.

946 p.m.