Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you all for being here tonight.

It is Thursday, October 16th, and this is the Committee on Finance.

I am joined in the Council Chamber tonight by my colleagues in government, Council Ward 2, Maria Giesta.

Council Ward 1, Leo Choquette, Council Ward 5, Joseph Lopes, Council Ward 4.

I'm sorry, Council Ward 6, Ryan Pereira, Councillor at Large, Brian Gomes, and Council at Large, Naomi Carney.

And I'm Linda Morrad, Counselor at Large and Chair of the Finance Committee.

I will ask the clerk if we have anything to read into the record.

Yes, I have three letters to read into the record.

This one is from Councillor Abrew.

I'm writing to inform you that I will be unable to attend the Committee on Finance meeting on Thursday, October 16th, 2025 at 7 p.m.

due to a personal commitment.

I ask that you read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and the public aware of the reason for my absence.

This one is from Councillor President Burgo.

I'm writing to inform you that I'll be unable to attend tonight's committee meeting due to a prior commitment.

Please read this letter into the record to make my colleagues in the public aware of the reason for my absence.

And this one is from Councillor Oliver.

I'm writing this letter to inform you that I'll be unable to attend the Committee on Finance meeting on Thursday, October 16th, 2025 at 7 p.m.

due to a family member matter.

I ask that you read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and the public aware of the reason for my absence.

Second.

Made by Council Pereira.

Second by Councillor Lopes.

Any discussion on the item before us?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Colleagues, this meeting is being live streamed and recorded in City Council committee meetings.

It can be viewed on the City of New Bett's homepage under quick winks and then meetings.

Also, before we begin tonight, um, if you're here only for item seven and eight, uh, you don't have to stay.

Those two items will be uh referred out to committee uh to the audit committee.

Unfortunately, Neil Mello uh this afternoon told us he wasn't able to join us.

So since we don't have a representative of the administration, we won't be hearing those two items tonight.

So if you're here for those two items alone, um thank you for coming and good night.

We'll begin with item one.

One and one A is a communication.

Mayor Mitchell to the City Council submitting an order for the transfer of 132,572 from police purchase of services to MIS purchase of services.

It was preferred here on August 21st, 2025.

1A is the order, which was also referred here on the same date.

One and one A are now before you.

Motion to receive and place on file.

Motion to receive and place on file made by Council Giesta.

Second by Council Choquett.

Any discussion on receiving and placing on file.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Um we tonight have uh Jonathan Noones covering for John Coster, and we have Derek Belong covering for the Chief.

Uh and we have Bob Extram on this item.

I don't know who wants to begin.

Well, we don't have Bob Extram in the room, so gentlemen.

Good evening.

The transfer of the services from the police budget over to MIS is for our two different firewall services.

Jonathan can speak more about that.

Uh MIS controls operates and does all the repairs on already.

I believe it was in the budget prior to budget season when I was here in the spring, and we put it on ice and we're gonna transfer it after we finish all that.

So I think Jonathan can speak more to what the services are, but it's MIS-related services that come out of their office that operates the firewall at the police station.

Yeah, just to add to that, there are two firewalls currently in the network.

We have one over at the police department and then more one over at City Hall.

Both amounts, which is an annual subscription to keep up with security features and any um different software changes, were both in our budget at one point.

Um it looks like there was just an error that was made that was put into the police budget, but we lost both of those um amounts.

So they're in Derek's budget.

Um we would request that we bring it over to MIS.

We are the ones that manage it.

We have staff on site that helps um upgrade and keep the uh firewall in place.

Thank you.

Jonathan, before you step away, is this the first year that this um contract for these services is being paid for?

Yeah, basically the last year we just purchased a new firewall for police.

So this is the first year that the police firewall is in place.

This is around, I believe, the third year that the city hall's firewall in place.

So we're beefing up security across the board.

Police, we found uh they had an old firewall that did not have any subscription on it.

And at this point, we want to make sure we got the best uh Palo Alto, which is one of the best in the industry, um, but that comes with the subscription annually.

Okay, and the other two are in the MIS budget.

They they were currently though, so there's two firewalls, one for police.

No, no, no, the other two departments are currently in the MIS budget.

It was only the police department's firewall projects that were in were outside of the MIS budget.

The firewall was actually both were mistakenly put in the um P.

Oh, both of them were in the correct, yes.

Uh do you know the two different amounts, Jonathan?

Yeah, I can get that for you.

It's in the letters right here.

Yeah, the $74,000 and $90 uh $74,974 and one for $57 for a total of $132.

And stuff the $74,000 one was the city one.

It's a bigger firewall, controls more of the city, and uh 57 was for uh police.

Okay, thank you.

Colleagues, and I know I asked the question before I should have anybody have questioned.

Okay, seeing none, Chief do uh deputy chief, you wish to add anything further?

No, thank you.

Okay, you've got your firewalls all set at home?

Yeah.

Okay, good.

Just checking.

Motion to refer to the full city council for adoption.

Motion to refer to the full city council for adoption, made by council Pereira, second by council Gomes.

Any further discussion on the item?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Gentlemen, this will be on the council agenda on the 23rd for final action.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item I'm sorry.

Item number two, please.

Item number two and two A is a communication, Mayor Mitchell to the City Council submitting the appropriation of $63,662 from ordinary revenue and municipal receipts to MIS purchase of services.

It was referred here on July 17th, 2025.

2A is the order which was referred on the same date.

Two and two A are now before you.

Motion to receive and place on file made by Council Lopes, second by Council Giesta.

Any discussion on receiving and placing on file?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed the ayes have it.

Uh again, we have Jonathan and Bob is now in the room.

Uh I don't know who wants to start.

Thank you, Jonathan.

No problem, thank you.

Uh so this uh request that we're asking, there was a hundred and uh sixty-two thousand uh dollar cut during the budget process, and of that cut, the majority of it was contractual services.

So we have contracts with vendors, software providers to provide software throughout the city.

Of that fund, a majority of the software isn't specifically used by IT, but it's maintained, upgraded, and um project support is given through our office.

So um John and Bob were worked on looking at different ways that we could save money.

We we we are mindful that um the IT budget is a big budget, a big portion of the city.

But we did come up with some savings.

Uh one saving we found were Microsoft licenses.

We recently, as you all know, moved over to a Microsoft uh 360 environment a couple of years ago, and with that environment, there's now annual subscription fees uh that come with that.

And everyone that gets an email, there was a cost involved in that.

So the policy of the city was that every person, every employee had a um email address, which obviously was a cost annually.

Uh we decided that there are some people, um, specifically some firefighters, some EMS employees, and some uh employees who are more majority in the field that don't need email addresses.

Um so we reversed that policy and saved around uh $30,000.

Um the other savings that were uh took into account was the request from um our department to have a city AI bought on the website.

Um and we've deferred that to uh another time at this point.

So at this point we're left with uh $63,000 that we can't be able to reconcile the books without getting that money.

Um we will have to turn off software, and I know Bob outlined in his letter some of the softwares we're looking at.

Uh there is some redundancy and stuff, so we are trying to be mindful of that, but that it will determine at this point we may need to turn off services and software at that point.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bob, before I open the floor, do you wish to add anything?

Uh good evening, madam and uh counselors.

Uh yeah, I think Jonathan really encapsulated what we did pretty well, the three major areas getting rid of Microsoft 365 licenses.

Um was uh actually it was a lesson that uh we uh we undertook this.

We we we've been planning to undertake it is uh for a while, but with in light of the cuts, we really scrubbed it pretty good, and we got rid of anybody that was in the system that we felt didn't need to have a Microsoft license.

Sometimes we found this out through our cybersecurity training when we were not getting responses back from people who didn't take the test, we found out that they are never on the system in the city, so we use that information while we were doing the cybersecurity training.

We use that information to help identify more licenses we could cut.

So that's about 30, 30, a little over 30,000.

And Jonathan recommended uh mentioned the chat bot that we eliminated.

After that, we get down to about 220,000 dollars or so of other uh other licenses and support agreements and that sort of thing, and I just felt like we can we can find 10 percent somewhere.

So we added up all of those potential savings.

We took the cut for of 164, I think it was, down to 60 62,000 by identifying 98,000.

So we we came up with about almost two-thirds of what the council has cut, we were able to eliminate, but we're really struggling with some of the rest.

Um there are there are a lot of services that are essential, but there are also a lot of services that we've come to rely on.

Things like peak agenda and uh the some of the GIS support for um for parcel lookup and that sort of thing.

These are things that people have come to to um, like I said, to rely on, and we'd like to keep that services going, but they are gonna have to be the first ones cut if we can't uh if we can't make budget because they're not as essential as the other things, especially anything related to data security and data storage.

So I just want to kind of give you a little 30,000 foot view of that uh of that landscape.

Thank you, Bob.

All right, um Chair recognizes Council Pereira.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So um whoever wants to take the questions, um, whoever can answer it the best.

So I appreciate your um ability to honor and and try and save as much of the council cuts as you could.

So I appreciate that effort.

So on that Microsoft um 360 platform is Microsoft Teams.

Are we able to utilize that more to maybe eliminate some of the Zoom requirements, or is the Zoom requirements only thing that's compatible with live streaming, et cetera, when it comes to that?

I think it might be more of a technical.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Yeah, I know this got brought up, I think, in the budget hearing.

Um we are paying around $7,000 a year, and we pay for the uh majority of the departments that use Zoom.

There's there's a handful, maybe about a dozen or so, and we're paying monthly.

Um I will say Teams has come a long way at first when when COVID hit and there was um uh different options, Zoom was the best option, and I think that's pretty clear to everyone.

It was the most user-friendly, it was easier for the outside.

Um at this point, I think Teams has come a long way and can be used.

So basically, part of our Microsoft um subscription allows them to have teams as a free account, and we can share it that way.

Um the only incompatibility is the live streaming that um we use in some situations.

There are some departments, I think planning is one, and there's a couple of others that do that live streaming piece, and that's with incompatibility is.

But I think we there is some room that we could cut some um departments that have that.

So $7,000 total, not annually, yet annually, but it's billed monthly.

It's built correctly.

Okay, so $7,000 annually.

And then the other thing that I I brought up in the budget hearings, um, and I'd like to bring it up again, is just doing our best.

And I think part of what you've done, you know, with the eliminating of some 250 Microsoft accounts, but going a step further is making sure across multiple departments we're not paying for the same software multiple times.

So I'm thinking I could think of four different departments that might use like an AutoCAD or some sort of architectural program.

And is it cheaper if we're just giving a license to each department or is each department buying their own program and stuff like that, their own software.

So, you know, trying to eliminate a lot of those redundancies, and I've been saying that for a couple of years.

I just want to see it make see if we can make some progress in tackling that and you know, making sure that our our um AutoCAD's one.

I'm sure of um DocuSign might be another that some departments are using and making sure that the city buys one license and multiple departments have access to it.

And I think that is a good cost savings measure as well.

Yeah, and I will say um one big uh accomplishment this year was our Act GIS.

So we have OctoS that is used by multiple departments, but we have one license and it's around sixty-three thousand dollars, I believe, for the whole um city.

So that's kind of a good example, and that's what we always look for.

We're trying to um conserve a lot of these subscriptions, a lot of these software are turning to subscription models, which obviously monthly costs, annual cost, and we get that.

So we are being mindful of that, but appreciate that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

And uh I would like to hear from my colleagues.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Prairie.

Anybody else?

So from the Chair, um Jonathan, thank you and uh John and the group for trying to cut uh trying to manage the cut.

We appreciate that very much.

Uh my question is for Bob.

So, Bob, how how big is the city budget?

500 million.

500 million.

And 500 million dollars, you couldn't find 62, $3,662 in savings to funnel to the a critical department like MIS.

So each one of those line items that we presented, we have defended, and the council has agreed with our defense in most cases.

We're we're lean.

I'm gonna be frank here.

We are lean in almost every area.

We are struggling, and when we get a cut, we are looking to that account to make cuts.

We are way too premature in this fiscal year to be trying to figure out how we can fund from another fund for another department.

And you are actually way too premature in this fiscal year to be coming to ask us to restore budget cuts.

Well, ma'am, the the this we are kind of late in that process because we are going for a tax rate filing in about another month, and this is pretty much the last time we can uh uh bring a transfer request for supplemental to you.

That's right.

Otherwise, you have to figure out a way to make sure you can cover those costs in the rest of the fiscal year, correct?

Well, we do have another plan, but unfortunately it is going to require us to cut a lot of a lot of those six to eight thousand dollar licenses that we don't want to get to.

And it's interesting to me that the first one you mentioned happens to be the one that the city council uses.

Which one was that?

The peak?

Yep.

Yeah, well, there's there's a lot.

I'm only giving you some of the ones on the top of my head.

But anything that is not essential to data retrieval, data dissemination, or data security is going to have to be cut.

You may have to do what you have to do.

Because I don't know, I don't know how you manage your budget at home, but you know, the way I manage my budget is I I know how much I have to spend.

And that's what I manage too.

And if for some reason, you know, it's not going to be spent in the line item I thought it was going to be spent, then I have to use it from somewhere else.

And I guess that's what I think about your cuts tonight.

You're asking us to restore cuts, that it's too early.

You need to figure out in the next the rest of the fiscal year where there's excess in different departments, and if you need to transfer it around to cover that, so be it.

But to come and ask us in a huge budget like that for $62,000 three months after we cut the money from the budget.

I'm sorry you won't have my vote tonight.

And I apologize that that causes you pain because I know you are trying your best.

And I know the cut last year and this year hurt.

But you restored the bulk of last year's cut in this year's budget.

So we're really only dealing with this budget.

And it will probably be the last time I have an opportunity to uh say that to you, and you're probably very happy about that.

But yeah, but I'm just really sorry.

To me, it's it's the wrong time.

It's a small amount.

We ought to be able to figure out in this huge budget how to cover that.

You know, maybe you shouldn't give $500,000 to the Z this year.

Maybe you should cover our own essential services.

And I know that's not uh something that you uh propose are a proponent of Bob.

I realize that.

I'm speaking to the administration who happens to not want to attend the finance meetings so that they can hear what the council thinks.

Well, if I may, uh I this amount is small because of the work that we have done.

Yeah, no, I appreciate what you have done.

I I I heard what Jonathan said.

I know how John is.

I know you know he does his best to manage.

Many of the department heads do their best to manage the cut.

Uh I'm not in any way being critical, and I'm thankful for what you have done.

But as I said, to me it's too early.

Figure out a way to find it.

I do do the house budget methodology here.

I don't have 500 million in my house budget, but I do hear.

I don't know why you are working.

We did identify and we actually presented in our budget a line item of every single thing.

These are the bare bones needs that we identified.

Although, I mean, some of the things that I have told you about, like peak agenda, for instance, those are not bare bones, but they are something that people have relied on, and we'd like to keep them.

We've cut 98,000.

That last 64 is gonna really cut into the bone here.

So I just want to.

It might be.

Yep.

Okay.

Just want to know.

Or maybe you'll find it somewhere else floating around.

Um The licenses are due now, though, ma'am.

So we have to it's either pay now or don't.

And that's the other thing I don't understand.

You have a pot of money.

It doesn't really matter when you spend it where, right?

As long as at the end of the year, it all balances out.

I mean that I understand what municipal finance is.

But the bottom line is you have a dollar amount to spend.

And where you spend it, you know, you're gonna have to come to us and ask us to transfer it.

I get it.

But where you spend it really doesn't matter in what month are we in?

October.

What really matters is where you spent it when you get to July.

One.

Ma'am, I cannot go over budget at any point during the fiscal year.

So I do not have that luxury of going to investment.

Yes, but not all the MIS, and we're looking at this MIS uh support security uh contractual services line item.

I can't spend money from the schools to cover this.

I have to spend only what I have, and I can't go over budget.

And if I do, this council has asked me many times before when I present transfers to you, was the account ever in deficit?

And if I was to tell you it was, then I was in violation of mass general law 4431.

And I'm not going to put the city in that position.

Yep.

But I'm sure I'm positive in somebody's budget in the 14, 15, 16 departments we have, somebody's got $62,000 in excess funds on October 16, 2026.

But that's fine.

We'll see.

Okay.

All right.

Anybody.

Colleagues, your pleasure.

Make a motion to refer to the full city council for adoption.

Made by Council Pereira, second by Councillor Gomes.

Any further discussion on the question?

Chair recognizes Council Pereira.

Thank you.

So, you know, as a big proponent of budget cuts and someone who who has who takes pride in doing work on the budget, I also realize that out of a $500 million dollar budget, um, the 11 of us are uh I'll speak for myself in doing the amount of work that I do on this budget, is it's not going to be perfect, uh, even though I do put in uh a lot of time.

And hearing from um our CFO and from uh Jonathan on this in for John Costa, um they respected a lot of the council's cuts, they're deferring something, uh an enhancement that City AI bought was an enhancement, they're deferring that.

Uh they found another $30,000 in cost savings, so they are moving it towards our way.

And if if at the end of the day it's only a third to reinstate, then I I think that's a good outcome for the city, uh, especially where there's a lot of what sounds like, especially with that parcel lookup, uh a critical piece I know a lot of us use, um a lot of the city uses.

With that being said, um I I am asking for the council to refer this out because two reasons.

Number one, uh I I as the chairman of the audit committee have been critical of the admin uh of the city in the past spending and deficiting in in individual accounts and uh we're we're we've been hounding on that.

And so uh uh not in not wanting that to happen, I'd like to see this move forward.

But second, um I would like to see if by the time we get to the next meeting, if there is an estimate on maybe uh other funding sources to cover this one as it's a smaller amount um compared to the other supplementals.

Uh maybe there is an account uh that the CFO could look up, or maybe there is uh another funding source, and maybe if we have that communication, um I I by the time it comes to the council, it's another week.

Maybe we can look at where we're at in the budget or in free cash or some other funding source that we might be able to use to help uh offset this for the time being and until we make our final vote.

So I think we should get it to the full council and see where it goes from there.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you, Councilor.

Chair recognizes Council Carney.

Yes, thank you, madam chair.

Um Madam Chair, I do tend to agree with with you when it comes to the 60,000 dollars.

Um the council does work very diligently during budget cuts to cut these these departments and save the taxpayers' money.

And I do agree that $63,000 out of a $500 million budget, the money's got to be there someplace.

And I think it is too soon.

I think we can wait on this and see if you can find it from another department on in transfers, because it we always have transfers at the end of the year.

There's a lot, and you've got a budget already to work with.

It's you we're only in October.

So you've got all those line items that you can you can expend to cover that and then come back to us later to see what happens with that 63,000.

So I I agree with you.

Um, we put a lot of work in these budget cuts and for and this is always coming back to restore them.

So what's the sense of cutting the budget and saving the taxpayers' money if we come back and restore it all?

So I'm I tend to agree with you, and I will be voting on this.

Council Carney, anybody else?

So my debate on the question is to counter what my colleague from Ward 6 said.

I appreciate very much his comments, and I agree with him.

Uh but if there was money to be found and knowing what this council has said uh not only this year but in prior years, they might have been able to do that before we came to the meeting.

So I'm not sure where this is going to go at this point, and might be smart to table this item instead of referring it out and to see whether you can get that.

But uh I'll call the roll.

I'm referring to the full city council for approval, Councillor Carney.

No.

No, Council Carney, Council Choquett?

No.

No council, Council Giesta?

No.

No, Council Giesta, Council Gomes?

Yes.

Yes, Council Gomes, Council Lopes?

Yes.

Yes, Council Lopes, Council Morad?

No.

No council Morrad, Council Pereira?

Yes.

Yes.

It fails uh four to uh three to four.

Item fails three to four.

Make a motion to refer out to the full city council.

That was the motion.

No.

It was within a with the condition to approve it with a favorable recommendation.

Um yeah, no, the chair has decided to leave it in the can.

No.

Then I I stand corrected because the motion that I have was to refer to the full city council for approval for approval.

That's right.

It was made and seconded.

Your debate included putting stipulations on it, but it wasn't on the original motion.

Okay.

So it died.

Yeah, it died.

The item failed.

But the item is still before us?

No.

The item failed.

You made a motion to refer to the full city council for approval, it failed in committee.

So it's uh until the chair calls for item number three, I can still make a motion.

Excuse me.

I can I'm sorry, I didn't really hear you.

So while we it's still before us for other motions.

No.

The item has failed in committee.

The committee has said that it will not report it out to the full city council.

That was the motion, Council.

No.

You have made a motion to attend the amount.

Okay, colleagues, I'm I'm I'm moving on, please.

Item number three.

Item number three is a communication, Mayor Mitchell to the City Council submitting an order pursuant to the provisions of Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 40, Section 5B, to establish a stabilization fund to be called the Cable Television Public Education and Government Access Stabilization Fund.

It was forward here on August 21st, 2025.

3A was the order where that was deferred here on the same day.

Motion to receive and place on file.

Motion received and place on file made by Councillor Giesta.

Second by Council Choquett.

Any question on receiving and placing on file?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Colleagues, this item um we have Jim Marshall and Bob Ekstrom.

I don't know who's beginning.

Good evening once again.

I I thought I would tee this up and then Jim could answer any specifics about the operations of cable access.

So I I identified this in the cover sheet uh a while back.

I'll just give you it verbally as a quick synopsis.

Cable operated as a revolving fund for a number of years, uh and that uh that means that it operated under mass general law 4453E.

Uh in ninth and 2018, uh pursuant to state law, Ari Sky and the mayor had uh decided to convert to, as was recommended by DOR or required actually, convert to an enterprise fund, which is under Mass 4453 F.

So it's E and F.

But the distinction here, though, is that when a revolving fund ceases to be operating as a revolving fund, the fund balance has to transfer, has to close back out into the general fund.

So in other words, cable could not carry its fund balance of 4.859 million dollars over to the enterprise fund operations.

Think of it as two entirely separate businesses here.

So it's been tied up in the revolving fund fund balance, untouchable by anyone ever since 2018.

So I wanted to get this resolved once and for all.

So what we what we have done is we have closed out the surpluses pursuant to mass general law, brought them into the general fund.

It was a $4.8 million pickup to general fund fund balance, which means it's going to certify out its free cash.

At that point, it will be subject to council appropriation.

What we would like to do once we get free cash certified is we propose transferring that $4.859 million to a stabilization fund within the general fund because we can't move it to the enterprise funds.

We will use that stabilization fund for future subsidies to cable access and for future capital needs.

So things that can't come out of its operating budget any longer.

I think Jim can speak to the uh to the trends in subscriptions with Comcast right now.

Uh he became uh uh a subsidy candidate last year, and he's going to stay a subsidy candidate, I think, for quite some uh some time until uh the market changes.

So I'll I'll defer to him on that.

But what we envision is this 4.89 will continue to grow interest.

It will be used only for cable access operations, and uh it basically fixes a problem where the money was sitting dead and unaccessible.

So at that point, if uh if anyone would have any financial questions, I'll take them or I can defer to Jim.

Okay.

Um so you don't have to jump up and down.

Chair recognizes Council Carney.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

So this one will this this account of the 4,859,000.

Uh is it will be referred um, it will be labeled cable access stabilization fund.

It'll be labeled that way, but that's only a name, right?

It's under the general fund, which is it's kind of like an oxymoron here because it's a cable access is a separate enterprise fund, but the stabilization fund is going to bear the name of that fund, but it's still going to be a general fund stabilization fund, which means it has to be approved by council in a supermajority vote when we do transfer.

I was just reading that the the things that you submitted us back in July, and it's just said to establish establishment of a cable access stable stabilization fund.

That's a proper name, though, not a common name.

So that we didn't.

Right.

So I mean right, but I'm saying I, you know, that's something that is reserved for cable access.

Yes.

And it will be labeled stabilization fund, or are you just giving that the name to us just to it'll it'll be a stabilization fund in accordance with mass general law, which is more than just a name.

That that implies certain things.

Most importantly, it requires uh the administration to get a supermajority vote of the City Council to spend out of that fund.

We're already doing it now.

We have uh a general fund stabilization fund, we have a school stabilization fund within the general fund.

We also have a water stabilization fund and a downtown parking stabilization fund.

Right.

So you'll we already are using funds like this.

Right.

So um, so that money actually, if it's labeled the cable access stabilization fund.

But where it's put, if somebody made a motion and got a supermajority to use any of that money for something else, can they?

I don't believe they can.

Okay.

So so we're restricting, we're sort of in a way with this enabling legislation, if you will.

Council is being somewhat restricted in the way it can vote, but then we still are we're double restricted by the enabling legislation and by the fact that we need a supermajority from you to spend it.

Okay.

So if we were to try to present you something that wasn't cable access, you have two methods of recourse.

One, deny it, or two, say it's an it's an improper motion before us because it doesn't match the enabling legislation.

So it's sort of a double protection.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Counselor.

Anybody else?

Okay, let's hear from Jim and then maybe others will have additional questions.

It just depends on the confusing stuff there when you think about it.

So the stabilization, when I was hired, Mayor Lang at the time said you need to save money.

So that's what I've been doing.

Um because the trend is subscriber counts are going down, money is going down, and I'm gonna need money to keep my staff employed and keep doing the services that we're providing.

So you know, the whole point is this money is supposed to keep us going for the future.

We're a lot better off than a lot of places are.

When I went to the National Conference in Boston in July, I mean, you've got cable companies right now that are places that don't have enough money and they're looking to municipalities for help.

I've saved money.

We're not in that point yet.

I mean, ultimately down the road, the definition of cable TV is going to have to change because people aren't watching cable TV.

I think I joked with you about that during the budget debate.

But that's the reality is people are streaming services, they are looking at you know their phones and what have you, they're not doing TV.

But that's the only place where we get the revenue from is the TV side.

And Comcast and cable companies really don't want to do TV because they don't make mum, they don't make the money.

So this is a way to ensure that I mean we're still going to get money because we have a 10-year contract.

The contract is not up until 21 uh 2031.

So we're fine.

But down the road, I don't know what it's going to be.

Nobody does, because unless legislation changes in Washington, um that that's you know, the future of cable TV, and as Sue has told me a thousand times, there is no future in cable TV.

It's in streaming, it's in you know, different streaming services and what have you.

So we're gonna have to figure something out long term about what we're doing, but I feel good that I've done a good job of of saving money till this point, a lot better than other places have, I know that.

Um, the state legislature is looking at that bill again that would uh get some money from streaming services.

The last bill that was up there and it's still stuck in committee, is that you know, two percent uh they would charge streaming services five percent like Comcast or the other cable providers get charged.

Two percent would go to the municipality, two percent would go to the cable comp cable department, and one percent would go back to the state.

But right now it hasn't got out of committee yet, and that's a whole other issue is why but that would that would help us, it wouldn't solve the problem ultimately.

Like I said, the problem is is the technology.

So thank you, Jim.

Colleagues questions?

Thank you, madam chairman.

Let me ask you a question.

Um you say no one's watching cable.

I'm saying the subscriber count is dropping so that the number of people that are watching TV, the way that you watch it like I do is is dwindling.

My kids don't have cable TV.

You mean subscribing from the Comcast over here?

Correct.

Subscribing from Comcast or whatever the cable company is.

It's down everywhere.

It's less than 50 percent of the country now is cable TV.

What can we do to change that?

Uh I have no idea.

Because we are to bring Jim Phillips back.

I don't think it's that.

I think the problem I think it's the technology.

You know, the kids don't the kids don't want to watch it.

Kids are watching the YouTube, they're watching Instagram.

It's just, you know, they're not watching half-hour shows, they're watching things in five minute interviews.

I know I'm being facetious right now, Jim.

But is there something that we can do to get them to watch?

Uh well the in the programming here's the something that is attractive.

Here's the problem.

Everything that we do is available on demand.

Like there are when I took the survey for the council here for the budget thing, half of the council didn't even have the sub cable subscription.

Why?

Because everything's available on the city's website.

Everything we shoot is on the website.

So you don't need it.

And that's the problem, because I don't get any money from the website.

I only get my we we only get the money from Comcast's subscribers.

And if we make it a it'd be a lot better if we didn't make it available to everybody, but that's not the way things go right now.

It's on Facebook, it's on YouTube, a lot of the stuff is on YouTube.

All your meetings and everything else are on on demand.

So if you don't need it, why why pay for it?

Well, from what you have to do.

As a TV proposal, from what you have told which which you have said tonight, and we go to um 2031 or whatever, something has to give something in order for cable to survive.

Yeah.

Correct.

It's a bigger problem than the city of New Bedford can solve.

It's it's the technology that people are are going towards.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Thank you.

Counselor, counselor, sell your cable stock.

Yeah.

Anybody exactly immediately.

Exactly.

Anyone else?

I I still subscribe to cable TV.

I'm one of those TV watches.

Well, no, I am too.

I mean, I I, you know, but it's funny, like I look at my kids, all three of them, they don't have TV subscriptions.

They don't want them.

I have read cable today.

Thank you.

And the funny thing is is people do the streaming services, and they had a a story in in uh the the Globe or New York Times or something like that, that people aren't actually saving money with all the streaming services.

So they have multiple streaming services, so they're not when they look at the bills, it's like, oh, I'm not really saving money.

No, you're not, because you've got Netflix, Hulu, all s YouTube, everything.

So it's all adding up.

Chair I know Council County.

Yeah.

Um Jim, is is there any discussion?

I mean, I mean, I hate paying that cable, but I still watch my cable.

I like the certain channels I watch.

But I am paying exorbitant.

The food channel, I know.

Yeah, I'm paying exorbitant amount.

The food channel for dinner, I know.

No, I no, I watch TLC.

Um but the thing is is that it's it's the prices is it's very pricey.

I think that I don't know if the all the directors like you and the and that are using this service to to offset your your budgets, get together and talk to these cable companies to see which way they can save it because that's what's pushing people out of the cable because of the expense.

But they don't yeah.

But the reality is drop it.

The reality is is they they don't want to do this anymore.

Because they have to provide the infrastructure in the cities and what have you, which is why there's no other there's no competition.

Because if they wanted to come in, they would have to lay the wire.

There's no there's no money to be made in cable TV.

And they also offer the streaming and everything.

You can bridge you don't have to get the cable.

Comcast has Peacock.

Right.

So you don't have to have cable TV.

You can get the internet and get your streaming three times the same same way.

You know, like old folks like me, I like to watch it on TV.

But so it might be a dying breed, but in the meantime, I'm still paying, I'm still subscribing.

Unlike unlike Dennis.

But I might be like Dennis, I might cancel tomorrow.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Anybody else for Jim?

I have a question for Bob.

So Bob, I had a conversation with Attorney Garotowski today about how the process would work.

I shared it with the vice chair.

Um council heard what you are trying to do.

Council in finance will take a vote to uh prove it or send it out and then it will go to council, and you will need two-thirds vote in council to establish the stabilization fund.

Um that point on uh how long will this take to be up and operational?

And one of the reasons I'm asking you this is because if I'm correct, back in March or April, we authorized some uh accounts for uh Department of Public Infrastructure for fees.

And from what I understand, those have yet to be established and are operational.

So what's the process for this and how long will it take for this to happen?

So the uh only the after the vote by council, the only holdback will be when we have to get free cash certified, and then at that time we'll present uh appropriation requests from free cash.

So well, when that happens and when if council should vote for the 4.8 million to be transferred from free cash, it'd be operational 48 hours after that vote.

Okay.

So there's no there's no need for solicitors to be involved in this.

There's just basically your opening account, you're certifying free cash, and then that order will come to us to transfer the money.

Correct, because now it's it's pretty much resides completely in the finance world at that stage.

Okay.

And what's the commitment that the 4.8 million will be actually funding the stabilization account?

I'm sorry, what's the commitment?

Yeah.

How what's the guarantee the council is going to get that that's going to happen?

I'm not sure what kind of guarantee I can tell you.

Is right now the money sits in the general fund.

Yeah.

It can't be touched until it gets certified for free cash.

Yeah.

And then it can't be touched unless you vote for something.

So I guess we're going to be able to do that.

Yeah, but you need to do that.

You need to recommend that.

I'm sorry?

You'll need to recommend that.

I mean, yes.

I could recommend it, and you could if should you not make the approve it, then I can make a recommendation to spend it somewhere else.

Yeah, I'm not worried about us approving it once it's recommended.

I'm worried about it being recommended to us.

But if it wasn't, we couldn't do anything with it anyway, though.

Well, I just want to make sure that it's going to come forward the way we think it's going to come forward.

Because again, I'm just concerned, based on you know, a conversation I've had in the last week with DPI about the revolving funds for the I I don't know if it I think it was revolving funds for their fees, so that they could be segregated and utilized just for the same projects.

And those still this is this is October, six months from the case.

I mean from what I understand that that's a fairly small amount, and I think it had to do with with the paperwork not getting put into uh I think it is because it's not there's no reason.

It's not small amount, it's huge amount.

We have to do that.

Well, relative to 4.8 million.

I mean, we're talking about um it's a hundred thousand dollars, I think, offhand, but it's going to this 30 something thousand we were already collecting, so it's a net difference about sixty.

That's just a that's just a ministerial matter that um that the paperwork just has to get filed with uh our city auditor to request that um the the fund be set up.

That's like that's a bookkeeping matter.

So do you know well, we can talk offline about when you think that's going to happen.

Okay.

Yep.

Yep.

Sure.

Okay.

Okay.

Colleagues, any other questions?

Oh, I am sorry.

Yes, Council Gomes, you wanted a second.

I apologize.

Did you want the second for Jim?

I did.

Okay.

It was a contract.

Okay, I'm sorry.

I apologize.

Thank you, Clerk Lawrence.

What can be done when we're negotiating a contract with cable?

As far as you you said at the ending of your statement about the cost of laying down and they don't want to do this, they don't want to do that.

Is that something that could have been negotiated with when they came to the city with the contract?

No, Comcast is already in.

I'm saying if a new company wants to wants to come in.

Oh okay.

Sorry.

They they would have to go through the whole process.

So that's they don't want to do that.

All right.

One last question.

I don't I don't know if you are part of it or when the contract comes up.

Is there negotiation with cable for more monies and well the the maximum you can get is the five percent of the gross annual revenue of cable subscribers in New Bedford.

Just in New Bedford.

Correct.

And we actually we just we just got the five percent starting in 2022.

Before that, we were at 4 percent.

So in the last contract, we negotiated the five percent.

I I it's always been it's always been New Bedford for me.

It's not always been New Bedford.

No, but I'm saying for when I since I've been here, it's always been New Bedford.

At one time Dartmouth was included, they could watch our cable.

Okay.

Yeah, I don't know.

So I'm just looking.

It's funny, like I said, uh at the National Conference talking to people, they are all struggling, and and you know, and I said, I've said, you know, I've got a lot of support from the council and and and the the mayor's office, and people like what we do and they support what we do and they understand how important it is.

And we're fortunate that you know, like I said, we've saved money.

So other places haven't.

Other places have been spending too, and then it's like that's not what you should be doing.

Do we survive or is this a just a dead ride that we're on right now?

Well, eventually it's a dead ride, but it's not, you know.

If you look at it this way, like our budget is, you know, the last couple of years I've spent 1.2, 1.3.

If if the money stopped today, you'd have three years.

But we're still going to get it's a 10-year contract.

We still have five years to go, and there we are still going to get five percent of the subscriber count.

So there could be some creativity out there somewhere that could possibly I mean getting the streaming services to pay something would be huge, because the streaming services use the same infrastructure as cable TV and they don't pay for it.

Is that legislative action?

That's on Beacon Hill right now.

Okay.

Um but ultimately like I, you know, like I said, the the definition of cable TV has to change.

That that's from the FCC in Washington.

And I know Senator Markey has been working on that and talking about that, but you got to get the FCC to approve something.

Thank you, Jim.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Thank you, Councilor.

Anyone else?

Colleagues, your pleasure.

Make a motion to refer the order out with a positive recommendation to the full city council.

Motion refer the item to full city council for approval.

Made by Council Loops, second by Councillor Gomes.

Any discussion on referral?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Thank you all.

It will be on the October 23rd meeting, Jim.

Number 404A?

Communication Mayor Mitchell to the City Council submitting the appropriation of 175,000 from ordinary revenue and municipal receipts to waste collection and disposal purchase of services.

It was referred here on July 17th, 2025.

4A, it was the order which was referred on the same day.

Four and four A and now before you.

Motion to receive and place on file.

Motion received and place on file made by Councillor Giesta.

Second.

Second by Councillor Carney.

Any discussion on receiving and placing on file?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Uh colleagues, you have Bob on this item tonight.

I had a conversation with Director Vieira this morning, and unfortunately, she is not able to join us tonight.

So Bob, if you're feeling comfortable in covering the numbers.

Colleagues, if you have questions about the capital services contract, I can um take a related motion at the end of the discussion, and we can have Jennifer in at the next finance meeting.

Bob, can you take the podium?

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

So thank you for that because I I know that these conversations often get into operational questions with capital.

And uh I I mentioned to Jen, that's where I really needed the coverage, but she had something she had a family emergency tonight.

So if you'll indulge, I can speak on the transfer request, but as uh Madam President had said um uh chair rather, I'm sorry, had said uh we all have to defer on the operational questions.

I would ask uh I know we get we have these conversations often when we talk about budget transfers.

I am looking at this as a self-contained department now.

Uh I I know that I can anticipate the question already is like can we find 175,000 somewhere else?

I at this stage cannot say we can, to be honest with you.

What I am looking at is that we gave a zero base budget uh on solid waste last year.

We based it on the monthly fee, and we based it on 12 months worth of actual quantities, actual tonnage of the five other components in addition to base fees.

We also threw in, I think $25,000 for towing services for the trailers and campers around the city.

Uh I will tell you that I looked at the records, say we have three months of billings in.

Uh obviously we pay $633,000 a month base fee.

We also spend almost $400,000 in the first three months on the tonnage fees, you know, such as for mattresses, bulk waste, um, CRTs, televisions, that sort of thing.

Uh so that would project to about another 1.6.

We have also spent $50,000 on towing services for vehicle uh for trailers and campers.

If you take those numbers and you go straight line, project them out as if that first quarter is representative of the entire year.

I am looking at $9.392 million projected costs.

I now have a budget right now of $9184 as it stands.

So I am going to be looking at if everything stays the same again over the next nine months as has happened for the first three months, and by the way, as had happened for the 12 months in fiscal 25.

I am right now looking at a $208,000 surplus.

I am only asking obviously for the restatement of of the cut.

I will have to deal with the other uh $32,000.

That starts to get more into the range of can that money be found somewhere else?

And I at this point I'd feel a lot more optimistic about that.

But um the the projection I'm looking at right now, if you ask me today what solid waste is going to end up at, I'm going to say $280,000 deficit.

Um with that uh I'll yield to questions.

Thank you.

Colleagues.

Okay, seeing none here.

Chair recognizes Council Gomes.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Since we gotten into this contract, how how much more are we paying?

I I know the figure.

I want to see if you do.

I I so the last year of the waste disposal contract was what?

6.7.

Okay.

Right.

Um that jumped up to like 8.1, the first year of the capital contract.

And in reality, it came in the actuals came in higher because we didn't know how much the budget for tonnage.

So actually came in at 8.7.

Now uh this is being the third year of the contract, we're looking at um well the ask was about nine point almost 9.4.

So the quick answer would be 67 to 9.4, but there's been stages in the price of the 10th.

And what are those stages?

Well, again, eight eight.

So the first year.

I understand that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What would is driving up the cost at that speed?

Well, I I think that if um if if Jen was here, she would tell you probably the same thing.

We had a 10-year contract with uh ABC disposal, Harvey, you know, waste disposal.

Uh those were very favorable.

We had six.

What kind of contract?

Favorable.

Uh 10-year contract.

And the pricing was very favorable.

Yes.

Uh and you can't you can't find that on the market nowadays.

So no matter who we went with.

And again, I I wasn't here for the the whole process of uh the RFP process, so I'm not sure what went into it.

I'm not sure who the other um uh competitors were.

But um I can only tell you what I've been hearing from Jen and from having been involved in this process through now three supplemental budget requests, because we are not getting the initial request in the uh in the uh proposed budget.

Um but I can tell you that uh that that that everybody is going to three and five year pricing, or you're gonna see a big escalation because that contract having been done in in 20 uh 2012, 2013 somewhere, no one knew what the market was going to be like.

So I think that's a big part of it.

And I don't think you are going to see the base contracts that are all inclusive the way that um the Harvey contract was.

Capital is a good example.

I mean, through that negotiation process, uh they came up with a base fee that didn't include all those other things, like uh recyclables and CRTs, uh mattresses, all of those things.

So you are saying that is what is escalating the costs?

Well, I'm saying that the base the base would have been high much higher anyway, regardless of those esc those extras.

Um those were picked up uh uh by Harvey, but even if you I am seeing a million dollar increase every year since this new contract or whatever.

And is is that the ride we are on?

Because if it's 9.4 now, which is 10.4 next year, it's 11.4, and we keep Yeah, we're gonna we are going out for a new contract for a new contract with with capital or RFP.

Yeah, I think I think just capital.

I am sorry?

With just capital.

No, it would be a full, it would be a full solicitation.

Uh I think that's uh I know that Jen is already working on that.

Uh they've had uh um they hired, I believe they they they just issued a an RFP for um for someone uh for some sort of a consulting service to help with the with structuring this next deal.

I mean right now I think Full River is going through something very similar.

And um they use external help and they have the guidance.

I think Matt Thomas has been very instrumental in helping them.

Uh he could possibly be uh uh the type of resource that would help Jen to come up with the best I'm not picking him out, but his the nature of his work is a very good thing.

I understand.

I understand such.

Madam Chairman, it's very interesting how every time we run into a problem with the escalating costs or whatever, we we we bring in consultants to um.

I don't know what.

I really don't uh the consultant is going to come in and we're gonna pay the consultant, we'll get a cheaper price in the long run.

I think it's still running the way it is.

Well, of course, I I personally didn't like this contract when we first got it because of the escalating costs right away.

Um seeing what it continues here, uh you know it I I think that's a it's a bond burner.

Uh sitting there and getting hotter and hotter every year.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Thank you, Council.

Chair recognizes Council Lopes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So did we build into the Department's budget the funds for a consultant?

Yes, it was I think it was um No, I'm sorry, we were able to uh I think I Jen encumbered it out of last year's surplus.

So the funds are covered out of last year's surplus?

Yes.

Okay.

It's not really a surplus because the fact that she has a uh right to encumber, uh it would have been a turn back, but she but as long as she encumbers within 15 days after year end for a service that would be going into next year would be fine.

So I believe that is how she handled that situation.

So we are gonna do a five-year RFP work goes out, or is the mayor gonna do another three-year where he gets full control over under mash general law, he doesn't need to seek guidance on a three-year-old.

So we just the bids for the consultant just closed now.

So then the purpose of the consultant would be to advise on things like this.

So I mean I would not be able to answer a question like that at this stage.

Nice try, though.

So what's the cost of the consultant?

Oh, I think the uh the the amount that we proposed was I mean, the amount that she budgeted for was like $25,000, and I don't know what the bids are like.

I have not heard back from her.

I think they just literally closed last week.

So when she didn't have to say she doesn't have to accept them either, obviously it's a request for proposal, not nothing binding.

So we don't have no idea when when it's gonna be accepted or if we've moved on with a consultant yet.

I don't.

Jen probably would.

All right.

So Madam Chair, can at the appropriate time can I get a related motion to get?

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yep.

Uh Jen, Jennifer is aware as well that we would probably take that course of action in my conversation with her today.

So anybody else?

So, Bob from the Chair, the current contract we are under will expire on July 1, 2026?

Yeah, technically June 30th, but yeah.

Okay.

That's correct.

Yeah.

And I believe the bids for that closed last Thursday, so the bids for the consultant to help design the specs for the RFP.

Right.

Yeah.

And you are right, it is 25,000.

So you are welcome.

It's a two for two on that one then.

Anybody else?

Okay, then colleagues, your pleasure on the item before us?

You wish to table the item?

I'll make a motion to table.

Motion to table made by Councillor Carney.

Second.

Second by Council Lopes.

Any discussion on tabling the item?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

So council loop, since the item is tabled, uh can you that would mean that Jennifer would be here at the next meeting and you would be able to ask your questions there?

Correct.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay.

Anybody else?

Okay.

Um I'll check the date of the next Finance Committee as the uh as the uh clerk reads item number five.

Five and five A is communication, Mayor Mitchell to the City Council submitting the appropriation of $750,000 from ordinary revenue and municipal receipts to health insurance purchase of services.

It was referred here on July 17, 2025.

5A is the order which was referred on the same day.

5 and 5a are now before you.

Motion to receive and place unfile made by counselor loop, second by, I think that was Councillor Gomes.

Uh any discussion on receiving and placing on file?

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Um before we take the item up, uh Bob, the next finance committee meeting is scheduled on November 19th.

Um I'll see if I can't move that up.

Okay.

Yep.

I'm sorry?

Yeah.

Um, so this item we have Jose and uh Bob on the item.

I don't know who wants to take the lead.

So I would propose that I'll give you the uh financial landscape, what's like I did with Jim before cable access and then uh specific health insurance questions you could direct.

I'll defer it to um Joseon.

So this is uh I we had a similar discussion last year when uh I think it was a three million dollar cut.

So we changed the way we did budgeting for health insurance.

Uh that was effective fiscal 25.

Before that, we based it on claims paid.

So the city was forced to, well, with the help of Locton or other other um other rate consultants, we were looking at forecasting health insurance costs and then splitting that 75 percent to the to the employee uh to the employer and 25 percent to the employee.

So the budgets for health insurance back then were based on an unknown amount that would which would be the entire medical claims to be paid in the following fiscal year.

The move in fiscal twenty-five moves uh a lot further closer to closer to a certainty here.

We are basing it on working rates.

It's really premiums, but they're called working rates because uh the insurer does not have any risk.

It's all on us as the as the self-insured uh owner of this plan.

So we budget now based on actual city enrollments as of April 1st, because that's the most current date I have.

And we all know what our premiums are, or our working rates are.

Uh many counselors probably take the health insurance uh here at the city.

You pay 25 percent comes out of your paychecks every two weeks, as it does for mine.

The city is mandated to to match 75 percent.

So every dollar that comes out of your paycheck, the city has to put in three dollars.

That is how we budget.

We are using real people with real um uh plans and whether the family or single.

Um I feel like I'm on Judge Judy.

Real cases, real people.

Yeah, well, yeah.

All right, too much use of the word real.

But uh so the budget quantified out to 21.2 or so million dollars last year.

So that is as real of a budget as you can get in in the health insurance space.

It doesn't matter what the claims are going to be in fiscal 26, because all of the risk that the working rates are not sufficient to cover the medical claims, all of that risk is borne by the medical claims trust fund now, as opposed to the previous model where it was borne by the city.

So when cuts are made that preclude us from making the mandatory $3 contribution per every dollar of employee, it doesn't change anything economically.

It's not doing one single thing to change the medical claims that will be paid in the following year.

It does not change employee uh behavior as far as going to to seek professional uh uh medical professionals.

It doesn't change anything really.

It doesn't change the plan designs, it doesn't do one single thing to change the amount of money we spend, which was about $73 million last year, including the employee share.

All it does is it exonerates the general fund from making its mandatory contribution and it forces it to be borne by the medical claims trust, which then erodes the medical claims trust fund balance.

That fund balance has eroded below 16.7 percent, which is basically two months of of expenditures.

The DOR has flagged us on the community um they could call it the community bulletin board because we have an insufficient medical claims trust fund balance, partially because of this.

So we're on the watch list with DOR because our fund balance is starting to dwindle.

This $750,000 cut, it will get all the medical claims paid, but it will take $750,000 out of the medical claims trust fund instead of the city.

So again, we're gonna have further erosion in the medical claims trust fund.

It does not mean we're gonna have $750,000 less of expenditures.

So I urge the council to reconsider this cut because it's based on actual enrollments and actual rates.

There is a 10% assumption for uh for growth, uh premium working rate growth uh effective January 1st, and I think that Jose has some more information on how realistic that is.

So I can either defer an hour or not.

Okay, uh colleagues, do you wish to hear from Jose or do you wish to ask Bob questions?

Okay, Chair recognizes Council Carney.

Yes, thank thank you, Madam Chair.

So um the health care trust fund percentage reserve that they're speaking about is the medical claims, correct?

Medical claims trust.

Right.

Okay.

Well, here it just says from DOR is health care trust fund percentage.

So it says the name they give it.

Right.

So that it's less than 16%, it says it's less than 16.7 percent.

What are we supposed to be at?

Well, 16.7.

That's that's that's the recommendation.

It sounds like a weird number, but really what they're saying is they want two months, two months out of twelve is sixteen point.

Right.

So it says it's less than sixteen point seven.

So what what is what is the actual number that you've got?

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I misunderstood your question.

Um I don't have it in front of me, but it it got down to the DOR calculated it at 12.4, I believe.

But there was uh there was one issue that I that uh I'm raising with them.

It's less than 16.7, but it's higher than 12.4.

It's like 13 in change right now.

Okay, so that so they just flagged us to tell us that it's there, so they expect us to bring it back to the 16.7, or can we just hold off because that's the claims trust?

Right.

They don't expect they're not insisting on action right away.

They flagged us as being under the standard.

Um I don't know how many other communities might have gotten a flag like that, but they're they've got us on a wash because they don't like that trend, nor does the rating agency.

So we're taking a reserve, we're eating into a reserve.

It's just like if we eat into a stabilization or you know, our um our overlay reserve, for instance.

These are reserves that we set up for reasons, and just like Moody's and SP like to see a certain percentage for our general fund stabilization fund, they also uh respect the fact that the mass DOR is recommended a two-month reserve as well and and medical claims trust.

So what we're really doing is we're just we're just kind of exposing ourselves to DOR watches, standard and poor's moody's.

Not that they would necessarily get that information.

It's not like it's a news watch thing.

They could get these releases from the DOR, I'm not sure they do, but when we go in front of them each March for a rating for a bonding sales, these are the types of questions that we have to answer.

So how does so that's that being at 13 percent hurts us in our bond ratings with 3 percent lower than what the DOR wants us to have?

So how does that hurt us just with the bond rating or I can't give you a direct correlation, right?

So they weigh a lot of different things when they do bond ratings.

They'll take a look at our overall stabilization, they'll take a look at our uh financial management practices.

Now we don't have a firm policy.

Much as we talk about the policy we have for funding stabilization, right now it still stands as 25 percent goes into stabilization.

So when we set policy and when we don't abide by them, that's that's uh that's a uh uh a bad situation with our rating agencies.

We haven't actually set this policy.

DOR sort of has.

So uh when you're going from being in the positive, being off the DOR watch list to now coming onto the DOR watch list, that's certainly uh uh an unfavorable trend.

And that plus other things would start to could possibly start to um accumulate, and then you could the the ramifications would be we we we're double A minus reading.

Okay, but that has uh a qualifier on it too.

Are you are you trending up positive or you um are you stable or are you trending down?

Right now we're stable.

This this type of thing can lead towards a downtrend, and that will bear its way in that will make its way to us in the form of a higher interest rate.

Like think of your of your credit score going down a little bit.

That could be what this becomes.

I use the word could be because it's not a direct correlation.

But it's not financially prudent to do this, and that's what I am here to tell you.

I I am just confused because you said that that we set that percentage, but you just said and that we haven't set that policy yet, but the DOR set that policy for us.

Is it because we did not go ahead and set that policy?

No.

No, they it's it's not really a policy, it's a guideline that they want all the communities to try to follow.

It is not bond binding on us.

They didn't set it for us because we didn't set it ourselves.

They just simply have their own rate.

So if we set a policy requiring 12.5 percent, they would still flag us because they don't think 12.5 percent is adequate.

Okay.

They want the C communities to have two months' worth of medical claims opera uh expenditures in fund balance.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else at this point for Bob?

Well, from the Chair, um, unless I have missed it, I have not seen a medical claims report and graph for fiscal 26 yet.

Uh yes, no, you haven't missed it.

Yeah, we are we've we're trying to get that issue along with the uh the end-of-year reports.

It's uh it is a bandwidth issue at this time of the year, unfortunately, trying to close the fiscal year.

Okay, do you have any idea when we will see the first quarter numbers?

I tell you what, I bet you you'll see them this week.

Now that you have mentioned it.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

We don't want you to have to keep mentioning it either, by the way.

We want this to be very systematic.

Well, it is it had been.

Yeah, that's what I think.

It had been, yes.

That's right.

But it hasn't been in the last year or so.

So apologize for that.

Okay.

Anybody else for Bob?

Jose?

Can you take the podium, please?

Do you wish to add anything to the discussion here?

No, I think from from what I touch on from what I see, I think Bob has um covered all from the aspects of the purpose of what it is today.

And I think from from what he said based on what we know.

Can you just speak to the mic, please?

I can better?

Yes.

I think from from what I what I heard from Bob, he has um explained everything that we need to know today based on what we know now and based on what the uh situation fully is and its scope.

The other thing that that I wanted to just present a little bit more is um when we look at this from the claims, the claims is the uncertain component in which every year that's one of the things that we don't know exactly how it's coming at, as previously understood in many times.

We may have several claims that reach a certain number, we may have a few claims that reach an expiration amount of of money.

And those other things other than some of the predicaments that we have to work year after year on that.

Okay.

Colleagues, questions from the floor.

So from the chair, Jose, um, we have one provider, correct?

It's Blue Cross and Blue Shield, correct?

That is correct.

Um I know you have not been here for a long time, but what's the city's position about looking for other providers that might be able to provide uh health care at reduced cost for city employees or to give multiple plans for city employees to have a choice of?

When is the last time?

What's the discussion from the administration regarding giving employees that type of flexibility?

So one of the things we I have looked at with uh is understanding what the services that Blue Cross Bushield has provided at the same time, do we have any compatible carriers that could provide the same sort of plan as we have today?

That was one option that we looked at it, and many of them that we have within the area is Bukros Bashill is the main provider.

In addition to that, if we were to continue with Blue Cross Bashilde, and we look at our plan design, so we have the HMO plan, and then we have the PPO plan for when we have some members whose dependence are out of state.

If we were to increase another option to that, so based on the family plan that is more no uh I would say known to everyone is the HMO plan.

But if you were to continue looking at plan designs and introduce another option for another plan, then we would have to fall into a different type of design.

What would that mean?

It would mean, for example, that what Bob is referring to the work rates before the employees are the premiums that they pay on a bi-weekly basis.

If you were to minimize those, it means that the deductible and out-of-pocket would have to increase.

The plan design is also working that that way, so the employees do have options.

And one of the things that they look is their only health conditions.

What does that mean?

If I am younger and I feel that I can save a little bit of money on a weekly basis and say on a bi-weekly basis and pay a little bit less, I don't think I'm I will anticipate to get sick.

That's normally the mentality that we see.

I've been there, many of us have been there.

What does that mean?

If I get ill, and if the plan is constructed that way with a different plan design, then I know that I am be I'm going to be aware that I'm going to have to pay quite a bit more on the out-of-pocket and the deductible.

But that's not my question.

I understand that.

And I I understand that you know, within a plan, you can have different options based on whatever your personal situation is.

My question is we have one provider.

Yep.

And we've had that.

I've been here 20 years.

We've had that provider for 20 years.

Since 2020.

Okay, maybe my first couple of years here with somebody else.

I don't know.

But uh was it Hobbit before?

I mean, what when does the city make a determination that they go out to look at the various vendors to see who could offer the city a better plan than what you currently have?

And maybe you end up deciding that the plan you have is fine, but when is that going to happen?

Or what's the administration's position on doing that?

I believe that has been done in the past um several years ago, and what it has come back is to the Bucrosper Shield did provide the best option, did provide the best savings to the city.

Once we looked at that, we have the contract renewable with them, and once that is ending, which is should be happening sometime soon, but what we need to do is just take a look and put out there on the market again.

So when does the contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield end?

We have done from the Blue Cross Bruce Shield contract on an one annual basis, and then once that is ending should be right at the end of this at the end of this year.

At the end of 2025?

So there's an opportunity for other providers to present plans to the city in New Bedford that may or may not be more favorable than what we currently have.

I mean, I understand there could be tiers within the plan, but yep.

But one of the things that we have looked at, it is looking at the programs that you do with RX, which is anything to do with the pharmacy, and because has come back with providing better programs from a pharmacy standpoint when it deductions the deductions in terms of and the amount of the prescriptions programs as far as rebates for us.

But Jose, how do you know that if you haven't asked Harvard or Tufts or Aetna or whatever the other major companies are?

I guess I'm asking you, are we going out for a request?

I don't know about the.

The answer.

The answer is we have not explored this this year based on the recommendations from Locton, that they are still one of the providing the best rates that we have has been.

Lockton.

Lockton is our consultancy company.

That's the same consultant that doesn't allow the unit C people to have dental care?

No.

Okay.

Just checking.

No, that's not.

That's not the same one.

Okay.

As a matter of fact, on the dental on the dental plan, they have come back to one of the things I needed to understand because it has come up a couple of times.

Ninety percent of the municipalities do offer that.

They have come back with that with that piece.

Just piece of information there.

But to answer your question specifically, Madam Chair, we have not explored this this renewal and this possibility to look and put it out there in the market, which we feel is quite premature.

According to what I have received in consultancy from Locton, this would not be the ideal year to do it and renew the contract for another year.

There's a lot of uncertainty going everywhere in terms of the of the medical practice, in terms of prescriptions, in terms of the plans and the way they are going through renewals now.

Renewals are skyrocketing everywhere.

And they that that was the advice that that I they come up with.

It doesn't mean to your point that we cannot review this and go into future years and once again put it out there on the market, understand there's things hopefully will change to a to a more stabilized circumstance.

Okay.

Um might make a related motion after this item, but okay, thank you.

I appreciate that.

I I don't know why the consultant, and I'm not questioning you, I don't know why the consultant wouldn't provide an opportunity for a fair bid process, especially since you know we're approaching pretty quickly to December.

Now it might be too late because we're in this we're in October for this to happen for December 31st.

But it seems that the consultant should I understand there is turmoil in the health care provider.

Uh we're seeing that in many different places.

Uh but it still doesn't mean that you shouldn't have a fair and equitable process to bid um to make sure.

But you recognize this council Carney and Bob, I'm gonna ask you some questions as well in a couple of minutes.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

Um is there any cost to us um to the city to put out an RFP for alternative, not that we want to change, but just to review what's out there.

Does it cost us anything to put an RFP out?

No, from that standpoint, no, it doesn't cost us anything.

What it what it would be a discontinued normally when we go through the RFB, we we put it out there saying this is the plans that we currently have.

We put that with two or three vendors, what they can come up with.

Based on what we have seen in the past, the cross with shield has been the one as the man provider, what's his model?

I I I understand that.

I mean if that's why we we still have Blue Cross Burchio, but if it's no cost to the city, I think that we should just put it out there.

I mean, we could be sticking with Blue Cross forever, because it could be the best plan, but I think we owe it to our budget to just look what's out there to see if there's anybody that will be uh be in um competition.

I mean, everybody's trying to grab something.

Uh how many how many employees do we have on, you know, what's how many people do we have on our plans?

About 900.

About 900.

Well, 900 is a good amount for the city.

That's just that's just on the city side.

Right.

But that is a good amount for somebody to come in and bid on a health care plan.

I mean, I would think that they would be a fighting war to get the best plan to pick us up.

And I know you said something that um with the Blue Cross, the prescription plan, but I know when I had another um medical plan that they change prescription companies.

You can have the same company for your health care and the prescription plans changed.

So, you know, having Blue Cross and keeping them because of the prescription doesn't mean that we can't find another prescription plan.

But you know, I would think that we should, at least with all those people, just give another shot, just get it out there and see what what comes back.

Don't disagree.

Um but it's sometimes it's prudent to do it also at the right time.

Right.

I uh yeah, but I mean it's annual.

We go it's annually that we look at a health care.

So I would think with that amount of people annually that it should be out there every year for a bidding war to see who can do that.

And if we can get somebody comparable to what we've got now and give them a two-year plan, hold it for two years or something like that.

Um I think we should look at the alternative stuff with health care, because health care is always gonna be on the rise, and I think it o we owe it to ourselves to look for other vendors and see what's out there.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Council Chair recognizes Council Lopes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So, Jose, have we looked at and I know I bring this up all the time.

Allowing employees to opt out and giving them, you know, four or five thousand dollars, and they can't opt back in for a defined period of time, two, three years.

I know Somerset Seacon, there's countless communities that literally pay employees not to take the city's plan to go use their partner's plan.

Have we looked at that again?

I know the last time we looked at it, it was two of your predecessors.

That's something that I plan to do this in January, and at the same time looking what the potential savings would be.

What that will do, though, is if this is something that we can do in the fun period of time, normally is on an annual basis.

So they have one annual that you can say you want to opt out of our plan and you want to embark on your spouse's plan or and that will be for that.

So that credit that will go to the employee will be for the annual basis as well.

And normally what people would look is this how would this compensate getting for someone that just hypothetically speaking, if the spouse is on individual plan and and the employee is on individual plan here, that credit is to offset the the jump from an individual plan cost to a family plan cost.

So that's something that would have to factor in.

So that's something you're you're gonna consider.

All right, perfect.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Chair recognizes counselor show Kett.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hey, Mr.

Gobert, how are you, sir?

Good, how are you?

Good.

Uh just a quick question.

What was the name of that consultant firm again?

Lockden.

You spell that for me?

Yes.

L O C K T O N.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Just curious.

Thank you, Madam Chair, I yield.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

You need a second, Council County?

Chair recognizes Council County for a second.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair.

So as we look at this stuff, and you know, when I hear from my counselor from Wood 5 about the opting out, um, and I know this is brought up before, but an afflect plan.

I've got AFLAC.

So if I get hurt, I'm gonna get paid, and I'm gonna, and they pick up certain, there's all kinds of plans there that pick pick up certain percentages of medical.

So you're not hurting there.

So if we were to offer something like that in addition with our health care, that might and and give uh the the um employees options, they might take a lesser plan, pay lesser money, which would save us some, and pick up per se an AFLAC that is going to cover these things because I know it if I fall down and hurt myself, they're gonna be covering my pay.

So it's I'm not gonna be you know losing a lot of money.

Have we looked we need to look into things like that to give employees options for additional types of insurances that for small amount of money is going to go in the long run if they get hurt, if they go uh you have to go after FMLA, all these things factor in with all these options.

So I think we should start looking at those options for employees and and start working on giving them options to opt into different plans and whatever.

We do have we do have those options through TrustMark, in which they can go and enroll for short-term disability SD and long-term disability disability LTD.

So that option does exist.

In addition to that, we have voluntary plans, which is called critical illness.

If the employee, and it's not that expensive, if the employee decides to to also opt to the supplemental insurance, they also give an amount back should they go through a critical situation?

Cancer treatments, should they go to an emergency, should they go to situations that are very expensive like heart surgery and things like that?

So those plans already exist.

One of the things that it needed to be done is is communicated in the past, and they have not fully understood about some of the employees yet.

So this year what we want to do is during open enrollment, we are actually holding sessions at the at the locations when the employees work to allow them to understand these plans a little bit better.

Right, but just like we said about looking at other carriers, the more options for the employees to look at, I think the better options.

I've looked at some of those other plans and some of them better than others and offer more in the way of compensation than others.

So I think that it should be up to the employee, how they spend their money, and the more options they have to look at these other plans, I think the better off we'd be.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

All right.

Anyone else?

So Jose, just one other question.

Is there anything prohibiting the city from offering multiple carriers to its employees, in your knowledge?

You mean it for the health plan?

Yeah.

We're not large enough for that.

If if if an entity, a company organization has over uh a few thousand employees, they do have an option at that point to have dual vendors, do a carriers for that, but we're not large enough for that.

So you you can't add the school committee, um, I'm sorry, the school department employees in and the retirees in and get to that number.

Even with that, we're not we're not big enough.

How many people in the school department?

School department is running roughly around 2700.

How many?

I'm sorry?

27.

27.

And you add the retirees in and the uh new Bedford employees, and we don't get there?

The retirees do not stay in the HMO plan.

Once they retire, they are transferred to the Med Axe plan as you know.

So but but looking at the active employees that are actively working under the HMO plan, the options that we have currently, we're not big enough to car to do two carriers.

And what's gonna happen just like any business, I'm sure we would all understand this.

Let's assume that something changes that we can provide to carriers, and the employees have the choice to go with one or the other for whatever reasons could be the plan design, could be the cost.

But at that moment, what would that do is that would not give us enough leverage to truly negotiate with such a smaller number of participants?

Then the power of negotiation will be the minister at that point.

And is there any discussion about doing something on a regional basis with Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Forever?

Is there anything?

I mean, it's quantity and numbers, right?

The savings in numbers.

Is there any ever been any discussion about doing that that way?

We have not expelled that that that far.

It doesn't mean it's not something that we can we can uh concentrate that for 2026 and see what that will bring.

But we have not I have not considered that that far at this point yet.

And uh, do you know if any of uh you could you talk to your peers across the state?

Do you know of anybody else who has taken that type of approach?

There is there is a group, smaller group, the the small entity stores the CAPE.

Um that's the only one that came to mind that they have group.

Let's say I don't know how many uh uh residents they have, but they are smaller towns stores the Cape.

And they have a group called CAPE something something, but they have about three or four components because they were so small.

That's the only one that I have come to know when I have navigated through my network.

It does exist, but it's it's one that I the only one that I am aware of.

Okay, thank you.

Anybody else for Jose?

Bob.

Do you know of any reason why the city would not be able to on an annual basis, other than this may not be the right time?

Um asking multiple insurance providers to make a bid?

No, I don't know of any other reasons.

We have done that in the past.

It's gone out the RFP a few times.

Uh, I think when José was mentioning 2015, we used to have Harvard Pilgrim back in the day, and it was just before I got here, so that's probably what he was referring to.

We made a switch to Blue Cross after an open uh solicitation process, and I believe Blue Cross won at least one other RFP process over the last few years.

I don't know that it goes out every three years or every year, but um there is no reason other than the the locked in advising uh Jose that the timing is off.

Okay.

And is there any reason why the council couldn't request that the uh consultant come have a conversation with us?

There's nothing in the consultant's contract that doesn't allow the that prohibits them.

I don't know the contract too well, but I wouldn't I wouldn't imagine that that would be the case.

I mean, we like to we'd like to bring experts before you when we could really use their help to explain things.

Okay.

I would appreciate it from the chair if either one of you can answer that question with the consultant, and I'll make a motion next week on the council agenda.

Anybody else?

All right, colleagues, your pleasure on this item, please.

Make a motion to refer to the full city council with a positive recommendation.

Uh motion made to refer to the full city council for a positive um for adoption of the order made by council lopes, second by council Gomes.

Any discussion on the item?

Roll call vote.

I'm referring to the full city council for adoption.

Councillor Carney.

Yes.

Yes, Council Carney, Council Cherquette.

Yes.

Yes, Council Trickett, Council Giesta?

Yes.

Yes, Council Giesta, Council Gomes?

Yes.

He has Council Gomes, Council Lopes?

Yes.

He has Council Lopes, Council Morrad?

No.

No.

Council Moore, Council Pereira?

Yes.

Yes.

That passed six to one.

Item passes six to one.

Uh thank you.

Item next is item six.

Item number six is a written motion, Councillors Lopes and Moravad requesting that Derek Santos, executive director of the New Bedford Economic Development Council provide the committee on finance.

The annual program report detailing the status of the City of New Bedford tax increment financing TIF, special tax assessments, STA and tax increment exemptions.

It was referred to on February 27, 2025.

It's heard on May 12th, 2025, where it was tabled with a related motion that the solicitor's office provide the committee with an updated SOP on how TIFs and STAs will be processed based on the changes made by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Office of Business Development.

It was heard and tabled for 30 days.

Number six is before you and it remains on the table.

Motion to remove from the table and receive and place on file.

Motion to remove from the table made by Council Loebs.

Second.

Second by Council Giesta.

Any discussion on removing from the table?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed the ayes have it.

I just realized there's only 28 days.

All right.

Well, hopefully we have answers.

We've invited uh solicitor Jakes, Derek Santos, Ramon Silver, and uh Attorney Peter Winters.

And they're all in the chamber.

Who's starting Council Loebs?

That's not what I've solicitor Jakes.

Okay.

Last time he told us that he wasn't the person because it's Attorney.

Attorney Winters who was available for that.

Let's listen to Attorney Winters.

Okay.

That's okay with you?

It's okay with me.

Amazing how the administration tells us who we're going to talk to.

Attorney Winters, thank you for coming.

Sorry I cut you two days short.

That's quite alright, Madam Chair.

Thank you for having us and thank thank you, Council, for uh having us as well.

Um I guess I'll start with um a little brief overview of of where we are.

Um late last year, uh the mass legislature made um alterations to the TIFF and STA statute.

Uh the legislation eliminated state participation in the program where it relates to um the local initiatives.

The state no longer reviews or approves the incentive agreements.

As a result, the city has revised the program by reviewing the policy, application, and agreement.

There is now a new policy in place that continues the city's TIFF program.

And uh the city um uh can uh can uh now approve um these on their own.

Um as as you will uh recall when I was last year I I spoke that we were working on the policy, we were we are close to getting done.

I would like to report that that is complete at this point.

Um part of that is working with the assessors um to get their input on that and to have them uh work more closely with um with uh the economic development uh council and uh the solicitor's office uh to make sure that they they get what they need.

So that that is done, and and we have uh the policy, a application, and a um and a contract ready.

And uh that's where we are.

Okay, Chair recognizes Council Loebs.

So Attorney Winters, if somebody was to walk into economic development tomorrow and say they are looking for a TIFF, what's the process?

Um Well, they would meet they would meet with um with economic development and they would uh hand them the application, which would which is a bit the basic information, and then at that point would move forward with processing it.

So they would handle the initial thing and then they would bring it to it.

It's essentially going to be the same the same process that that was in effect before, other than the application comes directly to um economic development council as opposed to coming coming coming through the um through the state.

So um that's and that's pretty much the the only difference.

You really didn't give me an answer.

I'm not trying to be mean the term.

Council Loops.

You really didn't explain the process.

So they go to economic development, what's the next step?

Uh well, the economic development gets the application ready and then they meet with um the mayor and the assessor and the um the CFO and then just determine how to proceed with that.

So who's going to be responsible to remind and companies about the monitoring, the internal monitoring that's a requirement of the TIFF?

That will be the assessor's office will be doing that.

So we already have a process in place to um for pilot programs for pilot agreements, so we will just be taking that and um assessors will be doing that as well, which means they will be monitoring it to make sure that they're complying with their um with their tax break and then referring it to the um the treasurer's office um to for enforcement.

So now the EDC only becomes the intermediary, takes the application and then hands it off, and then everything else from from that day forward will sit within the assessor's office.

Well, they'll be working they'll be working with with us.

I mean, uh it once once the pro uh during during the the initial um application phase, and perhaps you know uh economic development council could better better um illuminate what they do.

Um I I I'm more on you know the uh the the enforcement and uh contracting side.

All right.

So within that, who's gonna structure it?

Is it gonna be a TIFF, an STA?

Is it gonna be an eight-year, ten year, twenty-five years?

That's in the policy.

It's it's limited to well, initially for for five to ten years, but we we didn't want to limit it that in case there are others, but typically it would be either five or ten years.

So and I guess I'll ask Ramon, but I thought uh or or Derek, I thought a TIFF had up to a 25-year life, depending on the zone.

Twenty twenty years.

Twenty years.

So now you're gonna limit it to to ten years?

No, no, we're not we we we're our the the preference for assessors is ten years, and and we had this discussion internally, but that's not set in stone, and there are obviously um if there are certain um projects that that uh that that need additional time depending on how their their financing structures and and perhaps um economic developers could tell you more about the financial aspects of it, but yeah, there they are there the the policy is such that it does have um it doesn't set a specific length.

So it doesn't set a length, but you're saying but you mentioned 10 years.

Yes.

That's the preferred length.

But it's not the hour limit obviously is state law, which is 20 years.

20 years, correct.

Yeah.

I thought it was 25, but I'll go in 20.

Okay.

So the policy that your office created, well, within the solicitor's office created still allows that whole 20 year life, but you're recommending a 10-year, 10-year life versus a 20-year life.

Yes.

That's within the policy.

Yes.

So if somebody says there's no length in the policy.

There's there's no policy.

There's no what?

There's no there's no length other than with the then the other than the parameters set by state law.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So now they're understand that okay.

So I don't have any more questions for you.

My questions would be to Ramon or Derek, depending on who wants the answer at EDC.

But Madam Chair, I I owe it.

Okay.

Anyone else for attorney Winters before I mean he can come back up before he steps away.

Okay, Attorney Winters, you can't leave, but you can have a C.

Council Lopes, who do you want to hear from, please?

Um Derek Santos, but he might defer to Ramon in regards to this.

All right, Derek.

So Derek, right now, you know, you're negotiating TIFFs and STAs.

Normally an STA is eight years and TIFF goes up to 25.

I thought it was eight at one time.

No?

All right.

So I remember Tom used to always ask for eight years.

Oh, maybe.

Tom was Tom.

God bless them.

An STA can go longer than five years.

But for the 18 years that Ramon and I have been here, there's been no STA proposed that's greater than five years, which is the state minimum.

So understanding that the minimums and the maximum is allowed within the state.

Is your office going to help structure the TIFF or the STA once it gets passed off?

I I think what uh uh what what Peter said is is accurate.

Uh aside from our counterparts in the state at M OBD, uh the TIFF program and particularly the EDC's role in it, really remains unchanged, except instead of us dealing with MOBD attorneys and MOBD um uh online portal for reporting, that shifts to solicitors and to the assessors.

So uh just and for anybody watching who may not know, um the first step is actually determine is a project eligible, right?

So there are guidelines, and the first step always is um does a project meet the eligibility criteria.

So that usually happens with an initial meeting, right?

And because the the guidelines specify um investment thresholds, job creation threshold, and and so forth.

Those those are those are all in the guidelines.

That has not had to be um modified.

Um going from the previous to now.

So that's the first step.

Um that has that has for years started with a letter of intent, right?

Basically to that that first review.

Um and that can move to, you know, as uh Peter was talking about a new application process, say to you have to determine that eligibility first.

Because if a project isn't eligible, um one uh uh a proponent might restate a project because if it's important enough, they might do some things to make it eligible.

For example, there's a minimum uh job creation number.

Sometimes companies want to be very conservative, right?

There's a minimum.

Um if they realize if they're not that conservative but more practical, um, they might meet that requirement, and then you know you can move forward.

Once a project meets the basic eligibility requirements, the EDC staff presents that to the administration or TIFF board, and you know, may have the first conversation with assessors at that point, depending, um, and say it meets the criteria set forth in the guidelines.

Do you want to move forward with the actual application?

At that point, the application process goes forward.

As we've discussed, the EDC staff will uh assist applicants in preparing their application the same ways we have before.

The difference is the previous application which was used, everybody used the same application.

It's the state's application, right?

Now every community is gonna have their own individual applications.

There were a lot of items in the state application that are not going to apply to any community.

Those were state requirements.

So we'll have the new application.

Umce that application is submitted, then there's a review.

Uh used to be me, now it's Ramon, develops a brief, a sort of summary.

That's usually in your city council packages because instead of going through multiple pages and all types of stuff, we we try to summarize that into a two or three-page document.

That is what goes to uh eventually goes to the TIFF board.

Well the one thing that we have uh that we always uh did but have formalized in the new uh guidelines that have been drafted, is to make it more clear that the EDC shall do that with the assessor's office specific to the calculations and the uh assumed assessed value of a project and other departments.

For example, a project's timeline through permitting may have a huge impact, maybe not on the TIFF, but on their PNS or something else.

There may be other infrastructure pieces.

So every project's a little bit different, but it might not be just assessors.

That might be DPI, there might be um if it's in the business park and there's some uh some other things, planning may come into um Michelle Paul's shop may come into play.

So other factors um may come into play.

Once that's done, then it's essentially normal businesses from what I've seen.

It goes to the TIFF board for review.

Um the TIFF board makes a recommendation to city council, only the city council can grant um a TIFF or STA voting for the mayor to assign a resolution that essentially allows the mayor to sign the document, and then those documents get prepared.

At that point, that's the other time it shifts a little bit.

Instead of instead of sending those documents to attorneys at M OBD to make sure it's compliant with state thing, that's the that's the only local component.

So we're still shipping it off to we're there's no um the lawyers are determining you know to make sure everything's squared away, whether that's a TIFF structure or an STA structure, right?

That'd be two separate ones.

Attorney comes back and says this is ready to go.

That's when the city council gets the package and votes happen from there if the city council decides to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Derek.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm all set at the time.

You're all set for now.

All right.

Chair recognized Council Pereira.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Derek, good evening.

Where is this policy posted?

Is it been on is it on EDC's website already?

Yeah, so the the policy that's that's that's in draft is not yet posted because it's in final draft.

The policy that existed under the previous state legislation, right?

So uh is on the EDC website, right?

Where it explains what the tax increment financing program is, uh how we administer the application and compliance uh for the city of New Bedford, and the TIFF uh uh policy guidelines are posted on the website.

As soon as uh I I would think literally in the next day or so, as long as it, you know, to uh after this meeting, um, have the new policy finalized, formatted, it goes on the website as soon as John Cox puts it up on the website is as soon as it as soon as it goes.

Okay, so the policy is not done or it is done.

I think you asked the question is the new policy posted on the website?

Right.

The new policy is not posted on the website because we haven't had this meeting yet.

So depending on on how tonight goes, if it's like okay, move ahead with your new policy, then it would be ready to be formatted and placed on the website.

Okay.

And then on top of that.

Are we going to circle back and reach out to companies waiting?

Yes.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Anybody?

Chair recognizes Council Gieste.

Thank you.

And hi, Derek.

How many companies are waiting?

Do you know?

Uh we have a few.

I believe there's there's no change from when Ramon was here last time.

You know, there's some big ones and some small ones.

Uh there are a couple who have letters of intent that were submitted literally right at the time the state changed the changed the law, who got caught, not their fault in the in the middle.

Um, and there are other projects that are have not submitted letters of intent, knowing that we're you know going through a transition or their projects not ready.

Sorry.

I don't know where that's coming from.

Um is there a limit of how many projects there can be or companies that can apply for a TIF?

Do we have a minimum or a maximum?

No.

So it's pretty open.

Yes.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Counselor.

Anybody else on there first?

The Chair has questions, but um I'll a second from Council Pereira first, and then Council Loebs.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I got cut off guard, so I I wanted to confer with uh my colleague.

Derek, do we have I I don't have the policy.

You you you insinuated like a little while ago, as long as this meeting goes okay, but we're not we don't have anything to look at or make comments on.

Oh Peter referred to the city was drafting the new policy as directed.

That's been drafted.

We've been working together with solicitors to review and and and provide comment.

I believe as assessors as well.

Okay, just because a little while ago you said that, oh, as long as this meeting goes okay, or like I don't understand what this meeting has to do with we're just following up to make sure we're accomplishing this.

And then attorney Winter just kind of got uh beat up a little last month, and we're we're at the finish line, it seems like, according so that's what I'm just yeah.

Yeah, so I so let me be clear.

Um this this could have been tabled.

This could have been there could have been other questions.

You know, we don't know what the we don't want to predetermine the outcome of the counselor's meeting.

Um so i if the resolution of the meeting is okay, great, there's a policy, we're ready to go.

The EDC is ready to uh receive the final policy, format it properly so it can be placed on the website, and then make that live.

Okay.

But we just didn't want to so I want to be clear.

We simply didn't want to predetermine the outcome of that.

And you know, uh I'm here speaking in general.

If there are any specific questions too, I I want to make sure um Ramon's here too as a resource for any any of the specific stuff as well.

If there are I I just like I'm just I I understand, I think what you're saying is you wanted to try to make sure we didn't have any questions, but I can't ask questions on a policy I don't know about.

So the other thing that I I go on to investigate, and I I I'll have a question comments offline, and maybe my colleagues agree is at some point this probably should become an ordinance, a baked in this is this is not something we should play around with, and this should be something a little bit more set in stone.

That's my opinion, and that's something for the solicitors and attorney Garatowski to to discuss and look into.

But I I just I I was a little confused because it sounded like so maybe we have the policies done, it just needs to get the stamp from the mayor or someone.

I'm gonna defer to solicitors on you know it gets a municipal document.

So I want to so I might think I want to be really clear about as people say we work closely with solicitors, assessors, the other departments that may be involved.

The EDC's role is to manage the application process and then the compliance process, as counsel loops pointed out, that compliance certain reporting piece is going to shift to solicitors where it used to be the state, but that's you know, but that's our role.

But at the end of the day, when the city says you're gonna be the one to post a policy to do all of that.

We will always market and promote city programs like TIFF to uh foster business growth and development.

That could be as simple as the facade program at community development, right?

We do that or any anything like that.

Okay.

Um no further questions right now, Matthew.

Okay, Chair recognizes Council Lopes at a second.

So my second is for attorney winter.

Okay, so Derek, I have questions for you.

So before you jump up and down and next will be for attorney winter.

Okay.

So Derek, um I I just want to wind back here a minute, okay.

Every year, this comes to finance when I request that you give us the annual compliance report.

And back the end of last year, I asked for the annual compliance report.

You submitted it, and in February, it came to the council showing the companies that had a TIFF and whether they were in compliance with jobs, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Okay.

And some of the companies are out of compliance.

Ramon sends follow-up letters.

Okay.

That's a process that's been going on for a long time.

As part of that conversation back in February, or whenever we heard it originally in finance, somebody said state's not going to do the monitoring anymore.

Yes.

Okay.

Um we need to figure out something within our own house.

So the whole conversation so far tonight has been about the application process.

I think although maybe there's some concerns about the application process, it's something we haven't seen yet.

There's been no conversation tonight about how we're going to follow up once the TIFF is granted to be sure that everything's in compliance.

Is that part of the policy that we haven't seen yet?

Well, that that wasn't asked, I don't think, yet.

But my understanding is that instead of the uh compliance form coming from the state, right?

The science, the compliance form is going to come from assessors, right?

And we will work with companies as we do now to let them know.

Right now, what happens is we let companies know this is when your reporting is due.

Here's the link to the state website to make sure you're doing your homework, and we have access to the new Bedford companies on the state's portal, or at least we did and up until 2024 to see who would submit it on time and who had not.

That's when we would come and report that.

And that's simply going to shift to um the assessors.

There doesn't need to be a portal, it could simply be a list on an Excel sheet.

And we will work with the assessors to see who is submitted their city compliance forms to a city office.

The new state legislation, I understand, and Ramon is much more expert this than I specifies it has to be a city city department or agency, but it doesn't say which one, so this any city can pick whichever one they have.

And so that's really the only shift.

Instead of checking with MOBD, the EDC will simply be checking with assessors.

That's all.

The form does not have to be the state form.

The form will be, you know, whatever the city determines is is the form.

There were no new there were no new, there were no no there are no new TIFFs yet to apply in the new process to then comply with the new process.

I know.

I'm just trying to relate the old process to what you're proposing going forward.

You the collective view.

Um and part of the conversation you've said to me, the solicitors is doing this, and part of the conversation you said assessors is doing this.

I'm sorry, but I'm not clear as to who's doing what.

And I'm pretty sure that you've already told me twice maybe I'm hearing wrong.

Different people are doing the same thing.

So it's very un I I guess if you guys have a policy that you wanted us to review, and I'm not being critical.

I'm just you maybe you should have presented it so that we could have reviewed it so that we could ask intelligent questions about who's doing what?

Yeah, I'll I'll defer to you know to Peter on the specific policy, but the the two components that I mentioned are people doing different things.

Uh the part that relates to reviewing the legal agreements, that would be solicitors' office when it used to be attorneys at uh MOBD because they had state requirements for those agreements.

And part of the uh requirements for compliance reporting, right, which comes after, that used to be MOBD, not the attorneys, different staff at MOBD who is reviewing compliance.

And for the city, that would not be solicitors, that would be the assessor's office.

That is that is our understanding.

That's that's what's been discussed.

It won't it the for the compliance piece, it's gonna be assessors, not solicitors.

Okay.

Okay.

And you've been, when you guys have been drafting this policy that we haven't seen, all those players have been at the table.

Yes.

And you're comfortable that going forward, there's no loopholes or no uh possibility of something falling through the cracks.

I think for the first time, New Bedford and every other municipality is gonna have to manage their own process on their own for the first time.

Um so it's fairly simple and straightforward.

You would think so.

But this has been going on for a long time, Derek.

It's yeah, uh a company is reporting on two things.

And I'm not being critical.

No, I understand.

But but there are really two things that a company is reporting on.

Have you made your investment requirements as per the agreement?

How much have you invested, and how many jobs have you created and retained?

So it's it's a really straightforward form.

I know.

Usually the information on the Yeah.

So because it's so straightforward in the in the terms of the agreement, um, I don't foresee any major problems, but as we work through uh I I don't anticipate any any glitches that can't be resolved before the new process is put in place.

No.

It's really straightforward.

Okay, I'll yield.

Council Pereira, do you have your hand up?

Yeah.

At the end.

At the end, okay.

All right.

Um thank you, Derek.

Um Attorney Winters, I believe Council Lopes has some questions for you.

So, attorney Winters, my follow-up is really simple.

I got a lovely three-page document from our clerks.

That is just our language going back and forth.

Within that three-page document, you know what I do not have?

What?

A draft SOP or a draft policy.

So when you were here 30 days ago.

Now, Council Morrad, Chairman and Morrit, it's not gonna be critical.

I am.

I asked for an SOP.

And you sat there and you said in 30 days you'll have something to review.

It's 28 days as Council Morad said.

But there's nothing to review.

So go ahead.

No, go right ahead.

Like I said before, it's ready to go.

I'll send it to you tomorrow if you want to see it.

All right, okay.

And if I could just explain a little bit about about the the the assessing department, the these are essentially tax exemptions that we're that we're giving out.

That's what assessors do.

They go through and they value property every single year, and then they go through and they they they take the exemptions from it.

That's that's what they do.

So this is nothing different than they're doing already.

It's just doing it for for for this particular project.

So they have to find find out what the value of the property is, and then they'll they'll go and they'll say, well, they're they're subject to a TIFF.

Okay.

So what's the what are the what are the parameters for the TIFF?

They'll go through the TIFF, have you met your investment requirements and have you met your your job requirements?

So they'll they'll they'll they so they do I and E reports, income and expenses reports to all the businesses around here.

For those of you that own a business know that.

So they they do that, and they'll they'll do the same.

What what what's your payroll look like?

Where are these people located?

So I don't have an issue with it going to the assessor's office.

I don't have it right with the solicitor's office.

Right.

My issue is I asked to see something, and we don't have anything to look at.

It it's it's ready.

I'll send it to you tomorrow.

Just one one one thing I another point if if if I could, Madam Chair.

Um it it in in in in the city, the solicitor's office works with every single department.

We don't have specific responsibilities except maybe for litigation on our own, but we work with every single department, and we certainly are going to be working in conjunction with the assessors who have a certain expertise, and we have a certain expertise.

We'll be working with them in order to to make sure that that there are our compliance systems so if they have a question with regard to um you know when the and one of the issues that we worked on was was uh when when does it actually start?

Because a lot of times like the the the state would send us all well, fiscal year 23 it starts.

Well, the project doesn't get completed till fiscal year 24.

So what we have is like once there's a certificate of completion or occupancy from building or or whoever is is or or what what whatever type of um project it is, then from that we move forward that it will be the fiscal year starting the next year.

So when their taxes are up, they'll get a break and we'll get more money and and things like that.

So again, as I said, Attorney Winters, I don't have an issue with it leaving MOBD at all.

And being within the city.

My issue is that I have nothing to actually read that states the policy that you'll that you drafted.

That's my only concern.

So ideally I do want to table the item until the next meeting because I do want to see what has been drafted.

I don't have concerns with the solicitor's office and the assessor's office, and still within EDC.

I just wanted to see something to have an understanding, because as I mentioned last time, I have a handful of people that have reached out to me and saying, where are we?

And you know what I say?

I got nothing.

You know what I don't like to say?

I don't have anything.

I like to provide them guidance, especially when they're people that are one I banked or two that I've known for 20 years.

So I will table it unless somebody else wants to take no further action, but ideally, I'd want to table it.

I want to see the draft, and then I have no issues with it after that.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Attorney Winters.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Attorney Winters, do you have to add anything?

No, so the chair would ask that tomorrow morning you forward that policy to the city council office and it will be disseminated to the body.

We appreciate that.

Uh Ramon, you've sat here.

Do you want to add anything?

Uh Bob, you're in charge of the assessors.

You have any concerns you want to bring to the council's attention?

Okay.

Attorney Jakes, you've been sitting over there in the corner.

You got anything you want to add here?

No, Adam Chair.

Okay.

All right.

Now, Council Pereira, you looking to make a motion here if we table.

Not a motion, but if you'll indulge me one second, what would you say?

Not a motion, but if you'll indulge me one second.

I would certainly indulge you, Council Pair.

Thank you.

So we're going to have a policy in our inbox tomorrow.

When can we expect from whoever can answer this?

The application.

When can we see a copy of the application?

If there's one made.

Can we have that?

Is the application, Attorney Winters part of the policy?

It's not part of the policy, but there is an application, yes.

There is an application that can be sent tomorrow?

Yes.

Tomorrow.

Compliance forms.

When can we see a copy of compliance forms that the people will have to fill out?

Well, there's no projects to be in compliance yet.

So there is no form yet, but I will have I can have that by the end of the night by by Monday.

Monday.

Okay.

But Attorney Winters, there are projects that have been granted before that will need to supply compliance reports at the end of 2025.

So my sorry one, thank you.

Let's ask a question.

So projects that were involved in the E.

Sorry.

I'm not that tall.

Yeah.

There's a little step stool underneath there, Ramon.

So projects that were involved in the EDIP program before this change will still be required to report to the state because most of those projects and many of the projects that I think all of the projects that we have also receive state investment tax credits.

So the projects that had investment tax credits and the TIFF still have to report to the state.

So anybody we've already approved will f follow the same process for compliance.

Yes.

Yeah, okay.

And I won't be here, but when one of my colleagues asks in January or February for the report to show whether people are in compliance or not, that's still going to go through EDC.

Yes.

And you would be able to compile the prior projects plus whatever might get approved in the next two months?

Yes, we've still been able to work with MOBD so that our representative from MOBD has been providing us with her access to the report so that we're able to see the people that report still through the portal.

Okay.

All right, Council Prairie, you had another wait, wait, Ramon, don't go away.

I don't know if I meant that's for all that.

All right.

Attorney Winters, I think you have to come back.

Well, I don't know.

You know what?

I'll just speak and I'll turn around and make a nod the ahead.

But Madam Chair, so I guess my whole comment on this is just if we're going to be launching something, we're told shouldn't we have everything in place ready to go?

It just seems like, okay, well, this is like so I just want to make sure that's there.

That's why I asked for compliance form.

That's why I asked to see a copy of it.

A copy of the application, a copy of the policy so that the council can see what it's going to look like for a new company.

Because I think there's three that have been kind of inquiring.

I don't two, but I think three of you.

Yeah.

That have been inquiring by TIF when we want to get this going.

So when are we going to be ready?

And it seems like we're ready, but then we're just going to make sure everything else is ready to go.

So we're not just like, oh, compliance is due next week, but we have to write the form right now.

I'm not saying it's happening, but we've got I'd like to see the whole package before I make any comment or recommendation of it.

I think my colleague would buy what's kind of not going to be.

But it sounds like we're going to get it tomorrow morning.

We'll see.

Monday for the Monday's forms.

Monday for compliance.

Okay.

Application and policy tomorrow.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay.

So we'll be getting two emails.

Two.

Okay.

All right.

No, we'll be getting two emails.

One tomorrow and one on Monday.

So anything else?

Council Lopes, you want a table?

Okay.

So I will say when I asked for the SOP, and I've drafted a ton of SOPs.

I put all the appendixes within the SOP, which would include the application, the policy, all of those would be when you're reading the SOP, it's going to say refer to appendix A, which would be application.

Refer to appendix B, which would be the compliance.

So when I asked for an SOP, my initial assumption would be all of those pieces that council, you know, the council from Ward 6 asked for would all be included because as much as I don't like drafting them, I've had to draft them, and you encompass all those as appendix.

So I would make an assumption, which was wrong of me, that all of that would have been included within that draft SOP to review.

So I do thank my you know my colleagues in the South E for bringing those up because I made an assumption, which I shouldn't have made the assumption.

So but now that we know they will be coming forward, I'm look forward to tomorrow and and Monday's email.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're welcome.

And now your motion is to table.

Yes, ma'am.

Motion made by Council Lopes to tables, second by Councillor Kearney.

Any discussion on tabling the item?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Oppose the aye savage.

So colleagues, as I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, items seven and eight.

Um unfortunately Neil Mello couldn't join us tonight.

And I know that we could get um dollars and cents and invoices, etc.

from the solicitor and or the chief financial officer, but I know we have policy questions about what's going on here.

So I'm not sure why Mr.

Mello couldn't join us and why the notification came at the last minute, but I would either table these items or refer these items to the audit committee where Council Pereira would have some teeth in the request for information.

But whatever the body wants to do, I I'm happy with regard to these two, but I'm not hearing them until Mr.

Mello is in the chamber.

So what's your preference here?

Madam Chair, your names on both of these motions?

Would you your names are on both of these motions?

Would you prefer to refer it to the committee on audit or do you want a table?

I'm happy to do that, Council Pereira.

You're able to hear them and to use the um weight of the audit committee, should we need to?

Yes.

Yep.

So I'm going to take items seven and eight and refer the two items to the audit committee.

Wave the reading and refer to the committee.

I make a motion to wave the reading, refer items seven and eight to the council to refer to the audit committee.

You okay with that, Clerk Lawrence?

Made by Council Pereira, second by Councilor Choquet.

Any discussion on referring items seven and eight to the audit committee?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

And Council Pereira, I'm assuming that you will hear these promptly, please.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, on items nine and ten.

Um I had requested information from Josh Amroll.

He provided a detailed report that you all have.

It would be the maker of the motion's recommendation that we waive the reading on these two items and refer them out to the full city council for no further action.

All the recommendations.

If you should have questions regarding the detailed report that Josh sent, you could reach out directly to Director Amrol.

So follow the recommendation of the chair made by Councillor Loep, second by Council Pereira.

Any discussion on referring out for no further action?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed the ayes have it.

Colleagues, there's no further information, no further agenda before us.

Motion to adjourn.

Made by Councillor Giesta, second by Council Choquette.

Any discussion on adjournment?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Oppose the ayes have it.

We adjourn tonight at 9 12 p.m.

Thank you all for your help.