Is it cold in here or is it like a little bit of a little bit of a little bit?

Yeah.

Good evening.

It is 7 41 on Tuesday, December 9th, in the City Council Chambers.

I am joined tonight by my this is the Committee on Audit, excuse me.

I am joined tonight by my colleagues, Council of Word 3, Sean Oliver, Counselor at Large and Second Vice President Linda Morad and myself, Councillor Ryan Pereira, Chair of the Committee on Audit.

I'd like to thank our guests who have waited through a couple of meetings.

There are none.

None.

Okay.

Item number one, please.

Item number one is a written motion, Councils Morrad and Pereira requesting that the purchasing director, Molly Gilfeather Rodriguez, please provide to the audit committee monthly by the fifth of each month report detailing the previous month's request for proposals issued by the City of New Bedford and was referred here on August 13th, 2024.

And number one is before you.

Second.

Second by the only other person available, Councillor Morad.

All those in favor, say aye.

Roll call file.

Roll call.

And I want you to call the members of the committee, please.

Do you call all the members of the committee, please?

Quick.

Roll calling on Receiving and Placing on file.

Yeah, I do.

Yeah.

Councilor Abru.

Councillor Abru.

Councilor Lopes.

Councillor Lopes.

Council Morad.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Moran.

Councilor Oliver.

Here.

Yes, Council.

Councillor Pereira.

Yes.

Yes.

That passes three to zero.

Passes three to zero receiving and placing on file.

We are joined by the director of purchasing, Molly Gilfeather Rodriguez.

Thank you, Molly, for being here with us this evening.

Hi, good evening, Counselors.

Yes, actually.

Thank you.

Before you begin, Molly, just procedural.

Molly sent an email to the body regarding this with some background information if we could receive and place that on file.

So moved.

Made by Councillor Oliver, seconded by Councillor Morat.

All those in favor of receiving and placing on file?

Opposed?

The IS have it.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

Molly.

No, no problem.

Go ahead.

So as the memo that I sent outlined, um, all of the solicitations, the requests for proposals and the invitations for bids that the city releases publicly are publicly posted on the city's website.

They're also posted many other places by law.

We advertise every project in the Standard Times.

They are electronically available on our bidding platform called BidNet Direct.

That has a lot of good vendor participation, so it's uh the projects have a lot of visibility statewide, but it's also a national platform.

Um we also advertise in some of the states publications like Combise and the Central Register and the Goods and Services bulletin.

So the project visibility is is pretty high.

Um all of the active solicitations, things that vendors are able to bid on right now.

Um I'm on the city's website.

So if I just go to like the main page.

So these are all of the currently active solicitations.

And then they have a hyperlink here in the project name, and that directs vendors or anyone interested in the bid documents to the the bidding platform that we use, bid net.

And then once the bids are opened, back up here, bid results.

This is a chronological listing with the most recent opening, bid opening at the top here.

So our most recent opening was on November 26th.

And this is a hyperlink to the bid results, so I'll click on the most recent one.

So this was the Cogzall Street uh phase three sewer separation project, and we had four bids on this one, and you can see the vendor's name.

Is that too small?

You can see it, okay.

So there were four different vendors here, and the amount of what they bid for the project is here as well.

And then going back out to our website, once a contract is awarded, we list it here under the awarded contracts, and again, just like the bid results, it's chronologically posted with the most recent result at the top.

These are all to be determined or to be decided because we're either waiting to confirm the funding source or funding availability, or the project management department is still reviewing the bids.

It could be many different reasons.

But we have the project name, the vendor that it was awarded to, the initial contract award amount, and the estimated start date of the contract.

Let me go down because the most recent ones are still waiting to be awarded.

But you'll see here that historically we've always posted this information.

You can see that the scrolling options here are pretty great because I do not delete this data.

It's here.

I haven't deleted it for the last like six years.

So any information that you want on previous uh contract awards should be readily available here as well.

And we do this again for public availability for transparency.

Does anyone have any questions?

Does anyone have any questions?

Thank Chair Recognized Casal.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Molly.

Those so on the web on the website, uh those those aren't hyperlinks.

Like I can't click on a particular project.

Under the awarded contracts, no.

What would you be interested in seeing?

No, I would I was just asking to see if you could if if it's if the if it gets that in detail.

No, not here on the awarded contracts.

The hyperlinks are just in the the first, the IF IFBs, RFPs and the bid results.

Okay.

Sometimes we do get public and actually it's not sometimes, it's very frequent that we get uh FOIA requests for the actual bid itself that a contractor has submitted, and the file size is way too large to be sharing all of that on the city's website.

Yep.

But that is public information, and we always share that with anyone requesting it.

Um and we usually share it via a one-drive link.

So we'll just save all the documents in a one drive, send that out to anyone requesting it.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

That that's all.

Thank you, Councillor Oliver.

No, I didn't have anything.

No, nothing.

The only thing I would say too is that we don't share that information until the contract is awarded, just because it could interfere with the review process.

Okay.

Okay.

Perfect.

Thank you.

From the chair of the committee would allow.

So on these items here, Molly, um, they're all available online.

The general public, the city council can review them there.

My question uh two questions.

Uh the first question is internally in your department.

You you primarily you said it was bid docs net um uh bid net directly.

We also do use bid docs.

You're familiar with it from the school department.

Yeah, for some very large construction projects, we will use a separate platform.

Okay.

But that's still all publicly posted on the website.

Okay, accessibility is the same.

Perfect.

And then when you receive those bids uh via uh the submissions through those um platforms, you funnel them in, but uh, do you still accept paper applications?

We do not.

We are fully digitized, our department has been for five years.

The electronic bid submission has been the last three years.

Yeah, we're going into year four.

Um if it's a smaller project, we would entertain that if the vendor community has relayed to us, you know, we're a small mom and pop and we don't have a big online presence, we're struggling with it.

We'll work with them.

Okay.

Yeah, I I personally, especially on the larger ones.

Uh I I do foresee it to be uh an electronic submission today, is is even for moments.

It's not an issue.

It's not an issue.

I agree.

And the my last comment is for um bid docs or bid dire uh bid.

Bid network, thank you.

Yeah.

Um does the city pay any user fees to utilize that?

Okay.

Yes, for bidnet direct, we have an annual subscription.

It's about three thousand.

It's very affordable compared to other platforms.

I demoed six platforms before choosing this one, and I chose it because it had um great functionality and it was the cheapest.

Okay.

And bid docs, um, which we do not have a subscription for, they're not really subscription-based, it's one off, so it's project-based.

Gotcha.

Um, it's usually around 1200, I believe, for the large solicitations.

The departments pay for that themselves.

We don't have that in our purchasing budget.

Yes.

And that is it's a rare occurrence.

It's for things that are like an $80 million new school build.

Yeah, because I think that's what the school was using.

And that is that's why you're familiar with that.

That's why I'm familiar with it.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Molly.

Uh, Chair recognized Council Moran.

Thank you.

Molly, um, the items that are on this sheet.

Are they also on the bid result screen?

Yes.

They are.

Yes.

Okay.

The results for the project that it correlates to?

Yes.

Okay.

So if I look back on the bid results screen to question it.

That would tell me who it's going to be awarded to.

See, it's right here at Cushionate River.

Yeah.

Yep.

Um it's not necessarily going to tell you who it's going to be awarded to.

If it's an IFB, it's construction-based, or it's um a straightforward goods and services uh type of contract, that's going to be price-based.

So you can almost always guarantee that the lowest price for those will be who it's awarded to, as long as they are in good standing with the state.

They don't owe any back taxes to the city, anything like that.

Okay.

But they are on the two, they're on the both pages.

They are.

I was wondering why they were all the TD to be determined.

Yep.

That's more for um the TBD is more for if the funding source isn't um set up yet.

If the city is awaiting um like a grant, we won't award the contract until we have the grant funding in place.

Okay.

And also um for the RFPs, it's more qualifications-based.

So we have to, it's not just price-based, so we really need to wait for the department to complete the evaluation process.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Morad.

Colleagues, any other questions at the site on this item.

Okay.

The bodies I know I we were on the makers of the motion.

I'd be okay taking no further action, Councillor Moran.

I think that's fine, provided you are comfortable with that, sir.

Absolutely.

So motion to take no further action refer to the full city council was made by Councillor Morad.

Seconded by Councillor Oliver.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Thank you very much, Molly, for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you for waiting.

Thank you.

No problem.

Item number two.

Is a written motion, Council's Pereira Oliver and Morrad requesting that the Committee on Ordnance receive monthly reports for expenditures from every department and account to be referred to the Committee on Ordnance, CFO XM and the auditor and the administration.

It was referred here on June 27, 2014, July 15th, 2020, it was just turned on a signed by the mayor.

On October 17th, 2024, it was tabled.

On February 25th, 2025, it was tabled.

It was heard and then tabled.

And on April 10th, 2025, it was heard and then tabled.

He did receive an email from Neil Mellow saying he was not going to be able to make it.

That was on the motion.

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

This is item two, right?

Yes.

So motion or move from the table, please.

So moved.

Made by Councillor Oliver.

Second.

Second by Councillor Morrad.

Any further discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Oppose the ICE have it.

So just for the general public, um, my colleagues are aware.

This has just kind of been a placeholder motion.

We've been running along to review expenditures periodically.

And um a few months now, I would say two months maybe now, we received a uh beautiful presentation uh from the city auditor and the chief financial officer in regards to um the closeout of the fiscal year 2025 expenditures report, which I now have before us.

I have a copy for the clerk.

If we could receive and place this item on file.

Second by Councillor Oliver.

The second, yeah.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Oppose the ice have it.

Mr.

Chair, is it possible that we could ask the office to forward this to the remaining members of the body?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Now uh just for the general public to know, this is actually available online on the city's website under the city auditors page.

Yes, on the city auditors page.

So if you, as we saw with Molly, she went to departments and purchasing.

If you went to departments and city auditor, you auditors, you can actually look at this report, the general public could.

Um so I congratulate them on that.

If I could have um either Bob or Quillin, whoever would like to take a lead and run in this down a little bit, whoever wants to start.

And I'm sure there's going to be questions from my colleagues.

Quillen, awesome.

Good evening.

Thank you, Quillen.

If you could um, you know, thank you very much for getting this report out.

It's very nicely done put together.

Uh I think uh I've heard some residents complimented as well.

Uh I do think it it adds to that transparency that we've been seeing uh that that Molly pointed out in her own department, and I think that's shown here in your department as well.

I think it's it's very nice.

Uh if you want to just run that down this a little bit and explain uh where we were, talk about any accomplishments you'd like to talk about in 2025 and um well, I'll open up for questions.

Well, I think the big accomplishment is that there were no departments that were in a deficit.

So since I became city auditor, it was one of my main priorities is just you know running periodic reports, making sure departments weren't getting close.

So since I became city auditor, it was one of my main priorities is just you know running periodic reports, making sure departments weren't getting close, and if they were, we had a conversation ahead of time and figured out how to help them out and with your help as well to make sure that they were not in the deficit.

Um for myself, it was a great learning experience to learn the system and be able to pull data and then use my skills with Excel to put everything together in a nice formal uh presentation.

And then with the CFO's office help, Bob, he did the the write-up, so and we worked together a lot on this.

And uh I'm glad to hear that you're receiving it well, the residents are receiving well as well.

I'm happy to be you know helping with the transparency of this, so thank you.

Any questions from the body?

I uh the chair has questions, but if the body has questions.

I just want to make sure that the enterprise funds also were in compliance as well.

Okay, just make so you said general of the department.

Oh, you want to make sure.

Uh go ahead, Mr.

President.

I'm just looking why.

Thank you.

Yep.

Um Quillin, I I do have some cons some questions about some accounts that were perfectly zero at the end of the year.

So I understand so in account 449, that's the Greater New Bedford Regional Refuse Management District.

That's an assessment.

So I would expect that to be zero dollars, because that's uh a known figure.

But an account like snow removal to get it down perfectly to zero, not one penny left more.

Can you is that something you can explain on what happened and how that works?

Because uh my amount my thought process is that well, we have as we have snow emergencies, money is expended.

There wouldn't be a perfect amount of snowfall for us to hit zero.

Uh so yeah, it includes the supplies for the snow removal as well as any overtime for employees.

So I think you know they figured out how much they had available for helping with the overtime to take away from the DPI and D FFM departments to put against your further.

Was any of that money used for capital equipment?

No.

No, it should just be supplies and the overtime.

Straight supplies.

Okay.

Because my my concern is that and I think that that the past year, past two years, maybe a year and a half, I've noticed uh a push to not try and just spend uh uh leftover money on capital equipment.

Supplies I can understand, but I just have concern with that um just being always spent to zero.

I it's not a large sum of money, four hundred and fifty thousand or relative to the rest of the budget, but I do have concerns about that.

Um I follow up on that?

Absolutely, Consulmore.

Does that mean that they spent more than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars last year and snow removal and the rest of the money came out of their own budget?

Is that what that says, though?

Yeah, including just kind of buying extra supplies kind of for future use too.

So if they need to get salt just for next fiscal year they're buying it when they have the available budget.

So it could be that they spent a lot less than 450, but they then bought supplies like I mean that's what I'm trying to figure out whether the snow removal budget in the city of New Bedford in 2025 was really 450, or was it over or under?

Because I don't remember we had a lot of snow, but you know, I know we saw and pre-treat the roads and stuff like that.

Yeah, I would say it's over and they just whatever they could use for the overtime they take out of their own budget.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

I just the snow removal budget was more than for the possible costs.

Was more than 450.

Right.

So they just whatever they could do for the overtime they put it there?

Understood.

Colleagues, any other questions on this report?

No, we're gonna you're gonna ask your next question.

I interrupted you.

I'm sorry.

Oh, that's uh sorry, excuse me.

So you you spoke to taking steps with departments that were running close to deficits.

Um can you describe that process?

It's it's uh not it shouldn't have been something new, but it seems like it was a very proactive approach, this fiscal cycle.

Can you explain that and and um discuss how those conversations went generally across the board?

Sure, yeah.

The conversation is usually were more held with the CFO's office, but we're my office is more there to kind of monitor if things were getting close, we'd reach out to the department, let them know.

Um our system is set up to warn us if department would go over budget with invoices as well.

So we'd catch those and relay that to the CFO's office.

Um but myself I didn't really have many conversations directly with department heads about how to cure those.

Okay.

And then my last question um is on the cherry sheet I would say it's revenue and assessment, maybe REC an assessment.

There was a 1.3 million dollar surplus.

Can you explain what that is?

Uh it's 99 um 950 is what the code is here.

This is Cherry Sheet REVN assessment.

And it looks like it came with a 1.3 million dollar surplus.

So I'm not entirely sure, but my educated guess would be that we had budgeted for a certain amount and then the state may revised that figure after we came with the budget number.

Okay.

I'll ask Bob that question in a minute.

Any other questions for Quillin at this time?

I have a question, but I I'm not sure if it's Quinn could be a good question.

Yeah, ask it and we'll see who can answer that.

Do you have any discussions with departments in MAD Bob when their surpluses very large every year?

Because there are some departments here that I'm very surprised.

I'm not surprised about veterans' affairs, obviously.

We know what that situation is, but some of the others, they are very large.

Do you have the discussion pri prior to the Yeah?

So on a monthly basis we um request reconciliations from departments to reconcile their expenses, but then usually in the around now or January, we will start asking if they can declare any um surpluses or deficits, if they're projecting any, because it helps the administration um figure out if there can be any transfers requested from that department to others.

So we usually ask them, they return it on their reconciliation reports, which you can share with the CFO's office, and then from there they'll reach out to the department asking.

And on those reports, is there a detail as to why there's a surplus?

Usually no.

It's just a dollar figure, and we go from there.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Any other questions for Auditor Lowney.

Let's bring Bob up.

Perfect.

CFO Extrum.

Don't go fast.

Bob.

Thank you, Quillin, very much.

I appreciate it.

The clerk thinks you need your own theme song when we bring up Bob Extram, because we always ask for Bob.

So we have a little theme song when you walk up like the prices right or something.

He's afraid I'm going to too much.

I'm sure.

Would you like me to add any color first or just go right to questions?

Yeah, if you want to just uh before we go to questions, if you have anything you would like to discuss.

Yeah.

Well I usually like to start off at the uh the 30,000 foot level.

So fiscal 25.

Uh you know, it's pretty successful financially.

Um we we had 13.4 million dollars of excess revenues over expenditures, which means that would be a creative to fund balance.

8.5 of that was revenue um uh surplus favorable variances and I I think the the balance of it was um I think it was uh 4.9 million was what we would call turnbacks for savings and uh and expenditures, some of which you were just asking about the 1.3 million in um in um uh uh cherry sheet aid, cherry sheet assessments.

What happens is uh that comes usually from the education.

Uh they they base their um the the assessments are are usually per pupil and the per pupil they take counts every month.

So that's a that's a kind of a moving target.

So we had less pupils during the course of the year than they originally assessed us for, and so we would get the benefit of that.

Say, for instance, charter schools and for um uh and for uh outside dist out of district send chupil sending.

So that tends to uh oscillate from time to time.

There's only a few things that are hard coded like unrestricted general government aid.

They give you an amount and they give you that amount, one twelfth every month.

But some of the other assessments uh are based on per pupil and they they go throughout the year because they break those down into 12 monthly payments.

Like you I've heard talking, you know, the Bedford Vogue and and uh Bristol Aggie, for instance, they give us one annual assessment.

We may pay it in two, three or four installments, but it's locked for the whole year.

Um DESI is not like that.

So that's why we got a little bit of savings on on that line item.

Um I did hear some talk about some departments with favorable variances.

Yeah, we uh we cleaned up on a few of those this past year when we we did our budget.

I'll give you the best example is uh electricity.

That would that was uh a major contributor to some of the turnbacks we had last year.

And if you may recall from our budget discussions, uh I gave you a um a zero-based budget.

I gave you every I think it was a response to your question, Counselor.

Uh we we gave you every single um uh account that we have, we gave you the 12 month consumptions, and we priced it out at the then existing rates from Eversource.

And we founded to that number.

We cleaned up over a million dollars of surpluses.

Uh it was just uh just kind of a flaw in the way.

We were using the energy office for projections for all these many years.

And um I was just finding that we were getting surpluses every year, and I was explaining the surpluses or or Quillin was to the auditors, because they ask you why are you they they pick out accounts that you are too far over, too far under budget in, and they ask why.

Um and so that was getting to be kind of an old question.

Uh so we we took a deeper dive because I really needed to to come up with some some cuts last year.

So that was a good source, for instance.

Now there may be other specific departments that you'll have.

Um we do have our our some of our departments like DPI and DFFM tend to run savor favorable to labor.

Uh and that's because they just don't keep people it's it's it's usually a vacancy issue.

Um I thought it was uh interesting on the question.

Uh this is a very interesting question you asked about why some uh departments come in right to the penny.

Uh the most uh the best example of that is school.

So uh school is is they occup they uh they they occupy quite a bit of our budget.

Um last year uh 246 million dollars, 240 246 and a half million, zero favorable, zero unfavorable.

Now the reason for that is because they have the circuit breaker account, the sped circuit breaker, and they're allowed to uh this is by design, they're allowed to sweep variances out and try and put them back into their circuit breaker accounts.

So what happens is they uh and they go the other way too.

What happens is they usually run favorable all year long, and at the end of the year, they review their circuit breaker accounts and they will move expenditures out of circuit breaker into the general fund to absorb the favorability there.

It's a common practice, one they're allowed to do.

Matter of fact, one that I really don't have much stoppage over if I if I wanted to.

But they can it's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

They can literally dial up their exact budget in that capacity.

In terms of snow removal, it's I much like Quillin said, Um Jamie and uh Justin uh filled the shed last year with a purchase I think it was in April.

And uh I think they went a little bit over uh because you you can't hit it exactly.

So they would have just charged the remainder off to their budget, but it was very it was a minor amount.

So that 450,000 wasn't exactly 450.

It was probably you know it could have been 451, 452,000.

It was that close.

But rather than do a transfer, we just recognized it as highway costs at that point in time.

Um so those are some of the questions I I had heard out there.

Um but I'm I don't know if there's anybody else that has anything else.

I will point out uh that we we had 173 possible.

I think that that's that's not me, right?

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

Oh, okay.

Apologize.

My phone was actually.

That's okay, Bob.

No problem.

We just wanted to hear your theme music as you walked back up.

That's all right.

Uh did you have another point with the other?

I said uh there was 145 general fund budget line items and 173 all together.

We completely bought them all in under budget or at budget.

For the first time that I would say ever, but I I don't have enough information to actually say that.

I can only say since 2012, sort of like the modern era now, it's the advent of Munis.

The legacy system is I think somebody in IT is the last person who can actually go in and pull anything out of that anymore, and it's just not worth for bragging rights, it's not worth it.

Uh I'll brag about 2012 and maybe it is forever, I don't know.

Uh and there are a lot of conversations that we have, and there was a lot of denying this year, which you know obviously got me into some hot water with my colleagues, but I guess if if I have um if I don't have a lot of enemies, I'm I guess I'm I'm not doing my job.

Uh that's the way I look at it right now.

It's all good afterwards, but right.

But we did say no to a lot of things.

We we forced transfers, we force coding changes.

Sometimes departments have a tendency to code to the budget, not to the actual object of the expenditure, and we fight them on that quite a bit.

I think uh Quillin's office denied quite a bit of bad coding.

We forced it into budget accounts, even if there was no budget, we made them do transfers.

So we kept not only do we keep to the spirit of the budget, but we also tried to we kept to the spirit of the accounting too, so we could have some real numbers to look at.

Um what else I could add off the top of my head, but uh I will say too that I'm sorry that I don't have the first quarter numbers out yet.

Quillen did run those numbers.

Uh the the quarterlies tend to be more of a uh an exercise in how much of the budget is you spent to date.

I can tell you the first quarter we spent 25.6 percent.

That's pretty close.

But when you split when you split it up a little bit, school was only like I think it was sixteen percent.

Um I might have that number here.

Do we spend any money on the snow?

Uh so not in the first quarter, but uh so when we in the first quarter, we don't look at encumbrances, because that can really distort the numbers a bit, because a lot of departments will encumber for the full year, and snow is a good example, right?

So we leave those out, we only speak about expenditures at this stage.

And then we try to comment on whether they're at twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five percent or why they're off.

Um six percent sounds great, but you gotta carve you gotta peel back the onion a little bit longer to see if that's really if you can get away with just saying we're right on schedule.

It's it's not really like that.

School is 13.8 percent spent, and that's traditional because they really have a 10 month year, not a 12 month year, if you think of it.

In September is their first month.

So to be 13 percent means to me that they're right on pace for uh the year.

Ironically, uh municipal, the city side.

We spent 39 percent of our budget already.

And so you might say, well, how could you have done that?

We paid off our pension assessment up front for the first that is the first time ever.

Okay, we spent 43.7 million dollars right up front.

We did not want to pay the extra six or seven hundred thousand dollar assessment.

I came in with a budget of forty-three point seven, planning to take that discount because we couldn't go much we couldn't go up to the forty-four point four that we needed to.

So that uh that's you know, that's uh forty-four million dollars, that's a hundred percent paid.

So that's what brought our numbers up quite a bit.

But uh good.

Yeah, it's good that we could do that.

Absolutely.

Um we're trying to do it again this year.

Uh I'm not sure.

I'll probably come in with an initial proposal with the mayor that I'm gonna need to have the the I'm gonna need to have the two uh payment uh plan, which is going to be a little higher.

Um but if I can do it, I will do it.

But then again, we're only paying ourselves.

So in a way it's not so bad because it's not like we're losing that money.

We're just simply giving it to the pension board to pretty much pay them back for the lost interest on their end.

So the n not the button, but the more money we put in the faster we put the money in, it starts making an interest and helps us in the long run.

Yeah, and there and yeah, and their assumed rate of return is seven percent.

But um I I think I I talked to uh Eric Cohen told me recently that they were running, I think, close to 19 percent for this year.

Yeah.

So they had a good year.

Um it only takes one bad year though on a three or four year cycle to wipe us out.

If you remember that I think it was the fall of 2022.

Wiped out a beautiful 2022 calendar year, and it made it it turned it into a loss for the entire year.

So you never know.

I mean, knock on wood, that we don't have something like that right now, but um so far so good.

Um other questions on the 2025 year end report.

I can't believe solicitors has a hundred thousand dollar surplus.

Is he in the room?

Uh yeah.

Yeah.

We wouldn't let them spend it.

Yeah, let me see where you get that.

Uh, yeah, counselor.

Um last um a question from the chair on the 2025 Bob.

Uh $600,000 for treasurer debt.

What is that?

Uh so we put our debt service in into uh the treasurer's department.

Uh it's actually a separate department, but it rolls up under the treasurer's control.

Um yeah, so uh what I explained in my allocation.

There's there's some issues of debt that uh when we go out, uh uh highways the best example.

A lot of things that uh in the highway projects uh some some of those relate to water and wastewater as well.

So the allocations were favorable to the general fund last year, so why we came in uh about six hundred thousand dollars on the bud on the budget.

Um but normally we don't usually see much.

There's there's a there's a few administrative costs in that debt service number too.

Um, the cost of going to uh to the market, for instance.

So we made we have some savings there.

We have a pretty good we have things down pretty good.

Lock Lord's our bond council, uh and uh you know they they keep uh they steer us in the right path.

And um uh first Southwest are our fiscal advisors and uh we've been working with them for a number of years.

So we tend to get in and out pretty quickly, so we save on some of the administrative costs that are associated with that department as well.

Um but that's all your general that's all your non-enterprise fund debt there.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Can I follow up on that?

Yes.

Unless you do continue.

So uh again, I won't be here next year, but I mean rates are coming down.

And is there an opportunity to refinance some of the higher stuff that we did in the last 18 months?

There could be.

So eighteen months is a little bit tough.

You'd have to go, that's that would be an advanced refunding, because usually most of our bonds have like a prepayment penalty for the first ten years.

So you the the way the um for uh for viewers.

Ten years?

Yeah, a lot of them do, yeah.

So so the way for viewers at home, um so government bonds and they're not like your home mortgage.

It's like you're actually issuing separate bonds for each year for maturity.

So last year when we issued, say 30 year bonds, you know, when we issued them in 2024, uh there'll be some people who will hold a 2054 bond.

That's all they get.

They get the that piece uh it's almost like we so we have a bond that comes due in 25, another one comes due in twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, et cetera.

So we can't prepay uh any of those for ten years.

So the first ten years are offline.

We can prepay our tenth year, which is twenty thirty-five.

And it usually comes with a uh with a prepayment clause of one or two percent.

Even then, though, it still can be opportunistic to refund.

Uh but that's first Southwest is usually our guide for that.

The city has refunded, not in my time.

I don't think we've ever done a refunding since I've been here, but it has been done in the past.

And it's always on the table.

Yeah, because rates many years ago were so high.

But you know, they've been pretty steady.

Yeah.

I just think that's the same.

So if we have to if we read I didn't realize you couldn't do it for ten years.

So, yeah, but but you can still you can still do a defeasance.

Uh what you do you set it up, uh you do an advanced refunding where you take the proceeds and they're held an escrow, they pay off the original loan bonds until they become due and then they pay the prepayment penalties.

And it's still opportunistic for you to do that.

Um then if they're if the bonds are already passed their called uh their their their um prepayment deadless deadline.

In other words, we could refund them.

That's a current refunding where we just just like your home mortgage, we'll just wipe out all the old bonds.

We'll take new proceeds, pay off all the old bonds, and enjoy lower interest rates then.

Learn something every day.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

No problem, Councillor Moret.

Uh anyone else for Bob on FY25.

Any questions regarding FY26 kind of first quarter ballpark information that Bob had?

Bob, uh, just from the chair, uh an estimate on when you expect quarter one to be published.

I wanted to have them out to you today, to tell you the truth.

Uh we ran into a few meetings though.

So um probably be Thursday.

So this week, though, for quarter one.

Yeah, well, like I said, the numbers are done.

The numbers look pretty good.

I just like I don't like to send just just send numbers out though and not have them, you know, not have an explanation.

Okay.

So yeah.

And those are the highlights, by the way, that I gave you.

I will tell you the only there's two areas that I'm concerned with so far this year.

It's gonna be uh police labor.

Uh so last year you'll remember fire was the only department that we really couldn't solve with labor to labor transfers.

This year it's fire is in line, this year it's police.

Um it may be a product of the cuts, it may be a product of the fact that we're getting more people through the Academy right now.

Um, but we're forecasting about a million dollar deficit in that fund as of right now.

That can change.

It's a little bit too early to jump at it.

They haven't hired anybody.

Well, um, the last swearing in was in August.

Yeah.

It's it's I I'd have to do a deeper dive in that.

So Kerry does the projections for police and Sharon does her own and they reconcile the two.

It's been a problem for a bit now.

Um I know their overtime is up uh where they hadn't used it as much before.

They have been using a lot more overtime.

That usually is fire situation.

But fire this year is uh they they have really they manage over time.

Uh you should the work that Amy does uh in reporting overtime is incredible.

It's like they just they have everything down.

They m they every pay period she bunches against the last the previous four years, same pay period for three, four, five, th uh one, two, three, and four years ago.

They watch that pretty closely.

So I'm pretty confident about that.

There's a cut of uh I think three hundred thousand dollars in fire overtime, but we're gonna we're managing to that right now.

So what we have after I say overall we have a sixty-three thousand dollar projected deficit across the entire city government in personal services or labor.

Um that means that uh police is the is the problem, but we have a net uh surplus to get that back down to about sixty-three thousand.

So we're okay um right now.

We have a bunch of departments who have surpluses who are forecasting surpluses and those are forecasting deficits.

We should be able to cure one with the other.

But I think um with police we may have to come for a transfer or perhaps use free cash when we get that certified.

The other problem I have is it's it's snow removal.

It's just that maybe I'm just uh s uh superstitious, and I remember having a this debate with Council Loebs.

The first time we go to cut snow removal, that's going to be the year that we get hit, and we did that this year.

So I don't know.

I know there's a lot of communities around the Northeast uh that are really worried about what snow removal is going to be like this year, uh especially after all that snow that they had out in the Midwest recently.

And you know, it's kind of cold right now too.

Uh we do not have the ability to run a deficit in snow removal this one year because we cut the budget from 450 to 300,000.

Had we not cut that budget, I could have spent to whatever I needed to, and we would have to raise it in the tax rates next year.

So I'm precluded from doing that this year.

Unless it is an emergency event.

Normal snowfall won't be considered an emergency, so I can't overspend.

But once we get this down, I'm gonna ask respectfully ask the council in the future.

Let's leave it at 300,000 uh and not lower it any more so that I'll have that option so that if we do have a bad winter, I can spend.

You'll be you'll be kept abreast of the spending.

But if I need to spend six hundred and not three hundred, I'd be allowed to do that uh under state law and I'd have to raise it at tax rates next year.

But it just brings us back to where we would have been anyway.

If you just given the six hundred thousand in the tax rates, if we exactly knew how snow was going to fall, we would be in the same boat if we just do it 300.

Uh yes, yes.

Um and I forget what that triggers though.

I'd have to go back and take a look at that.

Thank you, Bob.

Any other questions for FY26 at this time?

Okay.

The Chair would entertain a motion to table this item.

Made by Council Oliver.

Okay.

Second by Council Moore, right?

I was going to make you second either way.

So I don't know.

You had another five seconds to do that.

Uh all those in favor say aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

Without objection, the chair would like to take items three and four together.

Without objection.

Do we have to wave the reading?

That's uh the chair would be okay with waving the readings of items three and four, giving uh synopsis if that's okay with the body.

It's all moved.

Okay.

We need a second.

Second.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, the ayes have it.

So colleagues, items three and four were to investigate, uh essentially investigate expenses related to the uh parallel products facility, uh legal expenses related to the parallel products uh item, along with uh an appropriation the council spent in August of 2019 in which we were to fund uh legal uh expenses uh to fight or uh be in opposition of the parallel products project.

With that being said, uh we did receive a communication of all the invoices relative, all the uh legal invoices relative, which I believe you have on your desks.

Uh the chair would like to receive and place that item on file.

Made by Council Oliver, second by Councillor Morad.

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed the ayes have it.

Mr.

Chair, could I get a copy when we have a chance?

I didn't get one.

You did not get this?

No.

No rush.

Yeah.

I didn't get one, but that's okay.

Okay.

We'll get you one, Council Moore.

I apologize about that.

Um with all that being said, um, the chair also received communication uh from Neil Mallow originally indicating uh that he would be uh not attending this meeting.

He then replied he would be attending this meeting after I had a conversation with him, and then responded to me that he is sick and tested positive for COVID and would not be in attendance.

Um with all that being said, I do think it is important to have another meeting with uh uh the chief of staff present as a lot of these decisions had to have approval from his office.

These were not unilaterally made as claimed by uh Mr.

Mellow by the solid solicitor and the CFO's office.

I uh there was no way that the city would enter into a uh host city agreement with the with parallel products, just the city solicitor doing that on his own.

Right.

Uh there was no way, and I don't care what anyone else says.

Um with that being said, the chair has only taken this off the t uh asked to read this into the record or uh hearing these two items as the chair was requesting two pieces of information further so that when we do come back we have a bigger picture.

Would the body be okay with that?

CFO Xtrom, do you mind coming to the podium for a minute, please?

Bob, I we we received all of the invoices.

I appreciate that.

Can we get clarification in our conversations that we've had, can you clarify the $250,000?

Did you find that appropriation?

Yes.

You did.

Okay.

Can you actually Mr.

Jakes found it with some help?

Can you get us a report of all the expenditures from that appropriation?

Uh I can.

I give you a quick highlight of it right now if you'd like.

Quick highlights finance.

Right.

So $250,000 was uh supplemental budget in GGU at the time.

It was fiscal 2019, I believe it was.

There were two predominant vendors.

Uh KP Law.

Fiscal 20.

Yeah.

It was um the it was KP Law and um Beverage and Diamond, thank you.

Uh we spent uh I think the grand total is approximately $132,000.

Um the problem was that no one had actually done a purchase order or a contract to encumber any further funds.

And that that appropriation, that supplemental appropriation that the council approved, uh lapsed at on July 15th of 2020.

So without a carry forward, we couldn't carry forward because there was no contract.

So although 250 was uh appropriated, only 132 is spent and about 118,000 lapsed.

Okay.

So I I will give you the specifics.

Yeah, if you don't mind breaking down uh getting a report for for that.

Now my question is this file that was presented to us.

Mr.

Chair, do you have uh memo dated October 20th, 2022?

I do not.

So I have a memoir.

I did not receive.

Did we receive this on place of some file already?

Was this from carry over from Finance Committee?

Uh it it's addressed to Council Markey.

Dated October 20th, 2022.

Okay.

So I don't have a guard here, but it's here.

All right.

Because like I had this, she didn't have this.

I don't have this, but she has this.

So I'm just a little that's okay.

I do see it in front of me, Council Morgan.

Go ahead.

Yeah, because that details exactly what the uh CFO just said.

I see.

Yep.

That would answer my questions.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll make a copy for that, please.

But that's okay.

You can ask them.

Uh do you have that?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll have it.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay.

Appreciate that.

My other question is in this packet of all the invoices from KP law and uh beverage and diamond.

Was this all of the expenditures relative to parallel products or all of the expenditures out of that $250,000?

There is a difference.

That's why I'm asking the question.

So I I'm not sure what the difference because it's all the all of the $132,000 all relates to parallel products.

But does it relate to the fight of parallel products?

Opposition, because some of these invoices clearly denotes entering into an agreement with parallel products.

I'd have to check on that.

Okay.

So I didn't look at it.

If we could have something summarized for that as well, because if you're if all of these I did not total up all of these invoices, they're just invoices, you know what I mean?

So if I total them all up and they equal 132 754.27.

754.27, then the sum of these beverage and diamond invoices, I'll read one right here.

Uh telephone from E Jakes review city council agenda, review news report on community groups concerned, prepare for meeting to discuss HCA, attend City Council Committee on Appointments and Briefings meeting.

So we're being built.

We paid bills to enter into an agreement with parallel products, possibly out of a fund meant to fight parallel products.

Okay.

I understand.

That's that's where I'm at.

So that's why I'm asking for further clarifications so that this committee has that information when we discuss this with uh Chief of Staff Neil Mellow.

Sure.

Okay.

Thank you.

And that was the reason I wanted to hear that tonight, even though Neil wasn't here just to get that further clarified.

Colleagues, any other questions regarding this or any other information wanted on this?

Mr.

Chair, I won't be here, but I'd like to be invited to the meeting.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

No problem.

Motion to table items three and four made by Councillor Oliver.

Second by Councillor Morad.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

The ayes have it.

Before we adjourn, number five, can we uh follow those recommendations?

Yes, follow the chair's recommendations.

So moved.

All right, made by uh Councillor Morrad to waive the reading, take no further action, report to the full city council uh item number five made by Councillor Morad, second by Councillor Oliver.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye, yeah.

Opposed.

The ayes have it.

See no motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn, made by Councillor Oliver.

Second by Councillor Morrad.

All those roll call votes have been requested.

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed the ayes have it.

We are adjourned at 831.

Thank you everyone.

Been a long night.

Appreciate it.