All right, everybody.

Good evening.

Welcome to tonight's budget hearing for the following departments: Health and Human Services, the Commission for Citizens with Disabilities, the Assessors, the Solicitors' Office, the Mayor's Office, Labor Relations.

It is 6.04 PM.

I would like to just note I have a letter here, dear Council President Pereira and honorable members of the City Council.

I'm writing this letter to inform you that I will be late to arriving at the budget hearing on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, due to attending a neighborhood meeting at the Pulaski School regarding the proposed Fire Station 9 closing.

I ask that you read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and those in attendance and the public aware for the reason for my delayed arrival.

Sincerely, Leo Choquette, Counselor Ford One.

All right.

No, no need to, but just I wanted to read it into the record, Counselor.

Thank you.

All right.

So first up is Health and Human Services.

We received an email today informing us that Stephanie Sloan will be uh who is the head of the current head of the health department will uh be uh briefing us on the combined health and human services department, which appears in our budget books on pages 71 through 73.

Stephanie.

Good evening.

Good evening, thank you.

Do you have do you want to do an overview or do you just want to get right into questions?

Sure.

I I prepared some uh quick remarks.

So perfect.

Thank you.

Uh good evening.

Thank you for the opportunity to present the proposed budget for the newly aligned Health and Human Services Department.

This alignment involves five city departments and includes recreation programming from parks, recs, and beaches, programming from community services, including the Council on Aging, Veteran Services, and the Health and Licensing Departments.

This consolidation has resulted in 1.2 million in cost reductions to the city in the form of budget reductions, layoffs, and cola and step freezes.

This year's budget season and the proposed decisions around it have been one of the most difficult I've seen in my 12-year tenure here with the city.

But I remain optimistic for the opportunities this change will also bring.

From working to support the lives of our newest residents through maternal and child health programming to supporting our community age gracefully and with dignity through our council and aging programs.

Even in years when we are not facing challenging budget decisions.

Beyond the budget reduction, the transition provides an opportunity.

Each of these departments serves a distinct role.

But city programs are often serving the same residents.

Organizing departments under health and human services creates opportunities for increased collaboration, improved communication, shared administrative support, and more efficient use of limited resources.

Ultimately, an opportunity exists to ensure residents can access city services more effectively.

Before closing, I do want to thank the department heads and teams that have served and those that will continue to serve the city and build the foundation for this work.

We remain committed to carrying forward the mission of serving residents of New Bedford with the same level of care and dedication.

Thank you.

Be happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Stephanie.

I appreciate it.

Chair recognizes Councillor Abril.

Thanks a bunch, Mr.

President.

Good evening, Stephanie.

Good evening.

Thanks for coming in.

Good to see you again.

So I know during your opening remarks, and I and I applaud your optimism you had you had shared to us and for the record that this newly formed department, your department in particular, or your former health department, your former department, I should say.

So I guess with that being said, how do we reconcile not skipping a beat, but eliminating 13 positions?

And can you provide a breakdown of those positions that are being eliminated?

Or if you can't, maybe Bob or someone from the mayor's office can?

Sure.

So by the way, I understand why we're doing it.

I just want to I just want to better, you know, understand kind of where we're at and operationally, how that all kind of coincides.

So the positions, those 13 positions, um, one was from licensing, uh, one position was from parks, rec and beaches, um, one position was from veterans, and then the remaining came from community services.

Um the largest program reduction is around the youth programming provided by uh community services, and I know that the administration is you know discussing with community partners or if there are other departments that can help to make sure that there's not a gap there in services for youth.

Okay, thank you.

Um how does this all play out?

I mean, and if you can't explain, maybe someone from the administration or Mr.

Eksram can explain just um operationally, how does the oversight, how is this going to work across all these departments, whether it's community services, health, licensing, parks and recreation, veteran services.

Are we still working through this process or how is this all shaping up to be?

Yep, so um over the course of the last two weeks.

Um I've had high-level conversations with departments.

Um I'm I there's still opportunity to get into more detailed conversations with departments to really understand you know the positions that were lost, what what services do they provide?

You know, there's not one position in the city that does your payroll and you know your reconciliations, it's oftentimes different people in your department.

So we're still doing sort of a canving of of what's been lost and how our administrative support um can fit in with that.

Um but we have been thinking about you know, my top priority is making sure that all the departments have the support and management support that they need.

Um they're all they're all reporting to you.

Is that what you're saying?

So the or they're going to be.

So the directors, the um departments that have directors will be reporting up to me.

Um, and then at least in the short term, um, we're figuring out the management structure for um like parks and recreation will no longer have a director, so in the short term um our public health nursing director is going to support the transition.

Okay, a couple more quick questions.

Um, and then I'll yield.

I know other colleagues may have other questions.

Um I'm looking here.

Um contractual services under purchase of services, there's quite a substantial decline, right?

From 357,000 to 189,000.

Again, understanding what trying to be fiscally prudent, I support that.

Just wondering for the record, and just so for our own edifications, what contracts are being reduced or eliminated, or how does that kind of play out?

So I believe, and I can get you the details of this, but I believe that most of that was coming from the services that were cut.

They were um contracted services.

So like the youth programming from community services.

Okay.

If you wouldn't mind just through the office, if you wouldn't mind providing that if you don't, thank you.

And last question from me, and I noticed other purchased services.

Um, while most line items went down in this proposal, um, this one kind of went up, not by a lot.

Approximately 72,500 to 75,545 dollars, while many other um lines declined.

Can you explain that a little bit?

Um so I know in um in our department um we had to it was some of the increases were just like those services, the cost of doing business.

Um we've had more board meetings, so um our board meeting stipend uh amounts were up.

Um also um I know that some of the um I think our cell phones also went up a little bit.

So it was just the cost of doing business among those item lines um for the five departments.

All right, Stephanie, thanks a bunch.

Appreciate it.

Mr.

President, I'll yield the floor at this time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Councillor Burgo.

Uh thank you.

Uh I just to go back, I don't know if I heard you correctly.

Um how many positions did you say uh was eliminated?

Thirteen.

Thirteen?

Okay.

Um then so essentially you're saying that the directors will be reporting to you.

Did I hear that correctly?

Correct.

Okay.

And then my other question I noted here that there's still an assistant two assistant directors of the health department listed.

Yep.

So um one is the assistant director for the whole health department.

Um, and then our public health nursing director.

Um, that is also her title.

But she is over because she needed uh particular credentials, she's over just our public health nursing division.

And that's who we've hired right now.

She is in the position, yep.

She's been with us, I think, for two years.

Okay.

Are both positions filled right now?

Both.

We have no vacancies.

Okay.

And then I had a question in regards to this new position, uh, finance and operations manager.

Is that what the new name of the director of grants and finance?

Um that did that change, Shannon.

I think that was this that got carried over from um from last year.

Because it was the there was no such title before in the previous budget, finance and operations manager.

But in the previous budget, a director of grants and finance was in your previous budget with the same grade level of M12.

So that's why I'm just curious if it's the same position but with a different title.

Are you sorry I'm sorry, are you referring to the um 12?

Finance operation manager.

That is a position for parks and rec.

Okay, it's that's coming over, not from the health department.

Okay, so there is no in the parks and recs department from the previous year, there was no M12 position with that title.

So that's confusing to me.

Yeah, I imagine what probably happened is there was some sort of JAQ process that happened during the year, but I can find out for sure for you.

So what happened to your director of grants and finance?

Um we had a grants auditor and we did a JAQ and she became a grants manager.

Okay.

For health.

Okay.

So the finance and operation manager came from parks and rects and just materialized because there was no finance and operation manager in Park and Ricks before.

We have for the health department, we have a special programs and grants director.

I don't know if that's what you're referring to.

That's fully grant funded, though.

That's not say that again.

We have a special programs and grants director um on our org chart, but that's not general fund um funded, it's completely grant funded.

It was my understanding that they were half of it was funded by the general fund and half was funded by grant.

So we had requested that um as an enhancement last year, it didn't go through.

Okay.

So I did see in last year's budget, it was listed as an M12, but the salary was 39,000, which we know in M12 is not 39,000.

Correct.

But that's why, in my understanding, the way it was listed in the budget was that half of it was funded by the general fund, half by grants, which is why in my mind this year the finance and operations manager title that just appeared out of nowhere shows as M12, but it's listed as 83,000.

So I said, Oh, well, now it's fully funded by the general fund as opposed to grant.

Yeah, no, that that we put had put in that enhancement last year, it didn't get um, it didn't get funded.

So this came from parks and recs.

Correct, yep.

Okay, because the only other one that I saw from parks because any other what I try to do, just so you can understand, is I took all the position titles from the FY26 from these five departments that have been consolidated to one.

Yep.

And then try to match it to this gobbledygoo that they're attempting with health and human services, and try to match it up.

Uh it looks like there might have been some reclassifications that occurred.

I don't know if you can shed light on that.

Um, because the only thing I see coming over from parks and recreations is office assistant three.

And even with that transfer over, it looks as though last year's FY26 budget, unless again it's a new person that started at a lower step.

There they were budgeted at 43,000 last year, but now this year they're budgeted at 41,000.

And since it's a union position, I don't think we can just demote someone.

So it would have to be a new person in that position.

Is that what took place with that office assistant three?

Um because there's still a grade E, but their pay is reduced.

And the only way we can reduce someone's pay in a union position is if it's a new applicant who's starting at a lower step than the person who was originally in it.

And I don't mean to put you on the spot, it's just unfortunately it seems to me this administration last minute is throwing all this together, consolidating, and they're trying to give the guys that they had all this plan worked out, and they haven't really figured it out.

And I apologize that you've been put on this spot to try to articulate this message, but we need to figure this out, and no one's really.

I know they keep talking about having these meetings with counselors, but none of this was discussed in those meetings.

I know I didn't attend those meetings, but for this exact reason, because none of this was discussed in any of those meetings with some of my colleagues that wasted their time going to them.

So that's why I just I want to make it clear that for the general public that are thinking, oh, this this director doesn't know what the hell she's doing.

It's not on you, and I apologize that you're up here having to answer for this.

Uh moving on, um, for community service.

Who do we know?

Again, that you have to answer for this, and I don't know if you'll know the answer.

Who will be running uh the commission for citizens with disabilities?

Since typically our director of community services does that, and we no longer have a director of community services.

Yep, so um the commission will be coming over to Health and Human Services, and then um we'll bring before you a new um executive director to be appointed.

Okay, so you the administration hasn't figured that out yet.

It's still in the process.

Okay, in the same thing with the human rights commission as well.

Um because that was also by a member of the community service office, one of their program directors, which both of those program directors have been eliminated.

Yep, that will also come over as well.

Okay, so that hasn't been figured out either in any of the planning sessions they've had with us.

I'm sorry, again, not directed at you, Director Sloan.

I'm just trying to make a point here.

Um that's a question for later.

Um do we know, for example, uh the staff that were at um the staff that were at Hillman Street that once worked for our community service office that were pushed out to Hillman way back when for our solicitor's office that because we get sued so much apparently.

I don't know why we are always sued.

Um is Hillman still going to be operational?

Is that gonna be shut down?

Are more lawyers going to be filling up Hillman Street?

What will be done there since that staffing's being eliminated?

Um I can't speak to if anyone else will go in there, but the uh community services that are over at Hillman Street will stay there for now.

Okay, but most of the staff there are being laid off.

So even with the small amount of staff that are there, they'll still be working out of Hillman.

Correct.

Okay, and they'll be and they'll be reporting to you.

Um probably a combination of myself and Pam.

Okay.

And what about the community service staff that are placed here at City Hall?

Will they still remain here?

They will remain here.

Okay.

Sorry, I just have a lot of sheets.

Um I think that is all I had in terms of positions.

I think I'll wait to ask the personnel director regarding some of the positions that you have.

Um because I have questions about example, your office assistant one.

Um there's two different office assistant ones.

I assume one was brought over by Veterans Affairs, um, and one was eliminated from Veterans Affairs.

They used to have two listed in the previous budget.

And then the other one that has three, that's a grade B 35.

Um I'm assuming came from is from the health department, your original office.

Okay.

But I'm just I don't know if you know the answer to why the difference between a B and a B35.

I don't know that.

Okay.

So I'll save that for uh okay.

That's the only thing I wanted to know.

Um, and then my last question now I just remembered was under your public health coordinator.

I'm assuming that is what used to be uh a compliance officer from last year's budget.

Correct.

Okay.

Sorry, it's just a lot of different new titles, and I don't trust this administration because they're always doing something shady.

So I thank you for your time, Director Sloan and your perseverance.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Council Baptiste?

Oh, uh thank you, Mr.

President.

How are you doing, Director Sloan?

How's everything today?

Good.

Good.

Um glad that you're here today.

Um I just have a couple of questions.

Um you said you had 13 people that were getting um laid off.

How many were from park and recreation?

Uh just one position.

Just one position.

Yeah.

Has anybody been moved to other departments?

No.

Nobody has been moved in other departments.

Oh, sorry.

I'm sorry.

Um, so the team from Parks and RAC, there are two positions that will get moved um to DPI because they were focused around, they've already been moved in the budget.

Um they're focused around the park maintenance and building maintenance.

All right.

Will their duties change or their pay rate change?

I know there's nobody getting a bump in raise, but will their title change in with that title change, does anything come with that?

It's my understanding that their titles and responsibilities will remain the same.

They'll just have the support of uh DPI.

All right, and with the lack of people in um human services, you know, with with that department getting depleted too.

Um how do you feel about you know, with this many people being lost from these departments about the the work that they have to pick up that others have to pick up?

I use prepared to pick up the slack for the loss that you're gonna have with 13 people down, consolidating all them departments together and then losing 13 people, you're gonna have to, you know, you're gonna have to get them duties out to somebody and somebody might be a little overworked.

And and how do you plan on keeping people happy?

You know, that might have a heavier load without a raise or anything going forward.

Yeah, it's definitely a difficult time.

Um, but you know, we've spent a lot of work in our department making sure that our team has all the tools and resources and support that they need, and so um we'll do the same for these departments as well.

Uh thank you.

I just wish you had a little bit more clarity.

Um we can't wait to learn a little bit more so when you learn a little bit more so we can learn a bit uh a little bit more.

Um but I yield at this time.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Sloan.

Counselor Roy.

Hi, Director Sloan.

You had mentioned that um uh the largest hit to this is like the youth programming piece.

Could you could you tell us a little bit more about about what that what that's gonna look like or what it's not gonna look like?

So um the personnel and the budget item lines associated with the youth programming are cut from the budget.

Um so those programs will not exist in the city budget as such.

Um I know that we you know we have some um prevention dollars from the health department.

Um and so we're trying to think about what that potentially could look like.

I know the mayor's office is um communicating with partners to understand how these gaps can be filled.

Do you like specifically?

Do you know what the programming looks like that's not going to be in the budget anymore?

So there was uh Saturday Academy.

I don't know the names of everything, I'm sorry.

Um but there was some uh programming uh for girls, and then there was some programming that happened on Saturdays.

Um after school programs.

Um I can get you the specifics if you'd like.

And and what's the dollar amount on that that we're saving on the youth programming by cutting it?

Um specifically, so all of the personnel and uh budget item line item cuts associated with it were just under a million, but for the youth programming specifically, I can pull that out for you.

Okay.

So the reorg, the re-org, what's the reorg?

You mentioned it earlier.

What's the re-org saving?

Uh 1.2.

1.2.

All right.

And that includes like the budget reductions that um the departments did, um, the layoffs, the cola freezes, and the um step freezes.

Um it was mentioned at the first budget meeting that there were enhancements that um departments submitted that otherwise weren't funded or weren't put in the proposed budget.

Uh could you could you do you know it the enhancements to these departments that you know are seeing that you could tell us what they could have been?

I I didn't see the depart uh the other department's enhancements, but I can tell you the enhancements for health um we had put in for four enhancements.

Um was for a um data management analyst, which in the wake of the EL Harvey fire, um we want to do more prevention around our environmental health team.

Um so this individual would be well, the proposed enhancement was that this individual would be um looking at our internal data, um looking at sort of hot spots within the city, looking at facilities that might be of environmental health concern, and then recommending uh preventative actions for those types of facilities.

Um we also had put in an enhancement for um there is a method of water testing that our laboratory is using, um which is it takes longer and so it's like an upgraded method which would uh get our water testing results faster.

Um so we would have more actionable data faster, but also it would take less of our staff time.

Um so we'd have the opportunity to potentially bring on more clients.

Um we also put in for um a community liaison, so somebody to go out and you know connect with the community, bring back bring our services to the community, but also bring back you know the constituent concerns.

Um and then uh we also put in for a car because we are fully staffed and we are down one car.

So two new so two new positions that won't be So none of the enhancements move forward, correct?

How much how much in your department, health department were those enhancements were?

How many what much were those enhancements like what's like um what's what's what's it add up to?

The car, the the two new positions, the total dollar amount?

Um I don't remember off the top of my head, but I could get that for you.

All right.

Um in this new reorganization, you're gonna retain your role as health department director.

Um the position would need to be created for for the health commissioner to be over the um health and human services.

So we'd have to create a new health commissioner position.

Correct.

All right.

Is that is that included anywhere in the budget?

Do you know?

No, not yet.

Because the position doesn't exist.

But it would it it why does it need to exist because right now in the health director.

Right.

I'm on the other hand.

Are there conflicts with other people?

Would there be conflicts with other you overseeing other departments like I think licensing or anything like that?

In terms of um, you know, the way that our city ordinances are, um, they're specific to a department.

Um so I think having having it under the umbrella of health and human services gives us more power to do what we need to do.

Would there still be a health department director?

Um the addition to the health commissioner that we have to create.

So um it could there would be a assistant um health commissioner, which would be which would likely be the assistant director that exists now.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

I'm good, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Anyone else on that first?

Council Abro.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um just one more question for me, Stephanie.

Um are there any anticipated um one-time transition costs uh associated with this new department merger that maybe are not reflected in this, like whether it's through networking uh systems or cross-training or anything of the sort.

Is there anything anything of that nature going on?

Not that I can think of.

Okay.

Thank you.

And Mr.

President, thank you, Stephanie.

Before I yield, Mr.

President, I just want to let you know I have received text messages from several constituents saying that they are unable to access the live stream going on tonight.

Oh, it's been fixed.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure that people didn't have to.

No, I think that I was just told that was fixed.

I just want I just want the general public to know there was no funny business going on here, and you know mistakes happened, but I just wanted to let that note for the record.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Counselor Baptist.

Sorry, uh, Director Sloan.

Um another question.

Would you say in that you're cutting youth services?

Um, who's going to be handling the grants now for park and recreations and how you're going to allocate um some of them funds back to trying to get some of them youth services back?

And will it be a transition with um them trying to get grants through the health and human services, the whole group department, instead of it being like specific to park and recreations where some grants might be specific to park and recreation departments.

Will will that cause a problem for you as well?

So I think that um being health and human services in a lot of ways makes us stronger for grant applications because we do have now we have access to all of these departments.

Um I think that you know the recreation team is still gonna exist as recreation.

Um and so they have certain funders that they will normally get funds from.

I think we can just say like they also have the support and backing and can you know integrate services with all of these other departments as well.

So I think you know, they will continue to apply for the grants that they've applied for.

I think our team, you know, we bring in probably between three and four million in grants every year, and so we have a really strong team too that can be thinking about health and human services as a whole and the departments individually to see like if there are grants that come past their their desk, we can help support um the grant writing for that as well.

Right, thank you so much.

All right, I yield.

Thank you.

Counselor Carney?

Thank you.

And thank you, Stephanie, for coming.

Um sorry I was a little late.

I'm not sure if this was asked before that, but I was going back to the contractual services.

Um we received um a handout this evening for the contractual services.

Um what I've got that is in the printout from Health and Human Services is 189,778.

And then in the budget book here, we have 1 million four hundred thousand.

Could you give me the difference what that difference is and what they are sorry, could you say that one more time?

Okay, so we got the handout for the contractual services, and the total comes out to 189,778.

And the contractual service in my budget book is 1,400,000 So I was looking for where's that difference in those contractual services?

From the bottom line from other total charges and expenses?

Yeah.

Other charges and expenses, contractual services.

We've got one 1,400,000.

Um so the 1,400,000 is the chapter 115 um benefit support coming from veterans.

Okay.

So okay, so if if the departments are combined, why isn't it in a contractual services in this one?

Excuse me.

That's only the 200 account.

Okay.

Um that's can I get a could can I get a breakdown of that one point four?

Sure.

Thank you.

And you can just send it to the chair?

Thank you.

That's all I had.

Thank you, Stephanie.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Counselor Gomes.

Thank you very much, Mr.

President.

Good evening, Stephanie.

Good evening.

Let me ask you the first question, and I'm sorry that I'm a little late, but due to the fact that we can't find any parking downtown tonight.

I don't know what's going on, but uh it's not only this budget hearing.

Um the all these departments?

Yes.

How do you feel about that?

Um I in my opening remarks, I think um I think there's I mean, I hate that it's happening in a financial crisis, right?

And that people are being laid off as a result and budgets are cut as a result.

But I do think there are opportunities for better integration.

You know, we worked with parks and recks every once in a while.

We've worked with the COA every once in a while, but I think you know, thinking about health and human services as a whole and how we can integrate our services and make sure that you know we can be more of a one-stop shop for constituents.

Um I think they're like that opportunity excites me.

I just don't like the circumstances in which we had to make these decisions.

I understand that.

But um what is your job before this?

I'm just doing this for the public.

What was your title before all this?

As the health director.

Health director.

Isn't your job hard enough each and every day to make sure that the well-being and everything of this city, whether it's restaurants, homes, businesses, go on and on.

We have the best health and services.

You don't think that it's gonna affect you?

Maybe what I should just say is maybe somebody should go back 20 years ago when we had this, exactly this, and how it did not work.

And I believe it will not work.

I don't care who's in charge, who they're putting in charge.

You don't mix recreation, you don't mix veteran services, community services with health.

You just don't.

You I think your job is uh big enough and and hard enough to um take care of the city as a whole with your staff or whatever and you being put into this situation, or anyone in the in uh in this city right now being put into this situation.

I just think it is totally absurd, and I think it's totally absurd that we're mixing this all together, and I want it to be heard.

And if you haven't heard it from me yet, I'm I want I'm not speaking directly to you, I'm speaking to everyone this evening.

This has been done before, and maybe somebody should go back in history and go check why we changed it back to the way it is because it didn't work then.

But they won't look into that.

They'll just look into the umbrella that's before us because it it's for me.

This is just totally absurd.

This is totally absurd that this is being put placed on your back like that, and or any other department had putting this all together.

You're not gonna give the same services that have been rendered to the people of the city or these organizations by doing this.

And maybe that's just what I wanted to get out right now.

And I wish you luck if this has to go down this way and we can't find a way to fix this problem, because this problem should have never got to where it is today.

No one's asking that question.

They're just trying to put charts and stuff together to make it seem like it's uh nice, but uh somebody's held responsible for what has been happening here over the years, and for the past five years, I have not voted for the taxes, and I told you, Mr.

President and members of my colleagues why I wasn't voting for the taxes because I thought that the um budget already was whacked.

And um this only goes to prove to us that uh I I'm I'm mind-boggled.

I'm still mind-boggled how this has all come about, and it wasn't caught on earlier, somebody didn't cut on, and somebody's held responsible, and somebody's gonna be held responsible for this, and no one's gonna run on this.

You ain't gonna run to the state.

We're gonna run to the state.

We're gonna ask for assistance.

We're gonna ask for assistance, but somebody has to be held accountable, and I'm not about to put the shovel away until I figure out who that is.

And maybe my um statement tonight is uh a little harsh.

It's not meant towards you.

I I I like you, and I think you have and your staff have done a best job that you can under sometimes the circumstances of the workload that's coming to you, but I don't think mixing all these departments, putting them on the your show on your shoulders is the right thing for this city, because you just don't mix it.

What do you know about veteran services?

What do you know about parks and recreations?

Your job since you've been here in the city is health and well-being of of the people.

And I thank you for being here, and I thank you for listening and anybody else that was listening.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you, Councillor.

I know.

Anyone else?

Councillor Roy.

I I wanted to give directors, I mean the the counselor from Clara Street, you know, posed the question.

Like we we had this Department of Health and Human Services.

Years ago.

And I I'm just curious if like there was any discussion when you guys, the administration were getting together and like, hey, we're gonna do this again, you know, and it and and we had trouble with it 20 years ago.

And what were the pitfalls if if if if there were any discussions around that, what they were, you know, how how it's gonna be different this time.

Anything like that would be helpful for me.

She's not here.

Sure.

Um I don't know the ins and outs of everything.

Um I do know that um I think some departments felt like they their services got lost in the shuffle, right?

Being under a larger umbrella.

Um I think you know.

I am not an expert in veteran services, but we have Chris who is amazing.

I met with him today.

You know, he's doing great work.

I'm not an expert in you know, the aging population, but we have Pam who runs the COA.

And so, you know, we have really good staff.

The part that I met with the um parks and rec team, and like you can tell it's like oozing out of their pores how much they care about the city and the kids that they work with.

And so, you know, we have a really great team, and I'm not coming in, you know, to stomp over what's happening.

I'm here to help the department succeed, figure out ways that we can integrate, you know, provide whatever value add.

You know, I can provide as an individual, my team, like the team that we've met belt at the health department, right?

We have like a uh grants, you know, we have a little grants people that meet and write grants, like whatever value add we can have to these other departments is you know what I am hoping and I hope that they take advantage of it.

But at the end of the day, like I don't want each one of these departments, does have a specific role, and I don't want that to get lost in the shuffle.

I don't want people to feel like you know their service isn't as important, but I think there are ways that we can support the whole team and ways that we potentially can be more efficient or more effective with our services.

I appreciate your time tonight.

Thank you so much.

I yield, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Colleagues from the chair, if that's okay.

Just a few questions.

So first, just a general question, because this kind of was brought up a few times tonight.

But uh Bob and Sharon, if you could just get provide the council with a listing of every employee that will be laid off.

And well, eliminated positions and like tracking what positions were clarified.

I think Councillor Burgo, Councillor Roy, Counselor Baptiste, I think asked about various positions that have now been transferred to other departments.

Can we see some sort of chart or or spreadsheet or flow chart of where they were and where they are now and whether that means they were laid off or now in a different department?

Thank you.

Uh and if they were reclassified as a you know, because they now have uh um new new um description because they have more responsibilities, whatever.

Just uh a general understanding of that.

All right.

Now, as far as you uh your department, Stephanie, the dental hygienists, the two dental hygienists, those are um are those reimbursed?

We do um bill insurance.

Okay, perfect.

The NOAA's place playground, uh the cleaning for NOAA's place playground, that can't be absorbed in-house through DFFM.

Could that be question to D FFM if they could handle that?

Or the parks depart uh the DPI?

Because eight that's like eight thousand dollars.

So I would just like to see if that something that could be asked.

The I I know I've asked this one in the past, or I don't know if it was myself, but the storage fee for the fresh start program.

Is there any place we could store that in-house as well?

That's 23 some odd thousand.

I think there was some in the past, if I recall some concerns about uh climate controlled and stuff like that.

So if that we could just find out if any city department has new space that could be used to store that.

And then the other one was the porta potties.

If we could have could I get a breakdown on the number of porta potties throughout, the frequency of cleaning and the cost associated with each port-a potty.

Sure.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I think that was it for now.

And then the other I I know counselor uh Carney requested the uh contractual service for the 1.4 million for the veterans reimbursement broken out.

Are we in our and just my question is are we comfortable with that number as a city as far as uh uh sadly our veterans are dying off and passing away, and uh are we still utilizing that high rate of a service, and if we could just get some sort of feedback on that as well.

Sure.

Great, thank you very much.

Colleagues, anything else?

Council Virgo.

I just wanted to note that the van driver position was eliminated from the Veterans Affairs line.

Correct.

And that was something that the council also cut from last year's budget after a discussion during a budget hearing.

Is that something that you know about?

Yes, I talked to Chris about that today.

Okay, I'm just putting in the form of a question.

Just because I know oftentimes we get criticized that we make cuts and without any discussion of it, but there were questions that were asked tonight.

Not I'm not saying that uh Mr.

President, you're gonna make any cuts based off of the questions that you just made, but for the general public watching or people in the room, um sometimes the questions that we're asking during the all these budget hearings sometimes result in those budget cuts as we in this case the van driver position, which we couldn't find a qualified candidate that met the requirements, and it was a waste of city resources.

So I just wanted to use this opportunity to point that out to the administration that oftentimes uh purposefully misleads the public on our cuts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

All right.

Next is the commission for citizens with disabilities.

Hi everyone, and I apologize for allergies and all that good stuff.

I'm Cynthia Walquist, executive director of the Disabilities Commission.

And ours is pretty straightforward.

The parking revenue for handicapped parking violations has come in strong again, yay.

And so we do have money in our contractual services line to maintain the programs that we've done the past couple of years.

Just as a breakdown, the commission met last week, and as they do every May, they give us the parameters of the programs that they'd like to continue or add.

Um so I can give you what we've done this year, and then they basically want to continue, and if they can expand in one area, which I'll talk about, um, I'll let you know.

So the first one is the 20-year-old now uh Clear Path program for 20 homeowners who um medically frail, uh, don't have the ability to shovel snow, but the priority are for anybody on dialysis in the family.

We work with all of the uh dialysis centers to make sure we get the referrals from their patients.

Uh and they get to the top of the list, and that's probably 12 to 15 out of the 20.

And unfortunately that there's a lot of turnover with that population.

But that's that's the focus.

After that, we have people in hospice care, and again, lots of times it's not for the whole season.

It's they might come to us in the beginning, or they might come to us like two months into the winter season.

But that's number two on the list.

Then it's adult day care.

Uh folks who have to get out for either adult social day care or adult health model um once the roads are clear and everything else, but they can't get out of their own home.

So we have a great crew.

They've been doing it forever.

Um they love what they do, they take an interest in the folks, you know, who they they serve, they check on them while they're there.

So that's the top of the list.

Uh this year uh we usually go out five times.

That's what the budget is for, five times for households.

But with the blizzard, kind of blew through that budget by January, and we went out seven, eight, nine times.

Kind of lost count there for a while, but people kept getting dug out even at a week or two after the blizzard ended, just to you know, clear off mailboxes, garbage cans, and and so forth.

Um the fresh dart program in terms of furniture delivery.

The commission pays for the delivery and pick up the donations for medical equipment and hospital beds all over Bristol County.

Umb could need a hospital bed tonight, and our crew will go to the warehouse, and if it's there and it's in working condition, they'll deliver it tonight.

Or unfortunately, somebody passes away, we get a call the next day, they have to get the bed out of there.

The crew will do everything they can to get over in a timely fashion.

Um the commission has to get copies of all variants requests, public and private.

So we have architectural review services to just review those variants applications and also do site visits in accordance with those applications.

And also, if somebody in the public does file a complaint about access to business public, it doesn't matter, we send somebody out, and we also are the conduit to send uh complaints up to Boston to the Mass Office on Disability, as well as the Mass Architectural Access Board.

Um, what happens up there?

Sometimes we find out the answer, sometimes we don't.

But again, we don't have any subpoena power, we don't have any enforcement powers, but we are obligated to file those complaints with the state.

Um we have exercise instructors that Pam utilizes for her uh COA population, so we provide special needs exercise this year.

It was for lifestyle young adults.

We've done ARC in the past, and it really depends on which programs are looking to have their folks come over to Buttonwood to do those programs, but it's a slower class, it's tailored for that population, and it changes from year to year just based on the programs.

But this past year it's been lifestream.

They're interested in coming back again, so hopefully they will.

They work with younger populations as well in their real jobs and their real practices, and we provide the payment for the counselors to do the under 60 counseling in home for people with special needs or family caregiver of special needs as called upon to do that.

So that's pretty much the broad areas that we do.

And out of the 60-ish thousand that we have, that comes out to about 55 based on this year's uh calculations.

But again, you never know about the blizzard if the snowblower goes or something.

So like to have that cushion just in case something comes up in the middle of the year.

But that's what they voted on to start July 1st.

And they revisit it again once the the bad weather comes along.

That's all I got.

Thank you, Cynthia.

Colleagues, chairing as Council of Virgo.

Thank you for being here, Director Walquest.

Um, I'm just curious about uh the supply line.

Uh it looks like it had a significant jump there uh to 4,500.

Snowblower.

Snowblower.

Okay.

So that's just a day two of the storm, only snowblower, Taunton, Home Depot.

All right.

That was my only question.

Expert in snowblowers and what you got to look for.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, anything else.

Great.

Thank you.

That's it.

Yay, thank you.

All right.

Next up is the assessors, page 17 in our books.

Hey everyone.

Um, I have a little overview.

Um over the course of fiscal year 26, the assessor's office has continued to improve operations, increase efficiency, and expand responsibilities handled internally by the department through the hard work and dedication of our staff.

We have streamlined several critical processes while continuing to maintain accurate and timely assessment administration for the city.

This year, the office implemented next day deed enter processing, uh, significantly improving the timelines of ownership updates and record maintenance.

In addition, we are now fully up to date on mapping, bringing the city current for the first time since 2019.

The department also assumed responsibility, responsibility for the plan review and processing functions previously handled through engineering, further centralizing assessment-related operations within the assessor's office.

We have additionally taken over the application process for a butters list, creating a more efficient and consistent workflow for residents, attorneys, and developers.

Beyond these operational changes, the assessor's office has taken a larger role in both the TIFF and STA processes, allowing for improved coordination, oversight, and analysis related to economic development and taxation matters.

Another major accomplishment during fiscal 26 was the completion of the comprehensive review of tax exemptions exemptions throughout the city.

As of a result of this review, additional properties have been identified and returned to the tax role where exemptions no longer qualified.

Approximately 40 exemptions remain pending due the incomplete documentation.

If the required forms are not received, those properties will be returned to the tax rule for fiscal 27.

The office has also significantly reduced the number of appellate tax board cases, decreasing from 127 down to 41.

In addition, real estate abatement applications have reduced substantially from 441 applications in fiscal 25 to 210 applications in fiscal 26.

These reductions reflect improved valuation accuracy, stronger data review processes, and increased public confidence in the assessment system.

At the same time, the department has remained fully up to date on permitting and cyclical property reviews, ensuring compliance with state requirements, while maintaining accurate and equitable property values across the city.

Due to these efficiencies and increased ability to perform work internally, the assessor's office was able to reduce the contractual services line by approximately nine 89,000 in fiscal 27.

Looking ahead, the department anticipates an additional reduction of approximately 31,000 over the next several years as valuation work continues to be brought fully in-house.

Overall, the assessor's office continues to demonstrate that strategic process improvements, staff development, and internal operation expansion can provide both stronger service to the public and meaningful cost savings to the city.

Any questions?

Councilor Burgo.

Hello, how are you?

Good.

How are you?

Wonderful.

Thank you for being here.

Um I had questions which I again uh I'm just gonna ask, but if you do not know the answer, I will save it for maybe the personnel director.

Again, your department, similar to others, had odd reclassifications, is what I'm gonna refer to them as.

Yes, that was our vacancy.

Yes.

Um, but looking at your uh department from last year, there were five positions for office assistant three.

This year, there's only one listed, and then now this fancy title of project coordinator, which is a grade I as an IGLU.

Uh yes, um, which is like four grades higher than what the office is in three is, and there's three positions for that.

So in my mind, is that what's replacing?

Yes, so the project coordinators was a budget enhancement for last fiscal year, but because of the contract, it was held up.

So it was we're waiting for the contract to get ratified to put those in place.

Okay.

And so I'm just I'm okay.

I'm just curious why.

Okay.

All right.

Um, and is that the same thing with the administrative manager?

Um because last year it was called an ad administrative coordinator, which was also four grades lower.

Correct.

At an M5.

Yes.

So with all the um enhancements we've made by taking on more work, we had to recognize where the work was going, and we made accommodations for that with the staffing.

So there'll be more responsibilities for those.

And the same thing with the assessment specialist, which is now a compliance officer, also jumping from an M4 to an MC.

That was a complete reclass because they weren't picked up with the reclass for a few years ago.

Okay.

For unit sees.

Okay.

All right.

And then I think that was it.

I just wanted to make sure we knew.

And okay.

So no one in your actual office that was working there last year has been laid off.

Correct.

We just we had a vacancy and that has been taken.

And then the people that were in these other positions essentially just got a pay raise for, or not a pay raise, but a reclassification and the pay just happens to be higher than what it was from last year.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Counselor Abreu.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Good evening, Sherry.

Noticing on page 20 in the budget book, albeit very modest.

I've noticed a little bit of a jump in dues and subscriptions and equipment rental.

The two combined, it's not a lot again, but it's just over $3100, 30 3145 to be exact.

But again, we're trying to pinch every penny here.

Can you explain the rationale for the enhancements on those areas and what they're for?

Yes.

So you're talking about the dues and subscriptions?

That's correct, yes.

Okay.

So those um most of those are required by DLS for subscriptions for us to get our training and stuff.

Um then we also have some mapping technology that's included.

So it's required by DLS.

There's no type of state reimbursement for that if it's a prerequisite and a requirement for your department.

No.

Okay.

Typical uh mandates, but yet no, you know, hit the taxpayer, you know.

And there's no uh reverb on that.

So power for the course, I guess.

Uh an equipment rental went up a little bit.

Do you know what that's about?

That would be we have two printers now.

I'm sorry, we have two printers.

Yep.

We had one.

Um the second one wasn't replaced, and then we got a second one.

All right, and last question.

I know there is a reduction, so I appreciate that, but we're seeing $4,000 for travel.

What type of travel does your department do?

Um we have summer conferences and then the schooling.

We go away for a week in August to get our designation.

Where are these conferences?

Uh they're usually held in Southbridge.

Okay, so we're not talking like major travel here, it's all somewhat local.

It's about a little over an hour to get there, yeah.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Anything else?

From the chair.

Uh Sherry, the um online the it used to be like the parcel lookup, but now it's the access GIS.

What is that on in the contractual services?

That is our CAA mapping.

So that in primitive.

I don't know if you $6,700.

That seems really good.

It's too small here.

So yeah, yeah, so we have $6,700 and then um my concerns are the two bigger the $33,000 for the enterprise CAMA.

That's our database.

That's the database.

Yes, that's what we use every day for our values and get the property cards from.

And the Splice real estate valuation?

That is our evaluation specialist who does the values, which we hopefully within the next two years are going to be taking in-house.

Okay.

All right, very good.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Excuse me, sorry.

All right.

Very good.

Thank you, Sherry.

Solicitor's office.

I see solicitor Jake's.

I see your council president.

Come on down.

We are on pages 135 in our budget book.

We'll start with the solicitor's office and then move on to court judgments and liability, but we'll start with the solicitor's office.

Solicitor Jake's if we could have an overview, please.

Thank you, Council President, members of the council.

These are hard times.

The solicitor's office recognizes that they are hard times.

This is the fifth time that I've appeared for you with regard to our solicitor's budget.

In each of the last four years, there have been significant cuts to the solicitor's budget.

This year's budget is a level funded budget.

I believe that the solicitor's office continues to do more with less.

And we hope that you will see that this is essentially a level funded budget, and in fact, pass the budget as requested.

There are a number of things that we're proud of that we have listed here.

One of the major ones involves outside council, and that is the EPA had settled sued, well, not sued, brought a claim against the town of Dartmouth and the city of New Bedford for $22 million worth of cleanup that they did in the town of Dartmouth, claiming that some of those pollutants came from the city of New Bedford.

With the assistance of Fitch Law and Lisa Goodhart's company law firm, we were able to resolve that claim this past month, and there's a typo here.

It says $100.

That was originally the settlement amount.

The Department of Justice has said we don't settle anything for $100, you're going to pay $1,000 New Bedford.

So we're going to pay that.

That's an example of where the expertise of outside counsel comes into play with this office.

We have some very qualified attorneys, and I'm very proud of the work they do.

But there are some areas of the law that are so specialized that you have to go to outside counsel.

And that's why we have that outside council budget.

We have relied less as the years go on on outside counsel for labor relations.

Attorney Ryan Prevail has now been with the office for a number of years, and he is handling a significant amount of the labor matters in-house, although we still need to go on occasion to VDH for outside specialized assistance with labor matters.

You'll see a whole bunch of monies that we brought in through subrogation claims and various fines, et cetera.

I'm also very happy to say that for the first time this year, going to fiscal 27, the office is fully staffed in terms of attorneys.

We now have five part-time attorneys, including myself and four full-time attorneys to do the work of the council.

And if you look at the budget, there are no real significant changes over prior years, and there are, in fact, no enhancements in the actual solicitors budget.

And I'm happy to answer any questions that I can, Counselors.

Colleagues.

I have some from the chair.

There's no objection.

Okay.

Solicitor Jake, so your uh 200 account, the well, you the contractual service is uh which the 200 account.

The I see uh 14,800, Blatman, Lebrowski, Haverty, AMD golf course.

What is that for?

Pertaining to the AMD golf course.

That would be work that was done by Jonathan Silverstein, most likely with regard to the zoning for the AMC golf course.

I'd have to look at the specific bill, but I believe that's what the item is.

Well, this is a future bill.

No?

That would be going forward, correct?

So it's to pay for work that will begin?

It would be for work to be done if it's in the budget for next year in that line item.

I have the breakdown for outside counsel to date.

Okay.

I can look at that to tell you specifically.

But that's for future work that would be ongoing regarding the.

If it's in the budget for the 200 account, it would be future work.

Okay.

Could we get a breakdown of what that would entail just to be sure of when you can, please?

Certainly.

Okay.

Municipal insurance practices, a Lera group.

$30,000.

What is that for?

Municipal practice I'm sorry, I'm not following exactly where you are looking at the solicitor's office budget.

Have you jumped over to insurance?

Oh.

Nope.

Yeah.

Shannon.

Ah.

Sorry.

Sorry, you have a sheet that I don't have.

Forgive me.

And it's small, I'm sorry, but it's like I just took my glasses off, believe it or not, so I can hopefully.

Ten lines down.

It says consultant municipal insurance policy.

Is that 30,000?

Yes, sir.

Oh, that's very easy.

That's uh Mr.

Beauregard at Alero Group, which is known as Sylvia Insurance.

He provides us with advice on procuring insurance programs and insurance questions throughout the year.

What type of insurance?

All insurance?

All of our insurance policies.

Health insurance?

He does not advise us generally on health insurance.

But that comes from Lockton, I believe.

Okay.

You have to check with the HR director.

Okay.

But that would be just general insurance like liability, disability insurance, that type of stuff?

All of those things.

Okay.

Very good.

The attorney fees for Sullivan's ledge.

$52,000.

What are we utilize?

What will we utilize that for?

If my understanding is correct, we're under EPA mandate to maintain Sullivan's ledge.

Operation and maintenance of the Sullivan's ledge was ongoing plan.

It's ongoing.

Why do we need an attorney to tell us we need to keep it on?

It's much more complicated than that.

But we meet with the MP EPA on a monthly basis.

Okay.

There are a million and one questions that they ask about the legal aspect of it.

Okay.

There is a potential down the road that the PMG group, which was the polluters group, will be able to walk away from Sullivan's ledge.

And one of the things that we're hoping to do through Attorney Goodhart is amend the rod, the rep record of decision to change how that is handled so that the major changes to the structure and operation of the plant itself will potentially be paid by the polluters and not by the City of New Bedford.

The problem is the EPA has decided previously that the remedy is working.

We don't agree with that.

And the plant is 30 years old and out of date and inefficient.

And it can be replaced with the same technology, or it can be replaced with new technology in a totally different system that would be much less expensive.

But the rod does not allow that change right now.

And that's one of the many things that we rely on attorney Goodhart for.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

The Valerio Domnello and Hillman.

That's VDH who provides us with advice on labor matters and supplements the work of Ryan Paveo in my office.

Okay.

And as Ryan is more and more skilled in labor matters, will this continue to decrease?

It will continue to decrease.

It will not go away.

The amount of labor work that exists in the City of New Bedford continues to grow.

But Attorney Paveo's abilities have increased significantly.

And so there is a drop.

It will never go away.

Okay.

But it is less now than it would have been four years ago, two years ago.

Reliance on outside counsel.

My other and and I I uh can understand if this is a tough question to answer, but I I generally disagree with the uh current policy of of maintaining uh uh and and correct me if I'm wrong, solicitor, but it's my understanding that uh attorneys sit in on every contract negotiation with the union.

There is not a meeting that doesn't occur without an attorney present for the city.

Is that still right?

Are you asking the EA attorney or a city attorney?

Both.

City attorneys there will always be an attorney there or ADHD.

Okay.

But okay.

All right.

Legal consultant for marijuana regulation.

That's Jonathan Silverstein, who specializes in that particular area of law, as well as zoning.

Okay.

What what's further to be determined from that?

I I am aware that the state changed some things, but just yesterday, the mayor signed yet another amendment to another HCA agreement with a marijuana retailer that was required by the CCC three years after the agreement was signed.

As you know, there were problems at the CCC.

The governor is taking it over, and they are now suddenly going through every HCA agreement and becoming more consistent in the changes they require.

Okay.

In the $10,000 for contract law, mead, Tallerman, Costa.

Meet Taylorman and Costa is a firm that specializes in municipal law, and there are occasions when we need a quick answer to something that we can't find, and they have expertise.

So just no specific general for it.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you.

Colleagues, anything else for Solicitor Jakes?

Counselor Carney.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Eric, for coming.

I'm just looking at your personnel.

You said you are level funded.

Um, but um there's a 79,000 plus uh increase in your personnel for this year.

And what is that for?

Happy to explain that to you, Counselor.

Uh over the years, and especially last year, there have been significant vacancy savings taken for the solicitor's office, which prevented me from hiring a position for an associate city solicitor full-time for most of this past year.

So there have been significant savings, and that figure reflects the money in the new budget without those vacancy savings.

So it's not a new position.

Say that again, it's not a new position.

It's not a new position.

The position was in the budget, but there were vacancy savings that prevented me from hiring someone.

I didn't have enough money after the vacancy savings last year to hire someone to fill that position.

I've now filled it for the coming year.

So you think we have more money this year?

I don't think we have more money this year.

But I'm hopefully with a full staff.

That's my goal is more for less.

It's been that for the last four and a half years I've been here.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Counselor Abraham.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Hi, Eric.

How are you, Counselor Abram?

Oh, it's good to see you, uh, sir.

Um FOIA requests.

Um, it's tough to handicap that, correct?

I know you have an approximate number in here, but uh you know from what we've talked about, I think you have said it even on the record.

FOIA is take a considerable amount of staff time.

Do they not?

They do.

When I started here in 2022, in that calendar year, we had 272 requests.

In calendar year 2025, we had over 1,100.

Is that just attributed to the litigious environment we're in today with the phones and everything and people I don't know, I don't know.

I just is that kind of is that where the trend is going, you think?

The general public asks more questions than they used to.

And unlike years past, the media utilizes the public records law as a way of doing legal research.

Throughout the course of a 40-hour work week, I mean how many hours, I mean, uh spread out throughout various staff members on your team doing this research and what's the ratio of maybe some of that stuff of your staff getting pulled away from there as opposed to doing legal work.

And I know you know you were talking to the council president about some of this more nuanced stuff within the law and certain kinds of law where you have got to farm out that work, right?

Because it's not your expertise, but I'm wondering if you weren't hijacked by so many FOIAs, could that be translated towards savings, meaning your folks in house could do some of that work, or does that not matter?

It doesn't really make a huge difference as you may remember or may not remember counselor because it's a huge budget.

Two years ago, we asked for an enhancement to hire a public records officer in the office.

So it is a lay person, and that is all Lauren Oliver does public records responses and redaction for those public records, which includes video.

In addition to that, Catherine Shuco, who's an attorney, probably spends a quarter to a third of her time on public records.

She's assisted by Lisa Presby and also by Maria Baptista.

Yep.

And then probably on a regular basis, I spend two to three hours a week when the matters come up to my level to deal with public records requests.

Yeah, no, you certainly have your hands full, but you know, I uh when folks do request that of the city and of your office.

I know you work as expeditiously as you can.

So I appreciate what you do and your team.

So thank you for that.

Thank you, Counselor.

Thank you, solicitor.

Mr.

President, I'll yield.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Counselor Roy.

Hi, solicitor Jake.

How are you?

Good and yourself, Counselor.

I'm great.

Thank you for asking.

Um enhancements.

Did you submit any enhancements this year?

There are none in this budget, but we did originally originally.

I'm just wondering what enhancement you submitted.

We submitted an enhancement for a new attorney.

We submitted an enhancement for reclassifications of current employees that would have resulted in increased pay due to increased responsibilities.

We submitted an enhancement that was related to technical information and services.

And there was an enhancement that had to do with a FAE situation.

And there was one more that if I check my list, I can tell you what it is.

And do you have a dollar amount on those enhancements?

I do not have a dollar amount of the enhancements.

Uh again.

Uh oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Judgment and claims.

That's an important one.

Thank you.

Judgment and claims, which we'll talk about shortly, has been traditionally at $300,000 a year.

You'll see there's a typo here that I'll explain on the bar graph, but it's been $300 for as long as I can remember.

What my enhancement was to ask to bring it to $400,000.

The rationale for that, without going into detail because it involves a claim.

There is a single claim out there that will come to the city, I believe, absolutely in fiscal 27.

That the maximum that the city is allowed to pay under the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act, Chapter 258 is 100,000.

That individual's damages, in my opinion, exceed the tort threshold.

So that $300,000 for claims and settlements next year.

Knock $100 right off the top.

We're only going to have $200 left.

So I had asked for $400.

It didn't make it past the CFO, and I understand why.

All right.

I'm also looking at page $136 in the budget book and your performance measures, the hours you guys actually spent on different types of subject matter.

It looks like about 1,000 less hours, give or take.

And I see that most of it comes, most of the reductions come from uh this litigation line and workers' compensation.

Could you shed some light on that?

In terms of the litigation, there was less in-house litigation.

We have a number of insurance policies that we can go into detail at later time if someone wants to talk about insurance.

And those are handled by outside council.

There's a significant amount of litigation.

I believe the current number of claims in litigation with insurance right now is 177 claims.

There are 171 that we're handling in-house.

So much of the litigation is being covered by outside council.

Workers comp.

It just hasn't been as busy as sometimes it can be.

Thank you, Mr.

Sir Solicitor.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Anyone else?

All right, we'll go to court judgments, page 166.

Court judgments.

Let me take a correction immediately to this graph.

You can't miss the fact that under the 2026 adopted supplemental budget, that figure does not come to $300,000.

It comes to $550,000.

That is a mistake in the budget book.

And I will tell you where the $150,000 mistake is, what it was, and where it really is.

We had asked the council for $150,000 for a transfer last year.

It was to go towards the defense of parallel products.

And then the council voted to give $100,000 to the defense of parallel products.

That is that $250,000.

Our office is not involved in that, as you know, as a result of the HCA that the mayor entered into.

That money is over with the Board of Health, is my understanding.

So there's a mistake.

So we're looking for the same $300,000 that I believe has been in there for a decade.

Any questions?

Okay.

Page 171 is liability insurance.

Forgive me, I grabbed workers' comp instead of liability.

Here it is.

I've got it.

Thought I was responsible for comp, but apparently I'm delighted to say I'm not.

So liability insurance.

What you see basically from 25 through 27 is an increase of approximately 5% per year in the premiums for liability insurance.

Total premium this for FY27, 1.2 million in change.

The vendors for insurance include NAPShank, which does various insurance policies for the city, Cabot Risk Insurance Services, which handles IOD, Guardian Claims, which administers our workers' comp.

And American Bankers of Florida that actually handles the flood insurance for five buildings, including the treatment plant.

And as you recall the $30,000 that you asked me about, Mr.

President is Sylvia Lera Group Municipal Consultant John Beauregard.

And there's at least 20 policies that we have for various assundary things.

They range from auto to property, general liability, law enforcement, employing practices, network privacy and security, errors and omissions for public officials, employment practices, liability, crimes, snow, airport errors and emissions, CGO at the airport, surety bonds for purchasing, an excess commercial umbrella, business auto finance policy for that wonderful collection we have at the library.

That if you haven't seen, you should go visit.

I was amazed when I first saw it.

That's basically a brief summary of what that is.

And we calculated an approximate 5% risk increase each year.

Counselors?

Council Connie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The list that you just read us, would you be able to provide that to us, please?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Happy to do that.

Thank you.

That's it.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Colleagues.

Okay.

Solicitor Jakes, thank you very much.

Mayor's office.

I believe Neil Mellow is here, page 99 in our budget books.

I'm not that short.

Good evening, Mr.

President, members of the council.

Thank you for this opportunity to talk about the mayor's budget this year.

I'll begin by saying that the mayor continuing the theme of the evening.

The mayor's office uh recognizes uh the need for belt ticket belt tightening in our office and across city government, and we've tried to play our part by reducing expenses both in the personnel line and in the non-personnel uh items uh relative to what they would have been had the number of policies that we had uh uh principally steps in in colas and the an additional uh personnel change that we're making.

Um the um uh my point being the um level of the budget relative to what it would have been otherwise had we not adopted these policies has been reduced by approximately 7.5 percent.

Uh we identified $73,000 or so in personnel savings and another, I'm sorry, $67,000 in personnel savings and another $6,800 or so in non-personnel savings for a combined savings of about $73,000, $74,000.

Um the budget you have before you reflects a bottom line for the mayor's office of $921,000.

Um, that number would have been $995,000 had we not uh implemented the policy uh uh reductions and the uh the other non-personnel uh reductions in our budget.

Um the mayor's office is a small office.

We have six uh uh staff, including the mayor.

All of those staff are unit C employees, so no one in the mayor's office this year will re will be receiving a COLA under the uh City Code or a step increase under the City Code, uh assuming the council approves uh the measures that were filed last week to implement those policies uh uh citywide.

Uh that includes uh the mayor's office uh uh rather the mayor's colour uh which uh is based on CPI and it's a statutory collaboration the mayor intends to decline his colla of uh approximately uh 52 uh 85.

Um the um the other significant personnel reduction is that one of the um members of the staff uh is budgeted at step one uh going next year.

That employees at presently at step six.

Uh we anticipate uh a uh change in that position that employee uh is likely to be departing uh in uh FY27.

So the new employee would be coming on board as a step one, and that's reflected in the budget, not the step six that the employee is currently uh earning.

And that's generated uh savings of about $18,000 or so in the personnel uh account.

Uh under purchase of services, happy to talk a little bit.

I know uh the counselors received a uh copy of the an appendix detailing uh contractual services as part of the purchases of services account.

Um couple items there uh to note.

Uh the significant spending in that category on the contractual services uh is what counselors will recall uh was previously listed as uh arts and culture line item.

Um and that arts and culture item is reflected in the appendix.

You'll see senior dances, you'll see a number of arts and culture related items that are typically uh funded.

I would also say under contractual services in reviewing the appendix, which I just saw just a little bit uh ago.

There are a number of items that uh I I would suggest that counselors review the contractual services items as sort of representative of the kinds of expenses that have been historically incurred and allocated to that uh line item.

Um they uh um range from year to year, but I think that list gives you a sense of the kinds of uh expenditures that happen under contractual services.

The um the other thing I would just call to your attention as well is that uh as part of that under the other purchase services, uh you'll recognize those sorts of expenditures which were previously captured under a line item that we referred to as events and official city functions that includes the state of the city, uh that includes inaugural events and the in the years when those happen uh that the mayor's office participates uh in those events, uh, and that's uh that's captured under the other purchase services in that appendix.

Again, happy to chat more about uh those expenditures.

Um I would just call your attention uh to other charges and expensive where a couple significant uh items exist.

Um the Massachusetts Municipal Association, which uh uh uh I presume uh every city and town in the Commonwealth uh is a member of all significant cities for sure.

Uh that because that the Mass Municipal Association Association also includes the Mass Mayors Association.

Uh that uh is budgeted for approximately 18,700.

Uh just a little a word on as I've discussed in the past what the MMA does.

Um principally the MMA uh is a policy advocacy organization.

Um the mayor has served as a previous president of the Mass Mayors Association, which is a subset of the MMA, and they advocate for local road construction funding under the Chapter 90 program uh of the issues that have been featured lately before the council.

Uh the MMA has played an integral role in supporting uh the increase in unrestricted general government aid, UGA or general government aid, uh that uh as the mayor discussed in his presentation has been significantly underfunded relative to inflation over the years since the great financial uh crisis and back in 2009-20 uh 10.

And again, had we been receiving UGGA at a level that reflected uh increases for inflation, uh the city would be receiving uh an allocation approximately 1450 million dollars more this year, which would be uh really a game changer for the budget um challenges that we face right now.

Uh so that those are the kinds of policy initiatives that the MMA advances uh in cooperation with the mayors.

Uh and again, the dues for that organization are 18,000 seven hundred.

I would also call your attention to the uh U.S.

Conference of Mayors, uh, which appears as part of dues and subscriptions.

Uh and those dues are approximately 11,000.

The mayor serves on what is the premier um mayor's organization nationally.

The U.S.

Conference of Mayors has uh in various roles uh has seen the mayor involved in its energy policy committee.

He served as a longtime chair of the energy policy committee.

Uh he currently serves as an as one of 14 uh trustees nationwide, so he's in the leadership role within the U.S.

Conference of Mayors.

U.S.

Conference of Mayors is very important in its work to uh what happens here in New Bedford uh among other things.

It is a strong proponent of CDBG funding as the council uh I think just recently received this year's uh community development block grant CDBG uh proposal.

Uh that was money that money, uh as the counselors know, goes to dozens of community groups and other organizations throughout the throughout the city.

Uh and U.S.

Conference of Mayors has uh has really waged a long battle uh to preserve those funds, uh, both for New Bedford and and nationally and I will stop there.

Uh happy to take your your questions, but those are the significant items in in this year's mayor's office budget.

Okay.

Council Abreu.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Good evening, Neil.

Good to see you again.

Um I know you mentioned um MMA and the Mass Municipal Mayor's Association, and there are uh it's a consortium of mayors whose job is to lobby the state legislature.

Is that what you would right?

Principally, yes.

Well, what's happening?

I mean, the system is still busted, so what's what exactly is happening with the MMA?

I mean, uh I mean you you just said that we're not keeping and I'm not banging on you, but you know uh we we haven't kept up with inflation with with UGA.

Chapter 90.

So what's our ROI for the mayor being involved or the city being involved in this?

I mean uh the formula still hasn't been fixed, and that's not on the city.

I'm just saying like so what type of lobbying efforts are being done to get us the return on that investment.

I just don't know.

No, it's a that's a fair question.

I'll start with uh Chapter 90 funding.

The MMA was successful in increasing the annual Chapter 90 road uh funding uh by about a hundred million dollars.

I think uh the uh governor's uh uh trans economic development uh bond, it may have been the transportation bond increased those uh that allocation by about 100 million dollars.

So what was our piece of that?

Do you know off hands?

Uh uh DPI, we have to get you that number.

Uh it's in the range of a few million dollars a year, I believe.

Um that's that's supplemented by uh obviously the city uh funding that comes from the capital improvement program.

Okay.

So that's that's chapter 90.

On UGGA, uh the MMA had proposed a significant increase along the lines of what the mayor had suggested is uh deficient here in New Bedford, so it would be adjusted for inflation.

Uh they were not successful in obtaining the full increase, but they did uh succeed as as folks know on the Senate side uh in increasing the overall UGGA level above both the governor's budget and the House budget.

So we're pleased by that.

It's obviously disappointing there weren't more.

Um, but uh you know we would all be the worse without the MMA's advocacy for sure.

Okay.

Um I guess while I have you, um you talk about and I'm not trying to pick on the MMA, but um where are we at?

I mean, uh whatever happened to because and I've asked Commissioner Pont this, and I'm not besmirching him, and I know he's not here to defend himself, and it's not a slight on him, but uh and and you can't answer what you don't know, but I've asked the Commissioner Pont the last couple of years.

This trillion dollar infrastructure package that was signed into law by the prior administration, the Biden administration that Congress passed in a bipartisan fashion.

I know that it was given out, the trillion dollars was given out to each state for the governors to hand out like the candyman or candy woman to the cities and towns.

Uh what's been the fruit for us to bear for that from that trillion dollar infrastructure, the building back better and all that?

Like we no one seems to know like where a piece of that pie is.

And I just don't know if the MMA has been asking those questions.

And and if you don't know offhand, that's fine.

But no one no one seems to know what our piece of that trillion dollars was here in New Bedford.

And I don't know, maybe you know, I don't know.

Yeah, I I would defer to Commissioner Pont on how those federal funds have flown to New Bedford.

I can tell you just anecdotally, one uh particular uh uh federally funded uh project that uh um uh I've interacted uh with with Mastod on, and that happens to be a raise grant uh that was awarded under the Biden administration with the support of Senator Markey, uh and there's funding under that grant for design work along the working waterfront uh to improve uh cargo traffic, essentially truck traffic, as well as improvements to uh streetscape for pedestrians as well.

Uh you know, as folks know, we have lots of employees that move from the now lower north end uh into MacArthur Boulevard and North Front and the and the working waterfront, uh and those federal funds are gonna go a long way to designing a uh an improved roadway that will allow for both freight and people uh to operate um you know in close in close proxy proximity.

So that's the raise grant.

I think that was uh Christine made familiar about two million dollars, three about two or three million dollars or so, two million dollars or so.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh but that that's really just anecdotally, that's something I have been interacting uh have interacted with, but there's the probably uh uh in all likelihood that it's a significantly larger number than just that that one grant control funding.

Okay, Neil, thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I'll yield.

Thank you, Councillor Carney.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'm confused.

Okay, can we go back over that personnel you said you saved money in your personnel account?

So the way to think about uh the budget development project process in the mayor's office is that had in the absence of the repeal of COLAS and the repeal of step increases for unit C employees, and again, all members of the mayor's office uh because of the nature of the work that we do in the sense of information receiver not union employees.

So we're we're all unit C.

Uh had the personnel budget in our office been developed, with those COLAS and steps included, the overall line item would be closer to the overall mayor's office budget would be 995,000.

If you remove steps and colas and you also reduce one of our positions from a step six to a step one because we have a departing employee, the combined value of all of those reductions is um uh about sixty-seven thousand dollars.

Okay.

So if you if you go from nine ninety-five minus sixty-seven thousand, minus approximately seven thousand in non-personnel cuts, we're down to the nine twenty-one that you see in your budget document.

Right.

But will you look but you assume you were going to get that before you put it in?

So I'm looking at your budget of personnel and how how you saved us by not adding us stuff, but you st you still kind of you know, you're still over where you were before eight or you were 801 and 826.

So we were not really giving us a savings like every other department is kind of at the same time.

Well, we would have been legally obligated to make those payments to our employees, both steps and colas.

Uh again, we're working under the assumption, as is every department, that the council will approve the repeal of unit C, the manager step steps and managed callers for for one year.

Right.

I I I get that.

But I was just looking, you know, when I look at everybody's budget, I'm just saying it's like, okay, we didn't put that on your backs, people.

We decided to take it off.

But we're still was still $26,000 above last year.

So I I can I can help you understand the $26,000 above next year if I if I may.

So in FY26, the administration um estimated about $848,000 uh for the mayor's uh personnel budget.

The CFO's office then applied a $25,000 or so uh vacancy savings um uh number.

That left a budget of $823,000.

Uh the council then applied a cut uh increasing the vacancy savings by another $21,000.

So that's about $43,000, $45,000 in vacancy savings.

Unfortunately, we had no vacancies, so that was not an implementable cut.

And so, and you have a I think you have a year-end transfer to restore those funds so that we can end our our office and surplus.

But we there was no way to implement the vacancy savings that were applied to our office last year.

So that that left us at eight the $801,000 um $801,000 figure that you see in your budget document.

Now this year in FY27, we started again with that call it the the clean original number, which is $848,000.

And then this year we took out $18,000 for that reduction in the step for the one employees position.

We also took out $4,000 in vacancy savings, and then that gives you the number uh that appears in your your document of $826.

So we didn't increase by by $26,000.

We took into we had to go back and take into account vacancy savings last year that we were unable to implement.

That's why there's a there's that change from $801 to $826,000.

You know, I just it's just cracks me up.

The the council is always cutting budgets and everybody comes back and put it in there.

As far as I know, is that if you were shot a little bit, you could have taken something from other line items and moved them to supplement your vacancy savings.

Yeah, I uh I believe we used all the funding from all the other line items um to finish this year to to meet our expenditures and the non-personnel.

So I I can promise you this if we had a vacancy um vacancy savings because we had someone depart and there were several weeks or months before we brought someone in, we would most definitely bank those savings towards the vacancy goals that the both the CFO and the council set for us.

Okay.

So watch your pocketbook and don't spend as much in the mayor's office.

Thank you.

Agreed.

Council Club Burgo.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I do see the reduction in pay for the administrative manager position.

Um that obviously last year was 1568, 891 for two, and now is reduced by almost 9,000.

That's what that is.

Yeah.

So just for a clearer picture of where the reduction for the position that is going down to a step one.

Um I don't know if I should ask you or the personnel director about the other admiral like weird positioning that's going on in the budgeting.

Um it's great, I guess, that in your office that you were able to do that reduction with the person going to step one.

But it looks like, even though the mayor, like in obviously the beginning of this of your budget here, it talks about the significant savings about having a hundred less positions, but of the positions that are remaining, it looks like people got raises that have remained.

Um I noted obviously in the assessor's office, for example, no changes were made in the assessor's office of the people that are there, no layoffs.

Uh but I've listed obviously one, two, three, four uh these positions here that had increases in their grade levels.

Um that would have been for this current year's budget, as all city employees are entitled to step increases or cola increases.

But they're not stepping up.

They're not they're not stepper colour increases.

They're reclassifications.

Their titles were changed and their grade levels were changed.

No, no, no one in the mayor's office has had a lot of the fact that the process is.

No, the mayor's office has no, yes, yeah, that's happened elsewhere.

Yes, yes, I'm saying it's happened in a lot of other areas like the community relations specialist position.

The city used to only have three of those.

Now we have six community relations specialists.

Uh we have one in DPI now, which we never had before, three obviously in the health department, because two of which used to one used to be in community service, two now that is created in health.

But I'm just these are to me enhancements that were not detailed in the budget.

And I'm just curious why they weren't um expressed to the council.

Um also you noted obviously the uh appendix that we got.

I don't know if you're aware of when we received this, the purchase of services um appendix.

Did you know that we got these today?

Uh yes, as uh as did uh departments uh as well, and that's just given the production challenges in the CFO's office and Bob acknowledged as much.

We would have all preferred to have them uh earlier.

I'm happy to talk about any of the items again that are on that list for mayor's office.

That's fine.

As far as the other I I would want to respect the other department heads and have them have the opportunity to talk about if there were reclasses or changes within their departments or and deferred uh Josiah as well uh on that.

But uh anything related to the mayor's office, uh.

But you are the chief of staff, correct?

I am and I'm I'm here tonight to present on the mayor's office budget, not to discuss broadband.

But other department budgets.

Who makes those decisions?

Do the department heads get to approve those reclassifications, or does it go to the top?

Sure, I uh that would be something that the department had would bring to HR.

Okay.

And they would assess whether there was a need for it and the basis for it.

Uh significantly, I mean, the first question that's always asked is uh to the extent that there's a change in classification or or or grade, are there additional responsibilities that employees taking on?

Uh this is not simply an exercise and uh uh adjusting uh pay uh for sort of general market purposes.

We have uh a periodic reclassification exercise for unit C as well as for ASME.

That's when you try to take into account uh the larger uh market uh for whatever that municipal professional is.

Uh but I think in most cases the decisions about uh increasing uh grade or reclassification are being driven uh by the level of responsibility that the employee is is.

I think that's become more common as we've reduced positions over time.

Uh again, this is a this is a city government.

I'll I'll I'll I'll add this in broad terms.

Um this is a city government that has reduced even prior to the 100 position reduction in this budget.

Since 2009, our general fund, uh and I think we referenced this in the mayor's office uh sort of our our narrative, but our general fund full-time employee workforce is still down by 100 employees from where we were prior to the to the Great Reception.

So we never recovered from those nine C cuts that everybody remember remembers very painfully back in in 2009-2010.

We're still about a hundred positions down.

Um that now that's general fund.

Um, you know, I uh I'll defer it to others that are more knowledgeable on the enterprise fund, but the core workforce that's general fund, taxpayer funded, is down a hundred employees going into this budget.

It's never recovered.

We have not built that up uh in the entire Mitchell administration's uh tenure.

And uh unfortunately we're in a we're in a in a position this year of reducing yet another one hundred positions.

So we're down a hundred, we're gonna be down another one hundred at the end of this budget season, all likelihood.

Okay.

So that's the overall picture.

So it sounds like a reducing position to replace them with higher paying positions, which is why we're struggling with the funding sources that we have.

Uh to the extent that there are occasions where uh positions may be eliminated, and we're asking an employee to step up into a broader role with additional responsibility.

There may be incidents, uh, there are situations in which that's being that's being uh done.

But again, the first question I'll defer the José, but uh as personnel director.

But the first question is what merits the the increase.

I'll leave those questions for Jose, because obviously, as I pointed out, the assessor's department was not touched.

There was a vacant position that was eliminated, but other than that, all of those individuals, hardworking individuals, sure, let them have a reclassification, but during a year where we're obviously laying people off, closing fire stations, cutting from the school department budget.

I don't know if this is the year that we have the conversation about reclassifying positions within a department that's fully uh staffed at in the current role.

Um but moving on, um within the appendix that we just received uh hours before this meeting, um, it doesn't have the actual breakdown of the full um other charges and expenses, and that's throughout the entire uh appendix that we've received for all the departments.

I'm just curious if that's gonna be supplied to us.

Like for the U.S.

Conference of Mayors, I don't know if I missed this when you were speaking.

How much is the actual I know you're saying it's under dues and subscriptions?

Is that full 24,417 make up the U.S.

Conference of Mayors, or is that just a portion?

Uh the U.S.

Conference of Mayors dues, the information I have is that the dues for this coming year is 11,442 dollars.

Okay, 11,000.

11,400.

Yeah, but as I just say that number one more time, sorry.

Yeah, sure.

The dues for U.S.

conference um, we just received the invoice uh in our office is 11,442 dollars.

Now, the remainder of U.S.

Conference of Mayors uh expenditures that we budget for have to do with travel and lodging.

And what we try to do is capture, and I I talked about this at last year's budget uh session.

What we try to do is capture the entirety of the costs associated with participating in U.S.

conference of mayors.

Uh and so um we can give you a uh more detailed breakdown, but essentially it's dues plus any associated travel or lodging.

Uh and also there are um conference fees, there's sometimes fees for particular uh uh uh events that the U.S.

conference sponsors.

The mayor typically uh attends uh U.S.

conference has a annual meeting twice a year, uh winter meeting and a summer meeting, but the mayor also uh by virtue of his leadership position as one of the 14 trustees for U.S.

conference, uh he's he also attends leadership meetings which are scheduled uh throughout the year.

That I I'm not sure how many there are, but uh so in a typical year I would I would estimate the mayor may travel uh for four uh maybe five uh occasions related to U.S.

conference mayors uh activities.

What is the remaining 12,975 under dues and subscriptions?

Yeah, I would say the majority of that.

I'd have to look at it a little more closely, but the majority of that uh would be associated with with travel, and then there's also an item within dues and subscriptions for project management software that the mayor's office uses uh particularly uh with regard to uh permit streamlining uh initiative.

Um there's some other project management task management.

Uh it's principally used by Christina Conley.

Okay, so that's outside of the But that's part of that category.

All right.

So that amount, so outside of the other line item that's list travel, which is 27,700, that's outside of the dues and subscription for um U.S.

conference of mayors you're saying.

So that line item for travel of 27,000, that's for other travel.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

That's correct.

In-state travel, um, which is typically mileage reimbursement uh for the mayor as well as other staff were typically going to Boston to lobby uh for various uh um uh funding.

Uh I'll give you just a a short uh quick example.

Uh mayor recently uh um both the city planner, the mayor and myself uh met with the Secretary of Transportation to talk about funding and design for the Fairhaven Bridge for the development of the I-95 uh aqueduct project uh for both the replacement of the tower and the terminal at the airport, which are Mastodot uh projects.

So that's the kind of meeting that uh in-state travel uh with cover.

The mayor recently met with the governor and members of the delegation uh to discuss the replacement of courthouse here in New Bedford, which is a longtime uh priority of the trial court.

Um just another example, we met last spring with the Secretary of Economic Development, uh, the Acting Secretary Ashley Stolba to talk about funding um for the advanced manufacturing campus through a mass works grant.

So that was last spring.

But those are the those are the kinds of we believe me, we would much prefer to do these Zoom calls, but sometimes as Zoom calls, but sometimes it makes sense to be in the room, particularly with principals like uh cabinet secretaries to talk about New Bedford priorities.

So that's what the in-state travel uh item is for.

Okay.

Um I guess my last question um is obviously in regards to the fact that we've consolidated departments uh to downsize and we're asking obviously department heads to do less with more.

Um, do I say oh yeah, sorry, more with less.

Sorry, thank you for that.

More for thank you.

Yeah.

So my question to you, to be very blunt, why do we need two chiefs of staff?

Okay, so the mayor's office does not have two chiefs of staff.

As you know, throughout city government, there are occasions where people may use the same grade and step, and loosely the positions uh have the same level of responsibility.

If you look at our job descriptions, they will differ from time to time.

Uh the other position in our office is held by Christina Conley, which is the chief operating officer.

I can talk a little bit about my role and what I do in the mayor's office if that's helpful.

Yes, please.

Talk about uh Christina's role uh as well.

So as COO, Christina is tasked with overseeing and coordinating uh the majority of operating departments, uh the large departments, principally DPI and DFFM, uh, but also parks, uh, all the work that we're doing around health and human services, uh, libraries, veterans, uh, most of the departments, uh, line departments are overseeing and uh you know there is nothing in the code that assigns uh the COO this responsibility, but the way we're structured is that the COO offers it acts as a liaison to the departments and facilitates communication and coordination between the mayor and department heads.

The mayor has, depending on how you count the departmental units, has upwards nearly 20, maybe uh a little bit larger than that, direct reports.

No one, if they were running a private company would design a company in which the CEO has 24 direct reports, right?

The charter establishes that structure because it has been modified back to the principally we have a charter from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, where new departments and new functions are added, and the simplest approach is to make them report as a department head to the mayor.

We've attempted to address some of that uh undue sort of uh that really steep pyramid that we have, or actually very broad pyramid that we have as a city government by establishing, for example, with finance departments.

The mayor establishes the CFO's office.

That CFO has direct reports from the finance team.

I think there are five uh departments that report now to the CFO.

Previously they reported directly to the to the mayor.

So in the case of Christina's role, uh she plays that same sort of interface function uh for a number of the operating uh departments.

Print but again, principally the largest operating departments being D FFM and DPI uh as what as well as health.

Uh in terms of in terms of my role, um, you know, I I I uh I often say I try to be the the as counselors know I try to be the grease in the wheels uh for the mayor's office and its interactions broadly with everyone in in uh city government.

Uh but I do spend up uh by necessity focusing as the liaison to the three principal uh uh functions in the mayor's office uh as they relate to legal.

So I spent a lot of time with the city solicitor uh with Bob in the CFO's office, the finance uh uh function, and as well personnel.

Jose and I spent a lot of time uh together as well.

So uh I play that role as the as the liaison to those three critical functions, legal, finance, and personnel.

Beyond that, uh I describe some of our interactions with state and federal government that I'm involved with.

I function essentially as the intergovernment affairs point person uh in interacting with other localities as well as state and federal government.

Um I also oversee communications in the mayor's office.

Um I supervise John Darling as the state's uh as the city's public information officer.

So that means social media, traditional media, as well as public records requests that uh are elevated.

They typically come from media organizations elevated into the mayor's office as well, so there's some coordination around how to handle those public records.

Uh beyond that, uh obviously as a mayor's office we have a robust constituent uh services capacity.

Uh Sylvia uh DeSilva functions as the director of constituent services.

I oversee uh her work in interacting with residents that need a uh uh assistance.

Uh and as well, we talked about uh the mayor's special assistant, which provides scheduling and personal support uh for the mayor.

That's Melissa Sears in our office.

Um I oversee uh Melissa.

Beyond that, I broadly are involved with economic development.

The council have come to you a number of times working on the advanced manufacturing campus and uh um and other economic development uh initiatives um involved with the TIFF process.

Uh and then finally to just sum up uh on the liaison to the airport as well as the port authority.

So uh there's a reason why my car is here most nights.

Uh I'm in competition with with Danny Romanowitz.

Uh but that's but that's that's the overall review of what I do uh versus Christina.

Yeah, is that yes?

Did I go on too long?

Is that too much?

No, that was great.

Uh so it's so you helped summarize that you and Christina are the middleman for the mayor, uh, and he is the figurehead uh who smiles and waves and parades.

No, we're all very aware, counselor, of who the boss is, and the mayor calls the shots and we support the mayor.

Uh I don't think he's a figurehead mayor.

Um I'm asking these questions in full transparency because I know the boss man, as you pointed out, the mayor uh will be mystified and confused when we submit our cuts and say there was no debate, there was no discussion.

We're having a discussion right now, uh Neil.

Um this is a concern for me because as you pointed out, uh the oversight that obviously Christina has, which I do appreciate both of you and the work that you do for the city.

Uh I'm not trying to downplay that at all.

Um, but what I will point out is that I didn't even know who you were initially when I became a counselor.

Christina Connolly was the first person who introduced herself here.

And for me, it's really hard for me to see directors be laid off, the director of community services, director of uh parks and recreation, uh, whether or not they were going to retire, but their positions completely eliminated and then justify her overseeing these departments that are now being consolidated.

I just don't see how we can justify saying, oh, these people at the top are gonna oversee these little people that we're firing in a time where we're trying to crunch these numbers.

It's just very hard for me to see why we need two people uh to do this this position at this time.

Well, we we tried to address precisely that question.

I think it's a uh a fair one.

In the mayor's office narrative, uh you know, we made a reference to the challenges we're facing in this transition this year.

Uh there are going to be growing pains uh as departments consolidate, as departments find they're making do with less across city government.

And you know, I the view from the mayor's office is that it is going to be incumbent on the staff to support those departments.

It is more critical than ever that folks like Christina and I are around just as as you know, as Stephanie described earlier in her role supporting her divisions now, uh, that's a really in important and precise way of talking about the job that she does.

And it's the same way that Christina and I approach our jobs.

We need to support our departments, we need to support the staff in those departments so that uh New Bedford doesn't miss a beat.

This is going to be hard on everybody.

Uh and the reason that there were not personnel reductions, there was an equivalent of a personnel reduction, as I talked about that $67,000 in savings.

But the reason that we didn't reduce uh personnel in the mayor's office is that we need the staff in the mayor's office to step up and support all those departments and the staff that are going to be uh uh you know adjusting in significant ways uh to a new reality of of uh the way they do their work uh this year.

And that's that's why we did what we did.

Wonderful.

Uh just because the question has been asked multiple times uh for our call counselor at large colleague, uh the Biden infrastructure bill.

I know that's been asked multiple times.

I thought the research would have been done.

So just for the mayor's office for you all, um 24 million for Leonard's Wharf from the Biden Harris infrastructure bill when the Federal Government used to give us money in $73 million for the Harbor Superfund cleanup.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh counselor good evening.

Thank you, Councilor Burgo, for a lot of those questions you asked the ones I was dying to ask.

But also, I I I I just kind of want to backtrack here, m Mr.

Mello.

Um the mayor has a chief of staff.

And you.

The mayor has a chief operations officer and Christina.

The mayor has a uh public relations individual officer and Mr.

Darling.

The mayor has constituent service officer or constituent services person, director.

And then, of course, by extension, but not in the department, the CFO.

So I'm gonna ask you a question, and you may laugh, but I it's a serious question that I bet a lot of people are asking on the TV who watch this.

What does the mayor do?

What does the mayor do?

I there's a lot of redundancy here.

I know you're grinning, but I I mean, like you guys are literally I could combine you and Christina and and Sylvia and uh John Darling, and that's the mayor.

I mean, like, isn't that what a mayor is supposed to do?

Wait, what does he do?

I mean, I know he goes to the mass ma uh the mass municipal stuff and uh and uh you know he's definitely you know cuts ribbons and everything, but what does he what does he do?

Uh well I will start by saying uh you know I made light of the fact that Danny Romanowitz and I are usually in a competition for which car leaves last from City Hall uh at the end of the night.

But what I what uh you know on a more serious note, what I will tell you uh is that the hours the mayor's keeps uh both in City Hall and being in the community far surpass the number of hours I put in the or Christina or anybody in the mayor's office puts in uh in in a given week.

Uh I think the important thing uh to recognize about the mayor's role uh is that the mayor is not just the CEO of city government.

Uh he has responsibility for the organization, but he has also responsibility for the city writ large for the community and its residents.

Uh and so that is a job that is far afield from uh the way that Christina or myself or any other staff uh approach their work, right?

We are primarily I mentioned, you know, I'm involved with intergovernmental affairs, and yes, there's a there's some some uh advocacy.

And I don't be offended.

I'm not it's not an indictment on you.

I don't know.

No, no, no, but that well, I think.

I think you do more than the mayor personally.

No, no, well, I do what could Christina does, pale in comparison to the number of hours um that the mayor puts in in any given uh week.

Um honestly, um I don't know that uh as hard as I work uh that I would have the stamina uh and the gumption to perform at the level that he uh uh performs at you know week in and week out.

So I think um uh look, I I think there are a lot of folks uh both residents and at home and amongst folks in city government.

Um that um, you know, I I think it's a challenge to understand uh what leading a community like New Bedford requires uh uh of someone.

And so I don't fault anyone that says I don't really know what he's how he's spending this time or what he does or what any of us do.

Um but you know, I I offer this in all earnestness and in candor.

Uh you know, I have a great deal of respect for the mayor.

I think the entire staff does, uh, and part of that is borne by seeing day in and day out you know, how hard he he he he works.

Uh counselor, I you know, we all come in for an uh eight o'clock, eight thirty staff meeting, right?

I've had probably a Sunday afternoon to recover from the previous week or so, and I come in and ready to hit the ground running at 8.30.

The mayor's probably been doing events all weekend uh and has been on the phone with other elected officials um throughout the weekend.

He comes in with a long to-do list uh hit to hit the ground running and tasks for us to do on Monday mornings.

So I know what he's been doing every weekend, and then I think the city solicitor and Bob Edstrom and any of the principals that uh interact with the mayor are getting calls at all hours of the day, weekend, week weekday.

Um, and uh that's just the the reality of the way he he tries to lead the city and uh we do our best to support him in that.

So that's that's what I think of that issue.

Okay.

Um and then uh just as a follow-up question.

And again, I didn't really I wasn't even going to bring these things up until you know this whole issue with the station closing.

So the obviously, yeah, you know, uh this has a lot to do with it because now we are gonna potentially lose firemen and you know in the station.

So if every department is tightening their belt, why are you guys still at a six-person department when a community similar size like Fall River only has four.

Um, are you guys willing to take that advice and and and downsize your department?

Well, look, I I think there are, you know, in the 14 years that I've been in pos this position, I've had the uh opportunity to talk to lots of other staff that are operating in other mayor's offices across the state.

Uh I can tell you there is there is no common denominator.

I think that mayors and their communities uh develop sort of a fit for how the mayor's office needs to function and what capacities and staffing that it needs.

Um, and if it works for them, that's great.

What I can tell you is what works for New Bedford uh is the way that we have been operating over the last 14 years.

It doesn't work, sir.

Look at where we're well, the the the mayor's record speaks to that.

Okay.

This this there's a reason the city is uh had its highest bond rating um in its history.

There's a reason that we have to the the counselor's point uh a PDIP grant on the waterfront for 24 million for actually it's a 40 million dollar project, right?

Uh but there's a reason that we've been able to put in a billion dollars worth of infrastructure, and that's because of the mayor's advocacy and the work that we do in the mayor's office.

There's a reason that we've been able as an organization to continue to perform down a hundred positions from where we were when the mayor first took office uh on the heels of the the Great Recession, um, and still as a city government execute at a high level.

I mean, there are folks in other municipalities that look to the leadership in New Bedford and the way that the executive team here executes.

Uh and this is, yeah, if it sounds like a little bit of of pattering ourselves on the back, yeah, maybe there is a little bit, but I am very proud of the way the mayor's office functions.

I'm proud of the CFO's office, I'm proud of the solicitor's office.

Other communities look to the way we function and seek to emulate it.

All I will say is we have got a 32 million dollar deficit, and you guys are about to close a fire station that will affect 30,000 constituents.

That is not something to be proud of.

And I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

I yield, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Counselor Carney.

Yes.

So um just a little baffled here about you know, I hear my colleagues ask what the mayor does.

So I want you to look at these these 11 city counselors.

Um so you know, we all have full-time jobs.

I myself get up at 4 30 in the morning, I leave my house at 6 30, and I'm at meetings all night too.

I attend functions on the weekends also.

So that's what I chose when I ran for city council, because I know that city council doesn't support my family on uh on that thing.

I'm doing it for for the city.

So for you to say there that the mayor does functions on the weekends and he's up there doing this and that.

We do the same thing, and we all maintain full-time jobs on top of all that.

So I'm not gonna I'm gonna pull up my little violin when you said that because look around.

We all work very hard at a jobs, and we are 40 hours and do a full-time job as public officials and answering calls.

I know I answer calls at 10 o'clock.

I and I re send back my texts late at night because I don't want to call people, but we all do the same thing.

So that was just the point of information.

So no v no uh violins for me.

Thanks.

Very fair, counselor.

I have tremendous respect for you and the other members of the council.

I mean, we talk at all hours as well in the past as well.

You do what you need to do.

I have tremendous respect for that.

Uh you know, I don't want to diminish any of the counselors for the work that you do for the constituency or for the city.

No, I'm not seeing you degrading at things.

I'm just saying that you would you you you justifying with the meal when a couple of councils asked the question of this is what he does, and he's always doing this.

We do the same thing.

Thank you.

Um else for Neil?

From the chair.

Neil, yes or no question.

Does the mayor approve the classifications of employees?

The reclassification process, the workflow requires well, there's the JAQ.

I mean uh Jose can speak to this in a little more detail, but the workflow to change any personnel in that way position in that way requires upwards of I want to say six to nine signatures at least.

It's signed off by CFO's office, the auditor's office, the solicitor's office, the personnel office.

Um yes, the the mayor, in order to implement it, uh has to give the final set sign off.

So our office does do that, but uh this is not something that the mayor of his own accord sits and decides whether or not to change a position.

Uh it arrives with a recommendation from over a dozen uh half a dozen offices or so.

The mayor says yes or no at the end.

Legally he is required to to sign off on on that.

Yes.

Yes.

That's it's not not a trick question.

That's just a yes or no.

But it's not just the mayor, is my point.

Right.

It doesn't reach the mayor until everyone else is reviewed and made a recommendation.

I get that.

Okay.

So uh my point is just at the end of the day, yes, all these other departments see it, make recommendations up the chain.

The mayor still has final say.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yes.

Anyone else for Neil?

Councillor Roy.

Hi, Mr.

Mello.

Uh enhancements.

Did you guys have any enhancements that you put forward to yourself?

Um, we our office uh proposed no.

No anyone.

No, how come?

Uh we feel like we're functioning just fine with the funding that we we have in place already.

There's no need to increase.

We we we've been looking for occasions over a number of budget cycles to actually reduce, particularly non-personnel costs.

So arts and culture events and city functions, those items actually have come well down from where they were several years uh several years back, I would say in the range of 50 percent of what they used to be.

So we've been going in the other direction on non-personnel.

Also, I heard you mention earlier that your position um basically is in charge of the social media at the city, the the official city social media.

John the PIA.

Sean Darling, the public information officer, oversees the uh social media broadly and coordinates with other departments.

I supervise John's work.

So you approve the posts that go out on the city social media before.

I don't personally.

I mean, I offer advice.

I support John, but no, I don't sign off on every book.

No.

All right, thank you.

That's his job.

Thanks.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

All right, thank you, Neil.

Right.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you, Councillors.

And last but not least tonight, I would like to call up Jose Govea.

For labor relations in our budget books on page 81.

Jose, if you could uh give us a brief overview of your budget before us.

Good evening, everyone.

I guess I've never been so popular that today.

It's not always a bad thing.

I think it's a good thing.

But I think it would make sense in a lot of what I was hearing today, and then the questions.

Um I will split this into two parts.

One, I'll go over my budget, and then two, I'm I'm taking mental notes of some of the questions that were asked, and I try to go back from the last one to the very first one and answer those as much as I can.

And then open up to any further questions that you may have.

How does that sound?

Good?

All right.

So um in terms of human resources, labor relations.

We we have done quite a few things uh in terms of what what needs to be done that's different, that is a gap that we need to close that gap.

But it stems from several parts that we have in here from administration and finance and finance piece, compensation and benefits, and I'll go a little bit more into details into that, recruiting and training.

Then there's a regulatory and compliance.

I'll touch upon that on one of the questions that was asked as far as compensation.

I think it's important.

And also the employee engagement piece as well.

Debbie said, in the last, I would say 14, 16 months, but in the last or current year, we picked up quite a bit more in the department that we did not do before.

Retirement support, uh part of the retirement board, they may retired, so we picked up uh all the work that she was doing.

Training and development have done this quite a bit more than what has done in the past directly from the personnel department.

A lot of auditing, some of the ordering has become um points of discussions within the city from the health, from the from the life insurance, wellness and engagement.

So all those things are things that besides of the day-to-day activity, those have been part of of what the HR department has done.

There's quite a few accomplishments there.

Um but if I were to go into all the detail, I don't think I will have enough time to answer some of the questions.

So I am very proud with with the support that the team has provided.

I am very proud of the with the work from department heads, the administration supporting this, because at the end of the day, our goal remains the same as a department.

Provide the service that employees need so we all can collectively support better the constituents.

That being said, as far as the budget, um my budget is is not a budget that is complicated.

I don't have a PNL, but it's a budget that that stems from a few different areas.

Of course, there's the the personnel services there.

There's part of the 200 in there as well.

And as you may see, I am on page 83.

Um, as you may see, there's a slight decrease there in terms of what the proposed budget for for 2027 is.

If you don't mind turning to page to 84, you will see that there's a decrease on item employment benefits and expensions.

So that is one that has a uh a good decrease there on that.

What does that mean?

We did not reduce the services.

What we have done is renegotiated the services provided.

How do we go about that?

One of them has to do with EAP program, and we took a look at the utilization report, what was used about it, what was not used about it that we were paying for, and we're able to renegotiate for this year, take a look at what was significant for the employees, take a look at what truly mattered to a system, and then put a new contract in place.

The other items have not changed that significantly, as you can see.

And then if you go into what is the proposed for the budget, it's less than what it was for last year.

That being said, on the very last base page 85, when it comes to the full-time positions, those positions have not changed.

You will see in that one that was 503, and then with the proposed reductions of unicollas, um unity steps and uh the vacancy reserve of 0.5.

That's the ultimate number that we're gonna be working with.

So from a budget standpoint, let me pause that for a moment.

Any specific questions.

No?

Okay.

So if there is, please please.

No, we're gonna we'll we'll ask questions at the end.

So he'll let him finish presenting and then we'll go through that's gonna that's that's more appropriate.

Thank you, Jose.

Go ahead.

Not a problem.

Do you mind if I go into the questions sections?

That was some questions presented by the council, then go over those as well, or do you want to continue on the budget in case there's anything else I need to bring on.

Do you have more to present on the budget?

No.

Okay.

Yeah.

So if you wanted to answer some questions that were already asked, that's fine, and then we'll open it up to further questions.

Sure.

So let me go with the ones that I remember, uh, Council Borgo, the parks and recs, the M12 that you were referring to.

That happened in the summer of last year, uh, around the July.

And the reason for that was, and I'm going back in history, as I try to understand the full situation.

Parks and racks, and Christina, I may need your your uh memory lane.

It was somewhat created around 2012, and a lot of the positions were not were still classified under that time frame.

And with that has been more grants added to this.

Mary did a good job in creating a department that was performing an array of services to the community.

Um that being said, some of the positions were never fully qualified to what they were doing.

And I'm gonna go back to the compliance piece, that's the regulatory and compliance that the department does.

According to the wage act, we need to pay people accordingly for what they do.

What does that mean?

Also, not only for what they do, the skills that are required and the education that is required.

So Mary had three people on her team that needed to be upgraded as well.

And those are part of the six positions that you saw with the same name around the community connections or or you have a different title there, but three of them are from Parks and RACs.

They were M4s, and they were required to do a lot more dealing with grants.

You're talking about college degrees.

The M12, same for the parks and racks.

When someone had left the department, Mary experienced a little bit of a turnover.

Part of it was the pay was not in line to what was requested for them to do for the skills that were required.

When that person left, we took a look at that position of what support Mary really needed that she never really had, and that's why the M12 came about.

Now, the JDAE is a job description questionnaire in which we take a look at all those elements.

What is required out of the job, what is the job is is requesting now that the gap may exist in terms of the skills.

If the skills are there for the current people in those in those uh positions, then we need to pay them accordingly, and that's a classification that comes in.

On the process of the class of the of the class, that was a question with a yes or no answer if the mayor would approve that.

That's a combination of my department doing an assessment that is thorough, that is very factual in terms of even sometimes I ask for the resume of the current people.

Do they have anything above and beyond?

Do they have all the qualifications?

So that's one item.

Once that is done, from a funding standpoint, it is partnership with uh with the CFO's office, and then it follows the process to be approved all the way through.

Approved by who?

So there's a portion for from my side in terms of the uh JDQ approves this position to be at this level.

That's one thing.

Director Gove, I just want you to reiterate the fact that the head person in charge is who?

Who oversees the entire city of New Bedford?

Who is the head boss in charge of the city of New Bedford?

That's the mayor.

Thank you.

And so at the end of the day, it moves through a chain of command, which has been detailed.

We finally got his chief of staff to finally say, yes, the mayor proves, which is common knowledge.

That's what I asked him.

And he's like, oh, well, no, the mayor, whatever nonsense he said.

But I'm glad you finally came up here and said, yes, the mayor is the we all know nothing goes through without Jonathan say so.

Jonathan F.

Mitchell.

He has to say yes or no.

No one bats an eye in this damn place unless he says yes or no.

We all know that.

Um, which is why again, I asked the question: why do we need two chiefs of staff unless they're the middleman to come and hold up a paper and say yes or no?

Okay, yes or no.

Uh going back really quickly.

Um, we're not gonna I'm just gonna do a QA with you instead of you going through the list of trying to remember what we asked you.

Going back uh to the parks and recreation thing that you were asking about.

I'm really shocked that you're saying you're doing these reclassifications in the middle of a fiscal year when we as the legislative branch that have control over the purse strings, we adopt a budget based on a 100 account that has salaries and wages for seven positions in this case under parks and recreations.

There's six positions here from uh FY26, and I understand your explanation of saying they're heading over to Health and Human Services, and they're gonna be doing uh things that require a college degree and uh financial experience and what have you that the M4 position they previously held, they they qualify for that M12.

I get all that, but my question that doesn't make sense is there's six positions from Parks and Recs that supposedly went over to Health and Human Services, but they are not in listed in Health and Human Services, they're not there.

That's director of recreation and parks, which we know was eliminated.

That director's gone.

Administrative coordinator, those two positions, that that title of an M5 administrative quarter, gone.

That is not listed in under health and human service.

That title is not there.

Recreation and parks manager, M4, not listed anywhere in this uh FY27.

Assistant project manager, M4, nowhere in this budget is does that exist.

Administrative assistant, M2, nowhere does that exist.

The only position that carried over, as far as we understand, office assistant three, grade E.

And my question that I hope that you'll get to us.

This was a ask me employee, grade E in the fiscal year 26 budget at 43,000.

Now they're budgeted at 41,000.

Is this a new employee, or did we?

Okay, that's good to know.

And the difference was between the steps from the previous one versus the one starting at step one.

Okay.

I'm hoping we will get a breakdown.

I know the President uh Pereira has requested.

I don't know if we'll get it, because we haven't got anything else from this administration.

They've been hiding everything in this budget.

Uh, the even the appendix that we received again this today, um, doesn't even have the full purchase and service.

Um, I think it only has the purchase and services uh breakdown, but not the full uh contractual services information.

Um but so I don't even know if we'll get everything else that we need again, just for the general public to understand, we don't get all this information.

All these meetings that they they like to trot out and say they have with us, they don't tell us anything.

And again, this is not directed at you, directors.

No worries.

I apologize that you're the one standing up there.

Um the other concern I had that I'm hoping you can give us more information on, not at this moment, because you were not prepared to speak on this, but it was uh the community relations specialist position, which previously was only known, uh really was held by two people in the city.

It was there was three positions, one was vacant, I'm pretty sure.

Uh two in the police department, one and one was vacant, and then one in community services for a total of three community service uh excuse me, community relations specialist position.

That is now six total.

So we've created or reclassified three positions, and so again, this is the trend that we're seeing again in the assessor's office, though that to me are all enhancements that we that weren't listed.

Uh you know, we always get the sheet, and the mayor will say it's very detailed, and the council doesn't read their paperwork.

I read the paperwork.

Go look online, hit control F and do all the things that you want to do.

And I'm sure the mayor will have some cute retort about it, but it lists no enhancements for the assessor's office.

And again, the assessor's office does amazing work and they've had a great turnaround.

And I think that sure everyone deserves a raise, but in an a fiscal year where we're closing fire stations, cutting from our education, and laying 90% well, 37 actual physical people, but 94 positions.

Why would we be reclassifying people and giving them raises in a department?

And I specify the assessors.

There's there's other areas, but that was the first one tonight, obviously, that I was able to realize was an intact department, meaning there were no eliminations other than the one vacancy office assistant.

What was it?

Office assistant three or one.

But they changed positions, they reclassified people.

One person got a $15,000 raise from a grade, it was an M5 to an M9 from administrative coordinator to administrative manager.

And again, not to say they don't deserve it, but again, in a in a time frame like this, and I want to clarify again, although the mayor doesn't maybe initiate that, he has the final say.

He gets to approve this.

It's so anyway.

Please get us clarification on how that position materialized three uh new people there, and where these positions from parks and recreation uh transitioned over to since all of these titles no longer appear in this budget at all, similar to um the health department.

I guess why I did get my answer, I guess, from Director Sloan about the finance and operations manager.

I'm assuming that's she's she said to me that was what came over from parks and recreations.

But because previously the director of grants of finance was the M12.

Um but we have other issues here where the sanitarian, I want to know the seven sanitarians that we have listed, they were AFSME, union, grade G, but there was a reduction in the salary amount.

So I want to know if there was a new employee or are we reducing people's salaries, so or if there's new employees starting at a lower step.

I just want to make sure that we're not uh illegally reducing people's salary.

Same thing with the laboratory technician, that's a grade E.

They had a reduction there.

I want to know if that was that actual new employee.

Um because I just concerned about two, the implication that's there of did we lay people off to force them out to then replace them with uh people that are gonna be step one.

And that's my concern is I get hey, it's saving costs, but if that was the idea to have some cost savings with these AfSMEs employees, but then you go and reclassify unit C employees to give them a bump in their pay, outrageous.

So that's why I'm hoping you can shed some light on that for us, especially with B35 as well in office assistant one.

Okay, so let me go back again to list that you gave me and I appreciate it.

But I think it's important to clarify a couple of things, uh, Council Burgo.

You don't need to apologize.

I I will not take any questions or any comments personal.

This is not what we are talking about.

I think the goal remains the same.

What can we do under these circumstances?

And if I just may pause for a moment, we all realize that this situation is not easy for anyone.

This group included.

Everyone, everyone that's part of the city.

We get that, so no need to apologize.

I won't take it, I won't take it personal.

On the 35 B that you talked about, that means that the classification, I believe, was E35, correct?

Oh B35.

Yeah, that's the same grade, only that represents that person is assigned, or that position is assigned 35 hours versus the 40.

And that's just for us to know the difference, the difference.

You may also see some here and there that have a 37.5.

That means that position was assigned 37.5 hours.

Yes, it's just about the hours.

So we know and pay them accordingly.

So let me just go back, if I may, and and saying that from the view that you presented to everyone who was listening to this, that we are in a situation that we are today, yet we are promoting people.

I would I would have a different choice of words on that.

Not that I am correcting you, but is we are paying them accordingly.

That's one thing.

In terms of a classification, we have done some of the classifications.

Again, for the representation of what it deserved to be to be earning.

Again, for what you're also saying, there has been reductions of staff.

But at the same time, he also did your classification for FSME employees.

We also took a look at those.

And then when you are looking at the sanitarian, are you looking at the entire budget or per job?

Because they were reclassified, the entire budget.

Yeah, so unfortunately, because this administration does not do anything when it comes to transparency, they've grouped all seven together.

And we have not gotten a breakdown.

So I'm hoping you'll be able to provide me a breakdown.

But I know you have to run it up the flagpole and get permission to send us those things.

No, I th I think I I think I can provide that the FLECPODA you are referring to our present today.

So I think that's a good question.

Oh, good.

So I'll give you a head nod to give you permission to do that.

I think it can be a good idea.

Because I know it during the during the year when we contact the department heads, sometimes you'll get an email or a phone call from the COO or chief of staff notifying that we have to go through them before contacting you.

Not you in per se, I'm using the proverbial you as a department heads.

Understood.

Um just again, the middlemen or women, uh, the middle person.

Um again, just noting for people um why we don't need middlemen um in our city government.

So if you could uh I I'll put together an email just to make sure we don't miss any of these positions, because there's a lot of them that just are completely different titles, different names, and it's very confusing, especially for myself, and I'm sure it's very someone who's been looking at these budgets for years, and I'm sure for some of our new colleagues and the general public, and it's it's ridiculous.

And I'd appreciate you know, I have to get it back to us right away, but as soon as possible, clearer understanding um of where all of the new positions are that have suddenly be uh have been reclassified.

And again, I appreciate your remarks about wanting to pay people for the work that they're doing, and I again I understand that, but tell that to the individuals that don't have a job come the end of this fiscal year, that have given years of service to our city.

It is difficult.

I I I recognize that.

I I and I think out of all the departments that have suffered some of these changes with their own teams.

It's difficult for the department heads, it's difficult for the administration, it's difficult for all of us.

Uh what being head of human resources, if I were to say that would not bother me in my department, that's that's a very uh understatement.

Not that you said it, but I'm just saying lately that's what we have done.

We have tried to keep people calm, we have understand the situation, we understand the challenges that are coming ahead.

We understand that this is not easy.

That that that's something that I think I don't need to justify here.

I think that's that's well understood.

Would you agree?

No, I wouldn't agree.

I wouldn't agree at all with that.

And I I agree, I agree that you department heads have an impossible task having to stump for this administration.

Um again, I think it I keep apologizing on behalf of the city of New Bedford, um, that you have such a a difficult job.

Um, and really to the people of New Bedford that continue to pay high taxes for reduction in services.

Um that's what's difficult for me.

Um, I don't agree with how this administration manages their budget or their staffing.

Um so no, but again, thank you.

Um you'll get an email of all the positions I want classifications on, uh or clarifications on.

Um that's all for me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councillor Carney.

Yes, thank you.

I'm gonna contact him.

That was it.

My question is about the budget that he presented before.

Uh I'll I'll call him in his office.

Thank you.

Huh.

I can ask whatever question you'd like, Council, if you want to ask.

Yeah, no, no, I I'll I'll ask him later.

No, it's it's no big deal.

I just no, I I'll call him.

Thanks.

Okay.

Councillor Gomes.

Am I up?

Yes, sir.

Thank you very much, Mr.

President.

And um, um I'm just gonna say I appreciate um the respect for every colleague in this room.

Because nobody's smarter than anybody else to laugh at any other colleague.

Now I got that off my chest.

Let me tell you something about this budget.

This budget book, you see how thin it is.

I'm gonna dig out some old budget books.

I'm gonna give co give it to Councillor Burgle so he can see exactly what he's talking about tonight, how things have been broken down, how things were broken down in this city, broken down to how many personnel were in a department, what they got paid, who what functions they did, and everything.

That had during this administration, that has been taken away from us.

And we get this uh I don't know, sweet story.

Um I don't want to be a wise guy, so I'm not gonna be because I'm in the mood to be a wise guy, and I have my reasons, and that has nothing to do with you, sir.

But this budget this budget does not tell us what it should tell us.

And we have to go digging in this budget where we never had to do that before.

We had everything in front of us.

Matter of fact, what we did was sit here for hours into the we hours of the night questioning every department, line by line to get an explanation for everything that we have to dig for that now.

And I don't appreciate it.

I don't appreciate it.

And it's not meant to you.

It's sent to the administration.

It's been cleverly done.

It's been cleverly done that we can't see everything that we used to see.

And that's very interesting.

That that to me is very interesting.

So I thank you, Mr.

President.

I know I'm out of line again, but uh no, don't wave your hand.

Tell me I'm out of line.

You're the man, right?

And you got your troops out here, right?

When you cross the line, uh I'll say something.

When I cross the line, I hope you don't.

Okay.

Thank you, counselor.

Anyone else?

From the chair.

Uh I know Councillor Burgo is going to send you an email, but I'd like to make a formal request right now.

I want every reclassification that occurred in the last fiscal year.

Every position reclassification.

I think that was that was something that would come from Bergware as well, correct?

I imagine, but I think it's going to be a good one.

But I want every single one.

And I put an explanation as to why the approach.

Okay?

Great.

I gladly did that.

Thank you.

All right.

Council Roy.

Did you ask for any enhancements to the budget to your budget this year?

Are you going to help me with those?

But yes.

Did you?

I did.

I did.

Where were they?

So one of them actually is on page 81.

There's a position that is as public records, but this is more of an HR generalist role.

And then I was hoping to keep that position.

I have that on the ARPA and it's ending by the end of December.

And uh our department, something that history that you may or may not have has been on size several years ago, but we are a group of of um seven people here, eight people here, and that was one that I really need that that assistance with.

As I stated earlier, there's quite a bit of responsibility that my department has picked up.

And we are trying to do as much as we can.

So not having that person beyond the December, that will be detrimental.

I think you recognize that's one enhancement.

I think you recognize that with all that we have going on, it will it will really hinder the services that we provide.

That's one.

The other one was about 30,000.

That would have been for the onboarding process, making the onboarding a little bit more uh effective.

And that would be on the materials that will be some of the things that we want to use, an enhancement is potentially some of the tools that we have.

It is super important to welcome the talent to come in because I truly believe, and if I would say the most of the department has that I've talked about this, when do you have a good onboarding program?

We have greater chances, almost 50 percent chances that you'll be more successful all the way through.

It starts with that effectiveness.

And that's part of that was the recruiting piece as well.

So that was combining to the 30.

No enhancement this year, and those two unfortunately did not go through.

So the those enhancements aren't reflected in the proposed budget.

No.

All right.

Thank you.

I'll say, Mr.

President.

Anyone else?

Okay.

Thank you.

Jose.

Uh Bob, uh, you wanted to say something.

Well, thank you, Mr.

President, for the opportunity.

Um, there's been some comments about the budget books tonight, and Councillor Gomez had raised some good points.

So I thought maybe I'd just give you a little um uh high level what we're trying to do with this budget book.

First and foremost, the real budget book we're trying to move to the digital format.

Uh that's why we paid a lot of money with open gov.

Last year you'll recall that that is not a very attractive uh budget presentation.

You you'll recall all the blue pages with the white lettering behind them.

I myself stood up here many nights with the budget about six inches from my face because I couldn't read it.

So what we've decided to do is to put money in the performance measurement things, the goals and objectives and how uh departments did in their last year.

We were pushing that to the online format so that we could give you a more concise budget book here.

Um with the fact that you can go online to look at performance measures if that's how you want to do it.

We only kept the very uh high-level uh pages here.

Each of the departments is designed to have a four or a six-page presentation.

That is somewhat comparable to the old budget books.

Uh you have to remember we stripped out the performance measures.

We also got rid of the very detail-oriented object codes, which was done about four or five years ago.

So certainly any counsel that wants to look at a budget book from ten years ago, or even maybe even more recently, maybe five, six years ago, you are gonna find more information in there.

You're gonna find a lot of individual account level totals.

We have a very overly detailed general ledger system that we're gonna fix.

For instance, I'll give you an example.

One of my favorite examples is in zoo.

Not only do we have uh food for uh animal food for as an object code, we have animal food hay, we have animal food meat, animal food fish.

These do not belong in any modern general ledger system.

And I'm stripped them out.

Those are commodities.

When you purchase when you purchase hay, you pick a commodity code for hay.

That is sub ledger.

That's not information that any system should be presenting.

We can produce that information later with with commodity code details, but that's not what you want to see in the general ledger system.

We've consolidated our object codes down to a few.

We give you something that no other municipality gives its counselors or any of its citizens, and no other prior budget in the city of New Bedford is giving you.

We give you a zero-based budget.

We only do it for the five-two accounts.

That's the purchase of service accounts.

So I know there was questions, I think uh Council Burgle, you may have raised them too, about other charges.

We have never aspired to try to do that kind of level.

We don't give zero-based budgets for supplies, and we don't give zero-based budgets for other travel, uh other expenses.

We can bring those on, but I can tell you right now, it's a it's been a big issue just getting the the uh the five two accounts, the the the um the uh purchase of service accounts on.

You'll notice in the ex in the exhibits that you have, you can see every single contract.

We stripped it down to just a thousand dollars or more, by the way.

The department heads presented us with everything.

It's just way too much data to present in a budget.

But I would challenge you all respectfully to find another budget in this Commonwealth of Massachusetts that breaks down and presents to you item by item contracts.

You see not only the account on the left-hand column that these lines are being charged to, you see the service being presented, you see the vendor that's intended to be uh paid for those services, you see the quantities, the units of measure, the unit prices and extended costs.

You really have everything you need for the 5.2 accounts.

We're not doing that for 5.4s.

It's very difficult to do a zero-based budget for say office supplies or any other kind of supplies.

You just simply don't know uh every individual piece of paper that you're gonna purchase for the year.

So those are by intent left out.

The f the five-seven accounts, that might be the next frontier, but that again is another lift.

Um many departments do not know where they're gonna travel next year.

They simply wanna have an allotment for travel so that they can attend a conference that comes up as uh as the need arises.

Uh they don't know the location, they don't know the hotel costs, they don't know the registration fees, they don't know that information.

That's kind of like why we really don't present a zero-based budget for those line items.

Uh there are some good questions with dues and subscriptions.

That was an account that we used to have in our five-two's, but the uniform Massachusetts accounting system requires us to code that as a five-seven, so we don't identify that.

Um but other than that line item, you're getting all the itemization that we can offer you right now.

So, I mean, I do uh understand that everybody has different ideas on what they want to see in a budget book.

We're trying to give you the probably the um the common denominator here, the things that you most would need in order to uh to decide on the budget.

Uh again, if you do want to see performance measures and goals that were set from last year and how they were met, these are really non-financial statistics.

This they're more about operations.

I respectfully like to refer you to the digital budget book.

We can present those same budgets in a hard copy format, but it's going to have to be from open gov because that is the solution of choice now.

So you get with open gov what you get, and which means it's it's a it's a digital tool.

It's not a hard copy tool, and that's why we stripped it out this year.

So my apologies for any conveniences or um lack of uh any confusion that that may have caused, but I was hoping to come up here and at least explain it to you.

I'm happy taking questions or certainly happy listening to complaints because I I mean I want to try to make this as useful of a tool as possible.

Councilor Burgo.

Thank you so much.

So just to summarize, Bob, you were able to do it for us last year, but can't do it this year.

Um no council counselor, but what was I the contractual what I'm looking for for the breakdowns?

For example, the U.S.

Conference of Mayors and MMA uh dues and subscriptions, something as simple as that, the 24,700, whatever that 24417.

Just something as simple as that.

That was the only thing missing from that appendix.

We can get the mayor's office.

That's fine, Bob.

I know you can.

But it wasn't supplied this year.

It was last year, though.

That's the only reason why I knew to look for it this year.

And then one second, Bob.

I'm just trying to make a point here.

And then Counselor Kearney brought up the fact in uh this combined department, Health and Human Services, the 1.4 million dollars.

1.4 million dollars.

That's not just a tiny little line item that needs to be broken.

You know, so again, I I appreciate the work that your office does because you're right.

Other like in the past, like when I was a freshman counselor, we didn't have that level of breakdown.

So that's why last year, when we had that level of a breakdown, I appreciate it because you know why.

Mayor Mitchell, when we were making cuts to purchase of services and contractual services lines, criticized us because they don't know what they're cutting.

And even when we question people about well, what what is this dudes and subscriptions?

What is this travel for?

What is this uh amount of money for?

Oh, this seems exorbitant, this increase here and there, and we got vague answers.

We thought, okay, well, it must not be that important, and then we cut, and then we'd get blasted.

Oh, well, they cut this, and it's actually for this.

Well, you never said that.

And that's why last year we got that detailed budget.

And now this year we're getting this garbage.

And so again, I appreciate the work that the finance office does doing more with less.

I got it right this time.

Uh but please send us the electronic copy.

I am very tech savvy.

I will figure out how to look at whatever I need to look at and open uh govs.

Send that to me, I will make it work.

I will even print it for uh my colleague here that has a harder time looking at electronics.

I know she's gonna mention that.

But please save your speech about oh, we're better than every other uh municipality that doesn't offer it.

What other you know, I'm worried about New Bedford.

Because when things are going good here, we love to trot that.

Oh, well, New Bedford's great.

And then when everything's going bad, oh well, look at how this other place.

I'm tired of hearing that nonsense.

So again, thank you, Bob.

Thank you, Sharon.

But enough.

Send us whatever electronic thing we need to to uh to pull it ourselves and I'll pull it.

Or don't send it to me directly.

Send it uh we're supposed to, Mr.

President, through the clerk's office or what have you, and then I'll do it, okay?

Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you, Counselor.

Counselor Gomes.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Yes, I appreciate that.

How big is the print on that, by the way, Bob?

Too small for my eyes, Councillor Goles.

Yeah, too small for my eyes.

That's basically what I'm seeing.

So um, whatever you're gonna send us, I hope that we can see it.

Well, see, one thing answers the other, though, right?

Is the fund is small because we're trying to fit so much on it.

If you take a look at those exhibits that we sent today, I can tell you it said 70%.

Okay, and that's the only way we could fit eight columns worth of data.

So I can give up some of the data.

I've got to go buy uh um fine glass to uh read your which you you produce into me.

Yeah, I can cut that down, but I'd have to give up some columns that I'm presenting.

And I chose that No, we don't want you to do that.

That would be extra money for the paper or whatever the heck it is.

No, not if we go digital.

Yeah.

Thanks, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Anyone else Councilor Carney?

Um just um somebody from is not that computer savvy.

Maybe if you run it the other way, the landscape version, you can put all those columns on there.

Give it a list of bigger font, and just give us a few more pages.

Instead of doing and say don't do it this way because when I can't read my spreadsheets, I turn them the other way and I make the font bigger, and then I can read them.

If if the council prefers that, you're just gonna go from portrait to landscape back and forth a lot.

But if you don't mind a taboo for me, it's gonna give us more pages, but at least we'll be able to read it.

I mean, I can read this font right here.

I mean it's it's small, but it's readable.

So that's that's not initial.

I'm talking about what Councilor Burgo has asked you to give us, and you said it's so small that's very hard for your eyes to see on the computer.

The in what is it?

Well, my my eyes are pretty tired these days.

But uh, but I'm saying if we landscape it versus Yes, we can fit all the you can put all the columns on there.

We could do that as long as you can.

And I'm not an IT person, just so you know.

I'm sorry?

Thanks.

Yeah, it's just again, it's just portrait landscape, portrait, landscape, something that I'm kind of loathed to do myself.

But yeah, if we did the landscaping, then we'd be able to get everything on there and the columns on there, and it wouldn't be so tiny.

And I am not gonna be able to give you much detail on veterans.

The veterans comes from uh director Gomes, and he has no idea whose beneficiaries would be.

He's never seen any detail on veterans before.

It's a line item every year.

Yeah, yeah, I know, but I I I'm with Council Gomes.

Um I've been sitting here for a long time, and I had no problems in the years past going through my budgets, going to the line items and asking the right questions.

Now it's all grouped in.

And when we get something, the day of, like all those pages for contractual services, that's not fair to us because I'm trying to read that and listen to the presenter and trying to keep up on the next one so I can ask a question.

So okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

All right.

Thank you.

All right, everyone.

Thank you very much for this budget hearing.

It is 9 p.m.

and I appreciate everyone for uh coming out.

We'll see you at the next one.