The New Bedford City Council held its fourth budget hearing on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, at 6:00 PM. Vice President Burgo presided in the absence of Council President Ryan Pura, who submitted a letter noting his late arrival. The hearing reviewed proposed FY27 budgets for several departments: Purchasing, Resilience and Environmental Stewardship, City Utilities, Zoological Society, Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Inspectional Services, Auditor's Office, Treasurer's Office, Debt Service, and the Airport Enterprise Fund.
Hey, Ian. Ricky. Good evening. I want to note that this meeting is being live streamed and recorded. City Council and Committee meetings can be viewed on the City of New Bedford's homepage under quick links, then meetings. It is Wednesday, June 3rd, 2026, and it is 6 p.m. This is our third, I think, or fourth budget hearing. Fourth. Thank you, Bob. Fourth budget hearing. I have a letter. Dear Vice President Burgo, that's me and Honorable Members of the City Council. I'm writing to inform you that I expect to be late for tonight's budget hearing on Wednesday, June 3rd, due to a personal commitment. Please read this letter into the record to make my colleagues in the public aware of the reason for my delay. This is from our council president, Ryan Pura, hence why I'm sitting here. First on the docket tonight is our purchasing department. Director Gilfeather. Rodriguez. Good evening. Can you hear me? No. Now you can perfect. Thank you. Okay. Good evening. So sorry, on pages uh 123 to 127. Yep. The purchasing budget. We have no significant changes to our budget this year. Um no personnel increases. We are a team of five in my department. Four of us are paid out of the general fund, and we have one ARPA funded position. The only new expense that we're asking to fund is 3200 out of our 200 account for bid net, which is our online bidding platform. So all of the bid opportunities are posted there. Vendors submit their bids through that, and that has eliminated the need for any paper bids. It has really helped digitize our department and streamline operations. We have slightly reduced our 400 account supplies expenses and our employee training line in the 200 account to accommodate for the new bid net expense. So hopefully that's noticed. And we do have employee trainings in our 200 account, and I want to point out that those are mandated by the state to ensure that we are Massachusetts certified in procurement. And that allows us also to stay up to date in any advancements in procurement law. So that funding is very important to our department as well. And I just wanted to demonstrate you have our performance metrics in the book, of course. But something that's not captured there is the delta between uh for FY26 between the lowest bid received on construction projects and the second lowest bid. And the savings there this year alone is roughly $4 million. And the delta between the lowest bid and the highest bid is roughly five million dollars. So that really helps demonstrate um the importance of the public bidding process and some of the savings that we obtained through the public bidding process. I'd be happy to take any questions. Thank you. The chair recognizes Councilor Avery. Thank you very much, Mr.