I can ask I told you first I can read the only one.

Mr.

Clerk, you want to get back so you could call the role?

Mr.

Clerk, you ready?

I'm ready to go.

Thank you, Mr.

Clark.

Uh good evening, everyone.

I call to order the regular meeting of the committee on administrative finance and law and public services.

Time is six thirty-two.

Mr.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Thank you.

Chairman Alderman Sentel.

Alderman McDemair.

Here.

Alderman Santiago.

Alderman Barrero.

Alder Woman Dottie.

Alderman Gibson.

Alderman Smedley.

All the women Vargas is here as well.

Alder Women Barboza.

Did I get everybody?

You have a quorum, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

The first item on the agenda is item number three seven one three nine zero one to act upon a resolution regarding regarding the general fund budget for fiscal year two twenty twenty six twenty twenty-1 to the council with a mutual recommendation.

The motion is to make uh to refer the the uh resolution to um the item to the common council with a mutual recommendation second by all the women Barbosa.

Any um no we have some questions.

Any questions at this time?

No, not even going through each okay um going along the motion uh all in favor right no no this time at this time we call up the departments to make presentations and answer questions the first department is the mayor's office Miss Mary Proko any questions for Mary's Ms.

Mary Proko.

Good evening, thank you, Ms.

McCormick.

Go ahead.

Okay, so the budget we have less than a three percent increase um from last year's budget.

Um we have four positions and then we have um two vacant positions.

One was recently filled, and then we have another position that there are interviews um being conducted for any females?

Any questions?

All the women uh the learner.

Hi, hi.

Uh so what position was filled and what is vacant?

Uh the outreach coordinator and then the executive aid to the mayor is still vacant.

Um can you tell me too?

I have a question.

I don't know, maybe um I don't understand myself, but what's the difference between advertising and marketing?

Because you move them into one category.

Yeah, um I don't uh I would imagine marketing is more promoting, and um advertising to me is um different positions or so do we need to see that difference because instead of having two separate line items you combined it.

So how are we gonna know the difference?

Um I think that you can you're talking about the five fifty-five forty and fifty-five forty-one, the marketing and the advertising.

Yes.

Yeah, so I think I mean, even though if we combine them, then you can use that uh line item for either one for either marketing or advertising.

Right.

That's but that's my question.

I understand that it was combined.

It used to be two separate lines, it was combined.

So my question is how do we know are they gonna identify whether it's a marketing or advertising?

I don't think if if it's a combined line item, I don't think they have to.

I think either or could be applied to that line item.

And maybe they combined it, we combined them probably because they are so similar.

Point of information if I'm uh I'll depend uh make the mirror.

Well you notice in the descriptions of the budget actually uh marketing advertising are intertwined uh because uh the description combines them both.

I think it's a distinction without a difference, and I would note that the five thousand dollar marketing budget has been zeroed out, correct.

Right combined correct combined with uh one line, so I don't know how that came about about two lines all the women, but I think uh the corrections been made even though those two account numbers have been retained.

Well I have thank you.

Any other questions for Ms.

Prokorsky?

No.

See none of the next um the next the uh department is uh corporation counsel, Bill Rivera.

Any questions for attorney Rivera or Ms.

Prokorsky?

Okay, that's I'm sorry, present your budget.

Just present your budget, yeah.

All right.

Well, actually our our budget, as you have in front of you, I I assume, um, incorporates actually a reduction of uh one negative 1.24.

Um if you see if you look at the numbers, despite the fact that we're asking for two positions um which are incorporated in this budget, we're actually asking for less money than we did last year.

Any questions?

Go ahead.

All the questions.

Okay, I think it you mentioned here that again you're you zeroed out legal judgments and damage claims, and I believe that understand it to be um incorporated into legal services.

Is that right?

No, actually, I believe that those items are going to be in contingency.

I don't understand.

So the legal judgments you're saying and the damages claims.

Right.

875, 875, proposed zero zero.

Right, and my understanding is those amounts are going to be incorporated within the contingency part of the budget.

So, over here it says where did I see it?

Okay, legal services combined into one line item instead of separating between corporation counsel and damage claims.

Right.

So I believe originally there were two separate, there were damage claims and then there was a separate legal services.

So there were two legal services, one under the our budget, and then one under a damages claims line item.

So those have been combined.

But as far as the my understanding of the damages claims and the legal judgments, those are now included within contingency.

I'll have been back to member.

If I could interject another point of information uh on uh page uh 79 of the general fund budget that indeed is has occurred, and uh that line item and contingency has uh gone up 16% to 1.786 million uh to cover those expenses which are defined as uh set aside unbudgeted expenses for damage claims and pending contract negotiations, which with what was uh sort of uh fragmented into your previous budget.

That's correct.

Okay, that's all I have.

Any further questions?

Oh, I'd like to uh see uh other one um Scott.

Thank you.

Any further questions for you?

No, thank you.

The next uh for presentation to the next department is the department of uh town clerk, Miss Veronica Delandro, please.

Come out.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I'll just start with an overview and then I'll go over the um highlight some of the budget.

Uh so the town clerk's numerous responsibilities are governed by the state of Connecticut statutes and the New Britain charter uh and ordinances.

The town clerk also functions as the city clerk, the registrar of vital statistics, and the clerk of the common council, as you all know.

So these duties involve maintaining records of land ownership, vital statistics such as births, marriages, and deaths, election records, all city ordinances, charter, minutes and proceedings of common council, and commission meetings, trade names, maps, cemetery deeds, and military discharges.

Our office issues a variety of licenses, such as dog licenses starting in June, business licenses, etc.

We also play a vital role in elections, and we're the custodian of the city seal of the notaries public and a minister oaths.

So it is our goal to provide accurate and timely information and assist the public in obtaining access to town information and services.

Each town, each year, excuse me, we serve over 16,000 customers and process over 45,000 transactions that are walk-in, mail, express mail, or electronic.

We're excited to be able to launch an online dog license starting this year, dog license applications starting in June.

Just a few statistics and then I'll go over the budget overview.

For 2025, the town clerk's office statistics.

We s uh we recorded near we had nearly 20,000 land recordings, close to 1,500 birth certificates were issued, over 1,000 death certificates, almost 500 marriage licenses, over 2,000 burials and cremations, nearly 1400 dog licenses, and 400 absentee ballots.

So with the budget overview, I'll start by saying that the town clerk's department brings in millions of dollars in revenue to the city.

We're proposing an increase of over six percent in revenue and just less than 3,000 in expenses.

A full-time salary increase by 11,000, and that's due to contractual obligations, and due to the market increase, the price of real estate has gone up, and so have the convenience taxes.

Terms of staffing, we currently have a total of six full-time positions, including myself, no part-time positions, and we are down to a full-time staff.

We are in the process of working with HR and interviewing for an administrative town clerk, and we will work.

We will also look to uh post the position for the admin assistant one position so that all eight positions will be filled by the summer at this time.

I'll entertain any questions.

Thank you.

Any questions for Mr.

Landro?

Ms.

Um, I'm sorry, uh other woman Delernia.

Thank you.

So here I'm looking at eight positions.

Correct.

So I stated earlier that we currently have six full-time positions.

So there are two vacant positions.

Okay, two vacant, and are they full-time positions or part-time?

They're full-time.

All right, but I noticed in I notice in your summary of expenditures, it says part-time salaries are going from 14,000 to 7,000, 50% reduction.

Because we have no one no part-time positions, but we do want to keep that in the budget in the event that we do bring on someone part-time.

Is there a need for that?

Yes, there is.

So how come that wasn't added to the budget then?

What do you mean it wasn't added to the budget?

I mean, how come you don't note it here that you intend on hiring a part-time position?

Right now, the position, this is for this is full-time, so we were proposing eight full-time positions where we want to have budget money in the budget for part-time position, not that we'll be actively hiring for a part-time position.

Okay, and if you didn't, and if you didn't hire for that position, how would that affect the operation?

Well, no until we, you know, I will say do this with this being a then election year.

We will definitely need all hands on deck.

Okay.

Dues and fees, they went from zero to five hundred.

I know that's not a lot of money, but but who's um accessing those uh fees or memberships for the five hundred dollars and how many employees can you repeat?

I'm sorry, can you leave?

The dues and fees you're showing five hundred dollars.

I'm just curious who who is accessing that money to get um, it must be memberships for something.

Correct.

So we're all everyone on the staff is a member of the Connecticut Town of Council Association.

Actually, we'll be closed Tuesday, May 12th, so because we're required to attend a class at CCSU.

So there are courses that um we're required to take.

And everybody on staff takes it, yes.

Okay, okay.

All right, that's all I have.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Any further questions for Mr.

Lionel?

Thank you, Mr.

Langers.

See, none.

Okay, the next department is the Department of Public Works, Mr.

Mark Mori.

How's everyone?

Good thing.

Okay.

I have a couple things I handed out to you guys.

We hand it out to you.

Um we have a budget highlight sheets.

Shut highlight sheet.

First thing I'm gonna do is discover kind of the assets.

Some of you are newer to city council.

Um, and I'm just I do this probably once a year as much of a reminder to myself as to other people of what public works is in charge of.

This is just the assets that we do.

This isn't even include a lot of the services or work we perform, but are separate than the assets.

So Public Orchids is a large department.

Um we're in charge of the $60 million water treatment plant constructed in 2004.

That constantly needs a lot of work, 170 miles of streets around the city.

Um, it's a acres of parkland, including nine major parks and 24 satellite memorial parks.

Um, the equipment is probably off a couple, but because it does flu flux based on what goes into surplus, but about 350 vehicles, 143 pieces of large equipment, 320 pieces of small equipment, different parts of the year we're constantly maintaining them, seven reservoirs with a combined capacity of two point six billion gallons.

Our caretakers uh crew is maintains sixty three hundred of acres of watershed property.

A lot of that is beyond the city limits.

Um we have 3100 acres in Burlington.

Um, and it does require a fair amount of work to just manage that watershed property.

We have sixty-four traffic signals.

Most of those are beyond their their actual lifespan.

A lot of them are in very poor condition, and the price of traffic signals over the course of my career has gone from about 200,000 to 650,000 dollars now.

So it's become a very expensive asset.

Um we have over 20,000 tree signs and posts, two hundred and seventy-one miles of water main, maintain over 17,500 water customers and have meters associated with that.

652 fire hydrants, seven high hazard dams and eight bridges, like thousands and thousands of trees between parklands, street trees, um, trees on our watershed property.

We go over 15,000 annuals.

We just started planting those actually for this year.

We have 39 acres of irrigated athletic fields.

We have three large volume water storage tanks with six pump stations, three hundred thirty-three miles of sanitary sewer and storm pipes, almost 8,500 man holes and catch basin, 200 miles of sidewalks.

Beyond that, we um do about a million two million dollar paving program, and any given day we pick up public works um through CWA PM picks up three thousand trash containers and fifteen hundred recycled containers, and we have forty bulky waste collection pickups every single day that we schedule.

Um it's a big operation, and right now we have 31 million dollars of projects in construction, and we have several other ones going out to bid.

We manage those projects.

Um in terms of this year's budget.

So it's it's a big dynamic operation.

A lot of a lot of things are complimentary, a lot of things are different.

Um, think about very good dedicated staff doing this work.

Um, so I hand we handed out a budget highlight sheet just to go over.

I did hand out a org or chart.

I don't know if you guys you guys want me to go over the org chart.

Or do you want to just have that for your own use?

Okay, okay, for fiscal year 27, the budget proposed to you.

Um, on the general fund side, the budget um the the fiscal year 27 budget is we do not include um street lights in the the handout I gave you with with that in the actual budget book it's sixteen million four hundred thirty-four dollars and um sixty two dollars.

So we support services really handles street lighting a little more.

They actually pay those bills, so the budget we really manage is the budget.

Reflective on this sheet that's uh almost fifteen point six million dollars.

That goes is a two point nine percent increase 500 um 452,979.

Um the revenue side, we have an increase of 203,741 dollars.

Um it's a small increase, and that's low mostly due to town aid road.

Um that sheet also lists the major increases included in the budget.

Now, if you look at these these increases, they're much more than the total increase we have.

So there are a number of decreases, the decreases are spread out among a lot a lot of um different line items, and some of them are smaller, but they all um equate to that total increase of about 452,000 dollars.

Salaries, obviously contractual, typically in a large department um like ours, they're about 120 uh seven positions.

Um that every budget year ends up being um about the largest increase.

Rubbish removal, um, rubbish is one of the most expensive things we do, and we have a CPI increase in the contract, and also um has a fuel differential that came out to almost $130,000 uh motor fuel that uh obviously is going up.

We budgeted an extra $20,000.

Hopefully, that's enough.

We submit this budget in you know, January.

It didn't have some modifications along the way, but um still, you know, it's a little different than probably what we may have submitted today, and sidewalk repairs.

Um that was uh something submitted uh through the mayor's budget that more funding was allocated to sidewalks.

So I I mean I think that's a very positive thing for every everyone.

Sidewalks, I think are in my entire here time here.

We don't really invest enough money in sidewalks.

We could probably invest about five times that in sidewalks or 200 miles sidewalks.

We do a lot of sidewalk work every year.

But between what we do with our sidewalk program and CDBG and also capital projects, but anybody that walks around knows there's a lot of poor condition sidewalks out there.

Um the back side of this sheet includes the three utilities budgets that public courts maintain manages.

So we have the water fund, the sewer fund, and the clean water fund.

Um the water budget most notably has almost a five percent decrease.

Um that's uh you know obviously very favorable.

We are able to just um tighten up some line items.

We're still providing adequate funding for everything, but really just tighten up line items.

Um, struct restruct did some restructuring with that budget actually, too.

Um, probably did more of investment in water main replacement.

That's a goal of the water budget this year, but that came with came in with a decrease.

Um the sewer budget.

The biggest thing about our sewer budget and our Simonian from Mattabasa was here uh council.

I think it was the last council meeting, and you know, they do their best job to try and keep their rates flat, or not flat, but modest.

And our sewer budget, the biggest component of our sewer budget is that our the money we give to Mattabasa.

Matabasa only needs to answer to us.

They don't need to answer to utility users.

So our the past the cost they pass on to us, we pass on to our customers.

We tried to go in with a small increase and no rate increase if we possibly can, but they came in with a six percent increase.

Um, so it's a it's a struggle we have every single year because they pass on a bigger increase than we could ever justify passing on to the ratepayers.

Um so we went in with three percent increase, and um the clean water fund, that's our smallest, our smallest utility that handles stormwater and flooding.

Um, that's been a critical utility that we put in place to deal with projects like um the overlook flooding um that heavily funded the McClintok um drainage improvements.

It's going to be helpful with Allen Street drainage improvements, um, and uh in terms of catch basin cleaning.

Um last year, if we if we clean like 500 or 600 catch basic year, that's a very good year for us.

Last year we we did about three times that because of the clean water fund.

So that's it's been very important.

That one for fiscal year 27 has been flat funded.

Um now combined the good the good news on all three of the utilities is that we're not looking at any rate creases increases this year.

Um, and that's because through a use of let's say, I mean the sewer is probably the the real big increase, but that one through a combination of the water usage and also um fund balance work and offset uh a rate increase and um on the clean on the water budget with the the white bridge well field and the significant amount of costs that we're going to be implementing.

Even though we do have a a decrease, we're looking at uh nearly 40 million dollar project potentially.

So it's uh you know, we're trying to build up some fund balance to offset some of our debt on that project.

So that's pretty much a uh summary of where we're at budget-wise.

If you have questions for sure.

Any questions for Mr.

McGod?

All the ones are learning.

So I'm looking at the right side.

Um, so you might be pointing.

I know, and I don't talk loud enough.

Um utility permits.

You have a reduction near fifty percent.

That's a big big reduction.

Why is that?

I mean, we looked at we looked pretty much at recent um revenue that was being produced and and an average of historical revenue.

It does uh increase utility permits.

So this is you know the bigger thing that happened there is that we gave the utility trench repairs back to CNG probably twelve years ago.

Um we didn't feel like they were doing a good job repairing their utility trenches.

Um we took them over in-house, we put an eight hundred dollar per trench fee on them.

We agreed this year pretty much under a trial basis to allow them to take on their utility trench repairs themselves.

So for this year, we're not going to be um receiving that revenue, but also we're not gonna be bearing an expense for their repairs.

So this is the first year that you're not receiving it.

I I'll I'm optimistic that they're gonna do a good job.

They understand that we like and uh yeah, and if they don't, then we'll probably take it back over.

But um uh it was it was years ago now, but um a lot of times people think it's a pothole, it's really a poorly repaired utility trench, and a lot of times they were not doing a good job um doing the repair.

We we require a temporary repair and a permanent repair, we have to maintain the temporary repair until the permanent repair is done.

So um yeah, we're giving them the opportunity to take that work back on.

But okay, um the the fuel expense.

Um I have the feeling you're gonna end up coming back asking for more money, and I I see that the mayor even reduced it more than what you were asking for um with the cost with the the cost of gas.

Um I mean, are you optimistic you're gonna be able to stay with that amount?

I I'm not.

I think we're gonna find out.

That's what uh you know there's some there's some things in the budget that there's a fair amount of fluctuation.

Um, we're gonna we're gonna find that one out.

I mean, we do sometimes over the course of the fiscal year.

I mean, we manage line items without a doubt, but also sometimes we end up with um under the design.

So I mean, I also try and manage the overall budget, and sometimes like it's just no it's a slow winter.

There's other things that happen that overall the the I've never delivered a budget that did not come in under budget, and so I'm optimistic that we'll be able to handle it.

Okay, one more.

Um contractually meal allowances five thousand reduced to five hundred.

If that's per contract, how does that work?

We uh changed the contract language at one point in time when we first introduced meal allowances and snow operations, everybody that came in stayed in.

And then um we had historically done shift operations for our snow operations, so it's so people come in for like a one to two shift operation t typically twelve hours could go up to eight, eighteen hours.

There was never an intent to give a meal allowance for somebody only coming in one ship, but it kind of got grandfathered into the language for a while in the last contract negotiated so we were able to eliminate meal allowances unless somebody was working multiple shifts.

So we're paying very few meal allowances now.

Okay.

But don't don't the guys tend to work multiple shifts regardless?

This this year we really didn't have a lot of people doing double shifts.

We've been fortunate we've been we're down um I think six positions right now for the the entry level like d drivers, but um we're actively in the process of filling the utility workers, but um there just wasn't a lot of people doing double, so I mean and for for there were periods in time when we have 75% of the crew doing double shifts, so yeah.

That's all I have, thank you.

Did any of these line items have revenue from last year?

Um I don't want I don't I don't fully understand the question.

Is there any savings?

Um last year.

You mean savings from I mean in the current fiscal year?

Um, let's see.

I mean we're quite over on snow, obviously, this year.

Um don't have the and we are tighter this year on our budget than we've historically been.

I still think we're gonna come in under and but that's gonna go to just general like overall fund balance, and you know, that's could end up any anywhere, you know, however the mayor's office and council decide to allocate that.

Alderman making there.

I think if Mark, you may have answered the question, but you uh on the staffing positions, uh some point last year or so uh mechanics or maintainers, you were down more than six uh, but was you're pretty much at full capacity.

Uh fleet we'd we've done a good job.

We just uh had a three new fleet mechanics last week.

We also promoted a person that was a maintainer into fleet mechanics so right now and we had one guy that was gonna be retired was supposed to retire that decided not to.

So right now fleets only down one.

We have another person that is pursuing um becoming a treatment plant operator, we're down uh a water treatment plant operator.

He's interested there's we'll pr we'll pro a good chance we'll end up down two right now, but we're in much better shape than we were.

It was go ridiculous for like a while.

Um but we're yeah, we're down some other positions, but that's utility workers is the other one right now that were kind of struggling, but in Santiago from this proposal says that you're adding a deputy director and reducing a assistant.

Administrator administrative assistant.

So is the reason for that?

Um I mean I think there was a that was a decision by the administration that you know there's that it could strengthen the department.

Um East Hartford has two deputy directors.

Um most communities our size have deputy directors in public works.

Um so I think that was just a a decision that it would strengthen the public works department and uh have some redundancy.

Anybody else?

All the women, Scott.

Mark.

I was just wondering, um how I have a couple things.

How much does it cost?

I don't know if you have the answer for this, but how much do we spend for bulk pickups?

Oh per bulk pickup.

Like the appointments that get made.

I mean we pay uh I don't have the number off the top of my head, but uh we don't pay for per pickup, we pay uh it's a monthly fee.

Okay.

And um I mean this has just been something we've been actually focused on quite a bit.

And you know, it's almost forty pickups a day.

So I it's a ma it's a massive operation.

Actually, bulky pickup bulky waste pickup.

Okay.

But they have like a set monthly.

It's it's um when they did their original bid, it was a monthly cost for like curbside trash collection, curbside recycling collection, bulky waste collection, um the downtown barrel, so there were there was a cost associated with each one, and then throughout the years there's like CPI increases on those, but they were all bid as monthly costs.

Okay.

So are they able to do more than more pickups?

That's pretty much I mean forty a day is pretty much the max.

Okay.

And how much more are we getting for sidewalk?

I don't know if I think you might have mentioned it, but for sidewalks now.

I think that was a 200,000 dollars.

Um, I think it was two hundred thousand dollars.

It went from two fifty to two hundred fifty.

Okay.

So how many streets do you think you guys can do?

It's like I mean, that's one of the changes in the budget umbra I think is really good.

I'm excited about.

'Cause that'll improve like how we'll be able to do more streets with that.

We'd be able to yep, we'll be able to get a fair amount more done.

Okay, that's good.

And something else wants to ask about the water.

So you said they're increasing at six.

I mean they were going to increase it six.

Increase for the water.

Oh we're not increasing any of the utility rates.

It's up to three.

It's three set.

We're not raising it.

Okay.

Okay.

I was just checking.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for all the work you do.

Thank you, Veronica.

So for the work you do.

And I'm glad that we're gonna get to do some more sidewalks and so thank you.

Anybody else?

I just have one contribution uh Mr.

Riot.

I just have one just clarification.

On the sidewalk program, is it 50 50?

For the cost share program?

Yeah, for the cost.

For a single family property it's a 50-50 cost, it's up to a a maximum, but um pretty much almost all the work could goes into the fits within the program limits.

And then for uh and then for two family and up it's it's it goes down like ten percent per as you ten percent.

I think I think I think it's like you know, sixty percent when you get to two family.

Okay.

Um maybe that no, there's I'm asking because one of my constituent neighbors uh picked up my mail the other day and he's having it and he told me he goes, yeah, they're they they said 33% for me, but and I couldn't I I told him I said I think it's fifty fifty, but then that I realized.

No, yeah, it goes down.

So this is th he's got a three family house, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you, I'll let him know.

Okay.

Alright.

Thank you so much.

Yep.

Anybody else?

Thank you, Mr.

Murray.

Uh so you know uh the next uh department um is uh department of register of voters, Mr.

Peter Gaston.

Good evening, uh all the women and all the women.

Good evening.

Um I'm here also representing uh my counterpart Lucian Pablock, he's recovering from some surgery.

So um I'll be speaking about uh in the aggregate of both of our departments, and in some obviously the registrar voters' office is responsible for running elections, all the early voting uh that has to go on now at both at two different places, both at our senior center and um the uh CCSU campus, and uh we do all of that coordinating with uh ourselves, two of our full-time staff and two part-time staff.

And um if I could uh basically uh the budget that we submitted in the aggregate uh for both of us is about two and a half percent uh increase.

Uh yet the um uh the mayor's budget uh uh is cutting us somewhere close to like eight, nine percent.

Um it's a pretty hefty cut, and uh I'll speak to just a couple of uh items that I believe uh could be impacted, although partially mitigated.

One is our professional services where we hire poll workers and um many other uh part-time or people who work the polls and early voting.

That is where all the monies come from, and those are being cut uh nearly $50,000.

Um I expect that some of that, if not hopefully most, might be mitigated by what the General Assembly just did up in Hartford a couple days ago.

Um it looks like they may be uh offering the state uh a little over two million dollars to be divvied up uh uh to municipalities uh for early voting.

So um I'm hopeful that uh well last year they only had a little over a million and we got 21,000 of it.

Um I'm hopeful if they even double that, that'll be nice.

So that would cut into the deficit that uh I would anticipate for professional services.

Um our equipment line also uh we've got as you know, brand new tabulators.

Uh there's a lot of maintenance now that we didn't have to pay the Secretary of State used to pick up the tab for all of that uh with the 20-year contract that they had, but that's now gone away.

And the new company has um I I guess they didn't put it in the RFP, but every municipality is now responsible for uh maintaining these machines and the costs, uh which are fairly significant.

We also are now responsible for um uh the ballots themselves in programming uh where we weren't before either.

So that adds an additional layer of cost, um, and we were cut there a total of about eleven thousand.

Um I hope that you can revisit that uh in your deliberations.

Um also we're now required uh to every uh have every single sign that we put out uh for public consumption or communication to be uh um translated also into Spanish, and that's gonna cost us a little bit more because we're gonna need all new signs and things like that.

We're hoping to get that done as much as we can in this fiscal year, um, but I'm sure that some of it's gonna lag and go into you know the next fiscal year.

Um and uh as far as our um uh the salaries go, I know that there has not been a compensation committee um referral to uh this body.

Um I don't know if that's gonna be in the offering, so I took the liberty of uh making some copies uh and presenting a package to each of you on this committee and also the council at large uh that you can look through.

I think you'll find uh that uh our office has some inequities that we'd like to address, perhaps with council leadership at some point.

Um, and that pertains to both uh registrar salaries and uh one of our uh full-time employees.

I'll entertain any questions at this point.

Questions for Mr.

Gott?

Alderman, the one to learning.

I have to do my homework.

Um yeah, you touched on it, the professional services.

I you know, I was curious because everybody says it's gonna be a busy election year, and I'm seeing increases in budgets because of that, but here it's a decrease in professional services, even though you have an increase in in overtime to accommodate those elections, so it seems kind of odd to me.

But the overtime?

No, the the decrease in the professional services.

Yeah, well, it's not us requesting that.

We certainly wanted more.

And uh like I said, I I think a good portion of that.

Uh I don't expect all of it could be mitigated by monies we do receive for early voting, um, because that's where the payments are are gonna go out to.

But um instead of the usual, as in the past, we would have just election days for a primary and election day itself.

We now have 14 days during November elections.

We have seven more coming up in August, so another twenty-one elected election days, if you will, which we have to hire a fair amount of staff to cover every single one of those days in two places now.

So, you know, I'm fearful that we may not have enough based on the cut uh that's been offered, but we're hoping you can at least restore to what we requested.

Okay, and um yes, you're correct.

W the compensation committee hasn't met to review uh the info you provided us, so hopefully we will be doing that soon.

Yeah.

Well, let's hope so.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ultimate McMahon.

There's a quick question.

Yeah, uh Mr.

Goss, can you repeat what the state with early voting and expanded uh election days?

How much was the take last year or this fiscal year?

The how much did you get from the state?

Oh last year we got 21,000.

This year, tw and that was based on about a million dollars the state came up with at the last minute um just about this time last year.

And with that I I believe there may be legislation that if it makes it to midnight uh in before midnight, they may be adjusting that somewhat.

I think they already have.

Yeah, I've got that from our lobbyist up at the Capitol, yeah.

Okay.

It was passed, I think either Friday or Monday.

And and that would uh go largely to the professional services line.

Yeah, it would it would go all pretty much to pay the people um plus some of our office staff and the overtime, things like that.

But I don't think it'll be enough, but again, you know, if we could put some of the money back from what was cut, I believe we'll have enough.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

All the room barbosa.

I just have a question on staffing.

What's the lowest number you've had and the highest number you've had?

F staffing for elections?

Okay.

We generally will hire um, depending on the year, uh, but somewhere between a hundred and seventy and two hundred people for one day.

You know, either whether whether it's primary day or election day.

During early voting, we pretty much need uh at least ten people besides a couple people from our office to run each of those places.

So I figure another twenty people times twenty-one days.

You're looking at four hundred and something man hour uh man people if you will, all right, times the number of hours that we have to pay them.

So it's chewing up a lot of our budget.

Thank you.

Any further questions?

I just have one.

Mr.

Gustav, no.

No.

Yeah, we've uh all the women.

Scott.

Sorry, question.

Um, how how much do you actually need to make everything function in your office now?

In terms of the total budget.

Yeah.

Well, we requested uh some six hundred and thirty thousand dollars or something like that.

Um we're being cut down to below that.

So um it's uh there's a lot a lot more costs the last few years, specifically because of equipment and the election, I mean the uh early voting days.

Uh they are really uh causing a big drain on the office where uh we didn't have those expenses three years ago.

Yeah.

Well hopefully we'll get some money from the state.

So hopefully, I mean I'd love to see a forty thousand dollar number.

Maybe I'll be right, I don't know.

The Secretary of state's gotta come up with their own calculation and I don't know what they do with it with some kind of uh uh logarithmic uh thing or uh algorithm thing that they came up with based on how many early votes you had, how many absentee ballots you process.

They accord they they factored in a lot of different things to come up with a uh in a formula to come up with a number for each municipality.

So hopefully it'll uh I would anticipate it to be more than twenty one thousand.

Hopefully we can get it doubled, but that's not our call.

Right.

Well, thank you so much for everything that you're doing.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

All the room barboza?

For the um vo for the voting and the early elections.

Um are the employees paid one stipend or they paid per hour and what's the cost?

They're paid per hour.

Uh I believe last year just to run the November elections, we were upwards of like forty thousand dollars um collectively to run just early voting, not just election day, which then there's a lot more people times a lot more hours.

That itself would run us probably collectively, uh somewhere around uh to run a city election on one day is about seventy thousand dollars.

Welcome.

I just have uh al along those lines, um is that regardless of the number of of of uh monitors that you hire.

Is that regardless of the election like municipal, state or federal?

Right, because we need pretty much the same number of people um for the different positions that we need to hire.

So whether you have two thousand people showing up at a polling location or three thousand or a thousand, you know, I mean we can adjust a little bit, you know, with uh maybe a couple people fewer in in some of the um slower locations, but uh it would help greatly at some point if we could have a conversation about uh the number of s of districts that we have to have open, which have seventeen polling locations.

And and this might be a loaded question, but is there any plans or have you heard of any plans?

The upcoming elections there's talk of National Guard coming in and maybe some other federal agents coming in.

You're right, that is a load of post.

Has that been has that been?

No, I've not been privy to anything like that.

No.

So there's there you haven't heard of anything.

What the what what's gonna happen if it does happen?

Well, we have police on call, you know, and uh they usually are assigned three or four locations throughout the city and uh so that then they can park themselves close to those particular areas of town so that if they're needed they're only a few moments away.

But uh we've not had that kind of uh disruption uh individual person here or there, yes, but nothing coordinated like that.

Anybody else?

All the women don't uh I was just gonna comment on it, you know, I think that's a lot of national noise, but um even if it were to happen that would come out of your professional services budget, which has been decreased, so you know, that'd be tough.

Yeah, we hire the police out of there too.

Yeah.

Thanks.

I just want to make sure that um they were ready.

We'll be ready.

All the women uh lose.

I'm sorry, lose Luna, Peace.

Okay.

Um quick question.

So um I know we're trying to kind of get away from the schools, but I know like for example like Pulaski we still use as um a voting uh poll.

Um the like the custodians or whoever has to stay there because the schools are open.

Is that something that you guys have to pay or?

Yes.

Yeah, we pay for the custodians.

Uh we pay double time between five and seven in the morning when our people have to set everything up and then we pay on the back end from usually three to nine in the hour if in the evening or so uh while they keep it open.

Remember, um both the times that we have the August primary and November elections, schools are closed.

All right.

So they do have to bring in somebody usually to cover those hours uh specifically, and we have to pay for that.

Okay, thank you.

Alderman learning so again, that's professional services.

That was really cut.

Alright, thank you.

Anybody else anybody?

Thank you, Mr.

Okay.

Thank you.

One more Mr Gossman come back.

I'm sorry.

Who was that?

No, I it's not really like a question necessarily but I just wanted to say just hope that you know people understand how important it is for us to make sure that we are um funding this it's for us to have fair safe elections.

Um and and I I mean the debate about closing closing down election polls um maybe it's something to have a conversation about but we want to make sure that people can easily access voting so like that's what we're trying to do here.

So I hope that everybody understands how important that is to have several locations and all these people who are being staffed and that people take the opportunity and vote because you know we're we're really trying to make sure that we're giving all of the things that people need to make it easy for them to do it.

So thank you again.

Okay.

Thank you all for thank you Mr Gobson anybody else no free to go.

At this time there's no other um um the next item on the agenda is the chair but go ahead and make motion to table this item due to the fact that we still have to continue tomorrow with the board ed as part of AFL's um conversation so I'm moving to table this for tomorrow.

The motion to table for uh until tomorrow oh we did Mr.

It's just a point of order to withdraw I will table we have the finance that's right and the boom sorry you were not on the list Mr.

Sorry Mr.

Or HR is HR here.

Yes.

Oh I'm so sorry come on up.

Thank you Mr.

Iverson for we've got to be skipped on the list.

Who's your time I'll withdraw my table there's your chance to go.

Uh good evening um human resources.

So if you don't know the Human Resource department we um manage the full employee life cycle for all city employees and that would include full time part-time um the two hundred and forty uh poll workers that uh Mr Gosson was speaking about um seasonal employees um as well as we do all the recruitment and testing uh we assist corporation council with labor relations and contract negotiations uh we handle all the benefit administrations uh safety regulations uh drug testing for all our CDL drivers um and police and fire departments for random drug screens uh we also handle the sex or sexual harassment uh prevention training programs as well so there is myself and a benefits administrator so there's two of us right now um that do this work and then we um are looking for um a CHRO officer which we will be posting for um hopefully very soon so with our budget um we have increased our budget overall by um about twelve hundred dollars uh for the for the year and that does include um a full-time administrative assistant to help us in the HR department and what'll happen is I have a part timer now that's budgeted and that position would go away so it would turn into a full time position.

Anything else any questions for just other point um Ms.

Gard, you you mentioned the CHRO.

Any other position?

Did you say there's gonna be a search underway?

I'm hoping very soon, yes.

Okay.

Anybody else?

Alder Women Delarnia.

I haven't I um all right, I missed the bat the last part.

We currently have a part-time position, don't we?

Yes.

Okay, and that position's going away.

It will go away if I um get the full-time admin assistant to help for that administrator interview for that.

Yeah, it'll be a full civil service position.

So the admin the admin assistant three.

That's the one that would go from part time to full time.

Yes.

So does it have to be a three?

It does for the level of work they will be doing.

Okay.

They will have to have HR knowledge and benefit knowledge to help us.

Because usually it comes in at a lower level I I would think, and you know, right.

If we weren't if you didn't fill that position and you kept it at part time, how would that affect you?

It's very difficult to um service over 660 full-time employees and then close to 350 part-time seasonal impoll workers with two people.

Okay.

Uh I also noticed.

Uh, let me see where it is.

There was something something about membership fees.

Professional dues membership it it was noted that that was coming out of pocket.

Um professional membership fees required by union contracts.

Mayor proposed addition of professional dues and memberships for the HR director.

They're at work were previously paid out of pocket.

But I also see a reduction.

I also see a reduction.

Um again, it's not a it goes from a little 1,150 to 750.

Yet the mayor is proposing to pay for the duals.

You pay for that out of pocket before when you had to do membership fees and I've always paid for my own, yeah.

Okay.

So and if you look at prior years um for the last 10 years, I believe for the budget, that that money was not spent.

So it the mayor is going to pay for my professional fees this year.

Okay, so eleven the the 1,150 wasn't spent for 2026.

No.

Okay.

And he's proposing 750 to cover for you.

Alright, thank you.

Alderman McMahon.

Point of movement.

Uh Ms.

Gard, can can you share the total number of workforce that this office provides human resources for?

The city workforce.

Is it about 600?

It's about um a little over 650.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for Ms.

Bark?

Alder Woman Scott.

Are you um comfortable with this?

Like the amount that you're being offered?

Could you run with the run everything away?

Yeah, I'm comfortable with it.

Okay, yeah.

And we also, you know, keep in mind we also um generate some revenue um through testing.

Oh, I do feel comfortable with it.

What do you do with that revenue when you get out?

Um well it goes in the general fund.

Okay, at the end of the um fiscal year.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for what you do.

Thank you.

Uh the dues and the dues fees and memberships.

Are those required are some of them required or are all of them required?

Uh no, they're not required.

I think it should be all right.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

No.

Thank you.

Mr.

Anderson.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Hello, everybody.

I'm Amy Goldsbury.

I work in the finance department.

And I'm here to present our.

I apologize for Mr.

Anderson spoken, I thought you that's okay.

No worries.

Um, so Tim is our assessor, so he'll be talking about the assessor's office.

Yep.

So I just want to say that our finance and revenue department were made up of three divisions.

The finance department, the tax department, and Tim's assessor department.

Um our combined in the general fund on what page 45 is our combined budget for all three of us.

And um our whole budget went up less than three percent, which is below the inflation amount.

So our budget went up just a very small amount, basically for con contractual obligations.

So that's all I have.

Yeah, quickly the assessor's office, um, you know, the job of the assessor's office, we discover value and list all the properties within the city of New Britain.

Um, you know, quickly there's 17,000 real estate accounts, 2,000 personal property accounts, 46,000 motor vehicles in our departments.

We maintain the exemption programs, ownership um history.

Um we work with the board of assessment appeals, um, real estate appraisals, appraisers, um, um, um real estate uh people um all that stuff.

Um the big thing with um my budget this year, um the line item in professional services, uh there's a line item in there for the reval, 250,000.

Um that's the big line item this year.

Um hopefully, you know, we won't ru I won't really know, and um the bid opening is gonna be on May twenty-second.

We're thinking I'm estimating that the cost is gonna be five hundred thousand for the reval this year.

Uh the th thought is we're gonna spread it out over two years, so two fifty for fiscal year twenty-seven and for fiscal year twenty-eight, so that's why that big number is for next year for the next two years.

So that's a big thing for next year.

Does anyone have any questions?

All the women's alone.

Yeah, I'm wondering why Chris isn't up here.

Isn't he uh Chris that you prepared a budget for the mayor?

How come you're not up here asking questions uh answering questions?

So we work as a group.

Um well, um I I would like to ask him a couple questions.

You can ask me.

He's not part of management.

So this would be management right here.

So you can so you can't technically under contract to prepare the budget?

He's sort of again.

This is management.

They're the ones that would answer any questions.

But Chris had a big part in a budget.

I mean, I had a big part of the budget too.

I might be able to answer your question.

So is Chris under contract?

Um not for the twenty-seven budget.

For twenty-six?

I never saw a contract.

So I think we're talking about the twenty-seven budget.

If I can answer some questions about our twenty-seven budget as it relates to revenue, finance, and so when do we expect a finance director?

It just went out today, so hopefully um, I don't I forgot how many days it's gonna go out for.

Today was the first day it was posted.

I believe so.

Interesting.

Um, but Linda left.

She would have had more information.

Oh no, Linda's here.

Linda's here.

Hi, Linda.

Can you answer that?

Um yes, the finance director was reposted today.

Okay.

When was it first posted?

Um it was posted a few times.

It was posted under the old administration.

And then it was posted um twice with the new administration.

And we just haven't had the right applicants come along.

Not yet.

Changes in the posting?

Uh yeah.

This new posting that went out today.

No, there were no changes.

So it's the same posting that went out previous to this one.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Alderman McMahon.

Oh, thank you.

Yes, I actually I participated in that search and it didn't pan out under the previous administration.

Um and Ms.

Goldberry uh I believe it stepped in to uh uh to uh put things in order.

I'll note that uh without the in in even the absence of the previous finance director, the audit was done and completed on time uh at the end of December, and um uh working without a finance director um the department has reached out for assistance uh with with its it's in its its purview to do.

I I have uh some general questions.

If you you you you you don't uh pertaining to uh I see that and if you don't have the answer we can get them in due time, but the uh the cannabis tax revenue uh was adopted at 250,000 for this fiscal year.

It was estimated at twenty-five thousand uh uh projected forward for the next fiscal year.

I'm not sure there's been a uh diminishment of use of uh cannabis, no uh particularly in the world we we live in, but um is there an explainer for that or so um for the FY26 budget, we were really hoping and anticipating to get a lot more revenue, but through the through this fiscal year so far we've only collected $20,000.

So $25,000 is a more realistic number, which is why we put it in the budget so we could have good budgeting going forward.

Conservatively.

Yeah.

And that money comes back to us through the state, is that correct?

Yes, it comes from the state.

From from the state, it's a tax on all the cannabis sales.

Th the other global question I had, and again, if there's an answer we can get either now or soon enough.

Is uh uh the previous council approved uh a uh medical insurance uh program with a new carrier.

Uh ending blue cross and was it Cigna, I believe.

Yep, so now we have Cigna correct.

Well with no diminishment in b benefits, but the uh there was a projection of uh savings uh both for I believe city and school on the city and school side in that.

Are you beginning to see those numbers?

I think it's gonna take another year.

We just got some numbers from Cigna.

Um they're in our they're in our budget in our special revenue account, but I think they said it was gonna take another year to fully realize any savings.

Okay, very helpful, thank you.

You're welcome.

Uh Roy.

I wasn't I wasn't I wasn't done when John jumped jumped in.

Sorry.

I was recognized by the chair, I certainly would have yielded.

Oh, thank you, John.

Can you can you please uh Alderman Delarnia?

Can you please refer to the Alderman as Alderman?

I'm sorry, first name.

Absolutely right.

Thank you.

Alder Woman Delarnia got it.

Thank you.

Um big increase in interest income, two hundred percent.

What's that attributed to?

So over the past few years, um, we've been really aggressive with making sure that all of our funds are in are in a bank account or an account that yields higher interest rates.

So we look took a look at the last few years and anticipated that our interest expense will uh excuse me, our interest income will go up the next fiscal year.

Right.

Um overtime went from 30,000 to 6,750.

Um part-time salaries 20,000 to 5,000.

What if we need that support during peak times?

So when we're fully staffed in the finance office, we sh we should be fine.

We shouldn't need extra extra overtime in my revenue department though, we're very we're very short staffed down there, so some of that overtime would probably go to to the staff down there.

Um part-time salaries, we don't really have a need for a part-timer down in the revenue department once we're fully staffed.

I think that those jobs are going out to bid soon, and we actually have interviews next week for one position down there, and I'm not sure about the assessor's office.

Do you have any part-time in the assessor's office?

No, no, we don't.

And Tim doesn't have any part timers in the assessor's office.

Okay.

And and what's the annual stipend for the treasurer?

The annual statement is that it's it five thousand dollars.

I don't remember off the top of my head.

Alderman Mac in the mirror seems to think it's five thousand dollars.

And I apologize to you.

I think it's that.

Well, I'm relatively new to Alderman.

It's five thousand dollars.

It was on a different piece of paper.

So that's their statement.

They get paid four times a year quarterly, like uh like the council members.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, on the same on the same pay yep pay time.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Do you want to come up with the did you want to come up, Linda?

Okay, come on.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

I just wanted to make a correction of there was a change to the finance director job position.

Oh, okay.

It was the salary because we could not um we weren't getting the candidates that we were looking for with the salary that we had.

No other change in the in the scope or uh the duties, no, no, everything's the same.

It was just the salary.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Unless you're right.

Is nobody else want to?

I just like to say ask the assessor, uh, absolutely.

I've been uh directing people down to the senior center and advising people of the senior tax credit to the state.

Yep, the home order is uh with the May 15th deadline.

Yes.

Can you uh and if you don't have an answer now and get it later, uh can you say how many uh of our seniors disabled take advantage of that?

I believe overall, I believe there's about six hundred or so.

Yeah, there's about uh it's a two-year program, so about three hundred on that even year and three hundred on the odd year.

So about six hundred altogether.

And that that's just that credit exclusive of veterans or other programs we have for the ad vets, uh, the credits, yeah.

Yeah, uh the additional veterans, I believe that's another two hundred or so, three hundred or so.

So it's additional two.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Alder Woman Margonado.

I just want to say thank you to both of you guys.

I feel that you guys make you magic with the little stuff that you both have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Anybody else?

Didn't thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody any other departments that I missed, I I apologize?

No other departments.

No, I think that was all.

Thank you.

You did miss the uh city council, but we don't speak, we don't have our hour.

But I'll leave that to President Santiago, thank you.

Oh thank you.

Um seeing none uh that completes that section of the uh agenda, chair.

Is that I need a motion.

Actually, need a motion to the table.

Um Alderman Santiago makes a motion to table.

Second by Alderman uh McNamara.

All in favor.

Motion cares.

And we will resume tomorrow night the um this as part of the uh actually each one will have to be.

Each one.

So we have to do equal to each one.

So we do each one individually.

Thank you.

So motion.

I need a motion for the Mr.

Chair.

Yes, Alderman.

I'd like to make a motion to accept and refer to the council with a neutral recommendation item number three seven one four zero dash one.

Okay.

Motion to uh refer to the three seven one four zero, one to uh to the common council with uh with neutral recommendation.

Uh anybody uh any discussion on it?

See you none.

All in favor.

Mr.

Chair, hold on.

Oh, we three won't have to go to the table.

I make a motion to table item number three seven one four zero dash one until tomorrow.

Okay.

Motion to table thirty-seven one four one dash one.

In favor, the uh in favor.

Aye.

And um, special revenue one.

Motion for uh item this one right here.

The next item on the agenda is item number three seven one four one-one, right?

Regarding the budget appropriation for capital improvement program.

Can I have a motion?

Alderman Santiago, like to make a motion to refer item number three seven one four one-one to the council with a mutual recommendation.

Second.

Second by Alderwoman Barboza, all in favor.

Motion carries.

I have to recover that.

Discussion first and then we have to go.

I have to send it to table.

Any discussion on the on the motion?

I apologize.

Yes, Mr.

Chair.

Alderman Santiago.

I'd like to make a motion to table item number three seven one four one-one.

So tomorrow, yeah.

Motion was to table.

Second by Alderman woman Barbosa.

All in favor?

Aye.

Motion to adjourn.

Second by all the woman lose for tease.

All in favor?

Aye.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

740.

So time is seven forty-nine.

Okay.

Humor.

L'autreow many of us?

L'humanity, I'm not, I'm L'humour, L'autre l'autre.

L'autre.