This was the first night of the City of Newport's budget workshops, focusing on the Public Safety (Police, Fire), Maritime, and Parking departments. The meeting began at 10:45 AM and covered budget roll-ups, personnel, capital projects, and revenue for each department. Key themes included salary increases from collective bargaining agreements, deferred capital projects, and revenue from hotel taxes, EMS billing, and cruise ships.
The budget workshop series continues; the council will review additional departments in subsequent meetings. The personnel ordinance for the proposed parking superintendent will be discussed at a later workshop.
Ready to roll. All right. We'll get started as the uh first night of our uh budget workshops. Uh tonight we have uh police safety, police fire, public safety, police fire, parking and maritime. And uh did we draw straws in the back and Ryan Europe first? Yes. Is that what happened? Perfect. That is exactly what happened. The opening act. All right, next slide, please. Hello, Ryan Duffy, Chief of Police. Oh, I have it. Yeah, work out all the case. Good morning. All right, so uh we just start off with the budget roll-ups. Um so I'll give you an idea of of uh you know, kind of point out our big our big change and kind of tell you what's involved in it. So the the big the big change for police uh budget this year is salaries, and that's through contract negotiations, like the and the in this salaries roll up line, uh not only include the direct salaries or the the straight time salaries, uh, but also include things like overtime, um our special detail pay, uh and they're all they were all affected um by the by the increase was is a five percent predicted increase in salaries for the police department through the CBA uh and that has an it has a an impact with uh um especially when it we look at overtime and applying that over time and a half. That's our that's our big um our big mover. Um the other ones, uh you know, uh uh fringe benefits, um uh that's that roll up uh includes all the insurances, uh payroll taxes, um uh tuition reimbursement, things of that nature. Um our purchase services, um, our a host of uh things that we need to operate uh the building and our um uh and our department, which include uh things like contract services, which is a big line item for us for all the software that we uh that we subscribe to the to um uh also our um little things like laundry services, um our potter league contract is also included in that as well. Uh not much movement of the utilities uh or uh really for that matter our internal services, which is uh included like gasoline vehicle maintenance or overhead or utilities and things of that nature. Um uh and our operating another relatively oh that's just the same, sorry, excuse me. And then our supplies and materials, the materials needed for the operation of the police department. Um laundry list of things, and that's not not much of a uh a movement there. Move to the next slide. Uh our personnel. Um pretty much breaks this down, breaks down for you uh the makeup of the department. Uh total in total, we have 85 sworn officers budgeted. Um we have 18 full-time professional staff budgeted. Um the total department staff is one fifty-three operationally. I should mention that the part-time traffic aids. Uh while I mentioned them here because operationally they're within the department. Uh they are um uh their salaries are under the parking fund. uh the makeup of the department uh total in total we have 85 sworn officers budgeted um we have 18 full-time professional staff budgeted um the the total department staff is 153 operationally i should mention that the part time traffic aids uh while i mentioned them here because operationally they're within the department uh they are um uh their salaries are under the parking fund chief duffy yes is this fully staffed this is fully staffed yes thank you any questions on personnel all right moving to capital projects let me change the slide uh so we uh on onset we we had a uh number of projects that we put into capital projects uh then when uh department heads and staff got together uh to um look at the budget we removed a number of items and left uh in as far as our priority um is 31 000 for investigative technology um 125 000 for our impound and evidence lot and uh 150 000 in for our municipal support UAV so for the police in total uh capital projects are 30645 minutes to digest when you say removed does that mean that they're completed no that means that we we had to we put the capital projects in the department heads in order to kind of identify what our needs are and then when we look at the at the pile of money uh we had to make some priority choices about what what can fit and what uh what we have to push off for another time uh or fund in a different manner and so that's uh the removed is is basically those those items that we have deferred for this year okay could I also ask one other question has more to do with hiring um so you said we're fully staffed now um so we've hired several officers and do you think that's based on the raises that we've we increased yeah I think there are a number of reasons um I think we did a very robust recruitment plan um and um it also has to do with uh with raises it also has to do um uh um with uh the quality of work life for Newport police officer um um but I think um I think a lot of the uh a lot of the credit has to go to the staff that went out and really did a lot of recruiting it's not like it used to be when I tried out for for Newport I was one of the 800 people or over three days of of testing and if um and so that you you know you could yeah you could just pick and you always had a great list now it's more like you know recruiting for for college teams you know you go out and and you tell them how good the department is and you really have to kind of sell yourself and I think uh we we have been able to do that and a lot of credit goes to the officers uh that went out and did that um to get good staff uh and but no doubt uh the you know a successful CBA yeah is is impactful yeah no we were having trouble hiring people oh many years there is across the profession there still is difficulty um we just put a lot of effort a lot of work into it um and you know it's a it's a it's always we don't have a lot of people on our lists it's an ongoing thing um and uh you know as we have natural retirements it's still a grind to get the one or two qualified quality people to uh to come to the department okay thank you are the items removed or is this just like saved for later or we uh yes these are all things that we could use um and uh going into the budgetary process you know we put down the things that that were important for us uh to spend money on that would be benefit the city however at the end of the day we have we we make you know uh critical decisions about what where the priority is in this particular list you know for example while body like Ross off body cameras while body cameras are important and we are we are striving to um equip all of our officers we can as we do now in some cases for officers that aren't assigned to the street share body cameras in order to you know for those that aren't normally assigned to the street but may take an overtime shift and things that nature it's a it's a cleaner program when when you have body cameras for each officer but it doesn't mean we can't we can't seek that that at another time or find a different source of funding uh that type of thing okay thank you chief how much do we like into the uh animal control um where's that broken out i i'm not sure so we're actually in the process of looking at that contract again um but uh our animal control uh our potter league contract is a hundred and eleven thousand from the city of newport that's what we pay yes what are the other communities pay uh they pay a different amount um uh they they pay less but they pay order to you know for those that aren't normally assigned to the street but may take an overtime shift and things of that nature it's a it's a cleaner program when when you have body cameras for each officer but it doesn't mean we can't we can't seek that that at another time or find a different source of funding uh that type of thing okay thank you chief how much do we like into the uh animal control um where's that broken out i i'm not sure so we're actually in the process of looking at that contract again um but uh our animal control uh our potter league contract is a hundred and eleven thousand from the city of newport that's what we pay yes what are the other communities pay uh they pay a different amount um uh they they pay less but they pay but they have you know less use you know what we're looking at in this uh negotiation period is are the lesser amounts comparable uh and so we're we're entering into those conversations we're just just entering into those into those conver conversations now to to take a look at you know are we paying our fair share or are we paying more and then what do we have to do to negotiate negotiate that and who would negotiate that uh right now we're uh the deputy city manager and myself uh and uh are are on point for for looking at that contract right now and do you know how many uh animals are taken out there or do you have any kind of I do it we do use it pretty frequently um okay uh the exact number I don't know off the top of my head um I make an educated guess that we are um over a hundred not quite two hundred uh and um uh and then we are also the each community can bring different types of animals to the shelter it's not just all animals where we have our contract is we can bring all animals to the to the shelter um so that's another factor when we look at the look at the contract and negotiating what we pay I know it started out at 25 of community certainly 150 sounds like a lot 11 11 1 even 111 sounds like a lot yep it is something we're looking at carefully okay all right so like raccoons and things like that can well no raccoons if we're disposed we dispose of raccoons but if they're alive what do you like DM uh no well if it's if it's a live raccoon that's a problem we it's we we um we'll terminate the raccoon and and then throw it out um but uh but it's but domestic animals all any of the domestic animals um or exotic animals that we may come across that that'll all go out but they have to be domestic yeah yeah yeah not what nothing wild yeah any other questions no and um and then lastly uh just had have an an opportunity to kind of uh just highlight you know some of the achievements to kind of put a a smile on the on the money that the city invests in the police department some of the um uh achievements and awards that we've had over the uh over the year just to um just uh name a few uh this year we were re-accredited uh from the Rhode Island police accreditation commission which is it happens every three years and is a is a big deal for us that's why it sits there up on top and then we kind of go through a number of of awards that some of our staff have have won uh some of the uh philanthropic um projects that they've been involved in in in raising money for important causes uh and participating in important events um and uh and so that's these are uh like said a list of of those particular um accomplishments questions questions all right thanks all right thank you thank you thank you next up fire department good afternoon my name's harp donally chief of the fire department uh you'll notice with our slides today that we made an effort to have them all consistent so uh the format's gonna be the same for all of public safety uh hopefully that makes it run a little bit smoother I think we were responded to the concerns during the initial presentation that they were somewhat uh presented in a different way so this will be nice and consistent so when we go through our slides here can't show off anymore no case no the uh the solicitor said be quiet go quickly so uh so same breakdown I don't know if you have had a chance to look at the slides side by side but I was kind of it was interesting to me how when you place our department next to the police department the numbers are pretty much parallel uh even down really we have a little less staffing but as we go down our line same as the same that uh chief duffy was able to present uh the roll downs which is a description of the various accounts that go into make salaries bridge benefits and that sort of stuff the um uh for ours same as theirs the large ticket items are the salaries of fringe benefits uh I don't know if you have had a chance to look at the slides side by side, but I was kind of it was interesting to me how when you place our department next to the police department, the numbers are pretty much parallel. Uh even down really we have a little less staffing. But as we go down our line, same as the same that uh Chief Duffy was able to present uh the roll downs, which is a description of the various accounts that go in to make salaries, bridge benefits and that sort of stuff. The um uh for ours, same as theirs. The large ticket items are the salaries and fringe benefits, uh, but those are driven by kind of uh the uh collective bargain agreements that we have with uh between the city and our unions. So uh those are set and established. Uh if you were to, I'm not sure if you have a uh more detailed list, but that's one area where we did take a jump this year over previous years because we settled a contract last year that was uh a contract that had gone a year past, but when we settled it, we were able to make some changes that made the job a little more desirable for new hires. Uh and uh the end result was we had a little bump in our overall salary, but that was all negotiated in. Uh the rest of the items on our list are all pretty consistent, no very no large uh leaps to explain. Utilities have stayed uh fairly steady. I think what you'll see here is just the uh cost of living increase of about three to 3.5% cost of living increase factored in. Um if you were to put, and I don't want to go too fast because sometimes I talk a little quickly. If you were to put our slides in that right next to Chief Duffy's and the police departments, again, you'll see they match up pretty well until you get to the operating expenses, and you'll ask, what the heck do you have a 700 and some thousand dollar operating expense? And the police are getting by, which is $30,000.