Resiliency and sustainability, public services, planning and development, building inspections, and the IT department for the 2026-27 proposed budget.

And it looks like we'll start off with uh Mr.

Riccio.

Ray.

Ray.

Can you put public services slides up?

That's my working on getting.

I'll just ask Bill to speak loudly.

No.

Get you going.

All right.

So I'm gonna um lead off tonight with the Prime of Public Services.

Um first slide is just the general breakdown that finance provided.

It's it's sort of like I call it the bucket slide.

Um, you know, in in past years I've um modeled it a little differently, but you know, essentially um personnel salary and benefits is roughly 50% of my budget contract services is another uh roughly 35.

Um that would be made up of our road work contract, our solid waste, as you know, we outsource that in addition to fleet uh fleet management, uh decorative street lighting, um, and all uh you know extra electric contractors and HVAC contractors, and then um equipment and fleet, gas, vehicle maintenance.

That's usually around five to seven percent.

And you know, when we get down to it, and then when you add utilities and insurances, et cetera, those are all the uncontrollables.

It usually comes out to be ninety-four, ninety-five percent of our budget.

So we're looking at five or six percent, which is you know, operating supplies, which includes no materials, road and sidewalk like concrete and asphalt and things for the all of the um in-house operations, you know, right down to mutt mitts and pens and paper.

Um so that's um pretty much yeah, in the nutshell, you know, in a um on the high level.

Um what's changed in our budget this year is we made this proposal last year as well.

Um, and we're bringing it forward and including it in this budget is for two new labor positions.

Um basically throughout the organization.

Um pretty much they'll be centered on last year.

If you remember, the conversation was to have essentially a full-timer seasonally that would take care of the cliffwalk and be able to help with some of the ancillary grounds and forestry items, and then one on the public works side.

Uh as you know, we started taking four or five years ago.

We started to take it taking a really aggressive approach on litter collection on the streets and the rights of way.

Last year we actually collected a staggering 19 tons of litter.

Um, you know, it's really important because as we developed and rolled out that program, you know, obviously when you move your resources around, some things aren't being tendered to as strongly.

So, you know, it's become a commitment of uh of ours, and it's you know, it's just time to staff up a little more.

So and it helps throughout all other parts of the the year as well.

Um so that's pretty much the you know the the big modification.

I did make a couple of adjustments throughout my budget um to take care of some needs, not that that have developed, but I mean obviously we know we had a pretty brutal winter.

Um and costs have gone up.

We really haven't asked for an increase in um snow materials, predominantly salts in a number of years, so we increase that.

Um nothing over the top crazy.

Um and um yeah, that's pretty much it.

Everything else, you know, we go into these budgets with you know, keep it keep it as controlled and tight as possible.

So um we do, I think you all know we do an excellent job in providing what we need to provide um and going above and beyond in my opinion.

So with the um the two labor positions um because of the level, what is like the cap that they're allowed to do as far as work goes?

Like, for instance, if we had them during the snowstorm, would are they able to jump on a plow?

Oh, yeah, things like that, like exactly it's it's all in the you know, unfortunately the not unfortunately, but the labor level is the intro level.

Yeah, um it's the lowest level within the it's like the entry point.

Um, and then we have like maintenance persons, labor equipment operators, um, and and you know, it's the boots on the ground, it's the um but everyone ships in where it's needed, you know, and it gets into emergency situations, which essentially it's no response is everybody is everybody's in a plow of some of some sort.

Obviously, the CDL drivers are in the bigger rigs, yeah.

And uh the ones that might not have those um would be in the you know the plow trucks and stuff like that, but it's you know it's all hands on deck, and you know, that's pretty much throughout the year too where you need it, you go.

Um and you know, labor is just not the one with the shovel all the time.

So um Bill, the capital projects you have listed, uh vehicle Bay Wall, uh Wash Bay, Rogers tennis court improvements, et cetera.

Are those um general fund expenditures or are some of those um grants as well?

Um the wash bay is um general fund tennis courts general fund.

Okay, playgrounds, general fund the Edward King House would is um that's in there that's part of the appropriation for a new HVAC system, right?

And possible elevator upgrades depending on how far the money will go, uh general fund um for the others as well.

Okay, the roadway improvement.

So we did get a grant for um some extra roadway improvements, right?

So that is been so last year was the second year of a small grant program, which is a two-third one-third, you put up two-thirds um the state.

It ended up being I think it was just under a couple of hundred thousand last year.

Okay.

I haven't heard if that's in solidly in the governor's budget again.

I I would assume it is, but it hasn't been as much money as we you know would hope for, but anything's better than nothing, right?

Right.

But what what is the what was it that we were talking about?

But the um the roadway improvements.

There was some wasn't there money coming in for that?

I if you're talking about the safe streets for all grants, yes, I mean but that's not like asphalt and sidewalk.

Well, I mean, to some extent it it would be a construction of a sidewalk on Narragansett, but your general uh annual pavement projects that that's separate from that.

Okay.

And so we um took money out of the CIP in order to we would reduce the funding, right?

That that is the that is something we're going to talk about on Monday night at the workshop with the BPEC.

Uh one of one of the actions we're gonna propose is to re-allocate that $500,000 that would initially have been for the transportation master plan implementation at Narragansett, knowing that uh by spending that we would lose the ability to use those as matching dollars for the much larger safe streets for all grant that we're getting prepared to agree to.

Um so but that's that's one of the two topics of conversation on on Monday night.

So other than the next sorry to jump in.

Yeah, I think you meant on the um the CIP cut page is that we thought about yeah, yeah.

The original ask was three million.

Yeah, and we reduced it by two, right?

Just because of what we were facing collectively as a whole.

Yeah.

Um I guess my uh my question is then what is a safe streets for all, what do will that include?

What kind of work does that include?

I might I'm gonna turn here to Trish, but not not immediately.

I believe she may be talking about that or could talk about that in her presentation.

Because we had talked about you know, possibly um putting money into uh more sidewalks, streets and sidewalks this year that we would um and that it was a possibility somehow.

And um and whether or not we would have enough uh bandwidth to do that, remember?

So I'm just asking if you feel that having keeping that three million, I guess seems as though you would have the bandwidth to do that.

We'd certainly have the financial bandwidth to do more.

Uh the the challenge then becomes do we have the personnel bandwidth to do more?

Uh uh with with the city engineering department in concert with Bill's leadership.

Can't do they have enough boots on the ground in order in order to run the permitting and uh and and handle all the extraneous activity that goes with those all of those linear feet add up to a lot of permits and a lot of coordination with state actors and things of that nature.

Okay, and I'm just I'm I'm just wondering if we if we would know we have plenty of we have plenty of tasks, right?

There's plenty of roads to address, but we've had many conversations regarding our interaction with not only our sister utilities, but private utilities.

Right.

And therein lies the challenge.

I mean, you saw last night a 1.9 million dollar contract, predominantly reconstruction reconstructed roads, so to speak.

So there's other, as you know, there's other techniques.

You know, we could um we could do just a mill and overlay project to quickly, you know, we got with the second with with last night's approval of the 26th contract.

We'll we'll have two vendors working this year, one who's finishing the the um the roads from 25 as well as as 26.

So as things progress, you know, we uh we do have the ability to add roads if we if we do have the um capacity in the calendar, right?

I don't know if we'd want to put another bit out and have a third contractor in town at the same time.

So we just got to logistically figure that out.

Sure.

Um, but we also you know, we we we do take seriously, as you know, um Rob's concerns of what lies beneath.

And you know, we we we we want to be after them as much as we can, right?

Because you know our goal that we set and established many years ago was you know to be able to not have cuts made for a number of years, right?

You know, yeah, because I I think sometimes uh people don't realize how much work has to be done underneath the paving.

Um, and that that's what what holds up some of the construction work.

So yeah, thank you.

And it's it's you know, it's uh I don't say it's an arduous effort, but it's it's nonstop.

You know, things change.

I don't want to say daily, but you know, things things happen daily, you know.

There could be a water leak somewhere which changes, you know, an approach to something, or there's a there's a gas leak somewhere, and then you so I mean I'm just looking at if if we were to reinstate that three million, let's say, if that would be a good where a place to put that extra money um rather than other projects.

So I'm just trying to figure out if that's something that we that it's reasonable to do or or not.

So if you need any additional info between now and whenever you make that decision, please reach out.

Okay, thank you.

And on your achievements, sure.

Um, you you might hear this you know, some of these pieces a couple of times tonight, but um I try to I try to provide an achievement in all of the each of the divisions that uh is in public services.

So on the recreation, you know, we've recently been notified.

Um that's a whole process that'll get started with a grant agreement and stuff, but $500,000 large park grant for up at the John Chafey site.

Um to public works.

We have launched with the assistance of 11th hour, uh the pilot curbside food waste composting program, which is off to a pretty good start.

Um we've migrated our engineering permit system to coincide with the building permit systems we're all working off of open gov, making it easier for everybody.

Um we're probably 99% completed with the geothermal system at the brick market, uh, which took, I'm not saying a long time for the project, but it's been a number of years been working on that.

Um again, I mentioned this the uh 19 tons of litter from the street.

It's it really is staggering whenever I look at it.

And then we're also notified, you know, and this one means a lot to me.

I've been working on the King House for many years, and you know, we're getting there, and someday we'll be all done with it.

So that uh Emily's here, uh about what 600 cell openings for the uh compost program that are available to the public.

Residential, right?

Yeah, residential, exactly.

That's great.

All right.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Bill.

Yeah.

So we're going to our planning and development.

All right, let me readjust here.

I put me up to the tallest person.

Uming, everybody.

For the record, my name is Trish Reynolds.

I'm the planning and development director for the city.

And I'm here today um presenting our fiscal year 2027 proposed budget for the Department of Planning and Development.

So, like everyone, starting uh with the next slide for our budget roll-ups.

I think you have to Oh, I have to click it.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh you can see in the numbers here.

The only increase in the increment is the incremental adjustments to salaries and fringe benefits that you see in everybody's budget.

Um, the all of the other costs in our department have been um held flat and except for the few things that actually have gone down.

So we remain basically level funded with a little bit of a savings.

Um in purchase services, we were able to cut down the amount of money in our advertising budget, and that was largely due to some of the changes made at the state level and in the way that we do some of our operations in planning and zoning, and the fact that we have some of those ads paid for by uh people who are actually requesting the zoning relief or the or the planning project.

So we saw a 5,000 decrease in that, and then we also had a decrease in our dues and subscriptions.

So overall, we have a very consistent budget.

Our salaries and fringe benefits are going up proportionally, and we have been able to reduce some of our costs.

So while the department, oh, again, me.

So while the department is called planning and development, we actually include a lot of different functions.

We have uh we house and include the zoning department, short-term rentals, preservation, and compliance.

Um we have 12 people total in all of those functions, and that will maintain the same number.

We'll continue with our same 12 people.

Uh we also participate in grant acquisition, and we've had a pretty productive year.

Uh last night you heard about the certified local government grant for the Navy Hospital, which was approved.

Thank you very much.

Uh we've been working on some planning efforts that have allowed us to access Safe Streets for All grants.

So you probably remember looking at and approving the Vision Zero policy and the safety action plan that was funded through RIPTA.

Uh we are uh part of a regional grant with Portsmouth and Middletown that got a total of 19 million dollars for a connected system throughout the island, and our share of that is 4 million, and that's what we were, I think, talking about before.

Those uh right now we're working on crafting together the uh agreement for the for the um for the grant for each of our communities, and we have some ability to kind of uh craft that, but it mostly has implementation of new sidewalks and other safety measures, including speed, read read reading signs and things like that, and some demonstration grants.

But we'll be able to adjust that a little bit as we go through this process to put together our MOU.

We also uh have had some luck collecting fees for our short-term rental annual registration, and we've changed that process.

We begin we've begun the registration a bit earlier, so we're able to get these all in uh earlier and processed, and the fees for that have been going up accordingly.

Our CIP projects, uh we work on plan implementation primarily, um, market square, dynamic signage, um, lead improvements, which you'll hear about a little bit later, and implementation of Keep Newport Moving.

Um, our department also uh is responsible for the city's three regulatory boards and commissions.

Staff manages all applications.

We attend all the boards and commission meetings, and we complete the necessary paperwork post meetings.

Um, you receive detailed annual reports on all of the activities of the boards and commissions.

Um, and this year, staff totally processed over 350 applications, and all of the boards continue to operate with no backlog or delay of applications.

So, some of our achievements.

I tried to pick one from each department, so for or one from each uh sort of uh group of people that we have in our department.

So, starting with historic preservation, um, the historic district commission, in collapse in collaboration with the NRF, used a certified local government grant to explore lead hazard remediation strategies for historic windows.

The, and it has a catchy little title here the lead paint adaptation and remediation strategies for historic windows manual and user guide, includes research and graphic support for homeowners, lead inspectors, and tradespeople on how to identify and manage lead hazards in a way that compile complies with state law and historic standards.

So we have this, there's a lot more work that we can we can do on this, and we have some funding through the CIP to continue this really good work.

Um, in our short-term rental area, the short-term rental uh officer has uh been instrumental in identifying a great uh compliance program uh so and licensing software.

It's made the registration and renewal process vastly more efficient.

So already this year we've received 45% of the renewal applications a month earlier than last year, and this allows our city departments that need to look at them for review for uh safety measures and uh and compliance, more time to go through the approval process.

Uh the software has also been really instrumental in allowing for better compliance.

We've been able to find about 40 uh 40 different uh short-term rentals that have been operating that um without registrations that are now registered.

Um, and you all know that we're working on our comp plan update.

We're really excited about this opportunity.

I think we should all be really excited to be part of the group that's sort of setting the vision for the city for the next 20 years.

Umdense that time a little bit so we can have it to the council by October so that it's uh prior to the election.

Uh this plan will translate uh the vision, hopes, dreams, and priorities of the residents and community members into policies, programs, investments, and actions that will serve and shape the future of our city.

And it's a rare opportunity to be part of this process.

Um the planning department in 2025 also received an award for excellence in housing planning.

Um, this was from the state um RIAPA, which is the American Planning Association.

And to I'd like to report a little progress on that.

Our overall goal that we set in our housing plan was 50 new units a year, and that would accommodate the type of growth that we'd like to see over the next 15 years.

And we were able to report 76 new units that have been constructed this year, exceeding our goal for the year.

Um, and we measure that uh according to the state's rules by certificates of occupancy.

Um everybody knows our zoning officer.

He's continuing to do a fantastic job bringing our code up to date, which is one of our directives when uh we first started out.

Uh he manages petitions for the zoning board review, and he's also completing the executive training program offered in the interlocal trust.

Uh I want to give one last shout out to our compliance staff during the snow recent snow events.

They handled over 200 constituent concerns and worked well into the wee hours, and they have done a great job, and I think uh improved quality of life for lots of our residents.

That's it.

Any questions?

Um Trish, could I know I should know this off the top of my head, but I don't.

Could you just remind us of Safe Streets for all?

What is what is that and what's going to happen?

And what's gonna happen?

It's a program that talks about uh you know how we can um create better roadways that are safer for people to be on and all different kinds of people pedestrians, bicyclists, and cars, buses, transit.

So it was a program uh that we participated in.

Uh it was somehow uniquely led by RIPTA, and it was a free process that we worked with tool engineering.

We went through and we created a safety action plan for the city with actions that we can do to be uh safe.

That allowed us to apply.

So a lot of times when you apply for federal grants, you need to have the planning work done first to make your to make it um eligible.

That allowed us to apply for this federal safe streets for all grant.

Um we put that together in conjunction with Portsmouth and Middletown because we uh we we find we have a lot of success working regionally, and that transportation makes sense to look at on that kind of scale uh as an island wide.

So there's uh quite a few different things that are uh funded through this, but most of them are to actually see things happen, like uh safety signage, there's gonna be programs for safe streets to for schools, uh, and construction of sidewalks and things like that.

I have the preliminary uh grant agreement with all those things.

I'd be happy to go over.

Okay, uh, we're gonna probably be ruining uh reviewing them at our transportation pillar.

So that would be if you want to attend that, that would be great.

That'd be great.

Thank you.

Trisha um director of the 12 employees you have, how many are council 94 employees or other union employees?

Um I have three NEA three NEA.

For NEA and four NEAS and one act.

Six NEAs, six NEAs.

What's the contractual obligation for raises uh for those folks in your department?

I think that the contract is under negotiation right now.

Right, but we're in we're what are you proposing?

We're talking about the budget to come.

What are you proposing?

You're gonna have um in front of you at the next council meeting a uh an agreement, a one-year agreement with NEA to catch up to 630 2026 with a three percent cola.

And then we'll continue to negotiate a new three-year deal with them.

Thanks.

So you have 150,000 in raises and and 50,000 in uh benefit increases, so about 200,000 in salary and benefit increases proposed for 27 of that uh four or six, I should say, would would be contractually bound.

So, with regard to the remaining six employees who are not uh bound by union agreements, what's what's the total you are proposing for raises for those six individuals, and how does it compare to the three percent that the council 94 employees will be expecting?

And for that matter, how does it you shouldn't perhaps be aware of this, but we can ask the manager how does it compare to other uh contractual employees, police uh and of course council 94 is the number one or one of the top three unions.

I'm not so interested necessarily in the others, except for NEA in this case, but I think you understand the gist of my question.

Right.

So we have uh three supervisory positions, myself, the zoning officer, and the short-term rental supervisor, and then we have one AFS CME employee, and then we have six NDA.

So of the 12 employees that that you've listed, it's not six, it's seven who are contractually obligated, or who we are contractually obliged obligated to.

Eight, right?

Six and eight.

So NEA, yeah.

And then there's I'm sorry, let me be very specific.

How many non-union employees of those 12 are there in the office?

Okay, what is the percentage raise?

What is the proposed raise percentage-wise for those three employees?

Three percent across the board for thank you very much.

And by the way, I think you're doing a wonderful job.

Thank you.

I really do.

Uh love mic.

I know you do, and and I I'll repeat again so that everybody hears it.

I think you're doing a wonderful job.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Trish.

the office okay what is the percentage raise what is the proposed raise percentage wise for those three employees three percent across the board for thank you thank you very much and by the way I think you're doing a wonderful job I really do uh I know you do and and I I'll repeat again so that everybody hears it I think you're doing a wonderful job thank you any other questions thank you Trish building inspections good evening uh Brad Ward building official and uh I definitely would like to express my gratitude for funding the uh assistant building inspector position last year it's uh made the chaos manageable is there any particular screen or uh oh okay um first slide is uh the budget roll ups uh they're pretty self-explanatory um uh I'm the only uh non-union employee in my uh in my department so everything is uh pretty much all contractual and um we uh we have very little upgrades except for uh the training which uh I do have uh the new uh assistant building inspector and uh I do have to have funds available to get him trained and to have my replacement when I leave you just got here already it's three years but he'll be here before you know it and it just coincides with when he'll qualify so and is he's has he started he hasn't started yet is that right or he has started yet he has started yes he's doing a great job um it's really uh worked out very well and uh I think he's gonna be uh an an asset for the city for a number of years all right um this is kind of what we just talked about it's uh pretty streamlined department there's uh not much to really talk about there are all essential and um and then our achievements are there uh certainly um the inspections have been uh on the increase and they got a lot more as uh the summer comes so um we do have a couple big projects coming up too that I'll be issuing permits for as far as the hotels uh down there on the Harbor Hill and also um I believe the one on one of them on Bellevue but I don't probably yep that's it so any questions I don't know if you have any questions how are we doing with um lead inspections are there is there anything that you can add to it there's um uh I really don't have the time or and I hate to say it even with this guy we we just don't have the personnel to to really handle what about the state though the state is supposed to have um I I know they don't have enough lead inspectors right but is that that contributes to the problem correct yes uh the health department says they don't have uh the personnel um to do it either so um certainly if I get a complaint we go out and look we look to make sure they're using HEPA filters and and all that if they aren't we tell them to pack up and and leave but uh I I don't even know if I have the authority to do that really um the the complaints come in from the department of health when a child has an elevated levels of lead right excuse me Emmy the um complaints come in through the department of health when there is an elevated lead level in a home uh yes and but they don't give you the location where the where it is what property it is and it's um it's really tough to do anything with such bag data I mean if they gave us an address that we could go out and say hey you you need to show us get a valid lead certificate um that there could be opportunities but um any place else I've worked they keep that close to hand I don't know if it's a HEPA regulation or whatever but um that without their cooperation and divulging the addresses there's very little that we can do I understand thank you any other questions thanks Brad all right thank you good evening I'm Nick Craig director of IT um our our bottom line numbers haven't really changed here that much uh year over year since since we we reduced the 2025 but there have been some modifications obviously we we took uh money from our managed services contract and put it into uh salaries to cover the deputy director of IT um but the bottom lines have pretty much

I'm Nick Craig, director of IT.

Our bottom line numbers haven't really changed here that much year over year since we reduced the 2025, but there have been some modifications.

Obviously, we we took uh money from our managed services contract and put it into uh salaries to cover the deputy director of IT.

Um, but the bottom lines have pretty much stayed the same.

There are a couple of things that just got moved around for you know, organizational sake.

Uh the uh you know, hosting and maintenance is largely the Tyler Munis ERP system, um, as well as the legacy loss and database hosting.

Um, the licensing and maintenance line item there, that other big one is uh essentially every license that we renew every year, whether it's Microsoft, whether it's our government 365 tenant or multi-factor, the backups, the VDI licensing, et cetera, et cetera.

Um, we did have a significant reduction in the telephone and comm based on um an audit that we did uh that was sort of between 24 and 25.

So uh we saw most of the savings there in where this fiscal year is actually going to end up.

Um and then that one line in the 2025 actual that says office supplies 47,000.

I promise you is in the wrong column.

That was uh MIS equipment, which is you know, switches, networking equipment, PCs, things that we just need as we go along throughout the year.

Uh currently the personnel is myself, uh, our deputy director of IT and our GAI uh GIS coordinator uh who are on staff with the city.

And then depending on how we structure our contract with uh custom computer, we will either have two or three full-time technicians under that contract uh to assist as well.

Our capital projects this year.

Um the core switching, that's just an updated cost amount.

I started putting these things in like two years ago so that we could get on a realistic life life cycle cycle.

Um, because really these kinds of things need to be replaced every five to ten years, and it just hadn't been you know set up correctly.

And the same goes for the copy or replacement and the camera and door controllers, and there's also a little bit of increased cost, unfortunately, with anything that's got a chip or a CPU or RAM or anything else.

Um the telephone system I put in there because again, uh our system is aging, so that's probably not something that we will tackle this coming fiscal year, but certainly we need you know two years worth of uh CIP funding for that to make that happen in a couple of years.

The data center cooling, that is we we have added so much equipment to the data center at police department that we're overheating in there.

We've got you know uh kind of on the floor window unit and a split unit, but it really needs an another split unit on the backside or or an intake.

Um department software and upgrades is we noticed that during the course of the of the year, there are a lot of uh kinds of add-ons, things.

You know, I know um last year I think was 15 or 20 grand for um the hub platform with with um Arc GIS, which was an add-on that they used for that that utilities used, and um actually uh Mike, my GIS coordinator used as well.

Um so that's just in there to to have the capacity to bring on some of these technologies if needed.

Uh the Harbor Wi-Fi, we have finished the green mile, uh, which was the run of fiber from fire one all the way down to maritime center to complete the municipal ring.

And originally the idea behind that was we would uh start looking at getting uh tower to tower Wi-Fi availability actually across the harbor because there's kind of a big demand for it with limited service, and it could be a uh another revenue source or uh ad space source, something that could even go back to the maritime fund, for example.

Um parking sensors and digital displays, that's uh you know, I know that we've been working on getting some uh parking occupancy sensors at Mary Street.

Uh you know, we'd like to do gateway too um and some of the other areas and the money for the digital display is a system that can dynamically relay that information to anyone coming on island, whether over the bridge or or otherwise.

And then the networking and wireless land is uh essentially our wireless land system, same thing as those first few items I mentioned.

Um all those access points that are around the city are just aging out, and so that is money to begin replacing those as well.

Our achievements this year, we did finish a couple of large implementations, including that uh G3 Office 365 government tenant with Microsoft, um, which uh you know migrated our exchange server off Bram as part of best practice and allowed us to implement a lot of other security controls.

Um as you know, we finished the domain migration uh to uh we wrapped up the noise trailer program, uh, finalized those two trailers, and they've been out and active.

Uh the state and local cybersecurity grant commission.

Um, I continue to sit on that board.

It's it's it's really nice because it's money that comes in, it's almost strictly for the municipalities, and there's no match.

It's straight.

Uh it's managed through REMA, and there's always opportunity in there to offset um some of those capital improvement items that uh I mentioned.

Uh we have a very high rate of completion on the cybersecurity awareness training, which is great.

Uh, like I said, the green mile ring is completed.

We did upgrade our XDR and EDR, which is essentially antivirus or endpoint um systems that run on um every machine.

Uh we did that essentially to maintain uh our status as a as a model municipality in our cybersecurity, and the same with uh penetration testing.

Uh, we had really good results with that.

The only things that came back in that penetration test that needed to be addressed had to do with our on premise exchange server, which is now no longer.

Uh, we did implement a new immutable backup infrastructure using uh exagrid um and a combination of that and an off-site cloud host.

So we have um snapshots, it's all encrypted, it's time locked.

It's a really good thing for uh you know, disaster recovery.

Uh we did, like I said, the internal telecom licensing and contract audits, and we were able to reduce that's really going back to 2024, but over that time period we've we've been able to reduce those by 200,000 without really changing any critical services.

And uh Mike Pritt and our GIS coordinator just learned that he will be awarded a special achievement in GIS by environmental systems research group at their upcoming conference.

And then I just have a note on the bottom there if I can read it.

Uh advancing cybersecurity infrastructure continues to support staff and residents while also being critical component of police accreditation, bond rating review, board of election recommendations, uh water pollution control requirements, ETSS recommendations, and we currently exceed federal CISA and NIST standards.

I didn't understand half of it.

So I said question.

Uh thanks for the presentation.

This is not directed uh at you specifically, but uh in just looking at the uh handouts from everybody tonight.

Director Reynolds department has uh revenue from the short-term rental fees listed uh at whatever number it is, it's decent number.

Is there any revenue that your department takes in that we use or we dedicate to the general operating funds and for that matter, uh, Mr.

Manager?

What about these other departments?

Uh if there's anything to add to Trisha's department in terms of revenue, uh great, but I didn't see any revenue expectations on any of these.

Surely we we receive revenue from folks who ask us to inspect their buildings who ask us to do X, Y, or Z.

What's the total amount of revenue versus uh proposed expenditures for these departments?

Uh the I I know in building inspections, the uh the revenue is uh upwards of two million.

Um and then the rest of it is is very small, like for planning and economic development department, they get a few fees for applicants for HDC and the planning board and the zoning board, but it's very nominal in nature.

Uh so the bulk of it comes from the building and inspections department.

So building inspection brings in two million uh planning brings in three hundred and sixty thousand for strs.

Uh IT brings in brings in nothing.

No offense.

That's why I proposed the harbor watching.

Uh public services brings in nothing.

Is that what you're saying?

They have they have some uh it's uh we have that if um permitting what's a nominal let's let's let's ask the question or let me ask the question in a different way.

What's the total revenue for our departments as a whole?

Not these departments tonight specifically, but as a whole, what is the revenue?

What is that the amount of money from non-residential real estate that has to do specifically with what the departments within city government do, what they provide for the public, or for those who would like to use their service.

I suppose they're part of the public as well.

But I think by that you mean uh uh uh cumulative fees for services, correct?

Let's let's take it in two ways.

Cumulative fees for services, sure.

And then total non real estate revenue, real estate tax revenue.

Sure.

I can I can break down the revenue.

Um so charges for services are adopted fiscal year 26 uh amounts to 13 million eight hundred thousand are proposed.

Thirteen million eight hundred thousand for charges for services, that's correct.

And that will include anything from um Salvergene Salvador Regina service charges, special detail, uh document prep and handling, anything that comes through the clerk's office.

Um so that that's that's I believe your question was.

Yeah, and fiscal twenty-six we had two and a half million dollars in revenue in the areas that the manager described, and then we had an additional north of ten million in other areas.

Yes.

I mean, what what's the bulk?

That's good, obviously, but what's the big uh who's the big spender?

Uh by far, building is is gonna be be the largest.

We have rescue fees.

But building building was already included in Collins assessment.

Right.

Yeah, I'm just saying that that's by far one of the largest.

Uh we have rescue fees at 1.2 million.

Um we have our management service fees, which is that's an internal cost at 1.3.

That's gonna be a shared cost amongst all the divisions that comes into the general fund.

Um some of the other heavy hitters.

Special detail at 2.2 million.

I mean, there's a there's a number that are quarter of a million, such as uh municipal court cost assessments, um we have road opening fees.

Uh so I mean that there's when I say not big dollars, we're we're talking maybe a quarter of a million dollars, which is an awful lot, but not in the realm of 13 million.

Thank you.

13 million total for fiscal 26.

Do we have a proposal or do we have a guesstimate for fiscal 27?

We do.

We can't we do that's great.

I was gonna say we can't uh speculate on projects that we are yet to hear about and what they might generate through, for example, buildings and inspections or sure, and then that's certainly uh a challenge that comes along with the point.

Right.

But yes, we do.

So so we we have proposed for fiscal year 27 at 15 million three hundred thousand.

Great.

And the total of well, not of that amount, but regarding total revenue for the city.

If we exclude real estate taxes of any form, commercial, residential, and we exclude the number that you just went into detail about how much more do we have in terms of revenue for fiscal twenty-six and what we might expect for fiscal twenty-seven?

And uh and are these things, Jim, like uh hotel tax revenue, uh restaurant one percent tax revenue, et cetera.

That's correct.

So that's going to be so really when you look at our our um our local taxes, that's going to include our meals and beverage.

Yeah, no, no problem.

I that's actually not probably not appropriate for me to ask.

It's not inappropriate, but uh I wanted only to concentrate on uh department revenue because that's what we're dealing with here.

Uh we can deal with those numbers at another time.

I appreciate it.

I just want to get a picture of how much the departments bring in uh revenue-wise as compared to the uh the budget as a whole.

Appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Mr.

Chair.

Um, we also have to add the maritime, which is a separate um enterprise fund.

Yeah, I was talking operating expense.

That's right.

So yeah, we look at any of the enterprise funds, water, water pollution control, parking, maritime, that that's completely separate from from whatever.

But it's still a department absolutely generates money.

Yeah, so yes, they're they're self-supporting.

That's correct.

All right.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Good evening, Teresa Crean, director of resilience and sustainability.

Go to the budget roll-up slide.

So, first I wanted to show that the in the budget um there is a combined resilience sustainability and IT budget page that um includes a uh 20 fiscal year 27 proposed budget of 3.2 million dollars.

I just want to be clear that the numbers that Nick just presented is 2.6 million dollars.

So the Department of Resilience Sustainability by itself is this next slide.

We're at 571,000 for fiscal year 27.

So, director, that uh split there.

Is there a reason why we the budget roll-ups uh for resilience and sustainability and IT uh on the first page that you're dealing with here?

Yep.

Uh for the sake of looking at the IT budget separately that uh the director just presented a few minutes ago.

That's rolled into this, correct?

This is not a separate uh expenditure, or this is not a separate line item.

In other words, if you look at the the salary increases uh for IT, uh it's 75,000.

Uh now the first page here says budget roll-ups uh for RNS and IT salaries uh increase from 565 to 711.

That includes the numbers, the 75 that the director mentioned.

Correct.

Okay.

Yes.

Just curious why we why we put it, why we repeat it on.

I have a good answer for that.

Uh the um when the IT uh department moved from finance support services to RNS uh effective last year.

Um the individual departments within resilience and sustainability have always had their own tab in the budget, and we just forgot to create a new tab for IT.

So we're gonna do that next year.

Uh, but just to avoid you know, any just so just to make sure that we were transparent with the layout in the budget document.

That's why there's two separate slides for that.

Thank you.

So for the resilience and sustainability um by itself, we now have a full roster of three staff in resilience sustainability um since this department was created in fiscal year 2025.

Um, our grants officer Peter Bramante was brought on in fiscal year 25, and our resilience assistant, Christina Truett was onboarded in the fall of 2026.

So the increase from FY26 to FY27 reflects this will be the first full year that we have all three salaries in this fiscal year.

We've slightly increased the purchase services line by five thousand dollars to address continuing education credit requirements and professional certifications related to uh and related dues and subscriptions.

Um most recently, the certified floodplain manager credential was secured by our resilience assistant Christina Truett as of yesterday morning.

Um so that's a slight increase on purchase services, and the other category reflects uh the decision to assign civic services, which we reviewed um on Tuesday, into cost centers.

So that includes uh several specific entities, um Eastern Rhode Island Conservation District and Newport Tree Conservancy and other civic services uh uh entities are also shown in the city managers um budget, public services to distribute those um allocations to those civic service um awards that have been made this year.

As far as personnel, like I said, we have a full bench now of a director, a grants officer, and a resilience assistant.

We have the um organizational chart as confirmed last year in the fiscal 26 budget created in the fiscal 25 budget, and I just wanted to review the vision that the council set out back in fiscal year 25 in the adopted budget, and on page six uh VI of the interim city manager's uh letter in that budget, it listed out the vision for populating new staff within uh departments with this new concept.

So we have director of resilient sustainability hired in fiscal 25 grants officer in um hired in fiscal 25, resilience assistant hired in fiscal 26, assistant planner in the planning division department was hired in fiscal 25.

Special project assistant and utilities was um added last year in the fiscal 26 budget.

Also the description in the um this section of the FY25 budget listed AFSME positions and utilities as a general category, and we'll talk about utilities next Thursday, April 16th.

But this is ongoing um with the AFSME uh collective bargaining discussions, and also Director Schultz has been undertaking organizational assessment to determine what positions he needs in the utilities uh department long term.

And then we also talked on Tuesday night's uh workshop about a deputy public services director, which was uh we retitled the city engineer to have the deputy public services title in fiscal 26 budget.

Um, and that um we've also asked this for this budget cycle to change the personnel categorization from a S10 to an S12 in this year's budget.

But C increase in that S10 to S12 dollars-wise.

It's the range right now.

The city engineer is at the high end of the S10 range, and at the S12 range, uh, they'll be in the middle of that new range.

Can you I'm sorry, I don't have the benefit of those numbers in front of me.

Can you tell me the dollar amount?

I can an S10 is proposed for fiscal 27.

S10 is proposed as 927 to 139, uh 139,000 um 50 dollars, and S12 is from 113,300 to 154,500.

That's a little bit more than 3%.

It is because the city engineers we talked about Tuesday night.

Uh, we are really looking at the engineering department in the context of the 98 million dollars in bond projects that were approved by the voters in FY24, the grants that we're securing that require engineering oversight, and this is also an effort for us to be competitive in the market to retain the staff that we have and also be able to uh attract um new engineers or new talent down the road to be competitive with the private sector, not fully competitive, but at least more competitive, so we can attract that talent and retain them.

Is it fair to say that the $50,000 in salary increases proposed for fiscal 27 is primarily for a full year of the uh assistant uh correct uh for RNS?

Yes.

Or SNR.

Yes.

RS.

RNS, yes.

Thank you, Director.

Oops, okay.

Um we have many projects going on in the department.

This is my alphabet soup slide.

There are a lot of acronyms here from the different agencies and entities that we either are working with from funding sources or coordinating with among our different departments.

So this really illustrates the list of projects that shows the intent of the council to create a department that encourages and fosters collaboration among our different um uh uh subject matter experts and talent across our um municipal departments.

So um I'm happy to offer an elevator speech on any of these if there are specific questions on the status.

I don't have to go through the full list.

Um, but just so you know, too, we're also working on a shared project status reporting uh tool for the city manager and others to um use the Microsoft Teams platform that Nick just presented for the CIP projects for bond projects um and then grants we'll talk about in a minute, but we wanted to we we've heard you and we want to um we're working on a tool to really uh be able to offer the quick update and elevator speech on the status of all of these different projects and programs we have going on across the city.

Um so if they're I'm happy to read through these, or I'm happy to talk about any of these if you have questions about any specifics.

Uh well, the tree canopy study implementation that is in conjunction with the tree conservancy.

It is.

And that's the we're gonna share buying trees with them.

Right.

Okay.

That's correct.

Uh 15,000.

Yes.

Okay.

Um there's something I just want to bring up, and this has nothing to do with Teresa.

I I just I'm a little troubled since last year about this uh organizational chart.

And I have been for a while only, and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna throw this out there that I really interrupt for one second.

I just ask her one quick question on this, and then you can go on your thing.

The can you just give us a quick update on the scheduling for the Florence Gray Center?

I would love to.

Thank you.

We are on time.

We are on budget, and we are expecting our certificate of occupancy at the end of August.

Uh the project has to be completed with the certificate of occupancy by October.

So we'll be in punch list mode.

Uh, we expect in September.

And we um expect to have a fully functional community learning center with workforce development, health monitoring, and education offerings um later this year.

That's great to hear.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

And I also just want to, since you opened that door, just um split a special shout out to all the tenants of that building who have had to relocate uh during this construction project.

We're getting a seven and a half million dollar upgrade of that building out of this, but we really do appreciate the understanding and the flexibility of our um of our tenants at the Florence Grace Center.

Right.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Director.

All right, I'm just gonna I'm I'm just gonna say something that um and I'm not but it's probably not gonna change, but I'm just gonna put my objection out there.

That I think Teresa has an awful lot to do here.

And I last year I didn't push back on it, and I wish that I had, but I don't understand why the Department of Utilities public services um have to be under the resilience and sustainability um person.

I don't understand why they don't do directly report to the city manager.

And I think that from a communication standpoint and from a workload standpoint, I think it's important to look at those two departments and to um possibly re-evaluate that um chain of command.

So um I'm just gonna throw it out there.

That's just how I feel.

Counselor, you voted for it.

You the reason they did was because you told them to do it.

No, I well, I I was one who voted for it, but looking back on it now, it's a vote that I just that as it's being implemented.

I'm not uh really that supportive of because I think that the communication from the director of public services and department of utilities needs to go directly to the city manager.

I'm just putting it out there.

Doesn't just because we vote for something once doesn't mean we can't change.

So you brought are there like specific instances that you feel it's not working.

I I'm not gonna say any I'm not gonna say anything publicly, but I I I just look at this and I say, I think that the communication stream would be better to be directly under the city manager.

It's the way it's always been, and I think that that was the right way to do it right from the start.

So um, you know, that's that's I'm just gonna put it out there.

Uh I have one more slide, and it's the end on the high note um achievements.

And I'd like to turn it over to our wonderful grants officer Peter Bramonti.

We've we're authorized to um hire a grant writer.

We quickly changed that title to grants officer because the vision and the role that we quickly learned was needed in the um in the city was to think about a grants management system and working with Jim's wonderful team, Alex Casagrande in particular, um, and Kevin Cortez and others.

Um, we have been able to centralize our grants discussions and move forward with a grant management software under Peter's leadership that is helping us have a one-stop shop for all things grants from finding grants, deciding if we should go after them, figuring out if we have the staffing to match it, and then um once we land the grant, it's not free money, it's money that we have to steward.

We have to take care of that money.

And so this system brings it all in one place, contracts for vendors all in one place and allows us to make sure we are compliant.

We've done some training in the last year, compliance, compliance, compliance has been the focus, and that we close out and make sure that we can get that money in our in our accounts.

So that's my preamble, but I do want to turn it over to Peter to talk about the specifics if you'll allow us.

Thank you.

Thanks for that lead-in.

And on the closing act.

On the left side of the slide, we'll just quick review the achievements and then talk about the GMS after.

But in terms of uh funding that's been secured in this past year, uh, you see 10 new grants for the city of Newport, specifically valued a little over 9 million.

And then you heard Trish talk about the SS4A was a regional approach.

That's an additional 15 million island wide that came uh in through this period.

We have just it's been a busy season now.

We just submitted three applications for various projects valued at 25 million.

Those are mostly congressional directed spending or community funding projects, and also a pre-award uh for Easton's Beach.

We'll, if we're invited to that full application, we'll get that notification in June.

And then in pipeline development, we're currently working um with utilities and also um with uh uh our energy uh plan to submit uh grants in the next two months, totaling about 40 billion dollars of investments, and so currently being managed manually outside our GMS are 38 active grant projects valued at 26 million.

Um and so that is take takes a yeoman's job to coordinate among all the departments who've been doing a great job sort of out there on their own.

And we are ready to launch, we'll start training next week.

The grants management software from Unigrants is about an eight and a half month project to develop to this point where we've been designing in collaboration with our other department awards.

Um it will provide about 12 hours of staff training over the next three weeks as well as testing and the integration with Munis so that we'll have centralization of all of the features that uh that Teresa just mentioned and be uh easily accessible for reports of all various sorts.

At launch, we'll have 20 active grants and 16 projects being tracked, 23 million in grant funding, 17 million in bond funds associated with those projects, and a little under 3 million in CIP funds for a total of about 70 million dollars that will now be managed through that system.

Um, so I've been incredibly heartened and grateful for all of the departments who've been collaborating.

It is a it's a time-intensive uh project to get launched, but we're now close to the finish line and looking forward to uh to the results of that.

So I'm happy to answer any other questions about either the portfolio itself or the project as we launch.

I think this is just fantastic.

It's wonderful.

You've all done a wonderful job, Peter and everyone, Teresa, everyone, Bill.

I just can't say enough for the whole team.

All right, thank you all very much.

That'll do it for tonight.

Thank you.