Good evening, everyone.

I'd like to call to order the finance committee meeting of June 2nd.

On our agenda this evening, we have two items.

The first is the establishment of a trash fee, and the second is water and sewer rate increases.

We have a lot of people in attendance tonight, which is great to see.

Um just so the council's aware and the public's aware, the way I'm going to run this meeting is to take up the first item, which is the trash fee.

The mayor and his team will present um you know their proposal to us.

I will allow for public comment.

Please try to keep public comment between three and five minutes so that we can uh get through and everyone will have a chance to speak.

I will say when we get to public comment, um if you'd like to speak, please just start cueing on this area so we can kind of have a good flow of people.

And when you come to the podium, state your name and address for the record.

And then once we once the public speaks on the trash fee, we'll also take uh comment from Zoom.

If anyone on Zoom, if you're on Zoom and you'd like to comment when we get to the public comment period, please just raise your hand and the clerk will unmute you so that you can speak um and same thing, state your name and address for the record.

After the public speaks on the trash proposal, we'll entertain um questions and comments from the committee and other counselors, and then we'll move on to any votes that come from committee.

After that, we'll do the whole same process again for the water and sewer rates.

Sound good.

Uh this evening we do have the committee members, Councillor Daigle, Councillor Gamash, Councillor Manning Martin, Councillor Turkle present.

All of the counselors are present with Councillor Welton flying coming in hot from Boston.

He should be here in a few minutes.

Uh with that, I will turn it over to Mayor Betoncourt.

Good evening, Madam President.

Good evening, counselors.

Hope everybody's doing well.

Good evening to everybody who's here today.

Uh this is certainly a day that I have dreaded uh for many years now.

Uh this is my fifteenth year as mayor.

I've been mayor a long time.

And I had always hoped that I wouldn't have to bring forward a trash fee, and that's why I never did for 14 years because I knew that there would be um a strong reaction, that it would not be a popular um decision to bring it forward.

Uh there would be some anger, there'd be some frustration.

And uh, I understand it.

And some I probably talked to nearly a hundred people over the last few weeks, and uh much of what was said to me I agree with.

And um it is a difficult uh position uh to be in and a very hard one for anybody who's an elected official.

I run for office every two years.

It's not something that I know is popular, and it's not something that I really uh enjoy or look forward to bringing.

This was always kind of a last option for me.

Um if it wasn't, I would have brought it forward many years ago and not 15 years in to me being mayor and serving in the seat and having the privilege to serve in the seat.

I grew up here, I've lived here all my life.

I went through the school system, and uh my parents still live here.

My wife and I are raising our four children.

Uh my mother-in-law lives with us.

I have two students right now in college, two in the PBD public schools, and uh dollars are very difficult right now.

Uh costs that go up, seems like everything's going up, and college I can tell you is going up crazy amounts.

But I look around here and people I've spoke to, uh, these people that I care about, people I've known all my life, and I don't uh again relish the fact of bringing this forward because I knew it would be unpopular and there'd be some anger and frustration towards me, and I do understand it.

Uh again, this is not something that I wanted to bring forward, particularly now with so much uncertainty in our world, uh so much um just uh turmoil across our world and our nation, and it's putting increased pressure on all of us.

Uh gas prices have skyrocketed, food is gone up an incredible amount, um, utility costs have gone up, and so any type of increase to anything is a burden for everybody here, and um I understand that, and I and I don't bring this forward very lightly.

Um I look at other cities and towns, and this is a hot debate uh everywhere, and it's um and I understand it again, and it's um but this it's the position we're in, and I do believe my job as mayor is to try to make sure that the services that are provided are services that meets the needs of our city.

Um a budget that I'm gonna be presenting in a couple of weeks.

Uh, the councils have received, has 20 positions that have been cut in this year's budget from the police department, from the fire department to Department of Public Services here at City Hall.

There's multiple positions in each department.

Uh I do suggest that we are trying to where we can tighten our belt and make some cuts where we can.

And there were 20 positions between the school and city side that are being cut, and we're going to be continuing to look at that.

Uh, we are trying to tighten our belt as best we can, but we need to serve the city and have people working in our community to meet the needs of our city and our residents and all of you.

Uh that's a must, and that's my job uh is to try to make sure that we're doing that.

And it is very difficult these days.

Uh I already feel like in some departments, we're already operating on a skeleton group crew, and we're putting more on people uh that work here.

Uh we do our budget is about 70 percent people between the number of employees and health insurance that takes up 70 percent of our budget.

The rest is things such as Department of Public Services, uh water and sewer, um, um vehicle maintenance, things of that nature.

But 70 percent are people, so when we talk about trimming the budget, we have to talk about people.

That's where budgets budget trimming can take place.

Uh so we did make some difficult decisions that I'm gonna be presenting, and I do think uh 20 is a lot of people.