Good late afternoon, everyone.

My name is Miguel calling special committee on ways and means to order.

It is 534.

Madam Clerk, please take roll call.

Chair Sanchez.

President.

Vice Chairman Taylor.

Here.

Counselor Andewa.

Here, Councilwoman Graves.

Yeah.

Councilwoman Peterson is absent.

We have four present and one absent.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Have the record reflect.

She's here.

Council of staff.

City clerk's office, city solicitor office.

Thank you.

So noted.

At this moment, I'll take uh entertain a motion to waive the reading of items one through five.

Second.

Motion made by Councilwoman Ara, second by councilwoman Gray, all those in favor.

Any days.

Thank you.

So at this time, I think we will swear everyone in who will be speaking before this committee.

Please make the right hand.

He's taking the entitles public records.

Joe Wilson Jr., Director of Arch Culture and Tourism.

Michael Naji is Minister of Elections.

John DeBastion, Director of OSHA.

Kaylee Dyer, Director of Employment Experience.

Crystal Wimberg, Deputy Finance Director and Budget Officer.

Lawrence Manceni Chief Financial.

Awesome.

Thank you.

So who are we gonna have present first, Crystal?

I believe first on the agenda is the Department of People of Culture.

Chairman, we also have a presentation from USI on the status of our medical budget for next year.

So I think what we may assess is we go through the Department of Hate School and Culture, and then I can invite Kate up and she can give a presentation from USI on the people's medical budget from next year.

Okay, wonderful.

All in favor.

Anyways, have it.

129 is where all the revenue, like where all the line items begin.

Um there's additional narrative information that I would encourage you all to read through, but I think these numbers are where we're gonna spend a lot of our time today.

Oh nee.

So before she jumped into the breakdown like prepared marks of the year, and I think we continue to uh present as such, just so you have an understanding where we're at our efforts for this past year and our plans for the year forward.

Um overarching context that is already.

Um so even chairman's uh C members of the Council, special community means and colleagues uh community province for the record.

My name is Paul once again, Chief People Office of the City of Province.

I'm joined by my colleagues, Deputy Chief uh, Deputy Chief Dr.

Directors John Bastian for OSHA, Manager of Talent, Maria Lomax, and Director Dyer for Employment Experience and EEO officer of the city.

I'd like to first thank you for the opportunity to present the department for the side budget.

At its core, I would posit that this budget is a responsible and disciplined one.

One that is largely local funded with modest targeted capital and service transferences and increases to ensure that we sustain operations while continuing to modernize how we support the city's workforce.

As reflected in the budget materials before you, how our structure spans across our HR executive administration, including the Office of Employee Experience, the Office of Diversity Equity Improvement Belonging, Talent, and Office of Observational Safety and Health and Total Awards, formally known as benefits.

Each are aligned to supporting service-driven workforce.

Over the past year, our focus has been on building the framework for a stronger, more consistent people infrastructure for the city.

One of our most significant accomplishments this year has been the complete reform of the Providence Workplace Policy Manual, is a comprehensive effort that modernized our policies, incorporating legal and regulatory updates, and introduced a more people-centric framework that I can pair down to three words.

Rights, rules, and responsibilities.

This work was accomplished through extensive cross-departmental collaboration, leadership alignment, labor negotiation, and stakeholder buy-in, and it now serves as a foundational guide for how we operate as an employer.

In parallel with the work of our deed, talent and employee experience teams, and formerly, we call our teams of equity inclusion and talent.

We have measurable, we have made measurable progress in strengthening our workplace culture and accountability.

We have reduced employee settlement cases over by over 60%, reflecting improved practices in employee relations, training, and workforce intervention.

We've also made meaningful investments in learning and development.

Our learning offerings in preparation leads up to the launching of a formal program that is being rolled out across the city gradually.

This builds on the success of our deep learning series.

Many of us in this room have participated in.

And will now include other workforce and HR-related offerings such as expanded safety trainings, benefits education, and information sessions, managerial supports, and employee rights and non-discrimination programming, ensuring our workforce is both informed and equipped to serve the Providence community effectively.

At the same time, we are preparing for the future.

We are seeing increased demand in key areas, including occupational safety and injury management, medical utilization and experience and data tracking, as well as other broader departmental service needs.

In response to this, we're making thoughtful investments in planning, staffing alignment, and operational capacity.

We are also taking a deeper, more strategic work look in work at the performance of our employee benefits programs, working closely with our consultant who is here today, USI, to evaluate cost drivers, utilization, and long-term sustainability.

Our department, beyond such, we continue to collaborate with partners across the city and affiliated entities.

We work more closely today with Providence Public Schools, Providence Water, and others to strengthen our collective approach to workforce development.

This includes resource assessment and sharing, supporting talent pipelines, as highlighted by the hiring of over 80 Providence High School graduates into city roles following the ordinance that rolled out in support of this focus and other measures, advancing both opportunity and local workforce investment.

We are also advancing technology monetization efforts from improving benefits administration and enrollment processes with a phase rolled out targeted for this open enrollment to targeting with to partnering, sorry, enterprise-wise initiatives, such as collaborating with IT and others on the city's ERP project and supporting reform promotional processes within public safety.

All of this work reflects it reflects a constant theme.

We are not simply maintaining operations.

We are not the traditional HLR department as we used to be.

And we are working towards building a modern, responsive and accountable people function that can meet the evolving needs of the City of Providence.

This does not negate or move blind to the challenges that lie ahead.

And this budget represents a balanced approach.

It's grounded in fiscal responsibility, and I cannot give enough credit to the finance team for the work that they do.

It is informed by data and direction and aligned both with current demands and future priorities.

So we stand today confident in our ability to deliver on this work and continue supporting the city's workforce and its mission to serve Providence to its greatest asset, its people.

And as she presents our data for you today, I welcome any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Chief, so including from your packet for me, you'll have a PowerPoint that I'll walk you through with all the changes in the budget for all the divisions in the Department of People and Culture.

There is also a PowerPoint from the USI that we're going to review after this presentation wraps up.

As well as a board chart from the department, that was their current staffing, as well as annual salaries and just request in previous budgets and things.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yes, thank you.

Total, the first division we'll be reviewing is the diversity equity inclusion belonging.

Total expenditures have increased by 776%.

But before we get sticker shop, it's important to note that there were 10 FTEs and related service and supply line items that were previously budgeted under the HR executive administration department that have been moved into this department.

And so it is actually a budget neutral mode.

We'll see the decrease in the upcoming slides.

If we move on to slide four, we'll do a deep dive into salaries.

So officially 36 salaries are budgeted 59,923.

They are now budgeted at 938,431 dollars.

An itemization of all of the staff that have been moved out of the HR admin division and into DEEV are itemized here for you all to look at.

Additionally, there's a cost of living cost of just under $300 and some step increases for union staff members that have been budgeted.

So is there one position that's staying in the middle?

Yes, yes.

So there are two.

It will be the chief people officer and the human resource business partner.

So those are staying.

Those are staying administration.

Yes.

Yep.

Yeah, if you look at the org chart, it kind of helps clarify it.

You can see like the very clear line that's going to stay under HR administration.

And then under Dr.

Pinto, you can see how the staff that were previously under HR Hadmin have moved over.

I believe Dr.

Pinzo actually had a case of the HR Admin as well.

It was just one TV scale.

Okay.

Again, slide five.

The line items for this budget have been broken into fixed and discretionary costs.

The first discretionary cost is $14,000.

This is staff parking at the Civic Center Garage.

This is a contract that was recently announced it a couple of years ago.

There's also a nominal investment of $3,500 for postage, which is necessary in this department, but it's considered a discretionary expense because we can turn up and turn down how much we mail things.

Advertising and marketing is under a fixed cost.

We are it that's partially how we categorize things.

The bulk of the advertising and marketing in the city's budget is for folks like the clerk's office and the Bureau of Licenses who are required to post and advertise their public meetings in Providence Journal.

Dues and subscriptions have been budgeted at $3,600.

Those are for professional memberships.

There's a modest $1,000 budget for printing for printed materials coming out of this department.

Private contractors have been budgeted at $25,000.

It is an increase of $15,000.

However, the bulk of that again has transferred over from the administrative budget.

And there is $25,000 in per professional development.

Again, this is another transfer from the administrative department.

Office supplies are budgeted at $4,000 and copy and lease maintenance at $3,000.

And again, these are transfers from the other division.

Next we have the HR executive administration budget.

The line items for this division are on page 139.

As you can see, total salaries have been reduced considerably.

Salaries have been itemized on slide eight.

Last year they were budgeted just over a million dollars.

And then reduced for all of the salaries that are transferred over for a net impact of net budgeted salary in 2027 of 262,000.

Again, fixed and discretionary items have been broken up in this budget.

It is overwhelmingly a reduction in almost all areas.

There also is a dedicated allocation of $15,000 in this budget for citywide learning and development and $15,000 for attorney-related labor fees.

Chief, if you could briefly um just remind us why this change was made, which changes of moving certain positions out of administration into the same appropriate.

So we we take it a measurement of our budget utilization.

Could you speak up, please?

Sure.

Can you hear me okay?

Yeah.

I just want to make sure you can hear that.

Um so we take an assessment of our performance through many metrics, including budget utilization and the services that we conduct as we draw from our line items that are allocated to the divisions that fall under the umbrella of people and culture.

Um we are identified or fewfold.

One is that there is an expansion and a shifting of this body work as it pertains to talent, employee experience, and deep.

Um, and there's a lot of cross-functionality that is shared amongst the divisions, though they have their own dedicated body of work and focus in the space of division of labor.

Um appropriately, there is an allocated budget for DEEP.

So as we make those appropriate shifts, we are changing who manages those teams and the services that they conduct out of their appropriate budget to measure from the source of their budget.

Um, so you'll you'll notice that with with DEE, there is a synergy that's being formed with our talent division that's allocated to that.

And Dr.

Pinto, who's here to speak to this today, who also work with me in managing the employee experience team, um, has a body of work relevant to our learning and development that takes from those resources that are often drawn exchange of those two budgets.

So to dedicate them to a budget that's tied and tailored to them specifically, they're being shifted accordingly.

Uh but what you have, which you will find, which you probably have identified from uh uh budget officer Lindbergh's presentation is that a lot of these rules are actually quite lateral.

Um Peterson.

Thank you.

Um quick question are you required, or does your team require additional certifications or anything along those lines?

Um every year, every other year, how does that work?

Yeah, so many of our members are professionally certified.

Or DPC as we call it.

Um, and that requires professional development credits.

Um, we have a membership through Cherm.

Um, I am also Sherman HRCI certified uh probably too many times over.

And what I will note amongst their team is that um while some of them have positions that require certification by scope of work, um others happen to have the certification and we support them and utilize the resources of our membership reshow.

Can I have a follow-up?

Of course.

So, with regards to professional development for this particular um department, um for a budget of $25,000 that I see here, um, how many people can continue with that professional development, or is it just certifications?

Like how does that work?

So the $25,000 of the professional development line I is not essentially just for our certification, but we actually utilize those resources quite uh uh strategically to provide learning and development resources for other employees throughout the city.

Um and this looks in many different forms, um, whether it's approaching um you know uh very unique or customized training segments that help the development of their teams, the management of employees or managerial subordinate relationships and the like, um we've been quite creative with you know with the money that we do have to provide those resources to them as well.

Um and then just one additional crystal, would you be able to help me because I'm not maybe I'm not reading it right, but um I'm looking at um $15,000 in professional development on page nine.

Then I'm also looking at it for on page five is different.

Can you just explain that to me a little bit?

Yes, I sure can.

So what you're seeing on page five that $25,000 is the DEI propact programming, which Dr.

Pinto can get into.

I believe there's an external component to that programming, whereas the $15,000 you're seeing is in the HR executive administration budget that is intended for professional development, not only for this department but also citywide professional development.

Okay, okay.

So can I just have one more question?

How much do we have in professional development?

How much are we spending on professionally developing our employees for the city through your department?

Um separating it out.

That is the $15,000 allocation.

Yes.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Any other questions?

Uh Doctor, would you like to expand?

Yeah, can I start a little bit say that uh as of last year?

These allows were just one total amount coming out of the executive budget.

And what we've done over the course of the year was monitor and highlight different programs, and what you're seeing now is us moving it into where we will be permanently housed.

So things that have to do with the talent and pipelines and uh workforce development is going to be under the department and talent under the acquittal and talent division.

And the other components of 15,000 and the executive budget is where all of the other departments actually draw from in order to provide resources.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Any questions?

Yeah, so the next division is lines to the opportunity, also OSHA.

The individual line item details for this department are on page 144.

The total budget is grown by 8.57% of the public increases in salaries is not attributed to one additional FTE, and we will talk about that on the next slide.

So if we move on to slide 12, uh fiscal 2026 salary for budgeted 244,000 dollars.

There are budgeted cost of building increases of $8,557, step increases of $1,951.

Additionally, there is a OSHA manager position that has been hired in this current fiscal year, and we were requesting additional funding for that position in this later 2027.

Was there funding in the current we were able to find funding in this fiscal year to pay for this position?

This protocol to help us manage our workers' comp cases.

And there was some vacancies that didn't enable us to fill the position in fiscal year 2027 2036, and we are requesting to continue that into 2027.

And just to confirm, uh this is the first time you're sharing this request, right?

This hasn't been discussed.

No, this is excellent.

Um the line items in this budget that's also been broken into fixing discretionary.

The first discretionary line item is fees not classified, it's budgeted at 200,000 dollars and unchanged from last year.

This is uh necessary attribute fees and litation related to our workers' complains.

Private contractors have been budgeted at $90,000, which is a modest $4,000 increase.

Um this is IMEs on medical consultants that we pay to um oversee the retirement board and help with our accidental facility and disability process, as well as the RADLT annual assessment, which is increasing in cost annually.

Any questions on OSHA?

Uh Council Reeves, um those that have grandfathered in.

How many people are on um work with comp right now?

58 people currently.

That's kind of high, isn't it?

We were trading at 5455.

What happens is there's always fluctuations.

We have a couple of people that have come in off, but we'll have a couple going on.

It varies as you will see during the summit hours, you might get people coming in.

Okay.

Some will be going off.

Our job is to kind of manage the cases to ensure that those employees are actually treating.

If I may ask that, okay.

I think it's also totally important to recognize that some of these metrics that happen over a period of time show seasonal trends.

So as we get into these things where two colour workers are working more for different reasons, there's a shift of what body work is being performed in terms of services.

There are it's not uncommon to see fluctuations in our claim data.

Umtably, if you go back several years, the count of our claims on average have decreased.

However, um, we are noticing a few things.

One is that that the cost of the engine these claims continue to increase when you consider things like cost-mitting adjustments, etc.

Um, and and that there is also not just a reactive response that's necessary, but a proactive and an interventionary response that's necessary, um, which we intend to uh have executed by the recent acquisition of our Ocean Manager.

Okay.

What have I couple groups?

What is the longest amount of time that most that on again not counting the grandfather?

Um have been on work in this comp or something.

So it will vary.

The average case budget are work comp injuries are about six months.

Employee comes in.

This is an average individual salary with an injury claim.

But one individual claim can last longer than the impression that the claim will be wrapped up.

You might have an employee that comes in and you can turn back to work within weeks.

I know we go through this every year, but if I may add, um chairman members of the committee uh are a 2604 member workforce at 58 on average, it represents just about 2%, 200%.

So probably well within industry standards for any employer, not just a misemployer we can do.

Oh no, okay.

Of course, I was going to do or so the people, a couple things.

When the people are off workman's comp or does that include police and fire too?

So this does not include police and the right city of problems employees.

At some point in time, like is there like a time limit that they can stay off on workmen's comp?

So yes, employees that are on work is comp are covered for 312 weeks.

That's about six and a half years.

So employees that are on workers' comp for this length of time would at that point um we would submit requests to have their work company discontinued.

Bear in mind this doesn't this removes them from work comp payroll, so they no longer receive indemnity payments.

But those employees obviously would still be entitled to coverage for medical treatment.

Would that be report doing would that be like I'm using police and fire as an example?

Would you at that point after the six year half years?

Would you put them in for a disability or a regular pension?

How does that work?

Police and fire is covered differently.

No, I know you on duty, his coverage is for what I mean work comp law.

So the coverage for um IOD, which we I think what's a consult on, is separate.

That 312 week period wouldn't be equivalent.

So if the person stays off and then they run out, that's if they run up.

Are they offered a choice to come back to work or they got to retire?

So typically if the person is injured on duty, which is you're referring to police and fire.

No, no.

I'm returning to municipal order.

I'm sorry.

I was comparing so someone's off of the six years, whatever it is, and they you you cut it off, you know the thing, you cut it off.

What do they do then?

Do they come back to work?

In other words, they're not getting paid to work when you're going to be able to do it.

When an employee can't um when an employee is off of that in a third time, it's most likely because they aren't able to come back to work or there's no reason for them to come back to work.

I don't want to say they aren't willing.

That employee is most likely not returning back to work.

There are some employees who approach that gate period, they go back to their clear.

I would say that is very minimal.

That's not usually the train.

An employee that's on that typically is applying for accidental disability.

They are following up to um for regular service retirement because they would no longer qualify for workers.

How many people, I know there's 58 off, but how many people are um close to that six years?

We have two people.

Two people.

Two people that are approaching that gate, and they will be off as of August and September.

Uh the next entire department is the department of total rewards.

Uh this part minutes is all of the uh benefits of the city of province, with the exception of pension.

Uh total expenditures in this department have increased by three million dollars.

The bulk of that is related to retiree medical insurance, which we'll talk about with USI momentarily.

Um we continue into the uh slide 16.

We can look at total salaries for budgeted in this winter 2026 at 551,000.

We have budget cost of living increases of a thousand dollars, step into 15,000, and a reduction of 26,000 to the salary line with staff changes throughout the year.

There are some folks that were at you know the fifth step of their current position that left were replaced with someone at the first step, and so that has resulted in a little bit of budgetary savings in not only the current fiscal year but also going into next fiscal year.

Uh but there are no changes to um total budgeted FTEs in this department for next year.

Um their fixed and discretionary costs have also been broken into or all of their services and supplies have also been broken into fixed and discretionary.

There is really only one line item in this budget, and it's a private contractor's expense.

Um this department's working on some uh technology upgrades, and so they're working with our ERP provider to do a lot of um really exciting things.

I was actually testing some of it today to modernize our benefit process, and what's uh cost that we had last year, so it's unchanged.

Is there um is that like a multi-year contract or is that your year?

I believe it was it's kind of like a term limited engagement to what I understand.

It's like a specific scope of work that they're completing in a certain period of time, and then from there on we'll own the product afterwards we play yes.

So a couple questions that we're here.

So we'll put the benefits every cook more afterwards.

Okay, so um being a retired five and a consummate.

I get several phone calls of people when they turn close to 65.

I'm getting close, but I'm not there.

But uh, so they um are very confused, and you probably I know Ebony does a great job over there, but um is there any way of guidance of a booklet or something that we can send to people when they get close to they don't know what they don't know what to pick, they don't know, they weren't told, you know.

Obviously, some of these people are retired at 40, 50 years old, and now 65 creeps up on them, and they don't know what they pick, and then they say, Oh man, it's close to me $8,000 a year, but they don't really need all that coverage.

Is there any way that we can have some type of uh booklet or some type of instructions?

And I'm talking about myself when I get to that point, and when I get to 65, I'm gonna want to know.

Um, but that's the most questions that I get, and to try to get an answer for blue cross is very tough.

Um because but and to try to and like I said, Ebony does well, like I got her on speed down with her, and you know, she does very well there, but I as more people get older and get close to that 65 that she might get overwhelmed.

So to the department on that one?

No problem.

Um so I'm happy to take that question.

Um that is part of our future planning, actually.

We are currently working um internally and also reviewing um some different vendor options that we could potentially have where we can build out those summary guides for um retirees such as yourself.

Right now, our process is that um as someone is approaching the age of 65, we do send out a packet with all of the information.

Our team is always happy to meet with anyone who has questions, um, schedule an appointment, we can do virtual appointments, we can have them come into the office.

But yes, that is definitely part of our future planning, not only for retirees but for active employees as well.

We want to provide as much education as we can to support everybody so that they can make their informed decisions when it comes to that.

Just because when we came on, you know, people come on, like I've been going for third, I've been if I stayed 37 years ago, I got up.

So I didn't they give you like a little book that was like three pages long, and it there's nothing in there, and then when you get to that, everybody panics and says, What am I doing?

I don't know.

And people actually pick in more coverage than they need, they don't need all that coverage, especially when you're going in.

The biggest thing I think is the Medicare file.

When they go to Medicare, what does Medicare cover versus what they need?

You know, so if we could do that, that'd be great.

Absolutely.

Uh another question.

On the um, and it comes through the city council that I knew from working in the fire department, um, working with the uh off-engine, the 18th month waiver.

Is it and I know we brought this up last time.

Is there any way that because we never refuse people?

They always come through, and it takes forever between the doctors, the people going to the doctors and trying to see if they can come back, or someone might come back, then they're gonna get surgery again.

Is there any way or what does the administration think of if I was to put a resolution to extend it to 24 uh months?

Uh there's uh uh I've done it a couple of times.

I've drafted an ordinance based on a recommendation from the retirement board.

It came up not that long ago in finance when we had a batch of these, and councilwoman Ryan was gonna uh reintroduce it or speak with uh internal auditor because I think the internal auditor had gotten a copy.

Uh and I think we had extended it to 24 months, and I think they wanted to be some discussion.

So it's it's floating around, I can get it to you.

I just think I mean because how much time do we waste when we come in?

And they're always up to the 18 months.

I don't know, maybe 24 will be the same thing, but it just seems 18 months nowadays to try to get three IMEs and get appointments.

It's not gonna happen.

Yeah, so councilman, one uh question.

One thing that you know, I to be completely frank, I'm not sure that is gonna move the needle tremendously.

Um one thing we have to keep in mind is when it comes to your pension, if you are receiving workers' comp and you are granted an accidental disability, you take a reduction in your accidental disability for the amount of compensation you're earning under workers' comp.

If you are granted an ordinary disability or a service retirement, you do not take that offset.

So many of our employees who are earning workers' cost.

I'll call completion fire only.

Police and fire only.

Oh, please and fire all.

Not municipal workers, and fire.

Yeah.

I mean, what eventually it does is it runs out the clock on the IOD so that you don't have to take a c an offset when then you do file accidental disability.

Because you've got to be able to do that.

So that's the majority, I think they come through a piece of fire, right?

Ken, or can I wrong?

We had a batch of 1033 uh people three months ago, maybe something like that.

I don't know, it just seems like they're always coming through, and it's like we're always addressing it.

And I know from when I left 11 years ago, you cannot get these people in for getting appointments and get everything done, and then all of a sudden 18 months is here, and then if it's up to the fire department to do it and say, hey, you gotta get these in because 18 months here, and sometimes we're knocking on the door, or sometimes we bought past the door.

Yeah.

So it's not fair with the person that's off injured or trying to come back and do it, you know.

So I just I was just asking.

Yeah, certainly.

Uh chairman and the vice chairman for the record, but I would let's be fair that ample an adequate notice is given at 12, 15, and 18 months.

So it's not a matter whether it goes blank until 18 months.

And we've seen this on a number of occasions.

I speak frankly on behalf of the entire workforce, including the bogging and workforce, but that would be director of member's point.

I don't know if a six-month expansion would improve the parity and equity of them coming before this committee once again and asking for a waiver then so they could remember your approval is not to grant them a pension.

Your approval is to allow them to go to the retirement board to make sure that they have an application on file, and you would think something that basic would be held at a higher level of concern by the employee and their representatives with two respect.

Okay.

So definitely need to keep working on it, uh improve that process.

Um are we done with the yeah, that's wraps up the packet.

So we'll quickly have a few questions uh for sure before we bring on our direction, councilwoman everyone.

Thank you.

This is quick.

Um, and for Chip Windspear, it's right.

Can I ask you a quick question?

One thing for all your work.

Um can you share with us a copy of the manual you referenced?

You said you have an updated workplace policy manual focus on the rights rules and responsibilities.

I'd love to see it.

Yes, so it's on the city's website.

I will send you a copy as well.

Um you have the entire manual, and it's also itemized by every respective policy included therein.

Um but yes, I'd be happy to send you away.

And who worked on that?

Was you is that you and your team, or were there other city workers?

But myself and my team, we also created a cross-functional and collaborative uh uh uh approach to this where we created a policy working committee with other department directors and employees at all different levels of representations of the city included therein um and went through a multi-step phase process as well as a multi-review process as well, and then effectively negotiated with the appropriate union um for employees that are impacted uh by the personnel system and therefore its respective policies to come to this conclusion.

Cool, thank you.

Uh thank you, Paul.

This is a good opportunity.

Uh feedback that I have gotten um from other members and members of the committee, it's my own feedback as well.

Sometimes they're in uh the budget process.

This isn't specific to to this department, but uh sometimes we ask for uh follow-ups or uh further documents, and you know, we have another meeting on Thursday, and sometimes we forget how we even ask for it on Friday.

I know you guys are very uh busy as well, so we could get into some type of routine of uh sending uh as long as they're reasonable uh ask uh request of documents uh to the city clerk if that works, and and then she could send it to the rest of us uh within a day or two if possible.

Obviously, if it's a bigger ask, um you know we'll we'll be reasonable, but just to get in that routine uh while we continue this budget process.

Uh councilwoman Peterson and Councilman Taylor.

Forgive me, I think I might have been asking the same question as councilwoman Andrew Block.

But um I remember last year at some point in this committee for in the budget process, um, we had talked about salary review with without you were referring to.

Okay, yeah, good.

Um so we had talked about um there was going to be some conversation around salary review, but I just wanted to follow up and see where we are with that.

Yeah, so we are just actually very recently met with the union, the appropriate union that'll be working with us on this project to review the vendors who have bid on this project who wants the RFP to bring in a consultant that will work with the city and this department um in the appropriate union on those positions, particularly um for a compensation analysis.

Um we will be presenting a selection to the Board of Contracting Supply at the upcoming appropriate meeting following our submission of our recommendation, but we have identified in collaboration meeting with the vendor that'll move forward.

This project is slated to move forward, we need to just be having it executed in FY27.

Okay, thank you.

Uh how many I should ask this before how many employees are off with uh leave without pay?

Leave or tell pay?

Yeah, like when someone you know leave without pay.

I could not answer the question at this time.

I can respond to the question.

And also um just a quick one because I know there's one out there floating around.

A non-union person that's off leave without pay.

Um, and I believe they're they've been off for several months, and I just want to make sure that you know that if they get paid over $10,000, which I believe they are already, that that should come back through this committee or the finance committee.

Yeah, so I would I would just note for the I don't want to say names.

I'm not here to do it, but I just want to I know that someone out there it's a non-union person that it should come back here because I I don't personally know why they're still.

I believe you're gonna be able to do that.

And that's a legal that would go before claims and pending suits and attorney Chevrony correctly.

Are you referring to one yet?

They're not going.

But are you referring to a settlement?

I don't know what's going on.

Okay.

I know it's over $10,000 that should come back to the council.

So typically if there is an agreement over $10,000 now, it's gonna go to the claim claims and pending suits committee, which would approve it, deny it, uh continue it.

But that's still on pay.

The person is still still on payroll, there's no suit, they're still getting paid weekly.

But if if if that's if that's what you're thinking, but I will discuss it with Paul and his team, and it'll come to the appropriate body for approval.

Just because I know I don't think it's one either yet.

So, yeah, so I would just note a few things in that regard.

There are various kinds of leaves.

So when you speak to leave, it's a very general term, and there is a variety of different leaves.

Um, some are paid, some are unpaid.

Some are for personnel reasons, some are for their legal rights and or medical reasons would have you, right?

So while there are a list of different kinds of leaves specific to leaves that may pertain to, particularly in terms of like relations matters or personnel matters and things of that nature, um, you know, those things happen for a variety of different sub-reasons that I would be happy to discuss in any particular case in an executive session relevant to a personal matter.

As you know, I am not prepared to discuss that today.

But what I will note, however, um is that any settlements that are drawn and factored um either below or above uh that $10,000 threshold that you cite, I'm happy to share with the Claim independent students committee.

Um I think we've only had one in quite some time under that amount that you know we have documented for a very, very nominal amount, and then uh anything that would exceed that will certainly be reported and submitted accordingly.

Okay.

Um, just to make sure that I think if you're understanding uh the vice chair, um so it's not a settlement what he saw about what you talk about is that there's a city ordinance in place uh that states that any employee on leave uh that's receiving pay, once they reach that ten thousand dollar regular salary uh payment, uh if they're still on leave, I think then there's another process that clicks in, and then that would come to whatever committees appropriate to hear that.

I don't I don't think it's in regards to any type of settlement.

Um we'll we'll review it and it's not gonna get handled here.

You mentioned leave and then I wanted to make sure he understood like what leaves meant in the different kinds that could be there inside.

Apologies if if that will, but I just wanted to make sure that that was clarified.

But understood.

Uh do you have a question?

I I think before everybody has the answer.

All right.

Um I just quickly have uh a couple questions regarding the um work chart.

Um vacancies, it looks like there is um at least two uh what's the plan with those two positions?

I don't so I believe there's um so I see a vacant uh in the access and opportunity specialist position, and then it looks like there's one in the total rewards uh coordinator.

So um our intention is in the in the coming years.

Um is more vacancy and the other one is due to promotion.

Um so our intention would be to that back for those positions to apply a continuity of respective operations.

Okay.

Um and then just quickly, uh who was doing uh the the work of the OSHA manager before uh this person uh was in that position.

Well, the ocean manager's position is an expansion because of the change and shift of the work.

Traditionally in the past, when it was considered uh the office of workers' compensation, it simply just managed workers' compensation claims.

This department is far more than that today.

Um so it it assists even in terms of resourcing IMEs relevant to workers' company IOD process uh claims and processes and it assists with you know processing for those that may or may not eventually undergo the disability retirement process.

Um it works on not just managing the claims but now applying an analysis and analyses herein of the trend data as to why these claims exist and this and the the purpose of this ocean manager now in a future state is to address the ongoing liability that exists by having the cost of these claims.

And the reality is that these claims cost money.

And whether it's the respect of the claim, even if the numbers are are are level or or trend up or downward, you have other factors, indemnity is a cost, cost of living adjustments or cost.

So you can have less claims in one year to another, and it still costs you more than the prior year when you consider the the salary of the individual that's impacted, the cost of living that's applied therein, etc.

So there's there's a need to now identify what are the interventions that are necessary to help mitigate and to manage and reduce the liability that exists by this.

So as we move towards a more proactive approach, the ocean manager was allowed position prior to tee us up in that future state while we fit while we assess and allocate the division of labor necessary to the future state of this department.

We have identified that there's an opportunity to engage therein.

So we have we're very fortunate by monies from vacant salaries, etc.

to be able to fund it in this fiscal year.

But given our planning that has been communicated for quite some time, relevant in respect to the department's workforce analysis and strategic plan submitted in 2024.

Um it is now that time to engage in that next year.

Awesome.

Um other questions from the members, counselors, uh council Peterson.

Um with regards to vacancies in respective departments, who makes the decision about how long they remain vacant in the department.

Usually in terms of filling the vacancy itself.

Yeah.

Usually either with the department director, or if for some reason like the city's operation goes into an essential spend state, then that would dictate.

Okay, and then my last question.

Um you mentioned that under this uh under this ocean manager, or what under these claims, there's about 54 currently.

58, and the the department or the section of your department that handles this is under the occupational health and safety that's correct.

All right, thank you.

Awesome.

So I think we're ready to move on to the USI for a couple.

Thank you.

Uh thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think we're ready.

Okay, great.

Thank you very much.

Uh thank you to the committee for having me this evening.

It's my pleasure to be here.

Um, my name is Kate Kennedy.

I'm the senior vice president with USI insurance.

Um, we're based in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Um, so we're going to start first with looking at the year-to-date experience for the medical plan for the city of Province.

So on slide two of the presentation, we're looking at the experience from the beginning of the current budget through the end of March on the left-hand column for the active medical plan.

Uh, we're currently running at 60 million four hundred and thirty-eight thousand, and then you annualize that uh for if we were to run at a similar rate through the rest of this fiscal year, we it would uh land at eight million five hundred and eighty-four thousand.

The retirees are currently running at twenty-one million four hundred and fifty-one thousand.

That figure annualized would be twenty-eight million six hundred two thousand, and then we have the WRI or workers' complains that are currently running at 3,069,000 annualized would be 4 million 92,000.

Then we also have there's a fully insured premium currently paid out at 9.5 uh 72 million annualized would be 12.763 million.

We have USI's annual consulting fees of 190,000 for the year.

Um, estimated peak quarry fees, so those are the fees that the city pays for the HRA.

Um, estimated um Medicare penalties of 351,000.

Um we have the um current CBS rebates, so these are the pharmacy rebates that have been received, which are 9.618 million, so significant uh number that that uh has been returned to the city.

Estimated premium reimbursement of 1.5 million, the HRA funding um budget year to date 709,000.

So total projected costs are currently at 119 million two hundred thirty-two thousand five hundred-seven against fiscal year budget of 120 million six hundred twenty-seven eighty-nine.

So we're currently under budget by 1.395 million, so 1.4 million under budget currently.

I'm gonna have to upgrade my I know.

I got two men I'm sorry.

I'm sure it's a good thing.

A little better going forward, I promise.

All right.

Okay, quick question.

Oh yeah, is uh council interval as a quick question.

Yeah, a question on the IT is a minor, but the SNED 40 fees, you said that's what the city things are HRA.

What's HRA?

Um, health reimbursement arrangement okay.

Yeah.

Um question for finance.

So anything that is left over in potential savings, is that just go into general funds?

No, it stays in the self-insured medical funds to help reduce risk in future years.

Awesome.

Okay, great.

So then moving to slide three um to page three.

This is just an overview of the projected fiscal year 27 budget, just looking at the breakdown of the budget.

Um medical claims would account for 64.8 percent, the pharmacy claims net rebates would account for 18.1%, administration fees 3.4%, stop loss premiums 0.8%, the fully insured post 65 plans would account for 10.7 percent, the estimated heat quarry and Medicare penalties 0.3%, USI's consulting fees 0.2%, and that HRA funding of 0.6%.

And then turning to page four, the fiscal year projected budget.

Um we have it broken out by active and retirees at the top.

So for the actives, we have it broken out by the sort of the major subgroups.

Um just looking first at a total population by actives for the full active population of 4,389 subscribers.

The um uh projected change to budget would be three percent, and there is some variation among the work groups, and that's based on the experience of the um those work groups, uh, city uh you know, fire, police, water, school, based on how the claims are actually performing.

Um, to date, so that's based on USI's underwriting calculations, but the net impact for all of the active population would be an increase in budget of 3%.

For the retiree population, there is also variation among those um work groups, but the net impact to budget, the net increase there would be 6.5 percent, and then if we were to blend those two together, the total increase to budget would be 3.9 percent.

These two represent the self-funded portions of your medical plan, and then the bottom portion would be your fully insured groups, and we are projecting um the guidance we've received from Blue Cross is we're expecting an increase of 10% on the fully insured premium, um, and so then the blended increase for the total plan costs for the budget year would be 4.5 percent.

Um, and just to sort of put things in a little bit of context, um, in terms of you know what we're seeing in the market from a self-funded perspective, what we are seeing in general is you know, we are seeing some unprecedented uh medical trend these days, and I'm I'm I'm sure many of you are hearing from you know some of your perhaps your constituents and from businesses in the area and such from a self-funded standpoint, we're seeing standard increases of somewhere between eight and ten percent.

Um, and then from a fully insured standpoint in the state of Rhode Island, fully insured plans are regulated by the Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner and Cross Blue Shield, their large group plans were approved for 2026 for an increase of 19%.

And so the 10%, even though yes, it sounds like a high number, still, you know, it could have been could be much worse.

And if I may, of course, chairman of just some historical content of the finance team.

We love historical content.

The finance team having been together minimally 10 years and putting this together, and the self-insured model has been around more than 50 years of privacy.

In 2000 for the 2016 budget, that budget was priced at 100 million versus today's 120 million.

To say that there was a 20% increase in total for what 10 years.

That's incredible.

Self-contained.

If we were buying premium, I like to use the phrase to sleep at night, which means transfer the risk to an insurer.

15% greater each year, I believe, to buy the premium to so that we would sleep comfortably.

We've taken that risk, and the risk that we've done collectively has been outstanding.

Awesome job.

Just for my understanding, what dictates like if an employee is under like a premium plan or a self-insured plan.

What is the difference?

Or I guess like what mixing is like I said, I see like here like there's city in school uh fully insured, um, but also at the top, there's also city and school.

So what kind of dictates like what what plan they so for well I guess I'll just answer and then maybe you can elaborate, but for the employee, there is no difference in the employee experience.

That's correct.

Because what when we talk about self-funded and fully insured, it's purely a function of how the plan is administered and paid for behind the scenes.

That's correct.

How the how the claims are paid, whether you're it fully insured means that you're buying a product from the insurance company where they set the rates up front, but self-funded means that the city is paying the claims as they come in up to a certain dollar amount, you have up to a million dollars, and then we buy a stop loss for high cost claims.

But other than that, the plans have the same coverage, and they're administered by Blue Cross, and the employee and their dependents don't know the difference.

I will say like the primary differentiation is H.

So most of the fully insured plans are all of the fully insured plans are Medicare wraparound plans, so they are not fully insured.

That's really your age, which dictates whether or not you're self-insured or fully insured.

Okay.

Uh confidence here has a question.

What's what I see city fire police on the second one retirees that it says PF1R?

What is that?

That is the consent judgment.

Um, that's the separate people that want correct.

All right.

And then it's not that one, it's that was negotiated.

And and I would just add just the additional context to your question.

The groups by like core groups and its respective subgroups, some of which are like administrated by the while they're each like self-insured versus fully insured.

It's also important that they're broken down by like respective plan designs that are allocated through contract negotiation.

So we're negotiating with the collective bargaining agreements.

Um we are designed to find what it's accepted in the plan in the benefit plane breakdown.

No, um I'm noticeing that I don't know if it's because he's been fired healthy.

Well, why is it why is like the retirees 29 and 32 percent where the others seems to be lower?

Is that because the claims remote visualization?

I mean, if I may um I it so what you're gonna find with plans that are housed by actively employed employees while there's a spread and a fluctuation of experience, like you it it's hard to really create strategy that would you know, uh predict and therefore uh mitigate like high certain high cost claims as they come through.

However, it's important to regulate that your retirees are people that are actively using their insurance and using the benefits for the maintenance of the their health, and and as you know, humans have deteriorate over time, it's just a fundamental fact.

Um, so their experience increases as they're phased more in that direction than when they're an active employee.

Um, just speaks to it, right?

So I know that's why it was the police.

I'm like, what the heck?

What we are not helping.

Yeah, I might not make 65.

Don't say that.

Um did you have uh something else?

Uh no, no.

I've uh I think just oh no, you go.

Yeah, sure.

So page five, just a few caveats to the budget.

Um active schools enrollment is expected to reduce.

Um, and so this was factored in the budget calculations.

Um we use the blue cross estimate for fully insured.

Um let's see.

The cell funded projections we assume 6.2% medical trend and 8.5% pharmacy trend.

The stop loss increase we assumed was 11.7%.

Um we included um we did include an estimate of the rebates that would be returned to the plan based on what the plan has been receiving from CVS and rebates.

Um and for this current period there were no claims over stop loss, no high cost claims over stop loss.

And then on page six, um we are um we have a quick question uh and couple and years after three thousand or chairman.

Um for number one after school enrollment is expected to reduce significantly.

Why is that?

Um the district recently did an audit and found there were quite a few folks that had coverage that they immediately terminated.

Um and so we had reduced their budget by uh the per employee cost um since we had assumed that those folks would no longer be able to think for it.

Awesome.

I'm sorry, can you remind me your name one more time?

Yes, Kate Kennedy.

Kate okay.

Yeah.

You can go ahead, Kate.

Sure, yeah.

So page six um for the self-funded plans.

Um it's helpful to just to keep an eye on large claims.

And so for the current uh the the last 12 months, um this is just a report by subgroup of large claims.

So these would be any claims that would be greater than 250,000 by subgroup.

Um no one claim exceeded one million dollars, so there haven't been any hits to your stop loss, so that's a good thing.

But it just is an indication that yes, there is some high claim activity, but you are a very large group as a whole, and so the good news is the law of large numbers, you have the ability to spread your risk, and so you know, this overall is not an unusual picture.

Um not to get too specific, so um the what's like the theme with what school in terms of someone, I guess it's not so many, but in terms of the 18, it's more we have so it's like what's uh you know it's really hard to say.

I mean, there's all sorts of things that it's not there's like anything that contributes necessarily to them having more high cost claimants.

Um if you look back at the prior slides and we'll get you larger images of this, um you can see that proportionally their active costs are going up because their experience has these high cost claimants in it.

So annually when we're working with the actuaries to prepare this budget, they give us a lot of great data and analytics.

Um one of that is a rolling cost of claims so that they can forecast what future claims are, and when you do have a lot of large claims, um your budget will go up in the next year, most likely.

Um so we they will be seeing an increase to their costs.

And then just to round things out, uh the dental projections on page seven, uh we've received the delta dental renewal of four percent.

So this is just illustrating the dental projection, which is relatively straightforward.

Um is vision uh not included in this work?

Vision's considered a voluntary benefit.

Um not sure where the status is a bit of a met like C decision.

Um but vision is strictly funded by, or I should say it's it's employee need, there's no cost to the city.

When's the last time the city uh I guess what's like the is it do we do an RFP for like uh vision?

Yes, we actually went out, I think it was this past yes, it was last year.

Um so like most of our benefits we signed a three-year contract.

Two years or three.

And what's um specifically to vision?

What's like the what's like the metric or like what system you guys use uh in place that like uh shows that uh uh provider um has like X, Y, and Z network, in network uh providers in the city.

So typically we get that data from the so when we went through, for example, to use your example of vision um RFP last year, we get that data from the potential vendors we may be working with, and then we make a determination based on uh what the in-network out of network and many other factors that we look at as well.

Um, but they typically will provide that uh information because they are the ones that kind of build that network.

Right.

Um, and then we would go with typically what work best for our employees.

And we did that with our last RP.

I just want to know that for you, Chairman.

We looked at what we're seeing out of network.

We even looked at like accessibility by geographical range.

Um so we knew like how far our people would have to go to receive services that would be covered for the respective standards and vendors to make a determination that would make best sense for properties.

Why do you understand that question?

Because it was using I asked a question out of like personal uh experience.

I'm surely blind worse after this hard time.

No, that's fair, but if you have any questions that you'd like to address, please reach out directly.

We're happy to review that with you.

Yes, she's our director of total rewards.

Yeah, she's great.

Give her a shout out.

Um I think uh we are we gonna look at the one have any questions for um resources uh questions uh I don't have a question.

I just want to say that you guys did a good job in getting this deal because medical is skyrocketing.

I I am amazed.

Maybe they must say the percentage that we're paying.

I haven't heard it anyway across any bullets.

Anyway, so great job.

Whoever wants to just keep doing what you're doing.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman.

I will say um I reached out to the interlocal trust, who is responsible for ensuring most of the cities and funds, and they're looking at a 14% increase this year, so proportionally we are um you know doing very favorably in the market.

Thank you so much, guys.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

I wish I was actually a hitting.

Oh, you didn't say anything, sorry.

Thank you very much.

Oh, thank you.

Oh, I can see, I can see people with the bad school.

Thank you.

Oh, Jenny.

Oh, I just want to give um a quick shout-out to Jerusalem over here.

Um the people's work today.

Hopefully, this is the only median where he has to do this type of labor and sensitive works.

It's giving us clear shots, but whole tunnel.

He's gonna be on that work is complex.

He's gonna be another number.

Yes, I'm ready, Chairman.

If you are entering today by my colleagues, Dina.

Okay.

Sorry, before we continue, I will entertain a motion to mark uh this as exhibit three total seconds.

So move by councilwoman grave, secondary by council in uh all those in favor.

I mean there is no I have it.

Thank you.

Uh revenue and expenditure details.

Can we have on page 179 and 18 budget books?

Okay, um, so first things first, we'll talk about revenue, and a lot of time it is a revenue generating department.

Their revenues budgeted this year at 100,000.

That is level funded from the 2026 budget of 100,000.

Um, this revenue is generated from the collection of um outstanding departmental invoices, antitrust litigation, um, collection litigation, security litigation.

They also do quite a bit of opioid settlements, however, all the opioid settlement funds are reported in a separate grant account to be used for restricted purposes.

Um there's also quite a bit of antitrust revenue they generate, but it's deposited into the uh retirement system directly since the retirement system owns the assets that are related to these sort of uh recovery.

Um slide two, total expenditures uh have decreased from fiscal year 2024 by about seven percent.

Um we'll get into the breakdown of these changes in the next couple of slides.

Slide four is where we review salaries, fiscal year 2026 salaries have been budgeted at 2,800 uh 31,184 dollars.

Fiscal year 2026 salaries have been budgeted at 2,81,184.

Fiscal 2027 has adjustments for cost of living increases at just under 100,000.

Bringing the proposed fiscal 2027 salaries to $2,924,543.

Additionally, not noted in here and at no cost of budget.

This is a new title.

The job description has been included in your packet for your reference.

And the solicitor can elaborate a little bit more on these positions, but they're a recruitment technique to help him recruit and retain qualified staff in his office.

This is a really um critical role, particularly given to the um you know uh in-depth knowledge and a lot of things that you need to learn in the city in access because we can't learn outside of city province.

Okay, you said that was uh a change.

It is a change.

So we're creating the position of law clerk.

However, at this point in time we are no pending candidates, so we are not funding that position.

We are not adding additional FTEs.

However, if a vacancy appears mid-year and the solicitor has an opportunity to hire someone who may not have passed the bar yet, you can then hire them as a law clerk while they are looking to get past the bar when they can become promoted to a um uh a solicitor.

Um it's a practice we've used historically, and it seems to be very um it seems to work out really well.

Um questions on the cruise.

Yeah, you said there's a president's flight, that was somewhere and the books.

Yes, yes.

So historically, what has been happening is um the mayor's office has been covering the salaries for them while they're law clerks, and then once they pass the bar, we've been moving them over um to the solicitor's office.

However, I would like to be transparent about this process, and I do think it shows um lateral movement in our departments, which is always a good thing, and so we are requesting to kind of continue this practice because we would in a more transparent way.

Of course, we don't have any.

So we don't get a notification when and if this happens.

Like if we we were to hire somebody, yes.

Uh uh if there were an additional position added as a result of hiring somebody, yes.

Um, if there were, for example, a vacant solicitor position and we use that salary to fill the legal clerk, that would not be something we would no, no.

Okay.

I would say typically, I would say in general, uh, I have a pretty hard rule with departments that there's no adding FTE's mid-budget year unless there is some sort of extreme circumstance or they can demonstrate that it is a budget neutral.

Okay.

We support that rule.

Partially because we have to come here and talk about it, and you know, at the end of the day, you know, we want to make sure that we are um functioning and working with a budget that you know a committee and the city council has approved, and we don't want to necessarily do something other than we've represented the committee.

Okay, we should cost.

Um this department's budget has been broken into fixed and discretionary costs on slide five.

Uh the bulk of their costs are in fees aren't classified.

These are outside council expenses, and they have been reduced based on historical spending and trend.

There's a modest increase in postage, which is also uh supported by historical costs and trends.

Uh dues and subscriptions are level funded.

These are annual memberships and dues for all of our solicitors.

Uh, payment of claims and damages has been level funded at $800,000.

This is an amount of the appropriate every single year to cover planes and damages, and those come may come in at greater or less than weight.

Uh private contractors uh are largely stenographic uh stenographic services.

I think you got that right, house attorney went.

Um court filing fees.

Uh it's also appraisal services for our cases that involved um things that require our additional assessments involved, so this is a funding line so that we can make sure we have private independent assessments for any tax pieces we have outstanding.

Um, and then there's a budget of $30,000, which is unchanged for contract services, uh, which is essentially training for this department.

Um, and I believe they attend the municipal learning.

Thank you.

Annually.

Um Raf Trix Books does have a $20,000 increase.

This is their West Law subscription, and this is for not only the law department, and the DIS also utilizes this subscription as well as housing court.

Um, so this is really um utilized by many city departments.

Uh office supplies are unchanged.

Uh there's a large reduction for rent, which we've talked about previously, um, and copy and lease maintenance as level funding.

Of course, thank you, Chairman.

Um, the crystal and solicitor is that um just a question on the fees not classified for the outside council.

Not that this is like a an opposed to the number going down, but what's driving the decrease in need for outside council?

So this is this has been a long-term effort.

That I think historically, what department utilized more outside council?

And part of that was I think that our we had more difficulty with retention because of the salaries.

But we um in working with the finance department, we've been able to increase salaries to try to retain more people, and when we have more experienced senior-level attorneys, we're able to do more, both because they build and retain the substantive knowledge, but also just have greater capacity, and then we're able to utilize outside council less.

Then you have within our team of the law department, it is full-time, all full-time city employees dedicated to just one client, the city of Providence.

Yeah.

Um, so I just think it's it's been proven to be more efficient for us from a financial perspective.

Is that answer?

Yeah, that's really interesting.

I remember a couple of years ago you're coming in and saying that you're not going to be able to do that.

It's been my goal to keep that down.

Yeah.

Um there's it's impossible to not utilize outside council for various reasons, but um we're we're pretty proud of our ability to keep it down when costs for everything are going up where is lower.

Um just to piggyback on that question, uh is there any other like major I know we have a lot of challenges and difficulties.

Was there any other challenges that this committee should be aware of in terms of staffing, department needs?

Um, I mean, with the with the municipal law department, um salaries are just an ongoing challenge.

Um again, we've been working over years, year over year now to try to um increase the salaries to be more competitive.

And how do we compare um to other use valid?

I know I know where we kind of different from the state vote.

So it depends on whether you're you're talking about within Rhode Island or bringing it broader out to the region.

So I think that for within Rhode Island we're fine, we're very different from other city law departments in Rhode Island in terms of our size.

Right.

Um I think there are there are certainly a number of smaller municipalities who their entire um legal services is provided by by private firms.

Right.

So it's not it's it's just a different setup.

Um compared to uh municipalities in Connecticut or Massachusetts, where our salary structure is quite low.

So our goal has been to continue to try to get to at least parity with the state, which we're not at, but we're getting closer.

Um to not be so much lower than what folks can get for in public service positions in nearby states.

Because the reality is I think we have we have a strong culture in our department and folks who are dedicated and look and want to work for the city, but we do um from time to time lose folks who are not who are not um we don't lose to private the private sector, which will never be able to compete, and we don't try to compete salary-wise with the private sector, but we lose to other public sector positions, whether it be Massachusetts, Connecticut, or the state of Rhode Island, um, because the salaries just are not close enough.

Um so we keep trying to get to the point where at least the delta, the the difference between what we pay and what other public sector opportunities provide is not too much.

Um it's a it's an ongoing battle, council.

Um is there any other questions by committee members or councilwoman Paris?

Council or if um I'm trying to figure this out.

Try to say something.

But um you know me and we have trouble.

We support good truck boards.

I know you represent like departments and stuff, right?

So let's say the retirement board and pick on that.

And they have the decision and they want to say, you know, we want to fight this case or whatever.

Would you go by their recommendation and fight the case, or would you can you or would you settle in that narrow?

So in each of those to take like in general, um the the big picture is our client is the city of Providence.

So we don't we which that that includes legal representation for every single city department, every city officer, board, and commission, the council, the administration.

If there is a matter before the retirement board that is leading to or could lead to litigation, then we're gonna be taking guidance on that from the retirement board, presumably such litigation would flow from a retirement board decision.

Um I think one thing we spend a lot of time on, and part of the reason we're so involved with the municipal lawyers association is there's often a lot of um complexity to how um you represent a body like a municipality.

Um so we're guided in terms of um who the decision maker is predominantly by the city charter.

So I don't want to start getting into like detailed legal conclusions here in a budget meeting, but I'll say that we always focus on the law to determine you know what our next steps should be.

And when it comes to who should be guiding litigation, that's most commonly the home rule charter.

But we look at state statute, city ordinances, the entire body of law.

Thank you.

Uh councilwoman uh graves and then councilwoman.

How many solicitors do you have on staff?

So we currently have 16.

Okay.

And how many work remotely?

Nobody works remotely.

Um there are times where someone like so we don't have any official remote working policy, but there are occasions where someone needs to get work done because it's a trial the next day, but they can't get in and they just need to work.

So we do provide that flexibility on an asking basis.

Okay.

And that line item that says payment and claims.

Um what makes it so high?

Six points.

Six million.

Um, yeah, that is a settlement that we have approved for in our legal approval, so the actuals will not be six point six million dollars.

Five million dollars of that has been put away to to pay for the settlement.

So um the payment of claims and damages come in throughout the year.

At the end of the year, there's a process where the city solicitor's office works with the controller in finance to build what's known as the legal accrual.

Okay.

Um that is a confidential document that the solicitor provides to our outside auditors that gives a dollar assigned value to pending claims and suits that may settle in a period of time.

And so the actuals that you'll see there really are predicated uh largely on what happens at that year and process.

Um, and so that is when all the basic counts get to acquisition board.

Okay.

Andrew, um, I can't think of any.

I lost it.

We went to uh Consul Peterson and Bad, and then we'll put the last few comments.

Quick question on that one point three seventy-five of um for outside attorney.

Um is that available for anything that comes to you from any department?

So, like if there's an um a concern coming from different departments, that is and it requires outside sources.

Um that's the funding that you use from it.

That's correct.

That's the kind of questions.

Okay.

Sorry, Kenny.

He wouldn't let anyone else take it.

There's a lot of fights in the office, so that's right.

Yeah.

I know the offline is anyways means complex, but we appreciate you.

Uh just to confirm uh city solicitor, there's no vacancies in your department right now.

There are two vacant attorney positions.

And how's that process of um it's going?

So I'll follow up on what Crystal mentioned in terms of the old law clerk position.

So both to make sure or to attempt to attract and retain talent as well as our ongoing efforts.

We're very um proactive.

Myself as well as fellow staff members of recruiting throughout the region.

Attending now it's virtually recruiting sessions, interviewing attorneys, bringing in law students as law clerks during the summer to do internships.

And I think what we found is particularly in those in those efforts, is that we we'd have folks from law schools from outside Rhode Island who folks were not from Rhode Island that had great experiences and were excellent potential hires.

But had plenty of opportunities because of what strong candidates they were and we couldn't offer them anything because they weren't yet barred today.

They're graduating law school, they're deciding do I take Massachusetts bar or the Maryland bar or and um to not be able to just hire them pending our passage caused us to train as clerks some really good talent that then went and took positions elsewhere who can hire them right away.

And it's hard coming out of law school for someone who just not get paid for several months.

Um we we have some prospective candidates in that situation that we're hopeful will choose us even though we might be offering a little less in salary.

So we're we're we're working hard on adding to our team for those positions.

Appreciate that uh Council Graves.

Um do you hire any formal solicitors to be consultants?

And if so, why?

Any what?

Former solicitors.

Oh, former solicitors.

Um as outside council.

I'm trying, I don't know if any of our current outside council is a form.

I know we have had a former solicitor handle something as outside council, a minor engagement.

I don't think currently.

Okay.

Any other questions?

No.

Thank you, Jeff.

We really appreciate you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, yes, I'll take a motion to enter the four into the record.

So moving by counseling, like any sailor.

All those in favor, eyes and yes, have it.

Okay.

All right.

Um we are ready.

Wonderful.

Uh extended two details for this department on pages 51 and 52 of your budget book.

To the print.

And joined today by Director Jones and Jr.

Uh and Fiscal and Operations Manager Albert.

And then we'll just talk about arts paper development.

Uh slide two.

This is a revenue generated department.

Uh, their largest source of revenue is a payroll reimbursement uh from the province course and council.

There's also additional revenue received from um special event application fees.

Uh, their budget for revenue was in 1100 this year and has been supported by this local fund.

Uh total services and supplies uh and all mine items in this budget have changed by $63,000 or 3.6%.

I think it ends up breakdown of those line-by-line itemizations in the next few slides.

Uh total salaries in fiscal year 2026, the budget at 469,987.

Uh, there are no proposed funded new positions.

However, the department is requesting to allow the possibility of funding a nightlife manager should grant funding become available mid-year.

Um so this is a position that is not again not funded.

It would not be filled unless there was some sort of grant funding received by the City of Providence to cover the salary for this position.

The service and supply line items have been broken into fixing discretionary costs.

First, we'll go through services if there are credit um services and supplies in this department.

All in all, they've gone up by 92,000.

The bulk of that is in contract in contract services and relate to the cultural festivals fund that we uh discussed previously.

This is a funding source to enable our festivals to perform throughout the city and not face financial hardship as a result of that.

Um there's funding for a literary festival.

Um an additional funding for existing programs.

What we found is that utilization has increased, and we are expecting a larger presence in the city, and so we will need additional resources to provide the same level of programming in this goal year 2027.

Um, there's a small increase in professional development for them to attend some regional working uh training sessions for their staff.

Uh total supplies have been reduced.

That's mostly due to uh the change in rent.

Uh there's been a modest increase in grant expenditures for the writers' scholarship, which I'm sure the department would love to elaborate on in greater detail.

Um we have reduced again supplies due to the reduction in rent, which we are no longer responsible to be paying for.

Um and there's been a small increase to rentals again because we are anticipating increased utilization, and there are certain things like portal toilets that need to be rented, and sometimes we need more of them than we have more people.

That's that's move over to the director, so he's in the ocean marks or has any questions for him.

Thank you so much.

Hey everybody.

How are you doing?

Great.

Are you uh what do you have?

Your goal words give us a good spiel upgrade paragraph or two.

Well, first of all, we um as a department are always grateful to the support that you all provide to our department.

Um we again have, and this is not me making this up, but it's about talking to uh departments like ours across the country.

We have one of the largest and widest scopes of work of any department of its kind in the country, um, which really gives us an opportunity to work cross-sector, to build cross-departmental relationships, and that's because we do everything from permitting every special event in the city of Providence, which requires deep collaboration with our city service team and deep community engagement.

We produce signature events here in the city of Providence, uh, and we do that very well.

Uh and as you all have probably heard, we're producing a big giant additional event in the city of Providence this summer, uh called the PVD fan zone, which has been officially sanctioned by FIFA as of last week.

Uh we steward an extensive public art portfolio.

Uh, over the past three years that I have been uh at the head of this department, we have commissioned six new murals and of 50 additional art interventions around the city.

Um, and we have several placekeeping initiatives, whether that's the Providence Commemoration Lab, which we sunset of last year or the Broad Street stories.

We're always looking for opportunities to um to fund 501c3s to create opportunities for our artists, but more importantly, to build an understanding in the city of how art and culture and tourism aren't luxury items.

They're not nice to have, that we are indeed an essential part of not only the city's economy, but um we are also critical in terms of civic health and community wellness.

Um, for example, we did a did a big study speaking to the position that we hope to one day fund with our life at night work because we are continuing to respond to what is our second tenure cultural plan and prompt to say that all the work that we have going on in the department is in communication with that second tenure cultural plan.

But one of the asks of that plan were by our gig economy workers to find out hey, what's the what's our financial impact that we make between the hours of 5 p.m.

and 9 a.m.

And we know here in the city of Providence that during that time, life at night, it is a 990 million dollar sector for this city.

So, as we like to say in this department, we always remind everyone who has the power to do something about it that our value values must much, our budgets must continue to match our values.

And so, as long as I'm the head of this department, I will continue to fight every single day to center arts and culture and tourism uh in our story of province, centering the diverse voices that represent that space uh here more importantly, uh continuing to make good on uh that moniker and our promise of continuing to be the creative capital.

Santa Santa Councilwoman Peterson and then Councilwoman and then Councilman Brazil.

Director, thank you very much for that.

I always look forward to your welcoming of talking about the budget.

Thank you.

This isn't a pretty thing to ever do, and you make it very lively, so I appreciate that.

I second, and I just want to echo how important I think this particular department is to what we're trying to do in terms of mobilizing economic opportunity here.

I think it's substantial, and I think that you guys execute well under the limited resources that you have.

I am curious, however, um to find out Life at Night Manager was something that was really pushed and requested last year.

It was something that we had discussed substantially because we understand that 900 we understand the need, our not only our gig economy has come out, our small businesses have come out to say we need to be able to facilitate, manage something, we need support, and that life at night manager position was something that was substantial out of that.

My ask is why we didn't try to find a way to include that in these particular in this particular budget this year, knowing that our business our business owners, our small business owners, and our economic development is really requesting something, a position of this nature.

Well, uh I really appreciate that question.

I think that means the administration uh has done a really great job of trying to come up with strategies that center our neighborhood central, center these cultural corridors, corridors, business districts.

Uh the way that the way that we've been working with our small businesses in preparation, for example, um, with World Cup, that has been both a state and local strategy to make sure that our businesses are prepared, they're they're aware of how to do expansions, making sure we have the proper proper licenses, licenses and trainings.

Uh, we've also been working uh with skills for RI, for example, to build out additional assets specifically for uh creative workforce development.

Um to be brutally honest with you, I think for the department it really has been a matter of capacity.

Um we are really at maxed out right now in capacity, and I think also truthfully, while this position is very, very important, uh what we've been learning uh from our colleagues nationally uh and and regionally is that we have to continue to be while pushing forward with creating what I believe is very important position, still remaining very intentional.

And what we don't want to do is set someone up in this position for failure.

Um and so we're continuing to make these incremental steps to understand what the sector needs, and I think then that would prepare us ultimately for when we're able to make uh the larger investment in this position that the sector deserves.

So the work is continuing.

Um there was a line item in the budget that speaks to professional development.

Ali uh Barry and Ray Riley are meeting, you know, every week and bi weekly with uh cities around the country, some who have life at night managers, some who don't have life at night managers, and we're hearing anecdotally uh best practices around how to ensure success uh with those endeavors.

And so the the work is continuing.

Um I think that capacity has in in many ways compelled us to slow down in that examination.

Um, but again, there's also been so much happening uh in the city, in the sector, both politically, socially, uh production-wise, uh, that it's really um forced us to take a few steps back.

But what we're learning from the sector is that that's actually a good thing.

And so we're we're continuing to push, but I think um being also cautious and uh ultimately setting up this position for a best case scenario in terms of success.

Thank you.

Can I have the follow-up?

Um yeah, I sort of quick figure back off of the my other question.

Is there um you guys identified as like possible grants out there?

Is that the idea?

Or is that kind of what's the thought process behind uh leaving it um in your department as a potential grant opportunity to be brutally honest because if we take it out of our budget, it's much more difficult to get back in.

And so that's with any um, you know, we had the same situation.

I'm just being truthful.

Uh right, the same situation when we had um uh uh a vacated position in our arts education.

We kept that position on it was unfunded, but it still remained a position.

Um and that's that's important for us because we want it to still be remained flexible and have it as an opportunity.

And so I think um it's it's a healthy way to keep this to keep this um placeholder uh to keep and I think there will be and to be ready for opportunities potentially that may be able to support uh this position in the future.

Awesome.

Thank you, Arthur.

I'm sorry, Congressman.

Thank you.

Um, who is doing that research for you?

Close up of me.

Um who's doing that work for you to research um the potential opportunities.

Uh, currently that research is not happening within the city uh within the department.

Okay.

Um, and so we'll be relying on um on the administration broadly to help us strategize about that around that moving forward.

This city has a grants manager, the Alice will be on the lookout for us.

Of course, we'll have to um really um the question I have is regarding World Cup.

I know that we came out with a fan zone, but I kind of think that we as counselors are left in the dark about the upcoming plan of attack for all of this, and I'm hearing from different places that our numbers of potential people coming in has um shifted and varied quite a bit.

So I would love to know outside of the fan zone if we have anything coming up that we should be aware of because I'm gonna ask the same question of public safety of DPW because I think that this is a very big opportunity for the city to thrive and bring in some extra needed business, and I want to make sure that we're fully prepared.

Absolutely.

We're very excited about World Cup.

Um, we have been working on this diligently since last November.

Um, obviously, um our capacity to move forward has been based upon uh the information that we have been given according to a timeline that is not our own as it relates to uh FIFA International.

We also know that this is one of the most complicated World Cups in its history.

Uh the number of teams has been expanded, and this is this event is not taking place at one venue.

Um, it's taking place um within three different countries, um involving almost 25 different cities.

Um, and so obviously it's been a complicated matrix.

This is what we do know.

Um, we do know that because of um the walkability of this city.

Uh we do know because how of how this city has positioned itself in terms of being a more affordable option than a Philadelphia or New York, New Jersey, or Boston, uh, that we have been very a very attractive city as it relates to international federations wanting to partner with Providence.

Um I will also say, and this goes back to some of the work that we did with the Cultural Heritage Tourism Marketing Plan, because our stakeholders, our artists, our creatives are saying we want a broader story told about Providence via our cultural plan.

That part of what made Providence so attracted to Ghana was indeed that they did their homework, and they saw that this is a 40% Spanish speaking city and a 60% uh city of color in terms of its demographic, and Ghana found that attractive, and they chose Providence.

Um we're also seeing movement in other parts of the sector.

For example, apart from playing the fan zone, as you all know, as I've said my department permits, and so we are expecting 10,000 people from a group called the Tartan Army, which is a Scottish fan club.

Uh many of them operate here in the United States and even locally, but they're bringing 10,000 people to this region.

We know that they're gonna be headquartered downtown at one establishment, uh, and they'll be using our fan zone as the place that they're actually catching their buses to go to Gillette Stadium.

My department helped to facilitate that work.

Subsequently, we're getting contacted by we also know that we have the uh adjacency with the um the partnership with um um uh Casa de Portugal, which house of Portugal, um, and that's gonna be they had they could have chosen any city uh in the country.

They chose to be in Providence as a result of our adjacency to a very vibrant Portuguese community here.

Uh, and so that'll be a major hub.

Um we've also been in conversation with the British consulate because they are playing a very important match between England and Ghana on the 23rd.

So we're having a big water fire celebration for their delegation on the 22nd.

So we are getting anecdotally these connections with cities, and we've also been uh viewed by other cities who are um federations who are anticipating going deep in the tournament, who will then potentially use Providence as their home base uh during that time.

So there's been a lot of synergy around who we are as a city.

There's been a lot of work done in terms of laying a narrative, a true narrative around this place is a feasible option uh as it relates to going to Boston or um Philly or New York.

Um and our hospitality sector has worked really, really hard.

Uh, for example, you know, you heard stories in the news a few weeks ago that hotel rooms weren't booked or weren't booking.

So what did we do?

We spoke to our hoteliers to remind them that we have to carve out that space that is uniquely Providence.

Part of that is making sure that we have a price point that people will find attractive.

And so it two weeks ago, a hundred rooms were booked with at with the average state night of each reservation of eight nights were booked at the Marriott Orms.

And so it's about us also thinking strategically as we're watching the market in adjacent cities, and again, continuing to carve out how we can fit uniquely into a puzzle that presents us with opportunity.

And if there's anything else I can say about this, is that we I'm really proud of the state.

And I'm really proud of the collaborative collaborative spirit that we've been in to maximize the opportunities of this event.

And so we think that because of these sort of constituencies that are embedded within the Scottish fan group that are embedded within England playing Ghana that are embedded with House of Portugal, that are embedded within the Scott.

We also have been working with the Scottish Federation.

Also, many of these federations will take over our fan zones over a given number of days.

And during this period of time, Providence is all already jumping because it'll be the 50th anniversary of Pride on the 20th of June.

We have Juneteenth.

It'll be 250 on the 4th of July, and culminating with our 5th of July firework celebration at India Point Park, in which we're collaborating with the Cape Verde and Festival.

And so there are also these things embedded in that period of time that have also been really huge drivers of the economy here in the city of Providence.

And as far as I'll just even this is not my lane, but I'll go there a little bit, making sure that both the quality of life for our residents and user experience are top notch.

And so the state team's done a really great job, for example, to make sure that we have a transportation plan.

We will have a transportation hub that's being stood up at the convention center, and we will have dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of buses that are also transporting people from this region to Gillette Stadium.

And so we've marketed all of those things again to make sure that people see Providence as the vibrant, viable option.

It should be.

And the fact that within District Park, the Van Leason Pedestrian Bridge, and our station park footprint, that's gonna be jumping all summer long and and Providence is ready to welcome you.

So I need the implementation plan.

That was awesome, very long.

I'm just trying to think of a way to get this out to the rest of uh the council.

I mean, our schedules are.

I think what we should do is have committee, a separate committee have all of it come in and have it all discussed all at least so that we are aware of any prices.

I just thought scheduling is crazy next month and a half.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe uh the chief of staff is already maybe working on of me doing a brief uh with the city council.

Yeah, that's good.

Oh, wonderful.

Uh but for full transparency, you know, again, we've been working on this since November and simultaneously trying to obtain both the FIFA licensing rights, which is a very onerous process, even down to how we can um what kinds of sponsors that we can attract.

Luckily, uh we have all FIFA sponsors for our activation, Coca-Cola, Viaggio, um Budweiser, and continuing to work on more because the FIFA sponsorships are situated in a way that if you you can't have any other sponsors of your activation if they are at all in competition with an existing FIFA sponsor.

So, for example, um transparency, Adidas is the Uber sponsor of World Cup.

Casa de Portugal is coming in as Casa de Portugal because it's the Portuguese Federation, but they're sponsored by Puma.

So it's a way that Puma's presence isn't on the footprint in competition with Adidas.

For example, Bank of America is an Uber FIFA sponsor.

That means we can't have any other banks, even local banks on the footprint.

So we're engaging with local banks to activate other parts of downtown, whether that be Bilmore Park, The Rink, Kennedy Plaza, and we're also been working with these federations to find places for them to sell their kit, their merchandise.

What I just learned and did not know is that officially sanctioned FIFA merchandise is a big deal.

And so Ghana had their kit, for example, a few weeks ago in Atlanta, I believe it was.

No, in Brooklyn, sold out.

Um House of Casa de Portugal, which is uh they're owned by uh a major um uh sports apparel company who has a pass through rights so they can sell um Puma, Adidas, and Nike, they had a kit uh open in Atlanta, and within two hours, they sold out a 40 by 40 18 wheeler worth of merchandise.

So we know that this merchandise will also be a major driver of people not being able to get it anywhere between they can get it here or they can get it at Gillette Stadium, and that's it.

The last thing I have on this topic is if you're not already a director, um to somehow get uh the youth from rec centers involved in these activations.

Yes, yes, yes.

What we do know according to FIFA regulations is that any team based in a city such as Ghana, they are required by FIFA to do one kind of fan uh activation.

Uh we think that's gonna be at Bryant University.

Um, in our bi-weekly meetings with the city, um, we always have Sean Holley, our director of RECs in that meeting.

And so, yes, we're working every single day to make sure that the ex that our youth in the city are centered in the experience of World Cup.

Um, and there are also other additional activations that'll be happening adjacent to the footprint.

For example, uh with how a Casa de Portugal, literally every single week, they'll be bringing in a former Portuguese soccer star, and we'll be working with them to make sure that our kids are being included uh in those activations.

And of course, um, we're working to create a series of um gamification activations throughout our footprint gamification basic games.

Um so these can be electronic games, these can be more um physical handheld games, um, but really welcoming our youth to to be a part of what's happening on our footprint as well.

So, you know, they are center of mind, um, and it's the center of the conversations that we have, whether we're talking to FIFA or whether we're talking to these teams who are coming into Providence, it's all about trying to figure out ways that we can collaborate with our with our young people, and more importantly, we're collaborating with our neighboring cities.

You know, we are in constant conversation with the football club in Pawtucket, um, and they're also interested in while they they have we have to work with them about how they can have adjacency and interact with the footprint because they're sponsored by Centerville, which is a bank, um, that that they'll the world working on some off site activations that can involve um our province youth as well.

So no, there's center of mind.

That's awesome.

Thank you.

Um yeah, I had two comments and a question, but that's okay.

The first comment is um you guys are so awesome.

You punch like way above your weight.

Whenever I see your budget, I'm like, how are they doing all this with only so many people?

So it's just like a kudos and a love.

Um, and a shout-out that I was like working through your write-up uh before you presented, and I really appreciate that your values include anti-racism and radical joy.

I think that's really for all of that.

And I'm also really excited about the North Bay One Gateway art.

Thank you for all the public art, particularly on working in Street, said very excited about it.

Um the two questions I had were um are we seeing any impact on our tourism numbers due to the um chaos at the federal level and how hostile America is to foreign folks at the moment.

Like, are we is that impacting our tourism?

That's a great question.

Let me circle back to your first point about the artwork at North Burial Ground.

Yes.

Uh, just so you all know, um uh this is a massive CIP project that we have going on right now.

We're putting two pieces of signature art at New De Confident Park and North Burial Ground.

I'm proud to say that this past Monday we received all of our semi semi-finalist proposals.

Uh so there were uh uh I believe eight proposals.

We will choose one proposal for each site and an alternate in case um that person uh is not able to um become a finalist.

But it's it's a really exciting um group of artwork.

We got artists from around the globe, and so it's gonna be a really um exciting, exciting thing to see on this on the landscape uh on in the city's art landscape.

As it relates to what's happening in our tourism sector as a result of what's happening nationally.

I will not sit here and tell you that I'm an expert on that or I have any numbers uh that probably the CBB can provide uh to you or or commerce.

Um but what I will say anecdotally is that that is a concern uh as it relates to World Cup and as it relates to what the potential impacts uh that could be as a result of the policies uh on a federal level.

Um what I will say that we've been more focused on making sure that we're getting the resources that we need on the federal level as it relates to everything from security, uh it's been mostly in terms of security.

Yeah, um, and we've made some progress uh in that regard in collaboration uh with folks uh in Boston FIFA, so there's been a lot of of cross-state collaboration.

Um there have been some resources that have come to Boston as a result of being an official fan zone.

We don't get those resources because we're not an official host city, and so the city has been really thinking creatively about how to maximize our resources, how to use our vendors.

Um there's a reason why we spend quite a bit of money on groups like NES for security.

Uh we'll be relying upon them heavily uh this summer, as many of our cultural organizations will.

So to answer your question, I don't know.

Um and I think it remains to be seen.

Uh but it is the fact that FIFA is indeed the World Cup is the largest sporting event on the planet.

Yeah.

Um I am hopeful that because of our size and how we can continue to set our set ourselves up as a destination and as a viable option for families to be able to enjoy this experience that we will be able to capture enough of the market and enough of that benefit that will still be meaningful for the city of Providence.

Right?

Without and and that goes back to the way that we've been speaking to the folks in the hospitality sector.

It's like let's not price out people on not just World Cup, but it's also the 50th anniversary of Pride.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's not price up people who may want to come to the K Burdian Fest or may want to come to the Juneteenth festival.

Um so I think the more that we've been strategic about that and maximizing our capacity to make sure these rooms are filled, make sure that people are staying for more than you know five days, you know, they're still paying, you know, premium prices, but maybe not a thousand dollars a night as people are paying in a Boston or paying in New York.

Yeah, um, I think that we can do what we always do here in Providence in Rhode Island, it has to be smart, be scrappy, and and and knowing that what for us may seem like what for another city may seem like modest games for a city like Providence could be a big deal.

Yeah, so that's the way that we're thinking about it.

I appreciate that kind of sort of important.

Um in the um chart, you have a public art manager unfilled new.

Is that a totally new position this year?

What is the need to learn?

That would be a CIP funded position.

Um so we have uh someone that we're working with right now by the name of Alexander Gollup, who has been our contractor um consultant uh in the public art space for years, and so we need that work to continue.

Yeah, uh, we've learned so much about the challenges and the expertise that it requires to put art in public space, and so having someone on our staff to help navigate that space is critical.

And as you have all mentioned, we're we're a team of six, yeah.

And so even that part-time staffing really helps us navigate the world of you know, Alexander's dealing with the legal part of it, he's dealing with um the folks who are helping us prepare the engineers engineers preparing the site.

Uh he's working with the conservator who's making sure the piece, you know, what's the piece made of?

Uh, how will it deteriorate?

Will it deteriorate?

What's its um maintenance plan?

So he really helps us navigate that world, and he's also an artist.

And so we're not saying this position will be him moving forward um for full transparency.

Um Alexander does not live in the city of Providence.

Yeah.

And so we think that what would be beneficial uh moving forward is that we do have uh sorry.

It happens.

I remember the same thing.

It happens to all of us.

That uh that we would be able to find a vendor locally who can assist us uh with in that temporary position.

Um and it also what we've learned in my department is that being able to see to the face-to-face matters.

Yeah, um, and while we we have great you know, FaceTime calls or Teams calls with Alexander, he's really very, very talented, and this is no sight against him.

We we'd love to keep him you know forever and ever and ever, but we do believe that there is a value and a responsibility we have to making sure that we can uh trying our best to engage someone um who's more available locally in that position.

So that would be a CIP uh funded position.

And again, it would be a not a full-time position, so it not being the common class ordinances.

Yeah, um touch upon there that's really and there's no additional funding required because of the direct consumption.

They're already paying here as a consultant to do this, so it would just be a repurposing of the OPM line to hire somebody in-house part-time instead of paying that third-party private contractor.

Yeah, okay.

Um the final quick thing I'll say is you probably already know what I'm saying out loud because remembering the public artal ground is reminding me that the um banister sculpture gravestone that was banalized last year or two years ago is being replaced this fall.

The funding came through.

Um so that will also be happening this fall at the North Bayal Brown, so just saying that out loud in case you don't know that and put something together, yeah.

Great, that's great news.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Well, she I think she's um everybody asked, yeah.

Sorry, no, it's wonderful.

I'm glad it all I can do is say I I too um amazed at what you guys are doing with uh amount in time and amount of people that do have in place.

Um we should be um definitely kudos for that.

Um I was gonna ask you about sponsorship.

Um we losing any um sponsorship because it is uh do you think we have with this?

We can gain more sponsorships next year.

What do you think is going to go on with this with the PIFA thing?

Yeah.

I don't do sports things, I think it's the speaker.

And when you say gain sponsorships, is that in relationship to a specific project or in general?

I mean in general, um, because this is a great thing, but it's this year.

Um moving on, the how do you think has that momentum can we gain out of this?

Wow.

First of all, I think this is a broader question for not just the event producer, but many 501c3s that models around corporate giving have changed and shifted, models around foundation giving has changed and shifted, and there is not nearly enough local philanthropy and individual giving.

So you have many 501c3s asking the very same question.

Um the way that I am thinking about sponsorship as it relates to events is that we have to find ways to figure out we pride ourselves on having free events in the city, but we have to figure out a way in whatever way that we can to find those opportunities for revenue, and so you know it's it's thinking creatively about a sponsorship.

So say, for example, a vendor wants to throw an event and that a portion of those proceeds while generating interest in PvD fest, a portion of those proceeds can go toward the festival while potentially platforming artists on that petition uh particular venue stage of uh uh that that that's a win for us, or working with other groups that you know, there are these events that that lead that happen consistently throughout the year that culminate with the battle of the band or some kind of talent competition.

What are ways that we can earn revenue?

People paying $10 for a ticket to go and see their friend competing in the contest that may allow them to be in a PvD fest stage.

Um, we're just thinking more creatively about those opportunities.

Um for the fanzone, for example.

Um, this is gonna be which really we're looking at projecting potentially close to a million dollars that we can earn in revenue as it relates to food and beverages on the footprint, whether it be vendor fees, um, also boo sales, um, beverage, non-alcoholic beverages, and so just trying to find ways to continue to maximize revenue, uh honoring the fact that the free festival has value, um, but also building our longer runway that we can kind of plug in, plug in these um sponsorship event opportunities that our local businesses can help us generate some of that um some of those resources.

I don't think this fundraising model or the fundraising landscape is going to change anytime soon.

I expect it to get worse before it gets better.

Um, but I also think that's where you all come in.

And explaining to the public why festivals and why these kinds of activations, why gathering in public space is important, um and thinking broadly and creatively about how we protect these cultural assets.

You know, what we know now in this country is that I guess I'm getting maybe ahead of myself as I argue my CIP budget, but infrastructure is not just pipes and buildings.

Infrastructure is also people.

Ephemeral, the temporary is also a form of infrastructure.

And for far too long, we have not thought of it as infrastructure and thought of using our you know, CIP money in that regard.

So I think some positive things that we're doing right now, number one is establishing the prop, the cultural festival's fund, which I hope one day can grow into a Providence Festival spot.

That's not just about supporting you know the big cultural festivals, but I think of all the other smaller cultural festivals that are happening within neighborhoods or PBD fest being a part of that.

Newport is a newport uh newport festival still fun.

Something I'll be talking about in my CIP uh hearing on Thursday is that we're looking to make some changes that can allow us to use CIP money to not just invest in statute statues and sculpture and murals, but what would it mean to really invest in other forms of cultural infrastructure?

Um I think that will be money, money well spent as well.

So we'll be talking about that on Thursday.

So I think all these creative ideas are ways that the city is trying to uh accommodate for the fact that we are in a climate of very limited resources, but really continuing to have you all as advocates really continuing to call on our businesses, economic development as we're speaking to so and so wants to come into our city and wants to get X amount of tax break or wants to get X amount of help getting that building, then there has to be some kind of commitment that you're making to the arts and cultural sector.

To me that's what we can have y'all advocate for us on that regard.

I know that means I know the mayor is keen on that as well like what what what what kinds of skin in the game can those folks who want to be a part of being in this community bring to bear as it relates to the arts and cultural sector knowing that you ain't gonna find nobody that wants to come and work in your business if there's not a certain kind of quality design quality of life.

And what we also know anecdotally and I don't know this is unrelated but part of us centering arts and culture is actually making us a better community and we know that when I am hearing anecdotally for example of as I serve on the youth pride board I'm hearing about families relocating their queer trans gay kids and raising their families in the city of Providence because they feel safe and arts and culture play a role in that and so the more that we lead in that space families are taking notice to that and it's actually allowing people it's it's it's an entryway into what they perceive as a safe community because we lead with art and culture and then once they get here then they realize that yeah this is this is a community that that that will make my my trans kid or my queer kid feel safe or a community that is you know a sanctuary city standing up for the rights and the responsibilities that we have to our immigrant communities a city that is once again leading has all well continues to lead with with its values and so that's a long answer to the climate's not going to change we're becoming creative about how we address it and people are taking notes we're doing the right things and so it's gonna be these baby steps as my father used to say how do you eat an elephant not all at once but you know once move all at a time and and and this these are generational sort of um issues that we're dealing with and especially as it relates to how we value arts and culture I mean I'm 54 years old I come from a generation where and I told you this room before when I told my parents I was gonna be an actor my parents had a fit like you were on law school and if my daddy could be alive to see me now spending 30 years of my life on and off Broadway and now leading a city department of in the city of Providence centering arts and culture he wouldn't even believe that was possible so my daddy would be proud but it's also of it's also something important for communities of color to see that that not only are arts and culture important but also their opportunities really there's opportunities for gainful employment within this sector or using the transferable skills of of um the arts and cultural sector to do just about anything but to do that work with with whatever you decide to do with with a sense of of truth and honesty of commitment to others working collaboratively working from your values of being able to stand in your own troop um that's what arts and culture provide whether you decide to be an actor whether you have to build sets or whether you decide to work in electric boat.

Thank you of course go ahead I just wanted to quickly follow up on what you were just saying and I know we're gonna talk about CIP on Thursday but um I really like I just wanted to say I really like your point about these festivals also being part of infrastructure and to share that like I hear a lot in between questions from physicians about like what's going on on my sidewalk or like you know the more a lot of like what are you doing to fight fascism and honestly it's this like not to keep talking about the federal government but like these types of places where people can come together and experience difference and experience sameness and all of that is just like the that is how we fight fascism to be honest and that is like what makes Providence so vibrant and beautiful and lovely and the place that we all love so much.

And so just hearing you talk about that as infrastructure and like the importance of those spaces just like I just wanted to share that because you don't get the same questions that we get from our constituents but I hear a lot of like how can the city better fight fascism at the same time they're like we get so many benches in the park and like the benches are also part of fighting fascism because you're gonna bump into your neighbors and friends and the festivals and the things you're doing are all part of what make us stronger as a community so I just wanted to say that to you.

It's the best way the fastest way to stem identity based around getting people in one space feeling a sense of ownership collectively workplace enjoy.

Enjoy enjoy and we found that out um two years ago when we were working with the National League of cities we were doing that project with them we were one of 18 cities that um embedded artists in community and we were working with Carol the folks in Carroll Tower and Chad Brown and they came to Providence the folks from the National League who were doing this project and they were interviewing folks at both of these housing communities and at that time we were in the middle of producing PBD Fest.

Well, lots of people in those communities responded directly about their understanding of the importance of art, arts and culture is the relationship to that festival.

And don't mess with their festive.

Because of what it does for the community.

And so I completely agree with you.

We work really closely with parks, how we activate our public parks, how we how we democratize public spaces.

And I can't say enough.

Join.

Completely unrelated but related at the same time.

I'm really, really proud of that particular project.

It's something that we've never done in the city before.

And the collaboration between Ripta and the City of Providence and our project managers that were just have been consistent along with the people in your state, like your team has been essential in making sure that we are going to execute something really cool in board 14.

We don't have a lot of big neural spaces to be able to do things in our particular ward, but what we do have is a lot of opportunities to create beautiful art out of something that you'd never be able to, you'd never even think of.

So the work that you guys did to get us there.

And it was something that was really just different and innovative.

It took me two years to figure out who to talk to at Rita.

That's a whole other story.

But your team took it and ran with it, and I can't thank you enough.

We're really really excited to see what the outcome of that is, and I'm just I'm really thankful to you guys because you executed it so seamlessly with us not really knowing kind of how to build on some just a very small idea.

You took it and ran with it, and I can't thank you enough for making it so easy for us.

Thank you.

We love working with y'all, especially when y'all come with us, come to us with money.

We're like we can but no, all joking aside, we really love working with you, but we love we know the process.

And this city has a process for public art.

Yeah.

Um, and and and so we appreciate it and we welcome any opportunity to collaborate with any of the members of the city council uh to bring art uh to the neighborhood.

But it's also our responsibility too that as we are looking at new art projects to make sure that there is a full representation of public work across the city of Profits.

But um, we really love working with you, and thank you very much.

Thank you.

Any other questions, committee members?

Well, director, thank you so much.

Um to you and all your staff.

I mean, we all work with all different types of members of your staff, and my experience have all been fantastic, you know, especially all the Christmas tree bands, and I mean huge all along uh and to you for being such a great team.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We appreciate you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We'll see you on Thursday.

We'll see you on Thursday.

I can go into that.

And then there was one.

Yeah, we're all from the ready.

No.

And then there was one.

I think you're equally enthusiastic enthusiastic about your elections.

If it wasn't for us, none of us would be here.

That's it.

That's it.

We appreciate you.

We've got to be able to do that.

Yeah, that's what we did.

It was intentional.

I was online.

We didn't know our boot was gonna be at that, so we wanted to make sure that the last presenter got used to I'll take uh motion to enter uh exhibit at five records.

Oh move by uh God Peterson, second by council's okay, that's okay.

It is a bit of a revenue and expenditure details for this department can be seen on page 55.

There are quite a bit of changes because there's some seasonality and we can have an election coming into play.

Um I am joined today by our administrator of elections, Mr.

Michael Narvucci.

And I can say that um he puts a tremendous amount of effort into his budget.

Um, and quite frankly, all of his financial work.

I I very much enjoy working with Mr.

Narvucci.

Well um, and so uh, you know, I can say with all certainty that there's been a tremendous amount of thought into all of these numbers and analytics peak time as I was looking at us, feel free to ask questions.

But um, you know, again, one of our smaller departments, so oftentimes, you know, these things can get overlooked, and like not a dollar hardwork for that.

So, this budget is anticipated to increase by a little over 45%.

Um, most of that is in the salaries line item, however, it's attributable to election officials, not um intercity province salaries.

Um so we'll go into that on the next slide.

Uh as you can see, salaries in this week year 2027 are budgeted at 431,510.

This is about a $10,000 increase over last year.

Uh this increase is attributable to cost of living increases along with step increases for eligible employees.

Uh the temporary salary line was not budgeted last year, it's being budgeted this year at 40,000, so that is a 40,000 increase.

Those temporary salaries again are expected to help administer the elections are coming up this year.

Um, additionally, the election officials budget, which was 25,000 in this year 2026, has been increased to 372,000.

Um, and there is uh lots of data to support that number being the correct number.

Um previously we had been budgeting the election officials under the private contractor line, and so um we felt that moving it up into election officials was a more transparent way of uh showing where those dollars were going.

Um, particularly like I said, because this budget does fluctuate up and down uh pretty regularly.

Uh so again, these are not classified as then reduced.

This is based on trend and anticipated need in the budget in the upcoming year.

Um this is any sort of catering that is necessary as well as shredding services.

Um I do know shredding services has been managed by um archives now.

Are they doing their settings?

We still have a contract with shredded.

Okay, perfect.

Okay, got it.

So they're gonna be wrapping up their contract with Shredded, and then once that is uh completed, they will move over to shredding services under the archives contract.

Um archives maintains the contract for all document storage and retention as well as shutting for the entire city.

Um postage is increasing by $20,000 to $45,000.

Uh there's a $10,000 increase to advertising and a $5,000 increase to printing.

Uh total increase to services of $30,000.

Uh stationery has a small increase of $1,000.

Um we are anticipating needing to spend $10,000 on rental of buildings for our election.

That is a $5,000 increase from last year's budget.

Uh additionally, we are expected to need $10,000 uh for various equipment rentals throughout the election cycle, and that is a change of $7,000.

Can I talk about all of your changes?

Of course, that's a little um thank you for this.

Um for the rental plans in buildings.

How's it only $5,000 more than it was last year since there weren't that many elections last year?

Do we get some buildings like just like lended to us for free or like we did have an election last year?

Yeah.

Yeah, we're gonna do that.

We budgeted about $5,000 just for the special elections in case we had one.

And we ended up having two.

Yeah.

Oh, we had two.

Yeah, we had the Senate, the Senate four, yeah, and then we had the uh council two.

Okay.

Do we pay for all of the spaces we use for elections, or do you find facilities let us need to do that?

Not usually, not usually.

I mean, one of our biggest expenses is Brown University.

We have a full place there.

Yeah, um, that's pretty much our biggest expense.

Usually uh Southside Cultural, they get like 250 gifts enough to cover the building costs, maintenance costs.

Um the Vichy Center is the same.

The schools don't charge us if the the recreation centers don't charge us.

But also Brown.

Wow, yeah, maybe we should put that as part of the community contributions to say.

It's about $2,000 or my gosh.

Okay, on the record, that's a lot.

That's too much brown.

I mean inside counselors to look into the public.

We want to keep, you know, we want to keep the, you know, we want to keep the voting uh polling place on the on the campus.

Oh yeah, that's important.

Um they charge us for public safety because we they require uh public safety officers who actually have um they require two uh one for inside the polling place, one for outside to monitor the parking to make sure because they give us so many spots for voting, uh voting uh only.

So they monitor that also.

They have their own public.

Sorry.

We're gonna figure out any you know any help you can give me, I greatly appreciate it.

Oh, sorry, we have no can I can we talk?

I have a questions on your commissioners.

Is there an outstanding position um currently for commissioner?

All of the commission positions are full.

Okay, I thought there was one that would come before committee, your committee.

Maybe I'm wrong.

No, no.

As far as I know.

Yeah, David.

Okay.

Um just in sorry, as a follow-up on this.

One of the things that I um uh want to understand is how many people you're gonna be hiring for this election season.

Um, let's start with that one.

How many people are you guys attending to?

So I we look to hire, I mean we've got 82 precincts that we have to mean.

Um so we look at hiring anywhere between four to six hundred people.

Um again, we also hire setup crews.

Um they're responsible for setting up the polling plates, breaking down the polling plates, bringing the supplies back to us that are required.

Um we also in in this budget, um, the board is actually instituted a new position called a precinct manager.

Um we're gonna hire an additional 10 to pretty much just oversee the different precincts out there to be our eyes and ears out there to make sure the precinct is set up accordingly, uh, make sure the ADA requirements are met and set uh for the uh election day fixes.

That's all right, thank you.

Any other questions?

Um I just want to thank you, uh director administrator.

Um to follow uh uh crystal's comments and doing your due diligence.

I I've seen you out in the community multiple times uh getting ready for this election.

Uh so I really appreciate your your commitment uh to that work as well.

We really appreciate it.

No, I appreciate I appreciate the support that you know the council and administration gives us and gives us the tools to you know keep the elections running the way they are.

We all know you know we're not getting any support from the federal government anymore.

Um so you know, whatever we can get locally or on the state level, it's great.

And again, to your point, if anybody knows of any events that are going on and they want to invite us out to register to vote.

Unfortunately, it can't be a political event, but as long as it's a community event, you know, we can definitely come on and help you out.

Okay, well, that was the only thing to keep.

Um I would like for you to come to my Y12 meeting, but I also would like for you to come to um block party.

I think we will really have one the people, but I would like for you to guys put another table on this year.

Just let me know the dates and and when.

I mean, I I would I would love to come out and do what to the uh what meetings and you know give a brief description about elections if we can.

Um how things have changed.

Um a lot of people obviously don't realize now that you can apply for a permanent mail ballot application.

It used to be just you had to have some kind of a disability or something to apply for that.

Now anybody can get on that list.

Again, you just get an application, it's not the ballot.

Um automatically you could receive an application, and then it's up to you if you want to vote.

If you want to vote by mail, you fill it out, send it back to us.

If you don't, you just guard it and come to vote at the polls or early vote.

Yeah, okay.

Awesome.

I think uh that's it all right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We really appreciate you.

Uh Crystal Chivantini, thank you guys so much for your sign directly.

Crystal bring like there was no one with the table, but we have to put the vote.

There's my uh motion made by council in the second by counseling craves, all those in favor.

I'll say opposition.

Chris, you want me to have Frank?

Aye.

Motion in meeting is a charter.

I might not see it, please.