Hi, good afternoon everyone.

My name is Miguel Sanchez.

I'm calling the special committee of ways and means to order is 536, May 20th.

Thank you for being here.

Chair Sanchez.

Present.

Vice Chairman Taylor is access, Counselor Angob.

Present.

Councilman Ray.

Present.

Councilman Peterson.

Present.

We have four president and one accent.

We have a four.

Thank you.

I also want to recognize our colleague, soon to be official member of this committee, Councilwoman Jill Davidson.

Thank you for being here.

We have citing addition from our city solicitor's office.

That's here today.

Please raise your right hand.

Yeah, whoever's going to be able to do that.

Chris Lindbergh, Deputy Finance Director and Budget Officer.

Sarah Center, I guess.

Thank you.

At this time, I will entertain a motion to weigh the readings of one through five.

So motion made by Councilman Peterson, second by Councilman Graves.

All those in favor, um what we're gonna start with, PIMA.

We are gonna start with PIMA chairman.

Um personal conflicts that arose overnight last night.

So if possible, um uh the Department of Mergenes Management has a child care situation and we would like to try to get out of here by 630.

We can make that happen.

Um I know the colonel has some things going on, so we'll shift on to police next if that would be okay with you, and then um wrap up with the remaining departments.

I think that kind of accommodates all of the the things we're talking about.

And that works for you, that works for me.

Thank you.

Wonderful, thank you.

Um before you start, can I get a motion to enter exhibit 22 to the record?

So uh motion made by councilman, second by councilman Peterson, all those in favor.

I've had a thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Uh nice.

Good afternoon or evening, everyone.

I am joined today with Director Claire Service for uh a director of province and management agency.

Uh their budget details can be found on page 286 of their budget book.

Uh uh the PUA department does generate some revenue.

Uh the vast majority of that is a federal grant that reimburses a proportion of the FOA salaries.

There is also a reference to contributors for training services.

Uh at this point in time, we are still waiting for the fiscal year 2026 period grant application period to open.

We are told that will happen on June 10th, and so we are expecting that we will be applying for the 2026 allocation on June 10th, and then 2027 allocation will be applied for as soon as that period opens.

Um at this point in time though, all of our other federal grants are being reimbursed into our so we're gonna prepare.

Uh total expenditures in fiscal year 2027 are 774,293.

This represents a 231,961 dollar decrease from the fiscal year 2026 budget of 1 million, $6,254.

So the fiscal year 2026 salaries were budgeted $350,000, $357,000 eleven dollars.

In fiscal year 2027, we are making adjustments for cost of living increases for $7,621.

Step increases for $2,106.

For proposed fiscal year 2027 salaries of $366,792.

The payment budget has converted into fixed and discretionary costs.

All of their budget items are considered discretionary line items.

Um and for the most part, happy level funded.

We have $50 for postage, a small allocation of 2500 for food in case we need an EOC activation.

Uh there's professional development funding of $8,000, which is required to maintain staff credentials.

We have a level funding of $10,160 for a weather advisor.

Additionally, under the supply line items, all items are again considered discretion.

I'm sorry, most slight items are considered discretionary excession of the copy release, which is under contract.

We have done a reduction to maintenance in the service because of a planned project that was happening in fiscal year 2026 that would no longer be necessary in 2027.

The remaining funding covers any necessary software subscriptions as well as the generator contracts.

And this department does not have any contracts in excess of students, or in excess of 50,000 for students.

I'm sorry, World Cup related events.

And so we have taken it out of the budget next year because we're planning to find an alternate funding source for all of those activities that are happening.

Some of those expenses will happen in fiscal year 26 and some of them will carry in year 27.

I don't understand.

So where is it going to reflect the next year's budget?

The FEMA funding will not come out of the operating budget next year.

Like any sort of, or not SPIMA, I'm sorry, I keep saying FEMA.

World Cup.

World Cup funding will not come out of operating budget next year, with the exception of police over time.

So the 250 is for FIFA related.

The 250 was in fiscal year 2026 for FIFA related expenditures in fiscal year 2026 is being removed from the 2027 budget.

Yeah.

Unless there's another World Cup election.

Could be.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, it's been a little bit of a busy year for us at PEMA this year.

Unfortunately, we never like being this busy.

So the last year we had all of our regular training exercises, preparations, plans that we normally do, and then we unfortunately were called on to implement some of those plans and operations on December 13th in response to the ground shooting, and then my team also supported the packet a month and a half later, two months later, the Tucker shooting.

We went up there and supported their operations, and then we also just went through a really historic blizzard.

So we've been a little bit busy with emergency activations, and then on top of that, we've been heavily involved over the last year and almost a half with preparations for PE World Cup.

So we are in the final stages of preparations for operating in support of the fan zone and all of the other activations for the rest of the city.

So we've been doing a lot of the collaborative work across city departments and with our partners at the state and regional level.

We just came from multiple meetings today about that as well, and we're looking forward to that up in 21 days.

So I would welcome any questions you all have.

I know this isn't gonna be a question, it's gonna be a comment of how great you are.

Sorry.

Literally, I see this look in how space.

Well, now I'll start with my question and then I'll end with my comment.

So my actual question, and then I'll go to my comment.

Um, is can uh director welcome back?

Thank you.

Um I don't know how you do it all, and then also beyond the full shit.

But um you take a separate coffee.

Um can you talk a little bit about the specific role of PEMA versus like the other um public safety offices as it relates to like when the brown shooting happened, when the Tucker shooting happened during historic blizzard as PEAP is covered up.

There are all these things where it feels like you play a really key role, but can you describe what PIMA's role is like within the larger ecosystem?

Yeah, absolutely.

So one of our primary roles is the preparedness component of that.

So the training exercise and planning that happens in preparation for all hazards.

So these are just highlighting some of the recent ones we've had that actually operationalize these plans and procedures.

But baseline, we part of running the all hazards emergency management program is looking at comprehensively at the risks and vulnerability and hazards that are possible in the City of Providence that might impact our residents.

That's everything from flooding and extreme heat to terrorism, biochem, pandemics, public health emergencies, active threat.

So we take a comprehensive look at all things bad essentially that might happen in the city.

Then we develop a hazard identification risk assessment from that.

We rank what hazards are most likely to impact us, how what impacts are likely to come from there, then identify ways to mitigate those hazards.

We develop plans for them and develop protocols and procedures that would be implemented in case any of those things should happen.

Then we do training and exercise of the relevant people for that.

So sometimes that is members of the public.

That is our community emergency response team until help arrives EPR trainings that we do for general public, and then for specific components within the city.

So whether that's running active correct classes for city staff that work in buildings in the city, whether that's running training and exercises for unfortunately we ran a family reunification center full-scale exercise in May of last year that we then and that involved a lot of our partners across the state.

We then implemented many of the things that we learned from that exercise in real life.

So we do training and exercise for all different kinds of hazards, and then in the black sky days when something bad happens, is when we take a more coordination role and activate those plans.

So depending on the incident, we might be activating one plan, we might be activating five plans and anywhere in between, and then we run a unified command presence and assist in the coordination communication across all of those activities.

So the public safety divisions are obviously have their own specific lanes.

One of our most important roles is making sure that we are running a coordinated and effective response to the blizzard, the shootings, worldcut.

Yeah, thank you.

Do you have that?

Of course.

Is like, and I said this last year, but I'm just gonna say it again.

So one, you guys punch way above your rate.

This is like you have almost no staff.

Um it's a small but super super mighty team.

You guys are amazing, stunningly competent.

Um and with all that's going on with FIFA with the shootings, plural, um, and now you're doing the report, the after-action report on the shooting I know is assigned to Pima.

Um there were a number of things on your plate.

Also, before I get to what I was about to say, again, thank you also for your help when in organizing the vigil we held after the shooting in Limpet Park.

That was you guys jumped on right immediately.

Students we pivoted those plans from the celebration to a holding space for our neighbors.

You brought Red Cross, you brought blankets and food, and um made it a place where people really could be and feel safe and comforted.

So thank you for that.

It was like I like I don't think I even had to call you, I think you called me and be like, okay, here's what we can do.

That was amazing.

Um, but given all that, I'm just I guess more of a statement, not for you, director, but overall for the administration is I'm not sure why we're what I feel is an underfunding of this department as we're adding many positions in other departments.

This seems like one that's very right to add additional staff.

And I know in past years there was the hope that we could do so with federal funding, but I just the volume of work that gets done, and when it gets done, it's often done in a really concentrated manner.

Well, it gets done all the time, but then when there is an incident, these folks are all working 24 hours a day, and it is just like unsustainable for an emergency management team to have to operate in this way.

And so I just uh will continue to advocate for us to add positions, at least a position to this department whenever possible because this is a really mighty but incredibly small team.

Um, and I just don't think we're resourcing it in a way that um enables them to uh to do as much as they could be doing, and in a way that's sustainable and will retain these employees.

Like I know when I talk to folks around the region, um, because I used to do work professionally that was in this uh field, we have some of like regionally recognized like world-class staff in our department, and I'm just worried we will one burn them out and lose them, and two, like yeah, those are the things that we're about.

So uh thank you for your amazing work.

You're awesome.

Please tell your whole team how much we value and respect them, and um yeah, I just want I want this to be a bigger orchard.

Yeah.

Um, just a quick uh additional commentator follow-up on that.

Um I also agree to work in the company when uh Anawas said.

Did you have uh more staff at some point in this current term?

Not in the last year.

What about the last like three years?

Yes, historically.

You had multiple what what preparedness coordinator or regional coordinator, what did you have?

What did you have multiple?

I feel like you have multiple of some.

We used to have two preparedness coordinators.

And now you have one.

Yeah.

So I I guess my question is and director, you don't have to go into to detail just to use uh the unfortunate incident of the the Brown shooting as an example.

Um I I obviously know you probably were we're on hand sway for seven.

Um was the rest of your staff also uh like on the clock the the whole time for a few days, and I guess like what I'm trying to get to is you know in uh in a heavier staff department, you can kind of shift uh uh shift you can split up shifts um and coordinate uh that type of you know, make sure everyone's getting the rest and uh the rest that they need to recover.

Uh I guess how'd you guys handle that?

I worked about 40 hours straight, and the rest of my team I sent some of them home in the early hours in the morning and did some split shifts as best as we expect to make sure we had comprehensive coverage.

Um fortunately uh the initial push of operations was over relatively quickly, uh, and then the rest of the week split shifts to make sure that people were um getting adequate reps.

Uh the blizzard was challenging as well.

Right.

But um I know we asked this in the past.

How does your department uh staffing levels compare to similar uh council parts?

Um for a capital city, it depends on the city.

Um we also have to keep in mind that province is a pretty small capital city, so it's not quite fair to compare us to someplace like Boston that's just astronomically larger.

Um and not all similar size to J Circular, but like Hartford, many of their emergency management departments are a component or subdivision of things like the fire department.

Right, so it's a little bit challenging to compare apples to apples for staffing um incomparable municipalities.

Um Peterson.

Thank you.

Hi.

Welcome back.

Thank you.

I would just like to add, as as a mom, like she did all this with a new more baby word like.

All of this was very congratulations.

Kudos to you.

He was very kind of waiting until after the blizzard.

Um can we talk a little bit about federal funding?

Because you and I both know that that's our favorite subject when it comes to emergency women.

Oh have you had a little bit of a difficulty obtaining any sort of additional federal funding?

Um, I know prior to my leaving it was trickling in.

I don't know what the status is now.

But um I you rely emergency management in general across the country relies very heavily on federal funding.

Um so can you talk a little bit about are you like what are you doing?

Is it coming in?

Is it not coming in?

Is this the reason why we can't necessarily put in another emergency court uh preparedness coordinator in the budget?

Well, like was noted.

Um we are having some success with federal funding, it is circling in.

Um, but things like the emergency management performance grant the EMPH that normally we would be doing this operation nine months previously.

So normally this is something that we're doing in October.

So between the various DHS set shutdowns, the fact that we still do not have an actual female FEMA administrator in place, so there's been substantial delays and um such.

So EMPG is now rolling out.

We will see how we fare with that.

Um things like the project funding, so building resilient infrastructure communities, it does still exist.

Um but things are much more delayed and they're more cumbersome than they have been historically.

So I would say that it's still there.

Yeah, um, that's just the the federal grant funding, that's not talking about disaster declaration.

So it is certainly a different environment than we've dealt with in the past, but we are working on it, and I have a moderate level of optimism.

Um things are now actually starting to move where they've been kind of in complete full shutdown.

Okay, um, excuse me.

And then can you have a little note cert?

I know that our from the state we shifted a little bit in terms of volunteer training and how we were gonna lay out those dollars, but are you doing any more volunteer training through EWA?

But are you doing any more volunteer training through EWA?

And how does that how many do we have, or is it for every neighborhood?

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, so it is a community emergency response team.

We typically do two CERT classes a year right now, just because of staffing and because of how much staff time is being consumed by World Cup preparations.

We're probably only gonna do one class this year, uh, just because our time is really having to focus on World Cup right now.

So we definitely still have the team, we're still doing the trainings.

Right now we have one citywide cert team, so the way it works is um our volunteers go through the community emergency response team class and then join our the CERT roster.

Uh so we don't have them broken down by neighborhood, and um, but we do have one kind of central team.

No, and one last budget.

Have you needed to make uh certainly the beginning of this year and the end of last year were ripe with emergency situations that put everything to the test?

Um did you have to make a lot of shifting?

Are you shifting some of your emergency preparedness plans already based on the things that have happened?

Um is there anything additional that you need that perhaps isn't necessarily maybe it's on a wish list but not necessarily here quite yet, but you know would it absolutely enhance the preparedness portion of everything that you do, which is pretty much everything.

Well, yes, absolutely, right?

So you never want to let a good disaster go to waste.

So we learn a lot from all of our incidents.

Uh, like I mentioned earlier, we ran the Family Reunification Center on the night of the Brown shooting, and fortunately we had a pre-established plan, and we had done a full exercise on that, but none of us had done it for real.

So, doing actually operationalizing and using that plan in real life, we've learned a lot of really valuable information that we are taking back and we are revamping that plan.

Another component of that was the Family Assistance Center, which is a bit of a separate operation that we did and we supported in the aftermath.

We learned a lot from that operation as well.

So we're gonna be updating our plans and procedures based on a lot of the lessons learned from that.

Uh also with the blizzard operation, that was a that was obviously a historic lizard.

We have plans and procedures for operations and things like that, but some of the way it was actually operationalized and it rolled out definitely gave us some opportunities for learning and updating our plans, and that's a we can't let a good disaster go to waste, so we'll be updating that.

I just want to make sure that I add one more comment, um, kind of in line with what you say.

Um in my former capacity during all of this, one of the things that they spoke about was um not only yours, but Alexa, is it elephant?

Um, your level of professionalism in with the state emergency management agency, they spoke so highly of just how well you executed and implemented everything, and that you were great to work with.

So as a city councillor is some of the best things that I love to hear because it means that people are seeing the hard work and it's paid off, and even in those situations in those um insanely intense uh emergencies and situations that we go through, you guys were phenomenal.

So I just want to say thank you because it really shined a really great light for city province.

That's very kind of you.

It's it was truly a team effort, um, especially during these major crises.

Everybody in general, but the relationship that for the state is pretty cute as well.

Rhode Island Emergency Management has been a really strong partner in support, particularly with all of this.

Okay, these guys have to act in all the questions that I was gonna ask.

Oh, sorry.

However, I um and I'm gonna probably talk to the police also about this.

One of the main concerns that I'm hearing from you know, the people in the communities is it seems like all concentration is gonna be on the city of Providence.

All the police are gonna be on it, all the five are gonna be down.

Everybody's gonna be down here.

Who's gonna be watching the neighborhoods?

So I'm glad you brought up the the neighborhood because they're concerned about maybe the churches, because uh, you know, um worshiping um places out being attacked, you know, and they say while they're their eyes are on the ball down there, and everybody's concentrated down there.

What plans do you have for everybody else?

You know, that's a wonderful question, Councilwoman.

And just going back to the all hazards component of it, we are acutely aware of that World Cup is happening, but it's also going to be extreme heat season.

It's also hurricane season, and we currently have Pontavirus Ebola and pistols outbreaks happening around the world.

So just because FIFA is literally the shiny ball right now.

Um we have not at all lost sight of the fact that we are still very vulnerable and susceptible to all of our regular hazards.

So we're also gearing up for hurricane seasons and we know this is our flash flood season.

We already have had two days of excessive heat advisories and that so all of the other normal summer operations have we've not lost sight of that at all unfortunately.

And I'm also tracking Ebola, so that's not announcement.

We don't want that.

And and I like everyone else wants to say.

I want to add my voice to the fact that we really appreciate you because I would have said, Look, I'm having my baby, y'all do what you gotta do.

So we really do appreciate you.

I mean um it just shows that you really care about the job, you really care about the city.

Um and it just shows when people see that all they can say is wow.

That's all I can say about Jewish.

Wow.

Yeah.

So I will say I'm really sad she's not worth three smitest anymore because she went to Ward 4 and he'll slightly though.

I support the relocation.

Yeah.

We get a lot of word three residents before us uh council and dancing.

Yeah, so just add my kudos to all the work you're doing, really looking forward to getting to know you or your department better.

Thank you know, thank you for everything.

Um quick question about um the your capacity, and not doubting it, but I'm just wondering your capacity to maintain which must be pretty complex relationships with the emergency management and security elsewhere in the city, with Brown, with the other universities, with the hospitals.

I imagine that's a big project to be able to interface and coordinate with them.

I just like you to talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So one of the great strengths of emergency management is that sometimes it feels that there's about 10 of us that work in the field of state.

It's a bit larger than that, but it's a pretty small community.

Uh we all know each other, long-standing relationships.

The soon to be retiring director of Brown Emergency Management, I've worked with him for 10 years.

Um the emergency manager at Rhode Island Hospital, I've known him for eight.

So we have long-standing relationships.

We know I know all of the emergency managers at all the higher eds in the state and have known them and work with them for years, which is a tremendous strength in the state and in a city like that that's this small because when that bad day happens, we all know each other.

We're one phone call away, we all know how each other works, we all already have those relationships and how know how that works.

So it's a tremendous strength to be able to draw on on those bad days.

Um so yes, it takes time, but we're doing these plans and procedures and having all of these coordination meetings anyway.

So it's something that we just make sure that we, as new people come in, for example, like the Brown emergency management position is posted right now.

As soon as that new person comes in, we'll set up a meeting, pop them over to come over to PEMA, make sure that we have everybody's cell phone numbers, that they're added to appropriate notification distribution lists, uh, and just make sure that we are building those relationships as new people come in to the field.

Thank you for that insight.

And I get I appreciated it, you know, it sort of like deepens the value that you and your colleagues offer because it's not just procedural, it's not about the monthly meeting, it's about sort of the personal connections that you have, and I really appreciate hearing that.

Thanks.

Um other questions?

Uh my last question, Director, can you just quickly uh I know it's probably not quickly because it's been a year and a half in preparation.

Uh but can you just speak on like what like so it's not all the specific repeaters, but like what your department has been doing in preparation for uh FIFA uh activities, um I guess do you feel like you've been supported?

Is there enough resources?

I know there's uh some safety uh reimbursement coming out at some point.

Um but if you could just uh talk uh about what some of that work has looked like, what that experience has been.

It's been an experience.

Um I think it's a little bit unique in that none of us have ever gone through a world in major international, the largest sporting event in the world.

Uh none of us have in New England have ever really done this.

Uh so it's been a learning experience all around.

I think just to get back to some of my earlier statements, the strength of having those previously established relationships has certainly been uh a major supporting entity or force in this environment because while we may not know exactly what we're up against, we all know each other.

One of the unique things in preparing for this has also been the post-coordination with our partners at Massachusetts emergency management with Boss and Emergency Management because while Providence is not the post city, obviously we've been we will be heavily impacted and heavily involved since we're so close to um Boston Stadium.

I keep saying Gillette, I've been told to not call it Gillette.

Um so I think that's one of the major pieces of it.

Um it draws on a lot of our prior experience and our normal kind of baseline training and operations, but there are kind of some twists in it, um, particularly the international component where we have never quite had this level of international sports fans, and as you know very well, there are very strong sarcophicultures around the world that have their own traditions and practices, and trying to make sure that we are prepared in a way that is respectful and supportive of our local communities, and then also being supportive and welcoming um to all of the international visitors that will be here to make sure everybody has a fun and safe uh experience in the state province.

Awesome, thank you.

Um I think that's it, right?

Thank you so much for everything that you do for our city.

Uh we're good to enjoy some quality time if you're a little more thank you.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Yeah, of course.

Thank you.

I like the colour.

Thank you for showing.

Yeah, wait, what's we want to say?

Okay, free.

And there you go.

No staging, no stage.

Cool.

So you want to like July of this year.

She does just record it.

Oh what?

Well, I think that's what we're doing.

Yeah, we're going to get one.

Uh this time I will entertain a motion to enter exhibit 23 into the record.

Thank you for new motions.

Uh Councilwoman Graves, second by councilman intervals in favor.

Uh, oh, um, page 298, please.

298.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, some of the revenues start on 297, actually.

Okay.

I am joined today by Colonel Oscar Perez, commander to PLC to our police department's budget or proposed budget for facilities in the 27 revenues proposed by the police department are 12,262,400.

In total, this is a 130,000 dollar increase over, I'm sorry.

This is um actually not an increase with Western budget.

Um revenues have been level funded over last year.

For the most part, there is a 130,000 dollar increase in police detail revenue, um, which has been supported by historical trend, and we anticipate we will see as a results of the evening activities this summer.

Uh total proposed expenditures with police working are 121,526,666.

This represents a 3,379,000 increase over the fiscal year 2026 budget, we're approximately 2.86.

Uh, the vast majority of this change is in the salary minimum.

Fiscal 2026 salaries were budgeted 48,300,238.

In fiscal 2027, we are adjusting the salaries by 1,207,506 for cost of living increases.

This is for both sworn and non-sworn members.

There's $10,868 in step increases for non-sworn eligible employees.

Uh, additionally, there are adjustments for um officers that have retired in fiscal year 2026, which result in $814,000 in savings.

Additionally, and this is kind of a complicated concept, but when uh some of our officers are eligible mid-year for changes in steps or grades depending upon what class they were in and when they were recruiting.

So when we budget for those officers, we assume that they will be at that new step on 7-1, and then we do an adjustment for the period and time at which it would not be in place.

So let's just say this class would be eligible on January 1st.

The deputy commissioner will make a negative adjustment for half of that increase so that we're level funding that that rate for next year.

Okay.

I know it's complicated, so I figured we'd walk through that one a little bit.

Appreciate that.

Yeah, of course.

Um, and then on an FTE changes front, they are requesting to defund a laborer and instead um replace that position with an animal control technician.

Um, what's happening in the animal control technician position is in here if we're if you'd like to review that.

Um, but the current laborer isn't kind of functioning right now out of rank as an animal control technician, so we would like to right size that position and and um defund the the current role in fund what they're actually acting as so that we're not having to pay that out of rank compensation.

Uh Crystal, so just to confirm that labor was working uh in the animal control.

Correct.

Yes, yep, they were supporting animal control, um and they were helping both.

So it's really just kind of expanding their ability to help animal control, which is very needed at this point in time with a lot of capacity happening over there.

So another important thing to note is that a considerable amount of this budget is being offset by cops grant funding.

Uh, the fiscal 2023 cops hiring program is going to fund 40% of 20 officers' salary and fiscal year 2027 that represents a little over 1.3 million dollars in expenses that we are saving in this year's budget.

That grant is a uh declining program, so I believe it will be in place next year as well.

Um what will the reimbursement rate go down to?

In 2028, yeah, it'll be uh 86 on the city and for it.

Thank you very much.

So next year we can't expect this reimbursement will continue, but it'll be a smaller amount.

Okay.

86 what?

Uh so the state the city will be picking up 80% of the salary, and the federal grants will be picking up 20%.

This year we're paying 60, they're paying 40.

So it's kind of a declining um schedule, which does help budgets kind of absorb these salaries in a fair way because it's not uh like a clip you're facing exactly, and that that is when we talked about the fire budget, like that is something we had discussed, right?

What are we going to do when all these salaries come online?

It's certainly something we're planning for, but the way the COPS grant is structured, it does help us kind of plan those.

So next year is the last year that we have access to this grant?

2028, 2028.

Okay.

We're right now in the first period, the first year of the grant.

Are we um is there is there more opportunities uh for these types of grants?

There is um it's dependent on um a class running the actual FTE counts, retention, um, and we're in the pot to get it pretty much for the feds, yes.

Um do we have to have an active like recruitment happening for us to apply for these grants, or or how does that work?

You have to have it within a certain period of time, or you have a that will extend it out.

So I'll give you an example.

The actual cost grant we're in now is an FY23 cops grant.

We did not hire police offices until November of 25.

Okay, and the cops grant does not pay for the training academy salaries, whereas a safer grant does.

So the cops grants are very different than safer grants.

Oh, any other questions?

Please continue for something.

Thank you, uh, Commissioner.

Thank you.

Um this is a budget with a lot of line items.

We have broken them into fixed and discretionary costs.

Um first step are all of the service line items.

Uh, at the end of this packet, we will have a list of all of their contracts above $50,000.

Um the first service line item is $39,000.

This is alarm fees and land use fees.

As you can see, this is a reduction of $60,000 over the fiscal year 2026 budget.

However, that um $60,000 has shifted below to the promotional exams line.

Uh, that was profotional, I'm sorry, promotional assessment software, and so we felt it was more accurate to report that in the professional, I'm sorry, in the promotional exams line instead of in fees models.

Okay, okay.

Uh postage has been level funded at $4,500.

Uh, dues and subscriptions have a nominal decrease uh based on historical trend.

Um printing costs again are down.

Part of that is related to the new parking contract.

Contract services have been level funded and are somewhat of the best guess estimate based on the pending contract that we are uh working on negotiating with their mobility.

Red light camera feeds and speed zone camera fees have both been reduced considerably based on the new negotiated contracts.

They are not quite executed yet, but once they are, it'll be representing them believe to this committee for final approval.

So fees is what our expense would be to the vendor, right?

Correct.

That is what we pay to the vendor.

So for both of these categories, the revenue has been level funded and the expenses have gone down, but we are anticipating saving about 1.3 million dollars as a result of those negotiated contracts next year.

Revenues processing has a small decrease, which has been supported by trends.

Again, promotional exams, the increases related to the transfer from the fees and a class that they didn't like, classified inline item.

Tuition does have a very steep increase of 188,000.

This is contractually required for the CPA.

We've had a lot of academies coming in, a lot of the underoffers, and they're taking advantage of their education incentive, which is part of the contractual obligations and rights.

What is that in the sense of what's the what's the presenter?

Well, what's like what's the eligibility or I guess what is it?

No, so yeah, pretty much the uh the half-to-day courses and then college values in the state, and then it's more less uh and then Crystal said a lot of them is younger officers, some of them come in on a job within the education already, but those who don't have it, uh they take advantage of it.

So ride the media needed alignment other than just uh um sort of the need group.

I guess the question is like an officer be like a full-time student and get paid uh for those classes?

Yes, is there like a you know, for example, my job they pay five thousand dollars a year and coursework?

We pay the so we pay the colleges directly.

So they enroll at the university and then we pay for the cost of their tuition.

We don't pay the yeah, no, I'm saying it could be unlimited costs.

Like I guess that's what I'm a bachelor's degree, uh, would be up to obviously up to a master's degree, and that's that's the example.

Um a lot of developers just take advantage of it.

It also helps with professional development, especially if they want to move up the rank.

Uh you get competitive uh taking the pistol.

So when you're you know dealing with the computer, obviously the education helps uh we don't require a uh the college degree to apply for the job in any other departments or not.

I learned on Facebook there's only one police department in Rhode Island that requires uh a bachelor's degree for police officers and the city or things field or something like that.

Yeah, social media would be handy at times.

Uh also do the um police officers that come in without a college degree started a lower salary grade than the ones that have the degree.

Oh, it's the same, it's the same rate um as far as style, but the yeah, it's the same rate.

Uh they used to be a bill that where uh all officers that had that education would get any sense of from the state, but that's more.

Okay, thank you.

Uh quick question we had what unless you want us to wait till the end.

But no, has she spoken as Chris spoke about it already?

Yeah, you can follow up with you.

Um can I say a question about the sound camera expenses?

Um, because on the other, I guess I have two questions.

Um is about so on in the budget book on 297.

It looks like we're continuing to budget for $100,000 in revenue from the sound cameras.

I'm wondering if that's accurate, and two, that's um have we already I guess so to ask that question is that accurate, and then the second question is have we already um approved the sound vendor contract um for this amount?

We have we have a board of contract and supply award for this amount.

Um this vendor has been presented at finance committee, but it had not been voted at that point in time.

Um at the end of that meeting, it was agreed that the administration would come back once the contract terms were finalized and settled and would present those to the committee for final approval.

Um, to my knowledge, those contractions have not been finalized today, um, but they are well underway and will be finalized by the end of this they must be finalized by June period.

Um, working to make those two.

With regards to the revenue, um, because this is a brand new program.

We thought it was safest to keep both the expenditure and revenue level funded because at this point in time we really just have no idea what we're gonna collect.

Um, and so we felt that that was a safe approach going to the city.

Um so yeah, I I didn't notice they were level funded.

I'm just trying to sort of match up line outs based on the presentation.

It seems like the sound camera expenses are 186 and the revenues are 180.

Is that my interpreting that correctly?

Yeah, so we the expenses are greater than the revenue.

But when I say level funded, I mean they've not changed from year to the city.

Oh, I misinterpreted that.

Okay.

So in fiscal year 2026, we budgeted 100.

I'm sorry, we're going to move 100.

No, let me look at the sound care of revenues.

No, it's so in fiscal year 2026.

We budgeted 100,000 in revenue.

In 27, we budgeted 100,000 in revenue.

That line is level funded.

Understood.

And then in 2026, we did 186,000 for the expense, and then 186,000 for the expense given in 27.

So from a budgetary standpoint, then the net impact of that activity is the same from 26 to 27.

Understood that.

One more question just about clarifying.

I notice on sort of looking at resentation, not the book.

School zone traffic cameras as a revenue line, and then in the expenses, I'm noticing speed zone camera expense.

Is that the same thing?

It is.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

That is, I think that's Did you go through it all week?

Not quite yet.

The remaining line items are all considered fixed costs.

There's $80,000 in legal expenses, which is required for the CBA.

Miscellaneous professional services are budgeted $275,000.

There's an increase of $40,000, $40,000 due to the expiration of the grant we were receiving.

So this $40,000 continues to provide the same level of service we have been receiving last fiscal year for family services.

And additionally court reporters, which is considered a fixed cost has also been level funded.

What was that?

And is there just no more opportunity to supply for that grant?

I believe the grant expired, so it was a multi-year grant.

The last year of that grant was this year to be 20%.

Is that a state?

It was a federal grant.

Computer equipment has been level funded at $72,500.

This is any sort of in-vehicle radio replacements that are needed to route fiscal year.

There is an increase of $6,600 to medical, chemical, and lab supplies.

This is a student increased cost related to BCI supplies.

Office supplies have been level funded, $41,000.

Animal food, animal control supplies, the question accounts, really all of the animal care in general is going up by a considerable amount based on new contracts and the expected trend.

The bulk of this total budget is the annual qualification exam.

The increase is related to SRU equipment that the department would like to replace in fiscal year 2027.

Carl can speak more to the need of that equipment if you'd like to discuss that.

Yeah, sure.

And can you say what SRU means?

Special responsibility.

And at that point, obviously, right after we did the update option, we we realized that that was the case.

And so that the funds will actually make sure that it's up to date.

Make sure that they get the resources they need to put back themselves.

And then like this data is probably that's why you have a contract we qualify twice a year.

But yeah, the uh the equipment is an upgrade, but not a way of sorry, it's to make sure that they have what they need.

Some of that includes place in their best.

It's also expired.

The certain rounds that are out there that will penetrate through the best through the officer and include anybody behind that.

So we want to make sure that they have the right equipment for the living up.

Um auto parts, we are seeing an $89,000 decrease based on um some upgrades we've had to the fleet recently, which is great news.

Uh food is seeing an increase.

This is um food for the uh individuals that are host in the jail at uh the public safety complex, and so that cost of that, those meals are going up.

Uh fuel has been level funded, that is fuel for the boat in case you're curious.

Uh housekeeping supplies are cleaning materials.

That is additional enhanced cleaning for uh again the jail.

There's been um some uh incidents that needed to be cleaned up by professionals outside of the city's lift first, and so we're ensuring there's funding available to maintain the cleanliness of those facilities.

Uh program supplies have been increased by $10,000.

This is uh due to additional community engagement, uh costs and planned activities in this foyer 2027.

Um supplies have been reduced by 4500.

These supplies are all sorts of emergency supplies, emergency response supplies ranging from turn page batteries to flares, those sorts of things.

Uh tires are also.

Oh, thank you.

Um is um for the animal control supplies line, which I have no concern about it going up.

I just wondering, it sounds like we're both needing more staff support in animal control and spending more on animal control.

Is there like something going on?

Like definitely uh what I heard, obviously they do a great job there.

They've got the right stock, and uh like Crystal stated, one of the you know we're even overpaying a certain uh uh certain individuals because they gotta go and do the job that otherwise to do.

But one of the things is the there's a lot of animals that are coming up from the south.

And so they've increase an adoption, there's an increase of turn animals uh gotta actually stay in there too.

And I think that we're trying to do is to make sure that we care of the animals, but also the city.

Uh and so there's not a lot of animals that are being adopted and things of that nature.

So that's increasing actually the cost of feeding them, feeding them, making sure that uh we have some of the cost has increased.

Yeah, yeah, and adoption is really challenging, right?

Like in one hand you want to make sure that you're I'm an animal lover and own more pets than I'd like to disclose.

But you know, on one hand, this is a safe place for that.

Um but you know, on one hand, you want to get these animals out, not only for their quality of life, but like it's expensive to house them and all of those sorts of things.

Um but almost the worst thing that could happen actually had I adopted for Providence was returned that he was adopted out to somebody, it did not work out well, he was deemed um uh not an aggressive cat.

Um he's not anymore, he's very happy.

But um, you know, you're it's not in a lot of cases better off waiting and finding the right home than kind of just trying to rush these animals out the door, just have them come back in.

And so trying to balance those things really are a challenge.

Um, and I think while the department is kind of working on figuring that out, um, we really do need to make sure we have funds available to me, you know, take care of them while they're in our custom.

One of the things I learned to I know is like the overcrowded up in the south, it just uh seems like this other country is uh obviously a lot more uh helpful in terms of that, and the philosophy of the animal control is to make sure that we're not utilizing the dish and homes.

Okay, thank you.

I also had a really good experience with animal control because there was an injured wildlife in my neighborhood, and they came out like right away and like explained what was gonna happen, explains like when they would get re-released, and anyway, it would be great to work with me.

Yeah.

Second.

Um questions on seven?

Uh okay, hundred bucks.

On to eight.

Uh tires again at the novel funded, which is supported by trends.

Um wearing apparel are going up by sixteen thousand dollars.

This increase is tied to the C VA for the uniform allowance because we have additional officers uh on Jimmy.

Uh Crystal, can um can I just ask the Colonel a question on this?

Yeah.

Um so we spend about a million dollars on uniforms uh a year appears uh on uh on annual basis.

Colonel, can you just explain to us like what like how many how many uniforms does like an individual officer get uh like do they wash them themselves?

Like obviously we're gonna get up like I guess like how who keeps track of this type of stuff.

No, that's a great question.

I mean, yeah, it's uh it's because I honestly from from the uh from the get-go, you just look at numbers like million dollars on I don't know if everything's expensive, but it seems like uh a lot.

No, absolutely.

I think that just the use in here.

Uh I'll give you an example of this band uh had released uh they're the last picture you get a sort of great question because uh 32 years.

Uh there's a model right next to you.

Yeah, 32 years.

It's funny because I uh we've got summer uniforms and winter uniforms.

And it and it's crazy how you know we wash the uniforms, uh, but also being active.

You know, you're in that car outside of the car, inside of the car.

Uh you're doing details.

We we handle at least uh over 20 some thousand details in the city.

So you have this is this is our clothing daily.

And so offices are obviously allowed to get the summer uniforms, the winter uniforms, uh white shirt, uh obviously these shirts are a lot harder to maintain.

The blue uniform, the jacket is the weaker jacket, obviously uh, you know, it's just that's stuff that is that is needed.

Uh we want to make sure they look professional also.

It just doesn't make sense to have an officer that has a uniform that is outdated.

Uh but I think there's a fact that the summer uniforms with the uniforms uh our tactical fees or a specialized unit uh also have certain type of uniforms on the command staff and the matter that we place them.

I've had the same blouse since I became a lieutenant which is back in 2010.

Uh those things are actually issued.

But I think also I mean if you might be cheap since 2023.

Prior to that, we were in the higher uh three members of the department.

We're 462.

So there's more offices.

We also increases the cost of the uniforms.

But yeah, this uh we always talk about that.

It's just it's just hard to make some uniforms will be real.

Obviously, some of them get ripped.

Uh you will not it may be jumping, like running food pursuits or whatever the case may be, and those have to be replaced.

That's what it comes out with.

Like your average patrol officer, like how like how many uniforms do they have at like home for like a summer just uh I'll speak more so many add out to this but it probably immediately there is in this department.

Uh IUE at least get an extra POPS.

Now I don't get as many ID as I wouldn't even build even because I've had some that are older.

But if you're in control, you'll probably get two sets uh during the summer in the winter.

Two pants, two shirts, potentially a tie if it needed to get older for the police hat.

Uh obviously sometimes you stand on it in the rain that gets it color it changes in color, so that that'll that'll add top.

Are officers responsible for uh their own uh laundry or how does that work?

Yeah, correct.

Yeah, we responsible for that code.

Uh yeah, sometimes so included in that million dollars is three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the office's clothing allowance for the CDA.

And also within that line item is also the purchase annually of expired best.

And that's roughly $200,000 also.

So when you look at it, the actu it's maybe a half a million dollars, but that is for a $500 member of as well as parking enforcement, all the clerks, civilian clerks, animal control, mounted, motorcycle unit, and all the other teams.

Yeah, uh we have a quick follow-up councilman grids.

Yes, I'm following up to say that you're mean.

Most of us most of us women looking at that and saying, hey, there's not enough money.

A lot of laundry.

Um walking around with how bad that's notice that the three of us met before with the like beautiful.

But that's okay.

That's that's what I had to say.

That's why women run the world.

Yes!

I agree.

Uh good to me.

Uh the next discretionary line item is miscellaneous materials and supply but uh increasing by 400.

This is cameras and accessories with VCM units.

Personnel recruitment has been um increased this year by 27,000 to 27,000.

Um the department is intending on beginning recruitment for another academy next fiscal year, and so we are anticipating having some funds available for recruitment for an academy that would be in fiscal year 2028.

Background check has been increased by $5600, and this is being supported by historical spent.

Rental of equipment is related to the police motorcycle leases, and that $75,000 is the bid we receive back this fiscal year.

It's my understanding that the version we've previously been renting was no longer continued, and so we were required to operate some order model of Henry Davidson.

Um rentals not classified as a small decrease of $71 or $7300.

Uh this funding is available for the uh affordable toilet necessary at the firing range.

Uh repairs to equipment or security costs and equipment repairs, those are level funded at $30,000.

Maintenance and service does have a very steep increase of $945,587.

Uh this is the large line item that covers bio camera, APA software, and other sort of police specific software licenses.

Repairs to autos and tracks also seeing a small increase of $50,000 for paying up to $150,000 annually.

This is partially offset by any savings we're saving in auto parts.

Uh so that function is kind of shifting to more repair late things and not necessarily parts because the cars are newer.

Uh copyright lease maintenance is taking an increase of $17,000 in contraction, so those are under contract with the vendor.

The exterior maintenance of vehicles is budgeted $75,000, and this is an increase of $15,000.

Again, this increase is tied to the newest award.

We were not too big for this service recently this fiscal year, and we are seeing that these costs will increase.

So like we're not buying more, there had been a grant that was covering a substantial portion of the cost of us that was in the 26, right?

Yeah, and plus the new contract has um numerous upgrades to it.

Okay, yep.

So it is it's just the new contract is resulting that.

And again, we did have a brand new basis, it was kind of offsetting some of that cost, so we are not only picking up the cost of the new contract, but also the cost of that brand for some point.

Okay.

Uh so the contracts in accepted 50,000 authors have been summarized on this page.

Uh the first step are you know, the Apps on Enterprises contract we discussed it.

This is buying more cameras and integrated technology solutions, and also the contract is a little over 1.125 million.

Uh the next contract is um right USA, and this I believe is cell phone software use very small thing.

Um so these are the different um types that they're using.

Uh the next contract is $160,000.

This is for flood group for automated license plank recognition.

Uh the APIS software is also under contract for $63,000 annually.

Leglate slash tire type tiler technologies is the citations uh software, and that is $57,000 annually.

Ocean State Harley, we had already discussed, that was the Harley Day between rentals and $75,000.

Um the next three line items are still under negotiation, so I just listed the um for for parking, I'm sorry, for parking, we are actually in contract, and that has been approved for $660,000 next year with Passport Labs.

That work is being implemented and underway right now.

Um the next two line items though are the existing contracts with Midaxo, which are the existing vendor, those will be terminating at the end of this fiscal year when we'll be moving into the new contracts next year.

Um, the last two line items are um what we were discussed previously, which is the funding for the Providence Center and uh family services to provide, which was slightly under 50,000, but I thought it was worth pretty good.

We appreciate that.

Uh I have two quick questions on those things uh before we uh hand it over to the kernel.

Um first question is Is it is it common practice to lease motorcycles instead of purchasing?

And then I guess the follow-up on that is those six Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Is that all we have for motorcycles in the department?

Yeah, that's all we have.

And so actually the uh we used to have a contract with Army Davis and we're readable to another company that went a little bit higher.

But I think the the the thought is actually we own they gotta get replaced uh up to so many miles on the right.

This unit goes new name procession, they do fun or escore, they do obviously anything where there is any activities in the city.

Absolutely, they use a lot, and so it's better to lease them because then that covers the part that covers the upgraded, it's not all by that.

Yeah, I'll say in general, sure, like that is an analysis the fleet managers is doing more regularly.

Um we'll be reviewing communications later, but there's a similar um proposal in that department too.

There's certain, at least what I've seen over my years is there's certain equipment we invest in that is very very expensive to maintain, and so sometimes we're actually our better core.

We don't have the staff to do it in-house, and so we're ending up paying a lot of money externally to maintain um things like bucket trucks or very specific equipment of DBW.

Um, and so right now we're trying to figure out fundamentally if it's better off for us to buy them and invest in ways to maintain them better, or if we're better off just kind of putting the burden on another vendor and just doing a lease payment that we can afford.

That makes sense.

Um, so just a quick follow-up on the motorcycle question.

Um, assigned to that you have uh shortage right now on the offices.

We rotate them, and we also have the floor offices uh no hard ride.

And so we use the uh is that like a seniority thing or we just want to make sure that they have enough time on the job, obviously after four years after the paper booze obviously they'll apply to the unit and they'll get accepted.

But we want to make sure that the person's trained, they've done it for a while, they own we do our new diligence to each other they know how to ride.

Because obviously we've had accidents in which uh some offices unfortunately have gotten into have gotten hurt.

So yeah, it's it's not by seniority.

It's just to make sure that they know how to ride and that they have enough time on the job to participate in that code.

Um is it six officers, or is it more they rotate like shows that they usually come from the traffic division?

Uh we have a side in there that's assigned to overseeing traffic as well as the motorcycle unit.

And then we have one tool, three offices that are the three three that are assigned to totally to be moving, and then we use others from the patrol division.

So traffic division officers which handle the traffic action, but also not a right if needed.

Um the project when the folks because it is it is uh a specialized unit, uh, but we want to be sure that they know how to write.

I know how to ride, but it's it's it takes a different thing.

I was gonna ask that one of you two ever uh participate in this unit.

Yeah, maybe not.

I wrote them, but uh again, it's uh it's just the ride, uh just uh like it's it's something that you want to do constantly because it's uh it's a different type of motorcycle in uh it's we want to make sure that it's changing yeah.

I mean I would love to own a motorcycle drivers are crazy.

I'll say that.

Unfortunately, there was uh uh a death over here on Lance a gap or a couple days ago.

Motorcycle driver I mean this we need all protection on the helmet and things like that.

And again, it's uh it's a specific type of skill set in the offices that we have there, actually.

They do hundreds, hundreds of motorcycles.

I saw them training, I think over here by ranch out.

There's like a parking lot.

Uh well then the other question on this page is in regard to the flock contract, when is when does that current contract expire?

We have only one year.

When was that uh it's a three-year contract?

Um it was signed in November of 23, and there are two one-year options to renew on it.

So it was a so potentially five-year contract?

Yes.

Uh quick follow-up, uh comes from.

Do those one year extensions have to come before this committee, or could you do them without us?

They would go through the board of contract and supply.

And then from there they would either go to firmly.

Yeah.

Uh any other questions on this page uh council and just a question on this page.

I noticed the uh passport labs parking enforcement management system, but I don't notice a corresponding revenue line.

Uh yeah, so the revenue-related parking enforcement is in the non-departmental budget.

It's collected by the municipal court.

So if you uh go to pay sort of tests.

So do you go to page 189?

You'll see uh all of the fines and forfeiture revenue, and that is where that goes.

Thank you very much.

Are you all signed out to Windows?

Yep.

Got it.

Um director, before we hand it over to you, I'm gonna take a quick bathroom break.

Everyone has a minute and 24 seconds.

I I found it and I noticed maybe zero projected.

I think uh no.

Am I reading this correctly?

Yeah.

Not to get hung up by this one thing, but yeah, I was curious, you know.

Yeah, how much we can spend and that much we make.

Yeah, so we when we budget this, we don't necessarily know what the mix of revenues are going to be.

So we budget one allocation for all finding up forfeiters.

Okay.

Yeah, so when you look at the actuals, you'll see kind of the trends brings us into budget, but yeah.

Thank you.

Ah, it's really hot that's actually new AC is great.

I just want to have the directory for the property, yeah.

Because that one's so loud and loud.

Yeah, yeah.

I kind of missed the stick.

It was tripping, but this turned on.

We are certainly leveling up.

Yeah, we didn't go into research.

Super grateful.

It's that kind of background noise about AC is a slide.

Yeah, it wasn't possible.

And we were always gone.

Could you speak up?

Could you speak back?

People would say we can't hear anything.

Yeah, these are like outdoor voices.

Okay, thanks.

South.

Colonel, uh floor is yours.

Thank you.

I think we're still doing a great job.

I thought it was done.

We know.

That's a great job.

I just thought I want to take a few minutes to kind of speak about the accomplishments and challenges of the police department based the 225 and uh year 225.

And I also want to thank the members of this council, obviously, and the residents of the city of Province for your senior support and trust in our department.

Um effective policing is only possible with law enforcement and the community work together for this shareful of public safety and quality of life.

Uh so some of the highlights of uh in the year 2025 and obviously the impact that it was made was in November.

Uh as we mentioned earlier, we graduated the last academy, uh the 73rd Travis Police Academy, which increases our department's strength to 462 small offices, uh, which allows us to continue the traditional policing and province while uh continue to keep the city safe.

I know that we're not gonna have an academy in 2026, uh, but as we stated earlier, we're going to uh use that period to strengthen the recruitment efforts and prepare for the next fiscal year in 2027.

I just want to mention some of the uh outstanding and significant strides in reducing crime, improving public safety across the city.

So the police department removed about 288 illegal firearms from our streets in 2025.

Uh reported violent crime offenses decreased by 8%.

Aspirant crime with a firearm, aggravated assaults by 8%.

Violent crimes involving firearms declined by 24%.

Homicides, robberies, and aggravated assaults, also reductions.

Just five years ago, we had about 23 homicides in 2021.

Last year we had four.

We went 11 months with two, and unfortunately, we had the over the Kids in the Brown that added the extra two.

We ended up with four homicides in four cases, both of all four cases were clear.

These numbers represent more than statistics, they represent safer neighborhoods, fewer victims, and lives positively impacted to our city.

I always said that I can't give you stats based on the 288 firearms that we took last year as far as how many lives we saved, but I know for a fact that those firearms that they were not taken from someone's innings who were lost more ways.

Obviously, the community engagement uh we created since 23 we created the community response team uh that was established in 2023 when we first go forward, and in just two years, two years that unit has been very effective.

Uh uh noise violation, graffiti, organized retail theft and chocolate, uh obviously illegal ATV activities.

Uh we constantly just stay alone.

There was two other ATVs that were taken.

Um the issues, those issues deeply affect our neighborhood to residents, and we remain committed to proactive enforcement and community engagement efforts to work.

I got a few notes here, but I don't want to go too long because I know that it's a lot, but I want to also mention the community relations bureau.

That unit has successfully partnered with local faith leaders to post-community building events, focus on trust, unity, and open dialogue.

Uh we organize numerous community engagement programs, including Prime Watch meetings, stop violence meetings, town hall meetings, summer cookouts, as you know, we all vocalist host the Halloween parties at the police station during Christmas, the third week giveaway, the sneakers give away, and that all comes from the community relationship.

Um, the major milestone was the opening uh last year of the Providence Police Department with the answer.

That's the first of its kind in R.

No other department has it.

There's other departments that are actually looking at ours now and decided they're gonna open up.

We were the first ones, obviously, here in the state, and we will be on the wall.

If you look under any other major cities, that's where the euro is technology is key.

That's one of the pillars of 21st century policing.

The province is just getting there to ensure that we keep these cities safe.

Uh the RIRPCC uh proved to be viable again in December after the tragic events at Brown University and the investigation department.

That space allowed us to conduct our business and do the investigation in a manner that is very successful.

Just to give you a breakdown of what the problem looks like, obviously, we have the uniform uniform division that we see the mounted committee, the community response team, the motorcycle unit and that division ensure visibility and rapid response across all district districts.

The traffic building, we responded to about 1,263 vehicle accidents.

We issue about 6,811 summons.

They supported over 85 city events, including procession, parades, and row races.

The investigated division.

In total, 168 individuals were charged in significant cases involving firearms.

That is the polls of the department.

Those are the detectives that follow up on major major incidents and critical violent incidents in the city.

They do the violent critical violent criminal investigation and they target individuals involved in criminal activity to office city.

The administrative bill, they handle the personnel, resources, training policy, compliance, records, weapons, homeland security.

And then, as you all know, because you all handle the different districts, we have the district-based leadership.

Each of the city's nine police districts is led by a dedicated district lieutenant who acts as a who acts as a local commander, developing community partnerships, addressing local crime patterns, and leading district-based enforcement.

Every Tuesday, we meet as a team and we analyze crime, we come up with strategies, we do a comprehensive crime analysis about what's going on in different parts of the world, whether it shots, fires, or anything that's that's going on, so we can address it.

This operational structure allows us to remain agile, data driven, and community focused.

Obviously, this funding is critical in order for us to preserve essential patrol and investigative services, cover fixed operational costs, including personnel, fee, equipment, and training, and obviously to sustain crime reductions by this violence prevention strategies.

There's a lot of things that the bomb is doing, as you all know.

Obviously, some stuff is highlighted here.

But in closing, I'll tell you that the data from year 2025 demonstrates that our strategies are working, that violent crime is down, that illegal firearms are being removed from our streets, and that community trust is being actively strengthened.

Unfortunately, uh in 2025, we ended again on a tragic note within the map with the mass student at Brown University.

We extend our deep deepest condolences to the victims and their families whose lives were forever changed by this senseless act of violence.

And in that moment, the strength of our preparation, training, staffing, and partnerships, we know that matter.

The province police officers alongside our federal, state, and local partners responded swiftly and professionally under extremely difficult circumstances.

Because this department has continued to invest in readiness, coordination, technology, and community relations, we were able to act decisively and bring the incident to its conclusion.

While crime and providence continues to decline, events like the Brown University incident reminds us that the work of public safety is never finished.

By continuing to invest in our offices, our resources, and our partnerships with the community, we can build on the progress we have made and ensure Providence remains a safe and strong and united city for everyone.

We respectfully request your support for funding in the next fiscal year to keep our community safe, uphold our mission, and continue delivering the high-quality service our residents expect and deserve.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Chief.

We uh we really appreciate all the work you and uh hundreds of uh officers uh do on a day-to-day basis to keep us safe as much as possible.

And I really appreciate the you know the statistics for me it matters.

Where I struggle sometimes where communicating with neighbors is um and I would you know like to see like what you say to neighbors that might have the sense or feeling or perception uh that you know our community is not safe or you know, all it takes is one incident for an individual to happen or to experience and everything that we have said or work goes out the window.

So I guess what's like your message uh to a neighbor that might say um that city of Providence is not safe.

And just to make sure that I don't agree with that.

I'm just saying these are comments and questions that we get at times, you know.

Well, it's important, I think, to state some of the statistics, especially the guns.

I think that's uh an awesome trend that we're seeing.

Um we've talked about this before.

I mean, we're the age of kids getting guns and this is going lower and lower years seems like that we can do obviously to prevent that uh we definitely support those efforts.

But back to my point, what's your message to you're walking down Broad Street or Hope Street and a neighbor comes up to you, you know, says I don't feel safe in the city.

What's your response to that?

That's a great question.

And I'll tell you that's a question that uh we that we deal with uh maybe nine district lieutenants that I just mentioned to you.

Obviously, data says that it's a safe city.

Uh data shows us that crime is down, data shows us that the homicides are down, the robberies are down, that are great as all.

But the the regular person who's raising their kids, kids in the city, that means nothing.

And so the answer to the me is like what is it that is causing you to have that perception?

What is it that is causing you to have that fear so that we can address it?

Because if someone that may live in a certain section of the city, their concern may be the fact that their child is at a bus stop and is afraid that their child is gonna get kidnapped per se for someone else in the part of the city maybe that music.

For someone else in the part of the city may be that shootings.

Some people in our city don't care about shootings, they're used to, but they're afraid that their kid is by themselves out of property stuff.

So my answer then would be what is it that makes you give you that perception?

And then we've got to figure out a solution on how to lower that, whatever that is.

Because everyone's sense of fear, everyone's sense of that the city is not safe, is different.

Right.

And so I would have to really find out what that person is worried about so that we can address it.

Overall, I'll tell you that uh it's not just me, but we get the we get the sins from the community and the city is simple.

But that means maybe that the Us is no one else writing ATVs in the city.

Maybe the fact that we are addressing loud music in certain areas, maybe the fact that we made apprehensions on the harm site.

If you ask a mother who lost their child to a violent crime, that's what that's what that's what's cared from in.

And so the only answer that I can give is liberal assistants, bring that person to justice, but it's just different.

But I think the key is to make sure that we find out exactly why they're afraid so that we can help.

Commander, do you want to add anything uh before we open it up uh to questions?

Did I did I recently see that you get uh a degree recently?

I did, thank you.

Congratulations, yeah, thank you.

You're all set though?

Did you want to add anything?

No, I mean the chief said said everything uh great.

Uh yeah, we we have uh so many uh talented young men and women that are working with us now, uh reaching out to the community all the time.

Just look at our Facebook page, you see the face of the police on that page all the time, what we're doing, what we look like now, and how we're um immersed in the community.

And that's uh another way that we can tell people that the city's safer because we're constantly trying to um develop relationships with the community, and I think we do a great job of doing that throughout the whole part of the city.

Just this uh uh past spring, uh we met with uh 18 different schools that had career days that we reached over 3,000 students to talk to them about what they care is.

So that's uh other than the stats that the that the Colonel uh was talking about, that's the other half of us trying to get to the level of uh talking to young people and reaching them in ways that uh meaningful for them.

So I too that you know that's a great point that brings up to my mind is that the department has changed and that the is obviously we're about 49% uh diverse uh in the department.

We have about 12% officers that speak another language.

Um it's uh it's it's just uh we we have evolved in so many ways that training has been key, the escalation is key.

We we kind of trained and preached that kind of uh we're not birthed by any means, but definitely has uh change it.

I mean, we got tested.

This department got tested.

I like to say that uh in December, unfortunately, the RIPIC incident, and it wasn't the commander of the chief or whatever.

It was the work of the men and women, the province police department, and obviously in conjunction with our federal agencies or understate police, but it was the minimum of these department that found the solutions in the answer during that flag of the city.

Uh we're gonna start off with Cosmo and Graves.

Okay, well, you just answered one of my questions about the digressity.

Um but I wanted to know uh the percentage of minorities and women and for us.

Um also leadership and what leadership roles do they have?

Definitely so um so we just changed the contract, obviously, and uh the testing process is different.

Um we do have uh uh a few number of officers, uh minority officers that are in leadership.

We'd have a uh obviously it's myself and we have uh uh major uh and then uh lieutenant and sergeants.

Uh but again it's uh youth test all the way all the way to uh lieutenants now.

Uh he used to be the test all the way to Captain.

Uh it's always a process really very competitive.

But I know that we're gonna get there, and I think the fact that uh the education uh is something that is finance, and obviously we're taking advantage of manage all that.

Um I again I think I did have the breakdown, but I can get that for you as far as how many uh women I think the goal is to raise it.

I think we're at 12% uh as far as women on the job, it's gonna be age to 30%.

Uh we have we have the high rank between uh provider uh under this administration to become a major in the history of this department uh and uh ski and uh again we have it's it's almost half uh that includes uh women in minority on the department.

So I always said it, and I I always said that I think that women's uh a good police officer has a lot to do with life experiences.

I have occasional officers that work with me in subprovidence, and I said it before they didn't sell better than me.

Uh they know ethnic food better than me.

Uh, and I don't think the color of your skin has a lot to do with with being a great police officer.

But life experiences we were you understand about poverty when you understand about social challenges, when you understand about respect and humility and compassion, that doesn't have help.

So I think that that's critical.

But yeah, our goal is to make sure that our department reflects the city that we serve because with that comes more professional department and more understanding departmental.

But we are I I I am proud to say we are proud to say that uh the department has changed.

I mean, I came on in 1994, and I was one of uh 20 minorities and jobs in public.

So thank you.

She said that yes.

What happened to the city?

I gave it to her yesterday.

So yeah, we have uh about 10% uh black male officers, about 23% Hispanic offices, two percent Asian, um, and then as far as females, it's uh there's uh seven females on the job, 21 Hispanic females, one Asian female.

Uh so it's a total of uh 57 uh females.

Again, it's uh it's uh total minorities uh with females is 48 percent uh department.

But pretty pretty diverse.

Thank you.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Um the other thing, and I'm jumping to something else now.

Um where are we with the you know the other few years we have been asking for more police officers and where are we with staffing?

Yeah, we're 458 officers currently.

Um that being said, we lose about 15 to 30 offices a year, really because of mandated retirements uh or uh just officers retired.

So if you look at 2026, we have about 127 offices that are eligible for retirement.

2027 we have about 147 agencies that are eligible for retirement.

Both 26 and 27, we have three mandatory retirement.

So if they reach a certain age, what's the age current?

Uh it's 63.

65, I'm sorry, it's raised.

And I know for the community 68.

67?

So it's up to them, but uh yeah, I don't think we're saying.

So you got another 30 years or something?

I don't know.

Yeah, losing my eyes, that's what we're gonna be left with.

But yeah, no, it's uh it's a great question, and uh yeah, that tuition is something that not just province, but we all pay.

But one of the great things is that when we put out a recruitment process, uh we get a lot of people that are interested in becoming province police officers.

When I compare that to all the municipalities, I've heard of all the municipalities that will have five vacancies and only have four people that apply for the job.

Uh the last process we have about 400 applicants, and a lot of them came from the city.

And other recruitment tools that we use is that we we send it out to a lot of the uh students uh the seniors that graduated from our public schools in the city, and then we get a list from the school department, they do it for us, we send them off, we push out an email, and our apply for a job.

So it's uh it's a great job, it's a difficult job, and you've got to be in the polls every single time, and you gotta be 100%.

We've got a small margin to do a professional job, and you're proud of the job that they do.

But again, it takes I understand that it takes uh resources and your assistance and funding.

So I'm not saying you answer part of it is um I was gonna ask you how many out the Providence from Providence, and it seems like you're trying to really recruit the Providence residents.

Um what about the lateral?

Because before you were doing like the bar, people doing lateral how we were kind of we didn't like that.

So how are we doing so no?

So I did that the first year, and the reason for that is because we obviously put out a uh recruitment process and we didn't get the numbers thinking of attrition and thinking or of the losing of personnel.

Uh it's when we decided to go with the laterals, but that was at one time, and all the laterals that we took uh had at least the majority, 90% of them.

There was one lateral that we took that had about three years.

I had the experience but came from an urban city or municipality, and so he understood.

Okay.

But they're they go through uh they work for field training.

Um they also uh they also are part of the informationary period, and they are uh training on how to police the civil projects.

And what we said is that uh it's it's not as difficult.

It's policing an inner core city, like the city of Province, you really have to understand what I hope.

Yeah, that's why we were like okay.

The other one, and I like I said I'm jumping all over the place.

Um I've noticed last year when you know we we were going through a lot of clashes with ICE.

Um it seems like it may have, I don't know if it's because of the snowstorm or whatever, but it seemed like it's quieted down a little bit.

Have you heard of any other incident incidents or uh or is it slowing down?

Yeah, the only time that we hear about it is either through social media when there's something posted, but we are constantly reminding our officers what our policy stages and what the executive orders say they understand uh what the duties are.

So but yeah, other than that, uh we don't really know as you stated, it hasn't really been other than what I see on social media.

Okay, but the goal is to make sure that our city residents understand that the police department is here they help their mission, and that's it.

Uh there's another other uh uh different status, that's not part of our police.

Well, I'm gonna do uh assume, and I just I think you guys are doing are fantastic students.

I really do.

Um you know I love you guys.

And uh I appreciate the fact that you come to all our monthly meetings and you know um you're there to give us a report of what's going on, not just in our community, but kind of citywide, and it helps to alleviate the fears that may be going on.

So I think that our people are feel safe to walk in the community.

The partnership does not just the police, I think it's the community members, it's all of you, it's uh this is a thing that's uh which is the most important actor in this game.

So councilwoman Peterson and Councilman Walker.

I think that's quick on the draw.

We got time.

Thank you.

Um I do want to commend you and your um your senior team.

Um what you did um to support the community in general um during the shooting, the mass shooting, and um consequentially the days after I think from the feedback that I received from my neighbors was that they felt okay, and being in an area where there is a college, um a lot of concern was what do we have to worry about?

And I think the feedback that I did receive from neighbors that reached out was more of the uh just uncertainty about what's happening next, but really still not being not feeling unsafe.

Um and so I want to thank you for that.

You were very um diligent about communicating, which I thought was extremely important.

Um but also you picked up the phone when we were calling you to say this is what's going on, and it was really important to so many of us, especially like I said, being that we surround we live um surrounding a college, and the change of events was happening pretty quickly, um quickly enough anyway.

Um it put people at ease.

So your team, your senior team has always been really um uh conscientious of talking with us when when we come forward and ask questions.

Um you commander have always been really great to work with as well, um, as well as major aspinall and and uh um Mike Stevens who's who's been really really great and has his um finger on the pulse when it comes to the community stuff.

Um what the one is a point of feedback and then the others are questions.

So um we in talking when you were talking about partnership, um the uh there's a group of students at Providence College that took on an initiative um to create um just an opportunity for neighborhood engagement, and they've done this really phenomenal job that's spearheaded by a professor at PC and really took the time to and invested for the last I would say 18 months or so um and they've produced a report now as a result, um, and they're continuing to do this work.

But one of the things that um they were tasked to do is really just find out why um what was the issue around neighborhood engagement between school and and and student.

Um I've I've never shy away of having conversation about what's going on in my community.

But one of the things that I think high was highlighted the most for me was that um, and this is just engagement from the students that were there.

I'm not sure if they've these particular students have already graduated, but if they didn't, I'd love for them to have a conversation with you.

Um of the things that they had highlighted was that their school told them that our community is not safe.

And I think you might have also heard this, Councilwoman Graves, and it was um first I was angry, but second I felt really sad.

And the reason is because our area specifically, I speak just of Ward 14, is probably one of the safest in the city.

And outside of certain issues that are very condensed in that specific area, there really isn't much in terms of crime outside of break-ins and small things of that nature.

And so um I know that you had mentioned that this is a partnership and we you work collaboratively with so many different groups, but I would love to see if I could task you with just obtaining some of that feedback from PC.

I know that your lieutenant has a weekly meeting, um, but I'd like to prod a little bit more if that's actually what's being conduct is what's being shared by public safety um and the school in general, because I would love to continue finding ways to prove that that's actually not the case.

Um, and that's part of our job as counselors, at least my job as counselor as a counselor, I feel like um that should be it should be part of the opportunity to experience the neighborhood in a way that allows us for the proper engagement that both neighbor and student deserve.

So that's that's my feedback point.

That's great because I'm not open to that.

But you said that I meeting I love to meet who they are, and we have a conversation with them.

Well, they're gone now.

We have three months of there may be some people behind the team.

No, but yeah, no, whatever, no problem.

Um but I'd love to connect you with that one.

Um because that's been going on forever.

They've always said that.

At PC, I used to have meetings with people and the um the um police there, and used to tell them stop telling people that you need to stop, but I used to talk to them, but every single year there's classes that go through, especially through the PSP department, and they send the kids out to speak to the community just so they can diffuse that.

So you do have a department that will do that, you know, commine, um, you know, uh there's a group of classes that will go out and they speak to the community um leaders, and they know because they have spoken to us and they have spoken to us on some of the police and and everything.

So they are aware that it's not true, and they are encouraged to go out to the community, and they do go out into the community, but it but on the whole part of their training when they come in.

That first week they're told don't go there, don't step off the campus because you're in danger.

Don't go to the bars, yes, yeah.

Make sure you call us regularly if you're gonna be able to do that.

Don't go in the city.

You know, don't go anyway, you know.

Like problems, you know.

We saw a conversation with the people teams.

The first ones, yeah, we're open to participation with other conversations, especially orientation.

Yeah, no problem.

But I think I you know, just to labor a little bit more onto that point.

Um I think it's a mindset that needs to choose from a different location, and that's why I asked for that um opportunity for engagement through perhaps the leadership that kind of um just you know decipher that that that message.

It's just a point.

The reality is that there's people out there that see Providence as a major black and brown community and have these races uh in a odd uh mindsets where we gotta try to you know push back and you know show them that that's not the case.

I mean Chief, like you mentioned the the stats where people will compare uh the safety ness of the city to the 80s and 90s when there was uh famous mayor, and you look at the murder rate, I mean I mean it's night and day around how much safer the city province is, but unfortunately that's the reality.

They see people that don't necessarily look like them and have these uh unjust uh opinions and anything that we can do as a city leadership, all of us around this table to push back and try to educate people as much as possible.

We're not gonna change everyone's mind, uh, but it's important to stand up.

But they said I appreciate that.

Um, so not to my question.

Um you talked a little bit about community relations, but I actually didn't see where their budget was in this budget.

So I really um I did lead support all part of the support or community relations department.

I think Mike Stevens does a phenomenal job with all of the programming that he does.

Um and then some because he does come out and support when he's asked to to our communities.

Um but I didn't see their budget in here, so I'm watching.

It's uh so it's on page seven uh at the bottom of the page.

You'll see it's part of the program uh supplies, so it says community and your health supplies 30.

Um and it is in the budget book on page 299.

299.

Okay.

So there wasn't a change from year to year.

Uh the increase there was a 10,000 increase.

Oh, okay.

Sweet.

Um 299, like bottom third of the page, half of five, four, seven, eight, two programs.

Oh, oh, oh yep, I see that.

Okay.

Thank you for that one.

Um, and then last year you guys had a lovely event that I was able to attend, and I found it was a wonderful um chance to get to see everybody a little bit not connected into work mode.

Um, are you guys doing that again?

The the ball, the gala that you guys watched?

Yes, yeah, yeah.

That was uh great.

It was a lot of work.

Um I think it was uh a good community time in offices, it was uh it was open to everyone.

Uh we sold out.

Yeah, but he just takes it takes a lot of work, so we can do it this year.

We're hoping that next year next year.

Yeah.

Uh but it takes a lot of work, takes a lot of funding.

Um, and yeah, uh it was great.

Hopefully we can play it something like that.

It was very nice to see everybody not in uniform.

So I I really enjoyed that.

And I the question that I had around it was I know that it did it, it wasn't it didn't utilize budget funding, but I did want to talk a little bit about where you achieved that funding from and if you're still um fundraising for that fund whatever you might be getting from.

So yeah, we we got some um uh under the police foundation.

We were able to get some funding, uh, but a lot of that also came from the thinkers that we sold.

Um the ours at the community members and different organizations at board tables that helped out.

But we did got some uh funded from uh some organizations that helped out with some came from through the police commission.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's important.

I think that we decided to do something like that again, yes, we're gonna be looking for good things.

Yeah, so I'm gonna see I know I know I don't want to thank you because we all bought a table as well.

So it was a it I was only there was like three gallons on the same night, and I think I went five minutes to everything, and then I really wasn't.

Oh, that was the night of the um I know that's I had to apologize to her too because I didn't know, yeah.

And that happened again.

My fresh one calls are here.

Um and then I have one more question and then I'm good for right now.

Um I don't have it right now, so I'm just gonna wait for the case.

You can later if you want to go.

Thank you.

Maybe wait for it to be full of three.

Oh, sorry.

Um I can keep talking.

Okay, I have anyway.

Of course.

Yeah, okay.

That's what we're interrupting.

Thank you.

I have two questions and two comments.

If that's okay.

Um the comments to start, um, uh, which I appreciate, Councilman Briggs calling this doing a soon, but thank you guys for being thank you for so much.

Um, I really appreciate how accessible you are.

I think Councilman Peterson already brought this up, but you know, during the Brown shooting, you were so busy, but you still kept like kept us informed.

You called, you responded to my texts.

Um, and I appreciate it at the vigil, you guys had folks outside of uniform, just patrolling to like keep people safe, but without making them feel like, oh my god, there's so many cops here, I'm so nervous.

Um so I appreciate that.

And you're always so responsive whenever I have to call you about something on North Main Street, which that is still fairly often.

Um, and um even like during the snowstorm when my neighbors were concerned about seeing that large vehicle that I forget the name of, you like very fast uh response.

I really do appreciate that.

Um kind of shockingly available, and I appreciate it.

Like I have all hours of the night day, which is um and even during the shooting, just to share, you know, I family all across the country who are watching the briefings because they were nervous and they were like, yeah, the your like top police officers are like so on it and like just very impressed, and um they are very honest people who will say when they feel differently and did stuff with those, but not about you, they were like, wow, this is amazing.

So just like lots of lots of um just uh appreciation and uh Councilman Sands is already said, congrats, but congrats on your graduation is amazing.

Um I had two questions.

Actually, they're basically the same, actually.

I do have two real questions.

One is on the overtime and the callbacks.

Um so in past years we've talked about you know, once you got kind of staffed up more, we've added a number of officers.

Um I think we were hoping to see some of the overtime go down and instead we see it continue to creep up.

Um and the same with the callbacks.

Do we have a plan for um addressing that?

Like what's going on with that continuing to go up?

I know we have the World Cup coming, I know we have a lot of big things.

I think things are happening, but um it's a lot, it's a it's a pretty big number um increase.

So just want to.

So yeah, I know that uh we're forecasting, I think in some of that uh and it has a lot to do we just mentioned is EPA with the 250th anniversary, it's uh it's fine festival that is happening, with the different cultural events that are happening.

Uh, and so I'll tell you that as you mentioned here before, it's uh this event is going on, and we're hoping that we can get reimbursed for some of that other stuff with a couple people.

But we're forecasting because everything's gonna be all hands on dead.

It's just something that we've never seen.

So that that's going to be quite personal for the band zone, uh and on top of uh obviously all the different events that are happening uh at the same time.

Um that has a lot to do with that.

Uh I know that we have increased, but we have also lost offices.

So I said that we will speak with the 30.

Uh and we did uh put out a recruitment process in all kinds in the past uh who uh he was not funded for recruitment.

Um we always shoot for like 40 uh recruits or 40 people graduates.

We last year we we had funding for 40.

No graduated 30 because people drop and so they're stabless.

Uh and if you add those 10 to the 15th and 30, they would lose that year, and then you lose the 45.

And so even though we're getting funding for new academies, we also lose it at the same time.

And then you add on to that all the different festivals, like I said.

And it's not just EPI, it's gonna be everything else that I just mentioned, all the different votes over there.

So we're forecasting.

We may we may use less than the uh soan um to the federal government.

We had asked for 2.3 million dollars.

And that was just an estimate based on um high impact days, medium, low, and canine sweeps.

So that's incorporated within the project uh this year.

Um now we've heard that it's if we get anything back well from the very minimal.

It's but it and it's not the fan zone.

It's not for any any activities in the city.

It's only gonna be dedicated to the home team, which would be staying at the graph.

Yeah, some of the things I can do.

And that's minimal.

Some of the things every embrace has to do allowed security uh for the teams, uh, and also obviously we have to need transportation for the most like the doing it from the airport or whatever.

Uh but the ladies write a lot of the funding uh FIFA 46 or to put all governments providing going another um uh Boston.

And to be paid for asking a question unless you have a different question.

No, no, no, go ahead.

So just uh I'm understanding correctly.

So ask for 2.3 million, that's baked into overtime and callback and special and special events of the personal events.

Um I guess what's the plan that we won't get that?

So it's well, it's been budgeted in this budget.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, it's in the budget that's been proposed.

So we're not expecting to get that.

We are not.

We have applied, but we have been told that it is unlikely that we will receive that $2.5 million, so we have budgeted for that $2.5 million with the assumption that we would not be receiving.

Um no, thank you.

Um the other question I have about the overtime then in the special events is and you may have covered this earlier, and I like not today in an earlier meeting, and I might just not be connecting it to now.

But are we because of the fan zone and all the other stuff?

Are we expecting like significant increases in like revenue from hotels and things like that?

Are we will we net net like positive that we're doing this budgetarily?

I mean, great for the city.

I'm happy for people to come and see our amazing place and be here and do all the things.

But from a budget perspective, are we uh you know, I think from a budget perspective, this is I I don't know that we are gonna make what we invest into this, right?

There's some sort of community impact that I think is certainly worth any publicity properties, not business, right?

All the great one thing to keep in mind is when we're talking about meal and beverage tax and hotel tax, uh, particularly with meal and beverage, we're only getting one percent so we have a percent, right?

So of that of most of that is going to the state despite these places being housed in our city.

Yeah.

Um the hotel tax though was successfully changed last year, so we are now getting two percent, which is double what we've previously been received.

So we reason both meal beverage and hotel tax.

I don't believe it was quite two million dollars, so I don't think we've necessarily made ourselves whole for that investment.

Um, in large part, again, because we don't want to bank too much in getting these room like this revenue and then not actually receiving it.

Um so you know, I think it's it's hard to say, but yeah, it also is I I did not want to build a budget where I was artificially building revenues to make this a neutralized when I just think it actually would be if I'm making a guess, I do think it'll probably cost us more than we'll bring in an additional revenues.

Um, but I do know the administration is working very hard to fundraise and find alternate funding sources.

We've already secured some of those things.

Um what it's looking like though is a lot of that fundraising is gonna cover things like stages or actually providing the fans that not actually the public safety of that, like something that happened for not related to overtime.

One thing I just want to share that I hear from my neighbors a lot, just to say out loud, um uh is concern about how we um how we interact with our unhouse population and the way that we clear the elements.

And so I just want to say out loud, like I want to make sure, and I think you too are afraid of this, and I don't know that it's always executed in this way of like care for our neighbors, many of whom unfortunately right now are on house.

We're about to go into the summer, where it's well all seasons it's really on house.

But I hear a lot from my neighbors who see the encampments get swept away, folks' possessions get thrown away, and just want to say out loud that that's a very regular concern I guess my neighbors, um, just concern for our unhousing birds and how they're treated.

So yeah, no, I just thought, and then that's great.

And I and I'd love to participate in any meetings just to explain the the process, right?

Uh we have a captain that's actually assigned specifically to just handle that.

Uh we are the last capture.

We have a capital that is assigned just to specifically uh when we have to respond to some of some of the uh who's that captain?

Bowers.

And so we're just like the product.

We have and I don't have to meet with them with the last resort.

Um I know the city has a uh a process.

I'm sure you're way away where we lowered up with services before we even have on that specific person where you know they're providing uh medical counselor or uh substance of use issues, whatever housing, if they try to provide everything, and then at some point if it's private property, some of that property belongs to the state, whatever the case may be, then at that point is when we come in, but it's like it takes weeks, uh, and then we execute a uh that uh you know uh that that form where we have to obviously notify each other yet and then and we have only have to arrest one person uh doing that process.

Everyone else takes advantage of the resources that are being provided.

Um and some uh just you know go on and wrong again.

Some of those places are private properties and we get also complaints from ownership.

point is when we come in but it's like it takes weeks uh and then we execute a uh that uh you know the that that form where we have to obviously notify each other yeah and then and we have only have to arrest one person uh during that process everyone else takes advantage of the resources that are being provided um and and so uh just you know go go on and wrong again some of these places are private properties and we get also conflict from owners uh but again it's we are the last resort it's uh right yeah so it's a whole process where and I'm glad that that's the way it works because I don't want in our office even our post guys you know not to uh stop by not to go there unless obviously there's a disturbance where there's some involved with some sort of violence uh we have gone there many times when obviously unfortunately someone has uh passed and so we go there respond and provide assistance but we don't go there just to walk around any other nature we only go there once the process is completed and we get notified that we need to respond to to have them evacuate in that area so um yeah yes I feel um I don't know if it's at all the libraries but the library has um the librarians they work with um with the police the lieutenant's part of it um the social services some homeless advocates and everything for for the encampments that uh in our area also not asked around in the area and so they do talk to people the community um and they so everybody is aware of what's going on so we do know what's going on in the area surrounded and you also know um that what the steps are so the people are aware of it but I think I I think it's at all the libraries I don't know I just assumed it was anyway but I would you know talk to them because they can be part of it you know the discussion and be part of that um group if they want to if it's someone interesting um I have a follow up on this topic if it's a different way all right um just to keep building on this conversation thank you uh Colonel and I know we've talked about this in the in the past is there any type of like what what's the I guess what's the training to new recruits when it comes to is there any specific training um that uh relates to interacting with uh folks uh that might be unhoused uh or I guess in the in the same sentence uh folks that have uh history or or challenges with either mental health or substance abuse is I I feel like that's what we we see the most is you know an individual either is having you know has mental health challenges that you know we can't really see um by my by maybe just having a conversation and they might say or do something that might trigger the officer to respond in a certain way so I I guess what is there any specific training that I guess new recruits and police officers in general do on a somewhat consistent basis uh that that uh has to do uh with with this yeah absolutely and that's part of the training uh in our curriculum uh it's part of uh we get organizations that come in and talk about you know different organizations nonprofits that come in and teach our offices and recruits about behavioral actions to realize and see what's going on immediately with their encounter in someone that may be uh suffering from mental illness uh we also just recently bring train the whole department on uh on how to identify some of the drawing of a link on the name of that training uh where we every someone came in and trained the whole department on that sort of aspect understanding then what they're seeing whether they'll serve it certain things to identify potential mental illness case because those those encounters are are extremely dangerous uh in the sense that obviously they've enforced issues sometimes and uh the problem is well trained when it comes to that we we we had an incident today where you know uh as I mentioned earlier uh it's it's the training that kicks in where we are able to identify what's going on and so yeah we it again it's part of the curriculum uh we also have different uh organizations that come in into the into the freedom academy and speak about this we actually have members of the homeless coalition that come in and speak also to the recruits uh it's critical I I mentioned that earlier the policing in the city of Providence urban court is totally different than other cities and that that's why it's important for us to train our own uh and but that's part of it and so yes yes the answer is yes we do that and then so just to um just to build up yes well actually I want to go there we also have a virtual training I just thought of it where we actually have offices where virtual reality yeah virtual reality and so they actually we can see a specific scenario where someone may be they may be encountered somebody that's suffering from mental illness and they can react to that so we we enforce it with with that type of training as well and then we do scenarios at the academy as well where we have offices that that act like actors senior offices and they they train the recruits on what we expect them and things like that.

Uh where we have offices that that act like actors, senior offices, and they they train the recruits on what we expect them and things like that.

In your career, uh Colonel, how much is this uh these interactions increase?

I would say, you know, with the housing crisis getting worse and worse.

Is this something you always have had to uh partake in, or you know, an aspect of the job, or is it something that is becoming more and more frequently in in the recent past years?

Yeah, those core are part of uh policing, not just the province of all over the nation.

I guess like 10 years ago homeless encampments, how common were they compared to that's a great question.

I mean, I uh I think 10 years ago I was uh lieutenant, but yeah, so yeah, we still had the same problems.

We had a lot of individuals that were set up uh sidewalks, uh set up some some sort of shelter.

Uh we get calls, we had one that was right next to the hospital, uh, a person who was leaving on the street, and actually one of our lieutenants, uh, one of our who's a lieutenant now at the time he was a sergeant, no one wants to move this person.

This lieutenant, actually, Lieutenant Tejada was part of that case, and he found this person uh uh housing, uh, was able to convince this person of where to move, and it took months that this person was there, but uh he was able to help that one specific person let out of the hospital.

So we've seen we've we've seen them, but I think there's definitely an increase uh a lot more.

We've seen a lot more now, and I didn't I just the problem is that I think there's all different parts of the country.

And um I guess that's the the point I'm trying to get to, Colonel, is that you know, I obviously represent um and appreciate what what your department does, but I think you know it might be a little uncomfortable, but you know, there's uh certain portion you could say uh or constituency in our city um that thinks that you guys are failing uh in this category uh massively.

Um I mean I don't I don't need to tell you there's groups right have folks at Madison Street Church that are organizing a rally this weekend um around this issue, and you know, as someone that has interacted in in this space in the past, I I definitely you know bring uh interesting perspective you you could say to the conversation because I have seen um less uh subpar interactions uh at times or less quality than I would expect out of any public servant, whether it's an officer or a firefighter.

But I also recognize you know the challenges uh of the job.

So all that to say, what what can we do?

Uh because I feel like the council kind of gets in we're in the middle, yeah, kind of of the situation.

We have folks that you know we interact with and respect a lot coming uh to us with these concerns.

We obviously have uh positive relationships with with you guys, and you tell us what you're telling us.

Um, but I guess how can we continue uh investing and improving um in these types of interactions going forward?

Um I I think something else needs to happen.

You know, like we've we've talked about this in the past uh around these meetings.

There's some police departments in in the state that have like specific officers under a community response unit, so you know they're they're more aware uh of who the individuals are, they know them a little bit more than surface level.

Um that was an idea that I was recommending in the past, but where we're here in the president um and in the near future, what what can we do to obviously building more housing and investing in mental health services is is number one, but I don't think that's gonna be uh a task uh that's up to the province police department.

So until folks you know start taking these concerns a little more serious, um it's only gonna get worse.

Yeah.

Um so I guess what what can the police department continue to do um to making sure that every constituent is treated fairly, um whether they're housed or unhoused or whether they have uh mental health challenges or or not, or how can we get to that point?

You know, I think definitely uh I'll start with this.

I think the concern that you just mentioned is a great one.

I think your concern is is our concern, and I think the and you're right, you're in the top position, and I totally get that.

And so we uh I think that we need to work as a team.

Uh that's number one, and I think the the priorities for all of us should be to be able to provide the assistance that they need.

Obviously, you just stated some of that housing and the different uh things that they did that that community is facing beyond hours is definitely something that it's is it's it's horrible uh and it's terrible and I think we feel good.

But I think we also have a responsibility to make sure that, especially for us, and obviously I think uh I think you say it's a concern of all of us is to make sure that we can identify who is that needs that assistance.

Because the problem is that there's many people that will take advantage of that community.

And that includes the drug use, that includes the people that want to commit crimes against them, that includes people that want to use them when they have mental illness, when they have substance abuse, and I think it's our responsibility to ensure that those individuals that are followed the criminal element don't mix with that community.

And that's when it becomes very difficult for us because those are the same individuals that are robbing people, uh selling drugs that are adding to the social challenges that some of these uh on how people are seeing.

And so I think that we need to work our team to identify those individuals so that we can remove them from the equation.

Because if not, we're gonna continue to have those same individuals that are having those issues.

And I mentioned that because I would disrupt manager and solve problems, and there was many times when we provide a second changes of assistance to some people, and they ended up relapsing.

And the reason they would laugh should be because it was someone that came in and wrote them right back in and that person was able to mix with the people that were suffering from these illnesses.

And so I think that's grateful for us to work as a team to identify those individuals that are taking advantage of that community because they're part of the criminal element is what's affecting our city and it's affecting the specific population.

So I think that's what we need to do, which is my common opinion.

Um other questions, uh, Councilwoman Pearson.

And then Councilman Davidson.

Um yes, I hope mine are quick.

I apologize if they're not.

Um details.

I'm gonna talk a little bit about details.

Um of the small businesses in our neighborhood have reported having a really rough time obtaining um off-duty police officers to be able to have details on their in their businesses.

Um there's a variety of reasons, but uh I think one of the biggest ones is that people don't really want to do them anymore.

Is that what it is?

Would you be able to explain a little bit more?

Because it's um it's come up a couple of times now where they're having a rough time being able to obtain that off-duty police officer to do some of that work, or maybe they're just there's not enough of a pool, but I I don't.

No, it's interesting.

I don't I so we handle, as you mentioned earlier, about 26,000 details a year.

That's about 182,000 hours of offices covered in details.

Uh but I do know that that we have enough personnel that that do the only thing I can think of is if it becomes a priority where we may have different events throughout the city, uh we take priority on certain um details that may be more uh uh important to cover is uh and so but but we will always assist say there was some sort of a community event and that organization needed an officer that we'll work it to the district command as well.

At least I have a officer, respond and have a presence.

Uh but uh I just uh some so I I've had my own people uh people that would call us, uh some certain community members and say I couldn't get a detail, but they never called.

And so that's another issue.

And so well they might have called and they might have been diverse in the communication, but I think we cover a lot of details if I'm wrong.

Yeah, I wouldn't say maybe they they don't have an account set up already, and they call it the last minute to go through proper channels to have an account set up for that.

So is that how the process works?

You have to go and get an account set up and then is there like a wait time or something along those lines to kind of establish all that?

Like a few days, a couple of days.

Alright.

Writing it all down so I can report back, thank you.

And then um my next question, and it's actually probably ties in with telecoms, um, but it's uh it's a feedback note as well.

Um one of the pieces that um often neighbors respond to what they report back in community meetings is you tell me to call the non-emergency line, I call the non-emergency line, and I'm waiting for somebody to come and they don't come.

No, no.

Um and it's a for a variety of reasons.

Um it could be it could be anything.

Um but this is something that I brought up before, um, where in the response I think was well, it kind of depends on who's picking up the phone, and not maybe not doesn't depend on who who's picking up the phone, but it's a difference when telecommunications picks up the phone versus police.

And so when the person will call back a second, a third, and then finally give up.

That's when I start getting the phone call.

It's like, well, if you're telling me to do this part, at least to be able to document all these things, and still nothing is happening.

What am I supposed to do to get a response to my to my issue?

And so the reason why I'm saying it's both because I truly don't know, although I do have a little bit more of an indicator because I've been asking for some reporting from telecommunications, and I have some information to give you guys as well.

But most of the time, this is early evening into a later night, a later time, 12, 1 in the morning.

So it's more more than more times than not, it's a nuisance call.

And the priority, what the assumption is is that the priority is not there.

And so I it's more of a point of feedback because what I'm trying to do is when speaking with my lieutenant, one of the things that we often talk about is they're calling you, but they really should be calling the non-emergency line.

And I'm like, but they are calling the non-emergency line and they're not getting anywhere, which is the reason why it's coming back to me.

Um so I just want to be able to figure out how we can do that a little bit better.

Um it's not always easy to be able to give those points of feedback and kind of um honey on the exact same time because then by that point a constituent is extremely frustrated and doesn't want to deal with me or anybody at all.

So generally, this happens in the area where my student where the student housing is more dense for me.

Um, but it has happened over on the ones cut side a little bit more as the weather has gotten a little bit better.

So I just I it's a I would love to be able to figure out a way to see if I can research a little bit more, whether it's with telecoms or whether it's with um dispatch at police to be able to figure out um if there's a particular issue, if there's a particular police officer on, if there's a particular shift, whatever it might be.

It could be that there's a ton of things going on in the city at that moment as well.

Um I just it's it's a common, it's a common response from a constituent that I've been I I've been getting, and I would love to be able to put a pin in it.

So that person definitely put the direct, and I'm just confused to be honest that they're calling us when you say us, uh usually the number they call was to communications.

So it's all dispatches.

Uh the only thing that I can be put that they call us, that's if they have like the direct number, like uh I say the customer service, but even then they call me transferred through uh dispatch.

So okay, so this is this is this is why I need it to think when again telecoms, I'm sorry, it's coming ahead of time, but if it's going to that same number, how do we know who's picking up the call?

Is it every single time 24 hours a day dispatch?

So here's what I'll tell you.

Every phone or call that comes to us is recorded.

So when we have followed up on these issues before, what we have found is that constituents will say, and I'm I'm using an example that I'm making up, right?

It's not a factual thing, but you'll call me and say, hey, a Wednesday, so and so on this street said they called for loud music and the police download.

So we'll pull up that time frame.

You say you're gonna say 8 o'clock in midnight, and there's no phone calls from somebody on that street calling us to report it.

Now, what generally happens is in their mind it's 8 o'clock, it could be 9, 10, right?

We see this all the time.

We don't have a pinpoint time.

We just listen to uh block of calls and what we think the time happens.

Um if we find it, we research it, and what we find out generally is a lot of times there's no complaint.

I don't want to speak to the police.

So the dispatcher will send a police car by and they'll say, go through go down you know, whatever street, a river, and then like what part of it is a long street.

They won't give us an address.

So they'll drive down river, I don't hear any loud music, there's no car, so you're playing music.

Okay, is there anyone that wants to speak to the police?

No, it's an anonymous call and no call back, and they don't want to call and speak to the police.

So then the police say, Well, if anyone calls back, I'll just don't come back.

And that's generally what I have seen in my my research of it, is when we have specific times, place uh the gentleman, I don't know what she that was on um behind she.

Yeah, probably leash.

But I was actually able to figure that out because I finally figured out his address from you.

He was never given his address, he was just saying leash, and what happened with easy is it actually breaks and goes down, and the main drag is parking on both sides.

So we're just saying what I'm doing.

Yeah, and of course the pocket.

Yeah, there's no no party.

Yeah.

Well, there was for this gentleman's house, but because you never gave his address, we couldn't think about that, so we just I can give you a different example.

Um this past Saturday, um, it was about I I got the text message as I was sleeping.

I got a text message at three, I got a text message at four, I got a text message at five.

Same neighbor called three different times, said I called the nine emergency line to have a party shut down.

It was graduation weekend, most people are really an understanding of all of that, but party from the moment graduation ends all the way until six in the morning the following morning is a little bit much to ask of neighbors, um, in my opinion.

So three, four, five a.m.

phone calls.

Um, I'm just asking for the party to stop.

Just like it's it's been all day.

I kind of wanted to stop at this point.

Um 3 o'clock police comes out, 4 o'clock, police comes out, 5 o'clock police doesn't come out, so the party finally does end at 7 in the morning the following morning.

That's the part for me that's the struggle when I'm trying to tell neighbors, please use the non-emergency line.

Um, the execution might also be the the the issue instead of stopping the party, um, it just kept going.

It the you know, the police officer asks for the party to be for the music to be turned down, the music goes up immediately.

And that was that take that and multiply it by three or four or five houses with neighbors that are there that have been dealing with that all day.

They're they're a little they're a little ordering, right?

So I just I'm trying to figure out the best way to handle some of that stuff, and um and I don't know what the solution is hoping that we can find a better um outcome for these neighbors because I mean, granted, I didn't see it until the following morning, but when they're calling at three, when they're calling at four, and they're calling at five, and nothing stops until seven in the morning after hearing it all day, and that's just a nuisance, it's it is a nuisance call.

Um like I said, I'm just trying to figure something out else out.

And our these I'm sure that there's a lot going on in the city that's much more um important, but um, you know, we should have an opportunity to to understand what's or some receive some sort of results for that.

So I just wanted to add um, because I'm actually gonna speak on a fairly connected issue in College Hill before I do, however.

I just wanted to say thank you for everything you do, including and especially um both the way that the police felt protective of and increased a sense of security.

I won board two, so during the brown shootings that really mattered, and I was very, very grateful for your officers.

I know a lot of our residents were also um when you were on TV during the press conferences.

Um my brother-in-law is recently retired assistant chief at a municipality in Connecticut.

And every time you were on, he would text me and say, I love that guy!

So for my lieutenant Brad to you, like wait ago.

Okay, I just had to pass that on because we have big fans deep round in Connecticut.

Um so similar issues with um sort of a small set of neighbors and a small set of party houses in College Hill.

And um, you know, I think that the scope of the problem is a little smaller than it is in Board 14, but very persistent, very ongoing.

And I'm new to this job, but I've just been watching through a few minutes.

I think we've got to be able to do better here.

There seems to be some mismatch.

I in this, I want to attach this to budget because I sometimes have come to understand it might be due to you know, just lack personnel able to come out and do enforcement when it's needed.

But you know, I won't repeat what counselor Peterson said because sort of similar issues.

Neighbors call and have to call and call and call again.

And so I just want to I I'm trying to get to the bottom of it, we don't have to solve it here, but I'd love to work with with your department to figure it out.

Is it you know, sort of on a any given night, sort of like just not enough officers who can respond at the time it need to respond?

Is it a policy question?

Like my neighbors are calling, but it's really not a level of noise or nuisance that we can really do anything about.

I'm just sort of buffaloed by the persistence of this issue every weekend over and over.

I will note as a final note.

My neighbors have reported it's been way better lately.

Uh this week is graduation week, so I'm expecting a in general.

Something has actually been working just lately, but I didn't want to assume that the whole thing is fixed.

So just carry on with Councillor Panders' questions, like how do we help with this nuisance stuff?

Well, yeah, no, of course, and I think the director's pretty best that the book comes in, it's gonna be recorded, uh, and we're gonna know in fact the full space and what the options that were taken.

But I think what you mentioned is about mission property that is constant, and those are the ones, those are the those those properties and those situations where we and I mentioned in my presentation about the district commanders is important that he or she understands what the problem is, and then we gotta go down if he's uh you know if he's gotta raise all the way through the G, then we've got to figure it out because you're right, we shouldn't have to go to our same spot six, seven, eight nine times.

It should be addressed somehow and try to find a solution.

Uh and so that's something that we can discuss and figure out what property that is, if it comes back, if you're saying it's quite better, crime, but if it's not, then we need to probably raise it to the level of the major, the captain, the lieutenant in charge of the district to see what we can do.

Um yeah, we shouldn't we shouldn't have to go there six seven times.

It makes no sense, but but again, it's all we have to be able to do something uh within within the law.

Sometimes if it's not, you get there and the noise is not high enough.

We actually have the noise readers that we can utilize now to make sure it's within the law to issue the tickets, but uh but yeah, so it's uh it just it takes work, it all depends, and then if it's a property, there's a nuisance, depending on what type of crimes are committed in the property, we can refer it to the users task force and then take even further actions.

That is good to know.

Yeah.

This is the first time I've heard, and again, no task force.

So thank you.

You can council, did you have other uh nope, that's it?

Thank you.

Thank God that's it.

Council?

You're also uh the only other question I I have um Colonel is um what's the what's the cost associated with the uh real time crime center?

So yeah, we uh we would build that uh before it was built, and obviously through the whole process, uh we've got the prone and mark the range.

So uh we expend uh every single dollar and you know it was all the best of it there.

So is there um any time it's activated the only cost is personnel?

Yeah, but they're all working, that's the regular shift.

We are assigning detectives that have the expertise uh to manage, and it's not that uh there's a lieutenant uh and include detectives right now.

Again, we didn't just start it, and so but like those officers are well trained.

Uh one of the lieutenants who's in charge was actually in charge of building it out.

Uh and we we actually learned from all the departments that actually have one that's implemented and being working, and we have a lot of uh but I think at this point the lieutenant can probably teach the course, and we're actually assisting other municipalities on how to get one going.

So but it's just again they work at the regular shift, it's not any extra stuff.

Um unless obviously there's something something that's going on that we need to refer resources at least.

So from my understanding, um unless there's like a festival or or something happening, there's no like in the moment, real time surveillance happening, or can you speak on that?

Yeah, absolutely.

That's a great point.

So, yeah, we've got about 400 cameras.

I mentioned to you I only have three people.

There's no way that we can monitor that many cameras and do surveillance.

It's just only when a crime is committed, uh, on real time, we can access that video footage.

And it's being extremely helpful, especially if a poll comes in for an abduction, for example, or uh or a shooting, uh, we're able to repeat that.

And it's only those officers that have access to that system.

Um that that can be keeped.

And we can order it to see why with the reason.

That's not safe anywhere, uh, and it's all deleted.

It's uh it's hard to explain it is actually a four box that uh we uh that we use from uh his software company for fuses.

And so every time you destruct any video from whatever camera you're in the license, it goes through an encrypted tunnel and it goes to that officer that that's that's retributed and he gets he gets deleted unless again if a code comes in.

Uh in many times we use it when it's it's real time, so that we can provide it to the officers.

Uh, if we're looking for specific car or call-up for the crime that was committed, it was extremely helpful obviously during the Brown incident, and that's why we were able to identify who the suspect was.

Uh just a quick clarifying question.

Um I don't know if this could happen or if it has happened.

Say you're looking uh into uh a certain incident, but while you're reviewing footage, uh you see another crime.

Do you have like a basis to pursue uh charges or investigation work on that type of crime?

Yeah, I'm sure if this is yeah, there's definitely a victim in that crime that wants to pursue it.

We might we might have done a complaint or received a complaint about a specific and we we just uh maybe at the same time, yes, but uh obviously if there was a crime that was committed, yeah.

We're gonna we're gonna want to look into that.

Um especially if it's somebody that could be suffering from mental illness per se and just didn't notify the police uh we see that they got robbed or other kids, you know, we we I think it's a responsibility to follow up on that.

Or somebody that something that was never reported, but the crime is an obvious crime, yeah.

I wouldn't want my opposition follow-up.

I think I was a follow up.

Yeah, can I do a follow-up?

Um I know it's that one questions, but I guess I um for the real tech crime center, is have you I guess it's too hard.

Have you been encouraging, I think you've been encouraging residents who have ring cameras to have their feed go to the real-time crime center, and also are we concerned, slash I am concerned that folks outside of us, outside of the police and the city province can then access that, like rain has contracts with um ice and things like that, and just how concerned are you that folks outside of the city of Providence outside of the folks manning that or personing that facility can then access our cameras and our data and like what our residents are up to on the streets?

I mean, if I understand your question correctly, if they access in the re cameras, so you want to re camera somebody else's access, I have really no control of that.

But if we have access to the like if they're sending it to you, can anybody access it based on like it going to you?

Yeah, no, so we have our checks and balances and only that and those two detectives that I was mentioning, we'll give me only what's the only one accessing that that video footage.

No one else, no one else in that office uh unless it's an is there in that is in our building.

Uh and so unless there's a detective that works state or ship, um those other offices are not working, they maybe train on how to you know we feed that that video footage.

Uh but it's not like anybody else that is going to handle so we can check later and order it on who access it for what so the checks and balances are in place.

Um that that it's just it's the real time crypto the problem to use.

It's not, you know, parents can't access it.

Okay, no one else can just like access it.

Thank you.

Um the last question I have, Chief.

What's uh something I've seen uh on social media recently and I've experienced uh from people I know is what's like the level of um investigation, I guess you could say, into a hit and run uh where it's not a pedestrian, it's it's just uh a car hitting a car taking off and what I've told people is like you gotta license play, we'll have a license play, I feel like it's yeah, it's difficult.

Um if uh if it's just you know minor accident, it's very difficult to try and uh uh you know check and uh follow up on that.

But if you have a plate, our traffic division will follow up on that, find out who the owner is, send them a notice, uh send them a summer send up an accident.

And then usually 90% of the time they'll come in.

Uh and if not, obviously we'll suspend the registration and they don't show up.

But yeah, there's an investigation.

But yeah, the license plates are critical.

Um where we really need it to follow up for whatever reason, and it maybe something else attached to it, obviously, for this instructor.

We're gonna knock on doors, we're gonna look at the video uh and to try and investigate that.

But I guess a lot of times you're the only thing on what it is that we investigated.

All right.

Any other questions?

Colonel Commander, thank you so much for design everything you do.

I don't think that's it, thanks.

I put in ordinance.

Yeah, I don't think that's the end.

Yeah, I mean, I thought it was one time.

Yeah, okay, you are emailing.

And then we're gonna have a direct bridge, but then eventually uh I don't know if you like anything really informed.

I wonder if you're not very much.

I don't know what time it was.

I believe it is that's all yeah.

Okay.

Let's go.

And I should have any other authors coming in.

Yeah.

I bought my bars, you know, my children's EVs.

I don't know if we're not in the line.

Not at all.

This might be dinner.

What are the first things that we did?

Okay.

We're gonna get it back to uh the work.

We have um safety.

Yes.

I'm sorry, telecoms.

Okay, we weren't that subject.

You think the best for last of you, I probably agree.

Um at this time I will entertain a motion to enter exhibit 23 to the records.

Um 24, sorry.

Uh motion made by councilman second by councilwoman Green with all those in favor.

I'm sorry.

Alrighty, Crystal.

I think we are ready to continue.

Wonderful.

Uh the budget, the land space budget can be found on page 277.

Uh yeah, I'm sorry, page 277.

Thank you.

Uh-huh.

I'm joined today by Deputy Commissioner Elaine Richards, and we'll review the budget for the Department of Policy or uh Commissioner of Public Safety.

Uh slide two.

This department does not generate revenue in the general fund.

However, they are responsible for applying for and financially administering all of the federal and state and local grants uh for public safety divisions.

Uh the current grant awards total over 30.5 million dollars and range a variety of different uh both federal and state agencies, which have a required tremendous amount of complex um reporting and monitoring, um, which is all done by this lovely human right here.

Um and so I just want to make sure that while we're all you know talking about this, and this is again not a revenue generating department.

In my opinion, this $30 million is revenue generated to the city of Province.

Um, and should be something that we are celebrating in relationships.

Uh proposed expenditures in this department are $1,321,640.

This represents a $261,000 decrease of the fiscal 2026 budget of $1,583,359.

Total calories of the city of 2026, the budget at $445,152.

In Fischal 27, they're adjusting the salary line items for cost of living increases at $15,508.

Step increases for $3,442.

Additionally, we are reflecting to fund a new position of the manager of fiscal operations for a salary of 104,149.

Um Deputy Commissioner Richards has indicated that she will be retiring at some point in the next 12 months.

Oh my gosh.

Um it is really critical at this point in time that we begin recruiting and training someone who will take on this role.

Um again, these the grants, in addition to all of the public safety divisions, we're talking about excess of a hundred million dollars in budget um for some very critical functions, and so um it's gonna be really, really important that we make sure we get someone up to speed, learning way alone be responsible for managing um gate time and one.

So it is it's an incredibly complex job, and we're hoping to find a really great candidate that we can start onboarding as soon as possible.

Or is that hosted already?

It is not posted already, but we are hoping to post it.

We want to ensure that the funding will be there next year, so we don't have to get rid of someone in a month, but um the intention is to posting bill as soon as possible which is a small budget that has been broken into fixing discretionary line items.

Uh, they are all considered supply line items.

The first is computer equipment.

Um there is a reduction of $289,000.

I believe that's because uh software for licenses.

Oh, that's exactly what it was being doing.

Um there was required upgrades for Microsoft licenses last year.

We have completely completed that project, so we are no longer required to upgrade licenses.

Um this 198,000 dollars will provide all of the computer equipment, routers, whatever the public safety divisions need in fiscal year 2027.

Uh, this budget for your guys' reference as well was created in conjunction with the city's CIO, so he has reviewed the list of things that are attending on buying and has approved that list.

Uh office supplies are uh small reduction of $300, which have been supported by Trent.

Uh maintenance and service is reducing by $39,000 to a total amount of $145,000.

Uh, and there's a small decrease of the popular lease maintenance.

There are a couple of contracts that are over $50,000 or close to $3,000 in this budget.

Uh the first is Chromos.

This is time attendance software, and this is for all public safety divisions, so not just one.

Um, and again, the archival processes are very different than the rest of the city, so it's really a critical service that they utilize.

Um, and additionally, there's power DMS software for 40,000 a year, and this is accreditation and training software again for all public safety divisions.

And that wraps up this budget.

Do you want to steal?

She did very good.

I'm so proud of her.

Um, so I do handle as she didn't go in here over 30 million dollars of um public safety grants.

I take it from the application process through the award, the monitoring expenditures and everything for all of the public safety departments.

Um, additionally, um I oversee payroll for 1100 um employees, um, three different contracts, lease, fire, non-union, and actually 1033.

All the purchasing for all the public safety departments comes through our department.

I have two girls that um manage that.

Um, I assist the other public safety departments with the award contract work, as um many of them don't have the experience.

Communications is one, um, and PEMA is another.

Um, and um pretty much I'm in charge of making sure everything runs correctly.

And you have the nerve to be retired.

And that is a lot of years.

Okay.

Uh thank you uh commissioner.

Um this will be your last budget, potentially.

Yeah.

Um, okay, I have a question.

How common is it um across municipalities similar to our size that have this type of breakdown when it comes to public safety finances?

So um I came from the state.

I was um in uh director of finance, uh, of administration for the public safety when I first started there was just the state police, and it grew and it grew and it grew, and um I still didn't have as many employees as I do now.

And that was taken on 911, the public safety grant administration office, um the state police, and when I left, we would just take on the sheriffs, but it's still the um the budgets and everything pretty much equate to the city of Providence.

I guess like Chris, I'm sorry, but what's like the thought process and not having the city's finance department handle all of obviously more resources and stuff.

Yeah, certainly.

So the city's financial model is a little bit different, and I think so much it's working out so much successfully, where we have um managers or high-level financial staff kind of ingrained into certain departments.

So we have the parks department here and yourself, Costa Melinda, she's their manager of fiscal operations.

Last night we had planning and development, Lennon's in charge of a lot of their financial operations.

Um we do not necessarily have them report directly to the finance department.

With that said, uh, we have an extremely collegial relationship in all respects.

Alina and I started, I think, a few months away from one another.

Um, and so one of the things that makes that model work really well is that we again do have a super collegial relationship.

We allow departments to communicate with one another.

Last year I hosted a luncheon for all of the fiscal officers, and we all kind of just sat on our table and um I made everybody say what their favorite board game it is, and like did some team building things so that we all could be on the same page because what I found in and it was a little bit fun being candidate a selfish move, where if people were coming asking me a little questions that they should be asking one another, and so when we can get in a place where the the fiscal manager for public works feels comfortable reaching out to parks and the parks fiscal manager feels comfortable reaching out to public safety, everybody can kind of brainstorm a little better because while we're all kind of having different missions and trying to accomplish different goals, all of the procedures our financial people are following are effectively the same.

All of the ways you're gonna enter your budget are gonna be the same, all of the ways you're going to process your your purchase orders is gonna be the same.

Um, and so it's it's helpful, I think, for departments to have that fiscal person report to them because they feel like that's their person and they can work with them, they can build a really great relationship and understand their budget and feel like they can just go to their finance person if they have a question.

I know that's how the superintendent of parks feels.

Um, and so I don't feel the need to like have that person under my umbrella.

I just need to know that that person that is doing that role is capable of doing that role and has a great work in relationship with finance.

Um, and so it is while it's not a direct line, there's certainly I think what Chief Minzi refers to is like kind of the dotted line, where most of the financial staff are regularly communicating with us, and I would say that for the most part, any major financial hire is reviewed by either myself or the finance director prior to them coming on board.

Sounds perfect, thank you.

Councilwoman Peterson and Councilman Graves and Councilwind.

Um Peterson, you're not allowed to say councilwork's question, though.

Do a little mind note.

I hope I don't take your question.

Um I I guess my question is um there's some awfully big shoes to fill and I wonder if onboarding somebody will am I taking your question?

Yes, but go ahead.

I'm wondering if if onboarding somebody as soon as as soon as possible will even be enough.

Your institutional knowledge is something that will be gone, and if there's anything that I've learned in this space in the last term, is that that's gold.

Um so I I wonder if it's actually gonna be are you like can you talk a little bit about what you're looking to do?

Are you gonna hire from within and then kind of take somebody that you already currently have and level them up?

Or I I see how dependent in the most wonderful way, I'm not saying it in a bad way at all, but police and fire and PIMA and I I see it and I value it, and I just wonder if there's going to be a little bit of a missteps or growing pains as as you set up to do cuttings.

With regards to the actual budget monitoring and purchasing, I would say I could somebody could learn that within the time frame.

The grants are going to be in the enormous issue.

Um quite honest with that.

It involves a lot of work, um, a lot of certifications, and I frankly don't know who will have that and who applies, and government um experience is definitely um helpful.

Uh the other thing is, as Crystal alluded to, public safety personnel and payroll is very technical, it's very different.

Um there's a lot of different um certifications within the fire department because uh I'll even give you an example.

HR people on culture don't do the actual rates for public safety, sworn members we do, I think a lot.

So um working hard to try and build a system that reflects that.

Um and I'm hoping I'm on like 10 committees for the new Lawson project that they can build that out in there to make it easier for the next person.

I really respect and commend all the work that you've done.

I know I know my space in grants is um very similar to yours, and I just I know how how much multitasking you need to do for one, let alone 35 million dollars worth um in multiple different departments.

So kudos to you because it is very arduous.

I tech I love it, but um I know it's a lot to learn.

So I that's that's always my um plus we answer to other people too, right?

Oh, yeah, and what Crystal had said about the individual departments, like finance people, Krista Melendez and Karen Gomez and stuff, during the blizzard, they had never filled out any of this paperwork before for the Fed for FEMA or anything.

So we had quite a lot of interaction, three of us to get the paperwork together because they needed help you know on how to do it.

It's all very technical.

Congratulations on retiring, but like thank you.

Not yet for us.

So I will say Elaine has alluded to the fact that she may be willing to come back on the 75 day rule to assist on training post-retirement if that's necessary.

I think financially that would probably make a lot of sense for the city.

Um I will also say that while we don't have a particular candidate lined up or in mind, we do have a really successful track record of promoting from within the finance department.

It's something Sam and I take a tremendous amount of pride in.

We both did not start in the roles we we were in now.

I think this is my like seventh title with the city of Province.

Carlini started at an entry-level position nine years ago, and is now our budget officers or you know, I'm sorry, our budget analysts, and so um, you know, I think that is what we're hoping to do is kind of comb through the pool of individuals we have now and see who would be a good fit, you know, not only personality-wise, but also technically what skills they have.

Um, and so we are we're we're really this is a priority for all of us, and and I I like to I feel very confident that Elena is not gonna leave us in the lurch.

Um and so we will figure out some sort of solution to this, but we need to start planning for it now.

We have full faith in you guys.

Uh I just have a quick question.

Um, Commissioner, you said something about rates, uh what you said uh weight rates.

Oh, okay.

Wait rates.

So annually um there's a lot of manual work that goes behind the public safety payroll um weekly, and um so I have to do the the load for the regular wage rates for police and fire, and then there's also this telestaff system that all appruels have to be loaded in so to ensure that people don't take time that they don't have is there like programs and software out there with uh well that actually is a program, but you have to load the actual information into like first.

So the deputy commissioner's point is like these are the things we're trying to solve for with the upgraded RDRP system.

Um the current model we have now is from 2003, and so there's like a lot of advanced oh we've upgrades in that.

So there is a 2003.

Yes, yeah, we're all version.

We are on many versions of the year.

So please don't say that.

But that is to say that the last time we took a very deep dive into how we process things, how we do carrow functions, how to do all of these very administrative tasks was over 20 years ago.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

So we need to just really think about that a little bit.

Um, and so part of what's gonna be really critical and and timing of this is really quick, was like figuring out and you know, when we see IT next week, maybe we'll talk a little bit more about this, but um, there's been a consultant who's been I just say her praises regularly because she's doing these incredible deep dives into the every single department, every single function to figure out what are we doing now, what are the reports doing now so that we can kind of get all of this done and this is all just to get the RFP out.

So I feel very confident that we will be in a place, you know, a couple years from now where a lot of these things are more automated and we're better off, but for now we gotta kind of take baby steps and work with the tools that we have.

I applaud you for your efforts because that's a lot.

That transition is a lot.

Uh councilwoman Grooves.

I think you may have already answered my question.

It was about why do we have two separate software for time and attendance for that Cronus.

Chronos.

So it's because of so Cronos is used specifically by public safety.

A lot of units, and if you know you've read the newspaper on the like the state of Rhode Island had work day, and it's having a lot of issues.

Some of that reason is because of the regular time.

And in public safety, the police and fire fall under FLSA guidelines, which are very different than what you and I fall under, okay.

And um the standard time, it's not the telestaff allows us to record the time actual.

And the fire department uses it specifically for scheduling.

All of bidding, bidding overtime, bidding, fire jobs, everything.

That they use it more than anything.

Police is for their rosters to see the bids on the cars and stuff like that, whereas fire blows all of their overtime into it, and so does communications.

Okay.

Police is handled a completely different way because we need to be able to tell you and divide it up what it was spent for.

The Brown University shooting.

The wizard, all special events, anything, any festivals, anything like that.

It's very specific.

Okay.

Okay, well, thanks.

Like I say, you kind of answer that way, I think.

And I and to be true for which I I don't know.

We might have to change at the desk.

I don't think you can go.

I'm just saying.

Um, I did have a question, just a comment of like I I remember our first year asking you questions, and I had I honestly had no idea what you did, and I just didn't have myself called.

Um, but just so blown away and seeing the volume of grants that you administer and federal grants, and Shelly already said this.

You know this better than any of us, but like no joke, and like the fact that you do this, plus you do all the HR and the um all the time sheets and all the things.

I like just kudos.

I hope you have a wonderful retirement.

I'm hoping that I only did.

I did it once before, and I ended up in the city.

You retired and then your retirement has been managing 31 million dollars in rants a year for the yes.

I I had 31 years in the state, and then I came here.

I've been here a lot.

Well, don't like go to East Providence or something, just like fully remote.

No, but we are gratitude.

We actually came here three months apart.

Yeah, that's we've gotten along very well time.

Yeah.

I just wanted to say thanks.

This is like I can't imagine how you've been doing this.

It's a lot, but again, it's it's a lot of multi-fasting.

Yeah.

And I have a good staff too, so thank you.

Council Woman?

Yeah, uh, just so I'm where Counselor Edder was four years ago.

Brand new.

So thank you, and I'm glad we got to intersect at least a little bit.

And really incredibly impressive work.

I've done a little bit of work with federal grant, and amazing.

I just have one specific question.

The PIMA, I'm looking at the grant award summary.

The PIMA um City of Boston Award, is that specifically related to um World Cup?

Or is that something else?

Um Clara, director Picerbo that was here.

She has a grant from the City of Boston, and it is for regional catastrophic coordination.

So the person that's hired there is funded through the City of Austin to do that coordination with Boston and Providence, and I know they're going to be doing the heat um RFP soon.

And this um we had one uh person, a girl there, and she left in January, and they've just hired somebody new.

Okay, thank you for that clarification.

So are we looking at any World Cup funding on this page?

On this page, no.

I have not received anything.

That's what I thought.

Okay, thank you.

Nothing.

Any other questions?

Uh committee members.

Uh thank you so much, Commissioner.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's a pleasure.

Nice to meet you.

Yes.

No questions.

No more boundaries.

We get no still later.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Great to see everyone.

Good to see you.

Motion to enter exhibit 25 into the record.

So moved.

Second.

Motion made by Councilman Innerwell.

Second by Councilwoman Pearson.

All those in favor.

I have it.

The budget of details is currently on location two feet.

Okay.

I am joined today by Director David Radcliffe, executive director Emily.

Of this health communications budget.

Okay.

This is a revenue-generating department.

Firebox revenue in fiscal year 2027 is budgeted at $725,000.

This revenue is generated from a lot of box fees and are billed on an annual basis.

We have reduced this revenue by $25,000 since fiscal 2026 student historical trial collections.

Unfortunately, we do not collect 100% of the revenue that we built.

And so we need to write size our nice yeah.

Total proposed expenditure in fiscal 2027 or 12,081,055.

This represents a 2.25% increase or $265,000.

$265,901.

So that's the fiscal year 2026 budget.

Total salaries in fiscal 2026 for budget $5,207,298.

And fiscal year 2027, we're making adjustments for the following line.

Cost of living increases for $208,000, $208,867.

Step increases for eligible police for $72,073.

There was an MOA recently negotiated with local union 1033 regarding the police and fire dispatcher positions.

That MOA is adding an additional 134,000 to the operating budget next fiscal year.

Additionally, they're defunding the laborer position, which has been transferred to public property.

So from a budget perspective, it is a neutral transfer, but this division is staying one less FTE as a result of that.

And we are requesting to fund two new positions.

One would be a police dispatcher and one would be a fire dispatcher.

And the total cost of those positions is 196,636.

Their total proposed salary is $5,773,199.

I do not believe it did.

Not to my much.

If you'd like a copy, I can send it to you.

Of course.

Any of that extra that $134 that has been added to this, does it get deducted from either police or fire, or is that just a separate add-on to their to budgets?

It's a separate add-on to this budget.

Yes, because it's changing the salary for the staff in this department.

It has no impact on police and fire.

Okay, I was interpreting it as these are this is an MOA for new people that were coming forward.

Okay.

No, it's just changing the compensation for those possessions.

Yep.

Excellent.

Their writing that's have been broken into fixed and discretionary costs.

The first discretionary cost is postage of the wealth in $200.

They have a fixed cost of rubbish removal for $3,120.

Under the supply line items, which are vastly considered uh discretionary line items.

We have office supplies, which have been level funded at $6,000.

Small school shop supplies, again, level funded at $3,000.

Radio parts and supplies have also been level funded.

This requirement, these are any sort of radio replacements and maintenance necessary for our radios.

Construction maintenance supplies, again, double funded at $77,000.

This provides funding for ACO pedestal replacement and cable school that's necessary for the department's functions.

Auto parts of the level fundamentally $9,000.

Rental equipment is a new line item in this budget in this budget of $45,000.

It is funding to allow the department to rent a bucket truck, as I alluded to earlier tonight.

We have seen a tremendous challenge in maintaining our bucket trucks.

I can say citywide, they are a real problem.

The hydraulics on them are regularly go out.

The buckets are very expensive to replace, and there are sometimes in the assortment, like tied to the specific machines, you can only buy the certain bucket for this type of truck.

And so the department right now is pursuing whether it may be more cost-efficient to rent a truck or purchase a new one, but in the meantime, they do need to have funds available in case there's an emergency and they need a truck to utilize to repair certainly.

I would say at least four, but I'll get you an inventory bucket tops.

And do they live with DPW or Parks has at least one for the four student division, I think they may have two, and TPW has at least one, and then you guys have two, or we have one and one.

One and a half.

We have one that works and then is regularly dysfunctional.

Yes.

Um that's the inventory I have to find, but I can be the exact number I would.

Okay.

Um maintenance and service is one of their largest fixed costs.

This is radio system support software and quality assurance software, which is very critical functions.

Uh repairs to autos and trucks have been level wanted at 7500.

Assets copy are in these maintenance, just consider the fixed costs.

Uh and the last fixed cost of this budget is this telephone line item, which is public safety staff cell phones and internet service.

Uh, this department does have several contracts above $50,000.

They've been itemized on this last page.

Uh the first is uh Link Verizon, and this is monthly usage charges at $56,000.

ATT is for mobile phone charges at $393,000.

Cost for Wi-Fi for the public safety buildings and schools resource officers, that's budgeted or contracting $384,000.

And there's a contract in Motorola for our uh radio system support and software licenses for just under $500,000, uh, bringing the total contract summary to 1.3 million dollars.

And if there's no questions about the financial question of this presentation.

Uh question, councilwoman Bruce.

Can we consolidate and get a bigger break?

We have Verizon and ATT.

So we're actually working on that.

Like right now, we are eliminating a lot of unnecessary phone lines.

We found like they used to be phone lines in bathrooms.

There are some people that have a guest phone and a cell phone, but they never use a desk phone.

So we're we just last week we eliminated about 40 desk lines that are no longer in service.

Okay, as well as the cell phones.

Um last year we got aggressive with ATT and we renegotiated our contract with them, which gave us some pretty significant savings, which we needed to get these cameras from the crime center online.

So we're trying to kind of find sustainable long-term solutions that are going to give us the connectivity we need to get to the future, but also reduce unnecessary wasteful costs of the whole.

Okay, thank you.

That was it for me.

Director, the floor is yours.

Beautiful.

Thank you so much.

First of all, I just want to thank everybody for hanging out late.

I appreciate you all.

Thank you for hanging out late.

Yeah, it's a great crowd.

That's an awesome crowd.

Um first of all, I would be remiss if I did not thank uh deputy director Neves for coming with me tonight.

Um what an amazing partner she is.

I came from Pima, as a lot of you know, so my knowledge of telecommunications was talking on the radio and using them in emergencies.

And uh deputy's how long about it, 28 years?

28 years in telecoms and just I cannot understate her value and the respect that the department members have for her.

So as me coming in as a sort of a progressive-minded younger person with different ideas for EMS, yeah, I have right here about basically I guess what I'll say is a guarded community in there, uh, a lot of tradition and folks that are on a long time.

So I think the reason we've been successful is because um I have a great partner.

So I want to first and foremost thank uh deputy members.

And also LA.

Because Elaine, you know, I I don't think she gave herself enough kudos for all she does for us.

We have grants as a lot of you know are extremely complicated by design.

And so um when we get into the weeds with this stuff, Elaine is always a quick resource to help us through it, and a lot of times um, you know, bring stuff to us that we can do even on the front side.

So can't thank these two these two ladies enough.

Um, thank you.

Um so I'll I'll say this.

I think our goal has been modernization and putting the people first of the city of Providence.

I love Province.

Um, as some of you know, I prefer to be outside, not in the office.

So um we try to go out and when we get concerns from the council members, we try to go visit the area ourselves.

We try to deep dive to find out what the uh hold up is with the constituents.

And we have stood up a quality assurance process now in the department, which runs uh point on.

And we we listen to a minimum of 15 to 20 calls a month.

Just we we load up the software and we grab a call, right?

From police and fire and we listen to it.

And if the candor's off, if the person doesn't ask enough questions, if there was a constituent that was aggressive or whatever, we take all that feedback, positive or negative.

We celebrate the wins and we deal with the failures.

And what we have found is that through this process, we've had a lot less complaints and concerns from police leadership, fire leadership, and most importantly, the community.

Of course, there are always going to be opportunities when you're dealing with the public, especially in crisis situations or you know, when it's 6 a.m.

and you've got kids and you want to go to sleep.

That's I'm a father of three, so I would be on the one as well.

Um so we try to navigate that with uh building professionalism and trying to put the people first mentality in our building.

And I think that's been working very well.

Um just some quick statistics for y'all.

Um we do 24% of the statewide 911 calls for service in Providence.

Um last year that equated to 81,600 911 calls came to us.

Um we did 152,892 overall overall calls, 106,663 were police, 400 46,229 were fired EMS.

Uh we recently stood up a tactical dispatch team, which is essentially taking dispatchers and training on emergency management, uh, so they can't go out into these crisis situations and immediately interact with PEMA, fire police at a higher level.

And we utilize that team uh 16 different times as well as uh in the Pa Tucket shooting.

Our mobile command center responded to that with a tactical dispatch member.

Um the Blizzard, uh Deputy Neves, myself, and several of our people worked for about three days straight on that.

It's not fun.

Um I did watch I think every episode of cold case files or catch up on a lot of that.

Um and then all the summer festivals.

Uh, what we have found is that when we put our dispatchers in the field with police and fire, we can get those community members assisted in those complex footprints a lot better.

We can keep track of the officers, we can keep track of the EMS, bike controls, things of that nature.

And so when somebody's down in PVD fest, for example, we can get help to them quicker and get them out of there.

Um, so we we run and coordinate all those efforts.

Uh a lot of drills and exercises, including those with PC and Brown prior to the Brown shooting.

And uh unfortunately, the Brown shooting, we responded to the tactical dispatch team was on scene with the police and fire department.

Um, we we got the first call at 4.05, and within a minute and 20 seconds, we had the police and fire dispatched.

The first police officer was with a shooting victim about three minutes from when they were shot.

Um that particular night we handled uh we we handled um yes we did.

Man, I wrote it down here.

I don't want to get the wrong number here it is, here it is, right here.

Um I want to give you specifics.

So from from 4.05 to 2.45 a.m.

we dealt with 2,136 phone calls and 15,137 radio transmissions.

Then from the 13th of December to the 18th of December, we answered the tip line to the police department, at which point we answered 10,860 phone calls from uh people calling in tips.

Um, you know, I I don't want to understate the um absolute professionalism and integrity that I saw from my people.

I don't think I've ever been more proud in my life of the group of people than I was that day.

And you know, Deputy Nev's as well was there with me, and I think she would probably echo a lot of that is uh, you know, when when um that happened, we had the absolute best group we could have possibly had on that night, and um it was impossible, even with the full staff and the best people we had on to answer all phone calls, and uh you know, I just commend them so much.

And I would say that's why we we need two new dispatchers.

Um we have to make sure that unfortunately this is going to happen again.

Um it's happening constantly throughout the country, it has happened here before.

We tend to forget that.

Um and it's not always shootings, right?

It's transportation accidents, it's hazardous materials spills, it's hostage situations, it's anything you can imagine, and um a dispatcher can talk on the radio as well as answer the telephone, and that's what's the good thing about that.

And as we increase our pipeline for dispatchers, we can bring in people from the community and give them very high-paying careers.

We just hired a young woman this week.

She's uh a woman of color, she's amazing.

Um, she's so eager to start with us, and I think it's everybody in the building is super so here on board.

And um there's a community member that we're bringing in to a very high-paying job and a great.

Who wants to be there and wants to move up?

So we can continue to do that um as we increase our pipeline, and that's would be amazing uh for our community as well.

Um high level points.

Open to uh any at all questions.

Director, I just want to say uh I've always been so uh appreciative of of you, uh your leadership, your your your style.

Um we we appreciate your time, obviously.

Uh Eric and uh you and your team, Deputy Director, uh have done for the City of Providence.

Um we owe you a lot, so I I think these two positions and the budget are I don't want to get ahead of myself, but uh, I think it's uh the minimum that we can do to show that appreciation.

Thank you.

Uh councilwoman.

Thank you.

Um, Chairman, thank you, and thank you for hanging out for late.

Sorry, we save the best for last minute.

I was gonna steal some of your snacks, but I think we have them all ready.

Yeah, not like a protein bar in here you need it.

Um I used to chocolate in my bag, please know that.

Um the question I have um is about the two positions, but also a little bit about the that very large volume of calls you just said in line of some of the things that happened, which one, thank you for being there and answering those and being there for the community.

How many how how much of that do you think was folks also just like looking to see what was going on?

Because I feel like one thing that we is a room for improvement for us after the ground shooting was neighbors had no idea what was happening for like the first 24 hours.

And like we were fielding calls, we were uh trying to share out information, but you know, I had constituents on Benfit Street being at like 6 p.m.

being like, we've just been walking the streets for the last hour because we had no idea because there were no emergency um, not this is not a thing on you guys, this was not at all.

But this was like they were there were no emergency notifications going out.

And so, and I know I had neighbors, I live right, I call ambulance alley right where Miriam is.

Um we were hearing the ambulances, we were hearing all the things, and I only had notification partly because I worked for the council, but also because my husband's a professor of Brown because we were getting regular notifications from Brown about what was going on, but nothing from the city, zero.

And um, again, not a ding on you guys, but like when we fix that um and make sure that our emergency notification systems are like functioning as they as we as would be optimal.

Would you see a decline in kind of like calls based on that?

Like what were your calls like?

This is my super long way.

What was like what were those those calls?

Were they folks needing assistance?

Were they folks just being like, what the heck is happening?

I'm hearing all these like ambulances, I'm hearing all the structs.

It was it was more calls of actually people trapped or people sheltering in place or sheltering place.

Right, yeah.

So example, like you may have a student call, and then grandma calls well what's up with that student.

Yeah, mom and dad, because they can't get a hold of those two.

Yeah.

Um and the other thing that complicated it was there was a cell phone crash because of the amount of people.

We were able to call ATT and they were able to like fire a satellite down because we do first net, but we couldn't do anything for Verizon on T-Mobile.

Um, just because the volume of 10 minutes after the wall today.

We we did a lot of interesting things, and since then we've we've acquired um a lot of technology um to enhance our readiness for events like this, uh redundancy for internet, redundancy for signals um increasing, but a lot of that is just infrastructure.

Like you can only take so many calls in public towers.

Um and so uh the the calls we saw were from family members and students predominantly in that time.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

And I can't get an exact amount, but they were the regular traffic of falls and the business alums and but you know I couldn't get a stat on that with that, you know, all that was still ongoing.

But you know, I couldn't give you a little step on that, you know, all that was still ongoing.

Okay.

Well being open to setting and other business and people didn't know they were in the theaters and stuff.

So they okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And so just because the two positions are just like you have a an overwhelming number of calls now.

Is that we have a steady amount of calls, but I think the idea is right now we have certain groups, okay, in our schedule where there is third ship fire basically.

There's only three thirdship fire dispatches.

So if one person calls out, you have automatical.

Oh and so um counterpoint to that is that you also have people that have been in our department for a long time because of the best department to work in.

That's what it sounds like.

And yeah, two two.

And um it's a comedy show too, where it's out and seven, yeah.

So uh so but the thing is you you have a lot of people with a lot of time, so they can take vacations.

And so you now have also the color dealership.

So we're looking at number one from the perspective of the fire person, is really to equal out the groups so that you will have less overtime theoretically, and also the ability, some of these people don't even take vacations if they feel involved in um being there, like they don't want to.

And because it's 24-hour memory.

Right.

Yeah, they don't want to like mess with anyone else.

Correct.

And the fire one and the police one is because we are seeing in these high tension incidents, there's only so many humans and actual telephones.

And you can't take uh uh what's called a CCO, which is a call center operator generally answered the point like opponent, they cannot go and talk to on radio.

They can't be dispatched, but if you're a dispatcher, you need both.

So now you have that flexibility to, you know, like on the night of the brown shooting, this was just crazy.

We had uh a supervisor on who was in there dispatching, we had a dispatcher on who was taking calls for jumping in there and started talking when the shooting happened.

And then we had another dispatcher that was a backup supervisor, so it out of ranking that ended up being the supervisor of the other one.

And it just still happened to be exactly on the link.

Yeah, and then our third shift people just came in because they heard it was happening and just grabbed the telephone and started answering the phone.

So you had like this amalgamation of people just trying to talk to people.

So the idea is if you can put two more trained people that can do both functions, yeah.

If you have um even a normal shooting, you know, you get four or five phone calls if you only have four or five people on, and then you're calling because you got bit by a dog, you know again.

You know, you gotta wait for somebody to screen.

So it just it just gives us more flexibility for this.

Yeah, and thank you so much.

I mean, people call you guys on their like very worst moments, and that's really that's so hard.

So for you guys to like be doing this work, have such an amazing team, and that's yeah, it's just that's a hard job, and thank you for it.

Yes, but that's what we're saying.

She's like my own state.

Thank you.

Um, so I have to tell you, I'm so impressed of hearing you said that it took uh ATT 10 minutes to call it.

I don't want to fold that specifically, but it seemed like well, oh my god, it's now it's yeah, you know what I mean.

Let's let's who thought about it.

The reason why I say that is because I'm not trying to age myself, but I remember what happened during 9-11 where you couldn't get a call out anywhere for hours upon hours upon hours.

I think it was like 24 hours, and I was in Boston at the time.

Um living in Boston at the time.

And so to do that, and to know that the city has um built-in infrastructure to be able to do that, I think is a huge nod for the modernization that I don't know if you did it or if it was done before, but it's just we're going in the right direction.

So that was that's just a kudos to you.

So we hate to say it, but since then we've we created this tactical plan.

Um because you have to learn too.

I kind of want to learn all about that actually.

I'm fascinated by the stuff that you guys I'm serious, I didn't know that I like telecommunications as much as I do.

Um, we're gonna schedule a tour, right?

Yeah, of course.

I like giving a tour, you know that you're supposed to um point number two.

We're kind of losing our professional parentage.

Uh yeah.

Um last year, you're finishing year one or year two.

Uh on in the year two now.

Okay.

Last year when you presented, I was really impressed with something that you had talked about regarding activating some sense of or some form of health and wellness procedures for your staff.

And I didn't even think of it in the way that you had thought of it at the time, and I was really impressed with the on the initial thought of like we need to prioritize this for the team over there.

And so I wanted to just ask a little bit about how that's going because it's such a it left a lasting impression, and I'll say it that way because I never thought about the health and well-being in those moments of pressure for somebody else, in addition to the and it's been um I I just always had made a mental note to ask like how that how that goes or how that's going for your team.

It's going well.

We we one of the things we focused on after Brown is individual debriefs, you know, because sometimes you just gotta talk about different stuff, and um you know, what they do are called takers and dispatches deal with some horrible, horrible things, and it is definitely something that I think we benefit from talking about in the in the rooms together, but also just giving them clients where we should talk about loss about it.

So we built a pretty good culture around that.

I think a lot of them just come in our office and ask to talk, and we just talk through it.

Uh but we also have those, you know, uh the different health and wellness groups that we are patched with for mental health services that we have to bring with because we send a reminder emails to everybody and um and they take advantage of it.

But uh, yeah, it's something that we we made a culture about talking and sharing information and ideas in the department, and we prioritize people, I think human capital is a big thing across, and our door is always open, but we also just sit in there with them a lot, and we just want to we know if a bad call comes in, we'll just go sit next to them and talk through it, yeah.

That's really impressive.

I you know, it's it human touch is important, um, and especially in the work that you do with high priority in emergencies, but um, in general, one of the things I think that's always a takeaway from what we do as left it's is just the listening portion of what we do, and sometimes in somebody's worst or direct the most dire situation that they can think of at the time um you you've done it in your work too, and um that says a lot about the approach and the mentality that we all have of human capital including human and putting the people first.

So I just as a person that notices that I appreciate it.

Um, question three.

Um I only have two warning runs.

Um actually, this is more of a feedback point.

I have been asking you guys for the better part of a year for reports, and you guys have been delivering these reports, and I wanted to give you an understanding of why I'm asking for these reports.

Um they've been very, very, very helpful.

I have deciphered all of the information that you've given me week to week, and it's been really really helpful.

Um partial to the conversation that we were having earlier with the police department.

Um, one of the things that I wanted to really understand is if my neighbors were actually calling in to discuss the situation that was happening.

Um also because I don't want to sound like a crazy person every time I'm saying there's a nuisance in my neighborhood, and people are like, yeah, no, that's not actually happening.

I wanted to make sure that there if there was something, um, it was being advocated for as we have been telling our neighbors to.

Um, and with that information, I've been able to really decipher a lot to prepare.

We put in an ordinance last year um around um codifying what nuisance task force is, and there was a specific reason why I asked.

It was the um part of what our staff had been relaying at the time was that look, we meet quite often, we're having a little bit of um back and forth.

It's not that work isn't happening, it's just we're not meeting often, so we can't follow up with you as the counselor when you're when you're um telling us hey, what's going on?

And so for my own knowledge, it was really important for me to be and to be able to decipher yes, there are nuisances, this can go, this is considered a chronic nuisance.

This is the reason why we needed to justify creating this ordinance um the first ordinance, and now this one that's that's that's that we put forward.

Um with your reporting, you've been able to show me that in so many instances.

My um the the feedback from my neighbors has been very consistent, as well as um I need to do a better job of relaying that they need to utilize the non-emergency line to report certain things.

So I just want to say thank you because you guys may look at it and be like, we have no idea why she's giving her why we're giving her any of this stuff, but it's very important to me because I've been able to work for the better part of the year to say no no no, these are valid, these are valid situations, they're valid concerns, but also there's data here that is showing us why we needed to move in a certain direction for the policy initiatives that we're trying to put forward for the board.

So I appreciate that.

Um and that will all be presented when we um put these ordinances up in committee.

So uh the fourth one, I have no idea.

I can't remember when it ended at this point.

It's I'm tired.

Thank you.

Just thank you.

No, I'll see.

We'll just email it.

Thank you.

Just call it in.

Listen, to us it's a call, so whether it's a nuisance, a lot of musical editing calls.

Like, I mean, everything, yes, obviously, if it's busy, something might take precedent on how busy it is.

But you know, every call is a call, so don't look at it like we're gonna lose something.

I remember it.

No, I remember it was coming in going.

No, this is actually just uh a point for you, director.

Um last year I think I was on the floor of the council saying, hey, you've got some pretty big shoes to fill.

Um Joe Mick is a constituent and a friend, and he was fantastic in all sense of the word.

Um and I think that you met that expectation, but you've knocked it out of the park.

Yeah, the shoes aren't actually big enough.

But no, thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

That was it.

I'm done.

I'm done done for now.

I mean, for now.

Do we have a meeting for?

No.

Yes, we can't.

Yeah, that'd be awesome.

I mean, we do.

Councilman does it, do you have something?

Uh yeah, um, first of all, hey.

This is awesome.

Love hearing what you do and learning about it.

Thank you.

Um have a question I'm looking at the budget book on page 279 about um the performance metric.

So what I noticed is that you know, calls were down in 2025, particularly with police, and I assume that's even factoring in the 10,000 uh yes.

So um so I just love to hear your interpretation of that, because it's like really significantly down from last year.

Yeah, so the thing with uh what we're fine with that is this online reporting tool now that the police have, which a lot of folks when when we get a call from them on the phone, that's not necessarily what that is.

That's like a call that goes into our CAD system.

So that's an emergency.

Okay, thank you for helping me understand that.

Not necessarily a phone call.

So we might get a phone call from somebody, a good example to hit us.

So if we get a phone call from somebody that says, hey, I just came out my car, it's been hit.

We would all we would say, hey, the fastest route is if you do an online report.

Because the officers are gonna probably come up and tell you to do an online report if it's not up to bad example, so I know.

So sometimes they still have a car.

Where it's a thing where you're gonna have to wait.

We usually tell the person, hey, it could be uh you might have to wait a while a while, or you can do the online report.

Or come in.

Or go to the station, right?

And so if somebody goes to the station, it's not included in that, and it's online reporting is not included in that.

Um I did have the number of online reporting, but I I don't know if I did um don't necessarily need it, but you're helping me make sense of what I'm looking at.

Yeah, yeah.

So the the volume of crime is also reduced.

Which is a positive thing, as the criminal spoke about.

So, you know, and when the crime goes down, we get to get less calls.

But we also do something something else that's see the thing that's cool about telecoms is that we do a lot of different stuff that people don't always know.

So we take when after hours, if you call the city of Providence, you're talking to us.

If it's hey, the manual cover missing, uh, I found a dead swirl, so on and so forth.

My road's not cloud, you're talking to us.

That doesn't go into that number.

So we do 311 at night uh when they ask us to.

Not everybody, but if it's um storms or any kind of thing, they'll ask us we take it on.

And when we call 311, it comes to us.

Um if you call any of these non-emergency lines for other departments and DPW and things of that nature.

Comes to us.

And we dispatch DPW or we call them and wake them up.

So we we do all that from us.

And that's not including those numbers.

So it's uh it's a good number in terms of the emergency call volume, but it's not all that's done from the like an officer went there.

So maybe crime down is some of the things down bring that number down.

Yes.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you.

No problem.

Any other questions?

I'm obviously because like everyone that's like not in the committee is just like, is there another question?

No move.

No more.

But this is a very important job that we're elected to do so we will spend uh every single minute that's available to us to do the job and we greatly appreciate everyone that is uh here with us today but last time is there no more questions does not look like there's no more questions uh thank you so much director deputy directors we kept trying that all day that would be nice um motion to continue items one through five so move motion made by councilman by councilwoman graves all those in favor aye motion to adjourn so back it motion made by council like my council all those in favor aye good night