Recording in progress.

Oh, Jesus, see.

If you don't knock it out, all right.

Calling this meeting to order.

This is a meeting of the uh school excuse cook me.

Trying to take your job.

Meeting of the city council.

It is a special meeting of the city council is Tuesday, April 14th.

I am Lance Davis presiding.

I use he, him pronouns.

Um please note that video and audio of this meeting is being recorded and may be shown live on local access government channels and on the city of Somerville website and will be available for future review.

Clerk, please call the roll.

This is roll call.

Counselor Ewan Campin.

Here.

Counselor Link.

Counselor Scott.

Present.

Counselor Klingon.

Present.

Counselor Strazo.

Present.

Counselor Saeed.

Counselor Wheeler.

Here.

Counselor Hart.

Here.

Counselor McLaughlin.

Counselor Mbaugh.

Present.

Counselor Davis.

With eight counselors present, we have quorum.

Thank you.

Counselor Link, I know is traveling uh uh uh outside of the country, so he and I chatted today and I suggested he can watch this afterwards to catch up.

Councilor McLaughlin is gonna be a little bit late, and uh I hopefully Councilor Saint will be able to join us as well.

Um pursuant to rule 32.

Let it be known that this is this is the city council salutes this uh the flag of the United States and let us recall our oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the Commonwealth to the best of our abilities and understanding.

Uh this is a joint joint meeting with the school committee.

So the city council will now stand in a brief recess while the school committee uh meeting is called to order the um pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025.

This meeting of the school committee will be conducted via remote participation.

We'll post an audio recording, audio video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels.

I separately call the school committee portion of this to order at 6.05 p.m.

Um Superintendent, will you call the roll?

Through the chair, Laura Pitone.

Present.

Michelle Lippins.

Present.

Member Eldridge.

Present.

Member Green.

Here Doctor Stillman.

Present.

Member Beeton.

Here.

Mayor Wilson.

Present.

President Davis.

Here.

Emily Ackman.

Present.

We have quorum.

All right.

Um now calling the city council meeting back to order.

And just for extra fun, we get to call roll on that just to make sure no one's left their seat in a two-minute time.

Roll call to re-establish quorum after recess.

Counselor Ewan Campen.

Here.

Counselor Link is absent.

Counselor Scott.

Oh, yeah.

Counselor Klingon?

Present.

Counselor Strazzo.

Present.

Counselor Saeed.

Counselor Wheeler.

Here.

Counselor Hart?

Here.

Counselor McLaughlin.

Counselor Mbaugh?

Hi.

Counselor Davis.

Here.

Eight Counselors present.

We have quorum.

All right.

Thank you.

So there is uh one item on the agenda this evening.

Uh Madam Clerk, would you please read that into the record?

Agenda item 8.1, an officer's communication from the finance director pursuant to section 2-47 of the code of ordinances and section 6-3 of the city charter, reviewing the financial condition of the city with revenue and expenditure forecasts prior to the commencement of the FY 2027 budget process.

Okay, very good.

Thank you very much, Mr.

President, Madam Chair.

I appreciate your if you wouldn't mind just to start for the folks who are watching home.

Introduce yourself and the folks you have with the case.

Of course, I'm Ed Bean, Finance Director, City Auditor.

Joining me is also Chief Assessor Frank Golden and Budget Director Mike Mastrobone, who will chime in uh as needed as we walk through the presentation.

Uh assistant city clerk will be helping manipulate the uh presentation with the slides tonight.

Uh we have about 45 uh slides here and we'll cover a number of different topics.

Uh charges to take a look at the uh financial condition, uh macroeconomic factors uh that will affect the uh fiscal 2027 budget submittal.

Um I always want to stress at this time that these are only estimates.

These estimates are going to change.

There is still unresolved matters.

State aid is unresolved.

Uh health insurance costs unresolved.

We're in the open enrollment period right now.

Final debt service numbers we will be borrowing in May.

And uh the numbers tend to get a little bit better as we move along during the spring.

So these are estimates that we have at this particular point in time.

We don't know the parameters of the city budget at this time.

We're constantly working now to mitigate the situation and try to get to a balanced budget here in the spring.

There will be this is a general overview, so individual department heads during the budget process.

We'll talk about specifics, but we'll cover sort of the major uh topics in a summary fashion.

Next slide, please, Matty.

And if Clerk could uh record reflect that Councillor Link has joined us remotely from across the seas.

Thank you for joining us, Councillor Link.

So I thought we would take a look at what's going on throughout the Commonwealth right now.

This has been an extraordinary year.

Next slide, please.

Extraordinary year that we're seeing the headlines uh almost daily uh about the mountain fiscal pressures for municipalities.

Umicipalities are navigating this perfect storm of fiscal pressures.

We've got skyrocketing operational costs colliding with the very rigid revenue limits of proposition two and a half.

Um health insurance, state mandated tuition for uh out of district special ed placements, big budget um drivers, pension assessments.

All of these things are growing at a rate far exceeding inflation.

Uh we note that several communities are facing significant layoffs and staff uh reductions due to these budget shortfalls, notably Boston, eliminating 262 teacher positions.

But it's also what's sobering is that some um top-ranked school systems like Winchester, Brookline, Lexington, they are cutting positions as well.

Um this has led to uh an unprecedented number of proposition two and a half overrides throughout the Commonwealth uh this year.

Uh in this fiscal year alone, 54 municipalities placed 74 override questions on local ballots, seeking more than 158 million in additional tax revenue.

Uh a decade ago, the numbers were far smaller.

In uh 2017, 21 communities placed 26 override questions on the ballot statewide.

Um municipalities are forced to go this route given uh the difficulties of funding municipal government under Proposition 2 and a half.

Um the overrides in the entirety in the history, 254 of 305 Massachusetts cities have passed overrides.

Somerville has never needed an override.

We won't need one this year.

Uh we're not in the same uh uh position as some of these other communities.

Um we've had two debt exclusions in Somerville.

One passed, one failed.

Uh, the one, of course, for the to build our new high school.

And the second one in the 80s was to build the vocational wing onto the high school.

That failed, but that was later funded with state legislation uh coming from from Beacon Hill.

Next slide.

Okay.

This is an important piece of scholarship that I hope all officials will um read and take a look at.

And this is the uh report put out by the Mass Municipal Association.

Um that is, of course, the key advocacy group that represents the state's 351 cities and towns.

This described the financial crisis facing cities and towns brought on by inflation and limited revenue raising options.

Uh the association followed with a series of recommendations that I'd like to just run by you right now because these are important lobbying points.

Uh next slide, please.

Uh the first one is that State aid in Massachusetts is less generous than the United States average.

Nationwide cities and towns get about 31 percent of their revenue via State aid.

Here in Massachusetts, it's 26 percent.

We're far behind other states, not even at the average.

Uh problem here, of course, in Massachusetts also is we have limited taxing ability on the municipal level.

Um, and that is other states are able to infuse sales tax or commuter taxes or whatnot here in Massachusetts.

That's not possible.

The two major local aid accounts, unrestricted general government aid and Chapter 70 educational aid.

Next slide, please.

And the key uh account is unrestricted general government aid.

Um has fallen dramatically over the years.

Uh it's fallen 25 percent overall since fiscal 2002.

And you note the um trough there during the Great Recession.

And there were cuts in the early 2000.

Unrestricted general government aid has not kept place with inflation since the Great Recession, since the Great Recession in 2009-2010.

But I think the next slide will show you something.

This one always stuns me on this next one because I was here back when this was happening.

State aid to Somerville remains below the fiscal 2002 levels in real dollars.

State aid receipts to Somerville in fiscal 2002 was 61, 61.8 million, 61.8 million.

25 years later, our State aid receipts total 55.8 million.

You can see, you know, in terms of the history here in the 2004-2003, that happened during the administration of uh uh Bitt Romney when he was governor, um, who in my view punished a lot of the urban cities uh with reduction in state aid.

And you can see the big drop in 2010.

The city lost $9 million in state aid in one year in fiscal year 2010.

Um you can see that there's a further decline in 2011-2012 before it started to peak up again.

But we are still far below where we were many, many years ago.

Next slide.

What does that mean?

Well, uh I liken the three um funding sources, taxes, state aid and local receipts, to say the three legs of a stool.

You know, if one leg gets weakened, the other two have to pick up the pressure here.

So you can see way back in uh fiscal 2022, uh 2002, State aid constituted 38.2 percent of our revenue base.

Taxes 42.68 percent.

Here in 2026, that's dropped to 14.60 percent.

That meant property taxes had to pick up the slack over time.

We are lucky in that we've been able to do that given our tremendous economic growth over going over time.

Uh next slide.

So the other finding of uh the MMA uh is clearly Proposition 2.5 doesn't work uh for us.

Um between 2010 and 2022, real inflation adjusted spending on current operations in Massachusetts municipalities grew at just 0.6 percent per year.

That's slower than the U.S.

average for local spending growth.

It's also slower than the growth in real spending in the State budget, which grew at a pace of 2.8 percent a year.

Bottom line is that the overrides that are being sought up, they're really stop gap stopgap measures.

They're not a long-term solution.

Next slide.

So what does the MMA recommend?

Uh number one, uh we need to prioritize uh key accounts.

Um we need to let's see, I'm sorry, missing missing my slide here.

Let me uh my apologies.

Let me grab that.

We need to restore adequate and reliable state aid, and that's in the unrestricted general government funding.

So the MMA is lobbying the legislature to provide $351 million in new unrestricted general government funding, an increase of 26.5 percent above fiscal 2020 levels.

Secondly, we need flexibility on the proposition two and a half.

So uh the MMA is not recommending the elimination of two and a half, but they are recommending that uh it be tied to, say, an economic indicator like the CPI, and to permit multi-year overrides, allowing voters to authorize an override that phases in over multiple years.

Next slide.

Prioritize key accounts, support the continued investment in Chapter 70 school aid and reforms to minimum new aid levels for districts.

At best, we're getting uh $75 per student in Chapter 70 as minimum aid.

Fully fund the special education circuit breaker, charter mitigation funding.

We have a Travis School here that draws from Chapter 70, and all school transportation accounts.

The next one is something I have spoken about here in the last couple of years, the municipal empowerment act, which the governor has filed with the legislature.

We're not seeing any action right now.

I would hope there would be some action by the end of the session.

But that that piece of legislation will allow us to raise the meals tax ceiling.

Uh currently we get uh three-quarters of one percent of sales.

Uh the legislation would raise that to one percent.

Increase the hotel-motel lodging tax from six to seven percent.

Introduce a local option surcharge and motor vehicle excise bills.

All these three we are calculated would raise us an additional $1.8 million in revenue that we would sorely, of course, need in the next fiscal year.

And finally, something that we have long sought here in Somerville is a real estate transfer fee dedicated to local affordable housing trusts linking property market activity to housing affordability investments.

These are the key lobbying efforts of the MMA, which I think we all should be aware of and uh be supporting as best we we can.

Um, so we're not in the same dire situation as other communities uh right now.

Um we are not experiencing the same level of distress.

Uh we do have a budget gap, uh, but I do believe we can contain that with limited disruption of our services as we move along into fiscal 2027.

Uh and I, you know, in Somerville, despite these two and a half limits, uh residents continue to ask for more services, and the city has responded in kind historically, as you can see.

Our budget has grown tremendously, and this is really a result of the uh expansion of the commercial property tax base, uh, tremendous and unprecedented economic development, prudent management over over time.

So the General Fund budget has grown from $211 million in 10 years ago, fiscal 2016, to $381.5 million in fiscal 26 increase of 80.8 percent.

And so actually it's accelerated during the after the pandemic, where we where our budget growth was 7.78 percent.

Uh and the school budget has increased uh over the last 10 years by 6.2 percent, but over the last five years by 7.88 percent, including that 10 percent increase in fiscal 2023 to deal with the effects of the pandemic on students in education.

So this this year we had to tighten our belts quite a bit here in fiscal 2026 because our and we'll get into that, our commercial property tax growth has declined.

Uh the budget increase in the general fund this year was only 5.54 percent, uh which is uh the lower lower increase than we have seen in recent years.

Uh next.

But all this activity over time is important.

Uh investments in families, youth, and our schools are found throughout the budget.

Uh these programs and facilities are essential to our work and as a as a community, and our goal, of course, always is to try to maintain these services as best we can.

Next, Section 2, where we stand now in fiscal.

So just a brief recap before we get into the fiscal 2027.

Uh next, please.

Uh so we quick performance review.

Um, by the way, most of these stats are on my website uh on the auditing finance department website.

We can always see where we stand in terms of our appropriations throughout the fiscal year once the the meetings uh once the uh months are closed.

Uh so basically we are through 77 percent of the fiscal year, uh, and we have expended 74.58 percent of the general fund appropriation.

We are in no danger of over expending the appropriation, either city or school.

It appears looking at last year at this time, both city and school are spending at a faster clip, so the amount of money that will be unexpended at year end will be less, uh and which means probably a lower free cash certification from the state.

Uh next.

I didn't include a I'll mention revenue.

I didn't include a revenue slide.

Um revenue is uh on target right now in here in fiscal 2026.

We'll probably exceed our revenue budget but by less than one percent.

Um the uh revenue items that are not coming in at budget, uh we'll get into this more uh 2027 meals tax, building permits, and investment income are not going to meet the budget, but we will still probably have a revenue surplus at year end.

Uh snow and ice deficits.

So we should be able to contain any problems in the General Fund budget with transfers, which will be presented to the council before the end of uh the fiscal year.

Of course, our big uh issue, as we all know, we have had a uh a difficult um year with snow removal.

Uh based on current projections, the deficit is about $3.5 million.

That might be a little bit lower when we close out requisitions or encumbrances.

So our expenditures are $5.2 million roughly, appropriations $1.7.

Um.

This is the only account where you can legally run a deficit in municipal government, but we always want to get that cleaned up by June 30th.

Otherwise, it goes up next year's tax rate.

We can't have that happen.

So we the DPW is now looking at any leg monies in their budget plus free cash.

So we will appropriate free cash and DPW leg buffies to eradicate this $3.51 million deficit.

Next one, please.

Unemployment compensation.

That would be the only other category that I think might require supplementation from free cash.

And this is not uncommon when we change administrations and people leave or whatnot.

So we expecting a deficit according to the budget director here of $288,000, which we will deal with through free cash.

So moving on to fiscal 27.

Next.

Okay, so here are my revenue projections at this point in time.

The goal is to get these numbers up before budget time.

Property taxes.

The assessor is estimating that new growth will decline from the $7.8 million this year to $5 million next year.

We'll get into that in a bit.

And we will tax, of course, to the Prop 2.5 levy limit.

So that will bring in $11.9 million overall, including the money, the tax money needed for the debt exclusion on the high school.

The State revenue in here is the Governor's proposal.

I am optimistic that that will go up as the legislature, the House and the Senate start to look at these revenue accounts.

They generally generally goes up.

Fines and forfeits, they're down because parking enforcement people are obeying the law in terms of traffic violations in the parking department.

I think the the installation of the cameras and the bus stops, you know, people are not people are not violating the law now, so that's a good thing.

But parking fines are going to be going down by from a budget perspective of $400,000, but uh that's the $375.

We are intending to increase fees where we can.

We'll get into that in a bit.

So the C notation fees, we are upping the commercial trash fee in DPW because it's not meeting costs, so that will bring in another $200,000.

Electricity usage, these are the charging stations.

They will be expanded in fiscal $2027.

That will raise us a little bit more revenue.

Other financing sources, we use parking meter receipts to net down the tax rate.

Given the installation of parklets and some of the construction going on on streets, uh meet uh the trip the parking director tells me that uh parking meter receipts are probably going to drop by about $200,000.

Investment income is going to be down because interest rates are going down.

So uh interest rates uh we're at sort of a mid uh 4 percent, maybe 4 and a quarter.

Uh the the Treasurer is projecting that they will be in the high twos or low threes.

So this is the revenue projection right now.

We can raise an additional $12.7 million in fiscal year 2007.

Uh the next slide is a graphical slide, uh, basically showing the proportion of uh of revenues.

As you can see, property taxes is our overwhelming funding source, and again, it is limited by proposition two and a half.

Next.

So I'll run you through the calculation of the uh tax levy and how we project the property tax revenue.

So the you start with the uh this year's property tax levy, 272,660, 166.

Now I just want to stress uh unused levy.

Uh this is not by design.

When we set the tax rate, we uh the assessor and I are required to use the DOR gateway system.

I think we spent about half a morning trying to manipulate the number to get us to the levy limit that we couldn't under DOR regulations.

So there's $198.806 of unused levy.

That will equal adding those two ups equals the 2026 levy limit.

So we take that, we take the level the fiscal 2026 levy limit, multiply that by 2.5 percent, plus the 5 million and estimated new growth that the assessor is estimating will equal our 2027 levy limit, levy limit on, you know, that will that will which we can fund the General Fund operations with uh up to that amount.

We add on the fiscal 2027 debt exclusion, and so our 2027 projected levy is 291 and 342.

So we can raise a potential 11.9 million for the for the entire uh, including debt exclusion in fiscal 2027.

That's how the calculation works.

We are limited to that.

Next slide, please.

And you know, the assessor is going to chime in here to talk a little bit about this, but uh our biggest financial issue right now is the decline in the commercial property tax revenue coming in.

This shows the history.

Um peak was in 2004, where 17.7 million in uh new growth was realized.

These are by the big developments.

That then dropped to 14.1 fiscal 2025.

And then we saw uh a very steep decline this year in 2026 to 7.8.

So this creates a real strain on our budget going forward.

And the assessor is projecting $5 million, new growth in 2027.

We frankly don't think that the economy is going to turn around soon.

So we're going to pencil in $5 million for the next three years.

Now, $5 million, uh, most communities would envy getting $5 million in due growth.

So it's a dramatic drop for us, but it's still a very, very good number.

So what is happening here is uh development has stalled.

Inflation, construction costs, high interest rates.

Uh that's made financing for new development projects more expensive, causing many planned commercial projects to be delayed or canceled.

The assessor and I and Mr.

Gallighti and his team spent some time last week just walking through the city, you know, with uh on on the GIS system, and and you know it's it was sobering that we're not we're not seeing a lot of activity taking place.

Uh you probably read this in the situation in Boston with it, it is declining commercial property values uh because of the vacant office buildings.

For us, it's gonna be the lab office buildings.

Next slide.

And I'm gonna ask the assessor to maybe comment on on the new growth situation.

He's got this one.

President Davis, through you.

Um as we know, we have had 10 life science buildings built in the city.

Five are stabilized.

Um we're looking at a vacancy currently at 1.9 million in square feet.

Um I would like to point out that 188 assembly, we have secured a TIFF at this property with Transmedics, a company that in a short period of time will occupy this building in two phases.

So you'll be removing roughly 500,000 square feet from that 1.9 vacancy, which is exciting.

Uh however, that growth will be captured over a 10-year period, starting in year three.

So it's encouraging, we'll get our growth, but it will be slow.

The hope is that the other four buildings will follow suit, whether or not they are TIFFs, but if we could get some life science interest in the city, that would be phenomenal for all of us.

Um but at the moment um there's just a lot of conversations going on with the other four buildings in terms of tenants.

So this is what's causing a lot of the growth declining when you have five buildings of this size that are uh vacant.

It's the values drop because the vacancy, um, the cap rates, the interest in the market is saturated.

Uh there is 15 million square feet of vacant life science in the greater Boston area.

The appetite at the moment is about 2 million square feet a year.

Um we predict that it's gonna depreciate again, um, hopefully not as much as it has in the last two years.

Um there's very little growth to capture until 188 assembly gets going.

It looks like it's gonna be fiscal year 27 permits.

Uh, last I heard we were hoping for 26, but they're trying to get organized to do this as quickly as possible, and we we feel it's coming very shortly that you'll see some permits get pulled over there.

So, Mr.

President, that's important.

Speaking with Mr.

Galligani and his team today, they're going to attempt to meet with the uh company executives at Transmedics.

Um the building permits are important to us in terms of our fiscal 2027 budget.

So we got to get a clear sense when they're going to get pulled and what the schedule is going to be.

So that will be a major factor in if we can get some updated information soon, then we can adjust the numbers that are in front of you for building permits and revenue.

There was an agreement to waive some of the building permit revenue.

I don't, you know, I I estimated, even with the waiver that we get a million eight in and building permit revenue from Transmedics.

So that's going to be a key discussion, and that will be a key factor as we move forward here in the spring in terms of the uh the budget.

Next slide, please.

So I just ran through the year increases uh for property tax revenue with taking out the uh debt exclusion here.

So you can see the drop uh 23.7 in fiscal 24 additional property tax revenue we could raise, coming down to 12 on the general fund outside of the tax uh of the debt exclusion.

When you get when you uh when you factor the debt exclusion, it's 11, but we can use 12 for our general fund operations.

So that's a that's a that's a big decline.

Next, please.

So I mentioned building permit revenue.

This has been a core uh revenue source.

Uh it is an economically sensitive revenue.

Uh and again, uh the decline in development, it means a decline in building permit revenues.

Um big developments generated the bulk of the money.

Uh the highest amount, 2022 was 25.1 million.

It dropped to 18.7.

Uh in 2023, 11.1.

And in 2025, uh 5.4.

Now, uh one question that gets raised occasionally.

You don't you always build a budget based on recurring revenues, sustainable revenues.

Building permit revenue is variable.

So we certainly wouldn't have budgeted all of the 2022.1 as part of our budget.

If we did, then we would have massive cutbacks in the succeeding fiscal year.

So we have tried to budget the building permit revenue at 8.5 and then drop it to 5.5.

Excess revenue flows to free cash.

This is the and then uh we appropriate that to stabilization funds for a lot of our capital projects that are upcoming.

Now, in terms of this fiscal year, um we dropped the budget to 5.1.

What ISD is telling me is that uh we see a decline in the small building permits.

That's developments of 100K or less, and of course, we don't have big projects.

So we're gonna be about 500,000 short this year.

Uh uh, the 2026 budget and building permit revenues.

But next year, actually will be higher.

We're gonna budget uh 5.8 million, so that's roughly a $700,000 increase because several mid-sized developments are expected to file building permits.

$299 Broadway, $108 Prospect, $501 Mystic, $24 Webster, $37 Allen, according to the ISD department.

So we will be able to raise more building permit revenue next year than we do this year, so we're factoring that in.

I mentioned Transmedics.

So the number of 5.8 does not include any building permit revenue from Transmedics.

So if we get we get some clarity on that, and as long as they pull building permits before, let's say November of this year, when we set the tax rate, we can include that in our budget projections.

So that's very, very important.

Next.

Excise tax revenue.

Um this has been a valuable part of our revenue base, about $13 million a year.

Excise taxes, meals tax, hotel motel, motor vehicle excise, retail marijuana.

So just briefly, the hotel motel excise continues to grow.

Um the hotel motels are charged 6 percent of sales for municipalities.

That also includes the short-term rentals.

The BNB uh situation takes place.

It's about 35 percent of the of the revenue base.

Um I'm expecting this source to uh exceed budget in this fiscal year by about $57,000.

Uh looking at uh the economic indicators in the Boston-Cambridge area, Metro Boston area, um, expecting a 3.5 percent revenue per room increase.

So factoring that in.

Plus, the good news is that we have heard of a of the new hotel opening up on Beacon Street that's coming online.

That's 35 key.

So we're gonna add all of that in.

So I'm expecting to raise that uh excise Motel Motel by uh $268,000 increase in budget um $3.5 million.

Uh retail marijuana is also growing.

Um we don't get the we don't get specifics from DOI.

DOI doesn't tell us exactly what entities where this revenue is coming from.

They claim it's the taxpayer confidentiality.

Um, but we uh had a projection of 440,000.

Uh my projection is 440,000 will come in this year.

We budgeted 393, so we're gonna exceed budget there.

We're gonna increase that by 3 percent.

So we're looking at um about 453,000 project.

That's an increase, 453,000.

Uh 752 will be the budget for retail marijuana.

Those two are doing very well.

Unfortunately, the meals tax is flat.

I mean, we had tremendous growth in meals tax over the years.

Uh the last um two, three years, um we do not see growth.

Um the growth from 2023 to 2024 was 0.73 percent, and from 2024 to 2025, 0.01 percent.

I don't know, perhaps you know, with the economy, maybe people are not eating out as much.

I don't really know, but uh you will try to we're gonna have to level fund that one in terms of revenue projections in the next fiscal year.

Motor vehicle excise is a huge number.

Um this one is very hard to project because the motor vehicle excise commitments come out in the spring.

We just sent one out in April.

There's going to be one in May.

Um question is will um will new car sales uh deteriorate because of the cost of new cars and the uh interest rates.

That's a that's a part of it.

Um I'm going to raise that one by 252,699 on budget.

Um, and uh uh I will come up with better numbers before the budget on that one.

So those are the excise tax revenues.

Next next one, please.

All right, so now we get to State Aid, which is the Governor's uh proposal.

Um again, you know what we we face at budget time is the uh the legislature doesn't work on our budget schedule.

So uh the House apparently will release their budget later this month, the Senate in May.

Um generally we get better numbers.

So the Governor's proposal um, and I just want to make a distinction here for you know for for new public officials.

Um these are the cherry sheet revenues that fund um our core services, schools, public works, police.

There's a distinction between this and any of the categorical grants we get from the State that do not flow to the General Fund.

Um the main local aid account on restricted general government aid was increased by 2.5 percent over the fiscal year 2026 number.

The State revenue growth, by the way, is 2.9 percent, uh, but this is 2.5 percent.

So that's an increase of $782,309.

The Governor proposed a minimum aid figure for Chapter 70 is $75 per pupil.

So as you can see that that comes up to $381,000.

Uh you remember last year that the legislature intervened and uh it was $150 per pupil.

I am hoping that will happen again.

I think that's more probable than not, so that will be it, we'll be able to get a little bit more money in.

Um of course, these are blunted by the uh charter tuition reimbursement, uh, which has been reduced by $510,730.

That is a very variable number.

That number may very well change when the House and the Senate weigh in.

So increased receipts of $739,102.

Next, please.

Uh and of course, we are charged assessments.

You can see the assessments here.

Uh the big assessments are gonna be the MBTA and the charter school tuition.

Um what you do, and then next uh next slide, please.

You net them out, receipts minus assessments, so that increases State aid by 2.3 percent or 935,743.

Okay, so we anxiously await what the House and the Senate will do uh in the hope that we can get uh a little bit more money from the State.

All right, next, please.

So let's look ahead to Fiscal 2027.

Next.

Well, needless to say, public schools continue to be our number one investment.

That has been the case historically in terms of budget increases and money.

I know that our new mayor, Jake Wilson considers public schools to be the number one investment.

And we're going to continue to um uh uh uh fund and and and and and and replicate our successes going forward.

Next slide, please.

And this is just shows you the proportion.

Um the schools are 30 percent, uh, public safety number two, public works number three.

Just gives you an idea of the budget composition here that in terms of the level funded budgets here in Fiscal 2027.

And into some specifics.

Um slide that we uh uh we use in these presentations just to remind folks that um fixed costs uh have are an overwhelming percentage of the municipal budget.

Salaries, 53 percent of the budget, health insurance, 9.7 percent.

The city funds 80 percent of premiums, and that's for current employees and retirees.

4.8 cents, 4.8 cents of the budget for um pensions.

Adding them all up comes to 67.5 percent of the budget.

These are recurring costs, and they magnify year by year, and if they get out of control, then it gives us very little discretionary income for any of our uh projects.

Next one, please.

Key components of the base budget.

Uh when we refer to the base budget, it means fixed costs is a proportion of the overall budget.

Um, essential services, operational costs, maintenance to keep our city infrastructure parks and public spaces in top shape, and investing in them to mitigate long-term costs.

Um the base budget will increase, fixed costs increase, and we need to keep uh a close eye on that, this because we are under the proper two and a half levy limit.

And if we don't have legislative relief here, um, we're going to be in a situation coming forward if um in terms of how we are going to fund our essential services and the services that we have built up over the last 10 years or so.

And that's my point in the next uh uh slide.

Uh higher base exposes us to ask.

The clerk would recognize Councilman Gloffer to join us.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Higher base exposes us to myriad pressures, Prop 2.5, long-term costs on the base of adding new positions.

You need to be careful about at this point adding a lot of new positions on the budget, inflationary pressures on contract values and insuring capacity for unexpected situations.

So our major cost driver, I think, this year is health insurance.

We have spoken about this uh last couple of years.

Uh the city moved to the Group Insurance Commission back in 2012.

We saved $7.5 million that year by doing so.

And most of those increases from the GIC have been modest, probably between three and five percent a year.

But the last few years, premiums have skyrocketed.

Uh of course, uh one major reason which you have all seen is the increase uh costs resulting from the GLP one weight loss drugs, uh, and the increased utilization of them.

That has significantly driven up claims.

High provider prices, high cost of hospital and provider services with specialty care, rising utilization of medical services, and market consolidation, a small number of major provider systems and insurers, along with hospital price variation consolidating in the in the health insurance industry.

So the legislature backstoped some of the costs in the GIC.

We were looking at probably a much higher budget increase earlier in the year.

Um the projected increase is $2.8 million on the budget in Fiscal 2027.

Um the average increase per plan is 8 percent, but we note here that the Harvard Pilgrim employer is the city's most common plan, and that and that is going up 14.7 percent for on our family plan.

Current caseload is 2,987.

That includes retirees, all city and school employees.

That's up 17 from the prior year, which is actually not bad.

I thought it would go up a little bit higher than that.

Um, if we add new positions to the fiscal 2027 budget, that will increase that amount.

The city contributes 80 percent of the premium, 20 percent to the employees.

We're going through the open enrollment period now.

The hope is that some folks move to lower cost plans, and if so, that may change the number.

But that's what we are looking at right now.

Next slide.

Most important cost is labor.

Uh the city settled a number of collective bargaining agreements in fiscal 2.26.

Um, and we plan, we always want to plan for money for our collective bargaining and non-union employees.

We set up years ago a stabilization fund, a salary stabilization fund.

Uh this year we drew down $7.7 million for the that stabilization fund for police school custodians and for the teacher settlement uh back in July.

Uh and of course, we use want to use free cash to continue to build up that stabilization fund.

So we budget on the city side for for fiscal 2027 uh projected expenses on a salary contingency account on the General Fund.

Uh so we are always want to be very cognizant that we fully fund uh these these things.

Uh there's a few.

Uh I think there may be uh one more settlement that might happen this fiscal year, and if that's the case, we will have to build that into our uh projections for the for uh for next year.

Next, please.

Pension.

Um the pension appropriation will increase by 451,030 fiscal 2027.

Um we uh we did uh have a very good um investment year last year um for the pension system, uh well over 12 percent investment earnings, and that kept the pension appropriation down.

I serve on the retirement board, I chair the retirement board, Mr.

Mastraboni also sits with me on the retirement board.

Long-term liability uh is 114 million point six.

We will pay off that liability in fiscal year 2033.

Next one is debt.

So what you see here is our amortized debt for fiscal 2027.

That's debt we have already borrowed for and we required to pay.

So we're going out to market in May, and for our current capital projects.

And my estimation right now is 1.8 million increase for those projects.

That's assuming a long-term bond rate of 3.8 percent.

Last year at this time, we got a rate of 3.9 percent.

We're a triple-A-rated uh city.

I'm hoping that we can do better than the 3.8.

If so, the number is going to go down.

That will reduce the appropriation.

Uh the high school debt exclusion will be a little bit less this year, $6.6 million.

So the general total general fund debt is $23.4.

When we get to mitigation, this is an area that I think we can mitigate in terms of our budget deficit.

But we'll go forward with talk about, I think we're going to mitigation now.

Next one.

Okay.

All right.

So this is where we stand right now.

We're looking at a $4.5 million gap between the revenue projection and the level service projection for all the budgets, school and city at this particular point in time.

Uh at this time last year, we had a $3 million deficit, which we were able to deal with.

Uh first of all, with better numbers that came in, both on the debt service and state aid, as well as cuts on the on the city side primarily to get us down.

So we need to work on this between now and budget time, and there's a number of um tactics that we will employ and that we're going to look at before we even look at cutting budgets.

Next one.

Okay.

So I look at this as a revenue problem uh compounded by Prop 2 and a half.

Um we want to initially uh we want to number number one strategy, of course, is to enhance revenue as best we can.

Uh that means the city is now looking at evaluating all fees, fines, and permits uh right now with all of department heads to a cost recovery lens to charge appropriately.

Uh you know, every little bit helps.

So uh we are looking at uh this thing needs to, you know, revenue should be re-evaluated, these fees on a regular basis.

It's been a while for some of them.

So that will be our first tactic is to try to raise more revenue.

We've already got a few commitments in terms of uh increases.

So that is uh going to be important.

Secondly, I'll I will be um coming back to the council.

We're going to use reserves.

I mentioned this $1.8 million increase in debt service.

Uh looking at our reserves, we have drawn down about 17 million in reserves this year for a variety of things.

Uh we can draw down another 14.5 million between now and June 30th.

And what I would like to do is apply those uh reserves towards the debt service for these projects that we are contemplating uh uh going to market on.

Uh and that will that will uh we got a number on that, but that will reduce the deficit somewhat.

Reserves should only be used for one-time only expenses or capital projects.

Uh we will look at reserves for anything in the 2027 budget.

That is a one-time uh uh purchase or whatnot that we need to do.

So we will look at this very seriously as as a budget mitigation strategy.

On the city side, we're looking at all vacancies right now.

Uh and we're you know there are a number of open positions.

We'll make some decisions on whether we will continue to uh keep those positions or not.

That's a more certainly a more painless way of dealing with this budget situation than going to uh any film positions.

Obviously, the goal here is we we don't want layoffs, city or school, and I think that that's I think that's quite attainable.

Um if we utilize all of these tactics and as best we can.

Um audit expenditures.

So we have asked all city departments to come up with uh focusing on non-personnel um expenses, a 5 percent reduction as a scenario, as a planning scenario.

We've also asked the school department to look at a tiered reduction scenario.

We don't want to get to that unless we have to, and we won't know exactly if we do have to cut budgets to some extent.

We really don't know what that is at this particular point in time.

We want to get these other mitigation strategies in place, especially on the revenue side.

Next.

Um in terms of examining and updating fees, um the mayor has um is going to be forming a working group uh to meet with Tufts University and to look at the pilot payments, uh, possibly negotiate a new agreement.

We haven't had a um pilot agreement, a formal one with Tufts since 2017.

Uh we'll be taking a look at other other potential pilot payments as well.

Most of our pilot payments are from small nonprofits.

Uh I I already mentioned that we'll use stabilization funds to net down the borrowing and one-time costs, vacancy control.

We're taking a very, very high look on the city side of any discretionary spending, such as travel and conferences, as well as the indirect costs for water and sewer enterprise.

We can legally charge the water and sewer enterprise for any cost that the General Fund um provides.

We get that now, but we we haven't evaluated, re-evaluated that in uh several years.

So these are the tactics that we need to um uh uh uh move on, and we're currently working on these things now to try to get that $4.5 million budget deficit down.

Next slide.

But as I said earlier, there are several key budgets, uh, several key events.

Um when we go out to to borrow, hopefully um we'll get better rates.

Uh state aid, we uh relying on the governance figures right now.

And on health insurance, we have open enrollment still in place.

So I think there's a lot of work to be done here in the next six weeks or so, but the goal will be to try to get this $4.5 million gap uh in a resolvable way and in the most painless way for all.

Uh I think I have gone through the presentation.

Oh, there's one more.

Well, I don't have that slide when it 2027, as it says here will be predominantly level service with few targeted investments.

Uh the administration is looking for some is looking at a uh new form of decision making, a cabinet structure.

So there will be some organizational reform here, and so you will see some departments that will be uh reconfigured, renamed, moved from incorporated into existing budgets.

Uh we'll make these changes very, very clear.

Uh we will work to mitigate the level service deficit through revenue where appropriate, and long-term fiscal health is a major priority.

We must focus on a sustainable base budget and use one-time resources cautiously.

And I believe that's the presentation.

Open to questions.

Thank you.

Questions?

Council Clinton?

Mr.

President, through you, I just want to ask, um, as far as the GIC goes, it's overall it's still uh the best deal we can get, or how could we or could we not even get out of it at this point?

Yeah, Mr.

President, uh I was um I was serving on the transition team in Everett for the new mayor earlier this year, and I was stunned to see.

They're self-insured with health insurance.

Their health insurance went up six million dollars in one fiscal year.

So we moved off the self-insurance in 2012.

Uh we saved $7.5 million.

So the GIC has uh is a five huge pool that, you know, in terms of purchasing.

Plus, let's let's also be reminded that um the state did backstop uh the GIC this year.

I I think it was $200 million that they threw in there, you know, which you're not going to get in a private situation.

So the private rates are higher.

I've I've talked to a number of folks here.

So it's it's even worse uh in a private situation.

Thank you.

I just had to ask for the public watching, because I know that um, you know, like you had said, the the increases previous to I think three years ago were very minimal, and then we've just seen this explosion.

Um, like you said, may only mainly due to the GLP ones.

Um so it's just been uh quite a shock uh coming from the GIC, which was supposed to stabilize rates to some degree, but even they're not immune to this uh explosion.

So thank you.

On that point, Mr.

Mayor?

Go ahead.

Yeah, thanks, Mr.

President.

I was talking to a mayor out in Western Mass that is a non-GIC community, and he said that they were seeing a 22.4 percent increase in their uh insurance premiums this year, so it could be worse.

Council Young Kapan.

Uh thank you, Mr.

President.

Through you, all three of you, thank you very much.

We're very lucky to have you all here and your teams.

Um I think the question that I'm anticipating getting the most from members of the public is you know, you opened your first slide, is about these really scary situations we're seeing in other communities.

And then we're ending on what's like kind of a note of relief, right?

That like the worst we're looking at, at least according to this, is maybe vacant positions, getting a tough look.

How would you explain to a member of the public kind of what's the difference between what's going on here first, some of those kind of worst case scenarios that we're seeing in other communities?

I mean, you just gave us a whole presentation on the details, but kind of to summarize.

Well, Mr.

President, number one, we've had that tax base growth over time, and we have built up reserves.

I think we mean we've taken a very prudent management style here as well.

Um I think that we've uh some of these other communities haven't had the the tax base that we've had, especially the suburban communities.

Um probably the only you know real big city that's gone for an override.

They never went for an override before, and they lost that override now.

So uh even five million dollars in new growth is is far better number that we're seeing in other places here.

But you know, it's the tide is turning right now.

Um, and that uh you know, we have to be thinking about the the budget base here.

And uh especially as we move forward um next fiscal next year, we'll be going for a debt exclusion on a new school, and we'll be presenting that before the the taxpayers.

So we want to stay out of an override situation if we possibly can, I think.

Mr.

Mayor?

Uh Mr.

President, he's too modest to admit it, but a big part of the reason that we're not in a worse position is because of Director Bean.

Um, along with the just the new growth that we have had uh that has differentiated us from other communities.

That's those are the two biggest factors, I'd say right there.

Thank you, and I want to um actually thank the mayor for highlighting the importance of that new growth.

Um, because when I look at the state aid numbers you pointed out, I gotta be honest, it feels kind of disingenuous.

Yes, we were getting a smaller percentage of our budget from state than we were 20 years ago, because we are a much richer city than we were 20 years ago.

With new pressures coming from state government, that's sure.

I I I can see we should be getting more money from the state.

But why is that different now that it's been for the last 15 years?

We have outgrown inflation by your by your measure.

Well, Mr.

President, first of all, I think the state government should give municipalities the flexibility to raise more with new revenue sources, which you can see, which we don't have here in Massachusetts, which we have in other communities, other states, I should say.

Yes, we have grown the property tax base.

But you know, but that hasn't always happened in the certainly in the early years in the year 2000, where our new growth was like 1.2 or 1.5 million.

Um the state really wasn't um pulling near weight in terms of uh municipalities.

Um I think is this, you know, just in general, I think it is a clamor throughout the state uh with the legislature at this particular point in time.

I mean, this municipal empowerment act.

What's the problem with giving us the opportunity to raise the meals tax or the hotel motel?

That's a local option.

Leave it to the leave it to the municipality to make those decisions.

Um we don't even have that type of openness right now from uh uh leaders in state government.

Um I think that uh the the limitations of proper proposition two and a half uh uh are causing problems for you are going to cause problems for us as well.

You know, so there needs to be some thought on the state government leaders to to make uh appropriate changes and give us more power, basically.

Others Council Street?

Thank you, Mr.

President, through you to Director Bean.

And one of the on one of the earlier slides, uh the snow uh FY26 snow and ice slide uh talked about snow removal and and whatnot.

And I know that uh we had the SMEA this uh the the changed the name recently, but the the new union contract and hopefully and we had a lot of vacancies in DPW and did some of that get uh did we hire some more uh DPW uh employees and are we or are we still paying a lot of outside contractors for snow removal and are we still purging all that extra money from the outside contractors instead of in-house has any of the have any of those numbers changed from last year's budget to this year's budget?

Uh Mr.

President, I think the DPW Commission will name the answer to the question.

I don't think we could um remove snow uh without having some outside vendors.

Um I don't think we could hire enough employees uh to do that.

Um I think yeah, I think the costs have gone up quite a bit this year, obviously because of the nature of of the snowstorms this year that they needed.

But I think this is a you know a question you could we could raise you could raise with the DPW Commissioner during budget time as well, I'm sure.

Uh he can uh discuss that with you.

Uh Mr.

President, through you too, Director Bean uh right uh definitely want to talk to the the DPW director on that, but wanted to know if if if that is also a factor with you when you weigh in how this looks as well, how many how how many employees we have versus how many employees we'll have uh we had last year.

Does that in any way factor in with you?

So for instance, even just like with water and sewer, where we had numerous vacancies and yeah, Mr.

President, I think in terms of the snow removal, um I think uh uh you know I I don't uh uh you know I haven't asked, I haven't asked specifically how many employees uh were involved in the operation vis-a-vis vendors uh but uh I don't I think the situation is given the magnitude of the storms and whatnot.

I don't think it's realistic to be able to say that uh you can hire enough employees to handle this and do that quickly.

It's an emergency situation.

So there are a number of vendors that they have uh on the side, you know, that they would call on that type of thing to do this.

You know.

Mr.

Mayor, do you want to add to that?

Thanks, Mr.

President.

Yeah, uh just Commissioner Wiseman's not here, but I just want to just clarify uh in case the public hits the wrong idea.

We don't have year-round positions of snow plow driver uh in the city.

What we have in DPW are people who are able to, they have the correct licensure and they are interested and able to go operate snow plows.

So the capacity of that in-house is dependent on who can be pulled off of doing other things to go do that plowing.

Yes, uh, to the counselor's uh point, not having vacancies increases the odds that we have those folks.

Uh but that is sort of uh, you know, it's a it's an interesting factor that having gone and watched the operation uh firsthand.

I'd encourage everyone to uh do the same.

Council Schauson.

Mr.

President, yeah.

Uh through you to Mr.

Mayor, yeah, totally.

I agree with you that yeah, we had we have pummeled with snow this year confirmed.

Um right, it it it is variable, uh, but we all know, and and my larger point of that is how as we talk about uh further down on slides of how we're going to be tightening uh or finding which vacancies and which departments we have, which ones we can hold off on a couple of years and tighten our belts as we go.

How does that factor in with DPW?

How does that factor in with the water and sewer department?

How does that factor in with our services and the general or the outside contractors we're going to use?

How is that factor into the budget?

And and has this preliminarily been included in that, or is that more we're gonna see in a month or so?

How that uh the conclusion, the great big conclusion.

Uh I don't really know if that needs an answer.

Maybe that's just uh oh cool, there is okay.

Mr.

President.

Uh Mr.

President, Mike Masterbone, budget director, um, thanks for the question.

As I understand it, and and and in agreement with Mayor Wilson, like having more public work staff in positions 100% pushes us towards less contractors.

Um in terms of vacancies, we're evaluating vacancies in a number of ways, but um first and foremost is core city service maintaining and preserving core city services.

Um DBW is a huge part of that.

They're they're a massive part of that.

So um I would I wouldn't expect those type of positions that we then lose out on them and have to farm out um additional work for plumbing or carpentry work um and pay a premium on that.

So um I I wouldn't expect um at this point, things can change.

I wouldn't expect significant movement um in that area.

Yep, uh school committee members talking about it.

Uh thank you through the chair.

Um uh given that the Somerville Public Schools are a top priority, which is great.

Uh what can we expect in terms of avoiding the need to cut critical services and uh and how do what can we expect to be able to enhance um the significant pro improvements that we have been seeing um in the presentations from schools across the district and being able to build on that success costs a lot of money.

What can we expect?

Well, Mr.

President, we can expect um to work very hard in the next six weeks to mitigate this deficit.

I think in terms of uh, you know, schools are the first priority.

There may be cuts in both sides.

I I think they will not be uh uh exorbitant cuts, but we just don't know the parameters right now, so I think we have to look at various um scenarios and contingencies, and uh we'll continue to work on our end with the um school administration, uh with uh the Superintendent Camona and Mr.

Um Baretta, and uh we meet regularly on this.

We meet every two weeks, I believe.

And um I update uh the mayor and I update folks with the condition of the city, you know, any new events that take place.

Um and uh we get to a point where we understand um where the deficit is, and then there will be a question of prioritization of services.

Uh we want to keep the essential services, we want to keep our gains, you know.

So we're looking very carefully at discretionary monies in the budget right now, at least in the city side.

Things that I'm not critical that could be jettisoned, you know.

So I think it was still this is a work in progress, basically.

Mr.

Mayer, on that point.

Yeah, thanks, Mr.

President.

Uh this has come up in the school committee, and I committed publicly to the school committee, and I'll say it again here.

Uh we're looking to avoid that scenario of having to make those contingency cuts.

Should we be in a situation where our read is that revenues are lower than what we need, and we have to make those cuts and the revenues come in higher, which is a thing that happens.

Uh, I committed the first things we'll put back in would be any contingency cuts made to the school budget, uh, because we want to see that at that uh level service.

My microphone was none.

School committee member Baton and going in order, folks who haven't spoken yet have uh school committee member lippins, then we'll come back around for a second, John.

Thank you, Mr.

President, through you uh through through the chair, also.

I don't know who's who I'm looking at here.

Um to Director Bean, thank you.

Um and also just thank you to the mayor for that commitment.

Um cuts on the uh school side, because of how our school budget is constructed.

So I want to be very clear with everyone that it will be very difficult to avoid very painful cuts if cuts have to come from the school side budget.

Um piece I didn't hear in the presentation um and would be very interested to learn is on the city side what is the proportion of allocation that goes towards salary versus the proportion that goes towards non-salary.

Um and and salary I'll also just extend, you know insurance and sort of personnel associated costs.

Um, Mr.

Master Bowling, yeah, sorry.

Do I uh Ms.

President through you?

I don't I don't have that off the top of my head.

Uh last time we looked at it, I mean it's it's getting close to that 80% figure on the schools, right?

Um municipal government is about people doing work to solve problems in the community.

Um it's pretty consistent across the board.

Um, that the health insurance sits on the city side, um, which covers both the schools and the city, but we're in the same ballpark around there.

I think last year it was somewhere around seven in the 70s, um, but it's it's pretty close.

Uh member Lippins.

Thank you.

Through you, Mr.

President, to the mayor.

Um we just had our presentation about um the proposed cuts, you know, which are terrible to more terrible.

Um, and thank you for your commitment to um ensuring our public schools are funded.

I know last year the prior administration also made public education a priority um by giving a larger share to the school budget.

And I'm wondering this year, last year in FY twenty 2026, it was 31.36 percent, and this year it's 31.21%.

So I guess I'm wondering why is that?

Why are we getting a smaller slice?

Mr.

Mayor, you want to take that one?

Yeah, thanks, Ms.

President.

Through you uh might be a lot of that is the health insurance piece, and it's important to point out uh the health insurance piece is felt entirely on the city side despite uh paying the health insurance on the school side.

Uh we heard that was a big a big piece of that.

Um I'm competitive and I'm uh uh I'll be eager to see where we stack up to every other municipality uh in Massachusetts in terms of percentage increase to the school budget this year.

On that point, Emma Green?

Thank you.

I'm really glad to hear the mayor's competitive because while we have made great improvements in the last several years in far school budget, as far as a percentage of our school budget goes to schools, we actually trail most of our most of our competitors who in neighboring communities average closer to 40 percent to our sort of 30 percent.

Um so I'm uh uh actually also curious to know in the spirit of comp in the spirit of that competition, where does the city think we should be as percent percentage of our city budget going to schools?

Mr.

Mayor, that that sounded like a question to you.

Uh Mr.

President, uh, I don't want to say it's a rhetorical question.

Uh I I am curious to hear if people have thoughts on that.

I'm all ears.

I don't have a number in my head, but I am willing to talk to people about that.

I do think it's important that we compare apples to apples always and don't compare ourselves to say towns like Winchester that we're talking municipal uh cities uh with a similar profile to us member lippins, you still have the floor.

I'll set all right.

Uh let's see.

Let's see, Councillor Scott, Member Baton, because go ahead.

Uh President Davis.

Thank you.

Super helpful.

Um, I don't know if this is a question to this team, to the mayor.

You know, I know I hate these terms, but like belt tightening, um, strategizing, thinking hard about plans about pausing or rescheduling investments that we're planning on doing.

I think we all know that if we pause or reschedule investments in schools, kids are hurt, right?

So if we say, for example, just because of the examples that the district brought up, there's a program that we'd like to launch with our um female students that are um really challenged right now called working on womanhood.

One of the proposals is not make that investment, those kids will continually be delayed in their outcomes.

We have interest in continuing to expand the pilots for inclusion programs.

So we've invested money to um change the model, put a little bit more staff to better serve our special ed students who are currently included in regular ed classrooms.

We've had incredible outcomes.

We'd like to continue the pace on that.

And another example is coaching.

Coaching is an incredibly high leverage investment that the district has trying to build up, just so everybody knows what coaching means is that we hire really talented educators that help our teachers and help them get better at what they do.

So I just really want to not to say that I'm not willing to be part of this process and I'm really empathetic to the change in revenue.

But if I use a bad example, but if we slow down work on a park, not great.

We slow down work with our kids, it's really painful.

So I just really want to make sure that that headset is in this work.

And again, it's not a judgment, it's more I don't mean to um speak to the emotional part of, but schools are not delivering and or making widgets, schools are you know forming our future.

So I just wanted to throw that out there that I want to I want to hope that the city is really being thoughtful about like, hey, we would we are planned next year to do to XYZ.

Maybe we have to minus a little bit to make sure that um we're funding the schools because we don't want to let our kids continue to get behind.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh a couple things before I kind of get into some of my points.

I really very much appreciate these questions and this discussion here.

I fully uh fully in alignment with a lot of what's been voiced already.

Uh there was a question about how much of our fixed costs were uh in salaries, benefits, insurance, et cetera.

You know, slide 34, uh, you know, if I'm just doing the back of the envelope math here, looks like it's about 67, 67 and a half percent, it says uh fixed cost drive uh municipal budgets.

So that's uh I'm not sure if that's 67 and a half percent is averaged between city positions and the school uh positions being 80 percent, or if that's just 67 percent on the non-school general fund positions.

So through you, I'd like to ask that question to uh director masterbone there.

Numbers on the slide.

I figured somebody made it.

Sure sure did three three, Ms.

President.

Um so this is looking at the city's general fund portion, um, but does not include things like uh so there's other non-salary personal services items that you know I would consider salaries that are not part of this.

This is a more scoped down analysis.

I'm happy to look at what we spend on employees across the board.

Um but this this is a subset of that.

So the uh through you, Mr.

President, the the scope down, the stuff that was uh scoped out, let's say, might be the uniforms budget that's in personal services.

A better example through you, Mr.

President might be overtime to pay for Core City services.

Uh another example might be training for staff.

Um it would not include uniforms because that's not a personal services item.

That's in our ON lines instead.

That's right, thank you.

Yep.

Okay.

Overtime.

Oh my goodness.

I wasn't planning on talking about overtime, Mr.

President.

Um, Mr.

President, I I really appreciate this.

Uh I appreciate this discussion.

I uh uh really appreciate the frank examination of what's here.

And so in the in the spirit of a frank exchange, uh you know, there's been talk about painful cuts.

Uh and page slide 35 talks about um how operational costs, the salaries and minis for personnel are um fixed and unalterable barrier to changing the base budget.

Um all of this talks about how we don't want to actually have to cut positions and you know refers to uh uh reexamining the OM lines, the stuff and things budgets of departments as a as a potential way to cut cover the shortfall here.

But I just want to say that's not practically speaking true, right?

We've added many, many, many positions over the years in the last 10 years of explosion of this city's budget.

We have added a great many positions.

It is not a deadly sin to revisit those to see if the juice is worth it in a time when we are all feeling the squeeze.

I'm old enough to remember when the entire communications department of this city was one person, one.

Now just the core, core comms department, not talking about uh immigrant affairs or or uh 311, just the core comms department is 12 people, three of whom have titles that include the word director.

Now, I am not targeting the comms department here, all right.

Being a good government means you're doing good things and then you're telling people that you've done them.

That's important too.

But as we are in lean times, I think we need to have our focus squarely on doing good things.

We must deliver for our neighbors, our constituents, lest they get the correct idea that government at the local level is just as ineffective or broken as the federal government has been lately.

We have to do better.

Uh the audience tonight here is sparse.

Uh so perhaps I'll be forgiven for speaking frankly in the language of politics.

If our neighbors thought that existing trends and our level services were satisfactory, our previous mayor would not have been eliminated in the primary.

Things are a little bit busted.

I think we need to focus on fixing them here, not just holding the line on the system that we have, on the government that we have.

The government we have is shaped over the choices of the last four years and the 16 years before that.

Trimming 5% out of the non-personal OM stuffing things, budget departments, it's already the smallest category of our spending.

It's not going to cut it.

I think we need to not only cover this four and a half million dollar gap that's been mentioned to be mitigated, but we need to do it while stepping up to provide better services to our residents.

And I think in order to do that, some city positions will need to be eliminated in these potential reorganizations.

I implore our mayor and our staff to be willing to look at that.

We are talking about reorganization.

We're talking about uh evaluating open positions that right now are just providing lag money, which is free cash, which is a as said, a short-term resource that we can use to cover some gaps.

But if we're re-organing, we really need to reassess the dozens of positions that have been created over the last four years that had titles like manager, supervisor, and director.

I think we really need to focus on service delivery, including in our schools, which is kind of the epitome of, as uh someone said, paying people to fix problems and to take care of each other.

Our schools are just the epitome of that, they're definition of that.

Uh I think we need to focus on that kind of service delivery and direct services and maintenance of our existing sidewalks, streets, neighborhoods, rather than on management capacity or consulting services or contracted services that as one of my colleagues called out, you know, cost us up to four times what internal service delivery, internal frontline positions would cost the city.

So I know this is all part of the discussion in some of the rooms.

I just want to emphasize that our constituents have already told us that things are hard.

Sorry.

You know, the other day I went to the uh bodega down in Union Square, bought a two-liter diet coat, cost me four dollars.

I quit cigarettes before they got seven dollars a pack.

I'm not sure I'm ready to quit caffeine.

Uh I just I think we're all our neighbors are making these hard choices.

I think it's time for us to make some of these hard choices as well, and some of that's uh about re-evaluating just how we do things as a city and where we redevote our resources to that direct service delivery.

Thank you for your forbearance, Mr.

President.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, you want to weigh in on that?

President Davis, happy to report to the the good counselor from Ward 2.

Uh that's one of the parts of the restructure we're doing is is looking at those positions.

Obviously, you want to start with vacant positions, because they then you're not putting someone out of a job.

Uh but that is what we are doing.

That's what the CAO is working on with the budget team is making sure that we have a leaner, meaner uh setup on the city side.

Okay.

Um I've got for the second time around Council Strezzo, Councillor Baton, and then we'll come back to Councillor Green for third.

Uh Councilor Wheeler, in before the bell with the first comment.

Council Wheeler, go ahead.

Thank you, both chairs.

Um I just want to uh start by echoing what my uh colleague from Ward 2 uh said and appreciate uh it's a very difficult thing to talk about any kind of need for cuts.

Uh there is a reality that many cities, many municipalities, many towns have experienced that it's easier to add a position than to remove a position.

And you know, the the work that people are doing in our city government is vital, it's wonderful, and it's crucial.

And when conditions change, and uh three positions, it turns out could be being done by two people, uh, even if that would be less comfortable.

It's very hard for any organization, government or or business to adjust to that.

Um we are in a situation where uh the flexibility we might have in other years to say those those tough questions are questions for another time.

We may need to ask some more of those tough questions this year.

Uh I just, you know, uh I want to applaud any efforts to do that in a way that uh that takes seriously our most fundamental commitments to our young people uh and to the vulnerable in our community.

And that understands that if we are able to find some small reasonable amount of cuts, that is something that I think can help our sustainability in the long term, as difficult it is as it is now.

So I want to make sure it's something that we're not afraid to talk about as important as it is.

Thank you.

Algernon.

Thank you through the chair.

Along those same lines, your mention of wanting to support our students, but then also our historically marginalized communities is of wild importance when we're looking at a time that our formative assessments that we choose to progress monitor so many of our kids are struggling.

Just to bring some like real data to that.

Some two or three.

And then when you're looking at math, it's about 59% of our students are behind.

And in areas that were mentioned earlier along the lines of co-teaching models and push in math services, and these were all mentioned in some of the school improvement plans.

And I'm just saying this because I do not think this is the time to take our foot off the gas when it comes to improving outcomes for our students.

And if we can't provide that to our students, then we are completely missing the mark.

I think of what the heart of Somerville is and how important it is to make sure our students are thriving.

Along those lines, just to re-emphasize the point, some of our youngest learners are also struggling with literacy, and we have some really great curriculum and some great things in the works, but stepping away from that now and not reinforcing coaching and reinforcing co-teaching models and reinforcing interventionists, which we're hearing why they're widely needed, um, would be a real big misstep, and I think really could turn this whole ship around, and we could be in a more challenging spot than we were than we current excuse me than we currently are.

And as mentioned earlier, kids don't have time to make up that.

Once these gaps grow, they are become so hard to um to decrease again.

And uh the change in outcomes really affects these children, and especially in the historically marginalized communities, these numbers are significantly worse.

Um so just along those lines wanted to emphasize.

Okay, Councilor Strazzo, second crack.

Thank you.

Well, I was going to ask about uh the exciting world of excise tasks, but I do want to use this uh moment too to echo what uh school committee man or component uh uh Petone said, I know, uh mentioned and as we talk and and go back to the one of the dire um possibility of the public school system eliminating some um much needed um services from some of our most vulnerable students, including menstrual products um and menstrual equity and how concerning it would be if if there was that additional um amount taken off of the budget because uh as it was mentioned uh in schools where there's a need for washing machines because if you're young and you can't afford um menstrual products and you just don't go to school for a couple of days because you're embarrassed and you're young and you're working trying to figure out how your body works, and that's unacceptable.

So to eliminate menstrual products, of course, in this time would be it absolutely an equity issue.

And while we're on the topic of of equity issue, yeah, we should not be in any way eliminating services that are helping girls thrive in this environment.

In addition to that, I'm hearing a staggering report from special ed parents in the district to save costs.

Um concerning trend of um students on IEPs being tossed off their IEPs or manufactured to be tossed off their IEPs onto 504s.

IEPs are federally mandated and must be um invested in where 504s, there is no liability for them to be to for their needs and their clear disabilities to be addressed.

Um and we've heard about that for a couple years now.

So as we go into this steep decline, I worry about that happening as well in the special ed department.

Um our kids are worth investing in in every way possible, and we don't want to lose that.

So let's find out what that looks like in the budget this year and where our values actually lie.

Thank you.

Member Batone, and then we'll come back to Member Leppins.

Thank you, Mr.

President, through you.

I want to commend Counselor Scott for raising a frank conversation, right?

And uh reinforcing this idea that we're gonna need to think creatively, and we're not only gonna need to think creatively, we're going to have to make difficult decisions, right?

We're going to need to commit to looking at how we're doing things in this different economic landscape.

This isn't, I mean, we're seeing the trends.

This isn't a one-year blip.

We're now in a multi-year trend situation.

And I think one thing we need to evaluate is how are we delivering services in our city in light of the different economic climate that we're seeing.

Um I also think we need to look at how we've been growing our school budget.

And I think under Dr.

Carmona's leadership, under Dr.

Baretta's leadership, we are doing just that, and we're looking in very uh very detailed ways at how we can deliver services and and provide better outcomes using the same dollars.

So I'm 100% in alignment there with what Councillor Scott was saying.

Um that was uh left me hungry for more information in the presentation, and I will stay tuned as we get deeper into this budget season.

Um in our budget, I saw the 30 percent going to schools, and again, I'm grateful to the mayor for uh uh allocating what is I think we all agree our number one priority in the city is our schools.

Um outside of that, I had a very hard time seeing discrete numbers in what are we investing in in terms of delivering core services because I have to say, you know, I'm very sensitive to uh not wanting to demand more for something in our school, something needs that I see that we absolutely have when it may be balanced against some cut that may be equally impacting our residents' lives, right?

But without knowing what is on the other side of that ledger, it's really hard for me to make that determination.

So I'm always gonna lean more on our school budget because I I can see line by line where our money is going, and I feel very confident in those investments.

Um so that that's just through you, Mr.

President.

One thing I will be looking for more from the um city finance team uh to to provide us so that we can help make this um uh these decisions in concert.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor, you want to respond to that?

Yeah, thanks, Mr.

President.

Uh, this is one of those things that results from the different timelines that uh the schools are on versus on the city side, right?

The school's budget happens, you know, it needs to go through a process.

They you all are uh on the school side are farther along than the city is.

Uh and that's why there are more fully fleshed out numbers uh for SPS than there are on the city side.

They are working on that.

Uh I think we are close to having some harder numbers on the city side.

But I hear you, I noticed the same thing in there.

Member Green, I'm gonna go to Member Lippins because she's got her second crack, and then we'll come back to I see Councilor State has not spoken yet, so Councillor State.

Uh, through you, Mr.

Mr.

President.

Uh, first, thank you, uh, Director Bean for the presentation.

Um, and um many of my colleagues have mentioned this already.

Um I want to thank Councillor Scott for starting this conversation again, as many have said, this is not this is not easy, it is going to be painful.

Um to me, like we should do everything to not make everything we can so we don't make any cuts in the school budget.

Um, as a former educator, I know that if we make cuts now to very important services, it's something we're gonna be dealing with in the next few years very, very soon.

And um, so instead uh I'm glad I'm hearing from uh Mayor Wilson that we want to look at how we can consolidate departments and um you know the whole like how many managers and directors, you know, we have and yeah, think think creatively again.

Again, this I don't want to mention any department right now, but this is where my focus is going to be.

Um looking at city departments, looking at positions, and yeah, working with you and your administration, Mayor Wilson, to figure out how we can work creatively there to find this money.

And uh the other one is contracting out work.

We know I mean, year after year, this council keeps bringing this up.

Uh we I think this year I want to see numbers.

Uh Director B of like how much is this cost in the city?

Whether it's DPW, whether it's other departments, um hiring consultants.

I think this is the time to really like just uh think about ways to avoid that and what we can do in-house and what we can just maybe stop doing.

Again, it's really hard to like have a conversation right now without these numbers, and this is just the beginning of budget season, so I'm looking forward to seeing that.

Okay.

Now back to Member Lippins.

Thank you through you, Mr.

President.

Um I just wanted to come back to um the smaller size of the pie, which um thank you, Bobby, for helping me run the numbers, but even like that small percentage that we're talking about is more than half a million dollars.

It's about 588 um thousand dollars, which when you're asked to cut even you know, 250,000 from the school budget, that's things like cuts from um the CTE, cuts from curriculum expansion and interventionists, cuts from um supplies and food budgets.

So these numbers have meaning, even these tiny, tiny, you know, um things have have impacts.

So again, I guess it's my question as to why.

Thank you.

Mr.

Brennan, you want to take that one?

Sure.

Uh as I understand the the through, Mr.

President.

The question uh from from Member Lippins is uh why would we ask for contingency cuts?

Why are we from last year to this year?

Why is the percentage of um what we are getting less?

So last year it was the numbers.

Sorry.

Mr.

President, I understand the question.

Uh to my earlier answer, uh I think the primary driver has to be the health insurance premiums, which are felt on the city side, so that improv that drives up the city side, not reflected on the school side, but again, a reminder.

Um are there more are there more employees on the SPS side than on the city side?

It's gotta be ballpark uh close.

Uh that's a cost the city is bearing that's gonna drive that up that will not be reflected on the school side.

I appreciate that.

It's just cuts are cuts are hard.

I know I feel it more um being in schools every day.

So I I do know that we as a body all want our schools to thrive.

So um money makes a difference.

Okay, second crack, Council Klinger.

Mr.

President, through you um going on a limb here a little bit because um we don't have anything in front of us that we're speaking on, but I am normally I'm not gonna speak specifically about the school budget, as there is not nothing in front of us.

Um, as I am usually recused from that discussion.

But I will say that um, and I hear everybody loud and clear on the um potential uh hard decisions that we have to make.

And you know, I just want to say that I think that we should at least let the mayor hear that you know we're gonna back him up if it comes to say this mobility project or like whatever heat he's gonna take for for a square in this, um, you know, I think we all need to be in this together.

So if we're gonna make hard decisions and have to have to uh parse out and decide what in terms of priorities, certainly we all agree that the children are our top priority in the schools, but I think um, you know, it's it can be very difficult to be in that seat and be that decision maker.

So I just want to say that you know I'm prepared to uh support the mayor in whatever decisions he has to make.

Thank you.

Council McLaughlin.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

On a similar note, uh I'm prepared to support the mayor, but that's because it's all gonna follow on on him to solve this budget problem.

Um, because I do know if it gets to the city council level and we're the ones who are expected to make the cuts to balance the budget, that's not gonna be fun.

It's not gonna get us to the money that we actually need to save.

It'll probably be political and not uh efficient.

Uh so I'm just saying that now because I already feel uh we're heading down an interesting road where we're gonna be making value judgments based on the budget when we do have to make practical judgments, and if it gets to the council to make this decision, it's just not going to be fun for anybody.

Okay.

On that point.

On that point, uh, Mr.

President, I know it's very tempting for people to look at this as SPS versus the city.

And I I personally reject that framing.

Uh there's so much that the schools do that, you know, from you know, uh on food insecurity and in so many areas, right?

Uh social services, so much is coming through the schools and on the city side, so many things that the city is doing also directly impact SPS families.

And I think it's important that the people uh we don't want to pit SPS against the city.

Uh nothing good will come from that process.

Third crack.

Uh no, just crack, Councilor Hart.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I actually have uh a question on a totally different subject.

So if other people want to continue on the same subject, that's fine.

Okay.

Um well, just looking at the revenue side, um, I was just wondering, given that the vacancy of the life sciences buildings is such a big part of the cause for declining growth.

I'd love to hear more about um just possibilities for turning that around and what's just the efforts um in that regard.

Who wants to take that one?

And I look at you, Mr.

Mayor, or I'll take it as a uh thank you.

Through you.

Uh yeah, that's that's a huge thing, right?

We just you heard uh tonight and people know from previous statements that the transmedics deal would would solve about 25% of the problem for us.

Right.

We get 60-ish cents on the dollar for a vacant life science building.

Uh so it's a huge priority to try to fill that remaining 75%.

Um I don't want to blow up anyone's spot here, but we are talking to people uh uh about doing exactly that.

Uh I've encouraged economic developer to think about our strategy of how we're going out and basically selling the city to potential uh two potential companies interested in in relocating here or opening up uh uh you know a site here.

It's a big market in Europe.

Yeah, it's bleak times right now uh in terms of the biotech sector, but that's not to say that that they're you know it there are still companies that are growing, there's still companies moving, and we're aggressively looking to market Somerville as the place they want to be.

And you know, it's early days in terms of the uh of that strategy, but I think we're seeing some encouraging results, and hopefully we're back uh before the council uh with good news here in the not so distant future.

I have a follow-up that you know, as a constituent, I uh I have wondered.

My understanding is that you know these buildings are built to scientific specifications.

Uh but you know, are are there other opportunities that aren't for biotech that could also go in these buildings?

Um, and if so, is that being explored as well?

Mr.

President, uh through you.

Yeah, it's definitely something you look at.

The problem is like your typical life science building has a lot of uh they don't need to have windows on the interior so much.

Turns out, you know, if you're talking about residential or other applications, uh they don't make good retrofits into into other uses just because of the design of the building, right?

There's a lot of uh uh air handling, you know, that with especially if it's designed for like you know, wet chemistry in a lab.

They don't make the best in terms of flipping to another use.

It's it's the the sad reality.

I know I I had the same question as well.

Uh it's where we're at.

Uh so we're really focused on trying to tenant those buildings.

Okay.

We'll go a quick third crack to member green and then member Strezzo.

I'll note that we do have a rule for the city council that members can only speak twice an issue.

Um member uh Council Shazi moves to waive that rule for this evening.

I would encourage folks to wrap the conversation up.

We've talked a lot about this.

Is your second crack?

Okay, we're gonna go second crack with Councillor Scott, and then we're gonna go for our third cracks.

Thank you, Ms.

President.

I uh maybe maybe I talked a lot, maybe that was a two for one.

Um, I just want to thank everyone here for engaging in this tonight.

I don't want to keep us here much longer.

Um I I think this has been a helpful discussion, hopefully, uh, as far as the mayor goes and supporting him and hard decisions that are gonna have to be made.

I agree, you know, as Truman once said, uh the buck stops there.

Uh now I do reserve the right to be salty on behalf of my constituents when the budget comes out.

Um, but I also opened this conversation in the spirit of helping the mayor to understand where our priorities lay as his colleagues in a theoretically coequal uh branch municipal government.

Um so I I just that it is undeniable that there are more depart there are plenty of departments in the city that are making differences in people's lives that are that are directly impacting them.

I've got neighbors that are out of federal custody because of the hard work of the Office of Immigrant Affairs.

Hard to change a life more than that, really.

Um I I did have a quick question just to make sure I understand, because I heard the whole contemplating uh contemplating these contingency cuts.

Is that contingency cuts across all departments or or just to the school department?

I just want to make sure I understood.

Yeah, Mr.

President, I appreciate that question.

Uh obviously we can't order the school committee to make cuts.

On the city side, what we've done is we've asked uh each department.

Sorry, uh you're gonna get a full briefing on this when we release the budget and show you the the new organizational structure of the city, but we're going to a cabinet level uh architecture where you have nine departments uh made up of divisions.

We're asking at the department level.

So we don't care, we don't have we need each division to do a three percent and a five percent of OM ordinary maintenance.

Uh uh we're asking across the department because all divisions aren't created equal.

You might have a small division where uh you know a percentage cut is is you know brutal to them.

Uh so we're asking at the department level that they come up with this, they work on this, then they present these options to us.

Uh there might be things that we might not we might not be in a position where we need cuts, but we like these ideas and it's we see an opportunity to save money, we're gonna go for it, right?

Uh if we determine it's a more painful uh cut, then we're gonna be, you know, that will be saved uh for a contingency.

On the school side, what we did ask for very specifically were uh sort of four levels.

Uh you know, member Lippins referred to it as from uh you know, in my words, least terrible to to most terrible, uh, of looking at if we had to cut, what would we cut?

Uh and I want to thank uh the SPS administration for for putting those together.

And yeah, as advertised, uh they started at least terrible and went to most terrible.

Uh we're really hoping to avoid that scenario.

But it's an important exercise.

What do they say?

Hope for the best plan for the worst, and that's what we're doing right here.

We want to make sure no one's caught by surprise if those numbers don't come in where we want them to be.

We want to make sure that we're prepared for for any scenario here.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh three thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um I really appreciate that.

Like I said earlier, I don't think that three to five percent in the OM budgets are necessarily how we're gonna um both cut this gap and step up for our neighbors where we need to.

Um I know lots of folks don't want to talk about actual departments.

I've never been shy about uh recommending cuts, but uh I will say I do think it's a little bit bonkers to be contemplating cuts to a school department that does not have a whole lot of fat uh on it uh at the same time that we're considering a prenegotiated contract increase of two to three percent to the police department, above and beyond the extra infrastructure cost to implementing some new technology over there.

Uh I I just think that's just bonkers to me.

And I think we have other, as I mentioned, all the other middle management positions have been created.

Heck uh some whole departments um that we spend a lot of money on that uh again, once I just keep coming back to we need to focus on what's delivering services to our neighbors.

So uh thank you for that.

I promise my second bite at the apple is my last, Mr.

President.

Member Green I apologize for not knowing the City Council rules.

School committee we tend to for either shorter, more comment frequent comments rather than fewer longer comments.

Um that said, I'm going to ask us to back up for a second for this is my 11th budget as members of the rule of government and for 11 budgets.

Now I've heard my colleagues in government pontificate very positive about their commitments, equity.

Um and so I'm gonna ask if we are equity is very easy when there's plenty of money to go around.

Because you can make two decisions that are all additive.

When we have to figure out where scarce resources go, um it becomes a lot harder.

And I know it's very traditional to say we can make budgets meet by tightening our tightening our budget our belts a little everywhere.

Um I'm not saying we not approach taking that approach.

I'm gonna ask that we be mindful of a few things.

In a city where nine percent of according to census nine percent of us are in poverty, 44% of some public school students are low income.

Um in a city that is one-third people of color, six percent of our students are people of color.

Um in a city where 12 percent of people represent uh sorry we're seven percent of people report having disabilities, 20 percent of our students do.

And in a city where 12 percent of people report being English learners, 25 percent of our students are.

So if anything we have said about equity for the last 11 years is more than empty rhetoric.

The most important thing we can invest in is our schools.

And I say this is someone who, like many of us around the table, has a certain degree of economic comfort.

There are plenty of things the city does that are nice, that are pleasant, that make my life as a middle class resident in Somerville more enjoyable.

But they are nice to have.

They are not need to have.

So I'm gonna ask this administration and its council to before they start thinking about how to make, as Councilman Scott pointed out, a school budget that has very little fat in it to do with less.

I hope that we can do a budget that asks those of us who have more to do less with less.

Counselor Strasha.

Thank you.

Round three.

This is why those menstrual products are so darn important in the nurses office.

Equity, it's really important.

And on that and last point, um this question, uh, Mr.

President, through you to uh Director Baretta of the Somerville Public Schools.

I had a question for you.

If you recall in last month, I put forward a resolution.

Um thank you so much.

Um I put forward a resolution requesting because thinking about this budget, that whole that we're about to go into and full disclosure with with us on the council when it comes when the school budget is.

Counselor Strasso, anything that goes to the schools can go through me.

Uh uh Mr.

President, uh that is not accurate, I believe.

Um you could direct your correct question through the chair.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh Mr.

President, uh you to the chair.

Um so as we know, we are uh when it gets to the city council level, it's an up or down vote.

We we have full trust in the school committee to do their job and look through the budget.

But the past couple years, uh actually, as far as I've been a counselor, the school budget has a pretty much been like a nine-page PowerPoint presentation, and doesn't really go into descriptions.

And the resolution I had brought forward uh requested that we see this year, especially with your wonderful contribution to our city.

Welcome.

Uh you know, you've been in your position for a while now.

And so the time is is now to have a itemized budget presented to the school committee and the city council that has the salary line items of every department.

Um expenditures identical to what we receive at the city and these numerous pages.

And uh I know that there were thoughts that maybe hopes that this could be possible.

And I'm asking you tonight, can we anticipate this this year?

Councillor Strasso, that has been noted.

Thank you.

Dr.

Not have to you have requested it to the schools.

We are hearing it.

Thank you for your request.

Um Mr.

President.

Council Stasso.

Uh me, uh noting uh what school committee member Ackman has stated.

Um may I have that question answered?

This is a joint meeting.

You've posed a question if remember the city staff would like to answer the question they're telling to.

They're also entitled to not.

Thank you very much I I don't want to step on anybody's tests, but yes, we have committed to doing that.

And we've published, you know, um we have not published a budget book in many years, and uh we've you know, at the start of the school year we committed to publishing a budget book with a lot more detail.

We've given snippets of that.

We published a sort of retroactive budget book from last year.

So yeah, that is very much in our plans.

Um it's just it takes a little bit of time given you know that the city's timeline, and we we are a budget team of just me, so uh it takes a little bit of time to put all that stuff together.

So once we do have the finalized version of the budget, it will be you know presented with various um snapshots and yes, itemized by departments, so you'll be able to see salary lines, FTE comparisons year over year and all that stuff.

Mr.

President, through you too.

Uh Director Retta, thank you.

Thank you.

So we can expect this.

This is exciting.

Thank you very much.

And when we uh when we have that presentation to us, we invite you as well as all the city councilors to come to that presentation.

Counselor Clayton, final word.

Yeah, uh thank you, Mr.

President.

Through you, I just was still on that same subject.

Uh when something gets framed, like I would certainly not be posing the pitting the um you know the city versus the school department in any way.

I would I was I was more um again speaking to all of our support, including to what counselor McLaughlin said as well or as well as uh school committee person uh green is that I think we're really what who we're talking to here is the public that they understand uh if we are true in our um strive for equity, if we are um you know truly investing in our children, then when decisions have to be made, because we already know how this plays out as counselors, he makes a cut.

We get uh inundated with emails.

Now we're coming for him.

It's just I would like to have this, you know, um people to kind of be on working together on the same page going into this so that uh you know we're not going down into the depths of political hell as budget season.

So um hopefully we can all uh and like like it's been noted, best case scenario, you know, maybe things aren't nearly as as bad as they might seem at the moment, and and we get a fully funded school budget.

Um thank you.

All right, seeing no further questions, thank you everyone.

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for uh all the information, answering all the questions, appreciate it, and all the work that goes behind it, and everyone else who's putting in a ton of work behind it as well.

So um our gratitude will speak for the council.

Um Council and Camp and moves to adjourn.

We're gonna place this item on file.

We'll need a roll call vote for adjournment and to place it on file, which we can take together.

Madam Clerk.

For adjournment, Councillor Ewan Campen?

Yes.

Counselor Link?

Yes.

Counselor Scott?

Yes.

Counselor Klingon?

Yes.

Counselor Strezzo?

Yes.

Counselor Saeed.

Yes.

Counselor Wheeler?

Yes.

Counselor Hart?

Yes.

Counselor McLaughlin?

Yes.

Counselor Mbaugh?

Counselor Davis?

Yes.

We are adjourned.

Okay, everyone.