Good evening, everyone.

I'm Ben Wheeler.

I use he, him pronouns.

I'm a counselor at large and the finance committee chair.

It is 6.04 p.m., and I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, June 9th, 2026 meeting of the Finance Committee of the Somerville City Council.

Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of a city council committee will be conducted via remote participation.

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

We are joined by Clerk Madeline Latelier.

Clerk, could you please call the role to establish quorum?

This is roll call, Counselor Link.

Here.

Counselor Shrezo, present.

Counselor Hart.

Here.

Counselor Scott.

Rosen.

Counselor Wheeler.

Here.

We have counselors present.

We have.

Okay.

Welcome everyone to the first night in a series of departmental budget hearings on the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget.

Thank you to the department heads who are appearing tonight, to their staff members who've been preparing for budget season, to all the counselors who have submitted questions in advance for department heads to address in the memos that we're going to be looking at here tonight, and all the counselors who've got questions brewing to ask further.

As a general note, if I pronounce your name wrong or get your title wrong or use the wrong pronouns for you, please do not hesitate to interrupt me.

I want to get it right.

We will be taking up our agenda, which was just revised slightly about the order, intended to clarify that the law department and the city clerk's office don't report to the chief administrative officer.

And here's how tonight's meeting is going to work, or the intention behind it at least.

This is a slight variation on the approach that the finance committee developed in the last few years, intended to provide opportunity for more thorough answers in advance than in many years before.

And to provide also some context for anyone watching at home and also for us counselors who can't know everything while still keeping the meetings focused.

For each department and division, if there was a departmental memo with responses to counselor questions, uh then uh clerk, uh I would appreciate it if that could be pulled up on screen.

We'll invite the department heads to give a brief overview of their department's role within the administration and its cabinet groupings, especially given that those have been changing a bit.

Uh, and invite each division within the department to give a short overview of their work, uh, any plans for this fiscal year and any major changes.

I'll briefly recap any questions that counselors submitted for that division uh and attempt to quickly paraphrase answers so that people don't have to read the entirety of the answers in these memos aloud, but also invite departments and divisions to elaborate if they wish.

And council members can then take the opportunity to ask any follow-up questions or further questions that they might have.

Also, after we finish discussing any department or division, any counselor will be welcome to make a motion for a cut, should they want to, or to make a motion for a resolution suggesting additional funding.

Uh, those are all within our rights to do.

Any such motions uh we will then table until cut night, which is Tuesday, June 23rd.

Uh, and also I encourage anyone making such motions to uh reach out to the clerk's office and especially to talk to the council's finance analyst, Mohammed Udin ahead of the 23rd.

Okay, with all of that uh out of the way.

Um, first, any questions about our procedures tonight from anyone on the council?

On the committee.

Thanks.

Um, so we're gonna move to executive administration.

Uh and I am not a hundred percent sure who we have from each area.

So um from executive administration.

Uh who do we have here?

Uh I'm seeing a bunch of people.

Hello, Sarah Anders.

Um, please uh feel free to introduce yourself and uh and begin.

Thank you.

Thank you, uh, Chair Wheeler, and through the chair.

Um, my name is Sarah Anders.

I'm the chief of staff for Mayor Jake Wilson, and I'm joined here by our intergovernmental affairs director, Amanda Najin Williams, and our chief administrator, the officer Ken Blouse.

The executive office plays a key leadership function citywide and engages closely with the community to deliver on the mayor's agenda.

That includes strengthening core services, greater transparency and communication with the public, increased efficiency, accessibility, accountability and equity, and building partnerships, both in our local community and region wide.

This year, we, as the mayor presented to you earlier in the year, we have a slightly different structure.

We have two new positions.

One is a community partnerships liaison, and one is the mayor's public liaison.

The community partnerships role plays a key function in working closely with nonprofit partners to deliver on community priorities.

And the public liaison works constantly uh with constituents in pretty much every quorum, uh, in person, email, phone, um, any way that a constituent could be in touch.

These are both key roles that the community urged the mayor to include in his office.

Additionally, we have two executive uh administrative assistants who work primarily on the schedule, finances, event planning, and other key administrative functions.

And as mentioned before, our IGA director and a legislative liaison who reports to that director, as well as our chief administrative officer who serves a key role both in the mayor's office and as her cabinet lead uh for the operations and systems cabinet.

Very uh as well, we have multiple roles that are outside of the uh general fund that are grant funded or funded through other lines, including our Arbor Director, Public Safety for All, uh Program Manager, and our police accountability program director, which is a new role funded in the coming fiscal year.

We're very pleased to be here tonight to present our budget, and we look forward to any questions that you might have.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

And just to recap the question that uh your office answered in a memo that you also personally addressed just now, these two new liaison positions, the public liaison and the community partnerships liaison.

Um, my understanding is those really sort of account for why it made sense to reduce the intergovernmental affairs staff from three to two.

Is that right?

Yes.

Okay, and you also, oh sorry, didn't mean to cut you off.

No, I was saying through you, yes.

Uh and you also mentioned in that memo um having done some work with the processes with city staff to tighten communication deadlines and to make sure there are templates ready so that some of the sort of more time consuming ad hoc communication is is minimized.

Also through you, yes.

Okay.

Uh members of the committee, any questions for executive administration.

I'm seeing counselor Scott.

Thank Councillor Strozzo beat me by a minute.

Oh, sorry, Councilor Streso.

All right, quick to the draw.

You know what, Counselor Scott?

Go ahead.

Uh uh I'm happy to go behind you.

That's that spirit of congeniality.

How about it?

All right.

Uh thank you, counselor, and thank you, uh Chair Wheeler.

Uh, just a quick question.

Uh, the digital innovation officer was uh in the budget last year and uh is not this year.

Was that position ever advertised or hired?

No.

It was never even advertised.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to speak for the previous administration.

Um in our administration, that position no longer exists.

And I I don't, I don't I don't know.

If I may, yeah, please.

Mr.

Chair Three, um, that uh item came before the council in January, and the council approved repurposing several positions in the executive executive office budget in order to create the two new positions that the chief of staff just mentioned, the community partnerships liaison and the mayor's public liaison roles.

Yeah, I was just asking if they if it had ever been advertised or hired.

And it sounds like the answer to that is no.

Through the chair, it had been filled at the time of this administration coming into office and was then reorganized.

Gotcha.

All right.

So that wouldn't go into our layoff tally here, but it was it was a filled position that was then repurposed.

Got it.

Yes.

Uh and uh I guess my only other question, and and this is Mr.

Chair, you're welcome to tell me this is too far afield since it's a grant funded position, but uh what exactly are the different uh job roles or responsibilities in terms of deliverables for the two different uh positions, the uh police accountability program director and the public safety for all coordinator.

Can you differentiate between what those two uh folks are going to be doing?

Absolutely.

Um through you, Mr.

Chair.

Um so the public safety for all uh program manager has been with us for uh at least about six months now, and this role has really been translating a lot of the recommendations that came out of the process um that the was led by the racial and social justice team um to uh engage in sort of a community process to uh promote public safety for all.

And so that work is really translating um all of those recommendations into actionable ways that we can move forward.

And one of those ways is a uh civilian oversight board for police.

So the idea is that while the public safety for all program manager has a key role in setting up and helping uh get this program off the ground, the uh police accountability program director will be the one who actually oversees the new board and implements it.

All right, thank you for that.

I'm all set, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Counselor Streso.

Uh thank you.

So we're going to be speaking the uh if I understand uh correctly, the uh Mr.

Chair, your process on this.

So the executive um administration, and then we will go on to operations and systems in the administration, and then city council.

Are we doing this in one um?

Order is as I understand it, is after executive administration, we'll do law and then the city clerk's office, and then finance with a whole bunch of divisions within it and programs within it, and then finally operations and systems with a whole bunch of divisions and functions within it.

Okay, and that's tonight.

And so city clerk licensing commission will be tonight, but that in summer stat will be uh addressed tonight, but not at this moment.

You are this is strictly your aunt to get this to okay.

Yeah, summer stat will be under operations and systems.

Okay, but not the administration.

Okay.

Um, with that, I'm poking around through my actual book, I heavy luscious 500-page binder.

I love this.

Um I'm all ready to rock.

Um, oh no, where'd I go?

Um, I don't know.

We can hear you.

Okay, I'm still present.

Um wanted to ask a quick question.

Uh the uh if we look at the uh in the administration executive office, we have badges of emblems and trophies in FY25 actual was 27,000 this year.

Proposed in uh 27 is down to 4,000.

I understand different administration, but could we get a quick uh thought process on that?

If I may, please.

Um through you to the chair, I'm seeing here that it was five thousand dollars in the previous year, and that's what we requested again.

Um I'm I might be missing something.

Those are things two years ago.

I'm sorry, FY25 actual was 27,920.

Again, different administration, I know.

Um, but that's a that's a pretty large pendulum swing from nearly 30,000 to uh proposed for 4,000 uh in 2027.

Um what does this typically get used for?

What what is your vision of using uh this money for?

Absolutely, through you to the chair.

So this is things like the um there's plaques that commemorative plaques that we have in the high school.

Um perhaps I don't want to speculate, I shouldn't speculate on record.

Um uh the mayor's portrait that's hanging on the wall.

Um this is not something that we would anticipate needing uh 27,000 for without an extraordinary reason.

Um I don't know the answer for it.

It looks like okay, uh, it looks like they spent $8,000 rather than 27,000.

I don't know the answer for why they would have requested 27,000, but I'm happy to check.

No, um, Mr.

Chair, through you to uh to uh director Anderson, yes.

Uh no, it's uh yeah, I happy to have a follow-up on it.

It's uh was more uh interested in in your approach of where you uh were going with this.

I don't um yes, and and wouldn't want you, I wouldn't hold you accountable for a different administration in in the past of course.

Um but uh uh so I guess what what were you envisioning doing with this $4,000 this year?

Is um etc.

Through you to the chair.

Um we do have some corrections that need to be made on the existing plaques.

There are certain things that we may, you know, should uh uh there need to be a revision on the portrait, or um, should we need to provide a trophy for some reason for some special event or community need um we would use this line, but we would be judicious in doing so.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, uh Counselor Stresso, and thank you for that answer, Director Andrews.

Anyone other members of the committee have any questions?

Okay, I am seeing none.

Um are there any motions at this time um to uh propose a cut to propose a resolution or anything else?

Okay, seeing none, uh thank you very much, and we will move on to uh the law department.

Um if we have the city attorney's office ready, and thank you everyone for bearing with a bit of this switching around as we try to figure out who we can get looped in.

Clerk, do you know if I've got this correct that the city attorney is next?

I am not aware of the staffing that is present.

That is um IgA, but I have city council coming up next.

Are you anticipating a change in the schedule for the evening?

The agenda should be on the screen.

No, the um uh thank you.

City council uh and then law would be perfectly fine.

Uh have the order mixed up, I guess.

Um do we have uh clerk Henderson, City Clerk Henderson, uh perhaps.

Oh, hi, we have city attorney Amara.

Apologize for for the confusion.

If uh if we have you, city attorney, then maybe we should go out of order and do law and then come back to uh to city clerk.

Thank you very much.

Um okay.

Uh uh city attorney, please uh feel free to take this opportunity, although you do not have to, um, to tell us and and tell the public about what your office uh and department uh do.

Very briefly, we are an internal law office for the city.

Um our client is the city.

We represent the administration, the administration, the council departments.

We represent claims that come into the city, we take on litigation.

We provide full service, a full service law department for the city of Somerville.

Thank you so much.

Uh and just to briefly summarize this question and answer that uh you helped provide in this memo.

There was a question about there, there's so many new terms for many of us.

Uh the legal services line uh in the ordinary maintenance section, and my understanding is that is an outside council uh service, so that when the law office needs specialized help, such as immigration advice, uh litigation council, um, there's a uh a group that we can reach out to and ask these questions.

Is that a decent summary?

Yes, that's correct.

Sometimes there will be some specific questions that are very specialized, and in order to fully provide accurate and detailed information, like to HR, for example, we would retain outside counsel for um their expertise.

We also had more outside counsel in litigation that has been resolved or ended.

So that is also a number that's going down as well.

But it's yes, it's but when we need help with specialized council, that's what we use.

Thank you so much.

Members of the committee, uh, does anyone have any questions?

I'm seeing Councillor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh through you.

Um I just to follow up on on the question of the legal services.

Uh I'm just curious.

Uh I mean, I guess you you kind of hinted at it, but uh the uh you know the actual from uh you know 25 FY25 to FY26, um is a pretty stark contrast.

Uh you know, are we which it seems like we're just kind of regularly budgeting around 500k, 550k.

Um, but do we do we actually I I understand that maybe it's a bit of speculation, but how how likely is it that we're gonna actually be um how likely is it that we're gonna need that from what you can see of our current risks, which is nothing that's holding against.

I guess I'm just saying, I don't know which one makes more sense.

You know, if it 100,000 makes sense, 150 makes sense, 160, 500.

Um the 500 number, the 700 number was higher than what we would expect to see ordinarily because there were some larger litigations that were going on.

There were some um more regular use of outside council that we're no longer using.

So the 500 number seems to be roughly where we're coming in, and what seems to make sense to give us if litigation comes along that we have the money, but not to fund the more standardized outside council that we don't foresee using or needing.

Thank you.

That's that's the kind of that's what I was trying to get up very inelquently.

Thank you very much.

Uh thank you, Counselor Link.

Counselor Scott.

Uh yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh, through you.

Um just taking a look, uh taking a look back.

I, you know, one of the goals from last year was uh assisting with implementation of the proposed city charter submitted to state legislature for approval.

Um do you consider that to be a work completed type of item at this point?

Well, from the point of view that there were resolution of outstanding issues, that it was submitted to the legislature, it was explained to the legislature.

The legislature signed off on it.

We were able to get it ballot question.

The citizens decided to include the revision to the charter.

I do believe the work that was stated in our goal is completed.

Okay.

Uh all right.

I guess.

Um you know, I I know this is uh you said you'd get back to me on it, but uh through you, Mr.

Chair.

I I actually had put in a question about how our charter uh language in 6-4 um actually interacts with the budget that would be submitted from the school committee.

Uh and just to interject, Counselor Scott, it it could be helpful.

Uh I know you may not have the precise language in front of you, but just for anyone who doesn't know 6-4, maybe uh could summarize real quick.

Sure, I'd be happy to uh let me pull let me pull it up right here for a minute.

Um Mr.

Chair and uh Councilor Scott, section 6.4 uh under operating uh article six financial procedures, section six point four.

Yeah.

So uh the proposed operating budget shall include the school budget as adopted by the school committee, which shall be submitted to the mayor on or about May 15th.

Now I was there a vote taken by the school committee uh prior to the submission of this budget on June 4th to uh to adopt the school budget.

Councillor Scott, my understanding is there was not a committee of the whole vote until I believe last night.

And I just want to correct the record.

My office did respond to your question.

It was sent out to you today.

I apologize if it took us as long to get in and out of the nuances that were raised by the questions, but we did in fact send a response and it was sent um to you to uh President Davis IGA and if you don't have it, we'll be happy to resend it.

I apologize.

No, it came in three hours ago.

So uh, you know, my my apologies for not being up to the minute.

I apologize for taking that longer.

So uh some I'm just trying to understand what the uh what our current legal status is in terms of having uh a budget before us, uh if it was not voted on by the school committee before it was presented to us, um is there a vote?

Uh you said there was a vote of the full school committee last night, uh presumably to adopt their version of the budget that has actual 600,000.

Is that right?

Counselor Scott, I'm sorry, sorry to interrupt.

I just want to make sure I don't want to cut you off from this direction, uh, but I do want to make sure that we are, you know, you you started this out asking sort of about the uh the legal focus on implementing the charter uh and the you know the sort of budget focus of that.

And I also think there's a lot of clearly obviously a lot of budget questions that are relevant here.

I do want to make sure that we're keeping in mind that this session right now, uh you know, with the city attorney's office is focused on the use of the city attorney's portion of the budget, so to speak.

So I I'm not I'm not I'm not saying don't keep asking about this.

I just wanted to to put a little flag up that like I might I might interrupt you again in a minute.

Does that does that feel fair?

Uh I mean, Ms.

Chair, you're within your uh purview to limit any amount of quilometer questions.

I'm just trying to ask uh our city attorney, who uh is as I think I just heard the general uh law firm that serves the city council uh and uh the mayor in the context of the goal that was in there last time about implementing the charter.

Uh since we have a new charter which has new regulations for how budgets are supposed to operate, I'm trying to understand uh what the current state of play is.

Are we currently in is it the city attorney's opinion that we are currently in compliance with the charter language?

Yes, it is.

All right.

And with if I may continue to just even if you were to take a view that my office doesn't take, keep in mind at any point the mayor's budget can in fact be meant to be um amended to actually say this was the school committee's budget.

But if you um get a chance to read the opinion we wrote, I think you will understand our position as to why we believe this is completely within the realm of what was anticipated by the charter, that there is nothing that prevents this budget from going forward as presented and as it's going to.

And I encourage you that if you have any questions after you've had a chance to fully look at what we tried to lay out in as clear as possible terms for you that you'd bring them back in the form of further questions to me, and we'll be happy to try to further address them for you.

All right.

Well, I I have this document.

Um Ms.

Chair, I I guess I'll might have to submit this as a communication as a late item for uh city council on Thursday, just so the public who has been asking me questions about this will be able to read and understand it, hopefully as well as that.

Thank you, Ms.

Chair.

I'm also set.

Thank you.

And thank you for bringing up these questions.

I I've been having a lot of these same conversations and uh also as much as I feel like I've come to understand more, still a lot that I'm confused about.

So I appreciate it.

Any other members of the committee have any questions for the city attorney's office?

Uh okay, seeing none, uh does anyone have any motions to put forward at this time.

Seeing none, uh, let's move on.

And thank you so much, city attorney.

Um, okay.

So uh going back to the order.

Um we have the um the city council uh listed here.

And I I was not sure uh if we were gonna get someone from city staff uh representing the city council, uh or what exactly, or if that's just that's just us.

Uh thank you.

I see uh city clerk Anderson.

Uh City Clerk, uh, would you like to speak about both the city clerk's office and the city council more broadly?

Sure, absolutely and definitely them uh in interest of time.

So through uh Mr.

Chair, through you, um at the city clerk, I am presenting the proposed budget, uh which primarily supports a council's core operational needs.

Um the majority of this budget funds the council salaries and the essential work of the support staff, such as the committee clerks.

Um, their main responsibility are to help publish the agendas, draft and post the meeting minutes and remain available to assist uh members of the council and respond to their questions.

Um, this allocation, particularly to the city council ensures the council can carry out its legislative responsibilities effectively and transparently.

But I did want to pause here if there were any questions particular to the city council, as they're a little a little different.

Thank you.

Members of the committee, any questions about staffing and funding around the city council.

Councilor Strassa?

Yes, thank you.

Hold on.

Let me go formal.

My hand is up.

Counselor Strasa.

Oh, thank you.

Okay.

Um really quick uh through you to uh City Clerk Henderson.

So wanted to ask about under city clerk.

Oh no, we're at uh city council right now.

Um second.

Take your time, Councilor Strasser.

This is the most important part of the government.

So well, I mean I was gonna say it, but you could say it.

I kid, I can't.

Okay.

Um, I you know what, I can hold on to uh this is a city clerk question.

Sure.

Uh under the city clerk, not uh city council.

So if you want to talk to me back in line, uh or happy to ask the city clerk question.

All right, hold that thought.

Okay.

I see Councillor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, not that it's a large item, but I'm just curious.

Uh what dues and memberships did we have that we no longer have?

Probably doesn't matter, but that is a great question.

I am not uh a hundred percent sure of the membership dues that you all had.

Okay.

Um I guess I would like to know that just to make sure.

Just in the future.

If I may, um, Mike Masterbone, budget director for the city.

Um, that line was misallocated last year.

Uh, we corrected the uh glitch uh this year, and going back to normal there.

You'll notice that there was no uh expenditure in fiscal 26.

So we've corrected that going forward.

Perfect then.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Any other questions from counselors about the city council funding?

Um let's move on to uh the city clerk, and then I'll ask about motions at the end of this presentation.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Through you over the past few weeks, I have met with staff across the office to gain a clear understanding of our operations and where we can most effectively steward our resources.

At its core, the clerk's office provides essential day-to-day services for the public and for the council.

Our team supports council and committee processes and manages routine but critical functions uh such as processing birth and death certificates, business and event permits, liquor licenses, and other services that residents and business owners depend on.

Uh, with the foundation in mind, um, I'm sure you all know that there are some recent staffing changes, and I want to talk a little bit about how we plan to respond to them.

Um, we lost our assistant clerk of vital records um position, and my immediate priority has been ensuring that those duties continue to be performed and with and without disruption.

I am working directly with the team to reassign those responsibilities and also prioritize the time-sensitive work that the this position had.

And we've work uh also working to maintain service levels for constituents, business owners, and other departments.

I am actively training with uh the staff to understand the day-to-day operations so that I can provide those additional support that my amazing and self-sufficient team uh may need.

To further protect staff capacity and meeting continuity, we are evaluating um additional uh another part-time committee clerk.

Uh, this would provide more consistent coverage for meetings, reduce the strain on current staff, and help prevent burnout while preserving the quality of council support.

Um, turning to our records and preservation work, the archives team is leading two important modern modernization efforts.

Um, so in collaboration with the engineering division, archives is developing an internal repository of plans to preserve the historic project plans that make them easier and accessible to the public.

And at the same time, Archives is preparing a self-service search for special permit grant authority records, allowing residents to independently locate documents online.

So both of these initiatives advance the city's goal to preserve digital and fiscal records and also improving transparency.

Um that is a little bit about the clerk's office and which also covers the archives.

Thank you, City Clerk.

I see Councillor Scott.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair, through you.

You know, mapping the org chart from uh last year to this year here is a little bit tricky.

Uh so I'm gonna take a swing at this and I'm happy to be corrected.

It looks like there was a legislative services manager, uh, an assistant city clerk, and a licensing operations manager on the org chart last year.

And now only an assistant city clerk slash legislative services.

So were there two positions removed this year?

There were.

Okay.

Yes.

And uh one of those was filled when it was eliminated, correct?

Correct.

And the one that was not filled, had that been previously filled, and when did that go vacant?

It went vacant back in December.

In December.

Yes.

All right.

Uh the council approved that decision back in December.

Yeah, no, I recall, I recall.

Okay.

Uh thank you very much, Mr.

Chair.

I'm also thank you.

I see Counselor Hart.

Thank you, Chair Wheeler.

I I just wanted to be sure um that I was clear.

So through you to clerk.

Um I thought I heard you say that you to have capacity, we're gonna add a part-time clerk position.

So is that how does that relate to the positions?

That's it.

That's what's in the I think I that's what I'm seeing in the org chart in the budget.

Is that correct?

Um but that's going to be a new position.

So the two positions were removed, and one part-time position is going to be added.

Is that correct?

Through you, Mr.

Chair, we are exploring options to support a third committee clerk.

Right now we have two that support all the committees.

Um, but because of the loss of one of the positions, uh, the assistant city clerk, we are looking to find other ways to continue the support that you all need.

Does that I don't mean it?

I don't mean to jump in, but I I feel like that didn't quite answer councilor heart's question.

Uh it and and just I I don't mean I don't mean to insert myself here, but just to clarify, um, I'm not seeing in the personnel listing a part-time position listed.

Am I missing something or looking in the wrong place?

Or is this is the idea of creating this part-time assistant clerk role, not currently in this proposed budget.

Through you, Mr.

Chair, it is under um the assistant city clerk legislative services.

And then if you go down to legislative clerk, you'll see clerk of committees is listed here.

Oh, I see this point.

Uh, this one-quarter full-time position.

Yes, Mr.

Chair, through you, yes.

Um, it's in the city council budget paid out of the same um same money, it's just divided between more people.

So right now we have to the money which will be distributed amongst the city.

Thanks.

Um is that in the personnel listing at the bottom is the idea that that with that one quarter, the point five.

Uh you know, I'm doing a little math here, the clerk's assistant.

Uh, these partial uh time roles.

Uh is the idea that in this personnel listing chart we have what they add up to, or are those not present here?

Because I see these different roles listed with a FTE column, but I'm not seeing a role that's 0.25 FTE or full-time equivalent, uh, a role that's 0.375 full-time equivalent.

Mr.

Chair, if I may, um, part-time non-benefited positions are not in the listing here.

Um, what you're looking at is um full-time uh benefits eligible positions.

Um typically if something's paid through, um you'll see uh a line called salaries and wages temporary.

Um that's for for sort of uh part-time positions.

Um, those are not full-time uh you know permanent positions, so they're not listed as part of the appropriation.

Um you'll see those referenced for clarity, um, but they don't uh uh you know, given their their status, they're not listed in here.

Thank you for that clarification.

And I'm sorry to have derailed your question.

Let me give the floor back to you, Counselor Hart.

No, that was very helpful.

I appreciate the answers.

Thank you.

Um okay, thank you, Counselor Hart, Counselor Strezzo.

Thank you.

And and uh those are yeah, if I understand this correctly, those are our uh new Mehica and Erica positions.

So no, those are these through you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh no, these are committee clerks.

The people you're referring to are project assistants.

Okay, and they're they're still because uh pardon me, through you, Mr.

Chair, through the uh to our clerk Henderson.

So they're still allocated for this year or going forward, but yeah, okay, that's good because I know that we're lose one and we have one, and we're yeah, okay.

And through you, Mr.

Chair, we are also actively interviewing.

We actually just conducted our first one or interviews for a new project assistance.

So more to come on that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um my question is on page 87 with the credit card convenience fee.

Uh we are uh we we proposed $3500.

Uh FY26 year before actual was was less last year.

We had uh we we so last year with our credit card convenience convenience fee.

Uh our approved budget was 4500 for it.

We were anticipating that, but the actual was 2457.

The proposed going into this budget is 3500 down a thousand dollars.

Um is there any way?

And I assume that this is with like licenses and and ways that it makes convenient for our constituents to pay these bills.

I get that.

Is there any way that we can incentivize people to not use credit cards?

Do we have any flexibility with that?

Mr.

Chair, I believe there are some ways that we can share with our residents best payment plan payment methods.

I I don't think that would be uh an issue at all.

Thank you.

And I know Clerk Henderson, I know you're you're you're I know this is new and and definitely not like trying to to expect all these uh answers coming coming at you right now.

Um but more just if we can save um a little bit of money and and and find a way for I I know that credit card credit cards are convenient, but we know that restaurants all over the city or in in different services try to find a way to take off that that burden of of that extra surcharge.

And is there some way if we can within mass general law and with us in some kind of incentivizing, hey, maybe we give a tote back or some kind of incentive incentivizing in some way uh to shave off that um as we get into this this budget.

Um just a thought, but more entertaining and thinking out loud.

But I I think it would be compelling way to to do that.

Just a thought.

Through you, Mr.

Chair and Councilor Strazzo.

Um, we do the city does pay those fees um so that it is not passed down to our residents.

Um but I appreciate the question and the concern for our our residents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Uh thank you, Councilor Streso.

Counselor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Through you.

Um so I've got a couple quick questions.

I think which questions?

Um the first one is more just um educating me.

Um I'm confused as to so there's vital records and then there's licensing.

Um, and they seem like they're kind of merged together.

Uh so can I should know this, but I don't.

Um, can you illuminate me here?

Um what is so I obviously know what a license is.

Um, what other vital records are we talking?

So I'm guessing there's birth, death, marriage, is there are there other things beyond that?

Through you, Mr.

Chair at the Councillor and League, yes, you are absolutely correct.

Those are the vital records that the city clerk's office process.

Okay.

All right.

Um, so then um all those being um pretty important, and then of course licenses being pretty important.

Um also um do we have like um kind of like SLAs in place for how how you know turnaround uh on those um those things is I think is I don't know how I assume that death records and licenses are probably um typically the most urgent, but I don't know if there's like they all could be.

I'm also um do we have like um kind of like SLAs in place for how how you know turnaround on those um those things is I think is I don't know how I assume that death records and licenses are probably um typically the most urgent but I don't know there's like they all could be um do we have SLAs involved with with with those and and just to clarify to to always call for uh acronyms to be defined good call you're that one correct service level uh agreement is what it's and it's really I guess it wouldn't actually be like I I don't I'm using SLA because I don't know the better word to use that but like you know uh how quickly like there's some sort of like metric for like oh we we should be getting any like license like sent out within 48 hours or one week or I don't know what it is.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair through you to Counselor League.

Yes there are those measures in place.

We do have a very quick turnaround actually pretty quickly if so if if someone were to email the city clerk's office requesting a birth certificate or death certificate the team is amazing they respond in the same day it's very rare that they respond a day later and if it is it's usually because uh the person was out sick or maybe out on vacation but we always have other staff that are trained to kind of do everyone's job and I can't take full credit to that I definitely have to give that to my uh uh predecessor uh she done did an amazing job to making sure that the staff was always ready to go so we have a very quick turnaround um these things are usually processed in in the same day in terms of licensing there's and I don't want to jump too far here because I know we're gonna get to the licensing commission uh next but we process all of those um pretty quickly after the mayor approves and signs off those are usually issued in the same day wonderful so my my follow up question on on this point um is just you know with the the reorganization and reduction and and um you know number of hours being worked are we are do you feel confident that we're gonna be able to maintain that I I you guys are doing an excellent excellent job no one let's uh I or at least I would not say otherwise um I don't want to speak for everyone um but so do you think you're gonna be able to maintain that that really high um turnaround time through you Mr.

Chair to Counselor Link yes I am very confident that we can maintain and we will continue to deliver the service that we have and um we I meet with Maddie consistently we we talk every day to figure out how we can best support the the council and the whole entire Somerville community I have uh no concerns.

Okay thank you um and then my last um it's more just a comment than anything or the um uh a a question to implant that's not answerable at this moment um is just you know I I do notice that you know we we've got like a number and and in some cases there's maybe not overlap but in some cases it seems like there are um for these like the part-time positions uh and you know one thing that always um that always rings like a little uh alarm for me is when there's uh a strategy of maybe um having a lot of part-time positions to avoid having to um you know give people benefits to make them full time give them get them benefits uh and create you know positions where there's uh you know people can have a livable wage um so you know I I guess I just want to make sure that we're um we're being financially prudent but also um not scheme and I'm not just not to suggest that that you are but just in I I think it's it's really important to consider um you know uh it's something that when I used to do hiring and stuff I would have to um and my boss would tell me how many hours people were allowed to work and it was because they specifically want to avoid things like that I want to make sure that we're as a city we're giving our workers um you know the opportunities that that they deserve um so I again I don't think it's something you can answer right now I don't I don't but um I would just love it if you would think about that as as your building future plans absolutely Mr.

Chair through you to counselor link absolutely and I don't think you're calling me scheme at all I think these are all valid concerns and I do welcome them I do keep that in mind absolutely um as someone who's been in the similar position I will say that most of our committee clerks if not all of them work remote and they typically work the the hours of the meetings um so we do keep in mind that we are very flexible and we're very lean at least I like to think that I am um I like to accommodate people um in whatever they need whatever accommodation they need to chair through through the chair thank you thank you counselor link and uh city clerk Henderson um we already sort of transitioned in the topic area to licensing commission would you like to to say anything about that sure uh it's a pretty straightforward budget I um I think this is one of the easier ones and I'm glad that it came last um most of the budget for the licensing commission supports the our commissioners uh which we have three uh on where they do a wonderful job reviewing all of the licenses or at least the applications that come through um and uh I can't say enough great things about them they're a really great committee to uh commission to work with um you'll see that it's it's a pretty small

Sure.

It's a pretty straightforward budget.

I um I think this is one of the easier ones, and I'm glad that they came last.

Um most of the budget for the licensing commission supports the our commissioners, uh, which we have three uh on there.

They do a wonderful job reviewing all of the licenses or at least the applications that come through.

Um and uh I can't say enough great things about them.

They're a really great committee to uh the mission to work with.

Um you'll see that it's a pretty small budget, but I'm happy to uh answer any questions.

Thank you.

I see Councillor Strezzo Thank you.

All right.

So my first term in office was in May of 2020.

And I was I saw the transition, and of course, just the total panoramic tsunami of everything and a complete systemic change while the pandemic was happening.

And one of the changes was that the licensing commission.

Um the the city council gave permission to the licensing commission to uh help with uh well eventually outdoor dining once we were able to be in in spaces together and not distance.

Um the licensing commission took over uh uh help of liquor licenses and adjusted that.

And then they took on the recreational cannabis um uh requirements.

And they uh from what I understand have not received a pay increase in their work since 2012.

I know that there was a compensation study that the last mayor's office put forward um with the boards and commissions that are paid, the the few that there they are, and the licensing is is one, our three commissioners um are one.

And the licensing commission did not receive uh, I don't believe any real significant pay increase.

Now watching the commissioners and me and my first term of office watching them take on these extra tasks and keep the city afloat and running, meanwhile as well, watching restaurant owners and fields and and businesses that never thought in a million years they would endure what they had to do in as a restaurant here and a small business from liquor licenses to outdoor dining to what is even outdoor dining look like and the licensing commission, I saw how utterly reliant the city of Somerville was on the license licensing commissioners to do this role um successfully and and keep our city uh afloat in these in these in these fields.

So in 2022, the the commissioners requested an increase of salary.

Uh they didn't get it.

The ZBA gets now 6K, 6,000 a year, the commissioners.

Uh and the board of assessors makes over 9,000.

Um the licensing commission commissioners currently still make they don't even clear five five thousand.

Now this commissioners and the roles they do, they have to know what they're doing.

You can't just take on liquor license to be like, I've always been interested in that.

Like these are these are these are dedicated commissioners.

So I'm proposing, I mean, I'm I'm happy to hear um your thoughts on this from the administration, but I will be putting forward a motion to increase the uh licensing commissioners' salaries from as a total collectively of the three of them to $15,000 180.

I didn't put the motion forward.

I'm I'm explaining what I'm doing, and then I'll put the motion forward.

So 15, uh 180 uh total with the chair getting 5,180, because the chair gets uh 180 dollars more and $5,000 uh uh annually for commissioner one and commissioner two.

So there's three total, those two commissioners getting 5,000 and uh and and 5180 total.

So would you prefer, Mr.

Chair, that I make the motion now, or would you prefer we deliberate on this?

Well, I would be curious if there's any response and then and then maybe make the motion.

Uh sorry, please.

The the floor is yours, city clerk and budget director.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just briefly, um, you know, this is something we need to look at.

Uh different commissions, different uh boards have different um requirements or or uh uh you know uh and something that we'll do is take a look at that.

And I appreciate the comments from um Councillor Strength, we'll take that into under advisory.

Thank you, budget director.

Counselor Stress, would you like to make the motion?

I'm gonna put a motion forward that we adjust and increase the lines of the of the licensing commissioners to total collectively 15, 180 annual, uh with a breakdown of the chair of the licensing board receiving five thousand one hundred and eighty dollars.

And licensing commissioners uh two and three making five thousand dollars each uh annually.

Thank you, counselor.

Uh clerk, is this motion in order?

Yes, that that motion would be in order.

Uh oh, thank you.

I actually meant uh to direct that to Maddie who is clerking the meeting, although I appreciate the perspective.

Yes, sorry, I'm just writing it down.

I previously have not been part of a budget meeting where we've unless I'm forgetting everything.

Maybe do it in committee, so I'm just making sure I have this correct.

Can you um share the specific line that you're referring to so I can include that?

Okay, under uh uh Mr.

Chair, through you to uh uh Maddie.

Uh so it's under personnel listening page 90 in the budget book.

And just just if you're on the website, it's under departmental budgets and then operations and systems and then licensing commission.

Apologize too.

There's like many attachments over here.

If you could just read the line.

Oh, I can't I can write it in.

Okay, then give me two moments so I can uh Mr.

Chair, if I may, um that would be uh uh uh course of committees.

I'm sorry, licensing commission salaries would be the line.

Thank you.

Or should I say sorry, yeah, licensing which I said that right?

Mr.

Chair on that point, uh please, Councillor Link.

Um I'm just trying to actually make figure out the math here because uh I see that we like in so in 2025 it was 10,000 that we actually spent.

I'm assuming we didn't have a one of the commissioners the full time, um, but we had budgeted 13,000.

Um and then again in 26 we we spent around a little less than 10k.

Um, and we're again proposing um a little over 13,000.

The but the math isn't math thing for me.

Um you know if there's three positions at roughly three thousand dollars, uh you know, or let's say four thousand dollars each.

That would be that would be twelve.

Um so it's under twelve.

Uh so uh can I just understand?

I guess first of all, confirmation of what I assume is that we have not that there's been moments where we have not had the position filled, uh one of the commission seats filled, and also um why why there's what looks like extra money in the proposed budget versus what is the what we're actually paying in the first place.

I I do want to hear the answer to this.

I also encourage us to just keep in mind if if we're talking about sort of rounding error amounts of like you know, these three amounts might add up to 13,000 and change, not just 13,000.

Yeah, there's a you know, a likely calendar related answer.

I just want to sort of encourage us all to keep our eyes on the prize a little bit here of um making sure we're using the time because there's some items coming up that are hundreds of thousands of dollars, tens of millions of dollars.

Uh but your point I was just curious if we're because it since we're actually looking to up it.

I would otherwise I probably might have left it alone.

Totally understood.

Uh budget director Master Boning.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Likely um perhaps the timing when the original report was run.

of encourage us all to keep our eyes on the prize a little bit here of um making sure we're using the time because there's some items coming up that are hundreds of of thousands of dollars tens of millions of dollars uh but your point i was just curious if we're because since we're actually looking to to up it i would otherwise i probably might have left it alone totally understood uh budget director master boney uh thank you mr chair likely um perhaps the timing when the original report was run uh i'll take a look at that um looking at the salaries for the folks 13 uh thousand zero five nine looks right um uh i see the fiscal 25 actual is 11628 uh we updated those recently so you know we'll go back and take a look and make sure that everything uh there there could have been there could have been turnover but I'm happy to circle back on that okay so yeah uh yeah I think that knowing that there's like a vacancy I think is interesting to me and then it suggests that maybe we do need to pay more thank you uh thank you counselor link um okay anything else from the committee on the licensing commission so uh pardon me uh oh I'm sorry yes we uh I dropped the ball on your motion um so uh clerk by the way I uh my understanding is that I'm following past precedent of there being an opportunity for these motions with the intention of placing them on on the table until cut night um is that something that uh vice chair Scott you have thoughts on the motion that is correct that is past practice I'd encourage laying the item on the table and we can revisit it on cut night uh clerk Latelier is there anything more that you need for this motion before we take action on it I am just thinking through the recent motions we have had in committee where a motion has been made a roll call has been taken and has reported out as an order for the next item if that is the intention of Counselor Streso I will take a roll call on the motion in front of us and I will read it back out to the committee members.

And just uh cut night that is a meeting of the committee of the whole correct where specific motions are also made.

Thank you.

So uh I don't think we would need this motion to to leave committee between now and then right it could it could just stay in committee.

Correct I can just make note of it in the minutes of the desired decision.

Counselor Shezo can make that specific cut on cut night increase or excuse me sorry that is yeah sorry the a resolution in this case yes okay great I will make note of that in the minutes.

Thank you.

And as an Mr Chair as an item as a motion that's been laid on the table it will appear on future uh agendas uh throughout the budget process including thank you for that clarity um okay so that motion is laid on the table uh with the intention of uh taking it up on June 23rd if we are all in order then uh let's move on with uh well unless there's any other motions on the table from the council I think that's you want to chair sorry just one moment if the intention is to take a vote on the item I can take a roll call right now and vote I think I think the intention is to take this back up on the 23rd.

Is that correct Councillor Strezzo?

I I'm I'd like to take a roll call uh Ms.

Chair I my understanding is that's not the practice that the council has had in this case uh and that the deliberating about questions like this one is really intended to be happening on the 23rd.

So counselor strezo I'm I'm gonna ask that we lay that one on the table with the intention of picking it back up on the 23rd because then that's an opportunity to make the case to have the council act I I think these questions with at this step in the process the intention is not for the finance committee to be making recommendations on this but for the meeting of the committee of the whole on the 23rd to be taking them up does that sound fair if that's what you're the chair of this committee so if that's what you would like to do then that's what that's uh we'll proceed as that.

Okay thank you.

All right so that motion is laid on the table with the intention of picking it back up on the 23rd.

Okay.

I believe we are probably going to be able to hear from uh director of finance at Bean.

Um, so I would love to hear from anyone in finance who wants to pick up the baton.

Hello.

Stop again.

Okay, good evening, counselors, the chair.

Uh I've been asked to sort of uh describe the structure of the finance department.

So you're seeing uh fair amount of reorganization going on in the city government, but we uh don't need to reorganize.

Our reorganization took place way back in the year 2000 when the mayor at that time, Dorothy Kelly Gay uh uh put forward a motion to adopt Chapter 43C, Section 11 of the Mass General Laws, which allows for the creation of a consolidated department of finance.

So the statute we adopted um combines the functions and statutory duties of assessing treasury procurement and auditing into one department.

Later in our history, we added on grants development.

So we have a combined uh finance department, each headed up by a division head who reports to me as a finance director.

The statute also created the position of finance director.

So we have operations under a single centralized departments, and obviously you get a lot of structural and operational benefits by doing so.

As we meet constantly as a team, we share information on cash flow, budget, debt, procurement, and that helps to streamline our operations and maximize the flow of transactions and information by working together hand by hand.

So the statute vests the finance director as one of the statutory officers.

So I have a combined role.

I'm the finance director, and I'm also the city auditor.

Um I think differs uh between finance and a lot of city departments is that first of all, the legal foundation of municipal finance is the mass general laws.

There are many statutes, uh court rulings, regulations, and guidelines from the State Department of Revenue that we must adhere to.

So as opposed to, let's say, city policy or ordinances.

Uh, we must abide by state law, and we answer to the State Department of Revenue.

We can't set our tax rate without their approval.

We can't we can't get our balance sheet approved without their approval or free cash.

So we just want folks to understand that.

So there's myriad functions here, and each division head will talk to you about it.

But the mass general laws really cover things like property valuation, tax administration, investment of municipal funds, cash management, um, bidding and proposals on the procurement law, expenditure control under uh chapter 44, and uh and the accounting functions of the city.

So that's basically what what the um finance department is composed of.

So, in terms of just some major uh strategic goals, needless to say, we're encountering a sort of a perfect storm of financial pressures this year.

Um, declining, which we've spoken about, that I've spoken about.

The mayor's spoken about declining commercial growth, rising inflation, skyrocketing health care costs, uh, stagnant state aid, and of course, expenses that are outpacing our revenue growth.

So we're in more difficult times right now.

Prop two and a half constrains our ability to raise property tax revenue, as you all know.

Uh, I don't see the commercial growth coming back uh very very soon.

So uh we're going to have to sit down and uh revise our multi-year long-range forecast after decisions are made in this budget.

That's going to be asked uh critical strategic framework for dealing with what lies ahead.

Uh and so we'll be looking at developing realistic revenue forecasts.

We'll look at historical trends and economic metrics, uh, and then look at where where we expect our fixed expenditures to grow.

Um so we we will be working over the summer on that.

I'm also going to be engaging the school department.

I spoke to the CFO of the school department, because I'll be asking the school department to come up with a three-year plan of expenditures that we can incorporate into our long-range plan so we can fully expect uh plan for what's ahead in the next few years.

Uh, second, uh, we will also plan and partner with our departments to update the five-year capital plan and determine what we can and cannot do given these financial circumstances in front of you.

You can see many of the reserves being uh appropriated for capital projects going forward.

Uh, you all know we have billions and millions of dollars of infrastructure repairs needed in the city.

We also have to build a new elementary school, and that could be more than 200 million dollars on our dime.

So we have to plan for that as well.

Uh we're also always interested in protecting our triple A bond rating.

It was uh reconfirmed last week by standard and fours because a drop in that rating would cost us many uh more millions of dollars in interest costs when we borrow from our capital plans.

Um so that's just that's just a general overview of the finance department.

Uh if if you'd like, Mr.

Chairman, we can move to the auditing uh department presentation.

Thank you so much, Director Bean.

Uh I'm gonna ask uh Counselor Scott if he has comments about finance in general before we move on to divisions.

I was just waiting for auditing, sir.

Okay, uh let's move to auditing, please.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

Um so the budget is up 3.59% overall, $56.902.

Uh personal services up 58,222 or 4%, purely resulting from our new collective bargaining agreements with the SMEU and non-salaries, the non-union salary adjustments.

We have uh employees in both uh in in three units of SMEU, A, B, and D in the auditing department.

Um we do have one vacant position at the moment.

Um I think you've probably uh interacted with Megan Huckenpala, who was our budget analyst.

Uh, she has been promoted to be director of finance administration at DPW.

Um she's assumed that new role, and we're gonna be anxious to work with her in terms of the DPW budgets going forward.

So that budget analyst position is vacant right now.

Um we are in a hiring process.

Um Matt Saboney might be able to comment on that.

We have a number of uh applicants, and I think uh uh interviews are gonna be scheduled very shortly on that's correct, Padre.

Um so every other position is filled.

Um on the OM, uh we're down reduced from last year's budget by 1320.

Pardon me, Director, just operations and maintenance.

Please continue.

Just defining for because so many folks might not know OM.

Please continue.

Okay, ordinary maintenance.

Ordinary maintenance.

Thank you.

I'm glad I asked.

Right.

So, of course, the big ticket item in our ordinary maintenance is accounting auditing, which is which funds the outside audit and the uh OPEP actuarial valuation.

So that's that's the you know, that is the bulk of our OM, and that is up slightly, uh, I see by $1,890.

Uh we've tried to cut a few aligned items, uh employee training in particular, given the given the situation, the financial situation we're facing.

Um I don't know if there's I don't think I don't know if there's anything particularly um uh of note uh in the thank you, director.

Yeah, my my hope, and just since this is one of the first times that we have a list of different divisions.

Uh my hope with sort of uh the quick intro for these divisions is is just to understand, you know, what what is auditing and how does it fit into this department?

Um, and and is there sort of anything in particular?

I do appreciate the the detail that you have there about some of these year-over-year numbers.

You know, I I think we don't we don't necessarily need to go into that much detail about uh those numbers in uh in a verbal way now since they're in the budget book.

Um, but just in terms of sort of general description, I think it's helpful.

Okay, well, maybe I could just describe the structure of auditing too, it might help a bit.

So we have three basic uh functions in auditing.

Uh one is of course budget.

You're acquainted with Mr.

Master Boney, so he's involved in developing the operating and capital budgets.

We have accounting and auditing, and that is headed up by uh to my uh right, Pauline Tian, the deputy city auditor.

So she handles the day-to-day accounting uh operations, uh filing and development of the balance sheet and uh schedule A for the department of revenue, working with uh the various departments throughout the city, keeping the ledger up to date.

She has a staff under her.

And to my left is Lisa Gallagher Noonan, who is the manager of accounts payable.

We have the statutory responsibility of auditing all the vendor invoices that come up from the various departments of the city and putting together the weekly warrant.

So uh uh Lisa and her staff perform those functions.

So those are three major functions in auditing.

And basically the ordinary maintenance uh supports uh those type of operations.

Thank you so much.

Um okay, Counselor Scott.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um just checking in.

Uh I know, and this actually pertains to one of the questions I think that got asked earlier uh of a different department, but um working on our accounts payable and bringing up the proportion of EFT payments.

Uh there was a goal last year.

Uh what are we what about what percentage are we sitting at in terms of uh EFT payments?

Yeah.

So let's talk about that.

In fact, uh we're we're very excited about a uh a new program called um vendor access.

Okay.

Lisa, would you like to um I know Treasure of Linda Dubuque is here?

Linda, do you want to join us as well?

Because this is sort of a multi-division uh project as well.

Ladies, could you comment on this one?

Sure.

I I can uh chair counselors want to be with the treasure for the city.

Um vendor access is um an ongoing multi-departmental effort among Treasury auditing IT procurement, and we've enlisted OSPCD as the test department.

Um we're rolling out a product called Munis Vendor Access to City Vendors.

Um, it allows web-based access to information stored in the city's Venus database drawn from multiple MUNIS modules, including accounts payable, purchasing, and contracts.

Registered vendors can enter and maintain their contact and remittance information, EFT payment methods or method, and uh designated contact person.

They have inquiry access to current and prior 1099 data, purchase orders, contracts, invoice tracking, processed invoices, and issued payments.

Um, we're really pleased that we can offer this valuable service to the city's vendors.

We are currently working on inviting vendors to enroll in the process.

And it's it's um gonna be put on hold a little bit for fiscal year end because it's a very laborious process.

Um, because it's um it's almost a personal invite, if you will.

Where we have to send an email to the vendor uh to an to a known um uh email address and known vendor contact and ask them to enroll.

I don't have um percentages in front of me right now, but that is something that we could get uh to you shortly.

Do you do have it's it's right now it's it's small um because we're we're just at the beginning of the uh enrollment process, but I don't I don't even have ballpark figures as to how many vendors are are enrolled at this moment, but that is something that we could get to.

But this is a platform to get vendors into the system and better communicate with us, which is going to lead to hopefully getting more uh folks enrolled in EFT.

Do you have some?

Yeah, so currently we have 24 percent um that we're paying through EFT.

Um, we're hoping to obviously increase that number um as we get more vendors registered into vendor access.

Um, right now we have 188 vendors registered um through our pilot program.

Um we're going to be sending out roughly 900 um emails to current vendors um to hopefully get them enrolled as well.

All right, uh Mr.

Chair, thank you for that.

Um I I pre that was a long walk to get there, but uh we got to uh 24%, uh which is great news, uh Mr.

Chair.

The reason why that's of interest to me and I think of interest to everybody in the council is uh, you know, using that EFT definitely decreases the amount of transaction fees that we end up incurring.

So uh it's a way to uh ensure that the friction in the system is reduced on multiple levels, including monetary.

So I appreciate the appreciate the the long answer, which I think was very important.

Well, we're very excited about this program, Council.

So I'm sorry we took up a little bit of time, but we did want to get it out there and explain what we're up to.

No, I'm glad to have teed it up for you, sir.

You just smashed it out of the park.

All right, I'm all set, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, thanks all.

Uh any other questions about auditing before we move on.

Uh okay, thanks so much to the team.

Um, shall we move on to grants?

And I'm just pausing here, figuring that there's some shuffling happening in the committee room.

And then we will get director Hartke.

Okay.

Uh Director Kate Herkey of uh Director of Grants and External Funds, please take it away.

Thank you so much.

Um I'm gonna introduce myself briefly.

Kate Carkey's director of grants development and external funds.

Uh right next to me, I have Jennifer Allison, who is our deputy director of grants development, and then behind her is Megan Kelly, who is our uh grants administrator funded by ARPA dollars um through December 2026, the current calendar year.

Um our role in the city has expanded significantly since the first grants position was created as director being noted back in the 2000s.

I think it was approximately 2004, 2005 that the first position was created.

Um, but today we continue the work.

The central work of what we do is identifying funding sources and developing grant proposals to help bring in additional funds that augment the city's budget.

We work with a variety of city departments.

Um, some of our, I like to call them frequent flyers.

We work frequently with police, OSPCD, the fire department, um, the Office of Sustainability and Environment, um, health and human services, all of their divisions, the libraries, um, and the list goes on.

Uh, I like to say that we act as consultants for city departments because we provide this very specialized technical knowledge base that a lot of departments don't have.

So we can identify the funding sources, draw dive deep into the RFPs, the guidance material for the grants, um, and help ensure that they're prepared and ready to apply for external funding and that the city is in compliance with any federal or state uh or foundation guidelines that we have to adhere to.

So, in addition to identifying funding sources and developing those proposals, we also administer specific funds, and this includes the city's ARCA fund, which will be closing out in spring of 2027, um, and the theme of public assistance funding, which is in the process of wrapping up as well.

And that was for our pandemic era reimbursements from the feds.

Um, those are two main functions in addition.

We also provide training and technical assistance on both the pre- and post-award side.

So the pre-award side is when we're helping those departments to identify and develop uh comprehensive and complete proposals that they're applying for on the post-award side.

This means ensuring that they're in compliance with any requirements to the grantors, meeting grant deadlines, setting up their accounts uh with the auditing department properly and providing the accurate information.

Um, and also we conduct reviews of any grant contracts that come into the city prior to mayoral signature.

Um and that work has been especially important as the federal grants contracts have changed terms and conditions in the past few years.

Um, to provide a couple of statistics for you during FY26, we submitted 50 requests for funding, um, and that ranges from proposals to budget complete and thorough budget amendments.

Um, and those requests total over 10 million dollars.

Again, we work with a variety of departments, 15 this past year departments and divisions.

Um in FY26, we were awarded five million in funding from current fiscal year submissions and from prior year grant submissions.

So uh in the digital budget book, you can see in section 1.9 that shows the list of our proposals submitted during FY26 by our department.

Um, and there's also a list of the grants that were awarded.

Um, and just for a bit of context as well, for the past four fiscal years, we've um secured an average of 7.5 million dollars annually.

Um so those are awards coming into the city that work to support both some central um functions of the city, such as staffing or police overtime or supplies for the fire department, um, but also for new projects that city departments are attempting to launch um for new ideas that they have.

Um budget changes.

I just wanted to highlight quickly the major changes in our budget for you.

So there's been an addition of $10,000 for temporary staff for summer early fall months for additional support in our department when I'm going to be on medical leave.

In addition, we have some OM adjustments that were meant to reduce the overall budget by 5%, as you know, city departments were asked to reduce their budgets.

And so you'll see some shifting within some of our lines there.

But nothing major within them.

So those are our biggest budget changes this year.

So I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have of our department.

Thank you so much, Director Harkey.

Really quickly, just to summarize the questions and answers that are in this memo, and uh I'll do my best here.

Uh there was a question from the committee from the uh council about uh if you have enough staff to be you know uh appropriate for the volume of grants.

Um there is an expectation that fiscal year 2027 grant award dollars will likely fall.

Um there's a focus on funding existing projects and major infrastructure, not so much new programs.

Uh, and there's a mention of our ARPA administrator um eventually uh leaving as ARPA ends.

And uh do you have anything else to add on that subject?

Um no, thank you for recapping that.

I appreciate that.

Um, so that everyone's aware of the information that was conveyed to the city council ahead of this meeting.

Um I would just say we're gonna be working to really sort of refocus our efforts and do some work planning as we go into the summer months.

Uh that our work responsibilities will really have to be revisited and our mission reframed.

And so we're beginning that work now.

And the coming months will assess our ability to provide the same level of service to our city departments.

As I mentioned, I look at them as our um clients or our customers.

So we try to provide the best um service possible.

We're entirely internal facing, so we don't work with constituents at all.

Um, but we consider our city, our other department and division heads and city staff, they're the ones that we work with to try to ensure they have what they need to do their work.

Um, we know there will be more work for us given the reduction, but we will continue to prioritize the mayoral funding priorities, uh, funding requests, seeking out funds for existing projects and programs and try to focus more on that rather than attempting to secure dollars for new ideas or for anything that would require significant match contributions by the city.

Um, and also seeking funding for the city's infrastructure needs because those are those are big and they're coming up fast.

Um thank you.

Uh no, that's that's super helpful.

Uh, and then just the other question was about how the national political context is affecting grants.

Yeah, just to summarize again briefly, it sounds like there's more work tracking delayed federal grants.

There are these lawsuits and injunction injunctions that it takes a lot of work to follow and track.

There are changing and shifting requirements, shifting contract terms, uh, and that state grants are coming more frequently and through more consolidated uh methods.

Is that is that right?

Yes, that is correct.

Um, and we also are looking at potential federal changes coming up this fall as well that we're tracking.

Um those are mentioned in the memo.

One is the city's Sam.gov registration, which allows us to apply for federal funding and the feds are essentially looking to change some of the conditions that any entities that apply for federal funds or federal contract contracts have to sign on to.

Um, and this would include DEI uh commissions or um immigration-related enforcement work.

Um so we've been working with external consultants or just talking with MMA mass mass municipal association to find out how they're advising communities to handle these potential changes that would be coming up in the fall.

Yes, indeed.

Uh well, thank you so much for that.

Uh, I'm gonna turn to questions from my colleagues, counselor Scott.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I guess I just had a couple questions.

Um, and Director Hart knows how much uh hold their department in esteem.

Uh I'm actually really surprised to see the grant writer position eliminated.

Uh was that position filled at the time it was eliminated?

Yes.

Through the chair, yes, it was.

All right.

And uh I guess, and this is a question I don't intend to be harsh, but you know, you've gone from a staff of three to a staff of two.

Um those two are both at the director, director and deputy director level.

Uh yeah, y'all are essential individual contributors and honestly, um, I think just like our arts council, every dollar we spend there actually comes back to the city much greater.

Um do you have any thought or explanation as to uh why there's a director and a deputy director with no no direct reports?

Uh through the chair, the direct deputy director role did oversee substantial work of the grant writer, as did I.

We've both sort of split that work, um, especially over the past few years where I was overseeing uh some of the ARPA work.

So that was the origin and the thinking behind the deputy director role.

It also acts as someone to um take on any of the departmental responsibilities if I'm not present or um fundly for some reason.

Yeah, I just I guess um as when we're looking at salaries, uh you know, the deputy director role is nearly double what the grant writer position role was.

So uh I guess I'm just trying to understand the rationale and restructuring, uh, given that you know that deputy director role will uh well, let me ask it as a question.

Is the deputy director role now going to be much more uh just directly applied to uh grant submission and uh compliance monitoring and all the rest of that?

Uh through the chair, the role previously was and will continue to be to do so.

The the deputy director really does a lot of the actual grant writing, the figuring out of compliance issues within the grants, ensuring that all of our pieces are together for proposals and working with departments to um help them identify what makes our proposals the most compelling.

So creating like better reports and materials.

So the role has always done has always been pre-award focused, if that helps.

Yeah, I I think I'm just trying to get at the fact that it to an outside eye, uh, somebody who might be reviewing budget for the first time might look um a little bit odd to have a department uh of two people, both of whom are directors.

So uh I appreciate the context and uh as always I'm I'm grateful for the work uh your team does and uh really disappointed that you're gonna be going to the year uh down in person.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'm all set.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Counselor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, through you, uh I guess I'll echo what um the good counselor from War 2 just said when that uh you know this is a really important department.

Um and I am sad to see it down in person.

Uh I I do, yeah, I'm I'm concerned that uh there's you know, there's a positive flywheel effect and there's a negative flywheel effect, and I'm concerned that we're gonna hit into this negative flywheel effect where um we could be uh finding fewer grants to do the work that we need to do, which means we have to tighten the budget more, which means that we make uh we could end up having uh we might have we might um I guess I'm concerned if what do you think that I mean obviously the answer is right here.

Um we're gonna have less money.

So I I do uh grant money.

Um, and you know, obviously through no fault of the the department.

Um but I I do want to just I guess raise that as a as a big concern.

Um and yeah, and I'm I'm really uh I guess I'll just comment is just you know, I have nothing but um appreciation for what you're all going through right now in terms of the the rapidly changing ways that the federal government is just messing with grants, um, where you know they're trying to rewrite grants like on the fly that have already existed, and then you I'm sure um I've watched my my wife who oversaw one grant, um, you know, constantly jumping around trying to figure out what new weird thing um was happening.

Uh so you know, I just I really imagine that that's going to continue happening.

And I really hope that that um if it if it gets too overbearing, I hope I really hope that we can find more another person or another half person or something like that to make sure that um that we've got the the people in place uh as this job gets harder to um to actually continue doing the good work.

Through the chair, thank you for your comments.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Counselor Link.

Uh I I have a sort of follow-on question to my colleagues' comments, which I very much agree with.

Um to whatever extent you you can answer this, Director Hartke.

Uh would hiring an additional person or having an additional uh person on staff essentially pay for itself.

Um to the chair.

Um we yes, we've been asked that a couple of times.

Um we haven't looked at that model in the past, but I suppose that would be something to explore.

Um any organizations do that where they're using the internet cost to help cost the cost of the priority.

Um thank you.

And just just to be clear, I'm not necessarily saying that there would be grants for that specific salary, but for the city's overall overall finances, and I understand if sorry, go ahead.

Um I understand if some questions are sensitive, and maybe uh maybe there's no comment to be made.

No, I mean, I think the work of the grant writer position does help to offset that does help pay for itself with revenues brought in.

Thank you.

Answer to your question.

You're welcome.

Any other questions from the committee?

Um, okay.

Thank you so much to your whole staff.

Uh appreciate your being here.

And uh we are going to move on to assessing.

And uh we may have Chief Assessor Golden.

Through you, Frank Golden, Chief Assessor for the City.

My deputy assessor Yannica Donovan is with me.

Um, good evening.

Basically, in the assessors, oh, go ahead.

Uh no, just saying good evening.

It's hard not to say good evening back.

Basically, in the assessor's office, um, we manage a group of 7.5 people.

Uh, the half is obviously a part-time employee.

We have five non-union employees and two union employees.

Um we manage the entire office together.

Um, Yanika has been an excellent addition to my staff.

Two years ago, we realigned um for a lot of reasons, but she absorbed the commercial assessing portion of the city.

Um, she also she also oversees the day-to-day of the residential staff, which there are two assessor analysts and one residential manager.

Um, in these hard times right now, one of the things that have not um shown any signs of depreciating is our residential growth from one to four family, three family, two-family, residential and condo.

So it's very important that we meet those various cyclical reinspections, sales uh verifications and permits.

Um, very timely because we only have till June 30th and an annual year to collect the new growth.

Um our clerical staff day-to-day deals with excise exemptions, statutory exemptions, elderly veteran exemptions, and the administration of the residential exemption.

Um for me, right now it's more macro than micro.

Uh, we have depreciating uses in the city, and they all happen to be our highest valued property.

Um, that is taking up a lot of my time because there's abatements and appeals on the large majority of them.

So together, Yannica and I are managing um the best we can.

Uh I will stress that this is my 26th year as an assessor, and in no community I've been in has the growth been more than five million dollars.

So the hard times we think we're going through, I never experienced in the previous 20 years of my career.

17, 18 years.

So it's good that we have a healthy residential new growth tax base.

The personal property is certainly doing its job.

Um, we'd all like the commercial industrial and life sciences to improve, and we're hopeful that that can happen in the next few years to come.

But overall, that's where we're at right now.

The Department of Revenue changed the cycle from five from three years to five years for a reval.

Last year was fiscal year 26, um, the reval year.

So we have four interims in a row.

We do not change how we do our job in those years.

We're very thorough and take a lot of pride in treating almost every year like a reval.

It's just their main data and their structure is extremely hard to meet in that fifth year.

So 2031 will be the next.

But uh I I did have the the luck of listening to an interview with someone who's worked in assessing in it in another city elsewhere in the country.

And um, and they talked about uh periodically taking a look at their the patterns in their assessment.

And one of the things that they noticed in in this other municipality was um for the lower valued properties, they realized they were coming, you know, at or sometimes a little bit above uh their their valuations, whereas for the higher valued properties, they realized often they were not actually uh uh assessing quite up to to the level, uh, which you know, if you think about that, that's uh a bit of an inequity.

Um, and I'm just curious uh you know what approaches your office takes to uh to taking a step back and and looking at the patterns of um of how your assessments you know map on to different different sectors of the city, different sectors of our population.

There are you chair.

Um the lower valued properties in Somerville are selling more rapidly currently, and the appreciation is greater, uh, believe it or not.

One of one of the problems is our residential 101, our single family properties are selling for alarming amounts of money in certain neighborhoods, and it's hard to justify or even get close to what some of these single family homes sell for.

And because we have so few single family sales in a given year, we last year I think we had 60.

It's really not fair to take an east side 650,000 home and compare it to someone that bought a property for three million dollars uh on the west side.

So we watch that very, very closely, specifically with that use.

The permits generally support what's going on at the property when they renovate, but sometimes that buyer just really wants that property.

And unfortunately, the department of revenue um wants a assessment sales ratio greater than 90.

So it's it's difficult, but we get as close as he can with the tools that we have based on the inspection and the other high-end sales that are occurring in the community.

It's just right now it's um I was in Beverly for a lot of years in my career, and Beverly's a great starter home community.

So the lower homes sold more rapidly and in higher number.

Um it goes on here just as well.

We have greater opportunity.

Um winter hill, um, the east side condos in single families are doing extremely well over there because they're affordable for young professionals, they're affordable for starter families.

So I think we do take all those conditions into effect when we're looking at what's selling and what's not selling.

And typically, if they feel they overpaid, they file an abatement, and we get real personal with the owner.

So it's it usually works itself out.

Thank you, Chief Assessor.

Any other questions or comments from the committee?

Uh seeing Councillor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh, just in the same vein, but um looking more at the commercial side of things, you know.

Uh I'm I'm curious.

You know, we've got uh you know some empty lab space that's empty for a bit while uh a bit longer than we would like.

Is there any sense of concern that um if that sits vacant for for much longer that the um that the value, the assessed value of it could actually go go down?

Um they've been going down through, Mr.

Chair.

Um they've been going down the last three years in a row.

Um we have six that are 60% complete, weather type, one of which we went into a TIF with at 122 assembly.

Um basically we have them appraised twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall.

Landvest came in as an expert to make sure that we didn't get into trouble in terms of appeals and overlay and so forth.

I will say of the 10, the majority filed abatements and appeals, and we're in really good shape with most of them.

Um three have been settled, one hasn't.

Um those new values won't come out till mid-summer.

Um, but I feel like there's a friendship in place with us and those developers, and we feel what they're going through.

And I hope the shoe doesn't fall and they go bankrupt because that would be awful difficult once a new owner got in and leased that space at a below market rent to fill it, and we're we're hoping that doesn't happen.

What we're hoping is that uh we have more TIFF conditions in place in the next few years, and it's just hard.

It was overdeveloped to the point that the 16 million square feet with an appetite of two a year, and here we are.

The construction costs and no young professionals and filling these buildings, and um we're in a bit of a bun, but we're doing our part.

If you look at Boston, Cambridge summable, we took an awful big chunk out with transmedics.

Um74M has negotiations going on right now without really getting into who that is, but that's a hundred thousand square feet.

So we're confident that things can turn out for us soon.

Thank you.

That was a fantastic answer.

I feel like and a little more now.

Thank you.

Any other questions from the committee members?

Okay, seeing none, uh, thank you so much, uh Chief Assessor.

Thank you.

Uh okay, moving on to uh the treasurer and collector's office.

I believe we have treasure and collector Dubuque, who we heard from earlier um, welcome.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair.

Linda Dubuque, Treasurer and Collector for the City.

Chair, who's the FP Treasure?

Uh Nicholas Dervis, Deputy Collector.

So I'm going to um just give a brief overview of what the Treasury Collection Office does.

We're a combined office, treasurer and collector.

We maintain the integrity of the city's operating and capital finances, manage and balance cash receivables, and work with departments to ensure receipts through the city are collected.

In accordance with Mass General Law Chapter 44, Section 55B, the treasurer is responsible for ensuring the safety and liquidity of the city's funds while earning the highest yield possible.

All of the payroll and vendor uh obligations are paid by the city treasury.

Treasury maintains banking relationships, electronic payment relationships, issues and pays all city debt, and handles insurance for city-owned property.

The department processes payments for real estate and personal property taxes, more to vehicle excise taxes, and collects water, sewer bills issued by the water department.

Treasury also issues municipal lien certificates.

Um LCs are legal documents showing outstanding obligations of a parcel at a particular point in time, and they those are required for most real estate uh sale transactions.

We work with delinquent taxpayers to keep them out of tax title.

Tax title is the label, uh, the category of receivables for unpaid tax bills.

Uh, and we manage the tax title accounts.

Um I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much.

Members of the committee, any questions for the chief treasurer and collector.

I'm not seeing any.

Not a reflection of the important role that your office plays, but now I am seeing Councilor Scott.

Oh, I just Director Dubuque is just one of my favorites.

I would hate to leave her without a question.

If I could tee one up, how is the municipal scholarship fund balance looking?

Through you, Mr.

Chair, it's close to $90,000, but it's gonna go down uh to the high 70s because they're giving out uh $2,000 scholarships this year to maybe 11 students.

Love to hear that'll happen over the summer.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

Are we uh are we seeing any uptick in donations?

Um through you, Mr.

Chair.

We have uh solicitations going out in the excise tax bills, commitments one and two, and that brings in a fair amount of money.

Would you say it was like around 2000, 2005, like 10?

No, in total, like 30, it was like 30,000.

Yes, or moving.

Yeah, something like that.

You know, it was upwards of that.

We can get you the exact figure that that came in over the past year.

But we have a new um committee member on board, and um now that this municipal scholarship committee has been functioning um and they've got their ducks in a row, they're gonna start looking at increasing the fund balance because they want to give out more scholarships or higher dollar scholarships.

So that's on their agenda for the fall, uh fall meeting that's gonna happen in September.

How to increase revenue and what what other possible sources of revenue aside from the solicitation that we're putting into the excise tax bills are options for us.

So that's that's gonna be uh the falls activity.

Well, that sounds great.

Uh thank you very much, of course, director.

And uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

It's one of those little known pieces of the Treasury, so I like to give them a chance to talk about it.

I'm all set.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

I very much appreciate that being highlighted.

I didn't know, and it sounds like a wonderful program.

Yes, uh, through you, Mr.

Chair.

It was an oversight on on my part, not adding a bullet here in the intro, and my apologies.

We we can't all cover everything every time.

Thank you so much for that work.

Uh, anyone else on the committee have any questions or comments for the chief treasurer collector?

Um, thank you so much uh for your work and for appearing before us.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Congress.

Okay, we are going to move on to procurement and contracting services.

Now I know uh that probably means that we'll get Chief Procurement Officer Angela Allen.

Um and I'm not sure about uh the contracting part of that, if that's going to also uh bector Allen or someone else.

Hello, welcome.

Hello, good evening, everybody.

Angela Allen, uh procurements and contracting services.

Uh our departments, a team of eight assists all municipal departments with procurement of goods and services based on the operating budget you all will be approving later this month, as well as grant funds and other funding sources for any vendor for any dollar amounts that gets processed through my office.

We look, we begin at the very beginning from concept, um, working through uh issuing bids and requests for quotes and executing contracts.

Um we prioritize making sure our process is legal, as director bean mentioned earlier.

We must follow Massachusetts general laws.

We also have um many city ordinances we make sure are are complied with.

Um we also ensure that uh the process itself is clear, that it's inclusive, competitive, um, value-driven, and um that the contracts are easy to manage and pay.

So um with that said, I'd say that we have um, I was looking at our data.

On average, we process um anywhere between five and six hundred contracts every fiscal year.

Uh, again, that includes grant agreements and contracts from the school department from every department, and we process anywhere from 8500 to 9,000 purchase orders in a given year.

And we process anywhere from 8,500 to 9,000 purchase orders in a given year.

I look forward to any questions you have.

Thank you so much, Director.

Does the committee have any questions?

I'm not seeing any hands go up.

Again, uh not a reflection at all of the important role that you and your office play in our day-to-day, and it sounds like minute to minute uh city life.

So uh thank you so much for appearing before us.

Uh and uh I hope you have a good rest of your evening.

Thank you very much.

You too.

Thank you, Director Allen.

Uh okay.

So uh the rest of this list.

Um, I'm not sure.

Uh please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think uh a bunch of these are going to be uh yes, um was expecting to see either uh budget director, Master Boney, or finance director bean.

Please take it away.

Um thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I'm gonna recommend if it's okay that we talk about enterprise funds when we have um uh uh the recreation division and uh public works, they're the ones that um operate and maintain those facilities.

So with your um permission, I'll move to salary contingency.

I'm just looking up at the screen.

Yes, that's fine.

Uh you know, and I'll just mention we we do specifically have the Dilboy and Kennedy Pool Enterprise funds scheduled uh on that other night.

I don't are there uh are there other ones that are not sort of parks and rec related that we're touching on?

So we have four enterprise funds, water sewer, um Dilboy, Field, Dubois Stadium, and uh the Ginny S and Mithers, Ginny Smithers pool at the candy school.

So right, so the water and sewer will will take up with GPW.

That's not great.

Sure.

So uh I'll start with salary contingency.

This is our reserve, uh, our our current year, uh, in this case fiscal 27 reserve for collective bargaining settlements, um, salary adjustments, buybacks, temporary vacancies, other sort of compensation related costs.

Um, this budget, uh, to my recollection is decreasing slightly.

Um, that is the result of settling some um collective bargaining agreements.

And um, you know, uh we budget this on an estimated basis each year.

Um, happy to answer any questions on this one.

Thanks.

Um anyone on the committee have questions for Dallas Contingency.

Uh I saw your your camera turn on, Counselor Scott, but no questions.

Okay.

Uh thanks.

Uh, why don't we move on to pay as you go?

Sure.

Thank you.

Um pay as you go capital is our cash funded capital program.

Um this supports a couple things.

First is uh purchase of uh vehicle replacement, second is paving, third is building improvements, um sort of medium-sized projects that we would otherwise um uh need to borrow for, um, as well as lease obligations, the most uh the largest one being our rental of the Tufts administration building.

Are there any questions about pay as you go capital from the committee?

Castle Link.

Uh yeah, just thank you, Jerome, through you uh just real quick on the on the the Tufts building.

Um is what is our lease like that on at this point, like for in terms of um, you know, uh do we have a five-year lease, a 10-year lease?

Is it gonna go?

Um the question, we're I think we're currently in year two of a five-year uh uh lease with uh Tufts for that building.

It houses multiple city departments, including um uh strategy and development, the council on aging, uh you know, it's a great hub on the the west side of the city.

We pay uh approximately two million, just over 2.1 million a year for that building.

That space, it's a lot of space.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Um just want to say for the record, I'm glad Counselor Link didn't ask how much the city sold it to Tufts for.

Um any other questions about pay as you go capital.

Uh okay, why don't we move on to debt service?

Sure.

Thank you.

Um debt service, uh, this is the cost center for that that budgets for principal and interest payments on the accumulated city borrowing.

That's things like school repairs, roads, facilities, equipment.

Um, in fiscal 27, actually, the budget is relatively flat overall.

Um, you'll remember we we discussed last Thursday that the city is using uh proposed and the council approved to use $8.6 million, the $8.7 million to stabilization funds in order to avoid borrowing long term.

Um so the change that you're seeing is um mostly uh bond anticipation bond anticipation note interest uh for fiscal 27.

That's the change.

Thank you, budget director.

Any questions about debt service from the committee?

I'll say this is one of those items that clearly matters tremendously and involves large large sums uh and where in our oversight capacity, I think it can be hard for me at least.

I'll just just speak in the first person to know why it you know makes sense to uh to pay down debt, you know, to the tune of some number of millions of dollars uh in one situation versus uh you know doing so with twice the money or or half the money.

Um I appreciate the uh the analysis that I know your office does uh and I'm always eager to learn more about those decisions.

I think there's a great opportunity to teach more about this as we look at the long-range forecast going forward.

Um there'll be opportunities for us to continue to dig into this, and that'll be a great time.

Thank you.

Uh any other questions for the committee about debt service?

Why don't we move on to unemployment compensation?

Thank you.

Um unemployment compensation is exactly that.

Um, this cost center funds unemployment claims um for former employees.

Uh, this budget is increased slightly to reflect um our expectations in fiscal 27.

What we do is we look at um historical uh rates of spend as well as um um you know uh understanding the impact of any terminations going forward.

Thank you.

Any questions about this from the committee?

Budget director, do we have essentially uh an insurance policy uh for unemployment claims that we pay, or are we are we self-insuring?

This is this is the cost of the city's share um uh of that we are on the hook for um you know up to a certain amount for employees uh we project that out.

So yeah, this is basically our uh our own cost.

Thank you.

Counselor Link.

Uh on that point, um, thank you, Chair.

Uh the I'm curious, uh is there any anticipation than I know like if I get into a fender bender and then I have to uh you hit up my insurance, uh they're gonna up the premiums um for our un with a significant layoff like this, uh, you know, are we gonna see an increase in our own premiums for uh unemployment insurance?

So to be clear, this isn't premiums.

Um this uh or maybe that was the analogy speaking.

Um this is this is the actual cost of payments um through the state system.

Um it's it's capped at a certain amount per uh per week um for a certain amount of time.

So you know, we try and look a little bit into the future, um, and uh you'll notice the difference between uh you know fiscal 25, 26, and 27.

Typically we budget a little more in a in a transition year.

Um we've budgeted a little bit more, even more this year, uh, knowing what we know about um um you know uh reductions in force.

Thank you.

Any other questions about unemployment compensation from the committee?

Okay, why don't we move on to pension?

Okay, thank you.

Um so this cost center funds are actually required contribution to the Somerville retirement system.

Thank you, Ed.

Um, and uh what was just passed to me, our our current unfunded actuarial liability is uh 114 million six hundred and fifteen thousand um as of January 1, 2025.

Um the retirement board, uh the city through the retirement board is on pace to um uh fully fund that in 2033.

We were very much looking forward to that too.

Um and to be clear, this this amount is um presented to the city by the retirement board um and that would be funded.

Thank you, budget director.

And um could you give a little more uh sort of context of that?

Uh I in my mind, I've compared this to uh situations that I know some different corporations have been in to you know social security in a sense.

Uh do we basically have unfunded liabilities because of the the promises for for future retirement income in in current and past employees that we have a fund that is on its way to being big enough to fully cover uh those projected costs that we are contributing to each year?

Simply put, yes.

Um we are uh funding current employees, right?

Pension reform allows us or um um requires us to fund uh current employees um at a at the uh at the at the appropriate level.

Um we are going backwards now to fund those uh legacy costs.

Uh again, we'll be we're on pace to fully fund that by 2033.

Thank you.

Any questions from members of the committee.

Okay, thank you.

And why don't we move on to state assessments?

So state assessments, um, these are charges imposed on us by the Commonwealth for regional services and um our educational costs.

Um typically what happens is uh this the state deducts these amounts from the local aid that we would otherwise receive.

But um that's you know, if there's any questions on any individual ones, um the primary the primary cost drivers here are the MBTA assessment, um, just over six million, um, charter school tuition.

Um, and I think those are I think the the bulk of them um that's actually the bulk of them is those two.

Thank you, budget director.

Yeah, I I was trying to understand why uh the state assessments are not uh part of the general operating budget that the council appropriates.

Um that uh am I right in understanding that since it's deducted essentially from the local aid, it we're we're spending money that we never had essentially.

Yeah, there's no need for the council to appropriate this.

Um we're not we're we're this this these are uh costs that we need to pay.

Thank you.

And and these costs are not subject to the property tax levy limit under prop two and a half because it's these are state level costs.

That's right.

Okay, thank you.

Slowly, slowly kind of understand bits and pieces of this.

If but if I may, it's part of the the revenue that the requirement that we need to generate, right?

Um, but it's not necessarily directly connected to proposition two and a half, if that makes sense.

We're required to pay these, we need to have the revenue revenue sufficient to pay them.

That's sort of all things considered.

Thanks.

I see Counselor Hart.

Thank you so much.

Um through you, Chair.

I just wanted to uh I was just curious about the school choice assessment.

And um if you could just say uh a little bit about why the proposed budget is you know almost half of what was the actual for the current fiscal year.

I'm just curious about that.

So there's a lot of variables in the school choice tuition, right?

As uh as I think you know, this assessment, if a Somerville student enroll in a different uh public school district, right through that school choice program, the money follows them and we get to send that money over.

Um highly variable, right?

Um these are estimates, these are um uh uh determined by the state, but change pretty can change pretty significantly.

So just like the charter school tuition, um, these are estimates and they change.

And you know, we take the number that we propose in the budget at this time is based off the Senate budget, which is the most uh up-to-date budget that we have available to us.

Um it's something that we can't necessarily estimate ourselves.

We get this number from the state, and we we have to you know stick with it until we have any reason to to uh to change.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments on this uh item from the committee?

Okay, seeing none, I think that wraps up all the divisions in finance.

Uh thank you all so much.

Um I now invite uh anyone on the committee uh who feels motivated to to uh put forward any motions.

And seeing none, we will move on.

Thank you all so much in Finance Land.

So we're going to go to operations and systems, our last department here.

And my guess is that we're going to get Chief Administrative Officer Kim Wells and perhaps some others.

Hello.

Ask and you shall receive.

Please take it away, CAO.

Yes, very good guest, Mr.

Chair.

And through you, Kimberly Wiles, Chief Administrative Officer.

So I'm actually super excited this evening to be able to introduce you to a new department in the city's organizational structure called operations and systems.

So this really serves to solidify the CAO's dual role, both serving as part of the mayor's leadership team and also leading this department.

So under the direction of the CAO, this department is really responsible for implementing the administration's operational policy initiatives.

It serves as sort of the nexus to citywide development and implementation of things like strategies, procedures, plans, all of the things that are needed to enhance growth and to optimize systems and really advance citywide innovation to promote more productive delivery of services.

So I know that there have been a number of projects that have been talked about year over year.

And this really aims to bring together the divisions who can see those projects over the finish line, who can measure the impact, and who can make sure that we continue to deliver in a way that really does meet the needs of both staff internally, as we've grown quite a bit as a city, and also of the constituents that we serve.

So this evening you'll be hearing from each of the directors of the divisions that report to the CAO under the operations and systems department.

And those are constituent services, elections, equity and belonging, people operations, summer stat, and technology and innovation.

And I do want to take just a moment to highlight something that did come up in the mayor's budget presentation last Thursday that I know has been a question for many counselors and potentially also the public, which is that the city clerk and the licensing commission and the city attorney are listed in the organizational charts as part of this department.

And I hope that the dotted lines and the shifting of those little boxes are enough to explain.

But I know that it can be difficult to read those charts.

It is even for me when I know what's supposed to be there.

So I do just want to highlight that those individuals do not report to the CAO, but we wanted to make sure that everybody has a seat at the table and that the city clerk and the city attorney can serve to also help make sure that the council's voice is heard in those conversations and to make sure that they are aware and able to have input into all the decisions that we're making as a city.

So embedding them within this department in a non-reporting role was something that was really important to this administration.

With that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you, CAO.

Are there any questions about operations and systems overall from members of the committee?

And I suppose this covers the admin piece.

Okay, I'm not seeing any.

So why don't we move on to constituent services?

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I believe that means that we will have director of constituent services, Steve Craig.

Hello, Director Craig.

Welcome.

Thank you for having me here.

Good evening to the chair and through you to the finance committee.

My name is Gabby Portia Perez.

I'm the deputy director of constituent services.

The Office of Constituent Services serves as the city's city of Somerville's primary connection point between the community and city government.

Our function is to provide exceptional customer service by helping residents, businesses, and visitors access city services and submit requests and connect with the information and resources they need.

As a non-emergency 24-7 program, our contact center makes it easy for people to reach the city through multiple channels, including phone, live chat, email, web, mobile app, and walk-ins.

Whether someone is reporting a plot hole, asking about parking regulations, seeking information on city programs, or requesting assistance from a department, our team helps ensure their request reaches the right place for action.

Good evening.

My name is Steve Craig.

I'm the director of constituent services.

Along with Gabby, I am joined by Elena Viveros, the 311 contact center manager.

Robert Powers, the 311 supervisor, and Adrian Pomeroy, our service operations manager.

Beyond 311 serving as the main access point for information and services, constituent services also plays an important role in understanding and improving the customer experience of the people we serve.

Through pointed surveys, unstructured feedback, service request management, and analysis of daily interactions.

We help identify emerging community trends, needs and opportunities for improvement.

Our work is guided by what is known as the ACE initiative.

ACE is an acronym that stands for accurate, courteous, and easy.

We strive to provide accurate information, ensure we have courteous and professional staff and make it as easy as possible for people to access the program and other supports they need.

We also look at how services are being delivered across the city by reviewing operational performance, identifying where issues are reoccurring, and working with departments to modify processes and procedures.

Together, these efforts ensure that constituent services is just is more than just an exceptional contact center.

We are a strategic partner that connects people with services.

We reflect the needs of the community, and we help drive continuous improvement across city government.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you have for us this evening.

Thank you so much, uh, Director Craig and Deputy Director Portio Perez.

Uh just to recap the items that were uh asked and answered on this memo.

Um, and you may want to add on to this list of accomplishments and challenges.

Uh, but briefly uh you mentioned handling over 118,000 requests and interactions, expanding customer feedback work, attending community events, supporting uh this tree keeper uh CRM uh customer relations relationship management, I believe, integration, and uh working on asset management planning, uh, and that some challenges included uh disconnected systems, rising request volume, and issues around staffing, training and retention.

Uh is there anything else in that list of accomplishments or challenges that you'd like to highlight?

Uh thank you, um, Chair.

I I think that summarizes the key points that we wanted to highlight.

Um, as you can imagine, uh, with 118,000 requests uh across 300 service request types and supporting more than two dozen departments.

There's a lot of other things that we could talk about.

Um, if we get there are any specific questions that you have for us, but I think that does a good job highlighting what our last year looks like and gives a pretty good insight into into what the next year looks like for us.

Thanks.

And then the other question and answer was about uh why 311 tickets sometimes close before work is done.

I know you and I have chatted about this some uh and in this response.

I know um your office highlighted that uh the 311 status uh you know in the system that people see in the public doesn't always match the department's work systems uh and that department sometimes close one of these tickets, uh, not with the intention of saying that the actual issue itself is solved, but that that department's role is is over and it it's you know trying to pass uh the work on to another department, but from from that department's perspective, it's closed.

Uh so I know that's an area that your office is uh is working on uh additional approaches to this around systems integrations, um communication between departments and you know, newer and better staff uh status definitions, uh, as well as some staff training.

Does that capture that fairly?

Uh to the chair.

The only thing I would like to add is um we have brought on our service operations manager.

That position has been uh vacant for a while, but now that it has been filled, I just want to make sure the committee knows that that is the primary point of contact for our interdepartmental relationships, and they will be doing a lot of work in the coming year to bridge some of those gaps in terms of whether it's actual or perceived gap in service.

It doesn't matter at the end of the day if a constituent doesn't feel that um you know their issue is either getting the attention it deserves or if they're getting incorrect information.

So that is something that we are targeting in the coming year, and I'm happy to you know continue to have conversations with you or any of the council members about um as we do that work.

Thank you so much.

Uh okay, uh let's move on to Counselor Scott.

Yeah, thank you, Ms.

Chair.

Uh, through you to Director Craig again.

Chair uh through you to director Craig again I'm I'm just trying to make sure I understand the org chart one to one here uh there was a systems administrator position in the in your group last year was there not through the chair yes that is correct and that's not there this year yes that is also correct okay was that position filled when it was eliminated through the chair yes that position that was filled at the time okay uh I I guess what I'm kind of curious about uh well two things one of which is you you get the raw number here what's the year over year change in that number of service requests um through the chair I will have to verify but I can tell you off the top of my head that since 2020 um or since 2021 rather we have seen um growth year over year that has been in the range of one to five thousand or so requests because I can tell you pre-pandemic we were probably right around 100k mark and you know this year um we are certain to break the 120 mark so I would say you know right one to five thousand is roughly the year over year growth we've been seeing in recent years.

Okay.

I guess my other question is just uh more about the org chart and department structure there's I think by my count roughly 15 you know line positions you know direct uh service positions uh and well 14 of those and uh and then there's an analyst but out of the 21 people in the department uh you know it looks like six of them have titles of director uh or manager or supervisor uh does that feel like a healthy ratio to you through the chair i i am happy to discuss any of the positions in more detail if you like i can tell you that um the way those positions break down uh the contact center um given that we are open expanded hours and you know we also have which we've talked about many times in the past our 24 hour availability service um you know it's very important that we have at least those two supervisors that are on um to support the team um for whatever hours that that they need help with and some of those other positions are not directly affiliated with the contact center as I mentioned earlier service operations manager um is not managing staff but they are managing the portfolio of the 300 or so services that we're responsible for so that they do have a manager title but what they're managing is the interdepartmental relationships the coordination um some of the training of other frontline staff in other departments across the city so I I do feel that the ratio for the work that we do and the scope of the work that's being done does make sense for our needs and the way that we're structured okay well uh through the chair I I guess I'm now I'm a little bit confused because on the org chart it shows two people reporting to the service operations manager.

I'm sorry can you please repeat that I can I just interject because I think I know the uh oh all right sorry I I I thought I I thought I knew the answer to that and I don't so I'll I'll go back okay if I could maybe clarify uh the director just told me that uh the service operations manager doesn't uh manage any people but I see two people reporting to them certainly that organizational chart um it it does break down the way that we're organizationally structured but I was speaking in terms of direct reporting um that the service operations manager does uh oversee a lot of the coordination for the quality uh analysts and for the customer experience manager uh I guess I was being a little too technical with my answer saying that uh those folks do report directly upward they just do a lot of the coordination of their work through the service operations manager all right well I appreciate it um you know mr miss chair I just um you noticed perhaps a trend in my questions trying to understand the uh the balance of management to uh to service delivery in departments so I I appreciate uh appreciate the answers there uh I'm all set Mr.

I'm curious you what um how many, I guess how obviously we can uh if you send an email to 311 that that's not going to go through that.

So uh and obviously the app to I don't know if there are people if this contract is specifically for the phone or if it's the actual processing of the things of everything.

I was wondering if the the director could speak to that.

Certainly.

Thank you for the question.

Through the chair, thank you for the question.

Um that is for telephone.

Part of our overall strategy of how 311 operates is we do want to create as much accessibility and equity for folks as possible.

And what we what we found is the telephone is sort of the lowest barrier to entry.

Um, you know, you don't necessarily need a computer or internet skills or any other you know, electronic devices or those types of things um to use a telephone to call 311.

And what we want to do is we want to ensure access to 311 where you can reach a live human being 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Um, however, during things like nights, weekends, holidays, there is a significant reduction um in our overall call volume.

I would say um I if this is getting too much into the weeds, I apologize.

But there's 168 hours in the week.

And the 311 contact center is open a little over 50.

So that leaves 118 hours in a given week.

Um, so what we do is in that period of time, that 118 hours a week, that only receives about 15, maybe 17% of our call volume.

So the vast majority of calls are received during what we call city hall or business hours.

Um, but we still want to be able to reach that 15, you know, 20% of people that are looking to reach us during off-peak hours.

So we contract through an answering service because they provide uh a live human being who can receive the call, input the request into our system and either directly route it to the proper department or send it to someone at 311 who can look at it during business hours if necessary.

Thank you.

I do yeah.

I think that I think it's good that we do it.

Um I'm although I'm yeah, I'm of mixed.

I don't know that there's a lot of times I think there's some things that are maybe time sensitive.

So it ends up, I'm not sure if having 311 in at 2 a.m.

where it's something's going on.

There's a burst water vein or something that someone accidentally, I guess I did the, I don't know.

I guess what I'm saying is I I've seen 311 tickets that I filed where they're like, oh, it's after hours and like it's not gonna get any action, which makes total sense.

Um but at that point the ticket almost becomes useless.

Um so I just I hope we're getting our our money's worth from that.

I I can't I can't speculate, I guess though, because it is important that we have it.

So um thank you.

Thank you for the explanation.

I really appreciate it.

Through the chair, thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Link.

Uh I saw a hand from Counselor Hart.

But second thoughts.

Well, I will just say um that was really helpful uh through you, uh, Chair.

Um I didn't have that clarity before about the the difference between what happens with an after hours um request.

And anyway, just for what it's worth, I wonder, you know, that I think it is a little bit confusing and that people might expect, like if there is a human answering the phone, that something is gonna happen immediately as a result.

Uh so messaging on the website or whatever might be might be useful uh to clarify what is available after hours.

Through the chair, I if if if it's all right, I would like to just add that um, you know, if someone reports a pothole at 2 a.m.

on a Saturday, obviously there's no one at public works to fill that pothole.

And you're absolutely right.

There are things that we can do to work on clarifying that messaging, but I just want to make sure that everyone on the finance committee understands that there are things that we get calls about that maybe more of a I don't want to say emergency, but you know, urgent or escalated nature that would possibly go to the DPW report person or need to get forwarded to fire alarm or maybe over to SPB.

So it's not um it's not that nothing um gets handled during after hours.

It we're at the mercy of the the structure of the requests, and if it is something there is staff available to handle at that time, that does get routed immediately.

Otherwise, it at least gets documented, logged, and sent to the right person so that when that office does open up uh whatever the next business hours are, that it is in the queue for someone to look at and take appropriate action on.

So I just wanted to make sure I mentioned that part.

Got it.

That's very helpful.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I also just wanted to lob up uh a softball uh really just to appreciate um the documents that I've seen a few of that uh get into the decision tree around different categories of question.

And I wonder if uh Director Craig and Deputy Director Portier Perez, if you could just briefly uh describe those and uh you know how many of those uh has your staff developed.

Uh Chair, thank you for the question.

Um there are active uh in our portfolio right now.

I off the top of my head, um, about 40 to 50 uh SLP standard operating procedures uh that we've developed in coordination with the departments.

Um it's definitely um a lot of work into the director's point earlier that in those decision trees is when we determine whether reclass after hours should be immediately routed to um a staff person, or if it's something that you know if staff aren't available, they can um respond to the next business day.

Uh but at the moment there's about 40 to 50 that are completed.

Thank you very much.

Any other questions from members of the committee?

Okay, thanks to your whole staff for appearing tonight.

Uh, and we really appreciate your work.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we are going to move on to elections, and I believe that means that we will have director of elections, Nicholas Salerno.

Hello, welcome.

Hello, good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Nick Salerno.

I'm chairman of the Board of Election Commissioners.

I have with me here two members of our dynamic elections staff.

I have our deputy elections commissioner Maria Perati and our assistant elections commissioner, Megan Aruda.

Go ahead, ask them anything you want.

I'm out of the picture.

Just joking.

Thank you very much.

Uh members of the committee, do we have any any questions for the election staff?

Well, let me start off by saying while you're thinking about those deep-rooted questions.

Let me start off by saying that uh everything seems to be going well in elections these days.

Um just a couple of brief items of interest for you.

We have approximately 56,000, some odd hundred voters currently in the city.

Um we're looking forward to all September 1st primary election.

And then the November 3rd general election.

And I want to talk just a little bit about that particular election.

It's going to be humongous.

And the reason I say that is we're looking at 13 uh elected positions being sought after.

So there's many, there'd be several candidates on that ballot.

That alone will make it a large ballot.

Additionally, we could have up to 12 questions on the ballot.

Now, in the past election, which you people are part of, there were three questions.

And with the third question on the ballot, we got a tremendous turnout for the municipal election.

First time we had achieved 39, you know, several years in the municipal election.

We had a lot of open seats, a lot of great candidates.

And the question, that one question that brought everybody out, especially the last two or three hour period of the day.

So we think that this particular year, November is going to be very, very busy.

We are going to do our best to alleviate pressure on the lines at the voting locations on November 3rd by giving mail-in voting and early voting, big big pushes.

Just so we can get a lot of numbers in in advance, and we don't have backup with the lines in November.

So thank you very much.

Please hit us with the questions.

Thank you, Chief.

Counselor Link.

So a big fan of elections.

And uh I guess on the point of um the ability to of pushing for the the early voting and the in particular the mail and voting.

Um we're seeing kind of the the federal government um tooling around in in the in the mail and voting.

Um how how confident are we that um that it's not going to become a total uh disaster in terms of just trying to make sure it all works out through if we're talking about having to actually mailed um through the USPS.

Well, we feel like our we feel like our admin the way we administer both early voting and mailing voting is a totally secure situation.

We are summarable like all other communities in Massachusetts, we have the state computers in our office are all aware, and the checks and balances are there.

Uh additionally, uh, to make sure I don't know, whatever the decree is, and I say a decree from Washington, would we feel like we're just going to move forward here in summerville in Massachusetts with the two items of and particularly mailing voting and early voting?

And we we just went through training as city employees to do with security uh with other organ other agencies of the government that might want to interfere.

We are also setting up a program uh with our in-house people here that our poll workers get trained accordingly, and specifically to do with elections, so that everyone will have a great feel for security at the polling locations.

Thank you for that.

And uh, and are are we I guess the other thing that I'm I was wondering about though is you know, like I heard I think it's speculation.

Um, but I I don't want to, but I'd love to hear your take on it, is the um the speculation that like you know the uh the about stamps like the uh the per million ballot to be valid, you know, it has to have a particular postmark date on it.

Um, and that you know, there was I think people were saying like oh make sure to go actually to your mail, like to the the actual post office and see them stamp it.

Um so I got I'm just I guess as the expert, do you think in Massachusetts that's something that residents should be worried about?

Um you know we've had our ups and downs with post offices, we all know.

So that is why we have those 10 drop boxes located across the city, which have been a tremendous help.

And and and you know, we're not we're uh 4.2 square miles, as you all know.

10 boxes is a lot of boxes and a lot of work, but they get they get uh emptied every day, every day, and that takes a lot of lot of pressure or work from the post office.

Uh that we can do in-house.

Great.

So it sounds like maybe the this the best bet is to use the the plentiful drop boxes that we we had of a city is set up.

Absolutely.

Great.

Thank you very much, Dr.

Chair.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councillor Link.

I see Councillor Scott.

Uh thank Ms.

Chair.

Always good to see Commissioner Slano.

Uh, you know, uh Commissioner, one thing that Joe also do is uh verify the signatures on any uh petitions that come in, correct?

Yes.

Uh you know, so when we have like, for example, uh petition, uh resident petition for a public hearing, uh, that that would come into your office for for validation.

Uh just off the top of your head, but how how quick do you think the turnaround is on that on average?

Through the chair.

Um it depends on how many how many come in, how many signatures come in.

But firstly, let me say that they're all we handle, we process them rather by the way they come in.

We don't you know jump one group over another.

So uh we're doing it, we're doing it orderly.

And I and I have to tell you that we have gotten compliments from people who brought them in, got them certified, and we've our staff has returned the calls to them, tell them they're ready for pickup at any time.

We get compliments on doing it very quickly.

So I the only thing I can say is I know that my staff is working on it, you know, extremely hard and efficiently, but the feedback that we get is that the people who submitting them and receiving them are very happy with the turnaround time.

Well, I've I've never been anything but happy with the way y'all turn around my uh nomination papers.

I guess I was just uh trying to give you a chance to recount a recent uh recentition that might have gotten turned around uh next day or even the same day, but uh if to the chair, if I may, and I think people here will verify this.

There have been multiple times when it turned and turned around the same day.

Yeah.

Well, I I appreciate it, sir.

Uh, as always, my compliments to everybody down there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Scott.

Uh, I see Councilor Hart.

Just a quick question through Chair.

Um, I really appreciate all the work that goes into our elections.

And I know that the poll workers are uh a key important aspect.

And you mentioned increased training, which um sounds great, and I appreciate that.

I was just curious, how are we in terms of uh poll workers?

Like, is it difficult to fill all of those positions?

Do we have you know how does that work?

Through the chair.

Thank you for asking that question.

Filling the positions of poll workers is always difficult.

Always.

And our deputy election commissioner here, Mrs.

Pilati does a great job at it.

Off responsibility falls on her, and she's on that phone constantly, you know, encouraging uh recruiting, and it and it's it's an ongoing job.

It just doesn't stop.

It it's the we have a tremendous turnover in.

I mean, we have that loyalty factor, but it seems to be getting more and more difficult.

And I don't know if it's because of the current security thoughts that are out there, or if it's just people out growing the job, but it we're always in need.

We are so we start the year, we just pushing, pushing, pushing for more people, and it's very rare that we can say we've got enough.

Thank you for that.

I'll be sure to spread the word.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for that.

Spreading the word is always good.

Any other questions?

Uh thank you, Councillor Hart.

Any other questions from the committee?

Uh okay, seeing none.

Thank you so much.

Uh Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, and Assistant Commissioner.

Uh, thanks for being here.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

Okay, that brings us to equity and belonging.

And I believe we will probably have director Nikado.

Hello, welcome, Director.

Hi, Darren.

Just fine, thank you.

Uh please go ahead and take it away.

Good evening.

My name is Catherine Neckato, and I'm currently the director of the Department of Rational Social Justice, which is proposed to become the equity and belonging department as part of the FY27 budget.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you all tonight about the department's proposed budget and our evolving role within city government.

And the work we will continue to advance on behalf of residents and city staff at its core.

At its core, the transition to the equity and belonging department reflects a broader vision for how equity work is carried out across the city.

As Mayor Wilson discussed during his budget presentation, equity should not solely exist within one department.

Rather, it should be integrated into the policies, practices, and decision-making processes of every department across the organization.

For us, equity means ensuring that all residents and staff have fair access to opportunities, resources, services, and participation in citedwide.

It means identifying and removing barriers that may prevent people from fully benefiting from city programs, services, and decision-making processes.

Equity is significant because it helps us ensure that when we say all, we mean all.

We are intentionally considering who may be missing, who may face obstacles to access, and how city decisions impact different members of our community.

The proposed equity and belonging department is designed to help make that vision a reality.

I also want to acknowledge that many of the questions surrounding this budget are really questions about the transition itself.

Counselors and residents want to understand what is changing, what is staying the same, and what this means for the future of equity work in summer building.

The most important thing to understand is that this transition is not about eliminating equity work.

It is about evolving how that work is carried out.

Many of the values and problems that guided the Department of Virginia and Social Justice remains unchanged.

We will continue to focus on community engagement, accessibility, youth engagement, equitable participation, relationship building, and ensuring that residents have meaningful opportunities to access city services and participate in civic life.

What is changing is that some responsibilities that were previously concentrated within the Department of Racial and Social Justice are being distributed to departments and positions that are better positioned to implement them on a daily basis.

For example, the ADA coordinator role is moving to people operations.

Public safety for all implementation is now supported through a dedicated implementation position.

Community engagement capacity is expanding through the city's engagement and neighborhood services division.

At the same time, the equity and belonging department will focus more intentionally on helping departments embed equity and belonging into their everyday operations.

This includes, but is it limited to staff training, equitable hiring and procurement practices, policy review, operational assessments, accessibility implementation, community partnership development, and accountability measures that help ensure equity considerations are part of decision-making process across city government.

The transition years, therefore, both a restructuring and an opportunity.

It allows the city to move from a model where one department was often expected to carry the responsibility for equity work alone to a model where equity and belonging becomes shared responsibilities across all departments.

I also recognize that there has been some questions about the functions that were previously housed within the Department of Racial and Social Justice.

And while some responsibilities are moving to other departments, that does not necessarily mean the work is disappearing.

In many cases, the work is continuing through a different structure.

For example, the hate and bias concerns will continue to be supported through the human rights commission.

In addition, the missions that were previously staffed through RSJ are being reassessed and aligned with departments whose missions support their work.

We will continue staffing and supporting the Summer Commission for Women.

Ultimately, this transition is intended to create greater clarity around responsibilities, improve the implementation, strengthen accountability, and ensure that equity and belonging are not the responsibility of one department alone, but are integrated into how the city serves every day.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Director Nakato.

There were perhaps more questions about your division from members of the council than any of the other ones that we've uh spoken with tonight.

And I'm I'm tempted here to not do what I did for all the other ones, which was attempt to uh sort of quickly communicate the gist, but maybe instead um to invite you to speak on these questions.

And I don't mean for you to have to, you know, recite all these answers in full uh or anything, but um, you know, maybe we could just sort of go down the list of these questions and touch on them briefly with the understanding that the fuller answers are here for for anybody to read.

Does that sound reasonable?

Thanks.

So this first one is uh about um, you know, you and again, you spoke to this, and I'm wondering if just there's any more uh light to shed.

Uh, how integrating equity and belonging uh will be achieved citywide, given the reduction in staffing in the new department structure.

It's a great question.

Um the department staffing model was designed to support the work.

Um, one thing that I will say is we're really lucky here in the city with the cross-interdepartmental resources that we have.

I have been able to talk to a number of departments from the engagement and neighborhood services to people operations about different ways that we are looking to do this work, and we are fully supported, which makes this work a lot easier to manage.

And we are fully supported, which makes this work a lot easier to manage.

Thank you so much.

Uh the second question I think you already addressed pretty directly.

Um it's asking about the elimination of the RSJ investigator position.

And you were saying that the intake review and analysis will be happening through the Human Rights Commission.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Uh the um the third question is about the uh commission's coordinator position.

And uh you touched on the distinction there of uh there will still be a direct relationship with equity and belonging with the commission on women.

Uh but for the uh the commission for persons with disabilities and the human rights commission, um, that direct contact will be uh moving elsewhere.

Is that right?

That's correct.

They will be supported through other city departments as part of our real life.

Thank you.

Uh for the fourth question.

Um you also answered this pretty directly uh of which programs and functions uh from the racial and social justice department will no longer continue.

Uh I know you mentioned the ADA coordinator, um, the public safety hall implementer, the police accountability officer or um staffer.

Uh and and then these community engagement uh functions being uh in communications in the engagement and neighborhood services division.

Sorry, that wasn't really much of a question, but I'm just just attempting to to summarize without uh without skipping over too much detail.

Um and uh yeah, in in this memo, I think um question five really sort of uh repeats question four.

And I'm trying to see if there's any more in my list.

Um I think the that addresses all the ones that we uh sent questions in advance.

Um so uh why don't we turn to questions from members of the committee?

Counselor Scott.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh this is obviously one of the departments that's uh gone through uh the most transformation, and I appreciate uh spelling out some of the rationale there.

Uh I just had a question because uh I know uh last year there was supposed to be an emphasis on actually utilizing the racial and social justice fund, the 750,000 that was uh part of them back in uh 2020.

Uh and I'd seen a solicitation go out for uh community grants.

I also noticed uh several positions in the mayor's office are being funded out of that, uh out of that bucket.

Um so I guess I I didn't hear any mention of administering that fund uh in the presentation.

So I guess through you to the director, uh is that is administering that fund uh one of the new uh one of the responsibilities of this new uh equity and belonging department.

Uh let me just start with that.

Yes, we will still be doing the RHJ fund.

We are currently um reviewing the applications that have come in.

All right.

So you'll still be utilized in this department.

Okay, great.

Uh our applications open on a rolling basis for folks who uh may continue to come up with good ideas out there.

The applications are actually closed for this um current cycle.

They closed as of two weeks ago, if I'm not mistaken.

Oh, okay.

Uh and uh not for nothing.

How many applications did we get?

We got about 65.

All right.

Well, that's exciting.

Uh do you do you have a timeline on when you're anticipating being able to uh announce those awards?

By the middle of July.

Awesome.

Uh well, I just uh gotta say I am glad to finally see that fund getting put to use.

Uh I was a little concerned when the first use of it I saw was uh paying salaries for staff positions, but uh I'm glad the money's gonna be going out in the community.

Thank you very much.

Um said, I think here, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Counselor Hart.

Thank you so much.

Um I really appreciate all of the information um and the and the details that you provided, Director, uh, through you, Chair.

Um you know, I I really look forward to seeing how this uh change and reorganization um, you know, impacts impacts the city and and I'm hopeful that uh about what's gonna come from it.

Uh just some concerns.

This is more just concerns rather than a question, I guess.

I'd love to see, you know, the department, you know, that it's that it's not all on the equity and belonging to to take this work out to the rest of the other departments, but that other departments are really have it as their key goals and key missions and are eager to engage with that as well.

And that, you know, that the equity and belonging director is involved in major decisions in the other departments, you know, as the goal is to be more integrated.

So just wanted to lay that out.

Feel free to comment if you have any comments, but no problem, if not.

Thank you.

Thank you, Summers.

Thank you, Counselor Hart.

Counselor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Through you.

Um, so uh I I guess maybe I have a question as uh similar vein to uh what uh Council Hart was talking about.

Uh you know, I um it makes sense to me this uh or potentially makes sense to me, I should say, since it's all still very new.

I'm still trying to adjust to this idea where um equity and belonging is kind of like touching all the different departments.

Um at the same time, I do like kind of you know, just observe that the department itself is smaller, um, many other departments are smaller, uh and the you know, the number of residents hopefully keeps going up, like the number of people, like that what we're doing keeps going up.

So it seems to me like there's a real risk of um uh you know the things we want to move forward in terms of accurate belonging um might be really hard to move forward.

Um so I'm curious, you know.

Uh we've got I think um a mayor who is uh you know, I think uh excited to look at like you know, data-driven.

Do we have any data-driven decisions?

Do we have um you know, kind of data points in mind, um, or some sort of way of kind of validating that that this restructuring and this kind of this reimagination of of how the department works.

Do we have ideas of of how we're gonna check to make sure that that we're actually doing that, or if we need to maybe you know tinker with it some more.

We are developing the strategy to get this information out.

Um right now we have gone through a number of processes of understanding what has worked in the past, what hasn't worked in the past, and having conversations with different departments and different leadership members that will help us get those data points.

But at this point, um, I don't have those data points for you right now.

But I can get that information.

I it's I mean, this is all brand new, it's so I know I didn't really anticipate.

I guess my question was more about is are you working on that?

I guess I should have said that more clearly.

Totally fine that you don't have it right now.

Um I'm just yeah, I just want to make sure that we're we're have we have some sort of way of validating that this reorganization of this department, which has been like I think the most um the most reimagined that it's that it's working or more if we need to retool it again um to make it more effective.

But thank you very much.

Uh I had a question, uh Director Nekato.

Uh I know we have um an LGBTQ plus services coordinator.

And uh I understand from you know being uh being in touch with a number of different parents uh that there are times that uh in a school context that parents and uh and students uh sometimes would love to have the the presence in processes of you know trying to trying to negotiate difficulties in school or dealing with discipline issues uh that sometimes parents have been interested in having more involvement of the LGBTQ plus services coordinator, but as it's been described to me, uh this is understandable.

There are procedural uh you know details in schools where it's not necessarily always easy to bring in just any uh city staff member.

And I'm just curious about you know, wanting to make sure we're making uh as good use of the staff expertise uh uh that we have.

Um I'm just curious if there are opportunities to refine those processes to to be able to sort of connect these different, you know, the these parts of the city government that operate, you know, in in very different domains, but where there's sometimes uh a great need for for that perspective.

I think there's absolutely opportunity for those needs to be met.

I think the beauty of working with the department, like engagement and neighborhood services is that they go out and reach people while we are sitting at the cusp of understanding how decisions are made once residents come in and they're engaged.

And so what that looks like is say the individual you're talking about reaches out to someone in part of engagement in neighborhood services, they bring it to the department, and we can sit and decide hey, this is a decision that we all need to make of creating a policy or creating a practice or creating something new for that to be embedded across the city in the garden to equity.

Um so I definitely think there is an opportunity for that.

Thanks.

I appreciate uh having your office as uh a resource for um for discussing these processes with other parts of the city government.

Any other questions or comments from the committee?

Well, thank you so much, Director Nakato, and have a good rest of your evening.

Thank you.

Okay, that brings us to people operations, the former human resources.

And I believe we will have director of people operations and gilling.

Hello, director.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Um I'm the director of human resources currently.

I'm going to be the director of uh people operations under the new um structure.

So happy to be here this evening.

I have with me um my two colleagues to my left, I have Jessica LeVaya, who's my deputy director, and to my right is Kristen Hill, the recruitment manager.

Thank you for allowing us to be here tonight.

So my department right now, under HR, soon to be people operations, is responsible for making sure that we hire and recruit and retain and reward employees, staff who can then be quality people who take care of the constituents of the city at some of them.

Those departments I'm responsible for right now are recruitment benefits, payroll, workers' comp and safety, and administrative processes.

Um right now we're in the process that we have been for the past couple of years, really working on our technology and looking at our processes, re-engineering processes, working with our IT partners and our Munis system to make sure that we're really maximizing everything there is in Munis to make sure that our lives are easier, to make sure that people can be more effective and efficient in their jobs.

And again, the purpose of that is to make sure that they have the value-added time to work with employees to improve the quality of life, not only before they get here, but once they're here, we want people to uh retain us, we want to retain people as much as we can.

We recruit to make sure that we're recruiting people who are qualified, diverse staff.

Uh, and we've been doing that over the past several years and continue, and we'll continue to do that.

The technology efforts have been um quite a heavy lift.

Uh, however, we've made great progress in that area, and we continue to make progress.

However, we've accomplished a lot in that area, but there is much more to do.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Director.

Um with the equity and belonging division, um, there are a number of different questions uh that were asked and answered in this memo.

And I wonder if maybe we could go down the list and just touch on them.

And um, you know, to be clear, I'm not expecting you to have to, you know, recite these answers in their entirety, but I I wanted to try to just sort of briefly recap them uh, if that's okay.

So the first question is about the vacant onboarding coordinator position, uh, and if there's capacity now to fulfill uh the onboarding functions for the city.

Um as I understand it, the answer was saying uh yes, uh there is this capacity, but with some anticipated delays.

Um, and there will be some work um for existing staff to absorb the duties and streamline processes.

That is correct.

And I think uh for the new city counselors who have just experienced what it's like to be onboarded here at the city.

I hope that was a pleasurable experience view.

So uh we will continue to do what we can.

I think I would be less than honest if I said we can keep up the same case that we've been having over the past couple of years.

Um we'll we'll certainly try what I can guarantee you is we will do our best to maintain that same level of service, uh, given that we do have people.

However, do we having the technology efforts as well will help with that because a lot of our processes in the past um have been paper driven.

And so we're looking to really utilize more of the tools that we do have, but just have not really utilized over the years.

Um that primarily has been because our data has not been what it should be to fully um to fully use what we do now.

So we're we're we're going to give it our best effort.

Thank you so much.

And there's a question about data coming too.

So we'll get a chance to touch on that again.

The next question is you know, similar, um, asking about the capacity for recruitment, given all of the open jobs and you know, the the people that we want to recruit to come to Somerville and work here.

Uh this question is about the capacity for that recruitment work.

And just to to quickly summarize the answer that I read, um, it was that uh yes, we we do have some good recruitment capacity, though the timelines may be longer than we'd like.

Uh so there are, as I understood it, two recruiters plus an employee engagement specialist.

Um, but that help is needed from departments to work on job descriptions, uh networking and interviews.

Um that that is correct, exactly.

So we're going to really rely on our partners, our department heads to work with us to become more engaged in the writing of job descriptions and organized in the anti-view process.

Um, Kristen Hill, again to my right, the recruitment attention manager uh can speak a little bit to this, but we're also going to really focus on retention, uh, which is something that we're uh Kristen and her team have been doing.

We've seen great success in uh DPW, particularly those who are positions that were hard to fill and certainly hard to retain.

Uh, and we've seen some progress when we're not only hiring quality candidates, but we're also retaining them at it right and right.

So, Krista, did you want to speak to that for a moment?

Yeah, um, last year during budget season, our team experienced changes as well.

And despite that, we were still able to meet the same threshold we did the prior fiscal year.

Last fiscal year, we accomplished hiring 264 people to the city.

This year we are on track to hire 380 people to the city.

Um, so the hiring has increased, but we have still been able to meet that need.

I think what we are going to have to do for this fiscal year is just think a little bit more creatively about our processes and training.

I think training is going to be a big part of what our success will look like, as we will have to rely uh a little bit more on the field, our hiring managers, our directors to play a bigger part in the recruiting and hiring processes.

But I feel confident that between myself, recruiter and the engagement specialist that we'll be able to provide that support and education uh so that the field can support in um meeting our hiring goals and needs.

Thank you so much, Manager Hill.

Um, Clerk, would you mind scrolling down?

Uh thanks.

Okay, so this next one is uh uh a detail about um the spending on advertising in fiscal year 25 and 26.

Um and you know, why there was a big drop off between those two fiscal years, if it was due to the hiring freeze or other causes.

Um actually I did not, I did not pre-read this one, and I don't have a summary of it ready to go.

So maybe that's one uh that I can hand to you, Director Gill.

Certainly.

Um do you want to speak to that?

Sure.

Um to the chair, uh, as far as our advertising budget goes, um through the prior fiscal years, we've made some pretty significant changes to our processes uh as well as uh what Director Bill shared, the technology that we are using.

Um so we have been able to utilize different practices as opposed to just focusing on using dollars to promote on random job boards.

So we've been able to reinvest that money elsewhere, and it's had kind of a greater impact.

We certainly do not hurt for applications here at the city of Somerville.

We get close to almost a thousand applications a month.

So we are very much so seen by the community.

We are getting applications.

So we have not had to rely as heavily on spending that money for job advertisement.

Addition, that particular line does support our training as well.

And the individual who held the employee engagement specialist position left the city back in uh December, January.

So the position was unfilled for a little while.

The position was ultimately filled with an internal staff member who recently picked up that work.

So we expect that in this fiscal year, we'll be able to spend that advertisement money down.

Unfortunately, this year with a few different things, we we didn't have the capacity to put forth the trainings that we had planned for with that staff departure and waiting to backfill that position.

But we do expect, especially with the focus on retention this year, to spend that that line down.

Thank you very much.

The next question is just about familiarity with some of the terms that are in uh the professional and technical services line.

And you know, just to recap quickly, sounds like investigative services is essentially background checks, um, maybe not exclusively, but but largely for firefighter candidates.

Uh and you know, utilizing a uh service, a company that really knows how to do these well.

Um, the recruitment scheduling software, it sounds like that's about um arranging and scheduling interviews, which you know, with the the volume of people you're talking about taking on uh one more than one a day uh makes sense to to be able to use software to help um speed this up for us and simplify the uh FMLA family family medical leave uh is is FMLA the Family Medical Leave Act?

Uh okay, thanks.

Um so this this third party administrator um uh I'm forgetting what is in my notes about this one, but uh yeah, uh, you know, uh a service that does leave administration um work for FMLA.

I'm not uh not quite sure about the details of that.

Uh and I think those are the only uh terms there they're mentioned.

Yeah, since since FMLA was the one I was the most vague about, I think.

Uh any other light you want to shed on that.

Um the FMLA uh Family Medical Leave Act, as you may know, is a federal law that we need to comply with.

But more recently, uh the past year, uh the city made a decision to do uh paid family medical leave, which was very generous.

It's a very generous benefit and has been very well received.

However, the influx of people applying for FMLA has uh really uh increased considerably.

Uh, and so we really need some assistance and people with expertise to help us manage that because uh people are applying for medical reasons, obviously for themselves and family members.

Uh, and we find ourselves making decisions based on medical uh information that we need really more expertise in helping us to manage that.

Uh and so this will help, I think, uh not only HR people to manage this better, but it'll also be more efficient for employees who apply and will be able to be responded to in a in a quicker, more uh comprehensive manner.

Thank you so much.

Um the next question is about uh whether Somerville tracks employee demographic data.

And uh as I understand it, um, currently this is a voluntary thing where employees can venture information and that's stored in the MUNIS system.

Uh, but this is not made public and there's uh care to take about the identifiability of this kind of information.

Uh, but it's possible that we could publish summary information through SummerStat.

Is that correct?

Sure.

Um we do offer all employees and the newer counselors may have seen it.

Um voluntary equal opportunity surveys at the time of hire.

Um that information is all stored in Munis, and we are able to run reports to respond to public information requests for such information, which we have done many times.

Um, but I we thought this could be a really good opportunity to partner with SummerStat and make this um some information that could be published on the focus area dashboard that they're working on.

Thank you so much.

This next question is about the ADA coordinator.

We've touched uh earlier tonight on the ADA coordinator.

This question is just sort of pointing out the the wide variety of functions that the ADA coordinator plays and the need for interfacing with uh with the public, with other branches of the city government.

Um, and just kind of wondering, you know, how does it make sense for the ADA coordinator to uh be doing all these, you know, doing these functions that are perhaps different from what you know many other people in people operations exactly are doing.

Uh and uh there's a set of questions related to this and some lengthy answers.

I wonder if if anyone could speak to that.

Certainly to the chair.

Excuse me.

Um the HR department is right now responsible for ADA accommodations for employees.

And we also are responsible for investigations.

So this position, given the mic up of the uh job description, would really fit, I think, quite well in HR because it's something that we do uh currently, and um we lost a part-time staff member who was actually helping us with that in the past.

So I think this will be a good addition.

Uh, what will be uh sort of the unknown is how this person will work with the external forces, external constituents, but I think that's something that we'll be able to really work out given um uh the expertise that we have in-house with the staff that is on board now, and hiring somebody new.

We'll we'll take a great eye and pay close attention to who we're hiring, what skill set will be needed, uh, et cetera.

The position is already posted.

Uh, we have several applications, uh, and we're in the process now of uh betting those applications and looking at who will be on, who will be next to come in and interview, um, do some maybe phone screening and then some interviews.

So I'm confident that we will be able to make this work.

It's just gonna take a little bit of time and a little bit of uh sifting through what has to happen and what will take priorities, but it's it's something that I think will be uh beneficial to the city.

Thank you so much.

Uh okay, that brings us to the end of the those uh uh uh pre-submitted questions.

And I think now we can turn to members of the committee.

Uh so counselor Scott.

Oh, Counselor Scott, you're still muted.

Here I am.

Here I am.

The hour is late.

Uh through you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh so the two manager positions that were uh consolidated, the HR manager and benefits manager positions.

Uh were those both filled at the time of that consolidation.

Um, currently they were not one actually was one was, and that person left uh once the this was before the budget was uh submitted.

So it was a consultant, one was an open position, the other one was filled.

Yes.

Uh all right.

I I think I think you lost me there.

So uh did I understand you to say that at the start of the year, at the start of the calendar year, both positions were filled, but prior to the submission of the budget, one of those positions vacated.

Correct.

Ah okay, good.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Uh like I said, the hours late.

Uh Mr.

Chair, I think I'm all set.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Any other questions from members of the committee?

Okay.

Uh, thank you so much.

Really appreciate uh you all coming.

Uh, Deputy Director Pavel, Manager Hill, and Director Gill.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

Thank you.

Thank you for night.

Okay.

Um, we are closing in.

Uh, I believe next we have uh Summerstat, and I believe we'll have Director Gartzman.

Hello, welcome, Director.

Uh thanks for having me.

Um, my name is Anna Gartzman.

I'm the director of the Summersat Division.

In the interest of time, I can skip the introduction to the team unless you would like one.

I think that's fine.

I appreciate it.

Uh looking at the uh question and answer, um, there was a question about uh how happiness survey results reach diverse communities and if neighborhood meetings will continue.

Um, and just to to recap, and then please feel free to elaborate.

Um seeing that results go out through multilingual communications now as well as cancel presentations.

Um there are also dashboards and data and other staff resources and ad hoc analysis.

The next survey uh will be in spring of 2027 with results in fall of next year, and that neighborhood meetings continue uh under neighborhood and engagement services with SummerStat and comms likely incorporating survey results.

Does that sound right?

Any care to elaborate on any of that.

No, that's correct.

Okay, members of the committee, any questions for Director Kartzman.

I am not seeing any.

Um I will say that uh it's been on my list to really dive more deeply into SummerStat.

I know there's a tremendous amount there.

Uh, and I know I've only scratched the service.

Uh, so I'm I'm eager to learn more.

I see a hand from Councillor Scott.

Uh yeah, I just uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh two questions.

Uh I mean, well, one observation, uh, which is uh it's very rare that an ARPA position uh is getting rolled over at this point from a grant funding to a full salary position.

This is a creation of a position, which is not the not the uh situation most departments are finding themselves in this year.

Um I guess I'm curious because uh in previous years, there's um let me just say that the role of SummerStad uh as it was originally created and then evolved over the years has changed a great deal.

I'm curious if you can give us uh maybe a high level uh description of how you would say your your mission and your charge has changed uh after this reorganization.

Um, I can speak to sort of my time here, which has been the last four years.

Um, when as a reminder, um, from four years ago when I started the Somersat was one person, his name is Sam.

We called him Samerstadt.

Um, and we had to rebuild the team basically from scratch.

So I don't I don't think that I'm the best person to speak to how things were before that time.

Over the last four years, we have worked on systematizing all of the processes that enable performance measurement, program evaluation, and just general data support that we provide for the city and the public.

So we uh I'm sorry, trying to get to where this is going where in-housing the program evaluation manager position.

Um, we started with ARPA because it was such a big um kind of set of programs that the city was trying to run all at the same time.

It made sense to have that function um available to us so that the programs were all evaluated sort of in an apples to apples away.

But in doing that, we realized that actually the city runs a lot of programs and projects and policies and initiatives that are outside of ARPA.

There's part of kind of our innovative culture.

And so as a result of that, we learned that there's really no way to do without a standardized evaluation function that we would spend more money on evaluations that we would have to outsource than just having this function in-house, and we would lose all the institutional knowledge and memory that this position has created.

Um even as ARPA is winding down, uh, the person in this role has been working on evaluations across the city.

Um so it would be um it would be going backwards to kind of move away from the having this function available to us and standardized and kind of working well uh to go back to sort of uh ad hoc process.

Uh that's a lot to chew on.

I'll have to reflect on that.

Uh so no no immediate follow-up right now, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you very much.

I'm not seeing other hands.

Um Director Gartzman, I'm sort of curious about how um staffing and administration for some of the functions of SummerStat in the course of the year work, like uh you know just taking one of these uh projects for as an example, the survey uh around the winter warming center.

Um if uh if that's something that's involving calling people up, uh you know, drawing a map and keeping track and you know, trying to trying to get comprehensive, if it's something that's um that's kind of lower tech than that.

Um yes, so our um sort of evaluation work in general data collection work kind of spans the a broad spectrum of technical requirement that we have sort of everything from information that still exists on paper or that we want to collect on paper because we're trying to reach a particular audience that's better reached on paper to all the way through more complicated data pipelines from our automated data systems like 311 where data comes in so often that it just makes sense to build something automated um so that we can necessarily we can have a system that we can rely on being up and not having to do manual updates.

So it really sort of depends on the project and the needs of the department that we are serving or the projects that we are um uh the sort of the constituency we're trying to reach on sort of what technical um tools we end up using for collecting and processing data thank you.

I'm seeing Council Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, I think this is maybe just more of a curiosity question, but um might as well kill the cat.

Um so I'm curious the uh I come from a background where I saw you know um lots and lots of data, and it was very expensive to um store process that data, third party services.

Uh I nothing jumps out to me here as um as that like that huge price point.

So I'm just curious where where does the data sit and um you know which line item does that that does that sit under?

I see both professional services and software services.

I'm not sure what's one of those.

Um I would say that is in the uh salaries line um because we do all of our data processing in house.

We do have a line item um through the technology department where um we pay for our open data platform uh through the sort of their budget.

Um that's where sort of the public facing data sets live.

Um and that's our biggest expense.

And then additionally, the technology team does support us with they have a server for us that we can um basically run our automated scripts.

So uh they can probably speak more to how much um funding that requires specifically for us.

Uh I think they serve multiple teams with this, so I don't want to assume that it's all uh like us.

But yes, in general, um, sort of we do all of our data processing in-house.

We have largely stop outsourcing that down.

So it's all it's all in there in the salary zone.

All right, thank you.

That's yeah.

Uh huge fan of Sumstadt, and thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Uh Director Gartzman, I did want to ask about one item on here that just uh surprised me a little bit, the stationary cost.

Uh now I'm not trying to nickel and dime, but I'm just curious if there's a story there.

Um yes.

Uh thank you for the question.

The stationary cost covers the um printing and mailing of the happiness survey.

So that is just the biennial expense for uh literally doing the printing and mailing.

Um we do everything in house like on our team except for the actual printing and stuffing of the envelopes.

Um, and so that stationary lines covers the printing and the postage and the return postage for people to return the survey to us.

Thank you.

Makes perfect sense.

Any other questions from members of the committee?

Okay, thank you so much for appearing with us at this late hour.

And have a good rest of your night.

Thank you.

All right, and that brings us to our very last division.

Uh uh technology and innovation.

Um, and I believe that we will have Chief Information Officer David Goodridge with us.

Hello, Chief Information Officer.

Good evening.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

Um, Dave Goodridge, CIO for the city.

With me is to my left is Davis Salonina.

He is our deputy director.

And to my right is Jay Rizzo, here's our network manager.

So we are one of four technology groups in the city.

We call ourselves in municipal IT, which does include support for the fire department.

We have the school department that has an IT group.

The police department has a couple people.

And there's one person at the uh public library.

For my department, kind of break our department up into three areas.

The scope of our services is global at times.

We have things that we support throughout the city, things like Munis, the entire network infrastructure, the phone system, things of that nature, those are all global, but we support all of that.

And then we have uh on the application side.

Um, well, I kind of said that, but uh on the application side is Munis that we support, and then we have some other departments applications that we support, uh, such as Citizen Service, uh GIS platform, which is just in the process of being upgraded.

Um we're doing more outreach to uh public safety stakeholders and see if we can give them a hand.

Um this is through the last few years of gaining some more staffing uh in our department.

So we're gonna do more of that outreach.

Um the last thing I want to say is, and I don't know why I haven't said this in the past, but if you look at our department or really any IT department, to visualize what we do is if you were to see an iceberg, the our end users, the people that we support see the iceberg on top of the water, but there's a whole entire infrastructure that you do not see that you know makes makes those things work for our end users.

So um I thought that was a great depiction.

That was something that a former SummerStat uh employee and I kind of went back abroad and was trying to figure out how to visual visualize that for people, and I think that's just a great example.

So it's it's a very effective visualization.

Definitely agree.

Um okay.

Uh I'm seeing a hand from Counselor Scott.

Uh yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh so just one question through you, Director Goodridge.

Uh looking at the year-to-date spend on the uh maintenance on the software maintenance line.

Uh, you know, that's a that's a pretty big chunk, and it seems to be pretty low right now.

Is there an outstanding uh billing we're expecting to come in at the end of the year, or did something change in terms of our uh software maintenance and what we'll keep it on maintenance?

Sure.

Uh through the chair.

Um there are items that um we're still coming through.

Um there are some other things that I'm trying to do fiscally to uh try to bring a lot of our uh terms.

I'm trying to co-term things to be in the first seven months of the year, so that when we come around to budget time, I'm gonna have a lot of my things already paid, so we're in a better position.

Um, to come before you and also to make sure that we have all of our purchases, you know, pretty much done.

Um course there's some monthly in uh invoicing that will happen month and month all the way through the end of June.

Um, but that's the track financially that I'm trying to put in place.

All right, I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

I'm all set, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Counselor Scott.

Uh any other questions from members of the committee.

I had a similar question just about you know some of the items that that are a little higher here than in recent years, or that you know, maybe maybe sort of uh on uh an every other year kind of cycle.

Uh I noticed the computer equipment cost, uh, you know, there was uh 480 and change thousand uh item for fiscal year 2025, not one for 26, and and then we're looking again at you know something a little bit lower in 27.

So, you know, with that with the higher uh cellular and paging services.

I'm just you know curious what uh what rhythms or what changes are behind that.

Thanks for that question.

Um the computer equipment line in fiscal 2010.

Sorry to spring spring two years ago details.

No, that's fine.

At this 25, we we had um our computer equipment line in our operating budget and fiscal 26 um through uh our finance department.

That decision was made to move that to a capital stabilization fund, and now this year it's back in uh in our operating budget for fiscal 27.

Um the reason for the dip this year is um we had a five-year lease on the network equipment that we had on the municipal side.

Um that is fully paid.

We we paid it off at market value.

Um, so now we do not have that lease anymore.

We own our network equipment.

Um, and I'm happy to say that we're all on the same infrastructure throughout the city, and that's exactly where I want it to be.

Thank you.

I'm seeing Councilor Link.

Thank you, Chair.

Um I'm uh I guess just I'm curious with uh the prices for so many things going way higher in charge, like you know, um memory and um specifically.

Uh you know, and it's of course we need that in our servers and all that.

You know, are we how knowing that we do a lot now in-house?

Uh I'm curious, you know, how I guess uh what stage of depreciation are the like the current servers that we have, or are we gonna need to replace something soon where the we might find that it actually costs you know three times more than um it did uh last time around for the chair?

Um so on network, a network and network, our network infrastructure um, I believe does not have an end of life yet, so we're we're good for the foreseeable future.

Um we talk about server memory and things of that nature.

We are a virtualized environment, and so with that, when we bought uh our new virtualized environment with uh some output funding uh a few years back.

Um there's enough memory in place there for us to spin up additional service if we need to.

Um the things we have to keep an eye on is is our file share, but that's that's some things that we're we're reviewing uh as we speak, um, because there's a lot of data about that.

So um, but from a hardware perspective, we're we're in good shape right now.

Thank you very much.

Any any other questions for members of the committee?

Uh well, thank you so much for staying up late with us uh and uh and being here and sharing all this.

Uh there's a lot of items on this list that uh I don't know the details of, and I'd be curious to learn more about, but it's it's a long list of those.

Um so uh I I might send some more questions your way, CIO Goodridge.

Uh thanks again for being here and have a good rest of your night.

Thank you.

Okay, so members of the committee, um the uh operations and um my whole thing is scrolled out of the right place.

Yes, on the operations and systems, that's the correct name on the operations and systems department.

Uh, do we have any motions?

Okay, seeing none, uh that brings us to the end of tonight's agenda.

Um, clerk, before I entertain motions to adjourn, uh are there any more things that we need to do?

Nope, nothing on my end.

Okay, do I hear a motion to adjourn?

I see a nod from counselor link.

Uh that is a counselor link motions for us to adjourn.

Uh could the clerk please call the roll in adjournment?

On agenda, counselor link.

Yes, please.

Councillor Shozo.

Yes.

Councilor Hart.

Yes.

Yes, please.

Council Wheeler.

Yes.

We are joined.

Thank you all.

Good night.

Good night.