All right, it is now 730 officially.

Good evening, everyone.

This is the fiscal committee of the board of representatives.

Budget presentations.

And we're going to start out of order a little bit tonight.

Stafford EMS is going to present first.

And I have Eddie Brown and Mark Kersman here.

Which of you would like to start?

I'll make a few introductory remarks and then turn it over to Eddie if that's okay.

That's fine.

And do you need to present?

Beg your pardon?

Do you need to make a present?

Do you need to present anything?

Like uh slides or budget, something like that.

I Eddie, I think you have control over any slides, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Those are the slides we sent in.

So um well, good evening, everybody.

I'll uh right.

I'll I'll keep my remarks brief.

My name is Mark Kurzman.

I'm a longtime Stanford resident, and I have the privilege of serving as the chairman of the board of Stanford EMS.

Uh I'm joined this evening by senior staff at SEMS, Chief Edward Brown, and I believe Eddie, you have with you assistant chiefs, uh Jessica Anderson and Malcolm Dean, both of who were promoted to that position in October of 2025.

Um I'm sure um committee members, you're all familiar with SEMS, but just in brief, we are the nonprofit company that serves the community by responding 24 hours, seven days per week to thousands of requests for emergency medical assistance.

We operate out of five ambulance stations and also during peak hours, have a basic life support ambulance that operates uh mostly out of downtown.

Uh, we're also fortunate to have a complement of trained volunteers who augment our staffing, which um currently consists of roughly 82 paramedics and EMTs.

We pride ourselves on the high quality of care we deliver to the citizens of the city of Stanford and the visitors uh here to the city.

Um I'm pleased to tell you if you're not already aware that we were recently reaccredited by CAS, the commission on accreditation of ambulance services, after they performed a very robust review of our policies and procedures and vehicles and equipment.

We are one of only two ambulance services in the state of Connecticut that are uh CAS accredited.

Uh the high quality of care we deliver to the city um is uh is done in an environment of a very high call volume.

During our last fiscal year, we responded to approximately 18,500 calls, and during this fiscal year, we're on pace to exceed even that number.

Um in terms of economics, we have little control over our revenue.

Uh 50% of our uh patient mix are Medicare patients, uh and the rest are a combination of Medicaid and private insurance and a small percentage of self-pay.

But um, yeah, as I'm sure you're aware, Medicare and Medicaid rates are set by the respective government entities.

Uh, and there's not a lot of flexibility in terms of uh of the rates that are paid to us by insurance companies.

So we are reliant on the city of Stanford for at least a portion of our budget, and hope that you feel that um the city is getting good value for uh uh for that portion of the budget that that that we ask for.

Um of course our most valuable resource is our dedicated field and supervisory staff.

You're gonna be hearing from uh Chief Brown, that who's uh the senior member of our supervisory staff in a moment.

Um so uh bottom line is uh we are operating under uh you know very high volume circumstances with uh you know limited control over revenues.

We do control our expenses, but so many of our expenses are outside our control.

The average cost of a of a of a of a what we call a truck, the larger ambulances that our paramedics operate out of, is about $300,000 now, up from 200,000 just a few years ago.

Uh and obviously we need to keep our vehicles and equipment in in good shape so we're constantly rotating our fleet.

Uh and um, you know, uh subject to those restraints.

We feel like we're operating efficiently, economically, and delivering high value to the city.

So with those words, um, and and with my appreciation from hearing from us tonight, I'll turn the presentation over to Chief Brown.

Thanks, Mark.

Um, yeah, he Mark touched on a lot of the points that uh I'm gonna go over on this slide that you see before you.

Our our total funding request for this year is uh 2675192.

That accounts for about 20% of our uh operating budget, as Mark mentioned.

Uh the rest of our revenue comes from uh medical billing, patient billing, Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and self-pay.

Um some highlights.

We did have some organizational changes during the year.

Uh we had some turnover, Jessica and Malcolm, as uh as Mark mentioned earlier, were promoted to assistant chief.

Um Bill Ackley was promoted to deputy chief, and uh we have two new captains, Randy Lilly and Dan French.

Um over the last five years, our call volume has steadily increased.

So we're up about 25% over that time period.

We were doing about 14 and a half thousand in fiscal year 2021.

Current year we're projected to do about 18,600 calls this year.

Uh we added an additional full-time ambulance in July of 2024 during the peak daytime hours to cover that call volume.

Um and we're constantly monitoring system status to make sure that we uh we have enough trucks to cover the call volume and and the demands of the city.

Uh we did implement a new website um called Hopeline Connect.

Um that project was uh sort of a passion project of our office manager Jennifer Lopez and our uh deputy chief Bill Ackley.

Um it shares resources to the community vulnerable populations in the area.

We actively monitor to make sure those resave choices remain current, has things for domestic violence, sex trafficking, things along those lines, you know, people looking to get some help that may not be uh too sure where to go.

This website has all kinds of different resources for that.

Um key challenges, uh, like I mentioned before is our call volume uh includes a significant number of treatment for patients who are unable to pay.

Uh as a result, our bed debt runs about 2.4 million dollars a year that we just have to write off.

Um obviously there's always uncertainty in the reimbursement arena for us.

Um Medicare and Medicaid tell us what they're gonna pay.

Um in addition to that, our the state sets our rates.

So we go through a rate setting process every year with the state.

Um so really we have no control over our revenue.

It's just you know, one of the and and we're not unique in that.

That's that's just a uh a function of the industry that we that we're that we function in.

Um the last thing that we're we're challenged with is we have some issues with some stations, uh the Medic 4 station up on Vine Road, and um we're looking to implement a new station in the South End at the Latham Wider Center.

Um those are both in the development stages.

So um hopefully over the next year or so we'll be able to be uh occupying both of those spaces.

Um we continue working with the Stanford Police Department closely with their behavior behavioral health unit on behavioral health emergencies, which is uh a significant number of calls that we do on a daily basis.

Um we've had several IT challenges.

I'm sure every department has had them.

Um and we're in the process of uh completing some new software for payroll as well as patient documentation.

Uh we'll be implementing a new system next month for that.

Um and other than that, we continue to explore um services to meet the needs of the community.

Umless Jessica or Malcolm have something to add.

That that's the gist of our presentation, unless there's any questions.

I'll I'll just uh Eddie, just one clarification.

Our Vine Road station is an existing station.

We have uh challenges with it because it's the condition of the condition.

It's uh a trailer that's long out uh lived its useful life.

And we are currently housed at the uh uh very currently uh at the Turner River Fire Department.

That there that team is kind enough to uh accommodate us, but we need to get back into our Vine Road station.

And um we are exploring all available avenues to uh replace the existing trailer uh with uh uh more suitable accommodations and that that is very much a work in progress.

Uh the South End station is as Eddie mentioned is is uh in the development stage, and we're looking forward to being able to place a medic station uh really in the in the heart of the South End, which um as you know can be a challenging area to respond to, particularly in uh uh during the rush hour from our existing stations.

So uh we're looking forward to being able to report to you next year on uh our success in in uh opening that station.

Thank you very much.

Uh I see questions from the floor in order of Representative Del Cruz and Representative Caparelli.

I'll start with Representative Dilla Cruz.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh request, not a question uh for Eddie or Mark.

Uh you could track off the emergency calls by the cost of the call.

uh we're looking forward to being able to report to you next year on uh our success in in uh opening that station uh thank you very much uh i see questions from the floor in order of representative de la cruz and representative camparelli i'll start with representative de la cruz thank you chair uh request not a question uh for eddie or mark uh you keep track of the emergency calls by the cost of the call and i'm wondering would it be possible to provide the latest uh uh table of the emergency calls by uh cost uh need sure you're looking so you're looking for call by by cost or by call type no by call type oh by call type yes absolutely yeah i can provide and yeah by call type yeah absolutely i'll i'll i'll run that report tonight and i'll email it over thank you so much you're welcome and i yield uh thank you representative uh de la cruz representative caparelli thank you chair um mr brown i i was just wondering where on vine road that trailer is i that's my district and i don't think i've ever seen it yeah it's on at 36 vine road it's it's just off the uh off the intersection of high ridge road and vine road it's in front of the um uh the senior the senior building there yeah in willard manor correct oh okay it's funny because i was gonna suggest you put it there if it wasn't there already um so what what's the issue with having it there i i missed that part uh the so we we are right now we're housed in a uh uh trailer that's been there well over a decade and it's outlived its usefulness um so we're looking to replace it and we're working on that with the city but you'd still be stationed in Willard Manor Correct yeah that's the building okay thank you so much I yield chair thank you uh thank you representative camper I see a question from Representative um I didn't see that you had a capital budget is that correct even though you've talked about a lot of what appears to be capital expenditures correct yeah the the the city doesn't fund our capital expenditures okay so just can you tell us how you get your capital expenditures then yeah we I mean we funded out of our operating uh budget as well as we do some fundraising we get about somewhere between 120 to 1500 a year in fundraising um we're always looking to increase that um obviously but that's where all our fundraising dollars go toward capital expenditures which as Mark mentioned every year we replace at least one ambulance to the tune of 300 thousand dollars okay and uh that you actually flooded right into what my next question was going to be which is that your vehicle expense line looks rather large I assume is some of that related to that new piece of equipment or is that purely the maintenance on the existing fleet?

That's maintenance and the reason it was high is we just took delivery this year of two new trucks which were significantly delayed coming out of COVID um we've waited up to 36 months to take delivery of new ambulances getting new vehicles has been an unbelievably difficult challenge not just for us it's across the whole industry um just getting manpower um and parts and um producing new vehicles has been very challenging in the industry and we've suffered from that so some of the vehicles that we've had to maintain are older vehicles that should have been retired previously but we've had to you know expend more money on maintenance to keep them running and do you use our shared maintenance facilities or do you do that on your own?

No we we do maintenance on our own we have uh full-time mechanic on staff and two part-time mechanics on staff okay got it thank you are you uh thank you representative representative thank you um so uh chief brand just a question on the 25% projected year over year increase in calls is there something specific you can point to as to what's driving that are you guys is that a trend you expect to continue is it an aging population more services I'm sorry maybe I wasn't clear was it's 25% over the last five years over the last five years yeah and mostly we attributed that to uh increased population to be honest like um you know the South end as we were talking about before about moving an ambulance south of 95 that's uh been a goal of ours for a while just because Harbor Point and uh all these areas that used to be desolate when I started in 1992 are now fully occupied um and we and we respond down there quite often so between um the aging population and the growing population that's driving call volume thank you uh I can't make it representative representative uh de la cruz here second question uh thank you chair uh regarding the maintenance costs that you were referring to I was surprised to learn at a couple of budget presentations ago that there are now electric garbage trucks I didn't realize that the electrification of vehicles got progressed that much are there any electric uh ambulances there are we don't have any yet um the they don't have so we we use what's called type one ambulances which is a large box on a pickup truck chassis um and they don't have electric vehicles of that size yet the smaller

I didn't realize that the electrification of vehicles had progressed that much.

Are there any electric uh ambulances?

There are.

We don't have any yet.

Um the they don't have so we we use what's called type one ambulances, which is a large box on a pickup truck chassis.

Um and they don't have electric vehicles of that size yet.

The smaller van ambulances, there are some electric vehicles that that uh New York services have started using.

I don't have a lot of data on how um how well they've been doing or not.

Um, but that's very, very new to the industry.

Yes, I see because the maintenance of electric vehicles is much, much less than gas power vehicles.

So many things that you don't need in an electric vehicle like radiators, bumps, you know, and so on.

Uh um if I can follow the earlier request, uh, do you also have the calls by location, by address?

Uh yes, we do.

Well, could you provide that as well, Eddie?

Sure.

You uh do you want me to do by district or by zone?

Something like that.

Is that what you're looking for?

Yes.

Uh what is the final break?

You don't have it by destination address.

Well, uh I I could provide that, but then it would be 18,000 records.

Oh, no, no.

Let's say my district.

Okay.

We have it broken down by zone.

So I'll send you um uh the zones, where the zone, how how we define our zones, and I'll break it down by zones and send you that.

Wonderful lady, thank you so much.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, Representative.

Are there any further questions?

Oh, hi, Mr.

Brown.

How are you?

Thank you, Chair.

Um, quick question.

How many total full-time employees do you have for EMS?

Uh we have 41, 40 or 41.

And how has the staffing changed over the the past five years with the increase?

Yes, yeah.

So uh two years ago in July of 2024, we added a full-time unit um 12 hours a day.

So that was four full-time equivalents that we added at that point, which put us just over the 40 number.

We were 36 for many, many years.

Um, and then that pushed us up over 40.

And you mentioned that um you're now uh accredited.

How does your training work with the new staffing or existing staff?

So we've been accredited since 2007.

Um so we yeah, but with to the CAS standard, that's the Commission on the Accreditation of Ambulance Services, CAAS.

Um, and we have a very robust training program.

Obviously, there's state requirements for that with what what's called CMEs continuing medical education that's mandated uh by our local medical control authority, which is uh uh through Stanford Hospital, the medical director and uh assistant chief Jessica Anderson, they run the training program.

There's certain things that we have to cover every year, cardiac, um, geriatric, pediatric, things like that that um are necessary to maintain our state licenses.

Okay, thank you, and I you're welcome.

Speaker Representative Grant, uh Representative Morrison, thank you.

Chief, uh I just wanted to say I how much I appreciate the care and quality and professionalism of the work that you do and everybody at SEMS does.

And uh uh this is my ninth year on the board of directors of SEMS as this board's representative, and uh it's it's one of the best things that I've been able to do.

And I I'm honored to work with you guys, and the city is so much better for you being the chief and for our team doing the kind of work it does.

So I I just I needed to add that so everybody can hear.

Well, I I appreciate your comments, but it's my privilege to serve and uh my people make me look very, very good.

All right.

Thank you very much, Chief Brown.

Uh appreciate your service and thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Good night.

Good night.

Okay, okay.

Uh out of sequence now.

We're gonna do health and human services.

Very next.

Uh Jody Bishop Collin.

I hate to interrupt, but she was called to speak at the Board of Finance while she was waiting for our friends with the emergency medical services to go.

She does have some of her staff present.

So if they would like to start while she finishes up with Board of Finance, I see Director Job and some of the other key staff from the health department.

If any of them would like the floor, they are listed online.

I think Jody should probably present.

So we will move hold her in reserve and come back when she's available.

Okay.

We do continually in sequence, we'll do facilities maintenance.

Scott Futch.

Yep, Scott.

Hello, everybody.

Can you hear me?

Yep, you're back.

This is hang on one second.

Uh pages 98, 103 to 106, 350, 463, 53.

I can Barbara, I can share my screen if that works.

Barbara, do you have it or do you want me to share?

I'm gonna let you share so you know the pace of your presentation.

But if it acts up, I do have it on standby and I don't mind that.

But if I share, just call out if that happens, what page you want when you're okay.

Can you guys see that?

Yeah, I just saw that.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Hi, everybody.

Scott Butch, Director of Facilities and Sustainability for the City Facilities.

Uh so I'm gonna jump right in.

Uh so no changes to our organizational chart from last year.

Everything is still the same.

Uh we do have two vacant positions currently.

One is the head custodian position under 2124 Henry Street, Latham Water Community Center.

The other is a custodian position in 2135.

Uh, those have been uh vacant for a little while.

Uh we have one new employee start, uh, it was an existing position, a maintenance to electrician.

Uh you started at step one uh February 17th.

So kind of overall budget updates.

Uh so we do have an increase, uh about a 7% increase, kind of where that's coming from.

As we can see, salaries and social security is uh just as per normal terms.

We are looking for a slight increase in seasonal.

That is to cover the expectation that we are covering the off-season um cleaning of parks restrooms, which we're hoping to have open for next season at Scalsey, Leone, and co potentially Cove Island.

Uh increases in custodial and engineering contracted services.

You can see for utilities, uh, it's a bit all over the place.

It's a combination of some accounts being moved into ours, some being out moved out.

Uh obviously, there is a lot going on in the market right now, particularly around electric and natural gas with what's going on in world events.

Um, but that is a potential increase of 7.4%.

This is provided by our outside engineer and consultant services on energy costs.

And then we're seeking an increase in building maintenance.

So uh this is my uh I'm in been here for about two and a half years is my third year presenting.

Uh I'm just trying to reflect the reality on the ground.

So we really are trying to focus on spending the city's money on you know repairs and maintenance, preventative maintenance and upgrades at a lot of our facilities.

So, you know, we're really we've asked for a lot of increases in that line.

I think we're getting to where we need to be.

Uh so I am asking for another increase, but it's it's because of how active we feel we've been at our city facilities overall.

Uh, and we want to continue to you know make sure that we're using our money directly on you know hard improvements, hard maintenance, trying to get past some of our deferred maintenance into much more of a preventative maintenance uh program across our city.

And then contracted services security.

So we are seeking an increase, particularly around the Latham Water Community Center.

Historically, that building for a long time didn't have security.

It was how it was manned by a custodian.

We then moved to a security guard.

We are seeking to move to two security guards and then potentially having that building open seven days a week, including two ships on Saturday and maybe up to two ships on Sunday.

So part of that is the library historically has been open on Saturdays without security.

Part of that is the increase in activities.

Now that that building is officially reopened, there's a lot of new social service programs, uh recreation programs operating out of that building.

Uh there's just significantly more activity than there ever has been uh anticipated over the next 12 months.

So this is really kind of a key point for both the operations department, the mayor's office.

I know a lot of this has come out of the NRZ.

Uh so we are seeking to increase our security line item, uh, particularly around the Lake and Water Community Center.

So just general kind of opportunities, you know, the two that I mentioned, uh miscellaneous contingency.

We kept $95,000 in there.

That has been helpful.

So I do appreciate that we are able to keep that contingency money there to only use if necessary.

And then historically we've been a bit high on the Questkin Theater, just on, you know, they have their own operating budget.

So if you're looking for areas to decrease, those would be areas potentially.

And then I might actually I'll just kind of keep it on this slide.

I'll talk to my capital budget.

So we have 13 capital budget requests.

The first is for citywide facilities lifecycle planning and assessment.

So this would be to utilize professional services to conduct a citywide facilities assessment, the outcome being a building by building life cycle cost assessment as well as a 10-year capital plan.

So we've really been doing our capital plans since I've been on the ground here for about two years, really just through field work, trying to stop the bleeding, you know, put out fires.

We're really at the point now where you know we'd like to have a 10-year plan so we can be coming to you with you know kind of a real assessed number about what we need to do, you know, kind of over a 10-year waterfall.

So that's really where we need to be.

So that's why this is our first request for capital.

Second billion energy management system.

So uh we had requested money last year.

We didn't get any because we sell it a lot in our in our budget line.

Uh we have now spent the original $665,000.

We are up and running with a new building management system at government center, completely new system at Old Town Hall.

We're up at Lathan Wider.

We're making some upgrades at PD.

And now we're moving into upgrading central fire department.

We'd like to make upgrades at City Garage.

We'd like to add touch points at the Yearwood Center and try to make upgrades at the historical society.

So we are seeking uh $300,000 to continue with our building management systems.

This allows us to have an eye on all of our buildings uh from a remote standpoint as well as maintain controls uh remotely.

Heating system replacement, $250,000.

This is a continue to fund this program.

Uh, you know, we've been spending between $100 and $300,000 each year.

I think since I've been here, we've replaced, I think, upwards of 20 individual units, HVAC units, heating or cooling units across the city, uh, mostly outdated.

Um, so this is really key for us.

Energy and sustainability.

So I know that there, you know, I was on earlier.

This is really a key item for for a lot of people on the board of reps, and I do appreciate that.

So, as I mentioned, we've recently completed our LED replacement at 12 city facilities citywide.

Uh, highly successful, really happy with it.

That now triggers a 12-month period with Eversource where we can get to what's called the tier two or tier three incentive.

And what that does is we can add additional sustainability measures and get up to a 40% rebate.

So, what we're looking to do with this money is to do a complete electrification of the South End Fire Department.

So their boilers and HVAC systems are at end of life.

We have a uh kind of an idea of a plan to completely electrify that building, which is the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at our city facilities.

Uh additionally, we're looking at doing steam uh steam trap replacements, pipe insulation, demand control ventilation measures at different buildings.

Uh we're anticipating upwards of $300,000 in incentives with Eversource on an approximately probably $500,000 project.

So by funding this account, it gets us to where we need to do to kind of complete all of these really really exciting sustainability kind of measures at some of our buildings and provides a proof of concept to electrify some of our buildings.

So we're really excited to carry out this project.

The Lakham Water Community Center sprinkler system.

Now, the reason that we're putting this in separately is that building currently does not is not a sprinkler building.

So from a code compliance standpoint, if any schematic changes we make to that building, which we're anticipating on the phase two project, which was approved earlier tonight, we're going to have to put a sprinkler in that building.

Um CLC operates out of that building.

Obviously, there's children there every day, five days a week.

They're a permanent resident, permanent permanent tenant there.

Uh, we really need to have this in this building.

We don't want to take away funds from the phase two project so we can focus on all of the things that that building still needs.

So we'd like to have this completed even prior to the phase two, the three million dollar work.

So that's why we're seeking funding to get this done, which will allow us to begin the schematic work uh through the phase two.

So I'm happy to take questions about that later.

Plumbing and sewer pipe replacement.

Uh we've been utilizing this fund, mostly reactive.

Uh certainly we're trying to get more proactive, but we have so many old pipes leading from buildings out to the street, uh, leaks, etc.

So, you know, this fund is helping us maintain and replace plumbing and sewer pipes throughout the city.

Roof replacement.

Look, I requested 1.5 million.

The reality is the 250,000 helps.

It doesn't provide us enough to do a complete roof.

It does allow us to have enough money if we need to do a partial or significant replacement.

However, um, you know, it is important that we have funding in here.

Uh, you know, we have a couple buildings, particularly up a questkin, the dressroom theater and silo um that really needs some some replacement.

So seeking funding for that.

Flooring replacement, we've been very active throughout the city utilizing these funds.

Again, if we get 100,000, you know, we we've been utilizing that every year.

So continue to appreciate the funding for that.

Government center renovations, we're seeking $330,000.

So some of the items include upgrade of access control and security camera systems, uh $80,000 will be allocated to the senior center outdoor rec center resurfacing.

They currently have a turf area on the it's technically on the second floor of the building on the patio that needs to be replaced, as well as space planning and reconfigurations of the engineering department, the law department, um potentially the land use department are all on the list of areas to upgrade.

The third and fifth floor lobbies as well.

ADA compliance, the balance that you see uh that is being allocated towards the government center plaza project.

Uh so we're looking at this as zeroed out.

So that 450,000 would be to respond to the anticipated West Cog ADA assessment that's been ongoing throughout the city.

I believe that's due sometime later this year.

And this all complies with the accessibility portion of the comprehensive plan.

Life safety upgrade.

So this is for fire panel strobe upgrades, just general life safety code compliance throughout the city.

Environmental hazard abatement, 250,000.

This is for asbestos and lead paint uh abatement.

You know, a lot of our older buildings, anytime we have an issue, a leak, you know, a floor, you know, anything that comes up, we are finding asbestos and or lead.

Uh so having this project funded really make sure that we are able to carry out our work as needed.

And then last is garage shore replacement.

So we've been funding this account.

We haven't gone out to bid yet.

We're trying to get an economy of scale as much as possible.

Uh so we are planning to go out to bid later on this year.

Uh so this would be to replace probably 10 to 15 doors across the city.

Uh this would directly bring down our operating costs.

We do spend a significant amount of money on a few particular places and doors.

Uh so we're talking fire departments, fleet maintenance, city garage.

Um, so once we go out to bid, we'll be able to get rid of kind of the oldest ones, save some money on operating and make some upgrades, particularly at West Side Fire, South End Fire.

So I believe that's it, and happy to take your questions.

Thank you very much, Scott.

I have a question.

Uh question from the floor, representative Gilbert.

Hey, uh, I was looking at your um departmental request versus planning and mayors, and I see the budget that really got hit the hardest was the roof replacement budget.

Yep.

So I assume that 250,000 that you got is for the roof that absolutely positively must be replaced.

What are the roofs that we're taking some risk on?

I mean, that's a huge delta.

It's a million two fifty delta between your and what you got.

So what are the ruse that are uh working?

What are the crawling things working under the rock roof?

Yeah, so it's it's a great question.

I mean, Lathan Wider is at the top of the list.

I mean, we think we have, you know, where we'll probably utilize a lot of the funding from the phase two, but we anticipate that to be you know well over a million dollars.

Um Questkin Theater dressing room theater, we anticipate to be over 250,000.

Um, you know, if we continue to fund it, that helps.

So even if we get this up to 500,000, maybe next year it's at 750, that puts us in a position when we need to react to replace the entire roof, we can.

I think to your question, this actually came up on Board of Finance as well.

If I ever have a situation where we have a you know catastrophic event or you know, just a very leaky roof, I would probably come to you for an additional appropriation.

Uh so I think in defense of you know, kind of the uh the thinking from both planning and the mayor's office, um, you know, it helps to fund this account.

And then if I ever need to come and do a full replacement, I would probably come for an additional appropriation, which might be the right way to do it anyway.

Okay, and then the next, I think line that jumped out at me was under building and energy management systems.

You'd asked for 650 planning said none.

Mayor put back 300.

Um, I assume that that's really a um if we were to spend that 650 that you'd ask for, we'd be reducing our run rate, our expense run rate rather significantly.

But is sort of if you look at it at a net present value terms, was the juice not worth the squeeze, or are we leaving a lot of are we wasting a lot of energy?

Well, it's it's a great question.

So what this does, this this obviously really allows us to have viewpoints of a lot of our buildings, which which really kind of helps us.

Uh for some of our buildings, like we just completed Old Town Hall, where we've had very little control over the use of energy.

So in that particular one, that this this money is very helpful at reducing energy.

Uh for some of the other ones, like City Garage, Yearwood, um, it's not going to be full controls.

It's going to be more kind of viewpoints and touch points, um, which is really important for us from both a maintenance perspective and just kind of an overall viewpoint of what's going on in the city.

I think to your question, with $300,000, we can do half of what we wanted, right?

And maybe next year we do the other half.

And that's okay, right?

You know, because these these projects take a lot of time to get up and going and installed.

So, you know, I could do more with $650,000.

However, with $300, I can you know do half now, and then you know, next year maybe we're ready to do you know a few more buildings.

So, you know, whatever you guys you know give us, we will utilize.

Um the question about energy savings is is a great one.

It's really very building dependent.

Um so government center and old town hall, you know, absolutely energy savings.

Uh some of the other ones, you know, it's more about just being able to have viewpoints uh into what's going on in the buildings.

Gotcha.

So what what you're really saying is the $300,000 is you're gonna spend is to give us data that can point us in the direction of where we could reduce our run rate expenses for energy.

That's that's yeah, yeah, that that's part of it.

It's also just having uh eyesight into our buildings to know what's going on 24 7, right?

So from a technological standpoint, that's something we haven't had at you know, a lot of these buildings.

Central fire is one where that's probably at the top of the priority list.

If you know the $300,000, that's probably where we would go first, and we would have energy savings there because of how the building operates.

Um whereas you know, fleet manage city garage, it would be more understanding what's going on in that building and not having full controls over that building, if that makes sense.

All right, thank you.

I yield.

Thank you.

Thank you, Representative Gilbert.

Are there any further questions?

Racing the hands, representative crew is sorry.

Representative Pine was next, and then Representative Caprelli.

Thank you.

Uh Scott, I just want to recognize all the uh for skin electrification of the buildings.

And if you need additional appropriations to drive that effort deeper further, don't be shy.

Okay, the payback is there.

Uh thank you, Scott.

Yeah, thank you.

We're 6% fire, and you know, like I said, we're hoping that's a proof of concept for the city to look at what buildings you know are our potential options, you know, moving forward the next you know, one to five years.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Uh yeah.

Thank you, Representative O'Cray.

Uh representative Pine is actually next.

Thank you.

Uh Scott, just a couple questions.

The the some of these buildings are are quite old, and one of them I think that the lacked one's getting demolished, right?

At the end of the Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

83 Lockwood, the Domus building is planned for demolition.

Uh I think it's closed, officially closing December 31st of this year.

Okay.

And if those tenants are able to get into a different facility sooner, is that a yeah, month-to-month cut in those um in those operating costs of that building uh for the balance of the year, or do you not anticipate that?

No, we don't anticipate anybody leaving that building.

DOMA still operates out of that building.

Uh so yeah, that that building, we are planning to keep that up and going through December.

Um, but yeah, that's that'll be the end of it.

So we actually did reduce, I think, you know, a couple of the utility lines, but that you know, we don't spend any money that we don't have to at that building, you know.

It's pretty pretty much a zero effort, yeah.

Well, that was gonna be an attempt for the rest of the year for it to operate.

What if there is a critical failure there?

There will there be no more money put into it?

Correct.

Well, uh, you know, so the we were aware of uh of a potential boiler failure at that building, which did occur in February.

So we've had a temporary boiler there.

Uh that boiler, that temporary boiler will be taken out in April.

Um that was just to get through the winter.

Um we because again, we didn't want to spend any money and couldn't couldn't fix and replace the boilers that were there.

So we've already been making a lot of those decisions as we as we move along.

Um, but you know, we're just trying to really crawl to the end of the year in that building.

We've known about the issues in that building for a long time.

We've been anticipating the closure, so uh yeah, we we are prepared for that.

Okay.

And then last question is just around do you do you have a efficiency rating for all of the buildings that you operate in?

Is there a point of no return where like a building like Latham Wider where you the water issue this year, and now there's two and a half million that we just saw is gonna through grants getting put into it.

But it is an old building.

Um where is the point where we're just throwing good money after bad, and how do you how do you analyze that?

Yeah, it's it's a great question.

So you know, as as you're all aware, a lot of our buildings are on the older side, some some at end of life.

Lathe and wider was an interesting one because we had the incident uh with the mechanical failure.

Uh, we had full insurance coverage, and then as a city uh in conjunction with the community, we made a determination, it made sense to use the insurance money, make the upgrades to the mechanical systems, the electrical switch gear, and really turn that into a civic asset for the community.

So those conversations are happening really at the mayoral and operations department level.

Certainly I'm on the execution team, you know, for a lot of those those things.

But um, you know, we're we look at you know our our entire portfolio of buildings, you know.

Certainly I you know make a lot of determinations on where we think funding will be, you know, uh the payback will be the most benefit to the community.

Certainly we're looking a lot at energy savings where we can, and that's why we're spending a lot of our capital money and time and energy on a lot of these sustainability initiatives.

Um, you know, certainly I'd be happy to you know talk to you offline about building by building, but a lot of these conversations are driven by you know the operations department, the mayor's office, um, and certainly I'm you know helping execute from the facilities maintenance side.

Great, thank you.

Thank you, Representative O'Brien.

Um Representative Caparelli, did you take your head down?

The questions that I was gonna ask were similar to what Representative LePine asked, so I'm good.

Thank you.

Great.

All right, thank you.

All right.

Uh no further questions from the floor or from Cloud.

And we thank you very much, Scott.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh next up, I see Jody Bishop Pullen is here.

Um, good evening, everyone.

Yeah, this was a little hectic going back and forth between the two meetings, but thank you for accommodating me.

Thank you for being flexible.

Okay, so Barbara, I'm I'm going to share.

Yes, you can share.

If for any reason it doesn't work, I have it pulled up also.

And if that happens, let me know.

I'll share, and then you can just walk me through and tell me the pace you want to go at.

Okay.

There we go.

I think I've got it.

See, I can do it on Zoom for some reason I have trouble sharing on Teams.

Um, but let me just get this from the So thank you, everyone.

As you know, I'm Jody Bishopulin, Director of Health and Human Services.

Um everybody can see and hear me all right.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

So I just gonna start before I get into the numbers, uh, a little shameless self-promotion.

Uh most of you probably know that in February we achieved public health accreditation.

Um, and that means that we achieved a uh national um standard of excellence.

Um, and we are dedicated to quality improvement, performance management, and accountability.

So that was quite uh a lot of work over the last four plus years.

And um it's quite an honor, and I'm very proud to be able to present the city with this uh accomplishment.

So that's that.

This is our staffing overview.

We have about 90 staff members at the department.

Um some of our grant funded positions aren't on here, as is the practice of OPM when they put this in the budget book.

Um you'll see we have uh six divisions.

Um, and there's a lot of work that goes on here that supports the uh city, the residents, and the other departments.

Um we uh have a large school nursing, our large nursing um division, and that is because we have the school nurses, and so we're providing all of that support to the schools in terms of salaries and uh supplies and technology and um equipment.

So that's a large part of our budget to keep in mind.

So we were able to increase our inspector one.

We hired an inspector one, so you'll see that number increased, but a decrease in inspector two, and that saves about 25,000 for the for this year and next year going forward.

So that's that.

I just a couple slides on performance, giving you an overview of all the work that we're doing.

And this is just in the first two quarters of the year.

And it also tells us sort of what's happening.

So a lot of round complaints, a lot around housing, not only housing violations, but people that are in need of support because of them.

We have to relocate those folks.

An increase in housing services information requests, increase in tick testing, radon tests, demand for STD testing, and the school nurses are administering more medications, which gets to the acuity of need in our schools among our students.

We have a couple pieces of good news though, our dental rate, dental referral rate decrease, which means our prevention and early intervention services are working.

And then we had an increases in our ability to get out in the community and reach the community through social media.

So this is the highlight of the numbers.

I want to point out a rather significant increase that we're expending, and that is for the cold weather sheltering.

This is to ensure the unhoused residents, including seniors and families, which we have a lot more of now, are have access to a safe and warm place to stay during those very cold months.

And that does prevent health-related illness and injuries.

And you know, there were a lot of deaths reported due to this cold weather this year in Connecticut, and it does strain our local emergency response systems.

So that's about a $310,000 increase in that line item.

We had a small amount in there previously, and the mayor's office asked that we include the increase in our budget.

And we are able to find if they don't, so we brought in a little money around that.

However, it's really more important than the money is that we are ensuring the safety of those housing units for our residents.

And we have some increase in revenue from our lab because of all the testing that they are doing.

We have an increase in revenue, not an increase, but uh it wasn't noted in the buddish budget, but we do have a $30,000 a year income for our dental program from uh some uh insurance.

So that's you know, a little little bit here and there to bring in some money, and that's on top of uh a large amount of money we bring in on the multifamily licensing multifamily dwelling licensing program, um, which is nearly $2 million.

Um and then we are very careful about uh kind of trying to take the burden off the operating budget by charging a lot of our things to um our grants, uh some of our staff time, some supplies, activities, printing, things like that.

A lot of our services we're able to charge back as long as it's um for the intent of the grant or the uh delivering the 10 essential public health services.

And these are the proposed expansions.

So we I want to take a um upgrade a part-time position, uh health and human services assistant to full-time.

Um, and that is uh someone who will help the department overall, but mostly in this case, we'll be assigned to support housing services.

We've had such an increase in the need for information and assistance with housing that it requires uh some more staff time, and we've done our best to try to do it through technology and creating forms and trying to give people information that way, but a lot of people need more intense uh assistance that and the fair rent.

So this position would take a little bit of the um the you know the all that work off the director so the director can focus on the bigger issues.

Um, and that's about a 27,000 cost uh to do the upgrade.

Um we are asking for an extra public health nurse, and as I said, we support the schools.

This is for a K-8 expansion at Westover School.

Um there's going to be more mandated screenings required with that larger population.

Um since there's older children, there's going to be more behavioral health support needed for mental health and substance use issues, and then that school has many specialized um classrooms with students with special needs that have medical needs or take longer to assess or um you know work with due to their disabilities.

So there's also more assessments of physicals and vaccines and that kind of work that happens in a larger school.

So that is about a $70,000 cost.

The epidemiologist position I'm requesting is because as you know, public health is under fire right now.

There's um uh CDC databases have been paused, information's been paused, there's lack of scientific information, lack of scientific um research uh support, um, and there's been a withdrawal from the WHO.

So there's all of these things happening that is going to leave local health picking up the slack, and we're gonna have to do a lot of this ourselves now.

Um and uh we uh need someone who can focus on looking at all our uh data surveillance systems, um identifying the emerging health trends and threats and responding, um, you know, helping us respond to outbreaks and other issues.

Um we have um many uh databases that we can draw from, not only the infectious disease surveillance systems, which we're all familiar with from COVID, but we have chronic disease um surveillance, we have hospital visits, uh wastewater, air quality, overdose, suicide, community violence, and complaints that come in from you know from our residents, then we can look at all that surveillance and help us create interventions that will you know uh keep our community safe.

We um have the potential to have fewer people vaccinated because we are seeing vaccine hesitancy kind of hit us in the face right now, and um as that uh goes on more, or the potential for people to drop off Medicaid with those changes that won't have access to insurance that are at risk for not going to the doctor to when they have problems or not getting their vaccines.

So it all of these things come into play now, and so I just feel it's a very important position to have.

Right now we're putting it together with the staff we have.

We've had some student interns come in that have been trained in epidemiology to provide some support, but they're only here a couple hours a week, and um you know, they come for a few weeks and then they're gone, and so it just leaves a lot of gaps for us.

And that um is a larger cost of 110,000, but I do plan to charge back uh 25% of that to our grant.

So that's how I can help with that budget.

So that's what I have, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much.

Uh are there any questions?

I see two questions here.

So uh start with representative graph.

One question, Jody.

Do you collaborate with any other speaking local leaders to identify any state trends so that we can recognize them in our local area?

Yes.

Well, I think the surveillance systems come from the state, so that's very helpful, but then I need to look at it myself.

Um but you know, when um when we had measles identified in the wastewater, the um state came in and you know, kind of worked with us a lot about okay, what happens when we get the case.

Now the case never emerged because you know, whether that person was or people were hiding or just didn't get tested for some reason, didn't have access to uh I don't know, health care.

It's hard to say, but it never became a case, but um it's just important for us to kind of track all this stuff so we know and we're prepared.

Um, because it can it can become big very quickly.

Um, so the schools can be prepared, you know, who are the unvaccinated students in the school for whatever reason they might have old religious exemptions or they might have uh medical exemptions and then they're at risk.

So we have to be really careful about that.

Um and uh so we do work with the state partners, we work with the local.

I see how this working is you know, monitoring the wastewater for substances.

Can we can work with the um police department and the um you know the behavioral health unit and the uh in the and say liberation program, our community partner there to kind of think about how we can and and the emergency you know the SEMs to see how can we best respond when we're seeing a lot of overdoses and we're seeing certain substances pop up in our wastewater?

Um so that's uh how I kind of see this working um to give us more information, uh, and so we're better prepared to respond.

Thank you, Director Bishop.

I yield.

Thank you very much, Representative Graham, Representative Goldberg, you were next, I believe.

Yes, thank you.

Um so uh I I know I should know this, but for whatever reason I can't remember the answer.

In the uh salary plan where you show the epidemiologists at 110.

Is that the salary or is that the fully loaded cost?

That's the salary.

Okay.

And then I noticed in reviewing your your budgets, you have a very large outside purchase services, uh, professional services line.

Um can you remind us what's in there?

What are you purchasing in professional services?

Um, I believe that you're referring to our um medical advisor and our uh physician that works at the community clinic.

So those are contracted professional services.

Okay.

I'm on page, is it maybe page 211 isn't yours?

211 isn't hers.

Oh, okay.

I don't think so.

Well, does it carry on from I don't know?

It's hard to tell.

So that's what I was asking about.

Is it looks like to me 211 is the detail behind 210?

And you have a purchase professional services line of 2 million 675,000.

Two million.

What page is that on?

21.

21?

I don't I don't have that in my my budget.

If you look at the way this flows, yeah.

The budget page is a little confusing.

And what we see printed.

Yeah, because it looks like one is the summary and two is the details.

I don't think it is though.

Maybe it is.

It looks like the numbers match.

Um I have personal well then be prepared.

That's a lot.

She's on two 10.

Yeah.

We're puzzling.

That's all right.

Yeah, I mean, I've read maybe I have a my budget print print add is starts on 265.

Yeah, I think the changes may be mismarked what we have on our printouts.

All right, or you can disregard that.

Uh well, well, but maybe we can figure it out and find an answer.

Because two million doesn't make sense to me.

We have blue derivative, and perhaps you can enlighten us in a moment.

He's he's over there rapidly flipping through pages.

Um, so the other question I was gonna ask is you do um also unless uh misreading your pages, you've got a big uh salary increase.

Uh it looks like in your salary line.

Um I was just wondering, is that are your salary increases contractual or non-contractual?

Yes, contractual.

All right, so page 213.

I'm looking at your salaries line.

And according to my health and human services, which I think is year 213.

You've got a 10% variance.

Not that the numbers are huge, but it's that's still I'm curious about a 10% period to period.

So in my in my full-time salary, I have a 4%.

Yeah, if you go to um page 267 of the top line item is the 4.1.

It's a 284,000 dollar increase on a 7.2 million dollar two six up.

But do you still, but I think it's uh tagging a different department under public safety.

Which are you looking at 21?

That's the that's the fee that we pay sims for their services.

We give them a uh payment, and that's a 2.6 that Eddie referenced in his presentation.

Oh, yeah.

267 is the health apartment.

That's the one.

Yeah, so he's at 260 uh 2,675,000, and he was off uh 127,000 this year, 5% increase.

So that's that number.

Okay, right.

All right, we've sorted it.

Okay.

It was for sims.

It's the payment to Sims.

That's we're it's we're good.

We're good.

Okay, okay.

Sounds like it's uncontrollable.

So any further questions?

No, I'm done.

Representative de la cruz.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh Jody, thank you for such a concise presentation.

Uh on the 30th and 31st board, we enacted a number of ordinances to address the health concerns of things like styrofoam containers, single-use, plastic cases, plastic bags, and so on.

Um it appears that these ordinances are not being observed, not because people don't want to uh observe businesses, but because they just don't know that these ordinances exist.

We have talked about some educational program to send to all our businesses and restaurants and so on.

Uh, to inform them that these ordinances exist, and that maybe such an educational program budget.

Uh I didn't recognize anything in the budget to fund that effort.

Is there anything that I missed, or uh what's the status of of that uh suggestion?

Well, I think that's incorporated under uh a few different areas.

For example, when the inspectors go out, they um they they um take for right now we're working on the um uh the new new ordinance related to plastic, um single use plastic, and have been working closely with rep camperelli on that um and um economic development.

So we've been we've been getting information out to the establishments regarding that.

Um and then we have it uh can go out with their um with the licensing, so they see it there, the inspectors are taking it with them, um, and the inspectors have been talking to them.

So there so it's incorporated in different ways, and we if we have um pieces, you know, pieces of paper, flyers or something that we're taking that's in our printing budget, so there's you know different ways.

So I don't think we're gonna see like a line item that says that, but there's you know, it's it's incorporated in the in the program.

Yes, yes, and that's primarily covers like food establishments, but I will go to a plumbing supply house, and they will give me the items I'm buying in a plastic bag.

Yeah, I go to restaurant, I go to a restaurant and they have single use uh plastic, you know.

Uh what do you call the straws?

I'm related to the budget.

Um I would like you to say focused on the budget, please.

I guess I was asking, I was asking about whether this item was being covered in Jodi's budget.

Right.

So some of that some of that is, and as I said, incorporated in in the work that we're doing.

Um we don't have any authority over stores, but only things that we license, so that's where we have to focus.

Okay, thank you, Jodie.

Appreciate your answer.

And I yield.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Virgil.

Thank you to Representative La Cruz.

Uh Representative Caparelli.

I saw your hand up.

Thank you, Chair.

To Representative Delacruz, uh through you.

Um I've been working on that with current staff uh through the the Office of Economic Development and the Department of Health with Jody, um getting a website up and things that would be done by current staff.

So while there's nothing, you know, as a line item in the budget.

Current staff is trying to take care of that, and I can I can tell you more about that offline.

Okay, that is fine.

Good to know, Karen.

I yield.

Thank you.

Thank you, Representative Caparelli.

Uh any further hands?

Any questions?

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jody.

Thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you for adjusting for me.

Oh, thank you.

All right.

Then next, uh we have Mood A Rubis.

Yes.

Uh Lou, you're here.

Why don't you sit here?

Uh actually you probably better uh Barbara pulls up the presentation.

I have a copy, so I can go off of that.

Okay.

Um do I okay?

Let me pull that.

Thanks.

Um video.

Oh no, that would stop the video.

Yeah, you should get should be good.

Just go a second, Barbara share.

Okay, great.

I was sent an email with a number of presentation pieces.

Uh public safety complex, capital budget, uh summary sheet.

Which one would you like first?

It was uh just this morning.

Uh it was from Kathy Ruther.

It's it's it should be one power power point.

Okay, okay, I'll have to look for that one.

I had Lauren Myers email up that had like seven presentation pieces to it.

No, that's that's different.

Okay, let me grab Kathy's so the pages you were asking about is in this presentation.

Yeah.

Okay, do you move it?

I don't have Kathy's email, it's not coming up.

So um do you have a way to email it to me really quickly?

Yeah, yeah, I'll send it to you right now.

Thank you so much.

Two, two, two, three, two, three.

Two twelve to two fourteen.

Yes, yes.

So yeah, I think that's as well.

I think that's right.

Okay, that should have came through, Barbara.

I'm hitting send receive, and as soon as I see it, I will grab it.

Hold on.

It's still not here.

Yeah, it definitely went through, so probably give it a minute.

It just popped up and I am opening it.

And let's it's opening in PowerPoint for me, so let's see if we can have it show full-size slides.

Let me know if you can see it.

Yes.

Perfect.

Thank you, Barbara.

You're welcome.

Just let me know when to change pages for you.

Sure.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

Over the last couple months, I've been trying to meet with all the new representatives on the new board.

So I see a few familiar faces here with a couple of new ones that I just met this evening.

Just a little background on me.

I was with the Stanford Police Department for 26 years, and my last position held there was assistant chief about three and a half years ago.

I came over to the public safety department, and currently I report that directly to the mayor, the director of public safety, health and welfare.

I work very closely with all the department heads under public safety and the department of health.

I also work very closely with all the board of representatives who are community representatives, community partners, residents themselves, and all other elected officials.

So with that said, in tonight's presentation, we'll be doing a little introduction.

I'll just hit on the mission statement really quickly, give a little overview of our organizational chart, and then we'll be hitting on some highlights from 2025 just to kind of give you all some insight.

Although you've already heard from two of the departments that fall under the Office of Public Safety tonight, so I try not to be too redundant.

And then we'll get into the 26, 27 goals and priorities and how those relate to some of the budget highlights that I'm gonna be requesting from all of you this evening.

So next slide, Barbara.

So this is our uh Office of Public Safety, Health and Welfare Mission Statement.

I'm not gonna sit here and read it.

Uh I'll give you guys the opportunity.

I'm sure this will be up on uh the site shortly after.

The one thing I wanted to highlight on this particular slide is proactively enhance.

Um that's really my philosophy in a nutshell.

Um I work very closely to make sure all the department heads are never uh staying status quo, and we're constantly working to improve and become more efficient in the services that we're putting out throughout our community.

So I just wanted to highlight that, and then if there's any additional questions on the mission statement, um we can come back at a later time.

Uh Barbara, next slide, please.

So this is the office of Department of Public Safety, Health and Welfare.

Uh, as you follow that left-hand line from the top for director of public safety, follow that all the way down, you'll see the six departments that fall under the Office of Public Safety.

Um, that consists of the police department, our 911's communication center or emergency communication center, those terms are interchangeable.

Uh, the Stanford Fire Department, the emergency management team, our health and human services department, and then lastly, our Stanford EMS.

So I work very closely, uh, pretty much on a day-to-day basis with each of those department heads and their departments.

If you follow that center line down, these are departments that uh report directly in to me and uh or some of my direct reports.

You'll see uh if you follow that center line down to the left, emergency communications, that's really the core of our our whole public safety team.

Uh we'll get into that a little bit more on the next slide.

Um, you'll also be hearing from Brian Fonden, who's the director of 911 after me.

Uh, but their structure is uh director of 911.

We have a structure of five supervisors, then public safety dispatchers, uh, which are broken down in two tiers, dispatcher one and dispatcher two, and then they also have some support staff.

Uh if you follow the center line down under director of public safety, you can see it goes right into Sims.

Sims is a contracted service, which uh Amil kindly pointed out, costs 2.6 million dollars a year, but Eddie kind of clarified that Eddie kind of clarified that in his presentation.

Uh we you know, we support 20% of their operating uh budget, so that they do a tremendous job for us, and it's money well spent.

Ummediately off to my right, uh, out of the director of public safety, the line is administrative officer.

That's Kathy Ruther.

She works with me day in and day out.

Um very instrumental part of our team.

And then lastly, there you'll see uh from that center line.

If you go to the right, we have some support staff, public safety statistician.

That's Frank Lego.

He provides uh data matrix of pretty much everything we do for all of our departments so that we can make sure that we um are using benchmarks and and and making sure that we're being efficient in what we're doing in our operations.

And then uh, if you follow that line down, our chief enforcement officer that's Jennifer Pinto.

Um she oversees two part time employees uh who are citation officers.

So that is just a little overview of our organizational chart, and as a whole, uh the office public.