The time okay, the time is eight, uh sorry, six thirty-one p.m.

on April 7th.

And this is the Board of Representatives uh fine fiscal committee budget hearings.

Uh present tonight, members of the fiscal committee, myself, co-chair Eric Morrison, co-chair Andrew Zachary, and committee members, Representative Tom Bouchard, Representative Virgil De La Cruz, Representative Kira Dorsey, Representative Emile Goldberg, and uh other members of the Board of Reps joining us this evening, representatives Price, Hyatt and Field and Adams, I see.

Uh first up, we have our registrars of voters, uh Monica Di Costanzo and Lucy Corelli.

Uh, and we'll be looking in the um operating budget book, page 303, page 320 and 21, 334 to 36, and 465.

Take it away.

Thank you.

Did everyone hear me?

Monica, Lucy.

I can hear you.

Okay.

Monica, Lucy, you ready?

I don't hear anyone but Eric.

Uh uh Monica just texted me, they got booted and they are rejoining.

So we'll give them a moment.

Yeah, Eric, that happened to me too.

There might be some uh fluctuation on the network tonight.

Okay, we'll give them a moment.

Thank you for your patience, everyone.

If Representative Price can hear me, I sent you a message just in FYI.

Thank you, sir.

What'd you send it to?

Uh in this webinar chat.

Thank you.

Can you hear us now?

Yes.

We heard you for a moment.

Are you still there, Monica?

We're going again.

Okay, let's do this while um Monica and Lucy are trying to get back on.

Uh David, are you are you ready to proceed?

I am.

Okay, so let's skip ahead to our city and town clerk, David Hoke.

Uh budget book 304, 320 to 321, 329 and 330, 332, 372, 393, and others to be announced as needed.

Sounds good.

Christina, if you could bring up my uh slide deck for the town clerk.

Are we there, Eric?

Are you back?

This is very frustrating.

That's okay.

Are you back now?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, David.

Can you're back?

I'm on hold.

Sure.

Okay.

All right.

We were we pivot back to our registrars of voters, Monica and Lucy.

If you want to add in a new computer for the registrar, that would be fantastic.

Phenomenal.

Outstanding.

All right.

Christina, can we pivot back to the registrar's presentation, please?

Okay.

As you see, we have uh mailed you.

We have told you all our um documentation that we have.

Uh we are doing this for a lot of years.

Uh we are waiting for some uh legislation from from the state level and the federal level.

And we we're not sure when that's gonna be if at all, but everything here is always on top of a uh new department.

We have the voters, we have the staff, we have we are non-partisans of this office.

Uh we deal day to day together.

And if you have any questions, I think the budget is the same as last year.

There's nothing else we could add or eliminate until we find out different.

I'll be I'll be happy to answer any questions if you like.

Do you want to go through your presentation?

Uh we can.

Yep, please do.

Yeah, yeah.

Monica, you're on twice.

I think you're feeding back on two devices.

Did we lose you?

Yeah, okay.

Are we back, Eric?

Yes.

Okay.

Can you flip to the next screen?

Christina.

Okay.

So it's just the registrars, the two registrars and the deputy uh registrars and our seasonal staff.

So the seasonal staff work in the office and the secured warehouse.

And um we serve all uh all Stanford residents, uh not partisan, uh neutral in our public service.

Next slide.

So as you can see, um, we only have a salary um line increase for other salary, which is the um permanent part time, which is uh Lucy and I, and it's a.4 uh variance um for um 5% increase in the pay plan.

Um you're gonna see that obviously throughout because we're not the only ones on the pay plan.

Um, and it includes uh 1.2% PICA um uh increase as well.

That is the only change in our budget from last year.

We have the same amount of elections this year than we did last year.

We have a primary on August 11, as you very well know.

Um, 24 districts, and I promise Eric, that we won't spend all that money only one place.

Um and we just want to uh thank the administration for working on that pay plan.

Um, and uh compensation continues.

Um the discussions continue because the registrars um work 4.2 hours a week uh for a day.

Um and um we don't we're here all day on election day and every day of early voting.

Uh that's a lot more than 4.2 hours.

So we're we're in touch with the administration and hopefully um working on that.

Yes.

Next um no expanded services.

Um we had a bunch of changes in 25 and 26, so that's why we're um we didn't put any real enhancements or expanded services this year.

Uh we had a lot of change.

We had electronic poll book implementation, uh 24-25, new scanners, tabulators.

Um, we're getting a new registration system this year.

Um we also have uh the state of Connecticut with our new equipment, the new um vendors that we have.

We went from 2800 for maintenance to over 45, 50,000.

That's a big deal for us.

Yeah, and we're in contact with uh uh Stephanie Thomas because we don't like it, and we really don't want it.

It's a lot of money.

So we're working on those invoices um that are not um currently reflected in our current budget um because we're still working on negotiations with the state.

So um, and we'll continue to update you.

We are going to have some changes.

The Stanford Public Schools, some of them, and citywide facilities are going through renovations.

So we're obviously not going to be able to hold elections at certain points.

And that's going to impact our voters and candidates.

So we'll have to update you as we go along.

Next next slide.

So we have no fiscal uh view right now about how that's going to impact uh this upcoming budget or you know, or well into the the next budget as well.

Um but we do remain in contact with the Secretary of State.

So uh as soon as we have information, we will be in touch if it requires any additions uh or changes to our budget will have to come before the boards.

Next.

And these are the big things that are happening that are going to impact um our improvement.

Um we're in the process of asking the legislators to um reduce the total number of 80 days, deliver the the 14 days, uh no Sundays.

Um no Sunday before election.

No Sunday before election.

Because for our own uh sanity to do this correctly, it's very, very difficult to do on Sunday and Monday.

We have a moderators picking up their documentation and what we need to do.

We're here until the middle of the night working.

Uh not that we mind, but you know, when you fall asleep, it's it's a problem.

Um so um we'll do we don't know the answer to that.

We don't have you were supposed to have total vote uh implemented about nine months ago.

It's still not happening, and it doesn't look like it's gonna happen for the government for the governor's uh um election either.

I mean, that's what we heard.

And uh so we're kind of stuck in the mud with this.

As soon as we know anything, we'll definitely notify all of you.

And that's all.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Any questions?

Uh I see your I see your hand.

I'll call on you.

I saw Virgil's hand first, and then I'll go to Representative Goldberg.

Virgil, you have the floor.

Okay, thank you.

I I wasn't sure whether you were going to go to representative Goldberg first.

Yes, the question is Monica or thinking about the developments in the political sphere where records, for example, have been subpoenaed and carted away.

Uh given to having copies made of things like ballops and so on.

So that if by some sort of prize uh the DOJ shows up with a subpoena to uh take away the uh ballots, is there any backup that can be kept uh behind?

Yeah, we'll have as we get closer to the election, we'll have a lot of guidance from the state on a lot of those contingency plans.

Um we know that if anything does occur, there's um obviously our uh legal team is gonna be on alert and the secretary of state's office will be on high alert.

Um our own um people that work the polls, uh, our moderators and also the police um that we are have stationed at every poll.

Everyone will be on the same page when it comes to uh whatever is going on at that moment in time.

Um so if there's any um sort of uh information that we hear, um, we will obviously um share that back out.

But um at the moment we don't have anything and we don't want to comment on anything because you know there are security things that are in place, there are things that um people um can take advantage of.

Um, and we uh certainly are not inviting trouble.

Um, but we want to make sure that um our voters are have a safe and secure um circumstance when they arrive at those polls all the way through to when they leave in their cars or or on the sidewalks, uh a very safe environment.

That's always our goal.

Um, and we're not gonna tolerate any nonsense.

So um that's the that's the the end of the story there uh in terms of Virgil, we can plan and plan and plan, but at the end of the day, we are so very confident because we've worked through many, many other security uh uh scenarios with our partners.

Um, and we have a great team out there.

Um so everybody by the time August uh 11th uh hits or before that uh for early voting, we're good.

We're good.

We'll have everybody trained and up to speed and uh phones on every communication uh that we have possible channels that we would notify voters.

God forbid if there was an incident or something that was um at one of our polling locations.

Yes.

Uh thank you for that, Monica.

I know you have a great team which I have to use during voting, but I was more directly directed at what happens after the election.

And is there any budget provision, any contingency to copy all the uh ballots and have no, we cannot copy the ballots.

Yeah, we cannot open according to the state statute, Virgil.

We are not able to touch the ballots, open those blue the blue bins for at least 14 days.

Right.

We can't even go near it and we cannot copy ballots.

That is not no, we can't do that.

It's not it's not in the statute.

During the first during 14 days, yeah.

So from the election and then the election until 14 days, we're not even allowed to go into the warehouse to open up those bids.

Well, the ballots that were carved away by the OJ were a few years after the election.

Yeah, that's for presidential.

There's different time frames for how long you keep um presidential versus municipal versus state elections.

So um those things will have to be decided.

And again, it's all it's all gonna be dependent on um the courts.

Uh we have a secured facility, so uh, you know, we we will we we will be managed, we will be managing this through others.

Um these are not things that that we can um ourselves, you know, uh to to protect.

We we have that's why we have a whole band of team uh behind us, because these are things that the state legislature is addressing right now, uh where they can.

Um, and then uh then we're gonna have to take the lead on on where it takes, you know, what's gonna take place.

Um and we will be on high alert and we have our lawyers, we have our head moderators um with us.

We're pretty well set, Virginia.

So is up to date.

Okay.

Uh thank you for that.

I take it then there is no budget provision for such a contingency.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Appreciate it.

Um, thank you for all you do.

Sure.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you, Representative Delacruz.

Representative Goldberg, you have the floor, sir.

Thanks.

Um, your maintenance fees.

Uh, can you remind me uh that is set at the stake the requirements for that for the spend on that and your technology.

Uh is that uh dictated to you by the Secretary of State and Yeah.

Okay.

So our what I'm trying to understand, and and I think I know the answer to this, but I want the public to know, and our colleagues that are uh first-time uh budget.

Um this is their first budget.

And for those of you that don't know, Monica used to be the chairman of the physical committee.

So she's uh extremely too.

And we're seeing.

So they both know our process quite well.

Um actually your degree of control around your budget is fairly de minimis.

You you mostly get mandates handed to you by others, and you don't have the ability to control your costs for the most part.

No, right, which is why we are seeking relief wherever we can.

Um, because those are things that that when we can say uh there's efficiencies or there's you know, there's process things that we can do here, but that's minimal to uh like envelopes, for instance.

Um there they've uh they wrote the law that is gonna um do away with early voting envelopes.

So we will be coming in and using the tabulators, um, which will you know will eliminate costs.

But again, the state was issuing our envelopes.

can't um because those are things that that when we can say uh there's efficiencies or there's you know there's process things that we can do here but that's minimal to uh like envelopes for instance um there they've uh they wrote the law that is gonna um do away with early voting envelopes so we will be coming in and using the tabulators um which will you know will eliminate costs but again the state was issuing our envelopes so really it's not really our cost it's just our cost to our uh folks who have to count and who have to go through um and uh do the day to day activities that's where we'll find the what really happened was the secretary of state I don't know which one before her ourself or whatever signed this contract with the new company and we found it outrageous not only just us a whole hundred and sixty nine towns yeah so we're kind of holding back paying off I know they signed a contract because we can we're all going back to negotiating then because we think it's a lot of money yeah right so so once again the the point I'm trying to make both for the public and for my colleagues is that this is another one of those budget categories where it it you would reasonably assume we have a lot of degree of control we actually don't and I just wanted to make sure that everybody understands that because we do you know I think Eric can um validate this you know he and I have go to town hall meetings we meet with our constituents and they you know we say to them you'd be surprised at how little control we actually have over our budgets most of them are mandated uh and I just wanted to point out that yours is another example of the kind of budget where our ability to control it is de minimis and with that I yield.

Thank you.

Thank you meal.

Any other questions from the committee from the board of reps well no we're also joined by representatives Walston and Sylvestri.

Hello Okay.

Monica Lucy thank you for being here thank you for your presentation thank you for everything you do thank you for everything you put up with truly in service of democracy and making sure people people's voices are heard in this town.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good night.

Good night.

Okay.

Moving on to our city and town clerk David Hoke.

Thank you, co-chair Morrison and co chair Zachary and all the other fiscal board members um thanks for the opportunity to present and if you'll allow me I'll do a just a real quick brief overview while Christina's pulling up my slides.

I just want to note that Representative Hughes has joined us as well.

Sorry go ahead David no worries.

Just a as I say brief overview given I'm just four months in the department is still in a bit of a transition period um but my prior priorities for the department are to um rebuild a cohesive and productive team atmosphere and to address the aging records and vault infrastructure so we're ensuring uh that we're in compliance with the state statutes um regarding staff the current staff is very talented they're very customer service oriented and experienced um I think they just need to be empowered a little bit more free of micromanaging and given additional cross training um to increase their knowledge and our our office efficiency and regarding the older records in the vault trend in the vault infrastructure I have no capital fund requests this year or for next fiscal year.

I want to assess our needs a little bit more in detail first.

If we do any smaller projects too I would do that through what's called the town clerk's historic preservation fund um and that's slowly building up in dollars that gets funded two dollars from every land transaction that we do but that's my plan there.

So not let me jump into the staffing changes the org chart and uh the expansionary plans I have with staffing um current our current org chart um remains the same as last year.

I currently do have one vacant index clerk position on for this person unfortunately was not retained um at the end of their um probationary period in February um this position this vacant position is funded in the budget but it it's not reflected thank you Christina in this um chart that that got pulled up for the org chart uh we have posted for a replacement and we're in the process of trying to replace that right now um in general you can go back to or or advance one one page Christina um before I get into the details of the three um changes I want to make with staff where I'm requesting I would say overall um all these these requests would add to expanded responsibilities to the three positions um I'm also moving to retain high level employees who quite frankly have been poaching targets of neighboring towns um because of their um experience and institutional experience and insta instance

Before I get into the details of the three changes I want to make with staff, or I'm requesting, I would say overall all these requests would add to expanded responsibilities to the three positions.

Let me take the first one.

Deputy town clerk would become assistant deputy town clerk.

I want to expand this title to reflect increased opportunities or uh responsibilities, especially related to management of our election procedures here in the office and absentee voting ballot processing.

Also looking to change this position to the MAA union to allow for better management of staff since our rest of our staff is UAW.

I want to avoid any chance of conflict there.

And also the deputy has a wealth of institutional knowledge.

The second one is administrative coordinator becoming senior administrative coordinator, town clerk.

This reflects increased office responsibilities and expertise in the financial management that this person handles now, both revenues, expense tracking, cashiering, payment to state, financial reporting, requisitions, POs, liaison with grants, a whole host of things and doing it really well.

This position also serves as a backup for the town clerk and the deputy town clerk if we're both out of the office.

And finally, what I want to do is remove one index clerk position and replace it with an upgraded role of index clerk two.

This position has the same duties as in Index Clerk One, but the additional responsibilities would be analytical reporting of land records, vital statistics, and records management.

This person would have daily responsibilities for all the board and uh commission's agendas and minutes that come in also responsible for coaching of staff in our vital records um brew.

Uh Christina, you could go to the next one.

So, what I want to do over the next couple pages is just highlight these were um individual line uh budget line increases that I was seeking.

Um, the amount that is listed there is the amount I'm looking for in the the increase under that category.

So, first for seasonal uh 30,000.

Um looking for seasonal help during these critical high demand periods.

Um we have dog license renewals in the summer, elections and special elections potentially.

Um this year is a state election.

Um we are expecting a much higher turnout, plus a rollout of a new absentee ballot software system.

Um, with seasonal staff, they require extensive training when they're in these new jobs because um they're brought in new essentially.

And uh especially with a software rollout.

Um the other additional point here is during the summer months, there's typically a lower course staff levels available because people are trying to get their vacations in.

Next category would be professional consultant for a 10,000 increase.

Um, I need a I need specialized expertise basically for two projects.

One is a portal software development we're working on where all the um boards and commissions minutes and agendas.

Um we could get them to individual web pages posted there.

It would make it much more efficient and timely too.

Uh and the other big thing I need is an archival specialist um for the assessment, potential cleaning um recommendations, and then handling of um, I've got 800 historical books and maps um that I now need to move out of the Latham Wyden Center.

They had been at Hague Avenue.

Some of them have potential mold and deterioration.

Um, so trying to get my hands around that project, and I could use a specialist at least to get started on that.

Education and training, 7,000.

This would support additional staff training at the Connecticut Town Clerk Associated Certified Class.

This would help increase staff's statutory knowledge.

It helps with the cross training or professional development.

And then for myself, I actually to attain the town clerk certification.

This would occur over a two-year period and the classes twice a year, but looking to do that, some funds to achieve that.

Contracted services, 40,000.

This covers the costs related to our, it's called the IQS integrated recorded system and cashiering system.

This is our main primary system that we use here in the office.

All the land records are done on it, all our vital records, plus other records.

You name it, whether it's dog licensing, trade names, the birth, death, marriage certificates, everything in on the land record side, both the recordings of deeds and mortgages, everything runs through that system.

The current three year contract expires October of this year.

We're anticipating increased costs upon renewal.

Also, we're expecting higher costs associated with higher recording volumes, which we continue to see.

And then what happens with these higher volumes, we get increased costs related to what are called record verifications.

We also produce more microfilm.

And then that microfilm has to be stored.

So all those costs tend to increase.

This is needed to obtain secure compliance storage for permanent records.

And now we, of course, I need to move all those books and maps out of the Latham Wyden Center.

So I'm looking to um at obtaining some more funds for storage.

It is very cost effective.

It covers the cost of retrieving the records.

If they need to pick up records here at the town clerk's office, they also have automated calendar alerts when certain documents are coming up for destruction.

And they help with the whole certification of the destruction process, too.

And chain custody.

The next one is office supplies and expenses, 20,000.

This is needed for additional purchase of archival paper, archival binders, and archival index covers.

So we remain in compliance with state statutes.

Again, the volumes are increasing.

Some of our older books are needed, uh repair is needed.

They need to be attended to.

Additionally, we have seen prices uh increase in the supply chain or ordinary supplies that we're we get.

Last category is 10,000.

Um this is the election expenses.

This would uh cover expenses related to both the printed ballots uh that we do, postage and supplies and envelopes, updated absentee ballot scanners, and then language language uh translation services that we need.

And again, um just reiterating this year.

We're expecting a much higher turnout because it's a state election year.

So that uh leads to increasing um these costs under these under the uh categories that I mentioned.

Um, especially with the new state mandated software and the language translation services too.

Um that's it on category increases.

Uh, Christina, next slide.

What I'm addressing here for budget adjustments is if um this is something I needed to do for the Board of Finance too.

If in the event there are uh reductions that are required.

Um I outlined a couple categories that I feel we could potentially be reduced without creating significant challenges for us.

And those would be, of course, the contracted services, the seasonal category, and professional consultants, and the amounts are listed there.

Um the bottom part of this slide talks about the revenue that we bring in, um, which is a very good story.

Um so far, uh, this is year to date, this fiscal year to date.

So the end of March.

Um for city revenue.

Uh what we've brought in so far through conveyance tax, uh, vital records fees and the other fees we collect is um 7.00, uh, 7.1 million so far.

That's still with uh, let's see, three months to go.

Um so it's a really good story.

A lot the lion's share of that, of course, is the um conveyance tax.

And a lot of what's been driving that was a uh a number of large commercial transactions.

So it's going to be hard to uh match that next year.

Um, and that's why, and at least on the revenue goals, um conveyance is a little bit lower.

It's um, I believe uh 5.5, if I'm right.

Uh yes.

Um, and then the bottom part of that is state revenue.

You can see what we then collect for the state and pass it along.

Um Christina, next slide.

These were the efficiencies of this past um fiscal year and service improvements.

We continued with cross-training of the staff on various functions.

Um we're looking to do another batch of um backscanning.

These are land records that are in the downstairs vault.

We're trying to get back to 1992.

The interesting thing about this is we backscan them, we put them online, and um it actually generates revenue for the city.

Um we'd estimate it would be about 40,000 on an annual basis, the revenue it generates.

And that's kind of taking an average of what we've seen in the last couple of years from some other of the back scanning that we've done uh for previous fiscal years.

Um let's see.

Oh, we're continuing to make the improvements in the downstairs map cage, making it compliant with state statutes, and this will improve the document storage conditions and the ease of use.

Um, and then finally, we conducted an awareness campaign for dog license registration, and this is uh increase the accessibility and it also increased the number of people doing it online.

Uh next slide.

Looking forward for sorry, lights went out.

Um these are new and expanded programs for this year going forward.

We again uh I'm bringing up that uh continuation of the back scanning project of the records.

Um the numbers there, the 43,000 is what was generated in fiscal year 23-24, the actual dollars.

Um we're looking at this development of an internet portal to create ease and efficiency and posting those boards and commissions agendas and minutes.

Um we are initiating this is state required.

This is um video coverage of the ballot boxes during the election period.

So that will again will help protect the uh the integrity of residents and the voting and the votes that they're casting.

Um one new program will be the training and implementation of the rollout of the new election management software uh that is coming as per the state.

And one other initiative that we undertook a um Lieutenant Governor reached out to us, and she we wanted us to assemble a um uh an invitation list for all of Stanford veterans for an initiative she's undertaking.

Um, so we got that to her, and she'll follow up.

It's gonna be an honor or a ceremony honoring uh Vietnam veteran era um veterans.

So we're looking forward to that.

Um next page, Christina.

Finally, key challenges will be um filling that vacant spot um of index clerk, and then we'll be up to full staff.

And then finally, um dealing with this uh assessing and then dealing with how we're gonna move and restore these these all these books that are over at Latin Wider Community Center to get our arms around that project.

Um, and then the other big one was um we're looking at ideas for a potential renovation at least of our customer counter interface area.

This is where the the clerks sit behind it.

The public comes in.

We did have an incident recently where somebody came in and had to be escorted out by um security.

So again, we're looking for the safety concerns of all our staff.

Um this will improve interactions too.

And it will also deal with the um our front door, which currently is in a uh lax status, and then people have to call to come in.

Um periodically open.

So bottom line, this this renovation project should deal with that, but also add to the security and um and the uh quality of the inner interactions too.

So that is it.

Thank you.

And if you have any questions.

Thank you, David.

Questions from the committee from members of the board.

Okay, I'm seeing no hands.

All right.

Okay, people can reach out to you directly with any follow-up questions before we do our uh board deliberations, I assume.

Please do.

And again, it maybe um circling back to that slide on the reductions.

You know, if there for some reason has to be even more, please reach out to me and at least I can be part of that conversation too, where I can um you know, so I I can find that it works for us and and also meet the needs of what the board may need too.

So that's all I'll offer there.

And other than that, yeah, please reach out with any questions too, or if you're curious about what we're doing here, because there's a lot going on on finding.

And um, yeah, thanks for your time.

Very good.

Thank you, David.

Okay.

Uh, next up is Charter Oak.

Uh, and with that, I'm going to hand off the chair to my distinguished co-chair or representative Andrew Zachary.

Uh good evening, everyone, and good evening, Charter Oak.

Uh, thank you, Eric.

Um, you're up.

Uh, who would like to lead the presentation?

And Natalie Cord, our executive director is gonna lead the presentation.

Thank you, representatives.

Uh, and we're gonna start by talking a bit a little bit about about the background of Schofield Manor, which is Stanford's residential care home.

And we're only doing that because we understand that some members of the board may not be familiar with this important facility uh that is an annual request for operating support uh to the city of Stanford.

So Natalie is going to go through the presentation, answer any questions that you have about Schofield Manor and about our request.

And uh hopefully uh you'll you'll appreciate um what she's uh what she's gonna share with us.

Natalie.

Yep.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Natalie Cord, as Ben mentioned.

Um, so yeah, so Schofield Lifeline for Stanford's most vulnerable residents.

So just a little background about Schofield Manor.

Um Schofield Manor is um is owned by the city of Stanford.

Uh Charterrow Communities has been managing it graciously for about 35 years.

Um it's the like I said, it's the only residential care home that's in Stanford, Connecticut.

Um, what we do at Schofield Manor, we provide the residents with three meals a day.

We do a coordination of all their medical appointments.

Um we actually transport them to their medical appointments, we administer their medication when they get the doctor's orders, we do recreational activities.

Um, and we even go as far as helping them to um assist them.

I we we do most of the work completing their Medicaid recertification because if they do not um do their recertification annually, we are unable to, there's gonna be a uh uh interruption in services.

So our staff at Schofield, they do all of that um for the residents.

Um we care for up to about 50 residents.

Um most of these residents and all of them technically have some financial um and you know, disability and or mental physical disability.

So they do need a lot of our support and care.

Um, you know, I look at it as we're essentially taking care of an elderly parent at home, um, as um some may do.

And they're we're just taking care of about 50 of them, right?

And it's just different staff that's helping these residents through their navigate life daily at Schofield Manor.

Um next slide, please.

So why is this funding necessary?

Um, so just a little background on Schofield.

Um, you know, Schofield has been facing um operating deficit for some time now.

Um throughout the years, uh, prior to us ever coming to request any money for grant, we've almost eaten the cost, so to speak.

Um, and then a few years ago, we decided, you know, uh, you know, we need to start coming to the city of Stanford.

Like I mentioned, this is the city's building on property.

So that's how we've been coming forward asking for the operational deficit that we are facing every year.

Due to that, you know, it's because we've we've always been short funded or not consistent funding when it came to the state Medicaid reimbursement rate.

It was very minimal at times.

You know, we've we've done so many appeals to the state.

We were never successful.

So we just had to take what we can get.

So that's why it also brings us in front of you guys today to kind of um ask for money for the grant for this for Schofield Manor.

Um at Schofield, we you know we are burdened with rising costs as everyone is utilities, staffing, and food services.

Um last year, later part of last year, we did have to procure for another food service vendor.

Um we had a food service vendor that was there for probably five plus years.

Um it was a small mom and pop kind of service.

Um, but we you know, they decided to get out of the business, so we did have to procure for services, um, which what we did was we looked for the best rated um best cost, you know, vendor for Schofield Manor.

But with that came an increase of about 10% of cost prior to the vendor's cost, prior your vendor cost.

Um, but I will say, you know, just an added kind of improvement to getting a new vendor.

We are able to streamline and get better food services, get better costs because this is a larger vendor in the state of Connecticut that we're able to get economies of scale when when they're purchasing food.

So the idea is that we'll save money on food, but there was there was an increase in the actual vendor services overall.

Next slide, please.

So we requested 578 20 um to the operating for operating support for Schofield Manor.

However, um, you might notice in your book that the mayor has um reduced it to about 511,680, um, which which ultimately is still a loss for us.

Um you know, we we continue to um deliver the same service.

We continue to um provide the same um level of service um and care for the residents regardless of what um but as you will see um that the mayor did reduce the the um initial request that we had.

Um you can go to the next slide.

Just a little summary on the financial summary.

So here you'll see um what we actually requested in the city grant, which is 578.

Um we have our revenue here, our resident revenue and also our expenses here, and then you'll see what I did put in here what the mayor's um actual um request in her budget is, which is the 511680.

And you'll see that we do uh we are going to experience an experience a loss.

Um, just for note purposes, um we are actually um covering costs for fiscal our prior fiscal year because how your the budget is set up.

We are we for Schofield, we start October 1.

However, this money is not available until July of this year.

So we're always paying back the prior year.

Um so we're always seem to be in a loss, so to speak, um, when we are um requesting.

So we do we do try to um you know inform the boards that you know what we're requesting, but you know, unfortunately we have been reduced, and you can see that loss of 66,000 there.

You can next slide, please.

Unless anyone has any questions.

Oh, good.

Okay.

Um this um this slide here is just the trending projection.

So you can see from we actually have the actuals from 2025.

Um, and you'll notice there, as I mentioned on the prior slide, there is a loss of 46,000 because we are um we're not we're never fully funded, right?

And we're never fully funded through the operating grant or through on the Medicaid reimbursement.

So we have a loss, you'll see that the actual of 25 has a loss.

Um 26, I left it as what we requested, and you can see the forecast for 27, what the potential request can be for the city grant um of 584.

That's what we anticipate based off of our current revenue and expenses.

Okay.

So what are some of our revenue drivers?

Um, you know, even though Schofield is uh needed facility, um, you know, currently occupancy hovers at about 88%.

Um the staff they work very diligently to to fill the the beds at Schofield.

There are a number of factors that obviously someone has to be able to qualify for the building.

They have to be ambulatory, so that means they have to move around.

So they do need to have be a little self-serving for themselves as well.

But the staff does work really hard to try to keep the beds full as much as they can, but we're currently at 88%.

We are only reimbursed though, based on our our resident census.

So if we're we're below the resident census of 50, that's all this, you know, we are reimbursed.

Um for Schofield is the Medicaid, um, which has been increased by $4.76 per patient day, um, which isn't much of a um increase as when you're trying to cover uh increases such as staffing and food costs.

Next slide, please.

So as I mentioned, the expense drivers, um, you know, we have 24-7 staff, so that means we always have medical staff, either CNA, LPN, or RN on staff.

Um, and they do everything for them.

They um our and RN reads doctor's orders, um, make sure that the you know we are prescribing um and giving medication as we should.

Um, and we give about 600 plus medications daily to residents, so that's a constant flow of traffic in the med room.

Um we have we need qualified staff.

Um, you know, we have to have our CNA, our LPN, and our registered nurse.

Um, and with that, they they're required to have certifications um to actually work at Schofield Manor.

Anytime that we are down staff, unfortunately, um, due to the the workforce, we have to go to to a temp agencies to um to get that.

So obviously we're paying a higher cost for that temp labor if we're unable to hire a staff person on on um on with charteral communities.

But unfortunately, we're unable to not have staffing uh as it relates to the nursing staff because we're mandated by the state to have um enough staffing on each shift um every day.

Food cost, as I mentioned, has um gone up about 10% um based on the new vendor and such.

And then the last biggest item, which is our maintenance, um, which we're not gonna talk about capital tonight because we do not have a uh necessarily a capital request in the budget, but we do have to do deal with daily maintenance.

We do have to do with a deal with a lot of repairs um because we've had a lot of capital requests that have been um uh uh you know um ongoing for this aging building for many years.

So with that, we're we're almost patching and fixing things as best as we can to make sure that um you know the building is reliable for the residents.

Um so I'll just say here one of the key challenges that we are gonna face um in this coming year is uh is staffing because we have um a registered nurse that is going to retire.

So we are currently out looking for a new registered nurse and or an equivalent of such.

Um, but with that, we know that there's gonna be a cost to that to that pay, right?

That salary, and we're um it's gonna be a lot less than what we're currently paying our registered nurse.

But so that is one of the biggest challenges that we are gonna face this year at Schofield as well, is trying to fill that position for registered nurse.

And last, so in summary, um Schofield Manor is not sustainable without the grant.

As I said, we've requested five seven 57820, but you know, um respectfully the mayor has reduced it.

Um, but it is very important that we get as much as we can to cover the deficit and the operating deficit at Schofield.

Um, you know, we at COC remain committed to really ensuring in the meantime that the the most vulnerable residents in Stanford um are able to live in a safe, secure place while we preserve the city's only RCH.

Um so we're here to help as much as we can.

And as I mentioned before, you know, um this this isn't this isn't really our property, this isn't our building, but we have graciously been managing this service um for over 35 years.

Um so thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions you guys may have.

Do I see any questions?

Thank you, Natalie.

You're welcome.

Uh lovely presentation.

Uh I actually have a question if no one else has.

Uh how are you covering your operating deficit?

From our from Chatterer communities, we have other properties, so we take it from our other our other resources.

Okay.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Okay.

Are there any other questions?

And thank you very much.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

All right.

And with that, I will turn to Lou Casello from Engineering, pages 16, 79, 81, 147 to 156, 463, 526, and 57 to 68 in the capital budget.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Yes, I had a question, but I'll follow up with being to the uh you know through my channels.

All right, no problem.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Andrew.

Good evening, Luke Castle, City Engineer.

Um, I'm here tonight to present the engineering department's uh operating and capital budget.

I'm going to start off by sharing my screen.

I have a lot of material to cover, so I'm going to go at a fairly fast pace, but open to questions at the end.

Couldn't you acknowledge that you can see the budget presentation?

Uh we cannot yet.

Christina.

Actually, uh moves.

Great.

Thank you.

Now we can.

Okay, great.

Um this is the 2627 budget presentation for the engineering department of the city of Stanford.

And I want to start off by uh quickly reviewing the organization chart and any staffing updates.

Um, what you can see here in uh um yellow or the existing positions.

Uh the head count has remained unchanged uh for the past um five fiscal years.

Um based on um demands within the department.

I have um asked for three additional positions, but they were not funded within the uh mayor's proposed budget.

Uh but I just wanted to highlight that.

In addition to the uh full-time staff, I also have uh six clerk of the works.

These are contracted positions paid under capital projects.

The next slide uh I want to review with you is just uh a recap.

This is uh a presentation that boils down um or reduces the uh all of the operating uh budget pages into one single page.

And what I'd like to highlight for you is the overall uh budget from year over year is uh down by 3.7 percent, uh which is shown here in the lower right-hand corner.

Um this is really a result of uh uh three items.

Um the first item is a reduction of approximately $8,000 in FICA.

That was a correction made by OPM.

The next one is a reduction of 144,500, which was a savings mainly driven by um our ability to lock in uh electric rates for uh roadway lighting um from about nine and a half cents a kilowatt hour to uh eight eight point eight cents per kilowatt hour.

And uh the last one is uh uh uh contracted services, excuse me.

Uh that would the contracted services line is an increase of ten thousand dollars.

Uh that's basically uh a result of a service that we use to help us um integrate our utility bills uh within the Oracle system, and we're renewing their contract.

So with that there was an adjustment in cost there, but overall, the uh overall budget is a decrease of 124,000 uh um from the adopted budget in 2526 to the mayor's proposed 2627 budget.

The department also generates revenue.

Um, the revenue is uh basically the result of the issuance of excavation permits and obstruction permits on the street.

This generated uh uh about a million dollars, a little over a million dollars.

Um, and basically that's the work uh performed by two people.

Um so the the sum of the excavation permits at 562,000 and uh obstruction permits at a little over 1 million dollars results in overall revenue of 1.6 million again, generated basically by two staff individuals.

Uh just wanted to recap a couple of big jobs that are happening now.

The department routinely works with public utilities uh in the city's rights of way.

This is generally working with EverSource electricity, electric projects, and the biggest one in town now is a five-mile transmission line project connecting two substations between Cedar Heights and the Glenbrook substation.

We're also we work with a gas company who is proposing five miles of gas abandonment and installation in 2026.

And there's several water main projects that are happening in town.

One of the that equal about two two miles of water main replacements.

So the public utilities are here.

They're doing a lot of work in Stanford.

And the most of the revenue generated through this program is through those utility companies.

This also facilitates the revenue generated by the building department as well.

Just to give you an idea of uh, we also do a dressing uh of properties.

And uh this can be quite complex for buildings like this at the intersection of canal and and dock street.

In 2025, we issued 49 addresses overall and 612 unit numbers for multi-unit buildings.

Uh we do that in coordination with the fire department so that 911 has the proper addresses and unit numbers for response times.

And this this is a property that was a pretty complex one to uh assign addressing to, but we work closely with the public services department to make sure they get what they need.

This gives you an example of the Aquarian Water Project that we were talking about just a minute ago uh for 2026.

There's multiple streets here.

We we pretty much review these projects with Aquarium.

They have their own um outreach programs and talk to neighbors and residents directly, but we monitor their work through the permitting that we do.

The same is true with this very large Eversource transmission line project.

Uh there's uh multiple vaults being put in underground and also interconnecting lines uh that basically uh are within this alignment that's about five miles.

This is a fairly significant project in Stanford.

We've talked about this before the boards um uh in prior meetings.

Here's a snapshot of all the gas projects that are going on in Stanford over 2026.

So again, you can kind of get an idea of the uh, you know, they're they're throughout the city and they're being done for number of reasons to keep the gas service safe and reliable in Stanford.

Uh jumping to capital, that's the second part of my presentation.

Um, this is basically a snapshot that will show the uh the department request, the planning board uh reductions, and the mayor's budget.

So basically here we have uh a request of uh the mayor's request of $5.9 million dollars, which is made up of uh city bonds and grants.

The grants are primarily for the um bridges that are done through uh participation with the state of Connecticut.

So those the two projects that I've listed here.

Um I've obtained grants that pay for 50% of the projects.

I see Virgil has his hand up.

Virgil, do you have a question?

Is this the appropriate time to uh ask a question?

Uh sure, go ahead, Virgil.

Oh, okay.

Uh hi, welcome.

Uh it's a little small to see on the screen.

The oh, I uh I see that you have John Bokusi Park face two.

Yep.

Okay.

We're gonna get into that in a minute.

I'm gonna highlight all of these projects as I continue with the presentation.

Wonderful.

Okay.

Uh thank you much.

Okay, very good.

So um, this is just a snapshot of the overall capital request, and now I'm going to go through each project in a little detail.

Uh the first project is um the Mill Road Bridge.

Uh, this is in North Stanford.

Uh the request made is for uh a million dollars.

Uh it's 500,000 for city bonds, $500,000 state grant.

You can currently see the the structural deterioration of this bridge.

Uh it's approximately 65 years old.

Uh it's been reduced to one lane of bi-directional traffic with two stop controls.

So this this is a critical project that um needs to move forward.

The next project is the old Long Ridge Road Bridge.

It's in similar condition, but older.

It's 86 years old.

You can see the deterioration of the understructure here.

It's also in the same condition where the lane of traffic has been closed off where the deterioration occurred.

And it's bi-directional stop controls at this location as well.

But I have obtained a state grant of a 50% share for this work.

The next project is the animal control shelter, which is under construction now.

You can see the photo in the left-hand picture.

This photo shows basically the foundations of the building, which are complete.

I'll show you a later picture as we move through the presentation.

But the request tonight is for $900,000, which is broken out by $600,000 for the loading, transport, and disposal of contaminated soil for this location.

If you're not familiar with the location, it's off of McGee Avenue, just south of the old city facility barracks here along the uh the canal.

It's an it's an older industrial waterfront property.

Um so we're dealing with a lot of urban uh fill material that's uh impacted by pollutants.

Uh so we have to manage this uh the material uh in a legal manner, and it's not in it it's not inexpensive to deal with that.

So um the request tonight is for 600,000.

I did recently bid the soil uh uh component of this project, and the the low bid is approximately $600,000.

So that pretty much matches my my estimate.

The other $300,000 in the budget request is for the removal of the existing animal uh control facility, which is an old block building that is closer to McGee Avenue.

It's not in this picture.

The next uh project is uh citywide drainage.

Uh this is kind of gives you an example.

We the mayor's budget request is 200,000.

It's not a lot of money, but it's enough to begin designs and to start putting together uh if there are grant opportunities for for this type of work.

So just to give you a sense of um the different issues and the that we're confronted with that come through the fix it complaint system.

Here's a case um off of Bellmere Avenue where there's there's there's there's slopes that are you know the the street is draining, but it's draining down a very steep slope coming out through residential properties, creating um flooding on residential properties as a result of the fact that there isn't a lot of underground piping in this street to help control the surface flows.

Um other photographs here along over by the um historical society, roadway ponding in the wintertime.

This tends to freeze.

So we these are the kind of projects that we address with this uh capital project.

Uh these are some other projects that we're currently doing.

We're we're also working on a citywide uh uh drainage project currently, and uh we have success.

Well, we applied for grants through the deep climate resilience fund application for about two and a half million this past February to address projects like this, where under certain events there is significant um flooding within the uh cities right-of-way.

And these are large projects that need attention, and they really rely on grant programs to help offset the cost of so some of the work that's needed here.

Um the other project that we're requesting um uh uh is uh funds for the restoration of the uh Cove Island seawall, which has eroded and basically in this picture doesn't exist, exposing utilities for these light poles.

It also is undermining the approach approaches to the gangways and the ramps leading to the new marina.

Um we are looking for other outside um uh funding opportunities here, such as FEMA BRIC, but these are these are large programs that do take a while to establish funding, but the funding requested in the capital budget will help support the 25% matching funds required for this project.

The mayor's request was $350,000.

Uh John Bakutsi Park, phase two.

Um, this is a fairly large park, but I'm gonna try to recap what's been done.

We completed phase one, um, which is basically uh all the area that you see that I'm circling here with my cursor.

This roadway that comes into Bucutsey Park has been realigned to intersect with Congress Street.

And we took the old parking lot out of a flood floodplain, which under many occurrences during the year received a lot of tidal water.

So that's all been restored to just walking paths and um and berms, uh dune dunescapes that are more um typical of what you would see in a coastal flood uh area.

So all that work has been completed.

Um that's about half of the park.

The other half of the park is on the southern side, which is right here.

And uh the city's planning department has developed a master plan for that park um that's currently under design.

And that that project um is noted over here.

We we obtained a uh National Park Service grant, but we're still short on funds uh for this.

What we discovered, very much like the animal shelter, is these are old industrial sites with a lot of urban fill, and all of that urban fill has to be managed, and that requires funding.

So the the requests for the $750,000 will help us with that.

Um it's also being used to support some additional um facilities at this park, which is uh a pickleball court and um supporting uh around 900 feet of fencing along this southern side of the park.

That right now it's mostly residential fencing.

That's you know, some of it's in good condition, some of it is not, um, and also dealing with the impacted soils and the project escalation that has uh occurred over the last four years since the original uh concept plans were developed and estimates were developed.

Uh citywide roadway correction.

Um the mayor's request is for 50,000.

This is for projects that occur annually.

These are failures in the roadway system.

In this case, we have some old retaining walls that support roadways that were we need to investigate before there's further problems with deterioration.

Um we can already see some uh undermining and some water intrusion and other you know uh evidences of a potential settlement.

So that's what this the these funds are going to be used for.

Uh to wrap this up, um, the initial presentation that is uh based on my yes.

Uh I see a hand from Representative De La Cruz.

I'm sure he wanted to ask you about the Bokuzzi Park.

So may I have this seems like an opportune moment to let him ask.

Go ahead, Virgil.

Uh thank you, Andrew.

Thank you, Lou.

Lou, you weren't feeling when you said you were going through fast.

I couldn't get my hand raised fast enough.

Uh with respect to being short of funds on the 750 that you're asking for.

Do you feel that that is enough to get us through?

Well, right now, Virgil, we just started design.

We basically have this concept plan from the um master plan.

Uh now that the consultant's engaged, we're working with the consultant to uh finalize the design of this park.

The big big part of this will be the soils management.

We've engaged an environmental consultant and that we're working with.

So we're trying to do pre-characterization of the material that's there, and we're trying to balance cut and fills as best as possible.

But if the if the number does change uh uh substantially and and it's something that we can't absorb, or we don't want to um uh reduce the scope of the project, uh I'll have to come back to you.

But at this point, this is our our best estimate as to what we need.

Yes, okay.

Thank you, Lou.

Uh, for the benefit of my colleagues, uh the master plan for this park was completed almost 10 years ago.

There's been a numerous delays, and of course, inflation takes its toll.

And here we are, almost 10 years when the plan was finally uh.

I think yeah.

So, anyhow, I just I just wanted my colleagues to be aware that this has been a long lift, a hard lift for all these years.

And we really, you know, my constituents have been deprived of a park essentially for all this time.

And they are really clamoring to get their park back, to get their basketball courts back, their tennis courts, all the things that the park used to provide.

So, anyhow, uh, I hope that you are sympathetic to my plea.

Uh, thank you so much, Lou, and uh I yield.

And thank you, Sachary.

Yeah, you're welcome, Representative Delacruz.

All right, uh, sorry, Lou.

Thank you.

Okay.

So um the that basically the end of my uh budget presentation.

Uh the first part includes uh a response to your question uh based on challenges expected in the next year, you know, based on staffing levels, which have remained unchanged, as we talked about earlier.

Um, you know, my job is to maintain the oversight of these major capital construction projects, continue to do complex plan reviews.

We we have a lot of very large development projects in Stanford that do generate revenue for the city, and they're important in a lot of other ways.

Um, and and also maintain and administrate the large amount of utility projects.

So just maintaining the staffing levels to keep up with this is always a challenge.

Um thing that's new this year is uh as of March uh last month, Connecticut Deep has issued new release-based regulations for soil and groundwater management in Connecticut.

So the reporting requirements for uh projects are a lot different than they were prior to that.

Prior to that, everything was deemed as a construction project, so we followed the practices previous that previously existed for that.

Now, with the release-based regulations, if we do report pollution in soils, they're going to be looking for the release uh uh source that you know uh may have caused some of these problems.

That that's a very um uh important thing to to locate, but in cities like Stanford, where there's a lot of urban fill, the the source is really everywhere.

It's it's it's generated from the accumulation of of deposits all over many, many years.

So this is always going to be uh challenging guidance to follow and a challenge.

So, because of that, we've been working closely with the guidance of licensed environmental professionals, um, maintaining relationships with deep, and also just trying to become educated on what other people are doing and how they're getting through this as well.

So that is something that's new that we have to um um uh be respectful of.

Um again, uh, in terms of efficiencies, the department has uh remained highly responsive to support the utility needs within the city of Stanford.

Um the same level of commitment has been demonstrated in the city's largest school construction replacement program that you probably have have seen through the Board of Ed's presentations, which includes the design, the bidding and construction.

Uh we're basically embarking on four complete school replacement projects over the next six years.

Um our commitment also extends to uh major design and construction within the city's park system.

I talked about a couple of key ones, um, including marinas and playgrounds, which rely heavily on grant funding, a lot of administrative work behind that.

Um in addition, uh we administrated five bridge projects uh over the past year, supported by state and federal grants.

Um I want to spend just a minute going through some of those projects just so you have a sense of what's been going on in your uh your community that you may not be aware of.

So, with that, um I'm gonna stop this presentation, and I want to go through another one, but I want to go through it very quickly because there's a lot of content here.

Can you see this?

Can you see the presentation?

Yes, we can.

Okay.

Okay.

So this is a recap of ongoing and completed capital construction work in 2526 uh that I want to present to you.

And basically, this was uh we talked about bridges, we we completed the Cedar Heights Bridge replacement project.

This was an 80-20 project, uh 80 federal, 20 city, uh, substantially completed in September.

We replaced the Hunting Ridge Road Bridge project with state local funds, 45 state, 55 city.

This was completed in June.

You can see the sort of the before and after effects of this.

Um this is the wire mill road bridge.

This was the last one we completed before we had again partial lane closures.

This is the new project below completed in December of 2025.

This was 100% federal aid.

The animal shelter, this is ongoing.

We groundbroke back in September of 2025.

You can start to see the you know the shape of the building here.

All the environmental testing we did was up in up in this upper right-hand corner here.

Because of the amount of environmental concern here, uh, we basically put piles on the ground and we built grade beams on piles to minimize the amount of excavation.

We just completed uh installation of 20 level two fast chargers in the government center on the first and second floor.

Uh that's essentially complete.

The fire marshal uh uh is working with us to add some bollards in front of these these charging stations, but um we are also working currently on installing six level two chargers in Bell Street garage as well.

Um that's that's an ongoing project.

Um the charge management software allows the city to charge users for electricity consumption.

We've had conversations with the Board of Reps in the past about this.

Um the level two charging is open for general public EVs visiting the government center.

Um that's that's so in case you happen to see this in the government center.

I wanted you to know that this project is coming to a conclusion.

Uh Yearwood Center renovations.

We replaced rooftops at Yearwood, we replaced the roof at Yearwood.

Uh the operations facilities department is also doing interior renovations to Yearwood at the currently speaking.

But as far as the RTUs on the roof, uh this project is complete.

We dredged uh Cove Island Marina and two phases over two seasons based on the funding we had available, and we replaced all the uh piers and docks uh that you can see here, uh piles and docks, I should say.

We are currently finalizing the work on the water and electricity and pump out stations for utilities for the the uh the Cove Island Marina.

You can see all of these little stanchions with the water and electricity at all the um the you know the the dock uh the dockages here uh at Cove Island.

Cummings Park we've uh been working throughout the winter to do uh a master plan uh project at Cummings Park, which was to redo all the parking lots and all the flat work to uh uh all the concrete work and landscaping work in and around the park.

And if you haven't been out there recently, uh this summer, it's gonna be a fantastic transformation, uh, just like Bucutse at coming.

So our target completion date is in June, uh, just when the summer is getting into its peak season, and uh there's a substantial amount of work happening there.

And that's really related to drainage, parking lot, and and and landscaping improvements there.

Uh this is the Scalsey Park tennis courts.

Uh we've redone all of them uh last fall.

We had to take a break in the winter.

Uh currently, uh this week we've started to resurface the courts.

This was a slide that was taken uh prior to my board of finance presentation, but the top coating uh is already being applied to this uh facility.

And as you can see in the lower right-hand corner, there's going to be 10 tennis courts and six pickleball courts here at Scalsey Park.

So this is this is another transformational park project that I'm very proud of.

Uh new lighting, uh new fencing, uh, new bench, you know, bench areas, uh concrete walks, etc.

We talked about Pucutse.

The only thing I wanted to show you on this picture was this is where the uh dunescape is, where the old parking lot used to be, and this is where the flooding occurred here.

So uh, you know, this is another transformational project that we finished in the summer of 2025.

Uh, you may be familiar with the bocce court project that we did.

We completed that in the spring.

That seems to be well used and very well liked.

It has lighting.

Uh, the bacce courts are the right size, and we have a few punch list items here, but basically that project has been put in service.

We installed a new dog park up at Schofield Town Park.

You can see that right here.

We've provided an access road, paved parking.

This used to be gravel.

So this is this is turning out to be a really uh attractive uh uh location for uh people in in the North Stanford area.

So we're we're winding that project down, should be done in the next month or two.

We're over at over off Cortland Avenue, um, and we're doing the same thing.

We're putting a dog park uh right in this vicinity here, and that work is ongoing, but we'll wrap that up this summer.

West Hill High School.

We've been working with many different stakeholders, primarily the Board of Ed uh to put an access road in for construction between uh Long Ridge and West Hill High School to facilitate the construction so that all the the new school replacement will not have an impact on existing uh school operations.

And this is an older picture, but the this this roadway is going to be paved next week.

Uh what you don't see here is all the infrastructure.

There's sanitary sewer lines, drainage, you know, fill everything to be you know put in place to uh allow the the construction vehicles to have access to West Hill without impacting the school.

Uh we also work very closely with the board of ed and all the other stakeholders on the replacement of Roxbury School.

So you can see here, this is uh you know, existing Roxbury School.

There's a staging plan where we're going to start construction uh this suck this spring uh to start making way for the new school building.

So there'll be an initial stage to put in geothermal wells, start the site prep fencing, uh you know, prep the soils for the foundations, and we're going to be starting that project uh very soon.

We continue to do a lot of work for the Board of Ed in terms of uh their their infrastructure.

Uh this was uh door access controls at 19 schools um for security purposes.

So we're we're wrapping this up.

We we had some structural uh issues over at Northeast School, uh this retaining wall and also a wall within the building, experienced some uh uh structural concerns, so those have been uh repaired, and we did that while uh school was in session off hours, of course.

We continue to do a lot of replacements for the Board of Ed in terms of the mechanical equipment.

This is a fairly large still meadow RTU project that was completed in the fall.

Here, this is a Turner River Mechanical Controls Upgrade Project that were you know the first phase doesn't sound a very fancy picture, but there's a lot of control systems that were required here to get the unit ventilators to all be programmed and operable by the by the Board of Ed facilities department.

Uh Davenport, same thing.

These this was a project to control you know airflow within the building.

And we also are heavily co a lot of water main breaks this winter, and so we were pretty much there to help work with Aquarian and their contractors to get this work done as quickly as possible so that the city roads uh are open as soon as they can be.

This happened to be a collapse under uh Hamilton Avenue Bridge on Hamilton Avenue back in in the fall.

So with that, um I'm gonna stop my share and uh turn it over to you if you have any questions.

Thank you, Lou.

That was excellent.

We appreciate the thoroughness of the presentation.

Uh would you kindly send along the slide deck with all the tasted uh engineering tasks you've completed over the last few years?

It's great to see that.

Sure.

Very I will do that.

Thank you.

Uh are there any questions?

I do not see any hands up.

Checking everybody I can see.

Great.

Oh, thank you very much.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you all.

Thank you very much.

My pleasure.

Excellent talk presentation.

Have a good evening.

Thank you.

I'm going to wait for Lou to finish sharing his screen.

There we go.

Uh next would be building inspections anti-blight from the building department.

Uh Sean, are you?

Good evening.

How are you?

Good, good.

Uh, do you want to share your screen or does yes?

Christina have your can you see that?

Yes, we could.

Uh before you start, we just point out that you're for those following in the budget.

It's 16, 80, 123 to 129, 463, and 526.

All right.

Thank you.

So I will start.

So I have three presentations.

They're all fairly short.

Uh I have the building department, zoning enforcement, and anti-blight.

So I will start with building department and the organizational chart.

So I have the only difference in the organizational chart this year.

I have uh the zoning enforcement team with the zoning enforcement officer, three land use inspectors, and one land use clerk.

Um, the difference between this chart and last year's chart is we changed the uh major projects coordinator uh to a to a deputy building official.

So that's the only difference there, and that reflects in that chart right there.

And that's just a brief description.

We changed his position just so that we had coverage.

Um he can fill in uh as the chief building official in my after in my absence.

Uh so for this year, we have no new expanded or service programs planned.

So for any um anticipate challenges.

So there's been talk for the last couple years of potentially launching a new Oracle permitting software program.

I haven't heard anything if that's really gonna happen.

I probably haven't heard anything the last maybe eight or nine months.

Uh I know there's a lot of effort that was put into it.

We put we've had a lot of meetings and we've done extensive testing on that.

Um, and over that time, we were not able to get any of that permitting system to work for our departments.

Um, we spent a lot of time trying to process applications, schedule inspections on dummy applications, and just process things like we normally would, and we could not get that system to work in any way, shape, or form.

Um, so I don't know if that's still gonna be launching or not, but if it does, uh that would be that would be a major issue for us.

Um, another issue we're having uh is an aging fleet system because we always have cars that were in need of repair.

Um, so there's always a couple cars out of service, and we're always trying to juggle things uh for the for the inspectors to try to go out and do their inspections.

So we're trying to keep try to come up with schedules to keep inspect certain inspectors in, trying to double up inspectors from the morning to afternoons just to keep the cars on the roads.

Uh and then the uh the last thing anytime we have we do have an opening for uh positions, there's always a lack of qualified personnel.

Uh, every time we do interviews, no one has licenses that the state requires for these positions.

Uh I know the state has has changed the licensing programs.

They've made it a lot easier to get licenses and testing has changed, but still it just doesn't seem like anyone's really looking to go into this line of work anymore.

So some of the things we've done is we have our walk-in permitting sessions.

We used to do it right in the seventh floor, right in the elevator lobby.

We used to do a bi-monthly, but now we do it every Wednesday from uh 8 30 to 10 30.

We've increased communication with the state building inspector's office and came up with a protocol with their office to fast track uh any time there's a code interpretation request.

So that used to take several weeks to maybe a month or two.

Now we're able to get those um code interpretation requests completed usually within a couple days.

Uh, we've also assigned specific uh plan reviewers uh for questions on daycare questions, code modification requests, accessibility issues, and uh for the all the school projects that Lou was talking about that's coming up.

The only um the only thing we're asking for in this budget for the building department is sixteen thousand and five hundred hours, and that would be used to purchase code books because the state of Connecticut is changing the state building code cycle at some point this year.

I don't know if it's gonna be in July or October 1st, probably more like October 1st, but they haven't given a specific date yet, but it's it's supposed to happen this year.

Any questions on the building budget?

I don't see any hands from the floor.

Uh you're welcome to proceed with uh the next one.

All right, let me move on to the zoning.

So the zoning zoning flow chart is the same as the building.

What we're asking for is a couple small items.

We're asking for three thousand dollars additional in the overtime budget to help cover after hours inspections.

Uh, we do get a lot of complaints uh for illegal parking and business uses.

And a lot of times we go out to do the inspections, um, the trucks, landscaping equipment, um they're not there at the time we do the inspections because they're out working.

Um, we find that if we do after our inspections, we're able to document and find um find out what's really going on.

So the extra $3,000 would help us complete a lot more of those inspections.

And close out those complaints.

What would you use that money for is to purchase shirts for the inspectors to identify them as city employees when they're out doing inspections on uh public properties, private properties.

Excuse me.

Yes.

Are we doing another presentation?

Because we only see the thank you.

Yes.

I'm on the zoning one.

Can you not can you not see it?

No, sorry.

I I wasn't where you'd switched over.

Oh, yeah, sorry about that.

I thought I was, I was I thought you could see it.

Oh, uh thank you, Representative Walston for bringing that up to my attention.

Yeah, thank you.

I wasn't aware of that.

Hang on one second.

How about now?

Now you're there.

Okay.

Sorry about that.

So these are the items I was just discussing that we're looking for for uh money increases in the zoning budget.

That last item, as I was just talking about, uh, was a thousand dollar increase in the office supply budget for printing and sending out citations.

Uh this money was formerly, I believe formally covered under the land use budget, uh, which zoning was prior to this budget cycle.

There are no new or expanded service programs planned for this year.

So some of the challenges we're facing again with the with the Oracle permitting system, if that does launch, uh, and as well as the age and fleet system, because zoning uh right now is doesn't even have a car assigned to them.

We're sharing the building department uh gave up one of the cars right now.

Uh that's what zoning is using.

So the three inspectors and the zoning enforcement officer uh currently are sharing one uh one car right now.

Some of the performance improvements and efficiencies.

So the zoning department has updated the zoning enforcement website to provide support and for residents and guidance, and they've cleaned out the backlog that had existed in the uh fix it Stanford system that had contained about 270 complaints.

Uh and I think right now it's down to about 20, 25.

Uh so they've done over the over the past year a lot of work cleaning out all of those complaints.

Any questions on the zoning budget?

Again, I'm not seeing any hands, so uh let's do the third one.

You might have to close out and then restart.

Yeah.

Let's see.

Can you see the blank one now?

Yes.

We're good.

Thank you.

So this one, much smaller work chart.

It's just myself and one coordinator.

So I'm only asking for one one line item uh increase, which is $25,000 in legal expenses.

Um there's been a huge increase in the mayor's street to street initiative, uh, which generates every time we go out anywhere from 20 to 30 additional um blight inspections every time we go out.

Um, we're also using a blight to help enforce uh building code violations whenever there's work done without permits.

Uh so that money would just be used in the event we need it for um additional court cases that these um these plight citations um generate.

So last year we we did a record number 192 uh citations.

I think the average in years past was um closer to under 100, 7580.

So we've we've we've greatly increased the number of blight citations.

No newer expanded services.

So Matt Kignon is one of the things he's done to help with this with this department is he's initiated a cross-training program by taking the land use clerk and the code enforcement coordinator.

They over the past several months they've cross-trained by learning each other's jobs since there was only one member of each department that did that job.

They started cross-trained.

So currently they know how to do each other's jobs.

And now one of them is outside for extended period of time.

So now the other one is providing backup.

Which is a huge help right now.

And for the second year in a row now, our budget will be balanced again this year.

Any questions on the blight budget?

Any questions from the cloud?

Not seeing any, but I do have one.

Oh, good point.

Does enforcement bring in any revenue?

Yes.

Last year we brought in almost 470,000.

Thank you.

Otherwise, I think that's it.

Thank you very much, Sean.

Thank you.

I will stop sharing and thank you.

Next is Emily Gordon for Affordable Housing.

The relevant pages are 56C and 71C in the capital budget.

Thank you very much for having me.

I'm gonna try to share my screen here.

Hopefully you can all see that.

All right, yes, it's visible.

Perfect.

All right, thank you very much for having me here tonight.

Um I am the city's housing planner in the land use bureau.

Uh, I see I'm on the agenda for two items.

Uh Ralph Blessing will actually be covering the below market rate program item, but I'm happy to stay on in case I can be helpful later.

Um this year we are requesting two um we are requesting three million dollars for two items um for the affordable housing fund.

Uh we appreciate that the board has approved housing projects um each of the last few years uh through this capital budget item.

So Stanford has a long track record of dedicating public and private dollars to affordable housing and has seen them leveraged many times over to produce high quality and long-standing projects.

Um, by investing in ourselves, we're showing the state and other potential funders what our values are in a way that attracts additional funding at opportune times.

Um I have a few slides here, summary and summarizing um the projects that have been underway through this fund, as well as the uh the projects that we are proposing to fund um today.

So uh over the last um this this fund has been used by through the capital budget, uh, and over 25 million dollars has been allocated since 1982.

Um so there's been uh a long history of using this fund.

Uh it was dormant for for some time, but through the last uh, I believe this will be the fourth year in a row that we are looking to fund uh through the Affordable Housing Fund.

Uh it provides us financing in support of site acquisition, development, and preservation of affordable housing.

So recently funded projects include um Oak Park Phase One, which has been completed, uh Stanford Manor staircase repair, which uh was recently completed, as well as uh two projects from last year that one of which Rotary Commons is under construction and oak park phase two, which is um which is planned and should be starting soon.

Um I will say also have uh one of the entities here for Stanford Manor representatives from Charter of Communities online.

So um hopefully if you have any questions about this project, they'll be able to answer them.

Um unfortunately we don't have anyone with us for the second project, but um I'm happy to answer questions that I can.

And if I can't answer questions, I'm happy to um relay those and get you answers as soon as I can.

So uh priority one is for uh $2 million for the Stanford Manor rehabilitation.

So this would be the rehabilitation of 215 units of senior of housing for senior and disabled residents.

This is located down um right next to Mill River Park.

This is 100% affordable.

Uh it is expected to be a project that will finish by uh 2028.

Um the subsidy provided by the city would be $9,300 per unit and would cover 2.7% of the total project cost.

Uh and as I mentioned, the entity taking on this project is Charterhood Communities, which is Stanford's housing authority.

Um you should have also um hopefully received a summary document about both of these projects, in which includes the um their sources and uses as well.

So hopefully that is helpful.

The second project um in priority two for this this fund is uh one million dollars for St.

John's redevelopment.

This is also located downtown.

It's actually across the street from government center.

So redevelopment of 305 units.

Um so this would be the two towers that currently exist make up 240 units, and uh the new structure would include 65 new units in addition to the redevelopment of the 240 existing units.

This would also be 100% affordable at 30 to 80 percent of the AMI.

The construction timeline is expected to be complete in 2029.

And um the subsidy, this is assuming that um the 1 million dollars would be approved here and that $2 million of requested funds at the Affordable Housing Trust Fund is approved, but through all city funds, if they were all approved.

Um this would be a subsidy of $34,000 per unit or 5.6% of the total project cost.

Um and this project is being undertaken by St.

John Urban Development Corporation with the and the um the developer is Heritage Housing Incorporated.

So that is the summary I have for you here tonight.

Um I'm happy to turn it over if you'd like to hear more or have your questions answered from our partners at uh Chartero Communities, which is the housing authority for Stanford Manor.

Otherwise, happy to answer any questions that I can.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Emily.

Uh I see a question from Representative Walston.

Hi, Emily.

Hello there.

Um, I think my my question might be for um housing authority.

Um, whereas once the those apartments are renovated, will the the residents will they have to recertify or would it?

I know things aren't supposed to change, but things do change.

So once they're completed and they have to move out when they move back in, do they have to re-certify upon moving back in?

Well, I I can answer that.

Uh John Gottlieb, uh, Charter of Communities.

Um residents won't be moving out of the building.

Um, they will be moved within the building temporarily um to units that would are vacant that we call hotel units.

They'll remain in those while their apartments are renovated and then they'll go back.

Uh there will be a recertification only because residents will be switching from the federal public housing program to the Section 8 program.

Um and I know Representative Wilson, you're familiar with this because of uh your familiarity with the Connecticut Avenue development, which was the same type of conversion.

So under both programs, residents' uh rent, for example, is calculated the same way as is their eligibility.

So there would be no reason why any resident would have their rent calculated any differently, or why they would not qualify to be a resident anymore if they had before.

So should be completely transparent to residents, um, except for the fact that they will be um now in the Section Eight program.

Okay, thank you.

I understand really good about that, and it's working.

Thank you, and I yield.

Uh thank you, Representative Walson.

Representative Adams.

Yeah, when you talk about the six and eight cool, does it be um section eight base or six six and eight mobility?

These would be, I'm sorry.

These would be section eight project based.

So the the units would be assigned to the building to Stanford Manor.

Um, but residents who are in project-based units can apply um to receive their own tenant-based voucher if they wish.

Once you've lived there for one year in the project-based program, you can apply to get on a transfer list um to receive your own section eight uh tenant-based voucher.

Uh that list is is a shorter list than the typical Section 8 waiting list, but the units themselves will be assigned to the building um in which is necessary in order for us to be able to uh have a loan, a large private mortgage underwritten for that building.

So, how many units are section eight base?

All the entire building will be Section 8 based, 215 apartments.

So what the percentage of six and eight pays if the units are empty.

Um it's the same thing.

The unit sure, I have a point of order.

Uh yes, go ahead, uh Representative Goldberg.

I do not believe the current conversation is germane to the budget of the department, and I would suggest that it is out of order.

Um Representative Adams, I'm gonna ask that you formulate it as a budget related question for a moment.

Um it's well, it is budget related because uh I want to know um how the billing would pay for itself.

So if it's section eight base in a tenant move out in a bill and it's a unit is vacant, do the project still get paid, and he's answering that.

So that would uh help his budget out.

Uh um, I guess.

I guess what I didn't understand.

Thank you.

Uh I would hear what how the answer goes.

So uh please continue.

Let's try to stay focused on the budget as much as possible in this discussion.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um, the typical uh situation is that we would receive some funds from Section 8 when a unit is vacant, but it's also true that units would not remain vacant for very long at all.

The waiting list um is very lengthy, it's already very lengthy, even when the building is in need of so much repair um for our developments that that are newer or have been renovated, the waiting lists are um almost endless.

You could say, so that there's really little prospect of ever having an extended period of vacancy.

Thank thank you very much.

Yeah, I thank you for your um your answer.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Representative Adams.

Um any further questions.

Um thank you, Emily.

Um Thank you very much.

I believe uh Ralph Blessing is going to cover the next topic on uh land use.

Yes, I have the ordering right, I think.

Yes.

Um good evening, everyone.

Ralph Gling, I'm the land use bureau chief for the city of Stanford.

Let me just share my presentation real quick.

Uh can you see the presentation?

Yes.

So if you could make it a little larger, that'd be great.

How is that?

That's excellent.

Thank you.

Um so um let's start with uh the organizational um chart.

Uh the land use bureau has 14 staff.

Um, I just wanted to note that uh as of uh March 1st, uh GIS uh is now reporting directly to um the deputy uh director of operations.

Um basically uh we have uh two uh big divisions, uh planning and zoning, um, which uh is responsible for the master plan.

Uh it's responsible for writing the zoning, reviewing applications to the land use boards, uh such as the ZBA, um, the zoning board, uh, and then we have EPB, which is the environmental protection board.

Uh, and then we have administrative staff under the office uh supervisor for the land use bureau um who uh supervises the administrative staff and the administrative staff serves all the different land use boards um that are listed uh below in the oval uh shapes.

So we really work a lot um with a variety um of different boards, um, including HPAC, uh the planning board, the affordable housing trust fund.

Uh Emily is actually the staff person um for uh the Affordable Housing Trust Fund in her capacity as the housing planner.

Um uh and so on.

Um with regard to the budget, um, it's uh fairly um, I might say boring budget.

Uh we're not proposing any expansion, uh any program expansions.

Um the uh total department expenditures is uh proposed to increase by 4.5 percent.

Um this is uh largely to um additional funds.

Uh we are requesting for contract services and for um purchase property services.

Uh that includes, for example, um 75,000 for uh a study of land use study of the downtown area and the areas north of Broad Street between Broad Street and Bullshead.

Uh if the money gets approved, we would go out to um RFP and uh select a uh consultant for the project.

Um with regard to uh capital budget uh requests, we have two items.

The first one is for a citywide fields assessment um for 500,000.

Uh this would be uh assessing the city's 85 uh athletic facilities.

Uh those are facilities that are managed both by uh parks and recreation but also by uh Stanford Public Schools.

Uh that includes all the out all the outdoor facilities, um tennis courts, baseball diamonds, football fields, uh the pool um up uh at Dorothy Heroy.

Um and uh the goal of the study is to first um uh uh assess the physical conditions um of those facilities and what they uh would need and in investments uh over the next few years, uh, but then also thinking about how can we uh manage those facilities uh more efficiently in the future.

So uh for example, currently those facilities are managed by uh Parks and Rec and Stanford Public Schools.

Um are there ways to uh combine uh the management of those facilities to uh increase efficiency.

It's also trying to figure out what are the future needs for athletic facilities, um, are the tastes changing uh with regards to uh what facilities are needed uh in the future um and so on and so forth.

So it's a it's a quite uh complex undertaking um that that is a citywide project uh and addresses all uh the outdoor uh um athletic facilities.

Then uh the second um capital request that we have submitted is the BMR uh management system.

So uh the city currently has um about 1300 below market rate housing units.

Uh that is in addition to the units that uh Charter O Community uh operates as the housing authority for the city.

Uh that's also in addition to the units that uh non-profits run in the city, such as in Spirica, Pacific House, um, and so on.

Um currently uh those units are uh managed by uh the individual um property owners.

So they are responsible for managing the wait lists, for uh certifying or making sure that the tenants meet the income requirements uh and so on and so forth, and uh which um for the tenants once they are in the program.

Um first of all, it it uh makes it more difficult for them to identify uh who's who sort of responsible for helping them if there are questions about compliance.

Um probably one of the biggest issues is that uh there's no uh single wait list for all those affordable units that the city uh have or manages.

So if someone uh wants to get a BMR unit, they have to apply to individual buildings, uh, and that often means uh having to pay multiple application fees uh and so on and so forth.

So the BMR management system, um, the idea is uh to create sort of a one-stop shop um for um uh potential tenants and and current tenants of uh the BMR program to uh to have uh potential problems resolved and to uh access those units.

And uh the other component is that we hope it will make um uh compliance uh easier um for us to enforce uh by having all the information about the tenants and the buildings, like what is the rent that is paid for a specific unit in a specific building, uh, have that available um uh at the click of a button uh rather than uh having to comb through all the uh compliance reports that building uh owners are required to submit uh once a year.

Uh so to make that process um easier.

And um that is pretty much it.

Um, with regards to uh performance improvements and deficiencies.

Um Sean Reed has uh um mentioned it before.

Uh for zoning enforcement, the land use bureau currently doesn't have uh an application management system.

Um we hope that the city um will make progress on uh uh uh acquiring uh a new system, or at least um uh we will uh try to get on an existing system that is used by the building department.

Um if implementation of a new system uh is uh is a little bit further afield.

Um we believe that the citywide fields assessment will um uh identify means to manage citywide's assets, uh such as the athletic fields.

Um and then also uh we believe that the BMR management system not only will it improve customer service for uh BMR tenants, but I think it will also uh greatly improve our ability uh to manage compliance um of the uh BMR program, which is one of the largest uh um in the state.

And um with that, thank you very much for your time.

Uh thank you, Ralph.

Uh, I see a question from Representative Walston.

Hello, Director Blessing.

Hi.

I'm just excited about um the single one one shop, one touch.

I'm excited and I can't wait for that to come online.

I'm very excited about that.

Thank you.

Uh so is we hopefully, hopefully it all works out.

Yeah.

Are there any further questions?

Uh Ralph, can you shop stop sharing your screen for a second so I can see everybody a little bit?

Absolutely.

Sorry about that.

No problem.

Uh I don't see any other questions.

So thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

I believe that is it for tonight.

Thank you all.

It is 8 34 p.m.

And this concludes tonight's budget presentation to the fiscal committee of the board of representatives.

Thank you, everyone, for participating.

And uh for those of us on the fiscal committee, we will be at uh Rippo Am School tomorrow evening for the joint uh session with uh fiscal sorry Board of Finance and the Fiscal Committee.

Uh it'll be an open budget meeting for the public.

Uh I believe the meeting starts at 7 p.m.

officially.

In the auditorium at Riverwalm, yes.

The auditorium at Ripper One.

But any member of the Board of Uh Representatives is welcome to attend.

Um it is a we listen and we are not, there's no requirement to respond to the public at this meeting.

It is a uh receive mode only.

So great.

Everybody, thank you very much and good night.

See you most of you tomorrow.

All right.

Thank you.

Good night, everyone.

Good night, everyone.

Good night.