Department Budget Presentations

Transcript (~55 min @ 11:40)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 11:25 Mark Garipay: You. Uh, if there are no objections, I'll motion by unanimous consent to close the public comment portion of our meeting. So you no objections. Public comment is now closed. We are moving on our agenda to department budget presentations. We have the Department of Public works in front of us.

▶ 11:46 Mark Garipay: We have Director pro, aas Ellis, and Deputy director, Mr. Troop. Um, the floor is yours. Uh, we have a number of different departments. Do you have a presentation you wanna present or do you, you wanna do each department?

▶ 12:01 Speaker 7: So if it truly, Um, If it's okay with you, I'd like to go through the PowerPoint, um, and then, and then take up any questions. Uh, division by division from the budget, but the PowerPoint covers all of them. Okay, That's Fine. Does that work? Yep.

▶ 12:16 Mark Garipay: Okay. Just um, point of information for everyone in the gallery, the override. I know a lot of people here for the override question that is last on our agenda. If you don't have a copy of the agenda, F law is yours.

▶ 12:28 Speaker 7: Thank you. And I'm not sure if you're able to put the PowerPoint up on the screen,

▶ 12:43 Speaker 7: Elena, I'm not sure where that is.

▶ 12:49 Speaker 7: It should be, um, if you're able to open the agenda packet, it's in there. If you want to just grab it from there. Is it an iq?

▶ 13:02 Speaker 9: What and other stuff? Yeah,

▶ 13:27 Speaker 10: she probably, yeah, so she

▶ 14:05 Speaker 7: Thank you. Floor's, yours.

▶ 14:10 Speaker 7: Okay, thank you. Um, so if you wanna go to the next slide.

▶ 14:16 Speaker 7: So we have a lot of general information here. It's largely just for anybody from the public who, um, may click on the agenda packet and wanna look at the presentation. We're not gonna go through it in detail. Um, but for starters, thank you for, um, considering our budget this evening and we welcome any questions that you might have. Um, the DPW in this proposed budget is 64 full-time employees, one part-time and two partially funded split into four main divisions. Administration, engineering, which includes water and sewer billing as well. Facilities and operations within our administration division. Uh, we do all the public relations, accounts payable and receivable payroll. Um, our environmental and outreach coordinator and our rentals coordinator and engineering water and sewer billing manages most of our capital projects, um, out in the community. Roadway projects, water and sewer mains, um, permits and inspections for private work and work in the right of way development reviews. Um, they're the keeper of all of our plans and our electronic geographic information systems and, uh, water and sewer billing. And then facilities, as you should all know, I would hope, um, DPW manages the facilities, both the capital projects in the buildings and also the operations and maintenance. And then operations is by far our largest division, which includes many of the subdivisions that we see on the budget tonight. Highway, snow and ice parks and forestry, fleet cemetery, water and sewer and sanitation.

▶ 15:54 Speaker 7: So of note, um, I include this slide every year in the budget presentation, but this year we have two major vacant positions that are not being backfilled due to the budget constraints. And that is our city engineer and our facilities manager. So with the four divisions that we just went through, the, um, the DPW has a manager for each of those four subdivisions. And we are now down to just two managers and myself. So Jim, myself and Joe Hobbs, um, are what's left of the DPW management out of the five positions that we normally have. Um, just a shout out to some of our new employees, Jimmy Geer, Nolan Joyce, Shane Allen, and Adam Ma Luke. Um, they've both, they've all joined within the last fiscal year. And congratulations to Paul Thomas, the Winthrop School custodian, who was here for many years. Um, anyone whose kids went to the Winthrop know Paul, so we are sad to see him go. He retired May 1st. Um, the vacancies that we have right now are one school custodian, one ed stations custodian, the city engineer, the facilities manager, a cemetery, equipment operator, and a mechanic. And all of those are unfunded in this year's, uh, the fiscal 26 budget.

▶ 17:16 Speaker 7: Um, I'm not gonna go through these next two slides with our operational accomplishments. They're really just for you folks to peruse at your leisure. Um, these relate to our day-to-day operations and how many of each thing that we've done in the, uh, since the beginning of this fiscal year. And then similarly, our capital projects, I'll talk about just one or two of them. Um, we were very excited that we had A-A-A-D-A grant that we were able to use to add a handicap door opener to Melrose High School, which, uh, grew out of a civics project from a student. And we were really excited to be able to implement that project. Um,

▶ 18:01 Speaker 7: and I'll, I'll leave all the rest of the capital projects actually for you to look at, at your leisure.

▶ 18:09 Speaker 5: So if we go to the council agenda items, the first and probably most important thing that I wanna share with you on behalf of Elena personally and on behalf of the DPW, we just wanna thank you for your continued support of the DPW. We know that this is a challenging process and we just wanna let you know that we feel as manager, the leadership of the DPW, that we've done this together with you and with your cooperation. So we continue to thank you for your support of, of our department and, uh, we know we're gonna face these challenges and, uh, deliver a quality service throughout the course of a, a very challenging fiscal. 26 in front of you tonight are gonna be the general fund operating budget, $8.7 million, your wastewater, uh, sewer solid waste enterprise budgets. You can see those numbers. Uh, and then we have some free cash appropriations that are for your consideration, including the Penney Road pump station out of the sewer, uh, enterprise fund paving projects, which is, uh, some money appropriated to supplement our paving operation. Uh, and hopefully to be able to do some paving this construction season. And then our facilities construction services will, which will allow us to get to the finish line over at the Franklin School and through the skylight projects, uh, at the high school, you'll also have for your consideration, uh, the rates for water and sewer. And those are, uh, coming up, uh, in the next couple of nights and weeks. Uh, our total general fund budget of $8.7 million is a reduction of almost 4.5% over fiscal 25. You'll see similar percentage in the water enterprise fund, a 4.2% reduction over fiscal 25. The sewer enterprise fund is reduced at 2.7 and as a preview, we are not proposing rate increases. Don't wanna be the spoiler there. Um, the solid waste enterprise budget is going up and that is strictly contractual. Uh, that's a percentage increase year over year, and that's a 3.7% increase over fiscal 25. And then our grand total of all DPW budgets of $26,969,193 represents a reduction of 2.9% over fiscal 25. That equates to over $800,000 that the DPW is responsible for. Uh, that is out of our budget. That drastically affects, uh, everyday services. It really focuses us to deliver needs before we deliver wants. And that's the challenge that we're gonna face in the next fiscal year. As you can see in the division budgets, everything is being reduced. You see the majority of the salaries from the admin and engineering or from the managers. And then we've tried to do some right sizing in some of our line items through the individual budgets. Again, I'll call your attention to a snow and ice budget, which, uh, is increased to kind of match the increase in costs to deliver our snow and ice operation over the year. And it actually narrows the gap for any of the deficit that we tend to try to, uh, offset at the end of the snow and ice season. The other increase, as we just mentioned, is the solid waste and enterprise solid waste Enterprise Fund, 3.7%. Again, that is strictly, uh, contractual. Um, as you're well aware, some of the employees have their salaries broken down through several D pws. There is a breakdown and that is available for, for view. Uh, those are reviewed every year and they're commensurate to the amount of work and the level of service that they deliver in the particular divisions in which they're servicing. Uh, this includes, uh, positions of salary, two full-time employees, uh, shared with other departments. Um, is it you going to take over? Sure, go ahead.

▶ 21:55 Speaker 7: Um, so the highlights of our budget, uh, the salary increases. We have a successfully negotiated contract right now with the Laborers Union and the clerical union, um, through extensions to the prior, uh, union contract. So those are extended through the end of fiscal 26. So all the numbers that you see in our budget right now, they include any cost of living increases and step increases that are contractually required. Um, in some previous years when we're in the midst of negotiating, sometimes they're placeholders and then we have to add on after the fact. But fortunately for this year, everything is negotiated and everything you see in the budget is reflects those negotiations. Um, there are some impacts from rising energy costs and transitions toward electrification. Some of the prior heating costs for the library have been moved entirely into the electric line for the facilities library, uh, utility costs, because that building now is fully electric. Um, as you mentioned, the, there's a 2.5% increase in the snow budget just to move closer to our annual averages of actual expenditures. Um, the solid waste enterprise budget increases due to the contractual increases with the, with cosella, but also due to the cart loan, which we now start paying back, starting this coming fiscal year. Um, and then pretty much everything else is level funded or decreased. And I'm gonna run through in the slides that follow a bunch of the reductions. Um, there are far more reductions in our budget than there are increases, and I think it's important, um, for everybody, both here and the public to understand what is being reduced. So as I mentioned before, six positions that were not backfilling. Five are regular budgeted positions. One is funded through the ed station's budget, so that doesn't really show in our budget. Um, and depending on the fees they collect, we may or may not be able to fill that position in fiscal 26. But at a minimum, the five vacancies that sit within our budget are not being funded. And then we are, right now we are leaving the ed station's position vacant as well. Um, we've cut part-time and intern salaries that reflect our summer help program. You might recall that you approved $120,000 of free cash to fund the fiscal 26 summer help program. It's reduced from its prior level in terms of the number of people that we can have. But fortunately, we're in full swing. Um, with having lined up the kids who are gonna be working this summer, um, administration overtime is reduced. We are proposing to take some of our solid waste and recycling events, not the ones that are on the calendar already, but the ones that would be on next year's on calendar, year 26 as calendar and consolidate some of those. So we can limit the overtime. Um, so for instance, you might have shredding on the same day as, uh, hazardous waste, something like that. But we're just trying to consolidate those, um, overtime. We do a lot of items on overtime that we can't do when there are cars parked on the street or when there's too much traffic. So we are not doing the flower watering this year. I think you've heard the mayor talk about that. The parklets, the entire installation and breakdown of them takes place on overtime. So we won't be putting those out. Um, outdoor dining. Previously we just had a permit that we issued, but we were willing to put barriers out for the restaurants and then take them up at the end of the year. That's now gonna be a fee service. Um, same with hanging banners downtown. When we hang a banner that says Vote Tuesday, those will still will still be the ones that put it up, put them up. But if they're for private events, we're gonna have to start charging the entities who, um, are hosting the events for the overtime to put the banners up. It's impossible to do those during the workday because they're right on Main Street. Um, and they require a a lift truck. Um, we've reduced some line items for clothing tools, professional development for DPW staff, um, highway division over time we're reducing, we are gonna reduce the amount of traffic line painting. We're gonna do as much painting as we can this spring with the rest of our fiscal 25 money. And then we'll do our usual just before school painting of the crosswalks in the school areas. And then in the next spring, we may not be able to paint, um, much, if any on the roads. Streetlight maintenance and highway hired equipment. We hadn't been spending those budgets entirely, so we dropped them down a little bit. The national pollution pollutant discharge elimination system, drainage federal permit has a lot of requirements. Um, we, we know we need that money, but we can do kind of the bare minimum under the permit in fiscal year 26. That's the plan. Um, and so we've dropped that down a tiny bit. Sidewalk repairs we've dropped down. And with the operating budget, we'll only be doing immediate safety repairs. And then everything else will be with the free cash budget. We will likely get behind on our sidewalk repair list in fiscal 26. Um, same with signs, street signs, you know, if a stop sign comes down, obviously we'll put that right back up. If a parking sign is faded, we may not be replacing it. Um, sanitation overtime, we are gonna have to cut hours down at the city yard on Saturdays. That's a substantial expense because it is all overtime. Um, we are looking at either just doing every other Saturday just doing mornings or possibly doing fewer Saturdays in the summer so that we can still do every week in the fall during the heaviest period. But somewhere we have to cut out half of the overtime. Um, that's what's reflected in our budget. We're looking at hours at the city art office itself for potential reductions there, um, with no conclusive decision on that. Um, parks and forestry, we've reduced our contractual services a little bit and, you know, we'll just keep up as best we can. We're removing the support for the Adopt a Site program. That was a small amount, but it just means that the people adopting the sites have to do more on their own. Um, automotive parts we've reduced to basically what we've used the last couple of years, but what that means is there's no contingency anymore. If we have a major vehicle repair, we may be before you looking for capital stabilization funds because we've eliminated our contingency in the operating budget. Um, cemetery, we we're dropping down the contractual services and supplies a little bit. Uh, so those are the reductions, the bulk of them. Um, the water and sewer enterprise funds really didn't need to see any substantial reductions because the vacancies resulted in reductions. And we've actually done really well with our MWR assessments this year. On the sewer side, all the work we've done to remove extraneous flow rainwater, um, from and groundwater from the sewer system has resulted in our rates coming down or our assessment coming down. So we're able to, um, not have any increases proposed to our water and sewer rates for next year. Um, and we also don't need to make any transfers into reserves because with the total budget for those funds coming down, we are now at our 10% goal before we were right below our 10% goal of reserves compared to the operating budget. Um, and our rates are projected to meet all revenue obligations with no transfers from retained earnings. So this is a good thing. Last year was the first year in a few years that we didn't have to transfer and we shouldn't have to transfer again this coming year. So with that, uh, we'll open it up to questions.

▶ 29:38 Mark Garipay: That's it. Um, okay. Um, alright. Moving forward. We're gonna go over each, uh, budget one by one. And there may be still questions I saw. I just noticed that you had all these, um, you had a summary in each one, but as we go through each muni report, they'll, they'll probably be questions again, so you may be repeating yourself a little bit, so. Sure. Uh, first up is Department 4 0 1 Public Works admin and engineering. So, uh, are there any questions? Councilor Jamal Ledine, councilor Stewart, after that, thank you.

▶ 30:15 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you Chair. Uh, thank you both for always being, uh, very informative in all the presentation that you provide for us. Um, I, you know, I hear about all the cuts that we are going to have, um, uh, six employees that are not, or positions that are not going to be, uh, uh, placed. Um, and I did hear about the impact or the services that we will not be providing anymore. Um, can you tell me if, um, and I'm not sure if you have that in mind, but, uh, any direct impact for constituents, something, a service that constituents may be requesting from you, from your department? And now with those cuts, we, you know, moving forward we will be saying, unfortunately, we won't be able to provide this service any longer.

▶ 31:07 Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the, the cutting down of our at the city yard is a big one because people are very interested in being able to access the city yard for drop off. Um, the, uh, the reduction in the sidewalk budget is a, is a definite one. If we can't keep up on sidewalk repairs, I know we have a lot of cracked sidewalks around, people would like to see repaired. Um, tree removal is a tough one. Being down one person, technically the we're down one person in the cemetery, but I like to think of cemetery parks and forestry as all a group that does similar work. And so we do everybody's cross-trained and we put everybody where they need to be the most. And I would say, you know, the cemetery when there's a funeral, that's a must have. So we have to do the preparations for that. And so someone typically is getting pulled from parks and forestry into the cemetery to keep up with their demand. And so it ends up being parks and forestry that fall behind. Right now we are very behind on tree trims, tree removals, um, and most likely we'll continue to get behind on those, um, parks. We're doing our best to keep up on our mowing and maintenance, but we have only a handful of employees and we have over 80 locations that we maintain, uh, weekly to twice a week. So, you know, the grass might be a little longer, it might take a little longer for us to get out and line a field or, you know, have things ready for a user group. Um, so those are

▶ 32:40 Maya Jamaleddine: Some, I know we're reducing the trash barrels as well, right?

▶ 32:43 Speaker 7: Yes, correct. So we are piloting a carry and carry out at a few of our parks. Um, we're removing the, the, um, the trash route on Sunday mornings that we just added a few, we a few years ago. Um, so in doing that, the locations that really build up the most over the weekends tend to be some of our parks. And so to not have overflowing barrels in a lot of litter, we're, we're piloting carry and carry out at Foss Park, Hesseltine, the Common and, uh, Cedar Park.

▶ 33:15 Maya Jamaleddine: And, and just out of curiosity, do you think that this would be, um, unfortunately this is, this is what we have, this is all the means that we have. And I understand you're stretching everything in your department, um, as well as all the other departments and, uh, around the city, but, you know, removing those barrels, do you think it's going to actually resolve some of the issue or is it going to create more problem for your department? Because you are going to hear from, uh, constituents that there is trash everywhere. There is, um, fraud probably and stuff.

▶ 33:53 Speaker 7: That's exactly why we're referring to it as a pilot. We know a lot of other communities successfully do carry and carry out at their parks. Um, but we don't wanna say definitively that we think it's gonna work, so we're gonna try it out at these locations. Um, but you know, if we have to go back to having them, it is stretching our resources even even thinner.

▶ 34:15 Speaker 5: If I could add to though this, this is a proven, uh, strategy to help keep things clean. It's done in the national parks, it's done at local beaches and things like that. And really, as we go through this challenge, I heard from a lot of people earlier, we're asking people for help. And I think that this is a very easy thing for people to help out with. And I think that immediately, as long as we get people to, to help us out, I think they're gonna see drastic improvements right away. But again, we're asking for help. Yeah.

▶ 34:44 Maya Jamaleddine: And, and, and again, and the reason why I'm asking this question is because I know that this is the moment where people need to step up and help wherever they can, uh, because unfortunately we are out of resources and we are running thin. Um, my other question, I know that there is few other orders that we sub we approved. Um, are we going to still be able to do it knowing with all these cuts or is it going to be impacted?

▶ 35:15 Speaker 7: We should be able to keep up on all the free cash orders that were approved? The, the ones that were approved, they're predominantly either construction that's already in place or that's already been, you know, initiated to, to enough of a degree that we should be able to follow through. I would say the, um, one of the orders that's on for tonight, the construction services assistance for our facilities capital projects, um, that will help us implement the projects that will be across all of our consultants, our HVAC, our building envelope consultant, our asbestos removal consultant. They will all help us be able to oversee these projects to get them to the finish line. Awesome.

▶ 35:54 Speaker 3: Thank you. Council Stewart?

▶ 35:55 Robb Stewart: Thank you Mr. Chair. Mr. Tru and Ms. Les. Thank you. Uh, just specific to the administration engineering, um, it's very along the same lines as what council Joel Maldon was just asking is what is the impact, uh, of a typical constituent, um, for, for the 13% reduction that you're facing across engineering and across administration? Where are they gonna see that impact? I want the, 'cause I want the public to hear this.

▶ 36:29 Speaker 7: I think the 13.2% reduction in our administration and engineering budget, the biggest impact is the lack of staff. So on the more administrative end, the city engineer and the facilities manager are a large component of this budget. Um, we, I don't know that the impacts will be seen immediately by the public for having those two positions vacant, but the long term impacts are, are fairly significant on the facilities manager end. There's, we know there's a ton of deferred maintenance. We know that our facilities manager was out in the schools all the time, out in the public buildings all the time trying to foresee problems, trying to prevent things from happening. One risk is that we have to be more reactive now. We have to wait for something to fail, um, before we, before we can necessarily get to it on the facilities end. On the engineering end, we're basically putting a halt on all new programs. So we will not be applying for new grants. We've done a lot of great grant work, especially on the storm water quality end of things. Um, and, you know, trying to mitigate flooding, resilience, that kind of stuff. We're just not gonna have the, the person power to apply for those now safe routes to schools. Um, some of the other, you know, safety grants and things that we've applied for, we're, we're not applying for any new grants. So, um, we're gonna work with one fewer body in the engineering division and they are all needed to just get the regular day-to-day work done.

▶ 38:05 Robb Stewart: I, one follow up question to that, um, in another year where you do have the resources to go for grants, um, what's the, what's the total amount of grants that you'd see in a fiscal year? Roughly 200, 500. Oh,

▶ 38:21 Speaker 7: More than that. More than that. So, um, so

▶ 38:23 Speaker 10: We're gonna lose that.

▶ 38:24 Speaker 7: Yeah, so there's all the money that comes in with the Complete Streets grant is about 450,000. We're working with a million dollar earmark for Alpine Park. Um, a million dollar earmark for the Lebanon Sylvan flooding issue. Um, I would say, you know, in the one to several million dollars potentially per year to, uh, in grant funding that we, that we bring

▶ 38:49 Robb Stewart: In. So the opportunity cost, if I'm hearing this correctly, is we have 800,000 in real cost, but there's several million in that opportunity cost in addition. Definitely, Yes. Alright. That is a major impact because that basically stops progression of what, what your um, what your administration team does. Correct. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

▶ 39:11 Speaker 3: Council Shati.

▶ 39:12 Manjula Karamcheti: Um, so Councilor Stewart sort of asked the same question that I had in mind, um, but I'll just extend it a little bit. I think as like award counselor, um, for my constituents, I think the people that I have generally reached out to the most, other than the two of you are the facilities manager and the city engineer. And so my question, given the impact of those two positions not being filled, where do we go? Where do constituents go when a pipe bursts, when there's something complicated going on with their own with infrastructure, um, because that's a significant decrease in administration. And so I, I heard you say that people might not feel it right away, but I'm already feeling it in terms of thinking about my role as a city counselor and how I advocate for the things that constituents need when they contact me first. Um, so can you just speak to Sure.

▶ 40:13 Speaker 7: Yeah. So the, um, so we will have an email coming out from DPW soon with instructions for the city council and, uh, department heads as to who to contact for various things. Um, we're filling the gaps as best we can between Jim, myself and Joe Hobbs. Um, the, the last three standing. Um, we also have Jay Coy, our deputy city engineer. He, he was just appointed acting city engineer. So even though there's no way he can do both his own job and Vonnie's prior job, um, he will do his best to fill in there. But I would say for constituents, interestingly, the vast majority of constituent in, uh, inquiries that we have, they're really best served going through calling the DPW main number and the engineering division main number because then they can get directed to exactly the right person. Um, most of the time when somebody contacts me directly, I'm not actually the right person. I'm happy to help and I, and I'm happy to, you know, put in a work order or redirect a request. But, um, the most efficient way is usually our, you know, frontline customer service folks who can get that work order right in or who can check to see if it's already in and, and update people on the status. And so that's what we encourage people to do.

▶ 41:30 Speaker 11: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. All set. But no, that's a lot Of extra for everybody, so.

▶ 41:37 Mark Garipay: Yep. All set. Um, any other questions on Department 4 0 1 Public Works admin

▶ 41:44 Speaker 3: and engineering counselor or Ramal?

▶ 41:46 Devin Romanul: Thanks so much. I have other questions on other sections, but since you mentioned two projects that are specific Ward seven, um, would you mind clarifying that, uh, I know you said the grants bandwidth is going to be reduced to zero, but the, um, ability to complete those projects that are already in motion, is that going to be affected at all?

▶ 42:03 Speaker 7: No, we will, we will do our best to complete them on schedule. Great.

▶ 42:06 Speaker 10: Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you very much.

▶ 42:10 Speaker 3: What's the will of the committee Council Stewart? Thank

▶ 42:13 Robb Stewart: You Mr. Chair. I'll make a motion to move this to bottom line.

▶ 42:17 Mark Garipay: Second, We have a motion to move to the bottom line of department 4 0 1 admin and engineering made by Council Stewart, seconded by Council Ram Ramal on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That bottom line's moved. Next up, 4 0 2 public work facilities. Any questions specific to public work facilities?

▶ 42:43 Speaker 3: Okay, what's the will of the committee,

▶ 42:46 Robb Stewart: Mr. Chair? I'll make a motion to move, uh, 4 0 2 to the bottom line. Second.

▶ 42:49 Mark Garipay: Motion to move four oh twos bottom line facilities and maintenance made by Council Stewart. Seconded by Council Ro on discussion. Aye. All in.

▶ 42:58 Speaker 11: Oh, sorry. I was excited. Jump the gun a All a opposed

▶ 43:04 Mark Garipay: that bottom line will be moved. Next up we have 4 22 Public Works Highway. Any questions on public works?

▶ 43:19 Speaker 3: Um, highway Counsel Stewart? Thank

▶ 43:20 Robb Stewart: You Mr. Chair. Um, similar to my last question, uh, specific to, uh, the highway. Um, I'm, I'm interested again in, since you have a 9.5% reduction, what the outcomes, uh, or lack thereof that the, our constituency will be facing? I know you mentioned I, uh, sidewalk repair was one. Uh, what else?

▶ 43:44 Speaker 7: Line painting, sign replacement, sidewalk repair, as you said. Uh, drain maintenance and drainage projects, meeting that federal permit. Um, we'll still meet the permit, but we'll just do the exact minimum of what we need to do. Um, the reductions in streetlight maintenance and, uh, hired equipment were more consistent with recent spending trends. So we shouldn't see necessarily a, um, a reduction service on those two, but all those others will be a reduction in service.

▶ 44:18 Robb Stewart: Okay. And what I, what I did not hear was potholes. Um, what about potholes?

▶ 44:25 Speaker 7: Potholes are done during our normal day to day. They're, they don't tend to be an overtime expense. Um, and the, uh, the material to fill the potholes is still funded, um, to the level consistent with what we've been spending recently. So that really shouldn't be impacted and we're not, uh, we have a full complement of highway division employees right now, so we don't have any vacancies specifically in highway. Great.

▶ 44:50 Robb Stewart: Great. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chair.

▶ 44:52 Speaker 3: Councilor Ro?

▶ 44:53 Cal Finocchiaro: Yes. Thank you. Um, can you just gimme an idea of what $35,000 in sidewalk repairs would means? Like how that translates, you know, roughly. I mean, I know, I dunno if that's hard to que No, I can question to answer. Um,

▶ 45:05 Speaker 7: I can pull up the pre-cash memo because I think we had Oh, sorry. Some statistics in there. No, it's, I mean it's not pertinent to this particular order, but is

▶ 45:15 Mark Garipay: If, if that's gonna, we're gonna be discussing that, um, as a free cash order later in the night?

▶ 45:19 Speaker 7: No, that one was already voted on before. Okay. But I just know in the memo we had said, um, that the $50,000 could do 115 concrete panels. So that gives you a rough

▶ 45:34 Cal Finocchiaro: Proportion. Okay. So going forward, if a constituent needs a sidewalk repaired and they submit a, like an EO like request, is that, or reach out to us, is that, um, if it's a safety issue that will be taken care of, but do the budget re reduction, you're gonna have to say this might have to sit and not be done.

▶ 45:55 Speaker 7: Yeah. And we may have to be a little more discerning on what we consider to be a safety concern. An immediate safety concern. Mm-hmm. We're not. Um, but the process will be the same. Still put in the sidewalk assessment through EOA resident can go online and put, put it in or you can put it in and then we will go out and do the assessment. But we just will, we'll prioritize which ones need to be done sooner.

▶ 46:15 Speaker 8: Okay. And this is for concrete, not special

▶ 46:18 Speaker 7: For both. Concrete and asphalt. Okay. Asphalt we can repair in-house so we have a little more flexibility.

▶ 46:24 Speaker 8: Okay. Thank you. Okay.

▶ 46:29 Speaker 3: Um, any questions if not? No, go ahead.

▶ 46:32 Speaker 10: Um, Council remodel.

▶ 46:33 Devin Romanul: Oh, thank you very much. Um, one quick question on road paving. 'cause I'd say other than potholes and schools road paving is probably the number one constituent request that I get. And um, I know you've mentioned it before, so if you wouldn't mind indulging me, uh, repeating the statistics around how many road miles we have in the city, how many we're able to pave every year, and what you would consider fully funded in terms of, um, you know, uh, uh, keeping up with the normal lifespan of the, of the road.

▶ 46:59 Speaker 7: So we have about 90 miles of roads. Um, actually maybe more like 80 90 I think is water means. Um, and we have estimated that we need about $2.6 million per year to keep up long term on the roadway conditions. We tend to spend between a million and a million and a half per year. None of that comes out of the operating budget. It's all chapter 90 road bond contributions from private utilities who do work in the city. Um, and grants.

▶ 47:27 Speaker 10: Great. Wonderful. Thank you very

▶ 47:29 Speaker 3: Much. Council Williams? Yeah,

▶ 47:31 Ryan Williams: For the good of the public and council, I just wanted to note that this year Melrose will be receiving an increase in chapter 90 funds, I think to the tune of $700,000 up from 500,000 at least that's what I saw in the preliminary estimate. Um, which of course will pay for labor and paving.

▶ 47:48 Speaker 7: It pays, we don't typically use it for any internal labor. Okay. Um, but we use it for our paving

▶ 47:54 Ryan Williams: Contract. I got it. Okay. Very good. So some of the challenges we're facing here are blunted, thankfully by the state producing a little bit more cash for the Chapter 90 roadway program. Thank you.

▶ 48:03 Mark Garipay: Thank you. Um, if I could just ask a couple questions. Budget went down 77,000 but you have two line items. Storm, I'm sure there's a great explanation, but storm drain maintenance and sidewalk repairs where we have not spent any money right as of yet of 125,000 according to uni that I'm looking at.

▶ 48:26 Speaker 7: So, so that's prior free cash. Um, and that pays for, so, uh, with our on-call contractor, DNR paving, we schedule them once a year to do a whole bunch of the larger repairs that we can't do ourselves. And they haven't come in yet this year, so that's why that's unspent. But that will definitely be spent by the end of the fiscal year where we've identified the areas we want them to work in and we're lining them up now.

▶ 48:53 Mark Garipay: So we'll spend 125,000 that was budgeted this current year that hasn't, nothing's been spent yet, but we will spend it by June 30th.

▶ 49:02 Speaker 7: Uh, yeah, I'm not sure about the 125 that's in which two line items.

▶ 49:08 Mark Garipay: Um, ece, it looks like, uh, storm drain maintenance, uh, 5 5 27 1 0 1 5 27 1 0 2 was budgeted. 70,000 year a date spend is zero, the other one was 20,000. Year to date spend zero. And then sidewalk repair, we had 35,000 year to year to date spend zero.

▶ 49:28 Speaker 7: Yeah. So the 35,000 is the sidewalks I talked about with the on-call contractor. The storm drain maintenance is we, um, CCTV inspect all of our sewers and drains before we pave and we identify open cut repairs that have to be done before the paving is done. And so that money is set aside for that and we have a different contract who's we're working with the contractor, um, to line them up.

▶ 49:51 Speaker 5: One, one other thing, just for clarification too, that, that static report that you have in front of you, I just ran one now because there's some updates over the last couple of weeks. We have encumbered that money for the current contracts. So I'm looking at all of those line items pretty much being 100% encumbered as of right now. As of

▶ 50:08 Mark Garipay: Yes sir. I thank you. There was an answer. Thank you. Would be remiss if I didn't ask. Of course.

▶ 50:15 Speaker 3: Um, council fro,

▶ 50:18 Speaker 8: Can I make a motion to move the bottom line? Second

▶ 50:20 Mark Garipay: Motion to move the bottom line by council fro seconded by Councilor CU Shady on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That bottom line is moved onto 4 23. Um, snow budget.

▶ 50:39 Mark Garipay: Any questions on the snow budget?

▶ 50:44 Mark Garipay: What's the will of the commit? Council Williams? We're

▶ 50:46 Ryan Williams: Still using the brining treatment.

▶ 50:52 Ryan Williams: No. Okay. We were experimenting with this, correct?

▶ 50:55 Speaker 10: We are no longer doing this. We

▶ 50:56 Speaker 7: Still hope to move in that direction at some point,

▶ 51:00 Speaker 5: Correct? Yeah, we have the capacity to do it. We just don't have the technology to really implement it other than to treat our salt.

▶ 51:07 Speaker 10: I see. Okay. Alright, thanks

▶ 51:10 Mark Garipay: Council. Jamal? I'm sorry. Council Williams. You're all set. Sorry about that. I was, yeah. Thank you. Okay, council Jamal,

▶ 51:16 Speaker 2: Thank you. Um, I know that snow removals, snow shoveling, uh, has been an issue for constituents and for the city overall. Uh, with all these cuts and the impact for, uh, DPW department, um, how are we going to see, uh,

▶ 51:36 Speaker 5: Yeah, There there'll be no impact in terms of what we deliver for snow, right? The one thing that the snow budget allows us is to spend in deficit. So as storms, as road conditions, as weather forces us to deliver services, there is some consideration we want to, uh, put in place some, uh, financial constraints on our spending for the snow and ice. But when it comes to treating the roads and trying to make them as safe as possible for travel, it's not really a consideration. So we're gonna attack next winter just as we would any other winter. And then once we're done, we'll see where we stand versus what the appropriated budget is and then try to, uh, offset that deficit, whether it's through a free cash appropriation or you're allowed to finance it over three years.

▶ 52:23 Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. Thank You.

▶ 52:25 Speaker 12: What's up? Yes.

▶ 52:27 Speaker 3: Um, any other questions?

▶ 52:32 Speaker 4: Ms. Snow Council Vanderberg Make a motion to move the bottom line. Second,

▶ 52:35 Mark Garipay: We have a motion to move the bottom line of 4 23 Snow made by Council Danver, seconded by council, common Shady on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? That bottom line is moved on to 4 33 public work. Sanitation. Any questions from the council?

▶ 52:55 Speaker 2: There is no question. I'll make a motion to move to bottom line. Second,

▶ 52:58 Mark Garipay: We have a motion to move the bottom line of sanitation by council. Uh, vice chair Jamal, seconded by Council Ro in discussion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Sanitation. Bottom line is moved. 4 75 Public works parks in forestry.

▶ 53:16 Speaker 3: It's gotta be questions on this. Any questions

▶ 53:25 Speaker 3: Counsel? Jamal,

▶ 53:26 Speaker 2: I'll take a stab on this. I know you mentioned that um, you know that it,

▶ 53:31 Maya Jamaleddine: the maintenance for parks, it won't be like the usual. So we are going to see some, uh, uh,

▶ 53:41 Speaker 2: probably the lawn is not, um, maintained like before.

▶ 53:44 Maya Jamaleddine: Uh, what other stuff? Um, in terms of, you know, park and and maintenance.

▶ 53:53 Speaker 7: So we are doing our best to try to get caught back up on tree removals and tree trims, um, because we do finally have a, um, a forestry foreman who came in about eight months ago. Um, so we're doing our best to try to get caught back up. But the problem is that during different times of year, as I was mentioning, cemetery parks and forestry tend to all be a group with a similar skillset. And so they get put wherever the needs are highest at any given time. So, um, you know, we, we really would like to get caught up on the tree work. It's also a safety concern, it's a liability for the city. If we don't keep up on removals, if we have a tree we've identified as a dead tree and then we don't have time to take it out, that's a liability. Um, so it, you know, it's hard to predict what exactly the impacts will be, but I can say fairly that there will be something not getting done. It just depends what the, what rises to the top as the highest priority at any given time.

▶ 55:00 Maya Jamaleddine: And, uh, all the parks will be the same, uh, open the same thing. We are not considering like closing any park or, uh, you know, not using it like, uh, or for the same purpose as before. It's the same thing.

▶ 55:14 Speaker 7: Everything is the same in terms of the parks being open available to the public and all of that. Um, I'm not sure if the administration is looking at any changes to how the user groups interact with the parks. Um, user fees or anything like that. I'm not sure where that, what direct direction that might go. That may be something that, you know, if we continue to be in financial difficulty moving into next fiscal year, we'll probably have to look very seriously at, at those fees.

▶ 55:43 Speaker 2: Okay. And you mentioned that, um, you know,

▶ 55:47 Maya Jamaleddine: with all these cuts and train and professional developments and stuff, um, anything that is, um, not meeting the state requirement?

▶ 56:00 Speaker 7: Uh, we, we will continue to meet every regulatory requirement that we have, state and federal. Okay. Um, there's nowhere that we would sacrifice meeting a state or federal requirement. Again, a huge liability for the city and also the potential to spend more money on fines and such if you don't meet permit requirements.

▶ 56:22 Maya Jamaleddine: Okay. Um, do you know if we are losing any additional, you know, like any grants that we did, uh, in previous years for parks and uh, forests and now we are not gonna reapply for it,

▶ 56:35 Speaker 7: So we don't tend to apply for much other than we've done some stormwater grants that would be in the parks. Um, we haven't been actually particularly successful in getting those grants. Um, I'm not sure what kind, what kinds of grants Rob Carillo might apply for or the park commission might apply for. Um, but that would be outside of anything impacted by our budget specifically.

▶ 56:59 Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?

▶ 57:04 Mark Garipay: I just had one quick one on regarding Adopt a site. Does that fall under the TPW or the Park commission? I know there's always or the park department. Yeah,

▶ 57:12 Speaker 7: So the Park Commission really manages the Adopt a Site program, but we used to have a $5,000 line item in our budget, um, to provide some support. So that's what's been removed from our budget.

▶ 57:23 Mark Garipay: I think that's a, uh, an area that we can, we're all work together and prove on the adoptive side. I think it's kind of gone by the wayside, but, um, what's the role of the committee?

▶ 57:34 Speaker 2: What'll make a motion to move to bottom line?

▶ 57:36 Mark Garipay: Second. Motion to move the bottom line of parks and forestry made by Vice Chair Jamal and seconded by co councilor Chetty on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? That bottom line will be moved. Moving on to automotive 4 85. Any questions from the council?

▶ 58:00 Speaker 3: I'm sorry, council Stewart. Thank

▶ 58:01 Speaker 10: You Mr. Chair

▶ 58:02 Speaker 3: From beyond you? Yeah,

▶ 58:06 Robb Stewart: No, as as you may have gathered, I'm focused mostly on the, the items that have significant cuts. This one has 16% reduction. Um, and I'll go back to my other question. What is that impact? Uh, from an outcome perspective?

▶ 58:21 Speaker 7: So we've been operating down one mechanic since our mechanic left, um, earlier in this fiscal year. And we were not able to backfill, we were told not to backfill that position due to the budget constraints. So it means, you know, less, less workforce in-house. It means more having to get sent out if we can't keep up with the demand. And so that's the 25% being cut from the salary line. Mm-hmm. And then the remainder is being cut from, um, some of the, the, uh, supply and material lines. And as I mentioned, that was cut to be consistent with existing spending, but what that does is it just eliminates any contingency. Sure,

▶ 59:07 Robb Stewart: Sure. And how does that impact the constituency?

▶ 59:12 Speaker 7: Uh, we maintain the police cars. We maintain the entire DPW fleet. The fleet is used for snow and ice. It's used for all of our park cemetery, uh, water and sewer. We have, um, vehicles that we use day to day in every aspect of DPW work as well as the, um, the police cruisers and the fire administration vehicles and the Council on aging vans. Um, so we just, we maintain a lot of vehicles that are used in a lot of day-to-day work, both within the city and then, um, things like the senior vans.

▶ 59:48 Robb Stewart: And so the impact that I, that I would see coming from just a regular resident is that two aspects. One is there could be a slowdown to services because it's gonna take longer to repair and the second is, uh, it's indirect, but, uh, you're gonna have to come to us for free cash to go and get that repaired externally, which means that that will impact other potential projects that would require that free cash and that would take away from that. Yes. If I, if I can characterize that correctly. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chair.

▶ 1:00:27 Mark Garipay: Thank you. Any other questions? Council Williams,

▶ 1:00:31 Ryan Williams: I just wanted to um, congratulate you on getting the electric trash truck rolling. I saw it today at Lincoln. It does sound like a a hundred year old mattress because the engine noise is gone. So it's just Springs c Creek, Creek Creek. Creek Creek. Creek Creek. Creek Springs going off. And I was like, you know, what is that? And I looked over and there it was, but it, it's, it's, it's rolling. Um, and it was whisper quiet, no fumes pulled up right next to the playground where my kids get outta school. Uh, and I was really thankful to see it out on the road. So thank y'all for getting that done. Great.

▶ 1:01:04 Speaker 3: Council Vanderberg.

▶ 1:01:05 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. Uh, two, two things on that topic. I, I did see the electric trash truck a while ago, and I actually, it, it looks really nice. And I, I saw that, I said, whose truck is that? And it was ours. It was, it was really cool. Um, my question is about, um, the maintenance of the vehicles, and we've talked before, we've had things come in for free cash. Um, there were some vehicles that had gotten behind on their maintenance. There were really, there was a frame that cracked and gotten in bad shape. Um, so if we're, we, there was a little bit of discussion previously about if, if we aren't able to keep up on all the preventative maintenance across the whole fleet, does it make sense to do this in-house? And, um, I guess I'm, I'm thinking a little bit ahead to, if, you know, we're all talking about if there's an override in what we're doing right now and, and, and we're going to discuss those questions. But in the event that we end up, you know, in an even more dire financial situation a year from now, is that, you know, is that something that you see at some point us getting out of the business of maintaining a fleet ourselves entirely or, or something like that?

▶ 1:02:10 Speaker 7: I would guess that it would be more expensive to send all of our equipment out than to pay our, our two city employees. Um, so I think if, if the situation becomes worse, I don't think that would be a, a potential relief valve. Um, I do wanna note also, I wanna give credit where credit is due. The VO designed the end and applied the wrap on the electric trash truck. So if you think it looks great, it was thanks to the vo,

▶ 1:02:35 Kimberly Vandiver: It, it really did. I, I didn't know it was ours at first, and I, I was admiring it and then it was even better. It was ours. So thank you. That's all.

▶ 1:02:44 Speaker 3: So will the committee council ro

▶ 1:02:47 Cal Finocchiaro: Yep. Thank you. I just wanted to make a general comment. Um, we don't, my fellow counselors, we don't have a lot of questions for you because clearly these budgets are dire, uh, they're, it's our dire either level funded or in the negative. Um, but I just wanna make a general comment to the residents if they could just going forward, be, um, patient with the DPW because, you know, obviously you're down staff and limited with what you guys can do. So, um, we appreciate all the work that you do and hopefully smooth sailing going forward.

▶ 1:03:19 Speaker 7: Thank you. Yeah, and actually to, uh, to Councillor Vandiver point about deferred maintenance too, I, I failed to mention the, um, the last vehicle that we've purchased through an actual allocation that wasn't sort of an emergency allocation was the electric trash truck. And that's been a couple years now. So we have not, we, we did a analysis, we had a consultant come in. They said we should be spending approximately a million dollars a year to keep our fleet at, at its current level and all, um, or to move toward having everything within what they consider to be industry standard ages. Um, and we have not allocated any money other than those couple of emergency allocations to vehicles in the last two to three years. So again, with deferred maintenance, we're kind of, we're heading in the wrong direction,

▶ 1:04:13 Speaker 3: The will of the committee.

▶ 1:04:16 Speaker 4: Motion to move to the bottom line. Second

▶ 1:04:18 Mark Garipay: Motion to move the bottom line of 4 85 Automotive made by Council Vandiver. Second by Council Romanul on discussion.

▶ 1:04:26 Speaker 3: All in favor a Aye. Opposed? That bottom line is moved.

▶ 1:04:29 Mark Garipay: 4 91 cemetery.

▶ 1:04:34 Mark Garipay: Any questions regarding the cemetery Council Stewart?

▶ 1:04:37 Robb Stewart: Thank you Mr. Chair. Uh, I want to comment on, um, how the cemetery looked. I was down Saturday replacing the flags and it was very nicely done. Um, I think you did a great job. So thank you for that. I think for, you know, for some such an important day, uh, as that, uh, I think it was great that you stepped up and should compliment the crew on the details.

▶ 1:05:00 Speaker 7: Thank you. Yeah, we'll pass that along. Please

▶ 1:05:02 Robb Stewart: Do. Please do. Uh, and so just back to my theme, uh, 27% reduction. Um, how is that gonna impact us residents?

▶ 1:05:15 Speaker 5: That's one staff Member, that's one staff member. So our, uh, expense line items are level funded, so we will maintain the same level of service with the current crew. That's, that's been vacant for the majority of the fiscal year. So I don't, I don't expect too much of an impact at the cemetery other than there's the same work for one less person.

▶ 1:05:37 Speaker 10: Got it. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Mr.

▶ 1:05:40 Mark Garipay: Chair, is that person a, um, laborer or a heavy

▶ 1:05:42 Speaker 5: Operator? No, it's a specialized license holder.

▶ 1:05:45 Speaker 3: So an operator we can rotate people in? Correct.

▶ 1:05:49 Speaker 3: Okay. Um,

▶ 1:05:51 Mark Garipay: I had one other question. Oh, uh, more of a comment. This is one of the, one of the departments that actually almost covers its costs with the sales of lots and graves and revenue. So Correct. It's kind of net, net neutral. What's the will of the, uh, committee if there's no other questions? Motion to move the bottom line. Second. Motion to move the bottom line by Counselor Machete. Second by counselor Ro on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That bottom line will be, um, will be moved. The next three items are gonna be in front of us as an appropriation. So we're gonna just move to the next, um, option. A next, um, item on our agenda, which is appropriations. And there's a separate order for those. Uh, we do not have to move that bottom line. We just have to vote on those three, um, items, the enterprise accounts. So we are done with the department budget presentations and now we're gonna go on to, um, regular appropriations.

▶ 1:06:58 Speaker 3: One second here. I'm missing a page