Was it like impromptu? Yeah, Allie planned it five days to go. We normally go every year for her birthday, but she got laid off from Aetna this year. Aetna's like getting rid of all of its Hartford people, so we have like a tighter travel budget. I know. Maybe hold off. Batterson Park is your day trip, right? Yeah, yeah. That was such a neat day. Oh, yeah, no, at Jazz Fest. It was her birthday, too, right? Yeah, so her birthday falls on Jazz Fest, and so we try to go. It's where I proposed. Oh, my gosh. Who was it? Oh, your cats can manage on their own. We're trying to get a condo down there. I don't want to be a house owner, but I would like to be a condo owner down there and go down for a month. It's great. Oh, you guys exude fun. I just love your energy. Well, come grab a beer at Five Corners. That's my meet-up spot. And so Steve Collins was my hairdresser for years. How did you meet him? He was just there, and he offered to help me clean up. And he's living with his mother right now. He's into tiny help. And he was like, I was homeless for years. Oh, yeah. He had his own business for a while. I'm hoping he lands on his feet. Oh. But he like, you know, let's catch up. I have to start. Sorry, old pals. Good evening, everyone. Sorry for the chit-chat. I call to order the May 7, 2025 special meeting of the Committee on Administration, Finance, and Law and Public Services. The time is now 6.01 p.m. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Or Ms. Clerk, whomever is available. Alderman Connors, Alderman Barbosa, Alderman McNamara, Alderman Santiago, Alderman Simpson, Alderman Gibson, Alderman Pabon, Alderman Smedley, Alderman Boulogne-Savedra, Alderman McAdam, Alderman Russell, Please note that Alderman Russell is an alternate for Alderman Smedley and Alderman McAdam is an alternate for either Alderman Santiago or Alderman Simpson. You have a quorum. Thank you Ms. Clerk. We are going to open the floor to public participation. I don't have a list in front of me. Do we have anyone signed up. So seeing as how we do not have anyone signed up I will Ask once more, is anyone here for public participation? And seeing no one online, we will move on. The time is now 6.02 p.m. The first item on the agenda is item number 36785-1, to act upon a resolution regarding the general fund budget for fiscal year 2025-26. May I have a motion? Alderwoman Bolloy and Saavedra. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I make a motion to refer this back to the council with a neutral recommendation. Second. I have a second by Alderman Russell and motion to refer with a neutral again by Alderman William Saavedra seconded by Alderman Russell at this time I'll call up the various departments to speak on their budget questions and allow questions by council members for their departments. The first speaker is Mary Piccorsi for Corporation Counsel. Good evening. Mary Pokorsky, Assistant Corporation Counsel. And our budget actually went down a couple hundred bucks this year. Our Corporation Counsel has been very good at trying to keep it flat, or if possible. So most of our budget is salaries, $485,692. We have four full-time positions, myself, John Deichen, who's the city attorney, and two paralegals, and then Corporation Counsel. And we handle a multitude of issues for the city, including all litigation, with the exception of a few that we do farm out, and collective bargaining, FOIs, any requests for opinions, review of contracts. can't even think of what else but that's we basically are handling more and more as the years go on and that's basically what I have do we have any questions for all the ones we'll answer you're the two lawyers are you guys in a union we are not you're not in a union and the two paralegals paralegals are in 1303 1303 thank you You're welcome. And do you do work for the Board of Education as well as for the city side? We do. We handle, I do contract review for the Board of Ed, and occasionally they call for opinions on things. And John Dyken handles lawsuits for the Board of Ed. And that's all I can think of right now. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? Thank you. Council Kwiatkowski. Thank you. Next up, I would like to call Justin Dorsey for the Mayor's budget, Mayor's Office budget. Good evening, Justin Dorsey, Chief of Staff to Mayor Stewart. The budget from this year compared to last year is virtually the same, all administratively, with the exception of A total overall of about two and a half percent that's just in line with the 1186 raises for the folks that aren't the Mayor because she's set by ordinance. Thank you Mr. Dorsey. Any questions for Chief of Staff Dorsey for the Mayor's Office's budget? Alderman Barbosa? Alderman Simpson. Hello. Oh, recognizing your presence. Hello. Sorry. Hello. May the record reflect Alderman Simpson is present tonight and hello. Thank you. Going back to the mayor's office budget do we have any questions for the chief of staff. No thank you. All right. Moving through these items here next speaker is Jonathan Perugini for the finance department. Hello, we're going to do the same format we did last year where I'm going to have Mike talk about assessors, Cheryl talk about revenue collection, and then I'll finish up the rest of finance. So, Mike, if you can come up. Good evening, everybody. So, the assessors budget this year, it's down 1.79% from last year. The biggest change in our budget this year is in our line item for professional services. As time has gone on since the 2022 revaluation we've had, we're weaning off of our superior court appeals for the revaluation. So we haven't had to have, I'm not anticipating as many appeals and the need for hiring for outside appraisals and such. But we'll be doing another revaluation soon for 2027. So it goes quick. But other than that, the budget is pretty much the same. Contractual raises for salaries. There's another large decrease with the technical publications. As you know, a few weeks ago, you voted to change the depreciation tables for motor vehicles. We're valuing motor vehicles differently now than we used to. We're no longer using the NADA guides, and that's a huge savings for the city as far as the annual cost for those guides. We're using a percentage of MSRP, so a lot of our cost for technical publications is due to valuation issues, so that fell substantially for the coming year. But other than that, a lot of it's pretty much the same, but any questions, I'm happy to answer. Alderman Valencia-Vidra. Hi, Mike. Thanks for being here. I ask everyone who presents the same, like, three questions. How many employees in your office? Including myself, there's eight employees. And the unions that are represented by those employees? We have two of us in 818. There are three people in 1303, and the remainder are in 1186. Okay, great. Anything... that we should know about? Everything's the same, no changes other than the slight reduction you talked about? At this point, no. There's no other changes. We're just adapting to the new motor vehicle schedules. Again, we'll be ramping up again for a revaluation in 2027. We're going to start a project. Heavy sigh. Yeah, heavy sigh is right. But that will start up in the spring of 26. We'll see how that goes. It really, actually, the RFP will happen in spring of 26 and then probably wouldn't start budget-wise until July of 26, so, yeah. Thank you very much. That's all I have, Mr. Chair. You're welcome. Alderman McNamara. Hi, Mike. Hi. We had all the kerfuffle last year about the motor vehicle, and I think the state has acted in terms of the fall-off of revenue from the motor vehicle. rate, which is the same, I think. So you don't anticipate any kerfuffle this year with those corrections? Well, no. The motor vehicles, what happened was the state changed the way we value motor vehicles using MSRP and they decided to use 85% of the original MSRP as a start point for a new vehicle and then 5% each year versus using the retail value in the NADA guides. And what that originally resulted in was about a $48 million decrease in our overall grand list, which in the motor vehicle grand list alone. And as other towns were reporting their grand lists in decline, the state, you know, got word of all of this and towns were concerned about losing potential income especially in towns like ours because we're like a city like ours the the maximum mill rate is 32.46 you cannot go above that so you couldn't make it up by raising the mill rate on cars because of the state maximum so they they changed it to 90 percent in the end our grand list still went down so the anticipation is most vehicles most people who own the same vehicle from one year to the next should see a decrease, but there might be a few that might go up slightly on some, but the majority, the majority are going to see a decrease in their assessment and overall tax bill, yeah. Sure. Thank you, Alderman McNamara. Alderman Valencia-Vedra. I just want to clarify, because you said the grand list went down, you're specifically speaking about vehicles. Yes, the vehicle grand list went down, but the overall grand list was up 1.32% on the growth side, .77% on the net side. So, yes. Thank you. Thank you, all. Anyone willing to make any other questions? All right, thank you. You're welcome. Good evening, everyone. As far as the revenue area of the finance department's budget is concerned, everything is similar to the assessor's office as far as like contractually obligated salaries, required things we have to do per state statute for tax collection, professional services. The only thing that I, that we're actually less than last year's budget is the intent is we're going to promote from within hopefully to fill our revenue specialist position and we're not going to be filling the associated revenue aid position. We've found that the volume of traffic at the window is not what it used to be. And we could, we can manage without that additional staff. So. Thank you. Sheryl Alderman . Same questions I ask everybody. So the number of staff people in your office? Eight plus myself. 9 can you delineate the unions for me represented by those staff 1186 that's it that's it that's everybody's 1186 except for you and well me right which okay all right very good thank you any other questions and seeing none thank you all right Last but not least, Jonathan. Hi, everyone. Good to see you again. The finance department full-time salaries went up. Part of that was shifting a manager of revenue services reverting to a grant manager position and shifting that from revenue collection full-time salaries to 100% of the finance department. So that's why you see the big increase on that one. Next thing we went through our budget and the OT we dropped $5,000. So we tried to look at items that we could adjust based on historic actuals. Longevity went up because that position moved from revenue collections over to finance. The next part-time salaries we dropped at $5,000. Then we went to advertising. We had to increase it a little bit more because we have to do postings in the Harford Current now as opposed to the Herald. We were having issues with stuff getting posted in a timely manner for meetings. So that should be the slight increase on that one. Next one's operating materials and supplies. We increased that a little based on historic trends because that was around a thousand, so we moved it up a little. And then the last piece, dues, fees, and memberships, moved it up just a little. So from $4,680 to $5,000. Any questions on that piece before I go to the next couple? Oh, the McNamara beat you by a hair. I'm gonna wait till the end and then ask a couple of general the answer is 12 positions in my office we have about four in 818 I'm management we have two 1303 and then the rest are 1186 nothing new and exciting Oh, you're funny, John. But I was going to ask one clarifying point on the positions, the transfer from revenue collections. So is that the position Cheryl was talking about that's not going to be backfilled? No, that was a revenue collection aid. The is not going to be backfilled on revenue collections. But that doesn't revenue collections out of Cheryl's office. It is. So in addition to that piece. There was an individual who used to be the manager of revenue services, and she was split 33% the general fund, 33% water, 33% sewer, and now she's 100% finance. So there was an additional moving piece besides. All right, so it's the same number of staff. We're just switching how that staff person is paid. That's what we're seeing in the budget. Yes, because her office has that number, and then I included the number that's in the finance office. Thank you. You're welcome. Alderman McNamara. Thanks, Jonathan. Good to see you again. Hope to see you tomorrow night. You will. I think the answer might have been in your explainers, but of the city departments, your expenses are estimated at $302,000 more. Oh, the bottom line, right? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, and I notice these things fluctuate from one year to another. I don't know if you have expenses in one year and one not, but... Oh, you're taking the full bottom... I didn't get to the next part. The whole ball of wax. Yeah, I can get to that part next, too. There are some other additions. All right, and does it have to do with staffing and getting to full staffing to have the audit come in earlier, or just if you could elaborate? We are at full staff. If you look at the assessor budget, that went down 15,000. The budget for revenue collections went up almost 100, but that was more professional services. I think that's collection fees because we're aggressive with our delinquents and going out to tax serve. For finance, it was mostly the salaries. Then the next part is general financial services. There's two increases in there, $50,000 for pavement management, and then an increase of $45,000 for professional services. And that's because we're moving to an upgrade on our current financial software and working on better report writing and training for staff. So we can find those increases in the... budgets of the departments. Yeah you could find it within it. In the in the in the GF book. Yes. Well on the on the income side can you comment on looks like a five point four million dollar increase in income from all departments. Of course that also has to be disaggregated to look at. Do I have that correct. Excuse me Mr. Chair. Is that just finance or in total? Mr. Perugini is here to represent the budget for his actual department not the overall budget in this particular context. That would be a point of order. Well heard. Alderman McNamara do you want to address or. Well just to clarify I mean you pointed out that income investments and other things I assume you have income from your department so maybe to satisfy the Alderwoman to my right maybe you can. Share that impact in terms of finance revenue. Sure. The big impact on the finance department, revenue is an increase of $250,000. It's for the cannabis sales. Right now, it's just starting up. We had one business open up a few months ago, and we started to see a little money come in for that. Right now, only $924 for January and February's invoicing. And now we just had another warehouse open, another warehouse open. So we're waiting for DRS numbers to come in. Because the way it happens is the cannabis shops have to file with the State Department of Revenue Services. They do a monthly sales and use tax. And any kind of sales from the month before, they have to report 30 days later. And then around the 10th, they invoice us the gross, and we charge them 3%, and they break it out by the vendors. So we just started the billing of that last month. So that's a new source of revenue with the opening of these cannabis shops. Yep. Yes, that is correct. Brand new. And do you make estimates on investments and how they'll fare? Should I go to CNBC for that? Don't go to CNBC. Any investments where I think it's going, I'm hoping it stays consistent. We actively watch the Fed rate. I believe they're meeting a couple days. Today. Or today, yeah, the 7th, right? They're supposed to be meeting, and I believe they're looking to keep it the same, and we're hoping it stays around this rate, but I can't predict how it will be. 12 to 18 months from now, but we do our best to work on the cash flow and to keep it on investment and keep it in banks that yield high interest. And just one more thing, Mr. Chair, through you. I just, if the council could be provided with the bond agency report that has been in the in the air today, the latest one with the A bond rating. You're referring to the Fitch report? I think this is the latest one. I'm not sure it's been posted yet. I think it would be helpful for the council to read that whole report. Thanks. Thank you, Alderman McNamara. Any other questions for Mr. Paragini? Thank you, Mr. Paragini. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. We'll see you tomorrow. Looking forward to it. I'll be here the rest of the meeting, too. All right. The next speaker is Linda Gard for the Human Resources Department. Welcome. Good evening. Thank you. Good evening. So in human resources, we have two components, human rights and opportunities and civil service. So we have... three employees, that includes myself, well three and a half. We have Jarell Hargraves for the human rights and opportunities, Trish Haddad who is our benefits administrator, and Kathy Cheney who is a part-timer who works between 15 and 19 hours a week. So the mayor has proposed to cut my budget by close to $38,000 this year. So our department, um, basically handles, like, recruitment and testing, um, the full life cycle of employees, onboarding, uh, orientation, employee relations, um, we handle employee training, uh, benefits administration, um, all the drug testing for CDLs and, um, the associated records that goes with it. all the random drug screenings for fire and police, employee leaves of absence, retirements, which we've had quite a few this year, and then the Human Rights and Opportunities Office handles the fair rent complaints, unlawful discrimination, handles fair housing, equal employment, and we do all this with three and a half people. Thank you for doing all of that with so few folks. And both Jarell and Trish are in 1303. I'm not in a union, and Kathy's not in a union. All the way up above? Yeah. Hey, Linda. What is that $38,000 going to do for you? Are you getting rid of anybody? Are you getting rid of anybody? No. I don't have anyone to get rid of. On unfortunately a lot of our expenses went up this year. Our physicals went up for employee physicals. Our firefighters and our police have a higher level physical. They do human performance exams and they have to have respiratory exams. So those costs did go up and our psychological examinations also went up by $100 for each exam. So basically I was cut $10,000 from professional services and you know we're gonna have to we're gonna have to figure out what we're gonna do with that. Our employee physicals were cut by $12,000 and then our test fees were cut by $15,000. So $15,000. Fifteen six. So whenever we have an examination we have to pay for those exams in order to run the examination. Thank you. I have a question for Alderman McNamara. Go ahead. Thanks. Oh sorry. You're welcome. Still going. Oh yeah. If you're if you're still going please. You got the floor. All right. Alderman McNamara. Let me reclaim my time. Evening Linda. Is that cut specific to HR only because I know you're dealing with a couple of the human resources. I thought I saw in the Mayor's proposed budget an increase overall. There is an increase and there's an increase due to salaries and then my part-timer. It was new. I've never had her before so that was $32,000 more this year. But that's in terms of operations you've been cut that's what you're saying? Yes. Okay and just generally HR for how many total employees Cityside? About 660. 660 and you have two and a half three staff? Okay and that includes health coverage, benefits. Retirements, orientation. My growing annuity after a year and a half and that sort of thing. Okay so that explains the increase but it's the staffing and other the whole operation but in terms of the cost of doing business you sustained a cut. Yes. Okay thank you. Linda, I just want to compliment your office. I'm sorry, I just want to acknowledge all the women. Scott joined us. I'm sorry to cut you off. I just want to acknowledge the work that your office does, and I also should have said that to Mary. Often here in City Hall, with the tightening of the belt and with not wanting to raise taxes, we find ourselves in situations where departments are really tight. It's really, really tight. So I just want to say thank you. I appreciate the work that you do and the crunch that you're in because you have significant work. You handle the HR complaints as well. So I just want to say thank you and just acknowledge in the bigger picture of the budget that on the city hall side of things, the mayor has kept a very tight line to keep our fiscal stability going. But thank you. Thank you. I'll pass that along. All right. Next speaker we have tonight is Mark Moriarty for the Public Works Department. we go just to get started I'm gonna go through this first sheet public works by the numbers it's a good opportunity to remind you and actually remind me to all the things that public works is involved with this year and a lot of these things are every year maintenance and you know we're a service department we're a construction department and we're a maintenance department of most of the city's infrastructure. The first sheet really goes through, and it's kind of humbling actually for me to read it. We're in charge of a $60 million water treatment plant, over 170 miles of roads, over 1,200 acres of parkland, nine major parks, 24 satellite memorial parks. We manage over 350 vehicles, 150 pieces of large equipment like payloaders, 320 pieces of smaller equipment, we have seven reservoirs combined for 2.6 billion gallons, 6,300 acres of watershed, 64 traffic signals, over 20,000 street signs, 271 miles of water mains, over 17,500 water sewer customers, 852 fire hydrants, seven high hazard dams, eight bridges, thousands and thousands of trees, We go over 15,000 annuals that we plant every year, 39 acres of irrigated fields, which we need to maintain, drain every year. That's a lot of work on that. Three large volume water storage tanks, 333 miles of storm and sewer pipes, over almost 8,500 manholes and catch basins, over 200 miles of sidewalks, which is a special one because it's, A lot of those have been in place for a long time, like a lot of our infrastructure. A lot of our infrastructure is old. We have over 40,000 trash and recycle containers on the street. We have two swimming pools, three splash beds. Our department also is instrumental in supporting recreation and community services and just dozens of events every year. Large events, small events, everything from a Little League game to a major holidays we're in charge of emergency response the biggest one being typically being winter storm operations but when it floods were there before and after and when there's a windstorm where they're cleaning up and sometimes it's for big windstorms sometimes it's some smaller right now for projects that we're managing just for construction projects that we're managing we're managing a 13.4 million dollar I&I project which is NB flush phase phase three John Downey Drive reconstruction, which is a $5.3 million project. McKinley-Osgood drainage improvements, $2.4 million. SCADA system upgrades, which are thankfully almost complete at the water treatment plant, $800,000. If you go over to Stanley Quarter Park right now, where all the roads are getting redone in the parking lots, that's a $650,000 project. We have $2.7 million paving program going on this year, which is one of our larger ones. We'll be replacing the traffic signal at South Street. $700,000 project. We're just about to complete the Accord Railroad crossing from the bus stop into the CT Fast Track. It's almost a half million dollar project. We have two phases of B-Line Trail in construction right now. Those together are about $6 million. On the, on the design, on the planning side, because none of the work that's in design or construction just happened. It happened to result of planning efforts that we undertook and chasing grants at the tail end of those planning efforts to make sure we had money to fund these projects. The big one that I'm heading up right now is our Vision Zero Safety Action Plan. That project has been very eye-opening, looking at crashes, serious injuries, and fatalities in the city. And that project is really leading to the next several bullets on this sheet. automated traffic camera enforcement something we're really looking at and something that we've already submitted a resolution to you for an ordinance revision looking at going to concurrent ped phasing in the downtown from exclusive which we think would be a major safety improvement in the downtown but it will require a lot of work looking at improvement to MLK at North Street Corbin Lincoln Monroe putting grant applications for Most likely concurrent pet facing and also an SS4A for MLK and North Street intersection. Big thing that we're doing this year that's a new initiative is the catch basin cleaning program. We're trying to get really caught up on that. That's a big effort. And Route 174 roadway realignment. That one isn't requiring a lot of work right now. We're really trying to get that project moving on the design side. We have Art Street going on right now, Allen Street. White Bridge wall field upgrades, Myrtle Street complete streets, third phase of Beeline Trail, West Main Street improvement project from Vine to Lincoln, Willow Street park improvements or starting to work with Recreation and Community Services on that and you know we pretty much manage that hand-in-hand because we do construction and Stanley Loop neighborhood connections project. That's a lot of things. We do, we do have more than three and a half people. We have 125 positions in public works. I think for the amount of work that we do, I think this is a, we're still very lean and we have constant flux. So we're rarely operating at 125 positions. If we were ever operating at 125 positions, which I think we actually have done for about a half a minute, like one, like about a year ago. And it's, you know, even today, In the past couple days, we had two retirements. We had a guy leave last year. He's going to pursue his own business, something he does on the side. It's a constant job. So with those 125 positions, we have two non-affiliated, including me. We have 11, 818 employees, three 1303 employees, and 109 1186 employees. We have several hiring processes going on right now. It's, uh, my job could be full-time just doing personnel-related things. I end up doing, I think we have so much thing going in engineering, I end up spending a lot of time on the engineering end. But, um, I clearly could spend all my time just doing hiring, promotional, things like that. Um, the next sheet goes through the budget highlights for this year. We went in with a modest increase of, um, Given our budget size of over $50 million of a 2.02% increase, it was about $303,000 increase. The mayor did cut us back. So it currently stands at a 1.12% increase. It's a $168,245 increase. I think that's pretty reasonable, very tight. considering contractual increases and things, things like that. It's, it's very difficult to keep budgets flat every year, but we always strive to. The sheet also indicates some of the larger increases. Salaries, initially was at $52,000 with the mayor's cut. We're down to minus almost $73,000 from the current fiscal year. Rubbish removal, it's, Trash removal, trash just in general is a large part of Public Works budget every year between disposal tip fees and contract for collection citywide. Those all have CPI increases in them. So we had $123,000 and some change, increase there. Operating materials, not a huge change, but a $50,800 change there. And vehicle equipment damage and supplies, $25,000 increase, pretty much just based on what historical spending it has been and budgeting that to a proper level. Thank you. Do we have any questions for Director Moriarty? Alderman McNamara first, Alderman Simpson next. Thanks, Mark. I was able to see your report, I think, the Board of Public Works prior to all this being sent to us. Can you give a status on the Overlook McKinley project? Yeah, it's going. It is about a month behind schedule. They had some issues with one of the larger structures and had some timing issues of getting the revisions. But it is still supposed to be completed by August. They have about half, I think a little more than half the pipe in the ground. It's going. I think we do, we have some issues with the contractor. I don't want to talk about it too publicly, but it's just like, just say, just basic, nothing, nothing like workmanship quality or anything like that, but they're not probably moving as fast as we'd like them. But it is a tricky project with rain and other, other factors. And also, we did that project over the course of the winter, and it really wasn't an easy winter. We've been fortunate the past several years that we've been able to do construction throughout the winter. This year was a little bit tougher for that. And we tried, we got some stuff done, but it wasn't like doing a project in the middle of summer. And just on the, this is about three years into having a sewer authority. And is that going to Clean Water Fund? Yeah, Clean Water Fund. Yeah. How are you feeling about that? It's been a very important, I think it's been a great thing for the city to do. It's given us a funding mechanism for flooding and stormwater management. Yeah, it's a smart thing to do. I'm actually sitting on a committee for CROG. They're looking at implementing a regional stormwater authority for all the CROG communities. And I think they're looking at what we did and what New London has done. We're the only two that have done this at this point as a smart move because there are rising costs with associated with managing stormwater, like just stormwater management, not just from the MS4 permit, but from flooding. So I think we're definitely looked at as a leader because we've done this and it's just given us a funding mechanism to, to, for either for staff, personnel, flooding response. It's been a smart move. And to you, one more. I think about $800,000 for the McKinley project came from that fund? It did. And honestly, we wouldn't be able to be taking this initiative to clean all the catch basins that we're cleaning if we didn't have the Clean Water Fund. Can you just unpack for people who I don't know as much as Ray Esponda how that revenue comes in. Oh, the clean water fund? Yeah. So essentially, it's a stormwater utility. And revenue, your fee is based on your pervious area, even more so if you're a commercial property. So in pervious area, there's stuff like rooftop, paved area, the more pavement you have or rooftop area, the more water you generate after a rainstorm that we have to go into the pipes for projects like McKinley and Allen Street where we have flooding. And yeah, so the more impervious area, the higher your bill is. We do it based on the RU. One RU is equivalent to a thousand square foot of impervious area. And commercial properties, it's basically, The fee is basically whatever our total budget is, divided by the amount of impervious area around the city. For the most part, it's a little more complicated than that. And you pay a percentage of that overall cost based on your impervious area, we go quarterly. So the REU charge, which has been at 625 for one REU, it's basically, it's a quarterly fee. Thank you. Alderman McNamara, Alderman Bully. I'm going to just follow up on John. Oh, I'm sorry. If you want to do one more. No, go ahead. Alderman Simpson was next. I got you next. Thank you. Just really quickly. In terms of rubbish removal, the city's getting a lot of new housing units constructed in the area. I was just wondering, with the hundreds of units that the city's seeing come in, depending on when they are constructed, this will introduce more demand for our rubbish removal programs. And so I was wondering if there's any anticipation for that in this budget. I mean, most of the units are apartments that aren't eligible for our programs. Our program is primarily, it's, you know, residential properties, up to six family properties. There was a talk a couple of years ago about dropping that to three or four family properties, but it, These new apartments aren't really going to be part of it. They'll be commercial waste that exists outside our program. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Alderwoman Valencia-Vedra. So, Mark, with confidence, you're saying new projects, apartment living, is not part of our rubbish removal. Because I'm the one who talked to you years ago about changing and who gets to have rubbish collected on our diamond, who doesn't. Yeah. If it's a high-rise, like hundreds of units is not part of our residential collection program, they have to handle that privately. Yes, absolutely. I was going to ask you, going back to Alderman McNamara's question about the Clean Water Fund, but we'll stay with examples like apartment complexes. Do they pay a fee also into the Clean Water Fund? Oh, every property, I mean, pays a fee. And they're pretty much... they're almost all impervious. Yes, absolutely. So I just, again, want to say, so these complexes, although having new ones will put some strain on city services, they're paying for that. So they are assessed a fee. They are. Okay, thank you. Oh, I did want to ask you, although we are on water, did you have capital equipment? Is that normally part of your budget, capital equipment, or is that? Capital equipment is typically handled separately. Okay. The only exception to that is that we have line items and water sewer and clean water fund that do fund capital equipment. We're fortunate with the utilities to budget annually for capital equipment needs. In those funds? In those funds. But not in the general funds? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Blanchett, Alderman Simpson. Thank you. Just kind of piggybacking off my previous question, we're seeing a diversity of housing come into the city, which includes single-family homes like the previous, I believe, St. Thomas Aquinas property. That was split up into a bunch of single-family homes. Projects like those, those are covered under the residential collection program, correct? If it's a single-family property, six units or less, it's included in our program. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Simpson. Just wanted to reflect that Alderman Sanchez has joined us. And do I see any other questions for Director Moriarty? Seeing none, thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. Nothing to do with your budget, Mark, but since John had asked you some questions about McKinley, it would be nice for the council just to get a status report on some of the ongoing projects that are happening. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next speakers are Lucian Pawlak and Peter Gostin for the Registrar of Voters Office. Thank you. Good evening and welcome. Okay. Good evening, Mr. Chair, all the men and all the women. I'm Peter Gostin, Republican Registrar of Voters. I'm also here on behalf of Lucian Pavlik, who is recuperating now from a hip operation. So I will address this as an overall situation between the two budgets. Both of us have been, at least in terms of individual departments, cut by the mayor. We've come off a very hectic year from last year. This year, we're still not sure what that will bring in terms of a potential primary. But certainly November is coming around as well. And we will now have 21 full days of early voting this year if we have a primary. If we don't, there'll be 14. And therefore, that kind of reflects some of the REALITIES THAT WE FACE REGARDING THE PROFESSIONAL SERVICES ACCOUNT. BUT PRIMARILY I WANTED TO ADDRESS THE EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR. WE'VE BEEN REDUCED RATHER DRASTICALLY, BUT I THINK WE MIGHT HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION TO THAT. IRONICALLY THE TOTAL AMOUNT THAT WE LOOK TO BE collectively reduced to somewhere around $36,000 from what we requested. That $36,000 is almost the same number as the resolution you will have before you next week, which will be looking to purchase new cellular service poll pads, which are the check-in for the voters at the polls. And what that will do is enhance the ability of the signals to be received through no matter what kind of facility that we're in. Currently, we have about 11 of them that do not hook into any kind of internet service or Wi-Fi with schools. There's only six of those, but 11 of them, we require hotspots, which we would have had to procure. We were looking to do that. But with this new cellular service upgrade in the poll pads, that would eliminate the need for HOT SPOTS AND MAKE OUR JOB A LITTLE BIT EASIER SO WE DON'T HAVE TO PROGRAM THEM. BUT OVERALL, THE TOTAL BUDGET FROM OUR REQUEST, AGAIN, IS SOMEWHERE AROUND, YOU KNOW, $36,000 LESS, OKAY? BUT THE TWO PRIMARY ONES, THE EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR FOR BOTH SIDES, WE ARE DOWN SOMEWHERE AROUND $33,000. OF COURSE, AGAIN, SOME OF THAT CAN BE alleviated with the current purchase we're looking to have for next week because it's in our current budget but we still have other things like we have new tabulators coming on board all right we did we were a pilot program but this year we're going to be on the hook for the full first year firmware licensing and maintenance which is going to cost us a little over twenty thousand dollars Currently, the maintenance on the old tabulators, which we are not using now, was only about $8,000. So there's a $12,000 difference there that we're going to have to be expected to pay. This is something, in years past, the Secretary of State's office had enough money in different funds to pay for a lot of that maintenance. But about five years ago, it came back all on the city. But this year, with the new tabulators, we can expect... a lot more. We're also going through a complete change with the voter registration system. A new one is coming online somewhere beginning of July. It's just in time for our primary if we have one. So if we are a little trying to figure out the system, please bear with us. It's a lot to learn. And in fact, training is going to restart. I just got word today. In about two more weeks or so, we'll have some of our staff go up to Hartford, the Secretary of State's office, to get trained initially on it for about four hours. And then we'll have a second bite at the apple maybe a few weeks later with a couple of our other staff. In anticipation of perhaps your question, all the women in Saavedra, we have six total employees in our department. Of course, two registrars. We have two full-time registrars. ASSISTANTS WHICH ARE 1186. WE HAVE TWO PART-TIME ASSISTANTS WHICH, WHOSE SALARIES ARE AT THE MERCY OF THE REGISTRARS. AND THEN, OF COURSE, THE TWO REGISTRARS WHOSE SALARIES ARE AT THE MERCY OF THIS COUNCIL. OKAY, AND PERHAPS SEEING HOW WE'RE THE ONLY ONES LEFT OTHER THAN THE MAYOR, PERHAPS THAT COULD BE ADDRESSED NEXT YEAR WITH A NEW COUNCIL AND MAYBE A NEW STRUCTURE IN THE ORDINANCE THAT GOVERNS THAT. So I'll take any questions if you have them. Thank you Peter. Alderman McNamara you're first. Thanks Peter and. Good evening. I understand that purchase is going to become is replacing very old iPads and and gives the Wi-Fi to places that aren't schools necessarily where I do recall you've had glitches in the past in terms of. Yeah we've. Yes. The glitches you're referring to really come in a... It depends on the election, but a couple times, almost consistently with two or three locations, the signal, because of the hot spots that we've had to use to get a signal there, wasn't strong enough to permeate, like, two different sets of concrete or built brick structures. We were in basements, that type of thing, and what the cellular service, I've been told, does... is it provides a stronger signal. In fact, they're using not just a normal regular cellular signal. They're using a first responders one, which is the strongest one from Verizon that they can impart. But all that is part of the new equipment in the pole pads. So, yes, we're trying to address that to make it much more consistent of a signal coming into any place where we have our pole pads. And just so you, Mr. Chair, the... You say you got cut by $36,000 in your operations, overall operations. This is showing, was that what you requested versus what the mayor gave? Because you're getting $12,000 less in terms of the mayor's proposed. Well, the mayor actually almost mirrors what we put in for this current year. But in terms of what we requested collectively, that is somewhere down around, yes, about $33,000 in total from what we requested. And are you getting any help from the state in terms of funding on an ongoing basis? Well, I don't know about ongoing. A couple of weeks ago, the Appropriations Committee was leaning towards funding adding another $1.25 million to be spread around the state, much like a million dollars was a year ago in a separate appropriation that came to various towns and municipalities. We ended up receiving just shy of $16,000, or I'm shy of $15,000. I'm anticipating we might, if the governor would sign it, and it goes through both houses, maybe an additional $18,000 toward budget that we don't currently know about, which is reflected in the differences here, although I think at the time the mayor put this together, she was not aware of that either. So hence the drop. The $33,000, I would say, might be offset by half of that, but still we're expecting more maintenance to have to be paid for with the new tabulators. Mm-hmm. Hugh Alderman McNamara, any other questions? Alderman Simpson. Hey, Peter. Good evening, Alderman. I guess my main question is, with the new equipment coming in around July, how would that impact the early voting periods? And also, is the state helping out further with early voting this year? I know there was a lot of... in previous elections about local officials needing assistance across the state. So I'm just wondering, what does that look like here? Well, we already had the, we were a pilot town last year for the new tabulators. The state picked up whatever the cost was to get them to us and whatever licensing that were needed for nine particular towns. But new fiscal year means we're all responsible now for the maintenance of those machines individually as municipalities. What it means, early voting, well, we're probably actually going to be able to use them, because last year was the first time we had early voting, and as such, with the old tabulators, many of them were not working, including a number of them here. They were overheating, and that's why they went to what's called an envelope system. People would take a ballot, fill it out, put it in an envelope, and then we would just deposit it into a... ballot box without a tabulator. Legislation is looking to change that and recognize the capabilities of the new equipment to allow the ballots to go directly into a tabulator. And therefore, so that will be one change, a big one and an important one, but yet in terms of the functionality overall of the machines, it won't affect us at all. As I mentioned a few minutes ago regarding the state providing more money to municipalities across the state, I think they're allocating $2 million in total. $750,000 of it was going to the Secretary of State's office, leaving $1.25 million to go to 169 municipalities. And if they use the same UConn logarithmic understanding whatever they did to figure out how much every town would get. I'm anticipating we might get around 17 or 18,000. But it's not a guarantee. Nothing's in stone yet. At the time we put this budget together, of course, six months ago or five months ago, there was nothing coming. So that's why some of our numbers seem high. But yet, you know, it's being pared back, which I think we could live... for the most part, within that budget, with the exception of the equipment and maintenance, because as I said, that's going to require more money than we currently have had to spend. Actually, thank you. That's all I had. Okay. Alderman Simpson, thank you. Peter, any other questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate the presentation. Last and foremost on the list is Mark Bernacchi for the Town and City Clerk's Office. Thank you for your patience. THANK YOU, EVERYONE. JESSICA IS PASSING OUT A POWERPOINT PRESENTATION THAT I MADE. I'M NOT GOING TO GO THROUGH IT SLIDE BY SLIDE. IF YOU FOLKS FEEL COMPELLED TO NOT BE ABLE TO SLEEP AT NIGHT, PLEASE TAKE IT OUT AND HOPEFULLY IT WILL KNOCK YOU OUT IN NO TIME. IT BASICALLY GOES THROUGH AND GIVES YOU THE DETAIL OF WHAT WE DO IN THE TOWN CLERK'S OFFICE. I KNOW ALL OF YOU SEE ME ON COUNCIL MEETINGS TAKING NOTES. WE DO MORE THAN THAT. WE BASICALLY HANDLE WHAT I CALL THE CIRCLE OF LIFE. From the time you're born to the time you die, whether you get married or start a business or run for office or want to be a notary public or justice of the peace, serve in the military and get your discharge papers, we do it all. We're basically the record keeper for the city of New Britain. I also broke down the average percentage time that we spend per day on the different core features. You can go through that. It shows you the... And we don't need that, Jess. No, no, we don't need that. I got the hard copy here. It goes through that. The first slide I'd like you to take a look at is further back in. It's the town clerk basic fees. The town clerk's office, not only ours, but all of the town clerks throughout the state of Connecticut is heavily regulated. We have to adhere to over 500 state statutes, including all of the basic fees for our services that we provide. We are a revenue generator, not all through taxes, but through fees. So we have a lot of fee for service that we also handle. Again, these are all regulated by the state of Connecticut. The Town Clerks Association was able to get a fee package passed about four or five years ago, which allowed us to raise our rates for like the liquor permit fee, which was $5 since LBJ was the president, and now it's $20. SO WE WERE ABLE TO RAISE SOME OF THE FEES. IT DOESN'T HAPPEN TOO OFTEN BECAUSE THE LEGISLATURE DOESN'T LIKE TO RAISE FEES. IN TERMS OF A COUPLE SLIDES AFTER THAT IS BASICALLY OUR PRESENTATION FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 26. WE COLLECT A LITTLE OVER $2 MILLION IN FEES. THE BIGGEST CHUNK OF THAT IS IN THE CONVEYANCE TAX. SO WHENEVER A PERSON SELLS PROPERTY IN NEW BRITAIN, THEY ARE OBLIGATED TO PAY 1.25% of the sales price to the state of Connecticut and also the city of New Britain. 0.75% of that goes to the state. And since New Britain is a distressed municipality, one half of 1% goes to the city of New Britain. And since 2021, basically during the pandemic, the real estate prices have escalated significantly. They are still very high. So whenever people sell property, We're making bank, so we're doing well with that. And as commercial properties flip, we're making a lot of money on that. So that's the biggest revenue generator that we have. The second most is in land recordings. The third most is vital statistics. And several years ago, we implemented a 24-7 online ordering system for vital statistics, which is basically your birth record, marriage license, or death record. You're able to apply for that online. pay for it online, and last month we hit a record of over, I think it was $7,700 that we collected in revenue for that. We've been averaging between $3,000 to $5,000 a month on that. We still have to process it though, so we're still going into either the vault to make hard copies of that, or going to the state portal to generate your records on a nice security paper, and then we have to mail it out to the requester. IN SOME CASES, THEY REQUEST THAT THEY PICK IT UP AT CITY HALL, WHICH IS A GREAT CONVENIENCE FOR THEM BECAUSE THEY'RE IN AND OUT WITHIN A MINUTE. SO THEY REALLY LIKE THAT CONVENIENCE. IN TERMS OF THE EXPENDITURES, AGAIN, WE ADHER TO OVER 500 STATE STATUTES. WE'RE ASKING FOR SPENDING OF AT LEAST $660,000 AND CHANGE. TO ANSWER ALDERMAN BELOIN-SAVEGIA'S QUESTION, I have seven staff people, all 1186, plus myself. Out of the seven people, we have five people that are new hires, basically one year and less. So we had a significant turnover, and it's been my goal, and it's been an opportunity to bring in new people, fresh blood. They're very eager to learn, and during the interview process, the one theme that they had was they want to grow. So they wanted to be in a position of, different than where they were coming from to be able to be in a position to grow. And they like the fact that we also implemented in the 1186 contract that you have to become a certified town clerk within each position. And I fought hard to get that in the contract, if not the last one, two contracts ago. So it requires people to also be certified. And while I don't want to lose people, I tell them during the interview process, we will train you, we will educate you, But please, we're not looking to get rid of you. But if you see an opportunity to become a deputy town clerk or even a town clerk in another town, it gives you the opportunity to grow and be in that position. And with the fact that the city changed its charter, my position is going from an elected position to an appointed position. So it was also built into the charter change that whomever is hired has to be a certified town clerk from the state of Connecticut. So we look for education, we look for experience and quality, and hopefully when the time comes, you folks make the right decision. So I'll leave it at that. In terms of our overall operations, I could say that even though we're not a private sector company, we do return a profit to the city. So with us generating over $2 million in fees and only costing about $660,000, We're returning about a $1.4 million surplus to the city of New Britain. With that, I'll open it up for questions. Thank you, Mark. I interact with your office all the time doing closings and also in my personal context, but you guys do a great job in bringing lots of fees for the city indeed. Any questions? Alderman McNamara. I'll ask my standard question, Mark. You're you've been allocated $24,000 less is that due to retirements or it's just yeah, it's basically retirements and we're starting off at step one of the pay grades, but we also when people do retire we also have to pay out to people that don't use their sick time. There's a 25% buyback that the city provides to them any unused vacation time. comp time, personal time, and I'm probably missing one other one, but we do pay out, and I have to come up with a payout letter for each employee that does retire, and I provide that to HR before the person leaves. And I have a person leaving this month. She's been with us 42 years, so not quite as much as Audrey Malcomus, who had 72 years in my office, but she decided after 42 she wasn't going to gut it out another 30. THANK YOU, ALDERMAN. ANYMORE, ALDERMAN MCMURRAY? I'M GOOD. I WISH I HAD WORKED AT A PLACE FOR 42 YEARS. YEAH. AND AS A PUBLIC SERVICE REMINDER, EVERYONE WHO IS RUNNING FOR OFFICE, THIS IS A MUNICIPAL CYCLE. THEY HAVEN'T CHANGED THE STATE LAW YET, SO YOU DO HAVE TO REGISTER WITH MY OFFICE IF YOU'RE GOING TO BECOME A CANDIDATE. SO YOU HAVE TO TAKE OUT THE SEEK FORM TO APPLY. SO WHAT A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE DOING IN BOTH PARTIES IS EITHER ONE HAVING THE TOWN COMMITTEE form a slate, and then do all the paperwork for you, or you pick up your own slate of candidates to do that, or there's some individuals that want to go on their own and also raise money. So once you decide that you want to become a candidate, please see me, and that way we clear the hurdle. SEEK isn't on my back. I'm not on your back. I don't want the $100 from you if you file late, so just file on time. Thank you. Thank you. Mark, you're all set. Great. Thank you. So we are complete. We are done with our speakers. Mr. Chairman. Alderman McNamara. At this time, I'd like to make a motion. There's a motion on the floor. Oh, it's on the floor. I'd like to make a motion to table the motion, this motion, in light of the fact it will be continuing tomorrow night. Second. I have a... Second from Alderman William Saavedra. All in favor of tabling at this time, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. The ayes have it. The motion is tabled at this time, pending tomorrow's meeting. We are on to the next item on the agenda, item 36786-1, to act upon a resolution regarding the special revenue funds and enterprise funds budget for fiscal year 2526. May I have a motion? Alderman William Saavedra. Oh, mic check. Mr. Chair, thank you. I make a motion to refer this item back to the full council with a neutral recommendation. Seconded by Alderman Russell. I have a motion to refer with a neutral made by Alderman Boland-Savajer, seconded by Alderman Russell. Do we have any discussion on this item? Alderman McNamara, are we going to table this one? Do we have any motions to table? We do. I will... Since we won't be done until tomorrow night, I would move that we table this. Second. All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Unanimous table. The next item on the agenda is 36787-1 to act upon a resolution regarding the budget appropriation for capital improvement program 2526. May I have a motion? Mr. Chair. Alderman Boyan-Savedro. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I make a motion to refer this item back to the full council with a neutral recommendation. Seconded by Alderman Iver. Recommendation made by Alderman Boland-Savajar for a neutral. Seconded by Alderman Russell. Any discussion or perhaps another table? I'll move to table. Second. All right. Motion to table by Alderman McNamara. Seconded by Alderman Boland-Savajar. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. Ayes have it. That would be great. Seconded by Alderman Pabon. We have a motion to adjourn. All opposed say aye. Aye. All opposed nay. Thank you. The time is 7-11. Go get a slushie.