Lewiston Council debates budget cuts, police take-home cars, and fund balance use

[0:00] David B. Chittim: all over the place i believe we are now live good evening lewiston this is the lewiston city council meeting on april 23rd workshop to discuss once again the budget administrator kainrath do you have any introductory words that you'd like to share with us any late breaking news nothing particular. You know, we left off the last meeting kind of looking for a consensus on the tier three cuts, and I think we were at that time lacking the five votes that would be necessary to move that forward. So I think we have another, we have some other points tonight. We certainly want to get some consensus on, hopefully one is the take-home vehicles for the police department, but as of right now we have nothing new or further to present. You know, I think we certainly have a four and a three kind of split on the council for how to pursue layoffs or not pursue layoffs on the tiers one, two, and three. So I think we have some discussion, and hopefully tonight we can get some clear consensus on the takeout vehicles at least. That certainly is on the agenda. One of the things that I would like to do in the absence of the mayor is run this meeting in such a manner that we each have an opportunity to lay those things on the table that we would like to hold for discussion. I would advise us not to have those discussions immediately, but just put those topics out. We can put them in so-called parking lot and then come back to them. I would also like very much to have a consensus if we can on a couple of three items. One is a police take-home vehicles another is the use of fund balance, and the third is nonprofit funding. We've had a number of requests as we always do for nonprofit funding. So if we can dispense with those three things, obviously we cannot take any action tonight at a workshop, but if we can get the council to have consensus on those three items, I will consider it a meeting well worthwhile. Having said that, I would like to open it up to anyone who has particular items they would like to address either later on this meeting or at a subsequent meeting for discussions on how to reduce the tax rate, lower the expenses or increase the revenues. Councilor Roy. [2:20] Michael R. Roy: THANK YOU, COUNCILOR CHIDDUM. LOOKING AT MAYBE OVERTIME SPENDING, I DO KNOW SOME PARTS OF THE CITY COME WITH BUILT-IN OVERTIME, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE, I KNOW WHAT I'M LOOKING AT RIGHT NOW WAS ALMOST $3 MILLION IN OVERTIME FOR THE CITY. I AM ALSO THINKING LIKE IF WE DO HAVE TO CUT POSITIONS, THEN YOU'RE LOOKING AT MORE OVERTIME GOING UP. BUT RIGHT NOW WE'RE LOOKING AT $2,779,454 IN OVERTIME. SO I'M THINKING I'M CHALLENGING US TO LOOK AT WAYS TO REDUCE THE OVERTIME SPENDING. ALSO, I WAS LOOKING AT MAYBE [3:29] David B. Chittim: OTHER IDEAS FOR REVENUE ENHANCEMENT OR EXPENDITURE REDUCTION? [3:36] Joshua L. Nagine: ONE OF THE SUGGESTIONS I MADE RECENTLY WAS TO EXTEND THE VEHICLE REPLACEMENT SCHEDULED BY 20%. I WOULD MOVE TO STRONGLY DISCOURAGE, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE TAKE-HOME CARS, WHICH WE'LL TALK ABOUT SEPARATELY, PURCHASE OF ANY VEHICLES THIS YEAR UNLESS THEY'RE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. JUST REMOVE THEM COMPLETELY FROM the budget and look at a 20 increase on our vehicle replacement schedule for all departments that 's one piece i am concerned about overtime it is a large expenditure i do realize the majority of that expenditure is coming from pd and fire department i do know that the fire DEPARTMENT IS FULLY STAFFED SO POSSIBLY THERE ARE WAYS THAT WE COULD WORK TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO STAFF THE DEPARTMENT THE FIRE DEPARTMENT WITHOUT RELYING ON OVERTIME I KNOW WE USE OVERTIME TO COVER VACATIONS SOMETIMES IN SEVERAL DEPARTMENTS AND YOU KNOW I KNOW THAT WE'RE ALSO CONTRACTIALLY OBLIGATED IN SOME CASES TO HAVE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF PEOPLE ON DUTY AT GIVEN TIMES so I think that's a bit of a challenge but not one that I think we can't overcome I also think that I've made some suggestions about parks and open spaces it's 1.7 million dollars of the budget and I would really like to see at least initial conversations about moving park maintenance under the recreation program so parks and rec would become one department as opposed TO HAVING IT WITHIN PUBLIC WORKS AND ALLOWING RFPS FOR NEIGHBORHOOD PARK MAINTENANCE. SO REQUESTING THAT NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS AND EVEN PRIVATE CONTRACTORS COME IN WITH BIDS TO FIGURE OUT IF WE CAN CUT THE COST OF SERVICES FOR WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY NOT A FOUR SEASON POSITION. And I realize that's offset by the plowing, but I think that's a further discussion that we have to have as well. so those are a few position, a few things I would like to put forward. Some of the crazier ideas would be we're not going to cut positions. I know that we are contractorily obligated, to pay steps and COLAs to workers within the unions, but could we ask for a five percent reduction in pay, for those not within the union for this year, as one consideration. I also know that there are several employees that are planning retirement in the upcoming year, and I would strongly suggest that we do not replace those employees within this calendar year, especially depending on what we do with the, with the fund balance, especially because if those positions are unfilled but budgeted, that money will be available in the fund balance following year. So those are some suggestions, and I have more, but I'll start there. [6:53] David B. Chittim: Thank you, Councilor Najin. Councilor Longchamps, you had your hand up. I think I'll just wait until [6:59] Susan G. Longchamps: those topics come up, and then, because they're all things that I would like to discuss, but I'll wait [7:03] David B. Chittim: until we're having that discussion. Okay, I appreciate that. Yes, the goal here is to get these things [7:08] Susan G. Longchamps: just out so that we can be thinking about that. I want to talk about fun balance and the cars and all of that stuff, but I'll wait until those topics come up. Councillor Martel. [7:20] Bret Martel: Over time, I concur with Councillor Nagine about vehicles outside of take-home. I'd like to look at every single non-essential service spending. A discussion we raised several workshops ago was $25,000 or $30,000 for a sidewalk art competition. Is that a great huge amount? No, but if you look at every single non-essential dollar that we could cut, everything adds up, and if it means getting rid of a weekend art competition, so be it. I don't think we should fund any of the nonprofits. I've been looking at the balloon festival and the fireworks. Those are traditions here in Lewiston. Everything else, sorry, we don't have it. As far as fund balance, take home, that's all stuff we're going to talk about. Some departments, I don't want to get into individuals, but there are departments that are lacking that may be able to be absorbed. We need to look at, we're faced with correcting years of overspending and trying to fix this all in one budget, so it's going to be painful and seem unfair in certain situations, but we're challenged with a difficult test this year. So I think it's time to get creative or extreme about what we're willing. No more murals, no more sidewalk art, no more rocks cut in half in Kennedy Park. Every single dollar that isn't first responder, plowing, trash service, stuff like that, we've got to look at as difficult and as undesirable as it might be, we got to start there if we're going to start somewhere other than positions. Thank you, Councilor Harmon. [9:08] David B. Chittim: Did you have anything that you wanted to put on the plate for discussion? I did have a, it's a [9:13] Scott A. Harriman: department though and a position and I guess we're not allowed to suggest those. [9:20] David B. Chittim: WHAT WE'RE DOING RIGHT NOW IS PUTTING IDEAS ON THE TABLE FOR FUTURE DISCUSSION WE'RE NOT GOING DISCUSS THOSE NOW BUT IF YOU'VE GOT AN AREA THAT YOU FEEL COULD BE ADDRESSED IN TERMS OF REDUCING EXPENDITURES WE'RE NOT GOING TO BE CHOOSING PEOPLE OR NAMES OR POSITIONS BUT IF YOU HAVE A GENERAL AREA THAT 'S FAIR GAME I MEAN IT IS IT IS IT [9:47] Scott A. Harriman: would have to be talking about a position, which are we allowed to do that, to make suggestions? I would say at this point no. [9:59] David B. Chittim: We may get to that point later on down the road, but I think at this point that's really an administrative decision. Our goal is to give back to him, this is the target that we need to reach, these are areas that we feel you could be looking at, but for us to sit here and dictate specifics I think is inappropriate, certainly now and maybe always. Okay, I [10:19] Scott A. Harriman: just have concerns about particular operations in the city and I found it difficult to bring those forward during this process. Okay, thank you. I have a [10:31] David B. Chittim: couple that I wanted to add myself. One thing is we've just, we will be in the Finance Committee looking at endorsing or ratifying the fuel bids and I believe we've got about a 370,000 saving there. Is that correct, Director Roy? The fuel bids came in higher, we have 1.49 million dollars in the budget for fuel and if I multiply the quantities by the prices that we've just received it's 1.1 million. We did the calculations and we have to add back [11:05] Bryan Kaenrath: In one hundred and sixteen thousand nine eighty five, you have to remember that six month increments. So Alan Ward, the purchasing agent, went through and did a spreadsheet showing all of what would be at what cost and how much of an increase we would need. So we'll be increasing that line hundred sixteen thousand, okay. [11:28] David B. Chittim: We can talk about that perhaps offline. All right, I have a list here that folks have come up, several people mentioned overtime spending, non-profit donations, the take home vehicle program is one vehicle replacement in general, and I think the suggestion was that instead of replacing vehicles on average every seven years, we do it every eight years. Is that [11:51] Joshua L. Nagine: the gist of the thought, Councilman Agene? Depends on the actual schedule, but yes, the different departments do have a different schedule, and so ultimately I want to extend that out 20, whatever the whatever the schedule is, make it 20. All right, we've got discussion about [12:07] David B. Chittim: using more of the fund balance than the recommended 10. Our window is 8 to 12. There may be some money there that we could use, and I would caution that we not use that money for regular operating expenses, but we try and find things that would be one-time expenses, as close to capital as we can, if we decide that we want to use the fund balance. We have maintenance of parks and open spaces mentioned, we have reduction in wages mentioned. Now we're under contract for many of our employees. May I put you on the spot, Administrator O'Malley? Some time ago the unions were approached this was many years ago, the unions were approached about taking a voluntary reduction. Can you talk to that? Yes, that was 91 I believe, during the first [13:01] Speaker I (unidentified): Persian Gulf War, they had approached the unions and asked about voting back our [13:07] David B. Chittim: cost of living adjustment so and that has not been done at this point no it is not okay all right so that's a possibility that the council could request that of administration as well that we not replace new employees and that any non-essential non-essential work that's done by the city examples being murals and public art and busking festivals and items like that understanding you correctly counselor martel be under consideration as well constant aging thank you [13:42] Joshua L. Nagine: Counselor, at this point I would like to request that we have an executive session with Corporation Council concerning the information that's being provided to us under the Charter versus what I believe the Charter to actually be. We have the power to fund or defund any department in the city. That is our responsibility. And so when we're told that we can't speak about specific departments, I really want to speak to our lawyers about, okay, let's let's put that on the [14:17] David B. Chittim: on the back burner, not the far back burner, but not too far. We have a bunch too far. We have a very limited window here. We have a plate of things that we want to discuss. One of the things that we wanted to do tonight is give administration a sense on three specific items, and let's talk first of all, if we can, about the take-home vehicle program for the police department. Everybody amenable to that. We've had a lot of work done by Sgt. Brown, and I'm sorry he's not here, but he has put an immense amount of effort into justifying this program. You may or may not agree with that, but you have to recognize that he has put an incredible amount of work into it and his heart and soul into it. I guess at this point I can open discussion up for further discussion on the take-home vehicles, or if we have pretty much made up our minds at this point, we can give administration a sense of how the Council feels, at least six of us out of the seven, with a vote. What do you feel about that, Councilman Agene? [15:24] Joshua L. Nagine: So my position is that ultimately, when you work out all the numbers, it does, it is pretty much a wash, depending on how much, the cost of fuel goes up. It is also a new program, and so faced with those two things and the fact that we'll be borrowing money in order to and paying interest in order to get these vehicles in, originally what I would ask is that we roll this program out minus admin vehicles and by using, by also allocating whatever available drug asset forfeiture funds there are to offset that cost. That would be my position. To summarize, you want to use drug [16:08] David B. Chittim: FORFITURE MONEY TO THE EXTENT POSSIBLE AND YOU WANT TO REDUCE THE SCOPE FROM 65 TO DOWN TO [16:12] Joshua L. Nagine: to non. There are 14 admin level employees that do not have vehicles in their contracts. Okay. [16:21] David B. Chittim: That's a nuance. Council Longshamp, your feelings on the take home program? [16:27] Susan G. Longchamps: UM I THINK EVERYBODY KNOWS WHERE I STAND WITH THAT. I THINK IT'S A GOOD RECRUITING TOOL. I think the downfall of using the money that is retrieved from different busts and stuff that they have is it's not like it once was. You know, when they do a drug bust, there was usually a lot of cash. People are getting much more savvy. They're using Venmo and things like that. So that cash that was once there and available to put into that account is just not available anymore. If I'm correct on that, I heard you guys say that before if you wouldn't mind speaking to that briefly. [17:09] Speaker J (unidentified): You are correct on that. We are definitely not getting the monies that we used to get at one time mostly because cannabis is legal now and that's where a lot of our bus used to come with a lot of cash flow with that and now with the cash apps and the other avenues of getting paid there's not as much cash when we do these bus anymore so you are exactly it's not fully not filling in like it used to years ago and could you. [17:35] Susan G. Longchamps: share briefly what you use typically use that money for we usually use that stuff. [17:41] Speaker J (unidentified): for extra items that are not budgetary or something that we have to do every single year like purchase vehicles and like that we also use it for trainings our training budget it's not very big and we have a lot of guys that need a lot of training so we pull a lot of money at a drug forfeiture for that and other small items like if like for instance just recently we had an issue with our firearm we had to go out and buy firearms so we spent almost a hundred thousand dollars on firearms because. it was a kind of an emergency situation so that's the stuff we try to use that for and conserve that for those. [18:19] Susan G. Longchamps: big ticket items that aren't budgetary thank you i would suggest that we don't use that we have to purchase whether we do these take home cars or not we do have to purchase 10 police cars they asked for i believe 14 but 10 was what you allotted for right 10 vehicles which is going to cost us money either way and from my understanding we are saving if we go this route is that correct excuse. [18:51] David B. Chittim: me for those of you who don't know deputy chief Adam Higgins you didn't introduce yourself oh we all know. [18:59] Susan G. Longchamps: who you are but folks at home may not okay so I think a lot of people are thinking you know that this is going to raise our tasks taxes you know that's what's going to raise them so can you just explain to the public and to. [19:17] Speaker J (unidentified): Council, yeah, one of the one of the big things is if we purchase these vehicles for everybody now, the next year we won't be, we usually run 10 to 14 vehicles a year to replace them. Next year and the year after we won't be doing that, so there's gonna be quite a savings that comes out of that at that end of it also. And if we take these off the budget this year and we do it in the LC IP, that'll save us money also. Yeah. [19:51] Susan G. Longchamps: So I would just again, I definitely am for the take-home vehicles, you know, for recruiting mainly, and as they had mentioned before, Chief Conley. There are three to four seasoned officers that would probably come over to our department. We are in desperate need. People aren't applying for Lewiston, unfortunately. So we do need something. I don't think it's a good idea to take it from that other fund, as Councilor Nagine suggested, because that money is just not replenishing like it once was. and as you stated you just had to spend $100,000 on basically emergency guns so just don't think that's smart thank you Thank You counselor Herman [20:41] Scott A. Harriman: Thank you, yeah, I am opposed to the take-home vehicle program at this time. I just think in a budget where we're pinching every penny we can, that we shouldn't be adding new programs that add to the budget. I know it's been pitched as a cost savings, but I asked questions and couldn't get the math to work, especially once you add in the cost of borrowing money. I am opposed to that at this time, just because I am opposed to any new programs in this budget. [21:13] David B. Chittim: THANK YOU, COUNSELOR. COUNSELOR ROY? [21:19] Michael R. Roy: I AM TORN ON THIS. I REALLY FEEL LIKE IN ANY YEAR THIS IS A GREAT TOOL FOR A LOT OF REASONS. BUT I THINK THIS YEAR IT'S HARD FOR ME, AGAIN, LIKE COUNSELOR HERRAMAN, TO OPEN UP A NEW PROGRAM LIKE THIS. BUT I AM IN FAVOR OF IT THIS YEAR. I AM GOING TO GO FOR IT. I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE A I DO LIKE A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT COUNCILMAN EGINE SAID. I DO UNDERSTAND THE CONS TO USING SOME OF THE FUND BALANCE OR THAT POLICE BALANCE. HOWEVER, WE'RE ASKING LIKE THE SCHOOL DEPARTMENT IS USING SOME OF theirs. City is looking at maybe if we can use some of ours. So I think it's only fair. I wouldn't say deplete at all. Maybe use half of it to compromise. But everybody else is using theirs. So I think to lower the cost in some ways, that would probably be fair for everybody. But yeah, I think in this year, I'm kind of [22:24] Speaker J (unidentified): Can I just say one thing? I'm, as far as our drug forfeiture money, I believe we're using already five hundred some one thousand dollars this year too out of the drug forfeiture for this budget. So we're spending the more than we ever have ever before. Okay. Thank you for that information. You're welcome. [22:41] Michael R. Roy: Yeah, but I just know like if everybody else is doing their part to try to reduce things, you know, I would ask that, but I am in favor of moving that along. So [22:52] Bret Martel: Gosselin Martel. Thank you. Yeah, a hundred percent encouraged for the take-home programs and I've, I've taken this issue kind of personally. It's important to me. Public safety is one of my biggest concerns in the city and I feel like it affects every other aspect from economic development to recruiting residents and people coming here to increase tax base. So I'm going to be 100% in support of it. I also, like I said, have looked at this personally and dove deep into it. I've looked at every number. Sergeant Brown has answered and jumped through every single hoop we put in front of him. He was asked for kind of hypothetical numbers that he based on very comparable districts and departments that didn't seem to be effective. He was asked for a case specific for Lewiston, for our officers, for where they live, and he came back with those numbers. We have the debt service numbers and when all of it is taken into consideration, the debt service, the decrease in maintenance because these vehicles are going to be under warranty longer, everything into consideration, let's say this is a very slight benefit to the taxpayer or even a net wash in the end when you add in the value for recruiting, which is a desperate need that we have right now. The last meeting we had on Tuesday, we were able to establish that we have one current applicant for the police department. It is going to be able to hit the Academy in August and sometime time roughly a year after that is going to be able to be dispatchable if we can bring three to four blue pin officers ready to be dispatched solving crimes. Taking calls on day one when they come here, and I believe that's a conservative number. I think we might even be able to flirt with numbers like five or six that I've heard potentially. We can't just assign a zero value to that recruitment value, and the alternative to that recruitment value that we're getting at zero by implementing this take-home program is another substantial raise to starting pay and levels of pay for the police department and patrol officers, and that comes as a 100 direct cost to the taxpayer we can't avoid that 's capital costs so we need to recruit officers in one fashion or another so when you look at the numbers independently and i have i've looked very closely i've been in direct contact with chief with sergeant brown with deputy and some of the lieutenants i have really dove deep on this and not just because i want it and support it but the numbers support it so we can't just apply a zero value to the recruitment and if we're going to be able to recruit officers and make Lewiston a safer place for a net zero increase, yes, it's a new program, but it's not a costly program, and it provides a very tangible, very measurable value to the city, and for that reason I will 100% be in favor of it. And I also would like to say from every number I've seen, it actually lowers the budget to the taxpayer for at least the next two years. When that debt burden is brought in, it still is covered by savings, so allowing for some variables with it being a new program, I think Sergeant Brown has done amazing work, and I'm confident in those numbers, so that will be my position going forward, and I hope my [26:31] David B. Chittim: colleagues see fit to do the same. Thank you. Counselor weighing in last, I want to recognize the work that's gone into this. I want to recognize that it is a program that has potential for great benefits in terms of retention. My bottom line is that this year is not the year to implement a take-home program. I'm looking not only at the costs two years down the road, we have no sense that our budget next year or the year after is going to be any different than this. We've got a big hole that we need to work ourselves out of, and I'm concerned that if we put the blinders on and say the problem is all going to be solved this year, it's, I don't believe it is. I believe we're going to have tough budgets going forward, particularly when we have fixed payroll costs. We are now looking at laying off people. This is not the year to implement a new program. As much as I'm in favor of it, there's been discussion about phasing this in. That would tend to reduce my opposition somewhat, because part of my concern is that if we buy 65 new vehicles now, we're going to have a bubble of 60 vehicles replaced in eight to ten or seven to nine years, and then seven to nine years after that, we'll have a bubble of 55 vehicles that need to be replaced. Eventually it will smooth out, but we're gonna see the ripple effects of an infusion of 65 new vehicles for a number of years to come, and that's concerning to me. So in terms of thumbs up, thumbs down on the take-home program, my thumb is down. [28:14] Joshua L. Nagine: Councillor Najee, just to clarify, I understand that if we borrow this money and the LC IP is a big piece overall because there's many infrastructure costs we cannot avoid, but if we borrow this money, we still have short-term borrowing costs. And so I, if I could just ask Director Roy to speak, really, I know that the bonds won't be issued for two years, but what are the current interest rates that we're looking at for sure, short-term borrowing? [28:46] Bryan Kaenrath: So currently, when I contacted our bond to counsel, it's ranging from the three, 3% TO 4% CURRENTLY RIGHT NOW. [28:56] Joshua L. Nagine: HOW WAS THE PROPOSED BUDGET PUT BEFORE US AFFECTED WITH BORROWING COST THIS YEAR? HOW MUCH DID OUR PORTION OF [29:07] Bryan Kaenrath: DEBT SERVICE GO UP? IT IS ON THE TAX RATE SHEET. FOR THE CITY, IT IS GOING UP 1,000,057,751. But that also, a big piece of that is the PD because it's a lease, so it's considered in that deadline. So if you remember, we're catching up on a million dollars of what we owe Mr. Platts for this fiscal year facility, so it's probably a range of like 57 000 that's going up, so it's [29:42] Joshua L. Nagine: we're talking about a 13.3 increase though overall, correct, this year. Do we know what it's going to look like next year? Do we have any in any, well, I know it's dependent on our LCIP, but the, we're issuing bonds, correct? So I'm just trying to figure out if it's going to be even higher next year. [30:00] Bryan Kaenrath: within this budget we have an estimated principal and interest payment for what we will be going out to sell in september for the 2025 bonds okay so we'd have to take a look at what we approved what you approved for the 2026 to see what those amounts are that will be [30:21] Joshua L. Nagine: added in next year because ultimately any increase in the debt service affects our overall municipal budget it reduces the amount of money that we have to spend period correct which is why again I strongly advocate that we use the drug we ask the police department to use the drug asset for future friends to try to offset some of that cost ultimately the truth is not a lot of departments ACTUALLY HAVE A DISCRETIONARY FUND. AS A MATTER OF FACT, I THINK THE POLICE ARE THE ONLY ONES THAT HAVE IT BESIDES THE CITY ITSELF BY HAVING A FUND BALANCE. AND SO SINCE IT'S GOING TO COME OUT OF THE TAXPAYER'S DOLLAR ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, IT MAKES SENSE TO TRY TO OFFSET THAT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE IF WE GO FORWARD. MS. LONGSHELL. [31:06] Susan G. Longchamps: WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, I DON'T WANT THIS TO COME UP TOO RUDE, BUT THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES OUT THERE THAT ARE FIGHTING CRIME protecting people this is not i don't i you know when this was brought to us these take-home cars you're right we could put it off a year put it off two years but guess what crime in lewiston isn't isn't calming down we're lacking police officers we're lacking the time that they're getting to these crimes because there's not enough of them you can push things down the road and some things we're going to have to do away with but to sit here and say that we should be okay with not doing what we need to do to fully staff our police department to help protect our city is just insane you know we're not green we're not a little town we're a city with a lot of crime and a lot of the reason why people don't want to come here so i just they've already taken 500 plus us thousand dollars to contribute to our budget because they knew it was such a tight budget so to ask them for more when it's really not getting replenished like it once was i mean i can just say from experience you know my daughter has had to use some of that money for i think it was a personalized vest or something because she's so small you know that money is important because if the funds aren't there or if it's not in their budget guess what they don't get it that's where it comes from when they knock down the door to help bust a drug dealer the hard work that they do they put their lives on The line, so for us to sit here and dictate what they spend that on, I think is ridiculous. Thank you, Counselor. You're [33:06] David B. Chittim: not getting a lot of direction. I think you've got a three street split right here. I will say I think the important point here, as it does appear, there is a majority for take-home vehicles. Councilor Noble is not here. I don't want to speak for her. I've had conversations with her, but we'll follow up with her on her position. But it appears in the room tonight we have four to two split in favor of take-home vehicles. [33:30] Scott A. Harriman: Councilor Harriman. Thank you. I just wanted to add some historical context, having been up here for a few years now. Now, over the last four budgets, we've been told similar things, like we need this for recruitment, we need this for recruitment, every time, sometimes outside of budgets as well. And we have granted all of those things, and we are still in a similar position as we were four or five years ago. I forgive my skepticism, but it hasn't worked over the last five years, and I feel like there are other issues at play rather than just money and equipment and things that are going to address this issue. [34:16] David B. Chittim: Thank you, Counselor. I thought I had a different count than you did, Administrator. Could we put thumbs up or thumbs down to take-home vehicles in general? [Joshua L. Nagine: Mine is conditional.] I'm asking for, we need, we have very little time left. I understand it's conditional, but given the situation as it stands today I'm asking all counselors to say with today's conditions, do you favor take home vehicles or not and administrators saw for I was counting you in the yes calm counselor [34:49] Joshua L. Nagine: But if the drug asset forfeiture funds aren't used to offset the program I wouldn't support it [34:57] David B. Chittim: So we're just a second, Council Martel, we are, I think now at three with Counselor Noble being absent and I don't know where the drug forfeiture debate stands, I don't know where it's going to end up, but at this point Council Martel why don't you weigh in again and please I think we know your position. Okay, no, I am, and I don't even [35:23] Bret Martel: know if this is within decorum or not, I just want to ask my colleague a question, like if they've committed 500,000 how much more of it do you need, you need a hundred percent of all the drug forfeiture to go towards it to support it, I'm just trying to find out where you're at with it, like they've said 500, are we going to allow for any other possibilities or variances or are you are you asking for 100% commitment of every drug [35:49] Joshua L. Nagine: FORFEITURE DOLLAR? WHAT I'M ASKING FOR IS TO OFFSET THE COST OF THIS NEW PROGRAM THAT WE'RE GOING TO BORROW MONEY FOR AND CARRY INTEREST ON BY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. SO IF THERE'S $300,000 IN THE ACCOUNT THAT IS NOT ALLOCATED FOR ANYTHING, I WOULD WANT TO SEE THE $300,000 GO TO THE PROGRAM. THE FUND WILL REPLENISH, GRANTED IT WON'T REPLENISH AS QUICKLY AS IT HAS, COMPLETELY understood it is a source of funding to operate police budgets to offset police budgets and that's what we're trying to do i think we want to give the product but we also want to reduce the lcip [36:30] David B. Chittim: debt service thank you thank you through counselor thank you deputy administrator [36:37] Speaker I (unidentified): o'malley you had to comment yes i have some numbers in front of me i don't mean to step up on the deputy chief's toes but actually the expenditures for this year towards the budget is two hundred and twenty six thousand six hundred eleven so that's what they've used so far so if we they have left over in their drug forfeiture count five hundred thousand so next year they'd you know if we use all of that they won't have it would have to make up some of that in the budget so if you do counselor in the gene if you do have an amount out of that five hundred thousand you'd like to see then we can talk to the chief and maybe get back to at least the city administrator then can make a determination [37:14] Joshua L. Nagine: if he presents that in his final budget to you folks on the fifth and just it to follow up on that there 's no point in time that we've denied a supplemental budget from a department if a department comes forth like maybe we've denied the budget but we haven't denied the request right so if there was an urgent or emergent situation that needed to be funded THE DEPARTMENT COULD ALWAYS COME BEFORE US TO ASK FOR A SUPPLEMENTAL BUDGET, CORRECT? CORRECT, AND TRADITIONALLY [37:43] Speaker I (unidentified): THAT MONEY HAS ALWAYS COME FROM THE DRUG FORFEITURE ANY TIME THEY'VE COME. I KNOW COUNSELOR HERRMAN IS TALKING ABOUT SOME RAISES THAT WERE GIVEN THAT WERE SEPARATE, BUT MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, WHEN IT'S A CAPITAL ITEM, THEY'LL COME TO THE CITY COUNCIL AND THEY'LL TAKE IT OUT OF DRUG [37:57] Joshua L. Nagine: FORFEITURE. I THINK THE PART THAT WE'RE WRESTLING WITH IS JUST THE OVERALL INCREASE IN THE BUDGET TOTAL AND HOW TO OFFSET THAT. COUNSELOR LONGSHAPE. [38:05] Susan G. Longchamps: I'll be really brief. So it seems as though there's a three to three split, right? [38:11] David B. Chittim: That's the way I'm counting. Okay. Well, it's yes with conditions, right? So it's we don't know what I mean I think we have to give more information and bring back Some on those conditions unless there's someone here that wants to comment further tonight Or if you have a specific number in mind of how much you'd like to see when you say as much as possible It could vary here. I mean [38:35] Joshua L. Nagine: if they don't want to deplete the entire thing that 's I guess that's okay like I want a number so that I can say that we're offsetting some of this cost by a discretionary fund that exists that doesn't go to the LCIP that's all so we [38:50] David B. Chittim: could have some more conversations with PD leadership and they come back with more information on that I think we do have what we need for tonight maybe so you're a yes with conditions. We have Councilor Noble who has to weigh in also. And then two opposed. So I think we have what we need for tonight on this topic. We come back with more information on the asset forfeiture and maybe take it from there if that works. Good, if you're comfortable with that tonight, Administrator, fine, let's move along to the next item, which I am arbitrarily going to pick as non-profit contributions. That should be a relatively easy one. DOES ANYONE HAVE STRONG FEELINGS ON REQUESTS FOR NONPROFIT CONTRIBUTIONS? COUNSELOR HARRIMAN. [39:33] Scott A. Harriman: YES, I WOULD SAY THIS YEAR THE IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS, I WOULD BE OKAY WITH THOSE. THE CASH CONTRIBUTIONS, I WOULD NOT BE OKAY WITH, THE EXCEPTION OF THE BASICALLY THE CITY RUN EVENTS SUCH AS THE BALLOON FESTIVAL, THE LIBERTY festival and then so those are the cash contributions coming from regular funds there was at least one request i believe from the opioid settlement funds and i would be okay with that one as well because that's a separate pot of money restricted to that type of use thank you [40:10] Joshua L. Nagine: so first i'm fine with the in-kind contributions for pretty much everybody who asked for the cash awards the I think we need to move to a new space where we're issuing RFPs for services that we want rendered and it's done in partnership having organizations come before us and say please give us money for our general operating expenses it's it's not tenable any longer and so if there's a service that's being provided that we want, that we've asked for, that we've contracted for, I have no problem with that. Like if somebody came before us and said, hey, give us $40,000 and we're going to make sure that there are no syringes on our streets, that's what we're going to do. I would 100% support that and completely back that. But the concept, I know that many of these partnerships are long-lasting. You know the farmers market for instance, I'll give you an example for the front. I don't think they made a cash request, but the farmers market brings people in every Sunday, right, like from May to November. It's the Lewiston farmers market. There's a partnership there. They're using city land, all of these things, but we can't fund the part of the farmers market general operations, and this goes across the board. So there are programs that I completely identify as city programs, one is the balloon festival and one's the fireworks. I think that's pretty much it. Other than that, moving forward, we shouldn't be taking cash requests for non-profits to fund their general operating expenses to function in the city. They've got to be providing a benefit that we're asking for that we're willing to pay for. [41:59] Bret Martel: Thank you. Councilor Martel. Thank you. Absolutely not to any of the cash. I'm with the fireworks and I'm with the balloon festival. My question is on some of the in kind, so if someone wants to use a field, great, you can use a field that doesn't cost the city anything. If you're asking for 40 hours of police enforcement and security, we're, we're still paying for that and we're, we're talking about addressing overtime and these other things, so that might be in kind to a certain degree, but that also ends up being a cash draw, if I need to be corrected, please correct me. But I look at some of these in kind and I feel like they are framed as in kind. They still come out as a cash cost to the city out of the fund, whether that's funding police or providing security or infrastructure or whatever else. SO IF WE OWN A FIELD OR A SOCCER FIELD OR A SOFTBALL FIELD FOR A TOURNAMENT, WE CAN GIVE someone use of that 's what i consider in kind if it actually costs the city something to provide it i feel like we should look at that as indistinguishable from a cash request when the in-kind donation that they're asking for becomes a cash payout from the city does THAT TRACK THANK [43:29] David B. Chittim: you. Councilor Longsham, I [43:35] Susan G. Longchamps: AGREE WITH COUNCILOR NAGINE ON THIS ONE. UM I AM FOR THE BALLOON FESTIVAL AND OBVIOUSLY OUR LIBERTY FESTS THAT WE HAVE. I'M OKAY WITH THE IN KIND DONATIONS. UM I DON'T KNOW IF THIS IS THE TIME TO SPEAK ABOUT THIS, BUT THE 300 000 $10,000 that sperm wink was asking for the vehicle. I'm not in favor of That money is used well supposed to be used for rehabilitation, right and They focus more on harm reduction And I just don't think those two things really ARE THE SAME, SO I AM NOT IN FAVOR OF US GIVING THAT MONEY FOR THAT VEHICLE FOR SPUR WING, SO I JUST WANT TO SHARE THAT. [44:37] David B. Chittim: COULD I SUMMARIZE WHAT I THINK YOU'VE SAID, THAT YOU'RE IN FAVOR OF THE BALLOON FESTIVAL AND THE LIBERTY FESTIVAL AND NO OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS TO NONPROFITS? IS THAT A FAIR SUMMARY? THAT IS WHAT I SAID. THANK YOU. COUNCILOR ROY, DO YOU HAVE A WEIGH IN ON THIS? [44:52] Michael R. Roy: I, TOO, LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE, some thinking and kind is okay for me well mostly everybody i would also support you know the liberty festival and the balloon festival because i think we're a city and we need to that's we need to do that i feel you know there's a lot of people out there that do pay taxes and see very little for it but the these things we need i myself would be looking at being OK WITH SPENDING SOME OPIOID SETTLEMENT MONEY, BECAUSE I KNOW WE NEED TO SPEND THAT MONEY. SO I WOULD BE OK WITH THAT. FOR JUST THAT, THE PURCHASE FOR SPURWINK, BECAUSE I DO KNOW, IF WE PARTNER WITH THEM AND THEY GET THIS VAN, WE COULD DEFINITELY SEE SOME BENEFITS TO THAT IN THE CITY WITH CLEANUP AND ALL THAT STUFF, TOO. SO I THINK THERE IS BENEFITS TO THAT. But other than that, I think we're you know with the cash donations. I'm good. So you want to summarize what I said? [46:00] David B. Chittim: Thank you, mr. Roy councillor Roy Council nation [46:06] Joshua L. Nagine: Just really quickly as far as the in-kind donations and in staffing services things like that There are events that happen that are long-standing events that have been organized by the community that are supported by the city one of them I could give an example up for was like the Pine Street block party right like you actually do want to have a police presence there and it's actually required through the permitting process and so you know like the Dempsey Center if they in order to hold that event they need police presence and so that's you know it does bring a little bit of a return as far as because these organizations are upholding the entire thing with the exception of the what we're requiring them to do which is why the in kind exists. I get the point though there is a cost to it 100 and just to speak really quickly to the spurring request I think it should be removed from this budget completely and we should have a separate conversation about whether or not we're going to fund it at all because it's not it does fit into the window the four the four pillars harm reduction education prevention and recovery but it's not this is it's opioid recovery funds has nothing to do with our budget like drop it from the budget for right now and we handle it as a separate request with a workshop with an understanding of what type of permitting we're actually even going to be looking at there's a lot of things that are moving in that and so like having that jammed in with a non-profit request is didn't sit well with me there's a lot of questions that people want answered it's as far as how [47:36] Michael R. Roy: THAT RUNS SO COUNCILOR ROY I WOULD AGREE WITH THAT I THINK YOU KNOW THE MORE INFORMATION AND EDUCATION WE CAN GET OUT THERE FOR THIS WHOLE PROCEDURE I THINK IS BETTER SO YES COUNCILOR [47:50] Susan G. Longchamps: LONGCHAMP YEAH REAL BRIEFLY UM I WOULD AGREE WITH THAT TOO I THINK IT SHOULD JUST BE COMPLETELY OUT OF THIS CONVERSATION WE SHOULD HAVE A WORKSHOP WE SHOULD REALLY DISSECT UH EVERY ASPECT ABOUT in pros and cons and that's just a separate topic I think okay if I could [48:07] David B. Chittim: summarize I think the council is nearly unanimous on no cash contributions to any nonprofit other than the Liberty Festival and the Balloon Festival and that yes in general to in-kind contributions recognizing council Martel has raised a valid point that these are actually cost to the city but if that's the consensus of the council, I'd like to move on unless somebody has an objection to that summary. Deputy Administrator O'Malley. I have one question. [48:43] Speaker I (unidentified): Councilor Harriman is the only one that addressed this. The rally for recovery is opioid funds. So if everyone is in favor of that, 's something we've been doing for, I want to say, at least five years. It's $1,500 that comes out of the opioid funds. If everyone's good with that. [48:58] David B. Chittim: I think we're good with that. Right. Thank you for bringing that up. All right. That's two down, or one and a half anyway. What shall we tackle next? Fun balance, that looks like a fun one. Okay, director Roy has recommended that we maintain a 10% right in the middle of our 8 to 12 percent window. That gives us right now 180, 1.8 7 million, I'm sorry, 18, I'm losing my decimal points again. Director, how much do we have in the fund balance right now at 10%? [49:38] Bryan Kaenrath: With the 10% we have, well with, sorry, there's eight, so the 8% is 14 903 41, the 10% is, hold them, sorry, so 10 is 14 million nine ninety three fourteen. So we were asked what would be the, well what we would have to keep in fund balance, not what we could use. We were asked the number if we used up to the nine percent threshold, the amount that could be used is one million nine. Would be that would bring us to the nine percent threshold, one million nine hundred nine hundred fifty thousand one fifty three. [51:39] David B. Chittim: Okay, I have one million nine hundred fifty thousand in round numbers. Okay, so that would take us from ten to nine percent in the fund balance. That money would then be used to reduce the tax levy and reduce the burden on the taxpayers, payers. That translates at $30,000 per penny. $40,000 on the penny translates to some percentage of money off the tax levy. What is the feeling on using the fund balance, reducing it to 9%? Remember, our window is from 8 to 12. We currently have 18 million dollars in there and we could withdraw just under 2 million and still maintain a full percentage point over the minimum required in the ordinance. We also, sorry, if you'd like we also have some numbers of the impact that would have on the tax rate and on the overall budget if you want to share, or just where we bring the city, for example, with the tax living, correct, so with the tier one. [52:53] Bryan Kaenrath: Removing all the expenses that you guys saw on the sheets earlier except for the bodies, the positions without the take-home vehicles, the tax rate would go down to 35.70 cents, bringing the cities at 18.24, which would be 5.7 with, sorry, 5.7 percent, correct, yes. So with the take home vehicles it would be 35.73, the city would be 18.27 out of 5.8 percent, and director, sorry, that the reduction from the. [53:40] David B. Chittim: The current proposed, then you add in the fund balance, the $1.95 million, brings us from what to what as far as a decrease in the city percentage on the tax levy? I believe it's 10 to 5, something like that. Correct. [53:57] Bryan Kaenrath: So if we were using the Tier 1 at the beginning of when we started this, the city was at 10.7, which was 7.4 over CPI. If we go to this current, it brings us down to 5.7, so we're over the CPI by 2.4. With the vehicles on Tier 1, it was 10.6 at the beginning when we started this, and now it would be 5.8, which is 2.5 over CPI. [54:36] David B. Chittim: That's a lot of numbers, Director Roy. Really appreciate that, thank you. Councilor Nagy? [54:41] Joshua L. Nagine: So first, do we have that calculation for tier three as well? [54:46] Bryan Kaenrath: We do not, with the fund balance because we took away on Tuesday night that you all did not want to lay off anybody. So we did not do those calculations. [54:58] Joshua L. Nagine: I think the vote was for three, for tier three. Pretty sure, the argument was that we didn't have a super majority in order to pass the budget, which we don't anyways at this point so I would just like to know the impacts for tier two and tier three as well I can get you those numbers okay I appreciate that and just to follow that up I'm okay last year we used we brought our fund balance down to nine percent and we used a hundred percent of projected revenues from revenue sharing from the state I'm okay with doing that but I would want to make sure that any positions that are vacated during that calendar year are not replaced without council [55:42] David B. Chittim: permission ultimately that 's an item on the for discussion but it's [55:49] Joshua L. Nagine: connected there's always a there's always going to be a caveat in order to get to integrate like we have to do this in a way that like I want to see the fund balance replenished and in some cases we may not have to replace that staff member immediately and if and if that's the case that salary could go to the fund balance [56:08] Susan G. Longchamps: for the next year Council Longchamp thank you I'm confused with the numbers and I'm sure it's me but if we have a little over 18 million in our fund balance and we take away 1.9 something that doesn't leave us with 14 million so I think that's at eight percent that would leave us with 14 million nine percent would leave us with a different number eight percent was [56:38] Bryan Kaenrath: fourteen million nine oh three oh four one that the ten percent was fourteen million nine 90 314 right [56:51] Susan G. Longchamps: so but what you had mentioned before was 14 million was at 9% and 14 million is quite a bit of money if we moved it down to 8% which would get us our 4 million that we need to get us at 5.7 for a mill rate yes [57:12] Bryan Kaenrath: sorry 18 million 628 would be the 10 sorry about that 's okay so nine percent would be [57:27] Susan G. Longchamps: 16 something right, eight percent would be 14 something, so I guess what I'm saying is either THERE IF WE ARE NOT GOING TO CUT POSITIONS AND WE WANT TO GET THIS MILL RIGHT DOWN TO LIKE 5.7 WE MAY HAVE TO TAKE ALMOST FOUR MILLION DOLLARS FROM OUR FUND BALANCE OR ASK THE SCHOOL TO CUT TO MATCH OUR UH WHAT WE'RE TAKING IF I'M MAKING ANY SENSE I DON'T KNOW YEAH THE 1.9 [58:06] David B. Chittim: just on the city side gets us down to the 5.7% increase, okay, on the city tax [58:12] Susan G. Longchamps: level, oh it's four point, it's actually if we do the four million, well right about four million, what does that bring us down to for the mill rate, and when [58:22] David B. Chittim: you say for, you'll be talking about the school side with fund balance coming in [58:26] Susan G. Longchamps: we're getting the form, I'm just saying if we cut four million dollars off our budget right now, what would our mill rate be with [58:37] Bryan Kaenrath: all of the other changes with, right, with the current amount of fund balance, yes, in there, an additional four million, I'm [59:23] Susan G. Longchamps: not saying that, right, I don't believe I actually don't want you to cut that out of our budget, I'm saying that if we were able to come up with the four million, am I making sense, are you talking about in fund balance, yes [59:35] Bryan Kaenrath: yes, okay, so in our fund balance we do not, that would take a majority vote to get below the eight percent, there's not four million in our fund balance that you could take because that would take us below, that would bring us down to below the eight percent level, right [59:54] Susan G. Longchamps: okay, so that would take us down, but we could comfortably do the 1.9, 1.95, which would then leave what in our fund balance, if you don't mind, if we took out the 1.9, the [1:00:09] David B. Chittim: difference between about 16 million, I know, and [1:00:17] Speaker I (unidentified): just for a little clarification, Council Long Chimps, you said we have to throw in a lot of numbers at you, if we do the 1.9 without the take-home vehicles on the city side, the increase is 98 cents from last year on the tax rate, on the tax, on the tax rate, and then for the school, what they're currently providing is a dollar 56, and on the county is 37 cents, for a total of two dollars and 91 cent increase from last year tax rate, that's sometimes a little easier [1:00:46] Susan G. Longchamps: yeah, thank you, thank you, and that's without the take home, that's without the take home [1:00:52] Speaker I (unidentified): and what would it be with the take home, it increases by three cents to a dollar one, so it goes from 98 cents to dollar one increase on the city side, and then you'd go from two dollars 0.91 cents to 2.94 cents, 94 increase, thank you, Council Martel, thank you, I just [1:01:11] Bret Martel: Can't help but point out that yes, using fund balance can lessen the blow. We are working with an unsustainable math equation that doesn't work. We're spending more money than we're able to bring in. And I just struggle with thinking that taking our savings, essentially down to zero of effective money that we can use, is just another unsustainable way to address the ongoing and repeated spending that has put us in this situation. So if we want to approve 1.9 million dollars worth of use and fund balance, we are in desperate times that require desperate measures. So I am not going to object to that because I want to lessen the blow to our taxpayers, but I would like to see the same amount, 1.9, taken out in actual spending. If we don't address the spending, we're just continuing to use our savings in other forms of moving money around to kick the can down the road. And what has got us into this problem is years of overspending and not being responsible in spending more than we can reasonably expect to bring in. And we've got to stop doing that at some point. The savings is running out. We used a lot of it last year. We're looking at using every last bit that remains without having to have a special vote to go below 8%. So, yes, I would vote for this as long as we see the same exact amount cut in actual spending. So if we want to get to the $4 million you suggested, take $2 million out of the budget, use two million in fund balance, and there's your four million dollars. But we've got to address the [1:02:55] Michael R. Roy: spending at some point. Councilor Roy, thank you. So one way to address the spending, Council Martell is looking at the overtime. We're looking at almost three million dollars of overtime. We, if we can cut a third of that, brings us to the four million that we were just talking about. [1:03:14] David B. Chittim: So thank you. I would like to bring us back together again. We're talking about fund balance. All of these things are interconnected. We're talking sometimes about the city side increase. We're talking about the overall mill rate increase. It's a confusing issue. In my view, the only thing that the taxpayers are concerned about is what their taxes are going for. They don't really care whether it's County or school or city. We're faced with a bit of a difficulty because the only budget that we can control is the city, and that we've set some targets for ourselves to bring the increase on the city side down, but that's academic as far as the taxpayer is concerned. We are never going to be able to get to the CPI total tax increase that does not require a five council majority. That's a given. As I said, I think earlier, in order for us to do that with the tools at our command, running the city budget only, we have to close the city. We have to fire all of the policemen, all of the firemen, all administrators, public works, everybody, because that's the amount of money it's going to take to get the overall mill rate down to a three point three percent increase over last year. And obviously we can't do that. So we're looking at a five, a super majority as to the fund balance. We've given administration, I think, good direction on two of the three items that we talked about. Do we have a sense of, do we want to carry the fund balance from the recommended ten percent from the finance director, as we did last year, down to nine? I think it was 9.1 last year, but for purposes of discussion, are we comfortable with taking 1.9 million dollars from the fund balance and lowering the percentage rate of general revenues from 10 as it stands now to nine? I'd [1:05:08] Joshua L. Nagine: like to call for a thumbs up. Counseling, would anyone support the caveat that WE DO NOT FILL POSITIONS IN THIS BUDGET THAT ARE VACATED WITHOUT COUNCIL APPROVAL? [1:05:23] David B. Chittim: THAT'S ANOTHER ITEM THAT WE'RE GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT, BUT THEY'RE CONNECTED. THEY'RE ALL CONNECTED. [1:05:28] Joshua L. Nagine: AND WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO IS CUT THE GORDIAN. WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO DO IS GET THE NINE PERCENT PASSED SO THEN WE CAN TURN DOWN THE VACATED POSITIONS PIECE. NO, I'M NOT. I'M NOT DOING THAT. 'S WHAT IT FEELS LIKE. I 'M SORRY TO BE, I DIDN'T MEAN TO SAY IT THAT WAY. I'M JUST, IT'S IMPORTANT THAT WE make sure that we replenish the fund balance, and so that's my concern. i'm comfortable with going to nine percent because i don't think we have a choice, but i also think we have to think about [1:05:53] David B. Chittim: how it gets replenished. Okay, let's talk about that immediately next. So consensus on lowering the fund balance reserve to nine percent, caveat. I want to, that's, that's okay. I appreciate that, and these are all difficult questions. Everyone has reservations, concerns, caveats, I understand that. So that was for, though, that was, I'm seeing for, that was five in favor of the six of us that are here, and One with reservation, to actually two with reservations or conditions, right? So To me that's just, that's a consensus of the council that we're comfortable With a reducing to nine percent. now Let's talk about the conditions to replenish that, and one of those, council Roy [1:06:45] Michael R. Roy: I would I would agree with council in Asia and I think you know in order to replenish the fund balance because it is very important that we have an understanding of what we're gonna be the positions that are going out or you know being left and you know the ones that we're gonna look to put back in if it [1:07:06] David B. Chittim: makes sense thank you so the topic that we're talking about now is whether or NOT WE REPLACE POSITIONS THAT ARE VACATED FOR WHATEVER REASON DURING THE COURSE OF THIS FISCAL YEAR 2027. COUNCILOR HERMAN I WOULD ALSO BE OKAY WITH COUNCILOR NEGINE'S PROPOSAL [1:07:24] Scott A. Harriman: I THINK THAT THERE ARE SOME POSITIONS THAT MAY BE VACATED THAT WE CANNOT LEAVE VACANT BUT WE CAN ADDRESS THOSE AS THEY COME UP AND THAT'LL BE A DECISION AS THEY COME UP [1:07:38] David B. Chittim: Thank You counselor long shot [1:07:41] Susan G. Longchamps: I'm just not sure that we are actually in position to do that. If someone could weigh in [1:07:49] David B. Chittim: Yeah, I guess I just look for clarification so we'd be talking about any position that becomes vacant whether it's a retirement they move on to a different position or Any other reason that position goes vacant. We would have to come back to the council for funding to be I GUESS I'M STRUGGLING WITH THE MECHANICS OF ELLISON. [1:08:08] Joshua L. Nagine: THAT'S BASICALLY WHAT I WOULD HOPE FOR. I DON'T THINK IT WOULD HAVE TO NECESSARILY BE, WELL, I GUESS IT WOULD HAVE TO BE A PUBLIC PROCESS. [1:08:17] David B. Chittim: THE FUNDING WOULD ALREADY HAVE TO BE IN THE BUDGET FOR THE POSITION, CORRECT? RIGHT. [1:08:22] Joshua L. Nagine: WE'RE APPROVING THE BUDGET, RIGHT? WHATEVER BUDGET IT TURNS OUT TO BE. IF THAT POSITION IS FUNDED, THAT POSITION IS VACATED FOR WHATEVER REASON, INSTEAD OF IMMEDIATELY FILLING IT AS YOU NORMALLY WOULD, YOU WOULD HAVE TO APPROVE THE BUDGET. TO DISPUTE WHAT ANOTHER COUNSELOR SAID, BUT CONTRARY TO SOME OPINIONS, I KNOW THAT OUR BUDGETS HAVE BEEN UNDERFUNDED CHRONICALLY. WE JUST HAVE NOT HAD ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY FOR THE SERVICES THAT WE NEED IN THIS COMMUNITY, BUT ALSO, IN THE TIME PERIOD THAT WE'RE DEALING WITH RIGHT HERE, WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO BE MORE EFFICIENT WITH THESE THINGS. SO, YEAH, I THINK THAT IF THERE'S A DEPARTMENT THAT IS DOWN ONE STAFF MEMBER AND THEY FIGURE OUT A WAY TO WORK WITHOUT THAT STAFF MEMBER FOR SIX MONTHS EIGHT MONTHS THAT REPLENISHES THE FUND BALANCE OR IF IT'S A POSITION WHERE THE DIRECTOR SAYS I CAN'T GO WITHOUT THIS YOU COME BEFORE US AND WE SAY YEAH WE RELEASED THAT POSITION UM THAT WOULD BE THAT WOULD BE MY TAKE UM BUT I 'M SURE THERE'S OTHER OPINIONS HERE SO COUNCILOR ROY THANK YOU COUNCILOR CHISHOLM [1:09:58] Michael R. Roy: It kind of feels clunky to me, and I'm kind of rethinking that. One of the things I fear is if we have a position that becomes vacant and it takes time to come back to the council, we're looking at overtime to fill that, so we're just kind of cutting off our foot. You know, that just kind of, I think it's going to take a lot more time, so it kind of feels clunky to me. If there's a happy medium, a way that we can figure out to do this seamlessly and not take a lot of time, I think it would be better, but I just feel it's a little clunky at this time. Council Longchamp, thank you. [1:10:36] Susan G. Longchamps: It feels like we are trying to do the administrator's job. I don't think that is really our position. We're not in the field of hiring or firing here, and I, it feels like we're trying to maybe dictate a little more as to what goes on with employees, and I just, I don't think that's right. [1:11:01] Scott A. Harriman: Councilor Herman. Thank you. I wasn't expecting that the council would approve the hire or anything, but that we would approve the funding or basically using that funding for the position, so the hiring would still go through the normal channels. I believe personnel is approximately 50% of our budget, and I think it is reasonable for us to have, as a council, to have some say into that half of the budget at some point. And if it's not going to be during this process, then as things become vacant, I think that is reasonable for us to have some input as to where the city's money is spent. [1:11:43] David B. Chittim: Thank you, Council Herman. Council Martell. Thank you. [1:11:48] Bret Martel: I'm just struggling with some of the concepts here because I think Councilor Roy makes some good points. It sounds good. Let's cut overtime. Overtime is expensive. Let's find a way to schedule around that. We get a bad snowstorm in the middle of January on a Wednesday. We can't really say don't do overtime and leave the streets full of snow and not plowed. So we do run into positions as a city where we are out of options, and if we're looking to freeze every person that retires or freeze every open position, I know we're looking at public works potentially at freezing some positions. There are some very essential services that we don't have the luxury of saying we're just not going to fund the overtime for that. We need to police our streets, we need to plow our streets, stuff like that isn't just as simple as sitting up here and saying let's not fund. It and the more positions we freeze can lead to overtime for the people that are left, and then if we say freeze overtime, I guess I would agree with the clunky definition. It, we're in uncharted difficult waters, and we're trying to make some tough decisions and try to figure out how to keep the city going and save the taxpayers some money. So I'm not sure I'm even offering a suggestion here, but just trying to recognize that not all of these solutions are going to meld together other seamlessly. So I just a little bit of forethought and planning might be [1:13:12] David B. Chittim: able to go a long way, hopefully. Thank you. As I look here, our budget for the city is 2.8 million dollars in overtime alone, and that spread over 15, 20 departments, the largest appears to be in firefighting, where we have a one and a half million dollar recommended overtime amount. Counselor Longchamp, thank you. [1:13:41] Susan G. Longchamps: Councillor Chittim, if it would be okay, because we are talking quite a bit about overtime, Deputy O'Malley, can you just touch base on overtime, where that comes from, and kind of a little sense of why that takes place? Sure, I do have a [1:13:59] Speaker I (unidentified): copy of the Charter in front of me, but if we're moving on from you folks approving, I won't read that. I will also mention to counsel Harriman, if we, when the city administrator presents the final budget, if you want to make an amendment, that's in the Charter where you guys can fund or defund, you know, a department, if that's what you want to do, you guys could make that amendment then, you guys could all vote on it. But when we go to overtime, we have police, fire, and Public Works, and that's where our overtime is. I think there's a small amount for our MIS, so when Matt or Kurt are sitting out here, I think that's $2,000 in that budget. But in reality, our budget is, and the public safety, our public works, if you folks want to make an amendment and say I want to reduce overtime at the police department, of the fire department, public works, for a certain amount, and you guys all vote for that, will happen. But then realize the city administrator may have to come back to you and say we've had homicides, we've had really bad snowstorms, I need more money, and he would then have to come to you mid-budget season or fiscal year to ask for more money. But in reality, I understand what you're saying about the overtime, counselor Roy, but it's the three big departments that get the overtime. There's, you know, we don't pay people in city hall overtime other than a small amount to the folks that work the camera system here. [1:15:24] David B. Chittim: Councillor Nijane, then Councillor Longshot. [1:15:27] Joshua L. Nagine: So while we don't, we absolutely don't oversee hiring and firing, we oversee the funding of the departments, and so that's the part that for what I'm looking at, and I understand the point of making, like I don't want to micromanage anything in the city. What I want to do is figure out ways to reduce overall costs, and if there was some, you know, magic thing that I could say right now that would reduce costs, like I would, I'm just, I'm just exploring options here to figure out ways that we can what happens because of our contractual agreements is that when higher paid positions become vacant lower paid employees move into those positions and then generally speaking the lower paid employees are also the public facing employees and so that 's why it can be a challenge I think to just allow these positions to be filled when we're trying to ONE REPLENISH THE FUND BALANCE AND TWO YOU KNOW LIKE FOR INSTANCE RIGHT NOW LIKE WE CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE ANOTHER PATROL OFFICER WE CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE UH SOMEBODY AT THE TREASURER'S OFFICE UM THAT 'S YOU KNOW UH OR AT THE AT THE YEAH AT THE TAX COLLECTOR'S OFFICE WHO'S WHO'S LIKE FORWARD-FACING UM AND SO THESE ARE TOUGH CHALLENGES I DON'T HAVE AN ANSWER TO IT THIS IS JUST PROPOSAL THAT I PUT OUT. Counselor Lockshow? [1:16:59] Michael R. Roy: Counselor Roy? So when I was looking at a spreadsheet today, I counted 18 overtime lines. Some as small as $150 and some as large as $1,425,676. You've got another line which is 20,000. You've got one that's 200, one two thousand, one that's a hundred and twenty eight thousand eight hundred, one that's seven hundred and forty seven thousand, one that's five thousand, one seventy five hundred, fifty five hundred, six thousand, twenty five thousand, two hundred fifty five thousand, you know, so again I've got 18 lines here that have overtime spending, and I know like the fire department has built in overtime, I know that, right, so again I'm just, I'm just, I'm not saying let's cut all overtime But what I'm trying to do is trying to find some savings in the overtime. There's three million dollars of overtime that we might be able to cut from the budget. I'm just trying everything I can to reduce the budget without cutting any positions is what I'm trying to do. So [1:18:08] David B. Chittim: Would a way to approach that, and I'm asking the administrator here, would the council, I'm looking at a spreadsheet and your spreadsheet in mine are very similar, but they're not identical because I have 19 lines totaling to 2.8 million. Would it be helpful or a hindrance if the council were to say cut the overtime by 10%? You figure out where? You know, I think it may be helpful. Honestly, before we even go down this road, I mean, I would like to hear in a public way from these three big departments, what are the potential ramifications and operations from this? I think we need to make an educated decision. There may be a room to maneuver here, but I do think we need to hear about what are the potential ramifications to operations. Will we be back potentially coming and asking for money, more money mid-year because we have an issue? So I think we do need to hear some more from those three big departments that consume the vast majority of this overtime. What you're saying I think is possible, but I haven't even had these conversations yet with these departments, and so I think it's important that all of us just hear where there may be room to maneuver and what are the potential ramifications of? Some larger cuts to overtime. So I don't know if we have, what we fire here, we have police here, is Public Works here? Thank you. We do have the expert here, Fire chief Karen, can you, can you speak to overtime requirements of the fire department? [1:19:39] Speaker K (unidentified): So I am aware that the firefighting line is the largest overtime line, and we have contractually we're required to have 17 firefighters on duty daily. We have vacations, we have had this past year we've had some long-term absences due to injury, so every time there's a vacancy I have to hire a firefighter for overtime for a 24-hour shift. That's, that's why that number is large. It does that up. The only way to reduce that is through extra personnel, replacement personnel who rotate, don't have a permanent assignment, they just rotate in and out of positions of who's out that day sick. We try, we are funded for three, one for each shift, but sometimes I have two or three people out per shift, you know, plus vacations and stuff, so it, that line is contractual, and really, you know, you can't reduce it by 10 percent. It will just, it'll go on the negative because when people come to work I have to fill those spots when people are out and I have to pay them, right, it's just not optional. The other lines the fire communication, the fire prevention division overtime lines. They're small lines. They're really not. Those are, they work over time in emergency situations, coming to do fire investigations, or if we have a broken piece of equipment on a Saturday, the mechanic might come in and fix it. So those are light lines to begin with, and if you wanted me to take 10% out of one of those lines, I don't think it's going to get you much savings. I would be happy to look at it. Now that you've made over time, made me aware of it, I will go back and there'll be something that I look at and I can prepare better explanations and Analysis for you, so I'd have a better conversation about this, but the largest line that firefighting line I don't know what the exact number is 1.4 million or whatever There's not a lot of wiggle room in that I can tell you that when people are out I have to hire overtime [1:21:57] David B. Chittim: Thank you. Just for reference. The number is 1.4 to 5 million the revised budget the original budget last year were 1.34 so there's a roughly a hundred thousand dollar increase which i assume is contractual because of steps and colas that is correct okay and i don't know i have year to date but that number doesn't really help me because i'm not certain as to when that number came i would certainly and i'm i don't want to speak for the council but as the counselor from ward six i would like very much to see a sharper pencil on that overtime line particularly given that yours is the fire department is the largest overtime line of all of them at 1.4 your other two total 12 000 so i agree with you that those are there's there's not much to be picked from there yeah i know the firefighting [1:22:56] Speaker K (unidentified): line is a large number but i would caution you to you know you can you can reduce it to any number that you like but when people come to work they need to be paid and i have to have 17 people there every day it's i mean i you know i and i'm projecting when i give you that number when i made that number i'm projecting 15 months in the future who's going to be out sick i mean how many vacancies am i going to have it's a difficult task but to say the least so i give the most conservative number i can based on you know historical averages it's it's the best that i can do like i said it's just an arbitrary number you can make it any number you want but it may end up being in the negative at year end because when people come to work they need TO BE PAID AND I HAVE TO HAVE 17 PEOPLE EVERY DAY CONTRACTIBLY THANK YOU CHIEF I 'M NOT CERTAIN [1:23:59] David B. Chittim: WE'RE GIVING YOU A MANDATE, BUT I DO, I WOULD LIKE YOU TO HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH THE CITY ADMINISTRATOR ABOUT THAT OVERTIME LINE. OKAY, THANK YOU. YES, WE ALSO HAVE ANOTHER EXPERT DIRECTOR. [1:24:13] Kevin Ganye: DIRECTOR GANYE. GOOD EVENING, KEVIN GANYE, PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR. I'M GOING TO BE REFERRING TO THE BUDGET BOOKS, IF YOU WANT TO LOOK AT THAT. AS THE CHIEF, WE ARE USING HISTORICAL NUMBERS WITH FINANCE AND ADMIN AS WE ARE PUTTING BUDGETS TOGETHER. IN FY23, THAT WINTER WAS 237 IN ACTUAL OVERTIME, 237,000. FY24, WE HAD 174,000. THAT WAS A DROUGHT. IF YOU REMEMBER, DECEMBER 23, WE HAD A FLOOD. And then it didn't snow, so if you look at our historic averages as you go through oh five actual, we look at oh six, as of January 31st of 26, we'd already spent one hundred sixty seven thousand. So we have been trying to flatline. We basically have that as one percent over at last year's budget. Two hundred and fifty five thousand is what we have for overtime for winter ops. Maybe DIRECTOR ROY HAS AN UPDATED NUMBER AS OF NOW. [1:25:23] Bryan Kaenrath: CURRENTLY, THEY'RE AT $322,071. [1:25:29] Kevin Ganye: SO, LIKE THE CHIEF JUST SAID, WE'RE USING HISTORICAL AVERAGES. WE'RE TRYING TO FORECAST 18 MONTHS OUT WHEN WE DO THE BUDGET FOR SUBMITTAL. WE'RE HOPING FOR OPTIMISTICS. WE'RE USING AVERAGES. IN 2004, WE HAD MONEY LEFT, AND NOW WE'RE OVER BUDGET. It so we're reacting to snowstorms, we are trying to be as efficient as possible. We, there are times when, you know, call it, there's gonna be a big snowstorm, we've got people stage, we call them in and don't, don't have people sitting around getting overtime. So we stage our crews coming in, first crews are coming in deploying the icing if that's what, how we're fighting it, and then we start bringing the different crews in for the different routes. We have a team and B team. So all of Public Works crews. Some supervisors have plows unable to do a little bit of cleanup. But, you know, the crews are doing the plowing and responding to those emergencies. So I'd love to, like the chief said, you know, we can trim that number back, but the actual is maybe higher. In regards to some of the overtime, other overtime accounts, WE HAD ONE ACCOUNT WHICH IS AN ADMIN. IT'S 33% LOWER THAN IT WAS THE PREVIOUS YEAR. HIGHWAY. HIGHWAY AND OPEN SPACES IS PRETTY MUCH DEPENDING ON WHAT'S GOING ON WITH DIFFERENT STORM EVENTS. WE CAN BE CHIPPING BRANCHES AFTER A WIND STORM. WE CAN BE DOING OVERTIME REPAIRS ON THE HIGHWAY SYSTEM. SO POTHOLES, PATCHING, RESPONDING TO THOSE. WE HAVE A 48-HOUR RESPONSE TIME ON THOSE. WE'RE UP A LITTLE BIT ON THAT, BUT WE'RE UP BY 10,000 IS WHAT WE ALLOTED. I SAID 1% INCREASE OVER LAST YEAR ON WINTER OPS. OUR STREET LIGHT OVER TIME IS UP. We have it listed as 54,000, but in reality, we're about 9,000 higher than last year in that over time account. So we do have on call people for street lights. When the downtown goes dark, we've had three or four events this year we've had customer you know residents as well as counselors aware and that's a safety issue we want to make sure our downtown and other areas are lit we've had similar issues that same standby person comes in for all traffic signals so dark signals also cause it cause a safety issue solid waste we're up a little bit there about six thousand and that light on them and if you look at open space hydro and canals that was flat funded the open space right now I'll address it a little but we can definitely get into it back when there was a reorg in early 2000s rec was doing all their maintenance they were doing all their mowing raking and all of that so deputy director Bates came over with her PER EXPERTISE, ALL OF THEIR STAFF CAME OVER, AND THE FOCUS WAS REC WORKS ON PROGRAMMING AND EVERYTHING ON THEIR SPACE, AND PUBLIC WORKS UTILIZES ALL THAT MAINTENANCE. We use a lot of seasonal help to do that, so right now we are hiring, do have seasonal help in there, they're at a lower rate, and they're augmenting our normal staff. So it's not saying it can't be done, but I'm just saying we made a switch in about 2008 to be able to do that, and I think we're seeing some benefits, but I would talk with Director Welch and we can talk with administration about those options. Some of it, too, is we're going with the turf. So a lot of this is event-based. So if there's a football game, a soccer game at the high school, we have staff going in to properly use a magnet, clean that space and make sure there's no sharps, like, you know, a spike from a metal cleat that shouldn't be used on that. That whatever they're keeping, that the field safe between games and between events, and then finishing up municipal garage. We're about 7,000 over. It represents 21% increase right now. That I think they had five vacancies in the municipal garage. Those positions are currently still frozen and proposed to this budget along with three more. So total public works is eight frozen. Vehicles need to be repaired. We have two shifts and we're trying to do what we can. If a unit is down and we don't have the overtime of the staff, then that unit is down. If it's during a plowing event, right now we're going street sweeping, then that unit is not on the road. We're not as efficient. It's taking a longer. The last one is building maintenance. That one we actually cut by 36%. That is down about $10,000. That's a little bit more. So overall, Public Works, we came in, I think it was about 1.3% increase over last year. So that's just a quick summary on what we do and what's there. [1:30:42] David B. Chittim: Thank you, Director Gagnier. [1:30:45] Susan G. Longchamps: Councillor Longsham. Thank you, Councillor Chittim. I think it is an important topic to talk about the overtime, and I think it was important. I think a lot of citizens here in Lewiston definitely complain about that, and not just complain but they're, they're concerned about it, you know, can we cut there, but you know we're talking about Public Works, the fire department and the police department, and you guys have given a great explanation as to why the overtime happens and why it's needed. I'm not in favor of you guys cutting that at all. I would ask deputy O'Malley if he wouldn't mind touching a little bit on the police department since you were affiliated there. Yeah, I was gonna [1:31:31] Speaker I (unidentified): to address that so counselor i know it looks like a lot but actually several departments have several different line items so it's really only those three there are some smaller ones like i talked about mis if you look at as director gagney was talking about on page 18 there's two lines here the 128 804 that's for the detective division and the 747897 that's for patrol division the police department has only asked for an increase of 1.1 in their detective division and the two percent increase For overtime and control division, you know, a lot of that's based on the calls for service that come in. If there's homicides, if there's more, you know, drawn out cases, you know, you're going to need to have detectives come in. If we don't have those issues, then they don't call the detectives in. You know, I know council regime, you have concerns about replenishing the funding that would the 1.9 million. You know, we have several open positions of the police department. We're freezing some. Those aren't going to get filled right away, so that's part of the what the process is where the money comes back. My concerns are, I mean, I'm not going to speak to the fire department. I, you know, I've been aware of their overtime budget, but he has contractual. The police department does not have a minimum manning. They attempt to send detectives home or send officers home or not hire supervisors for a full shift on the overnight shift. Instead of doing two for eight hours, they'll have one maybe for four hours. They try to do it based on call volume, times of year. Unfortunately, April is when April into May, when it starts getting warm, is our busiest time of years. I mean, we can talk to the chief, but their increases aren't that great, and considering their coal is what, 2.5, they're asked for their overtime was less than that. So I think they're just going based on historically where they end up, you know, and it has in historically, when I was the police chief, if we went overdrawn on our overtime at the end of the year, we would have to do a budget transfer and take it from our salary line to cover that. So it is up to you folks what you want to do, but really there isn't a lot that we can cut, and I do agree with the fire chief that his hands are pretty much tied because he has a minimum manning in his collective bargaining agreement, cost of energy. So when we [1:33:43] Joshua L. Nagine: we're talking about overtime for like clear, clearing the field, for instance, any of the money that is generated from renting the field or any of our fields for that matter, where's, WHERE'S THAT MONEY GO AND DOES IT EVER OFFSET ANY OF OUR OVERTIME COSTS? I WOULD ASK DIRECTOR [1:34:00] Kevin Ganye: ROY IF SHE COULD COMMENT ON THAT, BUT I DO KNOW THAT DEPUTY DIRECTOR BATES GETS WITH THE SCHOOL AND TALKS ABOUT MOST OF THE CAPITAL ITEMS ARE SHARED 50 BETWEEN OUR BUDGET AND PW ITEMS FOR THOSE SPACES AS WELL AS THE SCHOOL, SO IT'S A 50 FUNDING ON MOST ITEMS. AS FAR AS THE OVERTIME GOES, I would have to come back with you some information if director Roy [1:34:25] Joshua L. Nagine: Well, it does seem that we do collect revenues for some of these things. So yeah, if you could speak to that, correct. [1:34:31] Bryan Kaenrath: It's right in the general fund under the interest rents and royalties You'll see rental for other you'll see rental for city event fees For facilities you'll see that there is one facility that goes into a separate account for the field so that 's not in our general fund and that can be used to put towards when they have to re replenish and redo the turf field so we're sticking it into the into the general fund pot [1:35:07] Joshua L. Nagine: And then paying for the overtime through a regular budget process, correct? Okay, and in that we're we're not splitting those revenues with the school system where we are. [1:35:19] Bryan Kaenrath: Not for that certain field that does the turf, it goes into an account, so the school does know and we have that balance and they know the balance and when they're looking at when they're going to replace that, so they do, it's a benefit for both the. [1:35:39] Joshua L. Nagine: City and school for that field. Okay, gotcha, and just really quickly to THE TO THE POLICE OVERTIME, I DON'T HAVE AN ISSUE WITH THE POLICE OVERTIME AT ALL. I DO THINK, AND I BROUGHT THIS UP PRIVATELY, THAT AT SOME POINT IN TIME THE CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENTS THAT HAVE THE STARTING SCHEDULES OF 7 AM 3 PM AND 11 PM SHOULD BE LOOKED AT BECAUSE IN ALL HONESTY WE KNOW THAT CALLS FOR SERVICE EARLY IN THE MORNING ARE LOWER AND IF WE COULD FIGURE OUT WAYS TO BETTER staff overall THAT POSSIBLY WE CAN REDUCE SOME. Overtime costs, but that's a contractual agreement conversation. You have to reopen those contracts to even talk about that, and so it just seems like we're we're wedged for changes that we want to try to make to save money by what's in the contractual agreements. [1:36:31] Speaker I (unidentified): Well, there is in the collective bargaining agreement for the patrol and Detectives Union what's called, we used to call, it's called a lobster shift, where you have officers come in later in the afternoon and work over, so they're covering so you don't have to hire overtime. Unfortunately, you're not able to man that when you don't have the staffing, so that's another, you know, and we've tried, we try to do that where we try to limit, but the problem is when you don't have the full staffing that's very. Difficult for the chief to accomplish that, but that is already in the collective buying agreement at that lobster, which is an overlap shift. So you don't have to hire somebody for an eight-hour shift. You kind of do the hours where it's busy. You know, historically no calls for service kind of dip around three, and then they pick back up as people start leaving work. You get car accidents, things along those nature, and then things kind of die down, and then they pick up again as it gets a little bit later in the evening. So that shift has been used in the past, but the problem is with the number of offices that Chief Conley has to her to utilize [1:37:26] Joshua L. Nagine: is not available to do that. Completely understood, and I also understand that right now the police department's dealing with a huge amount of behavioral health issues that at the end of the day they don't necessarily, we're managing behaviors as opposed to actually managing crime. So yeah, Councilor Roy. [1:37:48] Michael R. Roy: Thank you. I just want to say, like, first and foremost, I do not want to jeopardize any safety or anything like that. I mean, being tasked with trying to cut some revenue, some spenditures here, I am, you know, looking at that number is really big, and I really appreciate, you know, the directors coming out and saying what they said, you know, to let everybody know. But again, trying to save some money, I mean, this number over time is usually a big thing with every business, right, and you try to cut it. So but I appreciate it, and I do not like, again, I'm not looking at anybody or safety or anything like that. But I just had to, we have to look at that. So. [1:38:38] David B. Chittim: Director Geiner, you have a comment? Yes. [1:38:40] Kevin Ganye: IT GOES TO A LITTLE BIT WHAT COUNSELOR ROY WAS JUST TALKING ABOUT. UNFORTUNATELY, I'VE BEEN HERE LONG ENOUGH TO NOT BE THE DIRECTOR, BUT I'VE SEEN A LOT OF THE DIFFERENT PHASES OF WHAT WE'VE DONE. AND PROBABLY 10 OR 15 YEARS AGO, WE HAD WHAT WE WOULD CALL ELECTIVE OVER TIME. RIGHT? So we would do some specialty projects, get caught up on some things that weren't necessarily essential. I'll tell you that we made that switch about 10 years ago or longer, so it's been a very conservative effort, and it's kind of built into our budgets now where that's not there for you all to cut, because we are, I think I would say we're pretty much down to essential functions, whether it's mowing after hours, and we're trying to stay compliant with the city ordinance that all lots are mowed and not grow to a certain height or other safety concerns. So I just wanted to acknowledge that. We have been trimming it over the years, and what we're left is basically, I think, essential functions. Thank you, Director. [1:39:43] David B. Chittim: I do want to make a comment that, yes, I don't allege that there is any frivolous overtime. As I said at an earlier council meeting, what we're looking at is, do we hit the taxpayer in the pocketbook, or do we hit the taxpayer by reducing services? And I think my position on overtime is yes, any overtime reductions, particularly in public works, are going to result in a reduction of services. Are the roads going to be plowed as quickly in the morning? Are they going to be ready to go for the commuters? Is the grass going to be allowed to exceed the city ordinance maximum height? These are things I think that would be reductions in services, but could afford a also a corresponding reduction in overtime. And I would, on behalf of the council, ask you to meet with the administrator and look very carefully at what are those less than essential services that could be eliminated by taking the overtime out. That's the choice we're faced with. We're all looking at tough decisions, and we reduce services or increase taxes. It's a balance of those. Thank you. With that, I think we can have these conversations, come back. We have another meeting on Tuesday evening and continue this conversation. I think it will be worthwhile for us to sit down and have some conversations, see where we could find some potential savings and report back, if that's a good next step That sounds fine to me. Councilor Najin, you there are a couple other items on here that we may want to address, but go ahead. Well, no, go ahead, Councilor Chinnamay. Well, I was looking at another unchecked line here is the vehicle replacement program, stretching vehicles out to 120,000 miles instead of 100, or 100 instead of 80, or whatever the numbers are, making a vehicle last another year across the board, and I'm wondering if that's a something that the council wants to talk about, or if it makes any sense at all from administration standpoint to say, let's, let's stretch out the vehicle, make, get extract every single ounce of use we can from them, or Is that, yeah, I think we're looking at, if there are ideas to throw out, let's, let's hear them. Let's get an idea of what we're looking for, and then we can go back, have some discussions, get some information, like I said, and come back with just some more information and some more kind of fruitful answers to go forward, if that makes sense. So maybe give us a little bit more flavor of what we're, we're looking for, then we can, we can meet with the respective staff and come back with some information and some potential impacts or where we can get by, if that makes sense, we can proceed that way. So yeah, I would [1:42:34] Joshua L. Nagine: support checking with the different directors to find out one, if there's any vehicles that are being requested this year, either in the LCIP or the regular, aside from the take-home cars, if we can remove them from the budget this year, you know, we may be able to add them next year, we might not, who knows, and extend that vehicle replacement schedule by 20 percent across the board for all, for all departments, with the exception, well, I guess, yeah, and so you're, I THINK 20% IS GOOD. IF A DIRECTOR SAYS WE CAN EXTEND IT BY 50%, GREAT. LET'S DO THAT. I IMAGINE WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IS ALL THE DIRECTORS ARE GOING TO BE LIKE, I DON'T THINK WE CAN DO 5%. BUT LET'S HAVE THE CONVERSATION. THESE ARE FIXED COSTS THAT WE EXPERIENCE EVERY YEAR. IF WE CAN EXTEND OUT, IF WE CAN go a little longer, if we can limp a truck for a year and it's gonna save us on both the LCIP and the regular budget, then let's do it. I mean, I've seen there's some municipalities that have, you know, trucks held together by, you know, duct tape that are, that are doing work for the city, right, like go look at the Freeport dump trucks, like, you know, they're, you know, I'm trying to SAVE MONEY SOMEWHERE. A FANCY TRUCK UH WITH A NEW LOGO ON IT, EVERYBODY LOVES IT, BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY, LIKE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT POSSIBLY CUTTING JOBS, SO LIKE LET'S FIGURE OUT A WAY TO CUT THE BUDGET FIRST. GOOD DIRECTOR [1:44:18] David B. Chittim: GANIA, YOU HAVE A COMMENT YOU'D LIKE TO MAKE? YES, UH, DEFINITELY [1:44:23] Kevin Ganye: PLAN ON MEETING WITH ADMINISTRATOR CANRAFF AS HE STATED, UM, BUT JUST FOR YOUR, BUT MORE OF THE public's reference, in the FY 27 LCIP, all the public works vehicles that are proposed are on page 65 and 66. They have outlined the years, I believe. We have some that are in there with mileage. Not all public works vehicles get a lot of mileage. A lot of that is actually run hours. That list is prioritized. The top of the list is the highest priority, the bottom of the list is the lowest priority, and we will go through that list with administration and come back with you. [1:45:02] David B. Chittim: Some suggestions, very much appreciated. Thank you, Deputy Administrator O'Malley. I just wanted to [1:45:12] Speaker I (unidentified): point out that all the vehicles are in the LCIP. Council on the gene, there's nothing else in the budget. [1:45:19] David B. Chittim: The only item I have, unless I've missed ticked things here, is a wage reduction, and I'm wondering if the council would be interested in asking administration to revisit with the unions the potential of foregoing or reducing the amount of steps, COLAs, etc. As Deputy Administrator O'Malley indicated, some many decades ago this was done. I believe that the outcome was that the unions said yes, rather than lose employees, we will take a small hiatus. If I'm misspeaking, please correct [1:45:55] Speaker I (unidentified): me. No, you are correct. At the time we were told they're going to be two police officers that were going to be laid off if we didn't vote back out three percent colon, but I think those were different times, but we can ask. I'd [1:46:09] David B. Chittim: like to have the council's consensus on that. My own personal philosophy is if you don't ask the question, you'll never get the answer. But if we're looking at the potential of laying off eight employees out of our workforce and an alternative is for the employees collectively say, yeah, we'll take a little bit back, that seems to be a question worth asking concerning. Yes, I strongly support [1:46:31] Joshua L. Nagine: having that conversation i think the truth is tier three i 'm still 100 in support of and so you know if we could figure out ways to cut some of those expenses maybe i change my opinion on tier three but staff costs are it's hard because they're going to increase every year it's just it's just what it is so if there's if we're facing the possibility of layoffs versus having conversations about everybody's strapped for cash and the taxes are unrelenting at this moment due to and we should have the conversation about the county as well at some point in time, but and the school, and when we go around here [1:47:23] Scott A. Harriman: Councillor Harriman, thank you. Yes, I'm still in favor of tier three with no take-home vehicles, and I would be in favor of asking a question if unions would be amenable to that. I agree with you, if we don't ask the question, we won't get the answer. Administrator. [1:47:42] David B. Chittim: Just so we're clear, what units are we approaching, all of them, or what units are we asking this question? From me personally, it's everyone who has had a contract with the city. Any other comments? Administrator, do you feel that this was productive? I think this was actually productive. I think we got some good consensus on some things. I do want to read it again. If you are thinking about admitments for the budget that you want us to help you work up or craft something that you're interested in proposing to the council, we are available to do that. May 5th is slated to be our budget approval evening. As you know, we have, we do have until the end of May, but now May 5th is on a calendar for budget approval. So if you are looking at amendments to offer, we're happy to help work those up, whatever ideas you may have. And when you say amendments, do you mean we think? Department, I'm picking one here, 41 55 line be cut in half, is that the sort of amendment, whatever you'd like to do for the budget, correct? [1:48:56] Scott A. Harriman: Okay, Councilor Harriman, yes, I guess I have some questions about that process. It's new to me. Would it make more sense to offer suggestions during the crafting of the budget rather than to have a final budget and then make a formal amendment that's brand new that hasn't had other considerations with other people and other effects on other parts of the budget? It seems like in years past we've gone through the budget and made these suggestions as the budget was being put together rather than having a final product on the table with a formal amendment that's brand new that night, so [1:49:33] David B. Chittim: maybe I'll bring more of a process to you guys then. I think the point of these workshops is to get as much consensus as possible around items. I guess what I'm saying is I think there still may be some extraneous issues that one or two councilors do support that they may want to offer something to the body still. Just from what I'm hearing, there are some ideas out there with a few councilors that are not part of the general consensus right now, maybe that may want to be offered. So I think that's where I was going with that. But I guess I was also expecting, this is just how it works in many other places, that on the evening of the budget there will be a number of amendments offered by councilors to amend the budget. Maybe that hasn't been the historic process here, but it's certainly how it could work. And obviously it would be advantageous to have those amendments known well in advance. Just to help you work up what ideas you have to mention the budget. [1:50:27] Scott A. Harriman: Councilor Herman? That was my concern was that it seems like it would make more sense to have these things brought up sooner in the process rather than having them brought up on the final vote so that people have more time to consider them and to consider what the effects might be on the budget. It just seems, it seems like if you put any changes off until the very last night that it's, it's hard for people to make those decisions in the, at the very last minute. Yeah, no, I think that's [1:51:01] David B. Chittim: the purpose of the workshops. I think we're coming to consensus on a lot of items, but I guess my general point is if there are still some things that a counselor wants to offer, there is a process to do that literally? All sight, Councilor Herman. [1:51:18] Susan G. Longchamps: Councilor Longsham. I think throughout this whole process, and correct me if I'm wrong, we have had the opportunity to come to you and with amendments at any time. Now, whether you agreed with them or not, but you have had that open door. Of course. I just have a couple questions about the budget. So frozen positions, how many do we have right now? 12 in total. So we have 12, and where are they from? [1:51:53] Bryan Kaenrath: Sorry, eight are from public works, one is from finance, and I believe three is from PD. Okay. [1:52:04] Susan G. Longchamps: So we have 12. When you originally started the budget process and correct me if I'm wrong with this number, but I believe you guys had said you were, did your best to shut off? Basically a little over four million. Is that correct? [1:52:28] David B. Chittim: Which included frozen positions, so the positions that were frozen last year were carried over, and we added five more, six more positions this year. Thank [1:52:43] Susan G. Longchamps: you, that was my only questions I had for that. Thank you. [1:52:47] Joshua L. Nagine: Councilman, so for positions that were frozen like two, three, four years ago, those are just, they're gone now, right? They're not just continually carried forward. They're mostly in [1:52:57] David B. Chittim: public works, and we have some MPD that have been frozen for numerous years now. Okay, and [1:53:03] Joshua L. Nagine: A lot of that comes back to recruitment, so we're not budgeting for those positions because we know we can't fill them. We've had difficulty recruiting. Correct. Yeah. Okay. so this is on topic but slightly to the side, which is I really want to encourage the council, to craft a letter for the county, to talk about the 14 increase last year and the 20 increase this year. It's unsustainable. we're still, we still don't have a jail, which is going to be whenever that funding comes through. I'm sure we're going to get nailed with that too. And so I think it's important that we advocate for ourselves on some of these fixed costs that we don't have a lot of control over. And I know that you sit on the county commission as well as that Mr. Reed and [1:53:54] David B. Chittim: I'M BLANKING ON HER NAME THERE ARE THERE ARE SIX MEMBERS FROM LOUISTON WHO SIT ON THE BUDGET COMMITTEE. AND IF I COULD INTERRUPT YOU, YOUR POINT IS WELL TAKEN, BUT THE LETTER SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO AUGUSTA, NOT TO THE COUNTY, BECAUSE THE COUNTY IS SUFFERING UNDER THE SAME EXTERNAL FORCES THAT WE ARE HERE. [1:54:16] Joshua L. Nagine: We just need to advocate for ourselves. Ultimately, if we are not stating that these increases, we're bearing the burden of being a community that has some assets like I just look at communities in Androscoggin County that their asset class hasn't changed in 20 years because they're pastoral, you know, subdivisions and we're bearing the burden of all the of the cost of the county while also not getting the level of support for the needed services that we're required to provide in this community. And so it's a real challenge for me, and I think that we need to advocate better for ourselves. So I would suggest a letter to Augusta also concerning the sheer amount of needs-based services that are based in this community that there's mandates for that we're bearing the burden of without compensation. We're picking up the tab for the entire region and it's not just us, I guess Auburn is also dealing with some of this, but it's, it's, there's a lot of services there that like we're required to provide that we're not capable of doing right now with the budgets that we have. So there's [1:55:38] David B. Chittim: no argument for me councillor Nagin may I task you with drafting that letter for consideration by the by the council i would love to thank you anything further from the council [1:55:50] Joshua L. Nagine: Councilor Nageen again, when will we find out? I know the school budget was approved, but when will it be presented to us? It [1:56:00] Bryan Kaenrath: Was it was already presented to you when he came last month when he went over what they had for budgets? He had that slide and then he asked YOU ABOUT WHETHER YOU GUYS WANTED ANY DISCUSSION ON THE LCIP. So that part has changed, right, like [1:56:18] Joshua L. Nagine: THAT THE THEIR BUDGET HAS ACTUALLY CHANGED. IT'S NOW I THINK AN EIGHT PERCENT INCREASE IS WHAT [1:56:23] Scott A. Harriman: THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT. COULD YOU SPEAK TO THAT COUNCILMAN? UM I DON'T KNOW THE EXACT NUMBER BUT THAT BUDGET HAS GONE UP FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT'S ORIGINAL UM PROPOSAL. SO WE increased from the from the very original proposal. We did add some positions back in to the budget but there were there were approximately 30 positions that were being cut and we added back in I think about five or six of them before we finalized that last night. Okay so when does it come before [1:57:02] Joshua L. Nagine: us again? May 5th. May 5th okay yeah I think I'll have a couple of comments on [1:57:07] David B. Chittim: IT. JUST WANTED TO KNOW WHEN IT WAS COMING. YES UH TO THAT END COULD WE HAVE A COPY OF THE BUDGET THAT WILL BE PRESENTED TO US ON MAY 5TH? TONIGHT TOMORROW I GUESS I'M ASKING COUNCILOR HARRIMAN [1:57:23] Scott A. Harriman: AS A REPRESENTATIVE ON SCHOOL I CAN UM I CAN ASK THE SUPERINTENDENT TO SEND US A CLEAN COPY [1:57:30] Joshua L. Nagine: basically. Okay thank you. Anything else counselor? The executive session i requested can we have that put on the books for since it's an executive session it can be a special meeting for any day. I think i 'm convenient i 'm not convenient that's the wrong word i can make in any date work i don't know about everybody else. This is an executive discussion to [1:57:56] David B. Chittim: discuss with our council the with our council our powers and duties under the charter. Okay all right yes we can certainly ask administration to put that on the agenda. I don't think that we want to do it on the 5th of may but perhaps on the 19th would be the meeting after that. How about [1:58:18] Joshua L. Nagine: THIS TUESDAY? HOW ABOUT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE? UM ADMINISTRATOR [1:58:28] David B. Chittim: THE AGENDA COULD BE AMENDED. WE COULD FIND OUT AVAILABILITY FROM CITY ATTORNEY. IT COULD BE A SPECIAL MEETING AS WELL. IT COULD BE ON A MONDAY IT COULD BE ON A WEDNESDAY. IT'S DIFFICULT TO TALK ABOUT THE NEED AND NECESSITY FOR THE URGENCY OF AN EXECUTIVE SESSION IN PUBLIC. I 'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT'S THE URGENCY HERE [1:58:49] Joshua L. Nagine: Because we have to approve a budget and I think there's a discrepancy between The powers that I believe we have and the powers have been told we have and so ultimately I want that clarification [1:59:03] David B. Chittim: If that question can be framed and put directly to counsel, this could be a relatively short executive session. Could we, and it's, it's very unusual to put it on the agenda now Thursday. The agenda has been published. YES, WE CAN DO THAT, BUT I WOULD RATHER NOT. WE COULD HAVE A SPECIAL MEETING. HOW DOES THE COUNCIL FEEL ABOUT THE URGENCY OF THIS QUESTION? DOES IT MERIT A SPECIAL MEETING? [1:59:30] Scott A. Harriman: COUNCILOR HERMAN? I WOULD BE OKAY WITH THAT. I'M AVAILABLE MOST NIGHTS. [1:59:42] David B. Chittim: DEPUTY DIRECTOR O'MALLEY, DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION? [1:59:44] Speaker I (unidentified): I HAVE CONCERNS THAT THIS CAN BE EVEN HELD IN EXECUTIVE session. We could ask the city attorney to come and we could ask questions out in the public, but i don't believe talking about in terms of the budget process for the city council and what the roles i would qualify as an executive session council of the gene, i mean i can ask clarification from the city attorney, so worst case scenario is he can just come and sit in front of you here and you can ask him questions. i think that might be the better way to do it, but i'll double check with him, but i don't think it's going to fall as an executive session. is it ALLOWABLE TO HAVE THAT DISCUSSION? BUT I COULD BE WRONG. I CAN CHECK WITH THE CITY ATTORNEY. [2:00:22] Joshua L. Nagine: YEAH I WOULD THINK THAT GENERALLY SPEAKING DISCUSSION WITH THE CITY ATTORNEY DOES FALL UNDER EXECUTIVE SESSION PRIVILEGE, BUT AGAIN UM WE CAN CHECK AND THEN WE COULD SCHEDULE IT BEFORE [2:00:35] Speaker I (unidentified): OUR WORKSHOP ON TUESDAY OR IF YOU WANT TO HOLD A SPECIAL MEETING WE NEED A VOTE FROM THE GROUP OF YOU OR THE MAIN TO CALL FOR OUR SPECIAL MEETING UH [2:00:45] David B. Chittim: WOULD ADMINISTRATION CHECK WITH UH CHECK WITH council to see whether it's available on tuesday, availability and whether or not this falls under executive session or can be done in public before tuesday, this coming tuesday. we would amend the agenda and do it this tuesday. i'm uncomfortable with amending of the agenda. how do the other counselors feel about that? we have been try to be very careful about not putting agenda items out [2:01:12] Joshua L. Nagine: at the last minute. i'm fine with the special meeting whenever the first available day would BE, WHICH I THINK WOULD BE NEXT THURSDAY. WE WOULD HAVE A WORKSHOP SCHEDULED ANYWAY, CORRECT? [2:01:22] David B. Chittim: LET'S DO THAT. LET'S LET'S CONSULT WITH OUR ATTORNEY, FIND OUT WHETHER A THIS IS WARRANT'S EXECUTIVE SESSION AND B WHETHER THEY'RE AVAILABLE ON A WEEK FROM TODAY. COUNCILOR HERMAN? YES I WOULD I'M [2:01:34] Scott A. Harriman: AVAILABLE NEXT THURSDAY. I'D ALSO ADD THAT ONE OF THE PERMITTED TOPICS FOR AN EXECUTIVE SESSION IS CONSULTATION BETWEEN A BODY AND ITS ATTORNEY CONCERNING THE LEGAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE [2:01:44] David B. Chittim: BODY. YEP, OKAY, THANK YOU. ANYTHING ELSE, ADMINISTRATOR? I THINK WE'RE GOOD HERE. ALL RIGHT, WITHOUT OBJECTION THEN. IS THAT A REQUEST FOR RECOGNITION, COUNCIL LONGCHAMP? YES. [2:02:00] Susan G. Longchamps: UM, I JUST HAVE A QUICK QUESTION. IS IT, I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN ASK COUNSELOR AND AGENE, BUT I'D LIKE TO. IS IT BECAUSE IT'S AN UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATION OR [2:02:16] David B. Chittim: No, because I've been well, can you have this conversation after we adjourn? I'm just wondering why can't we do it in public? [2:02:23] Joshua L. Nagine: Well, I don't know because I've been told that I can't do in public. [2:02:27] David B. Chittim: Okay, all right, let's let's get an answer for this ratio. There being no other interest in speaking, I by Executive decision and unanimous consent to clear us adjourned.