Bangor Council approves library social worker, firefighter positions in budget workshop

[0:35] Susan Deane: Are we on? We are live. Good evening, welcome to the city council budget workshop. It is June 17th, 5:15. We are in my head and fingers around the table. We have citizens earlier, we have Council Dean, Council Parks, and Council Walker, Council Beck, Council Letter, Council Will, Council Mauer, Council Fish, and then Council Buzz soon. Let's get right through it. All right, so tonight we have a budget workshop. We have no hard stuff. And we have some counselors and city staff who are motivated and ready to get this done tonight, hopefully. So although we have a tentative second workshop scheduled for tomorrow, that's only if we can get through what we have to do tonight. We'll come back tomorrow. I was gonna start by going through the changes and just reiterating. I know I sort of talked through them with you last time and you all sort of agreed with those changes, but I will talk through them again just to remind you what changes have been made. So in your packet it you have two of these tax rate calculator sheets. The difference between the two is that one assumes that we budget all new positions with four additional firefighters and one presumes that we budget all the positions with eight firefighter positions. So that's the only difference in the two that are made before are eight firefighters. The changes that have been made since the city managers proposed budget are as follows. So all of the new positions have now been budgeted at 75% of their salary and benefits costs, assuming that if you approve those positions in the next week, we won't be filling them until the fall. That does not apply to any new position that has someone in it currently, and that is the case with at least two of those positions where there are funded positions that we're now seeking to move into the budget. The school budget operating expense line was adjusted down to reflect reduced health insurance costs. The superintendent had talked about that in her presentation, but when this was this was originally produced we didn't have that reduced number. The school budgets non-tax revenues line was also substantially increased due to both some additional information about additional revenues coming from the state as well as the correction of a data entry error on our end. The total net taxable assessed value figures have been adjusted downward and that's as a result of the conversation that you had with Phil last week, I'm sorry, City Assessor drew last week about moving away from assuming that we were going to use the krt pre-assessed values and instead using his values with the normal yearly market rate adjustments the existing downtown police officer has been moved from the operating budget to the tiff budget and you will see in the hierarchy that's in your packet. I have also budgeted the new proposed downtown PD officer from the TIF budget, and we confirmed with our outside TIF council that officers serving the downtown district were perfectly acceptable budget out of. We have used 2.8 million in unassigned fund balance that's reflected in the non-tax revenues line to offset the tax rate. Additionally, in Tracy's parks and rec budget there was a hundred thousand dollars in capital that was for fiber optic for the water prime. We have moved that to be funded from the TIP budget and used that $100 to further offset minor impact, but it seemed like a logical thing to do. We added some additional revenue to the budget to reflect interest revenue assuming that you approve two clerks. If you do not approve two clerks, we will then go back and adjust that revenue down. We added a hundred and ten thousand dollars, and then I made a one million dollar adjustment to salaries and benefits to assume a reasonable vacancy rate. That is roughly a two percent vacancy rate, so that is very conservative based on what we're seeing currently. A couple of other or just one other item and yesterday or today we learned the library's budget ask is going to be adjusted downward by 28k because much like the school department they received updated information about their health insurance, so their ask will go down by 28. Now the confusing part is in your packet you have these two tax rate calculators that were used to calculate a tax rate, and then as you saw this afternoon, you may have seen the assessor Drew sent around some updated and increase taxable value figures. So I want to just highlight for you the impact of that on what was in your packet. So if you go to the tax rate calculator sheet that says four firefighters or four FF at the top. 1722 is the meal rate. That goes down to 1707 with Phil's new figures. The sheet that says eight FF at the top for eight firefighters would build updated figures that goes down from 1732 to 1717. So that is what you have currently. I thought for a proficiency's sake, it might make sense to start with picking back up of our discussion of the library social worker position. In our last meeting you had a desire to speak with the library director Ben Truth and ask him some questions about that position, and so he doesn't have to stay through this whole thing, I thought we could start with him. Okay, I'm seeing Nuts. Hello, [9:14] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): everybody, I'm [9:22] Unidentified speaker (Library Director): happy to start really briefly, but not the social services hub. We are, our goal is to refer people out. If we don't have a social worker, that's gonna be me doing it, and I won't do any library director work. So we need a social worker because both council in December of 2022 were a de facto day shelter. That was the grounds on which council granted the ARPA grant. And that hasn't really changed. There isn't another day shelter in existence. If that had changed, I'd feel like, well, gosh, it's a no-brainer. We need to have a social worker because there's another place. If that happens in the next year and we see a huge change, then that's going to change what kind of proposal I bring to you next year, but that's not what we're looking at for two weeks from now when this budget goes into effect. We're looking at, we're still not the place where, we're still the place where people are going. That's, that's why we continue to need meet the position. That's how we'll use the position. They're encouraged on how people to come. We ask for the position because then how people are coming, and that challenge will persist if the position is not at the library. So yeah, that's, that's the basic gist. I think a counselor had asked how much, and the, total amount is about ninety thousand dollars. That's total compensation, so that includes benefits and, you know, health insurance, all of that. Not that's not what she gets paid, but the total cost of having the position is about ninety thousand dollars. I [11:28] Joseph Leonard: just had a quick question regarding operation of the library currently right now, specifically in comparison to before there was a ramp up of individuals on the property to after the sidewalk ordinance was passed. Is the library back to post-pandemic normal, or are you still seeing some fallout out from the most recent activities that were happening? [12:05] Unidentified speaker (Library Director): Yeah, the ordinance had an immediate impact, moving us back to post-pandemic normal. I think within 24 hours of the ordinance being passed, people were packing up their belongings and moving to other locations. The sidewalk was clear for people to walk and wheel and everything else that they need to do on the sidewalk down. So, thank you for that ordinance, and thank you to the police department for all their work, and Bruce and all the folks who helped with that process. So that had a direct and immediate impact. Yeah, I will say June through August is our light season. So, in terms of unhoused folks, they're not sheltering from the bitter cold. So they're not in the library as much, but yeah, it's a return to what has been new normal, but hopefully it's not long-term new normal for the library. [13:07] Joseph Leonard: Right. Madam Chair, may I ask a follow-up question? So I know that in a private discussion we had, you were telling us how at a library conference of like similar sized city libraries that we went to, and please don't let me put words in your mouth and correct me if I am misquoting you, were telling us how pretty much every single library had the same issues across the country that Bangor Public Library is facing right now unfortunately and I guess my question I wanted to ask is do you see this as a position that we could in the next year depending on what we do with other their plans regarding how to address the unhousing poverty issues in the city? Do you think this is a position the library might not need in a year? Or do you see this as a very long term position that the library is going to need? [14:15] Unidentified speaker (Library Director): I'd say well, so first of all, what libraries experience nationwide is not totally dissimilar from what we experience. I think service center cities and major urban centers tend to see what we're seeing. We're the first one. We're not a major urban center, right? But that's in some ways challenging, right? We don't have the resources of Boston, but we've got some of the challenges that we're seeing on a smaller scale. But I did write an article with two other colleagues where we did interviews with libraries around the faith. And regardless of community size. Libraries are a hub for folks with unmet needs, and it often starts with like a print job. I don't wanna pick up the whole evening here, but it starts with a print job where somebody comes in and they're like, I don't know how to print this. All I have is a phone. I need to print it out to send it in. And then they're disclosing all kinds of stuff about their social history and their social challenges and unmet needs that libraries are not prepared to serve. And so that's a challenge that's happening statewide. And nationwide, so it's different in different places. I don't want to claim that every library in Maine has an atrium full of full tour any domain, but it's a challenge statewide, and it's what our experience is, common among service center cities and urban centers. So in answer to your other question though, I don't, I don't see this as a very long time position. You know, I really value Olivia, and she's a really great person, and I really like value having her on staff, and if like I if money just grew on trees and we were able to just say yeah, let's keep you know things going, but that's not the situation. So I don't actually see this being a long-term direction for the library. This is a response to the current conditions that we have, and if the way things work in the city were to be different, you know, the flows of populations in the city were to be different, then yeah, I would not be positioned, as much as, you know, that stinks because I really appreciate Olivia and the work that she does. The impact on library staff of having Olivia present is really significant. When staff are put in that position where they think they're answering a printing question and it turns out they're answering a social services question or seeing things that they are, you wouldn't expect librarians to be dealing with. The knowing that we have heard of a resource that are equipped to connect people with the services they need is really important, not only to the person getting the support, but also to library staff being respected as the kind of professional that we want them to be and not as a social services professional. Having just the one position doing that work is important to the population but also to the staff. Thank your answers director [17:39] Joseph Leonard: sorry did you refinish oh yes okay thank you very much we appreciate your answers [17:44] Carolyn Fish: That's all fresh. Hi Ben, how are you? Hi, good. So I love the library, but I just, you know, the ARPA funding was for two years, and with that money and the grants that were given with that, was the message it's two years and this is something you find along the two years you're going to need long term, you should be making a plan, because the city doesn't have, isn't going to be able to incorporate all these ARPA funding grants that were given out for all of these positions that different facilities or companies or non-profits depended on. So I'm curious why there wasn't planning for either fundraising or reaching out and doing a little more research for the library itself to continue the funding. Also I wondered if you've given any thought to, I've called some libraries in the in the past couple of months and some of them have partnered with churches or other partners, and I know you have a weekly every Wednesday or Thursday I think there's a fair of some kind with a lot of service providers and I wondered if there's been conversations about any type of out of the box thinking how they might be able to provide someone in there, if not full-time at least have someone on call that would be needed, an outreach connection, because 80 or 90 000 when we're looking at the budget and looking at the city overall it's a couple of police cars, possibly it's technology, it's you know a mobile piece of equipment for the airport, and as much as i like love the library it's just one of those things where I just wonder why there wasn't better planning, why you know with our unhoused and so many non-profits and outreach why there wasn't more and more aggressive collaboration [19:43] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): and why we as a city picking up the tab. Well so in terms of fundraising it's very hard to [19:51] Unidentified speaker (Library Director): fundraise the million dollars or so that you need to endow a position, and so to fundraise that for something where I'm not even giving the message that I want this to be a permanent position would be really difficult to fundraise it where we're getting you know hundreds of thousands of dollars over a period of years would also be difficult, but probably not as hard as the million dollars to endow a position. I was going out asking for somebody to endow the position, I'm not sure that's the Position I'd ask for either, so fundraising short of developing an auxiliary enterprise where we try to have a business that we have on the side of the library to raise 100,000 a year or 90,000 a year. I just, I don't have another funding mechanism other than the fact that we are a public library, so our funding mechanism is the city. And so if you say no, it's not like, well, why didn't you go start a hardware store and attach it on the library? Why don't you go ask somebody to just give you the money? Other than the city, people would say, well, don't you get your money from the city, you know? So I don't, I don't have that, sort of funding and in my back pocket. We don't have auxiliary enterprise the way like a university might, where they're like, well, we'll get about the bookstore, we'll get about having amazing dining services where people come and like actually eat at our dining services, whatever that might be. We don't have those kinds of auxiliary enterprises that are actually for profit in nature to fundraise separately and say, well, this is our funding plan for having this with all things the library does. Our funding plan is either grant funding because it's brief or city funding if we're able to obtain it for things that we absolutely need to run the library. So that's, that's why we're taking this approach. And so, you had asked out, why not partnerships with other agencies instead of having a position, right? And that's, I understand. I have two concerns with that. One is the agency, there are no agencies that have an additional person that they just don't have doing anything. And they're like, well, why don't we send them to the library to stay there, right? There's, there's nobody who's in that boat where they're like, well, let's have them do all the things that Olivia does, because they already, of those agencies are already doing jobs, they're, they all their staff are doing jobs, so they can't ever go to Olivia's job or him go to Olivia's job because they're already doing a job. They would need to ask somebody for funding for an additional position to go into a loan. My other concern, though, is we don't want to be a service hub. So if we contact a particular social services agency, I'll just say CHTS, but I'm not picking any one particular one for any reason. If we contacted them and said, hey, could you have a person who is in the library in the atrium 40 hours a week providing the same set of services that Olivia provides, but without an office, without a presence on staff, without the connection to staff, and they said sure, they found a way to do that, we're now making ourselves more of a service. We now have the employee of a CHCS as the agency that's sitting in our atrium trying to provide services without necessarily, without even being a staff member. It's a model I like to avoid, honestly. Like, it's something I would like to not have as a, like, 40 hours, go to the library if you want to connect with your counselor or your CHCS case manager or something like that. The reason that Olivia is really useful in maintaining those connections is because people do end up in the library. It is the daytime de facto warming center. Not because Olivia's there, not because we reached out and worked with a different agency. So it's not a lack of planning. It's actually really careful planning to try to not have the library be a service hub, try to have the position that we have in place do the work that I want them to do, which is refer them out to the agencies that, where all of their staff are already busy. That's, that's the work I want Olivia doing, and it's the work she is doing. And if we bring in another agency, they're going to come in with their own agenda, and they're going to come in with their own already existing workload, which they're going to do in our atrium instead of doing where they should be doing it, in their offices. So that's, it's not just that I didn't like think of it. 's that I thought of it and rejected it because I actually think it goes against what I think a lot of us actually all value, which is the library returning to primarily library services, you know. And I think housing a non-profit as a service provider in the library and welcoming, I mean, them in to provide the services of their own agency and the library works, against that. [25:30] Carolyn Fish: And just to be clear, I wasn't considering having a full time, you know, someone partnering, so someone's there full time. I know when I spoke with Olivia, she's got I can't remember how many on her list 38 to 48 service providers that she kind trying to coordinate. So I think by nature of that service, you are becoming a service center. And so I don't know why you still couldn't have a clearing the house with the same service providers. And as needed, what you know, whatever your assessment is, make that call. So it's sort of a clearing house rather than, you know, us funding, you know, a full time homeless coordinator, but still being able to coordinate as Olivia does with this clearing house of providers. So I wasn't thinking that you would, you know, have a partner that would have a full-time take someone out of their place of business and put it in your place of business. I was just thinking of, you know, call as needed or coordinate a certain specific period of time a day or week or something, thinking outside the box where we're just not, you know, putting out ninety thousand dollars or a position that I think makes you a service provider, because you're going to continue to attract these people. You're doing a good service, but if that's not the service you want to be, as you know, can you continue to be part of your business? I think continuing to fund this is going to continue to make the library part of that service. So I just wanted to clarify, but thank you and for your in-depth answer. Now [27:02] Wayne Mallar: I'm curious about, and it should have, I probably should have asked the question sooner, but over a five-year span, has the percentage that the city of Bangor provides for the library gone up much? It's gone up. I don't [27:18] Unidentified speaker (Library Director): have those numbers in front of me either, but it's probably gone up by maybe 10 percentage points. [27:23] Wayne Mallar: And if you, so would you assume then you're going to continue to increase that, because I think we've reached a point in time where you're going to have to, you're not going to be able to rely on your endowments and the city to provide all the services that you need, because I see a duplication of services with what the city provides and what you're trying to provide. I like the idea of one of the 1300 non-profits we have that provide services being at your facility, if you think you need them. I question whether you need them all the time the library is open. I think the people in the city support the library, but I think they're wondering where's the money coming from. I'm, you know, we don't have enough to go around to provide everything for everyone. Opera was a two-year plan, it was not supposed, people hired for positions were not supposed to be continued if you couldn't provide the money, and obviously you can't without going to the city. So I'm not in favor of funding the social work, so [28:30] Michael Beck: Back library's in a unique position because we do not impose on any other in any other business or anyone else this hey you've got unhoused folks coming here deal with it. That's what I'm feeling like I'm hearing is that the problem still exists. So that's why we had the money for the social worker to manage chaos basically and the money the ARPA money ended but the problem remains and that to me isn't the benchmark for why you stop something. And that's my issue here is, you know, Olivia does a lot of work at the library and connects with a lot of people. If she was not there, people would still come. That's not what attracts them. It's the fact that, you know, it is the de facto day center. It's a place where they can go and not be bothered and, you know, charge their phone and do all these things. But they're asking questions, that librarians may not have the answer to where Olivia does. The hope would be is that this is, you know, I see your vision. I agree with this. I could be permanent you know the city is doing work to make things better i mean with our homelessness committee we're trying to come up with a plan we're solving the issue now is not the time to pull the rug on you and say hey do the best you can you solve it you come up with the plan you go out make the partnership that doesn't make sense to me personally you know to that end i'd also like to hear from public health about the fact that what has that done for the city this investment into having a social worker what kind of workload is that taking off of the city with Bruce Hughes and all the work that they're doing over there where how much harder would their job become if we were not to fund this you know because the folks don't disappear because the social worker is not there someone else needs to pick it up and you know there's not 1300 non-profits that deal with this that's a percentage of that you know so that's we can't keep going to that it's just not the time to cut this you know i'm saying fund it and then let's look at it again next year we'll see how we're doing and just like you've always been with your budgets if the needs no longer there we don't see it in the budget you know and how you know that last year was my first budget and you know i remember seeing the fact that you know you had carry over money from something else you didn't come and ask for more on top of it you use that money so I trust the library when you say you need this you need it You've also been very clear that you don't want to have to do this either, but that's on us, the council, that's on us as a city to solve this problem, not the library. So I'm in favor of funding this position. [31:12] Carolyn Fish: And to be fair, I would, if we're going to hear from, you know, our public health and other providers that work within the arena helping to serve and service providers for the unhoused and the vulnerable, I would like to hear from other department heads of how, if we've cut their budget or we've had to deny them others ninety thousand dollars worth of equipment or improvements that they could use that's important to them, I'd like to hear how this would affect them if they couldn't have the ninety. Thousand or the school department, just to be fair and compare, you know, how, if we're going to look at how it's going to hurt the library, I think likewise we should see how other, if we're taking this money to give it to the library, what other departments or wherever we're taking it from, how that affects them as well, whether it's not just for the service for the unhoused, but if it's a piece of equipment, I.T., or a new car for parks and rec, I think we have to look at the budget as a whole of how it. Affects us in the entirety. [32:21] Susan Deane: One quick, last year we did not approve any new positions, we didn't allow the graders, are the graders still in the bus? Yes. And how many graders do you have? Currently have three. [32:42] Susan Faloon: Good comment. And then I guess just a comment. I literally just drove from the public library to here and they are experiencing the same thing. But I, in fact, maybe it was, but I just think it's unfair. Like we're working to tackle this problem, which we know isn't it easy, but I just think it would be really unfair, I mean, the library staff didn't ask for this situation. If all those folks were coming to city hall, you know, we would be trying to deal with it here, but they're not, they're going to the library because there's a place to sit, they can use computers, they can use all of those things, it's just the nature of where they are, but I just think it would be really unfair to, you know, pull the. rug out on this and leave them to handle a situation that we are working to tackle and maybe a year from now we won't need that position but right now i just really think it's pretty clear that we do i [33:52] Joseph Leonard: Have a succession of quick questions. Is that okay if I ask it of Ben? It'll be very quick. I'm trying to be brief in my answer too. Is that okay? Yeah, I'm chair. So this 90,000 position, if it were not to be had, how many positions would then have to change their job description to take on the responsibility of that one person? Is it one? Is it five? I mean, it's hard to answer. [34:28] Unidentified speaker (Library Director): answer briefly essentially all the positions other than the foreign taxer and the business manager everybody who is going to have to do all of that agencies that they don't regularly if I'm not there I so arguably one it's me and I'm gonna have to do nothing but that work but everybody is going to have to be there in the entire social services [34:59] Joseph Leonard: Okay, structure of the city, you know, let's just keep it simple. Let's assume it's you. What is your salary overall? 120. Okay, and then your job descriptions as the director of the library, what are you going to have to do? Where are you going to have to sacrifice from your job description, your duties, in order to take on responsibilities of the social work of this 90,000 position? And I guess specifically how much, how much lost value that your position brings? Regardless of who you are, like any director, what is the value loss of having a library director take on those very real challenges? What are we losing? [35:53] Unidentified speaker (Library Director): Right. So before we had Olivia, I considered it to be my responsibility to reach out to social services agencies to try to figure out what are we going to do with this person who's in our library not breaking any rules but definitely in crisis. Nobody wants to see the person in crisis and everyone wants the crisis to be resolved but I don't have a means of fixing it. That means constantly rebuilding that network which is what Olivia does on a regular basis. So I'm constantly doing that work and not. That was my experience for the year before. [36:36] Joseph Leonard: And I'm so sorry, Ben, could you describe what your duties are as a library director? [36:43] Unidentified speaker (Library Director): Yeah, I manage the library, develop the budget, work with staff to make sure that we're doing the cultural history of the city along with the historical society and the city clerk. And making sure that the agency is doing that, the library is doing that work of retaining collections and creatively about how to inspire literacy and people of all ages. [37:18] Joseph Leonard: So, and this may be the final question. If you are gonna be taking on all the responsibilities of that social worker, you're gonna have to detract from those responsibilities as a director. So even if you don't completely 100% detract from all of them, what I'm hearing is you are not going to be able to do even 50% of your capabilities as a director for all those responsibilities that you have. And so I don't mean to put words in your mouth, and this is a question, but I think the $90,000 putting into this social worker is literally the cheaper option. [37:58] Daniel Carson: That's just how I see it. Thank you. Manager, I have a question, maybe for you, could be first, our city assessor, and then a comment. The question is, when were the numbers from KRT due? There's a thousand dollar a day fine, I remember right. It's like also June, was it June 8th, June 1st? [38:27] Susan Deane: When was KRT's, when, on what date did care if you become late, or will they become? [38:37] Daniel Carson: So Monday, June 8th, that entire week, and it was August 11th that they said they would have numbers to when they emailed you with the extension. I thought it was pretty far right. They extended it to August 15, August 15. So if I say so, if they are not confident in that, but that is 60 in fines at $67,000. From the day they became late until the day that they say that they're going to the most number, so probably more if they don't buy that. So where I'm going with that is, I agree that pulling the rug out could be, would be a problem, and I think it's really important with the experience, you know, everybody right now is experiencing high costs, you know, whether it's energy or housing or groceries or you name it, 's it's really high, right, and so I think we really need to be good stewards here. I appreciate your perspective that you don't want this to become permanent, and so my perspective is that just knowing that there's a piece of that there I would be inclined to want to continue, but to, for us to provide the homeless committee with the guidance that we're not going to continue this position after one more year, and that needs to be built into the plan that they built as part of the solution, right, and so I, we have to change the conditions, and I think some of the ways that we're going to do that is for us to set goals for ourselves as a council, so that would be my personal, just to [40:27] Michael Beck: keep things going, I'd like to actually make a motion to fund the library's budget as presented to the city. Second. [40:38] Susan Deane: Won't you call it? Is there a discussion, any discussion further? Roll call vote. There will be Counselor Dean, yes. Council person, yes. Counselor Walker, yes. Counselor Beth, yes. Yeah, that's our mallard, no. Counselor Fish, no. Counselor, no. Six yes, three, seven. So, suggest Reno, it has friends and thank you. Thanks very much, everyone. Thank you. So the next item on my short list was I'm wondering if we can release Marie Superintendent Robinson. So the only question that you had posed to me about the school budget during our last work session was Counselor Miller, you had raised after I discussed the that we were budgeting new positions at 75 percent, you would raise the question might we suggest to the school department that they do the same and I think because Superintendent Robinson will discuss that in more detail but they the school year works very differently than city operations and so it doesn't really make sense for the schools to do that. No, it doesn't. [42:14] Unidentified speaker (School Department Representative): We are bound by the contracts within our school department and we are also working diligently now and typically are just about fully staffed at the start of the school year so it wouldn't make much sense to make any adjustments to anything at this point in terms of reducing the allocation for our salaries. Do [42:41] Wayne Mallar: we have any other questions? I have a question, another question on tuition students. Are we do we have an increase for next year or are we remaining the same or is it a decrease? [42:56] Susan Deane: What's our tuition cost for sending towns? I'd have to check on those specific numbers. I was not [43:06] Unidentified speaker (School Department Representative): prepared with that information specifically but in terms of tuition students overall I can speak to that. We have seen a decline in tuition students from our sending towns but there's also been a decline in the enrollment in the sending town schools so it seems to you know follow that trend but we do we are actually working actively to bolster our enrollment with you know adding additional pathways one being our online pathway I live in this year and I'm going to continue next [43:38] Wayne Mallar: year. Oh, I've asked for two years for the amount of tuition students and the payment that they make and I've never gotten it. Is it our budget? I just don't have it. No, I'm saying but I'm telling you that I have personally asked the question at meetings before and never gotten a response. Want so that's why I keep asking and I said eventually I'll get a response. We can certainly [44:04] Unidentified speaker (School Department Representative): provide that information. Any [44:10] Susan Deane: other questions? Great. [44:14] Michael Beck: Thank you. I'm sorry. Well, I would just say if there's no more questions, I'd make the motion that we would fund the school budget as presented. [44:20] Carollynn Lear: I moved. [44:24] Susan Deane: and seconded to fund the school budget as presented sorry discussion counselor [Unidentified speaker (School Department Representative): Dean? Yes.] Yes,, well. [44:46] Wayne Mallar: Having traditionally been the no vote, I'll say no again. Yes. [44:56] Susan Deane: yes one now yes one now the school budget will be funded as presented right thank you an inch the most anxious i am is when i call the role that i'm going to forget one of your videos i don't know why but it just that causes me great anxiety all right so the next item on my list i guess i'll take an easy one first so at last, our Monday night's legislative committee meeting, we discussed the legislative committee's desire to budget a small amount of money in the event that committee would like to utilize a lobbyist at some point. And the idea was not to sort of go out and hire someone immediately, but to have that money available if we determined that there was a specific piece of legislation that we really wanted to influence and we can procure those services at the time. I would recommend twenty thousand dollars to do that, and would be looking for just any questions and everyone's consent on that before moving forward. That would have no perceptible impact on the mill rate. So you have to spend $50,000 before there's a penny impact. That's our Dean. If we do not need the lobbyists, if Councillor Carson or yourself can handle it, where does that money go? So that would then roll into the unassigned fund balance if it was unspent. [46:51] Carolyn Fish: But also that might be earmarked for outside legal counsel should something unusual come up that we need outside legal consultation as well on particular legislation or something we need, third party consultation? [47:07] Susan Deane: Yeah, I think if we, gosh, the line between lobbyists and lawyers is thin oftentimes. But I would say we would probably use our existing outside counsel line if we had a legal question, and we would only use this lobbyist line for admins. [47:30] Wayne Mallar: That's a mouth. Yeah, I guess we have an overlay, right? We do. Is the overlay a percentage? I think that's how we arrive at it. Yes. So why wouldn't we just, if this is something we don't know whether we're going to spend or not, why wouldn't we just take it out of the overlay instead of making it part of the budget and increasing the overlay? My understanding of [47:53] Susan Deane: The overlay is that it can't be used for any unanticipated expense, specifically for tax abatements, tax non-payments. This isn't a tax abatement or a non-payment, correct? So it wouldn't [48:04] Wayne Mallar: be, we wouldn't be able to, well, that's, you're saying that's the only thing that can be used, okay, the [48:11] Susan Deane: alternative is if you said no to this and then we determined that we needed a lobbyist, I could come to you with a resolve requesting an appropriation for unassigned fund balance. [48:21] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): That would require two readings, which would just slow down the process, but [48:29] Wayne Mallar: does it inflate the on it, the overlay, by making, I mean, I'm, this is a small amount, but I mean, if we do it for [48:36] Susan Deane: other things, I don't believe it would include overlay, and Bill probably understands the overlay better than I do, or you can shake your head now and say you don't understand, but I thought it was more a percentage, you go, you go, I won't even say what I think, yeah, there's a chair, you'd like to say, Bill's [49:04] Carollynn Lear: River City Assessor, I think the goal this year was just to have an overlay of a flat amount near five hundred thousand dollars, just to make sure we have money and any potential tax appeals, and that came forward, and that would be, that's right, we did [49:24] Susan Deane: set it at a flat amount that was higher than last year, I [49:34] Joseph Leonard: was going to make a motion to approve of the twenty thousand dollar legislative lobbyist budget addition, second [49:43] Susan Deane: then moved and seconded to approve the twenty thousand dollars for the lobbyist discussion. [49:49] Michael Beck: So my assumption is that this lobbyist, the things that we're most likely to focus on, are things that would, should they pass, would kind of pay dividends to the city, so this would more [50:01] Susan Deane: or less be an investment, I would think, absolutely, yeah, and I think, I did, on top of that, we'd probably only utilize it in scenarios where either myself or someone else didn't have confidence that [50:16] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): they could effectively lobby on that topic themselves and just follow up, if I could, [50:23] Michael Beck: yep, and then of course if it's not spent, would it roll over for the same purpose next year, or would it go, did you say the unsigned fund balance, and we'd have to budget it again. [50:35] Daniel Carson: Okay, I was just going to make a comment because I realized you weren't there at that meeting, but we have discussed that this idea, this was not as a, you know, to bring somebody on or as a replacement or substitute for the committee actually doing the work of building relationships and taking on those questions. This was, I think we had the idea that if something really sort of complex came up, it was beyond the scope of our [51:09] Susan Deane: Has been moved and seconded. So Councillor Deane, yes. [Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): Yes.] Yes,, nine yes, zero no. The 20,000 for the lobbyist has approval. All right, so the next item on my list to talk about is to refer back to your packet and talk about the first page, which was the hierarchy that I produced for you. So [Carolyn Fish: I] have broken the new position request into those that I think are critical priority, meaning without these resources I don't believe that we're going to be able to meet the basic expectations that you or the public have for the provision of city services. Then there's high priority, which is these positions are needed to maintain current service levels, give an increased demand, decrease staff burnout due to high workloads, or the position shows a clear monetary, you know, return on investment. The thing I would highlight in this section is that there are three positions that are in italics, and those three positions are positions that aren't funded through the operating budget. They are funded through either an enterprise fund or the TIFF budget, so those don't flow through to the tax rate. And then the third category are positions that we have proposed to you because we think it will allow us to do things better or more efficiently. I have taken the liberty of calculating for you the mill rate for if you were to approve only the critical priority positions, and also if you were to approve both the critical and the high priority positions. So if you were to approve only the critical priority positions, you would arrive at a mill rate of 16.85. That represents a total increase in city expenses of 3.8%. If you were to approve both the critical priority and the high priority, you would have a mill rate of 17.13. That represents an increase in total city expenses of 5 points. I also have an in-between scenario that I won't confuse the matter with, but when we get there, if you'd like to, so with that, how would you like to approach the new positions? I think there's probably two possibilities. There's going through the list position by position, or there is taking these in the chunks that they were presented in when we talked about these positions before you actually put them into this hierarchy. We talked about them at length. So I think from my perspective, looking at the critical priority, I can see where we came up with those from the discussions we had, the same with the high priority. So I don't know, for me, I don't think I need to look at each one individually again, unless there is a lot of discussion about whether we keep the position or don't. But that's, that's up to the group. [55:50] Joseph Leonard: Councilman. I guess I agree with you, Councillor Haas. I guess the only question I would want to ask ourselves is how do we want to approach the potential for firefighters to aid firefighters discussion. I think that's the only thing that we would need to give clear guidance on. Because I do agree with you. I think critical and high priority positions that are presented to us, I can't really look at, I mean, critical priority, I don't see how we can not have any of them. But for high priority, I am having a hard time giving myself even a conservative reason as to cut any of those positions. So I guess the only question, the only thing I would want to have a discussion on are four firefighters compared to eight firefighters. Can [56:38] Susan Deane: you address that too? Yes, and so when you look at the, cost to approve both the critical priority and the high priority, that assumes eight firefighters. Okay. Awesome. That's [56:59] Carolyn Fish: okay. If I remember when we went over the budget at the time and we talked about four versus eight, and I think a comment was we could use a, that would be great, you know, I was asked, you know, my ideal wish, so you know, I'm sure they need eight, but I just don't know that, my impression wasn't, it wasn't a crisis and an emergency, and so what, and but if it's just so very little difference and they feel they need the eight, what impact would it have if we gave everything but instead of the full eight, we gave them four firefighters instead of the full eight, but we still did everything, we still went [57:44] Susan Deane: With a high priority as well as the critical. Yeah, so that is not a scenario I ran, but the cost of the additional or firefighters is a piece of information that I have. 17.07 the rate increased [58:00] Joseph Leonard: Than 17.7, 83.8 all [58:05] Michael Beck: Right, if I just want to piggyback off that, could we hear from, oh please, yeah, just to refresh your memory on that and [58:14] Susan Deane: So it's a difference of roughly 400 bucks [58:16] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): Good evening, good evening, the PHP volunteer. So right now we have a pilot program that [58:26] Carollynn Lear: We've started. We had vacancies on the firefighter side and we attempted to hire four paramedics to staff a fourth ambulance. With those four medics, our plan was to staff a daytime fourth truck, essentially four days a week or five days a week, essentially if we had all four, and that would be Monday through Friday, which is our busiest time that we have. Our goal is to have that truck come online 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We haven't changed our operational model since pretty much the 1990s. We've had three ambulances providing ALS service and our call volume has more than doubled since that time. Last year we responded to just under 11,000 calls, 10,843, which is about 30 calls per day. Cheap low mentioned to you about the unit hour utilization, which measures the percentage of time an ambulance is actively committed to call. Typically EMS uses a range of 0.30 to 0.50 and a UHU above 0.50 means crews are on calls more than half of their shift. This leads to a lot of severe burnout and a lack of available units for other emergencies. Case in point, rescue one last year responded to just under 4500 calls, which is a of 0.51, so just can call time half their day is for responding calls. This does not count time, let's go for the documentation, which can take another 20 to 30 minutes or more. Training time, we have equipment checks, apparatus checks, we have and chores that we do, so the day is filled with a lot of a lot of activity. Since February 23, we've lost 35 employees, 27 directly due to burnout. Oh sorry, 27 due to burnout, not Wanting to mean the fire service or they took a job with another agency that had fewer calls. This includes two of our members who committed suicide. Out of those 35, only six left. So the burnout piece is a huge, aspect that we've been facing. So we feel that having this fourth track will help with that burnout, help with retention, but it's also going to allow us to provide a better service to the citizens. So we don't have to rely on mutual aid, we don't have guys hurrying to change that call to make sure they can respond to the next call, so that's the main reason behind the eight versus the four. Yes. [1:01:25] Unidentified speaker (Community Economic Development Director): Also then. [1:01:27] Joseph Leonard: So thank you for that quick assessment, Chief Pelletier, and you know, I want to be very clear, I was, when initially reading the budget, I personally was already thinking to myself, I do want to support the firefighters. That was before Jeep Low got up here to talk to us, and when, especially after hearing, but I'm sorry, after knowing everything that has gone on with this department and its relationship with the city since, my time on Council, it has been a very toxic relationship, and part of this for me is trying to amend a lot of that, a lot of those relationships that either soured or the bridges have just been burned entirely, and I still stand by my statement I made when Chief Flo was here. I'm not gonna vote in favor of this budget unless all a firefighters are funded. [1:02:45] Carolyn Fish: I'd certainly like to give everybody everything as well, and I just wanted to understand, you know, I didn't know if the four was something that was something that could fit your need, and if we had four more we could expand implementation of other projects or ideas we've had on the back burner, or if the whole eight, like you need them now, you can implement them now, so I needed, so thank you, and I'm still a little unclear. I know you said about 50 percent of your people that are off duty still get called in, is that what you said? [1:03:23] Carollynn Lear: Fifty percent of your overtime, fifty percent of the time shift is spent towards responding to [1:03:29] Carolyn Fish: calls, that's what I meant. Oh, fifty percent of the time is responding to calls. Okay, and there's a high burnout, so the eight positions are those positions you have right now in action plan to implement those to help satisfy some of the issues you're just explaining. So you do have an action plan to implement them now. Not just the four but the eight. Okay, thank you. [1:03:58] Wayne Mallar: In reference to the burnout rate, is any of the burnout rate caused by the fact that you have people working 72 hours shifts? That is part of it, yes. Now is that preventable, or is the union contract tie you into that? [1:04:16] Carollynn Lear: We've had a lot of vacancies this year again for several different reasons. We've had long-term injuries, we've had military deployments, we've had, like I said, people just leaving because this wasn't really the right role for them as well though. At the beginning of the year, we were down 10 positions. So that is a big hurdle to overcome. So a couple of the injuries, vacations, and sick leave, it's just, it seems like every day we're hiring. So if we had more personnel, that could help alleviate the overtime costs. [1:04:51] Wayne Mallar: Would we cause the, I don't like to see people serving three shifts in a row. Would that be preventable if you've got more people? Would you implement that, or would you still allow shift changes so they can get all their work done in two or three days and then [1:05:10] Carollynn Lear: take the rest of the month up? I think the personnel could help prevent that if we didn't have the vacancies. I think any changes in overtime would have to be negotiated. [1:05:23] Wayne Mallar: But shift swaps would have nothing, I mean, they can swap shifts now and you have no control over that? Or do you [1:05:31] Carollynn Lear: have control? It's in the contract that they're allowed so many swaps. [1:05:33] Wayne Mallar: So that means you really can't prevent them from working 72 hours in a row. OSHA agrees with that? [1:05:42] Carollynn Lear: That, so we are concerned about, we are working on a fatigue management plan, but we have to deal with that. We try to build in some time where crews can try to get some rest. We can put them, right now we call it third call because of the third truck, we have two other trucks respond before them. So sometimes we're up against, we don't have enough people to work, so we do have to implement, that's imposed measures so [1:06:10] Susan Deane: Council phone, no, Council Dame, sorry, Mr. Hens. [1:06:15] Susan Faloon: [1:06:18] Carollynn Lear: Are you still down ten positions, or from the down? We are not down ten positions. We have six who are finishing up their, take peak orientation, so they'll be coming on shift, I believe, after next week, so that would help. We have hired three of the medical positions, so I think currently we're down three or four right now. I believe we just got another resignation [1:06:46] Susan Faloon: in our, I guess a question here, are you still able to attract new people, new applicants, and then can you speak to morale and like what the four and or the eight new [1:07:02] Carollynn Lear: Positions would do for morale, I think any increase is going to help morale. I think the aid would allow us to have that truck on 24 7. We have seen a major increase right now with just the daytime coverage. It has really helped even out that call burden. It's allowed some of our crews to attend training a lot easier without being pulled out. So that truck has made a big difference right now morale wise. I think if we're able to do that 24 7, it's only going to increase morale more. [1:07:32] Susan Faloon: And just to circle back on, you're still able, you're still getting people applying. [1:07:37] Carollynn Lear: We still have people that are applying every day, yes. [1:07:44] Susan Deane: I would like clarification on the 4 and 8 as far as the operating costs because in our budget book it's double. You said it was a good 4. So it's this much for 4 and this much for 8. So it's double this, the difference is that we have since made the decision to budget all new positions at 75%, and so that's why the numbers don't match any longer because we're now, this is also, that's right. Okay, and my other question is I realize you're, you're short staff, but those positions already budgeted for, so in the perfect world we've had everyone staffed with the floor. [1:08:26] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): Are new, you know, not adequately staff, the four new would help backfill the firefighter positions. [1:08:34] Carollynn Lear: Because we use those four positions to try to hire the firebacks, so they're kind of a single role employee where we would try to hire back those four dual role a firefighter position. So that would help keep our firefighter rank up, and it would still potentially help us with a daytime time use of the truck, but it wouldn't help with a 24 7. [1:08:57] Susan Deane: My other concern is retention, you know, that we've trained people and they have left. So if we train four and they leave, we train eight and they leave, almost more people if we put the time and effort into eight. So what is your confidence level? [1:09:13] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): In training eight people and getting them to stay, I think the, if we have able to get the eight. [1:09:19] Carollynn Lear: Positions, I think we could attract other positions. I think it would open up more opportunity. Not everyone wants to be a firefighter, just like not everyone wants to be a paramedic. I think the 24 hour get home is attractive to a lot of people, especially that are in the EMS world now. So I think we could attract some more potential candidates for a medical position, and I still think that we'd be attractive for firefighters, and I do think by having the truck showing that we're trying to reduce that. Even out that workload, I think that would help with retention as well. [1:09:57] Wayne Mallar: When she mentioned, I brought up a question I had, so it used to be that when you hired a firefighter they had to have some paramedic training, and now you can hire a specific firefighter and [1:10:12] Carollynn Lear: all paramedics to be hireable you need to have an EMT basic license, and we require all of our employees right now to become a paramedic. We've signed an MOU that we've hired just a medical position as fourth ambulance. They're trained to do some auxiliary firefighter duties like dressing a fire hydrant, maybe helping throw a ladder, but they're not doing anything on the inside. [1:10:40] Michael Beck: Council back and the correct paper mama just summarizing what chief was here. He worked for what I heard was for the band aid, it's the facts. [1:10:52] Daniel Carson: Okay, no, [1:10:56] Carolyn Fish: I think I agree. I know. My family's been part of public safety. And we have friends and relatives and police department and fire and police. And, you know, we're very proud and of our fire department, and I know you guys have been through a lot, so we certainly in I think the city at least during my tenure has really I think tried to make the effort to have a better relationship, and we want to continue to do that, but I'm also concerned about, you know, if we give the aid with the hope that it is helping the morale, I would be interested and I don't know how we could do this, but it would be nice if we could have some ideas of this might be helpful, but what else, you know, I think there's not only maybe some morale we could improve on with our relationship with the city, but maybe internally within the fire department itself, so it would be interesting if we give these eight positions to see what from your perspective what else internally as well as the relationship WITH US AS A CITY, WE COULD DO TO HELP CONTINUE TO WORK ON THIS MORALE, TO HAVE IT CONTINUE TO IMPROVE. SO WITH THESE, IF WE DO VOTE FOR THESE EIGHT POSITIONS, I'D LIKE TO HAVE ATTACHED WITH THAT A PLAN AND IDEAS OF HOW WE CAN CONTINUE TO HAVE THIS COLLABORATIVE CONVERSATION, CONTINUING TO HOPEFULLY CONTINUE TO IMPROVE MORALE INTERNALLY WITHIN YOUR OWN DEPARTMENT, BUT WITH THE RELATIONSHIP [1:12:27] Susan Deane: we have with the city absolutely yes yeah question is there a motion to fund we fund our critical and high priorities second i moved and seconded to i think the motion was to find the critical and the highest so that's eight and all of them okay make sure we're all yeah okay so yes I just have a question the park rangers that are going [1:13:13] Wayne Mallar: From part-time to full-time, what was the necessity for that? I mean, what was the logical reasoning? [1:13:21] Susan Deane: Yeah, I'll actually invite Tracy up to replace, and we'll leave Chief Pelletier talk about what it is that those park rangers do, and it's one position that's going from [1:13:37] Wayne Mallar: part-time treasurer parks recreation director. Oh, excuse me, it's only one position. I didn't understand this is fine. I don't need your explanation. Well heard that right here everything [1:13:51] Susan Deane: so we [1:14:04] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): do have a motion and a second for that. Yes, and just to make sure I heard right, so if [1:14:09] Michael Beck: we do the crit and the high that mill rate was 17 13. 17 yes one [1:14:19] Susan Deane: question before. I'm not confident that we're going to be able to staff eight firefighters and the ones that are missing see right now. What does that do to our budget if we do not have the numbers? So any unspun, any unspent, any unspun money would go into the undesigned on the sign clock balance at the end, just like I mean with a caveat that particularly with the fire department because it is one of those critical functions where if you don't have people you pay overtime to ensure that there's someone in the ambulance to respond. Undoubtedly some amount of that would wind up getting moved to overtime. Any further discussion on these two, the critical priority and the high priority? Councilman [1:15:19] Michael Beck: just to say that it would be interesting to receive a report after these positions get filled. It was we did a lot of talk about how a lot of these positions pay for themselves, and it would be good to be able to tell that story to the public that these are investments not just spending, you know, so that would be helpful. I [1:15:39] Unidentified speaker (Community Economic Development Director): think it's also helpful if [1:15:41] Susan Deane: they when they see these titles and what departments are affected that it's city-wide, it's really bolstering up all of our functions in the city, so it's not just one or two things. Okay, are we, for the discussion, you're ready to go through the roll? Okay, Councillor Deek. Yes. Councillor Portslank. Yes. Councillor Walker. Yes. Councillor Fapp. Yes. [1:16:13] Wayne Mallar: Councillor Leonard. Yes. Councillor Palou. Yes. Councillor Malheur. Because at our early meeting in December, we determined that we didn't want any new hires, I find myself forced to vote now. Councillor Fitch. Yes. Councillor Haas. Yes. [1:16:29] Susan Deane: Eight yes, one no. Eight yes, one no. So the critical priority and high priority segments have been next on the agenda is, I guess, I would, I'd like to open it up to whether there are any additional items that were funded in the capital for new programs that anyone would like to talk about or bring up. It's six pages long, so I just don't think it makes sense to go item by item, but I did want to provide the opportunities if anyone has questions or concerns. I [1:17:33] Wayne Mallar: have a concern. It seems that some departments, I'm not going to pick on anyone in particular, but don't understand the budgeting process when they seem to want everything done in one year when they realize that there is a replacement time for an item and we should be reserving it over the replacement time so we don't get hit all at once. Our budgeting process is nil to none in a lot of areas. [1:18:03] Susan Deane: Yeah, I will say that, you know, myself and the department had to engage in a pretty lengthy process before the budget ever comes to you, and there were definitely many places is where we were having those conversations to say, okay, that's five hundred thousand dollars, do you need it this year or can we budget 250 000 this year and next year? And so we definitely do some amount of that. Yeah, we can certainly continue to do better and more. [1:18:36] Wayne Mallar: No, I agree, we do some and sometimes, but it seems that with our life of our fixed assets, it's not been considered in the past as a replacement, so we have not budgeted every year for, and that gets to be when you have a bad year you cut things that you shouldn't, and so I think we have to be more cash flow on our budget for fixed assets especially other. [1:19:10] Susan Deane: Questions? Councilman? Yep, the [1:19:12] Michael Beck: mole redevelopment plan, it's two hundred thousand dollars. I guess I'd like to hear more about both what are we getting for our money and what are taxpayers getting for their money if we [1:19:22] Susan Deane: say yes to that. You know, I think that's a really apt item to bring up, particularly because I think that as we've certainly read in the paper, there's a buyer who has their own plan for what they want to do that they don't need us to produce for them a mall redevelopment plan. I think there's a couple of options that we could proceed with that new information being out there. We could keep it in there just in case the sale falls through and we do need to do a redevelopment plan, in which case I Invite Ann up to come and tell you what that would exactly entail. We might make it more generic and just assign it for mall redevelopment, in light of the fact that undoubtedly to support that development there will be comments that we may be asked to contribute to, or we could cut it all together and return that money to unsigned fund balance. [1:20:26] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): I mean those are all reasonable options in my opinion. I guess I would be in favor of just [1:20:32] Michael Beck: putting it back to the unsigned fund balance, and then if it comes up then we can have that discussion about a sign at that time. [1:20:39] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): Questions? [1:20:49] Susan Deane: If we do, if we do need to utilize this, can we draw from the unsigned fund balance so we're not out? No, and you'll recall that when we created the new HR director position that's exactly what we did, removing that. Did you have a second [1:21:11] Wayne Mallar: question? You know that's my question, that's a mountain. If we put it in the unassigned fund balance it doesn't affect the tax rate, correct? Because we were paying for it with unassigned [1:21:24] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): fund balance, right? So [1:21:29] Wayne Mallar: how much do we have in the other one? I don't, I don't see the necessity of putting it in there. I mean we're here to affect the tax rate and yeah this is, that does not affect the tax rate and we put it in the other side. If we don't put it in it will, right? [1:21:45] Susan Deane: Yeah, I think the unassigned fund is not going to be meaningfully bolstered by that two, $200,000, it's pretty healthy. So you can certainly also choose to use it to reduce the tax rate, if you so. But then all my numbers are wrong. Now you have a question on that. Actually, I think I just have a comment now. [1:22:16] Carolyn Fish: I think having $200,000 with unknown where, how would it play in as the mall project comes to fruition or not? I think putting it back there we may find we don't need 200 or we need more once we know what the plan is and what the request is and how to better partner. I think it makes sense to revert it back and then once we know what we need to go back to that idea. [1:22:41] Susan Deane: So a vote for sharing it down inside, yeah? [1:22:49] Michael Beck: I would move to strike the two hundred thousand dollars for the mall rebuild plan from the budget and leave it, you know, site fund balance. [1:22:59] Susan Deane: Second that. Comes out of the budget so it's back to the unassigned fund balance. It's very far, the discussion. Roll call. Yes, that's a person. Yes, that's our rocker. Yes,, guess. Good to vote yes for a change. Yes, that's our thoughts. Yes, nine yes, zero no. Just doesn't feel right. So nine yes, zero no, that we will send the 20,000 back to me on the sign fund balance. [1:23:47] Michael Beck: Anything else? Yep, and then I just had a question about the City Hall items, the renovations, because it seemed like the project that never ends. Yeah, like for example though, the 400,000 for repointing the exterior, that was something I didn't didn't expect to see. Not saying it's not necessary, but I guess just, oh, is this something we're going to see again next year? That's like the end of the project that we're looking at right here. Yeah, I'm going to invite [1:24:18] Susan Deane: Night Jefferson has come up, he's our brief pointing so [1:24:36] Unidentified speaker (Facilities/Construction Manager): They're repointing during the City Hall renovation. That was an add-on and the goal was to do all four sides. When the prices came back it was four hundred thousand dollars to do two sides, so they chose to do the two worst sides. So we still have, we did the front and then the east side where the parking place, the back, and this west side has not been done, hasn't been done in 40 years, 50 years, so we've had a lot of leaks. So it is needed. Can we wait another year? Yes. And we did have the contractor touch up some areas that were the worst of the worst on the back side and this west side, but it wasn't done as this major renovation. So eventually it needs to be done or we're going to have leaks and that's going to cause more issues. [1:25:45] Michael Beck: Follow up if I could. Yeah, it sounds like definitely, you know, it's more expensive the way to hear. This doesn't affect the mill rate, right? This is not assigned front balance, so it makes sense to do it now then try to do it next year and who knows what more will happen between then and us. And okay, and then the last question was just is this the last major piece that you know of, or is there next year we have more? Well [1:26:10] Unidentified speaker (Facilities/Construction Manager): This is an old building. We the major project that we finished up, the majority of that project was fixing up the mechanical system, all three floors, and of course the elevator. We only renovated the first floor. The second and third floor are not renovated, so you have old bathrooms, old floor and old ceiling. I mean we did do some ceiling grids, we put new lights upstairs, but again the second, third floor it was only mechanical and some lighting. So yes, there so there will be times that fix. Yes, okay. Appreciate it, thank you. Did [1:26:52] Susan Deane: we finish the project with the outside lights down at the end by the parking lot? Yeah, at the end of the building down the ramp, that does building lights put on there. Are those done? No, there's a non-time [Joseph Leonard: I think] The other item to note about building renovations is the other thing that's sort of on our radar is the old council chambers. Yes, that sort of lives as it existed previously with lots of junk land, and eventually I think that would be would require investment something. [1:27:32] Unidentified speaker (Facilities/Construction Manager): Very good in storage, it's still been used. Certainly the goal would be to make offices. [1:27:45] Carolyn Fish: That's a question. Sometimes we call during the process the initial assessment, I think it was discovered just how bad the outside needed to be reappointed. I think in the beginning it wasn't understood, if I can remember from the council meetings we had, the extent of how bad the exterior was after we were already putting all the expense of this first floor. There was a lot of concern about intrusion of water and therefore that's when the exterior reappointing all of the stone that came to our attention, and then I think there was a bit of a hustle to get the first the most important deteriorated walls done, and then when the other two areas were assessed it came to be that we have to do that too just to preserve what we have done, and that's why we're seeing the 400 last year and 400 this year if I remember right. Am I correct it was an add-on? But yeah. [1:28:41] Susan Deane: Yeah, any other questions comments? That's [1:28:52] Susan Faloon: up for them question. Before I ask my real question, are we sticking to any one particular area here with our questions or just kind of general budget? Yeah, I guess I'm looking at and I know you know we're not going to go line by line, but a couple of the things that we talked about a little bit when we when we went over the parks and rec budget was the resurfacing of the painful school 400 000 and the community gardens might be a lot and like could any of the that weight and I just wanted to you know people looking at maybe we can increase again just I guess I'm just looking at some of these bigger ticket items and not necessarily just in parks and rec but those are the two that I just pulled out quickly. Can we is there any of this stuff that we could delay so that we can pull it out of the budget for this year just kind of you know what the state is responding to? Yeah. [1:29:56] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): Great park recreation director. The first question the pool resurfacing as we talked about during our budget presentation pad spring the surface at the panco aquatic center is the original surface from 2004. It is starting to show age, cracking tiles are starting to fall off on the edges, so it is time. As I shared with you at the workshop, agreed it's an eight-week facility, but again it's the original surfacing on the floor of the pool, and as we talked about with deferred maintenance in general, the longer it goes, who knows how long, much more in depth repairs will be as we go. So it's the best way I can answer, can we put it off? So that's a decision you can make. We can put off another year. The longer we put off, the more the concern of the more significant the damage will continue to be and more costly when the time comes to resurface it, if indeed we delay it. That give you an answer at least what you're looking for as far as considering that. Regarding the paving at the community garden, I recall the community garden Essex Street is repurposed, the former naval reserve property, the pavement and the parking that is there essentially as it existed when the naval reserve was there a few years ago. The intent would be to reorganize and improve that amenity with a defined parking area as well as improve the access roads around the community garden. Currently we're 300 plus beds at the community garden, so it has become a busy place, a very unique amenity for the city, and again that estimate was from our facilities master plan that we completed when they were to five or six years ago, so again much like a lot of the discussion we have when deferring these kinds of things, it couldn't wait another year. The garden will function certainly as it has been. If indeed it is deferred, then certainly we'll see it again another year. [1:32:04] Susan Deane: Any questions before he [1:32:14] Michael Beck: Yes, so I have a question about another item, the cultural commission, their budget hasn't been increased in a decade or more, however long it's been. I'd like to see if there's some interest Tristan somehow to add $2,500 to their budget, the Lone Duel Award, see how it goes and have that conversation again next year. [1:32:40] Carolyn Fish: That's okay. I think just offering any amount of money to any department that didn't ask for it [1:32:46] Susan Faloon: is in the slippery slope. [1:32:48] Carolyn Fish: If they asked, if they had something specific, an idea, anything for the cultural committee, for our community, I think would be great. I certainly think we should be open-minded that they could even come in perhaps and ask for something, but I think to just kind of randomly say let's give them more money is just not something I'm comfortable with. [1:33:14] Joseph Leonard: Counselor Beck, do you think that because I'm of the same opinion as you are, I mean, investing in culture, it pays for itself. It's just a very cheap thing to invest in and you get a huge amount of return on your investment back. This is something that I've been wanting to bring up for some time, which is to have much more collaborative planning with the cultural commission to really boost the scenery and the availability of seeing Bangor's culture. Do you, do you think it would be probably more proper to have an upcoming VED meeting to sort of talk about how we're going to impact and change the cultural commission in the future so that we can make it an even more successful committee? Because I'd be really happy to have that discussion because there's already things that I want to address and bring up to them to try to take on in some way that are just kind of no-brainer things that cost nothing to do. But I do agree with you, it is something that we do need to invest in. If we weren't to do the 2500 increase, would that be something that you [1:34:33] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): would appreciate instead? [1:34:35] Michael Beck: Yeah, I mean, have the conversation and see how we'll conduct budget then. [1:34:42] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): Okay, get their input. I [1:34:47] Susan Deane: would agree that we can't just start building up money, but to have more conversations with these groups and earlier on in the year prior to the budget season helps them with their planning, it helps us with our planning, it gives different ideas gears on the table to have some of those things that can be brought up at these other meetings. That's the time to really look at it is when we have a Maryland as far as giving money. Right now I would rather hear from yep. [1:35:34] Carolyn Fish: And I think likewise to expand on that idea, it'd be good to see how the chamber or the downtown business partners or the multicultural center, you know, how they might look at this particular group and see, you know, what ideas they might want to expand on or you can get involved to expand on that idea. Because I agree and the cultural community usually happy things which we could all use more of this day and age, so I'm for definitely having further conversations and maybe even expanding beyond them to see what [1:36:12] Susan Deane: other ideas community might have. Always [Susan Faloon: have questions, all.] Right, I think this is, oh no, one couple other things. So normally in each budget resolve there is a place where city staff request carry forwards. In the budget resolve that appeared reverse reading, there weren't any carry forwards. The list is normally pretty long. We actually only have two, but I wanted to discuss those with you so that it was transparent that they were being added in. The first one is relatively minor, and I was actually going to call up Ann just in case you've had questions, but it is actually the carry forward of ten thousand dollars unspent. Come up and explain it so I don't butcher it. [1:37:26] Unidentified speaker (Community Economic Development Director): Yeah, we're requesting, Ann Creek, Director of Community Economic Development, we're requesting a carry over the cultural commissions unspent funds just because those are the funds that you recently gave grant funds for, and it's just the time of getting those funds out the door to people, usually sometime in July that we get that out, so you just need a couple weeks the [1:37:56] Susan Deane: first one, the second one isn't as pedestrian. I think Chief Hathaway thought he was going to get out of it, 's still in the room, so as go recall Chief Hathaway is down quite a few positions, another retirement this afternoon, wonderful news, and that has resulted in a number of unspent funds. I don't know what the current amount is, but you're looking for how much to be [1:38:37] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): carried forward for possible retention. I can carry 450 000, which is still not the entire amount that we have unspent in our payroll lines, and I don't anticipate we will use that entire amount [1:38:51] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): but that's what I requested to carry over, please, 43 450 000, and I think we still have more [1:39:01] Susan Deane: details to add on how that would exactly be used, but we didn't want to lapse it, especially in light of the fact that retaining our police officers in this moment in particular is highly critical, all given the types of issues that you are asking city staff to manage outside of this building. I mean, I think public safety is pretty critical to the types of things that you want us to [1:39:31] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): To be addressing, well, I can share with you we're down 12 positions. We have two more deployed long-term deployments, that's 14. We have some on personal leave, we're down 16 positions right now. That's nearly 19 of our entire sworn staff. We're we're struggling right now just to put officers on the street to meet the crewman and we dropped the minimums on staffing. We're trying all the creative things we've done in the past. We're we're drowning at the moment. Staffing issues are a very serious issue for us. The 450 that I'm requesting carryover is not the entire amount. We will be turning in some unspent payroll funds this year. You said that's 19 percent of your staff. We're struggling between 14 9 19 down 14 on paper 19 actual people that are [1:40:21] Carolyn Fish: not available to fuel ships. If you filled off these positions would you not have to refund any [1:40:29] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): I'd rather see the positions filled in the money back so last year I mean it's things changed so [1:40:33] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): darn quickly last summer during we were full staff so we actually did not turn in payroll funds last year but this year we have quite a surplus of payroll funds [1:40:48] Wayne Mallar: The person that we're putting in the new hire an extra person extra body that's going to be a downtown person yes and how does that affect the other team of people the ambassadors that are working downtown in addition to so now we'll have the ambassadors plus one police yes you have two police officers assigned [1:41:11] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): downtown and you'll still have I presume based on meetings that previously attended you'll [1:41:16] Wayne Mallar: still have the ambassador program as well now I think we talked earlier or I talked with you earlier about the possibility of having two offices downtown and eliminating any of the ambassador program. What's your opinion of that? [1:41:31] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): Well, the two, you know, we're not, we're not doing all the, we're not providing all the functions of the ambassador. We're not picking up needles and things of that nature. So I don't know that the two positions align. You know, I, feel like both the ambassador program and the police officer, it's presence, it's visible presence. That's what you want. good behavior, drives out bad behavior, but our police officers are not necessarily looking to pick up needles or to know what I expected that behavior. [1:42:04] Wayne Mallar: But I'm just saying right now the ambassadors don't work overnight or we don't see any. We don't get any information that they do, and the police would be if we had two or three down there would be able to work a continuous shift. [1:42:19] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): With two police officers, our intent is to cover six days a week, morning into the early evening, mid evening hours. Yes. And in addition to that, there's always a police officer assigned downtown as well in a patrol car. [1:42:32] Wayne Mallar: But if you had three, what would you be able to do? [1:42:34] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): We would extend our hours. We would have seven days, cover seven days a week into the late night hours. Right. [1:42:42] Wayne Mallar: So I guess the question I have to the board is are we better having police downtown or the ambassadors? And I go for police, I'm sorry, and so on. [1:42:56] Joseph Leonard: And I totally understand where you're coming from, Officer Maller. One of the things that I do hesitate with that is people who get into the police force don't get into the police force for doing what is,, and please correct me if I'm wrong, Chief, like what appears to be close to half of the work that police officers are doing, which are akin to social services related work. Is that about accurate? Yes,. So the reason why I bring that up is a lot of police officers who are absolutely, no one becomes a police officer to like make bank. No one becomes a police officer for anything but to do service for the city. But there are people that do get into the position of being a police officer with the mindset of what their job is going to entail. And one of the things that I have heard from other officers is that there are people that will come into the department expecting what the job is supposed to be, and then come to the realization that it's a lot more social work than they intended for. And from what other officers have told me, that is actually a critical issue that causes some people to reconsider, not even just the Bangor Police Department, but police service in general. And so I don't think adding more police officers to address the social issues that we're having right now is going to solve the problem because officers themselves they're not at the end of day social officers they're police officers and I want to do the best that we can as a council to make sure that we as respectfully as possible because I know you're gonna have to respond to some of those calls in some ways never gonna get close to zero but it certainly cannot maintain half of what your police officers are responding to when we need to get that number lower and i'm not sure if adding a third police officer and i please remember wrong chief i don't think that's going to help our officers do the work that they thought that they were [1:45:19] Unidentified speaker (Park Recreation Director): Going into, did you have a, well, I mean, I'm, we're grateful to have the second position that you, that you have allowed us to have. I mean, three would be great. Two will make a, make a huge difference. Now, I might tell you that we're not going to be filling the position right away. We just don't have the staffing to fill it. You know, we're already projecting out what next summer looks like. We know what this summer looks like for us. We're already trying to figure out how do we make sure that next summer we're in a better position than we are right now. So if you, if you, if we are fortunate enough to have the approval of a second officer, that does not mean on July 1st there's going to be two officers downtown. We just do not have the staffing to accomplish that. Will there be two officers in the spring? Yes, that's our goal. Our goal, two officers in the spring. Our goal is to achieve full staffing in the spring, early summer. That's where we anticipate it will be. The officer that came in today is a 26 year veteran. He's a great guy. He's our direct core liaison. He's really committed a lot of time to social service and working with the vulnerable community. And he's going to be a big loss for us. It's just, you know, he's reached a point, 26 years, and his comment was, his work has changed quite a bit and it's time for him to do something different. And I totally, absolutely respect that. But we really,, really, need to retain the talent and the skillset that we have. We cannot afford to lose anybody else. And that's why I'm asking for the 450 carryover so we can do some creative things with regard to retention. [1:46:58] Joseph Leonard: Okay, I [1:47:05] Susan Deane: guess it would probably be you will have the opportunity to vote on this on Monday and if you think this makes or breaks your vote then this is the time to tell us because you certainly will adjust some of them are okay I'm gonna focus on that it thank you thank you so this is the stage in our program where this is the time to bring up any other things that you would like to talk about as far as potential adjustments that you would [1:47:45] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): like to see incorporated into Monday's budget results thank [1:47:55] Susan Faloon: You, I guess I'd just like to know kind of we were at, so with approving the critical and priority positions, we are at a mill rate of 17 dollars and 13 cents, and so that's an increase of about 5.3 percent. I'm, and I'm looking at this is what comes with that put together, is that the average tax value is what amount, the average property tax, the average property value for a residential, I believe it's 280. It would be somewhere in the vicinity of, I'm looking at like he has here, the taxable amount 285, so the a little over 537 dollar increase average and [1:49:10] Susan Deane: That as you can imagine, the math doesn't make sense but for the fact that property values have increased, so the mill rate is actually going down quite substantially. Values however have gone up, and so as a result will pay more [1:49:30] Susan Faloon: Based on an average, thank you. I guess where I was going with that is like I still think that looks pretty steep increase for taxpayers, and so I would, I personally would like to see us, does this, does that include using the 2.8 million of the, it does. I guess I would like to look at some of those bigger ticket items, and I know I don't necessarily want to go line by line, and I think that's really more of a department thing and new thing to look at, but I would like to, I know it's hard when you start Putting off projects that need to be done, but if there are some that are more critical and some that could wait another year, I would, I would like to see some of that personally, just to kind of get that tax bill down a bit more. Also fish [1:50:31] Carolyn Fish: I think this year compared to the last couple of years of going through budget, I think this year we're addressing some things that are long overdue for productivity, efficiency, and a better flow of our departments, which I think is long overdue, and if we keep putting those off, it's like not maintaining your car. At some point you know when we've got clerks that you know can't make deposits, and especially during the voting season, are behind the infrastructure. I know one developer very recently left Didn't consider Bangor because he just felt our flow in communication between planning and code and economic development was just so foreign to him for a city our size and his experience with other municipalities that she went elsewhere where, so nobody likes to see the taxes go up. We have an elderly population, we have a lot of people that are getting out priced out of their house, but I think that we really need to look at our governing body, our departments, the flow, the tech processing, and bring our departments up to speed, better service, better efficiency, better productivity, where I'm hoping and we will see the effect of just helping us be proficient, more proficient, and maybe we can at some point we won't need all these positions or we won't need some things that we're doing now, but I think I've seen this year things long overdue, and even though it's things are mill rate compared to a lot of municipalities, you know, over the 100 and something closings that I witness a year, Bill rate is quite surprisingly low. So I agree. I don't like to see it 1%, 1% too much. But I think when we take into consideration the things that we have put off, and the things that are long overdue, and the things we need, and to keep our own departments, and to keep our own employees, and to keep retention in our department fully staffed, I think we have the responsibility. Unfortunately, it's a tough job, but I think I'm pleased with this budget. I don't like the increase. [1:53:00] Susan Deane: In a perfect world, we wouldn't have it, [1:53:02] Carolyn Fish: but I'm going to vote for this budget and I'm pleased. [1:53:08] Daniel Carson: That's all right. I'm going to agree with Ms. Fish. I also think it's important, and Councillor Beck brought this up earlier, it'd be great after we do this to have these reports coming in, right? A lot of the positions that we're having are going to save us money, are going to make us money. I'm thinking about the clerks and the interest in thinking about legal and the vacant properties. And that is not something that we can account for in this document, but it's something that will impact us in the future. And I appreciate that we're investing in our city. City, we're really taking things that have been when I, you know, when I was elected, I came in, a lot of people talk about how broken things are and that things need fixed, and that's, that's what we're doing here, and I think very impressively with them, with that mail rate [1:53:59] Susan Deane: I will be voting yes on this budget. I would agree, I'm, I'm happy with the budget, not with the increase in taxes, which none of us are happy about. However, we just put 200 000 into the end assigned, we took 2.8 million out. How much difference would it make and put it towards, would it make any difference, or do you have to have a sizable amount? Because that was pretty much about somewhere sticker that answers that question. Definitely, I'm assuming we didn't print. I did not, I'm sorry, I missed the question is, she counselor Dean was asking about what the tax rate impact would be by taking another $200,000 and moving it to reduce the tax rate. And I'm looking for that email that you sent. So one penny is 50,000. Okay, so it's four pennies. Four pennies. [1:55:06] Susan Faloon: Yes. So it would go from 713 to 700. [1:55:16] Susan Deane: And I think, Councilor Faloon, if I could, I see where you're going with the reduction of capital expenses and then using that unassigned [1:55:31] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): fund balance to offset the tax rates. [1:55:33] Susan Deane: I think the caution I would issue is that you don't want to become too reliant on unassigned fund balance offsetting your tax rate, because although we're in good times now where we are developing a pretty healthy unassigned fund balance. You don't wanna make that a structural component of your budget, because if you suddenly become unhealthy and you're unassigned fund, it doesn't just impact what you have in savings if you've incorporated it as a structural component [1:56:08] Unidentified speaker (Public Commenter): of how you fund your budget. [1:56:10] Susan Deane: And so I'm very comfortable with that 2.8 million that we have done here, particularly because of my feelings about how we budgeted salaries and wages historically, but I would be concerned if we started to expand that too much. What was the amount for last year that we used for unexpended balance? I don't have that number handy, how much we used for unassigned fund last year. We used a huge amount of unassigned fund and more so the reserve accounts, it was more the reserve accounts, absolutely [1:56:52] Susan Faloon: yeah, I wasn't suggesting that we take any more out of that fund. I just was looking to see if there were things that we could, some bigger projects that make people, and I know that they're like that would come at a cost too, that's [1:57:10] Michael Beck: Okay, I appreciate you hearing the question about, you know, did we turn over every stone? I mean, that's what we're all here for, you know. I'm happy to hear that, and I get just from what I'm sitting and I think we just reached the point where now we're just talking about positions. We're going to stop, we're going to walk backs against the wall because I'm not happy with the increase either, but I understand why. I guess for my part, I guess I want to look forward past this budget and say, okay, what are we going to do with the council to come up with a strategy about the four levers with property taxes? One, what are we going to do to increase the base, which our business and economic development team is just doing a great job of that, and I'm excited to see what happens with all the opportunities that they're going to create this year, but also what are we doing to lower the cost trajectory? And I think we did some of that work in this budget, you know. I think one of the questions that, you know, all this took turns asking is does this pay for itself what 's the value what it doesn't you know how what does this look like five years from now and that's the way we do it you know and keep looking for those opportunities but also i'd like to you know for us to eventually talk about how can we diversify some of our property taxes away from property taxes? Is there a possibility to get some money from the airport into the general fund? Or the golf courses, given it from time to time, as they get more successful with the things happening, can they do more? All of our different portfolios that we have, putting money back into the general fund, those opportunities. And the last lever is the one that's the hardest because it's the most immediate. The service levels, can always lower your service levels, and you know, I'm all for, if there's more to move, I'm all for it, but I just, how far do you go before it starts looking like a different city? And so that's why where this is at, until I hear different, there's more to cut, I just feel like we're at the place where it's people now, and I don't know if we can spare the people I [1:59:12] Joseph Leonard: Just want to say one final thing to sort of some of what I view this budget to be. I'm not going to rehash what everyone said. I agree with what everything has been said. This budget to me has been one directly associated with addressing our staff in this city. This budget to me has been something that Councilor Beck and I have joked about how all previous concerns that over the last decade that the city's put forward is that we're understaffed consistently year after year after year we're understaffed and then the Councils of years prior decide to not increase that staffing so we're addressing a problem related to our governmental workers that has been consistently brought up by management for over a decade and it's certainly not over but that's what this budget is at the end of the day and why I'm supportive of it is it is worker first government worker first and I think it's also important to note that the nine of us at this table we are not government we are not the end all be all government. Government is, in terms of the city of Bangor, hundreds of people that dedicate their lives every day to making sure that we all have the privileges that we just take for granted every single day. And government does not function if you don't take care of your own. And so I'm proud of all of us for putting workers first in this budget. So thank you all for doing that. [2:01:05] Michael Beck: That one additional thing I would add though too is this is going to be an education portion of this is you know there are going to be some folks that by the time you know the rentals we have 60 percent of our city runners by the time the tax increase hits the property owner they're not a charity nor should they be they're going to pass that on to the renter and sometimes with a markup so you know so getting education out there but what's available through general assistance because they can't do abatement they can't do they can file their make sure they're filing their income taxes because there's a home you know they can take the one that the homestead or the property fairness credit tax it also affects renters not as much but there's something there but just education makes sure that we're doing everything we can to divert people from homelessness if it pushes them into that brink and then for property owners themselves just knowing what the what the city offers I know we do a Good job of putting in the newsletter with the tax bill and everything, just making sure, hey, you know, don't suffer in silence, because that's been a theme this week with the finance committee, is all of those properties that are just so far behind and just don't get to that point. You know, pick up the phone, call, we've got the greatest staff in Maine I'll say, and you know, ask, you know, the questions. Don't, don't let it get that far. Ask the questions, we're here to help, and you know, work community and Right now this is what it takes for a community to run. I [2:02:34] Susan Deane: hope I do not have anything else. I appreciate everyone's better. So this is that means that we will not be reconvening tomorrow. What city staff will do from here is primarily Stephanie and her team will take these adjustments and incorporate them into final budget resolves that will appear in your budget packets that's on Friday, but will need to be amended by substitution to get them in and replace them for my proposed budget and agenda for you. Okay, it's just nothing else, 7 18. I guess we are adjourned.