001All right. All right. Welcome everyone. >> Call this meeting to order. And if we could all rise for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you everyone. Welcome this evening for our seventh eighth budget work. I say every every time I ask how many it's been. Feels like it's been feels final. >> Final feels like 12th meeting something like that. But um yes, once again, thanks everyone. Uh this is a portion of the meeting for public comment. Nice to see some members of the public here tonight as well. This portion of the meeting is specifically set aside for comments from the public who are asked to limit their comments
002to two minutes. Any person interested in providing public comment via email should email public meetings.gov. gov prior to 4 p.m. on the day of the meeting to have their public comment read into the record. Do we have anybody who would like to speak? >> Don't all you know how it works? >> Good afternoon everyone. Steve Slattery. I live over on Old Main Street. Um, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Uh, I wanted to start off uh by first thanking Dr. Zitto on the record. Um, obviously I was formerly on the board of ed. I worked with him very closely. Uh, I think that he uh has always been an asset to our district. Uh, before I was on the board, uh, I I just appreciate what he has done for our um for
003our district. He's a good man. Uh, he did a lot of good things uh continues to do a lot of good things uh for our district. So, I wanted to thank him on the record. Also wanted to thank uh Miss Lefredo and the uh current board. Um I know how difficult the the budget task is. I was here for the presentation last week and I thought they she did a um a good job presenting uh and just want to let them all know I appreciate them advocating for our students. Um so, council members, we're here. Obviously, you guys are have been dealing with the budget for a while. I'm not here to nitpick with you about any particular um requests increases that are proposed. Um but being here last week um I I did think
004I just felt compelled to come out and and make some comments. Um oh, I also want to make a comment about the CIP with schools. It may make sense to do a referendum. Um do a specific list to put out to the public. They can make a decision. Do they want to make an upfront investment? get it off the backs of every budget year having to go through it. And if they don't want to do it, if the public says no, then then that's an indication that they do want to incorporate into the budget and and work through it uh peacemail if necessary. Um but the thing that struck struck me last week being here was um you know, obviously the state is sending some extra money this year. They're sending some extra money for
005the m municipal budgets. They're sending some extra money for the school budgets. Um what what bothers me is that you know we see it as them sending extra money and in essence we're kind of celebrating the fact that they're sending us extra money when the policies that they are creating while they're in Hartford are creating this situation and we're essentially celebrating the fact that you know the extra money is here to alleviate these problems but nobody's really asking asking the questions of why it's so unaffordable. We have statewide officials that are running on, you know, issues of affordability, uh, unaffordability in Connecticut, and we're going to tackle affordability and the policies that are are being put in place in Hartford are creating that unaffordability. Um, there was a movie growing up, and I'm at an
006age now where I can say that you you say to some people, you might not have seen that movie, but there's a movie. It was called Backdraft. Had Kurt Russell in it. Um I think one of the Baldwins was in it. And it's a story about a guy running around starting fires. Eventually at the end you find out the guy who was starting the fires is one of the firemen who was showing up to put it out. The bottom line is we have elected state officials who are going to Hartford, stoking fires, and then showing up when it comes to an election year with a garden hose to to not even to put out the fires, but to hold back some of the flames. And you know, certainly as a constituent, I appreciate I know
007that certainly at the state at the town level, this is volunteer work. Um, and and all this work is greatly appreciated both on the council and the board side. Um, but I I just think that it's a disservice to the community to ignore the fact that this unaffordability doesn't come from nowhere. And, you know, to ignore it and in some cases even celebrate the extra so-called extra money that's being sent, I think really is is somewhat obiscating to the public. Um, we need real change in the state of Connecticut. We need real change at a level much higher than the board of ed, at a level much higher than the town council. Um, and so I just wanted to make sure that that was on the record. You know, people in their daily lives are
008really busy trying to make ends meet and don't have the ability to pay attention to all these things and to see votes that are happening at midnight and votes that are happening in the middle of the night. So, that's my two cents. I wish you luck in working through the budget and thank you again for all your service. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else from the public? My name is Reverend Kurt Rhodess and I am a uh here on behalf of the board of education budget. I totally support the budget and the special education um supervisor uh role. Um being a graduate from 91 um in Enfield High School, I went through several years of special education classes myself and we didn't have a supervisor in the um department at the time and it was
009like bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off because nobody knew who was in charge. Nobody knew who was to handle any problems that the children or the kids had. Um I found out that it was very hard for me to learn and I still to this day have a learning disability. So any kind of special education supervisor or any kind of teachers that are um skilled in this department I think is a great uh addition to the school system and it helps the kids out very much. And I'm, like I said, I'm a graduate from 91. So, um, I had rough time going through it. Um, I had a rough time learning things and understanding things because this the skill level was a little bit above my my grade. Um, and not
010understanding uh certain events that happened in the world or anything like that. Um, so they had to break it down and every teacher that I had broke it down very easily and understood it. So, if we can get these kids that are not understanding what's going on in the world or have special needs, they if we can give them a little bit of uh you know, a little bit of a push and help them uh establish themselves in the work world um from education from Rocky Hill here that has a great education system as did Enfield High School that they they had me um as a student and it was a great education system for me. Um, so I'm just in support of any budget that the board of education has um presented and uh
011I hope it all goes well and I hope these kids can learn and um get to know this world like I did. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? John Bey, Maple Street. Um, just one comment. I've been seeing the the um the proposed the proposals and I'm just very concerned about the amount of tax increases that we're going to have and uh I know that was a campaign issue and I just hope that we can we can just contain that the best we can. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Do we have anything written? >> All right. Going once, going twice. We don't have to know, but >> All right. I thank you everybody. Uh, moving on. Uh, let's start in our department reviews. I believe first up is human services.
012Good evening everyone. I am Melissa from human services. If you do not know me, I would like to go a little rogue just a little bit because my goals remain the same for our department and I'm happy to answer questions and we are progressing. But what I thought might be a little bit more helpful or impactful was to give you a few statistics, if you'll bear with me, and kind of talk about statewide and locally statistics and trends and some of what we do and what we're facing in human services because a lot of what we do on a day-to-day basis is not things that you're going to see in this budget because we don't have line items for them. And so I think this is important. So, if I may, as of May 2026,
013heating oil rose to over $4 a gallon, significantly higher than early 2025. Regional energy costs have seen sharp increases with heating oil up over 87%. compared to early 2025. Food insecurity in Connecticut has continued to rise from 25 to 26 with over 515,000 residents, roughly one in7, experiencing food insecurity. As of early 2026, Connecticut food prices are rising faster than wage growth. Approximately one in four adults aed 65 and above experience social isolation. 20% of Connecticut residents are covered by Medicare, which we service. Connecticut homeowners pay 53% above the national average for electricity in the state of Connecticut. For 2026, MDC has reported there will be an increase in water and sewer costs. Estimated increase roughly $6.75 a month, which will cost families about $81 annually per NAMI. NAMI is a National Alliance on Mental
014Illness, which is a national as well as statewide organization. It is um four times more likely for a Connecticut resident to be forced out of network for mental health care than it is for primary care. Reports in late 2025 revealed that children's mental health needs remained high following the pandemic with continued high demand for crisis care, particularly for children and young adults. In 25 into 26 indicated that nearly one in five adults in Connecticut lives with mental illness, a rate that remains slightly higher than the national average. The number of drug overdoses related overdoses decreased between 20 and 24. We saw a steady decrease. However, they are now increasing again. So, statistics show us that from 24 to 25 per the department of public health with 11,640 overdoses in 2024 and 12,237 overdoses in 2025.
015That's a difference of 597 or 5% increase in the last year. Lastly, homelessness in Connecticut increased by 9.5% between January 2024 and January 2025 with 3,735 people counting in shelter counted in shelters or unhoused. These are reported, remember, so that's not even 100% accurate. unsheltered homelessness saw a dramatic 45% surge during that period per the state of Connecticut. Those are some staggering statistics. Those are all state and local. These are our communities and our community. some of the trends for my department. And I say my department because they're the heroes in the back of the room that do this work without a lot of support, without a lot of pomp and circumstance. But I think it's important whether it reflects in this budget or going forward that we all really have a good understanding in
016this community of how impactful some of these trends are because regardless of the maybe the here and now, this is where it's going and and as a community, we need to be aware of some of these issues, some of the work that is being done and some of the work that's going to a lot of the work that's going to need to continue to be done when we prioritize. So, let me talk to you a little bit if I can about Rocky Hill trends and sort of talking about how that affects us locally. The population of Rocky Hill is projected to grow by 2.4 48% between 25 and 26. So, 2 and a half%. With the population rising from 21,916 to 22459, which is an increase in clinical and case management hours. These are things
017we're already seeing, but base again the trends locally are from some of those statistics I gave you and things that we are seeing every day in human services. SNAP legislation has changed again as of a week ago in May of 2026 um coming down from the federal level even more constraints. In essence, I won't bore you with all the details, but some of the limitations where people are now asked to either volunteer or work for up to 20 hours a week. If you are non-compliant and found that you can in fact do that, you are now limited through three months for the food stamps and cut off. That's going to be an immense impact. Already is, but certainly on a small community like ours. um in food pantry increase us is 30% here in Rocky
018Hill between 2025 of January and December. So in that 12-month period, we had a 30% increase. That's some of what you saw. Some of those SNAP benefits were changed as of last year, but as of May, that's the three-month limit. It's still continuing. Restraint constraints are still being put in. Certainly an increase in utility costs. We talked a little bit about that. oil prices increase in the correlation of the energy assistant oil benefit. So when we talk about energy assistance, which the state puts money into for residents who qualify for an energy assistance, the cap on that amount is $645 for a household. When I talk about the uh price of oil, and most of us know, myself included with oil, right? It is over sometimes over $5. most a gallon. Most oil companies, some
019of them now are 150 gallon minimum, but we have never found it less than a $100 minimum. $520 is We did it two, three weeks ago. We had a delivery. We usually have a $500 cap. You cannot get a hundred gallon minimum delivered for 500. So, if families have a $645 cap for their energy assistance and their Rocky Hill home is heated by oil, they are going to not even fill the tank once and that's if the price stays the way it is and doesn't increase. Increased um need for the oil shifting uh programming due to lack of attendance. That's a plethora of reasons. uh within our department we have done away with some programs and we have implemented other programs. Now we certainly are always keeping up with trends as far as what is
020necessary but there are other factors. Um certainly transportation we have a very high Asian population here in town. Not everybody drives. Not everybody has access to vehicles. Many are on the west end. So getting down here um is an obstacle. um other so that's a barrier um local motel and hotels again plethora of reasons and and certainly has a snowball effect on other problems that we are going to be seeing here in town but when I say that the homeless the national homeless crisis there are many many people living if they can afford in some of our local motel there are no rooms available six seven eight years ago if the fire department called me and said we need five or six rooms. That was not a problem. Now it's an impossible feat. My team
021and I are on the phone and many times we are out of town because there there's no rooms available. There just aren't and if they are, they're not affordable. Um consistent community support and psycho education regarding recovery efforts. That ties directly into my department goals and what we are working on. But with that opioid increase and new substances being found at all times, the need to have support to have programming and keep up with that, the training, the trends, the resources, all of which beyond Rocky Hill are very limited and that's directly affects our department and how we service our residents. I'm going to sort of wrap this up the ray of sunshine that I have been so far. um with a little bit of a case scenario. And when I say a little bit,
022this certainly with no names, but I want you to hear this is a family that we service. Also, keep in mind, I'm going to run through this scenario just for some numbers. We service between 20 and 25 families currently. And when I say that, we service many more. 20 to 25 families that receive year round pretty much all of the family resources on the Rocky Hill level. So, I'm going to kind of run through a scenario. We have a single mom with four children in town. Three of those children qualify for our parks and wreck camp. We make it a priority to send at least if they follow if they qualify financially, every kid should get at least one week of camp and we certainly do that through parks and wreck, but we feel strongly
023about that. So, three of her children qualified for our parks and w camp. That's $840. She uses the food pantry every two weeks. She qualifies for three bags because of the number of house people in her household. That equates to about 250 times each trip. Three overflowing bags. We know what groceries cost, which is 6,500 annually. She qualifies and utilizes all of the holiday programs we offer, which is a $750 monetary gift for all of them, plus gifts at Christmas time. Back to school program. All four of her children qualify. We have a $100 worth of school clothes, shoes, and or supplies. $100 doesn't get you very far, but there's four kids. That's a $400 cost. Oil assistance for the 100 gallons minimum, that's a $550 cost. That one single mom with four kids here
024in Rocky Hill and just those programs that I mentioned, which is bare minimum really, is a total of $9,040. So if you multiply that by 20, and we have a few over 20, that's a cost of $180,000 annually for 20 families here in Rocky Hill for basic needs. I want to be positive, and I am positive, but I think it's really important because you don't see those numbers on my budget. This is what we're up against. This is what we are dealing with with a group of five amazing human beings that take care of 22,000 people with these numbers and these problems and that we're very lucky in this community because we have been able to maintain and keep these programs because of donations. So you don't see it on there because we live in
025a really great community that takes care of each other. But the snowball effect is that as the budget gets tighter and the economy gets tighter, if in fact we lose any of those donations or any of those funding sources, we're going to be the next department in line asking, you know, for help or solutions. So, it's not tonight's problem. and it's meant as a positive but really a positive thing. But I I wanted to share because I think it's important >> that we highlight that's what human services is up against. >> Having said that, I I have no increase per se in my budget. So I would like to answer questions if I can or >> I think we'll just usually we just walk through the budget. >> Do what? Walk through it. >> Yeah.
026So it's line by line. You would you like me to >> maybe the highlights of any any changes types? >> No. Um the only changes for salaries is the contractual increases. >> Yep. >> The the um in this year's budget, >> we're breaking out and itemizing some some stuff a little bit more than than in the past. Um, so maybe talk about a little bit about some of the like the programs under um miscellaneous like what what they're used for. >> It's like uh amplify. >> Yep. Under >> tracker stuff like that. Just >> let me >> just in general. >> Pull out my cheat sheet and I will tell you specifically. >> Um okay. Amplify that's under contributions, dues, and subscriptions. The you're referring to >> um Amplify uh Greater Harford Transit District. They
027offer discounted rides to people with disabilities. Those are contributions that Rocky Hill makes and has made for years. It's really non-negotiable. They service people here in town. They're contributions asked by major. We get asked for eight to 10 contributions annually and we do not include all of them. They do. We do support those that benefit most of Rocky Hill that give us statistics that cooperate collaborate with us. Um and so that is that's what you're seeing. The greater Harford, the Amplify that's Amplify offers mental health and um other programming. So >> I was just grabbing the only thing that wasn't people basically from the budget. >> Yep. Um >> our software is how we keep uh we actually everything that we put in for clients is considered medical grade. Um so the software was put
028in last year. Uh we were still using very antiquated paper. Um but anybody that we service for mental health falls under a health record in HIPPA. We are healthcare providers. So that was the software that we use. um that helps us track each client, each um resident, each uh Rocky Hill, anybody, whatever you need, you go in the system and it's kept so that we can pull up data at any time and we work with other departments as well to identify anybody that might need help or be vulnerable with that new software. Any questions, anyone? >> Yeah, I have a I have a couple. Um, Missy, I'm I'm a big supporter of training and and things like that, and I saw that I know it's only $2,000 deduction for the reimbursement, but is there training
029out there that you see that you wish you could go to, but you don't have the funding? >> Oh, yes, there is. However, we pride ourselves on doing every free training going. Um my staff, we just went this past week to a suicide um through the clearing house. Lori, all of us um Nicole will be attending a training this week. Uh it's a overall as the office manager because she answers the phone. So the answer to you is absolutely yes. But we do do a plethora especially with our goal. We've all done extra substance use trainings and qualifications. every one of us has gotten certified in something different um to work toward our goal that we're free of charge or within our budget. So the answer is yes, but so far we've been we managed
030to do continuous training. >> Okay. >> The money that you see in the budget is for what is required. So Lori and I are both licensed therapists through the state. We have to maintain CUS and we have to pay for lure. That's so a lot of that is what that's what that covers. Now with my second question is with the concierge incident. >> I know your department was hammered. >> Is there something that came out of this that like a tool or software or resource that you envision um could have make this situation easier for your department to handle? >> I may have to think about that. I don't know about a tool or software. Um, >> but I mean as you were going through this and getting just bombarded with phone calls and all
031this and trying to, >> you know, delegate and everything, >> did something cross your mind that gee, I wish if I had money I could do this better. >> Absolutely. And I can answer that. uh initially when we thought we would have to potentially tap into the Relocation Act, which was a real threat for us as a town because the Relocation Act would have held us as the town um responsible to put people up that entire complex up into hotel rooms, pay those fees and imminent needs, and then potentially lean the property in order to recoup our money. So, we were talking about a million plus dollars right out the door. Uh, a lot of work went into that to make sure that didn't happen. But if that had, to answer your question, >> did
032I have the supplies on hand to service 10% of this town as a shelter? Nope. We do not have the equipment. It's not readily available. Um, the the parts in the emergency plan for our department would be running a shelter providing that. We don't even have 10%. That's over 2,000. We own 70 cuts from 15 plus years ago. So >> we didn't even have a facility for that. >> We don't there is no Yeah, there was no there was not enough places, but we didn't have the um we don't I certainly don't have the staff even in in that right. We collaborate mostly with the fire department. We're amazing. Um but beyond that, we work with ambulance, we work with PD very well, we work with highway helps us out. Um facilities and custodial does
033a ton of stuff for us at the food pantry. I mean, we are probably the most needy department, but we collaborate very, very well with all the other departments because they always do whatever needs to be done. But I can tell you, um, and it's not it's not at all crying the blues. It's a fact that predominantly the fire department is how we manage to have the things that we have because the manpower. They show up with their trucks, they take stuff to the park. All of our departments here in town will do anything we ask. But the reality is, if you're asking if there's something we needed, we didn't have a vehicle to haul water. It was the fire department a year ago when we brought water that filled fire trucks for us and
034drove them up there. So, we collaborate, but if you're asking if we needed something, we needed everything. We had five women and that was it >> and some phones. That's what I have. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um, did we recover all the car? Did your department recover all the costs from concierge or either through donations or have they paid you anything? >> Uh, not directly, but I do know that the director of finance over there is working diligently with the town manager. So, I know that we have submitted and had many conversations where we've talked about I I could not tell you if it's been recouped or not. Not to me directly. >> Do you have any pressing needs now? >> Something that people can contribute for donations. um pressing needs. You know, I
035say this every single year and I say it very confidently um and I know I'm repeating and singing the praises of my staff, but when you service a town of 21,000 people with everything from basic needs, imminent needs, mental health, um prevention programming in the schools, and you do it with five women with a very, very small budget. And to the best of our knowledge, nobody falls through the cracks and nobody gets left behind. Last night, great example, till 9:30 in the parking lot, there was a crisis, right? So, I say that with a lot of pride in this town because there's always going to be imminent needs, but those heroes are always going to make sure that everybody is okay from our end. And so, I say that with the most respect, right? I
036know that's not a direct answer, but we've always had the smallest budget. And we've always been expected to figure it out, and we have. So, do we have needs? We need have a lot of needs. We need a vehicle. We need space. We need storage. We need staff. We need programs. We need a lot of things. But we're going to make sure that the needs are met to the best of our ability. And we're going to keep advocating, but and we're going to keep collaborating and calling the fire department fire department. So, please give them their budget because I need them. >> I just want to say that the work that you guys did for during the concierge crisis was amazing. I mean, I saw you numerous times and I don't know, you probably didn't
037sleep for days on end and your whole staff was amazing. So, >> I appreciate Thank you so much. >> If I may make a comment, I just want to thank you as well, your staff. You guys do a great job for what you're provided from by the town and I I believe that nobody's left behind. You wouldn't do that. >> I do enjoy your opening comments and I made all kinds of notes and I just want to go over a few of them because I hope the other counselors were listening. >> There is an impact in our society right now. increase food prices, increase fuels, increase electric, increase water. Mental health is up, drug add uh overdoses are up, homelessness is up. And I just want our counselors to please consider this budget. Do we
038want to hammer our people with increased taxes? Please be cautious with this budget. We hear the needs of our community. We hear the the problems that we're having, the challenges we're facing. And I ask please let's keep this in our mind when we do this budget so that we don't hammer these people our taxpayers. >> Thank you. I'd like to make something uh make a comment as well kind of piggybacking on Mimi you know we mentioned before when concier you know we came in we got some good resolution to the whole problem in general but I was always concerned about what the cost to the town was whether it's the you know the inspection fees the fire department going out there multiple numerous times more than they ever are used to but also now including
039you and I think think it's imperative that when we do get our quote unquote award back of that, we have to think of things that we can do not just for the fire department and for the building inspector and whatnot, but maybe for human services, too. So, I think I think that's an important consideration. I've said it before and now you kind of just helped me hammer home the point. Um, and I also, you know, I think this came up last year and I really did appreciate your preamble. Okay. Um, where do you think that funding that is keeping you afloat and allowing you to come to us with such a gracious budget request, where is that going to fall out? Like where what are you seeing down the road that is really making you
040nervous because >> you're you're you're giving us the warning, >> you know, is is what you're doing. >> That's exactly what I'm doing, >> right? So, so I need to know like what what what what could maybe keep that warning from going a couple more years, you know, or what are you seeing as a professional? >> Where's it going to start? >> I'm seeing the vicious cycle, right? And and so that vicious cycle is yes, the economy is tight. We don't want to see increases, but if we don't see increases, we don't have services to address them. We all know this vicious cycle. We all live it in our own lives as well, I'm sure, to some extent. >> Actually, let me let me rephrase it. Yeah. >> You know, you mentioned 180,000, the nine
041families that Yep. >> 20,000. Okay. >> Where is that funding coming from? That's coming from state subsidies or whatever, I'm assuming. >> So, I will tell you exactly where that's coming from. That is coming from donation based here in Rocky Hill. Our food pantry is run solely off donations. That fund, which I think sometimes has been seen the last several years, we were very lucky with some funding and some grant that came down the line. we were able to build up an account on the side >> and that looked like we were sort of I don't want to say hoarding money but it looked like whoa human services has this and what I think >> hearing you today you're not >> I I think what I'm trying to say is that looks like and and
042Mona can attest to because oftent times I know that Mona is asked to explain to you why is that money sitting there? Well, I'll tell you because we've been gracious enough to not need it, but we're in big trouble pretty soon. >> And I'm giving you those numbers to let you know that this department and our town residents receive services on that fund. And I will tell you in general, it's a couple hundred,000. But with the numbers, and I that's why I specifically gave you that example, that could be gone if we are facing a winter with these prices. God, and I'm not even talking about an increase. I'm talking right now in the here and now. If we are facing another winter like we just did with the oil, with all of the things
043that we've discussed, that line item is going to be zero next year. And I'm going to be standing up here saying to all of you, I have a million dollars worth of needs to keep these programs running. And I have nothing in the bank. So imminent needs, not right this minute, because the leadership in this town has made sure and they they're never denying, but we discuss things. we prioritize things. We have been lucky enough to have very generous donations and we've done fundraisers. >> That's some of those are drying up and some of those are going to be increasingly difficult. >> Sometimes fundraisers take a little money to get off the ground to in turn money. So yes, >> I mean maybe that's somewhere where we could help. Yes. You know, and we average
044I want to say about 2,00 to 2500 per month. Um Nicole can tell you more specifically, but we do receive and again I will say and I'm I'm not blowing smoke, Rocky. We're really lucky in this community and I'm part of it. So I I but the donation base that's kept us going that is >> when I started this talk tonight, you don't what I started out by you don't see any of this because that's not town money. That's not taxpayer money. We primarily minus the necessities which is mostly staffing what you see and even some of the human services page where you see it's a matching grant that's um you a lot of what youth services does is a state mandate but 50% of what we do there is state grants. So human services
045is not running off of tax dollars. >> We are we are not we don't have the nicities. We don't have the anything. We are making do because this town and the quality of the women back there are educated, hardworking, dedicated and do what needs to be done. But I can tell you again and we will continue to. So that's not a a cry for needs, but in our our neighboring communities, they've three times Newington has three times the staff we do. >> Yeah. So it's very interesting because if you look at how the macro data goes when the economy goes down people stop giving as much as they did in the past. I mean correct >> that's logical like right I mean there's nothing illogical about it as expected. So my question to you is
046uh do you the as a percentage of your budget, how much is coming right now from donations like as a as a general macro matter, right? Um if you plot it on a on a chart >> about $2,000 a month right now is what >> has it like if you were plotting it on a on a chart >> like does it like eb and flow with the economy or like >> absolutely it does. So my absolutely does >> where I'm going with this is where I'm going with this is like >> can you predict some of this like >> where the economy is going right >> absolutely I can I can also tell you we mentioned concierge which was not in any of my statistics but >> how many of those families are now displaced
047>> were no longer in town they were part of our donation source in some capacity volunteers or donation base right those people many of those people were outsourced or money out of pocket so That's not even the economy in general. That was just Rocky Hill specific, right? And and so absolutely we can see the trend. And and again, that's why I say to you without being dramatic, we're okay right now and we're okay this year, but as we move forward, this is the reality of what we have not had to deal with. And it's going to come to that if we don't start to recognize that these services are not sustainable without either funding or planning or >> Yeah. I mean, yeah, thank you for everything. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Uh, Director Hicks, great
048to see you tonight. Um, thank you for your thoughts and thank you for putting a focus on the long-term planning aspect of this because that I think gets lost in the shuffle all too often. Um, I very intentionally am referring to you as Director Hicks tonight because my first uh my first interactions with you here in this town were during the concierge crisis and I witnessed exceptional professionalism on your part and your staff and I I was blown away by the level of responsiveness that you were able to provide to hundreds of residents that were coming through my phone, through others on the council's phones, other people in town as well directly to your direct line. You managed to delegate all that you could out to the folks that you have under your uh I
049was going to say control, but under your leadership. Um I was just so impressed and I so value what human services is in this town. You mentioned Newington having a far greater staff. They do have a few more people in town, but not necessarily so many that it makes sense relative to the staff difference. In the long term, if this economy continues to go in a negative direction that folks here in the state or in this town can't have that much of an effect on generally, yeah, I am very fearful about donations drying up. I'm very nervous about a budget for human services that doesn't recognize that we should be putting money away for those acute instances. Uh we did get very fortunate that we didn't have to use the relocation act. um the attorney
050general's office being involved, all the things that happened during that crisis worked out so that we didn't actually face a massive bill here in town, but it could have gone very differently. And it's that kind of acute need that I think also gets lost in the show. You brought up a great example of a particular instance where there's a lot of need for one family and there are several of those families. I get that. But I'm imagining that there are so many people who on a very short-term basis have a gap, a need, and this office fills it for them. This office helps them find the resource they need. I frankly sent you somebody last week who had a very very particular issue that I didn't think your office could do anything in in a
051resource way for other than you might know where they can turn. And you know what? I heard back that you were very helpful with them. I'm not surprised. You guys do amazing work. You do it with not enough resources. You do it in space that looks like a FEMA drop zone. I was joking with you in your office when I was there a couple weeks ago that if all of you weren't able to be in that office, no one could go in there and find what they need. And yet it is as organized as I could imagine it ever being. I.e. long-term planning. We need space for human services. We have a massive senior center and I love that we do. But that space isn't your space. You don't get to to break out into
052programming in that space. You don't get to cordon off something for an event or anything that you need. Um, and just as a more broad point about the value of human services, I think it's a foundational thing to have in a town government because it speaks to how important we treat everybody who is in this town. I I didn't get into running for office to pinch pennies over subjects of life and limb. And that's what it often is in your department. It's not sexy. It's not flashy. When you succeed the most, the people you work with reintegrate into the society in such a way that we never know. >> That's our goal. >> Exactly. And you do it very well. >> Thank you. >> Um I hope that though this budget this year isn't focused
053on investing in that long-term future in in a very meaningful way, I hope as we look forward to next year that we will because you need a vehicle. You need more cushion and we need to be able to provide for the residents here because if things, as I've been saying in a few of these meetings, start going really bad outside this town and outside the state, you're looking around the room at the people we have to rely on. and outside this room within these square miles that are our our town. So, I'm thrilled with the work you do. I'm thrilled with the work you guys do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you a million times over. And um I hope that any ask that you need over the next year, we can provide for you.
054>> I appreciate it very much. Thank you. >> Would you mind just uh recognizing your people just the three in this department so that we could put a name face? >> Absolutely. They are not. Uh Crystal is not here tonight, but Miss Nicole de Clemente, please stand up. you are. She is the office manager. Nicole organizes the FEMA drop zone um who keeps us all um with my folders and all things while I'm running all over the community. Um orders, she does all invoices, she keeps a track of all our financials. >> So that is Nicole answers the phone and she does all has been here the longest actually. Kelly Ayella, she is our social worker. She's our youth service specialist. Kelly's been with us for a couple of years. Kelly works um with Lori
055underneath Lori doing all things in the school youth service base. She also uh heads up the fair rent commission and takes on that which was outside the purview of her job and got thrown into that. Um but she has done amazing. Um Kelly's working toward lure and continues to blow us away but is an intricate part of the future of human services. Um Crystal is not here tonight. Crystal had to go. She has a little one. Um, but Crystal is our human service specialist. She's the newest to the town. Um, Crystal works primarily with the adult and senior population in the town. Crystal is just recently certified and then I'll get to you, Laura. Um, Crystal is recently certified. I didn't forget you, I promise. Um, in she just received her certification in recovery specialist.
056Um, which is part of our goal for recovery friendly. So, she just did that. It's a very intense training she just did. Um Crystal is also um choices trained which is Medicare. So she meets with seniors. She does state, local, federal applications. Um any and all of those situations is Crystal's job. In a nutshell, she's our municipal agent for the elderly. We all wear a lot of hats. And lastly, but certainly not least important, is Kelly Stan uh Lori Stanzic. Lori has been here for well over 30 years, so everybody knows Lori. Lori is the youth service coordinator. Lori has for many years headed up programs for youth services. Everything from cops and kids to the coalition to being in the schools, Red Ribbon Weeks and any and all programs, the gardening program. He we
057can keep it going. But Lori has um as far as the therapists go, it's an unspoken role. Um Lori sees most of the kids. She does stressbuster groups and Lori is very artistic and does really well in that domain with the kids. And I'm a little bit more in your face. I know you can't imagine that, but um and I often see the adult clients. So, that's sort of how we divvy that up, but they're amazing. They wear a lot of hats. They do a lot of things and um this community is very lucky to have all of them. >> Thanks. >> Um just I guess to wrap it up, unless anybody else has any questions, um >> I think we more or less covered both the youth and human services sections. Um, I'll echo
058everything that everybody else said, but I I something that resonated with me too is, you know, your department is much like um the some of our other departments that, you know, maybe have a little bit more flash. You know, they got shiny red trucks and people got uniforms and, you know, all of that stuff, right? Um, but uh much much like all those other departments, you know, uh you're the group that not everybody they're not seeing you on always their best day and uh I can attest as well to councelor Van Luling uh throughout the concierge thing, you know, uh the crisis there. You you guys never dropped the ball. There was never like a somebody slid through the cracks. It was never a doubt that we'll send this, you know, human Melissa can handle
059this or we'll send it to human services or whatever. There was no, at least that anybody experienced as far as I know, a oh my god, what the hell are we going to do? This is crazy. I mean, handled it with the professionalism that, you know, is almost more than people expect now. So you guys did a great job and and uh and continue to all the time as >> that is seemingly an issue that never fully goes away. So, um, and to every and to other folks question about where we're at with kind of the costs associated with that, I believe the, you know, the the town manager, um, and and we've been communicating with the attorney general's office some are still in kind of negotiations about ongoing um, oversight there. Uh, but uh,
060oh, and I last I made it was one of your p first points was oil prices. Yes, I just filled my oil tank for $4.99 a gallon the other day. So, it's a sore sore uh point for me. I'm guessing the next time hopefully I'll make it through the summer without having to do it again, but hopefully it's not over $5 a gallon by then. Um but I just I do just have have one question. So, um you guys are kind of hampered a little bit by space obviously. Um and and I know you've made some changes around hours of like the food pantry and things like that and um there's certainly um programs that our residents tap into that are statewide and federal and stuff like that, but um one of the other things
061you said is around manpower. Um, is there is there the ability for you to dial up the manpower at all for something like the food pantry with additional funds and be able to fill even more gaps like, you know, you may not we might not have the space in our budget or you might not have the physical space in in your FEMA drop zone for an additional actual, you know, staff member and certainly not three times as much for like Newington or like Newington has, but you've got a couple you've got some part-time people to help with the food pantry, maybe do some additional things. If people had if you had additional hours to work with or something like that, would you be able to put them to use? >> No doubt. >> I I
062I'll leave it at this. We don't even have like somebody to man the desk. So, any of you who know who have come by human services, we have a ding ding bell. >> That's Maisy gets jumpy. Maisy gets the desk >> and Maisie will greet and tell us if we're on the phone. So, Maisie answers the window, which is amazing. >> A little disappointed that she's not here tonight, but that's >> She did have to go home and have dinner, but you know, I will let her know. Um, >> so yes, >> might be good for Monday for us to have the therapy dog here. Just saying. >> She does do her 40 plus hours, trust me. And she was out late last night, so you know, calm time and all. Um, >> but to
063answer your qu even that even just as much as our staff has always talked about we're so accustomed to micromanaging our roles and being on the go, right? And and responding to the calls at home and and certainly um Jeff will tell you if he gets up here last year, just as a funny haha, we were in the Outer Banks on a family vacation. We were all out on the volleyball field, which we do every night. Not that we're a competitive family, but there was a fire here in town and his phone rang and my husband's phone rang and my phone rang and we all stood on the volleyball court like laughing and talking to each other like holding up our phones like even in the Outer Banks. Rocky Hill, what are they going to
064do? Like as a joke. But I say that meaning we we take our roles very seriously. But support staff. We used to be able to have interns and we do we did have a couple interns this year. For instance, Kelly's in a cubicle. She does very private work sometimes, so we have to swap offices because she doesn't have walls. Um, but somebody just to sit at that front desk sometimes. I think sometimes a human face, right? Not everybody wants to come up and ask for help and ring ring. And yes, we do come up and we try to make it comfortable and but it's it's not always. So, I I certainly want my colleagues to have everything that they need. And I love all the services. When I say a family like our dad uses
065the senior center and services and and many things here in town, we all the whole family lives in town and we utilize these services. So I find value in all of them, but we don't have somebody at the front desk. So if one of us in training, somebody has to me on the desk, somebody has to answer the phone. And I love being hands-on because it keeps me very in. If somebody's on the phone and somebody's in a clinical session and I'm out in the community, we don't have somebody a human face to even man the desk at the department. I mean, I if I I don't know how else to put in perspective, but when we say bare minimum staffing, so yes, the answer is yes, we could use support. I just wanted to
066dovetail on that very specific thing about the bell at the desk because it's crossed my mind as I've passed by and I and I never said anything because I don't want to have a chilling effect on your use of it now. It's what you need to do. >> But I imagine for some of the folks who come to that desk, they're using all the courage in their body >> Yeah. >> to come in that door. >> That's correct. >> And I can't imagine the thought of creating a bell sound at that moment when you're looking around. you don't see any other bells anywhere else. It's a signal of where you're standing and what you're going and asking for. And I and I do think that having a person there would be obviously better. Um I
067might prioritize more you guys having the privacy of space you need for the type of work you do. >> Um but definitely definitely think that there's we want to make it as easy as possible in ways that we often here at this day wouldn't think of to to come in and seek this help. I want all the people who need to know that they can come and ask. >> Yep. >> All right. >> Pretty good. All right. >> I appreciate it very much. Have a good day. >> Director. >> Yes. >> To um maybe bump the ambulance up next before fire. >> I'm I'm all right. Bump the >> Okay. >> Sorry. Do we need a motion? Do we need a motion for it or we >> Okay. >> Would somebody like to >> I'd
068like to make a motion to move the I don't have the agenda in front of me. >> Item C, ambulance to >> No, no. I >> Oh, whoops. >> Item no >> B3. >> Sorry. >> B3. >> Okay. >> Where is Where are you looking? You're pointing at three things at once. You know what? Somebody else. >> Yeah, >> this one. B3 ambulance. >> I'll make a motion to move uh item B3 ambulance up to uh one number one prior before fire. >> I'll second that. >> All in favor? >> I >> All right. All right. Next up is ambulance. And we have a couple of items that are financial, but I'll let you do your >> I really don't have much to say other than I'm here to do what I do every year,
069which is every day, which is my only concern is to do take care of the health and welfare of the residents of Rocky Hill. So, um, I basically have very little to do with the budget of the town other than the Etna contract. So, from what I can tell, other than insurance and stuff like that, which is very much out of my control. So, I don't negotiate any of it. And I negotiated none of what is on your paperwork. So, >> all right. I said this exact same thing last year. I don't none of it makes any sense to me. I have nothing to do with it. So, >> can we get in why the fees are increased so much? >> Uh yes, this is the year three of the Etna contract and that is
070the uh the agreed uh to amount that it had an increase uh each year of the three years. So we'll have to be uh as of 27 uh look into the next contract with that. Now I think otherwise you have uh pension which actually just got paid out that's really not going to stay as a zero. Um the fees being the uh Etna contract that's already been in place. Obviously we have our our fuel if they're using our uh our fuel. We put an allocation of um the the gas usage um let me see on uh contributions he's pointing out that we this is the small amount it is it's the 10,000 and this year we went to 19 but this is a an an amount that if the ambulance has a specific um matter
071that they they would like funded we've done radios and so forth and I think this year you did the uh the cameras and some uh some of the the locks and so forth. over at the uh the ambulance area. >> Exactly. >> So is does the ETNA contract follow the our same fiscal year? >> Yes, it does. >> So that this one is the one that starts July 1st and goes into >> correct. Yes. >> Is this is this the final year? >> Correct. So, one question I have, if we were to ask you to absorb supplies, contributions, and fees, which is like 55,000, could you do that? >> I don't know what you're referring to. >> Could you absorb if we cut these expenses, could you absorb 55,000? which would be the uh the
072fuel and that contribution. I would point out the uh uh the ced is the other portion. So 45,000. >> Yeah. So I think it'd probably be the the fuel supplies $24,000 and then that $10,000 line for contribution. >> So would you be able to pick the $10,000 line for contribution? Yes. >> Will I absorb anything else? No. What is the contribution for? >> We've had that historically as a $10,000 line item for any needs that they may have. Like I said, we've done radios and so forth, but this particular year we used it for um the uh cameras and the uh the lock system. >> I thought that was a capital improvements type thing. >> You're right. I'm right back into the building, >> right? They would do their cameras for their own internals. But
073our capo improvement, it would be that whole firehouse, the fire one, two, and three, any of the exterior doors. So, this is for something they have in their own internal space within that area. >> Mhm. >> Why Why did we have we doubled our budget last year with actual over budget? >> Correct. that that was the the cost >> because of everything you and >> were we doing that ahead of time? That's why we could potentially pull back the 10,000 this year >> perhaps >> to make up for last year. >> Yeah. >> I don't know. I I we're talking $10,000. That's not a lot that we give to their volunteers to use. Is that for volunteers or for equipment? >> It's for the equipment. It's not for us. >> It doesn't go to us
074directly. It goes into the agency. It doesn't go to the people. >> No, I know it wouldn't go to people, but if you need something >> Yeah. >> that what you would use >> otherwise where would you get the monies? >> Well, >> just from billing. >> Yeah. Or I'd have to sell something. >> Yeah. If I could just I want to point out for that because I know we're looking at the 19 I I pointed with my finger. Can we all see that? I'm so sorry. The 19,000 expended. Uh keep in mind the prior year they did not spend at all. So that's why they when they had to do the >> So it was a timing >> more so than anything. >> Yeah. So just to like >> we saved a year >>
075complaining that basically we funded 10,000 in 2025 and 10,000 and they didn't spend any >> correct >> funded 10,000 in 2026 and then in 2026 they spent the 10,000 for both years to make the 1980 >> Yes. >> 8.90 and in this budget we're asking for the 10,000 >> 10 again to go back to that. >> Okay. Not to bash them, but I mean that original 10,000 2025 should have went back to the general fund. Correct. >> It did. It did. But when they had this particular project, there's then that's okay. We'll go over with it. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> How often do you submit your active membership to Mona for pension? Whenever she wants it, I give it to her, >> which is at at a minimum annually. >> Is that sufficient? Mona,
076>> we do once a year for the pension and the tax abatement trying to consolidate it as one report. >> Is that similar to fire department? >> Correct. >> Same. Any other questions? Anybody? >> Thanks. >> All right. >> Thank you much. >> You're so welcome. >> Easy peasy. >> So, do we have an outcome about that 10,000 or is that something that budget will handle? I guess as >> it's a consideration. It's a consideration. I mean, they can accept they can accept paying it. I did appreciate councelor Willen's uh perspective on the 10,000 though that you it may make sense to just keep that as an available item especially because if if it doesn't get used we do have the ability to pull it back into the general fund and um I don't know
077that classic thing of we don't know what they're going to need and that doesn't seem like a huge amount to have as a >> well don't forget they are a revenue generating vendor >> okay >> so they're not dependent on 100% taxes And we need to, especially in this budget, we need to >> focus on where we can without um kind of splurging in in different departments. >> And councelor Emanuel, you have my word that I am not a person who is going to waste anybody's dime. I pay taxes here also and I'm not going to waste any money including Rocky Hill ambulances or the town of so have no fear. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> You have a good evening. >> Have a great evening. >> Thank you. >> All right.
078Now back in our to our regularly scheduled programming. >> Fire. always. Oh jeez. >> Well, good evening and thanks for having us tonight. Um, like to start with a brief background on the fire department if I may. Uh we are a department of the town staffed entirely by volunteers all of whom are town residents and we will celebrate our 100th anniversary of February of 2027th. Um we operate out of three fire stations and our three-year average is about 800 calls a year and rising. We're an allhazards fire department. And let me provide a definition of all hazards. An all hazards approach to uh firefighting is one that uses a wide ranging approach to incident management. Meaning we prepare for and respond to a variety of potential emergencies, not just fires. And we work within a
079flexible operational framework. Um we plan for consequences, not just causes. Instead of creating separate plans for every type of disaster, the department builds a core emergency operations plans that addresses common needs. In our case, we look at the total package from crew resource management to asset dispatch. And we ensure operational flexibility. The department must adapt our resources, our personnel, and our tactics to respond to any hazard from structure fires to hazardous material incidents to natural disaster. And we use riskbased strategy and tactics by employ by employing a risk benefit model, which means we risk a lot to save a lot. You saw that recently with the river rescue uh down at Ferry Park. Some of the key features of the allhazards fire department uh integrated capabilities uh multi-use fire apparatus and personal personnel trained for
080multiple roles including hazmat response, search and rescue, water rescue, etc. We crossrain. Staff are trained in a variety of skills so they can perform a variety of different roles during incidents. These roles have very clear responsibilities and are assigned to personnel or assisting departments during an event to ensure coordination and proper management. This includes uh largecale events uh such as we had last week at uh concier apartments. And we also share resources um using same communication systems, logistics, command structures for all type of emergencies. Um with that said, there is still an inherent level of risk to what we do and we accept that. This budget helps mitigate that level of risk whether we're discussing PPE, training, or even equipment. This is about providing the safest working conditions for our members, which in turns allows
081them to effectively and efficiently perform their duties when they're called upon. This year alone, 2026, our members have left, excuse me, our members have had over 5,700 individual responses. That's 5,700 towns. We've left our homes, our jobs, our families to answer the calls. Okay. I'm sure everybody up there knows someone in the fire department. Um, but have you ever heard him mention that fact? I don't think you will. It's what we sign up for. It's what we accept and what we expect. Um, as a town, we have an obligation to train our members. It's also a requirement through OSHA. And we're we're a young department. In our ranks, we have about 40% of our membership with less than two years experience. We compensate for this with a very comprehensive mentoring program as well as specialized
082training. Uh tonight I have with me the assistant chief Jeff Teres. Um the rest of the department is um working on live burns at the training ground and the new recruits are um going through recruit training at station two in the base. So um they are working hard tonight. Um, one thing I do want to mention about our training is all our training is perishable. And by that I mean if we don't keep up with the skill and practice it and continue to refresh ourselves, we lose the school skill. And we train on skills not till we get them right, but till we no can no longer get them wrong. If that makes sense. We're looking to create that muscle memory no matter how long it takes. Um when discussing training and these budget items
083tonight, we ask that each line item not be viewed independently without understanding the broader implications. Reductions in one areas can have a ripple effect uh throughout the department implicating or impacting overall readiness, operational effectiveness, safety and our ability to provide cons uh consistent service to the community. Excuse me. um training, staffing and equipment and support functions are all interconnected and cuts to one area and inevitably affect the performance and effective effectiveness of all others and I stand by for questions >> and I apologize I'm fighting a little cold tonight. I'm going to bring you up your numbers for the first page of admin if you want to touch on any highlights. >> Yeah, this is a tough budget after seeing human services. >> Should have brought a dog. >> Should have put her last. >>
084You got a Dalmatian kicking around. I know. >> Keep it away from Cruella back there in the in the back. Sorry. Um, so yeah, uh, I mean I I'll jump in. Why don't you talk a little bit about the training that you've got budgeted? >> Okay. I'm in a I'm in awe of the department heads that can sit here and shoot from the hip. I've got to go by the old school, grab all the paperwork, etc. >> That's all right. There's a lot of us up here with a lot of paperwork, too. >> Yeah. I hope you don't mind, >> Mike. While you're while you're looking, one question. Um, >> yes, >> Mona. No, for Mona. So, under training, it's showing 88,000, but and this is minor. >> I'm just saying it because he's looking
085those five items underneath firefighter one, two, all that stuff only comes up to 87. Well, that's it. I'm selling my software. >> So, it's not like Excel with these with these uh formulas and everything. >> No, no, it's it's built into the software. I'm going to go look at that. >> So, I saved you $1,000, Mike. >> So, if if there's an addition mistake, doesn't it go back to the original request of >> roll up to the higher one? >> Yeah. I I think this Yeah, it's like Walmart. I saved you $1,000. >> So, let's let's talk about training. Um, mayor, the question or we train all our members to firefighter level two. Firefighter level one is basic firefighting. Firefighter level two is advanced firefighting. Uh, that's where the firefighter is trained to operate more
086independently. Um we are now pushing advanced certifications on our officers which are we'd ideally like to see um fire officer one for our company level officers a higher level after that for our staff level. We'd like to see fire and service uh excuse me fire service instructor for our company level officers. Um all this takes time, takes a lot of effort. Um there's also a number of miscellaneous certifications. Call them miscellaneous. They're extremely important including a Q endorsement. Um fire apparatus because of the size and weight um could be considered a a class two vehicle. the motor vehicle department will allow you to drive them under a Q endorsement. Um, the easiest way to get that now is actually send the member to a I believe it's a uh four weekend school. So, they go
087out there for four weekends. Um, six weekends if they become uh a pump operator on top of that. And all this training that we're talking about, you got to understand, is on top of their full-time job and their family obligations. So, um, fire one is 160 hours, fire two is 60 hours, and just it just adds up after a while. Um, I hope that answers the question. It was kind of a generic question. >> Yeah. Um I mean just to I guess drill on that a little bit was so thank you for explaining the difference between firefighter one and firefighter 2. So we've got you said 40% of the guys are younger or new or within two years yes of service. Right. So if you have a ton of people that are firefighter ones but
088not twos and you have a call and everybody shows up and there's a lot of firefighter ones and not a lot of firefighter twos. That's a problem, right? >> So currently we have 12 members not fire one and close to 20 who don't have fire two >> and we're working on that. >> Yeah. The state of Connecticut doesn't require these certifications. We do, believe it or not. However, OSHA through their general duty clause requires a firefighter to be trained in every aspect of the job they may be required to perform. The only way to really train them in every aspect of the job that they may be required to perform is through fire one and fire two. That's an all-encompassing training program and certification program. So that's why we use that. It it also legitimatizes
089the competency. So um years ago, Chief Finchetti probably I want to say 1984 85 made the the very correct decision that all members would be fire one and that's before fire two, fire officer, fire service instructor were even certifications and um we've maintained that and built on that since then. So in the last budget we were budgeted for 53. We're looking we're trending to use 75,000 that in this fiscal year and we're budgeting for next year of 88,000. Is that sufficient to bring our currently not firefighter ones and currently not firefighter twos people up to those core competencies? Is that sufficient? It's >> a loaded question. >> Last budget we were budgeted 50 or 45 53 whatever it might have been. We had requested considerably more. We are over budget in training. Um but we
090have to train. >> And you also I think had a successful more successful year in recruiting. And we did anticipating as well. >> We started off the year with 66 members. I want to say we're at 7879 right now. >> Yeah. >> And um that number fluctuates all the time. >> But I I can attest in speaking with a lot of the surrounding towns and a lot of the rest of the people in our COG that that is uh a standout comparatively speaking. the N Weathersfield has 50 um and all the rest of the communities are really struggling for that that recruitment. >> And we were in Weathersfield twice today. >> Yeah. >> Um >> what by the way, what that's that's a great stat. Do do you know why we we attract more than
091the others >> other than you? >> It's not me. They're not coming for this face, Dave. >> Um >> or Jeff. Yeah, you know, honestly, I I have to give a ton of credit to our recruiting team. Um, and we fell upon this kind of by accident. Uh, our recruiter, Jerry Reyes, we put him in that position when um when he was hurt and unable to be on the line, we made accommodations for him and he just took the ball and ran with it. And I mean, who knew? >> Who knew? and he's done a phenomenal job. Um, be honest with you, we've had three resignations in the past three weeks. Um, all because of life changes. Um, and we had uh we had a walk-in actually uh they filled out join rhfd.gov. Uh Jerry
092called them up called her up and um she walked in tonight. They met, filled out the application. So he's he's aggressively working. I I give him a ton of credit on that and the people he has working with him, the committee he has working with him. So um one of the biggest things, yeah, we we used to get grandiose and open houses and all this big stuff. Um, one of the biggest things for recruitment was the yard signs, the $4 yard signs and just putting them out there. And people were driving by and they'd see that and they'd see the website to go to and the number to call. And that got us more activity than anything else. And you know, who knew? And and you know, we put one at the transfer station because
093all the town residents who used the transfer station drove by it. again. Who knew? Um, simple stuff like that really worked for us. Oh. Um, I'm sorry. I I got off on a tangent. There was another question out there. >> But, but that's a reason the training expense has gone up, but the numbers have gone up. So, it's correlated pretty pretty well there actually. >> Right. And the numbers gone up and it's sustainability for the future, >> right? You know, we're holding off paid people with two hands right now and two good hands holding it off. And and I do have the numbers here. We are showing over 20 people. Um our average call volume, I'm sorry, our average members per call are over 20 people. I don't think anybody around us is doing that.
094And that's a credit to all our people. And you know, a plug out to the membership. I've been doing this a lot of years and I've made some phenomenal phenomenal friendships over the years, but the members we have now is one of the greatest groups of people that we've ever had in a department. So, you know, hats off to them, >> and again, I I've I've lost the original question in here, so I apologize. >> No, that's all right. We're going we're jumping all over the place. >> We deflect. >> Yeah, Chief, I missed how many people aren't firefighter one certified. >> How many we need? >> No. How many in your department currently? >> Are firefighter one not 12? >> How many we need to get firefighter one? >> Yes. Um, wait. You know
095what? I have the uh I have it right here. So, if you give me >> I know you said it, but I missed it. I got 20 for firefighter 2. You don't have >> We have 27 members with less than two years of service. 12 members need firefighter one. 21 members need firefighter 2. >> Okay. >> And out of those 21 members needing firefighter two, that includes those 12 members needing fire one. Okay. >> How much does it cost per a firefighter to get trained by Mission CIT for firefighter one? >> Mission CIT. Um >> I'm trying to correlate your request with the number of students. Is it adding up? >> Yeah, that's a tough question right now. Fran, I don't have the breakdown because they're doing a combo class. Um I want to say
096>> Mona,50 >> and the state just went up to300. >> We get a 20% discount. Five, >> right? That's that's with the 20% discount. >> Don't we get five people free per course? >> That's not included in this. That's the training ground courses. >> Okay. when they start up. >> Okay. I just don't understand why you need 12 people at firefighter one to get certified. You're asking for 30,000 and you need 21 people at firefighter 2, but you're asking for 15,000. I don't >> when these when these numbers were put together. >> Mhm. >> Well, you can come up. >> Yeah. >> When these numbers were put together, um >> well, first of all, those aren't the original numbers that we put in there. >> Okay. >> The I have the original numbers here. Uh
097they were a little bit more um >> perhaps the reductions we did reduce his original request. So if I reduced on the wrong line >> in your subline, >> what was your notes? You have what it cost per pupil. That's that's where this how much does it cost per pupil to get >> with with our compensation? >> Yes. >> To the uh to the pupil be about $3,000 per person per pupil. Um, and again, we've also had um staff changes, staff increase from when we put this together 3 4 months ago. So, um, originally we asked for 30,000 >> honestly. >> Yeah. Um, we could use our original request was 111,000 in training and we can spend the whole thing. Now, with that said, because I'm an honest person, I did find a couple spots
098in the budget deflection. Here we go. which which um and you know by saying this I'm going to put myself in the bullseye of the other department heads but I did find a couple spots where we can reduce >> I'm going to ask you if you could get me the price per student for firefighter one firefighter two what are deductions for for mission I will I could compare is this inaccurate you you want to go so much with training for these two areas. I just want to verify that. Okay. >> It's needed. >> And in 2026, you use 75,000 for firefighter one personnel. Is that accurate? >> No, that's that's again one of those where it's rolled up and then broken down for the future. >> You don't have what was >> not to that
099level of detail. I know if Mike has it. Do you know how many you trained in firefighter one in this last budget year that we're going to conclude or the budget year? >> I don't have that with me exactly how many we trained in fire. >> I think it's going to be more than 12 or you had >> Yeah, we just had a class we just graduated nine. >> Yeah. And there were more before that. And there's also a group of fire too before that too. So, I want to say in the area of 16. >> Nice. >> If not more. >> If you could get me the accurate figures, I'd appreciate that. >> No worries. >> Another thing I noticed was communications. Why in 2025 it was only $19,000. Then we budgeted our current
100budget 42. We're projected to use 46. Why is that jumping all around? Do you know the communication end of it? >> I'm not seeing $19,000 in there for any pointer here. Right here. >> 2025,000. >> Yes. >> I'm just looking why is this jumping up so much? It's all over the board. Was last year's budget. >> Those are your >> I'm not sure that >> for Whitmore. JS radio. >> Does that help you? >> What >> I said that's JS radio and Whitmer. Did do you have more this year than the past year? I think you had >> Yeah. I I don't >> additional radios. >> Did we move maybe some radio costs around from 2000 from 25? >> I think we did move some radio costs around. I think the PD helped us out
101with some stuff there. There were some warranty issues with the pagers. Um, so I think a lot of that was warranty work we did that year. I also think I believe we might have replaced a repeater under warranty that year. >> Well, warranty should be free, correct? Or >> I'm sorry. >> Warranty should be free. >> Yeah. So that's why you're not seeing a a big bite out of that. >> Oh, in 2025 last year. Yeah. Yeah. 25. Okay. All right. Then, uh, uniform and cleanings. That's jumped up quite a bit. >> Well, that jumped up. Honestly, I want to put as many people in uniforms this being the 100th anniversary as as possible. >> Is that like the dress uniform? >> Yes. Class A dress uniforms. >> We only hit the hundth once and
102I don't see anybody in this room going to make it to the 200th. So, Very good. Thank you. >> Just to piggyback on that, when when do new recruits typically get the full, you know, dress uniform? >> After their probation period, Mor, >> which is how long? >> Six months. >> Minimum six months. >> Yeah. >> Just curious. >> Anything else? May anybody >> um go ahead. >> I'm still formulating a thought. >> Um do we >> next >> Do we want to touch on We already looked at uh supervision firefighting. >> We didn't do firefighting yet. >> Have we? >> There we go. >> That's just administration. Okay. >> Firefighting. want to give us the highlights for firefighting then probably touch on your turnout gear. >> Yeah. >> And your recruitment turnout gear. We
103good there from 91 to 111. Actually, actually that's one of the areas we anticipate a $15,000 grant from the New England Fire Chiefs Association. And through some careful re reallocation, we're able to reduce that a little bit this year. um if it helps soften the training blow. >> So you're saying that >> you'd like to that proposed 111 could be lower based on the grant that you >> anticip,000. >> Well, >> thanks Chief. Chief Chief Mike, remember I said I'd be in the crosshairs. >> Yeah. You mentioned a grant. What What grant is that? >> New England Fire Chiefs. That's the recruitment retention grant where they're paying for three members to go through fire one, fire two, as well as their gear. >> That that has to be applied for. >> Yes. There's no co-ay
104on that. >> Is that pretty much a sure thing then or >> I'm sorry, ma'am. >> Is that pretty much a sure thing then? Sounds like if you're already >> Yes, we are members of that. >> Yeah. >> Uh the two members that we were applying for. Um actually we were applying for three members. One left the department last week from because of family issues and two members got deployed. Uh one with the army, one with the air force. So um we're starting over, >> but it's a three-year grant. So we we do have time. >> Is that something Mission CIT is helping with, too? >> Or who wrote that grant? >> I'm doing that one. That's that's that's an easy one. something. >> We like easy $25,000 grants with no with no matching funds.
105We like those ones. >> Again, he's conceding that so that we don't concede the training. >> Just to be clear, which is great. >> It's a good trade. One one question I have um under under food. I forgot on Tuesdays for drill once a month there's meals. Who who pays for that? >> Who pays for the meeting? >> No, the meals. >> The meals. >> Yeah. For the drills, you know, like once a month. >> The activity funds. >> Okay. because I I think that's fantastic, you know, that people can >> It It really brings up the morale. >> It does. It does. Yeah. >> Okay. I was just curious. >> So, you know, it's it seems like a simple thing, but you know, young, typically men will show up for free food anytime really.
106I mean, pizza, okay. Sandwich, okay. >> You know, it doesn't have to be good. Just has to be a lot of it. >> Yeah. As long as there's plenty over there, they're fine. >> But it's even better when they make it there. Like at twos, they have the kitchen >> that one all the time. >> Yeah, they still do it. >> Yeah, >> that's great. >> I have a question on your recruitment activities. You're want to go up in that. >> What's the reason behind that? Uh the reason behind that is um we weren't able to fund all our activities. Um with what we asked for last year, honestly, the awards night. Um that's that's the big item is the awards night. We also have the uh Memorial Day breakfast. That's another item. Uh we
107want to do a family picnic this year. Really involve the p uh the families. Uh really move towards the families with the retention aspects. So um we're just looking for a little bit more money in that >> retention's important because then we don't have to retrain. >> Yeah. When >> not retrain, but get we get them to firefighter, too. That's great. We don't want to lose them the minute we get them to firefighter, too. >> Exactly. >> The families need to know what's going on. They They need to know what they're getting into and and why they're leaving all hours of the night. And >> Yeah, I agree. >> Talking about your part-time salaries, that's a significant amount of your budget here. How much is uh paid per call? If a one of your firefighters
108goes out on a call, how much do they get paid? We hope to increase it this year to $25 per call, but we also want to with the increase in personnel to reduce the apparatus going to certain calls. So >> what's that mean? >> I'm sorry. >> What is what do you mean by that? >> So with with some of the some of the calls such as CO calls, etc. fuel leaks. Um, I don't want to say minor calls, but some of the uh some of the two apparatus calls, we won't send three apparatus, too. We want to reduce some of the apparatus going out. So, it'll reduce the amount of people going to the call. So, it'll cut down on those costs. >> So, it'll balance itself out. >> What do they get paid
109now in this budget per call? >> I'm sorry. >> What do they get paid now? >> 20. Okay. Is there a a stipen or a differential for ranks? Do you >> Yes, there is. >> How does that get paid out? >> That gets paid out monthly. It's a yearly rank uh different I'm sorry, yearly stipen that gets divided by 12. >> What is that those uh >> uh it all depends on all depends on the rank. I don't have them in front of me. I can provide that >> that comes out of that salary. Yes, >> I'm guessing. >> Okay. >> More curiosity question. The part-time storm standby, you know, budget budget. No, no, didn't need it. Is that because you have enough people that you don't have to put people on standby? >> Uh,
110no. We rolled that into the other part-time account, Dave. >> Okay. that that part-time storm standby really paid off last year during those two big winter storms. Um we were actually rolling apparatus with EMS calls. We were getting out there um ahead of the ambulances, plowing driveways. um snowblowing sidewalks and assisting with uh with patients and it really worked out well the extra manpower hauling. >> Do we pay how do we pay for that then? Because no actual >> it was still in that part-time. >> Okay. So it's still above. Yes. >> So it's almost like we >> Yes. >> Right. We put in essence getting rid of it. You put zero. No, we're just rolling it in because to account for it separately. >> I know I'm not getting rid of it, but you're
111>> Yeah, it's rolled in. It's >> almost not a line item now. >> And believe me, that's not comfortable duty sleeping in a firehouse. >> Any other anything else from firefighting? >> Uh just a couple questions from me. Um I guess I'll start with something that's more cute. We talked about concierge a couple times today. Um I know that it's among a few places in town that you guys are pretty active with pretty frequently. Uh I got a chance to sit down with you about a week or two ago and we were talking about that and you said there were more than 20 false alarm calls at concierge over the course of February 1st to April 29th. At least that's the figure that I wrote down from our conversation. Um, I guess I'm wondering with
112a with a property like that, is that driving a high percentage of the the cost that your department is dealing with >> relative to, you know, any neighborhood? So this calendar year we've had 313 calls. Um 235 since February 1st, which was about the start date of the concier issue. Um since then we've had 31 calls at concier or 14% of our department's calls have been up there. Um, we have spent quite a bit of time up there. And last week we had a uh a working fire in the 300 building. We had a a uh exhaust duct uh for a um a drier vent burning. Um we ended up uh calling a task force in to help us out. It has taken quite a bit of time, quite a bit of elevator emergencies up
113there. There have been some false alarms. Uh I don't have the breakdown of all the calls in front of me, but yeah, there have been. Um and maybe this is a good time to to plant a seed. Um, but myself and Mona have had discussions lately about a and and I'm sure there's going to be opinions both sides, but a revenue recovery ordinance um to recoup some of the money um for false alarms, etc. Uh not not just for concier but for around the town. Um, and if it's written properly, I actually think in listening to the human services earlier, it can incorporate um some of their activities and some of the work they were doing. So, uh, it it might be something to really look into just how to recover some revenue for, um,
114mundane alarms or so forth. >> Is there another town that you know of that that does that? Well, >> um, when I was working in the city of Harford, we used to get those bills weekly. >> Yeah. >> Not to interrupt, but I thought we had an ordinance about false alarms >> for police department, and we do bill. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So for security out toward >> like a security system happen like uh accidentally goes off. It's not Yeah. >> First call, second call, and then you get a belt. >> Yeah. >> Got a couple freebies, I think. And then >> Yeah. >> I I appreciate you bringing that up. I think that's a good point. We should at least consider it. >> It makes sense to me why we might not have even
115considered it before somebody from your department brought it to us because >> at least makes sense. And then um my my other questions are around how the the volume of calls has changed over recent years. Uh when when we discussed it in your office, you had talked about how during the pandemic there had been kind of a lull. Things had kind of come down a bit and then they had kind of risen back up to that preandemic level, but now we're in excess of that into the 800 range. >> Got my yellow sheet of paper here. So I I went back 10 years and looked at these the other day. Um 10 years ago we were at about 622 calls a year. And then uh in 2017 18 these are fiscal years and 1819 1920
116we popped up into uh the mid700s. Then COVID came and COVID was a difficult time. Um, strange time. Uh people were home, people were afraid, and the call volume dropped way down and dropped uh about a 100 calls a year. And then it creeped up in 2023, the 22 23 year, it just about got to 700. Um and then the past three years, we're averaging 800 a year. And I don't see it going back. And talking to the local fire chiefs and the task force we're part of, they're all experiencing the same thing. And it's just not one category. It's all across the board. And we've had this talk in the public safety committee um about which categories growing. And we see all the categories growing. and we we chart the types of calls and
117we see the graphs all growing pretty much equally. So, I don't have a reason why, but I can tell you it's happening. So, we're at about 800 calls a year now. Um, this year alone, um, today was 313 this calendar year. And um let's see for the fiscal year we're at 82. Uh of those 802 just to toss out another statistic uh 127 or I believe about 17% were simultaneous alarms. When one alarm's happening, another one comes including one today. So, uh, some of those go out three, four deep. And one thing I'm very, very proud of is out of those 127 alarms, simultaneous alarms, we've only had to call for help five times. So, that shows you the depth of this fire department and how we can handle alarms. And it shows you the
118depth of our procedures. We go back to that all hazards thing I started with and how it's all-encompassing and how we manage the department and it shows you that we can handle it. So >> if if if you um call in another fire department, do we have to compensate them and vice versa if you get called to help Weathersfield? >> No. there there's mutual aid agreements in place that are years and years and decades old. >> Yeah. No, I I was just curious because if if we're not leaning on other departments, but other departments might be leaning on us more for us to go out because we would pay the $25 per firefighter to go to a Weathersfield event. Correct. >> Right. But not get compensated back from Weathersfield on that. >> No. No, we
119won't get comp. But we held Weathersfield in Rocky Hill >> for several hours last week. >> Yeah. >> I was just curious. >> Yeah. >> One hand washes the other on that. >> So where I was getting at is kind of what you started to say. Um we are quite fortunate that your recruiting has been as effective as it has that we have as large a contingent of resident volunteers that want to do the work that you guys do. And it also sounds like we hold higher standards than necessarily our neighbor towns when it comes to the type of training and the quality the the certification that we seek in our firefighters. Um my only other question because this is all leading to where's the long term going to be going for you guys, but
120um what's the state of your trucks? How's the apparatus? >> How's the apparatus? >> That's a good segue. Let's grab the page. >> That's our next one. >> How much money you got? >> The next question. >> I'll wait for that. I'll wait for that. Great segue. >> Okay, now that we got that page, how much money you got? >> How much money you >> um >> you say before I say it? >> So, the state of the trucks we um the trucks are are hitting midlife, believe it or not. And um we're starting to see some of the repairs become costly. Um, engine 2, which is out of New Britain Avenue, uh, we're going to have to replace or repair, and I don't have the estimate yet. They're still working on it on the
121details, uh, the turbocharger on the motor. Um, the engine's still running and I just surprised the town manager with that. I don't have all the details for you yet. Uh, it's not off the line. Um, I expect the uh final report tomorrow, but we're starting to see these bigger repairs. Now, down that's going to be a $5 to $8,000 repair. So, those are the repairs we're starting to see now. We're hitting midlife. The service life on an apparatus is 20 to 25 years old. The technical life on an apparatus is about 20 years. So these we received the apparatus referendum in 2015. The apparatus was purchased between 2016 and 2018. So if we do the math, we're starting to hit midlife. >> And to that end, we've got a couple we have a couple mechanics
122on staff. Are we able to take on those jobs like a turbocharger that needs to be replaced? I mean, these are, you know, big diesel motors and stuff like that. Do we have that? >> I'll find that one out. That's the big question tomorrow. And I believe we're probably going to handle that in-house. I'm just not 100% sure. >> Um, >> but you still have to buy the part or whatever, which is still really expensive because it's not >> It's my hope that we can handle it in-house. Um, we have two very qualified mechanics. I just don't have that answer yet. And this we we noticed it yesterday. We were out on the highway for a twocar uh before exit 24 and uh it tossed a check engine light and when they started investigating it,
123this is what they came up with. They were working on it, investigating it today. We got tied up in Weatherfield and then >> but but this is our guys that were able to take to >> our guys are doing the investigation >> to be able to diagnose it, right? >> Yeah. Getting back to the the life of our vehicles, were they all bought at the same time or fleet? >> They were all bought as a fleet under one contract, single source. Um, we saved a considerable amount of money by doing it that way. Buying six engines, six transmissions, six rear ends, uh, five from Sutfin, one from SVI. Um, we just saved a ton of money that way. So, yes, >> I'm talking about the the trucks themselves, the fire trucks, our apparatus. Yes, >>
124you're >> they were they were bought by through the Sutfin uh fire engine company, >> but all our vehicles, three companies were all bought one year. >> No, they were bought between 2016 and 2018. >> Okay. So, two two years >> under the same referendum. >> How much was that? >> All under the same referendum. >> Yes. All under public safety referendum. But for the fire department apparatus, how much was that? >> Was it 10? >> The the total referendum was 6, right? Yeah. Or 100. >> And that included a lot of police stuff. But I mean for the for the equipment for the fire department apparatus was that >> 4. Yeah. Something over six 4.4 maybe. So >> I'm thinking, you know, because I asked this question of public safety and and Fran Fran
125is asking some really good questions. >> So in 10 years, do you do you kind of see that as 10 million to replace the fleet? >> The the prices have at least doubled at this point. Um >> we're paying 590600 for an engine. I bet you that's 1.2 now. the ladder trucks two and a half million. I mean, there's there's Senate hearings going on now as to why the costs are so much and the wait time is up to three years. Um, honestly, we should start putting money away now. >> That's what I'm hinting at. This is my third council term and I brought it up all three years now. Why aren't we budgeting money in your budget for apparatus to be put aside for these vehicles instead of doing a referendum? We may still
126have to do a referendum, but it might be a smaller one. >> Might be a smaller one. >> Um, is there any plan to start that or can we start the start putting monies aside? >> Sure, we could. Yeah, you may want to use the concept that we've been doing with the reserves like the road, you know, and just have them a CIP line and start putting a dollar amount >> and we haven't adopted. There's still time you can add a line in and and at least start putting something toward that. >> Well, we've been trying this for the Elm Ridge pool. >> That's right. >> So, and if we need $10 million >> 10 years from now, that's a million dollars every year. I I'd also like to throw out there that we should
127probably be thinking about staggering these purchases >> because within a two-year frame to get all three that sound I mean yes it's not all at the same exact time but as far as these lifespans of 20 years it's pretty close together >> you could stagger them you'll you'll get 25 years out of some of those. So, in other words, we could look at like trying to get a new one in at year say 18 of one of them while at the same time thinking that that last engine in the cycle is going to we're going to push that one out to 25 if we can kind of thing so we can stagger it. Guess that would work. >> Well, well, I think even putting money aside is almost staggering it too. But I agree. I
128think like chief said it's going to >> they're going to die at different periods, you know, or need replacing at different intervals, you know, but >> putting something aside may maybe we'll put something aside and fix the pool, right? >> We did one time. >> It's gone. No, I mean, we'll use the fire apparatus for the pool. >> Exactly. >> We need a lock on. >> There you go. Yeah. >> There's some value to these these this apparatus, Chief, sell it. Correct. There's some value to them when you sell. Oh yes. And and that's what we did the last time. >> We we sold it. We used the app um >> we you we traded it in. >> We used the equity in that towards the new purchase prices. Um we had quite the deal.
129>> That's Yeah, that's good. But still it was >> and and actually we pushed a couple of the engines way out and I think we got almost 30 years if not 30 >> on a couple of those. The problem was finding the parts for them. >> So when you went they no longer made the parts. So we're we're shopping eBay and anywhere else to get the parts we needed to the point where you no longer can find the parts. In my understanding, it's not even the turbo and the engine and stuff like it's all the wiring and the electronic components because obviously you got water involved a lot of times and uh that doesn't help. But but the all the wiring harnesses and all those things have to be, you know, specially made and if
130they don't make the part anymore. >> Yep. Exactly. If I may just pull us back to uh some the hose, the lift and the tools and your line item there went up quite a bit. >> Um >> yeah, we have one line item go up here. >> 60%. What's um why the significant jump? >> Actually, we were going to absorb >> your hose cost. Yeah, we were going to absorb the lift inside that, but the jump was actually the replacement hose to replace the uh hose that we lost during the hose test that I reported out to the public safety committee. That was the uh the jump in there. >> Are there no grants for some of those items that we could look for >> on uh replacement hose? >> Yeah. I I've never seen
131a I've never seen a grant on just replacement hose. This is just normal wear and tear. It's a yearly hose test. Um we do it every October. We expect to lose about 5% and that's I think we lost 4% this year and that was just it to cover what we lost. >> Is that something uh just for the public's knowledge? Every time we go to I91, the state reimbures us so much for each department that goes out there. Is that something that could be absorbed with some of that money? >> It it could. I've been holding on to that money for a couple other purchases, but it could. >> This is kind of a small one, but you know, to do some of that. >> It could. Yes. >> Thanks. Anything else under fire? >>
132We wanted to, it's not listed there, but we did have uh something for capital in there that I know Mike wanted to >> touch on. And we want to do that now. >> Yes. Yes, we do. >> That would be for your radios. And it's going to take me a second to scroll and find them. >> Here we go. radio >> 50 Motorola upgrades phase two. >> So what what we had for capital I don't seem to have it with me right here. What we have for capital is we have two quotes to replace our portable radios. Uh the portable radios are no longer supported. They're no longer repairable. Um, they were bought as part of the referendum. So, back in 2016 and Motorola no longer supports them. So, when they go out of service
133for whatever reason, they wind up in an office. Um, we have a one-year cost to replace them all of 125,000 and we have a three-year cost of 175,000. They have to be replaced. Um, and it's just really up to you guys how you want to do it. >> I'm sorry. You said 120 for >> if we do it all in one bite >> and 170 if we do it over three years. >> Yes. 175 over three years. >> $55,000 difference. >> Yes. >> That's significant. >> That is >> that's a 50% higher cost. >> 125 to 175. Yes. >> But spreading that over two years, Mona, >> but we we I only see 60 in here. We only have 60 in here. >> And there it says two phases. So to do the 60 and
134then 60, >> right? But the other 60 would be the next year or something. >> Correct. It would be next year, >> but that would still lock in that one. >> Correct. >> Has that been considered for grants out there? Mission looking for any grants for us or could they? >> I haven't considered that for grant. Um, and and I will say this, that might be a tough one to consider for Grant. They just released the 2024 money >> if we might not get the money to 2028 and who knows what shape they'll be in by then and we would need reliable communications. So I I would be a little cautious on that one with the grant. >> So then the the other question I have if if if we did Motorola whatever 10 11
135years ago um is it Motorola again? >> It it's Motorola again. It meets the spec. Uh and the other thing Dave is these need to be intrinsically safe >> to use in explosive atmospheres. So it's a higher grade radio. >> Yeah. Um, >> which I agree with. I'm just, you know, it it'd be maybe like I I hate to think that Motorola is like doing this on purpose where, hey, forget the replacement parts, now we have to buy new. >> Hopefully, we have more than just a 10ear span of getting replacement parts for this one as well. >> You know, we see this a lot in the fire service. >> Well, Apple does a good job of it. >> We we see it with meters. They start aging out. >> We see it with uh
136rescue tools, electronic rescue tools. >> They start aging out and the batteries are no longer available, >> right? >> Thermal imaging cameras. >> I'm going to be knocking on your door in the next few years talking about those. >> Um that's how they get you. >> Yeah. >> Honestly, and and you know, I hate that part of the business, but it's just how they get you. >> Yeah. That's a Listen, 120 125 versus 175. I don't know. That seems like a fairly easy decision. I you know, >> let's increase the budget. >> Do we um >> just lost the 25,000? >> We the Do we know how much What was the highway fund? What was the amount that we got in the highway fund last year? >> I was trying to look. No. or or
137through this fiscal year because we're about through it. >> I gave you Give me three seconds here. >> I think it's going to be less because there's been less calls on the highway, right? >> Yeah. The state police is doing a great job up there. >> Um the call volume's dropped honestly. >> Yeah. I'm just trying to get an idea of what is that dollar amount typically? >> I think we're sitting right now in the bank now. I want to say we're at about 95,000. Yeah, >> I've got you. You've received so far this year, this is not the full year, 66, 65, 911 and to date 86 available. >> And we do we are owed some money and at the last fire chief's meeting, we were told that the person there's only one person
138in the state, >> of course, >> who who processes these forms >> and they're out at an extended uh sick leave. So when they get back, they'll process the forms. >> They're coming in. >> I can't make this stuff >> slowly, but they do come. >> Yeah, I got >> So we will get the money. >> Um, but is that And is that I think you said like that's already earmarked for something like you got some. >> I would like to replace the two boats and go with a single source boat and then look at a UTV. Um, we're also looking at some grant funding for that. So yeah. >> Yeah. >> And like I said, the state's doing a great job. So the revenue is come down a little. >> I I mean, it's
139good that we're not necessarily out there putting our guys neck on the line on the highway, you know, place to be. >> Yeah. >> Um I think you have to weigh somewhat. >> The radios we need. The radios are important. They're a lifeline for our guys. That's something that's going to have to be purchased. >> Uh the boat, we have a boat. Can that boat last a couple more years? Possibly. >> We're looking at trying to work with the police to, you know, to use one to >> share one. >> I mean, we know we got to do the radios. Do we need a boat? >> We may not need a boat for a couple years or whatever, but I think >> some of that money may be able to be used, you know, but
140we have to get those radios. >> Yeah. >> That's that's a safety thing. >> Yeah. complete agreement with you on that. >> Anybody have any other questions? I have I just have one last one. So, grand total between these three sections of the budget, you know, uh supervision firefighting apparatus, we spend without some of the other, you know, side things about $1.5 million for the fire department in general. for with all volunteers except for, you know, a couple mechanics and a secretary or an admin. What would that look like if it was a fire a paid fire department? If you guys did not do such a great job attracting people and recruiting them and retaining them and people were not leaving their families on holidays to go snowblow somebody's driveway so that a ambulance could
141get in or you know what the hundreds of things that they do all the time. What would that look like? >> 8 and a half to nine million. >> Yeah. says it all right there. >> Have a bargain. >> Yeah. Thank you for the incredible amount of service that you guys provide to our town. >> You're you're very welcome. >> Um >> it's our pleasure. >> I I hear the sirens at night when they come around my neighborhood and I and I know that whoever's got the need, they're getting >> I think that's just Jeff playing with >> No. No. If I hear one at night, I know exactly who it is. Yes. Thank you. >> All righty. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Moving right along to fire prevention. >>
142So we can get his call volumes down. Right. Yeah. Good evening. In the interest of time, I'll try and make this brief. So, the fire marshall's office consists of two people, myself and deputy fire marshal Bill Kelly. We're responsible to inspect about 2500 2,00 to 2500 occupancies a year. We have a predium inspector that came on in December to cover for me because I was out having knee replacement and I needed I couldn't leave Bill by himself. So that figure is is in this budget. Um and so we are responsible for all these commercial buildings. We're responsible for hazardous materials compliance. We're responsible for doing origin and cause investigations. In the time that I was out, Bill pretty much unassisted. uh had I think three or four fires that he did. Um and so um
143we do a lot with a little. So with that, I'll open it up to questions. >> Did you want to talk about your part-time increase? >> Oh, yes. Thank you, Mona. So, I put in Well, I actually put in for a full-time >> inspector that was cut to part-time because we are woefully behind on our statutory requirements to do inspections. Business occupancies now by statute have to be inspected every three years. Merkantile occupancies every two years. schools, places of assembly, health care facilities, um multifamily is is every year we keep increasing the number of multif family occupancies. So, we're responsible for those inspections on a yearly basis from the time the building is coed and even before that because we have uh plan review responsibilities and construction inspection responsibilities. So we're responsible for that building
144from cradle to grave. So when prior to the building being built and if it gets torn down or burned down, we own it. So yes, we are not meeting our statutory obligations for uh inspections. Ray and Mona, we sat down, they cut the position to to a part-time position and it's sorely needed. >> Rich, can you explain the area towns um what their staffing is for fire marshall? Do they have full-time? >> Uh so Newington has two or three two paid and six pdeium employees. Glastenbury is going through a transition. They have a paid marshall, a paid deputy, and three or four part-time positions. But again, there's some things going on over there. Berlin has three. Uh Cromwell has two or three paid and a couple of part- timerrs. Weathersfield uh has a paid fire
145marshal and two or three PDM inspectors, but Weathersfield we kind of keep out of the the formula because they don't have the saturation that we do here. >> So >> they're mostly a one and two family community. >> So has there been any discussions about similar to what building inspectors did? You know, like we had a building inspector in Rocky Hill years ago that used to help out Weathersfield and vice versa. >> Could that work in the fire marshall's office where you have somebody from Glastonbury coming in and helping out with inspections? >> No. >> Because they're all short staffed, too. And it's, you know, they're it's mostly part-time or PDAM. They they they can't provide that level of service. I mean, we have a mutual aid agreement with Weathersfield um that I try not
146to I try not to call him in because he's got some health related issues right now, significant health related issues, probably because of the job. Um and we have called in Newington a couple of times to help to help Bill out when I was out, but yeah, it's no Okay. No, >> thanks. >> Because basically everybody in the area is kind of in the same They're all backlogged. >> They're in the same boat we are in. >> Yeah. >> What duties would you have that part-time person do? >> Everything that Bill and I do, he would do. Right now, our PDM guy is just doing inspections, but he was available if we needed him when I was out to to to support Bill. So that person has all the training skills. >> So I have
147a guy in certification class right now. He's finished with his fire investigation class and he's they're working on um getting out of the code portion of it. >> Where are you finding these people? I mean, why aren't they getting a full-time job at another municipality? >> This particular guy has a full-time job >> doing that type of work or something different. >> Yes. >> So that's type people you have to rely on >> 100%. This is not something that you can come in off the street and >> that's what I'm getting at. You It's a very It's a specialized skill. >> It really is. >> And you think there's enough people out there to >> But the pool is small. So when when when my other deputy retired, um we put it out statewide. Mhm.
148>> Fortunately, we had a guy locally >> and you know filled in and is doing a great job. But yeah, >> but that's the concern I had. You you think you'll be able to find somebody >> 100%. >> Okay, good. >> On the on the part time. >> Part time. Yeah, on the part times. >> We're kind of getting a really good deal on this because we have a highly >> getting a really good deal >> qualified person doing it. They're getting their benefits and everything from somebody else. And yet we're >> right now. Yeah. >> Right now. >> Yeah. >> But don't misunderstand me. The need is there for a full-timer >> and we keep building apartments and that's great, but we own them and it's a yearly inspection. And some of those inspections
149can take two days. Some of them inspections could take two or three weeks. And then you get involved with the abatement process and you're dealing with attorneys and you're dealing with prosecutors and the court system and it really drags you down. Now, this year, Century Health killed us. >> Yeah. because I had things that I wanted to implement through uh through the budget with uh community-based uh fire prevention programs. We that that was all blown up. >> Yeah. >> Can't couldn't do still can't do it. We're still we're still up there >> two three days a week, >> you know, trying to recover from and it's it's going along, but we're recovering from it. See, a quantifiable quantifiable expense would be hiring the part-timer while we're wasting time up at concierge. >> Well, we're not
150wasting time, but I I don't mean >> I I know what you mean, Dave. >> Yeah, that's a very poor choice of words. >> Um while we're while we're taxed with the problem. Yes, we are taxed with the responsibility of owning >> and we do own it because >> we we have to make sure that at the end of the day it's code compliant and we're working very closely with the building department during the crisis. We work very closely with human services. >> So, I mean it's a it's it's kind of a team thing, >> but yeah, we need I need I need more help, >> right? >> And I'm not going to be here forever. You got your man right there. He's moving up. >> Remember that face. >> Yeah. That's all right. That's
151a succession planning that we're trying to do in this town. >> Correct. >> Good. >> Touch on your capital improvement item. >> You want to go there? Okay. So, I have put in for a new vehicle this year to augment the vehicle that uh my deputy is driving. It's a 11y old vehicle with a 100 approximately 130,000 miles on it. It is not sufficient for what we do to carry the equipment we carry. And we we work. So there's an organization, it's a national organization called the National Fire Protection Association. We refer to it as NFPA. They come up with codes and standards. And there is a standard, it's NFPA 1310. And that provides guidelines for um fire investigation, fire investigators, and part of that is a vehicle. So two code cycles ago, so six
152years ago, NFPA 1310 changed their standard. They actually included a new standard for vehicles for fire investigation. And basically, it's a pickup truck vehicle because they don't want the equipment. They don't want the PPE, the the personal protection equipment, the fire gear in the passenger compartment of the vehicle because when this gear is exposed to fires, it gets absorbed into the materials and in fact some of the materials are cancer-causing and so they off gas. So, they want to get this equipment out of the passenger vehicle because it's causing cancer. Um, and locally, um, the fire marshall, the previous fire marshal in Cromwell, um, passed away from a cancer that was probably jobreated. Uh, my counterpart in Weathersfield has cancer. that's probably job related. And two friends of mine from the FEIU, the State of
153Connecticut State Police Fire Investigation Unit, passed away from uh job related cancers. So, I don't want that to happen here. The car is old. It needs to be replaced. I bought that car. It was a used vehicle that I got through the state in Weathersfield. It was a DE commissioner's vehicle and we've just outgrown it. It's old. It needs to be replaced. And I want I want this guy to be in a vehicle that's safe, as safe as it could be. I mean, these are all known things and we choose to do it. We accept it. But if we can minimize the risk, I want to do it. >> And what year is yours? Mine's a 2015. Okay. >> It's got 80,000 miles on it. >> This is a phase in over time. 20,000 he's
154asking for. >> Yes. Yeah. >> How many years? >> Should be three. And depending on the price, we'll go out for if we need to. >> So, basically, we you need a pickup truck with a separate >> pickup truck. Just similar >> compartment in the back. >> Yep. >> Cap. >> Yeah. like a cap on the back or something like that instead of like an SUV where >> I don't no SUVs >> coming in and yeah >> you want to keep everything the equipment my truck probably has about $10,000 worth of of equipment in it. His truck can't >> Yeah, you can't >> not even close. >> But we've had simultaneous fires before where I've had to send my guy my other guy from a fire scene to another fire scene. So, it's not inconceivable
155that it happens. >> Yeah. >> Just asking Fire Chief Garity, did you get your truck new brand new when you're driving? Cuz that's a similar truck that you guys >> I specked his truck. >> Yeah. >> What's that? >> I specked his truck. I bought that. >> Okay. So, that was a new truck also. Okay. I didn't know if you got them at a you know like your you bought your truck at state surplus. >> No. So we I so I went to state surplus to look >> okay >> for a vehicle >> and I talked to the mechanic down there and he laughed at me. He goes, >> "These things have 130 140,000 miles on it and they have probably more than that in idling time. >> Stay away from them. You're just throwing
156your money away. They're junk." >> Yeah. Because trucks are Yeah, trucks are like that. Most of the trucks that drive them into the ground are from conservation officers and and and you know the D spill guys. >> They idle at scenes for 12 hours. >> Yeah. >> So you may have 120,000 miles on it, but you're you exceeded that then some and just sitting there idling. He said you're just you're throwing your money away. And that's where his truck came from. >> Yeah. So we we try and make do, but now is, >> you know, we're we're beyond that, guys. >> I value that you did look into that. >> We did. >> Thank you. >> We did. >> Yeah. I think it's it's it's different with pickup trucks than it is with like an
157Explorer, whatever, because >> it might get old >> or departments might change around and somebody gets hired and they want a SUV versus a car or whatever and they move stuff around. But trucks you you drive them into the ground. >> So, you know, >> that's >> and that's when they get rid of them. >> That's an I want this is I this is what I need. >> Yeah. >> This is what I >> But I'm saying when it comes to trying to find an old one, trying to find a surplus one that you just drive them until they >> they're hammered. >> Yeah. >> All right. Any other any other questions for Rich? >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Okay, guys. Have a good night. >> Thank you. >> All right. I think last
158item on the agenda. >> Sanit ambulance. No. >> No, we did ambulance first. >> It's been so long we you we forgot. >> No, I thought I thought we did, but he stayed. The nice guy. But um >> before we get to capital improvement, can I just Mona >> Yes. You had somewhere mentioned that we had some duplicates in the budget. >> Yes. >> And I didn't know if those were corrected yet so that we can start from where we need to start or if they're not, can we get them corrected? >> Definitely. Yes. They they have not because the proposed has to stay and it's a little >> We don't know where they are, but you you know where they are. >> I will give you Yes, we've been actually working on a list
159of items that would include duplicates and and that type of thing. What is the total on that >> on the all the duplicates? >> What do you know? >> Uh oh gosh. >> Ballpark it. >> Less than uh less than 200,000. It's probably more like like what do we have? A couple of 60,000s and a 30. Yeah. So like 150ish. >> Okay. Thank you. >> We're getting to the nitty-gritty. >> That's right. It helps. >> All right. Ray Mona >> want to walk through. Sorry. Yes, we probably should have had this at one of the other uh either the town managers presentation, but we don't usually do CIP with town managers. So, >> or economic development. This is a um proposal. It's more of a business incentive um tool that economic development uh uh developers
160use in their little tool box. Um it's um something other municipalities have used and are currently using. It's the intent is to loan out money to first of all maybe existing small this is not a lot of money for this type of program but small businesses for um to help them expand in town, help them improve their their facilities or their operation. Um the the idea would be to partner with a local bank like Liberty Bank or Nutmeg for um their credit analysis for example for any type of business applicant coming in and with the hope of uh maybe the bank maybe matching whatever loan that the town would decide to give out to a business. These would be fairly small um business loans for expansion. I believe the the I would like to see
161it prioritized for local businesses as opposed to uh funding new business coming into town like other municipalities have done in the past. Um similar to um we did a uh small business grant program um um two years ago right after right during COVID actually >> was with the ARPA fund >> with the ARPA funds um I think it was a $200,000 uh loan pool or grant pool um gave out uh grants back in two uh 200 8 n and 10 for facade improvements along the Silastine Highway. That was a $500,000 loan pool. Um, and then I've done it in various other towns I've worked in over the past 40 years. Um, it's fairly common and it just kind of gives the town an edge. Um, it makes it a little bit more attractive. Um, with
162the intent of this loan pool maybe building over time, sort of like a capital well like it is a capital budget pro uh process. um don't use all the funding in one year. You get uh interest payments back and that this funding pool would grow gradually um where you'll be able to actually maybe utilize it to entice a company undecided between Weathersfield and Rocky Hill for example and maybe it would give us an edge to to get that particular manufacturer or high-tech manufacturer in the town. Um, in fact, Weatherfield does have a uh a significant program like this. It was funded initially, but I think a million dollars of ARPA money back in a couple years ago. Um, I know Bristol, they have a couple hundred,000 they offer to businesses to relocate, but that's that's
163the basic idea. Um, we did speak to a bank just to find out if that bank or other banks would be willing to uh to work with the town and and they would be willing to work with the town. It's it's small. It's a community investment for them. Um, and you know, their their role would just to be, okay, you should or shouldn't grant this particular loan to this particular company based on the creditworthiness. we would recommend you pass. You know, that would be basically their role and hopefully they can match, you know, a certain percentage of what we give that particular business. That's about it in a nutshell. >> So, so it's not a grant, it's a loan. >> A loan. Yes. >> We're just making funds available and um and the underwriting would
164be done hopefully by like Nutmeg andor Liberty, whatever. >> Yes. And is it like a zero percentage loan or something? >> No, we we would probably, you know, like maybe 3% low interest, but we need to get something back. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. I mean, you know, in the past we did grants like the facade programs. They were um 75% grant, 25% business. And you know, it was it was an easy process. We need to make this an easy process for the business as opposed to, you know, some of the typical lending is is pretty complicated kind of as a turnoff for some of the businesses. >> So, is there going to be some kind of contract if you get this loan, you have to stay in town for so many years? >> There could
165be. Um, we did that for the uh facade program. And number two is uh you mentioned two cities or towns right which do this uh outside of ARPA how many time towns do this and if you can provide more data on that. >> Sure. Yeah, because that is like you said we did that to right with ARPA money. Um, but outside of that and what are what is the success rate of that? Like what can you expect if you do this program? What is your expectation in terms of like what you're going to get out of it? >> Yeah, that's those are things we need to write into this. We the program hasn't been drafted right now. It's it's the the idea of starting the program. you know, we had those requirements for their facade
166program here that was funded with steep money. Um, we had them we had we had requirements for the ARPA um grant program we did a couple years ago. Um, I did the same thing in Portland when I was the planning director there. It was a small small program and we had Liberty Bank involved. Um, but I I can get all that information. I can get other other information from other towns and there's a whole bunch of different models we can draw from >> and it'll be more geared towards existing you said existing u >> businesses and >> not for new businesses >> um that would be my suggestion but if the if we think we might want to open it up again it's only $150,000 at this point you know we don't want to blow
167the whole thing on >> y something that might not work from an out out oftowner. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> How much are you thinking per a business you would loan on? >> You know, they can range from anywhere from very small like five grand up to maybe 25. You know, we have to be careful. you know, we're going to have to limit because if we have a finite and whether it's 100 or 150, you know, we need to maybe prioritize what types of business we want to help and what things we want to fund. Like parking lots, we don't want to fund those. Pavement's very expensive. Anything to do with like concrete, you know, we, you know, concrete's very expensive. Um, >> how long do you think this would the loan be for? >>
168Um, I think typically there they could be like three to five year, you know, payback. Again, I want to get more information from the banks. They'll they'll provide some better technical information for us. >> I wish, you know, you're presenting this to us. You're asking for $150,000. I wish you had this information. I mean, it's difficult for me to make a decision properly where there's a lot of unknowns. I don't want to just throw 150,000 at something that we don't know what we're going to get or how it's going to be organized. Um, >> yeah, you really can't work with a bank and come up with a very detailed plan if it's not going to be funded. I had no idea if this is going to be funded. It was an idea. >> It's an
169expensive idea. Yeah, >> that's that's why I I wish there was more preparation or a thought process behind it. I mean, it could have been fine-tuned, but we're talking a a significant increase in our budget. And maybe maybe this is something that, you know, we shouldn't fund this year, but it's open for discussion and we could talk about it and plan it out. But I'm concerned this budget's very high. Taxes are going to go up significantly. and we don't have a real good plan right now for this. So maybe there something we could discuss later on down the road. It's just my thought. >> Yeah. And Ry like just a thought on what Fran said here like yeah I understand like the bank part of it like everything cannot be like written out but in
170terms of your expectation because it's an idea from you. You should be able to articulate like what your expectations from this program are, right? In terms of goals, uh what would you like to see like how many businesses stay here for how much longer? How many new businesses coming in? That does not require a bank. That just requires you know some due diligence on your part. I guess >> we've done this before you said with ARPA money. >> Yeah, we did a short program with ARPA money. Did that get paid back? Did we gain interest? We gain money from that. >> No, those that was a grant program that the town council at the time wanted to do with ARPA money. It was a committee of Mona um previous John uh town manager John Mayer
171um and Allan Greenspan. We were committee. >> What were the terms of money were given by the federal government? Was that just given to the >> the business? It wasn't a loan. >> It was not a loan. It was a grant. They had to tell us what they wanted to do. >> We decided whether it was reasonable and then at the end they had to uh provide invoices for every dollar that was spent and then those invoices had to go to the state. >> That's is it that's totally different from what this is. You know, this is a loan. And this is something that we're we have to generate a plan for. >> Um yeah, so that I I don't even think that's much of a comparison really. But >> I'm at a loss for
172this. >> So uh I I can give you guys a little bit more information because I was, you know, uh I've met with the leaders in Weathersfield and talked about their program, got some of the details about their program and um really you know, encouraged Rey and Mona to reach out to the bank and see if there's anybody that would be interested in doing something like this. And uh unfortunately, we don't have a million dollars of ARPA money falling out of the sky to give out as loans. So, to give you an idea of the success rate of something like that is just take a look at the Silusan Highway. Uh Doro Marketplace used their uh loan program. Nomamese used their loan program. Um a lot of the redevelopment that you saw that you see
173along the Silus Dean particularly use that loan program. And the way that it works is um you get a set amount of money. Now in in their case they have a million dollar. So they can give out a loan of 300,000 and pay it back over five 10 years. I I don't know the you know it's probably different for every business and a chunk of the increase in value of the property. So you know you've got uh crappy old building that's run down um is generating $20,000 in tax revenue. They get a loan to redo the the facade increase, you know, let's say doubles the value. a chunk of that increase goes back into the fund to replenish the money as well as they're paying back the loan with interest. So over time it pays
174back itself and so that $1 million is still going because they're getting money back into it and it continues and continues. But we don't have that option. So this gives um I think it's something that we could build for a couple years. We could do 150 and 100 or something like that over the next couple years. And what'll happen is if you give 15 to $50,000 loans, smaller loans, we can't do 300,000 obviously. Um, and you're replenishing the fund with tax increased tax revenue goes back into the fund as well as they're paying it back. They're paying back the loan over time. Um, it replenishes in five to seven years is typically how it maths out. and you're spreading the risk. So, if one business folds or something um and they don't pay back the
175loan, you've you're getting money in and keeping it going even though that one didn't work out. Um and the bank does the underwriting. So, the the bank determines um whether somebody is loanw worthy. Typically, they have matching funds. So, it's 50/50. So, they're getting a loan from the bank as well as a loan from us. So that's part of also why the bank is doing this kind of for free for us because they're getting a partnership with them. Um and then it like I said it it replenishes itself over over time um while at the same time improving our grand list. This is an investment to try to grow the grand list. Um and that's that's what it is. It's an investment. Um the impact or or to one of the questions was around you
176know do are they required to stay here? Yeah, that's part that's usually part of the contract like you got to stay here for five years or whatever. You have to stay here for the length of loan or else you're you you know that money is immediately back due. Typically what um typically what what Weathersfield does is they give a they forgive a portion of the loan halfway through or something like that. So they loan it for five years. They've now increased the tax revenue so much that they can say all right we've replenished the money through that mechanism. So now we'll forgive that other portion of the loan or something like that. Sometimes they do that as part of the mechanism. How long do you have this program by the way but that's fairly >>
17722 23 something like it's been like two three years it was with ARPA money so it's no more than five years ago >> so the only reason I'm asking that question is how do we know it's successful >> right that's the question because everything about weatherfield I hear tells they're not doing so well. Uh that's just indisputable I think. So >> I would argue that but >> I mean you can but uh if you really look at their uh mill rate if you look at their condition of their roads if you look at like everything else u the point being grand list is not the only measure if it's you're growing it it should trickle down to a to the tax base and if that's not happening individually speaking u I'm not interested in like
178growing that tax the grand list without that trickle down effect. So I we need to see that happening in Weathersfield if Weathersfield is the model. Um all data points I look at indicate to Weatherfield not being very successful in reducing their taxes. generally speaking um they've been pretty much going up the whole time. So I've been here at least last six years. So that's that's what I will be looking to like if weatherfield is the model and I'm open to that if if it's trickling down in a way where the there is uh considerable like it does not have to be like it's a three-year-old program so you have to be reasonable but at least if there are signs of that trickle down from the grandless to the tax base then those are real dollars.
179I mean, I think that'd be pretty easy to look up. You just look at the the the tax revenue from the locations that have taken advantage of that program over time. So, that would be like the chips building, you know, that used to be Chips that's now Doro, for instance. You know, what is the what is that tax revenue from that building now versus before? I think the Dutch Point Bank that moved in to that same uh that pad site there. I think that that's another one that was just an empty lot. Now it's a new business with employees that's paying tax revenue. Um >> but it was paying revenue before too. So you have to look at the delta, but you have to also look at the length of the >> parking the parking
180lot wasn't paying very much tax revenue for the Dutch point. No, >> no, there was chips in there, right? >> Right. But I'm saying that that's one example. >> Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, I mean the it can be uh it can be looked at and I think that's what you should be looking at, Ray. I think >> I listen I I I think there could be some legs here. Um you know, I'm getting mixed messages though because Ry said nothing, not a new business necessarily, right? >> And you said the same thing, but Doro and >> Dor and and businesses. Yeah. Well, however you want to structure it, you know. >> I mean, I I love secured loans, you know, and this sometimes when it's based on a business, it's not secured. It's based on
181whether that business will survive or not, >> um, or thrive, I should say. Um, so I I kind of I I may like this idea. I mean the shared appreciation which you started to go into I I guess the only way we share appreciation on a building is by getting more taxes on that building >> and that would be on a reval every five years right so >> you know >> when there's an improvement >> improvements >> if they go by permit right but >> yeah so like you do you do the you know you do the front facade on a building and now >> Stuart shows up and says you know show me the I do have faith in Steuart. Yes, >> he I tell you what, you put a Trex deck in, he'll
182be at your house. >> Does it? >> I don't I don't think he can do that though until it's a revalure. >> If you get a permit, if you get a permit, you can >> the permit kicks in a rev. That's like >> I I think this warrants further discussion. I do. Um, but one caveat I want to make and and Ray, I'm not sure if you know from the area towns is >> let's say this grows eventually from 150 to 750. >> In a tough budget year, we can't take 500 from this to allocate to the regular budget. There's got to be there's got to be some stipulation that >> oh yeah, >> this thing grows and we don't touch it to balance something else. >> Yeah, that's the um um rich pool. >>
183Yeah, exactly. Yeah, >> that's the sequestered in a separate fund. >> I just want to throw like a little caution. Um it's um >> you're you're right. You're absolutely right. >> Go ahead. >> We have to get the fire marshall out there to inspect. Not all these grow grants or they all they all will not generate a significant or or a visible increase in taxes. You put up a new facade on a building and the value may not change. >> You know, putting up redoing signage may not may not impact the the mill rate. It probably won't. Um my my as economic former economic development person is not just the tax base it's retaining jobs you know if this business needs to expand to do a storage facility on this building yet that storage filling
184the addition may be an increase but the value I the bigger value I think is allowing that business to grow and maybe hire a couple more people you know that's the other part of not just looking that degeneration of taxes. So, it's a combination of all right, maybe this person, maybe this business will generate an additional, I don't know, $1,000 a year in taxes because Stuart will come out and look at it, but it may allow this business to expand and hire five more people, you know. >> Yeah. But our concern is not really like how much the Connecticut economy is growing. My concern is what is happening to our tax base and what is happening to our taxes and our middle rate. >> I mean that's what I'm here for. >> So the governor
185that's a bigger job somebody's running for it. uh they can figure out that that piece of it that if you're you know creating more jobs or not u as a general macroeconomic matter but >> well for business >> my concern is like >> if you're going to go there >> we should see something reasonable as a bottom line in like you know to mitigate our tax increases every year >> otherwise you have 100 more businesses here and your tax taxes are still going up at a clip of 5%. >> Yeah. I >> I don't think that's a great point. >> I agree. I agree. >> That's a great >> I mean it's not a new concept. It's been around for decades anyway. >> Yeah. Sure. We'll look at it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No problem.
186>> The >> I mean it's not it's not I'm not against like I'm just saying like we should think this through. >> Yeah. I agree. >> I think I'm with John Emanuel too where I'd rather it's hard to put this in on the 11th hour >> in my opinion but I I think it's a worthy discussion. I do >> 100%. I think uh a big part of this too is that there are so many other towns that do this. So when you're uh when you're a company that is looking to move, you you you've got to move somewhere in a Hartford suburb and you go, do I want to go here? Do I want to go here? Do I want to go here? You know, what kind of property can I buy for what price?
187And what are the taxes going to be there? And sometimes it is as simple as, well, if I go to this town, they're gonna help me borrow an an extra 50 grand and this town isn't, so I'm going to go to that one instead. Uh, it helps in though it helps us win in those competitive situations. And that that's why I also think that that's why we see a difference from uh, you know, one side of the Silus Dean to another because they do have another tool. It's just it is just another tool. It's funding another tool. >> We're getting mixed information here. The town manager who has the budget saying this money is to use existing small businesses. You're talking about bringing in new businesses to our town. I mean, that's why I think
188there needs to be further discussion. This is a a significant amount of money. Maybe we should have had a presentation before the budgets or somebody come in tonight to talk this out from another experience. I'm just so uncomfortable. There's too many whatifs. I'm unfamiliar with the program. Um my thoughts anyhow, you know, that's I'm uncomfortable with it. All right. Anyone else? Any other thoughts? motion to adjourn. Right, that's all in favor. I