001Good afternoon. I'd like to call into session the town council budget workshop for Tuesday, April 29th, 2025. I'd like to start with the pledge of allegiance. Pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible justice for all. Just so just so everybody knows our mayor is joining us via Zoom tonight. So I'll be running things uh being here in person just makes it easier. So with that move on to public comment. This portion of the meeting is specifically set aside for comments from the public who are asked to limit their comments to two minutes. Any person interested in providing public comment should email public meetings at rockyhillct.gov and will be provided with a link to attend the meeting and instructions on how to participate.
002Uh J is there anything you receive? No, I don't receive anything. Okay. Did anybody from the public wish to speak? Seeing none, we will move on to the budget review. Uh first item under there is senior services. Um just before we get in the budget review. Oh yes. Yes. We have uh some comments from last uh meeting to uh to clarify. So a few housekeeping items. Um question was about the copers and the rollup in the IT department. Unfortunately we will be needing to add the $30,000. The uh rollup did not happen on that page. So, unfortunately, we're going to have to do an ad at the end of the uh the process for um adopting the budget. Uh also clarifying, there was a question on part-time for fire that included all standby and the
003fire chief EMS is part-time and included in there. Want to make sure we clear on that. and clarifying on uh the human resource position. The offer is there and accepted but it was written as a contingent upon uh budget process. Right. And the photo copy that's going to be in under it. It will be under it. Okay. Yes. You have three handouts in front of you. uh one being ambulance assessor, the second and the third engineering in the printed book. Uh I am no idea how or why but they are not in the printed book but they are on the online. So if you need to refer to the paper document we've handed them out at the desk. Great. Okay. Uh any more comments or we move on to the first item on the list?
004Uh senior services I believe is it first. I'm ready. Okay. Page one, page 139. And we'll start with um the uh the goals. Um just quickly um I'm going to go through um the previous year's goals in in brief and then if you have uh specific questions or if you'd like to hear from our directors um just let let us know and uh we'll call them up. Um last year um the goal to align departmental goals uh in programming with existing resources um you know budgeting, staffing, and volunteer uh uh operations. Um that was um um completed. This still need a little bit more time um on that one. Um we're a little unorganized right now, aren't we? Um there have been more programming um occurring over the past year uh with silver sneakers or
005two more classes that were added. Um they now have 12 classes altogether since those initial two classes that were added back uh in first quarter. Um they now have uh 12 classes with 250 enrollies with silver sneakers. So that really really ballooned. Um they also have night and weekend programming. Additionally, um, silver sneakers at night, um, dancing classes, chess classes, um, I think you name it, I think, uh, Gina does it. Um, we, uh, they in instituted a 4pm yoga classes, five chair classes with, um, 30 in each class so far. Um, they also teach chess and they have um, spring and early evening concerts now. Um so those were all programming uh uh goals that were accomplished uh for goal number one to align departmental goals with programming and existing resources. Goal number two
006was to reach out to local business community to secure partnerships and financial assistance for uh programs and events. Um the fee has gone up for a sponsorship for an event uh minimum of $400 to a sponsor event. Um extra sponsor fees and and other uh for for other events um are also charged uh for larger I believe events. Um um Gina will be working with her economic development manager with the business outreach to get more business uh involvement in many of uh many of her programs. More business involvement means um additional uh sponsorship. Goal number three to establish a volunteer manual in job descriptions, expectation, safety guidelines to assist in the training um of prospective and current volunteers. Um the manual um it's still being revised. Um I would have to say maybe 80 80
007to 90% of it has been um completed, but um there's still some tweaks to be made. Those are the goals from last year. Um and goals in the uh the assessment of each goal in the progress on each goal. Any uh further questions more detail on the on the goals or on the goals. Now I get to the uh financials. That is page 141. So, I'm just going to do the same process I did last time. I'm I'm starting at the very bottom to total expense. There is a $31,798 increase for the entire department. $31,200 is in part-time salaries. uh increased hours um for support staff, for admin, and for uh uh program support. That's in that part-time salary line item. Um part-time salaries have increased uh $7,698. U moving down um $500 increase in
008service contracts um which is um um really production of the newsletter. Um it's really a $3,500 design fee. Um but that's increasing, you know, due to just increases in costs. That's that newsletter that goes out every month every quarter. Um zero increase for health services training um which is training really consist of like the serve safe um for the cafeteria workers and uh uh CRDA and CASP which I do not remember what CASP stands for but Gina can define that for us. Um moving down to uh actually there's a zero uh increases until we get down to senior activity the the bottom line item and that's for various activities um in special events and intergenerational um activities that has been reduced $5,500. Um we're looking to find uh well Gina will be finding co-sponsors and
009donations and other uh lower cost uh vendors to uh support the uh 33% reduction. Question questions. um right with with increased membership in the senior center and and I'm I've always been totally supportive of the senior center and and I know Gan is doing a a terrific job with the increased membership is the gap with revenue with the fees and everything is that closing with the increased expenses as time goes on because I don't see in the in the very first part where the revenues special revenues are. Yeah. You have youth services and stuff like that, but I don't see senior. So, I'm sure money's coming in for food and membership and programs. Is that offsetting? Yes. I just don't see the offset. Yes. And and it will show in it in the special revenue
010fund. And when we do the finance report, it rolls up as just all special revenue. So you'll see it kind of ballparked into um with the um parks and wreck as well as the the seniors. So yes, anything that's going above and beyond here, for example, the food, if we're doing the subsidy of 20,000, then that's going to special revenue and balanced out by fees and service. And that is in the positive. I did um skip over food. I I'll run back to that. Yeah. But I mean, Mona, do you do you see over the past like, you know, three years with membership going up every year, more programs, more fees coming in, is that offsetting expenses or is the gap getting wider? No. No. And I think Gina, if you want to, but I
011know it's it's definitely not making a a larger gap, but I think her pricing is just competitive enough that it can meet the needs, and the goal is not to make a profit. It's to cover costs. So, the gap should stay steady, right? Okay. All right. Thank you. So, can I follow up on that? So would it be useful, you know, since we have the benefit of electronic document here perhaps to embed links on this expenditure side to show where it ties into sources of special revenue that offset it so we have a full picture on how much of an impact it's actually having on the regular budget. So, because what we see here, for example, we have this line item for food. Um, and pick up what John said, you know, pointing out that
012with with more people buying into the program, that's more revenue. That's that's in the special revenue fund, which I assume is an offset against this line item. Let me just do a jump here. uh what is in the the book and again it's on a more high level summary that you'll see that these are the uh and again it's recreation program parks because they're using the same financial system to gather their fees but you can see here the uh this is the collections and estimated at 700,000 this is the revenue side of it and then if we come down to the this section here is the expenditure so you can see it's almost a a uh a break even 661 revenue 659 and again that's all programs and our projection is again it's uh designed
013to be a break even not a forprofit. So, uh, but to break it down further between the, uh, parks and the seniors, it is not there, but it can be done. Well, just as you're looking at the expenditure page, you as opposed to then having to, you move ahead and find the special revenue page and match it all up. So, we have the ability, I assume, to do, you know, just to do links. Um, that way you, you know, you kind of have one-stop shopping in one place to get the true picture of what the actual hit is to the budget. So, I'm just I'm just putting that as a suggestion. U just a question on the part-time salaries. So just one question on how how part-time are we talking about here? Does that include
014maybe a person who just teaches one class once or twice a week? Um yeah, you know the person who comes in to do a yoga class or crafts class or whatever and who's getting paid, you know, who's not, you know, in the office year round on any basis. Are those kind of people included in the part-time salaries line here? Yeah, your list. You really have a combination of both. Um, it's a admin AD admid support staff and program coordination. So, yes, we do have part- timerrs on the clerical side. We have a kind of a a morning and an afternoon part-time person that can come on and uh and fill the the clerical gaps. But this increase that you're seeing is for uh a support admin. I think we've got some part-time hours in there
015now, but looking to do something that's more consistent for um Virginia. Obviously, I think the goal would be ultimately to have a full-time assistant to the seniors and this is the stepping stone that that brings it here. So, that's the difference you're seeing there is is just bringing in the increase hours for program. Well, I'm sorry until the last thing that you said. I thought you said that part-time salaries was all admin support. Yes. Yes. Don't mind me. He's disturbing me because he just shut my screen off and I see nothing. Sorry about that. So, so if I lost you talked about the admin support. My question was specifically about actual programming people, the people come in and lead classes and the like. And my question was, we have this bump up here. You talked
016about increasing programming, increasing activity. Does this line item include those people who do the actual programs or is it only on the admin side? Tina, do you want I believe we're all admin. I'm going to if she's got a few others. I think we have you're talking about like the uh fitness center person. And I'm trying to understand what what this 31,000 increase is. Does that mean that we added a halftime or whatever admin person or that we increased the hours on an existing admin person and that's all that that 31,000 is paying for? Correct. Or is it also including payments to programming people? The the increase in is intended to be admin hours only. Mo yeah mostly administration program coordination. So to expand programs, you need someone to create the program, be there when
017the program's going on, and supervise the program. So that's what that position is for. Right now, I'm working nights, sometimes weekends. In order to grow the program, we need more help in the office. And this person would be program creation, coordination, and also learning the my system to take registrations. The senior population does not like to register themselves on the computer. So our phones are ringing off the hook and customers are two and three deep. If you ever come down during the day, you you'd see it. So this is to alleviate some of the stress in the office and to make things go a little smoother. So this includes a new hire for say halftime admin. Yes. She would the person would hopefully he or she would be able to do both admin and program
018coordination. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. How many hours would that reflect roughly a week? Is that 30? Yes. Yep. 30 is what we we put in for. Thank you. Can I go back to John's question about if we have more membership um and activity? You know, we said we're the membership fees are offsetting that, but in reality, they may not be because we have this $31,000 increase, you know, and I'm all for I your senior center does phenomenal. like if we're gonna I love this this program, but I I don't know who to ask that, but I it doesn't seem like membership is keeping up if we have to hire a new admin position for the additional programs. Yeah, I think I'll just kind of jump on and then add Go ahead. Uh but what
019we're doing on the general fine side is staffing the the administration of the program. If you looked at the full-time, they've got the administrator and one clerical. And that's the the purpose of the general fund is doing just that $20,000 subsidy and some more administrative costs. The programs, if you were going to do a program and have someone in in teaching a class, then that would be on that membership. Membership fees covers the class. So, it's the classes are paying themselves. We're trying to as a town give her the administration to to make all programs happen. So, we're doing this the administrative staffing in this budget and not feeding it into the uh the fees at this point. And and then the senior activity going down 5,500 that's due to the sponsorship or not due
020to sponsorships. Sponsorships and creative programming. So, going back to Councilman O Sullivan's thing, he had asked is it on this page and it we said it's not. It's on the special revenue page, but in reality, you are able to show some of that offset from the sponsorships then. Correct. So, we have it in two spots. See that? I agree. I think we need more clarity on how we offset some of these costs, you know, to be a little bit more consistent. So, uh, and then the only other thing I had is, uh, we're we're over budget for actual on the, um, food and then we went back to 20,000 for next year. That's Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, F. And and I know we're only nine months deep or so. So, is that low? No
021actually what that is and and our finance office we uh meetings we get to discuss those but that actually is it will be an accounting transfer out that line will not ever exceed the 20,000. So this will be one of those an invoice came through it's going to the special revenue. So that's really just a temporary capture of where the invoices were but that will not exceed 20,000 at all regards with special revenue. Correct. So I guess just piggyback on that, how come any of the food does why wouldn't all the food go through the special revenue? I think just the the past history is we've had a subsidy set aside for the 20,000. So I mean ideally it was 95,000 when I first started. It wasn't. Well, no, this is more just trying to
022understand how where the numbers go. If is it because the town needs to contribute 20,000 beyond what we get for revenue to offset the cost? Is that essentially it or it's not a requirement? It's the level that's there. I think I hate to say it's more of a service to the to the seniors to have that lunch program. So that 20,000 is No, that's not what I'm asking though. I'm this is more of an accounting thing. If like like parks and wreck, if they have a program, they have expenditure just like you would have expenditures for a yoga instructor, you get you pay the yoga instructor out special revenue and you'd receive fees, you know, to offset that. So, but for food it's different. We're because we're the town is is putting 20,000 on top
023for food on top of the revenue to offset the costs or I guess I'm just trying I'm just trying to understand kind of how the the math works here. And again, it's not that it cannot be, it's that we have funded that level to be the subsidy. Uh if it became a zero, would the food service the calf, excuse me, your meal program continue? Yes. Would they have to absorb the 20,000 in the fees? Yes. So this is here because historically as she said it was a higher dollar amount but this is the amount that's been Yeah. I'm just trying to because I'm just trying to understand because it seems a little different than we do some of the other things. So, I'm just trying to understand if there's a a reason like we like
024that you need the 20,000 because just the way the math works, the math doesn't work unless you have the 20,000 or I guess I just it's not a program like yoga which is by choice a nice thing to have um good for people to do. This meal program for some of these seniors is the only food that they get in a group setting. So, it's a service that the town has supported from day one. So there's at this point it would be difficult to absorb that 20,000. We are already getting sponsorships um and donations for the lunch program. Right. Well, that's what Yeah. I'm not questioning the the strengths of the merits of the program at all. My question is I'm just trying to understand the nuts and bolts of the dollars and cents versus
025other programs. So it sounds like what you're saying is the program needs this 20,000 from the town along with the sponsorships and the fees they get to make the program work to make it work. Okay. If you want to give more, that's fine. No. No. because it's it's it's a little bit different than we than the other special revenue things in parks and wreck. So that's what I'm I'm just trying to understand. So but so that's that's the reason that the 20,000 seems to be as I understand that's a subsidy to keep the pricing to what it is right now basically. Right. So about how many meals a year does that represent J? Good question. Is it I think it's on it's on there. It's in here I think. Um this the residents pay $5
026for a meal and we are charged $8 per meal. It's about 11 and a half thousand. Yeah. Meals and non-residents pay $10 for that meal. No, my question was about how many meals per year are served. 10,000. I was going to say 11,000 somewhere. So based on 20 based on that $20,000 subsidy knocks down the price by about two bucks a meal. So if you don't have the 20,000, you have to bump up the meals by $2 a piece. Yeah. Is that basically the essence of Makes sense? Yes. Thank you. I didn't do the math in my head, but I'm not advocating necessarily cutting. I'm just trying to understand how Yeah, because it's a little there's a distinction between that and some of the other programs. I was trying to understand. So, but I will
027and I know we're not on the parks night, but they also have a dollar amount in their special in their general fund that's called program activity which does basically exactly this. So, they do something similar to we subsidize program activities and the parks and then the rest they pick up with fees. Okay. It is kind of it is consistent. Um the other question I had um the $2,000 decrease in telephone is that similar to photocopier where that's being taken out of all the departments and putting into correct. Yes. Yes. Okay. Is that an IT also? Is that I is that number I didn't look to see what that number? Yes, it should be in the I'll look at that later. So okay. Um any other questions for senior services? So uh hi Gina. Um just
028like f like kind of moving out to like more like a you know 10,000 ft view. Um what is the increase in the membership uh year-over-year now? Um our membership right now is about 2,600. Okay. And 21 and a half I think are residents. So we're picking up every year we pick up more people. Yeah. Last year it was uh 1889 I guess. So we have moved to like 2600. Yeah. Like 800. Yes, it's been busy. Yeah, almost 800. Uh, okay. And, um, by the way, is the membership different for out of town? I I know it is for lunch. It's um free for Rocky Hill residents and it's 25 if you live out of town. And we actually raised that fee in January. It was 20 before that. We bumped it up to 25.
029So, I'm going to ask you the same question I asked you last time, which is how do you keep track of when is somebody's membership expiring versus um how to do the how do you do the renewals, things like that. How do you maintain a database? Yep. There's a report we can put out. We anytime we would like we print out who's expiring and we have uh either volunteers or staff make phone calls if people are expiring. Okay. And um what will be the job profile of this part-time person? Like if you Yeah. The new one. The new one. The new one or the one making phone calls? The new one. The new one would be a a professional position program coordinator. I'm basically looking for someone who has my skill set or similar skill
030sets that can do programming, maybe even help with reporting. Um so not just a typical clerical person. And do you uh foresee this person's role expanding over the next few years? Yes, I am. I'm hoping it would expand. I'm hoping it would be a full-time position coming up because right now I only have one full-time clerical position. Okay. Which isn't really that much for the volume that we do and the kind of work that we do. Okay. Great. Thank you, Gina. Last year, we funded a part-time position for your office as well. What position was that and has that been successful? Yes, it's been successful. We uh that person answers phones, uh handles customers, does reporting, inputs data, that kind of thing. Um it's general office work. Um I guess that's the best way to
031say it. Is that going to be funded again in your budget this year? That person? Yes, it's still there. Thanking for I'll just ask this because you're here. Okay. Looking forward, if we make that position a full-time position, what things can offset that for us? I mean, out of town membership, $25 a person, that's not going to get us that far. Hopefully, program revenue will. Yeah. Um, one of the things I wanted to do is a a fundraiser for the center. Um, so I'm going to specifically look for activities that will make money. Typically, we don't. Our programs should cover costs. Some of our programs do make money and that's where we subsidize the things that don't make money. Right. Right. But that's a good pretty good growth rate right now. Yeah. A little scared,
032but that's okay. Baby boomers, here we come. That's right. all of us. Thank you. Um, mayor has her hand raised in the Zoom queue if uh she has a question. I thought that was Bill. Hi, Gina. How are you? Good. Lisa, how are you? I'm good. I'm sorry I can't be there this evening. How many part-time positions do you have at the helping you at the senior center right now? Good question. We have probably three part- timerrs all working different schedules, different hours. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Do do any of those part-time people have the ability to do this new position you're or they're more clerical? This is a different area. They're more clerical. Yeah, this would be a little higher level. Yeah. It's like that part-time position is going to
033morph into GINA essentially. That's what I was trying to get. That's I think the direction we're going in. I'm not a spring chicken anymore. How do you view um the possibility like just literally trying to fill that position based on the marketplace trying to get someone who like you was obviously looking for full-time someone to do a part-time position like that. Do you see that being a challenge in finding somebody or you know there's enough professionals in the field that I think are looking to change positions or maybe um semi-retire that are still young enough to do the job but don't want the full-time hours or the responsibilities or the headaches. So I there's a few different people that I that I'm aware of that might be able to do this. And once you put
034something out typically you can find people Any other questions? Great. Thank you. Thank you. We'll keep the bus. Oh, okay. Transportation mini bus page 142 143 144. Um staffing summary. You have uh too many bus drivers and one one per DM one dispatcher and one dispatcher. Um bottom line on page 144 we have a $4,156 increase. Um, if you go up to the part-time salaries, that has increased uh 8.4% or $5,143. Um, moving up one more line item to full-time salaries that has been reduced to 1487 because of a new hire replacing a previous employee. There is a uh increase in overtime line item of $500 or 100% And that is the total of that budget. No, no other increases besides those. Why is the part-time salaries going up? We're using the part-time or longer
035more hours. Our PDM driver is working more to keep up with the schedule. You can't use a full-time person. They're already they're already working. So, we have three vans on the road at least two days a week, sometimes three days a week, depending on the schedule. Is there coordination with human services on this too? Well, if they need rides, if they have uh clients, then they reach out to us and we provide them for them. Um, but yeah, many of the people are either going to the grocery store, to a doctor's appointment, to the senior center. A lot of people are coming to the center now. Um, so we just, you know, we accommodate them where we can. We don't have to turn too many people away. We've been lucky that we um can hopefully
036accommodate them in the week during the week if they need to go somewhere like for grocery shopping. Um but it's just it's a high volume and our drivers are working as quickly as they can but to get people to where they have to go in a safe manner, you know. Yeah. Gina, do you do you still have the church transports? No. No. It kind of fizzled out. people weren't interested in going. Um, and you you have three vans, right? Yes. How old is or how when was the newest one replaced? What's the newest one? We will be getting a new one this year sometime. So, we we got a grant. We're getting a new one that will be coming in. Yeah. Grants. Okay. Thanks. What happens to the old one? We're keeping it. Oh, okay.
037because there's there's a van that's usually out of commission every I don't want to say how often, but quite often. So, we need a backup in case there's an issue. Has a new van been selected already? Yes. Is it electric? No. Did you explore that as an option? That's not something that was offered to us through the state. Yeah. Yeah. With the the state grants, they basically give you an option of two basically different types of vehicles. So we're kind of directed in which vehicles they have chosen. There's I think how many towns we had involved in the purchase. So just in Connecticut alone I think we had like 20 plus towns. So they do it very streamlined. These are the vehicles and these are the you know add-ons if if you wanted any additional.
038So so they're very strict on what they're offering in the grant. None of the options that were offered were electrical. Oh no no no. We were lucky. We had electric heat heated uh mirrors and we didn't buy them. No, it's okay. Is this service are there restricted to Rockill residents? Yes. Okay. So, even the members that sign up for $25 don't know. Okay. No, they don't qualify for that. Do they go out of town? Our buses? Yes. For medical appointments, they will. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, library is next on the agenda, page 165. I am going to call up our next guest because he does such a tremendous job. Mike Murphy, library director. Um, he has the information, the stats, everything you're looking for. Mike, you can just
039go run through your role. You know the Sure. Yeah. The accomplishments. Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Um so our goals um are uh fairly similar to um last year. Um I think as my um second goound as a new director. Um last year um they were to increase um most of our key metrics uh by 5%. I think this year I'm being a little bit more realistic um in terms of trying to increase by um 2 and a half%. Um, also sort of keeping in mind um that we had the uh 40hour assistant director position uh frozen last time. So just trying to keep that um in mind as well. But um so yeah, our our primary goals remain similar to what they have been, you know, in the past 11 years that I've been at the
040library, which is essentially to increase um library visits to um increase the number of library card holders, increase the number of participants per program. So basically quality over quantity when it comes to programs and then to maintain or increase our circulation using our selfch checkout um because that was a big investment several years ago and we want to make sure that we're uh using it properly. Um and um I think we are. Um so those are our uh primary goals. Um like I say just those main key metrics that really come down to um participation in library activities. [Music] and I'm just going to jump to pageuh 168. You see the overall increase for this uh for the library has increased $83,523. Um, jumping back to page 167, vast majority of that increase is in
041full-time salaries at $84,473. And we do have a $950 decrease in the photocopier, which we don't really utilize. So if you have questions about the items in this budget, um Mike is here to help you out. So the salary line, does that reflect the addition of a person that reflects increases in in the in the contract salaries? Yes, that would be uh it's a combination of so there is no the first answer is no. That is not an additional person. They've got a few bargaining units involved there a as well as new people. So, as we know, the new people go up the uh the steps, but particularly the uh the CILU uh bargaining unit in their contract negotiations, they had inherited I think an antiquated way to get their yearly increases. They had been
042on uh they would have to work three to five years before receiving an increase. So, we've kept them more uniform. So in the future you'll see it occur incrementally per year but there was some catchup because they had been on hold for a few years and that was just the three individuals of CILU who happened to be on the higher paid scale. So instead of for some of these people then instead of the typical two and a half 3% raise per year that would typically be built into the collective bargaining agreement you may have seen some multiples of that people got seven eight nine because reflected a few years worth. Correct. Correct. Because in the prior years they were not moving up the step scale as others would. If you're on year one you'd get
043the 2.5 plus you'd move up a step. These were actually kind of isolated on their higher salary and not moving upward. So we had to make that more uniform to all other bargaining units. So we should be looking something smoother going forward then. Absolutely. Absolutely. They'll be in the same format as others. And in fact because this has been I guess I'd call resolved uh they have moved up to the higher end. So you won't even see them increasing steps because I think only one is still new enough to move a step in the future. Okay. Thank you. How many part-time employees do you have? We have about 16 active at the moment. And I guess for our finance director when you ran this report, we were only at 89,000 of the monies used. Do
044you have the actual amount now? Yeah, actually I made a note of that. They're at about 119,000 um as of last week when I was updating figures. Do you anticipate them using 152,000? Do you think? I think they will come very close to that. Perhaps a bit under. Yeah. And especially as we move toward the summer, um things get uh pretty busy. So, usually toward the summer, we'll bring um ramp up a couple people a few more hours. Um so, yes, I I envision we'll get close to it. Thanks. You know, I'm just just going to the prior years budgets, what was the increases those years like 0% on the full-time salaries? Is that why we have in essence triple the increase this year? will go back to like a three.8 4.2, right? It'll go
045back to it'll regulate. So, so we did have less in the prior years. I would go back and look at them depending on who was new in the other because again you're you've got two bargaining units. So, if you had some in the clerical, but yes, it definitely less than that. Well, from 24 to 25, it looks like it actually went down a little. Okay. fiscal year 24 to fiscal year 25. So I would say to going commenting on the 2425 just to uh there was also the freeze of one position in 2425 when Mike came in as our director. He was originally the assistant director that position was frozen and continues to stay that way unfunded. So that was attributed to the decrease. Just real quick, what is the distinction between office supplies as
046tactical supplies? Just so we understand. Yeah. So the office supplies generally have to do with um uh office um you know um pens, pencils, uh paper clips, uh paper, things like that that the staff are using primarily. Um whereas the technical supplies are more in terms of supplies that we need to get the items prepared for the collection. So it would be book covers for the books, uh labels for the books. Um we also include things in there like the barcodes that go on the books. We also purchase our library cards out of that line as well. So it's really differentiation between um just general office supply work for the staff and then the technical supplies are really for the uh collection. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions for library? You know capital outlay. Um
047what are the things that are we're improving on year to year with the electronic databases? Every year we're paying 14,000 that has a subscription to like a a software. Yeah. So we have a number of So the electronic databases really um go into things like ancestry.com um consumer reports um we pay um a database um called EPCO which has a significant number of ebooks um and um scholarly articles that people can uh do research on. Um we have uh Morning Star which is a database that allows like a financial database that allows people to go on and check stocks, ETFs, things like that. Um get financial advice. Um the big one I would say is we have a service called LinkedIn Learning um which provides um many many many online courses uh for Rocky Hill
048card holders for free mostly um specifically in um tech help. So, it will teach things like how to design your own website, how to learn Canva, how to do graphic design, stuff like that. And those are questions we get a lot. And I actually do still as the director a lot of the technology help. Um, but it's also helpful for me. Um, like if I'm not proficient in a area enough to be able to teach somebody, um, it's a great resource to be able to point people to or even things like coding. um you know how do I learn how to code in Java or Python or something like that though we get those questions a lot so that's a resource that we direct people to frequently so those are a few examples and then
049the other equipment is that like computers or yeah the other equipment over the years has been used to purchase um RFID equipment um so that goes back to the selfch checkckout system um the computers um and also the devices that sort of allow that system to function Um last year we used it to update the audiovisisual in our program room um that had not been updated in probably 15 years. Um so that was huge. Um so we use that line for that. Um in the next coming year um I would love to use it for um new iPads that we use for uh programs that are uh outdated and are no longer receiving updates. Um, we offer 3D printing as a service. Um, and the 3D printer is not doing so well. Um, so I
050think that would be another uh item. And then also um I haven't spoken to John about this, but I would love to maybe talk to him about um helping out with um switching out maybe some of our public computers because they are a bit um on the older side at this. I was just going to say you're replenishing as necessary so that we don't get hit one year with like a big increase or Right. Yeah. I mean, even if it doesn't cover everything, maybe if we can, you know, start rotating the the newer stuff out newer stuff. Yeah. The the public computers are getting up there. Have you noticed that that new system has been able to save us some salary money? you know that do checkout system electronic you know um I think really
051what it's done is it has allowed the staff to focus less on mundane tasks like checking in and checking out books and focus more on providing great programs um which I think is more important um so it's taken out you know the menial stuff and allows them to focus more on what I would consider more important vital things Um, if no other questions, we'll move on. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Uh, we're on to public safety ambulance. I don't know because it doesn't have a page. Page 108 actually. Okay, good. Page 108 or the handout because it is not in your book. Oh my. And the first correction we'll make off the top is since we do not have Brian Goodrich as our ambulance chief, we have Marielleen McGovern. So
052this will be corrected in the adopted. Yeah. The increase here is $12,122. Um yet in the contract that we that we provide for the ambulance and if I may there we do not have the final number for the employee pension for this particular group although we don't anticipate anything uh major to change. Just a note there could be a a slight change in that when that valuation comes through from the actuaries. Do you think the actual we'll keep the actual from 2025? It's zero now, but I assume that's a one-time payment. Actually, it is now the full amount. We did all the uh the payments uh once a year and and as of today, all pension payments are paid in full. Correct. the exact amount mono with with the count with the contract with that
053not this is the the new contract right Ray what how much is the total contract that that we have to pay ETNA and that that includes both the town portion and ambulance or RHBA is it 200 a I'm gonna have to say I I don't you know off the top of my head. I'm gonna have to to come back to you on that one because I I really thought that they're in they would have increased revenue. I was hoping I mean when we were talking about this a year ago that they would be contributing a little bit more towards right they have this stuff. Yes. And it seems like it's that is that is accurate but the total amount I don't know off the top of my head. Sorry. Yeah, the uh their contribution went
054up from was like 18% to I I don't want to make it up, but they it increased significantly. That's that's fine. I'll look it up later. Um, and then I'm not sure um if we need the chief at the podium, but one one of my concerns is, you know, I know they they contracted out with a paid um to fill in the gaps when the ambulance isn't on. Is do we have to worry about decreased revenue from the ambulance to offset some of these fees? Because a year ago, like I said, we were going to they were going to contribute more, but now if they're going to be not online as much and paying people to do it, that's less revenue. So, is that a concern for us over time? Not during this particular contract,
055but I I don't know if in the future renewals if that would be a conversation piece. But this is outside ADNA, right? This is with when when the volunteers are offline, they can't get a crew. They bring in some paid people to cover them. So, there's an expense there. But that would be what they that's the voluntary ambulance absorbs that that's out, right? So, what I'm getting at is the more they're absorbing, the less they're going to be able to contribute to the town. Is that should that be a concern? I think we might we would need more information as to their financial situation. Okay. All right. Thank you. I'm all set. Can you explain a little bit more about this settlement of of the contract for 2425? So it, you know, it it shows
056an increase on this line item of 43% versus last year, which I take it is supposed to represent in effect a two-year increase, but that would still be 21 22% per year, even if you break it out. So could you kind of an applesto apples comparison of what we were getting versus what we're getting now? I I I did not bring that contract with me. I'm sorry. I I don't have that. We'll have to bring that back next time if we could do a followup on that. Is this the contract with that now we're talking about? Yes. Yes. That's the line with the fees. Well, yeah. The big the big bump. So, I mean, does it does it reflect, you know, expanded hours or services or anything or is it just a higher unit price
057per service? I don't think it it did not provide additional service, I don't believe. Do either of you know that? I mean, we I we're talking from memory, so I I hate to bring out information that we're not understood. I'm just trying to rationalize in effective 21% increase per year times two years. She wasn't during the Okay, that was I don't I can't hear when she's talking to me and he's talking. I'm over here. Um, so we see a 43% increase which represents two years worth. Do I do I understand that correctly? I I don't really know because I did not negotiate that contract which is what I was saying to Kim. I don't have a copy of the contract in front of me. I can't really comment on what is what's this is the
058whole thing. I wasn't part of any of that. So I'm just looking I'm just looking for a very yeah macrolevel explanation for 21% year-over-year increases for two years. That's all. I mean just conceptually that's a big bump. My understanding of it was is that it went up incrementally over the course of three years. That's what I understood. We'll get that to you and I just have to go. I didn't bring the contract with me. So, I don't really have an answer for you at this minute. So, Okay. Okay. I I don't really at this point. This is just I don't know what Mr. Emanuel was also asking along with what you were asking, what you two were discussing and then what Kim was saying in my ear at the same time. So, this was a
059little too I can't filter everything. So, all right. Thank you, Bill. Are we saying we don't understand the contract? No, we're saying we didn't bring it and we don't have the details. We don't remember what the details are. The details? Yeah. Well, there must be something we remember about the details, right? or no nothing. No, like so it's no rec $102,000 a year for Okay, so I I think we should just get those details in the email, I guess, and then we should be prepared to discuss them next time, right? Fine. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, we just weren't prepared to discuss the actual contract that because we did that last year, but we'll do it again. We'll do it. Yeah. But in context of the the budget now, right? Yeah. Sense. Before we move on,
060Bill, what lead you to believe this was over two years? Like I'm I was trying to I The 43% is over the entire budget, but 94% was one piece of the budget and the only piece that went up. So, what makes you think it's over a two-year span? I'm just looking at the um on the handout tonight, Dave, where it says expenditure summary, the major changes. The 2425 ambulance contract was settled after budget adoption. Therefore, the change reflects a cumulative change over two years. just just that note that's over the 337,000. Sorry about that. Right here. Okay. So, I interpret that as there's something in effect, you know, retroactive payment to to bump up correct what was owed for the previous year and then we have an increase going forward this year. So, we're paying,
061you know, two years worth in effect which reflects a 43% increase over the two years. So just the simple math is that's in effect 21 22% year-over-year for the past two years. Yeah. Um and I I I don't understand this surprise that that would raise an eyebrow here and some questions quite frankly. I'm not I'm not grilling people on details here. I'm just looking for a high level explanation for two consecutive years of 20% increases. I think it's a reasonable question and I'm a little dismayed that it wasn't anticipated. By the way, the fees are 518 right now. Is is there a corrected? Is there an updated number on that? Let me see. I have not with me. Million questions because that's less than 50% n months in. No, I don't have the actuals. Okay.
062With my Sounds like a revisit because I think Bill it's actually I think more to your point. It's actually like 47% of you. I think it is 47. That's what I'm trying to say. So we're not dividing it by two. Yeah. No no the because it's really that one line item 94%. Yeah. 94 divided by so two years of that, you know. So it's a bigger question than you even Okay. So we'll we'll address that next time. Okay. Um any other questions for amates or we'll address that next time again. Oh, go ahead. Question about dues and subscriptions. The actual in 2024 was 20,746. So we budgeted that for this year and but we only used 8600. Do we know the actual Yes. That's quarterly. That's quarter. Yeah. Okay. So in essence, we have what?
063Another quarter to go. Two quarters. Two. Okay. So, be close. What are those four? Do you know? Oh, the name of it. Andy. No, they're not going to help me. Chief, do we know what this do in subscriptions before, please? Thank you. That's exactly CMED. I was thinking AED CMED. I'm sorry. What's that? That's a regional communication system. I believe that's utilized um in the north central division to communicate with the hospitals. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? If not, we will move on to next item under public safety which is health district. Oops. Hold on. I drove too fast. 135. Yeah. The health district uh they base it on per capita. So, their uh increase is $8,000 this uh this upcoming uh fiscal year, 4.6% increase that we pay in for their
064services. Um appreciate for any questions on that. If not, let's move on to police has several sections. First is police administration. page 82 for the goals. Um with regard to goal number two, um they did get reaccrated by by uh Kalia. So that was accomplished. And as far as um goal number one, um I think I'm Chief, would you mind coming back up and uh coming up? Not coming back up. You'll be back up later. Um let's kind of go over these two goals. So, as the manager said, good evening. First of all, thank you, Mayor Home. Everyone else, thank you Mona Ray for your help with the budget this year and my command staff. But before I begin, I do want to thank uh this year has been a very trying year for us
065with some shortage in staffing. You've noticed that in our overtime. I'm sure we'll be talking about that later. But a big thank you to our folks for the hundredyear storm that we survived and coming out the other side. And uh all credit to those folks are out there doing the job every single day. Um but to answer your question, uh yes, we were successfully reacredited in August uh this year. Um with that and preceding that, we had an on-site inspection. We had an assessor come out uh going over a percentage of our 400 uh 400 plus policies. We were found we have 100% compliance. We were successfully re reacredited. uh is in regards to the goal for for training notes. Um total wise for the department 2,649 hours of training up to this point this
066year and 343 of those hours have been for the administrative staff you see sitting behind me. So I've exceeded that goal there. So now I'm going to I'm going to run through uh page 87 and 88 like I've been doing just with the uh the numbers. So on page 88 you see the uh the bottom line uh increase of 3.7% of $49,919. Did you skip? Did I skip again? Skip. Page 84. I think you want to be on 84. Happy will stick together. Page 84. Bottom line, there was a 20,000 almost a $21,000 decrease. Um, of that 20,000 that $21,000 decrease, $20,000 is incorporated into the part-time salaries. And that would be the uh acco, the animal control officer going to reducing hours there. And the uh the rest, as you can see, are zero.
067No, no change except for dues and subscriptions, $500 increase. Um, police chiefs associations, Northeast Chiefs, um, Capital Regional Chiefs Association, just uh, increases in in in subscriptions. Do we have any questions? It looks like this at top looks good. But yeah, can you Well, 10,000 of it's photocopier. Yeah. Can you can you share the secret, Chief? How you reduce the photocopier costs? Maybe we can learn and scale this idea. I didn't hear the question. Sorry. Uh $10,000 uh reduction in photocopier cost. Everybody that's just being reclassed it. Yeah. It's not like really real savings. Well, no. Well, I don't know. Are there any full credit for a lag for that, but unfortunat it's a centralization effort on on the part of motor to try to consolidate both phones and copers. Okay. Yes. All right. I
068just I just thought that's a miracle like $10,000 in photocopier costs. Like you must be doing something right there. But well, I was wondering how we were going to get to 31,000. I just got a third. Um that's the consolidation which was unfortunately the additional 30,000 which was going into copier that I mentioned earlier kind of hides it right. So so by the way Mona just a quick thing 2025 actual is 6900 but 25 projection is a thousand and we budgeted 10. Yeah. And it still the projection should be a zero because our goal is to take this and make it all centralized. But wasn't 2025 currently. Yes. And we are trying to do that during this year. So only a thousand more or making it 7,900. It's not a No, you'll see on the
069it page that they will exceed their budget amount. We're trying to again the uh the No problem. It's not important to be honest, but you get me into talking about uh copy bills again. I'll bore you all to tears. How do we get away with nothing? That's pretty good. Question with a telephone. Why in 2024 we're at 3,100, 2025 we jumped to 33,000 and we're projected to use 10,000 this year, but we're budgeting 33 again. Why are we all over the board there? I I don't know. I hate to say that, but I wonder if that's my that's my copier money. Yeah. Well, because I thought telephone all supposed to be centralized, too. So, this should be like all centralized to to police department. It should not be. I'm not going to make you responsible
070for this. You're paying. See, it's not all good news. Sorry. Boy, this If that's a mistake, he'll look even better right now. So maybe that's what happened at 30. It went there instead of tight. I had that feeling thinking. Yeah, because that should be zero. Yeah, that's probably what happened. Okay. Interesting. Okay. Well, that's actually a good thing. So overall, we're actually not increasing. It would be promising. I will let you know. It's good news, Chief. Don't worry. Well, here comes the bad. Yeah. Well, so far. Um, any other questions? Okay. Uh with that, we'll move on to uh police records, records, and communications. Chief, you have two goals from last year. Yes. The good news for um our goals for last year for criminal arrests, they're actually tracking down 205 at this point this
071year. Uh and motor vehicle theft significantly down. We've talked about that at public safety. There's been a big push on the part of some of the regional task force and also the FBI New Haven has made some significant arrests that have affected and impacted uh the region. Actually, I'm sorry, Brian. Is this goal number one for records and communication? Are you doing My bad. My papers dropped, so I apologize. Um, so currently we stand with 19,931 overall CAD calls from the dispatch center. Uh, training hours in dispatch, we're at running at 178 hours as of today. Uh, foil reduction, uh, redactions, about 43 of those are coming directly from our support service officer. That's more of the video, audio, video redactions. And we're tracking about 1,469 uh total FOI requests through the records department, meaning
072uh you know just a piece of a report going out that doesn't require uh formal total reaction, but we kind of separate the video side versus the records side in two different places. So, are your FOYA requests different than what like Dana's department's doing or is there conjunction between the two of you or uh it depends on the request. Um, you know, generally I I don't think we push more than maybe a handful to Dana that are complex, maybe involve legal matters. Um, but in general, the requests we getting are for arrest records, for copies of video, copies of arrest files, etc. U, accident reports. We do have an online portal for that, but we still receive a lot of walk-in requests for accidents. Thank you. Are you are you fully staffed for dispatch? Currently
073we are so the salary increases are basically just you know bumps correct I'm getting ahead of you now. Yeah, it's about radio service. He goes over that page 87. Yep. Page uh page 88 actually. 88. It's the last uh total total increase um just short of 50,000 at 49,919. Um 37,269 is um in salary full-time salaries. Um and we have a $2,370 or two and a half% increase in overtime and contractual overtime. Um significant on this page uh increase 6.3% down to radio service $11,944. And that covers um radio repairs, NorCom and Motorola maintenance. Correct. And cruise changeover, cruiser changeovers. um $500 decrease in uh supplies and record systems. $2,600 decrease or 30% decrease in technical equipment. Those are the uh changes there. The um just one question on the radio service. That was a
074new radio system from the public safety referendum. Correct. From the referendum that was already Sorry, it's awful fun time trying to keep track of all my documents with you at the same time. Uh the radio system, I think we're pressing about eight years, seven, eight years at this point to answer question. Went up to the second floor with all new. It's hard to hear you. I'm sorry. So, your original question was about the radio system or the communication center. The radio Well, it's in communications, right? Uh radio service, I think it was. So, the radio, our pointto-oint system, the three towers we have in town was redeveloped, redesigned about eight years ago. Uh that's about the time that we're looking at with that. The dispatch center was moved sometime uh sometime just prior to around
075the same time as well. They're two different projects. They're not connected to each other. I know it would make sense they are but the communications project for the townwide communications that that gives radio comms for fire EMS all of us in town school and some of the connections to the schools is I want to say was back Lieutenant Phelps was still here and I'm thinking that was about eight years ago and the dispatch center is around the same time. So radio service are the towers. That's correct. Where's the budget for uh where's the budget idol for the dispatch radio? I'm just curious if if the dispatch system as it ages. Yes. Is going to be increasing every year. So within the radio service contract, we have a contract with built into that line is a
076contract with Motorola and then there's a second contract built in there with Norcom. Uh, Motorola covers all of our current parts, service, and warranties, things under warranty. And the Norcom contract is like an addendum in addition to that that covers for service and parts for things that are out of warranty and out of coverage with the NorCom contract that runs between nine and 10,000 with built into that number. I don't have I don't have the contract with me. I'm trying to remember when it was when dispatch was put in eight years ago, how old the system it replaced was. I think it was like 20 years that's well when we worked together it was downstairs and took our now our squad room that was wiped out replaced next time with the new dispatch which I
077think you ended with and then that moved upstairs. So we've have in my career we've seen three consoles and when I say a console I mean the chair and the computer mounts and all the all the the different uh screens the 911 screen the phone screen all the different screens and technology that goes into a pod. we call it a pod. That would be considered one console. We have three of those in our center. So, do you look at it as like a 15 to 20 year lifespan with proper maintenance? Um, I did when we spoke with Norcom, I'm sorry, with Motorola this year, we what what's really nice about the the contract you're looking at is that they're doing a lot of preventative maintenance in the background. So, they do assessments on our radio
078system. They come in and look for whether it's computers, switches, things that beyond my technical ability to explain. um to see exactly what they're doing, but they're going in and doing an assessment of what as part of our radio contract should be upgraded that is still under contract with them. And there are some things that are end of life that cannot be serviced by that contract. Um I can say that I think you know talking uh looking at our system we probably have a good uh you know three to five years maybe 10 years longevity on the current radio system. The towers that we have they're in very good shape. uh been reassured by by uh by Motorola that with the preventive maintenance we're doing we're we're well ahead of the curve but we also
079know in reality in 8 to 10 years from now there's things that will not be serviced and we have to pro may start thinking about uh migrating our radio system uh and upgrading those towers or considering going fully to the state network which is an option for us. We are prepared for that but there are some shortfalls there too. It's not just you know one for one. Uh and then the other question was about the console. Um we've been they've maintained the upgrades. We do not have any maintenance issues with that right now. Occasionally we lose a 911 computer. That is not really specific to the console, but I think the longevity there is probably another 5 to 10 years out. I I think we're doing quite quite well there. Okay. All right. Thank you.
080Any other questions? Okay. If not, uh, police support is next. Why did you want you to stand? It's so hard because all my I have nowhere to put my papers. I have a ton of them. Um, on a criminal uh criminal arrest, I already mentioned this. Uh, we're we're at 205 arrests this time this year. We do average about 200 about an arrest a day. If you look at our stats, 365 um is over the last couple years, but right now 205 and motor vehicle thefts. I'll reiterate uh very good efforts, proactive efforts by our staff, by the regional staff, and I will give a big credit out to the technology that this town's invested in with our recourse system has been highly helpful for us in deterring and uh deterring crime, but also catching
081these stolen vehicles either before they occur or chasing the stolen cars out of town that are here to steal another car. So, it's been very productive. And then jumping to page 29. Um there is only one line item with an increase. The increased total is 14,663. Page 9 you um that is consumed um by uh full-time salaries and at 13,057 and a 2 and a half% increase in overtime $1,600. Okay, any questions on that? Okay, moving along. Uh, police patrols next. Uh, the only number that I can't update you today, uh, just based on I received the request to update the goals recently, um, the administrator for our 911 system has been out. I will get you a number and email to the the manager. As far as we're after the number of 911 calls
082up to this point this year, uh routine calls is at 19,931. Motor vehicle accidents are down uh 301 this time of year. We're tracking to be around this that number we anticipated. Uh 14 DUI arrests, uh certainly tracking not to be on target, but I think that's a result of being six state staff members down throughout the course of a year and having less officers on a regular basis and that overflow. Um, and our community outreach program is tracking just fine, being on track for our goal of 50 or currently at 40. Moving over to page 95. Total increase for the for patrol is 229230. And then I'll run back to page 94 and just kind of go down that way. Um, of that increase, um, we have a 2.3% increase in full-time salaries at,
083uh, just under $87,000 and an overtime increase of $79,532 or 23.4%. Um, college credits in increase of $2,300 for education and longevity is increased uh to to an increase of $12,500. Looking at support services of an increase of uh $5650 or 120 almost 123%. Make sure we'll get to that. And then running down to uniforms and cleaning. Second line item from the bottom of 47,250 is the increase or 44.7%. We're looking at a $5,000 decrease or a decrease of uh 14.3% for technical supplies. uh I had a question on the uh special revenue Brian with with increased you're fully staffed right? Not as of right now. We have uh two positions. one uh one position we have a an offer out on the table and a second one currently in background. Okay. Would you anticipate
084over the next 12 months um private duty going up because you have more available? I mean that's a fair that's a fair I mean it's a fair guess. Um you know the number of jobs vary on the projects, right? Um, and certainly I think your point you're making is with more people more likely inclined to keep that job in town. I think that's fair to to make that that that connection. Thanks. So, can you explain the u the increase in overtime? Love to the manager's permission. May I share the chart? Yes. I know the mayor's not here. I'm not sure how we can share this with her, but um I can try to explain it on the mic. All right, hold it up to the camera. Uh, actually give away maybe for Thank you, sir.
085So on on the discussion about overtime, it's not just a very simple straightforward answer. So I'm trying not to confuse you or talk too long, but with the recent settlement of the collective bargaining agreement, uh we have a change in our work schedule expected. um that change in the work schedule has gone from a traditional 52 to a 53 schedule. That 53 schedule when it is implemented u effectively means that each officer is working 30 less days a year and with 22 people in our patrol division quick kind of quick math of 640 if I'm doing my math correctly but that's 640 less days of availability. Um the negotiation they are working 9 hours a day thus 280 hours a year for the salary component but the five change from 52 to 53 is going
086to stretch the elastic band of what we can tolerate a threshold for not having full staffing and optimal staffing conditions. So what I've shared with you is the reality of our story um since 2022. Uh I kind of went back as far as I thought was relevant. Um but what you're seeing on the top line, mayor for at home, the top line is representing the approved positions that we have and were budgeted for. The red line is the total number of employed and the last and bluer line is the available. And what that represents is I didn't just take a guy out on sick. What this reflects is anytime we've had an officer get injured, be out for more than two or three weeks. I mean these are significant absences. These are not just leaving
087for a 10day stretch of vacation. These are the positions when people leave our department through attrition retirement through um uh leaving for other departments which we experienced last year. They create a vacancy for which takes us nine months sometimes a year and a half to fill depending on how whether we hire entry level or we hire certified. And the reality of it is and what you're seeing there is I have to I'm coming to before you to ask for the appropriate amount of funding. And I'm telling you that even the amount of money that we've asked for in this over timeline is still going to put me in a very very precarious position. We have the hundredyear storm ahead of us with staffing and trying to work and maintain a perfect level of staffing to
088get things perfect. And the stats that I show you down here on the very bottom, you're probably noticing the numbers, but what it tells and the story that it tells is there's there's weeks this year where I gained an officer back from a workers's comp injury and 48 hours later I lost another one. That happened two or three times. I'm updating my chart. It's why you see the things jump around. And we were down at least six officers in the patrol. I don't if I'm wrong about that number, so please don't hold me to it. um up to about six six positions inside the patrol division this year for which I had uh we reassigned our support staff to try to save overtime and we did successfully save almost $150,000 by pulling our support staff
089out. So my ask for your overtime is I I can get into the history of our the budget itself, but if you take a moment to look at the history of the overtime budget itself going back to 20120, um it's typically only been raised by the amount that we get contractual increases. It's never jumped based on really what we use. And in 2020, as an example, there was a $50,000 transfer in from the general fund or contingency. 2022 49,000 2023 92,000 2024 46,000. You can look at your budget books and go back in history and see the same. And so what I'm trying to do is give you and give us an opportunity to thrive and not just survive. And the number that is budgeted for now I believe is still too low. But based
090on our history and being down at least two officers to injury almost all the time and then with the anticipation of five people who can retire anytime in the next year, they can stay, they can retire. It's up to them. I'm trying to prepare for that. And if the overtime budget based on my analysis has not never really been properly budgeted for our needs with a schedule change, it needs to be it needs to be funded further. I have a question about, you know, the delta between total employed and total available. And I assume that that usually refers to injuries, workers compes, that that sort of thing. Sure. So, essentially the total employed is the number of people we have on the books at any given time. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're available,
091right? So we can hire a new officer who takes a year and a half to get through the police academy. So while we're paying a salary, that person is not on the road and roadw worthy and where they are when they become eligible for the road and and servicing our town, it's reflected in the change in the line. So the major components of that delta are absence due to injury. Those are on the payroll but still in training. That's another example you just gave. Correct. Anything else? Those are the two big ones. Those are the drivers. Okay? Because I'm just so this chart goes back three years and for most of that time until about nine months ago, the Delta was, you know, no more than two officers or so. You you see, for example,
092in June, July, you know, the summer of 22, you're at full st um you know, full strength and then you see a little bit of separation. You saw a little bit of a dip in in June of 23, but then it narrows again. So, you basically had two years plus of being close to full strength. But then about nine months ago, it widens out a bit in July of last year. Going forward, you see this, you know, noticeably bigger separation between those on on the payroll and those available. And that has persisted for pretty much most of the last nine months. So can you tell us generally you know why why is that that number of unavailable people on the payroll for the most part so much greater during these last nine months compared to
093the last couple years? The last nine months we were up to two positions that were either unfilled or unavailable, but we had uh at one point uh again right in front of me, but I think about nine people out on injury, workers comp or offduty injuries themselves out out of work. Uh one of those one of those metrics in there is an officer unavailable who's in training in the police academy. But particularly at the end of the middle of last year, I mentioned the hundredyear storm. um our patrol division was devastated by injuries um and drove through the roof the overtime as you can see. Um what I was trying to you know kind of a note to you here is if you look at the bottom of the page um that the the overtime
094numbers that you see there are are really what it is to fill our our minimum requirement required shifts. This is not the going to events and going to community events. This is solely to fill the 4,015 mandatory shifts that we have per year and uh reflect that and you can see on the earlier side of the chart about 120,000 of patrol-based overtime. Uh we do coder overtime so I can tell you what it's used for, but as you see those lines change and and come down, you start seeing it driving up the overtime. Um you might ask what happened before 2022. I can speak to that firsthand. I was a lieutenant in charge of training and preceding that I think I hired personally ran at least eight hiring process um you know application announcements etc
095to get us back to that point. That's kind of where I started the number. I could have gone back further but I can assure you and Mona you can speak to this as well if she'd like. We don't operate on perfect conditions. We're always going to have a position that's unfilled. We're always going to have someone who's hurt. We're always going to be catching up. We've done very well and I and to credit Ray and Mona, they've allowed us to start hiring kind of ahead of people. As an example, uh a lieutenant retired recently and we're that was in March and the process you see that I mentioned before about someone with an offer in their hand. We got ahead of that early and allowed to free up um and give me the green light
096to hire start going moving faster even if there's a little bit of crossover with that retirement and hiring of the officer. But it's unheard of to hire at least in my history and I'm h I mean credit to the folks in the back of the room here who are running this running the hiring and getting it done. But we're going to have a gap of from March 1st until fe May 12th to replace the lieutenant who just retired. That's extraordinary. That's because I've gotten the support of the manager in his office and the staff behind me trying to fill the fill the voids. But we started at the ask on the overtime and what I'm telling you is that that increase needs to be there. And I I honestly it should be higher um because
097with the change in that schedule with the stretch that's going to put on us at at a give you an example. That schedule requires 19 people to run. Okay. There's n there's three shifts on midnight. Sorry. Four on days and four on evenings. And we need the 19 people minimum to make that drive. And under the new schedule with 18 people and by the chart you can see we've operated far less than that. That's one short. If we were to lose a midnight officer on the new schedule for the course of a year and have to fill that position and couldn't fill it, you're looking at $127,000 in overtime. The new schedule at 19 means that 92% of our shifts run at minimum. That's a fact. That's why I need more bodies. That's why I
098asked for another officer. That's why I asked for an increased overtime. I don't want to scare you if we lose two officers because it gets worse. But if we were to lose two officers and be running at 17 officers in that patrol bid, you're looking at the tune of $230,000 in just filling mandatory shifts. I was just for clarification that extra position is not in here. So just because I know you need the other body but I wanted to make sure that it was understood it was not there at this time. You're saying a 52 schedule. How many manower do you need for that? It's what is it? 18 goes up to 19 for the 53. Correct. So under in the new on the current schedule, it's been a little while since I've been I
099used to hum the schedule. That was my job in the old old position, but if we were to lose an officer in fall to 17 of the current schedule, um while there will be overtime, no, it's nowhere near as in the magnitude that we're talking about under the new schedule. You're to have some uh in that contract, you're supposed to have some type of plan. you don't have the number of people to maintain that 53. Do you have a plan? Uh if I can recall the contract specifically, there was no specific number mentioned about what that is, what that number would be, but I I assume that my perception and would be one over minimums would be what I think the union would expect that we start engaging in what they negotiated. Um, but I
100can't answer that question without we haven't have not engaged with uh the union array to discuss when to on board it. But I do believe that it's a it's been a negotiated benefit that we have to honor at some point and we can't ignore that. This might be question from Mona and Chief. Um, we're we're going to be proposed 171,000 for 2025 on overtime. If my math is correct, 340 budgeted 511 projected. We're at 501 today. Okay. So, so we may be more than 5'11. Correct. So, we're we could be close to 200,000 over the projected overtime from last year. And that was obviously due to a lot of workman comp based on this chart that the chief gave us. Um it looks like that's improving if that line keeps going up. More people are
101coming back off. If I interr I'm sorry to interrupt. We have we have two coming in with firm offers just waiting for finalized paperwork on one and a second shortly behind that which would put us back to that that red line being touched with you know I'm sorry. Um I'm looking blue line. Yeah. So we still need about a month to train them, but we are getting closer to seeing another shift in that chart. Okay. And that other the light blue line going up is the additional position. I assume that's the 42nd position that the funding was allocated so that I could fill it. Okay. So I guess my point Yeah. I'm not even sure you're asking for enough. I mean, I'm I'm seeing a because you're gonna improve the situation with less people hopefully,
102not to jinx it, on workman's comp. And I Yeah, you're correct. I mean, um, but but but you're going to increase it because of the 53 thing. Yes. So, we've been hoping nobody gets hurt a little bit. Exactly. Exactly. I think another year like this then this recommendation would not fit. So let's hope this is the exception not the norm. A question on on the charts um because I think I'm just missing a piece of this so you can probably put this all together. So the chart basically says 41 and then it goes up to 42. online it says we're we're 36 full-time equivalents and I think there's two more coming that' be 38. So what's the difference between that and the 41 to 42? I'm not sure what you're seeing on your screen. I
103know that I'm authorized for 42 total sworn strength. I'm sorry. Say so I don't know what you're I can't tell what you're looking at there but or maybe know then you might be looking at just a page. I'm not sure but for total full-time employment we are we are improved for 42 sworn positions those of us who wear the badge. Correct. Okay. The staffing summary says 36 on here. Yes. And you'll see on the other pages, for example, the admin will have the the uh lieutenant and then they'll have Oh, so that's okay. So you're you're have a bigger picture than Okay, I got we just divy they just divvy out differently. We'll find sergeants on another page and so forth. Um, so I I guess I would say so if there's retirement, this may
104be more for Mona than for the chief, but if there's retirements where we have periods of time where it has to be replaced, if we have more overtime, we have less salary. So there's somewhat of an offset, you know, as far as overall goes. The issue is like if you have like you said if unfortunately if officers get hurt, vacations, sickness, you know, that sort of thing, that's where because they're still on the payroll. So that's where that start the overtime doesn't get. Yeah. Is there is there any opportunity with the special revenue from police to use for any of the overtime or anything? I don't know. I was just gonna ask that same I was looking at the uh special revenue page and that was gonna be a question I was gonna ask Mona
105because for 2425 year to date um 360 came in and 191 went out and I know you know they they took over the car purchases and everything like that, right? Is there any that could be allocated to Jeff's point, you know, like offsetting some of this overtime or like general expenditures? Yeah. So, can it offset the other overtime in these situations? That would be no because it's it has to be again it's a a fee for service. Um, what I think we may want to consider is that when that private duty, for example, is build, it's it's based on a an average of what the rate of pay would be for the individual and it has a factor of a 40% for employee benefits. And we have in the past three years had the understanding
106we'd take 150,000 off of this uh private duty and put it toward health to pension actually. So health insurance. So if we wanted to go back and revisit, you know, is 150 now because we're going to do pension in a in a few hours tonight. You'll see that that increased. And uh you may want to say I think perhaps instead of 150 it may be time for 200. So, but can it cover an overtime for something that was not a private duty? No. But we do have that build to cover um employee benefits. But it but if they didn't buy a cruiser, then you're saving 60 or could that be allocated instead of it paying for a cruiser that it goes to overtime? It's intended to be for overhead. So I would probably say if
107anything maybe something like a a supervisor's salary, but again not putting an overtime person that didn't do the job. So yes, there's flexibility, but not exactly in the way that that you described. So could we say overhead is uh for example, it's it's Brian uh looking at the billing. It's the uh the clerical person who's doing the invoicing. Should we put 20% of them against it as overhead? Yes. So yes, there is some flexibility in that private duty but not by charging an individual that didn't work to it. But but under special revenue, you have estimate 500,000 coming in and 500 going out to the same private duty thing. But there should be a spread there or no? That's assuming that we take that 150,000 off already. So yes. So there is that spread is
108in there. Um, could there be a greater spread? Yes, I I think we could look at it. Um, the increase in uniforms, is that because of adding new per officers or uh there is this change to the CBA increase in their uniform allowance which is reflected I believe Mona correct in this year. Correct. That's contract in addition with the onboarding of the number of officers we've done this year. We've kind of, you know, spent made bought a lot of uniforms in the last uh last budget season. So, is that a one time? Will we hit that next year, too? It'll stay at the same level. It won't increase again, but it will till the next contract, but odds are there's always some sort of turnover. So, you're probably going to have one or two officers
109each. I hope not. Um, you know, I mean, in that in that account there is we fund every five years the ballistic panels and vests have to be replaced. Those run about $100 a piece. We average about 9 to 11 officers per year for replacement. Uh and then it's generally driven by onboarding new employees. So being that we're reaching back to full staff, we may see that come down as how much we spend on onboarding the first new employee. Uh but again, that there's a contractual increase for the uniform aotment that the officers are entitled to. That comes out of that line, too. And that's all contractual. How many uniforms they get? um they well they they essentially in the contract there's a uniform aotment and they are issued like in the old days you
110would get a credit card to spend that amount of money on replacements um so every officer is entitled to I don't know the dollar amount off the top of my head um but that's essentially they're replacing their their uniforms on there we don't do a quarter master system they are given that money to keep their their uniforms up up to date uh and replaced on an annual basis that's why the contctor until sets the amount. That's correct. Yeah. They have to use it on the uniform by the way. Just curious. Yes. Okay. With the overtime going over budgeted, where does that money come from? Offset the thanks for asking that one. And and this is not the first time that it's gone over. I know Chief Clint and I have looked at that. We've looked
111historically. I think this tends to be one of those um similar to what we're doing now is wishful thinking that this is not going to be the year that it's bad. So I'd say historic this line item tends to be budgeted and the expenditures are going over because the reality just exceeded it. So and where does that come from? Um first of all we try to look at the uh the bottom line of the page. I if you recall last year we reduced the full-time salaries by 90,000 because we knew the turnover was going to to help us with this and I'd say in most situations that would have worked well as he's filling up positions it's those positions where we're still paying them so there's not the cushion so a vacancy is not covering
112or the full-time is not covering the overtime so in this particular case this is going to be contingency I get to talk about that one later today too. And uh we've got $450,000 reserved for the entire town. So hund00 million budget. I got 450 of accuracy. Uh and this is a type of item that would go against the contingency. Of course, if we had three or four uh retirements happen and a couple of snowstorms, which we had, your contingency would be done for the year. So I think it's important to you know it's good to get the right level budgeting in there. So I think this is probably optimistic or hoping that this year will not repeat itself. I I have a question about how retirements are handled. Chief, when you know that uh um
113someone is planning to retire or you can predict with, you know, a high degree of commerce they're about to retire based on their you how many years they have in for you to have no gap in service, you'd have to begin the onboarding process for somebody else many months in advance, right? Almost to get it right, it'd almost be six or eight months before they leave and and hope that we don't, you know, have are paying two people at the same time for a brief period. But it takes us six months to run a process. And officers uh it's a it's a personal choice. They're not going to come knock on our door. Some do. Some say I have six months and I'm giving you fair warning. And others, you know, uh it's something they
114think about and they wake up in the morning and I haven't seen that yet, but in uh you know, the last lieutenant retired was was nice enough to tell us I'm leaving. I'm giving you fair warning. And that was great because that's why we're able to bring his replacement on board in two weeks. So where I was going with that was that when when you know that a retirement is coming to avoid that gap in service because of that lag time, you're going to have an overlap period where you're in effect paying two people for that one position because one person either at the academy or if it's if it's new person I guess typically um if it's a new hire you you know you're going to be paying two for one for some period
115of time or alternatively to avoid that you can wait for the person to retire and and start the process after they leave which leaves you short staffed and then you're filled with overtime. How do you how do you typically handle it? Is it one or the other or just kind of a mix? That's the quagmire. Um if we have the intelligence and the information and we know then we'll jump on it early and that that's the example I was sharing with you that we were able to replace that retirement within months because we had the notice. In some cases, we have officers uh you know 2023 we had officer leave for another for this for the state police as an example with maybe we got two and a half three weeks notice official notice. We
116might know might know some information but that's until we see the you know the resignation saying here's my date of departure. We can't just take a guess and gamble and start a hiring process offer someone a job and then they say just kidding. Uh we kind of got to get get ourselves a little bit of trouble. So you're right it's difficult. Um, I can tell you that the the team back here with what we do for hiring, we're we're being proactive where we can, when we can. Um, but again, it's a we've talked about this before, public safety in front of the council to bring on board an entry level is a year and a half to someone who goes through the academy looking at almost a year and a half to bring on a
117certified officer who meets our criteria is closer to about three to four months, maybe less. Brian, if I not that it's a not that it's a bright light, but yeah, just a little that to retire, they need 90 days in advance. So, if you're going to retire, you can't say I'm retiring and put it in tomorrow. So, there's a 90-day uh window that they have. So, not that it's a great window, but it's it's a window. Of course, like you said, if you're, you know, going to transfer to another department, that's not a retirement. You don't have the control, but that little window does exist. Okay. I'm just I'm just curious from what you know with the town the towns in Harford County, how many have supers? Well, uh super program that's in my world
118is that's too supers generally are working road jobs maybe covering a special event. We do have that program. We started it about a year ago. Um it's we've had um one person asked to be part of the program, we keep their certification um but due to a CBA limitation, they only could be used for private duty. Okay. So it's not like the same program 30 years ago. No. Where they'd cover districts. That's long gone. I don't think that's happening in many departments, at least in the five towns that I collaborate with. All right. Thanks. Um one question. We used to do we used to um have a detective work in the Harford task force for I guess for autotheft. Is that We still do. We still do. Okay. Not not full-time. Uh once uh I
119well the overtime crunch and everything. I've reduced the number of hours available to them but trying to maintain our participation because how great it's been for for the town. Um but in general terms it was once a week one officer would go and be part of the team and they'd kind of rotate through on the opportunity. Okay. And some of that was covered through ARPA grant fund funds. Uh we and that money still exists. Um but we also can use that money for vehicle parts and accessories, some you know creative things. So we can try and balance out both. We're not there yet with the cars, but uh there is some money there for for resources for the vehicles if we needed it. So there is money there, but I'd say it's it's 5050 on
120hitting the grant and then hitting the overtime line itself. Right. Okay. But you've made adjustments because of the the personnel number for that. Okay. So that's all right. Okay. Council, do you want to ask about EVs? You want me to take it away? As uh as you talk about cruisers uh being replaced, are EVs part of the equation or not there yet or? Um I've done we've done some early discussions with other chiefs in the region. What I can tell you is there's a couple it so the answer is yes. It's we're we're working on it, looking into it. Um uh the chief I talked to the other day, depending on the model you purchase and the length of the battery time, what kind of charging stations you have, um there are some departments that
121have w moved away from even making further considerations because for every one car you need another half car based on battery in use, particularly if they're sharing cars for shift and being ready for changeover. Um, for us, what I'm still looking for is the right sized vehicle, the right amount of miles, and then certainly the the if we go that route, it would be a significant investment in multiple charging stations to keep it running in the high. No, forgive me for not knowing what they are, but the the supercharger 30 minutes. We can't afford to have a car offline for an hour to two hours. It's not feasible. So, um, we are looking into it for the future. uh right now for patrol use. I'm not finding a lot of positive feedback from the car
122manufacturer. Um there's a company we go to to purchase our vehicles. Spoke with her, her name is Kim, and she just kind of rolled her eyes and said, "Hold on, they're not there yet." And it's kind of what I'm getting from the chiefs, too. Um but for administrative packages, something that's not patrolbased all the time, there might be a per, you know, a suitability for that there. Um but right now, we're catching up on an aging fleet and getting it back up and running. And I think, you know, as we get to a point that I'm comfortable and can really, really dig into it. We plan to do that. But I think it's not something that's going to happen in this fiscal year, just getting the permits and getting the plan and the funding to
123get the charging stations in is going to be amount in and of itself, even with some of the funds that we have put aside for it already. Yeah. So, it sounds like they're recommending a level three chargers, which I don't think we have a choice. Yeah. You know, um I think if we're going anything over an hour, I mean, we can't have a car offline for an hour. an officer sitting around and and particularly with shift change. So, we would need the highest level charger possible. 30 minutes, yeah, I could see that. But then it comes down to the size of the vehicle um for the suitability of our officers. We have officers who are bigger than me and fitting into a tight car is not the most ideal situation for a guy 65 and
124240. Might be giving him some credit there, but I'm thinking about but essentially looking for the right size vehicle. As we looked at the Chevy Blazer the other day, ideally from the outside looked beautiful, checking all the boxes and then you sit in it and you're like squeezing it in and then the gentleman who was the rep for the company said, "We don't have a place to put the keyboard. I don't know where to put that yet in modifying where the car and where things fit." So, it's early on in that and I think it will get there with they like the Crown Vicks were built for police. you know, these Tauruses now, the SUVs were built for that purpose to be police cars. We're not just there yet where I'm seeing a electric vehicle
125be all in on just being a police car, but we are thinking about it. We are considering it. We're asking we're we're talking to folks. So, I have not not heard your messages. I have. It's just right now is not the time. And I think if we're going to do that, we probably should have a conversation about give me three give me two chargers, three chargers, let's get the permits, let's get the install, and let me go from there. But I don't think I can put the cart before the horse right now. Right. And maybe someday there'll be some sort of grant opportunities for chargers for police stations or I don't know. But just spitballing, but might be. But I mean, I think we're looking at Mona, you could help me out. I think there
126about $80,000 to start. And that doesn't even count the installation fees for getting a construction company to come out and dig up our parking lot and put them in where they work. That's one. Right. Right. And we probably need at least three to make this work on a patrol level. But if we're looking on just administrative level, we can scale that back. And you know, that's on the administrative level, we're looking at three detectives, two internal officers, the chief, and three lieutenants. So there are some opportunities within that group. Um but again, I think we got to get through the the charging stations first and look for the right cars because they're just um like I said, even even the sales reps are are telling you, hold on, not the time. Great. Okay. No, thank
127hybrids. Uh the hybrid we do have is been at the Ford dealership for four months because the battery integration is messed up and we are on the phone with corporate now trying to get the lemon law effect enacted. Um but we've even had tr we have we had two hybrids or one one uh we bought a hybrid years ago about four or five years ago four years ago and it's been off the road for more than half its life due to electrical problems. One thing, one thing I think we need to think about too, and we spoke about it last year, was the wear and tear on the cars. You know, they're all being taken home. Um, one question I have is what's the furthest a patrolman lives? I mean, and distance like time, I'm
128sorry. How long does it take him to get home? Time or distance? Um, off the top of my head, I mean, we have a policy that specifies 20 miles um that we we hold fast to. Um, I would say that that equates to maybe 27 28 minutes of travel time. Um, because one thing we need to think about is as we talk about EVs and the cost analysis of exactly what you're saying with the chargers and they're the fastest one is level four now. So if you have a fast charging car that can take it, it's about 15 20 minutes. Um, that total cost to In the budget, it's about $180,000 for fuel um and tires and parts and all that stuff. So, pretty soon as these cars age on and require more work, more
129wear and tear, it's going to make the case for an EV even better. Listen, I'm not um suggesting I'm not disagreeing with you. What I'm saying is I you know, you don't want to be first to the party on something like this, right? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this year or next year. It could be to your point. We're just not there yet. Yeah. I'd love to see another PDB. I don't I don't want to listen. Love to be set in the way for everyone and be kind, you know, trying to be like us, but this is not one of those moments where you want to run a program that really is a problem for our patrol. And you know, I still have yet to see I know Weathersfield have heard that those
130two cars are like administrative duties, not driving patrol 75 miles a day. uh in having the size and capability, not the capability, but the size and comfort that the officers need. Um, no, it's those that Mustang is a smaller car. It was they tried it for patrol. My understanding was, and if I'm wrong, I apologize, but brought off the line and made into like an like an administrative role or a traffic car that is not doing general patrol operations. So, you know, I'm not I don't think, you know, I don't disagree with you. I think there's a way to get there, but I just don't think we're there. And I don't want to be the department that invests $280,000 in a couple in charging stations trying our best to make a convert a patrol division
131and find out it was a failure. We did this with natural gas years ago. That was a bomb. You know, we tried it. It didn't work. No, I thank you for your research with that. I I would rather not invest all that money in something that's not successful. So, thank you for continuing to look into that and when the time is right, I'm sure you'll let us know. We're not done. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Maybe. Why' the longevity pay go up so much? Was that the new contract? Yes. Contract as well in college credits. Not that it's a big number, but that's based on the the actual so just whoever's um signing up in advance. Correct. I'm good. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate you listening. Have a good evening.
132Last item under public safety is fire prevention. Correct. It's page 105. The next guest of honor is um Fire Marshall Renstöm. Good evening. So the uh the goals for this year uh goal one was met, goal two was met by the hiring of Deputy Fire Marshal Bill Kelly. Um, Bill was an uncertified candidate, so he had to get his code certification, hazardous materials, and fire investigation. He started that process before he was hired. He paid for the classes, the tutors, successfully completed the code class. We sent them to fire investigation. he was graduated uh number one in his class. So that goal is met, but now kicks in goal one because he has to maintain his 90 hours of reertification training every three years as well as I do. And then goal number three, we
133started digitizing our old uh files. About 80 85% of that is complete. um it's being stored now um on the computer and then the rest of that is when it gets migrated from the G drive into uh the Alpine software red and MX program and hopefully we can get that done in another six eight months. So that's that's pretty much complete. Okay. Quickly, page 107. Bottom line, you see a reduction of 1.3% over or $472. Um, going up to part-time salaries, you see a reduction of 2.3%, I'm sorry, full-time salaries reduction of 2.3% or $5622, excuse me, and an increase in um part-time salaries of uh $1,500 or 37 and a half%. % then um moving down to uniform including a 25% increase of $500 and we'll just skip over the telephone copus signs tend
134to keep the conversation real Where's your part-time employees? So, we have a part-time employee that's implementing our uh objective number three to get the the uh information digitized and then moving into Alpine software. And then we also do hire uh part-time people to do fire watches. fire watches and what? Well, we do the the town events and just recently we had an issue at an apartment complex with their fire alarm system, so we had to have a firewatch. So, we we uh hired guys to do that. Do you think once you get your data system up that that would that'll go down next year or or if you complete it? Thanks. Any other questions? Thank you. We're moving on to section D, public works. First sub item is highway roads. Find my tab. 111. Um.
135Oops. Sorry. 113 road maintenance. Take a five minute break. Hopefully. Yes. I think that's Can we Can we take a five minute break? Sure. Um, do you need to have a motion or can we just do it? Motion for five minute recess. Second. All in favor? I I Okay. Uh the budget uh meeting is coming out of recess. We are now resuming with item D, public works, and the first sub item is highway roads. Okay. Page uh 111. Um I just want to quickly go these two goals are pretty um short. Um improve equipment and tools for safety, productivity, efficiency, operations. It's a long this is an ongoing issue or not issue but an ongoing project. Um it basically refers to um the two trucks that were approved in capital last year. Um they're current
136they're still in the process. They're being built is the 750 and the Freight Liner. Actually, three trucks and the uh um red line truck uh and I'm sorry for 1,400. Those are three trucks that were uh paying long-term leases on, but that was part of the overall keeping the uh the fleet at a minimum of uh 15 15 years. um ongoing and trying to trying to keep that going. So, uh highway has um accomplished a portion of that goal. Um as far as the efficiency of operations and productivity, um Joe Lentini, the uh highway superintendent, has initiated um kickoff daily kickoff meetings every morning. I think he calls them to tailgate meetings in the morning um with his crew um reviewing what needs to be done for the day. Um also they have um incorporated
137uh various training sessions um o inviting OSHA in for certain activities and training through uh his own through Joe's own um research and also um through uh HR and goal two maintain and improve roads and the entire transportation system. Um they do that every day every year. Um just for example last year, this past summer, last summer, this past fall, um they were replacing curbing catch basin for the autumn circle Foxhill Road area. Um they do that every year. every time um there was a a project for road paving um Joe's crew is out doing what they need to do which is basically um replacing curbing, back filling curbing, landscaping um looking at the drainage system to make sure everything is uh in accordance with engineering. Um so that's ongoing continue year by year every
138year. May I jump to page 113 for for the uh for the budget numbers. Bottom line total increase was $94,748 of which um $61,948 is in full-time salaries. The increase that is um overtime we are budgeting u a 0% increase. As far as training goes, we're reducing training by $4,200. um training um through the union uh IOU in-house training in OSHA um will uh be folded into this line item thereby helping us reduce those costs new and replacement signs we're cutting $4,000 or 28% that's road signage and other uh park signage in and whatever signage we may need at the time. Excuse me. Uniforms and cleaning are up uh 3.4% or $500 just to costs that uh that are incurred or have increased materials and supplies. We're looking at a 122% increase or $16,500. and
139that is to um purchase a new salt spreader. Those spreaders that go on the back of the pickup of the pickup trucks for uh to apply salt for ice and snow. Um we are proposing to fund um three of them. Also include some general hardware purchases. Why is that not a capital? It's under equipment. No, but the materials and supplies you said that's 16,500, right? Yeah, that's the spreaders themselves. Yeah, three of them. Okay. Um, salt and free treatment is up $13,000. Um we're we are on the Crag um contract list for that to try to keep uh prices as min minimal as possible. So doing the regional approach has helped a bit. Um food has increased for 25% $3,000. That's for overtime and maintenance and equipment. is um up well actually it's it's up
140hasn't been funded so it's up to uh it's proposed at $8,000 you know what are those the spreaders yeah and and I would agree I think they probably could have gone together the 8000 is the uh sandos the just the mechanical device three per vehicle I need three individual vehicles, not per. So, it's not the material and supplies, right? Already connected. They're somewhat connected. I'm I'm agreeing that I think the spreaders would be a better fit to put into the capital. Okay. This capital, he's got a capital equipment line. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, you mentioned capital. I was thinking of CIP. CIP. I apologize. I was just Yeah, I think that's a better description. So So we're losing. So we're spending 24,000 on which line? Which line? Well, you're the 165. Is that other materials
141or is what's the 8,000 then? All right, there we go. Joe Lini, how are you up here? Currently our uh system for spreading the salt with the it's called a Rex Roth and those units we can't get replacement we can't get parts so they're failing that $8,000 is going to be for three units to me for me to replace those rec units okay that's the $8,000 that's a new line item just just started happening uh in the last two years that I can't uh and to replace the Rex Roth cost is double that price for just one unit. So that's why we're going to go to a whole new system. That's a quarter of the cost and get three to replace three Rex rods. That's the $8,000. So that is separate from the materials. And
142then what what would the 165 be? Just the 165 is that's uh let me just put my eyes on because I do have notes. That was your line item for spreaders. the materials and supplies. So, yes, we have um spreaders that are on the back of vehicles that are also uh as older than the truck. Okay. So, we need to replace those. That's that's basically equipment, you know. I mean, it's not like going to buy a new truck or putting it in CIP. It's it's replacing um old what we have the older units. I mean, they're they're over 25 years old that are, you know, you see the mason dump trucks that we have, those kind of units, the smaller trucks, those are the units that need to be replaced. So, that's that line on
143that's what the materials and supplies is for. And the $8,000 is the spreader system that puts out the salt. Those I can't get parts for anymore. That's a Rex Roth. It's called We're going to a whole new system. It's called Force. Um, and Uh it's basically with stay low bid. We got it through equipment services. So we got a good price and it'll be three units we're going to replace this year. So we replace six units. Really? Six trucks worth of spreader equipment. Three smaller. Um, yeah, I didn't write the exact price of what it is, but the $8,000 will give me afford me three new units for the uh to get rid of the old rect. Understood. But what's the 165? The 165 that's the that's the spreader that the salt holds that spreads
144on. That's a whole different unit. That's a unit that sits in the truck. That's separate from this. What size trucks are these? Mason dump trucks. That's what I just mentioned. Mason dumps. The Mason dump trucks. Oh, three of them. Yeah. Well, I have We also have park and wreck, too. I mean, you know, we inter help each other out. You know, it's my snow program. Should part of that 165 be rec classified to the maintenance equipment. So when we compare year-over-year that it we're really just seeing materials and supplies. Yes, absolutely. Yes, I would take that because we had estimated it was 5600 for each one of the spreaders. So I think yes, you definitely take that 16,000 and move it for a better description. Yeah. Right. So material supplies are really going to be
145fairly flat and it's about 24,000 in maintenance equipment roughly is really how to really think about it. Um, can ask about the salt and pre-treatment number? Um, we're at about 70,000. I don't think we're going to have any more storms this year. Um, actually, we're at 171. Oh, yes. So, this changed. Okay. So, we went from being way under to being over now, correct? Do we Is any of that pre- purchased for the f next season? No, that's it. I that was what I bought in February and we've gone through got bombarded with those three or four storms three weekends in a row there. We got hammered. It was a March delivery ice. Yeah. Okay. But you will have some in the salt shed. So you're not gonna you're not going to enter July with
146an empty start next year. Right now I don't have to make any purchases. We're we're ready to roll. coming because obviously March was quiet and April we only had the one event so we've been lucky. I'll take your knock on wood. Um so I I don't know how much supply we have but do we need 155 budgeted if we have a supply from this year going to next year? Mhm. I never want to take that chance because if you're short, what do you do when I have to get emergency vehicles, ambulances, police around town and I don't have material because Yeah. I just have no idea like how much stock, how much inventory we have. In years past, you know, you try to invent uh you try to figure 20 29 events is what you're
147thinking. That's right. That's been our last five years because it's been quiet. But, you know, eventually it'll only get worse. I believe we've been lucky the last five years. And how many events do you think we have inventory to cover until we until I have to would purchase? Yeah, I would say it depending on every event is different. The last event was ice and sleep and we were out here for 40 42 hours. I think I was we were out here Saturday. I got here Saturday at noon. I left Monday at 9:30. Joe, how how do you hit? Is it like half? You got half in there now? Half full? No, I'm a little more I'm I'm a little more than half. I'm not stuffed, but more than half. Yeah. Let's say it's winter and
148you're How difficult is it to order another load when you know you're down when it's as long like I pre-ordered 4,000 ton right now. that I I do that through the crop. Morton Salt is the state low bid. You can't get any from anywhere else. They're it down in New Haven. So, I right now I pre-order 4,000 uh ton for next season. Um I make a phone call and with usually in a week I get the delivery. So, if I know I'm going to get three or four storms, I'm calling and I'm going to get the order in, you know, eight days instead of two weeks or three weeks. You know, we're we I don't want to, you know, we try to set ourselves up in advance. You know, if I know, you know, you
149try to watch a 30-day forecast and if I'm going to get hammered like we did in February because February was nasty and That's that was the last order was in February because we were down to probably one storm. We were depleting. So I don't want to propose. I mean I never I haven't seen the back of the salt shed till this year. I've been here nine years. This is the first time in February I was nervous because I don't know if you recall but there was problems with a lot of people getting saw but you know we were lucky we stayed on top of it. What's the equipment rentals? We didn't have any in 2024. We're anticipating 10,000. Are we going to use that or what are you renting the next few months? The next
150few months I'm going to be renting a roller to start and um depending on park operations, it could be a mini escalator because that's what we don't have and I have a I have a drainage job uh that we need to complete before the end of May. So, um a roller to do Maxwell Park and then um the drainage job. But, you know, it's Also, I like to use it to screen the top soil that we back up the curb. Don't we have a mini excavator now? Not a mini, small one, like somebody's backyard. We have an easement where I have a pipe going between a pool and a fence and you know, we might need to rent equipment depending on parks. Okay. Timing, you know, I usually work with, you know, communicate with them.
151What's a street lighting? That line item. What's that all about? That's street lights uh that are on all the streets. That's the actual electric bill for the street lights. That seems a little low right now. Actual. Oh, did I bring the actual thing? Our solar farm doesn't help with that, right? It does. Well, yeah, you can make me have that. Yeah, it's supposed to. You don't want me to go on my solar farm? And that's exactly what you're saying there is because we in January we don't get the solar farm bills, but then you're seeing it pick up. So, it' be about an extra 30,000 per month on that. So, that's what you're missing there. So, yes, it does, but then we don't get charged on solar farm in the January month and it'll pick
152up. So, I didn't bring the actual on that, but it's probably closer to 180 at this point. You know, good qu if if we didn't have enough money budgeted for SAP, let's say we got killed next year, where would that money come from? Remember that contingency line I was telling you about that Brian was using for overtime? That's it. and or as we're experiencing this year, we had a freeze on expenses because we're seeing a combination of situation one on the revenue and then the expenditure side because we were watching uh for example the the overtime in the police and it wasn't being covered by vacancies and then you know Joe had the the extra storms that we weren't planning for which was driving him over over and overtime over in salt. So these are
153uh a combination of efforts. Freeze for example his question of why is your equipment rental is zero because he's not going to rent any equipment until we say we've gathered enough to cover these overages. But we but he hasn't finished a project by the end of May. So that's going to be in last year's budget. Well, yeah, not this proposed budget. So correct. kind of the good news that when Fran was getting there was we have a project that we need the equipment rental but we've got 20,000 right now sitting there theoretically correct because we haven't used 10 yet this year but we have ordinarily you'd use it in this year it's only by a resolution that we actually transfer something unexpended this year into the following but our year ends on when June June
15430th yes yes but he has to do it by the end of May so we are going to use it. Yes, he will. Well, so obviously I'm going to be sitting down. We're going to be discussing that. I'm not going to That's right. Come on, Joe. Well, he knows better. Yeah, I I I know better. I That's That's a sit down that we need to have that we're going to have. Your actual overtime at least on this was 129,000. Do you What's your actual number? and he is at 178. You're asking a bad question. Well, this winter, are we under? Yeah, this winter was a lot of Sunday events, a lot of weekends. 78. 15. Yeah. It's continuing because we're getting rain every Friday, Saturday this year so far. I mean the winter was all
155weekend events just about plus holiday. We had we had two two storms on on holidays Sunday, Monday which you really can't project for. I mean I you know I I say 29 events but you know when it really depends when it happens. Yeah. But I try to prepare for that. You know you want to set yourself up for failure so you can succeed. Any other questions? Thanks. Thank you. Uh, highway garage. Might wanted to stay there, Joe. Since you're up, you know, you need to get that blood circulating. Okay. You want me to do the goals then? Yeah, sure. Well, you got I can do something general for the goals. Uh, goal number one is similar to uh It ties into the goal number one if we just talked about those are the uh the
156purchase of the uh the trucks the 7 the F 750 and the Freight Liner 1400 and keeping in line with the priority to keep the vehicles in a you know 15-year max format. Um improve town facility facilities. Um that kind of ties into our last uh we did get a But we did apply for a steep grant to uh help. Keep going. Don't listen to me. To uh possibly uh replace the underground fuel tanks at the garage. We haven't heard yet, but that ties into this goal. Um also pushing out a a work a uh oh the portable uh the portable um trailers looking at uh trying to accommodate how we uh handle the uh the overnight accommodations and goal number three to implement a work order system for vehicles. Um we are uh we
157are pushing that out now. Um so um they will overlap from last current fiscal year to the next fiscal year is you know the some of these projects particularly if we get a steep grant that's going to be a a long-term multi- almost probably a 8 n 10 month project. So there will be overlap between this year and next year. Joe you want any details you want to add? Um bless I mean these system these these goals are obviously they were implemented they've been implemented uh the immorization is working we do have a program set up um Mona and I in uh with a spreadsheet and the program is working um obviously improving the with the fuel tanks I mean they got to be out of the ground in the next few years so we
158we we're starting to uh manage that and hopefully this grant comes through um and then the work order system that's that's right right now we're just on the cusp of that but it will be implemented it'll be running by the time I stand here next year it will be up top page 116 total increase $26,514 $18,14 14 of which are salaries. And then we have a $5,500 increase in service contracts um for the the gas pumps and the gas pump system um removals um from deep, you know, the the oils and the hydraulics and safety clean and and so on. Moving down to um equipment and supplies, we're looking at a $5,000 decrease, 20%. Um equipment and supplies are um consists of uh tank refills and car washes and plow pins and other uh highway
159vehicle oriented items. uh $6,000 increase or just over 5% increase for motor fuel lubricants. I believe that's just just price increases that we're we're suffering from. Correct? That's correct. Yeah. And then vehicle parts, $4,000 increase. Again, just uh price increases. And also um since we don't have the vehicles yet, those vehicles I mentioned because they're currently being built um um is the uh part of the reason why we don't have it fully extended yet, right? And prices won't go down either. that is going to continue to climb and no no change in the uh software and maintenance equipment last year with the um tires and tubes. We gave you a big bump because you said you had a lot of loader tires and equipment that tires that you need to replace. I'm just curious why
160is that still going up this year? That should have came down. I would assumed if you replace the tires under the budget year we're in right now. Well, now I'm meant to replace it for some of our trucks. We just did two 10 wheelers recently. I don't that budget number might not be correct either. I don't I don't think Well, if you replace them currently, it's this winter. Yeah, we're talking What are your plans for next year? Next year. I mean, we're at 33,000. We went up from We'll keep going. Did you have the actual on that? It's 13. Yes, he is presently at 22,000. Yeah. So, for May, coming into May, you know. No, I understand. But last year, you went up quite a bit and I asked you why were we jumping and
161you said you replace loader tires, which we did. We did replace those loader. Okay. So my my question is why are we budgeting for this upcoming budget even more monies? We should have most of those equipments all brand new tires. In other words, a one time spend. No. Yeah. Not well for the equipment. Yeah. The backos and the loaders. Those two did get replaced. Those two are done. Big big ticket items. Now it's six and 10 wheelers. I thought you said you just did some of them and went ribs. I did. We did two. I got, you know, I got 10 trucks, 10 big trucks. Um, and actually I just met with the mechanic u on the heavy equipment side to discuss tires and he's going through what we're going to need moving forward. Okay.
162I believe two more 10 wheelers are going to have to get done this the coming year. So what is the if if we're putting good money necessary money I should say into the loaders and whatever then the six and 10 eight wheelers whatever are we going to see a reprieve from that at some point then or should we be allocating for the future anyways I would I mean that number I think that number has been consistent if you look past with the years I believe it was a couple years where we didn't buy anything okay you know um We I I don't know. I At 2024 we spent 18. Yeah. Uh this year we're 22, but we're probably going to hit close to that 32. Absolutely. Yeah. Everything hinges on the mileage in the winter,
163you know, this this winter we only had whatever I think 12 events. So it wasn't that bad. We're not, you know, I'm not using diesel and I'm not wearing tires or plow blades or anything else. But um last summer was a busy summer with all the construction work. So we were using a lot more trucks. Yeah. You know, I know um like Franch Street and pardon me, like the fire marshal, fire chief, he could he has an idea like his trucks every two years because of the wear and tear. Do you have do you have a do you have a feel for that? I know it depends. I could get a better feel for it. I don't have a good I can't give you the exact answer right now, but I could get a feel
164for it. I could come up and just look at the hours of the vehicle, you know, what what I put on in the last I could do the last five years. I could put a little spreadsheet together to do that. Again, that uh system that we're trying to implement is part of that system and getting everything in there. Right now, it's handwritten the notes. We want it in here so that I could see it and then I can answer these questions. It'll be right in front of you. You know that that RTA is going to be magnificent. I mean, it's going to be a good program where I could give you the answers. The fuel and lubricants, is that for the whole town or is that just your department? That's Oldtown. Whole town. Excluding um
165the police department. They they have their own and I think the uh the bus. Okay. Is that going up because of usage? I mean, I I don't know. I think gas prices are going down now, but and and we right this year have locked in our price. So the next year we lock it in. Okay. We you said police pays for its own fuel. He has a fuel line. Stop letting them come to you. Now you make me. You don't have You got parts? He's got parts. I pay for all the fuel. The fuel comes Oh my gosh. That's what I thought. Yeah, that's a lot of money. And Gina and the human service, the whole town. The whole town separated. Yeah, they got the whole town. Okay. How How about the the vehicles? Like,
166does the police vehicles come to you for repairs? Yeah. So, those four mechanics are servicing. They're servicing their vehicles. That's correct. So, you got how many mechanics? There's two that do the police vehicles. Okay. and other vehicles. Also, they also have the town fleet here. So, they do the police, the town, they're taking care of vehicles that are 350 and lower. An F 350 pickup truck, that's going to be more heavy equipment. And we're the other two mechanics are handling that. The rest of the equipment that's 250 and below, that's the two mechanics that are also for police. So, they do parks, park and wreck trucks. the two mechanics that also do police. They do all the vehicles here at town hall. They do facilities. BOE BOE as well. Yeah. They don't have their own
167line. No, they have me. Is there a crossover where they can work on each others? Because I'm sure the under 350s are we listen that garage is we're we're we're working collaboratively. We're all working together. If there's a vehicle that needs to get fixed and you know, we're it's it's coming in and it's getting fixed. You know, it's not just not dedicated to mechanics all the time, but that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to establish that where you know, you have these vehicles and you have these. If there we need to cross over, we do. We help out that you know, whatever it takes, we're getting it done. Mona, you're right. There is 122 for motor fuel and lubricants on the page 94 under the police patrol. What's that about? Don't know. How's
168that work, Mona? Does that reimburse Joe or how's it No, what's what we do is with the uh the fuel order, we're doing a uh separating it by percentage of use. So we again because we're still a bit on a manual system here but we track the uh the usage maybe like quarterly I think this time it's probably been a little more than a quarter but look at percentage of use and then apply the uh metric. Yeah. So technically we use about 240,000 on fuel lubricants. You're just dividing it up by what you believe is the usage percentage, right? Yes. Because from the gas pump, we can see mileage. It's not all on you, Joe. Almost. Sorry. I And I'm, you know, now that she mentioned it, we it was discussed. I remember there some
169of the accounting things he just doesn't get. I I I forgot about that. We did have that discussion. My apologies. I totally fart brain farted. And last, what what's the service contracts? The service contracts are all the contracts I have with all the vendors that come to me yearly. Yeah. Okay. So, the oil water separators, the the removal of the rags, removal of the uh used fuel, uh used oil, um the fuel pumps. We have a service contract with Compo that they come in. It's monthly, quarterly, yearly service. Yeah. Okay. So, all those items and plus the fueling of the oils and lubricants inside the garage, you know, I mean, the lubricant is a cost, but you know, there's vendors that I have to have for certain oils and hydraulics and all those items. So,
170those we consider the service contracts. the other item that I uh yeah that's the main core of the uh service contracts and that's why we set it up that way years ago to have its own separate because I always it's the same vendors every year it's the same you know I mean pricing changes obviously because of the economy but Any other questions on highway garage? Uh Joe stays up here for sanitation, I think. So move on to sanitation. Page 17. Uh 117 last year goals. Um okay the goal number one uh reduce waste which is same as last year which uh makes sense. And how are we doing about that? We are uh what are we doing on that I guess? Well, we are uh moving our food scraps to quantum. It's not a really
171big uh impact about 12-500 pounds a year as opposed to tons which is you know better. Um, we have uh rrooted and reorganized our uh the root maps for uh bulky waste pickups to try to reduce the fuel consumption for these two vehicles driving around. We're working on that now. Um, pretty pretty hard right now. Um, we are saving money with uh recycling the plastics through USA, right? We're about a ton a month, Joe, maybe more. A lot better with the plastics recycling. It's reducing the tonnage on the bulky waste. um they're accepting more items now, so we're able to really um say we're we're saving a lot of touch on the plastics. Why don't you uh a quick note on the u the uh contamination? Uh we're all we're at 10% for our recycling.
172So that's phenomenal for the town. Um, in other words, when all you residents are recycling, you're only contaminating, you know, 10% or less of the material that's being recycled. So, Rockio is doing an excellent job on recycling. I don't think I understood that. Yeah. What's contaminating? So, uh, contam the recycling. So, people put in recycling, they'll put items that don't belong there. Okay. a television, grass, you know, you name it. Cardboard. Cardboard. Well, cardboard is recyclable. That's a good thing for recycling. Like all pizza boxes. Well, oily pizza boxes. No, that's going to end up getting blown off. And their new automated system now and they're taking more items, which you know, we've put online. We're trying to we're staying up with the stream with USA on what we're recycling and how we're recycling. And
173we're the town's doing a magnificent job. We're only contaminating 10% of the loads. That's phenomenal in the standard. So Rocky Hill is doing good. We're recycling. I mean, you know, we could I we can recycle more or do even better by keeping less out of the bulky waste out of the MSW, that green cart. Just keep it to your kitchen and your bathroom waste and textiles and everything else. bring it to the transfer station. We'll dispose of it down there and into the right areas so we're not contaminating or uh making hazardous waste, but we're doing the right thing. Is there a different fee for recyclables due to bulky waste? Is that correct? That's why we're trying to encourage proper recycling. Yes. Yes. So, we get a better rate by being 10% versus 20%. Well,
174no. Good. You just don't get the extra charge for me because they will itemize your bill and say this particular load was 10%. Yeah. If we were higher, we'd get charged. Oh, yeah. I would get charged. Oh, yeah. We We haven't gotten a fine uh in quite some time. Good. And the plastics, like I said, at least um four to eight ton uh a month. That's what we're recycling in plastic. So, we're doing a lot better with that. We finally got that program uh in a good place. So that's eight ton a month that's, you know, not going into your bulky waste where you're getting charged $108 a ton. What plastics you referring to? You mean from curbside pickup from homes? No, for like the stuff that the items that people bring to me like
175the Trek toys, uh, those plastic items, your Rubbermaid bins, those items that you guys are bringing to me, okay, are not going into the bulky waste now. They're going separate and I'm not paying the tonnage for bulky waste. So, it's a good savings. We're We're doing pretty good. I mean, it's not millions of dollars, but for a small town, we're we're we're doing well with uh managing the waste. I think I'm thinking we'll uh I'm thinking a video is going to be popping up soon. We'll be doing one of those videos that will be educating particularly the contamination part. I think you're tanned off. You have on your website what goes what's proper to go in. Okay. Yes. All the all that material is on there. uh what to put properly into the recycling and
176for that matter the trash too because I think you know in that video we we need to do a better job of reaching out to everybody. Absolutely. Um less MSW tonnage, less to put in your green barrels and more to recycle and more to place at the transfer station or places where it needs to go. Textiles being a big one. That's a lot of weight that goes into that green cart. How how often do we go out for um different contractors like uh bidding for garbage pickup? We just um renewed our contract for trash. Is it yearly? Four years. Three years. Three. I know Weathersfield uses pain. I'm not sure the rate though. I was just curious. Trash. Well, did we go to bid last year? We did a renewal and um they had uh
177the contractor we had trash away had agreed to go at no increase and actually I had checked with Weathersfield and was comparing their rates and they were actually at about I think was 15 to 18% higher. So it was definitely in our best interest to stay at a an agreement to extend zero. In essence, you've been Yeah. Yes. The mayor has her hand raised via Zoom. She has a question or comment. You thought you could get away from Joe because I'm not there, huh? No comment. So, we had our uh CCSMM meeting today through deep. It's been a long time. So, you know, I don't know if you were on that meeting, but there is another round of grants that has been announced um with a deadline of sometime late in June. And there's the
178first one that goes back to, you know, the organic food scrap pickup and the unit based pricing. And it's not for pilots anymore. It's for permanent programs, which, you know, doesn't work for us. But then there's a second category that's sort of a catchall that really enables municipalities to sort of experiment with either removing food scraps like Greenwich. I think they just got 16,000 um for having satellite um drop off locations. So, in addition to their transfer station. And so, I'm just wondering are are we still considering alternatives to getting, you know, more of the organic stuff out of the trash? Yes. So, uh the last couple months I have been communicating with Ray and Mona about that. Um because I have done a couple of programs like you did today and um I'm gonna
179try to visit uh Manchester because they have program they have satellites where they have containers located throughout the town where the resident uses um you know their uh cell phone to open the unit and dispose of their food scrap waste uh into the unit. that's uh secured. Uh I guess not even a bear can get into these units. Um I I don't know. I did get some numbers on the costs. I I didn't memorize them. I don't have them in my head. Um but we have had the communication. Um and I think we're going to be in a implementing program hopefully sooner than later. I would imagine by probably midsummer, I'm hoping. Um so that that that is uh that is in the works. Yeah. In fact, we were thinking of the NIPS program. So,
180it's great to hear that this may be a better fit. And we could What program? NIPS. That's the money we got from the uh the little NIP bottles. So, yeah. You say NIP. I really did say it. Yeah. And then my follow-up question is um through Prague I really haven't paid much attention to I think it's called Seisu um but I had mentioned it to Ry the other day and we are a member town of that and um what do you think about opportunities to regionalize some of these you know whether it's food scrap pickup or composting opportunities. Um and and I asked because I I we learned today that there is legislation to actually fund some of the COGS to look into some regional programs. And I don't know where we sit with that
181concept. Maybe you have an opinion. Um Ray, I see you're grabbing the mic. Yeah, Joe. Um I I'm I can't visualize that how right now like how would that regionalism work? Maybe you have a better idea. Well, I know it's working in the uh southeastern part of the state with SCARA. Uh they implemented a program where they're doing it, but they have land. They had property that they own that they collect the trash throughout Graten, Norwich, um and several other towns. uh Waterford in that area where they collect the food scraps at the curb and then they bring them to a location where they have aation, water, you know, they make all that material into u compost along with leaves and wood chips and other items. So there would have to be a for a
182lack of a better term a landfill location. Yes, you need a landfill location, similar to a landfill location and New Haven came down um a couple years ago uh because of the West Haven program and they looked at our property. Um but you know, you you have to have you have to have water, you have to have electricity, you have to have all these items. Um and I know that they looked in the area where I compost leaves and we wouldn't be able to do it. But to regionalize it and find a location, you know, a landfill that's covered and not being used, I'm sure DP would probably be interested in a program like that, you know, because that you then you have an area, you have a location. Uh you just got to get
183electricity and water to it because those those have to be turned constantly. You know, food scraps is already wet. There's a lot of water. there's a lot of moisture in that material and you need a lot of leaves and wood chips in order to make it compost. But there are programs that are out there and I know uh SCARA has started one and I've been trying to reach out to find out more information about theirs. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions about sanitation? Well, we didn't go over the budget yet. Oh, I'm sorry. We didn't do Well, how is Yeah. What's a build transfer station? Actually, that scares me slightly. Yeah, we're uh we don't propose to build a new transfer station. It was looking at maybe ways to improve its efficiency, its layout,
184um its uh ease of access for both um residents and also staff to to get in and you know operate more efficiency more efficiently. So that's where we are. We're looking at we've been looking at that now probably for almost a year on and off. And almost every day we talk about how can we do this, can we do that in concert with what we call the pit, you know, down old Forge. Okay. And does we jump to general generate income? That last goal. Um you know there's been talk about how do we how do we increase income? You know um Do we implement a fee like many towns do? You know, maybe a yearly fee for transfer or do we look at maybe looking at a fee for bulky waste or restricting the you
185know what's what what we're picking up just um you know different fee structures. I know Joe has done some rearch research on that. Um we have a couple of uh spreadsheets that have been generated looking at the regional towns, local towns, bordering towns and what they do. So that's what we're looking at right now. Uh the mayor's got her hand up again. So I forgot to ask you, Joe, how is the big belly composter trash um working? And then should we get more or was that just not a great investment? Not a great investment. Um, it's contaminated all the time. I can't separate, you know, there's a milkshake in with the recycling. Now I have all this, you know, contamination on all my recycling. you know, the people aren't they're throwing away things that dog
186poop bags in my recycling. I mean, basically that uh is just turned into a large garbage can, unfortunately. And you got to I got to clean it every every week. I have to have a couple guys go out there with spray bottles and water, hot water, and and clean them. It's uh it's not uh it's it's not the place. Put it in a park or whatever. It needs to be somewhere where you know people are watching or on camera because it's just it's it's gets contaminated and unfortunately it it all turns into trash and there's nothing I could do. You know, I'd have to I'd have to screen all the m all the plastics and put them under a hose for an hour and try to clean all the contamination off. And I I we
187don't I don't have the personnel for that. So, the big bellies is uh I would, you know, it just it's not going to work in a park or a place where you you can't monitor it, unfortunately. just, you know, I would say I would say tell all the parks like you bring your trash in, you can bring it home. Don't put any barrels out there. Just like you go to Hammond acid, there's no garbage cans anywhere anymore. You bring your trash in, you take it home. They'll save some money, fuel, men, hours. You know, there's a lot of towns that don't have any trash containers at their facilities anymore. Is there concern about littering? Well, if you driven around, we're picking up litter anyway. I mean, I don't think it's going to be any worse
188than what we have now. You know, you just got to put the word out. This is it. This is what you got to do. Wouldn't mind getting the cost on what we do spend on that just future. Not this budget obviously, but I have to send men out in trucks to go pick up these, you know, this trash. I know the park and rec director has an issue with that particular proposal. He he, you know, we we we've talked, but he has an issue with he thinks it will be a problem if you get rid of all the trash cans in the parks. It's something that we'll continue on discussing ways to to reme remedy this problem, especially at Elmbridgeidge where you're going to concessions and buying things that you didn't bring and now you
189have no place to throw them out. So that right concession areas that's different. I do know that the sustainable Rocky Hill task force is putting together a couple of workshops to sort of um educate the public about what's in what's out. again, you know, and maybe maybe we can get some signage in the parks or or something to sort of um bolster whatever materials they're going to put out and whatever workshops they're going to host. Yeah, we can do that because it is all about you know. Absolutely. Quick question about the goals generating income. You said you guys are developing spreadsheets and stuff. Are you going to Yeah, we'll do a research on that or Yeah, we will. When we're going to find out about that. Absolutely. Um not not during this budget process, but
190this coming fiscal year, probably over the summer and fall, we'll have hopefully have the information. Thanks. Okay. Okay. Page 119, bottom line, the reduction of $1,868 overall. Um, the bulk of that reduction falls in the to the full-time salaries, a reduction of uh $83,800. that's uh implementing the proposal in my budget to uh reduce staffing by one. And then we have an increase in part-time salaries of $10,000. And then we have a u a fee under fees of of $2,500. That's our annual um donation to the housing authority for their sewer bill. We've been doing that historically for decades. $5,000 increase in solid waste collection, $2,000 increase for solid waste disposal contract. Both of these are contracts. We'll probably jump back to that in a moment. We're looking at $87,000 increase for the MDC bill.
191That's just what they charge us and $15,000 reduction in grinding. Has anything been spent year to date on grinding? Oh, yes. Yes. I think 48 zero as of February. Yeah. Actually, 48,000 of the 50. Oh, yeah. He went grinding before the freeze. So, we have a $10,000 drop in overtime and a 10,000 increase in part-time salaries, which is great, but I I assume the part-timer is going to take away the need for overtime, or am I wrong? I mean, the the the Do you want me to? Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. So actually, so the overtime obviously goes with the full-time employees and if with the reduction of one and so we would be able to have part-times who are already there to offset that. How many part-time employees are are there on varying levels of
192hours? You've got four. Five. Five. Well, I'm sorry. Four. There's four. No one's greater than 19 hours. We have one that's six with the overtime used to date. Um is that because we lost one of the full-timers that that's way down? Well, no. The from full staff with the transfer with the four part- timerrs. So typically the overtime was for that Saturday because the full-timers only work Monday through Friday. And if I was short part- timerrs, then I would ask a full-time employee to work because I was short staff. So that money was that was the fund for that because typically the last few years I've been short. It's tough to get help to work, especially on a Saturday from 7 to 1, but now we're staffed and looks good. So, mayor has a question.
193Excuse me, Ray. I have a question or Mona um about fees generally and I don't recall who who sets the fees for the municipality whether it's the department and whether the council has any um say in setting fees and I think I'm thinking about it just in terms of generating revenue because absent state authority we can't have alternative streams of revenue. So, we're relying on property taxes and do we have any discretion over increasing fees? Generally, fees are um approved by the town council through the ordinance process just like building department fees, planning and zoning fees. Any other fee we have is approve is uh implemented by or ordinance. So, then we can take a look at those and see if it might make sense in certain areas. if not all areas, right? Um to
194increase revenue because I just in you know you see a projections and was just kind of curious about that. Thank you. Any other questions about the numbers for sanitation? Okay, thank you. Thank you, Joe. Thank you. We're moving on to section E, employee benefits and insurance. First subsection is employee benefits. I'm going to try to drive and walk at the same time. I don't know if I can change my gears. You could. You can do it. I can do to change my packet. Bear with me a moment. 177. As you can see, there are no goals for employee benefits. Um, however, we did uh go to the state uh health insurance plan which has uh helped us although there's an increase. We're looking at the group oops, excuse me, group insurance lines 7.1% increase. Um,
195the plan is actually up uh 8%. Uh, this is offset slightly by the um premium share from employees. we as we go through contract negotiations, we um get a an in a percentage returned. So, we've seeing some of our contracts were moving toward uh instead of 10% moving them to 11 or 12. So, this will help um the increase on the group insurance. Um social security actually as we know that only is the 7.65 65. That's adjusted um for this year. I believe it was underbudgeted. Probably did not include some part- timerrs in the budget. So, it's up slightly. Uh pension, that's where we got a big increase. Uh basically in that pension, the $700,000 increase. Uh about $450,000 of that goes to the police pension plan. The other 200 plus is from the general
196plan. And really what's driving that is probably a couple of items on the police plan. Um they have a what they call the 4525. They were if they're 45 years old and have 25 years of service, they go with a full retirement. And we actually had um these um are recommendations from the actuaries. It goes every two years. So, in that two-year period, we had a number of retirements in the 4525 um um category, and some of those are kind of higher paid. We also had one individual that went out on a disability, which is a full pension, which again leads uh to to that cost just combined with the uh status of the assets in the plan, which are actually good. But of course, uh they have to plan for the next two years.
197and and uh price it accordingly. On the general plan um again we had uh a couple of retirements and that is just looking at um this particular group is a closed plan. to as they start planning for this and as our group that is in the plan age, it tends to get a little more expensive as we're trying to um I hate to put it out there, but looking at the mortality table and and finding when people exceed what the mortality table is that we're using and it sounds morbid, but those are the drivers of those. So again, you get about 450,000 for the uh police pension plan, 270 for the general plan. And let's see longevity. This just based on the actuals of the uh employees that are uh nonp police staff in longevity.
198Any questions on that page? Actually, one question I do have, Mona, on I'm just looking at the executive overview for uh investment income, and I I'm not sure if that would apply to insurance with the pension and everything, but with the returns of 2024, wouldn't wouldn't we have a more positive investment income? because right now you're projecting a negative 8%. Are we on the the revenue page for executive overview on page nine? That's all right. Um so yes, I think what we had this year is uh I think an aggressive number to reach because we had been watching historically the uh just trying to build it up and stay with the market. uh looking at the actual interest and this is just interest income on uh town revenues not related to the insurance or pension
199just to be clear on that. So this is just the uh the town investment. Uh I to be realistic it looks like we will come under the budget amount and want to not over budget what we could collect. So rates are doing fine. I think we were aggressive in looking or optimistic in what could be collected this year. Okay, thank you. Any other questions on employee benefits? Okay. Okay. Move on to insurance. Just plain insurance. Uh so this is the uh workers comp uh liability um category. Let me kind of roll down here. Um, we are signed on with Kerma and we have for this year we're still in the contract with them and they have a 5% cap. So that's why you're seeing these 5%s and uh I mean unfortunately we're not less than
200the cap but we will not exceed the uh the cap that's uh with that plan. Uh we've had obviously if we heard from our police department we've had a number of workers comps. So definitely we were staying at that 5% uh as well as the uh the liability again. So this is just capped at uh contract. Any questions on that? Okay, we'll move on to contingency. Okay. So, look at that goal. Maintain a level of reserve for unsettled contracts and weather. And this is uh basically what this happens to be. Um as promised, I was going to talk about this one. Um so we've got again for a hund00 million budget you've got $450,000 um dollars for the reserve for anything unexpected. Um obviously that's a a low dollar amount like at a half a
201percent of uh of accuracy and we've been fortunate enough to be able to do that. But basically you'll see in there the dollar amount for the actual the only expense that will go directly into contingency is a retirement. the rest of the funds will remain available to absorb any overages such as the situation for the police overtime, uh the salt costs, the uh the snow overtime. So, what we've budgeted for, uh looking at this particular year, we will use all of that and then I said and it was probably assisted with having the free situation where some departments will probably cover some of their own overages themselves. Um we have um couple since then. Oh I don't think I have the actual with me but we've had additional retirements since this since this report we
202had uh uh lieutenant and uh and one of our uh more senior mechanics as well. So this number's increased planning for next year. I think we what we try to do and I try to do is just look at the entire staff and who has how many years and and so forth. So anticipating there's potentially four um retirements that'd be about a $200,000 on the low side depending on who it is that goes. Could be up to three and again leaving that cushion in for uh if we have a bad winter or uh or an overtime situation. So that will be what is used to transfer to cover any overages. What is the fiscal 2025 going to like looking like right now? What do you think is going to end up? It will definitely be
203entirely used. I uh we've got uh let's see, I'm trying to think what was this. I'm probably at about 200,000 in retirements alone. We had this one that happened earlier in the year that's showing up here. Then I had another a lieutenant go and then a larger mechanic. just a loan. It'll be the retirement payouts. Definitely be using the remainder of that to cover um a portion of what's going on in the overtime for um for police and he had some salaries cushion that will help in there. So I we should expect at least 400 of that going. So mon when they go on the pension that comes from the separate line item which is for pension. These payouts here are things like a favor acred vacation pay and unused six time that sort of
204thing. Exactly. That's what this is. Final payout. Just if we didn't use that money, would you be putting that back into the capital reserve? Yes, it goes to fund balance. And and there have been years that that happens. I mean, we've had some years where it's not a bad, you know, winter and, you know, and no one's retiring and and that amount of money will go to fund balance, which we would like to have as well. Mona, does the bond rating agencies look at the contingency balance reserve amount? No, not specifically, but they do obviously look at how you're closing out your year and this type of thing, you know, when you can absorb your own overages looks favorable. So, that's good planning. Okay. Yeah, they do it does help. It helps. Correct. Any other
205questions on contingency? Okay, we'll move on to our final major section, debt service item G. Uh first are principal payments. I'd say unfortunately not a lot of excitement to share there. Unfortunately, these are all the outstanding uh bonds that we have. Um over 70 million. We just recently did the uh the $6 million road referendum. Just for note, that will not impact the this coming year because we sold the bonds with a premium and there's an excess um that will cover that. But you will see in the following fiscal year the $6 million coming up as a line item. So we've got um showing a decrease because some of these are set up as a gradual decrease on premium. I think now more recently we try to keep it as a flat dollar amount as
206we uh age the uh the bonds. It's easier to plan for. But you'll see there's a couple in here that are aging that will decrease. So you'll have a decrease in uh debt of 145 uh for principal and popping over here on the interest another slight decrease of 59,000. So overall, as the the debt is dropping off uh for this coming year, $200,000, but keep in mind, not next year because we'll have the premium to cover it. The following year, you'll see an an uptick on that, probably about $350,000. Can you explain the re what refunding bond is? Yes. Um some of those are and let me see if I can find that a rollup of prior. It's exactly what it is. Okay. If we had something that was old bond and we, you know,
207sold it at, you know, 7% but we know we can go out and refinance it for four, that's what these are. Just if a good rate comes and there's a, you know, a good possibility that something could come along even next year and if it's a good rate, it'd be probably sometimes in our best interest to take advantage of it. Okay. Thanks. Is there any debt that's going to be fully paid off for the next year or two? Any the older Um, no. The the the aging actually, like I said, is going to go up a bit and then you have a few years out and I believe it's Yeah, I don't think any of the older ones are coming off. Yeah. Right. Trying to see which one drops off. I think it's one of
208our smaller refundings. And actually, this doesn't say how much is outstanding. just says to compares year to year how much you're paying. So yeah. Okay. Any questions on interest or principal payments? Hearing none. That's our last item. I'll take a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Thanks everybody. See you Thursday.