Budget and Finance Subcommittee

RECEIVED By City Clerk at 2:26 pm, 5/26/22 AMESBURY CITY HALL 62 Friend Street City Council Finance Committee Meeting Minutes Tuesday January 25, 2022, at 7:00 PM Virtual Meeting Amesbury’s City Clerk, Amanda Haggstrom, called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. Roll Call was taken, and present were: Councilor Deschenes, Councilor Frey, Councilor Hickok, Councilor Hogg, Councilor Lennon, Councilor Mandeville, Councilor Rinaldi, Councilor Stanganelli and Councilor Wheeler (9). Appointment of Chair  Amanda asked the committee if there were any nominations for Finance Committee Chair. Councilor Rinaldi nominated Councilor Stanganelli to be Finance Committee Chair. Councilor Hogg seconded the nomination. Councilor Stanganelli accepted the nomination. Roll call was taken all members voted in favor (9). Nomination passed.  Amanda passed the meeting to Councilor Stanganelli. Appointment of Vice Chair Councilor Rinaldi nominated Councilor Hickok for Finance Committee Vice Chair. Councilor Hogg seconded the nomination. Councilor Hickok accepted the nomination. Roll call was taken, all members voted in favor (9). Nomination passed. * Councilor Stanganelli took the business on the agenda out of order by voting on minutes before the 2022 Finance Committee Meeting Schedule. * Minutes for Approval: July 27, 2021, September 28, 2021, October 26, 2021, and November 23, 2021 Councilor Wheeler motioned to accept the July 27, 2021, minutes as presented. Councilor Lennon seconded the motion. Roll call was taken, 6 members voted in favor, 3 abstentions (Deschenes, Frey, and Hickok). Motion passed. Councilor Wheeler motioned to accept the September 28, 2021, minutes as presented. Councilor Mandeville seconded the motion. Roll call was taken, 6 members voted in favor, 3 abstentions (Deschenes, Frey, and Hickok). Motion passed. Councilor Lennon motioned to accept the October 26, 2021, minutes as presented. Councilor Hogg seconded the motion. Roll call was taken, 5 members voted in favor, 4 abstentions (Deschenes, Frey, Hickok, and Wheeler). Motion passed.  Councilor Wheeler motioned to accept the November 23, 2021, minutes as presented. Councilor Hogg seconded the motion. Roll call was taken, 7 members voted in favor, 3 abstentions (Deschenes and Hickok). Motion passed. Approval of 2022 Schedule Councilor Hogg motioned to approve the Finance Committee Meeting Schedule for 2022. Councilor Lennon seconded the motion. Roll call was taken, all members voted in favor (9). Motion passed. Communications & Updates  Mayor, Kassandra Gove, gave a brief update on the status of the Chief Financial Officer position. o The administration is in the process of interviewing to fill the position. o The previous CFO, Angel Wills, is maintaining hours with Amesbury to oversee workflow in the interim. o Angel is updating the annual financial presentation for the condition of the city which will be on the next council agenda per the charter.  Councilor Wheeler stated he had received a written communication from the retirement board about cost-of-living increases either in late November or early December. He said it was late in the term last year to discuss but would like to keep it on the radar for this year. o Mayor Gove responded to Councilor Wheeler’s comment by say, the administration had also received that letter from the Retirement Board. She said she had sent back some questions to the Retirement’s administrator and has not heard back from them yet. o She said she is in communication with them but has questions before she sponsors anything.  Councilor Stanganelli wanted to note for the February Finance Committee meeting there will be some draft language to review for the OPEB trust investment policy statement as unfinished business for the last term. Public Comment  James N. Thivierge gave a public comment about taxes. He also congratulated the councilors on their election. 2022-008 An order to authorize the transfer of $46,679 from the FY 22 reserve fund to various general fund city departments in order to fund mid-year salary and wage adjustments for FY 22 – Mayor Sponsor  Mayor Gove explained how when the pandemic hit, they had to cut salaries and hours of some employees for FY21. 2  o These were meant to be replenished and restored for FY22; however, many were not still. o As the financial growth of the city is trending upward again, the administration has taken all the cuts and put them into one order to be voted on. This way everyone who took a cut in FY21 will be whole again. o It does not replace any positions we lost in whole, however.  Councilor Stanganelli clarified this money was taken out of the reserve fund which had $200,000.00.  Councilor Wheeler asked if there was another reserve line in the budget for salaries and wages. o Mayor Gove responded by saying she is unaware of another reserve line in the budget, she said there is the stabilization fund but the goal for that is to build it up.  Councilor Hickok asked what other uses the reserve fund is used for typically. o Mayor Gove responded by saying, typically we would use it for unexpected expenses that come up mid-year.  Councilor Hickok asked if this fund has been drawn from this year at all. o Mayor Gove responded that there has not been anything drawn from that reserve this fiscal year. She explained that since we are six months in the administration felt like they could do this [salary adjustments].  Councilor Stanganelli stated he understood there was a recent plumbing issue with the Ordway Building [9 School Street]. This required emergency repairs. He asked where the funds for that repair came from if it wasn’t from the reserve fund. o Mayor Gove responded saying the city has a building maintenance account for events such as that.  Councilor Frey stated he had a comment to Councilor Wheeler’s salary reserve question. He said looking at the budget book on page 51, the reserve’s budget is further broken down into two-line items, “budget reserves” and “salary reserves”. He said that is why Councilor Wheeler might have seen a salary reserve fund. It is part of the $200,000.00 reserve fund. Councilor Lennon motioned to send order 2022-008 back to City Council with a positive recommendation. Councilor Hogg seconded the motion. Roll call was taken, all members voted in favor (9). Motion passed. 2022-009 An Order to authorize the Mayor to expend a Community Compact Cabinet (CCC) Information Technology Grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. – Mayor Sponsor  Information Technology Director, Tim McCue, gave an overview of the grant. o He said this grant will add a good amount to the IT’s capital improvement fund for network infrastructure. The grant will cover the cost of network cabling, wireless access points, and switching.  Councilor Hickok asked where the infrastructure would be located. o Tim responded by saying, most of the departments and the locations where they are at need a hardware refresh. The plan is to start with APD [Amesbury Police Department], AFD [Amesbury Fire Department] since they are the 24/7 departments in the city. Then going from there, Council on Aging, City Hall, Water Abatement Plant... etc. 3   Councilor Stanganelli asked if this grant would cover any of the projects for the school side. o Tim responded by saying, this money will probably all go to the municipal side. The administration did give a lot of the CARES Act money to the school side. He said there is a fiber grant the state will open in March and that would be earmarked for the school side.  Councilor Stanganelli asked who has been doing the grant writing. o Tim answered by saying, this one [grant] in particular was just an application, which he can forward the questions and answers her provided. o He said he will need to wait for the fiber grant application to be released. It is a new grant the state has never done before. o Councilor Stanganelli noted for the record he thinks the city needs a grant writer.  Mayor Gove wanted to point out that department heads apply for their own grants.  She also wanted to commend Tim for getting the largest community compact grant in the commonwealth.  She said it was double edged because there is a need for this investment, but it was exciting there is help available. Councilor Wheeler motioned to send order 2022-009 back to City Council with a positive recommendation. Councilor Frey seconded the motion. Roll call was taken, all members voted in favor (9). Motion passed. 2022-010 An Order to authorize the Mayor to expend a FY 2022 Body Worn Cameras (BWC) Grant from the Executive Office of Public Safety & Security (EOPPS) Office of Grants and Research (OGR). – Mayor Sponsor  Acting Police Chief, Craig Bailey, gave an overview of the grant. He said the application for this grant was submitted by Lieutenant Donovan. This grant is for $48,000.00 for 48 body worn cameras, at roughly $1,000.00 apiece. He said this won’t cover the full cost, but it is a good piece. o He said there are a couple of estimates in, the lowest one being $100,000.00 for this year alone. Another one being $360,000.00 over three years. That includes all the equipment and cloud-based storage.  Councilor Stanganelli asked if either of those quotes included tech support, warranties, etc. needed for these things? o Chief Bailey replied by saying, yes, each camera comes with their own warranty that are cost based on the product. He gave the example that the body worn camera is more expensive than the other equipment, therefore, the warranty will be a little more expensive as well.  Councilor Deschenes asked what the competition atmosphere is like in this field. o Chief Bailey responded by saying, there are quite a few. Getac was the first company that was reached out to. BodyWorn [by UTILITY] is the second. There are two more that are going to be coming in which are, Watch Guard and Axon. Axon is the company that covers all of our tasers. o He said the competition is good. There is a lot of demand nationwide for body cameras now. Those four have been chosen with recommendations from other chiefs of police throughout the state of Massachusetts.  Councilor Stanganelli asked what the most recommended one is. 4  o Chief Bailey responded by reiterating that they are working with the recommendations from other town’s chiefs of police. He said Watch Guard seems to be a popular one in the Northeast right now. Rowley, MA is using it, Salisbury, MA is tentatively using it. The reason Watch Guard a little more popular is because it is a Motorola based product and a lot of the police departments use Motorola portable radios. Axon is popular. BodyWorn, which is the more expensive one of the two quotes [$360,000.00 for three years], has a unique design where the camera is built into the officer’s uniform, you don’t really see the camera.  Councilor Hickok asked about how many forces in the commonwealth are currently utilizing the body worn cameras. o Chief Bailey responded by saying it is very few. When the APD [Amesbury Police Department] first went after the grant, they were under the impression that the body worn camera program had to be implemented by July of 2022. That is not actually the case. A lot of departments are holding off on the camera because there is a lot of controversy at the state level on this topic and policy development. The biggest discussion right now is whether officers can view their body worn camera footage prior to writing an incident report or not. There are two schools of thought to that, some people say no they should not be able to view it, however, they are still asking officers to go testify in court. They could testify to their incident report and their own body worn footage would contradict their statement. The chiefs of police are asking policy makers to let the officer write their incident report then view their footage and do a supplemental report, so they are not redoing their report but adding to it. They should be allowed to view their footage. That’s just one area that is holding up the whole implementation of the program.  Councilor Hickok asked if it is reasonable to expect reduction of liability with the use of this technology. o Chief Bailey replied by saying, MIIA [Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association] offers additional grants for body worn camera programs. We just applied for another camera-based program grant. He said he is not sure if it actually reduces liability, but a lot of police officers are looking forward to wearing the body worn cameras because cameras tend to make good cops better.  Councilor Stanganelli asked if there was an expiration date on the grant. o Chief Bailey said it will expire October of 2022. He said there are a lot of parts to the grant as well. There is a union buy in. The police department and administration are in conversations with the union now on policies. Councilor Lennon motioned to send order 2022-010 back to City Council with a positive recommendation. Councilor Hogg seconded the motion. Roll call was taken, all members voted in favor (9). Motion passed. 2022-011 An Order to authorize the Mayor to expend a FY 21 604B Water Quality Grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) – Mayor Sponsor  Department of Public Works Director, Rob Desmarais, gave an overview of the grant. 5  o He said it is basically a grant to go after information for more grants. It will nicely close out the last few projects that have been done around lake o Attitash, Lake Gardner and the Powwow River. It will summarize and show how effective everything was.  Councilor Lennon wanted noted, the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) cycle is open right now and water shed base plans are coming in hot. She said that was something to consider while creating language for grants.  Councilor Wheeler asked if this grant would include invasives as well or if it would just focus on storm water. o Rob responded by saying it is mostly dealing with water quality not invasive weeds. If there is any opportunity to skew it that way, we’ll make that attempt. We are aware that Lake Attitash and Lake Gardner are interested in that.  Councilor Wheeler asked Rob if he could describe the green streets component. o It’s looking for opportunities within the downtown to make low impact development improvements, different type of curb inlets and areas to store water and reduce the direct run off to the downtown. Basically, every square inch of the downtown is impervious and if you can find ways to infiltrate it or make rain gardens, you get more out of it then in suburban areas.  Councilor Wheeler asked to confirm that this is all study and observations rather than implementation. o Rob responded, yes. This is a grant to get other grants. The expectation here is to find out where the needs are and to go after 319 grants, those are the implementation grants.  Councilor Lennon wanted to promote a design permit for Back River as part of this [grant]. She said the design permit action grant is through MVP and it is to do some restoration on Back River. Councilor Lennon motioned to send order 2022-011 back to City Council with a positive recommendation. Councilor Wheeler seconded the motion. Roll call was taken, all members voted in favor (9). Motion passed. Councilor Lennon motioned to adjourn. Councilor Rinaldi seconded this motion. Roll call was taken, all members voted in favor (9). Motion passed. Adjourned at 8:07 PM Respectfully Submitted by, Ellie Andersen, February 7, 2022 6