City Council

Minutes were approved on June 26, 2023, by the City Council. CITY OF LACONIA - CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL BUDGET MEETING 7:00 P.M. 6/5/2023 - Minutes 1. CALL TO ORDER Mayor protem Haynes called the meeting to order at 7:01 PM 2. SALUTE TO THE FLAG City Manager Kirk Beattie led the salute to the flag. 3. RECORDING SECRETARY Katie Gargano, City Clerk 4. ROLL CALL Clerk Gargano called the roll of the following Councilors: Councilor Cheney, Councilor Soucy, Councilor Lipman, Councilor Haynes, Councilor Felch. Absent: Councilor Hamel and Mayor Hosmer Councilor Lipman arrived at the meeting at 7:09 PM 5. STAFF IN ATTENDANCE Kirk Beattie, City Manager; Glenn Smith, Finance Director 6. PRESENTATIONS 6.A. Department Budget Presentation Public Works - Wes Anderson, Director Director Anderson went over his proposed budget. The agenda of items he will cover are budget overview: Personnel shortage, Public Works Operations, Solid Waste, Capital Improvement Projects, Internal Service Fund and Sanitary Sewer Fund. Planning guidance was for him not to exceed 4.5% over the FY23 budget Inflation- Construction costs increases exceeded CPI, electricity and repair parts. Personnel Shortage- down 4 people in the highway department and down 1 in the sanitary and sewer department. Impact on the department- low priority tasks are being deferred, other departments are being asked to help for special events, snow removal he thinks we’ll be okay depending on any retirements that may come up. But there may be an issue with sidewalk plowing. May have to find volunteers for appropriate tasks. The cause and possible solutions are the hourly wages offered are not competitive in the local/ regional market. Union contracts don’t expire until June 30, 2025. He has employees that work under Impact on the department- low priority tasks are being deferred, other departments are being asked to help for special events, snow removal he thinks we’ll be okay depending on any retirements that may come up. But there may be an issue with sidewalk plowing. May have to find volunteers for appropriate tasks. The cause and possible solutions are the hourly wages offered are not competitive in the local/ regional market. Union contracts don’t expire until June 30, 2025. He has employees that work under two different unions (AFSCME and SEA). Some concepts on how to recruit and retain is to offer a sign on incentive for new CDL Drivers, offer a critical pay for current highway division employees who are picking up the slack from being short staffed. To pay the cost of obtaining a CDL license, and training new employees on CDL in house. The only issue they’d have is the hours of driving time requirements. Paying for the interim solutions: Available funds are salaries savings and reduction in services. Pays for the plan to recruit and retain employees, contract work during summer season and winter weather assistance. General Funds overview: Overall the change from FY2023 to FY2024 is $105,288. Solid Waste- Collection contract is through Casella. Fuel price is $4.00 with minimum annual increase of 5% on garbage and trash collection. Recycling is also through Casella. It’s a commodity market: Recessions = value of products goes down. Transfer Station’s contract is with Waste Management. They do the hauling and construction and demolition debris. CPI is from the preceding year and has a fuel adjustment. Disposal is contracted through Waste Management also. January 1 st the cost went from $82.70 to $86.76/ton. Last year almost 16,000 tons of household waste was processed. 27% of that tonnage is from curbside pickup. 51% is from Laconia paying customers directly at the transfer station. 22% is from customers outside of Laconia like Gilford. As of the end of April we are currently at 13,100 tons, expecting to end the fiscal year around 15,500 tons and 770 tons of recycling. Capital Improvement Program focuses on the following: Roads, sidewalks, bridges, drainage, parking garage, gravel road improvement, fences, guard rails, retaining walls, Morin Road Landfill, crosswalk across Endicott Street North, crosswalk with pedestrian signals, Public Works building engineering. City Road Maintenance Programs: Soil testing and compaction services, project inspections, pavement management program, update to the pavement management program. Other actions are near term. ADA improvements at traffic signals. This has been completed at Main/Court Street, Main/Church Street, Union/Elm Street, and Union/Messer Street. The future ones to be completed but not scheduled for this year are Main/Oak Street, Beacon Street East/Church Street, Union/Church Street, and Union/Gilford Street. Currently the following roads are being improved this year are: Weirs Blvd, Lake St, part of Elm St, Summer St, Eastman road, Paugus St, and Daisy Gardner. DPW – Internal Services Fund, equipment maintenance division. This is funded by fees charged to other departments. Impacts include: Cost of fuel, diesel is $4.65/gallon and gasoline is at $3.61/gallon. Age of fleet, warranty plans for buying a new vehicle. The short term plan is focused training. Finance and Public Works are working to update the Internal Service Fund procedures. Councilor Lipman asked if we have a fuel contract to purchase fuel, Director Anderson said no. Councilor Lipman suggested that we look into traveling to a state fuel location. Director Anderson said that there were tanks in Laconia but they were removed about 15 years ago. The next closest location is over near the airport in Gilford. He wasn’t sure if that station had everything that was needed. Councilor Lipman said he believes there is about a 1.00 / gallon difference so it may be worth looking into.  Councilor Lipman asked if we have a fuel contract to purchase fuel, Director Anderson said no. Councilor Lipman suggested that we look into traveling to a state fuel location. Director Anderson said that there were tanks in Laconia but they were removed about 15 years ago. The next closest location is over near the airport in Gilford. He wasn’t sure if that station had everything that was needed. Councilor Lipman said he believes there is about a 1.00 / gallon difference so it may be worth looking into. Sanitary Sewer Fund- System Costs include: Laconia – collection NH Dept of Environmental Services – Regional collection and treatment Winnipesaukee River Basin Program: FY2022 was 64% of the SSF operating budget and FY2024 estimates 69% of the SSF operating budget. Rate system established in the 1980’s. The operation and maintenance was updated in June of 2022. Administration, replacement fund and debt service all fall under this. The new operations and maintenance cost allocation system began July 1, 2022 and is implemented over 3 years. Laconia’s share drops from 49.87% to 43.31%. WRBP increases from inflation, deferred maintenance and debt service. Funding comes from rate payers. Loans are for spreading costs over time. These come from bonds too. Future sewer projects include Northern Lakeport sewer replacement, pump station upgrades at Hillcrest and Blackbrook, and lining on the sanitary sewer ordinance update. The update includes private systems operations and maintenance and reporting. FY2025 begins the private sewer system cleaning and inspection program. Councilor Cheney wanted to make sure Laconia would pay for the inspection and the cleaning but if there are any issues like a spill or a crack, they will be responsible for having a plan in place on what to do for standard operating procedures and reporting guidelines. Director Anderson confirmed that this is correct. In the future they have some major lining that needs to be done and a lot of work to be done in the Washington Street area. Even further out to Union Ave from Main Street to Gilford Ave that is going to need a complete rebuild of the utilities like water, sewer and drainage due to age and condition. Councilor Haynes asked about his staffing issues, and the wages. He asked about if we are looking into ways to help with the wage gaps. Manager Beattie stated the collective bargain agreements were just signed this year and still have 2 years to go, they are trying to brainstorm incentives that would be outside of the contract but still fall within the existing budgets. 6.B. Department Budget Presentation Police - Matt Canfield, Chief, Captain Al Graton, Sergeant Ben Black, Detective Eric Adams Chairman Whittum thanked the council for the ongoing support of the police department. He wanted to remind the Council that the Laconia Police Department under double scrutiny from the public and with being a part of the CALEA accreditation. The police commission fully supports the police department. Chief Canfield began his presentation with the number of officers that have lost their lives in the line of duty this past year. Increases caused by: Salaries, shift differential, health insurance, dental insurance and outside contracted services. Grant funding obtained in the last 3 years over 3.2 million dollars. In FY2023 had a total of $711,179 to go toward the following: NHSTA Granite Shield, NHSTA MV enforcement, NHSTA radar equipment, NHSTA C.A.R equipment, NHSTA COB, camera trailers, COPS hiring, COPS technology wall and COPS storage Grant funding obtained in the last 3 years over 3.2 million dollars. In FY2023 had a total of $711,179 to go toward the following: NHSTA Granite Shield, NHSTA MV enforcement, NHSTA radar equipment, NHSTA C.A.R equipment, NHSTA COB, camera trailers, COPS hiring, COPS technology wall and COPS storage facility. New technology- social media presence including Facebook, Instagram, SPIDR Tech, 4 separate modules- patrol, investigations, insights and community notifications. New security Imprivata has multifactor authentication, first arriving- real time tracker as to what is going on in the field. Highlights of annual in-service and specialty training include: 2,516 hours of specialty training. 36 hours in person per sworn officer. Continual online training requirements. This does not include new recruit training, 6-week in-house academy, NH Academy and field training. De-escalation training- Between 2022-2022 the department has had a total of 2,592 hours. There is the Laconia Police Department De-Escalation Project. This is being funded with approximately $200,000 from the COPS office grant. This provided the department the funds to acquire axon virtual reality training equipment. 4 officers have been certified as de-escalation instructors. Two regional classes have been scheduled for late this year with instructors from the Verbal Judo Institute. NH police standards and training council require an annual in-service training in de-escalation, ethics, and implicit bias/cultural responsiveness. The Laconia Police Department is apart of a national organization called the Police Executive Research Form (PERF). They look at police incidents across the country and study them for ways to do things better. Laconia is 1 of 7 agencies in the U.S. The executive director flew from Washington DC following the Memphis Tennessee incident where 5 police officers of the Scorpion Squad beat and killed Tyre Nichols. He flew out to show 8 minutes of the actual incident. They spoke about tactics, communication, supervision, lack of de-escalation, proportionality, duty to intervene, culture, prevention, early warning systems, and body cameras. Active shooter events- There have been more mass shootings with more victims in the first 4 months of 2023 than the same period last year. 115 lives, 22 mass killings over 126 days. Averaging of 1 per week. A full scale active shooter training exercise was done in April. This included the Laconia Police and Fire Departments, Laconia SAU, high school, middle and Laconia’s three elementary schools. Several different competencies were tested. This was completely funded by a grant from NH Department of Homeland Security. Coordinators and outside evaluators came NH HSEM. Department programs and community outreach- Citizen police academy, CALEA national accreditation, victims’ services units, school resource/liaison officer program, national night out, internet crimes against children task force, community presentations, special Olympics, vacant house checks, college and high school internship, tip 411, school/ community, drug collection boxes, DEA national drug takeback program, coffee with a cop, ride along program, HUOT criminal justice class. CALEA Accreditation status update- This commission has a full spectrum of 21 public safety leadership commissioners. It is the premier credentialing association for police agencies. 483 standards with only 15 police agencies located here in NH out of 200 law enforcement agencies. There are extensive self-assessments, annual remote compliance reviews, quadrennial site assessments and review to the commission for final review and credentialing. The effects of the opioid crisis in Laconia. As of 2022 there were 59 overdoses resulting in 5 deaths, and 54 needles Councilor Lipman asked about an extra $25,000 that was given to the police department for the homelessness outreach and homelessness at the library. Yes this is correct. Not all of that money has been spent. They are looking to carry this money over for next year. Councilor Lipman asked Officer Adams for an update on the new program that he put forth and what the status is. The site monitoring through the AG’s office went really well. Now he is working with 8 other police departments across the state and that grant with expire in September 2024. They will be filing a one year no cost extension because the federal grant came down so late because of COVID and other restrictions at the federal level. Detective Orton has added a few new initiatives that he is  has been spent. They are looking to carry this money over for next year. Councilor Lipman asked Officer Adams for an update on the new program that he put forth and what the status is. The site monitoring through the AG’s office went really well. Now he is working with 8 other police departments across the state and that grant with expire in September 2024. They will be filing a one year no cost extension because the federal grant came down so late because of COVID and other restrictions at the federal level. Detective Orton has added a few new initiatives that he is working regularly with other officers to update them on what he is doing. The homelessness initiative that has been started in the City with the housing taskforce. They are still working to get state level initiatives and integrating them within Laconia. Laconia received another grant being run by the Housing Action Program at the state level to create landlord incentives programs. Officer Adams will be working with City Manager Beattie to figure out and discuss bids for the cleanup of the Spruce Street encampment. They are going to try and utilize the left over money from the emergency cold weather shelter from this past winter to help pay for the cleanup. Not much has been done on the prevention side yet to keep people housed. But it is on the agenda for the task force. It’s hard to gauge is right now because the task force has just started back up. But there is a committee dedicated to this aspect. Councilor Lipman emphasized the importance of education, early intervention and prevention. It is not an easy fix. Councilor Haynes asked about active shooter training and preparedness for officers to look at larger building within the city like the hospital, avid or New Hampshire Ball Bearing. Police Chief Matt Canfield said yes, they are encouraged to do so on their uncommitted patrol time. Councilor Lipman asked about the driving force of the increase of the health insurance. Finance director Glenn Smith explained that on the Cities side they have seen a mixture of newer employees having a great tendency to opt out of the program bringing the overall cost down. The increase in percentage was almost 13%, which is close to double. The answer will be given within the next day or two. Councilor Haynes asked about the capital outlay. Is it a new server? Yes. Councilor Lipman asked about how many vacancies they currently have, Chief Canfield said they currently have 2 openings that are fairly recent in the last month and half. Councilor Cheney, Lipman and Felch gave final comments complimenting the Police Department. 7. Any other business that may come before the Council 8. ADJOURNMENT Mayor protem Haynes adjourned the meeting at 8:21 PM Respectfully submitted, Katie Gargano, City Clerk