Aldermen, Board of

A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Monday, July 28, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. President David W. Deane presided; City Clerk Paul R. Bergeron recorded. Prayer was offered by City Clerk Paul R. Bergeron; Alderman Wilshire led in the Pledge to the Flag. The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present. Her Honor Donnalee Lozeau and Corporation Counsel Stephen M. Bennett were also in attendance. REMARKS BY THE MAYOR – There were none. COMMUNICATIONS MOTION BY ALDERMAN MCCARTHY THAT ALL COMMUNICATIONS BE READ BY TITLE ONLY MOTION CARRIED From: David W. Deane, President, Board of Aldermen Re: Special Board of Aldermen Meeting MOTION BY ALDERMAN McCARTHY TO ACCEPT AND PLACE ON FILE MOTION CARRIED PERIOD FOR PUBLIC COMMENT RELATIVE TO ITEMS EXPECTED TO BE ACTED UPON THIS EVENING Mr. John Roach, 12 Meadowview Circle At the last meeting, Alderman Soucy put it in plea for more people to show up so here I am. I have lived in Nashua for over 30 years. I am a retired school teacher. I have watched dozens of hours of aldermanic and committee meetings. I am here to tell you that I support the budget that is before you, including the paving plan. The naysayer’s that come before you may be louder and angrier but believe me, they don’t speak for everybody. Mr. Daniel Richardson, 70 Berekley Street I am also known as a “naysayer.” I’m here to talk about the budget tonight. I wanted to reflect on comments made by Alderman Soucy. He said that not too many people show up to talk at the budget meetings and not too many at the public hearing. Clearly, you haven’t yet squeezed the taxpayers enough, you haven’t spent enough money, and you haven’t appropriated enough money so you still have room until you get a rebellion. I wanted to mention that I have asked my Ward Alderman tonight to take a certain action regarding an element that it is not in the budget. I am asking him to put in an element in the budget, a line item; so that we can keep a count of the money that’s being transferred to what used to be called the Service Advisory Committee and is now called the Downtown Improvement Committee where the amount of money collected from parking revenue, over $728,000 is to be used for the purposes of whatever the Downtown Improvement Committee wants it to be. I understand it will go before the Finance Committee but I know of no account that’s in the budget that appropriates this money and that’s for good reason because nobody really knows how much it’s going to be because it is fact, the amount above and beyond the $728,000. The ordinance says that it will be appropriated, that amount over $728,000 to be compliant with the law. It’s to be included in the budget. The other thing is that I am looking to forward to finding out who is going to get the Richard Flynn Award for looking out for the taxpayer’s. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 2 Ms. Judy Loftus, 4 Dartmouth Street I have been a resident of the city for over 30 years myself as well and my children went through the school system. I am a teacher in the school system and I am here tonight to ask you once again, to support the budget that was brought forward by the Budget Committee with the additional funds provided to the school district and to the Police Department. I too heard Alderman Soucy’s remarks last week about people coming out and unfortunately, not too many people are here but I am sure there are people watching and paying attention to what’s going on at home. I am a taxpayer and I value this city and the services that are provided to me as a resident of this city and I understand those things do not come without a price. I do not believe that the word taxpayer is synonymous with cutting the budget. We can be taxpayer’s and support provided adequate or above adequate services to the citizens of this city; both those above the voting age and those below the voting age that are enrolled in our schools. Again, I urge you to provide the leadership to provide the support for fully funding and providing services to all of the residents of this city. UNFINISHED BUSINESS – RESOLUTIONS R-14-034 Endorser: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau RELATIVE TO THE ADOPTION OF THE FISCAL YEAR 2015 PROPOSED BUDGET FOR THE CITY OF NASHUA GENERAL, ENTERPRISE, AND SPECIAL REVENUE FUNDS Given its third reading; MOTION BY ALDERMAN MCCARTHY TO TAKE R-14-034 FROM THE TABLE MOTION CARRIED MOTION BY ALDERMAN MCCARTHY FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-14-034 AS AMENDED MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO CUT THE ENTIRE OPERATING BUDGET BY 1% ON THE QUESTION President Deane Would you like to speak to that? Alderman Chasse I don’t think there is anything that needs to be said. Alderman Siegel I appreciate Alderman Chasse’s desire to cut the budget, however, the problem with a 1% cut across the board is that it has certain problems in that you can only cut elastic costs and huge percentages of the budget are completely in elastic. Every contract for labor is in elastic. We still have to buy electricity. Assuming that 80% of most departments are salary +/-, at least another 10% is non- discretionary because of the needs of the department itself. That means that 1% has to be carried by the 10% maximum that is either discretionary or non-mandatory and so that 1% really is a 10% cut in certain budgets. The problem is that certain budgets are what I would say well managed, there are certain departments that do an excellent job and there are others which are not quite up to that standard and there are other funds that we might be able to get money from that probably could benefit Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 3 from more than a 1% cut potentially. I think that, while I appreciate the idea of cutting the budget, I think that’s a very broad stroke and a little too blunt of an instrument. Alderman Moriarty I would like to speak in support of Alderman Chasse’s motion. I disagree with the assertion that there all in elastic budgets. You can reduce the salaries of any line appropriately; it just means that department will have to make adjustments accordingly, as in reducing staff, if necessary. We have a $241 million budget; we are currently $2 million over what the spending cap would have recommended via the special revenue fund so I wonder if a 1% reduction would remove $2.41 million which would account for the $2 million of the special revenue fund plus another $410,000 which would get us back to something inline. I think Alderman Chasse’s math is quite good. Alderman Soucy I too appreciate Alderman Chasse’s suggestion of 1% but I think a lot of us here came prepared for a more targeted approach and specific items that have been identified that we can target and make simple reductions. As far as my concerns, I think the budget is very close to where I want it to be. It’s just trying to find that pragmatic approach of balance protecting the taxpayers and also making sure that we have got the services needed. I am looking for an offset of $123,000; that will get my hand up in the air tonight. Alderman Caron I appreciate Alderman Chasse’s recommendation because I have been looking at this all day. Mr. President, may I ask a question of Attorney Bennett? Attorney Bennett, this is a flat 1% across the board but in having a conversation with you today, would Alderman Chasse have to designate which departments or divisions would have to get that or would that be cart blanche type cut to the budget? Attorney Bennett As I understood Alderman Chasse’s motion, it would be across the board. Every department would have a reduction. I’m not sure he’s looking at a 1% reduction for each department or a 1% overall reduction to the budget. Alderman Chasse It was a 1% bottom line for everybody. Alderman Caron So each department would get 1% off of their total budget? Attorney Bennett Correct. Alderman Chasse I know that there are some Aldermen tonight that are planning on nit picking and playing the game of trying to decrease the budget. Let me explain something to you. I’ve been here long enough to know that once they get the money, once the school board gets the money, they can do what they want with Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 4 it. BPW, those are controlled by boards; the police, the fire; they are boards and we have no say after they get the money as to what they are going to do with it. Alderman Schoneman I’d like to speak in favor of this motion. I think the idea of coming into a budget season and taking a look at this big book and trying to find individual lines that we can make a change to is indeed very difficult. We have spoken in the past about money that we give to a department or take from a department, whether it’s a bottom line number or a targeted number and I think we have generally said that the department has the ability to choose where they are going to spend their money and where they are going to cut their money. In many respects, it’s more logical and fair to request a bottom line cut than it is trying to identify for those experts in those departments exactly where a line ought to be cut. In the end, if that money can be moved around anyway, then our targeting may not be as effectual as we think it is. I believe that with any budget, with any municipal budget, there is far more room to make adjustments than most of us would like to assume. Things can happen in a person’s life overnight. Someone can lose a job, a family member; something can change and the sun comes up in the morning, the family adjusts; they make it work. They continue to put food on the table, they continue to make everything work and it might be a struggle but it can happen and I think the same is true for any municipality. I believe that this would be workable if people were willing to work on it. Perhaps the departments are not willing to work on it but I believe that it would be workable if people were willing. Alderman Soucy 1% of a large budget such as the school budget of $133 million is going to be far less impactful than on a much smaller department like the fire department. So, just a 1% across the board; I can’t support that. Alderman Sheehan I can understand the interest in trying to find a way to just get down there faster. I’d like to propose a specific cut on page 57, department 511… President Deane The motion on the floor is for a 1% reduction in the entire budget. Alderman Sheehan Can’t we make a motion inside of a motion? President Deane I’d like to dispose of this one first. Alderman Dowd I know that no one in this room or in the City of Nashua likes paying taxes and it’s sort of a requirement for the services that you get for living here. I did some research on the tax burdens by state. The tax burden in the State of New Hampshire is 49th in the United States. The 50th is Alaska which has a lot of oil to offset their budgets. Don’t you think that the less than $100 that we are talking about from the budget this year is going tilt that? We won’t even get close to Vermont which is right next to us. We Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 5 are hundreds of dollars from the next nearest state per percentage of income. It cost money to get services and we in the budget committee have debated the services for quite some time and we are pretty close. A 1% would devastate that and I don’t think that the people of Nashua want us to devastate their services. I think the majority of the people want to balance taxation with services and I think we are pretty close with all of the reductions in state aid that we’ve had to go through, the $25 million education reduction and the implication of federal requirements with no funding. I think we do a pretty good job in Nashua. There’s no way that I would support a 1% after all of the discussion that we’ve had for weeks and weeks. Alderman McGuinness I am inclined to support Alderman Chasse on this. I am very sympathetic with Alderman Soucy’s argument that some budgets are smaller and 1% of a small budget is a big item. I’m also sympathetic to Alderman Schoneman; there are many families here in Nashua and who get a pay cut and they don’t have the luxury of an endless supply of tax revenue. I would like to suggest to the board, with respect to Alderman Soucy’s concerns, that if you did something like a 1% across the board cut, could you do that on a weighted average basis so everything is proportional in each department? Big budgets get a proportionate slice and in general, it would seem to me that they are responsible for managing their budgets. They can use the money wherever they want. It’s not our business to micro-manage every department. I think that if we are interested in being frugal, we should be telling the people that it’s our desire to curtail the constant rise in taxes as best we can. I think that’s the message I would like to send to my constituents tonight. Alderman Wilshire I can’t support a 1% cut in this budget. The reason that it’s difficult to cut when you look at certain line items is because I think it’s already been cut where it can be cut. I think it’s pretty lean. Micro- managing…it is our job to go through this budget and to make sure that we support the right budget for the city. I think 1% is too big of a cut. I can’t see cutting fire, police, and school by 1%. Alderwoman Brown I would ask that our fellow Aldermen support the work of the Budget Committee because we have been here for many meetings and we’ve heard the detailed presentations by all of the departments. I cannot support the 1% cut and with all due respect to Alderman Chasse, I believe that is somewhat reckless because of the unknown consequences that perhaps Mayor Lozeau may be interested in speaking to but we have so many contracts that have been approved that we must honor and some other budgets of various groups are very tight to begin with. Alderman Sheehan I know that when my tax bill goes up, it’s something that is noticeable but I think one of the things that we need to keep in mind is that stability has a lot to do with our bond rating than the state does because we are more stabile in our investment and our planning. I am going to agree with what Alderman Wilshire said and I’m going to also add the library. I don’t think we can cut something that is having a huge uptake in usage because of the state of the economy. When we look at the fact that we have 25 class sizes over the 22.5 size that Alderman Moriarty brought up, I mean 1% is a big hit. The school department has agreed to take on the school in Merrimack. That is going to have an impact. There are things that come up that we just don’t have room for and it’s something to keep in mind that we need to keep our community attractive for people to want to come. We have not been very careful for a very long time, in fact, we have even been neglectful in some areas for a while and we are playing catch up on that so there are lost revenues that we are making up for and we are trying to make sure Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 6 that, although there is a small but stable increase, we are not cutting services. If we were going to cut 1%, it would mean that there is still a tax increase but there would be an impact to the level of services. I think that in the interest of making our community remain an attractive place to want to buy a home or to open a business, we need to look at very specific things. It is our role to do two things, to set policy and to set the budget so although it sometimes feels like we are micro managing, I don’t think that’s how we need to look at it, I think you budget your priorities. Alderman McCarthy I’m not going to support it because I think abdicating our responsibility if we do that. If we think that line item management of the budget is micro-managing then that’s what the Charter tells us to do. The Charter prescribes the method by which we can increase line items or by which we can decrease line items. It anticipates that this board will do what it’s done for the last two months which is to look at the budget and see which things should be increased and which things should be decreased. For us to come back at the end of that and say well this is too hard, we are fixing the bottom line and you go figure it out. Is the board ducking the responsibilities given to it by the Charter? If we are going to cut things then we need to understand what it is that we are cutting and what services are going away because of it and if we are going to increase something then we need to understand that and what service we are providing that wouldn’t have been provided otherwise. I am happy to listen to individual items but I am not going to support a blanket 1% cut. Alderman Donchess I think we need to be more specific in our consideration of the priorities in the budget. There are areas where if I were the only vote, we would cut it a lot more than 1% but there are other areas where I don’t think we can afford a 1% cut. For example, the police department; if this was cut by 1% that would result in a cut of $300,000 below what they proposed. We are out there trying to fight heroin and we can’t afford to have less police officers, if anything, we need more. Another example would be schools where a $1 million cut would result in teacher layoffs and a reduction which I think would negatively impact class size and the quality of education. We need to be more specific and if it takes time to find the areas where we can cut more than 1% then I believe we should do that. Alderman Schoneman I agree with Alderman Donchess’ assessment. I think a 1% cut to the bottom line would affect different budgets at different levels. But I also think that if we go line by line we are never going to get a 1% in the overall number. I think the process seems to be skewed against that possibility of ever happening and I don’t think that’s good. In terms of taxpayer preference, there was a referendum on the Spending Cap and again I think the Spending Cap was designed to be a tax cap. We are not actually cutting anything here; we are just decreasing the increase. I think if we could do that so that it met the requirement that the majority of the taxpayer’s whose supported that referendum, I think that would be a step in the right direction. I know it’s a hard thing to try to unravel but we never have really taken the kind of philosophical look at the overall budget and priorities that we probably should have. If it comes down to making line by line changes here and there and the frustration as a result of that process, it brings us to the stage of wanting to make a larger and more blanket cut as really the only effective way to make any changes. Alderman Sheehan I want to point out that I lived here and I voted for the Spending Cap. It didn’t say can we vote for a Spending Cap and then see how much of a percentage we can get under that. It was a reasonable expectation and what we are proposing meets that. It’s not that we are ignoring the will of the people, I Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 7 think what we have in front of us meets the will of that people. We also care that our homes are still worth something and our community is still attractive. I don’t think we can say that there is a Spending Cap so we need to lower this by another bunch of percentages, no; we said it was going to be based off of a certain formula based on an index and this meets it. Alderman Schoneman Yes, that’s true and we have met the letter of the law but if it’s a 2.1% Spending Cap that results in a 3% tax increase, that’s not right. I think that when people voted for a Spending Cap, even though we are meeting the letter of the law, they wanted a cap on their taxes and due to the highway fund issue this year, moving money around, we are having a tax rate increase. It’s going to be above what will be the Spending Cap amount. I don’t particularly agree that we need to raise taxes in order to keep a bond rating. I don’t think that if the economy is acknowledged to be difficult that a 3% increase in taxes is the right thing. Alderman Siegel We also have bond payments and we can’t reduce them by 1%. We don’t tell our investors that we are not paying our bonds or that we are going to pay 99% so the 1% across the board just doesn’t fly. Alderman Wilshire There were three heroin related deaths in the City of Nashua in the month of June. I don’t want to see that trend continue. Alderman Dowd Roll call, please. A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman Schoneman; Alderman Chasse; 4 Alderman McGuinness, Alderman Moriarty Nay: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Caron; 11 Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Donchess; Alderman Siegel; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire; Alderman Deane MOTION FAILED Alderman Schoneman I received an e-mail today, as Mr. Richardson mentioned earlier, about an appropriation line for the Downtown Improvement Committee and the amount of money that they get that is appropriated to them in some way that’s in excess of the parking revenues. The parking revenues are in excess of $728,420; we don’t know what the total for 2014 was. There’s nothing in here, there’s no line to allow for the appropriation unless I am mistaken. I am wondering how that’s accounted for and it looks like we need to have a line in there or at least, a placeholder. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 8 MOTION BY ALDERMAN SCHONEMAN THAT A LINE BE ADDED TO THE BUDGET WITH AT LEAST $1.00 SO THAT WHATEVER FUNDS THAT ARE IN EXCESS OF THE PARKING REVENUES CAN BE APPROPRIATED TO THIS PARTICULAR EXPENDITURE ON THE QUESTION President Deane The one question I have is if they are anticipating $728,420; it sounds to me like that number isn’t going to go any higher than that. Mayor Lozeau Mr. President $728,000 is what we are budgeting for revenue and what we have done the last time and what we intend to do this time, as I have mentioned, is to make it part of the escrow or surplus process where we will then appropriate the money. That is a legitimate appropriation of those funds. President Deane The way the ordinance reads is that the committee supplies recommendations to the board but the board still has authority to spend the money. I guess if it were increments of under $10,000; who has that authority? We do. So, none of that money can be spent on anything unless the Finance Committee approves it. Mayor Lozeau It is my understanding that the Board of Aldermen has to agree with the recommendations before anything gets done; before it even goes to the Finance Committee, which is why we made it part of the budget process the last time during escrows. Alderman Schoneman Is it true then that we do not need a line and that it’s adequately appropriated? Is that considered an appropriation if it’s spent via the surplus or is that not technically an appropriation? Alderman McCarthy I think there some confusing in there but what the ordinance calls for is that that amount in appropriated funds be made available for the expenditure. If you do that by transfer of funds from the previous fiscal year, those are appropriated funds, we are just changing the purpose them. President Deane That’s also true of the escrow process. Alderman McCarthy I believe that meets the letter of the ordinance even if there isn’t a line item in this year’s budget given that that would be a transfer in last years that would make the necessary appropriation. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 9 MOTION BY ALDERMAN SHEEHAN TO REDUCE $49,779.00 FROM DEPARTMENT 101; LINE ITEM 51100; CITIZEN SERVICES DIRECTOR ON THE QUESTION President Deane Would you like to speak to your motion? Alderman Sheehan I think it speaks for itself; I don’t want to open up what we did the other night. I think we should just vote on it. Alderman Soucy I think that’s a very important role that we utilize. I can see reducing it by $3,000 because a new person coming in will probably make a little bit less but it’s a very important position. I know that we were not happy the way it played out and I’m not going to go down that road again but I will not support zeroing out that position. Alderman Siegel I couldn’t agree more with Alderman Soucy. We had the discussion and a decision was made and I don’t see that eliminating the position makes sense but I do agree with Alderman Soucy that we could reduce the line item somewhat just to reflect that we would have a less senior person there. I don’t even understand why make that motion. Alderwoman Brown My understanding from the legal memo was that we do not have the authority to create or to dispose of a position. I won’t support that. Alderman Donchess Putting aside how I feel about the termination and even how I feel about the motion here, the Board of Aldermen has every right to reduce whatever budget they want by any number. This is certainly a proper motion which could be reduced with eight votes. President Deane I agree with you. Alderman Chasse It’s very simple. When that position wasn’t there, it meant that the Ward Aldermen had to do their own work and that’s what is happening right now. You really don’t need that position but you are going to have to do the work. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 10 Alderman McGuinness I found that being a freshman Alderman, that position was a very valuable resource for me. I think of it as a liaison between the administration, the Mayor’s office, and the Board of Aldermen. I appreciate the position. I don’t believe we are eliminating the position, we are just allowing the Mayor to have the funds available to hire for that position. Alderwoman Brown I really value this position. For 15 Aldermen to contact all of the division heads would be problematic and would be an expense to the city because of their time. I believe this position was very effective for us. I will not support this. Alderman Wilshire When I was a Ward Alderman and I had an issue in my Ward, I would contact the division director and ask for assistance. I will support this motion. Alderman Chasse Roll call, please. A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman Chasse; Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Donchess; 5 Alderman Wilshire; Alderman Deane Nay: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Schoneman; 10 Alderman Caron; Alderman McGuinness; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Moriarty; Alderman Siegel; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown MOTION FAILED Alderman Siegel Just to preface my motion, I’d like to describe a mechanism by which I have used to research these things. The idea being that I try to account for motions that would cut money without cutting services. I’ve looked at prior year’s spending and trends. I got the transfer records for the entire fiscal year to see how money is being shuffled around. I got the monthly reports and I’ve got the Finance Committee Record of Expenditures to verify my assumptions about end-of-year trends. General Fund 52, Fringe Benefits, Account 512150 has trended to be overfunded every year for the past three years, at least. For example, we had a surplus of $1,064,843 left over in FY’ 2013; $835,905 in FY’ 2012; and $914,966 leftover in FY’ 2011. I understand the need to be very careful with our pensions and so to just slash that number drastically doesn’t make sense but here’s what I believe is a sensible number. I believe that $400,000 is reasonable because it is entirely within any standard deviation we might have in this number, it’s been consistently overfunded. I went back five years. This is a number that is also supported by two separate trust funds should be wrong. There’s a trust fund right now which was created in 1968 by the city so in the event that we are wrong on our pension funds, its current balance is $475,160; it’s a city retirement trust fund. Its purpose is if there is an issue with underfunding the pension. The other trust fund we have is for the school department and that is currently $270,000. So, Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 11 in aggregate, that’s a fairly substantial backstop to what I would say is a quite reasonable cut. If it were my company, I’d even more but I believe $400,000 is entirely rational for this particular line item and it goes directly to the bottom line of the taxpayer. It’s a fairly substantial amount of money and it doesn’t cut services. MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO REDUCE ACCOUNT 52150 UNDER FRINGE BENEFITS PENSION EXPENSE BY $400,000 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Donchess I would like simply to say that I appreciate Alderman Siegel taking the time and effort to research the past trends on a line item like. The cut seems possible to me and I feel it is one that we should make. Alderman Sheehan How is this number arrived at in order to justify the number that we have of $19 million? Mayor Lozeau It’s the employer share of the contribution as set by the New Hampshire Retirement System. When it changes, as Alderman Siegel was talking about with trends is because maybe we had employees change, attrition, sometimes somebody comes in with a lower pay. The reason we didn’t cut it this year is because we are expecting to see some changes this year when the final contracts pass because retroactively, particularly the police contracts are going to carry a higher burden. That’s why we didn’t change it. It could very well trend the same way, we don’t know. Alderman Sheehan So, we are not mandated to have this particular dollar amount by the state, this is just us using their information to come up with a particular dollar amount? Mayor Lozeau We have a percentage that we pay for Group I and Group II and then we base that rate against the salaries but no, nobody said please carry $19,847,000 million. Alderwoman Brown Thank you, Alderman Siegel, for doing all of your homework in this area. I’ve learned from some members of the Board of Education that they are expecting quite a few retirements in the near future but knowing that this other trust fund has a safety, I will support this motion. Alderman Siegel I want to address the idea of the on-going retirements. There has already been some accounting for that in several of the operating budgets from our discussions in the Budget Committee. The school department is aware of these things. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 12 A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Schoneman; 15 Alderman Chasse; Alderman Caron; Alderman McGuinness; Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Donchess; Alderman Moriarty; Alderman Siegel; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire; Alderman Deane Nay: 0 MOTION CARRIED Alderman Soucy Last year Alderman Chasse was very public about the budget and gave us an F so I am hoping for a D this year. I was troubled when we took that vote last week about $60,000 coming from the school budget. Its $133 million budget and $60,000 is really furniture. I spoke with the union rep or the president and I spoke with the Board of Education and they indicated that $60,000 is not going to affect personnel; that it was furniture money or some other miscellaneous so in light of that, I don’t want to bring up the same number but I would motion that we take $50,000 from the school budget. Like one of the speakers said last week, the walls are not going to tumble down. MOTION BY ALDERMAN SOUCY TO REDUCE DEPARTMENT 191, ACCOUNT 90120 MAYORAL ADJUSTMENT TO THE BUDGET BY -$60,000 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Sheehan I think some things have changed since that’s happened and I did spend quite a bit of time this morning making sure that I had a good handle on what was going on with the school department. The $160,000 on the list was a high school teacher which I believe is an art teacher, a data analyst that’s going from part-time to full-time and that was to reflect the quality of information that needs to be done for the teacher evaluations where they are using actual student information so that they have good information to make their evaluations. Technology was $50,000 and furniture was actually $23,000 so it is furniture and technology that would take the whack but that was as of this morning. What’s happened in the meantime since the last time we had talked with them was that we have agreed to take on a school in Merrimack. The school right now had closed because a private company cannot just set their rate, they are told by the state what to charge and they couldn’t make it work so they shut their doors. We have ten students that go there and it costs us $40,000 to do that. In order to run the school, it averages out to be about $10,000 more so they are going to be about $100,000 short in the budget they gave us in order to do what they need to do there. Conversely, if they were to send those students elsewhere, I was told that $10,000 would be a conservative estimate as to what that would cost us. If we dilly dally on getting them committed to opening this up, other schools won’t send their students there because they will make other commitments. With the student population that goes to this school, stability is one of the most important things. There is a certain amount of fixed cost. If we have additional students coming in, that fixed cost is spread across more students and we get to reap the benefit of sharing of some the costs such as for rent, heat, and electricity. However, if we drag our feet and don’t make a commitment on the budget until September it makes it difficult for other places to commit to doing that. Before we found $400,000, and I did the math, it was almost a $1 million projected cushion that we were going to have in the pension according to our run rate. I am not comfortable with making an extra cut. I’d actually be comfortable since we just found another $400,000, with adding the $100,000 so Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 13 they can do what they wanted to do plus open the school because what I see happening is when we are adding more students in that Merrimack School System, our costs could potentially go down so it gives them the commitment to move forward. I can’t support cutting it by $60,000. They always have things that pop-up. Last year it was school buses for a charter school. It’s always something, we are really close. Alderman Wilshire I agree with Alderman Sheehan, I can’t support this either for the same reasons. Alderman Siegel I appreciate Alderman Sheehan’s remarks about the school department, however, one thing that I would note is if you look carefully at the transfer records, you’ll see towards the end of the year the mad scramble to shuffle funds back and forth into different allocations. In particular, this year it appears that computer equipment has been the recipient of a variety of different funds as well as shifting the funds around the school. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing but again, we are talking about $60,000 out of $133 million dollar budget. And, frankly, I would have asked for $70,000 to offset the police officer. If you look at the leftover amounts there is a miscellaneous equipment fund there which is consistently overfunded on a yearly basis. I’m not trying to remove services. The metric that one of my colleagues used to not cut the services is probably a good one and I think in this case, we can support that cut, trade off the police officer that we added and the world really won’t end. Remember, the police department contributes to the stability of the school system by providing school resource officers. Alderwoman Brown I too cannot support that because the Board of Education has come here and many teachers have spoken and the information they gave us was the bottom line, it was bare bones and I think we need to support our schools, especially in light of this last minute issue with the program in Merrimack. A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Schoneman; Alderman Chasse; 9 Alderman Caron; Alderman McGuinness; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Moriarty; Alderman Siegel; Alderman Deane Nay: Alderman Dowd; Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Donchess; 6 Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire MOTION CARRIED Alderman Moriarty It’s useful to bear in mind that when we make changes to specific lines…that particular motion was to bottom line…we all know that departments have the ability to move things within the department budget. The motions that we make, moving forward it would be useful to try to focus on just the bottom line. In the future, it actually would have simplified matters if the Mayor submits the budget in a fashion where the actual legislation only details to the level at which the Board of Aldermen has the authority and then as a supplement, have all the rest of the stuff in there. That way it will help us focus when we are in here deliberating what we can and cannot actually affect. I recognize when Alderman McCarthy was saying that we don’t want to abdicate our authority by doing bottom line cuts but in reality, our authority is limited to a large extent to just bottom line cuts in a lot of the departments. Given the fact Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 14 that we have a budget that is 300 pages, as we proceed tonight; let’s try to just focus on the bottom line of each of the departments. Alderman Siegel I do have a motion but I’ll defer to Alderman McCarthy. Alderman McCarthy I can’t help but disagree with the last comment given that with the exception of the school department; departments cannot move salary to non-salary items and increase and increase headcount without further approval from this board. While it’s probably true that within some groups of appropriations things can be moved around but it’s still up to us to give a general idea from a policy perspective of how we think the money ought to be spent. If somebody moves money for purposes…I mean the salary money we have fairly direct control over. Outside the salary money, if you are going to spend money on something and you move a lot it around, you have to do that by contract which is going to come to the Finance Committee so we have control, again, over making sure that those things are spent pretty generally the way this board has decided at budget time so I would encourage us to know what it is that we are spending money on or not spending on. President Deane The salary lines; they can’t transfer into but they can transfer out of them all they want. If they come in and ask for positions and we fund positions and they don’t fill them, the money can be easily transferred out of those lines into other areas and spent on other things. MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO REDUCE DEPARTMENT 161 STREETS; 54 PROPERTY SERVICES, ACCOUNT 54207, SNOW PLOWING SERVICES BY $40,000 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Siegel Currently it is budgeted at $120,000 and it’s an item that we’ve used $80,000 legitimately for actual snowplowing external services, which is what it was for. That particular item has been bled out over time for other things. Given that we have plenty of back-up, we have the snow trust and things like that, I think it’s reasonable that we cut $40,000 out of that to reflect the actual amount of money that we, at worst case, are going to spend on those external services. Alderman Sheehan This was a really bad winter but we were really lucky this winter as well because the snow came mid- week; mostly on Wednesday’s. Mostly in time for first shift, we didn’t have a lot weekend storms or storms where it was second shift and we needed to call people that refused to come in because they were not on a beeper so that we are hiring out. It is the luck of the drawer with a snow storm. The cost of a Saturday or a 6:00 p.m. storm versus a 6:00 a.m. storm is huge for us as a budget item. I would be very hesitant to cut that. Alderman Siegel I tried to preface all of these motions with the fact that I’ve looked at trends from several years past so I specifically want to avoid just the problem you are talking about where it’s the luck of the drawer Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 15 problem. To the extent that we have trended this way, I thought that was a legitimate thing to look at. For everything that I am trying to make a motion about, I looked not just at this year because there are variations. I tried to go back at least three years. Alderman McCarthy Has that line item been appropriated at about that level with the same expenditure over the past few years? Alderman Siegel That is my recollection. In fact, I think several of the items I’ll be talking about have a similar appropriation. Alderman Sheehan Were the appropriations as this was re-appropriated, were they sand and salt? Alderman Siegel Do you mean the funds transferred? Alderman Sheehan Yes. Alderman Siegel No. Alderman Sheehan Where were they transferred to? Alderman Siegel Miscellaneous equipment and a variety of different things but they were not transferred to things that you would say are related to snow, especially since those transfers occurred in April and May. Alderman Dowd I see where you are going and I certainly appreciate all the research you have done but two things that concern me is when we have money left over at the end of the year in the budget, the surplus, we put it against the tax rate which lowers the tax rate. If we don’t have any surplus then we start in the hole with the tax rate going into the next year and I would ask through the Chair to the Mayor; I believe next year is a worse situation than we have this year? Two things happen when you do that. You are not going to have the surplus to put against the tax rate and the lower we make this budget, the higher the gap because our base is going to be lowered to where we start next year and I don’t want to get to the point where we save ½% or ¼% of the tax rate this year and next year, the tax rate is 4% or 5%. I don’t think the people want that either. Mayor Lozeau, can you address that? Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 16 Mayor Lozeau It is true that next year’s is going to be a more difficult year because we are expecting our employer rate to go up on pensions and other things and we expect that the Spending Cap will be less next year. It is true that we do apply these funds against the tax rate. When I looked at some of these trends; that’s part of how we budget, I would share that concern that the closer we cut the less we have for the tax rate and we start at a disadvantage. Alderman Siegel In doing all of this, I had considered that as a reasonable thing to say but consider the taxpayer and by that rationale, we’d better off to try to vote in say $5 or $10 million in extra spending just so we always knew that if we needed to in the future, we’d have some cushion. I admit that is somewhat of a hyperbolic example but I don’t see that the taxpayer doesn’t benefit by keeping the money in their pocket and us running not to the bone, but running reasonably. All of the cuts that I am proposing would add up to nothing more than what I consider to be reasonable. Alderman McCarthy With regard to the offsets from the surplus, you have to look at what happens over several years and it’s only the years where the budget changes that it has any impact on what actually happens in taxes. Take for example Alderman Siegel’s $400,000 change to the pension number. If the pension number is $400,000 too high and we apply that to next year’s tax year’s tax rate offset, the $400,000 that’s in the budget offset by the same $400,000 that we didn’t spend in the previous year has no impact on the tax rate. If it’s not in the budget, the $400,000 which is not offset by the $400,000 that’s left over from the year before also has no impact on the tax rate. It’s only in the year that you either add something to the budget that’s not going to get spent or subtract something from the budget that wasn’t spent that there is any impact on tax rate. We ought to be thinking about what is it that makes sense to do to stabilize the budget and the tax rate calculation kind of follows that. You can’t fix the tax rate by saying we’ll put money in that we are going to have leftover as surplus. You budget what you need to spend and then figure out the tax rate after that. President Deane When you look at that Alderman McCarthy, that’s true but when you look at some of the unexpended appropriations and the transfer sheets; it’s not like this money was going to be unexpended appropriations that fell in the fund balance, it’s being spent as the year winds down. Alderman McCarthy I agree; if it’s spent then we collect it. Alderman Donchess Snow plowing is an essential service. If we did not have a reserve account to cover us if there is any shortage, I would not support this but we do have a reserve account. I think the number in there is $300,000. President Deane I think it’s significantly less that. It’s about $35,000. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 17 Alderman Donchess There will be a proposed restoration of those funds in the escrow process, correct? President Deane That’s up to the administration. Alderman Donchess I believe that there have already been statements to the effect that that needs to be replenished and I just don’t think we should over budget and reserve so I believe we are going to reserve and therefore, I think cutting this back to the level of the maximum expenditure over the last five years is reasonable. Alderman Sheehan I think the part that bothers me is that we all got phone calls about things not being plowed. Sidewalks were not being ready even though the schools were open and I think the fact that we had money but couldn’t find enough people to do the job. We had the money to fill the positions we just didn’t have people to fill the positions. People were tired, they had to go home and sleep before they could go out and do sidewalk clearing. We had to go into our reserves on this and I’m not comfortable with cutting this. To me, if we had said to people, yes, the sidewalks aren’t done and your kids are going to school because we just don’t have any money, you know, that’s what it might be looking like in the next year. I know it’s all science and everything but I’ve heard the weather is going to keep getting crazier. It would be nice if we could hire more people next year. This is winter in New Hampshire and I think it’s a safety issue. I do have an issue if they are taking out the money and spending it on things that they shouldn’t, that’s something that we should be raising a flag when that starts happening but I would like to see money there because if we need and have the ability to hire people and there’s people to hire, I want the money there to do that. President Deane Do you know what the problem is Alderman Sheehan; they can’t get people because they don’t pay them enough money. They give them $63.00 per hour for their vehicle and they don’t allow for the fuel. When they allowed them to fuel their trucks at the street department, there was somewhat of a difference. They can go to Massachusetts and get twice the money; they can go to Amherst, Merrimack but get twice the money in Massachusetts on a highway. They get $125.00 per hour plus fuel. I think the issue with this is that our staff showed up, I don’t think the beepers played a major role in people not showing up to plow. They didn’t hire a lot of outside contractors and if you look at the transfer reports you’ll see that around $20,000 was moved out of this line for other purposes within the street department. I think the issue is the prevailing wage that they want to pay these individuals to go out on some of these streets. If I had a new truck, I wouldn’t plow some of these streets. You do more damage hourly than you are being paid, that’s my opinion and from speaking with people that have plowed for the city that will do it no longer. Alderman Donchess Mr. President, given your experience on the Board of Public Works and with public works in general, are you saying that this is a cut that you don’t think we should make or that we should? Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 18 President Deane I would look at around $20,000 and I think it’s up to the Board of Public Works to figure out paying a prevailing wage to these people and if they are not getting them to come in, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why. The people I’ve spoken to have said it wasn’t worth their while to stay here and plow. Alderman Dowd The thing that concerns me is that I heard a lot from the superintendent last year that we almost had other days of school off because the sidewalks weren’t plowed. I spoke with Ms. Fauteux and the same people that plowed the streets didn’t go plow the sidewalks. We don’t have that many sidewalk plows to begin with and there are critical sidewalks for kids going to school. You don’t want the kids out in slippery conditions walking on the street. It gets very touchy if the superintendent has to call school off if we can’t get those sidewalks plowed. If we have the funds and we are not using them then I won’t support this. If that’s not the case, then I might go along with it. If this passes, we are at $500,000 under the Mayor’s budget and I don’t think we need to go a heck of a lot further to be honest. President Deane Let’s look at the way a storm event happens. The staff comes in and plows. If they are not calling in outside contractors and they are using their city staff to plow, they plow the roads. They are not going to put somebody in a sidewalk plow while the guys in the streets are blowing the snow back onto what they just did. Outside contractors, from what I have seen, don’t plow sidewalks, they plow the streets. When the storm is over and the streets are bare, then the sidewalk plows come out and yes, it’s those same people that were out plowing snow off the streets. Alderman Dowd I agree with what you are saying. It’s the time lap between when the streets are plowed and when they start plowing the sidewalks is the issue. President Deane It doesn’t matter how many people you have. If we get a horrendous snow event, you still are not going to have everything done in time to have school open. You can only move so much. Snow storms and school cancellations are all predicated on when the storm starts and when the storm ends. I agree that the kids shouldn’t be walking on the street. Alderman Donchess First of all, the city is never going to stop plowing streets because of a line item like this. There’s a lot of money in public works. You, Mr. President, had suggested a $20,000 figure and the motion is $40,000. Would the maker of the motion consider changing the motion to $20,000? Alderman Siegel Yes, I would be happy to change my motion. MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO REDUCE DEPARTMENT 161, STREETS, 54 PROPERTY SERVICES, ACCOUNT 54207, SNOW PLOWING SERVICES BY $20,000 Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 19 ON THE QUESTION Alderwoman Brown I just don’t think this makes any sense if we are concerned about the safety of our kids walking on the streets. I won’t be supporting this. President Deane This is outside of plowing services. These are people that don’t work for the city that we hire to come in and plow the streets. They don’t plow the sidewalks. Alderwoman Brown Yes, but still…never mind, I’ll just pass. Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja My concern is if we are not getting outside contractors because we are not paying them enough, by reducing this, we are removing the ability of the Board of Public Works to maybe reconsider what they are paying people. Although we don’t use private contractors to plow the sidewalks, maybe it’s time we start thinking about that. The plowing of sidewalks is an on-going issue in all of the wards. I can’t support this because I think that this is an issue and we need to have the money there for DPW and maybe we need to have some conservations about the concerns for the plowing that gets completed and the need to increase what is being offered in a contract to private providers rather than reducing the money available for them to negotiate contracts; if I understood you correctly as to why we are not getting private contractors. President Deane The people that I have talked to, it’s about the condition of the streets and the rates. Alderman Sheehan I’ve heard the same thing, especially from people in landscaping who used to do a lot of side work. I share Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja’s concern because I think if we are going to tie their hands, I would rather that we revisit that rate and look at doing sidewalks because although we are all think about schools, we need to keep in mind that there are some areas that are high traffic that are not just schools. We know that somebody died on Amherst Street trying to press the button because the crosswalk wasn’t cleared. We know that somebody died on West Hollis Street trying to walk across the street. There are neighborhoods that are walkable neighborhoods that need to be included in our clearing plan for sidewalks. It doesn’t need to be done with the same urgency as the school does but I think that having a plan in place or the ability to pay people is important. Maybe that’s something they can do if they have a budget. We have seen a big increase in motor vehicle versus pedestrian accidents and they don’t end well. I think we need to remember that we are a four season city and we keep improving things in planning to increase density and not allow parking increases, these are things that we need to budget for. Alderman Donchess I agree with the points being made about the points being made about the sidewalk plowing. The trouble is that this isn’t a sidewalk line. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 20 MOTION BY ALDERMAN DONCHESS TO AMEND THE MOTION ON THE FLOOR BE AMENDED TO ADD THE CREATION OF AN OUTSIDE SERVICES SIDEWALK PLOWING LINE OF $20,000 President Deane Attorney Bennett, Alderman Donchess wants to create a new line item in the operating budget called “Outside Services for Sidewalk Snow Removal” in the Department of Public Works. Alderman McCarthy Well, if we were going to do that, the simpler thing is to re-title the line to add “Sidewalk Plowing” because it’s got the same amount of money in it. I think we are getting a little far off field here, we are talking about $20,000 that we didn’t spend getting cut from an account and we’ve gone off on a lengthy discussion about sidewalks. I think that is a much larger problem that we need to look at some other time. My daughter was doing a project for her Master’s Degree and I went out counted kids with her coming out of Main Dunstable School and on a nice, clear spring day there were 3 kids walking to that school out of 700 and since then, I’ve gotten a complaint that we didn’t plow the sidewalk that went to one of those 3 kids houses. We don’t do plowing of the sidewalks in general in the tree streets neighborhoods where people are walking to work and to the store. I think we need to take a better look at how we make the sidewalks more usable in Nashua and we are not going to figure that out tonight. I don’t think I’m prone to support the amendment to the amendment in general because I think there’s a huge raft of problems with trying to contract outside sidewalk plowing. There are liability issues of what happens when we hit the car in somebody’s driveway with a contractor driving a piece of equipment that we may not know is usable on our sidewalks is just fraught with problems for me. Alderman Siegel I couldn’t agree more with Alderman McCarthy. I really just had a simple line item request and we’ve gone way beyond that. That line item never involved sidewalk plowing. I would like to keep it as it is now which is simply a $20K cut in a specific line item. We can change the title of it at some future date but the sidewalk plowing problem in general is much larger than anything we can deal with tonight. Alderman Donchess Well, of course if we change the title, it doesn’t do anything because the money still might not be spent on sidewalk plowing. I think if we create a line item, it creates a clear direction that we want more sidewalks done. On the issue of the liability, I am always puzzled by that point because whenever there is a city vehicle anywhere there’s always the risk of liability and that’s true when we have private plows out. I don’t think the city is responsible for their conduct anyway. I don’t think that changes on how we decide to deliver services. President Deane So your interest has waned in that amendment? Alderman Donchess No, it hasn’t waned at all. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 21 Alderman McCarthy When we put trucks on the street, the street is pretty well defined. One of the problems our sidewalk plows have is in much of the city there are landscaped panels of indeterminate width and where the sidewalk actually is in my neighborhood is pretty tough to guess if you don’t know from the start. MOTION WITHDRAWN Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja Just for clarification, by reducing this, to get back to your earlier comments about private contractors being concerned about what we offer, we are reducing the money that the Board of Public Works has to negotiate with in terms of writing contracts for the upcoming winter with private contractors? President Deane If they chose to do that, we can’t give them a directive. It’s been at the current rate for quite some time. The fuel they did take away. Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja Okay, but by reducing this we could have an impact on that because I’m sure some of them have heard us loud and clear. President Deane I understand but I’m sure that they are well aware of what is going on. A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Schoneman; 12 Alderman Chasse; Alderman Caron; Alderman McGuinness; Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Donchess; Alderman Moriarty; Alderman Siegel; Alderman Deane Nay: Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire 3 MOTION CARRIED MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO REDUCE DEPARTMENT 169, WASTEWATER, 54 PROPERTY SERVICES ACCOUNT 54100, ELECTRICITY BY $100,000 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Siegel This is another item that has consistently been over budgeted and I believe that Alderman Deane may have something to speak about on the history of what may have caused that. As of the end of May, this had $234,000 out of a budgeted amount of $692,500 and out of this was transferred $65,000 for the East Hollis Street round-a-about study. In the record of expenditures of 7/2/14, we have $38,000 expended so at year end, we have a surplus on the order of $200,000 for electricity and I might point out that we do generate electricity there and so we do have some ability to damp down any of the Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 22 fluctuations in electric rates because we generate our own. I understand that this is an enterprise fund and as a consequence and being that it’s funded by sewer rates, it doesn’t have the same tax rate effect as the other cuts that may be proposed however, we do pay for sewer fees and any money that we can save spent in any way is less money taken out of the taxpayer’s pocket. A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Schoneman; 15 Alderman Chasse; Alderman Caron; Alderman McGuinness; Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Donchess; Alderman Moriarty; Alderman Siegel; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire; Alderman Deane Nay: 0 MOTION CARRIED President Deane While we are in the wastewater account, I sent the public works director an e-mail and asked her why the water budget was about $142,000 over budget. MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO REDUCE DEPARTMENT 169, WASTEWATER, 61, SUPPLIES AND MATERIALS, ACCOUNT 61156, CHEMICALS by $100,000 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Siegel This has been consistently overfunded the past few years. The budget has been reduced for this particular year but I believe only by $25,000 and I don’t believe that adequately reflects what was stated about the savings in chemicals from the state contracts that we are now going to be buying off of. Historically, this has been overfunded in any case so even when we weren’t buying off of the state contracts, we had significant amounts of money left over. I believe that it is more than reasonable to cut this budget from $550,000 down to $450,000 to reflect the actual expenses associated with the use of chemicals and again, I’ve looked at the expense through the fiscal year including the purchases made in the record of expenditures that just came up. I had a request at the Finance Committee meeting when the contract came up for buying polymers for the wastewater treatment facility, for information about a possible substitute polymer. I am assuming that this particular cut that I am requesting; that nothing changes with regard to that particular purchase. If you look at the transfer records, that has been one of the popular ones to take money out of. Mayor Lozeau Considering as you said, that that polymer will stay the same, which it will. The only thing that I would raise for consideration is that we should have the screening and disinfection facility on-line this year which we have not had in the past. So, with 1 million gallons that we may be treating, depending on how often that goes through, that’s why we didn’t cut it; based on those new prices. Just so you are aware. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 23 Alderman Siegel Thank you for the clarification. So, is the assumption that there was a cut but it would have been a much bigger cut because you would believe that the chemical consumption will be dramatically increased with some new facilities coming on-line? Mayor Lozeau My understanding is that we do believe that we are going to have an increase in chemicals because of that screening and disinfection facility. I wouldn’t use the term “dramatically,” but I do believe the cost here reflected knowing that there was going to be a savings but knowing that the new facility was coming on-line. Alderman Chasse I love your cuts but this is one that I will not support. I live down in that area and I can remember when that plant did not allow us to use our yards for anything for two or three years. I think they have done a wonderful job down there and I wouldn’t take anything away from them. Alderman Siegel Given the information that the Mayor has provided on the new facilities, I’d like withdraw the motion. President Deane I guess for people who have an interest, just keep a watchful eye on this line and see how much of that money is sucked out of there and spent on other things because that’s what has been going on. MOTION WITHDRAWN MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO REDUCE DEPARTMENT 161, STREETS, 61300, FUEL; UNLEADED BY $20,000 AND TO REDUCE LINE ITEM 61307, FUEL; DIESEL BY $40,000 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Siegel This is another one that historically has been overfunded. I understand that fuel costs have been varying up and down, however we are also converting certain vehicles to CNG and looking at historical trends in this particular line item and the particular transfers that have been going on, I believe it would be more than reasonable to take $20,000 out of the 61300 Unleaded Fuel line item and $40,000 out of the 61307 Diesel Fuel line item for a total of $60,000. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 24 A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Schoneman; 15 Alderman Chasse; Alderman Caron; Alderman McGuinness; Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Donchess; Alderman Moriarty; Alderman Siegel; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire; Alderman Deane Nay: 0 MOTION CARRIED MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO REDUCE DEPARTMENT 169, WASTEWATER, 61 SUPPLIES AND MATERIALS, ACCOUNT 61307; FUEL DIESEL BY $10,000 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Siegel I believe a reduction of $10,000 based on historical patterns is more than prudent. Alderman Sheehan I see that we budgeted under it CNG, we budgeted $21,000 and the actual use was $3,900 and that’s budgeted for $18,000 next year. Have we replaced some vehicles that were previously diesel with CNG? President Deane Yes, that’s what is happening. Alderman Sheehan So we are flat lining the diesels? President Deane I wouldn’t say that we are flat lining it. I forget what the last number was. Alderman Sheehan It was $58,000 last year and $58,000 this year for the budget. President Deane When I looked in the record of expenditures along with our budget numbers for May, we don’t have the end of year yet so I don’t have that number in front of me but it was no near the $58,000. Alderman Sheehan We had $28,000 here so we are on target to spend $36,000. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 25 President Deane Well, it shows $28,000 through April that’s been expended out of the $58,000. Alderman Sheehan I guess what I am asking is how many of these CNG trucks are in service now and have we retired specific trucks that were diesel? President Deane The two that diesel vehicles that we have down there; other than the small things are the Vactor trucks. The smaller pick-ups are unleaded gasoline, the truck that we just bought for pulling pumps out I think is CNG. Mayor Lozeau We do have some CNG vehicles. We had a Vactor truck off-line for a while. We’ve had problems with some of that, that’s why you see some of the fluctuations. The total CNG to divide it by department might be a little bit of a challenge but yes, we also replaced the pick-up truck and the little van with a CNG. A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Schoneman; 15 Alderman Chasse; Alderman Caron; Alderman McGuinness; Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Donchess; Alderman Moriarty; Alderman Siegel; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire; Alderman Deane Nay: 0 MOTION CARRIED Alderman Moriarty I have a question for Alderman Siegel. At least three of these motions, four of them have been as a result of looking at transfer accounts. Are you able to see the transfer accounts of the school and police department? President Deane Yes, absolutely. Alderman Moriarty I’m just wondering if we should expect to hear you make motions tonight for similar over budgeted items for the school and police department? President Deane I would imagine if he cares to do so but I will let him speak to that. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 26 Alderman Siegel I think we had our discussion the school department and I don’t get to decide the school budget items. I didn’t go into the same level of detail. If I were on the Board of Education, I would probably go through a similar type of exercise but frankly, I don’t believe that making the motions in this forum would be fruitful anyway. I don’t think there would support so what I tried to do is balance what I found with what I thought might be supportable to because we do have to vote on this and I don’t really want to spend all night debating something which ultimately won’t pass. That was part of what led to my reasoning. Alderman Moriarty So, getting back to Alderman Chasse’s original motion and Alderman McCarthy’s comments about we don’t want to abdicate our authority, I agree. We have had several weeks of budget review to go through all of these line items line by line and as a group consensus, based on the people who have their pet projects, and favorites, and some people who are pro vs. con on certain things are sort of at an impasse. What you have demonstrated to us quite well is that at least in this department which you have spent the time to look at, you discovered that there are a lot of examples of items that are over budget. One could very easily extend that assumption to all of the departments across the board who probably have similar instances of over budgeting. I don’t see how the D.P.W. is particularly indifferent from the school, police, fire, or any other department with that respect. The idea of making the motions and picking on the Department of Public Works because it’s easy prey would be an unfair assessment but I use that analysis to say that in the end, we want to be fair to everybody involved, fair to all departments involved and fair to the taxpayer’s that are involved. A uniform reduction across all departments would be the best way to go. By going line by line, we are, in essence, being unfair to some departments and bias towards others. That’s just my opinion. Alderman Siegel I really want to address that. First of all, there’s nothing magical about me. Everybody could have done this work by asking. If you were so inclined, the information was available if you chose to request it and spend the time on it. This isn’t really super star stuff, it’s just looking. I’m not picking on the Department of Public Works. There were changes that I would love to have seen in certain school department accounts and if you look at the transfer records, it’s almost funny to see the money moving around but it doesn’t really matter because the support isn’t there so whatever work I’m going to do is fruitless unless it gets passed here and we can do something with it. Yes, there are other accounts I could look at, I looked at a of accounts; I didn’t just look at the Department of Public Works. I looked for large targets that made sense. By the way, I might point out, the largest target was the pension item and that’s more than 1% and that was why I said that there are certain things that warrant more than 1% and others that really don’t. I do have some additional motions which may or may not pass but I’m not picking on anything. I’m just trying to find something which is rationale and supportable and meets the goals and needs of at least ten members of the Board of Aldermen. Alderwoman Brown I would like to point out that there are many of us that work full-time and we have different family responsibilities so maybe we don’t have the amount of time. I certainly do appreciate Alderman Siegel putting his time and effort into this but I just wanted to mention that. Thank you. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 27 Alderman McCarthy I guess I reject the concept that across the board cuts are fair and this board should be fair. We are here to decide priorities, not to be fair. When we look at things and I think the last four motions have passed with a vote of 15-0, apparently we have general agreement on those things that those are not priorities. When we had the motion on the 1% cut, there seemed to be less agreement on that point. I think what we are doing is fine and I actually applaud Alderman Siegel for the work that he has done on this. Having a budget for the citizens of Nashua is the important thing in the final analysis. Alderman Siegel MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO REDUCE DEPARTMENT 113, ITEM 59, UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION, INSURANCE AND CLAIMS, LINE 59580 BY $25,000 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Siegel This line item is currently at $175,000 but this is one of those items that have been consistently overfunded through the years, not dramatically, but it has been. Based on the 2013 trends and percentages, I believe we could make this $150,000 and even then, it’s probably slightly higher than I’d like. Alderman McCarthy I’d like to get a comment from the Mayor if we could. Mayor Lozeau We have to pay worker’s compensation. This is an estimate. President Deane This is unemployment compensation. Mayor Lozeau Right. President Deane It’s not workman’s compensation, it’s unemployment compensation. There’s a difference. Mayor Lozeau I understand the difference. I didn’t realize I said that, I’m trying to look at the line and keep up. When we look at these we allocate money that we think is appropriate based on what we need. We already lowered that line from the prior year. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 28 Alderman McCarthy I actually I’m glad we just had that because I sort of unconsciously read it as workman’s compensation also. Where do we wind up paying unemployment compensation? Mayor Lozeau We are self-insured. President Deane But what does that have to do with unemployment? Alderman McCarthy Right. Maybe I don’t understand what that line item is paying for. Mayor Lozeau I can tell you that when I initially learned about this in the budget, I thought it was our state contribution to worker’s compensation. That’s not what it is. I don’t know if the terminology is correct or not correct, I just know that we talked about it in the budget and the committee and we talked about lowering it. We talked about it when our benefits folks were in and that’s the number that they gave me and off the top of my head, I’m not recalling the conversation on how that broke out. Alderman Sheehan In my experience, this is the amount that you pay…once you lay somebody off or you fire someone and they collect unemployment, you have a bill to pay on an on-going basis based on how many people that you’ve let go. President Deane Through the May 30th we have spent $128,000 out of this line. Alderman Sheehan Okay, so that means that someone has collected unemployment as a result of having previously worked for the city. President Deane Right, but there was $200,000 budgeted and we spent $128,000 in eleven months. Alderman Chasse You are close Alderman Sheehan but not quite. What happens is you get your quarterly reports, yearly reports, as well as payroll and the company has to pay a portion to cover any future unemployment compensation. There is a bill but you pre-pay it and it’s all done through the gross payroll. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 29 President Deane So our trending amount was about $150,000 if you looked at the last three years. Alderman Chasse Like I said, it all depends on how many employees that you have. If the City of Nashua starts hiring more employees, then your bill is going to go up, if they decrease it, your pre-pay is going to fluctuate according to the number of employees that you have. Also, the unions affect it as well. Alderman Donchess I think what happens is that the state operates an unemployment pool, this isn’t a direct payment to Nashua City employees who have been laid off. I think that the state bills the city based upon the number of employees and from that unemployment compensation is paid to all employees that were laid off and entitled to unemployment compensation. There are employers who have never laid anyone off who are still paying what in essence, is a tax into this pool. A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Schoneman; 14 Alderman Chasse; Alderman Caron; Alderman McGuinness; Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Donchess; Alderman Moriarty; Alderman Siegel; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire; Alderman Deane Nay: 0 Recorder’s Note: Alderwoman Brown had temporarily left her seat and her vote was not included in the roll call. MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO REDUCE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS, 81 MAJOR CAPITAL OUTLAY IMPROVEMENTS, ACCOUNT 81100, CAPTIAL IMPROVEMENTS BY $50,000 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Siegel This amount is currently $675,000 and I’d like to reduce it by $50,000 and I have a specific reasons for that. In that amount, and I know that this is potentially controversial so I left it for last, it is the sidewalks project and there is a 10% contingency right now and that $50,000 really is the 10% contingency. I’m not voting to stop the sidewalks, I am just saying that I believe that we have plenty of ability to handle contingency. We already had almost no discussion about cutting the citywide contingency so to have a specifically targeted contingency for this one specific project and to not cut it, I think is questionable. It doesn’t cut services but it cuts real money. I know that Alderman McCarthy had argued against the idea of offsetting with the Cotton Mill Square money that was escrowed, fair enough. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 30 A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman Schoneman; Alderman Chasse; Alderman McGuinness; 7 Alderman Soucy; Alderman Donchess; Alderman Siegel; Alderman Deane Nay: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Caron; 8 Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Moriarty; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire MOTION FAILED Alderman Dowd Has someone been keeping track and knows exactly where we are at the moment? Alderman Caron I have. The amount that has been reduced is $675,000. Alderman McCarthy You have to be careful because some of that is in the enterprise funds. Alderman Soucy So then that would be $575,000. President Deane Out of the enterprise accounts, you had $10,000 for diesel fuel, $100,000 for electricity, and then the chemicals got pulled back so the total out of wastewater was $110,000. The total is $565,000 out of the general fund appropriations and $110,000 out of wastewater. Alderman Dowd The number we have now is lower than the budget that we received from the Mayor, is that correct? President Deane Yes, it is. Alderman Dowd And because of that, it only takes a majority vote? President Deane No, because we’ve changed two line items in the police and school departments, it requires ten votes. We have to take the $241,329,942 and subtract $565,000 from that. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 31 Alderman Sheehan We originally had $300,000 in contingency, where are we now? President Deane $250,000. That’s reflected in the amended legislation that we got with our agenda this evening. MOTION BY ALDERMAN SHEEHAN TO INCREASE CONTINGENCY GENERAL, DEPARTMENT 194, LINE ITEM 70100 BY $50,000 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Sheehan My reason for this motion is that we have made a lot cuts in a lot of places and I think taking 10% of that as a safety and restoring it to contingency isn’t a bad idea. We have a lot of areas that I think we’ve made some very good cuts but I think there are other things that always come up, for example, right now, there is a fund that is available that only Nashua is eligible to apply for a great big part of it for safe routes to many places, not just school but it requires a 20% match. We are eligible to apply for that with a whole bunch of other people and everybody else that can apply for this grant has to have the match and because they are on town meeting, can’t even apply this year so we have an opportunity but if we don’t have a contingency to be able to apply for this…Alderman Donchess and I both share concerns for downtown and travel so this is something that we want to work on. If we don’t need it then it doesn’t get spent, we have to approve it but I think we are better off having a safety net. Alderman Siegel Once again, having examined in excoriating detail the transfer records and records from prior years, the idea that we wouldn’t have $50,000 sloshing around doesn’t hold water. The problem I have is the minute that money is allocated it finds a way to get spent and I would prefer not to allocate it. I would urge us to leave that alone. A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman Sheehan 1 Nay: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Schoneman; 14 Alderman Chasse; Alderman Caron; Alderman McGuinness; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Donchess; Alderman Moriarty; Alderman Siegel; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire; Alderman Deane MOTION FAILED President Deane We are still at $565,000 from the general fund appropriations so I come up with $240,756,942. Alderman Moriarty We are still approximately $1.4 million over the Spending Cap. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 32 President Deane Are you making a motion? Alderman Moriarty No, I’ve already backed Alderman Chasse’s motion earlier. Alderman Chasse Neither am I. I’m not going to waste the time. MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE TO AMEND IN THE BODY OF THE LEGISLATION FOR THE GENERAL FUND APPROPRIATION AMOUNT FROM $241,321,942 TO REFLECT THE $565,000 REDUCTION $240,756,942. MOTION CARRIED MOTION BY ALDERMAN DEANE TO AMEND IN THE BODY OF THE LEGISTLATION FOR THE ENTERPRISE FUND APPROPRIATION AMOUNT FROM $24,021,813 TO REFLECT THE $110,000 REDUCTION $23,921,911 MOTION BY ALDERMAN SHEEHAN TO MOVE THE QUESTION A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Caron; 8 Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Siegel; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown Nay: Alderman Schoneman; Alderman Chasse; Alderman McGuinness; 7 Alderman Donchess; Alderman Moriarty; Alderman Wilshire; Alderman Deane MOTION CARRIED President Deane The motion on the floor is for final passage of R-14-034, as amended, would the clerk please call the roll on that? A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows: Yea: Alderman McCarthy; Alderman Dowd; Alderman Caron; 11 Alderman Sheehan; Alderman Soucy; Alderman Donchess; Alderman Siegel; Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja; Alderwoman Brown; Alderman Wilshire; Alderman Deane Nay: Alderman Schoneman; Alderman Chasse; Alderman McGuinness; 4 Alderman Moriarty MOTION CARRIED Resolution R-14-034 declared duly adopted as amended pending any further actions. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 33 MOTION BY ALDERMAN MCCARTHY THAT THE RULES BE SO FAR SUSPENDED AS TO ALLOW FOR THE FIRST READING OF R-14-055 WHICH WAS RECEIVED AFTER THE AGENDA WAS PREPARED ON THE QUESTION President Deane The title is R-14-055 - Amending the Authorization for the Sale of Land on Bridge Street and Sanders Street. Alderman McCarthy My understanding is that this is time sensitive. President Deane I am going to call for a brief recess and make copies of this for everyone. MOTION CARRIED Alderman Donchess Alderman McCarthy mentioned some level of time sensitivity and there was a reference that this would go to the Infrastructure Committee. The next meeting that is regularly scheduled would be August 13 th. Will that be soon enough or should there be a meeting before that time? Alderman McCarthy I think my understanding is that the tax credits that are anticipated; the application has to be in by August 28th, so the 13th would be fine for the Infrastructure Committee but we would have to have a special Board of Aldermen meeting to take it up after that. President Deane That we can do. Alderman Moriarty I think that you had confirmed that the next full Board of Alderman meeting regularly scheduled is on August 12th so if he were to adjust his Infrastructure meeting by just a couple of days then everyone is happy. President Deane We can look at that. We can talk to the legislative office and see if people are willing to move a couple of committee meetings around. Alderman Donchess The other possibility is that we could schedule the Infrastructure Committee meeting for like 6:00 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the 12th. Bd. of Aldermen – 07/28/14 Page 34 Alderman Moriarty To that end, let’s not be presumptuous on disallowing people’s opinions. I mean if this is being transferred to get tax credits; that means that this property is going to be a mixed use and some people may not want a mixed use. It may not pass. R-14-055 Endorsers: Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy Alderman-at-Large Diane Sheehan Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire Alderwoman Pamela T. Brown Alderman-at-Large Jim Donchess AMENDING THE AUTHORIZATION FOR THE SALE OF LAND ON BRIDGE STREET AND SANDERS STREET Given its first reading; assigned to the COMMITTEE ON INFRASTRUCTURE by President Deane President Deane Tomorrow evening’s Special Board of Aldermen’s meeting has been cancelled. ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared adjourned at 9:29 p.m. Attest: Paul R. Bergeron, City Clerk