Budget Review Committee

BUDGET REVIEW COMMITTEE JUNE 9, 2014 A meeting of the Budget Review Committee was held Monday, June 9, 2014 at 7:33 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane, Chair, presided. Members of Committee present: Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire, Vice Chair Alderman Richard A. Dowd Alderwoman Pamela T. Brown Alderman Ken Siegel Alderman David Schoneman Alderman Michael Soucy Members Also in Attendance: Alderman-at-Large Brian McCarthy Alderman-at-Large Diane Sheehan, Arrived at 8:34 p.m. PUBLIC COMMENT COMMUNICATIONS - None DEPARTMENTAL REVIEWS Financial Services Financial Services Purchasing Building Maintenance Assessing/Overlay GIS John Griffin Mr. Chairman if I could have a few opening remarks and introduce the team and go forward. I appreciate it. Treasurer Fredette, Mr. Marino, Mr. Hunnewell. Chairman Deane Mr. Griffin if you want to give your pre-overview. John Griffin Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Budget Review Committee and other members of the Board of Aldermen. I would like to begin tonight by indicating who the managers are in the Financial Services Division: Treasurer/Tax Collector David Fredette who's here with us this evening; Accounting Compliance Manager Rose Evans; Compensation Payroll Manager Doreen Beaulieu - both of those individuals are not here tonight. David Fredette has agreed to carry the laboring aura with regards to Financial Services. Risk Manager Jen Deshaies who was here last week; Building Manager Jay Hunnewell who's here tonight; Chief Assessor/GIS Manager Angelo Marino is here tonight; Public Works/Financial Manager Carolyn O'Connor who was here last Thursday; and General Government Financial Manager Janet Graziano who was here the two previous meetings. As you know our Purchasing Manager Robert Gabriel retired last Tuesday so he is not here tonight. He wishes me well when we go over the budget for Purchasing. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 2 Chairman Deane I knew Robert would do that. That's the type of guy he is. I'm sure he's sitting at home and is going to watch you stumble and bumble through it right? Purchasing is a very small portion. John Griffin All of these individuals and their teams have been instrumental in providing the City with strong financial management and oversight. That's duly noted in the most recent rating reports from Standard & Poor’s & Fitch. The Financial Services Division as a whole came in at the 2 percent request from the Mayor for the FY15 budget. This evening Mr. Fredette will review the Financial Services budget; I will review the Purchasing Department budget; Mr. Hunnewell will review the Building Maintenance budget; and Mr. Marino will review the Assessing and GIS budgets. With regard to some high level achievements in FY14, on the financial reporting side we have been awarded once again a Certificate of Achievement for excellence in financial reporting from the Government Finance Offices Association for the 8th consecutive year, which is a testament to the entire financial team and the rest of the organization for providing us the information necessary to put the CAFR together. We once again received an unmodified - that's the new buzz word - clean opinion from our external auditors. The auditors have frequently commented to me how well prepared the staff is in preparation for their visits on an annual basis to perform their work. As I've indicated in the past, we are still in the early stages of using our new loss and financial software for accounting, payroll, accounts payable, cash management, and purchasing. Given the challenges with any new system, the team has done a remarkable job with the city's records and financial reporting. With respect to the most recent revaluation of city property during this fiscal year, the Assessing Department worked diligently and effectively in revaluing all of the properties in the city. We received two bond ratings this year - Fitch rating affirmed the city's AAA rating with a stable outlook. Standard & Poors assigned a Nashua AA+ with a stable outlook. Both add strong comments about the city's operations not only financial but operational and its objectives to generate economic development initiatives within the city as well. As I mentioned, we all worked very hard to pull the information together with the rating agency's comment to me that they appreciate the efforts of Treasurer Fredette in assembling the right people at the right time to answer any questions they may have. With regard to the financial software implementations as you know, we implemented the FINPRO portion, the financial and procurement portion in April of 2012. We most recently implemented the payroll portion in not to be outdone with that, we also implemented a time and reporting system called "Kronos" which enables us to feed into the Payroll Department software to pay the people timely and effectively. I think the team lead by Doreen Beaulieu and her staff - it's a nimble crew but they've done a remarkable job in making sure we didn't have any missteps with paying people because when you do that, you folks would have heard some comments as well. I take my hat off to them for that effort. With regard to looking forward in FY15, we are well positioned to maintain our strong financial management profile as we have another sizable bond offering planned. This profile will be most helpful in obtaining favorable bond rates. Thank you for your attention and I'll pass the baton over to David Fredette. Chairman Deane What we've done is - is everybody going to say something? Jay are you going to talk about the buildings? Jay Hunnewell Yes. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 3 Chairman Deane Mr. Marino - so we're going to go David, Jay, and then Mr. Marino I guess or however you want to do it. Everybody is just going to give a little... Alderwoman Brown I just wanted to see if Mr. Griffin and Alderman Dowd could adjust their lights. David Fredette Thank you Mr. Chairman. As CFO Griffin mentioned, Financial Services group consists of the CFO's office, Treasurer/Tax office, Financial Reporting, Accounts Payable, and Payroll. I am directly responsible for the Treasurer/Tax office which includes treasury, tax office including sewer billing, and several miscellaneous billings that we send out, vehicle registration, and traffic violations or otherwise parking tickets. The majority of our work is prescribed either by local law or State law. Some of the 2014 accomplishments in our area was T2 software implementation for traffic violations and leased parking including ticket handhelds. We completed refunding loan with the State saving nearly $2 million for the city. We were the first community in New Hampshire to do that. I've been told there are several others that are in the process of doing that now in New Hampshire; continue the expansion of credit card options for various departments. We streamline the construction performance process. We completed a loan amendment on CSO for $12 million at a lower rate. Again, we were the first in the State to do something like that. We completed a full purge of the financial vault. We satisfactorily completed our first IRS audit on 2006 bond sale which I think I mentioned. Just for your observation, this was the book we had to produce for the IRS. It was a lot of work for Rean Lam. Chairman Deane Did they open it or did they just... David Fredette No they looked at it quite heavily. We had a perfect score from them. There was absolutely no write up at all on it. We were very pleased about that. We just hope they don't come back soon to ask for another. Chairman Deane Dave that's awesome. David Fredette Rean Lam did a lot of it. I think you know Rean. Completed successful bond sale with rates under 3 percent for the last 3 years. As you know, we just had one in May. Our goals for FY15 are transition and testing for the new property tax and utility billing software which the Board just approved last week. Of course we're going to concentrate this year on the tax billing software. Convert solid waste credit card service to current city-wide system. We're going to review, consolidate, eliminate, no longer need trust funds. Process remaining balances of older bonds for the Board of Aldermen. We're going to investigate the use of outside service and/or software Board of Public Works pension. Review the use of lock box or credit card payments for leased parking and tickets. We hope to implement boat registrations for our customers in Nashua. Review and implement automated deposits if possible to Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 4 increase interest income which we need to. Just a few numbers of what goes on in the area. This is on an annual basis - tax bills. We process about 56,000 tax bills a year; wastewater bills - 102,000; leased parking bills - 1,600; solid waste bills - 1,320; registration transactions - we vary between 88,000 and 90,000 a year; parking tickets - 21,000; accounts payable checks - a little over 23,000; POs almost 3,000 a year; payroll checks - 123,000 a year; W2s almost 4,000; and 1099s a little over 100. So those are some of the numbers that we process each year in the group. That's my opening statement Mr. Chairman. Chairman Deane Thank you very much. Angelo Marino I'm Angelo Marino. I'm the Chief Assessor and GIS Manager. Within the Assessing and GIS Department there are currently 10 employees including myself. I have 2 commercial/industrial appraisers, 2 residential appraisers, 4 clerical staff, and 1 GIS Technician. Over the past year we've processed 2,235 deeds and process 814 credits and exemptions. We've processed forms for the filing of those statutory credits and exemptions of 238 A9 forms and 137 A12 forms. The major accomplishment in the Assessing office this past year was the total revaluation of all properties. It's approximately 29,000 properties that were reassessed. As a result of that, the abatements that were filed for those assessments numbered approximately 250. This is contrasted with the previous year 2012 when the abatements that were filed were 350. So even though the assessments were adjusted for 29,000, we have approximately 100 abatements less than we did last year. Within GIS, we currently have a number of projects in the works. We recently finished an available space for the retail space in downtown Nashua which is now linked in the Nashua Dare site. We provided the road obstruction map that was used during Hurricane Sandy. We provided the Broad Street Parkway map which is available through the city's web page. In addition to fire map books, a mobile application for collecting information for fire circuits and in progress we have a new GIS viewer application and an application using a mobile module which will allow us to do disconnected editing as well as connected editing in the field. We hope to be able to use that for rapid building assessments, damage assessments should we need that. There are two significant expenditure modifications within my budget that you'll see is that the pictometry line item went from 18,000 to 24,000 this year. That's because this is a flight year where we'll be contracting hopefully for a new area flight. In the assessing budget, there is a deduction of $13,900 which is no longer there. That's been moved to IT because its software maintenance and you may also note that there hopefully is $25,000 in IT this year for an upgrade to our software which is approximately 15 years old. That's all I have. Jay Hunnewell Thank you Mr. Chairman. I don't have a book either but I do have an opening statement. My name is Jay Hunnewell and I manage the Building Maintenance Department that is referred to as city buildings in your budget book. The City Buildings Department has 5 employees, 4 full time positions, 1 part time position. Currently all of my positions are full. The Maintenance Specialist position and the 3 custodians belong to the UAW Clerical/Technical Unit and I am a merit employee. The goals and objectives of the city Buildings Department are to maintain the city building systems that include life safety devices, HVAC and mechanical systems, grounds maintenance, and custodial duties. Other tasks include coordination of office fit ups and meeting room set up requests. The city Buildings Department also assists with various capital improvement projects. Recent projects include the Clerk's office renovations and the carpet replacement project, as well as the replacement of the main entrance doors at the Court Street Theater. The city buildings department currently supports 7 city buildings, City Hall, Public Health, the Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 5 Court Street Theater, the senior activity center, 57 Gilson Road, 37 Arlington Street, and the Hunt Building. The level of support varies at each facility based on agreements and current use. The big reduction in my budget this year is in electricity and that's a direct result of the HVAC and replacement project back in FY11. Other than that, that's all I have for my opening. Alderman Soucy I guess the one number that I'm looking at that seems to be a significant change if you go to page 88 under conferences and seminars, it looks to me that our seminars have gone from Boston to Honolulu. It went from $2,500 to $10,000. What's the driving force of such an increase for that? David Fredette It's mainly due to a Lawson Conference which they've never attended before. There would be 2 people going to that. Then also one for Kronis which they've never attended before. I think they had to estimate at least one of them because they won't know where it's going to be yet and exactly how much it will be. That's the main reason. Alderman Soucy Thank you. Chairman Deane Financial Services starts on page 88 and their appropriations are on 88. Their revenues are on page 34 in the yellow pages. Their positions are on page 6 of 37 in the thin little blue book. In your 5100, I don't know who wants to answer to this Mr. Griffin or Treasurer Fredette. You've gotten rid of an accountant? David Fredette They're upgrading the current position in the Financial Reporting Department. So it's going from an Accountant to I believe a Senior Accountant. Chairman Deane Why? John Griffin The Accountant has done a fantastic job being an accountant. Both the Accounting Manager and I believe that the incumbent can take on more and diverse responsibilities that she'll be able to handle and that's why we're proposing the Accountant position be budgeted at a Senior Accountant level. The Senior Accountant will join the Senior Financial Analyst to round out the Accounting Manager's team from a Professional UAW perspective. Chairman Deane So if I'm correct and the change is an $11,000 a year increase. Your Accountant which is 1FTE is $46,700. There's nothing budgeted and now that position is going away and it's now going to become a Senior Accountant. It's a $6,000 a year increase. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 6 John Griffin That's correct. That's a budgetary number. Right now we're getting the position evaluated. Chairman Deane So we don't have a PDF done for this yet? John Griffin We have the PDF in process that goes through the HAY system through Director Hill's shop and we will be hopeful to get that information shortly. Chairman Deane Your Accounts Payable Coordinator, 3 people, that line shows a $10,000 reduction. John Griffin Right. That was a new hire. Attrition. Mayor Lozeau We hired in at a lower... Chairman Deane Thank you. Your Administrative Assistant I. David Fredette That's my Administrative Assistant. Chairman Deane That's a new position? David Fredette No it used to be you'll see it under part time and it is now a full time position. Chairman Deane So that went from part time to full time. David Fredette Yes but there's some savings with the part time Trust Accountant as you can see that. That went down about $8,000. So that helped with the extra costs on the Administrative Assistant I. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 7 Chairman Deane Do we see the same thing with the Motor Vehicle Coordinator? Is that a new hire? David Fredette It's a current employee that was promoted to that position yes. Chairman Deane But the rate of pay was reduced. So the person was hired in at less of a rate then... David Fredette Well the person had less experience than the one who - I had a lot of retirees in the last year and a half as you probably know. Chairman Deane The Operations Analyst. Was that a full time position in CitiStat? Mayor Lozeau Yes. Chairman Deane And that pay is ramped up by $7,000 a year. The CitiStat showed it at $35,924 and now Financial Services where this individual has moved to is $42,108 and it's the same title as the position. John Griffin Right. Title is a good title. It's operationally focused. What this individual will do is take all the work that was performed in CitiStat move that to Financial Services under my direction. In addition, that individual will help the city - it's in the draft PDF - the facility condition assessment that we had spoke about a year ago. With a system both and the city to start and hopefully leverage that technology over to the school but create a database of the condition of the city buildings. So the individual would do that. In addition, I could use some assistance from this individual, the incumbent who has a pretty good handle on technology, he can help me with all the costings that I've put together over the last 4 years and get that into more of a database set as opposed to the as you can imagine the myriad of spreadsheets that I've created over the last 4 years that leveraged the initial efforts that former CFO Mike Gilbar had done. Mayor Lozeau That's also Alderman Deane a budgeted number that final resolution on what that salary will be has not been done yet. It could be less than that. We just know it won't be more than that. Chairman Deane Are there any other examples where there's dollar figures put in this operating budget that could be less than what's being presented? Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 8 Mayor Lozeau Just some of these positions that are being re-evaluated like the Purchasing Manager for instance. That's a not to exceed amount. We think that that one is probably right but again... Chairman Deane So if there's extra money leftover, what are you going to do with it? Mayor Lozeau I don't have any plans for it. Usually the extra money goes to surplus unless there's something that we need or unanticipated. Alderman Schoneman I had a question about the salaries for these positions and just sort of how it works in the city. These are merit positions is that correct? Mayor Lozeau Some. John Griffin The Senior Accountant is a UAW Professional position. Alderman Schoneman Are there ranges for these salaries? The private sector a lot of times there's a range for a position and there's a low, and a medium, and a high. John Griffin What we have is on both the merit and UAW we have a grid system where the HAY system expert that reports to Director Hill, he's the individual charged with evaluating the position. What I call running it through the HAY system and coming out with a grade and possibly a recommended step. That could be a Step 12 to Step 15. It could be what you're familiar with in the private sector. A minimum, a mid, and a max. Alderman Schoneman So are these numbers here would you say they're closer to the minimum? Closer to the comparable medium or closer to a max? Is that possible to say? John Griffin With regard to the Senior Accountant, we're in the process of providing the requisite information and the individual to rate it so we don't have that. The revised job description for the Purchasing Manager, the individual ran that through the system and it came out with the same grade. It's just a question of what step you bring them on. As you recall, there was 20 steps in the merit grid. It could be I'm just going to Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 9 subject to check step 17. It can literally be Grade 1 through 20 but the focus may be Step 13 to 17. What we put here is a budgetary number just to make sure we have enough if we can attract the right candidate. Mayor Lozeau We always post with a not to exceed. John Griffin The posting is the not to exceed that's correct. Alderman Schoneman The person then who establishes the step, that's basically setting what that rate is going to be. What criteria do they use for establishing what step the person comes in at? John Griffin They use a grade - what they'll do is the grade is the first calculation. So let's say Grade 17. Then the step would be based on the requirements of the job relative to the - I think there's a market rate in there as well. When I say there could be Grade 17, Step 1, that's probably not going to do it. It's probably going to be in the 12 to 15 range. That's generally what happens. The other thing that we discussed in the merit discussion is we try not to bring people in at the highest step because it sends an interesting message to that individual. I have just one other point if I may. This HAY system I believe has been around for almost 20 years. Alderman Schoneman I remember seeing the grid in a previous meeting. I do remember seeing that. These look like some significant jumps. So you're advocating that a jump of this size maybe necessary in order to keep that person or to get a person? John Griffin It could be necessary and since my arrival here for almost 4 years ago, I've seen it go both ways. What we're trying to do is attract, this is the front end of the attraction. Then its retention coupled with job growth. What I've seen for example this past year we had a long tenured Director of Community Development around in the budget deliberations last year brought that budgetary figure down to $100,000 and then we were successful to come under that. So through the human resource management on the financial end of the business, we're trying to make sure we have enough money to attract, retain, keep the people we have if they're doing a good job. That's the objective. I've seen it go both ways. As Mr. Fredette indicated, he's had a lot of retirements. A lot of attrition where he's brought folks in at less of the rate of pay than the person who left. Alderman Schoneman Thank you. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 10 Alderman Siegel Thank you Mr. Chair. On page 34 item 49 interfund transfer in, there's account 49405 which is a transfer into the traffic violations fund. That was $200k last year and now that's $25k. What is that? David Fredette Well traffic ticket money when it was originally set up many years ago, at least 20 I think, is a special revenue account. So all the money derived from parking tickets is in that account and everybody related to that work gets paid out of it. All the expenses come out of that account. Whatever is left over comes into the operating budget as general revenue. Over the years parking tickets issued has been going down for many years. The revenue has also gone down for many years. Also this year with the new system we now are paying for the benefits out of that account that we never did before. That is $100,000 that we're getting hit with. That has a lot to do with the amount coming to the general fund a lot lower. We also had a harder winter this year which costs. So we have to spend more money on towing than we normally do. So there's different reasons but the main reason is the benefits now are being paid directly out of that account. Alderman Siegel So that line item would really be a gross revenue minus cost number into the general fund? David Fredette Right. Alderman Siegel Thank you very much. I appreciate that. On page 34 on your split positions there's 2 positions that are funded entirely by wastewater and the solid waste fund. Perhaps you could explain what they do that would be entirely related to wastewater and solid waste or how that works. David Fredette Well we have a billing person and a collections person in the tax office. The billing person does most of the billing for the city. So they would do the wastewater which is the largest. As I said, we do 19,000 wastewater bills a quarter for residential and around 2,200 a month for the commercial. They also do police parking, they bill for the landfill - there's about 5 or 6 different type of bills that go out for the landfill. We bill for the fuel at the fuel station at the Street Department. There are 5 outside agencies that get fuel from there. There's a lot of smaller ones that they do also. That person gets paid half out of the wastewater and half out of the landfill because all the bills relate to both of those departments. The collection does the same thing just collects everything that the person bills. Of course they're paid half out of the wastewater and half out of the landfill or the Solid Waste Department. Alderman Siegel So there's a significant amount of work obviously that they do associated with those. That's not scoped entirely in those. They do do things outside the realm of solid waste or wastewater. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 11 David Fredette The majority of the work is done there is all that. If they pick up the phone and somebody is asking a tax question, they help and answer or if somebody at the counter they will help. The majority of their work is all public works. Alderman Siegel I'm not talking about stuff in the noise margin but you were talking about things like a fuel depot. David Fredette Fuel is Public Works. Alderman Siegel It's all for Public Works. Okay. That's fine. I appreciate that. Thank you. A question. We did have that presentation on Melanson Heath the auditing firm I believe. I think in Finance we agreed to continue with them. I just had a question on 53114 which is on page 88 which is the accounting and auditing services. I guess my recollection for the number that we approved was higher. Am I missing something there? Not that low numbers are bad believe me. Mayor Lozeau (inaudible) skip an auditing. That's not the Melanson Heath contract. Alderman Siegel What is that? David Fredette Mayor that is the contract. Mayor Lozeau I thought it was the $10,000. David Fredette Some of their - you're talking about the $86,000? Alderman Siegel Yes. David Fredette Okay. That is some of the other part of that bill is charged directly to wastewater and the landfill - solid waste I believe. Part of that audit starts with them. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 12 Alderman Siegel It is a bigger number. It's just not reflected in this particular line item. It's just a fraction not associated with that. David Fredette Not 100 percent. Alderman Siegel Okay now I understand. That makes sense. Thank you. That explains that. On page 88 line item 53452 which is staffing services. Is that hiring a professional recruiter? What is that staffing services line item on page 88? John Griffin That's a temporary staffing person in FY14 that we were successful in hiring for right now and into FY15. So that was just a short term temporary staff person. Alderman Siegel Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. A couple of remarks and I think that will probably be done for me. I appreciate that telephone and cellular is none. My hot button. Those cell phones. I appreciate you're not using them. I got a kick out of line 45213 I believe on page 34 which was the cash over short where you're actually budgeting to make a positive mistake in your cash management. Should that normally be budgeted at zero like you're anticipating actually getting it right. It's neither here nor there. I got a chuckle out of it. I thought I might mention that. David Fredette Well we've been budgeting $500 for years. Why break the mold. Mayor Lozeau We put it there so he could chuckle. Alderman Siegel The $500 mistake in our side. Every year we screw up and take $500 extra dollars from somewhere. David Fredette The Motor Vehicle Department alone deals with over $4 million in cash. They do a pretty good job. Alderman Siegel That's all the questions I have. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 13 Chairman Deane Anyone else have any questions? How is it the department survived without a resource coordinator? The position that came down from the Mayor's office. What is that person doing? David Fredette The Resource Coordinator has actually always done a lot of work for us because they sit right outside the motor vehicle area in the rotunda and so a lot of their work is done by helping out customers coming to motor vehicle. Quite a few years ago, that position was created. We put in a cue system so during our busy times which is usually the first and last weeks of the month, we use the system so when people come in and there's a wait, they don't have to stand. They can sit, their name is called up, plus the person helps them a lot prior to going up to the counter. So if they're missing paperwork, they're told right away instead of waiting for 20 minutes and then finding out they're missing the right papers. The customers have really liked that position. I've had a lot of positive comments over the years on that. They also help a little bit with some of the parking tickets. Even though it came directly out of the Mayor's department, they have always worked with motor vehicle majority of the time. They do do some other help with other departments when customers are calling in looking for where they go for this or that. They'll let them know. Mayor Lozeau They share the information line with the City Clerk's office. Chairman Deane That's answered out front. Mayor Lozeau Did you say the phone is answered out front? Chairman Deane They sit in the rotunda and answer the telephone from the City Clerk's office. Mayor Lozeau It used to be that the City Clerk and the HR Department shared the information line so it didn't bounce around and send people into voice mail. It wasn't working out so well because when those offices get busy, there wasn't somebody who could help manage that. Chairman Deane So what happens when you press zero? Where does it go? I've never done that. Mayor Lozeau If you call the information line? Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 14 Chairman Deane If you call here and somebody doesn't answer and it says press zero for an operator, who answers the phone? Mayor Lozeau That should go to the information line. So it will either be the City Clerk or the Resource Coordinator and the backup is my office. We try really hard not to let people get an answering system. We don't always succeed but we try really hard. Chairman Deane Mr. Griffin can you provide me with the PDF for the Operations Analyst position that was moved from CitiStat. CitiStat doesn't seem to have gone away. It seems like the people have been - well 1 person anyway. I don't know what happened to the Director. Mayor Lozeau The Director's position is eliminated on July 1st. Chairman Deane Well so was this person but they've landed somewhere else. Mayor Lozeau Well because we made a conscious decision that we wanted to maintain an analyst as I told you when I brought in a budget and we talked about it during CitiStat time. One of the things that we have been seeing is that position has grown to do other analyses. So both the Treasurer and the CFO requested that that position remain because it's worked with them. Chairman Deane I thought the reason for abolishing CitiStat was it didn't pan out. Mayor Lozeau No that's not correct. Chairman Deane Could you tell me why it was abolished again cuz I'm kind of confused now. Why you abolished the whole department. Mayor Lozeau The reason that the department was removed is because we've never put it in as a traditional CitiStat as far as growing it. We always used it as more of a performance tool and analysis for managers. We've been successful in putting in some of those processes for departments that have worked with CitiStat. So the philosophy is behind it that we have benefited from for those efficiencies are now pretty much day Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 15 to day operationally done in those departments. Their work behind it to still have analysis happen from the perspective of comparing one set of information against another. So for instance all of the work that you saw provided last year on salaries, all those payroll analyses that Mr. Griffin often referred to and was credited with all came from CitiStat. So this person in particular did that with the supervision of CitiStat. CitiStat has been something that has worked really well in the city but it reached a point where unless we were going to grow it and provide more positions to be able to take on more departments, it wasn't going to be able to function that way. I think they reached the maximum of what they could do with 2 people. That's why. I don't think that it didn't pan out. We benefitted significantly from them over the years. Chairman Deane So if they reached a maximum of what they could do with two people - the Director's position has been eliminated and the other person the Operations Analyst has been removed to Financial Services. Now that one position can handle the peak of what was obtained. Mayor Lozeau That's probably not a fair description of it. What I'm saying is that person is somebody that performed work not only for all the departments that I talked about that CitiStat has with over the years but also has been working a lot with Financial Services doing analysis as it relates to budget, contracts, and other things like that. It was something that was missing from Financial Services to have somebody provide that extra help to do these analyses. So it made sense to keep that position and not only keep it but add to it because it related to some of the capital asset work and as it relates to confidential negotiations with the unions in doing an analysis on costs related to that. So it was requested of the CFO and the Treasurer for us to consider having that position move into Financial Services. Chairman Deane So that's the Operation Analyst. So what about the Director. Mayor Lozeau The Director is leaving Alderman Deane. I don't know how many ways I can explain that. Chairman Deane You're explaining the way the department would function. So this Operation Analyst was the one that was doing most of the work for Mr. Griffin through is request? Mayor Lozeau No and I'm not going to mitigate the work that Director did. Chairman Deane I'm not asking... Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 16 Mayor Lozeau This person worked at the direction of the CitiStat Director doing analyses on different things. Based on the level of work that they did, CitiStat worked with Financial Services to determine analyses. The analysis is only as good as the person who can interpret what has been analyzed. A data analyst this Operation Analyst does not then tell you what the analysis shows. They simply collect the data and put it in a format that somebody else can then interpret what it means to them. So the CitiStat Director had this person collect information based on her direction of the analysis she wanted to have done. So that happened in DPW. It happened in lots of different departments within the city. Often times that work was changed, or modified, or added to based on that direction. This is not a person that can work independent. This is a person that has been performing tasks that have been determined to be something that we could keep and benefit from in Financial Services. Chairman Deane The one person... Mayor Lozeau In this instance, yes. Chairman Deane Any other questions of Financial Services? David Fredette Mr. Chairman I will say that this past year I've had the assistance of that person CERF and some bond planning. Its help me tremendously. It really has. That CERF schedule if you look at it is very complicated. There's a lot of work to it. This past year we met with all the departments and made some changes. We're going to do the same thing in the next few months again. The spreadsheets aren't exactly perfect. There's a few little problems here and there but hopefully this year we'll get it perfect. He's been a tremendous help to me anyways in those areas. I hope to use him a lot more in FY15. Chairman Deane Mayor while Mr. Fredette is here do you want to go through bonded debt while he's here? Mayor Lozeau That would be great. Chairman Deane Do you want to do that? Can you do that? David Fredette Yes Mr. Chairman. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 17 Chairman Deane Does anyone have an objection to it? David Fredette The handouts we had from the meeting in April I'm not sure if you... Chairman Deane We all still have them. They're still in front of us. David Fredette As you remember in April, we had our presentation upstairs on the bond plan. What we try to do every year is based on approved resolutions or resolutions that we believe are going to be coming forward try to plan what we're going to sell so that we can keep the bond budget increase at a very reasonable rate. I think this year it's a one percent increase. We did sell that bond that we discussed in April and May. I believe you all got information on that. We got a very good rate just under 3 percent. We've had 3 years under 3 percent. I think this year was the last. This year was 2.96 and the rates are going up. They have been going up for the past year slowly. I think they're going to continue going up. Not a lot but they're going to continue gradually increasing. Of course it's hard to tell exactly. As I had mentioned in the plan this year, the majority of the bond was for Broad Street Parkway and next year will be similar. We'll have the last of that. Depending on what happens with the Broad Street Parkway's budget, we'll only sell what we believe we'll need. It looks like we won't have to sell everything that has been approved to sell. We sold more money for enterprise resources planning and another million for communications, and the school enhancement bond that was approved last year and that was done in May as I said. Next year we plan to sell the Broad Street Parkway, the last of the enterprise resource planning along with some school projects and some CERF items. One of them I think was you had a public hearing on a week or two ago on a fire aerial truck. The whole idea of this is we're trying to plan the sales so the budget is kept at a minimum given all the other constraints on the city's budget. We're trying to keep this as flat as possible. Alderman Siegel Just one question. I appreciate this is a difficult job. On page 193 in going through all the various bond rates - okay, okay, okay and then there's that one that sticks out which is the refunding high school construction which is 4.923 percent. That's a 20.84 initial offering that I don't know where we're at with that one. It's quite a lot higher than the other ones. I don't know if that's a (inaudible) issue or if that's something we can look at refinancing or if it's not worth it. That one just jumped out at me. Both the rate and the amount. Is that something we can take a look at or is there constraints on what we can do with them? David Fredette Yeah I can get you an answer on that. Alderman Siegel Okay thanks. That's a big number. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 18 David Fredette Yeah I can get you an answer. I don't know the answer tonight but I can get you an answer on that one. Alderman Siegel Okay thank you. Chairman Deane Purchasing. Mr. Griffin are you going to fill in for Mr. Gabriel who has since retired. Their appropriations start on page 96. Their revenue stream is on page 36 in the yellow pages. John Griffin This particular department has 3 remaining individuals all UAW. The budget is pretty consistent with prior years. Mr. Gabriel generally used a 5 year average. The change in the wages full time would be as we just talked about putting in an $83,000 number in the budgetary number in the Purchasing Manager payroll line. Chairman Deane What's the current salary? John Griffin Look at the smaller book. Chairman Deane That's what I'm looking at here. I saw a 50 in here somewhere. Purchasing Manager $83,000. That's the new number? It's on page 7 of 37 in the little blue book that I got. So that salary is being ramped up $13,000? John Griffin So the FY14 number of $70,938 would have increased approximately 3 percent into FY15. So that budgetary number there is the no to exceed. We had prepared this prior to the advertisement but the advertisement is $82,118 not to exceed. One other point that's pretty easy to explain in this group is you'll see there's no increase in the 3 union positions. That's because the estimated increase is in contingency for negotiation. It's part of that $1.3 million in the department 194 - contingency for negotiations. Alderman Siegel Thank you Mr. Chair. Have we considered offering Mr. Gabriel his job back at the new salary? John Griffin He was pretty firm on his intentions to me about retiring. I actually texted him today and he's enjoying his retirement at this point. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 19 Alderman Siegel If you're watching Bob, that was for you. Thank you. Chairman Deane Any other questions on Purchasing? Alderman Schoneman I have a question about advertising on page 96 the budgeted amount for 2014 is $52,000. The actual is $17,600 and there's a bunch of 49. What is that for and why the budget if we're not spending that much? John Griffin For as long as I can recall, general advertising was placed by the Purchasing Department. One of the Purchasing Agents places the advertisements with The Telegraph and the Union Leader. This number has been consistently dropping over time. I think it might have been like $69,000 when I first started and its dropping. It is to recruit. It is to place ads and recruit new hires used across the city. In addition, there's other smaller advertisements that are done. This is pretty much a placeholder that we've been comfortable with. Since I've been here, we've been dropping it. Alderman Schoneman So it's mostly for advertisements for recruiting purposes? John Griffin Right. Alderman Schoneman How else do we recruit besides advertising in the local papers? Mayor Lozeau I can tell you Mr. Chairman if I could, we find that we do relatively well in the papers but for a specific jobs like we weren't getting a lot of response to our ads for the Community Development Director. So advertising in the trade publications of people that have the credentials that we're interested in really showed a significant change in those that responded to positions. So a lot of times it depends on the position. When we were recruiting for IT, we got some folks from that newspaper but again when we advertised in the trade publications for IT Directors, it was a different group of people. Depending on what you're doing, we advertised in the newspaper and on line for the Purchasing Manager. We're doing pretty well with responses to those ads. I think it just depends on the position. Alderman Schoneman Where do we advertise on line? Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 20 Mayor Lozeau Monster.com is usually part of our advertisement, and then we do NH Jobs as well sometimes, and wherever else might make sense depending on what the position is. Alderman Schoneman So we don't anticipate actually spending the 49 most likely? Mayor Lozeau We've been seeing that come down over the years. It also pays for some of the advertisement I believe that goes into the newspaper for bids, and other things as well, and public notices that have to be posted also come out of there. So depending on how much of that is going on. Alderman Soucy Just to be clear because I am fairly new to the budget, if we don't spend all the money in that line item does that money move to another line item that's needed or is it moved to surplus? How does that work? John Griffin Since I've been here, that line has never been moved to any other line. It could be if needed but it's never been needed. Surplus is sort of a good thing here in the city. For those new aldermen, we've appropriated $4.3 million of surplus to buy down the tax rate and every 1.8 million is equal to 1 percent on the tax rate. Surplus is a good thing. That's why we conservatively budget revenues. Revenues exceeding budgeted revenues is surplus. Unspent appropriations is an important number as well. When the rating agencies look at us, the first question is how did you make out in FY13? How are you tracking in FY14 and if we were saying we budgeted every single expenditure or appropriation to the penny, they would be as concerned as I would be. You try to be a little bit sensible in some of these items that you know if things go well, you can actually have surplus. If that was a position, that was a $49,000 position unless you have that position vacant you don't have any surplus. It's kind of a strategy of budgeting conservatively on the revenue side. I wouldn't say it's aggressive, I'd just say it's more sensible to have some type of surplus coming in and not spending every last appropriation. Alderman Soucy Right and I'm in agreement 2,000 over 3,000 over but it seems kind of a big number - 27,000 over it just seems like a big number and we could have reduced that number. That's me. Chairman Deane We still can later on if you'd like. The advertisement for the Purchasing Manager's position as well as a Transit Manager, has the Transit position been advertised yet? Mayor Lozeau No it has not because we're determining the final salary. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 21 Chairman Deane Who's charged with hiring Transit, you are? Mayor Lozeau No Community Development Director. Chairman Deane Okay. So what publication would I find the Purchasing Manager's position advertised in currently? John Griffin It was in the Telegraph several weeks ago as well as the Union Leader. Chairman Deane Well outside of the... John Griffin MMA - Massachusetts Municipal Association and the New Hampshire Municipal Association. Chairman Deane Was it on Monster.com? John Griffin With the Telegraph, you get the 30 days of Monster. Chairman Deane So anything you put in the Telegraph you get Monster.com for 30 whole days? John Griffin Correct. Chairman Deane And when was the position advertised? John Griffin May 20th is the predominant date that I have in my head. Alderman Siegel I just want to note that Alderman Sheehan has joined us at 8:34 p.m. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 22 Chairman Deane Any other questions of Purchasing? Page 94 building maintenance. I think we kind of got a pretty good overview. Jay Hunnewell We have no revenue Alderman Deane. Our services are valued but unfortunately we do not have any revenue in... Chairman Deane Who gets all the money out of the soda machine down in the basement. Where does that all go? Are there any questions of Mr. Hunnewell? Alderman Schoneman I have a question about electricity on page 94. It was 108 budgeted, 696 spent, and 98. That sounds like it's tracking downward. Electricity for most folks seem to be going up. How do you wind up with electricity coming down or is it just a number that was helping to develop a surplus like... Jay Hunnewell No you are correct in the fact that the numbers are trending down and that's a direct result of the HVAC replacement project that was done in FY11 and also the roof replacement that was part of that project. So we're using a lot less electricity to run the HVAC mechanical equipment at City Hall. Alderman Schoneman Great. Thanks. Chairman Deane Any other questions of Mr. Hunnewell? See you later Jay. Thank you.Assessing and overlay start on revenues are on 37 and the appropriations are on page 99. Does anyone have any questions of Mr. Marino? Alderman Siegel Thank you Mr. Chair. Just a quick one. On page 99 the 153628 line of contract services. It's gone now. What was that previously? Angelo Marino That's maintenance for the appraisal software that we utilize and it's been moved to IT's budget. Chairman Deane Do you have any open positions right now or are they all filled? Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 23 Angelo Marino No they're all filled. Chairman Deane Do you want to do GIS while you're here? Angelo Marino Yes Sir. Chairman Deane Does anyone have any questions of this large operating budget of $138,000? Alderman Siegel I have no questions on any of the line items but I would like to state publicly I think you guys do a phenomenal job. It's amazing actually. That's good bang for the buck. Thank you. Alderman Schoneman I do have a question the 53500 aerial imagery services. I think you mentioned earlier you're going to be contracting for some imagery again. How often do we do that? I see $18,000 last year and nothing was spent and now $24,000 this year. How often do we do that? Angelo Marino We do it every two years. We're on a schedule. We have a 6 year contract with pictometry subject to non appropriations. It's every two years is the flight schedule and that will happen in the spring of 2015. Mayor Lozeau Excuse me. Could you let Alderman Schoneman - I don't think you made it clear that the 18 will be spent. Angelo Marino Yes actually the POs are in the works right now. We get a bill for the flight as well as the second year there's a bill. The POs are in the works right now currently. I finally got the invoice for this current year for the image contract. Alderman Siegel So they just hadn't spent anything up until April 30th. So they fly over the whole city and basically map the whole city - image the whole city. Angelo Marino They image the whole city. They don't map the whole city. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 24 Chairman Deane Any other questions of Mr. Marino? Thank you. Next up Hunt Building and the Library. Would the Directors of the two facilities along with the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Library please come up and join us. You can sit right over here. The Hunt Building is a revenue account and that starts on page 225. Public Library Hunt Building Public Library Kathy Smith My name is Kathy Smith. My address is 38 Watersedge Drive in Nashua. I joined the city and work for the Hunt in December and I love it there. It's a treasure here in Nashua on north Main Street, the old library. As you probably know, the building was renovated in 2011. We have 6 office spaces which are currently rented out. We are available for private rental. My goal as a part time employee is to maintain the building, be the administrator of the building, and also mark the building so we increase the revenue because the goal is to be self-sustaining. Chairman Deane How is the building doing? Kathy Smith It's doing great. We're doing well. I think our goal was to have 10 rentals for this year and we have 9 paid rentals so far this year. We're doing pretty well. I think having the increased signage that we have on the street now... Chairman Deane The sign came out nice. Kathy Smith Yeah it looks beautiful. We've been doing a lot of internet marketing, our Facebook page is up and running. I think having presence on line is really important. Our advertising money doing expos - we're focusing on weddings, birthday parties, just trying to get the name out there. A lot of people in Nashua don't - citizens believe or not don't know what we do or aren't familiar with the building. It's kind of reaching to the community to make sure that people know that we are here and available to rent out, come in, and enjoy the space. Chairman Deane It looks like your fuel consumption has dropped as well which is a good thing. Alderman Wilshire I had a question about what's going outside of the Hunt Building right now with the yellow scaffolding. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 25 Kathy Smith They're doing some masonry work. Nothing major. No major issues just kind of doing some - it should be wrapping up any time. Chairman Deane Did they forget how to get back up there? It's been up there for quite some time. I haven't seen... Kathy Smith They were finishing up some last minute projects but I think they've been on and off site. It's just a matter of the staging coming down now. Chairman Deane I have a picture of the Hunt Building totally surrounded with pipe staging at all different angles. I sent it to Joy Barrett. I have those pictures somewhere. I can e-mail them to you. They're pretty neat looking back in the original days. The meals function for 2000 is a new line. Can you explain that? Kathy Smith This past year we had our first festival of trees. I don't know if anyone was familiar with it where we had community business donate trees and we had a gala event. People would come in and purchase tickets to come in and bid on the trees and auction to raise money for our Restore the Doors Fund which we're hoping to restore the original doors to the building. The line item would be to cover events like that - catering for an event like that. Jennifer Hinderer I think the board and the administrator together we have plans for some other collaborative events with Great American Downtown that would require catering, coffee, and dessert or pizzas. Chairman Deane Okay. Good luck with that in your fundraising efforts. Alderman Sheehan I've been to a few events and I think it's a great venue. I've had an event there myself. I think the more people that attend events become more aware that it is a space that's available for that. I encourage people if they haven't been to one if you see on is there, stop in. It's a really nice space. There are two spaces that are open for tenants I assume and not for this rental. Could you describe the spaces and just how much they are each month if somebody watching wants one? Kathy Smith Our office 6, which is the top level of the building it has a lovely - there's skylights and it has a view of the clocktower and the original glass floor to the building which was blacked out. A lot of people don't know this for potential air raids during the war. It's kind of unique. The space is very unique and that rents out for $420 a month. It's approximately 438 square feet and then the second space is on the Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 26 lower level near Great American Downtown office. It rents out for $500 a month. It does have some natural light and it's more of a rectangular space. So not as unique as the other space but. Chairman Deane Have you been up in the tower to see the clockwork. It's pretty neat. Kathy Smith I have. It's very neat. Chairman Deane It's unbelievable how well that works for its age. Kathy Smith Absolutely. There was a nice article - I don't know if anyone saw it in the Telegraph fairly recently about that. We also just did a Gate City Chronicles interview about the Hunt too. If you get a chance to watch it. Chairman Deane I think Mr. Hunnewell has been up there with his oil can a few times. Kathy Smith Oh he has. Alderman Sheehan Just one more question. If you're using your meals and functions for fundraising is this a fund you plan on replenishing from the proceeds of your fundraiser or is this something you just intend to spend? Jennifer Hinderer That budget line is actually out of the facilities rental and private event fund. So it will replenish itself. Chairman Deane It's a special revenue fund so the revenue that's derived covers the cost of the electricity, the gas, and all that other... Kathy Smith It's not from the general fund. Chairman Deane We changed that a couple of years ago I think. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 27 Alderman Sheehan I just meant is itself replenishing so once they have an event say to restore the doors, are you taking say you spent $500 on the event would you be replenishing that account? Chairman Deane That building is all about revenue now through the rent. There's no general fund appropriation so the revenue that's generated through the fees, and rents, and rentals they have along with the office space they have goes into a special revenue account and funds - that will just be replenished back in. Alderman Sheehan Thank you. Chairman Deane Any other questions on the Hunt? Alderman Dowd I'm just curious. At one point we were looking at handicapped access to that building. Did that just get put by the wayside? Kathy Smith No it is handicapped accessible. We have a handicapped restroom because we do have an elevator in the building now. Alderman Sheehan That reminds me. I had suggested that we look at putting in a wireless doorbell because the handicapped door is locked. So if someone is not there when you're knocking... Kathy Smith We keep all the doors locked during the day just because we do have tenants in the building but people believe it or not will wander in off the street. Chairman Deane Just like the other library. Alderman Sheehan Out there you can't hear so a wireless doorbell for like $40 from Home Depot... Kathy Smith No we don't currently have one no. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 28 Alderman Sheehan So if you're in a wheelchair to go around again to the front and you can't get to the glass where you can knock and people can hear you as well. That might be a worthwhile investment. Somebody reminded me of that with the wheelchair access. Thank you. Chairman Deane You know Mr. Hunnewell's number. Just call him and run that by him. I'm sure he'll give you a hand. Any other questions of the Hunt? Thank you for the service you provide and taking care of the building. Kathy Smith Thank you. Chairman Deane Public Library starts on page 50 is revenue, 164 is your appropriations. Director do you want to give us an overview? Feel free. Jen Hinderer So for those of you who haven't met me yet, my name is Jen Hinderer. I'm in the middle of my fifth year as Director at the Library. I'm having a great time and I'm happy to be back here. Arthur Barrett is with me. He's the Chairman of our Board of Trustees. My Assistant Director Jen Hausking would normally have been but she's happily on maternity leave for another few weeks. She and Nicholas are hopefully watching from home. Some of you use the library and most of you know us as the place that loans Nashua citizens books and materials. In fact we still do that. In the first 9 months of this fiscal year, we've circulated a little over 458,000 items to 68,000 cardholders. We feel pretty good about that. The circulation of hard items, or print items, and media items is definitely declining. Probably 6 or 7 percent this year over last year. The circulation of our digital items is EBooks and downloadable audio books continue to increase. I think it's up about 20 percent to a comparative point last year. We're the biggest EBook user in the State. So all the libraries in the State belong to a consortium. We are the biggest users even though we are not the biggest library. Big rivalry with Manchester there. Along with the circulation and materials, we continue to do a number of things to promote literacy at all ages starting with our story times and baby times. People don't always think about story times as pre-literacy activities but they are. Children's librarians are actually literally a child's first teacher. We also now have summer reading programs for all ages. So the whole family can do a summer reading program at the library and we have activities throughout the year as well. So that's sort of our most visible function and our most traditional one and the one most people think of when they think of the library. An equally important and more quickly growing part of our business is all the other stuff that we do for the community. The way we support learners of all ages, provide meeting space for community groups, we have computer classes. So far this fiscal year more than 500 people have taken our computer classes and in fact, we have a number of staff from other city departments that are signing up and taking them as well. I'm cooperating with Bruce in the IT Department to promote our classes and our materials. It's a good way that our two departments work together. His department supports our network and we support them by training city employees. We also I think people may not know quite how busy we are this way. We provide free cultural programming and events for anybody in the city regardless of their ability to pay since they're all free. Already this year over 3,500 people have attended our lectures and movies, which is really fantastic. A real popular one was we had one on the history of Irish immigrants in March. We had a local history fair. Those of you who are maybe haven't been yet; you should try to come to one of Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 29 our concert series this summer - box lunch if you can get away from 12 to 1 on Wednesdays. That's classical music concerts. On Thursday evenings we have concerts on the Plaza. Outdoor concerts which are a little more family friendly. Kids can run around. I know the Economic Development Director is working on getting some food trucks up from Boston for the summer. I'm lobbying to have those near the Library Plaza on Thursdays for our concerts. So that could be exciting. Chairman Deane I'll let the Health Department know when they come up. We have any imported bacteria count. Jen Hinderer So that's sort of a high level of what we do. People frequently say who uses the library are people still coming in they can get everything on line. Over 100,000 people have already used our computers this year and we have on average 1,000 to 1,200 a day come to the library. When we're open on Sundays, Sundays are actually our busiest day per hour until it gets warm out and then no one comes. So we close on Sundays. During 2014, we took a number of initiatives. I rearranged the staff not a great deal but we had a bunch of retirements and changed some duties. We have a new Electronic Resources Librarian who's focusing purely on our digital resources. She works part time at the Reference Desk and selects databases and other digital resources that are helpful for customers. Some of you who were here a couple of years ago will recall that we eliminated a part time security guard position. We've had to add that back in. The decline in circulation of physical items means we could eliminate a part time Library Assistant position. So we were able to do that without any additional cost. We've made significant improvements to the theater, including new seating and a new screen. We rearranged the way we have our public computers that are all in one area. We expanded and improved our Wi-Fi access thanks to Comcast. We're implementing the use of I Pads and tablets in a bunch of different areas in the library. In 2015 we have some bigger plans for the building. We're renovating the east wing. The Chandler building finally sold and we have some other monies. So we'll add - there will be 3 brand new meeting rooms and 2 small study rooms, and a great deal of seating area for people to work collaboratively or alone, replace the carpeting in the Children's Room, and another main focus will be increasing our digital collections, a different EBook service, maybe digital magazines, and we're still exploring a good business model for streaming video and music for customers. There's not yet a good one for libraries that doesn't involve $4 per download, which that's not a sustainable business model. One challenge we're facing is with the decline in circulation of print items, there's a significant decline in fine revenues. Our fine revenues are down about 30 percent from FY12. Good news for our customers, more change in their pockets. So you'll see in my budget proposal there were a number of costs that we shifted that were normally paid out of fines like the discovery layer for our catalog that we're shifting into the general fund. The fines budget won't sustain that continuously. That's the end of my introduction. Alderman Soucy Thank you Mr. Chair. Page 165 under the supplies and materials. I'm looking under your supplies. You had budgeted $19,000 and it looks to me like you're coming under budget this year which is good. Why are we adding $4,000 to that line item? Jen Hinderer We are working on a new logo and new website. So those extra monies will be spent on new stationery, library cards, and other things once the new logo is launched. Hopefully some time before the end of this fiscal year. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 30 Alderman Soucy Are we using our dare to begin logo? If I may continue though Mr. Chairman. Chairman Deane Yes please. Alderman Soucy Again technology operations we have $15,000 budgeted. We're around $10,000 and yet we're looking at a $12,000 bump. What's driving that? Jen Hinderer Well so it looks under spent because of the time in the fiscal year when that column was generated so we are much more fully spent than that. We're making two changes in that line. We're adding the funding for the discovery layer. When you go to the library catalog, the discovery layer is bit that lets you read reviews, comment on it, add tags, and it lets you search all of our databases as well as our catalog. Those costs were normally funded through fines but we can't afford that for this year. Let me just get to that so I can look at my other note about that. This is not in technology and operations and subscriptions, we're eliminating the funding for brain fuse which is our online homework help. Chairman Deane That went away right? Jen Hinderer It will go away at the end of this fiscal year yes. Alderman Soucy Last this one I don't get - hardware maintenance last year 2014 budget of $38,000 and she only spent $155 and we're looking to moving that budget up to $42,000. Jen Hinderer So hardware maintenance, that's a misleading title. That's actually the software maintenance for our integrated library system which does all of our catalog and all of our circulation. That normally would get paid in July or August. I am in a dispute with that company over some of the services they're billing us for. That bill hasn't been paid yet. Alderman Soucy What is that bill expected to be? Jen Hinderer That bill should have been around $38,000. There's an additional $3,800 or $4,000 that we pay to them for our self check systems and additional content that we've been paying for out of fines in the past but Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 31 I'm trying to shift that to the general fund. So I expect that $42,000 is honestly what I expect the bill to be in the next fiscal year. Alderman Wilshire Thank you. The library is a very hot topic in my house. I have a 4 year old that loves Thursday night story times. Thank you for that. A very good service you provide there. Do you apply or get any kind of E-rate funding? Jen Hinderer We do not no. Alderman Wilshire Why not? Jen Hinderer It's an extremely complicated process for very, very little benefit. I'm not sure - quite frankly I haven't even looked at it for 2 or 3 years. It comes with restrictions. It's not clear to me what the benefit would be. Alderman Wilshire I asked that because for those of you who that aren't familiar with E-rate, it is a federal program that takes the FCC charge off of your landline, your cell phone, pools this money - I want to say about $5 billion a year. It's a competitive grant and I know that the Children's Home because we have a school is eligible. I agree 100 percent with you. It's a complex process. Very complex. In fact I had to outsource and it's just very complex. I know the School Department does get E-rate funding. Jen Hinderer At a previous library I worked at, we went through the process one year and we got less than $2,000 back for the year. Chairman Deane 2,000 man hours and you got $2,000 check. Alderman Wilshire It is a very complex program. I tried to... Chairman Deane Why do they do that? They don't have any trouble taking your money, and your landline, and your cell phone bill. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 32 Alderman Wilshire It is a complex process. I couldn't do it myself. I tried the first year, the second year, and then I decided if we outsource this we'll be better off. We did but I didn't know if... Jen Hinderer It's also not clear to me because of the way our access comes through the city itself. I think that would add even another layer of complexity. Alderman Wilshire Well I know they fund schools and libraries and I know that the School Department does get E-rate funding. Where I work, we get 90 percent discount on our cell phones, our landlines, and our internet. So for us it's worthwhile because we're at the highest level of reimbursement. I don't know about libraries where they fall in that... Jen Hinderer Our internet and phone lines actually come from the city's IT Department besides our cell phones. Alderman Wilshire I'm just curious. Thank you. You do good work over there by the way. Thank you. Alderman Dowd I know the School Department it's a lot of work to get the money they get. Books and books of paperwork that they have to submit. The question I have is in the library building itself is becoming more and more visible now that whole dam area has been cleaned up and everything. Is there any thought given to cleaning the outside of the building? Jen Hinderer We think about it every day Alderman Dowd. I had Nick Caggiano from Parks and Rec. down last year to look at our graffiti issue. I think we need to relook at that this year is what we tried was not successful. We also had Parks and Rec. came and took a number of trees - trimmed a number of trees away from the building. We actually took down a tree and now that's exposed. We've yield some other - it made clean spots. That's one of many, many projects that we have on the docket for this summer. Alderman Dowd Is there any way you can get special funding for that or special allocation? Jen Hinderer I'm not sure. Part of is not the cost so much as we're not able to find a product that will sufficiently remove the graffiti. The porous nature of whatever concrete they used, we have not been successful. I think that's the next option. Nick last year discouraged me from doing it and we tried some of the products that Park and Rec. use. It's still there. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 33 Chairman Deane They have some lighter product they can use to probably not... Jen Hinderer Hopefully it comes with Teflon coating afterwards. Alderman Dowd They have a product to clean just about anything. Alderman Schoneman I had one question on the budget then it's just a general question. The budget line it's not much money I'm just curious. On the bottom of page 164 it says vehicle repairs and maintenance. It's a small amount of money but what vehicles? Jen Hinderer We have our outreach van that we no longer drive and make deliveries in but we still maintain it. The staff uses it to drive to different schools or when they have something to do in the city. We also have an antique pickup truck with a plow on it that we use to plow the staff parking lot and the walkway to the library. Alderman Schoneman Where is the staff parking lot? Jen Hinderer It's at the end of Pearson Ave. So if you turn right at the Nashua Telegraph building, it's a dead end right at the dam. It's a beautiful spot. Alderman Schoneman So right below. The question I have about the parking lot, that large parking lot that's often full but now always. Do you have any sense of whether people are parking there to go to the library or what percent of people park there to go to the library and do you think that the parking rates that are charged there are somehow influencing people's using the library. Jen Hinderer No I don't think the parking rates changed it at all. Those people when it's full it's because they're at the library. Alderman Schoneman Okay great. Thanks. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 34 Alderman Siegel Thank you Mr. Chair. I love the library. Where else can you rent a telescope? Jen Hinderer Very good point. I forgot to bring that up. That's new this year. Alderman Siegel Also that you are the archival location for some of the city's older architectural drawings. My kids grew up through that. I love the microfiche. I wanted to ask you how the microfiche program is going because I know you have all the old Telegraphs on line. Jen Hinderer To be frank, it stalled so we have some quotes from vendors but we haven't moved forward on that. Alderman Siegel That's kind of scary because you wouldn't want to lose that stuff. Jen Hinderer We won't lose that. We need to get Jen back from maternity leave and that will hopefully carry on. Alderman Siegel Stalled but not for a bad reason. Okay. Thank you. A couple of questions. I noticed that there wasn't a line item on page 50 for a library fine revenue. I don't know maybe that's somewhere else. Jen Hinderer Our library fines, that's a special revenue fund actually. It shows up elsewhere. Alderman Siegel Page 164, I was curious. The overtime regular line 51300 fairly significant overtime. Was that to make up for staff outages or? Jen Hinderer Our overtime budget is primarily spent on our Sunday hours. Every Sunday that we're open costs approximately $1,300 and then add 3 percent for the staff increase. The other way we spend it is on plowing and storm cleanup. Our maintenance guy comes. Alderman Siegel Okay thank you very much. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 35 Alderman Sheehan Thank you. First I'll say I'm a big, big fan of the library. It's always a full parking lot and I think that goes because so many people are using it. The nice thing about the EBooks is we got one at the house and I don't prefer to read electronically I'd read paper but sometimes you have to. Like the dog eats the book report. You can download the replacement without having to run out on a Sunday night. The staff taught us how to do that and how to use the online resources up in Concord as well. The staff does a lot more than just the things you see or would normally be looking for there. One of the things that I've noticed and that broke my kids heart was what happened in the Children's Room with the I Pads. There's always some ongoing issues outside for various reasons. I'm wondering if you've given thought about perhaps beefing up external security imaging. Jen Hinderer We have and I think that will come along with the east wing expansion. We'll need to add security cameras in the new wing. At that same time, we'll need to replace our software and we'll add cameras at least 1 or 2 at the end of the building where the new stairway is and hopefully another one closer to the parking lot and the children's room side of the building. Alderman Sheehan I've memorized my library card. Are you going to make everybody get new library cards? Jen Hinderer You will not be forced to but they will be lovely and we will offer them to you for free if you would choose to get a new card. Alderman Sheehan I kind of like how old mine is. Jen Hinderer We have families that have asked for them. They have cards in sequential order for their kids and things. We'll do the best we can to help you. Alderman Sheehan I remember when they took the orange one away from me with the metal plate. I still wanted that one. Well keep up the good work and you might want to put in a plug for the One City One Book since that's been announced. Jen Hinderer The Art Forger is our book for this year. Of course the name of the author escapes me but they'll be visiting the library in October. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 36 Chairman Deane Any other questions of Director Hinderer? Thank you very much for coming in. Jim and Barrett thank you for all you've added this evening. A quiet guy you really are. Thanks for coming in. Keep up the good work over there. Water Supply – Public Hydrants Street Lighting Pensions Debt Service Miscellaneous Revenue OUTSTANDING DEPARTMENTAL REVIEWS FROM PREVIOUS MEETINGS May 19, 2014 Miscellaneous Revenue Surplus General Contingencies Contingency-Retirements Contingency Negotiations UNFINISHED BUSINESS – None NEW BUSINESS – None TABLED IN COMMITTEE R-14-033 Endorser: Mayor Donnalee Lozeau CREATING A SPECIAL REVENUE FUND FROM STATE HIGHWAY FUND BLOCK GRANTS AND A PORTION OF MOTOR VEHICLE PERMIT FEES FOR ROAD AND HIGHWAY EXPENDITURES  Tabled pending Public hearing scheduled 6/9/14 at 7 PM in the Aldermanic Chamber 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  Tabled pending Public hearing scheduled 6/16/14 at 7 PM at NHS-North Auditorium GENERAL DISCUSSION - None PUBLIC COMMENT - None REMARKS BY THE ALDERMEN Aldermen Siegel The gentleman who was here maybe at last week's Budget Committee he was talking about making announcement to the public that they can e-mail questions in. Budget Review – 06/09/14 Page 37 Chairman Deane Mr. Sullivan - I've got to get a copy of that. I just have to print it out. Alderman Siegel So there is a way on the website to take questions from the public. Thank you. POSSIBLE NON-PUBLIC SESSION - None ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN WILSHIRE TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared closed at 9:11 p.m. Alderman Ken Siegel Committee Clerk