Finance Committee

REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE JUNE 16, 2010 A meeting of the Finance Committee was held on Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. Mayor Donnalee Lozeau presided. Members of the Committee present: Mayor Lozeau Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane, Vice Chair Alderman-at-Large Ben Clemons Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly Alderman Kathy Vitale Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Alderman Paul M. Chasse, Jr. Also in Attendance: Daniel Cronin, Deputy Fire Chief, NFR Peter Cinfo, IT Manager/Network Administrator, NPD Karen Smith, Business Manager, NPD COMMUNICATIONS From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Camera Change Order #1 for Nashua Fire Rescue (Value: $13,000) Account: 532-64192-6701 Miscellaneous Equipment – NFR Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $5,030 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE CHANGE ORDER #1 TO THE CONTRACT WITH FIRE TECH & SAFETY OF NEW ENGLAND FOR A NET CHANGE IN THE AMOUNT OF $13,000. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS ACCT. #532-64192-6701 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Deane Are the members of the Nashua Fire Department here? Mayor Lozeau Yes. Alderman Deane Could you have him come up please? Mayor Lozeau Certainly. I would just let the committee know also that this is the third camera that we talked about when they were in September, October whenever it was. To bring them to three, they came in for two and we discussed a third, should they have the funds at the end of the year. I just wanted to make sure everybody knew that. Alderman Deane Where will this leave us for having the cameras available for the different... Finance – 06/16/10 Page 2 Daniel Cronin Our front line apparatus will have a camera and will have two of our older ones we will actually have as spears. They are older technology but they are still functional. But all of our front line apparatus will have a camera. Mayor Lozeau That means the three ladder trucks, the six engines, and one of the safety division. Alderman Deane And how many do we have in total, with the new and the old ones? Is that nine? Daniel Cronin It would be nine and we have one in the safety. Alderman Deane So that would be ten. Mayor Lozeau Six plus three plus one. Daniel Cronin The total would be eleven. Mayor Lozeau Where is the eleven? Daniel Cronin The deputy’s car also has one as a spear. When one of the units goes down, we loan it out to whatever company has lost theirs. Alderman Deane How many of them are the older technology? Out of the eleven. There is a total of eleven, there three new and eight old? Daniel Cronin There are eight old but out of those there is one that is a little newer technology. It is one that is in between units from the years when we bought them. Alderman Deane So basically we are looking at seven and four say? Finance – 06/16/10 Page 3 Daniel Cronin Correct. Alderman Deane Thank you. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Outside Legal Counsel for Abatement Appeal Requested by Assessing Department (Value: $15,000) Account: 595-22025-9900 Overlay Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $1,042,900 (Total) MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE THE CITY TO ENTER INTO THE CONTRACT WITH GARDNER, FULTON & WAUGH IN AN AMOUNT NOT-TO- EXCEED $15,000. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN ACCT. #595-22025-9900 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Pressly Madam Mayor, I would ask that the record show that I will be recusing myself since that is the medical service that I use. The Foundation Medical Partners. Alderman Deane This has to do with the fact that a property tax has been levied on Southern New Hampshire Medical Center? Mayor Lozeau This is an increase in their property tax levy from the prior year to this year. Alderman Deane And St. Joseph’s, how are they paying? Is it equal? Mayor Lozeau No it is not equal because it is based on the amount of property that they have. Alderman Deane Okay. But I mean was there any exemptions for one hospital that the other didn’t receive? Mayor Lozeau I wouldn’t say that there were exemptions that one had that they other didn’t receive. There were some concerns that the chief assessor had relative to exemptions that were allowed for some of the doctor offices at Foundation Medical Partners that on second look should not have been exempted. Finance – 06/16/10 Page 4 Alderman Deane So what did the chief assessor has done is added those to the bottom line. Mayor Lozeau That is correct. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Contract Award for Virtualization Project Requested by Nashua Police Department (Value: $82,960.13) Account: 531-64040-6609 Computer Software – NPD $12,441.90 Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $0 Account: 531-64045-6609 Computer Hardware – NPD $70,518.23 Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $0 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO CBE TECHNOLOGIES IN THE AMOUNT OF $82,960.13. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS ACCTS. #531- 64040-6609 ($12,441.90) AND 531-64045-6609 ($70,518.23) ON THE QUESTION Alderman Deane I had a question for the police department, IT Director. My question pertains to the background in the first paragraph. It states that what this would mean to the police department is that it could consolidate into less equipment thus regarding fixed overhead costs as well as reduce future purchase needs as it pertains to service. Are they part of ERP? Mayor Lozeau Yes. Alderman Deane Do they have to have isolated service from the rest of the city because of their type of work they do? Mayor Lozeau No. This is not necessarily connected to ERP. I know virtualization sounds very new Alderman Deane but it is something that we at city hall have been doing quite awhile now it is just something new to the police. Its capacity will help. Alderman Deane Okay, so there is no part of the ERP bond has anything to do with service for the police department or future purchasing needs as it pertains to servers? Mayor Lozeau Not as it pertains to servers. No. Finance – 06/16/10 Page 5 Alderman Deane Is this consistent with ERP though? Has it been purged out as part of the big picture? Are we moving ahead with something that will be obsolete when we spend the rest of the seven plus million dollars? Mayor Lozeau As a matter of fact, we have done a really great job with IT working with Mr. Cinfo and other departments about both hardware and software needs. Mr. Barker as part of this has participated in it from beginning to end and recommends and supports this request by the police department. Peter Cinfo This is going to take care of other servers that we have available at the departments specifically dispatching, the message switch that connects our mobiles out on the cruisers, record management. So these are all the unique servers to NPD as it pertains or divided from the city. Mayor Lozeau One of the ways, Alderman Deane that Mr. Barker explained it to me so I could wrap my brain around it. Was that for five or six years now, city hall has been taking this approach to their servers. We have twelve servers here now at city hall. If we wouldn’t have this approach based on what we support here we would have fifty servers. When I understood that, it was easier for me to understand what the police are doing and what capacity that might give us right now and moving forward. Alderman Deane How much of this purchase is software and how much of it is hardware? Peter Cinfo It is broken down. It is actually three parts if you wanted to break it down. There is $19,000 for installation, consulting, planning from CBE and then Mayor Lozeau There is over $12,000.00 in software. $70,000.00 in hardware. Alderman Deane $12,000.00 in software Mayor Lozeau $12,400.00 in software. Alderman Deane . . . .And $70,000.00 Mayor Lozeau In hardware. Finance – 06/16/10 Page 6 Alderman Deane Were there any transfers into these accounts from other accounts to cover the cost? Mayor Lozeau I’m looking back at Mrs. Smith. I know that it was a planned expense. Peter Cinfo That’s right. Mayor Lozeau Mrs. Smith, I will recognize you so you do not have to say your name. Karen Smith There was a small transfer from our 45125 account which is just a data processing account. Alderman Deane 45125 is your data processing account? Karen Smith Yes. Alderman Deane How much was the total transfer and which of the 64 accounts did it go into? Karen Smith $2,428.00. I have it in the 64045 account. Alderman Deane Thank you. Alderman Pressly I would just like to take note since its near the end of the fiscal year that both of these accounts are down to zero and its either a case of extraordinarily accurate budgeting but how they came down to the penny, I think is interesting to note. Mayor Lozeau You are welcome. This was a planned expense, Alderman Pressly. So they budgeted accordingly knowing they were going to purchase this. Alderman Pressly So I find it interesting that the winners are down to .90 cents and .23 cents. I mean it is really cutting it right down to the nub. Finance – 06/16/10 Page 7 Mayor Lozeau Mrs. Smith if you would like to respond to that, based on your transfer. Karen Smith Exactly. That is what we had to transfer the $2,000.00. We negotiated and Mr. Cinfo did a good job of working with the vendor. To get them to come down, they were much higher and we were able to get them to come down without sacrificing what we needed but we were within $2,500.00 of what we wanted to purchase and I had to transfer from that other account to make up the difference. Alderman Pressly Thank you. I just find it interesting and wanted to comment. That is the only department I have noticed that way. Mayor Lozeau Oh, you will notice it more. MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Contract Award for Communications Cabling (Value: $121,412) Account: 722-31070-3735 Voice & Data – City-Wide ERP System Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $6,092,480 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO WAVEGUIDE IN THE AMOUNT OF $121,412. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN ACCT. #722-31070-3735 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Deane Where is all of the cabling being done? Mayor Lozeau Cabling is being done throughout the city in different locations and where we don’t have cabling now. As you know the fiber optic cabling that has been around I think they started in 2000. There were some areas that were not completed and this completes it. I didn’t bring in a map but it picks up some of the different buildings that have not been on the fiber optics and it picks up some of the schools as well along the way. It doesn’t do everything, for instance the Hunt Building won’t be included in this round but this pretty much takes care of the majority of the necessary communications and connections for ERP. The cabling piece. Alderman Deane The last cabling that we did was from I believe Lake Street Fire House down South Main Street, and then down DW Highway to Spit Brook Road I believe. I think that was the last cabling that we did. And then we picked up the elementary school on the way down South Main. I know we picked up all the traffic signals going down DW Highway because we had to come back up to the Toyota dealership to pick that one up. I think we had to go back that way and then we headed down. So when you look at the fire alarm? What is that for? Finance – 06/16/10 Page 8 Mayor Lozeau This is going to benefit more than just ERP. It is also going to benefit police, fire, emergency, some of the the other emergency systems that are in place. I can tell you that the map that you looked at when you approved the cabling that happened on Lake Street, the one you just described? Alderman Deane That was a couple of years ago though, that’s not imbedded in my mind. I mean I kind of remember where it was but, when you look at the project segment cost, and its got it all listed, there are five areas where there is a fire alarm I’m just wondering what is going to be hit with those, what items or structures are going to be hit with . . .are they all city structures? I would take it? Mayor Lozeau Right, those are all city buildings. Alderman Deane But we don’t know which ones they are? Mayor Lozeau They are all of them with exception of the small ones like I said, Hunt and not all the schools are necessarily picked up in this one. Alderman Deane So where is this going? Up Amherst street? Mayor Lozeau Wherever they left off in the map. Alderman Deane Well, I think they left off, I know there was a piece of fiber that ran through Mine Falls Park from school to school, they put in probably back in 2003. Because the fiber was down I believe at South High School or where the police station was to public works and I think it ran back up in to the city. That was the Amherst street area, out and up and I wonder if this goes to the Airport? Mayor Lozeau I can tell you Alderman Deane that one of the things that we try to do is the new traffic signals that we are talking about. Through the CMAC grant, we are trying to replicate the same system that we have on Daniel Webster Highway. We tried to have these two projects kind of ride together so that we could pick up some of the C-MAC Dollars to cable what we needed we would, if we couldn’t we could pick some up in this project. We weren’t able to pick up as much as we like because that design work isn’t necessarily completed. So, the best I can offer for you is that it takes care of all the city buildings that ERP needs to have communications and connections too. I would say that with exception of smaller buildings. Finance – 06/16/10 Page 9 Alderman Deane So when you look at the total project cost on the summary sheet, you have a total of almost a quarter of a million dollars to install the fiber and another $9,000.00 for fire alarm and the contract has being approved for $121,000.00 which is a little less than half of what is on the summary sheet so these segments are not all being completed then I take it. When you look at segment number nine that is a $104,000.00. So some of these segments are not being done this must have been the total mapping but they are picking and choosing certain segments as they pertain to the ERP plan? Mayor Lozeau Right. Alderman Deane And we don’t know which ones they are? Mayor Lozeau No. I know when I looked at the map. And Mr. Barker came in and presented it to me but I didn’t bring the map to the finance committee. Alderman Deane So the price includes additional GIS mapping including starting at end points, fiber count, length of fiber runs, slack points, splice points. Mayor Lozeau Further questions? Alderman Deane Well, I would just like to know where this stuff where went? Alderman Vitale Are these the locations on the last page? Alderman Deane No, its parks, MSW Conant Road Fire House, airport, that’s the ERP and emergency communication cable so that there was some of the emergency communication cable, I don’t know if it totaled they do have it in total. It goes up to twelve segments. But when you look at the total project cost on the bottom of the summary sheet, and you look at the total cost on the back of the RFP, not unless Mr. Barker beat them a hundred and something thousand dollars. Mayor Lozeau I think the sheet shows ones that have already been done. Alderman Deane Is that with the highlighted things mean? Finance – 06/16/10 Page 10 Mayor Lozeau On this sheet here. The prices on this last table I believe that those are some of the locations that are picked up along the path and then on the sheet where it has the emergency piece. Some of those have already been done and are not repeated. If you add across that 121 that wave guide quoted is the amount that this contract is for. Alderman Deane They are going to parks for $11,000, MSW (Municipal Solid Waste), and then they are going to hit the Conant Road Fire House. The airport fire station is already done or they took it out one or the other. Mt. Pleasant School, Main Dunstable School, Broad Street School, Birch Hill School, Charlotte Avenue is already done and they are going to drop a line at Holman Stadium. Alderman Pressly What happened to nine? Alderman Deane Number nine was the $104,000 cost that they took out altogether so that must be the one that goes all the way to the moon. Mayor Lozeau Mr. Barker is very careful, in negotiating. Alderman Deane He does an excellent job. I am not questioning his ability. I mean I think he does go the extra mile. This was confusing to look at because some of it was highlight and some of it was not, there was no definition of ... Mayor Lozeau And as I said, Alderman Deane the way that Mr. Barker and I discussed it was picking up all the things he needed in order to move forward with ERP. The majority of it. There maybe a couple of components here or there. Some of which we might come back with and some of which can be picked up in another manner. That was good enough for me. If you are interested in the map, to actually see what we have done and where we are headed? I would be happy to provide it to. Alderman Deane Yes. It is included in the price. So once its done we will get another updated mapping of, is that going to include the existing stuff that they have already done. Along with the new stuff and probably red lines are where what is left that has to be completed for the entire city. Thank you. MOTION CARRIED Finance – 06/16/10 Page 11 From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Contract Award for Server & Storage Network (Value: $127,550) Account: 722-64045-3735 Computer Equipment – City-Wide ERP System Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $5,964,930 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE SERVER CONTRACT TO DELL IN THE AMOUNT OF $23,232 AND THE VMWARE SOFTWARE, LICENSING AND STORAGE ARRAY CONTRACT TO TURBOTEK IN THE AMOUNT OF $104,318, FOR A TOTAL CONTRACT AWARD OF $127,550. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS ACCT. #722-64045-3735 ON THE QUESTION Alderman Deane Are you happy with their products Mayor? Mayor Lozeau So far we have had pretty good luck here with them. I like that they have a local location as well. Alderman Deane In Round Rock Texas? Mayor Lozeau No, their facility here on Exit 1, they bought Equalogic some time ago? And they are expanding quite a bit here in Nashua. Alderman Deane But the server contracts are awarded to Dell of Round Rock Texas. Mayor Lozeau That is their administrative headquarters. Is there further discussion on this item? MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Contract Award for Portable Toilets Requested by Park Recreation Department (Value: $11,589.67) Account: 552-66000-6911 Toilet Rentals – Park Recreation $10,939 Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $1,561 Account: 557-59100-6965 Toilet Rentals - Transit $659.64 Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $3,815 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO HANDY HOUSE IN THE AMOUNT OF $11,589.67. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN ACCTS. # 552-66000- 6911 ($10,939) AND 557-59100-6965 ($659.64) ON THE QUESTION Alderman Pressly On the first page, second paragraph down, it indicates only one unit is ADA compliant. Finance – 06/16/10 Page 12 Mayor Lozeau That is because that is Roby Park, which has an ADA playground area. Alderman Pressly Okay. So all of the others are not? Mayor Lozeau Correct. Is there further discussion? This is the first time this comes to Finance because usually the contract has been under $10,000, but this year I wanted to make sure that the transit one was included and we bid them together. Between that and the slight increase, that is what brought it here to Finance. Alderman Chasse Some of these are seasonal and some of them are yearly? Mayor Lozeau Correct. There are three year round locations; Roby Park because it is open during the winter, Holman Stadium because we have a staff member there and once the stadium is closed we shut off the water, and the last one is the Elm Street parking garage where we keep one year round. Is there further discussion? MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: FY10 Street Paving Program Change Order #1 (Value: $230,926) Account: 653-23 Capital Improvement – FY10 Street Paving Program $184,608 Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $77,276 Account: 792-59231-3744 Capital Improvement – Sewer Structures $24,114 Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $8,811 Account: 792-59231-3795 Capital Improvement – Sewer Rehab $22,204 Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $146,284 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE CHANGE ORDER #1 TO THE CONTRACT WITH SUNSHINE PAVING FOR A NET CHANGE IN THE AMOUNT OF $230,926. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS ACCTS. # 653-23 ($184,608), 792-59231-3744 ($24,114) AND 792- 59231-3795 ($22,204) ON THE QUESTION Mayor Lozeau For those of you that are interested, today was our first day of paving. Alderman Pressly I just have a question as part of my learning curve here. The rest of the messages and expenditures all come from capital improvements. How many capital improvement accounts do we have and is each project isolated as to what they are used for? Mayor Lozeau If you open your budget book around page I want to say 203, capital improvements we have a whole list. Paving you see is the first one here because capital improvements is what carries the paving line. The sewer structures and sewer rehab come into play sometimes because there are repairs and work that need Finance – 06/16/10 Page 13 to be done to those during the paving time. They come out of their own lines. But there are a significant amount of capital improvement lines that never get funded. This year we funded less than in the last two years. Alderman Pressly Each category gets a separate funding then? Mayor Lozeau Basically. Alderman Pressly Thank you. Mayor Lozeau You are welcome. Alderman Chasse How do the streets get on the list for being paved? Mayor Lozeau We have an analysis that is done through the engineering department for the pavement condition index, which you see on the chart for the streets and a benefit value analysis that is done. They go through a system and when their numbers get into the location where we should pay attention to them, they get on the paving list. There are some streets that wait a very long time. You will see there are a couple of streets on here under the FY11 streets; Pearson Street and Martin Street, and remember this is not the whole street, there are segments, but those are back from 2007. They found a sewer problem and by the time they got it fixed and that sort of thing and so they are back doing the final paving on it. They often times will clean up the prior year’s streets, but that is how they get on it. If there are streets that people are concerned about, we bring them to the attention of engineering and they put them through the process. Alderman Chasse I just put Lawndale Avenue on the list, and I was told next year because then went out and checked it out already. At the same time they do Lawndale, are they going to repair the sidewalks? Is it going to be one big complete project? The sidewalks over there need some attention also. Mayor Lozeau That depends. We often try to do them as a joint project, which you will see we are going to talk about Granite Street a little bit later. We try to do them sometimes when they are necessary as a joint project. It will depend on what we have in sidewalk money and what we have in paving money. Now if they told you that Lawndale is definitely going to be paved next year I would be surprised. Alderman Chasse Well they told me they went out, checked, and gave it a number 29. They said that will be on the list for next year. Finance – 06/16/10 Page 14 Mayor Lozeau Sometimes… Alderman Chasse I reported this back to the Crime Watch group. I was told… Mayor Lozeau I am just trying to explain to you because I don’t want you to be in a situation where maybe you told somebody. The list changes. Sometimes we end up in a circumstance where we have to reclaim a street and the cost of reclaiming a street will bump something off the list or they will go out and they will camera the street and find a sewer problem, and they are not going to do the paving until they fix the sewer problem. Alderman Chasse Oh that is it. I will go break a sewer and then they will fix it and pave it. Mayor Lozeau Alderman Chasse if you break a sewer, you will be fixing it and paving it thank you very much. That will be one less we have to worry about. I just want you to understand that when an Alderman or a citizen or anybody else, including the Mayor, brings a street to the attention of engineering, there is a list that they keep to go and look at and then they make projections sometimes on where it is going to land, but it doesn’t always happen in that order. There are things that sometimes can bump it. For instance, something happens and we have less paving dollars. I’m just preparing you. Alderman Chasse They shouldn’t have sent me that e-mail then. Mayor Lozeau Maybe they are right. I am just trying to explain to you… Alderman Chasse So it could get bumped. Mayor Lozeau I know they make their best efforts, but things happen sometimes. A sewer collapse can knock out a paving plan. It depends, and we try to be pretty flexible about what happens. We really, in this city based on we have 765 lane miles of streets so we should be putting just under $4 million each year in our paving budget. When I got here, we had been putting $700,000 in. My first year I put $1.7 million, the second $1.5 million, this year $1 million, and that killed me to go down that low. But we have had a really good experience with some of our dollars, and this new paver that we have hired this year came in at such a low price that is why we are picking up these other contingency streets and already doing something from the FY11 streets. I am hoping we have some of those same successes this year as well. Is there further discussion? Alderman Deane I wanted to credit the engineering department with the process they use for street paving because years ago it was helter skelter. Now they do a progressive failure report on the streets. They will go out, look at Finance – 06/16/10 Page 15 the street, look at the condition of it, and that delineates where it sits on the list and as it deteriorates. Before that, years ago, it was whichever Alderman screamed the most got the most asphalt in their ward. In the meantime, there were other streets, probably the one that you would like to have paved, that were just looked over, and they were paving streets that didn’t need to be paved. Now they have a process in place, they have taken the politics out of it hopefully, and it is left to the engineering department to decipher what is at the point of failure, what should be on the list, and how it is prioritized. That is the way it should be done. Personally, I think it has worked out very well. Granted everybody is not happy about it, but when you look at some of the streets, and we still have to go back and take into consideration that when the CSO mandate was driven down our throats by the Federal Government, the idea back then was we were going to separate everything and no money was put into street paving because it was going to be absorbed through that massive project that changed. All of the roads that were on a paving list or needed to be paved, that work was never done in most cases. Some of the separation has been done in areas for different reasons, but they wanted the entire city separated. The city back at the time took that into account and didn’t bother funding any street paving because why pave something when you are going to tear it all up. They did just emergency type of things. A lot of it was put on the back burner, which drove us. Now since the decree has changed it just put us further behind in what needs to be funded and what needs to be done every year along with the deterioration list. I am sure the engineering department would like that high number they have to be up to scale somewhat and address things before the streets get to catastrophic failure because it is a lot cheaper to do it that way than it is to mill something down and in some cases just totally remove everything because it is way beyond its life expectancy. Mayor Lozeau They have also, as part of the process that Alderman Deane just described, have really gone the extra mile now making sure that they aren’t ripping something up that they just paved because they didn’t look in the sewers and things like that so they are really being pretty comprehensive. We learned something from the work that we are doing on Riverside and West Hollis Street. Panther Drive was supposed to be reclaimed last year and redone, but because we were looking at the traffic studies and any changes we might make there, they ended up doing an overlay on Panther Drive. We are very surprised at how well the street is holding up because of that overlay. That is one of the things they are looking at; costs associated with that and are there some ways they can use that sometime just to get them through before it gets to catastrophic failure as Alderman Deane was pointing out. I think the process is a good one also. Is there further discussion on this item? MOTION CARRIED From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Sidewalk Program Phase I Change Order #2 (Value: $42,585) Account: 653-20 Capital Improvement – FY08 Sidewalk Program Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $1,428 MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE CHANGE ORDER #2 TO THE CONTRACT WITH MILL CITY CONTRACTING FOR A NET CHANGE IN THE AMOUNT OF $42,585. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN ACCT #653-20 ON THE QUESTION Mayor Lozeau Granite Street is the street that was non our paving list and it was one of the streets that, based on the new system, went out to the water company and the utility companies to see if there was any work that they needed to do on Granite Street, and that is the one that Pennichuck had to do a lot of work on and so Pennichuck took on the responsibility there as well as the paving for about $16,000. While doing that work, a lot of sidewalk got cut into at the end of driveways where things were happening, where connections were Finance – 06/16/10 Page 16 being made, and some of the sidewalks were sinking and the curbs were falling in. Pennichuck is obviously going to have their contractor do some of that work, but while we were looking at it, the issue like you brought up on Lawndale, we are looking at all of the sidewalks and saying while we are here and they are already doing sidewalk work, should we be doing more. We looked at the contractor they had, who is listed here, Edmonds, to get a price from them while they were already out there. It is higher than the price we got from the other company, but I want the committee to know that I hope that you pass this tonight because timing is important between them finishing the final coat of paving and us doing the sidewalk work because you really don’t want to do it after, but we are also going to go out and take a look when they are done doing the work that they are doing, just how much sidewalk has to be done. I am not yet convinced that the entire thing has to be done at this price, but we certainly want to pass it and have the funds available so that we can get to it right away if that in fact is the case. Our sidewalk engineers are keeping an eye on it, and we will make a decision. If we end up not doing this kind of work, I will make sure that the Finance Committee is aware of it. Alderman Deane That funding source is correct; FY08 sidewalk program? Mayor Lozeau Yes. One of the reasons I didn’t put extra money into the sidewalks this year is because we do have money all the way back to FY08 for sidewalks that we are still spending. Alderman Deane So we have money in FY09 and FY10 as well? Mayor Lozeau Yes so you will see one of the escrows that will come in this year is to keep that money in the sidewalk account. It didn’t seem to make sense to me to continue to fund it at a level when we still hadn’t completed work we would like to do. Alderman Deane So this isn’t necessarily a go? Mayor Lozeau I want to be prepared to go, and this is worst case scenario go, but I am hoping that we may not have to do it all. What they are doing now is really making a difference, and it might be enough. Alderman Deane Okay. Thank you. Alderman Pressly I have a question just on general procedures. You mentioned emergencies; I mean you have sewer breakdowns, water breakdowns. When that happens, is it the responsibility of whatever breaks down to repair the street? I know we have the Safe Dig where anybody who goes must notify every other entity that has anything underground. Finance – 06/16/10 Page 17 Mayor Lozeau You mean the utilities? Alderman Pressly Right. But when you have an emergency, let‘s say you have a water main break, does the burden usually to repair the road fall upon the utility that has the emergency? Mayor Lozeau Yes. But sewers are ours. Alderman Pressly Pardon me. Mayor Lozeau Sewers are ours. Alderman Deane But they are required under law to contact Dig Safe before they penetrate the ground. There is a huge fine associated with that. Alderman Pressly I realize that and I think that is wonderful. In fact, I voted for that when I served in the Legislature. Mayor Lozeau You didn’t mean in the process of the work, you meant without a Dig Safe, without I am knowing I am doing this work, there is an emergency water main break that is what you… Alderman Pressly Right. When you go into a road on an emergency basis I was wondering whose responsibility is it to repair it. It is the utility that has broken down. Mayor Lozeau Has the emergency correct. Alderman Pressly Thank you. Mayor Lozeau We still have to call Dig Safe too. Finance – 06/16/10 Page 18 Alderman Deane That is supposed to be the way it is on private property. I had a problem at my house where they replaced my water line and my wife went out and said you know the gas line runs through here, and the guy from Pennichuck said don’t worry about it. Two minutes later he is saying get out of the house, I hit the gas line. Then it took 6 months for them to decide who was going to patch the hole in the driveway that they dug up. Somebody is responsible. The contractor that does the penetration is responsible for everything else. Alderman Pressly To reclaim the area. Alderman Deane They are even responsible for following the paving ordinances that are in place. Mayor Lozeau That is how big a patch they have to make and what the standards are. Is there further discussion on this item? MOTION CARRIED Mayor Lozeau Item #9 has been withdrawn from the agenda. From: Robert Gabriel, Purchasing Manager Re: Contract Award for 9 Riverside Mechanical Engineering Services (Value: $21,960) Account: 651-38 Capital Improvements – Building Upgrades Account Balance Remaining After Purchase: $3,040 WITHDRAWN UNFINISHED BUSINESS - None NEW BUSINESS – None DISCUSSION Alderman Pressly In educating myself and going through the Warrant, I have been struck by something that in some ways is rather charming, but I think it is something that we need to sort of consider changing. I noticed that we still pay weekly on Thursdays. My understanding is that goes back to the mill days. That was the traditional payday going back hundreds of years to pay weekly on Thursday and that is why Thursday night was always the night that all of the stores were open. I’m thinking I am sure it is part of the contracts that we have, but it seems to me that we could really save a lot of money if we paid twice a month instead of every single week. That might be a goal as all of the contracts come up, maybe set a date out in the future and include that in every employment contract that we have, and try to fine tune it. It just seems like a huge expense. Mayor Lozeau I agree that it makes sense to look at a bi-weekly system and I don’t know that I would call it charming. Because of its history I am sure that is why you are calling it charming. Maybe you are being diplomatic, but… Finance – 06/16/10 Page 19 Alderman Pressly It was tongue and cheek. Mayor Lozeau There are some employees that the weekly paycheck is more important to than others. It is one of the things that I looked at when I got here, and because we were taking on ERP and the new timekeeping system, we have held it in abeyance so that while we are looking at that system that is one of the things we will look at. I think it is a good goal and I think it does make sense. I think it does save us some money, and when the time comes, that is what we will be proposing. Alderman Pressly Good. I would just like to complete the thought. I appreciate that and people have probably done their budgeting, but if you give them a date certain in the future it seems to me they could know this was coming along. It just seems like a real efficiency effort to do. I gather you are working on it. Mayor Lozeau Efficiency is one of the things that I spend a significant amount of time on. All I am trying to say is it is not like everything else that we all discover it is not as easy as it sounds… Alderman Pressly I appreciate that. Mayor Lozeau And so it is something that is one of our goals, we just have to put the right processes in place. Alderman Pressly Thank you. Alderman Chasse I will just reiterate, yes it is, when you have people that are hourly employees especially, they have to have that check in their hand every week. For them to go on a bi-weekly basis or a bi-monthly, and bi-monthly is even worse because if you get paid bi-monthly it is like the 15th and the last day of the month so if the 15th ends up on a Sunday they end up getting paid on that Friday and it means they almost go 2 ½ weeks to 3 weeks before they get that next paycheck. In this day and age bi-monthly doesn’t work anymore because a lot of people have their bills on the computer and they just push the button for the payment. More and more companies are going away from the bi-monthly. The bi-weekly, in order to go for the City of Nashua to do that, you would have to go and get approval from the State first of all. You have to give; I think New Hampshire is probably about a six month notice to the employees. I think Massachusetts is 3 months and New Hampshire is 6 months. It is not something that you can just trigger out like that. With all the unions we have right now I can tell you that making that big of a change of going to a bi-weekly people don’t like change, and that is the problem. Salaried individuals make bigger dollars so they can tend to adapt to that bi-weekly. Perhaps maybe down the line you might want to look at where the hourly stay on a weekly basis and the salaried individuals go on a bi-weekly basis. That does help out the payroll department too because it fluctuates the work. Most salaried individuals you really don’t have to do anything, all you do is push a button while the hourly individuals you have to put their hours in and it is time consuming. Finance – 06/16/10 Page 20 If we get this new system up and running where you can just pull the hours off a clock or something like that and bring them in, that is like the golden parachute right there. That is the bells and the whistles that is the best way to run payroll. I think we would really have trouble especially with all the unions. You have 15 unions; lot of hourly employees, there would be a lot of screaming. But, it is a good way to save money because you cut your bill in half. Alderman Vitale On another note on that, I think there are state regulations regarding when you have to pay overtime for hourly employees. I think it is like one week after they have worked the overtime hours so I know that comes into play also on your hourly employees, and they are the ones more likely to have that overtime paid versus you salaried employee that is not usually picking up overtime hours. I think that the salaried employees paying them on a bi-weekly basis is a good idea. I don’t know a single hourly employee that is a friend of mine that wants to get paid bi-weekly. They want it every week. They talk about it. It is a conversation topic with them about getting paid every week. Mayor Lozeau Looking at all of these issues that you have brought up is what we are doing as part of the time keeping. While it may immediately seem like an efficiency depending on what the time keeping system is, it could be a wash. Maybe not, but those are all of things we are going to consider. The goal is efficiency while still making sure that people get compensated the way they need to get compensated. Alderman Pressly Sounds good. Thank you. Mayor Lozeau You are welcome. Is there further discussion on any topic? WARRANT MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO APPROVE WARRANT #23 IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF $9,115,255.16 OF WHICH $2,443,823.26 ARE ACCOUNTS PAYABLE, $5,455,475.29 ARE PAYROLL AMOUNTS, $54,132.45 ARE PREPAY AMOUNTS AND $1,161,824.16 ARE WIRE TRANSFERS MOTION CARRIED Alderman Deane I just had a question. I meant to bring it up under discussion. We received this letter from the Chief of Police, and I am rather confused by it because it talks about dispatchers that weren’t funded, and when I look in here there is $139,000… Mayor Lozeau There are three dispatchers funded. Alderman Deane When I look under the probationary dispatchers that is funded for $73,000. I don’t understand this. I guess we will discuss it. It is going to be part of the escrow legislation? Finance – 06/16/10 Page 21 Mayor Lozeau No it is not. I had a conversation with the Chief today to let him know that I was not going to approve that escrow. As you know Alderman Deane, the like for like escrows stop at my desk first. I am counting on those dollars for our surplus that I have used to calculate what I am anticipating the tax rate to be. Alderman Deane It says dispatcher positions have been left vacant and unbudgeted due to budget constraints that have occurred since 2006. These positions were funded. They were never filled. They were filled with overtime. Mayor Lozeau I believe that the point the Chief wanted to make is that he would like 6 dispatchers and we have not funded 6 dispatchers. We have consistently funded 3 dispatchers, and if you are looking in and see the probationary dispatcher, then that would be 4 and 2 are not. I think his goal was to try to go for 6. Alderman Deane Three and two is five right? Mayor Lozeau Is it 2 probationary dispatchers in the new budget? Alderman Deane Yes. Mayor Lozeau But his letter says 6. Alderman Deane It was 2 the year before also because the dollar amount… Mayor Lozeau I know, and I had that discussion with the Chief today. I am sure that will come up in discussion at some point as everybody has received that letter. Alderman Deane And there were dispatchers funded the year prior, in FY10 and FY11. Okay. ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The Finance Committee meeting was adjourned at 7:53 p.m. Alderman-at-Large Ben Clemons Committee Clerk