Finance Committee

FINANCE Tuesday, October 21, 2025 – 6:20 p.m. Council Chambers – Olean Municipal Building Present: Members: Chairman McCall, Vice Chairman Crawford, Alderman Bennion, Alderman Keary, Alderman Forney, Alderman Robinson, and Alderman Anastasia. Others: Mayor William Aiello; Lens Martial, City Auditor; James Sprague, Director of Public Works, and Tiffany Taylor, Managerial Confidential Administrative Secretary. 1. Roll Call Alderman McCall called the meeting to order at 6:20 p.m. and asked that the record show that all committee members were present. 2. Approval of the Minutes of the Previous Committee Meetings (Tuesday, October 7, 2025) A motion to approve the minutes of the October 7, 2025 committee meeting was made by Alderman McCall, seconded by Alderman Bennion. Voice vote, ayes all. Motion carried. 3. Unfinished Business a. Capital Funds Mr. Marital explained Capital Fund #203, Franchot Park Entrance, has a balance of $50,000 and nothing has been used. Alderman McCall explained there were some ideas for expenditures at Franchot Park and the Council went through earlier in the year things that could be done at minimal cost, but these things did not appear to get done. He explained we need to see what we need to do to move these items forward. Alderman Forney explained she thought this was renamed Franchot Beautification, and Mr. Martial explained he would look into this. Alderman Forney explained when the fund was renamed ideas were brought for the basketball court, sign, and drinking fountain, and she met at the park with the Mayor and residents. She explained we talked about what signs should say. She explained we can meet all we want but it is the City’s job to move this forward. She explained she brought forth proposals that the Council reviewed, and she thought we changed the capital fund since we are not doing the park entrance to better utilize the funds to give the park a facelift. Alderman Bennion suggesting bringing this back up in the Youth and Recreation Committee. Alderman Keary asked that he be provided the suggestions that were made as he is not familiar with this. Ms. Taylor noted Resolution #99-24 renamed this fund the Franchot Park Beautification Project. Mr. Martial explained Capital Fund #204, Inclusive Playground Equipment, is being used for the Marcus Park Project and has a balance of $1,497,444.50. He explained this is funded through grants, a BAN, and local share funding. Alderman McCall explained there was a $200,000 share on the part of the City after grants, but we have not decided where the funding will come from. Mayor Aiello explained we did receive $23,000 through a grant with the Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation, and we asked the County to contribute $100,000 but we have not heard back. Alderman Bennion asked if the $23,000 was received and Mr. Martial explained it has not been received yet. Mayor Aiello explained it could very well be a reimbursement grant so we will receive these funds back down the road. Mr. Martial explained Capital Fund #208, South Union Street Gateway, has a balance of $1,650,841.98 that was funded by a DRI grant and a City match. He explained we do still have bills left to pay and we will receive grant funding to help pay down the BAN. Alderman McCall asked about the paving and Alderman Robinson explained it has already been done, and Mayor Aiello added striping was finished as well. Mr. Marital explained Capital Fund #209, Fire Station HVAC, has a balance of $20,880.26 and was fully funded by the City. Alderman Anastasia asked if this is being done in house and Mr. Martial explained it is. Alderman McCall asked if we anticipate that this funding will cover what needs to be done, and Mr. Martial explained he spoke with the Fire Chief and he believes that it will. He explained Capital Fund #211, Salt Shed, has no funds. He explained Capital Fund #231, Stimulus Funds / ARPA has $35,057.10 remaining, which was previously allocated for the Municipal Building HVAC. He noted originally $200,000 was allocated to this, but funds were transferred for the HVAC at the John J. Ash Community Center to finish that project. b. Capital Project Requests i. Municipal Building Elevator Director Sprague explained he has the recommendation to award the Municipal Building elevator project to Bison Elevator Services. He explained they did follow up on Bison and checked their references, and are comfortable with making the award. He explained this project does still need to be funded. Alderman McCall asked what we are looking to pay that from and explained the elevator has been out of service for a significant amount of time. Mr. Martial explained he suggests we allocate funds left in capital funds. He explained Oak Hill Park has more than $200,000 left, and $300,000 of City funds were previously moved into that account. Alderman Bennion asked if there is anything left to do at Oak Hill Park, and Director Sprague explained there is nothing that he is aware of. Alderman McCall explained the only thing she wants to remember is there is a portion of the park on the west hand side when you face the park from Laurens Street, and she would like to see something done with these funds to fix up that section. Alderman Bennion asked if we had gotten bids to fix this and Mayor Aiello explained we did, but they were all very high. Alderman McCall explained the Beautification Committee had some recommendations and she would like to see us utilize these funds, so we need to make sure we have money to finish that. Alderman Crawford explained he agrees and if his memory serves him correctly, he believes $350,000 was the original City contribution. He explained there was funding received from the DRI and he believes Ms. Kerper was able to secure additional funds that were going towards a different DRI project but that were not used so they could be reallocated to Oak Hill Park. He explained he agrees that we should earmark a portion to fix up that side of the park, and also go an extra step to retain some money to address the bad trees in the park and plant new trees. He explained we need to do trimming around the athletic courts as they are used a lot and there are dead branches hanging over them. He explained we have a lot of money there, and he would not mind seeing some allocated but we need to take care of the trees at Oak Hill Park. Alderman Bennion explained he would like to see an elevator capital fund created and funds found somewhere else, and use the funds in the Oak Hill Park capital fund to finish Oak Hill Park, then use the remainder for Franchot Park. Alderman McCall asked how much money is there and Mr. Martial explained $284,457.82 is left. Mr. Martial explained there is also $38,000 left in ARPA funds for the HVAC for the Municipal Building, but this funding will not go far for that project so we could use this funding as well. Alderman Robinson explained he feels the elevator project will qualify for ARPA funds and he would say use this towards the elevator and take the remainder from the Oak Hill Park capital fund. He explained a conversation can later be had on the $200,000 remaining and what priorities are. He explained the cost of cutting down and pruning trees is expensive so he does not know how far this will go. He explained Franchot Park has also been discussed since he came on the Council, and the money has been there since 2021 so it is time we move on this and get things moving forward. He explained we do need to focus on the critical first though, and the elevator is critical. Mayor Aiello explained he agrees that the elevator is critical and we need to get this taken care of. ii. Fire Station 1 Rear Lot Director Sprague explained he assembled what he would call a draft cost estimate for the parking lot installation and what it would take following the Fire Chief’s sketch. He explained he utilized current prices from our paving contractor and the South Union Street job, and both are prevailing wage rate jobs so that additional cost is already built in. He explained the number he has so far is about $87,000. He explained he did look into doing this with materials on hand, such as the chain link fence from Marcus Park and millings instead of asphalt. He explained he did assign some cost to these materials as well as to labor, because our staff is not free, and trucking isn’t free. He explained he made an estimate of a reasonable cost of applying these things, even though we are not making a direct purchase of materials, and the estimate comes in around $28,000. He explained he would like to review this again with the Fire Chief and Streets Supervisor. He explained the Streets Supervisor is confident we ca self-perform this, but the big hang up is the schedule because short of a mild winter, we are looking at mobilizing as soon as the weather breaks in the spring, when employees will also be filling potholes. He explained there is some additional preplanning that needs to occur if this is going to be done in house. Alderman Robinson explained Chief Maurouard’s estimate using City resources was around $27,000, so he estimates a cost around $30,000, to be safe. He explained he knows they would like this done at the fire station but this is not a high priority to him. Alderman Bennion asked if the cost includes the concrete apron and hiring out the fence, and Director Sprague explained the cost he estimated based on the price from the South Union Street job for the concrete apron to be around $5,400. He explained he will need to look more into the cost of the fence because he believes we need to purchase posts, and he estimated a cost of $10,000 for the gate. Alderman McCall explained we have discussed whether or not the gate was needed and what the value of the gate is, and she doesn’t believe we really need it. Alderman Bennion explained we are probably looking at this project being done more realistically in the summer, and he is not saying we should not do it but rather look into building this into the next budget. He explained we have the elevator we need to fund, and in Fleet Maintenance a side-by-side was discussed, as well as some other things on tonight’s agenda. He explained he doesn’t think this is a high priority and we should not dip into funding for this now when it can be considered during the next budget. Alderman Anastasia agreed that this is not a priority, and Alderman McCall agreed that this should be handled during the next budget. iii. Security Cameras / Server Mr. Volz explained he looked into the cameras the Wellsville and Salamanca have, and they both use the same company. He explained Salamanca has 200 cameras and Wellsville has 10. He explained in Wellsville, with 10 cameras in 7 locations, the licensing fee is about $300 per year, per camera, with a 10 year agreement. He explained it is about $440 per camera per year for a 5 year agreement. He explained Wellsville has Verizon hotspots to provide wifi for the cameras at a cost of about $40 per month, per hotspot. He explained for 10 cameras, they are paying $30,000 total for the term of the agreement, and to replace 21 cameras we are looking at about $13,000 for replacement. He explained we would also like to upgrade the server for a cost of about $10,200. He explained the total of $23,000 is less for 21 cameras than Wellsville is paying for 10 cameras. He explained he did look at the kinds of cameras Wellsville has gotten and they do have some great AI technology to search for things, but it is also a much higher cost. Alderman McCall asked if we are better served short-term by the lesser amount, or if we will ultimately be outdated and better served with something more costly that has all of the functions that we would like to see. She explained we have discussed having cameras in parks and we should ensure that whatever system we choose has the capability to expand into parks. Mr. Volz explained the company we currently use does have a solution for that, as well as something similar to what Wellsville and Salamanca are using. He explained their cameras are cloud-based and do not require a server, but there is a maintenance fee for this rather than owning the system outright. Alderman Robinson explained he feels it is better to go with the cloud storage versus a server. He explained we might be paying more but that is one less headache for IT. Alderman Bennion asked if there is a grant opportunity for these cameras, and Mr. Volz explained Salamanca may have gotten a grant to cover some of their system, but not all. Alderman McCall explained she would be interested to see if there is something out there. Mr. Volz explained we always talk about security cameras, but grants are very tricky and hard to find, so we try to maintain what we already have. He explained there are benefits to the cloud-based system, it just all depends how much the Council wants to spend. He explained we can test a camera for 30 days, and he explained he would have to work with the City Electrician to see the best location, possibly facing the main roundabout. Alderman McCall explained she is in support of doing that to see if they work in the way they say they work. Alderman Crawford asked if it was discussed where funding would come from for this, and Mr. Martial explained it has not yet been discussed. Alderman Crawford explained this is something that has been talked about in the past, and given how tight the belt has become with the fund balance, he feels we should begin building into each department a capital fund line item so that funds can be appropriated and then retained each year for several years so funds build up for a capital project like this. He explained this is a best practice that we should look at for this next budget. Alderman McCall explained we have talked a lot about preplanning and capital projects to make sure funds are set aside, and she would be in support of testing out the camera and coming back after we see how it works to see what might be the better option. She explained we do need to have something that is expandable for the future, and she does feel it needs to be cloud-based. She explained she would like to see this tested out in the roundabout to see how the search feature works. Alderman Bennion explained Salamanca has 200 cameras with a cost of $600,000, and we were quoted more than a million for cameras in our parks. Mr. Volz explained it is important to remember this also included costs for wifi and electric. HE explained we should look into talking to Impact internet and different providers to see if there are solutions we can use, and noted we currently pay $25 per hotspot for AT&T hotspots. He explained the wifi cost is on top of the $300 per month, per camera. He explained we can look into our current company to see what they have in terms of cloud-based options as well as demo the other camera. iv. Bartlett House Roof Director Sprague explained he really doesn’t have an update and explained he has not been able to find the existing RFP. He explained he is working on trying to find that, and if he does not, he will have a new one prepared to follow up in a month. 4. New Referrals for Consideration None 5. Committee Reports None 6. Adjournment A motion to adjourn was made by Alderman McCall, seconded by Alderman Anastasia. Voice vote, ayes all. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned at approximately 7:15 p.m.