LIVE: Quincy City Council (Finance Committee) - May 19, 2026

After retirement, so we decided, oh, maybe we should do some exercise for our health and also try to reach out to other people and get to know more people. We find that the Kennedy Center, we really enjoy it. We usually come here three times a week. We attend strength training and also the chair yoga and also Wednesday is the Specialty training, that one was pretty tough, but we love it. I just got a new granddaughter and I was so happy to show to them the picture. So we shared experiences, we chat, we talk, and I also have a couple friends from church and I encourage them and they try it and we all have a good time.

Thank you.

and BFW. Still leading. Still advancing. Still serving.

Good evening. I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, May 19th meeting of the Finance Committee, our second budget hearing. I'll read the open meeting law first and then call the roll. Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney, McKee, Ryan, Yuan, and Riley.

Okay, first item on the agenda is the Assessor's Office. Mr. Rowland, I believe we had some questions for you from last time that you're prepared to discuss.

Absolutely, fire away.

I believe it was relative to the student intern.

Yep, the line has been paid. It was paid out of summer help, unintentionally, and we were able to fix that, and now it's been charged against the assessor's budget. It's reflected as it can be seen in the MUNA system. Super.

Great. Caught a little bookkeeping error. Anyone else have any questions on this matter? Oh, hang on a second. Hang on a second.

Go ahead. So is it paid out of summer help in your department or some other department? The recreation department. So it's out of the recreation department. So we have to look at the recreation department when that happens. OK. How does something like that happen? Just curious. for the last three years, that's why I was asking.

I've only had the line in my budget for two years. The first year, it was the first year I asked for it, we had our intern before. the physical year started, so I believe that's where they've started getting paid out of, and that just transitioned for two years. That is why that happened.

So the recreation had enough money in that, because they didn't, did they have to have it?

They had the $5,000 or so that I did need to pay our intern, yes.

All right, that's all I have. A little sloppy. Any further questions? Do we have a motion? to accept.

Motion to accept. Sorry. Jen, you're killing me.

Thank you.

Sorry. Motion to accept the assessor's proposed fiscal year 2027 budget.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Rowland.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Mr. Della Barbara to discuss retirement and pensions. This would be on page 28 of the budget for those that are following along. Thank you, Mr. Della Barbara.

Yes, sir.

Good evening, Councilors. So this year's budgeted amount for the pension contribution is $9,749,500. That is from the PARAC funding schedule and from a letter from William Keefe from PARAC.

Thank you. Any questions on this?

Anyone? Councilor Ryan. Councilor Ryan, one second.

Thank you, Councilor Riley. So, Paul, with regards to that, Appropriation for 2027, I did receive the letter from PIRAC, and they came up with a little bit of a different amount for the valuation.

Is that from the funding schedule within the actuary report or the actual letter? Because what is budgeted was in the actual letter.

Right, so according to what's in the letter, it says 9579446, so is that different? That is different than 2027, so am I mistaken with that?

So the letter I have says $9,749,500. Are we looking at a different letter?

Okay, all right. No, you're right, you are right.

Okay.

So with that being said, did you separate out the Quincy College valuation? Because I think Ms. Mahoney had asked for that.

No, I did not.

Okay. Could you do that?

Well, it's part of this payment right here. Right. I don't know what the isolated breakdown of that was, and I apologize. of Quincy College's portion of this $9 million.

Okay, is there a possibility that you could get that to us?

Sure. Okay, all right. We'd really like to take a look. I'll work on it tomorrow morning. It'll be the first thing I get off to.

Okay, all right, that would be great. So we're gonna table that unless there's something else that anybody else has. Any questions? Do we want to discuss further?

Thank you, Polly.

Councilor Mahoney.

I did come into your office last week and I did ask if we could break that out. I think you said Mr. Kosher wasn't in that day and he would be the person. That's OK. It's not a big deal. But if we could get that broken out, and I'm going to be asking for the health care to be broken out as well. and I'd like a look back if we could possibly, I know this is a lot to ask, but because we're asking Susan to look back, we should be able to look back Quincy College's contributions, what the contributions would have been to PARIC for the last five years. I know we've been paying it for the last five years, but it's important for us to understand, because they're not coming before us. Although they were described as a Quincy department, and that's why we need to do it, they're actually modeled as a revolving account or something like that, but we don't get to talk to them directly, so who we have to talk to is you. So if you can get help from the Quincy College as well, that would be super helpful.

That's fine. Mr. Kusher is back in the office now, and I'm sure he's watching this right now, and he's probably already queued up to know what he has to do in the morning.

I absolutely understand. So we would probably like to table this until we can get that break out for that. And if we're not having HR here tonight, maybe HR can break out the same thing five years back for Quincy College Health Care.

Did you want to add something? Hang on one second. Give me a minute here. Go ahead, Mr. Walker.

Through you, Madam Chairwoman, since the subject has come up, we anticipated this coming up during the Health Human Resources Department budget, but the city will no longer be covering the health care for Quincy College in this year's budget based on the level of stability the college has achieved. So that will be reflected in the health insurance budget line when you folks see it in a couple weeks.

Thank you. Mahoney.

So because you're saying that, is it broken out currently? Because I don't remember seeing it broken out currently. Is that going to be something that they show us at night? Sure.

through you, Madam Chairman. For demonstrative purposes, we can break out what the historic costs that the city did absorb over the last several years, but again, it is no longer part of the health insurance budget.

For that to be the case, though, what I'm trying to say is when I'm looking at the health care, it's just one line item, and it used to be broken out with the amount that Quincy College was reimbursing, like a separate line item, just as it is with Parrick for the Housing Authority. We break it out to say the Housing Authority is paying $2.2 million of the $11 million that we're doing. I want the same breakout as it used to be. And that would have been. 2020 when it started, when it was a negative $2.5 million in revenues coming in because we didn't get paid. So that would be revenue that would be coming in from Quincy College. I'll be looking for that as well. Thank you.

So Connor, did you have anything to add to that?

In regards to breaking out the appropriation for Quincy College, that will have to be done through the retirement office. So we can reach out to them tomorrow to stop that calculation. Lee. Thank you.

Okay, and if I could just get clarification. So the Quincy Housing Authority pays their portion of the pension? That's correct. Okay. Are there any other quasi-entities in the city that fall into this kind of thing? I know the hospital used to be one. Are there any other... entities that participate in the pension system.

I don't believe so. The hospital still is part of it though.

Well, we still have retirees, yes.

Correct.

Yes, that's true. Yep, okay. And then just the other thing on the 2026 budget item, which I thought we talked about this already, that's $16,100,000. Thousand, that was not budgeted last year, was it not?

No, last year the budget figure was zero in the budget book. That's what was brought forward to the council. it was budgeted at zero.

Okay, so this $16,100,000 is actually not accurate.

Well, $16,100,000 is accurate at the time, when we were setting the tax rate, that's what we had to raise on the B-2 from special revenue funds.

Okay, thank you. Okay, so we're gonna table this matter. Oh, Councilor Mahoney, hang on one second.

So again, I think this is just the way the budget book is built. Because when you're looking back, it's the 2025 budget, 2026 budget, and 2027 budget. So is it the 2026 is everything is that actual or what's been spent? I mean, you did spend $1,600 last year, so I'm trying to understand that. Because the year's not over, so you put that line item in because you paid it, but... in 2025, are those the actual amounts that you paid for the year?

That's correct.

Or they will go back to the budget? Because this is not reflective for somebody at home to understand that the budget that was approved in 2025 versus the budget that was spent in 2025. So typically what you would say, actual spent. So I'd say 2025 actual, 2026, and you would not have it actual because you'd only be three quarters through the year. just making that note because it's very deceiving for somebody looking at a budget book last year to looking at a budget book this year because it's PDFs and it's not online and it's not actual every single day. So it's just confusing to people and I just want to call that out. and it's not clean for the average person to be reading it. Thank you.

Sorry about that. Any other questions? No? Okay, so we're going to table this, and we'll bring it back at a future meeting.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Telebot. Thank you.

All right, next up we have Superintendent Mulvey here to speak on the education budget, page 69 in your budget book.

Good evening, everyone. Councilors, it's very good to see you. Thank you for having us tonight to present to you our proposed FY27 budget. Before I begin, I do want to do some introductions. There are some new faces here with us today. Of course, some familiar as well. of course with me is Dr. Aaron Perkins, the Assistant Superintendent, and our new CPA Director of Business Affairs, Adam Conlon. Also joining us tonight in the audience are members of our the superintendent's leadership team as well as a number of principals as well who are here to support the school district tonight. I just want to start by obviously thanking the council for all their efforts on behalf of the school system. Without you, we could not carry out our mission of giving the very best education to our students and families. Of course, I do want to thank

the Mayor and School Committee as well for their support in this process of establishing a budget that will be extremely effective for our students and families. The first part I just want to review with you, and there'll be three of us presenting tonight. I'll do the first part of the process, Dr. Perkins will do the second, and then Mr. Conlon will review the actual budget numbers with you. but the budget process that we follow, of course, we first identify areas of consideration and that is whether or not we can maintain a level funded budget. Perhaps we can add or in some, some unfortunate circumstances in the past we would have to cut. The great news is that that is not the case here. We do have the ability to maintain a level services budget based on this current proposal.

Of course, the next step is that we review organized options to address possible areas of impact, again, whether that would be adding or subtracting. We prioritize possible areas of increased shift or reduction and you'll see some shifts in our presentation tonight based on class size needs throughout the district. Of course, we determine the impact on budget lines and areas. This is all done through the superintendent's leadership team. and then of course, we're here tonight with you presenting our proposed budget to the city council. The next... phase would be, of course, our presentation to the school committee, which will happen tomorrow night for the first time. and then of course based on school committee feedback we'll prioritize options with the school committee and then it'll go back to myself and the SLT to rework those options and then finally upon the approval of the school committee we will act on those options and then implement the budget.

Dr. Perkins will have the next piece of presentation.

Thank you, Superintendent Mulvey. So the proposed budget funds all positions that are currently being paid for from the Quincy Public Schools. we thank the council for that. There will be shifts as the superintendent mentioned in personnel to address class size and academic programs. We have a shift of four personnel to address issues with class size and then also address some needs with academic programs such as substantially separate classrooms. The budget assumes that the federal funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Act, or IDEA, will not be reduced. Unfortunately, we did get word that Title I and Title II are being cut, and so therefore this budget does assume that reduction of $244,500.

and here you see the total proposed budget for Quincy Public Schools for FY2027, which is 158,769,432. This represents an $8,489,380 increase from the FY26 COLA adjusted budget. The funding for this year's budget comes from two sources. the mayor's appropriation of $148,419,432, which is a $6,489,380 increase or 4.57% from the FY26 COLA adjusted appropriation of $141,930,052.

The second funding source is the projected circuit breaker funding, which is $10,350,000, which is a $2 million increase from the FY 2026 budgeted amount. and now I will turn it over to Mr. Conlon to go into more detail about the budget.

Thank you Dr. Perkins and hello everyone, it's great to be with you. So what we want to do here in these last two slides is essentially to show the FY26 comparison to FY27 in really what the additions are and kind of how we get to that final number. So at a high level, The previous budget was $146,734,627, and then we had the additional appropriation for the negotiated union contract increases of $3,545,425. this brings the total to $150,280,052. And below this are our requests for FY2027. essentially we have the salary increase across all bargaining units to cover step and level raises. We calculated projected salary savings as well due to breakage and teacher retirements. that will carry forward to FY27. And this ultimately brings us to 3,257,130.

and aside from the step and level increase requests, we also have a few additional asks based on how things have gone this year and future projections. As Dr. Perkins had previously mentioned, we have the Title I and II grant cut of 244,500. we have an increase for paraprofessionals, ELL, and speech, which comes to 620,000. For utilities, we're asking for an increase of 500,000 for electric and 250,000 for natural gas. for special ed tuition, we're asking for 1.5 million, and special ed transportation, an additional one million. Aside from that, we have course reimbursement increase for 30,000, and then after school slash summer program of a total of 750,000. and then our negotiated longevity increase of 337,750.

And that total amount brings us to 158,769,432. So this final slide shows our offsets and how we get to the final city appropriation. essentially, as Dr. Perkins mentioned, we're anticipating receiving 10.35 million in circuit breaker, and that will offset that 158,769,432, and that appropriation comes to that final amount for $148,419,432. and just to show a comparison of FY27 to FY26, it's about a 4.57% increase year over year, which historically over the last few years, it has been a 45% increase, so it falls within those lines. So I believe that's the end of the presentation. If you have any questions.

Thank you. Thank you. Questions? Anyone? McGee. No questions? Councilor McGee, give me a minute. Thank you.

Thank you so much. So I had been showing these little graphs of the top 50 cities in Massachusetts by population. I just thought it was interesting when I looked at the cost that each resident cost per capita in each of these cities on given subjects education Quincy is number 48, so way down here. So really, I guess the budget, other communities are paying more per resident for education than Quincy is. I just thought that was... and so forth.

Noteworthy.

just briefly, I know that you have someone who is working to try to diversify the teacher pool and staff pool. Yes. I asked for the HR data and got that today, so I was just gonna say what I found from their report. So 87% of the school staff looks like it's white compared to the census figure of 55% white in Quincy overall. and then in the staff, Asian, in the school staff, 9% versus 29%. across the city. So I know you're working on that, but I guess if you could briefly just talk about some of those efforts, that would be helpful.

Sure. A few years ago, obviously, we hired a director for diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging. Kim Conley. She's doing a wonderful job with regard to making efforts to diversify the staff. We do have a number of hurdles that we have to overcome and that is obviously particularly with regard to educator staff. Across the state, minority licensed applicants are very low. and Boston tends to absorb a lot of those candidates as well. But nevertheless, we are determined to make strides in are getting more diverse staff, which is reflective of our student population. So with that, we have implemented a number of programs, and we present regularly to school committee on this, but we are undertaking

a pipeline approach with regard to bringing our own students within the Quincy Public Schools through the system and promoting promoting education and that students enter education. So just yesterday, for instance, we had about eight to 10 students at each school. We had a signing ceremony for students, including students who fall within that minority category. who have essentially committed to us that they will pursue education and of course they'll receive certain benefits in doing so because we have partner colleges that allow them to receive early admittance with the agreement that they will pursue education. and also returned to Quincy as educators. So we're pursuing that approach.

And among other things, obviously we engage in fairs at various colleges. We have various partners. through the colleges, you name it, Bridgewater, BU, Northeastern, BC, all the local colleges to try and identify those candidates who would be willing to enter into the education field and in particular educators who fall within those minority categories. Again, so that we can over time make our staff more reflective of our student population.

I just had one question on the special education, which I know Dr. Perkins is near and dear to you. I know that we were, when the Christofaro Center got brought online, the hope was that we would be able to I see the increase. Are we still trying to really work with newly identified students and we just haven't been able to realize that savings yet?

No, I actually would say, so currently we have a total of 134 students in out of district placements. So just a few years ago, that number was actually around 170 students in out of district placements. I think the thing that makes it difficult when you look at the funding is that the tuition costs have increased dramatically over time. So on average, I'd say anywhere from a 35 to 40% increase, even in schools like the South Shore Collaborative. So I do think that that is a little bit misleading because we are seeing, we have less students in and out of district placement than we've ever had. And I can tell you how many times I personally have moved children to the DeChristopheros Learning Center that I would have otherwise recommended to an out of district placement. This year alone, I think there was about four children that that occurred.

And so I do think that we are seeing it. I just think it's hard because since COVID, the tuition costs have skyrocketed. And so that is why you see the continual, we're continually in that spot asking for increases in tuition and transportation because those numbers have just gone up dramatically.

Thank you for that explanation. I appreciate that. Thank you. Any other questions? Councilor Mahoney, give me one moment.

So nice to see you all again, and welcome. I was like, where's Jim Mulaney? You look like a different Jim Mulaney, that's it. It's been a while since I've been on the school committee, and you just answered some questions for the Rick DeChristopher building. How many people are in the building right now, students are in that building right now?

So there's 54 students in the K-8 program, and then there's about 250-ish students in the pre-K.

So it's mostly pre-K and then 54K to eight. Yes. And how many students does the building hold?

About 350, I think.

When we were talking about the school, and just refresh my memory because I can't remember, was that going to be just a K-8 or was it eventually going to be aging with them as they get older?

We would love to age with them as they get older. We haven't had that yet, but we will soon, probably next year.

Has it been three years?

I think this is the second full year.

Okay, I was giving you an extra year.

Yeah, and so we would love to do that, and we definitely have students that we would love to keep. We are one of our, you know, I'm going to ask with this budget is to add an additional classroom to the RDLC because we need it, which is an awesome thing. And so we are excited about that. So hopefully we will continue to grow that program.

So my other quick question in regards to that is one of the other things when we did the presentation on this, I believe it was going to be open year round. Are we open year round now?

Yes. I think there's maybe five weeks at the end of the summer that they're not open, but they're an extended summer program, so they have maybe a week off between the end of the school year and the summer. It's modeled pretty much after the collaborative. and then they have a seven week program for the summer program, I believe. So they go into about the second week in August.

Okay, and then how many of the students that you just, are they all Quincy public school students or do we have any out of district students?

There are three students who we tuition in. they started with us and then they moved to Weymouth and I think maybe Hingham and they decided those school districts decided to keep them with us.

Okay, so we have three from out of district, Carly.

Three from other towns, yes. Other towns, yeah.

Okay, and now just to move back to the budget, what do you think the major, and I know you guys are going to know this stuff, what are the major drivers of the continued budget growth? I mean I just want people at home to know like it's a challenge running a public school system and it's getting harder every year.

O'Neill, I would say. And as Councilor O'Reilly said, it's definitely something that obviously you know I feel passionately about, but in the transportation is a it just is huge, huge, huge increases every year. It's very hard to keep up.

And then of the percentage, I would think this would be high too, contractual versus discretionary in the budget.

Contractual, I'm not sure what you mean, sorry.

So you want a percentage breakdown between contractual? Could you get a little closer to the mic, please? Thank you. So we can get you that. Rather than guess, I'd rather just... to break it out. But you want a breakdown between contractual budgetary costs and... What was the other piece? In discretionary cost.

We can get you that. And then also, because it's been challenging for all school systems and financials are changing every single day, have all grants... that you've been using to, like, have any grants expired and have you absorbed them into the budget at this point, like the Esther grants and all those things? Have they been absorbed into the budget?

So there are, over the years, we've had plenty of grants, of course, like the ESSER money, for instance, that was, the bulk of that, we use that. at basically the guidance of the state on non-personnel so that we did not. and so on. So, we put almost all that money into the development of the with the purpose of making a community here in Quincy for our students of autism and other disabilities. The main goal there was to create that neighborhood school for those students and families who didn't have it. and to prevent them from having to travel up to an hour a day or more in some instances. Now they have that community here in Quincy. And of course,

The secondary benefit of that is those 56 students, they are saving us a significant amount of money. I think the average would somewhere be per student in excess of, and of course it depends on the disability, so it would be average in excess of around $80,000 or more per student. So if you do the math, it's somewhere between five and six million that we would normally pay in special ed tuition that we don't have to do that because we have the IDLC. So that's just one example. of rolling a grant that we received from the state and federal government into the district without raising the structural deficit by, but also using in such a way that we're saving the city money through special ed tuition and transportation as well. But we have a number of grants over time

they basically give us the money and then we start the program and then we determine whether or not the program is worth keeping or not. In many cases, and I would say most cases, the programs, started by the grants that we were interested in are certainly worth keeping and we've done so over the years. The current one right now that we're working on is the CPPI grant for preschool. and we were awarded $500,000 for that and we're super excited about that and obviously we're hoping to expand preschool services to our families here in Quincy. We have 200, I think, on the waiting list right now. We'd love to get that number down by offering pre-K services to our families.

So this was just, I'm going to catch on that just for a second. So that's when we're talking about the De La Chiesa, because that's where we're hoping that would potentially build out the De La Chiesa for hopes that that could... Hopefully. Yeah. and then in that De La Chiesa situation, I haven't been able to watch a lot of it. The kindergarten move over to De La Chiesa from Lincoln Hancock.

Yes.

And then this other question in regards to the special education building. Do they ever, the kids that are in that building, I know I asked you if they would grade up into that building. Do they ever get integrated into the other classrooms? If you could just touch on that too. because that's also a really important piece for a parent that has a child that's in special needs that they want to be integrated. They do.

We've actually transitioned a few kids out from the RDLC to some of our... They usually go, I will say, from... the RDLC to a substantially separate program in one of our buildings like Snug Harbor or another school. And so they do transition over there. We have worked with families with plans so we and build up time. So we start by having the student go like two days a week. We provide transportation. They go with an RDLC staff. and they build up that integration with obviously the hopes that they will then transition full-time. But we have also transitioned a few children.

Okay, and then going back to the budget, what's the long-term structural cost and concerns that you have that the city could anticipate, and then also, does the school system because I just know it's really challenging for everything that you're doing and I'm not trying to add anything more to you but is there any multi-year financial forecasts for as we're moving forward with this just because it's a moving target all the time I know but numbers of teachers those types of things and I have a 10-year question after that.

Yeah, sorry to be cliche, but I would say the biggest challenge would definitely be the special ed tuition in transportation. By far the biggest. It's always a variable, yeah. Exactly.

But without that, I mean, if you took that out, you should be able to variable out that special education piece knowing it's going to be that and try to figure out what your structural deficit is going to be.

Definitely, yeah, you definitely can try to project. I would say at this point we don't have a multi-year projection, but I think it's a great idea and definitely something we should put together to try and forecast for future years.

I was on the school committee for a long time and there's a lot of challenges and you have to adapt to them pretty quickly. That multi-year forecasting can be very helpful. That is all the questions that I have. It was very nice to see all of you again.

to see you too. Thank you. Ash.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you for the presentation. Very helpful to see kind of the higher the higher level and certainly the aerial view. I know the school committee goes through this and and obviously after we have the chance to look at it. I'm gonna start with some general questions and then we'll take it take it to Ward 2 at the end. So first, I think it'd be beneficial if we could even just generally discuss the difference between the COLA and then the negotiated increases.

So the COLA was essentially when the bargaining agreement happened. passed the time last year where the budget was finalized. That increase was transferred over to cover those negotiated increases of 3% step and level raises. So, and are you asking for what our request is this year, essentially?

Yes, so this is additional appropriation for COLA and then also negotiated increases. I don't believe those are the same, right? So my question just generally is what is the difference even between those? those line items. Not the monetary difference, just the difference in the contracts. I assume there's a COLA increase and then there are the step increases.

Yeah, so there's longevity increases. Sometimes there might be clothing or uniforms, for instance, for nurses. that was increased in some cases, or custodians may have had an increase, security, things like that, like increases in those kinds of things. There was also an increase in professional discretionary money. So teachers get an allotted amount of money for their classrooms every year that they submit reimbursement for. And so that went up a little bit to about, I think, and so forth. So, that's what we're looking at right now. And then, the other increase that, you know, that we had a bigger one in the contract was an increase in course approval In the past, we allocated, I think, 25,000 for course approval so a teacher could take a class if they were at a certain level in their education and however many years experience.

they could submit reimbursement for that class up to a certain amount, which we love because it obviously just gives us better teachers, more highly qualified for our students. And so we did increase that to 50,000. So those I think were pretty much the big ones.

and so where does the projected salary savings, where does that come from?

Would that be recent retirees or? Exactly. when someone retires at a higher salary and then their replacement would come in at a lower salary, and then that, in between those two numbers, multiplied by the number of retirees, that would be the projected savings.

Thank you.

and then I know recently the build out of De La Chiesa has been, I know the school committee's hearing, I'm not really sure where they are formally in that process, but the issue that I continue to have is the congestion at Clifford Marshall. So I'd be remiss not to mention that as we discuss building more schools out and hopefully look forward to the discussion with you all as to how to alleviate some of that congestion as well. Thank you.

Anyone else? Do we have a motion? Anyone? Go ahead. Motion.

Motion to approve?

Motion to approve.

Thank you. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor? Any opposed? Wonderful. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilors.

Okay, next up we have Chief Mark Kennedy with the police budget. We're gonna do a little audio visual setup for him. On page 51 and 52 is where we'll find this budget. and since we have a couple of minutes, I would like to just... say a couple of things. I, myself, and Councilor Jacobs will need to recuse ourselves from six matters in total on this budget. So starting from the top, item number 512361. Actually, if you're all ready, I can wait on this. Okay, we're all good. Okay. I will explain later. OK. Chief Kennedy.

Thank you all. Thank you, Councilors. If you just permit me about 10 minutes. I'm just going to go through this. I know I sent it to you all in advance. just for the sake of kind of walking through some of these numbers. What you're seeing here is our budgeted staff. Right now, I'm sorry, 237 sworn. another 90 civilian support staff. Currently we're down 11 officers. Really no fault of our own. We've been trying to hire for the past seven months, but I can get into that later if you'd like. So this is really what I really want to focus on because this is really the hard work of the men and women of the Quincy Police Department during the past year. we've answered 59,784 calls for service. Now with that, that's really a tribute not only to the officers but to our emergency communications staff who actually field all those calls and much more than that. Those are just the ones that get entered into our CAD system, computer-aided dispatch, and they really triage the calls, they gather information,

and they set our officers up for success in the street. The number of arrests we have there, 1,046, that's the number of people that were actually physically taken into physical custody during the past year. we issued 4,157 citations and assigned 2,388 cases for follow-up by our detective divisions. The numbers I really want you to focus on are the calls for service, nearly 60,000, and the arrests, 1,046. Because when we get into the next slide here, this is really what I think sets us apart from a lot of other municipalities and really where we're getting a bang for our buck in our training. We really prioritize training in this department. So if you think of 1,046 actual physical arrests, in only 56 of those incidences where we were required to use some level of force. And 74% of the time we had to use force. It was basically a compliance technique whether it was an armbar or a knee strike or something to gain compliance.

The force was used in response to active resistance, assaulted behavior, attempts to evade arrest, or threats to officers or members of the public. so what's really amazing in this department, less than 5% of the time that officers had to take somebody into physical custody, they had to use some level of force all levels of force are taken seriously. They are reviewed by not only the patrol supervisor but the shift lieutenant and ultimately my office, our internal affairs professional standards lieutenant. looks into them, and I'm proud to say that in all the instances we had last year, there were no policy violations in any use of force. and the injury as a result of force was less than 1%. So I think that goes to show that we have a very professional police department. We're committed to restraint, de-escalation and constitutional policing. and I really think that when we get into the training line item, I'd really like you to remember these statistics because this isn't by accident.

We're required to do 40 hours of training per the Mass Criminal Justice Training Council. We do significantly more than that. and I think the city of Quincy is getting a return on their investment here. We're not a department that gets successfully sued and we maintain public trust by the way we police this community. like to get into our crime stats. The three year average here, you'll see our violent crime is down 16%, our property crime down 4%, and our total part one crime, and that's, major crimes, homicide, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, both domestic and non-domestic, and property crimes like burglary, larceny, and auto theft, so we are seeing that our crime trends are trending in the right direction. I think that these trends reflect the hard work of our officers, the strong community partnerships that we've developed over years, targeted enforcement tactics, and data-driven policing strategies.

one area that we did see an increase in over the past three years was our larcenies were creeping up. and that was primarily an increase in shoplifting and package theft that we started to see really in 2024. We started to see that number really rise. So in response to that, we implemented a seasonal shoplifting and package theft task force. and it was incredibly successful as you see by these statistics here. We partnered with our newly formed Criminal Intelligence Unit to identify high frequency target locations and repeat offenders. We conducted community outreach to establish relationships with high frequency commercial and residential victims to aid in investigative and crime prevention outcomes. And we collaborated with external agencies, other police departments, private sector partners, we met with all of our loss prevention people, store managers, anybody that wanted to come in and talk with us, we would meet with them.

We met with the district attorney's office, we met with Quincy District Court to explain to them why we were doing what we were doing when we were doing it. and other communities were sort of taking a blind eye to arresting and prosecuting shoplifting. we made the stance and we said not here. We got the buy-in from the District Attorney's Office, we got the buy-in from Quincy District Court, and we started to see our numbers come down. As you see up there, we saw 80% of property being recovered. 88% of the time, the offenders were identified. We issued 33 warrants and 32 arrests. and we saw our numbers start to trend in the right direction. You see we're down 16% and 74% decrease in monetary loss. So that program has been very successful and we are going to continue it. I'd like to get into some of our bureaus and specialized units that we're fortunate to have in the police department. Number one, I'm sure you're all pretty familiar with our community services unit.

In addition to each ward having a dedicated Quincy police officer assigned to it, the community services unit also handles our two mental health clinicians. We have two clinical teams that go out. They're responding to live calls of somebody in mental health crisis, but they also do follow-ups for people who have a history of being in distress. They do follow-ups for people who have overdosed to try and steer them towards recovery. And as you see here, the calls for our mental health clinician has been up 13%. They responded to over 1,200 calls last year. We also have a homeless outreach officer, really two, and they go out, they have office hours at Father Bill's, and we try and bridge the gap that we had been experiencing with our homeless population. the relationship that we built there. We were noticing really on the Broad Street corridor, so Broad Street up to like McDonald's and over to Stop and Shop, we were seeing a significant uptick in calls for service there.

we met between the police, the fire, Brewster Ambulance, Mr. Walker from the mayor's office, Father Bills came in and we worked collaboratively to come up with a solution to turn those numbers down. and I'm proud to say that we, working together, saw an 18% reduction in calls for service just since January, since we started meeting with them. In December, 16 of our 20 overdoses in the city happened in Father Bill's, so that was really the, the impetus for us to get together and make some changes. And the NACAN program, as you know, Quincy Police Department was the first in the nation to implement the NACAN program, which served as a model nationwide. were very proud of that. And just to kind of give you some numbers here, which is really cool, what you see in this graph here, Narcan being more openly available to people.

This is the first time that we've seen more third-party Narcan reversing overdoses than Quincy Police Narcan. and the results speak for themselves. We had, in 2025, 187 overdoses. 18 did prove fatal, unfortunately, but comparing that to 2024, we had 180 overdoses with 28 of them proving fatal. So, you know, it's not where we want to be. We want to be at zero, but we're trending, I think, in the right direction. Where did I skip over one there? Our Drug Control Unit, they worked 120 cases last year, recovered nine illegal firearms, executed 13 search warrants, and issued 96 summonses. They're an incredibly impactful unit in our department. they're surveillance experts, so anytime we get a call from a community member that they think something's happening in their neighborhood, maybe something's happening in a house, and we've had a number of them in this past year.

We set up on it and in addition to drug cases, we've actually shut down gambling rings and we've shut down prostitution operations, really human trafficking in our residential neighborhoods because of the work that our drug control unit does. our drug control canine program. We have three passive alert. They're labs and they're basically out there hunting. They're assigned to our drug control unit. and their mission is to make the city of Quincy a hostile environment for people to come in and sell drugs. And I think looking at these numbers, they're pretty successful. They had, just in drug seizures, methamphetamine and fentanyl. Over 84 kilos were seized by that unit with a street value of over $8 million. They made 90 arrests and they responded to 4,555 calls for service. A Bureau of Criminal Investigation, that's our general detectives.

They'll respond from anything from, sorry, this mic's creeping up on me. They'll respond from anything from identity theft all the way up to homicide and everything in between. they worked 857 cases with a 25% clearance rate, with six of that still active. just to kind of give you a point of reference on that. The national average for that type of case is between 10 and 15%, so we are exceeding national averages in solving a lot of our crimes. Our Special Investigations Unit, this unit, they handle all sexual assaults that occur in the city. they handle any crime, whether a juvenile is a suspect or a victim. They do elder abuse, child abuse. They handle all runaways and missing persons in any serious domestic violence case. Now, I know every domestic violence case is serious. I'm talking about cases that result in serious bodily injury, they get involved. And so the clearance rates there are fantastic as well. our traffic unit.

We really revamped it and expanded it in the past couple years. We added more offices to it this year. we went through the process through some grant money to implement an e-citation program in the cruises so the officers aren't physically handwriting out citations anymore, they're scanning a license, it's printing it up, it's a lot quicker and easier, and we saw our citations increase 30% in the past year. In addition to that, they run our car seat check and installation program, so people can come in, our offices are certified, they check the car seats. If the car seat is found to be safe and the person can't afford a new one, we have a grant where we will provide them a brand new car seat. and since 2025, we checked and installed 263 car seats for people in the city. They also handle our crash reconstruction unit, which is regarded as one of the best in the state, one of the most respected. They're incredibly well trained.

They respond and investigate all crashes with serious bodily injury or death. since 2012, we have a very high success rate. Approximately 93% of the time we're securing a guilty or plea deal against a defendant, so. that they're also called outside of Quincy to assist in investigations because they are so widely respected. our Evidence Control Unit. This is something we started in the past year. We conducted an evidence audit and we found that the good thing was we had everything we were supposed to have. the bad news is we had way too much of it. We had stuff that we could have been purging for years and we weren't doing and to be honest the impetus for this was moving into the new building. We knew we were gonna have to move a ton of evidence from all three different evidence units over into a new building while maintaining chain of custody of everything. And we did all that. We were incredibly successful in doing that. and we started the purge with the DA's office and the District Court.

They've purged over 4,000 pieces of evidence since they started just within the past year. They've donated 40 bicycles eligible for disposal to the Vietnam Veterans of America. we partnered with propertyroom.com so some of these property that still had some value but we couldn't find or we didn't have an owner instead of destroying it they put it on an auction site and we were able to put $12,604 into the general fund just by doing that. And we were also able to locate people whose property we had in our possession for a significant period of time and we returned $5,872 to owners and finders as well as found wallets, bags, jewelry and a Red Sox championship ring was returned to the Red Sox. So they were pretty happy about that. So just going on, I'm almost done, I promise. Other programs and services, so the budget that you have in front of you doesn't represent our whole budget. We have other supplemental forms.

Sergeant Christine Hurton, who works in our planning in Grant's division, and Lieutenant Bob Gillen, who is our UAC Point of Contact secured us over $2 million in grant funding in the past year, and some of the grants you'll see up there reflect what that money, where we got those grants. and then some of the other things that we're able to do and I'm very proud of that a lot of other communities can't do or aren't are not able to do, you see up there, our scam awareness. We're going to the senior centers, and it's not just seniors anymore. our younger people are being targeted. A lot of get rich quick scams. I'm sure since we've all been sitting here somebody's phone went off and said there was some package that was about to be delivered and somebody's gonna click on it and next thing you know you're the victim of identity theft. so we're working on that. We run two citizens police academies. Our cops in the parks program which is really successful. We expanded down to Germantown last year.

We do Robert Street during the summer. We partnered with the rec department to do that. Our DARE program, we haven't given up on DARE. We've rebranded it, we've expanded it, and we do different things with it. I understand that some communities got away from it, but we've really changed how we operate DARE. It's an incredibly valuable program. I can get into that more if you'd like, but we put I think 1300 to 1400, fifth and seventh graders through it yearly in addition to running the DARE camp. are some of Youth Academy that was started up a couple years ago. We put students through that. We just started a wrestling program this year. A couple of our offices are really good wrestlers and they approached me with the idea of doing that. welcomed that and they really started that and it's really taken off. I mentioned our car seat installation program. Our boating safety classes that we run have been incredibly successful. We've put over 3,000 people since 2008, 3,000 students through this program.

And if any of you were voters, you know that by 2028, boat operators in Massachusetts will be required to pass this course and get their license. So this year was especially busy with those classes. Again, women's self-defense class, pepper spray class, and our bicycle safety class. So with that, I appreciate you letting me run through that. I'd be happy to expand on anything, but I know we have a busy agenda tonight. But with that, I'd just like to answer any questions you have about this budget. It's fairly level funded. but I'd be happy to answer anything you might have.

Okay, thank you, thank you Chief Kennedy. Okay, so if I could ask my fellow councilors to just, if you have any questions on the presentation that Chief Kennedy gave, I myself and Councilor Jacobs do have to recuse ourselves from a couple of items. So before we get into the details of the budget items, does anyone have any general questions on the presentation that Chief Kennedy presented?

Ryan. Thank you, Councilor Riley. Thank you, Chief Kennedy for coming here tonight. I just had a couple of quick questions with regards to the lozenge that you had mentioned. It's seasonal. Is that usually during the Christmas season? or does it vary?

Well, you know, I would love to be able to do it year-round, but we really have to pick and choose our battles a lot of times in the summer. You know, we just run really short on staffing, especially this year. Yeah, we put it out when we can, but we do specifically see the package theft uptick around the holiday shopping season.

Okay, okay, so that's the first question. With regards to the drug seizures, have you seen a decrease over the past couple of years? In regards to what? The drug seizures.

The drug seizures, yeah, they've remained pretty steady, maybe a slight tick down this year, and there's some working theories as to why that might be. We're not seeing, speaking to the officers in the Drug Unit, the number of couriers that used to be available, that they're not picking off as much, but it's maintained, it's still there, it's still a problem, and we're still out actively looking for it.

Okay, all right, last question that I have is e-citations. When did you implement that program?

I'd say it's definitely, I think we really started rolling it out during the past year. I think last summer, I could get back to you with a firm date. I know it was a progress. We applied for a grant. to get the actual computers installed. And then we slowly had to roll it out over a period of time and train the offices on how to use it. But I could get back to you with the affirmed data when we started that.

Now do these e-citations have a monetary value to it or is it just a warning?

It could be either. It's up to the officer. So we don't take away the officer's discretion. It's just an easier way, instead of handwriting a citation, they can scan the driver's license, send us some information, it prints out the ticket for them, so it's a lot faster. And it's really, one of the real big things is officer safety, because you're not, you know, when you have a car stop, you're not looking down right, and you're actually able to keep your head up and issue the citation.

and do you get any data from those e-citations?

Do we get any?

Data. So if it's e-citations, is there any log of what the citations are for?

Yeah, so I have a breakdown that I could share with you that we get from State Highway Department, and I could give you that information.

anything specific to Ward 4 because my constituents are always asking me about, you know, are we monitoring the speeding on specific streets in Ward 4?

Yeah, we definitely have. We've been out there. I know we spoke. We were up on Center Street. We went up there the past few days. West Street, Willard Street. Willard Street is state police jurisdiction. We have a pretty good relationship with the state police where We've been working concurrently with them with not only Willard Street, but Furness Park Parkway, Quincy Shore Drive. So we are out there. It's just, I could try and get you better analytics. The problem really is our records management system is about 25 years old, so I don't know what you had for technology 25 years ago, but I think I had a flip phone and a beeper. and we have similar technology there, so it's really tough to get analytics out of there, but some of the stuff we get from our crime analysts pulled some stats together, I think I sent you. You did, you did.

and that's helpful for my ward when they keep on asking me why aren't the police out monitoring the traffic and speeding.

Yeah, we definitely are. We had over 4,000 citations in the city last year. Those are just actual citations, not to count verbal warnings that we might stop somebody and give a verbal warning.

Okay, is there any way that I could get these reports on a quarterly basis, sort of, kind of?

I could work with our crime analyst, and I could provide it to everybody on the council if you'd like that.

Okay, I do have one.

That is a main concern. And, you know, in the three years I've been chief, that seems to be the call that I get from most councilors is, is traffic enforcement. And we do our best to get out there. Like I said, we did step up the number of officers we have in our traffic unit. We put a full-time supervisor in there. and you know we obviously can't stay in the same place all the time but we put locations on really like a preventative maintenance schedule so we do try and move around as much as we can.

Okay, I have one last question. You have two mental health positions funded by a grant?

So we have two. We've had two. Unfortunately, halfway through this year, we lost one of our clinicians who moved out of state, and we've been in the process of hiring a second one, and it's really just important to get the right fit we had a number of candidates and we left it up to the unit and the other clinician that we have to sort of pick the replacement and I'm very proud that we found what we believe to be the right person and she is starting June 1st, I believe.

Okay, and so when does the funding end for these grants?

We apply every year. You apply every year, okay. So I think we're good for at least another year.

Okay, all right, thank you.

You're welcome.

Mahoney. Hi, Chief. How are you? Just a quick question. When I'm looking at the personnel, you have budget. We're not going to talk about the budget. I'm sorry. I'm talking about this page. I'm talking about this page. You told me the presentation. Yes, the presentation. Presentation, you said you have budgeted 237. You have currently 226. Correct. Are we looking for, do we have anybody in training in bringing people up?

I'm sorry, my tinnitus is acting up today.

That's okay, so you have 11 people that are in the budget.

11 officers, yes.

Are we looking to put 11 more offices on, or are we having problems with the list?

Yeah, so it's a great question. We started about seven months ago trying to backfill these positions, and we are a civil service municipality, so we have been... not only having trouble hiring, but trying to hire the right people. So we put out, I think, to hire 11 or 10. At the time, we put out, I think, 40-something cards. Of that, I think we got like eight. and many people to come and actually sign the list which is unheard of. And of that only five people turned in their applications. So then we had to send out another batch of cards to try and get the other numbers we need. and then we go through the background process. Some people are eliminated during that. And then it's a matter of trying to get people actually into an academy which is, becoming more and more difficult through new rules that the MPTC has. That's the training council. So we were finally able to secure spots in a June academy, which is great. They start the end of June.

keeping my fingers crossed that they make it through because we've invested now seven months into this group and we have had people that we've put all that work into and they don't make it through the academy through one reason or the other or we had people who quit the day before that decided they didn't want to do it. So it's... it's difficult to try and forecast and stay ahead of that because I'm sure you remember the days with the Brockton Plan. Somebody would say, I'm retiring in three years, and you could set your watch to the day they're gonna leave. Now we've had situations where people have called me on a Monday and say, hey, my last day is next Tuesday. And now we're kind of behind the eight ball and we're starting the process to try and hire, so.

I think it's a challenge throughout the whole state and country, really, because civil service used to be, you were privileged to be able to make it onto the list and get onto the police or the fire, and now you're struggling to be able to find people to come and do that. So when I saw you had 11, I was just curious.

Yeah, and we're anticipating more in the next year. I mean, we're budgeting in the next year for 10 that we know basically people either have to, they're aging out at 65, or they've basically told us they're leaving. or we have a couple of people that were just waiting for Parekh to tell us that they're off the books.

What does civil service do to try to help? I mean, in the past, it was always just something that was naturally there. Are they doing anything to try to recruit people to come and taste the test, or how does that survive?

Yeah, and it's not even really, I mean, there's a number of people on the list. It's just a matter of the process by the time you send out the cards and you have to wait a specified period of time give them time to come and sign the list and then submit their applications. Yeah, it just really drags out and then the process to get into an academy has become more difficult as well. We used to be able to call an academy and say, hey, we know we're hiring 10. Save us 10 spots in your next academy, and they would do it for us. They don't do that anymore. They have to go through all the different PT tests, and they have to be entered into the ACADA system. before they can actually be secured a spot in the academy. So we've had people that we were ready to hire that we've missed out on academies because they filled up before we could get them in there. So it's a battle.

I can appreciate that. I don't know if people understand how challenging it is for chiefs to have full staff. For civilians, what do the civilians do within the police department?

So we have a number of them. So whether it's working in records, 50, I think it's 52 of them. Pull up the numbers. includes our traffic supervisors. So we have, yeah, 52. 46 full-time crossing guards, six subs. We have a financial manager. We have two mechanics. work on our fleet, my secretary, 2911 Dispatches, one IT specialist, another communications specialist that works in IT, We have a principal bookkeeper, a number of other clerks, typists that work in our records division. We have our criminal intelligence unit that really consists of three people. some law enforcement information specialists that go through our CAD and update that, and then two administrative secretaries.

So there's really 92 when you bring in the crisis response clinicians. They're not reflected in this budget, though.

What about the senior fraud investigator? Is that one of your civilians, too?

the Senior Investigative Liaison. Yep, he's counted in there.

And then how many people do you have in the 911 dispatch? And I'm just asking this question because it's just part of it.

Yeah, we have 20 that work 911 dispatches, telephone operators.

So, and this is not part of the budget, so I just want to make sure. I have a family that lives in Milton, and Milton approved on May 14th, 2026, they're gonna have a 911 regional communication center. That sounds very... It sounds very exciting, so I'm just saying that they're coming. I just was curious to know. We haven't heard anything about that, and I'm not trying to catch you off guard. I just was wondering if you could, because it's out there. It's in the public.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Yeah, so we were just wondering, I don't think anybody here on the council has got updated on that as far as I know.

No, I'm happy to. So probably... maybe about two years ago, we were looking at some creative ways, myself and at the time, Chief Joe Jackson, we were designing the new Emergency Communications Center and sort of setting up the layout and there was talk, is it gonna be police? Is it gonna be police and fire? And there's a bunch of unions that have to get involved in that. So one of the things that we started looking at a couple years ago was like a regionalization model. So all we have done at this point, Councilor, and I understand that Milton had to go before their select board to apply for the grant. That's all we've done is apply for a grant.

who's done a- No, it's okay.

Again, it's not a bad thing, it's just- No, no, no, I'm explaining the process, because it has come up recently with other counselors and people in my department, so I'm happy to explain what happened. So we were looking at ways that we can improve our services, we can improve our response time, and our operations, and could we be more efficient and effective. I'm always looking for ways to do things better. so we explored the idea, we approached the mayor, myself and Chief Jackson at the time, and we approached with this idea. If we regionalized, there was a huge push in State 911 to regionalize dispatch. They were offering a lot of money to do it. So we approached the mayor. We said, what do you think? He said, basically, explore it and get back to me. and that's all we've done. I put a team together. Now Chief Smith put his team together. We started exploring the process. We did a feasibility study. we had the Collins Center at UMass do a feasibility study that State 911 paid for.

We then applied for a grant. And in order to do the grant, we had to submit an inter-municipal agreement. That if the numbers came out, we would explore this idea. So not to get ahead of our skis on this, all we did was apply for a grant. So if they come back now, we put in for, I believe it was $11.6 million grant. if they come back and they say, we'll give you five million, it's probably a non-starter. If they come back and say, we're going to give you everything you need, then we bring it to the mayor, the decision maker, and he runs with it from there. We tap out at that point, they bring it to the multiple unions that are involved, I'm sure the council will have way in. but at this point all we've done is apply for a grant which I think you saw on the board there. We've applied for over two million dollars in grant funding and we don't come in front of this body every time we apply for a grant.

No, and I don't expect you to either, but I just saw it and I took a look at it, and I have experience with the Regional Communications Center too, and it's a great opportunity. A city the size of Quincy, I would imagine that, I don't know what towns you might be, Milton's, it's a big size town. Milton's a big size, it's a fairly good size town. What other areas do you think you'd be looking at to potentially?

to become a regional center Councillor, you only need two or more municipalities. So if we took on Milton, that would be it. Milton is currently our primary backup right now. if our 911 phone rings four times and no one answers it, it kicks over to Milton. So they were a natural fit. We kind of approached them, would they be willing to do it? and it's not just small towns that are doing it. The city of Worcester took on the town of Leicester and they got a substantial amount of money to do it as well. So it's a bigger municipality taking on a smaller municipality reaping the financial benefits and streamlining their operations, which is all we're trying to at least accomplish.

Who would be your backup if Milton was our backup before? So if we take on Milton and Milton becomes part of our 911, who would be our backup at that point?

Yeah, I can't. It's OK. We're not there yet.

That's OK. I was just asking because quite honestly.

No, we're not there yet. We applied for a grant.

Yeah, so honestly, I think what's exciting about this is that that is something that helps fund 911 in particular. and sometimes people don't actually appreciate what 911 does and they don't think of them as public safety. A lot of people don't think of 911 operators as public safety but having the opportunity to see a 911 regional communications center and what they're able to do it's amazing and it enlightens you that they're preparing everything for when the police and fire get there. And the way they work together is just, I think it's pretty amazing so I just wanted to say that when I heard it I just think it's important that that's a communication that we bring out and I'm hopeful that you know we have a big beautiful building that maybe that big beautiful building might have a way to help fund things.

Yeah, I think it would be, I mean, again, we're always looking for ways to improve the way we do things. If we can speed up our response times, if we can get more people together, and more importantly, if we can bring in a significant amount of money to upgrade our infrastructure and do it in a safe way. I mean, again, once we apply for the grant, and I met with some of the unions the other day because they had some questions about it, and I said, I'm certain that once we get through the grant process, my job is done and it's up to the leadership of the city to decide whether they want to do it. because we applied for the grant doesn't mean we're gonna do it. The town of Braintree did it about four years ago, applied for the grant. I think they might have been maybe partnering with Randolph or whoever they were gonna partner with at the time. they put in, wasn't financially feasible, they didn't do it. So this isn't just because we applied for the grant. And I understand that it kind of struck a little bit of a beehive when Milton brought it in front of their select board,

my understanding was the town administrator in Milton didn't have the authority to sign the IMA without select board approval which they gave him.

Yeah, it's a different type of government, that's all. And you can't, you need the select board to be able to do that. But what's exciting about it, if you do get it, the equipment usually is funded completely through the state 911. that's the beauty of it is that when you're bringing in other communities you can build it out and it's not necessarily in the back of the residents of the city of Quincy. They're a very helpful group and it's happening nationally. So I just wanted to mention that I

had heard about it, I thought it was an opportunity to talk about it. I toured the Holbrook site and it was fantastic. I really couldn't conceptualize the idea of it until I toured Holbrook, we toured the Hingham site, and I know some of the people on our our team have gone to different recs throughout Massachusetts.

I think it's only going to consolidate more as we go forward because technology is changing. But it's pretty impressive, so I just wanted to mention that. Milton's looking to come to Quincy. We don't know. They want to come. As of right now, the grant hasn't come, but they want to come.

The grant hasn't come. We don't know what's happening at this point. My job is pretty much done on that part of it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. I just have a general question. A lot of residents have concerns about flock. Program, that's like a civilian camera set up at the traffic lights, I don't know, monitor the vehicle License, please. I'm wondering, so Quincy has already adopted this FLOG program?

Yes, we have. We're very fortunate. We have a number of flock cameras that we got through Homeland Security. They've been incredibly, they've been a game changer for us. I know I've spoken to some councillors. They've come in. We sat down. We have a transparency portal on our website. I've given copies of our flock policy, our ALPR, Licensed Plate Reader policy. I could go off the top of my head and list five or six crimes that basically they have solved that probably would have gone unsolved. had it not been for the flock technology. But I do understand, Councilor, that people are, you know, your constituents and other constituents, when we spoke, people are apprehensive about it. But I can tell you that in Quincy, I understand that respecting people's civil liberties and protecting our city don't have to be mutually exclusive. I think we do it the right way in Quincy. We have a very strict policy.

We audit. anybody who the only certain people are allowed access to our flock system in the Quincy Police Department. I don't have access to it. It's our detectives, our investigators have access to it. and if they're going to enter a plate in to search for something, they need to put the reason why they're searching. So we're very strict because it's a really valuable tool that we use to keep our community safe and we don't wanna lose it. So we're very strict in who we use. We don't share. I know the question has come up, do we share our flock data with immigration enforcement? We do not. we keep it internally, we use it very judiciously, and like I said, we're as open as we can be about having the program and about the benefits of the program. and I'd be happy to share with you our policy and our link to our transparency portal to show you not only how many times it's been used, how many plates we've looked at, but some of our success stories are right on our website.

a follow-up question. So which budget item reflect the expense of a FLOC program?

Yeah, so the vast majority of our flock cameras are paid for through UASI, the Urban Area Security Initiative federal grant. they pay for the cameras and they pay for the service on the cameras. We do have a couple that we purchased. I'm sorry, we didn't purchase, they were given to us by a municipality that chose not to use flock and I believe on our, When we get in the budget real quick. is that all right?

Yes, I'm sorry, yes. So on the- Assuming it's not one of my six line items.

Yeah, no problem. And I don't think it would be. I believe it's our communication line item. So the flock cameras, I believe, come out of our communication 530400. and again, that's only for a couple of them. The vast majority of them are paid for with federal UASI grant money.

and so the major expense is just buying camera. Is there any operational expense on this project?

Yeah, we do pay a web-based fee per year per camera. But again, that fee for, I'd say, probably 98% of our cameras that we have that were purchased through federal money, we use the UASI grant to pay that fee. through Homeland Security, Urban Area Security Initiative.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, any other general questions? Councilor DiBona. one second, feel with me.

Here you go. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chief, thank you for the presentation. Really appreciate all the data that you've given. It's a great layout. You obviously know the Narcan program I always ask you about every year. That's why I threw that one in conflict. Thank you, I appreciate it. It's very important and I'm glad that fatalities are down. On the third-party Narcan reversals, it's 41%. What are those non-third-party Narcan reversals? Are those just... people, or is that like working with the nonprofits and they're giving them Narcan, or how's that? It could be anywhere.

It could be anyone. fortunately is more readily available than it ever has been. So I know we have a program where if somebody is that we suspect to be an opioid user is arrested for something and they're getting booked, we have some that we'll give them when they're getting billed out, we'll offer it to them. We're not gonna just hand it to them. We offer them if they want it. So we're trying to push it out as much as possible as are a lot of the social service agencies. So it's just more readily available, thank God. and it is reversing more and more of these overdoses.

Yeah, my time at the Snowfalk County Sheriff's Office when I worked reentry, we worked with the different non-profits and they were asking, we'd ask them if you want to leave with this and they'd say yes. who were given them out on the street, and there's a lot more ready available. So I see that the fatalities are down, it's just based on that. What about repeat Narcan, like, I guess performance between?

Yeah, it's still happening. I mean, people do overdose multiple times. Are you saying in the same instance? The same person? We've had the same person the same day multiple times. We've had the same person the same week that have been brought back. So it's still an issue. Still. And there's this fentanyl synthetic and we're finding more and more now that it's leading to other public health issues. They're mixing fentanyl with this xylosine and that's creating a lot of and a lot of skin conditions in people like open sores and things that a lot of people, especially in the homeless community, aren't getting treated. So we're coming up with some innovative ways to sort of bring some medicine and some treatment out to people in the street so that We're trying to help people before the situation gets worse, before they have to end up in a hospital, maybe some basic wound care. We have some ideas in the works that I'm really excited about, but I don't want to get ahead of myself

Is there any other protective measures for police officers when they're administering this? Is there anything that you wear besides gloves or you're just going to go and try to revive them? No, just gloves, sir. So there's nothing that's, you know, technology hasn't come out yet to say.

No, the office, it's quick. You're trying to get the Narcan in as fast as possible to reverse the overdose.

I appreciate your urgency to do that and you're trying to save people's lives. The community services and programs, obviously the scam and fraud awareness classes, are you working with Council on Aging in conjunction with over there, with the seniors, you also said you're also seeing a lot younger people getting scammed.

Yeah, we're going everywhere. We try and push it out on social media. We've had classes at, you know, Thousand Southern Ottery. We have classes at the Kennedy Center. Anywhere that we get invited to speak about it, we do. We have a couple of offices and detectives that are really good. and understand it and they're trying to get the message out there.

I appreciate you doing the wrestling program. I know that Matt Miller was really spearheading that with a couple other guys and I really appreciate that because not everybody plays hockey or basketball during that winter season. And we've had a really good program at wrestling up at the high school for many years. to see a new, starting it in the middle school level to get the kids that aren't doing those other sports to be doing that. So I really appreciate you guys doing that, the police department, and allowing that. Yeah, thank you. They're really passionate about it, so that was an easy one to support. That was great, thank you. Lastly, I'll end with this, and I don't want to get into the other questions for them, but the radar speed signs. I know when Brian Palmucci left his seat, I was at-large and I was a council president and I had to take over as a ward councilor, which is

a totally different role than an at-large, and I got a lot of calls in the Upton Street, Governor's Road area, and I know that the radar sign that was put onto the telephone poles and what you guys were doing is you were working with the residents in the neighborhood on just going down there early in the morning and just being there on the side of the street and the speeding slowed down because you had to cut through on to Governor's Row through Milton and then the opposite way sometimes at night. I really want to appreciate your help on that because the residents' calls simmer down. With that being said, is there any other areas in the city where you're seeing ward counselors maybe even calling or where there's problems with that congestion or speeding throughout the city?

Yeah, I mean, this place is everywhere. I know Councilor Ryan. I was invited to her meeting in that area hasn't. it hasn't proved, but we're still getting complaints, Bates and Grove, and I'm sure each of you are getting complaints in your respective wards, and we do our best to get out and try and enforce selectively some certain areas where we're getting complaints. We do work with TPAL. We meet with them monthly to try and come up with some plans. We have really great partnership with them. So I just continue to ask that when you do have those issues in your wards, reach out to me or Captain Ralph Willard in our traffic division, but just send it to me and I'll kind of triage it and send it where it belongs. we try and get our people out there and at least have a presence so the residents at least know that we are listening, we are trying to do something about it, and we do our best to kind of calm traffic a little bit.

I appreciate that because once the resident sees a police vehicle right outside their house and they just it's almost like they slow right down when they see the car so I appreciate that thank you for for elaborating on that because it's important. I don't want to get into the other questions for your sake, but I appreciate it, Chief, coming in tonight. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. Hubley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a comment first and then just a few quick questions about the presentation. So first, Chief, thank you very much for the presentation. It was very helpful. Similar to Councilor DiBona's question on the NARCAM on the number of, so under calls for service, then there's a number for arrests. I'm reading that as individual arrest instances, not arrested persons. Just out of curiosity, is it similar to Councilor DiBona's question, are we talking about 800 people and 1,000 arrests, or is it pretty evenly distributed since it's only a year's time frame?

No, each one of those arrests,

indicate one individual. One individual.

Correct.

I just wanted to make sure I was understanding.

Yes, I'm sorry.

It's not an instance of arrest, but it's a person arrested. So some of them might have been arrested once or twice or... Correct, yeah.

Multiple people could be arrested at different times. Okay, great.

I just wanted to make sure I was reading that.

We call them frequent flyers.

I was about to use that term, too, but I figured I'll let you go there. So the other thing, I wanted to make a comment on the community police officer program. I think it's amazing. I've benefited from it already, only been on this post for five months now. and Officer Hartnett, who's here this evening, has done a great job, highly responsive every time I reach out. Even when he's not on duty, he's like, hey, reach out to me, we'll get back to you. I've had to have him visit a number of a number of neighbors in ward three with a wide spectrum of issues. And every time I follow up with them afterwards, they're all very satisfied with it. And I like that there's a consistent person that the ward Councillor can go to because you start to build up a little bit of a rapport and you learn more. And I've learned a lot just in five months about when to call, what to call, what information to provide. So I just wanted to make a comment. That's a really great program and I appreciate the work Officer Hartnett's doing.

Yeah, we're very lucky that we're able to do that.

Yeah, yeah, that's excellent. I noticed in the, okay, so this is maybe a, I'll combine my two questions and then call it at that. Do I notice there's been a change in the response, the number of responses for mental health responses? have you seen any patterns, changes, similar to our discussion when I first started to get educated on how to interface with the police department? I know we talked a little bit about how human trafficking has evolved. It's kind of a bit of a, Cat and Mouse kind of thing. They evolve their tactics as we evolve your policing. I guess for mental health responses, are you noticing any patterns in that area? And likewise, crime in general, are there any evolving patterns of crime that we should maybe be aware of so as we think about future budgets and whether or not we need to adapt.

no specific real pattern. The one thing we have just seen is a tremendous amount of success when we collaborate with the Mental Health Court and Quincy District Court. and really I think one of the slides there, and I'm sorry if I might have brushed over it, but we've seen 71% increase in diversions from arrest with people who are in mental health crisis that were now referring them to treatment as opposed to arresting our way out of a mental health crisis, which has never worked. So 71% of those cases, they're not ending in arrest. We might be able to get them sectioned and get them to a hospital. So that's been a huge benefit to the city. It's helped us out with meeting, we meet with the judge from Quincy District Mental Health Court, our community services unit does, and come up with strategies and some ways to deal with some people. and the big thing is having that leverage with people to make sure that they maintain their treatment

so that if somebody does end up committing a crime, we're not just saying we're not arresting people, we're saying that if you do get arrested and you have some mental health issues, we can defer you to mental health court and they can kind of keep some leverage on you so that the charges don't go forward if you do what you're supposed to be doing and taking care of your mental health.

Okay. All right. That's all I have. Thank you on the presentation. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, so if that's it for general questions for Chief, oh, sorry about that, Councilor Ash, one moment. Ash.

Thank you, Chief. I don't have a question per se, but I do also want to highlight the Community Services Unit. I think Lieutenant Lenski and I, I think I might call him more than anybody else in my phone, and I won't give everybody a shout out but I will say I think we spoke multiple times every day last week and whether it is congestion or Construction going on after hours when inspectional services is not necessarily in the building, not that they don't do their due diligence. congestion from cars, cars being parked on the road for a long period of time, not being able to get down the street. We're coming into the springtime, which unfortunately, as a lot of the people in the audience know, means you're seeing your homeless encampments come up. and not only do I know that when I alert somebody in your department to that that that issue is going to be addressed as soon as possible but with

the utmost respect to the person who is both putting up the tent and the person who is having their children play right by it, right? And I know that the myriad issues that I call, or any of us as ward counselors, Call, wherever it falls on the spectrum for level of emergency or in the department, I know that to that person, it's the most important thing to them at that moment, and that they are getting the best city services. So certainly the community services unit is a huge asset and I just want to give a shout out whether it's speeding, towing, ticketing, construction, and a number of issues that come up every day. So thank you. Thank you.

Okay, anyone else? I'll say, okay. So what we're gonna do here is as I started to say, Councilor Jacobs and I have to recuse ourselves on a total of six budget items here. So I'm going to ask my fellow councillors to deliberate on these items first. Exhaust your deliberations on them. Councilor Jacobs and I will step out. Councilor DiBona is going to take over as the co-chair of the Finance Committee. So, running down the list so that we're clear. Starting with 512361, the Patrolman 3 line item. The next one is 512135, the telephone operator. The next one is 510140, the longevity line item. 510141, the shift differential. 510142, the education differential, and 510160, the reading time line item.

So those six items will be deliberated first. DiBona, if you could come up here, please. I will take my things. And once these have been deliberated and exhausted, then we will return back. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you. So these are the items here.

Beautiful. Thank you. Okay, Councilors, I'd like to open it up to the floor for those line items. Patrolman, Telephone Operator, Longevity, Shift-Diff, Educational Differential, and Reading Time. Anybody got any questions, comments on those? Chair recognizes Councilor McKee.

What is reading time?

Yeah, so reading time is a contractual line item. It's been, we've had reading time since before I got on the job, so that's 28 years. and the reason you'll see an increase this year is there was a negotiation, obviously contract negotiations this year, so the officers got an extra hour for reading time. So essentially what that is, it's to keep up on current laws, procedures. Right now we're re-issuing all of our policies through a PowerDMS website. so it's to keep up with all of that, that we're constantly putting out new policies. I'm surprised I haven't been run over in the parking lot for the number of policies we've been putting out, but it allows the offices to, basically get compensated for all of their legal update and keeping up with the policies. But again, it's a contractual line item. It was negotiated between the city and the unions.

Just out of curiosity, is that happening outside of the kind of normal work schedule, or is that just part of the work schedule?

No, that's the intention, that it would be, it's a contractual line item. I believe it's, you know,

and is there any? sort of checking up on how much time people are putting in or anything like that?

I don't believe there's a way to enforce it on my end, Councilor. It's a contractual line item that was signed off between the city and the unions. and I don't sit in on the union negotiations.

Actually, who does sit on the union negotiations? Who sits on the union negotiations?

Well, it'd be the union reps and their lawyer. and from the city, it's usually somebody from Human Resources and whoever the city lawyer, I think they usually use Mike McCarroll, Attorney Mike McCarroll to sit in on them.

Oh, I'm sorry. I was waiting for someone else to say it, but I actually do have another question on this. So what is the shift differential?

The shift differential we're looking at, so essentially if offices work nights, they're entitled to, I believe it's 15% of a night differential. If they have senior officer pay, which means they've been on for a certain number of years, and they work days, they also get a senior officer pay, it also includes lunch money, a post certification that was contractual this year, for being post-compliant. So it's all sort of lumped into that shift differential, which again is really a contractual line item.

Okay, so that's all my questions on these items, thanks.

Any other councillors? We'll go to Chair-recognized, Councilor Ryan.

Thank you, thank you, Councilor DiBona. Chief Kennedy, I noticed on line item 512361 that there was a transfer out of 240,000. Could you explain?

I'm sorry, Councilor, could you give me that one again?

Okay, five, one, two, three, six, one. Five, one, two, three, six, one.

You know what that one's titled?

I'm sorry, I'm... Yep, it's Patrolman.

Oh, Patrolman 3, yeah. Yeah, all right. So we looking at our year to date?

Yeah, well, I'm looking at the transfer out of $240,000. I just wanted to, if you had any, or if you remembered what that transfer out was.

I'm just saying, you're looking at our current, this current budget? Yes, year-to-date budget report, yes. Sure. Yep, so what we do routinely, Councilor, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we're down 11 officers. It's basic budget management. I know that I'm down 11 offices, so I know that patrolman three line item is going to be high. So to offset some line items that I'm running a deficit in, whether it's My overtime, my civilian police overtime, my training time, I will move that money around to those different line items, which we do routinely during the course of the year. if there's a line item that we're running a deficit in or a line item that we're running a surplus in, we just sort of adjust as the year goes on. So that would be that transfer.

Okay, so basically you just try to level fund all of your different accounts?

Yeah, so basically that's what happens. So when we start our budget cycle, we try our best to forecast strategically and tactically the short and long-term needs of the department where we think we may be. and like any good plan never survives first contact, generally a couple months into my budget, maybe more officers are going to court than not or less officers are going to court. Maybe we're higher on overtime because for whatever reason, there's a lot of different factors that go into it. So what me and my team do on basically a weekly basis starting, the first week of July, really, when the budget comes in. We monitor it constantly, so we move money around in that that main personal services account to offset deficits and surpluses. It's just how we manage this law enforcement public safety budget.

Okay, all right, thank you for that. I appreciate that. Another item that I see is, I believe it's 510142, education pay. Or is that, yeah, education pay. transferred out $400,000.

Right, same situation there. So those, what's commonly known as what used to be known as the Quinn bill, those are quarterly payments. So again, we have, you know, because they're quarterly payments and people retire or leave at different times during the course of the year, they're no longer getting a Quincheck, so we know that that number is going to be higher than than we're going to need it to be to pay the next quarter's payments so the same thing we might transfer that in to a maybe a training if different unit commanders will come to me at different times, or shift commanders, and they'll find some training opportunities for their offices to go to. and they'll say, hey, I found this opportunity. I think it'd be good. We first determine, would this add any value to the department? We're big proponents of training. And again, I think it goes back to why our department does so well. We really heavily invest in training. So a lot of times when these unit commanders or shift commanders will come to me and they want to bring their people to training, we first see if we can afford it.

and if we can, maybe we'll take, okay, we have some money that we know we're not gonna have to pay in the education pay because a couple people retired. Let's move that up to the training line item and we can send your people to whatever training it is.

Okay, all right, thank you, okay.

Actually, Vice Chair recognizes Councilor Mahoney.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Chief. So I'm going to try to stick to what she told me to because I just want to go over everything, but that's just how it goes. I guess when I'm looking at... the patrolman one. So in 2025, you didn't have any patrolman one. 2025? Yeah. Okay. So in 2026, is this where all your newbies will be coming in, the ones you're gonna be hiring, patrolman one?

So in my 2025 budget, I believe we... I'm sorry, let me look at... let me go to my historical here. Yeah, I thought in the 2025 budget we budgeted four and Patrolman won. In the 26 budget, I'm sorry, 26 budget. Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. My bad. The 25, I don't think we put anybody in patrolman one. We put everybody in patrolman three. And then the next year, we started to break it out because we were going to be hiring new offices. So I believe in 20 We were going to hire four. So we put four in patrolman one and the remainder in patrolman three. And then you'll see this year we're looking to hire ten. So you're going to see ten step one offices, patrolman one. That's what that line item reflects.

And then the remaining in patrolman three.

So if I'm looking at Patrolman 1, it looks like you started with $260,000 in fiscal year 26, and then you transferred out $260,000. Do we have any Patrolman 1s at all right now?

I apologize, Councilor. I'm having trouble hearing.

So in 2026 budget, your budget was $267,800. Correct. And then in the actual year-to-date budget report, it looks like you transferred out $260,000 of that. Do we have any patrolmen won? That's my question.

Right now, I believe we, yeah, we still have some patrolmen won. But again, Councilor, what we're looking at when we talk about these budget line items, we routinely move money from certain line items into others. The big thing with my budget in particular, a police budget, it's not the percentage that you're looking on the far right of percentage used the big number for me is the bottom number okay so that's what i look at and that's what i base my

What number? I didn't hear what you said.

The bottom number.

Your total budget number?

My total budget number for personal services. that's the big thing. I can't really go through in a perfect world. I understand budget 101 at the end of the year all those percentages are gonna be zero and at the end of the year they're all gonna be 100. That would be amazing if that was possible. Oh, no, I understand that. But for me, it's not.

Madam Auditor, could you just take a look at that for me to make sure I'm reading it rightly? Patrolman 1 in the budget currently looks like it's been zeroed out. That's my only question.

I do apologize, I have multiple sheets in front of me here.

The auditor's gonna do it. In fiscal year 2026, $260,000 was budgeted in that line. As the Chief said, it is normal practice for money to be transferred out during the fiscal year. In this particular case, the money was transferred out into their overtime line. and if you go back historically and look at all the lines in the police department budget through personal services, you will see various transfers in and out throughout the year to go with how the budget is flowing.

I understand, I just wanted to make sure I was reading it right. So it looks like you have no patrolman ones, and that's probably because you have 11 people you're trying to hire. That's all I was getting at. because you're not looking at the line to line. So what I'm looking at, what Susan just told us, is that it's been zeroed out and it went into overtime, but you're asking for 649,065 because next year you're hoping to hire 10, patrolman one.

I'm hoping to hire, correct, an additional 10 patrol officers. So I know for years they would just put everything in Patrolman 3. are trying to do a better job of breaking that out so that we're trying to be as transparent as possible. We're looking to hire 10. We're putting 10 in patrolman one, so we're bringing them into the lower salary instead of putting everybody at a higher salary.

No, that's fine. I was just following the trail in you saying that you like to look at the bottom line. I understand, Chief, there's a lot of numbers.

And believe me, it's been three years and I'm still confused when I go through these budgets.

That's okay. It's all right. It's not a test. and then I just, because I saw that and I also noticed the Patrolman III, are you down some Patrolman III because your budget's actually going down, 14,859,000 to 14,565?

Yeah, so the thing with, when you notice the difference there, we're losing the officers that are retiring are, most of them have, well, I would say all of them have the 24th, 25th step included. So there's a lot of offices that are now coming into the patrolman three line item that aren't technically, I guess they would, be even at a higher step raise because they're at the 24th year, 25th year. So we did our best to budget. So I know it does look like that number came down a little, but it's reflective of the fact that the offices we anticipate going up aren't at the top steps yet, even though their patrolmen...

It was just a breakage. It was a breakage from... I'm sorry? It's a breakage from a higher-ranked police officer to a lower-ranked...

The officers with the 24th, 25th year that don't have that.

That's fine. Thank you. I'm going to hold because I don't have any questions in the ones that we highlighted.

Okay. Any other councillors? Seeing none, we can...

Vice Chair. Thank you, Councilor DiBona. Is it longevity in the, we are talking in this section?

Yeah, this is the section that you need to talk about longevity.

Okay. So I'm looking at the item 510.140, longevity.

5-1-0-1-4-0? Yeah. Longevity?

So you Longevity, you budget $183,000. Right. and the auditor gave us the data from 2023 to 2026. The most you spent is 147,228. So I'm just wondering why do you budget much more this year.

The higher number, yeah, I understand the question. And the issue there is longevity, is contractual increases for offices who've reached five, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years. So what we're seeing now and what we're forecasting out are offices that are going to be getting those longevity checks that have now reached the 5, 10, 15, 20, 25-year mark where they get longevity payments. So that's where that... that increase came from, and obviously now it's at a higher rate than it was in 2023.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Any other Councilors?

Okay, we can bring in Chair of Finance, Riley, and Councilor Jacobs. Thank you, Chief. It was fun being up here again. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor DiBona. Any other questions for Chief Kennedy on the rest of the budget? Councilor Yuen, hang on one second.

Thank you, Chairwoman. So I have a question about item 510131, the court, court time.

Court time.

Yeah, so... Quotam, from the historical comparison from fiscal year 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, the most you spending is $299,486 and why do you budget for $629,000? do you expect more case will be on court?

No, I understand. So essentially, again, when we're putting this budget together, we have to look at, now, in 2020, Post COVID or during COVID, court time was basically almost non-existent. People weren't going to court. And it's been slowly ratcheting back up. So when we're trying to forecast our budget, we have to account for the fact that that people are going to get called to court. Now that's one of our line items. Like I was saying earlier to Councilor Mahoney, I understand when you go through these line items, it makes sense theoretically that every line item should at the end reach 100. but in a public safety budget like mine, I go into the budget prep, there are things, I have known knowns, things I know that I know,

I have known unknowns, things that I know that I don't know, and I have unknown unknowns, things that I just can't possibly think are going to happen. I know a known known is that I have a certain number of offices that have to work a certain number of shifts per day of the week, per shift, per time of the year. I have known unknowns. I know that there are things that are gonna happen that I don't know what's going to happen. I know that we work in a very dangerous job. And I know that, unfortunately, my officers are going to get hurt doing a dangerous job. One got hurt last night. on Quincy's short drive. He got pulled into an elevator, and he was in the fight for his life. He ended up breaking his hand, so I couldn't plan for that. He's going to be out, and I'm getting to your point, I promise. The issue is, what I have to do is budget for any potential, anything that could happen. So I understand the line items, but the more important thing is the bottom number that we have historically

come in within a fraction of a percentage point on the total number that I'm budgeted that I spend. So when it comes to court time, Councilor, I look at, okay, there is a possibility that court is gonna start ramping up again and I have to be able to budget for that. and if I don't, I know that I can potentially move that money up into our overtime to fund some of the services that we're very fortunate to fund here in the city or fund our training that we really prioritize. So I understand your question. and I kind of have to think tactically and strategically when I put these budgets together. So I think more important than each individual line item is that bottom number of what I need to run the Quincy Police Department in fiscal year 2027.

Yeah, I just try to understand why and because if you don't go through line by line and you just only do the last number, it's very difficult for us to track.

I understand, I'm just trying to explain what my thought process when my team and I put this budget together, where our heads at. We really look at past performance to indicate where we are gonna be in the future, and I think that that's what we've done with this budget. Your question absolutely makes sense.

Okay, I have one more question. Because you said you track the trend, then you decide the future budgeting. So my question about item four, 5-1-0-1-3-0 over time. I'm wondering why you only budget $1,300,000 since you see the trend. 2023, you... Our time is 2,226,616. In 2024, also 2,407,748. In 2025, it's 2,005,000. 511, and 917.

So, 2026 year to date is 2,187,000. and 662. So from this trend, I think, because all over two million, so I'm wondering why your only budget of 130 is like a bigger gap, big difference.

Yep, absolutely. and the simple answer to your question is the 1.3 million is what we anticipate we would need to fund basic Police Services on overtime. You call 911, doesn't matter if people are off, if we have to force people to hire, that 1.3 million, is going to get the bare minimum that we need in overtime, that we anticipate we would need in overtime to fund basically the bare bones police department. You call 911, we're coming. the reason that those numbers creep up is because when we manage our budget during the course of the year and we see that we're running deficits in other areas we're able to fund other programs like all the programs I put up there on the board that we're able to put extra officers out. We're able to put extra officers out. We talk about extra traffic enforcement or cops in the parks.

or the many special events we have, it really dictates the level of support we can provide to some of the programs and some of the things, the extras that we do in the city. So the 1.3, if we kept it at 1.3 and we do keep it 1.3, we do our best to bring forward as lean a budget as we can. and that's why the 1.3 is represented there and the reason that you're seeing historically we're going higher is because we have some breakage in some other areas that we're able to move up to those line items specifically over time, training, civilian overtime, supervisors overtime to put more people on the street. So I hope that answers.

Yeah, I just want to, when you budget, I think it's better to budget to reflect the reality.

I would love to budget 2.5 million in that line item if I was given the opportunity.

Yeah, I thought, oh, if I can increase this, I will increase, because every year you do spend that amount.

The 1.3 would be basic level services. without any of the extra programs that we provide.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Linke, give me a moment. Thank you. Hi there. So I actually had some of the A similar point about overtime, and I have to use my graphs. So again, for the 50 largest Communities in Massachusetts. Public safety, so I think this would account for both fire and police as a percentage of the budget is number two for Quincy Wade. and then in terms of public safety cost per resident, we're number three. So how much each of us is paying towards this as a fraction or per resident.

It's a lot of money going to this department and I guess when I'm looking, you just explained some of that for the overtime. but I guess I'm thinking like we saw that for the school budget it was way down near the bottom of the 50, so I'm kind of thinking of Equity things, and I'm thinking about just that we are so much in debt in the city. So I'm... and I'm noticing that transfers, as you're talking about, are coming in to cover the additional overtime for most of the last six years and every year

Since 2020, the overtime budget has gone over the original budget of 1.3 in the last few years. So I guess I'm hoping that if there's anything you can do to keep that overtime budget to 1.3? I feel like that would be very helpful. I know it's wonderful to have all these other programs, but I think we might be getting to the point where we might have to be picking and choosing a little bit about some of the extra things so I guess I'm hoping, I know we would have to approve the transfers later but,

but that's my feeling is that if we can kind of keep things close to the 1.3, that would be best.

Yeah, and just to get to your point, Councilor, the transfers are something that we do internally in our yearly, as we manage the budget during the course of the year, it's not something we would come in front of the council. The only time we would come in front of the council to move money if we were gonna move something from personal services to our contractual line item, that would require council approval. but basically just like I said, as we go through the course of the year, we manage the budget and I would like to think that in my three years as Chief and with my predecessor before me, but speaking specifically for myself, we take our responsibility and our fiduciary duty to the city very seriously. I think we're, particularly me and my budget team, my command staff, where we try and get the most bang for our buck. and we try and return value to the things that we do for this city. So, you know, I understand your point. This is a lot of money.

We are entrusted with a lot of money, but we're also entrusted with a very important role and, you know, I like the path that the police department is going on. We have some young, we have some incredibly dedicated officers that are out there putting themselves on the line 24-7. and, you know, proven last night, I had an officer fighting for his life in a closed elevator until his partner got there. So, you know, this is my job. My priority is the safety of, the citizens of Quincy, the safety of my officers, and if ultimately this body is the one that determines what I have to do and what I have to work with and I respect that role, and I just ask that you recognize that when I am given money the past three years, I'm coming within a percentage point of the money that I'm entrusted with. and I do take that responsibility very seriously.

I don't want to be coming back in front of the council saying I blew through my money, I need more. I don't want to be in that position. So we are, I think, excellent stewards of the money that has been entrusted to this department. in the past three years. I do get your point. I just don't know, what do I cut? Because if my budget, if my bottom line budget is cut, then some of the programs and some of the offices that I have doing special things we're going to return them back to the core services of our main function. The engine that drives the bus is our patrol division. everything else we have nice to haves and we have need to haves. And our patrol division has our need to have, our basic support when you call 911, everything else is a nice to have. and I don't know which, you know, it's going to be up to this body to determine if I would respectfully ask that you fully fund my budget. because I think we're doing some great things in the city.

I think that our crime stats prove it and I think that the work that our officers are doing daily prove that we build public trust we're out there, our officers are doing an unbelievable job and I don't know what area I would cut but that would be a determination that I would have to have with my command staff tomorrow if this body does choose to cut my budget.

Excuse me, I haven't heard any motion to that effect, though. I think it's just an observation.

Yeah, it's just an observation. I'm looking at the budget and seeing a lot of transfers and... Again, sort of thinking maybe a little bit along the lines with Councilor Yuen about the fact that it seems to go over what is expected, so it seems like there's a lot of additional Overtime. And I don't know if there's a way to maybe help. You've been so open to me coming in and asking questions. I really appreciate that.

All right. Transparency is important to me, Councilor, and that's why I'm just telling you that when we talk about transfers that some line items might go over, they're offset by some that we're running deficits in. So that's how we manage our budget during the course of the year. but the bottom line is when we come to the end of the year, we're not over the bottom line, that bottom number, we're coming in a $43, $44 million budget coming within a fraction of a percentage point. I think is pretty fiscally responsible on our end.

In terms of the training you mentioned, is it a state requirement for 40 hours? per year, is that?

Correct, yes. Yeah, that's a post in Criminal Justice Training Council requirement that officers undergo a minimum of 40 hours of training per year.

Okay. And that is, that's under the training time, is that right, this line? That's correct, yes. and then you said you do more than that that's required. I guess I'm wondering, how much more do you do and what would you estimate the 40 hour training would cost?

Yeah, I think that's what we sort of factor in that the 1.3 for the 40 hours of training for everybody in the department. and there might be a little more built in there, but we do, actually, I'm sorry, we also add in our, we do have and some other, so the main patrol force is 40 hours. Our SWAT team is a different animal to achieve our National Tactical Officers Association standards. They have to do, 16 hours a month and 40 hours additional a year to maintain their accreditation. So they do that as well and I believe that's also built into that training line item. but I think the second part of your question, how much extra do we do? Yeah. We do a significant amount more. We have a lot of less than lethal tools that our officers need to be trained on and you'll see in... I think it's in our contracted line item.

We have a taser program that we implemented a few years ago and it's been incredibly successful. We have 10 tasers deployed. on the street mostly. It started out with just a SWAT officers and we were hoping in this budget to expand it by an additional 20 tasers. And again, we just had one, I think last week, was a domestic individual, came out with a knife and the officer there fortunately had a taser and he was able to safely take the person into custody with a taser because his next resort would have been having to resort to deadly force. We had another incident last year, same thing. So we've seen the benefit of deploying more tasers on the street. So that's why we were respectfully adding that into this year's budget to expand that program. we also have a 40 millimeter less than lethal program that we put all of our patrol officers through and that's just another

it's a de-escalation tool, it doesn't sound like one, but it is, and it's another situation where you can stop aggressive behavior from a distance, keeping our officers safe, and ultimately keeping the suspect safe, albeit maybe a bit bruised. so those are additional trainings. We also put on less than lethal tactical decision making classes and again I mentioned earlier if a different unit commander saw a training that he wanted his people go to we have our mental health clinicians and our clinician. The second one hasn't started yet. They're down in Hyannis right now at a crisis negotiation conference. That's all stuff that will be paid for out of that line item.

and then this is, so I had been asking every department certain questions and so you had gotten back to me about the number of vehicles that you have. So far the departments that I've asked really either haven't had vehicles or they've had like one and I'm just kind of curious about vehicle policies. So I know some people you had mentioned can bring their cars home. And just in terms of, you know, Is there a policy that the department has that says use it for don't use it for personal things or how do you monitor that sort of thing and filling up on gas and that sort of thing. I'm just thinking this could be an area where you know, it's hard to oversee things.

We do have a vehicle policy and I'd be happy to send that to you when I get back to my desk tomorrow. I could email it over to you. But essentially the offices that take the cruises home are essentially a number of my command staff. that take it home because if something, they're basically on call 24-7. If something happens, they have to go. The detective unit commanders take it home and they are authorized if they have a detective that might be on call, they're authorized to allow that detective to take their car home. there was during the construction of the new building because we were so limited on space we were letting pretty much every detective take their car home because we didn't have the space to store them with the personal cars for each shift. But right now we have, I mean, in the past, since we've moved into the new building, we have stopped that practice. So obviously all the canine offices, because that's their office and they need to bring their dog back and forth. But yeah, that's...

it's a pretty small number comparatively of people that are authorized to take their car home but I will make a note to make sure I send you a policy on that.

Okay, great, thank you. And then just very briefly, you mentioned that one of the things that we see a lot is the donations to DARE, and you mentioned that a lot of communities are kind of moving away from that, you've changed it and that made me curious if you can briefly talk about how the DARE program is different than it used to be.

Yeah, so there was a report several years ago from the National Institute of Justice that found that DARE programs weren't effective. the Just Say No campaign was not working and a lot of departments abandoned the DARE program. Our DARE program has completely shifted. It's no longer simply just say no. They do a lot of bullying classes. They do a lot of recognizing and dealing with stress. and there's obviously still a alcohol drug awareness component to it, but it's a lot of like, there's more bullying. We put between 13 and 14 hundred students, fifth and seventh graders through it. We have two DARE offices that are fantastic and we didn't want to abandon DARE. We think that the DARE program does a great job.

We actually, we have one officer who's been doing it 20 something years and we now have police officers who had him as their DARE officer when they were in the fifth grade. so it's pretty cool and the other DARE officer, she's fantastic, she grew up in Germantown, went to Quincy High, joined the Marine Corps, she's a marathoner and just like what an unbelievable positive role model for these kids and a lot of times what, one of the reasons we don't want to give up on DARE, we've seen situations when I worked in detectives in our special investigations unit, and a lot of times the first contact that a fifth grader might have with a police officer is their D.A.R.E. officer. And when I was working in special investigations, we had a situation where a girl confided into her D.A.R.E. officer that she was being molested by her neighbor. and that was because she trusted her dear officer. And there's many more examples that have happened since then. That was a long time ago. But I think it's an important program. We get a lot of kids sign up. I mean, pretty much everybody signs up for the DARE camp in the summer.

We hire youth leaders, older kids to kind of, we bring them around. It's a two-week camp. As soon as the registration opens up, people are waiting in the lobby to hand in to make sure they get a spot. So it's a really great program. But again, it's a nice to have, and I think it's a great to have. And I don't want to give up on it.

. Thank you. Is that it?

Okay.

Councilor Hubley, you were next and then and then Councilor DiBona, so Councilor Hubley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Chief. I just have one comment and then two questions that I noticed looking at the actuals over time. Excuse me, I've got a bit of a frog in my throat. The first one is I really appreciate your team's partnership from the inception of PorchFest 10, 11 years ago. The idea of putting a bunch of musicians and bands on porches in several different neighborhoods with people walking around in the streets and so forth. you know, having a great time. It's our estimation based upon our website statistics. We had 18,000 distinct phones download the schedule on or before the day of PorchFest. So it's a highly attended event. It's not ticketed, so we don't really know how many people truly, but I really appreciate the commitment to the event.

the partnership on it, the collaboration, and keeping it to be the safe and family friendly event that it is, especially amidst all the other things you have to sometimes do on the same day and within the same weekend. I know it can be a little bit of stress. So first of all, thank you very much for your team's participation and partnership on that over the years. With respect to the budget, I just wanted to ask a few questions. So I noticed on item 510028, which is the Senior Investigative Liaison, Yes. It looks like a fairly new position. I just wanted to see if you could maybe speak a little bit about what that is and the value it represents.

Yeah, absolutely. So we had a we've seen a real rise in complex scams and I came before this body at the last budget cycle because we came up with an idea. There was an individual that had a unique skill set and he went through, we had an analyst position and when we were hiring for the analyst, this individual applied for the analyst position and we determined he wasn't a good fit for the analyst position but the skill set that this individual had with, you know, he was basically retiring from his career in federal service with the DEA and the Treasury Department. and he is really an expert in tracking very complicated criminal organizations. And what we've seen here in Quincy, we've seen them start to pop up, not only the scams and the frauds involving

Bitcoin in cyber currency, which when it happens, you have a certain amount of time to seize the digital wallet before that money is essentially gone. and we had a little bit of success seizing with one of our detectives who's incredibly bright and capable. I think we seized one digital wallet. and I know because I would get the phone calls from this person in Indonesia saying we stole his money but it was money that he stole from somebody else and we had just happened to seize his digital wallet. I spent a long time on the phone with him one day before I realized what was happening. But essentially the skill set that this individual was able to bring to bear, I thought that we could leverage it and it was an area that we were weak in our department and since hiring this individual, he's been really a game changer. He's been working with our drug unit. What we've discovered were these human trafficking rings are incredibly complex. I think you described it. Was it you, the whack-a-mole?

We talked about that when we met. You know, you pop up, you shut one down and they pop up somewhere else. and we didn't have the resources or the tools to really track these individuals. So he's been working hand in hand on some very complex investigations with our drug unit and with our Bureau of Criminal Investigation tracking some of these larger rings that do operate here in Quincy. So that's what that position is. And we were able to get him on board, leverage his experience, and add some real value to our department.

Yeah, I've been personally along with my fellow Rotarian members have been working a lot on helping to fund an organization in Thailand that fights human trafficking. and they've nearly eradicated human trafficking in Northern Thailand. So that's fighting at the source and it's good to know that we're also addressing it where it comes because it's where that's sort of where the full lifecycle of it. So it's important to have a full comprehensive approach towards that. The other question that I have is on item number 512. I better put the glasses back on, 512091, the crime analyst. And I noticed that when I looked year over year, there was a bit of a dip, I want to sit back in 25 in terms of that position. So I just want to understand the fluctuation

where it was increased prior to that in 2023 and then in 24 and then we saw a dip in the amount there and now it's kind of up twice the size of the dip that it had in 20, I think it was 25 if I'm not mistaken. So I just want to understand that.

Where that position came from?

Yeah.

Yeah. So essentially what we had, we had... and individual who worked as a manager in our detective bureau. And when upon his retirement, I approached the mayor and said, instead of, basically using, we don't need a manager in our detective bureau anymore. What we could really use is a criminal intelligence analyst. we were lacking in that capacity. And as I mentioned with our 25 year old records management system and our CAD system, it was incredibly difficult to get any analytics out of our current software. So we came up with the idea of potentially taking that salary and hiring a crime analyst. So we did post that. We got authorization through the council at the time to hire a crime analyst, and she basically took over that spot. It was a union position as the BCI manager. She took over that spot.

and with it came an increase in pay commensurate with her experience and duties. So now essentially when you see that line item, it's a union position and she got contractual raises. So that's why that went up.

That helps. All right, that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you very much.

DiBona.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Chief, I appreciate you answering all the questions earlier. I just, over the last three years of you being the Chief of Police for Quincy, you've done a great job. well-respected in the community, my peers, retirees. I appreciate all your input and leadership for the men and women of the city of Quincy. Police officers are out there. I appreciate all your support. A lot of towns and cities across the US, they're having a problem with backing the police. I want you to know I'm 100% behind you. I'm 100% all the men and women that put their lives on the line. I want the public to know that that's why I continue to be a Councilor, is to make sure, I was raised here, I grew up here, went through the Quincy Public Schools, I'm raising family here, and I want your morale and your police station, the new public safety headquarters to be positive. I want you to know that I'm behind you. I know the Mayor,

Mayor Koch is behind you. I want you to know that I am, and that's why I continue to serve up here, is to make sure I have you guys' back, guys and girls. With that being said, you guys and girls go above and beyond and you're out there to save people's lives. So, you know, I don't wanna hear this rhetoric that's from these other towns and cities coming into our city. You've been through a lot over the years, the COVID, all those different things have happened. You've helped other police departments across the Commonwealth when they need help. I know you did that in need with different things that happened. with the rioting that's happened. So I appreciate all those over the years. And I just want you to know that, the men and women that put their lives on the line. what I kind of heard was a little different because this particular year, it's only a $1.6 million increase.

Previous year was 2.24 increase, so you're down $641,000 in increase from 25 to 26 to 27. I wish we could give you more funding in the budget, and I appreciate your you're trying to do the community service and the community policing and all those extra programs. I think it's very important for the community to have that positive impact that they can come to you and they feel comfortable doing that. Thank you. Thank you to all you officers out there. With that, I'd like to make a motion to approve. I put that in the form of a motion. Thank you.

motion to approve the budget as presented. There were no amendments while I was out, no, okay. Any further discussion on that? All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay, thank you. Thank you. Don't go too far, though, Chief Kennedy, because we've got you for the next one, too. Thank you. Okay, so that will be the police budget. The animal control budget is up next. on page 53. Feel free.

don't open any questions on the animal control budget.

McGee.

I guess I'm wondering, it looks like in 2024, the actual spending went Way up for this department from about $2,000 to and then up the next year to about $18,000 and then up the next year to $22,000. but budgeted always at $4,000 or $2,000. And so I guess I'm wondering what's been happening in the last few years. Yeah, what's been happening in the last few years for it to go up so much?

Yeah, so unfortunately we had an incident with our assistant animal control officer where she was very short time on the job and she was attacked by a large cane co-sort dog and so that necessitated, she's had, I don't want to get too far into it, but she's been out of work for a significant period of time, so that fell on the and Animal Control Officer to be basically fulfilling both roles. So we did transfer some money into that. overtime line item to account for the fact that the animal control officer was basically doing both jobs and having to respond at all hours.

And is that person back now, or?

No, I believe that the Assistant Animal Control Officer put our paperwork in through PAREC. so we are in the process. We did try to attempt to hire a temporary assistant animal control officer. We weren't incredibly successful because people weren't guaranteed a steady job and we didn't want to post it without make the person feel like we were pushing them out the door, so we did post it as a temporary position, and if the assistant did recover and come back, that she would absolutely have her job back but then we got information from PAREC that she did file for her retirement. So we did post it as a full-time job and we're hoping to have that filled in the near future. So that was the transfer in there.

That's the $25,000 transfer.

Right, into the overtime line item that we pulled out of the assistant position.

Any other questions? No? Okay. Anyone else?

Animal control questions?

Motion to approve.

We have a motion to approve the animal control budget 292. Counsel, again?

Tell us which position is union position in the animal control.

They're both union positions. Yes, the assistant and the animal control officer are both union positions.

Okay.

Okay, so next question is, the overtime 5-1-0, 1-3-0 overtime, you only budget 8,000. but year to date already spend 22,382. I'm wondering why when you budget you are, you are not according to the historic trend.

Yeah, no, I think it was at Councilor McKee's question as well, and the Assistant Animal Control Officer went out with a significant injury, so we had to transfer money from what was her salary in the assistant position. We moved 25,000 up to the animal control officer's position because he was doing both jobs. So to fund him.

Yeah. I mean, just have a suggestion. So for both the police department and the animal control department, next time when you do budget, maybe your budget more reflect the reality. Because this overtime fire department, police overtime is like a difference is over one million dollar and it's already, and since 2023 to 2026 is always over two million and you only budget one million three hundred so that means you have to shift money a lot to...

Yeah, that just comes down to trying to manage the budget on a weekly basis and account for things that we weren't expecting. But I do get your point with the overtime there. it has historically been on the lower side. We're hoping that by hiring the second animal control officer, there won't be as much overtime. but we just sort of forecasted that out that there were now two people. It's a bigger animal shelter up there. They're taking in more animals. So we do our best to budget that.

just suggestions or otherwise very difficult for us to track if you are not budget line by line.

No, I understand the point.

Thank you.

Rausch.

Hi, Chief. So the difference in the overtime is just under $4,000 from last year, right? Up to $8,000? Correct. Yes. Is that what you anticipate potentially needing to pay? I believe it's Mr. Malvesti, right? is that when you anticipate potential overtime being before you hire this new assistant animal control officer?

I mean, we're in the process. It's been a little difficult hiring. I know that we've done a round of interviews, and they ultimately didn't choose anybody. So I don't know if... I think we just kind of put that in as a, we're now gonna have hopefully two in the near future and other animal control officers that would be eligible for some overtime. I know there's some back and forth with the DPW about who picks up you know, animals that are deceased, and that's been kind of going back and forth, so we're trying to work that out. But the other thing, too, I will say with this, Nick Malvesti is the animal control officer, and you know, he's, He's really taken the bull by the horns with the animal control unit and really professionalized it.

We were able to secure a grant through the Copeland Family Trust to get a new animal control vehicle, so we thank them for their generosity, but really taking the bull by the horns and professionalized our animal control unit. I was walking into a council meeting last week and the officers had a guy under arrest out there who had a large bulldog we got on the phone and Nick was right there. So he's really done a great job of being responsive to our department in addition to the duties that he has caring for the other animals and calls that he gets in the city.

Yes, and responsive to, I know at least myself as a Councillor, we had a nice, fun afternoon chasing a dog around Quincy Point a couple weeks ago. So I'm happy that there's the vehicle, so I knew we were in it together, he and I. But I guess I just wanted to, ask about that over time. And then with respect to the longevity going down, does the longevity go down because that assistant control officer is not on the books right now, or what's the decrease there?

Yeah, because the new animal control officer basically won't have any longevity. So the animal control officer is 1,300. and the Assistant Animal Control Officer will have none. So that's where we brought that number down to reflect that. Thank you.

Okay, any further questions on this? Looking for a motion?

Oh, you did.

Sorry about that. So no further discussion. All in favor? None opposed. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Kennedy.

Okay, next up we have Fire Chief Gary Smith. That budget appears on page 55.

Good evening, Councilor Riley, members of the Council.

Page 54, my apologies. I was trying to find it myself. Good evening.

How are you doing?

Very well, thank you.

Good. Sam, I'd like to start with a presentation. If you give me a moment. As you all know, we lost firefighter Neil Leonard. He was buried yesterday. I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved for such a wonderful tribute that we gave to him, the support we gave to his family. It was really a sense of community the last week. And I'm not gonna start naming names and thank yous, it will take too long and I'll forget someone. So again, just thank you to our community for the outpouring of support and the wonderful tribute to Firefighter Leonard. With that, I just have a brief presentation of our budget. So I have the fire department broken into two branches, six divisions. We have the fire prevention and compliance and the response and readiness branches.

With prevention and compliance, we focus on fire prevention, safety and education, new construction code compliance. What we try to do, first and foremost, is provide fire prevention and the safety education and compliance to our community to lessen incidents. By lessening incidents, we lessen property damage, we lessen injuries, we... Lesson, even deaths. So this is our main concern is to getting out and educating people so we can lessen the fire problem in our city. However, incidents still do exist. And with that, we have our response and readiness under preparedness. We have our Suppression Division, our Training Division, and our Hazardous Materials Division. We'll start with Fire Prevention.

Fire Prevention this year under inspections, we performed the following, 115 liquor license, 33 lodging homes, 27 gas stations, 693 smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, inspections for real estate transactions. Permitting, we issued 1,087 permits covering high-risk areas like propane storage, commercial kitchen suppression systems, and battery energy storage systems. Fire Watchers. Coordinating to assign approximately 2,600 Fire Watchers to ensure safety at various sites and events. Emergency Response. Fire Prevention maintains a 24-7 emergency response. A lot of that is geared to fire investigation, and they work in conjunction with the state fire marshals for our fire investigations. Interdepartment Collaboration.

They act as a liaison to the building licensing, health, and police departments, and they play an active role in the illegal housing task force. Our fire and safety education, they research grant criteria and develop a plan to satisfy the state's expectations. in the Senior Safe Initiatives. They coordinate and conduct school and senior facility fire safety education programs. they conduct quarterly fire drills and school safety inspections at all of our public schools, and they conduct all quarterly inspections for nursing homes, hotels, and state licensed group and school-age daycare centers. They also address any juvenile center issues in the city with the Juvenile Center Program. new construction and code compliance.

They enforce the Massachusetts State Fire Code and the NFPA standards on construction, demolition, and renovation sites. They conduct inspections, identify fire and life safety hazards, issue violation notices and enforces corrective actions, and stop work orders when necessary. They oversee construction, fire prevention programs, hot work permits, temporary heating fuel systems, and fire protection system compliance. that coordinate pre-incident planning, emergency access, evacuation routes, and fire department site familiarization for major construction progress. This has become very vital. With all the building construction going on throughout the city, In the past, we used to go to the new buildings once they were completed to have a familiarization tour. Now we're going at different phases of construction. We're seeing the construction components, the way they're building these, and we get a much better sense of the building.

It's truly a great advantage to the fire department. serve as liaison between the fire department, contractors, building officials, and regulatory agencies to ensure code compliance and firefighter safety. and they manage fire safety oversight for large-scale development projects and increasing permanent activity, including 2,145 building permits and 88 hot work permits issued just this past year. Fire Suppression. This is our firefighting. These are the eight firehouses, and this is what we are mostly known for. We are a 281-member department. 261 members are in our suppression force. We have eight firehouses across the city. We run eight engines, four ladders, one heavy rescue, one deputy chief and aide, and our fire alarm dispatch.

Our minimum suppression staff is 12 officers and 36 firefighters across the 13 pieces of apparatus, the Deputy Chief in Aid and Dispatch. Of our apparatus, five currently meet the NFPA, standard of four on a piece. The other eight are currently still at three. I put this picture, that's the Wollaston Firehouse. I put that picture because that's our oldest fire station that was erected in 1901. is a five-year incident response. From 21 to 25, we average about 11,600 runs annually. Just a note on the 2021, we see an uptick to 12,390. That was during COVID.

All of our alarms, all of our incidents, everything went down, but what that number reflects is the COVID calls. We had a huge increase in medicals, COVID-related, A lot of our firefighters got sick. But a lot of that is a tribute to dealing with COVID. are incidents by category. This is just 2025. we've had 6,872 rescue calls, 1,849 fire alarm activations, 871 service calls, 820 good intent calls, 610 reported fires or explosions and 497 hazardous conditions. With suppression, it's all about proper manning levels.

Proper staffing levels are the most critical factor in controlling fire damage, protecting citizens, and ensuring firefighter safety. Research does show that four person crews are 25 to 30% faster at performing critical life and property saving tasks such as search and rescue and fire suppression. By maintaining proper staffing, first arriving crews are knocking down fire in the early stages, preventing significant property loss, reducing injuries, and reducing multiple alarms. And as you may have heard me state before, one thing that I can, say that I'm extremely proud of with this department is because of our manning, our staffing, and our equipment, we're knocking down fires in the early stages. We're saving people's property. We're saving... You know, a life's worth of memories. We're reducing injuries, reducing injuries to firefighters, reducing injuries to our residents.

That is really a big plus that we have in the city with our fire department. Training. They host and co-host the Massachusetts Fire Academy classes for Pro Board certifications. We do company level training evolutions, specialized certification classes, We host monthly Boston Medical Center EMS training for Quincy Fire Department members and Brewster Ambulance members. And we also do a monthly EMS continuing education that Brewster Ambulance provides to our members. We do in-service department training to include search and rescue engine operations, ladder operations, and technical rescue operations. We also, when we can, if we're hiring and we have the ability to conduct our own fire academy because there are such long delays now getting members into academies, we run our own academy according to the state protocols.

and we also do training compliance tracking for the ISO, which I can explain a little further down. So these are just some examples of the training that we do. On the top right there is our training division on Crescent Street. We had a school bus. that rolled on top of a car. The bottom right, we have technical rescue training. The bottom left, we have firefighters up two and a half stories on a roof. What happens, like in this situation, if a property is being demolished? will get a call and we'll be given an opportunity before they demolish that house to go in and train on it. It's a valuable tool for us. On the top left, that's actually firefighters in ballistic gear. That was the active shooter training, which I believe some of you were involved in. I didn't know you at the time.

just what a training opportunity that was, and that is ongoing. This is where the fire department is today. I never thought we'd see firefighters not only in ballistic gear, but we're carrying it on our apparatus. I never thought I'd see that in my day. And then Massport in the center doing like natural gas training. I also want to point out, we couldn't get it in here, but on Halloween morning, 9.30 in the morning, Engine 5 in West Quincy doing their routine housework, checking their apparatus, running their tools, found themselves three minutes later in the Furnace Brook Rotary delivering a baby. This morning, for our monthly training, we had childbirth training. 10 o'clock, Engine 5 on Garfield Street delivered a baby. Same group, same crew.

Hazardous materials, emergency response for containment and mitigation of chemical and other dangerous substances, air quality monitoring on the fire ground, both inside and outside the building, that's for the safety of our membership, decontamination of personnel on the fire ground, coordinating training with outside entities to maintain technician-level skills for the members, Calibration and maintenance of all our Quincy Fire Department detection equipment and managing hazardous materials purchasing through UASI. Grants, and Department Funds. This picture was, I believe, about three weeks ago. New England fertilizer plant, industrial building. These are, this is after the fire, contaminating our membership, contaminating their gear, decontaminating, excuse me, decontaminating all of our equipment. This fall we received two new engines.

One has been stationed at Engine 3 in Quincy Point. The second one is Engine 4 in Wollaston. Ryan, a sneak peek on the top left. Engine 5 is going to be in the state this coming week. We hope to have that in service. I'm hoping within a month. on the bottom right is ladder, what's gonna be the new ladder five. That's obviously in construction. It's further along than that. We're hoping to go down and do a midpoint inspection within the next couple weeks. We're hoping to have that by the end of June. that will go to North Quincy. And ladder five that's currently there is gonna go down to Howes Neck to end in six. Councilor Jacobs is probably gonna get upset with me because it's a red fire truck. So I'll tell you what, we'll talk about painting afterwards, okay?

But you're getting a great ladder truck. Community Outreach. I'm proud of our firefighters. They work hard. They make sacrifices, like all public safety. but I just want to point out a few things here. The top left, they spend the Christmas season ringing the bell for Salvation Army. In the fall, they do a really good breast cancer campaign, sell shirts, they have a bocce tournament. Two weeks ago, we had Bowling for Alzheimer's up at Olindy's. Again, another great night. The bottom left is Fill the Boot, end of summer. They go all over the city. They raise. a lot of money with the Fill the Boob campaign. And one of the highlights of the summer in the bottom right is the Kennedy Health Center.

They do an annual cookout every summer. our senior population down there. It's one of the best days for them. It's one of the best days for us. We really do enjoy it. So I want to take a moment to talk about grants. So we have received Department of Fire Services Fire Safety and Equipment grant for $50,000. We just received nine thermal image cameras. Our thermal image cameras were getting old. They were at the point that it weren't worth fixing. So we received this grant for $50,000. We were able to buy all new cameras. The Department of Fire Service Fire Safety and Education Grant for 14,000. This goes to our program for youth and our seniors at risk. We're gonna be coming out with a new campaign

to, by September, we'll have a schedule ready to go back into the schools. I'm hoping maybe by July 1st. to have a schedule ready to go into senior housing, senior facilities. And also, I want all of you to know as Councilors, I know you host community meetings and things like that. if you're ever having one at a senior center or a senior facility and you'd like us to come, this is what this program is for. It's for fire safety and education. and we'd be more than happy to come and be part of that. Department of Fire Service Communications Grant, $50,000. We have a lot of portable radios that need to be replaced. Portable radios are about $8,000 a piece. So we got $50,000 worth. Thank you. and same Department of Fire Services Hazardous Materials Grant.

That's actually $55,000 and that's for hazardous materials equipment, hazardous materials training and we can do some overtime backfill. with those funds. and then the Urban Area Security Initiative, UASI, which the police chief mentioned. Right now we're waiting on $396,000 coming just to the fire department and the same amounts coming to the police. That has to go through, Boston is the host city. This is through the Department of Homeland Security. So we have to wait for Boston to approve it before we get the funding. and then the assistance to firefighter grants. Here's just a breakdown over the last five years. In 23, 22, and 20, we got operations and safety. for about $600,000 to $700,000 there. We received 30 SCBA harnesses, our breathing bottles, plus 60 bottles.

We received smoke detectors and overtime to install them throughout the city. and we also received a six-week technical training course in equipment and overtime backfill. staffing for adequate fire and emergency response known as the SAFER grant. Currently we're in year two of a $6,181,000 grant. that pays the salaries of 16 firefighters plus benefits. In 2019, we received a three-year grant for 2.9. 24 is 100%. 2019 was a 75, 75, 35% that they paid, and then we covered the rest. In 2016, we had another one for $686,000.

This is for staffing that's not in the budget. These two pages alone, we're looking at $12.2 million of grant money that the fire department has brought in and continues to do. I'm very proud of that. And finally, coming into this new fiscal year, I'm working collaboratively with Mayor Koch we think the department is in a position right now in the city to have the ISO come in and conduct a public protection classification survey. We are at a two, which is excellent. We want to get to a one. I won't be satisfied till we get to a one. I think we're ready to get to a one.

What happens is they come in and do a very labor-intensive survey of our city. they use what's called the fire suppression rating schedule and it focuses on these four areas. They look at the entire fire department and all aspects of it. and that's responsible for 50%. then they look at our water supply. With all the new infrastructure we have, with our hydrant system, with the hydrant flushing records, they'll come in, they'll do hydrostatic tests, they'll do flow tests, That's 40%. Emergency communications, 10%. We have the brand new communications center in the public safety building, which we think is going to be an advantage for us as well.

and then we can get up to five and a half extra points if we have a solid community risk reduction program in place, which is part of that program I just spoke to you about earlier. Now only 1% of fire departments nationwide actually have a one rating. And there's only nine departments in Massachusetts that have it. And like I said, I will not be satisfied until we have a one. The city deserves it. And I think we have what it takes to get it. So with the public protection classification upgrade, to one, this rating demonstrates exceptional ability to mitigate structural fires and enhance community safety. But what it also does, it directly benefits the residents and commercial taxpayers in this city because if we go to a one, everyone's insurance premiums get a reduction on an annual basis.

That's millions of dollars per year collectively that's huge for the city and for our residents and our business owners. So this is our goal. Once the budget hearings are done, I'll be bringing in the Water Department, and Commissioner Grazioso, and we're already starting to implement some things on the Fire Department to get this rolling. So with that, that's my presentation. I hope I was able to shed some light on the fire department and make people understand that we're not just firehouses with firefighters waiting for house fires. There's so much more that we do in I am committed to continue on this path. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Smith. Before we begin deliberating on this budget, could we do a check on Rule 24 and see if we're all willing to go past 11? Because I don't want to keep all these people here all night if we're not going to be able to get to them. Is there anyone opposed to staying past 11? Going once. Well, I guess I'll stay as long as you want, but we don't want to leave people here if we're not going to get to them. So I guess there's either a commitment to stay until we get to everybody or send people home so that they're not waiting around for us. We have, obviously we have to deliberate the fire. We have emergency management, health, grant management, and planning.

DiBona? I don't think, is anyone else opposed? Okay, thank you, thank you. Okay, so we will commit to be here to see all of these through, okay? So I'll open it up to questions from my colleagues for Chief Smith.

Good evening.

Hello. So I have some questions about what you just said, and then I'll kind of get into my other questions. The grant for the Homeland Security Grant, what is that for?

UASI grant. A lot of it's terrorism based. What happened is after 9-11, the Department of Homeland Security was created and they identified targets throughout the country. Boston was one of them. So Boston and the surrounding communities come under what's called UASI, and we get federal funding on an annual basis. Bob Gillen from the police department is our point of contact in the city. He's phenomenal. He goes after every dollar that he can get. and I think originally for this year, we were getting $342,000. and there was some money left on the table and he took it. So we do a lot of terrorism training. We buy equipment, you know, that's terrorism related.

Like hazardous materials or something or what kind of...

things like that, things if, God forbid, detection equipment, God forbid someone put some type of chemical, chemical bomb or something on the MBTA and it came into the red line. We have the equipment, we have the technology, we have the gear and the training. to handle things like that. So we focus on our area and we work in collaboration with the police department. So it's a lot of money that we get. We're very, very fortunate. There's a lot of jealous cities and towns around us that don't get it. It's a valuable asset.

Great, thank you. And then this program to get to the public protection level one, does that come with a cost? Or is that just...

they'll come in and conduct an extensive survey. You're just letting us know that that's what you're... What that tells you is that your fire department is up there with the best of the best. So the funding for the fire department, you know, you're getting the most you can get. And I just feel, you know, given where we are as a department, it's time to do it. And then that benefit to all of our taxpayers that we can reduce insurance premiums and save literally millions of dollars in this city. We're gonna do it.

Sounds great. So then I'm gonna transition to the questions that I'm asking everybody. You said how many people you have. How many vehicles do you have that are not fire trucks, but vehicles that people are taking home, if any?

Okay, so we have, you know, besides the apparatus and the deputy chief's car, we have 18 vehicles, only three go home. One is mine, one is the Operations Deputy Chief, and one is the Hazardous Materials Officer. We're 24 hours, seven days a week in response. fire prevention gets called in for an investigation, they come, they get their vehicle and go to the scene. So it's only three.

Okay, and do you have a vehicle policy as well that you can send?

I can, the same, I don't have it here, but I can certainly send you a vehicle policy.

That would be great.

Sure.

Thank you. and then just how many employees are I guess on long-term leave or not coming in?

Well, we have, you know, under injury, we have 18 out right now, but it's on different, and I'm not gonna talk about any of the injuries. But it's not just long term, it's between short term and long term.

Okay. And then, actually, there were a couple of things from the presentation I just realized. in terms of the kinds of calls, was good intent one of them?

You know, someone might call and, you know, think that the back of someone's house is on fire, they see smoke and you get there and they're cooking steaks on a gas grill. Things of that nature. People call with the right intent, it's not malicious, and thankfully it's nothing.

All right, let's see. And then I guess Looking at the overtime budget, we had someone come up the other day and say that there was repeated very large overruns in overtime. And I guess just looking at the increase in the fire staff in recent years, I'm wondering why when we're better staffed than we ever have been, why the need for more overtime as well?

First off, you need overtime to run a public safety department, right? Overtime isn't just about staffing. they get called back if we have a fire. We have to call people in for overtime. No matter how many people you hire, they get vacation time, they get sick time, they get hurt, They get bereavement time. We're a very young department now. A lot of these firefighters are starting families. They get under the law, they get the FMLA up to 12 weeks. We have a lot of veterans. and they're still active. They get deployed. So it's those reasons there's overtime. We had two blizzards this winter. We have to increase our count.

and that costs money, the training we do, like the active shooter. The active shooter, you were involved in it, right? a great beginning. We're gonna continue on that. That was a year in the making. That was creating policies. That was having meetings. That was having a full round table dry run. of that incident. Those things cost money. So it's not, and then our minimum manning. We have 12 offices and 36 firefighters. We only meet the standard on five pieces of apparatus. out of the 13 that we have, we still have eight that run with three. So that's just a little overview on some of the things that over time that we spend overtime on, but to get to your question, I think we're coming into a balance, I really do. I've only been here eight months.

and we are at this level of 281 firefighters where even though we're not completely at the NFPA standard, we are making a huge difference and I'm happy to tell you tonight that Today, the overtime is down $1.35 million from June 30th of last year. So I'm seeing a big difference. And I'm very happy to report that to the entire council tonight. A couple of changes we made. and I've seen the overtime drop. I'm very happy with that number. I hope you are too. And so we have to decide as a city what's our balance. do we wanna hire 30 more firefighters and get the overtime down? But with those 35 firefighters, 30 or 35 firefighters,

come all the benefits, medical benefits, all of that, the vacation time, all the time off. Everyone gets the right to have a vacation. you know, we need to find a balance that the city is happy with and I think we're coming into that, I really do. And I think this next year, I'm sorry, I think this next year having a full year with this, I think we'll really see it.

Well, that's great to hear because, yeah, I don't, I'm sure, you know, I wasn't intending to say get rid of all overtime, but it's just, you know, going over the overtime budget with a large staff.

Right.

What could we do that we could keep to the amount of overtime that's budgeted?

And you're reading some studies that it's finding that balance. What is the balance? that the city is happy with. And for me, I think right now, seeing that we are 1.35 million below what we were on June 30th, and I've had this budget since September 1st, I think we're on the right track, and I'm hoping to continue that.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else?

Can I just say one other thing and guess over time? One of the blizzards, there was a state of emergency. We have also applied for a, we spent $68,000 in that storm. We've applied for reimbursement.

from the state?

Yeah. Okay.

And do you know when that might come in?

It went in, I believe it went in, the total amount from all the departments went in I can't give you a time, you never can. But I just want you to know that collectively with all the departments, there's a lot of money that we're looking for reimbursement for that storm.

Now I'm actually realizing I did have another question. Oh, no. You reminded me. You should have stopped. I know. So the grant money for the millions of dollars of grant money that came in, what happens when that grant money ends?

Well, a lot of this is annual, a lot of it's competitive. and we have a very good track record of continuing it. So now, actually, the Assistance to Firefighters grant and the SAFER grant, which is the hiring grant, actually opened today. FEMA, with the government shutdowns, everything's behind. That usually comes out in January. that came out actually today, both of those grant programs. So I am gonna have a staff meeting and we're gonna discuss what we want to go after on the Assistance to Firefighters grant. and then I have to sit down and look at, we only have two members that are due to retire due to annuation, they've reached the age limit. There's talk of others retiring, but until they retire, I've seen people say they're gonna retire and then don't.

So we're gonna be looking at the staff of grant within the next week and see if we should if we're gonna come down some numbers, let's apply to kind of hold that 281, because I think it's working. the one thing I want to point out with the safer grant we currently have, we can't go below 241 in the suppression division of the department. So we have, we're at 249 right now. so we have an eight person buffer right now. So I have to see where retirements go to see if we should talk about applying to hire firefighters and getting three years of salaries.

So when will the current grant run out again?

We just, it starts in March, so we just started year two in March.

Just started in March, so this.

So we still have another, what is it, year, year and a half plus?

Okay, so that wouldn't, even if federal funds dry up right now for the next year, that's covered.

Yeah, we have gotten the money. We get it on a quarterly basis. And we can apply. We don't have to wait for that grant to be over to apply for another one. We just can't apply that grant to the existing we'd have to, you know, just say I applied for six. We'd have to hire six. Okay.

All set? Thank you.

Mahoney. Hi, Chief Smith.

All right, so I know we just talked about overtime, and I guess one of the questions I have is, is part of it too, because I know you, how many firefighters do we have total?

281. 281. 281.

281. And what are the shifts? Is it a 24-hour shift, three days on, four days on?

24-hour shifts.

Does that challenge with the overtime, too, because of the shifts?

It can be just one example, but overall it's good. One challenge is take a Saturday. You have a wedding to go to and you're due to work. So you can't go in during the day. Your 24-hour shift consists of two shifts. So if you have a 4 o'clock wedding, you can't come in the day, you can't come in the night, you have to take two shifts off. You know what I mean? So instead of taking one, you're taking an extra shift off, and that could, depending on where the numbers fall, that could create an overtime.

I guess I would think weddings would be, that's not a good example for me, Chief. I don't think weddings would be a good example for me, because it shouldn't be a surprise that you're going to a wedding on Saturday at four, so you should be able to put that in long ahead of time before the scheduling's coming out.

No, but it affects the count.

I know it affects the count, but again, you should be able to, that's something that you could schedule. It's scheduling vacations.

No, you can schedule it. but it'll drop the count and depending on how many other people take it off, we could get into an overtime situation.

So I guess for the overtime, because you said it's something that you're hoping will go down next year, I just get concerned because it looks like it's $855,000 over your budget as of today. and I'm assuming you're gonna have overtime all the way to the end of the year. Yeah. Okay, so and it hasn't gone down and you have 281 and that's full staff with four people on every truck, right?

No, that's only on five. Okay, it's only on five, okay. All right.

So that's something that we probably should really look at. And then having the additions of staffing, it really hasn't reduced your overtime dependencies is what you're telling us.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Having the additional people, you have 281 people, we've grown the fire department Tremendously, correct? Correct. And that's a credit to how we're budgeting and how we're doing things. But as we've grown the fire department, so has our overtime, and I guess, what I'm saying is that the staffing additions typically reduce over time, not increase them, and that's what it looks like is happening. because your budget is increased with the number of people, and it's also increased by the volume of overtime, so I'm trying to figure that out.

When I talk about the balance, Councilor, is we've increased the staffing, but we've... the personnel, but with that we've also increased the number of firefighters on duty. If we stayed at Today, like I said, we were at 12 and 36, so that's 48. If we just remained at 40 and kept hiring, we would have less overtime. But we were able to put Ladder 4 back in service back in 2023. That added three additional firefighters to the count. We have added five firefighters to the count to make five of our piece of apparatus NFPA compliant. So our staffing on the apparatus has risen with the personnel. So if we stayed at a lower level and kept hiring, we would have lower overtime.

We need, as a city, where do we want to be? do we want to hire?

I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I'm going to move on. So how does a person... It does make sense. I'm not sure if it makes sense to me. I'm not saying it makes sense. I'm not debating. I'm just saying it just doesn't... It's not adding up for me, so... How does a fire department, or how does a person that's on, let me see, that is on, let me make sure I get this right, administrative leave, somebody's on administrative leave, what does that mean? Could you explain that to me?

I'm gonna defer them.

Well, it's your people, so how does a person go on administrative leave?

if there's some type of an issue that warrants through human resources to put someone on administrative leave, we put them on administrative leave. And they get paid on administrative leave, correct? They do get paid.

how does somebody who's been on administrative leave get a check for overtime, one check all total, total, for $34,346.63?

I'll defer to Chris on that.

Well, I would prefer for the chief to tell me that because it's the chief's department.

I'm going to defer to Mr. Walker.

It's a simple answer. I mean, we don't get into personnel disciplinary issues and the results of those disciplinary issues.

one person on paid administrative leave got $34,346 in overtime. and we are to look at this overtime and say it's strictly scheduling and different things. And that's just one person that I saw. I'm just asking this because it's not the first time this has happened. And second to that, it's, sometimes the same people that it happens to. So that would usually be a big discipline problem. So I'm just mentioning that because that's a problem and it's been noticed and I'm noticing it. So I wanted to make sure that that was heard. So with your overtime, and when I'm talking about the overtime, the other thing, you were talking about, What I'm trying to say about the overtime is that it's really a fiscal policy concern, so you're adding staff, and you're saying when you add the staff to the apparatus, it also adds the overtime. I understood what you said. but it's kind of backwards in the way you would look at something like that.

So either it's the 24 hour shift, three days on, four days off, that's not working, something's not working. So I think it has to be analyzed for the overtime and hopefully by, you know, in a short period of time we'll be able to take a look at that. The other thing is, when the police department was up, we saw a lot of transitions, even with their overtime. And I think Councilor Yuan was trying to say, it looks like you need more money in the overtime line. and Chief Kennedy was saying, we have the expense line and we can move things around, but when I'm looking at your expense lines, there's not a lot moving around. There's not a lot of transitions in and out. In fact, there's none. There's 765, in the longevity. So $765,944 added to it. That brings it up. You had a $90,000. That brings it up to $855,944. So that was also a problem.

The longevity? Yep. That was retro.

Okay. But again, what I'm saying is in the fire department, unlike the police department, there was money moved in and out from different lines to be able to balance the budget. And our overtime is the only thing. that is 137% over. And if I wanted to dive into those numbers, which I do, I'd like to see a breakdown of those numbers. because 34,000 of it was distributed out to one person that was on paid administrative leave. I don't know how a person, I don't care what the situation is, if you're on paid administrative leave, it's impossible for you to be able to get overtime and that doesn't make sense. In the world of public safety, I run into this problem all the time. I have somebody that might be out that takes care of a dog, the police dog, and they're the caretaker. You can't give that person who's on OJI overtime to take care of that police dog.

That's their job, but it's not, you can't do it, because if they're on OJI, you can't. So in this particular case, this isn't an OJI, this is administrative leave, paid administrative leave. That means they're not working, they're not coming to do fires, they're not coming into the police, they're not doing any of those things. So how does somebody, who's on administrative leave get a check for $34,000. And that's a question that I'm gonna look for the administration to answer. And you don't have to tell me who the person is, you just have to tell me how that mathematically happens, that you're on a paid administrative leave, meaning you've done something that you can't come to work you're basically being suspended from work and you get a check, a one lump sum check for $34,000. I'm sure everybody here in the council would love to take six months off and get paid for six months and get a check for $34,000.

So, Walker, is there something you'd like to add to this?

Sure, through you, Madam Chairwoman. Hypothetically, without getting into the specifics, someone is placed out on administrative leave for a potential disciplinary issue. An investigation takes place. has a result. Whatever that result is, that person, whatever wages they potentially lost during that time, they're legally entitled to. And again, I'm not getting into the specifics, but it's not as simple as, well, they were paid for not showing up to work. They were paid, they were not allowed to make, whatever case we're talking about, they were not allowed to make the living that they would have been allowed to make under normal circumstances. Therefore, they're legally entitled to be compensated for that.

So that brings me back to overtime. So if overtime means that everybody's legally entitled to a certain amount of overtime, because when you're out of paid administrative leave, it's because you've done something. that you can't be at work for and you're on suspension for something. And now you're saying that these people are entitled to X amount of overtime and a chunk of change, $34,000 got settled because of that. it still raises the question then, how are we managing overtime? Because then you're just saying it's part of your salary. I'm going to end the conversation there because it is a problem that I see. and overtime is one of those things that we have to be very careful of because if we're doing something like that, things can get investigated. It happens all the time when things are getting done incorrectly. Not saying it is, but just saying that it looks fishy. Thanks.

Anyone else?

Anyone else with comments or questions for Chief Smith? Oh, you had another one?

Just because you're here and the last time we were here, it felt pretty tense. I just wanted to bring it back.

I didn't want to bring up the last one.

Yeah, no, I'm going to bring it up, though, because, hey, we do our job here. It took seven days to do our job.

And collectively, we are all successful. We are all successful. I thanked all of you.

You did.

Many times.

You told me that you were leaving that night to measure everybody. So we're just wondering, because we're close to eight weeks, do we have everything in?

Say that again?

Do we have the order in?

I actually just got an email. It's ready to go into production. The sizing is done. They actually invited us down to Ohio to physically be there to watch it happen.

So I'm just curious, because I looked on EMA. Is it E-M-M-A? Is that the right terminology for the bonding? Have we bonded? Did it go for bond? Susan, do you know?

that information.

So EMA is basically where all of the bonds, when you issue a bond, and what we were told is that night is that we had to we had to say yes to the bond so we could order the equipment. But as far as I know, the bond has not gone through.

So just checking. but that's basic municipal finance, that the authorization is the critical component. The appropriation is made and that gives the authority for the checks to be placed to the entity. The bonding takes place at a schedule that works with our financial advisors, that works for the city. it's not something that happens right away. And I think we explained that at that time.

Well, I'm just concerned because it's $2.6 million that we were bonding in fiscal year 26, and we can drag our feet and put it into fiscal year 27 to make our budgets look nicer. Thanks.

Thanks, DiBona. Did you want to speak? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Chief, thank you for all your hard work. I know you've been on the job for eight months. It's been pretty active. Like the police, the public safety is number one on my radar for priority, along with schools and education. those are on the top tiers. And I want to thank for all the men and women for all your hard work being firefighters and for the city. protecting us. And like the police, I have your back. Thank you. You know I'm going to have your back, just like police. So the rhetoric of outside of the other communities across the United States. I want to make sure that you guys know that I have you that. Just just elaborating on, you know, you've done a real good line items with 281 and and matching up a lot of the grants and I appreciate that. It really helps out us and with that, I'd like to make a motion to approve. I put that in a form of motion, thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we have a motion on the table to approve the budget as is. Alden.

I have a question about item 512105, fire chief. So fiscal year 26, the actual spending is 316,085, so it's almost double of the fiscal, or not, 1.5%. of Physical Year 2025, just wondering what's going on.

Okay. Madam Chair, on the acting chief's behalf, that is because Chief Jackson is out on medical leave at the moment, so... essentially we have, that's the difference in the salaries.

You mean that the salary is...

So we have a fire chief who is out and we have a fire chief, we have an acting fire chief. Therefore, that compounds the salary.

Okay, okay. So it's because different chief have different salary level.

Correct.

I think this is a long chart. and another question is item 510193, the premium pay.

So we have fire alarm dispatch. We have three firefighters, in four groups, so there's 12 total that spend a year in fire alarm. So they actually come off the apparatus for a year. and they are placed in dispatch. They have to have three years on the fire department before they're assigned and they do a year. So that is a contractual issue through the collective bargaining. agreement between Local 792 and the City that gives them a very small stipend for going in to dispatch for a year.

So 2025, 2026, and 2027, you all only budget, one is 13,781, another is 19,283, another is 20... to A1, but actually spending is Twenty twenty five is thirteen thousand. Wait, let me see. Okay, so your budget, 2026, revised budget is 19,283?

Mm-hmm.

and your actual spending year to date is 11,776.

I'm sorry, what? You're looking at 2026?

Yeah, fiscal year 2026. So your budget, the revised budget is $19,283. And the year-to-date spending is... 11,776, so we only have two months, one and a half months left.

So I want an increase.

So it means that you budget more than it needed.

$11,776.35 in actuals. and they revise it to 19,283. It's basically just a small stipend through collective bargaining that sees increases with collective bargaining agreements to spend a year as a fire alarm dispatcher.

Okay. The longevity you already asked, right? Why the number become actually so, Longevity, the actual spending year to date is 85,850, and your revised budget is 855,944 is 10 times more.

What line are you looking at?

The item 510-140, longevity.

Longevity? Again, these are collective bargaining. and some of the numbers change. Maybe I can explain it a little better. Some of the numbers change. because the years on the job change for people and their longevity increases. So is that what you're asking, why it's increasing?

So yeah, increase 10 times, but then you budget, you go back to the 90,000. So 2027 budget, you budgeted $90,000.

The longevity?

Yeah. But 2026, the revised budget is $855,000. Why you going down so much?

So I have 25, 26, 27 all at $90,000. And your question is on the actual?

The auditor gave us this.

If I could, Madam Chairwoman, just to clarify, I believe, Councilor, that line that you're looking at, that is where the retro pay for the contract was negotiated. was parked until it was transferred out into the appropriate line by line by line. So it was one lump. that got transferred as the contract was settled, and that's how it filtered into the system, but it is out in the line-by-line budget now.

And just for point of clarification, I just want to make sure I understand this. So you're saying longevity is $90,000 each year. We transferred $765,944 into the wrong line item? Is that what you said?

No, it was parked there. It was easier from a process standpoint. When the contracts were negotiated, there had to be a system to get the retro into the individual departments after the appropriation in December. settling the contract or providing the funding for the contracts. And what was done was in a lot of departments, and I think you've seen it one or two other places tonight, is that it was transferred into the longevity line for the departments then to move it themselves through their business managers, through their departments to move it into the individual line items. so that it would make sense with the retro.

This just seems such a strange way to do it because usually you would put it in a separate line like, or budget, like all your budgetary things would go into one line probably underneath something else and you'd switch it out into the budget. Because if you put it into longevity, it's not the right place to put it.

Yeah, I think that we're looking for a... a place within personal services, which has the flexibility.

Yeah, well, everything has flexibility, but it just looks bad. All right, thank you.

I apologize, Councilor. I didn't realize you were asking about the $700,000. I had mentioned that earlier. That's what that was.

It's more than your actual spending, but we just get the explanation.

Okay.

Good evening. Good evening. This ISO Public Protection Classification. You had said that it's graded on a few different things. One is emergency communications. I mean, are they talking about infrastructure? Are they talking about the actual? Because we just were told that there's going to be, potentially, a regional 911 center. I presume that fire will be dispatched from there. Is that going to play a role? How does that get factored into this?

That's a great question, and I'm gonna have to research on the potential of the direction we're going, but I can say, Councilor, in my gut, I think, you know, the infrastructure in the new public safety building now and where we might be going, it's better than what we currently have in the fire department. So I'm strongly feeling that that will be a positive for us.

Okay, and just one other question about that. I think you said like the, the Fire Alarm Operators, is that what their titles are, the Fire Alarm Operators? Yeah, but only for one year. One year, yes. So they're firefighters that are getting a stipend A small stipend, yeah. Okay. So how many of them are there right now?

Well, there's 12. We have four suppression groups and there's three assigned to fire alarm in each group for one year. So there's 12 total.

So when we do open or if we do open a regional dispatch center, I assume those positions...

They were assigned to apparatus. Okay. They come off the apparatus for a year.

Okay.

that's been since fire alarm started long before I got on, they will be back on apparatus permanently.

Okay, so that would be like, I don't want to say, but, you know, we talk about the minimums we're running, you know, we got four on five apparatus, right? And then we got the rest of the apparatus running three.

are going to have a positive impact.

It's a great point.

The potential there is to have a very positive impact, to have 12 firefighters back on apparatus as opposed to being dispatching for one year.

Thank you.

OK. I just have one question. I know you have a very strong union, obviously advocating for benefits and the things that they need. Does your union representative get paid solely out of the budget or is there...

I'm sorry, what was that?

Does your union representative get compensated solely out of the budget or are they compensated through the union dues as well?

there's no union compensation out of the budget.

No, the union representative. Are they compensated solely from this budget or are they compensated out of the union dues as well?

I don't, they don't get any compensation off this budget. What are you trying to ask me?

Well, I guess it's got to be a very time consuming job. There's all the advocating and coordinating and communicating. organizing, so it's gonna be a time-consuming role, I would think. Does that compensation just come out of this budget, out of your budget?

No, no.

Madam Chairman, I can provide a little bit of clarity that there is no compensation provided to any union member out of the city's budget. The union membership is made up of active duty firefighters. they get paid for, and like every other firefighter, they work regular shifts, and how they operate on their own time within their own union, that's up to them. But there is no compensation. There is no time off given. There is no... there's no anything relative to union representation within the city budget.

So they're presumably doing that on the wrong time.

That is correct.

Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion on the table. Is there any other discussion on this budget? All those in favor? Aye. Any not? Okay, great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Okay, next up we have Mr. McCarthy presenting on emergency management. That is on page 55 of the budget book.

Good evening. Thank you for having me up here tonight to go over emergency management. My name's Dave McCarthy. My name's Dave McCarthy, I'm sorry. and I'm the Emergency Management Director. I'll briefly go over emergency management and then I'll open it up for questions. the Emergency Management Department that coordinates the required activities to build and sustain the capabilities necessary necessary to prevent, mitigate against, prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergency situations and disasters, both natural and manmade, utilizing an all-hazards approach. My department works very, very closely with all city departments, most notably police, fire, traffic, parking, DPW, and the Department of Natural Resources. Also, we work very closely with National Grid as well as Brewster, who are key members of the team.

I have myself and another employee that make up the department. and we come here before the council with a level services budget and I'm open to questions and any topics you want to discuss. Thank you.

Thank you.

Who would like to go first? Councilor McGee? Hang on.

Go right ahead. Excuse me. Hi. How are you? Good. Thank you. So I have questions that I was going through. It looks like you have four vehicles, but two employees.

Right, we have four vehicles that were purchased through UASI grants the last couple of years. We have a heavy duty pickup that is full-time out to the police. It's used to move the mobile command centers around. We have one. that we utilize for events, and there's another one that the police have. In fact, we'll be utilizing them a lot this summer with the World Cup. We have some activity up at the Marriott. and we also have plenty of events starting off at Flag Day in a few weeks where there'll be a mobile command center up at Pageant. We have two pickups. My operations manager has one pickup. And we have an SUV that I utilize. And the fourth SUV has been used by fire and police. extensively. Police use it to assist in their community.

Police patrol with their bicycles. also their drone unit utilizes it, so it's open to both fire and police, and they utilize it a lot. We utilized it a lot this winter. all the vehicles. So the trucks came in very handy in regards to supporting the winter that we had. Nothing goes home.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, so the winter was crazy. I'm very busy with that, but what about the rest of the time? I mean, this past winter, had a lot of snow, but some other recent winters have not. And so I guess the nature of the job is you don't know exactly what's coming, but... I guess I'm looking at other communities near the size of Quincy and they don't all have a dedicated emergency management department. A lot of times it seems to be done out of the fire department and there's

No, kind of, you know, someone might be called the emergency manager, but there's no specific separate budget for it. in some departments. I'm just wondering, what do you do when there's not a big snowstorm?

So this kind of catapulted after the 2018 Flood we had in Ward 1. The job was magnified. What we're doing now is a lot of events that come up this summer. So I just mentioned June. We've been involved a lot with the police department, with the World Cup soccer. There's three teams that are coming in to stay at the Marriott. We've been in some meetings with MEMA. the Mass Emergency Management Association about this actually last week. We're meeting with them. We're gonna meet with the UASI group that was spoken about often by fire and police tomorrow. We have a big meeting with them. We'll look with them to see what we can do in regards to supporting any of the events that go on the watch parties for the World Cup, and any events we have for Quincy 250, any events that we have with the Free Jacks, the concerts,

anything of that type in the events category. We also have geared in now with the hazardous material tier two exercise where we go out to over 30, hazardous material locations, big and small here in the city, and go out and work with a company. I actually worked with a retired Newton, Deputy Fire Chief, and we work on getting out to them a tier two report, which kind of goes into a exercise to see how much hazardous material they have at their site. and that could be anywhere from Jiffy Lube and Valvoline all the way to Sprague and Twin Technologies. That'll go on between June and August right now. So those reports and those billings will all go out. we also do a commodity flow study that's gonna start in the next month.

And that's a check that I usually use my operations manager and hopefully an intern or two to help us look at how much hazardous material comes through the city. a lot of, as we know, Quincy is a cut-through going into Boston. So we'll go out and do this study that has to happen annually that's a, it's a hazmat activity that we'll look at. We're also, I'm working very closely, and I know Jimmy Scribby's behind me, with the grant team. Not only do we receive the UASI grants also, which I think over the past couple of years, We've picked up a couple hundred thousand UACI grants, a couple hundred thousand dollars worth, but now we'll work on a lot of grant writing now with Jimmy Scribby's team over the next few months until we get the hurricane season and hopefully it'll be quiet. But we'll work on those grants over the summer.

So there's plenty to do in regards to police and fire activity where they pull us into a lot of events and utilize some of the assets that we've that we've gotten. My predecessor did a very good job dotting his I's and crossing his T's in regards to putting together comprehensive emergency management plans, hazardous mitigation plans, which all need to be updated. And we're looking at those right now also. So we try to keep those up to speed. And there's quite a few of them.

Anything else?

Yan. Through you, Chairwoman. So this question is from a resident. In February, during snowstorms, Administration send out for notice to say if there is emergency you call Snow Hotline and the emergency department. So that's your department phone number. and because they asked if there is a multi-language service, so I said, okay, I will help you, help them to call. I called that weekend and your department number and nobody answered the phone. I left a voice message and in two hours you called back and you explained

At weekend your department not working and your department working only Monday to Friday 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. and if things happen after that time, you have to call 911. So I told this to resident, then they ask question. Why we not just directly call 911? Why emergency department only work Monday to Friday 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. and not work at weekend?

Those are our hours, and when we have that, and we spoke about making sure I had in a Mandarin translation. I don't know if you've called it lately, but when you call that number, you get a voicemail if we're not there after 4.30, 367-1105, you're gonna get English first, and then you're gonna get Mandarin to direct you to 911. And 911 is made 24 hours.

I know 9-1-1 have multi-language service so they can directly just call 9-1-1 especially like after 4 30 p.m your office has nobody answer the phone so why why they have to first call your department but then call 911. They can directly just call 911.

They could just call 911.

So what's the service your department provide if they just call 911, get a...

So if they call my department during the day and they have an issue, we'll handle it. If we're not there after 4.30, it directs them to 911. If it goes to 911 and it's an incident that I have to get involved in, I have the city phone on all the time at home and 911 gets a hold of me. And if it's an issue that I have to get the administration involved in, I'll get a hold of Mr. Walker. and we'll handle it from there. So 911 calls me if it has to come to me and that's usually when it's an emergency situation, a flood, a tree, it might be something that 911 handles in regards to a medical emergency or something that had to do with the police that they would come to me for another type of emergency and they'll call me and I got the phone on all night. so they'll get a hold of me and that's exactly what we did during the snowstorm.

Yeah, that's exactly during snowstorm I called your department at the weekend.

Right, and if you called after 4.30, you weren't gonna get me if I wasn't there. Now a lot of the times we were in the Emergency Operations Center the whole time.

So the resident just asked why this is called the Emergency Management Department and not working after 4.30 p.m. That's just their question.

We're not there. Our hour's 8.30 to 4.30. and if they call, they go to 911. If 911 has to get ahold of me, 911 knows to get ahold of me. And they have.

I'm asking Yifu. If this is redundant, if people can directly call 911, then why have to go through your department? And operations manager can handle it. I'm thinking if this position is necessary.

What I'm hearing is it doesn't sound like this is a resident-facing service. It seems like it's more administrative. Can you speak on the mic? It seems to me like it's not a resident-facing service. Department. It seems like it's more of a administrative office and not really one for the residents.

Well, yeah, but any calls that we get, during the day, again, 8.30 to 4.30. We'll field any call that we have. If it has to do with us, my operations managers sent out to go check it out. It could be a water issue. It could be anything that might not even be an emergency. they pick up that number and dial 1105 and get me and it might not be an emergency at all either, we feel that also. But if we're not there after hours the message is clear to go to 911 and the 911 guys know if they have to get a hold of me, they're gonna get a hold of me.

but emergencies don't tend to happen between 8.30 and 4.30, you know, on Monday through Friday. I mean, emergencies tend to happen more on the off hours So what you're saying is for the most residents outside of normal business hours, they would just be using the normal police and fire 911 services to deal with whatever they have going on. Is that fair?

Yeah, those are the hours we work, 8.30 to 4.30, so.

Councilor Mahoney? So what I'm hearing is, and I appreciate it. I was gonna call you Councilor, Mr. McCarthy. What would just be a day-to-day operations that you do? just give us an idea of your day-to-day operations. What would be, no snowstorm, no anything, what's happening day-to-day? What are you doing?

Well, today we're doing grant writing. We were also doing a lot of updating with our manuals that we had. I had an intern in the office today with myself. When we moved in, during the snowstorms, we kind of moved in hot, so we came in and now we're reorganizing our manuals, we're updating our our grants. We're going through all the motions of everything, trying to get prepared for anything that comes up during the summer. Any of the events I mentioned, working with the police. Tomorrow we have a UASI meeting.

And when you go to the meeting tomorrow, the UASI meeting, is that going to be you and who else will be at that meeting?

There'll be about 15 people. It'll be all the surrounding communities that get supported by Boston.

Will there be anybody else from Quincy? Is just you there?

Lieutenant Bob Gillen, who is a URC specialist. He'll be there with me.

OK. Anybody else? So the police and fire, nobody from police or fire or?

No, no, we just probably Bob and myself. I don't know if the fire would come down possibly, but it'd probably be Bob, myself, and it'll be the other communities and Steve McGuire, who heads up the Boston office.

So how is emergency management currently structured within the city? What's the reporting chain? Who do you report to?

I report right up to the mayor, right up to Mr. Walker and administration.

OK. And what about the relationship with the fire, police, DBW, all those?

Well, in the new police station, new safety center, Chief Smith and Chief Kennedy are both on the same floor. And I go down periodically. They invite me into meetings. I invited them into meetings the other day. I had them. Lieutenant Dave Beyond, who was on the hazmat team. You saw in the picture, leaning the guy down into our office for a meeting with the gentleman I mentioned from Newton. our retired Deputy Chief, Mike Castro, who runs the HAZMAT Consulting, who's helping us with the tier two mailings that are gonna go out. So we're getting ready to do the mailings to go out. We're getting ready to do that commodity study. I'm dealing with the police.

You hire a hazmat consulting company?

Yeah, they've been on board for a while. They do a very good job.

and again, during an emergency activation, what authority does the emergency management have and how does the command coordination function?

Could you repeat that again?

Sure. How does the command coordination function? And what authority does the management, what authority do you have?

So let's say we have something happen that's of emergency, a disaster. Like we'll take the blizzard, for example. At that time, I notify the mayor, talk to the mayor, talk to the chief, talk to fire, and talk a lot to DPW. At that point, we make decisions, and I make the decision rather to open up the Emergency Operations Center, which I did in both storms. we had a soft opening down at the Koch Center where I had fire and police there a lot and then we had a big opening during the blizzard we were off the safety center.

Do we open anything today for the heat?

No, no, no.

So surrounding communities did. That's because... No, I think if you had a heat wave... No, but surrounding communities, I'm saying today, surrounding communities, emergency management teams did open up because it was 80 degrees and people needed some place to get cooled. I'm not saying we needed to, I'm just saying that... I just was wondering if you had any connections with other communities because Somerville did. There was a lot of places that did. What are your work product deliverables? What do you produce for us to be able to see?

the manpower that we have, Declan and myself, in regards to support to police and fire, DPW, and any of the events they want us to be at. We're also working on the manuals. We're also working, like I said, on the hazmat. We're also working on the commodity study. anything that comes up, we get pulled into.

So one of the things I'm concerned when I'm hearing about this is when we talk about making a phone call and it doesn't go directly, there's a duplication of administration and public safety functions that I'm hearing. where if there's an emergency you call 911 and then we call the emergency management person who then calls Chris Walker. There seems like a lot of overlap that's happening. And with the discussion earlier of the 911 regional center, I was just curious because it does overlap a lot. A lot of times the 911 emergency centers, police and fire are equipped to do the emergency management piece of it when you have a 911 regional because it's important that those are the three most important groups that are in that public safety. And emergency management teams in bigger cities might have multiple staffs, but it sounds more like you're helping pull the trailer for the function for the parades or something like that. but that's what you said. I mean, you said some of that stuff.

Yeah, no, we're not helping pull the trail.

I don't wanna make light of it, but that's the thing.

No, I wouldn't make light of it. I always look at this budget as a proactive budget. If it's not a budget that's there and it's reactive and we have an issue, then you're going to be asking me why we didn't do it, why we didn't have the money.

Well, I think that's what Councilor Yuan was asking, and you were saying that you were someplace else when you called your office, they have to call 911 to get to you, and that's because you were at a command center.

Yeah, so it's 8.30 to 4.30 during the day, after hours if they call. 911, if they need to get a hold of me, will get a hold of me. If it's an issue of a disaster or... Jacobs, someone that needs housing or any of those examples which I'll try to work with Mr. Walker and the Mayor.

Councilor Jacobs.

Jacobs.

Good evening, Mrs. McCarthy. How are you? Good. Thanks. So in prepping for this meeting tonight, I made some phone calls around to a lot of other, you know, emergency management facilities. And I'm just wondering, you know, what does our volunteer staff look like?

I volunteer staff. So we're putting together back the certs, which is a group of people. It's volunteer that they had that actually Director Sleeman had put together. and we're going to put that back together again which we go out and get certified people to be volunteers on it along with the local emergency planning committee that we got to put together also.

I mean, would you say it's difficult to get these certifications? Like what goes into, if you wanted to be a volunteer in this, you know, in this outfit with this agency, I should say, you know, what, what's entailed, you know, because I talked to you, it's different in a lot of different towns. Some people have, you know, sergeants, lieutenants, and, you know, what do you have to be, what kind of training do you have to have to be a... Captain or Deputy Chief in Emergency Management. What's the training from the federal government?

The volunteers would be coming to get certified. Yeah, but I'm asking you what's the training that they need to get? Yeah, they'll come and do, get certified through an emergency management training that we have that was put together. I can get your copy if I don't have it.

Well, I'm asking you what it is right now. I worked for the National Park Service for many years. I did law enforcement for the National Park Service. I can tell you right now it's ICS 100, ICS 200, ICS 700, ICS 800. I mean, do we have those? If you're a seasonal law enforcement officer for the Park Service or even just a tour guide at the Adams, some of the people there have those credentials.

Right, well the people that we bring in are Quincy residents that end up being certified under emergency management and I'm looking at the training now to kickstart that up again and put it back on track, because there's only a handful of them that they had.

Well, I mean, you just said to us that the former emergency management director, you know, really spent his time, you know, crossing his, you know, crossing his T's in his eyes. But yet here we are talking about how on the day to day we're rewriting the standard operating procedures for the department. Sounds like those I's weren't really dotted, right, and those T's weren't really crossed. No, he did an excellent job. Okay. And we have no, you know, we've had a full-time director for, seems like a long time. You know, back in, I think I did some research back in when Mayor Koch first became mayor, there was like a, it was a part-time position. I know that around that time we definitely had some volunteers because a kid I grew up with went to elementary school with them, high school, was a volunteer for Quincy Emergency Management. believed in the mission of Quincy Emergency Management, became a Boston EMS professional.

His father was a Boston firefighter. and I just feel like that's what we had when we had someone who was part-time retired and here we've had 10 years or so full-time employees and we're getting less you know, citizen-faced services, and we're getting more administrative costs. I also want to go back and talk about, you said like the tier two hazmat, like, you know, You said that Quincy is a cut-through for hazardous material. What hazardous material are we a cut-through for? What's the number one hazardous material?

It's a whole variety of stuff that comes through. Here it goes to Boston.

Like gasoline? Gasoline, oil. That's a really good question. Let's talk about gasoline. Because I used to help run a trucking company. believe it or not. Okay, so when I did that, do you know where the fuel comes in? Where's the port? Where's the fuel come into Massachusetts? We'll cook them down in Hingham. We'll cook them down anywhere on the South Shore. It comes in at Chelsea Creek. I know, but I'm talking about things that go through Quincy to Boston. But what I'm saying is those things don't happen because those trucks can't move through the I-90 tunnel or the I-93 tunnel. They all have to go around 128. therefore they're not coming into Quincy or very minimally. The only ones that are coming, we are very lucky in Quincy by the fact that the only way that this works is the only trucks that come into Quincy are the ones that are coming to service our gas stations, which I think are about 27. I think I saw something about that. So we actually don't have that issue at all.

We're one of the very few communities.

We're going to find out with the commodity flow study. We don't need to find out. That's what it is. We're going to do it annually, and we're going to do it again this year, and we're about to start it right now. and I'll give you the results on what comes in. And I've seen the results from last year and the year before and there's plenty of trucks that come through here and they wanna know where they're going, they can check by their label, They're simple on the truck, but they're carrying their number, and this will go on for the next two or three months.

I'm just saying, you know, it's not the cut-through. that you just described to us, because it is the cut through.

They come up Route 3. You can come out and sit down at the old shipyard on railroad tracks down there and you can watch them come up Route 3. They'll come up to Sprague, they'll come up to Twin Technologies, they'll come out all up there.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is if they're coming from, I know what you're talking about, you're talking about across from the old Quintry Mall there where the oil is, but the only thing is that those vehicles are moving out onto the highway going around 128. They're not really coming in, they're not traveling through 128.

That's why we do the commodity flow to determine what comes in and out, and we do come up with, a good number which we have to go then back to the company to go back and say you can't come through Quincy. That's why we do this commodity flow study.

I'm just here reporting what I have investigated. Braintree does not have a full-time emergency management director. They recently had a part-time emergency management director who works 16 hours a week. that person was, I don't wanna say demoted, but that was their word, demoted to assistant director and the fire chief was put in charge of emergency management. That person still works 16 hours. a week. There is an Emergency Management Director in Weymouth who is a part-time employee. And in the cities of Newton and Framingham, the Fire Chief is the and Emergency Management Director. And that's all I have to say on this matter.

Anyone else? Rausch.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Director McCarthy. I was just going to, prior to, I believe, Councilor Mahoney's questions, I was just going to suggest that we discuss the department and the preventative maintenance that you do handle, which I believe is the kind of the day to day. So with respect to the storms from last winter, when you had the emergency management department open, is that, are you there all the time and is there overtime for the time that you are there or the time that any, maybe, I believe it's Declan, and I'm forgetting his last name, is there overtime for that time period? No.

And again, Councilor, it goes with the first storm, if you remember, we got a lot of snow. over two feet, but it was very Maine-ish, Vermont-ish. It wasn't the sloppy stuff we got in the second storm. We had a soft opening in the Emergency Operations Center. Fire and Police were there. I worked closely with them. I worked closely with the tree guys, you know, in taking down trees, Dave Murphy's crew. and the DPW, of course. So that was a different scenario, but we were there for a few days. I think we saw you in there, you came in and visited. Then in the middle of those storms, we made a move we thought we were going to be able to make a nice quiet move to the safety center. We got into the safety center and the blizzard hit. Now, when that hit in there, it was a whole different ballgame. We were in there two or three days.

We had at least a dozen people in there from all departments. We were tied into National Grid. We were tied into Brewster. and it actually worked pretty well for kind of coming in hot, like I said, in there and slapping it together. The EOC down at the safety center, if nobody's been in there to see it, is very impressive. It can handle any type of emergency in regards to the setup we have down there. We were able to monitor the national grid outages. We were able to monitor all the cameras in the city where we were able to see if we had any hot spots. And then at the same time, we brought dispatch in at least one full night, maybe another half, to come in and work right out of there with us, with everybody there. So it was all tied in. If something had happened, wires were down,

there was an issue with a tree, right then if they called in to the 1105 number, you were able to go right to the representative of the department and they'd handle it. So it worked quite well in the blizzard. And just so Councilor McKee knows, that was March 6th when I put the report in after collecting data on all the The money that was spent looking to get $1.7 million we submitted in to MEMA and to see how that works out. You know, with the feds, it's going to take a while, That was the number that went in on March 6, too, after that storm. And it was just on that blizzard storm.

Thank you. So with respect to, this is line item 510140. It looks like there's, at least the year to date, there's longevity, which I believe, adds up to the operations, if you take the longevity pay with last year's budget, what you get is this year's proposed. I guess I would just ask about that and if it was already, or what kind of where that transfer came from.

5-1-0-1-4-0.

This is 5-1-0-1-4-0.

I don't know if that longevity's, and I'm new at it with being on this side of the mic, but I think that's myself. No, it's Declan.

Mr. Walker, do you? Is there a longevity, is there one longevity line item, or does each department have its own longevity, which I should have asked that earlier, that each department has its own longevity? Okay. So yeah, that would just be my question, is that transfer, if you take Declan's salary from last year, you add that transfer, you get the proposed, so that would just be my only question.

I just have a couple of questions. So what is the difference between your role and the operations manager role? I mean, it's really just a two-person department and some supplies and things. It's not a very extensive budget.

No, but I think the both of us, when I first got there and Declan was there, he's an emergency management grad out of Mass Maritime. So in regards to us assisting police and fire in a lot of instances, Declan will be more the brawn, like I said, and get out there and work with the fire and police. He did a lot of the DPW work in regards to assisting them and I was out those nights too when we were hauling snow off the streets where we were both out. blocking off streets, Clarence School, Sterling, Lincoln, Hancock, et cetera, Bernazzani. So we kind of work together. developing more or less the budget and the outline of the things to do. And I got Declan executing a lot of the items that are on there. The mailing for the hazmat, he's working with the hazmat individual right now.

He's running to mark disaster with mass maritime later on this year. He was involved with the active shooter I wasn't around for that when it happened in October of last year. So Declan does a lot of the a lot of the operational stuff in regards to like assisting the police with drones, assisting the community guys, things like that.

So it seems your role is a little more administrative.

Yeah.

OK.

I just found that after we were elected, I think every one of these department heads reached out to us, introduced themselves, offered to make themselves available if we had any questions. prior to this budget hearing. Most of them sent us their org charts, their information. So I think we're still a little bit may be unsure of exactly what the role is. It doesn't seem like we face a lot of emergencies on a regular basis. And what I keep hearing is more it's about overseeing events and celebrations. Games, and that sort of thing. I don't think we saw a job description when your role was filled, so it's just a little confusing what the role is exactly for me. Councilor McGee?

Um, So I'd like to make a motion, and I'm sorry to do this, but I think based on what I'm hearing, I'd like to make a motion to actually cut the 510014, Director of Emergency Management position because Based on my research, other communities are doing this within the fire department and maybe someone wears a hat, that's the emergency management. I guess I'm hearing also that you know that Certainly, there's many things to do during storms, but concerts and free jacks.

I guess I'm not thinking that this is needed for for a whole position, and I'm sorry about that, but I'm going to make a motion to cut that position.

Okay, so we have a motion on the table to eliminate 510014, Director of Emergency Management, We'll need a roll call vote for that, I assume.

On the motion.

On the motion. Oh, on the motion. Someone?

I think I would just suggest maybe tabling it and having Mr. McCarthy come back. I mean, I've sat down with Director Sleeman, I've seen the mitigation plans I think that there's maybe more to it than is being presented tonight. I would suggest having maybe come back if that's what the Councilor's wishes are.

We have a motion.

I mean, I know especially with respect to the Four River area, Director Sleeman and I have gone over the hazard mitigation plan and Twin Rivers technologies and a lot of the the plans and the documents that are housed in the department. That would be my suggestion.

Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam Chair. prior to this position coming in in 2018 was because of the floods that we had here in the city of Quincy. They were extensive. There was a lot of people that were displaced, especially in House Neck. That was a big particular area that was I mean, it was an island. The water got receded up on C Street. Post Island Road got hit extensively. Folks that are not sitting in here tonight, but they're always in this particular section, they lost their houses. They had to be rebuilt. We went through a phase of people being displaced. So the inception of this position was put in place particularly to take a proactive approach on emergency management and natural disasters that have happened. Now, over the years, I've worked with his predecessor, Ali Sleeman, as a Councillor on all different type of disasters

issues, I guess, that are going on in the city. Mr. Sleeman, he did a comprehensive emergency management plan with the state. That's something that Dave is probably gonna, Mr. McCarthy's gonna be going into his role is pretty new. He was also doing a lot of planning and disaster recovery all day long. and the biggest thing that I think would happen in 2018 is Mr. Sleeman recovered $10 million in recovery funds from that big disaster. I truly believe that this position is very important for our city. We put it in the inception because of all this particular situations that happened and and what the emergency management person can do is bring a lot of funding back into the city based on what he just put in recently with some of the natural disasters, some of the snow events.

some of the fire events that are happening across the city, we have a point person to go to. So I truly believe that this is, something that the mayor came to the previous city council. And, hey, Mahoney, you served on it at that time. And we put this position in place because of those particular reasons. I think we would take a step backwards by cutting this. I can understand where you're coming from, but I'm just telling you that we, I don't wanna take a step backwards, what we've accomplished as a city moving forward. I think, Mr. McCarthy could do a great job with this role. And I just want to say that, you know, this kind of goes, he works with police and fire and all these different components. He's a point person. So I think maybe we table this, get a little bit more research on this, but thank you.

Thank you, Councilor DiBona. We have to move the table to a vote. We have to move the table to a vote?

Yep, the table has to be voted in.

Okay. We'll take a roll call vote to table. Councilor Yuan, you want to?

I support Councilor McKee's motion. I would like to speak on behalf of the residents. after they know they have to just call 911 after 4.30 p.m., they really question what's the function of this department. Actually, they suggest to save taxpayer's money, we should get rid of redundant roles, redundant position. If Councilor McKee not make this motion, I will make the same motion. So I... so we should vote for, so I will, I second.

We'll take a roll to call vote on the tabling. Okay.

I motion. For the Councilor McKee's motion, we just get rid of this line today.

Okay, we have to take a roll call vote on the motion to table this matter.

I did a second on that. You have a motion for table, you need a second. A second.

Oh, you need a second.

Okay.

Hubley. Second. Okay. So a motion from Councilor Ash, a second from Councilor DiBona to table this matter. Roll call vote, Madam Clerk.

Councilor Ash. Yes. Councilor DiBona. Yes. Councilor Hubley. Yes. Council Jacobs? No. Council Mahoney? No. Council McKee? No. Council Ryan? No. Council Yuan? No.

Chairman Riley? No.

Okay. So now the motion on the table is from Councilor McGee. That does not need a second, right? Sure. on the motion to eliminate.

So on the motion, this is just to eliminate. If I want to make sure I understood this, you're just eliminating 5-1-0-0-1-4, correct? Correct. Right. And I would like to make amendments to your motion and say I would like to cut the whole thing to 42-607. Because if we need to, we can bring back the 68-842 and put it into the police or fire where this belongs.

Okay, could you repeat that, please?

I want to cut the whole budget to 42,606. 42.

Delete Department 291.

Oh, delete, okay. with the recovery of only, if I was to recover anything from it, I would recover 512030 if needed in the police or fire where it would land because this is a, and I have seen massively a duplication of efforts from what I've heard and what I've seen and when Ali was here before. And, you know, this is, it's done in other communities and it's done very well. And if we have a regional communication center coming it makes sense to have it all in one place. And when we're calling 911 it will be distributed out. and 9-1-1 typically in a regional communication is the weather headquarter for it as well. So if it's run correctly. We don't, but what we have is we have an incredible public safety building and we have a emergency management system that is, as far as I'm concerned, not working. So I would like to make a friendly motion to approve

McGee to cut the, we can go through the motion to cut just the salary, but if we, we'll have to do two votes then, it's up to you.

Can I cut the vote?

I'd like to say, for me personally, I feel more comfortable just not taking the whole thing out. I don't know.

Can I just? Jacobs. You know, this is the operations manager, Councilor McCarthy, has spoken very highly of him. I do not know him. it sounds like he does great work. It sounds like he's very qualified for his job. I do think, hopefully that Is he in a union position, that person? Is 030 a union position? No. I do think it sounds like he's very involved in communications. I don't know if there's some other way that the city could utilize his services, maybe as a...

Can we motion to transfer?

Oh, okay. Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, I'm not against any cutting of this particular budget. However, I do want you to understand cutting these other items in the budget you might not be able to reclaim them. There's a lot of supplies and maintenance stuff that we already have in place that we kind of need for the city. I don't wanna, I'm not gonna cut the Director of Emergency, the Emergency Management Director, and I think you should consider not cutting the rest of it, the Operations Manager as well. You're just going to dismantle the entire department here. And you can't start putting stuff back into the budget. I just feel that maybe we should just do it line, just a line item. I'm not gonna be in support of any of it, so, of any of the cuts, but.

by line up, you can go line up.

DiBona.

I mean, Madam Chair, I mean, you even said you're kind of against maybe doing the whole thing too. So maybe, you know.

Well, again, we don't seem to have a lot of information on this department, but I'd be hesitant to cut the whole thing in its entirety. I just think that would be a little drastic. I think it would be a little bit wiser to keep the structure in place.

Ash, did you have something you wanted to say?

Hang on a second.

So essentially, if what I'm hearing from my colleagues would be to keep the operations manager position, who does that, are we gonna give this person a promotion? Who does that person report to? Is that even in our purview to cut an item and then

if it isn't. Councilor Mahoney. It isn't the purview of the mayor if we say we would be willing to keep $68,842. in the budget, and he can place it into FIRE or 911 or wherever he was at this department isn't working. And I think it's redundant. Everything we heard is is redundancy. The MEPA coordination, you heard it from the fire department. I've heard it several different places. Incident Command, Disaster Response, MEMA, Emergency Planning, Shelter Operations, Hazards. The Fire Department typically handles all of those things, and it did handle it for a long time. The person who was handling it before, Mr. Sleaze person, not to say his name, I'm sorry, I know he's a relative of Noel's, but if the thing is is that he came in and they made it a full-time job for that person and it did come after the 2018 and what they were wanting to do was they wanted to build shelters around the city. I was like, not for that either.

And that never happened. That was something that was a big deal that they were trying to do. And what we heard now is When a resident tries to get in touch with anybody, they can reach them from 7.30 to 4.30, I don't remember the times. But in general, we have an operations person who's doing all the work and somebody who's directing them. it's a very heavy-weighted staff as far as I'm concerned that's what I'm looking at and I know that this is as far as the vehicles and everything else those are owned by the city of Quincy they won't disappear they don't go home with anybody those would be those would be reestablish into somebody else's department. And the same thing with those line items for the rest of the year. This is for the 2027 proposed budget. And as we've already talked about those vehicles, sometimes they're lent out to other departments for them to be able to tow trailers or other things that they need. So, okay.

Mr. Walker.

I appreciate you allowing me to be heard on this. I believe this body will be making a exceptionally large mistake to eliminate this department. This department, since the time of its inception, has done an incredible amount of work in coordination, in planning, and execution when it comes to major emergencies. and clear up a little bit, perhaps clarify Councilor Yuen's concern relative to particular phone numbers and what time they were called and how they were called, I would say that the time period in which we would have publicly put forward the number for emergency management that we would have that would be in a snowstorm, that would be in an emergency.

and during that time, that is when the staff is there all the time, that the phones are on all the time. I was there myself during that period of time. This means a cut in services to the people of this city. Make no mistake about it. There may be some... and questions and you have questions about how it operates and what's the best way to do it and who's who and I hope it's not who's who here tonight. What do you mean? I hope it's not, but... The fact is, is that we created an agency that this body, this city, this community felt was a need after we had a major disaster, that it wasn't

enough to have the fire department just be responsible for it, that we needed some civilian control when it came to planning shelters. And I would respectfully disagree with Madam President. The shelter work has been done. We have set up Emergency Shelters ready to go at a moment's notice now, which we did not have before. It was patchwork. it was catch as catch can. It didn't exist. It was at the time, if something happens, if it hit the fan, so to speak, we would figure it out. But right now we have emergency plans in place to handle any kind of emergency. And we saw it during the snowstorms.

started operating the new facility, the coordination, the communication, the planning between all departments that were in that facility going on 48 hours at a time was a tremendous service to this community. Now, if perhaps some questions were not answered tonight, that's fine, that's understandable. I think at the very least, this body owes the department, the administration, the ability to follow up with some questions and answers before it moves forward with eliminating a public safety department. That's what we're talking about here. I could not disagree more that this is redundant. There's cooperation. Of course there's cooperation. That's the way it's supposed to work. But it is not redundant.

and I would just again emphasize that on the record that we believe it is an exceptional mistake to give up what we've created over the last several years. I guess that's my piece on this.

Thank you, Mr. Walker. So I would prefer to do this by line item. I don't know. Procedurally, Roberts rules the board. Oh, Mr. Councilor Jacobs. Jacobs.

Thank you. I just want to point something out about the incident a few years ago with the flooding. There was a community shelter opened up down in Housenac. And you know, I just want to remind those of you who don't live in Housenac and weren't there, people were not happy with the way that went down. Just in case anyone forgot. So we're over here saying, oh, it was great, it was this, it was that. People were not happy with what happened. And I think that we need to remember that. Mr. McCarthy remembers that. OK, people just remember that people were not happy with what went down there. As for the snowstorm, I was up at two, three o'clock in the morning, talking to President Mahoney, saying, there's no heat in Marymount.