Finance Committee

All right, good evening everyone. I'm Jake Wilson, he, him pronouns, Counselor-at-Large and your Finance Committee Chair. It's six o'clock on the dot and I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, October 7th, 2025 meeting of the Finance Committee of the Somerville City Council. First, it's my pleasure to read these words to you that allow us to do this right here on Zoom. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of the City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio-video recording and a comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Clerk, could you please call the roll to establish quorum?

This is roll call. Councilor Mbah?

Present.

Councilor Burnley?

Present.

Councilor Clingan?

Present.

Councilor Scott? Present. Councilor Wilson?

Present.

With all five councillors present, we have quorum.

Excellent, five for five. Folks, we're going to be taking up our 16-item agenda in the order posted with one exception, and we'll get to that in a moment. We're going to start by taking up the minutes from our last meeting, ID number 25-1511, approval of the minutes of the Finance Committee meeting of September 23rd, 2025. On the minutes. No discussion. All right. The item is laid on the table to recommend approval with a single vote at the end of tonight's meeting. Now I want to take up our one out of order agenda item. We're going to take up agenda item eight. That's ID number 25-1449. The mayor requesting the appropriation of $240,664.10 from the Transportation Network Company Special Revenue Fund for the FY2026 Vision Zero Safety efforts. We have with us, I see Director Brad Rawson from Mobility. Director Rawson, you want to take this one?

Yes, Chair. Good evening through you. Thanks to the committee for managing your agenda. I know many of us have multiple meetings on a given evening, and I appreciate your forbearance here. So, Chair, the Finance Committee is aware that the state has utilized something called a special revenue fund. Ever since the legislature voted into law, the operation of transportation network companies, what we all think of as ride-hailing apps, Uber and Lyft being the dominant players in that industry, And the Finance Committee will recall that approximately 20 cents per trip is added as a surcharge to those trips, 10 cents of which, Chair, is issued to the municipality in which the ride-hailing trip begins. So every Uber and Lyft trip that begins in Somerville, 10 cents will flow to the Commonwealth and then be redistributed to Somerville, subject to your annual appropriation and acceptance. Typically, Chair, Somerville has received between $200,000 and $300,000 of this special revenue source. And the legislature's law does require cities and towns to use those special revenue funds to mitigate negative impacts of the ride hailing industry. So typically Somerville has used those funds for three major areas of our work chair. One is design and engineering for our safe streets projects. The second is for planning or data collection tasks to support that design and engineering. And third could be for project implementation, often in the form of flex post purchases, pavement markings, things of the like. So we just wanted to provide that quick summary. So we're here to seek your approval to accept the most recent tranche of funding from the Commonwealth This would bring us current for all ride-hailing trips that begin in Somerville in calendar year 2024. The Commonwealth tends to run about 15 months behind in terms of dispersing those funds, so we only found out about this in June of 2025. Chair, I hope that's a helpful background and summary, and I'm happy to answer questions that the committee may have. Absolutely. Thanks for that.

Colleagues, discussion. Councilman Mbah, you're first up.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Dr. Austin, for your work. You're one of those fierce employees. I really appreciate everything you do for the city to keep our residents safe. Um, when I, when I saw this, I asked myself, like, you know, I think we already have this appropriation in the budget. So I'm wondering if this, you know, like, does this pay for discrete, you know, like all these other, like. So does this money offset any CIP project costs? You've mentioned those design and engineering flex posts. I think we already have an appropriation for this in our budget. So I'm wondering, what else is this? If this is additional funds, you know it's actually going to offset some maybe capital improvement project cause essentially allowing us to borrow less money for street improvements or like how does it fit into like the bigger picture goals of, you know, or is this adding to your division, you know, or maybe like the highway division budget fund to cover the regular programs of street and side. So you've mentioned the three major category, but I think we appropriate these funds already during budget season. Can you just expand shade, like how this is going to, If this is an enhancement or like is it going to what is what's the difference between a budget appropriation for street improvement and then with this additional funds?

Chair, through you, thanks for the question and for the compliments, Councillor. The TNC Special Revenue Funds should be thought of as supplemental and in addition to any operating budget sources that the Council has worked with us on over the years. Chair, I'll note that Mobility Division's operating budget for things like design and engineering tasks typically runs at about $300,000 a year. And the finance committee will recall that those design funds typically go to support engineering divisions, annual street and sidewalk contracts. The TNC funds has typically been used to support our quick build program, which is typically not handled through our operating budget. So it's definitely complimentary and additive. I hope that's a helpful answer to the question.

Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Any other discussion on this? All right. I don't see anything. So, Director, thanks for joining us here. And we will lay this one on the table and recommend approval here at the end of the meeting. That is going to bring us back to our regular order of business here. Let's take up then our second agenda item, ID number 25-1462. It's a mayor requesting approval to extend and amend a contract with City Hall Systems for an additional two years until December 17, 2027 for online bill payment services. I believe the clerk is loading up here a memo. Well, that's the Arts Council one. There we go, there's the memo that I was about to reference. It should be uploaded into Legistar as well, our legislative tracking system. Explaining this request, hopefully colleagues had a chance to look this over, but any discussion on the request?

Councilor Mabah. Thank you, Chair. I guess the only question I have here is whether this which I didn't find here anyway. Does this contract renewal need us to pay more money?

Is the administration able to answer that question?

Through the chair, my understanding is this is the amendment to the contract is the date at which the contract will be extended, the extension. And there are no other changes to the conditions, but in terms of the total amount paid, I'm not sure I can answer that with a good authority. So I could bring that back to staff if you'd like clarification.

And I'll just say, I hate to, I'm 95% sure of this, but I believe the compensation to the third-party provider here is in the form of the service fees that they capture for doing this. I don't recall seeing... I hate to be wrong. I don't recall seeing any payments from the city in addition to those.

Yeah, no, it would be good to clarify. I think when I had looked at this, you know, like for the three-year contract, it was like 2.5 million. So, and this is, I just wanted to make sure if it's, require us to pay, you know, more money, then I want to be curious to know, you know, why, you know, like, you know, why is the contract this big, you know, eligible for renewal without a new procurement? Because if it's going to be another 2.5 million, then it has to be open for another procurement. And just so that people can come again and bid, because it's been three years. so given how fast technology system keep changing you know is it is the system that it provided still the most efficient in operation and cost effective three years later uh does the administration have any response to that any anything you want to indicate

Through the chair? No, I can bring that question back to staff and get you clarification. And I'll send that as a follow up to the full committee after the meeting.

Okay. Thank you. Councilman, are you comfortable putting this on the table to recommend approval, assuming you get the answers that you want before Thursday night?

I mean, if this is the main thing, if we don't need to pay more money, yes, it's good to go. But if we need to pay more money, then there will be other questions that, like I mentioned, it just, is it what, like what is, like this whole protocol now is, I mean, it just... We just need to understand what we are doing. Right.

So, Council, we're not going to get that answer tonight, but are you okay with laying this on the table to recommend approval here tonight so that if you don't feel comfortable with that, you could move to sever on Thursday night? Okay. Sounds good.

Thank you, Chair.

Assuming the rest of the committee is also, I'm asking one member of the committee, but I'll look out. I don't see anyone expressing objection to that. So, Clerk, we're going to lay this item on the table to recommend approval, and we'll look to get the answers to Council Member Mbah's questions. And then, as we said, if necessary, this could always be, there could be motion to sever this from the committee report on Thursday if we're not happy with the answers that come.

Thank you, General. I appreciate that. As you know, money is tight, so we got to keep looking about how to spend our money the most efficient way possible.

And how. Okay. That is going to take us to our fourth agenda item. That is ID number 25-1494. We'll cut request for approval. That's the mayor request for approval to use available funds in the law department personal services accounts in the amount of $6,296.88 to increase the annual salary of the municipal hearing officer. And I believe we have our city attorney, Cindy Amaro with us. Hello. Solicitor Amaro, please take it away.

Thank you to the chair. This is a pretty simple request. We have money in our account. My budget covers the cost of the municipal hearing officer. And he has been trying to retire since I believe the end of June. And we have been trying to replace him since that time. We now have a pretty robust group of candidates from which to draw from. But we were up against a wall for the September hearings because we did not have we weren't that far along in the process. And for the additional $500 a month subject to your approval and appropriation, he was willing to continue through the end of the year. So the end of the year being the end of December. And so we're looking for roughly 20, $6,200 and we have it in our budget. We just need to switch it from one personnel line to another so that we can pay the municipal hearing officer to continue to conduct the hearings through December, at which point we hope to have a new municipal hearing officer. And it is the intent as far as I understand that there is a movement by HR and I believe the clerk's office to shift the payment from a stipend type situation to more of an hourly type situation. But this is only to get us through the end of December.

All right, thank you for that. Councillor Scott, you're first up.

Yeah, thank you for that, Mr. Chair. Just checking in. Remind me who our hearing officer is again. Is it still Bill Roche? Correct.

All right. Sorry, through the chair, yes.

All right, and not for nothing, so this isn't a salary that's established in the city's salary ordinance. It's an exception, correct?

It's a... I apologize. Yes, through the chair to you, it is a stipend. It is not a... So we're just increasing the stipend amount for September, October, November, and December.

Got it. Understandable. Just wanted to make sure that we weren't playing above board with our salary ordinance and everything else. Understand the situation. Seems fine. I look forward to who our next hearing officer is going to be. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks, Counselor. In a good spot. All right, any other discussion on this one? All right, we're going to lay this one on the table and recommend approval as well. Solicitor, thank you for joining us.

Thank you.

It's going to bring us now to ID number 25-1479 as we get into prior year invoices. That's the mayor requesting approval to pay prior year invoices totaling $121,818.23 using available funds and various Department of Public Works accounts for various services. We have with us tonight, I see our DPW Commissioner Jill Latham. as well as Director Danielle Palazzo from DPW as well. Who would like to kick this one off for us?

I'll start us off. Hello, committee and chair and committee members. Jill Lathan, DPW commissioner. Danielle Palazzo, my deputy director of finance, will be presenting these items and breaking it down what this total amount comes to. Danielle.

Good evening through the chair. So DPW is asking for the use of FY26 funds to cover three different vendor FY25 invoices for net metering accounts. Unfortunately, these invoices can be extremely difficult to forecast. as they are solar dependent. So three vendors, Sunwealth Power, Greenbacker, and Select Energy Leasy are the three vendors that we need funding for in FY26, as we fell short in FY25. Although we did carry forward the purchase orders we had on hand, the funding just wasn't sufficient enough to get us through the fiscal year. We also have an additional request for Verizon for the fleet tracking system for vehicles. We had an open purchase order that we carried forward in FY25 that was $2,124.13 short of being able to pay the final bill for fiscal year 25. So those are the four invoices or the four vendors that I'm presenting to you. And we also have Superintendent Ben Waldrop, who can speak to the Always Green and the Stanley Tree invoices that we're asking for additional funding for in FY26.

All right, Superintendent Waldrop.

Danielle, why don't you just go ahead and summarize that in case you're having technical difficulties.

Absolutely. Through the chair, the other two vendors, one being Always Green, is one of the grounds vendors. And we fell short $3,075 for this particular vendor for services that were off contract expenses. There was an issue where the contract expired and there was a small timeframe in which the expiration didn't quite meet the updated contract date. Therefore, we fell short $3,075 that were considered off-contract expenditures with that vendor. And then for Stanley Tree, we had completed all of the trimmings in Ward 1. And due to the enormous amount of trims needed in Ward 1, we exceeded the value of the Year 1 contract. And additional monies were needed to complete the trims in Ward 2, which were completed in Fiscal Year 25.

Thanks for that. I saw Councillor Scott nodding at the mention of completing the trims in Ward 2. Councillor Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I'm always glad to have the trees trimmed down here. Mr. Chair, I was going to pass through a question to Director Waldrop about this, but seeing as how he's got some technical difficulties, I guess I'd just point out Let me ask through you to the Deputy Director of Finance here. This override on the Stanley Tree is for, pardon me for a second. I had that number right in front of me. Here we go. For $22,500. The total contract for Stanley Tree, remind me what that total fiscal year contract is.

I do not know the total contract value of that contract, but I'm happy to get that information and send it along to you. Oh, I bet Commissioner Layton does it.

No, through the chair. Ben, he's trying to get on. He needs to be unmuted.

I think I'm back now. Can everybody hear me? We can hear you. Superintendent Waldrop. My apologies, Chairman Wilson and Counselor Scott.

Did you hear the question by chance?

I did not. Go ahead and repeat that if you don't mind, please.

Sure, sure. Just wondering what the total amount on that Stanley Tree contract is on an annual basis.

The total amount on the Stanley contract through the chair is right over $444,000, I believe, per year. And we had overspent right at about $20,000 on that for completion of Ward 2, which is still ongoing. Right now, we just ramped that contract back up as of about three weeks ago. So we're working on Ward 2 and then we'll transition into Ward 3 come later in the fall.

All right, well, Mr. Chair, I appreciate that, Deputy Director Waldrop. Always a pleasure to hear from you. Mr. Chair, I guess I'd just leave it at pointing out the enormous size of that contract. And given what we've said about ground staffing over the years and how helpful another ground crew would be for all of the green infrastructure improvements and parks down here, hopefully our next mayor will be listening to this conversation since both of them are potentially in this committee. And hopefully we'll have a smaller contract and increase our internal capacity next year. Thank you very much. And as always, thanks for getting those trees trimmed down here in Ward 2.

All right. Commissioner Latham, did you have something to add to that? I see your hand up before I call on Council Member Vaughn.

I'm all set. Thank you, Chair.

All right. Councilman Ball, you're next up here.

Thank you, Chair, for the recognition. I just want to thank Commissioner Leland and Director Peluso and Superintendent Wildred for your work and thank you for trimming the good councilor's trees in Ward 2. I just wanted to make a statement that when I see like invoices, you know, requests for invoices, we should not have more than two minutes debate. An invoice is an invoice and it should be paid, you know. So I think all these four items, you know, we can move quickly and have them, you know, Being paid. That's, that's all I wanted to say. Like, it's an invoice. It needs to be paid. Thank you, Chair.

Well, Councillor Ma, you're going to love how the next three items go. But on this one, any further discussion? Superintendent Walder, did you have something to add to this one still? Is your hand still up, maybe?

Yes, Councillor Wilson, I would just like to add kind of the Nature of the work on both of these contracts that were overspent in grounds, or I'd say not overspent, but with last year's money, they were kind of the peak season for grounds. That's where the fiscal year dealing becomes difficult with the grounds department because right when our peak season starts, the budgetary year ends and then restarts. So we had, uh, an ending contract at Lincoln park and then activating a new contract, hence the always green invoices. And then Stanley more or less of the same with that, where we had that $444,000 contract, um, executed in full, and then we had to close out some POs and then reopen them to start that work July 1st. So hence the spending differential there and these invoices that went unpaid, kind of being right in the grounds busy season.

And Superintendent Waldrop, this is the, if we're looking at the budget for grounds, this is the care of trees line and ordinary maintenance we're talking about, $434,445?

Yes, sir, that's correct.

All right. All right, anything else on this? All right, this item's laid on the table to recommend approval. Thank you all from DPW for coming and hanging out with us and answering our questions tonight.

Thank you.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

All right. Now, Councilman Vaughn is going to like this part. We're going to take up together agenda items five, six, and seven. And I'm going to waive the readings. Those are three very small dollar figure prior invoices. Pretty self-explanatory. But if anyone has any questions about those, this is the time. If the clerk wouldn't mind just scrolling up a little, please. Show five, six, and seven. There we go. Going once. Going twice. All right. Those three items are also laid on the table. Recommend approval. And that's going to take us to our ninth agenda item. Yeah. What's that, Counselor? Yeah. There we go. There we go. Everyone loves an efficient meeting. Agenda item nine. That's ID number 25-1459. The mayor requesting approval to appropriate $100,000 from the Encore Artist and Cultural... I was reading off the screen. I just went away. One second. Let me pull that back up. That's what I get for trying to read off the screen.

Sorry, I was pulling up the menu.

No, no, no, you're doing your job. I should have been looking at this. Cultural Support Stabilization Fund to support local cultural council grants to artists, organizations, and schools. All right. As the clerk was going to, there's a memo for this that we received. I suspect we're about to see in a second. There we are. Colleagues, assuming you had a chance to look through that memo. This is one that we that we do get on a periodic basis, but any discussion on this. Councilman Vaughn money for the arts.

Thank you. Thank you. I guess the question I have is is for the encore, is the encore artist grant also annual or is this the last 100,000 payment from the Casino Community Benefits Agreement?

Does the administration want to comment on that? Liaison Hunter.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you repeat the question, Councilor Mbah?

Yes. I'm asking, you know, we know like the Mass Cultural Council grants come every year, you know, but is the encore artist grant also annual? Does it come every year? Or is this the last, you know, 100,000 payment from the casino as a community benefits agreement? Is this the last payment that we are receiving from them? Or this is also like a yearly thing?

Through the chair, I know we have received it in many years past. I don't know if there is certainty about future years receiving these funds. I can go back to staff and confirm if we know if we're going to get that for future years. I think there is some shenanigans about this fund earlier in the year that was sort of outside of the city's control and sort of at the state level. So I can get an update on where that stands, but you are correct that these are funds we've received in the past.

But I'm not, maybe I'm not super clear. So the first question is, is this, do we get the mass cultural council grants comes every year? And then this appropriation of 100,000 francs from ANCOR, does it also come every year?

Through the chair. In the past, that has been true. I do not know if there is an end date on when those funds happen or essentially if those will be coming in future years or if there was a time period of five years and this is year five. I don't know the details of that agreement. So I can get that information from staff for you so you have clarity.

Thank you, Liz and Hoda. Thank you. That would be great. Thank you, Chair.

Absolutely. Councilman Vala, I'll ask you the same question. You could recommend approval of this one?

Absolutely.

All right. Any other discussion on it? All right. The item's laid on the table. Recommend approval at the end of the meeting. That is going to bring us to our 11th agenda item. Uh, and that is as I flip back to that window, uh, ID number 25 dash 14, 18, the mayor requested approval to accept and expend a $10,000 grant with no new match required from the Fenway community health center to the police department for post overdose support. And we have, I see director Emily wisdom from the police department with us. Uh, the first of several items we're going to have you with us for. Please tell us about this request.

So this grant is a yearly grant we receive. It's typically known as the SOAR grant. It's a subrecipient award that we get from Fenway from a grant that they receive. Typically, these funds are used by court and police officers to do outreach and follow up on calls that involve behavioral health issues, as well as offer training and And for training around behavioral health issues and overdose, you know, post-overdose issues that they provide training for the community and law enforcement, as well as some jail diversion.

All right. Thanks for explaining that. Colleagues, discussion.

Councilor Mabau, you're first up. Thank you, sir. Director Wisdom, good to see you. And well, good to see you again. So thank you for your service. I guess I'm just curious as to like if, like if say like, how do I frame this? So like if this cover like the expense of individuals for whom like the police respond with overdose emergency service, And the point I'm getting at is how many people is this money able to serve? And do we have other funds in the budget to help more folks with emergencies?

So this particular grant is... It's actually lowered this year. We received $10,000. So for the most part, these funds are used typically for the supplies and the I guess, like the pamphlets and things that they provide for outreach. They do minimally use this grant for a little bit of OT. It doesn't go very far, you know, once you kind of break down this $10,000. But they kind of use it as a supplement. to their kind of the CITT grant and the jail diversion grant to do some of that additional work around behavioral health issues. They do provide a little bit of training with this to law enforcement officers that kind of goes out of the scope of CITT and kind of goes into the scope of overdose awareness. So I would say that it's pretty minimal in terms of OT and more used for programmatic expenses and the outreach. Like I said, the way that it's been described to me and how I've noticed it being used in the budget is kind of as a supplement to the overall core strategies so that they kind of work together with their grants and their budget to kind of do the most that they can do.

Excellent. Excellent. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Any additional discussion? Council Burnley.

Hello. Through you. I'm curious if the director has any insights into what other departments deliver these sorts of direct services to residents. I ask because I know that the firefighters are involved with a lot of serving these communities. One would imagine that HHS plays some part or some role in overall service providing here. So I'm curious how This grant relates back to the work that other departments are doing as well. And I'll stop there for now.

So through the chair, I don't know exactly, I will say, necessarily what HHS does or the firefighters. I do know that these funds can be used for community outreach, not just law enforcement. So there is, there is applicability in that more than just law enforcement can be, can be, can be used, can be trained with the utilization of these funds. I could, if, if, if it would be something you'd be interested in, I could inquire and see if there's any, I guess, potential, parallel or adjacent, you know, where, where the core program works with others outside of the police department, if that would be something you might be interested in.

Yeah. I, yeah, I'm, I'm curious where these funds can have the most impact. I can work up an order so that we can have like a separate discussion about that. I don't see any need at this point to, to hold this item as a result. But yeah, I think it is important for us to be thinking holistically and intergovernmentally about these supports in particular. Thank you.

All right. Any other discussion? All right. We're going to lay this item on the table to recommend approval, but don't go anywhere, Director. Up next. Our 12th agenda item, ID number 25-1408. The mayor requests your approval to accept and expend a $155,278.38 grant with no new match required from the Massachusetts State 911 Department to the Police Department for training costs for 911 certification. Once again, Director Wisdom.

Yes, thank you, Chair. So this grant is, again, a grant we receive year over year. This allows us to bolster our 9-1-1 budget and take some of that off of the community and our operating costs. This portion of the grant in particular, as you mentioned, is training costs. That includes some of the OT required to allow 911 operators to attend the certification off of the clock. So it's over time. So that means that they have a chance to work on their certification and then allows them to continue to provide their services as 911 operators without being conflicted. So that's a great opportunity. Additionally, this also pays for the vendor costs for the 911 certification. So that also helps alleviate that off of our budget.

All right, colleagues on the item. Any discussions? Should we have taken these up together? You could have. Let's do that. Let's take up, let's wave the readings and take up 13 and 14 with this ID number 25-1409 and ID number 25-1410. Anything to add to these that wasn't already said about the previous one?

So typically, so the second portion is for the personnel costs. So they actually provide us with a portion of funds to cover personnel costs. So that's incredibly helpful. And then the third portion is for us to have a contract with Cataldo. It makes them kind of our primary emergency dispatch so that we have someone that is responding to our 911 calls with urgency on a regular basis.

All right. Thanks for that. So now on the three items together, any discussion? I don't see any. So going once, going twice. laid on the table to recommend approval.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Director. All right, that's going to bring up our penultimate item, ID number 25-1344. That is an order by Councilman Vaughn that the Director of Finance provide a comprehensive accounting of all stabilization accounts that have remained unspent for three or more fiscal years and provide a report for each fund. uh now we had received at the previous meeting prior to the previous meeting uh report um the the report that was requested counselor by indicated that he had questions so we wanted to hold that in committee uh to give council about an opportunity to ask some of those questions just have that discussion so counselor i'm guessing you are you want to be first up here thank you chair first i want to give a shout out to you know

director being like that's some of his finest man chase cannot believe like the finance department did a stellar job like quite a robust you know uh information and i'm glad that just the first party was helpful to know that we could identify some funds you know that have been sitting unused for so many years and that we can easily repurpose. That was about $256,000. So that's a great stat and we can quickly As you know, I sit on the job creation and retention trust. And so funds have been, you know, like drying up. I guess when I looked at this whole other table, because he explained his analysis was so spot on. And I'm looking at most of the funds, the stabilization, cash balances, the EMA for various things. And one thing that even piqued my eye is the glx we're done with glx you know and i see like you know about four million dollars in that in that account and as you probably know we actually removed part of that money to actually you know fund the high school So I just was curious how we can move some of these funds around, like what is like, what would be like the process like, you know, even though they've been earmarked, but some of the projects, they no longer exist. So what, how do we, you know, what is, is Director Bean here to begin with?

No, Councilor, I don't see Director Bean.

Did he speak to that, to this? No, no, there was a memo and the report were sent last time. Yeah, no, no, that's what I'm saying. I enjoyed the memo, man. Everything is so spot on, you know, even including like our bond rating, why we keep certain percentage, you know, of funds. Because we have like, I think we're probably the highest in the state, you know. I'm sure other communities do their own differently, too. I'll be curious to know, like, you know, I could not even find anything for Boston, so they probably have their own system. But I was, I'm not sure, like, I just wanted to know, you know, what the process would be like to, you know, like, increase that amount by looking at some of these funds that we got. He's clearly marked, like, the no activity one. That one was clear, it was easy, and he already acknowledged that we can repurpose those. But it would be good to know from him what some of these other earmark funds for projects that no longer exist, what is the plan for those. And the main thing is about just suggesting how we can have a broad policy conversation about what is needed, what is prudent, whether it will be able to make, you know, we'll be able to make like higher, higher withdrawals and repurposed funds in the next fiscal years. Like during budget season, you know, we can, if we run short of budget or grant funds for our priority services, like say housing stability, you know, immigrant assistance or afterschool program, like what is that, What would that process look like? Do I make sense?

Yeah. And Counselor, is it worth taking up the sort of sister item here, which is that, as we talked about at our last regular meeting, the comments that Bill Valletta submitted, the really extensive comments on this. Let's take that up as well. Item number 25-1514. I'll leave the readings of that. and take it up so people can discuss what's in there. Cause that did have, it was an extensive.

Yes, that was actually, yes. Thank you for mentioning that because it was through the citizens chat that I looked at other communities. It was very interesting to see that, you know, we're up there like 32%. Meanwhile, you know, the rest of other communities, like 5%, 2%, you know, so it's like, I could not also understand the rationale why we are at 32%. Is that actually, you know, like where we need to be? Or is it like, are we... why can we not come down to 15% or 20% or something? So we can actually use those funds or anticipate, start planning on how to use those funds in the future once the budget is tight.

Yeah, thanks, Kansai. I saw Legislative Liaison Hunter had a hand raised. Legislative Liaison, did you want to chime in on this at all?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to say that I know Director Beat is not here tonight, but is happy to have a conversation with you directly, Councilor, or anyone else who has questions around the nitty gritty is of the process. And wanted to also note that, as stated in his memo, there is a process undergoing in the finance department right now to look at those funds, so exactly as you have raised, Council Member Mbah, to figure out which ones can be repurposed. And there should be items coming before the council in the coming weeks. I think there are two items that will be before the council on Thursday regarding the creation of a few of new stabilization funds to track and define the purpose of what those are going to be used for. And I will note that all stabilization funds, appropriations from those funds have to be approved by the council. And I believe also repurposing those funds has to be approved by this council. And all stabilization funds have to have a designated purpose. So just wanted to note that those things are forthcoming. This conversation will be ongoing as the city does take steps to repurpose the dollars we have in the stabilization accounts. And that Director Bean will be before this committee to talk in detail about the items that will be before the council as of Thursday.

All right, thanks for that. I mean, given that we're taking up Mr. Valetta's communication, I wanted to point out some things that I found particularly interesting there. The number, at least $365,000 that was identified as stagnant or residual money that's in some relatively tiny accounts, those small amounts add up to $365,000, right? And if we're looking at being uh you know in a situation where you know we're looking in the sofa cushions then uh i think that only makes sense actually we have mr valetta with us i'm sitting here speaking for him uh you know if if someone's willing to i'll sponsor mr valetta if he's interested in speaking or if he's just here to uh Mr. Valletta, if you're interested in speaking, raise your hand. I'd be curious to hear from you directly on this. If you're interested, if you don't want to, I totally understand that as well. But given that you took the time to send us such a thoughtful set of comments, I'm inclined to sponsor you here to hear your thoughts, if you want, no pressure. I see a hand up. Clerk, could we please go ahead and promote William Valletta in the, I know talking's permitted, but if he wants to go on camera. Happy to promote to panelists here. There we go. Feel free to turn your camera on. Oh, it's not going to let you turn your camera on now that we've promoted you. But if you can, please feel free to unmute. And it's the least we can do. All sponsored. If the committee agrees, I would love to sponsor William Valletta to speak here to talk about that comprehensive communication sent to this council that I thought was fantastic. Mr. Valletta, if you're able to unmute. Or did we break you when we promoted you to panelist? Folks, we might have flown too close to the sun there. Mr. Valletta was unmuted and ready to go as an attendee. There we go. Mr. Valletta, I see you're unmuted. We can't hear you, unfortunately.

If he's on the phone, what are the instructions for to come off of mute with a phone? Well, then again, he's off mute, so I'm not sure why we don't hear him.

After all that buildup, don't tell me we're going to be undone by technological difficulties.

I know. I know. What a moment. Thank you, Chair, for really giving for your generosity.

Oh, that's the least you can do when someone sends you a 17-page report. And actually full of really good content as well. While we're seeing if Mr. Vladecki, I'll just say that the recommendations I thought that I pulled out of there How do we keep an inventory and make sure that we're standardizing every stabilization, reserve, and trust account to make sure that we're keeping track of the purpose of it, what its origin was, and if there's any legal obligation or any legal authority with that? How do we set target balances for each fund? I guess there's a percentage of the budget or a dollar cap, and then What do we do if we need to return or repurpose any excess funds? How are we reviewing accounts periodically, either once or once every other year, just to identify funds that have gone stagnant? When do we close or reallocate balances if we determine that an account is obsolete or if it's gone dormant? so that we can transfer those to a high priority area, infrastructure, schools, public services. And then how do we improve transparency by publishing just the full account details on it? We've talked about this in the way of having possibly a tableau or something like we've seen with the ARPA funds and tying those to back to any originating actions by the council. That was my view of the recommendation. That was my takeaway. If colleagues want to share theirs, unless Mr. Valletta has managed to become unmuted here. I don't think so. Colleagues, anything you want to add here? And Mr. Valletta, I'm sorry, we're not able to hear directly from you tonight.

Mr. Chair.

Councilor Clingan.

Yeah, through you. I really appreciate this conversation. I really do look forward to sort of a detailed breakdown as to what the funds are specifically. You know, I see the Alpine restaurant stabilization, but more importantly, the Alpine street stabilization. I'm just curious as to what project that was part of. Like I said, like I've noted before, I thought there was a Lowell Street stabilization fund, and maybe we spent that one down and somehow took it off the list, but I could have swore that was the actual name of it, Lowell Street. So this thing kind of does remain a mystery to me as well, and I am curious, like you said, maybe it is that we just, by MGL, we have to give it back once we've feel like it's been satisfied, you know, the stipulations from the ZBA or whatever body. And yeah, it's just, it's, I mean, some of these are just so mysterious. 15, you know, there's a lot of money in some of these and it'd be interesting to see how we've used it and, and so on. So yeah, you know, happy that this was brought up and looking forward to hopefully getting that on the website and just, you know, having more information in general. Because if there is a way we can recycle the money, obviously, you know, as times get tougher, we're looking, like you said, in the seat cushions, it'd be really great to be able to figure out how to acquire, like access these funds for different purposes.

Absolutely. Colleagues, Councilor Mabau, before we let you go, did Councilor Scott, anyone who's not spoken on this yet want to go?

Oh, I'm just grateful for the work Mr. Lillard did putting this together. You know, my mind is a whirling with all the potential requests I can make for deploying these funds here at Ward 2.

Here for that. All right. Councilor Mabau, we'll call on you for a second bite of the cherry here.

Oh, no, no, no. I'm all set. Thank you. And I just want to, you know, also just share my appreciation for, like, The legend, you know, in the name of Mr. Valletta, like for like doing this work. There's a lot of people like that in this community that are so resourceful that we have to take advantage of those. When they send a memo, we got to take it seriously. And thank you, Councillor Klingham, for appreciating me bringing this forward. I appreciate you.

absolutely this is one of those moments where you just stand back and appreciate the sheer volume of expertise that's out there in our community yeah we have really good city staff too but man do we have some absolute gems in this community uh who just give freely uh with their time and and with their knowledge and their expertise and and yeah hats off mr valetta this is uh hugely helpful and mr chair and artists also started you know because

since i sit on this job creation retention trust there's all these projects that you know are literally fading away including i'm sure you recall like the the the governor was funding this you know this community colleges you know tuition free providing stipends and all or not then now they stop providing those stipends so this is like how we can now continue now to step in and continue to support our community members in the face of this budget shortfalls. So that was how I started really rolling my brain and looking at all this, how do we find funds? How do we understand what is happening? And it's so interesting, very resourceful data that we are getting that will help us for many years to come.

Hear, hear. All right. So disposition time. Councilor Baum, you heard what the legislative liaison said about talking to Director Breen. Are you good with that as a course of action here if you have additional questions?

Absolutely. I mean, as you've seen, there's a huge appetite to, you know, like see where we are going with this, you know? Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Grace. So that we don't have to come back again and start to wonder like where this is. This is like so there's so much volume.

All right. So you're good with marking these two as work completed, and then you can follow up with Director Bean for that offline conversation?

Absolutely.

All right. Give my best to Grace, and we're going to – sorry, did you want to say something else?

No, no, no, no. Thank you. I'm just saying that unless any member of the community feel inclined to suggest otherwise, but I think, yeah, I'm really – I'm satisfied.

All right. And I see our legislative liaison has a hand raised. Thank you, Grace.

Yes, thank you, Mr chair, I wanted to follow up on a question regarding the the encore funds, I was able to get in touch with staff and wanted to provide that answer if that would be.

let's let's pick that one back up off the table then clerk so that this is back to item nine. Yes. Thank you. So let's let's dispose let's mark these two as the items 15 and 16 we're going to mark those as work completed. Mr Chair? Yes.

Yeah I missed that communication.

So we're going to mark 15 and 16 as work completed we're going to pick back up item nine. You had the question about the encore. Yes. We're going to pick that back up off the table because we believe we have an answer for you right here in real time. All right, legislative liaison, please enlighten us.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. So I confirmed with staff that the covenant or the agreement with Encore for this fund is an annual allotment for as long as the casino is in operation. So as long as they continue to be a business, we will be receiving these funds. And it is always this amount for the arts fund. portion of that. There are other funds that are split up into various buckets, but for this particular purpose, it's 100K per year.

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much.

All right. So with confidence, then we can put this one back on the table, lay it on the table to recommend approval then. All right, that brings us to the end of tonight's agenda. And tip of the cap to our legislative liaison for bringing us an answer here while we're still in the meeting. That is much appreciated. So we've reached the end of tonight's agenda. Clerk, could we please take up the items on the table awaiting a vote on approval and take a batch vote on those, please, as well as Council Member Vaz's motion to adjourn. Take those up as one joint motion, please.

Yes, so for the tables laid on the items laid on the table for approval agenda items 123456789 1011 1213 and 14 as well as a German counselor and.

Yes, please.

come to burnley. I. come to claim yes answer Scott.

Yes.

And Councilor Wilson.

Yes, please.

Those agenda items 1 through 14 are approved and we are adjourned.

All right, everyone. Have a great night. Ward 5, we're headed your way.