##VIDEO ID:_OR43rs1g5k## Wednesday December 11th 2024 Gardener city council finance committee meeting will come to order the clerk will please call President consensus present counc General lard present and counc present is anyone here recording today's meeting okay reading and approval of the meeting minutes of October 2nd 2024 October 16th 2024 October 30th 2024 November 15th 2024 is there a motion a motion to wave the reading of the minutes and accept them as presented second motion made by councelor General out seconded by councelor Max to wave the reading of the minutes and accept them as presented is there a discussion all those who favor say I do it say no motion passes Department update we'll begin with uh fire chief Gregory here come on up Chief uh I do want to acknowledge if fire department is not under the Departments um that the finance committee oversees but uh CH boy had an update that as relative to finance related materials so he's here to give us that yes overtime um I uh wanted to give you this update um I do have a couple spreadsheets that i' like to pass out to you also um so the mayor and I have been reviewing the budget and we just wanted to kind of um give you an update regarding uh the overtime situation at the fire department um as you're probably aware we've you know we've had staffing issues ongoing staffing issues um and also this fall we had a significant Brush Fire season um kind of unprecedented from what I've ever seen um for the time of year um which there was a a significant expender of over of overtime for for um incidents both within the city of Gardner and also Mutual Aid and um a couple of um task force mobilizations Statewide mobilizations to assist at a couple of the large fires that were multiple day um duration events uh the first page of the um spreadsheet is a fiveyear historical look at um the overtime um expended by the fire department over the last 5 years and then including up to um today's date this year um and the there's the column that shows the original appropriation in the budget um the second column shows the amount expended through December um this year the fiscal year 25 amount is through the current current payroll um the other um 3 years that show that prior are through the end of December that's the only way we were able to break it down in munus and then my access IM munus I wasn't able to go further back it only allows you to go back 3 years for that so um it's a it it paints a picture of where we've been at the last 3 years through this approximately this date in the year um the next column shows the the full year expenditure and then the last column shows the amount that was uh approved by the council for free cash um for each of those years um and it's as the budget separated out we have the fire budget and then we have the separate ambulance budget also um so as as far as that goes uh if you look at the the current year fiscal year 2025 through this date um it's pretty much in line with previous fiscal years um it's it's fluctuated a little bit um and um we try to project it out through the air we try to make a lot of estimates um we work with um obviously John Richard contributes a lot to this uh the budgeting and uh projections on overtime and uh my Administrative Assistant Beth Kia who's been you know tracking the budget for many years is a a huge huge help in in calculating all this and figuring out where we're at um the the big difference this year that we just kind of um you can see like last year there was no free cash request at all um and it's fluctuated before that um that even though we're spending significantly over the budgeted line item for overtime a lot of the expenditure is covered by unspent salary line items due to the vacant positions that are able to be transferred over um to to cover the overtime expenditures which that's the main you know one of the main generators of the overtime is is vacant positions um the the significant difference this year that kind of the the reason that I'm here is that the you know we started out with less this year we only started with 200,000 this year because of um budget constraints um so we're anticipating there will be a a request for free cash as the air moves forward to to we don't believe at this point there's going to be enough to cover um the overtime overage in the in that line item from Strictly transferring salaries over um the the second page of the the spreadsheet is just a breakdown of um the categories where we've spent overtime so far this year again separated out by the fire budget and the ambulance budget um the the brush fire recalls we separated out as a separate line item as opposed to all the other General fire recalls which is for um other major incidents in the city building fires major motor vehicle accidents and the such um so there was a you know a significant expenditure on brush fire recalls and again that was just in the month of October and November which uh if I look back in previous years that number for brush fires that time year is basically zero um you fall Brush Fire season in Massachusetts is really not normally a concern um the drought this year um just contributed to uh many major brush fires throughout the state um and just Manpower intensive um long duration events um the other categories is a lot of um stuff that we have to back fill positions when somebody has leave um and it's broken down by category um the the significant ones I'd just like to bring your attention to this year is the um replacing modified duty status which is just over $80,000 um replace resignation which is just over 12,000 and then replacing vacation leave uh which is the biggest um line item breakdown in the spreadsheet um when we are fully staffed um the obviously replacing resignation would be zero and replacing vacation leave would also be very close to zero um those vacation leave is is built into our staffing level to be covered when we're fully staffed so normally if we're fully staffed there's no expense to or next to no expense to cover vacation there maybe some here and there um but that's it's it it really sticks out and it's that's due to um vacant positions that we have to back fill uh and just uh to give you a little breakdown of where the Staffing situation sits um and what's kind of led up to this for the year um we've had several firefighters out on extended leave um both to um injured on duty and non-duty Status injuries or sickness um I have one firefighter who's out uh he's on modified duty due to an injury on duty um and he's been in that status since this past May um I have a another firefighter who is out due to non-duty sickness from June 9th to November 7th he was on modified duty um and another firefighter on modified duty due to a non Duty injury from October 26th to the present uh we also had a lieutenant that was out on injury leave um on two separate stints one from May 21st to July 8th and again from September 18th to November 5th that was an on the job injury um and modified duty and injury leave due to the the contractual Staffing requirements we have they have to be backfilled to maintain minimum Staffing um I also have um one firefighter who was uh recently deployed on a military assignment um and he that took effect October 3rd and he's going to be gone for a year and I also had a recruit firefighter um who was deployed last November just prior to his schedule start at the recruit fire academy um he's scheduled to return January 5th uh but he's still once he comes back he's still going to have to uh complete training at the fire academy before he's part of the the firefighting Force um I've in the past couple months I've also received two more resignations um we had one um 10-year member that um resigned on October 20th to accept a position at another Massachusetts fire department and I also recently U received a designation um from a 5-year veteran member um that takes effect January 5th of next year um and he's leaving this the fire service to accept private sector employment and we also currently have um three recruit firefighters who are at the mass fire academy um they're all doing well there they're scheduled to graduate on December 20th uh so as soon as they graduate the following week they will be assigned um to um full Duty status and they will help to alleviate some of um the vacant positions um and then we also have that one military leave firefighter who's coming back um and his uh he's scheduled for the Academy to start in March and graduate in June so it's going to be a few months before we have him to start filling a vacant position also um just wanted to you know give an update of where we're at um it's um it's it seems like a lot um we're covering the vast majority of it with unspent salary funds um but just that we're in we are anticipating a free cash request later in the year as we can kind of nail down the number of where it's going to be towards the end of the year thank you Chief uh questions comments with the committee councel with the three recruits coming on board in December so how many actual positions will be vacant how many are you Den in your department um so when they graduate on January 20th technically there will be one vacant position there will be two as of January 5th 2025 when the other pending resignation takes effect and then we we have the recruit the recruit firefighter who still needs to back and start the academy and the other firefighter on military leave who is going to be gone for the remainder of the fiscal year and the injured or the modified duty is the other big thing the permanent positions you'd have one correct correct um and no the only other thing I have is a comment just I I mean I know budgeting is tight but the original appropriation went down so I think we're in a position where that's where we just need to not you know we know there's a trend going upward so to to credit substantially so that you know I'd rather have it padded than coming back free cash at this point especially when you know what your Staffing levels are going to be within the next year with deployments and everything else yeah I I guess there's always hope that you know we we we talk about it and we we have hope that we're going to be fully staffed when we were preparing the budget last year we were fully staff at the time um which translate into into that full year budget as being significant L lower um there's always that hope and goal um it's it's been difficult questions comments from the council I could add Madam president thank you very much um the brush fires just a couple stuff I want to throw out there too so we don't charge for Mutual Aid that's part of the state contract that we have it's kind of an agreement that we'll respond when they need it and they'll respond when we need it and there's no exchange of money for it um so the brush fires that we went to in mson in other different places around the state um we don't get reimbursed by those communities just like if we need them we don't re ask they don't try to ask for their services that are there excuse me so that's why the mutual Aid comes up especially with those brush fires as a hip that we don't plan for because we don't know when that Mutual Aid is coming but it's part of the agreement that we have both with the uh State's Emergency Management agency and local fire departments that we have to that when they need us we just respond um so we're not going to be seeing reimbursement for that there excuse me there is a small group of town administrators particularly in the Franklin County Hampton County part of the state that are looking to see if there is going to be some assistance because of the unprecedented number of brush fryers that the state saw this year um because in towns that are a lot smaller than Gardener that you know a $5 hit can be detrimental to a budget um there are looking at seeing is there something that we can look for some assistance with just like we did with the ice storm um I don't know how successful that's going to be but those are convers that are preliminarily being had um but that's just something that we normally wouldn't expect again for this type of a fall we just had a very dry fall with the drought that we saw uh the uh modified duty that's actually something that's in our collective bargaining agreement with the Union that if a uh firefighter can't fully execute their duties As A Firefighter in terms of responding to fires they don't have to remain on full medical leave using their sick time or their other paid time off they are assigned to other duties around the station so that's what modif duty is so if doctor says that they're not able to fully with the doctor's note fully execute their duties in responding we have to have firefighters on staff who are able to respond to those emergency situations as they come up but it's in the contract that those firefighters can perform other duties around the station uh so that's what the modified duty is um and I was going to point out what the chief already said that when we made the budget we were fully staffed uh we weren't expecting a firefighter to be deployed to the Ukrainian Polish border we weren't expecting uh one of our recruits to be deployed right before we sent them to the fire academy and now they have to come back and do another 12 weeks of training and then um we'll be able to do their onsite training probably a little before yeah they go to the academy because there's that wait time and luckily with the fire side of things we can train them onsite before they go to the academy where with the police site we have to wait till they finish Police Academy before they do their on-site training uh so there's some stuff we can do that way it just there were a lot of variables that hit this year uh which is why when I was having a conversation and our monthly department head meeting with uh chief legoy that it might be worth just giving a heads up that yeah this is something we talk about every year because we don't know where fire overtime is going to go but there's just been a lot of outside variables that have happened now that it just we wanted to make sure that this was a heads up as much as possible that uh likely at the end of the year we're going to have to come back and ask for something we don't know what it is yet just because we're over budget on overtime right now doesn't mean that that's how much we're going to be asking for because we have that unspent salary appropriation money and overtime is a salary and Labor budget and we can transfer from salary to salary lines without Council approval but we can't go with salary to expense or vice versa without councel approval or transferring money in from another source like free cash without Council approval so just this is a midyear heads up on this is something that we're expecting um and just to be open and transparent about it thank you further questions comments from the committee I just want to say the blush fire recalls could have been much higher and I'm sure other communities it's got to be um an enormous additional expense for them um and that and to me that's that's actually not as high as I thought it would be and it's to me it's it's a low number compared to some of the other overtime expenses so it's not the one that is most glare yeah um to me it doesn't jump out as compared to some of the other ones so but thank you honestly it was lower than I expected um and this area of the state we were fairly I want to say lucky but we didn't have any major multiple Day events um like other areas of the state did so we did occasionally we' we'd send help to those States but the State Fire mobilization plan has run cards where they try to spread out that those assignments task force assignments so that no one department is doing a heavy LIF or has a heavier burden than than other areas to assist with those major incidents um but yeah and and recall overtime is is generally a small portion of the budget um the shift Staffing Readiness is is is expensive it is anything furthere f i uh I appreciate the update Chief uh just the trans transparency the explanation of what it is I expected frush fire to be much bigger as well you know bigger amount but um you know I trust that you continue to do your best practices and you know what's coming and try to fill the gaps where you can but I really appreciate you getting ahead of it and you know this is what we try to do so there aren't any surprises when you inevitably will probably be back for some some money this time around um plenty of departments do that and I think that's also a best practice of them but um I I appreciate all information in the um and just just let you know to also our our call volume is up significantly this year again um we've been seeing about a 4% increase this year it's going to be at least a 10% increase over last year um so and you know most of these calls don't make the headlines um but having the Staffing to handle over over 6,000 incidents this year um you know that's pushing you know 18 a day um it it takes a lot of manpower to handle these and and having the the staff on duty ready to respond that Readiness factor to me it's it's it's critical I think it's important that we keep it the Readiness is Factor there and not make anyone learn the hard way if we don't have it there um they just don't know what you know we do such a good job of keeping everything where it needs to be so that we're safe and protected and we don't want anyone to know otherwise so I think it makes sense for planning um and with that auto did you have anything to add just budget wise or anything I think the cheat probably covered it but if there was anything you wanted to add just to the process uh the only thing I want to mention is last year for FY 24 um the fire department didn't ask for any um free cash there was a FEMA grant that we actually moved over money back in I think it was uh fy22 and it took that lawn to get the reimbursement so that's why we were able to cover fy4 salaries overage with that um basically have that FEMA uh reimbursement great thank you anything further uh I'll entertain a motion to place the item well this will go to the full Council so a recommendation to place on file so move second motion made by councel Max second councel to place to recommend to place item on file there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I oppos say no motion passes thank you Chief thank you thank you very much item1 1450 in order appropriating $100,000 from sewer retain earning Surplus to sewer pump station improvements DW is here good morning first c um I don't know want to start but um this is out of the retained earnings of the sewer Enterprise account uh that's the Enterprise accounts version of free cash so it's the uh Surplus from the previous year that this gets paid out of um this is for upgrades to the lee8 pump stations at both the solid waste and the sludge landfill uh the director and the manager can talk a lot more about this scientifically but it's the pumps to basically control um the items around that area and get them into the gravity portion of the system but I'd let uh director Arnold can take over and actually give the full information in depth of it that goes over my head a bit take it away um so this this pump station is located down at the sanitary landfill um it handles flow from the sanitary landfill and the Sledge landfill it pumps into a force main that runs about 2200 ft uh ties into the gravity system out on a West Street around Ryan Street we'll say um we've already completed a design of this a couple years ago um knowing that at some point we're going to need to upgrade this pump station we got a estimate of around $760,000 um there's $440,000 of contingency built into this uh request um so we're hoping to go up what's actually currently under bid as we uh as we speak out of purchasing department um we're hoping to get the funds to so that we can start construction in the in the spring thank you questions comments from the committee with the um expansion that proposed expansion at theills this pump able to handle that yep we took in the um estimated flow from the expansion and the pumps are sized for this it's actually believe it or not the Force main itself is the limiting um factor in it um so the pumps are will be able to handle yeah and the new proposed flow is not much larger than what's currently there now I have no questions thank you make a motion that we um recommend the order requesting a transfer to the full Council second motion by councelor Max second by counselor Dar to adopt the order is there a discussion recommend to adopt the order is there discussion on the motion all those in favor say I I say no passes item 11451 an order appropriating $150,000 for water retained earning Surplus to water repairs to meing of the cap thank you madam president this is again from the retained earnings of the water Enterprise account so it's their version of free cash this is the Surplus from the previous fiscal year for the water Enterprise account um this is to create a valve exercising program where we basically just do a program of opening and shutting the different valves across the system um when the director you know sent this letter to me about this one the first thing that came to my mind was when we had the big water main break over at the Uptown rotary and we tried to close some of the valves and they were frozen open um and we couldn't shut them or they broke while we tried to shut them and so that caused them to go open so this is basically creating a system in which we make it so that they don't rust open or rust shut and it's continuous working the valves so that they can be moved and not be stuck in that position again so we can avoid a situation like we had that day two years ago where we lost several million gallons of water because the we just couldn't get the system shut off um Dr Arnold can talk a lot more on that but that was just my thing I want to point out it's preventative um we have over a thousand valves in the in the system basically at every intersection roughly um where there's water there's an intersection of water pipes and there's at least three gates um in every intersection so if you multiply the amount of intersections we have that's a lot of water gates in the system um they haven't some of these haven't been exercised in over 100 years So the plan is that we're going to go up try to exercise a 50 of them or so of a year find them the ones that are broken either shut or closed uh and have a controlled shutdown of the water system so that we're in the event of an emergency we can um have these already replaced and continue an exercising program in the year this is going to be probably a 3 to 5e plan that um we're going to have to implement next I will put this money in my budget built in um next year for the budget I just we need to get it started at least in this um fiscal year in 3 to 5 years because there's a thousand valves yeah we just don't have the man power okay and this is executed by the DPW we don't hire somebody outside to come in and exercise the oh the water department is planning on doing the exercising um if if there's a multiple Gates that are broken shut I might hire a contractor to come in to assist us but we're the plan is to try to do as much as we can in house that was my question too if you get to EV V that it breaks sorry if you get to a valve and the valve breaks like you know you get there and you're exercising and you you know this is to get ahead of all the an emergency right so you get there and it's already broken or breaks or it's rusted what you know what I mean like how do you how do we pay for that to be fixed is there that would come out of this it does come out of this okay yeah it's it's basically a stress test to find the broken ones that's what we're looking for is to hopefully it's not that many but we expect a fair amount won't work so well then in the test though if they don't pass the test we have money in here to fix them so they'll pass exactly okay so we had an emergency we can count on them and just a quick update while we're talking about water the transmission main is the main line is in it's installed from the plant up Haywood Street up the easement to James Street to the pumps we're going to be doing the tie in to the water syst at the water plant either Friday or Monday and then up at the tanks the following week and that um project they flew through it so they did a really great job that's great just as an update was also a 100 plus year old yes project yeah million million dollars and that was the Federal the Congressional right just for the public just to be so they know that was a lot of money but it was a federal Grant and um a lovely announcement of that and I that is really that is that is super fast that's really quite unbelievable um okay so so back this was any other questions comments from the committee with the number of gates at over a th about 200 of a 200 a year to get it done in 5 years it's an estimate I mean if if we find there's not a lot we may not need it but um I'm I'm getting there you can go to the next one if there there's issues you go stop great I have no questions though okay have questions anything else you'd like to add any questions motion to recomend Passion the order of the PO Council second motion made by councelor General all seconded by counsel M to recommend passage of the PO Council their discussion on the motion all those in favor say IED say no motion pass thank you very much second motion made by councel Mac second coun to adjourn all those in favor say I iOS say no motion passes meeting standed thank you everyone