good afternoon everyone good afternoon we are on the record today is Tuesday the 21st day of November 2023 this is the budget hearing for the Department of Health and Human Services we had a scheduled 1M start and my watch reads 1:02 p.m. may we please have a roll call for the commencement of the hearing see only only two council members behind me it's council president Waterman and councilwoman prin arry is that correct that's all we're expecting today okay we have two council members in attendance at 103 PM in addition to the time of its preparation the notice of this meeting was similarly disseminated on Thursday November 16th 2023 at 11:50 a.m. and a reminder was sent out on Monday November 20th 2023 at 3:30 p.m. to the mayor Municipal Council business administrator Corporation Council and the local newspapers so I can certify as to our complete compliance with the Sunshine Law council president shall I turn it over to director Flanigan oh even better I thought as if you couldn't hear my voice already um in the division of immigrant Affairs we uh this past year completed a toolkit um for the new American campaign that was completely funded and and covered the cost of our part-time employee Mike McLean um and this is a toolkit to help other municipalities become um certified through the Department of Justice we continue to be the only municipality in the country with this certification we've supported um dozens of Afghani and Ukrainian residents with temporary protected status and we're continuing to work with organizations support um people coming into the country that need temporary protected status we uh through our department of labor Congressional appropriation we supported the recent Hudson County job fair at American Dream this was a three-day job fair where we had over 600 clients and we're supporting that in multilanguage um services and we had uh multilingual staff on site to help um with job Seekers and through the US do funds we have granted support to six of our partners to continue to offer uh employment and training programmatic skills while individuals are waiting for their paperwork to uh work so often when you come in with temporary protected stuff status you don't immediately get your working papers it takes some time and through that period of time that it takes we have a facilitator on staff um through do funds that as our staff are working with uh helping them with their paperwork their n400s or their TPS uh a facilitator gets them connected with one of the six partners that can provide them either English as a second language or other uh Direct uh job related uh support the division of injury prevention um has been running a peaceful families program basically six months into covid uh this program has been funded 100% through Grant dollars and we continue to support the growth of this program through a congressional appropriation which will expire at the end of this year um and we grew from one class to now nine classes and we are beginning to train uh additional language providers so that we can host these classes in more languages we do have a large weight list uh people are coming through this program directly from the courts and we've mentioned that in the past and there's some updated information about the men and women that we have helped in addition like I mentioned ear the health bus has been consistently helping about 55 people a month um and we reorganized the routs of the buses based on some need through Partnerships with not just the County Coalition but the Jersey City uh Department of recreation and Youth Development Division of parks and we've continued to try to work with jcpd because there's significant number of individuals sleeping in the Parks and so we do have several parks on our route now again this program is 100% funded by the office of local public health through June 30th um the state does not have any intention to continue this funding so if we want to continue to do this work um the city council will need to fund it or the Division of Community Development uh and we closed out this year June 30 with the municipal drug Alliance and because we were working with significant number of Partners working with youth organizations uh we strategically moved the municipal drug Alliance efforts into the Department of Youth Development so now Melissa trano and director mclin are managing those funds to continue doing the work that we started um you know with partner agencies in addition to the Teen Mental Health work in our division of environmental health um you know we continue to do work with the quality uh of Life task force so our staff are often Staffing with that team um the Bureau of healthy homes uh just received additional funds uh that entire Bureau is fully funded by the state and we have the opportunity to bring on an additional lead inspector and this year we are phasing into gov pilot this is probably confusing to you because you've been hearing about Tyler for such a long time we were not included in the Tyler transition um in 2018 the business administrator wanted us to go paperless and then Co happened and then gov pilot never took off but we are moving into gov pilot for Onsite restaurant inspections that would go directly onto a website so people can actually read um those emails that I send you that are painful to get uh regarding closures across the city um it'll be there for the public and in addition to that our uh animal lure this year we trained all of our environmental health staff uh for pool licensing certification this will enable us to come to you in the next few months with a revenue for um pools to be licensed in buildings across the city um and so we did that with the vision of uh Revenue in mind that training was funded through uh a enhancing local public health infrastructure okay uh and then um you know obviously as you know we do everything from vending machines to dogs there we're going to add um our relationship with getting every dog that is adopted licensed UPF front from uh the shelter and that's never happened before in our division of disease prevention uh this is our City Clinic we operate both immunizations to children under the age of 18 and up to 26 for um hurricane Maria um people who have transitioned to Jersey City um and in our STD side of the services we see saw a 40% increase from November of 2022 um of testing and counseling and an increase in HIV testing which is an increase of 48% from last year which is directly align with the vision of the ending HIV epidemic uh in our community this past year we introduced scripts for individuals that come for HIV testing for Pep and prep um which engages them to come back for more testing which is why you see an increase in testing we do that with in a partnership with uh NJ Primary Care uh professional service agreement in addition uh we performed over 15,000 vaccines and audited over 247 sites across the city um to ensure that uh there every school we sort of Do Spot checks from January to May uh to ensure that immunizations um of the children are on record and we integrated some of the work that we're doing in the St Clinic onto the Outreach bus when we're doing homeless Outreach our Division of Community Health and Wellness um has been educating not just employees it works closely with employment wellness program coordinates the AIDS task force but um years years ago in the middle of Co um we set out um for a ward-based vision to have someone dedicated Ward by Ward to support uh this effort so not only um have we increase the work that we've been doing in partnership with the team that does the HIV work obviously December 2nd we hope to see you at the annex Annex 4 in fact um for World AIDS day where we will um have we have about over 30 vendors uh and again we'll have the AIDS quilt there uh and you know just highlights um through one of our Partnerships for the blind we increase some accessibility for free Vision testing for residents Ward by W we've been working to get that team also um trained as Trainers for first aid and CPR so you'll see more ward-based education next year in uh our division of senior citizen Affairs we escorted over 6,000 uh seniors on shopping trips we um move to distribute in fact that's a typo uh this year we had $50 in Farmers Market vouchers we're consistently running about 2,500 individuals this year was a little bit more difficult due to um a new QR code implementation and so we're waiting to see the kind of redemption um on the farmers market checks as you know um we get about two $100,000 in Farmers Market uh resources both from Wick and in senior affairs and we are redeeming on average approximately 60% and so we're leaving about $80,000 on the table that can go to local farmers and that's something that both the senior affairs and uh food and nutrition are working on to improve um uh steadily uh in addition we've been um you know continuing to serve our seniors at the Connor Center and the colar center and this year we came back from covid bringing uh classes to all of the senior uh nutrition sites where we serve food as well in Veteran Affairs uh as I mentioned we finally have like a full team um we've got some great pictures for you to see if you haven't been up to persing Fields yet um of the work that uh we did with aural uh to engage people for Memorial Day we are been continuing our partnership with the county with regards to veteran Suicide Prevention um and we added 113 new veterans to our roster bringing the total number of veterans we've connected with to about 718 um throughout the year and we've expanded our mentoring program with NYU um and then I think we're on our 12th um series uh it's a a multi-week series where veterans get career mentorship and uh support for sort of their decision- making in the future in our community relations and Social Services we have really grown this partnership nearly 750 since we started uh this division also manages our healthier JC mini grant program and you'll see um we gave out over 50 mini grants uh through the course of this year over almost $500,000 plus sponsorships uh we intend to do the same next year which is why having an additional person will be helpful because it it is very um difficult to manage the process of taking in Grant dollars and then getting Grant dollars out the door in addition to the funding through Elfie um this year we were um internally given nearly $400,000 of the opioid settlment money that we're hoping to get out into the community um by the beginning of the year uh we've delineated this into three components one that we're giving to the Department of um Recreation and Youth Development um a little bit of dollars for management $100,000 to go out into the community and then in Health and Human Services they'll be funding for $200,000 to go out into the community for intervention so we're looking at agencies that are actually going in and doing intervention and um training and capacity building there's funding there for training and capacity building for agencies that want to do that work uh and so that that kind of work from with the funds that we have thus far we're taking very little in in Staffing and or management to offset that work we're trying to get all of that money um into the community uh you know in addition to this we do in community relations and Social Service we're doing rapid communication so when something comes up the team is you know reworking you know with a graphic artist on our team doing some data interpretation from what's coming out from the state making sure that it's in layman's terms that we're getting information out to individuals on our Twitter account and then we marry that work with the other social platforms that the city manages so that we're not duplicating efforts uh and then we've been managing a series of of internship programs uh one the stem program at uh St peters's University we've been working with Hudson schools of technology for seniors that are in alternate education that that are coming into our space to complete their degrees uh along with Hudson Community College and uh NJCU and so this uh arm of the work that we're doing is managing the healthy or JC partnership portal the Twitter feed and then the find help our uh help Health your JC get started which many of your staff have been trained on so that they can continue to do that work and so um we share with you for those who weren't able to make it to the summit um we hosted a summit we haven't hosted a summit since before covid uh bringing together nearly 400 people over the course of two days sharing the work that we're doing across our divisions and then some of our partnership work um including there was like a day of pantry um Support Services work directly for our veterans uh and we hosted our annual veterans luncheon during that conference to sort of Leverage uh the number of people that are there so there's uh an overview and some pictures from that work and um director let me stop you now and because I know we are all on a time um is there any questions as far she went through each division and and gave a summary of exactly what's going on so are are those the proposed budgets yes I emailed but yeah so Paul right didn't make it to the if I may I just want to note the addition of two of the other council members who arrived just after the commencement of director Flanigan's presentation councilman James Solomon and councilman Yousef SLE arrived shortly after the beginning of the meeting you you'll note um each page of the budget what we requested last year versus what we requested this year does not include the grant offset that's what I sort of wanted to make clear we didn't do that because last year when we included the grant offset then the funding was taken out of our budget and those titles or we didn't get to hire those people quick enough because the money was not congruent was not congruent to the titles so um we didn't include the offset in our budget requests you just we're showing you what it really costs to run the department we do have on the last page of this presentation the th the millions of dollars of offset that we have but they're only aligned specific to certain um items so for example our um nurse practitioner costs $122,000 if we take the $120,000 off as an offset but we never hire hired the nurse practitioner you're thinking why are we asking for more money in this Division and if we didn't hire the nurse practitioner but we've subtracted that $120,000 as an offset to the budget then it's in congruent so we we're having a congruency issue with the budget when we're sharing with you Full Cost Plus all of the grant offsets but we did not subtract ract them from the 2024 request does that make sense this also is because the grants change so since we submitted the budget we got a reduction in one of our grants it's only $10,000 but then it doesn't make sense so we're sharing with you true costs in the actual budget and at the end you'll note that we have um nearly $6 million to offset that budget but it has to be done line by line in the reclassification which takes a lot more time than you might have for me to describe okay any questions you you spoke about the yugov pilot where people can look at the closures or were you talking about like closures for restaurant and what kind of information will be displayed it'll have the full um report oh wow okay so it's um you know it's a standard form uh that's now online and are we Chuck are we adding photos to that because I'm hoping not I don't like seeing all the photos just to let you know that okay no photos the actual report so they go through with a checklist it's a checklist that's aligned to chapter 24 of the state code uh and then people say why did this happen and then when we share with them often um as you may know we're currently still using triplicate forms and so by the time you see the form if we scan it in it's it's not very visible for the the animal control budget just make sure I understood what you were saying um the proposed budget is roughly 1.5 million yes and the prior budget was around 1 million correct basically saying that the based in you're digging to the details that that there were certain funds that sort of I don't know what the right phrase would be but but th those are the things you needed to do to do since um it's a fully funded apartment yeah so for example um they are taking everything with them right sure so we're buying cages uh we're buying new vehicles even though all of our funds funded that work it's owned by the agency and and that's here could some of that potentially be capital budget yes and that's I think our very next meeting from here is a meeting with the Division of Community Development uh there is funding for facilities right um we are covering some of the cost of uh vehicle so we're taking two vehicles that are current one is a k9 vehicle one is a pooled car at at the Department of Health uh those are becoming Animal Control support vehicles and then we're purchasing two more vehicles and then other tools that we're trying to cover Through the dog trust and at this level of funding um that you guys have put together here would we expect the service to be roughly analogous to what LHS was providing more less just like our set expectations for what what service we should you know yeah we we expect the services to be greatly improved sure both in terms of quality and then hours of operation or hours of operation absolutely so I think you weren't here when I right said it uh we're going to be open seven days a week um Monday will be uh appointment only Sunday will close around 2 pm so it's like an early day Sunday but we're open like basically 7 to 7 we'll have staff there so we'll open from like 8 to 6 uh and then we'll with what what we have in the budget uh includes like very expensive Contracting vet vet services and when we present to you next week at the council meeting is the fee structure for like adoptions the microchips the you know the the process of you know veteran adoptions or senior adoptions are going to cost less than a standard adoption um things that sure how how we structure that makes sense and this is tangential but just while we're here just to bring it up you just make you kind of update us on the um the I don't they're again the right phrases but the adoption out of the LHS animals just to make sure we don't get to the end of December and and we just no that we have a plan and those animals so just to be very clear Liberty Humane Society intends to continue to operate adoptions Support Services TNR uh that is you know a big part of their work they'll continue to do that work no matter where they are located um this obviously where they were located was a city building when they chose not to continue Sheltering Services uh in response to us not being interested in continuing animal control because of all the calls you all get um you know we had to come up with a plan uh so for us uh the plan was we'll go take back our home um they have other locations where they currently work out of and they've been meeting from what I understand with Partners um to base their TNR Services uh every animal that comes into the shelter between now and Christmas Eve is under the ownership of Liberty Humane and they will continue to remain dedicated in adopting those animals out so I guess maybe just for clarification on my part the hours of operation are animal control will there be Sheltering and Adoption Services through the city as well or are you just focusing on yes okay yeah so in taking over a shelter adoption services are going to be part of that we're going to bring to you an updated fee service schedule um I think it it should be on the agenda if you haven't had your agenda meeting yet um we worked with the law department on that so that we would be actively adopting out animals that come into the shelter every animal that comes into the shelter from Christmas day through January 1st obviously when we take over are owned by us because of the municipal law of the 7 day uh rule of we must hold animals um and that's why we're moving some staff that we already have down to the shelter because they have done licensing they were part of the original uh Associated um or the Hudson County uh ASPCA years ago um and will help us manage adoptions out the door um there's a team uh if if you note in the OR chart there's sort of Animal Care team um that those are the individuals that are taking care of the animals daily in the shelter versus the animal control team which um sort of under our vision never really happened with LHS was like visiting the dog parks where to ensure that these dogs are licensed because dog parks are a you know a hot bed for disease if animals aren't licensed um following through with the uh dog bite um issues which happen in dog parks uh and things like that so starting December 18th uh when this team starts they'll start doing some Outreach in all of the dog parks uh reminding people to get their dogs license licensing animals gives us funding too for um control work and by January 1st when we take over officially um the land that is the shelter that is on our property um we will continue to care for animals in fact we need to build out an isolation area cuz there's not one that exists you might know this already cuz you're forly on the board of LHS I mean there's some holes in the floor that need to be fixed um we're getting this back with a lot of work to do but we envision that it's going to be even better than where we are today um you may not know that during Sandy uh the office of emergency management had purchased a mobile shelter uh and we're going to move that mobile shelter onto premise um it's operated via generator in case uh we outgrow uh the shelter rapidly before we get to do a lot of the uh infrastructure items but um a team from infrastructure along with uh the starting team at animal care and control have already made visits over to Liberty Humane to to kind of have a a checklist of things that need to get done and we've been working very closely with director kce and director Patel on that um questions it's a question but but it's more just because we we're we're switching the timing of the hearings and so I think obviously there's there's going to be a lot of conversation with the administration before a budget is coming but I think just for my own purposes it would just be helpful to know from from your perspective of you know what are the most important sort of requests that you're putting obviously everything's important everything is valuable but it's just great for us to have in mind you know you know Baseline of of the status quo you know what are the three or four things you're proposing that you think are you know yeah really crucial to to the work that you guys are are trying to accomplish so what you have here is a very status quo budget um because we see some of our funding ending we've got a lot of like hyperf funding postco uh a lot of that funding will end June 30th um so while we can cover half the year and we did do a lot of that coverage last year here to offset some budget needs to ensure that we were still running programs um I would note the division of injury prevention is you know 95% funded through Congressional Appropriations and without you know all the things in place I understand you know the Department of Finance has been trying to get some support for Grant Management that really helps us um we are we are doing a lot more administrative work um than we have in the past uh and waiting on others and other departments and so we are not able to move as quickly and we're not as Nimble as we were during covid uh and so that impacts our ability to respond and you know so example HR is consistent example if there's not a doc you sign meeting um staff aren't hired um sometimes like this week there won't be because that meeting's on a Thursday um um and so things are taking longer and you know the first thing that we saw particularly with animal control it took us you know two to three weeks to get someone an offer letter and by the time we got them an offer letter they were like yeah no that's not the kind of organization I want to work for because it took too long um and so if we're that kind of organization where things are taking too long and uh you know it it impacts our uh ability to serve uh I so I would say injury prevention um the bus June 30th the staff won't be funded so if you're not going to fund the staff those staff will not be here and you know the and those are sort of the key things those are the staff that are going around offering showers and services and reducing you know some hygiene issues that cause disease across the city um we are seeing a lot of increased work and increased needs um so we've asked in in very few places for additional staff um and so if that's not funded it just takes us longer to be able to do something and while we'd like to serve and and do I mean people are scheduled at 40-hour work weeks and staff that are out in the field that are the reunion are 37 and a half or 37 hours and when someone needs something at night I'm I'm not a badged individual that can go out and do some of that work I mean I'm willing to take calls throughout the night as you've seen many of my staff do um but without the overtime we don't have a lot of overtime we are funding a lot of our overtime through enhancing local public health infrastructure but that ends June 30th uh we also saw that you know small nonprofits that have started during covid are just not ready for DCd funding it's complicated it's it requires a lot of knowledge uh it requires a lot of paperwork and in our sylistic ways of giving funding to individuals um you know we reached out to the office of diversity inclusion to you know slightly change the vendor form to include the nonprofits because they don't understand um the the vendor diversity for a for-profit entity versus our nonprofits that are not owned by an individual but run by a board um and a lot of our funding goes to nonprofits and we are vendors we're searching out nonprofit vendors that are working in the communities where they better know the community than we do so that we can have a stronger relationship in the long run right uh a lot of those new organizations that may have started during covid are nowhere near ready to get HUD funding right and so right now we're funding them out of Grant dollars but if was a vision right to continue to give out money right so I'm using opioid money Municipal drug Alliance money enhancing local public health infrastructure funds and putting that out into the community because we know that they are doing the targeted work in the community but they need a lot of handholding and a lot of technical assistance but they don't realize that's what they need and HUD is very formal uh and requir a lot of um you know paperwork that small nonprofits without capacity can't handle you need a more Staffing yeah we need you know we're going to man your what what's your desperate need that's what I think an additional person in our division of community relations and Social Services to help that Grant um you know what is not here is sort of replacement staff so I'm moving Carmen out of my department to go help with animal control um so bringing someone on that really understands accounts uh because she supports our internal accounts and she's supporting Staffing um two of my divisions that don't have administrate of assistance we don't even have places to sit so I don't even know what I'm going to do with more s because I don't have seats um which is why we've consistently asked um to rethink where the tax assessor's office is so that we can better manage Staffing because we don't have another seat in our office I'm laughing because I was up there that's why yeah you know you've been you see we're we're on top of each other but what we want okay is more Staffing and what division do you need the majority to Staffing that's what we want to get yeah so and Community Health and Wellness we don't have award C person um so we've been sort of make shifting that um the the director's office Health office 's office we don't have enough people to tackle the diseases that are coming out right now we are backlogged at he B and he C followup um tracking we seeing a great increase um in we put in an Outreach worker inside the clinic um it was 50% paid for by a grant but we really need like people to know where the clinic is and like getting people into the clinic so we can get people tested track and Trace the disease and mitigate uh the increase we've got I mean over let me ask you something let me ask you something director I know you made a statement that some of the programs that you are housing now will run out of funding yep correct and um when they run out of funding then the city have to find funds for them or it it just shut down correct but this if the city doesn't commit funds to them which are in the budget um majority of that is disease prevention disease prevention injury prevention yeah and disease prevention because disease prevention we're going to end one our grants okay um then we wouldn't be able to do the work if you didn't commit the funding to it okay we are will we consistently look for funding but right now um some we are two or three of our grants are at risk because we're unable to hire the nurses in the way that nurses want to work versus the way that we work right so we have an in congruent work life balance yeah know different the world has changed but we still operating um say dinosaur error so get so yeah so the rest of the document is just to highlights of events and numbers so that you can see for yourself the increase in work that we've been doing over time and we do really have a dedicated staff and you know they're working hard to ser the residents and we just want to make sure that they're not uh getting burned out uh we saw a lot of that right after covid we lost a lot of Staff um to work from home jobs you know with the state uh they get trained really well in Jersey City and then get 10 $15,000 more to go work for the state and work from home thank you director I we want to know exactly what what you needed yeah they're they're in the budget and you'll see thank you financy I want to add anything to you have okay nothing okay just um thank you because uh Stacy went first and I know this is different than prior years but this is the first time in a long time that we're doing budget hearings in this year and so we're Gathering the priorities and making sure that we end correct um and wrapping up our fiscal um our annual financial plan and everything of the sort so that come next quarter at the beginning of the year we'll be setting out our priorities in in line with u running the operations thank you thank you thank you director I appreciate it thank you guys thank you thank you shall I entertain a motion to close this hearing motion motion made made by SLE is there a second that's prin Zer behind me I think right yeah okay all in favor I any opposed all abstaining very good Council persons Ridley boano Gilmore Dees and River are absent remaining Council people voted to close this hearing uh council members just a housekeeping matter obviously the next hearing is scheduled for uh two and we're a little bit over do you wish to just transition right into the next okay okay folks we're going to take a five minute recess and we will be back at it is now 20:5 we'll be back on the record at 210 do good afternoon good afternoon we are back on the record today is Tuesday the 21st day of November 2023 this is the budget hearing for the Department of administration division of Human Resources we had a scheduled 2 p.m. start we took a 10-minute recess 5 minute recess it is now 22 p.m. may have a roll call for the commencement of this hearing councilwoman Ridley is absent councilwoman Prince AR all she just stepped away council bojano is absent councilman Cay here councilman Solomon Council persons Gilmore Dees and Rivera are absent and council president Waterman okay so we I know we have Council woman here but right now we have three present and fourth on the way so uh without further Ado council president shall I turn on to the ba all right Mr Metro thank you thank you uh John wow I almost said Sean that was close thank you John uh thank you Council for your time council president um I think for the spirit of time what we're going to do is the first half will be my offices and then we'll split to the second half for HR um so uh kind of going through that uh just to start off um the business administrator is basically uh runs the day-to-day operations of the city and uh through his office also oversees the other departments uh through assistant Bas and then we have some uh aside from um what I would say municipal court and Human Resources basically offices um that function under uh the administrator and not necessarily because they are directly associated with the administrator but if they don't fall in with the other um mission statements of the Departments uh I I I'm worthy of them so um we have those and then we also do have five or six line items that we consider through Finance statutory obligations and um Citywide expenses that um I would be best to represent uh um which are our our statutory obligations Insurance Fund um health benefits and uh pension uh systems so so with that um I'll start with with my uh presentation the one that's at Department of administration you should received two both department administration and uh one for human resources so I'll start with mine um my office uh the administrator myself as the administrator um and then it's comprised of um Sorry Seven other employees those employees include division directors and assistant Bas so you'll see there um from left to right uh we have a new information technology director uh Greg Cado is an assistant ba that serves as the communications uh director we have a office of internal audit that's uh spearheaded by Jeff Enright diversity and inclusion which uh the director is Floyd Jeter Human Resources we have director Rosa here uh bman and compliance which also um the task force falls under that's Gina Aban and last but not least we have uh Wendy rosoli who represents the um municipal court so if we start in uh in my office again we we we oversee the day-to-day operations of the city um it's myself and then we have um six employees that report directly to me that are assigned to different departments uh Peter Horton uh Greg curado Kevin Lions Chanel Robinson John Mercer and David Diaz just kind of going through those uh Peter Horton works with me day-to-day overseeing um departments Greg Cado oversees the communications Kevin Lions also works with Peter Horton overseeing the Departments Chanel Robinson's our new eeo officer and uh John Mercer is our CFO currently and Dave Diaz who works on uh special projects and assignments for us and then in my office we do have two administrative assistants Joanne ien Bal who's literally my right hand and uh Omni who's been working with Joanne to learn uh kind of some of the uh expertise there so just uh kind of looking at how that's how that's broken down um Peter helps me with the agenda and oversees some of the public safety and um Law Department and internal audit functions and then we have Greg Cado who's particular to Communications and then he's also helped us on construction project s and working with um director Patel's Department going through that Kevin is our liaison to HR um HHS and Recreation uh Chanel's hand on all the eeo now um we'll get a little bit more into that as we continue John merer obviously Financial operations day-to-day and then David Diaz has been working on several projects for us um one was you know moving into the new Public Safety headquarters um the start of the new payroll system and uh now he's working on car impound uh that we're looking to launch as well as um some of the capital projects and and uh um timing those out for us so that's the basis of of my office um in particular if you look at the next uh line item uh next page rather sheet four uh salaries and um cost are relatively flat um I asked the finance department to remove anything that wasn't spent this year year to date um so we do have some small adjustments but the overall is a $40,000 increase in that depart in that division onto our division of communications um again that's overseen by uh Greg Cado um who has a background in that and uh he has a good team here Stan Easton's been with the city well over 20 years uh really takes a look and and oversees all of our um online postings and also the recorded Council meetings and uh public hearings like this and then he has a team that's split up um uh on to the left you'll see the first vacancy um unfortunately that is for a replacement for Kristen glaze who uh we've lost recently and you know very missed uh it was very key aspect and component to our team and um obviously we would have to replace him because his work product has been really uh absent without him being here and then we have uh Patrick burn and Ryan who work day-to-day on the technology aspect of the communications Jen Brown handles all of our photography and uh uh ribbon cuttings um and then we do have a vacancy for a supervisor um I'm not going to ask for that to be filled so that'll be reduction and then uh Sasha and Caroline are our graphic design artists um one thing that we're asking the team to to do this year uh 2024 rather backwards a little bit there um is to kind of take a look at some of the um services that the city had requests outside of communications and kind of merge them give you example um working with Sasha and Caroline um we do bilingual posters that an outside vendor handles so it makes more sense for us to get the bilingual language interpreted by an outside independent operation and then we would do the uh posters in-house um you know small dollar reflection but I know it's going to be a tight budget year so we're looking to consolidate um as we go and uh any needs that they would need for equipment or operations would be handled through a capital request uh that would be presented to the council at a later time so um it's just uh field uh operatives at this point and um we do ask for that one replacement for Chris and glaze as we move forward you have any part-time workers in communication we did have one part-timer uh budgeted but we're not going to fill it so um we did have one that left then we're not going to replace them full timers yeah and and and the reason for that uh council president is because um the hours shift uh for for the assignments so they they're on a rotating schedule that um the part- timers would then be entitled to additional layers of overtime and and uh salary third item we have here is utility management uh this might be my last year uh with this Spiel but uh the city used to have a water department and uh the Water Department had then been Consolidated and uh at the Spirit of keeping those individuals uh in the pension system they're allowed to work for at the time Suez and then but they would still stay in the city pension and they'd be replaced uh their dollar amount dollar for dollar and reimbursement through Suz violia now Honors that as well um when I started with this city there's roughly seven employees and we're down to one so uh not saying this individual is going to retire but if they if and when they do retire um we'll come back to the council and ask them to dissolve this utility management just as a uh function uh throughout the uh operations next uhis we have here is the internal audit and compliance uh we have Jeff enri who's the director of that office um he work he's worked with Finance over the last two years uh through budget and now um over down at um internal audit and in there we have a team of six uh we have Gerald mccan suvin Johnson Ray Benitez Marcel uh Cindy and Jason just kind of going through uh their operations um Jerry um has experienced and auditing and has been looking at Best Practices throughout the city suvan Johnson um assists him in those matters Ray Bonz and Marcel are in charge of doing field investigations and I'll give you an example that if if parking lot continuously post that they are paying parking lot tax on 20 cars every week well obviously that can't be right there has to be a variance so they'll go out and take pictures um do some audits um of that nature and then Cindy and Jason have been support staff that are learning um the function of being an auditor um for the 2024 plan what we plan to do with the council is to present a list of um internal audit um functions that we're looking to review and then we'll we'll Pro provide a report monthly to the Council on on those items and um I'll get that to the council in advance in case there's any feedback on something I'd like to see that um is not presented but one of the first things we would do is obviously look at some of the findings that in the audit uh health benefits and uh payroll tax and then we'll go from there the next Division I have here is our it uh division broken down into basically uh two um two divisions uh if you will within one you have um the operations help desk and then you also have um all the contracts and the higher level um Professional Services that are provided throughout the city um again most of the capital uh projects that are funded through uh it would be through the capital program uh what we do there is we do lease to own the uh equipment um usually by the end they're not worth anything but that's just the way that the system works and um we've been looking there to also consolidate um bernardet is retiring and uh she's been doing she's been very helpful in looking at redundant services and trying to um uh peel away some of those um issues and then Noble who brought in as a as a new director is going to uh one of the initiatives that I have been working on is any repeat or redundant services with Public Safety it so as many of you know City it and Public Safety it have kind of worked as two separate entities um so it's it's really important that we merge those because we have seen that we're using similar services that could have a cost benefit if we do state contract together so not all I mean just to be fair Public Safety does have some specialized uh encrypted programming but I'm talking about you know uh printers scanners all that type of stuff that they may be purchasing on their own we're going to consolidate and put that together sorry how long will bernardet be here bernardet I believe she's looking to retire in in the next three or four weeks oh okay so she won't be in the next year budget she won't be here yeah so I didn't I a yeah so uh bernardette had stayed a little additional than what I what what she had hoped for to retire I mean it's her retirement um but we asked for a seamless transition as we did the um the onboarding of of uh potentially new hires and and that type of thing um so um that's what we have there and then of course VX the number two in that department as well on to the monster municipal court so municipal court has been evolving over the last few years uh so to speak um there is a case for the court to actually be its own department but because of the fauler ACT uh not possible but um what we're trying to do there is really put a strong leadership uh in place um we do have um our chief judge and we have Wendy wasi who's a um civilian director and what we're looking to do there uh with the work of uh with the help of the council and and uh mayor's office is to kind of separate that the Municipal Court into several functions that we'd have more direct leadership over and it's not a reflection of the leadership that's there if we feel we do a better job at kind of um creating silos if you will that when someone's in charge of more specific uh one or two functions you know you get a better result out of it so what we're looking to do there and and we'll work with the law department is essentially create um you know assistant chief judges for different for different parameters around that and um and then you know work with the Council on that but specifically be like uh you know one that oversees um the community court and the uh domestic violence issues and'll you know separate aside from the actual criminal proceedings and uh and then of course we have the traffic court as well so we feel like maybe if we Branch those out into separate silos um should be better results and uh it's not just something I thought about on the way here uh it's something we've looked at in other um municipalities uh not necessarily New Jersey because we're one of the largest but uh throughout the country um it is the best practice to kind of um have subdivisions within within the same Department that change for the council the first of the year or the end of the year yeah so so what I'm actually looking to do is introduce it in the December meeting to the council I just to get through the budget hearing first and um then it would be potentially approved January and we could have a full year of that um we still got to meet with uh some of the state representatives just to show them what we're looking to do um from a strategic standpoint but um there's no indications that there would be any push back on that um the only thing we did have which we're still working on is um we're looking to use the public safety headquarters uh for some of these um purposes and it just has to be approved by the state uh for security and and different measures but um that leads me on to our next conversation so we've had a few conversations with the chief judge at the um County and coming out of covid moving back potentially fully uh in person sessions not there yet but we're hoping to get there um we did have to revamp some of our security needs and uh there were some concerns there so we did work with this with the uh chief judge and the and the state and we uh we put some additional panic button um at the de of the Court rooms and um we're doing some uh random security entrances uh you know uh not no profile there just walk in and hopefully uh Security's been improved but uh we'll definitely give you feedback on that as well and uh from a operations perspective you know there's two things that we're always trying to improve on one is uh customer service and customer relations um we have launched the online service where you could could pay pay your fines or schedule online via email um we are also looking at other departments that uh throughout the country that have um the phone relays that if there is a um it's picked up by a voicemail or robot um and the robot identifies it as a non-english-speaking individual it could be immediately routed to the um service that provides the uh translation so so hopefully uh we can get that launched in Jan anary as well and um it's kind of baked into their budget it's not it's not really cost uh it's a few cents a call so we'll see how how that works and uh the other thing was that um it's been public that um Public Safety for Public Safety matters um has been launching the ticket uh booting uh Blitz if you will I don't like that word but um and that's for you know off Corner parking and some of the some of the major concerns that cause traffic roadway and obvious obviously that's then also been a burden on the courts because they're processing all this um so we're looking to do is there is one vacancy in a part-time judgeship that we'll be looking to fulfill through the council um I'd like to bring that with the organ reorg a little bit um if we can present that together to the council and that would be specifically to handle more of these um specialized uh tasks as we continue yep and then uh we do have public defender as well uh small office um just a reminder that we only have uh two excuse me three full-time employees in public uh defender office everyone else is uh attorneys professional attorneys that are hired as uh stien employees and that's why you'll see their line item is uh 312 and they get paid on a per case basis and we've adjusted that last year thank you to the uh council's consideration for state level uh they were they were a few bucks behind so so we level that one out and uh they do a great job and of course we don't pay um we don't charge for the for the public defender that's something that the council passed a few years ago so this is uh truly a public service uh for the city um with that I'd like to bring up our HR Representatives who will go through some of our HR uh components and then I'll follow up if we have time at the end to discuss the pension and the Insurance Fund good afternoon everyone so we're going to go over only for a few slides so that way we am time conscious the first slide that I'm going to address to is number three is our employee head count last year we have a total head count of 41 employees we lost eight employee this year so right now we have a c count of 33 employees the offices there are under HR is the office of employee benefits the office of risk management office of workforce management and the office of payroll I will go now through the slide 11 which is a a more comprehensive of what each office does the office of employee benefit administer the city health benefit plan for eligible employees and retirees oversight of employees voluntary benefits such as wellness program FSA EAP manage all the City Civilian pension plans and process retirement and disability early retirement applications and provide employee with retirement counseling the office of employee relation and workforce management is responsible for centralized and strategically plan uh providing human resource and workforce planning to are estimated of roughly 4,000 employees oversee all the disciplinary action labor grievances employee mediation labor negotiation and coaching um it's oversight the eeo and affir action under the supervision of the eeo officer uh Chanel Robinson and oversight the city compliance of civil service regulation providing guidance advice and support to our Workforce the office of risk management supervis Administration and payment on workman's compensation re uh responsible for the administration ation of City self insures and general insurance program oversight of the city compliance with safety standard and oan Regulation and oversight then New Jersey do CDL Clearing House program and payroll does the processing and examine the accuracy of calculation for payroll meaning the taxes and standard deductions runs various supplemental payroll for uni for employees and prepare stand and report and accounts reconciliation to comply with the yearend reporting requirement the next slide that I'm going to discuss is number 13 so you can have a a highlights of the KE ke ey during the 2023 we have uh separation of 44e employees this we have uh on March the voluntary incentive program which is the buyout as normally people know them that's why we have so Mass um separation of employees and due to the first half of the year we have a higher in freeze then when the higher freeze was lifted then we only have been higher as of now 81 employees this impact the new enrollments of you see in the next graph for medical we have only 50 new enrollments transcription only 40 and for dental only 45 it doesn't add up to the 81 because the 13 people W for w the benefits and because the benefits start after 90 days some of them are is going to be ongoing into December or early next year well for you to have an idea as of now we have a total active membership in our benefits 2,576 of Dental 2,597 in medical and 2 537 in prescription I'm going to jump to slide 15 I know that this is a process that normally people have inquiries about how civil service work so I wanted to um have a flow shart so people can understand better this flow shart is normally sent in the open announcement that is sent throughout the city but normally because people are so eager to read the titles that they're announced for they normally don't read through the flow shart so I wanted to go over the process so people don't understand better we have a provisional employee that when he's approved in the state this trigger the um the announcement these announcements are issued by the state it's not issue by the city we don't have no influence it's just the state how long it may take we have no control or no way to know when these announcements are going to be issued it can take six months it can take a year or so right now since the state is still working on a hybrid uh program it has delayed even more the process and also we have to take into consideration that imagine the same amount of employee that that the division of HR has working for the whole state so it was delay and slow down even more the process so after the announcement is issued and we receive the announcement is distributed City Citywide and all employees they are provisional or other employees that are interested in another title they can apply to once they apply and they closing day is met then the state is the one who reviewing the applications and issue a testing for people to attend to the state is the one who notify the employees we don't have no control we can follow up if an employee have inquiries but everything once in our end is completed the state take over Civil Service take over and they process everything how long it might take we don't know as well for the same reasons that I mentioned prior to do all employees know they have an email so employees that don't have access to the email each department has to post this announcement on the bulletin board so that way they ensure the all employee have access and they're informed of this announcement should be posted the announcement should be posted throughout the city in each division correct I just want to make sure because I know employees call me and I'm just trying to figure out do they have an email because I know Civil Service would email based on the conversation not only a they have to apply it online there's no paper uh application but the employee itself will know that there's a notice yes and they know how how do we notify them you said it'll be posted in each division yes they do not have a email so the city don't provide each employee a email correct so all employees don't have an email correct oh okay I thought everyone had an email no they don't okay so they was right still workers they don't gotcha okay they was right so after on they apply They will receive a notification from the state it can be a not of Eligibility then soon after they will receive a notice of certification which will ask them to respond to the appointing authority of their interest these notifications are sent to the employee prior to us receiving the list of eligible employees so sometime employees call and we have even don't know what they're talking about because we haven't received the list as of yet after that that we received the list working with the ba office and the department we go over the employees that are found eligible so that we make sure that the need still within the department and also that the employees is performing at the level at that capacity that they apply to and the reason why I'm explaining these is because some employees for example they are applying for titles that they're not working on but they just want to be on the list of that title and then they're following up with us or following with you guys and where are the status of these uh anal of the testing that they apply to but then they don't advise the department their own Department what had transpire after we have our meeting then the employees that are appointed are put into the title and any correspond that is sent to them via email and mail for them to know that they were appointed into the title and if any change take place based on union or anything that it might change that they not corring in they are informed but this communication is always sent when the announcement are issued from there I'm going to skip to the slide 18 which is our budget changes um we can see that the most of our expenses are line item 30 7 uh all the training and development programs are housed in HR so all the Departments they have employees that are attending to conference training um certification any type of they send the information and the request to HR and we review their under their job responsibility is approv and process and is paid for from HR from then we can see that we have an increase in align item 312 there was some um talks during this year that we were moving the outside Council from Law Department to HR and we just for projecting that that finally happened in 20 2024 so we didn't wanted to leave it out of the budget without being certain that it's going to be uh transition and it's going to be deducted from the law department and put it into HR and in the line item 314 the increases it was some reclassification some of the contracts that were in line item 312 shouldn't been originally posted in L in line item 314 so this is why you see the switch so even though the line item 312 increased due to the outside Council it did decrease because it was moved into 314 for the proper classification last but not least is the last slide that is for our Insurance Fund which is done by our office of risk management some of the increases are due to ongoing litigations and we are foreseeing an increase of amount of settlement cases on next year that's why you see that amount in line item 640 and then in line item 670 they has been a increase in a workman comp claims so I going to pass on to theba just to go over some of the insurance uh fund stuff um just for a little further Clarity um if you go through the line items the um workers comp claims the way that the city breaks that out is any medical um services that are provided through a workers comp claim is also credited there just so it's all in one file so sometimes we see an increase in um surgeries um that were work rated incidents and those dollars are allocated to that we have seen an increase in some uh I don't want to get into specifics but um injections used to be used to treat some ligament issues and stuff and now they're actually electing to get some surgeries um so we'll see an increase there as far as the uh 640 settlements and judgments um what we're trying to do is be a little proactive there and uh depends how the the appetite of the budget uh is but um we are looking at some of our exposure moving forward and and trying to plan for it so it's not that uh every do one of those dollars would be spent that maybe we're building a reserve towards some of our potentially larger uh liability happen over the next few years two two things I did want to highlight uh to supplement what Joanne said is um bringing Chanel Robinson downstairs from Law Department to my office has been greatly beneficial um just an understanding is um she came in my office there's about 70 eeo open cases now that could be that they're ready to be closed out they were just filed somewhere in the process it's not that they were necessarily continuing to lag um since then she has closed out almost 40 of those and those are also 40 that now will not go to outside Council and then she's handling uh within the means of her own um salary so so it's it's those types of cases that we're looking to to to benefit the City by instead of going continuously out to Professional Services that we do have in competent in-house uh staff that can that can handle a lot of that and uh lastly what we're what we're also asking for in this uh budget introduction is something we talked about last year and I think the city is now ready to launch and that would be a um employee uh I don't know what you want to call it but uh morale or uh morale word yeah and and the way we'd like to set that up with the council before we actually uh present it with that there would be like an oversight committee um however we determine that would work um it would be house and HR separate budget and then we would do um goals um we'd have team building we'd have all all these different um initiatives that would would be carried out through there service pins for five years 10 years 15 years you know um not necessarily monetary benefits but sometimes um it's just encouragement and uh and what we would do is we'd have these meetings month uh monthly with the advisory committee and present those Awards in front of the advisory committee um and then also we can create some framework that after say 20 years I don't want to put that number 25 years they automatically get a resolution before Council or you know we'll work with the Council on that but um you know things like that we could do and it's really at no cost and it's it really helps employee morale um I looked into some features that will send happy birthday emails you know those types of things really at no cost of the city so um that's something we're going to be looking to present but again we'll probably have to present it formally to the council to establish the uh the committee that's great sure just uh thank you John this um one here the the 3 312 Professional Services looks like it's increasing significantly um as you Ser can walk us through that I'm not sure Jo anyone that's because all the outside cancel EO investigation that they were house in the Law Department are going to be now transferred over deducted from the law department and it's going to be now in HR sure so I just wanted to clarify so there's two different 312s and and I want to just make sure that might be totally right but so there's in the last slide under Insurance Fund HR risk management um Professional Services and then there's the 312 in the HR Direct budget and I was um uh thinking here for the the one specifically that was in Risk Management Professional Services is those are our Brokers Brokers Brokers for our insurance and and why is it increasing so much this year we can get back to you okay we'll get you a final number on that that's requested by the risk management agent right so um I do know that um we are we had now last year was partially this should be full year uh year um increased insurance on the new public safety building and a few assets that the city has okay and um what we also have is EXs carrier so if there's a settlement uh you know we pay a premium um to settle anything over a million dollars that we pay the first million and then Essex carrier covers in but I think you're right councilman we could break that out for you and then on 670 I know you guys were s describing the increase in workers comp so we budgeted 6 million we spent 8.1 to date um is this you know kind of uh have has this increase like like you know going 2021 2022 just obviously that that's a you know nearly a you know a 80% increase in one year so we we'll get you more information on that um I don't know if a fiveyear would be beneficial because um we did have a period where people were home um so I think it is good to better understand what those claims are broken out as um and into which departments yeah yeah just maybe even 2022 to 2023 just to understand why why it went up so much and and if there's anything we can do about it yeah yeah we'll get you that information great thank you guys thank you for your time Council I appreciate it and uh look forward to working as a body to get the entire budget uh completed so motion to adjourn there's no other presentation so kind of caught off guard sorry all right so uh can I entertain a motion to close the uh Administration and HR public uh budget hearing motion motion made by S is there a second okay a second that was second okay councilman Waterman and all in favor I any opposed any extensions okay we are uh wrapping this meeting up at 252m we have the next scheduled hearing is law which is scheduled for uh 3 so I guess we'll take a 8 minute recess is that correct councel okay so we'll see everyone here promptly at 3M I can I can actually I do proposal Ally and um valuable um I can also I will if I can get any add from you if it's a matter of funding to either sorry what okay good afternoon everyone we are on the record today is Tuesday the 21st day of November 2023 this is the budget hearing for the Law Department we had a scheduled 3 p.m. start it is 3:5 according to my watch uh may we have a roll call for the commencement of the budget hearing councilwoman Ridley is absent councilman priner council bojano is absent councilman SLE was here I think he's returning councilman Solomon was here I believe he is returning councilman Gilmore is absent councilman de jees is absent councilman Rivera is absent and councilwoman uh Waterman council president Waterman okay we have two Council people present I know two are returning um at the time of the preparation of the notice of this meeting it was similarly disseminated on Thursday November 16th 2023 at 11:50 a.m. and reminder was sent out on Monday November 20th 2023 at 3:30 p.m. to the mayor Municipal Council business administrator Corporation Council and the local newspapers so I can certify that this hearing as the previous two are in total compliance with these Sunshine Law council president shall I turn it over to the Corporation Council sir hey good afternoon council president council person prinari um thank you for your time today um just wanted to um go over a few of the items in our budget um in particular I'm sorry um I asked one of the staff members to make a copy I can give you I'm sorry I had asked if I needed to bring copies and I was told I did not have to so um I can get started on a few items that are not on the budget sheet um first item is you know we'll start on a high note um as I we had mentioned previously earlier in the year we started our uh pilot program uh for doing the reverse tax appeals we um had one of our attorneys who was already on staff lead the project we hired one more full-time attorney and a part-time attorney to handle these um there's just an incredibly high volume that requires a lot of uh Court attendance Etc it takes a lot more than one person just to turn through all these um as it was a pilot program and we only had about a month to get everything filed because the tax appeals need to be filed by April 1st and I think we started this the end of February um we only got a certain number filed however um with the combination of the increased Revenue from those reverse appeals as well as the ratio adjustment that we were able to obtain um as of right now we have just under $1.6 million in additional realized annual revenue that has come from this um effort and again this is a this is going to be $1.6 million every year and then we're going to add on future appeals that will then be cumulative going forward so I think we can say that was a success and we're uh happy with it and uh you know we're looking forward to you know pressing that forward um thank you pressing that forward for calendar year 2024 as well um were were there any questions about the reverse appeal um program okay I apologize for the confusion there you will see um you know we are Prim our primary expenses are the salaries for the employees and then our uh Professional Services um as you know two years ago we instituted a step system for our attorney salaries that would uh lock attorneys in at a certain pay based on the number of years of experience they have from when they passed the bar years of practice up until now um we have included those step increases for the handful of attorneys who are qualified um under that portion um this is consistent with many other um governmental attor law departments the Attorney General's office has a system like this I believe the Turnpike Authority does as well uh in addition to a number of County Prosecutors offices and the state public defender um it has been helpful with retention we think as well as morale um so we are asking for the approval of those um Step increases that have been put in uh We've also put in for increases for a couple of our management not attorney management employees um these are marit increases and also adjustments that would come for cost of living Etc um and we would hope again that the council would consider those as well um we have listed four open attorney positions um we do have several vacancies that we do need to get um addressed um including two uh litigator litigation positions as well as we still have a pending position council president for the um governance attorney who would be providing advice to the council as you know we're continuing to make that effort to um make that um higher um and then we also would look to um beef up our labor and employment section which would we feel help defay some of the expenses for the outside Council and the Professional Services which um as you'll we did we did exceed budget this year and I think there are several reasons for that that I can go through uh when we get there you have any questions about individual um salaries okay um we are moving on to overtime wages we occasionally need to authorize overtime if there's a last minute filing that we need to get prepared and sent out um one evening where we would need staff to stay late as you can see it was $95.95 this year um we usually cap it at $500 and we rarely get close to that number as you can see um moving on line 2011 office supplies uh we had gotten $110,000 this year we had put in for 20,000 and we've exceeded that $10,000 number we're putting it for $20,000 again we do have a lot of obligations for Main aing files sending in courtesy copies to the court sending Discovery to attorneys which we typically do either uh in on paper or through thumb drives um all of which C all of which cost money and all of which we're obligated to do under court rules uh so there's not a tremendous amount of discretion there on what we can spend um everything else we have you know we're putting in for a modest increase for Acer that is our federal court um document access system um again we see we we we just see increased costs and increased usage of that system um else we have so Professional Services as you can see we did um go quite a bit over that and I can I can talk about that um we've been doing a tremendous amount of Labor negotiations this year all of which are very time consuming and are quite expensive uh we've been using outside Council for those negotiations um there a couple reasons for that one there's the level of expertise and two there's the Staffing in the law department and the level of expertise in the Law Department um I would be very open and I would hope that one of the positions that we have open for this year would be to recruit someone with a specialty in um collective bargaining and labor negotiations who could work a receive a full-time salary and the benefit that would go with that and defas some of the costs for the labor negotiations a lot of these were also um we had a fair amount of again backlog from the covid period for um eeo complaints um other things that got kind of pushed back because the courts were closed hearings were not taking place perk hearings were not taking place Etc so we did a lot of catching up on that in 2023 which required a lot of Billings um so I think there could be a combination here we've also had some preliminary discussions with some of the Departments themselves who have benefited from the labor negotiations um for specific Department Labor uh unions to potentially help us defray somebody's costs um so I think a combination of getting you know some assistance from the other departments in addition to potentially Staffing up internally uh with a specialist in labor and employment and active bargaining uh could help us knock that number down quite a bit uh for 2024 and going forward right were there any other questions um at this time uh do you anticipate the same number of settled cases that we settled this year to happen next year or is there like you know have we been able to wipe this late clean proverbi um or at least most of it like what what do you anticipate for next year um again and this is forecasting I'm not promising anything um look the courts again speaking about covid backlog we've just had years and years of cases that have been you know the Log Jam is breaking now I saw there was the Law Journal had an article today about litigators schedules being overwhelmed because of the backlog cases throughout the state we are dealing with that too and we're we're down several attorneys to that point so I know on December 11th we currently have three trials scheduled uh not all of them will go forward probably because they can only do one of ours and they can't do the other two um but that shows how seriously they are taking things and moving things so and that that is these are trials that we're handling in-house um so you know that's really that the only cost there for us is just the opportunity cost of having our staff tied up with a two or three week trial um as far as settlements go you know we we take them as they come to us um I think we could probably expect a slightly lower number next year because we have gotten some of the bigger ones off the um off the docket there was the um Tunnell Avenue matter which was a one-time you know very large hit that we were that we were all aware of but that is now that's resolved um we do have others that are coming up on Council agenda soon that we will need to be that we need to cover and you know anytime we settle a case we are trying to avoid you know the risk of going to trial and being hit with a heavy verdict that would then you know hamstring us even further as a city um and judges are very loathed to cut verdicts down to come from juries um so you know it's you know sometimes it's tough medicine but but you know it's with the best interest of the city in the long term being considered Peter because I came late but um it sounds like you're getting into this but I see the kind of requests for the different positions uh for one investigator one paralal and four attorneys obviously we don't know what ultimately be in the budget but just could you just sort of walk through what what each of those people you're hoping are doing sure um we we're hoping to get two litigation attorneys who would just handle General litigation for the city that would be anything from you know trip and fall cases to breach of contract to you know that would even you know excessive force civil rights violations Etc uh so we're hoping to get two people of a mid-level experience who can get into court right away that we don't necessarily have to train up uh too much at the outset uh we're also looking for a labor and employment specialist I think you were here when we were talking about trying to get someone who had a little bit of a collective barain negotiation background um in house who can help um with some of the you know Union negotiations that we do and have been doing substantially uh the fourth position you know we had talked to the council president and we're looking to get a an attorney in our governance section who will be dedicated to assisting the council and providing um direct assistance to the Council on drafting legal advice Etc um so that would be that fourth position in the prior hearing um I guess there had been talk about moving some of the um some of the outside expenses over to hr's budget um some of the outside attorneys um I think you know we had had those discussions I don't know if we had settled on the result there I think I would have to circle circle up with human resources again sure I mean I'm sure it'll be worked out in the process but then the um the increase for the the fees the um professional consultant Specialized Service do you have a breakdown of of the different contracts there and and where we yeah we we can provide that to you yeah that'd be great just so we see it it looks like an increase from 2023 although I know the year isn't done so it's a little hard to know right right I think that's it for me okay and obviously if any if anyone has any questions please uh let me know I already mentioned the reverse okay okay thank you very much thank you without any further presentations can I entertain a motion to adjourn this budget hearing motion motion made by councilman CLE is there a second second by Prince all in favor I any opposed any extensions okay we have wrapped up this meeting at 3:21 p.m as I believe the next scheduled hearing will be after the Thanksgiving holiday on Tuesday November 28th they will be uh be entertaining and hearing of the Department of Housing and economic development so um everyone have a great and safe holiday be well take care thank you thanks