e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e yeah he called me okay y all over this's not here so oh good evening and welcome to the budget and finance committee meeting today is a wedes April Wednesday April 10th it is currently 7:03 in the evening uh counselors that we counselors that we have tonight with us is counselor viven marmel to my to my right and also the vice chair of the budget and finance committee and we also have councelor Wendy Lon here tonight can you guys all please rise and for the pledge of ALG flaged States of America the for stands one nation godis wow I took a 10-minute M break from our previous meeting and now my brain is like has not came back yet into meeting most I apologize for that all right so pursuant to chapter 20 of of the acts of of 2022 this meeting of the budget and finance committee is being conducted both in person and via remote participation a reminder that persons who would like to listen or view this meeting while in progress May either attend here in person at the city council chambers or may access the meetings through our Facebook or YouTube Pages counselors we do not have any minutes to approve so we're going to go right into the agenda the first item is item 15624 fy22 audit of financial statements by powers and Sullivan we do have power and sullan here with us tonight and we do have our kaful Mr iel Mr anel you have the floor thank you councelor I'm just here I'm goingon to introduce Jim Powers of powers and Soloman the uh audit firm that does our audit and uh and there are uh can he can explain the three reports but there's three reports in front of you tonight and audo the basic financial statements the schedule of federal Awards which has the expenditures of our grants and then there's a management letter so he'll he'll review all three of those reports as he does every year so here's [Music] Jim good evening good evening my name is Jim Powers from uh what was powers and Sullivan in the uh last few months we merged with a national firm momm we still do the same thing and the rest of it but um really not changing what I'm doing tonight or Etc but um exciting times for us as we move forward in the auditing World um first off I'd like to thank Mark and his staff for doing a and all the financial people the schools um for doing a fantastic job on your financials and in addition to that um the Cooper ation we get from the city and their staff and getting the audit done is uh is kind of Second To None we really appreciate the good work and the cooperation even though auditing can be kind of a pain in neck for people during the day-to-day responsibilities but it's a necessary evil and uh uh Lawrence and Mark and the team does a great job as Mark said there are three different reports that we have uh one of them is the U report on Federal Awards and um and that one if I can go over that first yep however however you would like to proceed yeah and um if you'd like to ask me questions as we go Etc you can interrupt me and I'll address them at that point in time I'm going to summarize what I think is important in each one of these um so the federal government provides uh assistance to local uh communities throughout the nation and they have a uh requirement that the independent auditor that does the community's audit also extend What's called the single audit and audit the federal programs on their behalf to make sure the city is uh uh doing everything in compliance with their rules and regulations and requirements of those particular programs the requirements say that if you spend over $750,000 of federal funds in any one fiscal year you're required to have this audit um the city in fiscal year 23 spent $86 Million worth of federal funds and I'm happy to say out of that $86 million we had no findings everything was in compliance we had to select major grants and audit all those particular compliance requirements now that's a lot of money but a good part of that is the American Rescue plan act funds that the city had received in the last couple of years and so in last year they spent about $30 million worth of those particular funds going forward you probably won't have $85 million every year but you still do have a lot of school grants which are over $30 million a year and and other grants as you go through as I said the actual reports themselves no findings relative to any of the programs and so it's a really clean audit as part of that um is there any questions on that counc has any questions we good thank you all right the bigger report is the city allowance report and examination of the basic financial statements now that's the result of your operations for the year in effect the financial activity that occurred during the year the city has to make maintain its books and Records uh in accordance with the uniform um Municipal accounting system as dictated by the Department of Revenue at the state all cities and towns must follow those particular rules and the finance rules and regulations in accordance with uh either their regulations or Massachusetts general laws U and so there's three different bases of accounting and inside of here the city um was in compliance full compliance liance with what we took a look at as part of being in compliance with the Massachusetts regulations and how they maintain the books and Records Etc one of the things that we look at as part of the audit is not only what happened historically at the end of fiscal year 23 but we also test the records the processes we gain an understanding of the internal controls to make sure that what you see at the end of the year and what the books have during the year that all of those yearend Rec uh reconciliations be say say the treasurer's office and the cash and Investments maintained and the actual Financial activities that are maintained by the finance department are reconciled that is like the most important thing that can occur as part of that testing we test not only at the end of the year but during the year and we found that uh similar to previous years that when you get a report coming out of Mark's office Etc during the year you can rely on that as being accurate to date for that particular month whether it's the re receivables that you get in the budget to actual reports as you go through and so that's that's an important part of internal controls and um again the city does a pretty good job of maintaining those records so something happens and you had to appropriate something during the year because you had a shortfall you shouldn't know that early on you you won't find out about it in July you should find out about it in April May when that deficit may occur and it does happen that sometimes you do your best budgeting but sometimes you it's not perfect things happen during the year the financial statements themselves um the budgetary basis financial statements you'll see that the general fund which is the primary fund you have Enterprise funds too has a budgetary fund balance at the end of the year of about $94 million that's a fantastic balance to have a good portion of that and I think mik said what you have 47 million in free Cash3 $43 Million worth of free cash which is really a healthy uh free cash number but a lot of that over the last couple of years has been the way the city has used those American Rescue plan funds budgeting for those and those funds now uh available for appropriation through the normal appropriation process as opposed to just being grants as you go through um so an extremely healthy fund balance at that point in time uh in the future you have abilities to probably set some money aside besides just having uh additional stabilization funds things like that um you had a lot of projects going on that where you were building some things and Deb service Reserve funds stabilization funds you may want to look at dedicating some of those funds as you go forward that's not my call I'm the auditor I just tell you that I agree with what you're reporting uh but you're in a unique position not that everybody is as part of that um the Enterprise funds the water and sewer fund the airport fund parking fund um all of those are self-supporting meaning they're not reliant on general fund Revenue use to balance their budget everybody is doing a good job in budgeting that and breaking even each year or in affect some of them by having a profit so again another good sign relative to that not only the general fund the other funds that you see as part of the financial statements are all self-supporting there could be special Revenue funds where it's recurring Revenue every year from proba to State the federal grants Etc as you go through and as I said we no problems with the accounting for that and again they're self-supporting and don't rely on real estate personal property taxes Etc to balance the budget and and again those are in good shape you also have in the capital project funds as part of that and those are usually funded through federal state grants and or um uh Bond issues as uh long-term funding for long-term assets the uh biggest thing that everybody in every city and town is dealing with is the uh pension liability so right now um you've got a net pension liability of $212 million and you're about 60% funded that's above average in and that was through 1231 2022 which is within that particular year and everybody had a bad year of Investments during that year I expect I haven't looked at it but I expect that the retirement system probably had a pretty good rate of return this year mark all right and so that 60% funding level should go up when we take a look at the next report as we go forward but that's a long-term liability to be funded by 2040 and the actuaries and the cities on track to make enough contributions to fully fund that and and uh make sure that by 2040 2040 at the latest I I think the city's trying to do it a little bit earlier like everybody else but the 60% funded uh at a 7% discount rate is excellent for in comparison for other communities your size um the other piece is the uh the OPB fund other post-employment benefit um funds as as you go through that uh that's a little bit um less funded let's put it that way you haven't set aside much money um the discount rate is lower at 4.13 and I won't get into what that does but you're about $350 million behind on that but you've only put in a million5 I think you funded $500,000 last year lot of communities your Sid are in the same position as you go through not really have the funds to do that that um it's not a requirement like the pension fund is there's a Massachusetts law that requires the funding of the pension through by 2040 there's no requirement it's just to pay as you go for the other post employment benefits it is basically health insurance for retirees as you go through uh that's something as time goes on you may want to take a look at um whether or not you can afford maybe um putting a little bit more extra in as you go through and if you do that and it stays consistent the actuary can increase the discount rate from 4.13 to probably 7% and if that happens your Li the LI the the total liability goes down considerably because a lot of what you're going to have that's contributing to that is investment earnings right now it's only the city that's funding this particular plan but as and that's why the um the pension system at 7% is 60% funded and this one isn't and so it's something that you may want to consider those are the two big liabilities that are out there for every city in town as you go through this and so that's kind of an overview I think of the key components of the financial statements and if you have any questions on that I can certainly address them any questions or comments on this they would like to wait till the end okay okay the last report is the management letter now the management letter which is good one of the things you don't want to see in a management letter is things called material weaknesses of significant deficiencies if you did that puts at risk the assets of the city um and so say if you if Mack didn't have a system in place that Rec recile things monthly and made sure that um your cash was reconciled every month accurately and any mistakes that are made which happens all the time uh corrected timely then we'd have a material weakness in here because you wouldn't be able to rely on your financial inter financial statements during the year um that's not the case here what we have is a few um prior comments that are being worked on and realistically none of of them are I consider those other matters um not required to be disclosed as part of our audit but we still do that just to uh make suggestions on various things um there's some old motor vehicle and per personal property taxes that are outstanding some of them are marked at the registry but a lot of them are over you know 10 years old and realistically you're not going to collect them you still have them on the books and basically what we're saying is you should evaluate whether or not you're really going to collect These funds there's no active you're not out there actively trying to collect it yourself but if somebody does have an old motor vehicle uh tax still outstanding and they go to the registry the registry may deny them and then they're going to have to come over to City Hall and pay that by you cleaning this up it's not going to stop them from paying it you still getting the money but it's just kind of of messing on the books looking at things that have this old they're not significant but um you know a million dollar worth of real estate and personal property taxes that are old and $720,000 worth of um $77,000 a motor vehicle something we want and we think that you should look at as part of that uh the other piece too is sometimes which is the second point on page two is is this credit real estate and prop balances so that means somebody overpaid or there was a misp posting and they went to pay you know their own real estate tax bill but it got posted to yours so you paid yours and all of a sudden there's a $5,000 balance that you either owe back to you or it owes back to me those things should be evaluated and determined why because people usually don't overpay their tax bill on purpose and so what we're saying is that although it's only you know $342,000 you should investigate those particular things and either refund that to the taxpayer if they do that or make a an adjustment to fix the ledges on that um I know the city's been working on that and um we'll see how it is not and again remember these are what was in place at June 30th 2023 any progress that the finance team made since then is not reflected in this report and then uh water and sewer accounts receivable reconciliations uh there was a flaw in the process and I know in fiscal year 24 that the city and Marx people have been identifying this through the munist training and a few other things and so I would expect come the end of fiscal 24 this one might be substantially resolved at this point in time and Mark can correct me if I'm if I'm wrong with that evaluation but I know it's being worked on um abandoned property taxes and tailings um and so that point from last year was resolved so if you want me to talk about it I can but it's all fixed and then the last piece is capital asset accounting um there's a lot of policies that are needed for the financial statements they not necessarily needed for the Massachusetts um umus financial reporting model but to be in compliance with generally accepted accounting principles that has to be done audited and maintained so it would be okay you're going through new constructions right now to build a school to build another building you have to account for that long-term asset to be measured against say the long-term liability that you issued bonds for in order to pay for that and it's just a different basis of accounting what we're saying is that you should be developing like written policies and procedures of what's expected when it gets done and and how to account for this if it is accounted for we were able to audit that and the balances on the financial statements are accurate but it's a little wonky but it wasn't smooth yeah there's a there's a better way to do what they especially with the software that's out there right now that can help on a lot of these things and so we just suggesting that that would be something that we think would make the year- end close go a little bit smoother add it a little smoother as we go forward with this so that kind of gives you a summary of the findings that we had from last year and um I guess now would be time for questions since I think I'm at the end com Council marel so through you council president um I'll apologize if I'm going to ask basic questions and this is for me to get a guge um as to um how the audit was conducted so when this audit was initially done do you mind giving us an approximate date as to when um your your company came into the city to start this audit and once you did cuz I'm I'm looking at this letter and I'm able to see based on your findings um what what was recommended and then the current status so it leads me to believe that you guys came back at a later point in time to see if it was rectified am I correct by thinking that um no it was it was corrected so if the one that was corrected that said it was corrected by you know during the year that would have been done so we come in in the spring to start preliminary work uh the retirement system which is part of the financial statements here we have a contract with the retirement system separate and apart from the city but that begins that because they have a 1231 year end and so we'll come in in the spring remember the $85 million worth of federal grants will probably do before June 30th 85% of the testing related to that based on what's occurred during the year we also do during that period of time we start auditing say long-term debt we will do transaction testing we'll test your internal controls we'll see whether or not anything else changed so we spend probably 40% of our time before June 30th prepping for year end okay and then we work out timing with the city to say okay when do you think your books and records are going to be closed and what makes sense for a date in the fall to the winter when it makes sense to come out some things we have to wait for as part of this financial statement you also have remember we talked about the other post-employment benefits liability well you also relying on the actuary because the actuary has to complete their reporting before it makes it into these particular financial statements sometimes it's done early sometimes it's done later and so probably by 1231 we have 90% of the financial statements completed those Dem moist people they make sure that they're in agreement with all the numbers Etc we send things out and then over the next couple of months it usually gets down to uh finishing up that single audit report the Federal grants there's a requirement that it has to be done by the end of March if not you you go to a different level of risk as you go through that and so we we probably still requesting some information at that point in time and then it becomes just back and forth of um what's open oh we have 15 open items and you start working on it one at a time Mark assigns that to his staff and we work with that so my staff and M staff will go through and finalize all the little things that still have to be completed so it's almost an all year round piece one of the things that's part of the contract is that anything that the city needs for questions as the year goes on Etc you know Mark and I have various conversations throughout the year on an issue that may came up that's just part of the contract so we like to see ourselves as year round support for the city we are independent but primary responsibility is to make sure the financial statements are accurate so I'd rather have Mark call me we had a lot of discussions about APPA um the American Rescue plan act where he would call me up and we have a long discussion is this allowable can I do this that type of thing and I said yes based on the rules because they were all new as we went through that and so we had we spent a lot of time on going through that but that's just part of the support that comes along with the audit and if he had done it wrong it would be in the management letter fortunately he didn't but it helps for the fact that he'll ask the question to make sure that we're in agreement and so we can do a pre- audit on some of the things the big things the bond issues that are going out Etc we're going out for this particular thing how should we account for when we go through and if you do make a decision to set up another one of those stabl ation funds I know we'll have a conversation about that as we go through will you need anything special from an audit standpoint what will you need as you go through and so there's constant Communications back and forth between us and the city to make sure things go smoothly um based on the on your recommendations is the city held to uh some sort of timeline or deadline um that they would have to rectify um no I mean you know make any adjustments you know we'd always like to get it done a little bit sooner I'd have to go back and let you know if there was anything that was a significant delay I can't remember off the top of my head when the actuary report came out so I apologize for that but um no we can we can work out a schedule and and and I have no problem coming back to the committee at the beginning of the audit if you want me to to and we'll lay out okay here's the plan for the year we're coming in now to do this then we're scheduled on November 4th to come back to do this whatever it is and here's what's laid out and what we can put in that presentation to you would be these are the things that need to be done on the city's part if they meet those particular deadlines then it's up to us now we have to make sure that we have enough staff um set up and and and um to do and audit those particular things as the city goes through and finishes their closing so I have no problem doing something like that if you're interested in that and that would only probably take less than a half an hour to walk through the entire audit with you but it I think it may be a good thing to do um it doesn't cost you any more money I'm I'll come up here and don't you know I don't like Zoom that much I'd rather do it in person so Mr I please take note of that for the for the next audit yeah so does that answer your question H thank you okay councelor L on no no I thank you m have question you're I think you okay um I have uh for Mr aella what what improvements have we've done so far overall what I'm hearing is that we're in good standing overall what I'm hearing is that we we have minor things to work gone but it's not significant that the city is going to get into trouble with the state or anything like that if it was I would have had that a a material weakness or a significant deficiency I don't have there's no option for me to not report that to the governing governances and and this you are so I I I even though I like them I don't report to much right uh as Jim mentioned we usually do uh our our audit plan is done uh usually late spring uh they come here uh usually in April May for two weeks and then they're back again usually uh usually in September we have our books closed late late August so usually September certainly by the beginning usually September they come back for another two weeks to get a lot of the audit work done uh because our books are closed and then there's uh and then and then uh what many people don't realize is that 90% of their audit is done uh from their offices because they have direct access to our our mun system they have view only access so they can and they can look up all transactions and so forth uh right online but anyway as as Jim was explaining in management letter we've had we had a lot of comments over the years we've been cleaning up up one at a time uh this year uh the receivable water receivables was on there for the last few years and so uh we just met uh just a month or two ago to try and figure out uh sat down with the water and the treasure and we realize there's a timing issue as to why these reconciliations are are taking to along there's certain uh transactions are being done that uh and they're not accounting for the timing of those transactions so we just had a training session uh or they had a training session with the munus and uh so I expect the water and sewer receivables will be resolved this year we won't have an issue next year the uh the old the old receivables uh motor vehicles and personal property I know the treasures uh I mean yeah the collector Treasures working with the assessors see if we can write some of that stuff off uh we do need uh the assessors to Abate it we have plenty of room in our uh overlay account to do so uh the tailings has been resolved as his audit report said and the last one is just the capital asset accounting we just need to get some uh some software and I'm sure Jim could recommend some software that other municipalities use and see if I can uh assign it to somebody to make that last uh um comment go away because it is just the now that we're building three new buildings it this is that time to probably do it uh we have uh we do keep track of all our uh Capital assets that's one of the things uh Jim's firm asked for what are our Capital expenditures this year so we have a way of extracting it from our our books of Records but the the maintenance of the all the details are are are on a spreadsheet and there's software that can make that go a little more smoothly okay thank you thank you I had I now I can't seem to find it but I had one sentence underline that I wanted to ask you about it was uh pertaining the opportunity two opportunities to to grow or improve um I'm sure you already covered it but I wanted to ask that again but no I don't I I can't find it now there's a lot of pages in those rep yeah so I'll make sure to have that question for for the full council meeting um chatting notes in different pages yeah is are there any other questions I'm sure we'll have a lot more um next week okay at this point I will entertain a motion I'll make a motion um to move this forward to the full council with a favorable recommendation committee report as a committee report motion has been made by Vice chair marmel is there a second second by councelor lzone discussion all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it thank you so much so we'll see you next next Tuesday okay thank you thank you okay moving on with the agenda we have item 15724 the appropriation transfer and the amount of $170,000 from salaries account number from salaries account number0 1 0411 d5110 to litigation which is the account 01411 d-535 attorney hen you have the floor good evening councilors thank you very much as you can see what we're having here is we're uh lotting for the end of the year um one of the things that uh um Council infanti will will know but the other councils will not know is that last year when I appeared before the council I promised that uh we would cut down on outside Council fees I'm happy to report that since um U obtaining the new attorney in January we have not referred any cases outside so these are all old bills there is nothing new that's been added so um it's not just legal fees that are included in here you have we have s Court stenographers we have uh Arbiter fees we have court fees so so there's a lot of fees that we have to pay but we anticipate that the transfer of 170,000 will cover all litigation any all fees till the end of the year okay awesome councelor is any comments or questions okay at this point I will indate a motion is a committee report no this is good be um as a fa all right I make a motion to submit this item to full council with a favorable recommendation motions been made by the Vice chair there a second second seconded by councelor lzone discussion all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it thank you thank you very much councelor I am going to come I was asked to leave 158 to the end so going going to 15924 the extension of contracts Beyond 3 years for contract number 705 five LHS ass Associates and we have clerk Bernell cler Bernell hi it's Eileen Bernell on the city clerk 257 Mount Vernon Street um just to clarify because it's already been asked this question like three times um LHS Associates is in no way affiliated with Lawrence High School that is just the name of the printing company that we use that vendor prints the ballots and print censuses um they help us maintain our voter lists um they also do like pre paid postage on the envelopes that we mail out um and they also maintain the voting machines and the pole pads so that if we have an issue on Election Day we're not saying someone say oh it's there's a error on the ballot and then someone say oh no it's the machine we don't have two vendors fighting with each other we use one vendor to do both of those things and it is something that we go out to bid for um so right now we have a three-year contract with that vendor um the contract number is at 7055 and the contract amount was for $18,000 $484 in total they still you repeat that yeah of course it's 8,484 that was for a three-year contract we still have a balance on that contract of $64,000 and we have about $40,000 worth of bills with that vendor so everything lines up exactly how you would expect it to except for the contract has expired so we just because it was a three-year contract we cannot extend it normally you can extend your contract for a year we can't extend it cuz we already have three years um so we're ask without Council approval so we're getting Council approval please to extend it so that we can access the money that's in the contract pay those bills we just actually worked with jelv the city purchaser to re put out the new RFP to rebid that and they again with the high bidder or the best bidder the low bidder I guess makes them the best one um we're going to be working with them again for three more years we like that vendor very much um but the contract itself is a solid contract there funds in the contract still the only real issue is it's expired before the new one starts and we have money in it we'd like to use to access um so we can pay some bills when does the new contract start uh the new contract has not set up yet they literally had the bid this morning we anticipate it will be around May 1 so we're asking to extend this contract through May 1 so that um that there'll be no Gap in coverage you know what I mean and then the rebating the available funds of 64,000 39750 will be sustainable for for your office up until March ex we can use it to pay their existing bills till May one y okay okay councelors any questions or comments hearing none I will entertain a motion okay you want to do it okay um I'll entertain a motion uh to submit this to full Council um extending the contract beyond the 3 years um in a favorable recommendation motion has been made by the Vice chair there second second seconded by councelor lzone discussion all those in favor say I I I and the eyes have it thank you so much thank you okay item 16124 the review and approval of the annual application to HUD for a Community Development block Grant which is a C cdbg Grant in the estimated amount of 1 Milli 551624 and for the home grants in the estimated amount of 900 I mean 9 9447 uh 775 and we have our uh Financial Manager suake it's been a long day totally understanding evening counselors Su bank manager of financial administrative services for the Community Development Department and I reside at six Rockwood Lane here in Lawrence so our fiscal year 2025 which starts on July 1st is funded with the federal fiscal year 2024 cdbg and home grants the federal fiscal year is a little bit different than ours it runs from October through September unfortunately due to delays and approving the budget in Congress HUD has not announced the um actual allocations yet that's why we have estimated funding so as um the chair um indicated we're estima to receive 1,551 622 for cdbg which is the same as we received for FY 24 and we're also estimating to receive $944,000 75 for home which is again the same as fy4 so what I'm going to ask at the end of um our um vote is that you approve the budget plus or minus 10% to allow for an adjustment for when the actual allocations come out um hopefully we will have those before um you order the public hearing so the cdbg budget which you have received has allocated $400,000 for Park improvements $300,000 for infrastructure improvements $267,800 as a match to AAS to house forly homeless individuals here in Lawrence $263,400 The Gateway section 108 loan and I'm happy to say that the final payment is going to be due in August of 2025 so we're almost at the end of of that loan and we also have $31,385 for administrative costs um there is a statutory cap of 20% of the cdbd grant that can be spent on administrative costs and that's the max C that is the maximum we can spend yes now the home budget which you received has $141,600 a Cho and again this is a statutory requirement to set aside 15% of our home grant for for a chto so they can use it to construct um affordable housing units we've set aside $723,000 for administrative costs the statutory cap on the home grant for administrative costs is 10% so the home regulations all Al require us to take any program income that we have received during the current fiscal year so any loans that have been paid off and budget that for the following fiscal year so um estimating we'll receive about $115,000 in program income this year so as I suggested I'm requesting that you approve the budget plus or minus 10% authorize the expenditure of these Grant funds and send this to the full Council to order a public hearing to be held on May 7 and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have councelor marmu through you madam chair um I'm intrigued um if you if you don't mind or if you have the the ability to provide um additional details regarding um the projects so like uh the park improvements do you guys already have uh set in place and to what parks would be um would be benefiting from uh the allocation of sure the 400,000 in addition to like the infrastructure improvements what infrastructures um are we speaking of um do you mind touching based on like the homeless housing assistance match what does that mean um and the homeowner rehab you know kind of like if if you don't mind don't mind all so on on the P projects we are um planning to do some improvements to Oxford Park which is on Canal Street when you come in off of um Mar Street um it's been neglected for for many years so we're hoping to do some improvements up there to really activate that that Park another potential project is the um Bennington triangle which is at the intersection of Bennington and Saratoga and lawren Street um the mayor has um asked us to consider applying to the state for a park Grant to work on that and that requires um um some City funds to go along with that so we like to have a little bit of a reserve just in casee we are lucky enough to be awarded for that that project um as far as infrastructure we don't have anything um specifically set in in mind for that but we just want to have a a part of funds available for that um homeowner Rehabilitation oh sure in regards to the infrastructure improvements is this specifically for businesses in downtown like is like is it specifically targeting certain infrastructures so INF structure could be an it could be additional Park work it could be sidewalks it could be um additional Street work anything like that the physical infrastructure of the city okay um homeowner Rehabilitation is available for um any homeowner who makes 80% or less of the area meeting income guidelines set by Hud um we can go in and correct any um code violations we generally do that in conjunction with our Le abatement Grant so we would take care of any lead paints that might be present in the house um we can assist any project that has one to four units using this These funds um the homeless assistance money to AAS so amas receives um several hundred, of um Continuum of Care funding um through the state um from the federal government and they are required to have matching funds and because they are serving dedicated to serving Lawrence residents we do provide a a minimum of amount of match to them for of $10,000 um not really all that much in the grand scheme of our budget um and the Gateway section 108 loan payment um back I believe it's in 200 four or five the city borrowed $2.9 million from the federal government to construct the parking lot at um the Gateway up on Canal Street it was a formerly contaminated site um which we know have a a surface parking lot and um the terms of that is if the agency that we have lent this money to does not make the payments we are guaranteeing that money with our cdbg grant and we have been paying that consistently we make two payments a year and as I said our final payment will be made in August of 2025 Madam chair any further questions or comments okay at this point I will entertain a motion I make a motion to submit this item uh to full council with a favorable recommendation plus with a plus or minus to say that yeah order public hearing if I may into order public hearing into order public hear May 7 for me S yeah that's what she said let me see if I could reward this uh I I make a motion to submit this item um with a favorable recommendation um with the plus or minus of 10% uh for a public hearing on May 7th did I state that correctly am I missing something was there a second second second motion made by the Vice chair marmel second by counselor lzone discussion hearing none all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it thank you thank you counselors did I miss no no it's good fine it's fine it's fine all right me meeting no she added she added order a okay the next item is item 16224 the transfer of funds in the amount of okay Miss commissioner hail you have a really large give me a second here in the amount of 1,874 639 with 49 from the ret retained earnings to Debt Service and glsd accounts commissioner William hair from the Water and Sewer Department good evening counselors from William hail water and sord commissioner seven Agnes teris and methu MH um so tonight I'm asking for approval of the transfer of the 1.8 million as you can see and I have a hand out for you to clarify what it's exactly for so here we have out of that to transfer 467,000 $467,900 for a municipal bond that that is closing in June of 2023 yes so but we still need to pay yep so last year um we had the money in the budget but due to the timing of the loan closing it closed um Midway through June so the money essentially got rolled over into retained earnings because we didn't use it in time so basically I'm asking to take that money back out of retained earnings because the payment's going to be due on June 1st of this year mhm um so the payment amount was 563,000 okay and then the majority of this can you what is GL LSD and I should know this um so it's greater Lawrence Sanitary District um so what happened last year was as you may know so for many years we were borrowing from our retained earnings to balance our budget um so we weren't doing that this year so um with the rate increases the the way they were going to hit because it was every 6 months we underfunded it um by roughly a million dollar um what we would normally pay with anticipation as once we get the retained earnings certified um then we would come to the council as we are now to reappropriate the money to that account um so we have the money in retained earnings right now we have 3.1 million in retained earnings um so we will be taking the appropriation of the 1.87 4 million um that will leave us with 1.25 3 million in the account okay councilors any questions or comments seeing none at this point I will entertain a motion see the legal they commit report favorable okay I make a motion to submit this item to full council with a favorable recommendation Mo has been made by the Vice chair is there a second second seconded by councelor lzone discussion seeing none all those in favor say I and the eyes have it thank you so much coun I just have a quick um side note so next week I don't know if this you're going to go to Council on when on Tuesday of next week so I'm going to be on vacation but I do have um the water and S supervisor he's the next in charge that he can go through all this but if needed it can be pushed out um that's up to you but I think he can handle it so as long as yeah if you have a representative there I think we should be fine okay all right appreciate so much thank you okay um can you get uh Maria can you get Bill for me please one of the items uh I need him for yep the next one is item of from new business the last new business is item 15824 appropriation transfer in the amount of 29,285 from main Revenue fund $35.90 to the airport repair and maintenance account um and this was brought to us by the airport manager but he is currently stuck in a commission meeting and we do have the an airport board member here that can talk about this thank you madam chair members of the board Bill Collins one plat Court member of the Lawrence airport commission like you said the manager would have been here he's at a conservation meeting in North and for airport business so as a member of the commission uh discussing item 158 $ 29,285 that'll be coming from our retained Revenue fund and that has to do with a fence that was taken down by a drunk driver on the street where the Mexican restaurant is with great Palm Road with the lighters at deaded street so we took out a large portion of our airport fence it's critical we keep that Fen off we've been renting a fence by by the month hopefully when this is approved and transferred we'll put the permanent fence in and it'll save us from renting that fence and apparently he was underinsured so having trouble collecting from his insurance policy uh there is another item that's part of that 29,000 some cameras we bought during the covid era there was as you know a lot of supply chain problems so some of the parts of the camera never came in when they did come they did seem to work right so we have a problem with some of our large uh overall airport cameras and we're going to have to the warranty is expired so we have to go and fix it that's going to be part of this about this far okay councilors any questions or comments seeing none I will entertain a motion I submit this item uh 15824 uh in the form of a motion uh with a favorable recommendation to submit to full Council the appropriation transfer of $29,995 from retain Revenue fund 3592 airport repair and maintenance account number 264 610524 motion has been made by the Vice chair is there a second second seconded by councelor lzone discussion seeing none all those in favor say I I the I is have it thank you so much thank you Council as the manager will be here too Tuesday if if if you like to talk to him thank you yes thank you at this point could I have a motion to untable item 7624 the resolution amending and resending the reimbursement requirement for the creating a thriving lawen grants award e so move motion has been OB by Council M there a second second second by councelor lazone all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it advisor spanner and oh yes that's right that's right acting director Matos counselor so one of the questions that we did have um was pertaining to the conflict of interests and I don't know if this was included but I did ask for it to be included in our packet I'm not seeing it here but we all received an email from the senior advisor spanner with uh with records of of his documentation submission to the city clerk and she did verify to us via email that she received it and you know legit and that he is okay in the eyes of the Massachusetts ethics commission uh so yeah so we we did receive that and that was all cleared and it was sent to all the counselors so thank you so much for for that information uh so so we're seeking that this uh uh be as the uh request is that we get this favorably recommended up to the full Council so that we can assist the uh businesses and the uh folks that are looking for rental assistance as well okay um so we have an issue we we have provided the documentation Also regarding the uh the organizations that um were looking or having issues with regards to reimbursement model that was originally proposed and that's why the uh ordinance is be the request is before you today okay uh that's not why I'm sighing though I'm sighing because we will lose Quorum um so what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull this out of committee at the full Council level as old business and we will take this matter up uh at the full Council next Tuesday thank you you're welcome can I have a motion to retable item 7624 you can you can vote to retable yes yep it's only discussion and motion to retable motion has been made by councelor there second seconded by councelor marmel all those in favor say I I and the eyes have it thank you you're welcome at this point coun is there would youl Madame chair you explain to members ofed what just happened oh okay yes so what happened happened was uh I was just asked to explain to members of the Hispanic F Federation coun lzone cannot make cannot vote on this item so she has to excuse herself so because there's only three of us tonight we will lose Quorum we will we will lose the voting power so what we can do is that as the chair I can bring this item without that vote to the full Council um and I believe we we we need a six member vote in order to take it out of committee to discuss at the full Council and then we'll have the enough votes to make a final vote and either approve or deny whichever comes but uh this will be formally officially discussed next Tuesday at the full council meeting with a vote at the end we can't even ask questions now we can't no no all right at this point I will entertain a motion to adjourn some more motion has been made by Council Marvel properly second all those in favor say I and the eyes have it thank you so much