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Finance Committee — June 24, 2026
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They all happen.
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They all ring.
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But it was, um, Ido called it.
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Ido's jumping cabal.
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Class, you ready?
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All right, let me know when you're ready.
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Good evening, everyone.
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It is 6:31 on Wednesday, June 24th.
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Calls Committee on Finance to order.
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Note, this meeting is being live streamed and recorded.
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The City Council committee meetings can be viewed on the City of New Bedford's homepage under Quick Links, then Meetings.
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In attendance, we have Councilor of Ward 2 Scott Pemberton, Councilor of Ward 1 Leo Choquette, um, Council President and Ward 6 City Councilor Ryan Pereira, Councilor-at-Large James Roy, Councilor of Ward 3 Sean Oliver, and myself, Joseph Lopes, Chairman of Finance and the Ward 5 City Councilor.
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We do have one letter to be read into the record.
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This letter is from Councilor Baptiste.
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I am writing to inform you that I've been unable to attend tonight's committee meeting due to a family commitment.
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Please read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and the public aware of the reason for my absence.
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Made by Council Oliver.
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Second by Council Pemberton.
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All those in favor?
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Opposed?
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The ayes have it.
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We have one item in front of us.
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Communication.
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Community Preservation Committee submitting the CPA annual budget for fiscal year 2027 for committee administration expenses and community preservation projects in fiscal year '27.
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This item was referred to the Committee on Finance on June 11th, 2026.
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Motion to receive in place on file.
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Made by Council Roy.
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Second by Council Oliver.
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All those in favor?
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Opposed, the ayes have it.
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Before we call over— call up either Jan or Jess, um, First Vice President, Councilor-at-Large Shane Burgo is also in attendance.
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The podium is yours.
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If one of you would— Jan, would you like to give an overview of the— uh, good evening.
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So we are here again to talk about the budget for the Community Preservation Committee.
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I think you've all received it.
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So we're presenting a budget of $1,999,887, and it's based on surcharge revenue of $1,743,165, a match of a proposed match.
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We don't know what it will be exactly, but $256,722.
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And we also have all the expenses.
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I can read those.
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Program administration, which is 5%, $99,995.
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Open space and recreation reserve, $199,989.
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Historic resources reserve, $199,989.
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Community Housing Reserve, $199,989, and budgeted reserve of $1,299,925.
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So I guess if you have any questions— we do have one, we do have one, Councilor.
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Councilor Pereira, on your first.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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So my, my question, I think I've asked this a bunch of times, and it's— I, I know it's just more for a point than anything else is, What's the trajectory of the state matches?
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Are we getting more money?
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Has it been fairly stagnant?
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It's— it depends.
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Yeah, it's based on the transfer taxes that happen within the state.
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So as real— if real estate sells less, there's less real estate sold, we'll get less of a match.
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I see.
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Okay, this year is about 15%, but it's been higher than that.
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It's also been lower than that.
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So the year that it was higher, they actually made it up with some of the free cash at the end of the year, so it jumped the percentage up.
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But typically we've been running, I think, 15 to 18%.
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We've been a low of 11 and then a high, I think it was 20— I think the high was 23.
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Okay.
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Yeah, it's just— it's too bad there isn't another way to try and infuse some more funds into this because, you know, the contributions the taxpayers of this city have made towards community preservation is is amazing for the preservation projects that we work on.
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And I can only imagine if we had a little bit more support from our state partners, how much more we could do with those funds.
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And funds that directly go into this community, right?
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Like, there's very little in between from appropriation when we see you guys, and it goes directly into the city.
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With that being said, the spread across the board in with our neighboring communities that have, that have, um, the Community Preservation Act enacted in their communities, is it divvied amongst all the towns equally?
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Is it based— is it a percentage of what we bring in?
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How is it— how do we know which— how much we're going to get from the state?
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Like, I know it's a pot that we get divided up, but how does it get divided up?
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I think it's just— yeah, but I mean, I would imagine it's mostly just percentage.
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Right now there are 201 communities that get Community Preservation Commission money, and every year more communities come on board.
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So it's going to change every year.
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There's 351 communities in the state of Massachusetts right now.
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That's like 200 out of the 351.
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Yeah.
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So to expand upon that, so some communities are at 1%, one are 1.5% like we are, some are upwards of 3%.
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So that changes the calculation because the higher calculations get a second allotment.
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To answer your question on the how they determine the state match is based on the previous year's fiscal year's local revenue.
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So whatever we've received or calculated and received on the surcharge, that 15.5% that we're receiving for fiscal year '26, they take last year's revenue times 15 point— I think it's 15.5, sorry.
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And then that's where you come up with the $256,722.
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So it— and it depends on each community, like I said, depending on what their surcharge percentage is.
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Okay.
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Yeah, that's something to monitor, especially to your point, if more communities continue to join and, and need to, to come out of this fund, we're not going to have the money will get smaller because the percentage of a pot that's not growing, you know, will equate less dollars.
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So I guess I would say that it took 14 years for us to do this.
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Yeah.
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And that before the 14 years, we got nothing.
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Right.
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Because we didn't have it on our books and therefore we weren't getting a match.
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So even if we're not getting much of a match from the state, I look at the benefit to the overall— to our community.
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Oh, I don't— just for us to be able to have the money to use because We were getting zero before.
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Yeah.
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And to add to that, the Community Preservation Coalition, which is made up of various organizations that were the proactive leaders of passing the legislation back in 2000, they try to work every year with the state legislature to get access-free cash and put an infusion in and also to increase the, the match.
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They're always trying to look for creative ways in which to increase the state match because as Jan said, we now have 201 communities, one of which was Boston.
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When Boston joined and received CPA match, that skewed the formula.
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But even some of the small communities like a Cambridge or a Wellesley, you know, their income tax— you know, their property taxes they collect is that much higher.
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You do the percentage.
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So the Community Preservation Coalition has done a really good job of advocating for CPA to make sure that it remain solvent and to provide communities with, like us, with lobbying efforts that we don't, you know, have to do, and also with technical assistance.
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Yeah, okay, very good.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Thank you, Councilmember.
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Next we have Councilor Carney has joined us, Councilor At Large Councilor Carney.
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Councilor Oliver, the podium, the questions are yours.
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Thank you.
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Thank you, ladies, for being here today.
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My question is simple.
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What have we done?
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What are we doing?
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And what are we going to continue to do to attract new projects or new people to take part in?
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Well, we just offered— our last meeting, we went over the Community Preservation Committee plan.
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So the public was invited to that to learn, to even talk to us about what projects they have in mind.
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So none of the— we don't come up with the projects.
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It has to come from the community.
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In September, we have a workshop where people are invited to come talk about their projects.
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Jessica does a great job of talking to each group individually to help them figure out how to flesh out an application.
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It is a 2-step application process.
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There's an eligibility process because we have to figure out, is the project eligible?
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And then there's a longer-term application.
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Application that's due in November.
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So we're not going around looking for projects.
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That's on citizens of New Bedford.
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Yeah, and I understand that.
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But aside from the workshop, are we doing anything else to promote that?
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People can contact— so a greater— people can contact— so it's still incumbent upon people to know that this exists then?
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I would say yes, but there's been a lot of information put into the community about it for the last 10 years.
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We've had 166 projects since 2016 where we've awarded $16,921,854.
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And there were a lot of leveraging.
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So people come in, say they come in for $100,000, but their project is $250,000.
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They have to get that $150,000 from someplace else.
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So the leverage has been $12,917,000.
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$917,570.
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So it's a total of over $28 million.
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I— my only concern is, and I, and I get that, and I know that the, the— it's incumbent upon the people who are seeking these funds to know about it.
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And I know that there's no, you know, there's no money allocated to help promote it.
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I just was interested in what the city is doing aside from just posting it on a website or something like that?
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Because it's great that we're doing 166 different projects, but in the last couple of years, as this councilor has seen, a lot of the same entities continue to come back because they know the well is there.
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No, but they also have large projects.
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But this is where we ask for help from the city council.
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I mean, you have the pulse of your constituents.
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You go and have neighborhood meetings with them.
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You have the opportunity to talk about community preservation to your constituents.
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Constituents directly and then direct them to the meeting in September.
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Yeah, I was going to add that several city councilors that I follow on Facebook have reposted when the press release goes out.
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And I understand your point, Councilor, that, you know, it is incumbent on the community to understand.
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I think at this point the community has somewhat of an awareness, especially those that are in the nonprofit sector.
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I'm hearing from various nonprofit entities.
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I have, and I'll do this again because there's several new faces here in the chamber, I've offered to go to any neighborhood meeting that you may have to speak to people just to say, hey, this is what CPA is, this is how you could be eligible.
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I'm very, very happy to do that.
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It's not something that we have the resources to do, right, on, you know, individually.
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But, you know, I'm happy to to provide that service and, you know, to reach out to your constituents.
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It's because it may not be the person in the chair, but they may know somebody who's running a nonprofit that's living— working in a historic building that needs those resources to, you know, preserve and rehabilitate their building.
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And to add to Jan's point about the projects, we aren't receiving a lot of money.
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I mean, it's a lot of money because it's, you know, $1.8 million this year.
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It is a lot of money.
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However, it's not the same as a Boston or a Wellesley or Cambridge.
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So, and the capacity of a lot of the projects that are coming before us, they don't have the capacity to take a large sum of money and execute it in a year or 2.
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So what you're seeing, because you're seeing a lot of the same entities come back to the well, as you put it, are because either they're doing it in phases, which we've advised them to, because they just don't have the capacity within an organization because they're volunteer organ— based organizations, or we don't want to tie up funds because they're so limited and we always have 2 to 3 dozen applications.
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The CPC parses it out in phased funding and says, do this phase, come back next year, get a little bit more, get a little bit more, and it keeps their projects going and they can also look for other funding sources.
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So it's, it's 2 reasons why you see these projects is one, because they don't have their capacity in internally, but also because the CPC isn't going to say, here's $1 million, that's all we have, folks, is going to this project, and it's going to take them 6 years to spend it.
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So what they've done is try to make sure that they are moving as many projects forward as possible and continuing to support them so that they can move forward and they can build capacity and to make their projects more attractive and to attract leveraged funding, because if they If other funders see that the city is putting in and they view CPA money as city money, then they're more likely to support these projects because they see, oh, well, the city is supporting it.
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Let's put some money in.
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In fact, the housing projects now, if they go to the state for housing funding, one of the questions on the application is, have you applied for CPA funding and have you received it?
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So that's why you'll see some housing projects that come in where you may think it's a little early in their process, But it's to prove to the state that they are seeing city support for their project so that they can be successful at the state application level.
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No, and I understand that, and I totally get the coming back.
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It's just, you know, speaking with some folks, it's, you know, they get discouraged because they say, oh, I don't think— and it's on them, and it's that they should always just apply and see if you can get it.
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When they start seeing the same folks coming for more money and seeing that it's a phased project.
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And it's not— this isn't really an indictment on— I think you guys do great work.
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You definitely, you know, go above and beyond what you have to do.
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And most of my line of questioning is just for the general public purpose that may be watching tonight or will see this at a later time where, hey, okay, I have to know that I have to go and seek out these funds.
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Because we— the fact is we don't have the resources to, you know, take out a billboard or something and say, you know, right.
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So I completely understand that.
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And this is just another way to kind of get that information out there.
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No, I appreciate that.
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Yeah.
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I was just going to say that actually in the time that we've been funding, we've been able to put I don't know how many playgrounds in this past year.
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We— a school came in for a playground and it was the last school in the city that did not have one.
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So that was a new application that came before us.
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We've had new applicants every year, just like we've had people come back and come, you know, seemingly come back regularly for it.
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But also their projects are large, like they might be a $10 million project.
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We, we would never tie up $1 million for a project.
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And I understand that.
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And like I said, the school is a good example, but yet another entity that knows that this tranche of money exists.
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So that, that's all, is just trying to make the general public aware that it's that time of year again type of thing and take part in the workshops that you guys— Well, I would say if anybody's listening that they— and they want to come forward, they need to check a few things before they do, which is they need to look at the application and see what they want to apply for, whether it's open space or recreation, whether it's historic resources.
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They need to make sure that the resource is listed on the State Register of Historic Places, so they would have to go to the Historical Commission.
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If it's community housing, usually that's developers.
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And like Jessica said, we're usually the first stop for people who are doing that.
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And where would they get that information?
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Our website?
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They could get on the Community Preservation Commission website.
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Okay.
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Or they can call Jessica and ask her.
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Okay.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you, Mr.
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Chair.
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Thank you, Council Oliver.
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Anyone also on their first?
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Seeing anyone on their second?
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Seeing no further discussion, made by Council, um, Forever, seconded by Council Oliver.
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All those in favor?
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Aye.
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Opposed?
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The ayes have it.
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Made by Council Oliver, second by Council Pereira.
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All those in favor?
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Aye.
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Opposed?
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We are adjourned at 6:47 PM.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
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