Quasi Committee of the Whole - Budget Hearings — June 3, 2026

Ready now?

Good.

Hey, Ian.

Ricky, good evening.

Um, I want to note that this meeting is being live streamed and recorded.

City Council and committee meetings can be viewed on the City of New Bedford's homepage under Quick Links, then Meetings.

It is Wednesday, June 3rd, 2026, and it is 6:00 PM.

This is our 3rd, I think, or 4th budget hearing.

4th.

Thank you, Bob.

4th budget hearing.

I have a letter.

Dear Vice President Burgo— that's me— and honorable members of the City Council, I'm writing to inform you that I expect to be late for tonight's budget hearing on Wednesday, June 3rd, due to a personal commitment.

Please read this letter into the record to make my colleagues and the public aware of the reason for my delay.

This is from our Council President Ryan Parra, hence why I'm sitting here.

Um, first on the docket tonight is our purchasing department.

Director Gilfeather Rodriguez.

Good evening.

Can you hear me?

No.

Yes.

No.

Now you can.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Good evening.

So this is— sorry, on pages 123 to 127.

Yep, the purchasing budget.

We have no significant changes to our budget this year.

No personnel increases.

We are a team of 5 in my department.

4 of us are paid out of the general fund, and we have 1 ARPA-funded position.

The only new expense that we're asking to fund is $3,200 out of our 200 account for BidNet, which is our online bidding platform.

So all of the bid opportunities are posted there, vendors submit their bids through that, and that has eliminated the need for any paper bids.

It has really helped digitize our department and streamline operations.

We have slightly reduced our 400 account supplies expenses and our employee training line in the 200 account to accommodate for the new BidNet expense.

So hopefully that's noticed.

And we do have employee trainings in our 200 account, and I want to point out that those are mandated by the state to ensure that we are Massachusetts certified in procurement, and that allows us also to stay up to date in any advancements in procurement law.

So that funding is very important to our department as well.

And I just wanted to demonstrate, you have our performance metrics in the book, of course, but something that's not captured there is the delta between— for FY26— between the lowest bid received on construction projects and the second lowest bid.

And the savings there this year alone is roughly $4 million.

And the delta between the lowest bid and the highest bid is roughly $5 million.

So that really helps demonstrate the importance of the public bidding process and some of the savings that we obtained through the public bidding process.

I'd be happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

The chair recognizes Councilor Habrew.

Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President.

Uh, good evening, Molly.

Good to see you.

Um, on page 125, I noticed, um, we talked about, uh, let's see here, um, one of your objectives— I'm sorry, not 125, actually be 124.

Um, one of your objectives is to increase the average number of bids received per solicitation So can you expand a little bit more on that?

Like, what is the current average, or— and what target has been established in your department and your eyes for FY27?

Yep.

So the average that we've been receiving in the last year is 3 bids per solicitation, and we would always like to increase that by 1 to at least 4.

And it does look like it's trending up.

Again, the use of BidNet, having the bids available to the public, and we're also posting it in about 5 other places statewide and locally, like in the paper and on the city's website.

We have seen an increase.

We used to average 2 bids a few years ago, so it's definitely increasing and we plan to continue that.

So 2 is your average, you said?

Because I was going to— 2 was a few years ago.

It's now 3.

Okay.

Because I was going to ask you how many solicitations— I guess it's a good follow-up— how many solicitations currently receive only 1 bid and what is the department going to do to maybe increase competition based off of that?

But you kind of explained that already a little bit.

Sure.

Yeah.

So there are definitely solicitations that still obtain one bid no matter how much outreach we do.

We have, for instance, on some of the larger recent solicitations such as for solid waste, which I know is of great importance to the city and to everyone looking at the budget, we did direct vendor outreach to dozens of waste solid waste contractors.

Email blasts, some even receive phone calls like, are you interested in this bid?

We hope you are.

What could we do to make you more interested in the bid?

We work with vendors to extend bid due dates if they're finding out about a bid opportunity late in the game.

We'll absolutely work with them if that works also with the department and their funding deadlines.

So again, solicitations appear in the Standard Times, on the state's goods and services bulletin website, on the state's central register website, on BidNet, on our city website, and then targeted emails and phone calls as well.

But we're always happy to take on other suggestions.

Okay.

For outreach.

Okay.

Those would be my next question, which you've clarified that.

Last question for me, and then I'll yield the floor.

I know this This book, which you're in here, it references receiving more bids from, I believe you said, disenfranchised business entities.

Yes.

How is your department defining and measuring success in that area?

Sure.

So we calculate how many DBE and disenfranchised business enterprises and women-owned business enterprises are being notified of bid solicitations through COMMBUYS, the state's website for vendors and bid opportunities, which we're mandated to post on.

But in addition to— all vendors on COMMBUYS are categorized by the trade or field of business that they're in.

And then beyond that, if you are an MBE, DBE, what have you, you can also put that designation onto your business.

So we do an outreach to all vendors in a field And then we also do a second outreach to all DBE and MBEs in that same field.

And we calculate the delta so we know how many we're reaching out to.

And then how— we also calculate how many are responding.

It is a low number.

We don't get many responses from DBEs and MBEs.

And again, because of state regulations, we cannot award to DBEs and MBEs.

It's strictly based on price.

Understood.

But we do have goals.

Good.

Yeah, it's good to hear.

Thank you, Molly.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

I'll yield.

Chair recognizes Councilor Lopes.

Thank you, Council Vice President.

So simple question, where did you see that $3,200?

In what line item?

Oh, it's in our 200 account.

Yep.

Under repairs and maintenance, or— yes.

So how is it a repair or maintenance?

It's It's a maintenance of the software program.

Okay.

Um, and also I just want to point out in that line is also our annual DocuSign subscription, and that's $10,500.

And we've had that for 6 years now since COVID And again, that has really helped digitize and improve our operations.

And DocuSign, you said, was $10,500?

Correct.

That price has not increased for, I think, last 4 years.

So, okay, now was that DocuSign for the entire city to use or just your department?

Anyone can use it.

Yeah.

All right.

We do manage— we are the administrator.

You manage the license for it?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council.

Anyone else for our purchasing director?

I do want to add to that, in December, I believe, I did a presentation for the audit committee on our website, and I'm not sure if it's widely known that all procurement opportunities are posted on the city's website under the purchasing page.

And we also have a second page dedicated to the bid results, so which vendors submitted bids, how much they submit their bids for.

And then we have a third page under the purchasing department for the awarded contracts.

So once we do decide to move forward with a specific vendor we put that publicly available on the website.

So I would say the vast majority of the work that the purchasing department does is publicly available already on the website, which is great for transparency.

The public knows what the bids are.

They know who we're contracting with.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Seeing that— oh, Okay, question for CFO Ekstrom.

And your microphone, Councilor Lopes.

So Bob, I'm going to ask you the same question.

That $3,200 is under repairs and maintenance, but when I go to MIS, they have contractual services.

Wouldn't that $3,200 and the $10,500 for DocuSign be a contractual service?

It could be, or it could be— it means a lot of items can go under different object codes.

And I get that, really wouldn't make much difference which object code is under because it's all a 52 account and you're only giving us a budget approval at the 52 level.

And I get that, but when I see repairs and maintenance, that makes me think that we're fixing something or repairing something versus a contractual service, which we use that line item in MIS, contractual services, and we use it in other parts of the budget book.

I guess I'm looking for more continuity across everything because if I saw it as contractual services, I probably wouldn't ask the question because she said it was $3,200.

Simple math, $10,500 plus $3,200 gets to where she is.

But it's repairs and maintenance where MIS has contractual services.

I'm just looking for more continuity as the budget reads.

You know, I think for all of us it works better when there's the same code used for the same service across all the different departments.

Yes.

Now the MIS is— that's MIS page 96, 200 account, contractual services.

No, is it forbidden?

No, I'm just saying they haven't listed items under contractual services.

Yeah, so I think continuity— like I said, it can go— so you have a maintenance contract here, so it's maintenance under repair and maintenance, or it can be contractual.

We, we would try to achieve consistency.

But, uh, it's really, you know, every, every contract has something different to it.

So, but a maintenance— and I'm not gonna keep dancing that— but a maintenance contract to me looks like something we're repairing or maintaining, i.e., if we have somebody coming in to fix the IT servers, that to me would be a maintenance because they're going to maintain what we already have versus a contractual service, which is what the $13,700 is.

Those are all contractual services.

Just my, my 2 cents.

Thank you.

Noted.

Thank you, Council President.

Anyone else for either CFO Ekstrom or Director Gilfeather Rodriguez?

Oh, one more.

Sure.

I have something I just thought of.

Um, also, you may have heard in the mayor's State of the City that he mentioned the capital improvements map that's going to be managed by purchasing.

That was something that I had thought of over a decade ago when I was working at DPI.

We would get phone calls, emails all the time.

What projects are going on in the city?

Where are they going on?

How does it affect me?

We're finalizing that map right now with IT, and then we will be managing that.

So there will be a ward map layer within that so people can search which projects are going on by which ward, the start and stop date, the estimated cost.

Once the project is completed, we'll update the actual cost, the funding source.

Was it grant funded?

Was it, you know, from a capital plan that you approved?

So I think that will be a great addition as well for transparency.

Thank you.

We're doing a lot of work with short staff.

I want to make that clear.

Last call.

Seeing none, we're moving on to Resilience Environmental Stewardship with Director Michelle Paul.

That is pages 129 to 133 in our budget books.

Hello, Director Paul.

Hello.

Good evening, Council and Vice President.

Um, I just have— I have to apologize if I use any acronyms.

I tend to nerd out and forget that I'm using acronyms, but I do have a fairly comprehensive list of the things that we've been working on this year and continue to work on.

The work of resilience and environmental stewardship is very diverse, and we support many other departments.

For example, Chance Perks, our conservation agent, And Teresa Alves, our administrative coordinator, worked with the assessor's office to review each of the historic wetlands abatements for veracity and consistency, nullifying some inaccuracies.

We've also been working with DPI and Buzzards Bay Coalition to rehabilitate water infrastructure— stormwater infrastructure at Buttonwood Zoo and to identify modifications to improve water quality in Buttonwood Brook through grant funding.

We will work with Buzzards Bay Coalition in FY27 to implement these modifications and best management practices through additional grant funding.

CHANCE also works with the Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Agency to document coastal erosion and storm impacts.

We recently received $70,000 from CZM to identify erosion mitigation at Tabor Beach and to prevent the undermining of the Fort Tabor entrance and walkway.

Conservation Commission has also funded a part-time field technician who has been working with CHANCE to monitor key locations and habitats, providing CHANCE more capacity to work with constituents and applicants to streamline permitting and provide in-field guidance and transparency.

CHANCE has also been engaging in training on the community rating system for the National Flood Insurance Program, organizing documentation for us to evaluate the costs versus the benefits of enrolling in the program.

Our energy manager, Tyler Reese, who's here with me tonight, and energy office manager Marilyn Maxwell, Maxwell complete all state-required building energy reporting and manage municipal building energy efficiency.

This includes utility bill management and trend tracking for forecasting for these budgets and to identify anomalies and troubleshoot potential issues.

Tyler and Marilyn oversee our solar renewable assets and are working on opportunities to implement community solar and geothermal pilot programs in various neighborhoods throughout the city.

They're working with the school department on efficiency and demand response.

The new Devalis Elementary School, it will be completely heated and cooled using geothermal energy, and the energy office is working to add battery backup storage to provide a potential shelter location and to mitigate peak demand.

The office has applied for and has received several grants to add electric vehicle charging and is currently planning for Level 2 charging installations at Buttonwood Zoo, Pope's Island, and Hazelwood and Riverside Parks.

In 2020, the residential energy coordinator position was, was eliminated from the operating budget.

The energy office applied for and was awarded funding through the MassSave Community First Partnership program for a full-time energy advocate for 3 years.

Since hiring Kate Klein 5 months ago, she has signed— she has signed up 24 income-eligible homes and 38 multifamily structures owned by 2 different landlords in the city for energy assessments.

The entire energy office team has undergone extensive training to best guide New Bedford residents at every income level to maximize their energy efficiency and affordability.

We are working with Citizens Energy to sign low-income residents up for Citizens Resiliency and Affordability Program to save $600 per household annually without having to make any physical modifications to the home.

The Community Electricity Aggregation Program has provided $26.6 million in savings to date, which is about $1,200 per household.

The Department of Resilience and Environmental Stewardship has completed 25% design and received MEPA certification for the Riverwalk project with technical assistance from the Massachusetts Gateway Cities Parks Program.

We're preparing remaining permitting and planning for initial groundbreaking in late '27, early '28.

On the brownfields front, our environmental project manager Courtney Cohen and I are working to assess and clean up properties that have been abandoned and off the tax rolls for decades.

This grant-funded work will facilitate redevelopment and create benefits to the surrounding communities.

We've worked directly with residents in the Morse Cutting Tool neighborhood in Ward 4 to complete indoor air, soil gas, soil, and groundwater assessment and conducted robust public outreach at and around the site to support redevelopment.

We are working with Mass Development and Ketchum Traps to redevelop the former Poly-Ply site in Ward 1 as new company headquarters.

We issued an RFP for the Elko Dress brownfield site in Ward 3.

Which is now planned for the expanded headquarters for True Bones.

There is currently an RFP out for the adjacent Payne Cutlery brownfield site, which aims to eliminate the city's future environmental liability and will promote economic development.

We've secured a $1 million Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund grant to continue to support brownfield redevelopment.

The RLF provides low-interest loans for gap financing for costs associated with with cleanup and mitigation.

The repayments are not returned to EPA and can be reused by the city for assessment and cleanup.

We have also— we also have a large EPA Brownfield assessment grant application pending.

We spend a great deal of time on EPA Superfund coordination and management.

In New Bedford Harbor, we have monthly coordination calls with EPA, particularly around Riverwalk and the Sawyer Street facility turnover conditions.

We and DPI have monthly calls with EPA on Sullivan's Ledge.

DPI handles the monitoring, maintenance, and monthly reporting for the treatment system, but we are involved in the record of decision modification discussions that Solicitor Jakes mentioned the other night.

As part of EPA's 5-year review, we are responsible for inspection, reporting, and sample analysis of sediment and surface water at what they call Operating Unit 2, that portion of the site which is on the golf course.

And thirdly, although now it's behind us and with a very positive outcome, the settlement of Bliss Corner was also very time-consuming in 2026.

We manage and maintain a grant, grant-funded network of 20 air quality monitors throughout the city with publicly accessible data on an interactive web-based map.

We are working with local researchers to identify trends and develop educational materials about the city's air quality and pollution sources to share with community-based organizations and school groups.

We have and continue to work with the School Department on several projects: Central Kitchen in Ward 5, the new Duvalis School, which is on the former Goodyear site, a former brownfield site in Ward 6, the high school health center, the electric bus depot at the high school, and an upcoming heating oil tank closure at Hathaway School.

With emergency management and DPI, we recently completed the hazard mitigation plan update through a MEMA grant, which we successfully applied for and managed.

In FY26, we managed over $1 million in state and federal grant funds and applied for and were awarded $1.3 million.

So the operational costs presented here represent necessary operational activities that cannot be covered by these grants.

This includes 2 enhancement requests.

I call them enhancement requests because, because that's the form that they went into the budget in, but I think as you'll see, they are required.

One is for Sullivan's Ledge.

As I mentioned, the 5-year review is up, and so this item for $2,510 includes the laboratory and analysis required to to complete that.

Because we have in-house training and expertise in Chance and Courtney, we are able to self-perform this work that would easily cost $50,000 or more if we had to use outside contractors.

The other request is for monitoring, maintenance, and analysis required by MassDEP pursuant to the Shawmut Avenue Landfill Post-Closure Monitoring and Maintenance Plan, which was approved by MassDEP in April 2007.

When I started in 2012, the annual cost for this work was $30,000.

Through scope management and competitive procurement, this annual cost has been cut by more than half at $13,000 annually.

There is also a request attached for this for $6,700 to repair a damaged landfill gas well.

And I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Anyone for Director Michelle Paul?

Going once, going twice.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Oh, and can I just add, and I did say this last year and it still stands, if anybody has any questions after tonight, please email, call, I will meet with you.

At your office after hours, during hours.

Any— if there's any question about any item on this budget, please reach out to us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have City Utilities on page 165.

Is that Tyler Reese presenting on that for City Utilities?

Good evening, everyone.

So we oversee roughly 475 electric and gas accounts for the city.

We watch them and analyze them annually, and we also oversee the solar and wind.

I'm sorry, can you hear me?

My apologies.

I know there were some questions the last meeting regarding library.

Chair recognizes Councilor Cherkat.

Thank you, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, just again, questions about how their utility bill went from— I think it was like somewhere in the $20,000s up to $130,000.

Now, I, I know that, you know, Eversource is tough, but even they're not that tough.

Yeah, you're entirely right.

Um, so I tracked the usage for libraries to be pretty much consistent.

I saw roughly about a 1 to 2% increase, so that wasn't it.

We did a little bit of digging and there was a budget cut last year of $75,000 to the library.

I think that is where the discrepancy is definitely coming from.

Okay.

Could you produce numbers to that effect?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah, we track all of the utility.

We track the utility data monthly.

Not that I don't believe you, but I just— I'd like to see absolutely how that affects that.

Yeah, I can definitely provide that or any account that you guys may want to know about.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

All set, Mr. Chairman.

Chair, Grand Councilor Abramowicz first.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Um, thanks for coming in again.

Um, have, have you had conversations with other colleagues of yours throughout the Commonwealth that deal with utilities as it relates to, man, we got to get together, we have to go to DPU, go to the state and say, Eversource, this is ridiculous, you are busting our municipal budgets, this is unacceptable, this is crazy?

Have you written letters to the commissioner?

Have you spoken to the governor's office?

Just wondering, because all of your colleagues, right, throughout the Commonwealth are going through this.

We're all in it together.

It's a Beacon Hill problem.

I'm just wondering, what are some of the conversations you've had, if any?

Yeah, we've definitely been in conversations.

It's funny you ask.

I had a meeting this afternoon about that where we are having conversations with other cities and towns.

We are looking at creating— we're trying to figure out how many other cities and towns are willing to to put their name on that letter.

We're thinking about just maybe doing what we called was a scare letter to Eversource, a list of all the municipalities in the area who have all these issues and are willing to go forward to the AG's office, the governor.

But as of right now, without— I don't know if the mayor wants to open up that can of worms.

I mean, what would people be afraid of?

Like, what kind of retribution?

Like, what are we afraid of?

But I can— I know you can't answer for the mayor.

I'm asking like some of your colleagues throughout the state.

You said— I think you said retribution or whatever.

I mean, I didn't quite say that.

That's essentially what— well, we're afraid of DPU.

I mean, not saying you, but I just— I mean, they work for us and we work for the people.

I don't know.

Just this doesn't pass the smell test with me, you know?

And I know you agree with me.

You're just— you're a public servant like us.

Something.

You know, we're municipal, right?

We're right at the bottom of this totem pole, unfortunately.

There's nothing more you can add.

I don't want you to get in trouble on the record here, so I just— no, we just have to respect you.

So I, you know, yeah, we just had a meeting today.

Like I said, we're trying to figure out who else would be on board with signing a letter and doing and participating in that.

I know I've had numerous conversations at the CFO's office with Eversource stating our problems, and it just doesn't get fixed or resolved.

A lot of times we just hit dead ends and they don't even give us resolutions to the issues that we have.

Yeah, we've had issues from the utility side from since the system changed about 2 years ago, even with the solar.

We're missing ledgers, they're misapplying funds, the list goes on and on.

Jeez.

So we are tracking all of those issues We have brought it up with Eversource.

We've gotten nowhere.

So now we have started this group of other cities and towns that we are looking to see what can be done, who can we, you know, speak to about this.

You know, sounds like a motion needs to get filed by us and we need to ask Eversource to come in.

I see some of my colleagues shaking their heads like, yeah, it's a problem.

So, all right, thank you very much for your time.

I appreciate what you're doing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Chair recognizes Councilor Roy on his first.

How are you?

Good, how are you?

I'm looking at the budget book on page 165 and I don't see any actual expenses from 2025.

Do you have that number for my department?

Uh, for the, for the city utilities.

For the city utilities?

Um, it's empty.

I was curious.

I think CFO Ekstrom can answer that.

If you want to— so you can get me the numbers, uh, well, that's fine.

Great.

Okay.

Okay.

And I also see there's a million-dollar increase, um, in the cost of the proposed, uh, budget, um, from the, from the adopted budget last year.

How did we— how did, how did, how did we come up with that, that figure?

Um, Well, for my budget purposes, we used about a 5% increase for electricity and a 7% for gas.

That was more higher than what we normally do.

Typically we do about a 3% increase, but after the FY25 where we saw about 10 to 12% increases on electricity and over 25% on natural gas, we're trying to find that medium ground because those are just astronomical rate increases.

This is a medium With my rate increases, yes.

$2.4 million is a medium.

What's a high ground?

I would add another 4%, 5% to that.

And a low ground?

And like a low estimate?

I don't picture the utility rates going the other way, to be honest with you.

All right, thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Chair recognizes Councilor Gomes.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Chair.

Not so much any questions No questions, just a statement.

Um, a group that you've talked about that have gotten together to address some of these issues, you keep your foot on the gas.

And if you need backup, at least from this Legislature, I believe this body will be there for you.

Because they have some answers to answer.

And ledgers not being found, other things not being in order, no accountability.

I'm about accountability, and I'm sure you are.

Keep your foot on the gas.

Appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

So back to the previous question that was asked by Councilor Roy.

So you think that million-dollar increase isn't going to be sufficient?

I do believe— think it's going to be efficient— sufficient.

It's a medium ground.

And when I do my budget purposes, That's including the solar.

We are very conservative on the solar side.

Currently we're at about 25 cents for a kilowatt-hour for a net metering credit rate, which is— we've never seen it this high.

I didn't keep it that high.

We, for my budget purposes, I have it down to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour.

So I do anticipate that we will see a lot more solar savings than what I'm projecting.

What are you projecting?

What aren't you projecting for solar savings in the budget?

What's that number?

In between $500,000 to maybe another $900,000.

That's what you're seeing as a credit, between $500,000 and $900,000?

That's if we have good weather, we have no outages, stuff like that.

If everything were to go according to historical, you know, data that we have, yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes.

Anyone else for Manager Tyler Reese?

All right, seeing none, we will be moving on to the Zoological Society, pages 159 to 163, with Director Shah Raposa.

Good evening.

Thank you, Vice President Burgo.

Um, it's my pleasure to represent the zoo at this budget hearing and provide you with a brief overview of my department this past fiscal year.

You already have the performance measures, but I do feel like it's important to mention again that after another rigorous inspection this past June, our zoo continues to be accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, AZA, through September of 2029.

This is a huge achievement for the staff and a point of pride for the city of New Bedford.

In FY26, we did see a 1.7% increase in zoo attendance.

And we saw that while still working hard to be accessible to the underserved community members by offering affordable resident rates, participating in library pass programs, offering sponsored free days, and continued community partnerships with— such as the Car2Culture program.

With the unveiling of the new Animal Ambassador Center, we've almost tripled the number of guests reached with our animal ambassadors.

And we logged volunteer service hours supporting our animal care, our veterinary services, conservation initiatives, and education programs valued at over $200,000.

I also think it's important to reiterate the growth of the zoo's social media reach.

For this past year, we've reached 3.81 million people with 7.397 million content views.

At the same time last year, we'd only reached 880 880,000— a little over 880,000 people.

We've also gained over 9,000 new followers on Facebook and Instagram.

Social media has been a game changer for us, and I think it contributed to that 1.7% increase.

We protected threatened and endangered species from extinction by again participating in 34 species survival plans, and we're continuing our partnerships with AZA's SAFE program, Saving Animals from extinction for 5 of the species that are represented at our zoo.

As we've done in years past, money raised from our Tokens for Conservation program helps support and raise community awareness for over a dozen conservation programs, both locally, locally and globally.

Zoo staff locally implemented, designed and implemented a monofilament recycling program within the city in the areas that are heavily fished.

And we're moving forward in collaboration with the Conservation Commission with the installation of a MODIS station at Fort Tabor.

MODIS is an international collaborative research network, and it uses automated radio telemetry to track the movement and behavior of small animals like birds, bats, and insects.

The data collected is going to assist with bridging the information gap related to offshore movements of Endangered Species Act listed species like roseate terns and piping plovers, other small shorebirds in our area.

And that information on the migration routes and behaviors of shorebirds and seabirds is desperately needed to conduct risk assessments and inform the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

In addition, we introduced 2 guinea hogs, Maple and Grenadine.

The first of many domestic breeds to return to our zoo as we resurrect our heritage breeds program.

We also took in Cascade and Nakoda, 2 orphaned cougar cubs, welcoming them into our family.

And I'm going to let the cat out of the bag, literally, by announcing that we recently celebrated the birth of another Canada lynx kitten.

This year is also a milestone as we celebrate Emily's 60th 2nd birthday.

So all really good stuff.

And now, uh, with regard to the budget before the council tonight for consideration is the zoo's FY27 budget.

Um, to give a brief history, last fiscal year the FY26 proposed budget of $1,976,725 was reduced down to $1,906,055.

My FY proposed budget this year was $2,061,050, and this figure took into consideration the AFSCME contract changes, which included some reclassification for zookeepers, the veterinary technician, and the working foreman, bringing them up to industry standards.

It included a title change to better reflect the duties performed by our park maintenance to building maintenance.

And additionally, 2 zookeeper positions were changed to senior keeper positions to better reflect the duties performed by those tenured employees, to avoid them working out of classification, and to continue the training and onboarding of new zookeepers.

It also included any step increases, the COLA raises, et cetera.

Recognizing the significant budget deficit facing the city, department heads were asked to look at our budgets and look for areas where we could do more with less.

And to that end, this revised budget before you has an overall 4.7% reduction to the originally proposed budget with a savings of $97,488.

There's no capital outlay for the zoo.

And I submitted a couple of items as enhancements, but they really weren't true enhancements.

They were basically adjustments that needed to be made to baseline budgeting for existing programs.

And a good example of that is our AZA dues, which were raised by $4,000.

So I submitted that as an enhancement, but it's, it's basically a budget adjustment from the operational standpoint.

The cuts that have been made to bring us down to that proposed figure is going to have an impact.

The 100 level, we're eliminating a building maintenance position, freezing the Unit C step and COLA raises.

But zoo staff, the zoo staff are, they're hardworking, dedicated, very passionate about what they do.

They work hard every day creating exciting guest experiences.

Experiences, to connect people of all ages to the natural world.

And for the last several years, they've been doing more with, with less.

Last year, we reached sort of a breaking point with our animal care staffing level.

And to address the concern, we added the 2 additional keepers.

In this budget cycle, the difficult decision was made to eliminate the maintenance worker to avoid a direct impact on animal care.

Which is finally staffed at an appropriate level.

We just cannot risk our accreditation by going below our animal care staffing level at this point.

So cutting that building maintenance position is going to result in a heavier reliance on DFFM and DPI with an increase in work-related work orders, requests for maintenance-related services.

In the 200 level, with the loss of that maintenance position, It's going to impact a lot of our groundskeeping, which means additional requests to DPI's Green Space and Forestry Division.

At the $400,000 level, there were some reductions in multiple areas, areas I thought we could sustain the cuts, including janitorial supplies, building and animal habitat supplies, those areas where I might also be able to look to the Zoological Society for some additional help.

So as not to lose those items.

And finally, there's a reduction in our 700 level which impacts— it impacts animal shipments, but we don't anticipate any major animal shipments this year, so we were able to do that.

But it does impact staff training and continuing education requirements that are mandated by USDA for our marine mammal trainers, our elephant keepers, our veterinarian, our certified veterinary technician.

It's going to impact the subscription for ZIMS, which is the Zoological Information Management System.

That's the software that we use to track all of our animal husbandry and our medical records.

Things like the zoo's DEA license and some other dues and subscriptions to professional organizational memberships.

Again, we would be looking to the Zoo Society to help us bridge that gap.

You might notice even with all these cuts submitted to the original— my original proposed budget, we're still above last year's adopted budget by $57,506.

The amount essentially is, you know, things like AFSCME step raises, our sick leave incentive, our longevity contractual, you know, AFSCME contractual obligations within the department.

So the cuts that were made are significant for a small department like ours, but we recognize the seriousness of the fiscal situation.

To that end, again, we're working with the Zoological Society, who even while facing significant— their own significant gap in funding due to a large portion of state funding that did not come through, are committed to helping us bridge the department's funding gap.

And essentially, you know, the main point is the citizens of New Bedford now more than ever deserve to have one of the finest small zoos in the country.

Our accreditation signifies we're just that, meeting the highest standards for animal care, welfare, and management.

The budget as presented contains real reductions but it ensures we're still able to meet the accreditation standard— standards and continue our work.

I'm not going to say I'm happy, but I am more than willing to answer any questions you have for the FY27 budget.

Chair recognizes Councilor Pemberton on his first.

I got folks in Kearney.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you for being here.

I just have a couple of questions.

Uh, so how many animals do we have currently at the zoo?

And how do we compare that to previous years?

So we have over 800 animals currently.

That is a reduction from previous years.

We did actually cut down to a large extent our avian collection, our waterfowl collection.

Avian influenza, HPAI, the highly pathogenic version, is pretty much here to stay, and it comes every year with the migration of birds.

We have a lot of open enclosures with unprotected birds, so when we see a spike in our area, we need to move them to behind-the-scenes areas, and that was creating a real animal welfare concern for us.

So if we have to move birds to a back area, we want to make sure that the conditions that they're living under are going to be as good as those that they were living under before they were moved to that back area.

So we did move out a lot of birds.

We also did some record keeping to clean up our fish population.

So when you see a very large number, over 1,000 animals or 2,000 animals, a good majority of that is things like fish, coral, invertebrates, not the animals you typically think of, you know, the mammals.

So it's a lower number.

We've, we've got roughly 800 right now.

Okay.

Um, also, what I noticed about on your, uh, for expenses for supplies, what's the difference between animal feed versus the food items?

The difference between— I'm sorry, animal feed versus the food items?

Um, so animal feed, I think, is the category, and then we have different food items in that category.

So I think Bob mentioned this once before, so we have a food item that's hay.

We have a food item that's meat, that's whole prey, that's live insects.

That all falls under the umbrella of animal feed, but it's, it's different object codes within that category.

All right, so I noticed you have 94,000 for the animal feed and then 70,000 for food items.

So I was just seeing what the difference is.

Yeah, so just the way they're entered, um, into the, into the system.

I mean, it's, it all falls under animal feed, but But there's a couple of different categories, and then there's different object codes within the categories.

All right.

Okay.

And just my final question.

So you have what, 23 personnel?

We have— right?

We have 23, yeah.

And we're open 7 days a week, 9 to 4?

Yep.

So yes.

Yep.

And so how many employees do you have per day?

Well, uh, what's that, Christy?

What's our minimum number for keepers?

8.

So we have at least 8 keepers, uh, we have at least 2 managers, um, and we have at least 1 building maintenance.

Some of those positions are also our night watch, so they are there after hours.

So on any given day, we have 10 to 11.

Is that the correct amount that should be on for the animal For the animal care in the animal— in the zookeeper category, yes, we are finally at the level we need to be at for industry standards.

We are currently down one keeper who is out on parental leave.

So that's where that temp position comes in.

You'll see temporary funding in our 100 level.

That's to cover an absence for, for a keeper out on leave.

Right.

So the only reason why I was actually really asking that is I noticed on your overtime, you've got $51,000 in overtime.

Can you explain that?

Yep.

So, um, essentially any of our overtime is tied to either an animal project or an animal issue, or in the case of the, for example, our night watch, we don't have enough night watch to be able to approve paid time off at times without accruing some overtime.

There's, there's too few of them, so there may be overtime for that.

I can tell you that a good portion of our overtime for last fiscal year was, was getting us ready for accreditation.

We also completed upgrades to the animal habitats, so in order to bring in the 2 cougars and we had to have staff on these special projects.

We can't farm out or basically contract out for habitat work.

It's just too cost prohibitive.

So our staff is doing it and they're doing it basically after hours on their days off, things like that.

So that's, that's the bulk of the overtime.

And then if we have any medical emergencies or ongoing issues with animals, there would be OT tied to that as well.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for asking my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Chair recognizes Councilor Lopes.

Thank you.

Uh, so, Shara, your contractual services went up by a little less than— a little more than $23,000.

Yep.

So the enhancements that I mentioned that are really, um, an increased baseline budget, those are for maintenance contracts for the new generator that was just brought online.

The new humidification unit in our rainforest building.

Also an HVAC unit for that building that is now obsolete and needs upgrades.

Those were the 3 main, and also our pest control was the other one that we basically doubled from.

I think it's $14,800, which is up from, I think, less than $5,000.

And that was again an easy a concern.

It's, it's a constant battle, um, but it's— we have to, we have to take care of it.

And then your maintenance line item, I said you said you were going to do a little less with more in that side, but what's the $18,000 increase?

The $18,000 in building maintenance supplies, um, it's, it's basically the cost of construction supplies.

So if we're doing these projects in-house, we need the materials to be able to do it.

So that you're going to see an increase there, and what you're going to save is prevailing wage.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Councilor Carney.

Yes, thank you, Sarah.

Yep, for coming.

Um, Councilor Lopes hit 2 of them.

I just have one more, and that is in the other pay.

It's gone up approximately $10,000.

Could you just let us know what that is?

The The other category, which, which in your, your personnel services, in your 100.

So yep, it's other pay.

It's from what was $58,633 and it's now $69,344.

Hang on one second.

Okay, could you repeat that again?

Where are you seeing this?

It's your other purchase services, other pay.

Oh, other pay.

Okay, that is— sorry, it's the $100 level.

Yes.

So that is essentially— that's other pay that's associated with holidays.

We're a 7-day-a-week operation and our employees are essential personnel.

So even though the rest of the world is celebrating a holiday, my staff are there.

So that's actually paid accordingly.

That.

Okay, yep.

So that's— so that doesn't go into the overtime issue?

Actually, no, that's not correct.

Right, because I mean, would that be overtime?

No, that's what it is.

That's what it is.

It's holiday pay.

Um, no, that doesn't— they don't get paid overtime by contract.

What they get is straight time for hours worked.

So they get holiday pay plus straight time for hours worked.

So that is what that category is.

That's for that straight time.

Okay, thank you.

Um, just— I'm sorry, um, did we— when it was $58,000 before $600,000, so did we add more holidays to make it an extra $10,000?

The holidays are the same, but with the reclassification and people going up steps, their rate changes for that, that straight pay.

So that reflects the changes in personnel.

Thank you.

That explains that.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Chair, again, it's Councilor Baptiste.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

How you doing, Cheryl?

How's your day today?

It's not bad.

Busy?

It's never a bad day at the zoo.

Very busy at the zoo.

Yeah, my questions aren't really, you know, a lot of the questions that I would have had have been answered.

My thing is, I'm glad that you got up to where you needed with zookeepers and staff, right?

I'm sorry for the guy that you had, or the person that you had to let go.

But what do you, with your budget how it is, right?

It hasn't gone up too much over the years.

Increases, light increases here, light decreases there.

How do you feel with competing with other, making it, how do you feel about where your budget's at, how you can make the zoo to where you see it going, and how do you compete with, you know, with other zoos in the area and, you know, by getting people down here and making sure that you can do what you have to do with the budget that you have.

Yep.

So I, you know, I think our niche is well established at this point.

It's families with small children.

It's grandparents with small children.

One of our strengths is actually our size.

It's that, you know, it's a place where People can come with small children.

They can let them run.

They're not going to lose sight of them.

It's not overwhelming.

They can spend the time they want to spend and create those memories.

So I look at that as, as a strength.

They say that small ships pivot quickly, and that is really the case with our zoo as well.

And it's one of the things that we can do to compete with the larger institutions.

We can make changes relatively quickly, whereas, you know, a larger organization It takes time.

I think it's not necessarily about quantity.

It's about quality and making sure that every one of our animal habitats is the best it can possibly be.

We have shown time and again that we really shine with the work that we do.

Our Animal Ambassador Center, for example, is now being used as a model.

Our Rainforest Building, when it first opened with the chute system and what we implemented with our primates is used as a model all over the country.

So I don't necessarily see us in competition so much as making sure that we're enhancing and continuing internal growth.

You know, we're never going to be more than a 7 or 8-acre zoo.

I just, I don't necessarily see that happening.

But within our campus and within our programs and and, you know, our conservation initiatives, those are really the areas that we can shine and sort of set us apart from some of the larger organizations.

Okay, thank you.

You know, the more people that go in, the more revenue you get, the more help.

Exactly.

Yep, very true.

I just asked, like, you know, we want to just bring more people in and how much support you need.

And I know it's hard, you know, with, with, you know, the, the current, you know, current, uh, the current situation that we're all in.

But I think the social media changes, the increases really speak volumes.

We definitely have set ourselves on the map.

And I think that's a big part of drawing people in.

When we do those free days now, if you look at the demographics, it's not just people from the surrounding community.

We're getting people from Boston, Worcester, Springfield that are making their way down.

So, you know, the hook is to get them in and then keep them coming back.

Yeah, keep it up, keep it up.

Good luck and, um, congratulations on, you know, all the things you're doing.

I yield.

Councilor Oliver.

Thank you, uh, Mr. Vice President.

Thank you for your presentation.

A couple of questions, not a whole heck— not really budgetary related except for my last question.

Number one, um, you talk about in in your outline here of a proposed 5,000 memberships, which, um, paid memberships, peak number of paid memberships.

Um, 2023, 4,300.

Yep.

2024, let's call it 4,000.

'25, let's call it 4,000.

And then '26, 4,100.

What, what are you looking to implement to kind of forecast such a huge jump in activity at the zoo?

Um, I think again it's our events, it's our, it's our programs, and we're seeing a steady climb in attendance.

I think our membership fees, which that program is run by the Zoological Society, I mean, they're looking at the price of memberships at other places, and many of them we share reciprocity with.

So I think, you know, they're anticipating, um, you know, changes in, in admission prices in some of these places is probably going to drive up our men— our membership.

And, and, you know, they're— they have staffing now that's focused on the membership program.

So I, I, you know, I— we're also— I actually think that's conservative, but I mean, we really want to work with real numbers.

So Is, is, so is this number generated from them or from you?

Yeah, so we— no, so, well, when you say them and, and me, I mean, I really look at us as one organization.

So, um, we're tracking, uh, they have, uh, something called AllTrue, which is a software system.

So they're tracking all the memberships, the membership program, the gate attendance, all of that.

So we periodically sit down quarterly, look at reports, so we're able to try and forecast out and base it off of previous data depending on time of year.

Weather factors into it.

I mean, there's, there's a lot that goes into it.

And what does the zoo bring in annually?

Our stuffed monkeys to soda pop.

Okay, so the Zoological Society runs our concessions, our ride operations, and our membership programs.

They collect the gate for us and then turn it over, turn it over to the city minus the credit card fees.

So their budget in total is, uh, is just under $2 million.

I, I can get you an exact figure, uh, if you'd like it, but it pretty much mirrors— yep, absolutely— it pretty much mirrors ours.

Um, with— they also took on— so the zoo reduced our cashiers.

We no longer have cashiers.

Uh, the entire education department moved over to the Zoological Society.

They are funding an animal care position for us as well to help us bridge the gap for the new Animal Ambassador Center.

So there's, there's quite a bit of investment from the Zoological Society, um, you know, in the zoo.

So I can get you the revenue figures for their concessions and, and the rides certainly can, can provide that with you.

The zoo itself, I mean, our gate brings in a little bit over $500,000, which, you know, that's going to cover our services and operations.

We're not an enterprise fund.

It's not going to— it's not going to cover our salaries and wages.

Right.

And the Budgetary question that I had.

Hold on a second.

The, the rental lease— you have everything else listed here: oxygen rental, water cooler, carpet rental.

Yeah.

And then it just says lease purchase.

That is the zoo's water truck.

That's, I think, is that the final payment this year on the zoo's water truck.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

And okay, that's it.

Thank you.

Councilor Abreu.

Thank you, uh, Mr. First Vice President.

Uh, good evening, Shara.

Um, I'm looking through, uh, your, your positions here and everything, all the breakdown, and thank you for explaining it very well.

Um, who right now is handling like your marketing, your public relations, your social media, press releases, things like that?

Is that something you farm through our tourism office?

Are you doing that?

So we will work with our, our, the city's department wherever possible, and they certainly have provided us with great data, and it is, it is a partnership.

But by and large, the zoo's marketing is funded through the Zoological Society, okay?

And they also have contracted with an individual to work on our social media and And I think based on the results, they've— it was money well spent.

Okay.

So we don't have a, you know, we have no funding for marketing.

So that's completely— that's why I was wondering, because I don't see anything here.

So but you are promoting yourself and doing so very well.

So just wondering how that all kind of shook out.

So okay, so it's through the society.

Yes.

Yep.

Okay.

Answer my question.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. First Vice President.

Yes, thank you again, Shara.

Um, first of all, before I go to my question, I just do want to let you know that those memberships are great.

I got the membership for my families, for my, my kids this year, and we've been spreading the word because the reciprocation on that Zoom membership is amazing.

It is, it is wonderful.

So, you know, I encourage everybody to do that so they can take their children all over the place, the Science Museum Boston.

It's— it is really great.

But so I just want to just backtrack a little bit on my colleague when he asked about the, the revenues.

So you said the Zoological Society, with the revenues that they take in and turn over to the city, is $2 million?

No, no, their budget is just under $2 million.

Okay, so the revenue that they turn over to the city is, is, is what we make.

So it's, it's the— essentially they They, they incorporated it as guest services to save the city from paying 3 full-time cashiers and all the benefits associated with it.

So the revenue that they turn over to the city would be the same as if we had city cashiers collecting.

Right.

So what is the actual revenues that come in through the Zoological Society?

So the gate revenue is turned over by the Zoological Society.

As far as revenues coming to us from the Zoological Society, it, it's not revenues per se.

It's, it's essentially in-kind services.

It's, you know, they're— they provide a line for city support.

So if there are projects that I can't complete, you know, that with the fiscal budget that I have, they are raising money to be able to, to complete those projects.

Right.

So, okay, I'm sorry, I'm, um, the $2 million that you spoke of, that's the Zoological Society's budget.

That's their budget.

So, and they support the zoo?

Yeah.

So in that $2 million budget, how much of it comes back?

What— yeah, but I'm saying, but yeah, exactly, what comes back to the zoo and what is— yep.

About 1.6.

So basically, their salaries and wages come out of that budget.

They do have funding dedicated to marketing.

Basically, everything that's not their salaries and wages in one way or another comes back to support the zoo, whether that's through purchases of goods, the marketing, the events that they run.

They're constantly reinvesting in, in the zoo, but there's not like a line for Zoological Society revenue coming in.

Basically, they're reinvesting any money that they make aside from their, um, you know, um, right.

So if there's any shortfalls like in what's going on within the zoo, if you needed extra expenses for a building or an animal and you didn't have it Yep.

The Zoological Society provides that revenue to you?

Yep.

They will cover costs.

So what's a good example I can give you?

Medical services.

You know, it's a Saturday evening and I have an animal that needs a CAT scan to the tune of $2,000.

There's no way I can reach anybody in the city to do that.

The society hands me their credit card and says, says, go, go do that CAT scan.

There are times where we will reimburse the society for, you know, things like that, because it happened on— a lot of times it comes down to timing, right?

The animals don't care that it's, you know, 5 o'clock at night on a Sunday.

But essentially, you know, they're constantly reinvesting the dollars that they make into the zoo.

Right.

So, so, so that $2 million, whatever that they raised and whatever, it's directly back into the zoo.

So, you know, I'm just wondering if— yep, all of our education programs, all the education staff, all the supplies for education programs.

You know, they, they were able to fundraise for a Zoomobile, which is, which is wrapped, so it's very visible, but for our animal ambassadors to go out to do programs.

So everything they do is tied back in some way, shape, or form to, you know, to supporting the zoo.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Lopes on his second.

My question's for Bob.

So Bob, on their personal service roster, we see the watch person 3 of them at $129,000 and change, plus I'm assuming a portion of the other pay.

Have we ever thought about outsourcing that to a security firm in an RFP?

Yeah, that's really an operations question.

Okay.

All right.

So AZA mandates that you have to have security, you have to have presence on site 24 hours a day.

Back— it's been a few years since we've looked, so we could certainly go back.

But the Night Watch does not just do site security, they also do janitorial.

So if you were to contract out for security services, you would also need to contract out either for janitorial or you would have to hire custodians.

Okay, so unless you— we did this, an exercise before.

We have, we've done it a couple of times.

You know when we did it last?

Oh gosh, it's Keith We started in 2011, so it's been a while.

The other thing I would add regarding security, one of the shortfalls of hiring an outside security firm is that you never know who you're going to get.

So our night watch personnel will routinely do some additional things like document pump rates.

Tank levels.

And if there is an animal where there's a concern that animal was off but it's not enough to warrant a zookeeper staying for overtime, Night Watch will, you know, will report back.

They'll text me at all hours to tell me what Emily's doing when she's outside.

I don't know if you're going to get that level of service from a— from an outside security company.

And then there's the custodial aspect of it.

So thank you for the additional information.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you.

Anyone else for Director Raposa?

Chair, Councillor Roy.

Hi, good.

I'm looking at your performance measures on page 160.

And I noticed that you've, you've projected an increase in individual student connections through formal education programs.

And I'm just curious why the, why the increase in the projection?

And, and what are some of the formal education programs that students or youth can access at the zoo?

So all of the New Bedford School Department schools receive free programming, so, so they have the opportunity to come in and sign up for programs for free.

One of the reasons we are projecting an increase is that they have upped the number of educators.

They've hired an additional educator, more educators gives you more bandwidth to do more programs and to sign more schools up for programs.

The Zoo Mobile is a big one.

Now being able to safely move animals offsite to do offsite programs means, you know, the addition of additional programs there as well.

All of our education programs, what's available is listed on the Zoological Society website, the bpzoo.org.

So there's a home page there for our education programs that basically give you all the different age groups and the different programs that are available for the different age groups.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Anyone else on there first?

Anyone on there second?

From the chair, I'm just curious, how long was the park maintenance worker position vacant for?

The entire fiscal year.

So when the— yeah, when, when City Council made the reduction, it was basically asking for a vacancy savings.

So we held off on, on filling that, backfilling that position.

We did— we, we didn't fill that position.

We also did not fill the working foreman position for that reason, to make that vacancy savings.

So there was a vacancy as well.

Yeah, because that— yeah, so that was 38,714.

And then the assistant director position, yep, wasn't that vacant for some time during the fiscal year as well?

Yes.

Yeah, yes.

When were— when was the assistant director hired?

So I came on board in— oh gosh, now you're making me think about this.

I came on on board officially in April.

And Christy, when were you hired?

Do you remember what month you were hired?

This is our assistant director, Christy Kayerly, right here.

November.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there was, there was a period of time where that was vacant.

Almost halfway through.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the only reason why I'm asking that is because obviously in your introduction, you were pleading with us about how drastic of a cut that was.

But obviously you were able to manage it.

And then not to mention the fact that, if I'm not mistaken, in that FY26 budget you also added 2 zookeeper positions.

Yeah, 2 brand new positions as well.

Is that correct?

Yep.

And the addition of those 2 zookeepers, so that's $88,000 if I'm not mistaken, almost $89,000.

Yeah.

And so which is more than what we increased the vacancy savings to, which was only about $77,000.

$7,000.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Just wanted to make sure where the numbers were.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you know, I— what I'm trying to emphasize is to lose animal care staff would, would be devastating.

The loss of the, you know, the building maintenance position is equally as devastating.

But to be honest with you, animal care staff is gonna have to jump in and assist with that as well, where you might have had somebody, you know, maintaining the habitat in front and on the sides, the keepers are going to have to pick that up.

And we should be able to do that with the adequately staffed keeper level.

The other thing I will say is, although we had vacancies, you know, Christy was performing the position of, of assistant director as well as still covering some, some animal care.

So, we're— it's deceptive, sort of, to think that, you know, we were able to get by.

We were able to get by because essentially we had people working out of classification.

So, but my main, you know— Well, yeah, and I know you cut— and that answered one of my questions that I had, which I appreciate that you actually came out and said it, because some department heads are not doing that.

I don't know why it's not being mentioned, like, for example, in your actual, like, under the budget analysis.

And I— so I want to commend you for actually being upfront about the reclassifications of 2 caretakers, which jumped up 2 pay grades.

Which, again, as I've said in other departments, not to say that they don't deserve that pay.

And as you pointed out, our new assistant director, hello, we see this in other departments throughout the entire city.

And so I The only problem that I have, and I'm sure maybe some of my other colleagues have with this, is how do you say it for some and not everyone?

And that's what's challenging here, is especially in a— in this fiscal year, for example, in this particular one where we have 36 people that are being laid off.

I— yeah, I understand that, and I am empathetic.

You know, I really am.

You know, having been born and raised here and, you know, own property here.

I, you know, it's, it's— the impact is, is definitely felt everywhere.

But, you know, I as a department head have to advocate for those living, breathing animals.

I'm not looking— no, I know, I know— to have to defend the administration.

I— and obviously, like you pointed out, as a department head, you are there to advocate on behalf of your staff and obviously the zoo and the animals and make sure that that they get what they need.

It's more so a failure of the administration to prioritize the areas that they thought should be cut and areas that they wanted to bump up.

So I just wanted to highlight here, for me, which was very offensive, and that's why I wanted to commend you, is that you were brave enough to at least let us know.

For other department heads, they didn't even mention the fact that some positions were reclassified or renamed, at least for you.

At least your position titles stayed the same, like it was just a zookeeper to senior zoo caretaker.

Other departments had completely different titles.

Yeah, I understand that.

It was ridiculous.

So that's the only thing.

So I don't want you to have to feel the need to stand up for the administration.

That's not at all my intention here, is to make you feel attacked.

Tact.

So I apologize.

I don't feel that way at all.

But I just— I wanted to use this as an opportunity again to highlight the fact that, again, we have to be mindful of these situations where it's like, okay, again, in terms of the AZA accreditations and making sure our animals get the care that they need, while also being mindful that if we need to try to make cuts in certain areas— not to say that I'm advocating for cuts in personnel.

But the other thing I wanted to address was you had mentioned a cut to your 400 account, and I have my cut list here.

That's why I keep pushing back here.

That looks like we cut 6%, which equates to about $21,228.

Yep.

So for me, again, obviously in the grand scheme of things, other departments had even a bigger cut than than that.

And I know obviously for you, you're advocating just for your department, but I can't say— I didn't vote for that cut, but my colleagues did.

And in defense of this council, the legislative authority that we have is that you have to work within that parameter.

And I'm just curious as to why, if we weren't able to cut down the animal feed in that, you know, supply line or what have you, why didn't you go to the administration to request a supplemental appropriation, or why wasn't a transfer requested, or in some case for this fiscal year, you mean?

Correct.

Yep.

So we were FY26.

Yeah, FY26.

We worked exceptionally hard to stay within the boundaries of our budget.

Barely.

We're barely there.

I mean, I'm the one that does that.

We don't have clerks, so I do the payroll I do the accounts receivable, so I see every penny spent and I'm determining where every penny is spent.

And June is always a very stressful month for me because it's down to the wire if something happens that was unanticipated.

And that's the thing with a zoo, right?

Every day is— the one thing you can say about working at a zoo is every day is not the same.

So, you know, as of right now, I am within my budget, but I am always one HVAC unit, um, failure, one life support system equipment, you know, um, uh, goes down.

And were there, were there any reductions, uh, to the zoo hours?

We reduced zoo hours, uh, I don't know, 3 years ago.

3, yeah, 3 years ago.

But in terms of the FY26?

No, we did not reduce zoo hours.

The, the hours we're open to the public have been the same and our staff hours have also been the same.

So no change.

And the only reason why I'm highlighting that is because just for the general public and for you, as you're aware, we, the council, I use the proverbial we because again, I didn't vote for any of the cuts to you.

And a lot of— we had— you had your— the zoological services both to your 200 account, 400 account, and personnel combined was a higher cut than the library received.

Received.

Yes.

But as I'm sure you're aware, and many here, the library had reduced hours.

They had staff that were cut, all for performative antics from this administration.

So I just wanted to highlight the fact that we didn't have to reduce the hours at the zoo.

We didn't have to do all these other things.

And also the fact that we also reduced, uh, the 100 account of the mayor's office, which he asked for a transfer to.

He didn't make any changes there.

He didn't reduce hours there.

He didn't cut staffing there, but he cut staffing at the library.

He reduced hours there because of the performance there.

But again, I'm only using you in this moment, so I apologize for that.

I'm all set in regards— I made my point that you received a greater cut than the library did, and as we just heard, no reductions made.

So it doesn't have to happen that way.

I hope that you make it through through here because I think you're doing a great job.

I want to commend you and your staff.

I am again disappointed in this administration for their priority areas, but I do again recognize the work that you do at the zoo.

I keep wanting to say Zoological Society, but it's the zoo.

We answer to both.

Thank you.

Anyone else for Director Raposa?

Any final remarks?

Unless it's to defend the administration, then I'm going to have to gavel you out.

No, I would say I feel like, I feel like I've been on the hot seat long enough.

But I'll reiterate what Michelle said.

I am always happy to, at anybody's convenience, make myself available to go through the budget, through our operations.

I, I welcome all of you to come walk through your zoo and see what we're about and what we're doing.

And You know, I'm available to the zoo 24/7, so it's not a stretch to say that I'm available to you guys as well.

Okay, thank you so much.

Next up, we have emergency medical services, uh, which will be done by Director Michael Thomas on pages 53 to 67.

Good evening, Council.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I'm here on behalf of New Bedford EMS to address our concerns regarding the FY27 budget and, and the impact it will have on our ability to serve the community safely and effectively.

New Bedford EMS responds to more than 25,000 emergency calls each year.

Behind every one of those calls is a resident, a family, a visitor who depends on us to arrive quickly, provide skilled medical care, and transport them safely.

Our mission is simple: to save lives and to protect the people of New Bedford.

But the resources required to fulfill that mission are becoming increasingly strained.

Over the past several years, we have seen a steady increase in call volume, more complex medical emergencies, longer hospital offload times, rising equipment and supply costs, and increased training requirements to meet modern standards.

These pressures are daily realities for our EMTs and paramedics.

When staffing is stretched thin or equipment ages beyond safe service life, response times increase.

And when response times increase, outcomes worsen.

That is a risk none of us should accept.

The FY27 budget is not just another fiscal year, it's a turning point.

The decisions made this year will determine whether New Bedford EMS continues to meet the needs of a growing and aging population, or whether we will be forced into reactive measures that compromise service.

We are not asking for excess.

We are asking for, for minimum required to maintain safe, timely, and effective emergency medical care for residents of the city.

We respectfully ask council to fully fund the proposed staffing levels, support necessary equipment replacement, ensure competitive compensation to retain skilled providers, recognize EMS as a central public safety service equal in importance to police Police and Fire.

Thank you.

I will answer any questions that anyone has, the best of my knowledge.

Thank you.

Chair recognizes Councilor Pemberton on his first.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Hi, Mike, how you doing?

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

First, I want to commend your department.

You do it— I think you do a great, great service to the city.

Tremendous work.

I mean, there's probably no words but to say what your department does, and I thank you and I appreciate them.

Thank you.

The only question I have for you, if you could just explain— and I know it's been brought up in the past, but this is my first year on the council— what would be the benefits or not benefits?

And I'm not saying that it's being talked about, I just want to bring this up— consolidating your department with the fire department.

I think we have 2 different missions, in all honesty.

I mean, I don't know if it would benefit either department, and I'm being honest, because our mission is medical care, patients who are sick and ill. Fire is, you know, to concentrate on fires and put out fires.

So I don't know the benefit of that, to be honest with you.

I mean, and I guess my other question is, you know, along with that, The firefighters have to be certified as first responders as well, right?

That's correct.

So wouldn't we be able to put them on an ambulance as well with a medic if you have like more like a paramedic and a firefighter as well?

Right now, some of the firefighters are EMTs.

I believe there's quite a few, but not all of them.

If you did combine, I guess you could go that route, you know, in the future.

But as we stand now, we're just 2 separate entities.

So not all the firefighters are EMTs or paramedics.

They usually just first responder, and they're not covered— they're not covered by a medical control doctor, I don't believe.

That would be more of a question for the fire chief.

All right, thanks, Mike.

Like I said, I just wanted to clear some things open.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Councilor Abram is first.

Thank you, Mr. First Vice President.

Good evening, Mike.

Good to see you.

Same here.

As always, your team is first-rate, and I've seen them in action many times personally, so kudos to you and your staff.

Unfortunately, you're predicting a little bit of an uptick in total calls responded and received by your staff and your team.

And you alluded to it during your open about the men and women who work with and for you.

They're the best.

They're first-rate.

But they're stretched.

They're stretched thin because of all the calls and all the great work that they do, and they're all over the place.

Do you— I mean, at what point is there a breaking point, though, meaning like more state resources, state funding is needed to help with issues like homelessness and addiction treatment services and mental health services.

I mean, at some point, we need more help so folks can get off the street and get the services that they need so that there's not so many calls to you folks to go and bring, you know, individuals who some are indigent, some have issues cognitive issues or addiction-related issues into the hospital, you're thus tying up the emergency room.

So, I mean, I guess I'm trying to figure out, like, in a perfect world, I mean, where do you kind of see all this going?

And I'm sure you're having conversations with other colleagues of yours throughout the state as to what's happening here in Massachusetts.

Yeah, absolutely.

And there's a lot of mental health in the city and statewide.

So right now we're actually working with the state to get an MIH license.

With ED diversion.

So what license was that, Mike?

It's an MIH license, Mobile Integrated Health, with ED diversion.

And we'll— kind of like what police did, we'll have a clinician ride with us and we can transport that person to an alternative destination instead of St. Luke's Hospital.

So it'll kind of relieve— and they'll get the help they need, actually, you know what I mean?

Instead of going to St. Luke's and sitting there for 4 or 5 days being boarded there.

So that's one of the— we're just trying to get approved.

We're in the middle of it.

We're close.

Hopefully by the end of June, actually, we're going to have it done.

Well, that's great to hear.

I mean, because you're right.

I mean, I spoke to a constituent last week who had said he was dizzy a few months ago and he had a minor stroke, and he was in St. Luke's, and he was— he was in the hallway next to an individual who has or had some mental health issues.

And that's an unfortunate situation for everybody, but that's an example of clogging up the emergency rooms, clogging up your staff, time and there are some individuals who are really in medical distress, how often do you, or if ever, do you call for mutual aid for assistance from neighboring towns?

I know it's happened before.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So we, we use— it's gotten a lot better over the years because right now we have 7 ambulances on the road daily.

We have 3 SUVs, chase vehicles.

So at this point, we're around a little over 500 or 600.

We're predicting for the year, which is about 50 a month, which seems like a lot, but it's not.

It's down significantly from the years in the past just because of the calls, the trucks that we have on the road.

So it's like I said, it's like 50 a month, but a lot of times calls come in at 10, 12 at a time.

So in a perfect world, we could handle all these, but there's— it's— we're always going to have some mutual aid, but they are definitely down.

But we do use mutual— we do use surrounding towns, and they're all great too.

Yeah, yeah, they come in.

Um, last question for me.

Unlike other departments, you are a revenue generator.

Talk about that those, like, you know, my colleagues who are new and for the general public?

Last year we came into around $11 million, I think $11,600,000, around there.

This year, hopefully predicted to do that or even more, around $12 million, hopefully, fingers crossed.

So we kind of— we do pay for ourselves, I think, in that sense.

So, well, Mike, you're doing a bang-up job, so keep doing what you're doing.

I appreciate you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. First Vice President.

I'll yield.

Councilor Choquette on this first.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Director Thomas, thank you.

Um, you know, I, I was listening to that scanner when we— when I was snowbound, and I, I know what you and, and the New Bedford Fire Department all did, literally, you know, hauling people in stretchers through snowdrifts and I had wished we had gotten together and given you guys some kind of special citation, and maybe we still can do that in the future.

But again, you guys— I mean, public safety is the most important thing.

EMS and fire and police, they all work together, and it's the guys on the road.

It's not us in the office.

It's them on the road who are doing all the work.

So the other councilors have said it.

I mean, your department is one of the best run and We can't thank you enough.

And I know that if something happened to my wife, you guys would be there to help.

So, heck, if I had a nervous breakdown going through this budget book, right, I know that you're just a 911 call away.

So again, thank you.

Now, all that being said, I really only had one or two questions, and I know I take up some space.

What's the only numbers I'm curious now?

Look, I get that, you know, parts and supplies, cost of everything goes up.

But what's, what's going on with the insurance premiums?

How come they're more than doubling?

So I believe it's because we have so many more ambulances on the road.

So part of that $106 million is the majority of it is the ambulances.

But we also pay a portion of utilities to the Public Safety Health Building.

We do that with fire and police.

We split it.

So it's a combination.

But we just have— we have a lot more trucks on the road now.

And we have spare trucks too that we all have to be insured.

So, you know, insurances have gone up.

And it is a big jump.

OK. And that's just strictly— these are just strictly auto policies?

Yeah, because we're required by the state because we transport individuals in the trucks.

Unlike— I can only imagine.

Police, the fire, and we do get our share of accidents.

Okay, that's really all I had for questions.

I mean, just going through the numbers, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

But again, please keep doing the great work you guys do, and you're a credit to the city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Councillor Carney on her first.

Thank you.

It was looking through this budget book, and I just want to bring it to the attention of the general public that your department is proposed to generate $12 million.

Last year, $11.7.

Your bottom line budget is $6.4.

Correct.

You have enough money that's generated through your department to support your department.

I know we've talked about an enterprise fund before for EM.

Um, for you guys.

Has that moved any further?

No, that, that didn't go anywhere after, I think, the last year.

Yeah, I know, I know.

Councilor Moran, we were trying to get something done for an enterprise fund for your department.

Absolutely.

Now, would an enterprise fund be able to make— to help you generate more revenues in what you have?

I know it's— I know your calls have gone down substantially.

It's like half the amount of calls for mutual aid.

So that shows that you do— yeah, yeah, you know, that we've supplied you with enough stuff so we can bring those numbers down.

But even at 602 calls, that's so many.

It is, absolutely.

And medical costs a lot of money.

Ambulance pickups that are billed to the insurance is a lot of money.

So that would generate more money if we didn't even have to call mutual aid.

Yes, absolutely.

I think the amount is in there.

I think, yeah, it's, um, on an average maybe kind of, right?

So I mean, it's, it's, it's just that I just want to bring to attention that when we look at cuts and whatever, that your department clearly brings enough revenue to support your department.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Uh, Councilor O'Leary is first.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Uh, thank you, uh, Director Thomas.

Thank you.

The I believe Councilor Choquette's line of questioning kind of alluded to where my answer is going to go, but, uh, the overtime and other pay has— I know you said you have more trucks on the road, but everything else kind of stayed the same— salaries, wages, all that stuff— but the overtime and other pay have gone up significantly.

In the last 2 years?

Yeah, I guess it depends on— right now we have 4 openings, so we have 3 paramedic openings and 1 EMT spot that's open.

So it depends on if we're fully staffed or not.

We have 56 full-timers and around 40 part-time VTs, variable times.

So we depend on our variable times a lot.

But at times, especially during the summer months, like right now, the overtime's up.

So, um, I think we're at 703, but we're not— we're actually at like around 300 that we spent of that this year.

Okay.

So, but I, I mean, the only explanation is it would just— with the more, the more trucks on the road, the more, um, volume that we're doing, we're hiring more.

We— and we, we hate to put it— we hate to obviously shut a truck down.

We really can't because one, you lose revenue, but two, you know, you're not going to be able to respond to calls that people need is that.

So that's okay.

And Councilor Chouquette asked that one, the parts and supplies up $90,000.

Is that just because we have more trucks on the road now?

Parts and supplies?

Oh, supplies.

Yes, sorry.

Yes, so we actually, even this year, we went over we're going over because everything is so much more money even though we have more trucks on the road, which is definitely probably the biggest issue.

The other issue is supplies have gone up like 20%.

Like, it's insane since COVID Every year it's going up higher and higher and higher.

The stuff that we paid, you know, $500 for 5 years ago, we're paying for $1,000 now.

You know, it's insane.

So that is— that's definitely the reason.

All right, for sure.

Last question is, what are we— what are we leasing for, uh, 238 $667.

That is an ambulance.

That is an ambulance that we have a loan on.

Okay.

And that is a lease?

Yes.

When is that up?

I don't know if I can— I can get that for you.

I don't know exactly if this is the last year.

We have a couple more.

I'm not sure.

I can get that information for you though.

Okay.

Yeah, if you just get that.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, thank you.

That's all.

Thanks.

Councilor Lopes, that is first.

Thank you, Council President.

Mike, I will be like everybody else, and I always commend you for all that you do.

You, you generate double your line item, your expenditures and income.

No, we do.

It's tough for the guys in the road though, I got to say it again, you know what I mean?

Good leadership, good management.

With that being said, you're over time.

I do have you listed for a $50,000 cut in your overtime, would that kill your, your overtime budget if we were to take $50 grand off?

You can be honest.

I've known you long enough.

You can tell me I'm crazy.

Probably, because I'm gonna be paying, you know, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

Eventually I will.

We'll probably need it, I would assume, at the end of the year.

Okay.

But I understand.

All right, no, I— listen, as I said, you double your expenditures in revenue, so I wouldn't want to put you in that position, but I did want to ask you in all honesty.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Roy on this first.

Hi, Director Thomas, how are you?

Good, how are you?

I'm good.

I'm looking at your, um, your proposed, uh, this $12 million number on the total revenue generated, um, proposed for FY 27.

Is that like a— is that a conservative estimate or, or not?

Yeah, I mean, I, I would say that those probably should be right around there.

I would— I'm hoping.

How does— so the other years, right?

So we have the actual numbers.

How did— how do these actual numbers— how did these actual numbers compare to what you proposed in your budget each year, or what was proposed in the budget each year?

So you mean prior years?

Yeah.

Yeah, we usually under— no, we usually, we're usually right where we should be, right around that, right around that.

I think we're really close.

It's usually like a 5% increase depending every year.

We get money from MassCare, which is from the Medicaid PGS program, and basically they— we only can bill a certain amount for Medicaid and MassHealth every year.

That's all they allot.

So this year, and every year we get a good amount from— this year we're expecting to get get $2.7 million by the end of June just from that alone.

So that's gonna bump us up significantly high.

So like Medicaid only allows a certain amount for you to bill insurance when you take patients, and a lot of our patients are MassHealth patients.

So that's up from $2.2 last year, it's $2.7 this year what we're supposed to get.

So hopefully that will bring us right around $12.

Okay, thank you, Director.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mr.

Chair, I'm good.

You're all set, Councilor Roy?

Yes.

Okay, sorry, um, I was distracted.

I apologize.

Uh, Councilor Golnson is first.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, first of all, as you've heard in this building, thank you for what you do and what your crew does.

Um, would it be, um, There's a lot of discussion around your overtime pay.

Can you explain to the City Council that some of that overtime pay is generated through standbys?

You understand what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I'm talking about a working fire.

That ambulance doesn't move.

It has to stay there.

Yeah, so if there's a fire that goes on in the city, we're always there.

Any fire, any, you know, shooting anything that's— does that contribute?

Yeah.

Does, does picking up a sick patient, uh, 45 minutes before my shift ends and I've got to do all the paperwork, does that contribute to overtime?

Absolutely.

You know where I'm going with this.

I'm just trying to clarify where the overtime is.

This is not a waste of money in any way.

This is money that we have no choice You put that PS before all the 3 entities that provide public safety in this city, and there is no dollar figure you can put on it because at any time that can change.

And if you have an ambulance that's tied up at a working fire for 8, 12 hours, that means I don't only have that overtime running, I'm running on bringing in another crew in to take care of this city.

Absolutely.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you for what you do.

Thank you, crew.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Anyone else for Director Thomas?

All right, if not from the chair, while we're on this topic of reductions in personnel services, I do want to note obviously that the council voted obviously to increase your vacancy savings.

And so I know the question was asked how detrimental that is to you.

I want to remind the council that we had to do a transfer for you recently in the, the amount of $265,000 because the mayor had a 3% vacancy.

Then we increased that an additional amount in a total of $289,000.

So it looks like you needed to fill about $265,000 to backfill that.

So it sounds like any kind of reduction in your personal Year 100 account would be detrimental to the services you provide.

Yeah, absolutely.

Like, we would have to go for a transfer most likely at the end again this year.

So I just, I wanted to make note of that.

And again, as we're pointing out, you're obviously worth your weight in the revenue that you're bringing in.

Obviously last year, $11.6 million this year projected to be even higher.

So again, not to be redundant, thank you for all that you do, which is why I want to ask about the fact that you had 2 EMTs that were listed obviously as vacant.

But my question is, how long were those positions vacant for?

Because was it a situation where during this budget crisis, they happen to be vacant, so they said, oh, just cut them?

Or— no, they've been— it's the 2 EMTs that are being cut.

It's dispatchers, 2 dispatch EMTs.

So they actually— it's— they don't— they do not generate revenue, you know what I mean?

And if we're not there, police is doing that dispatch anyway.

They have a major role in that, in that PSAP room.

So we're still— they're still going to cover us if we lose those 2 spots.

All right.

That was going to— Because that was important to me.

It's like, all right, just wanted to make sure of that.

The other question I had was about the new position.

I know it doesn't look like it's a new position, but it's again one of those situations I've been talking about with the reclassifications where the previous position that was in there was a financial assistant I or 1.

Yep.

Which was an AFSCME C. Now that's gone.

That's not listed there anymore.

And now what appears is a project coordinator, AFSCME I, which is several pay grades high, but it looks like that person is making less.

So they'd be— yeah.

So the financial assistant one, the person, the girl that was there actually resigned.

So we were having a hard time filling it.

So we kind of upgraded to— we asked to upgrade it to a project coordinator also because of the work that that person is doing.

It's a lot.

The payrolls, I only have one in there.

They're doing so much, so much of the office work.

But yeah, the pay for this first step for that project coordinator is like significantly less than a few dollars less than the person that was working in there prior.

Yeah, it's 6 grades different.

Yeah, because the person was there for a longer time.

Yeah.

So the new person started on step 1 and she has room to grow though.

But yeah.

Okay.

I just— again, the same speech I'm going to give everyone, which is not to say that the person doing that job isn't deserving of that amount of money, but it's just when we're in the crunch that we're in, where obviously you've got 2 EMT dispatchers chopped off, other departments chopped off, and then to have a position bumped up 6 pay grades where obviously I think that the reason why some of these reclassifications are happening the way they are is to avoid the council being a part of it.

Because typically in order to have— if you kept it as the financial assistant one and we wanted to have them just bumped up in a certain step, you would have to come before the council.

We want to— you know, the administration never wants to come to us to be in a partnership because it's not a collaborative government.

Again, this is not an attack on you.

No, I understand.

I'm using— it's through you, obviously, and I apologize for that.

No, no.

But I just again wanted to highlight that.

So I thank you for the explanation.

I think that was everything I wanted to cover here.

That's it.

Anyone else for Director Thomas?

Any— all right, seeing none, any final remarks?

Thank you very much.

Have a great night.

Perfect.

Oh, sorry.

CFO Ekstrom asked for the microphone.

Thank you for that.

I just wanted to follow up with one of the questions that was asked about overtime and how detrimental it would be.

I would like everyone to consider that overtime in EMS is a very unique department.

Almost everyone, with the exception of a couple of office people, almost everyone is a billing person here.

So you have to think of this as direct labor.

The reason why overtime is climbing is you'll notice that Mike's department, his staffing hasn't changed all that much.

You can see that in his personal services.

So there are staffing needs for each of his rescues, so he has overtime to fall back on.

His mutual— if you look at the amount mutual aid he's brought in.

It went from like something like 1,300 or 1,400 a few years ago down to 600.

He did 20— 25,000-some-odd runs, 600 mutual aid.

A cut to overtime means that mutual aid has to go up because this— you're taking direct labor, direct billings off the street when you cut labor.

So I had a slide up here once 2 years ago about areas that I asked for consideration before cuts are made.

Anything that generates revenue or is a result of revenue being generated, I strongly advise the council not to cut.

I'll give you an example too.

ComStar is in this bill, this budget.

We've had to go for 2 transfers now from Mike's department.

He ran out of money in his ComStar account.

ComStar is our billing, medical billing firm.

They charge, I think, 2.9% on the amount of fees that we collect.

He— his revenue was much higher than he anticipated, so the Comstock billing went up.

And that's kind of why we had to ask for a transfer.

So, uh, and I thank, uh, Councilor Carney, Councilor, um, uh, Councilor Burgo.

Um, I thank anybody else that has recognized the fact that this is Brian, yeah, I'm sorry, Councilor Gomes, uh, he— you had a very good point about overtime.

Uh, it's, it's— there are some times when it's not billable.

There were some of the cases that you might have brought up, but it's critical to have people on the street.

But I would answer that question a little bit more forcefully— no disrespect, Mike— that the cut in overtime means you're generating about $2 for every $1 of, of, um, of salary.

So $50,000 cut in overtime, probably figure about $100,000 loss in revenue.

That's all I wanted to ask.

I know.

Yeah, first, really quick, Bob, if you don't mind just staying there.

Sure.

I would like to apologize to my colleagues and the department heads who I missed for my tardiness here.

And I'd like to thank, um, my first vice president for filling in, but I apologize.

Uh, Chair recognizes Councilor Connie Fabab.

Yeah, quick question.

I know that, um, back in the day when Councilor Moore was here, we were talking about an enterprise fund for EMS.

Has that gone any further?

Has there been any discussion on that?

What's going on with that?

From my perspective, it's DOA.

Okay, I do not like that concept.

I know Fall River uses it.

It doesn't generate any benefits.

Even if this was an enterprise fund, uh, Mike would still have to come to you for appropriations each and every year, just as all the other 4 enterprise funds do.

The thing is, as I think most councilors have commented here already, you have about $11.6-$12 million worth of revenue.

Direct costs are about $6.4 million.

I mean, it would be burdened with health insurance and pensions, so that'll be about another $2.5 or $3 million.

So about $9 million.

That's $3 million you're taking out of the general fund, right?

By— because you're doing that, you got to put on the tax rate.

So if you want to go the enterprise fund route with EMS, you got to figure on about a $3 million increase in your property taxes because we're not getting it from state aid.

And we're going to get a little bit back from indirect charges from, from EMS, but not enough.

And Mike won't get any more benefit out of it.

He gets— he, he asks for everything he needs here, and he would do the same if it was an enterprise fund.

And the council is— we still have to get an appropriation.

Even if there's revenue available, we can't spend that revenue without an appropriation.

So he would have to go before you, in either event.

But I do appreciate your comments, though, because you had pointed out something that I've been big on as well, that it's— I want to call it a cash cow, but it's— it is the only department in the city that actually generates more revenue than its expenditures.

Right.

Treasurer's— I'm sorry, John— does not count because Treasurer's does not get credit for property taxes, even though they collect it.

But pure— in terms of pure extra billing to the city to free up the general, uh, tax base, nobody does it like Mike, right?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councilor.

Okay, very good.

Anyone else for Bob?

All right, next up is Inspectional Services.

We have Commissioner Romanowicz here with us, and we are on page 75 of our budget books.

Good evening.

Good evening.

The Department of Inspectional Services is responsible for promoting and protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the residents and businesses of New Bedford through the enforcement of state and local building zoning, plumbing, gas, electrical, and weights and measure regulations.

Our department is comprised of administration, inspections, weights and measures, and all work together to ensure the development, construction, and business operations throughout the city comply with applicable codes and regulations.

Over the past year, we have continued to provide a high level of service despite ongoing staff challenges.

Through the dedication of our employees and the use of cross-training, we have maintained continuity of operations and met the needs of residents, contractors, businesses, and property owners.

Among our accomplishments this year, we increased the number of certificate inspections completed helping to ensure safe housing conditions and timely service to the public.

We also expanded inspections, uh, activities with our Weights and Measures Division, resulting in more businesses being inspected and greater consumer protection throughout the city.

As New Bedford continues to grow and develop, our department remains committed to providing efficient, professional, and responsive services while safeguarding public safety and supporting economic development.

We appreciate the continued support of the administration and City Council as we work to meet the evolving needs of our community.

Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Chair recognizes Councilor Burgos.

Hello, Commissioner Romanowicz.

How are you?

I was just curious about how long the 2 positions— you had the local building inspector and the compliance officer positions— were these positions that were vacant for a long time or just recently vacant during this budget crisis that they decided just to chop off because they were vacant during the time this budget was being put together?

The first one, the building inspector That's been vacant the whole year.

The whole year?

Nobody comes in to apply.

So no applications?

None whatsoever.

Well, we, we did have one, but he took a job somewhere else.

Compliance officer— what happened was Joseph Barney took another position, so he was second.

He passed his test to be the SEAL.

I promoted him to SEAL.

So now that's the, that's the empty position.

So it was never, never empty until Joseph Bonney left.

He left probably about 3 months ago.

So then that was a situation where it just happened to be vacant and then they decided to just chop it off during this, whether when they were making cuts?

Yeah, we got, um, the building inspector and the compliance officer.

Yes, sir.

Okay, recent cut.

And so are these positions that you feel you can sustain with, uh, meaning you're one of the departments that I think every year the council recognizes Inspectional Services needs to be amped up because it's one of those departments where we need the support there for— especially as a city where we're changing the zoning to try to build more.

We want development in the city, and that happens in Inspectional Services.

And so are these cuts in this particular case going to be detrimental to the work that you're trying to do in inspection services?

Well, as you know, it's very hard to get anybody to apply for the position of building inspector because of the pay.

Because of the pay.

But since, since we made the other 3 building inspectors Unit Cs, and it appears that the contract for for the union is going to pay a substantial higher rate for a building inspector, we might have people applying now.

But with the way the economy is right now, people that are qualified to be a building inspector can make more money out of their trucks working for themselves or working for somebody else.

So that's a big thing.

We usually get somebody that's older, they've already made their money, The younger guys come in, they see what the pay is, and they say, yeah, thank you, can you raise me up?

And I said, no, you have to start here.

That's it.

They never come back.

It's very hard to hook somebody.

Okay.

Thank you.

I just, again, using you through the administration to emphasize the point that other areas that we see that the administration was willing to reclassify or move up, but then the departments like yourself that we need to amp up to help with growth and development in our city.

When we're talking about wanting New Bedford to build, now we're tearing down your department where you already have been struggling.

And that's not a hit on you.

I know, again, we often joke about your car being the last car in the parking lot at 11 o'clock at night, having to do that work.

So I appreciate the service that you offer to our city, putting in that overtime, which again, I say overtime, but we know that you're a salaried employee not getting overtime pay.

So that's why I just, I get worried and I'm really frustrated and pissed off about the fact that these other departments, again, how are we deciding which employees are getting reclassified in these pay grade upgrades and then which ones we're cutting off?

So I just, I wanted clarify that and bring attention to it.

So I think I can bring to your attention, remember last year this council cut some building inspectors, but I had a guarantee by President Pereira that if I did find somebody and I came to this council, that you would find the money to supply it.

So the if people are coming in, I'm sure that we can find money to supply that, that person, because he's going to bring more revenue to the city.

So that's something to look forward to.

Well, that's good.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Councilor Lopes.

Thank you, Council President.

Danny, I will echo what the good councilor at Lodge said.

You're— you work 7 days a week.

I know I text you 7 days a week, and you're always You're always on and you go above and beyond.

You're— you came in actually less than you did the previous year and you generate more income than you do expenditures.

So I always tell you, what do you— what does your office need that to really maximize the— your office as well as the revenue that you can generate?

And if that's another inspector or things of that nature, we've talked about the salary issues.

Before.

And right, so just the body will always do what we can to support you because you're another one of those departments that generates more revenue than you do expenditures.

And I commend you for bringing your budget under where you did last year and increase your revenue.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilor.

Councilor Abreu.

Thank you, uh, Mr. President.

Good evening, Danny.

Um, I was noticing on— again, it's proposed, so it's not set in stone, but you're looking for a little bit of a decline in the number of building permits being pulled by builders, developers, residential, etc.

I was just wondering, given the fact that we've been tuning up and fixing some of our zoning measures in the city to things like whether it's the parking minimums or whether it's, you know, some of the mixed-use business stuff we've been doing in the ordinance committee and so forth and so on, just wondering what you link that to, considering we're trying to slash some bureaucracy and some red tape?

Be it— I would think that you would— I don't know, I'm just trying to reconcile.

I would think that we would see more people wanted to pull permits and invest, given what we've been doing here as a legislative body.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, I always err on less than more, because if I put more in there and I come to you, you're gonna say, well, you didn't hit your you didn't hit your mark.

Under-promise and over-deliver, right?

So that's, that's just the way I do it.

That's pretty fair.

Um, everything else, you and I have had discussions.

This is all pretty boilerplate.

Um, in your $200,000 contractual services, can you explain what that's for again, please?

Oh, that's for, um, um, constables.

Uh, when I got to tear a building down, I got an engineer that I have to pay to write reports.

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah, this is pretty cut and dry.

This is my 11th go-around with you, so it's pretty simple.

And Danny, if you were hourly, you wouldn't be— you'd be a multimillionaire.

You wouldn't be standing there right now if you were hourly, my man.

Yeah, if I didn't love my job, I wouldn't work.

If you were hourly at minimum wage, you would be a millionaire, okay?

Good job, Danny, though, and I appreciate— and again, on behalf of myself, I'm sure all of us, we appreciate, because, you know, I know it's not easy.

We all text you, we all email you, but you're always on it.

So thank you.

You're welcome for everything.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you.

Councilor Carney.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Danny, thank you so much for what you do, and you do answer all your texts, your phone calls, and you work around the clock, and I want to thank you very much for what you do.

I just want a little piggyback on my, my counselor at large about the zoning, with the changing of the zoning that we've just done.

And we— I noticed that the permits dropped a little bit.

Do you foresee with that zoning change people coming to your department looking to do something that held them back because of our zoning?

Do you see an uptick coming in that?

Yeah, with the The same thing happened with ADUs.

Okay.

They came in, but once they found out what they had to do to get the ADU, they never proceeded.

So I, I thought we were going to get a lot more than we did, but that didn't pan out.

Okay.

Because they're— it's— they, they feel that they're going to take the garage and turn it over into a place for their, their mother or their son, or once they find out what the cost is going to be.

It's prohibitive, right?

And you mean the cost because of the building materials and what the inflation costs and what else is going on now?

You got to hook up the water, you got to hook up the electrical, right?

Now you're, you're a separate address, uh, so you're going to get taxed differently than you were before.

So once they started researching it, a lot of them backed out of it, right?

Okay, so that that's not generating anything.

It's actually deterring things for the process and the expense that they have.

We got, we got about 3, 3 to a half a dozen in the works, but it's a long, long, long haul for these people, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, and, um, I think that was it.

The other question was answered.

And I do want to thank you again because you're another department that brings in more revenue than what your budget is asking for.

So I do appreciate that.

I'm just seeing that a revenue-generating department like yours, we need to pay more attention in funding your inspectors, because I know that you're down on some, and some people have complained that they don't get them fast enough.

That's because you don't have them, and you're working on limited inspectors.

So hopefully that's the department that the administrators— administration would look at and and be able to bump you up when you ask for something so that way can be more revenues in the city.

And thank you so much.

Thank you so much for what you do, Danny.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Anyone else?

From the chair, just, Danny, I know your revenue is increasing, but I noticed that the projected number of certificate CIs have gone— looks like you're projecting to go down.

Yeah, that's because we lost Jimmy Pappas to Dartmouth.

Okay.

And right now we got people on vacation time trying to get their vacations in, so that decreases the number per day.

We're trying to get 2 every half an hour, but then we had to cut it down because we lost the other man.

So, gotcha.

Well, we just keep chipping away at it.

Okay.

It's just that we don't have the manpower right now.

All right, because we've spoken at length about it, but CIs, regardless of the revenue that they might generate, really result in safe buildings in our city.

And safe buildings, and then we have to go back again, and we don't charge them unless they don't show up.

Okay.

Or if they're just not doing what they're supposed to do, then we'll tack on a charge, right?

But we sometimes— we're losing money on that.

But you're right, it makes a safe building.

100% in there are safe now.

Yeah, your department does a good job at generating revenue, but this is something that's really purely about safety of these multifamilies.

So, you know, one idea I had, and it's something to investigate with the legal team and not so much us, but is to offer it to maybe retiree building inspectors.

Yeah, to come in and work some variable times who have their license.

Who can do these certificates, who know what we're looking for.

And that's something I've thought of, and I know that we probably have legal issues we have to clear, but— Yeah, but you're talking somebody retired, and I got one inspector upstairs that counts how many stairs he does per day, and it's quite a lot of stairs.

So it's 3 tenements, 4 floors.

Yeah.

So you're going to get somebody retired.

I don't really want them having a heart attack, you know.

We're keeping them in shape.

We're keeping them in shape.

Yeah, it would keep them in shape.

Yeah, exactly.

And then, then we would generate revenue from EMS for the ambulance calls.

So I think— but it's a good idea.

Councilor Prior, I think you just found a way to keep Danny around even longer.

Um, no, but I thank you for the work that you do.

Oh, all right.

Anyone else for Danny?

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you all.

Have a good night.

Next up is auditors, page 23 in our book, and we have City Auditor Quillen with us.

Good evening, Council President, members of the City Council.

I'm Quillen Lani, the City Auditor.

So the auditor's department is really mainly the accounting for the city.

We also have the payable department.

So that's responsible for processing and auditing all financial transactions through the city.

Basically anything that's not payroll goes through my office to get paid out to vendors.

We're also in charge of the annual budget execution.

So after the budget gets passed, then we manage to that with every department, whether it's general fund, enterprise fund, revolving fund, grant fund, capital project fund, any kind of fund, we manage that.

We also prepare Internal and external financial reporting for the Department of Revenue, and also we do the city's annual comprehensive financial statement audit with our independent CPAs.

We also review job requisitions, procurement contracts, and then document archive management.

Right now, my budget for my department, unfortunately, and am going to be losing a longtime assistant city auditor.

He is choosing to retire.

He's been with the city for over 30 years, and as part of this budget and for departments looking to find savings, I've offered to have that position eliminated.

Also, my accounts payable team, there's a project coordinator position that's been vacant since April, and that is also going to become eliminated with this fiscal '27 budget.

So to supplement these vacancies on my personal services.

I'm requesting to get some professional outside help to assist during the year when I feel that we need it.

So you'll see 2 different lines for contractual services with 2 different rates.

One is more so for an accounts payable clerk, and the other is to assist with the assistant city auditor tasks, more so around the, the time of the year when we're doing our audit and reporting.

So that's it for me.

Take any questions from you colleagues?

Councillor Abreu.

Thank you very much.

Quinlan, on page 26 in the 200, just talk a little bit about contractual services, please.

We're seeing quite a spike there.

So, yep.

Yeah, so part of that includes our annual audit, which is fixed in a 3-year contract.

So This will be year 2 of that contract.

So I have that budgeted for $175,000.

Also, every other year, we need to do a full actuarial valuation of the city's OPEB fund.

So this past year, we just had a roll-forward procedure that was only about $1,500.

Next year, I need to go out and receive solicit quotes.

So I budgeted for that to be $14,000.

So that's, you know, maybe about $12,000 increase from the prior year as well.

I'm also again asking for $33,000 in contractual services to assist with the vacancies I'll have on my team.

Otherwise, it's just minimal training opportunities and fees for our copy machine.

Okay, okay.

And your travel, you've kept that level from last year and the year prior.

Is this all in-state travel?

Correct, yeah.

I like to try to attend the MMAA conferences.

There's one one in UMass Amherst during March, and then there's one that happens in June.

And I'm always open to see any other training opportunities that might come up, so I put some travel in there just in case.

All right, Quindlen.

Yeah, this is super lean, super boilerplate, and there's no surprises here with me anyway.

So that was really all I had.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I'll yield.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Burgo.

Thank you, Auditor Lowney.

How are you?

I'm doing all right.

How are Wonderful.

Um, I guess I— has the assistant city auditor left already?

No, he'll be retiring in the beginning of August of this year.

Okay, so that's why there's a small, uh, amount.

Yeah, we're budgeting for the 5 weeks or so that he'll be on the payroll, and then we also are budgeting for his payoff.

Okay, so August— so August of 2026.

Yep.

Okay, and I would like to keep him for that time because he'll be really critical in helping me close out the year-end in the month of July.

Yeah, that's— I just, I was at first I was confused because I was like, it's eliminated, but there's $10,000.

Yeah, it will be once he retires.

Now I understand that it's because you're offloading the position.

So, okay, just wanted to, uh, I appreciate the, uh, explanation.

That's all.

Thank you, colleagues.

Quillin, not too bad.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Have a good night, everyone.

Excuse me.

Next up is the Treasurer's Office on page 153, and with us we have City Treasurer John Texiarcos.

We know we're in for it with, uh, service up next.

That'll be a power point too.

Yeah, you already gave it to people.

Oh, food, dude.

We'll pause for the station break.

That's what the stool is for.

Yeah, you get a good 3-step up.

Good evening, Council President, councilors, ladies and gentlemen.

The Treasurer Collector's Department is comprised of 4 divisions: Treasury Collections, Tax Title, and Central Payroll.

The department is responsible for collecting all payments, recording daily departmental receipts, research and preparation of municipal lien certificates, computation and payment of payroll, as well as federal and state tax liabilities, collection of delinquent city accounts, oversight of municipal borrowing and debt, and the management of cash and investments of funds.

The mission of the Treasurer-Collector's Office is to serve in accordance with Massachusetts General Law as a responsible steward of the city's funds, deposits, investments, collections, and disbursements.

The proposed budget emphasizes the department's mission to provide exemplary treasury services to residents, taxpayers, and all people doing business with the city.

Our office is an operational control point for the city, and this request funds revenue collection, cash stewardship, payroll services, tax title, and internal controls.

In personal services, we have 13 funded positions comprised of 12 full-time employees and 1 part-time employee.

This represents 76 percent of the total budget request.

We are currently fully staffed and finally working on all cylinders, although we still have significant staff training to do.

In many cases, this training can take up to 6 months.

These are highly detail-oriented positions that require accuracy, efficiency, deep research, critical thinking, and specialized expertise.

Given that we process almost 250,000 incoming payments and reconcile almost 50,000 transactions annually.

That's over 25,000 processed, recorded, and reconciled payments and transactions per month.

Within those positions, we did hire the part-time tax title attorney.

Who is an extreme add value to our team.

We also were able to negotiate in the new AFSCME contract an hourly from 37.5 to 40 hours for 4 of our team members, which was much needed.

And we had 3 promotions for leaders who are in Unit C critical roles in 3 of our divisions.

In purchased services, we have a roughly $31,000 reduction versus the '26 supplemental budget.

The total overall change represents an increase of approximately 4.5% versus the '26 supplemental budget.

The 200 accounts represent a total of $273, $689,000.

Many of those costs are either compliance-related or directly affect revenue collection.

For example, a cost of $50,000 for the collection attorney would generate gross revenue of $200,000.

In this particular category, we have increased collections revenue by 642% year-to-date versus full year '23.

In addition, for this year, which will continue next year and all years going forward, is the change to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 60 regulations, which require a constable to serve all parties for the notice of takings.

The 400 and 700 accounts include related costs related to contractual obligations, copier and printer supplies, dues and subscriptions, and insurance premiums for surety bonds to mitigate risk and liability on behalf of the city.

In summary, the Treasurer Collector's Office collects and safeguards municipal funds, performs cash management, debt issuance, payroll for all employees, tax title and delinquent tax services, payment processing and compliance compliance functions.

I'm sorry, some notable accomplishments to date are the receipt of 11 deed-in-lieu parcels, which helped us avoid lengthy and costly land court proceedings, the collection of an additional $800,000 for full year '25 delinquent real estate taxes, a 62% increase in tax title payment agreements, which is a foreclosure avoidance tool for taxpayers that the City Council contributed to by approving the amended Ordinance 2-105, allowing a reduced down payment and extended maturity for tax title payment agreements.

We also implemented an ACH vendor payment program that has reduced the number of paper checks and the cost for mailing and has enhanced the city's relationship its vendors.

Some of our full year '27 initiatives include transitioning to a new lockbox provider and transitioning to a new online payments vendor.

These transitions require testing, reconciliation, portal changes, billing changes, customer support, new compliance controls, and new procedures.

This takes a full experienced staff to manage so we can avoid the risk of failed payments, delayed postings, and reconciliation backlogs.

In summary, the Treasury Collector's Office collects and safeguards municipal funds, performs cash management, debt issuance, payroll for all employees, tax title and delinquent tax services, payment processing, and compliance functions.

The requested budget Funds capacity needed for statutory and internal control functions.

Thank you, and I welcome your questions.

Thank you.

Councilor Lopes.

Thank you, Council President.

So, John, I just want to commend you for the, the $800,000 and, you know, the delinquent real estate tax collected, as well as the, the tax title repayment agreements.

I'd love to see what that saves the city in other outside services.

I'm not going to ask for it, but I know there is an ROI on that.

And if you ever have the time, I'd love to see what the ROI on your work is, because that would just enhance what your office is already doing that you're not including in your matrix— your metrics.

Sorry.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Councilor Burgos.

Thank you.

Um, you had mentioned the 3 promotions in your office.

Um, I have listed here, it looks like the, uh, Executive Finance Operations Specialist.

Is that one of them?

Yes.

And the Payroll Supervisor, was, was that used to be the Audit Supervisor previously?

Yes.

Which was an M-8 to an M-10?

Correct.

Okay.

And then, uh, the Assistant City Treasurer position, was that used to be the Assistant City collector.

Is there a difference in the titles?

The assistant city collector went to executive finance operations specialist.

Okay, so that was an M-11 to an M-13, right?

Okay, so 2 pay grade.

All right, and then the administrative coordinator position, that used to be a part-time position, now it's a full-time position, full-time role.

Okay, and that, that is what the 3 promotions are.

Yes, uh, uh, 2 executive finance operations specialists.

Oh yes, sorry.

And the payroll supervisor.

Because previously the— yes, okay, I see now.

Okay, yes, that was 2.

All right, sorry.

Yes, 2 there.

Okay, I'll save you the song and dance.

As you know, the, about the reclassifications.

I think we've heard it enough, uh, tonight.

But, um, I wanted— the one question I did want to ask is, obviously last year, I don't know if you were our treasurer back when we had cuts during FY26.

When did you join us?

'23, uh, November '23.

Okay, so we had, um, the increased vacancies Uh, so you had a vacancy savings of a total of $54,000, um, for your department last year.

Um, are you going to be requesting a transfer to cover those?

No.

So we were down 3 people for a long time.

So you're all set in regards to that?

So that additional vacancy did not hurt you last year?

Not with 3 people down, no.

Okay, just wanted to make sure.

Okay, that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

All right, so next up, still with John, will be debt services on page 167.

Thank you again.

The city incurs short-term and long-term debt depending on the financing requirements and project status.

Debt service expenditures associated with the general fund are assigned to this account.

The proposed full year '27 debt service budget is $12,755,657.

And incorporates next year's payment schedule for outstanding debt.

The City of New Bedford is a highly rated issuer of debt securities.

The city's long-term general obligation bonds carry an enhanced rating of AA+ and an underlying rating of AA- from Standard Poor's Financial Services and A1 from Moody's Investor Services.

Thank you.

I'm open for questions.

Councilor Carney.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you, John.

Um, okay, first question, um, that we're going up in debt service at $2.5 million.

Um, what's that contributed to?

So a big portion of that is a short-term ban that goes for 1 year, and that full interest is due over that year.

So we do have to pay that.

So that's just So that's the $2.5 million is just interest that we have to pay?

$1.3 million of that is interest.

Okay, so and what's the rest?

See, $1.4 million.

No, it's a $2.5 million increase and $1.3 million is the interest.

And what's the balance?

The balance is other school projects.

We just did a general bond obligation for roughly $41 million.

$1,075,000, I believe it was.

And so it's going to be payments for that.

And we also had an increase in Mass Clean Water Trust loans.

Okay, so on that, on the, on the money that we bonded for the schools, um, isn't, isn't some of that reimbursable to us, to the city?

Yeah, but not those pieces.

Just not the— yeah, so the, the debt that we're paying here is is not going to be reimbursable.

It's the city's portion.

Oh, so the $43 million is the city's portion?

The $41,075,000.

Okay, so the $41 million is the city's portion that's in the debt service.

That's, that's what brings that up to the, the, the extra $2.5 million in the debt service.

Okay.

And then, um, the, the City Council, um, voted on the CIP, which is an additional $12 million this year for city improvement projects, the critical improvement projects.

Where's that, um, debt factor falling?

Is that incorporated in this year or will it be incorporated into next year's?

No, so next year we'll have to look.

It's not a part of any of this debt service because it hasn't been approved yet.

Okay, we'd have to get, um, a I don't know if it went through city council or not for approval, but it would also have to get MFAB approval.

And so we'd have to go through that process in order to get any of that funded for new loans.

Right.

And one question, one last question.

Can you give me an estimated what that is going to add on to our debt service?

I cannot.

For next year?

No.

No.

No, no guess at some sort of interest rate?

No, I'm not even going to guess.

I'm sorry.

Okay, so we don't know what $12 million is going to add on to our debt service for next year at all?

I do.

No guesstimate?

In fact, it's, it's probably going to be for '28 because if it gets approved, um, and it's going through for next year, those payments, those debt service payments actually wouldn't occur until So it's $28 million, right?

Okay.

I'm just looking— every time we borrow money and we add it on the taxpayers, right now our bottom line total is $12 million that we pay in the money that we, that we borrowed.

And I'm just looking to find out where we can stop and slow down something because we're now— we're, we're losing a fire station at $1.4 million, and I'm just trying to figure out when we keep borrowing and building and borrowing and borrowing and borrowing, and we're losing— we're losing a fire station, we're losing public safety, we're going to lose people that want to be in the city.

So we're not going to gain anything for all these things that we're doing because we're going to have less people to fill them up.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

That's all.

Thank you.

Anyone else on debt service?

All right.

John, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Last but certainly not least is the Airport Enterprise Fund, pages 1-3 in our budget book.

And up to present is airport director, manager, director, whatever the title is, Scott Service.

All right, the floor is yours, sir.

Thank you.

All right, Scout Service airport budget.

Um, some of this is a little bit of repeat for some of the new folks, but, uh, there are 14,400 public-use airports.

In the country.

Only 3,300 are open to commercial use.

Out of that, we are one of those 3,300.

There are 35 public use airports in Massachusetts.

EWB is only one of 9 commercial use airports.

We are currently ranked number 6 out of 35 airports based on operations.

Um, 6 is the safe number.

We hover between 4 and 6 because we've recently, with our operations, depending on what numbers you use, we're beating out some of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket for operations.

Airfield improvements, last 10 years we received a number of grants for $70 million in airport improvement projects.

Been very good at getting grants for these.

So that we're looking at only about a 4.3% cost to the city for these improvements, or about $1.3 million over the 10 years.

Um, we're looking to invest in the airport and in the future for a new terminal project.

95% would be covered by the state or the FAA with a 5% investment.

For awareness, um, we have an economic impact of $29.6 million to the city and the region.

We're home to 3 FBOs: Bridgewater State Flight Training School, which is one of the only accredited schools in all of New England, Avis Budget Car Rental, and also Cape Air.

We're home to 277 employees.

And it's important to note that the airport properties that we own— some are on airport, some are off airport because we own properties that are in our transitions— they pay just over $422,000 in property taxes.

$134,000 of that is solely on the airport.

An example of what we do We've got about 40% of what most pure airports— Nantucket, the Vineyard, Hanscom— we're not looking at Worcester and Logan.

Our staff is about 40% admin of what those are.

Most airports have a lot more staffing.

We have about 25% of the staff for airfield maintenance, but with that despite having the lowest staffing levels of our peers by far, in the blizzard of '26 where we got our 37 inches of snow, after Worcester, after Boston, and after Hanscom, we were the first airport to open.

So with the staff level that we had, we, we opened it, and that is because of the 4 full-time, one part-time, and the 2 managers, the assistant manager Mike and myself, working 60, 70 hours a week plowing that airport to open that back up.

Projects we're working on: we're updating our airport layout plan, we're doing some environmental data collection for permitting the proposed air traffic control site permit, replacing Taxiway Bravo North, which the pavement is in bad condition.

We need to update that.

And then purchasing some new snow removal equipment.

And we are currently negotiating the 10% design of the air traffic control and terminal.

Cost of that that'll be determined.

That's— I know everybody's talking about the terminal air traffic control and the cost of it, especially with our budget considerations.

That 10% design part is going to really define what that large number is.

You know, we had early estimates just based on general principles, and we're doing the 10% design with the state and funded by the FAA.

Um, we're— local share on that's going to be about 2.5%, and that will really get us an actual cost of what those facilities will be or not be and the size of them, so that when we come before everybody and the taxpayers on where we land on that, we'll have a definitive number, not just a generalization based on square feet of where that is.

Also important to note that When we do bond that, the airport does pay for that bond.

It does not come out of the general fund.

It's paid by airport revenue.

So for those projects that are coming up, minus the 10% design, local share for this year's projects is just over $42,000, and that is part of our budget to cover those projects.

So again, not taxpayer revenue.

Our 100 account, we have no vacant positions.

We're fully staffed.

We had 2 Ask Me personnel that were upgraded to a higher position because they have a CDL license.

We worked through that under the contract because if DFFM and DPI and other departments are going to pay more for CDL drivers, we needed to pay more for our drivers.

We can't have just anybody plowing airports, so we needed to ensure that we maintain the staff that we had, which is what made us work out so well for the storm of '26.

Um, 200 account, we have 2 enhancement requests which we'll go into in further.

400, 700, 900 have just been level funded on the '26 For our 200 account, um, covers a lot of non-discretionary expenses.

89% of it is already obligated under federally mandated environmental monitoring, utilities, gas, electric, uniform, cell phones, maintenance contracts for generators, HVAC, fire sprinklers.

USDA, that's our wildlife program, trash, etc., employee medical benefits.

That leaves about 11% of our $200 million budget to cover unexpected expenses and preventative maintenance on the buildings, grounds, and vehicles, which are not— which, it's not enough.

And you've all driven by the airport, you've seen the state of the building.

If anybody would like to have a tour of the building and see where it is, and what's working or not working.

This spring it cost us about $4,000 just to have the air conditioning fixed, which only covered the first floor of the building.

It doesn't cover the second or third floor.

So we're, we're at a little bit of a critical juncture on maintaining the building and trying to get things working, never mind the maintenance of the vehicles.

The enhancements requests, uh, we have an enhancement for $7,500 to increase for public safety, $20,000 to increase for maintenance to vehicles.

The $7,500, um, what we're currently paying right now for annual fire monitoring, testing sprinklers, extinguishers, and the alarm panel is $7,000 a year.

HVAC terminal and maintenance is $1,600 a year.

That's just the changeover from heat to AC and AC back to heat.

It's an old building, it's very hard to do.

That does not cover anything that goes wrong, which I previously mentioned.

We just had to pay about $4,000 to have the air conditioning unit fixed so that it would work for the tenants we have on the first floor of the terminal.

Maintenance on power lines and perimeter fence.

Airport Road is not a city street.

It's not an approved city street.

So all the power lines that run down, if something happens or a tree falls through it, that's on the airport to fix.

There's no help coming.

We have to hire a contractor to come do it.

Same thing if somebody drives through a fence or something happens, we've got to fix it.

Um, that totals about $1,200— $12,800 a year.

Our current funding for that is $5,371.

That leaves us a deficit of about $7,500, which accounts for that enhancement request.

Um, $20,000 increase to RM vehicles.

We've got a very unique fleet.

Chevy Silverados and not unique.

International plow trucks, we've got 3 of them.

A couple of zero-turn motors, tractors.

A Marshmaster is literally an aluminum tank with a brush hog on the back of it.

I'll show you a picture in a second.

We have 2 front-end loaders.

One's 10 years old, the other is almost 30 years old.

We have an Oshkosh snowblower, which is about the size of a school bus.

I again, I'll show you a picture in a second.

We have 2 backup generators that power the terminal, the airfield lighting, and all of the approach lights.

And we also have a 2017 Oshkosh Stryker truck that was previously maintained by DFFM.

The cost of that vehicle has now been put back on the airport.

That averages about $10,000 $10,000 a year just for routine maintenance before something goes wrong on that.

So our maintenance costs were $30,998— $30,998— $31,000 for the year.

Our funding for that is $11,160.

That leaves us at a deficit of about $19,838.

So here's a picture of that snowblower.

It has twin diesel engines, one to drive the auger, one to drive the vehicle.

This is the Marshmaster that we drive out to clear the light lines for the approach lights.

Our 2017 Oshkosh.

We have a Cat excavator that we use for brush and tree clearing and vegetation removal.

Upper left is one of our 3 plow trucks, our loader.

We've got a number of tractors.

This one actually doesn't have the attachment on the back for mowing.

This one does.

We have zero-turns.

A lot of this equipment DFFM can't service.

They don't have people that know how to work on them.

They don't work on things on a regular basis.

They'll help us out in an emergency, but we've got to send that out to third-party vendors for that stuff.

And even when we do send it to DFMM to have it fixed, they charge us for their time, they charge us for the materials.

So, you know, it's not like a general fund where we just say it needs to get fixed, we get it back fixed, and another department eats the cost of it.

We pay that back to the general fund just as if we brought it to Bob Sinoco or DFFM, or we brought it to the Oshkosh dealer.

So in contrast to other departments, the Airport Enterprise Fund, we cover our own long-term debt.

So when we bond things, it's covered by the airport.

We pay our employees' pension costs.

We pay our employees' health and life insurance.

We pay our own electric bills.

It doesn't get passed over to the energy department or somebody else to cover.

We reimburse DFFM and DPI for any of the gas and diesel we pump out of their tanks and the vehicle maintenance.

This all adds up to about $448,000 that we utilize the city for a lot of these services that we pay them back for.

That comes out of our revenue.

On top of that, we also pay indirect fees to other departments in the city of about $64,000.

As an enterprise fund, we pay money towards the mayor's office, the CFOs, the auditors, purchasing, solicitors, city council, energy department, MIS treasurers.

We pay a portion of their revenue back to them to utilize those departments.

So the takeaway of where I'm going with this is that airport generates on average in revenue about $1 million a year, cost about $1 million a year to run the place.

Um, we do get subsidies because the cost of insurance and such has gone up like everybody else, but we do pay a lot back to the general fund that comes out of that revenue.

So it's, it's almost like one hand puts it in the right pocket, the left hand takes it out of the other pocket with a lot of this.

Important to note that airport properties generated about $423,000 in property taxes.

That's on and off property.

If you were just looking at just on-property taxes, it's $134,000.

Now those on-property taxes don't draw a lot from the airport.

We supply, supply the services.

We plow their aprons, we handle their roadways, we handle all of that.

And lastly, the airport does have an economic input to the city in the region of $29.6 million per year to the surrounding communities.

Um, in conclusion, I— despite we do do get subsidies for stuff, I do believe we pay a lot more back to the general fund than we take out of the general fund, and we provide a lot more in taxes and things back to the city that we get for it.

So ultimately, you know, we are generating revenue for the city, even though on a back-of-the-napkin math maybe it doesn't look that way.

But that's, that's where we are.

With that, any questions?

Happy to answer them.

Councilor Carney.

Yes, um, I'm— I don't know, I'm looking here, but I don't know if I'm missing something.

All the other— all the other departments that generated revenue had a line item of what the revenue was generated.

I don't see it here in the budget book.

It's in the front of the book.

Oh, it's in the front.

Enterprise Fund is on page 15.

Okay, what is it, 1.2?

Which is HOA 1.2.

Okay, all right, thank you.

That's what I was looking for.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Scott.

Councilor Gomes.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Scott, with some of the enhancements, as you know, the terminal being done and some other things, do you see an increase in the revenue if we are able to do that project?

When I say revenue, um, a larger portion of money being returned to the city or the airport due to the improvements.

Did you get my— did you get my thrust of what I said?

I get what you're saying, and I don't have a crystal ball, and I'm not going to make promises.

No, I'm not.

But I know what the airport looks like, and people that want to do business know what the airport looks like.

And I know what it is when folks fly in with their private jets and they land on a great runway, taxi in on good taxiways and a new apron, and then get on the roadway and bump and bang all the way back out, the last thing they remember was that was awful.

You know, we've talked to a number of airlines and businesses, and companies do not want to invest in something that looks like it's on the downturn, like it's failing and it's on its way out.

Nobody wants to be the great big store that moves into the mall that's about ready to close.

They want to move into the mall that looks like it's going somewhere.

And that's where that investment of the future comes through.

Um, the timing couldn't be worse with the budget deficit that we have, and we're cognizant of that, which is why we want to do that first part of that 10% design to get real numbers.

I mean, saying it's a $75 million project or a $70 million project, it's just a huge number.

And they just did it off of square footage of what they thought we'd have.

We really need to look at, you know, what the terminal could be or should be, what's included or not included, and take a hard look at that.

And that's what that 10% design is going to be, is what does our future look like, what are we going to do, what are we not going to do.

Same thing with the tower.

That tower's a little harder because a lot of if it's FAA required.

But that, that's part of that exercise that we need to go through, because the last thing we want is an enormous terminal that sits empty or a tiny building that can't be expanded.

It's kind of right-sizing where it is, but the ultimate goal is to try to improve the look and feel of the airport to draw in that business.

If we're gonna turn half of a golf course into a new business park and we want to attract companies that may or may not have corporate jets, we need an airport that looks like the one they want to fly into.

And that's— that's who told you that, where we're looking at.

Who told you that?

Who told me what?

Who told you that we would have corporate airlines, uh, planes coming in because of the development over at the golf course?

I said if— I said, okay, if companies that have those want to come, if is a very big word.

Understood.

Would mean understood.

The one thing I don't like to do is overpromise.

You know, I, I, my, my goal is to increase the airport and increase revenue and increase where it stands.

And I know with an old infrastructure, an old airport, it's hard to grow a business.

So we're looking to do that.

Um, hopefully we can kind of play this out for a little bit we're in better financial times when the time comes that we have the hard conversation about whether we bond a project or not.

But we're getting way in front of things over this year's budget because we're not asking for that now.

But I— that is top of my mind with everything else.

I mean, New Bedford's not the only city or town that's having problems.

It came from the top down to the state, down to towns and You know, there's a lot of other places that are having hard times.

I understand all of that.

I just can't figure out how come we were told so late.

I don't like waking up from a dream that was good and then it becomes bad.

Um, on the expansion of the airport, I'm in total agreement with you.

You know that.

I really feel that that can become a jewel, not only for the airport and what goes on there, but for attracting some airlines there, maybe possibly some other services or whatever.

You know I want a 110 grill in the place, and I'll continue to bark at that.

Your road.

Your road is disgusting.

And it's not anything that is very impressive to any corporate person coming here.

It's not impressive.

I've tried going out both sides.

You know that.

You know I'm there.

Yeah.

Mike knows I'm there.

You guys are peeking at me in the window all the time.

I'm just there watching what's going on.

I believe we have to do something about that.

If we did get to do the expansion, would that be a piece of it?

I know we've had the— you come before us before.

Would that be a piece of it to do that road?

Or is that road something that the city has to look at, or we got to look for a grant, airport grant, whatever?

All comes down to the ultimate cost of what the project's going to be and how far the, the state and the FAA are going to step up for grants on it.

You know, initial assessments from the state where they were all in on the project, with their fiscal problems, they're kind of slowing that a little bit.

We're still working on it.

On where that comes, where that doesn't go.

In my mind, if you don't fix the road, you don't fix the parking lot, and you don't fix the terminal, then what's the point of any of it?

I mean, how much of that road is— you make it— if you don't make it all habitable, it doesn't matter if you've got a great road to a crappy building or a great building with a crappy road.

Understand?

You, you've got to bring it all together.

If that means we've got to shrink one thing to then get the other that goes with it, then that's a compromise I'm willing to make, as long as we've got some kind of plan for a building that is expandable in the future.

Because I don't know what comes with the future.

I know, I know what comes with the future, and you know what comes for the future— a higher amount, more investment into the project, which will go from 75 to 125, and it goes on and on.

The sooner the better.

I just— how much of that road is yours?

I know from Charmant Avenue, um, I mean, um, coming in from the post office side all the way down to the curve and around, where does that stop?

Where we did the new pavement?

So Downey Road comes down and there's a saw cut and with a pothole on the end of it right by where the Welcome to New Bedford sign.

And as soon as it hits that and it turns— it's not on that, but as soon as it turns and goes across that 3-2 end, then all the way around over to Shawmut, and then there's a saw cut, and then there's the new pavement over.

Okay, so that's where it stops, where the new pavement— or was that when that new pavement came?

I didn't understand why, because I thought that road was all right up here.

Stopped at the end of the approved street Okay, so that's where we got to begin, where all that rough stuff is.

Has there been any discussion again with the city about doing just cutouts up there to repair?

Because some of the road is okay, and I think if we went in there and cut so many feet and tarred it, cut so many feet and tarred it, and getting around the parking lot where we come from the terminal— that really bugs me because you know what that looks like over there, and that's supposed to be a crosswalk for people getting back and forth, and it's just horrible.

At the very end of last fiscal year, um, Commissioner Ponte at DPI had a little bit of extra money, and he did some saw cuts and replaced some sections of road to try to make it a little bit better, and it, and it helped.

But the other parts are still deteriorating, and there's still, you know, some pretty good potholes going by where Sandpiper is and making that curve, that S there, or whatever, that could be cut out.

I know that I've said this to you before, I just think it's important that the road is just halfway decent.

Like you said, it's not impressive if you— if I'm coming here from a corporate company and I leave by there, I don't care whether I'm in a Suburban or a Cadillac, I'm not impressed by what I see going out on one side or going out on the other side.

Honestly, for my purposes, I don't care.

I'll dodge the potholes and come in.

But for the other businesses at the— at the— that are at the airport that invested all that money, that have their businesses there, that cater to these private jets that fly in, they have to apologize to their customers for the quality of the road.

That's what I was saying, Scott.

And, you know, it's, it's not for me saying I want a brand new— it's We service a number of businesses.

Everybody that rents a car from Avis and Budget, everybody that flies out on Cape Air, everybody that comes in for corporate jets and goes in and out goes bumpety bump over those roads.

And that's either their first or last thought of New Bedford Airport.

And that shows badly on the businesses.

The businesses don't do well.

We get a portion of their revenue.

Their business suffers, our revenue suffers, and, you know, we go down.

We have a great number of corporate jets that are coming in and out of that airport.

Broke a record last year on corporate jets.

Big number.

Even later on at night, they're coming in.

And, um, we got to do something, um, because again, to the people who have the money, seeing something like that, I'm not impressed.

I mean, that falls nothing on you.

That, that's us to deal with.

And I just think it's gone too far.

I know I told you a year ago that we'd try to get you help or whatever.

That wasn't possible.

Again, we'll try to look at it in some way.

Um, it's one of those things that I just feel has to be, um, mended up just enough to get us past.

All right, that's hope.

I mean, it's— we've got very small— get us past to impress those coming here.

We've got very small staff for the airfield side and for management and admin side compared to other airports, but we're making it work and we can live with what we've got and we can do it.

And we have pilots that fly in and say, this is a great— you guys do a great job maintaining the field.

And it's because of the commitment, the people we have, and not to toot my own horn, but the oversight and what we do.

And we've been very aggressive with state grants to get new equipment, new mower, new mowers, new decks, so that a limited number of staff can do a lot of work.

What they used to have to do by hand cutting the fence, we now bought an excavator, which, you know, I got 90% paid for by the state.

I paid 10%.

But they can now reach over and take the shrubbery and the stuff off the fence and clear it.

What they used to have to do by hand, they can now do within hours, which used to take weeks.

You don't have to toot your own horn.

I'll toot it for you because I've made it a point that airport is something I've watched for 30-something years, and there hasn't been any change.

There has to be a change, and I think it's in the affirmative for the city.

It just would be a good thing for the city.

And I've heard a lot of promises.

You've heard me say it here before, and I won't linger to keep my colleagues here any longer.

But you've heard me talk about that airport before, and a lot of promises were made long before you came here.

Because I'm here when Eisen is here.

I've told you that before.

I'm here when I drive my Buick right past that gate.

They open up that gate and I'm on the field and I'm going, how did I deserve this?

Or whatever.

But that was the times and Mr. Eisner was a hell of a man.

Not only what he did for the airport at the time, what he did in general for the community.

But the airport is just a special place with me and I watch that place very closely.

You know that because I see you.

I see Mike leaving.

You see me there.

Know I'm there because I'm checking on what is going on on the other side at the pumping station, how that's motivating.

That's some of what this councillor does to see how things move along.

Matter of fact, I want to talk to Jamie about a fence there that seems to be too open to the general public pulling the switches.

You know what I'm talking about, the new pumping station.

But the airport deserves to get some recognition that it hasn't gotten, and I say 40 years or more.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you.

Anyone else from the— oh, Councilor Burgos.

How are you today, Mr. Servis?

Wonderful.

I was hoping you'd give me a longer answer while I punch in this You want me to ask my question?

Councilor, longer answer.

Very grateful that you could have me on Wednesday night instead of Monday night.

My wife and I didn't know when we got married back on May 27th, 1995, that our anniversary trip every year would get in the way of budget season.

Well, happy anniversary to you and your wife.

All right, I have my numbers now.

Okay, I apologize.

It was like the last thing.

I'm like, I have my FY26 in the front and FY27 in the back.

Not much like a mullet, but sorry, bad jokes at this end of the night.

I was just— what I was doing just now was comparing last year's free— what was projected to be a free cash allocation to what it looks like you're going to need now.

It like it's reduced, so you were able to save a little bit.

Initially we were looking at $91,000 of a potential free cash allocation needed to offset, and now it looks like it might only need, um, $47,000 to offset some of the cost for FY26.

Does that sound about accurate?

Yeah, I— the free cash allocation is a lot to do with our revenue projection.

And we used to try to project out what we thought it was going to be.

The new standard for how enterprise funds do it is, you know, the last 6 months of the fiscal year, this first 6 months of the fiscal year, you add it together, that's your revenue projection.

Sometimes that's accurate, sometimes it's low, but it's on the conservative side, which I like.

I don't like when it, you know, it's so conservative that it looks like I'm getting a gigantic subsidy from the general fund.

But I do like when my revenue actually beats the projection.

And that's where that free cash part kind of fluctuates, because when we beat our revenue projection, then we're not utilizing the full subsidy that we would get from the general fund.

Well, I know you also had some cuts last year, obviously, from the council, um, totaling about— well, combined with the mayor's, uh, vacancy savings, we also doubled his up to 6%.

So that was a total of $33,000, plus to your 200 account, uh, there was an additional $26,000 for a total, it looks like, of $60,283.

So I didn't see any transfer requests needed for your enterprise fund account unless it's not yet.

It was lost in the mail, so it didn't make last week's round for budget requests.

So it should be coming soon to make up the shortfall on the— you know how much is being requested?

I believe it's $67,000.

And okay, and I think think 40,000 to the 200 and 27 to the 100.

We had one position that was not vacant when we were in front, which confounded me a little bit because we got a vacancy rate and we had no vacancies, but we had one employee leave.

So we left the position open for a little bit, as long as we could take it just prior to the fall, and then we hired somebody because we knew we were going to need them snowplowing.

You know, mowing the lawn is a little easier, but snowplowing is a harder thing.

So we filled that position, and then that also gave me a little bit of time to figure out exactly what we needed.

Of course, the snowstorm threw a wrench in that for the overtime part, but it threw a wrench in everybody's budget for the overtime.

Okay, and then, um, this is more of a I have a procedural question.

I don't know, it's probably for Bob and Sharon.

It's— the numbers are fine.

I guess I just wanted to understand why we changed where the numbers go for— on page 15 of the enterprise fund summary, it threw me off because it gave the appearance that his debt service line increased by 138%.

But what really happens is typically it shows up that a portion of it, for example, it really typically would show debt service as $124,680, and then under indirect cost charges should be $330,673.

That's how it typically appeared like in FY25 and '26.

But for some reason this year you combined all of the indirect cost charges and debt services all under debt services line, which gave the appearance that debt services jumped 138% while there was a 100% reduction in direct cost charges.

But I just, I wasn't sure if there was a reason why.

Okay.

Yeah, if you could come to the microphone.

Sorry, thank you, Scott.

Council, I'll be quite honest, it looks like an oversight.

Okay, this looks like it should have been carved out because it's definitely an indirect charge from the airport.

So I want to have— take that down as a question because I'm noticing now that you brought it up, uh, I need to get you under my staff, I think, from QC here.

Um, but yeah, we'll get that all straightened out, but that was not by design.

Okay.

Yeah, and the total will be $455,000 in this case, but it's— it has to be put in its correct line items.

Okay.

Yeah, the only reason why I ask is just because, again, not a hit at the finance department, is a lot of times things that shift around in this budget, I question why they do, and I get worried that if, if it's approved in this line, is it because we're doing something weird over here?

And then I— because of, uh, Scott's presentation, which I appreciate how much detail you put in this, thank you for that, um, uh, the fact that he put a lot of the indirect costs, um, that they pay into, I just wanted to make sure that that is going to those indirect costs and not to some kind of debt services or what have you.

So yes.

I just wanted that clarification.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

From the chair.

So, Scott, I give you compliments.

I did last year, and in the amount of subsidy from the general fund last year, $47,000 is the final number of subsidy from the general general fund, but we're going to go up to a $125,000 projection of a subsidy.

And I have concerns about that when I'm hearing enhancement.

What I would say is, you know, I spoke with CFO Ekstrom just to confirm, but in a a fund like this, if you were to generate more revenue, I would then give a supplemental appropriation to let you fully spend what your revenue would be.

So if you go and get more revenue than $1.2 million and are able— $1.28 million— and you're able to come up with $1.3 or $1.4, I would absolutely give you the money back.

But I'm having issues giving enhancements in a budget crisis year.

Okay, and I get that from the one perspective of it's just an enhancement and it's just a subsidy.

I think the other part of it— sideways, you know, you also have to remember what we're paying back.

You know, you give me $300,000 in a subsidy And then I'm paying back $448,000 back to the general fund through different, um, through covering our own employees' health insurances.

We're paying for our own life, our, our, um, our electricity costs.

I mean, a lot of departments' electricity costs all go to DFFM.

They cover it in one bucket.

They pay for the libraries and everything.

We cover it on our own.

So you need to kind of look at the bigger picture on some of that stuff.

If it makes you feel better, the taxes that come in— now granted, some of these businesses, if the airport were to disappear tomorrow and sink into the ground, you would still get the revenue for.

With $134,000 in taxes just on airport property, wouldn't exist if it wasn't for an airport.

Yeah.

So when you start subtracting that down for the subsidy, it's you give me the $300,000 and then I'm paying you $400,000 back.

General fund just made $100,000 off the enterprise fund.

It's not as clean as when we were talking about EMS and how they did it because you didn't have to give it to me to then get it back.

Just generated revenue and it stayed in.

But regretfully, with the rules around an enterprise fund and specifically airports, because airports— revenue generated in airports is supposed to stay in an airport, which is why we're an enterprise fund, right?

We kind of have this different pattern of doing things, which makes it a little harder to describe and explain to somebody, you know.

No, and I fully understand.

I understand what the math you're presenting.

What I'm saying is, as an enterprise fund, you're supposed to be self-sufficient.

So including electricity utility costs, pension contributions, just like the wastewater fund is, just like— well, wastewater and water are a little bit different, but just like cable access is self-sufficient based on their receipts from Comcast in paying all of their bills and utility bills and their pension contributions and their health insurance contributions.

Has an enterprise fund, the goal is, A, to your point, any revenue surplus stays in your fund so that you are able to utilize that, but B, that you are self-sufficient in all of your other areas.

So yes, I get the numbers presenting tonight and I understand that, but at the end of the day, the goal is to be self-sufficient.

And to your point, productive that your surpluses get to be used to further enhance the airport, which is a valuable asset in the city.

But I just have my concern being the increase now in this year with, with such a budget crunch, and, and a dire budget crunch.

And it's not like it's like some departments— we saw multiple departments here today, and your department's a small department looking at the employees, you don't have many employees, so there's not a lot of there.

You have a lot of expenses because of all the equipment you guys use, and I understand that, but the— a lot of departments are flatline or decreasing in their personal budgets, where enterprise fund, it'll be a little bit difficult to show that because your pension contributions go up, your health insurance goes up, and that has to be paid back to the general fund, and I get that.

But I just— that gap just is a little bit big for me right now.

And it's one of those things where if it was to— and I think Commissioner Romanowicz mentioned it previously— but if I was to reduce some of your budget, I would look to see if you get the revenue to do that.

A supplemental appropriation to increase your ability to spend would be something I would support if you could— if you have revenues coming in that could support that.

So the goal of an enterprise fund for the city of New Bedford is to be self-sufficient.

The law itself doesn't require it to be self-sufficient.

A lot of airports are enterprise funds because of the federal regulations on the revenue generation.

Just for accounting purposes, it makes it A lot of airports are not self-sufficient.

We're not all Logan Airport or Hanscom or Worcester.

So a lot are subsidized to have it.

You know, similarly, like, you know, you don't expect SRTA to be self-sufficient to run the bus company, but it provides a public service.

So you're willing to subsidize it because it's for the public good.

This is a transportation company that kind of falls along the same lines.

You know, not everybody utilize it.

I've never taken the bus in New Bedford.

I've never taken the bus in, in a lot of places, but I understand why I pay for it, to help the people that do not have a car to get around.

This is similar to that in a different light because it's, you know, aviation.

But I mean, we're just looking at the budget that we have and what we have and how much more we can cut or not cut.

And we're at the point now where, you know, growth is growing yet for a lot of costs at 11% a year.

My revenue doesn't grow 11% a year.

You know, health insurance goes up.

I don't have— as I don't want to call out a certain department earlier tonight, but I don't— I can't say I'm not going to pay for this maintenance and then rely on DFFM and DPI to do it for me, because if they do it, I pay them whether I hired a contractor or not.

If it has to get fixed and it has to be done, I have to pay for it.

There's, there's no escape hatch for me.

I can't say, well, we're not going to do this and I'll just rely on another department to subsidize me with their personnel and their work and their hours to make up the difference.

I don't have that.

There's, there's There's, you know, either we do it or we don't do it.

And when we had the 37 inches of snow, I've got an FAA-mandated time to clear that snow and open that runway.

Mike and I were there for 3 days straight.

We didn't go home.

We were there 72 hours straight.

We don't get overtime.

We don't get any extra for it.

But we were there.

We were plowing.

We were shoveling.

We were doing whatever we could to make it happen because that's the job we took.

We accept it, we like it, we enjoy it, and we do it.

And then why a decrease in revenue?

Revenue is not something that I control a lot of.

We have fixed costs for all of our leases.

Those are adjusted every 5 years.

They go up by CPI or an appraisal, and we haven't done an appraisal in a while, because I'm going to be honest, the money that I got in an enhancement a few years ago for appraisal, to do those, that's gone to vehicle maintenance.

That's where that shortfall came from.

The advertising and other things that I got money for enhancements previous year, that went to vehicle maintenance.

If I don't keep the vehicles running, we don't keep the airport operating.

So a lot of this stuff is, you know, as I've been here for 10 years, for 10 years we've been doing level-funded budgets, and in 10 years you're telling me the cost hasn't gone up for everything?

And we all know it has, and we're struggling to keep up.

But we're at the point now where— and it's regretful for the city with their shortfall— but a lot of departments, and mine included, we're at the very end where what do we cut and what do we do from here?

Do we Do we give up the 139 certificate?

Do we not start maintaining certain parts?

There's only so far we can get.

And I don't want to be there, because I'm proud of what we've got.

I'm proud of this airport.

I love the way it looks.

It's got a bright future if we can figure out how to get there.

And we're willing to put the work in.

But we need enough to operate to do it.

But why a decrease?

I understand that you haven't— but like, so— And I know it's like, there's like no— I just, I'm just confused by it.

I know it's a small decrease, but it's a decrease.

Majority of my revenue comes from car rentals.

We get a portion of their profits and from inbound flights, fuel sales, and landing fees.

Fuel costs go up, less flights come in, less flights come in, less landings.

People don't want to rent cars for whatever concern, and that decreases my revenue.

My fixed revenue is my leases, and that we get on a regular basis.

We've only got a few people that are behind a few months.

But the other part of it is all dependent on other services utilizing the airport, and I don't know why they don't.

I mean, I can guess on some of it, and it goes back to what Councilor Gomes and I were talking about where if the airport looks like it's run down, do you want to fly your private jet in there?

If you don't, then there's $400 in a landing fee that disappeared.

There's $200 or $300 in fuel flowage fee that disappeared.

And you get a number of people that don't want to come in and operate out of a facility that doesn't look the way they want it to, then they find other airports to go to and the revenue decreases.

I think that's less of a thing with Avis budget.

I think most people on a rental car don't mind hitting a pothole on the way out as long as they don't get a flat.

But with private jets, they, they, they worry about that stuff because when you get off that airplane, they want to get into a nice car and have a nice ride to where they go to, and they want to see a nice facility when they go by it.

And then my only question is, so do you think until we're able to complete complete the renovation to the airport, we're going to see like flatline revenue and not an increase?

I think things can be incremental on it.

You know, if we could get some revenue or some way to fix the roadway on the way in, that's going to help the businesses that are there.

You help the businesses that are there, that helps their clientele come in.

I mean, there's a, there's a big leap between helping the COOs that handle the stuff in, in their experience versus building a new terminal for the Cape Air passengers and the Avis budget people coming in.

You know, there's, there's a difference.

It's not all— but outside of, outside of building the new terminal, if, if we were status quo, we're going to see steadying or declining revenue dependent on factors I don't control.

You know, the cost of fuel, has gone up a lot.

And if you think the cost of the pump for your car has gone up, my cost of jet fuel has doubled.

And that has slowed down corporate travel a lot.

There are some people that are in financial situations where it doesn't affect them.

But there are other people that, you know, after COVID, a lot of businesses said we can fly small turboprop airplanes on our schedule and it costs just as much as first class.

So we don't have to go to an airport.

They're rethinking that and, you know, moving to Zoom or other things.

That's the hard part of the situation.

It's, it's similar to, you know, public transportation.

If you've got a train system that runs on time and runs well, people like to take it because it's easy.

If you're always delayed, always late, and the seats are always dirty and you can't get on, People don't want to take it.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you for your answers.

Anyone else for Scott?

All right.

Seeing none, thank you very much, Scott.

I appreciate it.

You are welcome.

We got nothing before us.

We are finished for the night.

Thank you, everybody.

You have something to talk before me?

My microphone's locked.