Finance Committee · CivicPulse

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Meeting Title: Finance Committee
City: Somerville, MA
Date Published: 2025-09-09

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AI Disclaimer: Summaries and transcripts above were created by various AI tools. By their nature, these tools will produce mistakes and inaccuraies. Links to the official meeting recordings are provided for verification. If you find an error, please report it to somervillecivicpulse at gmail dot com.

Time & Speaker	Transcript
Jake Wilson	All right, good evening, everyone. I'm Jake Wilson, he, him pronouns, Counselor-at-Large, and your Finance Committee Chair. It is 6.01 p.m. now, and I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, September 9th, 2025 meeting of the Finance Committee of the Sunville City Council. First, it's my pleasure to read you some text that lets us do this all here on Zoom. Pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025, this meeting of a city council committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio video recording and a comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the city of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Clerk, could you please call the roll to establish quorum?
SPEAKER_04	All right, this is roll call. Councilor Mbah.
Jake Wilson	Present.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Burnley.
Will Mbah	Present.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Clingan.
Willie Burnley	Present.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Scott.
Willie Burnley	Present.
SPEAKER_04	Chair Wilson.
Jake Wilson	Present.
SPEAKER_04	All right, with everyone here, we do have quorum.
Jake Wilson	Excellent. Folks, tonight we're going to be taking up our 22-item agenda in the order that it's posted. So nothing too tricky to follow along there. We're going to start with approval of our minutes from the previous meeting. ID number 25-1253, approval of the minutes of the Finance Committee meeting of July 8, 2025. On the minutes, any discussion? Seeing none, we're going to lay that item on the table to recommend approval with a single vote at the end of tonight's meeting. Brings us to our second agenda item, ID number 25-1289. The mayor requested approval to appropriate $56,601 from the salary and wage stabilization fund to the non-contributory pension account to fund an increased pension amount. This committee received a memo yesterday from IGA wherein Director Ed Bean of Finance explained this request. Is there any discussion on that memo? You can see it might be about to pop up on the screen. Do I wait for it?
Willie Burnley	Council Burnley. Through the chair, this is probably what you're about to show. But I think just for the public's amelioration, we should give a brief summary.
Jake Wilson	Yeah. Would the administration just like to, we can put it up there on the screen. I'm happy to summarize it, but, you know, I'd rather someone making the request do that.
SPEAKER_03	Through the chair, I'm happy to summarize very broad strokes. The memo has all the details in it, but This request is to provide appropriation for a pension. There is a member who, many years ago, there was special legislation that allowed this person, any time there's a new agreement with the police department for benefits, this person receives those benefits in their pension. So this is that pension amount that matches the recent agreement with the Somerville Police Department. I forget which party it is in which union, but that's what this is. So this is just to match the previously passed legislation to make sure we're in compliance. And this matches the recently agreed upon collective bargaining agreement.
Jake Wilson	Thank you for summarizing that. I think we're still waiting on this to get uploaded as an attachment. Maybe that's happening right now. And given it's not in front of us, I agree for the sake of transparency. Good for people to hear what's happening with that. Any discussion on that? All right. We're going to lay that on the table. We'll recommend approval. It's going to take us to our third agenda item, item number 25-1280, the mayor requesting the appropriation of $2,630,071 from the Community Preservation Act Affordable Housing Reserve to the Affordable Housing Trust. I see we have Director Alan Inacio of the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development. Director, please tell us about the request.
SPEAKER_09	Thank you, Chair. We're actually trying to be a little bit more efficient with our process in getting these funds out the door. This is the FY26 CPA 50% allocation to the Housing Trust. Typically, we've done this at the... We've... allocated this and come for this vote in line with the rest of the CPA awards. But since this is a standard 50% that the committee approved as part of their budget, we're moving this vote up because it's just a straightforward allocation. So we're coming to you early with this one this year to hopefully get these funds to the trust and out the door and committed to projects as soon as possible.
Will Mbah	All right. Thanks for that. Councilor Mabau, you're first up. Well, thank you, Chair. No, just to say I always appreciate funds coming to the Affordable Housing Trust. And I also rarely say no to Director Inasho. So the two just go hand in hand. So thank you.
Jake Wilson	Thank you. All right, anything else on this besides saying let's go spend money on affordable housing? All right, that item's laid on the table to recommend approval. It's going to take us to our fourth agenda item, ID number 25-1303, the mayor requesting the appropriation of $240,664.10 from the Receipts Reserved Transportation Network Company Revenue Fund to the Transportation Network Company Special Revenue Fund for Vision Zero safety efforts. And I believe the administration has an update for us on this request.
SPEAKER_03	Go ahead, director.
SPEAKER_09	No, sorry. Go ahead, Kimberly. Did you have something to add other than just the request for the release of funds?
SPEAKER_03	So on this item, my understanding is we will be, this is 1303, 251303. This item, we're going to withdraw this item and we'll have to have a discussion for the future on, there was an error in the item. So this item we're requesting be withdrawn.
Jake Wilson	All right. Councilman Williams, you have a discussion on market and this is withdrawn?
Willie Burnley	Yes. Okay. Through the chair, when this is inevitably resubmitted, hopefully we can move to a place where this stabilization fund is named something other than the Transportation Network Company Special Revenue Fund. I think, you know, brevity, soul of wit, all that. Thank you.
Jake Wilson	All right, anything else on this then? All right, we're going to mark this item as withdrawn clerk. It's going to take us to our fifth agenda item, ID number 25-1285, the mayor requesting approval to accept and expend a $212,842.26 grant with no new match required from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council to the Health and Human Services Department for a shared services coordinator and a clinical community health worker. I see we have Manager Malik with us. Please tell us about this request.
SPEAKER_01	Thank you, Chair Wilson. Through you, I would just like to first confirm if my microphone is working. We can hear you. Thank you. I have a little overview that I would like to read and share. So Shared Services Grant Overview, the Mass Department of Public Health, DPH, Office of Local and Regional Health, launched the Mass Municipal Public Health Shared Services Grant Program back in January 2020 with funding from the FY 2020 state budget. The program enables groups of cities and towns to plan for or to expand sharing of staff and resources to improve and strengthen core local public health services effectiveness and efficiency, with the goal to promote healthier communities across the region. The communities of Somerville and Cambridge have agreed to work together in a multi-year shared services collaborative grant opportunity. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council is serving as the fiscal agent and grant contract manager with the Department of Public Health for this project that is slated to continue through FY2027. FY2027. To date, this grant program has hired a regional coordinator, a regional community health worker, both hosted by Somerville, and is looking to hire a regional vaccine nurse hosted by Cambridge. In addition, the two communities have collaborated on a rodent mitigation effort to examine the use of non-poisonous bait stations. Thank you.
Jake Wilson	All right. Thanks for that. Any discussion by the committee? Good explanation. Going once, going twice. All right, we're going to lay this one on the table to recommend approval. Thanks for that great explanation. Thank you. We're going to now go to our sixth agenda item, ID number 25-1339. The mayor requests an approval to accept and expend a $1,100,000 grant with no new match required from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development and the Police Department for the development of the Union Square Plaza and Streetscape Phase 1. I see we have Director Inasio back. We also have Director Wisdom on the police side, but Director Inasio, are you going to run point on this one?
SPEAKER_09	Yeah, sure. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I think we had to kind of mishmash that for character limitations on the intro title. But this is the annual Gaming Commission Block Grant that's open to several communities. We won an award of $1.1 million. There's three subcategories that we were funded for. So 775 for the Union Square Plaza to bring the design to 100% design. There's also a continuation of ARPA MBTA advertising, where we're going to be advertising local businesses through MBTA bus routes. And then some... police patrols, I believe, around the Broadway area, around the casino, but I can let Ms. Director Wisdom speak to that. So with that, happy to provide whatever details I can on the planned projects or open it up to any questions.
Jake Wilson	All right, thanks for that. Colleagues, discussion? Councillor Scott, this is your ward. I mean, partially in your word.
J.T. Scott	Kind of. I'm a little confused by the most recent statement there about traffic enforcement patrols, overtime, officer pay to do with the casino. So I had asked for some clarification on this and didn't have time to get it offline. So hopefully somebody tonight has a clarification.
SPEAKER_00	I do. Through the chair, I would like to speak on that. So the police department has been allocated just over 300, around $308,000 in overtime funding, which equates to around 4,000 hours of overtime to be used over a two-year period. This overtime will support increased traffic enforcement patrols. as well as community engagement efforts on Thursday through Saturday evenings. This is a time when the traffic from the Kinsino is typically at its peak in that Lower Broadway and East Somerville area. The goal is to enhance public safety and visibility by deploying those additional resources to the most impacted neighborhoods during these high traffic periods. The hope is this will also allow us to be active in future discussions that will help us assess how the area will be impacted as it's continued to be developed and to grow in that area.
Jake Wilson	Counselor Scott, you still got the floor if you want to do some follow-up.
J.T. Scott	Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'm trying to think about how to how to put this. So this is intended to fund community engagement in the highest traffic areas emerging from the casino. Is that Broadway and Washington Street?
SPEAKER_00	It's actually, it's three areas. Let me I might have to get back to you on a memo on the exact lengths of it. It's a mile in one direction, 1.4 miles in the other direction. So it's kind of right there where that East Somerville area meets the casino traffic. So in a memo, I could provide more information on specifically what those areas are. We have some maps in the application that I could provide for you around what exactly that area is.
J.T. Scott	I appreciate that. I think that'd be helpful. I'm also just curious what, what that community engagement patrol looks like, especially given that. So, you know, what I heard and correct me if I heard it wrong, it's been a long day to roughly 2000 hours a year for this two year period, which is about 40 hours a week. So, and, you know, we were talking about Thursday through Saturday. So is that a, is that a full overtime shift for. Geez, for all those days plus a bonus shift on one of those days?
SPEAKER_00	So the way we broke it down, because it's not intended to create like a full-time position or anything. It is more intended where we're looking at it from four-hour blocks. That's typically how we assign overtime from grants is in kind of four-hour blocks to people who are willing. to work overtime and are interested so essentially we did essentially place for two bodies I guess two positions of overtime in those areas for it could be four to eight hours depending it doesn't have to be all used in one weekend it can be spread out especially if they're You know, if the minimum staffing isn't there. So it wouldn't all be in one weekend necessarily, but it could allow us to, yes, concentrate more enforcement and also opportunities for community engagement to talk with people who are impacted in that area in those communities if they're interested. and allow them to provide feedback and to also, if there is pedestrian traffic from the casino, it'll allow people to be on foot.
J.T. Scott	All right, I guess I'm just, so the, I appreciate that explanation. So I guess the relevance here is that the Union Square streetscape part of this work is relevant to the grant under a different set of considerations than the traffic enforcement patrols?
SPEAKER_00	I would say yes. It's broken down in a budget where there are kind of three different projects, yes.
J.T. Scott	Okay. Helpful to understand that difference. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I'm all set.
Jake Wilson	I appreciate that. I had something on this. I'd like to just go on record as requesting any traffic enforcement, especially in East Centerville, not be done by unmarked vehicles. I heard loud and clear uh a real alarm from the community around use of unmarked vehicles to do traffic enforcement any somerville i'm just going to point out this is the area of the city with the highest population of immigrants and it uh did not go over well when spd uh was doing traffic enforcement they're using unmarked vehicles so i think it would just That is something we can do to just be very transparent and keep the trust of our immigrant communities by making sure that the vehicles used for traffic enforcement are clearly marked. Colleagues, anything else on this? I'm going to put this one, I'll move to approve so that we can do a roll call vote on this one, clerk.
J.T. Scott	All right, got it. Roll call on this item. On the motion?
Jake Wilson	On the motion.
J.T. Scott	I just, on the motion, I look at this grant and I am, I think a little bit confused about where our priorities are, but I understand this is the amount that was requested and the allocation that's there. And I think there's a lot of good free money that I'm eager to welcome to Union Square. So I'm just expressing my, let's say mild consternation in preparation for voting yes on this. Thank you.
Jake Wilson	Absolutely. Any other discussion on the motion?
Will Mbah	Chair? Council Member Barr. Yeah, I just want to thank you for the comment you made. And I just, just for clarification purposes, this is, this will be in no way go to enhance any enforcement that will be accompanied with unmarked vehicles. Is that, can somebody speak to that? I know that nobody commented on your comment. So I wasn't even sure that that was even a thing. So is that, Can we understand that this is not happening?
SPEAKER_00	Through the chair. So I am definitely not the expert on what policies are in place for what vehicles are used for traffic enforcement. However, I will speak with the powers that be here and we can provide a memo on the policy around what vehicles are used. But I can't personally speak on that, but I'd be happy to connect us with someone who could.
Will Mbah	Okay. So to your chair, I would rather you know, keep this and, you know, recommend without, you know, approval so we can get that memo for clarity before we approve on Thursday.
Jake Wilson	You'd rather discharge without a recommendation, counselor? Is that my understanding?
Will Mbah	Yes.
Jake Wilson	Okay. I'm fine with that. Clerk, I'm going to withdraw my motion to approve, and this one is going to be discharged without a recommendation. Do we need to vote on that? I think we need to vote on that.
SPEAKER_04	Yes, we do.
Jake Wilson	Yeah. Call the roll on the motion to discharge without a recommendation.
SPEAKER_04	OK. So this is on item number six.
Jake Wilson	Sorry. Oh, sorry. Counselor Burnley. Well, you had your hand. Sorry. Technically, you had your hand up, and I withdrew that. But yeah, if you want to speak on this motion, please feel free.
Willie Burnley	Yes, please. On the motion. Through you, I just want to follow up my colleague from Ward 2's point about both a bit of consternation and a bit of confusion. You know, when I think of the work that needs to be done in Union Square to actualize the vision for that neighborhood that many residents have put in over many, many years, I don't immediately think of traffic enforcement on Broadway as a means of, you know, dealing with the excesses of folks going to the casino, especially because I think straightforward common sense, and maybe straightforward common sense isn't right here, the role most probably impacted is going to be Mystic Ave, which of course we do not control. If I understand the usage of this grant for various issue areas and taking advantage of that, I feel like one aspect of this is a little, I can't say snuck in because this is a public meeting. We're having a public conversation about it. So I appreciate that. Does feel not like things going with like things. And I have a lot of, questions about the routes that are involved here. And to a point that was made earlier, and a point I've, a point made earlier by Mr. Winston, wonderful name, by the way, and that I've also made this point in previous meetings. I would really appreciate that information when we have this discussion. I mean, it's it feels very strange to make decisions about whether we're going to fund thousands of hours of additional uh traffic enforcement in areas when we don't have the specific areas in front of us or the routes or can make a clear delineation between if this is actually accomplishing the goals that we're that they are purported to so All that to say, supportive of my colleague at LeadLarge's recommendation that this gets pushed without a recommendation. And I hope as part of that and as part of future funding requests, we can just have the materials for the application present. That's, I think, a longstanding desire of this council.
Jake Wilson	All right. Any additional discussion on the motion to discharge without a recommendation? Seeing none, Clerk, please call the roll on that motion.
SPEAKER_04	All right, this is on item number six, to discharge it without recommendation. Councillor Inbaugh.
Willie Burnley	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Burnley.
Willie Burnley	Aye.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Clingan.
Willie Burnley	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Scott.
Willie Burnley	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Chair Wilson.
J.T. Scott	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Okay, with all votes in favor, that is recommended to be discharged without recommendation.
Jake Wilson	All right, it's going to take us to our seventh agenda item ID number 25 dash 1300 the mayor request approval to accept and expand a $128,500 grant with no new match required from the Boston office of emergency management to the police department. For target hardening at the police department headquarters. Once again, I believe we have director wisdom with us to speak on this.
Will Mbah	I think you're muted. Do we have direct... I apologize.
SPEAKER_00	There you go. Sorry. I accidentally muted myself.
Will Mbah	I didn't feel qualified to tell you that. It was up to the chair, but I had to step in. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00	Thank you. So this... This is a UAC Urban Area Security Initiative funded item. It is our hope to use this from the critical infrastructure area to use these funds for a target hardening project here at the police department.
Jake Wilson	All right. Discussion. Council Burnley, you're first up.
Willie Burnley	Through the chair, I just want to follow up and put on the public record, you know, of a conversation that i had around this i had some concerns around the continued uses of these type of grants given the federal government's attempts to leverage federal dollars to push municipalities like ours to increase cooperation with ice i've been told that those new requirements are not in this particular grant because it is of a previous funding round. So I just wanna hear again on the record that that is the case, because I think as we move forward with these types of grants, I think the council and the administration should have some conversations about what that would mean.
SPEAKER_00	Sure, through the chair. So this is an FY23 funded grant year project. So this would be adherent to the guidelines that were published in the Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Homeland Security Program grant. So any changes, you know, in the current political situation, that might have changed, you know, FY25 or future years of funding to align initiatives, you know, that does not go back and change the funding, the notice of funding guidelines that were given for previous years is what we were told.
Willie Burnley	Excellent.
Will Mbah	all right councilman yes uh thank you chair i think um this is probably like too basic but i i was finding it very difficult to understand that terminology target hardening you know what is because i went online i was trying to you know like is can you just i don't want to put one in your mouth i can just describe that that what it's like
SPEAKER_00	Sure, through the chair. So the phrase target hardening is used quite a bit in kind of the UASI grant sphere in the Homeland Security Grant Program. It essentially, it is as simple as the word say target hardening to make a area or place hardened against a threat, I guess you could say, is kind of the terminology that they use in those Homeland Security grants. So what this means is because it's under the critical infrastructure, it's really set up to kind of make sure that you can secure your infrastructure area. Some projects that have been done around the region have included security cameras or card access swiping projects so that when you enter a building, if you're not allowed to be in the building, You have to use a card instead of a key. Programs like that, sometimes it's as simple as a fence around a power plant or Boston tends to use the funds for barriers. They have some of the more simple barriers that they set up during parades and events to guide traffic along off sidewalks. They have a little bit more heavy duty barriers that they use during events that are more like kind of concrete barriers. So just things like that that make it a place that might be critical infrastructure, more difficult to access or control entrance into that area.
Will Mbah	And thank you, Chet. Thank you for that explanation. Three, Chet, just why i asked because i mean the future of policing and the police station should be easily accessible it should have like you know the community should feel like there should be like a basketball court there for youths kids you know so i don't expect it to be like a place where it has to be distanced from the people
SPEAKER_00	Through the chair. So this project is not intended to prevent any of the public from entering the building or parking in the parking lots or anything like that. It is not a preventative measure for public access.
Will Mbah	Thank you.
Jake Wilson	Thank you, Chair. Thank you. All right, colleagues, anything else on this? Councillor Scott.
J.T. Scott	Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. I also very much appreciate the conversation here and the question from my colleagues. I think the target hardening phrasing certainly begs the question of hardened against whom? So I do recall, I think the last time we accepted this target hardening money as a council, I believe the stated purpose of that one was a card reader access system down on the lowest floor there. Did I hear, did I miss in all that conversation an explanation of exactly what this project is?
SPEAKER_00	So this project is specifically to help control traffic in areas in our parking lots where critical equipment is frequently stored. So this would not be, this would not prevent, like I said, public access to you know, has nothing to do with the public facing lot or anything like that. It would be directed to, um, our kind of our main lot where our cruisers are, um, are stored, uh, a small, a small lot in the front where other cruisers are also stored. Um, those would both be, um, One is the detective's lot on Washington Street is what we refer to it as. And then there's two, a main lot that's broken up by the fire department lot. And that is what they're hoping to put some bolsters and maybe possibly an arm for only access to control vehicles from entering in traffic to enter those areas where our critical equipment is stored.
J.T. Scott	All right. I appreciate that. And that's, to put it another way, that's like the auxiliary lot down by Ricky's and the fire department lot on the backside on some of the left, right?
SPEAKER_00	I'm so sorry. Yes. The Ricky's is the flower shop. Yes. Yes. So it would be kind of each side of the, of the fire department. And then there's one tiny little lot on the front side. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm directly challenged.
J.T. Scott	It's all right. This is a, this is like me giving somebody directions by talking about the moves. So I will thank you, Mr. Chair. I got everything I need here. Appreciate it.
Jake Wilson	All right. Anything else on this one, colleagues? I'll move to recommend approval then. Could the clerk please call the roll on that motion?
SPEAKER_04	All right, to recommend approval on item number seven. Yes. Councillor Humbach.
SPEAKER_10	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Burnley.
SPEAKER_10	Aye.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Clingan.
SPEAKER_10	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Scott.
SPEAKER_01	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Chair Wilson.
Jake Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	All right, with all in favor, you are recommending to approve.
Jake Wilson	Excellent. It's going to bring us to our next two agenda items we're going to take up together. Those are ID number 25-1304. May request approval to accept and expend a $55,000 grant with no new match required from the Department of Mental Health to the Police Department for crisis intervention training and technical assistance. for personnel and program expenses, and ID number 25-1305, the mayor requesting approval to accept and expend a $10,000 grant with no new match required from the Department of Mental Health to the Police Department for jail diversion program personnel expenses. I believe the administration has an update on these two as well.
SPEAKER_00	Yes, through the chair. So these, we are actually going to request to withdraw the... These items for the amount. So at the time that we entered these into Legistar, we had only the Department of Mental Health was still determining what their funding for the year would be in their budget. So they only gave us the quarter one amounts, which were respectively fifty five thousand and ten thousand dollars. Since then, in the most impressive turnaround I've ever seen, we have already received the contract for the full year. So I didn't want you guys to have to vote on it twice for a partial and then revote on the full amount. So the full amount will now be for item number 25-1304. It will be $301,000 for the entire year rather than just the quarter. Similarly for 25-1305, that will be $50,000 rather than $10,000. So that replaces again the full year rather than just one quarter. I'm happy to go ahead and provide some additional information around what those grant funds cover if you would be interested.
Jake Wilson	So I guess the decision, the question here is, are we going to be expecting replacement items for these on Thursday and looking for immediate consideration of those such that it makes sense to have that discussion now?
SPEAKER_00	I believe so. I have entered those, yes.
Jake Wilson	Okay, then sure, let's go ahead, let's discuss these knowing that these are going to be replaced with items with similar items but different amounts on Thursday then. Happy to have that discussion now. Colleagues, any discussion on these two requests? Councillor Scott.
J.T. Scott	Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thought I heard an offer to dive in a little bit more into the use of the funds. So I'd happily receive that. There's not a whole lot of documentation on the IOPs.
SPEAKER_00	Through the Chair, I would be happy to describe what these grant funds are covering. So for the... Crisis Intervention Training and Technical Assistance Program. That portion of the grant is funding for three positions on our core team that covers the deputy director, the project assistant and the coordination of law enforcement partnerships. And so this, it covers those three positions and it also provides expenses related to running the Crisis Intervention Training and Technical Assistance Center. which is where they do training for our police department and other local police departments around crisis intervention for our police officers. If you want me to go ahead, the jail diversion program portion of that covers our clinical coordinator who does the work for the jail diversion program. The $50,000 that we will be replacing with the additional request covers 60% of that position salary.
J.T. Scott	All right. Thank you for that, Mr. Chair. If I could follow up. One with an observation and one with a request. I guess the request is that I'm pretty sure this is a recurring grant, given the nature of the positions it's funding. The Department of Mental Health jail diversion grant requires quarterly report data. be provided, uh, including, uh, reports on number of behavioral health related calls per year and, uh, number of those that have a trained CIT officer responding. I think that'd be very interesting information. So, uh, if I could, um, through you to Director Wisdom, uh, if you could provide me those, uh, responsive grant documents, uh, at your, at your convenience, I'd appreciate that. Of course. And, uh, And then just the observation, sir, that this is a chunk that is funding existing positions within the police department. And I think when we consider the overall commitment of funds that we have as a city relative to the budget, it's important to remember grants like these as part of our annual police department expenditure. So with that, thank you very much. I have the information I need on this one.
Jake Wilson	All right, colleagues, any additional discussion here?
Willie Burnley	Councillor Burnley. Thank you, just briefly through you. I'd also like those documents, just putting it out there.
Jake Wilson	Are folks comfortable take either laying on the table to recommend approval or taking a roll call vote on approval tonight? Or do people want those before doing any sort of recommendation? It's similar to what we did for another item and discharge without a recommendation.
J.T. Scott	For myself, Mr. Chair, I'm content simply to get access to documents. And I have confidence they'll come.
Jake Wilson	All right, all right. Let's, I'll move to, I'm sorry, Councilor Mabon.
Will Mbah	Yes, sorry. I just wanted to also... make a note that i want to you know i'll be interested to know um like just the data regarding the j diversion program because a few years ago i i put in a policy order for a restoration restorative justice program within the department i don't know how this fit into that That you know equation and if you want to explain that now that's fine, but I would need some more information within that you know that context.
SPEAKER_00	Through the chair, I currently do not have any information about the restorative justice piece that might have been prior to me joining the SPD. So I would definitely have to look into a little bit more about that. But I would definitely I can definitely request from the others how that fits into that overall landscape.
Will Mbah	Thank you.
SPEAKER_00	Of course.
Will Mbah	Thank you.
Jake Wilson	Thank you. All right. Anything else on this one? All right, I'm gonna move to recommend approval. Clerk, could you call the roll on that, please?
SPEAKER_04	Yes, so this is on items eight and nine together. Councillor Mbath.
SPEAKER_10	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Burnley.
J.T. Scott	Aye.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Clingan.
J.T. Scott	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Councillor Scott.
J.T. Scott	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Chair Wilson.
Jake Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Okay, with all in favor, that is a vote to recommend approval.
Jake Wilson	All right, that is going to bring us to our 10th agenda item, item number 25-1299, the mayor requests an approval of a transfer of $5,777 from the police overtime account to the police grant match account for the FY 2025 Shannon Grant match requirement. Once again, Director Wisdom.
SPEAKER_00	Yes, thank you so much. So this is actually a repeat. I apologize to be bringing this up. I had put in the original request in FY25 budget year when I should have put it into the 2026 budget year. So if this discussion feels a little like deja vu, that is likely why that was a learning curve for me. I apologize. So what we had originally asked was to have approval to allocate $5,777 from our existing overtime line as a match for the grant, which is amount of $23,105. So this grant funds community youth programs, specifically the Youth Police Academy and the basketball events. um, which have been a success in building positive relationships between officers and local youth. Um, I did want to note that we do recognize the council's concern, um, around our overtime spending. And, um, I, you know, I would like to reassure you that this request is being made with those concerns in mind, um, as, as a part of the leadership, um, we here at the police department are actively reviewing how we spend overtime to ensure that every dollar is spent in an effective and conservative way. So in addition to this request, we are also, as you might see, we have kind of started applying for other grants that can help supplement our OT budget so that it's not a cost for necessarily the community directly and we can relieve some of the pressure on that overtime line. So that is the hopes in which we are doing these. So we would like to request approval for this match.
Jake Wilson	All right. Thanks for that. Colleagues, any discussion?
J.T. Scott	Mr. Chair, we had a pretty thorough discussion of it last time this came around. I'm curious about it to check that out.
SPEAKER_00	Yes, I will say that we are currently working through the chair, if you don't mind. We are currently working on the FY26 grant application for this, and there were some recommendations that were made, and we are definitely trying to take those into consideration as we apply this year.
Jake Wilson	All right. Any additional discussion on this? All right, I'll move to recommend approval. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, clerk, please call the roll.
SPEAKER_04	All right, to recommend approval on item number 10. Councilor Mbah.
Jake Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Councilor Burnley.
Willie Burnley	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Councilor Klangen.
Willie Burnley	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Councilor Scott.
Willie Burnley	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	Chair Wilson.
Jake Wilson	Yes.
SPEAKER_04	All right, with that, that is all votes in favor of recommending approval.
Jake Wilson	All right. And it's going to bring us to our 11th agenda item, ID number 25-1298, the mayor requests an approval to pay prior invoices totaling $8,748.66 using available funds in the police department maintenance, software, professional and technical services and in-state travel accounts for various items. For what I think might be the final time tonight, Director Wisdom.
SPEAKER_00	Thank you, Chair. So essentially due to employee turnover in the recent years, and vendors continuing to send invoices to former staff, rather than getting updated with current staff. Some of the prior year invoices have slipped through the cracks. As I've been building out my team, I've made it really a priority for us to address this. We've been reaching out to our vendors directly and have asked them to use a departmental email instead of individual contacts to kind of prevent some of these from going to old email addresses of people who are no longer here and falling through the cracks that way. That has helped improve our communication with our vendors and also help us reduce missed invoices moving forward. We've worked very closely also to align our department processes With the city's procurement procedures around requisitions and purchase orders to allow out to kind of put together another layer of structure and accountability to go, you know, which will go a long way to preventing some of this. these issues happening again in the future. Unfortunately, I had hoped to have all of these prior year invoices addressed by FY25 and kind of start FY26 out fresh. Unfortunately, as I've reached out to vendors, they're a little bit slow in responding. And so we've had some outstanding invoices still kind of trickling in. as they're getting used to using that new note department invoice box so unfortunately there will be a few more in the future but we're hoping to keep that to a minimum and to eliminate it completely before the end of the fy 26 year so that we can really get a hold on on those prior year invoices oh invoices all right anything on this all right we're going to lay this one on the table to recommend approval
Jake Wilson	And thanks for joining us tonight, Director.
SPEAKER_00	Thank you so much, all of you. Have a good night.
Jake Wilson	All right, it's going to bring us to agenda item 12, ID number 25-1279. The mayor requesting approval to pay prior invoices totally $19,188.01 using available funds in the information technology maintenance software and computer equipment accounts for monitoring software and uninterruptible power supply hardware. I see we have our CIO here. David Goodrich with us from Information Technology. CIO Goodrich, please tell us about this request.
SPEAKER_05	Good evening, Chair. So we have two invoices that need to be paid. One was for some monitoring software. where I had a disagreement or a misunderstanding as to this particular invoice. So the vendor was looking into it. I was waiting for them. I fell off their radar. Then they told me that it was in fact a valid invoice. I went back and researched, but then it fell off my radar a little bit. And so it ended up not getting paid for fiscal year 25. So that was a situation with that invoice. The other invoice for the UPSs that ended up being an E-rate submission error. The problem with that is we have E-rate consultants continue to make these errors. So at this point, we're looking to pay this invoice to pay our vendor. And I've already had some talks with our law department to see if we can get those funds back from the e-rate consultant since it was, in fact, a clerical error and that I feel that we shouldn't be paying for this. So the law department at this point is waiting for me to get some information together for them so that they can go ahead and research it, and then perhaps talk to our consultant to get those funds back from that person.
Jake Wilson	Really appreciate that explanation. Colleagues, any discussion? Counselor Scott.
J.T. Scott	Yeah, thanks, Mr. Chair. I also just wanted to say I really appreciate it. This and the previous item, I think, are incredible examples of why prior year invoices are things that require approval and a really, I think, wonderful way to handle the situation, which is just say, hey, this is what happened. Everybody's aware of it. It's an incredible piece of public transparency and I don't know, just one of those beautiful things about local goods. So I just want to thank the members of the administration for taking the time to put together these kind of thorough explanations everybody deserves. I just really appreciate it.
Jake Wilson	Absolutely, I feel like the what we've said as a committee over the years has been heard loud and clear, you know when we get these we want to hear sort of what happened. You know why and what are we doing to stop it from happening again, I feel like we're hearing that loud and clear and it makes our work that much better on this committee so yeah appreciate you for that. Anything else on this. All right, we're gonna lay this one on the table to recommend approval as well. CAO Goodrich, thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_05	Thank you very much.
Jake Wilson	Now I'm gonna take up together two related items in the sense that there was a staff memo that was sent to us from IG. We're gonna take up agenda items 13 and 14 together. That's ID number 25-1301, the mayor requesting approval to pay prior year invoices totaling $4,015 using available funds in the human resources professional and technical services account from medical screening services. And ID number 25-1302, the mayor requesting approval to pay prior year invoices totaling $100.08 Using available funds in the Human Resources Professional and Technical Services account for confidential shredding services. We had the aforementioned memo yesterday from Intergovernmental Affairs that should hopefully by now be attached as a handout to tonight's meeting. This memo is from Ann Gill, Director of Human Resources. Do we have any discussion on that memo?
J.T. Scott	Is someone throwing that memo up on screen? Is that what's happened to our agenda?
SPEAKER_10	Yeah.
Jake Wilson	And colleagues, while we're doing this, I would urge you, if you can have your camera on, please do so, so people don't think it's just Councillor Scott and me hanging out here, which would not be a quorum. Thank you. Councillor Burnley, I appreciate you for doing that. And for the public, the clerk is putting the memo up on the screen so people can see it.
Willie Burnley	Through the chair? Counselor Burnley. In the spirit of whistling while we work, is this another opportunity for a summary of the memo for public awareness?
Jake Wilson	Uh, were you looking to do that yourself? Are you asking for someone to do that for you?
Willie Burnley	We can do it. Someone to do it for me.
Jake Wilson	Thank you. Would a legislative liaison, Hunter mind, uh, if you're able to just, uh, given a quick summary while we're waiting for this.
SPEAKER_03	Through the chair. Sure. I'm happy to do that. Um, let me just pull that up on my own records. So there are this memo addresses the two items that are before you. 251301 is a prior invoice of $4,015. So the services were rendered in February 2024 and June 2024, and the invoices were not paid within the respective fiscal years because there were some discrepancies in the invoices, incorrect rates in which that didn't match the contract. So the Human Resources Department was going back and forth with the vendor. Once those were all settled, it was after the end of the fiscal year, HR has worked with CHA, who is the vendor in this case, to clarify those issues to prevent this in the future. And these funds are being requested from dollars currently available in the HR department's professional and technical services account. Mr. Chair, would you like me to go into the second item or hold for questions before we move on to the next item, which is also contained in this memo?
Jake Wilson	Sure, please go ahead and talk about the second one. We can then ask if anyone has any questions about either one.
SPEAKER_03	Perfect. So the next item is 25-1302, which is a prior year invoice of about $100.08 for shredding services. In this case, the invoice wasn't paid within the fiscal year because the company was bought out or was acquired by another company, and we weren't notified. The Human Resources Department was not notified until mid-July, meaning the address on the purchase order no longer matched. So we had to submit a separate purchase order. And therefore, this would prior your invoice and had to file that in fiscal year 26. So now we have the correct information and we should be able to use that moving forward.
Jake Wilson	All right.
SPEAKER_03	Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you.
Jake Wilson	Colleagues, any discussion?
J.T. Scott	Mr. Chair, I just want to say I appreciated the information that was in the memo. I wasn't trying to insinuate that it didn't exist. I just wondered where our agenda went. But again, a very thorough and appreciative response. I'm glad it was in the text.
Jake Wilson	I got what you were saying. Yeah. All right. I don't see any more discussion on this. So we're going to lay those two items on the table to recommend approval. uh we're going to jump to agenda item 15 then id number 25-1283 the mayor requested approval to pay prior invoices totaling 1497.50 using available funds in the communications department food supplies and refreshment account for civic day event food uh this was uh the invoice was attached uh there's no memo for it but it's a fairly reasonable reasonably small dollar amount any discussion on this I'll just say this request comes from, it's for an invoice from Gurley's Ice Cream, ice cream provided at Civic Day. We'd had that discussion earlier this year about the disparity study. And we talked about the importance of timely payment of invoices. and the impact on local vendors. We have here, local ice cream shop. I'll point out a business owned by a woman of color. And they're still waiting on payment for an event that happened back in April. And I know the invoice was issued June 10th, but we're sitting here 90 days out from that. And something's just broken when we make a local vendor wait this long to get paid. Yeah, we had a summer recess, but we got to fix our invoicing. Anything else, colleagues? All right. Items laid on the table recommend approval. We're now going to take up the final seven agenda items together and waive the readings of agenda item 16 to 22, as these are all requests to pay prior invoices with very small dollar amounts, double or triple figures. Anything on those, you can see them hopefully on the screen here, 16 down to 22. The clerk wouldn't mind just scrolling a little bit so people can see. Very small dollar amounts as you see in there. If anyone has any discussion on any of these, I won't say speak now or forever hold your peace. You obviously can talk about this again on Thursday night if you're so inclined. But for the purposes of this meeting, let's hear it if you've got anything on these. Just want to respect people's time and not go through all seven of these here because they're small dollar amounts. Okay, I'm not, I'll give people just another second because we are looking at seven items, but I'm not seeing any discussion yet. All right, with that, I'm going to assume we're good with these and we're going to lay all seven of these items on the table to recommend approval. That's going to bring us to the end of tonight's agenda, and Counselor Scott moves to recommend approval of the items on the table and to adjourn. Could the clerk please read the agenda items of the items up for recommendation to approve and call the roll on recommending approval of those items and adjournment?
SPEAKER_04	Yes, this is on adjournment and items number 2, 3, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. 15 and 16 through 22. counselor yes please counselor burnley aye please cancer clinging yes counselor scott yes please chair wilson yes please all right with that those items are recommended for approval and we are adjourned all right all right