[Zac Bears]: We are reconvening. We don't need a motion to reconvene. So we are reconvening at, I think it's 6.05. Councilor Collins, you have the floor. You may continue.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thanks. So I was running through observations and comments starting with section 3 101 which is about the quarterly financial reports and meetings, noting the switch from a 30 day deadline. After the close of the fiscal quarter to a 60 day deadline which I think that's totally reasonable. Noting that comparison of year-to-date revenue and year-to-date expenses from the previous fiscal year comparison to the current year from the previous draft has been removed and I'm sure there's a rationale for this but Ideally, I would like to see some version of this be present either in this draft or in a future one, especially since the current proposal does not include an annual budget needs assessment where this information could be captured like in an annual report instead. And I would also like to hear the rationale behind the proposal to have the subcommittee convene meetings only to review the second and third quarter financial reports instead of all four. Moving on to Section 3102, Preliminary Budget Meetings. My biggest note here is that the latest proposal shifts the timeline for these meetings to be occurring between mid-April and mid-May rather than earlier in the year, prior to April. I do have a strong preference for the preliminary budget hearings occurring early in the year so that these conversations can really be discussions, explore and inform about existing capacity, ideal capacity, and what would need to happen to progress us from the status quo towards our goals for each department to be able to have more of those exploratory conversations that could inform the council recommendations. And this timeline situates the preliminary budget hearings after the council budget recommendations would have already been submitted. And I think that we would benefit from having those hearings prior to formulating the official council recommendations. So I hope that we can discuss a way to plan for the preliminary budget meetings with the administration and department heads to begin earlier in the year so that we can have that discussion and gathering of context. And, you know, I hope that we can discuss ways if part of the rationale behind that is that these are, you know, a lot of work onerous upon department heads, you know, I'm I'm personally comfortable with the preliminary budget hearings being less formal so that we can have more about context, less about specific facts and figures that department heads have to hew very strictly towards so that we still get the benefit of the context and the discussion prior to April. I also noted that the suggestion to put into this draft the school committee allocation by March 1 that I was looking forward to receiving feedback from the school committee on that before we put any language about that into this ordinance. Let's see. Oh, I was also just curious to hear the reasoning behind the proposal to remove information on fixed cost increases within department budgets. It seems to me like budget increases due to cost increases that are outside of our control could be important to consider the important context. So just curious to hear more about that proposal. In section 3.103, council budget recommendations to the mayor. Again, noting the timeline of moving up the submissions from March. Sorry, I'm reading my notes as I'm speaking them. What'd you say? It was from April to March, yes. So just noting that timeline change and how that aligns with the preliminary budget hearings. I think this, I'm eager to discuss this proposed change, I'm happy to have submissions considered earlier in the budget creation process. If that means that there's a greater chance of incorporating council recommendations into the comprehensive budget proposal. At the same time, like I said, it gives me pause that the council budget recommendations would be due prior to the preliminary budget meetings with department heads. Because again, ideally, this meeting structure creates a system where the council is hearing from department heads about upcoming needs, and that context informs our budget recommendations. And we can work together to accommodate and fund important requests. Moving on to section 3.104, the comprehensive budget proposal. I was really happy to see alignment on most of the important aspects of this section between the earlier draft and the administration's proposal. Also noting the removal of the enterprise operating budgets, which we discussed in our last meeting, five-year capital outlay program, revolving funds as previously discussed, and expected grant revenue and grant funded expenses for city departments. I would of course prefer to see that these elements remain in the overview of what we'd be expecting from the comprehensive budget proposal. And I wonder if there's a way to kind of maintain this expectation with the caveat that they'll be provided where and if possible or with phase-in dates for this information. My priority, I think my priority points would be the capital outlay program and the expected grant revenue and grant-funded expenses included. Maybe if I had to pick just one, I'm really interested to see kind of that pie chart of grant revenue and grant-funded expenses for each department just to sort of note my priorities. And then for article six in the subcommittee's proposal, the annual budget needs assessment, I do hope that we can discuss this further. I know that there wasn't a aligning part to this article in the administration's proposal. Again, we've talked about this at length before, but I think the goal of the subcommittee's proposal for the annual reports on operating expense needs and capital expense needs was to create a structure for documenting and capturing and discussing kind of where we are, where we're headed, so that we can make progress towards those goals on, you know, infrastructure, staffing, resident services, capital improvements, departmental capacity, you know, all these things that describe what we do. The operating budget creates a snapshot, kind of inventories the current status quo and the expenditures that maintain it. And I think that finding some mechanism to pair the operating budget document with a more longitudinal roadmap is really important to our goals here. As we've all discussed and agreed, it's important to define success even if our goals change over time to travel towards it. And I hope that we can progress towards a version of this. because I think that this kind of longer range assessment would work in concert with the budget ordinance, you know, maybe sometimes to inform council budget recommendations or just so that we're looking at the yearly view and the long-term view at the same time. And I just wanted, in closing, I just want to note in the subcommittee, proposal for this article. We included the following language, if the finance director is unable to produce said written report, the finance director will notify the city council by February 1 and provide the council with a memo about what resources are necessary to create the report and the timeline for acquiring those resources. So essentially a caveat to say, this isn't realistic this year, and here's what it would take to do this. So I'm wondering if there's a way to use similar language so that we can start to operationalize parts of the annual budget needs assessments, knowing that they'll grow in comprehensiveness and detail over time as we build more structures and more templates and we, over time, endow the finance department with more staffing and more capacity. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Councilor Tseng provided comments in writing similar to, somewhere similar to Councilor Collins for Section 3101. Councilor Tseng was curious as to why there would only be meetings for the second and third quarter reports for 30102 preliminary budget meetings and 3103 budget recommendations to the mayor. Similar question about the schedule of events there and seeing if there's some sort of compromise so that there could be informal meetings prior to the council recommendations so that the council members would understand what department heads are looking for. For 3104, Councilor Tseng would prefer that we have some sort of timeline for including enterprise revolving funds, grant for revenue, grant funds, and some form of capital improvement plan in the comprehensive budget proposal while understanding that this is difficult and we should discuss how to get ourselves to a place where this is possible. Also was hoping to have the budget for each department, expenses, basically the increase or change each year, what parts were attributable to fixed cost growth versus what was actually new programs. And then on annual budget needs assessments, wanted to discuss what would be realistic to keep from the initial draft, because this is a core idea that would benefit our city and lend the city more transparency and accountability. and was wondering if there could be fewer reports of a single type or removing details that are particularly difficult to execute. So those were Councilor Tseng's comments. The comments document that I submitted, albeit late, and I apologize that it came today, this afternoon, we all seem that we are back and forth on that one, is I just put it back, I took the, Um, so, um, this is a draft presented by. Uh, the chief of staff and the finance director. And I just use it. And the only major, other than putting it back in the framework that the subcommittee originally proposed, the only major adjustments I made, number one, regarding the phrasing of the allocation for men for public schools, we did have, I did have an opportunity today to speak with the chair of the school committee, the vice chair of the school committee, chief of staff, And there was comfort with this March 1st date, and it being in here, the word estimated was suggested, so I did put that back. I did put that in, but there's language in my proposed comments. Just adjust the phrasing of this a little bit, but I think keeps the intent. And that seemed to be, that the school committee seemed to be fine with that, at least school committee leadership. terms of the rest of the suggested changes by the administration. I didn't really have any comments or questions on them other than I did adjust the phrasing of the section regarding preliminary budget meetings just to say that the mayor finance director designee shall provide a schedule that contains the order in which budgets will be discussed and just put the justifications that we did discuss at the last meeting, staff availability, administration priorities, that's on a section. 3102. I did have a suggestion on the council budget recommendations. We had initially proposed March 1st or April 1st submitting them to the council and then April 15th council submitting them to the mayor. I thought given the earlier timeline maybe giving the council an extra week to consider the recommendations might be acceptable so I suggested March 22nd instead of March 15th. And then really other than that, I do agree very strongly to put back the idea of seeing if department budgets, if the growth, the change from prior year could be disaggregated to say this is how much is coming from a fixed cost increases versus this is how much is coming because we have a new program or a new staff member in each department. I really think that that's a super helpful descriptor for, for the residents to understand, you know, if a budget is changing, if the budget for the fire department is changing, why that's happening? Is it mostly because there's a contractually required raise or is it because there is a new program or a new staff member in that department? And that can show just how much of the quote unquote increases that our departments receive every year is actually attributable not to a new program or something new. We're not getting anything more for our money. We're just getting what we were getting before and the cost of that is going up, which is basically what inflation is. Finally, I will just say I did have some similar thoughts as my colleagues regarding you know right now this would just look at the general fund which is what we do now and I know our hope was to go beyond that but I did hear we heard very loud and clear that really the capacity is not there to go beyond that right now so in lieu of that I have proposed kind of similar a similar comment was also made around the budget needs assessments so in lieu of having those in the ordinance given that the capacity is not there at the current time to have all that data and information presented, I suggested that we all sit down once a year and review what kind of progress has been made or what resources would be needed to move us closer to that eventual goal. And I think that To me, that is a fair discussion to have. Essentially, we'd be sitting down every year and saying, how did this process work? How did the ordinance, how did ordinance implementation and the reality of the budget process align? And what are changes that we could propose collectively to try to add in to the process some of the items that the council had, the initial proposal by the council intended, while understanding that Certainly doing it all immediately and even doing pieces of it will take more time and resources than are currently available in the finance department. So those are Councilor Tseng's and my comments. I have written down, I think, the commonalities in most of them. And at this point, I'm interested to hear either from my fellow Councilors present or from the Chief of Staff or the Finance Director, initial thoughts on these comments and what we would like to do moving forward in terms of getting to an agreed upon I think we are, I'm thankful to our colleagues. I think we are much closer than we were, you know, three months ago when our draft went out to you. And I do think that there's, this is a good faith response to try to respond to the draft that was submitted back to the committee in November. So with that, I'll recognize anyone who wants to speak first. go to the Chief of Staff and the Finance Director.
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you very much for having us here today. I think at a high level, there's a lot to process for me personally, and I'd like to take some time to process. I understand, I can see certain areas where there's some good feedback and some good questions that are presented. I'm happy to go through those to the degree we have the bandwidth today and work through what we can. We may have some questions, but as a cumulative kind of approach, I think taking the information and digesting it and trying to look at it just as it kind of would affect our organization and as it would affect both the finance department You know, my resources as well as our department head resources is going to be paramount. It's some of our greatest concerns as a part of this process. As the subcommittee knows, we were concerned with the order of magnitude that the original draft presented. And I think we all agree that the nature and the intent of those things are from a place of trying to have information so we can collaborate, which we appreciate. It's not as much the issue of whether we want to provide the information, it's how we can provide the information and if we can provide the information. And my concerns In general, just at a high level. But again, I, I want to absorb what's been shared tonight and appreciate all the information and writing so I can do that for myself personally, as I think through these pieces. I'm still concerned that we're We're trying to reach at a level that we don't have the means to reach at this stage. And I want to, I don't want to stand before the subcommittee or any larger portion of the city council and make commitments that we're going to be able to provide something and then fail. on that. I wouldn't want that for myself. I wouldn't want that for anyone in this organization. And so I have a little bit of reluctance. I have some strong opinions as well. And that's just at a high level my initial reaction. But again, I'm happy to look at this. I need to look at this, to be fair to the subcommittee. I need to look at this with more time to really think through each and every question that's been presented, each and every concern that the subcommittee members have individually presented to truly be fair to you all and ensure that my comments are reasonable and measured.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam Chief of Staff. Yeah, and I think I did try to take a list of The question some seem to be clarifying questions on the proposal that you sent that we didn't that we're at, you know, similarly after digestion by us of the proposal from November. Some seem to be more of these higher level bigger questions about what should be and should not be included. I'm happy to pick out what I think are the clarifying questions if that's helpful and maybe that could be some of the easier stuff we could clarify tonight and then we can mark off what some of the further need for further comment and more review of the of our comments for your comment. Comment, comment, comment.
[Nina Nazarian]: It's a lot of words on paper.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. That's why I pulled out the track change version. I was like, I think it'd be good for us to see some procedural different versions, how they've been. It's not everything, but it's mostly scoped. But the first clarifying question I think was just for the quarterly meetings.
[Nina Nazarian]: I'm sorry, Vice President Bears, could you please identify, President Bears, I'm not sure how to refer to- Chair, you can call me the Chair.
[Zac Bears]: Chair, thank you, thank you.
[Nina Nazarian]: President elect. President elect.
[Zac Bears]: You can call me Zach.
[Nina Nazarian]: And congratulations to you both, by the way. Chair Behr.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, Chair Behr, yes.
[Nina Nazarian]: I'll go with Chair. Yeah. So, Mr. Chairman, you're referring to the version that is the complete version marked up with track changes, is that correct?
[Zac Bears]: Yes, and so I did provide a version that was just your proposal as track changes, and then I just copied that into this longer one that starts with the chapter three at the top.
[Nina Nazarian]: Yes, and that's the version you're working off of right now.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, yes, well kind of. I mean, technically it is pretty, the numbering is identical to your version on the specific sections.
[Unidentified]: Beautiful.
[Zac Bears]: on the second and third page, I took out the definition section as you had and then change the numbering, move the numbering down one. But yeah, it was this the 3101 quarterly financial reports and meetings. It seemed like the 60 days seemed fine. But the question was just, why would we just be meeting on the second and third quarters and not every quarter? And I have actually thought my own answer. But Councilor Tseng and Councilor Collins both asked that question as a clarifying question.
[Nina Nazarian]: Sure. I'm trying to recall the discussion that we had, and I'm going to sound it out for a second. Bob, please, Finance Director Dickinson, if you have an answer that's more clear than the one that I'm going to try to sound out, please feel free.
[Bob Dickinson]: Well, to my mind, looking over all this stuff is what we can prepare and what gives relevant information to the Council. Yeah. When looking at timelines for the first quarter, I mean, we can run reports from admins that say, this is the spending for the first quarter. This is the revenue for the first quarter. But to a certain extent, because spending doesn't actually, it's not linear. It's not like every month you spend x amount on this. I'm not clear on what. what information that would really provide. And that's why we were thinking, also, when you think about what's on my plate, the whole summer is cleaning up POs, and it's very busy to try and close the prior fiscal year and get that done. Which, to me, having the first half be the first relevant stuff, we have a good amount of data there. We can see, we can compare it to prior years. So it just seemed like that would be, in terms of the timelines that we're working on, that that would be more relevant information that could be provided that's actually germane to the discussion. And then when I look at this also trying to compare current spending to inflation adjusted things from five years ago, we get into an apples and oranges comparison, what inflation measure are we using to get to the state of here? I mean, obviously, the prior fiscal year does give relevant information, but I'm trying to avoid, I'm trying to avoid putting forth information that, you know, in order to actually explain it would take a long time. And it's not perhaps really something that we need to be looking at. So that's our thinking behind that. So when you're looking at doing the budget for the next year, by the first half, 60 days after the first half, we will have relevant, actual actionable data to give you. That's what I thought on that.
[Zac Bears]: Got it. Um, and then, um, and then the third quarter, if what we discussed after the second quarter, suddenly there was a massive shift, you would have that third quarter to kind of be an extra check mark. That's see, that makes sense. That makes sense to me. And what you've said about your capacity for the first and the fourth isn't relevant because we passed it already. So, yeah. Um, Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: I appreciate the explanation. I had a feeling it was something along those lines, but thank you for giving context to that. I think it makes sense.
[Zac Bears]: Great. For that second quarter, at that point, we may also be able to have like the prior fiscal year's total actuals. Yeah. Yeah. So that's when I think that fourth comes back around to maybe be relevant again as well. And I know that's your kind of timeline on on putting together your reporting to the state and whatnot. So, you know, it is helpful for me to see the, you know, if we have that as part of that meeting, you know, if we're seeing the prior year actuals at the mid-year point of the existing, of the current fiscal year for the planning the future, the next fiscal year, we can kind of get a little bit of a snapshot of, you know, it's helpful for me to see without waiting for you to put out the act for what the actuals were relative to the budget for the prior year. Um, another clarifying question I'm going to jump to, and then I'll jump back was just, um. You know, something that we had put in, and then you guys had pulled out in your proposal. And then actually, as we discussed it last meeting, I think we maybe had some agreement on, or you guys said you'd kind of look at it further. was this question of breaking down the change in department budgets from year to year so that we could say what came from, like, what's a fixed cost increase? Like, what was contractual obligation versus what is something that's new, a new program or a new staff member? And I was just wondering if I just want to be, is that like a huge lift for us to do in the budget? Or I just wanted to kind of see where you were coming from on that one.
[Bob Dickinson]: Well, as part of the budget process, that's what we do anyway, really. That's going to be part of when Courtney starts sitting down with a department that's to go over their budgets. It's going to be, OK, this is statutory increases. This is step increases. This is et cetera, union contracts. And then looking at budgets for, operating costs, it's going to, you know, we would say, okay, we think next year it's going to cost this much for office products given trends, et cetera, et cetera. And then after that, it would be, the department head would work with my department and the administration to say, okay, I need another position. And just clarifying, I think that's what you're looking for. And so I don't see a problem with that, really, if we're very clear on what we're actually looking at. So if there are specific things in departmental budgets that are on their wish list, then that's something that's separate from going forward with the prior year's budget. Does that make sense?
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, and that's why I ask, because I think it's like, I know you're doing this already, because it's like you can't put together the department budget without saying, OK, here's everything we do now, and here's what it's going to cost this year versus last year. And then some departments may, given our tight budget, be lucky enough to have an additional staff. Or for example, this year, we may be moving something over from A grant fund to the general fund, something like that. And I think it's, you know, since we're just looking at the general fund, since we've scoped this down to sticking just on the general fund for now, it's really more a way of visual of how the information is presented that if somewhere in each departments line, it said, you know. Fixed cost increase, you know. 2 million, new programs and staff, 100,000, you know, like just showing to the public and showing to us, we know the information's in there, we know if you take a minute or two to look at it, you can kind of figure that out on your own, but just kind of simplifying it, because I think that's really the, you know, to me, it addresses a narrative question that comes up a lot in our budget discussions, which is, oh, well, You know, the budgets are going up every year, you know, if the budget's going up, why aren't we, why aren't we doing this XYZ thing? And it's like, well, you know, the budgets are going up, but it's mostly that we're just paying for fixed costs to maintain level service, maintain positions we already have. Just because the budget is going up for a department doesn't mean that the department's actually going to be able to do more. in the new year than it was in the old year. So that's really more where I think that intent is from. If there's a way to change the proposed language to make that clearer, that it's really just a question of taking information and work that's already happening and displaying it, putting it somewhere in the budget document that says, even if it's a line in the narrative section or something, I don't know how the software works, so I don't know.
[Nina Nazarian]: Yeah, the only addition I have to that is, as it presently stands, we have been working to better the process over the last several years on what departments need to provide when submitting their budgets. I don't know that our current improvement on our own process is going to truly disaggregate the total proposed expenses into the two categories. What it's going to do more accurately, in my mind, and maybe this is the same thing, or maybe the subcommittee views this as similar and sufficient, but it's going to highlight where there are increases beyond a certain percentage and beyond a certain dollar. They're still going to be technically aggregated, right? Because disaggregating the things requires some further steps, and frankly, We're, in my mind, still in a stage where we're trying to get our budget sheets to be utilized to the degree that they were built. So again, as I said at the last meeting on this matter, We need to be careful with the steps we commit to because we don't want to commit to a step that's greater than what we can provide and then provide something smaller than that and be in conflict. Nobody wants to be in conflict on this issue. We want to work on this cooperatively and actually achieve cooperative and unified goals on this process. So again, I don't think Our current system isn't going to actually disaggregate things. It's going to highlight where increases have happened and why. If that is sufficient to the subcommittee, then I think we're all walking in the same direction right now. But if that doesn't meet the definition of my literal interpretation of that language, we might want to change it.
[Zac Bears]: I think, to me, it may be a question of the literal interpretation of the language. I guess, for me, It's not necessarily to say that every line needs to say, this was fixed cost and this was new. I think what you're talking about is essentially, in most cases, what we have now. It's like, this is up 33% over prior year, this line item. To me, it would be for the whole department. So it wouldn't be, let's go through every line and split everything out and say, here's what's fixed cost, here's what's a new program. So then each line is like, library, book expenses, 20,000 fixed cost, 5,000 new, then we have percentage. It's more like library, $1 million. Sorry to anybody watching now, but library for the whole department, the library. you know, it went up by $100,000. $80,000 of that was a fixed cost. $20,000 of that is something we were asked to add in. So it would be at that higher level. It wouldn't be at the line item level. It would be at the full departmental budget level.
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you. I understand that's helpful to clarify, and it gives me something to think about as we look at our process and try to figure out a way, if there's a way to incorporate that.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, because I think, sorry, I'll go to Councilor Collins just a second, but I just think, yeah, obviously asking you to go through every line item and say exactly what piece of each increase is a fixed cost versus a new thing, especially where you have lots of things lumped into line items is not particularly helpful, but I think it would be more like if you look at the library budget and you know there was a new staff position, then that's pretty easy to say that amount is in that new bucket.
[Nina Nazarian]: It's more, if I may, it sounds like you're suggesting more of a summarization of what the bottom line change was by material or significant chunks.
[Zac Bears]: Yes, that is exactly right. And if there's a language suggestion there that's helpful, I think I'd be happy to incorporate whatever you think is reasonable. But it's at that department level. the summary of the department budget, how much of that budget change is something new and how much of that budget change is just paying for the things we were already doing is basically my intent. Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you yeah I'm glad we're having this discussion that I appreciate you dialing in on the language we're using to articulate what we're looking for because I think the various ways, it's been phrased I think are are going to be what's helpful and it makes me think of something that is currently present in the budget books that we do get the departmental summary before every departments breakdown. I feel like sometimes different department budgets or different departments use that a little bit differently, but if this is something that can inform, so when we're reading that summary, it's more like a narrative for, you know, okay, residents, Councilors, here's what we're looking at. This is to keep the lights on on all the programs and staff and tools that we're currently using, and this is the story of what we're adding or what we're changing that's significant. Certainly not, I don't think that the granular is super helpful here, but rather the, the summary, as you say.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Any further discussion on this kind of specific piece of the ask? Cool. I think outside of that, there were really just three bigger questions that may need more digestion. So I'll just read through them quickly. And then we can decide if any of them are worth us talking about now versus maybe a further written response. And then we can decide where we go from here. But the three big ones to me seem to be Councilor Collins and Councilor Tseng raised some concerns about the order of operations with the Council recommendations coming before the preliminary budget meetings. And then the other two are these bigger questions, which is, since we've essentially the response that the November 28 draft of the ordinance from you guys was was saying, restricting just a general fund, what would be a way to incorporate the idea that we would like to start at some point have things like enterprise and to include in the ordinance about that. Capital plans and other things as part of this process. You know what something reasonable if there is something if we can all agree that there is something reasonable to include in the ordinance about that and then the section around the annual needs assessments. You know how can we incorporate maintain the produce those assessments given the current resources. So those are the three items. Do we feel like we can have a discussion about the order of operations on the preliminary budget meetings of the council recommendations now, or do we need more time to digest?
[Nina Nazarian]: I mean, I defer to everyone in the group, but I'm willing to go through and hammer through what we can. I have no opposition to that. Yeah, that's... Okay.
[Zac Bears]: I'll just go back to Councilor Cohn since you raised the concern, the question, if you want to add any more summary and then we can kind of hear from you guys about why the order is in kind of the recommendations followed by the budget meetings.
[Kit Collins]: Sure, yeah. I think I spoke a lot on it earlier, but just to put it more succinctly, I think the perfect world You know, the version of this is everybody has plenty of time to be talking all the time about where we're at and where we're going and how we're going to help you get there. And I think the initial proposed version was at least putting that into a structure, which is early in the year, we're meeting with department heads so that we can be thinking through needs and wants getting the big picture on that and dialing that into our council recommendations which we then submit to the administration before the budget is put together. Obviously we're trying to craft this that fits within our capacity right now. Um, it still seems important to me that we could have some version of those budget hearings with department heads before we put forward what we think is important, what we most want to advocate for in the budget. Um, because those recommendations, of course, are informed by what we hear from department heads. I'd say probably just as much as what we hear from residents.
[Nina Nazarian]: So if I've understood correctly, Councilor Collins, kind of trying to have some discussions with department heads before preliminary numbers or budgets are even presented.
[Kit Collins]: Or specifically before we send our recommendations to the administration.
[Nina Nazarian]: And I think the nature of the process was to help, so it's, this is all a bit of a chicken and egg situation, right? That's the best way to describe it for me, and it sounds like the same for our finance director. One of the reasons, as the subcommittee knows, that we presented language on setting some level of expectation as to when the finance department or the mayor's office would submit a number to the school committee or school administration was because we have to be able to figure out what share of the pie we have to manage with. Similarly, wanting to be able to take into consideration the different elements as we work through, having that information as early as possible would help the process. So it's just more of a, major stakeholders having an opportunity to, I apologize, I'm feeling very congested suddenly, but anyway, having major stakeholders have a part in the process where those major stakeholders are not only informing the process, but the process is taking into consideration those major stakeholders is the chicken and egg situation we're trying to balance.
[Kit Collins]: So I appreciate that and what I'm hearing is the intent here was to. the intent is to move council input earlier into the budget creation process. And I certainly appreciate that because we appreciate being included. And I think what I'm trying to think through and how to balance is I think we see our recommendations, or at least myself and council are saying, see the council budget recommendations being very importantly informed by the conversations that we have with department heads. I know for me, as I was reading through it, I was like, I wonder if there's a way to have a version of budget hearings that are like a much lighter lift so that they can occur earlier um so that we can still have that step one before the step two of sending council recommendations to the administration but the point that you just offered is is heard and appreciated that the intent is to have that feedback sooner and i just wonder thank you councillor collins thank you madam chief of staff um yeah i mean for me on this one i think
[Zac Bears]: And this may just be because I've been through a few budgets. Like for me, I feel like it's, I actually think the order of, and maybe we changed the word preliminary. I don't know. Well, I think they're still preliminary because they're coming before the presentation of the comprehensive, you know, of the full budget. I think if Councilors want to have informal conversations and schedule meetings with department heads or send questions to department heads by email or by phone or have a meeting. in advance of making recommendations to the administration. That's a way that they can engage the department heads in advance without having to have a whole other formal set of meetings. Because I think this is, in some ways this does add some, potentially add some meetings if we wanna hear from department heads after the budget's proposed, right? Because right now we have, there've been a variety of different approaches that this council has taken in my time and before my time to send recommendations to the administration. And then a budget comes in and then we have budget quote unquote hearings, which they aren't really. And in this process, we would have the meetings prior to the presentation of the budget. you know, we could have you guys as the administration representing everything or request department heads to come back in if we have further questions after the presentation. So, you know, I think adding a 3rd layer even before that, then we have 3 sets of meetings with department heads versus one. And I don't think that that's necessarily, uh, You know, as we've discussed, while we are formalizing a process and probably adding some steps that will take capacity and time, I think we need to be as judicious as we can with it. So, Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: And I'm happy to be convinced on that point. I know that we're proposing, you know, many amendments to the budget process through this project, and we're just gonna try it and see what works and what works well. So I can see the merits. When I read it, I wasn't sure how the order of operations would work with getting the context that we're used to getting from department heads in that order. But I think also probably with the advantage of having a term behind me and knowing what we're likely to hear, I'm amenable to the change. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. So I think we're good on that one. Well, Councilor Tseng can come in and disagree, but he's on an airplane. So I think these last two questions are the bigger questions that maybe we need to go back and think about more. But the original intent was to say, let's be comprehensive about all of the city's revenue and expenditures and to be comprehensive about assessing unmet needs for both operating and capital expenses. Those are obviously major say huge questions those are those are big questions are questions that we don't answer now that we don't have the capacity to answer now that as you noted at our last meeting many cities do not answer at all in towns do not answer at all because it is not easy and i think we had a similar answer from the collins center when we talked about the capital improvement plan and we said well what does it actually This is great, we're adding all this money, but what's the goal, what is it to get us to state a good repair? I'm going to stick with my belief that there are questions that we should try our best to answer if we ever possibly can, but I do understand that I am not the finance director or the chief of staff or the mayor or anyone working in the finance department, so I don't actually have to try to get those answers or allocate the staff and the time and the resources to try to get those answers. So I think the question here is, Is there a way for us to have something in here that says, we'll at least have this conversation every year, or the council and the administration futures where none of us, our personalities are ever here, that councils and administrations in the future will have the conversation to say, what would it take to incorporate, or what are things we think we can incorporate towards those goals each year? And if the answer is most years, well, we do not have the resources and the capacity to do as much as we want, Then that's an answer, but is there a meeting where we can sit down here from you guys, because I did hear also enterprise fund they're sitting down water sewer they want to come up with their working diligently and then maybe that could be. in a year or two or three budget, something that becomes part of this process in a more regular way. Like that's something, if that wasn't your intent, maybe I apologize for misinterpreting it, but that's something I kind of heard at the last meeting. And that would certainly be, you know, we do receive, we have received enterprise funds in the past as part of the budget, right, as well. So that would certainly be progress towards that intent and that goal. And I think, I'm aware of that, but that was my proposal was to say. Essentially, let's take it all out your draft took it out and accepting that let's take out all the details of the. and at least have the conversation. Is there something that we're doing this year that moves us closer to to one of those goals? So that was my suggestion. I don't I know that in the comments from Councilor Collins and Councilor Tseng it was more of I think it was a question of how we could try to incorporate and keep these things in here and what that would look like. I've made a first pass at that. And if we want to have any light discussion of it now, and if you want to take it back and read through this in more detail and see what you think is reasonable and possible, I think that's great. But I do want to give you guys the floor if you have thoughts on it at this time.
[Nina Nazarian]: From my perspective, I would like to do a little bit of both.
[Zac Bears]: Sure.
[Nina Nazarian]: I'm happy to have a conversation and also, you know, Any comments our finance director has? Just at a high level, my hesitancy in trying to figure out where we can get closer to the goals that the subcommittee has identified is twofold. Number one is wanting to try what we have here first. give us an opportunity to try this together. Frankly, I would ask that the council not even adopt an ordinance, have a draft ordinance for the next year, and let us walk through it on a trial basis. But I don't know that the council's really prepared to do that. So the next closest step to that for me would be, let's take what we have and move forward with what we have as outlined. And then, as you all know, the council could make modifications to the ordinance in the future and adopt it. the same level of effort that it would take in a town, for instance, where it would only come up as an opportunity two times a year, you have at least probably 26 to 52 times a year that, or plus, that this council could do that type of work. So I don't, I'm of the mind that we, this is the area that I felt strong, I feel strongly walking into the conversation, not having seen the language that you had provided, Mr. Chairman, So that's why I'm happy to think through it. There are elements to it in particular that are going to be more challenging, or things that I have heard our finance director say that's just not feasible. I mean, my word's not his. So those are my initial comments.
[Bob Dickinson]: And I guess I would elaborate on that. When we look at the general fund budget, this is something we've done many times. Estimating revenues, figuring out exactly how much room we have to increase budgets, et cetera, et cetera. When you move to the enterprise funds, then the additional thoughts on that, this is just getting into the details of how I think these things would be arrived at. The additional details on that are getting the consultants to figure out what it's going to do to each individual rate, what it means to the taxpayers, to the water and sewer users, which here are basically the taxpayers. It becomes a little bit more complex. It's a slightly different problem to look at. When you move that to capital improvement, looking at that, down the road, how much free cash are we going to have? What kind of grants can we get to fund this kind of stuff? It's a much more complex problem. And going down the road looking at special revenue funds also, when I think about trying to do budgets for grant funds, well, we get new grants every week. You know, most of the grants that actually support continuing programs are in school, which is completely different. I mean, that's the school's purview. So, when I'm looking at this, just to get back to what Veena's saying, it's like, let's start with this, let's try and get this forward, and then we move into enterprise funds. and capital, I mean, we have a capital, we have a framework for capital spending. We see a bunch of things that we need to do, and we're thinking about where we can get the money to do that. But each individual block that we move forward in this is, you know, it's another level of complexity. So I think it'd be very, I think what would be helpful would be to go through the general fund stuff with what you were requesting, what we've hammered out, and then add the, you know, subsequent to that, add the enterprise funds, add capital needs. I don't know what to do about grant funding or, you know, how do we even approach that given the number of grants the city gets and how often they just show up? what you would need to see or what you would want to see to have that be useful information. So that's just trying to think about how to provide you with all this stuff, what it would take. Those are the things on my mind as to how complex this would be.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Councilor Allen.
[Kit Collins]: Well, I appreciate that. And certainly, the key feature of this is that this is certainly not something that we could bring online soon, because as you described, very complex, a lot of moving pieces. I'm curious to see how, I mean, Councilor Griffiths, you can speak more to the proposal that you put forward for this meeting, but For me as one Councilor, I think it could be, I think it would feel valuable to me even just to have a conversation, kind of like the one we're having right now, even if at the beginning, if we put in a clause to this ordinance that say, okay, and we're talking about these non-general fund buckets. All we're doing in this ordinance is just saying every year we're gonna have a meeting and talk about it and talk about Here's how we're currently wrapping our heads about it, questions we have, do we make any progress, do we organize things differently this year, not expecting any sort of, you're going to give us a report and it's going to be filed this way and it's going to be comprehensive, but just to start to build a habit of talking about it on an annual basis. And, you know, because just hearing from you directly about everything that's on your mind when you consider those buckets is good information for me to have. And in some cases, new information. So I'm interested in seeing where can we just start to lay a brick. that we might, in five or 10 years, put another brick on top of. And what's a brick that is achievable? So I'm wondering if we digest the proposal more, if that could feel like just a way to start institutionalizing talking about it with no expectations that you're, in a year, suddenly going to gain the capacity to disentangle something that's very complicated.
[Zac Bears]: I think two, or go ahead, Madam Chair.
[Nina Nazarian]: No, I was just going to say, I think I definitely understand the reasoning and logic. The expectation just automatically does get set. Any future council having these conversations is going to have their own interpretation, their own expectations. Again, I'm happy to, I'm certainly willing to rethink about this matter, especially in light of the idea just to have language about having discussions. But I really, there are just so many unintended things that come up sometimes when we attempt to fit something that doesn't fit. And for us, logistically, based on the lack of systems for the last decades plus in this organization, this doesn't seem to fit in my mind logistically. more than willing to reflect on the conversation and think through if this is truly something I feel strongly about as it relates to this current proposed language that we're discussing. But I just don't want to be in a situation where we're trying to fit something and then have an unintended consequence down the road because I do think it's rather simple to come back to the table and modify the ordinance. So I look at that as an opportunity to avoid unintended consequences, potential conflict that could ensue from a lack of historical knowledge. I mean, I really don't, I hope, I mean, we're talking about a new council term. There's two years there, there's two budget cycles there. In theory, we would have, you know, walk through the current version. assuming one gets adopted and be on our way to expanding that before this next council year moves forward. But we never predicted a pandemic would occur. We can never predict what the future holds. And so I just don't wanna, I just don't wanna think through to make sure we don't have unintended consequences.
[Zac Bears]: Then that's heard and then just to Councilor Collins to the point of, I might be able to speak to this since I wrote a suggestion, I think that, you know, I hear what you're saying. I understand what you're saying. And I think, I don't think we will ever be able to mitigate the possibility that a future council will interpret something in a way that we didn't intend it to be interpreted. Although I think we could work towards language that tries to mitigate that possibility as much as we can. I think it's the, it's really the question of, it's very clear that it's at least the subcommittee and we'll see if the council, and now it's going to be a new council as intent is that, These questions that we know we can't answer right now because the capacity is not there are important questions. And is there a way to build in? And maybe we do it a little different structurally, add in some really clearer language. Maybe you can suggest some as you digest something that really clarifies and tries to mitigate future conflict as best as possible. But some section that marries the realities and I think it's two realities that excuse me need to be married of We really think that even if we're not the Councilors, that a future council should be asking these questions. And your reality that we can't answer these questions now because we don't have the capacity and the systems and the procedures and the processes in place because they weren't created for many decades. And we would be doing a lot of these things for the first time certainly here, if not the first time on some of them. really anywhere, or at least anywhere that maybe isn't Boston or that doesn't have outside, you know, like the Boston Municipal Research Bureau and all of those wonderful things that we don't get. And I think maybe we can come to something that takes some of what I put in, maybe we also put in, maybe it's an ordinance review section that incorporates some of what you're saying, like as we move through the process every year and iterate and we see what works and what didn't, can we sit down and have it? And maybe that's to the advantage of all of us for you to be able to come to us and say, so here's how the ordinance is written. Here's the places where we think it fell down. There's a formalized process and meeting within this ordinance that has to happen at the house the council has to call it, right? So we can hear from you similarly on where you think suggestions and improvements can be made to the ordinance language on a regular basis. And then maybe we can also set an effective date, not of this year, but of next year or something like that to start that so that we can at least not be trying to like review the process that we haven't even finished yet for the first time, something like that. And that's just a pitch that I wanna make and put out there. I don't think we have to answer these questions tonight. I don't think we're going to answer these questions tonight. But it is important to me that in 10 years, if I'm not here and none of us are here and you know, we haven't been able to answer some of these questions and make improvements that someone says, oh, well, the budget process says these are important questions to ask to the future mayor, the future chief of staff from the future Councilor on the future, whatever committee and who even may have a new charter with different number of Councilors. I mean, there may be many things that are different, but to me, I think we're actually, what you guys are trying to do and what we're trying to do is solve the same problem, which is you guys are trying to dig out and say, where the systems and processes and procedures for us to have a clear understanding of our city's financial status and how we can plan and fund the things we want to do and the improvements we want to make. And I think you're doing incredible work working on that problem internally to try to do that. And I think we're saying this is a piece of that for us, especially as folks reviewing from the outside where we may not have the, um, you know, level of knowledge and detail and understanding and access to information that you guys have. So that's just my kind of trying to come together on some shared reasoning why having something in some way and I'm open to language I think we all this subcommittee and I'm sure the next council will be open to how we say that so that we can try to make everyone feel as comfortable as possible that it's not going to be used in a way other than what the intent of what we're talking about is as best as we can. So did you have a No, I couldn't tell if you raised your hand. Sorry.
[Kit Collins]: I'm just nodding in dissent. I think if, and certainly this is a conversation with many threads, you know, for me, if we want to absorb this and think about it, and if you came back with a way of phrasing that, that felt more comfortable, for lack of a better word, And I just, I appreciate, I think Councilor Bears captured what I think of as the intent very well, which is just to, you know, create a structure for talking about it and try to be in touch about, you know, this interest that we share.
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you both. I think just thinking through all of this, the only thing that comes to my mind for discussion that remains as I try to break down the challenges that are at the forefront. And some of that is, as we've seen tonight, just talking through the little elements to break those down. As I process everything that's been said about trying to expand on this work, my reflection is, how do we incorporate, it's a question I don't know the answer to, how do we incorporate language that is not, that is, that surpasses time, right? We're here to try to draft language that surpasses time, not because it can't be modified, but because that's how we write ordinances, it's how we write law. So writing something, for instance, I started, Mr. Chairman, when you were speaking, I started writing down, well, we could put an intent section in. Well, you don't put an intent section in an ordinance that talks about the intent of the first year. That doesn't make any sense. You don't talk about the first year. You talk about the intent of the overall, perhaps. But you can't talk about the first year, necessarily. So I'm trying to think through that. And if anyone comes up with any answers on how we write something that not only doesn't pigeonhole ourselves to a specific time period or a specific snapshot of where we are, I definitely am happy to hear the thoughts for the further collaboration because when I try to balance what's being presented in terms of the things we aren't able to do right now, with the other elements and what those conversations could result in, that's where I find myself in that kind of, and I swing back into that discussion in my own mind about the first year and how it would be great if this document even outlined that this is a trial pass, right? And that the council understands that this is a work in progress. And as I've said before, whatever is presumably passed and codified is going to be law. And we have an obligation to comply with that law. So these are the struggles that are going on in my mind that I'd like to share so that you can use your subconscious to think about it as well and send any thoughts back for further discussion. for further collaboration.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, thank you. And I think definitely if we can think of that and I can see kind of the positive versus the negative, you know, is there a way to not have it be about what we can't but about what we can and then what's beyond that? I can see a way to maybe structure some of these that way. I think language-wise, if we go in a direction like that, that's good. And I think it'll just be the question of do we feel like that framing doesn't miss or not capture something, right. And on the flip side, right. But, you know, I think there's a way to write that, you know, at this point, I think at least what I wrote, and again, we haven't had time to consider it. So I'm just saying what I what I intended, and if it doesn't read that way, that let's change that. Let's change the language. So it reads at least what I was intended, or a shared intent that's different than my intent is. There's a lot that we wanted to do here that we've heard loud and clear is not possible. Let's take all the language out that puts us into any sort of, you know, certainly what I propose is not on this date, this becomes effective, right? Because I think that would be that kind of pigeonholing type approach of like, you know, it's not, it's not intended to be that it really is as I wrote the changes is. let's have a conversation every year about these topics and what we think it would look like to have them incorporated into the process more. So, but yeah, that's, I really, my intent was to say, was really to try to meet what you came with last meeting and say, we know these things are not reasonable. And then what we came back with, which is we want to have some mention of, a future edition. And I think we heard that from Bob too. Like I heard you say, you know, at least that's what I heard in some of your comments as well, to an extent of just like, this is what it could look like to add these things in and put these boxes in, but that they, these beyond the general fund, we're talking about ever more complex, ever more detailed things with much less precedent. So it is a, it's a, It certainly can't be measured out to the detail of what we've measured out for the general fund process where we feel confident that these are steps. Essentially, these are all steps that in some way have happened already and we're putting them in a different order and trying to do them in a certain way. But yeah, I think that's heard loud and clear. At this point, unless there's any further comment, is there a motion on the floor for, it sounds to me like you need to digest. Do you wanna maybe take a look? I think we should, to me, it would be split into two things at this point. It's like any detail adjustments on the general fund process that we, I think we have a general agreement on the framework of, and then suggestions on these bigger questions of how can we incorporate, if at all we all agree to incorporate these questions of how we would like to see this process expanded or different topics included in the budget process in the future. So just given that I think separating those conversations in some sense is helpful, is there a motion on the floor to get us moving in that direction?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, if you give me a second to think about it.
[Zac Bears]: Sure, yeah.
[Kit Collins]: I want to take a full minute, bear with me.
[Zac Bears]: And at some point, we're gonna have new microphones, and we're gonna be able to hear everybody, and there's gonna be a little thing here, and then when people say, I wanna talk, I'm gonna see their name pop up, and it's gonna be like it was in 2019 in this room. Maybe with some improvements on that system, but that'll make it easier for all of us. While Kit writes the motion, is there a time frame for our next meeting late January, early February? What's your thoughts?
[Nina Nazarian]: I'm going to be away beginning the 25th. So I would actually suggest sometime hopefully mid-February or late February if possible.
[Zac Bears]: OK. We'll look at that, and then we'll also see what happens with committees and schedules, and this might end up in a different committee, I think, than it is in now. So we'll see about that. I do, just with that, I mean, it seems like we're generally close on the general fund frame, and we're going to try as best as we can to do it this year. Do you have any concerns about if, you know, if we were, let's say we pass this for a first reading at the end of February, it's not really ordinance until middle of March. We're like passes. It's in the middle of the budget process that the ordinance would become effective. Do you see any issues there?
[Nina Nazarian]: Not immediately. I think, you know, we've all been working in earnest to implement, presumably implement this during this budget process.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, yeah. And that's what I'm feeling too. I just want to make sure on our end that our process doesn't drag you into anything you don't want to.
[Nina Nazarian]: I don't, I don't. I don't foresee that at this time.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, great. Yeah, and I think, you know, maybe if at least, maybe we'll come back in mid late February to talk about it, but maybe a written response just on the, at least the early dates where we have stuff in that March window, just so we all know what to expect so that we can schedule us to, I can put out the call, Councilors, get your stuff in by March 1st, and we're gonna do it by either March 15th or 22nd to send it back to you, those sorts of things.
[Nina Nazarian]: Right.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, cool.
[Nina Nazarian]: No, I do think we should, work towards as if it's implemented. I think we should. We're trying to do that on our end as we develop our sheets and on work. I think that would be the most logical step. Yes, thank you for bringing that up.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, and if there are any dates that are suggested dates, I've adjusted one. It seems to me that we're really, that March 1st is our first target date. So hopefully we'll have the meeting and we'll be done before that. But just if there's anything that we should know in advance of that, I'd like to at least like Councilors know a week before that deadline. Sure, sure.
[Nina Nazarian]: And so to that end, we will definitely, you know, mark our calendars and give some thought and probably would make sense to even schedule, you know, depending upon when our next meeting is scheduled, we might even have a if the subcommittee's agreeable to it, well, it might even not even, the subcommittee may not exist, but the solution is we can work with the president-elect and then president of the city council to update, perhaps in early February as well, just to touch base on the matter.
[Zac Bears]: That sounds great. All right. Councilor Collins, did we vamp long enough?
[Kit Collins]: Yes, okay, let me know if this is too in the weeds. Motion would be for the administration and subcommittee members to review current ordinance drafts and to further consider questions and decision points on the general fund framework in Article 5, and to consider and formulate suggestions around how to incorporate the intent of Article 6 into a reasonable framework, and to circulate any written responses or proposals ahead of the next subcommittee meeting on this topic.
[Zac Bears]: That sounds fine to me. If you could send that in email form to Annie and you guys, and we'll, and we'll, um, I think also maybe amend that to send the committee report and any, I mean, you have all the documents today, but we'll send you the committee report, um, along with that motion language for your review. Great.
[Kit Collins]: Is that an amendment to the motion to send a committee report or is that just a thing?
[Zac Bears]: I mean, I think we're going to send you the committee report anyway, but we'll just make sure you get a copy of it as quickly as it's produced.
[Kit Collins]: Great. I'll email that right now.
[Zac Bears]: Great. On the motion of Councilor Collins, seconded by myself. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? None. Motion passes. And when you're ready, Annie, if there's another motion on the floor.
[Kit Collins]: Motion to adjourn.
[Zac Bears]: There's a motion to adjourn by Councilor Collins, seconded by myself. Any last words? None? Seeing none.
[Nina Nazarian]: have a wonderful holiday season off. You too.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Yes. Everyone have wonderful holidays. This is our last council meeting of 2023. We will see you on January 9th, 2024 after the inauguration on January 7th, 2024, which will be, I believe here. in the City Council Chambers at 10 a.m.? I'm not sure, but it'll be January 7th.
[Nina Nazarian]: I have it somewhere, and I apologize. I will not be able to attend, but I wish you all well, and I'll wish I was here, sharing this moment with you all.
[Zac Bears]: We will miss you, but we will see anyone who's left watching here on December 20th in January. And on the motion, all those in favor? Aye. Opposed? None. The motion passes, and the meeting is adjourned. Happy holidays.
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