 Yeah, oh my goodness. Yeah All right on that note, let's bounce right into the first meeting of 2023 so I would like to call to order the South Burlington City Council meeting of Tuesday, January 3rd 2023 and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, instructions on exiting the building and case of emergency? Sure So for those of you in the room, there are doors on the left and right of the rear of the auditorium You can go out either one and go to the doors on either side if there's an emergency. For those participating online Thank you for joining us. If you would like to speak during one of the agenda items Please feel free to turn on your camera and the chair will call on you or you can message me in the chat and the chair Will call on you. We are not monitoring the chat for content Thank you. Okay item three agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions, or changes in the order of agenda items? Seeing none, we'll move on to four. Are there any comments and questions from the public? Not related to the agenda Anyone in the audience? Okay, how about at home? I don't see anyone's light going on already So we'll jump then to councillor's announcements and reports on committee assignments and the city manager's report So Tim, do you want to start with the flying trampolines? Nothing to report other than where I lived on Friday before Christmas It was that windstorm did send three trampolines flying through the backyards Luckily, nobody know no other animals and I don't think any structures were hurt including the trampolines I could just they disassembled, you know when they hit the ground So other than that a happy New Year to everybody and looking forward to 2023 very hopeful About positive changes occurring within the city and also nationwide and hopefully worldwide. So there's that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you Okay Man No, just wishing everybody happy New Year, and I hope that your hope is well justified We can certainly wish for peace, right? Okay, well good news is we don't have to have an election and have multiple rounds for leadership tonight Man I feel for everyone in Washington what a mess So anyway, let's hope they can figure something out City manager, I don't have anything to report other than I had a wonderful Christmas I wish everyone a happy New Year and You know if we could get some snow, maybe I think 2023 might be a little better for economy and more fun to traipse around in Especially the dog park. It's a little muddy right now. So I'd like about a foot and a half of snow To cover everything but other than that Let's hope for a wonderful 2023 Yeah, great. Thanks So first and foremost, I'd like to officially on the record welcome Daisy Brayton to our team Daisy joins us today as our new Human Resources Director She's gonna say a few words to us, but just as she's coming up She's got 25 years of human resources experience previously. She served as the director of HR for Central Vermont Medical Center prior to that worked for The city of Lincoln in Lancaster where she built a lot of municipal expertise and also Served in several HR related positions at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln I don't know anything about college football, but she was the HR person for the athletic department. So well, maybe an interesting thing Won't be me sorry. I know some people who would love to talk with you Wonderful, well, thank you so much again I'm Daisy Brayton and and I am literally eight eight hours into the position and I am so very excited to have Come to the city of South Burlington and and new to Vermont Fairly, I again spent most of our last 30 years in in Nebraska, but my husband's family is in Essex Junction and has actually some history with with this With Burlington. So I am truly honored to to bring My my HR experience and to join this Baker's team and and the team here Very excited to get to work with all of you and to meet you and and and collaborate with the future for the city of South Burlington So thank you so much for having me and and I am very much looking forward to Our relationship and and collaborating together Any questions for me? Well, thank you very much. Are there any questions? Did you move here for the job? I did not I well, I moved here to work for the Central Vermont Medical Center. Yes, and and but coming to the city of South Burlington tonight today I looked back on I feel at home spending most of my career in city government and academics so Very excited to be here. Thank you. And she is looking for a home in chinning County. Yes I anyone know of a yeah, I've lost four bids now. So I yeah, so definitely looking to find a Home in Closer not Northfield. There we go. It's a pleasure to meet you all. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you Great. So a few other quick updates one in front of you We did make you budget books for tonight and your discussion on the budget So you have in there your roll-up budget your line item budget my presentation to you and the enterprise fund budgets as well So as we get into that tonight and in the next couple of weeks you have that in front of you to look at It's also posted online for those who are watching remotely Two quick things. I want to call out on the consent agenda One is we are asking you to appoint a building inspector ie former chief and current deputy chief Terry Francis to that role that is the requirement of your new heating ordinance And then we are asking you also to allow us to apply for a grant for ash trees That would require a 2020 or a 50-50 match 20,000 each from ARPA funds So if you approve that you will be approving that use of ARPA funds as well And then we do have a few odd scheduling things coming up So I just wanted to remind the council that our next meeting is Tuesday, January 17th because it's the Mondays the Martin Luther King holiday And then we'll have another meeting the following Monday on the 23rd for the special meeting on the education impact fee Public hearing and then the steering committee meeting with the school board That's Monday the 23rd Yeah, we're will the steering here here here in the auditorium That's all I have. Thank you. All right. Thank you Moving on into the consent agenda. We have three items consider and sign there's a spurs mince appoint Terry Francis as the building inspector And approve a growing urban forest grant to fund the planning of new street trees. So I'll move to approve the consent agenda Second. Okay. Is there any discussion? I just have a question Have we allocated have we agreed to the $20,000 from ARPA For the ash or is this kind of contingent on that? This would be if we got this grant we would be used you this boat would be to approve that amount the use of Okay, so And um, Dave willer is here and can answer any questions for you on this But the idea being when you had the first ARPA conversation with the committees Um, we heard in an express interest to leverage these funds to leverage other funds So this was a opportunity that was right in front of us and we wanted to take advantage of it But you have not yet allocated that all right If there are no other questions if you are ready for the vote all in favor signify by saying I The consent agenda is adopted um item seven the fy budget presentation from the police and dispatch Service so Sean Burke is anyone else joining you or Just you and I okay. Can you handle it? He needs a deputy though. He's asking for one. Yeah Yeah, he wants some help. That's right Well, welcome. I hope you had good holiday you and your family Oh nice Excellent and the manager is nice enough to drive the slide deck. Thank you so much Appreciate the opportunity to be here before you tonight to talk about the fy 24 proposed budget I guess we can go to the department overview and staffing This is simply a wire chart of the organization as it's supposed to be staffed So um, what you will see here The blue boxes are positions that are positions or divisions that are completely completely staffed red signifies completely vacant positions In the orange signifies other areas in the organization Where we're covering or where we're carrying a number of vacancies. So um, how this really distills is that we've got um Three of us now doing the command function of the police department when I first came on in 2018 There were five positions dedicated to this work I feel as though and I'll discuss this a little bit later on that four is the right number Having two lieutenants and a deputy chief to assist the chief of police in administering the department I think what's also important when we talk about the police department is we always think about people that Where this uniform we actually are home to uh, the community justice center, which is uh, a really fascinating place where We resolve a lot of crime and disorder for the community through a restorative process That is staffed by the executive director in two part-time positions fully funded through a grant Um pass through grant from the department of corrections We're also home to a human trafficking case manager coordinator That's another fully funded grant position That uh in a person that does direct service and advocacy to those that are involved in commercial sex trade And we see quite a bit of that. Um across the state Pretty acutely here in south burlington with um those wrestling with substance use disorder Seeing this as a as a means to uh feed that disorder that again is another grant funded position Our final grant funded position is actually one of our police officer positions But with our relationship with the vermont drug uh state police drug task force So Where we're where we're currently carrying our vacancies are in swarm patrol officer spots As you can see the uh lieutenant that used to oversee the bureau of criminal investigations our traffic safety unit And our youth service team that position is vacant Our youth service sergeant denis ward who retired that position is currently vacant What um those vacancies really create is a gap where we cannot Do a lot of the programmatic community-based policing functions that we once did neighborhood watch the csi camp Things like shopping with uh with the kids that target around christmas time We just don't have the bandwidth uh for that type of work, which is it really cuts in a in a number of different ways We also had to reassign our traffic safety officer back into patrol in 2022 and this community really um Feels the strain of the traffic woes here in town A lot is uh due to the past past through nature of uh south burlington But that's simply a uh a position that we had to temporarily reassign Uh and then lastly we had uh two sro's that is now staff with just one corp of williamson So she covers the high school the middle school the three grammar schools plus rice memorial So she's spread uh quite thin in that role and then uh i'll talk about this in a subsequent slide The remainder of our sworn officer vacancies are are carried in patrol So on this um chart those are all sworn officers not all so um I should have uh Case manager probably isn't human trafficking right so human trafficking case manager is not the executive assistant To uh my office is not community justice center cjcs. The acronym is not uh in our records division To employees there are not in our dispatchers Which we do have a full complement of seven now those are civilian employees as well Thank you I should know this. What does bci stand for? Bureau of criminal investigation detectives Okay, thank you of course Some of our key successes in fy 22 and then in the last few months We uh successfully launched and implemented our body worn camera technology program. This is really um Industry standard technology now and it helps the organization in a number of ways when you think about preservation of digital evidence capturing digital evidence at very chaotic scenes It also behaves in an integrate training function in the sense that professional sports teams always use the opportunity to watch game day film And this provides us that keen uh perspective. It's also um very compelling evidence when litigating criminal uh prosecution or if the city finds Ourselves in litigation over a police action And then lastly it offers probably the greatest level of transparency that i've seen in my career in policing In the sense that we can actually offer a perspective of any interaction between the police and the public Very proud of how this um this program is taken off and really the success lies not only in City management recognizing that this was a critical critical need your support of the program But how well the team really embraced and uses this technology technology earn it earnestly So uh, I would really tout that as our top success We also fully implemented the statutory changes related to use of force standard in the state of vermont Pretty big undertaking when when you think about the construct of the policy The training of the policy just the documents themselves the new legal standards And then how we had to adapt some of the physical techniques that we use in training in those environments It was um again a lot of work But we had the right instructors at the right time to do it very well And we're able to kind of have better visibility on our force records our force applications not only through body Warning camera technology, but we are now using the use of force reporting software that's embedded within our Within our records management system and that was of no cost to the taxpayer because that feature already existed in the system that we call valcor Can I just ask the question? Is that kind of training now? part of the training at the um police academy Recently featured on cax. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So when our new recruit What do we call them? The most contemporary nomenclature is yes officers. Yes, okay, they will have that training So it won't be quite as arduous and undertaking. You will I mean, you always have to sort of train to your own culture. I guess but Definitely your own culture your own Operating landscape, but what was really critical about this is that the actual definition and Use of force justification changed under state law. So we had to train to those standards Right, but again, you know, great workforce stepped up to the challenge really adapted well And quite proud of where we are. That's really good to hear. Thank you Thirdly our commitment to fair and impartial policing The state of vermont requires that police department's training on an every other year cycle and fair and impartial policing We do it every year We have the luxury of dr. Mercedes avalia lives here in town does our Fair and impartial policing or really what I'd like to say our training or education around bias inclusivity and structural racism and From our program really served as the bedrock to what the vermont criminal justice council adopted for the statewide training that was offered In 2022 so dr. Avilia ended up being the vendor that was selected to train all of vermont law enforcement so that that work has been really fulsome and Really beneficial to the officers could because finally in this really Arena that can have a lot of controversy around it We're offering education and getting buy-in from officers about systemic racism about our own biases And how we need to be extremely mindful in the decisions that we're making in our policing We've also Ordered two hybrid patrol vehicles. It'll be the first two in our fleet given the supply chain issues and whatever the The compound is and these batteries that seems to be really elusive. I don't know when these cars will be delivered But we're looking forward to that action. And as I mentioned earlier, we finally filled our seventh full-time dispatch position And um, I've spoken to you about this before We really rely from a public safety perspective when you think about fire fire-based emergency medical service and police We are still relying on a system that has 191 call taker dispatcher in our center For several hours of the day and that is no longer tenable This seventh position that we talked about after the pretty high profile shooting incident at the university mall Is a great step in that direction But I feel as though that it's probably uh, the first step of several steps that we need in bringing up Our dispatch staff to meet the service demands of public safety in south rowington off the slide I just wanted to mention We do have a new executive director at the uh, at the cjc the community justice center started with us late in f y 2022 His name is joseph levonway. He grew up here in south rowington fantastic guy We developed a new general order that went into effect july 1 where we refer directly to the cjc About 14 misdemeanor crimes to be resolved with a restorative practice to totally take those off the burden of the docket and to actually Test the data that has shown in other communities other places In in the country that you can reduce recidivism by using a restorative practice practice So that's really good work that we hope to report on more next year And then of note the organization to uh backfill a number of the key leadership Positions that became vacant through retirement ran two fairly significant promotional processes in f y 22 That involved a lot of stakeholders in the community members at large media exercises law enforcement executives from not only within the organization but from neighboring organizations in city management And more of an assessment Center type promotional process and I feel as though that we identified some great leaders for Current times and for the time that the lists will be valid in in the event that we need to make future promotions Next slide please bless you The resources requested from the police department in this this budget really kind of focus on our personnel needs Trying to get all 40 of our positions to a level where they're fully funded through a two-step process f y 24 to 25 Key to that is to reinstate the deputy chief of police position by eliminating one Uh lieutenant position. I think it's uh, we're not the the size or scale that's going to necessitate three Lieutenants a deputy chief and a chief. I believe to um adequately govern the police department That a deputy chief of police position is critical when I think about succession Although, uh, I'm fairly young. I feel as though I've got a number of years ahead of me I mean the time will come and I think it's time that uh, we have a little better succession planning within the organization and a deputy chief of Chief of police position will be key to that We've also asked for funding for three hybrid police cruisers I've got data and a subsequent slide on why I think that's important and then lastly Funding to transition our pistol platform And I'll just give you a little bit of narrative around that now We replace our pistols on about a 10 year cycle right now. We're in an interesting spot where Number of years ago the organization purchased a a Glock 45 caliber pistol. That's quite large We can't put that gun in every new officer's hand just simply because of the size of it It caused the organization to then buy a different Glock in a different caliber So we've got a mixed fleet of these pistols Out in circulation now the ammunition for the 45 acp and 40 caliber is pretty expensive The fbi has done extensive research into what is the best caliber for law enforcement application They identified a number of years ago that the nine millimeter is the best cartridge for Law enforcement application and that comes down to a few different things one In particularly the Glock nine millimeter is a size that we can put in virtually every single officer's hand Two it provides the organization to only have one pistol cartridge God forbid that we needed to share ammunition in the field. We could do that Three the cost of nine millimeter Ammunition is substantially lower than that of 45 ACp or 40 cal and two I should say lastly Glock is an interesting partner with law enforcement in the sense of their trade-in program We estimate that this pistol transition Process would cost about 38 000. That's because you have to replace every gun every holster every mag pouch Um, but the trade-in value on our existing fleet of guns would be about 10 000 So at out the door price would be about 28 000 for that project project Just want to talk a little bit about really the national trend that we've seen in law enforcement Employment and applicant rates and then how that really looks here This graphic will show you 2018 to 2022 the number of resignations and retirements that we've experienced That's the orange line on the top starting with four the peak being Six and that six is actually reflective of the people that had resigned or retired as of july 1 of 2022 We have retired two others since this time and then really our ability to find adequate police candidates has Really cooled this job used to be quite appealing to folks It for a lot of different reasons America's wrestling with this inability to attract a lot of people to the workforce in general Policing appears to be the last place that people want to come The green line will show you the number of officers that we've actually been able to hire over this same time period What i'd like to call out though is although we still can barely scrape by We've we slipped way back in 2022 with six retirements and only being able to hire three Our application rates are down 50 percent in 2018. We would get between 50 and 60 applicants in a in a year's time and In 21 22 we're seeing exactly half that number So we can go to the next slide Pardon me Chief in and this is year on year How long does it take to get a new officer up to speed where they can be alone in a cruiser and and That's a great question. Thank you about 35 weeks Yeah, so they do the first half at the vermont police academy and then they come back here for a field training experience It's about 14 to 16 weeks Next slide please The attrition that is was depicted in that last graphic in uh 2022 actually led to A um a watershed moment for south brolington pd We knew back in april that there was no way that we could sustain patrol operations with the number of Officers that we had available for assignment in april of 2018 We had anywhere depending on injuries because those Come off the field and go on the field uh a little bit quicker than trying to spin up a new employee But we had between 16 and 18 officers available for patrol And we knew that on the 10 hour schedule that there was no way that we could sustain that Labor um was really fantastic through this process. We met we talked about different options It was quite apparent that we were going to have to pivot to a 12 hour schedule It did a couple of things one by eliminating essentially the middle or evening shift We were able to use those those few officers that were left there On a day or night 12 hour rotation Where they could have fixed days on days off our workforce was really hungry for adequate work life balance We're able to work through this process come to an mou and implement the 12 hour patrol schedule for may and um this was at a time when The burlington police were you know wrestling with their staffing situation Really reducing their ability to offer any mutual aid really kind of um Seeing an uptick in the number of times that we were being called into burlington Coincidentally, it's also the same time when shelburn PD went through a mass exodus in their town And they simply just closed their police department after midnight and contracted with the vermont state police Which was fantastic except for the vermont state police goes home at two in the morning So we were being pulled in a couple of different directions Again that the fact that our team stepped up never really considered Reducing hours of service and pivoted to this 12 hour schedule It was the right decision at the right time But it has some costs, you know Some of the younger employees enjoy the 12 hour schedule because they don't have daycare or school schedules to work around Some of the parents it's been a hardship and we're working hard through our recruitment process to try to get our numbers back up So we can get the 21 officers that we need to function on the 10 hour patrol schedule up and running and then Have again a collaboration a conversation about which schedule does labor wants to use in patrol to me It's about them, uh, you know, they're getting the work done If we've got the numbers to go to the 10 hour schedule We should do that if that's the desire if the desire is no We like the 12 hour shift. We want to stay on this. I think that's a fine path forward as well I just want to remark a little bit about where we're actually at Today in terms of staffing As of today, we have 20 officers available for patrol that includes me Down to the newest recruits that you saw on on social media and the like We have five police officers as of next monday We'll have five police officers in training two of those will be still in field training Three will be bound for the next academy class In in pittsford and that leaves us with five vacancies two of which are unfunded anyway When you look at kind of national metrics around, you know, police departments police department staffing We should really have 60 of our overall sworn Populist of officers assigned to patrol that would be 24 when we're staffed to 40 officers when you look at some very basic formulas based on population on how big a police department should be The fbi ucr Formula would indicate that a city of 20,000 should have about 48 total swarm Positions what's a little interesting about that number is one it it really doesn't speak to A city other than having 20,000 residents You can have a very violent city of 20,000 residents that can need more than that You can have a very quiet city of 20,000 residents just the same but I'm sorry I totally lost what i was going to say I'll remember it in the next slide it dovetails. Thank you Maybe you're comfortable with 40 No, no, so What i'm trying to say is that I don't want to you know sell you on a generic metric But what I do want to eventually conclude with is that The city has seen a lot of growth in the think that we're not at a time Where we need to start planning for that incremental growth in terms of the sworn officer resources would be extremely naive But um, you know in the end, I'll bring that together. I just want to talk about Why the police department is requesting three patrol cars in fyi 24 As we've all been through this process together a few different times one of the first things to be chopped off the block Is that extra police car? I think I know that we did it in fyi 19 20 and 21 now we're starting to see Some really substantial increases in our maintenance budget You'll see in this graphic that our budgeted funds for our fleet maintenance have gone up over 13 percent And we're still uh overspending that line quite frequently You know a lot of these things can be attributed to um a one-time occurrence like If we keep a police car too long and we end up having to replace the motor that's about a $5,000 Unanticipated expense and when I look at the peaks on this chart, that's what I recall We're also starting to see The longer that we keep a police car in service that we begin to lose them for issues related to corrosion They simply rust out So I think it's imperative that we Receive the funding for the three patrol vehicles in fyi 24 to try to quell some of these costs And also to better invest in the hybrid technology moving forward forever law enforcement has bought a lot of Adactors for police cars idle management technology where an officer needs to hit a button And then the police car is supposed to regulate itself Turn the motor on turn the motor off as as the emergency lights draw on the charging system But the critical fail point is the officer has to remember to use to hit the button In amongst a lot of different things that an officer has going on the technology is aftermarket. Sometimes it's not all that reliable And That technology is exactly how a hybrid patrol vehicle would work the minute the car is in park If the emergency lights are are running and the officer uses the radio and the idle needs to come on The car will do it itself if the car is just sitting sitting there with the led emergency lights illuminated Likely it won't idle. So I think that this hybrid technology is going to be really good one for idle wear and tear and hopefully more globally better for the environment So when an officer is parked Because I know you have to keep your car on and ready to go. You can't turn it off. Would you have the lights going then? So I think the best example is like when you sit at a crash scene and you're waiting for that roadway to be cleared The the emergency equipment's on the officer's using his or her radio that all draws on the battery A hybrid car Will sit there and run on the on the battery for quite a long time before it needs to idle up The gasoline car is just running at zero miles per gallon the entire time. Okay What um manufacturer are you using for the hybrid for it is the only manufacturer that does a police rated Cruiser so and what model is going to be that is it the only thing that the that ford makes the only platform that ford makes It's they call it a utility, but it's an explorer. Okay And are those available So that's a great question. So we ordered to we hope to take delivery But like every other supply chain issue it appears that they're those are probably a year out Oh really a whole year out. That's what it appears Which again, we'll have Um, you know a negative impact on our maintenance line as we try to keep our other cars in service Didn't someone run into one of our cars too? I mean someone you were Following or yes, I remember that. I don't we haven't completely lost a cruiser Burlington Recently, okay, but we did have we did have a minor Repairable Yes, but it's it Digs into the repair budget. Yes Absolutely, perhaps unexpected ways We can go to the next slide please talk about some emerging issues I know that we did a press release on some of this data More recently to try to get the public to help us out in ways of just Hardening ourselves against these crimes of opportunity But against this landscape of really having our human resources stretched incredibly thin We're seeing really a shocking increase in the number of crime categories in crime categories that take quite a bit of investigation You know when I look at this slide The chart on the left In f y 22 where we're seeing incidents of larceny, which is theft of anything At 545 that's an unprecedented number 87 stolen vehicles unprecedented number and then 370 retail thefts is Larger than usual And also a crime that really cuts at the vitality of the city when you think about the commercial makeup of south burlington some of our Some of our business partners have large margins big corporations others have really small margins small small margins And the crime of retail theft is really kind of shrugged off as that's not a big deal Well, it's a big deal if you're trying to keep your lights on and feed your family So, you know, I think that I call this out because I don't want to say make this political in any way Say it's a policy decision that's fueling this Or that the courts were closed too long, but simply It may not be that our system works all that great And when I think about the number of crime categories that we're trying to do direct referrals to our community justice center And really looking at the national data that suggests that you can reduce recidivism I think that that's an area That the broader criminal justice system should really put more focus on is using restorative process To try to resolve on the first time to the system crime and disorder So the person that's responsible for that crime understands the profound impact they're having on the community and the person that they directly affected You know, I when I think about Some of the actors involved in these crimes and having been around Chittenden County law enforcement for a while I know they're totally exploiting the courts being closed The fact that they know they're not going to get a trial and they go out and they steal car after car And they use that stolen car to commit a retail theft or a burglary to cloak their identity during those crimes And that certainly is being exploited and I don't think there's any easy answers here But I will tell you that the officers regardless of what the causation of this Still have to spend the amount of time to investigate these crimes Explain to the affected parties what's going on why the system doesn't work why the person was released And it's a lot of work and despite you look at our overall call volume It's down a little bit, but when you look at where officers are spending a lot of their time It's on these emerging crime trends So again the first chart on the left is crimes that I just simply said investigated required The second chart with crimes against a person. We're talking about domestic violence incidents again these take Quite a bit of time if you're going to go in and do an Investigation into why domestic world is going on our organization leads the state in lethality assessment Assessments that are done with survivors of domestic violence We unearth a lot of historical assaults that occur in families and make those cases and that's really meaningful work Assaults in general are up and those are investigations that take time and also sex crimes. We're oddly Up in fy 21 and again when you think about a variety of sex crimes. We know that they are Simply under reported that survivors are Live in a lot of fear have a lot of stigma around this and when we get the opportunity to work with That populace we really take it serious and invest the time and we're still doing that despite our stretch human resources, but I think we're starting to really reach the end of our bandwidth operationally I would assume that on the right hand side crimes against persons That are connection with howard and the mental health component um It doesn't drive that number up. Does it make it Um an easier number to deal with So i've got a subsequent slide on our relationship and the value prospect of um community outreach in howard Do we leverage those services across a lot of different crime categories? We do But this slide was really kind of meant to highlight the amount of investigation required And then just one other question in terms of the um Auto thefts. I know they were a considerable number at the airport parking garage Now there's burlington police there and it is An area owned by burlington Is south burlington police responsible for doing that follow-up or No burlington takes those cases. So those numbers don't reflect Those car thefts. That's correct Okay, are these vehicles being hotwired or people just leaving their keys in the car? Yeah, generally the keys are in the car and again like this vehicle theft is not about the You know, there's no chop market. The car is not being you know, put in an offshore container and shipped It's not about the car A lot of times, you know, the people that are responsible for these crimes fairly small number of recidivists They're using it again to commit retail thefts do a burglary Any number of things where our best first lead is a stolen car And we have to track that down first to then figure out who the actual perpetrators of the underlying crime Are you know a little silver lining in this cloud though is Unfortunately, we've learned that when we do recover these cars, they're in a you know, a variety of different status And oftentimes riddled with evidence of drug use needles Really need of cleaning service. We ended up working with an affected person that had their car stolen shared their story Connected them with our community justice center and now we have a resource guide that we can afford people that Have their car stolen when they're reunited with it in the event that they do need The the car cleaned or guidance on how to navigate the insurance process So again being creative using all resources and try to best serve the public So the moral of the story there is lock your cars when they're in your driveway or wherever you go And you leave your car lock your car and take your keys Right and your valuables. Okay. Thank you So you talked about the small number recidivists and I was curious if you see more first time offenders And kind of their age category. Are they married? Are they single? Are they parents? I've just are there any kind of trends that You've seen kind of be emerging trends over the last two or three years pertaining to stolen cars Anything Yeah, the demographics. Why it's wildly across the board. It's across the board. Yeah. Yeah Do you think economics has anything to do with it? I definitely when I think, you know, we do cases of stolen groceries. Absolutely I think economics are at play. I really think substance use disorder probably leads Most most categories when you think about the folks that we see as recidivists Thank you Tim. Oh tom and then tim I heard you say something that touched upon a conversation I had with a police officer I want to say four or five years ago But I think you said something to the to regard that you'd like to see more first time offenders with other types of crimes Get routed through the restorative justice program So would that be like the burglary? And if you could expand upon that and would that be with the south brink of city council or does that require other changes Yes, so great question You know chinning county is one of the very few counties that actually allows for a direct referral I don't think necessarily burglary is not on our list of direct referrals We've got about 14 misdemeanors that we do direct referrals on and I think that that's really where The initial value prospect is we see quite a bit of recidivism when you think about a crime like retail theft Or a chronic issue like unlawful trespass Or even low level things involving your young adults disorderly conduct at the mall At those those types of offenses. I really feel as though that the restorative process Can offer insight to the responsible party to the negative impact that their impulsive decision had And perhaps they'll reflect on that moving forward other places around the country that have studied Implementation of restorative practice have seen a drop in recidivism I think for the council to be be focused on this one part So rcjc is completely funded by the department of corrections And we do a lot of what is called pre-charge work people that don't become justice involved The department of corrections is really hyper focused on using restorative process to resolve probation and parole violations That's great except the person's already in the system And I I feel as though that if we use restorative practice early and often that we could have fewer people On probation fewer people on parole fewer criminal records And maybe that opens up other opportunities for those individuals moving forward And I think that if the department of corrections begins to shift their funding away from pre-charge programs That it would be really be imperative that I come back here with joseph And we begin to talk about municipal funding for rcjc. I really believe that strongly in the work So the line item is pre-charge justice Is that what you just said? Yeah, so we do direct referral on 14, uh, misdemeanors I mean, that's where it can happen. I was going to ask the same question Is it state dollars or federal dollars in the only way that will change unless we find the money Locally is for the state to recognize and more fully fund that as a viable way to change the upward projection of I agree if I could just add a couple of sentences to that I think it is not only the state thinking about how how to further fund pre-charge work at the cjc level locally um, I think it's also Having them focus on where we're having success in our population centers across the state to have local cjcs We are one of the very only cjcs in the state where the cjc is embedded in the police department So you have this partnership of service delivery where you have Officers working with their teammates and cjc to identify those pre-charge cases and do that work There's a lot of movement at doc to think about how you lift up out of community and do things more at a regional level They have a lot of pressure statewide to do that because they don't have the same police partnerships But where it's working statewide continue to allow doc to continue to invest in those embedded cjc centers Okay, that's an important nuance. I think now in terms of getting funding certainly Next slide. Thank you. Um, tim you had a question. I know it's a budget discussion So I don't want to go veer off too far But um, have you seen that disturbing video out of ruttland where the shoplifter was confronted in the parking lot by some individuals? And I have you folks seen it at all? I'll send it to a link later But it's really disturbing the person shoplifting was confronted by some individuals and I think you would agree They were assaulted By these individuals trying to take back their items that were stolen from the shoplifter. Yeah The shoplifter was assaulted by the individuals the parking lot and um, I just Has your whole department seen that and do they have an opinion about that and any recommendations for individuals in the community? Yeah, we don't support vigil aneurysm And uh, I think there's a lot. Thank you There's a reason why you hired me Uh, and you know, I think that is a is a very troubling video You know, but we did have a bystander intervention recently at ems here in town on a retail theft It's an interesting story. Yeah, you know that one worked out. You know, I think it all depends on Who's involved and how cool they can, you know, keep their head But uh, we we watched that ruttland video and there's there's a lot to unpackage there Okay, thank you Moving right along. Yeah, I'll try to be brief You know, I just wanted these two graphics really indicate What happens when you become more of a reactive police department and by virtue of our headcount We are simply more of reactive um police department The graphic on the left shows um our basic behaviors when responding to a crime trend And I like to use if we have a rash of thefts from unlocked cars or locked cars in any given neighborhood You will see an uptick of directed patrols incidents that we measure where officers are in that affected neighborhood patrolling looking to either completely deter or detect the crime that's afoot You can see that we uh increased kind of commensurate with what we saw in crime data trends up through fy 24 our direct patrol response And then a sharp decrease throughout fy 22 and that's simply really emblematic of not having the officers Available because of no downtime because they're investigating all these other incidents to engage in this type of work similar not as steep of a uh a contrast the orange line is an incident Incident type that we call field contact. That's again when we're out in an area that we know we're experiencing some type of crime and disorder Pattern and we have reasonable suspicion to stop someone to investigate Perhaps their involvement or their witness to those Those documented incidents and you can see a pretty sharp decline In that category as well And then finally on the right are our traffic operations So the the top blue line In it shows the number of car stops the south broyanton police. We're doing fy 19 to fy 22 You'll see a very very sharp decrease in the number of car stops that the agency is doing Really, it's related to three things One we haven't had an officer assign the traffic safety That would be that officer's only role and that's a large number of those stops Two officers availability that are just assigned to patrol simply isn't there And then three is really the uncertainty around racial disparities and the outcomes and traffic and Traffic policing, you know as we're learning more about systemic racism about our own biases trying to understand traffic data This is an area of enforcement that officers are a little leery of they don't want to get it wrong they want to do it right And I believe that that's a contributing factor You know again like I highlighted earlier on south broyanton has a number of traffic issues It's probably one of the leading complaints that I get on my voicemail or in my email from constituents and You know, it's something that enforcement does an okay job with Better engineering more education. I think has more impact But one one metric that I really like to try to keep an eye on and I have done so since 2014 post ferguson Is where the intersect was going to occur between declining traffic stop numbers and increasing traffic crash numbers And you can see on the right side of the graph that we We actually met that intersection In f y 22 where we're seeing an increase In the number of traffic crashes That this data is not super clean yet. There's about four different categories of crashes that we take Um, you know, so I had I didn't have the time to distill out of this the number of parking lot crashes and other things That aren't even related to public highway But it's an area that I want to continue to stay focused on Because if we start to see more serious injury or fatalities in the city It's definitely going to be a time to adjust or prioritize traffic enforcement and then convey that to the public So the public can understand that as a legitimate police action with an a tangible public safety goal okay last two Spotlight I'd wanted to call out our our relationship and funding to the community outreach program Our partners are at Howard. This is simply a program that we could not effectively police the city without Their their work their their ability to intersect with either new clients or clients that simply slipped away from services Kind of wrap them up get them a better treatment plan stabilize them better serve those neighbors and free up police officers That's um absolute gold what we haven't quite been able to distill Yet are what exact calls community outreach should respond to directly without us They've got a good handle on that. I think we are a little more protective than they are about the co-response But again, when you think about our social service calls and this is this is a bucket of calls that includes overdose suicidal persons mental health related calls intoxication and welfare checks well over a thousand each year it's it's real work That's priority work that we have to respond to but community outreach really Does a great service in our ability to at least respond quickly Assess the safety needs of that scene get community outreach plugged in and get the cops out of there When feasible and also, uh, I just wanted to thank you for your work on the encampment policy I think it's going to be um fantastic that in the instances where we have to use this that we've got a compassionate plan That we can consistently follow with our encamped residents and try to move them towards transitional housing Or another situation that suits their needs And then lastly This is just a simple collage of uh of our team and the work that we do Uh every day and I think good policing is almost like a good umpire and baseball If you have a good umpire and baseball, you really don't know they're there They call balls and strikes they make good calls on uh on infield plays and outfield plays And there's no controversy and I feel as though that this police department with the support of management This council and the community we do a damn fine job of that but Where we've where we see ourselves now in terms of our authorized strength our funded positions We need more and we're we are in a tough spot in terms of the number of officers that we can actually hire But we find ourselves now creeping up to a stage where we're getting closer with only five vacancies And we just can't hit a spot where we stop hiring police officers because it takes so long to get them up and running once we experience our vacancies I do look at our retirement projections We're slated to likely retire about two officers in the next three fiscal years and that um Doesn't really say anything about the number of officers that we see simply leave the profession I see policing as a vocation But it's also one that's became becoming a little more similar to the military where folks will come and serve four five six years And then they'll remember that they minored in something in college and they decide to pursue that Opportunity and that's great for them But it does little for us when you think about Fostering employees that are going to become our next youth service officers our criminal investigators and detectives and our formal leadership team And I think that this plan that the manager has put forward to get us back to a fully funded 40 positions through f y 25 is fantastic It's also going to be a period of time where the police department needs to do a true assessment On how big the police department should be and how we should plan for the future in a growing city I will say there is there are times now when the act 250 permits come into my email box about can you adequately provide police service To this project the question in my mind is can we Especially with no definition of what police service is will we go to the 911 call? Yes, will we be timely on every single other time that you call the police department if it's a non-priority issue? likely not So I think you know it's it's incumbent on me to find and the manager to find a good metric In which to judge what the size of the police department needs to be And then bring forward a plan on what that growth needs to look like over years because these are expensive propositions But our people are our most precious resources What we pulled off in 2022 with running patrol with between 16 and 18 police officers Simply not sustainable everyone was really tired. They rolled up their sleeves incredibly proud and thankful for the work that they did But it's nothing that we can sustain And uh, you know, I look forward to getting those officers the relief that they need And we do have some of that on the horizon. We have three new officers. They're gonna start with us next monday And You know the other thing that's a little complicated about policing right now and dispatch Is not only our ability to recruit and retain these officers But it's what the market is doing in terms of salary when I look at our competitors the vermont state police Burlington police Montpelier police They're starting salaries for police officers and dispatch candidates are anywhere from 10 to 15 thousand dollars greater than ours And uh, I don't know where that market is going to end. I don't know, you know, where the ceiling is But I know that By virtue of our south burlington team, whether they're serving in dispatch or in the field as police officers They are the finest well trained Well experienced police officers that are going to be highly marketable and I really want to keep them So, um with that I appreciate the tough decisions that you all have to make on behalf of the constituents I thank you for this opportunity tonight and I welcome any questions that you may have Are there any more questions? Yes, how long what's the history how long has it been since we had a deputy chief? I was the last deputy chief in 2018. Oh, okay. Yeah Thank you Just thank you. Thank you. That was great report. You do a great job. Thank you And all all your men mean and women Well, you all do it together and you set the Tone yeah, you set the right tone and I think that's a big help Okay, so next up is um the fire and ems presentation Stephen lock fire chief and You're going to have some help from Good evening. Certainly wanted to bring the team the leadership team I think what is very important, especially as a new fire chief coming in Is to acknowledge and certainly the people that I rely on every day to run this fire department And so our our department relies on the captains and to to manage the day-to-day operations And they are behind me. So, uh a little bit Captain titillio Captain christman and captain corbin are the three people that really run the operations and obviously, uh, you know chief francis Who has uh, both been the fire chief and led uh overseas our prevention division but also excited um our A lot of our partnerships couldn't be done without a strong Relationship with our union and also in the room is our incoming union president Marquesi who is a leader in the fire department certainly leader with our labor group Who is a true partner in everything we're looking to do to to build out this department? So so I think I am the last presentation So you've got a pretty good hand on what the over on what the overview is going to look like And so next slide please This is our Our staffing matrix or our organizational chart and so if you look at shift one shift two and shift three those Those are our operational folks who work a 24 hour shift on Scheduled for 24 hours on then for 48 hours off And so that gives every third day, you know that they they circle they cycle through And so that is um each one of those shift captains runs that shift They have a lieutenant and then eight seven or eight firefighters And so we'll talk about what staffing is so we currently have one Well, technically one on vacant one vacant position. So That is what our staffing is looking at the people who deliver the services every day in the street the emergency services and then our prevention division who does Yeoman's work with our all the construction going on in this community ensuring our building's public's building stays safe Are three three persons Terry is a fire marshal a fire inspector and then electrical inspector And they're with again with all the construction going on in this community stay very very busy Next slide, please I think it's interesting here to look at the call volume over the last 10 years And if you we just broke for calendar year 2022 4500 calls for service for the first time ever and we're about 45 60 4560 calls for service for the year And but we're projected to you know exceed 4600 almost 4700 calls for For fiscal year 23 with the same staffing that was on board in 2008 And so we have not seen an increase in our minimum staffing since 2008 Yet we're running probably almost twice the call volume and in what is More troubling is just the because the volume is going up is you know about 20 percent of time when one when they're on one Call another call comes in and so that reduces your reliability factor Your ability to deliver services in a timely fashion And so ultimately we'll talk about this shortly our call volume is going up year after year after year There's an increase reliance on the 911 system It's very similar to the many of the same problems the police department's having we're having and so you are going to hear You are going to hear a very similar message from me that you heard from from chief Burke successes For 22 and 23 to date It's it's a little difficult and a little surprising for me to say that we actually the greatest success here is that we actually maintain minimum staffing 24 7 So far With amount of overtime our staff have worked and I know I've shown you charts before and we're going to see some more It is not sustainable The quality of life for our people it affects their home life So a huge success is that we actually had people show up to work every day Or we held them over most days to maintain minimum staffing But the the staff Stepped up and maintained minimum staffing 24 7 during a time when Several of them were working instead of 24 hours on 48 hours off 48 hours on 24 off And that is not a sustainable model We separated the fire chief duties from the fire marshal duties and I can't Tell you enough how there was no way chief francis could do both jobs Just not No matter how hard you try you cannot do both those jobs. He is so busy in prevention There's so much building going on in this community There's no way you can do justice to both positions and I thank him for trying really really hard But he is one of very few people that can do what he does in this even in this state In terms of the fire prevention and fire marshal duties and plans reviews of some really big projects And we're extremely and we are and I am very grateful to have him as in uh in the prevention division Ensuring that our buildings are safe If I can just add a quick sense about that thank you This is the um success we had last year because of the additional funding the council put into the fire department Budget for f y 23 at the suggestion of the staff So want to thank you also for enabling that bifurcation to happen, which is what's allowing us to see a lot of Not only the growth, but I would argue a lot of What's keeping the team going as they work to meet just this minimum staffing? very well said you know also for the first time in Since the early 2000s we supported incumbent personnel to go to paramedic training So there had been times if we hired somebody that was in paramedic school We may have released them from duty But the city had not met any investment in our incumbent personnel to send them to paramedic training Which is the natural progression the next step in delivering the highest level pre-hospital care And uh, and so we have three three people currently in paramedic school And uh and and very excited for them We spent some dough to to refurbish our 2012 ladder truck that had some Some pretty serious problems with it And so where that truck has made it back to vermont and now it's just we're still waiting for it back into the spire station But we are we are hopeful to see that back in the very next In the next couple weeks and get that back in service After being gone for almost a year and then we were able to replace an ambulance and a staff vehicle But similar to this the the challenges chief berg mentioned supply chain is affecting our ability to take delivery of units as well excellent, please So budget proposal a revenue and so the blue bars are actuals and the The green bars are budgeted and you'll see you know FY 22 was really a turning point and you'll see a pretty pretty marked increase in revenues And you're going to see us Outperform our ems revenues in FY 23 as well and a lot of that is that most of that is almost twofold increase in call volume And then an increase in our using outsourcing our billing to a professional billing service Who has the contacts and knows how knows the system how to seek the best reimbursement? It you know, and so so what you're going to see Um, I suspect that we will you know again exceed our revenues to about 880,000 in FY 23 And and we expect we have projected to be exceed over 900,000 in FY 24 So um, so really a nice a nice transition to a professional service That's what they do and that certainly has helped us to increase our revenues We also you also see a pretty marked increase in prevention revenues and you know this slide prevention revenues are extremely difficult to project Because the majority of that comes on new construction And so FY 22 You know almost a million dollars of revenue on permit fees Most of that Are on two projects beta and on logic So which is a good thing And in in FY 23 will probably exceed FY 22 numbers because of the street out front Um, you know, we're going to see a lot of market street get come in for permitting in the next 30 days And so you're we're and we're already on track To do very well with prevention revenues. I only reason I go into I tell you this We budget a number for FY 24 I can't control that number That number is completely dependent on people submitting building construction applications And so it is we can look historically But it is that is that number is Difficult it's not one of those numbers that you can control And so it is a best estimation of what the the recent trend has been But if the market downturns and they don't do as much new construction Then that number will go down if we see it some if another big project a beta or on logic come in that number will go up So understand that's permit fees drive that number a little bit out of out of our control And in in our ability to manage Although FY 22 ever FY 23. We're going to do really well So, uh, what's in the FY 24? Budget that's significantly changed. You're going to see we we really combine the fire and EMS budget into one That has been um, you know, I've been this is my third different budget System through and all of those I've been lucky enough to combine them into one It I start they start broken out and and with the best of intentions But it starts to be very difficult to to say where where that expense really some are very clear But other times it's not so easy and when we've adopted and really supported a fire-based EMS model I think it's easiest just to put repairs and repairs whether it's an ambulance repair or a fire truck repair Let's put it in the repair category. It's easier to budget. It's easier to track the entire Expense of the organization So you're going to see a combination of that the big changes though really are Probably things you're seeing in every department fuel cost You know way a way different fuel cost We we switched from a very outdated records management system that the team just implemented and went live with Two three days ago that has a substantially higher annual maintenance cost We had an extremely cheap system for a reason It was outdated and not worth much And it's tough in our business now to track good data without a good records management system and so and then there's an increase in funding In the future into a reserve fund to allow us to support one paramedic student per year to to to build Really a system where we continually support our incumbent employees to go to paramedic training So that's what that's what's in there So I take our capital improvement plan the funding Being appropriated is 400 000 and I just want to take a moment to Walk you through what what we are seeing And this is over two slides So 400 for fleet another 30 000 to replace thermal imaging cameras Which will allow us to see through i'm going to say see through smoke is the value of them firefighter safety citizen safety And so we have many outdated much outdated equipment and this gets us on a replacement plan where we can replace a couple of years I'm going to just go a little more on our next slide But before I get there I just want to our current fleet we have three what we say fire engines a truck that has pump and water The one ladder truck a rescue truck, which is like a command like a command vehicle specialized in two ambulances Our goal is to replace a fire truck when it's 12 years old and an ambulance when it has a total of nine years Our goal is to get to a three ambulance rotation With no ambulance older than nine years. So that's where we're headed The next slide is my best effort to tell you how I believe we can do that and smooth those costs over Several years versus if you look at that total funding annually if we don't smooth them over A several years we end up with enormous costs that we can't afford one fiscal year FY 27 when we have to replace both the ladder and engine would be two and a half million needed that one year Whereas if we smooth these costs out over 10 years It allows for a much more stable funding of our capital fleet So our fleet is is tired and our fleet is um Our fleet is also expensive. My first fire truck I bought as a fire chief was about was 308,000 my first ambulance was 135,000 I can't buy an ambulance now for 400,000 and a fire truck cost me a million dollars So the price of fire apparatus is gone through is expensive And so what we're proposing in this plan is that we pay for ambulances on and what is the other thing? It's gone crazy in the market Is that it takes 24 to 30 months to take delivery of an ambulance from the time you order it and 30 to 36 months To take the fire truck to back in the door from the time you order it So if I need a fire truck in three years, I have to place that order today And what has never happened in my professional career is have councils approved purchases that fire in advance The market is driving that now and we have to look at how we fund fire trucks and ambulances differently And so what I propose what I propose to the manager is that we We do this smoothing formula We and we start putting away this amount of money a year allows us to order an ambulance today That I need today, but I'm not even going to see it for two years But if I wait to two years to collect the money So we save up enough money in the savings account to actually pay for the truck It'll be two more. It'll be four years before I see the truck back in the station My fleet won't survive So what we're asking you to authorize is the concept where we bank money away every year Knowing that when we actually take the let me order the truck and I need to order For 2027 I need to order that truck in 2025 For a fire truck I need in 2027 I need to order that in 2024 And so what we're asking you to do is to really authorize us to to support a purchasing plan and jump in Mr Miss manager wherever you need to help before I'm going off based on what I'm trying to explain is to Purchase start we're going to save our ambulances and purchase those outright But move to a system where where most people are doing now with fire apparatus because because they become so expensive Of a lease purchase and really what it is you put a down payment on and they finance the balance for a period of time up to 10 years Um, and it doesn't require voter approval. It's not like a bond And in the like currently the rates about five five and a half percent But again, we're that fire truck said nine to 10 year 12 year investment And with the base fire truck costing a million dollars now Communities can no longer do at most communities the traditional way where you would pay for all in one fiscal year So I've been said a lot there and Did you want to comment I'm happy jesse. Well, just um, I think the chief captured it. Well, I will say you've already taken or you've taken one important step And finances taken one important step in this direction to the smooth out plan One is with the cip Reserve resolution that you previously passed that allows us to roll cip dollars year to year That's what is a significant part of what enables plans like this to happen So you can start banking away cip dollars for future big investments The second is to start exploring the these lease to purchase options Which is a tool that other municipalities use that could enable us to This council essentially Pre-approve a future council to buy a piece of equipment and that's that is basically what you're doing by saying we're going to authorize the chief to Start buying a fire truck years before it's it's taken possession of So we are trying to put together the kind of administrative processes that will support a smoothing plan like this it's again part of actually previously taken city-wide to really focus on How our capital improvement planning is embedded in how we are maintaining our systems and have a predictable incremental growth in our cip general fund year to year I think there are some questions though Go ahead. Yeah chief. You're buying a million dollar truck. It's going to be delivered in four years What do you what are we putting down? How does this work with the with the fire truck market? What are we putting down now and what are we putting down four years on delivery? So the so it depends on the truck so what we what what I have kind of estimated is if we We squirrel we start saving away a little money We we don't have to put you actually only have to put 10 percent down So they'll but I think we can get for most of the fire trucks Some degree a down payment pretty substantial down payment because i'm asking you know kind of the way the church showing now We're just going to start saving some money this year for a truck. We're buying in 2027 But that ladder truck will probably cost 1.7 million by then so we may pay 30 or 40 percent down It's really if that answers your question That's my question. Are we locking down a price today for the truck that we're buying four years from now? Yes Yes, we are the stickers four years Just is one million dollars today and when did the case delivery? It's still one million dollars. We're locking it when we lock a contract price in we lock the contract price in I have the question in terms of really looking Even farther in the future within this almost 10 year scenario um The city's goals in terms of growth Our density which is going up You know many stories and The effort certainly or the conversation is we need more and more housing We also need more industry or businesses So as we attempt to realize those goals What kind of fleet? Do you need for I don't know how many more four or five story buildings. I assume it's Different equipment and maybe more firefighters for more taller buildings than if we were just Suburban sprawl and just building two-story single-family homes on quarter acres In every corner Yeah, is that Figured into this So the so it's kind of ironic that this paul's this plan actually goes the other direction This plan eliminates a fire truck from our rotation So we have currently three fire engines a ladder truck and two ambulances I'm proposing that we drop to two fire engines a ladder truck and Three ambulances and some part of that is back in back many years ago Off-duty staff would come back and they would take a reserve truck to a call those days are gone Right, so when they're there they're there when they're off duty. They're off duty It is it has become a system where When we need help they After a certain period of time it comes from another community Do I think eventually we will have to look at a different Number of apparatus in a different style of apparatus. Yes, not necessarily for taller buildings Our prevention does division is a great job making sure they're all sprinkled Standpipes in the stairwell alarm systems Those are not those buildings are well protected. We still have to have the capability and the capacity We still need our firefighters. We still got to figure out a way to get 15 firefighters there within a given amount of time But I think what changes is You know, can we find a way to have a small vehicle? Running as a met assist, you know, could you staff two people in a pickup truck? Doing the met assist as opposed to driving a million and a half dollar ladder truck To me, that's the shift that we should be looking at is we need the people. We don't need the big trucks So And that sounds very logical to me I always find it a little puzzling at some of the senior housing and It's clearly a medical emergency and there's this huge truck Um along with the ambulance, but what about the staffing number? I mean, we're going to What did you say? So if we I think I tackle that That's going to come up in the next slide. Oh, okay. Yeah, so Yeah, so I think ultimately We would like your because we need to start playing We need to start planning today For fire trucks and ambulances and I think that's what this plan is trying to get where you feel comfortable and letting us do that Yeah, yeah, I feel very comfortable letting you do that. But I'm also Interested in understanding the um Maybe it's the ratio of firefighters and EMTs to A 10 percent increase in our population You know every year for the next and very similar to and very similar to You know chief burke there are simple metrics out there that I can save per thousand people This is but what I can really say is we can't deliver We're going to go to a slide that says we're not delivering services And that is the that's the matrix That's the most telling factor. So this I so Part of resources requested in the 24 budget that have been supported by the manager is the plan to restore The third what I'm going to call the 30th firefighter position that was cut in 2019 There's a thing called a staffing factor And I think I spoke about this before if you take the amount of leave time We have in the department by the number of people and the number hours we work per year You and with a minimum staffing of eight firefighters on duty We need 10 assigned to maintain eight with a relatively low amount of overtime We have two shifts of 10 one shift of nine this proposal restores that 30th position and And as I said before the quality of life of overtime with our people is is I mean I can't say enough good things about how they have done this, but it has come at a tremendous cost To to their personal lives and so again, this is my chart. I think I've showed you before Through november we've almost hit six. We've gone through 6 000 hours now You know, we'll be on 12. We'll hit we'll probably hit 12 12 or 13 000 hours over time but before we end the fiscal year With 80 79 of that being mandatory I think the little chart off to the right works Tells tells one employee worked 478 hours of overtime During that time period. So between his own shift and overtime 47 of the total time in those if you took 24 hours a day times the 90 days or 120 days that person was in the firehouse 47 of the time 24 And that becomes that that is not quality of life And then the person who worked 112 hours Didn't start being able to counting towards minimum staffing and an ability to work overtime. That's a new employee until mid september so between mid september And uh in november that person worked 112 and and that's 5.6 Additional work weeks that you and I work and I understand like we work a 40 hour work week They work a 56 hour work week. So their base is 800 hours more than 800 hours more annually than what I work So so ultimately what we're trying to do My goal here is to get to a staffing where they can get back to working 2448 every once in a while there's an overtime shift available and somebody would like the extra dough right now You know, it's like oh gosh overtime tomorrow Please make sure i'm not the next below the next in rotation I have to get mandatory because that's what's happening now and your mandatory christmas day your mandatory christmas eve new year's eve new year's day You know and someone's you know imagine your wife's your wife or your spouse or your husband Um not being able to come home and having to work that shift those are that's that's really tough on the family environment So that's what's in here and and so to uh to the The other question on resources needed and staffing is our ability to deliver services For an aim our ambulances our ambulances are busy our ambulance is busy I think when I left the station today, they were on about call number 10 Since eight eight o'clock this morning And we had had a you Mutual aid ambulance in time in in the city four times today by the time I left We weren't able so that was just today and over the last seven days The the average has been three times a day. We couldn't handle a call. So if you look at uh, these are medical counts medical our medical calls from f y 13 through f y 22 And you see a pretty substantial increase But what is what is more disturbing to me is the number of times? We've needed someone else's ambulance to come in and take are those calls And so now we're up to about 23 of the time when you call 901 you don't get a south barrington ambulance We can't handle the call. Um, we're out on another We're out on another event and so f y 22 723 times Um We had service in ambulance come in we went out up to sit the city 29 times That is not mutual that's supplanting your service And so that is to me that's problematic and there There's a bunch of times they clear the hospital to take another run So they don't get their paperwork done they drop off the patient. They say well do our paperwork later That's a medical record. That's staying in your file, but they're doing that two or three or four or five patients deep two or three or four or five hours later to get caught up And so what this plan and what the budget includes is hiring six people to staff a second additional a second ambulance Um, it's a phased implementation for a january 1 24 implementation So it gets we absorb half the cost in 24 f y 24 We pick up the other the other half of it in f y 25 There is offsetting revenue here factored into into that If this happens year one, we'll we'll only pick up about 77 000 of new revenue And that's primarily because if we start these new employees In january by the time we're not operational Until march so it takes it'll take us about three months to get spun up So we really only that first year pick up about a quarter of what we perceive as what we could collect over our full fiscal year What we've uh, what we're factoring in in 25 is the creation of a deputy chief position And and and when chief francis was brought in he was initially brought in as both a deputy chief and Fire marshal and that the the work in that in the work in that office keeps him busy and plus he and i are both on A different part of our career than some of our younger folks And so uh while we do need to start planning for some for some succession planning And so we are the only career department in the state does not have a dedicated Deputy chief position like in the operational field This kind of kind of world you we have a very flat linear structure And so for those purposes we need that position to start managing kind of the consistency amongst the three shifts a true second in command We need someone to coordinate training amongst the shifts so that all three shifts are getting the same message and then And probably that what the most is we need policy development And we need people we need so in order to do that you need the administrative staff And while I my captains do as much administrative work as they can when you're running 13 or 14 calls a day Because that's what they do out of station one station two is doing a bunch of calls as well Um And then you're doing your incident reports for all that plus you're trying to manage the training event and everything else is going On you don't have time to do the policy development and the grant writing and all the other things that we need Administrative support for doing and so we're factoring that into uh fy 25 request Quick question. Is that the airport road fire? It was and I think what is important and I briefly spoke with the manager about this today Yeah, that's you know, that's captain natelio. So He in this case Initially, we call him a company officer and what so he's managing that fire. He's so he's so he's giving orders to the incoming units Typically, but typically he would have crew continuity. He had to have oversight of his crew That's his that should be his single crew Should be his responsibility, but because we don't have A shift commander. We don't have a dedicated resource to manage events The captains are in this very uncomfortable spot of having to both manage a significant event And keep track of all their people individually and so We're we're we need that that is something else. I'll end up being addressed in the future You know, I've for most of my career I've never had to have the um challenges that my friends in public safety at the police department have We have never had recruitment retention issues in the fire service And that's something we've ever had to worry about you post a firefighter position You have a ton of applicants like people wanted to work in the firehouse That is not the case anymore the first time in my career. We are struggling with recruitment retention Not just south brolington nationwide So we need to vote we are certainly going to have to focus and find new ways to look at recruitment retention Um, you know the the traditional things that used to be and used to drive people to coming into our business are not there the the what the challenges that we're dealing with with um, the mental health crisis and dealing with that, um, that that Coulter service that uh taxes are just very different than what we're used to and people aren't don't want to do this job So we're going to have to look at recruitment retention very differently We're going to have to look at leadership and administration that includes not only at the shift level Like deputy chief and then future succession planning We we certainly need to provide training opportunities for our captains our lieutenants. We have extremely young department I think I heard the number today nine people with less than a year Uh, so that's a third of the department With a i'm doing my math a third of my operational staff Uh with less than a year on the job. That's an incredibly young department We need to provide them some management and leadership training to prepare prepare them to be company officers Our fire stations need to be addressed while station two certainly has individual bunk rooms We do not have accommodations for diversity We sleep in um common bunk rooms And so we need to look at and it you know, I often use my analogy might I have a 20 I guess she's 24 now But would I want my daughter sleeping in the in that firehouse? No, I would not and so You know, it's just different. You know when I came on the job everyone slept in a common bunk room But it was all it was a male. We are still a male dominated workforce. We have not made the accommodations We need to to have a diverse workforce Uh, we know our windows and doors if the wind blows the winds are We you know, we have a tired building and a long way of saying Our infrastructure, uh, both of our stations need some work This is the first time in my career. I've worked in a fire station. It's not sprinkled We require every building to be sprinkled You know, we leave With with dinner on the stove and I know we have a trip that shuts the stove off But nothing worse than a fire in a firehouse and this is the first building I've ever been in That's as a fire chief even the 100 year old building is in burlington. We're sprinkled Um, and to me, you know, that's that's a problem We we require buildings to be if they're renovated to be sprinkled yet We're in a we're in a non-sprinkled building and I think ultimately Um, our buildings just need some tlc some paint on the walls some new carpet a little bit of Um, a little bit of stuff to make it feel a little bit fresher a little bit more like home That is our home when they're, you know, again, they're working 24 hours a day The kitchen's it's a kitchen. It's a you know, just like just like your own home and our buildings are just really tired But you got new mattresses, right? We do we have and I'll say this well Yeah, and it's a little bit sensitive only because yes. Yes, and thank you I just haven't pulled the trigger on it because we're trying to figure out A different we're trying to figure out the sleeping problem like how do we put some barriers in we we had a female start today so in 30 days or so She's going to be on shift I would like her not to have to sleep In a common bunk room in 30 days And so we'll come up with facilities will come up with something But so a long way of saying, you know, again a young lady Who is very passionate about this? Shouldn't have to worry about having to sleep in the same room as a bunch of men Just that's that's simple I can't End this presentation without just the spotlight on the staff both from our operational staff versus in our prevention staff who You know our prevention staff work with contractors every day And you hear nothing but positive outcomes about them trying to find Solutions to technical problems. How do you meet the code but still meet it in a way? That's not black and white. How can we work with the contractors? And I think we're so lucky to have Our own electrical inspector that is very unique to South Burlington and our customers Know our people and so they make sure our buildings are safe But they work really hard to to make sure to find common ground to find alternatives. Is that the what's the word I'm looking for? Yeah Because we don't give variances But we do find ways that Because we don't want to vary from the code But how can we give allowances to make that happen and then to the you know the staff work in 24 7 365 on a ton of mandatory over time And I'm sure there's complaints behind the scenes But it never complained about it never complained about it to me Um, and that is remarkable I've been on shift work before I've had little kids when I was working on shift and I know the towel is taking on families and um, and but it's not sustainable and we you know, we're having I'm having a 20 18-year employee leave at the end of the month And for for sustainability reasons he just had enough Um, it's a great job, but it's not it's quality of life and I'm sick of working I'm sick of being tired all the time and you know, that's and that's what that's what he says and and right In any in they are and they should and they should be so we have got to find a way to address the overtime You know that is that is we cannot we will not survive another summer Like we had a summer of 22 and so I know that you know, we're We're we're we're for the first time. We're at full staffing today Unfortunately by the end of the month will be down one to two positions. Um And then is what it is we'll back the cycle So I think that's it But thank I can't end without saying thank you to my staff who have welcomed me and been very very supportive of everything We're trying to do uh to to to get us um, get us where we need to be Take any questions Are there any questions Tim, I just I guess I have one and that is um when you look at the um Capital improvement plan And now I understand you're going to get rid of Eventually one of the engines or not replace one of the old engines and you're going to move toward You know, maybe smaller pickup trucks or some other where Is that in this plan or or are the Price of those something that since it's a truck It's not a million dollar truck. It's I don't know maybe a 60 thousand dollar truck, but that's So so two things when we won't be able to move to the pickup model without additional people on top of the people We already have okay, but our but our yeah, so but our administrative fleet our small vehicles Are not factored into this and I think we we Are they're small enough that we can figure out a way at end of year monies That's how I mean that's how often it's done, right? I had to say that 50 or 60 thousand is not that big of a deal But in the money time of money we're talking a lot different than a million Yeah, exactly. And so we we find at the end of fiscal year how we can address those needs So that goes hand in hand with additional staffing beyond what you're requesting If we want to move and I have not like if we want to move to that model it would require us to have people on a On a separate vehicle We cross staffing because then you're out in a pickup when a structure fire comes in and I in Then I don't have a unit show up and sorry, but I think I think the model more likely would be A Peak hour unit and I say peak, you know, we know our call highest call demand 8 to 8 a.m. To 8 p.m So you could move to a model phased in over several years where you did that But not something I would even put on your radar now. It's not high enough priority What is priority is getting the second ambulance shift commanders deputy chief like at the end of the day That's where that's where this department needs to be needs to focus on Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you to my team for being here and thank you all team Thank you Usually when I'm around there are no calls. Yeah, I know I just hang out there Okay Moving on and we're actually a little ahead of schedule, which is great um The council discussion of the overall budget So if I can do it just a little table study about this So, um, I have linked here on the agenda for those who are watching remotely are interested watching later The website where all of our fy 24 Budget information is linked. Um, you also have it in your budget books in front of you Um, so tonight we wanted to leave time on the agenda for you to have your own Conversation about the budget as it's been presented. You've now heard from all of the department heads about what they're recommending This is really your time to think and talk among each other about any scenarios you'd like us to Uh, cost out in the next two weeks and bring to you at your next meeting You will have your public hearing on the fy 24 budget and you will need to Vote whatever you want to bring forward to the voters So if you would like us to look at well, what does this look like if we do x or what does this look like if we do y? Um, it would be helpful to know that tonight. So we're not doing math on the fly on the 17th Or you can motion to approve as presented I am prepared to support the 5.75 percent increase. I have heard tipping point, uh, either those words or Words that equate to that meeting throughout the last few weeks and I think that 5.75 is very reasonable given that we are there in terms of needing to meet the needs of our growing population Our cola and inflation As well as our c.i.p. Which I think has been underfunded over the past at least decade So that's where I am other I'm there too They get too far away from me What page is that 5% on just to Yeah Is it 13 is 62 in our packet 62 62 She's looking at the pdf of the agenda, right? Um, if you go to if you are you are also on the pdf of the agenda Do you have that in front of you? What page 62? Yeah, it's on page 13 in this book page 13 Or it's number 13 on the presentation in our Question this is the middle middle choice All right Related to this. I'm generally in the same ballpark as where councillor emory just stated. She was but could you explain to me is slide It's an pdf number 60, but slide 11 So what is one two and three are they mutually exclusive? Do they build upon themselves? I understand that council emory supports number two proposed capacity building budget I'm not quite following what item three is proposed funding to implement the climate action plan with that 2.13 Or whatever it is beyond top of the five point. Could you explain that a little bit more? Yes So if so, I think councillor chinon is looking at my initial budget PowerPoint budget presentation the document that looks like this The slide slide 11 on that overview in your budget book your hard copy budget book Um, so yes, that's how we've laid it out. So we gave you if we want Baseline one the proposed baseline budget is if we just continue to do exactly what we're doing today No ads just keep up with contractual increases gas increases, etc That's that's the next slide you see that's our baseline budget Our proposed capacity budget includes the baseline and the ads that you've heard the operational ads that you've heard from the department head So if you look at that slide slide 13 that 5.75 is both the baseline and the capacity budget What that 5.75 does not include is The third bucket which is the bucket to fund the implementation of the climate action plan over three years That's on slide 14. So if you wanted to do that all in Capacity plus climate action. You're talking about the 5.75 plus the 2.13 percent for a total of 7.89 percent or three and a half pennies Another follow-up. Yeah in the that's what you're asking. It was that is very helpful So on the capacity building could you clarify the new positions that includes that that would be restoring the firefighter position That they just that would be talking about the deputy chief for the police The deputy chief for the firefighter and the six new ambulance. No Which positions are in the capacity building? So if you look at the slide 13 the Chart with a blue heading and you look down the f y 24 column. It is a two-year proposal So it does require investment additional investment in 24 and 25 So in 24 you're talking about adding the parks maintenance fte The deputy chief in the police department Restoring one of the police officers the 30th firefighter and the mid-year startup of a second ambulance Then I support the proposed capacity building budget too And the startup The stand-up second ambulance Does that include any of the people? Yes. Yes, that includes the six people So that's six months of the six people And Additional things net the new revenue. So we also projected new revenue associated. That's the 70 000 dollars ish That will come as that as in the last quarter of f y 24 as they're able to perform The park's maintenance full-time equivalent is that restoring a position or is that additive? That is a new position I'm gonna use ARPA money for it Yeah, we we've tried to stay at 3% You know in past budgets But there are a lot of things that Are needed by services that they've been doing without and we need to fulfill that request I think and Inflation is running rampant is having awful effect And I think it's starting to cascade up through taxation at this point And I don't think we really have a choice if we want to keep providing services at the level That we've had and not wear out those services beyond their capacity. So Well, I think we if we don't do some of these investments in personnel and police and fire We'll lose more people right and then the Impact Will really be felt And it's really hard to catch up. I would just say that For next year, I'm looking I will tell you now I'm looking to fund the climate action plan with ARPA dollars That's two of us and then In subsequent years, I think we need to look at That general fund dollars because I think that's that's really important and I think that's a public Expectation as well. I don't think we can just say Thanks for the action plan and We'll do a one-time Funding of work and then Yeah Call it a day. Yeah, and actually just to build off of you Helen if you're done sure Is for the fiscal year 25 and the fiscal year 26 for the climate action plan how we added three employees to recoup the employees that we lost over the covid furloughs that we would Actually partially fund fiscal year 25 and fiscal year 26 through december of 26 With ARPA funds. Yeah, just to smooth it just like you know, we've been I think it's a good strategy hopes Tom so I want to preface this again by saying I'm not advocating for it But I would love to hear the city manager's reaction to since this is the highest budget We will be putting forward to the voters in my eight years on this council and I'm ready to support it When we had another high one we cut into the the City center reserve fund What is your reaction again to lowering that from 800 to 700 thousand just to soften the below this coming? budgetary cycle Yeah, so we did and I believe Alana is actually on line to talk about that as well tonight We did talk about that as a team That is an option for us to consider our biggest hesitancy about doing this this fiscal year is for that a hundred thousand dollar Gap, which is you know, half a percent Is that it is still a hole we would need to climb out of in the future We don't think it's possible to fund at seven hundred thousand dollars this year and for the rest of the life of the tiff I think we would need to grow back out of that to regain the eight hundred thousand dollar investment In the future future years at a minimum depending on how we saw growth not in the these blocks move forward Um, and so when we think about smoothing things out um, that seemed to us initially that was a We could do it now to solve a problem Um, it is creating a problem in the future Alana or martha anything you want to add to that? Uh, no, I think you've covered it all I would not support that this year. I just I think The tiff should be generating enough revenue and we've seen those those spreadsheets before right I mean there's got to be there's probably going to be some point in a couple years where we go Oh We don't need it as much anymore. So we could reduce that right, but if you're saying that right now, it's It's a better idea to not reduce it right just to have that buffer I understand that because you're waiting for things to be built and yeah And we're we're at the um again a lot of jump in here But I think what we feel is that the tiff is performing really well and we're seeing huge investment in the vacant land The tiff needs some of the built out properties to also redevelop So what we'd really love to see is some of that change start to occur In order to feel comfortable that we can start stepping down that amount. What do you mean built out? I didn't understand like the blue mall. Oh, oh, so existing structures be redeveloped. You're like, okay Any other comments? It's a lot of good work. Um, I it's it's incredibly I hope they can find the people to hire I really wish they would I mean, and I know that everybody's competing the national guard The guard is air guards, right? They're competing for people and fire and public safety But if you get in the high schools as soon as possible and start ringing the bell and advertising those careers I mean it'd be great to and I'm sure they are right. I know they're trying But I mean that's well, it sounds like they might need a little more administrative support in order to do that Yeah, I mean, I'm sure both the police chief and the fire chief say yes That's a Logical place to go for the next generation, but you look around and who's going to do that Who's going to plan that who's going to carry it out? So Chief Burke, am I right in thinking that one of our officers who we're swearing in next Monday is a south berlington high school Grad that we recruited that officer greal is recruited out You know, I So I had to take my son to serratoga springs last week to so he could meet his girlfriend's family halfway And they could he could go back with them and anyways, so I walked around serratoga springs I'm getting to a story here They're building this huge, you know, like, you know eight-story steel building and I'm watching a steel worker walk on our girder And then another construction worker walks towards me and I started talking to him about it and it turns out He's a plumber and I'm like going And it's like well, how did you get to be a plumber in this construction business? Right and he goes well, I went I studied environmental science for four years and I came out of that and uh, my whole family were plumbers and uh, they just kept beating me in the head and finally I turned to plumbing he goes and he goes personally He goes I feel like there's a stigma I guess and I go there's no stigma because plumbing is a great business to me He goes, but this is great. I'm doing something that I love to do It's it's a needed service and I'm making a ton of money I'm like going you need to go to schools and tell people how much money you're making You know, it's a union job and uh, and you enjoy it and you get to work in this, you know Really cool construction environment. And so it was really great conversation to have with them. That was Um, so any other comments? Other than really nice job. Yeah, and and thank you Everyone is really pitched in and um provided us the materials that we needed to um In some ways make a leap To ask the voters for a pretty significant increase, but I think you've given us And them the information that's important to understand the importance of supporting This kind of increase and You know the city's growing and we need to grow with it That's kind of the reality in my mind Yeah during the last council meeting dpw budget presentation the council recommended looking at the sphere street Cip project that has been looked into and the cip is updated on the city's website There is a new slide With today's date that is the updated cip Reflecting the updated cip project is sphere street Okay, thank you Yeah, where's bob britt? See that, okay all right, so Great, I guess no one wants you to do any more number crunching few It's important that we all are locked and loaded with the reasons this budget is bigger So we talked to constituents. We enumerate exactly what all of the things are and we can just quantify them Right, you know they need more police officers. They need more fire. The fire department's overworked, right? We have equipment concerns equipment renewal I mean, it's just it's all there in black and white. So yeah, and it goes through all the other departments, too You know, it's not We just happened to have on the tips of our tongue what's Needed in police and fire but you know, there's other parks and highway and all sorts of We will we will put together a High-level summary of that for you for the 17th and you know, thanks to Martha for all the behind-the-scenes work. She did to pull together hundreds of line items with our Okay, thank you. Thank you And I would encourage the public to look at these materials and then ask us if you have you know call us with questions or Pepper jesse or somebody All right, moving on. Did you want to just take a quick break? Are you okay? I don't know what time it it's only 8 30 you want to do one more thing? Sure Okay, so why don't we move on to item 10? Discuss regulating heating systems and existing residential commercial properties and possible direction to staff Bob britt disjoint You want to make the happy announcement to bob or martha or Bob the the bike lane on spear street has been added to the cip Just today you can go online and check it out and I believe bob actually had A lengthy conversation with erica qualin following your budget hearing about that So I believe he is very well aware. Oh, it's in the updated cip. Okay. It's officially been shared with the council at this point So is that at repaving time they would widen it and then we can't hear you about accordingly It is uh restriving the street. There is no more construction that will be happening in the current plan So we have the asphalt we need we need paint Okay, okay, just it would be narrowing the lanes. Okay. Got it. Thanks. Bob. Did you want to make a comment? We can't we can't hear you. Yeah Well, if you're happy and you know it you can just clap your hands All right I tell you that you're happy great Made his new year. Okay So item 10 this the regulating heating systems and existing residential commercial commercial properties. So Yeah, go ahead. Um, so this was a council request You um had the conversation about the charter change to enable this to happen as well as the ability to um Uh tax or or impose a fee if it didn't We understand that there may be some interest in exploring just the regulating it within existing buildings side of things So before staff spends time on that we wanted direction from the full council that that is something you wanted us to explore legally and in ordinance So we have nothing prepared. It was really for you all to have a discussion and provide us direction And Colin is here and Paul is here Come on down So he has done no legal research on Oh, then we then we wanted to know everything he knows No, so the um, I guess the question we had the discussion and we voted on that charter change We were asking Sort of like that that proposal was kind of in two parts one did we and you gave a response The question was did we have the ability to regulate heating systems in existing buildings? Uh, and then on top of that there was a second part then levy any kind of a charge on top of that And you gave the impression you thought that we had statutory right to do that But you haven't done any research yet That's correct. Okay So so that's the question is would we like him to go do that research to see if In the model in my mind, which might not be the model in levy's mind is that At some point down the road when somebody's heating system needs to be replaced and it happens to be running on fossil fuels Did the city want to inject its permitting process into that to help them make a better decision about how to replace it Either through regulation or not whatever it is Is that what we're thinking about here? Yeah, okay So I just want to clarify that so I would like to have that research done. Yep Is that enough direction? Yeah Authority Yep, that's enough. Thank you Okay Thank you Okay, so then oh this is a biggie Discuss the arpa allocation next steps So we had um after your November or at your November 30th special accounts being where you heard from The committees we had talked about some kind of scoring matrix how how you would like to make a decision We have a lot of requests And No, we have still a lot of money, but not a whole lot of money Were we supposed to mark this up because I did so Yeah, well I marked mine up too, but then I couldn't print it off. So I just did it by hand Well, I couldn't print this. You know, I did it on my computer and then I couldn't print it off either I said mine to I know you well jumped to it. You were I I actually didn't intend for you to do it for this meeting But good job Well, I mean I but I did it and I did have some questions. It's it's kind of hard because there's lots of things that is like um For every single one of them. I would give it a five to leverage other funding. I mean, I don't know funding's there But I think that that is really crucial to see You know if there's other funding to help fund You know any of this Yeah, yeah, right a ranking a matrix where you're going one through rather than just giving a number might be I don't know Yeah, well, that's where I got to you know, everything that I liked had You know 14 points when I totaled it up over to the right That isn't necessarily The the help we need. Yeah The way the way I did it was I looked at the number three on the budget the proposed budget from the staff and I did the math Install stuff and to do um, you know all of the the hiring as well as Getting a consultant to implement our climate action plan Um, and where we don't fully fund it. Um, I got to 1.98 million dollars So just to keep that in mind so that I didn't think that you all were going to agree with me So I put down some numbers in the other categories But I didn't put a lot because I really think that the strength of this third budget Proposal is that it has been reviewed by staff. They have experience in terms of how many staff members we need in order to Implement several things that could fall into many of these buckets Definitely leveraging other funding Definitely meeting urgent health and economic needs Short-term investment leading to lasting benefits and is transformative. So it was a five straight across the board for that Um, but then I looked which thing are you on? Oh, well energy No, I was just adding what they had on page 13 in the budget book She's talking about the the um proposal staff put together to implement the climate action plan Uh-huh. So yeah page no not page 13 page 14 in the budget book Um That I priced it out Yeah, to see how many arpa dollars and Since we all agreed to 5.75. That means that the four hundred and six thousand one hundred fifty dollars for fiscal year 24 We have to pay out of arpa dollars But I then broke down the seven hundred thirty seven thousand nine hundred seventeen dollars and the five hundred three thousand five hundred seventy five Dollars and you know in fiscal year 25 and 26 to 80 percent and 60 percent And and then I even did the three hundred thirty five thousand seven hundred seventeen dollars for fiscal year 27 through december 2026 And I I followed the same kind of breakdown as we did for the three city staff where they did, you know 80 percent 60 percent 40 phasing down. I couldn't get to the 20 percent But I did get to 40 percent and that all added up to 1.98 million dollars So that left my you know for for me to play around with the numbers You know, I then did Yes, we should certainly I think respond to residents needs and the needs for health And short term investment for for lasting benefits For the dog waste bag dispensers and the feral dog park improvements Do we need seventy thousand dollars at feral park that I wanted us to discuss? I'm not sure And I Also Thought that the the bike path now there. I'm going over the two point The two point zero zero six million dollars But the one to two hundred thousand dollars To leverage the one point one four five A million dollars for the five foot shared use path Into a ten foot shared use path along heinsberg row that that was something that I would be You know, I saw the Value of And then I also looked at the natural resources and conservation committee You know the 50 000 dollars compared to the 400 000 dollars Where we we take down trees and replant that seems very reasonable and then the open space plan is needed and And I think that all these things and all these things that the energy committee and the NRCC but specifically the energy committee and the planning commission You know we're talking about but I even think economic development Because the more we spend today on climate mitigation the less we will be spending down the road By millions and millions if not more dollars I really think it satisfies a lot of the line item requests I was also looking at the the art To have a cultural plan because I think that is transformative for a city And just like the firefighters want to have new paint on their walls. There is something pride of place that you know a splash of color and a little bit of aesthetics Can can do With regard to the complete housing needs and opportunities assessment I'm wondering what the cc rpc This role would be in that because I think they've done a lot with building homes together In terms of what we need we need workforce housing We need homes for those entry level You know positions in our in our local Jobs Support child care. I'm not sure what direction we can go if we were having You know us all come around Recreation indoor recreation center. I'd say great. We can do something for child care there, right? But we aren't so we don't have any city buildings that we could dedicate to that I don't know what our role, but I certainly love to have sandy duly Look into it and and tell us And that could be potentially something the state's going to take up too somewhere in this list. It's I thought we had um Carved out a million dollars for child care. Did we not we just talked about it We just talked about it Yeah, we wanted to know more about it Well, I do think that's a really important piece, but I don't know what the dollar figure is and I don't know what the action is and I think Exploring that more Would be really helpful And and that's where you might find some matching funds Point of clarification So as I read the memo, uh council, army that was very useful going down the list But I feel like the manager was setting up today just to ask that type of question that The chair just articulated. So are you looking for us tonight? What additional information we're going to need or how you this process we want it to unfold to evaluate these options? And I think I would I would echo what the chair just suggested which that ambiguous child care thing It'd be useful to have some idea or suggestion as to where that money could More tactically be applied because I didn't see that in any of the presentations Yeah, it is I think the state's going to be talking about it is what I heard Certainly the case and I would Right, so I don't know as we need to put a dollar figure on everything. We just can't spend all of it and say In the future, we'll use ARPA money for this because We've already committed it So for to councillor chandon what I was trying to give you tonight was Tool that you could use to make your decisions moving forward I thought the conversation was going to be a conversation about the tool Is this the right tool? Are we going in the right direction? Are there areas where you want us to explore more? And on what timeline do you want us to come back to you? So, you know, the committees provide this feedback We've been in budget season. We want trying to lay out a plan for what happens next That was what I envisioned we would how I envisioned we would talk about tonight But certainly happy to take in whatever direction you all want to go Well, I just want to point out that you did provide the required new staff work and support and process and I think that's a really key column Most of them were yes So that's where I went back then to look at your climate action plan How do we implement it because a lot of these things do fall into the climate action plan Just going back to what the staff recommended in terms of the staffing Yeah Well, I guess my feeling also is That we don't need to allocate ARPA money in the next month or two I think we can Provide some Direction to To Jesse and the staff to get back with us to come up with some ideas about childcare I think I'm hoping the legislature make some decisions about funding for some of these topics which would also Give us a clue and to maybe some additional Funds to support or framework to support I mean childcare is huge No one's really Imagining that a community is going to you know, create a child's care center I don't think unless you have we're just given a church like is it Thursday? We just were given a church And one of the things the community is thinking about is can that be a child care center? Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah, but but we're not suggesting that we have an empty Building somewhere right that we could Get into that business Sure Oh, and then Michael be next. Yeah Yeah, we do have We had called on Cindy just a minute Is your green light is your green light green green? Oh There okay, it's so bright um Is it possible at all to I like your idea of some of the salary money the arpa funds going to that Is it possible? because when you You spoke about the budget you had like a little over five percent for the fire department and the The police department as well And then you have 2.5 for the climate change action plan Is it what is what is that figure the two point? What figure is that figure amount for the climate change? Wait one and what is that going to what does that go to? so as Is presented in the f y 24 budget it's about two and a half percent tax rate Two and a half percent increase in the tax rate a little under that Penny on the tax rate and a funds two new positions and consulting money It's in the city manager's budget presentation And I think that's what councilor emory was suggesting is use a lot of the balance of the arpa funds to implement that C8 climate action plan implementation plan from the staff over the years between now and 2026 And and what they're proposing you're asking what is it for one is for a climate director One is staff a sustainable sustainability community engagement manager and analysts Some consultants public outreach funding to meetings so we can have those those conversations with the public about What's important and And that was the first year and then it there's an enforcement team in the second and third year if Things Are approved that are requirements and then there's an enforcement. So that's kind of the staffing that the city Thank you Michael you wanted to say something Yeah, actually I I sent it in in the chat, but uh mega mentioned that there are no buildings available for a child care facility I said that Or you said that um, but they probably are Vacant buildings. I think one is quite close to you. It's the former seers automotive building It's been vacant for a long long time And maybe some of those funds can be used to fit out part of that building as a child care center There are places where we could where we could um, perhaps Satisfy that need I I wouldn't argue with that. We don't own that building But we certainly if we have a thoughtful Committee or group that comes together to explore options and come back to the council with This is what we've identified and this is Where we think you could um You know fund it or create it or and these are the partners we would need like that would require them all I guess or seers. I don't know who owns it, but seers seers To partner with us that that could be One of the solutions, but we don't have that data right now So I think we have to develop those that kind of creative thinking Yes, seers is not using it and they're paying taxes. They might be in and letting you have it for a buck a year So Well, just be aware then the time that they decide to sell it you're putting a lot of families Yep Obviously you'd have to tie tie tie things up a little and I'll leave you with that. Thank you. Thank you So can I repeat back what I think I'm hearing? Yeah, so I think what I'm hearing is um Maybe the tool works for some of you and maybe you guys will spend more a little more time with it That we will as staff also Think more specifically about what child care and investment in child care could look like and what some options are And that in the next couple of months, we will also really or I guess there's a question to you I would like you to say to us Go explore how we can leverage these funds. So look at the look at the Climate sorry for the no pun intended the climate for grant programs or other Federal funds that are coming down and if we see unique opportunities to say okay with this little arcba money We could leverage this other bucket To be mindful of those so child care leveraging funds A cap multi-year implementation plan And any other work you all want to do on the tool That's what I'm kind of hearing is next steps coming out of this meeting and take it up and maybe either In February or March Um, can I also ask you if um I think that you heard correctly and I think that makes sense But I also want to be sensitive to your current staffing And lack of certain You know positions so would it make sense In terms of an immediate use of a small amount of the arpa money To fund a consultant or a person That could really Do that kind of exploration For child care is that no for any for all of the like all the grant funding and stuff I mean, I know the league of cities and towns has a person But she's not going to work full-time for south burlington and this is a big Ask So I I guess I just put that out there if we really want to have Back the maxima they maximum Maximizing the um Money that we could leverage Then I think we really need someone focus on that who has some skill in that But be careful because if you add more bureaucracy on top of it We pay up pay for bureaucracy and don't spend the money on stuff. I I would rather spend money On something we know we want which is implementing climate action plan than do exploratory on what is this like 30 lines of possibilities Yeah, I since we have a finite amount of money, I would really Well, we already just approved 20,000 for um trees trees that You know, I mean, I'm sure to sort of discount the other 30 lines and just look at the climate action plan So, no, she wasn't discounting. She was looking into child care I mean, that's what I wanted to actually go through tom was I the questions I have for the um the adu so the Dwelling unit the what is the a accessory dwelling unit You know, I think we really need to address strs. I'm I'm contacted Every other week about people concerned about properties in their neighborhood Turning into air bmbs and which is housing out of our out of our stock and especially in my neighborhood That's an important neighborhood And I think that The other question I had Um the five bus shelters A lot of that would be on private land because the shelters You know, that would be a lot of Discussion, so that's the question I have with regard to the the bus shelters, which I also thought The city right away Well, the city right away, you know, there's a sidewalk. Yeah, but okay, but I don't know I mean, there are front yards in my neighborhood So, I mean if you really want a bus shelter on white street where you're going to be in someone's front yard The person might have something to say about that. I don't that's just a question. I thought we should inquire about um and then The other question No, I think those are my questions Well, what what does the council as a whole? Want um staff to do I want to do my homework Yeah, you want to do your homework? Yeah, okay I didn't do my homework So in order to do your homework, um Do you want to identify like the top things that you are interested in exploring? I mean if it is the climate action plan, that's that's one big thing If it's child care, great, and then you know if you're really into Um doing something about feral park that might be you know, you're Well, there there the number there ones that are that are hard numbers, right where we could say This is my list of hard number ones. I'd like to fund and these are the ones that don't really have numbers But they're concepts that I want to fund Right and we could prioritize them that way and then we could just argue about it All right, so so why don't we prioritize and then we can argue um Because we will because if you like um Megan's plan it uses all the money to do the almost or almost all the money to do the climate action plan over Not knowing what we can leverage So that's the other part, right? Well, it was just a suggestion. Yeah, that's what she's talking about So I'll make a suggestion picking up on the arguing arguing piece as well as the the timeline I think it was announced on WVMT The counselor coda is also not running for reelection nor am I so there will be two new counselors after march So I I'm all for arguing, you know, that's what this is all about But I I do see a lot of value and merit for having that arguing after March 7th because I think the two new counselors are are going to be the ones that you're going to want to buy in For wherever you're putting this money towards so happy to do the arguing in january and february But I also think it's useful to just put on the table that there'll be two new bodies around this table And then that might be more useful time to get the the buy-in for wherever you guys want to put this money I don't disagree. I mean, I don't think we're going to be arguing this before town meeting We might get some information but we want to get as much work out of these guys before they leave too You want to squeeze the last So I think the the task I think I may have over processed you all here one of the things you talked about at the last meeting was Um sending helen your top like three to five priorities for us to explore and then I gave you a whole different matrix. It's much more complicated. So I think what Um kind of going back to some of the conversations I think if you wanted to your homework and spend time with this tool and that helps Whoever is going to be the deciders here make some decisions. I think that's fabulous I think we will explore some child care options I think we will pay attention in the next couple of months to Other funding sources and what we can leverage into some of the ideas We've heard you talking about because that might change your criteria, too If we can leverage in a million dollars for 20,000 versus something else Um and start collecting all of that information In the next couple of months prepare to have a More robust conversation about this probably and quite frankly in april. Yeah, actually I combined helens in yours Yeah Yeah, I think that sounds reasonable. Okay Thank you Okay Do you want to take a five minute break? Yes. All right. We'll take a five minute break But don't leave tom I would like to call back To order the south brook at city council meeting of tuesday january third 2023 We are on item 11 Oh 12, excuse me. That's right 12 To discuss and approve the annual city manager's evaluation process and potential contract renewal so jessie Thank you. Um, so I provided the council a memo and a set of tools. Um, as you all know in my Contract, there's a section about annual performance reviews We did that last year at this time to me. It's really useful to do that in january and february where the council that's worked with me for a year and then Set goals in the next year with the policies and strategies and with the evaluation process So I've outlined a proposed timeline. I'm also respectfully requesting that And I talked to those of you who I negotiated my contract with the first time that I would like in conjunction with this contract to renegotiate my my Contra in conjunction with this evaluation to renegotiate my contract I will be less than a year remaining on my contract starting f y 24 And I always like to roll it. So we I never get less than a year Um, it's a three year. Yep. So my third year will start in f y 24 Um, I'm not looking for any changes in f y 24 But I love this job and I love this team and I would like to stick around for a little while And have some certainty about that So I've outlined a process and a timeline for this. I Sent you some tools that are pretty much exactly the same as the tools we used that last time Happy to adjust those. Anyway, the council sees fit Mike and the it director and I have also worked on an improved Survey tool In differently and have it spit out more clearly. Nice Um The one change I am suggesting based on what I recall from our conversation last year is to add a Key stakeholder evaluation. So last year we did the leadership team provided feedback and the council provided feedback There was some conversation about did we want to did you all want to solicit feedback from key stakeholders? So I have proposed a valuation tool for that. That's very similar to the leadership team one in that my thought was Somebody from union leadership We do a lot of work with our unions somebody from the south beryllington land trust from the south beryllington business association the school superintendent and Some committee members But obviously that's for you. You're all you all to discuss So the timeline I suggested is that if you Give some approval to this tonight We'll send out those tools by the ninth Results would be due back by the 25th and shared with all of us on the second We review those on february 6 and then we'd spend two weeks Negotiating contract renewal for approval on february 16th That is my proposal comment the only comment I like um Include all all that you included and added the only piece and I've mentioned this to um, jesse and I I think we I mentioned it last time and we excluded it on the form that we fill out There's a whole section on supervision and um I I don't feel particularly comfortable or able to um evaluate Her supervision skills with the staff because I I don't see it with the exception of when people when the staff is here and In during our council meetings, but you know, we don't traipse around the office since here You know yelling at someone or having a good conversation with them or whatever So I I think we should Unless you all feel like you could address the questions under supervision I think we can just eliminate it We did last time Yeah but so but my friendly amendment to that is um That that quite honestly feels a little awkward for me because my supervision or support of the team is probably 60 or 70 of how I spend my time um But I think you get the same I think you would get you get feedback on that through the leadership team comments So I would recommend you just you take this question off and instead have a placeholder saying this will be evaluated under the leadership team comments as provided So it's still a category you're evaluating me on but it's not in this way Well, I have seen you jesse for the the second and the third and um And even the fifth, you know, I I've seen you In the meetings that I tend as a council liaison With with staff leaders And I've seen you also You know through The events that the city has put on and how you have You know, I think Affirmed your your your leadership When an event has happened and I think that's we do get insights in terms of instills confidence I think that when we receive the presentations on the budget. So I think that is also We can sense that there is you know, kind of the the energy You know, we can take a temperature of the room and see how you and your your leadership Are are getting on together. So I I can I feel like I can do at least two three and five Well, then leave it on that's fine. Yeah, and if anyone doesn't feel like they can evaluate one of the questions then you can Put an na Okay, and you put the whole thing on survey monkey Okay, and you put what but you put the whole thing on survey monkeys. So yes, okay Well, I'm not going to someone's going to do it for me and hopefully it'll work this time I'll learn with that. Does that generally take for somebody to set that up? Is it pretty quick? We have a phenomenal IT director. He's already mocked up this one for me just to To test out the form to see if it would work. Um, he did it in probably 20 minutes Wow, I mean it's cutting and pasting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay The problem was I can never get into it, but I'll work with him and maybe I can get into it Rather than have to come here and Sit somewhere He has not to brag too much on the team, which I know I love to do. He's got such a You you all haven't interacted with mike monaholot, but he's just got such a core of ethics about you know looking at At these kinds of survey results and making the comparison to he has access to every single document every personnel file every payroll file every health insurance file in the city and he just has such a core of ethics of You know it doesn't work if it's not trusted So I have the utmost faith in him to do whatever he needs to do with you to make it happen. Great Well, good. So we'll um We'll look for that. I'll ask you to fill that out asap once you get it and then um, I would love to have some Um people volunteer to work on the contract negotiations Obviously not two people here No, they have to do it before they leave Would they be working on the contract negotiation too? Yeah, the contract is oh it's by february excellent Excellent. So they still have to do some work. Yeah, they yes very good Whatever you want. They're saying Good And if others have Other feedback on stakeholders, you would like me to send the or you'd like mike to send the evaluation to please just let me know I think that's a good list. I'm trying to think if there's any sort of other people involved in the city that Don't have the You know aren't on sbba or for a community member. Yeah But I can't think of you know, mr. Or mrs. Community member particularly if we get some members from committees that would probably be enough I maybe maybe jesse could recommend some and we could like a list and we could choose from that list We could he's just kidding whoever's but who's ever reaching out to the community member, you know, can you be objective? I think that's a question we can ask, you know, it's not like you ask your niece Okay, well anyone who has some names you can Get them to jesse or me if you can thank you someone Well, I know that there are people in my neighborhood with regard to the encampment that probably With jesse, so I could probably suggest a few names I'm probably pretty mad at me. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well It's got handled though. Yeah So maybe Okay, well think about that. We've got a little bit of time for that Thank you very much. Okay Item 13. Is there any other business? um any news on the ARPA funds for the wastewater treatment plant request grant request It was December 29th the deadline for the communities of limited Means to have her Not yet. You mean what what was submitted to the state from those communities? Yeah to say you're in the running Is there are you are we in the running? Oh, we are definitely not in the running for those We are not a community of limited means so the the what tom was outlining in that comment was um The state opened up that grant opportunity first to communities of limited means and then what funds remain will be offered to the rest of the community So we don't know yet what the what the state took in and how many dollars are remaining for us to apply for But he's on all of those He's already fed our project to the grant tours To demonstrate a shovel ready project. So if there are funds left over which we assume there will be We are in line. Okay. Good. Okay. Thanks all right So item if there's no other business besides that um item 14 Consider a possible executive session So, yes, I'd like to move the council make a specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the discussion of pending civil Litigation to which the city is a party and discussion of the appointment employment Or evaluation of a city employee would clearly place this public body at a substantial disadvantage second All in favor I And I now move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing pending civil litigation to which the city is a party And the appointment employment or evaluation of a city employee inviting Jesse Baker Colle McNeil Amanda Lafferty and paul connor into session with council second All in favor And we will not make any decisions or be coming back To this meeting. So this meeting is adjourned. I'm happy new year sue