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Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 28

as she is open for every single Nashua citizen and accessible as well. And | know that for a fact because
we use her for many, many things. So that’s just my comment. Thank you.

Chairman Dowd

Thank you. This will be the last one in Administrative Services.

Beth Scaer 111 East Hobart Street. | am asking about IT. There was a phishing attack where an employee
of the City sent tens of thousands of dollars to a scammer. And | was wondering what the outcome of that

was and what we are doing to prevent it because | am worried about the City’s cyber security measures.
Thanks.

Chairman Dowd

Thank you. We are going to now move on to Financial Services Division - Department 126 Financial
Services. Financial Services is the next Division.

Inaudible talking

Chairman Dowd

| didn’t hear your question.

Beth Scaer You want me to repeat it?
Chairman Dowd

Yes.

Beth Scaer A scammer convinced a City Employee to send him tens of thousands of dollars on a contract.
And | am wondering what the City is doing to protect our cyber security, the IT Department. The Mayor
reported this in one of his speeches and we never heard the outcome of that.

Mayor Donchess

Well there is no outcome yet, we haven't paid the money. The hacking actually occurred on the vendor.
Someone hacked into the vendor and meaning not us, but the other party of the contract and posed as the
vendor. And there’s not been a resolution in this instance, but | don’t think we paid the vendor for that
money. There’s just ongoing discussions about the problem. But again the hacking didn’t occur in the
City’s system. And we could get Ms. Kleiner to talk about all the IT security that there is but again the
hacking the penetration was not of the City’s system it was of the vendor system and the crook or hacker
posed as the vendor.

Ms. Scaer Yeah and the City employee fell for the ruse that was created by the vendor system being
hacked.

Chairman Dowd
Alright, Financial Service Division?

Laurie Ortolano 41 Berkeley Street. CFO Griffin, | think you have some terrific people in your office, | am
particularly appreciative of Rose Mary. When | went to her, she was always very forthright in addressing
my issues and getting me answers very quickly and it is very appreciated. And | look forward to having that
opportunity to work with her again as soon as some of you other people lighten up and let us citizens have
that access. Thank you.

Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 29
Dan Richardson 70 Berkeley Street, Nashua, New Hampshire. It shows wages in the Mayor’s proposed
budget of basically $1.5 million dollars for the Financial Services Department. I’m not sure if that’s the
complete Department. So Mr. Griffin, | would like to ask you for that particular account, full-time, how many
people does that represent, that $1.5 million dollars of wages?

Mr. Griffin

John Griffin, CFO. If you look at page 134 we list the position distribution which in Fiscal ’22 is going to be
23.6 individuals charged to the General Fund portion of the Financial Services Budget.

Dan Richardson 23 people?

Mr. Griffin

23.6 — there are fractions of people some of the team are charged to other areas.

Dan Richardson So you are saying 23 people are paid by the $1.5 million dollars?

Mr. Griffin

That is correct.

Dan Richardson Didn’t expect that. Thank you.

Chairman Dowd

Ok if there’s nothing else on Financial Services?

Fred Teeboom So Mr. Griffin, we used to see the budget book, either in the budget book on taxes a little
booklet, a breakdown of the salaries category. You'd give a Director, Associate Director, Lieutenants,
Sergeants (inaudible) individual that broke down the categories. Unless | missed it, | don’t see any
breakdown of salaries in this budget book. Is there a reason they are deleted.

Mr. Griffin

Mr. Chairman, | can respond. John Griffin, CFO. Mr. Teeboom if you look at Page 333 this particular
document begins a series of staffing positions.

Mr. Teeboom OH OK.

Mr. Griffin

Mr. Teeboom’s been at these budgets since I’ve been here and before. This is an example of an area that
if you put more than one year in and there’s bargaining units that haven't settled and some of our
colleagues used to look at a position and wonder why there was a 30% increase or a 20% decrease. So
what we wanted to do here as far as informing the public, these are all the positions that are funded in this
particular budget from a General Fund perspective.

Mr. Teeboom Outstanding.

Mr. Griffin

Thank you.

Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 30
Chairman Dowd

OK that’s all for Finance. We are going to the Police Department, Department 150. Any questions on the
Police Department Budget?

Unidentified Speaker Is this Police and Fire or just Police?
Chairman Dowd
Just Police.

Unidentified Speaker | asked this question | think in, | don’t know, several years ago. And | think | repeated
it another year. And | am going to ask it again. In the budget it shows a million dollars planned for
overtime. | don’t know exactly what a sort of average police salary, but | am pretty sure we could hire an
awful lot of policemen for $1 million dollars. So if we are on a regular basis, and it was $1 million dollars |
don’t know, 4 years ago when | brought this up. If it is still $1 million dollars we clearly should be able to
plan for having an additional policeperson or two so that we are not running overtime. It would seem to me
that is a smart choice, it saves money and we are not budgeting for unpreparedness. But! see it every
time and | see it frankly for the Fire as well only it is worse. | just don’t understand why we don’t decide to
hire appropriately rather than plan for overtime, except that what | do know because | live next door to a
fireman, | know that the plan is to beef up your last hours so that you get the highest possible retirement.
That’s not good for the City taxpayers.

Chairman Dowd
Mayor, do you want somebody to answer? | don’t know.

Mayor Donchess

Well the PD would answer that, but | don’t if it was really a question. The short answer and | am sure the
Department can answer more fully, but the short answer is it is a 24 hour Department and you can’t
function without overtime. | mean there are crimes, there are accidents, people are held over, it just is not
something you can just send someone home. But the Chief is there and he can answer in more detail.

Michael Carignan, Chief of Police

Thank you. Michael Carignan, Chief of Police for Nashua. It is a pretty complicated question that you
asked. | have Karen Smith with me, our Financial Director. Like the Mayor just said, it is a 24/7 operation.
We can’t predict necessarily when homicides will happen, when major incidents will happen. We also have
training that is mandated by the State by the Federal Government so we have to account for that and when
you have those mandatory trainings, you have to take Police Officers off the street and you have to hire
overtime to replace those positions on the street. So | will have Ms. Smith explain a little bit more about the
overtime and how it is broken down. But! will also say, regarding the pension cost, those pension rules
have changed and that overtime no longer factors into the State Pensions. So the Police Officers as of
2004 | believe no longer get that benefit. So I’ll have her explain the overtime, the shortfalls of the overtime
and kind of what that means.

Karen Smith, Police Business Manager

Karen Smith, Business Manager. We have payroll that covers that normal day to day payroll and then we
have the overtime account. And the overtime account is broken up into different categories. We have
training, witness, investigative and coverage. And the amount that we are probably going to have the most
of is going to be on coverage because we have shift work. So you have first, second and third shift.
There’s going to be numerous amount of overtime for covering those 3 shifts. Investigative is another
category that is not fully funded. What we do right now, it has been quite a few years that they have split
the amount of overtime from our payroll — excuse me — the overtime is not fully funded. We are actually

Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 31

compensating from our payroll account, so when we have vacancies that’s actually funding part of the
overtime account.

So | can give you an example on our overtime. We now have a $1.2 million dollar current FY ’21 overtime
account. We spent $2 million dollars on overtime because we are actually paying for our overtime through
attrition, through our vacancies, we no longer have the vacancies we are fully staffed right now. So there’s
a very complex budget, it is not straight forward when you would think of a normal probably non municipal
budget where you put a line for your payroll, you put your line for your overtime. That’s not what we are
working with on our municipal budget. It’s a little bit different in the fact that we are offsetting our overtime
through our payroll and the uniqueness of law enforcement being shift work, having investigative, having
coverage. As the Chief mentioned, having trainings and there’s other miscellaneous overtime that could be
civilians, there’s just different types of — overtime is the nature of law enforcement. It’s not the exception as
you would have in private industry.

(Inaudible talking)

Chairman Dowd

Excuse me, you cannot ask questions from there, we can’t get you on the recording. You have to come to
a microphone and it is not your turn.

Mayor Donchess

And the answer is yes, it is at a higher rate.
Chairman Dowd

Are we done with the Police Department.

Unidentified Speaker

So if it’s at a higher rate, (inaudible). If it is at a higher rate than wouldn't it make sense?
Chairman Dowd
Could you state your name and address again, please?

Christina McKinney 6 South Gate Drive. Wouldn’t it make sense given as | said, I’ve seen the same million
dollar figure for years. Wouldn't it make sense to hire in advance so that we have people available at a
regular rate rather than a higher rate to support when you are doing training, to support when there are
things which clearly happen, you know they do because you’ve had this million dollars for years. So
wouldn’t make sense, | mean | don’t know, somebody back here said an average police officer is
something around $70,000.00. Well that’s 14 or 15 police officers. Surely we could add a few permanent
police officers that gives everyone a preparedness for training opportunities and every other kind of
unexpected thing at the regular rate and benefit everyone; benefit the Police Department, benefit the
people who need the extra help for training and all the rest of it which | think is important. | am all for the
boys in blue but it is absurd that we pay twice as much or whatever their excess rate is because we don’t
prepare for what is obviously needed year after year after year given that this in the budget every year that |
have looked at this. It makes no sense and it doesn’t support our policemen in the way they should be.
They shouldn’t be scrambling for someone to fill in unless the purpose is to create higher pay and if that’s
the case that’s not good for the citizens who are paying salaries.

Chief Carignan

Hold on one second please. |’ll answer that question.

Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 32

Mayor Donchess

While the Chief is occupied | could give a short answer and hopefully Skip is, the Chief is going to help him
so | will just answer. But let’s see if this does it. It has been looked at many times. There are additional
costs associated with hiring an additional officer which aren’t associated with overtime, now you pay an
entire whole benefits package and healthcare plan, etc. etc. In addition, it’s just not as easy as that. Like if
someone is on a crime what are you going to do? Go home and bring someone else that knows nothing
about the crime? Even if you could interrupt the investigation which probably you couldn’t. Someone is at
an accident you know hey you go home, come and get someone else. It is not so easy to interrupt an
operation right in the middle like that. So there are various reasons why overtime is required and | am sure
it is more complicated than I’ve just expressed but those are a few of the reasons. But again when you hire
someone new there are costs associated that you are not calculating.

Chief Carignan

And | would just like to echo, as much as | would love to have 100 new police officers it is unrealistic due to
unpredictability of police work. So the reality, it is actually cost effective to pay a certain amount of officers
overtime rather than hire new officers and pay the full benefits package. So it is a fine balance, | would be
happy to sit with you in our Finance Office to explain that to you at a later time if you wanted.

Paula Johnson 15 Westbourne Drive. Alderman Wilshire and | were just shaking our heads because when |
was on the board too we talked about adding more police officers versus overtime and benefits and
sometimes it does work out better that you are paying the overtime than bringing an officer in because if |
remember correctly it is not only just the benefits it is the uniforms and everything else that goes along with
the whole job description. But while you are here Chief | just want to let you know last year when
everything was happening in this country, Beth Scaer set up for us to do our Back the Blue and we stood
outside in front of your Police Station and we were waving our flags and our banners and we were letting
everybody know in this City that we were backing the blue and we want to thank you for everything you’ve
done for this City. And | remember even going home last year, | don’t live that far from the Police Station
and | wanted to say that | felt very safe in the community going by. The National Guard was there and you
were there and we all felt safe, | did in this community and | just want to give a heartfelt thank you to our
men and women in blue here in Nashua. Thank you.

Chairman Dowd

OK if there are no other questions on Police we will move to Fire - Department 152, Fire Department.
Thank you Chief. Are there any questions regarding the Fire Department? Seeing none? Name and
address?

Christina McKinney 6 South Gate Drive. | just want to call attention to the fact that what | see in the Budget
Book is $2.5 million planned for overtime.

Chairman Dowd
Mayor, do you want somebody to answer that? Good evening Chief.
Brian Rhodes, Fire Chief

Good evening, Brian Rhodes. | have the pleasure of serving as your Fire Chief. Again, everything the
Police Chief said and Ms. Smith said | echo all of that. We would love to have additional staff. Wwe have
been trying to get 1 additional staff for the last four years; 1 — it hasn’t happened. The overtime happens
because of training, injuries, sickness, vacation. This year the overtime budget was extremely high
because we had 4 firefighters at the State Vaccination site 7 days a week. We assisted Public Health with
their vaccination sites. We assisted with testing at the City sites. We are getting this money back from the
government, from the State and the Federal Government. But on a regular basis, this is as the Chief said,
we don’t know, | can’t pull people away from a fire. We had a 3 alarm fire 3 weeks ago at 11:30 at night.

Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 33

We had one a week and a half ago at 3:00 in the afternoon. We have what we have, we have the
insurance service rating, |SO Rating of Class II because of the force we have.

Yes, in a perfect world for us to hire more people and call that the relief factor that would be great if we
could do that. But it is just something | think at the end of the day where you look at what we are talking
here about pension costs. We are talking vacation, health care all these benefits, | don’t think it is cost
effective to do that.

Chairman Dowd
Is this a follow up to the same question?

Ms. McKinney It’s just a comment that perhaps | am from the small business world and | can guarantee
you, each and every one of you | can guarantee you that there is no small business that doesn’t look at a
budget and make decisions based on what they anticipate. They do not plan year after year to pay higher
costs overtime because they didn’t hire someone. It just doesn’t happen in small business, we’d go under
because we don’t have an endless resource of citizens picking up the tab. Maybe | am missing something
here, | get what the explanations are. But from a small business person’s perspective, it’s a bunch of
hooey.

Chairman Dowd

We are on the Fire Department Division.

Daniel Richardson 70 Berkeley Street, Nashua, New Hampshire. Thank you. | want to draw your attention
to Wages & Salaries in particular Wages Full-Time. The 2021 Budget was $12,500,000.00 and the
proposed is $13,700,000.00. So | was looking at earlier the Page 9 again it shows a table for Fire
Department not just this is like the total amount going up by 4%. So! am looking at this Wages only going
up from $12.5 to $13.7. That looks almost like a 10% or greater increase in wages. Am | correct?

Mr. Griffin

Mr. Chairman | may be able to help with this question and this again explains why things can’t be,
percentage increases, but Mr. Richardson if you look at line 51900 last year. For comparative purposes |
would simply take that number.

Mr. Richardson | can’t find it.

Mr. Griffin

Are you on Page 150?

Mr. Richardson | am on Page 150.

Mr. Griffin

OK 150 below the subtotal of overtime as you approach fringe benefits there’s a 51900 Salary Adjustments
of $1.146 million in Fiscal ’21.

Mr. Richardson | see it.
Mr. Griffin
The reason why the Wages Full Time last year was $12.5 million is they were waiting for their Collective

Bargaining Agreement to be approved by the Board of Aldermen. That number 1.146 that was a
contingency for negotiation that | spoke of earlier, that number needs to be added to the $12.5.

Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 34
Mr. Richardson So really the budget book is showing on that Wages Full Time line is before the award of
the contract. Is that correct?

Mr. Griffin

The $12.5 is before the award. The $1.1 is a combination of two fiscal years.

Mr. Richardson So once that has been awarded what would this percentage increase be for this year?
Mr. Griffin

For Fiscal ’22?

Mr. Richardson Yeah.

Mr. Griffin

Subject to check it might be 3.5%.

Mr. Richardson So there was a 4% last year.

Mr. Griffin

Close to 4.

Mr. Richardson When | took a look at the contract to be awarded, is like a 4 year contract. Total of 17%
over that period of time.

Chairman Dowd
Time is up.
Mr. Richardson That’s outrageous.

Fred Teeboom 24 Cheyenne. | have a question, | think | know the answer for the Fire Chief. You don’t
have to get up. You mentioned overtime, let’s say for example you have a half a million in overtime, you are
giving people vaccinations and the Federal Government gives all that money back. Meanwhile you got paid
overtime with the City’s Budget. What happens to the money Mr. Mayor that the Federal Government
reimburses the Fire Department?

Mr. Griffin

So Mr. Chairman to the extent — John Griffin CFO — to the extent we are able to get reimbursed, this budget
once we are confident that FEMA and other funding sources will reimburse us, we reduce this particular
expense. It wouldn’t reduce the budget it would reduce the actual expenditures.

Mr. Teeboom Wouldn’t you count that as revenue, so wouldn’t the foul up the budget. The Fire Department
the budget changes from year to year. Sometimes | go back to previous year’s budget and | find the report
has changed slightly. Wouldn’t you take a reimbursement from the Federal Government as a revenue.

Mr. Griffin

When we make the filing for the FEMA reimbursements we have to provide all the backup documentation.
What you are suggesting is do you keep that excess cost in the budget and take in revenue so on the tax

Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 35

basis it is tax neutral. It would seem to me — well we have two problems — one is if the numbers are
significant enough the budget for the particular division we are talking about would be overspent.

Mr. Teeboom. | am not trying to do your job Mr. Griffin. | am just suggesting that this year in particular the
Federal Government has showered the State, they showered the City with money, COVID reimbursement
money, COVID relief money. Millions upon millions the State doesn’t even know how to spend the money.
What | am suggesting if the Fire Chief puts in overtime, fine put in the overtime, when the Federal
Government reimburses you put it in as revenue.

Chairman Dowd

30 seconds.

Mr. Teeboom And in this budget and the next budget but don’t change the overtime numbers because it
can’t be tracked from budget to budget otherwise. Thank you.

Chairman Dowd

Alright, we will move on to Emergency Preparedness. That’s Departments 156 and 157. Emergency
Management, Citywide Communications.

Beth Scaer 111 East Hobart Street. | read or | received an email from an anonymous source that the entire
CERT team quit last year. What is that - Emergency Response Team because of abuse from the Public
Health Department with the testing, | guess it was for the COVID testing. You know, they were working
under insane conditions, it was a really bad situation. So | was wondering what is happening with the CERT
Team. Thanks.

Chairman Dowd

CERT Team? Justin? Is that part of Public Health?

Mayor Donchess

Justin can you answer that. Is Bobbie here, | don’t know.

Ms. Scaer The Community Emergency Response Team is CERT.

Mayor Donchess

Yeah | realize that but | didn’t see Bobbie. Do you want to answer that Bobbie? This is Director Bagley of
the Public Health & Community Services.

Bobbie Bagley, Director Public Health & Community Services

Good evening, Bobbie Bagley from the Division of Public Health & Community Services Director. CERT is
the Community Emergency Response Team and after the incident during the summer the CERT manager
decided they were no longer going to participate in public health events after that event. So they haven't
been on board with us since then.

Chairman Dowd

Thank you. Is this a follow up?

Beth Scaer Yeah Beth Scaer, 111 East Hobart. So | was wondering if the CERT Team was working with
Emergency Management still? If they are still helping with the City.

Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 36
Chairman Dowd
No.

Ms. Scaer They are completely not helping at all. OK. Sounds like a great loss for the City. | am sorry to
hear that but glad to hear more.

Justin Kates, Emergency Management Director

So the CERT Team would support any of the City Divisions during an emergency; Fire Department, Police
Department, Office of Emergency Management. The Administrative Management of that group is under
Public Health so we don’t manage the day to day operations or the training or anything like that. But what
we would do is if Emergency Management or if another agency requested their support, we would reach
out to Bobbie, Director Bagley for support in whatever task was necessary and whether they were available
or not they would perform an assessment to see if they would be able to provide that service or not. So
that’s the current status of other Department’s use of that CERT Team.

Ms. Scaer Follow up. So that means that since they are not working with Public Health they are not working
with anyone? They are not available to us as a City? Is that correct.

Director Kates

Yeah if there’s no leadership within CERT then | am assuming that they are not available to other
Departments same as they wouldn’t be available to public health.

Ms. Scaer OK. Thank you.
Chairman Dowd

Alright we will move on to the next Division, Other Public Safety, Department 159 — Hydrant Fees Fire
Protection and 162 Street Lighting. Are there any questions on that? Seeing none we will move on to
Public Health Community Services Division. Community Services is on 171, Community Health 172,
Environmental Health 173, Welfare Administration 174 and Welfare Assistance 175.

Beth Scaer 111 East Hobart Street. | am concerned because the Public Health Department has on their
website that they welcome all gender identities. And | saw it on the Public Health Van too. | know the
Public Health Director has been very concerned about, according to her newsletters, that the Nashua
residents are following the science, the science about COVID, the science about vaccines, the science
about other public health issues. But when you are saying that you welcome all gender identities that is...

Chairman Dowd
Excuse me, is this a specific budget question?

Ms. Scaer Well | mean | am just questioning the running of the whole Department. | think the Department is
being mismanaged when | see these kinds of issues.

Chairman Dowd
So you have a question?

Ms. Scaer Yeah | want to know, you know, | just question whether this Department is being properly
managed when we have the Director they welcome all — we are up to 112 gender identities, it’s just mumbo
jumbo and our whole public health is branded with these messages about the gender identities when we
have actual public health problems that need to be addressed like COVID and you know lead poisoning
and a gazillion other serious health problems. But we are going rogue, our public health department is

Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 37

going rogue and reaching out to gender identities like non-binary and | don’t even want to begin to list them
all, it’s ridiculous. And | am just very disappointed to see how this Department is being run. And especially
now, we’ve lost our CERT Team. This is a travesty. Thank you.

Chairman Dowd

OK we will move on to the Public Works Division. That's Department 160 Public Works, Administration,
Engineering; 161 is Street Department; and 177 Parks & Rec.

Paula Johnson Good evening, Paula Johnson again still here at Nashua at the High School. I’ve got a
couple of questions here on Public Works. This Budget isn’t the easiest one to follow. Because it used to
be that you had the Director, the Superintendent of Streets and everything. Now you’ve got to keep flipping
through pages here and trying to figure everything out. Director of Public Works, she spends sometimes —
it’s all mumbo jumbo here. 20% of the time she spends Waste Water, trying to find all this. Executive
Assistant 15% of the time in Waste Water. | dropped all my papers here. This is only half we will wait until
Wednesday come for my Board, I’ve got a folder full of stuff. Let me put this down before | drop it.
Sometimes | wonder why | do so much research on stuff. Let’s see | am trying to figure it all out too this
whole budget. Superintendent of Streets | see is $106,343.00 that person just stays in the Street
Department it looks like. Operations Supervisor that one | am trying to look across, trying to figure out if
that person stays all the time in that Department. So maybe | can ask the questions to the Directors and
then if | give up my 3 minutes I'll just back in line and I'll go behind Ms. Ortolano to ask some more
questions because | am kind of confused here because it looks like the Director of Public Works 70% of the
time | guess she’s the Director of Public Works; 10% she’s someplace else for $10,888.00. 70% she’s
$104,216.00 and then there’s 20% for $29,776.00 in Solid Waste Streets for $148,880.00. And then the
Director of the Street Department, | want to know if that person is in charge of the plowing because | want
to complain about, this year the plowing was pretty bad we didn’t get out there when we should have. And |
just want to know how many of these Directors actually were working from their office during the pandemic.
Because people have offices like you do Mayor that you are not directly with people.

Chairman Dowd

30 seconds.

Ms. Johnson So | would like to know even in the Street Department how many people were actually at their
desks working the whole time that their employees were out there working also doing their jobs? | guess
this really applies to the whole City. So if the Mayor is not in his office, why would his employees be in the

office.

Lisa Fauteux, Director of Public Works

Mrs. Johnson the majority of my Division worked through the entire pandemic with the exception, there
were a few people that worked remotely for a very short period of time and also in Engineering &
Administration, some of those folks worked remotely because they could. But the vast majority, including
myself and the Assistant Director were here throughout the pandemic.

Ms. Johnson | remember | had to call Engineering and | had to call to get some information and nobody got
back to me because Engineering was not in the office. And | can’t remember what it was because last year
was — | don’t want to remember it very much. So you were in the office every day?

Director Fauteux

Yes | was.

Ms. Johnson And everybody else was in the office every day, except for Engineering.