Finance Committee - 4/4/2018 Page 21
ADJOURNMENT
MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN TO ADJOURN
MOTION CARRIED
The Finance Committee meeting was adjourned at 8:33 p.m.
Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly
Committee Clerk
From:
Re:
From:
Re:
From:
Re:
From:
Re:
From:
Re:
Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Purchase of Two (2) Six Wheel and One (1) 10 Wheel Dump Truck Up-Fitting Packages
(Value: $218,963); Department: 161 Street; Fund: Trust; Activity: CERF
Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Purchase of One (1) 10 Wheel Cab and Chassis Truck (Value: $117,800); Department: 161
Street; Fund: Trust; Activity: CERF
Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Purchase of Two (2) Six Wheel Cab and Chassis Trucks (Value: $177,800); Department: 161
Street; Fund: Trust; Activity: CERF
Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Digester Cleaning Project — Change Order #3 (Value: Not-To-Exceed $95,000); Department: 169
Wastewater, Fund: Wastewater
Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Purchase of Raw Sewage Pump Wear Plates and Rings (Value: $51,200); Department: 169
Wastewater, Fund: Wastewater
UNFINISHED BUSINESS — None
NEW BUSINESS — None
DISCUSSION
RECORD OF EXPENDITURES
PUBLIC COMMENT
NON-PUBLIC SESSION WITH CORPORATION COUNSEL STEVEN A. BOLTON
ADJOURNMENT
REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE
MARCH 21, 2018
A meeting of the Finance Committee was held on Wednesday, March 21, 2018, at p.m. in the Aldermanic
Chamber.
Mayor Jim Donchess, Chairman, presided.
Members of the Committee present: Alderman Michael B. O’Brien, Vice Chair
Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly
Alderman-at-Large Brandon Michael Laws
Alderman Patricia Klee
Alderman June M. Caron
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Alderman Jan Schmidt
Also in Attendance: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
David G. Fredette, Treasurer/Tax Collector
Sarah Marchant, Community Development Director
John Griffin, CFO
PUBLIC COMMENT — None
COMMUNICATIONS
From: Mayor Jim Donchess
Re: Emergency PO Request — Emergency Contract with TDD Earth Tech, Inc. for $12,380 to
Perform Sewer Repairs
There being no objection, Mayor Donchess accepted the communication and placed it on file.
From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: Purchase of Used Undercover Vehicles (Value: $17,559.95)
MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND APPROVE
THE PURCHASE IN THE AMOUNT OF $17,559.95
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Laws
Thank you Mayor. Just out of curiosity, do we sell the vehicles that we already have or are we just adding
these to the fleet.
Mayor Donchess
| didn’t get any information on whether they traded anything in or not.
John Griffin, CFO
These are purchased from dealers or car sellers that are not readily apparent so these are under cover
vehicles so they are not using what they have; they are getting new used vehicles for that purpose.
Finance Committee - 3/21/2018 Page 2
Alderman Laws
We currently have under cover vehicles, are we decommissioning them?
John Griffin, CFO
I’m not sure, as purchasing manager Kooken said I’m not sure if we do anything with them. | believe these are
purchased for the duties and responsibilities of the undercover officers.
Mayor Donchess
| think that there is documentation if you look at the last page. And | think this drug forfeiture that is being used
to purchase the vehicles. Not actual city funds, not tax funds? Any further discussion or questions.
MOTION CARRIED
From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: Ambulance Contract Extension (Value: $0); Department: 152 Fire
MOTION BY ALDERMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND, CONTINGENT UPON BOARD OF
ALDERMEN APPROVAL, AUTHORIZE THE ONE YEAR EXTENSION TO THE AMBULANCE AGREEMENT
WITH AMERICAN MEDICAL RESPONSE OF MASSACHUSETTS, INC.
FOR A ZERO VALUE
MOTION CARRIED
From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: Division of Public Health & Community Service Site Participation Agreement with Mary Hitchcock
Memorial Hospital and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic (Value: $0)
MOTION BY ALDERMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO
DARTMOUTH-HITCHCOCK FOR A ZERO VALUE
ON THE QUESTION
Major Donchess
Now Director Bagley is here and will come forward and answer any questions that anyone may have.
| don’t know if there are any questions. Do you want to explain the relationship that is being proposed?
Bobbie Bagley
Thank you Mayor Donchess. The Division of Public Health and Community Services is a part of the integrated
delivery network which is for Region 3 for the City of Nashua with a focus on behavioral health and substance
abuse disorder. And a part of the IDN allowed for a contract with Dartmouth and as a sub-contract agreement
with the Volunteer NH to allow for AmeriCorp Workers to assist some of the projects that we have through our
IDN and the Division of Public Health and Community Services looks to support one of those AmeriCorps
workers at our division to allow for a continuum of care, services and support, services for some of the
substance abuse disorders work that we do in the community.
The individual will be placed at the Division for 1 year and as stated in the Memo at zero cost to the City.
Dartmouth will cover the full amount for the salary of this Americorp worker and they will work with our staff
doing outreach, peer support and doing some education and prevention work with substance abuse disorder.
Finance Committee - 3/21/2018 Page 3
Mayor Donchess
Questions or discussion?
Alderman Caron
Thank you | think this is a great addition to the Health Department, any additional help that we can get for
nothing to do some outreach is excellent so | think that is wonderful that you were able to reach out to and get
them onboard.
MOTION CARRIED
From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: Broad Street Parkway Property Appraisals (Value: $10,000)
MOTION BY ALDERMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO
CAPITAL APPRAISAL ASSOCIATION, INC. IN THE AMOUNT OF $10,000. SOURCE
OF FUNDING IS DEPARTMENT 160, ADMINISTRATION/ENGINEERING; BROAD STREET PARKWAY
BOND
MOTION CARRIED
From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: Change Order #4 to Contact with Northeast Earth Mechanics to Expand Construction of the
Residential Setback Barrier Wall in the Phase II Landfill (Value: $199,763)
MOTION BY ALDERMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE CHANGE ORDER #4
TO THE CONTRACT WITH NORTHEAST EARTH MECHANICS IN THE AMOUNT
OF $199,763. FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE IN DEPARTMENT 168, SOLID WASTE BOND
MOTION CARRIED
From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: Nashua Transit System — Token Transit (Value $0)
MOTION BY ALDERMAN KELLY TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO
TOKEN TRANSIT, INC. FOR A ZERO VALUE
ON THE QUESTION
Mayor Donchess
Director Marchant is here to explain this so would she come forward.
Sarah Marchant
Thank you very much. Good evening. The idea of Token Transit is it is a zero dollar out from the City and it
would be an app on your phone that would allow you to purchase bus passes, individual and monthly. It would
also allow us to offer some additional kinds of passes for the system. This is the first time that we would be
offering other ways of purchasing bus tickets. We are constrained and we get a lot of complaints about the fact
that the only way you can purchase bus passes is through the transit center, which is open very limited hours —
9 to noon and 1 to 5, weekdays only. So this allows it to be a little more mobile and it’s very easy to download
an app to your phone and make that work. It does have a reduction in revenue which we are anticipating with
this between $4,000.00 and $8,000.00 a year but we think that the service to our constituents is worth it and
that it would certainly cost us a lot more to buy this software and provide the customer service and all of that
with it ourselves. We would very much like to move forward with something this.
Finance Committee - 3/21/2018 Page 4
Alderwoman Kelly
Yes thank you for explaining that, it sounds like it’s a move in the right direction. | do have a question about
the reduction of revenue, do you know, can you pinpoint what that is coming from?
Sarah Marchant
Yes, great question. So that the actual providers of the app make some money and so that they can pay their
customer service people, they will charge us 10% of fares over $2.00 and they will charge us $.15 cents on
fares under $2.00. So that is an estimate based on the fares that we use and Token Transit has done this at a
bunch of communities around the country and we did call the people who have used them and they have great
things to say about them. But on average, only about 10% of users will use this system and so we were
looking at about 10% of ridership using this system so that’s an estimate and that’s why it is kind of broad.
Alderwoman Kelly
So that 10% is what you think will shift to the app?
Sarah Marchant
Correct.
Alderwoman Kelly
Do you think it will increase ridership among people?
Sarah Marchant
| think there is potential that it certainly could especially if we can offer a family pass which we have been trying
to do. It’s very hard for say a mom to get on to go the grocery store and she has 2 or 3 kids and they have to
pay all individually. It makes it much more affordable if we can offer a family pass and | think it will make it
more user friendly. So we do think that should help.
Alderman Klee
| think this a great idea. My only question is we are not going to lose any personnel or staffing?
Sarah Marchant
No we would not be losing anybody.
Alderwoman Klee
That would mean that it’s almost like having more additional personnel because we can do ticket sales
virtually?
Sarah Marchant
Correct, yes.
Alderwoman Klee
So in some respects it’s saving money.
Finance Committee - 3/21/2018 Page 5
Sarah Marchant
We certainly could not do it for this dollar value if we tried to do this in-house ourselves, it would cost us a lot
more.
Alderman Laws
| also think it’s a great idea. Who is responsible for marketing this to potential bus riders?
Sarah Marchant
Excellent Question. Token Transit has a marketing team that they deploy with it and they will work with our
staff to make sure that we continue to be Title 6 and ADA compliant with our advertising and to make sure that
we are hitting everything we can. So they will be working with several members of our staff to spread it far and
wide.
Alderwoman Kelly
Yes, so actually | wanted to follow on what Alderman Laws was talking about. Do you also get a support
system so if you have tech issues, that kind of thing, does it come from Token Transit?
Sarah Marchant
It does and even better if somebody has a complaint or an issue they call Token Transit, they don’t call us.
And they have staff who are ready and can react and literally go into the back end of the system and fix things
on the fly. So there isn’t a triangle and we are not sending people around, “Oh sorry, you have to call this
number’. Everything on the app will direct them directly to the Token Transit Staff. In addition, they will share
all their background data and analytics with us of who is buying, what are the buying. That | think is valuable
data for us that will help inform future tickets sales. So that will be good.
MOITON CARRIED
Mayor Donchess
Now are you here also on R-18-012?
Sarah Marchant
Yes | am.
Mayor Donchess
In addition to the change in the order that | already mentioned, | think we should also take the new business
resolutions, because we have people waiting on those and those probably won't take very long. So we do
have Mr. Mansfield who is here on R-18-010. Maybe introduce yourself and then explain what the resolution
would do
Finance Committee - 3/21/2018 Page 6
There being no objection, Mayor Donchess went out of order to New Business Resolution R-18-010
NEW BUSINESS — RESOLUTIONS
R-18-010
Endorsers: Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman June M. Caron
Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly
Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja
Alderman-at-Large David C. Tencza
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
AUTHORIZING THE CITY TO ENTER INTO A MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WITH THE
CITY OF MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE REGARDING A REMOTE DISPATCH CENTER
Bill Mansfield
| am the radio systems manager for the City of Nashua. The resolution is for a memorandum of understanding
between the City of Nashua and the City of Manchester. Several months ago Manchester and Nashua applied
for a grant through Homeland Security to build a Communication Center that basically is a redundant
Communication Center so that if we had a major catastrophe down here in Nashua with either Police or Fire
Dispatch or Radio Communications we could go up to a facility up in Manchester and basically dispatch from
that location there. Manchester has the same grant that we received, $300,000.00 and Nashua also received
$300,000.00 and it’s basically to build this Communication Center.
Because of the contracts and the size of the contracts that we are going to be dealing with, especially with
Motorola who is going to be a vendor for this it would be very difficult for us to get two separate contracts for
each of the cities. So what basically the grant did is that it gave Nashua $300,000.00 and it gave Manchester
$300,000.00 instead of making two separate contracts with Motorola for one thing. This memorandum and
understanding is basically to allow Manchester to cut us a purchase order for their $300,000.00 and then when
invoices come in to us, because I'll be managing the grant for both Manchester and Nashua, when the invoices
come in to us, we would take the invoice, cut the price in half, invoice Manchester for their half of the invoice
and then they would submit their payment back to us here in the city and then we would pay the invoice. So
that’s pretty much, in short, what the memorandum of understanding is about.
Mayor Donchess
Any questions or comments? Is there a motion regarding R-18-010?
MOTION BY ALDERMAN CARON TO RECOMMEND FINAL APPROVAL R-18-010
MOTION CARRIED
Finance Committee - 3/21/2018 Page 7
R-18-012
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman Patricia Klee
Alderman-at-Large Brandon Michael Laws
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Alderman June M. Caron
Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly
Alderman-at-Large David C. Tencza
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF NASHUA TO ENTER INTO CONTRACTS WITH NASHUA COMMUNITY
COLLEGE, RIVIER UNIVERSITY, TOWN OF HUDSON, TOWN OF MERRIMACK, AND THE PLUS
COMPANY FOR TRANSIT SERVICES
Mayor Donchess
Could you please explain this one.
Sarah Marchant
| am the Community Development Director. This is a contract that we renew annually with the entities listed for
them. They give us an amount that’s a discounted rate of rides per year for their students. Their students can
ride the whole system for free. We enter into contracts based on an average of the last several year’s ridership
with them and we charge them $1.00 a ride instead of $1.25. Their students can ride the whole system for free
anywhere, anytime. It’s also a huge benefit to the transit system because we cannot use fare box revenue as
matching funds to our FTA dollars but we can use contracted services like this as matching dollars to FTA
funds. So it’s very valuable to us to have contracts like this.
Mayor Donchess
Please have the record show that Alderman O’Brien has arrived from Concord. Any discussion or questions
regarding R-18-012. Is there a motion?
MOTION BY ALDERMAN CARON FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-18-012.
MOTION CARIES
PRESENTATION
Capital Equipment Reserve Fund Presentation
Mayor Donchess
Just to review a little bit, when we met a week ago Monday or was it two weeks regarding the State ordered
revaluation we suggested that the funds that would be necessary to contract for this service would be able to
come from the CERF account in which there is a significant balance. At the time it was suggested the Finance
Committee, the committee that is authorized to make the contract, to authorize funds such as this, give a
presentation regarding the CERF account, how it works and discuss any other issues you’d like to discuss
concerning the proposed contract. So Mr. Griffin has a presentation that he’d like to make. | am going to talk
through the first couple of slides, which will be very brief and then we will go on from there.
Finance Committee - 3/21/2018 Page 8
This just reviews a little bit of wnat we talked about the other night. Now David Fredette, the City Treasurer,
has joined our discussion, so thank you Mr. Fredette. The first slide just discusses very briefly, in review, this
and the next slide will show you the reason we are very concerned about the State ordered revaluation and
why we want to be particularly careful about proceeding and making sure we get all evaluations correctly. This
first one on the left shows the current valuation of the City which is approximately $8.5 billion dollars, the
assessed value of all the property in the City. We are talking about the left half of the slide. The light blue
column shows you the total value of the residential assessments in the City, which is approximately in total
$5.3 billion dollars. The dark blue column shows you the commercial assessments, everything that is not
residential, single family or small residence properties and that totals $3.2 billion. So we have currently 62.4%
of the City’s valuation is residential and about 37.6% is commercial, approximately 2 to 1 but a little bit less.
The equalization ratio on the residential property as you see below is .8 which means that on average
residential properties are assessed at 80% of their true value based upon the fact that residential home values
have increased very significantly over the last five years. The last time, we had to undergo a State ordered re-
evaluation.
On the right, you see that some sales imply that the commercial equalization ratio might be .93, meaning that
commercial properties, based upon a limited number of sales, are valued at 93% of real value. In other words,
residential homes have gone up more quickly during the last five years than commercial values have. The
good news of course is that people’s homes are worth a lot more than they used to be. On the other hand, it
has an implication in a state-ordered re-evaluation that could have some unfortunate consequences.
If you look to the right of this slide, that once the values we showed on the left are adjusted to 100%, in other
words, residential goes from 80% assessment to 100% and commercial, based on this limited number of sales
goes from 93% to 100%, we now move up to about a $10 billion dollar evaluation. Except that now $6.6 billion
dollars or 66% is residential and commercial is now $3.4 billion dollars or 34%. So you see the share of
residential has climbed from 62.4% to 66% and the share of the total represented by commercial has fallen
from 37.6% to 34%.
The next slide shows you what the consequences of that could be. On the left, again, we have current
valuations and based upon the idea that we are collecting about $200 million dollars in taxes, which is
approximately the number — ballpark, we are now collecting 62.4% of the total from residential or $124 million
dollars. We are collecting 37.6% from commercial or about $75 million dollars from commercial and industrial.
If we adjust the appraisals, using those equalization ratios of 80% for residential and 93% for commercial, we
see that the relative tax burden would shift to wnat you see on the right. 66% of the collections of $200 million
dollars would now be paid by residential property tax payers and 34% of the total of $200 million dollars would
be paid by commercial so that the share of the pie paid by residential could climb from $125 million dollars to
$132 million dollars, whereas the share of the pie based on $200 million dollars paid by commercial and
industrial could fall from $75 million dollars to $68 million dollars, meaning a shift of $7 million dollars from
commercial and industrial on to residential. This would result in property tax increase to virtually all residential
property owners which is of course something we would prefer not to see.
We know that this commercial equalization ratio of 93% is based upon a limited number of sales and we know
that the income approach towards commercial property which values commercial properties based upon the
income which is being generated as opposed to a very limited number of sales or as opposed to a cost
approach, may result in a fair apportionment between residential and commercial. This may result in closer to
real fair market values for commercial, which could bring that 93% equalization down meaning commercial
properties would increase potentially more if we really assess their real values based on the income approach.
That is why we are proposing that we get KRT, they are experts, and you met them the other night, to help us
work through this entire process. Send out the new assessments to all property owners to conduct meetings
with anybody who disagrees with their property owners, that we have independent experts who are telling us
what these properties are worth based upon the most advanced expertise in the field. That is the contract we
are proposing.
Where we have gotten to now is that you’ve got the contract as part of the agenda but we are proposing that
the funds be taken from the CERF or the Capital Equipment Reserve Fund. John Griffin, CFO will talk you
