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Board of Aldermen 06-11-2019 Page 8

So what we are voting on is the $65K to put in contingency to allow the School Department to hire what
they can in the areas of para or school psychologist. So that’s what we are voting on right now, the
amendment.

Alderman Lopez

So Southern NH has, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, one of the highest suicide rates
in the country. We have all kinds of national dialogue about school shootings, about violence in schools,
about bullying. Not only does that happen in schools but every time we have it in the national media, then
kids are seeing it, they are viewing it, they are having trouble understanding what to do with it. This City is
going through an SUD crisis, many of these children have experienced friends, families, uncles, aunts,
parents, you know, suffering from Substance Use Disorders. We have recently have a pretty contentious
discussion over smoking in schools and the difficulties that entails. | Know we are not in the top 4 or 5
when it comes to college placement. These are all things that a School Counselor would be working on. |
think our school counselors, their caseloads are like 3 or 4 times what is recommended, according to the
School Counseling Association. | think they are overworked and stretched too thin. These are more than
bodies. These are people who are force multipliers when it comes to how our kids are able to navigate the
School System. Kids who have positive mental health can do better in school, they can score higher on
tests, they can interact better with their peers.

So | think the presentation and the proposal being made here is a bargain. It is not a huge surge or
increase; it is recognition that our school population needs more than it is getting right now. If that means
in future years we have to continue to revisit the issue, | think we should. | think that needs to be a major
part of the future budget’s focus areas is how are our schools meeting the expectations that they have? It
ties directly back to tax value, quality of community, every time we end up in Number 1 Best Place to Live
on whatever app of the week is doing it, it is always related back to education and school safety. So | am
in favor of that and | am also conscious of an ever expanding, diverse world. We are a welcoming City
and the need for para-professionals to help people who have cognitive or behavioral challenges or cultural
challenges, | think this is a very good reason to approve a small amount more in the budget.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

First of all | want to thank the Mayor, | think you’ve done an exceptional job with the budget and preparing
the budget for everyone. As | recall with the budget that the school came back with, they did get or they
agreed to what was presented by the Mayor is that correct?

Mayor Donchess
Yes, yes.

Alderman Harriott-Gathright

So | realize that there are a lot of things happening in the School Department here. | think we are, I’m not
saying baby steps, but | do believe that it takes time to get things in order. It is not going to be done
overnight, in any situation. And | say that because | am not willing to go to 2.997% tax for the City. We
have a lot of changes going on in the City, Assessing, the whole 9 yards, the tax change. | do believe that
2.7%, | really don’t even want to be there to be honest with you, but | guess | could live with 2.7% and |
believe that my constituents could too as well. But the 2.997% or 3.0% or whatever it might be, | would
not be voting for that.

Alderman Dowd

| just want to make a correct, the Budget that was submitted by the School Department got a bottom line
cut from the Mayor for $380,000.00.

Board of Aldermen 06-11-2019 Page 9

Mayor Donchess

| think they voted again then; their original budget was higher, then | went over there, we talked about it.
They reduced their request to the ....

Alderman Dowd

Nut the $380,000.00 was in the budget book.

Mayor Donchess

So maybe it was in the budget book: but they amended their request. You could take that either way.
Alderman Clemons

| kind of look at that argument like if you have a child and he wants to buy the king size candy bar but you
tell him “No you can’t buy the king size candy bar but you can buy the regular one”. Then “OK, well I’d
rather a candy bar than no candy bar right”. So it is kind of like that cut that was done, was done so
because we had to fit into this 3% goal. And | think it was done very well and you know it was a good
budget that was presented, but it is missing a few things. It is off by a little bit; 3% to me | don’t think is
going to work. What is being presented in front of us right now, the amendment that is actually under that
3% and we are talking about on an average house, the average household of $300,000.00, which that is
average household in this City, we are talking about $3.00 more a year. Three bucks. | don’t understand
the opposition, | just don’t. If there is a taxpayer out there that $3.00 is going to be the difference between
them keeping their house and losing their house, then they have a lot bigger problems; there are bigger
problems out there for them.

Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja

| am going to support this. | think that if you look at what is happening in communities and in school today,
we are aware of trauma that kids are coming to school with. We are aware of the importance of children
having an opportunity to talk about what is going on and to form relationships. | think since Alderman
Dowd and | were on the School Board years ago together, we and Alderman Clemons’ father and | were
on the School Board together, we have been talking about the need for counselors and even social
workers in the schools. | am not talking about just the high schools; | am talking about the early prevention
piece of having them available to our elementary schoolers. So | am going to support this. | think that the
benefit to the community, it can’t even be measured in terms of value. So | will support this.

Alderwoman Kelly

We talked through your concerns about you know the taxes and raising them; nobody wants to raise
taxes, we all live here, we all pay taxes here. I’ve been on the Budget Committee for 2 years in a row
which pales in comparison to a lot of people around this horseshoe. But every year we consistently hear
from every department that they are under-funded or level-funded. The Fire Department has not had an
increase other than wages for 14 years. So | think part of the budget is listening to them, hearing what
they are saying, trying to keep that in a reasonable place for everybody but also deciding year-to-year
what things can we invest in and keep going, because we can’t consistently stay at this level, as our
population grows, as our needs grow. We haven’t for a long time been able to continually make sure
people are at full force or have the resources that they need. So | advocate for the school because | have
a daughter in the school: she has a para that she works with. I’ve seen a lot of young families who have
left the district and said it was because it was the school not having enough resources, those types of
things. And that is my own personal experience, but | think that it is real and | think that we have to step
up and invest. And $3.00 a household is not a lot.

Board of Aldermen 06-11-2019 Page 10
Alderman Klee

And | agree $3.00 a household is not a lot but | don’t want the public to think that their tax bill is only going
to go up $3.00. Their tax bill is going to go up a little bit more because it is a little less than 3%, that’s
what it is going to go up. But | agree, the only difference is the $3.00. And | am not disagreeing with this
$65,000.00. | came in saying “probably not” but | am listening. | do think, and as a person who has been
playing crossing guard for the past couple weeks because we are down 6 % crossing guards; | understand
that the school has its issues. They are not down that because they can’t afford it, they are down that
because they can’t hire anybody. But | do understand that there are some big issues within the school
and so on. | am not saying that | will say “no” to this. But | am concerned that we are just doing here and
there. My hope is that next year that the State passes the budget and we see some increased funds in the
second year of that budget. But in the meantime | do have some issues with nickel and dime and so on.
But | just need to say that. Thank you.

Alderman Dowd

When | first started into the budget and had discussions with the Mayor and others, we set a goal of trying
to keep the tax rate under 3% because two things were killing us. One was the 11%, the $3 million dollar
increase in health insurance, because we pay a lot more than that, but it is a $3 million dollar increase.
That’s normally the increase in the entire budget just about. The other thing is the lack of State funding,
not saying anything against any of the Reps here because | know they all support increased funding.
Hopefully from what I’ve read, there is a change that we will be getting more State help and things might
be better. We also have City employees that are pursuing reducing the $3 million dollar health impact so
that bodes well perhaps for next year. | supported the paras because as the liaison to the Board of
Education and having close contact with a lot of teachers and people who work in the School District,
including people who have my ear quite closely, like my daughter, they are woefully short of paras. Two is
not going to even put a dent in it; but as long as it stayed under 3% and we could add 2 paras, | was OK
with it. That’s why | went and checked on just exactly where we were, the 3 digit level. And so | am going
to support this. | think that let’s work on the amendment and then we will have to work on the entire budget
as amended.

Alderman Jette

| just want to clarify that the amended budget that we are voting on includes, does it include not only the
paras that Alderman Kelly is talking about but the ELL teachers that the Mayor talked about?

Alderman Dowd

Yes.

President Wilshire

That it is in contingency Alderman Jette. $200,000.00 in contingency for that purpose.
Alderman Jette

So this amended budget includes that?

Alderman Dowd

Absolutely.

President Wilshire

It does.

Board of Aldermen 06-11-2019 Page 11

Alderman Jette

OK.

Alderman Tencza

Just a point of clarification with that, the $200,000.00 is in the Mayor's Budget which only requires a
majority of the Board to pass whereas the additional $65,000.00 is in the amendment which requires 10
votes from the Board.

President Wilshire

The amendment only requires 8; if that passes, then the budget will require 10.

Alderman Tencza

So if | may just follow up with that. | mean | supported the amendment in Committee and | am going to
support the amendment here tonight as well. | think that the paras are a group of employees in our City
that don’t get the credit that they deserve. We don’t compensate them for the difficult work that they do
and I’m not sure that we appreciate how much they mean to the schools for a lot of reasons. | have heard
from teachers that this has been a particularly tough year for them for a lot of reasons but | think that
having more support in the schools will certainly help not only them, but will help other kids in the
classroom be able to learn as well and thrive. So | am supportive of this and | hope it passes the Board.

President Wilshire

Thank you. | have a question if anyone can answer it. This $65,000.00 would fund 2 paras and a part-
time counselor, Alderman Kelly?

Alderwoman Kelly

The way | understood it was that the full time counselor, hold on one second | am trying to pull up the
document. Because | remember when we asked for the suggested changes it says 2 para-educators and
a social worker/counselor. So my understanding that it was a full-time.

President Wilshire

So there has been discussion about the paras, there are positions open now that they can’t fill, is that what
| am hearing?

Alderwoman Kelly

Yeah and actually that was brought up at budget, that was one of the reasons why we put it in
contingency, so if they are unable to fill those positions, the money goes back to the General Fund.

President Wilshire
Very good and | am going to support that too. So we are going to vote on the amendment.
Alderman Dowd

Just one other point, just so people are aware, paras don’t get paid very much money.

Board of Aldermen 06-11-2019 Page 12
President Wilshire

That’s an understatement.

Alderman Lopez

Neither do school counselors.

Alderwoman Kelly

To say the least.
President Wilshire

So the motion before us is to amend R-19-123 by replacing it with the proposed amendments made at the
Budget Committee by roll call. Further discussion? Would the Clerk please call the roll.

A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Klee, Alderman Laws,
Alderman Lopez, Alderman Caron, Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Jette,
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja, Alderman Tencza, Alderman Schmidt,
Alderman Clemons, Alderman Wilshire 13

Nay: Alderman Harriott-Gathright, 1

MOTION CARRIED

MOTION BY ALDERMAN DOWD FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-19-123 AS AMENDED BY ROLL CALL
ON THE QUESTION

Alderman Dowd

Now again, with the $65,000.00 added it is under 3%, yes a fraction under 3% but in a budget of a size
that we are talking about a small percentage is a lot of money. So it really in the Budget Committee just to
refresh for people that weren’t there, we had an amendment suggested by Alderman Clemons and |
actually applaud him for bringing that forward. It involved $113,000.00 for the Police Department and
$100,000.00 for the Fire Department | believe that amount. Believe me, it bothers me that we are not able
to come up with that funding and stay under 3%. It bothered me so much that the next day, again, | had
conversations with the new Chief of Police or soon-to-be new Police Chief and the Deputy and the Fire
Chief and the Deputy. While they would love to have that money, they understand, they fully understand
where we are at and can live with the budget as it stands in this amended budget. So to me, if they are
willing to live with it and understand why we need to try to reduce the tax impact to the taxpayers of the
City of Nashua, given the constraints that drove the budget to that level | am fine with recommending
approval.

Alderman Clemons
Thank you. | am going to make a motion to amend the budget by adding $113,000.00 to the bottom line of

the Police Department and $100,000.00 to the bottom line of the Fire Department and I’d like to speak to
that.

Board of Aldermen 06-11-2019 Page 13

MOTION BY ALDERMAN CLEMONS TO AMEND THE BUDGET AND ADD $113,000.00 TO THE
BOTTOM LINE OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT BUDGET AND $100,000.00 TO THE BOTTOM LINE
OF THE FIRE DEPARTMENT

ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Clemons

Thank you. So the reason that | am proposing this is that because during the Budget Committee, we had
the Police Chief, so I’ll address the Police Department first, that section of my motion first. We had the
Police Chief come and tell us that basically they weren’t going to be able to make payroll unless they had
that $113,000.00 in the budget or at least they wouldn’t be able to hire or do the hiring that really a City
that is growing the way that we are, should be hiring. So | am proposing that we put that money back into
the budget for that reason.

Also at the Budget Committee, the Fire Chief brought up to us the fact that there is a problem where
businesses are being, there is lengthy waits to get inspections done, permits processed, because we need
a new Fire Inspector. That was a position that had been cut years ago and was something they wanted to
add on to their budget. They actually wanted to add two. Now | understand the fact that of course they
can live within the budget that we give them. Any Department would be able to live within the budget that
we gave them because that is their obligation. However, we should take into account the fact that, and
this is something that Nashua hasn’t experienced in a long time, is the fact that the City is actually, the
population of the City is growing. So between 1995 and 2015, the population in Nashua was stagnant. So
the fact that we were under the spending cap and all that, was really how we were able to maintain these
services is the fact that the City really never grew in population size. So you could have a Police Force
that was the same size as it was back in 1995 in 2015. You could have a Fire Department that was the
same size as it was in 1995 in 2015.

Now the City is growing; we are almost at 90,000 people. We are going to continue to grow. So we need
to make the investments and we need to say “What are the things that we need to do as a City to help our
Departments manage that growth”. One of the things that we can do is certainly not shortchange the
Police Department and make sure they are able to hire more Police Officers. So | think by adding that
$113,000.00 we achieve that. Secondly, the Fire Department, particularly the Inspector Position, we are a
growing City. So the fact that the population is growing means that there are more permits, there are
more things to inspect, there are more businesses that are going to be moving in to the City. That means
we have to keep up with the pace of that and put back in to the budget the Inspector. So | believe along
with the amendment that we just passed, if we were to add what | am proposing here, in total over what
the Mayor proposed, we would be talking a total of a $9.00 increase. So $3.00 from the proposal from
Alderman Kelly and $6.00 from this proposal. That’s $3.00 for the Police; that’s $3.00 for the Fire
Department and that’s $3.00 for the School Department on the average $300,000.00 home. | don’t think
that is too much to ask our citizens either for a budget that the Police are going to be able to increase
their presence in the City; to accommodate our growing population.

| think that is something that our citizens would want for an extra $3.00 on their taxes and having an extra
Fire Inspector | think is something that our business community would want, particularly because we are
having slowdowns in that area of getting these permits issued and that has been going on for a very long
time. It is an issue we can solve for again, $3.00 over what the Mayor has proposed. So | think, overall,
are we going over 3% with these proposals, yes, absolutely. But what are we getting out of it? Well we
are getting fully complemented Police Department and we are getting a Fire Department that is better
suited to meet the needs of a growing City. Now we can say “we will put this off to next year; maybe we
will do this next year”. But you know one of the things that my friends over in the Fire Department say
year after year, they are always told it’s not a good year. They have been told that for 14 years. Well
when is it a good year, because you know in 2006 it wasn’t a good year, then the economy tanked in 2008
and 2009 and that wasn’t a good year.

Board of Aldermen 06-11-2019 Page 14

The economy is better in 2016, 2017, 2018, it’s not a good year. When is it a good year, when is it a good
time? When are we going to fight for the people who fight for us? Well that’s what this amendment is and
| hope that you will join me in supporting it because again, we already gave $3.00 extra dollars to the
School Department, | think we can give another $6.00 to the Police and the Fire.

President Wilshire

My two cents Alderman Clemons we will do that when the State stops passing costs down to us. That’s
my opinion.

Alderman Klee

Yes and | echo those words. | think it’s more than $3.00, $3.00, $3.00. | think it’s probably in total closer
to $12.00 or even more. But putting that aside, the property owners that are taking the biggest hit these
days are the smaller homeowners and the condos. | can tell you, for instance, mine went up 9% without
this just because of the reassessment and so on. So we are not just looking at $3.00 and $6.00 and $9.00
or $12.00. We are looking at a total of really increasing it. But getting to the Police Department’s
$113,000.00 | sat right next to Chief Lavoie when he said it and one of the things that he said and | think
Alderman Kelly actually spoke to that was that they have never been up to complement because they
couldn’t hire. They are changing their new hiring practices with coming with something a little bit different.
I’'d like to see how those hiring practices go before we you know add $113,000.00. And agree with you,
I’d love to see more Police presence, but if they can’t hire, then this has been an issue to begin with.
Maybe with this new practice they will be able to hire.

As far as the Fire Department is concerned, | agree it would be nice to have more inspectors. But | also
believe that Chief Rhodes made a comment about he wasn’t going to be asking for anything this year, but
he would definitely be coming back next year. And to what President Wilshire has mentioned, it is time for
the State to stop passing all that down to us. And based on this year’s hopeful budget, we are looking at
maybe a 3.7 in municipal aid and $5 million in school funding; granted it will come in the second. And
maybe that is the year we can do; so maybe that is the right year and the good year. And | agree with
you, they are hearing it time after time after time and | speak to Firemen all the time also. And it is killing
me inside, | feel my blood pressure going up just even mentioning that | can’t support this. But! can’t. |
just can’t keep nickel and diming, it was one thing to do, as you pointed to $3.00. But not another $3.00,
$3.00, $3.00 because their taxes have not just gone up $3.00. They are going to go up whatever this 3%
is and whatever the assessment did. So | just can’t do that to them.

Alderman Harriot Gathright

Nashua just received four new officers. What Alderman Klee was referring to was their training packets,
what they are doing is they are hiring Police Officers that have already been trained to a certain degree.
So that’s why they can come in where they did come in.

Alderman O’Brien

Thank you. | thank Alderman Clemons for bringing this forward, but | really can’t support it, particularly
looking at the whole picture. | agree with Alderman Wilshire, that the State needs to stop knocking
everything back down. You’ve got to remember, they went from 35% in the Pension System is paying to
30% down to what 20%? And then down to practically nothing. The City, they never changed the law,
half-massed it. They didn’t change the law, they made “OH we are going to keep the rules the same, the
City, you pay for it’. And we did, and we have to now today. Some of these things, tax payers, you want
to vote for a spending cap, you are going to get what you pay for. Some of these positions on the Fire
Department that were cut, particularly the Fire Inspector was cut during the Bernie Streeter administration.
There have been other positions, they are missing a mechanic. They are missing a lineman for the
electrical division. They are missing a lot of things. And where did all those things go? There was no tax
in the City of Nashua folks, where did those jobs vaporized?

Board of Aldermen 06-11-2019 Page 15

It got vaporized with the spending cap and out of this particular chamber, that we didn’t give enough
money for them to operate. | hope those days are gone, but | am not going to make up 25 years of fiscal
foolishness in one year, we can’t although we really probably could, but we can’t. Maybe if we change our
attitude and get some decent people into this chamber that are progressive in thinking and looking and
they are going to come up. With a City Budget of 3% | think the people of the City can take into account
that the Mayor and this Board sharpened our pencils and we came up with something that was a darn
good budget that was practical. And keep in mind, we went through something that the State also gave us
down our bowling alley, was the reassessment that some people went through. So there were a lot of
things that came in and affected us and | think we did good. But again, | think now we have some other,
labor groups coming up for contracts and one of them is the Firemen and the Fire Fighters are doing the
extra duty. | Know the mechanics are working harder with only a limited amount of men to fix those trucks
and they get used an awful lot.

You’ve got engine companies that are doing close to 3,000, 2,000 runs a year for an engine company.
That’s a lot of work. They are not sleeping folks, you Know when you average out the call per day volume.
So these things need to be addressed and maybe we should reward them for their good work as it comes
down to. But | think if we take the budget methodically and slow and look and then in the future, Sarah
Marchant said with the Grant Writer that they are going to look into a new study, particularly with the Fire
Department. That | hope we listen to because that is going to come in with clear identification; what
positions going to need to be filled and put the importance upon that. So | use caution, | respect the
motion before us, | thank the Alderman again for putting the motion before us. But in prudence, | think
staying underneath 3% | think is enough for the tax payers to chew at this particular time. Then we could
look another crack in future budgets. Thank you.

Alderman Dowd

Just a couple things, again, | talked to both Police and Fire Chiefs. The one thing that Chief Lavoie took
issue with over the years is that they managed their budget and stayed within the budget by managing
attrition. At the end of the year they didn’t hire somebody to make ends meet until the end of the budget.
They also didn’t have as big a problem with that because on a few times when they went out with tests,
they got 100, 150 people to take the tests, zero became a Police Officer. So they had an issue hiring.
That’s why the Police Commissioners and the Police Department decided to change their modus operandi
hiring and go out and hire people from other forces. They tended not to do that in the past; they try to get
new officers and train them in to the way they want them trained. Other Departments did that and that’s
why Nashua loses Police Officers to other cities and State Police and occasionally FBI. We train them
well. So in talking to the Police Department they may have to budget that same way at the end of the
year, through attrition to make their ends meet. If they have a major event in the year and they have a
budget issue with it like that issue they had in Manchester, they will have to come back to us and ask for
more money. If they don’t, they don’t. But that would be addressed downstream. The other thing is that
Chief Rhodes actually called me and said that he didn’t want anybody on the Board of Aldermen to get the
idea that any business was delayed in being inspected because they are short a person. Their people
work the extra hours, the overtime, and they went out and made that these people were inspected and
they will still do that.

Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja

Yes thank you. Chief Rhodes and | also has a couple conversations about the budget and my impression
is the same as Alderman Dowd’s. And to Fire Marshalls going out and doing inspections, | had
conversations with two individuals who are involved in development and they were talking about someone
from the Fire Marshall's Office coming out. And they said “Well how did that go; how long did you have to
wait, | know they are really busy”. And both individuals said “Oh no problem, they came out and it got
done”. And | appreciate the fact that they are working extra hours to get that done. | also appreciate the
fact that all of our department heads and division heads have a fine balancing routine that we are all
engaging in.

Board of Aldermen 06-11-2019 Page 16

| think that we need to be very careful to make sure we keep the big picture in front of us because at the
end of the day when businesses and families decide to locate here, they are looking at the big picture.
Everyone has their own priority, just like every division head has within the City. So thinking about what
our tax rate it and is it something that is manageable, knowing “manageable” means different things to
different people. And yet trying to provide services that our constituents are happy with. | would tell you
that probably DPW could use a few more people too especially when you look at overtime in the winter
with plowing. And | know lots of people who say, “Why don’t they have more plows on the road” and “Why
aren't they out more often”. And it’s like, we’ve got a finite set of people and they do have to sleep. So |
think we could look across the City and look at where we need additional resources in terms of bodies.
But | do think we need to look at some of the areas that we’ve mentioned this year and aren’t able to
address and just make sure that we look at those first next year and see where the priorities are and
balance out how we are moving forward. Thank you.

Alderman Clemons

Thank you | just want to | guess respond to a couple of things and | understand that | don’t want to make
anybody think that | don’t understand that we have inspectors in the Fire Department and that yes, they
address the business’ needs, of course they do. But they are overworked. They are overworked. Do you
know what it’s like to work in a place that is overworked, where you are overworked? It is not a good
environment. We can argue back and forth all day, | personally believe what the Chief told me, both of
them, they were here, it was in a public session. These were the needs that they addressed. | have
always said that | would never be religious to an arbitrary number as far as where we can go with the
budget. | used to say that about the spending cap. You know, we’d come up with as former Alderman
Teeboom likes to say “We’d come up with a number, what’s the number we have to keep under”. Saying
it is 3% is really no different than that, it’s the same thing, it is just a different number. | personally don’t
look at budgets that way.

When | sit on the Budget Committee and | look at different things, | look at needs. | understand that we
need to be prudent. | think this budget is prudent. | think these amendments are prudent because they
don’t go fixing the spending cap problems overnight, they don’t. It is taking it one step at a time. But it is
taking it just a little bit further so we can address the fact that we are a growing City. But again, | am going
to support the amendment obviously and should the amendment not pass, | might as well explain this
now, | am going to vote “no” for the budget, because again, | can’t vote for a budget that doesn’t address
all of the needs that | feel are important or doesn’t fully fund all of our departments the way they should be
funded. So just want to put that out there.

Alderman Klee

| just want to make one comment, we are an aging City and we are trying to find young people to come in,
young people buy smaller homes. Those were the ones that had the biggest assessment so they are
going to hit the highest taxes. Our elderly many of them are on fixed income, | can tell you I’m on a fixed
income. So every dollar counts, every percentage counts. And | agree with you, 3% just seems like an
arbitrary number. But! think it is something that the public feels more comfortable with. They would
probably prefer the 1.6% and be the end with the health care. But that is kind of how they are feeling,
because they are looking at their pocketbooks. But | think keeping it under 3% is good faith to our
residents and yes it is an arbitrary number but it’s something.

Alderman Lopez

So one of my earliest memories of confusion and then later understanding was actually Alderman
Clemons voting against the budget because of the spending cap and he explained that he would stick to
his principles and he felt that the spending cap was an arbitrary number. | think the one of the most
important points made in that discussion when we had it, was that as Aldermen it is our job to do this. To
have the discussion back and forth, to figure out budget items and what appropriate needs can be met and
which ones need to be looked at and approached strategically.

Board of Aldermen 06-11-2019 Page 17

| think we have been fair to both the Fire and the Police Department. Both are highly performing
departments, they are recognized regionally as leaders. There have been new fire trucks, there have
been increases in individual compensation, in the number of dispatch agents. And that is well-earned too.
Our Fire Department has done amazing work with not only the Safe Station Program but in maintaining its
response time to different fires and emergencies. They are recognized as a regional training leader.
Same as for our Police, the entire State of New Hampshire is in the grips of what was being called the
opioid crisis at the time and Nashua is holding its own and is making arrests when it needs to. Its Police
Department is not so hurried that they can’t take the time to talk to children. | just saw an intervention
happening on Canal Street a couple days ago where | was impressed that the officers were entertaining
children and family members while the officer was interviewing a parent so as to not create a negative
impression. They take the time to hand out stickers to play basketball in the community, to do things that
matter because they are not just in it for the job, they are doing an outstanding job. And | think we also
recognized, much too late, that they needed infrastructure improvements too. That’s something that we
are tackling too. So | think we are recognizing the needs of the Fire Department and the Police
Department. | do agree with Alderman Clemons with regards to an arbitrary number guiding our
decisions, but | think this number, this 3% was conceived because of the State issues that were brought
up earlier, the insurance and the need for an assessment. Both of those conditions had to come into play
to impact our budget. And the 3% was created and it definitely didn’t go unchallenged; Alderman Dowd
went and made absolutely sure we were able to meet need when we saw it while at the same time staying
under a goal. | think that’s good budgeting, | think the discussion here has been very productive. We
haven't all agreed 100% on any particular point but | mean we are politicians, there’s a number of us fora
reason. It’s not just pick a number and then go for it. There has to be this discussion; there has to be
disagreement. So | appreciate what Alderman Clemons is trying to do. | won’t support an additional
amendment, but | do want to voice my support for his intent.

President Wilshire

| agree Alderman Lopez; | think his intent is great. However, | can’t support it either. Further discussion
on the amendment to add $100,000.00 to the Fire Department and $113,000.00 to the Police Department.
Further discussion on that amendment?

A Viva Voce Roll Call was taken, which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Clemons 1

Nay: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Dowd
Alderman Klee, Alderman Laws, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Caron,
Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Jette, Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
Alderman Tencza, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Wilshire 13

MOTION FAILED

President Wilshire

The motion before us is for final passage of Resolution 19-123 as amended. Further discussion on that?

Yea: Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Harriott-Gathright, Alderman Dowd
Alderman Klee, Alderman Laws, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Caron,

Alderwoman Kelly, Alderman Jette, Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
Alderman Tencza, Alderman Schmidt, Alderman Wilshire 13

Nay: Alderman Clemons 1

MOTION CARRIED