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Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P1

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 21:54
Document Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Page Number
1
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__092620…

A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, September 26, 2017, at 7:30 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.

President Brian S. McCarthy presided; City Clerk Patricia Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia Piecuch; Alderman Daniel T. Moriarty led in the Pledge to the Flag.

The roll call was taken with 15 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman Cookson arrived after roll
call at 7:36 p.m.

Mayor Jim Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.

REMARKS BY THE MAYOR

Mayor Donchess

The paving plan has gotten underway, and we are going to be doing during calendar year 2017, 13 miles of
streets between paving, micro-surfacing and sealing. This is probably double of what we’ve done in previous
years and we are just beginning to embark on the paving plan of action that we adopted earlier in the year or
late last year. As you recall we devoted $37.5 million to this plan over five years. | think this year we have
made significant progress. As we go into the future, we will be able to do even more than this year.

One thing on the agenda that | wanted to mention is the proposal that we enter into a Memorandum of
Understanding with the Boston Surface Railroad Corporation. This is a private company, the principal of which
is gentleman by the name of Vincent Bono. They are proposing that we work together to develop a plan to
establish privately funded profit-making commuter rail service beginning in Bedford near the Manchester
Airport, stopping in Nashua, and going to Lowell. The way this would be accomplished is if there’s municipal
involvement, in other words the City of Nashua, and Woonsocket has also been involved in another possible
leg, they can qualify to compete for a loan from the Federal Railway Administration. They need to borrow quite
a bit of money, but it would be a relatively low interest loan to make all the capital improvements required. If
they can get those funds and raise some private money, they then would have the funds to make the track
improvements, to buy the equipment, and to begin rail service going down in the morning and coming back at
night. It would be several trains to begin and then would expand if ridership and demand required it.

As far as the City of Nashua goes, we do not need to invest any money in the track improvements. There is no
ongoing subsidy required of the City. We do have our park-and-ride or rail location. If we adopt that as the
stop in Nashua, we would either need to decide whether we want to do just a platform or a station, but that
would be up to us. So there’s really minimal cost and a lot to be gained by the plan. | assume this will be
referred to a committee. Mr. Bono can come to the committee meeting to discuss the details and answer any
questions that anyone might have, and | assume there will be some. Again, | think getting Nashua people off
the road, getting them an alternative, other than the stop and go, grinding commute, like Ben makes every day
down to Cambridge, very rough. This would be a great benefit Nashua people.

On the agenda also, Mr. President, is the resolution that will basically establish the tax rate, will assign surplus
to reducing the tax rate as we always do. Mr. Griffin, the CFO, projects that we can reach a 2.9 percent
increase. Of course we have discussed the pension increase, the $2 million increase in our pension bill that
was imposed by the State of New Hampshire in this fiscal year. Without that $2 million increase the tax rate
would certainly be less and the increase in the tax rate would be more in the vicinity of 1.7 as opposed to 2.9.
That was, of course, recommended by the Budget Committee.

Also on our agenda is a nice thing the Mayor’s Volunteer Committee is doing. They are making their annual
award of the Gate City Light Award. This is going to go to PAL, the Police Athletic League, as the outstanding
volunteers of the year in our community. | think the award is well considered and certainly PAL is well-
deserving. They have a major impact on a number of kids in the tree streets and elsewhere and do a fantastic
job for the city, so | think the choice is a very good one.

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Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P1

Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P2

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 21:54
Document Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Page Number
2
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__092620…

Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 2

Finally, Mr. President, | wanted to mention the New England Roots Festival which is the music festival that we
have going this coming weekend. If you look at the schedule, this is being sponsored by GAD and by the River
Casino over on High Street. If you look at the schedule, you will see that there are four venues: Main Street,
Bicentennial, Railroad Square, and we have a whole number of performers. There are a couple of Grammy
nominated groups or singers that are coming in. They, Paul Shea and Ben Ruddick, have done a fantastic job
in programming this. They continue to improve the music offerings in downtown and in Nashua. | would
encourage everyone to come, bring your families. | went with my wife last year. The offerings weren’t as
extensive as this, but it was really a good time. | think people really enjoyed the music. | think you will find the
quality of the performers to be very, very high.

RESPONSE TO REMARKS OF THE MAYOR

President McCarthy

I’d just like to say that my street was ground-down last week and has had its base coat of pavement put on it.
I’m happy to see that after living there for nearly 40 years.

Alderman Deane
If anyone on the Board wants to see some of the micro-surfacing, you can go down to the South High School,
follow Riverside all the way down. It was done rather quickly and it seems to have bonded real nice. It’s going to

be nice to see our roadways paved. Thank you.

RECOGNITION PERIOD

R-17-131
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Board of Aldermen
RECOGNIZING THE NASHUA POLICE ATHLETIC LEAGUE WITH THE 2017 GATE CITY
LIGHT AWARD
Given its first reading;

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA THAT THE RULES BE SO FAR SUSPENDED AS
TO ALLOW FOR THE SECOND READING OF R-17-131
MOTION CARRIED

Resolution R-17-131 given its second reading

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-17-131
MOTION CARRIED

Resolution R-17-131 declared duly adopted.

READING MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING

MOTION BY ALDERMAN WILSHIRE THAT THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN
MEETING OF SEPTEMBER 12, 2017, BE ACCEPTED, PLACED ON FILE, AND THE READING

SUSPENDED
MOTION CARRIED

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Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P2

Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P3

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 21:54
Document Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Page Number
3
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__092620…

Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 3
COMMUNICATIONS

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA THAT ALL COMMUNICATIONS BE READ BY TITLE ONLY
MOTION CARRIED

From: Mayor Jim Donchess
Re: | Downtown Riverfront Development Master Plan

MOTION BY ALDERWOMAN MELIZZI-GOLJA TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND REFER TO THE
PLANNING & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
MOTION CARRIED

PERIOD FOR PUBLIC COMMENT RELATIVE TO ITEMS EXPECTED TO BE ACTED UPON THIS EVENING
Fred Teeboom, 24 Cheyenne Drive, Nashua

I’m here to talk about R-17-125 that the Mayor mentioned during his remarks. R-17-125 recommends $7.1
million be transferred from the city’s unassigned fund balance account to offset the tax rate. To put this all into
perspective, and this gets into accounting, but since I’m suing the city, I’m pretty much up-to-date on these
things. If you look at the tax levy, the tax levy is in Fiscal ’16, the latest number available, is $196.1 million, the
total amount of money that is collected from local property taxes. $196.1 million. 7.1 percent, if you calculate
that out, represents 3.6 percent. Every percent is $1.96 million. $7.1 million represents 3.6 percent. Instead
of putting another 3.6 percent from the citizens of Nashua, you take it out of the reserve account. That’s why
government accounting has to be regarded with great suspicion because the true tax increase, and | see
Alderman Clemons is smiling, maybe he understands all this, if you take the 2.9 percent increase that was
mentioned, predicted on the citizens of Nashua, you add the 3.6 percent, represented by $7.1 million on the
offset, the total tax increase, increase in taxes represents 6.5 percent.

Obviously you don’t want to tax people 6.5 percent. There would be uproar. There would be recalls. God
knows what would happen. So, you take money out of the reserve account. However in context, $7.1 million
is a very large number. If you look at the money transferred in past years, it’s 4.3 million in Fiscal 12 to $5.1
million in Fiscal 16. The only time we ever came close to this $7.1 million was $8 million during the Streeter
administration when we had the fiasco with the insurance fund. Other than that, transfers from fund balance
account typically are $4 to $5 million.

In the resolution before you, it mentions NRO 5-135,A. Look it up. Maybe some of you have, maybe you have
never heard of it or never read it. It says to maintain your undesignated general fund balance to a minimum of
ten percent. That’s a requirement of the NRO. A minimum of ten percent shall remain in the undesignated
fund balance, money that you took the $7 million out of. Plus, and nobody every talks about this, the statewide
enhanced education amount, the local school net commitment, plus the county appropriation. The county
appropriation is $11 - $12 million. I’m not here to talk about the other amounts. I’m just talking about the ten
percent.

If you look at the general budget, what’s the ten percent? The Fiscal 2018 budget has $258.5 million general
fund appropriations. The total appropriations for Fiscal 2018 was $301.5 million. At least you’ve got to keep
$30.1 million in the unassigned fund balance account, maybe more if you take the other things like county
taxes. But even disregarding that, ten percent means you have to have at least $30.1 million in fund balance
account. Guess what? Look up the fund balance account. Where do you find the fund balance account?
You’ve got to do some digging. It’s not easily found. If you look at the budget book, Fiscal ’18, which is now
adopted, on page 319, it mentions the unassigned fund balance account. That has no assigned purpose, like
a savings account or a rainy day account. That’s what I’d call it.

The CAFR on page 166 and the budget on page 319 both mention the same number. Guess what’s in there?
$28 million, not approximately $30 million as mentioned in the budget minutes. $28 million is in there. If $28
million is in there, and you take $7.1 million out, you’re left with $21 million, nowhere near ten percent of

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Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P3

Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P4

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 21:54
Document Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Page Number
4
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__092620…

Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 4

anything. So how is this possible? Who is looking at these numbers? Who is representing the city,
representing the aldermen in these numbers? And, who on this Board is checking the numbers? | was on
this Board. Alderman Deane, you should check some of these numbers. I’m not sure anybody does anymore.
Keep this number in mind: $28 million is in unassigned fund balance account and CAFR in the Fiscal ’18
budget. | gave you the page numbers.

Now, Mayor Donchess, look at the minutes of the budget meeting where he represents his resolution. Mayor
Donchess said the budget review committee recommended this resolution. First of all, Mayor Donchess says
undesignated and designated reserve account of roughly $30 million. There’s no such notation in the
ordinance of either undesignated and designated reserve accounts. | don’t Know where that notation comes
from, but no one in the budget committee questioned it. He then says, and I’m reading directly from the
minutes, this represents 11.6 percent of the fund balance account, undesignated fund balance account.

If you calculate this out, then 100 percent of the budget represents $258.6 million. Let me repeat that to make
it very clear. The $7.1 million represents 11.6 percent of the budget. Mayor Donchess. Then the
appropriations represent $258.6 million. That's a familiar number. $258.6 million happens to be the general
fund appropriations. But that’s not what NRO that you are supposed to meet, NRO 135-A, it doesn’t mention
the general fund money. It talks about municipal appropriations, $300 million. Those numbers are incorrect.
It’s not $258 million. It’s $301 million is what you are supposed to go by.

Then | went looked in the back of the budget minutes to see if there’s any tab or presentation on how this
whole thing worked out. If you’ve got $28 million in fund balance and you take $7 million out, you are left with
$23, how can it be possibly then be 10 percent of $300,000? | looked for the presentation and it isn’t there.
You look at the budget minutes for 20-April, 20-September, no presentation. Nobody asked.

There’s a question about overlay, and that was misrepresented but that’s not what I’m addressing at this point.
No details presented. Wrong information about what NRO 135 represents. False information about the
percentages in budget appropriations accounted for. It takes ten members of this Board to adopt. Ten
members, no matter how many are sitting. It takes ten members of this Board to adopt this resolution. |
recommend you either turn it down or reduce it well below $5 million and try to find savings in the budget. It is
time to pay the piper. We've got a lawsuit against the city. The city overrode the Spending Cap by $8.2 million
to cover this up because someone’s got to pay the piper. To cover this up, you come up with this phony
resolution with false numbers, and | resent it.

Mayor Donchess

Mr. Teeboom’s presentation is not correct. What he misses and the $9.6 million of surplus that we generated.
We started the year with $29,521,501 in the unassigned fund balance account. That is as of June 30, 2016.
During the course of the year, we generated $9,639,927 of surplus. That included escrows that had been
carried over from the previous year in the amount of $991,499. We assigned those escrows, we continued to
carry them forward, and last week you passed the escrow allocations, and escrows are from unappropriated
revenues, of $1,548,428, leaving a figure of $7,100,000 which is being assigned to the tax rate.

The $9,639,000 of surplus was generated in the following manner: First of all, we exceeded the budget on
revenues by $5,600,000. We had unexpended appropriations including the escrows that had been carried
forward from the previous year in the amount of $4,039,927. At the end of all of this, if we apply the $7.1
million to the tax rate, as is proposed, and this was discussed in detail with the budget committee, and there
was a memo with these memos presented to the budget committee, we will have at the end of the year as of
June 30, 2017, an adjusted fund balance of $29,921,501. We are increasing that fund balance from last year
by $400,000. It’s going to climb from $29,521,501 to $29,921,501. The base that is used to calculate the
minimum unassigned fund balance that is required is the same that we have been using for the last 20 years
since the Cap was passed. More than 20 years. That has always been the total general fund appropriation.
The same as last year, the same as Mayor Lozeau’s administration, the same as Mayor Streeter and on and
on.

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Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P4

Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P5

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 21:54
Document Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Page Number
5
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__092620…

Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 5

If we use the same approach that we have been approach that we have been using for the last 25 years, or 24
or 23 years, we use the $258 million as the base. The ordinance says that ten percent of that number of the
fund appropriation needs to be in the reserve. If we use that figure against the now increased unassigned fund
balance of $29,921,501, using the same approach we have for the last more than 20 years, we come up with a
11.6 percent unassigned fund balance as compared with the municipal budget.

These are the actual figures down to the dollar. We've increased the reserve by $400,000. We have not
drawn down $7 million. That is completely wrong. We are, in fact, doing the reverse and increasing the fund
balance by $400,000.

If you want to see the numbers, they are right here. We gave the numbers to the budget committee. This is
prepared by the CFO. Anyone who wants to see it right now, they can. All the details are right here, and | just
read most of it to you. So, | think there’s a misunderstanding about how the system works. Mr. Teeboom,
although | think he put his good faith effort into this, missed the fact that we have a $9.6 million surplus and
that gets added to all of the money that is in the city. | think that’s where the error occurred.

Thank you, Mr. President.
Lt. Brian Kenney, Nashua Police Dept.

I’m a detective lieutenant at the police department in the narcotics division. On behalf of the police
department, | was asked to come here tonight to touch base and to relay a little bit of our feelings on one of the
topics you are all going to discuss tonight as my understanding goes, and that’s the state funding under the
Granite Hammer Grant that we are scheduled to receive this year. As most of you know, we received the grant
last year under the Granite Hammer program where we were able to specifically target the opioid crisis to
include heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone, all the opiates that are affecting our community.

We believe we were very successful last year. We ran Granite Hammer operations from November of 2016,
up until the beginning of June of 2017. Throughout that time, we had more than 208 arrests directly related to
those specific patrols, not including our normal duties. Eight-four percent of those were felonious arrests,
meaning possession of felonious substances, specifically opioids and sales of those substances. Those were
all related to the county attorney’s office.

One thing we learned that | think is of the utmost importance, once we got a few months in, is there was a
difference being mean and there was a feeling on the street this was happening. We didn’t necessarily
anticipate that, but through talking to people, through talking to arrestees, just people who would call us to give
tips or information, things like that, people who typically assisted us in investigations are still willing to do so but
the story had changed. It was | have this information or | would like to help or even the defendant would say |
would like consideration for my charges, but we’ve got to go to Lawrence. | don’t even know where to get it in
Nashua anymore. We were hearing that time and time and time again, which from my standpoint was positive.
We viewed that as a success to some extent because we were taking it back to the source city.

Nashua, as most of you know, is not necessarily what we would call a source city. Are we affected by the
opioid crisis? Of course we are; we are affected greatly by it. But we were now starting to take things away
from the city. We were being told that larger scale dealers weren’t showing up anymore. They were dictating
the terms of these sales, and they were dictating to New Hampshire residents, you have to come down to
Lawrence. We won't deal with you in Nashua. You bring up the word “Nashua” on the phone, and the phone
gets hung up.

These are some of the things we're dealing with. Once we started to see some of that, we started looking at
overdose numbers which is kind of the whole reason what this grant is supposed to target. We want our
overdose numbers to come down. From November 16 to June 17, we had 151 suspected opioid overdoses.
We looked up during that same timeframe the previous year when we were bare bones, 40 hours a week
enforcement as usual, and we were over 200, which is a decrease in 25 percent for just the period where we
ran Granite Hammer operations.

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Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P5

Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P6

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 21:54
Document Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Page Number
6
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__092620…

Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 6

One of the other things we started doing is once we started learning there’s low level stuff and that surely
needs attention, and we will give it attention, but if we’re going to take things to Massachusetts, we need to
relay some of this information to them. We started doing that maybe a little bit more than we used to.
Specifically, information we gained we referred to task forces. As a lot of you know we have Nashua
detectives attached to some of these task forces. One case, in particular, that our officers took to Lawrence
resulted in almost one million dollars in cash, 750 grams of fentanyl, 21 grams of heroin, 15 kilos of marijuana
and a firearm found in one apartment in Lawrence. That would be our goal against this year, not just to do
what we did last year but to change it a little bit. Keep evolving as the drug world evolves. If we need to take
our information that we learn up here through our enforcement and bring it to a source city, we'd like to do that.

One of the things | would urge the Board to do is when the matter is discussed tonight is to grant us the power
to start this thing as soon as possible. As you know, Nashua has been awarded more money this year, and
we would like to start immediately. Unfortunately the grant money ran out in June. We've been doing our
normal work as we typically would and all of a sudden, slowly but surely, we’re not back to where we were
when we started, but slowly but surely, our investigations into some of this opioid substances are starting to
pick back up. We're running into people who can find it in Nashua, not in the amounts that maybe we saw
before last year or even years ago, but it is picking back up. What we don’t want to see from the police
department is to lose the little bit of foothold that we did gain when we know that the ability to use the money is
there. We would just like not to drag our feet or wait a month or two. We would like to start immediately if the
Board would be willing to help us with that, it would be greatly appreciated. That’s it. Thank you for your time.
I'd be happy to answer any questions should anyone have any. Thank you.

PETITIONS — None
NOMINATIONS, APPOINTMENTS AND ELECTIONS — None
REPORTS OF COMMITTEE
Budget Review Committee... ccccccccccccecccsteseeeeeeeeeeeeeststeeeeess 09/20/17
Alderman Cookson
As I’m reviewing the Budget Review Committee meeting minutes from the 20 of September, there is reference
to a communication by Mayor Donchess regarding the report on surplus and overlay, but there is no mention of

a communication with regard to what he just spoke about. Was it part of the meeting, and should it not be
included with the minutes?

President McCarthy

Is that included in the communication that is referenced?

Mayor Donchess

When we went to the budget committee, on the reverse side of the memo is this, which shows the use of the tax
rate, the reserves and all that. | just made a more complete presentation, but this tabulation went to the
committee on the back side.

President McCarthy
We'll make sure that a copy of that gets attached.
Alderman Cookson

Because the minutes that are there don’t have any attachments at all.

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Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P6

Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P7

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 21:54
Document Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Page Number
7
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__092620…

Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 7
FINANCE COMMITSE...... oo. c cece cece eee e eee eeeeeeeceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenees 09/20/17

There being no objection, President McCarthy declared the report of the September 20, 2017, Finance
Committee accepted and placed on file.

Human Affairs Committee 20.00... cecccccececaeececeeeeseeeeeaecenaeeeeaneernaess 09/18/17

There being no objection, President McCarthy declared the report of the September 18, 2017, Human Affairs
Committee accepted and placed on file.

Planning & Economic Development Committee ............... eee 09/19/17

There being no objection, President McCarthy declared the report of the September 19, 2017, Planning &
Economic Development Committee accepted and placed on file.

WRITTEN REPORTS FROM LIAISONS — None

CONFIRMATION OF MAYOR'S APPOINTMENTS - None
UNFINISHED BUSINESS — RESOLUTIONS

R-17-125
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
ESTABLISHING THE USE OF FUND BALANCE FOR TAX RATE
Given its second reading;

MOTION BY ALDERMAN DOWD FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-17-125 BY ROLL CALL

ON THE QUESTION

Alderman Moriarty

I'll be happy to grant position, the motivation of the process that you followed to calculate this was the same
process that’s been happening in the past. That’s fine. But | do have a question on the specifics. In the
resolution it talks about that the remaining $29.9 million exceeds the ten percent. The question is: ten percent
of what? In 5-135-A, it says that the unassigned general fund balance equal to a minimum of 10 percent of the
municipality's fiscal year appropriations. But there are two subsequent clauses that say, plus the statewide
enhanced education amount, the local school net tax committee, and the county appropriation. So what is the
value of the statewide enhanced education amount, the local school net tax and the county appropriations?
The reason | ask that is 10 percent of the municipalities fiscal year appropriations, if you use the general fund
as that number, that’s the $258 million we’re talking about, and 11.6 percent of that gives you the $29 million.
That says you’ve exceed 10 percent of just the first portion. But there’s three other portions that you have to
have ten percent of.

Mayor Donchess

We can have legal look at that. I’m not looking at the language right now. What | do know is that we have
followed the same procedure we have for the last 20 years in calculating this number. If this year’s number is
wrong then it’s been wrong for the last 20 years. These are audited financials. This isn’t just me and John
Griffin, the CFO, making these numbers up. These are audited financials. We have a thorough audit every
year. The idea that we made up numbers or taken $7 million that we didn’t account for, this is just audited
down to the dollar. I’d be glad to have someone look at that law and see if somehow we’ve been doing it
wrong for the last 20 years, but | think at this point since we need to close the books, we should act on this,

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Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P8

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 21:54
Document Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Page Number
8
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__092620…

Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 8

and if the whole way we’ve been doing things for 20 some years needs to be changed or re-evaluated that we
do that in the coming year.

Alderman Moriarty

| don’t expect you to know the numbers off the top of your head, but nevertheless, I’ll read this clearly.

5-135-A: It is the policy of the Board of Aldermen to maintain an undesignated general fund balance
as of each June 30 equal to a minimum of 10% of the municipality's fiscal year appropriations, plus
the statewide enhanced education amount, the local school net tax commitment, and the county
appropriation. That's English; that’s not French. It’s not German, it’s not accountees, it’s not
legalees. It’s English. There are four things that are easy to read in there. Tne numbers should exist
somewhere. Hopefully they exist somewhere, and hopefully somebody is willing to provide them at
some reasonable time.

President McCarthy

The first two of those that you read, Alderman Moriarty, refer to the totality of the school budget that’s
in the general fund budget. It’s what is provided by us to the school district and what the state
provides, which in total are the appropriations for the school department.

Alderman Deane

That’s correct. It was mentioned earlier about the issue we had with the health insurance back a
number of years. I’m of the understanding that our health insurance, just our working rates alone,
was underfunded by nearly $4 million previously that we had to make up the difference on. Is that
correct?

Mayor Donchess

You will recall that this year we increased the health budget. That was one the problems we had with
the budget. We increased the appropriation to health insurance by $3.6 million. That would for Fiscal
"18, the current year. We found that the working rates that had been estimated for Fiscal 17, and to
some degree Fiscal 16, were not adequate to meet the obligations. As you know, we have a reserve
account. In Fiscal ’17 and ’16, because the amount of health insurance that we had to pay out was
underestimated, we did draw down on the reserve. We now have $10 million in the reserve. We
didn’t want to draw down on that any further if we could avoid it. That’s why this year’s health
insurance appropriation went up $3.6 million so we would not hopefully touch the reserve any further.

Alderman Deane

Prior to you coming into office, how often and how much were those reserves drawn down on every
fiscal year?

Mayor Donchess

Not that much. | think at one point the reserve was $16 million, now it is $10 million. The
underestimate for 17 was significant. That’s why we had to increase the budget in Fiscal 18 by $3.6
million. Remember these are all estimates. We're self-insured so this is not like an insurance
company that insures the employees so you know exactly what your bill is. These are estimates that
are arrived at with the personnel and the consultant that the city has. They estimate going forward
what are our bills going to be for the coming year. Those estimates can be wrong because they are

Page Image
Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P8

Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P9

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 21:54
Document Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Page Number
9
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__092620…

Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 9

estimating health care use by a group of thousands of employees. It’s not like they are doing
anything intentionally. They are trying to come up with the best estimate they can. They are trying to
be reasonable. They don’t want to over appropriate but because we were under, the estimates were
low two years running, 17 more than 16, we increased the appropriation by $3.6 million. In terms of
the Cap that could have equaled the whole Cap. It’s alot of money. But it just didn’t seem
responsible to continue to draw down on the reserve.

Alderman Deane

The amounts that were given to you by those who looked at working rates and what our sum total
estimate was going to be, were those followed? Have you followed?

Mayor Donchess

Yes.
Alderman Deane

| wonder if they were followed previously because you end up having a problem that escalates.

Mayor Donchess

They were.
Alderman Deane

Instead of budgeting, you draw out of reserves to make up the difference so you can maintain these
2.1 percent tax rate increases and a small reduction on fund balance to cover the cost. Down the
road somebody has to be responsible and say we can’t continue to underfund this area and rely
solely on reserves. If you do run into a catastrophic issue and you have no reserves, you have a big
problem.

| think the Mayor has done a great job with all of this. You can only fool yourself by continuing to fund
out of reserves. | am a strong supporter of unassigned fund balance. | know there are a lot of people
in this room that hate bonding. They don’t think it is any good. | don’t really have a problem with
making those down the road pay for a little bit. Why should we use all of today’s cash? Our
unassigned fund balance and the way we have operated has returned dividends on the interest rates
that we pay when we sell our notes. Having the kind of money sitting in the bank and having the
fiscal responsibility that this Board has and the Mayor has has paid dividends. It saves us millions of
dollars in interest, and we're getting a lot of projects done.

Alderman Schoneman

| appreciate the research that Mr. Teeboom did and the Mayor’s answers. | think they both make sense. |
understand some of the shortfall information may have been that Mr. Teeboom had. | understand this is how
we’ve done it before, but the Mayor suggested that we have legal take a look at it. | hope we can do that just
to make sure that we are in compliance with whatever the rule says. | support this, but going forward if that
could be done, | think that would be valuable to the city.

Page Image
Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P9

Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P10

By dnadmin on Sun, 11/06/2022 - 21:54
Document Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Meeting Description
Board Of Aldermen
Document Type
Minutes
Meeting Date
Tue, 09/26/2017 - 00:00
Page Number
10
Image URL
https://nashuameetingsstorage.blob.core.windows.net/nm-docs-pages/boa_m__092620…

Board of Aldermen — 9/26/17 Page 10
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:

Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Deane
Alderman Cookson, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Caron
Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman, Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
Alderman McGuinness, Alderman LeBrun, Alderman Moriarty
Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Lopez, Alderman McCarthy 15

Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED
Resolution R-17-125 declared duly adopted.

R-17-126
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman Tom Lopez
Alderman June M. Caron
Alderwoman Mary Ann Melizzi-Golja
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
Alderman Richard A. Dowd
Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
ESTABLISHING AN EXPENDABLE TRUST FUND TO ACCEPT DONATIONS FOR THE
ARLINGTON STREET COMMUNITY CENTER
Given its second reading;

MOTION BY ALDERMAN LOPEZ FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-17-126
MOTION CARRIED

Resolution R-17-126 declared duly adopted.

R-17-127
Endorsers: Mayor Jim Donchess
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien, Sr.
Alderman Tom Lopez
RELATIVE TO THE SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATION OF $500,000 OF UNANTICIPATED
REVENUE TO THE HYDROPOWER RESERVE FUND FOR THE PURPOSE OF REPAIRING
THE TURBINE AT THE JACKSON MILLS DAM
Given its second reading;

MOTION BY ALDERMAN O’BRIEN FOR FINAL PASSAGE OF R-17-127 BY ROLL CALL
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Alderman Wilshire, Alderman Clemons, Alderman Deane
Alderman Cookson, Alderman Dowd, Alderman Caron
Alderman Siegel, Alderman Schoneman, Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
Alderman McGuinness, Alderman LeBrun, Alderman Moriarty
Alderman O’Brien, Alderman Lopez, Alderman McCarthy 15
Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED

Resolution R-17-127 declared duly adopted.

Page Image
Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 9/26/2017 - P10

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