Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 19
Chairman Dowd
Is there anyone else that would like to speak to the first part of the budget or the Mayor’s Office?
Paula Johnson
| love this woman. | think she was just spectacular. Question here. You added a restructured
position Mayor from Public Works that’s going to be in your office now — a PR person or is that going
into Public Works?
Mayor Donchess
Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 18
of dollars to the State of New Hampshire to get out of this system. That’s just not really feasible.
We're locked in.
Joe Pacello
| think my only point is that we kind of need to look more out into the future and model these benefit
plans as opposed to just explaining it away by what well we can’t control it. Well there’s got to be a
way to control it. That’s my final comment but thank you very much.
Chairman Dowd
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CFO Griffin
For the purposes of the calculation, the base can increase or decrease each year based on the
approval of the Board of Aldermen’s deliberations and then final budget passage.
Joe Pacello
Two other questions just on the expense side and benefit side. | understand the difficulties in the
benefits. I’ve worked in the private sector for many years. I’m retired now. What is the contributions
the employees are making toward the health benefits and is that comparable to the private sector?
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Paula Johnson
Yes because that’s federal funding that comes into the city. We get federal funding don’t we? We do
get federal funding that comes into the city so I’m just want to know what’s the difference between
sanctuary and welcoming. We do get federal dollars. It is germane to the budget.
Chairman Dowd
| think that’s a stretch for discussion of the Mayor's Office.
Paula Johnson
Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 14
position in the city should have a job description plus what the qualifications is for that job? Am |
correct?
Mayor Donchess
| think every position does have a job description.
Paula Johnson
Okay.
Mayor Donchess
If there are positions without job descriptions, then | will ask Human Resource Director to make sure
we do have job descriptions.
Paula Johnson
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Mayor Donchess
That’s not true only in government. When someone in the private sector gets a promotion and their
job is restructured, they sometimes get raises. That happens so it’s not only in government.
Paula Johnson
Well Mayor it’s pretty sad when government employees are making more money than the private
sector right now because there were no jobs for like the last 8 years and now we’re just starting to
see a little bit of growth and companies wanting to create more jobs now.
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what’s happening not only in the city around the country. Like I’ve said to people, maybe we should
take a look at the doctors, the pharmaceutical company, and the insurance company that keep
pushing this and maybe they should be contributing to some of this rather than the taxpayers. It
seems like the taxpayers get the bill for everything and there’s just so much money to go around.
That’s the first thing.
Mayor Donchess
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Mayor Donchess
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more money. $4 million more to the education budget. $4 million more to the pension budget. $4
million more to the benefits budget and misrepresentation of the spending cap. All right. That’s
enough for now. Thank you.
Chairman Dowd
Is there anyone else that would like to speak to the first 59 pages of the budget or the Mayor’s
Office?
Paula Johnson
