Providence Committee on Finance-Tuesday, May 14, 2024-5:30 PM

Good

evening. My name is Helen Anthony, chair of the committee on finance. I have appointed the boarder. I've rated the meeting on Tuesday, May 14 at 05:35PM. 09:00, you could please follow the order.

Chairwoman Anthony? Present. Vice Chairman Taylor?

Here.

Councilor Andrew? Here.

Councilor Spencer?

Here.

Hi, Preston. No absentee. Hello,. Thank you so much. So I'd like to thank Betty Shaw from the city solicitors live from Madam Moderator.

Gina Kosha is with us this evening. We have counselors Peters and Espinal and Vargas joining us this evening. Thank you so much for coming. Who have I forgotten? And, of course, we have all our distinguished guests.

So with that, I would like to ask Madam Clerk to read, but, gentlemen, I don't don't know. In order relating to article four, chapter 17, section 17 dash one ninety two Second. Moved. Okay. Motion made by councilor Andrew Ball.

All in favor? Aye. All opposed. Next, for items two through five, which is our budget, I would like to have a motion to waive the readings of item two, please reply.

So moved.

Second. Noting up by councilor Taylor, seconded by councilor Ingerbah. All in favor? Aye. All opposed?

Okay. With that, I think we are going to just... So I can announce to everyone, we're going to do Pima first, network communication second, guest public safety. Third, police... Over the buyer of this.

So sorry. I hope that works for all of you, and I will get it done as quickly as possible. So with that,.

And, ma'am, Yeah.

Various accounts, individual that they have called

I would love all of you. To handle it. Great. Motion made by the councilor in a while, seconded by the council in three. All in favor?

Aye. Opposed.

All Yes, please. Once again, thank

you for the opportunity to design the project, and we'll see

we will continue with this format that has been accepted by

the committee for practice of various related to the record, the summary to each department. And we'll submit questions. And with that, we'll then we'll take the bottom. Thank you.

Thank you.

Beginning with emergency management agency. Revenue, fiscal twenty five is budgeted at 237,500. This is an increase of 5,000 over the '24 budget, and the increase is due to a revenue a new revenue source for CPR certification training that will be offered to external organizations. Moving on to expenditures. Total salaries for fiscal twenty five is proposed at $428,518, an increase of $33,089 over the '24 budget, and the department has rejected the following organizational changes.

Defund the preparedness coordinator at a savings of $68,972 and fund instead of senior preparedness coordinator of $73,064 for a net change of $4,092. Total benefits funded for fiscal twenty five are $206,668, an increase of $6,100. Total services proposed in fiscal twenty five is $5,050, an increase of $1,000 over the '24 budget, and that is primarily due to food costs associated with EAV applications. Supplies in fiscal twenty five are budgeted at $135,367. This is a decrease of $26,589 from the '24 budget, and that's due to a reduction in miscellaneous expenses, and it's been...

That reduction has been offset by an increase associated with disaster warehouse supplies and maintenance and service. And with that, I'll turn it over to director.

Director, thank you so much for coming. It's been a while since I've seen you. So thank you so much. I know you've been doing a great job with me, and I'm gonna listen to your presentation if you have it. Yeah.

Just a few

quick statements. So thank you all very much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to talk

a little bit about the work that we've

been doing. Things have been a little bit busy on the emergency management front this year. In the last fiscal year, we saw record breaking flooding, a number of emergency operations and our activations along with that. We currently have five federal disaster declarations open at the same time, which is the record number for province. We have three active federal disasters for flooding currently open as well as COVID and.

I know that was a long time ago, but that disaster is still active for recovery. So we've been very busy on all fronts, both response and recovery, and we've been doing a lot of work with public outreach and education. Our training and exercises have really picked up in the last year, and we've been doing record numbers of both within the city and with external partners within the city and across the region. So we're really excited to answer any questions you might have, and I appreciate all your support and collaborations there.

Thank you so much. Can I just? Can you just talk to me a little bit about the the new position and the time you're working on it?

Yeah. Absolutely. So we currently have two preparedness coordinators that are staffed and budgeted in our budget. But due to the demands that we have and the allocation of resources within staffing, we are proposing to one of the preparedness coordinators and instead from a senior preparedness coordinator. And the major difference is that...

In that is that the senior preparedness coordinator will be the lead for our training and exercise coordination as well as a more senior supervisory role with the other preparedness coordinator and our interns in the office. So based on the amount of responsibility and expertise required in that position, we're proposing a higher compensation commensurate with it.

So can I just ask your organizational chart? So if these are all for the regional coordinator and the senior preparedness and the parent and supporting the group's part of the three positions right there. Correct. Okay. And one quick note, the regional coordinator that is fully grant funded for

a two year term. So that is... We are going to be entering in our second year of that. That position is funded through a regional coordination grant, collaboration grant with the city of Boston. So per salary and benefits that

are covered by the grant.

And you

only have one more

year of that grant. Okay. Alright. And then you have your administrative assistant, Monica. Correct.

Okay. Alright. I'm gonna open it up. Questions? Yes..

Thank

you, Cheryl. Thank you, director. My first question, talking about the regional coordinator. Is that position you're gonna look to get funded through the city in the future, or is a great opportunity gonna present itself possible?

Right now, we're working... We will be

reapplying with the city of Boston for an extension on that regional pestopper preparedness grant. It's a grant through FEMA, and you are eligible to read... Reapply and extend it. Boston has had this grant funded and re extended previously for some of their work. So towards the next...

The end of next year, we'll be eligible to reapply to stem a grant.

Awesome.

I think we have... We'll have