Providence Committee on Finance-Thursday, April 24, 2025-6:00 PM
Call to Order, Roll Call, and Procedural Motions
Chairwoman Helen Anthony called the Committee on Finance meeting to order and confirmed the roll call of present members. The committee voted to waive the reading of items one through five and swore in city department officials.
Department of Inspection and Standards Budget Presentation
Officials presented the proposed FY 2026 operating budget and staffing overview for the Department of Inspection and Standards. Council members discussed revenue projections, inspector vacancies, permitting fees, and the status of the home repair assistance program.
Department of Planning Budget Presentation
The Department of Planning presented its budget proposal, reviewing changes in personnel costs, defunded positions, and fixed versus discretionary expenditures. Committee members questioned staff about planner project management, professional service line items, and the comprehensive plan.
Public Inquiries and Remarks
A member of the public sought clarification regarding planning matters and the comprehensive plan. The chair and legal counsel addressed the inquiry while clarifying meeting notice requirements for public comment.
Motion to Continue and Adjournment
The committee made and approved a motion to continue all pending budget items to a subsequent meeting date. The chair then concluded the proceedings.
Unknown
-
Good evening. My name is Helen Anthony. I'm the chair of the committee on finance. I'm calling to order a regular meeting Thursday, 04/24/2025 at 06:04PM.
Unknown
-
Madam Chairwoman Anthony, president, Vice Chairman Taylor, missus Appleton, councilor Ann Clough, present. Councilwoman Graves? Present. Councilor Sanchez?
Unknown
-
Present.
Unknown
-
We have four present and one absent. We have four.
Unknown
-
Thank you so much, and I'd like to recognize some of your joining this evening by councilor Capernaum, councilor Kevinson. Thank you so much. We also have manager Lee from the city solicitor's office and our wonderful clerks, Marissa. You so much. Well, let me Okay.
Unknown
-
May I have a motion to waive the reading of items number one through five twenty second? Yes. I would. Thank you so much. Please read your right names.
Unknown
-
Please bear with the man
Unknown
-
of the perjury that the testimony you're about
Unknown
-
to give is approved for the treatment of. Please state your names and titles to the record. Okay. Keith, how would you like to proceed?
Unknown
-
Okay.
Unknown
-
And they did a wonderful job. And you're asked instead of just saying. Okay. Alright. Yeah.
Unknown
-
Definitely. I think Would you like to Yeah. I don't
Unknown
-
if it'll be a whole and a
Unknown
-
deputy director. Just before we start, I would tell you that tonight we are hearing about a bit of listening planning. Second, you're gonna hear from the Department of Inspection and Standard First, and we are not hearing from the Department of Economic Development. They will not be here this evening hearing
Unknown
-
Right now.
Unknown
-
Okay. With that, it was the third of the inspections and standards. Thank you so much.
Unknown
-
Thank you very much, ma'am, sir. This presentation is on the budget proposal for the department of inspection code standards. The budget details of their line items are included in the budget book on pages one sixteen through one thirty for your records. May I
Unknown
-
just have a motion to mark this as exhibit? Believe. So it's gonna be two. Alright.
Unknown
-
So this is a revenue generating department. I'm on slide two, that's the cover page. They are one of our largest departmental revenues in the city's operating budget, and it's generated primarily from permitting. These fees are set by the state so the state statute, and the last update was in 07/01/2017. In fiscal year 2026, we are estimating it will bring in just over $10,000,000 in revenue, which is on trend with the prior year projection.
Unknown
-
Our current year projections and prior year trends. And when we look over historical revenue from this department, we've seen approximately $3,000,000 annually over the past ten years. The proposed budget expenditures are going up 4% in total. We noticed that all of the increase is attributable to salaries and benefits. We will be reviewing salaries on the next slide in more detail.
Unknown
-
Total services and supplies have both been reduced, which has brought our overall budget mask of most all, DIS divisions to 4%. Are there any questions on any of the individual divisions that
Unknown
-
make up these numbers? If you just want, please, describe it in the services. Yeah. Certainly. If we may get alright.
Unknown
-
Or is there any more detail as we Yeah. Certainly.
Unknown
-
So the primary cost of services and inspections and standards is the cost of boarding. When we get to the last slide, there's a breakdown of fixed costs where you'll see the total annual cost of that. They are also paying for postage advertising for monthly meetings as necessary. There's some memberships to professional organizations, which result in saving on training expenses, but but the bulk of their services are related to boarding. The reduction we're seeing this year relates to a pilot program we had for scanning and digitization in fiscal year twenty twenty five that has been reduced in the 2026 budget.
Unknown
-
I'd like to recognize the. It's some noted. Okay. Moving
Unknown
-
on to slide four. Fiscal year twenty twenty six salaries are at $2,900,000. It is an increase over the fiscal twenty twenty five to budget of $2,700,000. This increase is comprised of cost of living increase for members apartment unit members at 2.75% plus an on maintenance staff up to a $100,000. Annual cost of those is about $657,000.
Unknown
-
There are also staff increases that those employees are eligible for, which would cost approximately $64,000. This is a department that has requested one new FTE. That position is a floodplain coordinator and plans examiner supervisor, and the job description for that position is included in this package. However, filling we are anticipating that the department will be filling that position with an existing staff member who is receiving a stipend for certificate that they have. And so there will be a $30,000 savings when that employee if that employee successfully moves into the new employee.
Unknown
-
All in all, that brings us to
Unknown
-
the total salary number of $2,900,000. Yes, please. No. Can't do that. Thank you, Jasmine.
Unknown
-
Thank you for this so great, and this sounds like a great job and important. Will you be backfilling the job that the person currently has if they step into a step 10 job? Or
Unknown
-
Yeah. Oh, will you be backfilling for the role? I'm sorry. Will you be backfilling the role they're currently in?
Unknown
-
I'll be holding the position because I just promoted to a permanent tech and an admin assistant plans examiner, so they'll be moving up. So that's how we'll hold that position. That's gonna be able to utilize that. Yeah.
Unknown
-
I'm sorry. I am gonna interrupt for a minute. I think I should remark the job description and the and the organization part, which is very important. Don't I use the do the whole thing together?
Unknown
-
Can we
Unknown
-
As exhibit do? As long as we have that so that those are repeated in exhibit two. All of them. Yep. Yep.
Unknown
-
Me just pause and see if people have would this be a good time to pause to take a look at our report chart, or do you wanna finish getting your you know, add another page and everything? Yeah. It's really yeah. It's up to.
Unknown
-
The impact that it's somewhat small in the presentation to make it easy to look back and forth.
Unknown
-
That's what do. Once we finish the year of presentation, and then we'll go back. One
Unknown
-
of the things that we wanted to change in the project presentation for fiscal year twenty twenty six is really itemizing what the difference are between the possibly considered being fixed and what we consider to be discretionary. I think oftentimes folks need discretionary. It's kind of an optional expense, and oftentimes, they really are things that are, you know, wider for the city, but we do have a little bit of discretion over how much or how little we utilize these things. And so if you see on this chart here, we have broken down the entire budget for department inspections and standard into the buckets of either fixed or discretionary and provided a little bit of notes as to what makes up those individual line items. All in all, they have approximately $561,000 in fixed costs and about $53,000 in discretionary costs.
Unknown
-
I'm gonna thank you very much because that was something I specifically asked for because we've been talking a lot about how much our fixed costs are and how much our discretionary, and we as a council really need to focus on discretionary.
Unknown
-
I firmly agree. And I will say that, you know, this is a new presentation format for those of you that have seen the previous versions, and so we are more than open to suggestions if there's additional information you'd like to see. We're trying to put packages in a way that helps you guys make the best decisions possible.
Unknown
-
And can I just ask supporting cost? I didn't understand what that was. Supporting is the boarding up a bacon property. Correct. Yes.
Unknown
-
That is a huge amount. It is. Yes. I didn't realize we had it seems to be a large amount. I just didn't realize we had that many bacon broccoli.
Unknown
-
It's not just that. I mean, I think I think it includes on this. Okay.
Unknown
-
So this includes demolition and cleanup. Okay. I appreciate that. Okay. It's at the end of your That's it.
Unknown
-
Okay. Have you reached us to the org chart?
Unknown
-
We have a question.
Unknown
-
Oh, yes. Okay.
Unknown
-
On that boarding, is that contracted out, or is that within within house?
Unknown
-
It's contracted out as we walk and did every couple of years, and and the same