Providence Committee on Finance-Thursday, May 29, 2025-5:30 PM
Call to Order and Roll Call
Chairwoman Helen Anthony calls the Committee on Finance meeting to order. A quorum of five committee members is confirmed present through a roll call.
Item 1: Change Order No. 2 for Safety Markings LLC
The committee considers a $74,444 change order for pavement markings awarded to Safety Markings LLC through the Department of Public Works. Following questions regarding project priority lists, purchase order overages, and safety fund balances, the motion to approve is passed.
Item 2: Waste Management Contract Award
The committee reviews a five-year contract award to Waste Management of Rhode Island for municipal waste, recycling, and bulk collection services. After extensive debate on costs, bulky item fees, and the feasibility of bringing services in-house, the committee votes to refer the contract to the full City Council without recommendation.
Items 3-6: Ordinances Amending Various Fines and Fees
The committee takes items three through six together to review proposed updates to city fines and fees across multiple departments, including the Board of Licenses, Traffic Bureau, DPW, and Animal Control. Council members discuss departmental reorganizations, commercial parking fines, and staffing before advancing the discussion.
Motion to Continue and Adjournment
The committee votes on a motion to continue the remaining ordinance items to a future meeting date. With all business concluded for the evening, the meeting is adjourned.
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Good evening. My name is Helen Anthony. I'm chair of the committee on finance. I'm calling to order a regular meeting on Thursday, 05/29/2025, 05:30 through the. And the floor of the motion, please, follow-up.
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Chairwoman Anthony? Present. Vice Chairman Taylor?
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Here.
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Doctor. Angela? Present. Counseling Briggs? Present.
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Counselor Sanchez?
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Present.
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We have five present. We have four. Thank you so much. I'd like to thank Jennifer Reedy here from the City Solicitor's Office and also. Thank you so much for your time and support us.
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With that, I would like to please review that agenda item one. Resolution authorizing approval of the following change order number two is contract award by the Board of Contract and Supply and according to the section 21 through 26 b four of the court of ordinances, Briefly Marketing LLC, seventy four thousand four hundred forty four dollars, Department of Public Works. Okay. And we'll be back here this evening to present. May?
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The director was Yes. At least she was here. Yes. I swear everybody is gonna be here. Right?
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Well, thank you so much for I'm gonna let you explain what it is that you're looking for on this on safety with my knees.
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So this this request is utilized some money that was budgeted in the operating budget. 1013030552911. You may have remembered that the previous board of and supply communication as a contract extension that utilized some seeking and safety one money to to do some data marketing projects. Actually, in rep in we were kinda remiss in adding this item because of of not really budget. I remember we get to that.
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So that's why we're we're asking for a contract of a change order to include this, utilize some of those funds on on payment marketing projects before that fund is is expired.
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Yeah. So thank you very much. So the original contract amount was $1.85. Change order for the approval to pay for more than I'm just confused just of all these. I want
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Yeah.
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Could you please run through the
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interview? So we the it was a bid. It it was awarded to under $85,000.
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It was it was a striping project in the way the square around the detour route for the Washington Bridge project that we wanted to get done. And I think that's what that changeover is for. I think it we probably spent that on other projects besides that. The approval the approval to pay letter was there was a some outstanding invoices. The the contractor went over their PO amount on some of the projects that we gave them, and they've been given instructions not to.
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So these are projects that we did perform, and there was a request to pay to pay some of the outstanding invoices. Then the contract extension, the the the after the the contract was a one year contract with options for one year contract extensions. That that one year came up in the beginning of March since the award, and there was a contract extension to add 200,000 from paper markings for for the next year. And then we're asking for an additional amount from paper markings.
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There
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are there are available paper markings to use up that money.
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So I guess what I want to know is, especially since this is grown from '85 to $6.60 or or 8.53, and I understand it has an option, includes an option, but I'd like to know what projects these cover. And I think the reason I'm, you know, particularly interested in this, and I think I follow some lawsuits, is that we know that there's been money in this account that hasn't been spent for safety modems that I know the counselors still have been asking for. So it would be very helpful to us to understand what projects are being done, what projects are proposed to be done because you're just I'm sure it was after what's going on with the safety of that piece.
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Yes. So there there are currently about 80 safety projects safety I'm sorry. Payment marketing projects that we have. They range in in size from just doing stop bars at an intersection possibly probably because we converted that snow, like, stop. Maybe just putting in a crosswalk to to try to get entire street.
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So they vary different projects throughout the throughout the city.
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We do make list of those?
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Yeah. We do. Yeah.
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Is that possible that we should have? Yeah.
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I'll send that list.
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Thank you. And will there be costs associated roughly with estimates on all of those or just the estimates?
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The the projects have been sent to the two contractors. We set up a system so they they notify us on a weekly basis of their projects and how much of of the deal they they utilized. It's part of their process when they go out and move these payment proxy projects and get get a list of they're actually prioritized and given a priority, one through, you know, whatever, and they go and order a priority, and they're given directions to to do that until they, you know, till they don't exceed the
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PO until the PO is current POs are exhausted.
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So, you know, we've set a set up a system with them so that if they don't exceed that, As part of their process, they they can go out and actually quantify as they do a project. And, you know, based on the the unit pricing and the bid, there's a cost associated with that. So that so they will actually do that as they do a project, and they'll they're they're gonna instruct it if there's been a process set up so that they don't exceed the PO. So the projects will,
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you know, probably more than, like,
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what the the POs are, but they won't exceed that. We're just going over the priority.
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Yes. That's my my also my problem. The exceeding of the POs that we think that either we've got a we I think we probably should be managing that better because I don't have an approval to pay, and I would like to see if yeah. If it's gone over because it just seems it doesn't seem to me like there's maybe over but not oversight to say this to put them within you know? So I I guess I just like to say that.
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I just don't think that they should be either the list has to be reduced or that they have to adhere to the the other one. Is that correct?
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Yeah. They don't they don't have to we we're developing a legal agreement that they have to sign. They they're willing to do that and also to to go in order of priority so that so that projects on staying on the list, they do them in order of priority.
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Well, that priority list will be very interesting to us, I think. So if we could get that as soon as possible and then also no more I mean, I just don't wanna see any more overages. I if we I mean, if if if you have a bid that needs to be adjusted because there are projects that need to be done and we could have met, you know, think we come in for a change, but I think that just the way this is being managed right now is. Yeah.
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I I they're they're they're subject to not really.
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Okay. Okay. Other yes. I'm gonna count. Thank you.
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Thanks, Dave. I guess I have a few more questions about this too. So they went over the PO before. Why are there other folks who could do this kind of work? Like, why don't we clean out some bid instead of continuing to just, like, extend the same company?
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Because the last Oh, it 2024. Yeah.
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Right. It was put out in the bid. I I don't know that that you're gonna be a different bidders. There's not a huge pool of paper marketing companies. You know, they they and we sort of got the Sydney markets has done this in the past, and Tyson, you have that issue when I'm going.
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So I don't know if if you revisit it, you're gonna have different companies. I think they we we stress to them, and then we we put up we put in place a system. And then they they're aware that if they build it, they're not gonna paid. So I think it would get to us on a weekly basis of of the of the the process being completed and the amount of money that we spent to make sure that they don't go to the PO. So, you know, that and as they do the projects, then we do quantify it.
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Maybe even if we did it beforehand, it it probably would be somewhat different than what the model quantity is. Because sometimes it's the the direction is, you know, repair across what as needed. So some of them are obviously faded and some are unfaded. So it may be you know? And I think you're gonna get an accurate plus based on the quantities that they actually do out there in the field.
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Yes. No. Different. You had said at the beginning that before the funding expires, does this funding expire? I thought that there had been kind of, like, a rolling balance for the part where this funding sits.
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Is is that not the case? Does it expire in the vehicle?
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Yeah. So I think we we have we have a couple funding sources that we're currently using to pay them for you. One is the speed camera safety fund that is mobility funds that has expired. There is also a a budget line item in in our budget probably that that it was about. And that's what that 74,000 to.
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It it probably should have been put in with with the contract extension to incentivize towards safety safety fund money for, you know, marketing. But we're best putting in that.
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And then I think this might be out of balance for this conversation, but I know when director point Bates presented on the DPW budget, we had a lot of questions about why I could why there's still such a large balance for that fund, for the speed camera fund, and what I can add is to send that down given the large amount of safety projects that exist here on the city. So I don't know if that's an imbalance for the bank, but it'd be great to have that conversation at some point. Yeah.
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I think