Hi, good afternoon. My name is Miguel Sanchez. I am calling the special committee of Ways and Means, on Ways and Means. To order is 05:34, Tuesday, May 19. Madam clerk, can you please call roll call, please?
Present. Vice chairman Taylor, who is absent? Councilor Andy Wach? Present. Councilwoman Graves?
Present. Councilwoman Peterson? Present. We have four present
and one absent. We have four.
Thank you. I just want to recognize council staff that's here, our solicitor, our clerk's department, councilwoman Jill Davidson, who's gonna be joining this committee in the very near future. Thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me. Madam Hang
Clerk, can you waive the reading of items one through four? Five. One through five. Thank you so much. Who are we gonna start with first, Crystal?
We're gonna start with department attorney Gaffin.
Awesome. I will entertain a motion to enter exhibit item 19 into the record.
Motion made by Councilwoman Peterson, second by Councilwoman Underwald. All those in favor? Aye. Any names? Aye.
$5,000. This is funding available for any sort of comp plan, reviews, additional design consulting services, or ad hoc planning studies. Under the service line items, all of their services are considered to be I'm sorry, under the supplies, all of the supplies are considered to be discretionary.
For your collaboration on that.
Just a quick question before we continue. There's a couple of departments before us that no longer have the rental expenditure. Where are we gonna see the debt payment to for the purchase of the building?
So we budget all of debt service in its own kind of department called debt service. So if the budget vote, we would have talked about that during the budget It'll be in fiscal twenty eight, yeah. How
It's about $750,000 the first year. I don't have the full amortization schedule, but I can get it.
It gets up to like a 1,200,000 or something?
I believe so, yeah. That sounds correct.
So I guess, like, what are we doing, like, right now to to plan for that expense?
Well, so it's part of our five year projection, which you'll see once this budget's adopted. Additionally, you know, one of the things I do on a pretty regular basis is do a debt forecast of, like, planned borrowing that we may be contemplating and comparing that to our debt service budget and what will happen there. One of the things that makes that very challenging is we have been authorized and are intending to borrow a significant amount of money to improve our school facilities. The net payment the city makes is directly dependent upon project completion. And so right now, what I'm doing really is trying to figure out how we phase these projects and borrowing so that we're not in a place where we borrow $400,000,000 but aren't getting the reimbursement on that $400,000,000 until three years down the
So that is a very kind of complicated process. I don't wanna say that we're not planning for it because ultimately, at the end of the day, the funding for that bond is gonna be determined when we're building that budget. And at this point, I don't know where that money is going to come from per se. But I
do know those when we look
at our debt capacity and our analysis, we're trying to looking at. That
appreciate the opportunity to have a discussion. As you're aware, the department touches just about every aspect of the built environment and in many cases, the natural environment. Work on the waterfront and with the adjacent cities and towns, as well as doing long term capital improvements for improving quality of life for the residents, including aspects related to transportation, circulation, open
been busy. Extremely busy. One
question just sort of comes to mind. I see you were a and you guys, you know, it seems it's always been busy. Is that the right move right now?
We actually got clarification on our available positions and we have the opportunity to go out for additional advertisement for two new positions and we will have one in reserve as one of our younger division planners is departing. So we've had some turnover, Bob, and that relates to why we've appeared to be under staff, which we have been. We have a tremendous amount of workload, and I'm confident with the postings of these positions that we will be we've actually been very lucky to see some talent out in the marketplace who are interested in working in Providence. So we're very optimistic about our near term hiring opportunities and getting the deposit up to the school capacity. Of
course, a follow-up question by councilor Andrew Ball.
Thank you, German. Thank you both for being here. As and as always, Crystal, thank you. I guess to follow-up on that, there's like a lot of unfilled positions in the planning department right now, and I know you guys are undertaking a lot of projects. Like, what what's going on?
Is it competitive like, we don't have a competitive salary? Is it We What's driving that?
That's certainly a a condition. We've just had a couple of staff members depart for other opportunities. I think that they have time in the department was well served. They got a broad based view of the industry and then found opportunities to their specialties or to their desires. Jess Lance and Kim Shay come to buy
We recently did a new hire who really fit into the department quite well with Menorah or Conwell. And we have been able to put postings out for two new positions in which we did find excellent candidates and we're looking to advance that process. So it's it's just a matter of transitions as people find their level and find their desired path with their careers there. And and I I will say that what you learn in this department will suit you very well for your future career. It's a great place to work, and we've got some great talent in the know how we look forward to it.
I guess I'm just concerned with a lot of
turnover if it's Do you wanna say that?
Oh, I I guess guess I'm just that's a lot
just concerned. But because you guys are doing so much, and you do not have enough people to do it. So I don't I couldn't tell from your answer, director, if, like I know you're hiring right now, but it's still that one of these will remain unfilled, right? You're getting rid of a position, even though you're currently in a hiring process, right? You're hiring two people right now, but that we're still unfunded at least one of the positions.
How about director, just so everyone's on the same page, we go through the org chart and we go through the unbilled positions and kind of just give us a status update on those if you don't mind.
So one thing I will clarify on the neighborhood liaison Is that I'm sorry. What was the question? I don't I showed
was yeah. Was another one. Yeah. But it it it in a nutshell, in the and very recently, what happened is we had a senior level we had two people leave and because of the internal hiring process, we had an individual move to a position and then move to another position and because of that rapid movement through the hierarchy due to recent vacancies, it because of the process for going out for posting and interviewing and hiring and so on. We just haven't been able to keep up with the recent departures, but we feel that within the next month or so, we will be in return to our desired capacity.
Obviously, there's always more work than staff available. And I think that part of that challenge is because we finished a comprehensive plan of kind of set the table for what we anticipate for work for coming in for new development and opportunities, as well as the priorities of the administration and design of the council for getting work out on the streets and advancing projects, and we're just trying to keep up with the workflow. So, yeah, it's a challenge. But but also, I will add, we are working very collaboratively with fellow departments. It is a great team and very collaborative in ways that we are able to leverage and share resources and expertise.
