Providence Special Committee on Ways and Means, Wednesday, May 27th, 2026 - 5:30 o'clock P.M.
Call to Order and Roll Call
The meeting is called to order, and a roll call is conducted to establish a quorum. The committee chair also recognizes participating colleagues, policy staff, and representatives from the city solicitor's office.
Bureau of Licenses Budget Review
The committee waives the reading of the first five items and enters the Bureau of Licenses budget packet as Exhibit 31. The license administrator presents the budget and answers questions regarding inspector shifts, noise complaints, and potential short-term rental regulations.
Recorder of Deeds and Vital Statistics Budget Review
The committee enters Exhibit 32 into the record and reviews the budget for vital statistics and deeds. The department head discusses modernization efforts, customer service improvements, and the breakdown of certified copies distributed annually.
Department of Public Works Budget Review
The committee enters Exhibit 33 and conducts a comprehensive review of the Department of Public Works budget across multiple divisions. The DPW Director and division heads address questions on snow removal operations, personnel vacancies, and recycling rate improvements.
Continuance of Items and Adjournment
The committee votes to continue items one through five to a future meeting. A final motion is made and approved to adjourn the special committee meeting.
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We're good? Yeah. Sure. Hi.
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Good evening, everyone. My name is Miguel Sanchez. I'm calling the special committee of ways and means to order. It is 05:41. Thank you for your patience.
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A little bit of technology, challenges. I think that is new to any
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of us
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at this point. Madam clerk, can we take roll call, please?
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Four present, one absent,
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the other quorum.
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Thank you, madam clerk. I also wanna recognize our colleague, councilman Oscar Vargas, has joined us. Thank you for your participation in the budget process. You've been here for quite a few meetings. We appreciate your service.
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Also wanna recognize our policy staff and our project management slash budget staff, Kyle Delgado, his amazing assistant today. What's that? Hi. And I also wanna recognize the city solicitor's office, clerks department, of course, their administration. Thank you.
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At this time, anyone that plans to testify before the committee, you are gonna start off with today, Crystal?
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Would you to start
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with the bureau of licenses? Wonderful. License administrator.
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Before sorry. Before we say. Motion to waive the reading of items one through five.
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Second. Motion
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made by councilwoman Peterson, second by vice chair Taylor. All those in favor? Aye. Any nays? Any extensions?
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Ayes have it. Thank you. Oh, you said license. Do have a packet?
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I do have a packet. I thought we'll just give you that. This
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time, I'll entertain a motion to enter this packet as exhibit 31 into the record. So moved. Motion made by vice chair Taylor. Seconded. Seconded by councilwoman Davidson.
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All those in favor? Aye. Any nays? Any extensions? Ayes have it.
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Department. So when I had divested these departments last year, I had not realized that biostatistics was generating that revenue. So for final budget, we'll be moving that revenue allocation out of this budget and into the biostatistics budget. Budget of $987,877 or just over 2%. There are no proposed changes to FTE counts or salaries in this department.
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In 2026, we budgeted $493,751. In 2027, we're making adjustments for cost of living increases for $14,813, and that increases for $2,165, bringing total salaries for fiscal 2027 to $510,729. This budget has been broken in to fix some discretionary costs. The first discretionary line item is fees not cost classified. This is parking for nonunion eligible staff as well as stenographer services for public hearings, put or and hearings for the licensing board.
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Postage has been level funded at 3,550, and it's necessary for various forms, emailers, procurement needs to send out throughout the fiscal year. Advertising and marketing is our largest line item. A large portion of this does get reimbursed by applicants. So if you look in the revenue, you will actually see an advertising fees revenue that offsets the cost of these advertisements. They are budgeted $85,000 and are considered a fixed cost because they are required legally for the behavior of separate publishing.
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Printing, professional development, and legal expenses have all been level funded and are supported by historical trends. When we move on to the supply line items, the bulk of their supply are considered discretionary. For surface machinery equipment, this is meter maintenance and calibration for the noise meter machine. There's a small allocation of $1,500 for office supplies, which remains unchanged. Repairs to office equipment is down monthly funded at $800 year for 2027.
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And this department does have a copy or a lease that they're under contract for, and there's $50,000 annually for that.
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Hi, How are you?
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I'm good. How are you? Just curious, Members of the committee, thank you for having me today. So yeah. I mean, I can give a brief overview of this part.
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You could do whatever you want, right, right there.
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So, obviously, as some of you know, we moved physical locations from City Hall. As you probably heard from my colleagues in economic development, we moved on March 23. We had a closing date of March 20 so that we can physically move the office to our new location. Ever since then, it's been going well. Some of the things we have ripping cutting as well not too long ago.
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And some of the things that we plan to do that are forecasted is programming workshops, people sessions for the communities, different communities. It doesn't matter which part of the city. We plan to do that and post those events in our new center. We have more than enough space. We have health spaces too that are based in basically, basic cubicles.
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And we plan to bring in local community groups in there and to, you know, be able to share the space and utilize the space and network and things like that. So for for licensing, you know, last year, we received the process over 3,000 applications. And then this year, we're probably gonna see more because even though some business is closed, there's still new businesses that open. We just never know what those trends are until people come into the door and we understand what they're there for and what their goals are. And other than that, but the office obviously consists of two licensing clerks, two licensing inspectors.
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One is in the process of being filled, so we'll have a third one. It was filled, but things happened. So that's why I'm pushing the station again. And two of those on second shift will be trained and sent to Brundle University to take the noise training to be able to use decibel readers. And there's a class that's running and one signed up for next month in June.
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And then the other one, once we finish the onboarding process, we'll send them too. If they can make it to June, we'll send them. Otherwise, the class the next class is September. But the goal is to send them sooner. Other than that, we're getting prepared for a fan zone.
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We created new applications for that. We're prepared and ready for the influx of visitors that are coming into the city. We I created two new applications, one for the extended service hours request, which is a pending legislation that's waiting to be signed for at the state level right now. And then once that gets moving, then we'll start fielding and reviewing applications for those that are interested in taking advantage of of that extended hour service. And if any other than that, if anybody has
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any questions, I'm more than happy to answer them.
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Thank you, sir. We appreciate the work that you and your staff does on one of like you mentioned, stuff we have very busy time, and we definitely appreciate all the the work that's being put into make not only these tourist experiences, the best that can be, but more importantly, the day to day operations of interacting and servicing all of our small business owners. We definitely appreciate you. I'm sure there's committee questions. I think everyone's trying to tie the notes together, making sure any question comes up the way it's meant to be.
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Counselor Peterson.
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I don't know if it's gonna do that, but I'll try.
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You try? I don't
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How are you, director? Nice to see you. Quick question. I know that we have a first and a second shift inspector.
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Yes.
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What happens when you get a call about a business after a second shift, like, 2AM, 3AM?
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Great question. So that is somewhere where we heavily rely on actual storm police to to take those matters into their hands and report back their findings. It's one of the things that I hadn't mentioned before we posted the position was to kinda see if we wanted to do some negotiations with the union, not changing the times, if there was any appetite for that. The the job description does actually they say, must be able to work an alternate schedule. I just have to and the conversation actually came up today, as a matter of fact, where I wanna confirm with the union and DPC to see if that's something if if it has to be between 08:30 and eleven, or if there's wiggle room, just maybe have them come in for twelve on a day to be able to cover that in case police are tied up or, let's say, they're not working or well, whatever the case may be.
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So that's actually one thing that I'm looking into to see if it's a possibility
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Mhmm.
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And not
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a breach of the Yeah. CBA.
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And can you tell me a little bit just for just for knowledge when the inspector goes out, if there's a caller, what is it that they're looking for? What is it how are they kind of conducting their formal business?
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So the inspectors on both first shift and second shift, the second shift more tailored towards, like, you know they do check for non compliances, but some of the other things are, you know, surveillance if we receive a complaint, and it's within the time to to go out there and investigate and and assess the situation. If we receive a complaint that's not the top of our purview or that's on private property, we'll still send the inspector. And whatever they can see and capture from the street, we can collect that information and then forward it to whatever respective department it is. We collaborate across multiple different departments from fire to police to DPW, the collectors, assessors, so on and so forth. So that's one of the things I always train them to do, just to kind of work collaboratively and collectively in a sense.
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Mhmm. But they're checking if noncompliance is whether I send them to a location, whether I learn a bit of on news, and they look look it up and see that there's no license. I'll I'll deploy an inspector for that to do a compliance check. But I also rely on them to kinda find these things on their own. Mhmm.
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If I do send them and they see a location that's next door that maybe is questionable, they haven't heard of, to check that too, not just wherever I send them, but whatever is in their travels too.