Live reporting - DPW

Brutus Cantoreggi - presenting the insights on the DPW

We are already $100,000 down due to fuel costs. The salt bid came in at .71 vs .51 cents which is what we had been paying.

Budgeted for 550,000 for snow and ice this year; 500,000 last year just on salt. The past year was 1.1 million spent.

We have been trying to catch up by budgeting another 100K each year. We are short each time and can't catch up.

State reimbursed 3 years ago and 6 years ago.

Last year was an average year, this year will be more just with the salt increase. Over a million, probably 1.2 million.

We use 70 outside contractors, we only have 30 employees. We could not do it all ourselves. It is cheaper to do it ourselves, we pay overtime for our employees and we already own our trucks. Minimum we have to pay the contractors is four hours.

Initially we like to start bringing up the snow and ice budget by $250,000 per year. We need to get closer to the actual yearly cost.

All our road work is paid by Chapter 90, State funds, the Town has not budgeted for sidewalk or street repairs. Typically we are able to get 750,000 from the state. We can keep fixing stuff, it is going to deteriorate.

$28 per square foot for a concrete panel.

25 miles of unaccepted public way, sitting for 6 years in legislature in action

Water line replacement program, at the same time we rebuild the road. We use some water funds to rehab the road. 60% of the water funds, 40% of the Chap 90. Approx $800,000 to do Wachusetts St. They put down three inches.

The hot top is sometimes the cheapest thing to do. The money is in the drainage, storm water issue. Mandates coming down from Federal and State government, but there is no funding behind it.

Cantoreggi - They have targeted the Charles River basin (which we are part of) to reduce phosphorous by 60%. We are going to have 4-5 years but we will have to implement this. Without compliance, there will be a fine, possibly up to $25,000 a day.

Nutting - Police and Fire budgets comparison town to town is easy, they are generally apples to apples. DPW can be configured differently amongst the towns and therefore harder to get an apples to apples comparison.

Cantoreggi - It is a difficult thing to explain, we are out to respond all the time. water break, sewer back ups. Mowing fields can be fill in time. There is no way I can get rid of the guys doing the emergencies, that is what the people see. You need the bodies in house. I don't have the luxury of closing a park and keeping all the others up. What will happen will be a slow down in service, in stead of mowing every five days, it may be mowing every eight days, grass is longer, soccer may complain as the balls will slow down.

Cantoreggi - In DPW there is always more work than help.

The assessor needs help moving things, who are they going to call? DPW

Asphalt along the road is actually more expensive than the stuff on the road itself. We do all that hand stuff to save a ton of money.

Nutting - If we did outsource, we could use less mowers/equipment, still keep some but may not need all.

Cantoreggi - Outsource cutting the high school fields perhaps but use the DPW folks to do the Town Common.

D'Angelo - Pesticide handling is a problem. It actually costs more to print the paper to give the notice to the school students to take home than it does to actually cost to do the fertilizing. There are certain things that are cheaper to do in-house and others are cheaper to do via outsource.

Cantoreggi - The DPW guys are skilled and multi skilled. They paint but they are not painters.

Hardesty - How do you prioritize the work you do?
Brutus - A large chunk of what we do is water and sewer. Wells need to be tested daily. A lot of other stuff is seasonal.

Nutting - Public safety gets the big headlines, but DPW is far more complicated. 33 FTE's.

Whalen - We will need your help to craft the story. The public will see snow removal, fuel costs, salt costs, field conditions. We should target attempting to budget 85%, how do we get there?

Bartlett - Is there anything else we can do budget or legislative issues we can help with?
The street issue is the big one.

Whalen - What do people think about charging field use fees?

Trahan - If we outline how many fees people will pay, it can offset what the override would cost.

Bartlett - If we go with an override and a fee, the override won't pass.

Cantoreggi - a lot of the leagues are good and leading the way to take care of the field. I can't get them to pick up the trash though.

Ogden - we were losing 30-40,000 per year where the building use fees did not cover the expense of maintaining the space. Girl scouts, Cub scouts, and other groups are giving the School Committee a headache about the increase in fee. We charge Recreation for use. We charge Adult Ed.

Bartlett - if we decide to go down this road, we need to get all the leagues together and let them know.

Nutting - they all come together at the Rec Advisory Committee. It is a very difficult issue to address.

Whalen - I don't think we can take it off the table.

Cantoreggi - it is not much money to take care of the the parks and fields, but that is what the people see.

Roche - what about the recycling the older vehicles?

Whalen - this has been really educational. There are so many moving parts, it might be good to do a subcommittee to look at this more closely.

Nutting - Water/sewer is self supporting due to the fees but we get some of the roads covered.

Cantoreggi - They are self funded but not self managed