The city council’s hearings on the proposed $245 million budget got underway on Monday night.
City Manager Fidel Maltez and his administrative team gave a brief overview of the Fiscal Year 2025 operating budget, which is a $13.8 million increase, or about six percent, over the current year’s budget. In addition, the council also heard from individual department heads, including the police and fire departments, about their portions of the proposed budget. In addition to fielding questions from councilors, the presentations are typically an opportunity for the department heads to talk about the achievements of the past year before the council.
“I’m extremely proud of this budget,” said Maltez. “It is very comprehensive and there was a very robust process internally.”
About $142.4 million of the budget, or just over 58 percent, is for education, while the remainder is for general government.
Maltez noted that the council recently held a subcommittee with the schools to review its budget.
“We are 100 percent behind the budget submitted for our school department,” said Maltez.
After education, the next largest expenditure in the budget is for public safety, accounting for about 12.5 percent of the total budget at $31.2 million. The proposed public safety budget is just under $1 million higher than the current year’s budget.
“I would say that our values are demonstrated here in how we allocated our budget,” said Deputy City Manager for Finance Michael Mason.
The proposed budget has nine additional positions that are intended to better support the city and build capacity, Mason said.
Among those are four positions, including Mason and Deputy City Manager Devon Fields, that were approved by the council earlier this year.
“We are adding a deputy director to our inspectional services,” said Maltez. “It is ISD that is responsible for compliance and habitability of residences. We have heard loud and clear from our residents that given the housing issues going on in Chelsea, we had to add some capacity to our inspectional services department.”
The budget also includes a new deputy commissioner in the public works department.
“There is a lot of construction in the city,” said Maltez. “Most of it is being funded with either state funding or grant funding or loans from the MWRA. So luckily, it is not something that is affecting the taxpayers’ money, but we still have to manage that work.”
The new deputy commissioner would help oversee that work.
“We need to have the ability to manage construction projects, to manage the closeout of grants, and we currently don’t have the staff needed to oversee everything properly,” said Maltez. “What we don’t want to do is have things fall through the cracks and have a problem in the future.”
The other new positions include an additional financial analyst in the auditing department and an employee in the purchasing department.
“We see both of these as critical to churn the work,” said Maltez. “We have a lot of funding in ARPA, we’ve got to get it out the door by this year. Everything has to be bid, everything has to go through a process, and it is really putting a burden on those two departments.”
During the first night of the budget hearings on Monday, the council heard from Ramon Garcia, the head of IT; John DePriest, the planning and land use director; police chief Keith Houghton; fire chief John Quatieri; emergency management director Steve Staffier; housing and community development director Ben Cares; and public works director Cate Fox-Lent.
Garcia noted that the IT department is responsible for school technology as well as the general government. He also highlighted how the department is working with the Chelsea Housing Authority to help provide free wifi in their properties.
DePriest’s department staffs the ZBA, Planning Board, Conservation Commission, and Historical Commission.
Houghton highlighted some of the changes that have taken place at the police department over the past several years.
“Our department has flipped over the last two or three years,” said Houghton. “We lost several officers due to retirement, and that is a lot of institutional knowledge out the door.”
However, Houghton said there are a number of energetic young officers who have joined the department, and new young managers are working to support him.
“I think there are always going to be growing pains, but in the long run, when I am gone the city is going to be in good hands,” said Houghton.
Among the fire department’s highlights, Quatieri noted that a $350,000 grant allowed the department to train 24 of its staff to the hazmat technician level.
“It’s a pretty huge accomplishment,” he said. “It allows us to handle hazardous materials calls in the city without relying on state resources or reaching out to the Boston Fire Department.”
The fire chief said the department has also focused on training to fight rapidly extending fires, which are an issue in a city like Chelsea which is densely packed.