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SPECIAL MEETING
BOARD OF MAYOR AND ALDERMEN
June 30, 2026 at 5:30 PM
Aldermanic Chambers, City Hall (3rd Floor)
Mayor Ruais called the meeting to order.
Mayor Ruais called for the Pledge of Allegiance; this function being led by Alderman Bonilla.
A moment of silence was observed.
The Clerk called the roll.
Present: Aldermen Kaw-uh, Goonan, Dexter, Fajardo, Bonilla, Kantor, Trisciani O’Neil, Terrio, Sapienza, Burkush, Barry, Vincent
Absent: Alderman Thomas
- Nomination of Charles Kurfehs as the Chair of the Board of Assessors.
(Note: Pursuant to Rule 23 of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, this nomination will layover until the next meeting of the Board.)
Mayor Ruais: To start this evening off, we have a nomination for the chair of the Board of Assessors.
Alderman Goonan: I'd like to nominate Chuck Kurfehs as the Chairman of the Assessors. Myself, Alderman Burkush and Alderman Vincent were charged with finding a new chairman. It was kind of an obvious choice. There was no national search; it was at One City Hall Plaza. Chuck has an outstanding resume. He's been serving the city for 17 years. He comes highly recommended by his predecessors, both Bob Gagne and Mike Hurley. I think he was the obvious choice. I think he's the guy.
Mayor Ruais: Congratulations, Chuck, on the nomination. Similar to our next nomination, the confirmation will come up next week on July 7th during our regular board meeting.
- Nomination of Jaime Corwin as the Director of Human Resources.
(Note: Pursuant to Rule 23 of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, this nomination will layover until the next meeting of the Board.)
Mayor Ruais: Next, we have a nomination of Jamie Corwin as the Human Resources Director. I want to thank the committee that we put in charge of conducting the search. We had a number of our aldermen, Aldermen Goonan, Trisciani, and Vincent, we had the Solicitor involved, Assistant Solicitor Peter Chiesa, our finance director, Sharon Wickens. On top of that, we also had asked Jamie to meet with our HR staff. I connected her with our former HR Director Lisa Drabik as well. They all sang her praises. Looking through her resume and her background and having the opportunity to conduct an interview myself, I'm very confident that she's going to fill this role extraordinarily well. I believe she's reached out to each of you individually, so I would definitely suggest, should you have any questions, please be sure to raise them with her.
Alderman Terrio: I just want to thank Solicitor Emily Rice.
Mayor Ruais: You took the words right out of my mouth.
Alderman Terrio: She was running both the legal city legal department, and she was the HR director for a little while, which I think most people would have had a nervous breakdown. So, Emily, we're lucky to have you and thank you for filling those two roles. And then secondly, I think the board knows the conditions in the HR department. It is super important that we hire a deputy director as soon as possible. Hopefully that's in the works coming up soon.
Mayor Ruais: That's one of the conversations that we had throughout the interview process, was the need to reconstruct that department. There's going to be a period of time where there's an assessment of the needs of the department, what's currently budgeted for, what positions need to be filled, how we want to orient that. That builds off into one of the conversations I had in my budget address about centralizing payroll across the city. And then, of course, we have 11 union contracts to negotiate for next year. So, she'll certainly be hitting the ground running. But I feel very confident that she's the right person for the job. So, congratulations on the nomination.
- Tentative Agreements:
- Manchester Police Patrolman's Association
- Manchester Association of Police Supervisors
Mayor Ruais: Moving into the tentative agreements. As you'll see in the paperwork before us tonight, I'm going to ask for a motion to suspend the rules to allow these agreements to be presented during the special meeting. As part of the conversation that I think we've all had over the last few months, I think this is an absolute necessity, and that's why I called the special meeting. Absent the special meeting, this would had to have started on July 7th, and then it would have laid over until August, which, assuming it would be ratified in August, we would have had to have done 4 or 5 weeks of back pay, a logistical challenge, certainly with an understaffed HR Department. I think the conversations I've had on the board is that it's incredibly important to get this done. I wanted to bring this forward during the special meeting. When I gave my inaugural address in January, there were 17 vacancies in the department. Today there's over 30. I think that we are in a challenging moment where we've got to get these vacancies filled, where we have to address our recruitment and retention challenges that we have, and certainly that impacts public safety as well. So, with that, I would ask for a motion to suspend the rules to allow these agreements to be presented during this special meeting.
On motion of Alderman O’Neil, duly seconded by Alderman Barry, it was voted to suspend the rules to allow the agreements to be presented during a special meeting.
Alderman Burkush moved that the tentative agreements ought to be ratified and layover until the Board’s next regular meeting. Alderman Barry duly seconded the motion.
Mayor Ruais: I would note for everyone's edification that we learned yesterday that both unions have approved, on their end, these contracts. So now it's in the board's hands to take it from there.
Alderman Sapienza: Thank you for your efforts. What is the new starting pay going to be for the patrolmen?
Mark Broth, Attorney at Drummond Woodsum: I don't have the wage scale with me.
Peter Marr, Chief of Police: I believe it's $71,300.
Alderman Sapienza: What is the cost in the first year?
Mayor Ruais: We have a handout that will answer that question as well.
M. Broth: It is just under $2 million.
Alderman Sapienza: How many years is it in effect?
M. Broth: It is a two-year agreement.
Alderman Sapienza: Did the city get any concessions?
M. Broth: Yes. The department got some language that will assist them with sick leave. We've also got some concerns about misuse of sick leave, also some language about sick leave not counting towards overtime. So that hopefully will lower overtime expenses for the department.
Alderman Sapienza: Do we know what the impact is on the schools as far as their budget? Because it's going to increase the pay for the school resource officers, etcetera. If we don't know the impact on the schools, it's fine. I'm just putting that out there.
P. Marr: I don't know. I would guess, I mean, I don't know if you want me to guess, but we have ten SROs. Depending on their seniority and where their pay is at, I would venture to say probably $4,000 to $5,000 per. So, you're looking at maybe $50,000.
Mayor Ruais: We can get that answer to you prior to the next meeting.
Alderman Sapienza: Also, I just want to say, and this is more of a comment than a question, when we did the compensation study, we hired that private company out of Florida. The whole idea was simplicity and equity. I don't think this agreement is simple. It's not. It's rather complex. It's convoluted. There are a plethora of different pay raises here, and I won't go over each one. It's just unfortunate that we don't have the simplicity that we were seeking. We got it for the other unions. We got it for the non-affiliated. But this one, I think we'd all agree, certainly does not have the simplicity that we were seeking when we hired that private company to do the compensation study. That's all I have for now.
Alderman Terrio: I already sent this out as an email, it's more just for housekeeping. For the record, extra details for the MPPA, Article 12.8A, page four; for MAPS Article 13.14 page four, extra detail supervisory role, it just says $15. Just for the record, to clarify, it's $15 per hour.
Alderman O'Neil: I want to thank Alderman Burkush for leading negotiations with Alderman Goonan and Alderman Dexter. Thank you for that. Thank you, Attorney Broth. Thank you, Chief and Assistant Chief. And thanks to the leadership of both bargaining units; you showed great patience. You are always gentlemen, and that's greatly appreciated. So, thank you all, to the men and women of our police department.
Alderman Kaw-uh: Thank you for sharing earlier that the membership had a chance to vote on this. I just wanted to thank the other aldermen who worked on this, as Alderman O'Neil had just said. Personally, looking at what's in front of us, the only way I could support these tentative agreements was if the rank and file also showed their support. And now that they have, I would be ready to move the question.
Mayor Ruais called for a vote. The motion carried, with Alderman Sapienza being duly recorded in opposition.
Mayor Ruais advised that this being a special meeting of the Board, no further business can be presented and a motion is in order to adjourn.
There being no further business, on motion of Alderman Dexter, duly seconded by Alderman O’Neil, it was voted to adjourn.
A True Record. Attest.
City Clerk
Meeting Start Time: 5:30PM
Meeting End Time: 5:40PM
Minutes Prepared By: Michael Intranuovo