Committee on Human Resources/Insurance

COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES/INSURANCE

August 4, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Chairman Goonan called the meeting to order.

The Clerk called the roll.

Present: Aldermen Goonan, Sapienza, O’Neil, Burkush, Vincent

Messrs.: Mayor Ruais, Alderman Trisciani, Alderman Terrio, K. Loui, B. Masewic Adams

1. SmartShopper Report submitted by Emily Rice, Interim Human Resources Director.

2. Communication from Emily Rice, Solicitor, requesting the addition of one (1) Legal Assistant II position, grade 107, to the department's complement.

On motion of Alderman O’Neil, duly seconded by Alderman Burkush, it was voted to approve.

On motion of Alderman O’Neil, duly seconded by Alderman Sapienza, it was voted to expedite the committee’s report to the full Board.

3. Communication from Charles Kurfehs, Assessor, requesting that one (1) Customer Service Representative III position, grade 108, be converted from part-time to full-time status.

On motion of Alderman O’Neil, duly seconded by Alderman Burkush, it was voted to approve.

On motion of Alderman Burkush, duly seconded by Alderman Sapienza, it was voted to expedite the committee’s report to the full Board.

4. Communication from Ken Loui, Assistant Chief of Police, requesting the Parking Division be integrated into the organizational structure of the Police Department.

Alderman Sapienza: If you'd like to come up and make a presentation.

Ken Loui, Assistant Police Chief: I did not have a presentation prepared. The communication was all that I was ready to address, if anybody has any questions about it. As the police department, we're just looking to merge the parking division right now under the authority of the police department and pretty much put in place a sworn police supervisor to run that entity.

Alderman Sapienza: How is this going to affect their pay? For example, we just passed a new collective bargaining agreement for the police. Would that even have any effect on them? They don't fall under the recognition clause of that collective bargaining agreement?

K. Loui: No, sir. They're not. Currently, they are not part of that union.

Alderman Sapienza: And this wouldn't change that?

K. Loui: No sir, not to my knowledge. It shouldn't change it.

Alderman Sapienza: Are we certain that it wouldn't change that?

Chairman Goonan: I was under the impression that nothing would change.

K. Loui: That's the impression I'm under, is that in terms of pay, benefits, everything. Parking is a self-funded enterprise. It doesn't come out of the police department's operating budget. So, whatever changes there would be, would be coming out of the revenue stream that they're generating.

Mayor Ruais: It continues as an enterprise fund. The classification of the employees is not going to change.

Alderman Sapienza: Is the range of duties going to change at all with this?

K. Loui: No, sir. The duties of the PCOs would remain what they are. The duties of our police officers would remain the same. We are not adding responsibilities to either side of that equation.

Alderman Sapienza: If all that is the case, then what's the reason for going ahead with this?

K. Loui: Well, there's a lot of benefits that, by themselves, are not a big deal. But when you take them collectively, they kind of make a compelling argument for the merger. We met with Darrel Mims, who's the parking superintendent now. And we hear that they're having some technical issues with regard to a software platform where they're having difficulty accessing registration information for plates. As a police department, we've never had issues getting information from the DMV with regard to registrations. There's the issue of our parking garages and ongoing security concerns at our parking garages. If we do this merger, we're going to now have personnel, police personnel, in those parking garages in the form of our parking personnel, and they'll be able to inform us in real time of any issues, because they'll be able to just call us and we'll be right over there.

Mayor Ruais: I would add one additional item to that. Alderman Sapienza, to your question, I think there's another big benefit, too. This currently resides under Finance. And with this move over to the police department, when central purchasing starts under Finance, it creates the ability for them to set that up under Finance without adding additional responsibilities that they already have with parking. So, I think it streamlines that process for central purchasing to start to leverage our buying power, moving this current responsibility under the police department, where I think there's an inherently logical confluence there between the enforcement function of the MPD and the parking division.

Alderman O'Neil: I believe I'm correct on this; I don't want any misinformation. The PCOs are already part of the Patrolmen's Union. They have been all along. So, they've already gotten an adjustment as part of the agreement with the Patrolmen's Union.

Mayor Ruais: That's my understanding through the collective bargaining process.

Alderman O'Neil: Nothing should change with that. I don't know how many there are, three or four maybe.

K. Loui: I think there's four full time right now.

Alderman O'Neil: They're actually part of the Patrolmen's Union, that was in place a long time ago. I don't want anybody to think there was any quick move or anything; that's just something that's been in place.

On motion of Alderman O’Neil, duly seconded by Alderman Burkush, it was voted to approve.

On motion of Alderman Vincent, duly seconded by Alderman Burkush, it was voted to expedite the committee’s report to the full Board.

5. Ordinance Amendment:

> "Amending Chapter 70: Motor Vehicles and Traffic of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Manchester by amending Section 70.44 Division Established hereby placing the Parking Division within the Manchester Police Department."

Alderman Sapienza: If someone could explain that, that would be great. How is this any different than number four?

Chairman Goonan: This is just housekeeping.

Alderman Sapienza: It just makes it official? There's really no other difference?

Matthew Normand, City Clerk: No, this is just placing it in the police department.

On motion of Alderman O’Neil, duly seconded by Alderman Sapienza, it was voted that the Ordinance Amendment ought to pass and be referred to the Committee on Bills on Second Reading for technical review.

M. Normand: We have one item of new business. There's a request from the Tax Collector.

Communication from Brenda Masewic Adams, Tax Collector, requesting the addition of two (2) Municipal Revenue Clerk positions, grade 108, to the department's complement, and that the department's office hours be adjusted to 8:00AM to 4:30PM, Monday through Friday.

Alderman Vincent: I would like to see if we could wait on the hours part until after the employees are there to see how that works before we just knee-jerk hire and cut hours at the same time. Cutting hours for an employee for something like this, I think is a big deal. We're at that time of year. I know it's only 30 minutes, but some people don't get out of work until a certain time, and now we're bringing it back another 30 minutes, and they're asking for more employees. I'm fine with that. I ask that Brenda and her staff try to work something out. At least, let's reevaluate the hours. Once the new employees are on the ground and the staff is in place and picking up that slack that they're needing. That's what I'm asking.

Chairman Goonan: I know there was some discussion, and I've heard the same thing about how we would operate that with the rest of City Hall being open.

Alderman O'Neil: Does she want to come up and speak on that?

Chairman Goonan: I also know some of her employees are staying until 7:00 at night, so I think that's the issue.

Brenda Masewic Adams, Tax Collector: The purpose of the adjustment has to do with late customers that walk in a couple minutes before closing. That has enabled staff to leave quite late. So, for example, today the last staff left the office at 5:45. So this has been a reoccurring issue for about a year when we had even more staff, and with the city growing, it's a continuous issue we're having, hence the adjustment.

Chairman Goonan: If I could add, when you lose an employee, is that one of the reasons why they leave?

B. Masewic Adams: Yes. We've had a couple employees leave because of that issue of the office closing late. We have excess customers at the end of the day causing them having to leave quite late. So, there is a work life balance, or imbalance. Hence the reason for the 4:30 closure to enable us to get through those last-minute customers.

Alderman Vincent: I completely get that. We're in the people serving business and that's what we do. I don't know if there are other ways we can look at this, to adjust this, to try to help that situation. I know the extra employees will obviously help that because more people make for less work. So that'll hopefully streamline that. Maybe there's something we can do on the website or signage saying, last person at five, I don't know. There's got to be another way than just cutting the hours. And if every department did that, I think we'd close City Hall at 2:00. So, I see what you're saying, I really do, but I think we're jumping ahead by cutting the hours before we get the extra employees, and I would be more than happy to reassess this. Give it a month or two once you have a full complement and just see if you're still receiving that same pattern. And then absolutely, we could certainly look at that again. I just think cutting hours when the rest of City Hall is open until five, I think that's just putting us in a tricky situation. I really do understand. I hope you don't think I'm just saying it to be difficult. I stress that we are in the people serving business. So, the implication that you may be later, I don't know how that's being told to the employees. I don't know that part of it, but I cannot justify shutting that down 30 minutes early.

Alderman O'Neil: Just to make sure I understand this, the office is presently closed at 5:00.

B. Masewic Adams: Yes, we're open nine hours.

Alderman O'Neil: If people are there before 5:00, you have to allow them to go through?

B. Masewic Adams: Yes.

Alderman O'Neil: Once they've been in line by 5:00.

B. Masewic Adams: Yes. So currently, anyone who walks through those doors, we will remain open and tend to everyone until the last person leaves. A few weeks prior, it was last month, it was so bad that staff did not leave until 7:15 or so. That's on the extreme case. But typically, staff do not leave the office until 5:45 or 6:00. And that gets into overtime and everything else, too.

Alderman Burkush: So, what if we did it at 4:45, as a compromise?

Alderman Trisciani: I think we might be mixing this up a little bit because I think it's fairer to say we're not saying the employees are only working until 5:00, and we're changing the employees' hours because their hours are going to be until 5:00 anyway. I think what we're asking for, and correct me if I'm wrong, Brenda, but is that the last person in line to register their car is at 4:30. So from a public standpoint, you get there by 4:30. I quite honestly think that this is a normal request. Other municipalities do this. I believe Nashua does it the same way. I don't think it's that far-fetched to look at this and have people there by 4:30. I think also that in the future we should be looking into maybe an appointment only system; there are things that are out there to try to streamline this process. Because as we have a lot of housing coming into the city by way of apartments, we're really stretching the office. I think it's the best way to do it that will help serve everybody. You know, people still have the option to register online. People have the option to drop their registration in a box and have it mailed back to them. I don't think we're changing hours and saying employees are going to work any less in this department than any other department. I think we're just trying to make it a little bit more manageable and a little bit more reasonable moving forward in how we can serve the public and also take care of our employees at the same time.

B. Masewic Adams: Yes, and that's correct, we will be in the office for nine hours like everyone else, but we'll serve everyone who's come in within that time frame until everything empties out. Right now, there is the overflow into the hallways and everything else. And it's a real mess down there. I'm not sure if you've popped in recently.

Alderman Vincent: It's I wasn't questioning any of that. I'm very aware of all of that. That's not what I was questioning.

Alderman Terrio: I was here about a month ago registering a car. I purposely got there 45 minutes after they opened, thinking this is going to be a breeze. I was there for probably about two hours. There were 60 people ahead of me at 8:45. Imagine that snowballs throughout the day. I think there were three windows open. They need to hire probably two more representatives, for one thing. But the other thing I was going to suggest, I'm just going to throw that out there, have you considered flex time for your employees? So, some come in at whatever the start time is and leave at 5:00, but maybe some of the employees would want to come in a little bit later and stay until we can get everybody out.

B. Masewic Adams: We do have flex time. We have employees coming in for 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and we have employees coming in at 8:15 a.m. to wrap around to the 5:15 p.m. end time. However, because the end of the day has so many customers waiting, the 5:00 p.m. end employees, they're staying until 5:30 or 5:45 to try to bridge that gap. Even supervisors are waiting on customers. So that creates further backlog into other things we have to do in the office, but this is mainly to bring the office in line, not just to help with customer service. We do have online services, drop box, everything that we can possibly provide to help the public submit payments, especially for car registration. But the city is growing and the workload is becoming an issue for staff. We're going through the process of interviewing for applicants right now, and one of the questions we're getting is about work life balance. How are we providing that? What time are our last customers in the office? It's an issue for everyone. I'm trying to get ahead of it so we can retain who we have and also attract highly qualified applicants that will stay, because it takes approximately five years to learn the job; losing that is a waste of money.

On motion of Alderman Burkush, duly seconded by Alderman Vincent, it was voted to approve the Tax Collector's request for the addition of two (2) Municipal Revenue Clerk positions, grade 108, to the department's complement.

On motion of Alderman Burkush, duly seconded by Alderman Sapienza, it was voted to approve the Tax Collector's request to adjust the department's office hours to 8:00AM to 4:30PM, Monday through Friday, with Alderman Vincent being duly recorded in opposition.

On motion of Alderman Sapienza, duly seconded by Alderman O'Neil, it was voted to expedite the committee's report to the full Board.

There being no further business, on motion of Alderman O'Neil, duly seconded by Alderman Sapienza, it was voted to adjourn.

A True Record. Attest.

Clerk of Committee

Meeting Start Time: 6:30PM Meeting End Time: 6:48PM Minutes Prepared By: Michael Intranuovo