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Fall River officials flag rising electric costs, reclassify facility services in proposed FY26 budget
Summary
City staff told the Committee of Finance that electric costs rose sharply while natural gas spending fell; budget lines for custodial services, HVAC, and professional services were reclassified to better match where work is charged.
Fall River City interim Director of Finance Emily Arpied and Director of City Operations Al Oliver briefed the Committee of Finance on proposed FY26 facilities spending, saying electric costs rose sharply while natural gas spending came in lower than projected.
The change in utilities and a reclassification of several facilities line items led staff to reassign custodial, HVAC and professional-services spending so the budget better reflects how work is procured and performed.
Why it matters: utilities and facilities maintenance are discretionary but material operating costs. The committee’s review focused on whether the FY26 budget accurately reflects likely utility bills, existing contracts, and in‑house versus outsourced service choices.
The most immediate swap staff described was in utilities. Interim Director of Finance Emily Arpied said the FY25 projection for natural gas was higher than current spending, and “the escalation was pretty predominantly in the electric,” a comment made by Al Oliver, Director of City Operations. Arpied and Oliver told councilors that FY26 natural gas projections were set at the revised FY25 level after actual FY25 usage and charges were reviewed.
Staff also explained a roughly $40,000 apparent drop in custodial services for the police department. Arpied said the decrease reflected better categorization: “it was just separating them out better… distributed more appropriately between city hall, police, and fire.” Oliver clarified custodial for fire covers headquarters only; library custodial remains budgeted in the library line.
On HVAC, Oliver said the city is now capturing and contracting more preventive maintenance work than in prior years: “When I arrived, we were really limited on doing any HVAC work… now we are where we've got contracts going out and we're doing preventive maintenance and we have a work order system with the company at this point.” Staff said the vendor is a state-contract company.
Arpied described a reduction in a large “other professional services” line by recategorizing charges that had previously been placed there. She said items that previously inflated the FY25 revised number were reallocated to lines that better match the work—design services, outside contractors and bid/spec work—so FY26 numbers are closer to expected ongoing expenses.
Councilors asked for clarity about which costs remain in facilities versus being charged to other departments, how overtime is shown, and how office-upgrade money will be spent. Arpied said the office-upgrade budget has been used “predominantly for this building,” and that buildings-and-grounds funds will cover renovations in municipal buildings.
The committee did not take a formal vote on facilities items during the session; staff said the revised classifications are intended to make the FY26 appropriation reflect actual operations and contract patterns.
Looking ahead, staff said continued monitoring of electric rates will be important for future forecasts; they also reiterated that some reclassified items reflect one-time corrections to prior coding rather than new recurring spending.
