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Council office budget approved; city rolls out new agenda software and bilingual meeting transcription line
Summary
The administration and finance committee endorsed the City Council office FY26 budget and heard staff describe a new agenda platform, a minute taker in place, new ID badge printing for licensed guides and a $15,000 contracted‑services line to support Spanish translation and transcription of meetings.
The Committee on Administration and Finance on Thursday recommended approval of the City Council department FY26 budget after staff described new office tools and translation planning.
Maureen Fisher, assistant city clerk, described the city’s new agenda software, which she said improves committee reports and backup document linking, and the recent hire of a minute taker, Marybeth Costello, to prepare minutes for web posting. “We actually have another, training scheduled for January,” Fisher said when describing recurring customer service training, and she noted that the minute taker will be able to post approved minutes directly to the city website.
Fisher also described a new badge‑printing system for licensed public guides. She said the city issued 45 current licensed guides and had issued roughly 96 older badges earlier in the year; staff are updating those legacy badges and printing new IDs going forward. “Out of those 96 half of those have done that so far and we've updated their old badge to a new badge,” Fisher said.
The proposed City Council budget includes a contracted‑services line the clerk’s office identified for real‑time Spanish translation and written transcripts; Fisher said the line item is budgeted at $15,000 while staff collect quotes. The personnel lines also reflect cost‑of‑living adjustments and settled union increases; the municipal code printing and agenda‑software fees were cited as reasons for small increases in printing/binding and software lines.
Councilor Stott moved to recommend approval of the personnel and expenditures lines; Councilor Harvey seconded. After a brief recount to correct a math error in the initial motion, the committee approved the personnel line of $181,821 and expenditures of $97,136 for a department total of $278,957.
