By Paul Conyers
At its November 15 meeting, the Budget Committee heard a presentation from IT Director, John Beike, and his team.
“My budget is licensing and maintenance contracts of all the software and hardware,” said Beike.
Costs of the IT Department are fixed to those contracts, with a handful of notable spending requests in the 2025 budget, including an expansion to cloud computing. Beike elaborated.
“The big one is body cameras; all that data gets uploaded [to the cloud]. There’s a lot of data that’s going through those body cameras, that’s where we see the biggest hit.”
Other priorities included staff training and cyber security. The IT Department also requested money for outside services or consulting fees for issues the town cannot fix in-house. A recent example was with SharePoint software, which cost $15,000.
Town Engineer, Elvis Dhima, also gave a presentation on spending proposals for the Engineering Department.
“Basically, what the Engineering Department does is anything that has to deal with compliance: water, sewer, drainage, roads, traffic, private developments, grants, any programs related things of that sort,” said Dhima.
He focused on several revenue-generating projects, including a 25-year lease for a Verizon town on town land for just under $1 million and a solar panel project at the landfill to generate $8.4 million over 40 years.
“These are going to be beneficial to the town for getting money at hand,” said Dhima. “We’re looking at about an average of $250,000 per year for the next 25 years.”
He predicted the solar project would be online by 2026. The leases will require voter approval.
There was also a $20,000 funding request to hire grant consultants and writers as needed. The request is expected to cover two grants throughout the year.
“Are there any grant writers in the town? Have there ever been any grants writers in the town?” asked Committee Vice Chair, Bill Cole.
Dhima confirmed Hudson has no dedicated staff for grant writing, although it is sometimes done in-house depending on circumstances. It was not clear whether or not there has been a full-time grant writer in Hudson, although there have been part-time writers in the past. Cole questioned the need for a grant writer while the Town Engineer called third-party consultants “the most effective way” to pursue state and federal grants.
The Town Engineer also oversees the Hudson sewer fund for ratepayers connected to the public system.
“The rates are remaining the same and have been the same for the past twenty-something years,” said Dhima. “I am pleased to tell you that there’s no increase, no change to the sewer rates.”
He also described the system as being in “great shape” and that the main goal for the upcoming year was to get new monitoring equipment to make system inspections easier.
“When you say that the rates haven’t changed for years, but the costs have gone up, how does that work?” asked Committee member, Kevin Walsh.
Dhirma explained that the system has more users paying into the system along with incremental updates to improve efficiency.
The Hudson Budget Committee has its next regular meeting on Wednesday, November 29, in the Buxton Room of Town Hall.
