ORDER-2021-122 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2022 in the amount of $91,000,522.33 (Ninety-One Million, Five Hundred Twenty-Two Dollars and Thirty-Three Cents).

Transcript (~1 h 14 min @ 2:47)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 2:08 Jeff McNaught: Seeing no objection, the floor is open for public comment. Seeing no digital hands raised and no request from anyone to speak prior to this meeting, if there's no objection, I will move to close public comment by unanimous consent. Seeing no objection, public comment is now closed and at this point I will move by unanimous consent to suspend the rules so that we can hear from our friends from the administration and elsewhere. I also, uh, if there is no objection, seeing no objection, the rules are suspended. I also want to note that Council McMaster is now with us. Um. And, um, 1st, up this evening, um, we have our 1st order, which is the city's operating budget or 2021 dash 122 city of Maro's operating budget for fiscal year 2022. In the amount of 91,522 dollars and 33 cents 1st, this evening, we're going to hear from the folks from pine banks. Um, I believe that's Mr keyser. I don't know if anyone else is coming into the room with him. Is the under wall share tonight? Yes.

▶ 3:28 Speaker 1: Gentlemen, can you hear us?

▶ 3:40 Speaker 2: Can you see me too? I can't see myself on the screen, so we cannot see. No.

▶ 3:51 Speaker 2: Give me a 2nd with that should be bottom middle of your screen. Oh, here we go. Yeah, there we go.

▶ 3:58 Jeff McNaught: Thank you Mr. Walsh. Thank you. Mr. appreciate you both being here this evening. The floor is yours.

▶ 4:06 Speaker 3: Well, thank you very much. I am President of Pine Banks Park and I've been making this presentation to this body for a good number of years and we try to keep it uniform and simple to understand. Pine Banks Park is a private organization consisting of land that was dedicated by Elijah Converse, the first mayor of Malden. When he died it went into the private corporation and a special act of the legislature provided that first it would be real estate tax free second that it would be capable of receiving contributions from the city's Malden and Melrose and third that based on a formula derived from the combined assessed valuations in the city there was a minimum amount to be funded every year in the absence of which the plan would revert to the converse family the report that we submit every year's recites all of this and the uh shows the basis for the calculation the amount to be contributed that's on page three four and five of our annual report this year

▶ 5:28 Speaker 3: the uh total formula for contributions is 794 000 this year That split equally between the towns of Malden and Melrose and it's based upon the combined assessed valuation of the town with the smaller assessment.

▶ 5:48 Speaker 3: Looking at page six, there are columns there in this report showing the prior fiscal year, the requested budget for this year, and then going across to the right, the dollar increase, percentage increase the amount per city and the increased dollar amount per city

▶ 6:08 Speaker 3: general we have three categories of income that we use first categories is

▶ 6:20 Speaker 3: salaries and compensation the staff that pine banks are employees of the city of Melrose they are leased to pine banks to provide services there but they are subject to and get the benefit of the hr office in the city of mellows and quarterly the city of malden contributes the amount required to support their share of the employees

▶ 6:50 Speaker 3: that's summarized on page seven and what we do on page seven is try to make sure that everyone knows the total universe of compensation benefits retirement and insurance that goes to each of our staff members including overtime and so forth so that

▶ 7:06 Speaker 3: there is a fair approximation of what the employment costs to the cities and that they are adequately compensated the each town contributes equally the

▶ 7:23 Speaker 3: Amounts from the compensation and benefits are shown on page 6 on lines 1 through 5. And the total compensation this year is $398,497 which is an increase of $54. So it's pretty much level funded. And we want to thank Melrose HR department for helping us with this,

▶ 7:56 Speaker 3: Keeping this level, the 2nd, type of income are is from operations. That's on lines 6.

▶ 8:06 Speaker 3: Through 43 on page 6. These are amounts that are funded equally. Are the cities of Malden and Melrose to the fine banks park. Foundation and we make disbursements on those. Amounts for the purposes that are shown there. This is, I think the 4th year of level funding on these. There is no increase in operating expenses. Operating expenses, uh. Inclusive of the, uh, compensation to 190,000.

▶ 8:48 Speaker 3: Dollars the final part of the, uh. Report is for capital purchases and equipment purchases. We have a outstanding bond for the improvements of. Feels from the Massachusetts development corporation. Which was able to give us a fixed rate mortgage for.

▶ 9:11 Speaker 3: 3 and a half percent to 10 years that amortization is shown on line 45. On page 6, we are also proposing. an additional amount necessary to uh finance the replacement of our maintenance shed which is on

▶ 9:36 Speaker 3: the field that's our new capital improvement and that's ninety seven thousand dollars and that's on page from line fifty uh the field that the shed that we're replacing was one built in 1963 so it went in during the administration of jack kennedy and before the beetles arrived on that Sullivan. We are looking to replace it with a fabricated steel building of similar construction we brought up today with current codes and environmental requirements and the budget on that is about a million four. We need to have an additional eight hundred thousand over and above the amounts that we deserve from the bonding that we got recently plus uh capital contributions coming in from the baird foundation and the piccolo foundation to assist in these improvements funding source will be east boston savings bank they are the holder of the uh bond that we have with mass development and this would be a supplemental funding to complete the project that we originally contemplated with the bond

▶ 10:52 Speaker 3: Uh, I should say that this is a borrowing that's being achieved by the pine banks park foundation. It doesn't require the guarantee of either city requires is the, uh, the appropriations as shown within the statute that created finance part. Our superintendent put into the, uh, the, uh, report this year is.

▶ 11:22 Speaker 3: his report for the calendar of 2020 showing the activities that occur there and he's certainly

▶ 11:32 Speaker 3: done an excellent job page 11 of our report shows a satellite picture of what the place looks like from way above and then pages 12 and 13 talk about some of the capital improvements and some of the grants that we have received over the year.

▶ 11:51 Speaker 3: So I would also like to say that Andrew has been with us now for five years and he's done an excellent job, but he's decided that he's going to go on and try another task with his life. So this will be his last meeting and his term with us ends at the close of the fiscal year. And we will be going forward with Acting Superintendent Kevin Benner. Kevin's been with us for about 15 years now.

▶ 12:26 Speaker 3: He's learned a lot about how to run the park. We expect him to be able to fill the gap that's been created by Andrew's departure. I wanna say thank you to Andrew, and i want to thank the members of this board for assisting us i'd be glad to answer any questions

▶ 12:50 Jeff McNaught: and if i can't that andrew can thank you mr kieser for that wonderful summary again the report produced by you all this year again was wonderfully done very easy to digest and we appreciate it very much i appreciate your efforts also mr walsh we we're really going to miss you um i know i know those are big shoes to fill down there. So thank you for all that you've done for Pine Banks and beyond. At this time, does anyone have any questions or comments for Mr. Kieser or Mr. Walsh?

▶ 13:34 Mark Garipay: Councilor Garipay? Councilor Garipay, I think you're on. There you go. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Kieser. Thank you, Mr. Walsh, for being here. I just want to start by saying Pine Banks looks amazing, especially over the last five years since you've been there, Mr. Walsh. It's someone who's driven around to numerous baseball fields and spends about eight to ten hours a weekend there. It is the top-notch facility in the area. I can't compete with anyone else. I do have a couple questions regarding the budget. One would be what is the actual revenue amount we bring in through people from other organizations that rent the fields i didn't see that in the presentation what is the actual revenue that comes in

▶ 14:25 Speaker 3: from outside sources other than the city uh i would guess that that's about 45 000 and it's been a very good it's been an increase over what it has been in the past surprisingly this last year with the uh pandemic we had a lot of outside groups coming in and filling slots the scholastic teams weren't filling and we're we're paying for it um i was thinking of that maybe we should put andrew on commission because he was doing such a good job

▶ 14:54 Speaker 3: there is we also have a credit card operation where people can rent picnic sites and they can rent the fields and it automatically ties in with their credit card for that that part of it and

▶ 15:10 Speaker 3: one of the things that we do have arranged is we're going to be repainting the stripes on the track which is a budget of i think about five thousand dollars correct me if i'm wrong and i did it we're going to be using rental fees to paint the track which means that we don't have to look to any other source for that sort of thing then we use those contributions for the payment of

▶ 15:40 Mark Garipay: some white bills and so forth that helps thank you um and then when i um when i was looking at the budget what goes into professional services line item i think it was about 20 20 000 yeah

▶ 15:58 Speaker 3: we've got a an accountant part of what we do because we have a charitable foundation and we separate the operations as much as we possibly can but we do have to have a an accountant come in to make sure we get our bills paid but because we're handling city money because we're handling charitable foundation money we have to have very tight controls on the financial end and we have to audit with the CPA firm we use with them which is located in Woover now the national firm but we have to be able to satisfy the Attorney General using the money correctly in the foundation as a charitable entity we want to make sure that Patrick is happy with us all

▶ 16:47 Mark Garipay: Also, and then on, I was looking at, you had mentioned on page 5. The municipal funding formula, I think the total was 794,823 for the split of 397 for 11. is that the, is that the dollar amount that is requested from the city of for your budget this year?

▶ 17:08 Speaker 3: That's that's the statutory amount. When they created the park in 1905, they said. you take the value of the two towns and take a fraction of it and that's the minimum that has to be funded for the property diverts back to the congress bank that number is brought forward on

▶ 17:40 Speaker 3: page six and it's on line 70 and uh our request this year is for 903 and the uh statutory mandate

▶ 17:51 Speaker 3: is 794. so we're about a hundred thousand dollars over the mandate and that is going predominantly for doing the capital improvements and building up the fields and the field house

▶ 18:05 Mark Garipay: okay because because if i look at the set 397 there and then i go over to our city budget that's proposed that um what we're voting on tonight is 320 000.

▶ 18:22 Speaker 3: so that's that's why i understand it uh the the amount that you're looking at tonight is a portion of the total and that what excludes is the capital appropriations which i understand from patrick is that something that gets reviewed later in the year but when we prepare this report we try to make sure that both cities looking at one place and see how much it costs to run the park which includes the capital improvements for the particular year okay i just um i just didn't

▶ 18:51 Mark Garipay: want to be voting on the wrong number and then and find out what i saw 397 the split and then the 320 so okay um and then what um i guess i have a couple other questions i probably could talk to andrew offline that uh probably enough budget uh but uh that's that's all my questions for right now thank you okay thank you for all you do appreciate it thank you council carapace council

▶ 19:20 Shawn M. MacMaster: mcmaster thank you mr chairman good evening uh mr kieser and mr walsh and my apologies if you answer this uh mr kieser i'm having some difficulty uh with my audio tonight uh the overtime budget

▶ 19:35 Speaker 3: slight increase can you speak to that uh that is a fraction of the i think it's about a week and a half for the total compensation for the staff it's just a it's an arbitrary fraction trying to cover potential weekend objects or programs that go forward uh i don't know that

▶ 20:03 Shawn M. MacMaster: we use it actually every year that's okay mr kaiser just a sense of what that what that and was for is fine. While I have you Mr. Keezer and Mr. Walsh, a question unrelated to the budget, but I do have a Veterans Advisory Board meeting tomorrow. I'm the Consul Liaison to the Advisory Board, and I think as you both know there's been some interest among the Veterans Advisory Board and Mayor Broder, who has been advocating for this as well, to have the rugby field, the backside of Pine Banks, named after a veteran killed in action. And I'm just wondering

▶ 20:42 Speaker 3: what the what the status of that request is right now uh the request that we had from uh the mayor dealt with an individual who graduated in 1964 was in the navy that i think died in 2014 and was a

▶ 21:04 Speaker 3: resident of newton at the time he passed away he did not think that was appropriate and i think we'd have some hard resistance with the City of Malden for naming the field for that individual.

▶ 21:13 Shawn M. MacMaster: If there would, Mr. Keezer, if there was some interest among the veterans community in Malden, is that something that the Board of Trustees might reconsider, if there was a

▶ 21:30 Speaker 3: joint request from both communities? Sure. We don't have much name down there except for the the baseball field, which is named after my father. That was the idea of the Mayor of Malden at the time, and I think he did it just to embarrass me. But we would be willing to consider anyone at all.

▶ 21:55 Shawn M. MacMaster: Well, thanks to your father, there's at least some precedent there, so I think we'll hinge our hopes to that and we'll be back in touch. Thank you, Mr. Kieser.

▶ 22:03 Jeff McNaught: Thank you. Councilor McMaster. Councilor Thomas.

▶ 22:07 Cory Thomas: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Walsh, Mr. Keezer, welcome. Mr. Walsh, I'm sorry to hear that you're leaving. I agree with Councilor Garipay. The Pine Banks complex has never looked better than it has in the last 5 years. And Mr. Keezer, thank you for all that you and your family have done for that complex throughout the years. I did have a question on the budget. Athletic field maintenance is 3300 dollars and then park and field maintenance. Is 30,000 dollars. What's the difference between those 2?

▶ 22:41 Cory Thomas: 5, 2, 8, 8, 0, 4 and 5, 3, 5. 1, 0, 0 on our budget.

▶ 22:51 Cory Thomas: Athletic field maintenance goes into 3300 dollars. And parts of maintenance at 30,000.

▶ 23:00 Speaker 3: I can't really give you a good answer that I have to defer to Patrick.

▶ 23:06 Cory Thomas: Okay, so is athletic field maintenance 3300 dollars. Is that for 1 field or all the fields down there? And it sounds like a relatively low number for maintenance for all those facilities and fields. The track, the softball field, the turf field.

▶ 23:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I can tell you that all the, all the maintenance and operation numbers that we requested. In our report, we're. Had no increase. Oh, I think, yeah, there was one increase, I should say, we've got liability insurance increase, principally because of the issues surrounding the Blueberry Hill development.

▶ 23:52 Speaker 3: This is off forestry. Yeah. Yeah. The, the property there has dug into the side of the clip. And we've got a precipice of about a 100 feet going off the cliff into the. Residents rooms, and it's within 50 feet of our walking trails. The issue is, you know, is there adequate fencing and protection for our guests up there? But, uh. The potential liability on that cost us to increase our liability insurance.

▶ 24:25 Cory Thomas: Sure, I understand that wholeheartedly. Um, I was just wondering what the, what the annual maintenance is, you know, what what's entailed in that 3300 dollars. For maintenance, so it seems like a very low maintenance number for the fields.

▶ 24:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd have to like, the only thing I can do is referring to our report on page 6.

▶ 24:46 Speaker 3: Are we submitted to the 2 town?

▶ 24:55 Speaker 2: Mr. able to shed any light on that? I don't think I'm looking at the same report as you guys. I'm looking at our report or our.

▶ 25:02 Speaker 4: Yeah, our annual report, I'm not seeing that number anywhere. Um, I see for, uh.

▶ 25:09 Speaker 4: Maintenance, uh, field and park maintenance is about 60,000 dollars and then, uh, we have repair and. Building maintenance at 20,000 dollars, so it's much more than 3300.

▶ 25:20 Cory Thomas: Yeah, we just have a line item 5, 2, 8, 8, 0, 4. I can talk to Patrick. So, um, offline. To keep the thing to keep this meeting moving. Um, there are, there are some day to day damages on the turf field that teaser field. Um, you know, 1st base, um, are there any plans to have that repaired? I know there's a carpet patch on there on the turf right now. 1st base.

▶ 25:50 Speaker 2: It's been like that for, like, 3 or 4 years. And yeah, that was, um, so there was a.

▶ 25:58 Speaker 4: It was a huge hole there at first place for a year or so when I started and we, I did the best I could to kind of patch it so that it was actually safe as opposed to a 3 or 4 inch hole in the in the turf. So, I mean, the fields.

▶ 26:12 Speaker 4: 14 years old now, um. You know, I think the field, I think those areas are safe. I don't think they're a threat to injury, but yeah, I mean, to to sink. you know tens tens of thousands of dollars to do the bases over on a 14 year old field didn't really um you know make a whole lot of sense i figured it would be as long as we could preserve the safety of the athletes by doing what we did we could um you know wait for just to do the whole

▶ 26:39 Cory Thomas: field over again sure is there is there a shelf life on that turf field and is there a capital

▶ 26:48 Speaker 4: improvement plan to replace the turf um they i mean they say 10 years but we're we're obviously beyond that and um you know the field's in pretty good shape considering it is 14 years old other than the base areas getting worn um the outfield is in pretty good shape for a 14-year-old field i would say absolutely for sure and um to as far as a capital uh i don't i don't have an answer for that as in terms of like when when it would be resurfaced sure and then lastly um is the tarp

▶ 27:17 Speaker 2: at home plate missing um so we took it off because it did more damage than good water would still get

▶ 27:26 Speaker 4: underneath because the air about 10 feet around home plate is embedded with clay so the water when it does rain it just runs underneath the tarp um and then with the tarp on it doesn't dry

▶ 27:37 Speaker 2: out as fast so actually it's a better it's it's better for the actual to get the field

▶ 27:40 Speaker 4: uh in in playable condition to not have the tarp on okay thank you gentlemen i think i appreciate

▶ 27:45 Cory Thomas: all you guys do down there it's a great facility it gets a lot of use um thank you very much for

▶ 27:55 Jeff McNaught: being here and answering our questions do any other counselors have questions or comments mr keyser mr walsh seeing none what is the will of the committee on pine banks department 652

▶ 28:10 Jeff McNaught: motion to move the bottom line second we have a motion to move the bottom line of department 652 pine banks made by council Grigoraitis seconded by councillor Migliorelli on discussion seeing

▶ 28:24 Speaker 1: none madam clerk will you please call the roll chair mcnaught yes vice chair eccles yes council

▶ 28:38 Speaker 1: Tramontozzi I can see you nodding your head. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes.

▶ 28:44 Speaker 1: Councilor Grigoraitis. Yes. Councilor Migliorelli. Yes. Councilor Stewart. Yes. Councilor Thomas.

▶ 28:58 Speaker 1: Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. President Cinella. Yes. 11 yes and I'll just note Councilor Tramontozzi

▶ 29:09 Jeff McNaught: was raising uh shaking his head yes yes thank you the motion passes um i'd also like to hold a vote on uh lying not line 931 the capital outlay line for pine banks what is the will of the committee

▶ 29:21 Mark Garipay: on 931 i'll make a motion to move the bottom line for my 931 capital outlay for pine banks

▶ 29:27 Jeff McNaught: 2nd, motion to move 9, 3, 1, pine banks made by Council, seconded by Councilor Thomas. Madam clerk, will you please call the role?

▶ 29:36 Speaker 1: Chair Mcnaught? Yes. Yes. Vice chair Eccles? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes.

▶ 29:48 Speaker 1: Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Stewart?

▶ 29:56 Speaker 3: Yes.

▶ 29:57 Speaker 1: Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine?

▶ 30:01 Speaker 5: Yes.

▶ 30:02 Speaker 1: President Sinella? Yes. 11 yes.

▶ 30:06 Jeff McNaught: The motion passes. Thank you gentlemen again for being here. Mr. Kieser, we look forward to working with you going forward, and Mr. Walsh, we wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors.

▶ 30:20 Jeff McNaught: Next, we have the, uh, morrow's public schools, superintendent and, uh, chair of the school committee. Um. Jen, I believe they're both here.

▶ 30:35 Jeff McNaught: And Leah, my apologies.

▶ 30:44 Jeff McNaught: And I believe, uh, chair was going to kick us off this evening.

▶ 30:52 Jennifer McAndrew: Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, Chair McNaught, President Cinella, and counselors. Thank you for having us before you tonight to proudly present the Melrose Public Schools budget for fiscal year 22. We know that this presentation is coming at the end of a very long budget process for you all, and we're grateful for your hard work on behalf of the city. I'd like to thank and acknowledge my colleagues on the school committee, many of whom are in the virtual audience tonight. Thank you for being here and thank you for all of your hard work this year. And I would especially acknowledge the leadership of Superintendent Dr. Julie Kuchenberger, Director of Finance Leah Secor, all of the principals and the entire leadership team throughout MPS for their thorough and thoughtful budget process this year. I'm pleased to tell you that on May 11th, the school committee unanimously approved the fiscal 22 school budget and the amount of 38,619,040 dollars. This budget is rooted in the needs of our students. It strategically invests funding sources with an eye to sustainably deploying various funding streams available to us in the best and most appropriate ways. It reflects month of work from the administration close collaboration with the mayor and his team deliberations across multiple school committee meetings as well as a lot of community input and advocacy for which we are very grateful. The fiscal twenty two budget includes important new investments, including new classroom teachers to accommodate growing student enrollment, academic intervention is to provide more support at the elementary schools. a visual and performing arts director position, a student learning coach at Melrose High School, and a shared diversity, equity, and inclusion director position jointly funded with the districts of the SEAM collaborative. The approved budget also includes important adjustments that we made during the budget process, like decisions to strategically deploy federal funds that are now available to school districts like Melrose to use over the next several years for COVID recovery and resiliency. Before I turn it over to Dr. Kuchenberger, who will walk you through the specifics and answer your questions, let me just close with one thought. It's fair to say that the COVID-19 pandemic completely upended public education, including here in Melrose. And yet our students, especially, and our educators and our families were resilient and adaptive. But the budget before you tonight doesn't just support the recovery of our district. It also moves us forward Building and shaping a stronger school system for Melrose for next year and also for years to come. The important work of the Melrose public schools continues, and we greatly appreciate your partnership and moving us forward. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Kuchenberger with my thanks.

▶ 33:59 Speaker 5: Thank you, Chair McAndrew. Okay, hopefully I clicked all the right buttons. Good evening. Everyone. Good evening. Chair McNaught and counselors. Thank you for having us here tonight to walk you through our budget.

▶ 34:14 Speaker 5: for the FY22 fiscal year. So our objective tonight is really to share with you the FY22 school committee approved budget proposal. We also want to clearly articulate how we're strategically using all of our supplemental funds in order to make this budget not only responsive to the needs known needs of our students but also to provide some flexibility and agility as we move forward through our COVID recovering. And after a brief presentation we'll have time to answer any questions that you may have. So I always like to start with a high level overview. This chart here shows you our budget over time. So looking pre-COVID to today and you can see the percent change in the final column there. So I won't read all the numbers to you but up top here in the first row we have our operating expenses that it takes to run the district. We have our chapter 70 which is the local state aid that we receive our offsets based on our projections and known revenue sources. And then at the bottom, we have our net operating budget, which is a four and a half percent increase over the FY21 approved budget. The biggest budget driver for us this

▶ 35:25 Speaker 5: year are our contractual obligations. So in public schools, the way that the salary schedule works for teachers is they have steps that they get each year with their years of service and then there's also lane changes for those who continue to seek further degrees so they can be their best selves for our students. This year that was a 5.8 percent increase over our FY21 budget. We also at the time we were developing the budget had four open collective bargaining agreements. We're coming close to some tentative agreements on almost all of those. So, thank you to the school committee for their work in negotiating those contracts. We also have some increasing transportation costs as it's been harder to secure our own drivers in transporting our students. We're very fortunate in Melrose. We don't have buses in the same way that many other school districts do, but we do have some students who require transportation. Another driver, of course, is this transition from COVID response, which we've been in all year, to thinking forward to our COVID recovery plan and designing different aspects that are going to enable us to accelerate learning for all of our students. And then we'll continue to provide those compensatory services for any student who receives special education services in the district and experience disruption, whether it be in the spring of 2020 or throughout the school year for any reason. So, those are our primary drivers and you'll see how this aligns right with our goals. So, first things first, we always want to develop a budget that's based on our known needs. We also think about what are those unknown needs, and sometimes we have known unknown needs. So based on the students that we already have relationships with, what do we see coming down the pike and how do we design a budget that allows us to respond? We talked about the COVID recovery plan. That really is our primary focus as we think about how we accelerate learning for all students. And that really will come from us being able to both meet them where they are when they first walk through the doors in the fall, but then also thinking about strategic multi-tiered supports and systems that will meet their needs. One of the things that we did this year as a leadership team is we all came together over several months and really looked at the budget through a district lens. So each of the principals had the opportunity and the assistant superintendents had the opportunity to advocate for their individual department or school based on what they thought they would have the best and greatest impact on our students. And then we took a step back and we looked at it from a pre-K through 12 lens, really trying to be strategic and identifying those investments that were going to give us the biggest bang for our buck. We know that one of the most cost-effective things we can do is provide that early intervention and support, so this budget allows us to expand those supports and services. We also have to make sure that we're providing all those required services, those mandated services and supports to our students. And then, of course, maintaining our existing programs that have a proven track record of helping our students grow and develop at a healthy pace and rate each year. And our most important resource, our human resources, making sure that we have the right structures and supports in place to support all of our employees.

▶ 39:00 Speaker 5: So, on this slide, I'm just outlining for you some of the different ways that we've already used some of the supplemental funding that we received from the federal government. All of these grants listed up top have been essential in helping us with our COVID response plan that we are experiencing and wrapping up this week, last week of school. We also have a, another federal grant called the, we call it the ESSER II grant. It's the coronavirus relief funds. There's in the total amount of $439,000 in this budget. You will see that we're utilizing that to shift some things from our operating budget that meet the criteria. we're also utilizing this grant to provide some more mental health and social emotional supports for our students and shifting our what used to be daily student or i'm sorry daily subs to what we've discovered this year during covid having consistent reliable daily student supports that are in the buildings every day allows our staff to have ample support but most importantly allows us to be able to respond to student needs we never have a day where we don't need an extra pair of hands. So that has worked really well for us and we'll continue that through ESSER II. We're also thinking forward and asking ourselves, how do we make sure that these investments that we're making in FY22 with supplemental funds will be sustainable? Because we know that our COVID recovery plan isn't a one-year endeavor. We're going to be making some of these investments for multiple years. We're also going to be learning more about what our students need throughout the school year. So we're really trying to reserve as much of ESSER III as we can so that we can have that bridge from FY22 and beyond. And then our Coronavirus Prevention Fund, we were able to fully expend that this year. It covered all of our testing programs, our COVID-19 testing programs this year, so that the return to instruction back in January week of testing clinics that we did, and then also our pooled testing throughout the school year so i'll leave you with this last slide

▶ 41:12 Speaker 5: again this is just the overview so you have the numbers right before you as i go into answering any questions that you might have i don't want to repeat everything that chair mcandrew shared with you earlier but this budget really does a lot for the district not only are we able to maintain our proven programs our teaching and learning excellence that we have here in melrose it's also allowing us to really um add some supplemental supports that are going to be essential to us being able to respond to our students needs so with that i will answer any

▶ 41:52 Jeff McNaught: questions that you may have thank you superintendent kuchenberger um do we have anyone in the queue i'm sure we will um any hands fly up that i may not have seen yet counselor Jamaleddine thank you

▶ 42:05 Maya Jamaleddine: I just want to, um, thank you, um, and, uh, um, the school committee for all their leadership and hard work during this, um. Very challenging year to say the least, um, my family, and I'm sure a lot of other families in my rules are grateful for all the support that you provided for our kids. And, um, um, I'm just going to say, I support this budget.

▶ 42:39 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Councilor Jamaleddine. Any other Councilors with questions or comments? Councilor Stewart.

▶ 42:47 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. McAndrew, Ms. Sikora, and Dr. Kuchenberger for being here tonight. Dr. Kuchenberger, great job this year. Thank you very much. Personally, as a father, it was the very best of trying situation, and I think as a community, a lot was done. Uh, I think in a very positive way to make it an experience that that worked out. Well, so thank you very much. Um, I did have a couple of specific questions on the budget. Um. When you talk about the contractual obligation, 5, 5. 8% increase is that 5.8 on the 34Million that's tied to wages and salaries.

▶ 43:35 Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead. So, um, on the 5.8%, that's on the contract on the payroll piece. It's not the whole 34Million dollars.

▶ 43:48 Robb Stewart: It's just on the salaries. Okay. And do you know what that true the, the true dollar value of that 5.8%.

▶ 43:53 Speaker 1: I can get you that I don't have that off the top of my head.

▶ 43:58 Robb Stewart: And the reason why I ask is, I think it, I don't want it to be misleading that people would think that it's a 5.8% increase to the 38 million. I think it should be recognized that that is less than the full 38 million that's being asked for. The second question is, was there any impact to some of the attrition I think that occurred during the COVID? Um, and is there a dollar value tied to that? I'm just curious on on what what the impact of of that because I know there was some. Attrition due to people seeking other, um.

▶ 44:39 Speaker 5: Uh, options and evidence, so I'll start and then Leah, feel free to jump in. Um, so we were able to experience some attrition. We also had a number of vacancies that we were not able to fill this year and helped us balance our FY21 budget. But as we think forward to FY22, the first thing that we start with is level services. And that's where we take all of our existing employees and move them on their salary scales in the steps and the lanes. And then we look at any retirement, any personnel reductions, and any turnover that we might have. And so that just on the known retirements at the time that the budget was approved was $368,500. What we don't know yet is, you know, when will all of the hiring occur? Will we be able to fill all of our vacant positions, for example, all of our vacant driver positions? That's an ongoing fluid thing. We get resignations and retirements pretty much all throughout the year.

▶ 45:45 Robb Stewart: Great. Thank you. The last question that I have is, if you could get into a little bit more detail about the accelerated learning, I think this would help the community understand what you're trying to achieve here and why it's so important. When I learned about this, I think it's a good point. Could you expand on that a little?

▶ 46:06 Speaker 5: Sure. So for us, when we're thinking about accelerating learning, it's really about meeting students right where they are. So asking two questions about every student every day. Where is Julie today? What does she know? What can she do? What is she ready to learn? So really making sure that our tiered support system, I'm sure you've seen presentations by the school department where we're showing you that triangle. And so if you think about those layers of support, tier one is for all students. That means that everybody gets universal targeted interventions and supports. And that should be happening right in their classroom with just in time scaffolds. And the way that we're able to make those decisions, the way that our classroom teachers are able to make those decisions is by having really good formative and summative assessments. So getting our data teams back up and running is going to be a critical piece of this so that we're constantly monitoring where students are, but then ready to implement those just-in-time scaffolds when we notice that a student might need something more. So that's all students. Everyone gets that. When you hear us talking about universal design for learning, those are some of those practices that we're putting in place to make sure that that's available and accessible. And then when we think about Tier 2, this is for, if you think all at the bottom, some in the middle, and then few is at the top with Tier 3. But that Tier 2 supplemental support, these interventionists that you see in this budget that we're adding, that's going to help us provide that supplemental targeted support. So again, you still get everything at tier one, and this is an addition. And then up at the very tippy top is for a few students. That's where we think about, you know, really intensive interventions that students may need based on. It could be a learning difference. It could be some sort of trauma or other type of emotional, academic, or mental health need.

▶ 48:03 Robb Stewart: Great. Thank you, Dr. Kuchenberger. That's all I have for this evening. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

▶ 48:09 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Councillor Stewart. Next, I have President Cinella, then Councillor Grigoraitis, and Councillor McMaster. Is there anyone else in queue? President Cinella.

▶ 48:20 Christopher Cinella: I was just going to motion to move the bottom line on Department 300, public school, but I know you want to throw that out there on discussion, let the other councils go.

▶ 48:31 Jeff McNaught: So, the motion by President Sinella to move the bottom line.

▶ 48:42 Speaker 6: For the purposes of discussion, is there a 2nd, or I would 2nd that for purposes of discussion.

▶ 48:44 Jeff McNaught: Okay, and and next, um, did you want to be heard on that?

▶ 48:51 Jen Grigoraitis: Yes, thank you. I just wanted to echo the comments of my colleagues thus far and thank. school committee and dr kuchenberger and missy core and just everyone in the melrose public schools for what has been a year none of us anticipated or i think ever want to live through again but you know many of us on this uh body are parents of public school children i think we know firsthand how deeply you've dug and how you know how much you produced enough my first grader brought home his writing journal this year and just to see the moments of joy that he clearly had this year when i think so many of us don't don't see that when we look back on 2020 and 2021 i know that's the impact of educators so thank you you had a tireless and thankless job and had to make impossible decisions with imperfect and constantly changing information and i imagine that took a toll on all of you and all of your families as well so i just want to say thank you for that and i'm so pleased to see us have a budget that really reflects the needs of

▶ 49:58 Jeff McNaught: our students and hopefully brings us into recovery. Thank you, Councillor Grigoraitis.

▶ 50:03 Mark Garipay: Councillor Garipay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Kuchenberg. Thank you, Chairman McAndrew for being here. I don't know if you can even answer this question. We're still in school, but over the past year a lot of people have either stayed at home and were educated at home or private schools. Have we seen any of the enrollment come back over the last

▶ 50:31 Speaker 5: couple months and and how is that looking yeah great question um we're definitely seeing families coming back um we i don't have all the numbers right in front of me but i certainly could get them for you we look at the enrollment data all the time and what we're what we're planning on and what we're projecting for in fy 22 is every single one of our classes kindergarten through fifth grade with this exception of second grade they're a little bit under 300 they're at like 297 All other classes at the elementary level will be over 300 students in a grade. So if you think about graduation on June 4th, we had 232 students in our 2021 graduating class. So significantly large classes moving their way up through the elementary into the middle school and our fifth grade class that's joining the middle school next year is just under 300 right now as well. But we're definitely seeing families come back and we're working with them to get them enrolled. We're also seeing some families move out. That's typical. We have a little bit of movement both ways. But it started really probably around March, February with families saying, okay, we're coming back. Some of them this school year already and others planning for the fall.

▶ 51:46 Mark Garipay: Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate you being here.

▶ 51:48 Jeff McNaught: Thank you Councilor Garipay. Did I have anyone else in queue that I may have missed? Seeing none, any further discussion? Councilor Thomas.

▶ 51:59 Cory Thomas: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Superintendent Kuchenberger, welcome. Chairwoman McAndrew, welcome. Mr. Kor, welcome. Do you have a total number of what was sent to FEMA as far as reimbursement?

▶ 52:13 Speaker 1: I'm currently working with Patrick de la Russo on getting together the FEMA reimbursement and because we're still the extension of the school year, the summer is an extension of 2021 in FEMA. We still have supplies to be bought.

▶ 52:29 Cory Thomas: So we don't have a number as of yet. Is there a ballpark figure?

▶ 52:31 Speaker 1: It is around a 1Million so far. I don't anticipate it to be too much more.

▶ 52:38 Cory Thomas: Are there, um, are there other system, you know, districts throughout the Commonwealth that have filed the femur and heard back from them yet? That, you know, not that I know of. All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. All the hard work you guys have done throughout the calendar year.

▶ 52:53 Speaker 7: The school year. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Thomas.

▶ 52:57 Jeff McNaught: Seeing no other hands raised, um, we will vote. Madam clerk, can you please call the role chairman? Not.

▶ 53:04 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, vice chair Eccles. Yes. Counselor. Yes. Yeah. Counselor McMaster. Yes, yeah. Yes. Counselor Grigoraitis yes. Yeah. Counselor, yes. Yes. Counselor Stewart yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Cinella? Yes. Eleven yes.

▶ 53:36 Jeff McNaught: The motion passes. Thank you very much for being here with us this evening and all you do every day, Superintendent Kuchenberger and Chair McAndrew and everybody else rooting for you from the audience.

▶ 53:51 Jeff McNaught: Appreciate it. Thank you. Next we have the Northeast technical vocational school i believe we have is it mr hamilton here this evening

▶ 54:08 Speaker 1: actually have several we have mr davari superintendent okay coming in we have mr hamilton coming in oh we have mr picone business manager coming in mr hamilton can you hear us

▶ 54:31 Speaker 1: yes i'm here so i cannot make you a panelist i'm not sure why i can make i'm unmuting you so that you may hear the discussion are you on a uh mobile phone by chance

▶ 54:44 Ward Hamilton: no no i'm on a laptop that was issued to me by the school committee okay so uh making you a

▶ 54:49 Speaker 1: panelist was not an option at this time but i'll leave your you can speak you're unmuted

▶ 54:58 Ward Hamilton: okay thank you uh i'm just here this evening to uh introduce the folks from the uh northeast metro tech. I think I know everyone on the city council, some folks very well. And what I wanted to do is just share with you briefly my experience, which started a little less than a year ago when I decided to pull papers and run for the seat that was being vacated by Henry Hooten. I think Henry was there for 36 years. I might have that number off a little bit, but it's probably not much. And when I spoke to Henry and asked him about the role and what was involved, he told me, you know, nothing but good things about what was going on up at Northeast Metro Tech, the people that were there, how terrific everything was. And it sort of sounded like an endorsement from somebody who had been somewhere for a long time and wanted to leave, you know, with nothing but positive, upbeat comments. So sometime later after the election, when I first got up to Northeast Metro Tech, I was very pleased to find that everything Henry described was accurate. It's a very important, impressive school run by, very well run by people who are doing an excellent job every year the school has a wait list kids want to get in there i was able to find out in the brief time that i've been serving on the committee that that our our kids from melrose are served very well i'm very pleased with what's going on and also there's a campaign underway to build a new and larger building that will create more opportunities um with an increased enrollment so without uh any further ado it is my honor to introduce to you the superintendent david barry and if i'm not sure if she's here i didn't hear her name mentioned but i think she's here the principal and deputy director director and our finance director, Jay Picone.

▶ 57:16 Speaker 2: Thank you.

▶ 57:19 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. Good evening, Mr. Dabari and Mr. Picone. I do see Ms. Scazzarella in the audience, but she's just on phone, Madam Clerk. I don't know, gentlemen, if Ms. Scazzarella is gonna be... Oh, there we go. She's coming in.

▶ 57:58 Jeff McNaught: Webex can surprise us every night. Oh, okay. We're all in the room. So, whoever would like to lead off the floor is yours.

▶ 58:04 Speaker 8: Sure, this is Dave. I've met God, I think, going back 10 years. I've been coming as previously as principal and now as superintendent. So I do feel at home. Sometimes it's happy to say, it's, it's 1 of the meetings that I'm a little less anxious about, because you've always been such a gracious group to us and I really appreciate that. I'd also like to take a minute to publicly welcome Ward Hamilton. I can't tell you how exciting it is to have somebody with the experience in construction and such a knowledge of municipal issues. It's going to be invaluable on our new school project and hopefully this is a relationship for many years to come. It has been bittersweet though. I would like to also remark as Ward did on Henry Hooton's years of service and the things that he had done and the ways in which he had supported the students of Melrose. I could be here all night. So I did speak to Henry and his wife and I believe they may be watching. So he still supports us and we're very fortunate for the time we have with him As a school committee representative, so now I'm going to turn it right over to Jay, our finance director, but I am available after the presentation, or during the presentation for any questions or further discussions on anything. The committee would like to talk about. Thank you.

▶ 59:38 Speaker 2: So, thank you for having me tonight. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about our budget process and what we go through on an annual basis. So, every budget that set out to produce. Always has 2 goals in mind 1st and foremost, we always want to minimize the impact to our member communities. So, we understand Melrose is a is a collaborative effort between us and Melrose. uh you know we understand that you're under the restriction of prop two and a half how much money you can raise via taxation on the annual basis i very well know that because i used to be in melrose and patrick del russo and i used to talk about this very often but um also uh we understand there are other departments that we used to fund we need to fund fully and adequately in melrose and um you know we're very cognizant when we come when it comes to developing our budgets we understand that and we don't want to bring a very large assessment to Melrose because it could be problematic financially and secondly we want provide an adequate level of funding to support student learning and foster educational excellence because we want to be Melrose of the school I mean we want to be that excellent vocational pathway similar to the excellent education that they offer at Melrose public schools we want to be the vocational option and we want to mirror that excellence and third this year we need to allocate funds provided by the Student Opportunity Act best meet student needs I believe last year the Student Opportunity Act was introduced prior to COVID it was pulled out mid year because it was unable to be funded and this year it's being reinserted back in as a requirement by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that we need to fund these positions in our budget for FY22. So regionalization exists by definition to offer services at a reduced cost to its member communities. So whenever we're developing our budget, we always want to keep our assessment very low at or below a 3% increase. I'm happy to report that we were able to come in right at 3%, although that is light uptick in what we normally bring in bring the assessment in it um there's there are some there are definitely some financial um burdens that we we dealt with in fy 22 that weren't present in fy 21. and i apologize uh i sent kristen i sent this documentation this is the powerpoint presentation that i'm referencing um i i'm wondering if you should if you share that with all the members I'm on page where it says minimizing financial impact historical assessment. Analysis is a graph there.

▶ 1:02:34 Speaker 1: So, you also actually have presenter role if you want to share your screen, you can put it right up.

▶ 1:02:39 Speaker 2: Okay, well, I have my laptop, I'm sorry I have my laptop my phone, so. I'm kind of using both, so that's all right. I'll keep going. But I think I said, I sent this information to the. To the council, so you should have all this information in front of you. But so, anyways, in our assessment went up 450,000, 186, as opposed to 21 that went up to 288,463 dollars.

▶ 1:03:12 Speaker 2: Now, there is a certain reason why the assessment went up if if you're looking at the PowerPoint presentation, where it says minimizing financial impact state funding. In FY21, our pre-COVID amount of Chapter 70, which is one of our main funding sources, it's Chapter 70 plus the assessment, plus our transportation reimbursement, always equals our operating budget. We were projected to give $11,527,909 in Chapter 70 funding, and that was in a significant increase in Chapter 70 funding, which included the Student Opportunity Act funds that the department of elementary and secondary education introduced and then we um a billion dollars of our transportation reimbursement fund to uh come up to the other half of the operating um assessment but what happened obviously is covid hit and um the state revenues were way down and when july rolled around we didn't have an approved budget so we built our budget based on the 11 million 527 909 of chapter 70. when they finally passed the budget in september our chapter 7 funding had been cut to 10 million 745 350 which is around 780 000 difference so we were in the middle of december we had to cut 780 000 from our budget i'm happy to report we were able to do so without any cuts to staffing we did they did remove the student opportunity act requirement from that budget so we could cut that but we still had to scramble to find the ways to cut budget down without reducing staffing we were able to do so in fy 22 however our although our chapter 70 funding did go up to 11 million 195 113 it still doesn't reach the pre-covered amount of money that we were supposed to receive and fy21 and it also reintroduces the student opportunity act which the student up the act is around 430 000 of positions that we had we we have to add in fy22 so it brings an interesting problem we received a little bump in chapter 70 which was we were um equated to around 450 000 or 449 763 to be exact But we still have to fund those positions within the student opportunity act, which equates around 430,000. so, as, you know. We have regular contractual obligations, similar to Melrose. Melrose has regular steps and lanes, other contractual obligations and increase on an annual basis. So, it left us with an interesting problem. So, but we were able to figure it out. We intend to receive a projected 1.2Million dollars in transportation reimbursement. That we're going to use to offset the FY22 budget. We use 1Million this past year in FY21. we're going to use 1.2Million dollars in FY22 and then we're going to use Other funding sources, 200,000 to, I'm sorry, 2Million from our other funding sources are indeed in capital to further reduce the assessment costs. So, in total, we plan to use 3Million, 200,000 of other funds to reduce the member assessment resulting revenue. $3 more than we're using 21 to significantly offset the increase in the operating budget.

▶ 1:06:55 Speaker 2: So, FY22 presents the following fiscal challenges. We need to add positions related to the Student Opportunity Act, like I mentioned, without the corresponding funding to adequately cover the regular contractual increases and required positions. We need funding for new employment contracts for all of our bargaining groups. We have six bargaining groups that we're in negotiations with. We were able to come up with a tentative agreement or a MOA for one year for fy21 uh we're negotiating for a new three-year contract for all bargaining groups in fy22 and funding for other post-employment benefits our total future liability is 71 million and we need to continue to start funding that because of the fact that it really affects our bond rating and when we're going for a building project we want our bond rating to be the highest so that way we reduce the burden to our member communities of the total interest that will be charged

▶ 1:07:55 Speaker 2: so our salary request pretty much makes up our entire budget our steps lanes and salary increases are seven hundred forty five thousand zero thirty five we have five positions related to the Student Opportunity Act that are included in this budget don't get me wrong I keep saying that there these positions are required to be added but they will add absolutely crucial services to student increase student benefit. We have an addition of an auto body teacher in this budget based on the fact that we have increased enrollment in that shop and we need to add another teacher. And then we have to add a teacher to the budget based on the fact that it used to be funded by a grant. Our Perkins grant used to fund a teacher. Perkins grant is exclusive to vocational schools but so we had to move this teacher they only have a three-year period they're allowed to be in the grant the three years is up we have to move them into the into the budget and you talked about attrition before and salary savings and we calculated our attrition and salary savings based on retirements of one hundred and twenty two thousand one one eight and savings so our total increase highlighted expenses is $1,221,891 in salary. And that's where all of our increases lie. Then we look to, as our largest line item, we look to decrease the budget in certain areas. So our contracted services requests, we determined that we were going to need $1.5 million in capital projects funding this year as opposed to the 1.6 that we had last year so we were able to reduce the capital projects line by by a hundred thousand dollars in addition we scoured the budget to determine that other contractual services line could be reduced based on historical analysis and we came up with an eighteen thousand dollar savings there so we were able to save a hundred and eighteen thousand nine forty two in the contractual services line and as i mentioned we scour the budget so even the smallest line items we look to reduce so our supply lines are level serviced however we found one line that we didn't use anymore so we reduced the budget the supply request by three thousand dollars every dollar counts so and our equipment request is level funded and the reason being is that most of our equipment is covered by grant expenditures

▶ 1:10:40 Speaker 2: that are funded outside of this budget so in total our operating budget is going up $1,099,949 in FY22 which is a 3.2 percent increase however as I mentioned we're going to use $649,763 more in revenue than we did in FY21. So that $1,099,949 comes down to $450,186 and the resulting amount is the amount of the assessment that we have to assess the member communities. So $450,186 is the total assessment, but that is divided by percentage of total enrollment. But so Melrose, based on the fact that you went down by two students, your assessment went from 767,490 to 754,661 and it's a decrease of 12,829 based on the decrease of two students from our enrollment. that's the that's the summary if anybody has any questions I'll be happy to

▶ 1:11:52 Jeff McNaught: answer them Thank You mr. Pocone and I know we also have principals because are Ella here and I didn't know if you were going to speak to anything but we're happy to have you here and and let you say a few words if you so please

▶ 1:12:05 Speaker 9: thank you I appreciate the opportunity I really don't have anything to add unless you have any questions specifically related to any curriculum or anything at

▶ 1:12:19 Jeff McNaught: school that i could possibly answer thank you very much so we'll go to the panel the hollywood squares here and see who has questions for anyone do any counselors have any questions for um anyone from northeast metro tech seeing no what is the will of the committee motion to move the bottom

▶ 1:12:43 Jeff McNaught: line on 399. seconds we have a motion to move the bottom line on uh department 399 northeast metro tech made by president sanella seconded by councillor Garipay on discussion seeing none

▶ 1:13:00 Speaker 1: madam clerk will you please call the roll chair mcnaught yes yes vice chair eccles yes councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor Garipay yes councillor Grigoraitis yes councillor Migliorelli? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Thomas? Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Sinella? Yes. Eleven yes. Thank you. The motion passes. Thank you. Thank you all for

▶ 1:13:35 Jeff McNaught: being here and what you do every day. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 1:13:43 Jeff McNaught: And have a nice evening. So, 399 also includes Essex Agricultural. So, for formality's sake, we can vote on that again, but we won't unless people have questions. Mr. De La Russo and Superintendent Kuchenberger can come back in. They would be the ones to speak for essex agricultural on curriculum and budget so if anyone has any questions on essex aggie i know i'm abbreviating it that's what we know it s we can certainly bring them back into the room but if i don't see a show of hands we won't bring them back into the room and i'm also comfortable knowing uh the 399 included essex agricultural but if there's one hand that goes up that says nope we should vote on that as well we can do that as well but if but if if there's no objection i think we can all agree that 399 was passed and that essex agricultural was part of that line item as it is okay seeing uh no objection um that leaves us with what do we do with order 2021-122 the order that we've been working on now for several weeks um what is the will of the committee now that we've finished all departments counselor stewart uh yes mr chair i'd like to make a motion

▶ 1:15:19 Jeff McNaught: to recommend uh for passage back in we have a motion to recommend for passage order 2021-122 the city of morrow's operating budget for fiscal year 2022 and the amount of 91 million 522 dollars and 33 cents made by councillor stewart and seconded by councillor Grigoraitis on discussion seeing none madam clerk will you please call the role

▶ 1:15:44 Speaker 1: chair mcnaught yes vice chair Eccles yes councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster Yes, yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes.

▶ 1:16:14 Speaker 1: Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Cinella? Yes.

▶ 1:16:18 Jeff McNaught: The motion passes. Next we have Order 2021-145, acceptance of a net metering credit agreement between the city of Melrose and Hampshire power for energy and cost savings. The agreement authorizes the production of alternative energy on behalf of the city through a state endorsed program. And I believe we have someone from.