ORDER-2020-89 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2021 in the amount of $88,397,961.08 (Eighty-Eight Million, Three Hundred Ninety-Seven Thousand, Nine Hundred Sixty-One Dollars and Eight Cents).

Transcript (~8 min @ 1:01:03)

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▶ 1:00:59 Speaker 1: Chairman Sinella. Yes.

▶ 1:01:05 Speaker 2: That is eight yes, three no motion passes. Thank you, Chief.

▶ 1:01:15 Christopher Cinella: Have a good night. 2020-89 the continuation of our operating budget budget for fiscal year 2021 and the amount of 88 million 397 thousand nine hundred and sixty one dollars and eight cents first up we have our 542 veterans services and the revolving account account 206 which also falls under order 2020-90 the reauthorization of the knowledge of all

▶ 1:01:47 Speaker 1: funds table is adopted by the city. Karen, can you hear us? Sorry. Can you hear us? Yes, I'm not able to make you a panelist. I don't understand why. Okay. Do you have Bob Driscoll with you? I do. Can you guys hear Karen? Yep. Okay. We have some prepared remarks. Hi, thank you for inviting us here today. It's myself and Colonel Bob Driscoll. He is the chairman of the Veterans Advisory Board. And the Veterans Services Office works

▶ 1:02:14 Speaker 1: Closely with the veterans advisory board for taking care of the veterans in the city of Melrose You're not only the ceremonies and different offerings that we have such as our operation trip, but just some day-to-day operations I'm just gonna I talk frequently Well, we use the veteran relief fund and about how we can could you just speak up a bit time to hear you? Sorry

▶ 1:02:37 Speaker 1: Proudly, I talk frequently about taking care of the veterans and Melrose of the office work very closely with the veterans advisory board to take care of the citizens of the veterans of Melrose and their families yeah we do many different things in the office which our budget the primary line item for our budget our veteran benefits which are administered through a program called chapter 115 which is financial assistance for low-income veterans or their surviving spouses and families so that's the main part of the budget items We also do a very large amount of VA claims. We assist veterans with disability claims, pension claims, accessing health care. We assist with getting discharge records and many other types of VA federal type of programs.

▶ 1:03:28 Speaker 1: So I submitted my budget questionnaire. I'm not sure if any of you had a chance to review that or had any questions for me regarding that.

▶ 1:03:35 Christopher Cinella: Councilor Tramontozzi is first in queue.

▶ 1:03:43 John N. Tramontozzi: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Karen, and Mr. Driscoll for being with us this evening for these hearings. And I want to say thank you so much for the work you do with the veterans. It's really wonderful what you do for the veterans. I do have a couple questions on the budget, but before I get into that, I just wanted to, just to let the council know that we do have a lot to get through tonight and out of courtesy to the council and to the department heads and to the public, I will not be moving to make any adjustments to the individual department line items. However, being that said, when the entire budget is before the full council, we should be prepared to discuss the bottom line In the aggregate, and I can assure you that. I'll be making suggestions and I hope other counselors will do the same. With that said, Karen, I just have a quick question. Can is it the line item that the veterans benefit? Line is that the item maybe you can explain that in regarding our reimbursement from the state or the benefits that we pay to the veterans?

▶ 1:05:05 Speaker 1: Oh, yes, sir. Thank you. Good question. So the veteran benefit line, which is our largest line, is the Chapter 115 program that I mentioned, and that is paid locally within Melrose, but it's reimbursed from the state of Massachusetts at 75% or up to 75% of what we pay out. And that is a large part of the job that I do is we follow the guidelines and the laws of Chapter 115 and the 108 CMR to make sure we're meeting all of the requirements of the law. And then the state authorizes what we've paid out. So we're reimbursed 75% of what we're paying out of that budget line item.

▶ 1:05:39 John N. Tramontozzi: It's wonderful that we get that reimbursement. I know sometimes it comes in a little bit later than when we request, but it's significant. but i noticed that it's dropping by about thirty thousand dollars um is there a reason a rationale

▶ 1:05:56 Speaker 1: uh for that yeah we thought it was safe to drop but we haven't met our we haven't met our projected budgets that we've had in the past two years could be for many different reasons currently we have 24 veterans or family members who are on chapter 115 at this time last year we had 28 so it does tend to increase and decrease depending on what's going on um unfortunately this year we've lost a few veterans so that has brought our numbers down we are constantly doing community outreach to make sure people know that this is a benefit that's available to them even if we were to bring on some more veterans we would still have enough money in the budget they think to carry through this year with our proposed budget amount and if we bring in more veterans then we could trying to bring it up next year but for this year i believe this is an accurate picture of what we would need to be able to execute the program that's great thank you so much again thank you

▶ 1:06:46 John N. Tramontozzi: for your um your work and hard work that you do in your office for the veterans of this community

▶ 1:06:59 Mark Garipay: thank you mr chairman thank you thank you mr chairman thank you karen thank you mr driscoll for being there i just i have no questions i just want to uh want to acknowledge all the hard work that your department and the advisory advisory board does for uh all the veterans and their families and it uh it is very much appreciated by uh by uh by the city as a whole and i i just wanted to acknowledge that and thank you thank you thank you council mcmaster thank you mr chairman

▶ 1:07:25 Shawn M. MacMaster: good evening lieutenant colonel burke uh good evening um colonel driscoll and i i say colonel driscoll with great pride because what our counselors may not know what the public may not know is that as of june 1st you are now a colonel in the united states air force and you were notified of that by general joseph langyell and that is a promotion that was recognized by the secretary of the air force and the president of the united states so i just wanted to publicly congratulate you uh colonel driscoll for that uh tremendous uh honor i want to thank you uh for your service to our country uh and uh for lieutenant colonel burke uh um thank you for all that you do as our veteran services officer uh i am very proud to serve as the advisory um member uh from council to the veterans advisory board i know how hard all of you and all of our veterans who volunteer work throughout the course of the year so i am thankful for that and i just wanted to recognize you both publicly this evening thank you mr chairman anybody else thank you make a

▶ 1:08:43 Christopher Cinella: motion to move the bottom line motion to move the bottom line made by councillor Garipay seconded by councillor eccles adam clark please follow the road vice chair Migliorelli yes council

▶ 1:08:51 Speaker 1: Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster?

▶ 1:08:57 Speaker 5: Yes.

▶ 1:08:58 Speaker 1: Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Tanalla? Yes. Bottom line moved.