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 (~1 h @ 3:27)

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

▶ 3:24 Speaker 2: Is there Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Sonnella. Yes. Eleven yes. I'm sorry. Ten yes.

▶ 3:28 Christopher Cinella: All right, so we have a 1st order tonight, the continuation of order 2020 dash 89. City of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2021 in the amount of 88,397,961 dollars and 8 cents. 1st stop is a city clerk, not 161, but I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules so that we can suspend the rules. second motion to suspend the rules made by president Grigoraitis seconded by counselor stewart

▶ 4:06 Speaker 1: vice chair Migliorelli counselor Tramontozzi yes counselor mcmaster yes counselor mcnaught yes counselor eccles yeah counselor Garipay yes counselor stewart yes counselor thomas

▶ 4:20 Speaker 1: Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Sinella?

▶ 4:27 Speaker 2: Yes. Eleven yes.

▶ 4:28 Speaker 1: Okay. So, Madam Clerk, the screen is all yours. Do you have prepared remarks?

▶ 4:34 Christopher Cinella: You're on mute. You can move your lips, though, if you wanted to speak. Yeah.

▶ 4:38 Speaker 1: No, I couldn't get my mouse to work. Sorry.

▶ 4:41 Christopher Cinella: There we go. Hi, everyone. So, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you.

▶ 4:45 Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, let's see, so I, I'm going to speak on behalf of both elections and the city clerk's budget at once since it's, um. The 2 budgets are very intertwined. Um. Basically, uh, nothing significant has is going to change in this year's. Upcoming budget that we can predict now. Um. As you all know, a lot may change with elections coming up in the next, um. Couple of months will, you know, hopefully by next week, we'll know more exactly what we need to do. Um, but right now we're keeping a fairly steady state on both budgets and, uh, we'll account for that change as we know more what we'll need to do. I don't know, since most of you are new, I'm not sure if you would like me to kind of go into a little bit more detail about what. Happens in the city clerk's office. Um, I kind of leave that up to you if you want me to give more.

▶ 5:58 Speaker 3: That would make sense. Okay, so the city clerk is, um, we're the record keeper of the city. Uh, that kind of set sounds sort of simplistic, um. Compared to what the role really is, uh, that means we kind of are responsible for archiving everything. Um, and we also take in a lot of. The applications and licenses through the city, we document all licenses, we issue licenses. We also are in charge of all vital records. That means every birth that happens for a Melrose resident or someone who's born in Melrose, we have to register and archive that anytime anyone passes away. Same thing, and anytime someone wants to get married and does intentions in Melrose, we are forever responsible for their paperwork. We recently have kind of part of the governor's changes for COVID mean that literally every license or permit in the city that's applied for or issued, we need to be the point of contact for that, which is new as of March. um and obviously that's different now uh that we're not open to the public so we've moved quite a few things uh online in a very short amount of time we had already had a lot of infrastructure in place to do some of that online um you know i became city clerk in 2018. uh melissa ripley my assistant city clerk joined the clerk's office in 2017 so we've had a lot of recent um changes to the clerk's office but the good thing about that is we kind of all came at it with fresh eyes and have done a lot of um things to kind of automate processes when possible make things more user friendly so people can order things online pay via credit card and uh hopefully make everything smoother um some of the other things that take up a lot of time those were also kind of like if most of you probably the first couple times you went to city hall you stopped by our office which is just one of the main entrances so we're also kind of a default information source for residents we also are the default phone operator for the city so any general phone call to the city when someone doesn't know where they need to go my staff answers those calls and directs them accordingly um and again where the elections administrator is paid through the city clerk staff so we uh those two depart the two departments are pretty much one in the same we flip-flop um my senior clerk amy heidrich it works with elections um and depending on the time of year that could be full-time in elections and zero time in the city clerk's office which means then melissa takes on more of the city clerk roles um and kind of vice versa so we try to utilize staff whenever possible to kind of minimize the temporary seasonal staff that the elections office had used in the past to cover some of the

▶ 9:03 Speaker 3: election staffing requirements I think that's a good overview I mean obviously you know what my role is with the City Council I also maintain all the legislative archives and ordinance archives oh and sorry and I'm also the city webmaster and this webmaster for this school department site as well

▶ 9:24 Christopher Cinella: that's it so I have two in queue Councilor Tramptosian and Councilor Eccles Did I miss anybody?

▶ 9:30 Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.

▶ 9:31 Christopher Cinella: Okay. Councilor Tramontozzi?

▶ 9:37 John N. Tramontozzi: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, Ms. Camosa. Thank you for coming in this evening. We'll just get right into it. Are all your employees in the clerk's office, all their Salary paid under your budget? Yes. Okay. Can you explain the overtime, what do you need overtime for, $6,000 that the mayor's asking for?

▶ 10:10 Speaker 3: Overtime covers, uh, that mostly that's related to elections work. Um, that's most of the time that we would hit overtime costs are related to, you know, as I mentioned, Amy had Rick works. For both offices and Joanne preparing our elections administrator, obviously, uh, during elections works more than.

▶ 10:29 John N. Tramontozzi: 35 hours quite a bit more, especially when there's, uh, we have elections.

▶ 10:33 Speaker 3: Yes, almost exclusively for elections. Yeah.

▶ 10:37 John N. Tramontozzi: Because because other than the elections, there's really no quote over time when city halls open you there when city halls close your clothes.

▶ 10:46 Speaker 3: That depends on the day, but most of the time I staff will just work to get the work done. They don't typically charge over time, but we have, you know, depending on the time of year. There are times where things have to happen under deadline. That involves direct. Resident contact in the office, a lot of the stuff is done. Separate from office residents, you know, because they'll order stuff online. We have we issue all business certificates, dog licensing that has to happen under deadline, different licensing, you know, gasoline and storage. Livery that kind of stuff doesn't happen on a certain cadence. So, I mean, there we probably, you know, but most of the overtime that we're budgeting all will go to elections work.

▶ 11:32 John N. Tramontozzi: Are all the your employees working remotely? Yes, okay, so they're still they're all on the payroll.

▶ 11:40 Speaker 3: Yeah, they're all working full time. I mean, Joanne's in the office because the state election database isn't. Something that she can use through VPN, but yeah, and the rest of the staff is flip flopping time in and out to. To still meet all the needs we have for.

▶ 12:03 John N. Tramontozzi: Vital records and that kind of thing. It looks like we're going through a re, codification this fiscal year. Can you explain what that's all about?

▶ 12:09 Speaker 3: That's just what the line is. That's what it's named. It's been that way for a while. That's the line that we use to cover all the general code expenses. So, like, this, that was high, because we, when we changed the charter to reference city council, that means the entire charter had to be recodified. So, that's, we just, we keep that line because if something like that happens again, we need enough money in it to cover the cost of the ordinance.

▶ 12:38 John N. Tramontozzi: Do you think you're going to need the full $6,000 in that budget? Prior years, it's been four. I know this year was a little bit more because of the charter.

▶ 12:49 Speaker 3: I think that it's better to keep it there so we have it if we need it. You don't want the reason why it doesn't get documented properly is because we don't have enough money in the

▶ 13:08 John N. Tramontozzi: budget to cover it the the just briefly in the elections register 162 because you're talking to them item line item five six one one six two one five one three zero zero zero part-time Salary and wages is that for just strictly for

▶ 13:30 Speaker 3: elections and how do you spend that money that's uh that's the part-time Salary and wages is what covers poll workers and other election day workers

▶ 13:40 John N. Tramontozzi: all right so well we have to provide the resources for that and that's fully understood we have an election so that's this fiscal year so that's going to be necessary that's uh it's going back to roughly around the original 2020 budget We had expended a little bit more because the revised budget, because of the special election, I imagine.

▶ 14:15 Speaker 3: Are you still referring to the part time salary and wages line or just in general? No, part time line. Yeah. So, because we had 2 additional elections compared to what we had budgeted for. Yeah.

▶ 14:23 John N. Tramontozzi: Right. Okay. All right. So that makes sense. Let me ask you this is, are your employees, any of your employees union employees or the non-union?

▶ 14:33 Speaker 3: Two are union, and then myself and the assistant city clerk are non-union.

▶ 14:38 John N. Tramontozzi: So the election administrator in the administrative clerk or union?

▶ 14:42 Speaker 1: Senior clerk, yep.

▶ 14:47 John N. Tramontozzi: Okay. All right. I've got to recalculate some of my figures here, so I'm going to pass on at the moment. And I do anticipate, as I have been doing for the administration employees, a proposed motion to level fund the Salary line item to the original 2020 budget. But let me do a couple of calculations and I'll pass on baton to whoever is up. Thank you.

▶ 15:23 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you Chairman Snella and thank you Clerk Camosa for being here. I just want to, before we get into the details of potentially cutting things, talk about what your office and particularly the elections division is facing in FY21. So, I think most counselors are aware that there's several bills pending in the state house regarding how we are going to safely and effectively manage elections during cobit. We have both a primary in September and a general election in November. My understanding, if you can correct me, if I'm wrong, is that there are multiple proposals that would include 21 days of early voting. So that, which is something that we have to provide. and that we would also be averaged for the March double special election about 15 to 20 hours a week in overtime by the elections clerk. So I'm actually concerned that we are going to be far exceeding the capacity of your staff in order to meet those early voting days while maintaining social distancing and doing two elections during this crisis. So can you talk a little bit about what your plans are for that I know that things are up in the air as we wait for the legislature to make a decision but just some of the things that you put in

▶ 16:42 Speaker 3: place as we think about FY 21 sure thank you for bringing that up um so it does seem I don't know how much people can pay attention but just in the last two days or so it kind of seems like the state is sort of honing in on a proposal for how they think the election procedures should go I think that there's still a lot of stuff up in the air but what we know for sure is that yes we definitely will need staff early voting on a good day you know though at times we've held it so far we've been able to hold it in the city council

▶ 17:19 Christopher Cinella: chamber in city one second could everybody mute there's some background noise i think it might be council tramitose thank you sorry that's fine my apologies it was me

▶ 17:31 Speaker 3: so uh city council chamber does a couple things really it makes it very easy for us in some ways i mean easy is a relative term um early voting is always very staff heavy and time consuming um but it's such a great option for residents we're very happy to do it we just need to plan for it um the challenge coming up this year is that we have worked through several different scenarios and all of them make it so we really aren't confident that the city council chamber can handle early voting if we need to maintain the social distancing that we think is best for voters and for our poll workers we are looking at some alternative sites possibly memorial hall um to kind of open up some space where you could have a different entrance to exit and you can space voters out more um but that again means that we can't have someone on staff who's down at the clerk's office just run down if someone wants to early vote and help you know if there's a line early voting to help out we need to have designated staff in a different location um so yes we will definitely need staff for that and then just with the anticipated increase in in mail-in ballots, regardless again of how the state ultimately decides to support residents option for mail-in ballots, we, I think, are realistically assuming that the number of voters who choose to mail in their ballot will increase significantly. The thing about that, that's great, but it does require some processing on the elections and office side of things because we want to make sure that everyone who has requested a ballot gets it in a timely way that we then log it to make sure that they're logged as voted when it gets back to us. We have to file everything to make sure it gets logged to the right ward and precinct. So it is time consuming. So yes, we will definitely need more staff. We have several of our very reliable poll workers lined up who have already indicated that they're willing to help with that uh that's that's great um and i think that will help but i definitely anticipate at least the same amount of overtime hours if not more um and again the other pieces once we move past early voting um depending on the number of people who mail and vote in early vote uh we you know that's great but we still then have an election day to staff and run while maintaining the safety and health of both the voters and the poll workers so we're working on several different scenarios depending on what we're able to do you know as the state determines what they're going to change from a legislative perspective and we're anticipating that the best option for us would be to consolidate polling locations to the middle school so that we can have all of the um staff in one place to really keep everything flowing uh you know we have several polling locations in the city that have a vulnerable population either living there or who go to school there and we don't want our election day to compromise anyone's health and safety so the benefit of the middle school is you can actually close the doors and keep that entrance completely separate and um that would give us some more flexibility to set up and not infiltrate um people's lunch rooms or their common spaces that kind of thing or city hall for that matter because we'd run into the same issue we're concerned about during early voting on election day at city hall um that's the plan so far

▶ 21:29 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you. That's helpful. I mean, just from having the benefit of having some conversations with you and Ms. Perperian and hearing your commission need and discuss this, I know even things that seem as simplistic as pens are going to be incredibly complicated. We can't just have everybody reusing pens like we normally do, and that comes with a cost associated with it, let alone thinking about having voters entering the steelhouse in the middle of a pandemic. So I just want to say how much I appreciate the thought you all are putting into this. It's incredibly complicated while we wait for the state to figure out what the rules are that we're operating under. And I know we're probably going to have very little time from when something gets passed at the state level until we begin early voting. And what I believe is August for the September election.

▶ 22:17 Speaker 3: Yes, because it's September 1st. on top of that actually so the proposal that's um just went through the um the elections committee at the state you know proposed that all again this isn't necessarily voted on yet so i don't know if this will move forward but they're proposing that by july 15th uh absentee applications would be mailed out um to all registered voters so um whether that plan passes or not that kind of puts us all into perspective of how quickly we're going to have to kind of hit the ground running once these legislation actually passes i mean that's not very long from now for us to have everything ramped up and ready to go um one of the things that we really want to make sure we have ready to go is communication to all residents um so we've already been planning out you know citywide mailings to kind of communicate where the changes will be um and we'll have a a variety of ways to reach all types of residents we don't want to just rely on you know uh social media or anything like that we want to make sure everyone knows if polling locations are going to change um so that there's time to kind of plan for any um additional transportation needs that residents would have um and any support any kind of residents would need to do mail-in voting if that's what they would prefer uh so you know there's that whole piece too beyond just the procedural operational piece of it is to make sure that all the residents like no one gets left behind in this and that everyone who wants to vote has the same safe and uh secure experience when they do so uh one thing i forgot to mention is the what we are moving forward with is um the purchase of poll pads which are kind of they're they're basically a glorified ipad that you can download the entire melrose voter database on these ipads and um what that will enable is because we need to be as flexible as possible with all of this we can actually you know double check people's voter registration status in real time at the polling location or during early voting which we hope will give us a little bit more flexibility as well when we do early voting in city hall we actually use the state computers themselves we just move them down to the chamber but because that's on a state the separate secure network we can't um obviously do that same thing if we go somewhere else for early voting so the poll pads should support that and we think that will that is considered a covid expense so we can apply that cares funds to cover that cost thank you clerk camosa and thank you chairman

▶ 24:59 Jen Grigoraitis: And so now I just I think we have an incredibly complicated task in front of us to ensure the integrity and accessibility of our elections. And I am inclined to move the bottom line. Thank you.

▶ 25:16 Jack Eccles: Councilor Eccles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Coates, I think you mostly answered my question between Council Chairman Tozzi and President Gorgaitis. But just the postage line item, is that is that for sending out absentee ballots? And so kind of like if we see vote by mail double, do we see demand for spending out of that line item double? And is that enough? Only a 5.9% increase in a year like this?

▶ 25:45 Speaker 3: So some of the state proposals address that, that the state would cover at least some of those postage costs, at least the cost of the initial application mail out. Some of that postage line actually cover, is more to cover the cost of mailing out the annual street listing census, not just for election really, like not specific to elections. So that's where most of that comes in. So the answer is I'm not exactly sure how much we'll need until the state decides whether they can cover any of the cost of it. They'd have to cover all the costs, yeah, it would be significantly much higher.

▶ 26:28 Jack Eccles: Thank you. And then I just have one question. I know that there's been, the state auditor had ruled the early voting an unfunded mandate. So is that something that, did you participate in that survey that her office had sent out? And is that something that, are you part of any discussions with the state auditor's office about how we might see some state funding for early voting?

▶ 26:50 Speaker 3: So last year, the state auditor, I think, started talking about some of that. So they have changed a little bit of the model of how they fund it, but it's not anywhere close to, like, to meet the actual costs associated. And I think things would have continued to kind of shift in a way that would have probably brought it into a better balance, but I don't, I'm not sure at this point how that's all going to play out. So, if they, you know, as the proposals go to kind of expand early voting, I don't know if the cost from the state side of things will ever really match.

▶ 27:32 Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 27:36 Mark Garipay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Camosa, for being here. My question is more around, by the way, thank you for your questionnaire. It was very detailed. My questions are more around the online services, you know, in your, in your questionnaire, you mentioned that much of the transactions now, or, of course, with city halls closed have moved online. Can we do everything online or are there certain, certain services that we cannot produce through the city clerk's office online? the birth certificates need the they have to have an original because they need the city seal or

▶ 28:17 Speaker 3: yes so when we say online for that it doesn't mean they get an email to copy we solve this physically mail out a certified copy but at least the initial request can come in electronically and someone can pay electronically for it so the benefit of that is then you have a record right like we can log whether we'll get people who say that they didn't receive the you know their birth record we never have a record that they even requested it turns out they actually wanted it from malden that kind of stuff um so and you'd be surprised how time consuming tracking that kind of stuff down can be so at least we have that record when two people choose to order online but again yes like so everything i say is online is only partially online there's still a in-person component to producing those records and even for applications and claims same thing there still needs to be because of um a lot of the state laws like we still need to keep a hard copy of a lot of the things that we receive we need to time stamp it and file it

▶ 29:22 Mark Garipay: as we um looks like uh you know this work at home may may continue on for a little bit longer and um slow integration back um if when and if we uh if and when we open city hall do you um are there more services that we're going to be able to put online

▶ 29:42 Speaker 3: i think what we'll see is so we've just um so the the online transaction company we use that a lot of different departments in the city uses city hall systems um we just brought a bunch more of the fees that we charge for various permanent applications and that kind of thing online and it just kind of got resolved this past week it i think city hall systems was overwhelmed by the number of requests so it took longer than uh we expected to work that through um so i think we'll that stuff will be here to stay where at least people can pay with credit card and um do most of their work remotely and then we'll just have to receive the final hard copy so that we can put it into our archives but a lot at least probably you know 70% of a transaction can be done online is as as I'm assuming people

▶ 30:34 Mark Garipay: get used to doing some of these projects online or services online does it lessen the back

▶ 30:48 Speaker 3: end work in the office not actually no um it uh i think that it makes it more convenient for the public but in terms of what we have to produce on the back end it really doesn't change a significant

▶ 31:11 Leila Migliorelli: amount okay thank you nice chair hello thank you chairman um thank you amy for coming tonight mr I have questions just in general. I know that you're saying that you're relying on the CARES Act funding to sort of cover some of the unexpected or new costs related to elections. How are you, are you sure that you're gonna be able to cover all of that through there? Like, is all PP, everything will be filed in that light item? Or do you have any concerns that, I don't know, just say there's unexpected items, other things that come up between now and then that you might

▶ 31:49 Speaker 3: have to cover some of those things in your budget. So Joanne, my elections administrator, and I both laugh. We're both super cheap people and we're super paranoid. So two things. So I've triple checked with the auditor multiple times about what we think is a reasonable thing to um put like request cares act money for um but with any election there's always these expenses that we usually i think i already came to you when you were very uh early on the council uh in january for free cash appropriation to cover the unplanned election costs that's sort of um i there may be a need for that in the future but without you know i wouldn't want to necessarily put it in the budget right now just because there's too many unknowns. But I think beyond normal election supplies, the CARES Act should cover a significant portion of our additional expenses.

▶ 32:54 Leila Migliorelli: Okay, great. And I just wanted to say thank you for putting in the work and thinking through what different options we might have for this year for elections. The consolidation of pulling locations is an interesting proposal um i just i just want to echo you know my support for for coming up with new ways to manage this process because it's going to be difficult and um it's going to be sort of last minute on the fly decision so um i think you know keeping the public aware of these um and and keeping the council aware um you know we much appreciate it so thank Thank you.

▶ 33:30 Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilor Stewart.

▶ 33:33 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Ms. Kamosa for being here tonight. In a related question to Councilor Migliorelli thought, is there other, are there other sources of grant funding outside of AIRS that you expect to rely on?

▶ 33:51 Speaker 3: No, not at this time.

▶ 33:55 Robb Stewart: Okay, so this is, your department is wholly funded throughout the year from city money and no external funds.

▶ 34:04 Speaker 3: Correct, I mean, we actually take in a single, I mean, it doesn't cover all of our costs, but the licensing fees, dog license fees, birth and death records, all that does, that revenue does go back into the city as well. It's not a direct transfer from our office, but it does, you know, we do cover part of our expenses.

▶ 34:28 Robb Stewart: sure sure okay that's all thank you thank you mr chairman anybody else for the first time

▶ 34:41 Speaker 4: uh councilman matosi the second time thank you mr chairman um let's say in accordance with my uh

▶ 34:45 John N. Tramontozzi: what i believe to be my fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of the city and trying to be consistent with uh my uh feeling that the salary and wage items uh should be level funded to the 2020 revised to 2020 budget at this time I make a motion to online zero one one six one one dash five one one zero zero zero reduce that by five thousand one hundred and twelve dollars and twenty two cents which represents the difference with the city clerk and assistant clerk wage levels to make that new right item of two hundred and fifty nine thousand three hundred and eighteen dollars and sixty eight cents result in a new bottom-line figure of two hundred and ninety two thousand seven hundred sixty eight dollars and sixty eight so

▶ 35:49 Christopher Cinella: we have a motion made by council tramit ozzy to reduce the budget to 292 768 68 five thousand one twelve twenty two that's correct that's line five one one

▶ 36:08 Christopher Cinella: zero zero zero seconded by Councillor McMaster Madam Clerk if you could call the roll Vice Chair Migliorelli no Councillor Tramontozzi yes

▶ 36:20 Speaker 1: Councillor McMaster yes Councillor McNaught no Councillor Eccles no Councillor Garipay no

▶ 36:34 Speaker 1: counselor stewart no counselor thomas no counselor Jamaleddine no president Grigoraitis no chairman

▶ 36:48 Christopher Cinella: sanella no ten no two yes motion is defeated what is the will of the committee at this time

▶ 36:56 Christopher Cinella: motion to move the bottom line mr chairman motion to move the bottom line on 161 City Clerk by Councillor Eccles, seconded by Vice-Chair Migliorelli. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Vice-Chair Migliorelli. Yes.

▶ 37:15 Speaker 1: Councilor McChosey. Yes. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor McNaught. Yes. Councilor Eccles. Yes.

▶ 37:22 Speaker 1: Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor

▶ 37:30 Speaker 1: Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman

▶ 37:39 Christopher Cinella: Cinella? Yes. 11 yes. Then on 162 election and registrar what is the motion to move

▶ 37:48 Christopher Cinella: the bottom line on 162? So we have a motion to move the bottom line on 162 made by president Grigoraitis seconded by councillor mcmaster madam clark please call the roll

▶ 38:03 Speaker 1: vice chairman yes councilor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Sinella? Yes. 11 yes?

▶ 38:27 Christopher Cinella: All right, next up is, sorry? I'm just saying thank you. I'm gonna go. I'll be back. Thank you.

▶ 38:36 Christopher Cinella: She's off the hot seat. She's off the hot seat. You're on. 113 City Council. It's actually 112, so I apologize.

▶ 38:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the screen is all yours, madam clerk. So, I do have a prepared statement. So, if I sound a little wooden, not my usual self, that's why. So, it's been a quite a year, one of challenge change and transition. It began with the unprecedented exit of nine board of aldermen and the subsequent election of nine new city councilors. the onboarding process consisted of the initial housekeeping tasks like access and accounts to the city systems email meetings agenda software website profiles egov payroll with a progression to the city charter administrative code robert's rules of orders committee assignments chair assignments and then navigating the full remote meetings platform including the technical learning curve surrounding webex my watchword for the year has been flexibility and will continue to be so as other department heads have mentioned pivoting to work from home or blend of in office and work from home is not without difficulty but it is the way of the world as we combat covet 19 and thankfully with some adjustments there has been no interruption of service in large part that's That's due to your support and accommodation. So, thank you budget. 1, 1, 2 includes salary and wages for a single non union staff person myself. It has a 1.9 step increase. And the city council Salary next under contractual lines, there is advertising for things like newspaper, public notices. Printing for ordering paper nameplate changes. Those are 30 dollars a nameplate. Any mailing supplied training, manual information. Expenses is the 1000 dollar council stipend and the last item is the annual service service contract for the meetings agenda software that 7% increase has remained the same for the last 4 years. There is a significant decrease to the seminar in schooling line. as i completed that mma suffolk locally school of public administration program in local government and leadership it was fantastic um so with the lesser amount requested there i hope to take some parliamentary courses with the local chapter of the national association of parliamentarians and to attend next january's annual mma conference if they have it i think i've covered everything and if you have any questions happy to answer

▶ 41:13 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you, Chairman Snella, and thank you, Madam Clerk of Committees. I just, as the Council President, I've had the opportunity to work incredibly closely with you since taking office in January. I just want to thank you for your flexibility, your openness, your accessibility as we've onboarded a majority of new counselors and three months into that move to a completely remote format. know it's required a ton of your time and energy and your ability to pivot and I'm very appreciative of that and I am in support of this line as is thank you

▶ 41:53 John N. Tramontozzi: thank you mr. chairman and thank you miss foot for you all your services to

▶ 42:05 John N. Tramontozzi: the council well in all fairness I to keep to what I feel to be the fiduciary responsibility I cannot make any exceptions to our budget and I think our budget is and should be treated as every other administration budget with that in

▶ 42:31 John N. Tramontozzi: mind I do have a proposal for line item 0 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 dash 5 1 0 0 0 and this my proposal because after all we're all in this together I propose is a reduction by a total of seven thousand five hundred and sixty four dollars and fifty two cents and that breaks down to two thousand sixty four dollars and fifty two cents from the clerk of committee setting the budget for her line item wages to the 2020 budget, and $5,500 from the city councilors. That's $500 a piece is my proposal to show goodwill to the city taxpayers that we are responsible. So, that would mean that the 2021, a new line item amount is $99,482.33. Providing for a new bottom line figure of $123,990.81.

▶ 43:46 Christopher Cinella: Proposed motion. Second. Proposed motion made by Councilor Tramontozzi to reduce the bottom line. Seconded by counselor, McMaster on discussion is chair.

▶ 44:03 Leila Migliorelli: Yeah, thank you. Mr chairman. Um, I would, I know that there's a motion on the floor right now, but my proposal would be to not cut out of the clerk of committee salary, but instead take that a full amount and cut the city counselor salary. The committee's is this is her full time position for all of us. This is our part time roles. Um, and while, you know, I, I just think it would be a better show with the community for all of us to give up a little bit more and, you know, not ask city staff to do that same thing. So, um, I will not be the counselor chairman to these motion, but would instead make a, uh, an amendment to change it to our being reduced that by that same total amount.

▶ 44:46 Christopher Cinella: Do you want to amend your motion or do you want to keep the one proposed discussion?

▶ 44:54 John N. Tramontozzi: I appreciate Councilor Migliorelli suggestion and I'm okay with that. I really am. Why don't we do this? Let me see. I withdraw the motion. We have to withdraw the second.

▶ 45:16 Christopher Cinella: I revise my motion motion and council McMaster, you know, the drive your 2nd.

▶ 45:24 Shawn M. MacMaster: I don't know that we even need to do, but I had a deference to the maker of the motion. I'll withdraw at this time.

▶ 45:28 John N. Tramontozzi: Okay, and then my motion would be then to reduce that line item 7564 dollars and 52 cents. And that is from the City Councilor's salary line, which essentially is $687.68 a piece. It would still represent the same numbers. That line item for $99,482.33 with a new line of $123,990.81.

▶ 46:06 Christopher Cinella: Okay, okay. So, you know, revised. Made by constantly seconded by council McMaster.

▶ 46:17 Robb Stewart: Still on discussion and I have counsel Stewart, Mr chair and through the chair. I just want to be clear that if we go forward with this, it's recognized. That, um, from my understanding, when we were initially getting on boarded. That was a minimum base salary for the council to receive the benefits. With that reduction in the salary, we also forfeit our benefits to my understanding. I believe that's the case.

▶ 46:44 John N. Tramontozzi: What benefits are you referring to? We get no benefits.

▶ 46:49 Speaker 5: Yes, we do.

▶ 46:50 Robb Stewart: Yes, we do. I think I have the floor. Thank you. So, I believe it's my understanding that if you want to have the health benefits after the 10 years of continuous service, you still have to have that minimum salary to be able to receive that benefit. And we would be forfeiting that benefit if for potentially getting the insurance. Now, this will need to be validated. I'm not sure, but that's the way I understood it. when we're going through the onboarding process. And I just want that to be recognized before everyone makes the decision on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

▶ 47:36 Speaker 1: Councilor McNaught.

▶ 47:39 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't think it's an either or situation. I do commend Councilor Tramontozzi for looking for ways to save in the budget. I understand that we're still waiting for figures on where Salary were raised. I wholeheartedly feel that this is the wrong line item and the wrong department to be looking to do that in. And if you've studied all the Salary and the increases, you would fully realize that. I think that the Salary specifically in this department are low enough as is, the raises have not been as high as other departments. And instead, I agree with Councilor Stewart’s assessment. Maya it needs to be reviewed. We do receive some benefits, one of them being retirement. But instead of, and I understand, we're not obligated to cut what Councilor Tramontozzi has suggested. So taking it out of our own Salary is to appease Councilor Tramontozzi. And I say that with all due respect. We don't have to do that. And I know that we can only cut and we can't add, but we can make recommendations for adding to the budget. And at this time, I know we have a motion on the table, but I would make a recommendation to raise the clerk of committee salary, not cut it and not cut anything out of this. I would look to move it forward and make a recommendation to raise her salary. Thank you.

▶ 49:19 Speaker 1: Councilor Eccles.

▶ 49:22 Jack Eccles: I voted against every level of funding of a member of the administration, and inconsistency would also vote against cutting the committee's salary or level of funding it. I think it's also worth mentioning that cutting the Salary line, and I don't believe that the council has the ability to dictate where those cuts go, so it would be at the discretion of the administration to follow the spirit of this motion and cut cut the council Salary as opposed to actually following through with with exactly as how we put forward I think that's an important clarification as far

▶ 50:04 Christopher Cinella: as is the cut for the Salary go thank you mr. anybody else on discussion that I may have missed vice chair Maya early this one through the chair I appreciate

▶ 50:11 Leila Migliorelli: councillor Eccles last remark if if we cannot guarantee if the cut to this you know the line item cannot be out of Salary alone and would affect the perfect committee salary then I would I would not want to move forward with that motion I don't know how we can verify that if there's some way

▶ 50:40 Speaker 1: I'm looking to see you sorry I'm looking to see if Patrick Del Russo he was having trouble getting on with the bandwidth this month up Patrick I think

▶ 50:49 Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you might let's see if I can make him a panelist mr. de la rousseau

▶ 51:09 Speaker 2: hi hi how are you good evening evening not sure if you heard that request and

▶ 51:14 Speaker 6: if you even would have that answer if you could repeat it just for

▶ 51:20 Leila Migliorelli: clarification please hi mr. de la rousseau my question is we're we are looking to or debate deliberating over cuts to the salary line item for the City Council and one motion Councilor Tremont Josie has said was to cut just the city councilor Salary but then Councillor Eccles had commented that perhaps that we can't we cannot cherry-pick between clerk of committees and councilor Salary and would have to go with just a general cut on the whole line item leading up to the discretion of administration or whomever to

▶ 51:58 Speaker 6: Hi, good evening. A couple of points here. One is that I think you point to a well-stated counselor. Typically, where you run into a problem is if you ask for a reduction on the bottom line of a total budget. For example, a total budget is $100,000 and you ask for five thousand dollar budget cut then you leave there to the discretion of where do you make that cut and generally that's not permissible because you have not specified um where the cut should come typically however um in this case where there is multiple um obviously multiple employees in the line itself i would have to i would have to suggest that to be specific that it be identified as to the amount of the reduction and probably in this case the person or persons to be cut however what i find a little bit concerning here is what's all put together in one you know it's all combined it's not broken out in the kind of detail that um you would i guess uh like to see and it's never really been broken out any other way candidly more than the detail it has here but um i would suggest because of that just because it's such a significant vote that we can ask Rob Van Campen to opine on that. I don't want to I would I never want to make the or suggest the council take an action that may not merit what their intention is and I think it's worthwhile to spend a little bit of time to make sure that if that is the intent of the order that probably be put forward to the city council in writing and ask him to apply respectfully in writing prior to an action and i believe that that will help not only this time but in the future just such events occur because these are unique i haven't um really uh come across this candidly in the past and um so it's been you know this this discussion about the procedures and etc but um i would just ask for the purposes of clarification that we have on our record as to exactly what's required in this particular budget

▶ 54:37 Christopher Cinella: to make that reduction thank you any any other questions or discussion um madam clerk if you want to call the roll on the motion that we have on the floor sure

▶ 54:53 John N. Tramontozzi: did you have something you wanted to add um i see a counselor Garipay let him go first and then i'm

▶ 54:58 Mark Garipay: thinking yeah i just want a clarification on what we're voting on here just can we make sure

▶ 55:06 John N. Tramontozzi: can you repeat um your motion yes so the motion would be uh to um reduce

▶ 55:18 John N. Tramontozzi: line five one one zero zero zero by a total of seven thousand five point sixty four dollars

▶ 55:28 John N. Tramontozzi: and 52 cents and a condition of that reduction is that it is to come from the city councilors

▶ 55:45 John N. Tramontozzi: separate line item Salary and wages 44 000 come off of that figure by making the bottom line on the total budget at 123 990.81 so just so it's clear i'm not i'm not cutting the clerk's uh salary but i'm cutting uh i'm revising that line item to reflect that a reduction in this It's just the city councilor's salary.

▶ 56:18 Speaker 1: .

▶ 56:21 Mark Garipay: For clarification, Councilor Tramontozzi, what is the reduction per each councilor? Because originally it was $500. The math I'm doing in my head seems like it's going to be more than $500.

▶ 56:38 Speaker 4: It will be, and that is $187.68.

▶ 56:46 Mark Garipay: Is Mr. Delarusso still on the line?

▶ 56:50 Speaker 1: He is in the back, and I can call him back.

▶ 56:55 Speaker 6: Yes.

▶ 56:57 Mark Garipay: Thank you, Patrick. Thank you for being here. Love you. Good. Quick question. There was, Councilor Stewart had mentioned that the benefit of 10 years, and that would include health, I believe, health benefits.

▶ 57:19 Mark Garipay: So is there any, I mean, this would affect all the new councilors, correct?

▶ 57:24 Speaker 6: As far as, what would affect you mean? There's a minimum dollar amount.

▶ 57:30 Speaker 6: The minimum dollar amount is $5,000 in order to, yeah, the minimum is $5,000 in order to be be eligible to ask to participate in the city retirement system. If you make less than $5,000, you will not be able to participate. Ultimately, if you are on the retirement system, I'll just take myself then, at the time of retirement, then you would be eligible after a certain amount of time to participate in city's health insurance upon drawing i.e. retirement.

▶ 58:14 Speaker 1: Councillor McNaught, thank you.

▶ 58:18 Jeff McNaught: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Through the chair, I would just like to ask Mr. Chairman Chosey, on your original motion, your intention was to cut the seat, the clerk of committee salary, was it not?

▶ 58:33 Speaker 4: It was, yes. Okay. Be consistent with it.

▶ 58:36 Jeff McNaught: I want to make that clear for the record that this is your second motion, And in an effort to save the money that you were trying to save by cutting the clerk of committee's salary and others and other money out of that budget, you're now trying to take it out of the city councilor's pay. I just wanted to make that clear.

▶ 58:54 John N. Tramontozzi: Yeah, that was because that was a suggestion by one of the other councilors, which I adopted, and I thought that was reasonable.

▶ 59:01 Jeff McNaught: Oh, no, I know. I just wanted to differentiate between the two, and I just wanted to say that I'm not inclined to support this. Thank you.

▶ 59:10 Speaker 4: All right. No, no problem. I appreciate that. Thank you.

▶ 59:13 Speaker 1: Nice check while I'm.

▶ 59:16 Leila Migliorelli: I, in response to Mr. Della Russo's comments, I probably, I will not vote for this motion and instead motion to place on committee until we have more information. So I just wanted to state why I'm voting. No, even though it was something I proposed.

▶ 59:34 Speaker 1: Anybody else on discussion? Adam clerk.

▶ 59:39 Speaker 2: vice chair migliorelli no councilor Tramontozzi cozy yes councilor mcmaster yes councilor mcnaught

▶ 59:53 Speaker 1: no councilor eccles no councilor Garipay no councilor stewart no councilor thomas no councilor

▶ 1:00:11 Speaker 2: Dr. Maladine? No. President Grigoraitis? No. Chairman Cinella? No to yes motions

▶ 1:00:25 Christopher Cinella: defeated. Vice Chair Migliorelli? I'd like to make a motion to hold this in committee. Second. Motion to hold in committee by Vice Chair Migliorelli, seconded by President Grigoraitis. On discussion, I see Councilor McNaught. Thank you, Chairman. Before we make a

▶ 1:00:34 Jeff McNaught: motion to hold it in committee um i wonder if there's an appetite to move the bottom line forward i'd be in favor of that so if if i'm just throwing it out there if anybody wanted to remove their motion in second but to move the bottom line forward i would be in favor of that

▶ 1:00:57 Speaker 1: thank you master not moving this forward well now we have a motion on the floor councilman mcmaster

▶ 1:01:05 Shawn M. MacMaster: I think it might just move the bottom line at this time. I think the information that council is seeking is similar to the information that we have requested of the assessor and the auditor as it relates to other salary information. And I don't think there's really any reason to hold it if we can move it forward right now as is and have that information ready for us when we're prepared to vote on the entire budget. So, I would just suggest that we can do that. We can still get that information and move the bottom line. Anybody else on discussion assuming you want to keep your motion, vice chair, please call the roll.

▶ 1:01:54 Speaker 2: Vice chair, can we have a second? I just, I'm sorry, I didn't hear a second. Yes, we had President Granger, I just seconded it.

▶ 1:02:04 Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Councilor Tramontozzi?

▶ 1:02:16 Speaker 1: NO. COUNCILLOR MCNASTER? NO. COUNCILLOR MCNAUGHT? NO. COUNCILLOR Eccles? YES. COUNCILLOR Garipay? NO. COUNCILLOR Stewart? NO. COUNCILLOR THOMAS? NO. COUNCILLOR GERMALADINE? NO. PRESIDENT Grigoraitis? NO. CHAIRMAN Cinella? YES.

▶ 1:02:39 Speaker 1: we have three yes we have no the motion fails to make a motion to move to the

▶ 1:02:49 Christopher Cinella: bottom line second motion made by councilor Stewart to move the bottom line seconded by councilor McNaught yes yes yes

▶ 1:03:02 Speaker 2: McMaster yes not for Eccles yes yes sir Stewart yes sir Thomas yes so Jamala

▶ 1:03:23 Speaker 2: Dean Grigoraitis further ado I'd entertain a