ORDER-2020-79 : Establishment of OSHA Reserve Stabilization Fund

Transcript (~11 min @ 2:53:08)

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▶ 2:53:03 Christopher Cinella: order number 20 20-79 the establishment of an OSHA reserve

▶ 2:53:14 Speaker 6: stabilization

▶ 2:53:22 Speaker 11: what's in a van camping oh I'm sorry chairman I couldn't hear you for a minute there so the order before you tonight is to create a standalone stabilization fund entitled the OSHA stable fund and the purpose of this for members edification in March of 2018 governor Baker signed into law chapter I believe 44 of the acts of 2018 which effectively set as a minimum federal OSHA standards for public employees throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As part of that legislation, the legislature created what is known as the Occupational Health and Safety Hazard Advisory Board, and that body is charged with promulgating rules and regulations governing workplace safety for public employees. They are also charged with considering and studying uh training programs uh workplace safety issues um data etc so the purpose of this fund this evening is basically to put the city in a position to have a small reserve which would be intended to pay expenses associated with any required training any required safety measures that the city of Melrose would be required to comply with as mandated by this advisory board provide our employees with personal protective to perform their jobs and the ultimate goal here is to allow the city the resources to ensure that our workplace both city hall public works our public safety buildings our library all of our facilities are safe and free from any hazards for all of our employees so i'll answer any questions you folks may have and i know mr delarusso is here as well

▶ 2:55:18 Speaker 6: for that purpose questions i didn't see any hands go up i might have missed anybody council

▶ 2:55:27 John N. Tramontozzi: thank you mr chairman do we know how much we uh i guess mr delarusso uh do you what do you anticipate uh the amount of the initial funding to be if mr delarus not on the call kristen he is

▶ 2:55:50 Speaker 1: I'm trying to make him sorry I'm trying to make him a panelist right now sorry about that coming in right now I'm hoping I think I can answer that if

▶ 2:56:02 Speaker 12: memories that we can we anticipate we anticipate it being $50,000 can you hear

▶ 2:56:15 Speaker 8: us yes I can hear you can you hear me yes yes we as the merit indicated we'd like to start 50 if we could do even higher 100 that would be probably the initial one of you know a limit for the year one of the things that we have to be sensitive to is the fact that as we've experienced things with special ed for example on the school side suits and claims contracts stabilization fund a lot of times we incurred these costs media they or they come to us a meteor after the budget is established and for as Rob was saying as the mayor was saying we need a resource that we can access to address that need at the time it comes to us. So with that initial deposit, we would then seek the council to approve any expenditures from the fund. At that point, we would explain what the purpose was, what the nature was. And again, I think it's strategic, as we've done before. We want to be ahead of the curve. We don't want to be in a position where we face a penalty for not complying. Sometimes they do, you know, could hit you with a financial penalty you haven't complied in a certain amount of time so i think this is extremely strategic i think it's going to give us an opportunity to see actually where we land what what what are we going to see a year from now two years from now perhaps three years from now but i think if anything else if you prepare and you're in a much better position to address it than those that are not prepared so i do support that with respect to

▶ 2:57:48 Paul Brodeur: if i can add so so i have a a bit of expertise about this because i was the chair of the um labor and workforce development committee when this bill was passed uh through the legislature and it's based on a very simple premise the idea that if you go to work in the morning you should be able to come home and in a in a strange i suppose quirk of the law those federal protections not um we're not providing to municipal and certain other and certain other public employees and and that's just wrong but that also creates an obligation on the part of municipalities to make sure that we are in compliance um so as as the auditor said there is certainly going to be uh you know training implications and there are also um we are now i will say exposed but i don't mean it that way because we welcome it um there's an audit function to osher and their state counterparts um in the division of labor standards and they may if they choose to audit us and identify things that uh we need to fix or correct uh i quite frankly for myself i welcome that i want a safe workplace for our employees and having those resources available if either either from a training perspective uh or to take corrective action is very very important to me it's i know it's important to the employees of the city and i'm sure it's important to you guys as well that is one of the when i spoke earlier about you know the some of the reserve funds and the edging any potential exposure this is exactly what i mean this is the kind of thing that we want to be able to react to efficiently make sure we have the funds available to deal with uh any unexpected cost because those the costs that we incur in in this area will be about employee protection and uh that's critically important

▶ 2:59:53 John N. Tramontozzi: that's good excellent thank you all for uh for that explanation uh because because um a worker is safety is very important and critical I assume it's not anticipated that if there were to be any injury claims it's not paid from this this stabilization fund that is correct right and hopefully there will not be any because we are thinking ahead in providing for safety measures to this stabilization thank you

▶ 3:00:29 Jack Eccles: Michael thank you my question was it was about uh violation and sort of traumatizing

▶ 3:00:37 Mark Garipay: thanks for uh thanks for being here um thank you and camping I gotta I got a quick question regarding the the parameters around in in this uh stabilization we talk about purchase of equipment are we talking more or less supply safety supplies instead of equipment like for example say a sizzle lift a civil sizzle lift one would think would one of the recently established capital equipment stabilization funds so can you just give me some clarification on what we're talking about on on equipment um is it i mean is there a threshold dollar amount that i would i would assume i would assume something like a forklift or whatever would be going under the capital equipment it wouldn't be coming out of here like you know we're doing safety gloves nettings whatever you know you can just give me a little bit clarification on that i'd appreciate it

▶ 3:01:29 Speaker 8: again through the chair absolutely you know great great question we have um is everyone is the way we do have a capital stabilization fund and for the purposes is outlined in that fund expenditure is typically a 25 000 minimum that we draw from the capital fund in this particular instance um counselor. Some of the expenses could be for training. There might be $3,500, $4,000 to bring a special training in, for example, for our DPW workers or the public safety workers. You might bring someone on the outside in. You may need gloves, specialized gloves or a mask for some of the DPW workers that may do sensitive work. Those kind of expenses required by OSHA. And there may be expenses that even this evening that we like I know myself I'm not aware of that coming down the road that we're going to have to meet the compliance and it's the things like that that and typically you're not your higher rent expenses obviously if we'll be getting a you know front loader or something like that a piece of equipment like that that would fall under the capital fund this is really designed to handle those specific needs for around again as it indicates professional guidance training equipment purchases anything really required to help in the workplace to meet the OSHA guidelines so that type of

▶ 3:02:57 Speaker 8: expense is what we're looking to address here great question thank you

▶ 3:03:11 Speaker 6: miss anybody the will of the committee to recommend second motion to recommend

▶ 3:03:14 Christopher Cinella: full board by councilor Tramontozzi seconded by councillor Stewart Adam

▶ 3:03:19 Speaker 1: clerk call the roll please vice chair Migliorelli yes councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor McMaster yes councillor Mcnaught yes councillor Eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor Stewart yes councillor Thomas yes councillor Jamaleddine yes president Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Cinella? Yes. Levin, yes.

▶ 3:03:47 Speaker 8: Thank you very much. Thank you.

▶ 3:03:50 Speaker 12: Thank you guys. Thank you very much.

▶ 3:03:52 Speaker 6: One second, Councilor Garipay?