ORDER-2019-88 : AMENDING REVISED ORDINANCES Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 228, Article IV, Section 228-30 (Sewer Rates Established) as set forth herein.

Transcript (~17 min @ 1:06:03)

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▶ 1:05:55 Speaker 1: Bewtra yes alderman Boisselle yes alderman Forbes yes alderman Letter Garabedian yes alderman McMaster yes alderman Medeiros yes alderman Mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman Wright yes alderman Zwirko yes

▶ 1:06:16 Speaker 5: alderman Lemmerman yes order passes order 2019-88 amending revised ordinances amending Melrose revised ordinances chapter 228 article 4 section 228-30 sewer rates established as set forth herein this order comes before us from the appropriation

▶ 1:06:34 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: committee without recommendation motion to suspend the rule so that we might hear from our director of dpw with any questions we have remaining we are currently under suspension so

▶ 1:07:00 Speaker 6: we could uh bring mr shena forward good evening again so we um we gave a rather lengthy presentation last week and um back if there were any questions regarding this order

▶ 1:07:09 Monica C. Medeiros: thank you thank you very much and i'm glad that we did get a chance to move this forward without recommendation i think it was helpful to have the extra time to look through the lengthy package with information and i did want to point out because there had been a typo on the order in the computer system here that we used for the meeting agenda portal that had incorrectly stated the rates as fy19 that has been corrected so anybody from the public can see that we're looking at the fy 20 proposed rate changes which is which is terrific um that being said i i am going to support this order tonight to change the rates as proposed this is adding basically a five dollar base increase charge to the base charge for the sewer rates and we're able to keep the volumetric rate the same i think it was mr shenna who said at the last meeting that stability is important to the residents and i do think there is something definitely to be said with that as we take a look and as we look at these rates as alderman we do not know all the answers we make the best choices with the decisions with the material that's provided to us and we use our own judgment to discern what's what's before us and and you know sometimes obviously i just

▶ 1:08:41 Monica C. Medeiros: i do want to sort of address some of the comments that were made earlier in public comment um

▶ 1:08:50 Monica C. Medeiros: you know we at least i feel that i can recognize that you know some of these some of the charts which show how Melrose is consumption rates and and rates of the

▶ 1:09:09 Monica C. Medeiros: bills are to other communities may be coached in a way to make us look a little bit better but you know we're very cognizant that our our rates are high our residents are often struggling with paying these bills they can be very painful so but we do have to provide the service and i'm glad that we had the extra time to review this material i know one of my questions was if we were having significant seemingly significant money in reserves and seemingly significant money in retained earnings free cash coming through

▶ 1:09:48 Monica C. Medeiros: should we actually raise the rates at all or should we should we give lower the rates I was glad to have a little bit of time to read the package and to see in detail the memorandum from raft Ellis the consultant which does address this and that our consumption rates in Melrose are actually down about 1% I believe it said from the previous year and they had advised that due to potential volatility which you know we all know we can see if we even reduced our consumption 2% our rates would be unsustainable so it is important that we do keep that in mind when we set the rates I do believe that there are still some some things that are in this rate structure that i'm i don't really agree with and i think we don't necessarily recognize the that the consumption level of many of the residents who live in buildings that share a meter are often paying rates as if they consume more than a single

▶ 1:11:02 Monica C. Medeiros: family household and in reality it's oftentimes just the opposite i would like to see us move forward and be able to try to address this in coming years i know in the last time when we did change the rate structures we had tried to not increase the rates on those populations but you know i think we still need to look for at con conservation as a community and in particular conservation as a city especially when we have so much of our city usage that is paid for by the water and sewer rates so i hope that we will continue to do that and take a stronger look at that i'm happy that we are have an aggressive plan that's been out there and aggressive work in ini and i think the more we are able to address the leaks in the system and the inflow and infiltration i do think we will see eventually our you know our assessments from the mwra not go up as much and maybe at that point we can look at least at keeping the rate stable you know moving forward or possibly reducing in the future thank you thank you any further

▶ 1:12:13 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: discussion alderman Zwirko thank you madam president um i'll speak not just to this order but

▶ 1:12:20 Michael P. Zwirko: the next few that are about to come up my comments will be the same for all of them so I think that you know I do have some concerns with everything that's been put together here but on the whole I want to say that I feel that we're improving our water and sewer system I think our program is improving I think that our infrastructure is improving certainly maybe not at the rate at which some would like but you know we are making iterative changes to not only our distribution but how our system works as a whole that's really miles of where we used to be even five years ago I'll also add that the appropriations that we're making in terms of equipment are going to be very helpful one of the trucks wasn't even being used because it was beyond its workable life so there are some very good components of this rate structure I would even add that the amount of indirect costs over time has gone down with certain positions in the city knowing the frustration that some members of this board have expressed with the amount of time and costs to the system so there have been improvements they might not have been as rapid as some would like but it has improved we're very fortunate to only have to make a base charge on the sewer here and

▶ 1:13:52 Michael P. Zwirko: I know that the director Shana and also our city engineer are fastidiously working to continually improve our system where they can so I appreciate those efforts and it is always you can only ask for improvement I don't think we're going backwards I think we're actually going forward so I'm looking forward to supporting these orders this evening. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you.

▶ 1:14:12 Shawn M. MacMaster: Alderman Peter. Thank you, Madam President. Good evening, Mr. Shana. I wasn't here, as you know, at the last meeting. I was traveling out of state on business, and I haven't had an opportunity to review or watch that meeting, so my apologies. And if you could just indulge me with this question, as well as my colleagues. It's a question that I had last year. I was new at that time, as you know so I was rather rather reticent and didn't ask it can you just help me understand the indirect cost percentages that are applied in the budget how to

▶ 1:14:54 Speaker 6: how do we arrive at those numbers so the the public works yes percentages the chart is an approximation of what the department feels each individual position spends over the course of a year and in those particular avenues of the department we sit and meet with the auditor and he memorializes that in the budgets the indirects of other departments percentages that the auditor sets and at the end of the year everything is reviewed by the outside

▶ 1:15:32 Shawn M. MacMaster: auditor and also by the doi and i know you um you can really only speak for uh dpw but are there time logs that um helps you quantify the amount of hours that are spent we don't track minute by

▶ 1:15:42 Speaker 6: minute it's a it's an approximation we're not a legal consulting firm or an engineering consulting firm we come to work every day we all multitask and at the at the end we have you know our management team will get together so okay what what do we feel is appropriate and we make adjustments to those in fact mine mine adjusted further away from water and sewer for the upcoming fiscal year because i feel that the director will will ultimately be more focused in other directions than water and sewer in fiscal 20. thank you mr shenner thank you madam president

▶ 1:16:27 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: thank you any other alderman wishing to speak for the first time alderman libra grabading

▶ 1:16:31 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: thank you and thanks for being with us again tonight um one thing that i agree with my colleagues that it was really helpful to have a little extra time to look through the materials that you provided last week and i very much appreciate you putting together this packet and one thing i just wanted to follow up on that we talked a little bit about last week was the degree to which you were monitoring city building use which i think is commendable and i believe you've moved to monthly tracking now is that right that's correct so that's another example of an improvement in the process that probably took a little bit of time to get up and running but now hopefully is ingrained into the the daily work on this issue switching to

▶ 1:17:06 Speaker 6: monthly in regards to municipal use is important in the parks especially where when that meter could run only a quarter of the year and if we go out to read it and the meter's not working we missed the opportunity to track that water tracking it on a monthly basis allows us to make adjustments over the course of the summer and also to see if monitors of meters are working or not working right that's one of the primary reasons we switched to monthly right that and the municipal buildings and the schools where we can hopefully see consistent use month to month and if you don't

▶ 1:17:39 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: then presumably you could reach out and suggest for example that there might be a leak in the building or right so that's really that's another example of continuous progress in this area and one thing that we talked about you and I talked about with respect to exhibit 10 which was looking at our rates or our average household bill versus others in the MWRA community that that table comes

▶ 1:18:10 Speaker 6: directly from mwra is that right the information comes directly from the mwra we created the table and and again the whole purpose of the package i put together and sent was those were all exhibits that the water and sewer committee looked at over the course of the fiscal year the purpose of me sending it was so there was one clear concise package to the board that can go on file with the rate structure about all that had all of the items that we discussed and we presented it wasn't any intent to mislead or do anything of that sort it was a it was a presentation material that we that we put out there that we had a long lengthy discussion at one point one meeting and again it was another source of information that we could provide forward and we have different rates

▶ 1:19:00 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: depending on the type of user that we have in our community we have

▶ 1:19:07 Speaker 6: volumetric rates and the more you use obviously the more you would pay right

▶ 1:19:12 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: and presumably other communities do as well that's correct and one thing that you and I talked a little bit about was that other communities also may have a different composition of clientele from ours which is so heavily residential without a lot of big industrial users or commercial users can you talk a little

▶ 1:19:34 Speaker 6: bit about that yeah so take um for instance malden everett some of these other communities that have a lot of commercial based even if they have block rates which volumetric rates they have more demographics in those higher blocks than melrose does so they have the ability to to capture more revenue from those higher blocks than melrose does i think 80 percent of our bills stay within the first block it's how we crafted our rate structure because that's what we were looking that's the impact we were looking at we have very little capability and that's why we pass out the top users that's why we look at the top users but there's very little out there we don't have an encore casino opening up in melrose or anything to that nature we don't have the type of commercial buildings that malden has whether it be on route 60 or in their downtown area so we don't have the ability to capture revenue on those top blocks so that is true and that is something that we talk about during our meetings and that's something that we talked about when we put that information out on that shot okay thank you so much thanks

▶ 1:20:51 Monica C. Medeiros: Alderman Medeiros. Thank you. I know I had moved and it was voted to accept the water and sewer indirect cost allocation to services packet that our city auditor, Mr. De La Russo, had provided at the last committee meeting to this order. However, I see that it did not make it into the order. And, for instance, I think that may answer some of the questions that Alderman McMaster had.

▶ 1:21:25 Monica C. Medeiros: It is on one of the other items that are in the presentation, but it really should be included in this order as the indirect costs are directly paid by the rates. So I'm not sure if I need to move to add it again.

▶ 1:21:40 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: but i don't think it's necessary to act to do since we did make a motion but if we could just ask um his foot to just make a confirm that i can't access the in-depth information on this

▶ 1:21:51 Monica C. Medeiros: computer yeah and there was several uh several orders that that i had moved to add it so i can easily see how it could have got passed but if you if you think it's best that i move to amend to include this now just in case it was missed i'd like to do so sure we have a motion made by

▶ 1:22:07 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Alderman Medeiros to add the packet of information from Mr. Shenna that was presented that evening. Second. Seconded by Alderman Mortimer. All in favor? Aye.

▶ 1:22:17 Speaker 9: Is it the packet from Mr. Queen of Order? Is it a packet from Mr. Shenna that you're describing or the packet from the auditor? From the auditor. Excuse me, from

▶ 1:22:28 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the auditor. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That will be added. Any further

▶ 1:22:40 Speaker 9: discussion we have a motion on the order yes motion to motion to pass we have a

▶ 1:22:48 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: motion for passage of order 2019-88 second second second made by Alderman Letter-Garrady and seconded by Alderman Search this is a roll call vote

▶ 1:23:01 Speaker 1: requiring eight alderman Bewtra yes alderman boys out yes alderman forbes yes alderman Letter garabedian yes alderman mcmaster yes alderman medeiros yes alderman mortimer yes alderman Tramontozzi yes alderman wright yes alderman Zwirko yes alderman lemmerman yes the order passes

▶ 1:23:25 Speaker 5: Order 2019-89, an appropriation from account number 6,319,000, sewer retained earnings in the amount of $575,100 to various accounts as set forth herein.