ORDER-2019-102 : An Appropriation from Free Cash, account number (01-324001), in the amount of $2,327,694.00 to various accounts as set forth herein.

Transcript (~1 h 32 min @ 47:43)

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

▶ 47:44 Speaker 9: this order requests an appropriation in the amount of two million three hundred and twenty seven thousand six hundred and ninety four dollars from uh free cash to a number of items um and i thought that just before we get into we talk a little bit about what free cash is why we have it and um what where it comes from um i've said it before and i'm not in love with the caption free cash it's um can be concerning i'll leave it at that i prefer the term available fund and they do use that interchangeably and the objective here is that on a fiscal year end the community would have between three and five percent of their budget in what's called available funds each year. So how that is derived is that you strive to have your revenues come in higher than you had anticipated. You strive that your expenses are less than you had anticipated. And in a very short way, that would enable there to be some available revenues that at end of the year when you turn your balance sheet and your financials over to the department of revenue that they would make a determination as to how much of that is available for future appropriation the same thing occurs every single community in the commonwealth and it also affects the water sewer ambulance and mountain hood enterprise fund they go through the same precepts There's the same structural review by the Department of Revenue, and they, too, sign off as to what is available. So it's a healthy thing. It provides a community the necessary revenues that they may need for an upcoming year, given the factors, economic and non-economic, that can affect your budget. everything from the market going down bust which would affect your local receipts to all of a sudden you're losing interest because we're just not gaining that type of income from the money that we do have in the bank so there's a lot of factors building permits you go up and down excise tax a lot of these you can't control so you have to be very careful as to what you're considering dedicating to the budget at the end of it the day it's the department of revenue each fall when we go there to set our tax rate they review what your estimates are they have to sign off on them if they feel that they're extreme or not realistic they'll advise us and we'll have to make an adjustment but that's the process i think it's a good process it's healthy you'll see that it helps us pay generally for our snow and ice deficits so that we don't corrupt the current year's operations trying to pay for snow and ice and that type of a thing because you're always always going to have um expenses that's the nature of what we do here that you just can't foresee municipal work is very unique in that sense and as you're aware when you have issues that affect public safety and infrastructure you have to address that promptly so it's advantageous to have resources to do that um so it up right up front if i believe if you look at the order you'll see that it identifies the the account number and the description of what is being asked for if it if it's the will of the chair and the board i'll go through the list and i believe all the department heads are here you can ask them to join me if you have any questions that would be i'd be happy to do that and proceed through this methodically in accordance to what you have in front of you that sounds fine if you'd

▶ 51:49 Speaker 9: like to proceed thank you all right the very first one is um it's captioned entitled capital outlay public work vehicle and equipment 473 000 and i believe um the dpw director is here this evening if you like you can come up and answer any questions you may have we did receive the board

▶ 52:08 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: received and our committees kindly printed for us a memorandum that we can add to the order if so moved that describes a little bit of the different projects as well I'm not sure if they're related specifically to the vehicle and equipment but I know there are a couple of different appropriations recommended

▶ 52:35 Speaker 8: for DPW good evening everyone and if I if I just make through the chair walk the the board through this memo there's three main components to the public works requests that are in the free cash order one has to do with components of subject matters the first has to do with Ward projects and pieces of this section of our requests may be familiar to individual Ward alderman these are very organic these programs came from residents a lot of these requests came through the year or through the years and attempts to make neighborhoods more accessible and safer to pedestrians and to children walking to school so it's an appropriation the amount of four hundred twenty five thousand one hundred dollars to various line items and the first chat breaks down which line items those are the funds are gonna will be encumbered at the end of this fiscal year against existing contracts that we have in place to complete a listing of roadway sidewalk and traffic safety improvements citywide that are aimed at repairing failing infrastructure and improving pedestrian safety and the walkability of the neighborhoods so the projects include the following number one we'll using these funds to install uh three more sets of rrfb signals that's what we installed at howard at ruggles streets the flashing yellow pedestrian activated they don't flash unless they're pressed they'll be located they'll be installed on franklin street at vinton on upham at ashcroft and on main street at linden that's a critical crossing for kids cutting through to the middle school high school campus the and I said the signals are very they're very similar to the ones recently installed on Howard at Ruggles and they have proven to be rather successful at that location number two we're going to use the funds to make some significant patch repairs to Upham Street especially in the areas that have heavily deteriorated over the past two winters now this is not a complete reconstruction by any means but these funds will allow the department to make significant patch improvements to that to that travel way

▶ 55:07 Speaker 8: number three will be repairing and or adding handicap accessible ramps in some areas of Upham Street once again it's a heavily traveled route in the morning for children getting to the high school or the middle school or one side of up them getting to the Winthrop school we'll also be using these funds to add handicap ramps and crosswalks on Lebanon near Appleton Street and on Lebanon near Beach and possibly on Howard Street east of Ruggles were looking at a location at collider road the first two crosswalks that i mentioned have already been passed by traffic commission and the third will be on their agenda next wednesday we're going to be using these funds to also reconstruct the intersection of cottage and foster streets through the years our office and alderman wright have received several phone calls about safety and the crosswalk crossing foster street from the front of the levi gould going to coa and back as you come down cottage street that intersection is very wide cars don't stop to take the right they just slow down and go and if someone is in that crosswalk especially if that if if they're not as mobile they're they're just out in the crosswalk and it becomes a dangerous situation what we're going to try to do is use some complete street design standards to narrow that narrow and shorten the crossings both across cottage and across foster and and get a little bit of distance so cars have to slow down before they take the right or left um the fifth area is repairs renovations and upgrades to livermore park that is the that is the park off felton place off of upham street i know it's called felton park it has several names with the official name is livermore park the improvements will include upgrades repairs and replacement of the playground equipment currently joan bell our superintendent of open space has begun outreach with several of the stakeholders i don't know if she's here oh she is here so i'm sure she'll add her commentary to this section of our order but we're looking to best utilize these fundings to make both equipment and other upgrades to this park the funding will also be used to address sidewalk gaps on the west side of mount vernon ave this is between rock view and sylvan street and this will give that neighborhood a direct access to pine banks alderman mcmaster has met diligently with that neighborhood this is one of their top requests for several years now to finish adding sidewalks where there are none this way we can have that continuous walk the funding will also purchase and install two additional 25 mile an hour solar powered signals these are the ones that are on up on men on howard they've proven to be extremely successful they don't they not not only warn and warn motorists of their speed but they also collect statistics that chief Lyle and sergeant Clark has found extremely successful in determining speed rates and vehicle counts so we'll be adding two more one will go on Lebanon Street in Ward 7 that southern part of Lebanon Street and a And the second will go heading south on Washington Street in Ward 5. We'll also be installing, purchasing and installing a flashing crosswalk sign, a little bit different than the one on Howard at Ruggles. But the Melrose Police Department, through a grant, were able to acquire one of these to put anywhere in the city in a heavily used pedestrian crossing. the administration decided to roll these out in at both the Lincoln School District and the Roosevelt School District so we'll be using these funds to purchase a second and we'll be installing them upon successful passage within a few weeks lastly we'll be using the funds to purchase and plant 80 trees citywide and that is off a resident request list that is probably for if not more years old so that's the first part of it the second part addresses the snow

▶ 1:00:03 Speaker 8: deficit and the last part addresses fleet equipment upgrades over the past fiscal year the city auditor the assistant city auditor and the mayor's administrative assistant and director of community services and I all met with department heads throughout the city we met to conduct an evaluation and a needs assessment on all of the city fleet the department heads came and they explained that their existing fleet to us the condition of that existing fleet some of the issues that fleet presents and what their future needs would consist of through the discussion we were able to prioritize the needs in each department and rank their top priorities this appropriation begins to address the top needs and both public safety groups and also in public works so the chiefs are here to discuss their top needs I'm just going to briefly speak about public works is top needs and then uh turn it over to them the public works managers presented a five year capital replacement program to the committee this be this addresses maybe two-thirds of year one of that of that presentation and it starts to um it starts to replace equipment that no longer has useful value some of the photos are in the attachment that i i sent along ultimately we'll be purchasing four trucks and two lawn mowers the lawn mowers obviously are replacing what the green team uses on a daily basis those were purchased seven years ago and they've exceeded their useful life of five years so we got a few extra years on those the we're replacing a we're purchasing a midsize six-wheel dump truck for our park and forestry group a highway crew truck that's for the highway crews that go out and repair street lights and

▶ 1:02:24 Speaker 8: traffic signs and roadway sidewalk improvements purchasing a large six-wheel dump slash sander in our facilities division we'll be purchasing a 300 um a rack truck that's a truck that can be used for moving items one location to another one school to another we're constantly moving items for the school department whether it be paper or school supplies or desks or one teaches belongings from one school to another whatever the case may be we don't have a vehicle that can do that in a safe manner this will have a tailgate in the back that allows to lift

▶ 1:03:05 Speaker 8: the equipment up and into the truck in a much more safer and convenient manner so those are the three areas at least in Public Works I can answer your questions and though regarding that or if you want to hear from the other department heads

▶ 1:03:21 Speaker 6: I'll just sit wait so we do have a couple alderman in queue maybe we'll go

▶ 1:03:26 Speaker 6: there for department public works and then we can move forward um so i'll go in tremendous

▶ 1:03:34 John N. Tramontozzi: uh thank you madam chair actually my question is more directed to mr bella russo don't don't get me wrong i think many if not all of these line items are appropriate especially the public works believe me i've heard many um And I've gotten received many calls from constituents asking for

▶ 1:04:01 John N. Tramontozzi: the needs of the street repairs and the flashing lights and so forth. I see the need for equipment repairs and so forth. But let me ask you this, Mr. DelaRusso, because I've also got inquiries from constituents to try to get a handle on this free cash and availability. Certainly. I know the term is one that you don't normally like to use, but it's free cash slash available funds. And you put together a memo, somebody did, which was appreciated by me and I'm sure other members of the board. We define it as a surplus that accumulates from previous fiscal years.

▶ 1:04:50 John N. Tramontozzi: And is it fair to say historically that we have, for the most part, experienced the 3 to 5% available funds for the past 5, 10 years? Yeah, that's a fair statement, 3 to 5%. So, and when you submit a final budget to the state,

▶ 1:05:12 Speaker 9: the Department of Revenue that certifies the remaining money as free cash. Does that certification comes out around this time of year, every year? Great question, through the chair. Last year, it came in on 1030, the end of October. That's when we got our certification letter. It's generally done in the fall, and typically, the community strive to have their balance sheets and information into the Commonwealth because they'd like to get it done before they set their tax rate.

▶ 1:05:44 John N. Tramontozzi: And when did we, I mean, do you have an idea of how much money that you would become available for the next fiscal year and how many months before our budget season begins? Do you kind of get a sense for what you might have available?

▶ 1:06:04 Speaker 9: It's a great question. there are two issues and i don't want to go off track too much but when when you when you submit your balance sheet for each fund as well as the cities the the department of revenue then looks at all your other receivables anything that's overdrawn any grants for example that we anticipated getting that they have not materialized and they they would charge that against your available funds or your free cash number for the sake of it this evening then they also look at any outstanding receivables this past year our real estate receivables over a million dollars personal property taxes receivable over 125 000 and then they add in any deferred revenues which was four hundred and twenty seven thousand so that was submission is in part a making of a conservative budgeting because we strive to do that but also we are always subject to reimbursements for grants that if they're not timely then the state will credit you or take away from your free cash because the grant money that you would do hadn't come in timely there's There's nothing you can do about it, a lot of it may take a year, a year and a half. So they also charge that against what you have for what they call available funds. So it's a process that takes time and it's back and forth because as we get closer to having that number certified, they will ask questions, would you be able to give me a breakdown of this, this, and this, for example. no the state does not put any on uh put any limitations on uh what the available free cash can be used for right yeah yeah correct and typically the the um objective is to use it for non-recurring expenses because it's not guaranteed year to year you may have it this year may not have it next year and as we found out if you get caught in that trap where you're using it it to try to fund ongoing expenses it can really cause a lot of stress in the city if the city administration knows that there's going to be a potential budget issues for example the schools

▶ 1:08:31 John N. Tramontozzi: you could potentially use available free cash for the school's budget um i guess my my point

▶ 1:08:37 Speaker 9: is this when did you when did the administration be become aware that there's a there was a There's a potential $2.3 million free cash availability for fiscal 20 budget. We receive this information and that's as a result of the prior year's fiscal 18's operation, not 19. So the free cash we have here is as a result of the operation of fiscal 18, not fiscal 19. So you're always a year behind, I'll just say that for the sake of this evening. So again, because you don't have the opportunity to make the final certification when the state does, you have to wait for them to do it. Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate the fact that this available funds can be used for the projects that we want. These are important projects. I'm just wondering what effect this might have had if the public was aware that we potentially could have had $2.3 million available at the time that the citizens voted for the override that could have been used potentially for the schools. Now again, granted, I'm glad that we're using these funds for these public works projects because I think it's important. we need it's you say the state the Department of Revenue recommends that we have a free cash balance of three to five percent budget do we have to is that a requirement it's best practice and secondly is that's just the Department of Revenue Standard & Poor's wants to see us have between our free cash balance and our stabilization fund balance they want to see us have at least five percent of reserves which is the combination of both which we do have so you have you're trying you have to meet the requirements of good practice for the Commonwealth and you also have to meet the requirements a good practice for the outside rating agency that's going to determine what you pay an interest so you strive to make that goal because you want to pay you don't want to pay a premium when you borrow you want to get the best rate you possibly can I feel it's a balance yes it's consistent in this consistent and that's that's that's why it's so important but another good feature and glad we're talking about it is um you'll see that this year you're giving about a third about 35 percent of this free cash is going to stabilization funds so that's another feather on our cap because it shows that we're thinking ahead and outside of snow and ice which is my first consideration for funding my next consideration is to ensure that the stabilization funds that we have are going to be able to meet the expenses of not next year but also the year after should that be necessary and so that's why you'll see that you snow and ice deficit concerns you'll see stabilization funds and again about a third 820,000 is being dedicated to stabilization funds just to ensure that we're going to be able to meet our obligations and fund needs that are for example with special education that's a great question though I'll stop

▶ 1:11:56 John N. Tramontozzi: there and I'll let others ask some questions thank you thank you I just

▶ 1:12:03 Manisha Bewtra: wanted to take a minute to recognize that it's nice to see a lot of the items that I think we've been discussing over the last year or a couple of years I make it to this list for example I think some of the crosswalks sidewalk repairs and other additions to improve accessibility of our sidewalks the additional trees and I think in particular I'm excited to see on the appropriation for the repairs renovations and upgrades to Livermore Park because I've heard from residents of that that use that park feeling that it's been neglected for a long time so I'm really pleased to see that that is on the list as well as outside of the DPW request the public safety vehicles and the phone system upgrade for City Hall again a lot of these came up in our budget discussions last year as well as throughout conversations regarding the state of our city's finances so I'm pleased to see those just curious I you know obviously when you're in making a list like this you're always making trade-offs and I just kind of wanted to get a sense of items that might not have

▶ 1:13:30 Manisha Bewtra: made the cut um whether dpw are up from other department requests well in terms of public works

▶ 1:13:40 Speaker 8: um i mean the you could you could have expended all this free cash just plants and treats but we try we try to we try to keep a balance and every aspect that we work in

▶ 1:13:51 Speaker 8: um there is one thing that we may have had the possibility of investing a little more in but we're not quite sure exactly what we need and how much we need but we'll be back for it and is that's in um in the um the stormwater quality epa requirements that are coming down the line but rather than put money towards something where we really haven't defined the scope we took the approach of we have enough money to hire somebody to define the scope and then we'll we'll come back within a year and hopefully through next year's free cash we can we could properly fund that program so we avoid fines from the epa and the dep that was one thing that

▶ 1:14:40 Speaker 8: i know personally i tossed with a lot um you know and then there are other there are other needs sidewalk repairs there's several capital needs in the buildings alone but we're trying and we'll try to address those with other programs as we move forward excellent well i think a lot of

▶ 1:14:52 Manisha Bewtra: these are are tangible uh improvements that the city or residents will see those investments right away and others are sort of behind the scenes that um i've heard staff mentioning over time so i look forward to the rest of um the department's uh comments and my colleagues but i'll Yield the floor.

▶ 1:15:16 Speaker 6: Great, thank you. Vice Chair Boisselle.

▶ 1:15:20 Robert A. Boisselle: My question is basically to Public Works and the point. Going to number two, the patch repairs on Upham Street. I believe from Lincoln Street to Waverly, the road is really in bad shape. Is this gonna fill the holes, or are we going from curb to curb, we going from curb to middle of the road to fix the patches we're going to grind out sections

▶ 1:15:45 Speaker 8: curb to curb it won't be curb to curb it will be the all right the most heavily traveled half a road then we could switch to the other side or some sections maybe the whole thing currently

▶ 1:16:03 Robert A. Boisselle: we're going to stretch the dollar as much as we can i know but this half uh street does this doesn't work I mean Stratford Street and Garfield Street is a prime example and people after a while are moving over to go down the street into the paved area and trying to keep off the rough road and I hate to see that in Upham Street where people are trying to move into the south westbound Lane instead of staying in the eastbound Lane and going through or just vice versa and so forth I would recommend curb the curve from at least Lincoln to Waverly and that area and just to prevent that type especially it's it's a close to school crossing area and so forth you don't want these cars moving all over the highway trying to not to get into some of these holes because once you pave one side the other side begins to deteriorate and it just doesn't work and we talked about Stratford and get Garfield and the gas company cuts up one side of the street and they fill that side and the other side of the street is in bad shape and my recommendation also with the gas companies that's curb to curb but they're going to cut up 15 holes in the street they should do the entire street curb to curb to prevent that type of a transfer of traffic on side to side of

▶ 1:17:28 Speaker 8: road i don't disagree when we're doing those type of neighborhoods but upland street right now is is unsafe that is correct and the first objective is to get it into a safe condition and that's what this funding's for okay again start to say that we're going to close our eyes to upland street moving forward we're looking for ways to to address all of upland street including the sidewalks but this is more aimed at trying to make that travel way safe again all right but i do recommend

▶ 1:17:55 Robert A. Boisselle: curb to curb in this particular area and on on upham street thank you thank you madam chair

▶ 1:18:05 Monica C. Medeiros: alderman medeiros thank you uh how much does this additional amount to snow bring our total snow expenditure for the past fiscal year second is that yeah eight is that correct

▶ 1:18:21 Speaker 9: 830 144 i believe that's uh um that's gonna take out the yeah great to know that that's you know

▶ 1:18:36 Monica C. Medeiros: been a pretty relatively light year and um hopefully that's slightly below our um average

▶ 1:18:46 Speaker 8: 10-year average now of $998,000, if it makes sense.

▶ 1:18:50 Monica C. Medeiros: And we budgeted $900,000 for the coming years.

▶ 1:18:55 Speaker 9: The fiscal 19, we budgeted $625,000, and we ended up with the $205,140 deficit. But you're absolutely right, I mean, we had a milder winter, thank goodness, because as you're aware, not a lot of these projects wouldn't be possible if we all dedicated to snow and ice at least a

▶ 1:19:17 Speaker 2: good portion of them yeah some there's been years where we've spent uh one and a half million or

▶ 1:19:23 Speaker 9: something i think that's so crazy got a couple of real tough ones um i want to echo the comments

▶ 1:19:25 Monica C. Medeiros: that i'm happy to see the expenditures on the the road and sidewalk and accessibility repairs I wanted to ask in regard to Livermore Park is there any friends group in place

▶ 1:19:54 Speaker 10: there and I see a couple of them went out and got suggestions of what they'd

▶ 1:20:00 Speaker 10: like to see what type of equipment what age group um so they brought back all the information to me i've met with a couple playground reps at the park we've gone through it they're now in the timeline of they're going to come back and give us some drawings of some that are a little below the money that we have some right on the money we have and one maybe that's a little bit above in case they want to do they've mentioned that if it's something that they really feel is important for them to have that they'd like to do a little extra fundraising to get it and and um and what's

▶ 1:20:43 Speaker 10: the the the target age group if you will here so um most playgrounds have two to five and five to twelve year old equipment the one that's there now is mainly five to twelve they are looking for

▶ 1:20:55 Monica C. Medeiros: two to five and five to twelve that's great and i'm glad to see the the group formed that are forming and i just also wanted to take a minute to actually thank the ptos because i know in some of the other schools they've been the parks that have been adjacent to the schools they've spent

▶ 1:21:11 Speaker 10: with mary livermore is um it's it's in a neighborhood that's really turning over that you know whole hillside ave like there's a lot of young families coming in i mean it is one of of the packs that's been on our radar um to do so it's it's good to see that the you know the people are coming out and and saying you know getting involved in it and really embracing the community

▶ 1:21:33 Monica C. Medeiros: neighborhood and i'm glad that we can use this money to bring that to the next level yeah

▶ 1:21:44 Monica C. Medeiros: absolutely thank you very much uh and just in general on uh free cash unrelated to thank you I just wanted to clarify this amount of free cash from FY 18 when it was certified was actually 3.6 million is that correct or 3.5 close I'm gonna

▶ 1:22:03 Speaker 9: see let's just double check right over there one second there's a reason I

▶ 1:22:13 Speaker 9: bring everything with me it was three million five ninety one 881 three million five five ninety one eighty one five ninety one right on the money so

▶ 1:22:24 Monica C. Medeiros: that came that was certified as of last October and that's correct and we've actually expended through a couple of different orders so far this year some of this free cash and then this is what's left over that's definitely correct and if we did not expend this money what happens at the end of the

▶ 1:22:49 Speaker 9: fiscal year at the end of the fiscal year whatever is not expended will simply roll over into the next fiscal year and then it's not available for us

▶ 1:22:59 Speaker 9: to use and until until the state does their work again and then they make an And identification as to how much is available for cash all over again. And it's funny because it's a good question because often times if you turn over 100,000, you're hoping that it's going to mean next year there's going to be 100,000 that becomes available, but it may not happen. There may be offsets that you're just not aware of yet that can make that 50,000 or 75. Unfortunately, it's not a one-to-one guarantee, but yeah, we'll just get turned over. Anything you don't vote on, we'll just go right into next year's determination of free cash. That's all. It doesn't go anywhere else.

▶ 1:23:45 Monica C. Medeiros: And the only way to really keep it available would be to potentially put, as some of this is, into stabilization funds, which would be for a specific purpose.

▶ 1:23:54 Speaker 9: Absolutely. and again through the chair that serves so many purposes which we're going to talk about them in a moment but the feature there obviously is that you're protecting the interests of the community in many many ways contract wise suit you know suits and claims capital and at the same time requiring this board to vote the money in and this board to vote the money out so there's total total transparency can't go in unless you vote it and it can't be used on anything unless you vote it so that's another good feature thank you to the

▶ 1:24:30 Monica C. Medeiros: chair I believe that attorney van Kampen is not able to be here tonight would this be an appropriate time to ask a question about contract stabilization

▶ 1:24:43 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that's fine we do and it is in the public record that the city solicitor provided us with a memorandum regarding his particular line so I I would assume that hopefully his colleagues could respond to your question thank you so I

▶ 1:24:57 Monica C. Medeiros: I guess that mr. Dell it was like since we're kind of on that topic could you just talk briefly about the contract stabilization fund the 365,000 and what

▶ 1:25:17 Speaker 9: that entails absolutely right now and the fund itself we have just over four hundred and ten thousand dollars if this is approved we have just over seven hundred and seventy five thousand which in my opinion is where we'd like to sit today in the fund and there's multiple reasons for that first and foremost again as we've talked about briefly that as contracts come up for collective bargaining in particular public safety public works other unions non-union oftentimes particularly with some of the large units these contracts may not be settled in that same year you're working together it may span two years may even go into a third year the stress for the community is that as those years go by you have a built-in liability that you have not budgeted for and it's sitting there waiting and then as two years go in now you have two years of that obligation sitting there that has not been funded and then finally you strike a chord where you both come to terms and you go it's time to pay and and meet your obligation that's where this fund becomes critical you're able to go to that fund draw what you need and then maintain the same service level you have right this minute nothing is interrupted nothing's corrupted you don't have to lay off anyone you've made a proper provision and life goes on and business is conducted the way you don't want business conducted um it also provides us an opportunity with the rating agencies because they asked as you're aware they asked many questions how you how you're doing in your contracts how many are still unsettled what are your plans for when they do settle how are you going to fund it so it really really goes to the core of what we do and why we're here sometimes if I make the chair just if you don't make that provision and you assume that well it's going to take care of itself it never takes care of itself if you don't address it it's not going to happen so the comfort that the board can have is that you've made the provision and and the numbers may sound large 775,000 but I can assure you that two years retro on any particularly large union public safety or other public works can eat up a half a million dollars in a blink it's not uncommon and there's also compounding that takes place so if you behind one year the next year is not only the new contract year but it's a compounding of that prior year so that obligation can really be significant and that's just one unit so you have to take into account that there's multiple unions settling you know three year contracts and ideally if we don't have to add anything next year to the fund because we're on target unions are funded etc then that's great then there'll be no need for an appropriation to increase that amount then it can be spent under the purposes for that fiscal year that'd be great however it's always in the back of your mind you want to always be looking and saying what's coming up what's going to need to be addressed and how best to address it that's why having that provision provides you that opportunity to negotiate in good faith and i think both sides win again it's designed for the entire city in that sense um no particular union or group it's just what's available overall for all for all unions in the city thank you thank you alderman mortimer thank you very much

▶ 1:29:03 Peter D. Mortimer: Thanks Chairman Lipper-Garabedian.

▶ 1:29:11 Peter D. Mortimer: This order is somewhat along the lines of end of the year housekeeping. That's what happens when you have a fiscal year that runs from July 1st of one calendar year until June 30th of the subsequent calendar year. I liken it to a household budget. Mm-hm. You have a household budget, you say, this year we expect to spend $500 on milk. for the kids, we expect to spend $300 on diapers. We expect to spend $1,000 on gasoline for the automobiles.

▶ 1:29:52 Peter D. Mortimer: And then you get lucky, an uncle dies and you get an inheritance, a grant. Or maybe somebody hits the lottery who lives in the family and you get a good piece of money. Or on the other hand, Sometimes, the transmission goes, or

▶ 1:30:13 Peter D. Mortimer: your child has an accident and you need to get a new car. Constructing a budget is not something that is a sculpture done in stone. It's more like trying to make a wall around a bay in an ocean. It's always a moving target. So when you try to say, well, this year in our household budget, we're going to spend $500 for milk. Maybe you do, but maybe you spend more than that, or maybe you spend less. And if you spend more, then you can maybe buy one of your kids a new cross stick,

▶ 1:30:51 Peter D. Mortimer: or a new outfit, or maybe some better crosswalks and better traffic regulation signal. Sometimes you get lucky. I know four years ago we got unlucky. We got wrecked by a terrible winter, subsequent large snow storms.

▶ 1:31:18 Peter D. Mortimer: 12 years ago, we weren't unlucky, quite the contrary, we were very lucky. And we had practically no snow. And Mayor Dolan and I and some others who were around then, we were able to create A fund with permanent, free, all day kindergarten for the children of Melrose. A, through an annuity, something that very few communities, very few other municipalities have. So it's a moving target, but if you want to know what's good, you look around and the proof is in the pudding. Now, if you listen to some of the comments that get made, a public comment here, only listen to that. You'd say, wow, if you walk outside that chamber, you must be looking at a mud hole of a city. But we're not. But I'll get to what it looks like outside the doors of this building momentarily. First, I'd like to say what the official people who count money and count nickels for a living. The state auditor says our budgets are good and fine. An outside auditing agency, Powers and Sullivan, looks at our budget and says, it's good, it's fine. Standard and Poor, who, they still have their communion money. And they do not give the AA plus bond rating we have in this city, lightly, the best bond rating this city has ever had. That's correct. If you only listen to some of the public comment that happens around here, you'd think that this city was some kind of saloon in Dodge City, just running by the seat of our pants. But it's not, and that's just the official money people who do that for a living. They recognize that this city is not mismanaged, as some would say, but it's very, very well managed. Now let's take a look at what you see with your own eyes when you walk outside this city. We have a fire department that provides every month dozens of beautiful prompt service to people who are injured or in some other type of physical distress with the fire department and the ambulance service. The police department is here tonight and Melrose has one of the lowest crime rates around. Melrose is one of the lowest crime rates around. We have a very low accident fatality rate, and that's due to DPW and the police. And the great job that all the personnel of the fire department and the police department do. Absolutely. Great men and women who are dedicated to our city. DPW does all kinds of good work. Look at the parks we have, including Mount Hood, the Common. When I was a little kid, the common was a mud pit in April and it was a dust bowl in August. Now it's green and lush all year round. Mount Hood is a paradise. You know, if we wanted to, we could pass this, go up to the state house, ask them we could sell all that and have single family homes up there. And we wouldn't have to pay any taxes, anyone, for ten more years, but we don't want that. We want to have a city that has a municipal golf course so our kids can go up there and play sports. So people who live in the city can have a place to have some recreation. This is the Melrose that we've chosen, well managed. And now we're going to take care of some more parks, because the money came in.

▶ 1:34:50 Peter D. Mortimer: You look around Melrose and listen to what you see. Don't listen to some of the comments you hear. Melrose is well managed, and the people who would dedicate the schools, schools are here tonight. Look at the list and the colleges that the kids in Melrose go to. It's fantastic. They do great work. Everybody gets a good education. We just got a big music award. Melrose has one of the best musical educations. Our arts department, our robotics department, constantly winning awards. Every other month, you read some magazine, New York Times, Boston Magazine, Finance, all rating. Melrose, top-rated city, one of the most livable places in the world. So, the budget is not written in stone. Sometimes we get lucky, sometimes we get unlucky, but at the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding. And so, just because an order comes in at the end of the year, that might be 2% of our overall budget. We have contracts that come in, you pointed it out just now. You don't know when they're going to come in. And you even said both sides come together. Sometimes an arbitrator, if it goes to arbitration, just says, this is what you have to pay. There's no getting around it, and the personnel, I wish we could pay them 10% more every year, but we can't. We have to keep things tight, and we do keep things tight. And practically 2%, 2.5% of our budget at the end of the year to do a little bit of housekeeping. Because you cannot predict down to the dime how much gasoline, how much DPW, how many trees are going to fall over. Whether we're going to have a hurricane, you can't predict whether a fire truck is going to fall apart. We're already driving police cars that are falling apart, and then they go. We're doing everything we can, and this city is very tight with the dollar, very well managed. And the proof is in the property values, what the magazines say to us, what the financial agencies say. So, this order is certainly something we can pass without having any problems, any reservations, or any deep concerns. Thank you very much.

▶ 1:37:07 Speaker 6: Thank you. President Lemmerman.

▶ 1:37:09 Speaker 11: Thank you very much. Thank you for this information. I just before, I do have a couple of questions, but

▶ 1:37:16 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: also just wanted to say that as a ward alderman in particular, I think other ward aldermen here will agree with me. always have a running list of things in the in the ward that it would be great to be able to work on should the funding become available and I appreciate mr. Shana you your work in your department of always being very creative and helping to try to find ways to do those things throughout the time that I've been on the board but it's always very nice when we are you know able to work collaboratively to do some word projects and it doesn't it doesn't happen all the time but it was great to know that we could do a couple of things in the main street crosswalk that you mentioned is very important for kids walking to school it's a very it can be a very dangerous intersection leading up to the fells and then also I'm hopeful that through the traffic commission we can work on the Howard Street crosswalk as well as been working on the east side of that street rightfully so but but the other end they're leading up to Saugus if people go down that way we'll notice there's actually no crossing all the way to the town line so it would be great to have that so just wanted to say I appreciate that very much so tonight we're looking at you you mentioned some of the pieces of equipment that we would be replacing through these funds that were identified through this five-year capital replacement program just to provide some context um so we also discussed monday four pieces of equipment through the enterprise fund um that are related to water and sewer work uh that live under dpw were those also identified through this five-year capital plan or is that a separate process we in terms of the

▶ 1:39:00 Speaker 8: study in terms of the discussion we public works presented water and sewer separate this is um all

▶ 1:39:12 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the other divisions of public works outside of water okay um and so so if those are done the water and sewer piece separately um does that also you mentioned that this brings us about two thirds through the first year of the capital plan or are those part of that as well will that help no that has its own it's totally separate okay um the other piece so we we do have a memo here that's in our order that we all received and i know that chief lyle will be coming up and speaking to us in a bit regarding the amount um that he needed for for the overtime um that could potentially be reduced a bit due to some we'll go over the details but due to some changes in the circumstances in the police department we also received a memo from the mayor's office recommending that that could be used for sidewalk repairs i was hoping that you could talk a little bit about so we have some in here already for sidewalk repairs which you mentioned and if we were able to add a little bit more where does that bring us citywide in terms of sidewalk repairs and i know there's a long list um so what in total where would that bring us so i actually um i

▶ 1:40:23 Speaker 8: provided the mayor a memo late this afternoon i'm not sure if i've got into your packets but i can forward this tomorrow to all of you we we receive requests from residents for sidewalk we call them sidewalk safety issues it's a trip hazard it's a lip at a tree and what we do is we immediately assess those and we try to make safety the safety repairs some of the safety repairs are not aesthetically pleasing sometimes we put the cumin mix over a cement sidewalk just just to make it safe, sometimes the safety repair is just painting it orange so it becomes visible. Some other issues are, some other issues with the sidewalk surface in the winter. It could be a depression, it's the opposite of the sidewalks lifting. It could be a depression creating a puddle where the water stands, becomes ice in the winter. So what we do is once the safety issue is set aside, we keep a running list of that. now our list goes back to 2015 on these requests it's four pages long so we have a line item in our budget that we we use annually to address this list but this would allow us to double the locations that we can we can get to next fiscal year what would probably do is address this fund this fifty thousand dollars of repairs immediately in july and august and then we transition right into in september when we typically do our sidewalk program we would transition right into it so um you know we usually get 12 to 15 locations with our regular program so hopefully this will get us you know in excess of 30 30 work requests that are out there okay so it would as

▶ 1:42:11 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: you said double what you would normally do in this time frame so take a decent chunk out of the yes a very long list great thank you very much thank you honor mcmaster thank you madam chair good

▶ 1:42:24 Shawn M. MacMaster: evening mr shen i first just like to thank you for the projects you highlighted um as it relates to uh the work in ward five so thank you for that mr delarusso you talked a little bit about free cash not being a reliable source of money and you explained that it's most appropriate for one-time expenses based on that is it fair to say that the free cash before us tonight would not be sustainable as it relates to hiring new teachers and teacher salary adjustments yes and through

▶ 1:42:58 Speaker 9: the chair um i would i would not um ever ever invoke using free cash to hire a permanent employee for any department city or school it's just not reliable and it's interesting and it's a great question uh just for a purpose of an example back in uh fiscal 2015 we spent just under 2.1 million dollars was our snow and ice deficit so when you look at this 2.3 million dollars that would have been eaten up just with the snow and ice deficit that no one in this room could have possibly you know seen coming had you hired employees based upon the prior year's activity relative to snow and ice for example you'd be laying off those employees that next year so that's why it's not advantageous to consider that because there's so many variables including including not limited to mid year reductions in state aid there's been years we've seen six hundred twenty two thousand reductions state aid mid-year when things don't go well and they ascertain the revenues for the year then they have to make adjustments to cities and towns so again you're subjecting those same people to those risks um which i would never

▶ 1:44:19 Shawn M. MacMaster: support and mr shena is it fair to say that the neighborhood improvements uh that you highlighted this evening three of which are in ward five would not be possible uh were it not for the available money uh that we're discussing tonight no we wouldn't be able to do these thank you both thank

▶ 1:44:39 Michael P. Zwirko: you madam chair thank you alderman Zwirko thank you madam chair i'd just like to state that i feel bad for peter's uncle um so i really just have one question this has very been a very thorough presentation for a large part of the order that we're appropriating this evening i just have to use the prop that was given to us this is a picture of a 1998 i believe um well flat what was a flatbed truck without the bed um so i'm just curious mr shenna can you just talk about that truck so it's it's over almost 21 years old um what was that truck used for and what

▶ 1:45:19 Speaker 8: will you be replacing it that was a facilities vehicle so that rack body truck will replace that vehicle um we don't use that that vehicle obviously can't get a sticker anymore it's a skeleton true yeah but it just goes to show like we've had to park we we've neglected our fleet for several years and and and the last two three years we've had to park some vehicles and we've had to share some vehicles we've had to be think out of the box and you know in the wintertime we've even had to rent equipment because we just didn't have enough of our own week to put out with our employees so i mean i'm happy that we're able to really supplement the public works fleet we have to we have to give our employees the resources to go out and do the work we have plenty of work we send their way but we have to resource them correctly and this is a great order for that and i'm happy that we're able to do it and i'm happy we're finally able to move on from pitches like that and um hopefully in the years to come now now that we have an outline of what we we want to do maybe we don't have to do this as aggressively next year but if we keep investing on a year-to-year basis we can avoid pitches like that yeah well and thank you they're

▶ 1:46:36 Michael P. Zwirko: helpful just so we know you know the condition of the fleet and glad that we're replacing some

▶ 1:46:45 Scott M. Forbes: of them so thank you for all the work and time alderman forbes thank you uh i know by now most of the questions have been asked so i will be brief uh the line item for the 250 000 for the capital stabilization fund which i believe is an appropriation for a piece of uh fire equipment just wondering if that is something that you could just explain to us uh what the process is and what the timeline would be in order to uh obtain that piece of equipment well i know our fire chief is

▶ 1:47:09 Speaker 8: here front line fire suppression racked it's a top need in the fire department um the fire chief Chief can fill you in a little more on his process for that. But these funds would be set aside for the front line fire suppression equipment, whether it be a pump or a ladder. But Chief Kalina is here. Could you join us, Chief?

▶ 1:47:33 Speaker 1: If you could, Chief.

▶ 1:47:40 Speaker 1: Good evening. Good evening.

▶ 1:47:46 Speaker 1: So the 250,000 would be used to,

▶ 1:47:54 Speaker 1: for the purchase of an engine pumper, which we're in great need of. The down payment, yeah. The down payment. Yeah. And, you know, also the ladder truck is in need. But our apparatus is aging, and this is the first step in getting us in the right direction to have safe equipment for our members to operate off of.

▶ 1:48:20 Scott M. Forbes: Do you know, in terms of total cost, how much that piece of equipment would run? A pumper runs around $6,000 to $650,000 equipped. And then a ladder truck? A ladder truck, excess of $1 million. Okay. So pretty substantial investments, long-term investments that we need for the city. Yes. And then as far as the timeline, I understand this is just for the down payment, But do we know how far down the road that would be in terms of either finding the right cost, the right vehicle? Can you explain that a little bit? We've established a committee, the union and myself, with members of the fire department.

▶ 1:49:00 Speaker 1: We have some great talent on the fire department, some diesel mechanics and stuff. and uh they're going to start meeting with uh reps spec and out apparatus and based on the needs for the community that will determine the cost and we would hope to have that by the

▶ 1:49:21 Speaker 1: fall sometime and get that get that process going very good and as i spoke again to the board um

▶ 1:49:24 Speaker 9: prior to this on this item the objective would be that we'd use this 250 000 i use a trim down payment as payment towards specifically the pumper in an ideal world if we could pay the pumper in cash with the next round of free cash or that materialized that would be the um you know my uh my hope if not um we'll just roll it into a debt obligation for both the pumper and the ladder and this would offset the cost of the bond but it's definitely going strictly for fire apparatus pump a pumper right now and uh in the latter obviously is going to follow that that is my

▶ 1:50:10 Scott M. Forbes: priority thank you um and the reason why i i wanted to bring this up is because if we are going to make long-term investments in in our equipment which are definitely needed the question or the concern that i would have is to be able to make these investments and have them housed in substandard facilities and buildings i understand a couple of years ago there was a feasibility study done with our public safety buildings i hope that in this calendar year that those discussions can continue because you know you don't want to you don't want to park a porsche in a garage that's getting ready to fall over right so we all want to do the right thing and and be able to engage in those discussions and i understand that may be a little bit off topic in terms of tonight's free cash but i think it does all tie into the overall you know the overall facilities because we want to have adequate facilities for all of our equipment on

▶ 1:51:03 Speaker 6: both fire and police so thank you very much thank you so we've uh oh i'm sorry another cop is it about yeah sorry go ahead uh ultimate chairman tozy thank you

▶ 1:51:11 John N. Tramontozzi: so um mr de la rusa yes um i hear what you say and i think it's an important point that this money in available free cash is appropriate for one-time expenditures.

▶ 1:51:22 Speaker 9: Sure. Capital improvements and capital- Ideally, ideally, correct. So it would not be appropriate for, in the example Alderman McMaster mentioned about hiring teachers. No, it would not. But it would be good, it would be appropriate for repairing municipal buildings like the fire department. absolutely in buildings anything like that window windows police department any type of repairs that you know you have to make that would be ideal school for example obviously if this was a large number that might help right now this is what it is yeah absolutely it's uh wherever we need help it is there to

▶ 1:52:06 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: help thank you so we do have a number of other city department heads and attendance tonight on some of the other lines that we haven't discussed there's the special education stabilization reserve fund we also have a couple lines related to the police department and a couple related to IT investments so maybe we could have the we could talk about we'll just go down the list so I think the next on this special education stabilization reserve fund for a hundred

▶ 1:52:40 Speaker 7: fifty five thousand dollars thank you for being with us thank you as I mentioned when the school committee presented their budget we're having an uptick in some extraordinary costs we have had a number of move-ins as we've talked about some that we have to assume responsibility for immediately and some we have to assume responsibility for as of July 1st secondly we're seeing a rise in children with behavioral health disorders this is not specific to Melrose and when superintendents and special ed directors get together we're all seeing a similar rise in need and the the other thing that is happening is as we've talked about we try very hard to keep our students here in Melrose but sometimes those programs come with additional costs for example in the fall we will be beginning a program for children with severe needs many of them have complicated medical needs in an effort to keep them in their local community so all of this contributes to unexpected costs we have looked into applying for what SPED directors typically refer to as pothole money it's a fund that sometimes when you have a sharp uptick in your special ed costs the state will give you a little bit of extra money we did not qualify for it and I also mentioned that we're trying to do a cost share on one of the move-ins and I don't think we will win that appeal to the board for what is called LEA assignment local education agency assignment so we think that we will have quite a large hit beginning July 1 Alderman Zwirko thank you madam chair we

▶ 1:54:33 Michael P. Zwirko: spoke about this issue when you came before us so I don't need to belabor the point I actually I'm glad that we have the funds available to address this this pothole as you put it I just wanted to actually give you the opportunity if if you'd like very quickly we have two teachers that I think just won an award

▶ 1:54:54 Speaker 7: so I think you know you were present Tuesday night that's right dr. Bill Hurley who is a marine and environmental science teacher at the high school is the aquariums teacher of the year and Isaac Havens who was the Latin teacher at the high school in the middle school is the Massachusetts foreign language new teacher of the year both wonderful additions to our staff great thank you thank you manager thank you any other questions or superintendent

▶ 1:55:24 Speaker 6: thank you for being with us tonight thank you appreciate it and then we have two lines related to our police department one for capital outlay and vehicles and the other for overtime and and also through the chair that may be

▶ 1:55:37 Speaker 9: one on the last page be so and the be safe thank you yeah we can speak a wall

▶ 1:55:44 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: The capital outlay, I believe, is for $118,850. Our police salary over time, I believe, it's for $50,000. There was a change that we can discuss. And then the police be safe was for $5,600. Yes.

▶ 1:56:01 Speaker 1: Thank you. You want to start with the vehicles? Is that fine? That's great. We're going to replace one patrol vehicle, Car 81. It was a 2010 Dodge Charger that we scrapped because the motor went, and it wasn't worth putting another nickel into that vehicle. It was just a bad investment. We traded it in for a very small fee when we bought the last round of cars. And then we have one admin vehicle, it's a 2011 Ford Fusion. It needs a transmission, it has 118,000 miles on it, and like the Dodge Charger that we scrapped, it really isn't worth putting any additional money into it. So those are the two vehicles outfitted. The patrol vehicle is approximately $66,000, and the admin vehicle is approximately $42,000. Then you have to add in radios, a laptop in that patrol vehicle, AEDs, graphics, and there's some additional police equipment. And the trade value is approximately $500 on that fusion. So it comes out to 11895143, just over what we asked for.

▶ 1:57:09 Speaker 6: And do you want to just speak to the other two as well, and then-

▶ 1:57:12 Speaker 1: Certainly, as far as overtime, we've ran our calculations. We had an officer that was due to have surgery. He opted to have it done when he was on military leave, and it helped us out as far as financials, as overtime. We got hit pretty hard this past fiscal year. We at one point we had seven officers out injured and one officer deployed in the military. And every week we go through our budget and we look at our overtime and our projections for the next 30 days out. So we're very fortunate to reduce our exposure. Be safe program too. And the last item is the Be Safe program. It's something that actually supports our school system and I added in the library. So it's mapping for all the schools. So if there's an emergency, whether it's a medical emergency or an intruder, I'll use that term instead of active shooter, there is an intruder in the building and it's in room delta 142. We would go to our map, it's in our cruisers, on our laptops, as well as fire, we'll have the same access as we have. And we could go in there and we could locate that individual for treatment or intervention.

▶ 1:58:25 Speaker 6: here it is yeah okay any questions on these such items Alameda DeRose thank

▶ 1:58:29 Monica C. Medeiros: you thank you very much she woke I was hoping you might be able to just talk a little bit about we heard some of the in the public works section but some of the traffic improvements that are in this order and some of the successes that that you've had with these electronic speed signs,

▶ 1:58:51 Speaker 1: or the need? You know what, they're not the answer to all, but they certainly supplement our enforcement when there's an officer not on scene. And they record every single vehicle. For folks up on Howard Street, at one point we did a survey, there was over a million vehicles, and it was over a long, long period of time. But it gave us very, very accurate data as far as speed counts, percentiles and such, so it was very effective for us. And the average driver will see it and slow down. And every time I come back from Route 1 and I hit the sign up on the street, it reminds you. And so it's an effective tool. I know Director Schenner mentioned about the solar powered crosswalk lights. I went to a police conference and I first saw them and they basically fit right over the existing stick figures and slide right on and they're solar powered and they work both sides of the roadway and it's a strobe light like a police light bar as very effective as far as notifying traffic that

▶ 1:59:54 Monica C. Medeiros: there's a pedestrian in the roadway that's great uh so thank you very much i'm glad to have those included and i just saw president leonard's hand goes up and i suspect she's going to

▶ 2:00:05 Speaker 2: ask you maybe what i was going to just i don't know go ahead okay

▶ 2:00:10 Monica C. Medeiros: i thought you might be able to just talk a little bit about what's going to happen at horace man

▶ 2:00:14 Speaker 1: You're all welcome. Tuesday, 9-11, I will allow it for spectators if you'd like. I will remind all the folks at our home that if you live in the Horace Mann area, you will hear pop-pops. Obviously, these are sim rounds. They're much lower powered. They sting when you get hit. We put protective gear on.

▶ 2:00:34 Speaker 2: It's an active shooter drill in a school setting.

▶ 2:00:36 Speaker 1: I want to thank the superintendent and her staff and the principal from Horace Mann for allowing us to go up there. and DPW is gonna probably help out in the end after we're done so people in

▶ 2:00:50 Monica C. Medeiros: that area should expect a large police presence there may be some media there I

▶ 2:00:54 Speaker 1: know that the free press may show up but certainly the board is willing to to come if you have time to drop in Monday Tuesday or Wednesday approximately 8 to 4 will be there and school is out of session yes and we waited thank you

▶ 2:01:13 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: president Lemmerman thank you very much yes and to just piggyback I just do want to emphasize because we did hear from some people in the community that the school is out of session yes yes there's no one on site but unfortunately this is a very necessary training so we're appreciative that you're and you're more

▶ 2:01:29 Speaker 1: than welcome to come any any member of the board if we'd like to come members of the school department school committee I see certainly welcome the

▶ 2:01:39 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: drop in thank you if you just have one question about the be safe program that you're mentioning so this is a new program it's been around for a while

▶ 2:01:45 Speaker 1: it's something that we've really tried to incorporate us in our police department and obviously that assist the fire department they go to a medical

▶ 2:01:59 Speaker 1: emergency so do we have it yet in so we have it in a smaller form it's it's old paper and we want to get up with the times whether it would be in the cloud where we'd be able to look at it and if they put in a window in one of the schools would be able to locate that window or a new doorway so that if the doorway is no longer there and we're going to try to go in that door we're gonna have a problem so that's part of the program there's a maintenance program it's 120 dollars a year per building and certainly the library needs

▶ 2:02:27 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: it as well so that actually gets a little bit at my question I will just say you know these are situations where obviously every second counts makes a difference so I'm sure yeah so I'm sure it could really make a difference in getting to the emergency quickly so it is an annual amount the service and

▶ 2:02:47 Speaker 1: it's been put into the budget put it right into our budget maintenance and it covers st. Mary's it covers both the schools the Ripley as well as the Beebe

▶ 2:02:58 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: and is it your department that would be responsible for inputting those

▶ 2:03:03 Speaker 1: changes like you said yes or through the be safe program through the vendors yes

▶ 2:03:09 Speaker 1: yes they've already came out as a courtesy and I believe during the winter break and they measured all the schools for us great great and it's and it's in

▶ 2:03:17 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the budget yes it is perfect okay well it seems like worthwhile spending so Thank you very much. Thank you.

▶ 2:03:27 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: I just have a question. So 2010 is the patrol, and 2011 is the administrative vehicle. Those aren't incredibly old. I drive a 2008 sometimes. But you probably put a lot more mileage on it than the average citizen.

▶ 2:03:45 Speaker 1: The admin zone is bad. It's the patrol vehicles. We have seven line cars, and they go 24-7. And we've always tried to give them a break eight hours off so that they don't run 24 hours but one or two of those vehicles go out of line offline with it with you know a medical I'm excuse me a mechanical issue we're running cars 24 7 and the miles rack up real fast and it's not so much the miles it's the idling time of these vehicles is almost almost double so when we have a vehicle 118 thousand miles on it it's well over 150,000 miles okay and And I will say this new patrol car we're kind of excited about, it's a hybrid. So it's gas electric. So it will save us fuel, there is a fuel savings there. I spoke to the planning department, Martha Grover. There is a small grant out there that will assist us some of the up charges for the hybrid. So, and we're hoping they're supposed to land sometime the end of the month. And there's a small window for this grant before June 30th, so it's going to be tight.

▶ 2:04:51 Speaker 6: we need is the VIN number well that's an exit that's exciting and good to know

▶ 2:04:54 Speaker 1: you'll notice it's just slightly bigger than the SUV interceptor you did you

▶ 2:04:59 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: just said in your comments that it was a bad investment that patrol car and I

▶ 2:05:06 Speaker 1: wasn't sure well you know I shouldn't say it's Chrysler it was Dodge and they came out with a you know it was supposed to be the ideal vehicle that Dodge Charger they first got we first got them they were great and then you know steering calls are going engines were going transmissions front ends and we backed away from them we stopped them after 2011 and they got very expensive the repair they were extending the warranties they knew there was something wrong with these vehicles I don't know if Chrysler has gotten better with them

▶ 2:05:35 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: but we're sticking with our Fords so you feel like the other cars that you've purchased since then you're not well Ford did away with decisions Ford did

▶ 2:05:42 Speaker 1: away with the backbone for law enforcement which was the crown Vic it was it was a great vehicle for law enforcement and they went to the SUV or the city and that which I drive right now and it's the same platform same as design just a different shell on it and they've stood up pretty well we've had

▶ 2:06:04 Speaker 6: it since 2013 okay thank you oh yes Alderman Forbes thank you I'll be brief

▶ 2:06:07 Scott M. Forbes: chief thanks for being here tonight in terms of police overtime I know it's an animal that we tackle every single year yes you know obviously we don't put a you can't put a price tag on public safety but just in terms of your of your personnel can you just go over you know what you currently have on the on the on the force in terms of in terms of personnel and numbers as far as patrol there's 33 patrolmen 9 sergeants full lieutenants and myself I can break it down further but I think we'd be here all night with the different so you got Prosecutors and detectives. Forty-seven total, right? Yes. All right. And out of those 47, you said there were a number of people either on deployments or if they're on disability? Right now, we have two officers out injured. Two officers injured. So out of your 47 you have on the books, you have 45 active? Yes. And then per our city ordinance, how many police personnel are we supposed to have? Sixty-one. Sixty-one. Yes. So that's a difference of about 15, so it's about 25%. We haven't had that since 2000. Okay. Well, again, you know, when it comes to the term doing more with less, I think that, you know, you're a perfect example when it comes to that. I will say, although of course it was a management study, and the management study, and I remember very clearly said, you know, this day and age, obviously with walking boots, boots were a thing of the past. I still think they have value in certain areas of our city. 61 was too many. But when we were down to like 28 patrolmen, 28 patrolmen certainly wasn't enough. Understood.

▶ 2:07:43 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: thank you chief I appreciate it thank you right and I think that it'll do us on police thank you very much for being here thank you and we do have two lines related to city IT one is the city IT phone system for a hundred thousand dollars the other is capital outlay for the city IT munis for eighty thousand dollars and it looks like we might have just lost our director of IT he's

▶ 2:08:27 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: probably coming right back we did it is in the public agenda there is an attachment that does describe this it's two items in the order address technology needs for items that are instrumental to our daily city operations first upgrade required upgrade to the city munis accounting software for $80,000 second replacement of the city's unreliable and antiquated telephone system throughout municipal buildings for $100,000 I don't know if either of you can speak to these we may not have many questions but yes on my

▶ 2:08:57 Monica C. Medeiros: Madeira's thank you just a bit while we're waiting for mr. Ellis I just thought perhaps you might address are we expecting to there's the request from the mayor's office to make an amendment to this order we're looking for an emotion to accept the mayor's amendment I think we'll do let's do that right off

▶ 2:09:17 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: now that we've got sure panel yes and we also I think which have a couple motions to add a few things to the record as well or to the order yes so I just read into the record what we have in the public record but if you would like to speak any anymore to the munis accounting software or the telephone

▶ 2:09:33 Speaker 7: system upgrades so I'll start because he just came back so my name is Donna Cardello I'm a systems analyst for the city of Melrose I am looking with this money to purchase two additional modules sophomore modules for the munis system One of them is Tyler Content Manager, which is an electronic filing cabinet, if you will. It's sort of like a paperclip and email where you attach things to your Vendor Master, your invoices, payroll. You can attach certificates. So we would have everything electronically filed rather than a file cabinet. So we think that that is a worthwhile piece of software. The second one is Employee Self-Serve. this is where employees would log in and they'd be able to access their payroll information their payroll direct deposit advices so we don't have to just print them and distribute them like we are currently doing so we would start out really small with that and then we would expand and try to give more information through the person through the employee self-serve system so we hope to implement those this year starting with Tyler content manager probably in October and maybe by the first of the year have employees self-serve

▶ 2:10:54 Speaker 7: implemented thank you that's any questions oh well it when we hear from

▶ 2:11:00 Speaker 8: you as well on the telephones yep Neil also the chief information officer for the city and schools one of the the things we're looking to do is the the new voice over IP phone system the current phone system basically that the in in 1993 when I started college at UMass Amherst they just installed a new phone system about two to three years prior and it was the phone system that have right now so if you're doing the math in your head that's 29 years it's basically like if you left your computer on for 30 years and you hope it keeps running it's basically what we're looking at so we're looking to replace that upgrade some of the functionality um and hopefully just have a working phone system that is reliable uses a lot less power and cooling so much more efficient also part of that is a lot of the the funds for that is um goes towards uh cabling because it's going to be on on a on a network so we need to wire to those new phones we can't use the phone uh wire any longer great

▶ 2:12:24 Scott M. Forbes: alderman forbes thank you um in terms of the phone system did we and maybe you can maybe this jockey members did we ever allocate hundreds of thousands of dollars for the phone system in the last fiscal year in a supplemental budget back in December

▶ 2:12:48 Speaker 8: of either 2017 or 2018 I think maybe we didn't do anything specifically for the phone system we did purchase a server on which we could run a phone platform on

▶ 2:13:03 Scott M. Forbes: okay I may be mistake it may more have been like telecommunications or doing something in regard to more of an IT function in the phone system but is that something you'd be able to either look in research in the last like year or yeah because I feel like that there was a substantial amount that was

▶ 2:13:19 Speaker 7: allocated to that phase one part phase two of two phase project the munis server in the mail server needed to be upgraded actually a lot of the servers in the service room needed to be upgraded so we I think you had 80,000

▶ 2:13:35 Speaker 8: for that project we had 80,000 for a server project okay it didn't have any

▶ 2:13:41 Speaker 7: it wasn't allocated to us but we needed to have that done so we could upgrade munis we have to upgrade to a new munis version and then we're hoping to implement these two modules so those things need to be done before we could even move forward with this I'm not sure if that's what you're referencing yeah

▶ 2:13:57 Scott M. Forbes: I'm just more or less I it just jogged my memory when I saw the line item so I didn't know if it would be possible just to take a deep dive back 12 to 24 months to see if there was one I can obviously do that as well but that that was the only question I had I just didn't know if that was in addition to that song but

▶ 2:14:16 Manisha Bewtra: thank you I'll be Alderman Bewtra thank you I'm just curious for these new software and phone upgrades what plans you have in place for training because I know a lot of times learning it's great to have the new system but it takes a

▶ 2:14:31 Speaker 8: while to learn how to use it well it Donna Donna's the training master I'll

▶ 2:14:35 Speaker 7: let her talk about the Venus training so so we have to get through the installation process but we do have a training room and we will be doing training once we learn how to do it in-house but I don't I don't think we're

▶ 2:14:49 Speaker 7: there yet for the for laying out training I haven't figured that out exactly how we roll that out but usually what we do is go in phases so we would start small and start with the auditor's office and make sure that we all are on the same page and then we would walk through and have training in the training room for all the departments we also include the training for the schools when we do that so we roll it out with the schools and the schools come over to the training room we have sessions so usually we have two hour sessions for training so we will roll all that out employee self-service a little different because the HR and the payroll department will be involved in helping us make decisions as to what we're going rollout initially so that might be a slower rollout than what you know might not be all of the employees all at the same time so but Tyler content manager won't be that difficult it will really just be attaching files to to what we're already doing in munis right now great and what about for the phones I've been

▶ 2:15:54 Manisha Bewtra: through a couple of phone upgrades at different jobs they there's usually like all these cool bells and whistles but it takes a while to roll them out or then when you get a call you don't know how to transfer the call right yeah so we

▶ 2:16:08 Speaker 8: will definitely do that we did we did a phone rollout with four schools in a prior year or maybe that's the funding that you're referring to we make you correct we we did have some funding for for the schools for phone rollout and we did do one-on-one training with the folks who are using those systems it was it was tight because the folks most of the folks who use those systems came back on the day that they needed to use them so we went school to school school on that day and did that sat down with everyone and train them the phone systems whatever we pick it'll make sense to pick up and answer the call it went out but you're right I mean there's transfer there they've got new fancy screens and funky buttons and yeah we'll have to get people together in a room and show them how to use the new phones great I mean obviously you're gonna do

▶ 2:17:03 Manisha Bewtra: that but I'm just hoping that that's sort of part of your your planning process and it is some thought into yeah thank you sure thank you so at this

▶ 2:17:14 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: point I would entertain a motion to amend the order to add the memo that we have from DPW tonight and then also a memo that we received from the mayor with respect to a change in the requests so moved second okay so that was moved by Alderman Forbes and seconded by Vice Chair Boycelle all in favor aye and also we entertain a motion perhaps Alderman Medeiros would you like to make it with respect to the line items that would change here in the requests I'm

▶ 2:17:51 Speaker 6: putting on the spot but good you were good to flag it yes this is a it's a

▶ 2:17:54 Monica C. Medeiros: little bit different than normally what we would see and so I I was happy to receive the call from Mayor Inferno today about this who said that we do have the authority to do this but I'm usually we don't necessarily get the

▶ 2:18:15 Monica C. Medeiros: authority to add things this is really coming from the mayor so I'm gonna make this motion assuming that we hopefully have the authority to do so I'm making a motion to accept the change outlined in the memo dated today June 30th 2019 from Marin Ferna she says that she respectfully requests that order 2019 dash 102 be amended by adding the sum of $50,000 to account number zero one four 222-527307, bringing the total from $102,600 to $152,600, and subtracting the sum of $50,000 from account number 012111-513000, bringing the total from $100,000 to $50,000. Sincerely, Gail M. Inferno, Mayor.

▶ 2:19:15 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: second okay so we have a motion to accept those changes made by Alderman Medeiros and second by President Lemmerman just for those watching at home these are we discussed these tonight this would be adding $50,000 for sidewalk repairs and removing $50,000 from the police salary over time in light of the presentations we heard from the respective department heads so we have a motion duly second and any further discussion all in favor aye I opposed great so we'll recommend that for the full board and we really appreciate all of you joining us tonight and sticking with us it was very