ORDER-2019-25 : Calling a Special Election on Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Transcript (~1 h 46 min @ 1:10:39)

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

▶ 1:10:37 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: is order 2019-25 calling a special election on tuesday april 2nd 2019. president make a motion

▶ 1:10:46 Michael P. Zwirko: to suspend the rules for the purposes of discussion of the two orders that are before us this evening

▶ 1:10:55 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: second the motion to suspend we have a motion to suspend the rules made by alderman's our president's work oh excuse me and seconded by alderman mortimer all in favor of suspension of the rules any opposed we're joined this evening by several representatives from the administration as well as the school department if we could invite please our city solicitor mr. van Kampen up to discuss these thank you madam chair the point of order on

▶ 1:11:20 John N. Tramontozzi: madam chair I was wondering if a motion to co-join the second order might be appropriate now so this way we can just keep it all fluid and going so I would move to the co-join the order number 2019 that's 26 the order to place a general override question on april 2nd 2019 special election ballot second the motion to co-join the

▶ 1:11:43 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: orders we have a motion made by alderman Tramontozzi to join orders 2019-25 and 2019-26 i will read the second order uh before we take a vote on this the second order which has yet to be read is order 2019-26 order to place general override question on the april 2nd 2019 special election ballot on

▶ 1:12:03 Michael P. Zwirko: on discussion president's work thank you madam chair um i don't support co-joining these orders i believe that they are separate and distinct one is specific to call an election on a specific date the other is to place an override question on the ballot with the date of the previous order i think it's actually cleaner although it may seem pragmatic to co-join them i think it's best to keep them separate and distinct in this case further discussion um i think

▶ 1:12:28 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman Tramontozzi purpose is just for discussion that while we have department heads up here we can ask some questions on both orders later in the evening any alderman is free to make a motion to divide the orders it's a privileged motion it requires no vote it has no debate it's automatic it's a privileged motion so later in the night we can divide the orders but just for the purposes of discussion and sussing out the information we may be able to keep the orders together and then any alderman can automatically split them without question

▶ 1:13:04 John N. Tramontozzi: later that was the purpose of that just to hear from uh to suspend the rules to hear from the

▶ 1:13:12 Michael P. Zwirko: administration thank you uh for the second time just to clarify madam chair my motion was to suspend the rules for the purposes of discussion on both orders that are before us Yes.

▶ 1:13:21 Speaker 5: So. That's good. Let's go. This was approved.

▶ 1:13:25 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: We have a motion made and seconded. All in favor of joining the orders?

▶ 1:13:31 Speaker 2: Aye.

▶ 1:13:33 Speaker 4: Any opposed? Opposed. Opposed.

▶ 1:13:35 Speaker 1: Might need a show of hands on this one. All in favor?

▶ 1:13:45 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: We will join these orders for the purposes of discussion.

▶ 1:13:50 Speaker 1: Thank you.

▶ 1:13:51 Speaker 2: Mr. Van Campen. Thank you. of the committee on appropriations the orders before you tonight are the culmination of a process that has spanned several months going back to this fiscal year's budget process where the Melrose budget crisis really came to the forefront at that time over the past several months mayor inferno in determining whether or not an override was absolutely necessary for the city of Melrose conducted a series of community what I would call input sessions as most know there were listening sessions in the community at the high school mayor Inferno has sent out a questionnaire I believe the city received over a thousand responses to that questionnaire has had discussions with various stakeholders in the community and it was all intended to determine priorities not mayor Inferno's priorities but the priorities of the city of Melrose and people who live here and work here and send their children to school here the mayor met with a number of stakeholders including members of this Board of Aldermen twice beginning in August and most recently in October she met twice with members of the school committee she met innumerable times and I'm sure the superintendent doesn't even want to remember all these meetings with the superintendent of schools to discuss the dire need for an override so that process has led us to this evening and there are two orders before this

▶ 1:15:27 Speaker 2: committee the first order quite simply requests that the Board of Aldermen call a special election in the city of Melrose on April 2nd 2019 the responsibility for calling special elections belongs exclusively with this body that's why that order is in front of you this evening some have asked why a spring election and the administration has deliberated for a long time on that question the why is is quite obvious fiscal year 20 and mr. de la Russo is here is looking like an extraordinarily difficult fiscal year for the city the only way to get the city through that is through an override that takes effect on July 1st 2019 there's simply no time to wait until the fall election of 19 to make that happen the second and really more pressing issue resulting in this override election being April has to do with staffing in the school department as members know this override adds a number of new positions in the school department and it is almost impossible if an override election were held in November to staff the school department in fiscal 20 when that staffing is so desperately needed so those are really the reasons why the April election has been called but we're obviously here tonight to answer questions about that the second order and the more meat of the argument this evening is the override ballot question itself calling for a five point one eight million dollar override for the city of Melrose that will add five point one eight million to the levy of the city of Melrose as I said at the beginning of my remarks this override question was formulated following community involvement community conversations discussions with a number of stakeholders and the driving forces behind this override that were identified during the entire community input process were threefold so this override sits on sort of a three-legged stool the first is growth in our student population that is reaching historic proportions in the city of Melrose growth in our student student population is one of the pillars on which this override stands staff retention is critical we have heard for a number of years that our staff and this is just not the teachers this is also all district staff are a competitive disadvantage in relation to other school districts staff retention is the second pillar on which this override question stands and the third is essentially tied to the increase in student enrollment the need to address space issues in the district we are simply and this conversation has been going on in Morris for the past few years running out of classroom space for these children so the override is intended to allow the city to reclaim a piece of property that our forebears decided to retain many years ago the override would give us the ability to reclaim that property and determine its future use to address our student enrollment growth in the community so madam chair as we get ready to answer your questions this evening is really intended for two reasons to call for a special election and to approve the override ballot question as it's been presented to you to place upon that special election ballot and we're here to answer any questions you may

▶ 1:18:56 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: have thank you mr van kampen on discussion we have a queue started uh alderman Tramontozzi um

▶ 1:19:07 John N. Tramontozzi: i'll just i'll wait until um i'll i'll i'll hold off

▶ 1:19:12 Michael P. Zwirko: i make a motion to recommend order 2019-25 calling a special election on tuesday april 2nd 2019.

▶ 1:19:22 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: second the motion to recommend i believe we would first need a motion to um separate the

▶ 1:19:26 Michael P. Zwirko: two orders since they're currently i thought it was for discussion purposes only since they are

▶ 1:19:29 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: joined currently we would need to separate them withdraw the motion to recommend for passage of

▶ 1:19:42 Peter D. Mortimer: the order i will draw the second at this time for procedural purposes but when it is ripe

▶ 1:19:48 Michael P. Zwirko: i will be happy to second at this time i would like to move that the orders be separated

▶ 1:19:52 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: all the president's work though makes a motion to separate the co-joint orders as was outlined earlier it's a privileged motion um it does not require discussion the orders are

▶ 1:20:04 Michael P. Zwirko: before you as two separate orders with the orders before me i move to recommend to pass order 2019-25 calling a special election on tuesday april 22nd of 2019. second the motion to recommend this order

▶ 1:20:17 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: for passage we have a motion to recommend for passage our first order uh 2019-25 any discussion

▶ 1:20:28 Monica C. Medeiros: yeah I on discussion I have to say that you know I was hoping we would see a little more summary for the public for those who are here and as well as for those are at home as well as for ourselves about the specific details that are included in the proposed override question and I don't feel comfortable making a decision to call a special election without a little bit more discussion not to say that I wouldn't but I I don't at this moment so

▶ 1:21:07 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: I think we're a little premature do you feel it would be

▶ 1:21:21 Monica C. Medeiros: since we've separated the orders are we we're still under suspension of the rules so therefore I would like to ask for some more discussion on the other order 2019-26 if you find that to be an order so thank you mr. van Kampen could

▶ 1:21:46 Monica C. Medeiros: you kind of detail more of what's included in the proposed override question in particular I did get to meet with the mayor when I had come in what was proposed was more about like 4.9 million so I'm not exactly sure what's different here and for many people this may be the first time that they're

▶ 1:22:11 Speaker 2: seeing the specifics of this so you're referring to the summary that is

▶ 1:22:14 Monica C. Medeiros: attached to the order yes if you could kind of go through that and sure I don't

▶ 1:22:18 Speaker 2: mr de la russa wants to go through that i'm happy to sort of generally speak to it and then mr de la russa can fill in some details so um of the i'll go through the categories um alderman medeiros and then you can ask follow-up questions to the extent you have them um on its face um of the 5.18 million one million nine hundred and five thousand dollars would go to additional classroom teachers and staff so if you look at your summary that is in addition of a certain number of positions some are restoration of positions that were eliminated I believe at the middle school and the remainder are additional positions that the superintendent in conjunction with the mayor have determined are necessary to meet the student enrollment needs of the school district so that's the 1905 that you're looking at the six hundred and seventy five thousand dollar figure which is the second figure in the question is for classroom and infrastructure needs that's intended number one to provide much-needed supplies technology and throughout the district in addition there's a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar revenue offset that will be realized if and when the BB property is reclaimed at some point so the members know we currently have a lease agreement with the same education collaborative that generates approximately 250 000 in revenue annually that goes directly into the school budget so that revenue offset is built into that number supplementing the operating budget of the public school 750 000 that is the approximate amount of money that the city on an annual basis is required to fund from our free cash our budgetary fund balance in order to make the school department whole to meet net school spending so that money is coming from free cash which is typically one-time revenue which you would use for one-time expenses we're actually using it currently to pay obligations to the school department that are statutory we can't avoid them so the analogy for the members of the board and the public would be that is like paying two months of your mortgage with your tax return every year it's not a good practice for your house and certainly it's not a good practice for the school department or for the city so that's the 750. the remainder 1 million 850 000 is intended to number one fund the teachers next contract in addition provide market adjustments for all district staff and i've heard comments that you know we've used the term market adjustments in the past and quite frankly We have struggled to try to make those market adjustments to keep up competitively. This override would actually allow us to get substantial movement in that direction rather than sort of nibbling at the edges. So the 1,850,000 is the amount we estimate will be necessary both to support teacher retention, staff retention, market adjustments for both union and non-union staff in the school district. not sure that answers your question but that's that's how we've come to those

▶ 1:25:40 Monica C. Medeiros: numbers in the in the section about classroom infrastructure that's where the BB reclaiming the BB would be included in the six hundred and seventy

▶ 1:25:56 Monica C. Medeiros: five thousand correct and this doesn't include a principal so my understanding is you're not sure what kind of class this could be it may be that at some point in time we determined that this should be for possibly for an elementary school but it may be a different level school is that correct yeah what we know

▶ 1:26:16 Speaker 2: is there is a need for additional classroom space what we don't know is at this stage and I'll let the superintendent if she wants to chime in on this we don't know what type of classroom space we need we don't know how many educators you know would be necessary those are questions obviously left to the school committee for its determination but it's premature for the school committee to formulate any level of detail around that until it knows whether or not the property is actually available otherwise it'll have to look at other options throughout the district which are limited and you know that I've

▶ 1:26:51 Monica C. Medeiros: asked I had asked for the demographic study that we previously and I have now I've received a PowerPoint I haven't had confirmation that there are no additional appendices however as of last Tuesday the new demographic study was not completed and that's what I was indicated so I have some concerns that we are basing a lot of this on space needs and growth needs but without

▶ 1:27:29 Monica C. Medeiros: having the new demographic study in our hands and and I am concerned because I

▶ 1:27:42 Monica C. Medeiros: voted to put in place the modular classrooms and spend a large amount of taxpayer money to do this with the promise based on the first demographic study which is all we have in hand right now that this would solve our problem that was told that the need would only be for you know I was at the meeting at

▶ 1:28:07 Monica C. Medeiros: the Lincoln School with mr. McLaughlin who was the co-chair of the school building committee and said we're looking at only eight to ten classrooms that we're going to need over the period of eight to ten years so we made the decision to implement this plan of modular classrooms to solve the problem and we expended the money and what I don't quite understand is what's changed and it seems like this is something and we all want the best education for the students in Melrose for each and every student in Melrose it seems like this is

▶ 1:28:45 Monica C. Medeiros: something that we should be deliberative about this is also a big ask for a lot of people and that we should make sure that we're getting it right and that we have the numbers from the new demographic study before we rush to put this on the ballot in a special election especially when we're talking about April 2nd I do think that's about five months out I think it's would be more wise to have the results from the demographic study so I'm going to defer

▶ 1:29:20 Speaker 2: to the superintendent on your comment about the demographic study I understand it's it's not complete and I understand there's some preliminary information

▶ 1:29:28 Speaker 4: that's been received but I'll let the superintendent respond to that thank you

▶ 1:29:30 Speaker 1: thank you Board of Aldermen Cindy Taymor superintendent schools Melrose public schools to your point I've been in conversation with the people conducting the demographic studies we've asked NASDAQ to go back and revisit theirs because obviously they missed the mark they underestimated and we I also hired the Collins Center what both organizations have told me is we're facing ten years of growth they agree on that a hundred percent what they disagree on is how big that growth is at this moment in time and I will know more hopefully shortly. Like many organizations that are nonprofit, they have their chain of command they have to go through before they can release the reports to me. However, let me just recapture for you what we did tell you three years ago when we did that demographic study. At that time Denise Gaffey and I explained to everybody that demographic studies are an inexact science at best. They take birth rates, they take retention rates, basically what they call survival rates, how many kids continue from year to year with us, and they make an estimate. What they had not factored in successfully was our success. The number of students who have returned to us, either from charter private or parochial or the number of families who have continued to move in so for example this year when we were calculating kindergartens by August 15 I had three hundred and thirty six kids registered I was only supposed to have three hundred nine all right the high school alone is up a hundred kids I think in the past couple of years 25 kids returned alone to the high school last year. So it is an inexact science but both the Carlin Center and NASDAQ have assured me we are continuing growth. Currently our number is just under 4,000. What I did while waiting for them is I had our data specialist run me our own internal chart and based on her internal chart using current numbers and current history for the year 25 26 you would be looking at close to 4 400 kids that's a lot of kids

▶ 1:32:02 Speaker 1: and what we also told you that when we built the modules that we originally wanted to put six modules in in place because of um constraints on the harvest man property with the public park

▶ 1:32:21 Speaker 1: we only put in five we were also being conservative it is the city's money we were trying to be respectful of the city's money and we were being conservative as a result we are paying a price for being conservative today I today November 13th I still have 30 kids on the K waiting list at the Lincoln School that's 30 families who would prefer their children to be at Lincoln and then where we've placed them. I have approximately 15 on the waiting list at Roosevelt. To a comment that was made earlier by Mr. Butler, the first year I was here, we have inter-school choice that we developed as a result of closing the Beebe and Ripley way before my time. The first year I was here, something like 95% of all families got their first choice. this past year, 78% of all families got their first choice. I appreciate Mr. Butler's honesty with his clients because not all our realtors are upfront about the fact that there is no such thing as a neighborhood school in Melrose.

▶ 1:33:26 Monica C. Medeiros: And this, just to touch upon that, this proposal doesn't change that, does it?

▶ 1:33:33 Speaker 1: It could have the opportunity to change it. It really depends on what we do with the baby school. There's numerous scenarios that I have run internally with my staff but again to come up with a final plan is a very extensive process that takes my staff off of other obligations and without knowing whether or not that this is going to go ahead I have not I have not spent the time fleshing out options to present to the school committee ultimately the educational program at any of our schools is the province of the school committees to vote and decide as you know there's all sorts of conversations around town make it all fifth grade make it all first grade make it what it used

▶ 1:34:19 Speaker 1: to be and until we have better know better information I'm not flushing out those plans it's it's a big undertaking so this is this is some of the problem

▶ 1:34:29 Monica C. Medeiros: that we we may bring this school back online we will bring the school back

▶ 1:34:33 Speaker 1: online I can tell you right now here if you give if this city takes back that school we are bringing it back online what I cannot tell you is what that exact program will look like at this point of time I am out of space there is no denying it this is the choice if we continue to grow the way we're growing you can we will go to out on the cart music on the cart and use every conceivable space we have for classrooms the gentleman that referred to the Winthrop school his third grader is in a classroom size the size of that outer office it does not fit 24 children comfortably never mind all the equipment we need to educate children right now at the high school I have floating teachers I don't know the last time Melrose High had floating teachers but I have floating teachers at Melrose High because we don't have enough space there is a plan as well at least two options Miss Gaffey and Mr. Schenner and I have considered for Melrose High if we have to recapture space at Melrose High so all these things have been discussed but formalized detailed plans have not been flushed out because we don't know whether or not there will be the funding to support them and so it seems to me

▶ 1:35:53 Monica C. Medeiros: that this proposal if it includes reclaiming the BB school should have

▶ 1:36:03 Monica C. Medeiros: included with it a principal the salary for a principal the salary for a custodian the salary for a nurse these are these are operating costs that were I would expect that we're going to have in whatever situation this building turns out to be whatever grade I I would be surprised if we didn't have a principal and I'm certain we would have a custodian and and I can't imagine us wanting to have a school without a nurse right now so these are things that I

▶ 1:36:34 Monica C. Medeiros: think should be included in this so that we're not ending up in a situation where you know here we are two years from now we've reclaimed the school and now we need another override for operating costs another override for operating

▶ 1:36:47 Speaker 1: costs one of the problems that we have right now is stabilizing our budget we are constantly stealing from Peter to pay Paul a perfect example of that is the eight hundred thousand dollars you I don't know if you voted it yet this month or not but I live in fear that you will not be able to give me that eight hundred thousand dollars because I have built my budget on that eight hundred thousand dollar promise every spring if you could not give that to us want some fall we would be in a much worse position than I can ever imagine so but if that let me finish please if that budget gets stabilized we can make more cost-efficient choices about a lot of positions and once we have the staffing we need and we know exactly how that plays out we have the ability to move staff around I think sometimes it's difficult for the public to understand that if I say I need a fifth grade teacher that that person's a fifth grade teacher from now until the end of time but if it comes a day that I don't need 15 fives I only need 14 fives I can take that FTE and move it elsewhere as as this increase goes through the school system we will see those shifts currently my middle school is low that's why we were able to lay off four teachers I needed those teachers at the elementary in the high school at some point in time you may not need all the teachers you currently have at the elementary if we reorganize the city schools and we distribute children more effectively you may not need some of the distribution I have at all my buildings there is room in the budget to make the choices secondly I would remind you that the nurse and the custodian come from the city side and until we fit back fill that gap I have every year they don't have the ability to give me

▶ 1:38:48 Monica C. Medeiros: that those positions either but so that's not explicitly included in this

▶ 1:38:52 Speaker 1: proposal I believe that when the questions put in front of you it has to be worded only a particular way and I think the rest of that gets explained when the literature is distributed I think the question is is is controlled

▶ 1:39:10 Monica C. Medeiros: by regulation how it has to be worded and then I'd like to ask you mr. Van Campen you know one of the other things that that I had asked for starting back in August and was what kinds of I was looking for documents that we might be using for long-term financial forecasting for the city I was looking for anything from one year in advance to two to three to four to five and up I'm very involved with the Mass Municipal Association and the president the Mass Municipal Council Association. I've spoken with you know many town managers and in fact we held our own training last fall in Randolph on budgeting and I've seen other communities using spreadsheets that allow them to kind of forecast out and not just forecast out but what their anticipated revenues they're anticipated expenditures and sort of tweak these say okay well what if we don't get so much money in state aid and what does that

▶ 1:40:24 Speaker 3: look like I was hoping to get to view copies of those it's starting back in

▶ 1:40:27 Monica C. Medeiros: August so that I could look and compare what's actually happened where we write our estimates a lot of this you know things can change drastically we know things like health insurance costs can change dramatically year to year unexpectedly so I know that you really can't go that far out but I wanted to see had we been accurate and what we had been predicting and moving forward were we on the right track and what were the financial assumptions that we're making my understanding is that that kind of document does not exist here in Melrose and that we've been using now visual budget since 2016 but so I'm wondering

▶ 1:41:20 Monica C. Medeiros: in when I've been in visual budget and maybe this is more a better question for mr. Delarue so I'm trying to tie it back in to the budgets that we voted on and and and I'm wondering are you know are we using this or have we used this in order to predict where we're going in the future and especially if we add in this new spending you know what that's gonna look like so that we're making sure that we're looking and painting a responsible picture for us moving

▶ 1:41:57 Monica C. Medeiros: forward I don't want to see us in in a position where we're a few years from now and we're back into a deficit position yes through the chair we do use visual budget

▶ 1:42:06 Speaker 2: and i just want to paraphrase a couple of comments that information is open it has been out there

▶ 1:42:24 Speaker 2: for two years plus on the city's website so you can go in there anytime you'd like and what it will do for the people at home if they haven't had an opportunity and i suggest you take a look at

▶ 1:42:39 Speaker 2: it's a very good model but what it does is it allows you as a homeowner to input your individual tax bill so let's for example let's say it's $5,500 and then it takes you through the program and you can actually click on school department insurance police department fire department it'll actually tell you what portion of your tax bill how much money of your bill goes to that effort so let's for example let's say $1,200 goes to your of your tax bill goes to support the school department and it's very specific that way it also drives revenue and expenses it provides you perspective from 2012 right through to 0 to 1 it's a tool that is helpful so that we can understand where our tax dollar is being spent that's the nature of visual budget it's it's a tedious program I'll be first to admit that we've spent time on it there because we have to be sure that what we put out to the public has been certified by the different agencies it would be inappropriate for example to put out the fiscal 19 budget today if in fact the tax rate has not been set tax rate your budget can change right up to literally the day you vote the tax rate so when we put things out there for example you you will see the 1718 actuals as well as 19 once in fact the tax rated certified this fall that's the purpose of visual budget on a structural basis it should be no surprise to anyone in this room that when you live under proposition two and a half in this community we get 95% of your tax bill was paid by the resident not commercial industrial enterprises we are not going to have an Amazon come into Melrose it's not going to happen we don't have stretches of industrial and commercial property that will be developed it's not going to happen so to suggest that somehow this model is going to show that in the future you're going to have all this development come in and minimize the tax obligation of the resident is ridiculous it's not going to happen when 95 of your tax bill is paid by the resident to to offer more services that's who's going to pay it not the town of wakefield not stoneham we pay it so visual budget does that i think in a very good way i think it's easy to follow too um i also would suggest that if you haven't had a chance to look at it look at it it gives you some perspective in a graphic form oftentimes you can't get that with simple spreadsheets if we turn the page you're going to talk about clear go now that's the next model that we've been working on sell safer about three or four months that models are very interesting that model allows the end you know the visitor to the to the site the opportunity to do comparisons you can compare Melrose financial statistics with you know anyone you'd like and pull it up that data comes from the commonwealth it comes from the census it comes to the department of education it's all certified data it may not be the most current because generally they wait for all communities or a good portion to get in and updated before they put it out there but what you do not want to happen is to run out there and put data in there that has not been certified and that's why I suggest that take a look at clear gov it pulls data it's it's strictly accurate that comes right from the state it's more sophisticated and I think it gives you a different blend than visual budget the two are not intended to do the same thing so one's really great for community comparison and I would suggest that as we go forward we you know work with that in a big way but also these things do not happen by themselves they take time they take effort no one's been denied access to anything it's right out there you can go on to the Department of Revenue website anytime you want but we're not go back and go back and look at historical where Merrill's has been and it'll give you the most current data

▶ 1:47:27 Monica C. Medeiros: well we're not are you using that in order to make your predictions in terms of you know where we're going to be in terms of revenues and expenses are

▶ 1:47:40 Speaker 2: these the tools that you're using we don't make predictions that's not this is not a magic show what I do is I formulate my data based on concrete information I've been doing this for over a quarter of a century I think that my judgment is very good i think standard and pause will attest to that if you look at the most recent report a double a plus the only one higher than that is triple a so i we don't work in

▶ 1:48:10 Speaker 2: um you know to in that fashion everything every single thing we do is ear it out with not only the outside auditors but the commonwealth of massachusetts a number of reporting agencies department of education um we we know what we do we know what we have to produce and we do a very

▶ 1:48:33 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: very good job of it okay so you said the videos i'm sorry to interrupt you i just um in accordance with our rules the time has expired for this exchange and i just want to see if there are other members that want to speak on this motion and another opportunity could you just clarify

▶ 1:48:44 Monica C. Medeiros: one last time which numbers are the actual in the last actual numbers in visual budget and maybe comment on our voted on budget for this fiscal year was seventy nine million three hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred forty

▶ 1:49:14 Monica C. Medeiros: dollars and 73 cents which is different than the 83 million 83.9 million that is showing for FY 19 so I'm maybe I've got the wrong numbers up I don't know I was

▶ 1:49:28 Monica C. Medeiros: trying to tie this in one doesn't sound this doesn't sound this I think this perhaps I've got one year different here okay so thank you very much and if you could clarify which is the last year that the actual numbers are there right

▶ 1:49:38 Speaker 2: we are we have 18 budget 17 actuals are going up and let me just speak for a moment on 17 actuals during this process with visual budget there was some change in the software and the way the application was looking at the data so we had to take some extra time to be sure that we're consistent with prior years and going forward so they will always work with apples to apples if If anyone here has ever worked with sophisticated financial software, they would appreciate that. You have to be consistent, and it takes time. Again, we don't put out products that aren't tested and that we feel we cannot verify. That number's out there because I signed off on it. If it's not, there's a reason why it's not out there yet.

▶ 1:50:24 Speaker 1: Yeah. All in force.

▶ 1:50:28 Scott M. Forbes: I thought someone else would have been in the queue. Okay. Thank you. kind of piggyback on something that alderman Medeiros said mr delarue so i know in the water and sewer uh committee we have a program that does projections based upon being able to input a certain number and then being able to see what the model would look like so it would allow us to kind of forecast and stay ahead of the curve i know that you send us information regarding the bond schedule and how that projects out 25 to 30 years so we can see some type of forecast of what actually goes on the books as what drops off the books from an operational standpoint when it comes to our expenses is there any type of similar forecasting models that you can see as far as just departments whether it's just going to be salaries based on a flat budget i think i'm not sure if that's what alderman dearest was was speaking on behalf of i understand that you can't make predictions on the on the tax rate or the shift until it's voted but i guess is there any type of forecasting models either budget versus actual any type of controller based work that you do so you know where you could be expense wise three five ten years down the road that's a great question thank you yeah

▶ 1:51:37 Speaker 2: i'm consistently doing that um and if you take a look at the munis budget that we do have it'll show you the prior actuals for the prior year 17 the year to date for 18 the process we just went through and the budgeted for 19. you cannot expect to have more data than that in any budget application don't forget munis is probably the most sophisticated application quite frankly that's available to cities and towns period we use that model because it's the best that they have having said that we are looking to munis i think it actually may be an order put down eventually to actually change the server so we can accommodate another version that i think can give us more options to do some somewhat similar to the show you're talking about but strictly staying within munis that would be ideal because you have to have a host system subsidiary systems are fine in their own way visual budget is a subsidy subsidiary system of the larger whole so was cleargov but you need a host system a system that you know is audit proof that you can rely on whether it's this year five years from now you can look at data five years ago you have to have complete certainty that is accurate so we cannot and will not jeopardize the integrity of the system to try to you know put out data that's not going to be consistent with what historically has happened and the trends in this city thank goodness as you're aware we've been very successful doing that it takes time it takes effort it takes due diligence i mean i can assure you in this room this last upgrade from s p was grueling grueling and they were here literally two years ago but it was grueling anyone in that room can attest to the fact that what they put the communities through to actually maintain or you know raise their bond rate is incredible the they also test data in their own sense they go back if you've advised them that you would you were going to go in a certain direction last time you spoke with them they want verification that that in fact happened and you haven't show them that everything is extremely detailed and extremely you know upfront transparent you can't get more transparent than when you have a rating from S&P I can assure you that everything is out there the official statement on the city your budgetary documents your outside audit your OPEB reports that we frequently talk about every single thing is on the table and they want to see it all and

▶ 1:54:29 Scott M. Forbes: they did thank you I think my next question just is for an enrollment and maybe superintendent a more could could just come back up I thank you for this so I know I believe it's this school year we have two is are they two integrated K's at the ECC so if next year's projections for a kindergarten class are the same or exceeds that of this year and these kids that are at the ECC move to first grade is there space for them right now yes there is we have

▶ 1:54:59 Speaker 1: four integrated K's across the city right now integrated K's are capped at 18 we also allow the first through fifth grades to rise higher we run classes as high as 25 so we have approximately we just sent a letter out to the parents who are at the ECC explaining the process for moving into one next year we figure we have 37 seats available at the first grade and that would be raising

▶ 1:55:31 Scott M. Forbes: class sizes to 25 25 mm-hmm what's a recommended class size that you would

▶ 1:55:34 Speaker 1: feel we try to stay around 22 23 but we are running a little high in some of the

▶ 1:55:42 Scott M. Forbes: buildings okay and then my final question would be and I know you probably don't have a number but has there been a discussion where hypothetically if the override passes you retake the Hoover I'm not the Hoover geez that that's my neighborhood this is something you're telling me right sorry

▶ 1:56:04 Scott M. Forbes: this meeting is being recorded too great all right so if let's say we take the you know you reclaim the BB has there been a discussion on what that dollar amount would be in order to either get it online what the discussion would be if it would it be administrative space would it be classroom space I'm sure that there's been a discussion I know it's not concrete because we're in the initial stages can you just talk to us about that a little bit so we have a

▶ 1:56:29 Speaker 1: number from three years ago and Denise Gaffey does have that number we would have to just have an estimator look at it to make sure we see where the numbers are three years later the market is tighter and you know prices rise so there is a number there I don't remember it off the top of my head perhaps Denise does and we've looked at it both ways we've looked at it as adding classroom space and we looked at it if the my offices have to leave the high school in order for the high school to have more space that's a possibility of moving my offices there with with some extra classrooms I certainly don't need the whole bb sure um you know so okay okay miss gann i know you're here would you be able to it do you

▶ 1:57:14 Scott M. Forbes: have a figure or was that something that you'd be able to get to us okay all right thank you um

▶ 1:57:25 Scott M. Forbes: you know i i do support the order i i am going to vote in favor of it um whether or not you you agree with the question that's being presented whether you endorse the question or you don't endorse the question it's really not what we're talking about today it's it's allowing the ballot initiative to be presented before the residents and let the democratic process take place i think that's where we are right now i think the city has a challenge of being to present this narrative to the residents of melrose which i'm sure which will happen in the coming months and the residents will speak come april so again i am for this initiative and i apologize to all the hoover parents that are

▶ 1:58:05 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: watching so thank you sure thank you both for being here tonight and to other

▶ 1:58:08 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: members of the administration and to all the folks who have come out to talk to us about these two orders superintendent I have you here could you speak a little bit to the teacher salaries we've heard you know that the average teacher salary is I think ninth lowest in the state we heard we heard from a teacher tonight we heard from teachers at the listening sessions that suggests that it's and I think I've spoken at least with one of your school committee one of the school committee members who suggested that the steps in lanes that we may actually offer a fairly competitive starting salary that really it is as teachers become more senior and have sort of perfected their craft and really become more effective in the classroom that's when we aren't able to keep up anymore with stunning areas but I just would love for you to either confirm that or clarify and expand on it and happy to do so

▶ 1:59:08 Speaker 3: miss Garabedian let me let me just I have a little chat here so you just have

▶ 1:59:15 Speaker 1: to bear with me and let me just give you a little history we're about to begin negotiations of a new contract this will be the third teachers contract that I've negotiated for the city the first teachers contract our salaries were quite low and with the union we came to an agreement that we would try to raise salaries over time and at that point we focused we only have ten steps on our salaries some districts have as many as 15 and that's how many years you know each your salary goes up there is no state mandate as to how people step in lane agreements have to look and we only have ten and so that first contract we

▶ 2:00:01 Speaker 1: raised steps one through five more robustly the second contract we did we raised steps five through ten more robustly to be competitive but even doing that we are not competitive so I'm looking at a chart that was recently put together for me so again it's very small so there was a conversation earlier about you have young staff the average what superintendents often use for comparison is m5 or m5 m plus 60 step 5 so what that means is the teacher has been working for five years and has his or her masters or has been working for five years and has a master's plus an additional 60 credits worth of education and those are the prices we those are the places we compare and the reason we do that is for two reasons first of all under Massachusetts state law you have to have a master's to stay in the business and secondly we know from research that if people are going to leave the business it's usually around year five so when you look at the masters um step five out of 15 communities arlington belmont

▶ 2:01:13 Speaker 1: burlington lexington lindfield melrose north reading reading saugus stonem wakefield watertown wilmington winchester and wuben that's both the same communities in the middlesex league the two groups we're compared to most so for our masters step five we are ranked seven for masters maximum meaning all the steps that a district may have they may go up to 15 steps we are ranked 15th

▶ 2:01:47 Speaker 1: for masters 60 we are ranked eighth so um and for masters 60 maximum we are ranked 10th out of the 15 districts with which we compete the most we have gotten better over the past two contracts but obviously from this comparison we're certainly not even in the middle of the pack i don't think anybody here is imagining us we're going to jump to the top of the pack some of my colleagues steps and lanes tap out in the 90s we tap out at around 79 so when you're talking about turnover and losing people you're losing your most senior people who do have valuable experience have worked with us have been taken every bit of training that we have given them and that they have obligations they have families they have children facing college they have mortgages whatever it may be i'll tell you a story from last week it's not a story that makes me very happy one of the reasons and again thank you to mrs gouch for recognizing the work we do in special education we've built out a number of programs to keep kids in district one of our programs is a social emotional program a young teacher that four or five years ago i said i got an idea and i think you're the guy let's take this journey together and build up this program the program was so successful we brought it up to the high school and down to the elementary schools he left me to go to concord he took every idea i ever had every idea every training we ever given him and he took it to concord to start the same program for a lot more money and he left in

▶ 2:03:31 Speaker 1: november he's got two kids probably still paying off college loans other than the fact that his superintendent didn't call me to tell me she was poaching him i can't blame him so um but that's the reality would i say every teacher leaves to that no um i think we live in a very mobile society most of us are two career couples and sometimes one half of that couple has to make a decision because of the other half of the couple that's a reality the other reality that I've mentioned to you before it's very expensive to live here we're very grateful for the competition in Melrose and the housing prices I'm sure but it's very expensive to live here so when you are two teachers and together you may be making a hundred thousand dollars and you can't even get into the market here and you start buying in southern New Hampshire or out towards past Framingham that's not a commute you can make on a

▶ 2:04:30 Speaker 3: daily basis I think I only have two other questions but I think they might be better for mr. VanCamp for mr. de la Russo okay thank you and maybe if you

▶ 2:04:57 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: want to stay thank you good to see you so I think one thing we've heard a lot about tonight and certainly from the sessions and other public forums is the constraints that we find ourselves in in terms of our revenue and as you recently mentioned we're 95% residential so the revenue sources from which we draw are limited and I think we've teased that out quite a bit I'm interested also in whether or if you could talk to us a little bit in your tenure here about some of the cost-saving initiatives that you are aware of at the city level to make them you know get the biggest value out of the dollars that we have and I think it would be useful just to have some of those examples on the record

▶ 2:05:52 Speaker 2: all right through the chair be happy to and that's a great question but to

▶ 2:05:58 Speaker 2: respond I would like to walk through this if I may because I think it might be news to all people at home and actually might be news to a lot of people in this room what's happened and what we've done over the past specifically 10 years to address it um let's set the table with what has actually uh been a downturn in the economy since we experienced that reduction in state aid substantial loss of federal and state aid particularly between fiscal 09 and fiscal 10 and what we're seeing and i'm gonna if i can go through this process is this a pattern here that and it's it's a pattern that we can all look at and understand and then at the end of this discussion i think it'll make a lot more sense as to why we have a revenue shortfall the way we do when we're trying to increase and expand services for students space teachers I think it's going to make a lot of sense as to why we're asking the residents here for their support to begin with since fiscal oh nine remember the 10-year period I I think is very telling. We've lost over $3 million in federal AARA. It's called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We lost over $3 million that supported our school. We've lost state aid of over $1.1 million to date since 2009. And what's very telling, and it

▶ 2:07:54 Speaker 2: It should be very telling to those that are fiscal conservatives like myself and others that really follow this type of data. The tax levy as a percentage of the budget, it went from 63 percent to 71 percent. That's up 8 percent. State aid as a percent of the budget went from 24 percent to 18 percent.

▶ 2:08:29 Speaker 2: down six percent so what's happened is that when the state has pulled back we've had to absorb larger and larger chunks of funding our own budget we witnessed the state aid tomorrow's this is going to be incredible for let me hear this um decreased by over 1.9 million dollars overnight FROM FISCAL 09 TO FISCAL 10. AGAIN, WE SAW A DROP BY 1.9 MILLION IN ONE FISCAL YEAR. UNPRECEDENTED.

▶ 2:09:10 Speaker 2: HOWEVER, IT DOESN'T STOP THERE. THE VERY NEXT YEAR, FISCAL 2011, IT DECREASED BY ANOTHER $515,940 ON TOP OF THAT.

▶ 2:09:24 Speaker 2: WE'RE NOT DONE. AND THEN, AGAIN, IN FISCAL 2012, IT DROPPED BY ANOTHER $553,782. SO THE DATA THAT WE PROVIDE THE BOARD THAT YOU'LL SEE THAT'S CALLED THE CHERRY SHEET, YOUR STATE AID, TAKE A LOOK AT IT IF YOU HAVE an opportunity, but during that three-year period, we had to deal with and confront the

▶ 2:09:54 Speaker 2: fact that not only did we lose that federal money, which never came back, but state aid, one, two, three punches in a row, on top of losing the federal money, and we were required to meet net school spending all through this, that didn't change. Fund the charter school assessment,

▶ 2:10:23 Speaker 2: fund the voc school, just to mention a few.

▶ 2:10:29 Speaker 2: So, again, we're relying more on our ability to pay for our own budget through our local taxes. That's not going to change. That's not gonna change. Thank you, and so. But what we did do is a follow-up, because I want to get to it, and I want to do it in such a way that it's methodical. In fiscal 10, again, reflecting on the fact, we had joined the group insurance commission. We were able to save $1.4 million in one year, and the city and its unions formalized a six-year agreement to reduce the city's share of the annual cost for health insurance. We also developed an opt-out program, which is paying employees a fixed amount not to participate in the city's health insurance program in an effort to reduce the ever-rising cost of health care. This has saved the city several hundred thousand dollars in a year. We instituted an across-the-board wage freeze for all employees of the city and school to save jobs, fiscal 2011. Let me repeat that. across the board fiscal 11 and look at the time frame we would just experience with the loss of state aid we went to in a complete wage freeze it was never restored that money was never restored it was gone for that year nobody it was never made up for any department any union or any staff we cap the cost of living increases at 1% for over five years union and non-union we enable enacted special legislation which permitted the mount hood golf course to pay the debt on enhancements and upgrades to pine banks park and other parks within the city that was done in fiscal 11 in an effort to save tax dollars that number is over 350 000 a year by the way that the mount hood golf course contributes pays that debt that we would have been reliable for so that's phenomenal we capped the general fund non-exempt debt at no more than five percent of the annual operating budget to allow the lion's share of available funds to be used for the operating expenses of the city that means we limited how much we were going to take in debt to no more than five percent of the budget so that way there we could assure that we're still making investments into the community but we're not we're doing the best we can to fund the school in the city at the highest levels we could within that range we established an in-house als and bls ambulance service and it pays for the cost of eight full-time firefighters that was fiscal 2013 and it's still active today it's doing phenomenal job it did over a million dollars in revenue um this past year so i could not be more pleased we've restructured the entire department of public works to absorb all school department building and energy initiatives fiscal 2013 allowing the school district to focus its energies and finances completely towards students and not have to worry about repairing broken windows as everyone here knows we privatize trash and recycling also during this effort pickup. We implemented a $2.4 million energy service company agreement, also known as an ESCO program, which enabled the city to reduce long-term energy costs and replace outdated energy systems at effectively no cost. That was fiscal 15. We partnered with Hallmark Health to support the ambulance service at $50,000 a year. That was also fiscal 2015 we developed regional initiatives for the health and veterans departments to both save money and increase revenue so these things were intentionally done and they were done with the purposes as to your question of saving money reducing costs dealing with a phenomenal loss of revenue to this day we still have over a million dollars less we're getting from the commonwealth but yet for 10 years we've had to pay salary increases cost of living cost of goods have all gone up well the federal government's not paying for it and the state left town and it's by the way it was this fruitful year for revenue we're still getting under two percent what do you think is going to happen when there's

▶ 2:15:09 Speaker 2: a downturn in the economy i'm frightened because in its best times we can't get past the two percent mark from the state to fund the entire city. It really concerns me because I've been here when we were junk bond status, 92. I was here. It's a horrible way to try to struggle through to pay for your services when you're in a position that is not caused by anyone in the room. But when the federal government and the economy changes, it impacts every city in town and what impacts it in a negative way it's really damaging thank

▶ 2:15:46 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: you I just have one last question and it sort of that was a nice segue into it in terms of when there is an economic downturn so when we look at the way in which the 5.18 million is proposed to be spent seventy seven hundred fifty thousand dollars of it is to address a budget shortfall that we annually and so this was something this was an issue that i frankly took me a while to sort of digest and maybe understand and i probably don't even have it completely right yet but i wonder if just for the public it would be helpful to walk through that a little bit because essentially what's happening is as i understand it when we start out a fiscal year we have a budget that the school committee has adopted that's been incorporated into our overall city budget with all the different departments But we know we are relying in part to fund that on money that we're going to get back that's sort of backdated to a certification about our budget situation previously. We call it free cash. It's not really free. It's sort of like a refund of maybe money. Is that sort of a fair way to assess it? And I liked your analogy, City Solicitor, that every family files taxes each year. And sometimes you might get some money back because you've overpaid into the system. And that might be a nice way to go to Disney World or something along those lines. But you don't really want to use that money to pay for your July mortgage. You wanna have that factored in somewhere else. But essentially what we're doing is we're anticipating we're going to get a certain amount of money certified back to us that will close a funding gap that otherwise would exist in the school budget and to your

▶ 2:17:43 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: point if we have an economic downturn then that money dries up or in other words we can it's not a it's not some perpetually going to necessarily be this

▶ 2:17:52 Speaker 2: amount if I may to the chair excellent questions free cash it's a complicated process but for the Reader's Digest version it's an indication of the money that you were able to bring in over what you had anticipated in revenue but also if you had less expenses than you anticipated that also works to our favor there's a host of items the Department of Revenue looks at and making that determination when we submit our balance sheet every year but the key is is this the key is that you're using money that there's absolutely no guarantee that it's going to be there the next year for funding permanent positions in the school department that is not how to conduct business and let me just back up for a moment back in to and fiscal 16 we had four point three million dollars of free cash the very next year we lost two $2 million. There was a $2 million drop in one year. I've seen free cash negative $2.9 million in my earlier years here. So just so if you were to take make the assumption that well, if we bring in free cash, we can simply hire another 40 teachers. And, you know, we're all set. No, you're not. Because you do not have the final say on what that free cash is. The Department of Revenue goes through all year round your balance sheet items they look at your chapter 90 they look at your police details there's they go through everything on your balance sheet they make reductions and adjustments as they see fit they deem what we will have as free cash not me i provide the atmosphere for that to happen my job is to make sure that when i submit a budget i have to take into account bad winters shortfalls from the state mid-year. We've had years they've taken away $650,000 mid-year in January of state aid. What do you do then? So the fact is that we don't control market. We talked about earlier. The first thing that we see, reductions in building permits, motor vehicle excise, the two biggest items that we have for local receipts. Those are the two biggest ones, the first ones that get hit, besides investment income, when the market goes down people hold on to their cars longer they don't do the work on their homes that they had anticipated and they put that off we see immediate reductions in revenue so you can never count on that one-time revenue it's the prac the objective here is to provide that 750 000 right on the base of the school budget so that problem is eliminated not just for them but for the city because the The last thing we want to do is get into a contest, is do we fund the school department that money, or do we pay for the cleanup of snow and ice? Because it comes from the same bucket. Anything that goes over what we budgeted for for snow and ice, we turn to that one-time revenue to cover that additional cost. If that's gone, that one-time revenue, you can't fund your school department that additional $750. You're also going to take a hit of every next year for your FY20 budget, for example, if we stick with this year, what you can assign to that for spending will be reduced by the amount of your snow and ice deficit. You'll have to raise it in the next year's tax rate, which is a horrible thing to do. I will say that I don't know if we've even done that once since I've been here in 2004. i strive that that does not happen because the worst thing in my opinion that we can do is to already put across and roadblocks in next year's budget before we even get there because of having to pay for your snow and ice that's not a good that's really not a good thing but for the so we want to make it permanent we want to take that stress away from the school department from the school committee and the city it's not something i like to live with it's something i really

▶ 2:22:06 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: disdain thank you and just finally um with the three listening sessions one of them occurred during work hours so i wasn't able to attend and one i actually was quite sick but i know that we talked during our meeting that the mayor's office is planning to is preparing sort of a summary of all the comments that were made at those sessions that will become publicly available i understand that which is i really appreciate you doing that for all those who weren't able to be there I know that you know the decision was made not to tape because we didn't want to sort of stifle conversation and we wanted people to feel comfortable so I anticipate that perhaps the the transcripts that I've requested wouldn't necessarily identify who said what you know you don't need names but just sort of the general comments that were provided I think that would be really useful for the record and for folks like alderman Forbes I intend to support both of these orders and I really appreciate the work that's gone into this and I look forward to continuing to have conversations about this thank you

▶ 2:23:09 Manisha Bewtra: thank you thank you I think Alderman Lipper-Garabedian asked a couple of my questions as well so don't need to belabor those I think I guess just to reiterate the last piece that you said though I think one way I've been thinking about this is that we've been talking a lot about the schools but ultimately if we were to pass this override taking that bottleneck off of our budget of the 750 000 ultimately serves on the city side as well which i think is more or less what you were just saying but if there is

▶ 2:23:46 Speaker 2: anything else you would want to add if i if i made you the chair um the objective

▶ 2:23:53 Speaker 2: would be that if we're fortunate enough to continue to realize that 750 000 in revenue outside of the other obligations that i mentioned earlier there's a number of things that we can do that have been backlogged. The objective would be to use that money for capital, for pay as you go capital, which means that we would pay for police, public safety vehicles, DPW, feasibility studies, upgrades to parks, playgrounds, tree canopy, athletic fields. And we continue the energy efficiency upgrades to facilities, IT equipment and software. And it's constantly evolving and it's funny i have a an email which i'd like to share with you just briefly from uh chief lyle and this is sort of you know falls right in line with what the question was i am so glad you brought it up he's asking uh that department had three vehicles replaced he said two line patrol vehicles car 85 has 119 000 miles and car 84 has 99 000. both vehicles have reached the point where cost and breakdowns have exceeded value and they have one detective vehicle chevy tahoe has 106 000 miles this vehicle as well has spent more time out of service than a reliable road worthy vehicle so getting the ability to use that money specifically for capital items 25 000 and over is the qualification would be ideal we could deal with so many needs that have been put to the side and you know the the comment that we'll try to make the vehicle last another year if you can um that's that's fine however um there's a point where that vehicle is not going to last another year and that's where we're at but that would be ideal so it

▶ 2:25:50 Speaker 2: definitely provides relief on the city side there's just no question about it great thank you

▶ 2:25:56 Manisha Bewtra: um i have another question for superintendent timor sorry for the musical chairs and while while you're doing that um i also wanted to point out for the public a few resources that are available um i think a lot of us have mentioned the mayor's blog that outlines kind of the situation and in layman's terms but for those of you who might be kind of wanting to dig deeper there are lots of resources out there um if you go on the city of milrose home page where it says meeting agenda's portal that's what we call iqm2 you can go in the little search field and type in whatever you want and you'll get a history of any deliberation previous budgets things like that that have been discussed here in the school committee or any other border commission you can also go to department web pages such as in particular the city assessor office of planning and Community Development and Public Works, which also provide a wealth of detailed information in terms of facilities planning, in terms of road construction repair, in terms of how Proposition 2 1⁄2 work. Right on the home page, you have the visual budget, and this new resource, ClearGov, is also available if you use Google. And finally, I wanted to point out that the Division of Local Services offers a municipal data bank. pointing these out because I've heard a few concerns about information not being shared in my experience I know I'm relatively new here usually when I'm able when I have a question I'm able to ask our department heads and the mayor for more information but I also take it upon myself to go and look for that information and I wanted to point those out to the broader public for anybody who wants to dig in further so um now superintendent taymor my question is um with regards to determining space needs um if you could talk a little bit more about um the process that would be undertaken in terms of uh determining like who would be involved how the school committee might be involved how we might be involved the general public in terms of um versus what is sort of made as more of an administrative decision with regards to the BB and any other additional classrooms or school building activities

▶ 2:28:25 Speaker 1: okay so I think it was referenced earlier that the city has a permanent school building committee and made up of citizens myself miss Gaffey I think miss Lippa Garaviglian is the representative to that from your board and they are responsible for making all decisions and recommendations ultimately regarding school buildings to both the Board of Aldermen and the school committee the school committee has programmatic authority you know if they decide they want to I'm just making this up please audience decide that out of six elementary schools one should each be a different grade that's their their purview you know so that's their role in it what we do is miss Gaffey mr. Schenner and I quite frankly do it the old-fashioned way we sit in a room and we count classrooms we count bodies and we count classrooms so for example this year we had predicted that I would need 88 classrooms and I ended up needing 89 for K through 5 because of the 16th K so then the question becomes where do I find that 89th classroom without taking either the library the music room the art room the tech rooms which you know that we have done at many of the schools already we've converted all the computer labs to classrooms luckily technology is at a place where everything is mobile cards no longer desktops so that was available at the Lincoln music is in the library at the Roosevelt the music is in

▶ 2:30:16 Speaker 1: what used to be a teachers room we have a classroom at Lincoln that's now in what used to be the music room we have a classroom when what used to be the tech room we've subdivided rooms at Horace Mann we do what we do whatever we can those decisions that that type of small decision is made just administratively operationally but larger decisions are made with the school building committee the Board of Aldermen and the school committee as we know from the last time we went through this we put options out there to the public and we often have

▶ 2:30:51 Speaker 1: you know a public hearing to get information back my when we went to do the modules at that point in time I drew up nine separate options I you know because the whole city wasn't was being considered whether it was modules of moving the fifth grade to the middle school in the eighth grade to the high school or whether it was taking the BB or taking the Ripley or closing the Franklin there were nine options if you were to take the BB back obviously it's not nine options it's a much more focused discussion thank you um and finally i just

▶ 2:31:29 Manisha Bewtra: wanted to acknowledge uh the public thank you everyone who came out tonight however you feel about this um we got a lot of emails as well um i'm really happy to see the level of engagement and i know it takes a lot of your time um it's nice to see you all hanging out with us at 10 p.m

▶ 2:31:53 Manisha Bewtra: and um at this time those are all my questions i intend to support these orders thank you thank

▶ 2:31:58 Shawn M. MacMaster: you alderman mcmaster thank you madam chair if mr delarusso and mr van camden i would kindly

▶ 2:32:19 Shawn M. MacMaster: come back to the table thank you both for being here mr delarusso the municipal revenue structure for a community like melrose is not sustainable we all know that an override is not necessarily sustainable unless we also have at some point increases in intergovernmental revenue which is unlikely to happen can you talk about what the lifespan of the prospective override revenue is and what will that mean for the operating budget in succeeding years

▶ 2:32:47 Speaker 2: if i make the chip the expectations this override provided, all else equal, will last 8 to 10 years. No one in this room has a crystal ball, respectfully, and should there be a significant downturn in the economy on a national level that we cannot anticipate, it's not going to be to our advantage. However, the good thing is that this revenue that we're talking about is permanent revenue. base revenue it's tax revenue that portion won't be corrupted which is a great thing we're not counting on the states at a certain percent you know to be there the federal government that's not the case so this is the best kind of revenue to have to support this type of structure which is a residential community that's who we are that's what we'll always be and this literally this is the best structure to have to support that the tax base no doubt about it all around only that but it also provides credence to um all the bond rating agencies because they they want to see certainty of revenue certainty of revenue is not state aid certainty of revenue is not federal aid certainty of revenue is tax dollars at the local level

▶ 2:34:07 Shawn M. MacMaster: right right home that's certainty of revenue thank you mr van camden i had the opportunity to attend the two listening sessions i'm aware that the mayor also visited the senior center from that I know that a considerable amount of qualitative data has been collected and analyzed from both the listening sessions also the surveys that were submitted can you talk a little bit about how that data was analyzed and how if at all the data was instructive to the question that we're considering

▶ 2:34:36 Speaker 2: tonight yeah so I think as I as I said out at the beginning you know the community listen listening sessions all the all of the input that mayor and from stakeholders and from the community at large, from elected officials, both Board of Aldermen and school committee members. The goal was always to identify priorities that the community had, not that the mayor had. And what was discovered both at the listening sessions and to Alderman Garabedian's point earlier, it probably makes sense that to the extent we have the transcript complete, we can upload it to IQM to make it part of the orders connected here tonight. do that but the the goal was always to identify priorities and priorities that were identified were as we said earlier staff retention student enrollment growth and addressing space needs those were the overwhelming themes either at the community listening sessions in the questionnaires that were responded to in the mayor's conversations with with other members of the community outside of those listening sessions with the superintendent of schools so from a sort of a quantitative standpoint um that's what was gathered and i think that will be shown in the in the transcript itself of at least of the listening sessions um and then the surveys are out there as well alderman as you know um and i'm sure that we can somehow figure out a way to provide that information as well okay so further i don't know if i've answered your question yeah so for members

▶ 2:36:03 Shawn M. MacMaster: of the public who may question why that information and aggregate is being released after these matters are coming before us is it fair to say that the administration took into account the major uh points the that were raised by members of the public and used that information in determining the question that came before us in other words what it is that based on our needs and what it is that the public conveyed in terms of its wishes are reflected in the question that we're considering tonight correct correct and our

▶ 2:36:39 Speaker 2: overriding purpose was to get as open and frank comments from the public as we could you know there was some discussion about videotaping the listening sessions and the feeling was and it was she had almost unanimously inside the administration that you would chill certain members of the community from being able to speak frankly and openly with their leaders about their their view of what those needs were which is why that wasn't done you know we technically weren't obligated to take notes from those listening sessions but we did and I think you know as a community service we can provide those as part of the order thank you both thank you madam chair thank you madam

▶ 2:37:25 Michael P. Zwirko: chair I like to keep things simple stupid because I'm stupid so I'm hopeful that you know all these questions and everything that we've discussed tonight it's important to recognize that we bring these issues up throughout the year you know and and I think that we as a board need to you know understand that we do do a good job and that questions on where can we squeeze new revenue questions on what have we done in areas of regionalization where our bond rating sits where are we appropriating free cash all of these things we need to take trust in the process that we do and it doesn't need to come out completely tonight you know this issue here really is about trust and it's trust in the process that we've gone under this idea of an override was first floated in April a school committee meeting by Mayor Inferno since that time Herner administration have gone under a gargantuan effort in order to get feedback and to put this forward we need to trust that process and if you don't trust that process then you can vote against the override so in trying to keep it simple really we're just here to put this forward because all of the battles and discussions and the questions that we asked shouldn't be happening in this chamber they should be happening outside of this chamber when this question is before the voters to make their decision you can't let the perfectly the enemy of the good do I have issues with this proposal perhaps do others in the public perhaps you know but you have to synthesize all of this information which we've just heard that the city solicitor said that this administration has done and they put forward the best and highest priority issues for the community to take a vote on so later on next month before this year ends we're going to appropriate free cash we're going to address that structural deficit probably gonna ask some of the same questions that we've asked back in may when we approved that budget when it came before us so we do these things on a routine basis these are you know it's for for newer members this might be their first time for older members this might be their 20th but the questions that we're asking tonight while important it might get us comfortable with putting this forward this actually really isn't that difficult of a question it's really just to put it forward on the ballot that's it april 2nd 2019 will we or will we not appropriate the funds in 5.18 million dollars boom there it is that's it thank

▶ 2:39:47 John N. Tramontozzi: you alderman Tramontozzi thank you well i had uh had prepared some remarks um with a historical look at proposition two and a half but um mr delarusso did a fine job on explaining how the hardships that proposition two and a half uh brings to uh municipalities so i won't bore you and I won't go into into that but I think we we have to face the reality today and the financial situation we're faced with and I believe that mayor and Ferner and the school administration have made a reasonable case for the need for the override the city operations have been streamlined as revenues have failed to keep pace with inflation and rising costs several factors have contributed to the need for the override including increased student population significant reductions in state funding in the desire and need to recruit and retain quality teachers I have attended all the mayor's listening sessions and have reviewed numerous emails and verbal communications from residents throughout the city not only residents with children in the schools but old-timers like myself in seniors and I have heard overwhelming support for the override I i think there's a general belief and understanding that the need is there

▶ 2:41:04 John N. Tramontozzi: so tonight i will support these two orders and place the override question on the ballot at the special election for the voters to decide i think there will be challenges ahead but i sincerely believe that we can get through these difficult times when we all work together thank

▶ 2:41:25 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: you thank you alderman wishing to speak for the first time this evening any further discussion

▶ 2:41:40 Monica C. Medeiros: on the motion to recommend for passage albert medeiros thank you um i was able to attend the two evening override uh listening sessions um although albeit a bit late due to other commitments on each night but not the one during the day i i would appreciate these comments being added to the order i'm not sure what the will of this board is beyond tonight i would like to ask we do have a full board meeting to be scheduled to be held after this

▶ 2:42:17 Monica C. Medeiros: meeting is over to resume again i really strongly feel that this should at least have another week at least in front of us and for the public to weigh in to get some of these items added to the board and of course this question although on this appropriations committee meeting agenda was not published as part of our published full board agenda so i personally feel as though i need a

▶ 2:42:47 Monica C. Medeiros: a little bit more time to make a decision and i suspect that there's enough will here to move this forward tonight from the other members that being the case i would anticipate abstaining at this time with the hope of getting a little bit more feedback and making a final decision at the full board whenever the next full board meeting would be regularly posted next monday so i'm just i would hope and ask the other members for that consideration in the meantime i did hear from a lot of members of the public in those listening sessions and outside of this that who were sort of waiting to hear what this question would be and and to then have their chance to have a feedback i think although some people felt very comfortable going forward and saying these are their priorities as mr van kampen has said i do think there are other members who wanted to really see something concrete and then have a chance to weigh in i've received i'm so happy to see so many people come and pay attention to our meeting to send us emails and i would like to keep that going for you know at least another week to get some more feedback as well and um and to spend some time thinking about this you know i

▶ 2:44:22 Monica C. Medeiros: uh i did also want to clarify on the um the 750 000 and in terms of we typically

▶ 2:44:29 Monica C. Medeiros: get the school medicaid reimbursement is is that included in the 750 000 or is that separate and will that continue we sort of pass that through from the city side back to the school side will

▶ 2:44:47 Speaker 2: we continue to do that do you anticipate yeah by statute we will we have to um the medicare reimbursement typically uh is 75 000 a year um the way it works is that that comes in on the general fund side we we turn around and we in the fall we would give them that 75 000 whatever amount that was actually reimbursed that would change that's correct that has to happen that way it's just the way the statute's written and uh just for some things and

▶ 2:45:12 Monica C. Medeiros: i i want to clarify that i read the wrong number earlier that was actually i believe the fy18 budget number so that was a mistake on my part and i don't want to confuse that issue any further but i'm wondering on the visual budget as as i prepare in my thoughts over the next week

▶ 2:45:37 Monica C. Medeiros: or so I I didn't see in some cases I didn't see any mention of what I saw well you can actually go on the visual budget website and pull down CSV files which are in essence Excel spreadsheets and I found that for myself to be a little bit easier to to digest all at once from my purposes I didn't I do see a free cash line but I don't see anything there for free cash and I'm wondering are we

▶ 2:46:11 Monica C. Medeiros: considering that to be a revenue in terms of the visual budget model yeah

▶ 2:46:17 Speaker 2: to the chair yeah it's a great question both in the city side and the school side I think you're actually going to see more enhancement of of the funding as far as identifying other funding sources I think that may be a question but on a particular basis relative to the levy I think you'll see that we're trying to be consistent that to represent what tax dollars actually go to support each function that's a little bit different than on the other side of the table where there may may not be tax dollars involved so we have to be sensitive as to how we that breakout is so that's a good question you know and

▶ 2:46:58 Monica C. Medeiros: and I really do think we would be best served in the community as a whole if we had the results of the finalized demographic study the new one that we've you know we've spent money on and make sure that we really really are on the right track we have five months before April 2nd there about so I think we have a little bit of time thank you thank you madam chair just Alderman Medeiros

▶ 2:47:22 Speaker 2: point about the timeline so the administration's understanding has always been that this item will appear on the full agenda for november 19th that was our impression in any event so i suspect that will happen looking at the president just to get assurance of that

▶ 2:47:42 Michael P. Zwirko: i don't know through the chair so the full board does meet this this evening and um this order has a currently a motion to recommend uh pending before it uh if the motion to recommend is passed it could be removed from committee at the full board under the rules and it's published that that could happen this could be disposed of this evening i do not know what the will of the board is we are not at the full board meeting now but

▶ 2:48:10 Speaker 2: that is possible well i'll just represent to the committee that we will certainly get the transcript from listening sessions up into iqm to tomorrow so that it is part of the public record Absolutely. Thank you. Yes.

▶ 2:48:23 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Thank you. We do have an alderman wishing to speak for the first time, Alderman Mortimer.

▶ 2:48:27 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much.

▶ 2:48:31 Peter D. Mortimer: I'm not sure that our rules, I'm trying to take a clarification because I didn't say it came up. I think aldermen have to vote yes or no. I'm not sure if abstaining is a permissible vote. I know that's in some parliamentary bodies, abstaining is allowed, but I wish I could If you remember the rules, I wish I had them up if anybody has them up quick, maybe somebody could check on that.

▶ 2:48:59 Peter D. Mortimer: But the President's work was absolutely right. This order could be because it was posted earlier under the open meeting law. Somebody could make a motion to take it from committee tonight and we could vote on it at the full board meeting later for passage.

▶ 2:49:23 Peter D. Mortimer: And it would be passed, but I would not make that motion. Nor would I think it would be a good idea, because we do. What's the difference? If we set the election tonight for April 2nd, or we set it next Monday for April 2nd, a distinction without a difference. The information's going to go out there if people want more information. below to reflect Alderman Bewtra and several other Alderman's comments and Mr. DelaRusso's comment, this information's out there. You can find it with two tab touches on our computer screen. And if you have trouble with computers, people in this building have offered publicly to anybody who wants to come down here, they'll walk somebody through the computer if they have any questions. But, you know, in the interest of keeping things happy and making sure that we don't have the optics that we're trying to rush this through, because we're certainly not. I too attended both informational sessions at the Learning Commons with the mayor. And information's out there and a week's difference. So if that's the request of Alderman that we hold off, I certainly think that's a good idea, Eric, because ultimately it's not going to make a difference for the election on April 2nd. I think it's pretty clear to everyone that I do support this. And, but Alderman's work goes absolutely right. This is about just putting it on the ballot tonight, and the rest of the information will be revealed further. Whatever information more there is, I think it's all pretty clear now. If people have other questions, so be it. So I think we should go ahead now, unless any other Alderman want to speak for the first time. But I think we should go ahead and vote on these and put it with a motion to recommend for next Monday and just go from there. I think we've pretty much talked this thing to death. I think we got it for tonight. That's one Alderman's opinion. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

▶ 2:51:39 Speaker 1: Thank you, Alderman. Alderman Wright for the first time.

▶ 2:51:42 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Thank you. Appreciate Alderman Mortimer procedural comments. I have a couple of substantive ones. I'll put a nail in that coffin, if you don't mind, Alderman Mortimer. Mr. De La Russo. Yes. Just, I want to synthesize this for the public, for my own appreciation of the process and my years on this board.

▶ 2:52:07 Francis X. Wright Jr.: what we do in the city financially in the budget we produce and the money we spend is reviewed on a regular basis by the division of local services of the popular revenue of the commonwealth

▶ 2:52:24 Francis X. Wright Jr.: of massachusetts correct and we as a city retain outside auditors on an annual basis to review the city's finances and the budget and how the budget funds are spent correct each and every

▶ 2:52:34 Speaker 2: YEAR THE AUDIT NEVER NEVER CEASES IN MY OPINION AND THE BOND RATING AGENCIES COME OUT AND REVIEW

▶ 2:52:39 Francis X. Wright Jr.: THE CITY OR WE GO TO THEM AND THEY REVIEW OUR FINANCES AND THEY REVIEW OUR BUDGET AND THEY PROJECT WHERE WE'RE HEADED IN THE FUTURE AND LOOK AT WHERE WE'VE BEEN IN THE PAST AND THE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN PLACE AND THE EMPLOYEES WE HAVE AND AND WHERE WE MAY BE GOING IS THAT CORRECT

▶ 2:52:59 Speaker 2: Correct, in an exhaustive fashion, and you're correct, they do project out the next two years and the sense of where we are, correct.

▶ 2:53:08 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Okay, and do we always have a AA plus rating?

▶ 2:53:11 Speaker 2: No, we do not.

▶ 2:53:13 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Okay, and there was a time when our rating was considerably less?

▶ 2:53:16 Speaker 2: There was a time the rating was junk bond below investment grade.

▶ 2:53:21 Francis X. Wright Jr.: And what happens if the bond rating drops?

▶ 2:53:23 Speaker 2: interest rate goes through the roof and if you're lucky if you can find people literally in the market that will buy your note if you go to market and if so you're gonna pay tremendous amount of money in interest so if we're paying

▶ 2:53:34 Francis X. Wright Jr.: money towards interest when I'm paying it for for actual expenses that we need

▶ 2:53:40 Speaker 2: absolutely correct you're taking right out of city and school budgets directly

▶ 2:53:48 Francis X. Wright Jr.: great and what I have a memory of the city and mr. Shannon was here and I think he'd remember it as well when i know when i moved here 25 plus years ago

▶ 2:54:06 Francis X. Wright Jr.: um the playgrounds were in tough shape the fields were dust bowls the infrastructure above and below ground was in need of repair there were potholes everywhere the streets were in disrepair we're still trying to catch up with that so true we've done a lot creatively in the last dozen years despite cut after cut after cut in state and federal aid do we have any more

▶ 2:54:29 Speaker 2: rabbits we can pull out of our hat no there are no more rabbits no there aren't we held the line and this board has worked so hard yourself included everyone has worked so hard to make this where we are today and the last thing in the world I ever want to see us to do is to backslide and that's where we're at today we don't go forward we're going to backslide we're going to backslide not in a good way

▶ 2:54:54 Francis X. Wright Jr.: thank you and for the superintendent if she's behind the city solicitor there just very quickly very briefly it's been a long evening the modules that we have if we reopen the bb school those modules will still be necessary we didn't spend that money uh in such a way that when we put the bb back online those modules we will be put on ebay or someplace else and sold off no those

▶ 2:55:23 Speaker 1: modules the teachers will fight to get into them um their enhancements to those buildings you know the ages of those buildings we needed that space at the time we needed those space at the time

▶ 2:55:36 Francis X. Wright Jr.: and we need that space now yes if we open the bb we'll need that space again yes great thanks i'm I'm done.

▶ 2:55:42 Speaker 1: Cross-examined.

▶ 2:55:44 Speaker 6: President's workup.

▶ 2:55:48 Michael P. Zwirko: Thank you, I spoke already and I don't see a need to speak again. Just wanted to thank everybody for coming out tonight and as well as the members of the administration to be here so late. So thank you.

▶ 2:55:57 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Thank you. We have a motion that has been made with respect to the first order before us. Before, we will need to address the second order as well. Before I call for a vote, I do just wanna mention that we have a motion on the table after that's dispensed with, as was mentioned earlier this evening, we've received several emails of public comment and the chair would entertain a motion to attach those to IQM2 later in this deliberation as well. But before we get there, all those in favor of the motion to recommend for passage order 2019-25 calling a special election on Tuesday April 2nd 2019. Is this a roll call vote? I don't

▶ 2:56:42 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: believe so on committee. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes to

▶ 2:56:48 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: We recommend order 2019-25 for passage at the full board.