DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET HEARING

Transcript (~17 min @ 13:39)

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

▶ 13:36 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: portion is now closed we will move on to the orders before us beginning with the departmental budget hearings that are on our list first madam chair if i may

▶ 13:44 Peter D. Mortimer: just uh out of an abundance of caution i'm not sure if i heard it but did we announce that this is being televised we did remember we did yeah thanks i just want to double check department

▶ 13:56 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: number 652 is up first it's just pine banks in the amount of 299 dollars 350 299 000 353 dollars and 57 cents excuse me motion to suspend the rules we have a motion to suspend the rules made by uh was that alderman forbes seconded by alderman mortimer all in favor of suspension of rules aye aye any opposed we are now under suspension of rules and we are joined this evening by the superintendent and the president of the board uh mr walsh and mr kieser for pine banks thank you for being here this evening would you like to make an opening statement on this item before we move to questions from the committee sure short summary i've got some

▶ 14:33 Speaker 6: new faces here we've distributed our annual report this year isn't red

▶ 14:44 Speaker 6: the picture that you see on the first page there was taken last summer by paul hammersley who works in malden he has a drone and it was up over boston rock looking at we have a summer camp there for rugby players for 12 13 year olds and they were on the fields it came out pretty well uh pine banks was created by statute in 1905 taking care of an inheritance from the

▶ 15:15 Speaker 6: mayor of malden mayor converse and the statute provides a formula for the determination of funding from the park and then holds that it's to be funded equally by malden and melrose the formula is on page six and it's based upon Department of Revenue reports that are on page four and five and this year that formula comes to six hundred and thirty nine thousand which is up around forty thousand dollars from last year it's based upon the combined assessments of real estate for the smaller base city, which would be Melrose, which is an indication that property values have gone up a fairly good portion, which I think we all understand at this point. Our analysis on the finances is on page 7. We have three types of or categories of income at Pine Banks. One is compensation and benefits. The second is general operations and administration and the third is for equipment purchases and capital. The compensation and benefits for Pine Banks Park are run through the City of Melrose through the HR department and Mary Ann Long. So the staff there are employees of the City of Melrose and they're leased to Pine Banks Park under a contract that we wrote five years ago all the compensation then treats them as Melrose employees and Malden kicks in quarterly the amount that is decided between the two so we are reflective of what the city of Melrose has done in compensation for the projecting it out for the next year. And our detail on that is on page eight. The compensation figures there combine not only the payment that folks receive, but also their benefits, their retirement, their medical costs, and also the costs associated with retirees, which are fairly significant. So the idea here is whatever the cost of Pine Banks is, it's split between the two cities and we try to account for every part of it I should say that we've gotten great cooperation upstairs from all the departments in Melrose and they're working terrifically with the similar staff in the city of Malden it's been

▶ 18:00 Speaker 6: practically flawless the portion of the budget that is on operations is on page seven and it runs from line six through line 42 it's the smallest print I could

▶ 18:14 Speaker 6: find I apologize for that but it's it's flat lined from what we had last year so there is no increase on those amounts the total increase on compensation going back to the top is on line 5. It's gone from $403,000 to $409,000. That reflects the City of Melrose adjustment across the board, and in our figures comes to a 1.43% increase. The equipment capital purchases start on line 43 on page 7 and go to line 57. The big item there is on line 45 that's the ball field amortization in 2016 we got a mass development tax-exempt bond for about a million eight at three percent fixed for ten years the advantage of that is that it gave us access to practically the equivalent of what would be available on a municipal bond but has the advantage of requiring the guarantee of neither the city of Malden or Melrose to access those funds and it doesn't appear on your balance sheet or affect the bonding of the city of Melrose in any way so we're particularly happy to have access to that those funds were used to resurface the big rugby soccer field and we also continued on with the remediation of the area that was used as the Melrose landfill next to Wyoming Cemetery. We have taken down the trees and capped that area and dedicated it now for a dog park, which is practically an acre in size. So you're gonna have very well exercised dogs. We have an area for large and small depending on your preference. But that was, it's a 10 year fixed rate, 3%. We got it at the time it was at most advantageous we're very pleased with that. Last year we acquired some equipment so Mr. Walsh could do his work up there. Those were on line 46 through 50. You can see that we state the price from last year and we state that we're not doing it again so there's a lot of red numbers there which means we're not spending money. So the The total on capital equipment this year is $202,588.36. That is just the ball field amortization and it's down $97,000 from where we were last year. The total budget this year is on line 72, and it's budgeted at $800,109.50.

▶ 21:20 Speaker 6: The statutory mandate was $639,744.88, which means that we're above the statutory mandate, that's principally the amount of the capital amortization of the improvements.

▶ 21:37 Speaker 6: Now I also know that your budget process here doesn't take necessarily into effect the capital expenditures that we're looking at. I think that happens in your budget process a little bit later in the year or as Patrick Del Russo has told me but that's about where we are so we flatline the spending from last year we don't have any further capital expenditures for equipment the annual report shows in the back the equipment that we have acquired we were able to use a couple of grants that we got from private foundations to buy some of this equipment so it wasn't all on the municipal for municipal costs and I

▶ 22:26 Speaker 6: think we're very pleased with the way things look down there the field inside the track after a year of scholastic use usually looks sort of like the Mojave Desert now it doesn't so we're very pleased with that and then on page 12 I couldn't help it but I put that satellite picture in again just so you You could see how Pine Banks fits in between Forestdale Cemetery and Wyoming. We had a Melrose Eagle Scout walk through there with a handheld computer and measured the location of where all those trails were and the elevations. It's sort of an impressive view of the world, especially as it shows that the larger part of the park isn't the ball fields, it's the wooded area. So that is the annual report for the year. We're happy with the way things are going. We're here to say thank you very much. We appreciate everything the city hall assists us with and for your support over the years.

▶ 23:29 Speaker 1: Thank you.

▶ 23:33 Speaker 1: Alderman Forbes.

▶ 23:33 Scott M. Forbes: Thank you. Always appreciate your presentation. Very, very well informed. As a kid, I played baseball down these fields, and it's just truly night and day. so I think I asked this every year it next two to three years down the road do you foresee any large undertakings as far as capital improvement projects are concerned you kind of forecast that a little bit to identify any critical

▶ 24:04 Scott M. Forbes: needs coming down the road no okay and I know the dog park was a big undertaking looks outstanding the one question I just had and I know that John Chenner addressed this as well is there gonna be any type of the way that the wall is now with the the way that the visibility through the through the cemetery is there gonna be any conversation and maybe trying to put either shrubs or a wall or a fence in that area not at this time not this time okay thank you very

▶ 24:38 Michael P. Zwirko: much thank you thank you president's workup thank you madam chair thanks again for all the hard work and the report very very helpful here um i just had a few questions i noticed on page 13 under capital projects that it says that the mystic river rugby team had made a contribution of a hundred thousand dollars is that true yes wow that's amazing um how long has the league been going on that the i mean i know that they use that because i hear them playing at night um but that That's a considerable donation.

▶ 25:04 Speaker 6: They're an interesting bunch of fellows. You find them, they're Dartmouth graduates in the financial services industry. So it's very, because they did it before when we originally built that field, which is now almost 12, 15 years ago. They were also, they won the national championship last weekend, which is sort of a big feather in their cap. But, yeah, I mean, we're very, very thankful for it. We're gratified by their interest. And every year they come by with a crew and they take out dead wood and try to do works projects at the park. So they've been very, very helpful.

▶ 25:50 Michael P. Zwirko: Well, thank you for the contribution and thanks for the information. The other question I had is, this is actually more of an accolade than anything. I can't see oh yeah that Kevin has become a tree warden yes that's a great address yeah that's a great addition yes we'll talk about that yeah Kevin's

▶ 26:10 Speaker 1: superintendent at the park and his forte or his real real interest is in arboriculture and he's been dedicated to that since I've been there and beyond that but he's really taken it to the next level and he took a it was a six week training course with from the Massachusetts tree wardens Association

▶ 26:35 Speaker 1: and he became a qualified tree warden I don't know it's not an official position obviously but it's it's he's yeah he's certainly knowledgeable and skilled in

▶ 26:48 Michael P. Zwirko: that in that department well given the forestry on the property alone so yeah

▶ 26:56 Speaker 1: it's it's so significant so necessary to be able to identify problem trees or problem areas um invasive weeds that we have all over the place it's been uh it's going to really pay dividends going forward i think so we're really excited about it well thank you and you know it's

▶ 27:07 Michael P. Zwirko: on banks park we're just so fortunate living as close to boston as we do to have the green space that we do in melrose and being able to share it with our neighbor malden is even better it certainly helps reduce costs so appreciate all the work and that track as you mentioned gets used 18 hours a day I can vouch for that you know I would be surprised if it wasn't 20 if we had more sunlight but my last question probably the most important can you explain the hiring process of the chief

▶ 27:38 Speaker 1: Canada goose removal warden nationwide search yeah those abroad search no unfortunately I don't make it too sad but we lost our our dog last year pretty suddenly and I'm a dog person so I kind of had to get the house felt empty without another dog there so we got to keep two young kids got a got a golden retriever good family dog and she's been she's been a great addition to the park she comes with me every day to the park and hangs out in the office and I bring her out when I can and take her to the dog park now and she she was a little young in the beginning of the year to chase the geese but she eventually grew to the size where she was a little bit bigger than them and she did she does pretty good so I think next year we'll have we had a pretty bad problem this year so I think she'll she'll be busy this winter and she approves of the dog park yeah if you look at the website you can see her little face she's on there she made those she made the website thank you for

▶ 28:34 Peter D. Mortimer: that those are all the questions I had motion to move the bottom line on this

▶ 28:37 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: budget madam chair second we have a motion to move the bottom line made by Alderman Mortimer seconded by Alderman Boisselle all in favor aye

▶ 28:44 Monica C. Medeiros: discussion alderman Medeiros thank you thank you i won't be labor i want to thank you both and especially mr walsh i know you're you're there not just you know nine to five but all the time really and we see you uh active throughout the year i just have a housekeeping note that i wanted to ask if we could we were given the uh the report it's full of information i don't think it got on to our website onto the budget order so i was just going to request that this get scanned in and added so that we can have it with the record and um and for the public to see as well absolutely

▶ 29:20 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: thank you uh all in favor of the motion to move this item to the bottom line

▶ 29:28 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: any post thank you uh we do need to start the public hearing in one minute we have one more item for these gentlemen in front of us which is uh budget nine three one the capital outlife outlay for pie makes in the amount of five hundred and six thousand four

▶ 29:43 Peter D. Mortimer: hundred seventy dollars and eighteen cents motion to move that capital outlay

▶ 29:47 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: amount second yeah we have a motion to move the bottom line on department number 931 made by Alderman Mortimer saying my honor boys on discussion I

▶ 29:53 Michael P. Zwirko: believe that there's in the capital outlay there's some IT orders IT items I'd like to hold on moving the bottom line until we get the chance to talk to

▶ 30:03 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the IT department we do have a motion made in saying it would those be

▶ 30:06 Peter D. Mortimer: willing to withdraw as well draw what John so we will hold this will there I'm

▶ 30:16 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: just trying to determine whether we can let these gentlemen go they need to stay with us or their questions on that portion for for these gentlemen before

▶ 30:25 Scott M. Forbes: us just to verify that the 101 294 is just the bond amortization is that correct that's correct yeah that's it no nothing further thank you and we will

▶ 30:31 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: hold that until later on in this hearing but your portion is finished so thank

▶ 30:38 Speaker 3: you very much for being here thank you thank you have a great evening thank you

▶ 30:42 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: it is now 8 o'clock we will pause here and move to our public hearing on order 2018 180 amend Melrose revised ordinances chapter 24 article 2 fire department section 24-32 e emergency rescue vehicle to set the fees for FY 19