ORDER-2018-183 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2019 in the amount of $79,399,945.73 (Seventy-Nine Million, Three Hundred Ninety-Nine Thousand, Nine Hundred Forty-Five Dollars and Seventy-Three Cents).

Transcript (~2 h 14 min @ 7:28)

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

▶ 7:25 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: We will begin with the one order on our agenda, Order 2018-183, City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2019, in the amount of $79,399,945.73. And we will begin this evening with the Conservation Department, which is Department Number 171, in the amount of $20,825. we'll just bring you right up thank you for being here do we have a motion motion to suspend the

▶ 7:58 Speaker 1: rules so we can hear from the appropriate city officials second we have a motion to suspend the

▶ 8:01 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: rules by Alderman Forbes seconded by Alderman Mortimer all in favor of suspension of the rules any opposed we are now under suspension thank you very much for being here would you like to open

▶ 8:14 Speaker 3: with a statement yes I'll be brief my name is Susan Murphy I am the chairperson of the Melrose Conservation Commission our Commission has two primary roles in the city we are the implementing body for two state laws the Massachusetts wetlands protection Act and the Massachusetts rivers protection Act and the corresponding Melrose wetlands protection ordinance second we have the responsibility for the care and management of the city's conservation land our budget has two major components first is our is the salary for our part-time staff person eric devlin who works two half days a week about um in uh he's situated in the planning office he's sort of our the face of the conservation commission for the community um the second part of our budget is our conservation maintenance item uh that is primarily made up of uh money that we spend to manage three ponds in the city we do a nuisance vegetation control in towners swains and l pond um so that's the big part of that conservation maintenance budget there are other items that will you know trees and such but those that's the biggest part of that generally by the time we come to this hearing it looks like we haven't spent any of that money because the treatment season starts in late may and into june so we're sort of straddling the fiscal year in terms of having the services um so our budget always sort of looks like we haven't spent it but but it will be spent on um on those three ponds um that's that's pretty much all i have to say the one thing i would want to mention um that we've done this year is we've started a new trail stewardship program where we have volunteers in the community who are agreeing to go out and walk the trails and report back to us fill out a form once a month and people have been really excited about it so it's nice for us to see that but i'd be happy to answer any questions

▶ 10:00 Peter D. Mortimer: motion to recommend the bottom line for passage madam chair second we have a motion to recommend

▶ 10:04 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the bottom line by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman boisselle on discussion alderman

▶ 10:10 Monica C. Medeiros: medeiros thank you thank you i was just wondering uh i know we have quite a few parcels of land sort of throughout the city primarily said most of the conservation maintenance budget is on the three wetland areas is there any you know obviously this is short staff and a lot of volunteers But is there sort of a plan or a program in place for some of the smaller parcels of land? Are they regularly cleaned up or maintained?

▶ 10:45 Speaker 3: What we've tried to do is we've been working more towards at least putting signage on some of those parcels, particularly the ones where it seems that there's a sense of a lack of ownership of them. them. We also, I'd say we rely heavily on neighbors to those parcels, both to let us know if there's an issue there, and a lot of them actually do chip in and help clean them up and such. So we haven't formalized it as a program. We did, the year before last, we created a list of them and kind of went out and looked at all of them and sort of did a little mini assessment of them. We haven't gone the next step. I think the idea would be to identify who in an area is keeping an eye on it or might be willing to and we haven't really taken that next step with that database of information about those but sort of it's it is a project it is a challenge for us having these parcels scattered all over the city so the the

▶ 11:43 Monica C. Medeiros: trail stewardship program i think is an excellent idea and i'm glad that that's you know getting going and i think that that will hopefully that will lead to some other sort of stepping up and taking ownership of some of the other parcels but to the public we could really use some help in those areas because it's I agree and hopefully I

▶ 11:59 Speaker 3: think this will give us sort of a little experience with managing that kind of program and maybe we can sort of expand it to a more general adopt a site that would be applicable to the smaller parcels we're sort of learning as we go in terms of you know cataloging the responses and making sure we get back to people when they identify things but we're encouraged by how it's going so far and i think there's a lot of potential to really to to build on the interest the community has in in these parcels because i know people are attached to them they like having the green space there um and it's a matter of making sure that it's it's taken care of thank you so much thank

▶ 12:41 Robert A. Boisselle: you thank you alderman poiseu thank you madam chair good evening susan and thank you for coming Doing my travels across the state, I see a lot of invasive vegetation along the roadsides, especially if you go by the turnpike, you'll see entire areas just overrun by vines and so forth. Do we have any problems in Melrose or on the conservation land of these types of invasive vegetation?

▶ 13:07 Speaker 3: I mean, we certainly do. I think a lot of the areas where it's particularly bad are in sort of disturbed areas on the edge. If you enter the conservation land from the Hoover School, there's a large Japanese knotweed. But all of that is just fill and construction debris and stuff until before you get into the conservation land. It's been quite a long time since we've had a sort of comprehensive assessment of the issue of invasive species, so it certainly is something we probably should look at again we we are more aware of it in the ponds we have had some water chestnut in el pond that we've been managing and there are areas and swain's pond has some purple loosestrife which also appears in some of the wetlands which is also an invasive species but the upland invasive species we haven't really tabulated in any way but it definitely is something that probably is worth looking at another question is I know

▶ 14:09 Robert A. Boisselle: the state wildlife has been stocking ponds in the area as any stocking of

▶ 14:21 Speaker 3: fish in the ponds in Melrose well you know I know that um parks has had interest in doing fishing activities at first pond and and they I think they had stocked at one point but i'm not sure what happened with that we have not um looked into that for and that any of the ponds that we met actually only towners is actually our pond swain's pond is belongs to parks and l pond belongs to parks so it's really towners is the only pond that is actually the one that we own um and we have not looked into stocking it towners is quite a shallow pond it's actually a man-made pond it was originally a wetland it was dug out for an ice making operation um so i don't i don't people do fish in it i don't know whether they catch anything but i'm not sure it would be the best choice of all of them for stocking okay thank

▶ 15:08 Robert A. Boisselle: you very much thank you madam chair thank you additional questions um i do have some questions

▶ 15:14 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: that were submitted by alderman Letter garabedian as we did last week as she has a modified maternity schedule but still has some questions asked so i'm going to ask for her and i think I think some of the answer to this question that has been weaved into some of your answers already, but I'm just going to ask it as a whole. You mentioned that you will implement conservation preventative measures for our ponds in FY19 in addition to continuing to treat nuisance vegetation with herbicides. Can you describe what the preventive measures entail and what they cost?

▶ 15:44 Speaker 3: That is what we're looking into right now. What I referred to in the written submittal, we had noted that what we're looking to do Essentially, the idea is that we have been spending a significant amount of funds treating these ponds year after year. It's not really addressing the source of the problem or addressing things holistically. In particular, if you're looking at Towners and Swains Pond, what feeds them are the ponds on the golf course, and the Parks Department has been thinking about what to do with those ponds. They have irrigation issues, they have vegetation issues, they've been treating their ponds. And so what we've been looking into is how to maybe manage them more intelligently, work with the Department of Public Works on their stormwater program, because the stormwater is primarily where all the nutrients that are causing the problems in the ponds are coming from, and see what we can do. The first step of that has been to increase the amount of water quality testing that we're doing particularly for nutrients and in the ponds so in this coming fiscal year that's going to be about two thousand dollars worth of water quality testing but we're also trying to talking to some consultants and just seeing if there's some reasonable amount of money that we could do that would help us to sort of assess this problem but that's what we're really looking to how much would it cost to really get an assessment of it there are some companies that have professional lake managers certified lake managers who you know but so on our first look at it people wanted to do sort of a very big sort of scientific study of it that was going to be quite expensive and I'm not sure it was as tailored to management decisions as what we are looking for so we're still looking at that right now we're just doing the water quality testing for a

▶ 17:41 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: couple two thousand dollars thank you very much any additional questions we motion that's been made and seconded to move the bottom line all in favor aye aye any opposed thank you that will be moved forward to the thank you very much the next department on our list is

▶ 17:57 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: number 161 city clerk in the amount of 265 972.99 we're joined this evening by amy camosa thank you

▶ 18:13 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: good evening hello would you like to make an opening statement um just briefly as you all

▶ 18:16 Speaker 4: all know I'm quite new to the role of city clerk I've been there less than a month so with that you know you won't see you haven't seen many differences yet but you will see some changes in the coming months I kind of get my legs and come up to speed the budget you'll see is lower this year because since we had so much turnover we've had some salary changes but other than that I think most

▶ 18:54 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: things are pretty self-explanatory thank you madam chair so there's been a lot of

▶ 18:58 Michael P. Zwirko: changes in the clerk's office so thank you for stepping up and congratulations on your new role we're very excited to have you be at the helm of the city clerk's office so I know that they're obviously you're new to the role as you just stated but could you just kind of I mean you probably haven't had the opportunity to get a whole lay of the land but can you just talk about maybe some initiatives that you know you want to employ maybe over like the next year or two some things that either you've noticed or you just feel that could have you know refreshing change to them or something like that and and also if you could just kind of describe the changes in the clerk's office because you know from I actually think nearly all positions have moved around so it's just

▶ 19:44 Speaker 4: those those two questions if you don't mind sure so within the last two years we've had complete turnover in the city clerk's office um melissa ripley the current assistant city clerk started as senior clerk last april so um april of 2017. so she's since been promoted and um she's the the most tenured person in the staff so uh yeah complete turnover within the last two years um so so far i think the things that i have noted that are top priorities for me are um i I don't know if everyone's aware, but there's a new requirement for driver's licenses in the state of Massachusetts, the Real ID, which requires everyone to provide proof of who they are, which includes a certified birth certificate if you don't have a passport, a Social Security card. And if your Social Security card last name does not match your birth certificate because you changed your name during marriage, you also need a new marriage certificate. which means what I've noticed so far I had my staff pull some statistics the average number of vital records were providing per month now is 541 just this calendar year alone that is the amount whereas calendar year 2017 the average was in the 300s so I mean it's been a huge uptick just I think since March it's now well over 500 a month which is a pretty big change to the staff I mean noticed i didn't it was one of those things that i noticed firsthand because i didn't realize just how many people were coming in and we've had you know um 90 year olds coming in needing to find their birth their birth and merit certificates it's you know um so the one thing i want to change sooner rather than later is making it more convenient for people to purchase those vital records online we've made it very convenient as of the beginning of this calendar year but the pricing doesn't reflect that right now we charge five dollars more plus the credit card fee for for people that order online, which I think is a burden to people who work full-time. Otherwise, they have to come in to save $5. So you'll be seeing more on that in the very near future. And then the bigger, longer-term project is obviously, I'm a much more computer-driven user than I think, and so is everyone in my staff than the previous staff. And so we really wanna move everything electronic we possibly can we know that there's a lot of public records requirements that we obviously have to adhere to but if we can at least kind of start with an electronic record and then if we have to provide a paper copy rather than the other way around so it's easier for us to retrieve information when we need it so we'll be looking at some different ways to do more electronic document management both archivally and going forward thank you for that do you

▶ 22:34 Michael P. Zwirko: anticipate also using the resources of the I might get the acronym incorrect the Massachusetts City Clerk Association I think that there's some there's a I

▶ 22:45 Speaker 4: think there's a Massachusetts group yes I think they have a conference it's actually coming up in a couple weeks I'm not sure I can attend it because it's right at the end of school but um they have other conferences throughout the year so that's actually one line item you'll see is lately increased in our budget for professional development type work for you know so that our staff can

▶ 23:08 Michael P. Zwirko: attend those educational opportunities and will you still be holding or in the job description that you're taking over now will you still be doing the webmaster duty you will okay and do you anticipate any enhancements to the city website I know it was overhauled just a couple of months ago and it looks great certainly much more user-friendly but I didn't know if you know you had addressed the issue of making online billing more yeah so you'll see now I think the

▶ 23:31 Speaker 4: online billing is pretty well addressed we have all the city clerk's type documents can be retrieved you can pay your water bill your real estate bill excise tax all of that online I think what we'll see more of is now that it's been running for six months and now once we hit the summer and I think some of our departments have heads have maybe a little bit of time to reflect on what's been working what hasn't been in their own departments we'll we'll start seeing kind of department level enhancements

▶ 24:02 Michael P. Zwirko: to information thank you for that and then the um do you have the same waiting times as the rmv no those are all the questions i had i just i just want to reiterate i'm really looking forward to the next couple years and really happy to have you on board with the overhaul that you'll certainly endeavor so so thank you for that those are all the

▶ 24:21 Manisha Bewtra: questions i have madam chair thank you thanks um thanks for being here amy uh it's kind of funny because you normally um are over um you're always in this room um typically uh i was wondering you know if you could speak a little bit to your vision for kind of like what customer service for the city should look like and how maybe this clerk's office in particular is kind of often a first point of contact and to what extent um are there like limitations whether it's budget or other limitations in terms of us as a city being able to take that those leaps um

▶ 24:59 Speaker 4: so i think you know first and foremost actually melissa ripley is um a big proponent of this like you really two parts at all times if we see people in person one you need a friendly face that's going to listen to what the problem is and just respond with empathy but also get people the information as efficiently as we possibly can get it to them um and also you know within that there's like what i've realized is how many like interesting weird challenges people have so it's just you know a lot of it is just really trying to problem solve with the people and i think that's it you know we don't want to keep it department siloed i think that's where um if i see a future for city hall i mean we're already getting there very we're very close to being there completely But the more I think we communicate internally and we know, you know, various residents' challenges, we'll get there, really. You know, we'll get there, the last little step that we need to get.

▶ 26:04 Speaker 2: Autumn and Medeiros. Thanks.

▶ 26:05 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you. I think much has been said. I agree completely. We're happy to have you there. We're happy to see, you know, what will come in the new technology, more use of technology in the future. I think that's going to be really important for that office and for the customer service aspect of the whole city Your office also is kind of the main point of contact for public records requests So I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about that aspect of the job And I know it's been some changes to the law Rather recently. Yep

▶ 26:37 Speaker 4: so I'll be totally honest like I didn't realize how much I would get hit with those is so quickly I think I've had more than like close to a dozen already I've only been there a couple weeks so you know in that role it's I will say most of the department heads one so I'm the key point of contact if someone just for City Hall business so that doesn't include Public Works police fire schools that or retirement those each of those divisions have their own records access officer but for everything else it's me so for that role you know I'm just kind of the go-between I can't produce the records myself unless it's our office I can ask our respective department head to provide existing documentation that best answers the request of the resident you know so that's something that mostly just means follow through and maintaining the deadlines that we are

▶ 27:38 Monica C. Medeiros: required to maintain and do you think that as time goes on that we might find like maybe create a space on the website or some kind of electronic space where these the answers to some of these requests might be siloed so that if somebody asked the same thing you know the work is kind of already done and um some of them might be a little more personal than others yeah yeah like so I

▶ 28:03 Speaker 4: mean possibly at this point most of the questions have been unique enough I'm not sure we're quite at the point where we would have it publicly available but at least we I think I'm already collecting a repository of answers so that at least you know I think most people would prefer to have the information as quickly as possible so if I have something that was produced a month ago I'd rather provide it to the next requester and if they need additional information you know we'll work with that part but um so while I would I'm not I'm not sure whether it it would make sense on the public website to have it all there but I we you know I wouldn't be against it if it made sense

▶ 28:43 Monica C. Medeiros: just stuff that we're kind of learning as we go I imagine so thank you and well and good luck and I know you will go great thank you thank you well now

▶ 28:57 Robert A. Boisselle: you're at the top of the totem pole for all information for public here in the computer your second initiative in the computerization of data and so forth are you making it easier for the public and get information from City Hall instead of asking for sending letters a public record can they just sort of log in later on and just gather that information directly again I think it

▶ 29:24 Speaker 4: depends on the type of question that they're asking at this point what I will say is that if someone has several times now I've gotten questions that I know is is actually available on the website. So in that case, I actually just send people to the website, tell them exactly how they can access that information with the assumption that people would prefer to know how to find it again in the future rather than just producing a single document with information people could do a self-service. So I think as I see the types of questions people ask, we could do that even more.

▶ 30:00 Robert A. Boisselle: Another question, are you standardizing the information so everyone does it the same way from what we've been listening to a number of departments are or reorganizing into the computer area especially the assessor's office has taken over a great deal in GIF areas and so forth and the fire department is looking for help and so forth like for a standardizing Street ST or STREET is any are there any standards that everyone is working from so when you start retrieving data you're not missing what phone you heard from the assessor's office the way the address is printed it doesn't match right it's a

▶ 30:45 Speaker 4: good point I mean I think going forward so the assessor's office and I'm Chris Wilcock and I talk a lot about so you're working together with them yeah um you know both in terms of the types of technology and software we could potentially purchase in the future particularly for a document management that will be the more departments that we can use the same software the more some of that will just kind of naturally get fixed i think you know as the retro archival data will be harder to make sure it's all there but moving forward yeah we would standardize the forms so that your

▶ 31:19 Robert A. Boisselle: standardization okay thank you very much amy thank you manager motion to recommend the bottom line

▶ 31:26 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: second budget motion to move the bottom line made by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman voice on discussion one I just had one quick comment I'm sorry so for the folks

▶ 31:33 Michael P. Zwirko: that have been following the budget hearings at home and for the alderman here I just wanted to now that Amy is before us the the questionnaires was her brainchild and she did a lot of work not only on the format but getting them out to the department heads with the information to come back and working with Kristin to apply them to the budget this year so it's a huge help and I just want to say thank you for that because I think we're gonna you know use that going forward and it's it's just a great resource so I just wanted to publicly

▶ 32:03 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: say thank you for that yeah are you able to tell us whether um an estimate or if it's been calculated what percentage of requests and payments are made online um so for the for

▶ 32:17 Speaker 4: vital records um for the online system yeah so um for for the city clerk stuff it's not as high as i would like it to be but i think it's the impediment of if you live in town and you can can save 550 by walking in but if it were me I would probably walk in and save the 550 but I wouldn't be happy about it so and it's also being it's relatively new right so we only rolled it out in January so I think as as it more people understand that they can do it but I've had multiple people who once they find out the price difference they say oh I'll just come in then kind of

▶ 32:52 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: like that so anyway can you related to that can you describe what efforts have been or will be undertaken to make sure that the public knows about this resource I know it's on the main website are there other public education efforts

▶ 33:05 Speaker 4: around it um so now that it's been functioning for several months we kind of wanted to do a soft rollout intentionally so we didn't you know have a bunch of errors with super publicly so I think come the so my goal is to adjust the fee structure first and then as related to the real ID I would I wanted to work with the mayor's office to do a blog post or two about some of these features because I do think even though just the rate did the document requirements for the real ID are unclear to a lot of people so the more we can provide that information ahead of time and we've heard from multiple multiple people who wait wait in line for those three hours at the RMB and then didn't have everything that they needed so the more we can kind of help residents in that regard I think I think that'll all be part of the same communications thank

▶ 34:06 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: you any additional comments or questions a motion has been made and seconded to move the bottom line all in favor all right any opposed that will move forward

▶ 34:20 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: thank you very much thank you the next department on our agenda this evening is department number 162 elections department registrar in the amount of seventy three thousand six hundred sixteen dollars and twelve cents we have with us Linda Lee and Gia Lillo to speak on this item good evening

▶ 34:42 Speaker 5: good evening would you like to open with a statement um we just that it changes year to year as you know city elections versus state elections so this year we have two elections so the cost for the elections part-time salary and wages goes up or down depending you know on the size on the number of elections we have so there is a difference every year on my budget it's never

▶ 35:12 Robert A. Boisselle: level funded that way in the questionnaire that was passed around you mentioned and you just mentioned a few minutes ago that you're going to have two elections for fiscal 19. is that the primary and the november the september and november election yes okay uh there's also been some discussion in the community concerning another election what they call a special election

▶ 35:35 Speaker 5: how much does a special election cost the city well the average we we don't know exact because it depends on dpw police details and cost of everything involved including postage printing and everything else so the average state election runs around 25 000 a city election goes up to more like 30 000. so i'm saying between 27 and 33 000 for a special election we do have to purchase all the ballots seven different wards we have to do all the programming for all the machines we do not get any reimbursement from the state so if

▶ 36:12 Robert A. Boisselle: there's a special election that's we'll say in spring of 2019 it will cost this community $33,000 now that's not included in this budget so what would be the procedure would you come back to us requesting that money yes okay all right

▶ 36:32 Robert A. Boisselle: thank you very much Thank You madam chair thank you madam chair would you be

▶ 36:42 Michael P. Zwirko: able to talk about the population of poll workers that we have and also do we have any difficulties securing poll workers when an election comes because I would imagine you need a certain amount of number for 86 poll workers and that's

▶ 36:54 Speaker 5: working full days 14 hour days and it is getting more and more difficult with the change of course full workers are generally retired and so with the age going up we are losing people because more people are in the workforce I mean it's not the same generation of people that like to get to the farm we seem to always pull through and get them last minute we end up you know losing one or two you are supposed to have at least um six people at each warden precinct by law by mass general law so you need the two check-in to check out a warden and a clerk at each precinct so 86 is a lot yeah our budget for that is about 11 000. we only paid them 120

▶ 37:45 Michael P. Zwirko: to work 14 hours um so and how do you go about um you know your poll worker population do you work with the milano center and council on aging or do you um that's a large amount of people

▶ 37:56 Speaker 5: we have shirley who is wonderful who works um with the church she works in the pantry and she's um a very big help when it comes to pulling people warmer at the end we need people she's she's a very big help to us thank you for that those that's the only question i had thank

▶ 38:14 Speaker 6: Thank you.

▶ 38:21 Manisha Bewtra: Thank you. Well, first I wanna personally thank you cause I think those of us sitting around this table have worked with you personally through the elections process and I've always found you to be very helpful and responsive to my concerns and questions. My question right now is regarding the citywide census. Can you speak a little bit to that and kind of how the information is used and I know we've talked about it sort of one-on-one but I think it'd just be useful for the public to hear as well so by national law we do have to have a

▶ 38:54 Speaker 5: street census sent out every January we do get a good response we're at probably 78 percent right now that have returned their census we are in the process of doing a second confirmation notice which goes out probably within the next week and that's the notice you now have two years that you can not return the census and you will not become inactive for two years so every year we send out to the people that have missed it for two years that they will be put on an inactive list if they don't respond but the second one goes to individuals and it's postage paid so it comes back to us and that usually brings us up to close to to 90% of turnout so it's a really really good community for returning we have a population 26,000 we have 20,000 registered voters I mean it's incredible the amount of registered voters and we do get a response a really good response from them the we do print a street list book every June July usually the end of June June 1st is the deadline for getting it back so we cannot print it until we give people until June 1st to get it back even though it says 10 days the state says after June 1st we can make you inactive and then we print a street list book which is public record and people can purchase the book it is

▶ 40:28 Speaker 5: not something that's put online and the 2020 census is going to start very soon too so we're getting ready we did the 2010 which seems like it was only a few years ago redistricting and we're right now we're going for the next 10 years it's already too ready for the 2020 and that will be more detail doesn't involve us it's you know the federal census right but more detail they ask more information we don't we don't give out people's dates of birth we've switched that over the years and now it's just the year of birth you have to put name address occupation and year of birth has that with like the 2010 census did

▶ 41:04 Manisha Bewtra: that cause any sort of confusion in the community and how it for a few because

▶ 41:11 Speaker 5: and it wasn't that many but there were a few people that literally lived next door to Lincoln School and now have to go to Beebe I mean they'll divide a street one half will go this and one but they have to divide the wards all right because I didn't for people so you want to make sure they all have approximately the same amount of people but that's strictly the state's decision on who does that it's really we have no say in it thank you thank you

▶ 41:39 Monica C. Medeiros: I actually say staying on the census the census include questions about the children that are in the household and their ages do not publish anything of

▶ 41:54 Monica C. Medeiros: anyone under 17 and it includes their their ages as well yes so and I guess this kind of goes to some of the questions we were talking about earlier about speaking with some of the other departments are we able to use that information to help us figure out what enrollment might be in the schools and

▶ 42:12 Speaker 5: the schools do ask for that every year ask for it but you can't make someone a lot of people don't include their children they don't want their children listed on the census they don't have to I mean the only reason you would do it is to vote some people think so they don't include their children I try to to tell them to always include your children on it so that the schools know even newborns you know they'll write down baby occupation baby so i mean they some do but some do not so it's i can't tell you it's 100 accurate it's up to the person to do that and in terms of you know for for helping us

▶ 42:46 Monica C. Medeiros: in the city to be able to predict things uh helping us to you know when it does come time to to determine you know whether or not we have keep all our congressional districts or things like that congressional representatives it helps to know that there's so many people here so we should definitely ask people at home to to fill that out in an accurate manner we're not giving that out to anybody but it is helpful for us internally and we do have

▶ 43:16 Speaker 5: a good turnout i mean we really do it's a it's a great city they do fill it out and compared to other cities and towns that really they do yes are there any movements to

▶ 43:28 Monica C. Medeiros: to find a way to do that electronically because i know sometimes they come in in early january and february and there's yeah no they still want a signature you know if they

▶ 43:36 Speaker 5: don't sign it i send it back to them i mean we need to know that they're living there and um i don't know if we'll ever have an electronic signature to be able to do it that way i know

▶ 43:50 Monica C. Medeiros: no one else does it seems like it would be nice if there were a way to at least let the person fill in their information maybe print it and sign it and send it to you so at least the you could take the data entry away from from you but um that's maybe for the future and it's probably for the

▶ 44:07 Monica C. Medeiros: secretary of state's office yeah i think it's governed by them um speaking of the secretary state's office and we just did in the last presidential election early voting and I understand that we're expected to have early voting again this fall for we

▶ 44:27 Speaker 5: are having it for November definitely and I just got another email today they're still pushing for September and the election September is the day after Labor Day which is early this year which is early because of two Jewish holidays so they've changed the second and third week we're not available and then it

▶ 44:48 Monica C. Medeiros: would be too close to November can you talk about the cost of early voting well

▶ 44:54 Speaker 5: it's how we were trying to discuss this earlier it depends like the president election was insane I couldn't do anything else I couldn't get anything else done so we needed a full-time person down here just to handle it was You know, you saw the traffic, we saw how many turned out for it. It's a wonderful thing, it's just it can't be handled by, you know, if it's going to be that crazy. If they do it in September, it can be done in my office and it's not going to be an issue. November, I'm not sure. It's a governor race, state senate, we have a few things going on. It is very convenient to people who can't get out on election day. It's an option because absentee voting is supposed to be if you're going to be absent from the city. so we're still new at this we don't know you know what the turnout's going to be and the state did end up re reimbursing us for the last one but it didn't get in in time so it had to go into the general fund so we didn't see that money but if they make us i'm not sure what's going to happen in november they may reimburse us and i think it was about six five or six thousand dollars they um sent us for it so very good thank you very much you're welcome

▶ 46:13 Robert A. Boisselle: thank you thank you alderman boyce last year was very interesting concerning early voting and the voting machines and so forth but in the process there were other types of voting machines for check-in to the voting area which was really interesting and really moved the process through very quickly and i made a suggestion that you may need more boots because you're checking in faster than they can vote now is there talking about uh computerization with departments here and so forth is that type of technology being looked at to verify working on it they still

▶ 46:49 Speaker 5: will not approve it it's called a poll pad and um it's it we've demonstrated it and you were at the meeting and it is a wonderful thing um they have not approved it for state elections they are approved for town meetings for towns um use them for town meetings and they love them so they're just waiting and we still we're trying to be one of the um ones that they would let do it just for

▶ 47:16 Robert A. Boisselle: one election to try it out but we still haven't got it so the state has jurisdiction over uh doing that so once they give machines they have to approve it so once they give the clearance we're

▶ 47:28 Speaker 5: thinking of uh purchasing some of these well they are very expensive um but yeah you wouldn't need as many like you could go with one you wouldn't need the check-in checkout is what they were showing us at that meeting that you wouldn't need the check-in and check out you'd still have a person there but they would get a card it would print out something and you would hand it to the

▶ 47:46 Robert A. Boisselle: checkout person and part of that process is even using your license uh to do the check-in and with the new licenses that they're considering and so forth that's almost a guarantee that that's the

▶ 47:58 Speaker 5: individual approved i think it would yes definitely thank you very much thank you madam chair president

▶ 48:04 Michael P. Zwirko: thank you madam chair apologies i should have asked this earlier um i was just reminded of it we've talked about election costs and i mentioned the issues we have with the poll worker population and i'm reminded of about a year ago we discussed potentially consolidating polling locations has there been any movement on that front is it dormant i mean any can you provide an update on

▶ 48:27 Speaker 5: that um we had a committee we met nobody was in favor of it um we were trying to get the

▶ 48:32 Speaker 5: superintendents we talked to the principals of middle and high schools that was our option to to move everybody to the middle and high school which is a great area it has enough room for everybody the parking we thought the two principals were on board with it the superintendent was not crazy about the idea we had Alderman involved

▶ 48:56 Speaker 5: in it that weren't crazy about moving out of the awards that people are comfortable but with early voting coming into play now or absentee for handicapped or people that cannot get to the polls and prefer to walk to their local school we should be out of the elementaries it's it's it's disruptive it's disruptive it's

▶ 49:21 Speaker 5: i just you know i think it's come to the point where we need to look into it we've tried we'd like to try and do it again yeah yeah the reason i bring it up is i'm certainly in favor of it and

▶ 49:30 Michael P. Zwirko: i would also i'd be led to believe although i don't know if in your discussions you've gone on down this road, but I would be led to believe that it would actually be a cost saver. You know, when we talk about $33,000 to run an election, if we have one or two polling places, that's less police officers, that's less poll workers. I would presume it would be less, you know, so is there potentially a cost savings if we were to consolidate?

▶ 49:52 Speaker 5: It is, but not that great. Not significant? It will be time consuming. I mean, it's, everyone's, I'm there or the person is there taking care of everything and not running around. can have you still have to have six people for each polling place but right you mentioned that police officers they're supposed to be watching the machine but you could if you have them in a row have okay yes definitely like wards one one and one two or in two separate buildings there's no need for that that should be all in one place there are some schools that are just not right right now they should be we should be looking into other options well to the extent that those

▶ 50:34 Michael P. Zwirko: discussions continue or you know begin again uh please keep us posted because that's something

▶ 50:41 Speaker 4: i certainly would be in favor of it was the first thing i asked linda about oh great right it is

▶ 50:43 Speaker 5: it's something we've been we've been trying to do for years i've seen it in other communities

▶ 50:52 Speaker 5: and it's it's it's very uh other communities have gone on election day i've seen how they've set it up it works perfectly fine i think just once people get used to it you know you're talking difference between a town and a city and we have those wards and that's the problem that people us used to go into that school and walking across the street to vote and but with early voting everyone came here and there was no problem you know no one seemed to have a problem that they could come on a Saturday and they can come at night everyone that was from you know all different wards came and didn't have

▶ 51:23 Michael P. Zwirko: a problem coming especially with the fells way being a major artery there's so much traffic at you know versus coming downtown or something like that because you know there's a polling location here so right right yeah all

▶ 51:33 Speaker 6: well thank you for that i appreciate the update that's all the questions i have

▶ 51:39 Peter D. Mortimer: motion to move the bottom line on this budget madam chair second motion to move the bottom

▶ 51:42 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: line by alderman mortimer second by alderman boyce all in favor aye aye any opposed i will

▶ 51:54 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: move forward thank you very much next we will uh move to department number 152 human resources in the amount of 139 000 139 231 dollars and 19 cents we're joined by marion long thank you for

▶ 52:10 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: being here today hello good evening would you like to start with an opening statement on this

▶ 52:14 Speaker 7: well i um the information that i submitted attached to the order um outlining what we're responsible for in the hr department i'm happy to answer any questions anyone may have questions

▶ 52:33 Michael P. Zwirko: from the committee thank you madam chair so appreciate the uh work you do day in and day out for the um the employees of the city and uh appreciate also this this questionnaire i i just have one question and apologize if i didn't see it um what type of training do you do or informational sessions do you have with employees not just those that are we're onboarding but you know longtime employees regarding sexual harassment

▶ 53:03 Speaker 7: with the sexual harassment policies that we have we don't have I don't have funding in my budget for any type of formal training specifically with sexual harassment however most recently Polly Lada the benefits administrator attended a free training that was actually offered by the state I believe I'm looking at alderman McMaster I think it was his organization our employment policies are widely available to employees but we have not provided

▶ 53:44 Michael P. Zwirko: specific training hey the reason I bring it up I mean I'm sure no one here is immune to it you can't open a newspaper or turn on the TV about you know the horrific actions that have been taking place so and I just worry that you know while we don't need you know you get the constant reminder in the media it's always good to have that refresher you know I work in finance and I take anti money laundering training I take insider information training all sorts of training you know routinely granted the organization I work for has a little bit more resources than the city of Moros but yes so I just you know it's as we hear about these it would be be unfortunate if we had an incident here in the city and I just you know to the extent that we can do something or even maybe recirculating the employee handbook or whatnot you know I just feel like something would be a little bit better and I'm really happy to hear that

▶ 54:33 Speaker 7: Polly attended that training yeah and in terms of our our policies in the employment manual etc the communication between my office and employees is ongoing part of what we do on a regular basis is make sure that people understand the manual is out there the policies are out there my office also funnels any type of complaints that come forward so we're you know we're tuned in

▶ 55:04 Michael P. Zwirko: sure sure I don't mean to suggest that nothing is happening I understand there's an operation going on it's just with um recent developments uh if the resources are

▶ 55:14 Speaker 7: offered to us by the city of melrose we will certainly be proactive understood the resources

▶ 55:22 Michael P. Zwirko: are not there understood um it's all the questions with this specific line item those are all the

▶ 55:32 Monica C. Medeiros: questions that i had and thank thanks to you and your staff thank you um just a sexual harassment All employees do receive a copy of our sexual harassment policy. And if I recall, you have to sign to say that we received it as well.

▶ 55:47 Speaker 7: Yes. And that includes the alderman. That includes elected officials as well, although elected officials technically aren't under the auspices of our employment manual, but that's another thing. So when we do our new hire orientations, we go through the employment manual with our employees and it's online. So it's both on our internal HR intranet and it's also on the city's webpage as well.

▶ 56:20 Monica C. Medeiros: Yes. Very good, because I do recall. Yes. Completing a little, it was some time ago now. Just couldn't, and we could all use a refresher every now and again. Absolutely. I did want to ask, and I'm not sure, This might be more for Mr. De La Russo or possibly maybe Mr. Van Kampen could weigh

▶ 56:41 Monica C. Medeiros: in on this. We had, so in this human resources budget number 152 for salary and wages, both you

▶ 56:56 Monica C. Medeiros: and the director of human resources and the human resources manager are included in the in the salaries and wages here but part of your salary is included in the health

▶ 57:09 Speaker 7: contractual budget as well yes so my salary is in the HR department 75% and it's 25% within the health insurance budget and Polly is 50% human resources and 50% health insurance budget and so this had come up in discussions for the

▶ 57:28 Monica C. Medeiros: emergency management budget earlier earlier in the budget and I believe my

▶ 57:41 Monica C. Medeiros: question had been that I thought that we would see the stipend for the emergency management director in the emergency management budget rather than in that was in the health department budget for instance but some of the reason was

▶ 57:59 Monica C. Medeiros: given that that salary somebody couldn't be paid out of more than one department so I see that that this is an instance where we do have employees that are paid by more than one department so I'm through the chair two things one is on

▶ 58:14 Speaker 8: the emergency management budget I do recall that question we have not funded that position in emergency management since FY 2015. That was the last time. And that position was not a full-time employee, was a stipend position. And what happened is during the transition from that to a full-time employee who had their job description changed, the compensation followed the change in job description. So it resides within their respective budget, i.e., the fire chief, and accordingly, Ruth Clay right now. It's a good question, though. And the other question I think you asked is about two budgets.

▶ 58:57 Monica C. Medeiros: Is there a prohibition in paying somebody out of two budgets? And so, like, are we doing this? I mean, I think it's more accurate to the duties.

▶ 59:07 Speaker 8: It pertains to really the law pertaining to getting paid for two different jobs within a community, city or town. There's a different scope. It's not the same thing. And the reason you'll see the HR director and the assistant, the manager, pardon me, in both budgets is because when we file the Schedule 1 and the Schedule 19 end-of-year reports, those costs have to follow for the school so we can demonstrate to the Commonwealth that we are providing health insurance because that resides on our side of the budget and the related administrative costs that go with that so that's been pretty consistent for a while now but that's requirement then we do that and really to to follow schedule 1 and 19 so it's more about the position title than it is

▶ 1:00:00 Monica C. Medeiros: about where the funds come from in terms of we couldn't necessarily if if we had one position and say the health contractual that was called health contractual manager then Ms. Long couldn't be the human resources director

▶ 1:00:22 Speaker 9: and the health contractual manager she could it would have to be two separate and distinct jobs which I think that's causing the confusion talking about the

▶ 1:00:30 Speaker 7: conflict of interest law and if I if I'm understanding you correctly so in an employee in the city of Melrose cannot have or in any city in town in Massachusetts cannot have two distinct positions so Mary Ann long can't also be a firefighter or a firefighter can't also be the veteran services director so that's where the conflict of interest law pertains and that's where the Board of aldermen gets involved if you wanted to have i'll use my example if you wanted to have a firefighter who is also the veteran services director we must come before the board of aldermen and you must approve the joining of those qualifications and responsibilities and the intent is that an employee is not receiving anything favorable by having two jobs within a municipality that it's all done above board but in terms of finance law i'll

▶ 1:01:42 Speaker 9: i'll leave that too and i think you'll see it again if you look at which will be coming up i think on the 31st public works you'll see the designation for sch relative to the expenses for the school so that each year we're able to actually run the reports right from the system

▶ 1:01:54 Speaker 8: and it generates consistent reports year to year as to what school related versus what city related and that's the information we give the uh department of ed and and actually that's a

▶ 1:02:07 Monica C. Medeiros: great question because uh the human resources the department 152 the functions that your office do you also perform these functions for the school department as well or just for the city employees

▶ 1:02:24 Speaker 7: just primarily just for the city employees but everything related to benefits within the school department is managed through my office and even when school department employees retire its funneled through my office however I as the HR director am not responsible and nor could I hire for the school department etc because the governing body as I understand it superintendent school or school committee superintendent etc under the law but I do help them when they call

▶ 1:03:05 Monica C. Medeiros: call me do you handle grievances grievances within the city do you handle

▶ 1:03:13 Speaker 7: grievances if they came up on the school side of things I do not manage the grievance process in the school department I represent them on the mayor's designated hearing officer so I hear the grievances from the fire department the police department Department of Public Works any of the eight unions I'm what is referred to as the step two part of the process so yes

▶ 1:03:38 Monica C. Medeiros: this human resources department budget is really primarily means Polly and I

▶ 1:03:51 Speaker 8: you yes city but yes you have many many functions yes also yes all the whole

▶ 1:04:02 Speaker 7: nine yards quickly okay thank you very much thank you thank you can you speak

▶ 1:04:09 Manisha Bewtra: to the variety of ways people can apply for jobs with the city and what if any data is collected including information on how they find find out about the job as well as demographic information such as race and ethnicity and any other information that would provide insight into like recruitment and who we're

▶ 1:04:33 Speaker 7: reaching yes so you're asking how I go about recruiting for positions is that your initial question I just want to make sure I've got all of them so you're

▶ 1:04:41 Manisha Bewtra: a and then also are there sort of a variety of ways like you know there's programs like I guess like a new gov or like online application programs but

▶ 1:04:55 Speaker 7: there's also you know you could send it yeah understood okay so because our positions within the city tend to be specialized for instance firefighters police officers those two departments we hire through Neo gov and I think I answered that you had asked that previously so that process is managed through neogov however i don't use the neogov recruitment the way that the state uses it and i don't believe i have the ability or access to use it the way that the state recruits i do understand that there's a fair amount of information that they manage through neogov and in terms of demographics etc i as a municipality that is not my recruitment tool

▶ 1:05:53 Speaker 7: other than for civil service positions police and fires so to move on because we have specialized positions like in dpw as an example some of the positions are general skilled positions and then some are very specialized like the the water foreman i'll use that as an example very particular licenses etc so i tend to i look at the position that's available the vacancy and then i focus on professional organizations that may support that role so with the water foreman we had advertised it on seven different websites different Association websites related to water management as well as the Mass Municipal Association so it really depends upon the position on where we advertise it and and how the we don't have an applicant tracking system So the type of data that you're asking about, right now, we don't manage. We manage a lot of other data, but not that in particular. We don't have applicant tracking. Thank you.

▶ 1:07:23 Speaker 2: Alderman Boycelle.

▶ 1:07:23 Robert A. Boisselle: Well, you talked about recruitment. I noticed here in the questionnaire you had 11 retirements this year up to date. now in the administration is there any initiative to have early retirement for some of our senior members either by age or by financial means and so forth there

▶ 1:07:49 Speaker 7: is not there's no no initiative at all there there is I'm not aware of any

▶ 1:07:54 Robert A. Boisselle: initiative would you would that also be within school would you know anything about in the school initiatives for that again that would be under the

▶ 1:07:59 Speaker 7: superintendent i would not have anything to do with early retirement in the school department

▶ 1:08:13 Speaker 6: okay thank you thank you sure there's no comments questions motion to approve the bottom line second

▶ 1:08:15 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the motion to move the bottom line by president cerrico seconded by alderman forbes on discussion just a couple of questions um you know that your department assists other municipalities with recruitment i'm sorry i i didn't hear you you note that your department assists with employment recruitment for several nearby municipalities yes is malrose reimbursed for that service

▶ 1:08:35 Speaker 7: um in in terms of our salaries no there is no reimbursement okay yeah in terms of the salaries of those other of the employees themselves yes there is reimbursement to the department

▶ 1:08:52 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: thank you in fy18 there were 51 non-benefit eligible hires 11 eligible hires and only 22 terminations due to retirement resignation or layoff is this typical or average number of

▶ 1:09:03 Speaker 7: hires for the city um we are you referring to my questionnaire because i want to let me get it please so that i'm looking at exactly the same thing that you were looking at i brought a lot

▶ 1:09:19 Speaker 7: of information so and um what what was it in particular that you were it's the number i'm

▶ 1:09:23 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: reading these are um alderman garabedians want to be clear uh questions that she sent and these are

▶ 1:09:34 Speaker 7: related to the fy18 um staff turnover so number two on page two yeah yes so um within

▶ 1:09:47 Speaker 7: i would say that recruitment has been um unusually busy over the last two years part of it is we have an aging population an aging employee group so we have approximately in 2017 as an example we had 19 retirees in 2018 we've had 10 so far so 29 people 30 people approximately in the last two years that's unusual we haven't had that type of turnover in a short period of time for quite a long time and then the

▶ 1:10:31 Speaker 7: number of high the 51 hires is that so that refers to all of the seasonal workers for the Recreation Department the seasonal workers for the Department of Public Works so it's all of those sort of you know May through August that we have yeah thank you and that's pretty standard great it's a lot of

▶ 1:10:57 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: people in and then out which are additional questions we have a motion made and seconded to move the bottom line all in favor aye any opposed that

▶ 1:11:08 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: will move forward we will keep you here for a few more departments as you know we have next 912 workers compensation in the amount of two hundred eighty five thousand dollars would you like to make any statements on this or move straight to questions

▶ 1:11:21 Speaker 7: um we can move well actually just very briefly the the workers compensation um budget i was looking at past years and as an example in 2004 our workers comp budget was 1.1 million dollars it was an exorbitant amount of money and we had approximately 14 long-term recipients meaning people that had been injured on the job had then retired and they were still receiving workers compensation from us delegated by the department of industrial accidents we made a concerted effort over a number of years to really internally change our processes and procedures and to settle with some of these people so we're now down to two long term from the original 13 and the budget has decreased considerably as you can see over the last few

▶ 1:12:39 Monica C. Medeiros: years any questions or comments thank you and in part of this some of the

▶ 1:12:46 Monica C. Medeiros: changes we sort of related to we I think we relate to moving the in-house trash

▶ 1:12:53 Monica C. Medeiros: yes exactly well yes it's one of the big motivators I think for this board to go along with the change to privatize our trash absolutely so that we wouldn't have that burden on our employees and physical health lifting and yes so I'm

▶ 1:13:11 Monica C. Medeiros: glad that we've seen that can you sort of just for the public and for us give us a quick overview of this like what kinds of were guarded and governed by state law we fund most of this ourselves or sort of self-insured yes so actually

▶ 1:13:31 Speaker 7: all of the benefit budgets that are before you are self-funded so we self-fund unemployment workers compensation I would say we self fund the health insurance budget although we pay the group insurance commission who then manages the various plans but yes these budgets are self-funded we don't have insurance and it's been much more cost effective for us to do it that way um quite honestly

▶ 1:14:09 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you sure thank you motion to move the bottom line on this budget madam chair second second

▶ 1:14:12 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: i have a motion to move the bottom line made by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman Boisselle any uh further discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed move forward thank you next up department

▶ 1:14:27 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: 913 unemployment in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars yes um something very unusual

▶ 1:14:36 Speaker 7: happened with our unemployment budget um in the past two months and that is that we had no expenses whatsoever in the meaning that we didn't pay out unemployment compensation over the last two months which is very unusual but our budget actually with workers compensation as well as unemployment you saw that we did reduce these line items for a total of about eighty thousand dollars And we did that because of the trend over the past couple of years. Again, because we're self-funded, we're always taking that risk if we're reducing a budget. If we have a liability, we obviously have an obligation to pay our expenses. But I feel very comfortable in reducing these line items in FY19.

▶ 1:15:34 Speaker 2: Alderman Medeiros.

▶ 1:15:35 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you. uh for unemployment expenses this includes the entire city employees okay and so we we learned in the school department budget that there are some positions that will not be continued yes

▶ 1:15:58 Speaker 7: do we think that this is adequate given the school department always communicates with us as soon as they can for the reduction you know the numbers that we anticipate so at this point I would say yes given the numbers I don't anticipate any reductions on the city side thank you yeah sure motion to boot move the bottom

▶ 1:16:28 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: line of one thousand dollars motion to move the bottom line made by Alderman Medeiros, seconded by Alderman Mortimer. Any further discussion?

▶ 1:16:33 Speaker 2: All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

▶ 1:16:37 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: That will move forward to the full budget as well. Finally, the last department on our agenda this evening is 914, health contractual in the amount of $11,651,461.79.

▶ 1:16:51 Speaker 7: Health insurance. I think first, what I would like to point out is um that the average increase in our health insurance plans this year is actually zero and the reason for that is some of the plan rates increased but a number of them decreased including our plan our medicare plans for retirees so the average overall increase is zero percent and and again this is a first um we have not seen this it's unprecedented truthfully

▶ 1:17:35 Speaker 6: thank you president's work thank you madam chair um i'm gonna indulge you both for a little bit

▶ 1:17:38 Michael P. Zwirko: here um and before i do so i just want to um state some figures uh that i received so this this is uh in reference to the um moro's health contractual account uh the the line item is zero one nine one four two dash five four nine two zero one um and this there's a little bit i'm going to talk about with the opt-out program that you're familiar with so in 2000 fiscal year 2016 the original budget was 10.7 million dollars transferred out of that account within that fiscal year was about 500 000 in fiscal year 17 the original budget was 10 million $10,711,640.38 later that fiscal year $462,000 was transferred out of that account fiscal year 2018 the original budget was $10,622,244 and $50,000 was transferred out earlier this year as the folks know to from for some school safety enhancements setting the table there I was hopeful that you could speak to this particular line item that's been proposed because I noticed that it's dropped 3.8 percent from the previous year and could you explain the reasons for that decrease back to my original

▶ 1:18:54 Speaker 7: statement 0% increases in the rate is is primarily the reason however our opt-out program continues to be successful using going back to the HR discussion with the retirements that we've had. So that group of employees who may or may not have been enrolled in health insurance, they then migrate to a retiree. They are enrolled in health insurance as a retiree. All of those new hires that are coming in, and again, I wanna be clear, these are not new positions. They are filling vacancies. And many of those in FY18 in particular, um actually i believe it was 23 out of the new enrollments um for opt out um were new hires so it's it's a it's a number of different factors and and you're alluding to it a little bit but i

▶ 1:19:55 Michael P. Zwirko: just want to further follow up so can you explain the opt-out program figures as to why they've jumped because in june 12th of last year you came before this body and we believed at the time our fiscal year 17 opt-out numbers were about 83 and we thought that we were actually going to

▶ 1:20:13 Speaker 7: begin to plateau yeah we did and it was a pleasant surprise that i was wrong and i was very happy to

▶ 1:20:18 Speaker 6: be wrong and so now and now the figures those are the one of those times you want to be wrong

▶ 1:20:23 Michael P. Zwirko: and this is actually going to lead into my next question which is even though the opt-out program is very successful yeah there is still a cost to it right yeah so i'd be led to believe that if we're going up from 83 to 106 we're actually could potentially be facing a deficit in the opt out line item and i'm curious if that's unforeseen so patrick could you speak to that a little bit just where i mean the program's successful but yet we don't have the budget uh we're in the deficit

▶ 1:20:51 Speaker 8: so please yeah certainly what happens um typically and um is when we do set the budget there's really

▶ 1:20:58 Speaker 8: two dates that are important one is the 7-1 the actual date that we commence here to discuss next year's budget and also in the fall when the school department actually does the hiring teachers etc so at both of those venues we can would not be unlikely that someone would decide to shift from a program and one of our programs to opt out um and quite frankly um as you've seen we've had that happen 23 more from a year ago now what happens is two lines in the health contractual budget one is the health group health and we budget a certain amount of money there as you can see in the budget right now it's budgeted at the $10,174,940, and you saw the jump in opt-out by $157,000 at $637,000. So during the year when we pay out the opt-out, we go to the opt-out line. This year in fiscal 18, the opt-out line is already negative $105,000 because it exceeded what we had planned on. Good and bad news. The good news is that you have additional revenue in the group health line up top to compensate for that. So we'll absorb that. As Miriam was saying, you know, it's sort of good. Whether or not that's going to materialize as a trend in the future and to what extent, I just can't say. I wish I could. Also, we also have to pay Medicare when they do go to opt out. so I mean I think we incur additional costs for this kind of an increase of about $10,000 a year so if we see a Medicare budget going up it's because now that applies to the opt-out where it didn't on the program side you know what I'm saying the plan side cost so a little bit there but it's still far far to our advantage no doubt about it and I want to commend you to president circle because you've spent time with myself and marion looking at this some very thoughtful questions i want to thank you for the time you put in yourself thank you thank you sure and and i apologize i do

▶ 1:23:15 Michael P. Zwirko: have just a few more here so um and and i will know as we're talking about this opt-out plan and how these figures have changed over time it is attached excuse me it is attached to um iqm2 and so that's what i'm referring to for folks that may be following um and thank you for posting that because there is a section a column that talks about the cost avoidance of the opt-out program so while we do offer a benefit you know monthly uh payout in you know monetary funds it actually is a cost savings because it doesn't equal the cost of a health plan so there's a benefit to the employee there's a benefit to the city um so that i did there's also the since we're in the gic plan there's a lot of offerings in that plan and i was wondering if you could speak to to not specific to plan offerings, but maybe how our city employees have decided to change or enter a new plan, rather, and the costs associated with those plans and how that may

▶ 1:24:15 Speaker 7: actually affect the bottom line for the city. Well, so let me begin with when an employee is considering changing plans, sometimes it's financially or economically driven. They may want to spend less on a plan. But more often than not, they have specific medical needs, they or their family. And they need either a broader network or they find, well, I really don't need to go to Mass General. So they're making decisions based on their family's medical needs. But what we have found is that oftentimes people choose the most expensive plan because they think, well, that's got to be the best. And it really isn't because we have 11 offerings, 11 non-Medicare active employee plans that we offer. And they are equal in their offerings and they're equal in their benefits the co-pays etc what's different about these plans and what drives the cost are the networks so if you want to be able to go to baltimore and have a particular procedure well then you're going to be paying a lot of money for your particular plan so when polly and i realized that a lot of people were simply making choices based on misinformation we realized we needed to do a lot of education and we've done that over the last three years now i as the official benefits coordinator under the group insurance commission i cannot market one plan over another but what i can do is or what polly can do is go in depth about the individual plans am i answering your question yes so um so that the decision again sometimes it is driven by by economics you know what they would like to pay or not pay but oftentimes it's you know based

▶ 1:26:29 Michael P. Zwirko: on their family's needs oh and thank you for those educational efforts at my employer we get like a side by side that shows costs and services and you know what might fit for an individual so i understand i just the reason i raise it is because if folks are moving to different plants throughout the year that actually might be a cost savings right and and furthermore to your point their care may be the same but the cost savings would be less for the city yes yes and in fy16 i believe

▶ 1:26:49 Speaker 7: that was one of the years where we saw money transferred out of the health insurance budget there was a considerable effort made one to market the opt-out program because it was in in its infancy but also to educate um so that people really understood what they were per you know we want our consumers to be educated right so and and um you you mentioned the

▶ 1:27:19 Michael P. Zwirko: enrollment period so my understanding is that that ended on may 2nd i believe uh yeah it's

▶ 1:27:28 Michael P. Zwirko: yeah it's the wednesday of the first week in may wednesday the first week in may and do you is it appropriate at this time to kind of describe what those figures look like i mean and i know this stuff is kind of like a snapshot in time but the open enrollment period has ended so do you know

▶ 1:27:41 Speaker 7: where about we're going to be so um we had any changes we had approximately 75 transactions and that includes retirees and active employees we were concerned because the group insurance commission you may remember they froze three plans over the last three years and the reason for that is they froze enrollment meaning no one could enroll in those plans because they were the most expensive and they weren't containing costs um for as you know as the group insurance commission wanted them to so this year lo and behold we're still not sure why they opened these plans to employees again these were the most popular plans and currently they have the highest enrollment we were certain there was going to be a migration back however by virtue of freezing those plans people paid attention to other options and they did the they did their homework and they realized and we had very few migrations and the and really the only ones that we did were people who genuinely needed that broader network because of medical issues within

▶ 1:29:01 Michael P. Zwirko: their own so based on the enrollments that you just described and answering the questions or other I mean do you think that for the next count or fiscal year rather that we're plateauing in the opt-out program does it and it's tough

▶ 1:29:18 Speaker 7: never say that it's tough to say right you know what i don't believe we are and the reason i don't believe we are is again because of the retirements that we've had unprecedented number of retirements in these last two years and i anticipate that we will have we will continue to have these retirements some of it is is simply public safety aging out they must retire at a particular age 65. um so no i don't think it's gonna i don't believe it will plateau okay and that's maybe

▶ 1:29:57 Michael P. Zwirko: good news yeah the um the other question why exactly do we offer health care to full-time

▶ 1:30:03 Speaker 7: employees um we offer health care because it is mandated by chapter 32b as well as the group well

▶ 1:30:15 Speaker 7: the perak regulations it is regulated by law that we offer health insurance and that we bargain over health insurance with our public employee committee so the city's position is to follow

▶ 1:30:27 Speaker 6: the law yes it is understood um earlier when we were discussing the hr department

▶ 1:30:31 Michael P. Zwirko: It was Alderman Bewtra had mentioned ways in which you advertise and try to recruit for positions, and I think that was also one of Alderman Lipper-Garabedian questions. Are we currently under a hiring freeze in the city of Melrose?

▶ 1:30:50 Speaker 7: We are not.

▶ 1:30:51 Michael P. Zwirko: We're not, but are we, are there open, there's currently some open positions. I was on the human resources website earlier today, and I also note that I believe, because I saw it removed, or rather it wasn't there. we just hired for the administrative assistant position in the police department which chief

▶ 1:31:10 Speaker 7: lyle had addressed a couple weeks ago we haven't hired yet he's in the process of interviewing oh

▶ 1:31:14 Michael P. Zwirko: understood okay but the position has been removed because it's in the interview the applicants right yes and that position is not due to its part-time status is not benefits eligible

▶ 1:31:25 Speaker 7: there are no benefits associated it's an hourly position it's 18 hours a week understood so and

▶ 1:31:31 Michael P. Zwirko: also we're a lot of the new hires you had mentioned are kind of backfill so there's no is on the horizon do we see any new positions that will be hired or is are we at a status where the budget is so austere that we'll just be filling vacancies and in previously filled positions in my tenure as HR director I

▶ 1:31:51 Speaker 7: i could probably count on one hand when we have had new positions i it's very unusual the school again i'm not speaking for the school department on the city side um no i i feel vacancies i i don't feel new positions and the other question that i had is and as

▶ 1:32:16 Michael P. Zwirko: i led off this evening talking about the transfer out i did note that we had previously i think in march or april transferred out fifty thousand dollars for some school safety improvements there's about 36 37 days left in this fiscal year correct um and you had mentioned the deficit that we have in the opt-out program i would imagine that we would probably foresee a transfer from the health contractual account to pay for the deficit in the opt-out program and furthermore do you anticipate any other transfers coming out of this line item in the next 36 37 days

▶ 1:32:50 Speaker 8: all right for the chair um two things first question uh pertaining to the transfers themselves

▶ 1:33:00 Speaker 9: um right now uh due to well due to the fact that we can absorb the shortfall

▶ 1:33:07 Speaker 8: in opt out through the regular group health line we do not have to do a transfer before the board because it's in the same category so that will absorb it so that's the good news um

▶ 1:33:20 Speaker 8: the second part of your question is we do have surplus in the fund i expect by wednesday of next week it would have been tuesday but being the holiday on monday i can give you a better

▶ 1:33:36 Speaker 9: number but it will be probably 300 000 plus which is good news that was unanticipated again we we

▶ 1:33:43 Speaker 8: don't we can't foresee how many people take the opt out whether or not we transfers to other departments we've already covered the snow we do have public safety that we're trying to work with

▶ 1:33:53 Speaker 8: for overtime and whether or not we have to utilize resources in this budget uh become clear to me by

▶ 1:34:03 Michael P. Zwirko: wine cell i can advise the board yeah i'd appreciate to see that when you when you know yeah thank you and and the reason i raise it and apologies to not only the public yourselves and my colleagues for this long list of questions but um i mentioned earlier the transfer out it appears that we're going to be somewhere around you know potentially upwards of 350 000. um you know seeing these transfers it leads one to believe that there's there's blood that we can squeeze from this stone and my next question is going to speak to this but you know and in the discussions that we've had um the reason we budget this way is because potentially we could have um folks that are the i'll use the 106 opt-out number they could potentially all decide i no longer want to opt out i want to take the health care if that if that if that were to happen i mean could you know and again that would be drastic that that is likely not to happen and the reason I asked the question is because we need to budget in such a way that we can absorb enrollees that choose to do so versus opting out so I note this that in 20 fiscal year 2019 it's about ten point one some change which is really the Delta I believe of fiscal year 18s budget the deficit that we're facing in the opt-out account and then the difference between 18 and 19 that's that that gets you to about the 300,000 so it appears that what you've done or attempted to do is get closer and closer so that transfer out numbers getting smaller and smaller over time but to do it in such a way where you don't you don't break your bank and that's a phenomenal question

▶ 1:35:49 Speaker 9: and I appreciate it because the risk this is probably the biggest risk that

▶ 1:35:54 Speaker 9: we have for budgeting outside of the enterprise funds and the reason is that just as you indicated

▶ 1:36:04 Speaker 9: president Zwirko was the fact that the amount of change that can occur within this budget and the scope is is very large and but what i mean by that is we would

▶ 1:36:21 Speaker 9: right now we have a population of approximately 142 people that could receive benefits 115 from

▶ 1:36:29 Speaker 9: THE SCHOOL AND 27 FROM THE CITY IF THEY DECIDED TO TAKE THE UM FAMILY PLAN FOR UH THE HEALTH INSURANCE THAT WOULD OUR RISK WOULD BE AT 2.8 MILLION DOLLARS ADDITIONAL TO OUR BUDGET SO AT ANY AND EACH TIME WE ARE THAT'S HANGING OVER OUR HEAD AND THEY ARE ENTITLED BY LAW as marianne long indicated to to have insurance and one of the um attractions to this city quite frankly is the 8416 split for people that want to come here put the pay on you know the side of the door but it's a health insurance benefit is huge and as you see changes in the economy in my opinion that's going to that may bring people to to want to really you know take advantage of this wonderful plan that we offer for the little dollars that it costs the employee typically

▶ 1:37:26 Speaker 9: compared to other segments of the economy so that's a tremendous risk that we have and

▶ 1:37:33 Speaker 9: so what we did do is we did update

▶ 1:37:38 Speaker 9: the status of the account and we just did this as of this past week, the fiscal 19

▶ 1:37:51 Speaker 9: and based on what you have on the budget right now, it's $10,017,084 for the group health.

▶ 1:38:01 Speaker 8: We anticipate that that'll be about

▶ 1:38:04 Speaker 9: approximately 157,000 to the positive today.

▶ 1:38:09 Speaker 9: However, we've already would be in the negative based on the amount of people that have chosen opt out that has changed since this budget was developed. So we're 13,000 in the hole there right now. So the net's 144,000 between the two. If you add, if the school is considering adding five positions in the fall, who's to say what who will decide what insurance they will take or not take and not only that but you have people that sometimes you overlook at that a single one they come in here they get you know they get married and then they want a family plan and that happens anytime during the year so those types of things lead us to believe that we have to be sensitive to those changes we can't control them and their mandates so we do try to provide some security here to the extent that we

▶ 1:39:06 Speaker 9: can without um you know putting more than we need to in the budget but just hope we're hoping that it's going to be enough so that we don't have to come back to the board mid-year and look for a transfer to fund health insurance because the number is so huge basically it's 11.6 million dollar budget and every component is very significant when we talk about an election for example 30 some or a thousand well you had five people in health insurance you have over a hundred thousand and so when you weigh that that you know the gravity of that risk you know it's

▶ 1:39:41 Speaker 8: prudent to just be sensitive and and we have not and I'm not even going to say this but I have to

▶ 1:39:43 Speaker 9: I guess we have not had an appropriation or a revenue deficit in health almost 15 years now

▶ 1:39:56 Speaker 9: and I'm trying to maintain that and so I think what the board has done has always been reasonable and prudent and I and I want to thank the board for doing that as Colombo used

▶ 1:40:03 Michael P. Zwirko: to say there is just one more thing yes my questioning will end so you know just looking at the transfer out it's it's sometimes it's just makes your throat swallow right because that's a million dollars over the over two fiscal years so yeah you've explained the efforts you've explained some of the deficits you've explained what we're anticipating already in fiscal year 19 just please just to the extent that you can I know it's a moving target just try to stay diligent on those numbers and if we can you know winnow it down a little bit closer it's helpful because the closer we can get and I understand being prudent you know that those funds can then be put elsewhere in the general fund and hopefully reallocated to schools or something like that but appreciate all of your work and answering my numerous questions and taking the time to meet with me on this subject thank you very much those are

▶ 1:40:53 Monica C. Medeiros: all the questions I had madam chair thank you thank you thank you again for providing this breakdown of health insurance FY 18 enrollment with the FY 19 numbers we received such a breakdown last year for the first time I found it so helpful and I'm so glad to see this again and for anybody at home they who's looking at the budget order number 2018 dash 183 it is also available to it and so this this shows the breakdown it takes this big huge health insurance number that's kind of hard to understand what does that mean and it it breaks it down by department so I I personally found that to be very helpful and and I was hoping that I know we spoke a little bit if you can sort of explain the difference where somebody could see like the difference for instance in the numbers for number of employees versus the the city share versus the cost so for instance just looking at the first two Aldermanic has one and the mayor's office has one understood and they have two different numbers but the the city pays the same health insurance percent correct there's different cost of plans

▶ 1:42:13 Speaker 7: Yes. So as we alluded to, we pay 84% towards active non-Medicare plans, and that's across the board. It doesn't matter whether you're in a union or you're non-union or you're a department head. It doesn't matter. It's 84% that we contribute to active non-Medicare plans the difference in costs that you see again goes back to what I had described earlier that we have 11 different options for the active non Medicare plans and that their costs are different based on networks and they actually advertise that the Group Insurance Commission makes sure that people understand they're paying for for network so if they're willing to go to a more narrow network then it's less expensive if someone enrolls in a broader network it's more expensive so using um this as an example and the department is literally the departments um as an example aldermanic from this particular group as of 5 7 there was one and the city contributed approximately $15,000 towards that plan and the employee in that aldermanic group contributed 2,900 in the year for a total cost of eighteen thousand three hundred and forty nine the next line with the mayor I just want to point out that isn't the mayor our mayor isn't enrolled in health insurance with the city of Melrose that is a member of the mayor's office that is enrolled in a plan it happens to be a broader network plan so hence the higher cost does that answer what you were asking yes because I think it could be

▶ 1:44:14 Monica C. Medeiros: in you know confusing to see yes it's one employee but it's it's a different dollar and it's not necessarily that those are you know neither of those numbers for instance are part-time those are those are family plans and there's just a difference in cost based on yes network of almost six thousand dollars

▶ 1:44:37 Speaker 7: correct so that by choice and let let me say alderman's work Oh mentioned that we are in compliance with the law the law dictates that anyone who works 20 hour and again this is across Massachusetts anyone who works 20 hours or more within the Commonwealth or within municipalities is entitled to benefits the majority of our employees are far above that we have I don't know if we have any that quite frankly work that those few hours so I think they're

▶ 1:45:16 Monica C. Medeiros: usually full-time employees I'm glad you address it because yeah questions I think I do see that we have 260 benefit eligible employees so of those employees they're at least are there any that or if you could maybe bring it back to know the number of those that say maybe work less than a full week here is

▶ 1:45:41 Speaker 7: about 35 hours again it depends upon the department so within the fire department it's 42 hours within the police department it's 38 hours within the Department of Public Works it's 40 hours within City Hall it's 35 and the majority well DPW police and fire all full-time there you know there just aren't part-time positions but I'm sorry your question was of of those 260

▶ 1:46:06 Monica C. Medeiros: benefit eligible say how many of those employees work fewer than 35 hours a

▶ 1:46:15 Speaker 7: week scheduled I couldn't answer that right now I would have to get back to

▶ 1:46:20 Monica C. Medeiros: you that would be fine sure and again I do think that's very helpful this this

▶ 1:46:28 Monica C. Medeiros: breakdown it was really kind of eye-opening when you see how many employees that we are included in this health insurance budget that are actually retirees and of this we have 738 out of the 204 sorry out of 738 individuals out of a total of 1241 so well more than half who are retirees that we're providing health insurance for in this budget so we have we have an

▶ 1:47:03 Speaker 7: obligation to provide health insurance we have an obligation yes so that's

▶ 1:47:11 Monica C. Medeiros: that's really significant yes and we have talked a little bit about the possibility of looking at an opt-out program for retirees and I believe in

▶ 1:47:24 Monica C. Medeiros: our discussions as something that you you've done some preliminary review of and synopsize this that it may not be beneficial for the Medicare eligible

▶ 1:47:41 Speaker 7: employees but you're going to take a look at yes yeah so when we initially rolled out the opt-out program we we actually spoke to many other communities And quite frankly, I took as many policies as they were willing to give me. And so we worked with about 15 or 16 different communities, and none of them offered it to retirees. And I asked them why, and I find this to be true here as well. We all know that within municipal government, the benefits for retirees are fairly rich and quite unusual, I would say, out of other industries, or in comparison with other industries. However, we will consider, you've asked, that we take a look at the possibility of offering an opt-out program for our non-Medicare retirees. And we can do that, again, it's a very small number. majority of our retirees are eligible for medicare so it may not have the impact we'd like but we

▶ 1:48:58 Monica C. Medeiros: will certainly take a look at it and i appreciate that i think it is worth taking a look at it you know as we've discussed that sometimes only a few employees can make a big difference in this

▶ 1:49:12 Monica C. Medeiros: the who is eligible whether it be retirees or whether it be active employees for health insurance that's dictated by by law by law yeah so it's not necessarily a

▶ 1:49:24 Speaker 7: practice it absolutely is not and that's a that's a huge misconception and I and I often hear this in the public the city of Melrose does not decide who to provide benefits to it is all dictated by state law all of it and so some some

▶ 1:49:43 Monica C. Medeiros: individuals can be quite young and be retirees because some of the the state and municipal service is built upon the number of years that you serve not as much by age so you know in particular I think there is possibility that you know if that younger group of retirees you know we may find some of those who are on family plans and who possibly may have the option through their spouse who may still be employed to understood or through other employment perhaps that you have that's sort of this you know post employment employment yeah not through the public sector or not through the you know retirees yeah I appreciate that and I'm hopeful that you know we may be able to find some some savings and I think you know to some of the questions about you know why did it take little bit of time to have people choose the opt-out and I think some of it is a matter of trust and knowing that you know is this is this does this really work it's you know and this is scary it's your health insurance it's your health care you know can be a matter of life or death sometimes which doctor you see which you know medicines you take which hospital you go to and so it's it's it's very significant and it's something that you know employees don't take lightly something that we as a city don't take lightly and make sure that we provide the best benefits this as mr. de la Rosa said it can definitely be a budget buster as this this budget we are a little bit higher by paying 84 percent than many of the surrounding communities one of the reasons for that that for emails people may not know that Melrose was the first city to negotiate with all its employee unions to join the GIC the group in 2009 in 2009 and this budget that we're seeing our total health contractual that we're voting on tonight eleven million six hundred fifty one thousand four hundred sixty one dollars and seventy nine cents there were times when this budget was actually

▶ 1:52:06 Speaker 7: higher significantly higher 17 million so when when I looked back and when our last year of being enrolled in Blue Cross Blue Shield which was in 2009 we transferred to GIC July 1 2009 I believe it was it was over 12 million dollars over two and that was just ten years ago and just we're still below that just the goal I think we should all be really proud of that I think we've done very

▶ 1:52:39 Monica C. Medeiros: well in managing it no I think so too and you know we thank our employees

▶ 1:52:44 Speaker 8: because absolutely is it perfect for sure and and that's really been

▶ 1:52:48 Monica C. Medeiros: something that's been able to keep us level service funded over the years and and really make a huge difference in if I may was one of the saving acts that we

▶ 1:52:59 Speaker 8: took well over a million dollars plus by that change alone so that absolutely was

▶ 1:53:14 Monica C. Medeiros: what we needed particularly at that time so we appreciate that I wanted to talk a little bit about how we talked a little bit during the human resources budget about this, but maybe Mr. Dolores can explain this a little bit more, and I know you spoke in the school department budget that some of the health insurance, we provide the health insurance through this budget for all employees, including the school department employees. Can you explain how, and according to the breakdown here, we have 315 employees in the school department for a total cost of the city share of the city share portion four million one hundred eighty three thousand one hundred forty two dollars and ninety six cents can you explain how that is calculated and how and how that affects some of the reporting that we have to do for the per pupil spending and some of the reporting that we do to desi and and where does that fit in that's not in the school budget but it's in this budget great question and what we

▶ 1:54:18 Speaker 9: have a fortunate through HR effort to as well have a program called benefit tracker and what

▶ 1:54:33 Speaker 9: it does is just that enables us to make a very factual report each year that indicates the expenditure for the city side the school side the retirees active employees and

▶ 1:54:50 Speaker 9: it's like it breaks it down by city and school departments so we do is we're

▶ 1:54:59 Speaker 9: able to take that report as it's prepared because we have modified to the point that it literally speaks for itself if you want to if I can say that here and we send that report to the Department of Education in support of our schedule 1 and schedule 19 schedule 1 and schedule 19 and reports that indicate how much the city has actually spent in the prior year and what they're projecting to spend in the upcoming year so we have to demonstrate to the Commonwealth as well as to the outside auditors because even this year they They asked me for that exact report year after year. They come in and do an audit basically on that type of information that we report to the Commonwealth to show that we have to have solid footing as to why we're using those figures. And that report that we prepare through benefit tracker literally gives us that solid footing because it gives the detailed person by person and it supports the data that we provide Department of Ed and it's very consistent year after year and I'm actually glad you asked that because without that report would be doing a lot more work so getting that benefit track system in here has really paid dividends absolutely and it's become more efficient for us to answer those

▶ 1:56:23 Monica C. Medeiros: questions and superintendent a more had mentioned that some of the retiree costs are now allocated to the school and not yes what they do is even on the

▶ 1:56:37 Speaker 9: retirement system we produce a report that outlines the cost for non teachers

▶ 1:56:49 Speaker 9: that is paid ie through the retirement system so that there's a report that is provided by the retirement board that gives us that section of information for the you know report for the Department of Ed so you're exactly right

▶ 1:57:05 Monica C. Medeiros: so that report also is prepared and then can you speak about as we know that many

▶ 1:57:12 Monica C. Medeiros: of the employees who are maybe employed by the water department or former employees the this

▶ 1:57:21 Monica C. Medeiros: budget is partially funded through indirect costs from the water and sewer rates absolutely correct how do we determine in in i know we don't see a specific breakdown here um can we get a breakdown of of what is going what's being attributed to the water and sewer back as indirect costs or

▶ 1:57:46 Speaker 9: any of the other enterprise funds yes if i made through the chair that the um if you look in your budget book the materials that have been provided there's a worksheet that spreads out and it gives you the water and so on and it indicates the number of employees and the cost for health insurance pension etc so what happens is the uh let's say there's nine employees in the

▶ 1:58:09 Speaker 9: SOAR department and we we actually go go through the process of determining which plans these

▶ 1:58:18 Speaker 8: employees are under what percentage etc and that cost is put on the water also enterprise

▶ 1:58:25 Speaker 9: respectfully and that cost actually funds the health insurance budget for their share of the expense so there is a direct correlation the same for ambulance and Mount Hood okay and that's

▶ 1:58:34 Monica C. Medeiros: something that that was changed sort of a number of years ago before most of these costs were actually um or a larger portion of these costs were actually still funded by the city and over

▶ 1:58:52 Speaker 9: time more has been shifted to the indirect costs uh used to know back in 2013 when we had the

▶ 1:59:02 Speaker 9: department of revenue here to discuss the deficit we had in the soil enterprise it was determination was made that we have to be more consistent with our indirect cost and allocate it in such a way

▶ 1:59:18 Speaker 9: that it's would be representative of what the actual cost is to run the operation so we utilize the actual worksheet from the department of revenue each year that outlines each different

▶ 1:59:27 Speaker 8: discipline whether it's a legal department the auditing treasurer collector we utilize that form

▶ 1:59:38 Speaker 9: every year we submit that to the state they take our information and they use it to formulate the tax recap each year for each fund separately each each is done separately and every bit that we

▶ 1:59:52 Monica C. Medeiros: are doing that that is funds that can be used for other things in our operating budget um

▶ 1:59:59 Monica C. Medeiros: like the schools for instance like if we're able to say that if we pass costs through as indirect costs back to the water and sewer rates that does open up some additional funds that may not have

▶ 2:00:16 Speaker 9: been available uh well no not really only in the sense that once you adopt an enterprise fund chapter 44 section 53 f and a half it's very rigid as to what you can and can't do those funds can only be used for water can only be used for source ambulance but it does it does

▶ 2:00:38 Speaker 9: also provide that benefit to reduce the risk on the general function those

▶ 2:00:44 Speaker 8: operations not be positive at the end of the year and last but last but not least

▶ 2:00:53 Monica C. Medeiros: hopefully are we doing any kind of programs like wellness programs for our employees or things that we can you know focus on making them move more be more

▶ 2:01:11 Speaker 7: healthy so that hopefully they have lesser costs historically we have done this however again and i i don't mean to make this sound as if i'm i'm giving an excuse but the funds don't exist within the human resources department to do this the budget that's before you the hr department budget is approximately ten thousand dollars um and it's all allocated to some to very specific items um so the the staffing and the funds do not exist and and again i apologize if i sound as if i'm making an excuse i don't i'm just attempting to be factual i'm wondering if sometimes some of the

▶ 2:01:50 Monica C. Medeiros: the funds and programs may be available through the health insurance provider they are so every

▶ 2:01:59 Speaker 7: um there are incentives as well so every single insurance plan offers what they refer to as fitness incentives and then they have fitness reimbursements and then they also the 11 plans that we have they contract weight watchers they contract with various gyms they contract with the y across the cities so a lot of our employees access that and i know that because they were they ask us you know how do i do this how do i get my fitness reimbursement so that's um so our employees definitely take advantage of that yes thank you very much and um i guess i should also

▶ 2:02:44 Monica C. Medeiros: ask what's available do all the plans have something available for substance abuse oh yes

▶ 2:02:53 Speaker 7: treatments and yes behavioral health is what they refer to it as behavioral and mental health and it's a very large part and in fact that's one of the changes that the group insurance commission just made is they had different vendors for different plans and they've consolidated that

▶ 2:03:12 Monica C. Medeiros: under one vendor yes and actually uh in terms of the interface the hotline um do you get data back

▶ 2:03:21 Speaker 7: and have you found that helpful um i'm not sure i understand what you're referring to so we have

▶ 2:03:29 Monica C. Medeiros: uh contracted with a kind of a service called interface in which people from the public can call for uh referral services for different things and many of them could be sort of uh it could be members of the public as well as it could be through the health department through the public

▶ 2:03:43 Speaker 7: health department yeah i wouldn't be able to answer that um i believe that is funneled through

▶ 2:03:54 Monica C. Medeiros: the pup through the class yes okay i wasn't sure if you get any kind of feedback from i have not very good thank you very much you're welcome alderman mcmaster thank you madam chair thank

▶ 2:04:02 Shawn M. MacMaster: you both for being here how is the 84 contribution determined for how long has that been in effect and how does it compare to municipalities in the area so anything to do with health insurance

▶ 2:04:14 Speaker 7: within the city of melrose the administration has to bargain with our public employee committee which is all of the union presidents including the school representatives so So when we entered the Group Insurance Commission, or we enrolled in the Group Insurance Commission in 2009, the GIC requires that we have an agreement with our unions, and that agreement is then accepted by the GIC. Our contribution rate at that point in 2009 was, I believe it was 87%, and through negotiations we reduced it to 84%. So the contribution rate has to be bargained with our union presidents, and it's referred to as decisional bargaining. So if they don't agree, then we can't just unilaterally increase their contribution rates. And that's the purpose of the PEC. So that's where it came from. We negotiated at that point. And then I'm sorry, what was your other question?

▶ 2:05:35 Shawn M. MacMaster: How does that rate compare to other municipalities in the area?

▶ 2:05:38 Speaker 7: I haven't actually looked in this last year how it compares. i know um we're probably well i i want to say we're probably higher than many surrounding towns but then again um i recall seeing contributions of 90 percent so i don't have that information right now it's it's something that i could get if you if you're patient with me yeah can provide to us yes sure i will do so thank you thank you madam chair thank you any other alderman

▶ 2:06:20 Monica C. Medeiros: wishing to speak for the first time yes actually sorry we have uh one thing which is a big one that i forgot to mention so um the mayor has announced that the um the alderman will no longer be health insurance eligible and yes i think it's important to to that we publicly talk about that uh a vote was taken um many years prior that um ex excluded the alderman from receiving health insurance i think it was either 2004 2005. um but at some point after the change of the affordable care act i believe it i'm not sure mayor dolan had provided a letter saying that yes again through

▶ 2:07:03 Speaker 7: the group insurance commission um the the gic has very specific regulations which we must abide by and as it relates to elected officials it is the mayor's not prerogative the the mayor's direction on whether or not elected officials in any city or town is eligible for health insurance So when Mayor Dolan, many years ago, I don't remember the specific year, made the decision that he would allow elected officials to join the group insurance commission, given the current economic forecast, Mayor Inferno decided it was best not to allow elected officials to be. and these are only active elected officials anyone who is retired by law they are eligible to enroll in our health insurance and we have no power or authority to prevent that whatsoever so it's and it was only one member of the

▶ 2:08:19 Monica C. Medeiros: board that was active there was one active member of this correct and so as of july one in the new fiscal year that will not be here and that was some of the funds that she

▶ 2:08:31 Speaker 10: used to increase the school budget as i understand it yeah because she reduced the health insurance

▶ 2:08:37 Speaker 10: budget even more correct thank you thank you welcome alderman mortimer well are you going

▶ 2:08:44 Peter D. Mortimer: to get a motion first and then have discussion are we looking for a motion i would take one but

▶ 2:08:49 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: But you have the floor if you'd like.

▶ 2:08:51 Peter D. Mortimer: All right, thank you very much. Obliquely, the Aldermanic Health Insurance has been referred to, and I'm a retiree. I could have walked away, taken my health insurance, but I got re-elected because I wanted to continue to serve Melrose. There's been little oblique references and hints made about this tonight, so I'm going to respond. I was going to keep quiet until about three minutes ago, but I feel that I must say something.

▶ 2:09:29 Peter D. Mortimer: The automatic insurance, as you pointed out, might be a $15,000 contribution from a budget that's over $80 million, 71, and then when you kick in the enterprise funds, it's an $80 million budget, and an $11 million budget for health insurance.

▶ 2:09:52 Peter D. Mortimer: And 15,000 that the city might contribute to an alderman, and one alderman was just kicked off it. Last year we had several aldermen who were on it. I can't be kicked off it, because I retired, because I protected myself and my family, because I saw what was coming down. The state and the federal government gives us less and less. So they got us down here fighting for the scraps, turning against each other. 15,000 in health insurance for somebody who's worth the money and I'm gonna get to that in a minute somebody who's worth the money so they have us down here

▶ 2:10:33 Peter D. Mortimer: fight for the scraps and it's it's really not appropriate this has been a complaint of a very few people very few but loud and vocal and very public and they're complaining about the fact that Alderman McNaught get benefits. In spite of this, the public have approved of the Alderman getting the health insurance that they earned because every time I run in spite of this minority of people who complain about it, but in a very loud and vocal public manner, I get reelected in a landslide because the people know what I do, and that I'm worth my salt, and that I carry my weight, and I'm well worth it, and the people speak. I've heard people, the vocal minority, approach me, part of the job, but they grab me in the street and feel it's fine to brace me in an aggressive manner and talk to me disrespectfully, and they'll tell me that people are going to speak at the next election. Well, every time the people have spoken, and every time

▶ 2:11:46 Peter D. Mortimer: I win in a landslide. Not one person came down here to speak at public participation. Not one about the all-demand in health insurance. Not one came down here. So I get elected at landslides every time and not one person comes down here. So the public has approved of it. And this is the type of job where, yeah, I'm applying for Social Security this year, but But I still want to, I'm getting Social Security this year. And I'm retired, but I could have walked away, but I still choose for $5,000 a year to serve my city. The health insurance is in the bank for me. That's in the bank by state law. But I still want to do this for $5,000 a year. Which comes down to, I easily work over 20 hours a week, which is the state law threshold.

▶ 2:12:38 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Alderman Mortimer, I want to give you the chance to talk about the retiree benefit, and that's okay, but we do need to keep to the actual budget and not our personal finances.

▶ 2:12:46 Peter D. Mortimer: Well, this is personal finances because it's been referenced as how much do they put in. We've allowed some latitude here tonight. We have an alderman spoke over 10 minutes, which is required by our rules that no one is supposed to speak more than 20 minutes. And in the last couple of weeks, more than 10 minutes, and it's happened a few times in the last couple of weeks, and and you've let that go um we've had um an alderman who spoke twice and technically under our rules you're not supposed to speak twice under rule 13 unless the board takes a vote and approves of it so i'm talking about my personal compensation but it's been referenced i didn't bring it up so i would like you and i think it's only fair that you give me the latitude to address this because yes it's my personal finance but yes i'm part of this budget and yes it is part of the city budget my compensation package so i really wish under this open policy of people speaking multiply events even though it's against the rules i wish you would give me the latitude to respond please wrap up no i've been speaking for four minutes i've been ten i i should get ten minutes

▶ 2:13:59 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: you have you have the floor it needs to be relevant to our vote tonight it is relevant to

▶ 2:14:02 Peter D. Mortimer: to the vote tonight. It is most definitely relevant to the vote tonight.

▶ 2:14:10 Speaker 1: So,

▶ 2:14:11 Peter D. Mortimer: another thing that has to happen with this job that's unlike other jobs is we have to reapply for this job every two years through one of the most difficult interview processes anyone has to go through, which is called running for election or reelection. It's one of the most difficult interview process you have to go through. And on top of the thousands of hours that we put in, in 18 years, I put in thousands and thousands of hours working as an alderman for this compensation. But then you have to put in hundreds and hundreds of hours reapplying for the job. And if you don't reapply for it and get the job enough times, then you don't get to be a retiree. So every time that happens, it goes on. 18 years ago, nearly 18 years ago, I made a deal, a contract with the state and federal government, which is part of the budget

▶ 2:15:12 Peter D. Mortimer: as you mentioned numerous times, and the deal was that if I worked a certain number of years and got reelected and reapplied and caught getting and reached a certain age, I would be able to be a retiree. I kept my part of the deal. I kept my part of the deal. I've been a good and earnest alderman. I have the best rate of attendance in this room, and I'm the senior alderman over the longest number of years, and I'm never late. I've been late once in 18 years. So I'm a good and earnest alderman. I kept my part of the deal, and I expect the state government and the city government to keep their promise and keep their part of the deal. That's only fair. We earn it. We earn this money that's paid for through this budget. People don't understand maybe what an alderman does for our compensation that's part of this budget. It's like an iceberg. They might see 20% of the iceberg that floats above the surface at these meetings. But they don't see the other 80% that happens underneath that aldermen have to go to conservation and traffic commission meetings, month in and month out ZBA meetings to speak on behalf of their constituents it's something we do we go on site visits where there's a tree or a telephone pole or a curb or a problem with the roads that we have to address this is a seven day a week job people step up to us at Shaw's at the gym at the Y in coffee shops at Whole Foods Even in restaurants, even out for a fancy dinner at an expensive restaurant in Melrose, people will step up to us and ask us. This is a seven-day-a-week job, and we've earned it. We've earned this money, and we earn it every day. You know, the mayor's salary, which is part of this budget, is $125,000 a year. And if you break that down into 50 weeks, that's about $2,500 a week. That's about $2,500 a week. And when you take that number, it comes out to $50 an hour for a 50-hour week. So in part of this budget that the mayor makes $50 an hour, now you take our compensation, $5,000 a year. You break that down, it comes down to $100 a week. Not $2,500 a week like the mayor makes. It's $100 a week to be an alderman. And if you figure we work 20 hours a week, which I easily work on this budget, on being an alderman, 20 hours a week, it comes down to $5 an hour. I could make more stocking shelves at Walmart. It's less than half of minimum wage. so it's it's not right that people say you know how much is this and how much is that people complain about other city employees to me too they say oh they have summers off and I stick up for them and I'm definitely don't agree they say they they're off five days a week some other cities and I stick up for them but the difference is they stick up for each other and I stick up for them too and I totally disagree with the people who criticize those other city employees but why Why are aldermen, oh, aldermen, like this is some kind of, our part of the budget is some kind of exercise and we're just down here fooling around. Well, we're not. This is hard work. Melrose is a great city, and the lion's share of that credit for the last 18 years goes to Mayor Dolan. But everyone here, especially, I've been the longest serving alderman, we're part and parcel of that success too, as were you and as were you. We're all entitled to our compensation. This is a seven day a week job. I had somebody, and I will wrap up with this, Madam Chair. Thank you for the latitude. I had a person call me up on a weekend. They had to get out, and it was a plow route that wasn't one of our approximate 30 plow routes that get subbed out to people with a pickup truck and a plow. We subbed them out. It was one of the routes that we have to do with our own bucket loader, because it was on a steep hill. They called me, I gotta get out, I gotta get to work. It's on a Saturday for second shift. I said, okay, I'll call DPW. Called, yep, we'll get in there as fast as we can. Of course, called me again, called me again. Four times in five hours, because they said I have to go to work. I said, you might have to walk down to Lebanon Street and grab a taxi. This is, it was two years ago with 106 inches. I said, this is a historic storm. We might not get out of this. And the gentleman said, well, I'm gonna call the mayor. I'm gonna call the mayor at home. I said, well, you just go right ahead. His phone number's in the book. I'm doing the best I can for you. And then he paused for a minute and then he said, oh, I would never call the mayor at home on a weekend. And I said, you just called me at home four times in the last five hours. And he said, oh yeah, I guess you're right. So I don't want anyone to think that we don't earn our compensation. The people have approved it. The people have approved it time after time. There are spouses of retired aldermen who are still on the health insurance, and because their spouses earned it for them, and they earned it for their families, and we earn it, the public has approved it, and we're worth every cent. If you wanna have a good city, you have to have good aldermen. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Thank you.

▶ 2:21:01 Speaker 6: Do we have a motion? Motion to approve the bottom line.

▶ 2:21:03 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: second a motion to approve the bottom line made by president Zwirko seconded by alderman forbes

▶ 2:21:09 Speaker 2: any further discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed motion to adjourn madam chair second