ORDER-2016-158 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2017 in the amount of 75,328,574.79 (Seventy-Five Million, Three Hundred Twenty-Eight Thousand, Five Hundred Seventy-Four Dollars and Seventy-Nine Cents)

Transcript (~8 min @ 22:22)

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▶ 22:19 Speaker 1: close public participation mr. president Alderman Mortimer moves to conclude public participation second motion seconded by Alderman Lemmerman on the motion all those in favor all right anyone opposed motion passes public participation portion of our meeting is concluded order 2016 dash 158 city of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2017 in the amount of 75 million three hundred twenty eight thousand five hundred seventy four dollars 79 cents

▶ 22:51 Peter D. Mortimer: Mortimer mr. president I make a motion to move the bottom line of 75 million $328,574.79. Second. Alderman Mortimer moves to accept the bottom line as stated in the order. The motion is seconded by Alderman Inferna.

▶ 23:10 Speaker 1: Is there discussion relative to this order? Alderman Medeiros.

▶ 23:13 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank the mayor and staff and all the members here tonight. It's hard to talk after Mr. Mraz. Thanks. Thanks. I just wanted to say a few words and say that, you know, one thing that I've particularly tried to do this budget process, and I hope that we can do moving forward, we have a virtual budget, but it's to try to really kind of open up the process even a little bit more to the next step. We have such great tools with technology right now that we can see so much on the web. And I know there's plenty of people who, you know, just feel like we the aldermen should, you know, basically just get it done. You know, that's what we're here for and they're, you know, at home living their lives. But there are certainly some people who would like to look into this a little bit more. And it is, you know, it is our government. It is a public breathing open. It should be open. So, you know, I appreciate that our particular our clerk of committees who, you know, mostly puts everything up on the web and, you know, try to kind of look at we do have a budget and it's not just paid for by our property taxes. There's a lot of different funding sources including some indirect costs coming in from our water and sewer accounts and from our other enterprise accounts. There's, know certainly grant money and collection money and you know I hope we do look at that I to that end I would like to in a minute I'm going to move to

▶ 24:58 Monica C. Medeiros: add mr. del Russo's email actually I'm sorry miss Harrington's email with the

▶ 25:08 Monica C. Medeiros: information about the school budget that we saw this year where our school budget that we voted on and the line item that we voted on as aldermen was twenty five million seven hundred twenty five thousand six hundred twenty eight dollars and ninety cents while the budget that was presented to us from the school department was twenty eight million eight hundred seventy eight eight hundred seventy four thousand one hundred and forty dollars so that's a difference of a little bit over three million dollars and it's not actually coming out of our budget per se out of the operating budget and and a lot of those costs are coming from various revolving accounts and circuit breaker funds and so on so I'd like to move the email that states that that we can find the information and the public can find the information about where that's coming from on pages 9 and 10 of the school budget in the school budget

▶ 26:09 Speaker 1: department website could you identify the the maker of the email and the date

▶ 26:14 Monica C. Medeiros: of the emails that was a miss Mary Beth Harrington Thursday June 16th at 11 37

▶ 26:20 Speaker 1: a.m. Alvin Medeiros moves that that ordered that document be accepted as part of the record of the budget process is there a second second second by all the boys L is there any discussion on the motion all those in favor motion

▶ 26:34 Monica C. Medeiros: passes and with that I thank you and thank you any further discussion

▶ 26:40 Speaker 1: Altman's work oh thank you mr. president for me going through this process as the

▶ 26:46 Michael P. Zwirko: first time it was a eye-opening it was also I learned a lot made a few procedural mistakes along the way but enjoyed the process and being able to vet portions of this budget and speaking with the administrators and department

▶ 27:07 Michael P. Zwirko: as well no budget I truly feel is perfect it's the same time I don't think we should allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good there are some good things in this budget you know routinely we have shortfalls in certain areas whether it's from state or federal funding we have mandates that we have to meet we have problems that always seem to creep up I'm really happy that in the mayor's budget that was proposed there's funding for the substance abuse prevention coordinator I think that's something that's this city greatly needs I'm really happy to support that and it's a probably long overdue but it's it's a problem that is occurring across the country and I'm glad that we're taking steps to to fight it all them just mentioned that there are other

▶ 27:51 Michael P. Zwirko: costs in this budget there are you know we do have receipts that come in we do have state funding we do a federal funding so it's not just property taxes if we go to the levy limit every year we're still going to be at a shortfall so we're dependent on a lot of sources we're dependent on growth we're dependent on a lot of things I just wanted to say that I appreciated the process I appreciated my colleagues in this process and I more work needs to be done certainly on my own part I learned a lot but you know I get to have another go at it this fall in this year we rely on some funding sources that arguably maybe we shouldn't as much as we do and I am still overwhelmingly proud of the new position that we've created as well as the work that went in here so it's just really a comment overall I appreciate the time anyone else could

▶ 28:50 Speaker 1: Could you call the roll, please, Ms. O'Shea? Alderman Boisselle. Yes. Yes, Alderman Forbes. Yes. Yes, Alderman Inferna. Yes. Yes, Alderman Lemmerman. Yes. Yes, Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Yes. Yes, Alderman Medeiros. Yes. Yes, Alderman Mortimer. Yes. Yes, Alderman Tramontozzi. Yes. Yes, Alderman Zwirko. Yes. Yes, President Conn. Yes. Yes, 10 yes. That order passes. Mr. President, I make a motion for passage for order 2016-158. Yeah, could we read the order first, please?

▶ 29:26 Speaker 1: City of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2017 in the amount of 75,300,000. I'm sorry, he's making a motion relative to the water enterprise budget, I believe. 158. You want 158 or 158? No, 158. First I move the acceptance of the amount, and then I'm moving for passage of the underlying order. Alderman Bonham will move for passage of the budget. Is there a second? Second. Motion seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. any discussion before we call the roll on passage of the budget could you call the roll please alderman Boisselle yes yes alderman forbes yes yes salomon inferno yes yes alderman Lemmerman yes yes alderman mcateen margolis yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes president kahn yes yes 10 yes that order passes order 2016-159 water enterprise operating budget for fiscal year 2017 in the amount of five million three hundred thirty seven thousand four hundred ninety five dollars eight cents this order was recommended for passage by the Appropriations Committee is there discussion relative to this order motion motion for passage on this order second Alderman Mortimer moves passage of the order the motion is seconded by Alderman forbes is the discussion on the motion associate could you call the role please