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 (~1 h 16 min @ 1:03:25)

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

▶ 1:02:59 Peter D. Mortimer: public wishing to come forward to be heard at this time? Seeing none, is there a motion from the board, please? Motion to close public participation. Second. Alderman Forbes has made a motion to close public participation for the Appropriations Committee for this evening. Said motion was duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public participation is closed. We will now take up the business at hand for the Appropriations

▶ 1:03:34 Peter D. Mortimer: Committee this evening. We are presently engaged in our budget season, working on the budget. It is Order 2016-158, City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2017, in the amount of 75 million three hundred and twenty eight thousand five hundred and seventy four dollars and seventy nine cents the first budget Department number 161 that we have before us tonight is the city clerk budget Is there a motion to suspend the rules, please? So move mr. Alderman Forbes has made a motion to suspend the rules Duly seconded by alderman lemmerman all in favor. Please say aye aye any opposed hearing none we are under suspension and we will ask our city clerk Mary Rita O'Shea to come before us so we may discuss the city clerk budget in the amount of two hundred and seventy three thousand eight hundred and twenty eight dollars and twenty two cents good evening miss O'Shea nice to see you would you like to make an opening statement well the budget in

▶ 1:04:44 Speaker 4: front of you um well all right well maybe what i'll do is um maybe i'll start off and just let

▶ 1:04:57 Speaker 1: you know the function of the city clerk's office i'll give you a brief rundown births and deaths we process 1 912. marriage intentions 52 amendments to vital records 42

▶ 1:05:12 Speaker 1: uh business certificates 23 board of appeal cases 11 common vicula 41 second hand deal of five

▶ 1:05:26 Speaker 1: class one and two licenses nine flammables 46 taxi seven livery three and dogs 1883 dollars

▶ 1:05:34 Speaker 1: and then last but not least the board of alderman legislative orders approximately 200 annual and then there's board meetings and minutes so just that's just

▶ 1:05:46 Speaker 1: a brief rundown of my office and now to go over the budget there's just a few

▶ 1:05:54 Speaker 1: line items that have a slight increase in them the printing went from 1180 to

▶ 1:05:59 Speaker 1: 1500 because we're using more security paper due to increased volume of vital records dog maintenance went from 700 to 800 maintenance agreement went up in the cost and we have more dogs so we need more licensing dogs so we need more dog tags and then professional services there's been an increase 7,000 is to compensate for Ruth's reduction in her hours because she never was brought up

▶ 1:06:32 Speaker 5: back up to 30 hours a week so she works 25 hours a week within my office 4,650

▶ 1:06:39 Speaker 1: is to cover for vacations for my office staff Mary Rita Susan and Ruth in 2000 is supplemental help when we process the dog licenses January and February so that brings it to thirteen thousand six hundred and fifty dollars for that line item

▶ 1:07:06 Peter D. Mortimer: other than that everything is pretty much the same thank you very much ms o'shea is there a motion motion to recommend second we have a motion to recommend this order from alderman Boisselle this budget from alderman Boisselle duly seconded by alderman mcintyre margolis and on discussion the first to show her hand is alderman Medeiros i'm sorry that was motion was seconded by alderman Medeiros and you are the first to have the floor please proceed thank you i just wanted to ask if

▶ 1:07:31 Monica C. Medeiros: you could talk a little bit about um the the recode that's recodification every code where

▶ 1:07:40 Speaker 1: we stand with that yeah so we're in the final process with the final very end now and city

▶ 1:07:49 Speaker 1: solicitor and i plan to have we're working this summer to finalize it and then we should have a

▶ 1:07:57 Speaker 5: draft in september and then go before the board of argument to accept okay great thank you thank

▶ 1:08:02 Peter D. Mortimer: you very much alderman materos alderman inferno please thank you very much mr chairman just a

▶ 1:08:05 Speaker 5: quick question could you explain the printing increase again yeah for security we have security paper that we use um for our vital records so there's been an increase in vital records it's

▶ 1:08:17 Gail Infurna: a special paper that you special paper that we have to use because i mean i know we're trying to go paperless so i wasn't quite sure i just wanted to make sure you were paperless in the office more or less and but if that's a special order for yes security paper okay thank you

▶ 1:08:34 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you alderman inferno are there any other aldermen wishing to be heard seeing none there is a motion to recommend this budget for passage duly seconded all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this budget will be recommended to the full board for passage thank you for your attendance excuse me you may as well stay right in the chair because our next budget is for the election and registrar office which offers your office overseas good evening this is lindy linda angiolillo linda lee angiolillo who is here before us as our election commissioner good evening would you like to make an opening statement ms angiolillo angiolillo thank you very much thank you the only thing um i think is our

▶ 1:09:24 Speaker 5: programming that went up a lot um and that depends that's just a fee um no that actually went down um So, I mean, I don't have anything to say if anyone has questions on anything on it.

▶ 1:09:40 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much. Are there any questions or comments from any of the aldermen?

▶ 1:09:48 Speaker 3: Motion to move the bottom line. I have a question.

▶ 1:09:53 Peter D. Mortimer: Okay. Would you mind? I'd like to take the motion first. We have a motion to move the bottom line for this budget. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. discussion first in line we have alderman Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis

▶ 1:10:09 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: thank you mr. chairman thank you for coming I know I remember last year you're saying you were having difficulty getting people to work at the polls has you taken that into consideration with this budget are you offering any more incentive or free lunch or anything like that senior center you know offer free lunch and most cities and towns do offer free lunch so if you would like to throw that in there I'd be more than happy to see what we can do yeah now the poll

▶ 1:10:40 Speaker 5: workers we hire 86 as you know for each election and it is tougher and tough because we tougher and tougher each time because they have to work a 14-hour day and we only pay them 120 dollars for the entire day but we always pull through so we find people and hopefully we would love to go part-time and do but then we need double that so we go election to election is it required that they work the whole shift the only reason it is is because we can't find anyone I mean and most of them love it I mean they love the social aspect of it but it is a long

▶ 1:11:23 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: day so you haven't increase you haven't made any increases or anything like that for the next year or no that's the time salary movie for the poll workers so we haven't increased that at all we are looking for more office staff with early

▶ 1:11:40 Speaker 5: voting becoming them an issue for this November well maybe we can see if we can

▶ 1:11:42 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: for the presidential election do something about that thank you mr.

▶ 1:11:50 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much. Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Alderman Medeiros, please.

▶ 1:11:56 Speaker 2: Thank you. How do we stand with the voting machines?

▶ 1:11:59 Speaker 5: Well, we're going to put it off because this is going to be a crazy election year, and we're waiting to just see. I think there are probably 20 to 30 towns that have already moved into the new machines, and we're letting them figure out the bugs in it before we order them.

▶ 1:12:14 Speaker 5: so we would like to have them ordered for next spring and have them all set

▶ 1:12:25 Speaker 2: for the next local election and so that's not in this budget and it's not

▶ 1:12:28 Speaker 5: going to come out of the budget I guess I believe it was if I may chair what we

▶ 1:12:42 Speaker 4: had done is we had appropriated I believe was a hundred and seven thousand to the Capital Stabilization Fund, which will remain there until, for the election machines, which will remain there until we're asked to make that appropriation. But the money is there. It does not close the general fund. It will stay there until this board acts.

▶ 1:13:07 Speaker 2: And when we do get the machines, it will be something that is on, like, the state contract,

▶ 1:13:13 Monica C. Medeiros: or the types of machines are mandated by Secretary of State?

▶ 1:13:17 Speaker 5: Yes.

▶ 1:13:18 Monica C. Medeiros: so we'll see how it goes and you think we are in good enough shape to get through this crazy election with the existing machines we're going to rent we

▶ 1:13:24 Speaker 5: will have someone from LHS like we have the past few elections to be on hand in case something goes wrong we're going to rent a few machines like we've been doing so we're trying to stay on top of it in case something happens we have backup machines and ready to go they are going in the total of the part-time

▶ 1:13:41 Monica C. Medeiros: salary and wages that are here are for the poll workers the professional

▶ 1:13:49 Speaker 5: services are you looking at or high time salary and wages is police DPW and poll workers that's what comes out of that the pot professional services is office help that we need during election season and that possibly using constables

▶ 1:14:11 Monica C. Medeiros: instead of police to try to lessen that cost that was a contract dispute it had

▶ 1:14:16 Speaker 5: we used the constables and the auxilary for the longest time and they were only paid a flat rate just like the co-workers of a hundred and twenty dollars a day and now our budget is five to six thousand for police details thank

▶ 1:14:35 Peter D. Mortimer: you thank you very much alderman Medeiros are there any other alderman wishing to be heard at this time alderman Boyce L please the new machines

▶ 1:14:41 Robert A. Boisselle: that are being considered and so forth are these a state-of-the-art where is sort of a touchscreen type voting or is it similar to you still have to make

▶ 1:14:51 Speaker 5: your mark you still mark but everything is put into a computer and it's it's actually a slower machine but it tell tallies everything and calculates it so it's always there people are pretty they seem to be happy with it it just seems during a busy election like an election here presidential it's going it could cause lines and that's the only issue we have is a city election it shouldn't be an issue but this very good now at the Statehouse there's an initiative for

▶ 1:15:21 Robert A. Boisselle: what they call early voting and so 11 days before the actual 11 business days before the election is that coming this year are we looking at for next year I mean are we gonna see this in November so the early voting initiative will be available to the public now is this going to be an outreach by the state or by the cities or how does how do the voters find out about this and can your

▶ 1:15:57 Speaker 5: office handle an influx yeah we have no idea what's gonna happen from other states and from the way the state I'm going to a convention on Wednesday and we will discuss it in detail but other states have had 25% people that were eligible would vote out of we have 19,000 registered voters we could have 5,000 people ten days before the election coming through my office to

▶ 1:16:23 Robert A. Boisselle: vote okay that's my question I mean right now the voting is spread out to five or six schools or other areas now you're gonna have 5,000 people according to this into your office how do you gonna handle that good question

▶ 1:16:37 Speaker 5: we are hiring I put in the budget to put a full-time person in during that so that's in this budget that's in this budget okay that's in the professional services we just don't know what's gonna happen we don't know if there are gonna be lines out the door i don't know what's if we have 5 000 people you're talking only 10 days 11 days that they are allowed to vote and it's during the entire day you can't set hours you

▶ 1:17:08 Robert A. Boisselle: need to have it from the moment you open till closing well in the order that they're pushing is basically the city can adjust that to saturday operations or extended hours is that being

▶ 1:17:23 Robert A. Boisselle: considered it hasn't been but it's an option that's available to the city

▶ 1:17:27 Speaker 5: good yeah we have the staffing and the money to do it okay thank you very much

▶ 1:17:30 Robert A. Boisselle: and good luck Thank You mr. chair and Thank You alderman

▶ 1:17:37 Peter D. Mortimer: Boisselle any further alderman wishing to be heard a motion has been made to recommend this budget to the full board it has been duly seconded all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this budget will be recommended to the full board for passage thank you very much for your attendance thank you thank you the next budget that we have

▶ 1:17:59 Peter D. Mortimer: before us this evening is budget 151 it is the city solicitor's office in the amount of seven hundred and sixteen thousand five hundred and seventy nine dollars and seven cents

▶ 1:18:17 Peter D. Mortimer: Yes. Thank you for coming before us, Mr. VanCampen. This is Mr. VanCampen, our city solicitor.

▶ 1:18:23 Speaker 3: Would you like to make an opening statement, sir? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Through you to the members of the committee, I just want to report on my office's FY17 budget and just report that you'll note the bottom line is increasing 4.6 percent and the lion's share of that increase is absorbed in the liability insurance line for fy17 which is increasing by 6.1 percent we're building a

▶ 1:18:53 Speaker 4: little bit of a cushion into that line item this year as i do every year i instruct the city's insurance agent to shop around our policies to get the best price in the marketplace and this is roughly where the market is today so we're looking at approximately a five or six

▶ 1:19:12 Speaker 3: percent increase um in our insurance you will note salaries is increasing 5.3 percent that is not a

▶ 1:19:20 Speaker 4: true increase as i understand it there's a 53rd payroll week in this coming fiscal year so the increases in my office um are nothing more than natural step and cola increases it's not a 5.3 increase it's actually less than that but because we're paying for that 53rd week it shows as an

▶ 1:19:38 Speaker 3: increase in the budget all other line items mr chairman are level funded and i'll answer any

▶ 1:19:48 Peter D. Mortimer: questions that members may have thank you very much mr van kampen president khan please yeah

▶ 1:19:52 Speaker 1: mr van kampen on your your salary and wages line um what percentage of the actual salaries paid are reflected in the city solicitor budget um i would defer to mr delarusso for that uh answer

▶ 1:20:13 Speaker 1: i don't have that okay so none of the city solicitor salary and wage uh expenses are allocated to any other any other budget at this point no there is an allocation for water to store

▶ 1:20:29 Speaker 4: but it's a direct allocation it's not a direct cost though okay and how much how much i don't

▶ 1:20:37 Speaker 1: have that in front of me i can get that for you though okay well maybe we can talk about that later when we talk about the water and sewer budget this evening okay okay so so 100 of the funding for the law department is set forth in in your budget correct and of the 715 odd thousand dollars 487 is for insurance correct and that's insurance for virtually all all

▶ 1:21:03 Speaker 4: property all buildings all employment activity I think the only car vote is

▶ 1:21:07 Speaker 1: the cemetery correct other than that this covers all correct the cemetery has

▶ 1:21:15 Speaker 3: a separate policy I would just point out all the president Kahn mentioned the insurance question you'll note that at the bottom there's a miscellaneous line

▶ 1:21:21 Speaker 4: for six thousand nine hundred and one dollars that's a that's a FY 15 prior year bill that was applied to the year-end auto endorsement for the insurance policy as you folks know typically in the fall I'll come back for an adjustment on the premium where we add vehicles dispose of vehicles add property etc etc that's what that signifies so I just wanted to make sure

▶ 1:21:47 Peter D. Mortimer: that's clear to you folks thank you President Kahn seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard is there a motion please motion to recommend second alderman inferna has made a motion to recommend this budget for passage duly seconded by alderman boycelle all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none budget 151 the city solicitors office and the amount of 716 579.7 will be recommended to the full board for passage thank you thank you

▶ 1:22:19 Speaker 4: for your attendance sir mr chairman i'm also here for the liquor commission just so you're aware

▶ 1:22:22 Peter D. Mortimer: I am aware of that, and thank you for the reminder. The next budget, coincidentally, serendipitously, is budget number 165. It is the Liquor Commission in the amount of $2,000. Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend this budget by Alderman Boisselle. Was that second from Alderman Inferno? Oh, it was from Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Thank you for the second. Any discussion? Seeing none. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? This budget, $165,000, $2,000 for the Lickum Commission, will be recommended to the full board. Thank you again for your attendance. The next budget we have before us is budget 152. It is the human resources budget in the amount of $134,247.43. We're still under suspension and we're joined by Ms. Long, the Director of Human Resources. Good evening, Ms. Long. Hello. Would you like to make an opening statement?

▶ 1:23:26 Speaker 2: Yes. Just by way of introduction, the Human Resources Department areas of responsibility, we manage approximately $12 million. We oversee and participate in recruitment, screening, hiring, and orientation for positions in police, fire, public works, library, and city hall departments. Obviously, we ensure compliance with personnel ordinances, collective bargaining agreements, mass general laws, civil service regulations, and federal laws. We consult with Mayor Dolan and all department heads on employment matters, variety of employment matters. We interpret and enforce personnel policies, procedures, et cetera, set forth in the city charter employment manual ordinances, collective bargaining agreements. We administrate approximately 11 benefit programs and the budgets associated with them. We manage the HR information system, and we ensure the integrity of the employment data for all municipal employees, their accruals, their benefit deductions, their compensation, employment history, et cetera. And throughout the year, we interact in person, by phone, or electronically with approximately four hundred retirees and approximately four hundred employees not including the school department and we manage obviously all information related to their employment and lastly we manage and advise on policies performance management and terminations thank you very much

▶ 1:25:23 Speaker 1: as long president Khan please yeah miss long in your budget you have the director and the assistant director position by the amounts set forth in your salary and wage schedule the full amount of the salaries and wages paid both for the director and the assistant director positions so our salaries for

▶ 1:25:43 Speaker 2: the director seventy seventy five percent of my salary is in the human resources budget I actually I have it for you the exact amounts I can give you

▶ 1:26:00 Speaker 2: a copy sure if you could just explain it for sure 75% of my salary is in the human resources budget 25% is in the health insurance health contractual budget Paulina Lada 50% of her salary is in human resources and 50% is in the health contractual budget and you'll see the in the health budget is Donna Cardillo our financial systems analyst and approximately seven hours or 20% of her time is within the health contractual and I have a copy for you

▶ 1:26:43 Speaker 1: that I can give you great yeah if you could make that available to the board I

▶ 1:26:48 Speaker 3: will make that part of our yes I will do that thank you we need a second for that

▶ 1:26:52 Monica C. Medeiros: motion I'll be happy to second that to make that part of the record yeah that

▶ 1:27:00 Peter D. Mortimer: is a motion duly seconded by Alderman Medeiros all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none that submission will be added to our record by motion thank you very much for bringing that I saw Alderman's work go first oh no just scratching you scratching your head alderman Medeiros I

▶ 1:27:20 Monica C. Medeiros: saw next please thank you could you talk about the line item 529 zero zero zero

▶ 1:27:29 Speaker 2: teachers which is zero that's that was the teachers innovation grant that was in the HR department budget I believe for two fiscal years and it was removed from the human resources budget quite honestly I don't know where it was I think I believe that teachers innovation grant was abolished if I understand it correctly but I I'm not certain of that but I do know it was removed from my budget could you inform us whether that appears somewhere else in the budget or

▶ 1:28:04 Speaker 4: not no again to my thing it's not in another budget we'll verify that for you Okay, thank you, thank you very much.

▶ 1:28:14 Speaker 3: Thank you, Alderman Medeiros.

▶ 1:28:16 Peter D. Mortimer: Is there anybody else wishing to be heard? Is there a motion, please? Motion to move the bottom line, Mr. Chairman. Second. We have a motion to move the bottom line for the human resources budget made by Alderman Forbes, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this budget will be recommended to the full board for passage. the next budget we have before us is budget nine one two nine twelve the workers comp budget in the amount of three hundred and forty thousand dollars miss long would you like to speak on this I'll proceed directly to questions

▶ 1:28:56 Speaker 2: well I think I would like to take a moment and recognize Paulina Lada who isn't here tonight but as you know she is the HR manager primarily the benefits administrator and I have to credit her for managing this budget so well she has the unenviable position of on the one hand obviously managing taxpayers money that funds this this line item and on the other ensuring that our employees whether it's public safety employees that are injured on duty under 111 F or if it's under workers compensation ensuring that they receive on the benefits that they're entitled to and that they receive the care that they're entitled to quickly efficiently and in the best way possible we're level funding as I mentioned earlier we're fortunate I think transferring to an outside private contractor to do trash and recycled pickup has really significantly reduced injury so we're very fortunate and as you all know these line items are self-funded in the event of so there are years where we may not use some of those funds and then of course unfortunately there are years where the expenses increase due to injuries on the job thank you very much

▶ 1:30:44 Peter D. Mortimer: miss long are there any questions or a motion from the board president Khan

▶ 1:30:48 Speaker 1: please yeah I don't have a question it looks like in FY to 15 you expended about two hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars yes your 2015 I'm sorry

▶ 1:31:03 Speaker 1: did you say yeah and I wanted to ask you because I didn't have an opportunity to check the account detail but back in late April when we got the the budget printout you had expended about a hundred and seventy seven thousand dollars out of this account what's what's the balance of the expenditure at

▶ 1:31:23 Speaker 2: this time so with this particular account I have the year-to-date for FY 16 the the we have two long-term recipients so that's approximately $1,500 and per week and we have through the rest of the year through you know through June 30th they've only been paid so far through last week so that's approximately $3,000 and then we've been able to do some pending transfers as you have approved before and that is about thirty five thousand dollars so we have approximately year-to-date one hundred thousand dollars remaining in FY 16 okay

▶ 1:32:17 Speaker 1: and you don't you know with two or three weeks here to go you don't have any

▶ 1:32:25 Speaker 2: knowledge that there's going to be any large we have nothing planned we have no

▶ 1:32:31 Speaker 1: obviously unplanned but in terms of workers comp if I'm a city employee and I go fall down the stairs in the course of my duty I don't get a large lump sum award no I would a weekly benefit which would be approximately 66% of my average weekly wage plus medical benefits yes so I you know this budget has been well managed i i don't remember any year where it hasn't been in surplus and you know i wonder

▶ 1:33:04 Speaker 1: not to you but i wonder if we have other areas in the city that seem to be not adequately funded why money weren't transferred out of this budget which seems to be adequately taken care of of into somewhere else where it may be more needed.

▶ 1:33:24 Peter D. Mortimer: That's all for now. Thank you, President Kahn. I'm seeing no other aldermen wishing to be heard. Is there a motion, please? Motion to move bottom line, Mr. Chairman. We have a motion to move the bottom line for budget 913, unemployment. Excuse me, 912, workers' comp, duly seconded by Alderman Boisselle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. opposed hearing none one opposed we have one opposed so this budget will be recommended to the full board for passage the next budget we have before us is budget 9 1 3 it is unemployment in the amount of 140 thousand dollars as

▶ 1:34:07 Speaker 2: long please so with unemployment compensation under mass general laws the maximum benefit that in a former employee may collect is the total is twenty one thousand six hundred and sixty dollars the maximum number of weeks is 30 weeks and the maximum weekly amount is seven hundred and twenty two dollars doesn't mean everyone receives that but that's the maximum someone may receive we have no federal incentives or extended benefits that we're aware of or that we've had to budget for in this fiscal year thank you very much miss

▶ 1:34:56 Speaker 1: long president Khan please again looking back at the information that we were provided with it looks like in fiscal 215 you you spent just under 124,000 out this budget and uh back on april 27th when uh our copy of the budget was was promulgated uh at that point in time you'd spent eighty one thousand nine hundred and eighty six dollars and forty two cents and what has been expended as we sit here today the actual amount year to date um the the amount

▶ 1:35:24 Speaker 2: that you have doesn't include a number of months of expenses that we have to pay I think I've mentioned to you before the Commonwealth bills cities and towns or I assume private industry as well several months ahead or I'm sorry behind so as an example we have not received a bill for May or June and have not paid a a bill for May or June so the the amount that we project that we will have remaining is approximately 39,000 in unemployment and again you've done a

▶ 1:36:10 Speaker 1: good job managing this budget I can't remember a year ever where this has been

▶ 1:36:24 Speaker 2: overspent am i wrong in in the recent past I mean you I'm sure you all remember a couple of years ago with the recession we had significant expenses

▶ 1:36:37 Speaker 1: but but not in the recent past well yeah we had we had higher well at least they better they believe themselves to be higher forms of government who were telling us that we were mandated to pay correct longer periods the federal extended employment and these determinations were made during the midst of our budget years so we had to deal with them but at least recently in the last four or five years I think you've always come in under yes this budget and again the magnitude in this budget is smaller but it seems like a budget that always always comes in under Thank You president Kahn motion to

▶ 1:37:13 Peter D. Mortimer: recommend we have a motion to recommend the bottom line on this budget second Duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle, duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. Seeing no further discussion, all in favor of the unemployment budget, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this budget will be recommended to the full board for passage. The next budget we have before us is budget 914, the health contractual budget in the amount of $11,828,345.28.

▶ 1:37:50 Speaker 2: 28 cents as long please continue okay so with this particular budget although it's called health contractual you will see a listing of all budgets I'm actually going to make a recommendation to change the name of this budget to benefit so that it encompasses what it what it really does all of the accounts that are within this this particular budget so you'll notice a couple of line items the first two line items that says train aka and cook aka that refers to the Affordable Care Act again we as an employer are responsible now under the employer mandate the aspect of the Affordable Care Act we had to purchase or I'm sorry our immunist software system had to create write a new software program for all cities and towns and then we had to all of us be trained on this new program this included Donna Cohane in the school department Judy Connors in the school department myself the financial systems analysts the HR manager etc so that's what those amounts are for and with group health I believe that's the next line item FY 17 we are budgeted for approximately ten point seven million dollars the average rate increase from THE GROUP INSURANCE COMMISSION WAS 3.6 PERCENT THE THIS PARTICULAR BUDGET AGAIN AS I MENTIONED TO ALDERMAN MEDEIROS IT'S BASED ON ACTUAL ENROLLMENT WE DO IT AS OF MARCH 1ST EVERY YEAR SO THAT WE'RE VERY CONSISTENT IN OUR ENROLLMENT AND FORECASTING FOR THE COMING FISCAL year so as an example the budget before you was based on 529 employees 739 retirees for a total of 1268 subscribers both employee and retirees and that includes obviously individual and family plans we saw significant increases in In our health insurance rates, and just as an example, Harvard Pilgrim happens to be one of our plans that has the highest enrollment. It's one of the most popular plans with our active employees and our non-Medicare retirees. We have 110 families enrolled in that plan. We saw an 8.9% increase. So just as an example, for that one plan, the city of Melrose pays $20,000. That doesn't include what the employee contributes. Health insurance is very expensive. Harvard Pilgrim Independent, the individual plan, we have 28 individuals enrolled. That also saw 8.9% increase. As an example, with the Medicare plans, we contribute 70% towards these particular plans. We saw a 12.6% increase, hence the amount that is budgeted before you. Any questions on that?

▶ 1:41:36 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you very much, Ms. Long. Alderman Medeiros, please.

▶ 1:41:40 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you. Could you repeat the number?

▶ 1:41:45 Speaker 2: You said 529 employees, and I didn't catch the number of retirees. 739. 739. And that includes retirees and spouses. Retirees. Spouses are covered.

▶ 1:41:59 Speaker 7: Spouses, okay.

▶ 1:42:00 Monica C. Medeiros: And in terms of the Affordable Care Act, I've heard that some municipalities are concerned because their benefit packages are getting close to being considered to be Cadillac plans what is the average

▶ 1:42:18 Speaker 2: cost of to the city for a family plan and in a private individual plan right now and how far away are we from being well it's the group insurance commission is actually discussing that and you know that mayor Dolan is one of the commissioners they are discussing this monthly whether or not we will come bump up against the Cadillac tax is what you're referring to meaning that the plans themselves are so expensive that the federal government is going to start taxing these individual health insurance plans, you know, to drive costs down. So the Group Insurance Commission is actively working with the individual plans. And they have negotiated with the individual plans very, very aggressively. I mean, truthfully, Alderman Conn will remember this in 2009 when we transferred from Blue Cross Blue Shield over to the Group Insurance Commission, in 2009 our cost was $12.4 million with Blue Cross Blue Shield. And now we're, you know, eight years later, longer, we're only at 10.7. So we're working very hard to keep those costs down. But to answer, to further answer your questions as an example the network plans I'm just choosing one Harvard primary choice the city of Melrose contributes fifteen thousand dollars per family for that particular plan and I believe that I don't I have to be honest I'm not well read about the Cadillac tax because we haven't had to pay attention to it yet and I know we have a governing body that's leading the effort so I'm not quite sure what their numbers are if it's 27,000 per plan I don't know I don't think it's quite that high but I I know there are some

▶ 1:44:37 Monica C. Medeiros: communities that are yes yes and and as an example with Harvard Pilgrim because there was an eight point nine percent increase the group insurance Commission froze enrollment they're not allowing any new enrollees in the Harvard pilgrim plan for that reason so they are being very aggressive with Harvard building hopefully if we get to that point some hopefully we hope our leaders in Congress might make make some kind of adjustments for high-cost areas like Massachusetts I in my budget review I came across this you know one of the things that I kind of loathe about this budget is that you know we have this huge lump sum of you know right here you know ten point seven million dollars and one lump sum I came across a health insurance budget detail for fiscal year 2014 that you had prepared for us yes and it kind of compared the membership comparison from FY 10 to FY 14 giving us the total GIC membership count active employee count active school active city active family active individual active retired and it actually broke down the insurance by department yes I was hoping that perhaps I know obviously you don't have that for tonight but I was wondering if perhaps you could I can produce that for you yes provided to the board I will

▶ 1:46:11 Monica C. Medeiros: that would be that'd be great the other thing I wanted to ask you a little bit about is is health insurance for the water and sewer department it's a you know good portion of the indirect costs that are being funded through water and sewer we've seen a lot of of credits and transfers out of the health insurance line item yes have there been employees who have opted out in water and sewer I

▶ 1:46:49 Speaker 2: off the top of my head I can't answer whether particular employees from the water and sewer department have opted out of health insurance there may be but But I'm not quite sure I understand your question, the comparison between health insurance and water and sewer. So I guess what I'm wondering is if we had savings in this department and they were based

▶ 1:47:20 Monica C. Medeiros: on — if we had savings in this department and they were based on funds that were being

▶ 1:47:30 Speaker 2: brought in through indirect costs from the water and sewer rates, if there's any benefit

▶ 1:47:38 Monica C. Medeiros: the water and sewer rates or enterprise funds or you know i mean obviously this is a money that's appropriated in the general fund budget and maybe this maybe it's a better question for mr delarusso yeah i'm not sure that i'm if we have savings at the end of the year if all of that goes into a free cash number or if any of it would somehow go back as a you know there'd be no discount on the water and sewer rate or would there be yeah that that's out of my

▶ 1:48:07 Speaker 2: expertise i'm sorry that i can't answer that particular question i okay no problem thank you

▶ 1:48:17 Speaker 2: thank you alderman Medeiros talk about that thanks you're welcome thank you alderman Medeiros uh next

▶ 1:48:24 Speaker 1: we have president khan please yeah um we have saved millions of dollars over the years by our membership in the GIC however it seems like the pendulum starting to swing the other way and I know a lot of communities are leaving the GIC and you can't just as a municipality decide you want to leave because my understanding of the way the GIC works is you have to periodically enter into agreements with is what's called a public employee committee or coalition and have the union membership in the city agree yes to either be in or to leave correct the GIC what year are we in our current public employee committee agreement and

▶ 1:49:16 Speaker 2: I believe they're usually three years we you you can choose to agree on a three year or a six year we have a six year and this is year two of the six year agreement with the Public Employee Committee however I will say that I think it is absolutely to our benefit financially to be a member of the Group Insurance Commission when I believe it was the year that we were negotiating with our unions they requested that we go to other companies and get quotes and all of the quotes were higher than the rates that we had when was the last time

▶ 1:50:02 Speaker 2: we went out for quotes well it was while we were negotiating this six-year agreement so approximately two years ago yeah so at the present time we're not

▶ 1:50:08 Speaker 1: really in a position to explore leaving the GIC unless we had the acquiescence

▶ 1:50:16 Speaker 2: of our union committee correct yeah and i nor would i recommend it truthfully yeah i i don't

▶ 1:50:21 Speaker 1: know unless unless uh people look at the numbers i don't i don't know either i just know that there are communities that have been going the other way leaving the gic health insurance is expensive

▶ 1:50:36 Peter D. Mortimer: regardless of the vendor thank you mr chairman thank you president khan alderman's worker please

▶ 1:50:42 Michael P. Zwirko: thank you mr chairman thank you miss long sure so i just have a couple of questions that it's really educational um not too certain how it works i get my health insurance through my employer so some of my questions may not comport to the municipal gic so i'm just curious do the menu um employees are offered a menu of various plans correct correct is there a high deductible only or a deductible only plan that's available in that suite of services the co-pays

▶ 1:51:08 Speaker 2: and deductibles are the same across all plans so yeah so there's a plan that my

▶ 1:51:21 Michael P. Zwirko: employer offers that is very very high deductible and it's a plan that's essentially created for folks that don't generally have health issues generally

▶ 1:51:31 Speaker 2: the younger yeah they're generally called indemnity plans where there's and

▶ 1:51:40 Michael P. Zwirko: the city of Melrose does offer that option yes do you know the the breakdown

▶ 1:51:45 Speaker 2: for services or their subscribers rather for that I if you give me one moment I may have the individual enrollment by plan just bear with me one moment no

▶ 1:52:01 Speaker 2: actually I don't I'm sorry I don't have it with me but I can get that for you I'd

▶ 1:52:07 Michael P. Zwirko: be interested for the whole suite of services actually so covers broken down

▶ 1:52:12 Speaker 2: by which essentially is is what alderman Medeiros requested as well so I think the document that she requested will answer your questions yeah and the only

▶ 1:52:21 Michael P. Zwirko: reason I bring it up is because it's nice to have a suite of services to choose from I know obviously there are certain considerations that each individual needs to make whether that's an individual plan or a family plan and what might work best for them and their family or lack of family I only ask because it's something that I'm considering moving into and I just just I just want to make sure that on the private side that the public side has a similar menu of options like I said I'm unfamiliar with how GIC fully works and

▶ 1:52:49 Speaker 2: I'll be very brief I won't bore you with the details however with health insurance plans it's really all about the network so if you happen to live in in the western part of the state, some of our plans may not serve you at all. Some people want the wider, broader network and they're willing to pay the increase of 8.9% because they get the services that they want. They want to go to Mass General, which is a very, very expensive hospital. They may want that very particular specialist for a member of their family. So it really is, the Group Insurance Commission offers six plans to our active employees with a range of networks. Although the co-pays and deductibles are the same throughout. Hospitals are tiered depending upon their expense. Mass General's very high.

▶ 1:53:50 Michael P. Zwirko: And with those plans, is the percentage that the employee or subscriber pays the same as well? So like an 85-15 or a 78-22?

▶ 1:53:59 Speaker 2: 84 16 84 84 paid by the city 16 by the employee right and with medicare it's 70 30. 70 by the

▶ 1:54:14 Michael P. Zwirko: city 30 by the retiree okay so you actually just answered my next question so those are all the

▶ 1:54:19 Peter D. Mortimer: questions i have i appreciate it thank you thank you alderman Zwirko next in queue we have alderman

▶ 1:54:23 Francis X. Wright Jr.: right please Thank You mr. chairman when you last negotiated with the PC for the

▶ 1:54:35 Francis X. Wright Jr.: GIC six-year agreement did either the city or the PC request what I believe is called a utilization accounting which would be I know you're only allowed to

▶ 1:54:50 Speaker 2: to ask once or twice during the life of the agreement yes we did because we used that to give to the other vendors so that they could give us a quote okay and

▶ 1:54:59 Francis X. Wright Jr.: that yeah that's where I was going so they got an accounting of all the expenditures that the the city's employees and retirees yes having heard so that when you go out for quotes you can get real it's real exactly they know exactly what over the life of that agreement was spent on city employees and retirees who were members of the plan and although I don't remember all

▶ 1:55:23 Speaker 2: of the details I'm sorry because it was two years ago I do remember the other vendors all of them gave us a quote which was higher than our current rates and they refused to give us a multi-year quote okay and that's my understanding

▶ 1:55:40 Francis X. Wright Jr.: difficult if not impossible to get a better quote than the GIC it has been in

▶ 1:55:47 Francis X. Wright Jr.: our experience yeah for communities of a certain size which Melrose fits and larger it's just the GIC seems to be the best deal along that line the GIC is kind of tightened its belts and as a result the employees have had to incur a higher copays is that correct yes and they've done away with the PPOs is that

▶ 1:56:12 Francis X. Wright Jr.: correct and went to POS point of service okay so there's more less and less choice within the system except I think unicare for someone to actually go out and just go choose a specialist of their own they have things now they have to get the referral and again the co-pays are higher the it's a tie it's a belt tightening measure on the part of the GIC is it not I'm sorry it's a belt

▶ 1:56:44 Speaker 2: tightening it's a way to save money yes it is try to keep the cost down it's giving it's giving us as a consumer choices so if you choose services from a particular hospital from a particular doctor or services out of state you're going to pay more for them but you still have that choice of doing that so as it's very important and again I have to give Paulina a lot of credit it's very important for employees to be educated about their particular benefits within their particular plan because there are choices there are tears the doctors you

▶ 1:57:27 Francis X. Wright Jr.: can pay as much as $90 copay or $20 for you for your primary care physician yes

▶ 1:57:34 Speaker 2: and they've also I'm sorry copays and deductibles really didn't increase this particular year they have in the past this particular year there were some

▶ 1:57:49 Francis X. Wright Jr.: changes but not significant excellent okay and they've they've gone to as I understand that a system where in order to avoid emergency room costs which are driving up insurance for everyone they're covering a much greater percentage of the cost of a visit to an urgent care facility yeah so it's a copay for if I was to go to an urgent care facility would be like $20 as opposed to $200 if I go to the ER okay so I mean I just want the public to

▶ 1:58:21 Francis X. Wright Jr.: understand that that the city and the GIC are attempting to save money but also passing along the costs and effectively making their members which are our employees be educated about the choices they make otherwise they're going to spend the considerable amount of money out of pocket for these services as opposed to the city picking up that cost yes great thank you thank

▶ 1:58:48 Peter D. Mortimer: you mr. chairman Thank You alderman right I'm seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard we have a motion to move the bottom line by alderman MacMaster Margolis duly seconded by alderman Boycelle all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none budget 914 health contractual will be recommended to the full board for passage thank you very much thank you very much for your attendance and your excellent presentations thank you the next budget we have before us is budget six five two it is the pine banks budget in the amount of two hundred and eighty five thousand seven hundred ninety eight

▶ 1:59:36 Peter D. Mortimer: dollars and ninety five cents good evening mr. Kieser thank you and would

▶ 1:59:44 Peter D. Mortimer: you please introduce the gentleman you have with you this is Andrew Walsh

▶ 1:59:56 Speaker 3: our new superintendent we found after a nationwide search he's a 2002 graduate

▶ 2:00:06 Speaker 3: of Melrose High School and graduated from the University of Massachusetts where he studied turf management and all related aspects he has been at Fenway

▶ 2:00:17 Speaker 3: Park. He has been at the Country Club in Brookline. These are all working duties,

▶ 2:00:23 Speaker 3: weren't they? And he comes most recently from the Longwood Cricket Club and has assured us that we can get lessons sometime in the future to understand what's going on. Welcome, Mr. Walsh. Thank you. Welcome to the City of Melrose and

▶ 2:00:46 Speaker 3: at five banks we're very happy to have them indeed the format of the presentation to the board is the same as it has been for the last six seven years the page of primary interest is on page seven where it indicates the budget and the prior year and then the columns on the right break it out dollar increase percentage increase the amount per city and the increase per city we have divided this up into three conceptual categories line one through five is compensation we call that type one we have all of our employees leased from the city of Melrose and quarterly the city of Malden pays their share so we've got centralized operations through Merrill's HR and it's worked out very well administratively lines 6 through 42

▶ 2:01:50 Speaker 3: our operations we call that type 2 income that's allocated to the Pine Banks Park Foundation under a contract that we initiated two years ago and that That allows us to have centralized distribution and monitoring of the amounts that are actually spent so that we can come up with a more accurate idea of what is being spent. Prior practice with regard to compensation of individuals was that a person would be paid one week by Melrose and one week by Malden. We had an individual who was injured. The question came up between the two cities, well, who's weak, who's tab, is this on? The insanity of this operation made us centralize into the least employee and benefits package that we've got now. The same thing with operations. With operations, if we bought a hammer, we'd get one bill from the hardware store. We'd photocopy it and send it to city hall for one half payment and other city hall for another half payment it made it almost impossible to figure out what was being paid for what so we've been doing this now for two years the variations that you can see in the columns indicating changes and shifts there are reflective of our having the first 12-month experience of actual appropriations so that we can figure out where we are previously our budgets were really guesses we want to get away from guessing we want to have a more accurate idea our guesses for fiscal 15 appeared to be twelve thousand dollars uh short of available funds those available funds were made up by the pine bags park foundation and we intend to be much

▶ 2:03:53 Speaker 3: more accurate going forward so uh we have had an increase in compensation that's due to the fact that the cities got together and said that we had to upgrade the compensation and quality and caliber of the people that we have working there which is reflected in our acquisition of the gentleman to my right we also had the HR departments of both cities get together and try to normalize the remainder of the staff so that they had comparable compensation with their equal numbers in either city and after that negotiation and consideration by the mayor they came up with modifications that we see here

▶ 2:04:35 Speaker 3: the other thing that I would say is that lines 43 through 54 are more or less capital projects line 45 is the ball field project amortization our last project was the baseball field on Main Street we are in a project now where we are resurfacing the rugby field which was originally put online in 2001 that has come to the end of its useful life we have that project we have another project which is the reclamation of woods between the end of the rugby field in wyoming cemetery which was previously used by the city of melrose as a municipal dump the state would like us to reclaim and remediate that area it's essentially what they call urban fill which is problematic i think because it's got glass and ash and the remedy for that is to cap it with two or three feet of fill and then find a different use now the the rugby field was also part of the dump so that that sort of remediation is something that they like to to look at the sylvan street lot was also used and most of the softball field was also within that

▶ 2:06:05 Speaker 3: my memory is they stopped using that in 1958 but the clearing of those woods and remediation means that we will be approaching our long promised dog park it has a capacity for 40,000 square feet which is a big park for dogs but they are in the planning stages of looking at that and trying to find an endgame and final remediation for the issues that are in those woods. We have a couple of other small projects in fixing the bungalow which is on Main

▶ 2:06:40 Speaker 3: Street. There's a sewer and water problem there and clearing out the old animal sheds which used to be part of our petting zoo. The method that we're

▶ 2:06:57 Speaker 3: approaching to finance this is through a mass development tax exempt bond which would be about 1.7 million the rate is fixed for ten at three hope is to be able to lock these favorable rates into the future on a long-term basis but what you can see there is line 45 is indicating a reduction in the project ball field project amortization number of $28,000 down to 202 per year so that

▶ 2:07:36 Speaker 3: is about where we are there is an increase on the bottom line of $43,000 that's principally the compensation equalization and staffing it thank you

▶ 2:07:56 Peter D. Mortimer: very much mr. Kieser there any all didn't move the bottom line we have a motion to move the bottom line second made by alderman boycelle duly seconded by alderman makatia margolis and on discussion and questions we have alderman Medeiros please thank you thank

▶ 2:08:10 Monica C. Medeiros: you very much thank you for sitting through uh all of our evening fun so far uh could you just confirm the number that you're looking for for the for our appropriation in melrose the dollar amount

▶ 2:08:24 Monica C. Medeiros: Are you looking for this $275,814.15 on page six?

▶ 2:08:34 Speaker 3: I would have to refer to Mr. DelaRusso

▶ 2:08:38 Speaker 1: as he is more familiar with.

▶ 2:08:40 Monica C. Medeiros: Yes. Well, I ask because in our in our munis budget, the number is $285,798.95. But on page six, and I wasn't sure if I'm looking at this correctly, under the municipal funding formula, and the highlighted number we have here for fiscal 2017 for the Melrose portion was $275,814.15.

▶ 2:09:10 Speaker 3: We're created under a statute from 1905. It was Chapter 393. And when they created it, they said this is going to be a public park for everybody in Malden and Melrose as long as there is a minimum appropriation from each city and the formula that you see there on page 6 is just a breakdown of what that number would be based on current assessed values so that's what we call a mandated number that's on line 70 on page 7 we just have that there so that we can see where we are in relationship to the statutory number that the converse family had put into this and we are asking for more than that number okay and principally the amount of the excess is the amount required to do the capital project mr delarusso do you wish

▶ 2:10:04 Peter D. Mortimer: to further enlighten us on that subject i certainly will great question um we have two

▶ 2:10:15 Speaker 4: Good evening, if you look at the 101-294-18 for capital. That's in the budget for a capital within the city itself. So if you look at, going back to the capital budget.

▶ 2:10:42 Speaker 4: This year, capital outlay. You'll see that the difference is 101,294.18. That's the over last year. That's the exact amount of money that is required for the payment on the obligation. The next year, what we did this year is, and it's a great question because it's something that you won't see in the fall anymore. We incorporated it right in the capital budget so that we don't come back in the fall for that allocation. So the number you have in the budget, your actual budget in front of you, that we are required to appropriate, i.e. on the operating side, because we've already appropriated the capital side, would be for 652, 285, 798.95. Now there is a $2,401, and I think it's $408.76 difference. Because if you look at the very top of this page that's been provided so kindly by Pine Banks up top, you'll see salary and wages, pension, benefits, and insurance. Under a city, it's 98,336.98, and $95,745.74 pension benefits and insurance. The differential there is that $2,400, and that's the money that comes in and out because what happens is that Melrose pays more than reimburses, so it clears itself out. So that's why the number you have in your budget, the $285, is the figure we should be improving.

▶ 2:12:30 Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that.

▶ 2:12:33 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you alderman medeiros next in queue we have alderman inferno please thank you very much mr

▶ 2:12:42 Gail Infurna: chairman um first of all pine banks has always been a great constituent of mine down in ward five so i i thank you for um running such a um a great um place for us combined with malden uh and it's also great to see that track being used every time i drive by it's unbelievable the activity that's in that new track and so that's really nice to see i know i uh last year i asked you about that gate and that fence i have to say i i have not been by there and i don't know if that was improved

▶ 2:13:11 Speaker 3: at all still there we had a car on main street across from hunts veer into our fence we got a payment from the driver of the car to fix it but we also have some areas where trees have fallen down elsewhere in the park sidewalk pile took out a section on sylvan street so we thought we'd have the fence fella come at one time and fix things one of the things to fix is the gate and i think it's got to be moved either further towards wyoming or closer to the corner but it's definitely uphill and it should be on a level right and that's that's part of the project and our new superintendent is right on made aware before tonight that uh the gate is an issue okay thank

▶ 2:14:03 Gail Infurna: you and thank you for all that you really do it looks great down there thank you alderman inferna

▶ 2:14:12 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: alderman mcintyre my goal is please well thank you very much mr chairman welcome mr kaiser again and mr walsh um you probably enjoyed that field as a young melrose high athlete i'm sure Mr. Kieser, you're really fortunate that Pine Banks gets a tidy sum of grant money, and you're going to use that towards your capital projects. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

▶ 2:14:40 Speaker 3: Yes, the Adelaide Reed Baird Foundation has committed to another $250,000 over five years, which will bring them a million dollars since we started this project.

▶ 2:14:52 Speaker 3: And his annual additional contributions, maybe 40 or so for various things like buying a piece of equipment.

▶ 2:15:07 Speaker 3: And we have just recently given $10,000 to pay for two interns, one from Arrows, one from Malden.

▶ 2:15:17 Speaker 3: This is David Pashuto. I knew his brother Matt was an Eagle Scout a couple of years ago.

▶ 2:15:22 Speaker 1: And he's at Norwich University in Vermont, and he just finished the National Guard service.

▶ 2:15:31 Speaker 3: It was good to, there's two things. They get some money for school, and it keeps them outside and working. And our staff has been very happy with what we do.

▶ 2:15:47 Speaker 3: We have a young fellow named John Wright also, excellent worker.

▶ 2:15:57 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: so do you are you um gonna use some of that um baird foundation money like towards the reconstruction of the rugby and soccer fields is that part of the plan right so that's going to decrease the city's capital outlay for those projects right yes uh we also have the mystic

▶ 2:16:17 Speaker 3: river rugby club which plays there um they uh two things first they won the national championship last saturday but the second thing is they've given us a hundred thousand in cash which will be

▶ 2:16:28 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: dedicated toward that same purpose for that field also that's great and um i know you also um in probably getting rid of some of those old buildings um are thinking about maybe this would be better for mr walsh although he probably hasn't totally absorbed the whole park yet but um maybe increasing some of the walking paths and whatnot up there or do you have any plans for that that

▶ 2:16:53 Speaker 3: That area is right behind the bungalow, it's sort of a dead end up there where they put the park equipment.

▶ 2:17:03 Speaker 3: But you can see from our map, our satellite picture, we do have a pretty intricate setting of trails. Mm-hm. There was the Malden YWCA had a cross country fundraising race and it was all within the park.

▶ 2:17:16 Speaker 3: I think it went around two loops. And Mayor Christensen from Walden decided that he was going to run. He said he'd never been back there, but it almost killed him.

▶ 2:17:28 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: We won't recommend it to Mayor Dolan. We need him too much right now. Great. I mean, I just think it's kind of an untapped and sort of unknown resource in that respect. And, you know, with all the running clubs out there that want to do races and whatnot, it might be a great you know resource if it doesn't you know impact the environmental stability of the park too much so but welcome aboard and we look forward to your continued improvement thank you Thank You Waldman MacMaster

▶ 2:17:57 Peter D. Mortimer: Margolis seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard is there a motion

▶ 2:18:07 Speaker 3: motions been made on this one oh thank you so much motion having been made to

▶ 2:18:10 Peter D. Mortimer: recommend the time banks budget and duly seconded all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none pine banks budget will be recommended to our full board chairman before she leaves can I thank Mary Ann long Marianne's miss long some so grateful I'm grateful comments are coming your way someone's

▶ 2:18:37 Speaker 3: saying thank you this last year trying to find the new superintendent I think The burden fell on Marianne Long's office,

▶ 2:18:46 Speaker 1: and I think she did a superb job.

▶ 2:18:48 Speaker 3: She put a committee, and it's surprising how deaf she is, handling various personalities and egos from two towns.

▶ 2:19:00 Peter D. Mortimer: It was a cooperative effort between Melrose and Malden. It really worked marvelously. It's no surprise that she did an outstanding job carrying the torch, as usual.

▶ 2:19:08 Speaker 3: I wanna thank Patrick DellaRusso and his office the efforts that he's put in and also for bailing me out of that last question and john chena for sending a crew up to get rid of the deadwood on main street across from body seas without his assistance without that department's assistant we'd be totally dead in the water so thank you

▶ 2:19:28 Peter D. Mortimer: very much and thank you for your assistance thank you thank you thank you mr kiza and welcome aboard mr walsh thank you great to have you president khan please yeah mr chairman would you entertain

▶ 2:19:43 Speaker 1: a motion this motion is made in the interest of trying to move forward quickly with two orders that I don't think are controversial I'd ask that we vary the order of business to take number five on our list order 216 dash 198 which is appropriation any amount of one hundred sixty two thousand eight hundred and sixty nine dollars and fifty cents to be transferred to water