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 (~41 min @ 8:08)

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

▶ 8:00 Peter D. Mortimer: for when your budget comes up beautiful thank you alderman lemon we are still working on the city budget this is the season of the year a motion to close public participation thank you alderman Alderman Tramontozzi? Second. Thorp been a motion to close public participation by Alderman Tramontozzi, duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, public participation is closed. The first budget order that we have this evening is budget number 121. It is the department of the mayor's office in the amount of $915.82.

▶ 8:40 Scott M. Forbes: Motion to suspend the rules so we can hear from all public officials.

▶ 8:43 Peter D. Mortimer: Second. We have a motion to suspend the rules by Alderman Forbes, duly seconded by Alderman Lemmerman. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the rules are suspended so we may hear from the department heads and city officials. Good evening, your honor. Hi, everybody. Mayor Dolan. Thank you. And joined by his Chief Operating Officer, Michael Lindstrom.

▶ 9:07 Speaker 2: evening sir thank you everybody the mayor's office consists of three individuals myself Mike Lindstrom in Bridget Allison Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday I'd also like to thank many of the volunteers that help that staff my

▶ 9:30 Speaker 2: office in particular Tony Gilotti who's been with my office volunteering for 15 years as well as john cornetta who's also been in my office for close to 15 years volunteering i have many others that assist the office in many functions including many interns that also over the years have done a tremendous job the proposed fy 16 mayor's office budget represents level funding and all light items outside of salary and wages selling wages line item is up due to the 53rd week and in recognition of what we talked about last year uh we are moving one quarter of bridget allison's salary back to the mayor's budget which was located last year in water and sewer as a part of the new water replacement program that increased calls in our request volume the year before that it was in recreation when we went through a major change in recreation so bridget's full salary is now in the mayor's budget which is uh the full responsibility which she holds now on this year saw the continued success of social media to engage in dialogue with residents the city twitter account which has run out of my office has grown to almost 2500 followers in addition to the mayor's blog which regularly sees 1 000 hits per day for posts we have also introduced the visual budget to give residents a new visual tool to explore the city budget and we also look to this summer enhancing the the click c-click fix program to give residents a easier a better experience in terms of identifying problems and sending them to department of public works for fixing in fy16 we're able to provide a long list of community events that i believe builds neighborhood community spirit introduces new residents to the community i have known people to come to me and said they did not live in the city once they participated in these events they chose melrose in which to live some of the most important events that we ran this year included the new birth to five new parent expo which recognizes the many new families that have lived here we have continued the second grade library card program which every second grader in the city goes to the library learns how to use the library and gets their first public document outside of their birth certificate, which is a library card. And I always have felt that that is very, very important. We continued the Four Corners Music Festival, the Downtown Summer Stroll, which has been universally praised as a wonderful idea for a suburban community, the Healthy Melrose Fair that took place this weekend, which has only grown, improving not only the public health but supporting local businesses. We paid for the Main Street Flags, which will go up as Memorial Day approaches. the visual budget the kindergarten reception which is an introduction to new children to our public schools the elementary science fairs which now are participa now have participation in every single elementary school at record numbers the memorial day parade which is in the next few weeks the melrose kids club which usually averaged 50 to 100 residents per friday we ran focus groups for senior citizen senior citizen needs assessment as well as the intergenerational spring fling Thank You mayor Dolan president

▶ 12:53 Speaker 4: Khan please yeah Thank You mr. chairman so mayor the only significant increase in your budget here is is the salary line and so people at home understand it's because Thorp going to be 53 pay periods during this upcoming fiscal year correct so instead of having the usual budget based on 52 salary periods we 53 and i've been asking everybody uh and just to be consistent um are all all salaries and compensation from your office are covered in this budget now now they are with bridget moving over

▶ 13:25 Speaker 4: from water and sewer to this budget is 100 so nobody else is allocated to anything else this is the actual uh salary and compensation plan for the mayor for the man's office and can you explain

▶ 13:35 Speaker 4: what the community outreach uh line is for the for people at home who might not know what it is

▶ 13:40 Speaker 2: Sure, the community outreach is to fund all the programs that I mentioned, any expenses that we have for those come out of that fund, anything from the downtown summer stroll to the Healthy Melrose Fair, as I said before, the music festivals, the Kids Club, which is for the entertainers, the kindergarten receptions for the rec kids, the science fairs that we helped around this year so they're all programs that directly we feel benefit citizens of Melrose thank you President Kahn Alderman Medeiros

▶ 14:19 Monica C. Medeiros: please thank you thank you very much I just wanted to say in particular thank you I am glad to see Bridget's Allery move fully over to to your office I believe that's the appropriate place for I know I moved to cut that last year out of water and syrup because I felt this was more appropriate so you know I do think you need the support and I'm glad to see we remembered that and just you

▶ 14:42 Monica C. Medeiros: know also say we all appreciate these events and I had a great time at healthy Melrose and I know Mike was there working hard and all those events help help build our community and keep the sense thank you thank you alderman

▶ 15:00 Peter D. Mortimer: Medeiros seeing no Parliament's work oh please thank you mr. chairman thank you

▶ 15:04 Speaker 2: mr. mayor and Mike for being here this evening I just had one question on the line item with dues and membership I I had the benefit of attending my first Massachusetts Municipal Association seminar and I think it's an invaluable seminar to go to and conference that they hold every January and where people can share ideas about what cities and towns are doing innovatively I was just curious for that line item is that something that gets covered in the budget things of those memberships yes Thorp three major memberships one is MMA which we benefit from greatly greatly second is the Metropolitan Area Planning Council which is all we also benefit from the third is the Metro mayor's coalition which we meet once a month we met today which includes the all the urban core chaired by my mayor Corotonia Somerville I'm the vice chair includes mayor of Boston all the way to the mayor Newton to the town administrator in Winthrop and it basically we identify issues important to the urban core to advocate to advocate for everything from increased today we talked about increased flights over many areas due to the extension expansion of terminal E at the airport which is international flights luckily I have not heard any complaints in Mars but it is a major issue right now in Winthrop and and and even in medford to forming a committee on reform of the jlmc to shannon grant which is something in the budget that allows police departments to work together for opioid as well as gang communication throughout from police departments uh throughout the area so it's very three very worthwhile groups i think yeah you had mentioned the massachusetts area planning council i think that they're they're assisting with the master plan correct yeah master plan they do a great amount of work with our energy. They do a tremendous amount of help with rezoning when we did the corridor in which President Kahn and the planning board that we had a committee set up for from Washington Street all the way now across the whole city. They provide a lot of support for communities like Maurer's that don't have a large number of staff unlike some you know it's like Somerville or Cambridge. They do a great job. Thank you for that I appreciate the

▶ 17:17 Peter D. Mortimer: background on those three organizations thank you move the bottom line we have a motion to move the bottom line on the mayor's bought budget made by alderman Boisselle second duly seconded by alderman Lemmerman all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none thank you our mayor would you stay right there for a second I think we'll do the community events the mayor has already

▶ 17:39 Speaker 2: addressed because I didn't see Alderman Boisselle highlighter the mayor has

▶ 17:46 Peter D. Mortimer: already touched on the community events budget which follows kind of tied right into his office a small dollar amount Thorp ocean to move the bottom line we have a motion from Alderman Boisselle to move the bottom line on the community events budget duly seconded by Alderman's work oh on discussion we have

▶ 18:07 Monica C. Medeiros: alderman medeiros thank you um i guess i what's the the difference between we have the community outreach line in the mayor's budget and then we have the community events line so i can speak to

▶ 18:19 Speaker 1: this the the community events line item that you're looking at right now is simply for the memorial day parade um the six thousand dollars and then the two thousand uh celebration for the total is also uh for the parade the total cost of the parade is ten thousand to eleven thousand we get 8 000 from here and then we supplement the rest through either private donation or through our our office budget this is simply for the parade and memorial and the all the events of

▶ 18:47 Peter D. Mortimer: that day and weekend thank you appreciate that thanks thank you alderman Medeiros uh the motion has been made by alderman boisselle duly seconded by alderman Zwirko seeing no further discussion all in favor any opposed hearing none this budget is approved as well thank you mr mayor thank you Thank you, Mr. Lindstrom. Thank you. I'll stay for the women's. The next budget we have before us is Budget 542. It is the Commission on Women in the amount of $2,000.

▶ 19:21 Speaker 1: At long last.

▶ 19:25 Speaker 5: Thank you, gentlemen and ladies. I represent the newly started Melrose Commission on Women. We're excited. As a matter of fact, most of the officers are here tonight with us, and we've talked about the $2,000 that is before you, what we could do. We could probably spend 10 or 15, but I know that's not in the budget, so we'll put that to next year. We're talking about the most important thing is we want a presence, and some of us will be marching in the parade. will not be able to attend but we want a presence at the Victorian Fair and we're looking to share a table we've identified a few of the participants historical participants and see if we can do that to minimize our costs but we're looking to have something maybe a contest or to have little flyers to hand out we talked about little buttons that say ask me about Commission on women we're going to have a questionnaire a short one to find out what do the residents of Melrose really want and many of them may not know we exist even though the publicity has been abound by all the members of the free press and all of you and the mayor but little things like that do cost some money so we don't have an actual budget what we're going to spend the money on we are meeting as an official first meeting in on the 18th of May since the first meeting was just a short meeting getting established and letting to know who is going to be doing what so we several of the members said let's have our real first meeting in May and we're going to do that it will be part of the agenda it will be publicized in all the places it needs to be so we will at that time have a better understanding of what we would like to identify different

▶ 21:35 Peter D. Mortimer: dollars for for different projects very good thank you would you have anything

▶ 21:39 Speaker 2: to add to that mr. man no I thought they might be nice some assistance they don't all right the rationale for $2,000 it's something they could start with and obviously support them in any way we can 10 for next year just the bottom line

▶ 21:52 Peter D. Mortimer: second we have a motion to move the bottom line made by alderman boys L duly seconded by alderman lemmerman seeing no discussion Oh alderman

▶ 22:05 Monica C. Medeiros: Medeiros please okay so I very much appreciate your enthusiasm this is

▶ 22:17 Monica C. Medeiros: something where I I feel that this is sort of to me in in you know where the role of government is this is not exactly it we've created this Commission I think I mentioned this during the discussion that I'm not really comfortable with funding this right now especially where you guys have really just kind of got off the ground and don't have something farm and set in stone but I know like in a short while we're gonna hear from chief Lyle and we know Thorp Thorp no like Narcan factored into our budget and you know

▶ 22:55 Monica C. Medeiros: we're just asking parents to pay activity fees and user fees and I can't personally justify knows a small amount but doing that right now and I think that there is a lot of enthusiasm in the community for women there was just you know the Melrose run for women yesterday I think we'll hear later from Veterans Affairs about Operation Respect very successful and I think that this is the kind of things that I think there is the will for perhaps some donations and you know if I'm gonna you know vote against moving this bottom line tonight I do think that you know Thorp perhaps I think there is a will there for that so you know I would suggest in the coming months maybe it would be appropriate to come before us for the creation of a donation account or you know maybe even and if you think a revolving fund but you know right now I can't justify I

▶ 23:53 Peter D. Mortimer: understand through the chair I'll allow a little civil discourse generally we don't do that but I will allow it at this time okay I apologize no that's

▶ 24:02 Speaker 5: quite all right please proceed okay is one of the things is publicity and we've all talked about doing it in a very inexpensive way such as using our own printers at home where we can but until we let the residents of melrose both men women children and seniors know that we exist how can we fundraise we've talked about that at our first meeting what can we do to fundraise what organization can we partner with to fundraise and we all agree that that's a good way to go but we need some money to start we can't start knocking on doors and saying we need five dollars from you because we're newly created and people will look at us like who are you so we do need sort of like a little seed money you can do a lot with all the moment arrows I'll let

▶ 24:53 Peter D. Mortimer: you have the last word if you like go ahead if you like all the moon deers I

▶ 25:01 Monica C. Medeiros: think you can do a lot with a little I think you know it's great to work to look at you know department partnering up with another group for instance for the table I know that the table fees do cost money but they're not you know not extraordinary and you know don't Thorp Thorp many ways including the the mayor's blog and which we just heard gets you know a thousand views per day so I mean Thorp there are things out there that are tools that hopefully are available so need some suggestions offline okay can we count on you for a

▶ 25:37 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Alderman Medeiros. Alderman Zwirko, please.

▶ 25:39 Michael P. Zwirko: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time. I actually was surprised. I appreciate your comments, Alderman Medeiros, on this line item. I actually do think that this is exactly the role of government in these types of commissions, especially for outreach. I am somewhat surprised that it actually was below, I noticed, funding for the Melrose Human Rights Commission, which hopefully on Thursday we will be approving as well. But I do know that when generally you start something, there are some high upstart costs, and then those tend to tail off over time you know like if you're building a house you need your materials but then you don't need those materials in year two and I think to the point that has been raised this evening they need to get off the ground they have their charge they want to do some community outreach the Melrose Victorian Fair is not free there are some ideas that they have that they want to set running I think that this is good money to get them started I'm very in favor of this commission and I'm looking forward to the work that they'll be producing I like the makeup of the Commission and I appreciate the hard work that the city's done to get this moving so I will be supporting this bottom line and I do think that it's a nominal amount at best I actually wish that it was funded a little bit more but I'm supporting it as is thank you that's

▶ 26:45 Peter D. Mortimer: only comment I had Thank You alderman's work Oh president Khan please yeah I

▶ 26:48 Speaker 4: supported this order I'm gonna support the $2,000 budgeted line this year but in all seriousness I didn't vote for this order thinking that it was going to to evolve into a twenty five or thirty thousand dollar budget I don't think that's appropriate the Human Rights Commission gets by on three thousand dollars a year they do very good work places like the Liquor Commission have one thousand dollars so I supported the order voted in favor of it I'm in favor of this appropriation but just I'll at least be back next year unless the voters the voters may kick me out after that but when I'm back here next year I I don't want to see some large increase in this. I think this is reasonable. Seven, eight, $10,000 is not reasonable and I would not support it. And with all due respect to the all across the aisle, I would not support raising all these other boards and commissions budgets either. We as a city have to make choices. We don't have unlimited resources. Sometimes if you're not careful with the small dollars, you have trouble with the big dollar amounts.

▶ 28:00 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Kahn. Alderman Lemmerman, please.

▶ 28:03 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say thank you, first of all, for coming down tonight to speak to us, particularly something you haven't done before and having met once. I'm sure that it's not easy to come down and to speak on this item. I don't have a question. I just have a quick comment. I was I had the privilege of being there for the first organizational meeting of this commission there was a lot of discussion and excitement about what kind of activities this commission may be able to do for the city but as we all know excitement alone is not all it takes to get your name out there and to get these types of events going and the publicity alone as was mentioned is important I just also want to reiterate that during that discussion that I was able to watch there there was a lot of eye toward doing as much as the commissioners could do to keep it affordable and to be careful with the dollars that the city would be providing them should they get this funding so I know that they're aware of that and that it's been part of the discussion and I appreciate that and I hope it continues and I do think that this is important to get this commission going so I'm looking forward to supporting it Thank You

▶ 29:15 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman lemmerman are seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard a motion has been made to move the bottom line on the Commission on women by alderman boy sell seconded by alderman's work oh all in favor please say aye aye any opposed we have eight in favor one opposed this order for the Commission on women will be recommended to the full board for passage thank you thank you very much

▶ 29:51 Peter D. Mortimer: the next budget we have before us is budget 296 it is the budget on parking parking enforcement and the parking department in the amount of sixty four thousand twenty five dollars and zero cents mr. de la rousseau will you be representing the city on this order tonight oh the chief Lyle very good sir

▶ 30:25 Speaker 6: thank you no no worries tonight he's unavailable I can tell you that the

▶ 30:35 Speaker 6: police department issued approximately 3,500 parking tickets last year bringing in approximately a hundred and three thousand dollars I don't have the information as far as train station revenue but I will say that they average about forty five hundred dollars a month in train station revenue that's all I Oh, I have.

▶ 30:55 Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Chief Lyle. Motion to move the bottom line.

▶ 31:00 Peter D. Mortimer: Alderman Boisselle made a motion to move the bottom line. Is there a second before we proceed with discussion? Second. Seconded by Alderman Forbes. On discussion, President Kahn, please.

▶ 31:15 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think my questions would probably be more directed towards Mr. DelaRusso than Chief Lyle.

▶ 31:21 Peter D. Mortimer: Mr. DelaRusso, would you join us, sir, please?

▶ 31:32 Speaker 4: I note that we're paying $18,000 again for the lease of the spaces in the lot, the St. Mary's lot. St. Mary's lot, yes. Is that correct? And are we in a lease now, if we know? Do you know how far in we are to the current lease?

▶ 31:47 Speaker 3: Through the chair, I do not. I would have to inquire from the city solicitor.

▶ 31:51 Speaker 4: And I guess my question may be rhetorical, but maybe not. I think we've been leasing this space for 18 years, 19 years.

▶ 32:08 Speaker 4: Is the plan just to continue this arrangement indefinitely?

▶ 32:18 Speaker 4: And, you know, I know parking is a premium. I know we voted last year to acquire some property to make additional parking.

▶ 32:31 Speaker 4: but um i mean is there any is there any view towards phasing this out replacing it it just it seems like we're over time we're going to pay an awful lot of money for parking spaces

▶ 32:40 Speaker 3: again i can uh inquire yeah city solicitor because i have not been involved in a discussion

▶ 32:47 Speaker 4: yeah if you could i'd be interested in response to that because uh i think unfortunately i was here at the genesis of this arrangement back in 19 i don't even know what's been a long time but it's a long time ago and it seems to have gone on for an awful long time that's all i have right

▶ 33:04 Peter D. Mortimer: now thank you president khan uh seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard a motion to move the bottom line has been made by alderman Boisselle and seconded by alderman forbes all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none opposed opposed we have one opposed uh eight in favor want to post this order will be recommended to the board for passage next we have the veterans chief we'll see you later on in the evening we will once again some more orders the next order

▶ 33:44 Peter D. Mortimer: we have before us is the veterans commission good evening um good evening we know you're filling in uh for brian mclean who's been activated on active duty uh would you like to introduce yourself and

▶ 33:56 Speaker 7: and make a brief statement yes hi good evening everyone thank you for having me my name is Alicia Redden some of us have met I've been working in the vet's office for a little over a year and I have currently stepped into the role of interim director of the district covering Melrose Wakefield and Saugus while Ryan McLean is on active duty orders for the next six to eight months

▶ 34:18 Peter D. Mortimer: guesstimated and the bottom line for this budget is five hundred and seventy thousand six hundred and ninety five dollars and 66 cents would you like to say anything about the budget I'll proceed directly to questions and

▶ 34:31 Speaker 7: answers I would like to say a few words if that's okay please do yes so over the past 12 months we've been able to do a ton in the community we have a new not a new outreach initiative in schools but we've definitely kicked that up in the past year we're working very closely with the middle school as well as the high school and we try to have as much of a presence as possible in all of our elementary schools including encouragement in all of our Memorial Day and Veterans Day observances and we go in to speak to the students as much as possible that's just a piece of what we do we also run a food market here out of the town out of the city that feeds approximately 60 families from Melrose and over 150 from Saugus and Wakefield we've also worked very closely with the Melrose substance abuse prevention coalition that is a very large issue in the veteran community so we've made it a point to team up with them as much as possible and work with them and so that's probably all I have to say for

▶ 35:29 Peter D. Mortimer: now so any questions would be great Thank You miss Redding I you know what I've so far I've seen quickly I think it was alderman lemmerman alderman's work

▶ 35:38 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Oh and president caught Thank You mr. chairman you're welcome thank you very much for coming down and thank you for everything that you do for our city and for our veterans just a couple of quick questions on the items here so I see a a small cut but a cut in the veterans benefit line are we serving fewer people or is that what's what's the reason for the change there so we have seen a

▶ 35:56 Speaker 7: slight drop in the amount of veterans that we're serving in the community but that's due to increased case management some veterans are moving on to other more permanent types of benefits such as Social Security VA disability payments their claims are coming through and they are no longer eligible for chapter 115 benefits so it's actually a good thing that we're seeing a slight dip although we are as you can see in our budget with the requested increase to keep our outreach budget we are still working very closely with the housing authorities to try to gather up what we think is an untapped population right so

▶ 36:31 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: you you actually have veterans moving on to maybe more sustainable or robust benefits that's great and there is a significant increase in the mileage line

▶ 36:42 Speaker 7: item yes absolutely so part of outreach is going out and attending different seminars different meetings traveling throughout the district and something that we realized in the past 12 months is that previously we weren't really submitting mileage accurately we weren't submitting our total mileage so we're seeing that we're actually doing quite a bit more outreach than we were filing for so once we started really putting in our full mileage we were going through it quite quickly I think at one point we went through our entire mileage by the the end of the second quarter so at this point we've hit our maximum for the fiscal year and now it's at the point where we're kind of struggling to cover travel travel costs and so that's why we have requested the increase to ensure that we have the financial capability to continue that outreach for our staff in

▶ 37:32 Peter D. Mortimer: the office thank you very much thank you all the Malama win alderman

▶ 37:35 Michael P. Zwirko: Suarco please Thank You mr. chairman thank you for your time tonight also your service appreciate that so I had a couple of questions I know that we do benefits outreach not only within the city we also you had mentioned Saugus and Wakefield correct so does this budget indicate any money's appropriations or funds that we receive from those municipalities and if so

▶ 37:56 Speaker 7: could you break that down for us so the way that we work so things like mileage and outreach are completely separate those do not become combined outreach done in Melrose is built through Melrose outreach done in Saugus or Wakefield is built through their respective accounting offices when it comes to our salaries and benefits both saugus and wakefield are responsible for 33.33 percent and they allot that to the city we send them an invoice out of accounting and they pay that on a monthly basis you can actually tick

▶ 38:23 Michael P. Zwirko: and tie it back as to where the services are rendered yep okay so what happens is the number

▶ 38:26 Speaker 7: that you're seeing is our full salaries and our full benefits for the year but it can be broken out fairly simply um and i i wasn't sure if that was included but i can get this to you as well um 34 000 comes from weakfield 34 from saugus and it all ticks and ties in right and those um those payments and those invoices are all up in accounting you're all housed here correct i mean

▶ 38:51 Michael P. Zwirko: your office is here in melrose so if you're doing outreach or if you're servicing veterans that need services in mel excuse me saugus or wakefield they would be calling melrose city hall

▶ 39:02 Speaker 7: no we have an office located in each location that's great so the way that it was when ryan was here was that he was primarily in melrose and i was in wakefield and saugus things have shifted a little bit and wakefield and melrose are manageable together so i continue to cover those two and we've brought on a temporary vso to cover saugus so it's fairly in it's it's fairly rare that i have to travel to saugus but it's really more for the high level auditing budget type items so what we're doing now is if I'm in I'm in sorry try to keep my schedule straight Tuesdays and Thursdays are Wakefield days but for me it's just Tuesday now and so our sagas person covers Thursday so it's only one day a week that I'm traveling back and forth they can contact Melrose and I can travel back and forth it just depends on the needs we've tried to keep it as fluid as possible between all three cities or all three municipalities and both VSOs and we also have administrative support covering in each location so that Thorp pretty much always someone in the office thank you for that and I

▶ 40:04 Michael P. Zwirko: do have one or two more questions so I know that with respect to the salaries I can see how it's being applied across other municipalities but I was wondering in terms of the benefits that I would imagine that Thorp some sort of reimbursement that we get from the state for all of the benefits that we at least

▶ 40:23 Speaker 7: sign them up for or the chapter 115 correct correct so chapter 115 benefits are reimbursed at 75% and that comes back to the city's general fund as far as once people are moved on to more permanent benefits our benefit number drops therefore our reimbursement changes but we stay reimbursed at 75% as long as we remain in compliance which we have been since forming the district and keeping the offices staffed and things like that so there is funds that comes

▶ 41:00 Speaker 7: back to yes city I have that I really do I'm not lying on a monthly basis we send out approximately $30,000 in benefits and we brought bring back in

▶ 41:09 Peter D. Mortimer: approximately 25 so it's reading mr. de la Rousseau seems to have thanks further

▶ 41:14 Speaker 7: elucidation he's much better with the numbers I'm good with the people finally

▶ 41:18 Speaker 3: respectfully I'm through the chair thank you for FY 17 three hundred and ten thousand one ninety eight and it is in the material we did provide the board I think was actually all the men boys although asked that we included so it's actually up over six thousand two hundred and fifty one dollars some last year so we do get that back and it comes right into the city as she indicated and

▶ 41:49 Michael P. Zwirko: Thank you. The last question that I have, I noticed that in the line for the 2016 actual is just under $310,000, yet it's projected to be an additional $125,000 from there with only seven weeks remaining in the fiscal year. I would imagine that based on previous budget years, you will hit that or come close to hitting that figure. What exactly is — where

▶ 42:15 Michael P. Zwirko: is that lump coming from because with the small amount of time left i'm just curious as to what

▶ 42:34 Speaker 4: that's going to go to there should be and i want to actually grab it if i may pardon me a lot of

▶ 42:46 Speaker 3: paper but i believe if you take a look at the definitions that were distributed and they do reference each column the fy16 projection and it's number five it indicates that the figure

▶ 43:01 Speaker 3: represents the total of the original budgeted amount for the current fiscal year which would be FY 16 and any prior year encumbrances only so it's only those two items that does not do a 112th calculation or an estimate like that to the end of the year it's strictly what was originally budgeted plus the encumbrances that may be applicable to that category or that line and that's it nothing more that's why we did provide it this year and i hope to make it part of the documentation

▶ 43:41 Peter D. Mortimer: uh each year uh well thank you thank you alderman Zwirko next in queue we have president khan please

▶ 43:46 Speaker 4: yeah um mr del russo so we're we receive approximately over three hundred thousand dollars in reimbursements and we get two-thirds of our employee expense reimbursed as a result of the uh the regional agreement where would i in looking at the overall budget where does that where is that income reflected is it in anticipated receipts or is it not part of the

▶ 44:15 Speaker 3: budget exactly correctly the chair it is in um local receipts goes right to the general fund

▶ 44:22 Speaker 4: um that's where it would show up so both of these both of these numbers are included in the local

▶ 44:27 Speaker 3: receipts category not the um state aid that's in a separate category as it needs to be so we can track it ourselves and uh tie it down to what we're supposed to get first of what we actually get it's the portion that comes from any regional agreements that we have like health department you'll find that in the local receipts that shows up there okay i just wanted to be sure

▶ 44:47 Speaker 4: for tracking purposes where this is figured in on the income side absolutely because uh we have

▶ 44:52 Speaker 3: to be sure that we get it what we actually build that it actually comes in and how far behind are

▶ 44:59 Speaker 4: we with state reimbursement right now how how are they running it's a 12 month you get reimbursed

▶ 45:05 Speaker 7: for the year prior so we're currently on a 12-month lag and are they paying you quarterly or

▶ 45:15 Speaker 3: semi-annually i'd have to look at the distribution sheet and i can get that back to you

▶ 45:19 Speaker 4: next meeting okay but in in past years and decades they haven't always been on schedule that's exactly correct to make sure that the payments are actually being received when they're supposed to be being received if we're building the budget based on those numbers that's all I have right now Thank You president card

▶ 45:37 Monica C. Medeiros: alderman Medeiros please thank you most of my questions have been asked and answered and I just in the mileage discussion and this might be more for mr. Diller so have we thought of a would it be appropriate in a case like this I don't know if we do this for any other departments to allow them usage of the

▶ 46:02 Monica C. Medeiros: city city gas or anything like that for

▶ 46:08 Monica C. Medeiros: and I'm not sure if that would be a cost savings or or not I'd be happy to

▶ 46:14 Speaker 3: inquire that's a good question yeah absolutely let me find out from Public

▶ 46:21 Peter D. Mortimer: works. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Medeiros. Is there a motion, please? On discussion?

▶ 46:28 Scott M. Forbes: Yes. Alderman Forbes, please. Thank you very much, and as a 20-year veteran of the United States Air Force, I'm always amazed at the amount of outreach and how this department in particular is able to bring people together in our community. We do walk amongst local heroes every day, and it's something that I know that I've learned over my time and my experience not to take for granted I will give you a moment to for a shameless plug in in case you have any upcoming events as people watching it will give you an opportunity to let people know in the community what we have planned I did see $4,000 and line item for war memorial so I didn't know if there was something upcoming if you wanted to talk on behalf of that or if it's just restoration or repairs or refurbishments of existing items that we

▶ 47:14 Speaker 7: half here in the city a little bit of both so war memorials are sometimes used to cover the cost of the larger flags that we use say at Memorial Hall that are not necessarily always reimbursed at 100% we purchase flags around the city we get reimbursed 100% for any flags we purchase for Memorial Day to flag veteran graves at the cemetery but any flags outside of that are at a car at auto own cost so that budget sometimes covers that that budget can also be used for restoration the cleaning of the veteran graves I don't know if anyone saw last year we took some time and really cleaned up all of the white marble stones at the veterans section and so things like that will come out of that budget we do have a ton of events coming up for Memorial Day that we hope to see as many people as possible at my schedules lots of paper um we will be putting up a women in service tribute on the lawn here at City Hall we also have a breakfast on the 29th over at Memorial Hall they are so gracious to let us use that space and then we will have our annual tour of the monument starting at 10 a.m. followed by the parade at 1 30 and closing ceremonies at the cemetery at 2 30 all of that on Sunday the 29th so we really hope to see as many people there as possible we're always looking for help flagging the graves at the cemetery which we'll be doing on the 28th great again thank you for all that

▶ 48:37 Speaker 7: do thank you so much and thank you for your service thank you and uh if Thorp no other

▶ 48:39 Scott M. Forbes: discussion uh motion that moves the bottom line second alderman forbes has made a motion to move

▶ 48:43 Peter D. Mortimer: the bottom line for the veterans fund that motion was seconded by alderman boisselle seeing no further discussion all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none uh this budget is passed uh while while you're here uh in the hopes of letting you have an early evening we're going to take an order out of order it's order two zero one six dash one seven three it is the reauthorization of the melrose veterans event revolving fund number two six zero seven for