ORDER-2016-123 : Authorization to Appropriate $131,835.18 in Borrowed Funds from the High School Science Lab Project (Fund 3367) to the High School Interior Renovations Project (Fund 3372)

Transcript (~26 min @ 1:33)

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▶ 1:09 Peter D. Mortimer: Seeing none, we have a motion to close public participation from President Kahn, duly seconded by Alderman Inferna. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, public participation is closed. The first order we have before us is order 2016-123. It is authorization to appropriate $31,835.18 in borrowed funds from the high school science lab project, fund number 3367, to the high school interior renovation project fund, that's 3372. Is there a motion to suspend the rules, please?

▶ 1:50 Speaker 1: So moved.

▶ 1:51 Peter D. Mortimer: Second. We have a motion to suspend the rules by Alderman Inferna, duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. We are under, any opposed? Hearing none, we are under suspension. With the appropriate city officials, we have the superintendent, we have our city planner, we have the chair of the school committee with us this evening. Other members of the school committee just sworn in. mccallister grande is in the building nice to see you thank you for coming would you like to

▶ 2:29 Denise Gaffey: make an opening statement sure my name is denise gaffey i'm the director of planning and community development and i'm i initiated this order to um take advantage um i think we have a great opportunity here to take advantage of some um unspent um borrowed funds that were borrowed initially for the high school science lab project and um when we built that project as i explained in the memorandum that was attached to this order we were able to award the construction of that it's at a lower cost than we had estimated and in addition we also had very very few change orders on that project so it was really a hugely successful project and consequently we find ourselves in a position today where we have some unspent funds it's approximately 131 thousand dollars so we are requesting that we transfer those funds into the school interior renovation project so that's the project that's currently under construction we're building the Learning Commons and the the student suite the guidance department suite and department offices over at the high school and as I think we mentioned when we were here about a year ago for that funding we we were going to be bidding that project with the steam space this science technology engineering art and mathematics as an alternate we didn't really think as part of our planning that we were going to be able to afford it and so we bid it as an alternate just to just to see if we would get lucky and the number did come in higher than our estimate sorry did come in higher than our budget but it came in lower than our estimate and so when we awarded the contract we asked if the contract is if there was ways we could value engineer some of the items out of the steam space to make it affordable and so they have presented us with with a revised price for that and so this funding coupled with the contingency that we have in that budget will allow us to complete the steam space so we think it's a great opportunity and I have with me tonight obviously the the treasurer and the CFO is here who can kind of speak to the bond process and obviously the superintendent can speak to the educational value of building the steam space but that's basically that's basically a summary of the request for funding so I'm happy to answer any

▶ 4:50 Peter D. Mortimer: questions you have thank you very much miss Gaffey excellent presentation as usual before we proceed madam clerk would you let the record reflect that we have been joined by Alderman Medeiros as well first in queue I saw President Kahn

▶ 5:04 Speaker 1: please yeah no disrespect to the to the merits of this proposal but um i was interested in the uh the finance and bond aspect of this mr chairman mr delarusso mr flavin would you please join us at

▶ 5:46 Speaker 1: the table please proceed president khan thank you so the bond authorization uh voted by the board was approximately 6.5 million to do the project is that correct yes and of that

▶ 5:56 Speaker 1: what percentage is the state match mr. Del Rosso or mr. Flavin and so we

▶ 6:09 Speaker 1: borrowed just under three million is that where we're at actually but we get

▶ 6:16 Speaker 1: reimbursed but our portion of it is just under three million yes two million nine

▶ 6:27 Speaker 1: point five okay and it turned out that we did our real share after all the figures were in was approximately two point eight million okay and what I was

▶ 6:37 Speaker 1: interested in is where do these obligations sit in the budget in the current fiscal year are these have we already done all the borrowing yes so there's no bond anticipation it's all it's all permanent permanent borrowing

▶ 7:02 Speaker 1: and what what if it is there going to be any impact on interest payment in fiscal

▶ 7:11 Speaker 2: 216 no why not it's just it's what the bond has been sold it's out there it's the street for the 2.7 million that the money is out already sold so we've received all those funds

▶ 7:25 Speaker 1: so it's it's in the debt schedule yeah i haven't gone back to check last year's last year's uh budget yet but um so this this will have no impact on the uh on the interest component no additional

▶ 7:36 Speaker 2: impact i mean we borrow the 2.7 and fiscal 16's cost is 198 581 26 for the main piece

▶ 7:46 Speaker 1: and is there going to be any budgetary impact going forward

▶ 7:52 Speaker 2: other than it exists today i mean the numbers of the numbers there's the amortization schedule that's involved in my budget every year and there's no additional cost for this move okay

▶ 8:05 Speaker 1: And there's no interest cost saving item? No.

▶ 8:12 Speaker 2: The reason we do have to spend money, because we borrowed it and it's out there as a tax exempt bond. There's IRS regulations in Chapter 44, Section 20 of the Massachusetts General Law requires that all bond proceeds be spent within two years in order to avoid any kind of arbitrage. In the old days, some cities would borrow the money, tax exempt it, and then reinvest it and play a hedge against it. So- We're not in that situation.

▶ 8:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, that was one of the things I wanted to make sure was clear. So this is not money that you could slide back into the general fund or anything like that. It has to be spent on a like-

▶ 8:51 Speaker 2: Has to be spent on a like term of the original bond, which is 20 years. And it has to be a capital project.

▶ 8:58 Speaker 1: Okay, that's all I have for right now, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 9:02 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Kahn. Alderman Inferno, please.

▶ 9:04 Gail Infurna: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just have two questions. The first one to Denise. In your memo that you sent us, you talked about that the priority would be building of the actual structure and whatnot, and the furnishing would cost a little extra. Can you tell us about that? Well, unfortunately, the furniture and the technology

▶ 9:26 Denise Gaffey: is purchased later in the phase of construction. We haven't purchased it yet. So what we hope is that we get closer to purchasing and buying the furniture that our contingency, which we have, you know, we have for construction, unforeseen conditions, will allow, plus this funding, will allow us to buy the furniture for that space.

▶ 9:47 Gail Infurna: And that's feasible. That sounds like it's something that would, I mean, I'd hate to think that we're going to build something and we don't have furniture to. With this funding, I think it's very likely.

▶ 9:57 Speaker 3: Okay. So may I, Mr. Chair?

▶ 10:01 Peter D. Mortimer: Please do. This is Superintendent Tamor, ladies and gentlemen, for people watching at home.

▶ 10:09 Speaker 4: So this space was so important to us and we wanted it built because the construction of the space is the bulk of the funding. And Denise has done a wonderful job finding a way to get it built. As a hedge against being able to furnish it, we're pursuing grants. So we've applied for at least two different grants at this point in time that may be able to supplement the furnishings. We're also working with a grant writer who works with Seam Collaborative, who happens to be a Melrose resident. So she's very invested in helping us find additional funding sources as well in order to outfit the space.

▶ 10:46 Gail Infurna: Great, thanks. And is this something that will have a positive impact on the students in our system? and maybe you could explain how, just for the public to catch a good handle on this.

▶ 11:03 Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I provided the Alderman with some background information.

▶ 11:05 Speaker 4: I try to find an article that was fairly comprehensive

▶ 11:10 Speaker 3: and straightforward and not full of jargon.

▶ 11:15 Speaker 4: This is called a STEAM space.

▶ 11:19 Speaker 3: It's science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. sometimes it's called a spend stem space sometimes it's called to make a space a

▶ 11:27 Speaker 4: hacker space a fab lab it has all these different names the real purpose of this space is as education moves towards more inquiry base more hands-on again we have

▶ 11:38 Speaker 4: we need spaces from which that type of work can be done spaces like the steam

▶ 11:43 Speaker 3: space allow students to work across curriculum pursue their interests pursue the four C's of 21st century education collaboration creativity critical

▶ 11:57 Speaker 3: thinking and I'm leaving out one it'll come to me communication because they

▶ 12:05 Speaker 4: have to work in groups and this would be really augmenting a lot of what we've

▶ 12:07 Speaker 3: done with the science labs we were going with our art program and of course it's

▶ 12:10 Speaker 4: a perfect complement to the Learning Commons in which we're putting a graphics lab and other meeting spaces John Morris our new science director

▶ 12:23 Speaker 3: grant that we had applied for he made the following points by providing a physical space that nurtures and supports active engagement across multiple disciplines and grade levels the Melrose STEAM Center will one expose students and staff to new ideas new approaches to problem-solving and new subject areas to help inspire creativity and innovation to facilitate interdisciplinary education that allows students to link material and content as they move throughout the day in their lessons fostering an environment of a common purpose three augment project-based learning opportunities that enable students to develop real-world skills ideas and products for allow students to ask questions and explore topics that are of interest to them increasing student motivation engagement and academic outcomes five and able teachers and students alike to model diverse approaches to conceptual understanding which generates a growth mindset and six acknowledge the reality that students have different strengths and that they learn and demonstrate proficiency in different ways we really feel this this will be an enhancement to

▶ 13:37 Gail Infurna: where we're trying to bring the high school and education in Melrose okay thank you for that information I think it's really important when we're talking about this amount of money what not for the public to understand how it will affect our students so thank you for for that information and that's it for now

▶ 13:53 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you Thank You alderman Inferno alderman Boyce L please some of the

▶ 13:57 Robert A. Boisselle: questions were answered during the process here but it was interesting has the city planner started off with the term stem but the makerspace and ended up with steam towards the end and so it was interesting in the aspects that the

▶ 14:13 Robert A. Boisselle: arts are also going to be sharing this type of room and so forth and that's a question I mean looking at the graphics that you have here on for the map you have about 24 to 25 students in this room now who who were the students I mean are these the freshmen the senior or just a senior class that are coming through this particular area at this point or is it shared by the middle school and the high school at this point we're getting doubling our money for

▶ 14:49 Speaker 3: this effect so it's shared by both the middle school in the high school just as we've begun to share the old forgive the term woodshop at the middle school at

▶ 14:55 Speaker 4: the school with the high school and actually you're adding a course next

▶ 15:01 Speaker 3: year for some hands-on you know opportunities for high school kids there as well you know it's it's definitely a shared space and it will be there'll be

▶ 15:11 Speaker 4: a system where teachers can sign up for it depending on what they're working on

▶ 15:15 Speaker 3: so like the example I always give is the you know the science labs are at the end of my office weeks and what they've taken to doing is building things in the

▶ 15:29 Speaker 4: hallway because they don't have a space you know on any day I can be walking

▶ 15:33 Speaker 4: down the science lab hallway and they're building an experiment in physics or they're building robotics or they're you know or we have all sorts of things happening because we don't have a space for kids anymore in in buildings to do

▶ 15:48 Speaker 4: this type of creative work so I it'll be used by a lot of a lot of different classes and a lot of different students if people are not familiar it is located

▶ 16:01 Speaker 4: in the art wing when you come in the main door and you take a right where the art wing is that's where it's going to be located so it's downstairs from the Learning Commons and it's nestled right among the other art classes now with so

▶ 16:12 Robert A. Boisselle: much activity going on in the class is there going to be enough room to store I mean looking at the graphics here I mean there's looks like probably about 30 square feet for storage I mean this the robotics alone will probably take up

▶ 16:28 Speaker 4: half of the room I don't know if we would move all the robotics equipment or if you ever saw their working space off of the garage it's quite frankly

▶ 16:38 Speaker 4: it's it's a mother's nightmare they like to leave this stuff out in process and we certainly would not want to have to make them pick up every day so other kids could use that but they're you know when we're talking robotics we're not talking like the irate is robotics which are massive we're talking more

▶ 16:55 Robert A. Boisselle: manageable very good now there's going to be a teacher doing the class is this going to be used after school in any way we're hoping so you know we have a Legos

▶ 17:08 Speaker 4: Club at the middle school and we have the irate is at the high school and this

▶ 17:13 Speaker 4: will open up the opportunities for a number of things to happen and there

▶ 17:15 Robert A. Boisselle: will be someone there to watch over the children so for also the equipment that that you're having here you got laser cutters you have minor saws drill presses saber saw sand saws 3d printers 2d printers question comes up of safety I mean this some of this equipment is very lethal so at this point is the equipment going to be built in with the appropriate safety devices absolutely so

▶ 17:51 Speaker 4: if you haven't met mr. Morris yet he is OSHA certified it is a passion of his and matter of fact he's taking the whole science department through the OSHA standards and safety measures right now so that he makes sure that they all comply and we will continue to do that very good well I'm in favor of the

▶ 18:07 Robert A. Boisselle: reauthorization and good luck and be I'll be hoping that I have a tour when this is ready to go thank you very much Thank You mr. chairman Thank You

▶ 18:18 Peter D. Mortimer: Alderman Boycelle next in queue we have Alderman's work oh please thank you

▶ 18:25 Michael P. Zwirko: mr. president thank you said a couple quick questions this is the first one how far along are we in the improvements the construction process as it goes

▶ 18:36 Speaker 5: through and the reason I ask is you know I've I've gone through some home

▶ 18:44 Michael P. Zwirko: improvements myself and I know that generally when you're using the contingency buffer that generally gets eaten up in the beginning as opposed towards the end yeah so you know the the oh no moments have passed so to speak so okay so I just asked because I know you you mentioned in your memo that you are bringing it down a little bit so I just wanted to be mindful of that it's a good use of funds too so thank you for that and then I had another question with respect to the residual balance that's left over and this is in the last bullet point in the memo this question is probably for treasurer Flavin if we were to not use the funds would it go towards the principle of the bond the most that

▶ 19:33 Speaker 2: can go towards a bump and according to large the most that can go down to a principal payment is $1,000 okay so anything over $1,000 you have to

▶ 19:43 Michael P. Zwirko: reallocate so it makes sense to put this money to work so to speak yes understood those are all the questions I had Thank You alderman Suarco alderman

▶ 19:54 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: MacMaster my goal is please Thank You mr. chairman this is very exciting I'm happy to hear that we have the art component in it it's not just them it's steam and that it's actually going to be in the art wing so that's terrific I do have a question I guess maybe miss Gaffey for you just in general if we were to not use this residual bond money from this from the science lab project for this project is there anything else in the schools that you would see as being a priority between you and the superintendent that you've discussed

▶ 20:30 Denise Gaffey: that you would use it for no I mean absolutely this was the priority I think I pointed out the reason I attached a copy of the master plan right which we went through last year is because it it indicates where this project fell in the

▶ 20:42 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: priority list and this was the next project and so you've checked off all those others above it right great good and then it looks as though you're still coming up a little bit short you have like a hundred and thirty one thousand or hundred thirty five thousand mr. Flavin is that right from the bond I'm sorry how much is left from the bond 131 and the projection on it is 220 on the

▶ 21:11 Denise Gaffey: project is 220 right but um we have we have the we have contingency from the project as well and since we when we since we awarded this project lower than what we at a lower price than we thought we would we actually will have excess funds which is why I think we might be able to furnish it so in other words the

▶ 21:26 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: contingency is really going to be probably more than you've already budgeted for exactly in a way right okay great great I'm excited to hear it and what's the timeline for this project being completed we're incorporating it

▶ 21:42 Speaker 3: into the into the same as a change order so the the very same contractors that

▶ 21:44 Denise Gaffey: are building the Learning Commons and the rest of the spaces will just will be able to mobilize and that's the other reason why this is such a great use of the funds because we can we can spend these funds and mobilize the contractors

▶ 22:01 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: immediately so there's no and so for the beginning of school or Christmas break

▶ 22:07 Speaker 4: or and she knows that my deadline is usually around the third week in August we need to give the Department of Public Works time to clean and we need to give our teachers time to come in and set up their rooms so we try to give ourselves at least a week swings time between the end of the project and the beginning of

▶ 22:29 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: school great and other than mr. Morris who my kids had it was great I know with all the hands-on activities other any is there any other faculty that you'll be devoting to this so you'll be repurposing in any way or well we have

▶ 22:45 Speaker 4: we have our academic facilitator both library media specialists are interested in this because as you may know a lot of communities are building maker spaces in their public libraries it's not just school systems so they're both very all three of them are very interested in it and we have you know our arts people who are very interested in it as well as some of our math people you know a lot

▶ 23:10 Speaker 4: of what we do now is the ability to do hands-on work create 3d models for problem-solving is not just in engineering it's across many

▶ 23:22 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: curriculums and the other interesting thing I was observing about the location is it sort of about some of the am i right it's some about some of the special ed classrooms we'll be we're going to be relocating them as part of

▶ 23:35 Speaker 4: the whole master plan that we've been working on with the permanent school building committee one of the things is this was really considered a temporary space for them because we want to make sure that they're embedded in the larger school and not isolated in one wing but it wouldn't preclude them from no

▶ 23:56 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: opportunity to participate in space many of them are included in general ed

▶ 24:00 Speaker 4: classes and they participate as part of the general ed classes and I think

▶ 24:05 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: certainly this type of curriculum is ideal for many of those students we're finding too so great thank you very much Thank You Alderman McAteer-Margolis

▶ 24:17 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Alderman Lemmerman please Thank You mr. chairman just a quick comment last year when I attended my first meeting is the aldermanic representative on the school building committee we this was on the agenda this bid and there is a discussion about having this as an alternate and and there was a lot of discussion about this being a priority and a really important resource for the students and that it was too bad that we couldn't include it in the main bid but we would do it as an alternate and hope so just wanted to thank miss Gaffey for her work to find the funding for it and being able to make it make it happen as an alternate I'm looking forward to supporting it so thank you thank you

▶ 24:54 Peter D. Mortimer: very much alderman levelman seeing no further alderman president Khan please

▶ 24:59 Speaker 1: yeah I always try to picture myself as to being out watching television and wondering whether I can understand what we're talking about and in this case In this case, what we're talking about is we're transferring $131,835.18 from one bond project to another. That's what we're doing. We've already voted these bonds in the past. So tonight is just a transfer, essentially, from one bond project to another of 131,835.18. We're not appropriating millions of dollars or anything of that nature. And nothing else can be done with this money. It's been borrowed, it can only be used on a bond project. So that's the issue that's before us this evening, and that's the issue that we're going to vote on. And I'm going to vote in favor of this. But sometimes when we're discussing issues that people get excited about, I just worry that we lose our way and people at home might not really understand what we're talking about or what we're doing, so that's what we're doing, and I'm going to support the order.

▶ 26:08 Peter D. Mortimer: Well said, President Kahn, and I seldom speak from the chair Site, but, and I would like to add to your accurate comments that this money is available for this further project because the administration and management of the first half of this project was done so well that this money was left over and can only be used for these purposes and those have to go out to everybody who is the five people and many others who were seated at the table here before us thank you for your service tomorrow's seeing no further alderman indicating a desire to be heard alderman inferno has made a motion to recommend this passage at our next full board meeting that motion was duly seconded by alderman's work oh and seeing no further discussion all in favor of said motion for recommendation please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this order will be recommended to the full board for passage at our next full board meeting thank you one and all for attending thank

▶ 27:16 Peter D. Mortimer: you thank you the next order we have before us is order 2016-126 it is the appointment of maya jamala dean of 10 melrose street to the human rights commission for a three-year term said term to expire on the last day of february 2018. mr maladin would you join us please