ORDER-2015-154 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 in the amount of $72,885,826.66 (Seventy Two Million, Eight Hundred Eighty Five Thousand, Eight Hundred Twenty Six Dollars and Sixty Six Cents)

Transcript (~1 h 23 min @ 9:40)

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

▶ 9:40 Peter D. Mortimer: The first order we have before us in order 2015-154, city of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2016 in the amount of $72,885,826.66 is department number 300300, the school department in the amount of $25,172,195. Is there a motion to suspend the rules, please?

▶ 10:09 Speaker 3: So moved. Second.

▶ 10:11 Peter D. Mortimer: Alderman Inferna has made a motion to suspend the rules. Said motion was duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. All in favor of that suspension, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the rules are now suspended. And would the appropriate city officials and school committee members please now come forward to address the board. Excuse me, to address the committee.

▶ 10:48 Peter D. Mortimer: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Good evening. This is Margaret Driscoll from the school committee for people watching at home, the chair of the finance committee of the school committee. To her right is Mr. Pecone, the CFO of the school department, and to his right is our superintendent of schools, Ms. Taymor. Welcome, and please proceed with your presentation.

▶ 11:12 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. First of all, I want to introduce myself, as Peter did, Margaret Triskell. I am a member of the Melrose School Committee and chair of the Finance and Facilities Subcommittee. I am joined behind us by Kristen Thorpe, chairman of the Melrose School Committee, and Christine Casatelli, who is vice chair of the Finance and Facilities Subcommittee. So thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you this evening. I just wanted to let you know that the budget that is to be presented to you this evening is a long time work in process. We began this last October. It has been thoroughly discussed, reviewed, presented to the community. We have heard from all of the stakeholder groups. We have heard from the community at large, and the budget that you do have before you is a budget that we as a committee feel very strongly is respectful to what the city is able to provide us at this time and in addition is respectful of the needs and priorities of the students who we serve so with that i'll turn it over to the superintendent and the director of

▶ 12:32 Speaker 4: finance and administrative affairs thank you thank you mr good evening everyone again it's our yearly parents before you to seek approval of the school committee budget um the but as ms driscoll said this was a very long process we are trying to develop a process which is more open which is more thorough which is more detailed the after the initial budget message from me and ms driscoll and mr casatelli to the committee on january 6th the committee met almost weekly from february to april as we worked our way through the budget as you all know from last week's vote we started out with a growth budget but working with the cfo of the city patrick delarusso we eventually came to what we are referring to as a balanced budget which is before you tonight this balanced budget is a solid budget it had we were able to include in this budget all the work we have done previously including the reorganization and reallocation of funds and that reorganization and reallocation of funds over the past few years has added to the district a psychologist for secondary campus three english as a second language teachers 2.6 elementary academic interventionists the director of visual and performing arts 2.0 elementary instructional coaches 1.0 academic facilitator for the secondary campus a fourth grade teacher at the lincoln and a 0.4 teacher at the melrose high school as we entered this budget we wanted to be sure that we could continue to hold on to those positions that we had help we had added because we are growing programs yearly however we were also faced with what you know is a bubble or a trend we do not know yet we will be conducting a demographic study to find out exactly what it is at the elementary level so we also in this budget had to add um two elementary teachers one at the lincoln one at the um winthrop we unexpectedly had to add two kindergarten teachers we also wanted to expand some positions at the high school um typically when we have a 0.6 or a 0.8 we try to eventually bring them up to a 1.0 this budget is able to do that as well as maintain all the services and programs we currently have in place however we are at a point in time where we have reallocated reorganized and reinvented as many things as we can this budget also takes into account contractual obligations we are in the third year of the teachers contract and we are currently renegotiating for other contracts the transportation the secretaries the paraprofessionals and the administrators so we are in the middle of wide wide ranging negotiations at the same time so that is the background on this budget but as i said it is a solid budget it will allow us to continue the work we've been engaged in for three years and continue to make progress um so with that i would

▶ 15:56 Speaker 4: ask if the alderman would like to go through the budget in detail thank you superintendent taymor

▶ 16:04 Peter D. Mortimer: the order is before us President Kahn followed by Alderman Boycelle yeah just just a couple of

▶ 16:11 Speaker 3: comments I don't have too many questions right now I always like to start off our discussion of the school budget by indicating what level of authority we have relative to this budget because every year we have this meeting and every year I leave and every year it becomes clear to me that there's many people who don't understand what the scope of our review is and they have expectations that do not comport with the ed reform act of 2000 of 1993 nor the law of the Commonwealth we are not allowed to increase the budget that is requested by the school committee nor are we allowed to allocate things amongst lines as set forth by the school committee things that we cannot do whether we would like to work not we are constrained and rely on the expertise of the school committee as it relates to that what can we do you

▶ 17:15 Speaker 3: might ask well one thing that we're allowed to do if we want to is we could cut the budget that's been set forth or we could approve it or fail to approve it but people who are watching expecting us to tell the committee that they should reallocate teaching positions or other positions amongst lines in their budgets are going to be disappointed because that is not our function and we cannot do that i do have a question relative to

▶ 17:46 Speaker 3: the balanced budget how much are we expecting and i don't know whether you can answer this Mr. Pecone or whether Mr. Del Russo needs to how much of our free cash going forward are we anticipating using to balance this budget good evening to the chair um as last year two components

▶ 18:11 Speaker 2: all uh through the chair the first is the Medicaid reimbursement for three hundred thousand dollars again that's not a new revenue that's the same revenue they historically have received and the And the second would be $640,000 in free cash in the fall, as it stands this evening.

▶ 18:36 Speaker 2: And again, that was also what was received, I believe, last year.

▶ 18:39 Speaker 3: Okay, so in order to meet all of our funding requirements for this budget, it's going to require $640,000 of free cash, which will be certified in the fall, and the reimbursement of $300,000, is that correct?

▶ 18:52 Speaker 2: That is correct.

▶ 18:56 Speaker 3: And, you know, I'm not going to belabor this, I'm going to try to give the abridged version of some of the topics that I'd like to discuss.

▶ 19:07 Speaker 3: I don't like doing this. I didn't like it last year, I didn't like it the year before, I don't like it this year. I don't think it's sound budget practice.

▶ 19:19 Speaker 3: I remember going back 10 or 12 years ago where this administration was criticizing the previous administration in indicating that it was not honest budgeting to be using free cash to balance the budget. But I suppose that's water under the bridge.

▶ 19:37 Speaker 3: A couple of other things that I'd like to point out. The $25,172,000 that the school budget contains does not include health insurance, is that correct, Mr. Del Russo? That is correct. So we have a large expenditure of health insurance that's, and I'm not saying that this is wrong or inappropriate. But people who are watching, I think many don't understand that city side budget contains all of the health insurance. It contains all of the work as compensation expense for both city and school, is that correct? That is correct. It contains all of the unemployment cost for both the city and the school. it now contains I believe all or most of the custodial and maintenance functions for school and city buildings and I'm sure I've forgotten some but so there there are large blocks of money that are fully funded on the city side that aren't included in the school budget with respect superintendent to our collective bargaining agreements teachers are in the third so there would be no no requirement of any appropriation going forward to fund a

▶ 20:51 Speaker 4: teacher contract no that's already calculated into the budget and are you

▶ 20:55 Speaker 3: are you out now relative to your other unions are you going out at the end of

▶ 21:03 Speaker 3: this we're out so was we out last year as well as this year or we just don't

▶ 21:06 Speaker 4: we're out now we started negotiations mid-year in anticipation of being finished the contracts being finished either June or August depending on the contract so we're trying to get those renegotiated in time for the opening of

▶ 21:22 Speaker 3: school in August okay so if there was any settlement that included a retroactive component it would have to be figured into this year's budget if

▶ 21:29 Speaker 4: you look at the budget there is a line item contractual obligations where we try to anticipate what that would look like of course without predicting or confirming what the offer will be we don't want to go there that's all I have

▶ 21:46 Peter D. Mortimer: for right now Thank You president Kahn next in line we have Alderman Boycelle please well I have a lot of questions first one very positive I was concerned

▶ 21:52 Robert A. Boisselle: more about the winter up in the Lincoln school teachers that showed up in the the status quo budget and you're telling me that it did make it into the balance budget that's very good but in the process of doing the balanced budget I noticed in some of these emails that came to us concerned from the staff the school committee in your office a lot of a number of items where we reduce from that budget and I'm just sort of concerned a couple of these the reduction in the special education transportation of $20,000 will this cause any impact on any of the students that need this transportation so when we go

▶ 22:36 Speaker 4: to do a special education is very tied to the number of students you have receiving services and where we predict they will be attending school next year the special education transportation is probably 90% children who are in out of district placements so what happens is there's a great amount of variation we aged out that's the term that is used in SPED when students reach 22 and no longer services we aged out a couple of children who receive transportation a couple more will be aging out mid-year I think next year so we predict the SPED budget based on who we know will be enrolled next year however SPED budgets are historically volatile because you can have a child move in over the summer who needs extensive services is in another district placement and we have to provide that transportation for that reason as you know we work with the city last year to create the special education stabilization fund in anticipation of those type of situations okay thank you another item item here

▶ 23:37 Robert A. Boisselle: you have to remove a new classroom setup is this part of the library furniture or

▶ 23:47 Speaker 4: what is that is being that was taken off of the stat that budget and it was placed in the construction that you the Board of Aldermen approved recently so

▶ 23:57 Robert A. Boisselle: that was the yes great and also you removing the technology and hardware now just because the city's taking over the technology aspects they're not

▶ 24:06 Speaker 4: taking over the technology aspects as you all know George pesos is 40% school side 60% city side what is going to happen as you've heard us discuss that under the new technology plan the city is going to be coming forward in front of the alderman looking to do some extensive purchasing or leasing of hardware so what we have agreed to is that the city will basically take on the hardware but we will maintain the software and the licensing as I think I discussed last week the licensing is now costing us approximately $100,000 well

▶ 24:47 Robert A. Boisselle: if the licensing and subscription is costing you $100,000 in your budget solid in the city in the school-wide comp licensing I believe is the line you were looking at is eighty three thousand four hundred and four you're going to be

▶ 25:08 Speaker 4: know what at this point I'm sorry no what happens is when you look into the supply lines under the different content areas some of the directors figure into their content in their supply lines programs and subscriptions that they want that are very highly specific to a purpose so are we looking for a hundred

▶ 25:26 Robert A. Boisselle: and eighty three thousand or just a hundred thousand thousand okay in the

▶ 25:40 Robert A. Boisselle: growth budget that you we talked about in past couple weeks and so forth and with the school committee information we have a lot of terms that sort of popped up and we have specialists educator teacher facilitator how many of these people are just plain teachers in the classroom so educator is now the

▶ 26:02 Speaker 4: preferred term by the state for anybody who is licensed so basically all two hundred and seventy five of our staff are considered educators and then sometimes to identify their roles in the building we give them locally local titles so a specialist may be somebody who teaches only art of the facilitator is the academic facilitator at the high school who oversees blended learning online learning and some of the research that happens in classrooms what are the

▶ 26:45 Speaker 1: title did you have, Mr. Boissel? Teacher. And teacher. All right. On page 16 of the budget,

▶ 26:54 Robert A. Boisselle: we have the, I guess it's the contract obligations. You had 2015

▶ 27:02 Speaker 1: budget of $40,000, but as of the middle of this month, you spent $120,000.

▶ 27:10 Robert A. Boisselle: That's three times the budget at this point.

▶ 27:15 Speaker 1: Are we having a lot of contracts going out, or what is that?

▶ 27:20 Speaker 3: Contractual. So what we do is we run all of the sick leave buyback, sick leave buyback, vacation buyback. If we have contracts that need adjustments, we run those increases through those lines as well. Any paraprofessional, like I said, sick leave buyback for any of the unions, which can be considerable.

▶ 27:51 Speaker 3: And then that's pretty much it, actually.

▶ 27:53 Speaker 4: So for example, in contractual obligations, we try to anticipate who's going to retire, who will need sick leave buyback, or who will need, there is a clause in many of the contracts where senior people have a right to an uptick the last couple of years. So you try to anticipate what that will cost you. It is not unusual for a senior person to go out with a $10,000 sick leave buyback.

▶ 28:19 Speaker 1: Are we looking for a retirement leaving this fiscal year?

▶ 28:25 Speaker 4: We're having eight leave right now. Looking at my seniority list, we try to calculate how many more may be senior and may leave or may not leave, but that also covers other issues that come up from time to time. If for example, going back to your special education example, Mr. Boisselle, a child moved in and needed a one-on-one power and we had not figured it, that could be a place that we would get it because that would be contractual.

▶ 28:52 Robert A. Boisselle: Okay. And of course the system-wide computer lines are wiped out because of the technology aspects of it.

▶ 29:10 Robert A. Boisselle: In the discussion we had Thursday evening of the $480,000 of books, you mentioned part of that some of that money or future money would be put in put into the budget so sort of the curriculum material increase now i see the curriculum material increase in the growth budget but is that in the fiscal budget this year so we're not looking at any spending for books this year or is that we're still working with the 480 000. we have a little bit of money left in the

▶ 29:43 Speaker 4: 480 000 and then what we're trying to do is negotiate with some of our vendors long-term purchases where we purchase over time so we're trying to allocate how much in our budget we can use over time to purchase whatever materials we may need there are certain materials that have to be purchased every year yeah whether it's supplies for the science lab or it's the workbooks for the k-2 who are using special you know a new math program that requires a ancillary workbook those are always in there but those are relatively inexpensive okay i mean doing the presentation

▶ 30:22 Robert A. Boisselle: you also mentioned the k-5 reading series i believe and that they were to be upgraded to the state standard but you mentioned a cost of 250 000 i mean even the growth budget doesn't cover a hundred that much you're still short a hundred thousand so as i said there is money left over in

▶ 30:43 Speaker 4: the bond that will be the initial payment on that and we have negotiated an agreement with the vendor to purchase over four years over over four years yes they extended it for us okay now as any

▶ 30:57 Robert A. Boisselle: other agreements for you also talked about foreign languages social studies and science and you weren't sure of the amounts at all uh at the time of we talking about so are there other agreements that we're looking to uh use we will need social looking for 150 000 just to start this purchase

▶ 31:20 Speaker 4: and so forth so similar to the approach that we want to take under um the um technology yeah we would be looking for to buy over time or lease over in the sense of the technology it's lease over time but any purchases we make we would look to buy over time and if we had additional monies in the budget we would allocate them accordingly i cannot predict what costs will be associated yet right now as i said the national science standards have been pushed out another six months we have no idea what that will involve and tuesday night the social studies review committee will present to

▶ 31:57 Robert A. Boisselle: the school committee their needs now are you mentioning that you're going to be using some

▶ 32:02 Speaker 4: of that 300 000 for the technology no the 300 000 for the technology will be so and that's that's

▶ 32:07 Robert A. Boisselle: for the hardware the wi-fi and computers and so forth yeah but we would take a similar approach

▶ 32:10 Speaker 4: to any textbook or digital um purchases we make okay uh since you mentioned the technology grant

▶ 32:17 Robert A. Boisselle: that we're talking about 300 000 for five years uh each year 300 000 are we looking to and i guess the technology the technology plan talks about K through 12 for computers and so forth three one computer for three students now is that going to be 1,000 computers coming in in September and October is that we're talking about a phase in here or just how is that 300,000 going to be used for every I

▶ 32:51 Speaker 4: think mr. pesos is going to present to you on that and he's going to provide

▶ 32:57 Speaker 1: details to you on that okay very good when you were doing that the 480,000 you

▶ 33:01 Robert A. Boisselle: mentioned you prioritize certain groups to in the upgrading of their editions of hardbound books what groups were actually upgraded at this point I

▶ 33:16 Speaker 4: believe a report was submitted at some time a year ago we upgraded math foreign language some social studies some science some AP texts because the AP courses have been revamped now these are advanced placement yeah but I would need

▶ 33:36 Speaker 4: to have the report in front of me to remember exactly what okay thank you

▶ 33:41 Robert A. Boisselle: now what all these new books coming in is there some sort of inventory that that's been developed to track-

▶ 33:49 Speaker 4: Absolutely. Pardon? Absolutely.

▶ 33:53 Robert A. Boisselle: Absolutely. Good. Just out of curiosity, what does a textbook cost on an average?

▶ 33:58 Speaker 4: Anywhere from $75 to $175.

▶ 34:04 Robert A. Boisselle: Now you mentioned the electronic updates and is there like science, do they have workbooks and so forth associated with those?

▶ 34:11 Speaker 4: that is called a consumable has to be replaced on a yearly or buy in annually basis the licensing comes with the for the digital copies comes with the purchase of the textbooks as i mentioned the other day they do not like to give you the digital copies for more than six years i negotiated seven Good, very good.

▶ 34:35 Robert A. Boisselle: The only other question I have goes back to the budget.

▶ 34:46 Speaker 1: In the city wide athletic section,

▶ 34:53 Speaker 1: you have original budget, page 12, sorry.

▶ 34:57 Robert A. Boisselle: You have a number of original budgets and you have actual budget. For instance, the athletic transportation, I believe, you budgeted 79,000. And actually, you spent, as of mid-June, almost $95,000. And then you have other categories of the basketball, swimming, gymnastics. They all seem to be over their budget. And then you have some groupings at the, this is like the girl ice hockey, budget $28,000, but only $15,000 were spent. Do you rearrange the funds to pay? In other words, does the girl ice hockey's pay for the boys' baseball and other groups and so forth? Is that the way it works?

▶ 35:47 Speaker 3: No, well typically not. I mean, if we need to transfer money into another sport, because we're over, we do, but we typically do not like to do that. If you look at the entire athletic budget, it's more like a pool of money.

▶ 36:07 Robert A. Boisselle: to say well i mean if you're looking at the bottom line you're looking at 650 000 and as of mid-june

▶ 36:19 Speaker 3: you spent 653 000. so we we also have special revenue accounts that offset this budget as well so the athletic budget is offset by the the user fees that are brought in so the user fees for one

▶ 36:33 Speaker 4: group is spread out is that what we're saying there's a tiered user fee system so for example ice hockey is the most expensive sport that you can participate in so they pay a higher user fee than somebody participating in track but they have a surplus at this point um the girls hockey that's

▶ 36:51 Speaker 3: um well you mentioned well when you say a surplus i freeze the budget around october so um we're very fiscally we're tight fiscally so we freeze the budget and we only allow because of because again we have one pot of money in order to and we need to balance this part of money at the end of the year so if we anticipate that we're going to go over we have to freeze the budget in october and we think that's going to be the most fiscally responsible thing to do and when you see a surplus it's basically because we've been we didn't spend the money exactly you didn't spend the money so

▶ 37:30 Speaker 4: one of the things one of the things that happens in athletics that's very interesting is success is expensive going to the Super Bowl was expensive okay the more the more you travel it's the more buses you have it's the more officials you have it's the more practice time you have it's expensive and we've been successful and there's no way to predict for that and so what we try to do is between what the city allocates and the user fees try to come as close as we can to a balanced budget in athletics well I finished my

▶ 38:06 Robert A. Boisselle: questions and I have to congratulate and thank the staff of your staff in the school committee for spending those long hours on those on those evenings so 10 11 o'clock to get this project done on time and to get it to us and it's been

▶ 38:27 Speaker 1: we have our ups and downs but it's been nice uh working with this particular group thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you alderman boycelle next in line we have alderman Medeiros

▶ 38:38 Monica C. Medeiros: please thank you mr chairman thank you um i wanted to ask uh how much chapter 78 are we

▶ 38:55 Speaker 3: set to receive this year is that finalized chapter 78 total yes uh this year let's see this year we received 7.8 million dollars in chapter 78. if if i made to the chair according

▶ 39:05 Speaker 2: to the senate budget 7 million 960 596. and how does that compare to our current fiscal year you

▶ 39:23 Speaker 2: you said that was uh mr cohen said that was seven it's ninety three thousand three hundred more

▶ 39:26 Speaker 5: ninety three thousand three hundred okay great thank you um i also wanted to ask a little bit

▶ 39:30 Monica C. Medeiros: about kindergarten um you know in 2012 we voted as a board to fully fund all day kindergarten so that we could offer it for free and the idea was that we would be able to provide this as something that would become free but also self-sustaining and the increase that would receive in chapter 70 funding would pay for what what we were

▶ 40:06 Monica C. Medeiros: expending to operate that program you know now we're a few years in and I know

▶ 40:13 Monica C. Medeiros: there's a lot of moving parts but I'd like to see you know how is that how is

▶ 40:24 Speaker 3: that working is it really paying for itself that's in terms of the detail of that question I'm we're not I'm not ready to answer that I don't have any information in front of me but if you want we can sit down and have a meeting

▶ 40:34 Monica C. Medeiros: and discuss the yes that's why I you know had sent some questions along last week so that we have some of this information you know I I too am concerned that we are making a habit of using free cash to balance our budget i understand that again there's lots of moving parts but i want to make sure that you know when i know that you know a few years ago we had to use free cash and it was back in november to balance the previous years that current year's budget that was due to contractual uh obligations from negotiating

▶ 41:14 Monica C. Medeiros: the teachers contract we started there and then of course last year 640 000 worth of free cash to balance the budget this year again we're looking for towards 640 000 to balance the budget um

▶ 41:27 Monica C. Medeiros: you know i want to make sure i'm doing my due diligence and that you know we're not losing some losing money on a program that is as many things that are required you know laundry lists

▶ 41:40 Speaker 4: and they keep increasing every year are you suggesting that we go back to half-day paid kindergarten is that your suggestion I don't know because I'm not

▶ 41:46 Monica C. Medeiros: sure whether or not it's paying for itself but if it's not and we're in a position where we're you know I know you said a few weeks ago that everything is

▶ 41:56 Speaker 4: on the table no that's not how it's I didn't say everything every program was on the table I said in terms of building space everything was on the table building okay not programs not so let me say two things to that first of all we We budget conservatively, very conservatively. If you go through this budget, there are lines that decrease, because in order to have a balanced budget that focused on services to children, Mr. Pacone did a detailed cost analysis of many of the small accounts that are non-personnel, and those are either level-funded or actually decreased. Second of all, we figure every year, and Mr. De La Russa and I go through this every year, We figure 3,400 children as our number for Chapter 70 reimbursement. It's a low number because I rather figure conservatively and count on less than figure high and count on more and be disappointed. So that's how we practice our budget. Third, when I came here and the first budget I presented, I remember President Kahn being quite emphatic about he did not like the structural deficit that was how you have been building your budgets for very many years nobody at this table disagrees that the structural deficit is not a good practice for building a budget when we build this budget in June the number I have in front of you right now is if you do not move that money to us in October in November what we will do is is have to cut programs and cut staff it's as simple as that it's not the best way to build a budget but it's how Melrose has built the budget for many many years the number we give you is that it is the best number we can come up with given the guidance we get from City Hall and from the state as to what we will be receiving the last thing I have to say quite honestly the thought of going back to half-day kindergarten horrifies me absolutely horrifies me I understand fully what is expected for our children these days if Miss Bird was here she could talk to what her children are experiencing the amount of information we are required to teach is impossible to fit in a six-hour day if we went to a three-hour day for kindergarten we would seriously be disadvantaging the children in Melrose because you know been looking at a lot

▶ 44:19 Monica C. Medeiros: of a lot of other communities we've been compared to and wanting to be like and and look in a lot of other communities and they don't have free all-day kindergarten including places like you know concord and in in a lot of these communities which you know

▶ 44:39 Monica C. Medeiros: when we're talking about the growth budget we're comparing ourselves to i don't compare ourselves

▶ 44:45 Monica C. Medeiros: to anybody somebody else at city hall has mentioned a couple of these names um so like i said i'm just trying to get the information so that you can make a decision and know what the whole picture is and now i think speaking of the the whole picture i know you you did mention that there are some new positions that this budget does include could you repeat what those were that

▶ 45:10 Speaker 4: was kind of quick the two new kindergartens that we believe um we need um a fifth fifth grade at

▶ 45:20 Speaker 4: Lincoln a fourth grade at Winthrop and they'll need a fifth grade next year an academic interventionist at the Horace Mann because we've lost title one money there and we need to replace the title one tutor with an academic

▶ 45:37 Speaker 4: interventionist I believe those are all the positions we're adding in this

▶ 45:47 Monica C. Medeiros: budget okay so that's five new positions in this budget here okay and you know i just uh it was touched upon by one of the previous aldermen and i just want to reiterate that there's absolutely many items that don't appear in this budget and that you know we do vote upon as the board of aldermen and that we you know we do support i think very much we're very invested in education it in our community and obviously we talked about many of those other things i don't think that the utilities were mentioned which a lot of the school utilities are now on the city side mr de la rusa was kind enough to provide after one of our budget meetings a printout of public works facilities and salaries and you know some of this does include some utilities i believe here you know this is just about almost three million dollars that that is on the city side of the budget that we're supporting the schools with obviously we support the schools in terms of our bonding and that's in out of our operational budget we've done as alderman Boisselle mentioned the 480 000 dollars for textbooks a couple years back we'll be making the payments on those the new new construction obviously the science labs at the high school and obviously this year alone we've voted to bond you know I think it's almost seven million dollars between the Hoover School and the renovation at the high school so certainly I believe everybody's committed and in fact actually this

▶ 47:27 Monica C. Medeiros: school budget has a three point three percent increase in it as well so that's That's, you know, something that I think, again, we're invested in. Mr. Del Rosso, I just had a quick question, and that 3% I think is about 800,000? Mm-hm. How much do we get in just regular proposition two and a half increase from last year to this year?

▶ 47:55 Speaker 2: Outside of new growth through the chair, approximately 1.2 million.

▶ 47:58 Monica C. Medeiros: Approximately 1.2 million. Approximately. We're pretty committed to passing a good chunk of that along to the schools.

▶ 48:05 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Medeiros. Next in line, we have Alderman McAteer-Margolis, please.

▶ 48:12 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 48:16 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: I think it's important to have a little historical perspective, having served on the school committee for four terms many years ago. We may not have used a lot of free cash then. We had a lot of money built up in reserves. And that reserve money floated us through for pretty much all the terms I was on. I think I served with a couple of the sitting members still. And we were always warned that the time would come when that money was exhausted. And that has happened recently, and we would need to turn to free cash or program cuts. And of course, that was all before we started losing the state and the federal funding. started receiving even more and more mandates I'm with you madam superintendent the idea of eliminating full-day kindergarten horrifies me I work in a community that is considered one of the top of the lines academically they do not have a full-day five-week kindergarten however there's many many people in that community who are having their kindergartners tutored privately to the tune of $75, $80 an hour to bring them up to speed when they get into first grade. And I also think demographically, we're in a community that needs that for our students and for our parents, for all of our families. The idea of cutting full-day kindergarten to me is like, you know, cutting out two AP classes. It's just something that we should providing early education as we know is a cornerstone of academic success it's when we catch any many many many issues so that being said just as I said my my

▶ 50:08 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: historical perspective on it I think perhaps lends a little different opinion than some other members in the committee. But I did want to ask specifically on the contractual obligation line, that line takes into consideration increases that are proposed or pending in the contracts that are currently being negotiated. Correct. Right. Okay. And for your SPED lines, were broken down by schools but i did seem it did seem as though your most of the schools were showing a fairly significant increase can you speak to that a little bit and talk also about

▶ 51:00 Speaker 4: the circuit breaker reimbursement and where that's coming circuit breaker does not impact um school services the threshold for circuit breaker is now into the mid 40 000 line so um without boring everybody how circuit breaker works you don't get anything until you pass that number um and that varies from year to year as you know they may promise 72 percent or 75 percent in some years it's been as low as 35 percent mainly applies to children we have out of district Jay can talk to more the the change in numbers and it has to do with the way we reorganize staff last year to be more effective so are you I'm sorry just a point of clarification you're

▶ 51:40 Speaker 3: referring to the increase from one year to the next when it comes to salaries yeah I think it

▶ 51:46 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: must be in the salary line it's you know under each individual schools sure in your right well

▶ 51:53 Speaker 3: So, the final year of the teacher's contract has an adjustment to the base, plus a COLA, plus a step. And in a lot of cases, you can see a 6 to 8% increase just from that. And people who change lanes, say if they go from a bachelor's to a master's, that could be even more of an increase, so.

▶ 52:17 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: And how does that relate specifically to the special ed staff in the buildings? find that most of your special ed staff now is advanced degreed or with you

▶ 52:27 Speaker 4: longer or so are you there are three high need areas when you're hiring math science and special ed and usually for some positions you have to hire as a pre at a premium so for example today I was just talking to Patty White Lambright we have a need for a language-based classroom teacher at the harvest man that's a highly skilled person you get to that level after years

▶ 52:56 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: of training that will cost more so you are seeing less out of district placement I believe is what you were referring to and Alderman Lozelle asked about transportation costs but the in-district students are requiring more specialized services and have we had an increase in the number in the

▶ 53:18 Speaker 4: percentage of students requiring services we hold steady around I think 16% where we're having an increase in services is in social-emotional needs and for that it's a little bit more labor-intensive sometimes it's in the form of more aid sometimes it's in the form of more substantially separated classrooms so for example the program we piloted at the middle school this past year for those children I think we in four to six children depending on the time of year as opposed to maybe a learning center in which you may have as

▶ 53:58 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: many as 12 children are those the positions that we see listed as like

▶ 54:02 Speaker 4: therapy no therapy is your occupational therapist your physical therapist your

▶ 54:09 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: speech pathologist so they are just the ones that you're referring to are are basically grouped under the special ed teacher line in the various buildings. And some buildings have more advanced programming and needs than other buildings, right? And finally, Mr. Chairman, I just also want to say that I think it has been a philosophical goal of not only the district, but the city, and I think in many cases, many people in the community that the school department budget reflect the actual direct to students I certainly understand that the city and I'm happy to say that the city is able to support the needs that are not related directly to students like maintenance like custodial like utilities and I think that's a good thing to separate that out because I think we really need to know what it costs to educate our students in this community Thank You mr. chairman mr.

▶ 55:04 Speaker 4: chairman may I point make a point to to miss Margolis remarks you certainly may what you have before you tonight is the operating budget of the schools the city as a whole has an obligation to net school spending that is above this operating budget our obligation next year for net school spending is 35 million plus so when you when you reference appropriately the maintenance the insurance that the cotton workers comp that is all calculated into your net school spending at this point Melrose is running about 2% above what our obligation is if you go on to the DOE website you can see what other communities many of the communities that surround us what what they are running in terms of percentages above or below it's often an interesting

▶ 56:03 Peter D. Mortimer: comparison thank you thank you very much are you yielding the floor at this point Thank You alderman McAteer my goal is and now any other alderman wishing to be heard for the first time I've seen none we'll go on to the second time line starting with in the order I saw them alderman Medeiros please thank you just

▶ 56:22 Monica C. Medeiros: a quick clarification I'm not suggesting we cut or eliminate anything I'm just suggesting that we get some facts so we can evaluate our decisions that we've made and see whether or not they've actually proved to be what we expected them to be. And I just, I did also want to ask Mr. Delarue, so I know that in our discussion Thursday night, you had said that this, you know, using this free cash to balance the budget, should the override question go through, we won't be doing this anymore. more, do we have a contingency, of course, to what happens if it doesn't pass for what we'll do next year?

▶ 57:05 Speaker 2: I know it was. If I may, through the chair, I think it's appropriate to clarify a couple of points that I've heard this evening. First of all, the city did not create the free cash deficit, neither did the school department. Nothing to do with it. It was created because we lost $5 million in federal and state aid since 09, period. We have closed that gap by 85%. The balance that remains about 15% is the gap that we were hoping to see the commonwealth diminish over the last three years. It has not happened. It is not going to happen. So for purposes of discussion this evening, I don't think there's a person in this room that would argue that we have not done exceedingly well in sustaining this level of services, no layoffs. We've had no interruption of service, period, during this turmoil from 09 to today. There's something to be said about that, and I'm very proud of the fact that we're able to maintain just a simple, and it is in its own way, a simplicity, the fact that we're able to maintain services without dire distress that so many other communities have faced. Just look around us. We did that through good planning and through this Board of Aldermen. So the fact of the matter is, if in fact the override is not successful, then we will continue the practice of trying to provide the level of services we see today, using other financing sources as needed, period. That is my protocol, that's what I will do.

▶ 58:43 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Medeiros. President Kahn, please. Yeah.

▶ 58:47 Speaker 6: nobody in my hearing tonight or at any other night has indicated that the city

▶ 58:58 Speaker 6: or the school created a deficit I've never heard that said maybe I missed it I try to pay attention as best I can I usually do a reasonably good job of it I

▶ 59:10 Speaker 3: think that who created it or whether we're doing a great job is not the issue

▶ 59:15 Speaker 6: the issue for me is very simple one I don't like using free cash to balance the budget that's all I'm not pointing fingers at the city at the school I

▶ 59:26 Speaker 6: would like to see us get away from that I'm hoping that we will number two I was listening pretty intently throughout the discussion today and let's be fair I didn't hear anybody say that they wanted to eliminate all day kindergarten I I didn't hear that, maybe somebody else did, but if it was out there, I missed it. So, and finally, when I go through what we spend for

▶ 59:53 Speaker 6: school related expenses, it's not because I'm trying to pit the city against the school budgets. I remember the wars in the early 90s when I was here, where we did have people who pit the city against the school budget. We don't do that in Melrose. But what I get concerned about is that when you walk outside this chamber and you're not a superintendent of schools or a CFO or a member of the school committee or an alderman. I have people saying, you know, Con, this is terrible. You spend $25 million on your schools. That's a disgrace. And I think, I want to try to get the information out there so that people understand the full picture. It's not throwing stones at anybody. He's not saying that we don't want to spend this money. I just think there are a lot of people out there who don't have the full picture of municipal finance. So, those are two or three thoughts that I have. I do have one question though. In our May 11th letter that we got from the school committee, it indicated that we were eliminating the seven kindergarten paraprofessionals because we lost the grants. hear that we got the grants back that we lost the grants and can you just again in the in the

▶ 1:01:15 Speaker 3: interest of clarity what's the status of that please do you have a straight line to the governor

▶ 1:01:21 Speaker 4: at this point in time the grants have not been restored um if what i'm hearing is correct he is not interested in restoring them he has other priorities okay thank you i just nobody really

▶ 1:01:31 Speaker 6: seems to have the straight story on that so i wanted to i think those that's one of those

▶ 1:01:40 Speaker 6: things you won't know until mid-july okay and and how much would we receive or how much have

▶ 1:01:44 Speaker 4: we received in the past it was around 140 six eight he's more exact than i am we were fortunate

▶ 1:01:51 Speaker 4: that we did not have to lay anybody off that we lost people through attrition so it will not cost

▶ 1:02:03 Peter D. Mortimer: the city anything okay thank you mr chairman thank you president khan alderman inferno please

▶ 1:02:06 Gail Infurna: thank you very much mr chairman i really don't have any questions i think the letter um by um the chair of the school committee really gave us a nice synopsis of what was going on during the budget time i i would be remiss though if i didn't just publicly thank you and thank um the finance chair for the good budget process that they had i sit at home and i watch it on tv And I felt the questions that were asked, I know, the questions that were asked were very helpful to me, actually, just sitting there listening to them and everything. So I hope that kind of continues year after year, that we have that kind of a process where, you know, the public can ask the questions and they get answered. Because I thought they had very good questions and you were able to really, you know, clarify a lot of the issues and things like that. So just thank you for all that you have done on the budget.

▶ 1:02:58 Speaker 7: Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 1:03:00 Speaker 1: Thank you, Alderman Inferna.

▶ 1:03:03 Speaker 7: Motion to move the bottom line.

▶ 1:03:05 Peter D. Mortimer: Second. We have a motion to move the bottom line of the school department. Made by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. I think Alderman Boisselle got Ed showed Alderman Inferna by a hair, second by Alderman Boisselle. All in favor of moving the bottom line on the school budget, and please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this school budget will be recommended to the full board for passage.

▶ 1:03:30 Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you for your attendance.

▶ 1:03:34 Peter D. Mortimer: The next department budget we have before us is Department 399. It is the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational School in the amount of $897,132.

▶ 1:03:56 Peter D. Mortimer: Motion to move the bottom line. We have a motion to move the bottom line of the Northeast Regional Metropolitan Vocational School made by Alderman Boisselle. Is there a second for purposes of discussion? Second. Second by Alderman Tramontozzi. And on discussion, gentlemen, will you introduce yourselves please and proceed?

▶ 1:04:16 Speaker 8: Yes, good evening. My name is Henry Houghton. I'm the Melrose representative at the Northeast Region Vocational School. To my right is Ed Nickley, who is our superintendent. And to his right is Dr. James Pecone, who is our chief financial aid person at the school. We're here tonight to defend the budget or talk about the budget. First of all, I want to give you a little background into the school. I know that one alderman was not here to hear this situation before, so I'd like to fill it in in the Reader's Digest version of it, not the long version. First of all, I'd like to say that the school was built in 1968. that's 47 years ago and right now we are in the process of being retroactive in terms of proactive rather excuse me in terms of dealing with what we have to do we have a committee designed to look at the building to see whether we could put an addition on we should renovate it or do whatever we can so that is just what want to say the number of Melrose students at the school is right now 61 of which 21 seniors graduated last year this past year this past year in 19 into 2016 entering classes 29 students has applied have applied 51 percent of our students of all our students not just Melrose students but all our students 51% are entitled to free or reduced lunch that'll give you an idea of the demographics that we're dealing with up at the school now we talk about a vocational school which deals with academics as well as vocations we right now have in our co-op program which is designed to put youngsters out as a field of work to work while I go into school work with their hands we have 80 students we would like to set it at a hundred if we can provide them with experience the budget you have before you and I pass this out to you last week so you could talk about it and study it is up two point two nine percent the The total budget for the whole school, that means the 12 communities that are involved, is $22,876,760. Minimum contribution, this is where I think it's important for us to talk about. It is $826,753 this coming year, as opposed to last year being $962,824. The total assessment that we have, which includes busing, contract negotiations, and also the minimum requirement is $897,132. The total assessment in physical year 15 was $1,029,947. assessment of fiscal year 16 is a decrease of a hundred and thirty two thousand eight hundred and fifteen dollars so we've got that down factors influence in the budget we unfortunately have you read in the paper we had a fire there last year and we lost some building some classroom space we had to go out and buy two marginal classrooms to hold our carpentry classes up at the school. We are now in the process of, with insurance, paying back what we owe and also rebuilding the area so that youngsters can use it full-time. It has not deterred their education one bit. We recently received a bill of $481,000 from the state regarding retirement funds for non-teaching staff, nurses, custodians, cafeteria workers. Seven vocational schools throughout the Commonwealth were not billed correctly from the Mass. State Retirement System. Schools are now seeking legislation to help deal with this problem. However, in this budget, we had to make up $481,000. It's due this year. We have combined our graphic arts program with our design and visual communications. This decision to do this was based upon low numbers and budgetary constraints. will reduce our teaching staff by two possibly three people however current students in the program will have a choice of taking either one shop or the other before they graduate so if you are in graphic arts and we're going to eliminate this program you still can complete your education and get a graphic arts certificate in the next two years however in next year we are not

▶ 1:10:08 Speaker 8: accepting anyone in graphic arts also we have potentially looking at new shops we're looking at robotics masonry landscaping and jobs available in the environmental I think all of us understand that the environmental is a big push out there today also as you all know we all have to deal with old man winter last year now we do not get any assistance from any of the 12 towns in power we have to pay our own bill so that plowing bill was pretty well up there last year so with with that just to give you an idea of what we're dealing with what up some of the background is I'd like to turn it over over to either Superintendent Nickley or Dr. McComb to answer any questions that someone may have.

▶ 1:11:04 Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Houdin. Would any Alderman like to make any comments or have any questions? Alderman Boyce, help please. You mentioned new programs like robotics, masonry, and environment. Is environment, is solar included in this particular grouping?

▶ 1:11:21 Speaker 9: Yes, alternate energy sources.

▶ 1:11:24 Speaker 1: Alternate energy.

▶ 1:11:24 Speaker 9: Photovoltaic, geothermal, wind, a multitude of alternate energy sources.

▶ 1:11:31 Robert A. Boisselle: And the students get the theory, but how do they get the experience?

▶ 1:11:35 Speaker 9: Well, we've just met with a gentleman that set up a couple of vocational schools in the past where, like for photovoltaic systems, they actually have a mock roof that only sits four feet off the ground. So the students actually fabricate the bracketry. They go up in this small roof that's inside the building, and they install the photovoltaic systems. Then they bring it down, and then they set the panels up with the inverters, the AC inverters. And they do a battery pack system, so it's a neat little system. So they get to really do it, even though they're not outside at somebody's house, coming off the roof.

▶ 1:12:14 Robert A. Boisselle: Coming off the roof can be dangerous, but that's good. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Walderman. Boyce-Helf?

▶ 1:12:20 Peter D. Mortimer: President Kahn, please.

▶ 1:12:23 Speaker 6: Yeah, for anybody who's watching us at home, our contribution to this budget is down significantly this year. And my understanding is that's because we have 10 or 11 less students from Melrose.

▶ 1:12:34 Speaker 9: 12 less, yeah.

▶ 1:12:35 Speaker 6: So we're down almost 13%, a factor of over $132,000. So the impact on our budget is less this year than it's been in the future. Again, I'm going to give my abridged version. Your school is a wonderful school, with the mayor, you invited us out last year, I remember, and very impressed with your school. What I'm not impressed with is the way the state funds vocational education. And any people who are watching should understand that all of the members of the Northeast Regional Vocational School do not pay the same amount of money per student. If you look at the material that Mr.

▶ 1:13:27 Speaker 6: Houten gave us on the first page of his explanation of the budget. He indicates that Massachusetts measures the amount of aid vocational member districts received for the student by their ability to pay based on the property, wealth, and income of the sending district. Consequently, some district assessments may be higher or lower than other member districts, depending on the amount of state aid Northeast receives from the member district students enrolled in our vocational program. So essentially what has happened here is the great geniuses in Boston and the great general court have decided that instead of them wanting to favor some communities with lower contributions by making more state resources available. They've decided that they want places like Melrose, that I guess they deem to be wealthier communities, to bear disproportionate burden of the funding of the vocational school. And I mean, you guys could give the speech for me instead of me doing it myself, but I find it to be fundamentally unfair. I know that people go in every periodical year and they attempt to change the formula. And I know that our friends in the great general court never do anything about it. Again, for the umpteenth time, I wish somebody would do something about it. We can't do anything about it here. But Chelsea is contributing $2,738 per pupil by my calculation, And we're contributing six times that. I don't think it's fair. It should be stopped. I will stop and not talk about it any further, but this is really a fundamentally unfair way of funding your very good school, and I will cut it off at that point, if I may.

▶ 1:15:29 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Kahn. Superintendent Nickley, would you like to respond?

▶ 1:15:33 Speaker 9: I just quickly made this chart up this afternoon because when I went to Saugus, I had the same discussion. And I just wanted to lay it out to show that actually what we ended, the gateway cities down the bottom, if you look at the aid that they get, it far exceeds what they're paying out of their own coffers. And if you look at the cities and towns at the top, for example, Wakefield. Out of their own budget, they're paying $15,335 and getting thirty two hundred seventeen dollars and chapter 78 and down if you see Melrose this is from high to low Melrose is fourteen thousand four sixty nine and you're getting four thousand eighty three dollars but if you look at the gateway system cities Revere and Chelsea and Malden it's just the opposite so I know I feel your pain and it makes it difficult for me when I go out to the cities and you know to the towns because they feel like you know You know, everyone else is getting all this aid, and you folks are taking it out of your budget directly, and I do. I wish I could do more about it.

▶ 1:16:36 Speaker 3: I don't mean to shoot the messenger, but the leadershipship of the House and

▶ 1:16:38 Speaker 6: Senate don't usually come out and sit and take my questions, so I don't really have that opportunity.

▶ 1:16:44 Speaker 9: And you know as well as I do, the cities have the biggest votes. It's not so much us, you know, I'm a Saugus resident, and we've discussed it over and over and over again. we've tried to representative long and some of the other representatives and we

▶ 1:17:01 Speaker 6: just don't have the votes well I tried to shorten it up for you this year

▶ 1:17:05 Peter D. Mortimer: anyway thank you very much thank you very much president Kahn thanks

▶ 1:17:10 Monica C. Medeiros: I remember the arrows yes please I'll be very brief but thank you very much thank you for all you do for our kids and I just since you happen to mention in snow mr hutton that uh i wondered if if there was any opportunity to work with at least on a partial base with faces with the town of wakefield in terms of snow removal at least with some of the big equipment or the big roads you know maybe you have to shovel your own walkways i'd like

▶ 1:17:36 Speaker 9: to respond to that this winter i have a tremendous relationship with the wakefield municipal light and the dpw steve mayo their town manager is a great friend of the school just like mayor dolan is here and this year during the february vacation if you remember there was roofs collapsing all over this all over the state well it was supposed to be a vacation and when your superintendent as you well know everything falls on you so as i was chewing my nails at home I contacted mr. Mayo and Jack Roberto the building inspector and I asked if I could meet with them and we came up with a plan I met with an architect because being a vocational school we have architectural teachers there so I didn't have to hire anyone I just brought him in and we opened up the plan to the roof of the building and we had all the roof trusses we saw the way all the roof trusses were so I asked two of my custodians to go up with sticks and they measured all the drifts at every transition of that building and wherever one transition was higher than the other when the drift settled if the roof trusses were perpendicular to it the snow loan was no was no factor but if they were parallel to that transition we knew that there was a tremendous danger of that collapsing so what we did is we measured out we we went up there with our own custodians and shoveled it all off ourselves we had a price of two hundred and ten thousand dollars to shovel the roof and we managed to do it by just being smart about it and in utilizing what we had in the talent that we had and we went up and shoveled it and we did it all with our own custodians I actually had to force them to come in for overtime they were like no no we're all set and I said Jesus you know you're up there shoveling for eight hours come in a little bit more and we can give you a little extra but we did We did it all with our own men. We didn't hire anyone else to do the roof. And as far as our lot, we've had the same company now for quite a while, and we sent it out to bid several times. And they keep coming in as the low bidder, and they've been very good. And we have our own crew, our own custodians that are on. So if, in fact, we do get into trouble, Steve Mayo will help us out. The DCR, I've made a contact with the DCR because Break Heart Reservation. So they'll come up with their sanders and they sand our road, so that saves us a tremendous amount right there. So we try to really be good neighbors and I think it works out well.

▶ 1:20:15 Speaker 5: Thank you.

▶ 1:20:16 Speaker 9: Thank you. You're very welcome.

▶ 1:20:17 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you Alderman Medeiros. Alderman McAteer-Margolis please.

▶ 1:20:20 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Thank you gentlemen. This is a very concise budget even if we don't necessarily agree with the funding or formula for it. I did want to commend you on your decrease or your continued decrease in your dropout rate and your improvement in your attendance for your students that speaks really well for your program that the kids really like being there and are getting a lot out of it mr. Houghton you mentioned that the building is 48 years old do I recall from previous conversations that you

▶ 1:21:01 Speaker 9: don't qualify for school building assistance no we yes matter of fact we

▶ 1:21:07 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: qualify at 71 percent reimbursement you do yes so have you developed any kind of a plan that will be actually in a bit in a building project and a capital

▶ 1:21:18 Speaker 9: improvement project it goes back to the original charter it does not go through ed reform so it's by enrollment so if Chelsea is sending 200 students they pay the percentage for 200 students and if Melrose is sending 60 students they pay that percentage so in in the event of a major renovation at least it's fair when

▶ 1:21:45 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: it comes down to that and are you exploring those options right now yes we

▶ 1:21:49 Scott M. Forbes: have a an architectural firm that's that's met with us once and we had 24 members of our faculty and outside we had to fire chief the building inspector and just talked about concepts and things that may come up in the future so we're looking at either a renovation or a renovation with an expansion because there's so many new programs that we're starting to dip into and we're stifled by space we just don't have the space we want to get an alternate energy we want to get into advanced machining biomechanical biomedical there's so many

▶ 1:22:28 Speaker 9: things that are that are new in in the field we did a labor study in a 12-mile radius from Wakefield there's a thousand jobs in the medical field within 12 miles of Wakefield and that's why the the shop that we just started to close down and phase out the teachers were good the students were doing well but they had very little interest there was one choice this year was one choice last year for first choice in the exploratory program in addition to that the field of jobs was relatively limited it wasn't growing very quickly so we had to look at it you know what's the best way to spend a dollar we only have so much to spend so we couldn't employ three full-time teachers and only have six or seven students in it where in the health medical field we had 46 really bright students want to get into nursing and medical assisting and we could only fit 30 so there were 16 students that didn't get placed where they wanted to be and that's a shame because they are some of our best and brightest students

▶ 1:23:36 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: and you're also kind of answering the call for trained employees for economic development in the Boston area so I think that that's also something that we need to support if you do go for school building or renovation or whatever is that something process wise that all the communities have to support absolutely

▶ 1:24:00 Speaker 9: it either has to go for a referendum question on a ballot or there has to be 12 unanimous yeses so it's something that we don't do on our own it has to be collaboration with all of us thank you and thank you for your very welcome

▶ 1:24:15 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you Alderman McAteer-Margolis Alderman Inferno please thank you very

▶ 1:24:19 Gail Infurna: much mr. chairman good evening and thank you for the programs that you do run my son was a graduate of your school so I'm a big advocate of what you do up there I have a question and and I'm not quite sure if you're the answer if you could answer it but I figure while I have all the players in the room someone will come up with some help on how to get me to understand this I see on the Essex Aggie we're putting out seventy seven thousand dollars for tuition I suspect that's for a student who is wishing to go there a student two students I'm not quite sure what that's all about but you could help me answer that and if you could help us understand how that how we get to into what that is that because you don't offer those programs is that how they have to do that yes I'm just kind of going back but I'm seeing it there and we'll you know the only way a

▶ 1:25:12 Speaker 9: student can this in our district go to an outside placement is to go someplace for a program that we don't offer so Essex Aggie has horticulture they have animal husbandry they have forestry they have local farming things that we don't offer so the four students that are attending I believe there's four they have to be in some type of program that we don't offer or that we don't have room for them you know in our program at school and just because I kind of know

▶ 1:25:47 Gail Infurna: how the vocational works a little bit sometimes a student will get into a program and then decide that they don't like that program or want to change or for whatever reason so if a student is up at Essex Aggie or Minuteman and they find that that program maybe just isn't quite for them and they want to go off into let's say carpentry which you offer yes does that student then have to come back to yes that student has to then come back by law they have to come back

▶ 1:26:19 Gail Infurna: to us right yes okay thank you and we heard earlier this evening about trying to do things differently and once again this is just for the players in the room trying to do things differently and maybe the high school offering some vocational you know subjects and things like that I mean back when I was in high school yes that's what they did and I think we found out oh that really didn't work financially or academically for these kids so I think as we've heard programs are constantly changing education is constantly changing and I And I think this is a great program for these kids for the vocational to do and to get up there. As we said, and we said to my son when he was doing it, you can always go back to the high school. But go up there, try it, and if you don't like it, you can always go back. But you can't go to high school and then try to get into the vocational school on your second or third year. So I think it's a great program if we can convince our kids to do it. Because I think the goal as parents is to make every child successful, independent adults. So thank you, and thank you for that clarification on the tuitions that are going out there.

▶ 1:27:35 Speaker 9: You're welcome.

▶ 1:27:37 Speaker 1: Thank you, Alderman Inferna.

▶ 1:27:39 Peter D. Mortimer: Seeing no other, Alderman wishing to be heard?

▶ 1:27:43 Speaker 10: We had a motion, I think, to recommend.

▶ 1:27:46 Peter D. Mortimer: Yes, that's correct. There was a motion made by Alderman Boyd.

▶ 1:27:51 Monica C. Medeiros: Would you like to discuss this motion? This is for just the Northeast Regional VOC, or are we doing all the regional together?

▶ 1:27:56 Peter D. Mortimer: We'll take this vote and then we'll proceed to the Essex Agricultural Park. So all in favor of the VOC portion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the Northeast Regional Metropolitan Vocational Budget. will be recommended to the full board for passage next we have the essex agriculture thank you very

▶ 1:28:23 Speaker 9: much thank you very much you're welcome thank you superintendent thank you and if anyone uh has any time to come to the school once we open again in september i'd love to have people up for a luncheon if you have any meetings that you'd like to hold there please feel free i'd love to set it up for you folks we love having visitors thank you thank you just for people out there in

▶ 1:28:42 Peter D. Mortimer: the public listening that's the break heart cafe and is that open five days a week four days a week

▶ 1:28:50 Speaker 9: four days a week wednesday thursday friday from 11 to around quarter one very reasonable prices

▶ 1:28:54 Peter D. Mortimer: very good food great staff yeah it certainly is uh the next budget

▶ 1:29:06 Monica C. Medeiros: you can say it about what is it i have a question for this somebody from before they leave hurry up superintendent or or mr delarusso mr delarusso possibly superintendent

▶ 1:29:17 Speaker 1: oh yeah let me move out the budget first oh yeah he's not going to leave he won't leave

▶ 1:29:24 Peter D. Mortimer: uh the next budget we have before us is x6 agricultural in the amount of 77 721 dollars and 45 cents uh mr delarusso mr mccomb would you like to make an opening statement

▶ 1:29:38 Speaker 2: Yes, to the Chair, essentially this FY15, we had originally budgeted for three students. It ended up being four students in enrollment. I think Maldon Medeiros to the Chair would recognize that too. And this year we've got notification that as of this evening, there's four students. So the same number of students, four and four is last year. So it's the same identical appropriation of $77,721.45 that we will expend in FY15. Same thing, four students and four students.

▶ 1:30:13 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, Mr. DellaRusso. Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend from Alderman Boycelle. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Lemmerman. On discussion, Alderman Medeiros, please.

▶ 1:30:23 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you, thank you, Mr. DellaRusso, for getting that information together. Are there any students on the waiting list?

▶ 1:30:37 Monica C. Medeiros: not too much no not to my knowledge no and and I know I had sent you this an email to and in her superintendent a Moore's memo to us back for that that order back in March the amount you said exactly was the same exact amount the seventy seven thousand seven twenty one forty five is there any increase in the tuition for the new school year none that has been projected no none's been

▶ 1:31:02 Monica C. Medeiros: projected that's pretty that's pretty good one one flat tuition thank you thank you alderman Medeiros

▶ 1:31:06 Peter D. Mortimer: i've seen no other alderman wishing to be heard a motion has been made by alderman boyce allen duly seconded by alderman lemmerman to recommend this budget item for passage to the full board all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this budget for essex agricultural will be recommended to the full board for passage thank you very very much thank you very much gentlemen thank you at this time we have the entire budget order before us order two zero one five dash one five four uh by my reckoning uh there have been four hundred thousand dollars in cuts made over our uh time of deliberation this budget season is that correct kind of clear that's correct that's correct four hundred thousand so that is the amount um move the

▶ 1:31:55 Speaker 6: So the bottom line is $72,485,826.66.

▶ 1:32:01 Peter D. Mortimer: President Kahn has moved the amended bottom line with those $400,000 of cuts. Who made that second, please? Alderman Inferno has seconded President Kahn's motion.

▶ 1:32:15 Peter D. Mortimer: Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of recommending this budget order to the full board, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. This full budget order 2015-154 will be recommended to the full board for passage.