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 (~14 min @ 13:26)

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

▶ 13:26 Peter D. Mortimer: The first order we have before us is order 20154. It is the City of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2016 in the amount of $72,885,826 Tonight, we will be discussing various departments of the Board of the City of Melrose, Executive Branch.

▶ 13:55 Peter D. Mortimer: And the first department that we have is Department 911, Pension Weekly, in the amount of $5,539,080.

▶ 14:08 Speaker 6: Motion to recommend.

▶ 14:09 Peter D. Mortimer: We have a motion to recommend this order for passage by Alderman Boycelle.

▶ 14:16 Speaker 1: Second.

▶ 14:18 Peter D. Mortimer: That motion is duly seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi. On discussion.

▶ 14:23 Speaker 3: Motion to suspend the rules so that we might discuss this budget with the appropriate city officials, please, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 14:29 Peter D. Mortimer: President Khan has made a motion to suspend the rules for purposes of discussion. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, the motion passes and we will hear from the appropriate city officials. Good evening, Adam. Good evening.

▶ 14:51 Peter D. Mortimer: Would you like to make an opening statement or proceed directly to questions? Directly to questions, please. Proceed directly to questions, please. And before you begin, President Kahn, please let the record reflect that we are joined by Alderman Wright as well. Please proceed, President Kahn.

▶ 15:04 Speaker 3: During each budget year, I usually come up with one idiosyncratic thing that I ask everybody about. And this year, it is indirect cost and where salary components are located. Now, in the budget that we have, we don't really get any schedule relative to the salary breakdown of your department. How many people are being paid through your department? Are they being fully funded in this budget, and what are the amounts, if you know? Yes. If not, if maybe Mr. De La Rosa could help us with this. We have a running budget.

▶ 15:43 Speaker 3: So we have myself and my assistant part time. We have the board members. We do have five board members. And they're paid a stipend? They are paid a stipend monthly. And we also do have indirect costs, as you said. Okay, do you know what the breakout of the indirect costs are? indirect costs are on a quarterly basis so we pay eleven thousand eight hundred ninety four dollars quarterly okay what does that consist of if you know and if not I mr. de la rousseau is here as well I see the breakdown of the indirect costs if you have to pay a portion of the square footage of the office which is based on twenty one dollars and fifty cents per square foot and then we also pay portions of salaries throughout five people in the city and what what positions are are apportioned to this department as indirect costs so the indirect cost of tape 10% mr. van Kampen salary 5% for Kelly Kogan who's his

▶ 16:55 Speaker 3: assistant 5% for Mary Ann long 25% for Polly Lada who's the human resource manager and then I pay an hourly portion to Marian Ellis who's the assistant treasurer I don't remember us doing that in the past is this something new or is this something that I just missed in past years I believe this is new okay good good it's better that I didn't miss it and is this a is this a common practice or procedure if you know I'm not sure if it's common good evening

▶ 17:32 Peter D. Mortimer: through the chair this was uh evening mr delarusso for those of you in the audience and people watching at home this is our chief financial officer patrick delarusso who has just come to

▶ 17:40 Speaker 6: the table this is relatively new it is the second year and this is a practice that was um implemented

▶ 17:48 Speaker 3: through the recommendation of the outside auditors is this something that other communities are doing

▶ 17:52 Speaker 6: as well that's my understanding that's correct i'm not sure which ones are uh that's is this

▶ 17:58 Speaker 3: Is this a component of the report from the outside auditors? Is it reflected in the report, or was it a verbal recommendation?

▶ 18:06 Speaker 6: It's a recommendation they made to me.

▶ 18:09 Speaker 3: Okay. And in the future, just so that I can have more fodder for questions, if we could, I'd like to see the full budget. Absolutely. Maybe I won't be here, but if I am here, I'd like to see the full budget next week.

▶ 18:22 Speaker 6: Absolutely, absolutely.

▶ 18:24 Speaker 3: That's all for now, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 18:26 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you President Kahn, Alderman Medeiros please.

▶ 18:29 Monica C. Medeiros: Thank you. I'm actually a little bit confused here because we're in budget number 911 pension weekly, is that correct? Mm-hm. That I'm only seeing one salary in wage line here, which is for our loan pensioneer. I don't see any other salaries listed in this budget.

▶ 18:50 Speaker 6: The expense pension.

▶ 18:52 Speaker 7: For 23,000.

▶ 18:56 Speaker 3: So the 5.5 million is part of the overall expense fund for the budget.

▶ 19:01 Monica C. Medeiros: It's within the contribution line, there's salaries in that line?

▶ 19:05 Speaker 6: There's only one that, through the chair, there's only one person left on the non-contributory basis. And once that person goes, that line also goes.

▶ 19:14 Speaker 7: That also goes. So otherwise, if somebody-

▶ 19:17 Speaker 6: There'd be nobody there.

▶ 19:18 Monica C. Medeiros: That's correct. Would not notice that there's any salaries for this department.

▶ 19:20 Speaker 6: That's correct. There'd be no one else there.

▶ 19:27 Speaker 7: It may be known, but the salaries that Alderman Kahn was discussing are coming out of that line?

▶ 19:30 Speaker 6: No, they are not.

▶ 19:35 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Medeiros. Any other Aldermen wishing to be heard? I'm seeing none. President Kahn, please.

▶ 19:42 Speaker 3: Yeah, so just for clarity, the items that we were just discussing are from the large 5.5 odd million dollar pension line. And I was asking the questions because there was no detail in our budget, and it made me curious. And so when I'm curious, I tend to ask questions.

▶ 20:06 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Kahn. A motion has been made to recommend this order for passage by Alderman Boisselle. It was duly seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this budget item will be recommended for passage to the full board. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome, sir. You got that.

▶ 20:28 Peter D. Mortimer: The next order, the next department budget that we have before us is the conservation department. Department 171 in the amount of $20,825. We have the chair of the conservation commission, Susan Murphy, in the gallery this evening. Ms. Murphy, would you please join us at the table?

▶ 20:47 Speaker 6: Motion to recommend.

▶ 20:49 Peter D. Mortimer: We have a motion to recommend. You may join us at the table. That was made by Alderman Boycelle. And who seconded that please? I have a second by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Thank you for joining us. Would you like to make an opening statement or proceed directly to questions?

▶ 21:02 Speaker 2: I'd like to make an opening statement, and I would also ask if I could have Kevin Anderson, who's a member of the commission and our treasurer, sit at the table as well, would that be acceptable?

▶ 21:11 Peter D. Mortimer: Definitely, yes. Mr. Anderson, would you join us as well, please?

▶ 21:17 Speaker 2: As I think you know, I'm Susan Murphy. I've been the chair of the Conservation Commission for, it's going on ten years now. The commission has two basic responsibilities in the city. We are the implementers and enforcers of the State Wetlands Protection Act and Rivers Protection Act, as well as the city's corresponding wetlands protection ordinance. And we are also the custodians of conservation lands in the city, the passive open space that is owned by the city. Our budget pretty much reflects those two responsibilities. We have two major line items, one being our conservation maintenance line item, which is the bulk of which is used to treat three ponds for nuisance vegetation. are Towners, Swains, and Alpon that we have the responsibility for treating. And then the other is our salary line item. We have a part-time staff person. This year, our staff person we've had for about five or six years, Kathy Morgan, left. She got a full-time job in another town, and so we've been in the process of hiring a new person. I think we found someone who's going to be starting soon. Therefore, that line item is likely to come in below budget for this year, but I'm not sure exactly how much he may start this year and then for our conservation line item as I said we use that for ponds treatment and that's something that starts happening in June so it's sort of it's on the edge of this budget year so our budget always looks sort of funny because we're whether we've paid the bill or not it fluctuates depending on what the conditions are in the ponds the only other thing I wanted to note for the board is that we've been trying to do a little bit more in terms of open space projects i think i mentioned last time i was here that we were working on an outdoor classroom at the hoover school we did that last summer they were using it this year we want to thank the department of public works who provide some invaluable assistance as well as cleaning up some tree damage that happened over the very bad winter this year and they've been a real help but i think i understand that they've been using that and really enjoying it um now if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer them thank you very much

▶ 23:22 Peter D. Mortimer: miss murphy would anybody like to make any comments or ask any questions seeing none there is a motion made by alderman boy cell to recommend this budget for passage it was duly seconded by alderman mcateer my goal is all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this budget will be recommended to the full board for passives thank you for your attendance this evening thank

▶ 23:44 Speaker 2: Thank you very much.

▶ 23:45 Speaker 5: And thank you for your work to the city.

▶ 23:50 Peter D. Mortimer: The next budget we have before us is inspection services. Budget number 241, in the amount of $241,930.73. We have Mr. Johnson, the Director of Inspectional Services, coming forward. Is there a motion? Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend by Alderman Byrd, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. Mr. Johnson, would you like to make an opening statement?

▶ 24:20 Speaker 1: I sure will.

▶ 24:21 Speaker 5: All right. Good evening. Thank you, sir. Members of the board.

▶ 24:23 Speaker 1: The Inspectional Service Department promotes public safety through good code enforcement and education. This year has been a very extremely, extremely busy year for us. We're close to 3,000 permits as of today for the FY15, and if you're waiting for a permit, I'll get to you.

▶ 24:55 Speaker 1: Please be patient, any questions?

▶ 24:58 Peter D. Mortimer: President Kahn, please.

▶ 25:00 Speaker 3: And Mr. Johnson, are the salaries of your department fully reflected in the salary schedule that we have here for inspectional services? Yes, sir. Has anybody paid off budget from grants or from any other funding source? No, sir. So these are actually the actual salaries that people are receiving? Yes, sir. Okay. Question for you. Is your professional services line for outside inspections?

▶ 25:26 Speaker 1: It is.

▶ 25:28 Speaker 3: And you've increased that by 9-plus percent. And is that because of the volume of development that's going on in the city right now? And are you going to be able to keep pace, do you think, with all the projects that are going forward?

▶ 25:39 Speaker 1: Yes. Yes, he's been a great help, and yes, I believe we will.

▶ 25:44 Speaker 3: And you have a vacancy that's not funded. I do. Relative to a senior account clerk. Are you going to go without that position for the foreseeable future?

▶ 25:54 Speaker 1: For right now, and yes, that is the plan.

▶ 25:59 Speaker 3: That's all I have right now, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 26:00 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, President Kahn. Seeing no further, Alderman Bird, please.

▶ 26:06 Jaclyn L. Bird: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Can you go back to what you were saying about how many permits so far this year that you've had? Did you give us a figure of several thousand?

▶ 26:17 Speaker 1: For the FY15, we did total permits close to 3,000.

▶ 26:24 Jaclyn L. Bird: And do you know how that compares with the year before by any chance?

▶ 26:27 Speaker 1: Yes. We're right on number. We're a little bit more within 100 permits. These are total permits, electrical, plumbing, building.

▶ 26:40 Jaclyn L. Bird: Okay. So right around. Around the same amount as the year before.

▶ 26:45 Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 26:46 Speaker 5: Thank you very much, Alderman Byrd.

▶ 26:48 Peter D. Mortimer: I'm seeing no other aldermen wishing to be heard. We have a motion to- I have a question, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry, Mr. President, once again, go ahead please.

▶ 26:58 Speaker 3: Yeah, to try to jump the schedule here, are you making any changes relative to revolving account, asking us to raise the threshold or anything of that nature?

▶ 27:04 Speaker 1: The revolving count, I believe, stayed the same.

▶ 27:07 Speaker 3: Okay, so there's no changes?

▶ 27:08 Peter D. Mortimer: No. Yeah, that- That's it. That order is on, and actually after we take this vote, I'm going to ask someone to make the motion that we take order 2015-165 out of order. It is the revolving conference special services, so we can let Mr. Johnson go home. That's his last order of the evening, but let's take the vote on this one first. All in favor of the motion to recommend for passage by Alderman Byrd, second by Alderman Boisselle, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this budget will be recommended for passage to the full board. Is there a motion commensurate with those comments I just made 60 seconds ago? Second. Somebody, Alderman Byrd has made a motion to take order 2015-165. The authorization of inspectional services revolving account number 2658 for fiscal year 2016. Out of order, that motion was seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.