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 (~40 min @ 1:05:05)

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

▶ 1:04:57 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you. Now we will proceed to our budget hearings, order 02015-154, it's the City of Melrose operating budget. It's been read several times so I need not read the whole caption of the budget at this time and we can proceed directly to departments. The first department we will consider this evening is the fire department, department number 221 in the amount of 3,925,599 dollars and 12 cents.

▶ 1:05:31 Speaker 13: Motion to recommend.

▶ 1:05:32 Peter D. Mortimer: We have a motion to recommend this budget from Alderman Boycelle. Second. Duly second by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion, we're ready for the vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye, any opposed? Hearing none, that order will be recommended to our full board for passage. when we conclude with our budget hearings. The next department we have before us is Department 291. It is the Emergency Management Department in the amount of $4,900. Is there a motion on this budget?

▶ 1:06:09 Monica C. Medeiros: I think we're already under suspension of the rules.

▶ 1:06:12 Speaker 2: We are under suspension.

▶ 1:06:12 Monica C. Medeiros: From the appropriate party. I'm not sure if that would be Mr. Delarusso in this case.

▶ 1:06:17 Peter D. Mortimer: Yeah, we could hear from Mr. Delarusso or either of the chiefs at your request. It's a small budget, $4,900.

▶ 1:06:28 Monica C. Medeiros: My questions here this evening are, it's a much smaller budget. It was never a tremendously large budget, but it's a much smaller budget than it was before. Are we virtually continuing this department?

▶ 1:06:43 Speaker 7: Yeah, I can speak on that.

▶ 1:06:46 Speaker 7: So for those of you who don't know, I've been the interim emergency management director since the retirement of Mr. Kelly. in March. The mayor and I would like to thank Ed for all his hard work and dedication that he's done throughout the city. Yeah, yeah. So the only, the transfer of that money from the salary and wages line has gone into the fire budget and the mayor has asked that I take over the duties of emergency management and he will be sending down an order soon to the board for that. Naming me the emergency management director.

▶ 1:07:25 Monica C. Medeiros: Well, is there an active auxiliary force right now? There is not. Emergency management police? There is not. Do you anticipate bringing back the auxiliary?

▶ 1:07:39 Speaker 7: I haven't given it any thought. They were disbanded in June of 14, and that was a decision of the mayor. I don't know any particulars of that.

▶ 1:08:02 Monica C. Medeiros: and things like the you know ammunition and I would imagine you'll still need yeah I'm sure you're very well trained but I'm sure you'll the badges and the

▶ 1:08:18 Speaker 7: ammunition were removed from the budget because that wasn't thought that it was

▶ 1:08:25 Monica C. Medeiros: needed um are there actual supplies i mean i know at one point there were some uniforms and we

▶ 1:08:33 Speaker 7: know what happened to what physically exists there is supplies and equipment i've yet to take an inventory but that is on my list of uh things to do to see just what we have and what

▶ 1:08:44 Monica C. Medeiros: our capabilities are thank you very much i echo uh the appreciation of mr kelly and uh look forward

▶ 1:08:51 Peter D. Mortimer: to you thank you thank you alderman medeiros next we'll hear from alderman boycelle please

▶ 1:08:56 Robert A. Boisselle: you're taking the ammunition out so that means there were firearms uh did we purchase those firearms or who's who has the firearms i don't have the answer i do not know

▶ 1:09:09 Speaker 1: yes all artillery police purchased their own firearms and any any duty gear

▶ 1:09:17 Speaker 1: that's been going on since since i've been a police officer and before okay so the individuals

▶ 1:09:21 Robert A. Boisselle: who were in this group where they purchased their own firearms their own equipment okay so

▶ 1:09:28 Speaker 1: the equipment which was duty belts so on and so forth boots jackets whatever it may be okay all

▶ 1:09:34 Robert A. Boisselle: right so we don't have to worry about firearms floating around well when they when they retired

▶ 1:09:37 Speaker 1: or when the program was disbanded they turned in anything to identify themselves as an auxiliary

▶ 1:09:45 Speaker 13: police for the city of norris very good thank you chief thank you thank you mr chair thank you

▶ 1:09:50 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman boy cell um singh i'm sorry that's quite all right thank you i i just i just i feel

▶ 1:09:57 Peter D. Mortimer: compelled to excuse me excuse me all right alderman bird i haven't spoke but she'll yield the floor

▶ 1:10:03 Monica C. Medeiros: to you thank you so much i appreciate it very much uh i just want to say that i i do hope that maybe we consider bringing back the auxiliary the men and a few women who had been in the group prior had really been a tremendous help in some times emergencies in in particular some of the flooding incidents that occurred while i was the alderman in ward two and i just you know i really appreciate them being there and often as volunteers and or you know very minimal um compensation if any and

▶ 1:10:34 Peter D. Mortimer: and just really appreciate that so thank you thank you alderman Medeiros alderman bird please

▶ 1:10:37 Jaclyn L. Bird: thank you mr chairman and uh thank you uh chief leary for the overview um could you talk a little bit about the vision of the emergency management department going forward now that it no longer has i i don't believe we had auxiliary police officers sworn in for the last several years or appointed by this board for the last several years but now that that is not the case and we're not looking to go in that direction of an auxiliary police unit at least for the time being can you talk about what the emergency management department duties will be is it more on

▶ 1:11:08 Speaker 7: kind of planning and preparation exactly planning um for hopefully that we don't have the disaster that snow emergencies um reimbursement we're currently working with fema to get reimbursement with um dpw mainly for the the snow and ice and um cleanup efforts uh and maybe going forward to

▶ 1:11:31 Speaker 7: look at possibly having a cert team or citizen emergency response team these these are a few ideas that i have that i'm just scratching the surface and have to figure out what's there and what we got and what where we're going to go great and is that will that also include um

▶ 1:11:49 Jaclyn L. Bird: preparation for school evacuations and situations like that and trainings for hopefully situations that we won't have to uh experience here okay um and so the line item the clothing um eighteen hundred dollars is that being left in there just because we're not sure what's exactly i had

▶ 1:12:07 Speaker 7: discussions with mr delarusso that you know the ammunition and the badges we knew we didn't need but the other stuff i wasn't sure so we were just going to leave the remainder of the budget as is until we figure out you know what the next step is great thank you very much i'm glad to see it going

▶ 1:12:24 Peter D. Mortimer: in that direction thank you mr chairman thank you alderman burr president khan please yeah um

▶ 1:12:27 Speaker 6: mike my understanding is is as chief lavery indicated that the city's taking their emergency management department in a different direction and instead of having a department that's kind of an adjunct to law enforcement this is going to be more uh assisting in medical disasters and emergencies and things of that nature i think that's what the emergency management department should be doing uh and i'm glad that we're moving in this direction thank you president khan i'm

▶ 1:12:58 Peter D. Mortimer: seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard is there a motion please motion recommend second we have a motion to recommend this bottom line for department 291 in the amount of four thousand nine hundred dollars by alderman makatia margolis duly seconded by alderman Boisselle all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none department 291 budget will be recommended to the full board the next department we have is department 296 it is the parking department in the amount of sixty two thousand five hundred and nine dollars and fifty cents motion to recommend we have a motion to recommend this order from alderman Boisselle is there a second please second duly seconded by alderman byrd on discussion seeing none all in oh that's quite all right

▶ 1:13:51 Jaclyn L. Bird: alderman byrd please proceed thank you um mr de la rusa i'm wondering if you might have the answer to this on the professional services line item um do you know what that entails exactly it looks like it's had a fairly significant increase um 32 900 i just don't know what that's for

▶ 1:14:10 Speaker 1: or chief lyle sorry yes if i may i am uh filling in for mr higgins this evening thank you last

▶ 1:14:20 Speaker 1: year they purchased new kiosks at the train stations and this is to cover the lease cost for the train stations and the other portion i believe is to cover the lease for the larrabee parking lot with saint mary's as well combined okay i think that's a separate line item but

▶ 1:14:40 Jaclyn L. Bird: okay um so the 32 900 that piece is a contract with the new kiosk at the train station is that

▶ 1:14:50 Speaker 1: right it is and there's also um there's uh fees for each one of those stations has a phone line attached to it to transfer funds and when funds are transferred electronically there is a fee for each transaction and i know they do do them in batches late at night when the costs are lower but there are costs of all uh with the kiosk itself okay thank you thank you mr chairman thank you

▶ 1:15:15 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman byrd next in queue we have president khan please yeah um one thing everybody at home

▶ 1:15:25 Speaker 6: should be aware of is that we've been paying 18 000 a year to lease these parking spaces for 12

▶ 1:15:39 Speaker 6: years um we're getting close to having spent a quarter of a million dollars to lease these parking spaces it doesn't seem to me that to continue rolling this lease over forever is a good long-term solution and maybe somebody can take some action to to deal with that down the line it's a recurring budget item and i think that a different solution might be wiser than

▶ 1:16:04 Speaker 6: to continue to pay 18 000 a year for another 12 or 13 or 15 or 20 years that's all thank you

▶ 1:16:12 Peter D. Mortimer: president khan any other alderman wishing to be heard at this time is there a motion please well the motion has been made and seconded thank you that's correct madam clerk that corrected that motion has been made in second yes all in favor please say aye aye Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the parking budget of $62,509.50 will be recommended to the full board. Thank you. And our last department of the evening is police. You might as well stay right there, Chief. You might as well stay right there too, Mr. De La Russo. Is the police department budget, Department 211 in the amount of $3,973,000. excuse me three million nine hundred seventy three three hundred thirteen dollars and nineteen cents no one has any further questions for chief Larry the fire chief do they do you have any questions for chief Larry I'm sorry no I'm thinking he can go home at this point okay flurry have a great evening

▶ 1:17:18 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you very much for your attendance sir okay first I think you were first alderman Medeiros then alderman boy self alderman bird did you throw anything i'll gladly allow

▶ 1:17:28 Peter D. Mortimer: alderman boys okay alderman boy cell followed by alderman Medeiros alderman boy cell please proceed

▶ 1:17:41 Robert A. Boisselle: in your budget ammunition uh 2015 as of may you spent about seven thousand dollars in ammunition i know the officers have to qualify in the range and so forth but for next year uh you're dropping down to 3 000 are you going to the laser strategy no i wish no um there's since 9 11 there has been

▶ 1:18:00 Speaker 1: a large increase in ammunition costs and every year we request additional funding for ammunition but this particular year we have three officers in the academy right now and each one is approximately fifteen hundred dollars a piece for ammunition when they qualify at the at the police academy

▶ 1:18:25 Speaker 1: so there was additional costs there fifteen hundred yes wow they fire a significant amount of rounds and we also carry a long arm which the rounds are very expensive oh that's interesting

▶ 1:18:39 Robert A. Boisselle: to know um another question between seven and nine thirty in the morning and maybe between four o'clock and 6 30 in the afternoon we're bumper to bumper from at least west wyoming to upham street and cars go right or they hit the pedal and they stride try to make the next light towards the hospital is there is there a traffic uh section in your group that control

▶ 1:19:13 Speaker 1: can control this typhoon you're asking to time the lights so that traffic flows well not even

▶ 1:19:18 Robert A. Boisselle: the timing i mean if we have to change the lights we'll probably go to dpw uh for that but is there

▶ 1:19:27 Speaker 1: a particular officer or two officers we do have a traffic sergeant and we do have an officer officer ford in the motorcycle right that works underneath him officer ford is out he's been out for since march with a shoulder injury oh okay back next month um but i can certainly pass on your

▶ 1:19:43 Speaker 13: comments to sergeant gawk about traffic sergeant it's it's just interesting i mean it's part of

▶ 1:19:46 Speaker 1: that is the timing on the lights whether or not time to release traffic in a smooth pattern so if you're going the speed limit ideally you would continue a nice smooth transition up main street

▶ 1:19:59 Robert A. Boisselle: melrose into wakefield or into malden well it's even amazing i'm waiting for public transportation at East Wyoming, and there's 18 cars lined up, and they're double, some going to the right down East Wyoming and some going to Malden, and they're all trying to get there as quickly as possible, but that 15th, 16th, and 17th car, they're in the rear, and when that lights turns yellow you can hear the engines speed up real quick trying to make that light and there may be an accident one of these days that please

▶ 1:20:38 Speaker 1: send me an email on that so I can pass it on to the command staff and okay the

▶ 1:20:43 Robert A. Boisselle: day shift because some people are backed up beyond Dunkin Donuts and as a traffic moves out these people in the rear are having problems I'll could I ask you to

▶ 1:20:54 Peter D. Mortimer: narrow your scope a little bit more towards the budget rather i have my ammunition question but

▶ 1:20:59 Speaker 2: i wanted to get that traffic all right question i think you've made the point but we're on the

▶ 1:21:03 Speaker 13: budget so thank you mr chairman leeway that's quite all right uh please send me an email

▶ 1:21:09 Peter D. Mortimer: next in line we have alderman Medeiros please thank you uh thank you very much and i know

▶ 1:21:12 Monica C. Medeiros: we touched on some of these items uh in the previous order um i know you mentioned uh Right now, again, can you confirm the number of officers that are on force right now, that are in this budget?

▶ 1:21:30 Speaker 1: Patrolmen or the entire PD?

▶ 1:21:33 Speaker 5: The entire PD.

▶ 1:21:34 Speaker 1: There's 31 patrolmen.

▶ 1:21:36 Speaker 11: 44.

▶ 1:21:38 Speaker 2: Go ahead, Chief. Sorry, 44.

▶ 1:21:39 Speaker 1: 31 patrolmen, eight sergeants, and four lieutenants and myself.

▶ 1:21:44 Speaker 5: And four lieutenants and one chief.

▶ 1:21:47 Speaker 1: In addition to that, there is three officers that are 50% through the Police Academy up in Redding right now.

▶ 1:21:54 Monica C. Medeiros: Are they in this budget here?

▶ 1:21:57 Speaker 1: Yes, they are in the budget. In the three offices, okay. It looks like we're getting three more officers, but we're not. We have an anticipation of a retirement this year. We have a promotion from patrolman to sergeant, so we're going to be plus one. By the end of the year, we'll be 32 patrolmen.

▶ 1:22:15 Speaker 5: At the end of the year, 32 patrolmen.

▶ 1:22:18 Monica C. Medeiros: Okay. How does that compare to, say, the last five years or so?

▶ 1:22:23 Speaker 1: I would say it's been up and down. I know that back in 09, around 10, we took a bunch of transfers because we had a number of officers retire. So we really got hit hard that year. So we always look to take transfers because you don't have to spend six months in a police academy. well some of our transfers haven't worked out that well um they have they're just using us as a way station to move on with the next department um so in i could give you a definite answer if if you gave me a day or so i could pull all our records and give you a solid answer but i

▶ 1:23:01 Monica C. Medeiros: i'm saying oh nine ten we did have a big problem yeah i i would um definitely find that helpful to kind of see where we've been where we're going and then in terms of overtime um i think you said that at the end of the year we'll be at 420 000 no as of today i had jay a printer today it's um

▶ 1:23:26 Monica C. Medeiros: it's 424 453.99 in overtime 424 453.99 i'm going to call it 454. fine edge there um that's actual

▶ 1:23:41 Monica C. Medeiros: expenditures today yes okay as of uh monday and so when we're looking back obviously uh 2014 we're up over 400 000 in in overtime um how are we looking in the the previous year's past have

▶ 1:23:55 Speaker 1: we been um i actually i brought two years with me um this year it's in my overtime file i'm sorry And our overtime hours were about 7,000 hours last year, and we're about 150 hours behind last year, believe it or not, per million hours. But you have to understand also that the police department settled the contract, and they got a 6% raise July 1. So that impacted my budget going into this fiscal year, which obviously affects overtime and everything we do.

▶ 1:24:29 Monica C. Medeiros: Is some of that retroactive, or is that all?

▶ 1:24:32 Speaker 1: portion of our overtime is about 26,000 in there from last year retro and yet

▶ 1:24:44 Monica C. Medeiros: now we've got budgeted a hundred and eighty two thousand which is level funded from last year so yes so this is something and then it's just a Delaware so you can talk to you that we really are kind of purposefully under

▶ 1:24:57 Speaker 9: funding this line I wouldn't use those terms I think that's the best we can do

▶ 1:25:11 Monica C. Medeiros: at this time and going through chief is there anything in here that you know didn't make the didn't make the cut as far as this year's budget that you'd

▶ 1:25:26 Speaker 1: like to see as far as the police department budget our salary and wages are given from year to year they're factored in some of our some of our line items uh you know i do a budget request every year uh like our postage for for instance we spend uh

▶ 1:25:49 Speaker 1: about 680 dollars a year to lease the machine and our postage line for the year it looks like

▶ 1:25:59 Speaker 1: it's 700. yes it's 700 also we we have a challenge and the majority of that postage is for police details tens of thousands dollars a week we bill out so that impacts our postage line that's just one example of some of our challenges that we face ammunition as as alderman Boisselle brought up but every year i send a budget based on the management study that alderman khan brought up i looked at last year's expenditures to basically send this budget request in and if the funds are available Well, yes, if not, the Auditor's Office has worked with us in the fall or in January to see what can be done. We do have challenges like every department, I imagine. Right.

▶ 1:26:52 Monica C. Medeiros: And if I recall, it was a short while ago we brought in someone to help assist with the details, the collecting and the billing of the details and kind of help on the police station.

▶ 1:27:01 Speaker 1: i've had interns and they've basically they've gone to the post office for the girls and and did filing um we have a gracious lady rita corellis i know some of the board members may know rita she comes in her fridays she helps with our court system and details okay and we're

▶ 1:27:17 Monica C. Medeiros: getting a little bit more back in per detail now well we increased last year the board approved

▶ 1:27:23 Speaker 1: we went from the administrative fee from 10 to 15 but more importantly which would certainly uh be pleasing to all the alderman right um i have a associate over in the city of somerville who was gracious enough to give me the language so that when somebody goes past 50 days we charge them an additional 15 percent late fee um and there's at least a half a dozen people going to court because they didn't they ignored it we have i think one contract is about 1200

▶ 1:27:56 Monica C. Medeiros: 1200 days out and have you seen a benefit to that uh increase in your budget is that coming

▶ 1:28:02 Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with the police budget that is uh just a separate line item for police details just for police i believe the funds go to the general fund the um is it 15

▶ 1:28:13 Speaker 1: or so that goes yes on a private detail not not our city detail or this mass highway project there is no fees with that because it's a state run a federally funded project but the private details we collect 15 and that goes to administrative costs and that goes to administrative costs okay

▶ 1:28:26 Monica C. Medeiros: great and then so during this budget um just kind of the process like you i imagine you sit down with the administration you might have talked to them about the you said you'd send a budget memo about the things like the postage and and whatnot um i do a request every year and that was based

▶ 1:28:43 Speaker 1: from the management study and when i spoke to mr pomeroy said this is a good approach to do is look for your shortfalls and then send a request and that's what i do

▶ 1:28:55 Monica C. Medeiros: okay and in that budget request did you request additional police officers

▶ 1:28:59 Speaker 1: i did not no i did not okay okay thank you thank you alderman

▶ 1:29:04 Peter D. Mortimer: medeiros next we have alderman Lemmerman please

▶ 1:29:09 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: thank you mr chairman uh thank you chief just a couple of questions you mentioned the the line item for ammunition and that there were some costs because you had some men in academy and um do you anticipate having more um going through academy in this coming year

▶ 1:29:26 Speaker 1: i think it depends on november

▶ 1:29:29 Speaker 10: i'll be very honest with you

▶ 1:29:31 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: i'm wondering there's a sort of a similar thing happening it looks like in

▶ 1:29:38 Speaker 1: professional services here professional services that we use that for when we have to send somebody to a physician for a medical evaluation fit for duty exam that's why i put that line item in there what i was doing when we were really under pickle my former assistant came in and she assisted us with training our new staff and i use the professional service lines to compensate her

▶ 1:30:00 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: okay so it seems like you've needed a little bit more than what's been budgeted in the last couple

▶ 1:30:13 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: of years is that something that's happened um yes yeah okay um now i know last year when you were before us for the budget you talked you know and you talked tonight too about seeking grants as much as you can to supplement um you were getting a a 9-1-1 grant for overtime at last year is that

▶ 1:30:28 Speaker 1: something that's still um you know i got sad news today i have a contact with state 9-1-1 and And generally, the grant applications are out in April. We haven't gotten them yet, and nobody's gotten them yet. And this person, probably off the record, said, you're not going to see it before, you know, the end of this fiscal year. Maybe sometime in the early part of next year, if you're fortunate. So I don't know where that's going. I have a call into the head of state number one. I have not heard back from him yet, Frank Pozniak.

▶ 1:30:58 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: So those are some funds that you may not have access to.

▶ 1:31:00 Speaker 1: We count on them. We certainly count on them. that helps us with our recording system the playback system we recover our service contract out of that we use that for salary and wage a copy machine in the pd there's a number of things that are supported through that grant and that's just one side of it the other side is the emd which the fire chief had alluded to the emd training 16 hours a year goes to our officers I know next year they're going to create that, they call it the next gen for 911, which will cell phones, pinpoint cell phone activity, so on and so forth, when somebody dials 911. So our training will be eight hours instead of 16 next year because part of it, the training will cover that 16 hours, that additional eight hours. But, you know, I don't know where that's at. I'm kind of puzzled.

▶ 1:31:55 Speaker 1: Okay. The funding source of that is when everybody dials 411, there's a fee attached to that, and that's what funds the source.

▶ 1:32:04 Speaker 2: People don't really call 411 anymore, very much.

▶ 1:32:06 Speaker 1: No, I don't want them to continue, I get you.

▶ 1:32:13 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Something that I think a lot of us, you know, have read and that members of the public are reading in the paper feels increasingly, unfortunately, but fortunately you all are there, are the need for Narcan and the number of times I didn't get I didn't get to do an

▶ 1:32:27 Speaker 1: opening line tonight and certainly I will speak on Narcan if you'd like I would yes please please it's it's the number one line item there was a contract settlement with with the entire PD last year to deploy Narcan and our police cars and certainly I commend the mayor everybody involved both the unions the city officials everybody involved in it to date it went in the went into all our mock units in late december last year and to date um between the meadows police department the meadows fire department and their ambulance crews they made the difference in eight people's lives they saved their lives we had an officer out of the academy two weeks uh john good you uh he deployed knocking on a friday the next night he deployed it again with the assistance of the fire department so kudos to him and not just not just to deploy it but having the sense when he's going into that type of call to bring in the narcan kit with them and most of our officers are doing that regularly now when they go into a call of a you know a person unconscious so they bring that in

▶ 1:33:39 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: just in case and you know they brought people back wow well um i think it speaks to a a frightening broader issue that a lot of communities are dealing with but um so this is not this is

▶ 1:33:48 Speaker 1: not a Melrose problem this is a you know a national problem certainly in the Northeast we're having it really really hit hard but every community around here is having the same difficulties we're so grateful that your officers are able to

▶ 1:34:01 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: do that I mean eight eight lives is it's amazing you read more and more about the cost of that drug is increasing nationwide is that can you talk a little

▶ 1:34:15 Speaker 1: bit about our access to that well say we were very fortunate that the Middlesex da's office had foresight and they actually went for a grant and they were approved a grant and they uh they gave the city of meadow with the police department 40 doses it has a one one year life and that's due to expire in september i have requested funding for

▶ 1:34:38 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: for the narcan um again through the the da's office or well you know obviously that's a

▶ 1:34:41 Speaker 1: fallback if they get the grant i you know i don't know if the da's office has applied for it but certainly our stuff is going to expire in september so it's reflected in here um it is not it is not and i spoke to the auditor's office through jack on my budget lady and she had said she had a conversation with bridget gain and that in the fall that we would revisit that okay

▶ 1:35:05 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: well i think we've certainly seen a need for it and um it's it's done its job several times so um that's all i have thank you very much you're welcome thank you alderman Lemmerman next in line

▶ 1:35:18 Jaclyn L. Bird: we have alderman bird please thank you mr chairman and um to follow up on on alderman Lemmerman questions um i had similar similar concern i noticed recently i think it was channel five a couple of nights ago was highlighting some of the um the per capita heroin overdoses in communities in massachusetts and we had about five that were right around us we were not on that list but they were communities that are either bordering or very close to melrose um so i'm happy to hear that that um our police department is on top of this and um that the officers are carrying uh narcan i'm a little concerned that it's not budgeted for next year um but i hope that our partnership with the da's office will continue on that um there was also another article recently about what gloucester is doing to try to address some of these issues did you happen to see that

▶ 1:36:08 Speaker 1: and are we doing any of the same i'm actually friendly with the chief from glossy who's originally a lieutenant in in sagas pd okay um what what i have done with this five communities in a substance abuse coalition grant melrose reading wakefield medford and stoneham and we had a meeting last friday and we are all exploring this now to do a a community-wide program in each

▶ 1:36:34 Speaker 1: community where we pull our resources together and develop something along the lines of what what Gloucester is doing I mean there are some sticking points we looked at as far as transportation of victims most police departments that I know of don't transport injured parties or ill parties and in this case here these people are certainly ill as far as our understanding would be sure okay

▶ 1:37:03 Jaclyn L. Bird: excellent and then one other question when I was looking at the salaries line item and the breakdown of the salaries in the department do you still have a part-time administrative assistant yes not full-time Thank You mr. chairman

▶ 1:37:20 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank You alderman bird president Khan please yeah so one of the things that

▶ 1:37:30 Speaker 6: concerns me is that it looks like historically we've spent about four hundred thousand dollars per year on police overtime if we take 400 which is

▶ 1:37:46 Speaker 6: a as a conservative number and we deduct 182 that's budgeted it looks like we're short two hundred and twelve thousand dollars I'm concerned about that I'm concerned about that when i think about it in conjunction with the school budget which we're going to be discussing in a few weeks which i believe will be about 800 000 which will need to be pulled from free cash um it makes me uncomfortable that if you add those two items together we have almost a million dollars that we know we're going to need to pull out of free cash and i understand and applaud mr delarusso for doing a great job last year and managing things but you know we don't always have three million dollars in free cash that we can fall back on it makes me nervous as we go through the budget if these numbers start adding up to two or three million dollars of things that we know that we're not really funding through the budget but we're going to be funding through free cash down the line that we're going to potentially end up in difficulty and i hope that we don't uncover more

▶ 1:38:53 Speaker 6: instances like this as we go forward and i'm not being critical of the operation of the police department as i talked about when i began my remarks this evening i think we've opted to go for a lower number of offices relying on the fact that we have to spend a lot of money in overtime but if the budget is approximately 200 and the cost is approximately 400 then that's a budgeting

▶ 1:39:26 Peter D. Mortimer: problem that makes me have concerns thank you president khan and our city auditor mr delarusso has indicated that he would like to respond to your comments yes if i may through

▶ 1:39:34 Speaker 9: the chair um i believe it was last year alderman khan also addressed the overtime issue what happened the previous year we were able to allocate 75 000 more for the fire department overtime 50 000 more for the police in overtime and 25 000 more for the police in training than we did in fy 14. what happened this year is my objective was again was to follow alderman khan's perspective there and do the same type of increase a steady increase no different than we've done in the past years for snow and ice and and um unfortunately two particular items hit that prevented that from really materializing the way i would love it to see it materialize there was no reflection on poor planning it was reflection on the realities of the day we've only received to date um forty thousand dollars more in state aid than we did last year for the entire city of melrose 40 000 that doesn't even put a a dent in a 200 000 issue for overtime so that whole funding source as of today is 40 000 more than it was a year ago plus the unfortunate reality is i i was sitting here last year and i didn't have a 1.1 or 1.2 million dollar deficit to worry about in snow and ice i have to pay that bill so it's a matter of of balance for me and it's a matter of priority i would more than love the capacity to have given both departments additional allocation that we did the year before which was the intent but the fact of the matter is those two items really put a damper in it for this year so we're going to try to manage the best we can to get through it again both chiefs do an excellent job but again those items are not here on the table a year ago and that's the reason the primary reason that we're unable to provide additional allocation at this time but the plan was to do that but um we lost that capacity

▶ 1:41:41 Peter D. Mortimer: because of the weather literally thank you mr delarusso um i see no further oh alderman

▶ 1:41:46 Speaker 3: mcintyre my goal is please thank you just um just a quick question on that um chief i think you

▶ 1:41:50 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: indicated that um there were three um hires new hires in the academy yes it was only going to give you a plus one because of retirement was that correct that's one a potential retirement and an

▶ 1:42:07 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: officer being promoted will that plus one help you in some small way with your i would think any any

▶ 1:42:12 Speaker 1: officer that we are able to hire and put on a shift strategically will help help with anything to what extent it depends on a number of variables and there's unknowns the unknowns are military deployments illness injury certainly investigations those impact us

▶ 1:42:34 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: tremendously and you didn't you also indicated I believe that you had someone out on a long-term disability who was going to do a retirement no

▶ 1:42:42 Speaker 1: this is separate I know I it's been brought to my attention then one officer will hit the plateau and max out is he has a service so would that allow you to

▶ 1:42:55 Speaker 1: hire another no one of the replacements is one of the three potentially the big the big problem we have in law enforcement certainly around here is if we have a vacancy today I won't see it in a pen and I was able to put that officer in an academy tomorrow it's nine months nine months before we see a return and that's a long time that's why we always look to transfers but you know most apartments transfers don't seem to be working out that well it's a quick

▶ 1:43:26 Speaker 2: fix right right thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you all of them and next in line we

▶ 1:43:32 Jaclyn L. Bird: have alderman bird please thank you mr chairman i just forgot to ask one thing chief when we talked about the narcan what would the price tag be that you had um mentioned was needed if we did not get

▶ 1:43:43 Speaker 1: the grant again from the middle 60s you know i estimated it at 1500 but um alderman Lemmerman has brought up the fact that the sure the more we're using the more the cost is up initially was around 40 a dose now it's up around 50. and we deploy we have two in each each vehicle so that if one doesn't work we give a second dose and you know generally ems is there by that

▶ 1:44:04 Jaclyn L. Bird: so 1500 would be a low estimate of what you think it's a conservative number okay that's all thank

▶ 1:44:11 Peter D. Mortimer: you mr chairman thank you alderman byrd uh seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard we are recommend for a motion was that a motion to recommend alderman alderman lemmerman has made a motion to recommend department 211 the police budget that motion was duly seconded by alderman byrd all in favor uh you say aye any opposed hearing none uh this budget passes unanimously and will be recommended for passage to our final full board meeting when we close out the budget Mr. Chief, thank you very much for coming tonight. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you very much for coming tonight. One second, please. On a point of personal privilege, before we accept a motion to adjourn, we have- Not a personal- Magatia Margolis.

▶ 1:44:56 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Not a personal privilege, Mr. Chairman, but a motion to place the operating budget order number 2015154 on hold,

▶ 1:45:06 Speaker 3: as well as we already placed the appropriation order.

▶ 1:45:12 Peter D. Mortimer: Yes. Second. cash alderman mcintyre margolis has made a motion to place the budget order to what 2015-154 on hold that motion was duly seconded by alderman Medeiros thank you very much all in favor please say aye any opposed hearing none that order is continues on hold as we proceed with our budget deliberations