Department​ Presenter​ n/a Revenues Overview 121 Mayor 543 Veteran Services 2607 Veteran Services Revolving Account 541 Council on Aging 2811 Council on Aging Revolving Account 161 City Clerk 162 Election/Registrar 112 City Council

Transcript (~39 min @ 4:23)

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

▶ 4:15 Devin Romanul: All right. We got a big night tonight. We got a full council agenda later this evening. So starting off, we have a revenues overview. And joining us this evening are Mayor Gregoritis and CFO Golden. Thank you both so much for coming to visit with us.

▶ 4:33 Speaker 4: I think those folks realized they were looking for the planning board, which is upstairs.

▶ 4:38 Jen Grigoraitis: Good evening, Chair Romanul and councilors. Thank you for having us tonight, and welcome to the FY27 budget. So this is something we added last year to the process and are really grateful to be back again, which is to provide you all with an overview of the revenue side of the ledger. Obviously, your purview is on the expenditure side, but it's helpful to know what's coming in and how we get to the number that we have as you decide where funds get allocated. So I'm going to turn it over to CFO Carrie Golden to walk you through the information that's before you.

▶ 5:08 Speaker 5: Thanks for having me again this year to do this. I think it was pretty well-received last year when we walked through all of the things. And it's helpful for you all as you are deliberating the budgets, and we thought it was just important to give a high-level overview, and answer some of the questions that department heads out there before you might not be able to answer. So in the packet in front of you, this is pretty similar to what I did last year on revenues. So obviously, the largest revenue source is our real estate and personal property taxes. That makes up about 76% of the budget this year. And as you can see in the middle column, you can see the $13.5 million override. So there's a couple things that go into the personal property. So first of all, the levy limitAs a whole, can never raise more than 2.5% outside of a debt exclusion or new growth. And so if you look, our levy limit for fiscal 2027, the starting point is essentially the ending point from last year, the $93,535,000. Sometimes they come back, the Department of Local Services, and they'll amend our growth from the prior year. And so that's why the starting point is a little different, and it also captures the excess levy capacity that we may not capture on a given year. But the 2.5% increase is $2.3 million. And so with the override, the 13.5, I think that brought in-- I had it written down and I can't find my bullet, but I think it brings in an extra $325,000 per year in taxes. And then as far as new growth, we always estimate conservatively. We've kind of kept it at $500,000. For the five-year average, we're about $800,000. Oddly enough, the past three years have come in at like $772,000, $770,000 and $780,000. And so new growth, there's some definitions on the next page, but it's really capturing any new construction in the community, home renovations. Those are what we consider new growth. This year, for fiscal 2027, we will realize some additional funding for the debt exclusion. And as you can see, the city of Melrose currently has two debt exclusions. One is for the middle school. That was voted in May of 2003, and the last year of that will be fiscal 2029. And so the public safety debt exclusion. Right now for FY27, there is about $57.5 million that's been borrowed so far for phase one, and some of that has been banned and some of it has been bonded. And so one is temporary financing, a ban is temporary financing, and a bond is permanently financing. The treasurer collector and I work closely with Hilltop Securities, our bond council, on advisement as to how to layer that and incorporate that into the budget. So as you can see, this is our largest revenue source, and you can see the growth from fiscal 2026 to fiscal 2027 as a percentage. I think last year it was closer to maybe 78% of the budget, and now I'm saying that the opposite, 74%, and now it's at 76%. And so these are just terms because I know there's a lot of confusion around Prop 2.5 and property taxes going up. So the levy as a whole for the community can only go up 2.5%, and then that's distributed based on formulas that the assessor does. And these are just some of the terms that I highlighted on the previous page. And so in fiscal 2029, the middle school debt exclusion, it's a very small portion of debt. I want to say it's about $110,000 that will remain. So really it's '27, '28, and then we'll have that small portion in 2029. The next largest revenue source is the often referred to as the cherry sheet, or state aid. Last year, this was about 19% of our budget. This year it's 17%. And so the budget is based on the Senate's budget. We were able to capture the most recent numbers. I think they came out April 16th, and we were able to incorporate those into the budget. So there is a discrepancy, and the same thing happened with the schools the last year, where their appropriation doesn't match ours because they're going to get that additional Chapter 70 that came in. Chapter 70 is the largest component of that, and that is aid that must go directly to the schools. As far as state aid, we look at net state aid, and so from FY25 to FY26, net state aid grew about 0.7%. This year it's a little bit better. From '26 to '27, it's about 3.5%. And so when we say net state aid, the first page of a cherry sheet is always the revenue. And then the second page, which is on page five, are the assessments. And so sometimes you might see more coming in in Chapter 70, but then the charter school sending tuition also increases as well. So you'll see the offset there. And so that's why we always look at the net state aid figure.

▶ 11:28 Speaker 5: Local receipts. This is about 6% to 7% of our budget. This is where the municipality has the most control to set fees or accept taxes from the state level. So for example, the meals excise tax, I believe that was passed in 2009, and we adopted that right away in October of 2009. So it's 0.75% if you dine locally. The cannabis excise tax, that's a more recent one on retail, and we adopted that in probably the past six or seven years.And there is a special fund where 50% of the excise tax goes into to fund certain purposes. But as far as local receipts, they're very dependent on the economy and everything that's going on in the economy. So if people scale back, it tends to affect these receipts. And just supply chain and all of those things. So, motor vehicle excise, if there's no cars and the supply chain is running out, then people aren't going to be able to buy them. One of the other largest sources is building permits. And again, that's very driven on the market and if people can do renovations, take out home equity lines. And we've seen in the past couple of years with the higher interest rates, people may be less apt to do that. And then just one of the biggest swings is investment income, because that depends on how much cash flow we have and also the market. So we don't rely too much on investment income and really when you see the estimates, you can see that because that's set by the interest rates, but also we know that cash at some point will disappear because we have a higher cash flow right now for project money and whatnot. And the same thing happened when we had ARPA funding. We had an influx of $8.4 million that we got to use over a number of years. So that sits. Our treasurer collector is excellent about trying to get the most return on investment and diversifying within the purview of mass general law.

▶ 14:12 Speaker 5: And so then the smallest funding source of the budget is, it's often referred to as OFS or other funding source. It's about 2%. And the funds here are for a very specific purpose, and they're appropriated for a specific purpose. So, the first one is cemetery sale of lots and graves. So when someone purchases a grave, a portion of that grave goes into perpetual care and a portion goes into sale of lots and graves. The sale of lots and graves is for the maintenance and to cover the cemetery budget. Parking receipts, same thing there. That covers the parking budget as well as two enforcement officers that reside in the police department budget, and that's the parking at the MBTA lots throughout Melrose. The debt exclusion that was passed in 2003 for the middle school, there was bond premium that was received at that time, and this $33,000 has been amortized over the past 20 years. So that comes off of what we raise in the tax levy. And so this is the Public Safety, Health, and Education Fund. That is the cannabis excise tax fund. So as the market has become more saturated, we've seen the revenues in that go down as well. But we use this every year to offset the budget. There's very specific purposes. And Mount Hood in, I don't know what year it was, maybe 2010, Mount Hood had a special act under Mayor Dolan to pay for the debt on our fields. So I think that debt was refunded last year and it's over at the high school complex. And I think I can send a snippet of that special legislation, but it's budgeted in the general fund, and we transfer this money from Mount Hood to cover that cost of debt. And then the next three funds are our enterprise funds, and so really indirect costs. That is to cover costs that are budgeted in the general fund on behalf of those funds. That would be health insurance for all the employees and their pension, any type of benefits, and then just an overall assessment of the computer software, the property and casualty and liability insurance. And then the overlay, it's often referred to as allowance for abatement and exemptions or overlay. This is a funding source that we carve aside for abatements to taxes and whatnot. And every year, the assessor and the board of assessors evaluate it, and that can be used to offset some of the costs in their budget. And so they vote to release that.

▶ 17:30 Speaker 5: On page eight, I talked through all of that, but these are all the purposes of all those different monies and the budget number that it coincides with. So, perpetual care, that would cover cemetery 491. Same thing with sale of lots and graves. So those are the budget numbers that you vote on.

▶ 17:57 Speaker 5: And so on page nine, this is just a high-level overview of all the revenues and all of the categories. And I just took that and gave a snapshot and broke that information down per category so you can see the growth year over year in each budget.And this is often how we report the different budgets. We roll them up into these categories. And so you can see big movement with health insurance, schools, and a decrease in DPW because they're going to get less capital funding next year. And just to be clear, too, the fiscal year 2026 recap, that is the supplemental budget. That includes the override. And so then this just really shows when we get to the end how the budget balances. There's two offsets. So again, it's the overlay. So we have to budget when abatements and exemptions are approved, and I think most recently, the veterans exemption that came before city council. Those exemptions are taken out of the overlay. So property tax work off that program, that comes out of the overlay, as well as individuals who take their property assessments to the appellate tax board. And then the offsets, on the cherry sheet, the library gets state aid, and then it goes right back out. So it's really a zero a neutral, because that aid goes into a separate fund specific for the library. So this is how we arrive at the balanced budget, and I probably oversimplified that, but does anyone have any questions or...

▶ 19:56 Speaker 1: Councilor Burke.

▶ 19:59 Speaker 2: Thank you, Carrie- Mm-hmm ... for that- Yeah ... overview. Just as this being my first go-around, so the 2025 actual is pretty self-explanatory. 2026 recap is basically the 2026, but our fiscal year ends on June 30th, which means that this is still an estimate. Is that correct?

▶ 20:23 Speaker 5: So this just shows how we arrived at the balanced budget for last year. So you can see the growth year over year. It's easiest to do a benchmark. So every year after the budget is done, then we'll come before you to certify the tax rate. Mm-hmm. The assessor will come in October, and so this was the final recap budget that was voted by DLS to set the tax rate. And so I just use this as a benchmark to show growth. I can give you actuals year to date, as well. I don't have them on me, but I can share those if it's helpful.

▶ 21:05 Speaker 2: I'd like to see them at some point. I don't know how far off these recaps are from what the actuals end up being, but it'd be interesting. I guess the other question I had was it's concerning to see the local receipts categorically all be down in 2026. I don't know if 2025, the 402,000 for penalties and interest on taxes and excise as opposed to 214,000, is that people were delinquent in 2025 in their penalties, or does that mean that people aren't buying stuff in 2026? Yeah. What accounts for such a big discrepancy like that?

▶ 21:54 Speaker 5: So it's two things. So when you estimate local receipts- Mm-hmm ... DLS best practice is to estimate local receipts so you have free cash. So free cash is generated through two things. It's generated through departmental turn backs and surplus revenue. And so DLS wants you to budget so you generate anywhere between 3% to 5% of your operating budget in free cash. And so these estimates reflect 80% to 85% of the actuals. And the other part with penalties on interest and taxes- ... the law changed, and the interest rate changed a couple of years ago. I want to say it changed from 16% to 8%. I can get the facts on that, but that also accounts for some of the changes there. But when we're looking at local receipts, you don't want to budget every dollar going out. Right. You want to budget a percentage of that. And so when I'm looking at the estimates, I only have 25 here. I usually look at three years. So I looked at '23, '24, and '25, got an average of those three years, and then I take a percentage of that.

▶ 23:18 Speaker 2: I see. Okay. Okay, thank you.

▶ 23:24 Devin Romanul: Yep. Up next, I have Councilor Kowal.

▶ 23:27 Elizabeth Kowal: Hi. And you said it, and I just could be missing it. I'm looking at the public works. What accounted for the large jump between '25 to '26 and then the decrease? You said something about capital. I just want to make sure I understand. And is there a chance that they're going... Again, because it may not seem like a lot, but for $4 million, $5 million could be a lot. So what is accounting for that growth?

▶ 23:52 Speaker 5: Sure. So part of the supplemental budget was bathroom renovations at the high school- Oh, okay ... as well as parks and fields. There was a couple playground projects as well as field projects. So those are part of FY26, but then that money was redistributed- Got it ... as part of FY27.

▶ 24:14 Speaker 6: Okay. Thank you.

▶ 24:16 Speaker 1: Yep. Other councilors?Vice Chair Bender

▶ 24:20 Kimberly Vandiver: Just wanted to say thank you for this really detailed, thorough, clear presentation. Really appreciate the work that you put into this. Good. Thank you.

▶ 24:28 Speaker 5: Thank you.

▶ 24:28 Speaker 1: Councilor Pinocchio?

▶ 24:30 Cal Finocchiaro: I also want to say thank you for taking the time to do this. Yep. Now we can just do your job because you explained it so well. Yeah.

▶ 24:36 Speaker 7: So, thanks a bunch. So, thanks.

▶ 24:39 Speaker 5: Thank you.

▶ 24:41 Speaker 1: Any other questions?

▶ 24:44 Devin Romanul: All right. Well, I really appreciate the very helpful overview, as do the good people of Melrose. Moving right along, we have next on our agenda, Department 121, the Office of the Mayor. You're staying? And here we have-

▶ 24:55 Jen Grigoraitis: I'm staying, yes ... the mayor. I'm staying, but the chief of staff is joining me as well.

▶ 24:59 Speaker 1: Thank you. Chief Grimmett? Do you want to start? Okay.

▶ 25:05 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you for having us tonight. So, I think everyone has gotten our four-page memo, and you interface a lot with myself and the mayor's office, so I don't want to read the whole thing. But just especially for some of the new councilors, besides the mayor and myself, we have Tom Dalton, who's our communications and events manager, and a part-time, 12 hours a week, executive assistant to the mayor. Those kind of seats have always existed in the mayor's office but have had different titles over the years. So my predecessor's title was director of strategic initiatives or something like that. There's been a director of community outreach. So, the bodies, or different bodies, different seats, different titles, but the mayor's always been staffed by two and a half people. We do a lot of constituent services and events, taking calls, taking walk-ins. A lot of our walk-ins and kind of calls are luckily fielded by property tax work-off folks. So, thanks to the good work of the Council on Aging, we're able to take advantage of that, and I've really built up a robust roster of folks so that I'm not constantly answering the phones and telling people how to recycle a mattress, which I'm happy to do in case y'all need to know how to do that. But we really rely on those folks to fill the gap of not having a full-time executive assistant. And when you press 0 when you call the city hall, it comes to our office, so we're constantly fielding a lot of different calls and people that walk in. So besides those kind of constituent services, we did a lot of events last year, Slice in the City, new welcome to new residents. We hope to do those again, and we'll invite you as councilors to the Slice in the City, as well as having the mayor go out into the senior houses, so kind of bringing city hall out to the people, if you will, and really trying to engage with folks. For those people that don't want to come to events, we have a robust communications strategy website, which is housed and fully run through the mayor's office through Tom Dalton. Press releases, weekly emails, social media. If you don't know what's going on in Melrose and you don't read the Melrose Weekly News, then that's shame on you because I think we have a lot of stuff that City Hall pushes out, especially through the mayor's office. And then we take on special initiatives and projects at the mayor's request. So you're all really familiar with the capital improvement planning process that we just wrapped up. Thanks to Councilor Park for sticking with us for those couple of months through that process and all of those meetings. We were also the lead for the MAPC Technical Assistance Grant, which is helping to write a strategic plan for Memorial Hall, which you all will get to understand what that's going to be about in the upcoming budget hearings. So those types of things, they're one-offs. They kind of live with the mayor's office and kind of run through me at the mayor's direction. And so building off of that into fiscal '27, we'll continue to engage residents specifically through a sustainability commission that's been part of the mayor's vision for the city. And then a birth to five, bringing that back. It was a committee that was formed under Mayor Dolan, really intended to reach those families that have younger kids that haven't gotten to school age yet, to kind of engage them in programming and community outreach and help them feel like they're part of a fabric of the community. And so those are kind of the things we do on a regular basis, things we have coming up. I don't know if there's highlights that I've missed that you wanted to talk about. I think just as we look back on fiscal '26, obviously the education around the override was a huge effort by our office, pushing out information to the public for folks to understand their options, what the consequences of those choices were, how to vote. That was really a big undertaking. Then obviously, we moved directly into both the supplemental budget, which is not-- Typically, you don't do another budget middle of the year. So both the planning for that, which was done with a really quick turnaround, and I want to particularly thank Kerry Golden for that work and department heads, and then also communicating that to stakeholders, including the council, the school committee, and the public. Obviously, this is the first time where I've been the mayor and we've had new elected officials where I wasn't also new. So working with President Freeman and School Committee Chair Kelley to get our new city councilors and school committee members oriented to the best of our ability to the role and to working with the city and the schools was another big undertaking, the CIP. And then really continuing to provide ongoing education about the impact of the override. So that is something we're very keenly aware of and will be moving forward with as you start to see projects coming online, is that 60% of our voters said yes to providing more tax revenue. 40% did not, and they still have to pay those bills. And so we want to make sure folks are understanding where that money is going and are really visually seeing the impact. I spend a lot of time getting to speak with other mayors throughout the state. We are one of few communities right now that is not in the process of making budget cuts. I think that's something that we should collectively all be really proud of. I'm grateful to the public for putting us in the position that we're in, so that will continue to be an ongoing effort. And then in addition to engaging, obviously, with the public and with you all as local elected officials, we are heavily involved and are sort of the hub for interaction with both our state and federal delegations. So that's funding opportunities, policy developments that may impact the city. So we meet monthly with our state delegation. We check in regularly with our federal delegation. I'm a member of the Metro Mayors Coalition through the Mass. area ... through the MAPC, which represents over, I think there's two million residents that are encompassed in those communities. I'm also a member of the Mayor's Coalition through MMA, which encompasses mayors throughout the state. So really trying to make sure that we're engaged with our peer groups, that we're also constantly aware of what is happening on a policy and budget level, and how that may impact Melrose, and how we can advocate for change that's going to positively impact our residents. So, that's what we do, or try to do every day.

▶ 31:09 Devin Romanul: Wonderful. Thank you so much. First, I have Councilor Finocchiaro.

▶ 31:13 Cal Finocchiaro: Oh, I'm first in line. All right, great. Wonderful. Thank you. Can you just talk about the website?

▶ 31:20 Speaker 4: Yeah. So, last fiscal year, that cost moved into this department. Previously, it was under the clerk and the clerk of committees. And so when we redid the website about a year ago, it's newer than what it was. We were able to use a small allocation of ARPA funds to cover some of the costs to get that new website up and running. And so what you see budgeted is the full cost of a full year for the website. Okay, great. And Tom Dalton is the webmaster, so managing that. Department heads manage their own webpages, but he does the whole website in the back end and helps department heads.

▶ 31:55 Cal Finocchiaro: Great. And I'm assuming, I know non-union employees did not get any sort of raise, if it was last year or the year before.

▶ 32:03 Speaker 4: Two years ago. So in the FY25 budget, the 60 non-union city side employees received no compensation adjustment, whereas everyone on the school side and all the union folks did. But last year we did do- Cost of living ... cost of living increases, and we have those in there again for this year.

▶ 32:19 Cal Finocchiaro: Okay. And I know there was an increase for your salary that you did not take. So the increase to the salaries is over the, is it five employees?

▶ 32:28 Speaker 4: We have myself, Tom Dalton, and Diane McDonald.

▶ 32:31 Speaker 7: Okay. So, all right. Just wanted to... Okay. Thank you. Welcome.

▶ 32:34 Devin Romanul: President Freeman.

▶ 32:36 Bradley Freeman: Yeah. Thank you very much. I want to first just thank both the mayor and Lauren for all you did for the new councilors when we came in. Your onboarding of us was very helpful. I just want to note, I really appreciate you increasing the professional services line item. I think the communication around the override is so critically important and really sharing those success stories, as the mayor pointed out with the 60% that voted with for this, but also the 40% that didn't. So I'm really looking forward to seeing some of the enhanced and further communications from your office about that. And so I just want to really thank you for recommending that increase, and that's something I fully support.

▶ 33:14 Speaker 1: Thank you. Other councilors?

▶ 33:17 Speaker 8: President Freeman. I will then make a motion to move to the bottom line.

▶ 33:20 Devin Romanul: Motion to move to the bottom line made by President Freeman, second by Councilor Jamaleddine. On discussion?

▶ 33:26 Speaker 1: Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 33:28 Speaker 3: Sure. Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Cal? Yes. Councilor Abremski? Yes. Councilor Hoff? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes. All in favor? Motion passes.

▶ 33:47 Devin Romanul: All right. The motion passes. Thank you. We will move that to the bottom line. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief. Thank you.

▶ 33:53 Speaker 1: Moving right along. Up next, item number 543, veteran services.

▶ 34:05 Devin Romanul: I'm joined by Tammy Shovelton. Thank you so much for joining us this evening.

▶ 34:08 Speaker 6: Thank you. Good evening, everyone.

▶ 34:09 Speaker 1: Good evening.

▶ 34:18 Speaker 6: Sorry, I just had to verify something. I apologize. No worry. Thank you. So, I just want to go over really quickly what my office does and what it's done over the year. Since you guys did get the memo, so I won't go into everything individually. But I did want to just highlight, that my office does administer all of aspects of Chapter 115. We do work on VA claims as well as VA appeals. We do vet benefit review meetings with the community. We're integral in Veterans Day and Memorial Day activities here in Melrose. We run a monthly food mart, as well as we do upkeep all of the monuments within the city. So those are just some of the things that we've done, that we do on a sort of yearly basis. This past year, some of the things that we've done that I would like to highlight. One, we moved our offices, because we used to be in Milano and now we're here, which is great. We're getting ready tomorrow, not tomorrow, Wednesday, we're going to have the rededication of the Otis W. Bishop Monument Park. So we were able to replace that plaque, which someone had stolen at some point. But it's okay because it's replaced now and it's beautiful, and we're having a rededication on Wednesday afternoon at 1:30. If you would like to join us, there will be cookies and lemonade. We also do outreach events. It's very important in this office that we are out there with the community, with the veterans, with the dependents, with the family members, so that they understand what benefits they're eligible for, not just from the City of Melrose or the State of Massachusetts, but what federal benefits they're eligible for, too. So our outreach events are really important. This year, since I started in July, we've worked on 77 veteran disability claims and appeals. We currently have 16 veterans or families as part of our Chapter 115 program. We've kicked off last month our monthly veteran and family socials, and we'll do those once a month at Memorial Hall. And as you all know, because you were instrumental in passing our, codifying our veteran tax workoff program. So those are just some of the things that we've done recently. In reference to the budget, I just want to say that you are going to see an increase in some of the line items from the budget, and those increases may seem substantial, but that's simply because they weren't there before, because they were taken out in leaner times. And because of the override, we were able to add those things back into our budget, which is really important to us. So you are going to see an increase in things such as mileageWar memorials, education, events, and you'll always see an increase in our Chapter 115 benefits. We increased that this year by 10%, which we think is a really safe place to be. With the Chapter 115 benefits, we have to pay those regardless of whether the money's in the budget or not. So it's always helpful to make sure that we are putting that budget a little bit higher so that if anything happens, if we get new families, if we have new expenses within that, we can make sure to cover them without having to come back to you and ask for more money. So, any questions?

▶ 37:29 Devin Romanul: None for me, besides Wednesday 1:30 for free cookies. My big takeaway.

▶ 37:36 Speaker 1: Any councilors with questions? Councilor Chen.

▶ 37:38 Jason Chen: Yes. So, thanks Tammy. To clarify, the Chapter 115 benefits is the state benefits that are paid to Melrose and then we pay that out, and we have to budget a line item for it.

▶ 37:48 Speaker 6: So yeah. So we pay the benefits out- Mm-hmm ... and then the state reimburses us 75% back to us into the general fund. But we pay it first and then we're refunded, we're repaid back on the end.

▶ 38:02 Jason Chen: Okay. And approximately what amount of federal funds, VA benefits, do you help our veterans get in addition to the state Chapter 115 funding?

▶ 38:11 Speaker 6: So, I don't keep track of how much the veterans or their dependents receive in their benefits. I just simply help them to apply for them. Just recently, I can say, like I said, I have done over 77 claims since I started in July. Most of those claims have been approved, so veterans are receiving anywhere from an extra $200 a month up to $5,000 a month that they wouldn't have had before.

▶ 38:40 Speaker 9: Thank you so much.

▶ 38:43 Speaker 1: Other councilors? President Freeman.

▶ 38:46 Bradley Freeman: Thank you so much. I note the mileage increase, and obviously that means more home visits. Can you just explain what you're doing during the home visits, and is it going to help veterans with their disability claims? What do those entail?

▶ 39:00 Speaker 6: So, the mileage entails home-- You're right, it does entail home visits. Home visits, there are veterans that are just not capable of coming to my office, either for physical reasons or mental health reasons. They just can't do it. And so this allows me to go to their homes, to sit with them and figure out what programs work best for them, whether that's helping them file for Chapter 115 or file for federal benefits from VA. But in addition to that, we also have my veterans, the Bedford Hospital has a hospice unit as well as a long-term care unit. So I have some veterans from Melrose that are currently in-hospital and long-term, and so I will go visit them. Also, whenever my veterans have passed away, I go to their wakes, I go to their funerals, and a lot of times that's driving to Bourne or to Winchendon, or to Agawam, which are the state and federal cemeteries, or other cemeteries throughout the state. So the mileage really depends on what's happening. And then also the mileage also helps to take care of things like when I have to go to training. A lot of my training is done in the Cape or it's done somewhere in the state, not necessarily nearby, and so I need to be able to drive to do those things as well. And then also at Christmas time, the vet center in Worcester does free toys and free jackets, like new everything. And I just put in an order and I go and pick it up, and I get all the free stuff and bring it back here and give it to all of our veterans. So we use the mileage for all of those types of things.

▶ 40:40 Bradley Freeman: Thank you. That is all wonderful services. So thank you very much. You're welcome.

▶ 40:45 Speaker 1: Councilor Chen.

▶ 40:45 Jason Chen: Yes. A question about the 77 disability claims that you were able to get for our veterans since you just started. Mm-hmm. I don't expect 77 veterans moved into Melrose, and then-- So should they have been maybe receiving claims for a long period of time, and you were able to advise them to?

▶ 41:03 Speaker 6: So veterans are a fickle group of people. Some veterans will not ever file a claim, or they will wait until they are in dire straits. One of my veterans is 102. He never filed a VA claim in his life because he didn't need it, till he did. And so his son contacted me and said, "Can you help my father? He needs care at the home. He needs this, and that, and the other thing." And so we filed a claim for him. We got him in-home care. We got him brand-new hearing aids and things like that. And he's lived here, he bought his house when he got back from World War II. Mm. So he's lived his whole life in this community. But not every veteran will come to the office or go on their own behest to get their benefits. What recently we're seeing, or I'm seeing in my office, is family members of aging veterans coming in and saying, "I have an aging veteran that needs help. How do I get that?" And so we're doing that. Some of the claims that I'm working on are people who have previously had claims and now they're looking for increases in their benefits, or they have new issues, or they're appealing a previous issue that they had. So it's not necessarily all new ones, and it's not that they didn't have the ability to get help before, it's just that they weren't necessarily looking for it or using it. Like I said, veterans are very one way or the other.

▶ 42:37 Speaker 1: Other councilors? Councilor Finocchiaro.

▶ 42:41 Speaker 7: Thank you. Thank you for being here. I was just going to make a motion to move to the bottom line.

▶ 42:44 Speaker 1: I second.

▶ 42:45 Devin Romanul: Second. Motion made to move to the bottom line by Councilor Finocchiaro, second by Councilor Chen on discussion.

▶ 42:51 Speaker 1: Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 42:53 Speaker 3: Yes. Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Kowal? Yes. Councilor Abremski? Yes. Councilor Park? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes. All in favor? Motion passes.

▶ 43:10 Devin Romanul: All right. The motion passes. We'll move then to the bottom line of the FY27 budget. Director Shelton, if you will, mind joining us or taking a brief recess, and joining us on the other side for a second. For the members of the viewing audience, we are at 7:45. We have to briefly recess to gavel in and gavel out of our full council meeting. So we'll be back after these messages.