Department Presenter 141 Assessor 135 Auditor 942 Stabilization Fund/OPEB Funds Capital Outlay 300 School 399 Regional School Assessment (NMRVHS) 399 Essex Agricultural 399 Lexington Minuteman

Transcript (~1 h 25 min @ 11:52)

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▶ 11:51 Speaker 3: Okay. So next I'm presenting the fiscal year 2027 budget for the assessor's department, and I realize that you have received my memo, but I wanted to provide an overview of the department and its functions. So the assessor's office is currently staffed full-time by myself, an assistant assessor, and a senior clerk. We also have a GIS manager for five hours weekly, and we have a property tax work-off employee. So the core function of the office is the fair and equitable valuation of all taxable property in the city in accordance with mass law and Department of Revenue guidelines. Throughout the year, we conduct market analysis, sales review, data collection projects, and property inspections to help us determine property values and ensure that assessments are applied consistently across all property classes. So the department is responsible for maintaining accurate records for all real and personal property in the city. This includes tracking property ownership, reviewing building permits, conducting inspections, updating records to reflect new construction, renovations, additions, demolitions, and other property changes. So one of our top priorities is providing transparent, responsive customer service and helping people understand that assessment process, property values, exemptions, abatements, and other programs that are available to them. I just want to recognize the staff in our office who consistently provide exceptional service to the public. Over the past year, I've received emails, phone calls, and in-person comments from residents and taxpayers praising our staff's responsiveness, knowledge, and dedication to helping. The office also administers exemptions, abatements, tax deferrals, and all other forms of tax relief authorized by state law and local option. Department staff reviews applications, determines eligibility, and assists residents in understanding and accessing benefits available to them. The assessing department is also responsible for identifying and certifying new growth, which includes new construction and improvements that add value to the city's tax base. In addition, the office ensures compliance with state laws and regulations, prepares reports required by the Mass DOR, supports the annual tax rate setting process, and represents the city in assessment appeals in front of the state's appellate tax board. Just to highlight some of the changes for the fiscal year '27 budget. In the salary and wages line, we have added an increase of five additional hours per week for the head clerk position. The clerk role in the assessing office is one of the last remaining 30-hour a week positions in City Hall currently. So with the recent expansion of some of the exemption programs and the higher volume of general inquiries and traffic due to the override, adding the five hours to the work week for this role will help meet the increased demand for services. The salary and wages line also includes a replacement of the prior mileage reimbursement model with a mileage stipend for the chief assessor, myself. This streamlines administrative processes by eliminating the need for mileage submissions and aligns the department's practice with comparable communities, allowing for more efficient use of staff time. The reevaluation budget line increased 5% to keep pace with rising annual recurring vendor contract costs. Many of the vendors and subscriptions that we use to perform the work in our office have increased pricing basically by inflation annually. So the increase to the reval line will allow the assessing office to continue to work with these important vendors. And then finally, the fiscal year '27 budget for assessors includes a reinstatement of the training and education budget line. This allows the department to resume the required coursework to maintain assessor certification, while also supporting ongoing professional development to stay current with evolving assessing methodologies, emerging technology, and Department of Revenue standards. This reinvestment ensures continued certification compliance and equitable property assessments and improves the department's ability to provide reliable service to the public. And that's about it, so I can take any questions that you have.

▶ 16:13 Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Up first, I have Councilor Kowal.

▶ 16:16 Elizabeth Kowal: Hi. Thanks for being here tonight. Yeah. I'm just looking at your memo and reading through your memo and- Yeah ... your FY27 priority, you talk about achieving full compliance with the Mass Department of Revenue's five-year recertification. Are we not in compliance now, or is this looking forward that we have to keep doing things to be in compliance?

▶ 16:35 Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's only once every five years- Okay ... that they conduct all these kind of testing. That we did a data quality review where they look at all of our data and make sure that it's in compliance with their standards. Okay. Our assessment to sales ratios have to be within their standards. So there's a whole number of things, and it's just only every five years. Every year we submit our values, but they don't do the same level of testing. They do look at the values and make sure that the assessment to sale ratios. So we look at the sales from, so for '26, we were looking at calendar year '24 sales. Okay. So they'd be looking at, to make sure that those ratios were within their standard, just for an interim year. But for a reval year, they're looking at a lot of different data points and testing and all kinds of... It's just a much deeper analysis. So we are in compliance annually, or else we couldn't- ... we can't set a tax rate.

▶ 17:38 Elizabeth Kowal: So that was my next question- Yeah ... is what is the liability if we are not in compliance?

▶ 17:42 Speaker 3: We can't set a tax rate. Okay. And we have to have our classification hearing. So I give a classification hearing in the fall where the council choose the shift or no shift- Yeah ... between theYou know what the residential factor will be, and then the state will certify the values, they certify the tax rate, and then we can move on from there and send tax bills out. Otherwise, we can't.

▶ 18:10 Speaker 4: Thank you. That's very helpful.

▶ 18:11 Devin Romanul: Up next, I have Councilor Williams.

▶ 18:14 Ryan Williams: Thank you. Could you please give a little more information about the consultants or contractors, vendors, excuse me, in the reevaluation line? Like who are they, and what services do they provide?

▶ 18:26 Speaker 3: So, some of the major ones that we have are just our software. So we have what used to be Patriot Properties, which is now- ... Catalyst, which is when you go online to see your property card. So all of those vendors, we will have a contract with them, so they kind of incrementally will be increasing their pricing of their software fees. So, we have software for them. We have software for Real Estate Research Company, which is the personal property vendor that we use, to keep the database and to do inspections and things like that. So they've increased. We also use, I don't know if you've heard of CoStar, which is like a data research for more income-producing properties and that kind of thing. So those are some of the vendors that we use. Yeah. Some data collection. But yeah. Thank you.

▶ 19:26 Ryan Williams: Yeah. And my second question is, can you characterize the $780,000 in new growth? How much of that came from large commercial or large residential buildings versus additions or sort of single-family home upgrades? Do you have any-

▶ 19:45 Speaker 3: So I don't have that in front of me right now, but I do believe it's in my classification presentation from last year. Okay. Yeah. I'll check it out. Which is posted on my website. Great. Yeah. Thank you.

▶ 19:57 Devin Romanul: Terrific. Up next, I have Councilor Chen.

▶ 19:59 Jason Chen: Thanks. To follow Councilor Williams' question, on the revaluation, you want 5% greater than your 2026 revised budget, but this year we're already on track to spend 35K more. So we're at 138,000. So I wanted to make sure that we're 5% more than the correct amount, or if there's a reason why we spent 35K more actual than our revised in 2026.

▶ 20:22 Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. So, it is basically because of the timing of the payment. So we have encumbrances, wouldn't you say, Carrie? So, we would encumber some of the funds, and sometimes it just depends on when we do our data collection sometimes or when we do some of the major work that we do in the... A lot of our, so our data collection happens in June. Got it. So then we can't pay them until July or after, so that it doesn't post until the following fiscal year. Is that right, Carrie? Basically? I mean, and it looks like it's into the next year or...

▶ 21:04 Speaker 3: Come join us. Yes.

▶ 21:06 Speaker 4: So Friday, I think Lauren Grimek sent an email out regarding these munis columns and what they mean. So that 2026 projection line item, that is actually just a canned number that munis pulls, and it takes the budgetary appropriation, and then it adds any purchase orders for the past year. So what Sarah's saying is that at the end of fiscal 2025, she was still going through her reval process but wasn't able to pay the bills until after July. And so it's just taking those two numbers and adding it. Unfortunately, it's a very confusing number, and it's just a canned number that our accounting software pulls.

▶ 21:50 Jason Chen: But the 2026 actuals is what we actually spent, which is 35K more. So looks like you're expecting a couple hundred... I don't want to be an accounting troll here, but- Mm-hmm ... I just want to make sure that the 35K extra is one-time expense- Yes ... in preparation for the five-year revaluation, and the timing of cash flows makes it so it got hit in the 2026 budget, but it actually applies for 2027.

▶ 22:15 Speaker 4: 2025. So what happened was at the end of 2025, she had an encumbrance that she had to pay because her contract runs June to May, so she had to carry forward money. Okay. I see. And yeah. Got it. So then it got paid in 2026, and unfortunately- Okay ... it's just pulling that in the actuals as well. Thank you.

▶ 22:36 Speaker 3: Thanks, Carrie.

▶ 22:40 Devin Romanul: Yep. Terrific. What is the will of the committee?

▶ 22:43 Speaker 4: Make a motion to move the bottom line. Second.

▶ 22:45 Devin Romanul: Motion to move the bottom line made by Councilor Finocchiaro. Mm-hmm. Second by Councilor Karamcheti on discussion. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 22:54 Speaker 2: Yes. Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Karamcheti? Yes. Councilor Kowal? Yes. Councilor Abramsky? Yes. Councilor Park? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes. All in favor?

▶ 23:10 Devin Romanul: Motion is approved. We'll move the bottom line. Thank you so much. Moving on to the next department on our agenda, number 135, Auditor.

▶ 23:20 Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us, Chief Golden.

▶ 23:22 Speaker 4: Yeah. Thank you for having me. I will be up here for a little bit tonight, I think. So I think you all received my memo. I am Carrie Golden, the CFO City Auditor. As far as the auditor's budget, we are responsible for providing financial information to make both short and long-term financial decisions and to safeguard the city's assets. We are charged with watching every single outgoing dollar to the city as well as reviewing the incoming money that comes through the treasurer collector's office. The broader financial team is the assessor, the treasurer collector, and myself.In the auditing department, we currently have four employees for fiscal 2026. It's myself, the CFO, and then we have an assistant city auditor, we have an accounts payable manager, and then we have a payroll manager. Our payroll manager resigned in April for a new opportunity, and so we are taking this opportunity as part of the FY27 budget to move that to the treasury office. Department of Local Services conducted an audit during fiscal 26, and they informally opined that treasury should be responsible for payroll, which makes sense because the treasurer-collector does our W-2s and all of the reporting. So they'll manage the end-to-end process. And then they have more training opportunities within that office. We have a very limited staff with the four of us. Some of our highlights for our budget for fiscal 2026. We affirmed the city's bond rating, which was great news. We had that in November for one of our big borrowings. So we were very pleased to maintain that bond rating, and we haven't seen many agencies get an increased bond rating. For the second year in a row, we've achieved the GFOA Certificate of Achievement in Excellence in Financial Reporting. We started doing an ACFR or a CAFR back in 2023. So we've received that. 2023, we did not, but 2024 and 2025, we did. So that's recognition from the GFOA out in Chicago, which is great. We had certified free cash of just under $5.6 million. A goal of ours was to develop and formalize financial policies. They've always been informal practices, so the treasurer-collector and I and a team have been working on going through those for the past year. And then one of the big things we're working on right now is processing ACH payments to our vendors through a third-party contract, which will be huge. We piloted it with our Chapter 115 benefit recipients, and it was well-received. This will allow us to work with Paymode, the vendor, and I think it's 340 vendors that we've identified, so streamlining processes. As far as FY27, the largest change is obviously removing that position from my budget. And you'll see in the departmental summaries that it's just appearing as a new position under the treasurer-collector's office. But one of the things we're hoping to do in fiscal 2027, with just changes of responsibilities with HR, payroll, and the finance staff, is to invest in training for us. So our proprietary software is Tyler ERP or Munis. We often refer to it as Munis. They offer a course catalog of trainings, and it's a set number of trainings. I think it's 15. And we can choose from a 30-page catalog to have them on-site to provide training. And they also do an optimization of the software, which will be huge, because HR, I think she was here last week, Polly, they took on the function of HR from the schools, and so it would be great to have a whole group in to streamline processes. As far as my budget, most of it is compliance with the annual audit. That's our largest line item. We have CBIS. We will be contracted with them through FY29. Or no, FY28, I'm sorry. And at that point, we'll put it out to bid to look for a different auditor, not because of performance or anything, but just for best practices. And then we have our annual OPEB reporting. So this year, we have to do our other post-employment benefit revel, as well as GASB 74 and 75. So it's a little more expensive this year. And then we have an outside consultant who helps us with some of our accounting projects as well. So I'm happy to answer any questions.

▶ 28:53 Speaker 1: Terrific. Any questions from my colleagues?

▶ 28:59 Devin Romanul: Seeing none, what is the will of the committee?

▶ 29:01 Speaker 8: Make a motion to move to the bottom line.

▶ 29:03 Speaker 7: Second.

▶ 29:03 Devin Romanul: Motion to move to the bottom line made by Councilor Karamcheti, seconded by Councilor Finocchiaro. On discussion?

▶ 29:11 Speaker 1: Seeing none. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 29:12 Speaker 2: Yes. Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Karamcheti? Yes. Councilor Cal? Yes. Councilor Abrumsky? Yes. Councilor Park? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul?

▶ 29:28 Speaker 1: Yes.

▶ 29:29 Devin Romanul: All right. We'll move the bottom line on 1:35. We set a record. All right. Up next, Department 942, Stabilization Fund.

▶ 29:38 Speaker 4: Thank you. So Department 942, Stabilization Funds, is a recognition of a small appropriation to some of our stabilization funds. So the city has a multitude of stabilization funds. This specific request, so there's $50,000 that is going to just the city's general stabilization fund. And that, I believe, is part of the city charter as well, that we have that as part of the annual operating budget.And then the other piece is other post-employment benefits, and we request an appropriation of $50,000. We will have to start making more material contributions, but this has just kind of been a longstanding, well, since 2013, I think, they've both been in the budget for those amounts. And so our OPEB liability for fiscal 2025 was $155 million So it's just a drop in the bucket. The contract stabilization, that's a new line item this year, and that was just to recognize things that were outstanding as we were setting the budget between vendor contracts as well as city employee contracts. So I'm happy to answer any questions.

▶ 31:04 Speaker 1: Perfect. Councilor Finocchiaro?

▶ 31:06 Speaker 7: Thank you. I was just wondering why it was only $50,000. It's just something that they've been doing and-

▶ 31:12 Speaker 4: Yeah. So we have to figure out something that is sustainable but look to increase OPEB funding definitely. Okay. Yeah. That's a big budget. Yeah. Once the pension assessment is funded, which is projected to be 2038, then you have to fund just the normal cost of those employees going forward, and then the delta, most communities are contributing that to OPEB. You have no idea what that will be? It will depend on the time. It is probably like eight million dollars annually. Yeah.

▶ 31:52 Speaker 1: All right. Councilor Chen.

▶ 31:54 Jason Chen: What happens to cities who don't pay anything into their OPEB trust?

▶ 31:58 Speaker 5: Who yells at them?

▶ 32:01 Speaker 4: I don't think anyone does. The rating agency definitely looks at it. The last two times we've done the bond rating with S&P, they've written it up, just saying concerns with outstanding liabilities between pension, OPEB, and long-term debt.

▶ 32:23 Jason Chen: And $50,000, we think keeps us off the-

▶ 32:26 Speaker 4: No, I don't think it keeps us off of any list. It's just recognizing that there needs to be some contribution. Yeah. And so through the supplemental budget, we were able to put an extra $500,000 in there for FY26, which is great.

▶ 32:45 Jason Chen: Even though the projection shows $50,000?

▶ 32:47 Speaker 4: Yeah, it should be $550.

▶ 32:54 Speaker 1: Vice Chair Vandiver.

▶ 32:55 Kimberly Vandiver: Just point of order, and so that it's in the column 2026 revised budget is where the $550 shows up? Yes. In case I'm just... Yes. Thank you.

▶ 33:03 Speaker 1: Other councilors?

▶ 33:07 Speaker 1: What is the will of the committee?

▶ 33:11 Speaker 6: Motion to move the line one.

▶ 33:13 Devin Romanul: Second. Motion to move the bottom line made by President Freeman, seconded by Vice Chair Vandiver on discussion. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Oh, hold on. Oh, Councilor Chen.

▶ 33:22 Jason Chen: The difference between $50,000 and $500,000 is a lot, and if we're not sure if $50,000 is enough

▶ 33:33 Jason Chen: or if that's okay, I'm not sure why we think $500,000 is enough or not enough. Yeah. It seems, not you, but just seems like an arbitrary ambiguity that everyone's dealing with, and- Yes ... I could think of better uses for $500,000 than- There- ... getting this-

▶ 33:54 Speaker 4: Yeah. There are some communities, depending on the type of community, like your Wellesley, Winchester, all the W towns, that have made significant contributions to OPEB. And the hope is that eventually it will grow into a balance that will fund-- It will be a trust that will fund future liabilities.

▶ 34:20 Devin Romanul: Other councilors before we... Councilor Chen, I just didn't want to cut you off.

▶ 34:26 Speaker 1: No further questions?

▶ 34:28 Devin Romanul: All right. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 34:30 Speaker 2: Yes. Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen? Present. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Karamcheti? Yes. Councilor Kowal? Yes. Councilor Abramsky? Yes. Councilor Park?

▶ 34:45 Speaker 1: Present.

▶ 34:47 Speaker 2: Councilor Williams? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Report? Yes. All in favor.

▶ 34:53 Devin Romanul: All right. We will move the bottom line on 942. Up next, 931, capital outlay.

▶ 35:01 Speaker 4: Yes. So this is a new budget that is being presented this year. And this is a result of the capital planning process that we went through this year, which kicked off in December. I sent a memo today, and it will be added to the order for the record. And it just kind of itemizes out the items that were selected. So if you look at priority group A, we've identified plans to address all of those things. And some of them are through the budget, some of them are through free cash. And then the other part was some things that came up after the capital planning process that were added. I think one of them is furniture, and it's to update this space and update some of our public spaces that we utilize for meetings. But the memo kind of outlines what projects were ranked on the CIP and what priority group and what projects fell outside of that.I'm happy to answer any questions.

▶ 36:18 Speaker 1: Councilor Fornagiero.

▶ 36:19 Cal Finocchiaro: Thank you. And I might have missed this on the memo, but is there a breakdown, like how much of the operating budget is being used versus the free cash or for each item?

▶ 36:34 Speaker 4: So all of the items within this budget are all on a budgetary basis. And the free cash appropriations are what you have been approving- Okay ... all along. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

▶ 36:48 Speaker 1: Other councilors? Councilor Chen.

▶ 36:50 Jason Chen: I generally agree with the approach of putting recurring capital and expenses into budgets. Mm-hmm. So, but this being the first year, would we expect this amount to be the same in future budgets if money were no object? Like these are- Yes ... recurring, maybe small assets and things that don't rise to the level of large capital, but we just know that things break and we want to fix them. Yes. And we don't need to line item them out. Right. So was there a,

▶ 37:25 Jason Chen: for masonry- Mm-hmm ... if we were to look back at all of our masonry repairs in the past five years, we would see something, or we would've wished that we had spent 250K- Yeah ... adjusted for inflation, is that the-

▶ 37:36 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think easily we could spend that on an annual basis. That was just identifying some of the projects that were in group A and group B. It's retaining walls at schools, it's the stairs outside here, and just the facade of some of the buildings. But yeah, that's something we could easily spend every year.

▶ 37:59 Jason Chen: So school IT, we would spend 325,000 every year on school IT?

▶ 38:05 Speaker 4: That is identified, fob, security cameras, smart boards. I think, yes, easily we could spend that.

▶ 38:16 Jason Chen: Those sound more like one-time improvements that would more be free cash or a CIP item rather than a recurring capital outlay that would be a part of a city budget or a departmental budget.

▶ 38:27 Speaker 4: Right. And so that's why in some of the departments, there's actual capital outlay. So if you go to DPW highway, there's some capital outlay there. And so you're right, these are things that we kind of identified as things that some of them we may like to see, but some of them are one time in nature.

▶ 38:52 Speaker 5: But the amount

▶ 38:54 Jason Chen: should be steady over time, right? Yes, we would like-

▶ 38:57 Speaker 4: And it should only include- Yes. Yeah, it might be 10 different- ... new projects that are appearing there. Yeah.

▶ 39:11 Devin Romanul: Up next, I have Councilor Williams. I just didn't want to cut you off- ... if you had further questions.

▶ 39:16 Speaker 5: Scared of you.

▶ 39:22 Ryan Williams: I would like to make an admission that I don't like this. Okay. It's a little confusing to me to have certain capital items be contained in the operating budget as opposed to appropriations, which is what I think we're all used to. It's like we have this very long list of lots of capital projects, and some of them are in the capital outlay operating budget, and some of them are free cash requests. And, I think it makes it a little harder to figure out what the true cost of a department is if we're pulling, say... Oh, my internet just completely crapped out. That's great. Well, pulling, say, $300,000 out of the school budget and putting it into the capital overlay. School's probably a bad example because we know that gets moved around a lot. But Parks and Masonry is one. I kind of don't know what I'm looking at. And if it were less money, I would sort of go, "No problem," but it's a lot of money. And so it just makes me really uncomfortable because I feel like I'm shortcutting the normal process of hearing a request for something, thinking about it, debating it, and passing it with this big blanket, like now we are just going to say, I don't know, furnish and fix. Like Councilor Chen was saying, some of the stuff like, a furniture line item in the city's general budget sort of makes sense to me, and I wish we had a painting line item for this room and other rooms. So, some of it I am comfortable with and some of it I'm not comfortable with, but mostly I find it confusing. Okay. That's just feed- That's good feedback. Yeah ... that's just feedback. Yeah. I do really like the idea of having capital line items. I just think they should be contained in the budgets that they're touching as much as possible.

▶ 41:37 Speaker 4: Yeah. And I think we were trying to correlate this with the CIP and priority group A and B. If you kind of look at those projects, you'll find some of them in here called out. And because it's not guaranteed funding, then a department will come and say, "Our funding was cut." And- Yeah ... yeah.

▶ 42:00 Ryan Williams: No, and I think that it's sort of a learning process too. Because we've had this capital improvement plan. We've never really funded it appropriately. Yeah. We've never had money. So, yeah. And then the question becomes, how do we operationalize that? So I like the spirit, but I'm not really comfortable with this approach.

▶ 42:26 Speaker 9: Thank you.

▶ 42:28 Devin Romanul: Next I have Vice Chair Vandiver.

▶ 42:30 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. Well, I think along some of the same lines. I really appreciate-- I think this is something that we have talked about for some years or since I've been a councilor, wanting to have a capital budget. Mm-hmm. Because, to recognize that in addition to people costs and IT and other things along that nature, we have large capital expenditures that we do need to make on an ongoing basis, right? And if we don't set aside a certain pool of money for that in the operating budget, then it's very reliant on one season of the year and one by one bringing these projects through. So I think this is actually really good, I think, in my opinion. I think as other councilors have commented, there may be ways to make it more a little easier to follow. Maybe we could generalize lines, like we have the Hoover APR on here as a line. I don't know if we need to generalize that into that category of the request that every year is going to repeat, but one year it's Hoover, and one year it's something else. Hmm. Or if it's enough to just have the dollar amount be similar year to year. I think it's a really great directional change, and I'm looking forward to seeing, if we go through this way, what it actually looks like in the actuals and then how it progresses over a year or two. So, I'm in favor of the general direction. Thank you.

▶ 44:05 Devin Romanul: Thank you. Terrific. Up next, I have Councilor Van Aguero.

▶ 44:08 Speaker 7: Thank you.

▶ 44:10 Cal Finocchiaro: So my question is, what would prevent us from, instead of having this as part of the operating budget, taking this amount and, basically putting it into a stabilization fund or using it in the upcoming year and having it as appropriation requests so that we can kind of approve them one by one versus just putting it all in the operating budget?

▶ 44:37 Speaker 4: Yeah. I think the goal with some of this was to get some of the summer projects done and fund things that historically we've waited for free cash, which wouldn't happen till next May or June. And just this summer's the busiest time for DPW to get the schools prepared, and-

▶ 44:59 Cal Finocchiaro: Just because we have a certain amount of requests as appropriation, I mean, free cash, so it's like, just wondering why we're cut. I mean, I understand why you're building it as the budget so we can have it, but I guess my other question is... Put my glasses on. I guess 325 for the schools?

▶ 45:14 Speaker 4: Yes.

▶ 45:15 Cal Finocchiaro: So can we move that line item to something else? Could 325 be moved to another line item if needed- Mm ... or does it have to be within schools?

▶ 45:23 Speaker 4: It's within the schools. Yeah, so just school tech. That's what it's specified for. And the good news with this is if something came in under budget during the year, then I think per charter, as of May 1st or May 15th, we can transfer to another project because it's within the budget, whereas free cash, it just rolls to fund balance. This would, if a project came in under budget or there was money, we could then transfer it to another project.

▶ 45:55 Cal Finocchiaro: So as the auditor, do you prefer having this in the budget

▶ 46:00 Speaker 4: versus- I prefer this, just for tracking purposes and stuff, because when it gets i-in a departmental appropriation, you can still call it out in capital outlay, but for me, as we were working on the CIP process this year, it would be easier to go in and just pull the cost from a line item to report back into the CIP.

▶ 46:24 Cal Finocchiaro: I mean, essentially, whether it's free cash or in the operating budget, we'd be using the money- Right

▶ 46:29 Speaker 4: ... essentially. Right. It would be built in. Yes. Yeah. So this would be FY27 money, and free cash is just the result of FY25 operations. Yeah.

▶ 46:40 Speaker 7: Thank you. Yep.

▶ 46:42 Devin Romanul: Thank you so much. And I'll note that in other places, per Councilor Williams' point, for visibility purposes, we have had other departments that operate in the schools. We had requested as colleagues to the administration to call out areas of, say, DPW or parks, where they're doing operations and expenses in the school district. And so there's some visibility as to where there's operations and money spent on the city side versus the school side. So perhaps down the line, there's an opportunity to integrate that same approach for capital budgets, per Councilor Williams' request to kind of get more visibility into departmental side.

▶ 47:15 Speaker 4: Where it's actually going. Yes. But anyway.

▶ 47:17 Devin Romanul: Yes. Thank you for that. Thank you for lodging my opining. Up next, I have President Freeman.

▶ 47:21 Bradley Freeman: Thank you very much. And through the Chair, I understand Councilor Williams' point, and I agree with it that this is a little clunky, I think, and that's probably a reflection of this is the first time we've done this. Yes. And to Councilor Vandiver point, I do think this is a really good direction for us to move in, spending some of the extra revenue we are bringing to the city now on capital projects. I think one of the things we've all talked about is how can we demonstrate to the citizens that the override money is being put to use for the city, and this is a great way to do it with shovel-ready projects. And I think just for a point of clarification, because you said this is FY27 money. Yes. So if we were not to approve this, these projects wouldn't be able to be done in the next fiscal year. We'd have to wait almost two years for this fiscal FY27 money to be certified as free cash to come up before the council again.

▶ 48:10 Speaker 4: Or yeah, next May- ... FY26. Yes.

▶ 48:12 Bradley Freeman: So projects like this, playgrounds, various improvement projects, because of the timing we have left, if we want these projects to move forward this year using FY27 money, this is the vehicle for it. And there's really not a free cash in excess to do these projects using the FY25 money. Is that correct? Correct. Thank you.

▶ 48:32 Speaker 4: Yeah. Thank you.

▶ 48:32 Devin Romanul: All right. Up next, I have Councilor Chen, second time.

▶ 48:36 Jason Chen: I think Councilor Williams' question and mine is more around governance. We put a lot of scrutiny on free cash requests of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then here we have a single line item around school IT that's $325,000. But to President Freeman point, if we are in the sixth year of this, we would be able to see five years of spend history. We'd have justified invoices of these are all the capital things. They'd be a little different from year to year. Mm-hmm. But like all operating companies and factories and schools, we just know stuff breaks, and we have a certain pile of capital things- Right ... that we just trust. You don't have to come and request for $10,000 here or $5,000 here to fix capital asset type things. So, I think I'm willing to support this, and with the exception of the school IT, everything looks about the right fraction of- Mm-hmm ... complexity and assets. I don't see $2 million for DPW, for a $9 million budget in here. So, I think maybe to satisfy the governance piece, it's just as we go on and when we talk about this next year, we actually see the history, and then the justification for why the amount is the way it is, is more clear, and then we refine that over time. Mm-hmm. Is that the approach that you want this to take? And keep them on capital outline.

▶ 49:56 Speaker 4: By keeping it in this.

▶ 49:57 Jason Chen: Yeah. And whether it's all here or in the department budget, it's really just easier, doesn't matter to me. Yes. But it's more the idea of capital going into department budgets rather than being requested in small line items for free cash. Large items I would still expect, large and special and unusual ones, I would still expect to come through the council approval, but this is really for recurring, expected, and routine.

▶ 50:23 Speaker 4: Yes.

▶ 50:25 Devin Romanul: Okay. Terrific. Up next, I have Councilor Williams again.

▶ 50:28 Ryan Williams: Well, it's not really recurring. Some of it is just multi-year. So for instance, the Hoover APR cost is budgeted here at $75,000 for this year, but the total capital cost is estimated at $150,000. Yes. You would have this on this capital list for two years, and then it would fall off.

▶ 50:45 Speaker 4: So, I think in the memo, I don't know if I put it in there, we also requested earmarks for some of this money, and we were awarded partial earmarks. So for the Hoover APR, we were awarded a $75,000 earmark. Hmm. And then this $75,000 line item would be combined

▶ 51:03 Ryan Williams: too. So, in this case, this is actually not recurring or multi-year. It's just one year, and it just lands on this list, right? Yeah. So yeah. I agree directionally. I do agree that it's good for us to have recurring capital costs. I still think that it would be good to have the capital costs attached to the budgets of the departments that they serve, because I think it's important for us in terms of governance and financial management to know whether or not, for instance, Memorial Hall is costing $5 million over three years, in the same way that we've had this discussion about the schools. Mm-hmm. So, we want to know the true cost of operating these services and what it costs to keep these things open. And if we have masonry eating a quarter million dollars a year, but it's all going to Memorial Hall, which I'm not saying it is, then it's harder to find. And similarly with police vehicles, we're sort of, I can't remember, we're not depreciating, but we're amortizing the cost of what we think the total police vehicle replacement need will be over multiple years. But if we really think that we just are always going to need $400,000 every 10 years in police cars, we should just have a vehicle line item in the police department budget.

▶ 52:22 Speaker 4: That would be the goal. Yes.

▶ 52:24 Ryan Williams: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So, there's some of these things where I really feel like they do spread across lots of different departments. Mm-hmm. And it makes sense for us to have capital. And I will support this tonight, but I really think that we should think carefully about if we're saying these are recurring items, then something that happens for one year shouldn't be on here. If we are saying that these are things that happen across all departments, maybe we want to track all vehicle spending. I don't know. Yeah. Or maybe we want to track all fuel consumption. I have no idea. I think that's a good use for this approach, and I also think it's good to have some stuff in here in the budget process that we can use to fund things in the summer without having to wait for free cash and appropriation. But again, I kind of think that the capital line items can be contained within the individual department budgets instead of being a big capital budget. I imagine if we had a big salary budget, it was just like school blank, this blank. It would be similar. My reaction would be similar. So, that's my thinking on this. And thank you for entertaining me.

▶ 53:31 Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. Thank you.

▶ 53:32 Devin Romanul: Up next, I have Councilor Finocchiaro.

▶ 53:34 Cal Finocchiaro: Thank you. So, I was just looking over the list closer, and I always pay attention to are these things are safety concerns? I look at asbestos. Mm-hmm. Remember we have asbestos everywhere in the city . Yep. So, I'm sure that will be kind of a reoccurring thing for different schools. It doesn't seem like we're frivolously spending money. It looks like things are broken, or we have asbestos, or repairing exteriors or stairs or masonry.

▶ 54:03 Speaker 4: Yes. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. That's okay. For the most part, most of these were identified in the CIP as well. Yep. And so you can tie them back to the CIP. Right. Yeah.

▶ 54:14 Cal Finocchiaro: But what I'm saying, too, is I feel like that it's important for residents to know that these aren't just like, "Oh, we're going to go buy flower baskets for every school." It's like, no, we have infrastructure issues. So, I do feel like that is a reoccurring cost that we could -

▶ 54:32 Speaker 4: Yes, figure out

▶ 54:33 Cal Finocchiaro: ... definitely could use each year. But I agree with Councilor Williams. Some of these, it would be nice to see within the departmental budgets if we think that it's something that they are going to require every year.

▶ 54:46 Devin Romanul: Thank you. Perfect. Up next I have Councilor Kaminski.

▶ 54:49 Manjula Karamcheti: Thank you so much, and thank you. Just sometimes I'm processing all the great questions that my colleagues are asking. And so just want to say back what I think I'm understanding. This is new, because I don't remember it from before. I've been here for a little while. But this is really the city's attempt to proactively spend money on needs that we've identified that either were in the capital improvement plan or came up sort of after the capital improvement plan was established. And I think what I'm also hearing my colleagues say is that, and I'll use DPW for instance, we know that DPW has really pushed vehicles to their limits, and having a line item in their budget to replace regularly would actually be something that could be helpful- Mm-hmm ... in the future. So moving towards that. So this is proactive, but we could even be more proactive if departments had it in their budget. I think that's what I'm understanding, and my colleagues can... We can chat after the meeting to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly. But in general, this is a good direction. It's transparent. It's connected to city needs. So at that, I'd just make a motion to move the bottom line.

▶ 56:10 Devin Romanul: Motion to move the bottom line made by Councilor Kaminski, seconded by Councilor Finoguerra. On discussion, I have Vice Chair Vandiver and then Councilor Williams.

▶ 56:18 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. Yeah, so I think that what I hear people asking for is the way to look at it both ways, the way to look at things associated to departments that are spending the money, and there's also a value to looking at the capital. And, I think that there would be nothing-- I don't see anything wrong with having a capital budget that included all the capital spending departments, right? And as long as you can identify perhaps which ones, you can look at it both ways. You can look at total department spending. You can look at things spent divided into salary, capital, fuel. Right now, you can go through and look for every line that says electricity across all the budgets, right? You can see- Mm-hmm ... what is the city spending on electricity across all these different departments or gas or whatever. So I think, to me, it sounds like, we either in these lines would like them to note the department name or number, or if these lines got resorted next year into the departments, we'd like them to say capital colon, and then say that. So either way, it makes it accessible so we can sort and slice and dice the data the way that we're interested in. I assume there are limitations to software, so you can't add tags or something like that. But, that would be the ideal, is that we can access both those kind of axes of the data. Yeah. Yeah.

▶ 57:49 Devin Romanul: That's great. All right, Councilor Williams.

▶ 57:51 Ryan Williams: Hi, it's me again. I had a couple specific examples of where I think maybe we could improve just the communication piece of connecting these. So for instance, if the final item of Hoover APR is actually intended to be an asbestos remediation budget, it should just be called asbestos remediation, right? That would be a capital line item. It would recur. And this year, in some meeting we would have- Yeah, in some meeting we would have where you guys would come and say, "Here's the capital budget for this year." You'd say, "And we've chosen Hoover, and we've chosen this one, and this is what's going to move forward this year." So that would sort of connect the dots a little better. Similarly with the line that says Arc Elect. Arc Elect, if you refer to the Rosetta Stone of capital improvement plans- ... is the electrical study and Arc Flash study labeling all school and municipal buildings, and it conveys a lot of information that a casual reader, an average reader would not be able to see in the budget. And I think of these budgets a lot in the context of an average resident who's trying to dig into municipal finance and look at these things. So those are the two things where I saw that and I was like, "What is that?" And then I had to stop and look and... Anyway, my second question is, does the fact that these are in a separate sort of fund and department change the approval process for departments to access this money at all? Who's the one that decides on the expenses and sets these budget items if they're not housed in schools, DPW, fire, et cetera?

▶ 59:20 Speaker 4: No. So the department would still have access to it. Okay. It's more the control, like the furniture and fixtures. The goal is to update meeting spaces. Yeah. But if there were other departments, there's probably a list that DPW has of broken chairs, desks, all those things that have to be replaced throughout the city. So they would manage something like that because they manage facilities.

▶ 59:46 Ryan Williams: So, yeah. So for police vehicles, you tell the chief of police, "You have $83,000 this year for vehicle- Yes ... purchases," and then he can just go spend it and send you the invoice as he would any other expense.

▶ 1:00:00 Speaker 4: Yes, he would have to follow all the procurement rules- Sure, yeah ... and yeah, the purchasing policies, yes.

▶ 1:00:05 Speaker 10: Okay. All right. Thank you.

▶ 1:00:06 Devin Romanul: Yep. Terrific. And last, I have Councilor Park.

▶ 1:00:09 Speaker 9: Thank you. You and I have had conversations right before this meeting about- Yeah ... capital outlay. So I have a good grasp of what this is about, and I've also had conversations with my other colleagues. I was prepared to endorse this, but one thing that you had said just made me want to ask this question. So there's a line item here for police vehicles, I think $83,000 for capital outlay. And I think the question was brought up by- If we know that's a recurring cost, it would go into the line item of the operating budget. And you said that would be our goal. That is our goal, right? Mm-hmm. So how do you make that transition? What would be that logistical process into going into the operating budget, and what are those benchmarks into defining those goals?

▶ 1:01:06 Speaker 4: I think it would be the availability of funding, making sure that we could get those in, and that it was sustainable for a number of years, right? Before we add things to the budget, the goal, that's what has happened over time. Human capital has taken up more of our ability to fund capital. And so over time, this funding kind of disappears just with health insurance, pension obligations and stuff. So when we looked at the override, it was trying to figure out how to sustain those things and get them in the budget. So I think, this is our second year. Fiscal 27 will be the second year, so I think if there's funding available in FY28, we would try to look to make those regular recurring line items.

▶ 1:02:04 Speaker 9: Okay. So you can think of this as sort of like a buffer in terms of historical trends and what is being asked or put into the capital outlay. And when it makes sense, the mayor's administration team will then suggest or move it into the operating budget for those respective departments.

▶ 1:02:22 Speaker 4: Yeah, that would be the goal. Yeah.

▶ 1:02:24 Speaker 9: Okay. Very good.

▶ 1:02:25 Speaker 4: Yeah, because police vehicles specifically, it's like every five years they need to be replaced. So I think this would replace a 2019 cruiser, which is more than five years at this point.

▶ 1:02:37 Speaker 9: Right. And just to sum up everything, what people have said, I think it's both a combination of recurring as well as capital projects, one-time projects, which as we already talked about, it's difficult to put in these respective buckets. Yeah. I get it. Thank you.

▶ 1:02:51 Devin Romanul: Yep. All right, we also have Councilor Finocchiaro.

▶ 1:02:54 Cal Finocchiaro: Thanks. I'll be very brief. So I don't know if you answered this already. Say the police did not need that $83,000.

▶ 1:03:04 Speaker 7: Would we zero out that budget next year, or we'd keep it there for something else?

▶ 1:03:08 Speaker 4: We would zero it out if they didn't need it as part of the CIP, but the CIP identified that need- Right ... for the next five years. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

▶ 1:03:18 Devin Romanul: Terrific. Yeah. With a motion on the floor, and I think all my colleagues' questions answered, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 1:03:23 Speaker 2: Yes. Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Karamcheti? Yes. Councilor Kowal? Yes. Councilor Abrunski? Yes. Councilor Park? Yes. Councilor Williams? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes.

▶ 1:03:39 Devin Romanul: All in favor. All right. We will move the bottom line on 931. Thank you so much. Up next, we have Department 300, Schools. Woo. Here we go.

▶ 1:03:54 Devin Romanul: Thank you for joining us, Superintendent Berman and Deputy Superintendent Kelly. Appreciate your time.

▶ 1:04:02 Speaker 9: Thank you for having us. Yes, thank you for having us tonight.

▶ 1:04:10 Speaker 9: All right.

▶ 1:04:13 Speaker 9: I got sent along some slides. There we are. Perfect. We'll be referencing those as we go through. So thank you for having us tonight. We appreciate it. I think just to recap the timeline, we had shared our proposed budget book with the school committee in March. There was budget deliberations, and we asked respectively school committee to approve the budget on April 14th, which they did. And then we'd just like to tonight go through and give you some highlights to our proposed FY27 teaching and learning budget, and we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have therein. So next slide, please.

▶ 1:04:59 Speaker 9: So going back to last fall, there were two major drivers for our budget. Superintendent Berman detailed those key priorities for FY27, specifically in her executive summary. And there were really three major themes. We were looking to reduce class sizes where we could, restore the team model at the middle school in grades six and seven, and then focus on high-quality instructional materials for our... If you're not aware, our school system is a multi-tiered system of support schools, MTSS, where if you think of a pyramid, the lower end of the pyramid is where we capture as many students as we can, and then we get more specific targeted supports for students to access curriculum as we get to the top of the pyramid. So those high-quality instruction materials are designed to reach youngsters and our learners at the earliest level in a grade-level classroom. Secondly, we rely on our strategic plan that we designed three years ago. Pillar number four of our strategic plan is for responsible fiscal management of city resources, and so that's another major driver for this budget in that we want to be very responsible and thoughtful about how we employ city resources to fund the school system for FY27.It's really the roadmap that we used this year. And I'll turn it over to Superintendent Berman for

▶ 1:06:36 Speaker 11: a little bit. Great. So this is Mr. Kelly's Super Bowl, I believe, budget time. So I will take a few slides though, just to share. Next slide, please. This is actually one of my favorite slides that we have, just because, A, I love to color code, and I like things in categories. So this is showing you the growth that we had beginning in last year prior to the override. You can also see the growth in each of our columns here in terms of where we landed with the supplemental budget that came through, and then also moving toward our FY27 proposed budget. As we have said many times, we restored 17 positions as part of the override. Again, very thankful to the community and our voters for that. But that is not all that has been cut over the last three years, really. So we have cut quite a few positions. We focused in bringing back positions, those that would support our main goals. So, I will go to the next slide, please. So this is a little bit words that support the prior grid that you had. So our priorities, as Mr. Kelly shared already, is class sizes. So, where we have decided to make some of our class sizes smaller, and bringing back or adding a Franklin teacher, restoring three teachers at the elementary school levels, and eight teachers at the secondary level. Many of those teachers at the secondary level will be part of the middle school to help us bring back the sixth grade team model as it existed previously, and also a seventh grade team model. So the sixth grade team model will be three teams, seventh grade will be two teams. And eighth grade will not have teams. So we'll do that gradual release through middle school and make it look a little bit more like a high school model. This also enables us, as you saw it on the prior graph, to purchase those high-quality instructional materials that we want. And in order to do that, we have the materials and the diagnostic tools and our professional development that our educators deserve. We also have some support in there with implementation of that. So, we will be bringing back a secondary STEM director for grades 6 through 12. We also had a model through all of our cuts where we had to have two of our larger elementary schools, the Lincoln and the Roosevelt, that also have special education programming in them. We had a combined model of a special education coordinator and an assistant principal. So we are going to restore that assistant principal position to a 1.0 in each of those buildings from 0.5. And that will help us also be able to spread our special education coordinators more appropriately throughout the district. And then, one of our other points that we really want to focus on is our ability to provide intervention to students. So, we will be looking to bring back an elementary school counselor that will be housed mainly at the Lincoln. And we also have two positions that we're holding that are probably going to go towards special ed at this moment based on the numbers and the pieces that we're looking for. And I just also wanted to highlight through some additional Chapter 70 funding that came in at the end of last year, that we were able to hire two reading specialists. So, that has also helped us with our reading intervention piece.

▶ 1:10:19 Speaker 11: So, next slide, please. Another important thing that we always think about is enrollment. And right now, our enrollment for next year looks fairly similar to this year. However, our projected enrollment for the future is going down based on a NASDAQ study that was done in January of this year. We know that just in general, people are having fewer children, families are a little bit smaller, and Melrose just looks a little bit different, as well as many of our surrounding communities. This is really important because, A, class size was one of our very important priorities, but also our foundation enrollment is a major driver for our Chapter 70 funds as we get our funding.

▶ 1:11:12 Speaker 9: Next slide, please. Next slide. Thank you. So, on the school side, we do use the DESE chart of accounts. So these are the different spending series that we track and we report on at the end of the year in our end-of-year report. The city has made strong investments in the schools in the most recent four or five years, both in one-time funding and now operating budget. But it's important to keep in mind too, about 93% of our teaching and learning budget is fixed cost. So you're talking about personnel costs and salaries, mandated service provided to students. And these are costs that we have very little variance with. Our budget for FY27 does include those additional 15 teaching positions, two administrative positions that Superintendent Berman referenced. And any budget is a plan based on knowns and unknowns, so these are some of the knowns that we've budgeted with. And it's important to keep in mind too, that on the school side, we do raise about $5 million worth of our own revenue through things like user fees and tuitions. And those are mainly based on enrollments. And our overall theme that we're trying to build is stability. We want a budget that's stable and then progresses through the next few fiscal years, keeping stability.And we continue to build on best practices. Next slide, please. So this is just a graphic on the recent local contributions, as I mentioned, going back to FY24 all the way up now to FY27, including the supplemental budget. That's about a 27% increase from FY24. So that is a substantial investment in the local appropriation from the city to the schools.

▶ 1:13:06 Speaker 9: Slide, please. Thank you. So, if you've had a chance, our budget is available online. Our detailed line item budget is available online. This is a snapshot of that. So we've got our different spending cost centers, each of the schools, and then the departments within the overall operating budget. You can see we have salary costs versus non-salary, and then this also aligns with how our school committee uses different spending categories, we call them our school committee categories, to budget the different amounts by category.

▶ 1:13:44 Speaker 9: Slide, please. Thank you. So, next steps going forward. We are always trying to build trust and show transparency with our budget. We held some listening sessions this winter with Superintendent Berman and myself. We do try to publish our line item budget as soon as it is available for the community to see and review as the school committee deliberates. Our school committee did approve our budget on April 14th, and now it's been sent respectfully to city council for consideration with the city-wide budget. A few things that are still in motion. We are currently negotiating three of our six collective bargaining units right now. The House Ways and Means, Senate Ways and Means are hopefully going to come to a consensus on the state budget very soon. But there is an additional Chapter 70 revenue that the superintendent mentioned above our initial cherry sheet estimate. And so, we're respectfully asking the council to consider a $49,332,180 overall appropriation local contribution to the schools. And we'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

▶ 1:14:50 Speaker 1: First, I have Councilor Kowal.

▶ 1:14:52 Elizabeth Kowal: Hi. This is a lot to take in. We just actually got this today at 4:15. So this is just a lot of information. But one of the questions I have is that I understand that you have one principal now for the high school and the middle school. And I just have concerns that you've planned-- I know of his reputation. I know that everybody says it's working. I hear it. I understand that. I think it's a little bit chancy to plan something around a person as opposed to a process or a procedure. Anything could happen. And of course, we don't wish that at all, but it could. And so I'm just wondering if that is taken into account. It's not in this budget. But is there some sort of contingency somewhere should something happen and we are suddenly out two principals as opposed to one?

▶ 1:15:48 Speaker 9: Sure. I guess I would preface that in my prior district, this was the model we had. So I'm very used to operating this model. I've seen it be very successful. So, I think, like I mentioned before, every budget is based on knowns and unknowns. That would be an unknown, and I think that we're trying to build stability so if something like that were to happen, we would be able to react to it. And I think over the past two to three, four years, we have built a budget that's able to sort of deal with unknowns, trying to deal with unanticipated. But, I'm very comfortable with that model, and I agree with you. I wouldn't want to build a system based on a person. Having said that, I've seen it be successful before, so.

▶ 1:16:28 Elizabeth Kowal: If he were to leave, would you look to just hire one again, or would you be looking to split it and look for

▶ 1:16:36 Speaker 9: two? I think that would be situationally dependent. I think that we would want to talk with our stakeholders, talk with the leadership, and find out their input as well. Because the model that we have right now is actually, as you mentioned, is working very well.

▶ 1:16:49 Elizabeth Kowal: And when you say the stakeholders, I assume that's the teachers. Would that also be the parents?

▶ 1:16:55 Speaker 9: I think it would be teachers, students, parents, I think, yeah. Community-wide. Thank you.

▶ 1:17:01 Devin Romanul: Up next, I have Councilor Graham-Chetty.

▶ 1:17:03 Manjula Karamcheti: Thank you so much. Thank you both for being here. I just actually wanted to start with saying thank you to you both for your steadfast leadership and your commitment to Melrose. You started with us in a pretty

▶ 1:17:19 Speaker 8: dark fiscal situation, and

▶ 1:17:23 Manjula Karamcheti: I know that you've been so committed to getting us to the other side of that. So I just wanted to start with saying how grateful I am. You keep showing up for us and doing the hard, hard work day to day. I also wanted to say, great choice on your budget cover. Appreciate your selection there. For those who don't know, my son is on the cover, and I had nothing to do with it, but I did appreciate it because he found much joy in the Melrose Public Schools. And I feel like that picture is a note of that. So I just have two questions. One's kind of big picture, and one's a little more specific. I am curious, so Melrose is not unique in this situation, but we continue to see achievement gaps, particularly for our students of color, for our special education students, and those of our students that fall lower on the socioeconomic status. And in terms of your priorities, none of those are named explicitly, and yet I think some of the things that you're naming are connected to that. So I just wanted to provide you sort of an opportunity, if you could just share a little bit more and make the implicit explicit in terms of how some of the things that you've put into the budget really do addressour achievement gaps in our district?

▶ 1:18:51 Speaker 11: Sure. I think there are a number of things I can start, and you can fill in if I miss anything. But I think certainly looking at our interventionists. I think even just looking at the secondary schedule, specifically at the middle school, ensuring that that team model is going to provide time for students to have time for intervention. I think middle school is where we're seeing some gaps. I think that's somewhat typical. I also think bringing in some high-quality instructional materials and make sure that we're providing professional development. But these materials also, as Mr. Kelly had said before, they provide opportunities and experiences for children at all levels. So it makes it a little bit easier for teachers, A, to assess, but then also to provide. And so, we always want to have really strong core tier one instruction. So instruction that all students are getting. From there, there may be some intervention where special education should be the last stop. But we definitely don't want that to be the only game in town. So, we are working really hard to provide win blocks for students, what I need, intervention blocks for students to get, either whether it's in the classroom, some extra teacher table, or being pulled out for some remediation in six to eight-week chunks so that we can see some hopeful progress.

▶ 1:20:17 Speaker 9: I think too, our data platforms like IXL provide very detailed, very high-level data on how students are working towards grade-level goals. We're in Massachusetts, there's grade-level frameworks and standards that are taught at each grade. IXL is very connected to Massachusetts. It can assess how students are doing, and then using that data to target and provide interventions as we get to the top of that pyramid that are more targeted and more specific based on students' individual needs.

▶ 1:20:48 Manjula Karamcheti: Great. Thank you. My second question, and again, I think I understand the decision, but I think it's just an opportunity to just say it aloud in public. We, as city councilors, I think have received a lot of communications around why certain decisions were made in terms of positions being brought back and others not. And I think one in particular we heard a lot about was the director of visual and performing arts. And I think you made a great choice to bring back a director of STEM. And so just if you could speak to the hard decisions you had to make about who came back when and why.

▶ 1:21:31 Speaker 11: Yeah, there's a lot of hard decisions. And not who, the positions. The positions. Yeah, no, there's a lot of hard decisions, right? We know there were a lot of hard decisions in the 40 plus people that we've cut over the last couple of years. So, bringing back is actually, I feel like even more difficult at times because then you're prioritizing different grade levels, different schools, and a myriad of things. So, one of the reasons why we decided to bring back a STEM director in that was because of the new math curriculum that we're bringing forward. So we did have conversations around what does that visual and performing arts position look like? Does it remain a stipend as it is right now? So that currently is a stipended position that is being filled by Steve Black, who is one of our middle school assistant principals. But we did have conversations in January probably, maybe earlier, about what that looks like. With the possibility, hopefully strong possibility, of additional Chapter 70 funding that will come in over $300,000, we are, again, considering now based on the list of what we couldn't bring back, what now becomes a priority and what can we bring back that might help support some of that.

▶ 1:22:51 Manjula Karamcheti: Okay. I said I only had two, but I actually had another. Sorry. And I think it's a hard one to answer, and I acknowledge that as I ask. But I'm just thinking a little longer term, particularly around the educator contract and negotiations and how the scale works, and just how are we feeling about... Because oftentimes, the negotiations, obviously because it's human capital, impacts our budgets more than anything. So I guess I'm just like, for us as city councilors, what might we need to be thinking about and being aware of down the line in terms of funds that need to be available, flexible thinking on our part in terms of what the schools need to be able to grow and sustain?

▶ 1:23:45 Speaker 11: Yeah. I feel like I want to take a pass, but I'll give it a shot. But given the fact that we're still in negotiations, there's a lot that we can't talk about- Of course ... which makes it really complicated, right? I think that one of the things that we talked about at school committee, and it is on one of our slides, is that we are thinking of trying to move from that reduction thinking to that strategic opportunity and planning. And our word for the year is stabilize. So we want to stabilize for this year, which we've been able to do, but also in the coming years. So that's our plan.

▶ 1:24:27 Devin Romanul: Perfect. Up next I have Councilor Williams.

▶ 1:24:29 Ryan Williams: Thank you. Hello. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you folks. I know you gave me some dates, and I got really sick, like very sick. Mm-hmm. And I blew my whole week up. So, I have one pretty simple question, then I have one that I'd like to dig in a little bit with you guys on. The simple one is, if I'm reading the budget right, there's no free cash budgeted?In this year's budget? Am I seeing that right? Um- I'm seeing a one-time free cash in the offsets local contribution, and then one time free cash says eh.

▶ 1:25:05 Speaker 9: I don't have that sheet in front of me, but you are correct. We are not anticipating any, at this time, free cash requests.

▶ 1:25:13 Speaker 10: That would be a pleasant surprise.

▶ 1:25:14 Speaker 9: June 1st of 2026, we are not anticipating- Okay ... that. We did, in our prior budget, use the Special Ed Stabilization Fund as sort of a fallback should that be needed. But our budget now, through different influences, predominantly the override- Yeah ... we are not anticipating that as part of our budget.

▶ 1:25:34 Ryan Williams: And I want to say thanks for putting some focus into special education because those of us who've been sitting here for a couple of years have watched special education services hamstring the schools, in particular, among students who couldn't get services in Melrose, and so they went somewhere else. And then we had to foot that bill, which was more expensive because of their transportation needs. So, I think that's a fantastic use of funds. And I know that there's a million good and bad choices that you guys are having to make, so I hope that folks will give you some patience and grace as we move forward with this over the next couple of years. My deeper question is, as I'm reviewing the budget documents over the last couple of days, one thing that I could not figure out is do we have a solid grasp for how much we spend on technology-based instruction? So this is everything from Chromebook contracts to IXL, i-Ready, whatever else. Basically, anytime a kid is being taught on a screen instead of by an educator with pen and paper, let's just create that division. Do we have a sense, and if so, where might I find it in the document?

▶ 1:26:50 Speaker 9: Sure. A lot of that is under the Curriculum tab, the Curriculum department. Our biggest is IXL. That's the assessment. That's our diagnostic tool. DIBELS, I believe, is a paper/pencil. Yeah, at the lower levels, we use the DIBELS program for both our literacy and our dyslexia screener, so that's paper-based. I would say IXL is probably our biggest online platform. MCAS, obviously, is an online test. Hmm. And then teachers have flexibility about using-- We're a Google Suite district, so they have the flexibility of using the Google Suite to do curriculum support in the classroom. So there is some autonomy with the teachers there. But our IXL and MCAS are our bigger... Hmm And MCAS, there's obviously not a budget impact as far as it's, we don't get a bill from the state for MCAS. But I'd say IXL is probably our biggest online-

▶ 1:27:44 Speaker 10: How much does it cost?

▶ 1:27:45 Speaker 9: IXL? I think it's roughly around $200,000 to $250,000 for a two- to three-year contract. Depends on the different levels and different variables you can choose, and it gets-- There's a menu of options you can get with IXL. Hmm. And Ms. Acevedo does an awesome job of getting what the district needs, but it's in that ballpark.

▶ 1:28:06 Ryan Williams: Is it like $200,000 a year for three years, or $200,000 over the course of a three-year contract?

▶ 1:28:10 Speaker 9: It's about $250,000 for the three years total.

▶ 1:28:12 Ryan Williams: For all three years total. Okay. And I know we've fairly recently spent money on Chromebooks- Yeah ... in this council, and I can't remember how much that was, but that was-

▶ 1:28:21 Speaker 9: Yeah, Chromebooks has been a- ... a chunk ... combination of resources from IT and from the schools. Yeah. And obviously as you're mentioning, lot of focus with phones and screens with kids and the benefits of the risk/reward and what's the tipping point of what's too much screens, and so- Yeah ... I think everybody is looking at that. Yeah. And I think that we have collaborated with the IT department on Chromebooks. I think that'll be something that's discussed in earnest over the next few years about what are the benefits of giving kids a device every day.

▶ 1:28:55 Ryan Williams: Yeah. I'm sure as educators, you're aware that there's been a really substantial amount of media attention at national media outlets in the last two months, three months, about Chromebooks in particular, and education declines that are being sort of pinned on Chromebook usage. And I think that everybody did this with the best of intentions, so there's no blame to go around or anything. But I think it would be good to have a really robust discussion internally about whether these things are worth the cost and whether we can improve educational outcomes without them. That's something certainly that the constituents that I talk to, it's an item that comes up more often than I would think. It's something that is definitely sort of in the zeitgeist right now of conversation about parents and schools is do we need these screens? And I think, too, with the discussion of the school phone ban, which would be fantastic. It would be nice to get back to basics. Mm-hmm.

▶ 1:29:53 Speaker 11: That's all I have. And we do have technology committees and everything- ... that meet on a monthly basis that are making recommendations for all of these pieces. We just recently did the technology update memo, I guess it would be, for school committee, that shared out on where we were with doing all of those things. So- Excellent ... that definitely is in motion.

▶ 1:30:13 Speaker 10: Yeah. Thank you.

▶ 1:30:15 Devin Romanul: Perfect. Up next, I have Councilor Obremski.

▶ 1:30:17 Speaker 5: I just had a question about the transportation cost, because that's a big line item. So do you know how many kids you transport each day?

▶ 1:30:26 Speaker 9: So it's a combination. For transportation, we have about five in-house drivers that work for the Melrose Public Schools, and then we contract out with a few vendors, the biggest one being NRT. We contract through the SEAM Collaborative. It's probably anywhere from 60 to 70 students a day.

▶ 1:30:44 Speaker 5: 60 or 70 a day? And that's a total for the district?

▶ 1:30:48 Speaker 9: Yeah. That would be a combination of students placed out of district as well as in district.

▶ 1:30:54 Speaker 11: And special education and McKinney-Vento. Yes.

▶ 1:30:58 Speaker 9: Yes. Thank you. Our homeless- Okay

▶ 1:30:59 Speaker 11: ... population as well. Yep

▶ 1:31:00 Speaker 5: And then, do you have a practice of allowing parents to transport their kids and then paying that?

▶ 1:31:10 Speaker 9: We do have that option, yes. Yep.

▶ 1:31:12 Speaker 5: All right. Thank you.

▶ 1:31:15 Devin Romanul: Terrific. Up next, I have Councilor Chen.

▶ 1:31:18 Jason Chen: Thanks for showing the enrollment graphs. Quite concerning to see a 10% drop over the next three years or so, three years and change. Mm-hmm. So if the school has a certain amount of fixed budget, like overhead staff and special teachers, music, art, theater, so forth, if we have a 10% drop in students, then we're spreading those fixed costs over fewer students, and our spend per student goes up, but not in a good way, because we're much less efficient. And so that 10% drop looks like it continues for the next seven years or that entire chart, every three years. Seems like we've got some really tough decisions to make ahead of us, both for you and for our school committee. Any comments?

▶ 1:32:07 Speaker 9: Sure. So enrollment, yes, it's two sides. So it's what the state uses as part of their Chapter 70, the foundation enrollment, so that if enrollment decreases, Chapter 70 aid from the state would decrease as well. And then you would look at class sizes to see what is the best model to deliver the standards-based instruction to the students in the classroom.

▶ 1:32:34 Jason Chen: Just seems like the quality of our education, because we still have to pay all those fixed costs, might go down because we can't have all these extra programs, or we have

▶ 1:32:49 Jason Chen: less students to spread it around with.

▶ 1:32:53 Speaker 9: And I think, again, hypothetically, enrollment studies, two to three years is what I tend to focus on to look at as far as forecasting Chapter 70. Ten years out is a long way to go. It does show us a decreasing trend. But if you were to extrapolate that out, and hypothetically, you would want to match that, and potentially reduction in teaching staff needed to support the enrollment.

▶ 1:33:15 Jason Chen: Right. But that's variable cost, right? You still have fixed headquarters cost of staff and overhead, and that's the problem.

▶ 1:33:22 Speaker 9: Yes. I would agree with you. Yes.

▶ 1:33:27 Devin Romanul: All right, up next, Vice Chair Vandiver.

▶ 1:33:28 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. On that topic, so I do see the graph with the projected decrease in enrollment. There are students who live in Melrose and could attend Melrose Public Schools, but for whatever reason, either choose not to or don't find the services they need in Melrose Public Schools. Can you put an estimate on that number, as far as if we were to get every student, every child who lives in Melrose who could attend a Melrose Public School into the Melrose Public Schools? How much would that change the numbers?

▶ 1:34:08 Speaker 9: I can get that information for you. I don't have the exact enrollments in front of me as far as charter school, private school, vocational schools. I don't have those numbers in front of me. But the students do have choices. For the most part, after eighth grade, there's choices about where they can continue their education. We hope it's in Melrose High School, but they do have choices.

▶ 1:34:28 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. Yeah, just interesting as far as what are the factors, and I assume that changes in that are not part of that projection. That's probably just based on demographics that's going into that chart?

▶ 1:34:39 Speaker 9: That's for Melrose Public Schools, right? That's not an overall citywide.

▶ 1:34:43 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. My other question is very easy. Just on the last slide, you talked about the expected Chapter 70 funding that's not quite finalized. And so I'm just curious about the mechanics of that. If that comes in higher or lower than expected, and we approve a certain number tonight, what would that just functionally do with the budget?

▶ 1:35:04 Speaker 9: Sure. And I think like Superintendent Berman said, that's money that we're talking about right now. We haven't made any final decisions on that, and we would want to wait until, obviously, the state does settle their budget so we know the exact number that we're dealing with. And the CFO, Golden, is constantly keeping us updated. And generously, the city has agreed to, should that come through, send it to the school. So, we watch that, and we're kind of deliberating now about what that would be so when it does come, because we're in June. So we want to know pretty quickly what to do with that.

▶ 1:35:31 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. And so that increased amount, if it came in higher, just very technically, would we have to re-vote on that? Or just any additional increase would come to you and-

▶ 1:35:42 Speaker 4: It's already in the budget. Yeah. Okay.

▶ 1:35:46 Kimberly Vandiver: We were able to get it in the city budget. Okay. But the school would have to vote on it. Okay, thanks.

▶ 1:35:52 Devin Romanul: Up next, I have Councilor Finocchiaro.

▶ 1:35:54 Cal Finocchiaro: Thank you. Both Councilor Chen and Vandiver asked two of my questions. Thanks for stealing my questions. No, I'm just joking. I was just going to make a comment. Maybe now that we passed the override, and we're bringing back staff, maybe potentially we've lost enrollment because people weren't confident. And so maybe that kind of pendulum will swing the other way, and you never know when enrollment will happen the next couple of years. So that's just my comment since my questions are taken.

▶ 1:36:24 Speaker 1: Perfect. Councilor Karamcheti.

▶ 1:36:26 Speaker 8: I was going to make a motion to move the bottom line.

▶ 1:36:28 Devin Romanul: Second. Motion to move the bottom line made by Councilor Karamcheti, seconded by Councilor Williams. On discussion. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

▶ 1:36:38 Speaker 2: Yes. Vice Chair Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Chen? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro? Yes. Councilor Karamcheti? Yes. Councilor Cal?

▶ 1:36:48 Speaker 7: Yes.

▶ 1:36:49 Speaker 2: Councilor Abramski? Yes. Councilor Kark?

▶ 1:36:53 Speaker 5: Yes.

▶ 1:36:54 Speaker 2: Councilor Williams? Yes. President Freeman? Yes. Chair Romanul? Yes. All in favor?

▶ 1:36:59 Devin Romanul: All right. We'll move the bottom line on Department 300. It now being past 7:45, and we have a full city council meeting, so if you will indulge us for a moment to recess to gavel it in. Unless there's any objection, we'll motion to recess. Seeing no objection, we are now in recess.