Communications from Her Honor, The Mayor And Other City Officials

Transcript (~3 min @ 2:08)

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

▶ 2:06 Speaker 2: Seeing none, we are now closed.

▶ 2:09 Leila Migliorelli: Um, next step is communications from her Honor, the mayor and other city officials. So before we hear from the mayor, I'll motion by unanimous consent to suspend rule 37 B. Seeing no objection,

▶ 2:21 Speaker 2: the rule 70 37 B is now suspended. Welcome, mayor, Greg.

▶ 2:23 Jen Grigoraitis: Good evening Counsel. Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak. I just wanted to provide a quick update as I'm, I'm trying to gauge from all of you how much communication is helpful via email versus in person and I'm very much open to feedback on that. But on the um, financial front, I believe you are all aware that Patrick LaRusso has officially retired after a very illustrious career with the city of Melrose. Um, over 30 years, he has now transitioned into a part-time consultant role. So he will be, um, helping us get through the FY 25 budget process through the end of the fiscal year. So Ellen Donahue has now taken over in the role of interim CFO and we are in the process of hiring for the permanent replacement for that job. Um, two items of note as it relates to the state and funds. I sent to you all on Friday afternoon that our free cash for this year has been certified by the Department of Revenue. We are standing to have just over $5 million in free cash. So, um, we're obviously working internally on preparing, um,

▶ 3:29 Jen Grigoraitis: requests for to you all for how to dispense with that cash. And obviously there will be a request related to the existing school budget shortfall, which I know you all have talked about, um, in a separate order.

▶ 3:38 Speaker 7: So those will be coming down in the coming weeks.

▶ 3:40 Jen Grigoraitis: And then as it relates, uh, looking forward to the FY 25 budget, the governor did release her budget, um, for the state and for the city of Melrose, that included net State aid. So a net increase of 1.8599999999999999% from FY 24 to FY 25, which is just over $272,000. That is a combination of chapter 70, which is, um, school funds and then what is known as, um, aga unrestricted general government aid. It did not include chapter 90 because the governor has some language, um, currently pending in the legislature related to expanding chapter 90 to be a multi-year program. So 1.8599999999999999% is our total anticipated increase. Obviously this is the beginning of the project for the state. It will now go to the house and then the Senate and then possibly conference committee. So while we will certainly be advocating for an increase, um, and hope to see that, I, I do not imagine that that's going to go up by, you know, millions of dollars. So, um, this is just sort of the foundation by which we will start the FY 25 process. So all of this information is available on the DLS webpage, but wanted to make sure that you had heard it all here and I think we've sent that all out via email, but if we haven't, we can correct that.

▶ 4:53 Speaker 8: So that's all. Thank you.

▶ 4:54 Speaker 6: Great, thank you. Alright, moving on,

▶ 4:59 Speaker 2: um, to new business

▶ 5:02 Speaker 5: Appointment 2024 dash 15.

▶ 5:04 Speaker 1: Appointment of Mara Sullivan, 3 93 East Foster Street to the Melrose Council on Aging for a three year term set to expire on the last day of February, 2027.