INFO-2022-6 : Joint Meeting of the City Council and the School Committee to be held at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, May 16, 2022 on the financial condition of the City, revenue and expenditure forecasts, and other relevant information in preparation of the FY2023 Operating Budget

Transcript (~18 min @ 8:30)

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▶ 8:27 Speaker 3: info 2022-6 joint meeting of the city council and the school committee to be held at 7pm on 30 pm on Monday, May 16th, 2022 on the financial condition of the city revenue and expenditure forecast and other relevant information in preparation of the fiscal year 2023 operating budget.

▶ 8:45 Christopher Cinella: If there is no objection, I would like to suspend the council rules so we could hear from the administration.

▶ 8:55 Christopher Cinella: We're a little rusty. This is our first time in person. It

▶ 8:58 Paul Brodeur: is good, but see so many. folks together in one place, hopefully Not putting themselves in any Jeopardy. It is good to see you all want to tell you this might be the first time in three years. Maybe we've done this all in the same room. No. No computers and so it is a good day. I will not open with a Lie by saying I'm going to be brief. I think it's going to be brief. That's right. Not really my skill set. Right so good evening. Good evening, Mr. President. Sonella chair Grigoraitis from the Appropriations Committee honorable City councilors my colleagues on the school committee, including chair mcandrew the mom superintendent Julie cucumberger and most importantly my fellow residents of this great City pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 44 section 32 and sex you're in 6-3 of the Melrose City Charter. I respectfully submit fuel consideration. The city of melrose's proposed operating budget for fiscal year 2023. This is as it must be a bounced budget that represents our ability as a government and as a community to successfully manage the impacts of covid-19 while making important investments in the needs for all our residents including historic investments in our Public Schools. I am happy to report that through prudent budgeting and fiscal planning. We continue to enjoy remarkable fiscal stability here in Melrose. And I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the hard work of all those who got us to this particular place including the members of the administration and department heads who really do work night and day line by line to create the best budget. They can into identify important priorities in their departments certainly Dr. Kucumber and her administrative team particularly as Secor the finance director for their side if you will and particularly my colleagues on the school committee for all the time and attention, you give to these important issues and of course, we all know this wouldn't be possible without without the Maestro without the man behind the curtain our CFO Patrick delaroso and the assistant auditor Kerry golden. Who really do the heavy lifting the number crunching to figure out what we can actually afford and how to pay for it? well as we kick off your Fy23 budget season I am pleased to share some of the details of the issue of budget a budget that responsibly balances the needs of our community with the financial realities of our predominantly residential. Tax base, of course in the weeks ahead. I urge all the members of the public to watch these deliberations while you will learn more about the activities of each department and their plans for fy23. So tonight I will highlight a few items that reflect some of my priorities. first and foremost Is the health and well-being of our residents? During this year of health and wellness Everett's across City departments continue to be aligned towards helping no rosians of all ages recover from the negative effects of two years of pandemics and including addressing ongoing Public Health needs and economic impacts some of which existed before the pandemic arrived and move really move into this future with confidence in our critical infrastructure and our opportunity. to grow and move forward some of this is reflected in the operating budget itself. While other initiatives are made possible through the use of federal funds through the American Rescue plan act which we all know as arpa and other dollars that are hopefully coming to us through other state and federal resources as well as through free cash requests, which you'll be hearing more about in the days ahead. In fy23. Our Focus will continue to be on coordination between all departments on the front lines of meeting the economic and social and emotional needs of again of all Melrose residents. As you know fiscal year 22 saw the reorganization and renaming of the health department to the Health and Human Services Department to better meet the wellness needs and goals of City residents by coordinating are somewhat minimal at the time existing Public Health Resources and expanding Staffing and programming to respond to the greater need for Access. Not only dementia Health Services, but an array of Social Services and supports so we've expanded the reach of the health department of the health and human services department by hiring a public health specialist who will oversee among other things substance use prevention efforts as well as creating capacity to help all melroseians and adults included that may be seeking supports as well as supports for their family members as they navigate that particular set of challenges and there's it's new Melrose health and wellness Coalition will as prior coalitions have done bring together key members of the administrative departments under the city's control the schools all the schools in Melrose outside service providers and other stakers to help those in need and to pursue evidence-based prevention strategies. Using Opera funds this year. We hired a full-time social services coordinator who has already working in the community and the schools to support residents of all ages complementing the great work already being done by our part-time social worker who primarily serves elders and again, I'll be remiss if I didn't think the council and a friend at the friends of the council and aging for help us get that effort off the ground last year. In particular though, we know that our children and teens have been experiencing increase in anxiety and depressive symptoms including an increase in our own youth risk behavior survey of kids reporting Suicidal Thoughts. We will continue to partner with all schools in Melrose including the Melrose Public Schools in supporting our kids and their families in accessing the information resources and services needed to respond to this critical and ongoing situation. Complicating that over what something else that we all know that it is more difficult than ever to find a mental health clinician particularly in Pediatrics that is currently seeing patients. That is why again that can feel that can feel Hopeless by and you know, we can't solve a Workforce problem like that. However, I do think we can do something and that is why I'm committing arpa funding over the next three years to bring additional Community Mental Health Training programming to Melrose building our capacity to provide training opportunities for excuse me for adults and teens to recognize some of those signs and signals of mental health issues and substance use issues. It would almost function like mental health triage or mental health 101 so we can Empower our community to take some of those first steps. And of course, we will need to give those folks the tools and resource to ensure that they at least have a Lifeline some means of support until they can find an appropriate level of clinical support. Finally, we will continue to deploy what I would call soft approaches including tailoring some of our rec department offerings to meet the social and emotional needs of more kids in Youth and finding ways to increase social connections for people of all ages through Rec programming and other activities. Now, of course you all know this includes Investments not just in programming, but in our parks in our playground I want to again. Thank this Council for improving funding last year for an inclusive playground pickleball courts and important upgrades to the girls softball field on Lebanon Street. In addition, I want to thank the council for moving to temporarily approve or provisionally approve funding for the turfer prayer replacement at Fred Greenfield, which you will be taking I believe final consideration of later this evening, which will again provide more space and safer space. For a need that exists as we sit here today. And I'm happy to report that the first five care our way 5K our way project The Amazing Grace basketball court which came in at a little bit over the 5,000 that the original plan was built around but I'm happy to report that that construction will take place as soon as the the school year ends and we will get on that and it should be ready fairly quickly very much looking forward to a ribbon-cutting of that important. That important facility that's going to help kids youth throughout

▶ 18:35 Speaker 5: the city.

▶ 18:39 Paul Brodeur: these Investments provide more opportunities for more melroseians to get outside get exercise, but most of all make the critical social connections that have been missing that support physical health, but also Mental Health

▶ 18:56 Speaker 5: Excuse me.

▶ 18:58 Paul Brodeur: In addition to all the impacts of Health which we all know about we've seen in as public officials. We've seen it in our own families. Covid-19 is also continuing to have an impact on the health of our local economy. There is still much to be done. To support our local economy, including our arts and culture sector. So the Melrose has economy can grow and thrive in the years ahead. So our Administration is committed to recruiting retaining and supporting and growing businesses and to fostering economic recovery and growth within the cities downtown and it's other Commercial Business notes. And in the year ahead. We will deploy up a fund for economic recovery and seek additional public and private investment under the leadership of our new director of economic recovery and Business Development Lauren grimmick, and she's already off to a great start. And we will continue to build Upon Our great structural assets that we already have. In particular our walkable downtown including those continuing investments in public art and placemaking process projects. Not only because they are nice things to do and create a nice atmosphere in the community. But it also brings people together and is a catalyst for economic growth similarly programming things like live entertainment and our public spaces. We'll similarly encourage visitors not just from Melrose, but beyond to visit Melrose and create that foot traffic we need for our businesses to survive and grow. It's a boost to our downtown and it gives us an opportunity really have a regional impact on our economic growth. And finally, I think you've all participated in the efforts of keep Melrose beautiful to improve some of what we sometimes refer to as our unloved spaces, like parking lots and alleys again, not only is it good to clean those things up. It provides a more opportunities for great public spaces here in the city. and some of the more more to say less exciting effort around Main Street beautification will include a much greater attention on our new dumpster regulations and institution and installation finally of new trash battles to reduce litter and improve the streetscape. Now recognizing too that there's much need to improve our critical Capital infrastructure. I've already approved the following use of arpa funds. an accelerated program of new sidewalk Construction traffic calming toolkit to help slow traffic in our neighborhoods a lead service line replacement inventory to ensure that the last of these old. Water services on private property are removed and replaced that is a critical and basic Public Health need. I think we would purchasing public safety training equipment and likely vehicles with the advice and input of all our Public Safety department heads and you already all know about our investments in HVAC at in particular at fire headquarters, but also at our finally reopened Senior Center and what will be installed at the public library great improvement in our Public Health infrastructure and a real smart use of our performance. And in the days ahead. Well actually within the last few days we've gotten another reminder of What really challenges this country as a whole the racist shooting in Buffalo? And the need for everyone everywhere to do better. I think we do a wonderful job here, but I think we can all agree that there's more work to do. and we will use the money that we have allocated for Dei Investments. You have all agreed to make On hopefully an expedited basis to address some of those issues including. having the opportunity to create public space and Public Training around how our community can do better. Having Community conversations discussing challenging issues and remembering hopefully at the end of the day what brings us together in this community? No matter how long you've been here is a commitment to a shared set of ethics and a recognition that we have to be one Community open to all if we're going to make the progress we want to make finally around transparency as many of you recall. Maybe not all of you last year. We started what I thought was in a very cool kind of government geeky budget tool. I don't know if anyone used to accept me, but it's really great. It's a very powerful tool that lets you investigate the budget within this fiscal year compared to other fiscal years do breakdowns by department and that is available to be clear for any member of the public to use and I would really encourage you to do it. It's a very helpful tool. And it has been obviously updated with the with the fiscal year 23 numbers, but this year. budgeting is a little bit more complicated because of arpa and the ability to spend that money over time. So the city council has already received a memo describing some of our Opera work essentially spending to date in some areas of interest for future investment. All that will also be available on a soon to launch. Hopefully by the end of this week arpa web page that will be able to again, so you'll see where the money has gone. Where where it could go the purpose for picking that particular project or opportunity? And also kind of giving you a real-time sense of where it's actually being spent so you may see money as an example that looks like it's going to DPW but for it might be for investment in a school's infrastructure product. If it works the way we intend you'll be able to kind of crosswalk that across and see you know, whose responsible for running or administering but where the impact is going to be because I think that's what we are almost concerned about is where those significant But ultimately limited dollars are going to go and have that impact so in closing I am looking forward to working with you for the successful conclusion of this year's hearing process. I'm a excited to continue to work with both the city side and the school side to improve services to all our residents and businesses and I am excited. In the years to come to continue to work with you to build on our strengths. And our shared Vision in the years ahead. Thank you very much, and I look forward to the season.

▶ 26:29 Christopher Cinella: Thank you, man, brother at this time. I will entertain a motion to place on file.

▶ 26:34 Speaker 6: Motion took place on file second motion place

▶ 26:36 Christopher Cinella: on file made by Council grigoritis seconded by counselor Eccles any discussion seeing none. All in favor. I have any opposed seeing none. And at this time I will entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second motion made by Casa garape second by counselor Stewart.

▶ 26:59 Speaker 2: All those in favor, right?