Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2015-05-21

Attendance

Jaclyn L. Bird present · Vice Chairman; Robert A. Boisselle present · Ward 4 Alderman; Donald L. Conn Jr. present · President/Ex-officio Member; Scott M. Forbes present · Ward 7 Alderman; Gail Infurna present · Ward 5 Alderman; Jennifer L. Lemmerman present · Ward 2 Alderman; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis present · Alderman at Large; Monica C. Medeiros present · Alderman at Large; Peter D. Mortimer present · Chairman; John N. Tramontozzi present · Ward 1 Alderman; Francis X. Wright Jr. present · Ward 3 Alderman

Agenda

1. Call to Order (8:20)
2. Public Participation (8:57)
3. Public Hearing at 8:00 PM (40:05)
4. Orders (9:45)
5. ORDER-2015-158 : Amend Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 24, Article II - Fire Department, Sec. 24-32(E) - Emergency Rescue Vehicle, to set fees for FY 16 (9:58)
6. ORDER-2015-156 : FY16 Ambulance Enterprise Fund Budget in the amount $847,478.09 (Eight Hundred Forty Seven Thousand, Four Hundred Seventy Eight Dollars and Nine Cents). (10:55)
7. ORDER-2015-159 : Reauthorization of Acct # 2665 Police False Alarm for FY2016 (25:00)
8. ORDER-2015-173 : Appropriation of 699,534.85 From Available Free Cash To Various Accounts As Set Forth Within (27:40)
9. ORDER-2015-154 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 in the amount of $72,885,826.66 (Seventy Two Million, Eight Hundred Eighty Five Thousand, Eight Hundred Twenty Six Dollars and Sixty Six Cents) (1:05:05)
10. Adjournment (1:45:25)

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MAY 21, 2015 Aldermanic Chamber Budget Hearing 7:30 PM The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Peter D. Mortimer Chairman Present Jaclyn L. Bird Vice Chairman Present Gail M. Infurna Ward 5 Alderman Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present In Attendance: Fire Chief Christopher Leary, Bill Mergendahl, CEO, Professional Ambulance, CFO/City Auditor Patrick Dello Russo, Police Chief Mike Lyle

ORDER-2015-158 Amending Revised Ordinances Amend Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 24, Article II - Fire Department, Sec. 24-32(E) - Emergency Rescue Vehicle, to set fees for FY 16 Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2015-156 Enterprise Fund FY16 Ambulance Enterprise Fund Budget in the amount $847,478.09 (Eight Hundred Forty Seven Thousand, Four Hundred Seventy Eight Dollars and Nine Cents). Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2015-159 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of Acct # 2665 Police False Alarm for FY2016 Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 6/9/2016 2:57 PM Minutes Appropriations Committee May 21, 2015

ORDER-2015-173 Appropriation Appropriation of 699,534.85 From Available Free Cash To Various Accounts As Set Forth Within Hold Appropriations Committee

ORDER-2015-154 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 in the amount of $72,885,826.66 (Seventy Two Million, Eight Hundred Eighty Five Thousand, Eight Hundred Twenty Six Dollars and Sixty Six Cents) Hold Appropriations Committee City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 6/9/2016 2:57 PM

Transcript

▶ 8:34 Peter D. Mortimer: It is May 21st at 7.32 in the evening. I am Chairman of Appropriations Peter Mortimer, the Vice Chairman is Jacqueline Byrd. This is a committee of the whole, so we're all involved here. Also on the committee, Gail Inferno, John Tramatozzi, Monica Medeiros, Robert Boycelle, Francis Wright, Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis, Jennifer Lemelman, Scott Forbes, and President Donald Kahn. open public participation alderman forbes has made a motion to open the floor for public participation duly seconded by alderman mcatea margolis all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none the floor is now open for public participation for any member of the public who may be in attendance to come forward and comment or question any of the orders before us tonight

▶ 9:29 Peter D. Mortimer: second we have a motion to close public participation by alderman mcatea margolis It's duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor of closing public participation for this evening, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public participation is now closed. We have a public hearing at 8 o'clock, but before we proceed to that public hearing, we have some orders to which we may attend. The first order before us is Order 2015-158. It is to amend the Melrose revised ordinances chapter 24 article 2 fire department section 24-32E emergency rescue vehicle to set fees for FY16. Is there a motion to suspend the rules please? Absolutely Mr. Chairman. I have a motion for concurrent action on that order and order 215-156 the ambulance enterprise budget.

▶ 10:29 Peter D. Mortimer: We have a motion for concurrent action. seconded by President Kahn, seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, these orders will be joined and dealt with simultaneously. And before we proceed any further, I was remiss in not mentioning that this meeting is being filmed, recorded by MMTV, and it is available on the city website and the MMTV website for any members of the public who would wish to view it at a future time. Aye. We have the conjoined orders, I'll read the second one. Order 2015-156, FY16, Ambulance Enterprise Fund Budget in the amount of $847,478.09. The two orders are before us, and I would welcome a motion to suspend the rules to hear from the appropriate city officials.

▶ 11:20 Peter D. Mortimer: Such said motion is made by Alderman Forbes, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor of suspension, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, we're under suspension. Gentlemen, would you please come forward. Please state your names and positions for the record. Chief Chris Leary, Melrose Fire. Thank you, Chief. Bill Mergendahl, Pro-MS Solutions. Thank you, Mr. Mergendahl. Patrick Delarusso, CFO, City Auditor. Thank you, Mr. Delarusso. Would you like to start with an opening statement? Please. Proceed. I'm here for you tonight to request an adjustment in the ambulance rates. indicated the rate should be reviewed annually and adjusted as needed just a quick note on the service the transition to full als went off without any problems we are on track to meet

▶ 12:17 our projected number of transports for this fiscal year as of the end of april i had 1284 transports with projected 1515. every medic has received their pal certification of pediatric advanced life support this is not a requirement of the state but just another example of the the highest standards that we have for our staff we continue to provide the highest level of care and receive excellent reviews for the patients we serve as noted in the most recent survey this is a testament to the hard work and dedication of each and every member of the department there are several reasons for the adjustment the cost of our supplies continue to increase for the items we use our salary and wages line has increased due to contractual step raises and

▶ 13:01 we've added an ems training position that will be half funded through ems budget and half funded through the fire budget we have new debt for the ambulance bond that will kick in this year and we continue to have more medicaid medicare than projected which affects the payer mix which in turn affects the revenues as i've stated before we're not in the ambulance business to make a profit but to maintain a high quality ems system with the added benefit of placing two additional firefighters on the fire ground each day which results in increased protection for every citizen and firefighter in melrose thank you thank you chief i'm mr mergendahl i'm mr delarusso would you like to say anything before we proceed president khan please thank you gentlemen

▶ 13:42 yeah i just have a couple of questions relative to this budget chief how many how many uh firefighters salaries do we have uh contained within this budget it'll be eight and a half and are they fully or partially funded through this budget fully so we have eight eight and a half positions fully the new position will half will be through here and half will be on the player side and what percentage of you of your department now are paramedics chief we have 21 medics total out of 57 and i have a couple of questions for mr del russo mr del russo does this budget enterprise fund continue to be fully funded through the enterprise system yes sir the chair it certainly does in fact um we now have a reserve balance of

▶ 14:38 Robert A. Boisselle: fifty seven thousand nine hundred and twenty eight dollars currently and no general fund or other city revenue has been pumped into this budget during this fiscal year is that correct That is correct. That's all I have. Thank you, President Kahn. Alderman Boisselle, please. In the documentation that came to us, there's an evaluation of the ambulance service and so forth that you sort of put together. One of them that sort of stood out was the dispatching aspects of it. That there's been a 2% decrease in two of these categories. And one of them actually went below the benchmark that you see here. And one of those categories is the professionalism of person on the phone. And then the decrease for ability of person on phone to meet your needs.

▶ 15:39 What's, is something going on that we should be aware of? There was a state mandated program of the 911 dispatch and EMD. And so how we currently do it, police is the PSAP for 911, they get a call. If it's medical in nature, they transfer it to Cataldo who currently does our EMD, Emergency Medical Dispatch. So they screen the call, get what information they can. At the same time, the police notify us of an emergency and we go. So it's difficult to say where the problems arise from because there's three different potential people that are talking to this person. Well, I mean, it's interesting, all the other categories, you must have about 30 of them, all show your guys are doing a great job, and this one just sort of stood out in the communications aspects of it,

▶ 16:39 Robert A. Boisselle: is probably the most important part in the beginning of this process of the 911 calls and so forth so I just want to make sure we're having we're not having problems with languages with people in in the neighborhoods and so for interpreters that may be needed yes I think I think one of the things that could possibly be done is is also attached with the scores there are comments so maybe we could you know work together with the chief and look at look into some of those comments and try to drill down and see if we can find through the comments piece not just the scoring piece if there are some outliers there that your response rate on these patient satisfaction surveys is is fantastic actually over 18% of the

▶ 17:24 patients respond back in which is fantastic when you look at any measure of any survey that goes out and every single patient gets a survey and even patients who ultimately aren't transported patients who refuse service are sent a survey also so to have that high rate of return is is is great and then as you also said your your score is across all the categories and the overall satisfaction rate is between 94 and 95 percent which is you know exceptional so but when but looking at trends like that it's it's sometimes it's good we can look at the comments part and see if we can drill down and and find those couple outliers very good you mentioned the cost and when you opened your statement and so forth the Affordable Care Act was pretty well

▶ 18:23 Robert A. Boisselle: went into full effect this past this past year and it's getting more stringent as we go through the coming years from what I'm understanding now there was an article that came out of the Florida news and so forth concerning hospitals on notice with Florida settlements over ambulance rides are you aware of the situation that's going on there in the court settlement that came out of that I am there's more and more activity going on with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services CMS and the federal government the Office of inspector general enforcing the laws related to all Medicare payments and all providers ambulance services one of them and in that case that case there actually applies to all non-emergency services what is a non-emergency service

▶ 19:13 a non-emergency service where this case applies to are what would that case the essence of that case is that the hospitals called and booked ambulance rides for patients on a non-emergent basis so take them from the hospital to a nursing home hospital to home hospital to a rehab and that's not a lights and siren kind of a thing that's what you guys do or lights and sirens emergencies the calls that are applicable in this case are the non emergency calls where it's in a facility stuff and so it's a unique approach in this one because it was always the ambulance provider that got blamed solely and this is a different tactic now they're also roping in the hospitals who actually ordered the ambulances and authorized and said they were medically necessary and so

▶ 20:03 Monica C. Medeiros: this is a it's actually a very big case when it comes to ambulance service but it doesn't really apply to the to the Melrose Fire Department because it really is applicable to only to non emergency service very good thank you very much Thank You mr. chairman Thank You alderman for self any other alderman wishing to be heard Alderman Medeiros thank you I just want to thank you for all the detail and information we appreciate it and it's great to see those scores and I just wanted to ask how much you know now that we've made the transition how much are we relying on Cataldo do we find ourselves maxed out often or is it infrequent we on average miss about 20 to 25 calls a month based on whether we're on a another run or two runs at the same time

▶ 20:55 and Cataldo comes in and they've been a great asset and they can pick up whatever we can't handle and then as far as moving forward is there anything you know that on the horizon that we should be aware of good or bad well we're looking at one of the reasons for the CMS training position is to look into other avenues of potential revenue and services one is community paramedicine where you don't go out and actually do a transport but you could do a well-being visit it's kind of like VNA these other like a hot safe community different different things we want to get into maybe down the road ALS engine companies so that the we can utilize the other medics that we have put the equipment so so that they can start working on you at the house prior to the second ambulance getting there.

▶ 21:54 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Alderman Medeiros. Alderman McAteer-Margolis, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming. Chief, you said something about part of the increase was due to the debt for the ALS ambulance. Was that what it was? In your opening remarks? The bond, starting to have to pay back to bond. to start to pay back the bond so um i i just wondered if maybe this would be better for mr de la rousseau the um reserves that we have mr de la rousseau the 57 000 um does that just stay in the ambulance account or do we use any of that to pay back that that bond or what are we doing with the reserve funds for the chair we're retaining as much as we can each year on the

▶ 22:44 reserve the um first line of defense has been to have a minimum of fifty thousand dollars set aside in the fund um as we go forward in this uh early stages of the development of the enterprise and it still is early you know three plus is um still a young venture in its own way and so we met our target of fifty thousand my expectation is that over time they'll probably probably go up to probably 10% of the budget, but we're going to maintain the 50,000 plus threshold at this time. But we would not use that to pay debt. Obviously, that's an, as an operating expense, we would rely on the regular budget to do that. Okay, so we're just going to leave it as it is for this coming year, the 57 at the moment.

▶ 23:33 Peter D. Mortimer: Yes. We're not taking anything out of it. We're just going to build up, let the reserve continue to build up? correct and again as other enterprise funds it can only be spent on the ambulance services right and god forbid the chief would need it for some particular reason that is unforeseen then he has would have to come before this board and ask for an appropriation no different than water or so on thank you very much thank you thank you alderman mcintyre margolis seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard at this time is there a motion to we can place place it on hold until after the public hearing. One second, please. So moved. That was my- That was going to be your motion? Second. Very good, all right.

▶ 24:15 Peter D. Mortimer: So we'll place this on hold until after the public hearing, which is scheduled for ten minutes. Hope you won't mind sticking around. So we'll see how we're going to do with that. Right now, we have a motion to put this order on hold. Second by Alderman Boisselle, made by Alderman Medeiros. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. And we'll keep these two conjoined orders, conjoined by the President's motion on hold until public hearing happens at 8 o'clock. So we'll see you back up at the table briefly. Thank you, gentlemen. The next order we have before us is order 2015-159. It's reauthorization of account number 2665, police fire alarm for fiscal year 2016. We're under suspension.

▶ 25:09 Peter D. Mortimer: So Chief Lyle, I would invite you to come to the table, and please join us here in the horseshoe. Thank you, good evening. Good evening, sir. Would you like to make an opening statement or proceed directly to questions and comments? I can comment that this has been a very good program for the police department since its inception a few years back. It's reduced the number of false alarms to the police department. Folks went out and had their alarms repaired or disconnected or whatever they did. It's been positive for the police department as far as false alarms. The revenue, we've done pretty fair on it this past year. Other than that, I'm ready for questions. Very good, sir. Any aldermen wishing to make a comment or ask the chief any questions?

▶ 25:56 Peter D. Mortimer: Alderman Medeiros, please. About how many false alarms do we receive? Approximately 500, and we abate approximately 100 for various reasons. Effective equipment, thunderstorms create havoc with alarms. Thank you, thank you. Any other Alderman wishing to be heard? Motion to recommend. Second. We have a motion to recommend this order for passage by Alderman Boycelle, duly seconded by Alderman Lemmerman. Before we proceed to the vote, I'd just like to ask a question. How many actual, have actual suspects been scared away or apprehended afterwards or at least chased by police due to these alarms any of these alarms that come in I can't answer that I know that just off very very rarely do we respond to an alarm for a residential home or a business

▶ 26:52 Peter D. Mortimer: that is activated and there is actually an attempt or a forced entry made all right so it recently no all right and just would there be any alarms that something would have happened in the neighborhood where maybe it was a false alarm or maybe the perpetrator got scared away and is hiding somewhere or something just anecdotally I these are not statistical question well unfortunately had an incident this past weekend and every business that was there was damaged or broken into did not have an alarm system right all right thank you very much chief the motion to recommend this for passage has been made and duly seconded by alderman voice Ellen alderman lemmerman respectively All in favor, please say aye.

▶ 27:33 Peter D. Mortimer: Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this order will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting. Thank you. As you know, Chief, you need not attend at that time. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming, sir. The next order we have before us is an appropriation for $699,534.85 from available free cash to various accounts as set forth herein. We are still under suspension. So, Mr. De La Russo, would you rejoin us, please? Welcome again, sir. Certainly. Would the two chiefs join us too, please? Yeah. Spare them, but. All right, through the chief, I may. Please, Mr. De La Russo. Thank you. Specifically, I think the objective this evening for both the police chief and the fire chief is to address their request for additional overtime.

▶ 29:04 They both have submitted a request due to circumstances within the department. would ask respectfully if they could um individually address the board at this time as to the need for the overtime very good sir which chief would like to go first please thank you chief lyle thank you um the police department had had some serious challenges this past year as far as uh staffing we had a sergeant that was out injured for approximately four months with a with a knee injury and also a patrolman that was out for five months with a knee injury And it impacted our shifts substantially, that was one portion. There was a carryover from a contract settlement from last year into this year that impacted our overtime, our salary and wage as well.

▶ 29:53 And then various vacations that we get hit with every year. But one big factor that we have discovered in the police department as the years go on, so don't accruals for officers. So the more years on, more vacation time. And we get hit with about another 1,000 hours of vacation time, and it's certainly impacting the police department's overtime budget. Thank you, sir. President Kahn, please. Yeah, Chief, your current staffing level of sworn police officers is what, 43? Including you and everybody else? 31 patrolmen, eight sergeants, four lieutenants, and myself. Okay. Two non-sworn. And how much beyond the overtime budget would you be if this appropriation was passed? This should get us to the end of the year.

▶ 30:46 Okay, what would that make your total expenditure for overtime for the year on? It's in excess of 400,000 on. 424,000 to date, approximately. Mr. Chairman, in preparation for looking at this budget tonight, One of the things that I did is I reviewed the Pomeroy study that was done several years ago relative to the operation of our police department. Right. And what people should be aware of and what the consultant, Mr. Pomeroy, a retired police chief highlighted at one point in his report, I think it's on page 25, is that the city has a conscious choice to make relative to police staffing. You can staff up towards the 63-man ordinance police department, or you can choose not to hire more officers, and you can be more reliant on overtime.

▶ 32:11 And people should understand that those are choices that are made by the city, by the administration, And neither one is right or wrong, but if we choose to continue to have a 43-person police department, we're going to continue to spend money for overtime. And the other model would be to hire significantly more police officers, which would obviate the need for overtime. But people should be aware this is a conscious choice that's been made by the city. You know, it's not a result of any failure to manage overtime or failure to appropriately deal with the situation, but we have the same level of staffing as we did, I believe, Chief, in 2012 when that report was undertaken. Is that correct? Approximately.

▶ 33:04 And so we're in the same situation. At that point, it was noted that we were expending overtime monies because we had small police force. So, you know, I know everybody here understands that, but that's what people should be aware of. And I guess in a few months we're going to be talking about putting something on the ballot that may potentially add two police officers. I would respectfully suggest that I don't think that two is going to do anything to change the dynamic that we have here. And coming up to a 45-person police department is going to continue to have us expending large amounts of money on overtime for the police department. Mr. Del Russo, in terms of the free cash account, how much money would we have left in the free cash account?

▶ 33:56 Should we pass this? Is this going to wipe us out for the year? You will have, through the Chair, $444,272.85. And where is this going to leave us relative to our snow debt? I know you haven't talked about it yet, but in the interest of brevity, I'm going to ask all my questions now, Mr. Chairman, and not speak again. um what will the objective would be to use approximately 402 000 of that 444 000 towards the snow and ice deficit um on top of that i found out today we anticipate approximately 300 000 on the low end for assistance due to this the horrific winter through fema or mima whatever the case may be and that will still leave us with an approximate 1.1 to 1.2 million dollar deficit in snow and ice do we have a plan to uh to bridge that gap at the present time yes um right now one

▶ 35:02 of the objectives uh my principal objective is i want to finalize exactly what the reimbursement is The expectation for me going into the fall would be to see if I can garner some resources of available funds to also strike that down towards that $1.1 million and make it less. The Department of Revenue has provided us a provision to carry up to three years the amount that you're unable to cover of your deficit. it. However, I'm not one that likes that. So I'm going to do everything I possibly can within my capacity to try to address it within a year or two. So that's the goal now. Once we have some final numbers, I can speak to it clearer as far as the resolve. But again, I don't expect that to know that final

▶ 36:02 answer until probably October after the books are closed and much free cash is certified. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, President Kahn. Anybody else wishing to ask any questions of Mr. De La Russa or either of the Chiefs? Alderman Medeiros, please. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, we are anticipating revisiting this order again. Is that correct? This order, I think we will, as part of the budget hearings, or we'll take we could take a motion to recommend it for passage at this time and then we'll revisit it at the full board it would be up to the will of the board thank you chief Lyle I was hoping to talk a little bit more about the overtime is is some this overtime associated with police details yes is is there a any kind of

▶ 37:11 breakdown in terms of how much is associated with details or you know is it possible I wish sorry I kind of wish that we were doing this along with the budget at the same time but in terms of planning it out and seeing kind of where where we've been this year versus where we're going forward. Is there any kind of breakdowns to- I have some numbers. I don't have dollar figures, I have hours, man hours. This is up to date from July 1 of last year. We call it community events, where we cover a community event with overtime or detailed funds. we've had since July 1 238 man-hours overtime slash details covered with our overtime budget we carry we cover Memorial Day parade out of that some different community events Victorian Day those events are covered through the

▶ 38:33 Monica C. Medeiros: police department's budget so those include those are like the the big community events maybe the summer stroll things like that yes how about we didn't a center stroll that was covered through a different funding source through different sunny swiss okay um does does that include you know how about the construction details no not at all no are the construction details included in the overtime amounts no they're not they're a separate line item they're they're details just details construction details and and that's whether there be private construction or for the city of meadows yes that's in a separate total separate account we have i i don't have a dollar figure we have somewhere of 150 000 outstanding right now that we are chasing people that haven't complied that request so that

▶ 39:28 Peter D. Mortimer: those come out of a completely separate account a whole separate uh well maybe we'll revisit that in the uh budget and that's all i have for now thank you thank you alderman Brodeur any other alderman Anyone wishing to be heard? Mr Chairman, oh, go ahead. Alderman Bird, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just as a follow up question. Excuse me, Alderman Bird, I called you out of turn, were you required to start this public hearing now? Not a problem. But as soon as we return from the public hearing, which, by the looks of the gallery, will be very brief, you will be first to have the floor. Sounds good. I'll try to be patient. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we are scheduled for public hearing.

▶ 40:21 Peter D. Mortimer: It is now 8.04 by this computer in the PM. The order for the public hearing is order number 2015-158. It is to amend the Melrose Revised Ordinances Chapter 4, Article 2, Fire Department Section 24-32E, Emergency Rescue Vehicle to set fees for FY16. Is there a motion to open the public portion of the public hearing? So moved. Second. Alderman McAteer-Margolis has moved to open the public portion of the public hearing. Second. That motion has been duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, the public portion of the public hearing is open. Seeing that there are no members of the public here, no one in the gallery except for City officials and Mr. Mergenthal, we would welcome a motion to close the public hearing.

▶ 41:17 Peter D. Mortimer: Said motion made by Alderman McAteer-Margolis, duly seconded once again by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the public participation portion of the public hearing is closed. We already had comments and colloquy on the two orders that are affected by this hearing, so I don't think we need. Can we have a motion to completely adjourn the public hearing? So moved. Alderman Forbes has made said motion. Once again, seconded by Alderman Boisselle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none. The public hearing on the fire department emergency rescue vehicle order is hereby concluded. And gentlemen, once again, sorry for all the exercise.

▶ 42:03 Jaclyn L. Bird: Would you join us once again at the table? we will proceed as mentioned moments ago with comments and questions from alderman bird who now has the floor alderman bird please proceed thank you mr chairman um i just wanted to follow up my you know when when i knew we were going to be discussing this order tonight my mind also went back to a couple years ago when we had this board had had authorized the funding for the overtime study I'm just curious have we talked or have we explored the idea of you know the cost benefits of adding more patrolmen to the police department have we had a lot of conversation about that in the last couple of years with those recommendations that came out of that report to try to stem some of the rising

▶ 42:52 costs of the overtime piece in sort of what has been the conversation about that and and why has this been the choice of the administration to kind of go in this direction i was just curious i can't answer for the administration but as far as the police department every year i apply we have we're in a process of applying for grants now to hire additional officers i would say it's frustrating with the federal government when we apply for these grants we do every year we as you spend a considerable amount of time for grants i put in for school resource officers community officers anything creative we can to get additional personnel and every year we seem to come up short i get i get the letter about six

▶ 43:31 months later thank you for applying see you next year um so those are some of the things that we've been trying to do to increase our manpower uh as far as overtime um you know the auditor's office works with us to to actually come up with a fair figure for overtime every every week i go through the budget and we monitor our overtime to find out where we're going which direction and that's And that's conveyed through Jay Akar, our administrator, to the auditor's office as far as our budget for overtime. Mr. Del Rosario, did you want to talk at all about that as far as sort of what, is there a tipping point if we hire so many officers that we have an expectation that we're going to start to see some of that overtime drop off?

▶ 44:14 Has that been a conversation that's been ongoing for the last couple of years since that study came out? I think on a practical basis, we would all like to see that. Obviously, the cost of an officer, say, is $75,000 between salary and benefits. So if you're looking at $114,000 here for overtime, and again, one of the things that the chief mentioned is the circumstance. No matter what you do, no matter how many officers, you're going to have situations, whether it's military or injury, that you have to be responsible for. But obviously, I think the practical answer, we would hope that that would be the end result. And that's something that I think we all share, that that would happen. That by having additional staff, we could reduce overtime, provide more of a buffer to situations that occur.

▶ 45:10 Unfortunately, we don't have the capacity and the existing resources to go out and make those hirings as perhaps we would like to. just something to say to do it but you have to be able to fund it sure and then so those things are on balance if we could find a revenue stream obviously to dedicate to funding those two offices that would be the ultimate route and not feel like we're in a position where we're causing more stress than we need to have we determined what the number is that as far as the staff number kind of the tipping point is to to bring in some of that over time or is i'm sure that that's kind of hard to predict but yeah i would have to defer to the chief more than i look to our schedule i do have

▶ 45:56 a copy of our schedule in case it came up as far as the budget um right now our goal is to always have a spare body we have a minimum number of officers on the midnight shift four officers on the day in the evening it's five officers this year and somebody goes on vacation somebody's out injured somebody's training at automatic overtime so we've tried to increase those numbers to have an extra body or swing man or a person extra on the shift so we can sustain a hit without overtime but when you get coupled with a vacation day and somebody like this past year where an officer on the midnight shift banged up his knee and he was out he had surgery he was out for five months that overtime four overtimes every week and you know somewhere between four and five hundred

▶ 46:40 dollars a shift really adds up quick and it really really does a job on our budget understandable okay and um i didn't have my copy of the pomeroy report handy um can i get another copy of that is that something that's uh easy to put your hands on can you um send that to me sometime in the next week or so we can mail a mail one to you or deliver one to you or send it electronically if your computer will handle it yes excellent all right thank you that's all for now thank you mr chairman thank you alderman bird alderman medeiros please thank you thank you actually uh something said chief is that uh some of the officers have been here a long time um and that's causing high levels of vacation time accrued do we have any policy i know that's

▶ 47:26 Monica C. Medeiros: in the contract but maybe mr del russo might be able to answer that uh in terms of is there any consistency across all officers get so many weeks of vacation per year or um is there any policy in place that says you know you kind of use it or lose it or does that just accrue for a long time they have um we'll start with some of the senior officers they get five weeks vacation a year everybody's allotted two weeks vacation in the summer and the summer begins around May 1 through September 1 or thereabouts squeeze everybody give them an opportunity to take that two week in there a lot of a lot of officers break it up I break it up I don't get to take what I should I always wind up rolling over because I'm in a different capacity now so

▶ 48:14 I can roll it over but that's something we're going to probably shouldn't say it but we're going in the negotiations with them and that's one of the options I'd like to certainly discuss the city to allow officers to carry a week over it would reduce our overtime expenditures and put a cap a deadline uh currently the city is around june 30th or august 1st you have to use that week by and it cannot be you know coupled with anybody else on vacation so on and so forth those details would have to be worked out it would help us and i must imagine that some of the officers might kind of be looking forward to some of the overtime that they receive here in Melrose is it consistent I would say details are very plentiful in the city

▶ 49:02 Monica C. Medeiros: of Melrose now you'll see all sorts of different patches in that community now we don't have the manpower to cover the details do you think that that accounts for some of the longevity and that there is an opportunity to make more money I'm actually office of some offices make more on an overtime than other offices doing a detail. There's a mix and You know, we recently Say a few years ago change the rules for special police. Are we taking advantage of using special police in any? You know, I explore explore that and the board approves a program The only difference between a special police office and a regular police officer is They're not civil service. They don't have to go to an academy.

▶ 49:45 A special police officer still has to follow all the rules and regulations as a regular police officer. You know, CPI certification, legal update, it's not cost effective. They would still get the same salary if they were doing a detail as a regular police officer. Have we found that we have special police officers on rotation right now? No, we do not. We don't have any. We do not. So it really hasn't been so much of a success. Well, it's not a cost-effective program. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Alderman Medeiros. Alderman Wright, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Chief. I appreciate the information. Did I hear you say that you have approximately $150,000 in uncollected detail billing?

▶ 50:30 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Well, yes, and I think I have it, if you want me to pull it up. Oh, that's okay, no, I don't doubt it. I don't think it's unique to Melrose. I'm taking people to court now. I'm taking people to court. but I was just wanted to check and make sure that you're working with the city solicitor to make sure that we make send out legal demand letters and we we pursue that money because my experience is that a lot of that money will be collectible but you have to go to the map to get it absolutely correct great thank you Thank You mr. chairman Thank You alderman right alderman Boyce L please all right moving away from the Chiefs let's move over to the financial officer in the snowstorm of bills that we have here the prices are exact the

▶ 51:15 Robert A. Boisselle: same for higher equipment and salt and chemical how is that possible are we buying the salt and chemicals with the equipment or I would ask that down the DPW director to address that that was his request the breakdown okay because you're a two hundred and one thousand dollars two hundred and one thousand three hundred eighty six dollars plus change for both of them and it just seems strange who the chair that was mr. Shannon okay when DPW comes before us we'll give them that question we also have professional services in the category is this for the planning office any idea May 28th mr. chairman if there's If I may, this matter is going to be held in committee for May 28th, Appropriations Committee where those matters will be addressed, the public works and the other matters as

▶ 52:11 John N. Tramontozzi: part of this order. So we're going to hold this in committee? Yes. Okay. I'll hold my questions until then. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Alderman Boycelle. Alderman Tramontozzi, please. Yes. With that in mind, if there's no further questions regarding for the Chiefs for the overtime, I will make a motion to hold this in committee to address the other matters that are part of this order for the next Appropriations Meeting on May 28th. Alderman Tramontozzi has made a motion to hold this order in committee. Duly seconded by Alderman Boisselle. Is there any further discussion? Alderman Wright, on discussion please. Alderman Byrd, you'll be next. we have the fire chief here this evening we don't allow him to speak on the items

▶ 52:58 that would be fine with me we were still under discussion a motion has been made but before we vote on it more discussion is certainly in order unless he wants to come back on the 28th I'm in the same boat as chief Lyle we've had a bad year for illnesses and injuries we had one member out since August with a reoccurring back injury that is resulted in his application for disability retirement another member out with long-term sickness being treated for a medical condition that could take nine months to a year before he's back six members had off-duty injuries or illnesses resulting in a combined sick time usage of over a year excuse me two members have were out for four months with the fmla one member has been on military leave and as far as the amount we're

▶ 53:51 We're asking for 141,000 and this should carry us through barring any other catastrophic events. Thank you, Chief. Any questions for the Chief? President Kahn? Excuse me, I'm sorry. Alderman Bird did have the floor next, and then it will be President Kahn and then Alderman Forbes. Yeah, I'd yield to anybody who was previously recognized by the Chair, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, thank you, Chief, for the overview. The question is actually for Mr. DelaRusso, and it's just the slightly bigger picture on this topic of the free cash. Did we have $3 million of certified free cash in October? Is that correct? With the change, you had $3,183,025.25. Okay. That's correct.

▶ 54:46 Jaclyn L. Bird: And compared to the last two years before that, I feel like we probably had like 1.6 or something before that for free cash. in uh the fall of 2013 and the fall of 2012 does that sound about right it seems like we had an extraordinary amount of free cash this year in the fall just is that right you've got the perfect memo for me so i signed it so i'm responsible thank you thank you ultimate voice yes if i may was um through the chair july 1 2013 is 2 million 195 074 and then over 1.9 and 12 and Just under 1.5 and 11, and 2,007,010. So I just had a question on that. Do we know why the free cash was so high in the fall? Yes. Okay. Do you want to elaborate? Do you want to talk further about that?

▶ 55:46 Do I have to? I was hoping you could. Yes, if I may to the Chair, there's no one line answer, I wish I could say it. pretty complicated process okay two principal things happened you had one-time revenues which would be for example large permits from developments that come across they're non-recurring we've also had some actually free cash that should have been certified in the previous year but what happens is the department of revenue will hold that until they get further evidence that it's going to materialize your revenues before they'll allow you to consider it as free cash so what they do is they actually hold um in this case a health significant amount of money back from our certification and said we'll give it to you next year because the expiration date

▶ 56:36 whether it's 60 or 90 days has has gone by even though we know you're going to get it whether it was a state or a federal grant we have instances where we will expend money in anticipation of getting it back but if we don't meet that time frame when it comes back then we don't get it it back to the next fiscal year so that's was a rolling ball particularly in this past fiscal year and then we had obviously receivables etc play come into play but it was those other items of the biggest ones the one-time revenues the realization that the state allowed us for federal and state grants to actually recognize them and also you have the same problem and i don't want to get into too deep when sometimes you have bond proceeds you may have expended

▶ 57:22 money for the bond but if you owed it from whether it's the state or whatever msb and you haven't received it by a certain date the doi has cut offs they'll say we'll give it to you next year but i can't give it to you this year you know you'll get it but not this year we want to wait until the money actually is drawn into the city's treasury so it's those type of things that um created that uh put 3.1 million of free cash and um obviously a bigger part there also and i take I take some credit for everyone in this room is we were conservative in what we estimated. We took over a million dollars, almost a million and a half plus in revenues of what we had estimated from general revenues. So that played a big role because we don't budget to the maximum.

▶ 58:05 When you do that, you have a problem. That's when any little thing comes up, when the state comes back and cuts you back, you have a horrific situation occur, you have nowhere to go. don't put ourselves in that place so we had available revenue added to your free cash so it's a combination of items and i appreciate the conservative approach i guess what i was curious about was were we almost too conservative last year you know to then have this um large amount of free cash in the fall no i mean again again part of that is is um a planning effort uh direct planning effort the other part is timing issues that we have no control over so we're not obviously if next year we end up with 1.5 million of free cash it could be a combination of a lot of things

▶ 58:49 could be a combination that what i said earlier we didn't receive the money that we anticipated from the grants or from the federal government that also plays a role so timing is everything with the dor and obviously they have other communities to deal with so they try to put everyone on the same time frame by this date what's in there if it's not in there we'll see see you guys next year that kind of a thing so it can be that um it can sway that high okay that's all for now thank you mr chairman thank you very much alderman bird president khan please yeah thank you um chief how how much will you have expended in overtime for the the fiscal year if this appropriation is authorized we're looking about 494 000 194 and your current staffing level

▶ 59:41 is 55 is that 40 49 firefighters on the fire side 49 firefighters is that including command staff or yes and the my recollection is that how many how many uh when we grant funded positions a few years ago was it six positions that we funded eight eight okay so the eight and those were absorbed through the ambulance right so what happened was we grant funded eight new positions and then when the grants dried up we rolled them into the ambulance and the ambulance enterprise has been able to sustain those those eight positions is that correct that's correct um i don't know people should never ask questions about municipal finance stuff because it always leads me to think of something that i've never thought of before um mr delarusso is our

▶ 1:00:45 it's my understanding that the free cash for a given year is calculated in establishing the levy limit for the next year is that correct um no what happens is on the recap the tax recapulation sheet we have to identify how much of the free cash we expended at the time we set the tax rate sometimes we appropriate say 50 percent of it sometimes none of it until the next tax year but by the time you set your tax rate you have to identify what portion of free cash you expended that's what shows up on that tax recap on page two and would the amount that we've expended prior to setting the tax rate go into establishing the levy limit for the next year what happens is no it it's like an offset item if you look at the recapital it talks about all

▶ 1:01:39 the revenue um the revenue you're going to raise then there's a breakdown of where it's all coming from but as far as a tax impact what impacts is how much you're raising locally you're correct in local receipts if you raise more than that they'll have free cash perhaps um a greater chance than not but that's where it plays into but the principal fact is um it shows up on page four of the recap showing what you what was actually realized and page four also shows that the money was actually voted by the board for and set aside for the purposes for which they deemed necessary so it is on there but again you'll see every city and town a little bit different depending on how much they actually vote prior to setting their tax rate we're no different

▶ 1:02:32 Peter D. Mortimer: thank you sorry about that mr chairman i get curious sometimes on some of these things that's our job to drill down and be curious thank you very much president khan we have a motion to hold this order in its entirety at this time it has been made and duly seconded all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none uh this order will be held until a further appropriations meeting i think um we need not have the two chiefs return is everyone satisfied with this portion of the order we could have made an a order of it but that wasn't the will of the board uh just so these two chiefs don't have to come back that evening is everyone satisfied at this time okay that's good so we'll have the uh director of public

▶ 1:03:19 Peter D. Mortimer: works for the rest of the order uh at our future all those future appropriations meeting chiefs thank you very much uh you chief larry you might as well stay i think we're about to take a vote on the uh ambulance budget chief lyle thank you have a pleasant evening oh no no that's right yeah we got your budget we get your budget coming up very very involved time of year all All right, why don't we go back to those orders that were on hold. Would anybody like to speak on those orders at this point? Order number 2015-158 and 2015-156. They are joined by motion of the President, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. So those orders are both under consideration at this time. Motion to recommend. Second.

▶ 1:04:22 Peter D. Mortimer: I have a motion to recommend these two orders for passage. There's been a public hearing on them this very evening and copious discussion earlier. The motion has been made to recommend for passage by President Kahn, who's seconded that, please? Seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor to recommend for passage, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, these orders will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting. Thank you, Larry. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now we will proceed to our budget hearings, order 02015-154, it's the City of Melrose operating budget. It's been read several times so I need not read the whole caption of the budget at this time and we can proceed directly to departments.

▶ 1:05:16 Peter D. Mortimer: The first department we will consider this evening is the fire department, department number 221 in the amount of 3,925,599 dollars and 12 cents. Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend this budget from Alderman Boycelle. Second. Duly second by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion, we're ready for the vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye, any opposed? Hearing none, that order will be recommended to our full board for passage. when we conclude with our budget hearings. The next department we have before us is Department 291. It is the Emergency Management Department in the amount of $4,900. Is there a motion on this budget? I think we're already under suspension of the rules.

▶ 1:06:12 Monica C. Medeiros: We are under suspension. From the appropriate party. I'm not sure if that would be Mr. Delarusso in this case. Yeah, we could hear from Mr. Delarusso or either of the chiefs at your request. It's a small budget, $4,900. My questions here this evening are, it's a much smaller budget. It was never a tremendously large budget, but it's a much smaller budget than it was before. Are we virtually continuing this department? Yeah, I can speak on that. So for those of you who don't know, I've been the interim emergency management director since the retirement of Mr. Kelly. in March. The mayor and I would like to thank Ed for all his hard work and dedication that he's done throughout the city. Yeah, yeah.

▶ 1:07:01 Monica C. Medeiros: So the only, the transfer of that money from the salary and wages line has gone into the fire budget and the mayor has asked that I take over the duties of emergency management and he will be sending down an order soon to the board for that. Naming me the emergency management director. Okay. Well, is there an active auxiliary force right now? There is not. Emergency management police? There is not. Do you anticipate bringing back the auxiliary? I haven't given it any thought. They were disbanded in June of 14, and that was a decision of the mayor. I don't know any particulars of that. and things like the you know ammunition and I would imagine you'll still need yeah I'm sure you're very well trained but I'm sure you'll the badges and the

▶ 1:08:20 Monica C. Medeiros: ammunition were removed from the budget because that wasn't thought that it was needed um are there actual supplies i mean i know at one point there were some uniforms and we know what happened to what physically exists there is supplies and equipment i've yet to take an inventory but that is on my list of uh things to do to see just what we have and what our capabilities are thank you very much i echo uh the appreciation of mr kelly and uh look forward to you thank you thank you alderman medeiros next we'll hear from alderman boycelle please you're taking the ammunition out so that means there were firearms uh did we purchase those firearms or who's who has the firearms i don't have the answer i do not know

▶ 1:09:08 yes all artillery police purchased their own firearms and any any duty gear that's been going on since since i've been a police officer and before okay so the individuals who were in this group where they purchased their own firearms their own equipment okay so the equipment which was duty belts so on and so forth boots jackets whatever it may be okay all right so we don't have to worry about firearms floating around well when they when they retired or when the program was disbanded they turned in anything to identify themselves as an auxiliary police for the city of norris very good thank you chief thank you thank you mr chair thank you alderman boy cell um singh i'm sorry that's quite all right thank you i i just i just i feel

▶ 1:09:55 Monica C. Medeiros: compelled to excuse me excuse me all right alderman bird i haven't spoke but she'll yield the floor to you thank you so much i appreciate it very much uh i just want to say that i i do hope that maybe we consider bringing back the auxiliary the men and a few women who had been in the group prior had really been a tremendous help in some times emergencies in in particular some of the flooding incidents that occurred while i was the alderman in ward two and i just you know i really appreciate them being there and often as volunteers and or you know very minimal um compensation if any and and just really appreciate that so thank you thank you alderman Medeiros alderman bird please thank you mr chairman and uh thank you uh chief leary for the overview um could you talk a little

▶ 1:10:43 Jaclyn L. Bird: bit about the vision of the emergency management department going forward now that it no longer has i i don't believe we had auxiliary police officers sworn in for the last several years or appointed by this board for the last several years but now that that is not the case and we're not looking to go in that direction of an auxiliary police unit at least for the time being can you talk about what the emergency management department duties will be is it more on kind of planning and preparation exactly planning um for hopefully that we don't have the disaster that snow emergencies um reimbursement we're currently working with fema to get reimbursement with um dpw mainly for the the snow and ice and um cleanup efforts uh and maybe going forward to

▶ 1:11:32 Jaclyn L. Bird: look at possibly having a cert team or citizen emergency response team these these are a few ideas that i have that i'm just scratching the surface and have to figure out what's there and what we got and what where we're going to go great and is that will that also include um preparation for school evacuations and situations like that and trainings for hopefully situations that we won't have to uh experience here okay um and so the line item the clothing um eighteen hundred dollars is that being left in there just because we're not sure what's exactly i had discussions with mr delarusso that you know the ammunition and the badges we knew we didn't need but the other stuff i wasn't sure so we were just going to leave the remainder of the budget as is

▶ 1:12:17 until we figure out you know what the next step is great thank you very much i'm glad to see it going in that direction thank you mr chairman thank you alderman burr president khan please yeah um mike my understanding is is as chief lavery indicated that the city's taking their emergency management department in a different direction and instead of having a department that's kind of an adjunct to law enforcement this is going to be more uh assisting in medical disasters and emergencies and things of that nature i think that's what the emergency management department should be doing uh and i'm glad that we're moving in this direction thank you president khan i'm seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard is there a motion please motion recommend second we

▶ 1:13:04 Peter D. Mortimer: have a motion to recommend this bottom line for department 291 in the amount of four thousand nine hundred dollars by alderman makatia margolis duly seconded by alderman Boisselle all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none department 291 budget will be recommended to the full board the next department we have is department 296 it is the parking department in the amount of sixty two thousand five hundred and nine dollars and fifty cents motion to recommend we have a motion to recommend this order from alderman Boisselle is there a second please second duly seconded by alderman byrd on discussion seeing none all in oh that's quite all right alderman byrd please proceed thank you um mr de la rusa i'm wondering if you might have the answer

▶ 1:13:54 Jaclyn L. Bird: to this on the professional services line item um do you know what that entails exactly it looks like it's had a fairly significant increase um 32 900 i just don't know what that's for or chief lyle sorry yes if i may i am uh filling in for mr higgins this evening thank you last year they purchased new kiosks at the train stations and this is to cover the lease cost for the train stations and the other portion i believe is to cover the lease for the larrabee parking lot with saint mary's as well combined okay i think that's a separate line item but okay um so the 32 900 that piece is a contract with the new kiosk at the train station is that right it is and there's also um there's uh fees for each one of those stations has a phone line

▶ 1:14:56 attached to it to transfer funds and when funds are transferred electronically there is a fee for each transaction and i know they do do them in batches late at night when the costs are lower but there are costs of all uh with the kiosk itself okay thank you thank you mr chairman thank you alderman byrd next in queue we have president khan please yeah um one thing everybody at home should be aware of is that we've been paying 18 000 a year to lease these parking spaces for 12 years um we're getting close to having spent a quarter of a million dollars to lease these parking spaces it doesn't seem to me that to continue rolling this lease over forever is a good long-term solution and maybe somebody can take some action to to deal with that down the

▶ 1:15:58 Peter D. Mortimer: line it's a recurring budget item and i think that a different solution might be wiser than to continue to pay 18 000 a year for another 12 or 13 or 15 or 20 years that's all thank you president khan any other alderman wishing to be heard at this time is there a motion please well the motion has been made and seconded thank you that's correct madam clerk that corrected that motion has been made in second yes all in favor please say aye aye Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the parking budget of $62,509.50 will be recommended to the full board. Thank you. And our last department of the evening is police. You might as well stay right there, Chief. You might as well stay right there too, Mr. De La Russo.

▶ 1:16:47 Peter D. Mortimer: Is the police department budget, Department 211 in the amount of $3,973,000. excuse me three million nine hundred seventy three three hundred thirteen dollars and nineteen cents no one has any further questions for chief Larry the fire chief do they do you have any questions for chief Larry I'm sorry no I'm thinking he can go home at this point okay flurry have a great evening thank you very much for your attendance sir okay first I think you were first alderman Medeiros then alderman boy self alderman bird did you throw anything i'll gladly allow alderman boys okay alderman boy cell followed by alderman Medeiros alderman boy cell please proceed in your budget ammunition uh 2015 as of may you spent about seven thousand dollars in ammunition

▶ 1:17:44 i know the officers have to qualify in the range and so forth but for next year uh you're dropping down to 3 000 are you going to the laser strategy no i wish no um there's since 9 11 there has been a large increase in ammunition costs and every year we request additional funding for ammunition but this particular year we have three officers in the academy right now and each one is approximately fifteen hundred dollars a piece for ammunition when they qualify at the at the police academy so there was additional costs there fifteen hundred yes wow they fire a significant amount of rounds and we also carry a long arm which the rounds are very expensive oh that's interesting to know um another question between seven and nine thirty in the morning and maybe between

▶ 1:18:46 Robert A. Boisselle: four o'clock and 6 30 in the afternoon we're bumper to bumper from at least west wyoming to upham street and cars go right or they hit the pedal and they stride try to make the next light towards the hospital is there is there a traffic uh section in your group that control can control this typhoon you're asking to time the lights so that traffic flows well not even the timing i mean if we have to change the lights we'll probably go to dpw uh for that but is there a particular officer or two officers we do have a traffic sergeant and we do have an officer officer ford in the motorcycle right that works underneath him officer ford is out he's been out for since march with a shoulder injury oh okay back next month um but i can certainly pass on your

▶ 1:19:40 Robert A. Boisselle: comments to sergeant gawk about traffic sergeant it's it's just interesting i mean it's part of that is the timing on the lights whether or not time to release traffic in a smooth pattern so if you're going the speed limit ideally you would continue a nice smooth transition up main street melrose into wakefield or into malden well it's even amazing i'm waiting for public transportation at East Wyoming, and there's 18 cars lined up, and they're double, some going to the right down East Wyoming and some going to Malden, and they're all trying to get there as quickly as possible, but that 15th, 16th, and 17th car, they're in the rear, and when that lights turns yellow you can hear the engines speed up real quick trying

▶ 1:20:33 to make that light and there may be an accident one of these days that please send me an email on that so I can pass it on to the command staff and okay the day shift because some people are backed up beyond Dunkin Donuts and as a traffic moves out these people in the rear are having problems I'll could I ask you to narrow your scope a little bit more towards the budget rather i have my ammunition question but i wanted to get that traffic all right question i think you've made the point but we're on the budget so thank you mr chairman leeway that's quite all right uh please send me an email next in line we have alderman Medeiros please thank you uh thank you very much and i know we touched on some of these items uh in the previous order um i know you mentioned uh

▶ 1:21:22 Right now, again, can you confirm the number of officers that are on force right now, that are in this budget? Patrolmen or the entire PD? The entire PD. There's 31 patrolmen. 44. Go ahead, Chief. Sorry, 44. 31 patrolmen, eight sergeants, and four lieutenants and myself. And four lieutenants and one chief. In addition to that, there is three officers that are 50% through the Police Academy up in Redding right now. Are they in this budget here? Yes, they are in the budget. In the three offices, okay. It looks like we're getting three more officers, but we're not. We have an anticipation of a retirement this year. We have a promotion from patrolman to sergeant, so we're going to be plus one. By the end of the year, we'll be 32 patrolmen.

▶ 1:22:14 At the end of the year, 32 patrolmen. Okay. How does that compare to, say, the last five years or so? I would say it's been up and down. I know that back in 09, around 10, we took a bunch of transfers because we had a number of officers retire. So we really got hit hard that year. So we always look to take transfers because you don't have to spend six months in a police academy. well some of our transfers haven't worked out that well um they have they're just using us as a way station to move on with the next department um so in i could give you a definite answer if if you gave me a day or so i could pull all our records and give you a solid answer but i i'm saying oh nine ten we did have a big problem yeah i i would um definitely find that helpful

▶ 1:23:04 Monica C. Medeiros: to kind of see where we've been where we're going and then in terms of overtime um i think you said that at the end of the year we'll be at 420 000 no as of today i had jay a printer today it's um it's 424 453.99 in overtime 424 453.99 i'm going to call it 454. fine edge there um that's actual expenditures today yes okay as of uh monday and so when we're looking back obviously uh 2014 we're up over 400 000 in in overtime um how are we looking in the the previous year's past have we been um i actually i brought two years with me um this year it's in my overtime file i'm sorry And our overtime hours were about 7,000 hours last year, and we're about 150 hours behind last year, believe it or not, per million hours.

▶ 1:24:15 Monica C. Medeiros: But you have to understand also that the police department settled the contract, and they got a 6% raise July 1. So that impacted my budget going into this fiscal year, which obviously affects overtime and everything we do. Is some of that retroactive, or is that all? portion of our overtime is about 26,000 in there from last year retro and yet now we've got budgeted a hundred and eighty two thousand which is level funded from last year so yes so this is something and then it's just a Delaware so you can talk to you that we really are kind of purposefully under funding this line I wouldn't use those terms I think that's the best we can do at this time and going through chief is there anything in here that you know

▶ 1:25:13 didn't make the didn't make the cut as far as this year's budget that you'd like to see as far as the police department budget our salary and wages are given from year to year they're factored in some of our some of our line items uh you know i do a budget request every year uh like our postage for for instance we spend uh about 680 dollars a year to lease the machine and our postage line for the year it looks like it's 700. yes it's 700 also we we have a challenge and the majority of that postage is for police details tens of thousands dollars a week we bill out so that impacts our postage line that's just one example of some of our challenges that we face ammunition as as alderman Boisselle brought up but

▶ 1:26:21 every year i send a budget based on the management study that alderman khan brought up i looked at last year's expenditures to basically send this budget request in and if the funds are available Well, yes, if not, the Auditor's Office has worked with us in the fall or in January to see what can be done. We do have challenges like every department, I imagine. Right. And if I recall, it was a short while ago we brought in someone to help assist with the details, the collecting and the billing of the details and kind of help on the police station. i've had interns and they've basically they've gone to the post office for the girls and and did filing um we have a gracious lady rita corellis i know some of the board members may

▶ 1:27:13 know rita she comes in her fridays she helps with our court system and details okay and we're getting a little bit more back in per detail now well we increased last year the board approved we went from the administrative fee from 10 to 15 but more importantly which would certainly uh be pleasing to all the alderman right um i have a associate over in the city of somerville who was gracious enough to give me the language so that when somebody goes past 50 days we charge them an additional 15 percent late fee um and there's at least a half a dozen people going to court because they didn't they ignored it we have i think one contract is about 1200 1200 days out and have you seen a benefit to that uh increase in your budget is that coming

▶ 1:28:02 Monica C. Medeiros: that has nothing to do with the police budget that is uh just a separate line item for police details just for police i believe the funds go to the general fund the um is it 15 or so that goes yes on a private detail not not our city detail or this mass highway project there is no fees with that because it's a state run a federally funded project but the private details we collect 15 and that goes to administrative costs and that goes to administrative costs okay great and then so during this budget um just kind of the process like you i imagine you sit down with the administration you might have talked to them about the you said you'd send a budget memo about the things like the postage and and whatnot um i do a request every year and that was based

▶ 1:28:47 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: from the management study and when i spoke to mr pomeroy said this is a good approach to do is look for your shortfalls and then send a request and that's what i do okay and in that budget request did you request additional police officers i did not no i did not okay okay thank you thank you alderman medeiros next we have alderman Lemmerman please thank you mr chairman uh thank you chief just a couple of questions you mentioned the the line item for ammunition and that there were some costs because you had some men in academy and um do you anticipate having more um going through academy in this coming year i think it depends on november i'll be very honest with you i'm wondering there's a sort of a similar thing happening it looks like in

▶ 1:29:36 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: professional services here professional services that we use that for when we have to send somebody to a physician for a medical evaluation fit for duty exam that's why i put that line item in there what i was doing when we were really under pickle my former assistant came in and she assisted us with training our new staff and i use the professional service lines to compensate her okay so it seems like you've needed a little bit more than what's been budgeted in the last couple of years is that something that's happened um yes yeah okay um now i know last year when you were before us for the budget you talked you know and you talked tonight too about seeking grants as much as you can to supplement um you were getting a a 9-1-1 grant for overtime at last year is that

▶ 1:30:27 something that's still um you know i got sad news today i have a contact with state 9-1-1 and And generally, the grant applications are out in April. We haven't gotten them yet, and nobody's gotten them yet. And this person, probably off the record, said, you're not going to see it before, you know, the end of this fiscal year. Maybe sometime in the early part of next year, if you're fortunate. So I don't know where that's going. I have a call into the head of state number one. I have not heard back from him yet, Frank Pozniak. So those are some funds that you may not have access to. We count on them. We certainly count on them. that helps us with our recording system the playback system we recover our service contract

▶ 1:31:07 out of that we use that for salary and wage a copy machine in the pd there's a number of things that are supported through that grant and that's just one side of it the other side is the emd which the fire chief had alluded to the emd training 16 hours a year goes to our officers I know next year they're going to create that, they call it the next gen for 911, which will cell phones, pinpoint cell phone activity, so on and so forth, when somebody dials 911. So our training will be eight hours instead of 16 next year because part of it, the training will cover that 16 hours, that additional eight hours. But, you know, I don't know where that's at. I'm kind of puzzled. Okay. Okay. The funding source of that is when everybody dials 411, there's a fee attached to that,

▶ 1:32:01 and that's what funds the source. People don't really call 411 anymore, very much. No, I don't want them to continue, I get you. Something that I think a lot of us, you know, have read and that members of the public are reading in the paper feels increasingly, unfortunately, but fortunately you all are there, are the need for Narcan and the number of times I didn't get I didn't get to do an opening line tonight and certainly I will speak on Narcan if you'd like I would yes please please it's it's the number one line item there was a contract settlement with with the entire PD last year to deploy Narcan and our police cars and certainly I commend the mayor everybody involved both the unions the city officials everybody involved in it to date it went in the went into all

▶ 1:32:54 our mock units in late december last year and to date um between the meadows police department the meadows fire department and their ambulance crews they made the difference in eight people's lives they saved their lives we had an officer out of the academy two weeks uh john good you uh he deployed knocking on a friday the next night he deployed it again with the assistance of the fire department so kudos to him and not just not just to deploy it but having the sense when he's going into that type of call to bring in the narcan kit with them and most of our officers are doing that regularly now when they go into a call of a you know a person unconscious so they bring that in just in case and you know they brought people back wow well um i think it speaks to a a

▶ 1:33:43 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: frightening broader issue that a lot of communities are dealing with but um so this is not this is not a Melrose problem this is a you know a national problem certainly in the Northeast we're having it really really hit hard but every community around here is having the same difficulties we're so grateful that your officers are able to do that I mean eight eight lives is it's amazing you read more and more about the cost of that drug is increasing nationwide is that can you talk a little bit about our access to that well say we were very fortunate that the Middlesex da's office had foresight and they actually went for a grant and they were approved a grant and they uh they gave the city of meadow with the police department 40 doses

▶ 1:34:30 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: it has a one one year life and that's due to expire in september i have requested funding for for the narcan um again through the the da's office or well you know obviously that's a fallback if they get the grant i you know i don't know if the da's office has applied for it but certainly our stuff is going to expire in september so it's reflected in here um it is not it is not and i spoke to the auditor's office through jack on my budget lady and she had said she had a conversation with bridget gain and that in the fall that we would revisit that okay well i think we've certainly seen a need for it and um it's it's done its job several times so um that's all i have thank you very much you're welcome thank you alderman Lemmerman next in line

▶ 1:35:16 Jaclyn L. Bird: we have alderman bird please thank you mr chairman and um to follow up on on alderman Lemmerman questions um i had similar similar concern i noticed recently i think it was channel five a couple of nights ago was highlighting some of the um the per capita heroin overdoses in communities in massachusetts and we had about five that were right around us we were not on that list but they were communities that are either bordering or very close to melrose um so i'm happy to hear that that um our police department is on top of this and um that the officers are carrying uh narcan i'm a little concerned that it's not budgeted for next year um but i hope that our partnership with the da's office will continue on that um there was also another article recently

▶ 1:36:03 about what gloucester is doing to try to address some of these issues did you happen to see that and are we doing any of the same i'm actually friendly with the chief from glossy who's originally a lieutenant in in sagas pd okay um what what i have done with this five communities in a substance abuse coalition grant melrose reading wakefield medford and stoneham and we had a meeting last friday and we are all exploring this now to do a a community-wide program in each community where we pull our resources together and develop something along the lines of what what Gloucester is doing I mean there are some sticking points we looked at as far as transportation of victims most police departments that I

▶ 1:36:52 know of don't transport injured parties or ill parties and in this case here these people are certainly ill as far as our understanding would be sure okay excellent and then one other question when I was looking at the salaries line item and the breakdown of the salaries in the department do you still have a part-time administrative assistant yes not full-time Thank You mr. chairman Thank You alderman bird president Khan please yeah so one of the things that concerns me is that it looks like historically we've spent about four hundred thousand dollars per year on police overtime if we take 400 which is a as a conservative number and we deduct 182 that's budgeted it looks like we're short two hundred and twelve thousand dollars I'm concerned about that I'm

▶ 1:37:57 concerned about that when i think about it in conjunction with the school budget which we're going to be discussing in a few weeks which i believe will be about 800 000 which will need to be pulled from free cash um it makes me uncomfortable that if you add those two items together we have almost a million dollars that we know we're going to need to pull out of free cash and i understand and applaud mr delarusso for doing a great job last year and managing things but you know we don't always have three million dollars in free cash that we can fall back on it makes me nervous as we go through the budget if these numbers start adding up to two or three million dollars of things that we know that we're not really funding

▶ 1:38:42 through the budget but we're going to be funding through free cash down the line that we're going to potentially end up in difficulty and i hope that we don't uncover more instances like this as we go forward and i'm not being critical of the operation of the police department as i talked about when i began my remarks this evening i think we've opted to go for a lower number of offices relying on the fact that we have to spend a lot of money in overtime but if the budget is approximately 200 and the cost is approximately 400 then that's a budgeting problem that makes me have concerns thank you president khan and our city auditor mr delarusso has indicated that he would like to respond to your comments yes if i may through

▶ 1:39:35 the chair um i believe it was last year alderman khan also addressed the overtime issue what happened the previous year we were able to allocate 75 000 more for the fire department overtime 50 000 more for the police in overtime and 25 000 more for the police in training than we did in fy 14. what happened this year is my objective was again was to follow alderman khan's perspective there and do the same type of increase a steady increase no different than we've done in the past years for snow and ice and and um unfortunately two particular items hit that prevented that from really materializing the way i would love it to see it materialize there was no reflection on poor planning it was reflection on the realities of the day

▶ 1:40:27 we've only received to date um forty thousand dollars more in state aid than we did last year for the entire city of melrose 40 000 that doesn't even put a a dent in a 200 000 issue for overtime so that whole funding source as of today is 40 000 more than it was a year ago plus the unfortunate reality is i i was sitting here last year and i didn't have a 1.1 or 1.2 million dollar deficit to worry about in snow and ice i have to pay that bill so it's a matter of of balance for me and it's a matter of priority i would more than love the capacity to have given both departments additional allocation that we did the year before which was the intent but the fact of the matter is those two items really put a damper in it for this year so we're going to try to manage the

▶ 1:41:21 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: best we can to get through it again both chiefs do an excellent job but again those items are not here on the table a year ago and that's the reason the primary reason that we're unable to provide additional allocation at this time but the plan was to do that but um we lost that capacity because of the weather literally thank you mr delarusso um i see no further oh alderman mcintyre my goal is please thank you just um just a quick question on that um chief i think you indicated that um there were three um hires new hires in the academy yes it was only going to give you a plus one because of retirement was that correct that's one a potential retirement and an officer being promoted will that plus one help you in some small way with your i would think any any

▶ 1:42:14 officer that we are able to hire and put on a shift strategically will help help with anything to what extent it depends on a number of variables and there's unknowns the unknowns are military deployments illness injury certainly investigations those impact us tremendously and you didn't you also indicated I believe that you had someone out on a long-term disability who was going to do a retirement no this is separate I know I it's been brought to my attention then one officer will hit the plateau and max out is he has a service so would that allow you to hire another no one of the replacements is one of the three potentially the big the big problem we have in law enforcement certainly around here is if

▶ 1:43:03 we have a vacancy today I won't see it in a pen and I was able to put that officer in an academy tomorrow it's nine months nine months before we see a return and that's a long time that's why we always look to transfers but you know most apartments transfers don't seem to be working out that well it's a quick fix right right thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you all of them and next in line we have alderman bird please thank you mr chairman i just forgot to ask one thing chief when we talked about the narcan what would the price tag be that you had um mentioned was needed if we did not get the grant again from the middle 60s you know i estimated it at 1500 but um alderman Lemmerman

▶ 1:43:47 Peter D. Mortimer: has brought up the fact that the sure the more we're using the more the cost is up initially was around 40 a dose now it's up around 50. and we deploy we have two in each each vehicle so that if one doesn't work we give a second dose and you know generally ems is there by that so 1500 would be a low estimate of what you think it's a conservative number okay that's all thank you mr chairman thank you alderman byrd uh seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard we are recommend for a motion was that a motion to recommend alderman alderman lemmerman has made a motion to recommend department 211 the police budget that motion was duly seconded by alderman byrd all in favor uh you say aye any opposed hearing none uh this budget passes unanimously

▶ 1:44:38 Peter D. Mortimer: and will be recommended for passage to our final full board meeting when we close out the budget Mr. Chief, thank you very much for coming tonight. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you very much for coming tonight. One second, please. On a point of personal privilege, before we accept a motion to adjourn, we have- Not a personal- Magatia Margolis. Not a personal privilege, Mr. Chairman, but a motion to place the operating budget order number 2015154 on hold, as well as we already placed the appropriation order. Yes. Second. cash alderman mcintyre margolis has made a motion to place the budget order to what 2015-154 on hold that motion was duly seconded by alderman Medeiros thank you very much all in favor please say aye

▶ 1:45:29 Peter D. Mortimer: any opposed hearing none that order is continues on hold as we proceed with our budget deliberations through the next weeks until June 30th motion to adjourn by Alderman McAteer Margolis duly seconded by Alderman Byrd all in favor please say aye any opposed hearing none we are opposed thank you one and all have a great evening

Original documents

• Minutes (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda (IQM2 PDF)
• Agenda packet (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Other (CivicClerk PDF)
• This meeting on the city portal