Finance Committee — 2015-06-08
Attendance
Jaclyn L. Bird ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Donald L. Conn Jr. ; Scott M. Forbes ; Gail Infurna ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr.
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Participation
- Orders
- ORDER-2015-185 : Substance Abuse Prevention Collaborative Regional Grant Fund 4505
- ORDER-2015-186 : Transfer of $9,550.00 from Health Salaries & Wages to Health Professional Services and Health Seminars and Schooling as set forth within
- ORDER-2015-184 : Transfer to account 019162-548000 ("Medtax Exp Medicare Tax, City Portion") in the amount of $20,000.00; and Transfer from account 017522-549100 (Projected Debt Interest) in the amount of $20,000.00
- ORDER-2015-188 : Transfer $1,910.00 from A/C #011612-529301-City Clerk, Recodification to A/C #011621-512000-Election, Part-time Salaries & Wages; and A/C #011622-521500 - Election, Postage as set forth herein.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE FINANCE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 8, 2015 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:15 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 Scott M. Forbes Chairman Present John N. Tramontozzi Vice Chairman Present Jaclyn L. Bird Alderman at Large Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Absent Peter D. Mortimer Ward 6 Alderman Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present Robert A. Boisselle Nonvoting Member Present Gail M. Infurna Nonvoting Member Present Monica C. Medeiros Nonvoting Member Present In Attendance: Health Director Ruth Clay; CFO Patrick Dello Russo
ORDER-2015-185 Grant Substance Abuse Prevention Collaborative Regional Grant Fund 4505 Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2015-186 Transfer Transfer of $9,550.00 from Health Salaries & Wages to Health Professional Services and Health Seminars and Schooling as set forth within Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2015-184 Transfer Transfer to account 019162-548000 ("Medtax Exp Medicare Tax, City Portion") in the amount of $20,000.00; and Transfer from account 017522-549100 (Projected Debt Interest) in the amount of $20,000.00 Recommend as Amended Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 6/25/2015 6:36 PM Minutes Finance Committee June 8, 2015
ORDER-2015-188 Transfer Transfer $1,910.00 from A/C #011612-529301-City Clerk, Recodification to A/C #011621-512000-Election, Part-time Salaries & Wages; and A/C #011622-521500 - Election, Postage as set forth herein. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 6/25/2015 6:36 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Scott M. Forbes: Good evening. It is 7.15. This is Committee on Finance. My name is Alderman Scott Forbes. I'm the Finance Committee Chairman. With us tonight are Alderman John Tramontozzi, who serves as Vice Chairman, Alderman Jaclyn Bird, Alderman Peter Mortimer, and President and ex-officio member Donald Kahn, non-members of the The finance committee include Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Inferna, Alderman Medeiros. Do I have a motion for public participation? So moved, Mr. Chairman. Second. Public participation duly seconded. All those in favor? Aye. This is a portion of our meeting where anybody from the general public can come up at the table and speak on any of the four orders that are before us this evening.
▶ 0:54 Scott M. Forbes: Remind everybody about the audio. Motion to close public participation, seeing as no one's here. We have a motion to close public participation. Duly seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Public participation of our finance committee is now concluded. And before we get to our four orders, I just want to remind everybody that this meeting is being recorded on MMTV in accordance to our Massachusetts General Open Meeting Laws. First order before us tonight is Order No. 2015-185. It is a Substance Abuse Prevention Collaborative Regional Grant, Fund No. 4505. Motion to suspend the rules. Motion to suspend the rules by Alderman Byrd. Second. Second by Alderman Mortimer. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, the rules are now suspended.
▶ 1:38 Ms. Clay, good evening, how are you? Great, how are you? Great. Can I make a comment or statement on the order that we have before us tonight? Sure. This is a grant from the state health department with federal funds for substance abuse prevention, different than our drug free community grant. It is a regional grant with Melrose as the lead, with Melrose, Malden, Medford, Stoneham, Wakefield, Winchester. It's $100,000 a year for five years. No, seven years, sorry, different grants, different years, seven years. And it's modeled after the opiate regional grant that we're part of, that Medford is the lead within our public health coalition. We try to spread the wealth, so to speak, and different communities are the leads on different grants.
▶ 2:37 So we do have a separate grant specifically to deal with opiates. So this grant will be dealing with other drugs for all six communities. to get us to do things um in a similar manner similar policies similar board of health regulations motion to recommend for passage got a motion to recommend by all the mortimer second second by alderman byrd any discussion all the chairman so uh thank you um is this the um any uh city matching funds necessary for this no actually and just getting and just sitting um in layman's terms What is the money used for? What type of programs? Well, it's not used specifically for individual programs for individual kids. The thinking in substance abuse prevention at this point is,
▶ 3:35 they call them environmental changes, but changes that affect the whole community. That things like when the Board of Aldermen are really strict when there's sales to minors. that you really enforce it that changes the atmosphere of the community so that liquor stores know that we take it seriously about selling or serving to minors things like that things like working with the school department to make sure that their chemical policies are up to the latest information but not just Melrose's that the school departments in the six communities try have similar policies because these kids play each other in sports they know each other so it's important that there are the same consequences whether you're on
▶ 4:30 the Melrose football team or the Wakefield football team or the Malden football team so it's those kinds of things so most of the money is used to pay a person a staff person in between salaries and benefits you know how that adds up a full-time person who is trained in substance abuse prevention practices to coordinate those efforts great excellent thank you that's all that's all yeah all them Adair's I'm not a committee member I'm sorry I saw you raise your hand I'll remember I apologize you have a floor not a problem mr. chairman miss clay can you just repeat the duration of the grant how long it's for and then what our plan is for funding after that if we okay It's a seven year grant. Seven years, so we're not taking that far.
▶ 5:15 Monica C. Medeiros: Okay. Bunch of different grants, and we all have different time frames. That's good news, right? Seven years, yes. That's like an eternity. Okay, excellent, that's all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now, Alderman Madure. Thank you. Thank you, so just to clarify, the $100,000 is for the entire group of communities. It's not all coming to Melrose specifically. Well, the money is coming to the city of Melrose to be used for all the communities. doesn't say one employee that would be filtered through our right system right and that person will be a Melrose City employee and then just are we looking at when we're talking about like the kinds of things we're talking about keeping them all up to speed and up-to-date I'm hearing stories about drugs that are
▶ 5:59 like stickers and things about like dry alcohol or those kinds of things we're looking at the sticker ones that are like the old LSD yeah it's making a big come back you know it's it's kind of like whack-a-mole you know you deal with one and another one pops up so parents should keep an eye out for those absolutely and we just actually our substance abuse prevention coordinator just came out with a resource guide for a substance abuse that is really soup to nuts talks about counselors that are available inpatient places outpatient places housing assistance and it's a hard copy right now and we're putting it online so that we'll be able to keep it updated because you know as soon as you publish something it's out of date but we do have the hard copies that we're
▶ 6:53 Scott M. Forbes: distributing and hopefully in the next couple of weeks we'll have it up on the website so you can look at the Health Department website and then go to prevent substance abuse prevention that's great and glad to know some treatment information as well thank you thank you okay this order has been recommended and had duly seconded all those in favor all right any opposed all right this order will be recommended before the next board meeting which will take place on June 15th miss clay I think you're going to be speaking on behalf of the next order as well I believe it is two zero one five dash one eight six a transfer of nine thousand five hundred fifty dollars from health health salaries and wages to health professional services and health seminars and schooling as set forth within.
▶ 7:39 Yes, so basically what has happened this year is we haven't had one of our part time health inspector positions filled for a variety of reasons for five months. So we're basically using that salary money, transferring it to the expense side. And it's being used for two main things, one small thing. The small one is the seminars, and I think it's $200 to help us get us whole for some seminars. We have a lot of staff that need a lot of training, especially with new staff. The majority of the money is going into professional services, and it's for two main items. One item is we have hired a consultant, a food consultant who is helping train our new. We have two new inspectors. So she's helping, two things, she's helping train them, we're also behind in our inspections
▶ 8:38 because we've had that position not filled and another staff person on medical leave. So that person is helping us get caught up with our regular inspections as well as training. And then the other part of the money is being used to purchase a newer electronic inspection software system. We do use electronic inspection forms right now. We are, we're looking to kind of overhaul our whole food protection program. And we're applying for yet another grant for that. But whether without the grant, we want to move forward with the things that we can implement that don't cost money to bring us up to speed and help our restaurants also be at their best. Very well. Do we have any questions? Motion to recommend for passage, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 9:31 Scott M. Forbes: I have a motion to recommend by Alderman Mortimer. Second. Seconded by Alderman Byrd. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? This order will also be recommended for the full board on June 15th. Thank you, Ms. Blake. Next order, we have order number 2015-184 is a transfer to account 019162-548000, MedTax expense Medicare tax city portion in the amount of $20,000 in transfer from account 017522-549100 projected debt interest in the amount of $20,000. Motion to recommend for passage. Yes, Alderman Byrd. Mr. Chairman, actually this order needs to be amended. Maybe we can hear from the city auditor first, and then we can talk about amending the order as well. Yes, I see Mr. De La Rosa is here. Good evening.
▶ 10:31 Good evening. I believe this order's been requested to be amended from the original order request to the auditor's professional services. Account 011-352-529-000. And if I may speak to the chair. literally just happening within less than a week the public safety manager finance manager for the city jay akar has decided to go on to another position she's it will be leaving that post on june 22nd um the request in this order is to use the twenty thousand dollars that have that are not necessary now for the Medicare and allocate that to professional services so that we can not only bring on additional support in the interim, but at the same time provide from outside auditing for an internal control review before we actually fill the
▶ 11:49 position. Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. So are we filling this interim position with someone internally? Is that going from, I'm just not following what you just said, is that going from one department to the auditor's office? Yeah, it'll be, correct, it'll be strictly for the retention of an individual to provide services in the interim. But at the same time, the CPA firm that we're looking to retain will be charged with providing some internal control review. we're sure that what we're doing is is correct and efficient um so that the next person that occupies that position will have a streamlined function i think a little bit more than it is right now okay thank you mr chairman anyone else on discussion yes solomon yeah thank you so i'm
▶ 12:45 Jaclyn L. Bird: just a little confused so what is the um the transfer from what account to what account Do you have it, do you want to read it in? Okay. Same source of funds, that's correct, same source of funds, it hasn't changed. Mr. Chairman, I was going to wait until all the questions were finished, but I'm happy to do it now to make a motion to amend the order to read. Transfer to account 011352-529000 auditor expenses professional services in the amount of $20,000 and Transfer from account 017-522-549100. Projected debt interest in the amount of $20,000. All right, we have a motion. Recommend as amended. We have a motion from Alderman Byrd. Second the motion to amend. To amend the order and replace the MedTax expense Medicare tax city portion account with the auditor expense professional services account.
▶ 13:44 Scott M. Forbes: Second the motion to amend, Mr. Chairman. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That order will be recommended before the full board on June 15th. Thank you, Mr. Davis. Thank you very, very much. I'm sorry for the short notice, I just happened. The final order this evening is order number 2015-188 is a transfer of $1,910 from account number 011612-529301, city clerk recodification to account number 011621-512000, election part-time salaries and wages, and account number 011622-521500, election postage as set forth herein. Motion to recommend for passage. Second. We have a motion to recommend by Alderman Mortimer, duly seconded by Alderman Byrd. We do have, just for the general public
▶ 14:40 watching on tv we do have an email that was explaining this by the city clerk she could not be here tonight but it is a detailed email just explaining the uh the order that we do have before us uh we have a motion to recommend duly second and all those in favor aye aye any opposed this motion will be recommended for the full board item we have a motion to adjourn by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman byrd all those in favor finance committee is now adjourned My name is Peter Mortimer, and this is the Committee on Appropriations for the Melrose Board of Aldermen. It is June 8th, Monday at 7.33 in the evening. This is a committee of the whole. All members of the Board of Aldermen are members of this committee.