Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2015-06-18

Appropriations and Oversight Committee Meeting

This meeting starts at 40:42 in a recording that covers several meetings.

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

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 18, 2015 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:45 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: Chief Assessor Christopher Wilcock; City Auditor/CFO Patrick Dello Russo; Superintendent of Schools Cyndy Taymore; City Solicitor Robert Van Campen; IT Director Jorge Pazos

ORDER-2015-157 Ballot/Overide Order Order to Place General Override Question on the November 3, 2015 Biennial Election Ballot Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2015-168 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 198: Solid Waste, Sec. 198-3 Ashes and rubbish; yard waste; metal goods; collection fees as set forth herein. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2015-175 Accepting Act of Legislature/Local Option Clause 41C Senior Real Estate Exemption Local Options Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 7/9/2015 11:47 AM Minutes Appropriations Committee June 18, 2015

ORDER-2015-174 Accepting Act of Legislature/Local Option Senior Work Off Abatement Local Option Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2015-197 Contract Agreement between the Town of Reading and the City of Melrose for the provision of services by the Melrose Senior Health Inspector Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 7/9/2015 11:47 AM

Transcript

▶ 40:13 Peter D. Mortimer: This was a budget appropriations meeting. There will be another appropriations meeting starting in just a moment. First appropriations meeting is adjourned. Stay tuned for the second, please. Appropriations for the Melrose Board of Aldermen, it is a committee of the whole. I am Chairman Peter Mortimer, the Vice Chairman is Alderman Jacqueline Bird. We are also joined by Alderman Inferna, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Wright, Alderman Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis, Alderman Lemmerman, Alderman Forbes, and President Kahn. Is there a motion to open the floor for public participation? Alderman McAteer-Margolis has made a motion to open the floor for public participation.

▶ 41:37 Peter D. Mortimer: Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Byrd. On the motion to open the floor for public participation, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public participation is now open. And before I proceed with the public participation, I would like to note for the record, Sorry, it's the law, we have to say it under the state law, that this meeting is available on a DVD to be viewed in the future. And it's also available to be viewed on streaming video on the MMTV website and on the Melrose, Massachusetts website. The motion has been passed to open the floor for public participation. And I see the first public participant is Kristen Thorpe. you write your name and address there on the sheet in front of you please miss thorpe thank you for

▶ 42:39 coming please proceed thank you so as you said my name is kristen thorpe i live at 77 oneworth road and i'm the chair of the melrose school committee um i want to thank the alderman for what i hope will be a decision to bring the override to the people for their decision um in november I want to remind you that during our budget process on May 5th we we voted to pass the budget which you will be discussing on Monday in addition we voted to approve and support what we called the growth budget which is what we believe that the school system needs at this time to really move forward and that is the bulk of the override so we just want to remind you remind the public that the school committee is fully behind the amounts and the items

▶ 43:29 that we've listed in that request and we look forward to the continued discussion about the needs of the schools and the needs of the city between now and November thank you thank you very much mr. Thorpe any other public participants wishing to come forward mr. Keefe good evening sir thank you good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight in support of order 2015-157 regarding the override my name is Bill Keefe and I live at 17 Beverly Street I support the override question for many of the same reasons that have been publicly discussed of late I believe it is reasonable I believe it will strengthen our schools and public safety I believe it will help bring further fiscal stability to the city and I believe it will enhance

▶ 44:29 Melrose's future making it an even greater place to live than it already is I also like the fact that there are proposed mitigation measures to assist those for whom a potential increase would have the most impact. I fully understand and respect that there are others who do not share my beliefs, and I would not debate the issues in this forum and this chamber. Those issues should be debated civilly as part of a campaign leading to an election where all the voters of Melrose can have their say. Proposition 2.5, which created the limits on municipal taxation, was passed at the ballot box by initiative petition by the people, and the law provides an opportunity for the people to override those limits at the ballot box. By law, that opportunity is contingent on a vote

▶ 45:10 by the Board of Aldermen, and regardless of your personal stance on the issue, I respectfully request that you support this order to grant the people of Melrose the ability to vote on this important matter. If this was a reckless proposition, your important function as a check and balance on the executive branch may be needed to block this proposal from the ballot, but by any measure, whether one supports or opposes an override this is far from reckless considering it is a smaller request than the one that passed at the ballot box over 20 years ago therefore again i respectfully request that you support this order and allow the people of melrose to exercise a fundamental american right to vote thank you for your time and your consideration thank you mr keith good evening

▶ 46:01 good evening my name is kim la fontana i live at 75 hillside avenue and i'm here tonight to speak uh in support of order 2015-157 my husband dave and i have been residents of melrose for nine years we have daughters who are finishing first and third grades at the lincoln school we're strong supporters of public education we both come from families of educators and my husband dave teaches at chelsea high school i'm an active volunteer for several organizations including the lincoln school pto and the site council we strongly support the tax override we see this as a critical step in continuing to make progress to expand the breadth and quality of education available to the children of Melrose and

▶ 46:49 to meet each child at his or her own ability level we've been closely observing this year's school budgeting process and believe the superintendent a more has made a very strong case for the additional positions that the override would create in Chelsea my husband Dave has had the opportunity to work with and serve as an instructional coach for his ninth grade peers and feels very strongly that this position plays a critical role in advancing and unifying instruction provided to students so we encourage you to support the override order 2015 dash 157 and we thank you very much for your time of service and for the chance to speak tonight thank you miss LaFontana my name is Mimi LeMay and I live in one shipment Terrace I didn't prepare any formal

▶ 47:44 statements today so I'm going to be speaking off the cuff I am in support of order number two zero one five one five seven my husband Joe and I moved to Melrose in 2007 and one of the reasons we chose Melrose over some other neighboring towns that perhaps had better you know education statistics is that Melrose is up-and-coming and we saw a lot of promise in the community especially since we saw an influx of young young families like ours and young professionals who intended to raise their children in Melrose and that is what we are doing right now we have three young children ages six five and and we're just experiencing the Melrose education system for the first time and we're very pleased with what we see but we are also hoping that our excellent

▶ 48:28 superintendent who are very impressed with is given the means to grow this education system so that it is what we were hoping it would be when we moved in here and I think it can be and I think the will is here among the parents I've been hearing a lot of things from parents and they are desperate for they're biting at the at the leash to have a better system and we know that we have a superintendent and teachers and principals who can give that to us let's just empower them with the funds thank you thank you miss LeMay hi there my My name is Rebecca Gray. I live at 157 Beechoff, and I'm supporting Order 2015-157. I'm a parent in the community, a community member, and I've been an educator for 17 years.

▶ 49:30 I strongly support everything I've heard Mayor Dolan speak about, and I think from what I've been in schools schools and have seen that we've stretched our budget to the fullest it feels like every dollar matters in the school system and I see that from teachers requesting staplers on their gift list from parents to how much the PTO has to raise in order to bring enrichment programs to the schools to really support the innovation that teachers are looking for to all the academic initiatives we're making and I want to see a town that can support that that can fund all of the initiatives people are interested in I would like to see all learners from our most challenged to our most gifted and everyone in between have equal access to the curriculum and I'd like to see all

▶ 50:27 Jen Grigoraitis: teachers be able to realize whatever their educational dreams are for the students I feel that the mayor's laid out a very reasonable and achievable budget and I'm hoping that we can support that I'm hoping that each resident gets a chance to vote on that thank you thank you very much miss gray my name is Jen Gregoritis and I live at 419 Lebanon Street and I'm also speaking this evening on behalf of the override initiative my husband and I moved to Melrose three years ago and are raising our two young sons here my oldest son is just about to finish kindergarten at the winthrop school and i personally have over 15 years of experience in fiscal management at the state level and also in the private sector and i believe that

▶ 51:22 this makes sense for our city at this point in time so i would very much ask the board of aldermen to consider this and let the city of melrose vote on it thank you thank you very much any other members of the public wishing to go forward thank you very much please step forward hi my name is Alice Shattuck. I live at 140 Grove Street in Melrose and I wanted to thank everyone tonight for letting me come and voice my concerns about this order number 2015-157 and about placing this on the ballot this year. You know I come to you as somebody who moved to Melrose about four years ago. We have two young kids and we have another one on the way this fall so I'm definitely invested in having great schools here I grew up in Lexington actually so I'm very familiar

▶ 52:22 with overrides and with the impact that they have on the communities one of the reasons that my husband and I chose Melrose and came to live here was because the city does take such a balanced approach to really making sure we invest in the needs of the schools and also in many of the other really important things that add so much value to this community. We've been really thoughtful about what we've done here in Melrose. I never see the Board of Aldermen turn down requests from the schools. And overall, I think we're really thrilled with how Melrose handles their budget in their schools. However, as I've gotten kind of more involved, my sister, my daughter is going to start kindergarten in fall of 2016. So I've kind of followed more

▶ 53:11 of the discussion on the boards. There's the Melrose education group on Facebook. There's the Real Moms of Melrose group, the Melrose community group. And I really follow a lot of these conversations that parents are having. And I have heard some things that have concerned me about how things are handled in the schools. To quote some of the comments that people make, a really big concern for a lot of parents has been the rigor and the standards at the kindergarten level you know one parent said kindergarten needs to be a time of discovery exploration developing a love of learning we need to maintain two physically active breaks our students have now one was almost taken away last year snack at my daughter's school is supposed to be a working break time per

▶ 53:54 the administration so while they're having a snack they're supposed to be actively working with a pencil in hand another parent robot I so wish that the teachers could speak freely about what they believe would be ideal because they They know what is really needed, but I know that my daughter's teachers and all the teachers are in such a bind with what they can say around administrators without jeopardizing their relationships and in some cases their job security." Again, these are comments from current Melrose parents. Another issue that concerned me was the way that the kindergarten placements were handled this year. I saw parents talking about how sometimes they would request one school and get another

▶ 54:35 only to see that another parent was in the opposite situation and had been placed in the school that they wanted, although they had chosen a different school as their first choice. One parent wrote, we ended up with Winthrop. I'm hoping I can switch. I've heard of other families that got Hoover but wanted Winthrop. Another parent also wrote, how could people with Horace Mann as a first choice not get it when others got it and it was not their first choice? I think that a lot of times parents, we as parents, when we come forward to schools with these concerns the answer that we hear is there's not enough funding we're overcrowded we don't have funding but to me the quotations I'm hearing and what concerns me is that these don't seem to be

▶ 55:19 funding issues these seem to be problems with the way the current funds are administered additional funding isn't going to lead parents and teachers to believe that the administration is more supportive of them and listens to their concerns more additional funding has already been approved by the Board of Alderman for additional kindergarten classrooms so there's not a funding issue behind the kindergarten placements and in general I don't believe that funding is the answer if parents or teachers believe that there are culture problems in an administration or that the administration isn't reflecting their particular educational values I really I really believe that that when you have an administration that you think it's doing all the right things

▶ 56:09 and everything you want and they really share your goals that more funding can make a difference but I don't think that it's going to change the priorities and I think in general you actually really do see the priorities of a school administration when you have limited funds and that I have concerns about giving two million dollars to people who based on things I'm hearing it doesn't seem like they're listening to parents and teachers for example with the shift in the kindergarten curriculum to be more rigorous and standards-based my understanding is that when the full-day kindergarten program was implemented this was a program that was fully paid for by state grants and it paid for itself it didn't cost the city anything I'm not sure whether that's still the

▶ 56:59 case or if it's costing the city anything I haven't heard or seen any analysis of what that costs now but I for one would rather have the option to put my child in half-day program if I'm not happy with what's happening in the full-day program and and that kind of choice if we don't have it and if full day kindergarten is actually costing the city money is the kind of choice that that I'd like to have as a parent and that's not going to be solved by more funding really I can't see that the schools in Melrose are systematically underfunded at all according to the most recent census figures from the federal government 28% of the households in Melrose have children under the age of 18 and yet when you include things like health insurance and pensions and other

▶ 57:49 things almost you know in 40 to 50 percent of the city budget flows to the schools in some form or other and that's right now we're lucky that we live in a community we're very fortunate to live in a community where the schools are so highly valued and where the whole community is together in making an investment in the schools schools that are underfunded for example would include those in Malden right now where they're cutting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the budget because they have a tremendous shortfall and they're losing about 20 teaching positions I mean that's what underfunding looks like and to me I don't see this in Melrose as a matter of fact I mean just since the beginning of 2015 watching the Board of Aldermen I've seen you know over six

▶ 58:35 million dollars in additional non school budget spending go to the schools in terms of the the high school improvements in terms of the Hoover School window improvements this isn't this isn't a community that's cutting from schools or underfunding them or taking away from them so I'm concerned because I did growing up in Lexington here a lot of times parents accused people of not wanting to support the schools and I feel that there are a lot of people in the community who are already doing much more than their fair share happily to help support the schools and that we already lean on them a lot there's not a reluctance here to fund educational priorities we're also hearing a lot right now about the demographic shift that's a big cause for

▶ 59:23 asking for additional override funds that you know we have a growing school age population and we're going to have this Armageddon of additional children that we need the extra funding for but from what I can see from the proposed use of funds I don't see that this is really going to a long-term plan for dealing with a demographic shift first of all we don't know that there's necessarily a demographic shift happening this year's kindergarten class was very large but looking at the enrollment figures published by the school committee there doesn't appear to be a visible long-term trend towards more students in the schools over the last five or so years certainly there's not a trend towards more in the middle and high schools where five of the

▶ 1:00:06 positions are going to fund additional electives there's and the you know if we do have additional kids coming into the elementary schools none of the positions funded by this override are additional classroom teaching positions so that's going to be more positions that are going to come up if this is an issue on the last time I watched the superintendent speak on this she said that everything is on the table when it comes to addressing having additional students in the schools including potentially reopening the Beebe school and I have a fear that we might really regret spending two million dollars on a wish list of nice-to-have positions when we might need to spend millions on reopening a school or renovating or building a new school to deal with a

▶ 1:00:56 demographic issue that we might have that so I really believe that it would be nice to know the results of that demographic study before we go forward with spending this money and finally I really am concerned about the impact on the whole community I think as parents we spend so much time and energy on our kids and we love our kids and we think a lot about them and what's best for them and you know we spend a lot of time around other parents at playgroups and you know in PTOs and in school pickups and drop-offs and you know we forget that sometimes there are other people around us who you know have other needs and other priorities and I mean I for one was surprised to see that 28% figure that only 28% of the households in Melrose have kids under 18 because it

▶ 1:01:47 seems like more to me because I'm a parent so more of the people I know our parents also and you know there are so many other people in Melrose you know we have neighbors who are older which is great my kids my daughter lost one of her grandmother's when she before she was even two so she calls our next-door neighbor her other grandmother I think that having this community around us having great local businesses in our downtown that we can visit is so important and that that the costs of this override which really multiply out exponentially over time and are on top of other costs that are growing like water bills like utility bills that they're gonna really drive out some of these people and some of these other demographic groups that add so much

▶ 1:02:38 richness to our community and I I think there's actually a lot more to be valued in having you know these other groups of people and the downtown where we can go that that I think it counts for more between between those things than having the extra academic facilitators and extra electives at the high school those things are great but if we have to choose I choose a community where we have room for everybody and we're welcoming of families and households of all shapes and sizes I don't want to see us spend the next six months as a community throwing away you know working together towards common goals and having this huge divisive pitched battle between parents on one side and seniors on another side and everyone fighting over

▶ 1:03:31 it because I grew up in a town where we had yes and no lawn signs out every year and it's so frustrating to see a community split apart like that and people feeling like they need to fight each other because I really believe that in this city we can have great schools and we can also have a community that's welcoming to everyone so i appreciate your time and i urge you to consider that these other groups of people very carefully um you know who aren't maybe on the pto email list to come in tonight that that uh before we we make a decision to go forward with this override thank you thank you ms shattuck Good evening, Mr. Dedma. Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you this evening.

▶ 1:04:38 And my comments refer to Order 2015-157. And I totally agree with all the comments made by the previous speaker. She did, I think, a great job in articulating many of the issues that I was going to bring up. In fact, I hope not to be redundant, so I crossed out some information here. You will soon be, I've got some written comments that I'd like to read, if I may. You will soon be voting on whether to put on the November ballot a request for an override to provide extra money to the school system. And I just want to say initially that I'm all for education. I feel obviously that's the way to success. So the better education that we can give our students, the better chance of them succeeding in life.

▶ 1:05:22 And I've been in the city for, my wife and I, for 40 years. All three of our children went through the Melrose public school systems in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. They went on to have very successful college experiences. And so I attributed that to the success they had and the learning that they experienced in Melrose public school system. So I'm all for the public school systems. I'm all for Melrose education. But what I wish to address are some of the issues I see and which were described by the previous speaker. The question you should be asking is why is there, one of the things is why is there so much free cash each year even after months of budget meetings? We seem to have a significant free cash every year to pay for purported structural deficit.

▶ 1:06:14 Now in the last two years we've had in the school department structural deficits. This is what we've been told by the superintendent and the mayor. Somehow, this extra cash comes up and pays for this structural deficit. The schools seem to have slush funds in their budget every year to pay for things which were never budgeted, such as a pot of cash to be distributed among non-union senior school staff and be allocated by the superintendent. Is it really coincidental and random that we have so much free cash at the end of each year? Also, I have noticed that when other cities decide on an override, they establish special financial committees and groups made up of residents as well as city officials and school officials, and

▶ 1:06:57 develop a comprehensive plan as well as justification for the added money. And no such group was ever formed by the mayor or the superintendent as far as I'm aware. What they presented is a wish list, and we all have wish lists, right? We all have wish lists that we'd like to have things. But in reality, money is limited, resources are limited, and you have to make tough choices. And you have to live within those choices. We all do with ourselves, our home, our budgets. And I think the city needs to do that too, and certainly the school department. You all have an important job to do, and it's not just the rubber stamp proposals brought to you. From appointing committee members to determining water sewer rates, or putting proposition two and a half overrides on the ballot.

▶ 1:07:43 Our charter makes you the gatekeepers, it's your responsibility both to evaluate and carefully exercise your authority judiciously in this democratic process. It's not good enough for you just to go along with what comes before you. Do your job that you were elected to do so, as well as doing due diligence concerning the budget. Not because it's just a pot of money, as the school says, but because it's the public's money. The easy thing for you to do is to pass this proposal along to the voters in some politically correct context, like let the voters have their say. Why wouldn't you pass it along to them? This is a democracy, correct? Right. You have a specific role to fill in this democracy.

▶ 1:08:26 Presumably you have some keen insight into local government and its actual needs. Presumably you can make a quantitative and qualitative decision from a unique and informed perspective. There are many valid reasons why any random two and a half override shouldn't just be passed along to the voters. It's your job to respect those reasons in this case. The easy thing politically may be to shirk your responsibility to evaluate the proposal carefully. Please realize that this is a large amount of money that represents only a small gesture in improving the schools. Tell the school committee to work to create a plan for comprehensive change in the school system before you let the voters consider giving them $2 million more to do whatever they like to do on their wish list.

▶ 1:09:12 Please keep in mind that thousands of Melrose residents live on fixed income, and even if you think $300 or $400 isn't a lot of money, to some it means that they have to make decisions about the quality of food they eat or the quality of life they live. When rents go up and property taxes go up, real people are being impacted. know many of you alderman personally i know you're all decent honest people uh do your job as you were elected to do so that's all i ask thank you thank you mr detmer hi my name is katherine saragosa i live at 78 walton park i didn't prepare anything until just now so i'm sort of going off the cuff as did mimi um we i moved here with my husband in 2007 shortly after my son was born

▶ 1:10:10 and my husband and I are both in support of 2015 157 my kids are at Roosevelt they'll be entering first and fourth grade and I'm very active in the school community and and the PTO as I said I didn't formally prepare anything I will keep this short I did email all of you so I know you've you've seen that but what I would like to say is that I feel strongly that this should be put forward onto the ballot so that people of Melrose can spend the next several months educating themselves on the pros and cons and debating their opinions in a healthy fashion with their neighbors right now there seems to be a lot of chatter about this override but there are many in the community who know little of the details i'd like to make this official so that

▶ 1:10:51 people can form an opinion and exercise their right to vote melrose is an amazing city and it's growing as can be seen by the need for more kindergarten classes in this coming year we need this funding so that we can keep up with the needs of this lovely city thank you for letting me speak and for all that you guys do for the city very much are there any members other members of the public wishing to come forward to be heard good evening sir he moved first but you got here first quick like that my name is mike aldrich i live at 146 lynn phillips parkway I didn't prepare any words either, but in listening to what I've been hearing thus far, it does appear that there are a lot of different opinions, a lot of views on this issue.

▶ 1:12:12 And I do feel that we deserve it to ourselves and our kids. I have three young kids, one starting Roosevelt next year. think we we deserve it to ourselves to uh to discuss this issue further and to uh to have a uh have the public have the right to uh to to make their decision on this that's all i'd like to say thank you sir thank you good evening good evening i'm jerry morose here to talk about the trash feed Seriously. Don't worry, I'll get to school. Solid waste is on your agenda tonight. And I do pick up on some of the concerns that the aldermen have expressed that we're paying for our solid waste removal about $1.2 million a year as a contract. the trash fees that we apply to all the households in the city apparently amount

▶ 1:13:30 to about 1.9 million I don't have the exact number but that there is a profit that the city is making on what they require people to pay to have their solid waste removed and I don't you know fundamentally I don't I don't believe that that's a proper fee it's fine to pay for the all the costs related to solid waste but when the collection and tipping fees and everything amount to so little to be charging so much I think is inappropriate now I'll go on to the schools I am the tired old voice saying the school committee hasn't asked for enough money from the city to do the right things for our students I've watched for many years how local politics harms the schools by constraining superintendent after superintendent from asking for

▶ 1:14:13 sufficient funds to build a competent school system as a person prodding for more money it may appear at first glance to be a contradiction but I believe that this overrides as proposed will only be an enabling device for the schools to continue the long-standing dysfunction rather than improving as they must more money isn't the problem right now the problem is a dysfunctional structure the problem with this proposed override is that it won't make the schools into what our children need it's a good change here that there's finally an acknowledgement that we need to do something more but the ask for these millions of dollars of additional dollars didn't come out of any valid process of examining the schools and determining what needs to be done better

▶ 1:14:58 or differently the ask is only made within the context of adding some marginal positions on the service on the surface of a fundamentally broken system the money requested in the positions purportedly funded would only put new frosting over the same stale cake. You've frosted this cake so many times before, co-teachers, science kids, smart boards, textbooks, science labs, full-day kindergarten. No matter how many times you've re-frosted the cake with new frosting, it looks appealing initially only to the uninformed, and then only for a short while until they slice into the frosting to discover the old stale cake inside. After that wears off, the mayor looks for some new funding to mix up some new frosting.

▶ 1:15:42 time around, it's these random marginal positions. They don't represent good structural change. They won't even likely remain in place when this superintendent leaves, just as this superintendent frosted over Joe Casey's last attempts. Now, the override machine has begun churning. Most of the money is aimed at the schools. The misinformation is already becoming very widespread. There are many misstatements that have been made already in the paper. It was claimed that it isn't easy to evaluate competing priorities when resources are constrained. That's plain wrong. The most visceral way to evaluate competing priorities is when a decision has to be made to fund one thing over another. Nothing clarifies your values better than deciding one over the other.

▶ 1:16:32 The irresponsible way is not to evaluate year after year and reach into the taxpayers wallets funding many unevaluated priorities with an override when they just get too expensive in doing so the taxpayers end up paying for unproductive and unproven strategies the override won't help evaluate priorities when the school committee refuses to do so override supporters stroke many egos claiming the budget is so wonderful today but just needs a little bit more funding it isn't isn't it interesting that the people coming out in favor of the override are typically the same types of people, always in favor of spending more money from the taxpayers without showing their thought as to the investment objective or the investment return.

▶ 1:17:18 It's telling that those same people show up and say something when they want to fund specific, sometimes politically correct positions which resonate with them, often elementary library media specialists we've heard about for years, and music directors, fine arts directors. wonderful positions, aren't they? They are. Who could be opposed? But looking at such positions in the narrow view with blinders on prevents everybody from seeing the gaping holes in the system when all they care about is getting a certain parochial interest funded. That's not structurally making our school system better. The people supporting overrides will say that the money would fund some vision for continuous improvement under the premise

▶ 1:18:01 that a few marginal positions that we're talking about funding will cause some grand educational improvement here in Melrose they have they never have before and they won't do so in the future not long from now this superintendent this administration will be gone just like the one before this in the one before that all the money in the city thrown at the schools during the tenure of each has been used to make it appear as if the schools are doing wonderful and grand things new frosting on the stale cake when they end up just hiding the fact that the schools aren't doing the proper things at their core in fairness the superintendent has changed a few things but they are so little in so late that the schools won't become

▶ 1:18:42 what the children need them to be before she's gone I always believe the school committee needs to engage finally and not continue their cheerleading from the sidelines they need to lead the schools to reframe how we educate our students the world has changed considerably but the schools have clung to the status quo The game we play at budget time of who yells the loudest for a director of fine arts or elementary library media specialist, a director of instructional technology, or any of the positions that are proposed for this override, they all sound so wonderful. But it's the education policy equivalent of a children's Disney movie. Hiring them doesn't do anything to improve the lot of the majority of our students.

▶ 1:19:31 The people who promote the two-and-a-half override, they have all the buzzwords down. They want to use curriculum materials and digital resources, teams of educators, the politically correct STEM, art, music, social studies, expanding options, reducing class sizes. It's a wonderful world. Help accommodate the growing elementary population. As speakers have pointed out, the proposed override doesn't fund those things, and the positions it would fund won't improve them. Throwing more money at the schools in the past hasn't made them perform well. The schools use most money to pay administrators and teachers more money today than ever before. But the structure within which they work isn't productive.

▶ 1:20:14 In fact, there is less teaching of worthy subjects than there was 20 years ago. Administrators today have to be more concerned with skewed incentives in attempts to make them look good on tests that are designed to identify that places like Lawrence or Holyoke are doing virtually nothing for many of our children, but that's what we're all focused on. The override committee people will say that there is no money available except through an override. I don't believe this is true. They say that money can't be found in the current budget or through regionalization. I think that's wrong. Every year the city and the schools, and as one of the speakers pointed out, find extra money to spend on things which never were budgeted and the huge the huge free

▶ 1:20:58 cash of the last few years you know is a prime example of that and if we expect continued growth in the city with higher property values and higher I'm sorry I meant to say with more new growth that will be better for us let's talk about regionalization though it's a it's a subject that I talk about frequently has Has a school committee here ever gotten together with surrounding towns to explore what they could regionalize and why it would be best for students? Even better for students, far more than just saving money. To her credit, the superintendent has done a couple small things through the same collaborative. If we were to regionalize as few as just our redundant administrative functions with a

▶ 1:21:39 few towns around here, we would free up over $1 million a year for Melrose to do more productive things for our students. say let's do that before we have an override more importantly though than the money doing so could frame the structural change the towns around here need to move our education to a higher level the mellow schools could be the innovators whom parents want to send their children to instead of to the charter schools we hear a lot of people here with complaints about the funds spent to the charter schools if we do a good job people will come if we do better people will come that could then bring back many Melrose children back to the community so they're part of our community instead of part of a different

▶ 1:22:25 one and it could also bring back a couple million dollars if we do it well we aren't trying to do that with a few positions on the margins in the school system by this override the school committee itself has never never engaged in evaluating that priority and it never will as long as you keep throwing them easy money maybe you actually have to cut the school's budget by two million million dollars to make them reevaluate what they do, make them make some hard choices, make them figure out a more efficient and more effective way of getting education accomplished for our students. Even then, it isn't likely that they would. They would likely cut teachers, counselors, and psychologists instead.

▶ 1:23:06 The problem we have with the disengaged school committee is that the very administrators whose jobs need to be consolidated with those in other towns aren't likely to cut their own positions independently I actually offered to the school system when Joe Casey left or was but was going to leave that we go into a submissive role in a regionalization proposal it would have worked out well I believe nobody would listen override supporters also use the same language we've heard so many times we are only one crisis away from very difficult choices and cuts to me that betrays a position of intellectual laziness there are difficult choices we should be making every day if in this city if policymakers were doing their

▶ 1:23:50 jobs correctly and and with effort throwing another two million dollars a year at the schools without making the right choices in advance will only make waste money while enabling in perpetuating what I do believe is a dysfunctional system we don't need a naive simplistic solution here it's It's not just spend more money on what we're already doing, it's not just add a few positions and the cake is re-frosted and we all want to eat it. I don't see evidence that the people behind the override have looked carefully at the schools. What the schools do, why they do what they do, and what could be different fundamentally in our schools. I think this is maybe a time we should look at that. It's difficult work and it takes a commitment that most people either can't or aren't willing

▶ 1:24:44 to give. It's much easier to sign on to a pro-override campaign than engage in difficult policy analysis. For political reasons, the Board of Aldermen approves the school committee request every year. It's done this even though the school committee hasn't really allocated money responsibly for the long term. You think of things like textbooks replacements that you funded, technology upgrades you're about to do. There are so many problems that you've thrown money at, science, kids, everything else. We've done it for years and years. When the schools haven't done their job, we've kicked it in and done our part more. But you've enabled them. Mr. Moroz. Yes. We have a ten minute limit, you've been speaking for 13.

▶ 1:25:27 Please get ready to wrap it up. Thank you, I will. Anyway, I would ask that instead of sending this override to the voters now, please ask the school committee to re-examine what the schools do and how they do it. only after the school committee finally makes responsible and critical decisions about the school with a real plan should you ask the voters to consider giving them more money i don't see that this proposal is competent and again i ask please don't send this override for insufficient marginal change to the voters ask the school committee to go back into the kitchen they need to mix up some new cake batter put it in the oven cook it up and make certain it tastes good if it's good it won't need frosting of any type people will eat it directly

▶ 1:26:12 Peter D. Mortimer: from the pan thank you thank you sir are there any other members of the public wishing to participate make any comments seeing none at this time is there a motion please Alderman Inferno has made a motion to close public participation said motion is duly seconded by Alderman Lavender I've known you since you were a little kid, sorry. That's true, that's all right, we're good. All in favor of the motion to close public participation, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, public participation is now closed. The first order we have before us is order 2015-157. Order to place general override question on the November 3rd, 2015 biennial election ballot. Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend for passage by Alderman Inferna.

▶ 1:27:33 Peter D. Mortimer: Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Lemmerman, by a hair, McAteer-Margolis. On discussion. Motion to suspend the rules to hear from the administration relative to the proposed override. Second. We have a motion to suspend the rules to hear from the appropriate city officials by President Kahn, duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, we will hear from the appropriate city officials. Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Good evening. Members of the committee. I'm joined this evening by Chris Wilcock, the city's chief assessor. His office, my office, and the chief financial officer's office have been coordinating the mechanics of placing an override ballot question on the biennial election ballot on November 3rd of this year.

▶ 1:28:24 At the outset, Mr. Chairman, I just want to inform the members that the question before the committee this evening is not about the merits of the question, but about the question itself. So I want to point that out, understanding there will probably be some debate about the merits of the question this evening. The process, Mr. Chairman, for placing an override question on the ballot is a rigid statutory process. The question itself is a creature of statute. There's no flexibility. There's no pride of authorship. We have no ability to revise what the question looks like. The question that is before you attach to the order is embedded in the statute. The one thing I would point out, Mr. Chairman, the only thing that there is some flexibility

▶ 1:29:15 on is the purpose of the question itself, and that purpose has been vetted through the Department of Revenue's Division of Local Services and they have approved the form of the purpose that is contained within this question so also want to point out for members there have been questions raised that the ballot question itself given that it's being placed on the city's election ballot and not the state election ballot only requires approval of this board to place it on the ballot there's no jurisdictional authority or approval authority by the secretary of state's elections division so it's exclusively the purview of this board notifying the city clerk to place this on the municipal election ballot thank you thank you

▶ 1:30:05 city solicitor van campen do you have any comments okay that covers it all are there any questions or comments from members of the board president khan please yeah i just have a question for mr van campen my understanding is that in order to place this on the ballot we could vote now we could vote at our july meeting or we could potentially even vote in our august meeting is that correct correct so there's no procedural time crunch that we're under here in terms of the only procedural time crunch that you're under um is that the ballot question be forwarded to the city clerk within 35 days of the municipal election okay so this This was a state, just not to cut you off, but if this was a state election ballot, the deadline for that would be the first Wednesday in August.

▶ 1:30:53 Peter D. Mortimer: Yeah, I understand that. So we have quite a bit of time if we want to avail ourselves of it to discuss this order. That's the only question I had for this gentleman. Thank you, President Khan. Any other aldermen wishing to be heard? Alderman Medeiros, please. Thank you. First, I would like to, well, we had received a memorandum or email from the mayor's office in regard to the purpose of the use of the override funds back on May 19th and I'd like to move that this get added to the body of the order in IQM2. Alderman Medeiros has made a motion regarding a memo that was sent to us by May 19th, on May 19th, regarding the purpose of the memo. She has made a motion that this be included in the official record on IQ, excuse me, M2.

▶ 1:31:54 Second. Second the motion. That motion is seconded by President Kahn. On discussion, seeing none, all in favor of the motion to add that memorandum to the official record, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, That memorandum is added to the official record. You still have the floor, do you have more? Thank you, yes, I was just hoping Mr. Wilcox could discuss the method that's been used to calculate what this amount means. The Department of Revenue has on their website a financial calculator for estimating the property tax impact of any override or debt exclusion. I've used their form and that's how I arrived at the numbers. and can you explain what what that is sure I actually have a copy and I'll

▶ 1:32:47 send it to everyone after the meeting basically you go in and you choose your community it backs into the last tax rates that were approved this was our fiscal 2015 tax rates what it does is it increases the levy amount uses the same shift that we voted on and it backs into what the increase is for the residential and for the commercial tax rate and does that include both the average anticipated increase that we're going to see when we set the tax rate in November that's just for what we are in this year and at this currently we do not have the values for fiscal 2016 nothing's approved from the Department of Revenue the only values that we have available at this time of 2015 so it's just using those values

▶ 1:33:34 right now okay and will this how is this actually collected from the residents is this collected all over the course of 12 months or is this my understanding is that when if this were to pass and go into effect that the increase would be actually collected over six months is that correct we have a quarterly billing system this increase would be taken out of the third and fourth quarter it would be split in half just just like any other increase thank you thank you alderman Medeiros any other alderman wishing to be heard seeing none we have a motion on the floor made by alderman ferner to recommend this order for passage to the full board it was duly seconded by alderman Do we have any other public officials that want to, administrative, to talk?

▶ 1:34:36 If you have further discussion, if you have questions of other officials that you'd like to see, we can continue the discussion before we call for the vote. Do you have anyone who you'd like to question, Alderman Boisselle? Not tonight, Monday night I do, but. All right, then. President Kahn. Yeah, I have discussion. Very good, please continue. Yeah, before Mr. Wilcox leaves, we're all sitting here in this room and we all have a lot of information that we receive either as public officials or people who are involved in the ballot initiative. But people at home don't necessarily know this. Can you explain the impact that you think this would have on the residents if this were to pass? will have a handout or something on the website that explains the impact it

▶ 1:35:29 actually goes by assessed value it has both tax rates I will make that available to everyone it's it's basically adding 57 cents on the residential tax rate and it's adding 83 cents on the commercial tax rate and if need be we will have a calculator that can calculate the impact for those increases okay what do we think the impact would be on this person who lived in the average yep I have a new home in Melrose based on the numbers that we have in front of us the impact is 244 dollars per year on the average assessed value and this is a this is a general override is my understanding is that correct mr. van camper it's actually referred to as a levy limit override okay but it is a general over so we've identified positions and things of that

▶ 1:36:20 nature that we would like to see funded here but if this passes it's just general fund money 2.2 million dollars of general fund money will be raised is that correct yeah the point to be made is in the first year the funds have to be used for the stated purposes so if there is a menu of items i'll refer to as the funds in that first year would have to be expended on those items in ensuing fiscal years it would become a permanent part of the city's taxing authority to be used for other purposes yeah i have the dubious distinction of being probably the only one in the room here who's been a veteran of four three or four override campaigns so i've seen general overrides and specific purpose overrides and this is not money that's always going to be earmarked for a

▶ 1:37:04 specific purpose it's it will in year one but thereafter it rolls into the general fund correct and essentially what happens is the increase may be 240 dollars in year one and then it's going to increased by the two and a half percent in each succeeding year is that not correct i believe the calculation actually would be separate um there's the the regular levy that would be adjusted by the two and a half percent by prop two and a half right and then this would be added in after i can send you a copy of the actual form and how it's taken out right but i think we can probably take notice of the fact since i started sitting here in 1990 and i've never seen us not go to the two and a half limit that whatever additional monies we raise are going

▶ 1:37:46 to be increased by two and a half percent each year thereafter i i i think and i want the chief assessor to answer this but i think the i think the reality is the levy limit itself on the two and a half increases by two and a half but the the levy limit override that would be approved by the voters on november 3rd would not also be compounded by a two and a half percent increase in ensuing years well it would raise the amount of money by 2.2 million dollars on which the levy limit would be calculated each year so it would have a two and a half percent increase unless i'm wrong in my math and i have been before but that's my understanding the understanding of debt exclusions and overrides are after the two and a half percent um i can send you the

▶ 1:38:26 form that that calculates that but is my understanding that it's separate not included in the two and a half above okay um thank you for that i do have some other commentary i didn't really think that we were going to go straight to a vote on this so um and with with respect to the city solicitor um i do think we have the ability and perhaps the responsibility to have some discussion about the merits of the override um and how this how this will unfold going forward and this this is the way i would look at the proposal mr chairman and not that this is the correct way and again with respect to mr ditmer i don't i've sat here for a long time but i don't think i have any wisdom uh that's beyond anybody else out in the public i don't think sitting here

▶ 1:39:20 is alderman we necessarily know more or less or or wiser than anyone else here but um number one the threshold decision we have to make is whether we're going to put this question on the ballot And it seems like an easy question and that we should put everything on the ballot that's put before us. But I do think we have to make some kind of baseline analysis to determine whether this is a question that rises to the level that we should put it on the ballot. And I would agree that this is a serious proposal. I think that it's something that needs to go before the voters. With respect to the mayor, I would not blindly put anything that he sent down onto the ballot. There could be things that I think that I would not vote to support,

▶ 1:40:12 but it seems to me that this is an issue that does deserve to go forward. In terms of the merits of the order, as a voter, How I would be looking at this order is, have we identified specific problems or issues that we're trying to address here, if we've done that in a systematic way? Are we putting forward a solution here that's going to address the problems that we've identified? Do we anticipate that this money and these funds are going to achieve the results and solve the problems that we've issued? That's the way I would analyze this. I don't think we want to be in a position where we're just raising money and expending it unless we've answered those questions. So those are the questions that I would have to answer as a voter as this goes forward.

▶ 1:41:27 The other thing that I would ask the administration to do is to make sure that this issue was presented in a way in which everybody in Melrose, not just the people who were members of groups who were involved in the support of the override, They're not necessarily people who you think will support the override. But I think what we need to do here is we need to make sure that everybody out there who understands and is interested knows the issues, knows what we're asking them to do, and understands the process here. And I get a little bit concerned, and you guys are tired of hearing me talk about what an old gray beard I am and how long I've been sitting here. But what happens in a lot of these override situations is the people who are excited about the issues and

▶ 1:42:22 are working on the issues are very involved and there's no outreach or explanation to people who might be in the middle or might be opposed. And I would suggest that the responsible thing to do here is to make sure if this goes forward and it does in fact get on to the ballot, that that information is put forward so that everybody who's interested can make an informed decision relative to this override. And I would also suggest if that's what we do, then you'll have a less acrimonious discussion and debate here. If everybody understands what's going on, if everybody understands the facts, then people can evaluate this proposal and decide whether they're for or against it. But what I don't want to see is have a captive group who has the information and

▶ 1:43:14 is not engaging with people who might not be in favor of this, who might be opposed with this. I think the healthiest thing that we could do and the best thing that we could do for this community is have a large outreach, have large meetings in places like Memorial Hall where people on both sides can come forward and discuss this. That's my take on this issue. I believe that it needs to go on the ballot. I'm not going to do anything to frustrate this going on the ballot, but that's what I would like to see as this goes forward. I've seen several overrides that were very acrimonious. Don't really want to see those again. I don't think there's a need to have things go that way. And I would hope that as this proceeds, that's the rubric that we follow.

▶ 1:44:03 Mr. Chairman, if I could just, to President Conn point, it's a good point, just so the folks on the board understand and the public understands, any information relative to the override that originates from City Hall will be of a nonpolitical variety is what I'm trying to say, understanding politics as it is. It would be totally inappropriate for the city website to produce information that slants the data, the question, or the information. So to the extent there's a broader discussion in the community, President Kahn, I suspect that would occur as part of a more organized political campaign. But I'm not a party to that. The folks at City Hall are not a party to that. So just so everyone understands, and I've instructed city employees as to the do's and

▶ 1:44:56 don'ts both under the campaign finance laws and the state ethics laws is what they can and cannot do in terms of political activism but information that comes from City Hall from the chief assessor from the chief financial officer would be entirely non-political and would be in its rawest form yeah and I'm not I'm not throwing stones at this point in time but since we're everybody's discussing their wish lists I'm discussing my wish list as to how I how I would like to see the discussion of these issues go forward. Of course. That's all for now. Thank you. Thank you, President Kahn. Any other aldermen wishing to be heard? I'm seeing, oh, Alderman Bird, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The hesitation to speak was actually, I'm just digesting all the information that we heard from the public tonight.

▶ 1:45:48 Jaclyn L. Bird: And I am going to support putting this on the ballot. I think the right thing to do is to let the residents be heard. I understand that some may think that is the easy way out. I don't feel that way at all, actually. But I think what I'm very optimistic about tonight is the exchange of ideas that we heard here, and I hope that's what we hear over the next several months. What I hear is a lot of common ground, and a lot of overlap with what people are looking for, whether or not they're necessarily for or against this when they get in the voting booth. And I think people made really good points. I'm happy to vote to further that, to put it before the residents. I hope we do have a very civil discussion.

▶ 1:46:32 Jaclyn L. Bird: You know, Ms. Shattuck that talked about Lexington, I understand how these can take sort of an ugly turn. And I don't think that benefits anyone in the community. So I hope that we're careful about that and that we're all mindful of that, both in large conversations and in small conversations. where we don't we might question someone's ideas but we don't question their motives i think we all want you know what's best for the community there so um i'm going to support tonight putting it on the ballot and um that's all i have to say thank you mr chairman thank you alderman bird alderman boyce hell please back to the question concerning the the calculation so forth now you mentioned an average of $244 total is that the total number you're talking about or $244 per

▶ 1:47:17 Robert A. Boisselle: quarter the the number is based off of the average single-family assessed value 428 thousand is the assessed value it's $244 increased over the year so the first and second quarter they're going to get a tax rate of another $200 there In third quarter, they're going to get 200 plus $244 for a total of 400? The mechanics of the tax bills, the first two quarters are based off the last year. Historically, there's no adjustment in those first two bills. Any adjustments from Prop 2 1⁄2, debt exclusions, or overrides would be in just the third and fourth quarter on the first year when we vote on a new tax rate. but even though the comment here concerns the money assessed will be used for fiscal year beginning July 1st 2015 so really you're catching up what you

▶ 1:48:12 Monica C. Medeiros: missed in in the first and second quarter said historically we've always done that any increase is only in the third and fourth but this third quarter is going to be a bigger chunk than what you've seen in the first and second quarter that's correct if it's an increase over the regular two and a half percent every year yes it would be larger than the first and second quarter okay thank you very much Thank You alderman for selling seeing no further alderman wishing alderman Medeiros please yes thank you I I too I guess I didn't think we would move along with this so quickly you know this is probably one of the most serious votes that I feel like I've been faced with since we've been in this in this chamber and you know i know respectfully this has been submitted

▶ 1:49:02 Monica C. Medeiros: to us on may 11th but this is the first opportunity that we've had to discuss it and i did hope that we could have a discussion because i mean to me before i vote i kind of feel like this is part of our responsibility as alderman to put something on a ballot that puts us above the legally allowable limit to raise taxes and ask the voters for more that I you know thought we would have a little bit more I guess discussion I just mr. van camp and so what you're saying is that this question which simply says shall the city of Melrose be allowed to assess an additional two million two hundred fifty thousand dollars in real estate and personal property taxes for the purpose of funding two additional police officers and supplementing the

▶ 1:49:52 Monica C. Medeiros: operational budget of the public schools for which the monies from this assessment will be used for the fiscal year beginning July 1st 2015 so so that's it so even in the the proposed use of override funds that the mayor has set forth and that the school committee has said that that's what they'd like to do with it if this question passes are we even required to do exactly what's in that memorandum or just use some money for two police officers additional and and the rest towards the school operating budget doesn't matter what we do with it well I think you if I understand correctly you have a memorandum that you've received that identifies a list of positions in the school department as well as two additional police officer positions in

▶ 1:50:44 the police department in the in the first fiscal year assuming a majority of the residents of Melrose vote in the affirmative on this ballot question the funds in that first fiscal year would be would have to be utilized for the specific purpose of those two additional police officers and to as this question is stated to supplement the operating budget of the school department which I assume includes all of those itemized positions that the aldermen have received in which i'm sure the public will be made aware of as the ensuing months unfold before november 3rd okay and so you're saying that any uh motions to say adjust the amount that's being asked for would be out of order i don't think i said that at all i just my point is that the

▶ 1:51:28 Monica C. Medeiros: purpose of tonight is to vote whether to place the question on the ballot that has been submitted to the alderman this evening the separate question of whether the alderman can amend the amount contained within the question is within the discretion of this body of this body okay um i wanted to ask for some clarification on one of the items because a couple of people who i respect very much i think found it to mean something different than i thought it meant The very last page, the mayor has referred to $750,000 to be allocated towards budget stabilization, which is, quote, adding sufficient funding to the school budget base in order to minimize the use of one-time revenues for ongoing operating expenses, which weakens

▶ 1:52:18 Monica C. Medeiros: the city's financial position. This will ensure funding necessary for the programs and services to provide additional flexibility for all city departments, and this will also compensate for the continuous loss of federal and state aid. Is this $750,000, this is not a separate stabilization fund? I'm going to defer to the Chief Financial Officer on that question. Thank you for coming ladies. Thank you. No, it is not a separate budget stabilization fund. The $750,000 will go directly to the bottom line of the operating budget of the school department, period. is this the funds that so the the budget that we will probably see next monday in the school department is this already budgeted and included in that budget no no okay and are we going to be

▶ 1:53:39 expected to allocate free cash in order to balance that budget yes but it's not this is not to to adjust, my understanding with this money was to make it so we won't be using free cash in the future to balance that budget. If I may, through the chair, there's two components here. The first is the annual reimbursement for the Medicaid, which is $300,000 per year. That has historically been done through this board from free cash, and that will stay intact. Number two is that we have found ourselves since the loss of almost, actually it's over $5 million of state and federal aid since 09. And what we have found is that we have been unable to close that gap. And we have therefore had to reserve to free cash in the fall to make up for that loss of revenue.

▶ 1:54:41 past years it's been between 600 uh almost 640 000 per year as it was last year and i anticipate at least 640 probably um 750 000 this fall based on what i know tonight and will we anticipate doing that moving forward if this goes through no as an ongoing basis no if in fact through the chair if in fact this override does pass if it is successful that allocation of free cash for part two not the medicaid reimbursement would not happen and you know and i just i find this this timing a little awkward because so much of this has to do with the schools and we haven't seen the school budget yet and had that discussion uh but how does does this work this is for the ballot for the fiscal year that begins July 1st

▶ 1:55:47 Monica C. Medeiros: but we're not going to vote on it until November 1st and there's many new positions included I think 15 new positions in total the police the two police officers not doesn't necessarily matter so much when we hire them but in terms of school positions I mean usually we want to have you know classrooms set and and people hired in September usually when you're getting the best candidates that aren't willing to lose that you know leave their jobs in the middle of the year and so forth are we hiring for these positions in September before this passes I defer to the superintendent on the procedures to be utilized I think that's sort of important to understand how this how this works and when this would actually be you know impacted into the classrooms

▶ 1:56:39 or not can we have the superintendent come up please madam superintendent you join us please this is superintendent Cynthia Taymore our superintendent of schools for people in the gallery and people listening at home thank you you're welcome and you heard Alderman Medeiros question from your chair back there in the gallery that's an excellent question not all All these positions will be able to be filled immediately, and we will have to wait until the following school year to get the best candidates. However, there are a number of positions here who are not classroom positions that we believe we can fill. Some of them may come up from within our own ranks, and those positions may have to be replaced.

▶ 1:57:33 But again, what I would focus you on is an LICSW, for those of you who are in the business, it's often available. The Director of Instructional Technology, which is tied to our technology plan that Mr. Pezos will be coming forward with in a little while. That is not a teaching position. The instructional coach, again, it could be a teacher, it could be somebody from outside looking for a job change. But the other pieces of this that are very, very important to us, are the pieces around the technology, the special education, the curriculum resources, and the professional development. Those are services for our staff and students that are not dependent on hiring a classroom teacher. Obviously, the professional development is usually consultants or

▶ 1:58:25 our own people receiving stipends for providing PD or covering the cost of substitutes for professional development. The curriculum resource line, we have two, we have actually three needs facing us. As the alderman Welch know, you generously bonded $480,000 two years ago to help the district bring its textbook stock up to current standards. At that time, I did not promise you that it would be 100% sufficient. But what I did say to you, we would try to fund it going forward in our budget. We're finding that the current ability to budget that is still inadequate. So let me give you an example. We need a total K through five new reading series. Our series is no longer aligned with the frameworks.

▶ 1:59:12 It's no longer current. It's no longer considered best practice. The purchase cost of that new series is $250,000. We're facing new science standards. They have delayed them for six months, but we know they are inevitable. We don't know what the cost of those series would be. Currently, the district engages in a rotating program review. We spent two years studying every content area. We have finished social studies. We're halfway through foreign language. social studies will be presenting to the school committee on Tuesday. And they are predicting that we will need to make significant purchases of textbooks. We have students in this district who have textbooks from 2000, and as you know, if you have a country in a textbook from 2000, it most likely doesn't exist anymore.

▶ 2:00:04 So those type of purchases are very well needed. The technology line increase, part of our audit and plan is to separate the technology hardware from the rising costs of digital subscriptions whether they're for programs digital books or for memberships that is a rising cost currently it is budgeted at forty thousand it was budgeted at forty thousand dollars in last year's budget our current subscriptions cost us eighty four thousand so those things will be needed almost immediately so those are some of the costs that will be be able to be expended upon receipt of this passes and as I said some positions may be filled some will have to wait I will there be any kind of assessments or anything to

▶ 2:00:58 see you know if this is actually having the desired outcomes of improving we have ongoing assessments of our impact all the time if you go on to our website you'll see that we have a data dashboard for every classroom and for the district we are constantly collecting and measuring our impact of what we do the Melrose Public Schools recently participated in a study that from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that was conducted by the American Institute for Research a well-known nonprofit in which they came in a and they examined our professional development and the impact it's having the classroom i'm pleased to say that we've now considered an exemplar for the state but if you

▶ 2:01:42 do read that report it will say in that report that melrose has done as much as it can with the limited resources it has including using all our in-house people as trainers we do surveys every year to understand from our staff how effective they find it and what they think of the pd and one of the messages they have sent us back is we love you but we're tired of hearing you please bring in somebody else's voice and we want to do that for our staff you also know that one of the things I have said repeatedly in the three years I've been here that the most important thing we do for staff and students is professional development above all else it's training our staff to be the best they can be and provide the most current instruction and the

▶ 2:02:27 second most important thing we do is then give them the resources so they can Are, are the, the teachers and other staff required to do community, continuing education for their licenses and. In order to be licensed, you have to be re-licensed every five years. You have to do 150 PDPs, professional development points. The majority of those PDPs, your 120 have to be in your content area. The remaining 30 have to be in pedagogy or methodologies that are related to what you do. And I say that because starting in 2016, all licensed educators must do 15 hours in special ed and must do 15 hours in English as a second language. And are we contractually obligated to provide those hours of professional development?

▶ 2:03:18 Are we contractually obligated? That's an interesting question, Ms. Medeiros. They are legally obligated to renew their license. I think if we want the best teachers we have an obligation to provide at least a certain level of PD I will tell you we run an extensive PD Institute all winter and we run two sessions in the summer We also support our staff in pursuing PD outside of what we provide by contract We must set aside thirty thousand dollars every year to reimburse Staff who take college level courses and are you saying there are some of these positions? I see that you know sort of talk about instructional coaches and academic facilitators sort of it sounds like they're kind of helping teach the

▶ 2:04:08 teachers how to teach these considered to be would these these individuals be providing those those units of training yes they do so for currently we have two instructional coaches outstanding if I do say so myself and they one of the things that we're required to do by law is to provide an intensive two-year induction program for all new teachers you cannot get your initial license as a teacher excuse me your professional level license as a teacher until you have completed a two-year induction program and have acquired your masters they do a lot of that after school they provide a lot of that but one of the most effective means of professional development you have is when somebody comes into your classroom and helps you they watch you teach that you need

▶ 2:04:58 coaches model the coaches help problem-solve we've instituted a large system of peer-to-peer observations we do learning walkthroughs we do lesson studies we do release time for teachers to watch other teachers and to visit teachers in other districts and that is very effective but when they bring back to that classroom their new knowledge it helps to have somebody in the room coaching them helping them problem-solve our am I being effective am I doing the best job I can do and one of our speakers tonight mentioned regionalization I know when I was on the school committee one of the things that we did was do some regional professional development have you explored this we don't explore it we do it and we do what we do a lot of it would seem

▶ 2:05:44 collaborative be seen collaborative under Kathy Lawson's directorship has has grown tremendously to be a general education support, not just a special education support. Currently, we have groups of teachers writing curriculum together. We do PD together, we share resources, we send our people to the different districts PD, we take their people in for our PD, we do a lot of that. We're also doing other regionalization to seem collaborative. There are positions that we all need, but we don't have the ability to support a 1.0, so STEAM Collaborative will hire a physician, an inclusion facilitator, a behavior specialist, a recreational therapist, and we'll buy pieces of that person. That's one of the things they're doing.

▶ 2:06:37 They're also organizing some training for us in math, ESL, and WIDA, which stands for world-class instructional design and assessment. That is the new methodology for teaching ESL students, and they're driving a lot of that. We have reached out to other districts for regionalization. Mr. Picone has explored what's seen collaborative using their transportation, because they provide transportation for other districts. Actually, for us, it's a $100,000 loss to regionalize on that. We have reached out to Wakefield Public Schools. We have our post-graduate population ebbs and flows. We happen to be at a low point next year. We reached out to Wakefield to see if they wanted to share a programming approach.

▶ 2:07:30 Monica C. Medeiros: They're in their own turmoil and they were not interested at this time. But we are very open to whatever regionalization we can do that is reasonable and cost effective. Thank you. Thank you. I did have a question for the Chief of Police, just related to the two positions. That was pretty quick. Thank you very much, Superintendent Taymor. Thank you. Alderman Medeiros has indicated that she has some questions for the Chief of Police. The override order proposed to be on the ballot tonight has two police officers included in the order as well. Good evening, Chief Lyle. Good evening. Thank you. Chief Lyle, you, after our budget meeting, you sent an email out on June 3rd, kind of with the staffing levels in the police department.

▶ 2:08:24 Monica C. Medeiros: And at the bottom you had mentioned that we've got the FY15 and FY15 staffing levels show 31 patrolmen, eight sergeants, four lieutenants, one chief. See in the FY16, the department will promote the ninth sergeant position vacant for over ten years. Three officers will graduate the police academy in early August. One will replace the sergeant with promotion, one tentative retirement. And the department will pick up one patrol officer to 32. Are those positions in the current budget, or are these positions with the anticipated- The officers in the academy, is that what we're talking about? Yes, they are in our budget for next year. They are in our budget for next year. So after the retirement and

▶ 2:09:13 Monica C. Medeiros: with the officers in the academy, we'll be at 31 patrolmen in the FY50? We'll be up one from what we are today. At the 16th, sorry, we'll be up one, and that's included in our regular budget. So if we added the two additional police officers and the proposed in the override, that would bring us to 34. No, 32 in the FY16 budget, or 32 in the- If we're talking about the override, if the override was to pass, we would have 32 patrolmen. 32 patrolmen and nine sergeants? sergeants yes full lieutenant so the the numbers in this uh email are actually assuming that the override passes at the bottom currently today um we we have 29 patrolmen we promoted sergeant ladner earlier this week effective june 29th so he his spot becomes vacant we're filling that with one

▶ 2:10:20 Monica C. Medeiros: of the academy officers we had a transfer this year that would be one more position what would put us up one officer from what we currently have today if the override was to pass we would pick up two more additional officers to give us 32 patrolmen i don't have that email in front of me so i really can't comment on i'm sorry i didn't realize that it's thanks uh well it looks like this is moving along so I better take this opportunity to make my comments here you know my comments are as I said earlier that this is this is probably one of the most serious you know votes that we've taken I I would hope that we would have more discussion on it I hope there are opportunities for as President Kahn mentioned you know big opportunities for public discussion open

▶ 2:11:16 Monica C. Medeiros: to both sides of this and how this works and affects a lot of people to some people in Melrose this is not that big of a deal in terms of how much money it is but some other people in Melrose make make no doubt that this will really impact some people and some people will leave because they can't afford to stay here anymore because it's not just this it's the other tax increases and you You know, I'm glad that we have the, the diversity and richness of many different economic groups here in Melrose. But not everybody's in the same boat. You know, I feel like part of my due diligence is to not come to somebody and ask them to, you know, give us more than the legally allowable limit of taxes.

▶ 2:12:09 Monica C. Medeiros: saying we did absolutely everything that we can do I know I don't want to get too off-topic but I hope to talk with the chief and maybe this board in the future about looking again at the special police ordinance and maybe seeing if we can revise it to make it more effective so that we can maybe use them to attack some of the overtime that we have in the budget and but I recognize that this may not be the appropriate place to discuss that today that being said you know i am very loathed to do this because i think that this will be very divisive in our community and i'm very proud that we've been a very unified community that's been you know moving up and been you know on the hottest list and great place to raise a family today and we've made a lot of strides to bring

▶ 2:13:04 bring people together with so many more community events, and I hope that this doesn't tear things apart. But ultimately, I do think that there are enough people that do want to see this on the ballot, so I'll be voting to move it forward, thank you. Very good, thank you, Alderman Medeiros. President Kahn, please. So Chief, the net effect of this override, if it passes, is you're going to be up one patrol officer, is that correct? From today's standards, we would be up three. Okay, so you're going to be up three. An additional two, excuse me, an additional two. An additional two, and it's projected that that's going to cost us $150,000 with benefits and salary. Do you believe two additional offices are going to allow you to save more than $150,000 on overtime?

▶ 2:13:52 I don't think so. Just one or two quick points, Mr. Chairman, because sometimes I just get the impression that some of the things that are important get lost. this is a general override i understand the city solicitor has indicated that if the purposes stated in the override if it passes that during the first year the expenditures need to go to the uh to the earmarked items in the second year and every year thereafter it's general fund money everybody should understand that it's general fund money whatever additional monies are raised go into the general fund i don't say that pejoratively but it's just that's what's going to happen they're going to go into the general fund and you know i think we're all in agreement that um this this question should go forward and go

▶ 2:14:53 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: on to the ballot um just as to one thing that alderman medeiros said um i don't think by putting this on the ballot we're asking anybody to do anything i mean this is going to be the people who are going to decide what they want to do so um you know as this moves forward it becomes uh it goes into the public domain and we all become voters thank you president khan alderman mcintyre my goal is please um i do just want to thank um counselor van campen uh in his assurance that what comes forth on the city website is going to be impartial and informational and I think that's really important in keeping the discussion above board and in civil many years ago when we when we had an override that I think didn't pass that when I was on the school committee and

▶ 2:15:51 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: the hardest vote I ever took was to quote close to schools I don't view this anywhere near as difficult as that and a couple of police fire stations which I think Alderman Khan had to do we we made a real effort to keep the conversation civil and I think that this community can continue to do that in a respectful manner and not pit neighbor against neighbor and I don't think that putting this on the ballot or bringing it to the voters even if it passes or it doesn't doesn't pass and and there is a possibility I mean there's people concerned that we will lose members of our community if this passes I think we could possibly lose members of our community if this doesn't pass so I don't want to see that happen to any group and I would encourage people to

▶ 2:16:48 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: work together as Alderman Byrd has has mentioned for you know the good of the community I think the fact that this would eventually go to the to the general fund is not a bad thing we have certainly been spending a lot of free cash that we have been supplementing departments with and that money could be freed up to go to other things like some of our municipal buildings that need to be repaired and this money could be budgeted by this board or future boards to address the needs of the community I'm a very very strong believer in giving people the right to vote in my mind it's a sacred right it's a treasured right and I think every person in this community deserves that opportunity and I hope that by letting us put this up by us putting this on the

▶ 2:17:45 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: ballot I hope we get a great turnout and I hope we get a lot of people who who who support it for whatever their issue is, yes or no. And as long as I think we continue to have this discussion in a civil manner, I don't think we're going to negatively impact our community, and I will work towards that personally. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Seeing no further, Alderman Boycelle. Could I have the superintendent back? You certainly may. Discussion? Superintendent Taymor, would you join us once again, please? Why does everyone wait until April to go further along? Makes it look like- In your opening discussion, you talked about the funds that we've given the schools for

▶ 2:18:36 purchasing the books and so forth, 480,000 I think we talked about. And you said that wasn't enough? At the time that we made the purchases, we prioritized which textbooks, which departments had the greatest need. And we managed to work around what we still kept. So for example, with the reading series, what we've done is we've reorganized chapters and units and curriculum so that it matches the alignment, so that it's aligned with the state standards. However, it's a very difficult way to work. It does not include enough nonfiction. It's phonics unit is weak and we need better materials. We were very clear about that at that time. The need to replace curriculum is ongoing, excuse me, textbooks is ongoing.

▶ 2:19:36 Robert A. Boisselle: The span used to be seven to 10 years. It's shortened to about five to seven years. We talked about that at the time of the bonding. I remember Alderman asking me, could we stretch it to seven years? And I said, yes, we would make everything we bought work for seven years. Now, out of that $480,000, did you purchase any e-books operations? Everything we now purchase must have digital resources as well, must have digital versions. But they don't come separately. They come as part of the hard copies. Welch, are you just considering going away from hard copies? We've had this conversation, Altamont and Boisselle. You always need hard copies. Since then, a lot of documentation has come out, especially from the Association of American Publishers.

▶ 2:20:24 Robert A. Boisselle: The e-book sales have continued to rise steadily, almost 45% from 20 to 11 with the school systems. And that's part of the five educational tech issues that have school entered the present buying cycle. And what they're finding is schools are adopting budgets to address the e-book classroom and finding their e-books save money in the long run. And that money they're saving, they're actually buying the devices to do the e-book readings. And what they're finding is that it's easier to download updates of history, sciences, and other categories that can be done very quickly and very efficiently. You're still buying textbooks that are going to be outdated within- No, and we're buying e-books too.

▶ 2:21:11 And many of the publishing companies we work with offer updates as new materials come out. That's part of what the publishing business is. Electronically or hard copy? Both. So, again, so there's a lot of overlapping issues here. So part of the problem with buying digital copies of books is we do not have the hardware or the Wi-Fi connections we need for kids to access them. It's a little bit of a catch-22. Welch, that catch 22 is going to be taken care of in the coming budget. Alderman Boycelle, a little less argumentative, please. When she's speaking, please let her finish her old speech. I'm not trying to be argumentative, the point is that we spent $480,000 to upgrade the school system. Alderman Boycelle, when I'm speaking, please don't speak.

▶ 2:22:08 Peter D. Mortimer: You're being a little bit argumentative towards her. I'm telling you this for your own good. you ask a question please let her complete her entire answer and then proceed to your next question let's not turn this into an argument one person speaks at a time please superintendent taymor please continue thank you mr chairman so it's a little bit of a catch-22 we need to upgrade all our technology we need to upgrade our wi-fi we have been piloting ebooks and we have been piloting using chromebooks throughout the district what mr pesos can tell you i don't know if he's still in the room is we've had some issues because of access access going forward as the as we roll out the five-year plan and we get stronger in our use of technology and our

▶ 2:22:58 our equipment we can add more ebooks however i was recently invited to be one of 20 superintendents who met with mcgraw-hill's research and development division and we talked about ebooks and they talk very candidly about the limits of e-books at this point in time they are still very expensive often as expensive as a textbook and they are still working around ways that books can be device neutral often the books are not device neutral we have a lot of work to do before we get to that point in time nobody here has said they are opposed to that but you cannot jump into something like this without making sure you have the equipment the teachers who are trained and reliable resources so what we have done is we have taken an approach

▶ 2:23:51 where in some incidences we have digital copies for every book some children use the digital copies some children use the textbooks almost every new textbook we have bought families can access online from home every child has a password among the other things that we have done in anticipation of the technology upgrades is we have converted to Google Google ed every student in this district will have a Google ID for the fall all the high school in the middle school students currently have it and that will be the way they will access anything that is digitally available in the district the new librarian at the high school as you know from when he spoke has been busy culling the library removing textbooks that are

▶ 2:24:41 Peter D. Mortimer: out of date or resources that are out of date he is expanding his digital resources but as he spoke and as Alderman Margolis spoke to the need for hard copy is never going to go away and I personally hope it never does go away thank you very much and i apologize but i was argumentative thank you superintendent thank you alderman boycell any other alderman wishing to be heard this time i mean it when i call for the vote somebody don't raise their hand again make it look like i'm trying to rush it because i'm not we've had a full discussion here tonight um All in favor of order 2015-157, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the order passes and will be recommended to the full board for passage.

▶ 2:25:36 Peter D. Mortimer: Motion for a two minute recess. We have a motion for a two minute recess from Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Duly seconded by Alderman Lavender Bird. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. Opposed. Opposed. Opposed. Opposed. Can I see a show of hands on the opposed? I want to see a call on the vote, please. One, two, three. I want to go. Now you're opposed to your own motion? One, two, three, four, five. The motion for recess passes. Before us is order 2015-168. Amending Melrose revised ordinances chapter 198 solid waste section 198-3. ashes and rubbish, yard waste, metal goods, collection fees as set forth herein. Is there a motion, please? Motion to bring forward the necessary-

▶ 2:26:43 All right, we're still under suspension, so before we have a motion, Alderman McAteer-Margolis has requested that the appropriate city officials come forward to discuss this order. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, Mr. Shenna. This is our Director of Public Works, John Shenna, for people watching at home. Thank you. You're welcome, sir. order basically requests changes to ordinance 198-3 ashes rubbish yard waste metal goods and collection fees as set forth herein the packet includes the existing ordinance and the revised changes in review form the gist of the order looks to increase our minimum wages relative to two discount programs we offer with the trash free we are we offer we currently offer a senior

▶ 2:27:47 citizen discount and a hardship discount um i'll read the proposed changes effective january 1st 2016 any senior citizen 65 years or older who owns and occupies a single family home or condominium with an income of sixty five thousand eight hundred and seventy dollars that's the change from thirty five thousand to sixty five eight seventy or less or a single person with an income of seventy five thousand two hundred eighty or less for married couples so single goes from thirty five thousand to sixty five eight seventy family goes from 40 000 to 75 280. those are the changes relative to the hardship any scene any citizen who owns and occupies a single family home or condominium with an income of 35 000 or

▶ 2:28:45 less for a single person that changes from 22 and 40 000 or less for married couples that changes for 25 000 from 25 000 to 40. so those are the proposed changes these numbers were not arbitrarily chosen they come from the hud median income that the chief assessor provided us with um if you have any other questions relative to these proposed changes um get our answer we have first in queue alderman byrd followed by president khan thank you mr chairman you And you just answered one of my questions at the end with where you got the figures. Can you talk about why this came about and why this is coming about right now? And when was the last time we made a change to the income levels on this? We've never made changes to the income levels.

▶ 2:29:36 Trash fees have been in effect for quite some years and the salary incomes are rather unrealistic. and you can see by the changes that we've made that we're very far off the median income and um is when did this discussion come about has this been something that's been in the works for several years or is this something that we just realized we were behind on was it caused by a number of people calling needing the discount what triggered the discussion we had a discussion relative to discount programs throughout the city and this was part of the discussion i'm going to have more questions mr chairman but i'll um yield the floor thank you very good president khan please you know what what's the cost of implementation of these changes that was

▶ 2:30:35 my question i could tell you what our current programs cost us okay i have that available currently we have 70 accounts that receive a 50 discount that's the senior discount and that costs the program six thousand five dollars and we have 158 that receive a hundred percent discount that costs the program thirty one thousand one hundred and fifty dollars and what kind of numbers do we anticipate we're going to see if we implement these changes we we haven't looked at that I prefer the CFO. Good evening again. Based on just preliminary to all in the conference with the chair, Donna Cardello said probably double, but we're not going to really know until we have an understanding after a year or so who actually participates in it.

▶ 2:31:57 But she said for purposes of an estimate, use the assumed double. She said for purposes of planning until we know actually how many actually participate. But you're not going to know until after the fees are approved or implemented. So this may cost us another $40,000? That's what she said. Welch, everybody knows the change that I want to see to the trash fee, which is to go to the actual cost with no indirects and reduce it. But maybe that's a discussion for another day, I guess, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, President Kahn. Alderman Medeiros, please. Thank you. I hope that other day comes quickly, President Conn, because this is something, Mr. De La Rosa, where we're charging a fee for this service, and we've taken a number of steps over the past few years.

▶ 2:32:49 Monica C. Medeiros: First, with privatizing trash, and secondly, with privatizing recycling, and in order to reduce our costs. I know one of the speakers earlier today You know, mentioned, hey, our contract is 1.1 million and our estimated revenue is 1.9 million. I imagine there's some other costs associated there, but, you know, Stoneham, for instance, they went to weekly recycling. They saved so much money that they eliminated their trash tree completely for everybody. If we are maybe now at a point between weekly recycling, which I'm hoping is actually increased, and decreased our cost of trash. Aren't we legally obligated to make sure that we're not collecting too much? And are we at the point where we should really be giving everyone a discount?

▶ 2:33:55 Through the Chair, on June 13th of 2012, I sent a pretty detailed report to the Board of Aldermen. At that point, we were subsidizing the general fund, we're subsidizing the trash operation by $191,066. I had Bridget Guillen perform the same analysis, and she did this one, for the current year. And based on the current year, which is right here, we are currently subsidizing the trash 33,817. So there's been a substantial reduction in how much we're subsidizing, which is great. Now that's the side of the table that is good, but the side of the table that's not good. It's what people who look at it from a different looking glass that do not have all the information with them or available to them, is the fact that in fiscal 17 and in fiscal 18, that costs

▶ 2:35:07 Monica C. Medeiros: will go up by $75,000 each year as part of the contract. Within two years, you'll see a $150,000 increase in the cost of the contract. That again brings us to the point where we are not over collecting and in fact we are still subsidizing the operation. I know Melrose has been above average in terms of the recycling that we do as a community. I kind of don't understand how Stoneham, which isn't that much different than us, could be so different you know that that we're not seeing those kinds of savings i mean we were we just doing that good of a job to begin with or i think we're seeing substantial savings and as the auditor pointed the general subsidy three years ago was 191 thousand 191 thousand

▶ 2:36:06 we've closed the gap significantly a lot maybe the years to come we'll see that flip the other way that's the goal but we're not there yet so not only are we avoiding increases we're bringing that cost differential doubt and the programming changes that we've implemented the last three years have shown that and his result and his studies have shown how that gap is closed could you please share that uh analysis that bridget completed absolutely with us so i don't know if i need to make a motion but like to move that we include the analysis when we receive it from mr del russo uh with this order um should we wait till we receive the memo first does that motion seem premature uh let's well see if you get a second on it uh alderman medeiros has proposed

▶ 2:36:53 Peter D. Mortimer: he has she has asked for a memorandum from bridget guillen and asked that when that memorandum is received that it become part of the record is there a second on the motion second now all right then it is the will of the board so far that the motion be seconded by alderman forbes all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none when we receive that memorandum that will be added to the record thank you continue i think that that's all i have for now thank you thank you any other for alderman wishing to be heard for the first time alderman voice out please john in this issuing of the exemption and so forth they have to come to the city hall or to the city yard to make the application on that program from tremont street now but if people come to this building we

▶ 2:37:40 accept them here and then process them at our administrative buildings now do you ask for documentation when they come in there's a certain process and there is a backup that they have to that they have to provide which is why we like to do it in person for you know identity theft and personal tax information and that that other type of information which is why we have the people come down we i have we have donna cadillo working on perhaps changing that process when we start accepting new applications because we're hoping this change will bring out some additional people and perhaps we can do something online that's protected we're working on some options can do they have to do renew it every year or one shot is that it no so you have to renew it every

▶ 2:38:26 Robert A. Boisselle: Every year, based on wages from the prior year. Okay, good. Welch, I mean, if you put it online, the explanation of what you bring to the office, like a tax form from that year and so forth, and whatever other information. And they have all the documentation there, so nothing goes online and worry about identity theft and so forth. No, I agree it's a very antiquated system the way we do it. similar to the income levels that was so low we have to change how we process these applications on a yearly basis all right thank you thank you mr. chairman Thank You alderman boy self alderman Lehman please Thank You mr. chairman Thank You mr. Shannon mr. del Russo in this document here in addition to the

▶ 2:39:13 changes you just outlined in the income levels there's a lot of other red and this is all changes that are happening that we're voting on tonight is that right yeah there is then I guess the other the others the other changes more of a housekeeping thing for instance we don't have an engineering superintendent anymore we have a director of Public Works we do bi-weekly or monthly collection of yard waste it's just again this ordinance hasn't been looked at in so long we decided to take the opportunity to update updated to make it more um more in line with what we are today sure but the significant changes in the whites being why it's being proposed were those income levels okay yeah it does seem it's a you know a lot of

▶ 2:40:00 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: titles and things like that to make it more up to date uh there is a change here in the the curbside fee for metal goods it looks like from 15 to 20. that changed again that changed last year and this just was not updated in the audience so we're not voting tonight to increase the fee no okay thank Thank you very much. I want to make that clear. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Lehman. Alderman Byrd, are you in queue? I think so. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Alderman Byrd, please. To go back for a second to the cost of the current program or the current accounts that benefit from the discount program, did you say 70 accounts right now currently get a 50% discount,

▶ 2:40:35 which costs the city $6,005, is that right? You just got right. And then I was just, I missed the second figure, I think. hundred and fifty eight accounts 70 accounts result in a six thousand five dollar credit to the program a hundred and fifty eight accounts received the full hundred percent discount that results in a thirty one thousand one hundred and fifty dollar credit to the program so and you said to account for basically doubling it she said she felt comfortable using double that until we actually find out how many people apply okay I think it's you know it's certainly a nice thing to do what what my concern is just the timing of it and the sort of is it premature we putting the cart before the horse here it feels

▶ 2:41:26 Jaclyn L. Bird: like you know we just finished an order where we're talking about how we don't have enough revenue to cover certain costs we've got to be you know talking about that very carefully and what concerns me is that we're we're going into this with a kind of just very vague projection of how much it's going to to cost us, I know comparatively it's not a huge amount of money but it just seems to me like something you would do maybe after the fact if the costs increase for the taxpayers should the override, if it goes forward and it's on the ballot, should it pass, that then you look at something like this, it feels a little bit premature to me. Especially if we don't have kind of an exact way of figuring out what the costs are going to be.

▶ 2:42:08 Jaclyn L. Bird: So this is something that you feel like we can fund even if we don't have additional revenue coming in in the fall, if that did not pass, that we've got some extra 40,000 or so to be able to put towards the offset of the program? I believe if this does go through, we can support it, absolutely. Okay. And was the timing around the same conversation or no? I mean, that's why I'm just surprised of the timing that it's on our agenda for tonight. Is it linked to the two? Are we looking to reduce fees because we know that there's the possibility of increasing fees? That's the part that seems like the order of things is reversed. Quite frankly, I think it was just part of the overall discussion. We started talking about what has or has not been looked at,

▶ 2:42:59 and we looked at next year's program, and we said this has been a long time. These numbers are really, perhaps, unrealistic for income thresholds and et cetera. And maybe this was the time to bring them up to date, literally. And if the board wants to do that, then obviously we support that. If not, obviously we understand that too. It's a very unrealistic income level. And there are seniors and people that have hardship today that don't qualify. override aside if you're going to run program discount programs they should be realistic at least in my opinion and currently we have we have income levels that are really nodding i mean as you can tell they're really not realistic at all because we've set them and then we left them home

▶ 2:43:43 Jaclyn L. Bird: for 10 years probably and what do we tell people that come in that miss it by you know the income level by five thousand dollars right now is there anything that we can offer them at this point or do we just say we're sorry you missed it we look at that we look at a case-by-case basis and we try to make we try to make accommodations if if it's close but obviously there are limits and we have to abide by them as close as possible and how many people would you say have brought this up in the past year as far as being a hardship that they want help with that didn't qualify for the program it's almost been a revolving of it's been a revolving door with same people you know we really don't get many new ones that come in because the people that was said

▶ 2:44:31 Peter D. Mortimer: no two years ago just don't come back but hopefully this change will spark and reinvigorate the program and try to provide some relief to people that deserve it thank you that's all for now mr chairman thank you alderman byrd seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard we do need a We need a motion on this order, please. Motion to recommend. Second. Second. We have a motion to recommend for passage from Alderman Forbes, duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, order 2015-168 will be recommended to the full board for passage. The next order we have before us is order 2015-175. clause 41C, senior real estate exemption local options.

▶ 2:45:24 Mr. Wilcox, would you like to explain this or would you like to proceed directly to questions? I'd like to explain it a little. Thank you very much, sir. Please proceed. This is a statutory exemption, 41C, known as a senior tax exemption. It's income and asset driven. Again, this is something that's throughout the state. We have a local option of raising up to 100% more than the $500 that's the minimum for this 41C. In preparation for this, we did a survey of surrounding communities. We looked at the overlay account, which is the main funding source, and we evaluated everything. So we did look at pretty much the funding source and everyone around us, and we came up with the Board of Assessors on this suggestion to go up to 100% which would

▶ 2:46:14 be $1,000 instead of $70 the income requirements for this exemption are extremely low to today's standards a single person making $20,000 with assets of $40,000 including stocks annuities personal property not even second homes anymore but any assets that that's one of the qualifications for married couples it's it's actually uh 40 000 and it's uh 55 000 in assets so an income of 40 000 55 in assets including stocks annuities bank accounts all that stuff um and the original uh guidelines were set up way back and what we're trying to do is just increase it from 700 to a thousand to keep in with today's standards thank you thank you sir any alderman wishing to make comments or or ask questions about this alderman Medeiros i'll i'll have been in front of you yielded yes please

▶ 2:47:10 Monica C. Medeiros: all right uh i'm sorry so you're saying that the the uh in order to collect this the personal income of the uh not just the income but the assets are also looked at and you said this also includes the real estate that they owned any additional real estate second homes but uh there's nothing really 40 or 50 000 for second homes that is part of the language that we do look at not primary if they had a place in florida or something we would look at that that that would disqualify them and and that include that's the value it doesn't matter how much of a loan that they have on the property or does it it does not matter what the mortgage is on the property okay thank you thank you to recommend second thank you alderman Medeiros alderman

▶ 2:47:55 voycella's made a motion to recommend this order for passage duly seconded by alderman aferna any further discussion alderman word please i'm sorry to do that to you mr chairman quite all right question um i appreciate that you surveyed the other communities to find out um how to get to these figures what my question is um how many people do we think will take advantage of the program currently we have 65 participants in the program actually in preparation for that question i went five years back we started at 88 in 2001 2002 we also had 2008 2003 was 82 71 in 2014 and we're down to 65 currently so it is going down i think that's because people's incomes are you know a little larger and um they don't qualify all right thank

▶ 2:48:48 Peter D. Mortimer: you very much thank you mr chairman thank you alderman bird a motion uh passage has been made made by Alderman Boisselle, duly seconded by Alderman Inferna. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this order will be recommended to the full board for passage. The next order we have before us, I think you might as well stay right in that chair, Mr. Wilcox, is order 2015-174. It's the senior work off abatement loan option. Okay. Would you like to explain this? Yep. Thank you, sir. The city has adopted, since 2001, 2002, a senior work off program. It's a state guided program. The funds are taken from the overlay account, and currently the max value that can be applied to taxes is $750.

▶ 2:49:39 In my research, I've only found it's been adjusted one time around 2007, 2008. Predates my time here, but I did try and find that number. So we have made an adjustment from 500 to 750 at one point. My recommendation is we go from 750 to 1,000. Roughly that will be 100 hours based off of minimum wage laws currently, and again, it's to help the people. There is a 60 year old at qualification, and it is Chapter 59 5K as far as the guidelines. Motion to recommend. Second. We have a motion to recommend from Alderman Boisselle, duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. in queue we have alderman inferno followed by alderman burr thank you thank you very much mr chairman just a quick question um do you have any idea how many seniors do you take advantage of

▶ 2:50:28 this yes i do um 2014 we had 16 seniors 2015 right right as of right now we have 14 seniors i estimated 17 seniors with this topic being discussed and kind of expanding the program i bumped it up a little sure 17 is what i expect and how does one um find out about this as far as the program it's actually uh run by the council on aging um we are in the process of putting all of that online re-looking at the um the all the forms and how you sign up for it and make that more available online and and maybe easier for the general public to fill out sure great thank you very much thank you very much alderman inferno alderman bird please thank you i think alderman inferno just answered my question uh asked the questions that i had and

▶ 2:51:24 you answered them um so 16 people 16 people in 2014 took advantage of it 14 seniors in 2015 and the cost of the program is just what we remember the 750 per year correct um with with the current rates um let's see uh it's basically uh ninety seven hundred dollars for uh last year for um fourteen people and the increase um would be thirty five hundred if we adopted this um increase to one thousand dollars thank you thank you mr chairman thank you alderman byrd next in line we have alderman mccarty and my goals thank you mr chairman thank you mr wilcox um so the requirement for this is that um the scene it'd be someone over the age of 60. that's right is there no income requirement currently there is not an income requirement but um we we are looking at

▶ 2:52:21 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: all the um i think there's a process for fitting people in so um i think the council and agent might be able to speak to that a little better okay i know that we have um a lot of great seniors who do volunteer you know volunteer and and take advantage of this not only in City Hall but I know like where I work in Winchester we have people at the library who come in and help and I think it's not only great for the city to be able to offer this and take advantage of you know those people's you know giving them a little incentive but it's also great for the seniors to get out and be active in the community so I'm in full support of this and I'm supportive of the increase thank you thank you alderman mcateer margolis any further alderman wishing to be heard

▶ 2:53:10 Peter D. Mortimer: seeing none is there a motion please there was there was a motion made by alderman boyce thank you second by alderman mcateer margolis all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this order will be recommended to the full board for passage the next order we have before us is This is order 2015-197, agreement between the town of Redding and the city of Melrose with the provision of services for the Melrose Senior Health Inspector. City Solicitor Van Campen, you'll be addressing us on this? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the members know, for the past several fiscal years, the city of Melrose has joined the town of Redding in a regional health department. Recently, the town of Reading decided to go in a different direction.

▶ 2:54:03 They're hiring a full-time health agent, I believe is the position title, in Reading, which no longer necessitates a regional health agreement between Reading and Melrose. However, Reading still has the need for limited services to be provided by the incumbent Melrose senior health inspector. She would be, in accordance with the agreement that's in front of you, she would be performing restaurant plan review services for the town of Reading. And based upon the arrangement that we have recently culminated with Redding, they would continue to pay 20% of the senior health inspector's salary. So that comes to approximately $13,482.45. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Van Campen. Alderman Boisselle, please.

▶ 2:54:51 Peter D. Mortimer: With the, they attach an agreement to this document. Did you have a chance to have a look at it, or? Yes, you're referring to the inter-municipal agreement for shared public health services? Right. Correct. Any problems that we should be aware of? Nope. I authored it, so I'm fine with it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Boycelle. Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend the order from Alderman McAteer-Margolis, duly seconded by Alderman Byrd. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this order will be recommended to the full board for passage. Motion to adjourn. Mr. City Solicitor. Thank you.

▶ 2:55:34 Peter D. Mortimer: We have a motion to adjourn from Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Who's seconded, please? Second. Second by Alderman Byrd. All in favor of the motion to adjourn, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the committee on appropriations is hereby adjourned. Thank you, one and all.

Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2015-06-18

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