Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2015-06-18
Attendance
Jaclyn L. Bird ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Donald L. Conn Jr. ; Scott M. Forbes ; Gail Infurna ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr.
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Participation
- Orders
- ORDER-2015-154 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 in the amount of $72,885,826.66 (Seventy Two Million, Eight Hundred Eighty Five Thousand, Eight Hundred Twenty Six Dollars and Sixty Six Cents)
- ORDER-2015-165 : Reauthorization of Inspection Services Revolving Account #2658 for FY2016
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 18, 2015 Aldermanic Chamber Budget Hearing 7:30 PM The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Peter D. Mortimer Chairman Present Jaclyn L. Bird Vice Chairman Present Gail M. Infurna Ward 5 Alderman Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present In Attendance: Retirement Executive Director Adam Travinski; Conservation Chair Susan Murphy and Conservation Treasurer Kevin Anderson; Building Commissioner Paul Johnson; IT Director Jorge Pazos; Human Resources Director Marianne Long; City Auditor/CFO Patrick Dello Russo; City Solicitor Rob Van Campen
ORDER-2015-154 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 in the amount of $72,885,826.66 (Seventy Two Million, Eight Hundred Eighty Five Thousand, Eight Hundred Twenty Six Dollars and Sixty Six Cents) Tabled Appropriations Committee
ORDER-2015-165 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of Inspection Services Revolving Account #2658 for FY2016 Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 6/9/2016 3:58 PM
Transcript
▶ 12:08 Peter D. Mortimer: It is a committee of the whole. We are joined by Vice Chairman Alderman Jacqueline Bird, Alderman Inferna, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Boycelle, Alderman McAteer-Margolis, Alderman Lemmerman, Alderman Forbes, and President Kahn. Is there a motion to open the floor for public participation, please? So moved. Second. Alderman Byrd has moved to open the floor for public participation. Second. That motion has been seconded by Alderman Inferna. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the floor is open for public participation. And before anyone comes forward, I would like to say that this meeting is being recorded. A DVD would be available in the future if you needed it.
▶ 12:54 Peter D. Mortimer: And you can also watch it streaming on the Melrose website or the MMTV website. Is there anyone who wishes to come forward and speak at public participation? Please do so. Seeing nobody wishing to come forward. Motion to close public participation. We have a motion to close public participation by Alderman McAteer-Margolis, duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, public participation is now closed. The first order we have before us is order 20154. It is the City of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2016 in the amount of $72,885,826 Tonight, we will be discussing various departments of the Board of the City of Melrose, Executive Branch.
▶ 13:55 Peter D. Mortimer: And the first department that we have is Department 911, Pension Weekly, in the amount of $5,539,080. Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend this order for passage by Alderman Boycelle. Second. That motion is duly seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi. On discussion. Motion to suspend the rules so that we might discuss this budget with the appropriate city officials, please, Mr. Chairman. President Khan has made a motion to suspend the rules for purposes of discussion. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, the motion passes and we will hear from the appropriate city officials. Good evening, Adam. Good evening. Would you like to make an opening statement or proceed directly to questions?
▶ 14:54 Directly to questions, please. Proceed directly to questions, please. And before you begin, President Kahn, please let the record reflect that we are joined by Alderman Wright as well. Please proceed, President Kahn. During each budget year, I usually come up with one idiosyncratic thing that I ask everybody about. And this year, it is indirect cost and where salary components are located. Now, in the budget that we have, we don't really get any schedule relative to the salary breakdown of your department. How many people are being paid through your department? Are they being fully funded in this budget, and what are the amounts, if you know? Yes. If not, if maybe Mr. De La Rosa could help us with this.
▶ 15:39 We have a running budget. So we have myself and my assistant part time. We have the board members. We do have five board members. And they're paid a stipend? They are paid a stipend monthly. And we also do have indirect costs, as you said. Okay, do you know what the breakout of the indirect costs are? indirect costs are on a quarterly basis so we pay eleven thousand eight hundred ninety four dollars quarterly okay what does that consist of if you know and if not I mr. de la rousseau is here as well I see the breakdown of the indirect costs if you have to pay a portion of the square footage of the office which is based on twenty one dollars and fifty cents per square foot and then we also pay portions of salaries throughout five people in the city and what what
▶ 16:37 positions are are apportioned to this department as indirect costs so the indirect cost of tape 10% mr. van Kampen salary 5% for Kelly Kogan who's his assistant 5% for Mary Ann long 25% for Polly Lada who's the human resource manager and then I pay an hourly portion to Marian Ellis who's the assistant treasurer I don't remember us doing that in the past is this something new or is this something that I just missed in past years I believe this is new okay good good it's better that I didn't miss it and is this a is this a common practice or procedure if you know I'm not sure if it's common good evening through the chair this was uh evening mr delarusso for those of you in the audience and people
▶ 17:35 watching at home this is our chief financial officer patrick delarusso who has just come to the table this is relatively new it is the second year and this is a practice that was um implemented through the recommendation of the outside auditors is this something that other communities are doing as well that's my understanding that's correct i'm not sure which ones are uh that's is this Is this a component of the report from the outside auditors? Is it reflected in the report, or was it a verbal recommendation? It's a recommendation they made to me. Okay. And in the future, just so that I can have more fodder for questions, if we could, I'd like to see the full budget. Absolutely. Maybe I won't be here, but if I am here, I'd like to see the full budget next week.
▶ 18:22 Monica C. Medeiros: Absolutely, absolutely. That's all for now, Mr. Chairman. Thank you President Kahn, Alderman Medeiros please. Thank you. I'm actually a little bit confused here because we're in budget number 911 pension weekly, is that correct? Mm-hm. That I'm only seeing one salary in wage line here, which is for our loan pensioneer. I don't see any other salaries listed in this budget. The expense pension. For 23,000. So the 5.5 million is part of the overall expense fund for the budget. It's within the contribution line, there's salaries in that line? There's only one that, through the chair, there's only one person left on the non-contributory basis. And once that person goes, that line also goes. That also goes.
▶ 19:15 So otherwise, if somebody- There'd be nobody there. That's correct. Would not notice that there's any salaries for this department. That's correct. There'd be no one else there. It may be known, but the salaries that Alderman Kahn was discussing are coming out of that line? No, they are not. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Medeiros. Any other Aldermen wishing to be heard? I'm seeing none. President Kahn, please. Yeah, so just for clarity, the items that we were just discussing are from the large 5.5 odd million dollar pension line. And I was asking the questions because there was no detail in our budget, and it made me curious. And so when I'm curious, I tend to ask questions. Thank you, President Kahn.
▶ 20:08 Peter D. Mortimer: A motion has been made to recommend this order for passage by Alderman Boisselle. It was duly seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this budget item will be recommended for passage to the full board. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome, sir. You got that. The next order, the next department budget that we have before us is the conservation department. Department 171 in the amount of $20,825. We have the chair of the conservation commission, Susan Murphy, in the gallery this evening. Ms. Murphy, would you please join us at the table? Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend. You may join us at the table. That was made by Alderman Boycelle.
▶ 20:55 And who seconded that please? I have a second by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Thank you for joining us. Would you like to make an opening statement or proceed directly to questions? I'd like to make an opening statement, and I would also ask if I could have Kevin Anderson, who's a member of the commission and our treasurer, sit at the table as well, would that be acceptable? Definitely, yes. Mr. Anderson, would you join us as well, please? As I think you know, I'm Susan Murphy. I've been the chair of the Conservation Commission for, it's going on ten years now. The commission has two basic responsibilities in the city. We are the implementers and enforcers of the State Wetlands Protection Act and Rivers Protection
▶ 21:32 Act, as well as the city's corresponding wetlands protection ordinance. And we are also the custodians of conservation lands in the city, the passive open space that is owned by the city. Our budget pretty much reflects those two responsibilities. We have two major line items, one being our conservation maintenance line item, which is the bulk of which is used to treat three ponds for nuisance vegetation. are Towners, Swains, and Alpon that we have the responsibility for treating. And then the other is our salary line item. We have a part-time staff person. This year, our staff person we've had for about five or six years, Kathy Morgan, left. She got a full-time job in another town, and so we've been in the process of hiring a new
▶ 22:18 person. I think we found someone who's going to be starting soon. Therefore, that line item is likely to come in below budget for this year, but I'm not sure exactly how much he may start this year and then for our conservation line item as I said we use that for ponds treatment and that's something that starts happening in June so it's sort of it's on the edge of this budget year so our budget always looks sort of funny because we're whether we've paid the bill or not it fluctuates depending on what the conditions are in the ponds the only other thing I wanted to note for the board is that we've been trying to do a little bit more in terms of open space projects i think i mentioned last time i was
▶ 22:57 Peter D. Mortimer: here that we were working on an outdoor classroom at the hoover school we did that last summer they were using it this year we want to thank the department of public works who provide some invaluable assistance as well as cleaning up some tree damage that happened over the very bad winter this year and they've been a real help but i think i understand that they've been using that and really enjoying it um now if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer them thank you very much miss murphy would anybody like to make any comments or ask any questions seeing none there is a motion made by alderman boy cell to recommend this budget for passage it was duly seconded by alderman mcateer my goal is all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this budget
▶ 23:41 Peter D. Mortimer: will be recommended to the full board for passives thank you for your attendance this evening thank Thank you very much. And thank you for your work to the city. The next budget we have before us is inspection services. Budget number 241, in the amount of $241,930.73. We have Mr. Johnson, the Director of Inspectional Services, coming forward. Is there a motion? Motion to recommend. We have a motion to recommend by Alderman Byrd, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. Mr. Johnson, would you like to make an opening statement? I sure will. All right. Good evening. Thank you, sir. Members of the board. The Inspectional Service Department promotes public safety through good code enforcement and education.
▶ 24:34 This year has been a very extremely, extremely busy year for us. We're close to 3,000 permits as of today for the FY15, and if you're waiting for a permit, I'll get to you. Please be patient, any questions? President Kahn, please. And Mr. Johnson, are the salaries of your department fully reflected in the salary schedule that we have here for inspectional services? Yes, sir. Has anybody paid off budget from grants or from any other funding source? No, sir. So these are actually the actual salaries that people are receiving? Yes, sir. Okay. Question for you. Is your professional services line for outside inspections? It is. And you've increased that by 9-plus percent. And is that because of the volume of development that's going on in the city right now?
▶ 25:35 And are you going to be able to keep pace, do you think, with all the projects that are going forward? Yes. Yes, he's been a great help, and yes, I believe we will. And you have a vacancy that's not funded. I do. Relative to a senior account clerk. Are you going to go without that position for the foreseeable future? For right now, and yes, that is the plan. That's all I have right now, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, President Kahn. Seeing no further, Alderman Bird, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Can you go back to what you were saying about how many permits so far this year that you've had? Did you give us a figure of several thousand? For the FY15, we did total permits close to 3,000.
▶ 26:24 And do you know how that compares with the year before by any chance? Yes. We're right on number. We're a little bit more within 100 permits. These are total permits, electrical, plumbing, building. Okay. So right around. Around the same amount as the year before. Yeah. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Alderman Byrd. I'm seeing no other aldermen wishing to be heard. We have a motion to- I have a question, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry, Mr. President, once again, go ahead please. Yeah, to try to jump the schedule here, are you making any changes relative to revolving account, asking us to raise the threshold or anything of that nature? The revolving count, I believe, stayed the same.
▶ 27:07 Peter D. Mortimer: Okay, so there's no changes? No. Yeah, that- That's it. That order is on, and actually after we take this vote, I'm going to ask someone to make the motion that we take order 2015-165 out of order. It is the revolving conference special services, so we can let Mr. Johnson go home. That's his last order of the evening, but let's take the vote on this one first. All in favor of the motion to recommend for passage by Alderman Byrd, second by Alderman Boisselle, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this budget will be recommended for passage to the full board. Is there a motion commensurate with those comments I just made 60 seconds ago? Second. Somebody, Alderman Byrd has made a motion to take order 2015-165.
▶ 27:52 Peter D. Mortimer: The authorization of inspectional services revolving account number 2658 for fiscal year 2016. Out of order, that motion was seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. The motion of the order is before you. Motion to recommend. I have a motion to recommend for passage by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Duly seconded by whom, please? Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. This order will be recommended to the full board for passage. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Have a pleasant evening. Thank you. Thank you, sir. The next department that we have before us is Department 930. It is debt equipment in the amount of $106,300.
▶ 28:46 We have a motion to recommend from Alderman Boycelle. Second. Do we second by Alderman Forbes on discussion? Yes. Would the appropriate department heads please come forward? 19. Mr. Pazos. Please join us, Mr. Pazos. I don't think we need anybody else at this point. President Kahn, please. Yeah, Mr. Pazos, it's my information that you're going to be asking us to make an amendment to this budget, is that correct? That is correct. Could you explain that for us? yes so as part of the 931 capital outlay there are two line items in there while I get there it's on page 70 of the packet under 931 line items five five one zero nine eight and ending in five five one zero nine seven they're both for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars uh one portion is for city i.t tech and the other is for
▶ 29:56 school i.t tech uh the the intent was that for this meeting and two weeks prior to this meeting we would have a packet prepared for the board of alderman detailing all of the equipment that we would be buying the the lease agreement the distribution of all of that equipment i i unfortunately was was hospitalized and had to have emergency surgery and was not able to pull this packet together in time for this meeting and i apologize for that after discussions with both the mayor's office and the city's chief financial officer we would like to recommend that the the board reduce these line items uh three hundred thousand dollars total and that you would consider us being able to requ submit this entire packet that we wanted to have for you today
▶ 30:46 today possibly for the August meeting if that's okay with the board. So moved, I would request that we- We need the motion to be withdrawn and the second to be withdrawn for the recommendation. I have a question, are we doing budget 930 or 931? They're both the same department but he did discuss both budgets. Okay, thank you. So we need the motion to be withdrawn. of order mr chairman was the motion for uh to recommend order um department 930 because this is 931. this is 9 30 and 931 that mr pesos is discussing okay yes that wasn't moving he was only discussing 931 931 and i believe we moved 9 30. yes this is the 300 000 this is all in the 931. so let's deal with 9 30 first right oh i'm sorry okay sorry i was that's that's all right
▶ 31:46 So the 930 line is a departmental line. It covers things like copier leases, office supplies, and things of that nature. This is fairly static from year to year. I don't know if anyone has any questions about this line item, on these line items. Alderman Bird, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Pesos, can you just talk about the 551059 line item? It looks like that's gone up substantially. So that actually, I believe, is, and I'll need some help from Patrick on this, this is not one of my lines that I typically oversee, but it's for permitting software. Yes, through the chair. To all the member, that's exactly correct. We previously did the $13,000 transfer for the uh geo to mess with the permit software for this year now this provides 13 500 for fy16
▶ 32:56 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: because we know we're going to need that based on the volume of permits that uh we we estimate uh will be actually uh taken out so it's the same permitting software just for inspectional services that's that's correct all right thank you thank you mr chairman thank you very much alderman Alderman Bird, Alderman McAteer-Margolis, please. Thank you. I was wondering if you could just elaborate on the total supplies and material line. It looks like you have a projection this year of close to 85,000, but you're only putting in for 54,000 for next year. I'm sorry, which line? Welch, it's the total of 53 supplies and materials. You have a couple of different lines that 530100 IT computer. That's decreased. One's increased, one's decreased.
▶ 33:45 So you're talking, I'm sorry, you're talking about the total supplies and materials at the bottom? Correct, yeah, it was, the projection for 2015 was close to 85,000. Yeah, and I do like to point out quite frequently that these projections are, can be thrown off. Okay. That column, respectfully to the board, is not a column I would value, period. Okay, so you're closer to being on budget for what you requested for this past year? That is correct, yes. Which was 40,000? Correct. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Seeing no further, Alderman, wishing to be heard, a motion has been made in second, is that correct, Madam Clerk? On 930, yes. On 930, all in favor, please say aye.
▶ 34:31 Peter D. Mortimer: Aye. All any opposed, hearing none, Department 930 will be recommended for passage for the full board. the next order we have before us which i think you started to illustrate a little bit but we'll call it out officially is department 931 it is capital outlay in the amount of three hundred fifty six thousand one hundred twenty five dollars and eight cents please proceed mr pesos i'm sorry so i i don't know if you need me to review that again uh for the board um but i think there were some questions uh relative to the three hundred thousand dollar uh motion to cut three hundred thousand dollars from um this budget second alderman Francis has made a motion to remove three hundred thousand dollars from this budget said motion was duly seconded by alderman mcatea
▶ 35:18 margolis on discussion alderman boy cell followed by president khan all right we're removing three $300,000 from the budget, are we putting this in a fund to prepare for the purchasing, or how is that going to be handled? Are we subtracting from the $72 million that we're taking here? Through the Chair, that's exactly correct. We are going to subtract from the $72 million plus that we've asked for to date. And once this goes before the Board again, whether it be July or August, or quite frankly, September, the Board would have to reappropriate the same three hundred thousand dollars for those purposes and then i could set the tax rate with the three hundred thousand dollars for fy16 already in it that's correct okay thank you thank you mr
▶ 36:06 jerry thank you alderman Boisselle president khan please yes so what would the funding source be technically how would we do this identical funding sources fy16 all fy16 revenue oftentimes this is mirrored in um towns where they have fault fall town meetings but they'll then do a special town meeting they call it and then any additional appropriations for that fiscal year which had begun that past july would then be uh appropriate uh implemented for that fiscal year coming forward so this wouldn't be a transfer this is going to be an appropriate appropriation absolutely just like we're doing this evening everything you've done here on this expense budget is an appropriation period yeah i understand that i just wanted to know whether we're going to
▶ 36:50 Peter D. Mortimer: transfer these monies from another source or whether we're going to reappropriate them okay thank you thank you president khan all in favor of the motion to cut three hundred thousand dollars from this budget line item please say aye aye any opposed hearing none the line item budget as amended is before you motion to recommend as amended second i have a motion to recommend as amended by alderman inferno duly seconded by was that alderman lemmerman by alderman lemmerman any discussion seeing none all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none department 931 as amended will be recommended to the full board for passage thank you very much thank you mr de la russo thank you mr pesos the next order before us is department 152 human resources
▶ 37:42 Peter D. Mortimer: a line item in the amount of 137 thousand seventy six dollars and five cents uh we have miss long in the audience with us this evening miss long would you come forward please We have a motion to recommend by Alderman Boycelle, duly seconded by Alderman Inferna. On discussion, we... Oh, they may want to make an opening statement. Would you like to make an opening statement before we proceed to first-in-queue Alderman Byrd, or would you like to proceed directly to questions? Welch, just to recap, the human resources budget was before you in May. There was a question about one particular line item, and at that time, the board's wishes was to place the budget on hold awaiting clarification from our city solicitor to
▶ 38:34 Jaclyn L. Bird: the Board of Aldermen regarding the innovation grant and I believe that you've received that clarification in writing and so I think this is simply procedural as far as I'm concerned that we're here before you again so that you you can make the final approval of the human resources budget. That's my understanding. Thank you very much. I'm hearing nothing further from the city officials. First in line, we have Alderman Bird, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ms. Long and Mr. VanCampen for addressing the question that I had at the meeting and for the legal opinion that you wrote. And I was satisfied with your answer to my questions, some of which were just serving as a refresher, so I appreciate it.
▶ 39:23 Peter D. Mortimer: And that's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Alderman Byrd. Any other Alderman wishing to be heard? Seeing none, we have a motion for recommendation for passage from Alderman Boycelle. It was seconded by Alderman Inferna. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this budget line item 152 will be moved to motion. We will be recommended to the full board for practice. Thank you very much. Thank you for your attendance this evening. Thank you very much. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Okay, we have a motion to adjourn from Alderman Inferna, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. And just before I rule on the motion to adjourn affirmatively, there will be another appropriations meeting.