Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2015-08-24
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-2016-18 : Amending Something Previously Adopted Order No. 2015-154 - City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 be amended by striking the sum of "$72,485,826.66" and inserting in place thereof: "$72,435,826.66 as set forth in the attached document.
- ORDER-2016-20 : An Appropriation in the amount of $57,887.36 from Raised and Appropriated to various accounts as set forth within
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● AUGUST 24, 2015 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 8:00 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: CFO Patrick Dello Russo; Human Resources Director Marianne Long
ORDER-2016-18 Amending Something Previously Adopted Amending Something Previously Adopted Order No. 2015-154 - City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 be amended by striking the sum of "$72,485,826.66" and inserting in place thereof: "$72,435,826.66 as set forth in the attached document. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2016-20 Appropriation An Appropriation in the amount of $57,887.36 from Raised and Appropriated to various accounts as set forth within Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 8/26/2015 10:44 AM
Transcript
▶ 13:24 Peter D. Mortimer: Stay tuned for appropriations. At eight. At eight. Con. This meeting is being recorded by MMTV. A DVD is available from MMTV if you would like to see this meeting at a future time. And you can also get it streaming from the Melrose website, City of Melrose website, or the MMTV website. Is there a motion to open the floor for public participation, please? Second. We have a motion to open the floor for public participation from Alderman Forbes, duly seconded by Alderman Inferna. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Are there any members of the public who wish to come forward and make any comments or ask any questions about any order before the Appropriations Committee tonight? Seeing none. Motion to close public participation.
▶ 15:33 Peter D. Mortimer: We have a motion to close public participation by Alderman Forbes, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. 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 2016-18. It is amending something previously adopted. Order 2015-154, City of Melrose Operating Budget for fiscal year 2016, to be amended by striking the sum of $72,485,826.66 and inserting in place thereof $72,435,826.66 as set forth in the attached document. I would welcome a motion to suspend the rules because we have our chief financial officer, our city auditor, Patrick De La Russo, in the room with us. So moved. Second. We have a motion to suspend the rules from Alderman Forbes, duly seconded by Alderman Byrd.
▶ 16:39 All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, the motion to suspend the rules passes. And I would invite you, Mr. DellaRusso, to please join us. Good evening, sir. Thank you, good evening. The request that we're asking this evening under order number 2016-18 is to actually reduce projected debt interest by $50,000 for upcoming fiscal year 16 and the central focus is that that's $50,000 that was applicable to the funding for the cemetery capital improvements they have asked that we modify the financing plan from the four years that they had hoped to achieve this past year back to the the original five year program, so that's all this is, it's period. Thank you sir, and just for the people at home, Mr.
▶ 17:50 Peter D. Mortimer: De La Russo has been joined by Mr. Arthur Flavin, our city treasurer, sitting to Mr. De La Russo's right. First in queue, I saw President Kahn's hand. President Kahn, please. Yeah, Mr. Chairman, this motion order requires us to cut budget 752 projected debt and temporary interest and we need to reduce line 017522 by $50,000. So that the new line would be $233,912.33 and I would move that please. President Khan has aptly and correctly pointed out the line item in our budget from which the reduction would be taken. And he has made a motion that this order be recommended for passage. Second. That motion was duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. On discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion to recommend this order for passage, please say aye.
▶ 18:54 Peter D. Mortimer: Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this order will be recommended for passage at our next full bid board meeting at the Monday meeting in September. Thank you very much. And now we will proceed to the next order. It is order 2016-20. It is an appropriation in the amount of $57,887.36 from raised and appropriated to various accounts as set forth herein. We are now also joined, sitting to Mr. Delo Russo's right, Mrs. Mary Ann Long, our Director of Personnel, Human Resources. Personnel, you can tell I grew up in the 80s, we don't say personnel anymore. So our Director of Human Resources, Mary Ann Long. I guess you wouldn't grow up in the 80s. I think he's using some poetic license. I'm getting kind of catty there.
▶ 19:59 Would you like to make an opening statement, please? Yes, I would. These, there are four adjustments applicable here to the Pine Banks Park. They had adjustments in the personnel as well as equipment. And this is being reflected in this request this evening. I'll ask that Marion long addresses the personnel issues and then I'd be happy to address the capital equipment matter as well as you know the Pine Banks Park staff are shared are actually leased by the trustees of the Pine Banks through a legal contract and agreement and the costs are shared by the city of Melrose and the city of Malden. And our superintendent of Pine Banks, who has actually been in the Pine Bank staff for 27 years, is retiring on December 31st. So the amount that you see
▶ 21:12 in the first line, in the amount of $23,875, is related to his retirement. And that includes the vacation time that he currently has accrued now he's he's here and not leaving for four months but we had to use today's figures we don't know whether or not he will be using vacation time so that's approximately 5,500 and when an employee has been employed for 20 years or more and then retires it's very specific they can the city will buy back up to four thousand dollars of their sick leave accruals and again we don't know whether or not he will use any sick time between now and December 31st this is the maximum amount that we're asking for and the board of trustees is also um paying out fifteen thousand dollars um to the superintendent for his um in
▶ 22:25 recognition of his years of service and also his family's years of service you may know his father was the superintendent before him for many many years and our current superintendent was a staff member again this amount will be transferred into the pine bank's budget currently and then what my office does is we invoice the city of malden on a quarterly basis and those quarterly invoices include salary obviously any type of compensation for the four regular employees as well as the temporary employees you know seasonal employees and their benefits health insurance etc so although we're transferring this amount into pine banks we will be um reimbursed by the city of malden for half of it approximately twelve thousand dollars president khan please um
▶ 23:31 um this this gentleman was not a union member is that correct no non-union and just a point of interest is are these payments made pursuant to a policy of the city of Melrose or a policy of the city of Malden um they're a city of Melrose policy and um when this particular staff uh Pine staff actually transferred for many years they were managed by the city of Malden and then now it's our turn to manage them so they're the benefits that they had in Malden transferred with them as long as the city of Melrose had similar so they were in actually entitled to these benefits in Malden as well is what I was saying but this is in accordance with our employment manual to answer your question and and for anybody watching at home the 23 875 only half of that is the
▶ 24:31 responsibility of melrose that is correct i know it's already been said and i know i always crack people for being redundant but i think it's important for people to know that our contribution is half that is correct that's all thank you president khan seeing no one else uh wishing to be heard i don't think we've had a motion yet have we madam clerk on this one point of order oh you okay you wish to go over some of the other items on the list anybody okay all right any further discussion mr delarusso please um the pine bank's capital equipment twelve thousand nine thirty eight fifty that's in addition to the ten thousand dollars that we placed in the budget for a placeholder at the time prior to them submitting the budget we did not know the cost of the
▶ 25:25 equipment they purchased a chevrolet dump truck in a plow and that's the remainder of our share of that cost thank you mr belarusso alderman boys help please we're putting in twenty three thousand eight hundred and seventy five dollars and we're getting back twelve thousand correct approximate half whatever it is that um is the final expense we will receive a reimbursement for half of that amount from the city of malden we have capital equipment for twelve thousand nine hundred thirty eight dollars is that our portion or are we going to get half of that back um what happens is the vehicle costs forty five thousand eight hundred and seventy seven dollars so our half is twenty $22,938.50, so we don't get that back, that's our 50% share.
▶ 26:18 Okay, so if we're getting 12,000 back, why don't we just put in $938 and just call it clean? Is it a nightmare in accounting to do this, or? Yes, yes. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Boycelle. Alderman Medeiros, please. Thank you. Thank you. Also, Del Rosso, could you speak to a little bit about how we happen to have the funds available and raised and appropriated? Sure, two things. One is that we have reduced the health insurance budget by $100,000. We also have received over 30,000 more in state aid from the time I submitted this budget to the board. And is that in general state aid, or is that- Correct. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Alderman Medeiros. Alderman McAteer, my goal is please.
▶ 27:15 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: Thank you, I think Ms. Long, you probably covered the other Pine Bank salaries and wages more or less, it's the same procedure where we're covering those, and that's our share of the cost. She's referring to this. Salary, part time, and wages. Is that part of this? That's part of that. Yes. It is. So those are our share. Just wanted to clarify, yes. That's our share. It's not, we're not being reimbursed for half of those. will be reimbursed for whatever the final amount is by half okay yes so this was in addition to whatever we had already budgeted correct okay thank you and mr. de la Rousseau thank you I believe you've added been able to add back the animal sheltering piece in the Health Department yes so thank you we
▶ 28:11 appreciate that I promise I would address it and hopefully this if it passes that's been addressed and as far as the library salaries that was unexpected the overtime just no quite frankly that through the chair that's to meet the municipal appropriation requirement it should have been 15,000 in the budget and it was not it was originally and then it was changed so now that we that brings us back to base one where we belong for the library period so it's it's not actually for overtime salary it's just going into that line or no it's going for that line if you look in the library budget you will see that that second line was was adjusted this brings it back to make it whole again where it belonged to meet the state requirement correct okay thank
▶ 29:07 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Any other questions, or would you like to address any other items on the list? I'm going to make a motion to recommend. Okay, we have a motion to recommend this order for passage from Alderman McAteer-Margolis. Second. Duly seconded by Alderman Boisselle. He beat you by a half. Give me the peace sign there and got it in. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we're ready for the vote. favor of the motion to recommend the order for passage hi any opposed hearing none this order will be recommended to the full board for passage at our september meeting thank you very much you're welcome sir uh on a point of personal privilege we have alderman Medeiros thank you
▶ 29:56 Peter D. Mortimer: i just wanted to uh remind the public on unless uh oh yeah i was about to do that too okay very good thank you yes tomorrow night um in these chambers from five to seven there's an open house informational uh about the essex street revitalization project it's a five hundred thousand dollar grant that the city of melrose got so if anybody wants to come and see a little presentation about it tomorrow it'll be here from five to seven alderman Boisselle on a point of personal privilege when alderman mortimer is saying tomorrow it will be august 25th since this This program will repeat itself on and on for the next three weeks. I hate to see people coming in the following night to see nothing here, but the meeting is August 25th, the 5 to 7.
▶ 30:46 Peter D. Mortimer: August 25th, yes, great point. So people won't come next week when this gets repeated. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Motion to adjourn. Second. We have a motion to adjourn by Alderman McAteer-Margolis, duly seconded by Alderman Forbes. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, the Committee on Appropriations is hereby adjourned. Thank you, one and all.