Finance Committee — 2016-06-13

Finance Committee Meeting

This meeting starts at 15:12 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

Robert A. Boisselle present · Nonvoting Member; Donald L. Conn Jr. present · President/Ex-officio Member; Scott M. Forbes present · Chairman; Jennifer L. Lemmerman present · Nonvoting Member; Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis present · Nonvoting Member; Monica C. Medeiros present · Nonvoting Member; Peter D. Mortimer present · Ward 6 Alderman; John N. Tramontozzi present · Vice Chairman; Francis X. Wright Jr. absent · Ward 3 Alderman; Michael P. Zwirko present · Alderman at Large

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE FINANCE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 13, 2016 Aldermanic Chamber Committee Meeting 7:10 PM The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Scott M. Forbes Chairman Present John N. Tramontozzi Vice Chairman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Absent Peter D. Mortimer Ward 6 Alderman Present Michael P. Zwirko Alderman at Large Present Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present Robert A. Boisselle Nonvoting Member Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Nonvoting Member Present Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Nonvoting Member Present Monica C. Medeiros Nonvoting Member Present In Attendance: City Clerk Mary Rita O'Shea; Elections Clerk Linda Lee Angiolillo; Animal Control Officer Coral Hope; Police Chief Mike Lyle; IT Assistant Director Colby Cousens; Human Resources Director Marianne Long; City Auditor/CFO Patrick Dello Russo

ORDER-2016-192 Transfer Transfer of $220.00 From: A/C #011622-521500 Postage To: A/C #011622- 530506 - Election Supplies Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2016-193 Transfer Transfer of $11,000.00 From: A/C #015111-511000 - Health Salaries & Wages To: A/C #015112-530501 - Health Exp Misc Supplies - $10,000.00; and A/C #015112-524500 - Health Exp Pest Control - $1,000.00 as set forth herein. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2016-194 Transfer Transfer of $12,907.85 From: Police Salary and Wages, A/C # 012111-511000 to various police accounts as set forth within. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 8/16/2016 2:32 PM Minutes Finance Committee June 13, 2016

ORDER-2016-195 Transfer Transfer of $18,155.38 From A/C #015432-544000 (Vets Exp Veterans' Benefits) To: A/C # 011552-591015 (IT Prior Year) as set forth herein. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2016-196 Transfer Transfer of $l,400.00 From: Pine Banks Salary and Wages (016521-511000) To: various IT Accounts as set forth within. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2016-197 Transfer Transfer of 158,469.00 from various accounts to various accounts as set forth within Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 8/16/2016 2:32 PM

Transcript

▶ 15:18 Scott M. Forbes: Alderman Lemmerman, Alderman McAteer-Margolis, and Alderman Medeiros. Before we get to public participation, this meeting is being recorded on MMTV in accordance with our Massachusetts general open meeting laws. You can watch us all on Comcast or visit the City of Monroe's website via viewing pleasure. Motion to open the floor for public participation, Mr. Chairman. Second. We got a motion to open public participation made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? This is a portion of our meeting where anybody from the general public can approach the table and speak on behalf of the orders of the finance committee that are before us tonight.

▶ 15:54 Scott M. Forbes: Seeing nobody from the general public willing to come forward. Motion to close public participation. I got a motion to close public participation made by Alderman Zwirko, duly seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Public participation is now concluded. First order on our agenda tonight is order number 2016-192. It is a transfer of $220 from account number 011-622-521-500, postage to account number 011622-530506, election supplies. Do I have a motion to suspend the rules, Mr. Chairman? Thank you, Alderman Mortimer. We have a motion to suspend the rules made by Alderman Mortimer. Second. Seconded by Alderman Zwirko. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The rules are suspended.

▶ 16:45 Scott M. Forbes: Welcome. If you want to come up and approach and speak on behalf of the order, good evening. Pretty simple. um the container that holds our voting machines crashed oh boy and we needed a new cabinet and we didn't have the money so we transferred it motion to recommend for passage mr chairman got a motion to recommend made by alleman mortimer second second by alleman's werco any um any more in discussion all those in favor aye aye any opposed what will be recommended our next full board meeting you know the drill you don't have to be in attendance for that vote thank you very much for coming this evening next order on the agenda is two zero one six dash one nine three a transfer of eleven thousand dollars from account number zero one five one one one dash five one one

▶ 17:42 Scott M. Forbes: zero zero zero health salaries and wages to account number zero one five one one two dash five three zero five zero one health expense miscellaneous supplies for ten thousand dollars and account number zero one one uh zero one five sorry about that one one two dash five two four five hundred health expense pest control for one thousand dollars as set forth here in see we have a representative here good evening coral how are you just like to give us a roundabout uh summary of this order that would be great sure um so we've been working in the city with ehs which is a pest control company who's been going around the city with us and looking at target areas in the city plus residents homes one of his recommendations was to replace the barrels

▶ 18:35 Michael P. Zwirko: that we have in our parks with big belly barrels they are 3 200 a piece so we're requesting for three of those at the moment and hopefully eventually at some point we will be able to add more throughout the city i was going to recommend for passage mr chairman got a motion to recommend made by alderman mortimer second seconded by alderman Tramontozzi on discussion alderman's worko please thank you mr chairman so i just um i know that the the line item here is for the purchase of the three big barrels and then a thousand dollars to pay for the consultant that we've been using can you just give me a little bit of a background and maybe explain to folks at home about the plan that uh so what happened there's been an increase in um norway rat activity

▶ 19:22 i mean could you just provide a little bit of background you know what the what the plan is to attack this in addition to these big belly barrel purchases um just a little bit of an overview and some background information well in the past couple weeks we've been getting phone calls from the community um saying that they've seen an increase in rats in their areas so what What we did was we hired a company along with myself, Ruth Clay, and Jen Kehoe, one of the other inspectors, to go around to all the houses that requested us to come, check their properties. We had EHS come with us. EHS gave them recommendations on what to do with their property, whether it's to be cutting back brush from their homes, cleaning out their homes.

▶ 20:04 We worked with DPW. They actually allowed a bigger pickup for trash last week, and for recycling, and for yard waste, so we could get some of those trees and things that were down in people's yards. We also went around and passed out flyers. We had a community meeting. The community meeting turned out great. We had a lot of people come. We have a lot of community members working together in neighborhoods, cleaning each other's yard, working with elderly people. If they can't get out there and get their yards cleaned, get their yards cleaned so ehs has really worked hard with us and is making a plan to go around to parks public places and to see if there's things that we can do in the city but also working with

▶ 20:50 Michael P. Zwirko: the public to try and diminish or help with the rodent problem i won't say eradicate i will say lessen the problem and thank you for that i did attend the public hearing last week i think it was last wednesday so it was very informative so appreciate that the um the one thing that i was just wondering maybe it's a factor of both but um in at least my neighborhood i've noticed a a lot of um bunnies this year so i'm wondering and the consultant brought it up that we did have a mild winter so we actually may have because juveniles generally pass in colder more harsh winters so along with squirrels chipmunks bunnies and rats we've seen a population increase and i'm just curious if that's due to the mild winter or is it due to access of food that may be around

▶ 21:39 Michael P. Zwirko: lack of predators is it a mixture of all of these things i'm just wondering if you know maybe there's in certain areas there's too much trash or maybe there's just an abundance of food in people's yards i i'm just i mean so it seems you know this could potentially be an anomaly that we're dealing with but it also could just be due to the weather so i'm just wondering you know where did all of a sudden this how did this just all of a sudden balloon it didn't all of a sudden happen it kind of goes in waves every few years you know rat population goes up this population goes down it is because we had a mild winter anything small that normally wouldn't make it through a harsh winter made it through plus bred early so we see a lot more rabbits with rabbits

▶ 22:18 come rodents anything that's in the ground that would have passed away during the winter did not so there is an overabundance of it and it's it's not dirty property it could be beautiful mulched property with beautiful gardens and flowers um they're not just a dirty animal they're they're an animal that eats what we eat they live where we live and we feed them we feed them very well and we give them beautiful places to hide so um it's not that it's an increase all of a sudden it's not that there's a change or something has occurred like construction that has made this happened but there are targeted areas where there is an abundance of them and there's a reason for that if you go to those places which we have you can see

▶ 23:05 Michael P. Zwirko: there's an overabundance of things and taking care of those problems plus not feeding them is the biggest problem and and people aren't weren't aware and aren't aware of what actually feeds them you know what properties they desire and so going around to the public going door-to-door handing out these flyers the meeting it's given the community and awareness of what's going on and I think just by doing that alone going back to the places we've already been there's already been a decrease in activity and I just have two other questions and you alluded to this in the order so in addition to the you somewhat kind of answered it but in addition to the big belly barrels has there been other recommendations by the consultant in addition to just the barrels was it to

▶ 23:53 your point for our town correct um pretty much just education okay um you know we haven't gone everywhere in the city where we've gotten phone calls we have gone um and in any park even though we were targeting up at the common any park is going to have that same problem if the barrels are overflowing or if they're just not covered if people are throwing food on the ground it's just where they're going to eat so we started up there and we're working from there but that goes along with the whole entire city um so hopefully like i said in time we can get big bellies for all the parks um the community knowing a little bit more about where to put your waste how to get rid of your waste that type of thing um hopefully that will decrease and so the benefit to

▶ 24:40 these big billy bears because we do have them on main street um a point of order mr chairman yes president khan is a discussion of the rodent population in order relative to this order i mean we are talking about an order for the purchase of barrels to deal with the issue of rodents that are in the community i'm assuming that alderman's work was wrapping up his last question so the ruling in the chairs this is this line of questioning is in order i believe it is in order thank you mr chairman so these barrels um what is the benefit of these versus the other barrels that we have i understand that they're enclosed and that would be they are enclosed and they are the the only rodent proof barrel okay that they have that's why they're so expensive

▶ 25:28 Robert A. Boisselle: thank you those are all the questions that i had is there any other voting member of the finance committee ask questions non-voting members alderman Boisselle please now you mentioned you've been doing a lot of discussions and cleaning up in the area do you find that by taking away the food source for the the rodents and so forth you may be pushing them to other parts of the community absolutely not no no along with along with taking away their food source we're also trying to take care of them as well whether we're doing dry ice whether they the residents themselves are hiring companies to come out and do pest control the city has done some pest control so i think with doing all of that we should be able to slow down the population not going to

▶ 26:15 get rid of the rodent population anywhere okay it's just always going to happen but to decrease it in certain areas where it is high they're not going to move away we're trying to decrease it by removing them completely now what you're saying pest control are you talking about chemical control some are using chemical control some are using dry ice yes okay and are you notifying the residents when the chemicals are being pushed down because some of these animals some of the itself is not doing that what we are recommending when we go on to a residence property and we look at their property for them the recommendation is yes we see something that possibly could be rodent activity we recommend that you call a pest control company and have them come out and discuss

▶ 26:59 Peter D. Mortimer: it with you so right now we are just trying to educate people let them know what we see on their property let them know what they can remove to prevent things from coming on their property and if there is something there who they need to talk to to get them off their property thank you very much thank you mr chairman motion recommend i do believe we already have a motion to recommend in a second uh alderman mortimer did you have uh some questions very briefly yeah the presentation was great thank you alderman inferno was there alderman circle was there and i just would like to let the people know steps are being taken this is nothing to get something to be concerned about but not overly concerned about it's cyclical it was a mild winter this will soon pass and

▶ 27:45 everything is going to be fine correct and because of your good work thank you that's all i have thank you thank you alvin monomer oliver medeiros please thank you i just wanted to you mentioned a flyer is that available online or and or can we we actually did put it online and anybody can call the health department i can email it out i can mail it out there is still some residents who wanted it delivered and so we were going door to door in some communities and doing that as well it's on the health department's page I'm not quite sure if it was on the health department's page or the city page itself I can find that out and he blasts that out on the mayor's blog that'd be great sure absolutely thank you you're welcome thank you thank you so we do have a

▶ 28:27 Scott M. Forbes: motion recommend and duly seconded all those in favor any opposed order will be recommended before our next full board meeting we thank you for your presence tonight you do not have to attend that meeting thank you thank you thank you next order is two zero one six dash one nine four it is a transfer of twelve thousand nine hundred and seven dollars and eighty five cents from police salaries and wages account number zero one two one one one dash five one one zero zero zero to various of police accounts as set forth herein Chief Lyle, good evening, thank you for being here tonight. Thank you. These funds are to cover some housekeeping items for the police department. Number one is our arrest file system, it is taxed.

▶ 29:25 It is, we cannot buy any more sleeves for our file system, so we had to purchase a new system for our arrest files. They're mandated by law to maintain them for eternity. That's number one. Number two is under our ammunition line. It was for firearms for our new officers that started the academy on May 23rd, plus the prior three officers that graduated last year. Police uniforms, that's for our officers that started the academy on May 23rd for the academy uniforms and one uniform when he does graduate with the academy. Narcan is to buy some spare Narcan for the police department. Currently, we have 16 units deployed, 22 spare units, and approximately $300 in our account. for NARCAN. I will say that we're very fortunate we haven't deployed NARCAN since May 14th.

▶ 30:16 Motion to recommend. Second. We got a motion to recommend by Alderman Tramontozzi, seconded by Alderman Zwirko. Anyone in discussion? Alderman Medeiros, please. Thank you, Chief. I'm happy to see this transfer in for NARCAN. Do you intend to make that purchase before the end of the fiscal year? What we're doing is, because of the expiration date on the dose, the drug, we buy it as we need it. It's 48 hours, so within 48 hours, we have an officer or supervisor assigned to it. He monitors every time we deploy it, so when we deploy it, we replenish it. So we always have plenty of spares on hand. Okay, and then, so if this isn't used by the end of the year, this is going to go back into the general fund,

▶ 31:04 Scott M. Forbes: because we didn't have any funding for this next year in the budget. this will be this will be expended before the end of the fiscal year thank you thank you motion to recommend mr. chairman we already have a motion I do believe we already have a motion to recommend and second already on the floor thank you all in Medeiros's do we have anybody else in discussion so all those in favor of order number two zero one six dash one nine four all right any opposed motion passes will be recommended for the full board our next meeting. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate your attendance here tonight. Next, we have order number 2016-195, a transfer of $18,155.38 from account number 015432-54400, Vets Expense veterans benefits to account number 0 1 1 5 5 2 5 9 1 0 1 5 IT prior year as set

▶ 32:08 forth here in good evening evening before we begin I'd like to introduce mr. Neil Ellis he's the new IT director for the city in schools he'll be joining us in the fall as the new school year starts yeah yeah I'm really excited to start here and in in Melrose it's kind of it's a city that other municipalities look to do because it's so progressive and it's such a nice community so I'm really excited to be starting here I won't start until September but very excited so thank you so as far as the order goes this is a bill from 2014 it just came to our attention recently this is a vendor we work with regularly and we've made a lot of payments to them there was some confusion over this one the bill came in late after a project that they were

▶ 33:15 Michael P. Zwirko: working on uh and it never got applied to the project funds so we can't legally pay the the bill without transferring uh to a prior year account so we're asking to have those funds transferred here tonight thank you motion to recommend mr chairman we have a motion recommend by alderman mortimer second second by alden's werco any on discussion yes thank you mr chairman so i'm just curious so uh was it like a bookkeeping error on this uh you said it was from 2014 it didn't get paid and furthermore regardless regardless of the error did is there any um overdue or past due fees due to the tardiness of this bill being paid we have a good relationship with this vendor uh so there are no overdue or past due fees associated with it um but

▶ 34:09 But yeah, it was something that they did a lot of work on this project, and we made a series of payments to them. And this one just kind of got lost, and we weren't sure if it was paid or what. So we've been investigating it, and we've determined that we're definitely obligated to pay. The work was performed, and we need to make these guys whole. They're a vendor we work with regularly, and we have a great relationship with them. Can you explain the nature of services provided? This was related to the high school science lab project. It was installation of security system in order to protect the large investment we made in redoing the high school science wing. Thank you. Those are all the questions I had, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 35:05 Thank you, Alderman Zwirko. Any on discussion? Alderman Medeiros, please. Thanks. So this is coming from the Veterans Benefits Expense line. Maybe Mr. De La Russo can just, I don't know if you can speak to what's made this money available on that line. Good evening. The Chair, Alderman Medeiros, less expenditures than they had anticipated for benefits. I'm not sure if it's because it may be more being moved to federal programs or what the like but the local requirement was less than anticipated so unfortunately has some funds available there great question thank you you have any other questions all in the nearest no thank you thank you we do have a motion to recommend and duly second it is there anybody else on discussion

▶ 36:10 Scott M. Forbes: seeing none all those in favor aye any opposed motion passes will be recommended before the full board you do not have to be in attendance for that meeting uh thank you very much for your time here tonight and and welcome we appreciate it thank you next order on the agenda is order number two zero one six dash one nine six transfer of fourteen hundred dollars from pine bank salaries and wages zero one six five two one dash five one one zero zero zero that's why you're staying there two various i.t accounts has set forth herein motion to recommend Mr. Chairman. We have a motion to recommend made by Alderman Mortimer. Second. Seconded by Alderman Tramontozzi. On discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any

▶ 36:51 Scott M. Forbes: opposed? Motion passes will be recommended for the full board. Final order on the agenda is order number 2016-197. It's a transfer of $158,469 from various accounts to various accounts as set forth within. motion to recommend we have a motion recommend made by Alderman Mortimer second second and by Alderman Tramontozzi is there any discussion on this order Alderman Suarco please is this an order that it's coming from you the first the first piece of the order is a transfer of 84,000 for department uh i.t computer purchases and upgrade does this just have to do with the life cycle of technology here uh partially that and partially a lot of this is going to go towards professional services for the installation and configuration of data center equipment in our data center as you know

▶ 38:02 we have a vacancy at the i.t director position that represents one-third of the technical personnel in the city IT so in the interest of stability and hitting some of the hard deadlines we have for certain upgrades we'd like to bring in professional services to make sure that we get everything in place that needs to be in place by the end of this summer in order for the schools to open smoothly in the city to operate smoothly the so you'll be contracting out services because of the vacancy in the position correct yes and the fact that our new director doesn't start until September we just need the we need the extra help and so we've met with the school superintendent and the CFO and other city leadership we've decided this is the best approach and I've also met with

▶ 39:01 mr. Ellis and he's reviewed the plan as well and he can comment on it thank you yeah I went through spent a few hours going through all the all the quotes in the in the expenses and all the all the work that Colby's gone through it's you know dead-on he's gone done is definitely done his due diligence everything everything's spec'd correctly the the all the contractors are state contract vendors so it's it looks it's tight thank you for that you're working and you haven't even started so well since I still have the floor I guess I just wanted to ask the police chief Lyle if he's here regarding the police evidence room and thank you thank you thank you chief could you just give me a little bit of background on this on the police evidence room please it's older

▶ 40:14 than me it's been there since the building was opened some 50 60 years ago and it's it's maxed out all our spaces maxed out so we hired a Dunnigan systems off the state contract they came in and they maximize the space we have it's approximately 12 by 16 feet and they have covered every square foot for Tobias time to a new building at some point and if we do build in a new police station or public safety building all this equipment would be transferable to a new building and added on if we needed so it has used beyond the building's life I'm sorry it has used beyond the building's life yes yes I just really wanted some background that's the only questions I had on the evidence room I have I have

▶ 41:02 no further questions of any of the items before on this order Thank You all of its work Oh anyone else in discussion all the Madeiros please thanks just back to what mr. cousins it looks like the account here is department equipment IT computer purchases and upgrade which looks more like hardware rather than then personnel so I'm just for the $84,000 part of the part of what's required there is some hardware that's part of what's required and then it's a lot of it our services associated with the configuring configuration and installation of that hardware just looking at the budget and the way the the accounts are we thought that the the interdepartmental budget and the line item there was the the best one for us to put it in in order to make use of

▶ 42:09 those those funds now we have a little extra money in that line item right now so if we do have to spend a little little more we're able to do that right away and make sure that everything gets done and there's no loose ends thank you thank you and I seem as long in the background a good portion of these funds all set with us thank you thank you a good portion of these funds eighty six thousand nine hundred eighteen dollars are coming from health health contractual X group health providers and an additional nine hundred dollars from workers comp benefits and seventy five hundred from unemployment expenses so if you could just speak to something sure yes I'm actually glad that we have the funds available to be able to transfer with health insurance in particular

▶ 43:08 when we budgeted for FY 16 it was in March of 2015 and when when we budget for the health contractual in particular it's always based on rate times enrollment and as you know we have ten different plans so it's always a moving target the opt-out program has been fairly successful obviously that is an expense as well so we were able to we had funds available in the health insurance budget workers comp I'm very actually very glad and very proud to say it's the lowest it's been in many many years the lowest of at least six to seven years and the large part of that is because of the privatization of DPW trash and recycling so it's not our employees who are performing that high-risk work and unemployment we've been fortunate we do have unemployment

▶ 44:23 expenses and when I come before you with my budgets you'll see that the in the year-to-date budget report but again as you know those are all self-funded insurance line items depending upon activity great well we're glad to hear that and I know that was one of the driving forces the reduction in workers comp costs that drove us to go towards privatization so I was glad to hear that's working out yes it is thank you sure and last but not least I see defibrillators I'm not sure if that's on the police side or on the fireside so we have both chiefs here that's the purchase six six defibrillators for our police vehicles that are active in our patrol division that's great chief and I believe we've already had officer there's either funding or you've already

▶ 45:18 Scott M. Forbes: had the officers trained in you know they're all every police officer in the City of Meadows is certified to perform CPR with a defibrillator what's unique about these is we coordinate it with the fire department so that our defibrillators are identical to theirs so that if there's an event the equipment can be transferred to the switch right over to the fire department easily well we are glad to see that and I'm glad to be able to fund that one so thank you thank you all of Madera anyone else on discussion believe we do have a motion to recommend in a second all those in favor on order number two zero one six dash one nine seven please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this order will be recommended to our next full board meeting

Finance Committee — 2016-06-13

Attendance

Agenda

Minutes

Transcript

Original documents