Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2017-05-11

Appropriations and Oversight Budget Hearing

Attendance

Robert A. Boisselle present · Ward 4 Alderman; Donald L. Conn Jr. present · President/Ex-officio Member; Scott M. Forbes absent · Ward 7 Alderman; Gail Infurna present · Vice Chairman; 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. absent · Ward 3 Alderman; Michael P. Zwirko present · Alderman at Large

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MAY 11, 2017 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Budget Hearing 7:30 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 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 Gail M. Infurna Vice Chairman Present Michael P. Zwirko Alderman at Large 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 Absent Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis Alderman at Large Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman Ward 2 Alderman Present Scott M. Forbes Ward 7 Alderman Absent Donald L. Conn Jr. President/Ex-officio Member Present

ORDER-2017-160 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of Revolving Fund #2657 Waste Collection & Recycling for FY18. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2017-157 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of Park Revolving Account #2669. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2017-149 Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash in the amount of $234,872.54 to various Public Works Accounts as set forth within. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen

ORDER-2017-154 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization and Increase of the Council on Aging Donation Revolving Account # 2811 for FY2018 Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 6/27/2017 2:03 PM Minutes Appropriations Committee May 11, 2017

ORDER-2017-140 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2018 in the amount of $77,397,009.19 (Seventy-Seven Million, Three Hundred Ninety-Seven Thousand, Nine Dollars and Nineteen Cents) Appropriations Committee City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 6/27/2017 2:03 PM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Peter D. Mortimer: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is the Committee on Appropriations for the Melrose Board of Aldermen. It is May 11th, 2017, at 7.30 p.m. This is a committee of the whole. Every member of the Board of Aldermen is a member of this committee. I am the chairman, Peter Mortimer. The vice chairman is Alderman Gail Inferna. Other aldermen here in attendance this evening. Alderman Zwirko, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Boisselle, Alderman McAteer-Margolis, Alderman Lemmerman, and President Kahn. We are beginning our budget deliberations for the fiscal year 2018 budget. We'll be discussing a few budgets and a lot of public works tonight for people at home watching. And I would now accept a motion for public participation.

▶ 1:01 Peter D. Mortimer: So moved from Alderman Search, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor of opening the floor for public participation, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none. Public participation is now open, excuse me, is there anyone who would like to come forward? While Mr. Hunt is coming to the table, please let me tell everyone that this meeting is being taped by MMTV. available for future viewing on the MMTV website and for future viewing on the City of Melrose website as well if anybody would like to see this meeting in the future. Mr. Hunt welcome. Ted Hunt 241 Tremont Street. Thank you and you put your name. I have my hands today's latest quarterly water bill. Okay I mean thank you for putting your name and address on the sheet and please proceed.

▶ 1:51 But I wish that this board would propose sending to the state delegation the federal delegation that Melrose needs relief for the taxpayers you know I don't know how you could do that but this can't be sustained forever you know I mean when I came to the city bought my house there were water was a lot cheaper but I don't see you getting any relief from anybody and the budgets very tight I heard the other night and it's just I don't know I think it's the state government is bloated and that they should bring some relief back and the mwa should be reined in somehow some way but that's all i can tell you but it just can't you know i'm getting ready to retire i don't know how i'm going to stay here and i want to stay here

▶ 2:35 Peter D. Mortimer: my wife wants to stay here you know so that's all i got to say but i just wish you'd file a resolution to our state delegation to to find some way somehow that they could start not cutting down their budgets so they i mean they just gave themselves big raises in the state house half that money could have meant water relief and relief to the cities and towns it's outrageous so thank you thank you mr hunt is there anybody else who would like to come forward for public participation seeing none alderman boycelle has made a motion to close public participation duly seconded by alderman lemmerman all in favor of closing public participation please say aye aye any opposed hearing none public participation is now closed

▶ 3:26 Peter D. Mortimer: the first order we have before us is order 2017-140 it's the city of melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2018 in the amount of seventy seven million three hundred and ninety seven thousand nine dollars and nineteen cents uh this order is in committee and it will stay in this committee until it all moves forward to the full board in june and we will discuss the various budgets prior to that the first budget we have before us this evening is budget 693 it is the department of the memorial hall building and we have the director of memorial hall kathy pigott broda and one of the trustees mary sexton in the chambers with us this evening ladies would you please come forward and this budget is in the amount of 199 thousand sixty six dollars

▶ 4:28 Peter D. Mortimer: and nine cents motion to recommend the bottom line for the memorial building fund alderman Robin Boycelle has made a motion to recommend the bottom line for the Memorial Hall Department. And now, ladies, would you please elucidate us as to how some of that money is spent and maybe where some of the revenue that produces that money comes from. Good evening, I'm Mary Sexton and I'm Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Memorial Hall. And I feel that Kathy has done an excellent job, and she's got a lot of exciting material to present here tonight. And I'm hoping that you will see it clear to give us the money that we're asking for. And I think you'll see after listening to Kathy's presentation why it's necessary.

▶ 5:23 Hi, I'm Kathy Paget-Proder, Operations Manager of Memorial Hall. Still the best job in Melrose. in fiscal year 17 we are on track to have 361 events with 58,000 guests in our building we have a staff of four people besides myself and that has just happened over the past year because that we have found that necessary to have four people rotating through because for example in March we had 54 events and in April we have 48 and we could have four to six events a weekend so we have to turn the staff over we've had several new events this year due to the success of Murphy's boxing which is happening May 20th and you can get tickets at Murphy's boxing calm but we've gotten three other events as a result of that

▶ 6:14 we got the no boundary fighting and we which is a kickboxing match which is sanctioned by the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission just like the boxing matches we've got evolved wrestling and the best way I can describe them is it's a farm team for the WWE we have people that go last year that went that was there last night fighting in this level they went up called up to the majors last year and then we also have a US amateur boxing match it's a Michael J Dunleavy foundation that again is sanctioned by the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission we've also had several new people come in AARP came in this year to do a speaking fraud networks prevention seminar we had the Boston chapter the gold star wives we just recently had the Elliott Community

▶ 7:04 Health Department in Malden which serves our community Wakefield Stoneham and Malden hosts the New England Sports Museum Boston versus bully Boston versus bullies seminar and they did a parent seminar and when they saw the facility They're going to book for an evening seminar because we have the ability to do a parent seminar up at the GAR and a student seminar down in the main hall. We have our normal reoccurring events. We have the Melrose Symphony Orchestra, which is next season celebrating their 100th anniversary. We have our Zumba classes. We have the wonderful Melrose Rotary there every Thursday, which is a pleasure to host. We have our Winter Melrose Boot Camp, we have Melrose Youth Ballet and rehearsals,

▶ 7:52 and we have the Melrose Wakefield Indoor Farmers Market. We also have the normal amounts of like Boston Modern Orchestra Project came back, we have Melrose High School Football Banquet every year, and presently right now over the building we have the Melrose Youth Hockey Banquet. We also this year had a lot of community, different community events. For example, we had, we have our veterans mobile food Mart every month there which has increased from serving two communities I believe we're up to serving six veterans families from six different communities we also had Melrose planning department had their public forum congresswoman Clark had her veterans benefit information fair next week we have the mayor's math challenge which is a team from each elementary

▶ 8:37 school in the city on Monday we just got this on this Monday at 7 o'clock we're having a public harem hearing Senator Lewis is hosting the Massachusetts Senate Committee on global warming and climate change in our building and we have our monthly Melrose kids club is still going strong the rec department with the success of the Lego program in the summer and the film program last year that we added we've since added a nutrition seminar we've had four of them during this year and we're adding two more summer programs for next year and that's it if you have any other questions president Khan please yeah with the chairs indulgence I'd like to make a couple of general comments relative to the budget since we haven't really had any discussion about it one

▶ 9:26 thing I wanted to point out to members of the public tonight is if you go to the budget the general city budget and you're interested the last 10 pages of of the agenda packet i think pages 77 through the end give anybody who's interested a good snapshot of the finances of the city it has the cherry sheet it shows chapter 78 which is aid for schools it shows uh it shows local aid uh it shows that and as we start off the total budget this year is $77,397,009.19, and it also has schedules of our long-term debt and our short-term debt, which might be of interest to the members of the general public and for people who have watched the rerun of me talking in past years. One of the things that I'm interested in is tracking the overall total debt of the city from all sources,

▶ 10:29 which I think this year before we do any additional bonding is $64,901,856. But hopefully there are people who are interested in this kind of stuff. And if you want to look at it and you want to try to get a sense of the income and the expenses and the costs and the borrowing, the detail is in those pages of the city budget. so hopefully people who are interested will look at it and hopefully maybe people will even come down to our meetings and ask us questions about the budget or some of these issues um turning to your budget your budget is down slightly this year it's it looks like it's just about one percent less than last year that's a good thing are you going to need any additional funds to get to the end of the year this year um this year no um the one percent is down because

▶ 11:34 i had a staff turnover so my staff salaries start at the beginning again and that's what the decrease is i have brand new staff on board so that is why i could lower the salary but that's the only line one that's down and it is up on elevators and if you notice that but that's because of the union Okay, and I don't think it applies to your department, but I go through this tedious couple of questions with everybody. That's all right. Because for people who are watching at home, not 100% of the salaries for all departments are contained in the budget, some are paid from other sources. So I'm going to ask you the same question I'll ask everybody who comes in. are all of your salary costs contained in the budget for the memorial building

▶ 12:19 Robert A. Boisselle: that we see yes a hundred percent okay that's all for now thank you Thank You President Kahn Alderman Boycelle please oh this is a very impressive list of events that you've been having especially the boxing the wrestling and in other community activities and a lot of people are using this building now I've been in the building I do some of the activities in this building in the building is having its problems now for the past year or two I've been hearing a some sort of work plan or repair plan in different stages what's the status of that particular plan well as you know John Shannon came before you and asked for monies to for a building assessment plan and that is going to be part of the

▶ 13:05 Monica C. Medeiros: public safety assessment plan and John can speak directly to that but they're basically going to bring someone in to look at the needs of the building when that is done there is going to be a committee formed that will include chairman Sexton and myself to review specifically the Memorial Hall aspects of it and may prioritize and make a plan going forward but John China was going to oversee that in conjunction with the public safety assessment okay thank you very much thank you thank you alderman boy cell alderman Medeiros please thank you my questions are similar and along the same lines I find myself you know checking into Memorial Hall more and more every you know every week I guess and lots of great events and one of the most enjoyable places to be I think in

▶ 13:49 Monica C. Medeiros: the city I can't help but notice yes that sometimes you know there are some areas that need some repair and we've talked about that can you talk about that obviously we're having we are having more events and if there are ticketed events then there's a portion of the sales that go to the fund for the hall and can you explain that for the public and and does that money go into a special fund or into the general fund and is any of that put back into repair there's a restoration fund and for ticketed events we request one dollar per ticket sold and it's done on an honor system at the end of the event the person sends me what they feel is appropriate for how many tickets they sold for the building that money goes into a restoration fund and is overseen

▶ 14:40 by the Board of Trustees presently I believe this I'm not quite sure the exact now I think it's $35,000 it's in there but the stage needs some repairs we had it inspected and the catwalks are the same catwalks who was there when it was built in 1912 so there is going to have to be some repairs done to the stage that that money right now is being earmarked for that in the past it has been to repair for example the couch downstairs was broken some of the chairs were broken they had to be repaired at one point we lost one of our though hot water he excuse me there was not a hot water heater in the building that fed the dressing rooms or the bathrooms so the restoration fund was used to do that

▶ 15:28 Monica C. Medeiros: but most of my events do not give money to the restoration fund I'd say about a third because a lot of my events are not ticketed events and so the rental fees that we charge and the rates are relatively reasonable I would say the rental rates the rental rates this is a community hall and I think the will has been to make this accessible to the community but when the fees come in do they go back into the general fund or they go to as a portion of that allocated towards repair or no the when the fees come in they get put into the general fund of the city and then the city actually supplements the budget for Memorial Hall but the board is looking at the fees because I've tried to do some research back when the last time the fees were raised and the last free

▶ 16:21 Peter D. Mortimer: rate increase was in 1994 and it was just to the rehearsal rate which is $200 for four hours it was 175 and they increased it to 200 and I can't tell beyond that when the rates were changed but I know that's the last time the rates were increased was in 1994 thank you very much thank you alderman Mr. Medeiros, a motion has been made to recommend this. It's been seconded up by Alderman Boycelle, who was seconded by Alderman Lemmerman, I think. Previously, all in favor of recommending the bottom line on this budget for approximately $199,000, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this budget will be recommended to the full board for passage. Thank you for your presentation this evening.

▶ 17:12 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you. Thank you. The next budget we have before us is budget 541. It is the Council on Aging in the amount of $184,647.80. Alderman Boycelle has made a motion to recommend. Bottom line on this budget for passage, duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. We are joined by the Director of the Council on Aging, Dawn Falopoulos. Good evening, Ms. Falopoulos. Good evening. Good evening, nice to see you. much thank you you as well again so again so outside of salaries the FY 18 budget is level funded and if if it's okay with the board I would like to tell you about some things that are happening at the Council on Aging in the Milano Center okay we're trying to stick mostly to the budget tonight okay so if you

▶ 18:07 could try to keep the budget focused we can have a little bit of leeway on that but let's let's try to keep it focused okay yeah two minutes of fine absolutely okay um so I really just wanted to say that um we had done a 55 plus assessment and we presented it to the Board of Aldermen in June of last year so our primary focus for FY 17 has been to address the action steps that were a a result of the assessment so so so I was going to tell you about which action steps we've addressed is that appropriate thing to talk about okay okay um so that'll be fine but we do have a lot tonight so we're trying to keep it keep it budgets focused so we we are now holding annual senior picnics and in collaboration with Mount Hood, we are working on a pilot program with the

▶ 19:10 public library to bring books to homebound seniors. Several city departments gathered together. We had two resource fairs so that seniors could sign up for all the city abatements and discounts at one time. And the senior center is being upgraded. So far we've done Tierney Hall and then we're starting the classroom actually tomorrow the DPW did all the repairs for these upgrades and then the Friends of Milano Center are funding the upgrades we're beginning to offer day trips that was also requested it was requested that we host smoking cessation program but sadly only one person signed up so we did not have it but we'll try again next winter we created a financial assistance directory and centralized the senior housing information and we created a

▶ 20:10 resource guide which our newsletter publisher is going to print for us which is great and we're providing rides to the farmers market we've adapted the property tax work program because the retirees coming in have a higher set of skills than the placements we had been doing in the past that's working out really well and we have a new minibus it arrived end of last week so we hope to have it on the road in two weeks and Northern Bank has donated the minibus and it's beautiful um maybe we will all take a ride in it um so i think that's it we're gearing up for the city-wide yard sale it'll be on september 23rd beautiful so if i'd be happy to answer any questions um that anybody has very well president khan please so it appears your your

▶ 21:13 budget's up about two percent from last year's is that correct the salary part is and again the increase was in the salaries and all of your salaries all salaries paid by your department are contained in your budget is that correct the city budget pays for four positions and my state grant pays for two positions okay and how much does the state grant pay for those two positions about 37,000 and what positions are currently funded by the grant the office assistant in the the Council on Aging office, half of the senior center assistant, which is the afternoon person in the Milano Center, and half of the drivers. And with respect to the current fiscal year, do you anticipate needing to transfer or appropriate any money to get to the end of the year?

▶ 22:11 No. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you, President Codd. Seeing no further, Alderman Medeiros, please. Thank you, just thank you for that, I appreciate knowing what the funds are being used for. Are you seeing enrollment and activities and engagement activities at the center increasing or decreasing, or how is that playing out? I see that the volunteers are, we only have 50 volunteers, but they're putting in many more hours than in the past. And there are more people participating, and they're participating in more programs. So there's, it's up about 848 people participate in the year. There's over 2,000 programs. So altogether, it's about 28,000 duplicate count. So those 848 people come 24,000 times.

▶ 23:19 Peter D. Mortimer: Thank you. That's very confusing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Barrow. Seeing no further, Alderman, wishing to be heard, there has been a motion made by Alderman Boisselle and duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis to recommend the bottom line on this budget. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this budget will be recommended to the full board in June. Thank you very much. Alderman MacMaster, please stay right where you are. Alderman McAteer-Margolis has made a motion that we reauthorize and increase the council on aging donation revolving account number 2811 for fiscal year 2018, said motion to take that order out of order was seconded by Alderman's Worko.

▶ 24:05 Would you like to say something briefly about that? The revolving fund is used for supplies, programs, use minibus repairs when they pertain to the retrofit equipment like the lift. And just furniture, that's pretty much what the revolving account is used for. It's made up of donations and program fees. Thank you very much. President Kahn, please. Yeah, as we start out the process, for people who haven't watched this before, Many of our departments have revolving funds where they receive donations or contributions from other sources. The money doesn't come from the state or from the city general fund. And the revolving funds are limited to expenditures for the purposes such as Ms. Vellopoulos indicated.

▶ 24:57 Peter D. Mortimer: So as we go through this, Mr. Chairman, we'll probably go through ten revolving funds. And just for anybody who doesn't understand what they are, that's what they're all about. thank you mr. president alderman Medeiros please thank you and just to add to that they are all the revolving funds are capped and this one happens to be capped at $25,000 thank you Alderman Medeiros seeing no further Alderman wishing to be heard on this order to reauthorize and increase the council on aging donation revolving account please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this order will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting thank you very much for your attendance tonight and your wonderful presentation thank you have a great evening thank you the next budget

▶ 25:45 Peter D. Mortimer: we have before us is budget one nine six it is the Energy Commission in the amount of two thousand five hundred dollars we have members of the Energy Commission who are going to come forward motion to recommend the Energy Commission's bottom line second Alderman Boyce-Hell has made a motion to recommend the bottom line for the Energy Commission Miss Grover would you join us as well would you like to join us as well okay but all right thank you very much please proceed I'm Tyler Ballou former co-chair of the Energy Commission just wanted to give the board an update on our activities from the past year and thank you in advance for your support in the coming year we have accomplished a lot in the last year of the Energy Commission

▶ 26:37 thanks especially to the work of Martha Grover the city energy manager who supports us and also the work of my other former co-chair Lori Timmerman who does so much work that she actually prepared my remarks for me this evening in this past year we revived the Melrose energy challenge which started in 2011 with a goal of obtaining 1,000 home energy assessments in Melrose which we achieved in 2013 this year National Grid created a new program and through the Energy Commission in the city of Melrose we entered and were accepted with the the challenge of beating the past year's home energy assessments insulation jobs and we we met all of our goals this year and therefore won $34,000 for the city

▶ 27:33 to be spent on energy projects I have a handy chart here if you can't see it you can view it up close this Saturday at the healthy Melrose fair at the MEC table most notably on here this number two hundred and eighteen thousand twenty five dollars is the amount that Melrose residents save this year alone from the work that they did largely at no cost or very little cost and then in the end we even succeeded in getting thirty four thousand dollars for the city which we were planning to use on some ideas include solar powered lights for the dog park a solar powered charging bench for the playground at Melrose common hiring a consultant for a sustainability action plan for the city as well as a convert

▶ 28:22 hybridization conversion for a city van which i think will be the the water meter reading van which will help save the city money additionally the go solar melrose program we're still partnering with energiesage.com to help residents find their best deal on getting solar for their house and melrose is now up to over 275 solar installations just in melrose in 2016 the energy Commission also conducted a greenhouse gas inventory for Melrose and that work is still ongoing and will certainly be helpful in helping the city understand how to get to its 2050 goal set by the mayor for a net zero carbon as I mentioned before in addition to all these programs we rely so heavily on Martha Grover the city energy energy manager and some of the projects that

▶ 29:17 the Energy Commission worked with her on in the past year include the energy performance savings contract that's been ongoing in the city the LED lighting project which I think is complete now community aggregation for electricity bills which has been going on for a little over a year now and none of that would have been possible without the support of the mayor's office as well as the Board of Aldermen our plans for the remainder of the year are continued engagement on all of the things we've been working on home energy assessments helping people go solar as well as completing analyzing programs to implement as part of the sustainability action plan and further support through our community aggregation for electricity bills to encourage people to

▶ 30:07 Michael P. Zwirko: choose the 100% renewable energy option there are any questions I'd be happy to answer that. Thank you very much. Alderman Search, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the great presentation and all the work that the Energy Commission has done. The reason I wanted to talk tonight is I read in the paper before coming here that there's an event next week, and I was just wondering if you know enough that you could explain to the public what the, I believe we have the state coming, or an energy seminar next week. Are you familiar with that? Yeah, it doesn't have anything specific to the Energy Commission, but I am aware that it's happening I think a Senate the the State Senate Committee on global warming is

▶ 30:46 Michael P. Zwirko: conducting a listening tour I'm not sure what day it is sometime in the next couple of weeks I'll be there okay we're supportive of that well I appreciate the efforts and you know obviously to get some funds for the city due to the home energy audits we participated in that and again I mean this is just it's just good work that needs to be done as we kind of are dealing with a lot of issues related to climate energy consumption so appreciate the work of the Commission that's all I had mr. chairman Thank You alderman circle president Khan please yeah people should be aware that the budget here is $2,500 and it's an all volunteer board and I think it brings back far more than $2,500 in benefit to

▶ 31:31 Peter D. Mortimer: to the city, so it's good bang for a small buck for this budget. Well said. Alderman Boisselle has made a motion to pass this bottom line of $2,500, duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none. This budget will be recommended to the full board for passage at our final budget meeting in June. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you for the presentation. budget we have before us is budget number 175 it is the planning department in the amount of two hundred and fourteen thousand nine hundred and three dollars and fifty five cents we have our director of planning Denise Gaffey approaching the table Gaffey would you please say a few words

▶ 32:18 Denise Gaffey: and then we'll proceed to play so the planning department budget is essentially level funded from last year there's a two percent increase in the salary line item which is reflective of cost of COLA adjustments and the the budget is for the most part salaries for the five staff members in the department and it represents on the jet in the city's budget this this budget request represents two-thirds of the budget so several of our positions are actually funded through grants and other sources of funding just this is consistent with previous years it's essentially the same so we get funding from the home funds for to support our how some of our housing work we use some community development funds to support our GIS efforts in the office we have energy

▶ 33:21 Denise Gaffey: the incentive funds through Martha Grover's work that supports a significant portion of her work, the Energy Efficiency Manager. We also use project related funds to support the project management work that we do for capital projects. And that's essentially it. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Ms. Gaffrey. President Kahn, please. Yeah, and I ask these questions all the time. And if we receive money from other sources like grants to pay salaries, it's a good thing, so I'm not indicating that it's not. The reason I ask these questions is because there should be some mechanism so that if somebody wants to see in total what the city salary package is in terms of salaries and wages that you could find it and you can't really find it in this budget document.

▶ 34:15 And you know, we go through this every year and I try to tease out the information from all department heads. And I had a different thought than I've had in the past as I was thinking about this the other day. I'm waiting. It's not that good. Do you prepare, you must prepare some kind of a budget that you and other departments- We do, that shows the total. That shows all of your salary lines. I can't imagine that you just prepare a budget. That's correct. And there's a grant funded salary budget and there's a different city. I mean, does that exist? Yeah, we submit that every year to the auditor's office. Would it be possible for us to get that? I don't see why not. Could you please forward that to the clerk of committees?

▶ 35:08 Peter D. Mortimer: Absolutely, I'd be happy to. So if we could start getting that for all departments, then it would spare all of you listening to me talk about this year after year after year. But it's important, because you should be able to see what the full salary expenditure is, and maybe that's the answer, so I guess it was a better thought than I first anticipated. Well, absolutely. Unfortunately, we have our city auditor, Mr. DellaRusso, in the room, and I'm sure he was quite aware of your excellent suggestion made just a few seconds ago. So I'm sure from a macro perspective, he'd be able to provide that for all the departments. And I can see now for the people at home, he has just put a document on the left elbow of the director of city planner, our city planner, Denise Gaffey.

▶ 36:01 So we may be getting that information faster than we had anticipated. Please proceed, Ms. Gaffney. I can submit this further for your information, if that's- Yes, you may approach. Thank you. Yeah, that would be good. And perhaps as we trudge on through the budget, Mr. De La Rosa, you could get these for us for any department that has splits in salaries between grant funding and other sources. Yeah, respectfully to the Chair, I think you'll find that in your, We have sent that forward, Alderman, for every department. Next will be public works. You'll also see that same document for public works. Perhaps I missed it. But if not, we'll be sure that it's in every single document. I can't find it anymore.

▶ 36:54 John N. Tramontozzi: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Just a comment, and I think President Karnes is absolutely right. One second. Have you yielded the floor? Can I yield the floor to Alderman Tramontozzi? Alderman Tramontozzi, you are next on cue. Please proceed. spent 10 15 minutes just scrolling through my uh my budget here and i couldn't i can't find it and that's then i'm glad that's was brought up because i don't know where it is and i'd like to find it uh and so hopefully yeah we'll get it uh onto the budget itself thank you thank you alderman chair matosi uh alderman lemon next in queue oh no i'm fine okay thank you alderman Medeiros thank you yes and i i see this way making its way up the aisle here and uh we'll get it off to our clerk

▶ 37:39 Monica C. Medeiros: of committees but yes i i don't also don't see it maybe we just need to regenerate the agenda or something but it's it's not there right now and uh actually i was hoping it's not exactly related to the planning board so much as it is the overall topic but i see i don't see there's and usually we have an other funding sources uh document that come that the auditor prepares for us with the budget that shows some of the indirect costs for the uh and i i also don't see that uh in here today unless maybe perhaps the whole budget needs to be regenerated so thank you and i will pass this down the line very good thank you waldemar medeiros motion to recommend the bottom line for the planning board alderman boyce hell has made a motion to recommend the bottom line for the

▶ 38:30 Peter D. Mortimer: Planning Board duly seconded by alderman Tramontozzi ozi all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none the budget for the Planning Board in the amount of approximately two hundred fifteen thousand dollars will be recommended to our full board for passage at our final full board meeting on the budget in June thank you very much for your attendance thank you very much the next budget we What we have before us is budget 401, it is the Public Works Administration and Engineering budget in the amount of $767,166.68. We have the Director of Public Works, John Chenna, approaching the table. And he will address us on this first public works budget, which we have seven this evening. Good evening everyone.

▶ 39:34 eight this evening um the budgets before you this evening represent the salary and expenditures associated with eight of our ten operating divisions and public works those include administration and engineering highway division sanitation division park and forestry divisions the cemetery division fleet and our facilities division obviously water and sewer the two divisions that are not before you this evening they're both enterprised and will be before you later in the budget process inclusive of water and sewer DPW has 66 full-time employees the work within the various divisions the budgets before you this evening total just over a point eight seven six million dollars the department prides itself on working

▶ 40:28 efficient efficiently daily to provide nothing short of the highest level of service to residents both in terms of quality and quantity we strive to maintain our operations in a transparent manner and we try to be as accessible as possible to residents in Melrose residents can access the department through online services traditional phone calls still work or they can stop by our administrative offices and speak with Linda Garon our resident service rep we're open monday through friday from 7 to 4 a 4 p.m 7 a.m to 4 p.m updates and notices are provided in a variety of manners in all aspects of our divisions traditional mailings still take place drop off notices and projects take place and we also use social media website post white website

▶ 41:28 postings and at times um twitter and code red announcements we continuously find manners to challenge our staff professionally for the better good of of this community the department staff is staffed to operate laterally so that resources can be shared as demands increase in various aspects of the department Ultimately, the end goal every day is to make Melrose a better place for its residents in all locations. Whether you walk in a building, bring a child to a sporting event, or just simply walk through a neighborhood, it's very important in our eyes that Melrose knows its DPWs visible and knows how we can improve their daily life and how to access us in order to do that. That's what the men and women of the Public Works Department do on a daily basis.

▶ 42:25 And I just want to take a brief second to personally thank them for what they do. Outside of the daily and seasonal maintenance programs this past year, Public Works processed nearly 4,400 work orders through its various divisions. In parallel, the department completed several capital improvements to Melrose infrastructure. The department works collaboratively with other departments throughout the city in capital's facility projects, energy upgrades, open space projects, development and zoning reviews and inspections. This past fiscal year was highlighted by the following projects and significant maintenance repairs. Drain and roadway improvements were completed in the Stowcroft and Burrell neighborhoods.

▶ 43:16 upgrades the drain system at the dead end of fairfield ave were constructed off of lebanon street drainage study a drainage study was completed and conducted within the wyoming cemetery dpw worked in conjunction with mass dot throughout the throughout most of last year and completing punch list items these are the small items that were near and dear to the residents along that corridor took a tremendous amount of effort from our engineers to make sure that mass thought who at that point had packed up and left came back and did what was right for for the people who who lived on that project site for over a year and a half additionally DPW worked in conjunction with the DCR repaving the Linfels Parkway Linfels Parkway is a DCA DCR owned and operated

▶ 44:07 land but it's the people of Melrose in this community that consider it part of part of part of Melrose there was a new there's a new bike lane there's more traffic calming striping that was done through heavy collaboration with the mayor's office our engineering office our operations office to try to get that done efficiently correctly and in time before school in time so that it didn't impact school and other elementary school districts in the area. Obviously the reconstruction just outside and revitalization of the Essex Street Business District was something else we completed this fiscal year. LED streetlights were converted citywide with the assistance of our energy manager, Martha Grover,

▶ 44:56 and numerous resources and the volunteers that help us with energy upgrades and facilities and streetlights and Victorian lights throughout the city now even in our fleet kimball court was converted into additional parking adjacent to dill's court 604 604b stormwater quality studies were conducted and fema's zone flood zone studies were conducted in and around el pond as we start to shift focus from flooding to stormwater quality a shift that is going to happen throughout the commonwealth as new regulations on stormwater quality begin to hit communities complete streets was an excellent program that was implemented this past fiscal year we created a complete street policy and now work we're working at trying to get

▶ 45:47 a recommendation of 40 to 45 projects down to 15 that we can submit to mass start and hopefully come up with a one project that we can move forward or several smaller projects that we can move forward in in fiscal 18 in in construction with we completed water system upgrades on tremont street nearly 8 000 residential meters you're all aware were changed this past fiscal year we started a comprehensive ini program several adopter site and traffic islands were upgraded small little projects in the scope of some of these larger things that we've done but again there's small things that we feel made a big difference as you travel through the community the bb estate exterior siding and windows were repainted through a grant and dpw worked with

▶ 46:40 the office of planning and community development and behind the scenes in delivering the hoover school window project melrose high school learning commons the stem room the administrative offices and in helping the school district add three more elementary classrooms it was the third school year in a row that DPW stepped in to reconfigure elementary schools so that kids had adequate space to to go in the budgets before you this fiscal year in fiscal 18 or for a 52 week payroll period for all employees and account for the Melrose Association of Public Works employee local 272 and our local 272 clerical union collective bargaining agreement contracts that went into effect in the fall of 2015 and 2016 respectively the budgets before you also account for all energy expenditures

▶ 47:37 throughout the city including school and municipal buildings and all snow expenditures throughout the city uh the four the the few increases that are before you are man mainly contractually driven or required to support upgrades and neighborhoods and buildings throughout the city uh similar to how the department runs in the structure the budgets of a service driven so we look forward in an exciting manner towards fy18 there are several new projects and new initiatives we're about to embark upon and with successful passage of several of the budgets and the budget orders that are before you both in this budget cycle and coming up in fy18 we really look to making these projects a reality some of them include obviously continuing our ini program continuing

▶ 48:29 water pipeline improvements in the warwick neighborhood and in the altamont neighborhood two neighborhoods that from a water flow perspective have had their struggles implementation of the new 25 mile an hour speed limit is something that will start in june and something that the department will hopefully provide assistance with with signs and other traffic safety improvements on our collector roads um we'll be right by the sidelines supporting again the planning office with the modular school additions and the renovations to the harvest man citywide tree plantings will will start in about the next two to three weeks we were upgrading the turf at the West Knoll we're just about done with repainting the exterior of the Milano

▶ 49:21 Center now to match the BB so that became a nice little campus we're Working with the veterans for the World War II Memorial, the community garden is about ready to be completed next week and turned back to the residents of Melrose. FEMA flood zone and natural hazardous mitigation plan reviews will, are on the docket to be updated. That's something we'll probably speak more of with a future order that's gonna come before you, but both of those will allow for submission drainage relief projects when fema funding opportunities become available so we're looking forward to doing those two studies uh solar panels have been delivered to the public works facility they'll soon be up on our roof and working together with the fight department and police

▶ 50:16 department and planning department we're looking forward to completing a feasibility study for our our public safety buildings and determining how best to address and improve upon existing conditions of those facilities most notable amongst the new edition initiatives is the start of a new three-year program that the mayor mentioned Monday evening the three-year program will look to upgrade infrastructure and make road and sidewalk improvements throughout our neighborhoods in our city for the last few years you've seen made Melrose has seen major projects on Lebanon Street on Franklin Street on Essex Street this program refocuses the projects back into neighborhoods and with me this evening

▶ 51:08 is our city engineer Elena Proeca sell us I'd like her to join me we've recently completed a comprehensive roadway pavement management study we've layered those results with a recently updated water study and also with months of discussions with National Grid on where they'd like to upgrade pipelines gas natural gas pump like pipelines so through the chair if I could just request five minutes of latitude I'd like to brief it this this board on the programs and how it is that they work and the type of technology that exists now within the department and then announce the program that we're going to move forward on and then we can obviously deliberate on the budgets if that's okay please proceed yes could you also tell us the funding source for the

▶ 52:04 three-year program please okay so I'm just gonna do a brief presentation on the multi-year capital program just to give you a little overview of what we've been working on in engineering the the goal of this program was to come up with a holistic program that takes into account a number of different factors so I'm gonna run through what those factors are and then some of the technological upgrades that we've made in engineering some of the progress we made in fiscal year 17 our assessment methodology with this new technology and then John will discuss the actual recommendations for the program could i just ask will this be in the iqm2 yes this presentation thank you um so the factors that we considered in putting together this program

▶ 53:33 consider all utility types as well as the road surface itself so we're looking at water main and service upgrades we're replacing lead services as we go we're replacing water mains where it's necessary we're looking at the gas system and pushing national grid to replace any older leak prone pipes when we're coming through a neighborhood we're tv inspecting the sewer and drainage beneath any of the streets that we're considering working on so we're aware if there are any deficiencies there before we start the project we're looking at roadway improvements sidewalk improvements sidewalk extensions where it makes sense and looking at the roadway improvements with complete streets in mind so we are sure that we're

▶ 54:17 considering all modes of transportation as we plan the program so some of the technology that we've the upgrades that we've had in the last fiscal year we've purchased GIS software for the engineering division that we didn't previously have so we now have two licenses that can be used across any of our computers down in engineering we purchased two tablets not one of them up So two Samsung tablets with a Wi-Fi field connection so we can now go out in the field and gather data with this using PeopleGIS and forms that we developed that allow us to do some pretty fancy stuff with those. We've purchased a module through the PeopleGIS program that allows us to take the tablets and go out and survey every street sign in the city, every accessibility curb ramp in

▶ 55:07 the city um as well as a few other parameters pavement markings and things that we'll be getting into next year we also have been working with consultants tayden howard and weston sampson who've been doing our water and sewer work respectively have provided us updated layers for the water and sewer systems as they've noticed any errors or as we've made changes to the systems and then we've trained the engineering division staff on the use of all these new tools so So we've made some pretty big strides in our level of technology in the last year. So using these tools, we've completed a roadway assessment of the entire city. Two of our engineers drove the whole city, one holding the tablet, one behind the wheel,

▶ 55:53 and looked at the roadway condition of every segment of every street, so intersection to intersection throughout the city using the tablets. Tate and Howard also completed our water capital efficiency plan, which looks at the whole water system and where there are deficiencies with regards to age or older pipe materials or pressure or water quality complaints. We have GIS layers now from National Grid, so we're able to look at their whole system and see what materials their pipes are when we're working in an area. area and then as part of our ini program we had the tv inspection crews out doing the sewer work so we had them perform targeted investigations in all the areas that we plan to work in

▶ 56:37 and then as john mentioned we finalized our complete streets policy and it got approved by mass dot so we're kicking off that effort at the same time so for the roadway condition assessment this has been done in the past but it was good to to update it and get an objective look at every road in the city like i said every segment of every road in the city we looked at 13 different parameters so when they were out they were looking at potholes and cracking and a number of different issues they ranked every segment for all of those items and then they we developed an algorithm for how you convert those 13 numbers for each segment into an overall ranking and then we came up with a ranking for every street in the city and we grouped them into four categories

▶ 57:24 which is on this poster here so if anyone wants to look at it at the end it shows the poorest streets poor streets fair and then good to excellent the blue is the good to excellent so the good news is a lot of the city falls into that that blue category so at this point I'm gonna open up the GIS itself so this is that same data for anybody watching from home this is the same data that's on this poster and this is the roadway layer and I just wanted to show you what the utility is of all this data in one place so we have different layers for all the different items that we've looked at so those are the roadway condition assessment layers if I turn that off I can turn on this is National grid all of the purple pipe is the cast iron pipe which comprises nearly 50% of

▶ 58:51 the pipe in the city so a substantial amount of work to be done by National Grid and they're trying to implement a 20-year plan to replace all of their leak prone pipe so in Melrose they have their work cut out for them and then the water system recommendations are these layers here where the yellow is the areas that require attention in the short term the green is next and then the pink the two shades of pink are the long-term recommendations so what this allows us to do is look at all the data together and I'm just going to zoom in on one area as John mentioned we're planning on doing Warwick Road water main this year so as you can see um the the yellow is the water work that's required so that

▶ 59:40 encompasses all of warwick road and then the roadway condition conditions a little easier to see if i turn off the water but the roadway condition on the portion from perkins to lindfels parkway shows up in our poorest roadway category and then if i turn that off you can also see that the the purple from Perkins to Vinton Street is all cast iron pipe and then from Yule to the parkway is also all cast iron pipe so this is a perfect area and perfect example of how we can aggregate all the data and say what is one of the worst areas in the city that needs immediate attention so that's the process we went through we tried to use as much objective data as possible but at the same time we did try to spread our projects our proposed projects to different areas of the

▶ 1:00:31 city so that the work isn't just concentrated in one area so with that i'll turn it back over to john um to discuss the specific areas and they're actually so that's what we that's what the department and especially the engineering division has been focusing on over the last year to try to try to determine where to invest next um at the at the conclusion of it the following group of projects is um what what was concluded and recommended with with the backing of of um all this analysis that is there now for the for the foreseeable future um gas and roadway improvements on sparing hancock street will have already started and will continue this fiscal year gas water and roadway improvements on first street from six to ashcroft will start this summer

▶ 1:01:25 that's that piece by the winthrop school water gas and roadway improvements obviously we discussed on warwick road will take place water gas and roadway improvements on altamont ave will also take place and we'll start those two projects will continue into next fiscal year because gas company comes first then comes the water project and at the end comes the road project roadway improvements to cleveland street will start this summer and be concluded this year water gas and roadway improvements to florence street will start this fall and continue into next year gas and roadway improvements to north and south high streets will start this fall gas and roadway improvements to albion street will start this week completion of gas some minor gas work and then the last piece

▶ 1:02:20 of roadway improvement to tremont street from lake app to the lindfels parkway will take place um in the upcoming months and then in fy19 we'll take the program to bartlett street francis street east emerson street from bellevue to lincoln and dexter road so it's the president khan's point how is it that we're funding this there are many layers to this program there are many layers to each individual proposed projects so although we start one fiscal year we're not necessarily going to be completing it but we'll work out the details with with the aldermen that are involved in each ward and with your residents so that as we make these proposed projects a reality it's about a three million dollar program round numbers a million of it will come from our chapter 90

▶ 1:03:14 allotment in fiscal 17 and fiscal 18 we get a just a little over half a million dollars a year from chapter 90 um borrowing any increases which we really haven't seen in quite some time so for conservative for to be conservative it's about a million dollars in chapter 90. a half a million of it will come from a water bond that's before this board right now we have 200 roughly 200 000 of it coming through an order that's before you this evening from free cash we have approximately two hundred thousand dollars in leftover chapter 90 funds from prior projects that we're going to aggregate together and reapply towards this program and then in late winter early spring of fiscal of 2008 718 and later

▶ 1:04:09 on in fiscal 18 it's the intent of the administration to come back before the board to request authorization to borrow a million dollars to put towards this program so that we can continue it into FY 19 so that's the program and I I realize it's a little bit of a variance from the budget, but it was a good place to put it because the first budget was administration and engineering. This has been a large part of what our engineers have been doing over the past year. I felt it was right that we present it and explain how it is that we're proposing what we're doing. In terms of the administration budget, the budget includes portions of the salaries for our entire administration and engineering.

▶ 1:05:01 My director's position, our assistant director, city engineer, operations manager, all of our engineers, all of our clerks, our building systems manager, cemetery administrator. I do have a summary that I'll pass around our salaries are split like pass this around but this this document summarizes how we fund our positions in a very simplistic manner the top chart represents percentages the bottom chart is the same split but in actual dollars the majority of our administrators are split between this administrative budget that's before you right now water and sewer we have some that are on project bonds or small pieces are on project bonds that's all encapsulated in the other column obviously the superintendent of mount hood half of her salary comes from this budget

▶ 1:06:28 the other half comes from the mount hood enterprise system um to note uh the park administrative position is no longer funded here and in this budget it was replaced with the administrative assistant position it's the last position on the chart the administrative position will assume building rental functions if you're interested in renting a school building that's now done through Public Works administration that started last fiscal year and will continue they've worked our administrators and our assistant director and Wade has worked really hard at that and we're going to continue that practice that position will also assist in cemetery administrative functions and other personnel and CBA issues and tasks 60% of that but of that salary that's in the

▶ 1:07:25 other column is is uh paid for by the school building rental account so that's administration and if there are any questions i'm uh more than willing to happy to answer them president please yeah to circle back to the beginning and my math may not be completely accurate but I came up with approximately 8.4 million to run your department in the four corners of the budget so can you give me back the number that you started with which I assume is the total cost of funding your budget from all sources would that be correct that would be the 8.6 or 7 that you started with 8.876 so that's that's funding the public works department from all sources correct okay and you indicated i think that you're up to personnel of 66 people now 66. okay so you you're now

▶ 1:08:39 jockeying with the police and the fire to be the the largest department in terms of uh employees other than the school department i would think and i haven't tallied up the police But you've got to be pretty close. I think that's correct. And I have a question. The mayor was indicating during his presentation the other night that, you know, things don't seem all that rosy in terms of going forward with municipal budgeting. are you anticipating any retirements or vacancies that you're aware of in this fiscal year uh we we have two this current fiscal year and fiscal 17 one of which we'll replace and the other which we will not okay is there any kind of an austerity plan to to not replace people by

▶ 1:09:34 attrition or are you going to continue to fill all vacancies as they come up we take it on a fiscal year by fiscal year basis we don't anticipate any retirements in fiscal 18. and and and then we'll see the dynamics of the department change from year to year it's it does a variety of diverse functions right now and sometimes you don't need as much help in one division but it's picked up with another division so in that regards um no we don't look to downsize the workforce at all so your approach this year would be to maintain the numbers at the current level at least for this fiscal year yeah and i i appreciate your providing the information relative to the breakdown and what I think would make it easier and perhaps we can do this and like as I

▶ 1:10:34 indicated I didn't I didn't find these documents as I was analyzing the budget and maybe it's just because I'm not not not as savvy on some of these things as I should be but it would be easier for me and maybe other people and maybe Maybe everybody else is a lot more savvy than I am and can find things. But why can't we make this an attachment to the department head budgets where it's applicable? That would seem to me to make the most sense. So if I was looking at the public works department and I had a question as to what the total cost of all salaries is from all sources, and I couldn't see it in the budget. Why can't we stick this in the budget for each impacted department? And maybe people aren't as interested as I am, and maybe it's a small point.

▶ 1:11:31 Michael P. Zwirko: But I think it's important to be able to look at the budget and determine what the actual cost of running your department is and running the city as a whole would be. And I'm not going to beat this dead horse anymore tonight, but that would be what I would like to see. And I think it would make things clearer, at least from my perspective. That is all. Thank you, President Kahn. Next in line, we have Alderman Zwirko, followed by Alderman Inferno. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a couple of questions on the budget, but before I get to that, I just wanted to say that thanks again to you and your crew for the snow removal i think you guys do a fantastic job and i know towards the end of the winter we thought we were kind of coming out of the woods with uh

▶ 1:12:22 Michael P. Zwirko: you know not a lot of snowfall but we've got a couple of big storms towards the end some heavy some ugly uh really tough to remove snow but um from a commuting standpoint i think the crew did a great job and i just once again want to tip my hat to you and to them for their work i will also say that my mother was in town about a couple weeks ago and she always remarks that melrose is very clean so I agree with her and I greatly appreciate the work of the green team and others that all being said I just had two quick questions on the budget I noticed that the professional services line has dropped considerably and is that because we're no longer using a consultant for water and sewer was that the the Delta and that change for the professional services no none of

▶ 1:13:03 our water and sewer expand its expenditures are reflected in the budgets tonight so that drop that that that was raised last year mainly to fund a lot of what you just saw and the purchase of a lot of this equipment so we started dropping it back down and I even foresee it dropping a little further in FY 19 back to regular levels that prefer the professional services line is what we use to supplement our existing engineering staff or fill the voids they're fully staffed they're working very well as a unit they do a lot of work in-house but if we need a survey or if we need soil analyzed if we need some other professional service within another aspect of the department that's the line we turn to but it was dropped because I mean the program is

▶ 1:13:51 Michael P. Zwirko: taken off and we I didn't feel it was right to keep that look at funding at that level and the thank you for that explanation the the other question I had on was with respect to postage so I know that there are some statutory requirements if we're doing work or there's permitting that's going on that we mail I'm just is there a particular reason it kind of shot up in 2017 was it due to work well I mean is we know it's a very good question and I did I did a strict it in my in my notes for to prepare for this evening as well we used to do a mailing what we do a mailing we do a calendar for curbside collection traditionally when we were collecting our own recycling and we are recycling revolving account used to sit in the hundreds of thousands we tried to use

▶ 1:14:41 Michael P. Zwirko: the recycling revolving money for that now we're we're using this line to do our curbside collection mailing when it goes out just a little bit late the phone calls already start I don't think it's a postcard that most most families melrose rely on that's the line that pays for it okay um and i wanted to ask uh miss paracas ellis a question so first of all great presentation and i know that i spoke with you about this road analysis in the fall so it's nice to get an update and also i appreciate the the fact that there's actually some science behind it and some measurements so you know we get a lot of calls that you know everybody's road is the worst road in melrose and it's always helpful to kind of

▶ 1:15:24 Michael P. Zwirko: buttress that with you know proof of you know various levels as to how you know we judge a road and its quality at the same time there's nothing more upsetting when you're have a nice paved road and then your water main breaks or something so the fact that you're looking at various levels of underneath the road itself is greatly appreciated and I know that the folks and our aldermen right will be happy about Florence and Cleveland Road a Cleveland Street is pretty pretty chewed up so I was just wondering if I know that you're using geographic information systems for that but is there any in addition to the color coding is there like a ranking that you have for this yes I can just show you what what the background of this looks like so behind all the

▶ 1:16:13 information say on the roadway there's a there's a database so this is just a glimpse of the database the ones up at the top for the private ways so they weren't ranked yeah there were lots of blanks but so you can look at any particular street this is Country Club Road and every one of these columns is traverse cracking longitudinal cracking alligator cracking shrinkage rutting so each one of these items is one of the 13 things we looked at and we had an overall rideability score and then we had the final ranking so this this column here is the actual road score okay the aggregate based on the algorithm that you spoke of yeah and then the reason we grouped them is because you know does it so the scores ended up between 44 and 100 100 being

▶ 1:17:10 the best 44 was the worst in the city and we thought you know is a 44 really different than a 45 right and we don't think the data should be used to put them in like increments or something or so that's why we put them in these increments so I believe the poorest category is 44 to 50 and the poor category is 50 to 59 and then fair started at 60 and I don't remember exactly what number went up to I think maybe it was 75 and then everything above 75 was considered good to excellent yeah so and how often I mean obviously roads degrade so how is this gonna be like a three-year project that you do you reassess and what's the time frame you think well for starters we would certainly update the scores as we fix roads so those will get updated

▶ 1:17:52 Gail Infurna: immediately that's probably on the order of a two to three year time frame now that we have the form set up it's easy to do it took a few weeks for the engineers to drive the whole city and do it and then to do some processing of the data on the back end in the office so you know it's not an insignificant time commitment yeah I can imagine well thank you thank you for the work and the further explanation I greatly appreciate it'll be useful so thanks thanks all mr. chairman Thank You alderman's work Oh alderman Eterna please thank you very much mr. chairman and I will also thank you for all that you do for our residents constituents out there I know it's greatly appreciated in Ward 5 and in all my years on the board and serving the

▶ 1:18:39 Gail Infurna: people of Ward 5 I get less and less calls because I think we're being so proactive in many of the items that used to get I used to get calls for also you know with all this technology we really come a long way as they say it's great great team thank you again just one question just as I'm just looking at the administration and engineering one here you have overtime there's a little increase in the overtime could you just kind of explain what the overtime is used for so this is this is used by our administrative staff for regular overtime it's also overtime for our engineers projects that run late non water and sewer related projects there was an issue yesterday on Upham Street if that were to lead to some type of an overtime for our engineering this is

▶ 1:19:32 where we pay it from sometimes given the end of the fiscal year crunch if there's if there's funding available clerical staff will stay shortened holiday weeks payroll gets crunched so it requires a little bit of overtime so that's what this line is for mm-hmm great and so with that increase I mean I see in 2017 you did 6700 you just kind of given yourself a little bit of that lead way to wait well two things of two things would come into play I think we'll fully use the 8500 we still have six six more weeks left in this fiscal year and this is a very busy six weeks for the department so we'll fully expend the 8500 the other thing that comes into play is the clerks have a new contract with new hourly rates that have increased so that has to come come into

▶ 1:20:28 Monica C. Medeiros: consideration as well great and thank you again and I know the people the residents and constituents down on Russell Park will be very happy to see some improvements happening down there so thank you again for all that you do thank you alderman Inferno alderman Medeiros please thank you and just sort of a general budget comment for the public and the 2017 actual is only what's been spent to the date of the printout which is May 4th 2017 so there's still the remainder of the month of May and June for the public so sometimes a lot of things I imagine in Public Works in particular with the spring projects probably don't get spent until that tremendously busy time of the um it's jumping back i see that you said that you had 4 400 work orders in the last year

▶ 1:21:24 so how is that comparing to previous years is that um around the same actually i was looking at my notes last year we did about 3 500 so more work is being generated uh there's more i think using the work using work orders is more day-to-day common use in the department before it was just matter of fact but now the foreman middle management really rely on it they realize that you can pull data right away from it they realize you can go back oh i thought i was here yeah let's go get the work order it's really the culture of the department is dependent on it right now um from my office all the way down to our foreman we really rely on it it's used heavily in our facilities world where we really respond to 12 different building managers

▶ 1:22:17 Monica C. Medeiros: throughout the city and they have their own needs they're in their own world they're worried about teaching kids or running a library or running a police and fight department so now they've kind of focused it on there so we're dependent on it much more than we were in the past more of a use of technology and just interesting just using that system yeah which I think is great so it's more trackable and you didn't talk to somebody and somebody else doesn't know about it you know everybody's on the same page how are you feeling about the the breakdown of the calls coming in Are they coming in, we can report, the public can report things through all kinds of different means through telephone or showing up in person or calling an alderman email, C-Click fix.

▶ 1:23:09 Is there a percentage that's coming in by, I imagine people must tweet back at you sometimes, that are coming in in any particular, have you seen a trend of more online stuff or? get i'd say 10 15 is online but we're people like to talk to us we get a lot of phone calls the phone call is jet creates a work order i mean we'll create a work order based on the phone call but we do get a lot of phone calls um uh early in the morning is it our trash day is it not our trash day is it a pothole see click fix i think we i read the report um yesterday i think we got about 140 work orders through see click fix so far this fiscal year 80 of them are potholes so it's worth keeping the program out there again we have somebody that monitors see click fix and

▶ 1:24:01 Monica C. Medeiros: then we take the information we we see on it and turn it into a work order some of the work orders are created by our own people ourselves we drive around we see a sign that's crooked we'll create a work order we'll get to it next time we go out and do science so but people still call us yeah okay that's good um and then back to the chart that uh mr provacus ellis had uh had up on the screen there um is that something obviously so we will update that as we complete things are we putting data in as people are as these work orders are coming up and we're seeing some of the the roadways maybe have deteriorated or you know or whatnot is is that information getting added to the rankings of streets so the the

▶ 1:24:50 Monica C. Medeiros: information wouldn't get added per se like if somebody called and said there were potholes on their street presumably those potholes were there when we when we did the assessment and we would look for potholes that have been filled too we're not just looking for open potholes so the intent of the analysis is for any data that goes into it to come through the engineering division rather than from the public who you know potentially would have a different yeah I guess I'm thinking you know you as the spring comes new potholes pop up with the you know the rain and the change in the temperature on the roadway and you know things that might not have been there at the drive-through you know now exist or

▶ 1:25:30 things that have been filled get you know reopen and it's the stuff we don't like to see happen but it's life and it does you know is that information you know updated by the DPW staff not necessarily by the public but I mean the public might spark that yeah I think it's more likely that we would do a holistic sweep of the whole city again in a couple of years and we would only update the roads that we fixed because you know if we if we were to update the ones where we knew there were some problems but we didn't do the whole city again I think you you lose the objective nature of the data if you're changing some but not others on a different schedule so I think would be more likely to just wait till the end it's best to pick a point and do a complete

▶ 1:26:18 Monica C. Medeiros: evaluation of the entire road net network at that point and then let it go for a while and then can you talk about how you're working with National Grid to actually get them to cooperate because I know you know we did quite a lot of work in in Ward two a few years back and I know sometimes you know they weren't always excited to come out and change their pipes if they didn't think it needed to be changed I know since that time there's been some big public stories about how leaky some of the National Grid pipes are but when we saw that chart i'm sort of disturbed to see that there's a lot of purple underneath a lot of blue in the city so we have a lot of streets that are in you know good to excellent condition and yet

▶ 1:27:08 pipes underneath that are national grid that that aren't um for those areas that we are targeting to move forward in like like work road and how are we getting national grid on board so we've we've been very proactive with national grid and they've actually welcomed it um they've been under a lot of regulatory pressure to do this what they're calling 20-year program of replacement of their leak prone pipes so they are required to do it as well and by tagging along with our projects it just makes all the roadway restoration and everything simpler and cheaper for for everybody so they've been very open to having three crews in Melrose for the entirety of the construction season so they have one starting on Speer and Hancock one starting on Albion and one up in the

▶ 1:28:00 West Hill and Botolph neighborhood starting all within either the last couple weeks or the coming week and then they've committed to moving on those three crews to the next roads in our program They're trying to improve their coordination with all cities and towns, so they've been proactively scheduling meetings during the winter to try to get from us what our program is going to be and then give us the streets that are on their high-priority list because they're repeatedly fixing leaks. That was the issue up on West Hill. So I think we've established a good working relationship with them. And with regards to how much leak-prone pipe they have under newer streets, I think in a city like Melrose that's older a lot of that gas infrastructure was installed in an era where cast iron pipe was the norm and unfortunately they haven't had the pressure to replace it until more recently so I'm sure there have been many years of us doing a road program without their pipes being replaced in advance but at least going forward we're trying to set a different protocol.

▶ 1:29:04 Monica C. Medeiros: No, I'm very glad to hear that we have a plan in place and it sounds like they are on board and have been working with you. And so thank you for working with them and I'm glad to hear that they are working with you. My last question is, I often get this kind of question from the public is, how do we, we do have staff that are in different budgets and of course, some of it is in regular public works budgets and some of it's in water and sewer. How do you manage the time that each, if you have employees that are split between departments, how do you keep track of what hours are water and sewer and what hours are administration or what hours are whatever other department work? Well, we look at it holistically on an average.

▶ 1:29:52 And what is it that an employee does over the course of a year? it's impossible to track it on a daily basis but we look at you know how much can he spend in this and and those are those are percentages that the auditor and I said on a yearly basis in review if we have to tweak we there were a couple of changes this year on a couple of employees that are doing a little more work in certain area than others but that's what we'll do I bring forward the experience of what I witnessed and what my middle management has witnessed over the course of the last fiscal year and then we'll make adjustments in the next fiscal year but that's how we do it um is it is it perfect no but um there is um there's a lot of thought and

▶ 1:30:39 there's a lot of observation that goes into it and there are some things that aren't even covered for instance our mechanics we have three mechanics they work on water and sewer equipment but you don't see them in the water and sewer budget um that's a decision that you know we we discuss every year but those are things that we don't uh we don't do so that's how we approach the splits is it the same way with bonds and if there's uh yeah if there's a particular you'll see engineers go to bonds because if there's a project typically there's a funding source a bond funding source and if that engineer is working on that project and we know the project's going to last the balance of the fiscal year we'll typically assign a piece of their funding of their salary to that

▶ 1:31:27 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: project if the project isn't going to be there for the balance of the fiscal year we don't so those are those are discussions that our auditor and i have together with you know city engineer and our operations director and our assistant director try to figure out how we're going to fund people year to year okay thank you very much thank you mr chairman thank you alderman Medeiros alderman MacMaster my goal is thank you um i did have a question on the um on the um salary and wages line in the um admin budget did you say that the new the administrative assistant position is now included in that part of that line item fifteen thousand dollars of that salary is is included and that's a new addition okay so that would account for part of the

▶ 1:32:11 Mary Beth McAteer-Margolis: increase in that line item okay and then the rest of that position is being funded out of the schools revolving account for building rentals yes okay and you also mentioned that there were going to be two retirements coming up are they from different departments are they yeah they're not shown tonight they're in water and sewer so you'll see those when water and sewer budgets are before you okay thank you and I'm just kudos to the green team the city's looking great the community garden as you mentioned is coming together and of course all the technology is just fabulous for the the GIS and I hope we can get it online so people will be aware of how great their street is in relation to others thank you Thank You alderman MacMaster my goal is alderman

▶ 1:33:01 Robert A. Boisselle: boy cell please I want to thank you for the Lebanon Street in Essex Street projects they came out great great sidewalks a lot of comments and also the staff who kept hounding the d.o.t people to fix things that they sort of missed and i believe there was a large checklist at the end of the project which they fixed and final at that point now i also want to talk about the el pon flood zone now we put a new pipeline out of el pon we put a new pipeline in front of the high school and middle school and has the flood zone shrinked at this point because a lot of the constituents who own homes in these particular flood zones are required to get flood insurance by rearranging that map to close it in more they they will be relieved of that so what

▶ 1:33:54 is the status of that flood zone study is that submitted to the feds we we had it as a two-phase project so the first phase was just completed in fact we just got the final report this week from our consultant and they have redone the hydraulic modeling and concluded that indeed we should be able to raise the the flood elevation um excuse me lower the flood elevation i don't want to raise it no we don't want to raise it um by a few feet that's their their conclusion based on their hydraulic modeling so the reason we did it as a two-phase project was the first phase was for them to do some analysis and tell us if it was worth going to the next step to submit to fema and based on their final report they're highly recommending that we do go to fema and the mayor

▶ 1:34:46 Peter D. Mortimer: has committed that the city will fund the second phase of the program so we're on the verge of moving into that second phase of submitting the letter of map revision to fema to try to get that several foot change thank you very much mr chairman i recommend the bottom line for department number 401 public works administration and engineering thank you alderman boycelle second duly seconded by alderman mccarty and margolis all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this budget will be recommended passage at our final budget meeting the next budget before us is budget 402 it is public works facilities in the amount of three million nine hundred twenty thousand eight hundred twenty four dollars and twenty eight cents mr shanna please so this sub

▶ 1:35:36 division of department continues on a daily basis to make organizational and operational strides and improvements in efficiency and in the level of service it provides this division works extremely close with several departments and the maintenance and cleaning of facilities most notable is the tremendous commitment that this division provides both financially and also from a resource perspective to our Melrose School Department the division staffs 11 custodians to municipal custodians sorry 11 school custodians to municipal custodians and tradesmen the past this past fiscal year the divisions made some notice noticeable and notable accomplishments most notable are the significant advances that we're

▶ 1:36:32 seeing on a daily basis with our in-house HVAC management and in the maintenance and repairs of controls of HVAC systems last year we introduced an HVAC technician position to the department it's paid dividends tremendously with me this evening is our assistant director and wait she anchors this entire division she's responsible for the day-to-day management of the staff and she has a list of that she'd like to expand upon she also wants to speak a little bit in regards to DPW crossover crossover work is what we call it that's when we take our operations group that is not as busy in the winter and we turn them into facility people so there's a lengthy list of tasks that given the unbalanced winter we had we were able to actually keep them pretty

▶ 1:37:32 busy and you want to speak a little bit Mary got this to save us wait so we had productive year in facilities we completed 520 school work orders 200 municipal work orders we addressed numerous capital repairs we assisted with the improvement projects at the Hoover and high school this year projects of the missile side included painting at City Hall the library the Milano glazing sinks at the police station we installed doors at the Milano senior center we report we've appointed the bell tower at the fire station we made roof repairs we upgraded sprinkler deficiencies we fixed windows here at City Hall and at the PlayStation in the schools we refinished the middle school auditorium stage we replaced the fence along the Linsfeld Parkway repaired the

▶ 1:38:25 mark who side curtain we added safety supports to all the basketball backboards we painted the cafeteria the classrooms at various schools we painted the exterior doors at the Franklin we refinished hallway benches replaced VCT tile we installed water filling stations at the Horace Mann Franklin and Roosevelt schools we made roof repairs we split a conference room the Lincoln into two offices we added lockers at the Roosevelt and Lincoln we outfitted closets at the Franklin with shelving so this year as John mentioned the mild winter allowed the green team and operational staff to complete help us complete a long list of cleaning painting furniture and equipment moves their efforts also allowed us to work on projects like putting in a filling

▶ 1:39:22 station at the high school weight room that was much requested we completed painting projects during school vacation and a second shift so the green team really helped us with that we were able to paint classrooms during the winter that we usually would have to wait to the summer to do as John also mentioned this year we added a HVAC building system supervisor the DPW staff mark Thompson he has proven to be a very valuable asset to our team he has made us less reliant on vendors he has kept our current vendors in check and he has He's given us a new perspective on some lingering issues that have hung on for years. Mark's a hands-on professional who can do everything from fixing a motor or a bearing

▶ 1:40:03 to going toe-to-toe with a vendor who's telling us we need to do an upgrade, and he also will take on any challenge, which is awesome. With him on board, we've been able to do about 35% more work because he'll go out and buy apart or he'll replace it where before we relied on a vendor to do it this year we also continue to work on our procedures our staff our methods to keep our buildings clean safe and running as smoothly as possible we increased our training we sent seven of our facility staff to an all-day seminar on custodial training and safety in Canton we held several in-house training sessions we provided several of our vendors provided demos in-house and we were certified as a designee for asbestos removal and monitoring we

▶ 1:40:55 trained on calm buys and procurement and we also continue to cross train and we're really encouraging our staff to take advantage of these learning opportunities and last but not least 15th annual DPW day will be held on June 15th I just want to note that this budget includes utilities for the entire city this is where we house them gas electricity the ESCO lease payment for the energy efficiency project from three years ago is in this budget and the reduction for the street light LED changeover is also partly in this budget the budget also has some funding for school equipment maintenance we've now entered into a an agreement thanks to Martha Grover's work with a solar solar panel vendor that maintains the array over the middle school so we can keep

▶ 1:41:52 that functional moving forward the one of the things I'm a little cautious about with this budget is we've level funded school cleaning and that's a procurement process that we need to go through through fiscal 18. um last time we went through it the price came down so we're hoping to follow the same the same procurement process and um the same timing of that procurement process and maybe we can hopefully see another further reduction and and the portions of our building that we still do with outside vendors so that's a general overview of the budget thank you mr. Shana president con please yeah so this this portion of the budget is up just about 2% I would assume that that's because of negotiated salary increases per collective bargaining agreements

▶ 1:42:45 that's correct that part partially because of that and partially because of some material increases we're seeing the economy is getting better and our price material prices are going up, and that's reflective in most material items throughout all of these budgets. And one of the things, Mr. Chairman, I think that's worth mentioning and taking note of is that four or five years ago the Department of Public Works took over the entire maintenance and custodial function for the school department. And that absorbed several hundred thousand dollars that would otherwise be in the school department. So, I'd like to point it out because people who may not have been around under the old system need to realize that school budget is getting value to the tune of $500,000 or

▶ 1:43:44 Michael P. Zwirko: $600,000 as a result of the city moving this into the public works budget. So that's something that needs to be considered when you talk about level of educational spending and school budgets and things of that nature. Thank you, President Codd. I see no further Alderman wishing to be heard on this budget. I just have one quick question. Alderman Search, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just need some clarification that just stuck out at me, so hopefully you can help explain it. It's a line in contractual, it's four up from the bottom, CH Electric. so there's about eleven five has been spent to date yet we're projected for a hundred and three thousand but the previous year we budgeted excuse me yeah

▶ 1:44:29 Michael P. Zwirko: that we have budgeted 58 I'm just wondering how in the next six seven weeks are we gonna jump that high to 103 K and furthermore you know you're seeking funding of 58,000 just like you did in 2017 I'm just cautious of that jump and i'm just wondering if it's anomaly or what it's reflective of so that's city hall's electricity line item okay the projection is a is a munis calculation it's not accurate when i look at my budget reports from this week we've expended 57 of the budget and we've paid electricity through march so we have april may and june quarterly left to to pay so we'll probably be at 75 80 percent of that line um which is why i love which is why we're proposing to level fund it okay yeah i mean it with one quarter remaining i mean it just seems strange that figure but i

▶ 1:45:27 Monica C. Medeiros: appreciate the clarification that's all i had mr chairman thank you alderman Search alderman Medeiros please thank you um just sort of an aside i my memory had been that we had saved even kind of a significant amount more than say five or 600,000 from the absorbing the school function into the city side of the function but I don't have those numbers with me right now I do see that we have our energy efficiency manager here with us today I was wondering if she might be able to speak about some of the the contracts or perhaps that miss wait you might be able to do that yourself actually but we at one point I talked about possibly moving some of the city contracts into the municipal aggregation and to see if we

▶ 1:46:15 could save some funds that way or anything that we've been able to do well we what we we've aggressively thanks to Martha's work renegotiated our supply contracts and our most recent our most recent electrical renegotiation actually was with constellation with constellation and now they're this their charges right on our our national grid bill so we get one bill from national grid before we used to get two separate bills we've been very aggressive just this past is just this week I think my on Monday right Monday we just extended our natural gas contract with our supplier for winter 1819 that reduced the price of our natural gas so we were fixed internet this coming winter but because of of her resources and MAPC resources we were able to really look

▶ 1:47:19 forward and there's this abundance of natural gas right now and they're offering lower prices for future years so I think it's it's important to avoid And I don't want to speak for the auditor, but I think I may because we make these decisions together. He likes to avoid the ups and downs of rates when it comes to gas and electricity. That's a big thing that Martha has brought to the table and through our supply contracts. Because we use so much gas collectively now and we track it all in one spot, we're able to renegotiate these deals whether we extend or get out a little early to renegotiate. That's where we've seen a lot of savings. Aside from all of the energy consumption projects with ESCO and solar arrays and those type of projects

▶ 1:48:10 which have reduced our consumption. So there's two things that we're consistently doing. We're looking to always get the best rate and the most stable rate. At the same time, we're also doing projects to lower our consumption. And the dividends is in this budget that has not been supplemented for now, I think, three fiscal years. So we're as close to level funded as possible. We're not adding more money in the spring to it. We've been a little fortunate with some of the past winters that haven't been as cold as possible. But the buildings are old, and the fact that we can control it from home and keep it at 55 and then warm it up in the morning from a couple of clicks on the computer, It's made a tremendous change in our operation.

▶ 1:48:58 The fact that on a Sunday, if it's below freezing, we don't have to send somebody from boiler room to boiler room, like we have indicators and Anne turns her computer on and she can see it all. Those are all some of the energy projects that have really made a huge difference in managing buildings. That's kind of an overall summary of all of the energy initiatives and the impacts it's had made a tremendous impact on the operation of this division certainly I remember being on the school committee and having contracts with various different vendors for each building so it certainly makes sense to have this consolidated and you know run by one department one manager and you know and be able to aggregate together thank you

▶ 1:49:50 central purchasing Alderman McAteer-Margolis please thank you um can you just explain what accounts for the increase in the ESCO project line the ESCO project is the repayment of the lease that's our yearly payment they the kind of peaked up with this year was that it okay let me see if this is the people next year is I do recall that there was a year or two where we were gonna going up sort of high we're gonna go up a few more years actually yeah so next year will be 189 it seems to go up between five and six thousand a year and we're in year four or fourteen and paying back that project okay but kudos to the streetlights savings so that's helping us out saving almost over 15 percent with the new streetlights right yeah so we've we've reduced the

▶ 1:50:58 Peter D. Mortimer: electrical line item for streetlights again we've we held out we took we put a we reduced it significantly on the maintenance end last year but overall all now we're down one hundred eighteen thousand six hundred dollars in street lights and two lines of the budget and that's because of the new the new light bulbs and thank you that's all mr. chairman direct motion to recommend the bottom line for department number 402 public works facilities second all the employees cell has made a motion to recommend the bottom line for budget 402 Duly seconded by Alderman Inferna. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this budget will be recommended for passage. The next budget we have before us is budget 422.

▶ 1:51:49 It's Public Works Highway in the amount of $568,997.63. Mr. Shannon, please. So this division staffs four full time employees. They're fully funded in this division. employees are responsible for a variety of roadway and sidewalk related improvements street sign maintenance and installation they support events you'll see them at this weekend's healthy Melrose the road race on Sunday detouring streets keeping pedestrians and vehicles safe they do street light and traffic signal maintenance pothole and trench maintenance landscape some landscaping and fence repairs this is a division that we we really challenge on a day-to-day basis they respond very well to the new challenges they're open to new ideas and new ways of doing

▶ 1:52:43 Peter D. Mortimer: things it's a division that um and we're proud of all our divisions but this is a division that's made some strides in the last few years thank you mr shenna seeing no alderman wishing to be heard Is there a motion for- Motion to recommend the bottom line. Second. Alderman McAteer-Margolis has made a motion to recommend the bottom line for this budget, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this budget will be recommended to the full board for passage. The next budget we have before us is budget 423. It is public works snow in the amount of $575,000. Mr. Shenna, please. melrose received slightly over 58 inches of snow last year it was a very difficult year as alderman's

▶ 1:53:28 worker mentioned it was kind of the winter that didn't want to let go fast in fact the last few weeks sometimes reminds us of that plows went away and had to come back on april 1st on march 31st unfortunately but the the good news is that through a series of transfers and appropriation including one that's here this evening we will not be carrying any deficit forward and that includes any deficit from that miserable winter two years ago so we were able to start through the work of our auditor we're able to always start with a clean slate which is um which is nice the budget also goes up uh 25 000 it's continued it's a continuation of a trend several years of increases that the administration has put forward and has proposed and this board is approved

▶ 1:54:21 um and again if i may i'd like to take a quick minute to commend the employees of the department for the commitment they show on a daily basis in the winter to snow and ice operations and and also for the unity they show when it comes to storm related operations i think i've said it several times in this setting but i have to say it one more time because one thing is consistent it's very very difficult to come to work when everybody else is told to stay home especially when you know you're leaving your family at home you really have to put yourself in a totally different mindset when you work for a public works department you get there this group of people that i work with every day um have that or in health care and true and and and it's um it's it's very nice to see if

▶ 1:55:14 it's whether it's a few inches of snow if it's black ice it's there's still a safety hazard that the public works department has to respond to um and i'd be remiss to not take this opportunity to acknowledge it and it's truly a pleasure at times to work with this group and this is you know when it comes to snow they are they are top notch they're top notch president khan please yeah people should understand that this this budget contains no salaries and all this budget does is fund snow removal it pays overtime to our workers who who work on storms it pays for contractors it pays for equipment so this entire budget is dedicated to snow removal it's correct all snow removal throughout the entire city including schools

▶ 1:56:01 Michael P. Zwirko: thank you president khan sir alderman twerko please yeah just to thank you mr chairman certainly just to lead off of what don alderman khan had said um this is also a line item where um you're actually able to go into a deficit the state does allow if need be thankfully as you mentioned we never have um and i know it's very difficult to forecast this um but uh you know it seems that this is somewhere we always go over i mean do you feel comfortable with the amount that's been allocated again i i understand you know forecasting a season that's nine months away can't be done i've just you know do you feel comfortable with the amount that's been allocated no i mean any increase is appreciated we will we will over expend this budget we've traditionally have i mean we haven't

▶ 1:56:44 we've had mild winters the last few years and in my opinion and we spent double this amount the cost of salt is going up the cost to fight snow goes up and um but you have to respond and salt is a salt the cost of salt is is a real driver in this oh yeah um but again whether it's black ice or a foot of snow you still have to treat it it still presents a dangerous situation and um i mean we appreciate every every inclination towards a higher number that we can get to Thank you, thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Alderman Zwirko. Motion to recommend the bottom line. Second. Zwirko has made a motion to recommend the bottom line for the snow budget, duly seconded by Alderman Boycelle. All in favor, please say aye.

▶ 1:57:32 Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this budget will be recommended to the full board for passage. The next budget we have before us is budget 433. It is public work sanitation in the amount of $1,339,466.24. uh so this this budget uh staffs two full-time employees that work in sanitation we still collect from business districts and schools and open spaces we collect metal items weekly and we manage the operation of our recycling facility and we collect yard waste this year is one of the highest weeks ever i think we do 15 weeks of collection this year we increase that service um the budget does include a contractual increase of 75 000 in the jrm curbside collection contract and a two dollar per ton trash waste disposal increase um we're very fortunate similar to the

▶ 1:58:35 energy group and and sanitation we're fortunate to work with um sadie brown recycling committee on various events and public educational outreach and Sadie coordinates a lot of drop-off events on Saturdays a lot of public awareness spends a lot of time with our children and families and Melrose schools and has really helped educate the public of how important it is to reduce your waste this year annual trash tonnage in fiscal 17 is projected to decrease by one percent we've kind of plateaued uh if you look back to fiscal if you compare fiscal 17 to fiscal 15 as a 19 decrease that's roughly when we went to single stream pay single stream weekly recycling so from fiscal 15 through today it's a 19 reduction but just this past fiscal year it's only been about a one percent

▶ 1:59:43 all of our indicators are telling us that we we're probably not going to see huge decreases in the in the future with trash tonnage but it's something that we continuously monitor in terms of recycling our recycling tonnage is projected to decrease but again only by 81 tons which is not a lot three years ago we saw a huge increase in our recycling tonnage when we switched to weekly and people seem to have held that so we're kind of at a plateau in regards to tonnage when it comes to trash but overall observation curbside surveys that we conducted in 2013 and and again in 2016 indicate that 76% of residents that put out trash put out recycling with their trash and that was so that's up from 2013 when I think it was around 68% so

▶ 2:00:51 more people are recycling and the set out the set out rate is is higher so more people are recycling their recycle they recycled more we saw that plateau hit and now we're at a point where they I think a little more education is warranted so this summer we're gonna pair we're gonna pair Sadie up with some interns to do some curbside curbside drop leaflet drop offs if we see stops that could be corrected we're going to try to drop a little notice maybe you know a little tip from the DPW on your screen of how you could recycle differently hike you recycle more overall overall we're not in the bad place it's just not as the results are just not as great as they were but this was expected when when you go to single stream you see that immediate increase that immediate

▶ 2:01:47 improvement and then you hope to keep keep it moving forward which is what we're doing uh we also we also recycled a hundred thousand pounds of textiles this past fiscal year with the ptos that created eighteen thousand dollars of funds that went to the ptos in Melrose this past fiscal year we composted 2,300 tons of leaves again there was a day where the leaves were thrown away and that would have increased trash tipping fees so and this year we increased we increased curbside collection to 15 weeks by the end of by the end of this fiscal year were projected to have recycled 88,000 pounds of electronic waste these are the old TVs those old cathode ray tube TVs we're taking what we've been accepting them

▶ 2:02:45 we've been recycling them and we've done a lot of outreach we've partnered with the MWRA to bring a hands-on water conservation class to the third graders and Melrose we now have a pour off program in school cafeterias our custodian sets up a bucket where the kids if they have a little bit of extra milk or a little bit of extra juice instead of dumping that liquid in the trash we pour it off into a bucket so we're doing that and we're taking out nearly 2,000 pounds of liquids from the trash stream and again DPW day is taking very educational component to it where Sadie Brown goes to fourth grade classes throughout the district and teaches them about recycling teaches them about waste reduction about sold solar energy and solar power with Martha and with Elena

▶ 2:03:46 in regards to water conservation and suica and you know what what can you flush and what shouldn't you flush and don't put oil into your sink and so a lot of education comes out of this division as well with our recycling coordinator and we're now working in a team environment with everybody else so the budgets before you the recycling revolving account is also another order that's before you this evening for reauthorization that funds all of our events and our Saturday events the Saturday events have expanded to we partner with Stoneham we used to run one hazardous waste collection in October now Stoneham does the spring we can go there and then in exchange we host them we host Stoneham and Melrose in October above and beyond that now with we've

▶ 2:04:35 reached out to other communities we have a listing of of communities that accept other towns so what now a lot of communities are doing they'll the last hour of their event they'll open it out to outside as we know where those events are and if somebody's just moving into Melrose and looking to get rid of some oil-based paint or other things they find in their basement they don't have to wait until October there's a lot of more options for that styrofoam is a new big thing that the community has been asking us to recycle last year we did one event this year we're doing two and we take plastic bags every week I think the awareness of you can't recycle a plastic bag curbside you shouldn't throw

▶ 2:05:18 Monica C. Medeiros: it in your waste stream either so you can pretty much every month we have an event if you want to drop off your plastic bags that's fine too otherwise Whole Foods I know they takes them as well so we're trying to do a lot more in regards to events there are a lot different than not only we have more events but they're different events that they were five six years ago and again that's a credit to the staff that's running them Thank You mr. Shana alderman Medeiros please thank you I appreciate all the education you've given tonight and I'm very happy about the interns going out to do some education out in the street I'm wondering you know we have seen kind of a shift in some of the demographics in terms of you know some of the maybe older or single people kind

▶ 2:06:06 Monica C. Medeiros: of moving out of some of the homes and being replaced with families especially young families with young children are we do we have any studies or any kind of indication of you know my gut feeling would be that a young family might have more trash than you know an older person and is that something that you know we're going to see moving forward especially things like diapers and you know no it's a good point when when an elderly family moves out whether it's a single person or a husband and wife and that home is purchased by a young family with three or four kids they're not just adding to classrooms to the schools they're adding trash to our tonnage and that that's a piece of I think of what an indicate that's another indicator of what's going into the fact

▶ 2:06:57 that our trash isn't dropping as much so it's a valid point it's something that we do watch we don't check neighborhood by neighborhood but if you look at the bottom line of where we are it's nice to see that we're not picking up 10,000 ton of trash anymore which we were at one point in the last dozen years we're down to about 72 71 7300 ton of trash we're in that range it's nice that was we stay there but that is probably a very valid point in regards to why why trash is not dropping as much as it used to it's plateauing and so it does make the education in the schools and and just in general to the community all that much more important so thank you for that aspect thank you all the Medeiros president car please can you just tell us where we are with our

▶ 2:07:51 Peter D. Mortimer: hauling and recycling contract and with our disposal contract yes it's one contract it's one contract with JRM that covers collection and disposal we're in We're going to be entering the fourth year of a seven year contract with three more optional years after it. That's all I had, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, President Kahn. Seeing no further Alderman wishing to be heard, Alderman Boisselle has made a motion to move the line for the public work sanitation budget. Duly seconded by Alderman Zwirko. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, this budget will be recommended to the full board for passage. Next budget we have. Would you entertain a motion, Mr. Chairman? Do you want to do the revolving account now?

▶ 2:08:41 Peter D. Mortimer: Yeah, I'd move that we consider what a 2017-160, second. President Kahn has made a motion to take 2017-160. It's reauthorization of revolving fund 2657, waste collection and recycling for fiscal year 18. Said motion was duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none. Motion to recommend the order. The order is before us, and President Carter's made a motion to recommend this order for passage. Once again, duly seconded by Alderman McAteer-Margolis. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any discussion? On discussion, Alderman Medeiros, please. Thank you, just want to point out that the cap on this revolving count is $65,000. Thank you. Thank you very much, Alderman Medeiros.

▶ 2:09:28 Peter D. Mortimer: Once again, a call for the vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none. This order will be recommended to the full board for passage. The next budget we have before us is budget 485. It's public works automotive in the amount of $507,486.88, Mr. Shannon, please. I'll skip it, 475. Automotive. Oh, thanks, we'll take this one next. You want to, all right, we'll take 475. No, we could do automobile. Okay, all right, then we'll go to 475. So the automotive budget funds three full-time mechanics. They maintain all of the DPW, recreation, council and aging, inspection services, health department vehicles. We also maintain police vehicles for Chief Lyle, and we do the smaller fleet of the fire department for Chief Larry.

▶ 2:10:27 Overall, there are approximately 80 vehicles, and that's not just, sorry, pieces of equipment and that's vehicles trucks loaders pumps that we maintain on a day-to-day basis thanks to support of the administration and an event the eventual approval of this board several new pieces were added this past fiscal year we were in need of of that equipment and we appreciate that again i just want to say thank you for that we added a new loader two new uh sander dump combos a new chipper midsize truck a sidewalk bombardier the council on aging van that was purchased by the council on aging is currently in our garage so we'll be outfitting that soon and putting that out and a new water meter reading van you'll start you'll see that

▶ 2:11:18 soon that's the van that will be retrofitted to run partially on battery charge from the brakes um that's the van that will be circulating through the city on a monthly basis getting meter reads this budget also is where fuel is gas is for the entire city we have our own gas station our own where we have gasoline and diesel it's a very secure system it's city operated we run it ourselves nine departments throughout the city use this facility there are 186 vehicles that fuels there including the school department we track fuel consumption by department by month we could even track it by employee or by vehicle so the tracking system has proved has proved to be very that's getting late effective

▶ 2:12:23 well it's been very effective because we can track energy energy efficiency in it and that's something that Martha uses we we build school department for their gas the Housing Authority uses our gas as well we build them so it's good to be able to track it and break it down it's also good that it's secure not only is it on 24 7 surveillance but you really can't get gas unless you have a code and once you put that code in the computer system knows exactly who you are so we can track who fueled we've seen a we last year we decreased the budget in that line this year we're holding it so it was a cut that worked and it was I'm happy that we've been able to maintain that any questions Thank You mr. Shana

▶ 2:13:11 Peter D. Mortimer: budget to recommend the bottom line alderman boy sellers made a motion to recommend the bottom line for this budget duly seconded by alderman inferno all in favor please say aye any opposed hearing none the automotive budget of public works will be recommended the full board for passage will now take budget number four seven five public works parks and forests in the amount of seven hundred twenty two thousand five hundred forty eight dollars and eighteen cents mr. shot up this this is one of our most visible budget most visible divisions obviously they can't maintain for an excess of 65 open open grounds and sites and playgrounds and fields and traffic islands throughout the city some of the largest scale projects they completed this past fiscal year includes

▶ 2:14:08 equipment upgrades at Conan Park they did a lot of infield work last fall which put us in a much better place this spring especially with the spring move had it's been so rainy we were very we were very it was very beneficial to do that work in the fall when the fields were not being used so the fact that we had them and it had them in-house to do that was was put us that much ahead this year we work very closely with Joan Bell our open space director in this in this division she manages the fields and the use of the fields you it's incredibly it's incredible how heavily used our fields are if any any afternoon in the spring and if you're driving down the fells way this cars parked on both sides

▶ 2:14:59 all the entire complex both tennis courts everything is used she's pretty she's projecting issuance of thirty five hundred and eighty two permits to user groups and she's projecting roughly twenty eight thousand five hundred hours of field use and that's that's organized field use that's aside from families just going down and using them in a wreck from a recreational perspective um that's the park budget um if there are any particular questions i'll be more than willing to answer those as well alderman mcintyre my goal is thank you uh um you mentioned um a tree program is that included in this or not i'm trying to see tree maintenance thank you this is the park and forestry budget the tree program is not in here was funded through an appropriation from free cash however

▶ 2:15:57 um there is a line here for outside forestry hide equipment we use that to do stump grinding we use that to if we have a heavy if we have a removal that's too large or something that we feel could end up on someone's house we'll bring a crane in we use that line for that we use that line to to also do tree plantings to a certain extent but the majority of the program was already funded through appropriation from free cash so the tree maintenance line that was in here under contractual is zeroed out and was last year as well but that's because that work can be done in house no it's hired forestry hired equipment it's uh five two four zero zero six that's the second line okay contractual so it's been moved it's moved into that right okay okay so if people

▶ 2:16:54 still like if there's an issue with the tree that a city tree out in front of their house or whatever that can go in through a work order or a phone call yeah that that has to go in through a work order we're very um rigid in that regard if someone calls says i just want a tree taken down state law doesn't require it i mean trees are probably more protected than me through public shade law if somebody is it calls with with a request like that immediately we create a tree assessment work order those are reviewed by peter petrantonio he goes out looks at the site sometimes with his staff sometimes he meets the resident there and and that request could either turn into a trim it could turn into let's trim it and come back in six months or it

▶ 2:17:40 Peter D. Mortimer: could turn into yep it's an immediate safety hazard let's post it and take it down but everything starts as a tree assessment and it's done through this division as well great thank you motion to to approve the bottom line second alderman MacMaster margolis has made a motion to recommend the bottom line for passage duly seconded by alderman boyce all in favor please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this will be recommended to our full board final budget meeting for passage the next budget we have before us is 491 cemetery in the amount of 253 504.92 Once again, Mr. Shannon, please. So the DPW continues to work at an aggressive pace with the New Cemetery Commission. Chairman Mark Garapate, Danny O'Neill, Doug McDonald, all very active faces with our department now.

▶ 2:18:38 They're really trying to do what's right for the cemetery, for its grounds, for its administration. We work on daily administrative issues with Angela who's done a tremendous job down there in the past year. And we work on capital and ground issues. This past fiscal year, we did a comprehensive roadway ranking program for the cemetery as well. That created some direction on what we should pave and what we shouldn't pave, and we actually paved two roads. also created we identified an expansion area we prepared and we took an old road out and prepared that for future expansion upgrades were made to the cemetery material storage area there was always just piles of dirt and now they're and they're nice and neat and bins and gives a better a better look

▶ 2:19:31 into that area when you're visiting a loved one and we're preparing to do some joint repairs to the wall my hope is that it's the first of several small projects and trying to maintain and upkeep that wall administratively this fiscal year there have been 71 burials 59 cremations and 15 new lots were sold we continue to have a memorial tree program if someone's interested in that they can call the office we also have a memorial bench program they can also call the office and we support that as well and we continue to do holiday and seasonal baskets inventory is strictly monitored and it's reported on a monthly basis to the cemetery committee who reviews it together as a group together with Angela there right now there's approximately 60 available lots in the

▶ 2:20:26 Knollwood area that's our active burial area that's the area closest to the ripley school um and there's already discussion about you know where we're going to go next where it's going to be at where is that with 60 available burials and you're doing 15 to 20 sales a year obviously this is a discussion that the committee is having and we we hope to solve that in the upcoming year of what the next phase and what the next step is so we can prolong the the life of the cemetery uh the majority and of the majority of the increases in this budget go to salary increases which are contractual and to some material line items and some additional surveying and pinning we want to do of available lots any questions thank you mr shanna president

▶ 2:21:17 khan please are there any salaries that are being paid off budget for cemetery employees no the The cemetery administrator, though, is in the administration budget, the very first budget that we spoke about. Okay, so other than that, everybody's in the budget? Everybody's in here. Okay, that's all. Thank you. Thank you, President Kahn. Alderman McAteer-Margolis, please. Hi. What is the higher equipment budget that it was $25,000 and then down and then up and then down? so the that's where we we supplemented that budget to pave the roads okay so it was it was the the twenty thousand twenty thousand dollars was brought into it at the end the last fiscal year okay and that's what we used to pave the

▶ 2:22:11 Peter D. Mortimer: roads and that line if you follow the munis reporting across gets a little skewed by the fact that we we brought that money and we encumbered it and it forward into this fiscal year and did we did we just transfer that from another line item or was that free cash that came from free cash great great okay thank you that's all mr shaman thank you alderman McNaught margolis seeing no further alderman wishing to be heard will she recommend the bottom line McNaught margolis has made a motion to recommend the bottom line duly seconded by alderman boisselle and i see on discussion alderman's worker did you oh okay just making the second all in favor of this budget please say aye aye any opposed hearing none this budget will

▶ 2:22:54 Peter D. Mortimer: be recommended to the full board for passage at our final full board budget alderman meeting in june the next order we have before us is order 2017-157 it is reauthorization of the park revolving account number two six six nine motion to recommend we have a motion to recommend this order for passage by alderman medeiros duly seconded by alderman inferna on discussion please uh thanks and this is a fairly new uh revolving account that i think we just authorized uh recently and we um have a cap not to exceed forty thousand dollars and i was hoping maybe mr shenna could just speak to again what this might pay for and if this is paying for any staff mr shenna would you care to rejoin us or would mr delarusso be better suited

▶ 2:24:06 so this is a this is a new revolving account it's it's actually been submitted by joan bell um i'm going to defer to her for the details of it maybe she could follow up um with a letter memo to the board this isn't true for any staff in the uh no the intent of this revolving account was to bought deposit permit fees and then pay for expenses relative to the use of fields if that includes uh staff to oversee an event that that that's an applicable charge towards that revolving account and just there's no uh if there i guess a comment that if there are any new fees to be created or adjusted that those should be coming through the board of aldermen so i just want to remind that if i made it to the board there should be a letter um dated on the 11th

▶ 2:25:04 for the reauthorization of the park revolving account the 2669 and it should be um in your packet i would hope yes with the cap of forty thousand dollars so correct is this being used to pay for any staff time well according to the breakdown she said she's going to use it to pay all the costs for the various supplies and maintenance associated with parks fields and playgrounds where permits are issued she talks about the departmental receipts deposited will include all rental fees and custodial charges received which are principally derived as a result of activities hosted by groups and organizations that do not reside within the city the indication here is that the power commission is the only body authorized to sign the warrants

▶ 2:25:56 Peter D. Mortimer: initiate payments from the revolving account and as you indicated um the limit not to exceed 40 000 but i can ask for clarification if you have any questions from joe i know just was wondering if you were using any of this to apply towards salaries i'll be happy to ask you that that's okay thank you very much thank you alderman Medeiros um what should you recommend i think that's been made that was made by alderman Medeiros and seconded by alderman inferna All in favor of reauthorization of the park revolving account number 2669, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, hearing none, this order will be recommended to the full board for passage. Thank you. The next order we have is order 2017-149. It is an appropriation from Free Cash in the amount of $234,872.54

▶ 2:26:50 various public works accounts as set forth herein so i i briefly made mention of this at the beginning of our hearings this evening the majority of this funding will go to start the new road program and a 23 422 dollars of it will go to rebalance the snow budget um when we came before you with free cash orders the auditor found that it was prudent to to prove to the board that the deficit would snow would be taken care of before we move forward with projects but then it snowed again so this is what can you do it's not allowed this is take two this is take two at re removing the deficit thank you mr shenna recommend second president khan has made a motion to recommend this order for passage duly seconded by alderman lemmerman seeing no further discussion

▶ 2:27:57 Peter D. Mortimer: all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed hearing none this order will be recommended for passage to the full board thank you very much thank you very much motion to adjourn by alderman boisselle second duly seconded by alderman Zwirko all in favor of the motion to adjourn please say aye aye aye any opposed hearing none the committee on appropriations is hereby adjourned thank you Thank you, one and all.

Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2017-05-11

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