Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2018-03-26
Attendance
Manisha Bewtra ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Scott M. Forbes ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Kate Lipper-Garabedian ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr. ; Michael P. Zwirko
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Participation
- Orders
- ORDER-2018-150 : Transfer in the amount of$50,000 (Fifty Thousand Dollars) From: Health Insurance (019142-549201) To: DPW Facilities, School Door Security (01402772-527554) as set forth herein.
- ORDER-2018-152 : An Appropriation from the Contract Stabilization Fund (84042-590000) in the amount of $103,750.00 to Fire, Salary and Wages (012211-511000) to fund year one of the new 3 year Collective Bargaining Agreement.
- ORDER-2018-151 : An Appropriation from Ambulance, Retained Earnings (650000-319000) in the amount of $29,900.00 to Ambulance, Salary and Wages (650051-511000) to fund year one of the new 3 year Collective Bargaining Agreement.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MARCH 26, 2018 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:35 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council 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 Jennifer L. Lemmerman Chair Absent Scott M. Forbes Vice Chair Present Manisha Bewtra Alderman at Large Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present Kate Lipper-Garabedian Alderman at Large Present Shawn M. MacMaster Ward 5 Alderman Present Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Peter D. Mortimer Ward 6 Alderman Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Present Michael P. Zwirko President/ Ex-officio Member Present
ORDER-2018-150 Transfer Transfer in the amount of$50,000 (Fifty Thousand Dollars) From: Health Insurance (019142-549201) To: DPW Facilities, School Door Security (01402772-527554) as set forth herein. Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2018-152 Appropriation An Appropriation from the Contract Stabilization Fund (84042-590000) in the amount of $103,750.00 to Fire, Salary and Wages (012211-511000) to fund year one of the new 3 year Collective Bargaining Agreement. Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2018-151 Appropriation An Appropriation from Ambulance, Retained Earnings (650000-319000) in the amount of $29,900.00 to Ambulance, Salary and Wages (650051- 511000) to fund year one of the new 3 year Collective Bargaining Agreement. Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 7/7/2020 1:49 PM
Transcript
▶ 34:42 Scott M. Forbes: Good evening, it is 8.05, this is the Committee on Appropriations. My name is Oliver Scott Forbes, I'm the Acting Vice Chair and will be chairing this committee tonight in Chairperson Lemmerman absence. Members of this committee include Alderman Bewtra, Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, Alderman McMaster, Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Mortimer, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Wright, and President Zwirko. Motion to open the floor for public participation, Mr. Chairman. Second. We have a motion to open the floor for public participation made by Alderman Mortimer, seconded by Alderman Boisselle. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? There's a portion of our meeting where anybody from the general public can come up and speak on the orders that are before us tonight.
▶ 36:16 Scott M. Forbes: Motion to close public participation, Mr. Chairman. Seeing none, we have a motion to close public participation made by Alderman Mortimer, duly seconded by Alderman Boisselle. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Public participation has now concluded. And before we get going, I just want to say this meeting is being recorded on MMTV. You can watch us all on Public Access Channel or click on the appropriate links on the City of Melrose website in accordance with our general open meeting law. We do have three orders before us tonight. order is order number 2 0 1 8 dash 1 5 0 is a transfer of $50,000 from health insurance account number 0 1 9 1 4 2 dash 5 4 9 2 0 1 2 DPW facilities school door security account number 0 1 4 0 2 7 7 2 dash 5 2 7 5 5 4 has set forth here
▶ 37:12 Scott M. Forbes: in motion to suspend the rules we have motion to suspend the rules made by allman mortimer second second and by all the Letter garabedian all those in favor any opposed rules are suspended so we could hear from the appropriate department heads i see we have members in our audience mr shenna mr driscoll good evening thank you for being here tonight if you could just speak on behalf of the order uh that would be much appreciated thank you uh with the indulgence of the board i just want to say thank you for considering this order this evening on behalf of the Melrose School Committee I'm sure you know that the safety and security of our students our staff our families and our community is is of top priority to us so again we
▶ 38:04 are grateful for your consideration of this order and we thank you for your continued support of the Melrose public schools and our entire school community and at this point I will I designate superintendent a more to speak on behalf of schools good evening everyone evening so um I know you have in front of you a memo from John and myself regarding this matter one of the things that we have been doing over the past several years is whenever we've had the opportunity to have some sort of building renovation project with the cooperation of Denise Gaffey and our architects we have been building in electric door openings like you have in this building commonly known as fob systems this has been a security
▶ 38:59 measure that we have found important you may not know that for many years now it has been a regulation in Massachusetts that all school doors are locked other than the early morning hours when students are arriving our doors are supposed to be locked all day this has become a priority for us because among other things we accompany find we are constantly remaking keys even when staff depart we ask them to turn in their keys and I'm always saying to John oops I have to read I have to rekey a building by adding the fob system it also allows us to keep an electronic record we can tell who has come and gone when they have come and gone if there is unusual activity we're able to follow up with people and when somebody leaves the district we simply shut off their fob
▶ 39:50 so it is a much more secure system it's a much more efficient system and it allows for greater accountability we have been able to do this when we've done the Learning Commons when we did the modules when we did the Hoover windows and doors when we did the Harvest Man renovation at this time what has happened is we have two three buildings and a part of the high school that do not have these systems believe it or not when you built the Lincoln and the Roosevelt we did not install these systems when you built the middle school we did put in a card system that is comparable the early childhood center also does not have this system and the high school being a 75,000 or is it 75 much more than 75 000 square foot building has other doors that our students like to use that
▶ 40:45 we feel should be fobbed for security as well so at this time we are making this request that we are able to finish this project and have all our buildings have the equity of a fob system once all our buildings have this equity we will give fobs to every teacher and this is how they will come and go um and we will not have to leave doors unlocked while teachers are going out to play in the play yard the gym teachers are going outside for gym or other such activities just to follow up on on the superintendent's comments the funding will also address some repairs that are required to the intercom system and the the visual camera that the secretaries have at both the roosevelt and the lincoln school so this way they can see who's at the front door
▶ 41:42 Francis X. Wright Jr.: it's being it's being funded by two departments the city is funding fifty thousand of the seventy five thousand dollar project with the transfer that's before you tonight i believe the transfer is coming from health insurance which our auditor informed me this morning you have a letter on 25 thousand dollars of the this last phase of this project is being funded by the school department all right now i'd like to open it up for questions uh first in queue i have alderman wright followed by alderman butcher uh mr chairman i'm reluctant to do this but in order for us to be in compliance with rule 21c i'm going to make a motion to recess for the purposes of opening legislative matters um a legal legislative i should say and um and we will immediately recess
▶ 42:31 Scott M. Forbes: that and reconvene in appropriations so i motion to recess yes second so we have a motion to recess the uh appropriations committee uh that has been made by alden wright seconded by alderman Tramontozzi for the purposes of opening the next meeting due to the time constraints and requirements which we will then recess and come right back to questions and answers so just more of a formality and housekeeping measure so we do have a motion of recess uh made in second and all those in favor right any opposed appropriations committee has been uh currently on recess good evening i'm frank wright ward 3 alderman this i am the chair of the legal and legislative committee um we are convening a meeting scheduled for 7 45
▶ 45:38 Manisha Bewtra: first leading off we do have Alderman Bewtra followed by Alderman Boycelle thank you thanks for coming in tonight I wanted to know obviously I'm a little more familiar with the procedures at the elementary level I'm curious about sort of freedom of students of leaving campus or entering and exiting building the building during school hours and how this might be affected or not affected by this change so hopefully no middle school students are leaving the high school students the upperclassmen have a little bit more freedom they can come in a little later they can leave a little later at the high school we have security personnel in the front lobby students have to ring the bell they're admitted by Brian and he they have to sign in so there is a security procedure
▶ 46:30 Robert A. Boisselle: at the high school thank you all set yep all the boys out please in the order it states here you're doing the upgrade of the door audible and video devices who is watching these video devices I mean is this in the principal's office or is it the system is a basically sort of like what you now see on TV that you can buy you ring the bell you see you're on your computer that someone's at the door and the secretary is monitoring it okay so you're only visualing is anything being recorded on a day-by-day basis no so nothing's recorded or saved it's just a regular visual review right all right thank you very much thank you mr. chair Thank You Alvin Boisselle now we have Alderman Medeiros followed by
▶ 47:24 Monica C. Medeiros: Alderman Lipper-Garabedian thank you and perhaps we might look into a system that allows us to store the the data in case we need it the recorded video I don't just a thought but my question is what happens if there is an emergency is kids able to get out of the building throughout the day if they need to get out and if there's an emergency say the power goes down can people can emergency personnel get back into the building so a couple of things first of all the FOB systems are only going on selected doors they're not going on all our doors that would be an unnecessary expense the second thing is all our doors have crash bars students can escape as needed and most of our doors are also keyed and the
▶ 48:18 Monica C. Medeiros: fire and police have master keys great thank you I think this is very important and I'm glad that we've been able to make the upgrades at the other schools throughout these different projects that we've been working on and support this order I would like to ask there was a mention that there is a letter from the auditor I do not have that and I just happened to well we're at recess look at the computer system with chairman Forbes and we did not see it in the system so I'd like to request that for a full board meeting that we please do have that letter included in the packet point of order believe out presidents work though point of order the the letter that I think you're referring to is one
▶ 49:03 Monica C. Medeiros: from Mary Ann long which is attached to the order there's not one from the auditor and again we did not see a letter from Mary Ann long so I'm looking at it here now on IQ m2 if you click on the order itself on the agenda there's three attachments one is a letter from Marianne long dated March 21st I have only the order printout and the school security upgrades letter a oh I think these the I think if you click into it yes I think there's something where in this is a little bit of inside baseball but I think that the clerk of committees may need to regenerate the agendas in order for this to show in all views on iqm2 did you just see it i can see it now okay so you have the letter it's not uh not shown in the
▶ 50:06 Monica C. Medeiros: agenda packet nor is it shown from the main screen so in order to have it show everywhere i believe it's attached to the order yeah it's not in the agenda packet if you look at the entire agenda packet and in order to get it to you need to do something called regenerating the agenda from ms harrington who used to be there would often have to do this all right so for the purpose of moving this discussion forward i think uh you know the attachment is attached it is with the packet we can always refer to the clerk or committees if there's any follow-up questions just to make sure that everyone has the information that we need because it should be because both of us had looked at it and understood that being said next in line I got Alderman
▶ 50:50 Lippert Garabedian I'm just a quick question do you have a sense of the timing for this project how long it takes and when it will be started and completed RIT department is in the process of contracting with the state vendor that installs these we're hoping to start in April obviously we have to work around school and school activities but it's still our goal to have this in place before the end of the school year so we can issue the fobs to teachers and and run through a end of school start of school cycle to work out the bugs okay great well it's unfortunately somewhat timely um in light of what's been happening um so i'm pleased that you're going to move forward with us thank you motion i recommend for passage mr chairman
▶ 51:34 Scott M. Forbes: get a motion to recommend for passage made by alderman mortimer second second and by alderman Boisselle all those in favor aye any opposed motion passes be recommended before our next board meeting thank you very much thank you everyone okay next order we have order number two zero one eight dash one five two it is an appropriation from the contract stabilization fund account number eight four zero four two dash five nine zero zero zero zero in the amount of one hundred and three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars to fire salary and wages account number zero one two two one one dash five one one zero zero zero to fund year one of the new three-year collective bargaining agreement motion
▶ 52:22 Peter D. Mortimer: to suspend the rules mr. chairman I believe we already are under suspension the rules you know I'd like to have a ruling on that maybe from the president in past years we've done it both ways sometimes we have to suspend on each order sometimes we suspend it once for the entire committee but um for going forward for this year under your administration what would be the procedure on that mr president the rules are suspended during committee it holds for the duration of the committee i will withdraw my motion then thank you very much mr president thank you mr chairman i thank you alderman mortimer the rules are suspended mr van campen how are you well how are you mr chairman very well you can please speak on behalf of the order before us we would appreciate it yes
▶ 53:02 Yes. So this order, Mr. Chairman, is connected to funding the first year of the recently agreed upon fire contract. It is for the period encompassing July 1st, 2017 to June 30th, 2020. So the amounts you're seeing in the order, let me just get my numbers. the amount you're seeing in the order reflect the retroactive payments that would be due under the contract just by way of general background on the contract itself the city has come to terms with the fire union for a successor it is a two and a half percent cost of living adjustment each year for three years there are some additional benefits in this contract relating to vacation time the goal was to get the fire union in line with the vacation
▶ 53:57 benefit that was being enjoyed by our police unions we invested in some educational incentive increases because Mayor Inferno and Chief Leary remain committed to ensuring the most professional firefighters that we can get so we were willing to enhance those benefits and there were some changes to work schedules that are to the benefit of the city so that's the agreement a nutshell the contract stabilization fund um has a balance currently of six hundred eight thousand ninety one dollars and thirty seven cents and assuming this is approved this evening that stabilization fund will have a remaining balance of five hundred and four thousand three hundred and forty one dollars and thirty seven cents and the ambulance free cash reserve fund has a current
▶ 54:45 Michael P. Zwirko: balance of 142 587 and if this order is passed the remaining balance there would be a hundred and twelve thousand six hundred and eighty seven thousand eighty seven dollars thank you sir for that information first in line I do have presidents work oh thank you mr. chairman I said two quick questions so there is a component of this transaction here that is retroactive is that correct you said it's back from 2017 up to 2020 june of 2020 correct and then the other question i had and i apologize if i didn't hear it does it is it just in terms of the benefits you had mentioned um shoring up for equity between police and fire on vacation is anything that has to do with either equipment or gear or training no not in this round of bargaining okay thank you those
▶ 55:34 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: all the questions I had. Thank you. Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, by a nose. Thank you for being here and for walking us through this. Just for my own edification and then for the folks watching at home, the order before us is to appropriate money pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement that the firefighters union and the city have negotiated, but we as a board don't actually have that document in front of us. It's not considered public yet and so we are being asked to adhere to the terms that the executive branch has negotiated with a union and appropriate money which is our responsibility is that a fair summary correct so the mayor is responsible for serving as the bargaining agent for the city of Melrose with all city unions and
▶ 56:21 the Board of Aldermen is responsible to fund to the extent it deems it prudent to fund those agreements and the reason why you don't have the contract attached to the order is because i don't it's not it's not integrated to include the recently agreed upon terms so that's why it's not attached to your order but what i would tell you and the members of the board and the public is all of our contracts as i understand it once they're executed are posted on the city's website so if any member of the general public wants to see what terms have been agreed upon they can go to the city's website for that obviously a collective bargaining agreement with the public union is a public record at the end of the day so and is is the execution
▶ 57:02 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: in some ways contingent on us appropriating money is that sort of correct if the board shows not to fund the um fund these two orders tonight um essentially it would it would require mayor inferno to go back to the bargaining table and notify the fire union that we just didn't get permission from the board to culminate the deal so we have to go back to the drawing board and and figure out a better way okay and maybe my last question is it's helpful to have a sense of some of the um the terms that have been negotiated and one that struck me as interesting as the education incentive increases given my background in education policy and i'm wondering if you can speak at all a little bit more in detail about what that looks like are those for degree granting
▶ 57:45 programs are those for certifications i know the role of firefighters have changed tremendously that they do a lot more for us than just putting out fires um so i'm wondering what kind of programs we're thinking about so these incentives um these incentives are for members of the bargaining unit who have various levels of formal education an associate's degree a bachelor's degree and a master's degree these incentives have been in the fire contract for some time they're kind of analogous to the quinn bill on the police side but they're not as it's not as structured as that so for example the associates benefit will be increased by $500 the bachelors benefit will increase by 500 and the masters will increase by
▶ 58:26 750 today I think maybe 50% I might misspeak on this Alderman so I don't want to but there's not a majority of members of the fire department that have formal degrees so the goal here is to try to is to try to attract more that do by increasing these benefits and as you know we're an EMS based fire department where we spend more time helping people on an emergency medical basis rather than putting out fires thank God not thank God that we're helping people on an emergency medical basis but you know we that's the sort of the driving force of the fire department now so the more highly educated our firefighters are the more you know successful our department will be thank you mr. chairman I make a
▶ 59:09 Monica C. Medeiros: motion to join this order and the next order at this time so we have a motion to join order number two zero one eight one five two along with two zero one eight one five one made by alderman mortimer second i have a second by alderman chairman tozy all those in favor all right any opposed orders have been uh joined next in line for discussion i have alderman medeiros followed by alderman wright thank you uh thank you again mr chairman uh my comments tonight are really uh more administrative in nature again i just want to point out that this is again an instance where there are emails here that are from the auditor's office to mentioning the balances and the funds which attorney van campen just read to us but their iqm2 the system
▶ 1:00:06 Monica C. Medeiros: that we use for the online meeting portal does have the ability to generate this so that those letters would be shown in all views including the agenda packet and just when you click on the meeting and seeing all the items underneath you know and so in an effort of transparency for this board for the members of public i hope that we can look into hopefully the clerk committees can maybe consult with iqm2 so that this happens uh in a timely fashion prior to our meeting so that everybody has access regardless of which view they look at the agenda from so that's all thank you thank you all in deros next all in the right please thank you mr chairman um mr city solicitor I just want to confirm, this was a settlement that we did not end up going to the Joint Labor Management Commission?
▶ 1:01:07 Francis X. Wright Jr.: Correct. This was, they did petition the Joint Labor Management Committee to exercise jurisdiction, but we were able to come to terms in advance of the formal process itself. Which is always a good thing. Yes. Very good thing. To negotiate rather than have a settlement thrust upon us. And my understanding is the percentage increase here is consistent with public safety, you know, fire and police across eastern Massachusetts, the greater Boston area. Correct. It's, I mean, you know, in the ballpark of a roughly 2% to 3% average increase that we're seeing right now. So we're trying to remain competitive as a community within the confines of our limited resources. other cities that may have a little different percentage-wise increase may
▶ 1:01:59 Francis X. Wright Jr.: have different incentives. Correct. Correct. So you can't always go by the percentages. Correct. There's other things that factor into the take-home pay of firefighters as well as police. Correct. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Alderman Wright. Anybody else for questions? I'll recommend the joint orders for passage, Mr. Chairman. We have a motion to recommend the orders as joined made by Alderman Mortimer. Second. Seconded by Alderman Medeiros. Is there any more on discussion? President Search, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to state that for transparency reasons on the orders that we have joined together 2018-152 and 2018-151, there are emails, there are attachments, they are
▶ 1:02:42 Michael P. Zwirko: transparent, they are accessible, they are attached to the necessary orders in accordance with the open meeting law and they are accessible on IQ m2 so that is those items and those emails are posted appropriately I failed to say something earlier which I wanted to address at this point I wanted to thank you mr. city solicitor for your work as well as the administration and reaching an agreement on these contracts I know that sometimes they can be very difficult and requires a lot of hours as well as many meetings and discussions about this but It's important that we do this in good faith, as well as with our unions, and we do appreciate collective bargaining in general. So it does take a lot of time, and we are greatly appreciative that the men and women of the fire department,
▶ 1:03:27 as well as those that work on ambulance services, were able to come to an agreement with the mayor and the city. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, President Search. We do have a motion on the floor that's been made and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? these motions do pass and will be recommended at our next full board meeting. Motion to adjourn, Mr. Chairman. Motion to adjourn, made by Alderman Mortimer. Second by Alderman Tramontozzi. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Appropriations Committee is now concluded. What's in that bottle? I don't know, and I'm worried it's going to squirt out. It's just on string. Oh, yeah, that's a chair. Don't move on. This is on TV.