Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2018-05-31
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
- Departmental Hearing May 31, 2018
- Orders
- ORDER-2018-183 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2019 in the amount of $79,399,945.73 (Seventy-Nine Million, Three Hundred Ninety-Nine Thousand, Nine Hundred Forty-Five Dollars and Seventy-Three Cents).
- ORDER-2018-169 : AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING REVOLVING FUNDS IN THE CITY OF MELROSE
- ORDER-2018-190 : An Appropriation from free cash (01-324001) in the amount of $980,000.00 to various accounts as set forth within.
- ORDER-2018-191 : Transfer in the amount of $42,550.00 from various salary and wages accounts to various salary and wages accounts as set forth herein
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MAY 31, 2018 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 Jennifer L. Lemmerman Chair Present Scott M. Forbes Vice Chair Present Peter D. Mortimer Ward 6 Alderman Present Robert A. Boisselle Ward 4 Alderman Present John N. Tramontozzi Ward 1 Alderman Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Ward 3 Alderman Absent Monica C. Medeiros Alderman at Large Present Michael P. Zwirko President/ Ex-officio Member Present Manisha Bewtra Alderman at Large Late 7:34 AM Kate Lipper-Garabedian Alderman at Large Present Shawn M. MacMaster Ward 5 Alderman Present
ORDER-2018-183 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2019 in the amount of $79,399,945.73 (Seventy-Nine Million, Three Hundred Ninety-Nine Thousand, Nine Hundred Forty-Five Dollars and Seventy-Three Cents). No Action Taken Appropriations Committee
ORDER-2018-169 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING REVOLVING FUNDS IN THE CITY OF MELROSE Assigned to Committee Appropriations Committee
ORDER-2018-190 Appropriation An Appropriation from free cash (01-324001) in the amount of $980,000.00 to various accounts as set forth within. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen
ORDER-2018-191 Transfer Transfer in the amount of $42,550.00 from various salary and wages accounts to various salary and wages accounts as set forth herein Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 5/31/2018 10:37 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:01 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Good evening. The hour being 7.30 on May 31st, 2018. I call to order the Appropriations Committee of the Melrose Board of Aldermen. This meeting is being recorded and can be accessed on MMTV as well as on the City of Melrose website. I am Alderman Lemmerman. I'm the chair and I'm joined this evening by Vice Chair Alderman Forbes, Alderman, Committee Members Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, Alderman McMaster, President Search, and Alderman Mortimer. Do we have a motion? Motion to open the floor for public comment. Second. We have a motion to open the floor for public comment made by Alderman Forbes, seconded by Alderman Mortimer. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? This is the portion of the meeting where
▶ 0:53 any member of the public can come before us to speak on any item on our agenda. Seeing nobody willing to come forward, motion to close public comment? We do have one. come on up I take it back thank you for being here thank you if you could sign in on the sheet sure with your urine and state your name and address yes I'm David Adario I appreciate the opportunity to speak a few words I'm the a butter to it I live at 268 East Foster Street I'm the the butter to 278 East foster street which is the east side fire station i understand order 2018 190 has some funds set aside to repair or replace a retaining wall that's um in a state of disrepair at our 270 80s foster street excuse me it's it's actually falling over into my yard um in several places the wall is
▶ 1:58 broken it's no longer continuous it's a concrete wall uh the uh in some sections that the trees in my yard are the only thing that's that's still holding it up um i hope that in moving forward with the uh the repair of the wall that um in benefit to the city of melrose the fire station and myself that the proper engineering is done in reference to the design of the new wall the the fire department and other city vehicles are parked you know at times adjacent to that wall and i just want to be sure that whatever is going to take place next is sufficient for the task at hand with it and i just like to be kept in the with what's going on as far as how it's going to proceed um as i think that the construction is
▶ 2:57 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: going to impact my own property excuse me but uh i appreciate the opportunity to speak thank you thank you very much sir motion to close public participation matter okay we have a motion to close made by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman boisselle all in favor any opposed public comment is now closed we'll start with the first item on our agenda this evening which is order 2018-183 the city of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2019 in the amount of seventy nine million three hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred forty five dollars and 73 cents we have several departments before us this evening all of which fall within Public Works the first being department number 401 Public Works administration engineering motion to
▶ 3:47 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: suspend the rules so we can hear from the public officials second we have a motion to spend the rules made by alderman forbes seconded by alderman mortimer all in favor aye aye any opposed we are now under suspension of rules we're joined this evening by the dpw director mr shenna hi everyone welcome thank you evening would you like to start with a statement on this department item um and i should state that this this item is in the amount of seven hundred thirty seven thousand eight hundred seventy four dollars and fourteen cents sure thank you um i forwarded some information over the last 48 hours i really want to thank kristen she's been wonderful they're trying to get it in the right places at the right time um and that's not just because she
▶ 4:33 works for me at one point this past fiscal year the budgets before you um this evening represent the salary and expenditures that are associated with eight of our ten operating budgets in public works those include administration engineering our facilities group our highway sanitation fleet cemetery and park and forestry group water and sewer that are both enterprise operations and whose budgets won't be before you until next thursday comprise the balance of the department inclusive of water and sewer the public works department in whole has 65 full-time employees the budgets before you this evening total eight million nine hundred ninety six thousand one hundred fifty five dollars and twenty four cents the department prides itself on working efficiently
▶ 5:28 daily in order to provide only the highest level of service to residents both in terms of quality and quantity we strive to maintain our operations in a transparent and accessible manner residents can access our department in several manners we still answer the phone and you can stop just by 72 tremont street and pretty much get any level of service required with the exception of your water and sewer bill that's here in city hall we're open monday through friday seven to four we provide updates and notices through a variety of traditional mailings postcards every december we start to get the phone calls when am i getting my trash calendar for the year we do social media we do neighborhood meetings and now we're even trying to do a little bit of twitter
▶ 6:20 our website in fiscal 18 similar to other departments was updated and we're trying to keep up with that as well we'll continuously find manners to challenge our staff professionally and when we challenge our staff it's always for the better good of the community the department is staffed and i say this every year this is something that is critical to how we operate we operate laterally in a manner so that our resources can be shared and we share those resources depending on the demand of the season ultimately the end goal is to make melrose a better place for all its residents it's at all at all its locations whether you're walking into a building you're bringing the child to a sporting event so just to walk through town visiting a
▶ 7:11 downtown business it's very important for melrose to know it's dpw it's out is out there working for them outside of daily and seasonal maintenance issues and programs this current fiscal year we process nearly 4,500 work orders to date through our various divisions 36 roughly 3,600 of them are completed in parallel the department worked with several on several capital improvements to Melrose as infrastructure infrastructure we work collaboratively with other departments in the city in capital facility projects energy upgrades open space development zoning reviews and inspections this past fiscal year has been highlighted by some of the following projects that i just want to quickly mention that have been completed or in the process of being completed
▶ 8:10 within the next month roadway sidewalk and gas utility improvements took place on tremont street first street in front of the winthrop school cleveland street north and south high spare street hancock street and albion street we also paved aaron street west hill york terrace all in conjunction with national grid they upgraded the gas company and we worked together at by repaving the road, curb to curb. A drainage study was conducted and completed within the El Pond watershed in order to petition FEMA for a request to reduce the flood zone in this area. This was really the capstone of a decade of improvements in drainage in and around El Pond. We're petitioning the federal government and telling them we don't flood as often,
▶ 9:03 we do flood the water doesn't stay as long in hopes to have a butters of the of the l-pawn watershed have the ability to reduce their flood insurance we'll keep everybody posted on our progress with that our first green infrastructure our quote-unquote rain gardens were designed and they're currently being constructed on orient dav these were funded through state grants and with the coastal zone management if anybody wants to go out there they're there but i'm sure you'll see some information on construction and some photos online soon our complete streets program was one of the highest scored programs in the state and we received our first year our first allocation of funding for construction it's going to do three three things in the upcoming season
▶ 9:59 it's going to it's going to improve north to south bike route actually put one in place and try to fill in voids that exist today it's going to improve pedestrian and make pedestrian improvements in the high school and middle school and areas along melrose street and we're also going to try to push that out as we know that there's a group that crossed like the cross at main street in front of walgreens or by the mccarthy house or at crystal street at main street so we're working with the school department and several end users on trying to figure out how best and how safely to get these kids to that middle school high school's campus and the last one is a project that's been in the making a long time and that's pedestrian and vehicular safety improvements on
▶ 10:53 howard street from the intersection of howard with clifford and green to howard at ruggles where elementary students cross to go to the horace man we completed water system upgrades on first street altamont warwick road and perkins those were all designed in fiscal 18 and constructed sewer inflow and infiltration improvements took place in the highest four sub areas those are Those are the four areas of Melrose with the highest inflow and infiltration as measured with meters. We have one last phase of work which should go out to bid very soon in those four sub areas. And trust me, we're ready to start the next four. Several doctor sites and traffic islands, as always, were improved. The top one this year was Bellevue, at the corner of the Fellsway and Bellevue.
▶ 11:48 partnership with LCM last summer was a flash for our facilities group as we worked with the planning office and to deliver new modular buildings at Winthrop School in the Horace Mann sorry Winthrop School in the Hoover School with a renovation of the Horace Mann and our operations group in our engineering group were able to make several improvements to the sites themselves the school sites themselves during that six-week window over the summer we completed the painting exterior painting of the Milano Center we repaved lakeside ledge and Wisteria Avenue in the cemetery we're also our administration work in conjunction with the Cemetery Commission in reviewing records and digitizing all records at the cemetery every record at the
▶ 12:47 cemetery is has now has a digital digital file in place which is something the Commission has been working for several years to make sure happens through a state grant we're currently completing repairs to the joints and the perimeter wall the historic preservation wall was a hundred thousand dollar grant we obtained through the state several school curriculum driven repairs and upgrades took place over the past fiscal year aside from the major capital projects you've seen we worked with the veterans agent the veteran advisory group with for the World War two memorial and we recently completed the student respect garden with a student at the high school when Lisa Lord and the veterans group we built the community garden last year we put an addition to
▶ 13:45 it this spring we added some more planting boxes and a very popular amenity to Franklin field our engineering and our highway group implemented the citywide 25 mile an hour speed limit and started installing the 25 mile an hour solar speed devices through town and if you drive through tremont street we now have solar panels on the roof of our building the budgets before you not only address project needs but also the salary and this of our staff the um the salary accounts for all the conditions found in the newly bargained and executed map we local 272 that's melrose association of public works employees local 272 agreement will go in effect july 2nd 2018 i attach that into iqm2 for anyone who's interested in um in reading through it
▶ 14:49 it's a three-year contract this is with all operations and facility union employees in the the department the budgets also account for local 272 clerical union there in the second of a three-year card second year of a three-year contract the budgets account for all energy expenditures throughout the city this includes schools and all snow expenditures throughout the city a few the increases that are before you are mainly contractual contractually driven or they're driven to support upgrades and neighborhoods and buildings throughout the city similar to to our department the budget is very service oriented and is very service driven budget we look forward to next fiscal year several new projects and initiatives that we hope to embark
▶ 15:45 upon with successful patches passage of the budgets this evening and some of the other orders that are before you in the next few weeks mainly some of the highlights that we look to do is a continuation of ini in our next highest areas of flow water upgrades on florence street ashbourne street east emerson and garfield road continuation of gas system improvements and roadways upgrades in partnership with national grids the gas division citywide tree planting We'd like to start and complete a study to determine if it Do a feasibility study on whether turf upgrades are possible on the West Knolls soccer field we will be submitting for a second year of complete street programming and hopes to Bring forward some of the agenda that will add sidewalks into neighborhood streets
▶ 16:45 We're going to continue working on both the hazardous mitigation study and the municipal vulnerability program both of which include community discussion and coordination and discussion among city departments to identify areas in the community more importantly it's infrastructure that are most vulnerable during natural disasters and climate changes the hazardous mitigation study was the study that led to the El Pond FEMA grant and the converse Lane FEMA grant that brought millions of dollars in grant money into Melrose and helped us solve significantly large issues so we hope to do the same once these two studies are completed working with with IT in our school administration we hope to complete the installation of fob systems at all our schools and implement a new
▶ 17:36 school security policy see with superintendent a more for the start of the 2018-19 school year production and installation of new street signs with section numbers is currently taking place and will be completed this summer at the Wyoming Cemetery we would like to continue to work with the planning group our planning department and our energy group on green initiative and opportunities to further gain efficiency and energy consumption with our HVAC systems in the schools we're going to continue to work with both police and fire and continuing to complete the feasibility study for our public safety buildings and we're also going to be working with the trustees in memorial hall and the memorial hall capital building committee
▶ 18:28 in hopes to assess and prioritize capital needs of the building and working with the planning department we looked we were looking to begin to address sound lighting and stage needs at the melrose middle school auditorium most notable amongst all the new initiatives i just quickly went through is the continuation of a three-year program that will upgrade infrastructure and make roads and sidewalk improvements in our neighborhoods we actually started the program last year this is the second and third year coming up of what we announced last year i attached i attached to these orders and then again to the orders that are before you next thursday night a schedule and a breakdown of the funding for a road program so it's a little
▶ 19:17 difficult to um to read on the computer so we printed it for your own use um we'll be presenting this at length next thursday if there's any questions in this regard or anything you read with the material I already forwarded, feel free to ask him this evening. Once again, I'm also happy to report that the city will not carry forward any deficit in snow expenditures into fiscal year 19. Together with our CFO, he has come up with a plan to remove all existing deficit in that budget, so that next year we start even. We're also proposing a $50,000 increase in this budget in comparison to FY18. The department consists of 65 full-time employees. Because those employees work in various departments and
▶ 20:25 in various budgets, their salaries are distributed and I created a spreadsheet that shows those distributions take place from a percentage perspective and then in dollars that's in your pet that should be in your packets as well if not I can gladly support I can gladly offer you that now that's what I have for an opening statement okay thank you mr. Shana for that overview and we will start with the first on our on our agenda which is 401 administration and engineering thank you madam chairs I was gonna move that we actually consolidate the budget lines here just because we have the director of DPW before us and I'm sure all of us have various questions for various portions of the line items so without having to kind of pause for those that want to you know
▶ 21:17 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: condense all of their questioning so I move that we can consolidate all of the budget line items which are 401 402 422 423 433 475 485 and 491 second the motion we have a motion to combine the departments before us one two three four five six seven eight all eight departments dealing with DPW made by President Search seconded by Alderman Mortimer on discussion all in favor aye any opposed we now have each of those departments before us thank you John for coming this evening and looking through the material it's quite impressive you got to give you credit I mean this really looks impressed really good the spreadsheet that you handed out will this be on the website showing for the public to look at to see if their streets going to be done and so forth
▶ 22:14 Robert A. Boisselle: yes if you if you look at the schedule of planned capital projects some are funded and they're ongoing then there's a middle section of projects that are partially funded in the bottom section requires 100% funding so our goal once once hopefully we successfully pass all of the orders in the next few weeks we want to we want to put post this at that time okay but some of the colors are gray which indicating final pavement like where I have Sheffield here and a large month Perkins Street Beech Avenue and so forth and these will be starting the paving operate it looks like the paving operations will start some sometime in August and run through October correct so if someone Street is on this list they can expect a new street curb to curb to replace the
▶ 23:07 John N. Tramontozzi: national national gas companies it's correct half the street the entire street is that correct Sheffield everything on the street is a curb-to-curb project curb-to-curb that's a good schedule to be paved this fall with successful package passage of everything a Latchmont is will be 2019 okay very good all right thank you very much thank you man thank you Jim and I also want to thank you mr. Schenna for the very extensive in the obvious time that you put into putting together the package for us to review and I do appreciate that and I want to send my thanks to all your employees at the department they're very responsive they come out and I've requested numerous times at request of residents of Ward 1 for attention and
▶ 24:01 John N. Tramontozzi: And they've been right there, whether it's potholes, signs, road work, snow removal, or otherwise. So thank you. I appreciate all that hard work. I just have a couple of questions. Now, one of the budgets is the public works sanitation. That's 433. So as we all know, a few years back, we privatized and put out for contract the sanitation trash collection, as well as the recycling I think that's I personally think that was one of the better things that the city has done I just wanted to get your opinion and see how things have been going these past few years with that contract how did you find how does the department find it I think it's been doing very well so I just with all vendors they always need to be redirected at times and reminded
▶ 24:56 policies and how we do things in Melrose but all in all it's been a it's been a productive contract trash gets off the street our recycling is picked up I mean our curbside services are a second to none and when you compare us to other communities when we have weekly single stream recycling 15 weeks of curbside pickup of yard waste we would do two weeks of Christmas tree collection and And this year, we even added a week of brush pickup, given the march that we had and how, and the havoc that it caused on personal property and public property. JRM's a great partner. The recycling market has gone a bit haywire, and there's all kinds of articles that are being written about the recycling market right now.
▶ 25:49 China isn't accepting as much paper as they always had, and they dictate the market. And the paper that they are taking, they're being much more fussy about the cleanliness of it. We're fortunate in our contract to have a floor in regards to recycling material. When the market is profitable, they get the profit. But when it costs them money to dispose of our recycling, we don't get any charge. And in today's world, there are communities that are being charged tremendously, sometimes even more per ton than trash to dispose of their recycling. Our contract doesn't allow JRM to do that. Our contract does have guidelines in terms of curbside and how we expect people to put out their recycling material.
▶ 26:45 What we did to help that is we did a little bit of an education campaign. We had door knockers. If there were issues, rather than place a sticker on someone's recycling, we tried to leave the door knocker with tips on how they could improve. We were hoping that led to a phone call to our facility and our office where we could kind of coach them through it. Sometimes JRM left it behind and then we went back to pick it up once we got the call. We were able to let the people know what they've done wrong in hopes to correct it in the future. Currently, we're about to enter the fifth year of a seven-year contract. It also has three more additional years on top of it as an option. So, we're right around the midpoint of the contract.
▶ 27:39 John N. Tramontozzi: But I have to agree that I think it's one of the more positive moves the department has made in the past. 5, 10 years. Right, thank you, and I certainly believe that the contract that you and the city put together was a tremendous advantage for the city and it worked out really well. Now, is the budget 433 all contractual relating to that? No. Because I understand that the city still does some minimal pickup and describe that. so this this if i can't through the chair i'll just explain the budget a little bit and i can do it for every one of these budgets if you'd like when a question comes up but the sanitation budget staffs two full-time employees those two full-time employees still collect biz trash from
▶ 28:31 business district schools in open spaces we collect metal weekly we collect all of the yard waste ourselves in-house with our own vehicles we run and manage our recycling facility both at route at tremont street and then where the yard waste goes at route 99 as well and we do that all with within this budget the budget has contractual increases for jrm and also contractual tipping fee increases we level funded the tonnage disposal line once again Because what we're seeing for the third year in a row is that we're maintaining our tonnage right around 7,200 tons for the entire fiscal year of what we're disposing. We're recycling a little more, we're about to, last year we had a little dip, a little reduction in recycling.
▶ 29:24 This year it seems to be back very close to our highest year, which was fiscal 16. Roughly 28% of what goes out on the curb is being recycled, which is good. And I think right now, it's about where Melrose is going to get. We've been very close in terms of reducing trash and increasing recycling. The hired equipment line in this budget is used to deal with brush. We had to increase this line because we have mountains of brush from the winter sitting at Route 99 that needs to be ground and turned into chips. That's why we had to increase this line. We hope that it's a one year increase and we can return it back to its level funded next year. We're also very fortunate, if I can just take a minute to thank the recycling committee.
▶ 30:20 I know this isn't a revolving account, but a lot of what they do is reflective in this budget. We have great volunteers. We run great weekend drop off events. We also have a second hazardous waste opportunity for residents of Melrose because we partnered with Stoneham. That's coming up on the 30th. But there's an opportunity right now to recycle pretty much anything at any point during the year. And our recycling committee, our recycling coordinator, Sadie Brown, who's our liaison. And our administrators, our staff, do a great job at running those events. that's done through this budget and through the recycling revolving account so that's pretty much what the budget does it does still have two employees it
▶ 31:06 John N. Tramontozzi: does have overtime to open the facility on Saturday and we do still pick up trash from our downtown all of our buildings including schools and dispose of it excellent thank you I just want to jump back to item object 402 the public works facility maintenance and like just for the so the public's knowledge some the three lines that I'm looking at particularly are the SEL custodian SEL maintenance SCH part I assume those is pot we related to the schools okay you were looking at 402 salary salary custodian salary maintenance SCH part yeah so those three are related to the schools although our maintenance staff does maintain public buildings too those are our tradesmen as well maintenance is other tradesmen in that group it so it's not just strictly the schools it's the
▶ 32:14 rest of the maintenance the rest of the buildings correct because my concern was the 68% jump what's what what happened here so we overall the department is level staffed with 65 employees last year with 65 employees this year there is a reduction of two in our administration and engineering group and an increase here of two in the facilities group we added two tradesmen the entire facilities group has 11 custodians in the schools two in our municipal buildings and five tradesmen the two additional union positions actually replaced the union positions we cut two years ago in water and sewer so we level staffed our union positions with this budget the need arises to add staff here because of
▶ 33:04 the tremendous demands on the division as it attempts to maintain 19 buildings believe it or not throughout the city and several million there's been an investment of several millions of dollars in these facilities through capital repairs throughout the last three to five years and we feel it's imperative that the city staffed correctly to maintain them so we added two new tradesmen so that we can do the work that's being demanded and i have one last handout to bring and you guys want to take this home and read it some bedtime reading well what this is is a fiscal year in review from our assistant director ann wake and anchors and anchors this entire facilities division and you can see the amount the volume the sheer volume
▶ 34:03 of work that is generated through work order requests and summer projects and school moves and school needs and aging municipal facilities and aging public safety facilities so rather than sit here and list them all we put this package together for the board to review it at your leisure and it it totally in my opinion totally defends the the two new trades people that were added in this working group excellent I think I'll pass at this time and what others I don't want to take the floor much longer but thank you Alderman Lipper-Garabedian followed by Alderman future thank you thanks very much for all of the materials that are uploaded online they're really helpful for us and I'm sure for the public I guess I'll just kind of go through some questions
▶ 34:57 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: by law by fine item so under administration and engineering I noticed that there's something related to rental coordinator a part-time with the school is that right and I'm wondering if you could sort of explain that it's that there's a reduction of almost 50% there so we last year we we hired an executive assistant to the director that position the employee who was in that position is your new clerk of committees the role that role was part executive director to the executive assistant to director and and was also managed all the rental of the schools we we managed the rental of school space to outside users for the school department right if you want to use the gym auditorium for dance recitals
▶ 36:08 winter soccer basketball leagues that the the management of that space is done through public works it was done through that position um it's half funded by the school department building rental fund and then the other half came from the public works budget what we've done is now hired an 18 hour a week person to just do the rentals and we've left the other component of that job at um we don't have anybody doing that right now rather than hire the full-time we just went with with the part-time position that's what the reduction is okay but someone is still overseeing that work the rental piece yes and the schools are paying for all of that okay so I recall when the school the school budget presentation
▶ 36:55 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: last week there and we saw this at the school committee as well the mayor was able to to reappropriate I think a hundred and seventy five thousand dollars from different accounts to the schools were any of your accounts affected by that transfer yes our overtime accounts okay contributed to that amount okay and do you think that you'll um that's something that you can um live with for the coming fiscal year like i said we like to challenge our staff and it will be a challenge it will be something that we have to look at carefully but we were hoping to do it without a reduction in service to any level right um so then under uh facilities um alderman Tramontozzi tozy asked one of the questions that i had so thank you um it also looks like and this one um uh there's a new summer employment
▶ 37:49 program and i wondered if you could just talk a little bit about that so we've always had a summer employment program where we hire high school juniors and seniors to assist in the cleaning of the schools over the summer we've kind of lumped that always into a part-time line and this year you'll see a reduction actually in um line five one two zero zero three there's a 46 reduction and what we did is take that money and put it into um the new school intern program okay that's how we we just we wanted to track it separately so that we could prop properly manage budget and make sure we don't overspend that line that's great and it's also more intuitive than for the public it's a little bit more transparent rather than put it together okay great I'd also
▶ 38:40 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: just note that it looks like you were able to accomplish some savings on City Hall electricity use and our LED street lights so that's great to see in terms of the impact on the budget this is the third year we've reduced the street light line item the LEDs are saving a considerable amount of and and it's reduced our maintenance that's great I noticed within this there there's a mention of the new fob system that's going in at some of the schools and I recall that earlier this spring our board was presented with that project I just wondered if you could give us a quick update on the status I believe our IT group is still out there working we're at the Franklin school two days ago the goal is at this point with two weeks of school left the goal is for
▶ 39:29 all the teachers to have their fobs on the first day when they come back in August and then if we could move to 422 so that's highway the list that you provided mentioned that there's a new line item for a new storm water quality program could you just explain what that is it's a good question for the last I I believe 14 years the EPA has required the city, all cities, all municipalities to follow national pollutant discharge elimination system. NPDES regulations that focus on storm water quality. This isn't flooding, this is the quality of the water that we discharge into our open bodies. For the last two, three years, been they've been discussing the switch to a new program and the new program is
▶ 40:31 ms4 ms4 is storm for SS storm sewer separation basically it's the next level of storm water quality that's supposed to start on July 1st this last year around this time they were also saying it was going to start in July 1st and And then the state said, no, not happening, with a waiting direction on it. But it was the right time, I felt, to eliminate the NPDES storm drain maintenance line and switch it in the future to what it should be called. It's level funded, it lets us start the program, it lets us put an outline of what we have to do. There's going to be a lot more funding that's needed with this program. like I said we might be in the same place a year from now because last year we will get ready to start and we have put the brakes on it but that's the
▶ 41:29 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: switch okay that's helpful just a couple more and 485 which is automotive again on your helpful explanation chart you mentioned that there is a CIP that will need to be replaced in fiscal year 20 I'm just wondering what is a CIP and what will that cost the IP's capital improvement plan okay and that's for a vehicle citywide got it I'd be remiss if I didn't state that there are issues with our fleet we have punted on them for this year but there are and it's outside of Public Works there are several departments whose vehicles we maintain that have the need for new new equipment and new vehicles so we're to try to use this fall and winter as a time to evaluate and rank how we should go about replacing
▶ 42:24 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: vehicles in the future but we increased the repair line and it was a good opportunity to throw throw the comment and put the comment in place that we are we can't ignore replacing our vehicles we should do it and we should do it in a timely manner and we should do it in a staggered approach so that we don't get hit with huge costs all at once but you're forecasting for us in the city that for the next fiscal year there is likely to be an increase in this line because certain vehicles will really need to start to be replaced correct and and there's also going to be a need to start replacing vehicles in fiscal 20 right okay that's helpful and then maybe my last question I think is on the complete streets work so that I'm very thrilled
▶ 43:08 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that we got one of those grants I was at the time on the group as a member of the birth to five committee so I'm happy that a number of those projects will really impact the safety around the schools I noticed in one of the material attachments that you provided you flagged the complete streets work is I think $60,000 coming in for the estimated value for this coming year but the entire grant as I recall is about three hundred and seventy seven thousand so is the idea that some of the money will be used in future fiscal years to continue to implement those programs what you flagged was the listing of there's an order before the board for a borrowing of one point six five million for road program okay sixty thousand of that one point six five we have
▶ 44:01 allocated for complete street partnership got it we got construction money in excess of 300 000 to put those programs in place but we still need to we need to do a little design work we want to do some neighborhood outreach if there are other things that come up which the original construction program doesn't account for we want to have a little flexibility in making sure we can deliver those to the community i understand okay that's helpful and so those three projects will be completed in this fiscal year is that the goal the upcoming fiscal fiscal night correct okay great thank you so much that's all thank you Alderman Bewtra thank you I will try to not be redundant in the questions because I had a lot of the same questions that Alderman Libra
▶ 44:47 Manisha Bewtra: Garabedian and Alderman Tramontozzi had one so I'll go kind of line by line because that's how my notes are um for under administration and engineering I saw there was some new funding for GIS is that sort of related to what we heard from assessors is it related to that new permit program or can you speak to that no so two years ago and I conducted a lot of capital improvement studies we we studied our water system we studied our sewer system again we did a pavement management system and we not only re-ranked projects and created projects in a listing of a volume of projects that we could choose from moving forward but the engineering office did that all with gis based software what the new line in the budget is is gives us the ability to pay for software
▶ 45:46 Manisha Bewtra: licensing permit fees for people GIS GIS software CAD these new tools of the trade I think I think the days of a slide ruler and even a protractor are gone and I mean our engineers need need up-to-date technology and that line is going to help them help us maintain the office with the right equipment fantastic I think just one overall observation and I think some of my fellow alderman have said this like I really appreciate all the information you put together but also the thoughtfulness of sort of like creating systems and thinking about smart ways to create savings over time and I think that's just reflected throughout this budget okay the ms4 question oh so under also under highway something that has often occurred to me and sort of just
▶ 46:38 Manisha Bewtra: trying to cross as a pedestrian at various pedestrian crossings throughout city is signal timing is that something um is there a plan for uh is that part of the complete streets um list of projects of reviewing signal timing and we actually looked at it especially in downtown main street we looked at this past fiscal year i don't recall the details of what our engineer ultimately recommended but there are some recommend my recommendations and things that we can implement and it's one of our internal non non non funding related goals that we have in the department I've spoken with our city engineer actually about a month ago about it she has the recommendations and something we're gonna look at next fiscal year and is that the kind of thing you would have
▶ 47:28 Manisha Bewtra: to hire an outside consultant for or there is a line in the administration budget called professional services and we use that professional service line to hire the specialist the traffic engineer the geotechnical engineer the structural engineer to look at things like walls and and and we bring them in and work to work with our engineering group they have done that there's a memo to some extent on timing and what we can do great um so my next question is related to parks and and I'm just sort of curious to what extent the 2015 open based on recreation plan is used as a guiding document or is it sort of in the background how actively does a parks department use that I think in terms of capital it is referred to quite often this is this is a maintenance budget our
▶ 48:27 department strictly maintains the parks the Park Commission has ultimate authority over capital projects and use of the fields I could tell you the fields are used a tremendous amount I Joan Bell our open space director said that thirty one hundred fifty permits were issued for field use over this business past fiscal year the lights were on at Fred Green Stadium for twenty 28,300 hours of use on our field, not the lights. 28,300 hours of use on our field. This budget maintains the field so they can be used for 28,000 hours. And they're used a lot by local user groups, which is nice to see. A lot of people put money into the facilities and then want to rent it and want to become a field renter.
▶ 49:26 Manisha Bewtra: nice when you drive around five six o'clock you drive you drive that gateway of the fellsway and you see melrose youth soccer melrose lacrosse melrose baseball um or just recreational people out for a walk or people playing tennis this budget is what supports the maintenance of all of that regards to your question that's more of a park commission um yeah got it that makes sense and i think that was one of those things where after uh miss bell was here i was like okay understanding how the i mean i think that's really helpful to understand that this is a maintenance budget versus what what is sort of under her purview um because i think where the question is coming from is a little bit sort of like i you know we all hear from residents about like
▶ 50:12 Manisha Bewtra: concerns about certain park maintenance street crossings things like that and i try my best to direct them in the right place or even reach out to you or other um other uh department directors but anyway just to give you kind of background on that um we work very closely with the park commission we have a great working relationship joan bell is phenomenal to work with and you know we take our direction from them they tell us what they want to use the fields for we try to to make sure they're ready and and and they and they also lean on us and our engineering group when it comes time to deciding what can be improved and what can you do and what can't you do I know that the West Knoll is a top top
▶ 51:01 Manisha Bewtra: priority to see if we can turf that in the upcoming years again going through my list not really question here but just wanted to say again great job regarding like the decrease in fuel consumption and just the tracking work that you've done there what else do I have so I really appreciate this schedule it looks like we'll be talking about that in more detail at a later date but just out of maybe this question would be better placed there but what about sort of longer-term capital improvement planning like say like five years or sort of do you do things kind of like on a two to three year basis or do you kind of project out we like to fund our projects on a two to three year basis but we have 24 million dollars in water improvements sitting in a book in
▶ 51:52 the engineering office there is there is probably just as much in sewer work I and I work we have capital improvement programs and all of our infrastructures all various infrastructure we have a pavement management program and that's We're about to update that and put our most up-to-date files online. When we select our roads, we just don't throw an arrow at a map. There is a listing by ward of which streets are the worst in that area. Those are the streets we focus on, and then we go to our water layer to see how's the water system in that. And then we go to, well, does it need any sewer work, do we have any flooding? there is there are long-term tools that we use that our engineers use in terms
▶ 52:41 Manisha Bewtra: of putting projects forward but terms of funding them we like to do the one to three year intervals and then in terms of again being able to respond I think your departments probably like the most one of the most visible and most tangible for people in the community and I think when people think of city budget they think of like potholes and I don't know potholes in schools so you know one of the like another thing I've been curious about is how do things like egov and see click fix work in terms of like how is management of those systems you also mentioned people can come into the office they can give you a call like all those various ways that people can get in touch with you how is management
▶ 53:25 of all of that and how could we help as aldermen I'll be positive be perfectly honest without egov we wouldn't be able to run the department the way we do egov is an electronic work order system it it mirrors how the department is constructed by division work orders come in whether it's a telephone call we input it ourselves there are certain things online where people can have direct access to us in a work order but it automatically is assigned to the the working group that's responsible to it. So if you have a pothole work order, that automatically goes to the smartphone of our foreman, who's running the crew, and his boss. After so many days, if it's not addressed, it goes to his boss. After so many days after that,
▶ 54:13 eventually it makes its way up to me, and then we can meet on a weekly basis, we can meet on a, I typically do it on a monthly basis where we review outstanding work orders. So the technology's really there to keep issues at the forefront for us. And eGov helps in that regard. We still use cClickFix. I pulled the information yesterday. I think we had about 200, 220 work orders come in through cClickFix. And behind the scenes we take that information and dump it into eGov. But if people wanna access us through cClickFix we do that as well. So the technology and our work order system, it keeps us organized and because we can stay organized that way we try, that's what keeps us efficient. And in terms of being able to respond back
▶ 55:03 Manisha Bewtra: to community members and kind of just, how does that generally work in terms of just giving people a sense of where they might be in a queue or where a particular issue might be in sort of your work order system? And again, how as aldermen can we help with that? it's a very good question and when they call we typically tell them all this may take two to three weeks or this this you know we're not going to do stump grinding again until August or I understand you want your tree removed but the tree is protected by by by state law and we have to assess it and we try to walk them through the project etc we try to set the realistic goal right up front our staff of administrators is is great I mean day I truly enjoy working
▶ 55:50 with all of them it's every phone call is someone who has a high level of anxiety for something and they do a great job curving that anxiety and getting the right information out of them all while hopefully giving them the information to not make them call the next day with you know you done yet electronically if you put a work order in you have the ability to track that and facilities for instance we get work orders from our school principals or the secretaries they usually assign it to the secretaries but and is great it gets assigned to a particular trades person but then if we're waiting for a bulb before waiting for a special order piece to come in we put it right into the work order and if the hardest man wants to know oh when is
▶ 56:40 Scott M. Forbes: my door getting fixed they could access that work order very quickly to find out oh the hinge is coming in next Wednesday crew will be there Thursday so a lot of that can happen too with the technology we use great thank you those are all my questions for now thank you Alderman Forbes thank you I was gonna go in order but since we're talking about roads I'll just start there since we'll keep this keep this moving I know I've sent you a couple emails in the last couple weeks about areas of my board people coming to me asking what can be done if I send you an email and I start communicating with you does that turn into a work order can you kind of just talk about that or is there anything specifically that needs
▶ 57:26 Scott M. Forbes: to be done in addition to our correspondence no no whether it's a sign that's knocked down or a streetlight that's out or a tree that was only cut in half whatever the issues are when they when they usually get into my email I take care of that with my managers and turning it into the work orders that we need to and in terms of all them and that's that's the mode of communication that's best and how to get information into the department okay yeah because obviously if we can facilitate that for you it creates less traffic on your end and we can do our jobs as being that person at the middle person in order to try to make things work all right and I think all of us appreciate that the line item in the highway department I think it's line item five three five eight
▶ 58:13 hundred it's a patch line item for forty three thousand dollars is that for potholes to purchase material to repair bottles okay is that enough we've expended to that limit every year okay we increased it a little bit I think this year because material just goes up you'll see that in a lot of our lines that are material driven we we increased it by two to three percent just for the economy of scale okay but we have spent to that limit again those are temporary pothole repairs that doesn't repair roads it doesn't repair trenches it just buys material and that's material only the labor is in the salaries right short-term fix not a long-term solution yes gotcha all right um all right i'll just reset and
▶ 59:00 Scott M. Forbes: start up at uh admin and engineering department 401. uh the salary reduction for this budget line item was that due to uh the movement of of positions or roles in that department it is the reduction in one project engineer and um the half of the executive assistant position that we no longer have okay uh let's see we already talked about professional services line item there's an attachment that was in our agenda which i i appreciate because it shows the water and sewer allocations as far as salaries within the within the budget and then also what's going to water enterprise and sewer enterprise maybe patrick left because he knew he was going to ask this question but we can we can follow up when he gets back um i want to know how we track
▶ 59:50 Scott M. Forbes: that yeah what's the method in order to attract the you know for example the first one the you know director of public works 60 is in the admin budget 20 water 20 sewer um is that an allocation that you talk about with patrick and saying how much time you spend is it track weekly quarterly i just was wondering if somebody could just kind of expand on these percentages we set at this point in the year yeah next year and it's basically okay you know how much work do you do and and these are direct expenditures so every week 60 of a certain salary gets charged to the city budget 20 goes to water 20 goes to sewer these aren't indirect costs like other departments that are made up through the rates these are direct in the budget expenditures that any everyone
▶ 1:00:37 Scott M. Forbes: on there so we don't track it week to week but these are assumptions that the the auditor and i make at the beginning of the fiscal year about how we how we're going to spend our time okay and then do you keep comparisons from year to year to see how much time is being spent in each one okay great i appreciate that thank you um moving over to the cemetery i know there was a lot of work being done in the back end of the cemetery um in in conjunction with the dog park going in there was a lot of wooded area uh right along the wall um for the wall work is that going to be the entire cemetery wall or just portions of critical need until the grant funding's used up so it's just it's the worst portion until we expand the the funding that we have okay but in
▶ 1:01:28 regards to the um property line at with pine banks with the dog park was it is open it just is something that um the cemetery commission has gone on record as being extremely disappointed in as an end product they feel that a lot of the privacy in the cemetery may have been lost by you know opening up that area that was going to be my follow-up question and we've already gone on record with the pine bank trustees that would like to allow their project to finish and their vegetation to take place but we want to readdress this in the fall look at the area again and see if we have to add more landscaping more plantings or something to create more of a natural buffer again over time between that recreational use and what what is really the historic part of the
▶ 1:02:19 Scott M. Forbes: cemetery right and so my last question is going to be that section of pipe that we've talked about for years that storm drain that runs all the way to the uh the running brook in the back um has that been improved or is that still the same condition that it was in since we've last you you know other than other than maintenance that we do you know as part of our periodical monthly maintenance we have not done anything capital it's it's about a million dollar project to fix again we have a conceptual design on that if our the hazardous mitigation study will will note that as a potential project for the community in the future and we it may open up to some grant opportunity with um with fema because it is the end of a watershed that can't drain very similar
▶ 1:03:08 Scott M. Forbes: to el pond at converse lane it's the end of a watershed that has difficulty draining because of the obstructions in the woods along pine banks and the cemetery right i know there were several attempts i think with the vac truck to kind of blow that out but it wasn't successful due to the fact there were certain areas that collapsed so okay uh well hopefully that's one of those things that get addressed obviously you know we've talked about it extensively and that could obviously it could domino effect and may solve some of the flooding issues that i had down in that corner at lebanon and sylvan so i thank you for your for your attendance here today thank you very much that's all i have president's workup thank you madam chair
▶ 1:03:49 Michael P. Zwirko: thank you mr senator for all your work and for being here this evening i just have a few questions obviously going this late many of them have been asked but you spoke in the beginning about the recycling and I have some questions on that so without belaboring the point you obviously pointed out some challenges recently with the difficulty in the Chinese market for purchasing those recycled goods so are we are we confident that in our contract with JRM that they're actually recycling it or is it as soon as they pick it up it's kind of out of our hands I mean do we know for a fact that I know that we don't have a cost built into the recycling as you had mentioned earlier but you know are we assured that it's actually going to be recycled we get information that they
▶ 1:04:37 are recycling it we get the tonnage per month yeah we have a month by a week by week basis on what they're recycling the material all goes to green works on Route 1 north. Material from our facility, we ship there directly, and we dispose of it there. And there's always a backlog of material because now they have to thoroughly clean it, and it has to be, although we're commingling into single stream at the curb, right now to make it somewhat profitable on their end they're actually separating at their facility not just for trash but they're taking plastic away from paper and trying to do that as well and you'd said that the contract has three years left and then after that there's three options on the contract are the options formulated in such a way
▶ 1:05:30 Michael P. Zwirko: that we control whether or not to execute them or is it kind of a dual execution and I guess what I'm going with this is my concern is that the recycling market isn't going to get better it's probably going to get worse and we're in a favorable contract as you had noted so it would probably behoove us and again I we don't know what the future is going to bring but I'm just I'm worried about those options because it would seem if we're in a favorable contract we would want to execute those but do they have veto power over extending those I'll double-check the contract but looking at a possible extension or a renegotiation is something that is on a list for attorney van campen and i are due in next fiscal year we're also going to be looking at the route 99 site and
▶ 1:06:12 the lease with waste management although that expires in 2021 which you may say is three years away we're looking at those at those options and what are our rights under that contract what are our rights under the jrm contract could there be a benefit to possibly combining them at least where we dispose of trash so those are all things it's a good question and there are things that we've been thinking about and discussing internally in City Hall and there are two items that we'll look at but I'll look into whether it's mutual or the city's sole right to extend and I can get back to you well and the reason I'm so concerned about the recycling is because you know in addition to the you know the the moral benefit of doing it it's if for some
▶ 1:06:59 Michael P. Zwirko: reason the market goes south or continues to go south and there's no fiscal benefit for recycling I'm worried the downstream effect that that may have on our residents saying well we don't really need to recycle anymore it's there it's gonna go to the incinerator incinerator anyways and so I'm just you know it's something that's kind of on the forefront because we've done made such great efforts in that area that I'm just hopeful that we don't we don't see recycling ending yeah in fact uh you know this year styrofoam seems to be the new big thing we just did a drop-off event last year we picked up this year we i think we had two and a half times the amount of styrofoam being dropped off the year before that was plastic bags now there's
▶ 1:07:41 talk of textiles there's also talks of a food waste possibly being picked up maybe not by a city agency but the city in partnership with the vendor yeah I think culturally people are used to recycling and I don't think that will ever go away we contractually we do have to be very careful we have a great contract we have a very positive contract for the city and we have to make sure we maintain it like that right and that's why extending could be a possible way to keep that partnership going you just mentioned I was gonna go there the textiles and food waste hoping to divert that because my understanding is that when you combine those two it's about 30% of the solid waste that we're you know incinerating
▶ 1:08:30 Michael P. Zwirko: so and a further enhancement of what we can divert from solid waste to other programs like textiles and food waste would be really beneficial there so continue to look into that please and then the other question I had was on you had mentioned the street survey so I appreciate that that is more of an empirical ranking versus a you know in a cranky or favoritism one I know that the street survey that went out the year before and the results that were presented to us by the city engineer were favorable and that's something that's great for us not only as aldermen because we can point to it but you know it's just a it's a better way to assess the issues that we have and like you said there's layers to it all between you know what's above the street and
▶ 1:09:17 Michael P. Zwirko: what's below the street and on a side note I drove up Orient the other day and I saw the rain gardens that the work that's going on so I'm actually looking forward to how they're gonna turn out so it's actually a pretty interesting program the other thing I wanted to mention is that we were talking about the cemetery earlier and you alluded to it a little bit the I was in cemetery over the weekend with some fellow aldermen and we noticed that the walls repair work is towards the north part it seems to have not only repaired some of the not the grout work but the stonework and also some removal of some of the vines and is that going to continue has that ended is that been in is there funding in the next year for that to continue so the majority of the work
▶ 1:10:04 that you saw that took place this spring was with the hundred thousand dollar grant we got through the state right now there isn't any funding outside of that grant so we're going to spend every penny that we can to june 30th we've completed from the lebanon gate to the sylvan gate now we're working from sylvan towards pine banks so we're as far down as um we passed right around just to give you a milestone of what's been completed both inside and outside we're we're gonna keep going towards pine banks until we have to stop and and then we want to continue with last year we I think we did about eighteen thousand dollars of work through through an appropriation from this board we'll see how much more we need but I think it's very important to protect the integrity
▶ 1:10:50 Michael P. Zwirko: of of that wall the it looks great it really does and we had talked about the reductions and it seems that our gain unfortunately it was your loss you know we took on Kristen recently and that position won't be filled for you is that is that correct that's correct and how about you know you said you challenge your staff how are you gonna be able to mitigate that loss well first of all we've lost half of the position a lot of what Kristen did last year was project driven the website the digitization at the cemetery and we'll just figure out other innovative ways to go about you know that those administrative needs right now but we did the most important part is that we were able to hire a Melrose resident to continue to rent these facilities for
▶ 1:11:45 Michael P. Zwirko: the schools and that's it that is a large revenue dream for the school department and we had to make sure we anchored that piece of it right away which we did and now we'll move forward and if we can't I'll be the first one to go to Patrick and say next fiscal year I think we have to bring the other half back well thank you for your sacrifice it's been a beneficial for us selfishly just really a couple comments before I end you know please give well wishes to Sadie we'd like to see her come back as soon as possible but understand she's maternity leave so back in July yeah and then I also wanted to just give a shout out greatly appreciate LCM they're a great community steward and the the site
▶ 1:12:28 Monica C. Medeiros: that they improve and just general things that they do pro bono for the city is deeply appreciated I know by all of us and finally really happy to see that not only is the community garden successful but that it was expanded so appreciate all the work you and your staff do those are all the questions I Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Medeiros. Thank you. I think I'll go right to sanitation because, well, it's kind of hot and I don't want to belabor it too much. We've talked a lot about the market and how things are changing and, you know, I just I want to say I think it's really important for us as a community to be a good partner to JRM, our vendor, because we are in a contract and a favorable position, but the market right
▶ 1:13:12 Monica C. Medeiros: now is is very difficult and so I think this is an opportunity in this meeting to talk to the people at home and to remind them you know when they do put out recycling to please you know make sure it's it's clean you know the the consumables the the plastics and the cans and things like that need to be you know cleaned out and in particular the the paper to make sure it doesn't have that the paper is that what I understand is really difficult to get rid of right now that it doesn't have any kind of you know food stains on it or things like that but you know I think that there are a lot of opportunities in the city and I see one of our members of the recycling committee has done a great job with that
▶ 1:13:56 Monica C. Medeiros: to remind them that plastic bags although they are recyclable they can't go in the court curbside recycling because they actually jam up the works at in the machines and so that if people do have them they can they can recycle those at the supermarkets and and sometimes also down at DPW headquarters but not curbside and things like textiles we do have bins through Bay State recycling available at all of the schools and at the DPW headquarters where people can recycle things like clothing towels even shoes and pocket books and so that's an option so rather than throwing it out which is costly that you know this is a something that's available right now it doesn't have to be a special day to drop it off just has to be bagged and clean again and can be
▶ 1:14:57 dropped off so just wanted to kind of point those things out and thank all of you for the hard work on that no they're all very very good points they're all right on point they're melrose is very good at cooperating in anything public works tries to do even when we come and disrupt your world with a road project or a water project at the end of the day this community appreciates the fact that we're trying to help even even if we go backwards a little before we go forward in regards to our curbside services i said it earlier we offer a lot curbside but we do need a little bit of cooperation and recycling is a big one plastic bags can't be recycled I know people like to put stuff in your plastic bag and then put your plastic bag in your recycle bin but we can't do
▶ 1:15:44 Monica C. Medeiros: that anymore because because of the market those those of the those have been the impacts over the last four to six months to Melrose and we really appreciate that the the people of Melrose by and large they do recycle a recycle at a high rate I know there are some people were still kind of struggling and saying you know please recycle but there I know there's also a large segment that of the people who do recycle that are willing to do more and even just you know thinking about ways to reduce what the items that they're they're using and reuse and it's important no all very good points and we have a lot of literature literature on our website if you're confused just pick up the phone and call too we'll help you and if you happen to get a little
▶ 1:16:30 Monica C. Medeiros: doanaka i don't think it's the recycling police it's our attempt to educate so that we can get it right the next time absolutely and speaking about getting it right i really have to thank you for all the information that you've provided us especially this year i think it's um it's outstanding and i have very much many fewer questions as a result of all the information that you provided us in particular and all of this is on the website under the budget order so if anybody searches the agenda portal for order number 2018-183 it's the operating budget and there's so many attachments including also which we haven't even touched upon this nice presentation that really has sort of a narrative version of what each department does and i think it's
▶ 1:17:26 Monica C. Medeiros: really helpful to to the public to understand what the department each one of the departments does and in particular the the breakdown that you've talked specifically about salary lines and kind of put in layman's terms about what the big changes are so i have to say i really appreciate that and that's there all for the public to look at and it makes a lot more sense than just like little you know little code words that are cut down and an acronyms and appreciate it in this you talked about work orders and that your department has about 4,500 work orders for the past year in that about 3,600 them are completed so that leaves still about 900 that are outstanding can you talk about like what what makes up those 900 is it stuff that just takes a long time is it stuff that
▶ 1:18:25 is it completable yeah i could tell you off the top of my head i think uh 200 plus of tree tree plantings people waiting for a tree so we create a work order for that for that tree planting um And that work order will sit, unfortunately, for a while. Some are sidewalk repairs. Sidewalk repairs take a lot longer, and that list is growing. Those are safety repairs. So we'll go out initially, and maybe we put a little bit of asphalt on a lip, and then that sits as well. Other work orders come in and out faster. Metal items are gone in a week. street signs are typically fixed within 10 days water services tend to sit a little longer maybe a month a month and a half so it depends on on the nature of
▶ 1:19:17 what the work order is but running around 20 25 percent open which is usually where we are at any point over the year and so you know to freeze it as of yesterday and to be around that amount it doesn't surprise me so that sense like it's normal and that some of these are just yeah some take a long time a stump grind for instance we usually stump grind maybe two three times a year so there's work order that comes in you know the day after the program just finished may sit for four to five months and you know that's why so we look at the when I look at the big picture of 20 25 percent open what's important to me is that it's consistent and we don't go from 20 25 to 50. and uh in the highway department and i think alderman forbes kind of touched on that i know you've mentioned it in
▶ 1:20:10 your narrative that some of the materials lines are increasing and and is that due to are we planning to do more work or is it just costs alone no mainly costs it's just cost more to to purchase material, cost more to buy paint, cost more to buy asphalt, cost more to buy street side metal and adhesive, cost more to buy wood. So year to year, this material cost increases. But we also try to do more. Some of the highway budget is increasing and I said it in my narrative, it's increased because now we have sharrows. Sharrows just don't go on once and stay there like that forever. They fade, so they have to be repainted every year. There's a cost associated with that. We've added crosswalk signs
▶ 1:21:05 Monica C. Medeiros: and there's a cost associated with that. We have a traffic commission and for a group of volunteers they do a tremendous job of trying to put forward regulatory changes to help neighborhoods. There's a cost associated with the signs. So some is more work and some is the cost to do the work that have combined for that. I think it's like a three or 4% increase on that budget. And so sort of related to that and sort of related to the whole budget, is there any like particular material or is there anything that you are very concerned that is going to skyrocket in terms of costs or that, you know, any red flags on the horizon that? No, I think everything is increasing proportionally I do have a concern that the city as a whole needs to start to
▶ 1:21:56 address its fleet because those will quickly skyrocket when we have to park a vehicle and if we go out and rent something or purchase it because that could be one of my biggest concerns moving forward but in terms of material increases that they're pretty much the same sort of predictable back to highway the catch basin line I was thinking that the new vac truck was going to alleviate some of this but perhaps I it does it so this funds half the city and we the the in-house crew works on the other half and the problem work orders that come in so this is is this more like almost a professional contract service or is this you catch basically this is a vendor who comes in he's been in town he's worked
▶ 1:22:57 on the west side I believe he's started he went from Ward 1 to Ward 1 into Ward 5 I think he's been on that side of Main Street the vendors name is Rhodes who on the contract this year so that this line item pays for him to come in once a year in the spring after we sweep to clean the basins next year we'll flip them put them on the other side of town while our in-house people take care of the side that we that we cleaned this year so this is a requirement we're required under the old NPDES permit we're required to clean 25% of our basins when the next level comes in they may require us to clean all of it which is why we we always want to keep a vendor in town to help us okay okay great thank you um
▶ 1:23:48 and can you talk a little bit about the snow budget and you know i know we've added some money to it do you think it's adequate just how does the process work so the snow budget um this this year we spent about 1.4 million dollars the order that's in committee this evening will bring free cash and then in the vicinity of 825 000 into that budget to bring it back to zero the auditor and the auditor did a tremendous job with his staff at looking at eight years of information and we actually over those eight years if you take out the outliers the the year that we got um very very little snow and only spent 400 000 and you take out the 2 million 2.1 million dollar 100 100 inch winter we average about um 960 000 so we average
▶ 1:24:54 about a million dollars over those eight years the budget with the increase brings it to 625 so there's less reliance on free cash to to get us back to zero and that's huge when i was the operations director managing managing snow operations for superintendent pashara that line at one point in time was 90 000. so the ability to properly fund snow is huge as as the director of the department at the end of the day melrose dictates what we provide for service and melrose has made it perfectly clear to public works what they like to see and it's our job to deliver that there's a cost to it and that's why we're very fortunate that the auditor is able to provide the budget that he does and um and increasing it every year makes us less reliant
▶ 1:25:50 on free cash to close the gap because he every year patrick has always removed the deficit going into the next fiscal year in terms of this year we had 27 events about 65 70 inches of snow every storm we manage our costs i know that question has come up in the past how do you track your costs um and that that's something that we did internally actually kristen did that this year with information from ann waite and peter petran tony are our operations manager but we look storm storm by storm we look at contractual what do we spend on contractors what do we spend on overtime what have we spent on material and we try to do that quickly wrap that up before we go into the next one and when by doing that we can kind of reflect back well what do we do different between
▶ 1:26:44 last wednesday and yesterday what do we do difference between two weeks ago so we're consistently financially trying to to keep tabs on snow as the winter is playing out this winter was difficult because um salt costs money about 600 580 to 600 000 of our budget which is about half went to salt and march the type of storms we got in march put a huge strain i mean there were so many times i was just let's let it snow and stop but it wouldn't you know it's snow and then it'd go to 36 and we'd get rain and then we were getting flash freezes and you're constantly cleaning and treating and every time it rained the treatment And it would go wash down the drain and that added to that expense as well.
▶ 1:27:37 Heavy wet snow is very, very difficult. Sometimes it's easier to run an operation that gives 16 to 18 inches of light fluffy snow as opposed to four or five of heavy wet snow. We had a great working relationship with National Grid in this past winter in March with their work. one storm in particular i believe we had we had several thousand accounts out of power we were able to quickly prioritize and we weren't the only ones i mean in fact when you look at plymouth county compared to us we were nothing but they were still able to service us and get us back up and running so overall that's my feeling on snow and again i'm tip off tip my cap like i do every year at this point in time to our staff we have a great staff it's it's a pleasure to work with them
▶ 1:28:30 Monica C. Medeiros: in a snowstorm we're working when others are home watching a movie or spending time with their family and um you know we're asking our employees to come in and leave their families to work so we we owe them credit for doing what they do not all year but more more specifically those five or six weeks every year when there's a window of the winter that's just miserable yeah and in particular this year even on christmas day so you know we definitely appreciate that you can tell when you cross the town line into melrose for sure and thankfully to a lot of hard work it looks a lot better and it's a lot safer um well i might come back to snow again if it comes back to me but uh is there any staff that is that has been moved to an off-budget source like a
▶ 1:29:30 bond or a grant or um from your any of your departments no no but i will stay say that once we get if we get our authorization to borrow and we start our projects and we have to manage the spreadsheet we'll either outsource to consultant engineers or bring in a full-time engineer on project budget outside off the city budget to to manage it there's a lot of work um over the next year and a half if we get this funding we'll we're going to do over 3 million nearly 3 million dollars in road work which is um which is very aggressive so we'll have to staff that group accordingly and and we do have a sort of a capital improvement plan and something that the city engineer has been working on to sort of track the highest needs throughout the city and and that's
▶ 1:30:27 Robert A. Boisselle: kind of how we've been prioritizing the work that's correct and next thursday when we present those orders we'll be speaking to to that in regards to water sewer and roads and hopefully we'll have some information on the work that we just did and so we could show you um the benefits of investing in infrastructure okay well thank you very much i appreciate that thank you thank you combined orders are before us are there further comments or a motion motion to move the bottom line of the public works fiscal 2019 budget submitted to us on 5 29 18 of eight million nine hundred ninety six dollars a hundred eight million nine hundred ninety six thousand one hundred fifty five dollars and twenty four cents second we have a motion made to move
▶ 1:31:21 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the bottom line of departments 401 administration engineering 402 facilities 422 highway 423 snow 433 sanitation 475 parks and forest uh 485 automotive and 491 cemetery made and seconded on discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed that will be moved forward to the full budget thank you mr shenna and as a reminder to members of the committee uh orders number 2018-183 and 2018-169 are still combined we had joined these orders in an earlier uh meeting and they are still joined uh 169 involves the revolving accounts and this evening we have two revolving accounts um before us we'll start with number two six six nine the parks revolving account are there questions comments alderman forbes thank you uh mr senator if you could just
▶ 1:32:25 Just summarize the purpose of the revolving account, what it's needed for as you go through your year and how you address it as such. This is actually a revolving account that Public Works doesn't manage, but I'm very familiar with it. Joan Bell manages it. This is where user permit fees are deposited into. And she uses that fund for expenditures on equipment, netting, socket nets, extra barrels, and type of things thank you thank you madam chair Alderman Medeiros thank you yes i i believe uh the parks revolving should be with the park commission budget uh perhaps but uh could you speak about the revolving account for recycling and waste management sure um so this is um this account assists in supporting a lot of our in-house recycling and composting
▶ 1:33:25 programs and it's where we deposit funding from the sales associated with those programs the partner public works uses the account to fund as a household hazardous waste collection paint recycling collection of disposal of old tires and batteries, TV monitors, metal goods. We spend some money in advertising for weekend drop off events. We pay for some overtime related to that weekend drop off event for our full time DPW staff. So far in fiscal year 18, we've deposited just under 57,000 into this account. from all those sources that included a ten thousand four hundred dollar grant we got from from the state and we've expended to date I'm sorry this book the balance in that account right now is about four thousand dollars with the
▶ 1:34:34 Monica C. Medeiros: money we carried over this twenty six thousand dollars in the rep and the recycle what is the cap on that account and do you feel like this year where we're going to basically put this into our ordinance with the cap of 65,000 do you think that that is adequate yeah I feel very comfortable with that we were at we're at 56 with four weeks to go it's only one more drop-off event in four weeks of drop-off during the week and that included a ten thousand dollar grant we don't always get so i feel comfortable with the 65 000. and we can always amend it if we need to in the future thank you thank you so actually a motion to accept the recycling and waste management revolving account 2657 so we have a motion by Alderman Medeiros to recommend passage of number
▶ 1:35:41 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: 2657 revolving account for recycling and waste management second second by Alderman Boycelle any further discussion all in favor any opposed we still have before us to 669 the it's you know the will of commit the committee we can keep it here and bring miss Bell back if people have further questions motion recommend we have a motion to recommend for passage by presidents work oh seconded by alderman tram and tozi any further discussion all in favor any opposed that will be moved forward as well we will now move on to the third item on our agenda this evening which is order 2018-190 and appropriation from free cash account zero one dash three two four zero zero one in the amount of nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars
▶ 1:36:40 to various accounts as set forth herein we're joined by mr del russo good evening good evening The order before you, if passed, will just about exhaust the free cash balance of the city for this fiscal year. If, in fact, the total is passed that's been proposed, there will remain $78,072 period in free cash for the remainder of the fiscal year. the bulk of the request pertains obviously to snow and ice and as this the superintendent indicated 825 thousand dollars will be put forward to address the deficit we're very fortunate that we're able to cover the deficit this year with the available funds that we had in free cash as was indicated uh it was a very rough winter and the uncertainty behind it and
▶ 1:38:05 the expense behind it and the uncertainty behind that makes it very difficult at times to uh get just how much you're going to expend before the end of the fiscal year that's a challenge right there and i commend dpw and their ability to manage that effectively i also think you'll see a request in there for approximately 25 000 related to tree program which sean can speak to obviously um and we've been asking 65 000 for the capital stabilization fund which i believe we've indicated in part as to what the purpose would be to expend that and we're asking fifty thousand dollars for the medicare account that's the 1.45 percent that we're required to contribute each year on wages salary and wages in particular as salary and wages go up for staff is high we
▶ 1:39:07 incur more cost that cost in kind goes up and i think you'll see that in fiscal 19 we're asking for an 80 000 increase to that budget and the treasury will speak to that at the right time but just to keep pace with what we're seeing for expense so we are trying just as we were trying with snow and ice and police and fire overtime the budget is close to what we believe was realistic and actual that we can um because we don't want to have to count on this media at the end of the year to fund the uh balance of our activity that's not a it's not a good way to do business um but having said that i you know i had asked the superintendent if he has any other comments the four main components related to public works i guess
▶ 1:40:10 825 000 is going to towards snow operations 15 000 of the free cash is going towards um batting cage improvements at both conan park and lewis monk melrose little league 25 000 is for a tree planting program we'll probably plant late summer early fall of this year right now there's 280 resident requests for trees this funding will plant about 45 to 50 trees so it puts a little bit of a dent in that backlog the 65 000 that we're requesting be placed in the capital stabilization fund is for the purpose of making repairs to the retaining wall along the property line between the melrose east side common fire station engine 3 and 268 east foster street the wall was originally constructed by the city of melrose during
▶ 1:41:12 rehabilitation of the station several decades ago it's failed and it's requiring extensive repair It was first brought to our attention a few years back. We looked at it. We went back after this past winter, and it's deteriorated in that 12-month window as well. Once it's designed and bid and all the agreements are in place with the resident in terms of right of entry and how we're going to build the wall, make sure it's all across our T's, dot RIs, where we will come back to the board and request that the funding be taken out of the capital stabilization and brought into an existing FY19 public works account so we can proceed with the work. I'm hoping that by September we're in a position, September, October, we're in a position to do that.
▶ 1:42:08 But by putting the funds aside at the stabilization fund, now we know we have a real project and our engineering group can start to work towards designing and obtaining the necessary permits and hiring a contractor so we can get a real cost. The $65,000 is based on an estimate. It's based on an estimate that we put together in engineering based on a wall that we built on Franklin Street. If you recall the Highlands Project, we added some parking and we built a wall to add that parking. it's it's a block type of wall and a static block type of wall that's what we estimated that was the basis of our estimation but like i said we're going to work with the resident and the fight apartment and try to figure out how best to build it and how to build it and
▶ 1:42:57 Michael P. Zwirko: then we'll be back to request an appropriation from stabilization into an active account just as a point of information right now the fund the capital stabilization fund has just over 17 thousand so if this is approved you'll have um just over eighty two thousand thank you president Zwirko thank you my chair uh just some quick questions um when you see a line item for a storm of you know 825 000 i wonder why i don't live in arizona um but uh it's not as bad as 2015 so um we'll take it it was weird too because it seemed like winter started in march um just didn't end so this is a good use of the free cash is actually what we really should be using free cash for and you know we don't want to you know obviously capital improvements but
▶ 1:43:46 Michael P. Zwirko: it's nice to see this zeroed out every year you know just a point that we actually can understate law run a deficit in this area on snow and ice it's not generally wise to do so because then you start off your fiscal year with a deficit but sometimes cities and towns have difficulties closing their deficit in this area thankfully we do not so thank you for the efforts there and i just because we had a gentleman um come before us this evening and you you mentioned it uh mr shenna you know to the extent that uh you can work in concert with um the property owner and try to be as not disruptive as possible and you know see that project come to a good a good completion we'd appreciate that but i i know you'll you've written it here in the order yourself so i just
▶ 1:44:31 wanted to make that note um other than that um my only question is the backlog in trees generally speaking per year i mean how many trees do we order is that an average number 40 to 50 or is this just the the amount for the line item last year we did um a higher higher amount close to 65 or 70. i think that's more in the range of what i'd like to see but i'd rather see 45 to 50 than none sure we don't budget for tree plantings it's always something we've been able to do with supplemental funding one-time money so you know i'm hoping it's a program that continues the the backlog i think dates back to 2015. so we're in 18 a couple years old when we do this project we should be able to get through 15 and into 16. so we'll have a list that's about a year
▶ 1:45:22 and a half old that list is created when we remove a tree or when someone's in that wants a new tree that's how we track it and that's how we generate this list thank you for that those are all the questions i had thank you uh just one quick question the 78 000 that's left over in the next 30 days do it is there going to be a home for that do you do you foresee that going anywhere in particular yes a great question that's going to um find the majority of what we need for police overtime and i think as we talked earlier at the move to increase their budget by the hundred thousand yep it's an effort to minimize our need to do this in the future but yeah we do have a home for that and you'll be seeing the order before the end of the
▶ 1:46:16 Monica C. Medeiros: fiscal year great this would say thank you again uh normally in years past we'd only get a one page item with a breakdown we have five pages of supporting material so it's a tribute to you and i appreciate your work thank you very much thank you alderman Medeiros thank you yes i too i wanted to thank you for the especially the detailed uh memos with some of the information which really you know make it so much more clear to to i think the alderman and also the public i appreciate that i'm very glad that we can close out the year without a deficit and support that as well as the you know increase in the snow budget which is anything yeah because we don't know if we will have this kind of free cash in the future
▶ 1:46:56 Monica C. Medeiros: so it's always um something so you know these are you know pretty much one-time expenditures and i definitely support them um the trees i did happen to notice over the weekend that there's a couple of trees down in the parking lot behind memorial hall are those planned to be i don't know if you know off the top of your head about those couple of trees that if they're coming back or um so the trees in the city hall parking lot have been diseased for a couple of years we're watching them very carefully we don't want to cut them down unless we have to i think we had to cut one down there was not much left to it we're hoping they come back we don't have funding to do any type of fertilizing or any that type of revitalization
▶ 1:47:47 Monica C. Medeiros: of the tree canopy but um at this point we're carefully monitoring that situation i see those trees every day so something that and and thank you for finding some funds to to repair this wall between the fire station and a private owner i did have a chance to go out and view the the wall and it definitely is deteriorating um i have been told by the homeowner that sometimes the fire trucks though it's not all the time but if sometimes there's mutual aid agreements and things like that that there are sometimes trucks that park pretty close to the property line so i do think it you know i'm sure you will take that into your engineering um account that's that you know there's some pretty heavy weight load that's that's there
▶ 1:48:41 Monica C. Medeiros: i think it's important to do this and not wait too long because you know obviously we don't want the the wall to really fail but if it were to have to fail where there was a truck there that could you know cause real public safety issue if there was somebody that needed service we agree with the need we agree with the need and we're fortunate that we were able to have you know set aside the funding to start to solve the problem very good well i i do hope uh as well and i'm sure you will work with the homeowner and the fire department to you know find the best solution and um i did see that the wall that's there i i did not see any like drainage um and i know there is you know them because of the gradations in the ground level there it's certainly would
▶ 1:49:37 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: be something I would hope we'll see in a new wall there's a line there is a line identifies the train pipe so that was considered in the estimate excellent thank you very much and I this is not already a motion on the floor I move to recommend there's a motion to recommend for passage order 2018-190 second second uh made by alderman Medeiros seconded by alderman Boisselle on discussion alderman Letter gary beaton sorry i just had one quick question um following up on the conversation about the tree planting program am i correct then that the way that you prioritize the trees is really based on just when a work quarter is filed it wouldn't be based on for example the proximity to other trees or any sort of other variables there's we do two planting programs this type of program is just
▶ 1:50:37 service driven customer resident request driven so we'll go to the most aging one and then we'll go out we try to correct we try to select a species that fits the neighborhood or that fits the property and we look at they look at you know wires and proximity to sewer pipes and gas pipes and stuff like that the other way we plant trees is with our road program that's when we that's when we will select and areas with without tree canopy and we'll go in and add a tree even without a request and um and we try we address those plant things that way to try to get a nice uniform look when we walk away from a road program so it's possible then a property owner could bring to your attention a desire to have a tree that actually might meet the qualifications for
▶ 1:51:26 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: your roads program so that it might not have to wait in a queue okay that's great thank you well we just paved north and south high and i think there are four or five residents that will end up with trees through that program thank you motion has been made and seconded to recommend for passage all in favor aye any opposed the motion will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting thank you thank you and finally order number 2018-191 transfer in the amount of forty two thousand five hundred and fifty dollars from various salary and wages accounts to various salary and wages accounts as set forth herein so this is a housekeeping order it's typical for this time of the year for our department the transfer request balances
▶ 1:52:18 deficits and surpluses that were created in the various budgets that you approved tonight the they were created due to employees who either transferred within working divisions resigned or retired we had one retirement early in the fiscal year or who were on workers comp we had a few workers comp issues when they're on workers comp they come off the public works budget and go on to the hr budget for a period of that of that time so it creates surplus and deficits and we use this time to balance all the accounts so they all finish um positive motion recommend for passage second we have a motion to recommend for passage made by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman Boisselle on discussion all in favor any opposed
▶ 1:53:15 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: that will be recommended for passage as well thank you mr shenna thanks everyone motion to adjourn madam chairman second we have a motion to adjourn made by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman Boisselle um on discussion i would just remind any public watching that next week on the fourth we do have our budget public hearing at 8 pm All in favor of adjournment? Aye. Any opposed? We are now adjourned. Thank you, everyone.
▶ 0:01 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: Good evening. The hour being 7.30 on May 31st, 2018. I call to order the Appropriations Committee of the Melrose Board of Aldermen. This meeting is being recorded and can be accessed on MMTV as well as on the City of Melrose website. I am Alderman Lemmerman. I'm the chair and I'm joined this evening by Vice Chair Alderman Forbes, Alderman, Committee Members Alderman Boisselle, Alderman Tramontozzi, Alderman Medeiros, Alderman Lipper-Garabedian, Alderman McMaster, President Search, and Alderman Mortimer. Do we have a motion? Motion to open the floor for public comment. Second. We have a motion to open the floor for public comment made by Alderman Forbes, seconded by Alderman Mortimer. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? This is the portion of the meeting where
▶ 0:53 any member of the public can come before us to speak on any item on our agenda. Seeing nobody willing to come forward, motion to close public comment? We do have one. come on up I take it back thank you for being here thank you if you could sign in on the sheet sure with your urine and state your name and address yes I'm David Adario I appreciate the opportunity to speak a few words I'm the a butter to it I live at 268 East Foster Street I'm the the butter to 278 East foster street which is the east side fire station i understand order 2018 190 has some funds set aside to repair or replace a retaining wall that's um in a state of disrepair at our 270 80s foster street excuse me it's it's actually falling over into my yard um in several places the wall is
▶ 1:58 broken it's no longer continuous it's a concrete wall uh the uh in some sections that the trees in my yard are the only thing that's that's still holding it up um i hope that in moving forward with the uh the repair of the wall that um in benefit to the city of melrose the fire station and myself that the proper engineering is done in reference to the design of the new wall the the fire department and other city vehicles are parked you know at times adjacent to that wall and i just want to be sure that whatever is going to take place next is sufficient for the task at hand with it and i just like to be kept in the with what's going on as far as how it's going to proceed um as i think that the construction is
▶ 2:57 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: going to impact my own property excuse me but uh i appreciate the opportunity to speak thank you thank you very much sir motion to close public participation matter okay we have a motion to close made by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman boisselle all in favor any opposed public comment is now closed we'll start with the first item on our agenda this evening which is order 2018-183 the city of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2019 in the amount of seventy nine million three hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred forty five dollars and 73 cents we have several departments before us this evening all of which fall within Public Works the first being department number 401 Public Works administration engineering motion to
▶ 3:47 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: suspend the rules so we can hear from the public officials second we have a motion to spend the rules made by alderman forbes seconded by alderman mortimer all in favor aye aye any opposed we are now under suspension of rules we're joined this evening by the dpw director mr shenna hi everyone welcome thank you evening would you like to start with a statement on this department item um and i should state that this this item is in the amount of seven hundred thirty seven thousand eight hundred seventy four dollars and fourteen cents sure thank you um i forwarded some information over the last 48 hours i really want to thank kristen she's been wonderful they're trying to get it in the right places at the right time um and that's not just because she
▶ 4:33 works for me at one point this past fiscal year the budgets before you um this evening represent the salary and expenditures that are associated with eight of our ten operating budgets in public works those include administration engineering our facilities group our highway sanitation fleet cemetery and park and forestry group water and sewer that are both enterprise operations and whose budgets won't be before you until next thursday comprise the balance of the department inclusive of water and sewer the public works department in whole has 65 full-time employees the budgets before you this evening total eight million nine hundred ninety six thousand one hundred fifty five dollars and twenty four cents the department prides itself on working efficiently
▶ 5:28 daily in order to provide only the highest level of service to residents both in terms of quality and quantity we strive to maintain our operations in a transparent and accessible manner residents can access our department in several manners we still answer the phone and you can stop just by 72 tremont street and pretty much get any level of service required with the exception of your water and sewer bill that's here in city hall we're open monday through friday seven to four we provide updates and notices through a variety of traditional mailings postcards every december we start to get the phone calls when am i getting my trash calendar for the year we do social media we do neighborhood meetings and now we're even trying to do a little bit of twitter
▶ 6:20 our website in fiscal 18 similar to other departments was updated and we're trying to keep up with that as well we'll continuously find manners to challenge our staff professionally and when we challenge our staff it's always for the better good of the community the department is staffed and i say this every year this is something that is critical to how we operate we operate laterally in a manner so that our resources can be shared and we share those resources depending on the demand of the season ultimately the end goal is to make melrose a better place for all its residents it's at all at all its locations whether you're walking into a building you're bringing the child to a sporting event so just to walk through town visiting a
▶ 7:11 downtown business it's very important for melrose to know it's dpw it's out is out there working for them outside of daily and seasonal maintenance issues and programs this current fiscal year we process nearly 4,500 work orders to date through our various divisions 36 roughly 3,600 of them are completed in parallel the department worked with several on several capital improvements to Melrose as infrastructure infrastructure we work collaboratively with other departments in the city in capital facility projects energy upgrades open space development zoning reviews and inspections this past fiscal year has been highlighted by some of the following projects that i just want to quickly mention that have been completed or in the process of being completed
▶ 8:10 within the next month roadway sidewalk and gas utility improvements took place on tremont street first street in front of the winthrop school cleveland street north and south high spare street hancock street and albion street we also paved aaron street west hill york terrace all in conjunction with national grid they upgraded the gas company and we worked together at by repaving the road, curb to curb. A drainage study was conducted and completed within the El Pond watershed in order to petition FEMA for a request to reduce the flood zone in this area. This was really the capstone of a decade of improvements in drainage in and around El Pond. We're petitioning the federal government and telling them we don't flood as often,
▶ 9:03 we do flood the water doesn't stay as long in hopes to have a butters of the of the l-pawn watershed have the ability to reduce their flood insurance we'll keep everybody posted on our progress with that our first green infrastructure our quote-unquote rain gardens were designed and they're currently being constructed on orient dav these were funded through state grants and with the coastal zone management if anybody wants to go out there they're there but i'm sure you'll see some information on construction and some photos online soon our complete streets program was one of the highest scored programs in the state and we received our first year our first allocation of funding for construction it's going to do three three things in the upcoming season
▶ 9:59 it's going to it's going to improve north to south bike route actually put one in place and try to fill in voids that exist today it's going to improve pedestrian and make pedestrian improvements in the high school and middle school and areas along melrose street and we're also going to try to push that out as we know that there's a group that crossed like the cross at main street in front of walgreens or by the mccarthy house or at crystal street at main street so we're working with the school department and several end users on trying to figure out how best and how safely to get these kids to that middle school high school's campus and the last one is a project that's been in the making a long time and that's pedestrian and vehicular safety improvements on
▶ 10:53 howard street from the intersection of howard with clifford and green to howard at ruggles where elementary students cross to go to the horace man we completed water system upgrades on first street altamont warwick road and perkins those were all designed in fiscal 18 and constructed sewer inflow and infiltration improvements took place in the highest four sub areas those are Those are the four areas of Melrose with the highest inflow and infiltration as measured with meters. We have one last phase of work which should go out to bid very soon in those four sub areas. And trust me, we're ready to start the next four. Several doctor sites and traffic islands, as always, were improved. The top one this year was Bellevue, at the corner of the Fellsway and Bellevue.
▶ 11:48 partnership with LCM last summer was a flash for our facilities group as we worked with the planning office and to deliver new modular buildings at Winthrop School in the Horace Mann sorry Winthrop School in the Hoover School with a renovation of the Horace Mann and our operations group in our engineering group were able to make several improvements to the sites themselves the school sites themselves during that six-week window over the summer we completed the painting exterior painting of the Milano Center we repaved lakeside ledge and Wisteria Avenue in the cemetery we're also our administration work in conjunction with the Cemetery Commission in reviewing records and digitizing all records at the cemetery every record at the
▶ 12:47 cemetery is has now has a digital digital file in place which is something the Commission has been working for several years to make sure happens through a state grant we're currently completing repairs to the joints and the perimeter wall the historic preservation wall was a hundred thousand dollar grant we obtained through the state several school curriculum driven repairs and upgrades took place over the past fiscal year aside from the major capital projects you've seen we worked with the veterans agent the veteran advisory group with for the World War two memorial and we recently completed the student respect garden with a student at the high school when Lisa Lord and the veterans group we built the community garden last year we put an addition to
▶ 13:45 it this spring we added some more planting boxes and a very popular amenity to Franklin field our engineering and our highway group implemented the citywide 25 mile an hour speed limit and started installing the 25 mile an hour solar speed devices through town and if you drive through tremont street we now have solar panels on the roof of our building the budgets before you not only address project needs but also the salary and this of our staff the um the salary accounts for all the conditions found in the newly bargained and executed map we local 272 that's melrose association of public works employees local 272 agreement will go in effect july 2nd 2018 i attach that into iqm2 for anyone who's interested in um in reading through it
▶ 14:49 it's a three-year contract this is with all operations and facility union employees in the the department the budgets also account for local 272 clerical union there in the second of a three-year card second year of a three-year contract the budgets account for all energy expenditures throughout the city this includes schools and all snow expenditures throughout the city a few the increases that are before you are mainly contractual contractually driven or they're driven to support upgrades and neighborhoods and buildings throughout the city similar to to our department the budget is very service oriented and is very service driven budget we look forward to next fiscal year several new projects and initiatives that we hope to embark
▶ 15:45 upon with successful patches passage of the budgets this evening and some of the other orders that are before you in the next few weeks mainly some of the highlights that we look to do is a continuation of ini in our next highest areas of flow water upgrades on florence street ashbourne street east emerson and garfield road continuation of gas system improvements and roadways upgrades in partnership with national grids the gas division citywide tree planting We'd like to start and complete a study to determine if it Do a feasibility study on whether turf upgrades are possible on the West Knolls soccer field we will be submitting for a second year of complete street programming and hopes to Bring forward some of the agenda that will add sidewalks into neighborhood streets
▶ 16:45 We're going to continue working on both the hazardous mitigation study and the municipal vulnerability program both of which include community discussion and coordination and discussion among city departments to identify areas in the community more importantly it's infrastructure that are most vulnerable during natural disasters and climate changes the hazardous mitigation study was the study that led to the El Pond FEMA grant and the converse Lane FEMA grant that brought millions of dollars in grant money into Melrose and helped us solve significantly large issues so we hope to do the same once these two studies are completed working with with IT in our school administration we hope to complete the installation of fob systems at all our schools and implement a new
▶ 17:36 school security policy see with superintendent a more for the start of the 2018-19 school year production and installation of new street signs with section numbers is currently taking place and will be completed this summer at the Wyoming Cemetery we would like to continue to work with the planning group our planning department and our energy group on green initiative and opportunities to further gain efficiency and energy consumption with our HVAC systems in the schools we're going to continue to work with both police and fire and continuing to complete the feasibility study for our public safety buildings and we're also going to be working with the trustees in memorial hall and the memorial hall capital building committee
▶ 18:28 in hopes to assess and prioritize capital needs of the building and working with the planning department we looked we were looking to begin to address sound lighting and stage needs at the melrose middle school auditorium most notable amongst all the new initiatives i just quickly went through is the continuation of a three-year program that will upgrade infrastructure and make roads and sidewalk improvements in our neighborhoods we actually started the program last year this is the second and third year coming up of what we announced last year i attached i attached to these orders and then again to the orders that are before you next thursday night a schedule and a breakdown of the funding for a road program so it's a little
▶ 19:17 difficult to um to read on the computer so we printed it for your own use um we'll be presenting this at length next thursday if there's any questions in this regard or anything you read with the material I already forwarded, feel free to ask him this evening. Once again, I'm also happy to report that the city will not carry forward any deficit in snow expenditures into fiscal year 19. Together with our CFO, he has come up with a plan to remove all existing deficit in that budget, so that next year we start even. We're also proposing a $50,000 increase in this budget in comparison to FY18. The department consists of 65 full-time employees. Because those employees work in various departments and
▶ 20:25 in various budgets, their salaries are distributed and I created a spreadsheet that shows those distributions take place from a percentage perspective and then in dollars that's in your pet that should be in your packets as well if not I can gladly support I can gladly offer you that now that's what I have for an opening statement okay thank you mr. Shana for that overview and we will start with the first on our on our agenda which is 401 administration and engineering thank you madam chairs I was gonna move that we actually consolidate the budget lines here just because we have the director of DPW before us and I'm sure all of us have various questions for various portions of the line items so without having to kind of pause for those that want to you know
▶ 21:17 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: condense all of their questioning so I move that we can consolidate all of the budget line items which are 401 402 422 423 433 475 485 and 491 second the motion we have a motion to combine the departments before us one two three four five six seven eight all eight departments dealing with DPW made by President Search seconded by Alderman Mortimer on discussion all in favor aye any opposed we now have each of those departments before us thank you John for coming this evening and looking through the material it's quite impressive you got to give you credit I mean this really looks impressed really good the spreadsheet that you handed out will this be on the website showing for the public to look at to see if their streets going to be done and so forth
▶ 22:14 Robert A. Boisselle: yes if you if you look at the schedule of planned capital projects some are funded and they're ongoing then there's a middle section of projects that are partially funded in the bottom section requires 100% funding so our goal once once hopefully we successfully pass all of the orders in the next few weeks we want to we want to put post this at that time okay but some of the colors are gray which indicating final pavement like where I have Sheffield here and a large month Perkins Street Beech Avenue and so forth and these will be starting the paving operate it looks like the paving operations will start some sometime in August and run through October correct so if someone Street is on this list they can expect a new street curb to curb to replace the
▶ 23:07 John N. Tramontozzi: national national gas companies it's correct half the street the entire street is that correct Sheffield everything on the street is a curb-to-curb project curb-to-curb that's a good schedule to be paved this fall with successful package passage of everything a Latchmont is will be 2019 okay very good all right thank you very much thank you man thank you Jim and I also want to thank you mr. Schenna for the very extensive in the obvious time that you put into putting together the package for us to review and I do appreciate that and I want to send my thanks to all your employees at the department they're very responsive they come out and I've requested numerous times at request of residents of Ward 1 for attention and
▶ 24:01 John N. Tramontozzi: And they've been right there, whether it's potholes, signs, road work, snow removal, or otherwise. So thank you. I appreciate all that hard work. I just have a couple of questions. Now, one of the budgets is the public works sanitation. That's 433. So as we all know, a few years back, we privatized and put out for contract the sanitation trash collection, as well as the recycling I think that's I personally think that was one of the better things that the city has done I just wanted to get your opinion and see how things have been going these past few years with that contract how did you find how does the department find it I think it's been doing very well so I just with all vendors they always need to be redirected at times and reminded
▶ 24:56 policies and how we do things in Melrose but all in all it's been a it's been a productive contract trash gets off the street our recycling is picked up I mean our curbside services are a second to none and when you compare us to other communities when we have weekly single stream recycling 15 weeks of curbside pickup of yard waste we would do two weeks of Christmas tree collection and And this year, we even added a week of brush pickup, given the march that we had and how, and the havoc that it caused on personal property and public property. JRM's a great partner. The recycling market has gone a bit haywire, and there's all kinds of articles that are being written about the recycling market right now.
▶ 25:49 China isn't accepting as much paper as they always had, and they dictate the market. And the paper that they are taking, they're being much more fussy about the cleanliness of it. We're fortunate in our contract to have a floor in regards to recycling material. When the market is profitable, they get the profit. But when it costs them money to dispose of our recycling, we don't get any charge. And in today's world, there are communities that are being charged tremendously, sometimes even more per ton than trash to dispose of their recycling. Our contract doesn't allow JRM to do that. Our contract does have guidelines in terms of curbside and how we expect people to put out their recycling material.
▶ 26:45 What we did to help that is we did a little bit of an education campaign. We had door knockers. If there were issues, rather than place a sticker on someone's recycling, we tried to leave the door knocker with tips on how they could improve. We were hoping that led to a phone call to our facility and our office where we could kind of coach them through it. Sometimes JRM left it behind and then we went back to pick it up once we got the call. We were able to let the people know what they've done wrong in hopes to correct it in the future. Currently, we're about to enter the fifth year of a seven-year contract. It also has three more additional years on top of it as an option. So, we're right around the midpoint of the contract.
▶ 27:39 John N. Tramontozzi: But I have to agree that I think it's one of the more positive moves the department has made in the past. 5, 10 years. Right, thank you, and I certainly believe that the contract that you and the city put together was a tremendous advantage for the city and it worked out really well. Now, is the budget 433 all contractual relating to that? No. Because I understand that the city still does some minimal pickup and describe that. so this this if i can't through the chair i'll just explain the budget a little bit and i can do it for every one of these budgets if you'd like when a question comes up but the sanitation budget staffs two full-time employees those two full-time employees still collect biz trash from
▶ 28:31 business district schools in open spaces we collect metal weekly we collect all of the yard waste ourselves in-house with our own vehicles we run and manage our recycling facility both at route at tremont street and then where the yard waste goes at route 99 as well and we do that all with within this budget the budget has contractual increases for jrm and also contractual tipping fee increases we level funded the tonnage disposal line once again Because what we're seeing for the third year in a row is that we're maintaining our tonnage right around 7,200 tons for the entire fiscal year of what we're disposing. We're recycling a little more, we're about to, last year we had a little dip, a little reduction in recycling.
▶ 29:24 This year it seems to be back very close to our highest year, which was fiscal 16. Roughly 28% of what goes out on the curb is being recycled, which is good. And I think right now, it's about where Melrose is going to get. We've been very close in terms of reducing trash and increasing recycling. The hired equipment line in this budget is used to deal with brush. We had to increase this line because we have mountains of brush from the winter sitting at Route 99 that needs to be ground and turned into chips. That's why we had to increase this line. We hope that it's a one year increase and we can return it back to its level funded next year. We're also very fortunate, if I can just take a minute to thank the recycling committee.
▶ 30:20 I know this isn't a revolving account, but a lot of what they do is reflective in this budget. We have great volunteers. We run great weekend drop off events. We also have a second hazardous waste opportunity for residents of Melrose because we partnered with Stoneham. That's coming up on the 30th. But there's an opportunity right now to recycle pretty much anything at any point during the year. And our recycling committee, our recycling coordinator, Sadie Brown, who's our liaison. And our administrators, our staff, do a great job at running those events. that's done through this budget and through the recycling revolving account so that's pretty much what the budget does it does still have two employees it
▶ 31:06 John N. Tramontozzi: does have overtime to open the facility on Saturday and we do still pick up trash from our downtown all of our buildings including schools and dispose of it excellent thank you I just want to jump back to item object 402 the public works facility maintenance and like just for the so the public's knowledge some the three lines that I'm looking at particularly are the SEL custodian SEL maintenance SCH part I assume those is pot we related to the schools okay you were looking at 402 salary salary custodian salary maintenance SCH part yeah so those three are related to the schools although our maintenance staff does maintain public buildings too those are our tradesmen as well maintenance is other tradesmen in that group it so it's not just strictly the schools it's the
▶ 32:14 rest of the maintenance the rest of the buildings correct because my concern was the 68% jump what's what what happened here so we overall the department is level staffed with 65 employees last year with 65 employees this year there is a reduction of two in our administration and engineering group and an increase here of two in the facilities group we added two tradesmen the entire facilities group has 11 custodians in the schools two in our municipal buildings and five tradesmen the two additional union positions actually replaced the union positions we cut two years ago in water and sewer so we level staffed our union positions with this budget the need arises to add staff here because of
▶ 33:04 the tremendous demands on the division as it attempts to maintain 19 buildings believe it or not throughout the city and several million there's been an investment of several millions of dollars in these facilities through capital repairs throughout the last three to five years and we feel it's imperative that the city staffed correctly to maintain them so we added two new tradesmen so that we can do the work that's being demanded and i have one last handout to bring and you guys want to take this home and read it some bedtime reading well what this is is a fiscal year in review from our assistant director ann wake and anchors and anchors this entire facilities division and you can see the amount the volume the sheer volume
▶ 34:03 of work that is generated through work order requests and summer projects and school moves and school needs and aging municipal facilities and aging public safety facilities so rather than sit here and list them all we put this package together for the board to review it at your leisure and it it totally in my opinion totally defends the the two new trades people that were added in this working group excellent I think I'll pass at this time and what others I don't want to take the floor much longer but thank you Alderman Lipper-Garabedian followed by Alderman future thank you thanks very much for all of the materials that are uploaded online they're really helpful for us and I'm sure for the public I guess I'll just kind of go through some questions
▶ 34:57 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: by law by fine item so under administration and engineering I noticed that there's something related to rental coordinator a part-time with the school is that right and I'm wondering if you could sort of explain that it's that there's a reduction of almost 50% there so we last year we we hired an executive assistant to the director that position the employee who was in that position is your new clerk of committees the role that role was part executive director to the executive assistant to director and and was also managed all the rental of the schools we we managed the rental of school space to outside users for the school department right if you want to use the gym auditorium for dance recitals
▶ 36:08 winter soccer basketball leagues that the the management of that space is done through public works it was done through that position um it's half funded by the school department building rental fund and then the other half came from the public works budget what we've done is now hired an 18 hour a week person to just do the rentals and we've left the other component of that job at um we don't have anybody doing that right now rather than hire the full-time we just went with with the part-time position that's what the reduction is okay but someone is still overseeing that work the rental piece yes and the schools are paying for all of that okay so I recall when the school the school budget presentation
▶ 36:55 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: last week there and we saw this at the school committee as well the mayor was able to to reappropriate I think a hundred and seventy five thousand dollars from different accounts to the schools were any of your accounts affected by that transfer yes our overtime accounts okay contributed to that amount okay and do you think that you'll um that's something that you can um live with for the coming fiscal year like i said we like to challenge our staff and it will be a challenge it will be something that we have to look at carefully but we were hoping to do it without a reduction in service to any level right um so then under uh facilities um alderman Tramontozzi tozy asked one of the questions that i had so thank you um it also looks like and this one um uh there's a new summer employment
▶ 37:49 program and i wondered if you could just talk a little bit about that so we've always had a summer employment program where we hire high school juniors and seniors to assist in the cleaning of the schools over the summer we've kind of lumped that always into a part-time line and this year you'll see a reduction actually in um line five one two zero zero three there's a 46 reduction and what we did is take that money and put it into um the new school intern program okay that's how we we just we wanted to track it separately so that we could prop properly manage budget and make sure we don't overspend that line that's great and it's also more intuitive than for the public it's a little bit more transparent rather than put it together okay great I'd also
▶ 38:40 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: just note that it looks like you were able to accomplish some savings on City Hall electricity use and our LED street lights so that's great to see in terms of the impact on the budget this is the third year we've reduced the street light line item the LEDs are saving a considerable amount of and and it's reduced our maintenance that's great I noticed within this there there's a mention of the new fob system that's going in at some of the schools and I recall that earlier this spring our board was presented with that project I just wondered if you could give us a quick update on the status I believe our IT group is still out there working we're at the Franklin school two days ago the goal is at this point with two weeks of school left the goal is for
▶ 39:29 all the teachers to have their fobs on the first day when they come back in August and then if we could move to 422 so that's highway the list that you provided mentioned that there's a new line item for a new storm water quality program could you just explain what that is it's a good question for the last I I believe 14 years the EPA has required the city, all cities, all municipalities to follow national pollutant discharge elimination system. NPDES regulations that focus on storm water quality. This isn't flooding, this is the quality of the water that we discharge into our open bodies. For the last two, three years, been they've been discussing the switch to a new program and the new program is
▶ 40:31 ms4 ms4 is storm for SS storm sewer separation basically it's the next level of storm water quality that's supposed to start on July 1st this last year around this time they were also saying it was going to start in July 1st and And then the state said, no, not happening, with a waiting direction on it. But it was the right time, I felt, to eliminate the NPDES storm drain maintenance line and switch it in the future to what it should be called. It's level funded, it lets us start the program, it lets us put an outline of what we have to do. There's going to be a lot more funding that's needed with this program. like I said we might be in the same place a year from now because last year we will get ready to start and we have put the brakes on it but that's the
▶ 41:29 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: switch okay that's helpful just a couple more and 485 which is automotive again on your helpful explanation chart you mentioned that there is a CIP that will need to be replaced in fiscal year 20 I'm just wondering what is a CIP and what will that cost the IP's capital improvement plan okay and that's for a vehicle citywide got it I'd be remiss if I didn't state that there are issues with our fleet we have punted on them for this year but there are and it's outside of Public Works there are several departments whose vehicles we maintain that have the need for new new equipment and new vehicles so we're to try to use this fall and winter as a time to evaluate and rank how we should go about replacing
▶ 42:24 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: vehicles in the future but we increased the repair line and it was a good opportunity to throw throw the comment and put the comment in place that we are we can't ignore replacing our vehicles we should do it and we should do it in a timely manner and we should do it in a staggered approach so that we don't get hit with huge costs all at once but you're forecasting for us in the city that for the next fiscal year there is likely to be an increase in this line because certain vehicles will really need to start to be replaced correct and and there's also going to be a need to start replacing vehicles in fiscal 20 right okay that's helpful and then maybe my last question I think is on the complete streets work so that I'm very thrilled
▶ 43:08 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that we got one of those grants I was at the time on the group as a member of the birth to five committee so I'm happy that a number of those projects will really impact the safety around the schools I noticed in one of the material attachments that you provided you flagged the complete streets work is I think $60,000 coming in for the estimated value for this coming year but the entire grant as I recall is about three hundred and seventy seven thousand so is the idea that some of the money will be used in future fiscal years to continue to implement those programs what you flagged was the listing of there's an order before the board for a borrowing of one point six five million for road program okay sixty thousand of that one point six five we have
▶ 44:01 allocated for complete street partnership got it we got construction money in excess of 300 000 to put those programs in place but we still need to we need to do a little design work we want to do some neighborhood outreach if there are other things that come up which the original construction program doesn't account for we want to have a little flexibility in making sure we can deliver those to the community i understand okay that's helpful and so those three projects will be completed in this fiscal year is that the goal the upcoming fiscal fiscal night correct okay great thank you so much that's all thank you Alderman Bewtra thank you I will try to not be redundant in the questions because I had a lot of the same questions that Alderman Libra
▶ 44:47 Manisha Bewtra: Garabedian and Alderman Tramontozzi had one so I'll go kind of line by line because that's how my notes are um for under administration and engineering I saw there was some new funding for GIS is that sort of related to what we heard from assessors is it related to that new permit program or can you speak to that no so two years ago and I conducted a lot of capital improvement studies we we studied our water system we studied our sewer system again we did a pavement management system and we not only re-ranked projects and created projects in a listing of a volume of projects that we could choose from moving forward but the engineering office did that all with gis based software what the new line in the budget is is gives us the ability to pay for software
▶ 45:46 Manisha Bewtra: licensing permit fees for people GIS GIS software CAD these new tools of the trade I think I think the days of a slide ruler and even a protractor are gone and I mean our engineers need need up-to-date technology and that line is going to help them help us maintain the office with the right equipment fantastic I think just one overall observation and I think some of my fellow alderman have said this like I really appreciate all the information you put together but also the thoughtfulness of sort of like creating systems and thinking about smart ways to create savings over time and I think that's just reflected throughout this budget okay the ms4 question oh so under also under highway something that has often occurred to me and sort of just
▶ 46:38 Manisha Bewtra: trying to cross as a pedestrian at various pedestrian crossings throughout city is signal timing is that something um is there a plan for uh is that part of the complete streets um list of projects of reviewing signal timing and we actually looked at it especially in downtown main street we looked at this past fiscal year i don't recall the details of what our engineer ultimately recommended but there are some recommend my recommendations and things that we can implement and it's one of our internal non non non funding related goals that we have in the department I've spoken with our city engineer actually about a month ago about it she has the recommendations and something we're gonna look at next fiscal year and is that the kind of thing you would have
▶ 47:28 Manisha Bewtra: to hire an outside consultant for or there is a line in the administration budget called professional services and we use that professional service line to hire the specialist the traffic engineer the geotechnical engineer the structural engineer to look at things like walls and and and we bring them in and work to work with our engineering group they have done that there's a memo to some extent on timing and what we can do great um so my next question is related to parks and and I'm just sort of curious to what extent the 2015 open based on recreation plan is used as a guiding document or is it sort of in the background how actively does a parks department use that I think in terms of capital it is referred to quite often this is this is a maintenance budget our
▶ 48:27 department strictly maintains the parks the Park Commission has ultimate authority over capital projects and use of the fields I could tell you the fields are used a tremendous amount I Joan Bell our open space director said that thirty one hundred fifty permits were issued for field use over this business past fiscal year the lights were on at Fred Green Stadium for twenty 28,300 hours of use on our field, not the lights. 28,300 hours of use on our field. This budget maintains the field so they can be used for 28,000 hours. And they're used a lot by local user groups, which is nice to see. A lot of people put money into the facilities and then want to rent it and want to become a field renter.
▶ 49:26 Manisha Bewtra: nice when you drive around five six o'clock you drive you drive that gateway of the fellsway and you see melrose youth soccer melrose lacrosse melrose baseball um or just recreational people out for a walk or people playing tennis this budget is what supports the maintenance of all of that regards to your question that's more of a park commission um yeah got it that makes sense and i think that was one of those things where after uh miss bell was here i was like okay understanding how the i mean i think that's really helpful to understand that this is a maintenance budget versus what what is sort of under her purview um because i think where the question is coming from is a little bit sort of like i you know we all hear from residents about like
▶ 50:12 Manisha Bewtra: concerns about certain park maintenance street crossings things like that and i try my best to direct them in the right place or even reach out to you or other um other uh department directors but anyway just to give you kind of background on that um we work very closely with the park commission we have a great working relationship joan bell is phenomenal to work with and you know we take our direction from them they tell us what they want to use the fields for we try to to make sure they're ready and and and they and they also lean on us and our engineering group when it comes time to deciding what can be improved and what can you do and what can't you do I know that the West Knoll is a top top
▶ 51:01 Manisha Bewtra: priority to see if we can turf that in the upcoming years again going through my list not really question here but just wanted to say again great job regarding like the decrease in fuel consumption and just the tracking work that you've done there what else do I have so I really appreciate this schedule it looks like we'll be talking about that in more detail at a later date but just out of maybe this question would be better placed there but what about sort of longer-term capital improvement planning like say like five years or sort of do you do things kind of like on a two to three year basis or do you kind of project out we like to fund our projects on a two to three year basis but we have 24 million dollars in water improvements sitting in a book in
▶ 51:52 the engineering office there is there is probably just as much in sewer work I and I work we have capital improvement programs and all of our infrastructures all various infrastructure we have a pavement management program and that's We're about to update that and put our most up-to-date files online. When we select our roads, we just don't throw an arrow at a map. There is a listing by ward of which streets are the worst in that area. Those are the streets we focus on, and then we go to our water layer to see how's the water system in that. And then we go to, well, does it need any sewer work, do we have any flooding? there is there are long-term tools that we use that our engineers use in terms
▶ 52:41 Manisha Bewtra: of putting projects forward but terms of funding them we like to do the one to three year intervals and then in terms of again being able to respond I think your departments probably like the most one of the most visible and most tangible for people in the community and I think when people think of city budget they think of like potholes and I don't know potholes in schools so you know one of the like another thing I've been curious about is how do things like egov and see click fix work in terms of like how is management of those systems you also mentioned people can come into the office they can give you a call like all those various ways that people can get in touch with you how is management
▶ 53:25 of all of that and how could we help as aldermen I'll be positive be perfectly honest without egov we wouldn't be able to run the department the way we do egov is an electronic work order system it it mirrors how the department is constructed by division work orders come in whether it's a telephone call we input it ourselves there are certain things online where people can have direct access to us in a work order but it automatically is assigned to the the working group that's responsible to it. So if you have a pothole work order, that automatically goes to the smartphone of our foreman, who's running the crew, and his boss. After so many days, if it's not addressed, it goes to his boss. After so many days after that,
▶ 54:13 eventually it makes its way up to me, and then we can meet on a weekly basis, we can meet on a, I typically do it on a monthly basis where we review outstanding work orders. So the technology's really there to keep issues at the forefront for us. And eGov helps in that regard. We still use cClickFix. I pulled the information yesterday. I think we had about 200, 220 work orders come in through cClickFix. And behind the scenes we take that information and dump it into eGov. But if people wanna access us through cClickFix we do that as well. So the technology and our work order system, it keeps us organized and because we can stay organized that way we try, that's what keeps us efficient. And in terms of being able to respond back
▶ 55:03 Manisha Bewtra: to community members and kind of just, how does that generally work in terms of just giving people a sense of where they might be in a queue or where a particular issue might be in sort of your work order system? And again, how as aldermen can we help with that? it's a very good question and when they call we typically tell them all this may take two to three weeks or this this you know we're not going to do stump grinding again until August or I understand you want your tree removed but the tree is protected by by by state law and we have to assess it and we try to walk them through the project etc we try to set the realistic goal right up front our staff of administrators is is great I mean day I truly enjoy working
▶ 55:50 with all of them it's every phone call is someone who has a high level of anxiety for something and they do a great job curving that anxiety and getting the right information out of them all while hopefully giving them the information to not make them call the next day with you know you done yet electronically if you put a work order in you have the ability to track that and facilities for instance we get work orders from our school principals or the secretaries they usually assign it to the secretaries but and is great it gets assigned to a particular trades person but then if we're waiting for a bulb before waiting for a special order piece to come in we put it right into the work order and if the hardest man wants to know oh when is
▶ 56:40 Scott M. Forbes: my door getting fixed they could access that work order very quickly to find out oh the hinge is coming in next Wednesday crew will be there Thursday so a lot of that can happen too with the technology we use great thank you those are all my questions for now thank you Alderman Forbes thank you I was gonna go in order but since we're talking about roads I'll just start there since we'll keep this keep this moving I know I've sent you a couple emails in the last couple weeks about areas of my board people coming to me asking what can be done if I send you an email and I start communicating with you does that turn into a work order can you kind of just talk about that or is there anything specifically that needs
▶ 57:26 Scott M. Forbes: to be done in addition to our correspondence no no whether it's a sign that's knocked down or a streetlight that's out or a tree that was only cut in half whatever the issues are when they when they usually get into my email I take care of that with my managers and turning it into the work orders that we need to and in terms of all them and that's that's the mode of communication that's best and how to get information into the department okay yeah because obviously if we can facilitate that for you it creates less traffic on your end and we can do our jobs as being that person at the middle person in order to try to make things work all right and I think all of us appreciate that the line item in the highway department I think it's line item five three five eight
▶ 58:13 hundred it's a patch line item for forty three thousand dollars is that for potholes to purchase material to repair bottles okay is that enough we've expended to that limit every year okay we increased it a little bit I think this year because material just goes up you'll see that in a lot of our lines that are material driven we we increased it by two to three percent just for the economy of scale okay but we have spent to that limit again those are temporary pothole repairs that doesn't repair roads it doesn't repair trenches it just buys material and that's material only the labor is in the salaries right short-term fix not a long-term solution yes gotcha all right um all right i'll just reset and
▶ 59:00 Scott M. Forbes: start up at uh admin and engineering department 401. uh the salary reduction for this budget line item was that due to uh the movement of of positions or roles in that department it is the reduction in one project engineer and um the half of the executive assistant position that we no longer have okay uh let's see we already talked about professional services line item there's an attachment that was in our agenda which i i appreciate because it shows the water and sewer allocations as far as salaries within the within the budget and then also what's going to water enterprise and sewer enterprise maybe patrick left because he knew he was going to ask this question but we can we can follow up when he gets back um i want to know how we track
▶ 59:50 Scott M. Forbes: that yeah what's the method in order to attract the you know for example the first one the you know director of public works 60 is in the admin budget 20 water 20 sewer um is that an allocation that you talk about with patrick and saying how much time you spend is it track weekly quarterly i just was wondering if somebody could just kind of expand on these percentages we set at this point in the year yeah next year and it's basically okay you know how much work do you do and and these are direct expenditures so every week 60 of a certain salary gets charged to the city budget 20 goes to water 20 goes to sewer these aren't indirect costs like other departments that are made up through the rates these are direct in the budget expenditures that any everyone
▶ 1:00:37 Scott M. Forbes: on there so we don't track it week to week but these are assumptions that the the auditor and i make at the beginning of the fiscal year about how we how we're going to spend our time okay and then do you keep comparisons from year to year to see how much time is being spent in each one okay great i appreciate that thank you um moving over to the cemetery i know there was a lot of work being done in the back end of the cemetery um in in conjunction with the dog park going in there was a lot of wooded area uh right along the wall um for the wall work is that going to be the entire cemetery wall or just portions of critical need until the grant funding's used up so it's just it's the worst portion until we expand the the funding that we have okay but in
▶ 1:01:28 regards to the um property line at with pine banks with the dog park was it is open it just is something that um the cemetery commission has gone on record as being extremely disappointed in as an end product they feel that a lot of the privacy in the cemetery may have been lost by you know opening up that area that was going to be my follow-up question and we've already gone on record with the pine bank trustees that would like to allow their project to finish and their vegetation to take place but we want to readdress this in the fall look at the area again and see if we have to add more landscaping more plantings or something to create more of a natural buffer again over time between that recreational use and what what is really the historic part of the
▶ 1:02:19 Scott M. Forbes: cemetery right and so my last question is going to be that section of pipe that we've talked about for years that storm drain that runs all the way to the uh the running brook in the back um has that been improved or is that still the same condition that it was in since we've last you you know other than other than maintenance that we do you know as part of our periodical monthly maintenance we have not done anything capital it's it's about a million dollar project to fix again we have a conceptual design on that if our the hazardous mitigation study will will note that as a potential project for the community in the future and we it may open up to some grant opportunity with um with fema because it is the end of a watershed that can't drain very similar
▶ 1:03:08 Scott M. Forbes: to el pond at converse lane it's the end of a watershed that has difficulty draining because of the obstructions in the woods along pine banks and the cemetery right i know there were several attempts i think with the vac truck to kind of blow that out but it wasn't successful due to the fact there were certain areas that collapsed so okay uh well hopefully that's one of those things that get addressed obviously you know we've talked about it extensively and that could obviously it could domino effect and may solve some of the flooding issues that i had down in that corner at lebanon and sylvan so i thank you for your for your attendance here today thank you very much that's all i have president's workup thank you madam chair
▶ 1:03:49 Michael P. Zwirko: thank you mr senator for all your work and for being here this evening i just have a few questions obviously going this late many of them have been asked but you spoke in the beginning about the recycling and I have some questions on that so without belaboring the point you obviously pointed out some challenges recently with the difficulty in the Chinese market for purchasing those recycled goods so are we are we confident that in our contract with JRM that they're actually recycling it or is it as soon as they pick it up it's kind of out of our hands I mean do we know for a fact that I know that we don't have a cost built into the recycling as you had mentioned earlier but you know are we assured that it's actually going to be recycled we get information that they
▶ 1:04:37 are recycling it we get the tonnage per month yeah we have a month by a week by week basis on what they're recycling the material all goes to green works on Route 1 north. Material from our facility, we ship there directly, and we dispose of it there. And there's always a backlog of material because now they have to thoroughly clean it, and it has to be, although we're commingling into single stream at the curb, right now to make it somewhat profitable on their end they're actually separating at their facility not just for trash but they're taking plastic away from paper and trying to do that as well and you'd said that the contract has three years left and then after that there's three options on the contract are the options formulated in such a way
▶ 1:05:30 Michael P. Zwirko: that we control whether or not to execute them or is it kind of a dual execution and I guess what I'm going with this is my concern is that the recycling market isn't going to get better it's probably going to get worse and we're in a favorable contract as you had noted so it would probably behoove us and again I we don't know what the future is going to bring but I'm just I'm worried about those options because it would seem if we're in a favorable contract we would want to execute those but do they have veto power over extending those I'll double-check the contract but looking at a possible extension or a renegotiation is something that is on a list for attorney van campen and i are due in next fiscal year we're also going to be looking at the route 99 site and
▶ 1:06:12 the lease with waste management although that expires in 2021 which you may say is three years away we're looking at those at those options and what are our rights under that contract what are our rights under the jrm contract could there be a benefit to possibly combining them at least where we dispose of trash so those are all things it's a good question and there are things that we've been thinking about and discussing internally in City Hall and there are two items that we'll look at but I'll look into whether it's mutual or the city's sole right to extend and I can get back to you well and the reason I'm so concerned about the recycling is because you know in addition to the you know the the moral benefit of doing it it's if for some
▶ 1:06:59 Michael P. Zwirko: reason the market goes south or continues to go south and there's no fiscal benefit for recycling I'm worried the downstream effect that that may have on our residents saying well we don't really need to recycle anymore it's there it's gonna go to the incinerator incinerator anyways and so I'm just you know it's something that's kind of on the forefront because we've done made such great efforts in that area that I'm just hopeful that we don't we don't see recycling ending yeah in fact uh you know this year styrofoam seems to be the new big thing we just did a drop-off event last year we picked up this year we i think we had two and a half times the amount of styrofoam being dropped off the year before that was plastic bags now there's
▶ 1:07:41 talk of textiles there's also talks of a food waste possibly being picked up maybe not by a city agency but the city in partnership with the vendor yeah I think culturally people are used to recycling and I don't think that will ever go away we contractually we do have to be very careful we have a great contract we have a very positive contract for the city and we have to make sure we maintain it like that right and that's why extending could be a possible way to keep that partnership going you just mentioned I was gonna go there the textiles and food waste hoping to divert that because my understanding is that when you combine those two it's about 30% of the solid waste that we're you know incinerating
▶ 1:08:30 Michael P. Zwirko: so and a further enhancement of what we can divert from solid waste to other programs like textiles and food waste would be really beneficial there so continue to look into that please and then the other question I had was on you had mentioned the street survey so I appreciate that that is more of an empirical ranking versus a you know in a cranky or favoritism one I know that the street survey that went out the year before and the results that were presented to us by the city engineer were favorable and that's something that's great for us not only as aldermen because we can point to it but you know it's just a it's a better way to assess the issues that we have and like you said there's layers to it all between you know what's above the street and
▶ 1:09:17 Michael P. Zwirko: what's below the street and on a side note I drove up Orient the other day and I saw the rain gardens that the work that's going on so I'm actually looking forward to how they're gonna turn out so it's actually a pretty interesting program the other thing I wanted to mention is that we were talking about the cemetery earlier and you alluded to it a little bit the I was in cemetery over the weekend with some fellow aldermen and we noticed that the walls repair work is towards the north part it seems to have not only repaired some of the not the grout work but the stonework and also some removal of some of the vines and is that going to continue has that ended is that been in is there funding in the next year for that to continue so the majority of the work
▶ 1:10:04 that you saw that took place this spring was with the hundred thousand dollar grant we got through the state right now there isn't any funding outside of that grant so we're going to spend every penny that we can to june 30th we've completed from the lebanon gate to the sylvan gate now we're working from sylvan towards pine banks so we're as far down as um we passed right around just to give you a milestone of what's been completed both inside and outside we're we're gonna keep going towards pine banks until we have to stop and and then we want to continue with last year we I think we did about eighteen thousand dollars of work through through an appropriation from this board we'll see how much more we need but I think it's very important to protect the integrity
▶ 1:10:50 Michael P. Zwirko: of of that wall the it looks great it really does and we had talked about the reductions and it seems that our gain unfortunately it was your loss you know we took on Kristen recently and that position won't be filled for you is that is that correct that's correct and how about you know you said you challenge your staff how are you gonna be able to mitigate that loss well first of all we've lost half of the position a lot of what Kristen did last year was project driven the website the digitization at the cemetery and we'll just figure out other innovative ways to go about you know that those administrative needs right now but we did the most important part is that we were able to hire a Melrose resident to continue to rent these facilities for
▶ 1:11:45 Michael P. Zwirko: the schools and that's it that is a large revenue dream for the school department and we had to make sure we anchored that piece of it right away which we did and now we'll move forward and if we can't I'll be the first one to go to Patrick and say next fiscal year I think we have to bring the other half back well thank you for your sacrifice it's been a beneficial for us selfishly just really a couple comments before I end you know please give well wishes to Sadie we'd like to see her come back as soon as possible but understand she's maternity leave so back in July yeah and then I also wanted to just give a shout out greatly appreciate LCM they're a great community steward and the the site
▶ 1:12:28 Monica C. Medeiros: that they improve and just general things that they do pro bono for the city is deeply appreciated I know by all of us and finally really happy to see that not only is the community garden successful but that it was expanded so appreciate all the work you and your staff do those are all the questions I Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Medeiros. Thank you. I think I'll go right to sanitation because, well, it's kind of hot and I don't want to belabor it too much. We've talked a lot about the market and how things are changing and, you know, I just I want to say I think it's really important for us as a community to be a good partner to JRM, our vendor, because we are in a contract and a favorable position, but the market right
▶ 1:13:12 Monica C. Medeiros: now is is very difficult and so I think this is an opportunity in this meeting to talk to the people at home and to remind them you know when they do put out recycling to please you know make sure it's it's clean you know the the consumables the the plastics and the cans and things like that need to be you know cleaned out and in particular the the paper to make sure it doesn't have that the paper is that what I understand is really difficult to get rid of right now that it doesn't have any kind of you know food stains on it or things like that but you know I think that there are a lot of opportunities in the city and I see one of our members of the recycling committee has done a great job with that
▶ 1:13:56 Monica C. Medeiros: to remind them that plastic bags although they are recyclable they can't go in the court curbside recycling because they actually jam up the works at in the machines and so that if people do have them they can they can recycle those at the supermarkets and and sometimes also down at DPW headquarters but not curbside and things like textiles we do have bins through Bay State recycling available at all of the schools and at the DPW headquarters where people can recycle things like clothing towels even shoes and pocket books and so that's an option so rather than throwing it out which is costly that you know this is a something that's available right now it doesn't have to be a special day to drop it off just has to be bagged and clean again and can be
▶ 1:14:57 dropped off so just wanted to kind of point those things out and thank all of you for the hard work on that no they're all very very good points they're all right on point they're melrose is very good at cooperating in anything public works tries to do even when we come and disrupt your world with a road project or a water project at the end of the day this community appreciates the fact that we're trying to help even even if we go backwards a little before we go forward in regards to our curbside services i said it earlier we offer a lot curbside but we do need a little bit of cooperation and recycling is a big one plastic bags can't be recycled I know people like to put stuff in your plastic bag and then put your plastic bag in your recycle bin but we can't do
▶ 1:15:44 Monica C. Medeiros: that anymore because because of the market those those of the those have been the impacts over the last four to six months to Melrose and we really appreciate that the the people of Melrose by and large they do recycle a recycle at a high rate I know there are some people were still kind of struggling and saying you know please recycle but there I know there's also a large segment that of the people who do recycle that are willing to do more and even just you know thinking about ways to reduce what the items that they're they're using and reuse and it's important no all very good points and we have a lot of literature literature on our website if you're confused just pick up the phone and call too we'll help you and if you happen to get a little
▶ 1:16:30 Monica C. Medeiros: doanaka i don't think it's the recycling police it's our attempt to educate so that we can get it right the next time absolutely and speaking about getting it right i really have to thank you for all the information that you've provided us especially this year i think it's um it's outstanding and i have very much many fewer questions as a result of all the information that you provided us in particular and all of this is on the website under the budget order so if anybody searches the agenda portal for order number 2018-183 it's the operating budget and there's so many attachments including also which we haven't even touched upon this nice presentation that really has sort of a narrative version of what each department does and i think it's
▶ 1:17:26 Monica C. Medeiros: really helpful to to the public to understand what the department each one of the departments does and in particular the the breakdown that you've talked specifically about salary lines and kind of put in layman's terms about what the big changes are so i have to say i really appreciate that and that's there all for the public to look at and it makes a lot more sense than just like little you know little code words that are cut down and an acronyms and appreciate it in this you talked about work orders and that your department has about 4,500 work orders for the past year in that about 3,600 them are completed so that leaves still about 900 that are outstanding can you talk about like what what makes up those 900 is it stuff that just takes a long time is it stuff that
▶ 1:18:25 is it completable yeah i could tell you off the top of my head i think uh 200 plus of tree tree plantings people waiting for a tree so we create a work order for that for that tree planting um And that work order will sit, unfortunately, for a while. Some are sidewalk repairs. Sidewalk repairs take a lot longer, and that list is growing. Those are safety repairs. So we'll go out initially, and maybe we put a little bit of asphalt on a lip, and then that sits as well. Other work orders come in and out faster. Metal items are gone in a week. street signs are typically fixed within 10 days water services tend to sit a little longer maybe a month a month and a half so it depends on on the nature of
▶ 1:19:17 what the work order is but running around 20 25 percent open which is usually where we are at any point over the year and so you know to freeze it as of yesterday and to be around that amount it doesn't surprise me so that sense like it's normal and that some of these are just yeah some take a long time a stump grind for instance we usually stump grind maybe two three times a year so there's work order that comes in you know the day after the program just finished may sit for four to five months and you know that's why so we look at the when I look at the big picture of 20 25 percent open what's important to me is that it's consistent and we don't go from 20 25 to 50. and uh in the highway department and i think alderman forbes kind of touched on that i know you've mentioned it in
▶ 1:20:10 your narrative that some of the materials lines are increasing and and is that due to are we planning to do more work or is it just costs alone no mainly costs it's just cost more to to purchase material, cost more to buy paint, cost more to buy asphalt, cost more to buy street side metal and adhesive, cost more to buy wood. So year to year, this material cost increases. But we also try to do more. Some of the highway budget is increasing and I said it in my narrative, it's increased because now we have sharrows. Sharrows just don't go on once and stay there like that forever. They fade, so they have to be repainted every year. There's a cost associated with that. We've added crosswalk signs
▶ 1:21:05 Monica C. Medeiros: and there's a cost associated with that. We have a traffic commission and for a group of volunteers they do a tremendous job of trying to put forward regulatory changes to help neighborhoods. There's a cost associated with the signs. So some is more work and some is the cost to do the work that have combined for that. I think it's like a three or 4% increase on that budget. And so sort of related to that and sort of related to the whole budget, is there any like particular material or is there anything that you are very concerned that is going to skyrocket in terms of costs or that, you know, any red flags on the horizon that? No, I think everything is increasing proportionally I do have a concern that the city as a whole needs to start to
▶ 1:21:56 address its fleet because those will quickly skyrocket when we have to park a vehicle and if we go out and rent something or purchase it because that could be one of my biggest concerns moving forward but in terms of material increases that they're pretty much the same sort of predictable back to highway the catch basin line I was thinking that the new vac truck was going to alleviate some of this but perhaps I it does it so this funds half the city and we the the in-house crew works on the other half and the problem work orders that come in so this is is this more like almost a professional contract service or is this you catch basically this is a vendor who comes in he's been in town he's worked
▶ 1:22:57 on the west side I believe he's started he went from Ward 1 to Ward 1 into Ward 5 I think he's been on that side of Main Street the vendors name is Rhodes who on the contract this year so that this line item pays for him to come in once a year in the spring after we sweep to clean the basins next year we'll flip them put them on the other side of town while our in-house people take care of the side that we that we cleaned this year so this is a requirement we're required under the old NPDES permit we're required to clean 25% of our basins when the next level comes in they may require us to clean all of it which is why we we always want to keep a vendor in town to help us okay okay great thank you um
▶ 1:23:48 and can you talk a little bit about the snow budget and you know i know we've added some money to it do you think it's adequate just how does the process work so the snow budget um this this year we spent about 1.4 million dollars the order that's in committee this evening will bring free cash and then in the vicinity of 825 000 into that budget to bring it back to zero the auditor and the auditor did a tremendous job with his staff at looking at eight years of information and we actually over those eight years if you take out the outliers the the year that we got um very very little snow and only spent 400 000 and you take out the 2 million 2.1 million dollar 100 100 inch winter we average about um 960 000 so we average
▶ 1:24:54 about a million dollars over those eight years the budget with the increase brings it to 625 so there's less reliance on free cash to to get us back to zero and that's huge when i was the operations director managing managing snow operations for superintendent pashara that line at one point in time was 90 000. so the ability to properly fund snow is huge as as the director of the department at the end of the day melrose dictates what we provide for service and melrose has made it perfectly clear to public works what they like to see and it's our job to deliver that there's a cost to it and that's why we're very fortunate that the auditor is able to provide the budget that he does and um and increasing it every year makes us less reliant
▶ 1:25:50 on free cash to close the gap because he every year patrick has always removed the deficit going into the next fiscal year in terms of this year we had 27 events about 65 70 inches of snow every storm we manage our costs i know that question has come up in the past how do you track your costs um and that that's something that we did internally actually kristen did that this year with information from ann waite and peter petran tony are our operations manager but we look storm storm by storm we look at contractual what do we spend on contractors what do we spend on overtime what have we spent on material and we try to do that quickly wrap that up before we go into the next one and when by doing that we can kind of reflect back well what do we do different between
▶ 1:26:44 last wednesday and yesterday what do we do difference between two weeks ago so we're consistently financially trying to to keep tabs on snow as the winter is playing out this winter was difficult because um salt costs money about 600 580 to 600 000 of our budget which is about half went to salt and march the type of storms we got in march put a huge strain i mean there were so many times i was just let's let it snow and stop but it wouldn't you know it's snow and then it'd go to 36 and we'd get rain and then we were getting flash freezes and you're constantly cleaning and treating and every time it rained the treatment And it would go wash down the drain and that added to that expense as well.
▶ 1:27:37 Heavy wet snow is very, very difficult. Sometimes it's easier to run an operation that gives 16 to 18 inches of light fluffy snow as opposed to four or five of heavy wet snow. We had a great working relationship with National Grid in this past winter in March with their work. one storm in particular i believe we had we had several thousand accounts out of power we were able to quickly prioritize and we weren't the only ones i mean in fact when you look at plymouth county compared to us we were nothing but they were still able to service us and get us back up and running so overall that's my feeling on snow and again i'm tip off tip my cap like i do every year at this point in time to our staff we have a great staff it's it's a pleasure to work with them
▶ 1:28:30 Monica C. Medeiros: in a snowstorm we're working when others are home watching a movie or spending time with their family and um you know we're asking our employees to come in and leave their families to work so we we owe them credit for doing what they do not all year but more more specifically those five or six weeks every year when there's a window of the winter that's just miserable yeah and in particular this year even on christmas day so you know we definitely appreciate that you can tell when you cross the town line into melrose for sure and thankfully to a lot of hard work it looks a lot better and it's a lot safer um well i might come back to snow again if it comes back to me but uh is there any staff that is that has been moved to an off-budget source like a
▶ 1:29:30 bond or a grant or um from your any of your departments no no but i will stay say that once we get if we get our authorization to borrow and we start our projects and we have to manage the spreadsheet we'll either outsource to consultant engineers or bring in a full-time engineer on project budget outside off the city budget to to manage it there's a lot of work um over the next year and a half if we get this funding we'll we're going to do over 3 million nearly 3 million dollars in road work which is um which is very aggressive so we'll have to staff that group accordingly and and we do have a sort of a capital improvement plan and something that the city engineer has been working on to sort of track the highest needs throughout the city and and that's
▶ 1:30:27 Robert A. Boisselle: kind of how we've been prioritizing the work that's correct and next thursday when we present those orders we'll be speaking to to that in regards to water sewer and roads and hopefully we'll have some information on the work that we just did and so we could show you um the benefits of investing in infrastructure okay well thank you very much i appreciate that thank you thank you combined orders are before us are there further comments or a motion motion to move the bottom line of the public works fiscal 2019 budget submitted to us on 5 29 18 of eight million nine hundred ninety six dollars a hundred eight million nine hundred ninety six thousand one hundred fifty five dollars and twenty four cents second we have a motion made to move
▶ 1:31:21 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: the bottom line of departments 401 administration engineering 402 facilities 422 highway 423 snow 433 sanitation 475 parks and forest uh 485 automotive and 491 cemetery made and seconded on discussion all in favor aye aye any opposed that will be moved forward to the full budget thank you mr shenna and as a reminder to members of the committee uh orders number 2018-183 and 2018-169 are still combined we had joined these orders in an earlier uh meeting and they are still joined uh 169 involves the revolving accounts and this evening we have two revolving accounts um before us we'll start with number two six six nine the parks revolving account are there questions comments alderman forbes thank you uh mr senator if you could just
▶ 1:32:25 Just summarize the purpose of the revolving account, what it's needed for as you go through your year and how you address it as such. This is actually a revolving account that Public Works doesn't manage, but I'm very familiar with it. Joan Bell manages it. This is where user permit fees are deposited into. And she uses that fund for expenditures on equipment, netting, socket nets, extra barrels, and type of things thank you thank you madam chair Alderman Medeiros thank you yes i i believe uh the parks revolving should be with the park commission budget uh perhaps but uh could you speak about the revolving account for recycling and waste management sure um so this is um this account assists in supporting a lot of our in-house recycling and composting
▶ 1:33:25 programs and it's where we deposit funding from the sales associated with those programs the partner public works uses the account to fund as a household hazardous waste collection paint recycling collection of disposal of old tires and batteries, TV monitors, metal goods. We spend some money in advertising for weekend drop off events. We pay for some overtime related to that weekend drop off event for our full time DPW staff. So far in fiscal year 18, we've deposited just under 57,000 into this account. from all those sources that included a ten thousand four hundred dollar grant we got from from the state and we've expended to date I'm sorry this book the balance in that account right now is about four thousand dollars with the
▶ 1:34:34 Monica C. Medeiros: money we carried over this twenty six thousand dollars in the rep and the recycle what is the cap on that account and do you feel like this year where we're going to basically put this into our ordinance with the cap of 65,000 do you think that that is adequate yeah I feel very comfortable with that we were at we're at 56 with four weeks to go it's only one more drop-off event in four weeks of drop-off during the week and that included a ten thousand dollar grant we don't always get so i feel comfortable with the 65 000. and we can always amend it if we need to in the future thank you thank you so actually a motion to accept the recycling and waste management revolving account 2657 so we have a motion by Alderman Medeiros to recommend passage of number
▶ 1:35:41 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: 2657 revolving account for recycling and waste management second second by Alderman Boycelle any further discussion all in favor any opposed we still have before us to 669 the it's you know the will of commit the committee we can keep it here and bring miss Bell back if people have further questions motion recommend we have a motion to recommend for passage by presidents work oh seconded by alderman tram and tozi any further discussion all in favor any opposed that will be moved forward as well we will now move on to the third item on our agenda this evening which is order 2018-190 and appropriation from free cash account zero one dash three two four zero zero one in the amount of nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars
▶ 1:36:40 to various accounts as set forth herein we're joined by mr del russo good evening good evening The order before you, if passed, will just about exhaust the free cash balance of the city for this fiscal year. If, in fact, the total is passed that's been proposed, there will remain $78,072 period in free cash for the remainder of the fiscal year. the bulk of the request pertains obviously to snow and ice and as this the superintendent indicated 825 thousand dollars will be put forward to address the deficit we're very fortunate that we're able to cover the deficit this year with the available funds that we had in free cash as was indicated uh it was a very rough winter and the uncertainty behind it and
▶ 1:38:05 the expense behind it and the uncertainty behind that makes it very difficult at times to uh get just how much you're going to expend before the end of the fiscal year that's a challenge right there and i commend dpw and their ability to manage that effectively i also think you'll see a request in there for approximately 25 000 related to tree program which sean can speak to obviously um and we've been asking 65 000 for the capital stabilization fund which i believe we've indicated in part as to what the purpose would be to expend that and we're asking fifty thousand dollars for the medicare account that's the 1.45 percent that we're required to contribute each year on wages salary and wages in particular as salary and wages go up for staff is high we
▶ 1:39:07 incur more cost that cost in kind goes up and i think you'll see that in fiscal 19 we're asking for an 80 000 increase to that budget and the treasury will speak to that at the right time but just to keep pace with what we're seeing for expense so we are trying just as we were trying with snow and ice and police and fire overtime the budget is close to what we believe was realistic and actual that we can um because we don't want to have to count on this media at the end of the year to fund the uh balance of our activity that's not a it's not a good way to do business um but having said that i you know i had asked the superintendent if he has any other comments the four main components related to public works i guess
▶ 1:40:10 825 000 is going to towards snow operations 15 000 of the free cash is going towards um batting cage improvements at both conan park and lewis monk melrose little league 25 000 is for a tree planting program we'll probably plant late summer early fall of this year right now there's 280 resident requests for trees this funding will plant about 45 to 50 trees so it puts a little bit of a dent in that backlog the 65 000 that we're requesting be placed in the capital stabilization fund is for the purpose of making repairs to the retaining wall along the property line between the melrose east side common fire station engine 3 and 268 east foster street the wall was originally constructed by the city of melrose during
▶ 1:41:12 rehabilitation of the station several decades ago it's failed and it's requiring extensive repair It was first brought to our attention a few years back. We looked at it. We went back after this past winter, and it's deteriorated in that 12-month window as well. Once it's designed and bid and all the agreements are in place with the resident in terms of right of entry and how we're going to build the wall, make sure it's all across our T's, dot RIs, where we will come back to the board and request that the funding be taken out of the capital stabilization and brought into an existing FY19 public works account so we can proceed with the work. I'm hoping that by September we're in a position, September, October, we're in a position to do that.
▶ 1:42:08 But by putting the funds aside at the stabilization fund, now we know we have a real project and our engineering group can start to work towards designing and obtaining the necessary permits and hiring a contractor so we can get a real cost. The $65,000 is based on an estimate. It's based on an estimate that we put together in engineering based on a wall that we built on Franklin Street. If you recall the Highlands Project, we added some parking and we built a wall to add that parking. it's it's a block type of wall and a static block type of wall that's what we estimated that was the basis of our estimation but like i said we're going to work with the resident and the fight apartment and try to figure out how best to build it and how to build it and
▶ 1:42:57 Michael P. Zwirko: then we'll be back to request an appropriation from stabilization into an active account just as a point of information right now the fund the capital stabilization fund has just over 17 thousand so if this is approved you'll have um just over eighty two thousand thank you president Zwirko thank you my chair uh just some quick questions um when you see a line item for a storm of you know 825 000 i wonder why i don't live in arizona um but uh it's not as bad as 2015 so um we'll take it it was weird too because it seemed like winter started in march um just didn't end so this is a good use of the free cash is actually what we really should be using free cash for and you know we don't want to you know obviously capital improvements but
▶ 1:43:46 Michael P. Zwirko: it's nice to see this zeroed out every year you know just a point that we actually can understate law run a deficit in this area on snow and ice it's not generally wise to do so because then you start off your fiscal year with a deficit but sometimes cities and towns have difficulties closing their deficit in this area thankfully we do not so thank you for the efforts there and i just because we had a gentleman um come before us this evening and you you mentioned it uh mr shenna you know to the extent that uh you can work in concert with um the property owner and try to be as not disruptive as possible and you know see that project come to a good a good completion we'd appreciate that but i i know you'll you've written it here in the order yourself so i just
▶ 1:44:31 wanted to make that note um other than that um my only question is the backlog in trees generally speaking per year i mean how many trees do we order is that an average number 40 to 50 or is this just the the amount for the line item last year we did um a higher higher amount close to 65 or 70. i think that's more in the range of what i'd like to see but i'd rather see 45 to 50 than none sure we don't budget for tree plantings it's always something we've been able to do with supplemental funding one-time money so you know i'm hoping it's a program that continues the the backlog i think dates back to 2015. so we're in 18 a couple years old when we do this project we should be able to get through 15 and into 16. so we'll have a list that's about a year
▶ 1:45:22 and a half old that list is created when we remove a tree or when someone's in that wants a new tree that's how we track it and that's how we generate this list thank you for that those are all the questions i had thank you uh just one quick question the 78 000 that's left over in the next 30 days do it is there going to be a home for that do you do you foresee that going anywhere in particular yes a great question that's going to um find the majority of what we need for police overtime and i think as we talked earlier at the move to increase their budget by the hundred thousand yep it's an effort to minimize our need to do this in the future but yeah we do have a home for that and you'll be seeing the order before the end of the
▶ 1:46:16 Monica C. Medeiros: fiscal year great this would say thank you again uh normally in years past we'd only get a one page item with a breakdown we have five pages of supporting material so it's a tribute to you and i appreciate your work thank you very much thank you alderman Medeiros thank you yes i too i wanted to thank you for the especially the detailed uh memos with some of the information which really you know make it so much more clear to to i think the alderman and also the public i appreciate that i'm very glad that we can close out the year without a deficit and support that as well as the you know increase in the snow budget which is anything yeah because we don't know if we will have this kind of free cash in the future
▶ 1:46:56 Monica C. Medeiros: so it's always um something so you know these are you know pretty much one-time expenditures and i definitely support them um the trees i did happen to notice over the weekend that there's a couple of trees down in the parking lot behind memorial hall are those planned to be i don't know if you know off the top of your head about those couple of trees that if they're coming back or um so the trees in the city hall parking lot have been diseased for a couple of years we're watching them very carefully we don't want to cut them down unless we have to i think we had to cut one down there was not much left to it we're hoping they come back we don't have funding to do any type of fertilizing or any that type of revitalization
▶ 1:47:47 Monica C. Medeiros: of the tree canopy but um at this point we're carefully monitoring that situation i see those trees every day so something that and and thank you for finding some funds to to repair this wall between the fire station and a private owner i did have a chance to go out and view the the wall and it definitely is deteriorating um i have been told by the homeowner that sometimes the fire trucks though it's not all the time but if sometimes there's mutual aid agreements and things like that that there are sometimes trucks that park pretty close to the property line so i do think it you know i'm sure you will take that into your engineering um account that's that you know there's some pretty heavy weight load that's that's there
▶ 1:48:41 Monica C. Medeiros: i think it's important to do this and not wait too long because you know obviously we don't want the the wall to really fail but if it were to have to fail where there was a truck there that could you know cause real public safety issue if there was somebody that needed service we agree with the need we agree with the need and we're fortunate that we were able to have you know set aside the funding to start to solve the problem very good well i i do hope uh as well and i'm sure you will work with the homeowner and the fire department to you know find the best solution and um i did see that the wall that's there i i did not see any like drainage um and i know there is you know them because of the gradations in the ground level there it's certainly would
▶ 1:49:37 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: be something I would hope we'll see in a new wall there's a line there is a line identifies the train pipe so that was considered in the estimate excellent thank you very much and I this is not already a motion on the floor I move to recommend there's a motion to recommend for passage order 2018-190 second second uh made by alderman Medeiros seconded by alderman Boisselle on discussion alderman Letter gary beaton sorry i just had one quick question um following up on the conversation about the tree planting program am i correct then that the way that you prioritize the trees is really based on just when a work quarter is filed it wouldn't be based on for example the proximity to other trees or any sort of other variables there's we do two planting programs this type of program is just
▶ 1:50:37 service driven customer resident request driven so we'll go to the most aging one and then we'll go out we try to correct we try to select a species that fits the neighborhood or that fits the property and we look at they look at you know wires and proximity to sewer pipes and gas pipes and stuff like that the other way we plant trees is with our road program that's when we that's when we will select and areas with without tree canopy and we'll go in and add a tree even without a request and um and we try we address those plant things that way to try to get a nice uniform look when we walk away from a road program so it's possible then a property owner could bring to your attention a desire to have a tree that actually might meet the qualifications for
▶ 1:51:26 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: your roads program so that it might not have to wait in a queue okay that's great thank you well we just paved north and south high and i think there are four or five residents that will end up with trees through that program thank you motion has been made and seconded to recommend for passage all in favor aye any opposed the motion will be recommended for passage at our next full board meeting thank you thank you and finally order number 2018-191 transfer in the amount of forty two thousand five hundred and fifty dollars from various salary and wages accounts to various salary and wages accounts as set forth herein so this is a housekeeping order it's typical for this time of the year for our department the transfer request balances
▶ 1:52:18 deficits and surpluses that were created in the various budgets that you approved tonight the they were created due to employees who either transferred within working divisions resigned or retired we had one retirement early in the fiscal year or who were on workers comp we had a few workers comp issues when they're on workers comp they come off the public works budget and go on to the hr budget for a period of that of that time so it creates surplus and deficits and we use this time to balance all the accounts so they all finish um positive motion recommend for passage second we have a motion to recommend for passage made by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman Boisselle on discussion all in favor any opposed
▶ 1:53:15 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: that will be recommended for passage as well thank you mr shenna thanks everyone motion to adjourn madam chairman second we have a motion to adjourn made by alderman mortimer seconded by alderman Boisselle um on discussion i would just remind any public watching that next week on the fourth we do have our budget public hearing at 8 pm All in favor of adjournment? Aye. Any opposed? We are now adjourned. Thank you, everyone.