Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2019-05-09

Attendance

Manisha Bewtra present · Voting; Robert A. Boisselle present · Vice Chair; Scott M. Forbes present · Voting; Jennifer L. Lemmerman present · President/Ex Officio Member; Kate Lipper-Garabedian present · Chair; Shawn M. MacMaster absent · Voting; Monica C. Medeiros present · Voting; Peter D. Mortimer present · Voting; John N. Tramontozzi present · Voting; Francis X. Wright Jr. absent · Voting; Michael P. Zwirko present · Voting

Agenda

1. Call to Order (0:00)
2. Public Comment (0:22)
3. Orders (1:08)
4. ORDER-2019-85 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 in the amount of $86,662,987.61. (Eighty-Six Million, Six Hundred Sixty-Two Thousand, Nine Hundred Eighty-Seven Dollars and Sixty-One Cents). (1:16)
5. ORDER-2019-87 : Reauthorization of City of Melrose Revolving Funds table as adopted by City Ordinance June 18, 2018 and further authorized by Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 44, §53E ½. (28:00)
6. ORDER-2019-96 : Reappointment of Brian Donovan, 9 Morgan St., to the Human Rights Commission for a second full term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2022. (1:35:48)
7. ORDER-2019-97 : Reappointment of Rev. Jaron Green, 278 Main St., Apt. 4D, to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2022. (1:36:26)
8. Adjournment (1:36:48)

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MAY 9, 2019 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 Kate Lipper-Garabedian Chair Present Robert A. Boisselle Vice Chair Present Peter D. Mortimer Voting Present John N. Tramontozzi Voting Present Francis X. Wright Jr. Voting Absent Monica C. Medeiros Voting Present Scott M. Forbes Voting Present Michael P. Zwirko Voting Present Manisha Bewtra Voting Present Shawn M. MacMaster Voting Absent Jennifer L. Lemmerman President/Ex Officio Member Present

ORDER-2019-85 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 in the amount of $86,662,987.61. (Eighty-Six Million, Six Hundred Sixty-Two Thousand, Nine Hundred Eighty-Seven Dollars and Sixty-One Cents). Recommitted to Committee

ORDER-2019-87 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of City of Melrose Revolving Funds table as adopted by City Ordinance June 18, 2018 and further authorized by Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 44, §53E ½. Recommitted to Committee

ORDER-2019-96 Appointment Reappointment of Brian Donovan, 9 Morgan St., to the Human Rights Commission for a second full term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2022. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 5/13/2019 1:11 PM Minutes Appropriations Committee May 9, 2019

ORDER-2019-97 Appointment Reappointment of Rev. Jaron Green, 278 Main St., Apt. 4D, to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2022. Recommend Passage Board of Aldermen City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 5/13/2019 1:11 PM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: The hour being 7.30 p.m. on Thursday, May 9th. I call to order the Appropriations Committee. This is a committee of the whole. I am Chairwoman Kate Lipper-Garabedian. I'm joined tonight by Vice Chair Boisselle and Alderman Peter Mortimer, John Tramontozzi, Monica Medeiros, Scott Forbes, Michael Zwirko, Manisha Bewtra, and President Lemmerman. Alderman McMaster wanted everyone to know he's already to miss tonight but he is with our Melrose public school students who are on their way to DC for the Memorial Day weekend in accordance with the open meeting law this meeting is being recorded and is being broadcast on MMTV and also on MMTV online at the summit also to open the floor for public comment I have a motion to open the floor for public comment made by

▶ 0:54 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: alderman Mortimer second and by alderman Forbes all in favor opposed this is the portion of the meeting where any member of the public can come forward to speak on any of the orders on our agenda tonight motion to close public comment madam chair second we have a motion to close public comment by alderman Mortimer and seconded by vice-chair Boisselle all in favor aye opposed public comment is now closed so we'll turn to our orders tonight our first order is order number two zero one nine dash eight five city of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2020 in the amount of 86 million six hundred and sixty two thousand nine hundred and eighty seven dollars and 61 cents and we have a number of department heads in attendance tonight to walk us through

▶ 1:38 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: their budget proposals motion to suspend the rules and you can bring up the proper officials second we have a motion to suspend the rules made by president Lemmerman and seconded by alderman Mortimer all in favor opposed okay we under rule suspension and our first department on our schedule is the Department of Health good evening thank you so much for being here I don't know if you want to have a few start out with a few comments or go straight to questions whatever you prefer I know you have a hearing yourself tonight yep we have a board meeting that's okay that's that's no problem so the Health Department budget is relatively stable over time there's no new concepts in the budget the changes in this year's budget are a couple of things I just wanted to

▶ 2:36 point out we have requested an additional school nurse who would be shared between the middle and the high schools we are we don't meet the Department of Public Health guidelines for staffing at the middle or the high school actually we need two more nurses to meet the staffing guidelines but this would be the first of the two positions to move towards that we are this year under a provisional approval from the Department of Public Health on our medication delegation because we don't meet the guidelines we've we've resubmitted our application for next year saying that we have requested an additional nurse to work towards meeting the guidelines and we're hoping that that good faith effort will allow us to at least keep our delegation for another

▶ 3:36 year so that is obviously the most major change financially and two other changes in medical supplies we this is the last year of a 10-year school nursing grant that we've had through the city of Medford that paid primarily for supplies for the school nurses including things like aed batteries and pads as they need to get replaced and some other equipment some professional development that grant is done this year we still need to be able to pay for those supplies so there's an additional $2,900 added to the budget to get us through next year and the other thing you'll see is a change in pest control traditionally we've been providing goose control measures at El Pond area for many many many years but it's been funded every year through the supplemental budget in

▶ 4:41 the fall so even though we know we're going to spend it every year it's never been part of our base budget but this year it's part of the base budget so that we won't have to come and ask for it in the fall and the other part of that is mosquito control which has been level funded for also many years is we've requested to be fully funded this year if you remember last summer Melrose was put on high alert for West Nile virus because we've been level funding that line item for so long we've no longer been able to treat all of our catch basins because obviously the cost of material and labor goes up so we've only been able to treat half the catch basins last year because of the emergency we got additional funds we treated all the catch basins but we we

▶ 5:34 John N. Tramontozzi: do need to keep that up especially with climate change there's more and more issues with vector diseases so we are requesting to to basically fully fund those line items everything else is you know essentially the same but I what what kind of diseases I missed the word you vector borne insect or borne insect borne every question I just didn't hear the word thank you vector vector the great word V isn't Victor ECT oh wow all right okay thank you Alderman Manisha well thank you thank you miss clay for coming in with your budget I got a question regarding the salary and wage item in the school regarding the school nurse is the school nurse that is coming on board is that paid out of your budget or is it the school budget all the school nurses are part of the health

▶ 6:24 John N. Tramontozzi: department they all work for the health department they're all funded through the health department except for the nurse at the Franklin School which is paid through the school department what's in his irrational reasoning I understand they're part of your employing their employees of the health department but is there a reason why they're being paid from the health budget as opposed to the school budget because they work for the city they don't work for the school department but are they in the schools at all well they're physically located in the schools but they are city employees not school department employees all right no that's fine I just want to clarify that that event some people in the public might question about the nurses good

▶ 7:06 thank you actually historically the middle and high school nurses worked for the school department and the elementary schools nurses worked for the Health Department which made no sense and so about ten years ago maybe maybe more we finally moved all the nurses to the same department why don't we just pay them all under the our budget then they are paid out of my budget except I thought you mentioned the school nurse at the except for the Franklin so she's paid from the school budget why is she paid out of the school budget Oh because until maybe last year the Franklin school was the was only the early education center which is my understanding self-funded float your own boat through the school department and so that's all the revenue that was able

▶ 7:57 to be devoted that's all they could afford it's now really an elementary school it has kindergarten and so we are requesting that the school department actually it's only been funded 30 hours a week and we are going to be requesting that the school department funded full-time 35 hours a week like all the other school nurses thank you alderman boys out good evening Ruth thank you for coming just looks like a change in coding for your particular categories here you went from a six digit to an eight digit code on professional services and medical supplies is there is there a reason for the change in the sick from six to eight digits yes but it's actually an auditing office answer but I'm happy to answer it if you want me to good evening thank you great

▶ 9:01 question um as we've done in the past with the facilities budget you'll see coding that is designed to isolate the school department cost from the city cost that is a we're doing the same thing here that is a patent you're going to see increasing as the years go on and the reason for that is twofold one is that for purposes of schedule one and schedule 19 which are your end of year reports for the school department required by uh by department of education we are to every year we have to report our expenditures both actual and budgeted and by coding the respective categories that apply in this case the school nurses for the school we're able to identify more efficiently and more effectively at the end of the year we have to turn our reports in

▶ 9:59 because it comes directly off of munis we don't have to do the exercise of extracting what portion was school versus what portion was city and you're going to see more and more of that because that's that plays a huge role in the calculation of your net school spending so we want to be sure crystal clear and very transparent that we're identifying as we go forward more and more of that cost directly in the budget just by a simple code change so that it's easy to pull it apart it's easy to print reports to extract it we have an audit every year just on that aspect alone so it's going to be very helpful for the auditors too now you mentioned that this was in the muni system that did the software have to be updated to accommodate

▶ 10:45 this new eight code digit no no so there's no extra charge at this point uh no it's uh absolutely to our advantage to do it that way okay thank you thank you thank you manager alderman's work go thank you madam chair thank you for being here this evening i just have a very quick question for you um can you uh explain a little bit more behind the asterisks about the regional tobacco coordinator uh position so um well i'll let you explain and then i'll follow okay so just for the people who are viewing at home viewing audience the aldermen have a chart that lists all the different positions within the health department and all the different funding sources one two three four five six seven eight so there's

▶ 11:34 eight different funding sources for the 19 staff and that spreadsheet kind of lays out who's where and how they get paid and we do this every year so the tobacco control position is grant funded through a regional grant that is awarded to Melrose for five communities and actually again that grant is ending this year but we have or no actually ended last year this is the first year of the new round of a 10-year grant for five communities and it's significantly less than it has been in the past and there is not enough funding for it to be full-time through the rest of this year or for next year so Malden and Medford because they're the bulk of our work because they're the communities of need have agreed to make up the difference so that so that will she'll be full-time

▶ 12:38 Michael P. Zwirko: next year this year where we're negotiating with the state health department they may actually be able to give us some additional funds but we haven't been we haven't been told definitely yet so either DPH will give us some additional funds and she'll be full time for the last two months or she may have to decrease a few hours to get us through the rest of the year so I know that we the city Melrose consider the vaping products tobacco products does the state consider those the same yes okay so there I mean the state is focused on addressing the meteoric rise of the vaping issues in public health because the issue the bottom issue is nicotine which is in both products and as long as you brought it up shameless plug next Wednesday night Senator Lewis

▶ 13:28 Michael P. Zwirko: and the Department of Public Health Commissioner Burrell are holding a listening session in Wakefield Wednesday night at 630 to specifically talk about vaping well and thank you for bringing that segue the reason I brought it up is because I attended the weeding through the myths seminar last week so it was a very eye-opening considering what the school department's dealing with in terms of this this epidemic so thank you for that my final question leading on the funding source for this this grant so what will we do next year if it's a 10-year grant but the amount of the grant is actually lower are we gonna we're gonna be in the same position you think yes so it's the same amount of every year which is only $60,000 which isn't very much money and of course the

▶ 14:11 salary goes up every year so that gap is going to grow every year and we identified that as an issue when we wrote the grant there wasn't any flexibility at the time as I said there seems to be some more flexibility at this point with them being able to give us some additional funds the state budget process is obviously in process one of the house is either the house of the Senate budget I can't remember which one actually has additional funding for tobacco control so that would make it more likely we could get a little bit more money but as I said Malden and Medford's health departments have are pretty sure that they would be able to fund the difference well good luck in those efforts and thanks for your time thank you thank you for being here I

▶ 15:03 Manisha Bewtra: really appreciate this chart with the staff and funding sources and again for those falling at home if you're looking at the attachments it's department 511 budget document 2 although the one you have tonight is updated oh that's updated I apologize so just so you know I don't know I just printed this out right before the meeting so I may have the updated one in front of me anyway but I really like this chart because it's nice to see how the different positions are funded I was curious what the ones mean are those one hour or is it one good question I was it's a format issue I I was trying to it means that they're full-time and they're entirely paid by that grant got it as you can see some positions are not full-time so for example the public health nurse is 14

▶ 15:54 Manisha Bewtra: hours by Melrose 11 hours by Wakefield so I tried to be clear about that other full-time positions like my own position is 65% by the Melrose budget 35% by the Wakefield budget and then I kind of gave up and just said one means that they're entirely paid by that grant got it I think later on if you can provide supplemental information in terms of the unless that is actually what is reflected in our budget document here the the amounts for the grants are those actually reflected in these numbers or no you have that's a municipal budget avenue right those are so really municipal so it would be great to just have that because I think it is nice to have the full picture of how the department is funded I mean how much each of the grants are yeah oh that's

▶ 16:49 Manisha Bewtra: easy yeah and because it's just nice to know and then I guess a follow-up question to that is who does the grant writing and how are those because those that that is a time-consuming process in and of itself writing the grants and maintaining them that would be me got it point of information the tobacco grant is $60,000 a year the mass in motion is $40,000 a year the regional substance abuse coordinator is a hundred thousand dollars a year the stop grant is forty thousand dollars a year that's it great so that's a significant amount of revenue that is brought into the department through grants and are those annual or I think some of them are more like three-year grants actually the State Health Department has moved to tenure grants okay which is really good

▶ 17:48 Manisha Bewtra: if you have one and really bad if you didn't get one and these the stop grant is a federal grant that's four years and the substance abuse coordinator is a state grant which I believe is five years I think great thank you for that information um the other question I had was I recall this time last year prior to the override we had talked about both school nurse staffing levels but also substitute nursing and I know that within the fiscal year I believe we had changed the hourly wage for substitute nurses I wanted to just get a sort of update on how that's working since then and what you're projecting out for this year and is that funded on the school side or is that through again through the department that's in the professional services line item it's

▶ 18:47 actually most of the professional services line item not all of it so yes we did increase the hourly rate from $20 an hour to $30 an hour which mayor inferno did it was actually I think one of the first things she did his mayor which was huge we're actually in relatively good shape for school nurse subs because we had a retirement last year and she has come back as a sub this year we also have another retirement at the end of this school year and she plans to be available as a sub and if we get this additional nurse for the middle and high school if we're in a crunch and we don't have a sub for the elementary school we have somebody who we can float over to an elementary school so that we shouldn't be in a position next year assuming we have the

▶ 19:37 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: other nurse that there's ever a day that there's not a full-time nurse in every school we've kind of had to fudge it a few times last year but we should actually be in good shape excellent thanks for those updates motion to include the updated table into the record second the updated table that we have in the record made by alderman warmer seconded by alderman Medeiros all in favor any opposed I just have two quick questions it's great to hear that that we are able to sort of budget for pest control at the outset of a fiscal year instead of waiting to make up the difference in the fall last year when we met just to talk about the budget there was a concern about vermin and rats specifically and I haven't heard as much about that lately but I'm just wondering

▶ 20:26 is that still a big problem in the city and what's and there we still sort of addressing it and the ways that you described last year anything new there i thought i'd get away without talking about rats tonight um well we are starting to get some complaints but again it's really just recently started to get warm it's not any different than the other communities around us it's it's not a it's not a local issue it's actually a country all across the country issue nobody really knows why most of the Rodent control efforts are done on private property. So it doesn't cost the city we have had some infestations on public property where Public Works works really hard with private contractors and That's the only time it really costs

▶ 21:25 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: the city money the only other time is sometimes we've brought in a Licensed pest control operator to do a community meeting and we've paid them to do that usually out of the revolving fund so I would anticipate that we will it will be an issue this summer like it has been the last few summers and part of your staff am i right that you do some you inspect and look at dumpsters for example in our commercial districts and yep we do that they are inspectors out anyway but in addition to her usual rounds she she has a basically a Main street route that she checks particular areas that have been chronic issues okay great and my last question is we also have as part of our public the public record um a large spreadsheet that breaks

▶ 22:16 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: down um salaries by individual and i noticed for for your salaries you know we can see health director health inspector substance abuse coordinator so some of these salaries am i right are are actually provided not through uh provided by grants is that correct so the source of the funding may not be clear or is this all money that is from our tax dollars good question none of those that are listed there are paid by a grant okay the director's salary and the two inspector salaries are partially paid by wakefield and that's on your spreadsheet got it so the full amount is is shown but then that the reimbursement goes back into the general fund okay so we can none of anything that we see in health again is from tax dollars but some of them might be we were getting

▶ 23:18 Scott M. Forbes: reimbursed from Wakefield right okay thank you so much any other questions motion to move the bottom line thank you I'll be quick I just want to say thank you for the questionnaire provides another layer of information that I know we started doing these a couple of years ago but it answers a lot of the questions and identifies some of the gaps in terms of what we had last year in terms of what we are projecting for this year though I may have missed it but the professional services line on $9,000 can you just explain what that is because that looks like a new line item under contractual no it's it's not a new line item it's the same line item some of it it's primarily well it's the goose control it is substitute school nurses and I believe that's the line item that

▶ 24:14 Scott M. Forbes: alderman Boisselle was asking about because it's broken out now so that some of it will be directly attributed to the school foundation budget at the end of of the year okay that's fine and that was the but that that's the reason why there's a new a-digit number on there as well right okay all right and then my my other question just because this is the first the first apartment that we're talking about in terms of budget if I could just have this DeLaRusso just come up and give us the summation of all the different categories that we're looking at here because there are about four or five different columns that have 2019 on them so it's always a good idea just to have you come out here and explain it

▶ 24:51 first and foremost so we can go right down the line without having to wash rinse and repeat certainly and thank you and through the chair um everyone i believe should have this description um of each column for purposes of this evening um first column is quite frank what it says it's fiscal year 18. this was the amount that was actually expended from from the prior fiscal year year. The second one, it says original budget 2019. This figure represents the original amount voted by the Board of Aldermen for the current fiscal year. The third one is the 2019 revised budget. This figure represents the adopted budget in any automatic transfers and or appropriations which would include increase or decreases to the budget. The fourth

▶ 25:43 column is fiscal 2019 actual this figure represents the actual amount of the expenditures and outstanding encumbrances for the current fiscal year as of the date of the printout so on this printout here the before you it's on the left-hand column which is say 0 5 0 2 2 0 1 9 so those acts that are actual column represents the expenses as of that date obviously as time goes forward the expenses will change and i would expect that the department heads would bring with them the most current when they do go before you to discuss their budget to bring it up to date fiscal 19 again actual this figure represents the actual amount of the expenditures and outstanding encumbrances for the current fiscal year again as the date of the printout which i just said

▶ 26:40 does not include expenditures or outstanding encompasses from prior fiscal years fiscal 2019 projection this figure represents the adopted budget in any automatic transfers and appropriations which would include increases or decreases to the budget fiscal 2020 the mayor this figure represents the amount proposed by the mayor for the upcoming fiscal year in this case fiscal year 2020 and the right hand column is the actual percentage change which is calculated by dividing the new proposed budget for fiscal 2020 by the original budget amount of the current fiscal year of fiscal year 2019. but thank you for asking this question because that comes up every year and it's good to bring it up out front yep that's good to get it out of the way first and

▶ 27:28 Scott M. Forbes: and foremost so and then 2020 projections you know obviously there are discussions with department heads looking at past data projecting for future you know I know we always see is the numbers in the cherry sheets but there's a lot more layers behind these numbers am I correct yeah okay thank you very much thank you thank you we have a motion to recommend me by alderman Mortimer and seconded by vice chair Boisselle any further discussion all in favor thank you madam chair I'm just moving to the next piece I'd like to make a motion that we move out of order to the following order briefly 2019 87 that we may address the revolving fund involving Health Department fund number 2659 second the motion to take business out of order we have a motion

▶ 28:23 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: to take out of order that the third agenda item so that we can speak to the revolving fund related to the health department made by President Lemmerman and second by Alderman Mortimer all in favor aye opposed okay we'll do that so order number two zero one nine dash eighty seven reauthorization of city of Melrose revolving funds table as adopted by city ordinance June 18th 2018 and further authorized by Massachusetts general laws chapter 44 section 53 e and a half so the revolving fund is a long-standing fund that the health department has had it basically is a like a pass-through account so it's primarily used for our flu clinics so that the reimbursement that we get through insurance goes into that fund and then we use that money to pay for

▶ 29:17 the vaccine the following year we there's some smaller programs that go through it like when we sell bike helmets we purchase it through the revolving fund and when we sell the bike helmets the money goes back in and the concept behind it is it it gives us a little bit of flexibility to do some other self funding programs so we have done some we've done a lot of training for the restaurants the last couple of years and really are the only cost has been the cost of the books so we pay for the books out of the revolving fund we charge the restaurants for the books it goes back into the revolving fund so it it's really a financial mechanism for us to be able to do some more programming motion to accept the revolving fund second you have a motion to accept the

▶ 30:11 revolving fund made by alderman Mortimer and seconded by president Lemmerman all in favor thank you for being here tonight so would we go back now to item number to order 2019 dash 85 our next apartment is the pension of retirement thank you for being here tonight good evening share anything or just want to go right to questions great two questions thank you madam chair thank you for being here um I noticed that there was a excuse me there was an attachment on the funding schedule could you just speak to that briefly for to kind of not only explain the document but where we'll end up and I believe 2038 yeah so 2020 you can see that's actually where we are right now and this is basically just spreading the

▶ 31:17 Michael P. Zwirko: payments over time based on an amortization schedule by law we have to have it fully funded by 2040 and as you can see we are two and a half years ahead of time on this schedule but we do do this every two years we have a new valuation of the system done by our actuaries which then the board votes on a new funding schedule every two years I'll note that 2038 is the year I'm retiring hopefully so I appreciate this document you know I know that for a lot of communities across the Commonwealth this is something that really they've struggled with over time and it actually has been quite a problem and for us to at least hack away at this in these chunks is really commendable the job that's that's occurring not only in your office but also in the office of the

▶ 32:05 Michael P. Zwirko: auditor so you know these are these are these are large chunks and and to be ahead of where we're mandated is also greatly appreciated so thanks for the work and I just I wanted you just to explain the document because it's helpful to know that we're not only on target we're actually ahead of it so thank you madam chair one maybe for the for folks at home and maybe around the horseshoe can you just talk briefly about the degree to which pension obligations are state requirements as opposed to what what is locally of it you know flexibilities so that's all state mandated all the laws we all go by the same rules hundred and four retirement boards in the state all the cities towns state teachers retirement all under the same rules under chapter

▶ 32:53 Monica C. Medeiros: 32 mandated by law thank you welcome thank you and just sort of follow up on that if you could just explain so are all city of Melrose employees included in the pension system and you know for instance I believe that the teachers have their own system right so if you could just maybe touch on that sure so current regulations are 20 hours or more per week employees are required to be in the retirement system if you are a teacher under under that you're certified to be a teacher you go to the mass teachers retirement system everybody else 20 hours or more go into the Mellor's retirement board thank you and and the retirement system this is just for pensions only it has nothing to do with do you manage the health insurance payments already the health

▶ 33:42 Monica C. Medeiros: insurance is administered by the Human Resources City Department but I do take it from the retirees pay because I do pay them monthly so I do coordinate and work with them as well to deduct those payments out of their monthly check otherwise we see those costs in the health contractual correct um could you just talk a little bit about um any relationship or back and forth between the city the city budgets in your office are there different fun different anything other than pension that is paid for out of your office so my office is me and my assistant and we are paid directly out of the the retirement board's budget thank you no indirect cost so we do have we do have some indirect costs we do have a portion because I do work with the Human

▶ 34:31 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Resources Department the city the retirement board does pay a portion of the manager and director salary as well as the city solicitor and his assistant as well thank you thank you okay motion to recommend the bottom line of this budget for passage you have a motion to recommend made by alderman Mortimer and seconded by vice-chair Boisselle all in favor aye opposed thank you so much for being here tonight you're answering our questions our next apartment is the Department of Recreation thank you both for being here I don't know if you want to make any opening remarks I think our budget for the Recreation Department is pretty straightforward I think that every year we come up here and it gives

▶ 35:31 me an opportunity to crow about the folks that we work with Frank included the recreation department is one of the gems of the city I think and in a lot of senses and I know we had some concerns before the override when went through about how we would be impacted and that type of thing but I was always confident that the way Frank runs his department it wouldn't be a problem from the older folks you know I get calls and for me the litmus test is I get calls from the older folks you know from the Lawson's and the Murphy's we're talking about pickleball that Frank responds to and then from the younger kids the William says the Carolina Natalie about the programs are involved with everybody satisfied with the Recreation Department so that I think that as far as as far as

▶ 36:22 presentation goes here I think Frank and in the work that he does for the recreation upon for the city of Melrose speaks for itself pretty much thank you could you just talk a little bit about how many different programs you offer and maybe how many people are involved in participate and do you offer scholarships yes so so we we offer year-round programming I believe we offer somewhere best best I can say is it's got to be three 350 plus programs that we offer plus all the community events throughout the year on average we get anywhere from eleven to twelve thousand participants in the city some of that is over lax you know sometimes we have somebody do a multiple program but we have very high attendance in the city we have a great participation rate

▶ 37:23 and the residents just gotten very good at looking through our stuff and finding stuff they're interested in and just as Bill mentioned we always have new programming coming out it's not the same thing getting rolled out so we really look to the community to kind of bring up new programming ideas new trends and that's kind of what we try to offer collectively in terms of scholarships we offer scholarships about 150 a year on average give or take but we try to give a scholarship or partial scholarship to anybody who's having a financial hardship anybody who may be on the free or reduced lunch program at the in the school system and we really try to cater to any Norris residents payment plans

▶ 38:10 Monica C. Medeiros: are also common for some of our programming that that somebody might be looking to set up so so if there's any residents or parents that are out there that are thinking you know oh they just they should look in and they should reach ask you yeah and not just ask by themselves out because in the budget Monica yeah there's four thousand dollars you know that we put in the budget but I know we've done more than that yeah over the years for sure we we've we've never turned anybody away for whatever the reason might be that's always been our puss we always find a way to make it work whether it's with the vendor or our staff or whatever it might be it always it always works out thank you and we're all good all good reviews out there in the street so thank

▶ 38:56 Michael P. Zwirko: you very much thanks thank you yeah and I should point out that this is all basically level funded yeah all the men's work go thank you madam chair it's really just a comment you know I I see here that you have a bullet point for job creation for Melrose teens and I know from seeing some of the programs that it's it's that's one of the things I like about it the most right not only do we keep it in-house and gives the the teenagers an opportunity to participate and you know work during the summer but for the younger kids some of the the teens that participate in the recreation program they're kind of like local celebrities in terms of their the athletes that they'll see at the sporting events and things so to see them actually then take a job in the rec

▶ 39:38 department over the summer it means a lot you know it's to talk to that point it's it's great it used to be dominantly summer and because our programming keeps expanding we're now hiring Melrose high school students year-round which comes with its own challenges don't get me wrong but it's wonderful because of those those like we run a flag football program in the fall that has 300 youth participants 300 plus youth participants we use probably 20 high school athletes for the most part to help us run those programs and that's exactly it and then the flag football jerseys which look like Melrose high school jerseys they wear those to the games and we work with the athletic department and it's they do

▶ 40:22 they be kind of become bigger than you know it's great athletes it's fun to see you know it's and just the interactions of having high school students interacting with youth is it's just a great relationship to be building on and it just keeps rolling from year to year and now we're getting to the point I've been here 11 years now where you start to see those kids who are going through the programs are now volunteering and then getting hired by us and it just kind of keeps that's a theater system you know I said Joseph Lautner who's our recreation coordinator started as a participant then became a volunteer then got hired by us then this college internship with us and eventually end up getting hired by us and is working full-time as two of us is the two

▶ 41:10 full-time employees and it's so I've watched him go through and now with us it's it's it's great well thank you for that I mean it that's just the way the program grows but it's also in-house just really it's a great benefit to the kids so the only thing I would ask is and I know this consideration in the administration but if you get out and want to talk to Frank about any program there's no question he's willing to listen except for the fact that his office is the size of this desk if there's any way to expand that in the future that would be fine we'll get you a modular without a doubt but on on a serious note and the point I was making earlier was just like as things progress as things you know change if there's any programs anybody you know in

▶ 41:58 the city of Melrose thinks that we should consider on the recreation side Frank has a unique ability to do it he has always done that and and I think it would be something that would benefit the community for sure but at the same time don't don't hesitate to ask we may say no but it's a great thing well you know you mentioned earlier pickleball and that's one of the fastest growing sports it's unbelievable it is intense waiting for the Quidditch League it's amazing when you see 70 year old athletes beating 45 year old athletes and that's that's where it's kind of becomes fun thank you thank you that's all the questions I had president Lemmerman thank you madam chair just super briefly I wanted to also highlight and and thank you very much for one

▶ 42:48 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: point here in your questionnaire which was your your efforts to revamp the scheduling for working parents I am a parent who works full-time my kids only two so I haven't experienced it with the rec department yet but I have already experienced her missing out on a lot of great programming because I can't be there to bring her and she has to be in daycare so it's it's very difficult to be a working parent and we have a lot of them in in Mauro's and this is truly I I just want to really highlight that making that extra effort really means a lot so thank you for doing that thank you can I ask just one question I noticed on again this is in the public record thank you for providing this information you mentioned that in the past year you worked with DPW and the

▶ 43:34 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: public schools on increased security policies and procedures and I just like to hear a little bit about that given that we've had a couple school shootings in the last couple weeks and I know that this board has appropriated money to the school department to enhance some of the security at the different facilities yeah it's well the Recreation Department doesn't have a facility of its own like community center or even parks by the parks department school and DBW run the schools and Memorial Hall has their building so we really heavily rely on partnership like it's it's all partnership in order to use a facility offer a program or an event to the residents with that with the events that have been happening we've been very we've been working with the school in

▶ 44:19 DPW to increase security through supervision through surveillance because we're in there sometimes I don't know in the wintertime we're in there 945 at night on a school night with some of our older groups and when you start to get those later hours and it's that's when we just really want to make sure that we're covering security bases so that we don't have any suspicious activity going on so so by really sitting down with those two departments and making sure that we're doing everything we can do while we're in the facilities to make sure we don't have people going into facilities when we don't want them to be in there when our participants and our families are in there that's great but we don't want just it to be an open door of everybody coming in and out and

▶ 45:04 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that's that's what we've been really working on and that includes the weekends too is just making sure we have policies and procedures and heightened security to counteract all that okay well thanks for being attuned to that and also working with across the city departments thank you any other questions motion to recommend this budget for passage second we have a motion to recommend the budget for passage by maybe alderman Mortimer and seconded by vice-chair Boisselle all in favor opposed would you like to recommended would you like to address the revolving account yes so do we need a motion for that or can we move right over to number we've been been the suspension so we we've already approved the idea of moving over to the revolving

▶ 45:50 funds table which is our agenda item number three so do you want to speak briefly to your revolving fund yes so so the the general fund for the most part covers maybe 15 to 20 percent of our budget as it fluctuates depending on on the programming and the revenue we collect each year on the rec revolving account is our main way of using revenue and expenses to as Ruth was saying to self fund all of our programming whenever we create a whenever we create program we try to make sure that that program is at least gonna be breaking even or close to it so so that's how we use our record evolving fund is to just make sure all of our programs are self-sustaining and that's why our revolving fund works that way for us and and more importantly as we've tweaked it

▶ 46:47 over the years sometimes people thought it was a little bit too expensive for a particular program and not a particular program but we've always taken that into consideration and looked at it and I think that the fact that it is self-funding at this point in time is reflective of the fact that and without the complaints that the fact that it's it's good value for the folks in the city of Melrose for sure I think but some may disagree but I we haven't heard those you know complaints on a regular basis I think Frank has done a remarkable job as far as that goes thank you Alderman's Marco thank you so just to that cap given that the program is growing do you feel that the cap is at an adequate level there should it be raised I mean you're comfortable with it

▶ 47:35 Monica C. Medeiros: where it is right now we're good with where it is we actually raised it I believe last year two years ago we raised it a little bit higher I'm just because we were getting close but as of right now we would need a significant push to get that to get that up higher so I think we're gonna be okay for okay maybe a couple years yeah thank you and really touched on my question but just to say that this revolving account has cap of $450,000 so this is this is by far biggest revolving account that we have and it's and so it's good to know that we you feel comfortable where the level is just could you just talk a little bit about the procedures of like how you handle the cash coming in and going out and what kind of controls you have with operations sure I would say at

▶ 48:32 this point probably 90% of our registrations are done online so that that's a really great checks check and balance the the rest is usually by check we get very little cash in our office but it's so we do weekly deposits we have a safe in our operations that we have safe in our office and we do weekly deposits which takes up most of the office so so yeah maybe I'm making the same point yes so so we do like I said it's not much that comes to our office but as purchase or as residents stop down or ups that's where we do those transactions right at our office door and and then that's kind of how we can handle that but there's always a registration form that matches the funds that come in and there's always once that we get it on a form it goes into

▶ 49:23 our online system that we enter manually so there's always a running total and checks and balances no we're able to always cross-reference that per program to make sure that we have the right amount collected for that program thank you thank you motion I recommend this revolving fund second passage we have a motion to recommend the revolving fund made by alderman Mortimer and seconded by alderman Forbes all in favor aye thank you for being here tonight thank our next department is number 693 the sailor and soldiers memorial building good evening my name is lou izzy i'm a member of the board of trustees i wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight i'll be brief but um i'm pinch hitting here for our chairman uh mary sexton

▶ 50:31 who unfortunately wasn't able to make it here tonight so with respect to my opportunity I just wanted to take a moment to express to the board you know our as trustees our appreciation for all that you do you know for the gem that is Memorial Hall we consider that to be a very special place as I know all of you do and the fact that we have Kathy as our executive director is something that we take great pride in because we feel as though she does a terrific job in operating that facility to the best of her ability and I think that over the years that she's been with us she's proven to be quite a terrific asset so I just wanted to have the opportunity while I'm here because I don't know when next time i'd be invited i thought that i'd take the opportunity to give her the kudos that she

▶ 51:31 deserves so thanks for that thank you for being here and we have public comment every meeting so you're welcome back anytime okay thank you do you want to add anything at this point or you would want to turn a question she should end there well i did prepare something um well first off i'd like to show my appreciation to everybody here that this is the budget that is before you as opposed to the budget i had a turn in before april 2nd which had a 37 reduction in it and would have forced the doors of memorial hall to only be open part-time and personally i think that would have been a huge loss for the city so thank you very much just to update you like to let you know in fiscal year 19 we're on track to host 302 events um some of our customers we now have three boxing

▶ 52:26 organizations that we host events for word has spread we have various organizations for example new one we had melrose high school had a wrestling tournament there this year we have several local private music schools that now use our facility for their concerts we have over 12 dance companies that use our facility all year now in addition to the recitals and rehearsals they use them they use it for dance competition rehearsals and for now fundraisings for their dance teams we had obviously the winters farmers market we have our weekly Melrose rotary meetings that I love the annual bridge trivia be the Melrose youth ballet uses our facility for their rehearsals for the Nutcracker as well as their performance for the Nutcracker we have a

▶ 53:13 partnership with the rec program that we've had frank and i have had since we first came and we have a summer robotics program this year we're expanding it to three weeks because it's so successful in july and of course we have our beloved merrill symphony orchestra that rehearses there every monday night and their five concert series for fiscal year 20 as of today this morning we have booked 205 events for next year on an extremely positive note I would like to let you know that there was a group of citizens that got together and formed an organization called the Friends of Malwa's Memorial Hall and the sole purpose of this nonprofit organization is to fundraise for projects repairs and items to Memorial Hall that fall outside the scope of the

▶ 54:02 City of Melrose budget which is fabulous Joan Ford Mongeau is the president Joan Cassidy is the treasurer Judy Clark is the secretary as well as 15 other board members and the friends organization as per their bylaws and this is from their bylaws will work in concert with the Board of Trustees of Memorial Hall to determine the funding needs so basically the Board of Trustees has submitted a wish list to them of what we need assistance with and of course all the projects will be executed as per chapter 30b massachusetts state procurement laws and follow you know be handled by the city of melrose employees that's it any questions alderman forbes thank you um obviously as a participant in many of the events at memorial

▶ 54:49 Scott M. Forbes: hall i'd like to say thank you for all you do uh it is a gem in the city of melrose uh which leads me to my question about the 6 200 that's allocated for building repairs i know we just briefly talked about the uh friends memorial hall group being organized which is an outstanding uh creative measure in order to keep that building up to par but if you could just talk about the condition of the building and just in a summarize you know the the critical needs um or any type of projects that you plan on having uh done in the next either six months to a year i don't know if you've been playing that far down the road but it'd be helpful if we could hear it um the building repair budget here just covers repairs that happen accidentally and you know

▶ 55:34 during the normal course of the year for example a toilet breaking or the elevator broke and it was on a Saturday night they had to come out on a Saturday night to repair it that was a $2,000 bill to repair it when the repairs to the building in general the first thing the leaks in the building have to be identified and determined and that is presently being worked on it's been a there's a study going on to determine specifically where the leaks are coming from and what we need to do to repair it and the cost the once the leaks are done then we can start looking at what projects need to be done because until you fix the lease there's no sense in fixing the wallpaper in the GA our room I know that like the rotary every week it breaks their heart to sit in there

▶ 56:16 and see the wallpaper coming down but until we fix the leaks there's no sense in fixing the ceiling or fixing the wallpaper the general condition of the building is good except for like the steps need a little bit of repair on the front from wear and tear the the building is now being used more than it ever has been the HVAC system is being run so the plaster is drying out so when you look at the wall you see cracks but it's because the buildings being used more we did repair we had an emergency repair to the ceiling and that cost $8,000 to repair just the middle section of the ceiling because it's a historical building we can only get certain people in to repair it as soon as the studies are done then we can determine what what prioritize and determine what happens

▶ 57:04 Scott M. Forbes: and then also do you have any like local really as far as storage I know we probably have a number of local either artifacts or things that we would deem to be very valuable from a local level that represent our history and how we tell our story in terms of where we came from and where we are now so those things properly stored right now well to the extent I suppose that they could be properly stored they're stored on-site they secured they're locked and you know one of the goals of the Board of Trustees is to at some point would you know with the help of the friends organization hopefully would be to be able to preserve those artifacts in a in a proper way and to restore those that need restoring unfortunately as you can well imagine funding is always an issue

▶ 57:54 for things like that but to the extent that we have possession of treasures really is what we consider them to be we do the best that we can by storing them within our facility but certainly more could be done there's no question about it I think everyone here has attended events there obviously and you can see the condition of the GAR room and you know various areas throughout Memorial Hall that could use restoration and care and you know that is in the forefront of our minds as it is for everyone that else everyone else that visits uh a facility that we'd like to be able to at some point in time begin to address um not just the the facility itself but also the artifacts that we have in our possession and appreciate that and that's why it's important

▶ 58:48 Michael P. Zwirko: to have that dialogue so we know that there is a critical need as far as making a long-term investment in that building yes so i know that's something that all of us can sit there and know that it's just simply the right thing to do so right i appreciate your uh being here tonight thank you so much for everything you do thank you alderman Search thank you madam chair um alderman forbes alluded to it so i'll speak to it i had the opportunity to speak to um our dpw director john shena today regarding the feasibility study so we're actually i'm on the committee that is working on the feasibility study later this month we will go over the draft rfp make any changes to that as necessary we hope to have a firm in over the summer and then by the

▶ 59:34 Michael P. Zwirko: fall hopefully by the end of the summer really late september um that report will be finished and the feasibility study will be complete um i i know also that you received some uh one-time monies from the state and that's that was on work that's the work that you alluded to on on the leaks right and repointing is that correct yeah well right now there was an engineer was brought i'm working with the planning department is actually doing that and i'm just you know is it done yet is it done yet um but they brought in an engineer brought in an engineer who did is presently doing an assessment of the building to determine where the leaks are coming from um because i don't think it's all the leak the roof i think it's some of the facades the joints

▶ 1:00:18 Michael P. Zwirko: the exterior masonry masonry that's where i think some of the leaks come from but i don't um but um that is presently being done the money has not been released yet that's still in the process of being released but she started the study so that when the money gets released we can just get it done so i mean you know i'm really prefacing that there will be more to come in the next three to four months on this feasibility study and we really do hope to have that that firm in there over the summer so the report can be completed by the fall thank you i appreciate that update yeah yeah and then the um you know the i don't think that there's anyone that's more passionate with their job than you kathy um you know when i you saw me outside uh last week and

▶ 1:01:00 Michael P. Zwirko: you're banging on the windows talking about how much this building is you know as as you said mr is a jewel but yes i mean it's it's true i mean it's you're just so passionate about it so it's nice to see that and it helps sell the building for sure um i had another um just a comment that i wanted to make to the trustees that you know i think that they sit in a fiduciary role and they take that role very seriously and it was nice to see them um with respect to their role kind of honor the needs that the building has so i know that you know you make some tough decisions especially over years of not having to make increases but we know that it's it's it's for funding those programs to ensure that the building and the facility that they're using

▶ 1:01:45 is being addressed for all the wear and tear that comes to it as well as the services that are provided through it so i just wanted to thank you and the rest of the trustees for their role and the decisions that they make i appreciate it i think i think i can speak on behalf of the trustees thank you for that but also that we consider it to be a distinct privilege and honor to be able to serve not just the community of melrose but also to be stewards of that building which means so much to so many um and we we take that to heart but thank you that's all the questions i have not a chair for autumn and mortimer thank you very much chairman Letter garapedia i too would like to thank you it's a very big building it's tough to manage it's tough

▶ 1:02:29 Peter D. Mortimer: to bring it up to financial equilibrium because it's so big it's been a problem since i started 18 years ago to keep things uh on track and that's that's been addressed here and you're doing a fantastic job the trustees and you as well ms pigott parota doing a fabulous job to balance um preservation of the building revenue produced and trying to bring those as close together and realizing and and i too am very happy that we didn't have to make any drastic cuts to memorial hall because it's such a wonderful building and that macro statement aside i'd like to ask about before i became an alderman they built out the back of the building to accommodate the big organ that they have there it was a project of jim milano he was always

▶ 1:03:28 Peter D. Mortimer: trying to get that because he was an avid piano and organ player and I see that it's still there and I went to I don't go as often as I might like but when I go to the concerts I went to that final one I see of course they have all the instruments they have and it's a soundstage which means sometimes when people are up there it's great for music and then it's been updated the acoustics a little bit to assist with plays and and we've had the amazing events that we just had the family feud and we have the trivia be there great community events for charities for the rotary for one and the bridge for another so it's it is a building that works hand-in-hand with the community but what I haven't seen with a lot of the events is the big

▶ 1:04:23 organ still functional I think it is oh it's very much fun I just don't know who has the capabilities to play it I haven't heard I haven't heard anybody play that organ in a long since Jim Milano has passed you know mayor Milano used to come down and play like at least once every two months he would just come down and play it right he'd work out he used to come down and play him I'd get to sit and listen to a concert um the MSL uses it every December oh they are every holiday pops concert they use it I have had one or two events where as he said there's only certain people that we're gonna allow to touch that organ because we're not just gonna let a kid start playing that organ so right that

▶ 1:05:05 professional organist for example I had a wedding who her best friend was an organist from California and flew in and he played the organ as she walked in the building people just don't tend to use that organ as much in their repertoire because it's just not what they do however at this moment it also has a couple of pipes missing and broken and there I just got a quote from the person who maintains the organ and there is a fund that was set up by John Slayton in 1917 when they were gonna set up and it has $10,000 I believe in it but we can't touch the principle of it we can only spend the interest and we just got a proposal and the Board of Trustees went through the proposal but which items on

▶ 1:05:47 the repair list can be done with the money the interest from the organ so that is going to be worked on hopefully at the end of the summer when I when his schedule allows because there's not many people that can do it and then maybe I have talked there are several people that have asked me if we could do I would love to do the old-fashioned Phantom of the Opera movie with the organ playing but we can't do it until we get a lot of it like when they play the organ like the person that plays it for the MSO knows which notes don't work and he can work around it but presently that's it is fully functional and people want to do it and that is built right into the wall is if you look at the stage behind the stage there's two doors the left one's a fake one the one on the

▶ 1:06:30 Peter D. Mortimer: right has a room that you go in that has all the mechanics for the organ and then a law all along the back if you walk in the back of the stage all the pipes are there and then there are pipes in the wall between the box seats you know the ladies are that the box seats in the middle there are pipes there because there's an organ motor in the basement below that yeah I saw that a long time ago even before I was an alderman when Mayor Milano was the mayor he was he insisted that they build something that was high quality and then he'd come down and practice and I'm glad to hear they do at least use it the MSO for the that one concert every year it was used three times this year because they used it for

▶ 1:07:09 Peter D. Mortimer: the Star Wars the introduction of Star Wars they used that organ at this last concert at the family concert all right shows how much I know about music I heard the concert I was there and you let me play the piano to play happy birthday at rotary every week but I don't plan on touching the organ that's that's too much but that is kind of on the wish list there's a few broken pipes and well we we just got a proposal from the gentleman and I believe it was prioritized in terms of you know not just what we could afford based on that on that fund but also which repairs could help to improve the functionality of the organ the most so those are the ones that we approved yeah because that is that is a world-class piece of musical instrumentation the thing is

▶ 1:07:58 Monica C. Medeiros: giant it's like almost like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or something that is that is one serious huge organ that you have there that's it's it's impressive you know you could continue to practice and maybe someday you could graduate from happy birthday on the piano too that's it I'll rock the whole rock the whole Memorial Hall thank you very much appreciate it thank you thank you I appreciate that I think a lot of things have been touched upon however I just so I was looking back in my notes from last year and we were talking about the roof and is it this is the same study that okay so we just got funding for it from the state okay senator Lewis put in my an earmark with the state budget for

▶ 1:08:47 that particular item okay and there is a fund that's from every ticket that sold that and just if you could maybe give me an update to what's in it the restoration fund yes the restoration fund so that that does predate my involvement with the Board of Trustees but as I think everyone knows that for each ticket sold there's one dollar that is contributed to the restoration fund by the purchasers of that ticket and so that fund is used most often to make repairs to the building or to restore things that we have within our possession that need restoration when there are no funds available from the city to do so for instance the repairs to the ceiling that Kathy referred to earlier were paid from the restoration fund which is a little bit of a

▶ 1:09:46 misnomer because it's it's not just to restore things it's to I believe the order has language in it that says basically the funds are to be used for the benefit of Memorial Hall and so very often there are things that arise that require repair or restoration so forth and so we appropriate funds from that restoration fund in order to do so we were fortunate enough most recently to receive a bequest through an estate that significantly enhanced that fund for us and so at this point in time Kathy I don't know what the exact balance is but it's it's a higher than it's ever been before so that's going to help us with some of the things that you were referring to Alderman Forbes with respect to the our ability to safeguard those artifacts and those those things

▶ 1:10:42 that we have at the building that are in our care basically we've just see you dumb I received a letter and it's 52 thousand dollar check I almost passed out but there was 48 or 49 thousand so that's it has to go because it was that the way the trust read it was deemed to the Board of Trustees of Memorial Hall so I brought it to the trustees meeting and the only fund under their purview is the restoration fund so that's why they accepted it and put it in there so what is the balance right now as of today is 105,000 because of that 52,000 but the board would like to take that money and do something very specific with that part of it in honor of the person that gave it to us but this is very recent

▶ 1:11:33 Monica C. Medeiros: grateful for extremely grateful to the Swenson family extremely grateful it we it came as a total surprise I literally got the letter in the mail and you know in the check and it was like what do I do with this and definitely have to echo the comments here and thank you for all you do and all your staff and it's always very hard to be in that hall it's always you know and and then all of a sudden here's Kathy happy and smiling always and and taking good care of all less but yeah so we greatly appreciate that I'm so excited about the friends group and what that will mean for the future they would like to comment on that I do have a staff of four people and I I'm not a one-man operation over there by no means and I for gentlemen over there that they work as a team and

▶ 1:12:19 Robert A. Boisselle: they're the ones that are there cleaning resetting they work extremely hard to make sure that building is clean after every single event and reset up for the customers and one of them actually let me into a little bit of the the space under the little office they may have seen some of those artifacts thank you vice chair boys on Kathy in the questionnaire that was filled out there was a section here concerning fees it says that the fees haven't been increased since 2004 that's good 15 years and I guess the recommendation has come up that the rehearsal fee will go up to $250 in an elimination of the 20% discount for nonprofit organizations now have your 12 dance companies your 10 music companies and other nonprofit groups that are signing up for fiscal 20

▶ 1:13:22 have they been informed of these increases no the increases just occurred last week yeah okay so will they be informed of some sort I think well the Board of Trustees voted on May 1 to undertake those changes to the rental agreement that you've just referred to and I think I can speak on behalf of the board that we you know we did so because as you properly noted the fees at Memorial Hall haven't been changed in 15 years they haven't increased and I don't know if there's anybody here that could point to one thing in our lives that has not increased in cost and in 15 years so part of and you know I've been on the board for several years at this point and I you know I'll take some responsibility for not voting to increase fees up until this point but I

▶ 1:14:21 think our rationale has been that we you know we view the Memorial Hall facility as a not just a treasure but a treasure for the city of Melrose and for the citizens of Melrose and it's given the size given the the the economics of that building it's unlikely that it'll ever support itself or sustain itself based upon the revenues that are generated Kathy's done a great job and working to bring in new revenue and and that's wonderful but each year as you know there is a gap between what Memorial Hall is able to generate in terms of income and what the operating costs are and and that gap is funded by the city of Melrose and so when we looked at the rental agreement and knowing what our city has gone through over the past several months and voting for an

▶ 1:15:22 override the citizens of our community have voted to spend more of their money to help support the city and when we looked at the rental agreement and saw that we were affording a 20% discount to to 86 or 87 percent of the groups that were renting we felt as though it was important for us to to close that gap basically and given the fact that our fees haven't increased since 2004 we felt it was appropriate and it was our responsibility to do so so the rental agreement will go out to whomever applies and and those organizations that rent the MSO and the Melrose youth valet they they rent on a consistent basis as you all know they've they've been informed of the changes okay so they've there won't be any contract problems with the ones have already signed the

▶ 1:16:25 contract for next year um oh there isn't any signed contracts for next year the way the way i do it at memorial hall is i i hold the dates i send you the rental agreement and it doesn't become binding until it comes back to me and i sign it with a 50 non-refundable deposit so no one has signed a contract or received the fiscal year 20 contract because it wasn't finalized till may 1st so in typical fashion i usually send it out in may or june to everybody that i hold a date for so all these people have like for example MSO has all the Mondays booked so I'm holding the date for them they have a deadline to get me everyone has a deadline to send back the rental agreement completed to me with the 50%

▶ 1:17:05 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: non-refundable deposit and at that point ice can sign the agreement and it becomes a binding contract between us good okay thank you very much thank you madam chair Maya just a follow-up question about the fee increase do we have a sense of what that will mean in terms of the annual amount that we will realize because 86 to 87 percent of your rentals will increase by 20% I figured out today for the 205 people that I have booked it will give us about seven six or seven thousand dollars more next year just for that 205 that I booked today and then I see based on what we have in front of us this is essentially level funded from last year there's about a 1% increase overall in your budget and you

▶ 1:18:00 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: mentioned you know that there are so many events that are happening people are buying tickets so that's a lot of money that's also being generated from your events and from these rental fees as well and does that that money does not go right back to Memorial Hall my correct it goes into the general fund correct right so I just wanted to make sure that people recognize you don't have a revolving fund so the money that you're generating through these rental fees goes to the good of the entire city correct okay except with respect to the one dollar per ticket restoration the restoration fund yes that's great okay thank you both so much for being here and for all that you do ocean to move the bottom line on this budget second motion to move the bottom line from

▶ 1:18:41 Memorial Hall made by alderman Mortimer and seconded by vice chair boys L all in favor thank you very much for being here thank you thank you thank you our last department tonight is number six one one our library hi how are you thanks so much for being here I don't know if you'd like to just share some top line comments good evening I'm happy to be here tonight to talk with you about the Public Library I would first like to commend the library staff their ongoing commitment to providing excellent friendly and professional service to the community all of the services and materials that we offer ultimately come back in some manner to the hard work of the staff whether it's at the public desks or in the administrative office or in the technical services department

▶ 1:19:47 which is where all of our material is ordered and processed to go out to the public we have been working this year on our next five-year strategic plan which has been a collaborative effort using input from community surveys the strategic plan committee members and our staff we're looking forward to finishing this work over the next few months and using the results to guide our progress over the next several years the finished product will be available on the library's website once it has approval you may know that each year we invite all of the school's second graders to come for a tour of the library at this time of year and last year we implemented a pilot program for fifth graders at the Lincoln School which went fabulously this year three schools are

▶ 1:20:41 participating and fifth graders will come to the library they'll get a tour of the building learn about the summer reading program and discover the area of the library that they'll call their own as new middle schoolers it's it's a great year to bring the kids back because they're sort of graduating from the children's room to the young adult area which is in the adult section of library so we find that sometimes you know that walk up the steps can can feel a little bit long for some of the kids and we really notice the level of confidence increasing for the fifth graders who came last year so we're really happy to see this initiative expanding and we hope to see it continue to include all the fifth graders and when i look around the library on any given

▶ 1:21:33 day i see evidence of the burgeoning demographic of young families in melrose as well as individual people who are seeking respite from the outside elements i see business people with their laptops going about their work day groups of special needs adults who come to the library for an outing and in the afternoons the teen area is bursting with kids from local schools all of them are welcome at the library and we're looking forward to continuing to provide the diverse services that are needed in the next coming year thank you thank you thank you all right thanks for coming tonight thanks for providing a little bit of an update on the strategic plan which as a member of that committee um it's been fun to see that coming along I'm excited that I think you're

▶ 1:22:33 Manisha Bewtra: really making making an effort to to make it more accessible to the public so stay tuned folks if you could if you could speak a little bit I know I went down a rabbit hole when we were talking about the overhyde and the potential loss of certification and you have this narrative here but can you kind of put it in the context of that certification process and what what you need to do in order to remain certified so we have there's several criteria that allow us to have state certification one of them I'll just point to some of the ones that that were in big conversation in this past year one of them is maintaining a municipal appropriation requirement which is the bare minimum level that needs to be funded by the municipality so that does not include outside funds

▶ 1:23:41 donations that type of thing one of them is what they call the materials expenditure requirement which needs to be 13% of the budget and that one is a little bit trickier to explain because what they do is they take our entire municipal budget that factor 13% of that but those funds can be supplemented from other sources so when we get donations from people if we have trust fund money to spend or the the items that the Friends of the Melrose Public Library support all of that helps to meet that requirement and then the hours requirement is it's based on population size in Massachusetts so you know Swampskate is much smaller than we are they're not expected to be open the same numbers a week that that Melrose is it is a combination it's a set number of

▶ 1:24:53 hours a week that we have to be open but for us it also means that we have to be open a certain number of days per week and a certain number of evenings after 6 p.m. so so you can't just take all those hours and kind of condense them into a nine-to-five Monday through Friday scenario does that make sense yep yep and are you looking at what are the hours you're looking at for this summer because I remember that was also a discussion that came up last year and as a working parent you know those things are on my mind and many other folks's minds as well um thank you for asking it is a real need and for this summer um our hours will remain the same and we are currently in talks to be open weekend hours for next summer

▶ 1:25:53 um and then we're in line for a building grant and so i think we talked about what's required for certification but i guess we didn't really talk about what the benefits of certification and how it relates to that grant program so if you could just touch on that thank you so in order to as you know we applied for a grant which was successful and we're now on a waiting list it is a provisional grant and one of the provisions of that grant is that we remain certified so if we were to lose our certification there would be several impacts one would be that essentially in some ways we would become an island so you would be able to come to Melrose residents could come to the Melrose library and still check out books you

▶ 1:26:48 would not be able to go to Saugus, Wakefield, Reading and in some cases parents also would not be able to go to those libraries for programs and if we were to lose certification and then regain certification so we get our funding back those those we come back we would regain our interlibrary loan privileges we would regain our ability to go to other libraries the grant would not come back so once you lose the grant it is gone until such time as there might be another grant round which is right now very far in the future and I recall also wasn't online so basically people would we lose the ability to just look up what's available online if we lost certification as well or not this as part of it maybe because of the noble network um it would be unfortunately you would be able to

▶ 1:27:51 Michael P. Zwirko: look up and see what other libraries had online you just wouldn't be able to access them got it anyway i know we're thankfully not heading down that road um and i'm very grateful that to to know that we're not but um i know that that was quite an education for me so i appreciate you reiterating some of those points tonight thanks for coming thank you madam chair appreciate all the work you do and all the programming that you have through your building you know Melrose doesn't have a community center so I always think of the library as the community center really from programming that's offered from various civic organizations author speaks you know just everything that kind of goes through there is a community center so

▶ 1:28:38 Michael P. Zwirko: it's nice that the doors are open one of my questions was asked by Alderman Bewtra so I just wanted to speak to the the library is like I just said a community center but I know that there were some unfortunate events in Winchester that occurred last year and in light of that were there any reviews that you underwent with you and your staff or like training or speaking to knowledgeable folks about potential enhancements to the building we did actually last June so close in time but we did a few days of training for staff on personal self-defense it was actually offered I've been talking to Chief Lyle about security concerns and about the fact that our library does not have any security and he arranged for officers to come in and give our staff a two-day

▶ 1:29:45 training on self-defense it's specifically self-defense for women which the majority of our staff are and that was I think a confidence building and and also some some mechanisms to use to diffuse situations and then to react if you can't diffuse a situation we have also we have emergency procedures and evacuation procedures which we review periodically I would love to do a lot more I would love to have active shooter training I feel like these days it feels like you can never quite do enough um but we do we talk about it regularly good thank you for that and for the work you and the staff do that's um you know having the desk when you come up the stairs right there it's like you turn the corner and the smiling face is just willing to help with

▶ 1:30:47 Robert A. Boisselle: something so it's you know it's it's a great community center so thank you for your work thank you those are all the questions i had madam chair thank you vice chair Boisselle thank you thank Thank you for coming this evening. In your supplies and materials, you have four lines here concerning electronics, network, eco, download, and electronic data. I'm assuming that's what it means. I mean, walking into the library, you're walking into quite a few computers at this point. What do these lines mean? And part of the reason they're separated out that much is to make it easier for us when we're doing state reporting because they really like to see a lot of different areas. Electronic is electronic materials.

▶ 1:31:37 Then network eco is network e-content. So that is Overdrive. That is where we get our eBooks and our eAudiobooks. it's that book collection that's online. Download is downloadable items and then electronic, it's electronic databases. So that is like ancestry.com, EBSCO, all of our magazines that are available online and that type of thing. Do you pay for the licenses of the software or does the IT department pay for these licenses? We pay, the IT department does not. Some of them are part of our Noble membership, so we do a lot of resource sharing, so that when you're looking at something that anybody in Noble can access, it's because we've used sort of the power of the consortium to bargain with the vendors to get those deals.

▶ 1:32:47 Robert A. Boisselle: So, are your software databases updated like the Word, Excel? Are they up to the standards that are out there now? Yes. So, software has been upgraded to reflect what's out in the market? Yes. Good. And we get, so, sorry, there's, there are often, there are specific vendors and organizations that we get special pricing as a library. very good now do you keep a record of how many people use your computers not getting into the privacy aspects of it but the number of people are sitting at a machine because you have to actually put your card ID number into it you do you do we don't have I don't have the number offhand I can look it up if you're interested we don't have the number for like individual users but we

▶ 1:33:46 do have sort of an aggregated number of sessions so I would say so for example if if the somebody comes in every day to use the computer it's not differentiating that from if it was seven different people coming in so is it busy every day I mean I've gone in a number of times and everyone seems to be on a computer it is it is I would say that you know years ago when I was first starting during the daytime you would see maybe a couple people at the computer and then after school it was really busy and after work it was busy I think it's more of a consistent ebb and flow throughout the day now you have more people who do work from home more people who do consulting work and so we have a lot more people coming in during the day than we used to very good thank

▶ 1:34:43 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: you for coming thank you Thank You madam chair Maya one quick question so building from the last comments I remember last year when you talked about the increase in electronic use that you were seeing in recent years so it makes sense to see that those are line items where there's some significant increase in funding over fiscal 19 there's also an increase in salary and wages of six and a half percent and is that basically just contractual are there any are you adding any bodies or any hours to existing staff it is contractual we do have one retirement this year so that also reflects obligatory expenses that are associated with that okay thank you so much for coming thank you nice to see you motion to move the bottom line madam chair second the motion to recommend

▶ 1:35:39 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: for passage made by Alderman Mortimer seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle in favor aye opposed great thank you very much thank you so we're through order numbers two and three on our agenda which takes us to order number two zero one nine dash nine six the reappointment of Brian Donovan nine Morgan Street to the Human Rights Commission for a full second term said term to expire on the last day of February 2022 passage second passage made by alderman Tremont ozi seconded by was that alderman Mortimer all in favor aye opposed and that will be recommended to the full board and our final order of the night is order number two zero one nine dash 97 the reappointment of Reverend Jared green 278 Main Street

▶ 1:36:32 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: apartment 4d to the Human Rights Commission for a three-year term said term to expire on the last day of February 2022 motion to recommend for passage second the motion recommend made by alderman Mortimer seconded by Vice Chair Boisselle all in favor aye opposed that will also be recommended to the full board motion to adjourn madam chair second made by alderman Mortimer second and vice chair Boisselle all in favor aye all right we are adjourned thank you

Original documents

• Minutes (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda (IQM2 PDF)
• Bulletin (IQM2 PDF)
• Minutes packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Agenda packet (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Other (CivicClerk PDF)
• This meeting on the city portal