Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2020-06-03
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Mark Garipay ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Maya Jamaleddine ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Jeff McNaught ; Leila Migliorelli ; Robb Stewart ; Cory Thomas ; John N. Tramontozzi
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Comment
- Orders
- ORDER-2020-89 : City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2021 in the amount of $88,397,961.08 (Eighty-Eight Million, Three Hundred Ninety-Seven Thousand, Nine Hundred Sixty-One Dollars and Eight Cents).
- ORDER-2020-90 : 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.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 3, 2020 Web-based remote meeting Budget Hearing 7:00 PM , Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Christopher Cinella Chair Present Leila Migliorelli Vice Chair Present John N. Tramontozzi Voting Present Shawn M. MacMaster Voting Present Jeff McNaught Voting Present Jack Eccles Voting Present Mark Garipay Voting Present Robb Stewart Voting Present Cory Thomas Voting Present Maya Jamaleddine Voting Present Jen Grigoraitis President, ex oficio Present The Appropriations Committee is called to order by Chair Cinella. This meeting is recorded and may be viewed on www.mmtv3.org
ORDER-2020-89 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2021 in the amount of $88,397,961.08 (Eighty-Eight Million, Three Hundred Ninety-Seven Thousand, Nine Hundred Sixty-One Dollars and Eight Cents). Hold Appropriations Committee
ORDER-2020-90 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. Hold Appropriations Committee City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 6/4/2020 9:45 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Christopher Cinella: All right, good evening. Welcome to the Appropriations Committee. The date is June 3rd, 7 o'clock. My name is Chris Cinella, Chair, and pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law in the Governor's March 15, 2020 order, imposing strict limitation on the number of people that may gather in one place, this meeting of the Appropriations Committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. possible. We will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on Mr. Miller's website and on MMTV3.org. Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll?
▶ 0:46 Vice Chair Migliorelli. Here. Councilor Tramontozzi. Here. Councilor McMaster. Here. Councilor McNaught. Here. Councilor Eccles. Here. Councilor Garipay. Here. Councilor Stewart. Here. Councilor Thomas. Here. Councilor Jamaleddine. Here. President Grigoraitis. Here. Chairman Sinella. Here. 11. At this time, I'll entertain a motion for public comment. Motion to open public comment. Second. motion made to open the floor for public comment and by councillor Stewart seconded by president Grigoraitis. Vice Chair Migliorelli. Yes. Council Tramontozzi. Yes. McMaster. Yes. Councilor McNaught. Yes. Councilor Eccles. Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes. Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine?
▶ 1:50 Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Sinaloa? Yes. 11 yes. Do we have anybody in queue? So if anyone is in the attending the meeting and would like to speak, there's a digital hand you may raise, virtual hand. Looking, most of them are participants for the evening And no 1 is raising their hand motion to close to public comment. Close public comment made by Councilor Thomas, seconded by Councilor not. Vice Jim, yes. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Councilor Eccles. Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Cinella? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? And yes. And I know we have some department heads with us all. I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules so we can bring them in.
▶ 3:07 Christopher Cinella: Motion to suspend the rules. Second. Motion to suspend the rules made by President Grigoraitis, seconded by Councillor Stewart and Clerk Calderon. Vice Chair Migliorelli? Yes. Councillor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councillor McMaster? Yes. Councillor McNaught? Yes. Councillor Eccles? Yes. Councillor Garipay? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Thomas? Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes, chairman. Yes 11. yes. Members of the, I'm going to make them a trigger. Reminder for the public, this is a continuation of order 2020-89. City of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year. 2021 in the amount of 88,397,961 dollars in 8 cents. And we have our site 196, the energy commission, and just so the speakers tonight are aware, counselors will be raising their hands. That's for me to put them in queue.
▶ 4:21 And also, if everybody could just stay on mute, which I believe everybody is except for Councilman McNaught, that's fine. Ms. Nelson, the floor is yours. good evening thank you for having us here tonight like you've got busy lives going it's been a busy fiscal year 2020 for the Energy Commission so we work with the sustainability managers and we are all volunteers who use our time to help the city its residents businesses and nonprofits save energy and money plus we're on the way to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions so as you probably all know Melrose is one of 15 Boston area communities that are aiming for net zero emissions in 2050s and there are many bricks in that row. Mexworth in fiscal year 21 was going to continue building on those bricks
▶ 5:14 but here's kind of an overview of what we were doing and plans for 2021. Our big projects, one was finished up in 2020, was the Big Roof Solar Program. We've been promoting community electricity aggregation and we're just kicking off the Heat Start program. So in fiscal 2020 we wrapped up Big Roof Solar. This is an outreach program for businesses and nonprofits in Melrose. The idea of putting solar installations on some of the big roofs that are here in the city. It actually received a SolSmart Innovation Award from the Department of Energy in November and we learned a lot from this experience. We talked to a lot of businesses and then we worked with three houses of worship to find financing so and tax credits and work them through regulatory issues that were
▶ 6:05 kind of different because instead of the residential ones we've worked in the past all of these solar fields were between 25 kilowatts and we were hoping up to 300 we had three successful installations for about 100 kilowatts of solar energy. But we're also very excited and put some energy into Mellor's participation in municipal aggregation. So community electricity aggregate program is something the city's offering. So we're offering a hundred percent local renewable electricity at a price that's very competitive. And so we've been working hard to spread the word about this to the city electricity customers. So the rates we've negotiated are valid through 2021 and we think this is a great opportunity.
▶ 6:56 We'll continue promoting that this year. Right now, because last fall we signed up to participate in the Heat Smart Cool Smart program, which you may recall was one of your first orders of business in January to accept that grant. So Governor Baker has identified that having heating and cooling that comes from electricity is one of the key components that residents can do in order to reach a climate neutral 2020. so the heat smart program is educating consumers about air source heat burns or heat pumps geothermal heating and then the opportunities for solar water heating we see this as kind of a win-win because maybe not everybody's ready to take that step now but they can learn about it for the future and for those who have been thinking about
▶ 7:48 updating a furnace or adding air conditioning this gives an opportunity for some group buying with vetted vendors that makes it easier for residents to move ahead that is also actively participating in the zero climate action program and melrose is one of three climate community pilot communities so we're working with the massachusetts area planning council along with native in arlington so we're developing a framework we've identified where our greenhouse gas emissions come from and then a playbook for the other communities and so as fiscal 2021 what 2021 you're going to see us coming to you with what we've learned and how we need your support along the way advocacy actually has been core to mac ever since it began
▶ 8:38 building codes, standards, regulations, all of these things are in the background but have a large impact on our energy use. So in 2020, fiscal year 2020, we encourage the building inspector, the office of planning community development to participate and register in the international code voting, which they did. WHEREAS very happy to see that. WHEREAS also following as the state regulatory organizations evaluate how they're going to establish the next level of the building code and the road that they might take to do that because that has been under debate in the last year and then we've also taken a peek at what's going on here in Melrose because it's really important that the buildings we build and the buildings that we renovate are as energy efficient as
▶ 9:29 possible so in the past we've done a lot of community outreach we've been at places like Healthy Melrose, the Victorian Fair and of course Farmer's Market and obviously with COVID we've had to kind of switch gears so we're doing a lot more and we've launched a social media campaign creating a lot of content that people can use at their leisure to educate themselves and participate in the things that are going on so thank you so much for your support for MEC in the past and hope that all these bricks will fall in place and eventually will be carbon neutral in 2050. thank you i'll open it up for questions now we have counselor mcnaught has a question uh i don't really have a question i'm more or less just wanted to say how impressed
▶ 10:14 i am with what you do with the budget that you have uh appreciate the presentation that you've given us tonight and the work that you do year round and um i don't think this is going to be a controversial thing for me to say uh to move the bottom line forward second we have a motion to move the bottom line forward by councillor mcnaught seconded by councillor thomas on discussion anybody else i didn't see any other hands go up seeing none madam clerk please call the roll vice chair Migliorelli yes council tramitosi yes councillor mcmaster yes Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Sinella? Yes. 11 yes.
▶ 11:17 Christopher Cinella: Thank you, Alana. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks for hanging out, Martha. Thank you, Alana. Move them out. Take me a second. next up we have 631 recreation and the revolving account 2652 as that pertains to order 2020-90 the reauthorization of the city model revolving funds table as adopted by the city ordinance of june further authorized massachusetts general laws we have um you should be uh frank and bill should be there we go I'm here we get here you yep okay bill I can't see you I don't know if you have video capability I should hold on hey Kristen probably gonna click one of these buttons I would imagine right the second little video camera on it next to audio oh i'm sorry yep over there there we go frank or bill has prepared
▶ 12:29 remarks i would think i'm bill gardner i'm the chairman of the park commission that oversees the recreation department as well as the mount hood enterprise fund um the melrose recreation department has a relatively modest budget request here tonight 64 a little over 64 000. uh frank Frank Oliveri has been the director for about 12 years now, and has done an outstanding job with the Recreation Department for the citizens of Melrose. He is as forward-thinking as anyone in this particular area. During this COVID-19, which obviously has affected a lot of people in a lot of different ways, Frank has handled this tremendously and has developed programs, and amended existing programs uh to incorporate the social distancing um criteria that the state
▶ 13:21 has put forth as well as as well as various uh new programs through the virtual portals uh if there's ever a second uh wave here frank is well positioned the recreation department to handle the needs and of the citizens both the adults and the youth in the city city of Melrose. He, unlike, by contrast, unlike many surrounding cities and towns, they have shut down their recreation program for the summer of 2020. We, on the other hand, through Frank's stewardship, have pushed forward new and amended programs which will work well, which I'm sure most of you who have had contact with Frank, you know this. I'm just telling you what you already know the budget request is relatively simple there's five line items it comprises about 15
▶ 14:12 of the actual operating needs of the recreation department recreation apartment is funded through its revolving account 85 percent of it including the salaries of the two full-time employees frank olivarian is uh his assistant joe blotner uh uh funded with 44 000 from the budget request from the city's general fund and that represents about one-third of the actual salary needs the remaining two-thirds are paid uh through the revolving fund uh which due to frank's efforts has uh been significantly in the black for many many years the budget request that we put forward tonight is pretty much the same one that we've had for the last 10 years it hasn't changed even though there will be step increases for the permanent uh employees those will be absorbed
▶ 15:00 John N. Tramontozzi: by the revolving fund and by the uh fees generated thereby and so we're confident that things will continue despite the hurdles that this covet 19 has put in front of us we appreciate and frank can talk to the actual specifics of the program that he's done yeah and i'm happy to answer any questions anybody might have yeah i think uh consular tramitosi uh thank you mr chairman and um thank you frank and uh i appreciate frank what you've done over these years uh and um in the recreation department and the um the the number of the young kids who have gone through the program and that you helped with um this um i appreciate the budget um it's fun um and the city administration were like yours uh in terms of being uh level funded and uh and i appreciate that and i just want to thank you for
▶ 16:07 Cory Thomas: your service both you Frank and Bill thank you thank you so Thomas thank you mr. chairman bill thank you very much for that information and Frank thank you for being here Frank as you know I've been all involved with the rec department for years as a volunteer coach it's been a great source of safe extracurricular activities for for boys and girls throughout Melrose so Thank you for the years of incredible service and bringing these programs to the kids. The winter season is, you know, a very busy season for the rec department. You have hockey, you have basketball, you have, you know, in-town basketball as well. The springtime, not as many programs, but still, you know, a lot of programs. Are you guys down any registrations from the springtime?
▶ 17:00 And if so, how will that affect your bottom line budget? Yeah, it's, it's, we're lucky in that the nature of our job is we provide what the residents need, right? So we, this past spring, we were extremely lucky that COVID hit and the closure started to hit as soon as we, as you know, as soon as we finished our major sports this past winter. the spring has always been our lightest season not not that it's empty but it's it's lighter the nice part is that of some of the programs that we do run in the spring they're not the ones that necessarily are the big impacting programs that keep our our department above water we did take some hits but through some of the creative stuff we've done it's a mild hit and we still should
▶ 17:50 Cory Thomas: end up right around break even this after um you know there were smaller programs medium-sized programs but we had about 18 programs and events canceled this spring and we're still able to um manage our our expenses and and still have the revenue we needed thank you very much for that frank and i'm happy to hear that um are you guys you know i know you're getting into a time where you'd be ordering um you know equipment uh for the fall uh programs you know football is a very popular uh thing in the world as well and you guys do a great job with that um are you are you starting to do purchasing for the fall or is that on hold it's it's getting it's getting pushed off the nice part is that usually when we start a program we make a significant investment
▶ 18:32 knowing that we're going to run it for several years so like our flag football supplies well i'll use flag football as an example because that's one of our bigger ones we've got over 300 kids that participate we've got over 50 50 volunteer parents that are usually involved we have all those supplies so it's really just a jersey a moderate jersey purchase for for the kids who are participating so even though we have a lot of those programs starting we are for the most part if we've run it before we are in a position in a way that we have the equipment and supplies you know there's some purchasing required but it's um it's it's maybe 15 20 percent of the overall stuff needed to run that program
▶ 19:18 Mark Garipay: okay all right Frank thanks again for all you do tell Joey said hello and I might give you guys a call talk to you guys with something offline all right please do all right thanks Frank thank you mr. chairman thank you Frank and Thank you, Mr. Gardner for being here. Frank, thank you very much for the detailed questionnaire. Looking at it over, I just can't, I mean, I'm so impressed with the amount of residents that we service every year through this department and the amount of programs that we do. As a lifelong resident of Melrose, growing up, I wrecked the pub and never had the programs that the kids nowadays have and the condition of the parks too, and the fields. I mean, that that goes a long way in the commission deserves a lot of credit. All you do. I do have a couple of questions with regards to as we start moving into different phases of normalcy.
▶ 20:19 Mark Garipay: As we get back into normalcy, and it's not interacting more. You mentioned that we, we're gonna have more programs. Do we do we have enough money? you feel in this budget to be able to um handle those programs you know i'm sure we're going to have a lot more santa um sanitizing cleaning supplies um i just want to get your little opinion on that if you can help me out with that yeah so so as many of you may know we put out a brochure book usually in march um that was before all of this took place and that was our anticipated programming that we're going to do for the spring and summer all that has changed dramatically and And the programming that we are trying to get started up now follow specific guidelines
▶ 21:05 and our new programs to try to get kids out right now, at least kids and teens out and engaged. The programming that we have, and this is why it's the program, the line items in front of you are important because most of these line items are the line items that give us the support to run those programs. our team programming it's our community outreach it's recreation scholarships it's inclusive programming that is a lot of the programming funds that we need in order to do exactly what you're talking about um we're also still trying to figure out where recreation falls in line with the cares act because a lot of those a lot of those supplies that we are going to be required to do like sanitation stations and masks and all the other other supplies that we're going to need we're
▶ 21:56 Mark Garipay: trying to see if we can we can use some of those funds to also support what we're trying to do for the community thank you i know um you know our community always needs direct department and i truly believe that now more than ever with our children being really inside not getting a lot of physical activity we're really going to need the rec department over the next three or four months so i fully support your budget and i look forward to to the program starting up again thank Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you chairman. Thank you. Mr of the area and Mr Gardner for being with us tonight. And thank you for all the work that you've been doing for our community. It's greatly appreciate it as a mom that always and a family that always benefit from your service and your activities.
▶ 22:54 Maya Jamaleddine: I, you know, going through this pandemic and going back to benefit from these activities that you guys provide, that the department provides, I'm sure I'm talking about myself, but I'm sure a lot of other parents share this concern. What is it that you can provide to us or if you can tell us about the plan that gives us some kind of safety plan that you are taking just to help us return back to these activities? Absolutely. So this has been a big project of mine over the last couple of weeks is as state guidelines come out, as new phases begin to open, there's a lot of new regulations that we need to adhere to on top of just common sense practices to lower anxiety of parents. Because, you know, as we keep saying, there's some parents that can't wait to get their kid out of the house to do some kind of program because they need they can't take it anymore.
▶ 24:05 And then there's another group that's very anxious still and very concerned with what's happening. And we're trying to find that balance of how do you give programming, but also kind of lower those anxieties. And how do you communicate that to those families that it is a safe environment that we're establishing? So the virtual programs that we're trying to shift over are pretty self-explanatory. It's, you know, taking programs that are existing that are going to be canceled otherwise. and we're trying to put those on a virtual platform the other programs that we're trying to set up um are programs at least right now in in the upcoming phases um that are going to require social distancing you know as we see like just in the community there's plenty of things that
▶ 24:50 people are doing to still be together and still engage without being in physical contact with each other and so whether it's fitness programming or boot camps or some kind of running club or some type of creative intramural program down the road there's we're going to be putting twists and working around regulations being in the rec department we we thrive on creativity so so this is it's kind of almost like a in a way it's a fun challenge for us that we take very very very seriously but it's um there's going to be extra staff and people in place with hygiene stations with entrances one way and exits another with limited spectators with specific policies and plans in place to protect all of our residents and participants it's you know it's still in
▶ 25:43 development but that's that's kind of what we're we're looking to do would that uh impact the number of participants that you will be or capacity that you will be taking absolutely the state comes out with specific ratios to follow but on top of that we're we're going to make sure that we are very careful about the ratios that work for us as well you know just because the state comes out with guidelines doesn't mean that we necessarily have to jump right to whatever level they're asking us to go to so so we need to figure out what the state is is permitting us to do and then figure out what works for our residents and works within our city structure and so that's that's kind of where we're at right now but we are expecting to have programming
▶ 26:30 Leila Migliorelli: rolling out as soon as we can and as soon as we feel it's it's feasible which I don't see too much further down the road. Vice-Chairman Oliveira. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Mr. Gardner and Mr. Oliveira. This is really helpful information it feels like you guys have kind of have thought out a well plan a good plan to handle the challenges that you have before you. I admittedly you know going into this wasn't sure um how this was all going to turn out but i i really appreciate the thought as a as a mom of two and a husband who also participates in recreation program it's great um moving forward so we've got you know it sounds like you've got plans for the summer programming and and thinking about fall um is there is there anything that we should be aware
▶ 27:18 Leila Migliorelli: of as a council in terms of you mentioned like you're you're able to stay above water right now you know, can you kind of give us a thought of, okay, well, fall programming, certain things that you might have to think of or cut or readjust, you know, if we were to go back into a more restrictive atmospheres or anything, any kind of plans you'd like to share with us? As at this point, the only thing I guess I can say is we are flexible enough to adjust to whatever environment we have to adjust to on whatever platform that may be whether it's physical or lowered ratios or spreading out or bringing more staff on so um obviously if this if this becomes a major major pandemic that's a long term and it goes into this upcoming school year which
▶ 28:10 none of us know what's going to happen then just like any department that has to deal with this like there's going to be complications um but kind of to what i was saying that we feel very very comfortable especially being here as long as i have very comfortable with knowing the resources we have at hand and knowing how to adjust our programming to make it work and to fit and to not make us completely stop it might make us take a step or two back but we're still going to have the ability to continue to run what we're looking to run okay thank you um one other quick question um i know that parents as we're you know sort of considering what option recreation options there are for our kids in the summer what might be safer and not safer and as you mentioned
▶ 28:56 Leila Migliorelli: there's definitely a spectrum out there um is there anything you'd like to say about the enforcement of sort of the your your policies um and and how you plan to do that i know that some programs are are um led by younger younger staff and younger help and i know there's some concerns out there um regarding that so i was just wondering if maybe you can speak to how you plan to plan to kind of oversee that yeah well you're you're you hit it right on and that is oversee like we we are going to make sure that we have not whether it's myself or my recreation coordinator joe blotner or very specific people maybe even teachers that are specifically trained on how to manage these situations that that we that we make sure that everything and i mean
▶ 29:48 everything is run with super safe precautions and and that's kind of that's kind of how i see us moving forward um this is not going to be one of those things where oh hey and i'm just using this as a hypothetical phase three is open okay let's take those three high school students and that one college student yeah you guys are just gonna manage social distancing with the kids and do your own thing and we're not gonna worry about you that is not gonna be this summer's plan this summer's plan is going to be heavy supervision heavy direction heavy training just to make sure that we have every single area covered and and that that includes from our making sure our supplies and equipment are sanitized and properly stored and um everything that's coming along with
▶ 30:39 Jen Grigoraitis: with the adventures of of this summer thank you so much i appreciate it thank you president Grigoraitis thank you chairman snell and thank you both mr gardner mr oliveri for being here um and i'll reiterate as a parent of two young children who take a lot of advantage of the rec department it's really helpful to hear the thought you're putting into what is an incredibly complex situation that we find ourselves in i spent most of the winter sitting next to counselor Garipay on a bench in the middle school during rec basketball and i wanted to go back to those days um i appreciate that your budget is flat i know that certainly makes it easy from a fiscal perspective however as we think about the impact of covet on our families from a financial
▶ 31:23 Jen Grigoraitis: perspective i'm wondering if you guys have given thought to a need to possibly increase scholarships as more and more families face job loss and we may want to make sure that children have access to recreational programs could you talk a little bit about how this is handled yeah so so scholarships are a huge part scholarships and financial aid are a huge part of our department and um it was years ago that we we established that any kid who qualifies for the free or reduced lunch program in the public schools qualifies for either a full or reduced scholarship um we've never turned somebody away we've always had the money that one of the perks of our brochure book and i have to thank so many of the businesses and Melrose itself to
▶ 32:07 support this is that those ads that we put in that brochure book go specifically towards supporting scholarships so this four thousand dollar line item along with the scholarships that we've been providing have have usually been close to covering what is needed usually we always go over every year but it's it's keeps us in the ballpark of what because we can never predict how many scholarships we're we're going to have but but it keeps us in the ballpark of what we need um It's interesting. We've never had the issue of covering scholarships or financial aid. I'm going to stay very optimistic and say that that's going to continue. I don't ever plan to keep a kid off a field, even if we need to figure out, again, another creative
▶ 32:57 way to make that happen. Especially for our in-house programming, which is our big programs like our summer programs, our tennis, our flag football, our rec basketball, a lot of our middle school athletics that we run in middle school programs. Those programs, first off, have very little impact on scholarship money. And then on top of that, even the ones that are outside of that is a long-winded answer for I know we'll find a way to cover it. Thank you. I appreciate that and it's really heartening to hear that we're making sure that no matter the ability to pay that our kids have access to these great activities. So, thank you both for your thought. If I can just add to that too, I think Frank glossed over the fact that even though the line item that we're requesting in this budget is 4,000 dollars.
▶ 33:48 If anybody comes in, in particular in these times, it's not, it's not a strict black and white bright line test. We'll listen to any reasonable request and we'll find a way to make it work. It's always been that way. Frank has always exceeded the scholarship line item there. Fortunately, we haven't had a great need in the city of Melrose to this point, but we have anticipated that and if need be, we'll take care of it. Thank you both very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Am I the last in the queue? Yes, as far as I know, I don't know if anybody has something. First, I just wanted to say, again, I echo all the sentiments of all my councillors. The amazing job that you all do, again, with the budget that's not very mighty.
▶ 34:43 Jeff McNaught: Thank you for all that you do, as Councilor Garipay said when we grew up. I'll still say we had a great deal of things to do as kids at all the parks, and a lot of activities that we could partake in, but nothing even close to the program there are today. Thank you very much for that. If there's no one else in view, Mr. Chairman, and I would make a motion to move the bottom line. Second. We have a motion to move the bottom line for 631 recreation and revolving account 2652. Paid by Councilor McNaught, seconded by Councilor Stewart. Any discussion, anything else? Madam Clerk, call the roll please. Vice Chair Migliorelli. Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi. Yes. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garofali? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes.
▶ 35:55 Jeff McNaught: President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Cinella? Yes. 11 yes. Councilor McNaught, did you have something? Just before we move on to the next line item, if I may make a statement of personal privilege and that is that I just wanted to note and I know that I sent it to my fellow counselors rather late in the day today not realizing that you didn't have it beforehand but I just wanted to express my gratitude and thanks to City Auditor Patrick Teller is providing us with some really good quick reference guides on salaries that we had questions about, departmental budgets that we had questions about, comparing last year to this year. And I can speak for myself, and as I always do, saying that it's made my life a lot easier
▶ 36:58 Jeff McNaught: you just tonight alone on just looking at a couple of documents as we discuss things as opposed to the way that I was doing it before. I won't drone on about it, but I just wanted to express my thanks to Mr. De La Russo and Ms. Kerri-Ann Golden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Did you want your motion to add the correspondence to the record? Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Chairman. I'd also like to make a motion to add the correspondence to the record from Ms. Golden. I received two emails today. Ms. Clarker, committees, do you need the times of those emails or can I forward them to you? What's the best way to go about doing that? As soon as you forward, I will change them to PDFs and add them to the order once voted.
▶ 37:51 John N. Tramontozzi: Thank you so much. Motion made to add the correspondence. seconded by Councilor Eccles. Claire, if you want to call the discussion on that. May I make one more point? There was two documents attached to the e-mails that I would also like to add to the record. One pertaining to salaries, one pertaining to departmental budgets. I would like the correspondence and the attachments attached to the record. Thank you. Okay. Councilor Chamatosi, something to add? Yeah, yes, thank you. Mr. Chairman and through through through the through the chair. Um, I want to thank, um. Councilman not for for providing that. To us, um, it's funny, though, that it's very. Similar to the request that I made of the administration back in May 15th.
▶ 38:49 John N. Tramontozzi: Um, and, um, I'm finally, I'm glad that I'm finally seeing. That the administration is responding to requests. And I'm a little disappointed though. That the response. By the administration, specifically the. Assistant city auditor in the auditor's department. Was sent at 1138 a.m. this morning. And that it was sent. Mr. DelaRusso and Councilor McNaught and it was failed to be sent to the Council as a whole that I could see and it would have to be Councilor McNaught to send it to us. And I'm a little disappointed because it should have been sent to the entire Council at 1138 a.m. this morning rather than just to Councilor McNaught. Again, I'm glad the administration finally responded to my request,
▶ 39:57 Jeff McNaught: which I made back in May 15th for the very exact information that came through the spreadsheet. I appreciate that and thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilor McNaught, you have something else to add? Through the Chair, I just wanted to respond to Councilor Tramontozzi and say that yes, I did echo some requests that Council Chairman Tosey made that have now proved to be very effective. There were very good points to have made that I thank him for bringing those up originally. I do think this morning was a clerical error and maybe more so on my behalf that I could have caught it myself and forwarded this morning. So I apologize to my fellow councillors for that. I didn't mean to spring that on you later in the day,
▶ 40:50 but nonetheless, I think you have some great information to move forward with. Thank you. Does anybody else have anything to add or echo? Seeing nothing. Madam Clerk, call the roll to add this correspondence to the record, please. Vice Chair Migliorelli? Yes. Councillor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councillor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught. Yes. Councilor Eccles. Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes. Councilor Stewart. Yes. Councilor Thomas. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. President Grigoraitis. Yes. Chairman Sinella. Yes. Eleven. Yes. Next up we have 145, Treasure Collector. We bring in Art Flavin, we also have the City Auditor in the queue, if you'd like to speak. Jim, I believe he may be speaking also. Can you hear us? Am I unmuted yet? You're unmuted. Okay. Can you, your video capability? Yeah, I'm just too pretty to show my face.
▶ 42:15 I just I'm taking a point of personal privilege not to do that are we good good the screen is yours all right what's up prepared remarks I gave you you have on record what my office is all about and what everything is done um and how we operate and this is i'm going to welcome you all to my last meeting as i prepare to retire and the budgets of the that are presented tonight are what it's groundhog day it's been the same thing on and on and it's this is the money we need to do our business as we do it and i want to for the record recognize the women in my office that have gone on above and beyond in this environment to still execute the heartbeat of the city what people don't realize is that every dollar that comes in and out of the city goes through
▶ 43:31 John N. Tramontozzi: these two offices and this is this is what we need to run our stuff so i mean i'll welcome any questions thank you all right so we have in queue right now just council tramitose you didn't see any other hands council tramitose thank you mr chair uh mr flavin i want to thank you for your many years of service to the city of morrow's uh and um and congratulate you on your retirement and best wishes how long were you with the city in this capacity i'm in my 14th year good for you and um and do well in your retirement um i do have some questions regarding uh the uh the budget and again uh i'm i'm going through the budgets and the salary and wage islands i wage line on all departments so don't be offended uh you're not being singled out um but um your original budget
▶ 44:22 John N. Tramontozzi: for salary and wages for the fiscal year 2020 original budget was $363,878.66 and that's the budget that the back then the Board of Aldermen approved. But I also noticed that the 2020 revised budget went up to $377,176.05. It was an increase of $13,297.39. Can you just for the Council's benefit and for the public um what would what was the reason for that increase of thirteen thousand two ninety seven thirty nine sure um basically most of it's contractual because there's three union people that work for me and the second one is is probably my two percent and i'm going away so whatever that is and then in april um as part of my exit strategy we have moved my assistant treasurer we moved her money up because i've been passing stuff off to her which is a very
▶ 45:24 responsible position um she gets all the signing authority with the banks this that and the other thing and it's it was in preparation of that that kind of happened this year that's reflected in next year's budget and i think you're going to have not to be pompous not to be arrogant you're going to have a hard time replacing me for the price i i'm working for you i have worked for you um in april i was supposed to retire i didn't and but at that point they went out looking and they got one response it was not not good so i think that that number is absolutely correct And thank you for that information, Mr. Flavin. When is your last day on the job? 7-5. Okay. So, and I appreciate the assistant clerk's additional-
▶ 46:22 Assistant treasurer. I'm sorry. You're right. I apologize. Assistant treasurer and the extra work that she's going to have to do to cover. but but once a treasurer the collector is hired would she be back and they be back in the assistant treasurer position at that capacity I'm not sure I'm kicking the can down the road I don't know I she is vital to the organization right now especially with me leaving and I would not mess around with that and And she's, I mean, not to speak out of turn, but my office is aging and there's going to be people leaving and retiring. And again, as I said before, every dollar that comes in and out of the city goes through that office. And I, I don't know, I meant to say it earlier. The dedication and professionalism that these girls, sorry for the word, women have shown in the last four months to keep us vital and vibrant and continuing is exceptional. And I just don't want to fool around with them all.
▶ 47:35 John N. Tramontozzi: Is the assistant treasurer and the treasurer collector himself, are those two positions the only non-union positions in that department? No, there's an assistant to the assistant. She's half parking clerk, half that. She's vital too because she's handling all the parking stuff in that end. The other three positions are union. All right. Let me see. The other items are pretty much the professional services of line item 529000. Is that for the consultant work? What is that for? We took a strategy a long time ago. My protection and the city's protection is we have an outside auditor come in and do our reconciliation instead of us doing it, then having a third party come in with the auditor's office and look at it it just on a
▶ 48:36 John N. Tramontozzi: monthly basis it it's it's an ultimate protection rather than us trying to it stops us it takes any capability of us cooking the books away for short money the second part of it is is that we've gone to more online building for real estate and those things and that has a cost and we pay for that out of that line okay i appreciate that information um i'm going to uh and again um i'm just trying to be consistent with my calls to all the departments uh in light of our what i believe is going to be fiscal um shortfalls in revenues um i'm going to make a minor very minor a small um reduction to that line item um and uh that the uh five one one zero zero zero uh and i calculate that to be two thousand eight hundred and thirty
▶ 49:40 John N. Tramontozzi: four dollars uh so i would be making a motion to reduce that line item by that amount do i get to speak on that not yet mr flavin let me let me let me just uh let me just make that motion um and then there'll be further cons uh further discussion after the motion is made okay so we have we have a motion made on five one one zero zero to reduce this by two thousand eight thirty four i'm not here a second time okay so made by council tramitosi seconded by councillor mcmaster on discussion thank you chairman thank you mr flavin and congratulations on your upcoming retirement and thank you for staying we've already done that i wanted to congratulate you um thank you and i just for a point of clarification on this motion your thanks with
▶ 50:36 Jen Grigoraitis: with the helpful chart that we received today, you're talking about a 0.36% increase to your budget, correct? 1 3rd of 1% approximately that, okay. Which is smaller than, for example, fire, which was a 0.83% increase. I mean, it's one of the lowest increases there. So given how flat that budget is and how inconsequential this amount of money is, and that we're talking about so much change such an important department, I am not inclined to support this motion. Thank you. Anybody else on discussion? Councilor Garipay? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Flavin, for being here. I just had one quick question. Of your current employees, which one has the dual role of parking clerk? Just for some
▶ 51:31 Shawn M. MacMaster: clarification on my end. Which one has the dual role? there's one person that's assist the assistant treasurer okay he's gonna be assuming my responsibility and she's also the parking clerk on the same time on the same side okay great thank you very much Thank You mr. chairman just a few preliminary questions mr. Flavin you currently working full-time am I here are you currently working full-time sir Am I here? Yes. Okay, so and you've been working remotely from home during the last couple of months? March 10th. March 10th, okay. And while you've been working at home, Mr. Flavin, have you had access to a city computer, a city laptop? Absolutely. Does that allow you to access related information in order to do your job? Absolutely. Thank
▶ 52:31 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you. Mr. Flavin, you referenced there being one candidate who submitted a resume for the position. And if I recall, it was back on March 12th that our human resources director, Ms. Long, had circulated that citywide. That no longer is on the city website. Can talk a little bit about the status as you know in terms of replacing you moving forward considering that uh we had one candidate who from what you said um doesn't appear to be uh suited to uh fulfill your responsibility i have no idea you don't so you're leaving july 5th and don't know the status of what's going to happen after you leave it's out of my pay grade and you had said mr flavin you've been employed with the city for 14 years did i hear that correctly probably
▶ 53:37 Shawn M. MacMaster: you you have been employed for 14 years you haven't with the city i think in september it'll be 14 years i where are we going with this i'm waiting for you to answer the question sir before i ask the next question i know but i feel like this is not a senatorial this is out of the budget we're talking about a budget i'm getting there so the question mr mr chairman i just asked that you i'll ask mr flavin and remind him that he's answering questions right now relative to the budget i don't appreciate the influence and unprofessionalism i have questions that he's answering counselor go ahead if you want if you want to ask mr chairman WHEREAS talking about the budget we're going off target here WHEREAS not, we're not now, Mr. the, the, it's either it's, it's, it's what we're doing. It's what we're, I mean, you're going off target. You're getting, we're getting out of, we're getting out of bounds.
▶ 54:34 Shawn M. MacMaster: Councilor McMaster. Do you want to ask the ask you a question? We do have a couple of those in queue. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. The question about the, the new perspective. Higher for the, for your office is relevant because it relates to salary and I just want to make sure I understand that presumably over the last 14 years, you've had periodic increases. To your salary, it did sound like Mr Flavin. You mentioned that the rate at which you're currently paid. We may have difficulty attracting someone and I want to be certain at your salary, which I believe is 99. thousand dollars and make sure i have it correctly ninety nine thousand dollars eighty nine i'm sorry eighty nine dollars and twelve cents uh that is something that is going to attract the type
▶ 55:26 Shawn M. MacMaster: of candidate who can perform the duties that you've performed over the last 14 years again you're asking me a question that i don't have an answer to because that's not in my pay grade and it's not my perspective that's to the city that's up to the leadership that's up to the management but if you look around other cities and towns and other managers and everything else you might have a problem okay thank you and my final question is any portion of your salary mr mr flavin or your staff salaries covered by money from the sewer enterprise funds not directly i think there are indirect costs that come on the other side when you talk about the water and sewer budgets it comes back and gets charged back i think it's minimal but when you
▶ 56:17 look at the office and you look at the whole picture of what we do it's 30 of our business so whatever it is is fair understood is that reflected in the in the salary uh line salary and wages line item or is that money uh does that come from somewhere else i'm sorry that comes back later in the year when they do charge banks it's not in the budget so it's there's a digital budget in the water budget so there are additional wages on top of the salary line item no there isn't okay what i get is what i get and what you just thought what you just talked about is what i get thank you mr chairman council mcknight mr flavin um thank you for being here and i thank you for thank you mr chairman mr flavin a few moments ago you said that the
▶ 57:08 assistant treasurer was going to be assuming your duties she has been in in titular i mean we have so many banks and so many issues and so many things and so many legal things that i'm not going to be able to sign for and not be able to go forward with that the city needs her to perform and she has been doing those and assuming those um it goes from unemployment it goes to the banks it goes to the irs there's a number of things and she has stepped up tremendously to take to take charge of that and manage the process From the point of perspective, I was supposed to go 410. And because of this stuff, I stuck around. I certainly don't doubt your expertise or your Assistant Treasurer's. All I was trying to get at was, is she going to replace you?
▶ 58:14 Because you said she's going to be assuming your responsibilities. I'm sorry, say that again? You said your assistant treasurer is going to be assuming your responsibilities. Do we have someone in place or not? She has been assuming my responsibilities with my guidance. I have committed to the mayor and Patrick, CFO that over the first couple of months, I will be available for a fee to help them get through that. That's all to be negotiated. I was just confused by that statement and your statement earlier that you were kicking the can down the road, because I didn't know what that meant, kicking the can down the road. Can you explain that? Kicking the can down the road is I'm done basically July 5th.
▶ 59:11 And the office is still going to have to continue to fear. I will support the people in my office. I will support the city of Melrose. Perfect. I mean every city in town this is a mandated mass general law you have to have a treasure collector if you don't have this so and so she is going to assume that responsibility until somebody replaces it and for now I will support her I will support the city and help them through this transition but it's it's very difficult if you look around nobody can get a student collector so I'm not sure what this has to do with the budget and this should maybe be an offline thing with I mean this is this is more an administration thing with the mayor rather than you guys because he hires me
▶ 1:00:09 Jeff McNaught: and fires me and it's kind of I don't know whose businesses businesses it is but it's we're gonna work on it we're not gonna let it fail we're gonna go forward and I'm blessed to have the women that work for me he is good and professional as dedicated as they are right and I don't do that mr. Flavin I was more just trying to get clarification on your own words when you say what did this have to do with the budget I was getting clarification on your own words but i thank you for your 14 years of service and wish you the best in your retirement thank you thank you let's do it i will throw my request thank you mr council what's that i'll draw my okay council thomas thank you mr chairman mr flavin thank you for being here um
▶ 1:01:06 Cory Thomas: your 2020 budget is uh roughly four hundred and forty five thousand uh dollars to date you've spent three hundred and eighty one thousand are you gonna spend to that full allocated budget in 2020. um yes um yeah i mean are you looking at a particular line item what are you worried about i'm not worried i'm just you know wondering if you're going to spend that full budget you know about sixty thousand dollars uh year to date under your budget yeah there might be some that doesn't get spent because that's we're doing what we're doing what we do but at the end of the month we're going to kick out some more real estate bills and personal property bills between postage and printing that's going to be 16 17 000 um we still i mean with the pandemic and everything
▶ 1:02:01 Maya Jamaleddine: else we haven't been able to pull in the professional services and have the auditing people come in like we need sure and and if we don't spend it it'll kick over to free cash okay yep that's the answer I was looking for thank you so much sir thank you thank you mr. chairman congratulations mr. Craven on your retirement I would like to through the chair I would like to clarify that I've just been watching and observing the conversation and discussion with Mr. Phaven and Mr. Phaven even if sometimes the councillors know the answer for the question that they ask but ask these questions for our constituents so we can provide the more information possible so please bear with us and uh be understandable thank you thank you and i agree but sometimes
▶ 1:03:02 go ahead i'm done thank you um so we i didn't see any of the hands go up i don't know if i missed anybody but uh we do have a motion on the floor here to reduce the budget uh to to 2008 34. i'm quickly color all on that motion made by council chairman secondly by council master Vice-Chair McNarelli? No. Vice-Chair, sorry, Chairman, Councilor Tremendousy? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? No. Oops, sorry. Councilor Eccles? No. no councilor Garipay no councilor stewart yes councilor thomas no councilor Jamaleddine yes president Grigoraitis no chairman Forbes yes seven more motion fails and what is the will of the committee on this uh Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I just want to express a little bit of concern of the
▶ 1:04:32 Robb Stewart: that this department is in and the potential revocations that the budget will have based on the need to hire if there's a different salary range or grade that need to be hired a required position therefore I want to hold up on moving this from the bottom line and get a little bit of clarity perhaps from the mayor's office in terms of understanding what the role, seeing that Mr Flavin isn't fully aware of what that is. And I'd like to move to hold this in committee until we have that answer. We have a motion on the floor right now that we'll have to dispose of. Second. We are still under discussion. Is there any other discussion on the other motion? Councilor Tramontozzi? Respectfully, I'm not sure that that would be appropriate to do that.
▶ 1:05:37 John N. Tramontozzi: The charter puts restrictions on the council's requirement to send the budget to approve or not approve or do something with the budget by a certain deadline, which we're fast approaching. My fear is that we, if we hold it at this point, we may miss the deadline. And if we did, with that budget, that department budget would go forward anyways. We can require of the administration, send the budget forward, and we can also address that again at the time of the final vote of the council on the full budget. But I think it's, I think we're running out of the time that the charter requires. Thank you. That's just my thoughts. Councillor McMaster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd be inclined to support Councillor Stewart’s motion. It sounds
▶ 1:06:35 Shawn M. MacMaster: like based on the nature of his motion, he has some pointed questions that either are unanswered or that really, based on the tone and tenor of this budget hearing, would not be productive trying to seek tonight i do think also we do have two weeks uh left and similar to how we did hold up the mayor's budget initially uh it wouldn't be without precedent uh or i think unusual uh in any way to um uh to put this over at least for a few days and i would say that um in terms of us being satisfied moving it forward it would be dependent on the administration responding to to the questions that Councilor Stewart has. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Okay, so we have a motion to move the bottom line made by Councilor Eccles.
▶ 1:07:23 Leila Migliorelli: Is that correct? Seconded by Councilor McNaught. So if you could call roll on that motion. Am I allowed to add in? Well, we're going to just take a quick vote here on this and then- Mr. Chairman, I think Councilor Jamaleddine had her hand up, but I'm not sure. I'm sorry, I was just seconding, Since there is a second, I think, yeah, I'm just through the chair. I'm just trying to get a little clarity on. That everyone knows, so we're, we're motion to move the bottom line, but the proposal that counselor Stewart had would be to hold it in committee until we get more information. I just want to make sure everyone's clear on what I heard. Motion made on the floor to move the bottom line. so we have to dispose of that motion and then we can and if that fails then we can get to any other
▶ 1:08:12 motions so thank you ready so yes vote moves the bottom line no vote obviously fails vice chair Migliorelli no councillor Tramontozzi no councillor mcmaster no councillor mcnaught yes councillor Eccles yes councillor garipay yes councillor Stewart no councillor Thomas yes councilor jamala dean no president Grigoraitis yes chairman sanella yes six yes five no motion passes okay thank you mr flavin congratulations in the last meeting we already left all right um next up 7-11 municipal debt that's still 7-11 51 52 and 9 1 6 I believe aren't those are your departments yeah this is debt that the city has incurred over the last 20 years these are obligations they're rock-solid we have to pay them they are what they are
▶ 1:10:01 any questions on any of these from the councillors the will of the committee on I guess that we can move the bottom line motion to move the bottom line second motion to move the bottom line made by councilor Tramontozzi second by councilor Migliorelli now is this we have to do this on each one of these this is 7-11 municipal debt Madam Clerk, call the roll. Vice Chair Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? Councilor McNaught? Yes. Sorry. Councilor Garakai? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Sinella? Yes. 711 excuse me pass and 751 municipal debt interest same thing so we have a
▶ 1:11:17 motion motion to move the bottom line move the bottom line on 751 by council chairman tozi seconded by vice chair Migliorelli vice chair Migliorelli yes councilor Tramontology. Yes. Councilor McMaster. Yes. Councilor McNaught. Yes. Councilor Eccles. Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes. Councilor Stewart. Yes. Councilor Thomas. Yes. Councilor malady yes Grigoraitis yes chairman sanella yes yes passes 916 medicare uh the city's portion does anyone add to that mr flavin or yeah this is always a tricky one um we finally have budgeted correctly and we've done analysis um it's every dollar that gets paid to a to the employee, we owe 1.45% on every dollar that gets paid to everybody, but then it gets complicated because we have health insurance, cafeteria 125, and everything else. My office
▶ 1:12:39 in the auditor's office has done an analysis, and this is the number that we think we'll at the end of the year but is untenable that you kind of you don't know who's going to sign up for health insurance who's going to opt out those kinds of things but this number we feel is correct and you guys are all new most of you knew but we always kind of under budgeted and every May or June I'd be in here getting more money for it and now now i think it's properly funded any questions on this motion to move the bottom line second i think we should move the bottom line made by council chanatozy seconded by vice chair migliorelli adam clark please call the role vice chair migliorelli Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman
▶ 1:14:05 sanella yes 11 yes chairman if we could take 296 parking out of order because mr flavin speaks to that and pension is um okay well let's send a motion to take uh 296 out of order uh so moved Seconded by Councilor Eccles, Madam Clerk, call the roll. Vice Chair Migliorelli? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garipay? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. Councilor Doritos? Yes. Right. Yes. I'm an echo of Sunilla. Yes. 11. yes. 2, 9, 6, 9, 6, Mr. anything to say about 2, 9, 6, parking. So, whole different animal, it's, it's kind of a shared process between the planning department at the parking commission, the police department and ourselves.
▶ 1:15:24 and I mean when you go down the items you'll see this year that the printing wasn't as we didn't spend as much as we should have but we've changed I mean as part of this and part of being mobile and doing in responding to all this we've moved things out so we didn't have to buy new decals we didn't have to buy new parking tickets um i don't know how many are being written um it's kind of in a flux but this is the budget that in a normal time would be appropriate and i think not again i hate to use the word kick down the road because it caused some problems earlier next year we'll be spending more on decals and stickers and issuances and whatever so what worked in the past is what's presented today and that's what we're going to do proposing the questions counselor
▶ 1:16:27 Robb Stewart: stewart thank you mr chair uh mr flagging could you just elaborate a little bit on what professional services uh entails um that's the parking meters that are at the different train stations and locations we lease them we buy them we repair them we we keep up with them and again that's part of this is kind of a split department that falls under dpw we've spent all that money this year and i pretty much imagine we're going to spend the same thing next year okay so an assessment is gone is performed in terms of what needs to be repaired or replaced and so forth and you pretty much budget uh to that level of effort because it looks like it goes up and down every year in conjunction with dpw okay all right uh thank you mr blaine thank
▶ 1:17:24 you uh mr the other question is a discussion uh on 296 parking uh what is the will of the committee on this motion move the bottom line move the bottom line made by council thomas SECONDED BY COUNCILOR JAMALA DEAN. MADAM CLARK, PLEASE CALL THE ROLL. VICE CHAIR MCGILLI-RULLEY? YES. COUNCILOR Tramontozzi? YES. COUNCILOR MCMASTER? YES. COUNCILOR McNaught? YES. COUNCILOR Eccles? YES. COUNCILOR GUERRICA? YES. COUNCILOR STEWART? YES. COUNCILOR THOMAS? YES. COUNCILOR JAMALA DEAN? YES. PRESIDENT Grigoraitis? YES. chairman sanella seven months madam clerk do we do 752 project debt not yet 751 752 sorry that's mr flagel um because of the change in administration and what's going on and everything else i mean we used to issue every year right now we're in a cesara or a pause
▶ 1:18:45 and we really there's there's nothing that's going to happen in next year that won't be due until the next year after so it's a zero on discussion uh anybody have questions move move the bottom line on 752 project debt made by councillor eccles second seconded by uh vice chair Migliorelli i don't quite call the role please vice chair Migliorelli yes councillor Tremont Ozi yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes all right thank you mr flavin your groundhog day is finally over can i um can i just take a moment of personal privilege and ask and thank you all for stepping up and becoming involved and all that that's involved it's a difficult time it's it's very very hard to make these decisions and as far as whole
▶ 1:20:20 and i just want to make a comment because this might be the last time i talk to you guys our girls um the budget that was presented that's on hold was to make sure that my successor would have as much success as i've had 13 or 14 years and i would absolutely i support that budget and i think that will make them as successful as i and my staff have been and again i want to thank all the all the people in my office that have done what they've done adapted it's actually it's it's been incredible and it's a very important department that kind of gets overlooked and i think that whatever we the number we presented is appropriate and when you think about it in a couple of weeks please consider of these thoughts so we have mr. de la Rosa in the room hello can't seem hold
▶ 1:21:35 on if I can fix that if you want to see me all right here I am like okay thank you thank you good evening good evening um I believe the last item on the agenda at least for the budgets is on the section you should have i'm hoping the a correspondence from the retirement system on uh funding schedule there should be two at least two pages one is the appropriation required by the city of melrose and the second is the actual funding schedule itself what's what's proposed um as far as expiration of the city's paying off the liability related to the pension um this is an assessment that we get each year and what we do is we have an actuary on the melons retirement board we retain he provides the analysis to the state the public employee
▶ 1:22:37 12 PARAC, Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission, and we have to submit the actual report to the POML. And so based on that analysis, the PARAC comes back and sends us notification as to what our funding schedule requirement is for the next fiscal year. And that is what you have for you if you look at it there's the number is six million 396 652 that's for the city of melrose that's what we are required um to fund our pension system at period it is not an item that can be reduced and it's an item that probably parallels with debt that's a requirement to be paid and it's it's just you know I consider it's just the next step towards having the system funded fully it's the next step it's the next step and that's
▶ 1:23:45 Cory Thomas: what I mentioned the other evening we talked about OPEB this is the funding schedule scenario that would be required for OPEB for example for health insurance this is the one that's in place for the for the pension system for city of mahoras that's uh any questions i hope i can address them council thomas thank you mr chairman uh mr delarusso thank you for being here um thank you for letting me in oh absolutely is that a typical increase of four hundred thousand dollars uh from 2020 to 2021. um that's actually pretty level it seems pretty pretty lovely funded from 2019 to 2020 you know went up about a hundred thousand is that a normal significant increase that's an excellent question because um what we find happen is that the the actual date that the actuary uses in this
▶ 1:24:43 particular case if i may from his report itself that is produced um he said the contribution requirements are based on the financial condition of the system as of december 31st 2018 as well as the liability results which are based on benefit provisions demographics numbers of the system etc you are you are actually correct 100 correct typically we see the increase between let's say 200 000 a year or so but um the fact of matter is when they perform this analysis they go with that December end date and it had been December's address of 2019 you probably know type of an increase because the market performed better and this particular case unfortunately that time period that was that they had to
▶ 1:25:36 use for the audit brought this number in which wasn't as favorable to us as we would have liked or any city in town for that matter for that year but that's what that's the answer to your question is based on that period of day mr delaro russo thank you so much uh for always being so prepared um you know doing your job you know in a professional um and positive manner thank you thank you i try i try anybody else i didn't see any other hands go up did i miss anybody the will of the committee oh how's the mcmaster just very quickly thank you mr chairman mr delarusso i just wanted to uh echo and i'm not sure if you were on at the time council mcnaught's um effusive praise of your efforts and miss golden's effort to put together
▶ 1:26:25 that information uh in an expeditious fashion but also um uh echo what councillor thomas said is that uh you're always professional in your interactions with us you're always a class act and i know all of us appreciate that thank you mr governor and and likewise council i mean i sincerely appreciate the positive comments from the council i feel it's my duty and responsibility to always provide you with the most up-to-date and current information i possibly can but thank you very much for those kind words thank you anybody else anybody want to make a motion here don't everyone jump in the bottom line move the bottom line made by council McNaught seconded by councillor echo is madame clark yes counselor stewart yes counselor thomas yes
▶ 1:27:31 councilor maladin yes president Grigoraitis she's having some technical issues chairman sanella yes let's see she can hear us president Grigoraitis 10 yes motion passes thank you very much thank you thank you thank you last on our list is adjournment motion to adjourn to adjourn made by councillor Migliorelli seconded by councillor Stewart seconded by councillor mcnaught third Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes. Councilor McNaught? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Garrett? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamala Dean? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Sunil? Yes. Councilor McNally? Yes. Councilor Cotul? Yes. Councilor Wood? Yes. Councilor Albert? Yes. Councilor Eaton?
▶ 1:28:43 something you want to say I do sorry chairman similar trying to get out of here quickly but I did want to mention that this past what the night because I can't remember the days anymore president Saturday Saturday night president Grigoraitis counselor Stewart and couple me where Kelly and I participated in the bridge trivia beat um we were the newbies as we've been often referred to um by many including ourselves because there's nine out of eleven new counselors but our team name was the new bees get it to be um it was to help benefit the bridge program which is is a great program that honors or raises funds for the volunteers that help out in the schools. And I can speak a little bit more eloquently. I'd like to just read a brief synopsis of
▶ 1:29:52 what the BRIDGE does. It's a nonprofit organization that recruits, streams, trains, and places volunteers in Melrose public schools. This came in response to requests from teachers and administrators. The volunteers are used to support, augment, enhance programs in the five elementary schools, the middle school, and the high school. Bridge volunteers are parents, retirees, grandparents, professionals, and people from the business community and governmental communities. and high school and college students. So it was a pleasure to be a part of that. We do have some complaints about other teams that may have carried more. That's a joke in case anyone's wondering. I won't even refer to it. Counselor Eccles may have joined another team,
▶ 1:30:53 Christopher Cinella: but all in all it was a fantastic night to help raise funds for the bridge. So with that, I will be quiet and observe the adjournment. Thank you. And thank you guys for doing this. Maybe next year you'll win it. We are adjourned. I'll see you all same time, same screen. Good night. Good night.