Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2020-06-08

Attendance

Christopher Cinella present · Chair; Jack Eccles present · Voting; Mark Garipay present · Voting; Jen Grigoraitis present · President, ex oficio; Maya Jamaleddine present · Voting; Shawn M. MacMaster present · Voting; Jeff McNaught present · Voting; Leila Migliorelli present · Vice Chair; Robb Stewart present · Voting; Cory Thomas present · Voting; John N. Tramontozzi present · Voting

Agenda

1. Call to Order (23:10)
2. Public Comment (24:26)
3. Orders (30:50)
4. 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). (30:58)
5. 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. (1:16:14)
6. ORDER-2020-110 : An Appropriation from Free Cash, account 01-324001, in the amount of $79,300.00 to various accounts as set forth herein. (2:47:02)
7. Adjournment (2:49:10)

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 8, 2020 Web-based remote meeting Budget Hearing 7:05 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

ORDER-2020-110 Appropriation An Appropriation from Free Cash, account 01-324001, in the amount of $79,300.00 to various accounts as set forth herein. Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 6/29/2020 11:43 AM

Transcript

▶ 23:44 Christopher Cinella: post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Norris website and mmtv3.org. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. 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. Chair Sonnella. Here. President. Thank you. I would entertain a motion for public comment. Motion to open public comment. Second. Motion made for public comment by Councilor Eccles, seconded by President Grigoraitis. Madam Thirch, please call the roll.

▶ 24:40 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. President Grigoraitis. Yes. Chair Cinella. Yes. Levin, yes. Okay, do we have some folks in queue? We do, let me see, I've got, and mr chris minton he notified us earlier you'd like to speak let me unmute him chris can you hear us uh yes hi everyone this is chris can you hear me yes the screen is yours thank you so my wife and i have lived in melrose's ward 5 for the past 12 years and we currently have two girls in the school system one at the middle school and one at the

▶ 25:43 winthrop so i'd like to speak in support of the school committee's budget request for the upcoming school year my understanding is that the school committee is requesting a 2.3 percent increase from the fy20 budget after reading through the main points of the budget the increases are primarily due to additional positions that are needed to meet the growing enrollment as well as increases in contract in contractual services for special ed transportation and other contractually obligated raises while i applaud the city council for looking at ways to reduce spending I believe that we must prioritize the education budget. This version of the budget already includes significant cuts to equipment, supplies, and technology, so the school committee has already

▶ 26:23 made difficult choices. From what I've read, state aid is expected to be flat next year, and there will likely be no additional funding through the Student Opportunity Act due to current budget constraints. If you were to pass a level-funded budget, it would amount to a cut because it would not support the growing enrollment as well as our other contractual obligations. that was passed a budget override in part to better fund our schools and we need to move forward not backward it's been a very challenging few months for students parents and teachers i want to ensure that the school system has the funds that they need to provide the best education to our students next year thank you i'm clear anybody there is um manjula i hope i'm not

▶ 27:08 Manjula Karamcheti: Manjula. Manjula, thank you. Hi, how are you? Great, you can hear us. Hi, Manjula. You can hear me? Everybody can hear you. If you could just state your name and your address, please. Okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Manjula Karamchadi, and I live on Matolf Street. I am a proud Ward 1 resident. I'm a school counselor and a former school counseling administrator i am the current equity director and a faculty mentor at the ww graduate school of teaching and learning which is a partnership with mit and i'm also president of the nvmms pto i'm speaking tonight regarding order 2020-89 and particularly the school budget line i support the school budget which i know was developed during a time of financial strain on the city and the state

▶ 28:03 Manjula Karamcheti: and under a cloud of uncertainty. I encourage all members to support this line item in full. I want to be clear that I do not support any cuts to the bottom line of the school budget. Our schools and our students have been trying to learn during a time of true emergency over the last few months. Our students, we don't even yet know how they're going to be impacted by learning remotely, being out of the school building, and also in dealing with the issues of racial injustice that have surpassed in the past few weeks. When our students return to school in the fall, whatever that looks like in our buildings or remotely, they will need and deserve educators who care for them and tremendous support.

▶ 28:58 Manjula Karamcheti: In particular, let me say a word about our students with special education needs and special rights. Many of our students with special needs will need services over the summer and extra support in the fall. This is not only our legal obligation, it is our moral obligation. If we are truly a district that supports equity, inclusion and diversity, we have to make sure that we support our special education students. I do not support any efforts by this council to cut or alter any funding streams that support special education. And I was dismayed to see attempted action to that effect by a few members of the council. I thank you so much for your service, especially during these difficult times in our community.

▶ 29:44 I know this is not an easy time to make fiscal decisions, but I implore you to really think about our students and our children first. They are our future and they are what matters. Thank you very much. thank you is there anyone else would like to speak if you could raise your digital hand I believe that is it I just had a motion to close public comment question to close public comment second closed public comment made by President Grigoraitis second by Councilor McNaught please 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. President Grigoraitis. Yes. Chair Sinella. Yes. Levin, yes.

▶ 30:51 Christopher Cinella: Okay, so this is a continuation of our budget hearings in order 2020 dash 89, which is the city of those operating budget for fiscal year 2021 and the amount of 88,397,961 dollars, 8 cents. 1st up 541 Council on aging and their revolving account count number 2811 and I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules. motion to suspend the rules yes I'd like to take a point of personal privilege before we continue so through the chair and I'm speaking a little bit extemporaneously here so forgive me but what I wanted to do is express my concern about the proceedings from last week I was opposed to hearing that we move to the bottom line before considering motions to amend a particular uh portion of the budget

▶ 32:03 Robb Stewart: i would encourage the uh the council to to act respectfully and while it is difficult to be in this kind of an arena uh the the the webex can be a little bit challenging I would suggest that it is important to hear a minority vote if there is one and let those amendments be heard. So I would suggest that if we could be collegial, I think the words were used last week. I think that would be respecting again that minority position and I would feel much more comfortable than just moving directly to the bottom line. Mr. Chair. Thank you. Point well taken and just as a as a point of order when a motion is made and on the floor it has to be disposed of but there is discussion um that can continue on.

▶ 32:58 Christopher Cinella: We've had votes on the treasurer um with a first to speak and a motion made. We've had votes on audit um on the budget component where there was a first to speak and a motion made IT and as well as the Assessor so just as a point of information we have a motion on the floor now to suspend the rules and clerk can you call the roll please I should make me really yes counselor Tramon Tozie yes counselor McMaster yes not solar McNutt yes counselor Eccles so Gara pay yes counselor Stewart yes Councilor Thomas? Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chair Sinella? Yes. 11 yes. Thank you. And just for our speakers in queue, you'll see councillors raise their hand throughout this proceeding. That's just an indication to me to put them on my queue to speak, ask questions.

▶ 34:06 I'm bringing Stacey Minchello, Council on Aging Director forward. Stacey, can you hear us? I can hear you. Do you have a little video or are you on the phone? Let's see. How's that? Not yet. No? Nope. Oh, you have to push the button that says start my video. Right. Good evening, counselors. You're welcome, Stacey. welcome Stacey screen is all yours if you have so sorry it looks like it's buffering so on the Melrose consultation is the community hub for our seniors families and caregivers and support services Melrose is proudly represented in the aging Network currently holding an at-large seat with the Massachusetts Council on Aging, which is a direct network with the Executive Office of Elder Affairs

▶ 35:20 and as well the Governor's Council to address aging in Massachusetts. We also hold several seats on the Mystic Valley Elder Services Board, and we are the lead agency in the COA regional districts. Information, referral, and resources top our list of professionally administered services. Additionally, we manage the free local transportation services that we offer our senior population here in the city, and we administer the property tax workoff program and the coordination of the Melrose Emergency Fund. The Melrose Senior Center is a home away from home for socializing, learning, and healthy aging. We offer more than 60 programs a week, And we are a congregate meal site daily. We offer a variety of wellness and fitness, art courses, computer instruction, educational programs, as well as entertaining events.

▶ 36:16 During the COVID period recently, I would like to tell you that the Council on Aging has remained 100% open. Without disruption, our delivery of services were modified and still continue. Simultaneously, we are a major collaborative partner with Melrose Health. For the Milano Center, any program that can be offered remotely now for our seniors is happening currently or in the planning stage of a rollout. One of our most successful has been the weekly phone-in bingo games where we average about 50 participants. We also partnered with the local YMCA for exercise and meditation classes, as most of our instructors are also employed there. All support groups have been operating remotely. We realize that not all seniors have access to the Internet, so we have sent prerecorded shows to the Melrose Cable TV.

▶ 37:15 And I'll tell you, Zoom karaoke was most popular during the peak of the virus. As for the budget, the Council on Aging is level-funded outside of scheduled contractual step increases in salaries and wages. Important information that you should find valuable is that the Council on Aging is state-funded according to the census. So this year, 2020, this is the first time historically that there are more senior citizens over the age of 60 than those under the age of 5. is the baby boomer wave. I bring this to your attention so you may be aware that the major increase in elders in our community, as well as the economic issues, the COA will be expecting a large influx of social service requests. Our most

▶ 38:04 John N. Tramontozzi: pressing goal is to reframe the programs for a soft opening of the Milano Center and simultaneously our Board of Directors has been working on a strategic plan to forge the future of the COA and the Milano Center the important initiatives that are in the planning progress now are to earn the city of Melrose a designation as an age friendly and dementia friendly community and obviously additional priorities are intergenerational cultural programs thank you for this evening I appreciate all you do thank you mr. chairman thank you miss manchello for being here this evening I want you to know that the Council on Aging does a wonderful job and it should be commended because you support the the elders in the community very well and I'm looking at your budget

▶ 39:11 John N. Tramontozzi: and that there is I believe that there was an outreach worker that is not being fun yeah so so the work of the outreach workers that reassigned to others or is eliminated completely it's it's most of it has fallen on my plate and then if it's appropriate I spread it amongst qualified staff social workers a definite need at this point okay and can you explain again when you say it's the is it the budget that is state-funded you mentioned something about state funding do we get money from the state so the city provides a portion of the budget and then the state provides the formula grant and the formula grant is allocated to us based on the census so right now we're running off the 2010 census so we're expecting that the 2020 census should help us the problem though

▶ 40:23 that lies there is there's a possibility of a pending state cut so even though the elder account goes up if the money per elder goes down we may possibly find ourselves in the same position as with the same amount of money but servicing more elders so can you where in your budget does it reflect where the state income comes in it probably would be on after the city the city page so like if you're looking at page one the city's um total budget i should wear my glasses the city's total budget is the 190 and then we're supported by it's only the formula i don't want to say only because even when you look at the council on aging budget where we're three percent of the entire budget um i don't want to say we're pennies in the bucket because we're a large service but the

▶ 41:29 John N. Tramontozzi: formula grant right now is currently running at 49 000. all right does that go into the general fund and then eventually gets distributed to the council on aging when it's necessary correct it's totally purposed right now for support other part-timers that are not benefited and it supports the transportation services so this budget here is just what the city is contributing it's not reflective contribution is correct okay so all right um all right so i um i see what you have here and um when you say that it's level funded it's level funding except for obviously contractual and except salary and wage line as well house is level funded and i appreciate that and as i've been telling all the department heads and as you probably know uh my fear is that in these this

▶ 42:26 John N. Tramontozzi: unprecedented time that we're gonna have we have in a revenue shortage uh to the city because the state is is in the red by six to eight billion dollars and i don't think we're gonna get any funding from the federal uh to support the state and the states and it's hitting all the municipalities it's not just melrose it's all others as well and as the as the mayor has said that there's that risk that people are going to be laid off so what i'm trying to do is to prevent that from happening by attempting to level fund all these um budgets if possible to 2020 so that's that's what that's what my goal is uh and that is the level fund to 2020 and with that in mind i um i wouldn't make a motion uh to do that and i calculated and used as the administration's

▶ 43:22 John N. Tramontozzi: um schedule of salaries and wages that administration provided to us in the spreadsheet so my proposal would be to um on line zero one five four one five one one zero zero zero salary and wages uh to reflect a new figure of um that would be one hundred and eighty eight thousand eight hundred and fifty two cents making the bottom line on this budget one hundred and eighty nine thousand seven hundred and fifty seven dollars and ninety two cents so I would make a motion to amend the bottom line to one hundred eighty nine thousand seven hundred and fifty seven dollars and ninety two cents a point of information mr. chairman through you is I wasn't clear if that reduction includes the contractual employees that this reference. I didn't, I didn't hear her say.

▶ 44:33 John N. Tramontozzi: The 7 increase, what percent of that is lawfully required on the collective bargaining agreements? I would agree to. I would I would 2nd, council tremendous motion. If that number is representative of just non contractual employees, but I just didn't hear anything about. The contractual employees, so through you, Mr. chairman, I was just seeking to get some clarity on it. Thanks. I could clarify that Mr. through the chair. My calculation was only on a non union employees. It was not the contractual employees, which, according to my, my look at this schedule was just program assistant is a contractual. and the outreach worker that we spoke about previously was also intractual, but that's eliminated.

▶ 45:27 Maya Jamaleddine: So the only one that is not affected would be the program assistant, which would be intractual, and I did not calculate a reduction there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. At this time, I would second the motion on the floor. So there's a second motion made by Councilor Tramontozzi to reduce the bottom line to $189,757.92. What is the reduction amount? $10,459.23. It's seconded by Councilor McMaster. On discussion, Councilor Jamaleddine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Mintello, for being with us today. I actually have question and also to discussion can you explain to us about what was the social workers work I understand that we previously had two days social worker and then we lost the social worker unfortunately we and and

▶ 46:48 now we are without social worker right I've been assuming the I am NOT a licensed social worker first off the bat but I've been assuming the role of the social worker and if it is requires something beyond the role of a referral then I have to proceed outside the city to hopefully seek help there there is a dire need for a social worker we just don't have it was only a five-hour position at that point I was go ahead no no I'm sorry go ahead that's right if I was to I mean I could actually utilize a full-time social worker and have it be ageless and benefit the entire community it just wasn't in this budget for this round I understand and for how long we've been waiting for this I as I may recall it's been for a long time put on hold because of the budget and I think

▶ 48:00 Maya Jamaleddine: our senior population is and as you mentioned I need for a social worker to be able to provide the services that they need as much as you know every single generation they need services from us but the senior generation this is the most service that they would require at this time which is social worker I at this time I think it would be unfair to make any kind of cut since we are already putting this service on hold for many years I find it very unfair to request more cut and to play on this population to suffer from our cuts and our budget thank you so much thank you mr. chairman mr. Minichiello can you just confirm mr. trim a toesies math on on the on the positions is there just one can you just confirm there's only one that is non or I'm

▶ 49:21 sorry one that is contractual or all the other ones non contractual correct I have 130 our program assistant that's contractual so for the council in aging I'm I'm full-time I have the contractual assistant and then the rest of the hours are part-time two of them one is part-time benefited and the rest of them are part-time okay thank you I just wanted some clarification on that thank anybody else on discussion councilor stewart thank you mr chair good evening ms munchell um thanks for being here tonight can you share can you share with the council um the risk of flight of your staff if uh there is no increase um i'm not quite sure i mean we have a very dedicated staff i'm sure that it would be a first of all um 99.9 of my staff are elders

▶ 50:34 so not only are we employing elders and taking care of elders that's a very difficult um thing to digest but i do believe that we have a great staff that would swallow it but i can't truly tell you i'm trying to think of i haven't heard from anyone that says that they're going to bail because they're not getting an increase um i do know that when you piecemeal part-timers together and then they may have the chance to go elsewhere where there's an increase or make more money that might play into it um but i believe that we have a very dedicated staff that would would hang in but with COVID right now and all the changes and we don't know how we're going to be able to offer you know how to offer the

▶ 51:28 services the pieces might not fit exactly the way they used to and that's a concern because my staff are on the lower range so that's that's a difficult one they truly don't make a lot of money and they work minimal hours but it's a puzzle I just understood miss me Joe and how difficult or easy is it to replace your staff that's it I mean I would say as difficult as any position it's certainly it costs money to replace people it costs money to train people it cost money to hire people at higher you know wouldn't be higher wages they're set wages i apologize but um i don't know that sounds like a a question that would basically i guess i don't know quite sure what i'm saying but i think it would just there's certainly a lot of people out

▶ 52:36 there looking for jobs so i don't want to say of course it would be easy my folks are are embedded in the community they live in the community they live and breed they know they know our constituents our consumers they they they are pretty uh dedicated so it would be difficult in the sense of starting over would you would you um say that the the cost of replacement exceeds the cost of the increase or would you say that the cost of replacement is less in the cost of the increase I would think the cost of the replacement we would lose our what we've built for so many years and what's the typical tenure of your staff I have I just printed that out I have folks that have been here 20 years I think the most recent hire was 10 years ago they've been here for a pretty

▶ 53:48 long time if I find the right sheet yeah I have nine years ten years going up to 16 20 years i mean besides i'm i'm the most recent new hire and then behind me is about seven years so thank you miss manchella no more questions mr chair president Grigoraitis thank you chairman sanella and thank you ms manchello for being here i just um so just to i just want to make sure i understood your answers to mr stewart's question counselor stewart's questions so your staff are part-time elderly residents of the City of Melrose for providing services to their peers through the Council on Aging. Correct. For the most part, I have one that grew up in Melrose, lived in Melrose, worked in Melrose, but now currently lives in Saugus. So, for the most part.

▶ 54:57 Jen Grigoraitis: We'll count them. I think for many of us, there has been heightened concern around the the wellbeing of our older residents during the pandemic and the impact on mental health with this extended isolation and inability to engage in activities and see loved ones. Can you talk about, have you seen a rise in the complexity of calls that you're getting? Are you, is it requiring more time for you to connect people with services? Sort of what is that, what is the work of the council looking like during the pandemic? During the pandemic, it's been what we've noticed the most is the heightened anxiety. I will tell you that the seniors are very grateful and very thankful to the city and the administration for the communications, for Melrose Helps.

▶ 55:51 But our day is filled up with a lot of questions about most of it we can't answer at this point. but even in the beginning and through the peak we were I was thinking about possibly getting some compassion training compassion fatigue training in for the staff even if I'm in the office now but you know the staff are working remotely and it was besides Melrose help a lot of connections and phone calls on I'm all alone in my apartment what if I die here and it was very overwhelming very very overwhelming the seniors were worried about the staff at the council and aging level worried about the volunteers um we don't judge if someone has a grandson living in the house that is not shopping for their their grandmother we took care

▶ 56:45 of it we we don't judge simultaneous to that as we're preparing for the opening it's very difficult help to digest that the seniors have lost a lot of their friends so we as workers don't know who may not come back and how we're going to handle counseling our staff and counseling the seniors so the virus has totally taken a toll on us we're up for the task but it's a heavy one did I answer your question you did thank you very much and thank you for the work you're doing. That sounds incredibly complicated and emotionally draining. So thank you for what you do. Thank you. Consulate McNaught. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Minchello for your, um, patience and your, uh, brutal honesty to some of these questions.

▶ 57:44 Jeff McNaught: Um, it's very much appreciated, um, on a personal level. I just also want to say thank you. I know during my work, With Melrose helps alone and. Through people who have contacted me for help with tomorrow's emergency fund. What a relief it's been to be able to lean on you and your staff. Who I never realized were working the small amount of hours they are, or making the small salaries that they were. You're a vital branch in this community. I will not vote for any motion to lower salaries in your department. And again, thank you for all that you do. Thank you. Councillor McMaster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, Ms. Minchello. Thank you for all your hard work and your efforts. President Grigoraitis asked you some good questions about the impacts that the pandemic

▶ 58:44 has had on our older adults. Can you talk a little bit about the issue of food security and challenges paying bills from the perspective of seniors? What is it that you're hearing from them? Sure, well, there's a couple of things. There's benefit eligible folks. So they would have the financial means, I'm talking about the SNAP, the food stamp program. So for the past two months, anyone on food stamps has been the max is the minimum excuse me has gone to like 194 dollars the problem with during the virus was it doesn't matter how much food stamps you have if you can't access them because a lot of the vendors don't have point of service for to use an EBT card so that was one challenge that we

▶ 59:35 faced the other challenge that we faced was we have we have homeowners in in in Melrose private residences that are you know paying their taxes and we have elders with mortgages and that just scares the dickens out of me because they're they're struggling to stay house rich pocket poor and if you aren't eating then I mean they have I would hate for them to choose between pet food prescriptions and food and that's a very very tough occult situation but for the Melrose helps has been a blessing because again it's not if you need groceries we send them that's it we don't we don't check your income verify if you have juice in the fridge nothing like that secondary to that we have partnered with the food pantries and the federal USDA

▶ 1:00:28 programs so the farm to families vegetables and produce have been going out of the high school to all I say the high school not specifically because it's ages age related to their demographics but it's they have the loading dock and the equipment I just received a truckload of 800 pounds of cooked chicken and actually has cheese in there so we're participating in that and the chicken will go out on Friday and then we have several other shipments coming and this is where the consulate agent comes into place with we got we have the drivers that aren't driving seniors around right now but we're driving produce or masks or rubbing alcohol so we've been we've been utilizing them in that role but as far as food and securities go the virus has

▶ 1:01:23 has really hit them hard I talked to a senior earlier tonight and she never really realized how much she relied on the senior center for her meal so it's very very very very difficult mystic valley has increased the meals on wheels um and i i can't think of anything else that's food related but there there there's a perception that mellows folks are all are well off and can take care of themselves but when you put it into reality the number of elders we have in their relative incomes. I just, I'd like to go home at night and hope that they're all eating. Thank you for that. I'm sorry, was there anything else, Ms. Minchella? No, no, I think we do a great job with it too. I don't, I don't, if someone asks for something, they get it. Thank you.

▶ 1:02:14 Shawn M. MacMaster: And my last question is, just since you're here, you had talked about the strategic plan, which I think is a terrific idea. I would encourage you, if you haven't done any work yet, to maybe look to the gerontology institute at the mccormick graduate school at umass a tremendous resource they break down demographics for all communities in the state there's some good data there relative to melrose and on that i was just curious has there been any talk or consideration as you move forward on the strategic plan of maybe changing the name of the senior center to a term that has a different connotation understanding that you know we're starting to use the term older adult 55 plus you know seniors who may be anywhere between 55 and 65 may not be able to utilize the

▶ 1:03:02 Shawn M. MacMaster: services my mother's in her early 70s and she still thinks that she's too young to go to the Senior Center so I'm just wondering if there might be more than age-friendly name that might be able to better engage you know some I mean, also do that seniors are aging at home more now than ever and if if there might be ways that they may see the console and aging as a resource rather than a place to necessarily go to correct. And I think so, let me 1st, apologize to you because I say senior center in the, I guess, in the, in the sense of a noun that the console and agent is a department and the senior center is the building behind me, but we've already changed our name. our name uh we're the milano center it doesn't even say senior but the outside of the building

▶ 1:03:49 says senior and the only reason why um i didn't want to take it down is because one right now it's a it's it's recognizable but two it's also gold leaf paint and it would cost a lot of money to to uh reinvent that but i will tell you too that the first stage of this first process of THE STRATEGIC PLANNING OF THE BOARD WAS TO REVITALIZE IT AS A COMMUNITY CENTER AND THEY ROLLED OUT A LOGO I'M TRYING TO SEE IF I HAVE IT HERE AND THE LOGO IS THE MILANO BARN AND IT SAYS I DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN SEE THAT MELOS CONSULTING AGING MILANO CENTER SO IT'S THE BARN and it says live well, age well. So I'm echoing your point. I think that the days of a senior center, no disrespect to my seniors that love to come and play bingo and eat pudding, but the days

▶ 1:04:45 of a senior center being just a place for the older folks to hang out and watch soap operas is really gone by the wayside. And the virus itself right now has given us an opportunity to reframe and repurpose what healthy aging looks like excellent thank you so much you're welcome I'm very impressed thank you thank you anybody else for the first time counselor Thomas thank you mr. chairman I believe there's another motion on the table right now I'd like to make a motion to move the bottom line I can't make a motion for that just yet until we dispose of the other motion Anybody else for the first time? Councilor Eccles? Thanks, Ms. Minchella, for being here tonight. I just have one quick question on the revolving account since we're

▶ 1:05:38 discussing. It says that most of that is funded through donations. Is that generally one annual fundraiser? Is there somewhere right now, because there's a high demand for your services, is that somewhere that you're soliciting donations? Can people make a donation online? Sure. Well, I have to be perfectly clear we have a couple of venues of donations so I have the Friends of the Milano Center and their support right now is they basically pay for programs or items or things that the city budget can't afford and they have the Giving Tree and they do their annual fundraising secondary to that I have folks citizens anyone that'll send a check to the council on aging and that goes right into the city revolving fund and then also additional to that we have

▶ 1:06:35 the fish donations and you're gonna ask me what fish means and I just blew right out of my mind but that's basically we have a collaboration with Cataldo ambulance so that if we're closed if it's a weekend and a night and they need to do um it's a volunteer program for transportation services to fill in the gaps then seniors sometimes make donations to the fish you'll see that i think it's like a twenty eight hundred dollars right now but um and then lastly um malwa's emergency fund even though it's coordinated by the Council on Aging, the generous donations that have been rolling in for that go directly to the Melrose Council on Aging. It's not used for support of the programs and services of the

▶ 1:07:26 Council on Aging office. We administer it. Does that make sense? Yeah, perfect. That makes sense. Thank you so much for all your detailed responses. I will not be supporting the salary decrease at this time and look forward to supporting Councilor Thomas motion. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Anybody else for the first time? Seeing none. Councilor Jamaleddine for the second time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just last question. What is the service that any of our seniors, you know, came to reach out to you to provide and you weren't able to provide? it's not available um well what's struggling now is that um we were not able to offer tax tax services that is because we were a victim of there weren't any volunteers and melrose

▶ 1:08:20 to provide those services which is administered through the aarp program so that was a definite loss for the seniors to go to other towns um as far as the services it depends on what it costs everything that we sit down and say that we're going to do it would depend upon the cost of what we would need to do so we're very creative on i can partner with the high school and get computer lessons for them but if they want to advance that's probably a bad example because we have sdm right down the street but if they were at more advanced programs that cost more money we would not be able we would not be able to do them those are um teaching life skills i mean seniors there are some seniors out there that can use their cell phones and there's

▶ 1:09:04 others that i could i wish i could stop my daily duties just to sit down and show a senior how how to navigate the internet or to do something um and even the social worker issue where we jump through hoops to get them what they need and the the barriers that we bump into are people seniors are responsible for their own services if i had an empty bucket which is not possible and could say i could pay for someone's mental health counseling or if we become a victim of whatever the circumstances are at that time but we we focus on a no no wrong door policy we try to get everybody what they need. Are we partnering with anyone in terms of the social workers in terms of or any organization just in a crisis or you

▶ 1:10:04 know like urgent need of social worker? Urgent need is tough I mean if I have to I will call Melrose-Wakefield Hospital the problem is it's I I feel like it's control issue too because once you refer them it then becomes you're not privileged to the confidential information but you want to hope that they were taken care of um secondary i use um if it's a grandparent raising a grandchild like uh and they're in the school i try to use the school counselor to um help with the family situation um i refer them to interface um and believe it or not i've relied heavily on the faith communities heavily because then um they're able to be sensitive to their needs and and maybe i if someone is i you know confident confidential reasons i'll make something up

▶ 1:10:58 Maya Jamaleddine: if someone was refusing chemo treatment because they were afraid they couldn't pay the bills and they were just willing themselves to end it then i would just call um the the church and the church would would take them in and we would work together so it's not it's it's a great outcome it's we're very prideful of how we take care of people we we jump through hoops and go extra miles but it's not a professional um situation we try to get them to the professional situation and thank you so much for this answer and i think it's a great example and that would did need to ask more question about one last question i'm sorry about taking more time but it's very dear uh topic um do you mind to provide us with a example uh to see how much we are in

▶ 1:11:51 need uh of a social worker how much our um senior population is in need of this social worker and how much it would serve us at this at this time i think the the the addictions crisis is hitting us hard so we have an elder that can uh maintain their own budget and and and live their life according to the way they decided to live at this point in their life and then when they've lost a child to addiction or they're raising a grandchild or you know that those cases are the difficult ones where we scramble we don't look at it as child services we really look at everything as ageless and you know um how do we get you know we had a case where we had to get someone enrolled in school and i would only been on the job a month i didn't even know where the schools were so you

▶ 1:12:44 know we we take care of those type cases um the most difficult case in massachusetts um an elder has the right to self-neglect and what i mean by that is we do not we don't we don't pink slip elders we don't tell them what to do so we have to establish solid relationships of trust with these elders to help them help themselves because when they're in a state where they can't help themselves or the families you know working are not available sometimes it's not even a matter of money it's a matter of establishing that working social relationship so that we can help them make the right decisions or guide them for them to make their own decisions it's all about respect and dignity thank you so much thank you anybody else for the second time first time

▶ 1:13:36 Christopher Cinella: none so we have a motion on the floor uh made by council chan matosi uh to reduce the bottom lines here you by ten thousand four fifty nine twenty three which is one eight nine seven ninety two seconded by council mcmaster uh madam clerk please call the roll vice chair Migliorelli no council of Tramontozzi yes council mcmaster vice chair mcnaught i'm sorry council is not i think mcmaster just answered my apologies council mcnaught i didn't i wasn't sure if my speaker was on that's okay council mcnaught no councillor eccles no councillor Garipay no councillor stewart no councillor thomas no councillor maladine no president Grigoraitis no chairman sonala no 2 yes 9 no motion defeated and what is the will of the committee on council on

▶ 1:14:51 Robb Stewart: agent motion sorry second made the first motion Thomas in a motion to move the bottom line seconded by councillor if not on discussion yes thank you mr. Chair. Ms. Minchella, I just wanted to let you know that as the Ward 3 City Councilor who has the Fuller House, the Levi Gold, Cephalo, and a large number of senior citizens in my ward, I think what you've done, also at the Milano Center, the program that you've done is heard and it's well received, which is why I'm going to fully support it. support this I appreciate all you do I just wanted to mention them to you thank you very much thank you mr. chair thank you sir Jimmy really yes Tramontozzi yes McMaster yes it's one McNaught. Yes. Councilor Eccles. Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes. Councilor Stewart. Yes.

▶ 1:16:12 Christopher Cinella: Councilor Thomas. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. President Grigoraitis. Yes. Chairman Cinella. Yes. 11 yes 5 4 1 bottom line passes. And the role of the committee on the revolving account, count number 2811 as pertains to order 2020-90 the authorization of the city metals revolving funds adopted by the city ordinance there's the bottom line to recommend the council if not second by vice chairman early I'm clerk please call the roll I'm Emily really yes counselor Trey Matozzi yes counselor McMaster not yes Councillor Eccles. Yes. Councillor Garipay. Yes. Councillor Stewart. Yes. Councillor Thomas. Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine. Yes. President Grigoraitis. Yes. Chairman Sinella. Yes. 11 yes, 2-8-1-1 passes.

▶ 1:17:18 Thank you very much Ms. Menchella. Ms. Benici. Thank you. I appreciate it. Give me a minute, I'm going to pull in next up. So, while you're doing that, next up, 399 in Essex Aggie. We have someone speaking on both of those. I'm bringing in Mr. Henry Hooten, Mr. Jay Picone, Mr. David DeBarry. Let's see if we can. Can you gentlemen hear us? Jay, can you hear us? I can hear you, yeah. I can't. Hold on one second. have to put the video button okay I'm gonna sit a Barry can you hear us yep I can hear you great and last we have mr. Hooten I'm not sure who you can hear me can you see me okay okay you cannot okay the screen is yours if you love you their marks but we can see you now all right good evening good evening see me

▶ 1:18:50 that's rude we cannot see you know the screen is yours uh mr picon or i don't know who should come first to prepare the marks sir did you want to start off well usually let me start okay um tell me if you want to start on audio um video button on the bottom of your screen though it's probably red if you click on it i think that'll help you unmute your video henry can you hear us yes i can hear you we can hear you if you want to start right now without video first of all i would like to introduce myself for those who don't know me i am henry hooten representative for the northeast regional vocational school our superintendent is david debarry director of finance is james picon our school has 1271 students of which 26 are from melrose

▶ 1:20:03 the total assessment of melrose is 767 490 dollars which is an increase of 81 814 dollars the increase is due to the fact that we have added five new brand new students to our roles it went from 41 to 46 at this time I would like to introduce mr. Pocone and David better battery to explain to you our budget any questions you may have regarding on a budget thank you thanks emery so i guess i'll start jay um sure my name is dave debarry i've been coming in front of this committee for 10 years now unfortunately this is the first time that i'm not meeting everybody in person and i do hope in the near future very near future that you'll accept an invitation to come to the school anytime um have a tour usually we have lunch in um our student-run restaurant remember

▶ 1:21:17 that may be a little bit delayed this year melrose has always been one of our most supportive communities and you know with all of the events that had happened this year this was actually one of the few times northeast was able to able to give back to melrose and it was you know one of the positives and there were some that came out of the pandemic melrose wakefield hospital as you may have known was short on ppe equipment early into the pandemic and northeast was able to re-donate back to to melrose hospital thousands of face masks um gallons upon gallons of hand sanitizer and um endless other products that they were able to use so it meant a lot to my my teachers and my students that we were part of the solution on some of these challenges we're

▶ 1:22:15 dealing with secondly our student benefit fund which is made up of donations from our staff members to support students we're able to benefit many of the students across northeastern including Melrose students with technology and food as well as actual hot dinner deliveries for many of our Northeast students in need and that was another way that after ten years we have done some projects for Melrose but not as many as we would like to over the years opportunities just haven't arisen in the passed lastly I heard earlier in the previous subcommittee meetings discussions about supporting local businesses so what myself our committee and our business department did about a month back was we sent a letter to all

▶ 1:23:16 of the Chamber of Commerce's in Rotary clubs in our districts and I personally reached out to businesses in Melrose letting him know that our mission will be whenever possible to purchase local supplies and services we've made a commitment as a district that we've gone too far into the big-box stores and the convenience of internet shopping and deliveries needs to stop so we believe with committed planning and purchases that many of the supplies that we will purchase will come from our districts that support us in taxes and also support our students and their families with jobs and I've reached out to other districts and there's going to be some press on this this week for other regional schools and other municipalities to consider doing the same

▶ 1:24:17 i think you know years back when these big box stores popped up and their prices were better that we had a fiscal obligation to go with that well i think the local stores and the local services have caught up and they're competitive now some of these you know and you know the places i'm talking about and i think that you know we've gotten lazy um you know we want to get things tomorrow therefore we put off our planning so northeast is committed and we look forward to working with nelrose communities on this effort so i will now turn it over to jay um jay's going to go over the dollars and cents but i'm also probably going to jump in and answer specific questions that maybe um should be directed to me as well so thank you once again for your time

▶ 1:25:15 so kristen would you like me to could could i share my screen so i can pull up the powerpoint presentation you should be able to it should be a third button that says share content and click a little arrow okay yep um it's grayed out though well well i have it right up here would you like i'm going to share my screen do you want the fincom one or the the picture of the school on the front or the one with the powerpoint we'll go with go with the powerpoint presentation that'd be slide okay I'm gonna share my screen now thank you and everyone see the PowerPoint presentation you guys see this yes Jay let me know how you want to advance do you wanna put on a slideshow so we can see a full screen so thank you

▶ 1:26:15 again everyone for having us here to talk about the FY 21 budget obviously this is a very different time for for all municipalities and we're just you know this is going to be a financial difficult time but this is the budget that was presented in March to the school committee and I will present on it now so so the goal of the FY 21 budget and the goal of all of our budgets so we set out to produce usually twofold but in this case is threefold we We want to minimize the financial impact to our member communities, first and foremost. I'm very aware that Melrose is a 95% residential tax base, has a very small amount of commercial tax base. You only have so much money that you can raise via taxation, via Prop 2.5.

▶ 1:27:11 So I fully understand that, and the superintendent understands that, and the district understands that. And when we go to setting our budgets, we don't want to hit the communities with an extremely large assessment cost. And we're very cognizant when we develop our budgets. And then secondly, we want to provide an adequate level of funding to support student learning and foster educational excellence, because ultimately that's what we're here to do. We're here to be Melrose's other school. We're here to be the excellent vocational educational pathway for the students at Melrose. And lastly, even though this may change and the information out there is leading me to believe it will, we needed to allocate additional funds provided by the Student Opportunity

▶ 1:28:02 Act to best meet student needs. As of right now, DESE has told us that nothing is off the table yet. You can advance, Kristen. Thank you. so regionalization exists by definition to offer services at a reduced cost to its member communities melrose is being one our initial budget goal when we set out is always to keep our assessments at or below three percent increase which would be 441 thousand dollars more than last year i'm happy to report our actual assessment increase came in at 288 463. go next slide so if you look at the historical assessment analysis we always try to keep our assessments at a reasonable rate. In FY19, we went up $336,117. In FY20, we went up $275,368. In FY21, we had a slight uptake of $288,463. You can go to the next

▶ 1:29:09 slide, Kristen. And this is just a numerical representation of the same data. As you can see our percent change from FY20 to FY21 is 1.96%. Next slide. So obviously we have fiscal challenges and we have contractual obligations that we need to fund. So how are we able to minimize the assessment cost? Well, it comes down to state aid. As of right now, we have not received any additional information regarding any actual information from the state regarding what the chapter 70 number is so we can only use what we have so projected to receive around eleven million five twenty seven nine oh nine in chapter 78 and a million dollars in transportation aid regional Because regions are able to get a reimbursement on their transportation expenditures, which

▶ 1:30:16 we then pass on to the member communities in order to reduce their assessment costs. Next slide, please. So based on our Chapter 70 formula calculation, Northeast Metro Tech is projected to receive the $11,527,909 in aid for FY21. a million sixty nine eight forty one higher than our budgeted aid fy20 again we intend to receive a projected million dollars in transportation and when i say that we project to receive we actually bank our transportation receipts in fy20 in what they call a transportation stabilization fund so we bank the receipts we received this year in order to offset next year so we know for a fact Given the fact that we know that there may be a reduction in reimbursements in state aid,

▶ 1:31:10 we know that we have that million in tilt in order to offset those costs. Additionally, we intend to use $2,950,000 from our other funding sources, E&D and Capital Fund, to reduce assessment costs further. And in total, we plan to use $3,950,000 of other funds to reduce to member assessments, with a resulting revenue increase of $904,841. Next slide. As I mentioned, every fiscal year has fiscal challenges, and this is – FY21 is no different. As of right now, like I said, the – Betsy is still saying that there's no information about them cutting the Student Opportunity Act, so we proceed as follows. So we had to add positions related to the Student Opportunity Act. Funding for new employment contracts for all bargaining groups beginning in FY21. Those are ongoing.

▶ 1:32:10 Funding for OPEB, other employment benefit costs. We have a total future liability of $50 million. We need to start adequately funding that because that liability is on our books until we do. And increases in GIC health insurance costs is around 3% projected. Next slide, please. So our total operating budget request over last year is $1,193,304, which is $30,493,626 in total budget. However, you can go to the next slide. We have a budget offset. The revenues offset the operating cost, which results in a total increase of assessment of $288,463. dollars next slide and Melrose would be interested in looking at the FY 21 assessment which is the third one down to be 600 I'm sorry seven hundred and

▶ 1:33:16 Robb Stewart: sixty seven four ninety the increase of eighty one thousand eight one four is predominantly as mr. Houghton mentioned due to the increase in students of five students over last year from 41 to 46 students at this time I'd be happy to answer any questions or you can ask them to the superintendent. Councilor Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you gentlemen for coming here. The one question that I had that did stand out to me was you had shown quickly percent increase in salary, which looked like, I think it was 6.7% increase year over year. Could you explain that? Sure, I'll take that. So basically, we're contracted to pay our teachers a step and a COLA increase. So it's not just like a 3% increase, say, per COLA. You have to pay for the step, and the step is an additional amount.

▶ 1:34:31 Similar to Melrose. Melrose runs into the same situation, whereas when a teacher gets paid, they might get a 3% COLA, but then with the STEP, it results in close to a 6% increase. So, that's what you're seeing there. And what was that percentage again, if you don't mind? Sorry, which percentage were you thinking? The percent of salary increase year-over-year, fiscal 20 to fiscal 21. It's probably around the 6%, I would say. Yeah. Probably around 6%. I thought it was 6.7%. I think that's what I wanted to know. Oh, you wanted to know the actual? Okay. Hold on one second. Yeah, I did. Let me pull that up. Actually, the total salary increase percentage is 6.24%. 6.24%. Okay. Thank you. And so that is the COLA plus the STEP that they both receive, and every year they get that.

▶ 1:35:45 Yeah, but also let me also chime in and tell you that it also includes all the added positions that we have to add because of the Student Opportunity Act as well. So that plays into it as well. It's about $450,000 of positions that we have to add due to the Student Opportunity Act. WE ARE PREPARED TO REDUCE THOSE POSITIONS IF THE REVENUES ARE NOT AVAILABLE. LET ME LET MY NEXT QUESTION, AND IT LOOKS LIKE YOU HAVE OUT OF THE $30 MILLION BUDGET, YOU'RE COUNTING ON ABOUT 35% OF THAT TO COME FROM STATE AID, BASICALLY 11 MILLION PLUS THE million in transportation, I believe it was. So we know that one million in transportation is coming. Again, we've already banked that. It's already in our account. It's the 11 million.

▶ 1:36:50 Yes. Okay. We do understand the situation that's going on with the state, but since we didn't have any, we don't have any information from the state as to what the actual number looks like, We have developed a plan in order to meet the needs of our operating budget, or reduce our operating budget, and make the assessments be able to cover, with the reduced amount of revenue, our total operating request. Okay. Is that something you could share with us? The plan in place? Yeah. It depends what the numbers look like, so yeah, if I can jump in, I mean, it involves staff positions, so I'd rather not create any hysteria right now discuss it. But. We are prepared if there are cuts in chapter 70, we understand, you know, that we'll need to make some very difficult.

▶ 1:37:53 Robb Stewart: Choices as will probably every district in the state. I prepared our unions for some of the challenges that may lie ahead and we're trying to prepare as best as we can. I know Melrose School Committee is probably dealing with similar unknown situations and we can only guess where it's going to go. So the other question that I had for you, gentlemen, is that it was publicly released today and you probably were privy to this prior to but publicly released some of the plans from opening schools in the fall and some of the the criteria in include a certain level of social distancing a certain maximum number of students in a classroom how's this gonna impact you guys now that you think it's me I think once again they've given us some preliminary data but I don't think

▶ 1:38:52 they've given us enough to really know you know how this is going to look in the fall um you know we're only guessing what the first day school would be um we're only guessing the budget so to cut down class size to be a minimum um cut cut down the amount of you know space students can be next to each other without having any idea the dimensions of every single school classroom in you know in the state of massachusetts um you know we're preparing again like the budget many scenarios so we're looking at various schedules um whether the state's going to come in and say students are going to swap a day whether they're going to say it's going to be one week on one week off two and a half days a half a day so

▶ 1:39:44 So, you know, I think to give us those guidelines now, you know, isn't helping. I think in a way it's actually making things worse because there are just more unknowns, more questions, more what ifs. It gave us the opportunity to purchase supplies. We already started ordering, for example, plexiglass. We've already started ordering face masks. These were things that we knew we would need, you know, separate from the guidelines from DESE. Most states actually have completed their requirements to open schools. You know, funny to say is that the top school state in the country as far as achievement, that we're now looking to the other states to see what they've come up with and tried to model some of the ideas they're using but there's definitely so many questions

▶ 1:40:43 Robb Stewart: that are going to be unanswered and i don't think anybody right now knows what it's going to look like in september or possibly october when we open so i'm sorry to add one more uh part on this so even all that and i know this is a little bit of conjecture but given all that um How do you balance and plan what you have in front of you versus what you think is expected to be coming? And the reason why I ask this is if you're going to have to come back or look for additional aid or make difficult decisions, once again, we'd like to understand what that process is. That would be helpful. Yeah, you know, the biggest challenge that isn't being discussed are the contract agreements with our unions that have very specific language on scheduling.

▶ 1:41:47 I think how we're going to educate possibly half of our students at home and then have the teachers educate the other half during the day with the full schedule is a set of problems in itself. one of the things we've looked at already is as you know we have 50 programs um and our school is designed on being hands-on so to be hands-on and not be at the school is a challenge so i've had my department has reached off in the past week and a half um researching interactive virtual software um you know their virtual welding programs virtual dental programs to prepare for the fact that if our students are outside of the shop half of the time how are they going to get those same hands-on we're looking into reaching out to some of the licensing boards

▶ 1:42:41 if our plumbing electrical cosmetology students need hours hands-on training in the school with an instructor is that now going to convert to virtual because as of now can't get the same amount of hours outside of the school doing a remote education that's a piece we're looking at the transportation peach piece is going to be huge so if it costs us a million dollars to have a you know full 24 buses well if the guidelines are now going to be one student to a seat every other seat you're dividing that by four so now you know the transportation piece is going to have to be looked at these answers have to come from the department of ed and from the state i think to leave it to individual districts to figure out on our own and to figure

▶ 1:43:36 out which is the best way is preposterous um they tried it with the initial memo of understanding with the unions for just the end of this school year and it was a complete nightmare for every district to have to impact bargaining with each union during this crisis to develop a plan was near impossible. We fortunately were able to do it, but we had to sacrifice to do it to get that across. A lot of districts never completed their impact bargaining. So as part of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, we really worked to get the point across to the Commissioner and to the Governor that we need leadership directives at the state level. So on our last call with the Commission this

▶ 1:44:28 past week, he noted that he believes 85% and I don't know where he came up with 85% of the directives, not just the guidelines, will come from the state level. So again we're doing a lot of guesswork so that at the last second we're expecting the department of ed to come in and say here's what you're going to do it's been frustrating it's been a lot of like i said a lot of us working separately to come up with the same answers and and that's not a good use of time and money um so you know my fingers are crossed that the state government's going to step up on this leadership issue Great. Thank you. Gentlemen, thanks so much for all the effort that you're putting into this. I understand that you're navigating in the dark and you're trying to make the best use

▶ 1:45:24 Mark Garipay: of this budgetary situation to, at the end of the day, from what I see and what your presentation said, is to do the best that we can for our kids. That's really what counts. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have no more questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. chair. Thank you. Mr. hooten for being here. It's always good to see you. I was nice to see you. Thank you for your service on this board for all all the number of years. This is the diary and Mr phone. Thank you for being there. My question is was around chapter 70 funding and I think Mr answered it. It was if we ended up level funding and you did not get the million dollars increase. My question was, will you be coming back to our board for an assessment or the council for an assessment? But my understanding from what Mr.

▶ 1:46:13 Shawn M. MacMaster: McCone said, you'd be working within the budget that you currently have. Yes. Yeah. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Welcome. Anybody else have any questions? Councillor McMaster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you for being here. I just had a question about transportation costs, and I want to put it in the context of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Considering where we are right now, with respect to the state of the economy, not knowing what the long term financial impacts are going to be on households, And assuming that sometime in the fall, we will hopefully be getting back to some level of normalcy with respect to learning in the actual school environment and eventually getting away from remote learning.

▶ 1:47:07 Shawn M. MacMaster: Have there been any discussions about the transportation costs of having to transport somebody back to the school who perhaps left the district and is living elsewhere but is still entitled to attend the school and under federal law would be required for transporting that student back should that student choose to stay in district? And it's just something I've been thinking about will be impacted if families become homeless. And as you may know, the definition is broad. It isn't necessarily somebody living on the streets or even in a car. It could be living in a hotel, receiving some state assistance, or perhaps even living with a family member in a spare room or on our couch. just wondering if there's there's been any thought about that and whether or

▶ 1:48:02 Shawn M. MacMaster: not there has been how might increase transportation costs affect the districts that contribute to funding for the school might you have to come back before us again should there be one or more students that would require transportation from outside the district back into the district because they are now for us thank you yeah sure so we we would never come back to to the committee here because well we have in place what's called excess and deficiency it's kind of like a free cash account that the Department of Revenue certifies on an annual basis for the school district knowing that we were running into we're running into a financial difficult situation we're looking to build up that E&D account,

▶ 1:48:55 so that if something like that should happen, we'd be able to draw from the E&D account with the school committee approval, obviously. So that's where we would come up with additional funding if need. Thank you very much. Any other questions? Seeing none, what is the will of the committee on 399? Motion to recommend we move the bottom line, Mr. Chairman. I can move the bottom line by Council McMaster. 2nd, by President Grigoraitis. It is. That I'm correct. I similarly early. Yes. Yes. So, the McMaster or not? Yes. Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes. Councilor Stewart. Yes. Councilor Thomas. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. President Grigoraitis. Yes. Chairman Sinella. Yes. Eleven yes. Bottom line move. Thank you gentlemen. Thank you very much. Thank you. Stay safe. Wonderful night.

▶ 1:50:04 Thank you. I'd entertain a motion for a five-minute recess. Second. and recess made by council mcnaught seconded by councilor Eccles clark vice jim Migliorelli yes councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster councillor mcnaught yes councillor Eccles yes councillor Garipay yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes president Grigoraitis Yes, I'm in Sadella. Yes. 5, 838 is now 838. Where is everybody like magic? I thought I was getting a cookie. Just 1 next up we have a 100 public schools. And I can believe you're going to be bringing in a few folks. We do that right now. The superintendent, the school committee chair. The finance director and the auditor coming in now. Members of the school committee administration.

▶ 1:56:33 Good evening. Good evening. The screen is yours. Chairman and good evening to you and members of the council for the opportunity to say a few words by way of introduction. The school budget for fiscal year 2021, as the council is aware, the school committee by adopting an annual budget for our schools. This year is in past years, the school committee began its deliberative process in this regard in January. The committee's deliberations continued over the ensuing several months. Some 7 public meetings along with the public hearing as required by law. with public input throughout and with careful and intentional examination of our students needs and of the resources available to meet those needs.

▶ 1:57:26 All of the foregoing of course is and was preceded by the work of our superintendent, our school principals and our administrative and financial teams to craft a proposed budget for the school committee's consideration. As the council is also aware the school committee's work in this regard was marked by a drastic change in circumstances. Indeed, from the time of the superintendent's annual budget address in January, built on the foundation of our recent property tax override and an expected increase in state aid for local education on the basis of the Student Opportunity Act, we have moved from a proposed 5.6 percent increase in the school budget to a very modest 2.3 percent increase. And this

▶ 1:58:12 merely to keep up with increasing enrollment, contractual obligations, and our burgeoning special education and transportation expenses. Indeed, in order to meet these basic obligations, we have had to make significant cuts in equipment, supplies, and technology. This is a time when technology is proving more and more vital to meeting the needs of our students. Nonetheless, the cuts had to be made. In the space of five months, we went from a place of aspiration and growth to a place where we're simply trying to hang on to what we've built as a community over the past several years. The budget before you barely keeps our head above water, and it does so at a time when we know that we are facing a continuing increase in student

▶ 1:59:01 enrollment, a continuing increase in special education needs and costs, and a continuing increase in transportation expenses. These are factors, mind you, over which we have little, if any, local control. We are mandated by state and federal law to meet these obligations. The budget before you allows us to meet these mandated obligations. To say that it does much more than that would be an exaggeration. Any further reduction in funding would preclude our ability to meet these legally mandated obligations, would expose us to significant legal liability, and would do a grave disservice to our students and to our community. What the school budget for fiscal year 2021 does not do is allow us to proactively and

▶ 1:59:53 productively build on our steady growth and improvement made as a school district over the past several years. The budget before you does not and cannot meet the needs of our students to the full measure of a school district heretofore steadily and surely moving from good to great. The budget before you does not and cannot fully reflect the values of a community committed to investing in the academic and social-emotional well-being being of its young people. The budget before you does not and cannot take advantage of the opportunities typically available to a school district and a community as well managed as ours financially and otherwise. Instead the budget before you reflects more than five months of hard work and an

▶ 2:00:43 ever-changing environment to meet our basic needs at a time when the coming fiscal years and not just the one soon upon us promise continuing constrained financial circumstances and more difficult decisions in terms of our ability to meet the needs of our students and our community the budget before you was intentionally crafted not just to get us through the coming fiscal year but to position us to get through the following fiscal years we have effectively battened down the hatches to ride out the storm that is upon us smooth sailing this is not separate from the budget for teaching and learning what is becoming more apparent and more obvious to those of us more intimately involved with our schools is that the federal government must provide

▶ 2:01:34 additional funding to local governments to support the reopening of our schools in the fall we are only beginning to analyze the potential costs associated with reopening under the state and federal guidelines for health and safety. But national school professional organizations are estimating close to $500 per student in terms of the cost for hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, other cleaning supplies, gloves, masks, and other personal protective equipment. That's potentially $2 million in additional expenses for our school district. And that's on top of potential cost increases associated with the need for additional custodial staff and school nursing staff to support our reopening in the fall.

▶ 2:02:25 None of the foregoing, of course, speaks to our need as a school district to re-examine our work through the lens of racial equity and to renew our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our curriculum, our training, our recruitment, and our hiring. While this topic has been a notable part of our professional development and teaching for the past several years in Melrose, it is clearly time for us to refocus and recommit to leading by example into providing our students with the kind of education that helps to create informed and engaged citizens who cannot just cite to the self-evident truths proclaimed in our nation's founding documents but who are equipped with the knowledge experience and skills to help make them a reality

▶ 2:03:15 in our schools our community and our nation my colleagues and i in the school committee are committed to leading in this regard as is superintendent tamor and her team our incoming superintendent dr kuchenberger and our faculty and staff we can do better and we shall all of that said mr chairman the school committee as the elected body charged with adopting a budget to meet the needs of all of our students general education special education in district out of district each and every one of our students some 4 000 and counting respectfully request your favorable consideration of the budget before you and with that mr chairman i will turn things over to our superintendent for her last budget hearing before this honorable council and to answer any questions

▶ 2:04:04 you may have thank you very much thank you mr o'connell thank you you i'm in so many of these meetings you would think i wouldn't know how to do it by this time um thank you um and thank you to mr o'connell for his remarks and i have to thank mr picone and mr debary for setting the stage because they aptly described um the lives of most superintendents nowadays as mr o'connell said um this is not the budget we planned i thought in my last year we had achieved what we had worked so hard to achieve with our families and our staff and the citizens of melrose we i thought we had achieved a budget that would truly um secure the path that we have been pursuing for six years in a creating an innovative progressive and well-respected district right now

▶ 2:05:06 as Mr. O'Connell said, our job is to maintain what we have and maybe continue to progress at a slower rate. The uncertainty is daunting. This is not a one-year problem. It's maybe a three-year problem at best. Mr. Del Rosso advises me and others to think of it at the very least as a two-year problem to that end we reduced the budget however at the same time we needed to create a budget that met the needs of our growing population our increasing diversity and the challenges many of our children are facing um socially emotionally and behaviorally and to that end we reduced the budget but kept in it 5.6 positions that we think we can do that i have urged the school committee that if more monies come available this summer that we absolutely

▶ 2:06:09 must hire at least two more social workers part of our growing concern is the trauma with which our children and our staff will be returning um this is a very big concern on the part of all superintendents it's an ongoing conversation we're having never mind the model under which they will return but what will their their mental health status be when they return so to that end we present this budget and quite honestly i say to you we present this budget in a void it is a theoretical budget on paper as mr picon has pointed out in his remarks earlier there are no certainties from the state government we meet superintendents being the we we meet with the commissioner weekly and i have a meeting with him again this friday i had one last thursday

▶ 2:07:01 in that meeting is pres present bill bell who is the cfo for the department of ed and even he cannot answer our questions most cities and towns will be advised to proceed with a 1 12 budget that is no way to make your payments to make your ends meet to pay your staff and to most certainly not to provide for children but that is the environment in which we are going i submitted our student opportunity act even though it's now been postponed the deadline for it has been pushed out twice but i was eager to get it in and we did knowing that it the chances of it being fully funded are doubtful at this time although it is state legislation and it would need to be reversed. In those sessions with the Commissioner,

▶ 2:07:52 he is quite forthcoming that there are no guarantees. There is a sentiment that Chapter 70 will be protected. And we got more this year in Chapter 70. Thank you to the reforms to the Chapter 70 formula, as well as the recalculation of disadvantaged youth. But that is not an increase that will continue over the next several years. If the increase to Melrose is approximately, I think off the top of my head, 1.7, we've already been given about 600,000 upfront, so you know what that means for the remainder of the time. At the same time, we have a tremendous obligations that we cannot avoid. We do have a new contract that the city supported last year that we voted so that we could pay our staff better.

▶ 2:08:50 We felt that they deserved it. I think the citizens of Melrose felt they deserved it. That is now a legal obligation. Special education is always a legal obligation. The truth of the matter is, if you cannot pay your general ed bills, you still have to pay your special ed bills. um and as you know from my appearance before you a month ago that is of increasing concern in the city mr mcmaster's brought up a very pertinent subject the subject of homelessness melrose has seen a rise in homelessness um at our peak two years ago we were at approximately 33 students i think at the beginning of this year we might have been around 23 or 26 i'd have to look at at the demographic study, but homelessness is hidden in a city

▶ 2:09:39 as beautiful as Melrose. Many people living with relatives, living with grandparents, couch surfing as they say, the motel in Malden is no longer a site for homelessness, but we do have a number of homeless children. And not only do we have an obligation around the transportation, again, these children come with trauma that has to be addressed in our schools. And lastly, we have a commitment that we began this year to an equity audit. It was a goal of the school committees. It was a goal of my teams. It was a goal of many cities and towns across the across the state. It was discussed heartily at the superintendent's conference last summer, and all of us had come out of that with a commitment to do an equity audit.

▶ 2:10:29 And that equity audit will probably reveal deficits that we need to address. So there are many, many things on our plate, and the funding for all of this is questionable at best. So, I am asking the Council, in the absence of solid figures, to approve this budget, knowing that the school committee has backed the administrative team in a strategic approach we have taken. We have approximately 14 openings for next year due to retirements, leaves, non-renewals. We have chosen not to post those positions yet. We have chosen to hold them in abeyance so that once we have a better idea of what our monies are, if we have to have a reduction in force, we will be moving people around and hopefully not laying anybody off.

▶ 2:11:32 Jack Eccles: So with that, I will gladly take questions from the committee. Thank you, Superintendent Sandbor. As of right now, I have Councilor Eccles and then Jamala Dean in queue. Is there anybody else that I may have missed? All right, Vice Chair, Councilor Eccles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Madam Superintendent, Chairman O'Connell, and everyone else for being here tonight. So as the councilor up to the school committee, I watched the budget hearings and I was able to sort of see them eventually pursue the more conservative choice of budget A. And think that as chairman o'connell mentioned it does not represent the full values and priorities of our community um i think however it would be very irresponsible to cut any further than the cuts

▶ 2:12:18 Jack Eccles: that the deliberative process has already had and i just have one quick question for um either chairman o'connell or whoever can can answer is is what does a mid-year cut in chapter chapter 70 look like is it is it even possible is it something that should be anticipated and are there kind of built-in offsets or is it is it kind of a really tough situation if it happens so they don't cut chapter 70 mid-year what you end up having is nine c cuts um to the city and and so and all or they'll change the funding of certain grant propositions so one of their favorite funds to cut is circuit breaker circuit breaker ideally is reimbursed at 75 percent it's not unusual for all of a sudden the state to say oops we're only going to reimburse 72 percent 70 percent midstream so

▶ 2:13:09 Jack Eccles: having seen this many times what we typically do is we underestimate the circuit breaker reimbursement um and i told um our administrator for finance leah secor to bring it in at 70 on paper so that we have a little bit of a buffer and if i'm not mistaken we have a special ed stabilization fund that could also help offset given given a decrease in circuit breaker correct that is correct awesome thank you so much thank you madam superintendent good luck in your retirement i know you were you're the superintendent when i was the freshman in high school so i've managed to get some time now thank you so much people about you hanging around my office with with your video camera. Thanks for reminding us of how old we are, Jack.

▶ 2:14:00 Councilor Jamaleddine. Good evening. Thank you so much for being with us tonight, Sir O'Connell and Superintendent Tamar. My question is, have we had any layoff yet? No, we haven't laid off any teachers. What we have had in an effort to reduce this budget we had a reduction in force in my secretarial pool at the central office um and because we had a retirement we were able to move that person to another job so she did not lose a job but we have cut one secretarial position within my secretarial pool but we have not laid off any teachers i think there is a misunderstanding there in the public about um some teachers so what happens um Councilwoman Jonathan is we will hire long term subs. They are not contracted teachers. They are high for a short period of time. It could be 12 weeks to cover a parental leave.

▶ 2:15:07 Maya Jamaleddine: It can be a year because somebody is taking the year off when those staff are hired. They are not given a teacher's contract. They're giving an appointment letter that says your job is from such and such a date to such and such a date. it will be terminated on the last day of school so those are not layoffs thank you for clarifying and I from what I understand is that this termination was going to happen regardless of the budget or the pandemic or anything this was something that it's not affected by any other factor you're 100 correct okay Thank you. My other question is, what is what are the services or the new services or training that you would like to see in our school district coming next year?

▶ 2:16:04 I very much would like to have a full time social worker in every building. I think that's very necessary to work with our children. I think it's an ability to work with children that are not necessarily on IEPs, kids who are struggling either with relationships, their own identity, or maybe carrying into school some issues from home. As I said, I'm worried about the impact of the pandemic and the murder of Mr. Floyd on many of our children. um this is a very difficult thing for them to understand their world has been upended and i think we really need mental health workers present to help our staff and our students and um if this budget uh passes do you uh see that this uh position will be um suitable be able to

▶ 2:16:59 um have this um a position so we had three in this budget three three new social workers in this budget we cut one um we are hoping with our cares act money we'll get a little bit of money under the cares act separate from the city's money we're hoping to use part of that money for another one and then if um things come together this summer better than expected is again i have urged the school committee to hire a third one um but we will have to wait and see what the state comes forward with i appreciate that thank you so much thank you vice chair thank you mr chairman thank you chairman o'connell and superintendent taymor um i really empathize with your position it's an impossible situation to try to make all this work

▶ 2:17:46 um right now and thank you um for advocating for mental health um professionals in the in school system I think that's something that's well needed and I'm glad that that's at the forefront of your mind as we you know move forward if we can my question about chapter 70 was already answered just want to clarify something that I'm chairman O'Connell said about the chat the PPE so increased needs for PPE that there's that's not in the budget right now right correct are we hoping that comes from somewhere else no that is a huge surprise because again this budget process began last November and any budget is a best guess based on what you know at that time and what you have assessed as your future needs and

▶ 2:18:26 none of us saw this coming I do know that right now the city has taken over the management by the way in the education part we're no longer referring to them as PPEs we're now referring to them as safety supports or safety supplies. So, Ruth Clay is handling the purchase of any masks and gowns we may need, and Elena Proakis-Ellis is managing the purchase of any cleaning materials. I believe the Mayor again, and he could speak best to this, is hoping that we can use the CARES Act to purchase some of this. What we are being advised right now by the Department of Ed is to buy only three months worth of supplies again this information is changing rapidly I will tell you two weeks ago we put in in an order I think for 35 thermometers you know digital

▶ 2:19:24 thermometers and that when it came and then on Friday night I we canceled the order because the Department of Ed changed their stance on taking everybody's temperature that's how fast this is changing in front of us so you you have to be careful about not getting ahead of yourself. Makes sense. Finally, the council received quite a few emails regarding requests for investment implicit bias training. Pandemic aside, is there anything you would like to talk about in terms of what the school system is doing now for implicit bias training or what you would have hoped to done um you know in a different environment it's not what we would have hoped to done councilwoman it's what we've been doing for six years so i think it's no secret that we had an incident six

▶ 2:20:14 years ago that was very regretful and as a result of that incident we have been very proactive and purposeful in training on not just about racial implicit bias but bias against any minority any protected class we've done training um across all cultures across all classes we've had the adl we've had a group named ideas we've had a wonderful trainer for two years who is a metco director in brookline right now kalise warham she's trained all of us for two years we've had the diversity trainer from metco this year who did a lot of training with staff and administrators We do book studies. We have a huge book study going on this summer for everyone. We're very pleased with the response from staff.

▶ 2:21:06 If any of you are interested, we can always send you the information. We're starting a film series with films about the Black experience, and we're going to have some groups working on that. Of course, we have a fabulous METCO director, Amy Jackson, And I, prior to this, not this, I came off of a medical parent meeting with all the administrators and medical parents where we talked about their experience, their perception of Melrose. And what do they need from us? So this is ongoing and it will continue to go. The last thing I will, will share with the committee as I said, last summer, this became a very. it in the front topic for superintendents among all the other things we have to think about

▶ 2:21:54 this became a very upfront topic and because we're a metco district we we are uh we were offered a free equity audit but in the pandemic everything got put on hold and even prior to the recent incident I had asked the METCO director if they were still going to go ahead with the program and if they were to make sure Melrose was on the list so that's been in the works since maybe last March to see it to make sure that happens so this is ongoing I would also invite the members of the council to look at our professional development report for the summer and for the fall which are both online and that outlines all the work that we do in cultural awareness bias training harassment training and as well as the academic

▶ 2:22:51 Robb Stewart: things that we are supposed to take care of I hope that answers your question it does thank you very much thank you for sharing all that's helpful that's no further questions and congratulations on your retirement I'm sure it can't come soon enough for you. Thank you. What's some regret? Yes, let's do it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Chair O'Connell, for being here. Superintendent Tamar, as well. Thank you very much. Superintendent Tamar, this question is, I think, for you. Could you talk to the council and for the general public as well, your transition strategy for the new superintendent for this budget and the upcoming activities. I think that would be of interest to share with both us as well as the community.

▶ 2:23:39 So thank you for that question, Mr. Stewart. The unusual circumstances have led to an unusual transition. I will tell you that eight years ago when I came in, my predecessor Joe Casey was very generous with his time, as was my supervisor at that time in Bedford. And I would come down maybe every other week for about two months. Because of the unusual circumstances that we are in, I have asked Julie Kuchenberger to partner with us on a much more regular basis. I am speaking to her daily. She is attending administrative team meetings. She came down in person last, I have to think about which day it was, Wednesday. She'll be here this Friday and then next Thursday, and I can speak to those meetings in a moment.

▶ 2:24:28 She was part of the METCO meeting tonight. So she and I are really partnering together. We want this transition to be as seamless as possible considering the challenges Melrose is facing. We don't want any delay in the planning or in the response to reopening school, starting with reopening the summer or in addressing the budget issues here. She's also been my partner in the two principal searches. She and I interviewed the finalists together. This is a very unusual, as most superintendents will tell you, but she and I both felt strongly this was important given our circumstances. What we're also doing at the same time is we have four working groups going, planning for reopening. There's a working group on SEL,

▶ 2:25:22 social emotional learning, a working group on instruction, working group on on um technology and then there is uh the administrators a meeting as a working great group on the operational matters um i believe that mr debary did share with everybody that um this the commissioner of um elementary and secondary education has been quite clear the state will be very directive if we have to go remote again unlike this time out they he expects 85 of it to be directed by the state and there will be only three options um and quite frankly those options will depend on where we are as a state at this time at that time in the covet crisis the three options will be return as normal with safety measures be remote or develop a hybrid

▶ 2:26:17 so you have at least four working committees in the district in which dr kuchenberger is is actively involved as we try to put plans in place again unfortunately it's making plans in a void because until the governor tells us which way we can go um no plans can be finalized for an example the summer school um instructions came out last wednesday and friday night additional instructions came out that's how fast this keeps moving um i'm hoping that in our meeting this friday the commissioner will give us more information about the fall but until then um there is nothing i can tell people to reassure them thank you all right well i hope i hope she has your cell phone uh thank you superintendent

▶ 2:27:07 Shawn M. MacMaster: thank you thank you mr chair council mcmaster thank you mr chairman good evening uh mr o'connell good evening superintendent thank you for joining us um i only had a question about the social work superintendent I very much appreciate you recognizing the importance and the need of having additional social workers and you had mentioned that ideally we'd bring on two in the future if funding was available is that funding something you think you would find within the school department's budget or that if money is available on the city side that you would look to the mayor and the council to prioritize so one is in the budget that is in front of you um as i said um um our our kiazak money came in a little bit better than we expected so we planned on um using that for a

▶ 2:28:01 Shawn M. MacMaster: second and the third one really depends quite honestly mr mcmaster's on the soa money um you know again um that was the original design for the soa i think we shared that when we met as a joint at the joint committee meeting um but until we know better um we certainly will not go out and hire somebody we don't know we can't pay yet so we're waiting on those funding answers great and this this is obviously a topic that is important to consulate jamal dean and to myself and i'm just wondering looking ahead if we do um uh need to try to identify money uh prospectively on the city side to further support the school as it relates to social workers, what does a competitive salary look like for a school-based social worker?

▶ 2:28:49 So it depends on whether they are LICSW or just a LISW, and whether or not they have any experience. So if we brought them in at what we typically figure a master's three, we would probably be bringing them in around 60, 62. And on top of that, in terms of benefits, what might we be looking at for that one position if we did fund that on the city side? So, Mr. De La Russo, I think he's upped the money, but I used to figure the benefits are 20,000. I think he told me it's a little bit more nowadays. Great, thank you, Superintendent, and congratulations on your retirement and your service to the city of Melrose. Thank you, thank you chairman and thank you chair O'Connell and Madam superintendent for being here tonight. I had 2 questions that you touched a little bit upon, particularly in relation to the conversation around homelessness.

▶ 2:29:53 Jen Grigoraitis: I know the district has done what I think is a phenomenal job of providing breakfast and lunch for students for the past several months. And I'm sure we've seen an increased need during this pandemic. can you talk about plans to continue that in the summer and fall should the need be there so um the mayor had asked me for the figures on that and i supplied it to them it's costing us about nineteen thousand dollars a month um uh the numbers have begun to drop off a little as the weather has gotten better um but um i believe the peers act that the city has received would allow us to continue that we have not received any word from desi of whether um usda would cover that um at all um they had they were they did reverse their um long time standing this spring and

▶ 2:30:45 Jen Grigoraitis: did not um and really got a little loose on providing it to families under these circumstances so we were able to do it without having to take a card from every kid making sure every kid was on free and reduced lunch so i don't know what would happen for the summer but there is there is language in the cares act that would allow that thank you and my other question um you you and chairman o'connell have both mentioned enrollment numbers and i i have a vague recollection that we had in a previous um population study anticipated that this current k class was going to be the height of our bubble and i actually provided but my understanding is that for this year we're looking at approximately 340 kindergarteners so far and is where is that in

▶ 2:31:30 line and where do you think that number is going to end up so um uh when we did placement uh when we went into placement uh well i'm in june already at the beginning of may we were at 3 35. um at the end of the day we placed 3 30 um because of um you know people were nice enough to tell us they were moving um you know us in some other things so we're working off of 3 30. um my registrar did tell me on last thursday that new move-ins are beginning to register so you basically have three more months of registration last year we began school at 3 35 and but by the time we got to the october one count we were at 320. um you know some people don't tell us they're moving sometimes people register for us st mary's and and the charter at the same time and then make up their

▶ 2:32:29 Jeff McNaught: mind during the summer so there should be some movement on that but right now we are working off for the number um 340. okay so basically this wave that we've been seeing is continuing with the enrollment numbers not decreasing in any way no no thank you and i'm sure you are happy for this to be your last time before us but we thank you for your leadership and we'll miss you thank you council mcnaught uh thank you mr chairman thank you chairman o'connell uh superintendent taymor and miss ecore for being here i just wanted to say uh thank you to superintendent taymor for your years of service to the city um i know most of the people on this council have children in the morrow's public schools um my kids have only ever known you as their superintendent so

▶ 2:33:26 Jeff McNaught: may though you may not have met them personally they know you um they know if if it's gonna snow they're looking for a message from you not to take away from everything else you do but um they very much miss the fact that that you're leaving and i just want to congratulate you on a great career and thank you for what you've done for the city of melrose and our schools thank you anybody else for the first time counselor Garipay thank you mr chairman thank you mr o'connell and superintendent the team off of being here one one quick question what is your I know you said if we received more money through the kids act a kids act we're looking at us additional social workers but what would be your wish list your top three items

▶ 2:34:23 if we got more than we anticipated so when we and I'm going to move to another screen but I think you can continue to see me mr. Garibay so when we needed to balance this budget um one of the things that we did not do is we did not fill the world languages director position it is currently vacant since dr talbot moved on to another district last fall so we're not filling that as a way to save money um we eliminated the daily sub positions um the permanent daily sub positions at the elementary schools um we reduced seven four 7.4 positions offer my original request we reduced the technology line the curriculum and instruction line we actually reduced the special education tuition estimate and the special education transportation estimate which quite frankly is risky

▶ 2:35:19 but those are some of the reductions we made but in the original um In the original request were those positions that would really take us to the next level in terms of personalized learning, in terms of class size, in terms of adding staff to the high school, which we all know has usually takes the hit. It's what you do when you're in this type of situation. The high school has been very responsive. They have tried to be creative in their scheduling while meeting the contractual obligation of no more than 25 students in a class. The elementary schools, again, the same thing. When you have an increase in class in population, you have to add more specialists, art, music, PE. The elementary principals have gotten creative

▶ 2:36:19 in that scheduling. so basically uh what we're doing is we're we're operating on a very tight ratio and my fear is if we have a surge in population because of move-ins every time i drive by a house that has a seal sign i get nervous it could push us over the edge where we need more staffing number one concern is making sure we have sufficient staff in the classrooms for children and also trying to keep an eye on that class size i will tell you another choice i made i originally came into this budget season thinking we would have 17 k's i'm holding it at 16 k's right now the distribution of k's is tipping up to 23 24 kids in a k if we get an a a a real surge in in that population, that's a very tough ratio to have

▶ 2:37:17 Mark Garipay: in the case. So there's lots of places I can spend money. Thank you. I also want to echo all my other counselors and thank you for your service. Someone who grew up with an administrator, school administrator, the work doesn't end at school. It's something that you end up taking home. And over the last 15, 20 years, I think the city of Melrose has had numerous superintendents and you brought stability to our community, to our school system. And I thank you for everything you did and your support. Thank you. Councilor Thomas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman O'Connell and Superintendent Tamor and Ms. Secord, thank you for being here. I know this is all hypotheticals right now. But superintendent, you were just talking about a classroom size of maybe 24 or 25 kindergarten students. If we're limited in classroom size to possibly 10 children per classroom moving forward in the new year, are we equipped to handle that? And how are we going to proceed with something like that?

▶ 2:38:29 Cory Thomas: So again, Mr. Thomas, I think you're asking a hypothetical, and that's why I have four working committees trying to figure that out. I mean, one of the models that is put out there by the state is a day on, a day off, or a week on, a week off. And so if your children go to school Monday, Monday, Wednesday, and others go Tuesday, Thursday, on the off day, you're doing remote learning. So that's the hybrid model they're talking about. All right, thank you very much. I guess we're all just going to wait and see and wait and see holding pattern. I do want to thank you both for acknowledging that bias and equality training at the schools has been present over the last 6 years. We committing to diversity and equality training for our teachers and our administrators moving forward. So it's very nice to hear.

▶ 2:39:22 Maya Jamaleddine: Um, Miss superintendent, thank you for your years of service and your commitment to education and the children of Melrose. and i'd like to be one of the first to welcome uh new superintendent dr kuchenberger to melrose so thank you all and have a good night for the second time thank you so much um and let's say more um i have two questions and first one you mentioned that you met with medco parents and you heard their concerns in addition to the medical parents we all know that our community have changed the demographic have changed we are becoming more diverse community and we're very grateful for that um what is uh with all the respect to confidentiality what is some of the concerns that medical students have shared with you or uh things that you feel that the

▶ 2:40:14 parents wanted to some of the the changes that the parents wanted to see in our school district Thank you for that question. Honestly, Ms. Gelmadine, I went into my first meeting with great trepidation. I was worried about what I would hear. I certainly did not want to be disappointed in our staff or our children. And most of them were very complimentary. Most of them talked about what a good education they were getting, how good the teachers are supporting them. For example, tonight, one father was talking about the minute his child misses an assignment every teacher he the child has at the high school calls what's going on so they were very complimentary of the staff they were very complimentary of most of the students the number

▶ 2:40:58 one concern i heard is they don't feel welcomed by other parents they feel that when they go to school events or they go or they show up for whether it's a play a sporting event a pto they really do not feel welcomed by other parents that was the one the one theme i heard over and over again um i do i i will tell you from the work that i have done over the past few years with with miss ward and now with miss jackson the one group that we do recognize has a harder time is teenage black girls um they they struggle a little bit more than the boys or young children um quite honestly i will tell you if you can throw a ball you get accepted um it's harder for girls to begin with um but i know that from my own experience but i think it's concerning that um our mel um

▶ 2:41:53 uh boston parents don't necessarily see our melrose parents as being welcoming what about the um the the new groups the new diverse group that are residents and they don't feel welcome to have we had these concerns as well absolutely absolutely we hear this we hear this quietly I think the city has a lot of work to do I think we all have a lot of work to do I think that most people are well-intentioned and don't recognize their own behaviors and I think that's where the work lies I appreciate your honesty. My last question, how much our staff is diverse? So that's an interesting question because, and I had this conversation recently with Dr. Adams. When we do the student census, and I don't know whether you've ever seen

▶ 2:42:57 the reports that I give the school committee, there's something like 35, 38 categories for When you do the adults in the state database, there's only like three choices. You're either Caucasian, black, or Asian. It doesn't recognize anything else. So it's a little misleading. We don't have a lot of African American staff. We do have a handful of Asian staff and we have a handful of Latinx staff. But it's hard to tell you who's who because of the way the data is captured, which I thought was enlightening on that. What I have discovered is we've done some of these community circles online with staff to help them work through the current crisis because they're so emotional. What we have learned is many of our staff have interracial or interethnic marriages.

▶ 2:44:05 Many of them have children of color, whether biological or adopted. So we don't really have a good handle on people's experiences. Do you think if we have more people of color in our staff, that would help our people of color students feel more um welcomed and feel uh seen in a way so that's that's an interesting question so i i doubt that the committee knows this because again you're the city council not the school committee um two years ago we joined the massachusetts partnership for diversity in education it is a group purposely devoted to trying to recruit teachers of color we can't get anybody to apply even last year one of our principals took the list of applicants that the group had and called people and try to pitch the

▶ 2:45:07 district to them like a salesman we cannot get people to apply I don't think it's an indictment of the city I think it's a truism and having taught urban having taught in both Boston and Malden as well as Woburn, teachers of color want to teach in communities of color. And so it is the rare teacher who is willing to take that leap. But as to your more important question, would it make a difference? Absolutely. Every child should see in a teacher somebody who looks like him. But it is a big hurdle. Again, I appreciate your honesty. Thank you so much. Councilor McNaught. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this time, I'd like to make a motion to move the bottom line, 300, the school budget forward. Second.

▶ 2:46:08 Motion to move the bottom line made by Councilor McNaught, seconded by Councilor McMaster. Any other discussion? None. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Vice Chair Migliorelli. Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi. yes councillor mcmaster yes mcnaught yes councillor eccles yes council Garipay yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes council jamaladeen yes president Grigoraitis yes chairman sanella yes unanimous thank you and then finally on our list which i believe um superintendent will be speaking to is order 2020-110 and appropriation from free cash account 01-324-001 the amount of $79,300 to various accounts set forth therein. Lieutenant, I don't know if you're going to speak to that or Lieutenant Taymor. Oh I'm sorry, I didn't hear you Mr. Sinell. I was so relieved

▶ 2:47:24 that my last budget cast unanimous sitting here in shock so it is the practice of the city of Melrose to give the Medicaid money to the school district this money is the results of the school district charging Medicaid for related services so under federal and state law we are allowed to ask families if we can do this they give us permission so for example if you are receiving speech therapy occupational therapy physical therapy we can then submit a bill to Medicaid to for the services rendered similar to what happens when you go to the doctor so yearly it's transferred back to us and it's one of the means by which we balance the budget any questions Councilor McNaught? Motion to recommend for passage.

▶ 2:48:26 Christopher Cinella: Second. Motion to recommend for passage made by Councilor McNaught, seconded by Councilor Stewart. Any discussion? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, please 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. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Chairman Cinella? Yes. Unanimous. Thank you, and thank you, and best of luck to you, Superintendent. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you, everyone. Thank you all very much. Good night. We'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. Motion to adjourn made by Councilor Stewart,

▶ 2:49:21 Seconded by Councilor McNaught, any discussion? 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. President Grigoraitis. Yes. Chairman Sonella. Yes. You are adjourned. Thank you. Have a good night. Good night, everyone. See you tomorrow. See you Wednesday. See you Wednesday, Kristen. Don't get too excited. Planning board, anyone? Anyone, planning board?

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