Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2021-11-08

Appropriations and Oversight Remote meeting

This meeting starts at 0:00 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

Christopher Cinella present · President, ex oficio; Jack Eccles late, 6:35 PM · Vice Chair; Mark Garipay present; Jen Grigoraitis present; Maya Jamaleddine present; Shawn M. MacMaster present; Jeff McNaught present · Chair; Leila Migliorelli present; Robb Stewart present; Cory Thomas present; John N. Tramontozzi present

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALENDAR● NOVEMBER 8, 2021 Web-based remote meeting Remote meeting 6:32 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 Jeff McNaught Chair Present Jack Eccles Vice Chair Late 6:35 PM John N. Tramontozzi Present Shawn M. MacMaster Present Mark Garipay Present Jen Grigoraitis Present Leila Migliorelli Present Robb Stewart Present Cory Thomas Present Maya Jamaleddine Present Christopher Cinella President, ex oficio Present

ORDER-2022-40 Grant Title III b Grant Award FY22 Recommend Passage City Council

ORDER-2022-42 Appropriation An Appropriation in the amount of $317,693.00 from the Contract Stabilization Fund, (84042-590000) to the Fire Department Salary & Wage and Overtime Accounts (012211-511000 & 012211-513000). These funds are for Year 1 (FY21) and Year 2 (FY22) of the recently executed 3 Year Collective Bargaining Agreement. Recommend Passage City Council

ORDER-2022-46 Appropriation An Appropriation in the amount of $46,863.00 from Ambulance Retained Earnings, (84182-590000) to the Ambulance Enterprise Salary & Wage and Overtime Accounts (650051-511000 & 650051-513000). These funds are for Year 1 (FY21) and Year 2 (FY22) of the recently executed 3 Year Collective Bargaining Agreement. Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 1 11/10/2021 11:26 AM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Jeff McNaught: We are recording we're recording good evening the time is 6 32 p.m on November 8 2021 this is a meeting of the Appropriations Committee I am Councilor McNaught the chair of this committee and in lieu of a roll call attendance joining me this evening are the following uh counselors um Councilor Tramontozzi, Councilor McMaster, Councilor Migliorelli, Councilor Grigoraitis, Councilor Jamaleddine, Councilor Stewart, Councilor Thomas, and President Cinella. And Councilor Garipay, AIC, is now in the room. This provides notice of quorum for the record. Pursuant to the suspension of certain provisions of the open meeting law, this meeting of the Appropriations Committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent

▶ 0:58 Jeff McNaught: possible. We will post a comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Nauru's website and on MMTV3.org. The public can also find access instructions on the City of Nauru's website. For the folks at home, this is the portion of the meeting where folks from the public can comment On items that we'll be discussing this evening, and if there's no objections at this time, I'll move by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Seeing no objections, the floor is now open for public comment. Mr. clerk. Do we have anyone who would like to speak? At this moment, we don't have anyone except the speakers tonight's. Um, okay, if there's no objection at this time, I'll move by unanimous consent to close public comment.

▶ 1:59 Jeff McNaught: Public comment is now closed being that there's folks from the administration here to speak to us on. Uh, the orders that we have before us this evening at this time, I will move by unanimous consent to suspend the rules. As long as there's no objection, seeing no objection, the rules are now suspended. And I will read the 1st order is the clerk and then you can bring our guests into the room. Sure, 1st, order is order 2022 dash 42 and appropriation in the amount of. Oh, I'm sorry I skipped 1 order 2022 dash 40, but the title 3 B grant award of 22. Do we have anyone here to speak on that? Mr clerk? Yes, so we have Stacy from the Council on aging. Stacy. Can you hear us? Hi, I can hear you. Good evening counselors.

▶ 3:03 I miss financial. How are you? Good. Good. Refresh my memory. Is this where I speak about the grant? It is. Okay. I apologize. I don't know why my video is not working. I mean, so I found it, so I applied for a title 3 B grant that's through the federal, um, older Americans act through mystic Valley and we were awarded 6,220 dollars to. Um, expand our social programming, offer different events, um, reach out to underserved populations and hopefully, um, gather some interest from the LGBT seniors. Thank you. Ms. and do any counselors have any questions for Ms. in this order? I'd also like to point out that vice chair Eccles is now with us. So we are 11 strong. Councilor Jamaleddine. Good evening. Thank you so much for being with us and thank you for applying for this grant. I'm sure it's going to benefit my, you know, our

▶ 4:12 Maya Jamaleddine: vulnerable population and our senior as well. What is your plan in terms of the outreach and collecting all those data to see what's best to use that money for that? So, for for outreach, I don't want to say believe it or not. I don't know why I start with believe it or not, but the Council on Asian is becoming very popular, which helps us with our outreach because the seniors are reaching out to us. But we now offer free newsletters, meaning that they don't have to buy a subscription or the postage is paid for. And we're, we're almost closely 1000, 1000 mark, which is pretty high compared to about a year ago. was sending 300 out. But because of the pandemic, we needed to be more creative on how to actually

▶ 5:03 Maya Jamaleddine: reach them, and it just shows up in their mailbox. I have a great relationship with the networks in the area, too, so the housing coordinators receive our information in a bulk mailing distribution letter, and we're partnered with Melrose-Wakefield Hospital and the YMCA for for our activities and programs. And you've mentioned that this grant, will be basically used for our LGBTQ population, right? So how are we targeting our LGBTQ individuals so we can help and make sure to inform them that there is some support that they can use Right, so I reached out to the LGBT aging project, which is in the Fenway. The family group in Boston, and they gave us some tips on how to do it, but basically some of the stuff is really simple. Like, we have the rainbow flag.

▶ 6:08 On the front of the senior center, so that just alerts people that were friendly and then we advertise in the newsletter. We call it the rainbow events, and some seniors who don't understand that do ask, and it's open to all. But I think that when we have a certain section in the newsletter that says LGBT, it's sparking interest and people are calling. But also with, I call it care transitions. Like, if there's an elder that was recently visited the hospital and said that they were lonely or, you know, discloses their status, then they have our card. They know to call us. Okay, can you explain to us what is exactly the services that you can support our LGBTQ older adult population? So it's mostly social events, so it could be,

▶ 7:03 but it also has like a health and wellness component to it, so at the end of the, so even if we have like a karaoke night or a band, or I try to, we're not open yet, So, the, everything has been remotely lately, but then we would do a survey to ask them health and wellness questions and see how they're doing and then go from there because the grant is very specific about which statistics I have to report. Okay, okay. So we don't have anything like. Yeah, like plan in place. Or customized specifically for this grant yet. Not yet, we would have to, we have to specifically schedule it. Okay. Awesome. Well, congratulations. I'm getting open to all. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you. Congratulations on getting this grant and looking forward to hearing.

▶ 7:55 Cory Thomas: More about, you know, how it was used and please let us know if there's anything we can help. To to spread the word or in the outreach. Sure, thank you. Thank you. Council. Jamal Dean. Councilor Thomas. Thank you. Mr. chairman. Ms. Michelle. Thank you for being here and thank you for your continued hard work for the seniors and numbers. Where are we with the community meal? And is there any, um. Anything on the, on the, on the horizon to bring that back to the community. It was such a popular program. I just want to see what the status of that is. Well, I have you here. So, it's a very tough thing to discuss, because, as you can tell the seniors miss it, and they're upset about it. But what I've been telling folks is that we can have a.

▶ 8:44 Older adults community dinner at the Milano center any time. If we're going to go with, so that's like reframing or recreating the program. If we were going to follow the funding that supports the community. Dinner, then I have to follow the rules of that fund, which is for all ages and it basically is an integrated expression of feeding the poor. So, it, I don't want to get into the business of screening for income. But I have to be careful about making sure that it's inclusive and if you keep community dinner at the at the senior center, it becomes exclusive. Because it's viewed as only for seniors. So, um, and I, you know, it's like, as we had a drive through 1 of the seniors came up to me and said, well, how can you not talking about that in your newsletter? And I said.

▶ 9:37 I don't have the answer yet, so I'd rather put out a great answer that says, you know, the community dinner will be hosted. It can be hosted at the senior center, but it has to be pretty well. You know, manage that it's all ages inclusive and those in need, but I was talking to administration about possibly bringing it to different community places. So that basically under aged and low income feel comfortable coming. Thank you so much for that answer. Um, but in the greater in the greater landscape of it, though, has it been talked about bringing bringing it back? It's some extent now that the pandemic is hopefully lessening. As far as timing of as far as having people congregate for meals.

▶ 10:27 Or the program itself. Well, I think. Right now, even in the council and aging network, there are less. They're, they're still not back to full time meals because I was really struggling because, you know, the, the in the Milano center is being repaired. As we speak, and I was really upset, not upset, but really concerned about that. I was going to be going into the 2nd. Holiday season, Hanukkah, Christmas, the December months of not having a congregate. Event, you know, a community event sitting down, but we felt that working with the and all that, that it just wasn't we weren't there yet and we're not at that point. So we're going to continue with the drive through events. Um, continue with the zoom events, um, we're at memorial hall, um, and then January, hopefully knock on what will open.

▶ 11:20 And then I would say probably the Valentine's day might possibly be the 1st community. Meal, whether it's lunch or dinner or whatever it is. That's great to hear. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Thomas. Do any other councilors have questions for Ms. Minchella? Seeing none, what is the will of the committee? Motion to recommend? Second. Motion to recommend for passage made by Councilor Garipay, seconded by Councilor Tramontozzi on discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, we please call the roll. Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councillor McMaster? Yes. Councillor Garipay? Yes. Councillor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councillor Migliorelli? Yes.

▶ 12:32 Jeff McNaught: Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Thomas? Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine and President Cinella. Yes. That's 11 yes. The motion passes. Ms. Minchello, thank you for being with us and for everything that you do. Thank you and have a good night, councillors. You as well. Thank you. Next, we have order 2022-42 and appropriation in the amount of $317,693 from the contract stabilization fund. 84042-59000 to the fire department salary and wage and overtime accounts 012211-5100 and 012211-513000. These funds are for year 1, FY21 and year 2, FY22 of the recently executed 3-year collective bargaining agreement. I believe we have Chief Kaliner and Mr. DellaRusso and our City Solicitor Phillips here with us this evening.

▶ 14:01 Good evening, everybody. Good evening, Chief. Good evening, Mr. DellaRusso, Ms. Phillips. Whoever would like to take the floor, it's yours. If I may, through the chair, good evening. This order represents, as was indicated by the previous speaker, the funding for the fire department for those two years, fiscal 21 and 22. Strictly on the fire side, there is a sister corresponding order 2022-46 Which also provides funding for this contract through the ambulance enterprise fund. So they, they mirror each other, but essentially this, um. The contract stabilization fund is set up to do exactly what it's doing this evening, which is when collective bargaining agreements and other contracts, a union or non union are realized and settled.

▶ 15:16 In that sense that funding would be put forward within a certain timeframe to actually meet the obligation of the contract. And that's what we have this evening. So, the order before you request the amount of 317,693 dollars from the contract stabilization fund. Which would be the balance of 815,000. 982.29 if approved. And having said that, and just for the purposes of, of speaking to this order collectively. Which again, it's just to keep it all together. The ambulance enterprise fund. The requirements audit to fund that a 46,863 dollars. And that comes from the ambulance reserve account. Which had the original balance of 151,58218. And if this is approved by the city council this evening, the balance will be 104719.18.

▶ 16:23 So, respectfully, and, uh, the. Funding is both from the traditional fire department contract stabilization fund. In essence use of funds as well as the ambulance enterprise fund. And, um, I believe, um, city solicitor may want to. I mean, well, the fire chief and give you as a council more specifics, um. And I open the floor, obviously, to whatever the council wishes. Thank you. Mr. Thank you through the chair. Uh, I'm happy to start. Um. We reached agreement on this contract prior to a few weeks prior to engaging in binding arbitration at the joint labor management commission. Uh, both parties mutually agreed to the terms it was executed on September 29th and local 1617 ratified. This agreement, including these financial, the financial package on September 27th.

▶ 17:24 So, the package includes 2% wage increases between 2020 and 2022. And made career step increases, which is consistent with what we've done with other public safety unions across the city that firefighters will receive on their 10th year, their 15th year, and their 20th year of service in the department. Other than that, there was 2 other finance, 2 other non financial provisions. The city received an exchange for those financial terms involving overtime and sick leave. And I'm happy to answer any additional questions anyone might have on this. thank you city solicitor Phillips and chief did you want to add anything yes certainly yeah I'd like to echo what Shannon said this took about 18 months

▶ 18:12 and we were heading towards arbitration and we were able to come to conclusion with this MOU and the raise increases are in line with other cities and towns what they've been getting so I think it's a very fair deal for the Union as well as the city I speak in favor of it Thank You chief Kalina do any counselors have questions for mr. de la Rousseau miss Phillips or chief Kalina council McMaster Thank You mr. chairman I just have one question perhaps it's best directed to miss Phillips miss Phillips what is the length of the the contract Through the chair, the contract is effective July 1, 2020. And it will expire June 30th, 2022. Thank you. So it's a 3, as is consistent with previous contracts and 150 E, collective bargaining lots of 3 year contract.

▶ 19:19 Jack Eccles: Do you count like master any other counselors? Vice chair Eccles that I see your hand go up. Yep. Yeah, for Mr. Is it anticipated that we'll need another movement of, uh. Funds for year 3, or are we planning to fully fund it with the operating budget for the 3rd year of the contract? That's a great question. That's a great question. Council. And again, we intend if this is approved this evening to fully fund it. Fiscal 23 right in the budget itself. Awesome and, uh, I think this is for. Maybe miss Phillips, uh, is there a place for the public or us to find the agreement? I know that. Previously, collective bargaining agreements have been posted on the city website through the chair. Yes, we will post on the city website. I think I believe until the money's been appropriated. It's it's not technically in place yet.

▶ 20:16 Uh, so it will be updated with the new, uh, a language that the parties have agreed to and incorporated into the terms of the contract. So that will be available on the city website. Thank you. Give vice chair Eccles any other councillors? Seeing none, what is the will of the committee? Motion to recommend for passage? Second. Motion to recommend for passage made by Councilor Garipay, seconded by President Cinella on discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Councilor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor McMaster? Yes, that's okay. Yes. Yes, yes. Counselor, yes. Counselor Stewart yes. Counselor Thomas yes. Counselor. Yeah, and President.

▶ 21:22 Jeff McNaught: Yes, that's 11. Yes. The motion passes, we will move on to the next order. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Order 2022-46, an appropriation in the amount of $46,863 from ambulance retained earnings, 841-82-59-0000 to the ambulance enterprise salary and wage and overtime accounts, 650051-511000 and 650051-513000. These funds are for year 1, FY21, and year 2, FY22 of the recently executed three-year collective bargaining agreement. Mr. De La Rosa already spoke to this order, and I don't believe that there's anything to add. I think all three of you spoke to both of these everyone's nodding so we're good do any counselors have any questions on this order seeing no hands raised what is the will of the committee

▶ 22:34 make a motion to recommend second I recommend for passage made by councillor Garipay seconded by councillor Grigoraitis on discussion seeing none mr. Clark will you please call the roll chair McNaught yes my Chair Eccles? Yes. Councillor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councillor McMaster? Yes. Councillor Garipay? Yes. Councillor Grigoraitis? Yes. Councillor Migliorelli? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Thomas? Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine? Yes. And President Sinella? Yes. That's 11. Yes, the motion passes. Thank you all for being here this. Thank you very, very much. Thank you everyone your hard work on this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Right. And, um, that concludes our business for the evening. So, at this time, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

▶ 23:43 Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn made by Vice Chair Eccles, seconded by Councillor Migliorelli. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Eccles? Yes. Councillor Tramontozzi? Yes. Councillor McMaster? Yes. Councillor Garepaix? Yes. Councillor Gargaretis? Yes. Councillor Migliorelli? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Thomas? Yes. Councillor Jamaleddine? Yes. President Cinella? Yes. Unanimous. 11 yes. Thank you Mr. Clerk. We are adjourned. We'll see everybody in 45 minutes for the City Council meeting. Mr. Clerk, I was just going to mention that we can probably stop recording until the Council meeting kicks back up again. We are recording. Thank you. Good evening. It's 730.

Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2021-11-08

Attendance

Agenda

Minutes

Transcript

Original documents