Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2022-06-06

Appropriations and Oversight Budget Hearing

This meeting starts at 0:01 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Attendance

Christopher Cinella present · President, ex oficio; Jack Eccles present; Mark Garipay present; Jen Grigoraitis present · Chair; Maya Jamaleddine late, 7:35 PM; Manjula Karamcheti present; Shawn M. MacMaster present; Leila Migliorelli present · Vice Chair; John Obremski late, 7:57 PM; Robb Stewart present; Ryan Williams present

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 6, 2022 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Budget Hearing 7:01 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Jen Grigoraitis Chair Present Leila Migliorelli Vice Chair Present Shawn M. MacMaster Present Jack Eccles Present Mark Garipay Present Maya Jamaleddine Late 7:35 PM Robb Stewart Present Manjula Karamcheti Present John Obremski Late 7:57 PM Ryan Williams Present Christopher Cinella President, ex oficio Present

ORDER-2022-119 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) City of Melrose Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2023 in the amount of $95,256,080 (Ninety Five Million, Two Hundred Fifty-Six Thousand and Eighty Dollars) Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee

ORDER-2022-120 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of City of Melrose Revolving Fund table as first adopted by City Ordinance June 18th, 2018 and annually thereafter. Revolving Funds are further authorized under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 44 Section 53E 1/2. Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee

ORDER-2022-123 Enterprise Fund Water Enterprise Operating Budget for Fiscal 2023 in the amount of $6,119,429 (Six Million, One Hundred Nineteen Thousand, Four Hundred Twenty-Nine Dollars). Ought to Pass City Council

ORDER-2022-124 Enterprise Fund City of Melrose Page 1 6/13/2022 1:24 PM Minutes Appropriations & Oversight Committee June 6, 2022 Sewer Enterprise Operating Budget for Fiscal 2023 in the amount of $8,793,909 (Eight Million, Seven Hundred Ninety-Three Thousand, Nine Hundred and Nine Dollars) Ought to Pass City Council City of Melrose Page 2 6/13/2022 1:24 PM

Transcript

▶ 0:01 Jen Grigoraitis: All right. Good evening. Today is Monday June 6th 2022. The time is 7:01 pm and this is a meeting of the Appropriations and oversight committee. I am counselor gregoritis your chair and joining me tonight our vice chair. Migliarelli and counselors McMaster Echols garapay. Stuart Carm chady Williams and president sonella ex-officio this provides notice of the Quorum for the record in accordance with the open meeting law. This meeting is being recorded and broadcast on our local cable access Channel mmtv, as well as live streamed on the mmtv website and available for future viewing through the city of melrose's meeting portal at this time. I will motion by unanimous consent to open public comment.

▶ 0:47 Jen Grigoraitis: Seeing the objection public comment is now open. We don't have anyone joining us in person Mr. Clerk. Do we have anyone online? Not at this time. Okay, so I will now motion by unanimous consent to close public comment. Seeing no objection public comment is now closed and we will move right into our department budget hearings. And tonight. We are joined by the Department of Public Works director prokos Ellis and assistant director troop. And if you guys want to head on up to the table and I will entertain a motion to suspend the rules so that we can hear from the administration moved second. So we have a motion to suspend the rules made by President sinella seconded by Vice chairmanelli all in favor any opposed. Hey in

▶ 1:31 Jen Grigoraitis: the rules are suspended. And just while you both are getting set up just a moment of personal privilege. We have Appropriations tonight. We are going to gavel out of Appropriations by about 755 so that we can open the city council meeting because we do have four required public hearings that are have to go on between 8 and 8:15. So heads up for everyone that they'll be a lot of Recessing and gaveling in motioning, so please bear with us. So thank you for being here the floor is yours. Thank you. wait a second for this to get it up. There's my daughter. I might have to do like a function. Okay. Thank you all. so we're just presenting our fiscal 23 budget tonight and In the past few years kept past couple years that

▶ 3:01 I've been doing this we've typically had other DPW items on the agenda for the same night things, like retained earnings free cash Water and Sewer rates tonight. They are not on the same nights agenda, which is good. So I paired down my usual information considerably and it's all focused just on the budget which is kind of nice to be able to keep it a little more concise. So I did want to go through for you some of the basic information just for the new counselors. I know you're all very familiar with with the DPW, but we have 68 full-time employees split into four main divisions Administration engineering operations and Facilities. Administration are the folks that you you call into the main number of

▶ 3:54 the City Art and you speak to our resident Services representative all the financial stuff that Jim does Jim runs the administration division. We have accounts payable receivable payroll. We have our environmental Outreach coordinator, which is currently vacant, but hopefully we'll have somebody on board very soon and our rentals coordinator who handles all the school rentals and such. And then engineering here in City Hall along with water and sewer billing. Handles, all the permits and inspections development reviews records and plans geographic information systems and the water and sewer billing. And all of our capital projects design construction oversight all the paving and utility work

▶ 4:37 that you see out in the community. and then facilities does all of the custodial Services all of the trades services for all of our municipal buildings both schools and police fire Council and aging this building They also manage the the facilities capital projects and building security building maintenance. And then finally operations which is kind of everything else. There are eight subdivisions of operations. There is water sewer Highway sanitation Parks forestry Fleet and Cemetery. And each one of those divisions has a division manager as I mentioned Jim manages Administration and finance. Joe Hobbs is our new operations manager. Hopefully you've all met him. By now or talk to him on the phone. Jay McNeil is

▶ 5:35 our facilities manager going on two years now and Vonnie Reese is our city engineer who's been here a little over a year. I just want to acknowledge some of the new employees that we've hired. We've done quite a bit of hiring over the last year the unfortunate reality of the our pandemic or post pandemic World. Whatever we're in now is more employee turnover more challenges with finding the qualified candidates that we need for certain roles. So we've done quite a bit of hiring this year. These are all our new employees since I presented last year and then I did also just want to acknowledge Peter petronio who retired after 12 years with the city and was known to everybody. I'm sure and just want to thank him

▶ 6:20 for his dedicated service to the city. And I also sadly wanted to acknowledge Rick Cantone. I don't know how many of you had a lot of contact with Rick but Rick worked for the city for 32 years and he passed away this year just shortly after his retirement. And that was a real loss for the whole the whole Melrose Community really a lot of people out in the community know him. I still get emails sent. so they're sent to my email address, but they'll say, you know, dear Elena and Rick even though he retired in 2021, but It was really sudden and unexpected and so shortly after his retirement. So I just wanted to thank him for his service to the city. I Capital accomplishments in the last year. We did

▶ 7:12 a lot of Paving the I'm not going to read all the streets there. But those are all the streets that we paved in 2021. Then we have all the streets where we replaced water mains in 2021. And we finished the Roosevelt school grounds project, which was also a Paving and erosion control project. That went very well. The picture there is Paving of Main Street. And then we had a lot of other projects going on and I just listed a handful of them just as an example. We have the generators Jim's been managing the installation of the generators here and the temporary portable generator for Memorial Hall that project is going very well lead times are extraordinarily long. So we're still waiting for the equipment to

▶ 7:58 come in but we're getting everything ready. The contractors on board contracts have been signed. The Memorial Hall envelope project is obviously a huge project for the city. We've finished the Alpine Park feasibility study. And I don't know if we've posted it to the website yet only because our environmental and Outreach coordinator position is vacant, but if it hasn't been posted it should be shortly. The picture down the bottom right is Central Terrace, which the mural artist was out there today doing some of the painting on the ground and we should be having a ribbon cutting within the next couple weeks and it really looks fantastic. It's you know, a little off the beaten path place to go and sit but it's public seating and we're

▶ 8:39 hoping that people will use it. We've installed reinstalled the four parklets and we completed the HVAC upgrade at the Milano. There's air conditioning now, which is a big plus and better ventilation. And then operationally these were all through mid-may. They were also in the budget document. You should have gotten these same statistics in the budget document. We had fulfilled 3,250 work orders filled 547 potholes. We planted 171 trees so far this fiscal year. We handle 51.6 inches of snow processed 2,393 invoices. Collected about 6,900 tons of trash and about 2400 tons of recycling as well as curbside waste pickup. The that's our own City forces. Who do the yard waste pickup. Our brand new mattress program has already

▶ 9:32 collected 290 mattresses. So between curbside and drop off at the yard, so we think that's a huge success. We sold 919 compliant trash barrels. That was a huge undertaking by Lisa Scott who unfortunately decided to move to a job closer to her home in Haverhill, but she really did a fantastic job advertising and distributing those barrels. And then we accepted yard waste recycling and all the special collections that we do at the yard every year. We continue to manage our 140 fleet vehicles or Green Team continued to maintain 81 locations where we mow and maintain Wyoming Cemetery did about 150 burials and cremations and we assisted with a lot of City events the folks down at the bottom. There were helping out with

▶ 10:26 healthy Melrose, but we're involved with all the all the various City events. So our budget requests for this year the general fund request is 10 million 260,965. The water Enterprise fund request is $6,119,429. And the sewer Enterprise fund request is 8 million 793909. and you should have all of those budget documents in your iqm2 packets So just highlighting what we have in the budget documents the vast majority of our increases are salaries. We level-funded just about everything else and the items that we didn't level fund. We will go over in a moment, but we're in the process of renegotiating our three-year contracts for both the clerical Union and the laborers union and so in the budget what you

▶ 11:22 see is all of the step increases and you don't see a cost of living increase for the union employees. So those would be added on after the fact once the contracts are negotiated. We have a lot of employees who are funded across the three different. Accounts general fund water and sewer and you have a breakdown from a memo that we submitted that shows which positions are paid and how what percentage they're split and then we have four employees who we share with other departments such as Parks or it and planning we share some very employees. This is a little hard to see but these are all of our Various divisions. So you'll notice in the budget packet all of the all of our budgets are by division. So you'll

▶ 12:15 see a Budget page let's say for the highway Division. And so this just shows that Highway has four employees who are funded four full-time employees who are funded through highway. So each individual budget has employees assigned to it. And then some are split between the different budgets. So as I mentioned, we're level-funded in all of our items other than salaries with the contractual increases both Union and non-union for the step increases and then we have a handful of other items. not sure if you want me to go through them individually or if it's I submitted this in advance. If you'd rather I just skip through this and you can ask questions if you have specific questions. Yeah, I think we can wait for

▶ 13:06 questions. I know folks did have this in advance. Okay. So these are all the items though that are not level-funded. And this is a continuation of that. And and water and sewer rates. So this is getting a little bit ahead but it really ties in very closely with our budgeting process. And so I did just want to mention we're proposing a combined 5.17% increase to the water and sewer rates this year. We haven't raised rates for years because of covid and before that because we were just trying to mitigate some of the past rate impacts and so we haven't raised rates in several years, but now we really need to raise our rates to to cover our costs and to cover the increases in operating funds that we've needed over

▶ 13:56 the last several years when we weren't increasing the rates. And we're also proposing to bring our Reserve funds up to the 10% goal that we've had in the past years. And this year we're proposing to take 400,000 out of our sewer retained earnings, which was basically over collection during the covid period and put that toward the rate for fiscal 23 to mitigate to keep that 5.17% where it is. Otherwise, we would have had a much higher. I want to say it was more like an eight percent increase that we just didn't feel was really palatable. And I submitted a detailed memo on the Water and Sewer rates and base fees. any Questions councilor Eccles, um, just one from that presentation there. Should we

▶ 14:49 Jack Eccles: be expecting an additional? Appropriation later in the year either through free cash or somewhere else. Once that contract is completed and if so around what time so I anticipate that we will be Negotiating the contracts right about the end of June. We're very well along already in both negotiations clerical and laborers and they're both going very smoothly. So I anticipate we'll have numbers probably by end of June early July and start of the fiscal year and it would really be up to the CFO to determine what funding source he would use to allocate to the to that difference. But they would go in effect at the beginning of the fit. Is it negotiated to go and effect at the beginning of the fiscal year the contracts supposed to

▶ 15:38 Ryan Williams: take effect, July 1st and our final negotiation meeting with laborers, I think is scheduled for June 28th. So we're going to be right up against the deadline, but I think I'm hoping that at that final meeting. We have a successfully negotiated contract. Awesome. Thanks. councilor Williams Hello nice to meet you, I've never actually met you in person. So I reading down to Future agenda items and noting that a lot of the successes that we've had that we've highlighted have come from grant funding. and I feel like that's kind of new for maybe like the last five or ten years certainly, you know, you've been around here kind of similar timeframe as I have so and I'm wondering if you feel that the way the department is set

▶ 16:25 Ryan Williams: up the Staffing levels the budget is Is allowing you to take advantage of as many Grand opportunities as you can right and maybe this isn't a question for Public Works. Maybe it's a question for planning. But I'm curious to hear your thoughts on whether you feel well resourced to apply for as many grants as possible what your preferred solution would be whether you've raised this what your thoughts are. Say that. A really good question and a challenge that we faced a lot over the time. I've been here. I've been here now six and a half years and we have applied for a lot of Grants and we we pretty much stop applying at the point when we realize that we've reached our capacity to implement those grants. And so I

▶ 17:07 think we certainly have the capacity to apply for more, you know to fill out more Grant applications. In fact, some of them are not cumbersome at all to apply for and then others are overwhelming to apply for but it is true that the capacity I would say specifically in the engineering division. They're the ones who really Implement most of the grant work the DPW applies for Aside from some of the solways to recycling type grants that Jim's group oversees and those we have the capacity to handle but on the capitol the large capital projects, we certainly reach a point where if we applied for more money, we wouldn't have the staff to oversee the design and construction of the actual projects.

▶ 17:52 Robb Stewart: and we've been very successful in Grants will be here next Monday night with three new Grant acceptance orders, which is very exciting and So yeah, we and and especially since we brought Vonnie on to she's excellent at grant writing J Coy has been excellent agreement writing our Deputy city engineer. So now we have a lot of people who are really good at getting money and and then not enough people to help implement the projects appreciate it. Thank you. Counselor Stewart, thank you. Thank you Mr. Speaker cells and Mr. For being here tonight. Just a question regarding the city yard. I know that you went from being open every day to three days a week during the pandemic and You've kept it that way and do

▶ 18:46 you plan on keeping that for the foreseeable future? Yes, so we actually and during the pandemic we initially closed and then we reopened. I believe it was two days a week and then we brought it up to three days a week and well four days a week in the in the April through December time period so we used to be open six days a week and we have brought it down to four and there are a couple of reasons for that why we've we've discovered during the pandemic actually, this is one I think good thing that came out of the pandemic as we discovered that we are able to run a much safer operation with two days when employees are in. and the yard is closed because when we're moving those Recycling and and yard waste containers

▶ 19:33 in and out of the yard, it gets very dangerous and we get a lot of traffic a lot of residents a lot of residents wandering around, you know, bringing their dragging their leaves over from their cars and not necessarily being very aware of their surroundings and a lot of near misses where you know, we've tried to ask everybody to stop while a truck backs out or while a load or moves around and somebody not paying attention and still ending up in the way, you know, we haven't had any really scary near misses, but we've had a lot of Sort of oops moments where somebody. has been asked to wait and then ends up in the way and you know, it's I felt like it was an accident waiting to happen the longer I

▶ 20:24 watched you know, I have a nice view for my window right out into that part of the yard. And so that was the major factor. And then the other factor is that I wanted to provide more oversight in the yard and we didn't have the Staffing to provide somebody six days a week or five days a week to be just sitting in the yard watching operations and making sure checking people's stickers to make sure they should actually be there and checking to see what they drop off and my big example of what happens when the yard is not what properly is my first month as director somebody dropped off a box in the yard that was literally about Maybe one foot by 18 inches and it cost us $11,000 to get rid of the material that was dropped

▶ 21:15 because it was lab chemicals some of them dating back to the 1920s and 30s. There was radioactive material. There was Mercury containing material there were and they were just little lab bottles and you know with little skulls and crossbones and the like on them and somebody who must have been cleaning out, you know, Grandpa's basement when they were cleaning out somebody's house. brought this box and just dropped it in the yard. And so we really need the oversight to avoid those types of situations from happening again and and frankly, you know, I think for the folks who come we have a lot of traffic on Saturdays, we have a lot of traffic on Mondays and then Wednesday and Friday is a little less busy. I think being open three

▶ 22:03 Robb Stewart: weekdays and one weekend day provides people a lot of opportunity to come by the yard and drop off their materials and and I just didn't feel that the illumination of the Wednesday and Friday was a major impact compared to the benefit. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Sorry for the lengthy explanation, but Kind of leads into my next couple of questions. You you suggest that there are some resources that have been freed up. Because you have two extra days at your hands where the yard is basically closed. And so I assume you don't have someone. Front gate someone that's doing the loading some you know there I would assume there's some resources. What are those resources doing? How do you so I would say they're not really freed up

▶ 22:54 because previously we didn't have somebody Manning the yard five days a week or six days a week. We didn't have somebody checking stickers every day. And the the person who's in the yard operate in the loader and moving things around is still doing that. They're just doing it much more safely. So they're doing it on the Wednesday and Friday when there's nobody in the yard. We're taking advantage of that time to load the containers with all the yard waste. We have a driver who basically drives to and from the yard to Greenworks with the recycling into Route 99 with the with the compost. Does it most of the day on Wednesday and Friday? So we just sort of consolidate what we used to do. here and there during the week we've Consolidated

▶ 23:39 Robb Stewart: most of those operations to Wednesday and Friday and then you know, we're we're still out doing all the other things that we were doing before. We have a lot of cross I guess cross training and and cross-working across divisions. So You know, if our driver's not driving the cans to the yard then or to the Green Works, then he might be helping out with the municipal Barrel collection or you know driving for a dump truck for a water main project or not. Thank you my last. Question and it's kind of a category is what are have you? Done any consideration for being a little bit more proactive on some of the repetitive tasks that you have to do then. Let me give an example pothole. So, you know probably the number one complaint that

▶ 24:37 Robb Stewart: everyone has and you know, we're all hot spots are and you know, like the end of my Street opens up every three months Washington Street at the end opens up every two months and you have to keep going is there instead of having? To call or fill out the online. Is there any program that could be put in place? with existing resources to go and just get it done. It's interesting question. I have thought about that. I know there was some Community input at one point where people were saying, you know. Can't can't DPW just drive around and figure out where the potholes are and just fill them when they see them. It is we do have to consolidate the work to specific days. It's not like we're always driving around with a

▶ 25:26 hot box ready to fill a pothole whenever we see it and we do get a lot of work orders. So, you know, we do a Consolidated day where we send the guys out with a list and they get through as much of the list as they can on that day. We do tend to keep up within a week or two of when people put them in whether permitting if we have big storms. Obviously we get behind. We could look at you know adding a couple days here and there where we just fill fill what we see or fill what we know to be a problem. They definitely do if they're out on the street if somebody's reported a pothole here and they see six other potholes in that vicinity. They absolutely fill them at that same time. They won't skip over

▶ 26:13 Robb Stewart: something that's right near where they're working, but it is true that they don't just drive around and and look for them in the hot spot areas which Yeah, we could certainly look at you know spending a day here and there where we send them out just to do. What they deem to be the worst areas and the areas that they see cropping up as they're driving around and I think everybody in this room could attest that we all know the hotspots within our neighborhoods and we could and it's not a lot, you know, there's the ones that are just continually opening up all the time and it would be nice to see that proactively done. I think it would be greatly appreciated by the neighbors that are driving in those areas all the time. So that's something as

▶ 27:00 feedback and as part of this because I know you're shifting things around a little bit if you can figure out how that can get done within the budgetary constraints. That would be great. Okay counselor. I was going to expand on what Elena just mentioned is that one of the benefits of having new people Vonnie in the engineering Division and Joe Hobbs. Now in operations, both of them have already presented ideas that address just what you have asked about the fact that we're coming out of the pandemic and there's still somewhat ramping up especially on the operation side means that we have to be maybe a little bit patient with them but also to support them in some of their ideas and some of their thoughts and they're very

▶ 27:40 Mark Garipay: good thoughts and they all can be done within the constraints of the budget as it's written to us right great. Thanks. Also the sweet Great as well as we talked. Thank you both. Thank you counselor. Garapan. Thank you. I kind of want to try we're gonna do it so I did mine but by department so I'm gonna just go in order. That's okay but to Consulate Stewart's point one of the concerns we do here a lot about is trying to get expanding hours in the city guide. So I just want to give a plug for for that. I understand you concerns, but it's probably one of the one of the larger things my residence asked me about some expanded hours. So I'm going Administration and engineering. the we have a number of projects you feel your staff

▶ 28:31 properly in the department. I mean similar to councilor Williams question. I feel like the engineering division is really stretched thin and it was the same when I was there. We're just we want to be so ambitious. We want to get so many projects done and there's just not enough time in the day and and you don't want to be in the position where you're just putting out fires all the time and and you don't have time to do, you know as much proactive work, although engineering does to do a ton of proactive work, but I would love it if we had more staff in the engineering division, but it's never been. We're lucky to have I always felt we're lucky to have the staff we have right now because one of our positions was cut in fiscal 17

▶ 29:15 and was not brought back until fiscal 19. And so I feel like now we finally have at least like the bare minimum of what we need, but I'd always love to have more. And you have an increase in professional service line item? What's What's the what's that for that's in the in the administration? Because we have two we have one in facilities as well. You asking about the administration one. Yeah, the engineering Administration and Engineering. So that's what we usually use to fund our traffic studies. And we've just had a real increased now in the traffic Commission in requests that we've been getting to dig further into a particular neighborhoods do more traffic studies more counts and everything and that's the budget we

▶ 29:57 use for those line items in the last couple years. We've had to supplement with you know Road Bond money or any place where we could scrape together 5,000 year 10,000 there. So we just wanted to make sure we can fund what the commission is recommending. Okay, that going under facilities. I see we have summer and intern help. Can you tell me how that process works in hiring the some help you can tell you all about? So each year, each of the division heads are given a budget for the summer program. We've tried to focus on Melrose residents this year. The advertisement went out at the beginning of I believe it was April with an end of April deadline this year. It was amazing how few the drop off of applicants that we had. We do

▶ 30:48 give preference to those that are returning. They are working roughly 30 hours per week doing various tasks through the facilities summer projects at the schools in the parks in the cemeteries and their supervised by one of the foreman in the cruise. So this year we are projecting close to 30 employees. The majority of them are returning we have maybe seven or so new hires, but that process has has already taken place and we have a full allotment. We're just waiting for the end of school to have the last of the groups on boarded and up to speed and working for the summertime. Great, we typically favor students who were 18 and over just because of the equipment. Yeah the equipment that they're working around and everything,

▶ 31:40 Mark Garipay: but we do accept younger students. We accept applicants and when we can hire them we do I just think this is a valuable program to keep the kids busy. Keep them off the streets. Yeah. It's a terrific. That's good learning tool. So I'd like to see somehow to expand that all the time Municipal Building repair and repair maintenance. We have a budget at 120 seems like we're spending 212 and 189 if those just the last two years so we want officer is it we always exceed those items it's a little hard to predict because those that they're paying for repairs. So those line items are not paying for our capital projects. They're paying for you know, the boiler that breaks that we didn't have in the capitalist or

▶ 32:31 the You know the roof leaks the damage something and and we need to fix it. Unexpectedly elevator repairs. I know last year. We had or two years ago. We had to repair the library elevators for about 45,000 that just takes a huge chunk of that budget away. The good news is that we typically have a little wiggle room in the other line items in that same category and the finance department really looks at the rollup of that whole category to make sure that we're staying on budget by the end of the fiscal year. And a lot of those other items are energy items. And so when we've done Energy Efficiency projects, we're freeing up, you know a little bit of buffer there that hopefully can cover the the difference

▶ 33:21 but you know it is that budget is always tight. We're always very, you know, Jim's always staying very closely on top of what's going on facilities because it's really easy to have a sudden thing that makes us overspend that we again, we would love to have more money in that line item, but You know the same time we don't want to. request too much and just for my clarification what goes into school contractual isn't that category School contractions? You have you a number of things that go into that school contractual we contract out the cleaning services, you'll have elevator Services the majority of the things that happen on a regular basis routine inspections things like that will come out of that contractual things

▶ 34:12 Mark Garipay: that we're contractually obligated to pay for we'll pay for it right out of that line item. The big one is the is the school cleaning. And just going to the highway sidewalk repair. I see we level funded that. That's probably another one of the larger. Concerns we hear from our residents. What's the plan to? Go above and brought is it free cash that we it is that that is the cfo's preference as to how to pay for that item. So we have the sidewalk repair line item and we use that for a lot of our in-house work and smaller projects. And then with the free cash we bring in our on-call contractor and we send them around throughout the whole city to you know, any anything on our list. In fact, we just pulled the list together Joe Hobbs

▶ 35:03 Mark Garipay: just put the whole list together for aggregate or on call contractor to come in and start doing so hopefully in July, we'll see some activity. We have money left over from last year's free cash. How long is the sidewalk AL West right now is it? I don't really yeah, we have to follow up with you on that. and on Sanitation how long how much longer we have in the contract with Republic and I'm assuming covanta their contract will end at the end of fiscal 23. Republic well Republic. Yep, and the contract has been assigned to Republic. Yeah, and how about the trash disposals that? Tipping fees. I'm assuming exact correct. So how do we have a contract on that too? Correct. And when's that? When's that both run? Same time?

▶ 35:59 Correct? Yes. And I'm assuming based on everything we yeah, we're at the end of but yeah, the I apologize the contract ends at the end of the next fiscal year 24. On both of those, correct? And one would assume based on way we are. That industry. Yeah for the city's benefit one of the poems of contention when JRM went to sell was that Melrose contract is very beneficial to the city and it still remains beneficial to the city. So we're in a very advantageous position right now until the end of the contract. It has been assigned and will continue to monitor to try to minimize the effects going to the next contract. Do you foresee down the road that we potentially go with the arm trucks? You know, I I think it's a very

▶ 36:52 difficult question to answer right now because number one the market has changed a lot over the last couple of years. We're gonna probably face some challenges in the next contract based on where we sit right now and the prices that we're paying so I think you know, we want to probably take a look at all of the options that might be available to minimize the effect that the next contract might have on our operating budget, but I think we're open to everything right now including automated and then other options that might be available that might benefit the city. okay, and then the new schedule on picking up Doing the barrels on the weekend is that just downtown or are we doing the parks also on the weekend? So we the plan

▶ 37:39 would be to do downtown and select locations that our our crews know which barrels tend to be overfilled by Monday morning. So there would be select locations. We have we have a chronic problem at the common which is sort of funny to me because we have eight barrels at the common and we have one or two barrels that tend to be completely overflowing on Monday morning and others that are partially and so some of it is, you know, just the now people not wanting to walk a little bit out of their way. They're just going to attack their one more thing on the top of the overflowing barrel and try to get it in there. so we are looking at also we've ordered two new barrels that are It ends up being four barrels, but they're side by side that have

▶ 38:30 a little bit larger capacity and we're pilot we're gonna pilot these we're waiting for them to come in still. We're gonna pilot them in a couple of locations to see if we if they can contain the trash better. They're covered. You have to you know, put put the trash in a hole in the front instead of just being able to stack stuff higher and higher on top. One of them we bought with the recycling receptacle with the whole We're going to see if that can increase recycling rates right now when we have recycling receptacles that are just an open bin that says recycling. There's just as much trash as recycling. We don't end up being able to recycle that material. It's it's too contaminated. So in combination with

▶ 39:11 Scheduling it's probably going to be an early morning Sunday pickup at select locations. That's that's the plan as of right now. It would be two employees for for one four hour shift to come in and do select locations and then we'll be piloting these new barrels and the other nice thing about the new barrels is the plan is they have flat fronts and sides that we can also fix artwork to so we're hoping to make it part of the place making initiative too. So we picking up on Saturday mornings too or Know the plan would be so we pick up on Fridays and we pick up on Mondays. So we would be adding a Sunday morning pickup. And then just going moving along to the box and bars tree. tree line item Did you have any request a tree line item? I did okay. I

▶ 40:02 did I put in for 67,500 which would have funded an exact replacement of our average number of removals and it was not included in the budget. So but it was included in the free cash request so Apparently that is the preferred way of the administration to pay for trees. I was hoping as I know you were that it would be added to the budget. And what goes into parks and Forestry Hyatt equipment? so that tends to be our Our tree removal company right now. It's Northern Tree. We have an on-call contract at all times with a tree removal company and we call them in they they provide standby during known large windstorms. And then they provide, you know next day cleanup after other large wind storms and we've just found

▶ 40:57 Mark Garipay: that the the frequency which we've needed them in the last two years has exceeded anything prior. We've just had more wind storms, which I think we just have to plan that that's becoming the norm and we need to budget for it. and then just go into the cemetery. I see there's a decrease in salary. I'm assuming we didn't remove anyone out. Yeah, we had a retirements of somebody that was at the max step and that the new hire comes in at a lower step for the Union contract. Okay, and then I noticed that we haven't used any money in concrete, but I'm assuming we're still putting foundations and for we did 150 barrels. I'm assume correct still getting done. Correct. That's all my questions at this time.

▶ 41:45 I believe I have Vice chair Migliorelli and Q. I also have some questions. I am also mindful president sonella that it is seven forty three. So I'm gonna recommend that we and that I entertain a motion to recess so we can Begin the full Council if that's the desire of the president. That's good. We do have an eight eight and an 8 15 additional public hearings right a nice. There's quite a few people in the hallway. So Madam chair, oh motion to recess second. So we have a motion to recess made by counselor Stewart seconded by councilor Eccles all in favor. I all right. We are recessed until after we get through the public hearings. Thank you. to be now here Good evening. Welcome to the June 6th city

▶ 2:03:51 Leila Migliorelli: chair Migliorelli was up for questions. All right. I had one question. Let me get back to it. Okay, so the water rate increasing. by five percent and then you said that you're taking 400,000 out of Here before 400,000 is coming from somewhere to help defray the cost. Yeah, I understood you say correctly that would have been 8% It would have been an eight percent increase had it not been for that 400 believe that is the correct number. But if you want an exact number I can so I guess then my my Overall question is is what is the overall? What is the overall number? Like what's left? Like so that 5% represents that's left about like what's that total number? Do you know that that's being what is it equate to

▶ 2:04:46 Leila Migliorelli: like, how much does 5% cover? Yes. I can figure that out. It might take me a minute, but I will you do that. I can I'll say something else so What I guess I'm concerned about. Is that I know that we haven't raised rates in years and part of the since I've been on the council that's been a you know, pandemic kind of situation. And I think I'm a little concerned that now with inflation going so high that you know, this may get to be Out Of Reach for some other folks now, so it's like we were trying to correct and and this is not a I mean no one none of us knew what the impact of the pandemic would be or not be on the economy and people's jobs. But I think now we're seeing something else that perhaps we hadn't plan for. I don't know

▶ 2:05:38 Leila Migliorelli: with inflation going up and so I'm just worried about that sticker shock to people for the five percent and curious what that total amount represents all together just to see if there's any other ways probably not likely through DPW, I don't know if we have enough free cash to cover it. I don't know if there's something that can be done. Yeah their money sources, but that's just my questions so that the real issue that we have is that so you might recall that last year. We used 400,000 of free cash to offset a portion of the water rate because we had artificially High usage during the pandemic and so we collected more Revenue than we expected and we thought well that's going to come back down. So let's offset.

▶ 2:06:23 With 400,000 and then as it comes back down we'll even back out and the reality is that we came back down a little but we didn't come back down 400,000. So a lot of people are still working at home. A lot of people are still using a little more water than we then we projected and so That hasn't panned out as we had hoped exactly as we had hoped. So we really need to raise the water rate now because not only did we offset by 400,000 last year, but now we have another You know bump in in our operating costs. So we have to cover that 400,000 plus that differential and so there's really no scenario where we keep kicking the can down the road because if we keep using routine earnings to keep offsetting the rate we're going to be looking at

▶ 2:07:12 a 20% water rate increase if we wait another couple years and keep offsetting and offsetting. It's it's never going to even out completely. On the sewer end are over collection as Mr. Pelrine alluded to in his public comment. Was very high. So we now have 1.6 million in retained earnings in sewer for the same reason for that same pandemic reason. So this year we're proposing to offset 400,000 on the sewer end because we have so much so much retained earnings, but we really can't keep doing that on the water and at all because now we're at a point where you know, we'd be looking at a huge increase. If we didn't raise the rate this year and so that combined the 400,000 from the sewer affords us that opportunity to only

▶ 2:08:02 have a combined increase of 5% 5.17% which is a minimal impact on on a bill. I mean if your average bill you know, it's let's say your average bill is $400. So 5.1% increase on a $400 bill is $20. So it is. you know, it's not nothing, but it's I would say it's kind of within I think I put it this way to the water into a rate committee. Which Council Williams is on. It's within the realm of you know, some months or higher and some months are lower and I'd give my personal experience. My water bills are always somewhere between I would say two hundred eighty dollars and 420 dollars. As long as they fall somewhere in that range. I don't even give it a second thought so when the rates go up, it's still

▶ 2:08:56 kind of in that ballpark and I don't give it a second thought if I got a $600 water bill, I would absolutely call the town and say something's going on. What's Happening here. So I think a $20 increase on an average bill is not You know, it is not really outrageous. And I think actually when we did the analysis on the true average bill the 1800 cubic feet per quarter. It was even less than that. I can't remember the exact figure. So 400 is a quarterly Bill 400. I just said if that's your quarterly Bill quarterly Bill, okay five percent of five one seven percent of that is is 20.68.68. But I'm still yeah, I just ask because I know that I I remember back in 2019 when campaigning. That was something was brought

▶ 2:09:47 up quite frequently was the high cost of water our water and sewer rates, which I think I know we've addressed overall why they're why they're high. Hey, yeah, I no further questions. But if I mean if you have that figure and want to send that along later, yeah, well I have the so the question is just how much it's basically how much has the revenue requirement gone up, right? That's so what is that 5% equating to so from fiscal 22 to 23 in the water fund. The difference is 387,000 and so that's on top of the 400,000 that we Used to offset last year. So really we have to cover an extra 787,000 in water this year. And we have to cover an extra. 700 8,000 in sewer But that's where we're proposing to use 300,000 to offset it.

▶ 2:10:48 So all things told we're covering, you know around a million dollars of increase with that 5% of additional Revenue. Okay. Thank you. Sounds like everybody. Yeah, quick question. What was our rate increase prior to covid on average over five percent this year. It's a we didn't have the an increase last couple of years. Yeah, so I can go back. I have actually every Year's increase in this model back to 2016. So water rate in 22 Was the same the volumetric water rate was the same in fiscal 21 same in fiscal 20 same in fiscal 19 same in fiscal 18 and in fiscal 17, we went up. by 1.58% and fiscal 17 to 16 we went up. 4.4% So our last really substantial rate increase was from fiscal 16 to fiscal

▶ 2:11:59 17, and we've otherwise been level. And even on the base fees they've been level since fiscal 17 all the way up to fiscal 22. So we water rate we basically Not raised it in over five years and then sewer rate the rate in fiscal 22 was the same in 21, 20 19 18 and 17. And the last time we raised it was 17 into 16 or 16 into 17. We raised it by Well, then yeah 10% but this was more complicated because we changed from fiscal 16 to 17. You might recall. We hired a consultant and we changed the whole structure. So we changed from three tiers to two we changed the way the base fees were calculated. So do you think we're getting ahead of it early enough? I guess this year with the 5% increase like yes, I think

▶ 2:12:53 we are on water. We're making ourselves a hundred percent whole with this increase on sewer. We are doing that 400,000 offset and we're just hoping crossing our fingers that we adjust back even a little bit more from the covid impact from the last several years. But as I mentioned we have been over collecting in the last two years enough that we have 1.6 million in free cash. So, you know we We have reason to believe that we should be fairly healthy going forward in sewer. Thank you. You're welcome. questions from counselors I will entertain a motion to move the bottom line and departments. 401 402 for 22 423 433 475 and 485. Those are all Public Works unless there's a desire to take those each

▶ 2:13:45 Jen Grigoraitis: individually so sexy. So we have a motion made by counselor Stewart seconded by counselor Williams to move the bottom line on 401 402 for 22 423 for 33 475 and 485. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll? Vice chair Migliorelli counselor McMaster. Yes counselor Eccles. Yes counselor garpy. Yes counselor. Jamaladin. Yes counselor Stewart. Yes counselor crime Shady. Yes counselor abramski. Yes. Counselor Williams. Yes. President vanilla. Yes. and chair greatest it's 11. Yes seven. Yes. So those bottom lines have been moved and then if you both can just bear with us through a couple more votes than we can get to the two orders regarding the operating budgets for water and sewer. Thank you. So next up. We have Department 491 the

▶ 2:14:45 Jen Grigoraitis: cemetery there was a memo provided are there any questions or comments from the council? motion to move the bottom line and 491 So you have a motion to move the bottom line and 491 made by counselor eckel seconded by counselor. Gemala Dean any discussion Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll Vice chair? Migliarelli? Yes councilor McMaster. Yes. Counselor Eckles. Yes Council security. Yes counsel. Jamaladin. Yes counselor Stewart. Yes Council crime Shady. Yes counselor bremski. Yes counselor Williams. Yes, president. Sonella. Yes and chair greatest. Yes 11. Yes. Yes. Okay, then we have revolving account. Number two, six five seven, which is the recycling in Waste Management revolving account.

▶ 2:15:32 Jen Grigoraitis: There any comments from counselors on that? Anyone want to move the bottom line motion to move the bottom line. Okay, if emotions move the bottom line on revolving account number 2657 made by councilor Williams seconded by President sanela any discussion seeing none Mr. Clerk. Can you please call the roll Vice chair? Migliarelli? Yes counselor McMaster. Yes counselor Eccles. Yes, counsel. Gerepe. Yes counselor. Jamaladin. Yes counselor Stewart. Yes councilor crime Shady. Councilor bremski. Yes counselor Williams. Yes, president sonella. Yes and chair everyis. Yes, you know, that's with Levin. Yes, eleven. Yes, and then just for those following along the water rates in the sewer rates of their own separate orders. So we'll get to those in a moment

▶ 2:16:18 Jen Grigoraitis: because we can act on those tonight if that's the will of this body and then we did have revolving account number two, six six five the false alarm. We have already moved to the bottom line on that. So now we are at the order section of our meeting. The first order before us is 2022-19 city of Melrose operating budget for fiscal year 2023 in the amount of 95 million two hundred fifty six thousand and eighty dollars entertain a motion to hold emotional home. We have a motion to hold made by counselor Eccles seconded by counselor Stewart. I need discussion all in favor any opposed. Okay that is held then we have order 2022-120 reauthorization of city of Melrose revolving fund table as first adopted by city ordinance, June 18th,

▶ 2:17:07 Jen Grigoraitis: 2018 in annually, thereafter revolving funds are further authorized under Massachusetts General Law chapter 44 section 53 e into half entertain emotion to hold. Motion hold second even motion to hold made by president's Nellis seconded by Vice chairman. Migliarelli any discussion All in favor aye any opposed. Hey, that is held. Now we are back to order 2022-123 water Enterprise operating budget for fiscal 2023 in the amount of six million 119,429. And I will I know you've both talked about this already a little bit in your presentation are there any Additional comments from you or questions from counselors specific to the water Enterprise budget. Counselor McMaster, it's a question. Thank you madam. Chair, good

▶ 2:17:59 Shawn M. MacMaster: evening. Thank you. Both for being here Ms. Process Ellis. You may recall that prior years. I've raised concerns about essentially what we heard tonight from a member of the public which is billing. time On both of these these matters Water and Sewer. to other departments for time spent addressing Water and Sewer related items. Yes based on the concerns that I've read in the past and I don't need to get into them in detail. But have we made any changes to that where we continuing to base? What's being? Budgeted for their time on a good faith estimate of what we think those employees from other departments are spending in terms of their time addressing these issues. Yes, so there are two different.

▶ 2:18:49 segments of that one is the employees who are budgeted in the Department salaries line item. So Jim has provided a memo that has the the split of the employees who are actually within the operating budget. Those are people like myself city engineer staff engineer Deputy city engineer all the engineering division because they spend substantial time on Water and Sewer projects and obviously the water and sewer billing Clerk. Is divided 50% water 50% sewer and then a number of our admin team. Who provide services directly to the water and sewer division? So those are those are on the budget. We didn't change any of those percentages this year. Those are still I believe them to be accurate as to the amount of time that the

▶ 2:19:44 DPW staff spend on these items that we have. We have detailed knowledge of how our own staff spends their time. And so I feel these are very good estimates. The other side is indirect costs, and those are Bits and pieces of other people's time who are not within DPW, they're not charged on the DPW budget. They're charged as one whole line item that's captured as indirect costs and the finance department. manages that process those indirect costs include all the health insurance benefits for the people who Are employed by the Water and Sewer division? That's a big chunk of the costs. But then it also includes a piece of let's say the city solicitor. Spend some portion of her time helping with you

▶ 2:20:34 know, if we have a contract dispute on a construction project. That's for sure. You spend some portion of her time on that the contract negotiations with the laborers union. A number of those employees 12 of them. I think are employed in the Water Division. So, you know a portion of her time negotiating their contract is applicable to water all of that happens through the finance department. And so they tweak those every year based on on changes with Um their knowledge of you know, the collector's office and who's collecting the the water and sewer bill payments and and that sort of thing. They look in detail at those every year and then they give us one whole number for water and a whole number for sewer that we plug into the model to model

▶ 2:21:24 Shawn M. MacMaster: the rates. They feel strongly that those are accurate representations. They've discussed it in our water and sewer rate committee meeting but I can't speak directly to how they come up with those numbers. So thank you to your knowledge. Nothing's really changed substantially from last year and the so nothing has changed on on this end for sure and on the indirect cost side, you know, they nothing substantial has changed. They make tweaks. I can tell you how the numbers have changed if you're interested in the totals. No, that's okay. I mean my you know, very briefly my position is just been that I feel like as much as I trust that they're good faith estimates that We could or perhaps should be looking at some sort of algorithm or

▶ 2:22:06 Shawn M. MacMaster: metrics to. Rather than a good faith estimate considering that we're pulling from other departments. So that's that's where I continue to land on the issue. I understand is really a matter for the administration to decide if it's going to be doing that differently. I respect that, but I'm consistently opposed to these two orders for that purpose, and that's just my attempt to get on the public record as to why I continue to vote this way every year. So, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions from counselors? I will entertain a motion to recommend order 2022-123 ocean recommend order 2022-123. Emotions recommend made by counselor Eccles seconded by President sonella. Is there any discussion

▶ 2:22:56 Jen Grigoraitis: Seeing on Mr. Clerk. Can you please call the world? Nice chair mclarely. Yes counselor McMaster. No. Counselor Eccles. Yes Council Here Pay. Yes counselor. Jamaladin. Yes. Counselor Stewart, yes. Counselor crime Shady. Yes counselor bremsky. Yes counselor Williams. Yes president sonella. Yes. And chair Gratis? Yes, that's 10. Yes, and yes to the motion passes. Next up we have ordered 2022-124 sewer Enterprise operating budget for fiscal 2023 in the amount of eight million seven hundred ninety three thousand nine hundred and nine dollars. And again, I know you spoke to this in your presentation. So if there are questions specific to this from counselors, See none. What is the will of this committee? I know

▶ 2:23:51 Jen Grigoraitis: we're all tired. Motion to recommend second. We have a motion to recommend made by counselor Jamal Dean seconded by Vice chair. Migliarelli. Is there any discussion Seeing none Mr. Clerk communities call the roll. Vice chairman clearly. Yes counselor McMaster. No. Counselor Eccles. Yes counselor garepe. Yes counselor. Jamaladin. Yes counselor Stewart. Yes councilor. Crime Shady. Yes counselor bremski. Yes counselor Williams. Yes president. Sonella. Yes. And chair goodness. Yes, that's 10. Yes one no, and yes, so that carries. Thank you both very much for being here tonight and for your patience as we dealt with other matters, and at this time, I will entertain a motion to adjourn Appropriations. You turn

Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2022-06-06

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