Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2022-12-08

Attendance

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

Agenda

1. Call to Order (0:00)
2. Public Comment (0:18)
3. Orders
4. APP-2023-10 : Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative (0:46)
5. Information Items
6. INFO-2023-10 : Request for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding update (41:20)
7. INFO-2023-11 : Update on the Status of the City of Melrose’s Finances (1:59:10)
8. INFO-2023-12 : An Update on the Status and Usage of Free Cash in the City of Melrose (4:00:48)
9. Adjournment (4:01:45)

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● DECEMBER 8, 2022 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Jen Grigoraitis Chair Present Leila Migliorelli Vice Chair Present Shawn M. MacMaster Absent Jack Eccles Present Mark Garipay Present Maya Jamaleddine Present Robb Stewart Present Manjula Karamcheti Present John Obremski Absent Ryan Williams Present Christopher Cinella President, ex oficio Absent

APP-2023-10 Appropriation Community Prevention and Wellness Initiative Ought Not to Pass City Council

INFO-2023-10 Informational Request for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding update Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee

INFO-2023-11 Informational Update on the Status of the City of Melrose’s Finances Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee

INFO-2023-12 Informational An Update on the Status and Usage of Free Cash in the City of Melrose Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee City of Melrose Page 1 1/12/2023 4:42 PM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Jen Grigoraitis: Good evening. Today is Thursday, December 8th, 2022. And the time is 7pm. This is a meeting of the Appropriations an oversight committee. I'm councilor Grigoraitis your chair and joining me tonight our vice chairmagliarelli and counselors Eccles garapay. Jamaladin Stewart Carm shady and Williams. This meeting will be broadcast live on mmtv in accordance with the open meeting law. And this serves as notice of a quorum for the record at this time without objection. I will open the floor for public comment. Seeing objection. We are now open for public comments. We have no members of the public in the audience here tonight. Do we have anyone online? There's no online at this time. So with no one online at this time without objection on motion to close public

▶ 0:44 Jen Grigoraitis: comment seeing no objection public comment is now closed we have four matters before us tonight. The first is App-2023-10 Community prevention and wellness initiative and this comes from Health director Choi. So while you get settled at the table entertain a motion to suspend the rules so we can hear from the health director. So Second so we have a motion to spend the rules made by counselor Stewart seconded by councilor Williams all in favor. Any opposed the rules are now suspended. Good evening Anthony the floor is yours. Thank you everyone. So I'm excited to discuss a proposal for use of the education Public Safety and substance abuse stabilization fund tonight. I have with me Kara showers our prevention and wellness

▶ 1:36 coordinator. Some of you may already know her from other projects before do you want to give a quick intro about yourself? Sure, so, I'm karaoke. I've worked part-time with the city for the last 15 years. I'm various health and wellness grants and I'm happy to be here with director Choice. Yeah. So we're proposing a project that's multifaceted using this These funds to address cannabis education some Public Safety aspect as well as recovery coaching. And so we're looking to use these funds towards a position of prevention of Wellness coordinator. That position would be part-time that position would focus on a lot of chronic disease prevention activities within the city they would also this would also focus on education

▶ 2:23 efforts around cannabis use as well as other substance substances. And so we're looking for this fund to also go towards recovery coaching and that would hopefully help support Public Safety in their efforts to address those that have substance use issues and so part of our proposal includes Some evidence-based marijuana prevention tool kits and so this is kind of across the age Spectrum. We see that there are youth using marijuana. We also see seniors using it as well. And so we're hoping to use a combination of Education materials as well as other General Health and Wellness programs to help support our community. We also have healthy aging and dementia friendly initiatives to help the seniors that maybe using these products and we

▶ 3:16 want to continue to address other tangentially related health health topics, but also play into overall health and wellness of the community. So we're also including things like blood pressure screenings as well as healthy coping classes that includes yoga in the park and other programs that existed in the past. We want to kind of continue some of the principles that were brought to the city through mass and motion which care worked on for a long time. And so hopefully the council will consider our proposal. Thank you. Are there any questions from counselors counselor Williams followed by counselor garapay? You the first thing that I would like to say is this is an excellent proposal. I mean

▶ 3:59 Ryan Williams: the document itself, right? It's got a clear budget. It's five pages of you know information. It's got citations, right? You don't really see that in the council and I like it and I know it's not necessarily appropriate for every approach, but I really do appreciate seeing it because it really helps lay things out very very clearly and and I wanted to ask you specific question on the budget that you've included here for open space and Recreation support. There's a 9000 line item for supplies. What are the supplies? So actually Kara just at the first one say all credit goes to Kara. We've been working together very closely on this proposal. You know, we want we worked with also Patrick as well. It's a put together a kind of a thoughtful proposal on

▶ 4:44 how to use this money. And you know, this is a very sustainable Source, but also how we have the most impact but Cara you actually just went to an open space meeting. So do you want to kind of go over some of the things sure so um counselor Williams we when we were putting open space Recreation support in here. We were thinking about some of the work that's coming to fruition through the committee that actually we both. Yeah, we're both committee. I'm just recently yesterday maybe even had a meeting to discuss some of the some of the initiatives that residents want to see happening through the work. So I think just for munis purposes we put supplies as the category, but I think it will be very things that the

▶ 5:30 residents have. Out through those meetings. So and also I know you said 9,000 and something that Anthony wanted to bring up tonight is that it's actually half of that only because we're Asking for just the second half of fiscal year 23 for the appropriation again. Yeah, it's like just a point of order. So the appropriation request is for $75,000 in the budget incorrectly States 150,000. I believe we caught that on the phone today. So just it would be helpful if we could get that corrected going forward. Yeah, so originally when this budget was submitted I submitted for the entire fiscal year, but I think for procreations sake we're actually gonna be appropriating for asking for the last half of the

▶ 6:17 Ryan Williams: fiscal year 23 and then we'll come back to a pro to ask for appropriation for the full fiscal year starting in 24. So you're so you're that was my next question which was where's the other half of the money coming from now? I know yes. So the plan would be then to come back for another 75,000 but that all so come from the From the same Source from the from the marijuana revenue or yes. Okay, you projected that out. You feel like that's that's actually going to arrive. Yes. Yeah, we we do expect so, you know this source of funding is is some what steady the the tax is supposed to remain steady for about eight years this program. So we're we're looking to you know, obviously ask for an appropriation from the

▶ 7:00 Ryan Williams: council for this amount or hoping to have you know, a commitment kind of moving forward because we can see these programs continuing to be impactful moving forward one last question. Caught my eye counselor LED Community Health forums. Yes, despite the Pomp and Circumstance of city council. We don't actually have a lot of resources that are disposal to lead forums and to do events. Like they do in other cities like Malden where they have a very kind of heavy hand and directing neighborhood and Community initiative. So I'm really interested to know a little bit more about what you envision that being and how you envision the working relationship between counselors and the health department and just what's your what's your vision for that? I

▶ 7:44 think one of the one of the things that we wanted to address was both, you know educating, you know, our general public are you know, our teachers those that make contact with individuals that there's an impact the most but I think as policy makers I think the councils in a unique position because you are in contact with your residents. I think the education is best sort of everybody has the same, you know, starting knowledge, right? So we're hoping as part of this program is to have training sessions with the counselors to kind of go over the basics, you know, even this evidence-based marijuana prevention, which is aimed at, you know Youth and for teachers as well. I think it's good that everybody have this

▶ 8:23 Mark Garipay: base of knowledge. And I know that you know counselors have contact with their residents through newsletters or through different forums, right? So we were hoping to build out some sort of program where you know, everybody is informed so when you know when policies come to the table, everybody can make a better more informed decision. Cool. Thanks. Appreciate it. That's it for me. Thank you councilor pen. Thank you. Thank you for being here and echo of counselor Williams. Sentiments on the proposal but with detail comes questions, right? So the first one regarding the budget and how we're going to fund. the second 75,000 Was answered but I do have a couple questions. This is a part-time position. Correct? Yes, the prevention and

▶ 9:07 Mark Garipay: wellness coordinators part-time positions. So Michelle was you going to be doing both your current job and this this job. You're currently part time with the health. So it'll be a full-time. So this is this is this is a move of this position into this fund entirely. So her care is position would be fully in this fully in this fund. And okay, so it's the 51,000 it would be the yearly or five-time yearly fee Right 51,000 feet. Really. Yes. What what happens? I know you said you're going to come back for the second half of the money. Yes great program. What happens if things change and it doesn't doesn't get approved. What do we do there? Do you can you absorb this within your Health budget So we're currently working on other grants as well. We're going

▶ 10:00 Robb Stewart: to be looking at our our budget to see you know, how we how programs moving forward currently we do not have a full-time, you know, a full budget squared away for this position if we were to absorb it but we are working on other grants. We're continually applying for them like the school violence prevention Grant we just got so we're continuing to work on this as we go. Thank you. thank you, Miss showers and it's chewy for being here tonight just to Continue on the thought the council garapay had do you see this? Do you anticipate that this is going to be a continuing program for the future foreseeable future. Yes. I do. See this as a continuing program. Okay, and so it'll either need to be and it is definitely an

▶ 10:47 Robb Stewart: addition. It is not you're not shifting resources. You're adding this to your Core offering within your services, okay. And your ideas for funding this would be either. Ask for the money or get grants. Yes, correct. So we foresee this we foresee this fund as a very stable. It was available a very stable source of money moving forward one of the things that we see that our proposal addresses a lot of the principles that the council I set this funds side for originally. We're working on substance use prevention as well as Community Health, you know, General chronic disease prevention and Community Health. So I think this is a very responsible way of using this fund and so we hope to continue utilize this fun. As long as we have

▶ 11:35 Robb Stewart: it for these principles great. Thank you. My observation looking at this is there seems that there are two categories. There are the necessitive. And there are the nice to have and I think that as we approach next year budgeting is going to be challenging. I think you may want to look at and revisit how this is categorized and be prepared to come back with. something that may be still trying to accomplish the same goals, but with the more focused concentration on What are different areas that we're going to cover here? That would be my recommendation? I will support this but I think going forward. It's going to be challenging to fund this fully so please keep that in mind. Thank you Vice chairman Migliorelli.

▶ 12:27 Leila Migliorelli: I'm Cher. Thank you. Both for being here tonight. I have a question do we know this is coming from the specific stabilization fund. Do we know what the balance? I'm sorry if I missed that with the balance in the fund is currently. Good evening. Great question to the chair. Yes, we do know. the current balance is 513, 625.96 again, 513-625.96 as of today. Okay. And is that since this is through Revenue like how often is that like a built up over period of time or how often? For like annually what how much money comes into the fund another excellent question I make you this is never been used before. In history of the city, this is the first time and we built it up from 2019 was an initial contribution of 25,000 to

▶ 13:32 this effort overall. But what's happened is when the council and the city approved that special legislation. So you get your 3% excise up here then they get the second which was a local option for another 3% When we're done here was we was decided through this Council that 50% of that second three percent would be provided for this effort that we have before was this evening. and the purposes for which the fund could be used for is all spelled out. In the actual order that was passed by the council. I think it's order number 2022-148 actually, June 21st, 2022 and just if anyone just as a point of order that was when we approved the fun the fund was initially created in 2019. And it was just what happened was

▶ 14:27 Leila Migliorelli: you had with the sunset provision. I believe at the time you wanted to continue the fund. So I believe there was an actual team to do just that and that was the purpose. Yeah. I tried to look and I couldn't find the purpose in the IQ M2 is a little hard to search so I don't know if there was a actual definition for what the fun should be used for. Yeah, okay. But if you can get that that would be helpful. So what we're saying is that right now this position is being funded from another source of funding not So currently the prevention of Wellness coordinator position is funded through an upper project, it's the it's the recreation health Partnership project for mental health first aid I think it's called The Wellness initiative, but it's focusing

▶ 15:16 on Mental Health First Aid. so then we are deliver so question are your but paying for a salary position out of a Stabilization fund is that something that we typically do or encourage? if I make sure this is sort of unique and it's in its derivative the whole purpose of why they even had this, you know the marijuana. Effort that was put forward. There was some thought that there might be some additional concerns within the community that there might be some negative impacts of some kind at some point. So the objective in this particular case was that they'd be funds available for the community to use and dress perhaps mental health issues or whatever may come out of his substance abuse. So and if that's really where this group from this is

▶ 16:11 not your traditional stabilization fund this one an incense that the way it's funded every quarter. We get a distribution from the Commonwealth they collected money. They send it to us. That's how this operation actually works. And then we take that money that we receive the second distribution split it in half half goes in here. And again the other half goes to the general fund. So there's nothing unusual in my in my world to see this sign of fun set up because it's for unique circumstances. Thank you. I while I agree with my fellow colleagues on having data and footnotes. I'm just kind of curious the see if I can find here. Okay. So according to a 2019 Melrose Wakefield Healthcare Community needs assessment 8.2% of

▶ 17:02 Leila Migliorelli: Melrose residents died of chronic. Ischemic I'm not sure this isn't that right heart disease making it one of the top three causes of death in the city. And then it cites us study at Stanford that says that Heart diseases could be it could be connected to marijuana usage, but I went and clicked on the study and it's you know. It looks like smoking marijuana versus you know other ways to consume marijuana. I guess my question is is that I feel like we more of the discourse lease that I've heard sort of offhand is that we you know, there's opioid addiction problems and things like that is this is this kind of work and programs only for marijuana based issues or what is it going to be broadly used for any type of you know drug addiction,

▶ 17:51 so it will be broadly used and I think a lot of these programs are meant to supplement the work that our public health specialist growling does so she's the former position of substance use prevention coordinator. So, you know this may have, you know, a focus on marijuana use but this will support a lot of the other, you know opioids and alcohol and tobacco. We have a strong kind of program already in place. We have Maureen bosby who works on Tobacco. We have Emily who works on, you know other substances, so it's this is meant to you know to augment that so it's not only going to be marijuana focused some of the other concerns that the counselors mentioned but in terms of the budget and moving forward and being able to

▶ 18:36 Leila Migliorelli: support this moving forward, I'm I'm a little concerned about that. I'm also would be curious to to get that information on the purposes of the fund itself and Just whether you know $150,000 a year or something we should be using for for this purpose. So that's all my questions for now. Thank you madam. Before we get to a second round of questions. I had a few questions and I wanted to thank you Anthony for talking with me this afternoon again, just to Echo what my colleagues have said I think going forward the history the fund what the total balance is a budget that message matches the order those would be really helpful and I feel like we're doing a little bit of sticking a square peg in around hole which right or

▶ 19:21 Jen Grigoraitis: wrong unfortunately is often the Melrose way and how we budget things. I'm a little concerned about an ask for what is essentially 150,000 both at this point in the fiscal year. And at this point in this fiscal year at this moment, that's not an insignificant amount of money in this community. I don't question the value of The work that you all want to do. I am. I know we can't find the language related to the fun. But there was a lot of press around the creation of that Fund in which it was stated by then counselors worker that this had three key areas education Public Safety and Substance Abuse Prevention. So I see Substance Abuse Prevention in this ask I don't see Public Safety or education. I'd really like to know if either of those departments have

▶ 20:04 Jen Grigoraitis: had an opportunity to weigh in on the use of this fund. I'm also a little confused about if the position is currently paid through arpa. I don't see that on our list of arpa expenditures. So I'm trying to understand how we're currently funding this prevention and wellness position and then what pile of money we've either lost or we're going to be leaving kind of open to use for something else if we shift because we're basically shifting a salary cost from one kind of unclear funding source to this one. So I'd really appreciate Some clarity on that and then I'm also some of the items that are in here there's $13,000 for food insecurity. There's a 75,000 line item in arpa for food insecurity. It'd be helpful

▶ 20:47 Jen Grigoraitis: to get a sense of what exactly that is that we're talking about. What is the problem? We're trying to solve in the community again to Echo counselor garapay. I think when you give us detail, it leads to good questions. I value the work of prevention. I as a parent as a resident I was incredibly concerned about with came out of the youth risk behavior survey. I'm not sure cannabis use would be my number one concern of the issues in there. So I would really like to see more information both understanding how this does or doesn't fit into the bigger picture of the city's finances and then also kind of what it is you all are looking to accomplish how we're identifying residents for these programs. So that would be

▶ 21:26 Ryan Williams: kind of where I'm at right now is that we're not quite ready for prime time. So and with that I know councilor Williams had more questions followed by counselor Gary pay Thank you. So as it happens, I found the order creating the fund and for the record, it is ordered 2019-46. It was recommended on June 13th, 2019. And exactly as chair Grigoraitis said the fund very explicitly lists three uses for the money. And am I right here. We have 500,000 in this fund. I heard that right 500 time. We've never used it. Okay, number one. directly supplement Appropriations for the Melrose Public Schools and its Administration That's big one. It's a big one. number two directly supplement Appropriations for

▶ 22:17 Ryan Williams: Public Safety and number three substance abuse efforts with a specific Focus showing as it says here, which I think is a mistake but this is what it says a direct correlation to recreational marijuana and well and then it says or substance misuse so like it's very clear that the intention of this fund is to supplement the budget of the schools and we know that we're in the middle of a moment right now. We're far less than 500,000 separates us from a contract a successful contract. That's not to say I don't support this project. I do you guys are asking for 150,000 out of a 500,000 fund. Maybe the proposal could be slimmed down over time, but we haven't used this money for anything else and it needs to be used for these three purposes needs to be used for the

▶ 23:11 Ryan Williams: schools needs to be used for public safety training and needs to be used for direct correlations to marijuana or substance misuse, which is what your proposal showing. So I'm not saying I don't want to see this proposal. I do want to see this proposal. I think what some of my colleagues are saying. We also want to see the other proposals, right which is not your department. But yeah, so I I think it I think it's it's pretty clear here. What this what this should go to and I would love to see this put to use some of this money put to use for the schools. And I think I'm glad you brought up kind of the other the other branches. So there's a lot the large focus on education and Public Safety obviously just recently

▶ 23:52 we've had a little bit of a transition with our police department. So I had a chance to talk to Chief folley today, you know, he's been great kind of our initial meetings. We've been discussing kind of how we foresee our partnership kind of evolving with his with his leadership here. We did talk about the recovery coach. I think that's one of those one of those, you know key points that can really support the kind of after after the post response support. I think the recovery coach and you know, it follows a similar model to a lot of our surrounding communities that already have those in place. So I think that's a really key position in terms of the schools. I think we already have a great connection with them in

▶ 24:31 Ryan Williams: terms of the Melrose health and wellness Coalition. It's already been established we meet we meet with the swag team and our director Steve Fogerty. So it's great to have that partnership already and some of this Educational material that we talked about the marijuana prevention the tool kits and having those trainings is sure to be to be clear. You're not on the hook for the school's portion of this. It doesn't say educational activities. It says to support the appropriation towards administration of public schools. This is a Straight Cash transfer into the school department, but you are right and and chief follier has said more than wants to us. He also said it has inauguration. The training is a big factor of what he wants to do.

▶ 25:10 Jack Eccles: He's asked us, you know, very directly. I want you to help fund this training. So if you're listening Chief failure, here's the money that you have for some training off the bat. counselor Echoes when councilor Cassidy then counselor gemology Thank you madam chair. Mr. Delarosa, could I ask one more question about the fun? So we have $5,000 or 500,000 now. It's been about three years. Has it been an even distribution over the three years. Did we see a lot in the first year? What I'm getting at is is this something that we can rely on year over year. We've seen a trend down in the way that we wouldn't want to fund recurring expenses over it or in a way that we could excellent question for the cheer

▶ 26:00 We really saw the fund begin to do its recognition of Revenue. in 2021 2022 which was I'll say the the really the full year over 300,000. So we're seeing right now again as an estimate about 80,000 per quarter. So we will not be unrealistic to believe that that you may actually hit what you did in 2022. There's no certainty to that. It's subject to a lot of mock, you know, the economy like everything else is and but you this fund has realized that kind of Revenue Okay. So one and a half percent of a total of six percent is eighty thousand dollars per quarter. Exciting anything that's kind of a weird. Well one and a half percent of the total six percent we get through is yeah. The first three percent is it could

▶ 27:05 Jack Eccles: call a general fund for the sake of the what it is and the other three percent split right in half half goes to the general fund. The other half goes right in here. In that totals 320,000 a year about well right now if it stayed on track would probably be about 3:20 for around FYI 23, but again, I'm not signing off on that. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I remember following this in 2019 and being a little skeptical again of the The marijuana prevention being the focus of it because it is it, you know, it was a significant kind of windfall that we were gonna get and it was tying some up but his counselor Williams meant that mentioned there's a lot of potential two appropriate kind of some needed gaps in the

▶ 27:46 Manjula Karamcheti: budget. So thank you for answering that. Council carm-chady Thank you so much for being here. I very much appreciate the proposal. My background is in prevention science and counseling and wellness. So this is very close to my heart particularly when it comes to youth. Just building off some of the things that some of the other counselors have stated around the potential use of these funds. I'm just sort of wondering about this specificity towards marijuana use particularly because marijuana use is often a symptom of mental health issues and in thinking about the use of these funds, How we might be thinking about it a little differently in terms of prevention and in particular thinking about the schools and positions and

▶ 28:46 Manjula Karamcheti: curriculum and programming. That isn't One and done that is more comprehensive and built into the system. So that's just something I would like us to be thinking about it's to me it is the mental health piece that is really important and not the cannabis use and what is driving students looking for and kids and families looking for coping mechanisms and choosing marijuana as one of them. So I'd really love to see some work around within the schools and in the community more of that and I do see in your proposal. There are some prevention things around mindfulness and wellness, but I I think it goes deeper than that. I'm actually glad you brought that up because it touches on one of the other projects. So the the wellness initiative through our

▶ 29:41 harp of funding right now. So we're working very closely with Frankel vary from the rec department. We've had a very successful first round of Youth and adult mental health first aid classes. And so this has been working with with staff members. We're trying to make sure that you know mental health first day was always part of the professional development course for schools, but I think it's one of those things that you know, you can select it amongst, you know a list of professional development, but we want to make sure that mental health is a required training and so we wanted to demonstrate through this program The Wellness Initiative Program that we're gonna make Mental Health First Aid widely available.

▶ 30:20 Maya Jamaleddine: And so I think you're absolutely right marijuana use is not is very very rarely happens in a vacuum. And so I think we having this having this extra kind of program to augment that is as really important. Thank you. counselor jimaldi I also wanted to acknowledge the amount of work that you and your department have been doing I truly appear. I see it. I I we talked about several incidents and reports that happened at the school. I personally reach out to you about things that I've heard that my kids heard and you know, I I know for sure that you've been actively trying to Find Solutions it's not an easy fix issue. Unfortunately, this is something that's been happening and we know about it. Before you started with us everyone is trying to find solution

▶ 31:23 Maya Jamaleddine: and I wish we can. Find one. I I was wondering if you have had any conversation with other communities or cities that have tried different programs. I wonder you know, like my colleague counselor camsheri just mentioned. It's more as a mental health issue that Makes our youth and anyone for that sake go to the to cope to find different ways to cope and I wonder if we if you have discussed with any other communities of ways that they found it more efficient or you know, that what's helpful for their schools. I also wonder if we have tried any kind of Programs that engage Our Youth and teams and to keep them away from that solution and help them to recover from any kind of mental health issue.

▶ 32:30 Yes. Yeah, that's real. That's a really good question. And I I've had the I've had the privilege to work with a lot of great communities a lot of already built-in knowledge. So in several communities in our nearby District we have I decide I decided as a diversion program in schools. It's a pretty strong program. There's about four hours of contact time and so students may be found using substances or have behavioral health issues maybe able to go through this program and it's supposed to take away from the kind of suspension heavy kind of a culture that we've developed before and so kind of going through an auditing different places and seeing what kind of programs there are actually just today our public health specialist, and I went to Beverly

▶ 33:15 to visit the Beverly YMCA program there they're running a A state-of-the-art past program and so it's kind of like a two day. It is an intervention model but it's a two-day program where students forego suspension and they go to this program and they go through us, you know a series of surveys and they make sure that they are going through things like adverse childhood effects. They're also going through substance use mental health behavioral health screenings, but they're also allowed to you know, catch up on their school work they make sure they're allowed to engage with their peers from different places. And so we're continually kind of analyzing different models that are out there. As you

▶ 33:57 said, as you said really well the schools right now, you know, it's you know, it's this whole landscape for students has changed obviously prior to covid that. There are already issues identified, but now all those years have been accessorated and we're trying to get a good handle on that. So we continue to work with our nearby communities and part of this program and this helps in the public health specialists role. We will continue to evaluate those and we we also want to continue to support something like the the yrbs survey. I don't know how many of you are aware. But this year the yrbs. Our district was always historically funded by the Lahey Lahey Hospital Grant. That's no longer available to us now. And so

▶ 34:38 we are looking for, you know, wait a different way to fund that and so why are BS results this year are you know more important than ever because we're looking at prior years and we want to be able to show a comparison to results now, so we will continue to do that work. So are we getting it through? other than Leahy Were we able to find anything other than me? It was a very recent development. So right now the Middlesex League superintendents have been in discussion about where to find the next funding and so we're working with their working with our health departments locally to find grants that may be able to cover that. So just depending on which I'm municipalities were luckily in a great partnership with

▶ 35:21 Manjula Karamcheti: Wakefield and Stoneham right now. So they're all kind of in the same boat. They also want to continue the yrps results and the yrps results are stronger when you can compare results between you know, our community and all the other ones are participate, right? So there's an incentive for these communities to find funding and we're working with them on that. So Thank you. Council carm-chady Thank you. I think my this question again because I really appreciate the proposal. I understand what you're going for in sort of the prevention lens of acknowledging and intervening with marijuana use and whatnot. So totally get it. I think my question is more for you Mr. Della Russo in terms of the education Public Safety and substance abuse stabilization fund,

▶ 36:08 Manjula Karamcheti: I think. And they feel like it's been hinted around. So for myself, I just need to get a better understanding. With these funds is it possible to fund positions and programming in the school's directly particularly related to mental health and substance abuse like having positions in the school thinking about our special education population who are often really vulnerable to substance abuse use given like dual diagnosis and that kind of thing. So I'm just I think trying to get a broader sense of what the fund can be used for and can it be specifically used for positions in the school department. Can it be specifically used for programming in the schools for youth? If I may to chase an excellent question the word

▶ 37:02 that I view this and I have on this fund as other funds. For me, it's still an immature fund for the purposes of duration. Typically you like to see something three four five actually five of histories always the best to go with so it's it's a new fund. It's it's in its own way. It's it's drawing in the revenues are going pretty much I think at some point stabilize like everything else generally does um, yes my opinion as the city auditor is that absolutely you can use that for those purposes the The caveat is always this because this is a recurring Revenue. It's not one-time Revenue makes it it makes it possible. It makes that feasible. Clearly before any definitive decisions were made or recommendations put forward.

▶ 37:55 We would say what what is a reasonable expectation? But we would say 200,000 out of 300,000 for example, is that reasonable but you know in a general sense it may be because as we do with local receipts, we budgeted 75% of the priority is actual so you give yourself that room. So something doesn't materialize you programs not going to fall apart because you always have to have in the back of your head. Once you create a program. You don't want to pull it away. So what makes this we have to ensure that we believe reasonably that it's can be sustained you after you have to you after year and there's no there is no fun doesn't disappear. It doesn't evaporate and that so you don't have that. Fun like closing up the interview like other funds some of them do it

▶ 38:39 Jack Eccles: doesn't happen with this one. So if I'm hearing you correctly like in terms of longevity that exists with this type of fund. Yes, so it's recurring that it can support long term. And again, I always put the caveat it just at what level that's the critical component. What level do we feel comfortable as a community? You're putting at the money out there that we feel is going to be the year. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. counselor Eccles Thank you madam chair. I'm just looking back at some of the minutes from Last time from when the council spoke about this in 2019, which was at a hot off the most recent override and I think one thing that's noted by Mr. Delarosa and some of the accounts whereas is

▶ 39:23 Jack Eccles: That in a time of fiscal pressure. This could be used to supplement. Some shortfalls. And so I think that you know as the council we in I think the theme of the evening is fiscal pressure. So I think that you know, we need to rank this against every priority in the city because it essentially being able to fund Public Safety and education is basically just part of the you know, it's it's a stabilization fund but it's pretty fungible and what it can be used for so it gets ranked against pretty much every other priority. Just wanted to call that out. Is there a motion from the table? Well, can I wait to see if there's a motion since I just ask the question. Thank you. For sure. Is there a motion from the counselor? Are you wishing to hear? I'm sure

▶ 40:12 I'll make a motion to recommend. So we have a motion to recommend made by counselor Stewart is their second. Okay, there's count a second by counselor. Jamal Dean. Is there any discussion from the council? Okay, Mr. Clerk. Can you please call the roll? Thank you for the opportunity. Vice chair Migliorelli, no counselor Eccles, no Council gerepe yes. Counselor jamaladin, yes. Counselor Stewart, yes. Councilor treaty. Yes. counselor Williams No. chair Grigoraitis no four days four yeses So it will go forward with to the full Council without recommendation, which means it's completely neutral but it does require a votes for passage because it is inappropriation. Thank you. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is info 2023-10

▶ 41:26 requests for American Rescue plan act arpa funding update Madam chair. Can I make a motion for a two minute recess? Certainly? Thank you. We have a second second all in favor. I hey, we are recessed for two minutes. Here. Alright, we are back. So just to repeat this is info 2023-10 request for American Rescue plan act arpa funding update. And I believe the makers of the order are Vice chair Margolis rally and counselor Stewart and Gary pays or anything you want to say before I turn it over to our guest. Thank you madam chair, so this Order is as we state. Is brought forward by my current fellow counselors garapay and migliarelli to get a better understanding of the Opera funding that's been spent to date and some of

▶ 45:42 Robb Stewart: the reasoning and justification for the allocation of these funds. I think it's important for the community and for us to understand how that's been thought out and Where the remaining monies are going to go and how this is going to impact the community. So that's that's our goal tonight. We have here with us tonight chief of Staffmark at Fleischman and you have a presentation for us. Yes. Thank you very much Madam chair and thank you to the committee for this opportunity to to provide this update since the last time we've presented our arpa expenditures. We have had a significant number of new projects approved as outlined in the memo that I presented on behalf of Mayor Broder. I will just note that one

▶ 46:30 project which was approved prior after the last memo I wrote and at the beginning of the period covered by this memo was inadvertently omitted and that is a utility arranges program with national grid for low income electric and gas rate payers and the amount of 141,000. So I will update that memo and resend a fresh copy that includes that one. I just noticed when I looked at over tonight that it was missing. I also just to take one moment to answer the question that was raised in the prior order about Kara showers and the the way that her position has been funded because there was an opportunity to keep her on board here in Melrose and in anticipation of presenting the funding proposal from the

▶ 47:21 Health and Human Services director, and because her position is critical to the mental health first aid activities that were envisioned by one of the arpa projects in consultation with the health and human services director and the CFO. It was determined that it would be an appropriate use of a portion of the 200,000 fifty thousand dollar a year Wellness initiative arpa funds to help support that position as a stopgap measure. So we put in six months of that funding into that our item in order just to tie this over until a final permanent funding source was identified but because it was supporting that initiative So just moving very quickly through my presentation just a reminder for anyone who's watching at home Melrose received

▶ 48:11 about 8.4 million dollars in arpa American Rescue Planet. Grant funds all funds must be spent by December 31st, 2024. Apparently the rules are going to be quite strict that you you won't be able to encumber it against future expense. It will actually be expenses incurred by December 31st, 2024. It's being administered by the mayor and consultation with the CFO and the staff staff task force that met over the course of many months to review the internal projects that were proposed. We are receiving advice from Clifton Larson Allen who are our experts keeping us within the four corners of the law and guiding our program development to ensure compliance with future audit requirements and it will be audited as

▶ 48:59 part of the city single audit and subject to any future Federal that might be coming down the pike. We just want to thank the members of the arpitas force who met over the course of many months to review the proposals. Some folks are no longer with us. You'll see Chief Lyle was a part of it but it did represent a broad swath of the city's departments to bring in a multitude of perspectives on the use of the funds. We just wanted to provide a little context because I know that different communities have received significantly different arpa funds. We're much more like Wakefield as you can see in this grant in terms of our arpa per Capitol and also Esser which is federal education relief funds received and I

▶ 49:44 just presented that in graph form here with Melrose being over to the right and just to give you a sense of the scale of the comparison of different types of communities that you might not realize that it has so many more times greater an amount for some communities than for others. So the mayor's priorities in just making decisions about the use of the allocation was identifying the areas of greatest relevance and need for Melrose economic and public health recovery, including obviously focus on Mental Health and Wellness that was announced last year at the state of the city. Secondarily making much needed investments in City infrastructure and finally maintaining the financial stability of

▶ 50:28 the city. To date there have been 34 projects approved by the mayor. These projects came from 12 different departments 7.3 million dollars has been allocated with just over a million dollars unallocated to any particular project. To give you a sense of how those expenditures of that 7.3 million dollars breakdown 47% support the schools and then you can see DPW is the next highest and then different programmatic areas parks recreation police fire Health Recreation Etc. By type, we broke down projects that had an impact on the city's infrastructure and that represents 53% of the 7.3 million dollars that have been allocated next is covid response that could be just in terms of cleaning and and other activities

▶ 51:28 directly related to the pandemic economic recovery mental health Public Safety. And to give you a sense of how much of the money is actually gone out the door because we are under this very strict time frame 38% has been expended 5% has been encumbered and 57% has been unexpended. So those are funds that have been allocated but not yet spent and also the 1.05 that has been unallocated. Just a little bit of detail about the school related item about 63% of the funds allocated to the schools were to stabilize the finances of the schools and about a third were for infrastructure projects to benefit the schools. You'll see the biggest ticket item obviously being the HVAC study for adding air conditioning to the Middle School.

▶ 52:23 Robb Stewart: So complete list of all of the projects that have been approved to date is available on the city of Melrose website as well as copies of all of the memos that we present these sorts of Graphics to help explain how the money has been allocated so far and with that I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you or their question counselor Stewart. Thank you madam chair and thank you Ms. Schlageman for this detail that helps. I also appreciate that you gave the the raw data format that let me bring it into Excel myself so I can create all the pivot tables like you had to really get a good feel for the information. So thank you for providing all that information when I look at this and I look at the priorities that you listed

▶ 53:07 Robb Stewart: out. I feel like it's almost inverted. and the reason why is When I look at the numbers. The health and the rec Health compromise 5% of the spend so far. whereas when we go and we look at your different areas infrastructure Is the Lion's Share? of the spend and I feel like we may have missed a little bit. On helping the community here. a lot of the the budgetary, you know, you had said that the priorities were first the health and wellness second getting the community stable and then third the financing. Yet. We kind of we looked at the financing and we covered the school and the shortfall the school and obviously we needed to do that. But then a lot of the spend seem to be a little bit more on.

▶ 54:25 more internal projects than the community so without going further and getting into more details. I just like to understand. The thinking behind that to just for us as well as for the community. Sure. Well, I think they'll be questions for that. I think that the infrastructure category has a significant overlap with public health issues. So for example At first when the arpa first came out there were regulations that really limited what you could use the funds for and did not provide as much flexibility. And so you were looking for infrastructure projects related to ventilation, for example, so you see that the HVAC system and the library was one of the early Projects that's an infrastructure project but related

▶ 55:16 to air quality and air handling and air circulation which was a high priority at the beginning of the pandemic likewise, you'll see the lead Water Service inventory and replacement is a project that has significant public health impact because although our city pipes don't have lead the service lines that that connect the city pipes to many houses in the city. There are still a number of those lead service pipes that need to be removed. And so that it does qualify as an infrastructure project, but you could also characterize it as being consistent with public health and wellness guidelines, like likewise engineer, excuse me. Public safety training equipment and Public Safety vehicles are designed to address public safety and

▶ 56:01 health and safety needs both for our employees obviously and for Citizens and then some of the outdoor infrastructure regarding parks and outdoor spaces was again through the lens of the experience of having gone through the pandemic and recognizing the value of outdoor recreation physical activity for both physical well-being, but then also the social benefits of community gathering places. So something like the Amazing Grace basketball court, which was it was considered an important. Opportunity for outdoor recreation on the school campus. So again, I think that strictly speaking. Yes. Absolutely. You're right and I think also infrastructure projects generally being significantly more expensive than other

▶ 56:51 Robb Stewart: kinds of projects you are going to see the breakdown of those of that as we as we demonstrate as being significantly weighted to the infrastructure side, but that is not without the consideration of how those infrastructure Investments improve People's Health and well-being. Sure. I was reading an article this morning about what Chelsea did you know, they they bought the $400 they found they found the money themselves. They found four million dollars to buy the $400 a month for people that could that needed food throughout covid and when that ran out, they tapped into their Arbor fun and they funded $800,000 to continue that program. That's something that I think. is well representative of what they're trying to do for community and

▶ 57:42 Robb Stewart: that's something that I had expected. And I didn't see so I think it was a little bit of a miss. on how we didn't look further into the community where people that were really impacted and the small businesses that were really impacted. I don't see the numbers and if there is things that were not seeing You know, let us know please sure. Well, I will say we do have food insecurity and we did Outreach to the food pantries in advance of creating our food insecurity program or the allocation for food insecurity. And we do have a small business nonprofits culture sexual support and you may be aware that there is a grant opportunity making available to small businesses that has recently the deadline

▶ 58:31 has recently passed and those grants will be awarded in the in the next probably several weeks. So there there was a responsiveness to The information that we were able to gather through the community survey, which is back in between February and may time frame in terms of the kinds of projects that the community at least those members of the community who chose to respond to the survey. Which was several hundred of them wanted to see explored and they were things like sidewalks so that we have sidewalks right now. I understand but and you know, I feel as though I'm happy to revisit the the priorities that were expressed and also the open responses that the members of the community who weighed in on what they

▶ 59:20 Robb Stewart: wanted to see the money used for and we did take that seriously into consideration as these projects were developed. So these were not these were not internal priorities that were where we matched up the resources from arpa to accomplish things that our staff wanted to really looked closely at those relationship between these projects and the input that we received at the very beginning of the process. Yeah, and I respect that I think that's that's very and Admiral that you you took that initiative. is my concern is the silent portion of our community that doesn't have that opportunity to speak up or cannot or for challenges feels uncomfortable so that that's where a stronger Outreach I think would be appropriate.

▶ 1:00:13 Robb Stewart: And that's just feedback my last question because I do want to give up opportunity for my fellow counselors to also weigh in is can you talk a little bit about the remaining million dollars that you're going to be spending in where you see that home? So, I mean I think in in the context of all the conversations that are being had counsel of school committee and within our auditor's office and certainly the mayor's office just recognition the uncertainty on many different levels. I mean particularly inflationary pressures right now are Resulting in projects coming in over budget and providing a little bit of cushion for anything. That might be unforeseen or unforeseeable. So I think that stopping at this point

▶ 1:00:58 and not taking on any new project proposals just seems like the very prudent thing to do. Obviously, there's opportunity to reallocate as necessary any unspent funds but I think the important thing to realize is that it's our our goal not to return any of the money and so we have opportunities to to save for a certain period of time but I think as we get closer to that that hard stop of December 31st 2024. We have to ready to get the the money out the door to serve whatever needs are most pressing. Thank you. Anyway my last just beautiful because I would encourage you to look into opportunities to find Community spend because we have spent quite a bit on internal. Components let's find how the the community can directly benefit with this

▶ 1:01:51 Manjula Karamcheti: this extra spend. Thank you madam chair. Thank you counselor Stewart Council carm-chady. Thank you so much for being here and for putting together the presentation and just being very clear and transparent on the funds and what they are to be used for just for the public and also for myself just to clarify just when we're talking about arba the funding provided under arpa provides a unique opportunity for a state and local governments to make strategic investments in long-lived assets rebuild reserves to enhance Financial stability and cover temporary operating shortfalls under economic conditions and and operations normalize. So just in looking at the list, like one of the things that sticks out to me is actually something

▶ 1:02:36 Manjula Karamcheti: that the arpa funds makes sense to have used for was the shortfall in our schools based on the things. We didn't expect during covid. So I know there was some concern about those funds being used for arpa, but it actually in terms of what's what the funds are for makes sense how we got there, maybe some questions and concerns, but it Make sense. Like that's what arpa funds were intended to do short balls and we had a shortfall and it was for unexpected reasons. And again, there's debate on whether those should have been expected or not, but the funds were appropriately utilized. And I think just to stem off some of the things counselor Stewart was saying if the priorities of the city were to

▶ 1:03:19 Manjula Karamcheti: identify the greatest areas of need and relevance regarding economic and public health recovery mental health and wellness being excited. It is challenging to look at then the pie chart and see that only 3% 6% went towards that and just recogning with if it's a priority but we only paid we only use three to six percent of our funds for it. I just I just I do have a lot of questions about that and then in looking sort of at the list of who was making decisions about the funds noticing that it was all internal it was people who work at the city and there wasn't any representation for the community and I think just in terms of best practice voices particularly of the historically marginalized those voices weren't

▶ 1:04:13 Manjula Karamcheti: really represented and I feel like I can see that through line in terms of what a lot of the funds were spent on and just in thinking about the language regarding the shortfalls and economic conditions trying to and I think you started to do this and I would love a little more in the connection between how the community was impacted by covid what the funds were for and matching that up to the infrastructure and police vehicles and stuff. Because it I feel like some of those things I had seen on people's lists before covid and before the arpa funds were available. So I'm just trying to understand that a little better. Well, certainly from the point of view of the mental health and wellness initiatives. We were

▶ 1:05:08 eager to support our department heads who wanted to provide additional services and additional opportunities in the community and I think one of the things that was important for the mayor to balance and it was his these were his decision makers his decision-making informed by the community input that we asked for and received and and the staff input that we ask for and received was particularly sensitive to the idea of creating fiscal instability building programs that couldn't be sustained because one of the the blessings and the curses of this program is that it's a relatively short lived program and that any position that we brought on that had that was going to add value to the community that we

▶ 1:05:53 would want to see continue. We would have to be prepared to bring on to the operating budget at the conclusion of the art of period so it was a to reluctance to over balance on that on that side where then you would become we would be coming to the city council in fiscal year 25 and saying we have Social workers we have programs that we can no longer fund through this grant source, and we have no other way to continue them. And so I think that the there's been a conservatism on that level of not overextending ourselves and again getting back to the proportion that some communities who have been able to do really interesting and Innovative things have been working with 35 million dollars with 48 million dollars and

▶ 1:06:42 not to say that eight million dollars is a trivial amount of money, but that is by comparison to other communities that have some of those programs where they are able to meet more broad-based needs. They're talking about five or six or seven times the amount of funds that the city of Melrose received. So we are we are happy to Resource our staff to do the programs that we have the capacity to do and it is a A balancing act not to to be able to have a realistic amount of work to be placed in the responsibility of a limited number of people. What you're saying totally makes sense to me. I think when I look at the list of arpa funds and how they were spent. I see that we bought a lot of things and

▶ 1:07:37 Manjula Karamcheti: I don't see a lot of programmatic Investments. So I think I'm trying to understand that so like in terms of the funds leaning towards recovery and like sustainability. What is on the list I'm if you can help me and make the connection to to that like. A lot of the things that we're purchased will need to be replaced at some point in time. So it well, I mean I think in some instances between buying things and laying the foundation for programs and growth. Absolutely. I would say something like The the asset management software that we were able to use arpa funds to fund. It's a very sort of un, you know, it's a pretty boring sounding thing right asset management software that's going to be critical to our long-term capital planning process because essentially

▶ 1:08:34 what it's going to be able to do is for us to finally get a granular handle on all of the infrastructure that the city owns when it's going to need to be replaced and how much it's going to cost to replace it. That is that asset management software line item looks like no big deal but it actually is laying the foundation for future good planning and and ability to deliver services and and meet the needs of the community going forward by being able to guarantee that our buildings are not falling into disrepair. Our schools are doing well our city hall our services all Our resource appropriately. I mean, I think that in each one of these cases there's probably a lot more backstory that could flesh

▶ 1:09:25 things out and add color and and interest to make those connections. I'm very happy to speak to any member of the public or any counselor who would like to know more about what lies kind of behind the title of each one of these projects because I do think that there was rationale and thought that was put into into them and I will say also Looking at the use of one-time funds just the same way that when we look at use of our free cash and other non-recurring Revenue. It is generally a prudent thing to invest in one-time expenses again to not create that fiscal instability, especially given how tight the municipal budgets are. Thank you. Sure. Thank you counselor garapay. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

▶ 1:10:26 Mark Garipay: Just a couple quick questions on the graph you sent out on fy22 has all has all of this money been. And the projects at least started or they contracts on on a lot of it is yes. So I would say the majority of these projects are underway to one extent or another some of the money is spent completely out the door and other things things just as any other project. There's going to be design and then you know execution right? So so in many of these cases some of the funds have been spent but like for example the HVAC study, you know, we haven't spent that million dollars not even close. Is there any way because these emails you sent on the free cash items greatest or any way we can get a summary of where these projects stand. So yeah,

▶ 1:11:19 absolutely. So my intention would be some time shortly after the first of the year to convene all of the Departments who are utilizing the arpa funds and going through just in the same way as we do with the free cash the status of each project because what's most critical is that every project has to be on a timeline to completion by that December 31st, 2024 deadline and if the department head can't demonstrate that we're making substantial progress and we have to you know, consider reallocation of the funds. And how often have we been getting updates from the department heads regarding where they are and completion? Well, I would say that so the majority of the projects have been awarded so

▶ 1:12:04 Mark Garipay: to speak or allocated in the time time period since let's say less less spring so I think in some cases some of these projects are well underway, and I'm aware of which ones are well underway and others have, you know, been ramping up over this over the summer months. And so I think by the time we get to January timeframe, I think that would be equal playing field for all of those allocations to be able to show some progress. It'd be great if we can get a summary at the beginning of the year. You mentioned which is always concern of mine hiring. personnel with one-time money and we're getting closer to 2024 the budgets getting tighter. What's the plan to integrate that money into the budget permanently?

▶ 1:12:57 Well, so we have with the exception of the position that I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, which is a relatively small allocation for a short period of time. We have one social worker and the economic development director who are being completely funded using the arpa funds. We are not envisioning hiring any other full-time Personnel using using arpa funds. So I think there's going to have to be a point at which we evaluate how how productive and valuable those positions are to to the community to to our ability to get our work done and work with the CFO to determine whether or not those budgets will be able to grow to meet that need in the fiscal year following arpa. I see we have a specific

▶ 1:13:54 Mark Garipay: project. Tremont Street fights fire station 151,000 I'm assuming it's for the Build-out that they don't correct? Yes, I struggle with that. I struggle with that understood two years to find. A space for or a solution for the fire truck and we just approved 68,000 for a public safety study that in all of the options that they presented to us was to remodel that whole whole building can someone just explain to me and for the community because I have had not 100 but I've got a lot of questions regarding what did they do to that fire station old needed a lot of work trying to look beautiful. Okay. Well, I will say that there was a lot of many options explored about what to do with the retiring ladder truck.

▶ 1:14:48 I'm not going to be able to be the person who's going to be able to speak most knowledgeably about that. But ultimately this was the the decision that allowed us to keep that truck available as as on call vehicle for the city of Melrose as we took delivery of our new ladder truck. I think one of the things that we all struggle with is the fact that You think that there's an easy straightforward and expensive solution and then when you look at the engineering the grading the drainage Etc what seems straightforward becomes significantly much more expensive, but I'm happy to have the DPW director or the fire chief give you some more detail about where that project stands how it's how it's working for functionality for

▶ 1:15:36 Mark Garipay: the fire department. I definitely would like that. I mean, I think if we least space lease the garage somewhere even who was out of town. I think it would be a lot cheaper knowing especially if we end up doing something with that building where we ripped down. But remodel the whole thing, there's a hundred and fifty thousand that I'm just going to scratch my head on 151,000. Looking at this spreadsheet. I do not see. the additional 800,000 for the library included in this was a $500,000 appropriation for Library HVAC. That was the only arpa request that we received relative to the library when? When we had an update on the library, it was stated that. we would we will conservative on our money and we're

▶ 1:16:29 Mark Garipay: going to hold 800,000 of leftover Opera money for any overruns, but the new strategies to fund the library. They didn't think they were going to use it. But the goal was to hold this 800,000 and I'm paraphrasing. So that we don't have to come back to the taxpayers for the city council for more money. So and I was said on October 17th at our meeting around 14 minutes in if you want to look but I don't understand that should be included in here if that if we are going to potentially use that for the library because if not, we're getting into tougher Financial Times. And that means you're going to be coming back either to the city if we're running over. I think the rationale of not touching the last million is to meet whatever need is.

▶ 1:17:15 Is present right? So I think that I wasn't here when the 800,000 remark was made there certainly is 800,000 of our funds available. If it's needed for the library project that would something that could be considered if it's needed for something else. That is something could be considered but there is not an approved project in the case of the 500,000 for the HVAC that was specific. Dollar amount for a specific need that was approved in the money has been transferred to the project. So in the sense that we may need more money for the library project. There is more there is more money available. There is $800,000 available. I would just say I don't want to get into where we are with the schools in an overrun. If it was stated that

▶ 1:18:04 we are going to hold 800,000. I think it should be in this. In this calculation and really we only have 247,000. I don't know I think by not including it in here. We potentially could be over. Well, obviously we're not going to we're not going to be over on anything and certainly as you see from the amount of money that has been expended to date if there were a fiscal emergency that required us to pull back on some of the final fiscal years worth of allocations that have not been spent. Although they have been committed to a certain project but perhaps there's not a contract there's still flexibility available because that money has not yet been spent. That you plan on using any more Opera money for the schools.

▶ 1:18:58 Leila Migliorelli: I'm sorry. Is there any plan to use any more Opera money for the schools at the moment? I am not aware of any specific requests from the schools from where our defense. Thank you. Thank you Vice chairman. Thank you madam chair. I just want to point of clarification maybe through the chair to council garapay 800,000 more than the 500,000 for the HVAC was in the meeting. Okay, and so then we have a million dollars left. That 800,000 is a huge chunk to maybe potentially yeah, see, okay. Just going through the spreadsheet and I found it very helpful to have this spreadsheet. I would recommend that moving forward when if we do meet at the end of the Or after the first of the year to have the expenditures

▶ 1:19:48 Leila Migliorelli: outlined in the spreadsheet and seeing where we are rather than a narrative form. I think it's much easier to follow along with finances when it is in a spreadsheet, but just going through I guess, you know echoing counselor garapay's remarks about The Tremont Firehouse that that's something that people have pointed out to me, you know where you know, you just I thought were in the middle of looking for public safety building what's going up there. I think that is a misstep a 151,000 is not insignificant amount of money. So that's just my feedback on that this line item, but the community conversations initiative. Can you talk a little bit about that and what 25,000 will be used for sure. So part of

▶ 1:20:31 the feedback that we received through our community outreach at the beginning of the arpa process was just about sort of opportunities for community building and providing more opportunities for Dialogue both between the city and the community and community members being able to have an opportunity to work through challenges differences speak across maybe political or socioeconomic differences and a proposal came forward to us from a group of citizens looking at the potential for training training facilitators in the community in order to promote more harmonious Civic dialogue around issues of concern any any issue sort of agnostic of the topic. So there are a couple of practitioners of this Civic dialogue

▶ 1:21:24 process and we did have a successful RFP process where a company called essential Partners who has worked in several other communities to facilitate dialogues around topics of concern or bridging differences was able to propose a project for us to train up to 20 community members to become community facilitators to assist in building and strengthening Civic dialogue around issues of importance to the community. Do we have a is there an identified need or demand for 20 people to be trained through a program? Like do you I mean, how was that? number identified and it was that was sort of the Generic cohort that could realistically be trained in a in a realistic time frame at one time and that would be

▶ 1:22:31 sort of commensurate with a community of our size that you would be able to build capacity and then potentially train trainers to in order to facilitate more if needed but that was considered looking at other communities that did similar things that was sort of what generally communities did was that the decision made by the city or was it by the group of residents that identified the need for desire to have the number of trainees know that was just in terms of looking around at what other communities had done. I was looking at others other communities and other projects and General Lee when when I was reaching out to companies that did this sort of work that was kind of The Sweet Spot 20 to

▶ 1:23:16 Leila Migliorelli: 25 was kind of a cohort, okay. I guess so this is supposed to be spent in fy23. Right maybe another question way to ask this question with all these different fiscal years and you alluded to this and answering another counselor's question is that this is money committed in those fiscal years not necessarily expended. So you are anticipating to And you know spend $25,000 on this. Let's just use this example for Community conversation initiative this fiscal year. Okay. And then but then the actual training of the the facilitators could take place, you know, the actual work could take place also in this fiscal year. It would the contract with the with the provider. Stipulates I think that it should

▶ 1:24:08 be done by next fall essentially. So starting starting this this winter and extending, you know at a reasonable pace through the steps that were outlined for them to take to train folks within the year. and what if you don't get 20 people to sign up for the part like so you spend $25,000 or spending $25,000 working with a consulting company to potentially do this work. What if there's no interest in it? I'm You know, I I suspect that there will be interest. I cannot guarantee that will be all 20 slots filled but that is our goal to fill them and well, so intending to fill both community members and members of boards and committees City staff to improve the facilitation skills of all people who interact with the public just

▶ 1:25:09 as a basic skill set for being more effective in terms of communicating around challenging issues. I'm sure all of us have experiences public people in being in a room where there's something very tense and challenging going on and the difference between having a skilled facilitator in that room and being alone in a room with people who are struggling around an issue is quite significant. So that is the goal that this should be provided to boards and committees. City councilors members of the public clergy anybody who would like to benefit from this training. Okay. Thank you. I guess it's just to clear on these questions and some of my questions following it's not so much that I am debating the value or worthiness

▶ 1:25:55 Leila Migliorelli: of any of these initiatives. I think I just want to be looking critically at how we're spending this money and sort of how it lines up to other priorities that we have and given some of the situations we've seen, you know, particularly in the schools and some of the other projects that I that are to be discussed tonight. I just want to make sure that we are we're being Mindful and fiscally responsive and smart about how we're using the funds that we have in front of us. So next up, I guess the small business and nonprofit cultural sector support $50,000 a year for three years and you mentioned that a application process has gone out for that. Can you tell a little bit more about You so your plan anticipating on making $50,000

▶ 1:26:40 worth of Grants this year. Have you received applications in that amount that I see that amount would spin the response? So the way that we designed the program although on my draft budget. I had spread it out across three fiscal years. We felt that it was important for small businesses that needed relief to have access to it as soon as possible. And so we put out publicized the opportunity and then our director of Economic Development actually went door to door and canvased all the businesses to drop and drop off the applications. She has tracked all of the business that businesses that requested the application materials and how many return them we have received in excess of a hundred thousand dollars worth of requests. We are

▶ 1:27:31 looking at making sure that they qualify based on the criteria that our economic development director developed in conjunction with a group of other communities who have engaged in a similar Grant making process with the arpa funds and also consistent with rules and regs that are sent down by our auditing firm about how to do this responsibly. And the the goal is to try to meet the needs as have been expressed to us for the business Community to the greatest extent possible within the budgeted amount available. So it's possible that we may Grant more than $50,000 this year and less next year in an effort to sustain the businesses that have expressed a financial need now rather than waiting and

▶ 1:28:24 Leila Migliorelli: having them miss out on this round and apply next year. For me while I understand obviously. Very like the small businesses are the backbone of a local economy. There are other sources of funding for that. So in terms of prioritization, I just I hope we're thinking about what projects that cannot be funded. Through other mechanisms when we're looking at available funds like arpa and free cash and things like that. So addressing food insecurity is that I think that was addressed a little bit earlier a nonprofit or the local food banks had kind of come up with was this 75,000. It's something that that they arrived at that amount that they saw that need or is it something that so I I did do Outreach to the to the local food banks to sort of

▶ 1:29:24 find out what their their needs and their interests were and ultimately what we decided to do was fold the food insecurity into the small business nonprofit application program because ultimately if we're giving these funds to a nonprofit organization they have to go through the same kind of vetting process that we would for any business or nonprofit. So we made available Grant opportunity to any nonprofit that is serving food insecurity and we did receive one application through our grant making process. So we would anticipate that we would provide provide funding to that or any other organization that chose to apply. And we in that organization supports solving food insecurity in Melrose specifically

▶ 1:30:16 and only in Melrose. So it's the food drive which serves Melrose and a bunch of other communities. Um, okay. Thank you. And then you you just identified the utility or rearrages. That's that's for people in need. Yeah. So National Grid has a low income discount rate program that anyone basically who qualifies for any relief of any sort including snap or any other LIHEAP grants or anything else. It automatically becomes eligible to pay lower rate for their gas or their electric despite. The lower rate many people of lower income have fallen behind especially during the covid period and one thing that was specifically envisioned with arpa was being able to help people pay off debt that was incurred for

▶ 1:31:10 their utilities During the period of the pandemic When people's incomes were severely curtailed and so these would be people who could potentially be in danger of having the utility shut off. And so we've been working closely with National Grid, Develop a program where we can clear some of the debt for our low income ratepayers here in Melrose so that they have more financial stability and they don't have that debt hanging over them. Last question Community Mental Health Initiative is that then that $50,000 a year we see for four years. Is that for the position? That's not for the position that is for an entire sort of Suite of activities that the rec department and the health department have proposed to including

▶ 1:31:57 Jack Eccles: the mental health Wellness the sorry the the mental health first aid training and other initiatives that they developed in response to what they were seeing in terms of the mental health needs in the community. So the the funding for the position that was assisting with those programs from programmatic needs was just a small part of that just for six months. Thank you counselor Eccles. Thank you madam. Chair, you talked a little bit about like about the idea that someday we might have to assess absorbing some of the recurring expenses into the operating budget. Social worker economic development director. The only thing I see in here. Is the asset management software is that of recurring expense or is that a one-time?

▶ 1:32:53 Um, it's a one-time upfront expense with some down down Road upgrades and just any place any software you're going to have operating expenses, but those can be absorbed by DPW. So that that is the plan that all The Upfront it's a lot of data collection up front. So it's front loaded in terms of the cost and then there's maintenance cost in out years that can be absorbed by the operating budget for the DPW. That is the plan great. So it's not 106,000 a year. No, no, no Heavens. No. awesome And then just like the need-based utility. Disbursements how are you going to assess that in? So it's this has been a really interesting project to work on because we have been in very strong partnership with

▶ 1:33:46 National Grid who has been helping us sort of figure out what would be what would have the biggest impact for the greatest number of rate payers in a Rears? There was some difference of opinion about what the time frame that was allowable by the arpa statute would allow us to do but it seems as though we will be able to look back all the way to March 2020 and to clear a rurages that started between the beginning of the pandemic and essentially last year, which is the bulk of the arrearages that they have on record. There are some smaller amounts that have happened subsequent to that but the majority of the the account in Melrose of these low-income rate payers that are in a rears did happen kind of during the

▶ 1:34:35 height of the pandemic so they they are doing all the number crunching and they are identifying the accounts for us. We are not taking responsibility for the personal identifiable information. We are relying on their ability to produce accounts and for us to be able to audit those accounts to ensure that these are in fact Melrose low income rate payers. That definitely helps so they it's based on top ideally based on total errages and then the qualifier that they have to be the low income member, correct. So we are only we are only asking for a rear edge data for Melrose low-income rate payers. What's that? What's low income by that? Again, I think it has to do with your qualification for any of the state or federal assistance

▶ 1:35:23 programs. Small business in nonprofit disbursements as well. Has that assessment? Going to work for who gets it. So it's based on an application process that shows eligibility the business had to have been in business in Melrose located physically in Melrose, as of a certain date be of a certain size have a certain number of employees are under a certain number of employees under a certain income threshold so that we are not seeking to provide economic relief for a large business owner. But rather looking at our small business sector and seeing what we can do to defray some of the economic impacts of the pandemic to sustain them and to sustain the Vitality of our downtown in members of the mayor's office are going to make that assessment. So

▶ 1:36:20 Jack Eccles: it's the cooperatively between the mayor's office and the planning department been just essentially assessing whether or not the applications are complete. All of the documentation is appropriate and really beyond that. We're just trying to if someone qualifies to go ahead and and think about offering them some support. Thank you. And then so it says on this spreadsheet 150,000 for that. Is there and then on the websites is up to 225,000? It's the combination of the food insecurity grants and the economic development small business grants. Got you. Thank you. And then just on some of the projects that might not be completed. Is there any risk? That exists in those that they might run over and eat

▶ 1:37:13 into the remaining 1 million or some other funding source. You mean like if something goes out to bid and it's higher than expected exactly. Sure. Absolutely. I mean, I think there's risk there's always risk and we try to build these budgets conservatively and there's always contingency built into into the the projects, but obviously at the front end you don't know for sure what you're going to find at the back end. So to like for example The Tremont Street fired upgrade that could I think that's unlikely that that's going to become any more expensive because it's nearing complet. It's not going to be it's not like one of those projects like in like we take for example, the Middle School air conditioning project. You potentially could

▶ 1:37:58 Jack Eccles: design it this year or next year. And then try to bid it the following year and you know, the escalation could be could be greater than expected. But I think a smaller project that's likely to get done sooner is less vulnerable to that kind of cost overance. and then the you know, 70 7.3 million in the remaining one million that accounts for paying the salaries of everyone out to the end of the arpa period who's accounted for there. Right? So the social worker economic development director that's accounted for in the 7.3 million. Yes. Great. Thank you. Thank you counselor. Jamaladin. Thank you. Thank you for being with us tonight. You did mention about your program support small businesses, and I'm thrilled to

▶ 1:38:53 Maya Jamaleddine: hear about that because we know about a few businesses that have been struggling. in Melrose is that for business that they do have and actual like store in Melrose or is it like we know that, you know during the pandemic we have House located so the the qualification includes people who have at home businesses, but we would not pay for expenses having to do with rent or Utilities in that case. So we would not we would be looking for business-related expenses, but the person does not have to have a brick-and-mortar business so you could be I don't know a CPA or something or so practitioner of something and you would qualify you don't have to have it doesn't necessarily have to be retail. You don't have to have a stand

▶ 1:39:46 Maya Jamaleddine: alone place of business. You just have to be have your business in the City of Bones. Okay, and do we have a data about those businesses in marrows? Data about them. I don't have that at my fingertips, but I know our economic development director has been developing quite extensive profile of the businesses that are registered with the city. So we do have ways to reach out to them. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay awesome. And for those that they do have businesses whether at home businesses or actual store located in marrows and You know they do do we have programs that you know translation like that. They have different languages or they use they serve different clients with different languages services. Do

▶ 1:40:40 Maya Jamaleddine: we have this program for them to provide those services in different language? So we have not provided language translations with the materials that we have provided but our economic development director has gone door to door to ensure that she would have the opportunity to meet with anybody and if there was a language barrier, we certainly would provide translation services. So that has not to my knowledge come up specifically, but I'd be happy to ask her about her Outreach to any any business owner that may have had a language barrier and how she handled it awesome that would. Now I do want to ask you about the 57% on spent. Money, is that money? Do we know where? Is it specifically to which department has been

▶ 1:41:33 allocated and it's not been or to which program the project? So that is just that is literally just data out of the auditor's office about how much of the money we have left and how much has been dispersed. I'd be happy to as I said to Counselor garapay come back to you in February the after the opportunity to speak to all the Departments about where they are with the projects. Some are just getting underway others are concluding and then I would be able to give you a more detailed breakdown of who has not yet spent their money because at this point this is just the amount that has been spent versus unspent. Well, my concern is we all know that we do have some kind of crisis in Melrose right now

▶ 1:42:22 Maya Jamaleddine: that we're trying to find ways to resolve we did we do have other issues in marrows that we need to, you know, do to the money shortage. We we cannot focus on we cannot like for instance the other day someone mentioned about departments that need some maintenance and departments that need, you know appliances need to be changed and replaced and and I wonder if You you mentioned and I appreciate that. You mentioned that that you know, since those money had are not spent yet. And if we have any kind of emergency or crisis we can reallocate it. Yes and use it to to be spent on those projects. So I mean, I urge the city and I urge them mayor. To look into this list and see if we can reallocate some of those money.

▶ 1:43:22 Maya Jamaleddine: To resolve the issue that we have. We're all facing I think. We will make the whole city happy about, you know, resolving a major issue in the city right now. so I mean, I'm I was thrilled to hear you saying that we can reallocate it. If we Face any I felt that this is right. There is the solution for everything that we're facing right now. So do we know why we're not looking into this list to see if this is something I mean if they did not spend it. Obviously, it's not urgent. Well, I would say that in some cases the approvals have just been received and the projects are just getting underway and in some cases as I said, for example, the the project at the middle school is going to take some time to expend the million

▶ 1:44:13 dollars that was allocated cannot be spent all at once that is for design and implementation of an HVAC system at the middle school. And it's that's a substantial amount of the arpa funds right there. So of of the amount that's unexpended that million dollars will need to be committed. At some point to finishing that project once it's been begun. It will be encumbered right now. All this is saying is that we still have that million dollars along with the rest of the projects that have not yet been completed. Right, so I understand that but if we're gonna wait till February to decide and see which department did not spend it and we're gonna do it evaluation to decide if we're gonna reallocate it.

▶ 1:45:03 I think that's a long time for us, especially now with what we're Well, I think I think that is the the rationale between not spend not not allocating it. All is that the projects I think the department heads and the members of the community who are going to benefit from the projects that have been approved are expecting some level of assurance that if they start the project in good faith. The project will be funded through to the completion. So if we're going to build a park and we say we're going to spend a hundred fifty thousand dollars on a park. We're going to start planning for that Park. We're going to start spending money on design for the park. And so we're going to hold that money aside so

▶ 1:45:44 that we can complete the project. I think the the rationale of holding back the million is to offer some flexibility in the year ahead and then we can see where we are as we get closer to December 31st 2024, though. We will need to have spent this money. Do we know if we have any money from previous year that was not that was allocated. But was not spent this is all of the money that we have. There's no proof. There's there's only one bucket of money. It's 8.4 million dollars. We got it in two chunks. But we're not getting any more and we are only programming the 8.4 million, but this is from this year. It was received in two. halves at the end of 2021 and at the beginning of 2022, we now have all of it.

▶ 1:46:39 Ryan Williams: And all of these projects and all of the pie charts are just dealing with it as one bucket of money. There's no last year in this year. It's just that 8.4 million dollars. That's all that we're getting. period okay. Thank you. Councilor Williams. Thanks. Well, what can I say that hasn't already been said? I really appreciate the difficulty of absorbing over 8 million dollars into a city budget with a static number of staff. And people that have their work plan set for the year. It's not easy to take on, you know, 10 plus percent of a budget and try to get these projects out on a kind of arbitrary three or four year deadline. You know, I looking down the list at these projects. I I feel that many of these expenditures are.

▶ 1:47:44 Ryan Williams: Exactly in the spirit of enabling legislation. As arpa was intended to be expended and they fit with the character of the city of Melrose. We are a low poverty Community. We're not a zero poverty Community. We're a four percent, maybe three and a half percent poverty community. We have Decades of infrastructure. projects that have been put off sidewalks and upgrades to public buildings and things like that and I and I see it all in here, and I'm I'm I like the way that the list. Prioritizes Big Ticket infrastructure Investments that the city wouldn't otherwise be able to afford or that would come into the debt picture that would restrict our ability to to plan for other things. And I guess I my feedback.

▶ 1:48:44 Ryan Williams: Intended to be constructive is that this is a great amount of information and I wish we had it. Like I don't know six or seven months ago whenever we kind of started this conversation so that we could all. Think about each of these items discuss them because one thing that I've experienced in my work with the city, is that the city in the city staff are kind of a community in and of themselves, which is great. But when you bring in the city council or members of the public, sometimes you get these new ideas and these New Perspectives on things and it's it's a good thing for us to have that kind of open dialogue and collaborative discussion. And we are all being faced with you know, a lot of pressure and questions and discussions

▶ 1:49:32 Ryan Williams: about money and you know where the money's going and how it's being spent and things like that. I think we're all responding and and reacting to that. So so I think the information that you've provided here is very thorough and very much appreciated and I hope that we can complete these projects without having to steal from this because it's a pretty rare opportunity to have 8 million dollars in federal money dumped on the city to get things like HVAC and new elevators and traffic calming programs and You know. and economic recovery director and upgrades to parks and things like that. So I hope that we can find a way to to move forward and and solve the budget problems that we have. Without knocking down any of these any of

▶ 1:50:16 Jack Eccles: these projects, that's it. Let's say counselor Eckles And then counselor Vice chairmanly. Thank you manager. I just had one one question come up and it might not be right for you soon. Feel free to pass at Esser since you included on the slide. Is that something? That's going away anytime soon. Is that something that we've been relying on that? We're going to need to be concerned about. So I'm I am not an expert in Esser it is that is school. It's a federal education relief funds. Vice chairman really really Thank you madam chair. I'm just following up on counselor card counselor. Jamaladin's questions about the Waiting till February. So I think my thought too was that that's perhaps like if we're going to be following up a Department's to see who's spent. What

▶ 1:51:10 Leila Migliorelli: waiting till February is a little bit too long given the economic pressures that we're feeling right now. So like if those conversations could be happening sooner and I frankly thought that maybe those are things that happened sort of regularly. So, you know when we're thinking about what was spent her second comment about You know what was spent last year. So fyfy22. There is a list of the projects that were spent that were allocated last year how much has been spent to date? So that sounds like that's the piece that you're going to be working on. February but I was suggesting with counselor that I would be happy to come back to the council in February with all of that information to present to you. So my thought is to allow

▶ 1:51:52 the winter break to pass this by yeah and before but in that sweet spot before we get deep into budget conversations to take that opportunity of probably the middle of January to assess and as I said some of these although they are are they they're they're counted for in fiscal year 22 many of them are. You know getting started or in process or in progress of some sort of phase I feel as though it's fair to department heads to give them the opportunity to spend some of the money before we start suggesting that they're not spending the money fast, right? Yeah. I mean, I guess I don't even think of as like That hopefully that's not the implication, but it's just more just regular checking in on where you're at

▶ 1:52:42 Jen Grigoraitis: versus. Yeah. No, absolutely. No like I'm not and I don't think that's what I don't wait. I don't mean to suggest that I'm not checking in with department heads about their projects, but rather coming back with a formal presentation where I can provide you detailed information on the status of these projects, that would be something that I would be happy to do at the end of January beginning of February. Okay. Thank you. Just quickly. I wanted to just circle back to the small business grant. So you it said that you had budgeted 225k. That's the combination of the company and security but and the other money identified but that the you we've gotten in excess of a hundred thousand dollars in applications. That's a

▶ 1:53:26 fairly significant. That's 125,000. Gap between budgeted and what we've received in applications if we budgeted 225 we budgeted 225. It's at our discretion on what timetable we disperse it. All of the Grant application said basically budget, you know. depending upon availability of funds and we can choose how to triage those requests to make the money go longer if we wanted to but I think that is going to be just a question that we have to Grapple with about do we want to just front load the grants and then have less in a second round. The the draft budget that we had presented handeditioned. Maybe if there wasn't as much demand that we would do it over the course of a couple of years. We also were a little bit behind in

▶ 1:54:25 our anticipated schedule for this year. So it really only may be two rounds. We may not have time to execute a third round anyway, so in light of the fact that we want to get the relief to the businesses who need it and we're on a deadline to spend the money by the end of fiscal year 2024. It's possible that we will only do this over to fiscal years. So we won't exceed the amount that we have available to us for this grant program, but we may choose to disperse more of it up front or spread it out for longer depending upon whether or not we want to meet all of the need that was presented to us. I and I maybe I stated incorrectly my understanding from you said we got in excess of a hundred thousand in

▶ 1:55:10 Jen Grigoraitis: requests to be funded but that we have 225,000 if you pull it all together if you want, let's say theoretically you wanted to spend it all this year. Right? So the request didn't do not come close to the no this feeling that we've so in terms of where there could be as you know, the 800,000 which is in the meeting minutes from that. Yes, absolutely. So if we chose if we chose not to do a second round and we decided just to do one round of economic relief and call it a day. Then whatever was left over could potentially just be released back into the general arpa available fund. And with going back to the food insecurity. So the previous order had 13,000 budgeted for food in food insecurity we've taken

▶ 1:55:56 Jen Grigoraitis: which was separate them the 75,000 for arpa food and security which has been folded into small business grants. Can you talk about how That 13,000 differs from I have to admit I did not look closely at the proposal in the prior orders to know what that food insecurity line item was intended for I do know we've had some for example we had we're working with the Stoneham and Wakefield Boys and Girls Club over the summer for a feeding program that supported folks in a lower income census tract. I I am just riffing here to be perfectly honest. I don't know what the intention of that 13,000 is. I think it's just for you know, you got I see the mayor's office is kind of the Hub and all the other departments other spoke. It's

▶ 1:56:40 Mark Garipay: really helpful. It's not just that I have picked up on that particular item in that proposal. Great. Thank you. Are there any other questions from counselors? Counselor garrette just follow up with counselor gemology was saying when you come back with us on the report on the update. Can you add when the the date the task force approved the project? So just to be clear the task force isn't approving the projects the Mayors approving them the task force was just providing input and Technical information and just sort of having kind of like a kitchen cabinet kind of discussions about these projects. So can you put the date and that the mayor sure? Yeah, and then maybe with an update from the department heads on

▶ 1:57:23 Mark Garipay: what phase they're Iran. If it's a multi-phase project just so or not. Absolutely the same questions and then so where we stand now we are not specifically committing. $800,000 for the library as previously stated. I do not have an arpa request form in my files for 800,000 for the library beyond that. I wouldn't want to characterize anything else. Thank you. Vice chair regliarelli, I'm at this time. I'd like to make a motion to hold in committees that we can have the administration come back with an update later in January. So we have a motion to hold made by Vice chairman Lee really seconded by counselor Eccles. I need discussion. Councilor gemaldine, um, just wanted to for the record when the administration is coming back with the

▶ 1:58:13 Jen Grigoraitis: ingenuary. But we could motion hold it for. You can post one until a date certain. Yeah, total date certain. Yeah. Okay. So is there a date? Oh, I don't have a date. Actually. Sorry. No, we could say like, February January. January okay. If I don't know what you're meeting dates are but it could be this whatever the second yeah in January. Is that be fine? Okay, so we have a motion to postpone until January. yeah, which we say January 31st, I mean sure until That's beyond the 45 days. You can't do that. So we're just get a motion to hold it. Okay? And we'll have to bring it back up. Okay, that works everybody. Okay, so sweet. So emotion to hold made by Vice Jeremy Glory seconded by counselor Eccles

▶ 1:59:03 No other discussion all in favor any opposed. Okay, so that will be held. Thank you for your time inflation. Okay, next up. we have unless there is a motion Teresa social recess for three minutes even motion Teressa Bay counselor William seconded by Vice chairman. Bigley rally for three minutes all in favor. I okay. We will recess until 9:03. He'll be back. So and we're back moving right along. This is info 2023-11 update on the status of the city of melrose's finances. And before I turned it over to our guests, I'll just ask if any of the co-sponsors of anything they want to say. Don't okay. So joining us tonight. We have assessor Sarah mccollins CFO Patrick delarusso and Treasurer, Catherine

▶ 2:05:29 Armada. Thank you for being here. The floor is yours. Thank you to the chair. And thank you. Everyone Below on us to be here this evening expectations. This is going to be one just the beginning of a larger conversation. We have to have as a community based on what we all know to be true. And collectively I have the fullest confidence as I mentioned last time that we will absolutely get through this in a way that everyone would feel is reasonable and measured. As well as balanced. So to get right into it. Again to my my left is my fantastic treasure collector Catherine. And my wonderful cheap assessor Sarah please to be here and again the life to get right into it. If we could we're gonna cover some topics tonight. I

▶ 2:06:23 would ask respectfully. If you could hold your questions to the end. If in fact though, you want to jump in then please don't hesitate. But we do a bit of a lot of material in a sense and I do want to get through it in such a way that at least you can make a couple of notes as we go along. We are going to give you a little snapshot of the budget the actual impact the proposition two and a half new growth and free cash. impact of school department deficit the tax levy limit the capital needs and the debt model. On the screen you'll see some terms the tax levy. Which is the revenue of community can raise the wheel and personal property taxes. Proposition two and a half who is a Massachusetts law

▶ 2:07:15 enacted in 1980 that place is strict limits on the amount of property tax revenue of community can raise through real and personal property taxes. The tax level limit the maximum amount of communities allowed to raise through property taxes in a given year based on 2.5% growth of the prior years Levy limit plus New Growth, which we'll talk about moving forward. In New Growth again is the increased value of new development and other growth in the tax base that is not the result of evaluation. A portion of this value is applied to the levy limit. and override a permanent increase in the levy limit of a community above the allowable 2.5% growth and again why the communities Embrace overrides because

▶ 2:08:06 it provides a stable recurring Revenue that allows you to make permanent commitments to staff and the like that otherwise you could not make And free cash fund certified annually by the state that come from Municipal revenues being greater than expected. And/or expenses being less than budgeted. Course, there's a lot of caveats to that but in general that's the bulk of it. This is a snapshot of the budget for 22 again the year that we know we closed. And just for information or purposes after the school department, which is our biggest department budget the next highest or insurance and benefits at 24% and dpwm police each at 11% of our total City budget. next slide School spending includes cross-care

▶ 2:09:04 within City budgets when you include the portion of the DPW budget that covered school facilities, which had been talked about recently. And the portion of the insurance and benefits which is health insurance Medicare. Non-teacher pensions that pays for School employee benefits both of the woodchair account for outside of the school department budget the amount. We actually spend to run our schools and fy22 was 60% of the total City budget. How does proposition two and a half affect our finances? Well, as I mentioned earlier, it places strict limits on the amount of property tax revenue Community can raise through real and personal property taxes. So how does this affect our budgets? In the past few years real estate values and

▶ 2:09:59 morals have skyrocketed. So why a finance is so tight? The answer lies in the way proposition two and a half works. Each year, the total amount of property taxes. We can collect the call the tax levy it's capped at the previous year's number plus a two and a half percent increase plus the tax of net value on any new development called new growth. Melrose already tacked to the maximum. We are allowed by law. This means that we cannot grow our tax Libby beyond our Levy limit without an override. So all the annual operating budget increases must fit within that limit. Many of the increases are non-discretionate discretionatory and beyond our control again the ones we talk about the most are health insurance in Medicare.

▶ 2:10:52 Which are expected to grow? by 746,000 next fiscal year fy24 that means that every other possible increase including inflationary costs of goods and services. Must be fitted into our budget around those big ticket items that we must pay for. New Growth comparison to Wakefield To give you some local perspective. Here is Melrose compared to Wakefield. The amount of New Growth added to our tax Libby has been relatively stable in averaged about 600k every year as compared to Wakefield that has had more than 1.3 million a year. This year new growth was unusually high. The increase is mainly the result of one utility company eversource finishing construction on installation of the underground conduit and

▶ 2:11:53 conductors and Reporting it in this year. Commercial value in Wakefield is more than double. What we have in Melrose 11% CIP versus 5% in Wakefield also shifts the full 1.75% on the commercial tax rate. This information by the way could all be found on the Department of Revenue. website division of local services New Growth for Melrose news represents less than 1% of our total budget. And on a regular basis that is not going to change. We do not have the capacity to for new development to the extent that were that material all to that number. Just based on a demographics alone. This is a ten Community, New Growth comparison. This child shows Melrose in red again in Wakefield light blue. Compared to 10 other cities and towns in our

▶ 2:13:00 region that we Benchmark ourselves to for the age for HR purposes. Not only our numbers usually much lower than our neighbors. You can tell that new growth can vary a lot from year to year. And some are literally off the charts including Salem in 2020 in North End over in 2023, 5.9 million and 6.8 million. Those are significant numbers. There was no way to predict but New Growth numbers will be in future years. It depends on construction activity in the community, which is largely dependent on economic conditions in his therefore very difficult to predict from a year to year. Melrose free cash the past five years this slide shows our free cash history and how we have used our free cash over the past five years.

▶ 2:13:59 Having free cash is expected in routine. And there are many valid reasons why you municipality will generate it. The annual budget approved by the city council each year is a good faith estimate of revenues and expenses, but it is never exact. Free cash of the fund certified annually by the state the complementable revenue is being greater than expected indoor expenses being less than budgeted. people sometimes ask what does the city use free cash for and could we use it to fund things like additional salaries? The shorter answer is no particularly not on a recurring basis. Because the amount the free cash each year is unpredictable. It is responsible practice only to use free cash to fund one time non-recurring expenses

▶ 2:14:55 to avoid creating a structural deficit. By basing our operating budget on funds that might not be available in the future. So the answer is yes, you can use free cash to fund those. Salaries however, as it's not practical over the long term because those are not guaranteed free cash varies year to year and you don't want to base permanent expenditures on potentially revenues that will not materialize the year after base your budget on that. That's not a good way to go. However Times it's required for short periods of time. You'll see that in the year before the override. We mainly use free cash for operational expenses. However in the past four years we have been able to put away savings to help us where the

▶ 2:15:49 future economic downturns. It have been able to fund many necessary projects to preserve the fabric of the city using free cash. Both of which are critical to melrose's fiscal stability. Free cash for Melrose was last certified in January 2021 and we do not yet have fy23 free cash number from the Department of Revenue certified. again free cash compared to our neighbor Wakefield another question though. We sometimes get Does moles have too much for cash? Again to give a little perspective on free cash here was Melrose compared to Wakefield. And again, one of the things that stands out is we're typically in the fortify percent plus a little bit depending on the time frame. We don't see those large deviations.

▶ 2:16:46 Because we of our chandelier our demographics. We have bedroom community and we also budget very conservative to allow free cash, but you're not going to see those lives spikes, you know, the 10 million 15 million. It's not going to happen here. That's not how we budget number one. The next thing is a five year free cash comparison. We are in red. And you can also see that compared to a benchmark communities Melrose generates fairly modest amounts of free cash. Typically food cash is the only Avenue you have during the year to fund unexpected or unanticipated expenses including snow and ice that can deficit and without free cash. We have really limited options and how you can pay expenses that arise during the year whether it's

▶ 2:17:39 a school or the city. a free year comparison actually in percentages current Massachusetts Department of Revenue guidelines recommends as a best practice that communities have a free cash balance of five to seven percent of the operating budget now. Why is that? Why is that the Department of Revenue division of local Services doesn't want to see Community struggling to meet their budgets. They want them to have some capacity to address costs and they do not want them to go to the state and say listen. We have a funding issue here. We need some support. We need some help. We need some Aid that's what they don't want. So they encourage us to be conservative if benefits our community and it benefits them as

▶ 2:18:26 well. As you can see from this chart in Melrose. Our percentage has varied. I'm just over 2% to just under 6% and some of our Benchmark communities have much higher percentages. fy22 school department deficit I want to turn to the impact of the school department deficit. According to our Consultants at CLA the major cost overrun drivers and FY 22. We're from the special education tuition and transportation cost. As well as the cost of coverage for covid-19 related absences. This year we were able to close this deficit by using federal education relief funds. As well as Opera of 1.7 million in total. The school department structural deficit is expected to continue. We do not anticipate. That it will not continue. We

▶ 2:19:33 do anticipate that they will continue to be a structural deficit as we have had in the past prior to the override. for several fiscal years and we could talk about that a little bit further at the conclusion here trade-offs must be expected in order to meet the needs of the schools and continue to run all City departments that residents rely upon as well as continue to fund necessary capital projects. We look we will look for both potential funding sources including free cash. in stabilization funds as well as ways to increase our Revenue. to meet this ongoing need it is also important to note that new developments and Redevelopment in the city support our new growth and that the Redevelopment of distressed properties

▶ 2:20:27 such as the Caruso building will ultimately show up as new growth on our tax rolls. net State a you might think that state aid. Would make more of a difference to helping us balance our budgets and especially paying for our schools, unfortunately. State aid has not kept up with the increase in cost. In fact, netstate a decrease between fy20 and 22. 18,000 Less in that state aid than the previous year. Chapter 70 school aid increased only 117,420 dollars from FY 21. Well the same time the charter school assessment payments increased $449,000. a 13.2% increase from FY 21 and fy23 on Nate net State a group due to the student Opportunity Act and we are going to see if this trend continues and I do want to take a two second break here because a couple

▶ 2:21:46 of points of need to be noted here first and foremost is that We have where did the storm which should provide confidence to the community? Number of times when we've seen drastic reductions in state a what does that mean? Well the last downturn in the economy that was we really were hit with was between fiscal 9 and 10 We lost one million 930,000 152 dollars in one year. This gets better. The next year who lost 515,940 more that was FY 11 now, hold on. We're not done. the very next year we lost 553,000,782 dollars. a teal under three million dollars we lost and stayed aid over three year period because the economic downturn that's what bothers me. Not only that if you just turn the page a little

▶ 2:23:01 bit ahead. Look what happened between fy20 and FY 21. We lost 317,205 in next state eight. On top of that right after that between 21 and 22. We lost 218,000 912 dollars. So between 20 and 22 collectively we lost 536,000 117 dollars and state a but yet. We required to find out operating budget. Really? It's very interesting. so it happened and the reason it's so critical to what we're going to be talking about with the school deficit. Is that we went through a host which we can discuss in another meeting a host of activities everything from FYI 11 to FY 16. Where the last override the original over I did not pass which was happily override cost 2.5 million the one that did pass. So the structural deficit that we're talking about now is half of

▶ 2:24:11 the override that was approved by the community in 2020. Just I anticipate that the structural deficit will be approximately 2.5 million hopeless less. For fiscal year 23 which has to be addressed prior to closing fiscal 23. however again we have collectively positioned ourselves that We have the wherewithal. To embrace this this challenge. It's going to be multiple years. and bring the school department particularly with special ed. and transportation as priorities such that they'll have the funding necessary to meet those needs. It won't be the short term. Because these this the trend the ship and that direction overnight, we do not have the capacity overnight to do that without an override. However their

▶ 2:25:16 measures we can take now and before we now in July 1st that will help and assist us. And those will come to light more as we continue to work through it. But just the backstory was that we've been through some significant difficult times. We did not lay anyone off of those times candidly. We had a complete wage raise. We had five years of 1% callers. And I mean away trees. I mean across the entire city in school. So the measures taken that the necessary. To keep the engine going the staff working and continue to keep the Integrity of the community at its peak for what we had to work with. And again, that was State a that we had no control over nothing we could have done about that nothing. So this should be the graph and they dumb doe again

▶ 2:26:13 this graph from the state department of Elementary and secondary education shows the growth in the cost of running our school system for the past 30 years. The light blue is what we are required to spend on our schools. What's known as the foundation budget. That's our spending floor. The Orange is the state aid. We received through Chapter 70 funds which have remain essentially flat. for the past 10 years the dark blue line is what we actually spent. As this chart makes clear with every passing year the city must fund a greater and greater portion of the school's budget to make up the difference. I don't see that changing. Looks like we continue to tax again. At the maximum. What does that mean? Because of our ability

▶ 2:27:08 to raise taxes again is limited by proposition two and a half. There isn't is little to no capacity. To increase operating budgets beyond the current levels to meet this ever-growing pressure. As you know every year we calculate the amount of taxes. We are legally allowed to raise. Based on the year before we had 2.5% to the last year's Levy limit plus any new growth. The difference between our Levy limit what we could raise in our Levy what we did raise is called excess tax. Let me capacity. And the one that's in the block. It just shows you what because of technical reasons. You couldn't raise that. For example, the 765 all is the 1911 because of half of a penny or on a particular rate which you know due to

▶ 2:28:03 rounding that's what it comes out to for the community as a whole but it's not the for lack of effort that we didn't try to raise it. Um, and again we have no we have no excess Levy capacity. Really and basically a 21 for example, we had 765 dollars excess lesson Levy capacity. This year which was 22 we had about 25,000 excess Levy capacity. These numbers are just a function of rounding because we can't legally tax a portion of a dollar. Moving on if I could in Melrose 92% of taxes are paid by residential property owners. And as you know from the tax classification hearing you just your head earlier this week. We also shift some of the taxes on to our commercial and Industrial taxpays. But due to the composition of our city, which

▶ 2:28:57 is over 95% of residential and without numerous large commercial properties. The net effect is that 92% of tax dollars paid by the residential property only. And again, it's this next shot shows. As property values arise tax rates fall as that inverse relationship. Many people look at the assessed value of their home and wonder why the city doesn't have more money to spend given how much values have increased recently. Remember each year. The total amount of property taxes. We can collect is capped. At the previous year's maximum Levy plus a two and a half percent increase Plus. the tax, New Growth Because that number is fixed if property values go up the tax rate must go down. That is exactly what has been happening for the past five years

▶ 2:29:56 residential property barriers have been rising and the tax rate has been dropping with the exception of the year the city passed and override which added to the tax level in FY 2020. This means that although property values have gone up significantly that increase in value is not reflected in the city budget. The only way to change this is through and override. Looking ahead to fy24. We anticipate approximately 2.3 million in additional tax revenue. This year's lab tax limit was just over 72 million 2.5% of that is 1.8 million. As noted earlier New Growth will be unusually high. Fy23 due to eversource finishing construction and installation of underground conduits in the city, but for fy24, we will

▶ 2:30:54 estimate based on historical Trends. Again, this is because New Growth is unpredictable and we have to build the budget responsibly. So we are estimating 500,000 in New Growth. To give you an idea of how that 2.3 million take us. We remember again that our health insurance in Medicare line items alone are expected to go by 746,000 next year. Capital needs fy24 to 28 Capital planning process has just kicked off a department heads. Because we always have to be cognizant of the fact that we have to do capital projects. It's really important. New Capital planning process has just kicked off with our Consultants at the call in center. In addition to helping to build a five year CIP. They will also work closely with my team to develop a

▶ 2:31:53 reasonable and responsible capital investment strategy to guide us. Our financial plan would take into account the school department structural deficit and work to find ways to meet the most critical of needs using the resources available for Capital Investments. Now, how does that play into the school department structural deficit? Well, this is a reminder if you use the number of a hundred million dollars for our budget for upcoming year. And we use the 5% back to for debt. Every 1% is 1 million dollars. So if we're at, you know 4% for purpose of discussion right now that we're using and we haven't had our 5% cap. There's good reason for that. Maybe we may not want to we may want to allocate that additional million which additional

▶ 2:32:45 1% represents to address the school department issues at some point. As an option, so just because you can doesn't mean you do. With given what we know now with that with the deficit for the school department that's going to play a role candidly and the capital project from where I sit. But are at the same time we have to balance that he's always a balancing act because we have to show the rating agencies standing employees. That we have a active and Vibrant Community that makes Capital Investments on annual basis. They want to see that because they double A Plus rating they gave you justifies that and they want to see you continue their process. It doesn't mean we have to do over and above but it does mean we don't solve the

▶ 2:33:30 program. Means you continue that as we have in the past through any and all but with an extremely measured approach for funding really well thought out really planned out. So that the community can see you haven't abandoned it. But you've taken into account what you must take into account, which is the structural deficit that we have for us. Debt management again, and we try to manage that responsibly. Again, I just talked about the non-exempt debt being a property 5% of the budget. And the child will show you that in fact going forward. We also talked about the public safety buildings, which would have to be a dead exclusion given the nature of the cost included that we're talking about and that it would not be appropriate to

▶ 2:34:22 try in any way to absorb that within the 5% limit of the city. That's a nonstada. And one of the point quickly the I asked Peter Fraser from Hilltop security. To give me his thought on the because we always talk about the importance of the bond rating. And people say well they just maybe they just talking about that's no it's not just talk. Because in fiscal 2013 a bond rating increase to double A plus the next rating increase is a triple A. A triple A which is the highest you can get he indicated me here that the city because of what we did when we shifted in 2013. We went up from AA minus to an AA Plus. He said the total interest savings on a 45 million dollars of General long-term debt that we issued.

▶ 2:35:13 Was between one and two million dollars over the tram of the bonds. It is significant in a place of role. So that one shift in your debt rating is huge. And it means a lot when you when and Community like us where every single dollar. Is critical and we don't want it and we don't want to spend more money interest. We absolutely have to and that's always in the back of my mind always has been. That this is where we have to to live. This is why we do what we do. That's what we can't say. Yes to everything because we're not going to be in that position any longer if we allow that to happen. We have to keep the discipline that we've established because it works. And again this chart I think shows the bottom part

▶ 2:36:02 the darker green that shows the debt that's already been. Permanently borrowed and up top indicates the lighter color the debt that's projected to be that would be your library or your ladder truck get them. We've committed to the road work, but we haven't fully bonded yet and there's so many reasons why we haven't bonded yet because we're not there yet. We're not ready to bond it. But once we do that'll turn the dark green, but we're not there yet. The projects are underway. They're not completed and we're not at that point. since the this my findings team really wants to come back in January. We want to do a complete mid-year budget review for fy23. Yeah that we're in. God willing will have free cash certified by

▶ 2:36:53 the Department of Revenue by then. I folding anticipate that to happen. And we'll do an update on local receipts for mid year and discuss a little bit about State funding what may may not be coming down the road. Unfortunately typically and again, this is from my perspective when a new Administration takes over and Governor Etc. We usually don't get a state number probably till March. Typically, we get it in January these some announcement made at the annual meeting by the governor. But this year when it's always seems to be the first year of the new Administration. I'm sure there's a million reasons why but we probably don't get a good sense of what they're going to do for state aid until maybe March.

▶ 2:37:35 Maya Jamaleddine: So we have to be a little bit on our toes actually extra on our toes and see if we can you know work with that. But again, I've really really appreciate you taking the time tonight and if there's any questions, I can't get you guys tonight. So I promise I'll get it to you as soon as I can. counselor gemaldine and then councilor Williams and councilor Stewart Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for being with us tonight you started by. Your your presentation by saying we're going to get through this absolutely right? So I'm like full confidence. He's coming with the solution. I was so happy then you did the presentation and honestly, and I'm saying as resident and as a consular, it's depressing.

▶ 2:38:29 Maya Jamaleddine: What you showed us, it's the present are we? What are we announcing tonight is the city. And how much are we in trouble? Like what you showed us tonight. It's honestly. I don't know. I'm I'm speechless about this. We we are in a lot a lot of trouble with what you showed us. I wanted to to talk about the special ad I mean if we are showing those numbers and we are giving those information tonight. What are we what the message that we are sending to the parents that their kids are in special ads? Are we telling them to go find? So other resources outside of Melrose, what is it that we're going to provide them with? I mean, this is a big message and I'm not giving speech here. I'm not telling you what

▶ 2:39:44 Maya Jamaleddine: you guys need to do. But this is a big reason why we need to pull any resources. I don't care what where to get it from. I don't care about the balance that you mentioned with all that respect. This is critical. This is on us. This is on on every single leader in Melrose that those kids those special ad kids are not getting those resources. I don't have question. I am so shocked with what I heard today. To the gym AI yes a couple of points. We are not at that point to candidly. We're still making the termination on exactly what the deficit is for 23. Um, and we also looking for changes in the funding of the special education stabilization fund. It's capped at we typically tab Target at a 500,000. Well, we

▶ 2:40:51 see coming down the road with increases like 14% for special ed. We're going to probably we're going to increase that or ask the council to increase that to probably a million dollars. and the debt fund is not intended not intended to be used as a Plug for a structural deficit that fund just as you indicated is intended to address any special needs concerned at any time during the fiscal year. So if we want to go to that Fund in the reason it was set up. Previously for those that don't know is that when you set the budget for the year for the for the school department and it's predicated on certain costs anticipated costs all of a sudden you have two or three students that come in. Well, where do you go to get those revenues that fund

▶ 2:41:43 was designed to assist the school department any midi anytime during the year to pay for those special-led costs. So one of these strategies of many that were going to put into place will be to enhance that fund itself. Secondly. As they indicated earlier we will like we did in 22 we will close 100% of the structural deficit for the school for fy23. So the city will provide that two plus million that is necessary to fully fund the school so that no one. It will feel any impact for services period and fiscal 23 as you go forward, which is an excellent question my to 24 to 25 26, there are many strategies that the city can adopt. For example, you would say I would suggest that. We consider. Adding to the base budget of the school department over

▶ 2:42:44 its a three-year period a certain dollar allocation, which I have a few. ideas in my head now that I've been working with actually that would increase the base budget of the school department over a multi-year period And so doing you can take that deficit bring it down. Many many that's balanced. So you're not corrupting any of the Departments bring their base budget up up and up to so this goes to self outside of an override. The only other alternative would have would have to overnight. Why don't you overnight? You have to an override February 24 period so but we're going to do is we realize that with school needs the funds. We're going to make them whole year after year after year, but whatever

▶ 2:43:34 mechanism if you indicate we need to do we will do that. So I have confidence. I've done it before. Yeah, I've done in candidly. I was trying to demonstrate earlier. That a three million dollar hit to the state aid over three years is very similar. Very similar and at least there here. We have some control. We're in our control over state aid. So the community should feel extremely confident that we weather the worst of the storms the worst. We've been through the worst of the storms we didn't ever layoffs. Had we no we didn't so we provided service levels. We absolutely did but it's going to take as you indicate a massive Collective effort by everyone, but I don't want anyone to think for a second manage this

▶ 2:44:19 because I've done this now for over 30 years and we're gonna get right through it periods. So in truth 2016. Yeah, we that's Wednesday 8 decreased. We lost a lot of money, right it started in 2016 No, it started in from 20 to 21 21 to 22. Okay. We lost over 550,000 those two years way back earlier between 9 and 10. We lost 1.9 million. Then we lost another 500 another 500 plus 3 million dollars then during the time of economic doctor which again impacts every city in town. But because we took the measures we took we got through it. And we will go through it part of me. We didn't go through it and we did go through it though. Because we did and I could show you what we did we did. Through the chair respectfully he would

▶ 2:45:18 in FY 10. We joined the group insurance commission. We saved over 1.4 million dollars just in year one in fiscal 10. Remember from 9 to 10. We lost 1.9 million. So in 10 we joined the GIC that saved us 1.4. Next fiscal 2011 we instituted across the board wage reads for all employees City and school to save jobs. We never restore the money back and everyone was able to retain their work and fiscal 11 because they went took a zero percent raise including myself. Across the board everyone Union on Union City Public Safety across the board. What that's not the end of it. We cap the coal increases after that cost of living to one percent for over five years Union and non-union. We enact a special legislation, FY 2011

▶ 2:46:16 Which we had the Mount Hood Golf Course pay for all the parks and Fields. That was special legislation to get that done. So wouldn't hit our debt package. Go on to continue to go on. We capped the debt at no more than five percent to non-exempt. We put in an ALS Advanced life support in a basic life support Ambulance Service to pay for the cost of eight full-time firefighters. We did then fiscal 2013. Then we restructed the entire department Public Works to absorb all the school department buildings and in so the school could function on work on educating soon. It's not worried about broken windows and fixing things because that shouldn't have been the initiative. So we did that 2013. We brought in Esco program with people remember that it was

▶ 2:47:07 2.4 million dollars and reduced the long-term energy costs of the city. And fight through 2015. We privatized trash and recycling. That's what we did. And I can go on and on but if I was Regional efforts, we did these things because we had to deal with that significant reduction in state aid, but there was done we acted on it. No different than today. We will take actions that will also allow us to manage our finances. We're the managers of the finances. That's what we have to do here. And we're going to do it and plus by law. We have to have a balance budget every year period so what I'm hearing from you is we are heading to an override. I didn't say that. I said outside of an override. I'm looking

▶ 2:47:57 at this. It's probably a member of a three years to work into this into. The budget that we need to provide our school with what they need to have but that doesn't happen overnight. It can't when you don't raise that kind of money under the regular two and a half because you can't have to still pay your other departments. You are the unions your other Public Safety, but that takes time but during that time we will work to make sure that the school department has the most resources we can provide there's no guarantee. We can do that more than that. So what reassurance do you provide our residents right now? Like I keep hearing from you. We're gonna get through this just you know, you have to trust me we're

▶ 2:48:41 gonna get through this. What other reactions like we wanted to have? Cured plan. Absolutely. So what what is it that you providing when providing is the fact that we we know what our we know what our obstacle is. We know what our challenges we all have the ability collectively to work to dress that we have the resources. What was quite different than some other communities if I may do the chair. Is we're positioned. Structurally as a extremely healthy financially, we have seven stabilization funds over eight million dollars collectively. We didn't have that before. seven stabilization funds covers contracts suits and claims selling wages goes on and on it's regular stabilization fund. Special education stabilization, right? Why do we have

▶ 2:49:40 those things? So when things happen like this we have resources to go to we have four Enterprise funds all with your own Reserve funds that minimum 10% each one of them. We have the we have developed a strategy looking at even and looking at free cash. That we we maintain a desire to continuously provide the necessary safeguards so that when we've been economic downturn things don't turn out the way we want we want that we want to have security everyone wants security. So we have taken the time collectively to build that reserves up. So we're not in a position of weakness. And that's one of the greatest things I can say to the community. You're not a position a weakness. You have a structural problem because the type of

▶ 2:50:28 Maya Jamaleddine: Revenue we want is to be recurring but we have to work to get there. It doesn't happen on its own. Okay. said I need to provide service for my kids that need special ads and we are facing those issues right now right there is there is not Enough support for for those kids right? I can't say that. I'm not the school Community. I don't I don't make those judgment. I don't make those decisions. I'm not saying you for you to make those decisions or or judgment. But when can I provide the promise that like timeline do we have a timeline? Do you have kind of like you have a plan? Obviously, do you know when? This is going to be resolved or when we're gonna get through. This is my it is my desire here

▶ 2:51:30 this evening that upon the certification of free cash. that I apply a certain amount of that to address the deficit for the school department. for 23 and that we also give the school department the Medicaid reimbursement, which is approximately 262,000 on top of that. Those would be the first two allocations. We make from free cash that get certified this year from the chair. I'm sitting in right now. I will commit to those two first allocations. Right up front to get the school department made whole. but the fiscal 23 councilor Williams office in approval obviously Okay, so I have a couple of like a technical questions about the presentation. So you've got the budget snapshot which I recognize from parent University. It's got

▶ 2:52:37 Ryan Williams: school supposed to 37% So if I look at the Fy23 budget documents that are on the city's website. The math I get is 37 million to the schools out of a 95 million dollar overall budget. I'm sorry 35 million to the schools out of 37 or 95 million overall budget. It's thirty seven percent. There's a 2% discrepancy between what's on the slide for the budget snapshot and what's in the budget documents and that's about two million dollars. and I don't mean to suggest that there's any like You know missing money or anything like that. What I'm what I'm suggesting is that the numbers here are a little bit fungible and I struggle with them somewhat when we talk about the schools. I was really interested to hear you talk about the decision to move Public Works

▶ 2:53:22 Ryan Williams: to move school department resources into public works because I am looking at the next slide. We have school spending a non-school spending. These used to have numbers on them the numbers of disappeared. You set it out loud. It was 60% if Let's just use your 39% number. I would say it's actually 37% the slide says 39% then the next slide says 60% best case scenario here. We've got 21% of the Cities budget that's allocated to a different cost center than how it's being utilized. Because you're saying that 60% of the city budget. Is school spending? and either that means that we've got these costs in the wrong center or I mean are we overestimating this a little bit and and what would the benefit be of

▶ 2:54:17 Ryan Williams: Having it in the budget this way. I understand the operational benefit of like not having a public works team operational within the school and having two kind of parallel sets of Public Works teams. I really understand that benefit, but it's easy to charge the time of Public Works staff to the school department like we do with this sewer and water departments, you know, where we know exactly if some guy spends at this time in sewer and half this time is water, you know? Yeah, he's in there. He's in the super budget. He's in the water budget, but when it comes to the school department, it's 100% DPW same thing with the nurses and the health department. Can we just start charging? The time that these people are spending in the schools to the school

▶ 2:55:01 department so that the community can see the full extent of what we're spending on our schools. A couple of things through the chair we do that the schedule one and schedule 19 reports that the city prepares and gives to the school department each and every year for Jesse. We they these Jesse outlines the guidelines. They make the determination as to what you are going to be able to allocate for those purposes. Let's take one item health insurance some communities have like we do the health insurance Budget on the city side of the books other communities have split it or divided in half of it sits on the whatever it is on the city in the school has theirs the objective of the schedules that were required

▶ 2:55:55 to submit is so identify what is school and what is city now, if you look into the budgets themselves, we are beginning to process. We've done quite a bit of it. In DPW, for example facility division, you'll see a special code there say 100 for the sake of a number this evening that identifies that is being a school. Cost we do that for a reason because at the end of the year, it's like you've talked about you want to be able to identify what was applicable to the school. So we roll up those codes so that we can have the number at the end of it was actually expended. So we have an actual number what was expended through the immune system for that service for the school department. So that is

▶ 2:56:46 the best we can do given the Dynamics of how We structured it for Medicare Medicaid's the same things on the city Side. pensions on teacher pension that allocation the city Side you can go through the whole list the rest of the whole nine yards. What's in the city Side? What's the supports the school department? So the what I was trying to stress with DPW is that it took a lot of I'll say administrative and related time that we spent by school officials. Obviously that to take care of their buildings and the like can shifted her over to DPW that's most qualified and able to do that. That was the intent is we don't want to spending time doing that one spend time on the kids. So yeah, you're fully devoted just to

▶ 2:57:36 that education not fixing roofs and worrying about Windows because that's not productive. So that was the one of the objectives of making that transfer over. And I think it's been it worked out extremely well, and I think that was one of the better things we've done. But again, this is so much of it is just dictated by. compliance and you don't just report they compliance then you have to have an audit they order your end a year information, which I think everyone's aware of is to ensure that the allocation you're providing is accurate and reasonable so we get audited every year almost submitted to Desi so I have no questions in my mind that we're not full full compliance. So I have talked to

▶ 2:58:31 Ryan Williams: school principal here and there have yeah my own two kids are in elementary school. And they frame it a little bit differently. The way that I have heard the counter argument for this is that it's difficult for the school to rely on outside managed resources nurses public work staff because they can't always get the priority that they need or they can't always request Services. They're asking for basically money in the form of time from another department to come in and that department holds the budget if you look at dlss and I have yeah, you'll see that Melrose is well far and ahead on DPW spending in terms of other communities and I happen to love what DPW does and I wish we could spend more money, right but

▶ 2:59:16 Ryan Williams: you know in this moment of prioritization I have to ask again. Is it possible that we can load some of these costs up front and to the school department so that their contained within the school department? You know the estimate, you know, five-year estimate or whatever we're using for this so that the school department has that larger budget. It's it's showing up to the community. They're seeing because the big talking point is you know, Melrose is spending 37 34% of it's whatever, you know, people get the numbers wrong, but that we're not spending enough. If you really want people to believe that we're spending 60% of our budget on the schools. I think that they have to see that that in the operating budget

▶ 2:59:58 Ryan Williams: that a portion of that is in the School departments budget. I think it has to live there. I'm not CFO, but that's my Point takes one point well taken I thank you. I have I have another question. Could you you've mentioned a structural deficit several times? This is a slight point of contention between the superintendent and the mayor. Can you explain the structural deficit in plain English versus let's say a nonstructural deficit and talk to us a little bit about what you're projecting is the drivers of this structural deficit expense. Good, excellent question as we've had in the past again. This is not the first time this has happened. when When right now for example that you have expenses that are recurring nature.

▶ 3:00:48 You don't have the recurring tax revenue to? Cover those expenses right now. So you can always you can always reduce other departments make shifts in that way and reduce staff and other areas to compensate for that. So if it's 500,000 here and DPW and say listen, you know, we're going to cut this by 500,000 and transfer that 500,000 over to the school budget. For example Then you you've assisted by half a million dollars that reducing that toots that's caller 2.5 million dollars difference for the school department down to two million, but now it's recurrent. It's going to recurring basis. It's in their base budgets built in when you have a structural deficit. You're actually unable to use your regular tax revenue.

▶ 3:01:39 even new growth to cover that cost. So unless unless you make a structural change. That's going to go with you next year. In the year after that because you haven't filled it with with recurring Revenue. You could plug it from here to Kingdom come at one time Revenue. That's not the answer. Because you still really not funding that where it needs to be funded. You're not providing Assurance to anyone that it's it's a it's a good practice and don't worry about it. It will plug it next year. That doesn't work. That's unhealthy. So the objective is that and I wanted to make that change we talked about talked a little bit about it earlier. Then you would say okay. We're going to commit to giving for

▶ 3:02:22 example school department. So much money next year on The abase over and above what they typically would ask for say two and a half percent say plus another half a million for the sake of a number. And you begin to wean that down but you'll know at that point that that half a million you're going to give them if they again on the base over and above has to come from somewhere. So we either raise revenues in some fashion or you're going to have to look to be more efficient in others. It makes them adjustments to how you do business. How is that done again? Same thing we brought the ambulance service and that was questionable at the beginning. I was there I did it. Was saved eight firefighters a job. It had

▶ 3:03:06 Ryan Williams: to happen. We didn't lay out those eight men. So you were gonna have to make decisions not you individually, but we as a community have to say for priorities. What are our priorities? Well, we do we do have to make decisions. Yes, but individually absolutely but it's priorities. So let me solutely. Let me let me bounce back to that second part. What are the drivers of this? What are you projecting? If you can see a structural deficit it means you see structural expenses in your projecting them into the future. What are the categories just like top without going into any detail because I'm not ready to do that and I don't have the information the way I want it right now. Obviously special ed

▶ 3:03:45 Transportation costs have been the drivers and if we find that historically we've seen a special let go boom. Boom. Well, is there a better way to deliver special ed services? I don't know. I can't answer that question. But we do know the cost of going up up and up so we can't ignore that that's happened. That's a reality and those are absolutely not negotiable. You must pay special ed period just like I must pay pension. That's the Law you must pay your debt those on optional So to me, it's becomes a reality that it's not it's not a nice thing to have. It's a must have special ed must be funded how we fund it whether we use permanent Revenue one time revenue for a short term. Do we get it up when we need it to be is what we

▶ 3:04:36 have to decide on in the way she get there but it does but you have to take that into consideration we do I do when I prepare the budget will begin to prepare it is that we have for 24 we need to take into a fact that this is the issue here. That's our goal. Let's bring this down that side Target right here. Do we have to do now you may end up with more state aid at some point. That's great. But that's never a certainty as I demonstrate this evening and I don't count on that if we do, it's a win for everybody. But right now we're going to a tough time. I think personally in the Economy, so I get a little bit concerned that. You know, I may not materialize like I did in 23 for the student Opportunity Act, which was

▶ 3:05:26 great. I would love to see another year of that and a couple of years and we can really move this process forward. But we don't have all the factors in front of us tonight. We're not going to have them. ever it's not how it works things as you move forward think change has happened. Revenue comes in expenses change you will have to work with that as you go through it, but has been made. You know, she mentioned you have to have an objective. What is your objective? You have to know what you objective is. The objective is to again in my opinion is to make certain that we have the necessary resources so that those services are provided period Mr. Delaware. So yeah, you said That first of all your commitments to the free cash and all

▶ 3:06:13 Ryan Williams: the solutions. I think the first time we've heard this right, I mean it's first time I've heard it. So that was good to hear and I think that the public will really appreciate that. There is some kind of a non-process in place at the moment that has a Time window if they make candle that's how we addressed the last time with this stress 750 deficitly we use free cash to at the people remember that I didn't go cold patch reporter and get some get some headlines. You also said that you're looking into stableization funds but we were here like, what is it now three hours ago and we we discovered all of us together that the marijuana fund was actually established with the primary intention of funding schools in times of fiscal crisis,

▶ 3:06:55 Ryan Williams: and it didn't seem like at the time anybody really acknowledged that in the proposal that was put before us and so, you know, I in this all hands on deck moment. Hearing that. There's 500,000 in a fund that has in the enabling legislation. We should really use this if the school is in trouble. And that it hasn't been brought up yet, you know six months ago. Somebody didn't say. Oh I know right away the stabilization fund. That's what we're going to get this money from it's been there for three years and we're gonna go in there and raid that fund right now and you know what, it's recurring Revenue. So next year it'll pop back a hundred grand and we'll spend it on the mental health, you know in the and the stuff that we need to spend it on at that

▶ 3:07:41 Ryan Williams: point that that for me is challenging because when when people who are just kind of following along at home and maybe don't have access to things like the city council does they say to me? Why not that money I have to go. I don't know. if I made for the chair, and I think it was brought up, but the That is one thought that we've already been working for and again, what why I cautioned you the the city council earlier was that I would like if we could make any some type of commitment for those revenues that it be something that we have confidence will be the year after year after year. So if we say for example that'll get hundred thousand dollars to the school department. That they'll know that in 24-25-26. It's

▶ 3:08:30 going to be there. That's why I said the fund is still not mature. So before I would put my neck out and say I can promise you that it will give you 200,000 every year from it's fun. I'm not ready to do that. But if it continues in the vein, it has hopefully we're close. Yeah, I mean then we have something really good. That's a good thing. It's recurring revenue and that's where a goal is. So there's no reason you couldn't allocate in that sense towards it but this is vindicate exactly right just that we want to be sure what we're doing again. He's going to be sustainable. So we don't say oh do we fall here? We shouldn't have allocated that much money because they didn't come in there what we wanted because I don't know then

▶ 3:09:09 we hear that that's not gone and that's not a good way to be so as we've done all the time. We're always careful. Well always take a balance the post that we don't overextend ourselves. That's when you have a problem. I appreciate your partnership. Thank you. All you spending basically all night long with this and we have another order out of us. Forget it and I have no other questions. Thank you. Anytime and again, I plan to be here again the board any question. I've always called me. You see my office. I am always available for anyone at any time. counselor Stewart Thank you madam chair. It's getting late. I'll try to be brief Mr. Del Rosa. Thank you be for being here and to the staff Ms. McClellan as our mother. Thank you for staying late.

▶ 3:09:51 I know it's like we appreciate you being here. You mentioned the comprehensive Feast study. Could you touch on time just briefly touch up on that? By me the comprehensive fee study. Yes, I'd be happy and a couple elements that we're looking at now. We haven't had a real. Analysis of a fees from building departments through trash for a long time. I think trash fee was passed in 2005 and if all of a sudden our sanitation costs are exceeding what we're asking the residents to pay. That's a problem. Because now the cost has gone over and above. Well you collecting. So that's another item. We have to look at no different than building permits or other items and not only yes, but the school department, too.

▶ 3:10:42 Programs that should be self-sustaining should be self-sustaining. Because when you don't do that. You're eating at your core. Over more and more every year as it goes by because you have a fixed income a fixed dollar amount coming to cover costs that's going like this say wait a minute to provide that service that it doesn't it doesn't match anymore something's off. So excellent question. That's the kind of thing that we have to do, but the school department also has to do that. I would ask. Because these implications across the board it's not just us so it's and that's why candidly, you know, sometimes the water gets rough, but sometimes you can you know, whether any come out better because you

▶ 3:11:28 Robb Stewart: realize some of these things that perhaps you haven't spent enough time on for getting things more efficient or up to date you will know. So in some way we will spend an awful lot of time on that. Well, that's what I thought. It was. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, because to your point efficiency a lot of times beats out. Just trying to either cut a reallocate sure and you know, I think it it is. prudent for the administration to put pressure on the individual departments to go and find some of that cost and weed it out. That's gonna make a big difference huge could not agree more. Yeah. so the other area now, I know you talked about what you did 10 years ago, but a lot of those cards have already been played right like, you know, there's no opportunity for

▶ 3:12:19 Robb Stewart: insurance anymore. I don't think a wage freeze would work this day and age, especially when you have eight percent inflation. Holding Cola, you know a lot of these. So what I've heard and what you said is you're going to apply a certain amount of free cash. Yeah for the short term. That's my object. And then you're gonna need to reallocate. re-examine how that how the budget structured to console Williams point, you know, you need to move the percentages around a little bit right if you're at 37% thirty seven percent. And that needs to go to 39% Then you need to find those two percent, right even after. That's going to be information. I think that will help us when we get to budgeting. For to understand what the strategy is so that when we

▶ 3:13:16 Robb Stewart: can make a better informed decisions when individual departments come to us. To explain what they are. Trying to accomplish. And what in the parameters that they're giving us because I think there's going to be a lot of hard choices that we're going to be making next spring all across the board including in this Council. So that would be extremely helpful to see what the strategy is. to be able to help us make as I said better informed decisions. Until the appointment exactly, right? Because we've actually begun those internally a little bit conversations that every single department has including myself as responsible to do that. And that's what has to happen. That's what we are today. Because we're going to next year every dollar is going to become even more

▶ 3:14:06 sacred. And it's going to have to really be justified. because we that's the point we have to be at until we stabilize what we want to stabilize which we will yeah, and again right now just for breakfast. I am not assuming any new state aid right now for next year right now my preliminary analysis. I'm not using any increases in Chapter 70. Or state aid right now, even though I have a two two billion dollar but budget surplus right? I mean, look at this the past don't give me go past couple of years ago 2120. We actually cut us happy the time then, you know flush. Oh, how could that possibly be someone where we get less money. Fascinates me. So the the other point that you did bring up early on that I think is concerning

▶ 3:14:56 Robb Stewart: and this is going to be something that will need is the health and Medicare. Yes, almost three-quarters of a million dollars that cuts quite a bit into that 2.8 million. So basically you only have two million. You don't have 2.8. The math is pretty simple. So if you only if you're going up by basically two percent. That anticipated slow growth that you talked about and the administration. Needs to grow. at that same pace So and we cannot be influenced. or distracted by arpa or other you know, let's not play. Hope Finance right where we're going to be relying on. Grant and so forth, right we need we need to be fairly strict in terms of how we go forward. So that's I just that is feedback. Thank you.

▶ 3:15:52 Jack Eccles: I'm not looking that's another question because this is concerning. Thank you membership councilor Eccles. Thank you manager. Thank you for being here tonight, Ms. McClellan for the second time this week. So just to be clear, you know. When you talk about all the things we did in the early 2010s, that sounds yeah. Fairly unpleasant and not really where I would want to be. As a city and then when I look at free cash for 2018. In the percent we were spending an operating and presumably deferring capital. I didn't dig into what those looked like 17 16 15 after you know failed override in 2015. Is that kind of where we're headed to you know, as we think about a structural deficit using free cash

▶ 3:16:44 is deferred Capital expenses. Yeah, I'm not looking to. Not do Capital expenditures. But I am looking to ensure that. If we do take certain ones on and again, I'm talking outside of anything that would be bonded one time, you know, just the capital that would fund from precash or the capital stabilization fund. I think these absolutely you know reason you can continue to do a segment of your program to do that. We typically 20 for example, we use 20 to 25% A free cash to go into the various stabilization funds depending on the need for that year. And same thing with capital you always want to have it distribution so that you are doing it as I mentioned earlier that you have to continue that cycle. And

▶ 3:17:38 I know that's you may not be able to do it at the level you did in the last year. Doesn't mean you don't do it though. You always do it. It's just that you have to be realistic and say based on what we know today. Probably gonna have to bring it down. And do something less but it doesn't mean you don't do it. So no those and again it all fair points. We always again I hate to use that trim but it's a balancing. You always want to balance. You don't want to just pull away and say that's off the table you want to but a sense of balance then everything really works so much better than and again the more you can pay in cash. You don't leave at least cost. You don't have those. You don't have interest costs you pay as you go which is the Premier

▶ 3:18:24 financing way. They want to see anyway. When you get it, it's done and you own it and it's over with so, I mean what that was kind of philosophies never change regardless of the economy. Thank you. Can talk a little bit about how our residential mix inhibits our ability to raise revenue. I think I don't know if it's very intuitive. I get it but I think it might be worth touching on because it was in the slides. Melrose to a community like Wakefield, for example because we've been using that example. So they have double. Double the CIP right value-based, right? So for example when we're just looking at new growth which adds to the levy how we get new growth there is Say their CIP growth. When we're looking at our residential growth versus CIP growth,

▶ 3:19:34 it takes value growth when you're adding up all the value that comes through in New Growth. You apply the residential growth to the residential tax rate from last year to get the CI to get the residential growth dollars that you're adding to the levy. If you have more CIP growth, which Wakefield happens to have a lot more personal property utility utility value. So when they have growth in that sector they're applying it to their higher they shift all the way 175 and they're applying that growth. At the higher the CIP rate from the previous fiscal year. So then it's going to add more to the levy base each year and then it's like cumulative or compounding if you will. Make sense. And so that was actually a question.

▶ 3:20:28 Jack Eccles: I had to Wakefield. Most of their growth is is CIP not it's not that they've been out building us and in residential it's that they've been having more CIP growth. Well, I know they they Because they have like a lot, you know a double the CIP or more than we do. So it's just like they're they're applying whatever growth they have to that higher rate, you know, so it's it's kind of It's always double. I mean, it's been double basically before but they're so they're they're utilities are doing projects along the way too and they're gonna eventually have they're kind of waiting for the growth to come in for that. Thanks. Yeah, I was pleased to see that new growth was kind of a tool in the toolbox where I don't think we're

▶ 3:21:16 Jack Eccles: gonna build our way out of this problem. But yeah that You know, it's a tool in the toolbox and there's certainly a lot of potential. You know, I don't you know, I look at every project and I see this potential, you know for to have more housing in Melrose in New Growth and I see every downsized project is opportunity costs. So if I can add to that, sorry. So basically like for the big project that just happened the 99 Washington Street, for example, like that would all be residential growth if that was like a commercial growth. It would be at a higher, you know at the higher rate because even here we're shifting to the you know, last year was the 165. So so you see how it the effect of it? Yeah.

▶ 3:22:02 Thank you. And then it looks like just looking at the debt graph. It looks like we've got we know we have a lot a little bit more coming on or are we anticipating kind of feeling? A squeeze there as we go up closer to like four to five percent of our operating budget. If I look at the sun, yeah this one here. Thank you right now. Thank you Kevin the Fy2022 is not there. The percent was 3.14% Okay, and then for 2023 the orange 2.98% 2024 Is 3.13 percent? 2025 3.99 2026 4.07 and then it jumps down to 3.69 3.5 Etc. Again. These are rates that we're using that are. I believe it's 5.5% for permanent 3.5% for temporary which are higher than we've used in the past. We've adjusted the interest rate assumption just

▶ 3:23:10 Jack Eccles: to be sure that we're going to be in in line to meet that obligation and we're not overextending ourselves. So we rather once it comes in. We actually Bond it and it's less again as I mentioned earlier we win now, but we never want to try to shortcut it take on more projects that unrealistic rates that we know and it's just not going to happen. Awesome, and then just just a couple more. I think that one thing that gets we talked about inflation, you know a little bit when we talk about our expenses and you know CPI inflation is 8% That's like things people buy for the most part. Like I think that there's an important distinction between CPI inflation 8% what people feel in their wallet and what the city purchases. So can you talk a little bit about

▶ 3:23:58 that? He sometimes it's a great question because sometimes people think well you're insulated and you know, what we do have let's go contracts. We do have some commitments we've made for energy to the planning office about to go up in particular is an excellent job. That have locked in rates at a certain lower than them. We're seeing today in the market. So with those Energy savings is great for the duration of those agreements. It does obviously it affects us. Project costs more money you go outside. You are consultant and charge more money gasoline. Of course, it affects us. We we have vehicles that because most of our vehicles still around the gas. So we see those higher costs on our side utilities DBW in particular.

▶ 3:24:42 We're not we're not exempt from any of that. So whether it's You know eight percent was five percent or seven we own it. But but as you indicate it's going to impacts out budget. So we have to really think you know, even more hard than knowing that and unless that actually begins to go down. We should expect to probably to continue for a little while. I hope it doesn't but I don't think it's going to get away from it that fast. Yeah. Yeah, I think that the takeaway with the two and a half plus new growth is yeah eight percent is yeah haircut every year right and that's that's terrible worth. Just kind of hammering home is an important point. Thank you Vice chairman. Thank you madam chair. Thank you all for being here so late.

▶ 3:25:30 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you. Just a couple of clarifying questions if you're looking through the presentation. The slide 30. Oh, it's like slide 36 and there are attachment but the slide that has the new growth on it. So I think it's To above this it says on this slide New Growth 500,000, but on Monday night weren't we talking about a hundred a million? It's the one with the circle. No, no the one that's like fy24 tax. Levy estimate. You absolutely right. The new growth that we're talking about is 23 not 22. Got it. Wait what 23? so our 24 So our current New Growth for this fiscal year, it just got certified in November. Yeah. That was the that was just over a million. Yeah, but for the past like five six years, we've been averaging like five to

▶ 3:26:38 Leila Migliorelli: six hundred or in the 600s. So we've always been projecting. You know around 500 so because because of that utility growth that was like unprecedented this year. We just will continue to project the 500. Okay. So this is just like a Because of thing okay. Got it. Thank you. So this the like the origins of this order was sort of, you know, a follow-up from our special meeting in October and then the subsequent presentation by CLA at the school committee meeting on October 18th and kind of going through some of the you know, where Hannah York came and spoke and sort of Unwound some of the issues that the school was facing. So just kind of you know, what I've been doing over the last several months is

▶ 3:27:38 Leila Migliorelli: true. Yeah months is to try to figure out kind of make sense of that and how that impacts the city's overall finances. And one thing that I have a question about is When we were voting with the the school committee, well Hannah York made a comment that there is a hundred and fifteen thousand dollar discrepancy money that did not get transferred from the city into the schools and then looking that's how she phrased it. And then looking at our budgets what we were when we were proving them in June the school committee and superintendent had a narrative budget that showed, you know, the city contribution which when you look at the number only went up 1% between fy22 and fy23 City contribution the offsets

▶ 3:28:36 Leila Migliorelli: infamous office offsets, which we will no longer be looking at and then Chapter 70 and that those three things totaled 40 million 253,851. So if you back out the offsets and you back out the chapter when just back out the offsets, it comes out to 35.6 million but in the city version of the budget, so when we vote on the you know, the bottom line budget of 95 million that number for the schools was 115,192. Can you explain that discrepancy between what the schools presented as their budget that we voted on and then us voting on a bottom line budget that included an amount for the schools. That was less and how that relate. That was the exact same number that Hannah York brought up in her presentation that we needed to that needed

▶ 3:29:32 Leila Migliorelli: to be transferred in and what that what's the difference between those two things because a little bit concerning that we were looking at two if you look at the not only the The Narrative budget by the superintendent, but there's a municist report attached that which has the 40 million dollars for the schools, which is different than the municipal report that we looked at and approved. Yeah, the number you approve was the correct number. That we approved we the number that the we ended up with 62 apartment 62,000 that was provided to the school department at the end of the prior to finalize the contributes to the school department. We ended up through the mayor's office to say we'll give you 62,000 towards this additional money

▶ 3:30:16 the 115. I don't know candidly where that originated because if it's in a school report didn't book doesn't belong there wasn't some provided by us. So I said the same thing to anyone I've talked to and they mentioned it to me. I don't know where the number came from because they didn't come from us. We committed 62,000 which we gave if there's a difference it's because they asked for a certain amount and we said we'll give you this amount of that money then if they want to make up the difference to offsets that's up to them. But that wasn't on our decision to make they chose to do that news after that's great. But we said we're going to give you 62,000 more than that. So that's up to the school department. Not the city. So the budget you receive

▶ 3:31:00 Leila Migliorelli: was the accurate number. So we so the school budget. So when you look on the report and you look in the digital budget presentation on these website is 35 million 511,659. You're saying that now you're talking about the 62,000 number is that in that or not? Yeah that whenever number we ended up 35 Plus. That was it. That's what we ended up and that's always been my knowledge until I started here in this 115. What are they talking about? Because if again what he would go back to what originally probably what would cause a lot of the distresses when they bundle the other offset items and other funding sources together with the budget all of a sudden you're on the same sense of control. So what you're seeing now for 24

▶ 3:31:49 The initiative will be unbundled so that things those kind of things don't occur on bundle it and have just just the city contribution with the Chapter 70 for fiscal 24. Then you have your offset items over here. You can even I mean, I think the discussion has been setting up actual budget for several of these offsets in their own way like ECC or something of that nature so that they stand independent and they're not co-mingled and then there's so much easier to manage to review to understand you don't get extract them from the regular budget. That's when you have a problem. That's why you look at our budget. We intentionally isolated all the all the Enterprise funds outside of the budget. They all stand on their own and that's

▶ 3:32:37 Leila Migliorelli: how it's so much easier to manage. It's the right thing to do right now. I get that. So in that presentation, I'm just going back to my new Notes too because I watched it again. He what Hannah said was that 115,000 when she I think mentioned to either you or someone in your office that there's always a disconnect between what the school budget and the city budget says for the schools. And then the expectation is the school district would cover the cost of that difference that is always there through offsets. Like you said you allude to that but I'm just curious what that always a disconnect no, no not always a disconnect. Okay work with Hannaford, and I know we're very well. The disconnect is not

▶ 3:33:19 Leila Migliorelli: that the disconnect is that if If they want to use other funds that are not under our control to do different. Services or provide other staff that's up to the school committee in the school department not us. But when we provide is just what the city's contribution is period So, how could there be? I don't know how munis works but how would there be then immunos report that like shows their amount? With with this $115,000 in it and then immunos report that shows you're like I would think that that would all be the same but not I honestly I I never up, you know, I don't know where they come up with that number. Okay, something don't even if something we provide them. I would tell you in a second. Okay? See I know it's 62,000

▶ 3:34:11 Leila Migliorelli: that number I know. Yeah, and you're the number like I don't know what it makes no sense to me. All right, maybe I'll send the Just the attachments we have so you can kind of look at it again, and maybe you want to be happy to look at. Okay. Thank you. So that was that was one question. I mean, so when you and I kind of came to this discrepancy by trying to look at the amount of money that the city is contributing to the school. So which makes me sort of the fact that there's a discrepancy there makes me doubt sort of all the numbers I'm looking at. So when we're looking at Chapter 70 in the school appropriation from the city and we're just seeing like a one point, you know, depending on which number we're looking at like a 1% increase in

▶ 3:34:54 the city's contribution to the schools. So it sounds like what you were saying earlier is that you're thinking of increasing that over three year period that would be your thought in terms of plugging the whole that we have the Yeah, my thought would be that. Once we recognize what the consultant indicates is the fy23 structural deficit number. I don't have that yet. I have an estimate. But then we work towards building the school budget to over time to get more on their base than just the regular say two and a half percent increase for example or two percent to begin to draw that down. So that becomes a permanent part of the budget and not dependent upon a one-time Precast or other fund allotment every year

▶ 3:35:51 Leila Migliorelli: from the city. We've got to get it we don't want to do that. It's not really good way to do things. So we're going to do with over time. So they'll know that over time. We're working towards reducing the one-time contribution. So when we need to do anymore So eventually they have what they need a base that's not going to happen overnight and it's predicated. A lot of fact is that we don't even know about yet, but that's the goal. The absolutely right. That's the goal. I think you know as it's getting later too. I'm just thinking more now of this January meeting what it could look like and Thinking also about you know, just the mid-year the mid-year Financial update but looking at the stabilization fund

▶ 3:36:31 Leila Migliorelli: balances to to counselor Williams earlier point in the discovery that we made that there was this, you know stabilization fund that could be used to to the worst supposed to be used to help with the schools. Yeah, I think in January if we could see where we're at with our stabilization funds what we have in there what the intended uses are so people understand that money available. I think for me just sort of overall. There are pockets of money. There's like these little opportunities that as you said the shift around, you know, we've got, you know arpa that is you know projects that have been committed. Some haven't been fully funded. If we look ahead of the free cash presentation same kind of thing. It's just sort of like a lot of balls up

▶ 3:37:18 Leila Migliorelli: in the juggling up in the air. So I think what we need to do is then understand who then makes the call about. You know if we need to give more money to schools and it's going to cut something on the city side. I mean people do need to know that like how city services would be affected if we have to then transition like At what point? I keep hearing this sort of rhetorical and it's just not necessarily by anyone in this room, but just this rhetorical. Well, we have to make a decision. When is that decision get made? And by whom and I think you know for all of you here the three of you that you're the the numbers people you are. You've got the you know your hands-only what's going on all the information you're there to

▶ 3:38:02 Leila Migliorelli: provide that information. So that leadership can make a decision about what to do next. You can provide like this is financially sound not financially sound but at the end of the day the the difference between, you know, funding the schools versus, you know, funding something in the I don't know. Parks department something like that. That's not your call because that's not a financial heart. That's not a risk to calculate. That's just what do we value as a community? And what are we going to be supporting? When is that get went to the best of your knowledge? Like when is that point happen? in the budget process it happens right now between what's happening right now as we sitting here now we've already

▶ 3:38:44 the me and I have already discussed a couple of thoughts and considerations for 24 because we're gonna start the budget process in January for 24 regardless of we have a state a number of any certainty or not because we can't not Get them keep the bus going so it's happening right now. And again we look at our recommendations. Look at Alternatives. We look at different protocols that might work and timing is very important as you indicated, but it's really now this is the time that there's no I don't know. Why would we wait another moment every moment we spend now got to be dedicated to just doing that. How do we how do we write the ship in a way that's reasonable and it is not going to You know disrupt services to a point where you know

▶ 3:39:33 Manjula Karamcheti: anything in a negative sense can happen. So I mean, you're absolutely right, but it's now the time is now we don't we run out of time. We already know what our issue is. We know what we must do and to the extent that we have to do it. So there's no I don't need to spend any more time thinking about I know what I know what the issue is. Thank you counselor Carm Chaney and Council care. Okay, we're to start first. I will start with thank you for being here and you know for all the information you're providing with exceptional detail and asking our questions answering our questions. It's so appreciated. One of the questions I have is you know and trying to learn more and research and understand the percentage of

▶ 3:40:19 Manjula Karamcheti: what this city provides for the school budget. I've found a lot of different numbers and I think in regards to what counselor Williams was saying like transparency is so important to even understand where we're starting from, you know in one of the charts. It looks like it's 60% for school school funding the blue and red one. We've talked about 39% that's in another one of the charts in your presentation. Also 37% in DLS. It's listed as 38% I've seen onesie it's 34% So that just makes it confusing. And so I think so right you were so right I the exact same so getting a sense of what is it really? Like we need to know collectively as a city. Like what is the amount of money that the city is paying for the schools?

▶ 3:41:13 Manjula Karamcheti: So having just really getting that number and not having it be different and understanding what that number is. I think is really important. Do you know the number? Like just like what is the real percentage the 23 will yeah, we'll put that together for fiscal 23s part of my discussion next month, okay? So in one of the data points as well, and I think people have heard it before just are city is one of the lowest in terms of teacher salaries in Massachusetts and also for people spending so just understanding how that fits into the City and there are other funding sources as well. We're aware but still the data is with the data is we are one of the lowest in the states in terms of those two

▶ 3:42:02 Manjula Karamcheti: pieces. And so, you know as we're talking about this structural deficit And that how you explained that the expenses of a regular nature we have the expenses, but the money isn't coming in and we don't have the regular tax revenue to pay so I'm understanding that correctly. And so Within those structural deficit and some of this information comes from Senator Lewis just a week or two ago hosted a special hearing on the state of education and special education in particular and the percentages of special education numbers are going up exponentially. So not only do we have the current state of affairs with special education and the issues we've experienced which transportation for Melrose and across the state and really across the country. Those numbers

▶ 3:42:58 Manjula Karamcheti: are going to go up exponentially creating a further deficit. So I exponentially am more concerned about the whole we will keep being in when it comes to the school budget and really needing to think of bold ways to find the money in some way shape or form. and so great to hear you talk about free cash. I think that's something we've all had a lot of questions about in terms of you know, we have to pay for this thing and yet we keep saving money and putting it towards little projects over here, but we have a structural deficit. So, how do we shift? so again really glad to hear you talking about that and it's been done with you that in the past two for those years that we had it we did we use free cash to close it,

▶ 3:43:49 Manjula Karamcheti: but I guess my Sense in terms of like the deficit of which that we have and what the needs of our students are going to be and the needs of our city outside of the schools as well. I think when you move to Melrose you have expectations, you pay a lot for your house and you expect certain services to be available and that kind of thing so I do recognize that Which leads to sort of the question and a counselor Eckles? I think alluded to it people pay so much for their homes and really don't understand why the city doesn't have more money and it depends the tax levy in the CIP and what's coming in that way. So what are the various types of CIP growth that would help us. Sort of shift and have more capital for

▶ 3:44:38 our overarching budget in the city and that kind of thing. What are the things we would want to see happen? Well, I guess. Like so this year for in particular? Just projects that like I said, like the the biggest growth that we had this year. For example, what were the radio Factory Apartments like the 99 Washington Street? So that was a huge growth but big projects like that contribute to but each year we seem you know, that's how we kind of realize the levy growth each year because we've had consistently had projects like that and they the growth is spread over several years because it's like just it construction completion of construction. So just what I explained earlier in terms of like

▶ 3:45:38 it takes more residential value growth. To get the same amount of you know what I mean Levy dollars. So basically CIP projects. Well the utility growth that we had this year which was kind of like a one-time unprecedented thing the you know, they've been putting like conduit and conductors into our city. So that was a big project 22 million dollars in value which converted to like 390,000 of like to our Levy in one year. So that's that's the kind of thing so that those are that's one example of a project well, so it just to be super concrete like so it isn't the building of single-family homes in Melrose that is going to get us the finances that we need to grow our city budget be able to pay for schools. It's like

▶ 3:46:34 Manjula Karamcheti: other stuff like do we need to McDonald's? Do we need a Walmart to come in now? I'm I'm Asking actually quite seriously. Like what is the type of growth? Like what would our city need to like address the structural deficit of this nature and then like I asked that because if Melrose doesn't want those things and what are other things that we can do? Right, like it's it's just a strategic plan out of the city, right? It's just the nature. I guess of our community like, you know a town like or like Woburn for example would have growth from you know, the how they redevelop the whole mall or whatever that's complete new, you know CIP growth, right that happens over so it's just exponentially more than you

▶ 3:47:26 Manjula Karamcheti: know, so it's just the the nature of the community I guess and like you said we are who we are so Well, so within that if we don't want box stores and whatnot and Melrose I'm just like wondering about some of the other things we've talked about the percentage of free cash, you know, do we need to change our liquor laws and licenses to encourage more restaurants to come into this come into the city, you know, people want a brewery. Like how do we make those kinds of things happen? Because if I'm understanding correctly, those are the ways to shift some of the finances and have more New Growth. So, you know, one of the things I wonder about is our relationship with Mystic Valley Regional charter school, we lose

▶ 3:48:15 Manjula Karamcheti: money out of our district per pupil when students go to Mystic Valley and My kids used to go there. So I feel pretty free talking about it in terms of practices after October 1 in the school district like Mystic Valley if the students then leave they keep the money in the student comes back to the public schools. So that is something that I'm curious about like, what are we thinking about in terms of some of those kinds of moves? You know in terms of Mount Hood, where does that fit in in terms of that being a property that the city owns? Is there a way to utilize that more effectively. How can we utilize funds through Mount Hood to pay for the structural deficit? So just sort of wondering about again. What are options

▶ 3:49:09 Manjula Karamcheti: are in? Yeah what you would propose. Yeah, I mean candidly. It's this is the time to do just that what are our options? What haven't we done that we should be considering at least put out there and have a conversation on what's workable. What's reasonable everything that you mentioned? I mean candidly. Um, I'm like the all the above for me because the more we can do that the better I think all around but I don't know the Dynamics of the zoning a while that that I don't know. The other just question I have is really around those stabilization funds. I think you said that we have eight. I maybe heard that number wrong, but there's about eight million dollars in stabilization funds. I think I heard you say and

▶ 3:50:01 Manjula Karamcheti: Really? Just trying to wrap my head about that given where we are with the structural deficit in our schools having eight million dollars. Quote unquote laying around is just hard to understand particularly when special ed numbers are going up are most marginalized students are Learners who are the most vulnerable don't have the services don't have the supports. So just really on the grounds of morality. I just I wonder about that sometimes like how can we have this money and not be figuring out ways to put it towards education and kids. Well again through the chair you those funds were sort of specific reasons right suits and claims for example OSHA opeb Contract stabilization fund the capital stabilization

▶ 3:50:55 fund the regular stabilization fund and the more we talked about this evening, for example, those all the specific purposes special education stabilization fund which we talked about those all specific purposes. We do use we have used this special educational stabilization fund to fund the schools. We have come to this Council you have approved it. So it's not that we don't use this tableization fund. That's a misinoma to fund those the school department. But those funds would drive in principally from free cash one time revenues. That's how those funds built up so much every year like a discipline. It wasn't from the operating budget taxation. So there's the whole different compliment. That's why I said earlier that we try to

▶ 3:51:40 do like 20 25% of the free cash, but the amount maybe to keep those healthy because you want to draw on them. We talked about special lady you want to make sure the money is in the special that fun when they need it the school department. I need special ed, okay. Go so those are there that's why we want to do that and you can't believe those and say let's take all the money from stabilization this year and actually plea this one and that pretty one most stabilization funds that but what you get a gaping all the school department because you've been feeling it one time money. Nothing you accomplished nothing. Yeah. I think my question really is about how do we stop band-aiding? Yeah through these types of

▶ 3:52:19 funds and how do we actually build it into our budget and the so there isn't a structural deficit you're actually right? And again, they make generally special and fun was not designed. To be used any other way. Other than needs by the school department anytime during the year, they need it. They can come and say neither the money for special ed because any time they could happen kids come in any time. That's what it's for. So those unanticipated instances when they need they need the money to pay for those purposes and it works perfectly when they do that and that's why I said earlier that really needs to be increased because we're all seeing increases in special ed costs. We know 500,000 not

▶ 3:53:00 Mark Garipay: going to cut the mustard anymore. Let's double it for example as a consideration with thought so we do have enough money to cover when it's needed. So we're on the same page. Just how do we get there the best way I'm all in on that. like all my other points, I think other people have covered so counselor Gareth. Thank you. Thanks being here. long night Council of Stewart asked one of my questions regarding how we're gonna get there this year with all of the changes that you've done. We've kind of taken the low hanging fruit over the years. Yeah and being dated our way but glad to hear that we're looking at other creative options to handle fy23 budget you had mentioned in the fy23 budget didn't

▶ 3:53:53 Mark Garipay: say a specific number but our for a structural deficit but I think 2.3 2.5 million in that range. That would not be done. That would not be a surprise to me. Okay? Fy24 Easton your experience. Yeah, if it's in that range, we're going to assume that it'll be an fy24 with inflation. Do you think that same number will be the same number in fi 204. Do you think you could be quite a bit more? We look in at potentially based on your experience over the years. three and a half million dollar structural deficit and fy24 with inflation and everything if we're at 2.3 2.5 now if I have 23 I can't predict what that will be. But to your point, I think what I said earlier this evening, I stick right with it is that we know that

▶ 3:54:49 doing nothing is not okay and that we have to increase the base budget for the school department to begin to address this in a financial way period so I'm working on the premise that it's a given that we're going to have a deficit forget the number for right now 24 I already know is going to be there but my goal is that we can make that continuously draw that down down that's outside of an override which I mentioned earlier. Which would you all as we just went through 2020? Um doing override to have that kind of Revenue come right in July 1st, for example, that's because you don't have that kind of money. Don't forget the money. The number talking is half of what the override was that's significant.

▶ 3:55:41 Jen Grigoraitis: So it's not 200,000. It's not 200,000. It's a real number. So to your point counselor. Just that, you know. to deal with that type of a A matter you really have to. Act you can't just can't not act the time to act anytime practice now. Thank you. No more questions. Thank you. I just had a few very quick questions before we wrap up. I just wanted to go back to counselor Vice chairman is point about the Hannah York presentation because I'm a little embarrassed to admit how many times I've watched that but the the direct quote from her was that there was a 115,192 disconnect between the amount transfer from the city city share plus Chapter 70 in what was in the estimated Revenue in the budget document and

▶ 3:56:35 Jen Grigoraitis: that this is a recurring disconnect. So I it would be I mean, I feel like we have so many problems in this has started to be like pulling the thread of a sweater but I think one of those is also within the community and for all of us feeling a sense of that we're all working off the same numbers that we can all kind of we have shared trust around what it is we're reviewing so it would be really helpful to get your assessment of what she's talking about particularly because she's been presented to all of us as an expert and what and what she's providing because that was a really unsettling comment and then I just is with all of the conversation that's happened. I I want to acknowledge that the three of you are working off of a

▶ 3:57:17 Jen Grigoraitis: buffet of increasingly bad options. I know you're trying to be you know, pick from increasingly insufficient amounts of money to keep everything up and running and I think we've really gotten to a point where they're just isn't enough funding anymore. I I know we talk a lot about a structural deficit in the schools. I know Patrick you're going to disagree with this, but I also think we have a structural Surplus. We exhibit free cash that we really don't have because we're not sufficiently funding our school budget to meet the mandatory needs that we have. So when I see that we have five million free cash coming in, but then we're going to have to put two million dollars in the school budget that to me feels like maybe we're approaching some of that a

▶ 3:57:56 Jen Grigoraitis: little bit backward where we're trying to create the image of Having excess Revenue to be able to use toward things we want to but then we're also using it to backfill known and recurring costs that we're not building into our budget. So I'm glad that we're working toward shifting toward that being in our budget and then I just wanted to confirm the 62,000 number that you mentioned 62,000 was that the cities contribution to the schools this year. So that I'm sorry 62,000, you know, no no, no. No, what was the 62,000 when you were talking with Vice chairman, right? It happens every single year with every single superintendent I've ever worked with here and in Plymouth, when you begin to to close up on

▶ 3:58:41 the budget the end of the year prior to submitting your final if fiscal year request to say Jesus, you know what I'd like to have another teacher here and that's a hundred thousand. Well, we can provide based on our Revenue Source fifty thousand. So maybe you do, you know, you can meet us halfway and that you can get your teacher but we say we'll give you 62,000 to whatever effort they were in they wanted and that they want to do more than that. They have to use up their own offset revenues just to fund that it's happens all the time. And at the end that's when he said okay that mean I said, that's it. This is the we're done, you know, the negotiations are done the school has what they need we have we've closed

▶ 3:59:26 it and then they can go forward with the budget to the school committee and and you But that happens all the time. You always work together. No different than I did with Cindy right to the tail every single time. I get together at the end. You know, this is we're getting closer and closer to what we'd like, you know what we need and then you just and then it's and then the mayor compromises and they work together. That's a standard practice. So the mirror ended up with saying we'll give you 62,000 to this effort. But that's the most we can afford at that time. That was it. It's not there's nothing no surprise whatsoever. It shouldn't be to anybody that happens every single year. Okay, and then another change?

▶ 4:00:08 Jen Grigoraitis: I know part of the other recommendations from CLA. Was that going forward the school budget is just Chapter 70 in general operating which I know we've talked about to your very your point at the very beginning about the delay in the state budget that's actually statutory that when there's a new Administration. They get an additional five weeks to submit their budget to the legislature. So I think just for all of us to keep in mind that both while the school committee is building a budget and while you all are building a budget internally, there will be a very little Clarity around what's coming from the state for anything Chapter 70 chapter 90 all of that. Okay, so we're all going to be working a little bit.

▶ 4:00:43 Jen Grigoraitis: In the dark for that I know. Thank you. Thank you for all being here tonight. Is there a Motion by the council. Can we make a motion to hold this in committee until January 2023? Yeah, so we have a motion to hold made by counselor William seconded by Vice chairmanelli and a discussion. Seeing none all in favor. Aye hi any opposed? Okay, so that is held. Thank you all we have one more item before us tonight, which is another info order regarding the update of free cash. 2023 - 12 given the hour that it's 11 pm and we are not quite as hardcore as the school committee entertain a motion to hold. Yeah motion to hold this till December 19th meeting of Appropriations. That's our next meeting. Yeah. We

▶ 4:01:31 Jen Grigoraitis: already have a few items on for that, but we can put it on. pending availability I withdraw my motion. Okay, so we do have a motion to just hold until a mutually agreed upon date. So We have a motion by counselor Stewart seconded by counselor Eccles to hold any discussion all in favor. Any opposed. This is held. That was our final item tonight. I will I'm sure make a motion to adjourn second. So we have a motion to adjourn made by counselor Stewart seconded by counselor Williams all in favor. Aye we are adjourned. Thank you.

Original documents

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