Legal & Legislative Committee — 2024-01-22
Attendance
Maya Jamaleddine ; Leila Migliorelli ; John Obremski ; Devin Romanul ; Kimberly Vandiver ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE LEGAL & LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JANUARY 22, 2024 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:20 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Ryan Williams Chair Present Devin Romanul Vice Chair Present John Obremski Present Maya Jamaleddine Present Leila Migliorelli President, Ex Oficio Present Kimberly Vandiver Present
ORDNC-2024-1 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Melrose Revised Ordinances, Chapter 48-1 Mayor Part A Salary by adding additional compensation to take effect beginning January 1, 2026. Ought to Pass City Council City of Melrose Page 1 2/15/2024 2:49 PM
Transcript
▶ 14:43 Ryan Williams: Today is Monday, January 22nd, 2024. This is a meeting of the Legal and Legislative Committee of the City Council of Melrose. I'm the chair of the committee, Ryan Williams. And I'm joined by voting members, counselors, Maya Jamal, Dean Kim Vandiver, Vandiver, excuse me. John Abramsky and Vice-Chair Devin Romanul. This serves as a notice of a quorum for the record. And therefore, the meeting will proceed. Proceed. President, president Melli. President And President. Ex or President Exofficio, Lila Melli. Thanks. I forgot that part. I gotta write that down. Um, we have one order before us tonight. It's Ordinance 2024 dash one amending Melrose Revised ordinances, chapter 48 dash one Mayor, part a salary
▶ 15:34 Ryan Williams: by adding additional compensation to take effect beginning January 1st, 2026. At this time, I will entertain, uh, a motion to open public comment. So moved. Wonderful. Second. Okay. We got a motion by Councillor Ryan to open public comment Seconded by Councillor Vandiver. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Public comment is open. If you would like to speak, please approach the table. State your name and, and speak. My name is Deborah McGowan. I live at 2 0 8 Penney Road. And I strongly urge the council not to vote for the increase in funds for the mayor. The mayor knew what the salary was when she decided to run for office, that it wasn't going to be increased. I think that, um, it's not, the budget is, has been a problem for our, the city
▶ 16:39 for a long, long time. Um, there was the shortfall from the school committee, 500, $5 million last year. Um, the taxes keep increasing. We can't afford to the budget, cannot afford to, um, maintain the police and the fire departments without putting a million dollar bond that we are going to pay for for the next 20 years so that our taxes increase each year. Our, the bond is going to be, be paid back within 20 years. So it's going to be added funds as the taxes. And now we've learned that the waste management is going up 75% to 102 hundred, $375 July 1st. That's a lot of money to start taking away from the taxpayers when we're doing it. It's not a good look. When taxes increase, there's a bond
▶ 17:41 that we can't afford in our budget to replace or maintain our schools. Ripley couldn't be maintained in our budget is now going to be torn down for the new police department. It's not a good look. And our waste management is $200 a year and now going up to 3 75. It's not a good look when everything sort of like goes up and you're going to give a 13,000 plus range to the mayor. It's a slap in the face to the taxpayers. If you wanna give a break, give a break so that we can maintain $200 a year for waste management instead of going up. You need to take a look at these things. Things keep take being, we keep paying more as a taxpayer each year, and I understand that. But there's no way any of us
▶ 18:36 that are living in Melrose are going to get a $13,000 increase. We're, we're just not. There's a lot of people in Melrose that are living that, that don't have a salary of 130 something thousand dollars and would be happy with that. So you need to take a look at that. You need to sort of be a council that is going to take a look and be responsible for the taxpayer's money. And I urge you to say no on this. I urge you to be fiscally conservative and take a look at the taxpayer. It's not a good, it's not a good look with everything that's increasing to give a raise to the mayor. She knew how much she was getting when she signed up for it. If someone is running for public office or mayor, they know what the salary is.
▶ 19:25 They have an idea of what the budget is, if they've been reading the paper and everything along that. And they need to decide whether they can live within that salary. If not, they don't run. If I'm applying for a job and I have a salary, if they give me a salary, I have to make a decision. Do I want that job at that salary or do I go someplace else? And the mayor has to also, we can't afford it. Thank you. Thank you Ms. McGowan. Good evening. Julie Dilo, uh, circuit Street. My thoughts around this are what is our philosophy? What's our compensation philosophy? Because when I look at the, the backup to how the, the mayor proposed this, I don't see a philosophy on page one. I see all of the mayors for the cities across the state.
▶ 20:25 And if I look at the salaries, fiscal 23, what I see is the mayor of Melrose makes more than 65% of all the other mayors. And it's striking to see a city like Woburn, a city like Peabody that either make less or similar to the mayor of Melrose. On the second page, the title is mayoral salary. Salary survey completed April, 2023. But in this, there are towns, there's the town of Barnstable, town of Marblehead, town of Swamp Scott. Those, they're, they're pretty affluent towns. The salaries for those mayors are, are high. Barnstable is 228,000. I mean, I'm sorry, 189,000. On that page, we averaged the select cities. And it's not all the cities. We didn't take page one and average page one of all the cities we selected.
▶ 21:33 I don't know what the philosophy was for selecting page two, but if you're looking at compensation, you should have some strategy, some philosophy that says we get to this number by X. Whether it's we take an average and we say we're gonna be at the average. We say we're gonna be 50%, but we have a philosophy that we can identify why these numbers were chosen. Maybe you have more information than I do, but I'm just looking at the backup support. It. If you take out Barnstable, Marblehead and Swamp Scott, it reduces the average by about $3,000. And then the last page is just, I, it's just a list of information. Again, there is nothing that says I got to the number 1 37 5 by doing A, B, and C.
▶ 22:29 It didn't say salary in 2024, salary 2025 salary in 2026. We got to that buy looking at these cities and saying we wanted to compare it to them by looking at all the cities, by some strategy. Because it looks like from what's been supplied that these were just numbers randomly picked. The closest is the average from the, from page two. It's the closest, but it's not even the number. So you should be asking where do the numbers come from? What's the strategy we're using? How do we tell the residents on a go forward basis that this is how we're gonna calculate the salary for the mayor of Melrose. Because you got to 1 37 0.5 and then a 9% increase for 2027. Cost of living increase. I work in nonprofits.
▶ 23:32 That's what we get cost of living. I've never in 20 years received 9% cost of living. And I've been do, I've been in nonprofits a long time. So I implore you to go back and ask what's the philosophy? Where did these numbers come from? How can we defend this to the public? What the, the previous woman spoke of? How do you defend it to the public with everything coming down the line that you're gonna throw at the residents. And I would say, let's give her a shot. Imagine getting a job and being told week two, Hey, you don't have to do anything and in two years you're gonna get a 13, $12,000 raise. And the year after that $13,000 more and you didn't have to do anything. You just had to show up for two weeks.
▶ 24:32 So we need to have some strategy, some philosophy on how we're coming up with the salary for this Mayor. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Mr. Lilo. Anyone else sit in public comment? Okay. Anyone else online? I do have, Uh, participants online that would like to Speak. Wonderful. Please put them through. Mr. Norden, can you hear me? Hello? Can you hear me? Okay, you're Live. You can speak. Hello, My name is Scott Norden. I live at 41 Winthrop Street. Um, I'd like to speak out in support of the increase to the mayor's salary. Uh, well, I don't believe that anyone would take the job of mayor simply for the salary. I would not want the salary of the mayor to be a hindrance from attracting
▶ 25:24 sspr candidates in the future. I believe that a local government has a major impact on the quality of life in the community. And as a political leader of the community, I believe it was right for the mayor to receive an appropriate salary while admit to not knowing the history of how this proposed increase came about. As I only recently learned at this meeting a few days ago. The only details in the notice that supports the change is the comparison to the mayor's salaries in other cities around the greater Boston area. I couldn't help but notice that the justification for the increase is quite different from this time last year when our public school teachers were forced to threaten the strike before finally giving a salary
▶ 25:54 increase that barely kept up with inflation last year when teachers were looking to be paid fairly for their services. Similar statistics to the one being presented here tonight, were were provided to show that teachers are also underpaid relative to their colleagues in the area to assess the mayor is underpaid relative to others, even with their new contract. Teachers are as well. In addition to the relatively low pay Melrose teachers face, other issues that impact their compensation step compensation, uh, increases after 10 years. Um, step compensation increases end after 10 years where some district provides step increases until 20th year. Other districts provide salary upgrade credits to teachers,
▶ 26:30 whether the city or the teacher pays for the course. And Melrose teachers have to choose rather than be granted a 20% increase over three years as proposed here for the mayor. Last year, teachers had to threaten a strike just to get around 10% over three years, years as they were told that it was all the city could afford. This happened after a school committee release misled the public saying that under the deal being offered prior to the strike, uh, would result in teachers getting four to 19% increases in the first year of the contract. I suspect you can count on one hand, if even possible, the number of teachers that would've seen a 19% increase as a result of a new contract proposed at the time,
▶ 27:05 at the ti At this time last year, I was notified the school committee that given the revenue we have available in the city, we believe these packages are the very best we can offer to the educators at this time. I recognize it is easier to fund an increase to the mayor's as compared to teacher salaries. 'cause obviously we have a lot of teachers and only one mayor. That being said, we are only two years away from another round of salary negotiations with our teachers. My hope is that when the teachers come to the city with evidence demonstrating that they're also underpaid route to their colleagues that we remember this night and that they are not dismissed as they were last year, and told only to accept what the city can afford.
▶ 27:37 In closing, I believe we should pay all public employees what they're worth. The cost of not doing so is already being seen in our schools and will only become more obvious unless we change course. I'm optimistic that the new mayor council and school committee understand this and look forward to seeing significant changes on this front in the near future. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Den. Do we have anybody else on line for public comment? Anyone else would like to speak in public comment? If so, raise your digital hand please. I think we're good. Okay. I don't see anyone of their answers. Alright. Thank you to everybody who spoke. Uh, motion by unanimous consent to close public comment. Someone's hand Just went up. Oh, nope. Okay.
▶ 28:17 Well then I retract my motion and let's hear from them. From them. Hi, uh, my name is Jimmy in Vandi. I live on Mont app. And basically, uh, just would you like to have the city and the, uh, council use some common sense that we all have to use when, um, we're getting, uh, potentially erased? It's always tied with what you've done work-wise, performance-wise. And it just seems strange that this is not tied to that. She's only two weeks in the to the job. I say we need to wait and ask and reevaluate within a year as to the performance she's doing. It shouldn't just be because she's here and other people being paid more. That's not how I get a raise in my job. It's not because of what other people around me are making.
▶ 29:07 It's based on my job performance. And that's what her raise or any other person's raise should be based on. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Vandi. Do we have anyone else online or in the room who wishes to speak? Yep. Hi, my name's Danny Fsco. I live at 1 72 Waverly Ave. Um, and I just want to contribute that I believe that, uh, raises salary, et cetera, should be merit based. Um, I understand that they need to be to be voted on, uh, and agreed upon in this particular city and other cities like ours. Um, I also agree that a city like Melrose or believe that a city like Melrose should have a salary range for a mayor that is somewhere between 125 and $185,000 a year. But, uh, coming into a position
▶ 30:01 and receiving a a raise preemptively, we'll say it's, it's almost like a sign-on bonus. And, and I do believe that there needs to be some performance at a mayoral level that really reflects the basis for that type of merit increase. So I think it's slightly premature to move in the direction of voting on a raise. And instead we would need to have some type of results before actually moving to a decision to vote on a raise. I think it's just a personal thing for me. I've taken many lateral moves in an attempt to broaden my understanding and ability to perform the job that I'm moving into from the one that I had previously. And really had no regard for the pay that was being offered in the position
▶ 30:46 that I was moving into. I honestly didn't even think about the pay. I just wanted to look at the job. So I look at a mayor's role and I think somebody else had mentioned that it's, you know, the job is for the people we're you guys are public servants. Uh, it's a position that, uh, you know, isn't exempt from raises, but, uh, but I, I think that there needs to be some performance that's involved, uh, in states the basis for, for the the raised vote. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Sco. I think We're good. I don't see any hands. Okay. Last call. Alright. Seeing no other participants online or in person, I will now motion by unanimous consent to close public comment and seeing no objections. Public comment is now closed.
▶ 31:36 Ryan Williams: As a reminder, this is ordinance 2 2 4 1 amending Melrose Revised ordinances, chapter 48, 1 Mayor Party a salary by adding additional compensation to take effect beginning January 1st, 2026. We have no representatives from the administration here to speak on this order tonight. And I'd like to point out for the, um, for the public that this order was put down by Mayor Paul Broder at the end of his last term. So Mayor ti um, is not going to be here to speak in this because it would be kind of unethical for her to, to speak on this order tonight. What is the, uh, discussion from counselors, uh, counselor Vandiver? Um, so I appreciate the data that's been shared. Um, along with, uh, along with this proposal, um,
▶ 32:22 Kimberly Vandiver: I like graphs, so I graphed it. Um, I'd be happy to pass it out to the other counselors, um, to take a look at what that kind of looks like instead of, you know, looking at a lot of numbers. Is that okay if I pass it? Yeah, that absolutely. Yeah. Pass it around. I'll get One to you too. Thank you. I'll take thanks. I have one. I'm Good. Um, so I just wanted to highlight, um, looking at the graph. So I've, I've done it two different ways. Once, um, looking at the, on the top graph, looking at population linearly. So this one's very smushed together because you see, um, Boston on the far right, kind of dwarfing everyone with a huge population. Um, and also I guess to orient you, the circles are,
▶ 33:20 Kimberly Vandiver: um, towns with mayors. Um, the triangles are towns with town administrators, um, which was kind of called out in the pre prior discussion, um, with the prior city council as being in general higher, um, than the mayoral salaries. Um, and the stars, there are two stars here for May, uh, Melrose's current and proposed salary. Um, and so the, so we have one graph linearly, and then at the bottom we have a log scale, which stretches out the x axis to, um, show the changes a little more clearly, um, with an emphasis on the, the smaller changes. Um, so I guess, uh, the conclusion, what I just wanted to show people with this is that we're, I, I think what people have discussed, but it's a little easier for me to see visually, is that,
▶ 34:04 Kimberly Vandiver: um, right now we are, we're kind of in the middle, um, pay-wise. Um, I think there's a lot of merit as well to, you know, paying, um, public employees, um, in a, in a, in a way that is, uh, going to attract the best talent. And, and so I'm not fundamentally opposed, um, but to add a little context around it and, um, I think for me, looking at this data, this suggests perhaps less of a correction needed to get us into the right range and more of a, um, regular cost of living increase to keep us in the right range. Um, but I'd be happy to hear what others think about that. President Mingle, Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to have this added to the record. Motion requires a second, second. Second.
▶ 34:53 Alright. Motion by Councillor Melli to add the charts provided by Councillor Vandiver to the record, seconded by Councillor Romanul, and it will be added to the record. Thank you. All Other discussion? Any other discussion from counselors? You have to then call a vote on It, right? Oh, I have to call a vote on that. Okay. Alright. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Wonderful. Thank you. Any opposed? Alright, that motion passes. Councilor Ul, do you have your hand up? Yeah. Um, in no particular order, I'll, I'll just share. Um, I, I do think it's important, like much like in real estate to have your comps, your communities that, um, you know, you see as your, uh, uh, pure communities. Uh, ideologically I think it's enormously important
▶ 35:49 Devin Romanul: that we pay our public servants what they're worth, um, talent and is talent recruiting is just one of the big, uh, um, uh, Achilles heels in the public sector, uh, like in a lot of places. So, um, I would think about it more in line with that than necessarily a singular individual. Um, I'd love to get a sense as to, um, you know, maybe no one could speak to this, but how that number was arrived at and whether or not there are other communities that have regular cost of living adjustments built into the contracts kind of in one piece. And then the other is, or does anyone know if, um, you know, if other communities have seen salary changes midterm and if they've delayed them until the next inauguration rather than
▶ 36:34 Robb Stewart: being in the middle of the term. So I think those are two things that I'd be interested in discussing. Thank you. What's The, what's the order here if, uh, all counselors, any, any other counselors, um, in the committee voting members wanna speak for the first time? Anybody? Yeah. Nobody. Okay. Councillor Stewart, you had your hand up. I think first, Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, and, and through the chair, I I just wanna speak to the, the, uh, committee to, uh, remind the committee that, um, I think this is, uh, a vote on the position and not the person. Right? And I, I think we all understand that. I think some, some folks believe that, um, you know, it's an evaluation of an individual. It really is what we want that position
▶ 37:23 Robb Stewart: to be now and in the future. And so, uh, in, instead of looking at, uh, the individual's performance, it's really what is that salary gonna look like today and what is that salary gonna look like over the subsequent years for the position. I think there's a really important distinction between, uh, evaluating an individual and evaluating the, the salary ban that this position requires to be effective at its role. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank You. Councilor. President Melli. Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I just wanted to just echo I guess what Councilor Stewart just said that this, this is more about the position, less about the person. If, just for matter of reference, this is also kind of a,
▶ 38:11 Leila Migliorelli: I'll just speak like an awkward order. We had a former mayor put this down. We have no one to ask questions of. Um, I agree that the information in the order about justifying it is not that robust. It's kind of leaving out major pieces that would be, I think, helpful for the public to know, which is if you go to, um, in our section three, one of our code, it talks about mayoral compensation. And there's this really very specific timeline of when you can put forward a raise. So it isn't merit-based like most other, many other positions are. Um, I it is very dense and legalese, but I'll, I'll read it aloud for purposes of sharing, um, compensation. The city council shall by ordinance establish an annual salary for the mayor.
▶ 38:55 Leila Migliorelli: No ordinance altering the salary of the mayor shall be effective unless it shall be, have been adopted before the expiration of 18 months following the beginning of the term for which councils are elected. And it provides that the salary is to become effective in January of the year following the next biennial city election. So it's not really something that can be done on a frequent basis at the whim. And, and it's certainly, just to reiterate, not done by the current, um, mayor, it just can't by legal statute. The other thing to note is that the salary for mayor has not changed since 2014. Um, so when we're talking about annual increases, the mayor does not receive annual increases, but it's by this ordinance, which, if you, again,
▶ 39:39 Leila Migliorelli: if you can go into our city, uh, chapter 4 48, um, of our code and see that the last time it was voted on was January 1st, uh, 2014. So I think these are just things to kind of keep in mind that it, this is very, very different than your sort of average person's salary evaluation. We are looking at a position, um, it may not get changed again for another 10 years. Um, so something to kind of be mindful of. And I think it, it is worth doing some research and that would, um, have to be on the part of the council or the mayor at whatever time that makes sense based on the charter to kind of take a look and see what, um, you know, what makes sense if we wanna do this more regularly. So, um, just wanted to acknowledge this
▶ 40:25 Mark Garipay: as kind of an awkward timing. Um, and we have, there's a little bit more guardrails, which I think should have been put into the order itself, so that way the public would've known that this is how we kind of have to operate for this particular salary increase. Thank you. Thank you, president Melli and Councilor Repe. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Chair, I just, um, wanna go over a little bit of how I've, uh, how I'm think thinking about this. And a lot of it was, was said, um, you know, I think it's important, I'll reiterate it, that this was, this was sent down by the former administration, the former mayor. I'm looking at it as a position, not, not, not a person. Um, and to, uh, counselor, uh, president
▶ 41:10 Mark Garipay: Re's point, the only way we can add a cost of living increase. So, um, I thought it was 2015, but if it was 2014, um, at two point half percent, it would probably be over 150,000. 'cause I based it on six years and it was, it was 144 something. Um, so unless we open a charter review, that's the only way we're gonna be able to consistently put a cost of living increase or change the way the, the mayor gets paid. And maybe, you know, maybe a charter review should come up at some point sooner than later. Um, but I, I do believe that, um, with one of the Proprie speakers, it was here, uh, in, in the public comment, I believe it should, should be 150 to 175,000. Um, I think prior to 2014, we went from 90,000 to 125,
▶ 42:06 Mark Garipay: which is, which is 30 34% increase. Um, and that was in 2015. It was, it was, I believe 90,000 was the position. Um, so just a couple items I wanted to point out. I'm in support of this when it comes to the city council. I will be voting in favor of it. Um, but that's addressed. Thank you. Thank You. Councillor Brosky. I think, um, understanding what President Midgley, uh, just pointed out that we haven't seen an increase in the mayor's salary since 2014. I think the compensation is more than fair and we actually may be coming in low. And, um, you know, I think, uh, this is a good opportunity for us to see a fair increase in the mayor's salary. It was put forth by a former mayor, not by the current mayor.
▶ 42:59 Ward Hamilton: I, I think it's the right thing to do. Thank you. Councillor Brisky. I apologize for my cough. I sudden tickle in the back of my throat. It's all right. Are there any other questions? Councilor? Uh, non-voting members, excuse me. And I wanna point out that also that, um, councilor Stewart and Councilor Ope were also non-voting members. So, uh, Councillor Hamilton. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, one other thing I'd like to point out is when we look at the, uh, the data that was left behind by the prior administration, um, we don't know in those other municipalities what the, the duties and responsibilities are of those mayors. We know in Melrose, our mayor also serves on the school committee, which not a
▶ 43:46 full-time job, but it's a lot of work. So I think we should recognize that, uh, as the conversation about compensation goes forward. Thank you. Thank you. It's better if I jump In? Sure. Jump in. Non-voting member, uh, counselor Rio? Yeah. Close enough. Close. Okay. Um, I just wanna say that I was actually surprised when I looked at the salaries. I thought, um, for all the cities there were actually lower than what I was expecting. Um, and knowing I'm sure the job entails, you know, the, the job of the mayor is a big one. Um, but the timing of this, I think is really hard for their residents to digest because we have so many increases coming in. So I can understand that. But at the same time, so I think as far as the community,
▶ 44:45 it's, it's hard for them to kind of take this in because we're telling them that we're gonna be raising all these other things. So, um, I think we just have to be cognizant of that. Thank you. What is the will of the committee? I'll make a motion to recommend. Okay. Motion to recommend made by councilor. Excuse me. Councillor Aldine. I'll second And second by Councillor Reul. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Roll call vote. We've been told it's a roll call. Vote folks call the roll please. Vice chair Romanul Aye. Councillor Reky? Yes. Councillor Jamine? Yes. Councillor Vandiver? Yes. Uh, president Elli? Yes. And Chair Williams? Yes. It's unanimous. All six? Yes. That motion carries. And this order will be brought to the full counsel