Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2024-06-03

Attendance

Cal Finocchiaro present; Mark Garipay present; Ward Hamilton present; Maya Jamaleddine present · Chair; Manjula Karamcheti absent; Leila Migliorelli present · President, Ex Oficio; John Obremski present; Devin Romanul present; Robb Stewart present; Kimberly Vandiver present; Ryan Williams present · Vice Chair

Agenda

1. Call to Order (14:22)
2. Public Comment (15:05)
3. Appropriation
4. APPRO-2024-25 : Fiscal 2025 Operating Budget in the amount of $104,140,412 (One Hundred four million, one hundred forty thousand, four hundred and twelve dollars). (17:49)
5. APPRO-2024-26 : Fiscal 2025 Water Enterprise Fund Operating Budget in the amount of $6,726,508 (Six Million, Seven Hundred Twenty-Six Thousand, Five Hundred and Eight Dollars). (39:52)
6. APPRO-2024-27 : Fiscal 2025 Sewer Operating Budget in the amount of $8,508,826 (Eight Million, Five Hundred Eight Thousand, Eight Hundred Twenty-six Thousand) (2:00:08)
7. APPRO-2024-28 : Fiscal 2025 Solid Waste Enterprise Operating Budget in the amount of $3,402,796 (Three Million, Four Hundred two thousand, seven hundred ninety-six dollars). (2:01:15)
8. APPRO-2024-32 : Requesting an appropriation from Free Cash in the amount of $80,000 (Eighty Thousand Dollars) to Public Works Accounts (#422) as set forth herein and for the Laurel/Burnett FEMA Project City Match (2:02:08)
9. Grants
10. GRANT-2024-16 : Requesting acceptance of a Grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) to fund the City of Melrose Burnett and Laurel Streets Stormwater Management Project in the Amount of Two Hundred Fifty One Thousand Six Hundred and Eighty Five Dollars ($251,685) (2:08:20)
11. Ordinance
12. ORDNC-2024-2 : Reauthorization of the City of Melrose Revolving Fund Table for Fiscal 2025. (26:00)
13. Orders
14. ORDER-2024-36 : Proposed FY25 Water Rates (2:09:50)
15. ORDER-2024-35 : Proposed FY25 Sewer Rates (2:13:15)
16. Departments (40:38)
17. Adjournment (2:15:30)

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JUNE 3, 2024 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Budget Hearing 7:35 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Maya Jamaleddine Chair Present Ryan Williams Vice Chair Present Mark Garipay Present Robb Stewart Present Manjula Karamcheti Absent John Obremski Present Ward Hamilton Present Kimberly Vandiver Present Devin Romanul Present Cal Finocchiaro Present Leila Migliorelli President, Ex Oficio Present

APPRO-2024-25 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) Fiscal 2025 Operating Budget in the amount of $104,140,412 (One Hundred four million, one hundred forty thousand, four hundred and twelve dollars). Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee

APPRO-2024-26 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) Fiscal 2025 Water Enterprise Fund Operating Budget in the amount of $6,726,508 (Six Million, Seven Hundred Twenty-Six Thousand, Five Hundred and Eight Dollars). Ought to Pass City Council

APPRO-2024-27 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) Fiscal 2025 Sewer Operating Budget in the amount of $8,508,826 (Eight Million, Five Hundred Eight Thousand, Eight Hundred Twenty-six Thousand) Ought to Pass City Council

APPRO-2024-28 Operating Budgets (City, School, Regional School) City of Melrose Page 1 7/11/2024 2:55 PM Minutes Appropriations & Oversight Committee June 3, 2024 Fiscal 2025 Solid Waste Enterprise Operating Budget in the amount of $3,402,796 (Three Million, Four Hundred two thousand, seven hundred ninety-six dollars). Ought to Pass City Council

APPRO-2024-32 Appropriation Requesting an appropriation from Free Cash in the amount of $80,000 (Eighty Thousand Dollars) to Public Works Accounts (#422) as set forth herein and for the Laurel/Burnett FEMA Project City Match Ought to Pass City Council

GRANT-2024-16 Grant Requesting acceptance of a Grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) to fund the City of Melrose Burnett and Laurel Streets Stormwater Management Project in the Amount of Two Hundred Fifty One Thousand Six Hundred and Eighty Five Dollars ($251,685) Ought to Pass City Council

ORDNC-2024-2 Revolving Fund/Reauthorization Reauthorization of the City of Melrose Revolving Fund Table for Fiscal 2025. Hold Appropriations & Oversight Committee

ORDER-2024-36 Enterprise Fund Proposed FY25 Water Rates Ought to Pass City Council

ORDER-2024-35 Enterprise Fund Proposed FY25 Sewer Rates Ought to Pass City Council City of Melrose Page 2 7/11/2024 2:55 PM

Transcript

▶ 14:24 Maya Jamaleddine: and her the chair. And joining me tonight, um, counselor Stewart, uh, counselor Van Dever. Counselor RO counselor, uh, Reky Counselor Romano, counselor Hamilton, vice Chair Williams, counselor Gar and President Elli in accordance of the Open Meeting law. This meeting is being recorded and broadcast live on MMTV. And, um, I will motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Seeing no objection, we are now open for public comment. This is the portion of the meeting we, anyone can speak on. Any item on our agenda for tonight? Yes. Hello? Hi, My name's Joe ine, 70 Howard Street. I just have a couple of brief questions that I hope, you know, if they don't get answered tonight

▶ 15:37 before the budget's approved, we can figure out. So I'm curious about the Water and Sewer Reserve account and what the balance is in those two accounts. Because when they were created, you know, eight or nine years ago, the consultants said that, you know, it would be good for the city to have 10% in reserve in case something really bad happened, which thank god it hasn't. So tonight I'm looking and seeing that, you know, the water rate, the water budget's gonna be 6,700 and the sewer is gonna be 8,500. You know, what is the reserves in those two accounts? And if it exceeds 10%, I would like to see all extra money used to holding the water rate to 2023 or 2024. I mean, it seems crazy that the residents are paying for a lot of stuff we shouldn't be.

▶ 16:45 Maya Jamaleddine: But that's a topic for another night. And then I had a question about, uh, motion number 2024 dash 39, which is talking about switching around some ordinances and changing some stuff. And I would like to know what was there and, you know, which way you guys go. And, and, uh, that's about it. So thanks for your time. Thank you. Yep. Um, do we have anyone in person to speak on any i item of the agenda? Do we have anyone online? Uh, Not at this Time. Thank you. Um, if there is no objection, I would like to close public comment. Seeing none, we are now closed for public comment. Um, since we have members, uh, uh, of the administration here tonight to speak on the items before us, I would like to motion by unanimous consent

▶ 17:50 Maya Jamaleddine: to suspend the rules before we proceed. Seeing no objection, the rules are now suspended. Um, during our annual budget hearings, each city department comes before the council to present their annual operating budget for Ffy 25. These hearings will continue for five weeks, and the schedule, um, of departments is available online for the benefit of the public. This means that you'll see the same agenda items on our budget during our budget hearings season until the council passes the full FY 25 budget. First item on our agenda is, um, so for appropriation 2024 dash 25, fiscal 2025 operating budget in the amount of, um, $104,140,412. And, um, the first number item is 5 45 Disability Commission.

▶ 19:00 Jen Grigoraitis: Um, we have, uh, uh, the mayor, uh, mayor, uh, es speaking on behalf of the commission. Good evening everyone. I'm here on behalf of Commissioner Commission Chairman David Hoff regarding the Disability Commission budget. Um, the request for this budget is for it to be level funded and just, um, with a brief update on the work of the commission. I know that, um, July is Disability pride month. And so the commission is working on planning its first ever, um, acknowledgement of that month, I believe is hoping to have a panel discussion later in July. Um, we, the administration has also been working with the commission on addressing the list of needs that were identified in our a DA study, um, that was completed, I wanna say in 2022.

▶ 19:50 Jen Grigoraitis: And we are, um, our DPW staff is gonna be working with the commission to apply for a Mass Office of Disability grant. We're gonna seek to have a door in the high school that was actually identified by a high school student who uses a wheelchair in his leaders in Civic Action project to see if we can get that door to ha be remote operated, um, so that it's in compliance. So it's both a student led project and something that's been identified in our report. Um, and lastly, I'm pleased to share that Matt Travers from the HR department is going to serve as my designee on the commission and has had an opportunity to meet with Chair Hoff, and we'll be joining the commission at their future meetings.

▶ 20:27 Ward Hamilton: So I don't think he's out there. Um, I'll do my best to answer questions. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, do we have any question from my colleagues? Councilor Hamilton? Thank You, Madam Chair. Uh, not a question Madam Mayor, but I had hoped that, uh, chair Hoff would be here so I could ask him some questions about the activities of his commission as it related to the new building project at Northeast Metro Metro Tech, where they were very involved and engaged and critical of that project. Um, but I'm willing to, I'm sure he'd be happy to come back. Well, no, I don't want to do that. I think we've already got Pine Banks and retirement coming, so it, it's fine. But I wish you were here so I could ask him about those.

▶ 21:16 Maya Jamaleddine: Yeah, and I, in all candor, I'm, you know, um, we have some folks outta my office today. I'm not quite sure if there was a scheduling change. Um, but yeah, certainly happy to have him at a different time. Not a Problem. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other question from my colleagues? Uh, vice Chair Williams. Make a Motion to move the bottom line. Second, we have a motion made by Vice Chair Williams to move to bottom line. Uh, seconded by Councilor Ro on discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Repe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Reky? Yes. Councilor Hamilton? No. Councillor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councillor naca? Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Jamaleddine?

▶ 22:09 Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. This, um, motion. Thank you Madam Mayor. Um, next we have, uh, number item five 40, um, for BB State. And we have, uh, Ms. Uh, crot. Hi, my name is Jessica Crot McKenna. I'm the current treasurer of the BB State Board of Trustees, and this year we will be seeking level funding. Uh, we've had a good year chipping away at some small maintenance projects that have been needed at the BBS estate. If anybody has been in there this year, I hope at some community events. We did have the floors on the first floor sanded. And we are in the middle of upgrading our electrical panel. And, uh, we have some exterior painting work on the back wall of the l If people have noticed,

▶ 23:02 if they've been to the Milano Center, that paint was starting to fail. So we're able to do that the last couple weeks. Next year. One of the things we're actually looking at concentrating on is, um, implementing some of the corrective measures that were identified in the a DA survey that was completed in 2022. Thank you. So those are our biggest upcoming needs. Thank you. Um, do we have any question? We, we are also gonna have you speak on the, uh, revolving plan, but for now Sure. Do we have any question? Um, uh, councilor Gepe? Yes. Uh, thank you for being here. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, quick question regarding the second floor. We, I believe there was some leaks up, up there, uh, last year.

▶ 23:48 Have they all been repaired and They have not yet. They're on a, actually gonna be part of probably items that we have to pay for with our revolving fund next year, but that's on our list to do as well as some interior painting work. Okay. As a result of some of those leaks that have happened, Have they, uh, since that's been going on for quite some time, has the, have they gotten you an estimate? The facilities department? No, we haven't gotten an estimate yet. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other question? Uh, vice Chair So the, so the beer garden Mm-Hmm. Did that benefit bibb in any way? Like rental fees or usage fees or anything like that? Was any of that money, did any of it hit the Bebe budget? This

▶ 24:37 Relief? Um, the one that happened last year was a sponsored by a nonprofit, so we just got the nonprofit. Right. But it was nice to see more people out at the BB than maybe have attended in the past. Yeah. We have had a lot of community events that largely are on the lawn. We also have the monthly art shows where people do go inside and enjoy some of the spaces, but it was a way to get some different people that may not attend some of those events and haven't been. And it was nice to see. Yeah. I've done both, I've done the art shows and I've done the, the, the beer garden. Are you planning to bring it back for 2024? I don't know. We're gonna be talking about it tomorrow night. Okay. Great. You'd Like to join us? Yeah.

▶ 25:15 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Thank you. Um, Councillor Stewart. Thank you Madam Chair. Lemme make a motion to move this item to the bottom line. Second, We have a motion, uh, made by Councillor Stewart, uh, to move to bottom line. Seconded by Vice Chair Williams on discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Repe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Brem. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Van Vandiver? Yes. Uh, Councillor Romanul? Yes. Councillor DeCaro? Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Aldine? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Um, next we have Ordinance 2024 dash two, and, uh, that's a reauthorization of the city of Merose revolving fund table for fiscal 2025.

▶ 26:08 And it is for B, B, C. Thank You. Um, anything that you wishes to add on this item? Um, just that we are gonna be looking at some of our, uh, higher priced items that we need to take care of this year. One of them being the leak that's happening and trying to identify exactly what the source is and addressing that and doing some of the interior painting work. Uh, some of that is because of that leak and know there's just older areas that we haven't been into to repaint in quite some time. About five years ago, we did do a large interior repainting, uh, piece to attack some of the rooms on the first floor, but we really haven't done the second floor or the office spaces very much. The other thing we're gonna be doing is meeting

▶ 26:52 Mark Garipay: with the tenants and looking at their windows and ventilation issues. 'cause it's come to our attention that some of the windows aren't operating properly. We need some attention. And so those are things that we're, uh, identifying as potential expenses through our revolving fund this coming year. Great. Thank you. Any question from my colleagues? Councilor gpe? Yeah, I, I'll make a quick, do you, do you, uh, think you have enough money in the revolving account to handle, uh, these repairs? And do you have to carry a minimum in the revolving account? Is, uh, I'm not sure if we have to carry a minimum balance in, in that revolving account. Do you know, do you happen to know that? Um, I'm not quite sure Okay.

▶ 27:34 Maya Jamaleddine: About the minimum, but I do, I'm confident that we have enough to take care of these repairs. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Any other question? What is the will of the committee Make a motion to recommend? Um, recommend. Second, We have a motion to recommend made by, uh, counselor, um, Gar pe seconded by Councillor Vandiver. On discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Repe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Bruski. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councillor Romanul? Yes. Councillor Na Carro? Yes. President Mi Yes. And Chair Jamal Dean? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you for being with us tonight. Thank you. Thank You. Um,

▶ 28:26 Leila Migliorelli: Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion, um, to recess. Second, We have a motion to recess, uh, made by, uh, president Elli, seconded by Vice Chair Williams on discussion. Seeing none. Um, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We are recessed The recovery could. Good evening. The time is 7:54 PM on Monday, June 3rd, 2024. This is a meeting of the Melrose City Council. Called to order and I am President Moore in accordance with Massachusetts Open Meeting Law. This meeting's being broadcast and recorded by Melrose Cable Access tv, and will be available for viewing in its entirety on MMTV and through the city website Link. Madam Clerk, will you please call the role Council Ro? Here. Councilor

▶ 39:54 Maya Jamaleddine: and oversight and, um, appropriation 2024 dash 26, uh, fiscal 2025 water, uh, enterprise Fund operating budget in the amount of $6,726,508. Since we are still, um, our rules are still suspended. We have Director Alice with us. Object. Do you plug in? I don't need to now, but if this is a long meeting, I'll, so I was actually expecting the DPW operating budget to be first in terms of how we structured our presentation, but we can take them in whatever order you'd like. Um, so we are gonna, so our plan is to do it all together. If you would like to, uh, start with the, uh, uh, with that person, that's totally fine with us. Okay. Alright. Then we'll run through the presentation. It covers all the items that are on the agenda,

▶ 41:29 and then, um, you can ask questions as you wish. Okay. Okay. Thank you Andrew. Um, Just a point of order, just so I'm, uh, we're gonna, sorry about this. Uh, we're, you're gonna go through your whole presentation, but when we discuss, can we discuss each budget so we're not jumping around from budget to budget? Yes. If that's okay. Yes. So what we are hoping, like we did last, uh, year discussion, uh, we would like to do a discussion on every item by item so that we don't go, um, yeah. Interconnect. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. Okay. Um, so I know we have a lot of new counselors. First of all, thank you, uh, for having us tonight. Jim Troop and I are happy to be here. And, um, as always, to present our budget

▶ 42:23 and to answer any questions. Um, I know we have several new counselors this year, so some of this will be a repeat from previous years for those who've been on the council for a long time. But we always like to highlight a little bit of who, who DPW is, what we do, who our employees are, because I think, you know, given the size of our budget, um, there's so much that we're involved in. Our hands are kind of in everything in the city, and so we just want to help everyone understand what the, the various things are that we do. Next slide. So we have 68 full-time employees and they fall into four main divisions. Administration, engineering, which also encompasses water and sewer billing, facilities and operations.

▶ 43:06 Next administration handles all of our administrative functions, accounts payable and receivable. Um, public relations, Linda Garron, who many of you have spoken to when you've called down to the city yard, um, handles a lot of the public relations payroll. We have our environmental outreach coordinator who handles, um, all of the trash and recycling programs and a lot of our other environmental initiatives. And our rentals coordinator who does all of the school building rentals, um, and any of the rentals throughout the city. Next Engineering and water and sewer billing that are housed here in city hall, um, handles all of the, or the majority of the capital projects, planning, design and construction permits

▶ 43:52 and inspections for anything that happens in the right of way. As well as any private utility work that requires trench permits or anything that connects to any of our utility systems. They review all the developments from an engineering perspective for the planning department, um, maintains all the records and plans, maintains the geographic information system level, uh, layers for this, uh, utilities, and then handles the water and sewer billing Next. Oh, Apparently I have a button Work. All right, I'm gonna keep going. If Jim figures it out, we'll use it and if not, I'll just keep saying next. Okay. Facilities division. So, um, this is a piece of DPW that a lot of people aren't as familiar with, that we manage all the,

▶ 44:50 the city's facilities, all the school buildings, all the municipal buildings, um, the, uh, the municipal buildings being city hall police, the three fire stations and the Milano Center. Um, and the city yard. We handle the building maintenance, capital projects and building security. Alright, Great. Um, and then lastly, operations, which is our biggest, uh, piece of DPW, which has eight different subdivisions highway. Um, snow and ice actually is the budget that fits in there, but that's not one of the subdivisions. Highway sanitation, parks, forestry, fleet, cemetery, water and sewer. And so each of those other parks and forestry have one budget together. Each of the others has their own budgets,

▶ 45:36 which we'll discuss, um, in the coming slides. So this is our overall organization, those four main divisions. Jim heads up all of the administration and finance folks. Um, Joe Hobbs manages all the operations. Jay McNeil is our facilities manager. And Vannie Reese is our city engineer. And I think most of you have met all four of them. They're really the glue that holds all of our department together. Um, we hired a handful of new employees in the last year. I won't read them all off, but this just highlights who some of our new folks are And some of our operational accomplishments. Um, I have some slides on operational and then some on capital. So these are more of our day-to-Day work. We resolved 4,131 work orders.

▶ 46:26 This was up through, um, the beginning of May 656. Potholes filled 137 trees planted. We handled 14 and a half inches of snow this year. Processed 1,256 purchase orders, collected 6,716 tons of trash through our current hauler republic, formerly JRM. Uh, we collected 2,418 tons of recycling curbside yard waste collection that's done in house. And people don't realize that, that when your yard waste gets picked up, um, that's using our own truck and our own personnel. During those weeks, uh, we recycled 380 mattresses at the city yard and another 402 mattresses picked up as part of our, um, curbside mattress program. We have a vendor who picks those up and we've continued to accept yard waste recycling

▶ 47:16 and special collections at the city yard. We have a handful of events throughout the year. Hazardous waste collections, rigid plastic styrofoam shredding. Um, so we manage all those events as well. Our fleet division maintains 140 vehicles. We maintain our own fleet as well as police. Um, the, uh, health department, I'm not sure if they're using their vehicles right now, but they have vehicles we've historically maintained. Um, we maintain the Council on Aging vans. We, we help out all the departments. We just don't do the large apparatus like fire apparatus. Um, those are subbed out. The green team maintains 81 locations where we mow parks and islands and, uh, parking lots and plant flowers in a lot of those locations.

▶ 48:07 We do all the memorials. Um, the cemetery, we had 55 burials and 77 cremations to date. This, uh, fiscal year. We hosted more than 1200 students at our DPW Day just a few weeks ago. And we assist with all the city events. So, um, Victorian Fair Summer stroll, um, graduation, all the road shutdowns for those. Um, you know, putting up the barricades, making sure that everything's flowing as it should. We oftentimes are setting up tables and, um, helping out with a lot of other things, um, for all the various city events. So, capital accomplishments. This is, this writing is tiny because I just kept thinking of more things that we did this year and wanting to add them to the list. I'm gonna run through them real quick just

▶ 48:58 because a lot of them, so year after year, we're asked what's the status of the, the money that you've given us before Free cash, ARPA money, um, I know ARPA didn't go through the council, but, um, other bonds and special allocations grants that we've accepted. And so that's the, those are the funding sources for these larger projects. So we finally finished the city hall generator project. Jim managed that very successfully. We, um, we've been talking about it for years as our highest need from a a resilience perspective. We had major issues when go out at City Hall. It would take down phones at the schools. Um, the business phones at police and fire, not 9 1 1. Um, a a lot of the, the systems come through City Hall

▶ 49:45 through the server room, and so it was a major loss when power was out here. So we finally, after many years of talking about it, we have a generator for city hall. Um, we rehabilitated the elevators at the high school, which was a desperate need put in new hot water heaters at the high school. Horseman and Hoover finally have new roofs. Those have been critical needs for a long time. They also have solar panels. We've replaced six of the Windows systems at the Franklin. We all the windows need to be replaced, the remainder of the doors that we haven't done yet, and the roof at Franklin. So someday you'll be hearing from us again on those, hopefully with the support of MSBA paying for half of it.

▶ 50:24 Um, but that's a major need that we're aware of. We helped with the replacement of the walk-in coolers at the high school, and the classrooms below that had been damaged from some water damage from the previous coolers. That's all fixed. We did a lot of asbestos removal in schools in 2023 in the summer, we installed the three new electric vehicle charging stations at the city yard, and the EV truck has been delivered. We are not using it until we get the wrap put on it that the VO kids are helping us design. So, um, sometime over the summer, we hope to have that all looking beautiful and ready to pick up some trash. Um, we paved a large number of streets. They're all listed here. I won't read all the, all the names.

▶ 51:08 Um, we added sidewalks on Baystate Road. I've been hearing about the desire for sidewalks on Baystate Road since my first week here eight years ago. And so this was a really exciting project. It was a Complete Streets project that's been high on our list for a while. Um, we also finished sidewalk gaps on Woodland and we added sidewalks on the driveway, um, that goes to the Marco Gym behind the high school. So now there's a fully accessible path, especially where voting is happening there. Um, and a new sidewalk up to the patio at the Milano Center. We reconfigured the intersection at Emerson and Vinton. That's now the four-way stop. We also have the new four-Way stop at, uh, Emerson at Tremont and Essex.

▶ 51:50 I think both of those have been really successful projects. I feel a lot safer driving through them. Hopefully you all do as well. Um, reconstructed sidewalks near Volunteer Park, which is our, our new, um, accessible park and G***h Street sidewalks. We just finished, um, we added some new crosswalks and new crosswalk signals on Main Street. We have a few of the new audible signals that actually tell you to wait and they count down, which is much safer for pedestrians. Um, we finished the carpet replacement at Fred Green, the upgrades to volunteer in FO parks to the, to the playground equipment. We replaced water mains on Four Streets. We did a, a, um, grant project from Coastal Zone Management

▶ 52:33 to add infiltration trenches to try to get some of our storm water to infiltrate rather than flowing directly into El Pond. Um, the Memorial Hall Envelope project is substantially complete. We did the Gold Star memorial that hopefully some of you saw on Memorial Day and we finished our time clock replacement project. So those are some of our bigger projects. Um, this list is some of the ones that are still ongoing. I won't read through all these. I just wanted to include them in the presentation that you all have. Um, in case you're wondering about more of the, you know, what's the status of things that we've funded in the past. But the good news is everything's moving along. I don't think there's anything now that is funded

▶ 53:14 that isn't actively moving along. And this list is the same. Every, all of you have this presentation, um, in an email I sent earlier, and it'll be on IQM too. So hopefully it's more readable there than it is up on the screen here. Um, just highlighting the last one here, our new trash and recycling contract rollout. Obviously that's the big news right now around DPW. Um, there's some pictures, pictures there of the new barrels and a new Cosella truck. Um, barrels are going out right now. They'll be going out over the next two weeks. So we've already gotten a lot of calls. I saw them going out to my neighbor and I didn't get one. So everybody will get them. Um, if two weeks go by and you still don't have one, then

▶ 54:00 encourage your constituents to please call us and let us know. This is how we're gonna find out if there's, um, you know, people who are somehow missing from our trash and recycling program. If they're not on our list, they won't get a barrel. And then we'll figure that out accordingly. Next. So we have, I think it's eight items, four or 5, 6, 8 items that are specifically ours on the agenda tonight. And then one additional that I put on there just to highlight, um, the revolving fund ordinance change, um, to highlight that the recycling is no longer a part of that, um, revolving fund list because the recycling revolving fund has been moved into the new proposed Solid Waste Enterprise Fund.

▶ 54:45 Um, actually if you can go back one, so I'm just gonna run through real quick. I know we're gonna talk about each of these individually, but we have the general fund operating budget for all the DPW divisions. Those are each separate, um, in your list. We have the water operating fund, the sewer operating fund or budget, the, um, solid Waste Enterprise fund. And then we have one free cash request, which we'll talk about in detail when it comes up when we come up to that on your list. Um, we have a grant acceptance that's associated with that same project at Laurel and Burnett. And then we have the water and sewer rates themselves, the rate setting. So this next one just breaks down each of the budgets

▶ 55:30 as they appear in your packet, um, with the various DPW divisions being broken out separately. And then the water, sewer and solid waste Enterprises being each their own funds. Um, with that, I'll turn it over to Jim if you Yeah, sure. Talk about The highlights of our memo here. Um, uh, I wanna echo a Elena's statements to thank you all for your continued support of the DPW and taking the time to review the budget. I'm proud to report that this budget is compliant with the mayor's wishes and instructions to deliver a level funded budget with only contractual obligations as being the increases that you will see in front of you tonight. Um, the highlights of it are very simple. We're entering the trash

▶ 56:16 and recycling contract, which represents a fairly large increase in the cost of that service and thus the shift to an enterprise fund. Uh, the remaining budgets, as I mentioned, are level funded. The one exception to that is gonna be our facilities department where we're seeing the effect of an increased supply contract in electricity. Uh, we went from about 8 cents to about 13 cents. It's a significant increase. It was proposed as part of the last year's budget presentation and not funded. Uh, so we are working through, uh, whatever we have to with fiscal 24, but we've conservatively pro proposed increases for fiscal 25, and that's what you'll see in front of you. You'll also see a shift from

▶ 57:03 contractual obligations associated with cleaning at, uh, Memorial, uh, middle school as well as the high school. That shift. We decreased the scope in the thought that we'd be able to deliver more services, uh, at the middle school with two full-time employees, thus the shift from ordinary expenses to salaries. And we've worked with the finance team and the mayor's office to propose to make sure that there's value add and that the budget could support that. But we expect an increase in service, uh, at the middle school, uh, especially as we get into the hire of the full-time employees in, in fiscal 25 and then at the start of the next school year. Other than that, I'm happy to, uh, turn this over for

▶ 57:47 questions and, uh, happy to report that we've delivered the budget as requested and as instructed. Thank you, Mr. Thank you. Um, director Ellis, Do we have, we actually have a tiny bit more on the presentation. Okay. Sorry. You can go. Um, this just breaks down our employees by, uh, by operating division. So I just wanted to point out in our memo, we run through the salary breakdown between different funds. So you'll find that there are employees who are paid from water and sewer and the general fund, and there are different percentages that capture the amount of time that they spend in those different areas. Um, that's a question that's come up year over year, so we always include it in our memos so you can see how

▶ 58:30 that's divided up. Um, there are a handful of items that were not funded in the fiscal 25 budget that we did request, and I just wanted to highlight those. One is the EV charging stations. Oh yeah. Thank you. Um, the ev charging stations have now fallen to DPW. We have them at the police station. We have 'em here at the city hall lot. They're at some of the, um, the commuter rail lots and they're now also at DPW and there's no budget line item to accommodate repairs to those. And now that they're a few years old, we've been having to fix them, um, and having to contract out repairs. So we've just been finding money where we can, um, left over from other items to pay for it to date. So we proposed 15,000 for next year,

▶ 59:12 but that did not make the cut to the budget. Um, we also reduced overtime as directed across the board five by 5%. And, um, we have been requesting an additional custodian and additional labor position in facilities every year for the time that I've worked here. Those have made it to finance, but they haven't made the cut for the final budget that you all see. So I just wanted to highlight that that is a need that we have that's not shown in our budget, but something that we will continue to ask for each year and hopefully someday there will be enough money to fund those. Okay. Lastly, water and sewer rates. So, um, the proposal that you have in the memo from the water and sewer rate committee is a 4% 4.8% increase

▶ 59:57 for the average Melrose household across their water and sewer bill. Um, answering, uh, the public question earlier. So presently our reserve funds are funded at 10% for sewer and 9.6% for water. We haven't had enough free cash in water to get up to that 10% the last couple of years. We still, um, don't have enough to do that. Um, this year we do have, you'll be hearing from us, um, at a later date about we do have revenue shortfalls because it was so wet last summer that we didn't use as much water as a community in this, in fiscal 24. So one of the things that those reserve funds are for is to cover shortfalls. If we don't collect enough money, we still, we always wanna keep the water and sewer enterprise funds completely self-sufficient.

▶ 1:00:47 So we don't wanna have a situation where we're looking to general fund or we're looking elsewhere to, um, to make those funds whole. So that's what the reserves are for, for that, or other emergency situations where we'd have to kick in those reserves. And so we do anticipate that this year we're gonna significantly dip into the reserves to have to fund, to make up for the lack of water use from the wet summer, last summer. Um, but we'll be before you had another meeting to discuss those, um, values, those dollar amounts. But I just wanted to address that because the question was asked. Um, our rates that are proposed at this 4.8% average increase, they meet all revenue obligations with no transfers from retained earnings.

▶ 1:01:30 So we do have the free cash from the certified free cash from last year. Um, and we aren't planning on using any of that to, um, to offset the rate for this year. We've done that a couple years ago, we did that, but, um, we can't do that year over year because that's, it just sets you up for a larger increase down the road. Um, so everything about the water and sewer rates is in the memos that we've submitted. Um, and we can answer any questions on that. I think that's it. Thank you. Okay. Um, so we have number item, uh, number line, uh, 4 0 1 for DPW, admin and engineer. Um, any question on this item? Okay, I'll make a motion to move the bottom line of 4 0 1. We have a motion to move to bottom line, made

▶ 1:02:34 Maya Jamaleddine: by Councilor Gpe. Second. Seconded by Councillor Stewart. On discussion. Seeing none. Clerk Vice Chair Williams. Yes. Councillor Repe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Mki. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councilor Vandiver. Yes. Councillor Romanul? Yes. Councilor DeCaro. Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Jamine? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next we have number item 4 0 2, uh, facilities. Do we have any question? Uh, vice Chair Williams, and then counselor, uh, Hamilton. Thank you. Um, as I was looking through 4 0 2, it includes utility costs for the public buildings. And I'm seeing here, um, almost a universal increase of 20% for electricity on everything. Seeing city hall, electricity, streetlights,

▶ 1:03:37 Ryan Williams: electricity library, electricity, uh, and library. Electricity in particular is budgeted at 23,000, but we spent 75,000 in 2024. And I'm, I go, I wanna go back to that. I, everything here has got 20% and some of these are, are big numbers. The school's electricity goes from 700,000 to 840,000. Right. So it's fair to say that we're experiencing a dramatic, um, upswing in electric rates in this city. Yeah. And that's, I mean, I, any, any member of the public can put this spreadsheet into Excel and do the math. But my guess is that this is on the order of maybe $400,000, $500,000 of, of, um, expenses that we didn't have last year just related to electric rate increases, which we all feel as residents too,

▶ 1:04:25 Ryan Williams: because electric rates have gone up in the Massachusetts, um, for us as well. Um, in particular on the library. I am curious where that extra $50,000 comes from in 20, 24 years spent. Are we paying, is is that related to construction? Correct. Okay. That's, you'll combine both the library and the BB school right now or are lumped in together. So all those construction costs, but Castel is reimbursing us. I see. For those. I see. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah, I mean, it's really something to see it in black and white to see that the costs are going up, um, and in such really large leaps in some years. And you will hear from us at a future meeting on a transfer for fiscal 24 to make that, uh, line whole.

▶ 1:05:14 Yeah. Uh, because we, it's not like the on July 1st, these rates are going up. They've been going up consistently and we've been dealing with it this year, but we're able to take, um, money that we've saved in other areas and, and backfill to meet that shortfall for this year. Mm-Hmm. Um, so the costs aren't going up 20% on, at the beginning of fiscal 25. They already have gone up. So Jim's projections reflect where we expect we'll be. Okay. Okay. Very good. Um, and I don't actually know which budget it's in. Um, I guess the ev trash trucks and highway right? Or Fleets in terms of maintenance? It's Not in 4 0 2 For maintenance For, no, it's not, it's not in 4 0 2 maintenance. It's not in four two. Okay. No,

▶ 1:05:58 Ward Hamilton: I have nothing else. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Next, um, Councillor Hamilton. Thank you, Madam Chair and further chair. Thank you both for being here this evening. Over the last five months, I've been able to get to know both of you and, uh, the operations of DPW intimately. And I think this particular budget with facilities is the one I wanna speak to. And, um, uh, a couple weeks ago I got to sit down with Mr. Troop and, and review the budget, and I was blown away by his command of what's going on. And obviously you and I have had conversations and, um, you get a lot done with what we give you. And I thank you for that. And I hope that at some point, um, we can increase this budget, but with what you're given, you're doing a great job of, uh,

▶ 1:06:49 maintaining our infrastructure and, uh, keeping things going. So thank you. Thank you. Thank You. Thank you. Thank You. Um, councilor gpe. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, uh, both, uh, for being here. School door, um, actual is 19,515 this year. We're going down to 5,000. Is that we also did a free cash order for door security last year. Is that We did. How does that all intertwined? We're actually seeing the tail end of that, of that project, and it's just a matter of that's what we're spending the money on. So we're putting that money in that particular bucket that that project should be going away, and then we'll get back to the budget for Next year. Okay. Um, and where do we stand? We have a lot of facility needs.

▶ 1:07:35 Mark Garipay: I mean, right outside the door here, where do we stand in getting estimates? Um, wait, we heard BB has, has a leak that's been going on for quite some time and there hasn't been an estimate on that. Where, um, where are we getting quick estimates so we can try to figure out what prioritize and fund, right. If we don't know what the funding is. Um, does Mr. McNeil go out and does he do the estimates? Uh, somewhat, but we don't maintain the BB estate. So they, um, they seek our guidance at times, but they, uh, contract with their own, um, contractors for their own repairs. We get involved with larger capital projects when asked, like we did the painting project a number of years ago. I think that was 2017.

▶ 1:08:23 Um, but we are not the folks who they call for an estimate to fix a leak or, um, you know, if they have a plumbing issue, they don't, they don't call in the DPW plumber and such. We are actually working on a memo memorandum of understanding with them right now to possibly change some of that. Um, we are just trying to look for where they could use more help and where we might have the expertise and figure out how best to balance that. Um, but that is presently not our, uh, part of our responsibility. Yeah, okay. I would rec recommend, I know I don't wanna throw more work on you, but it's, uh, I mean, it is a, it is a community building and, um, they are volunteers, so, um, you know, we gotta

▶ 1:09:10 Mark Garipay: worry about their time too and what their expertise is. So anything we can do to, to help that. 'cause the longer we wait, the more damage we're gonna do. Um, and then on free cash orders, since I've been on the board, um, we've had a number of free cash orders that have gone into facilities. Um, like we have the skylights coming in now. Is there any way we can get a list of what we've spent over the last three or four years and where we are with completion? 'cause just, yeah, you know, the generator you mentioned, um, that's, that's finished this year, but I think that was one of the first things we did as, as a council, um, voted on four years, some of us four years ago. So I'd like to just know where we stand on the money

▶ 1:09:53 Kimberly Vandiver: that we're, that we're spending. Sure. We can definitely do that. Um, I think that's all I have for the facilities. Thank you. Thank you. Um, next I have, uh, counselor Vandiver. Thank you. Um, thanks for being here tonight and for the enormous amount of work that goes into this, this presentation and, and the budget behind it. Um, I just, um, wanted to comment and, and, and ask the question about which we discussed in the meeting that we had about, um, within, within your, your budget, um, within each, um, section of the budget, you know, you uh, typically manage the line items within that and, and come out, um, within your budget as a whole, but sometimes certain line items go up and certain line items go down.

▶ 1:10:42 Kimberly Vandiver: Um, and, um, I'd love to see in future budgets if, if we could, um, rather, you know, rather than having a level funded budget across each line item could actually adjust within there to reflect how we're spending. Um, in particular, if we look at, um, the facility maintenance overtime, um, within, um, account 4 0 2, there, there are a few lines in there. And, um, the overtime at Fred Green, um, is budgeted at 8,000, but this year so far has spent over 34,000. So that gets made up by the other overtime facilities, budgets, and it all, you know, it's all in there. Um, so I'm not, I'm not concerned about it, I support it, but I'd love to see that in future budgets reflected with the adjustments up and down within those sub

▶ 1:11:28 Robb Stewart: items. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Any, uh, question? Um, Councillor Stewart? Thank you, Madam Chair and Madam Chair. Uh, I, I know that we're on item number 4 0 2, but you presented everything, so I may have questions that might go off the board here a little bit. Um, but they pertain to public work, so they should be relevant. Um, so you, you, you mentioned, uh, one of the biggest challenges in rising cost is the maintenance of the school's and municipal buildings, which we appreciate. Uh, and you talk about the, uh, the critical building components that are nearing or have exceeded the end of useful life. Um, is there any items in particular that we as a council need to be aware of in the coming year?

▶ 1:12:23 Uh, I think of the Lincoln School and, and the situation with the air conditioning, and that was a fairly significant number. Uh, is there something that is not in the budget that is potentially coming forward to us that we need to be thinking about? That's a great question. Um, I would say, you know, I mentioned the Franklin, the, the larger, larger roof. We're, we're replacing that smaller roof, but we have the larger roof at the Franklin, um, as well as windows that, that are leaking. And, um, a few doors that still need to be replaced over there. Um, we have masonry issues at City Hall that I know are something that's always been a, a high priority. Um, unfortunately we have a long, long wishlist of items that I would refer to

▶ 1:13:15 as a lot of deferred maintenance. Um, with no capital line items, with no recurring capital line items in our budget, we can't plan, you know, some communities might have like two or $3 million that is, that sits in the operating budget, and then you can say, okay, well next year we're gonna do the Franklin roof. And the year after, like the high school bathrooms, we have a project that's near the end of near completion of design and it's a $3 million project. And so we would love to do the bathrooms it's phased over two years, but, you know, the funding source for that hasn't been identified. So it would be ideal if there was, you know, a recurring number that we were aware of where we could say,

▶ 1:13:54 okay, these are the things that might pop up this year and, and we'll plan to spend it on this one that seems like the highest priority. But then when, you know, the middle school gym starts leaking, we can just shift that money and say, okay, I guess that other project's gonna wait another year. And, um, so we have a lot of things that are sort of at risk of failure. I mean, the, the leak right outside this door is a perfect example. It's a leak from, um, uh, from the bathroom upstairs and it's practically inaccessible. We're gonna have to either cut open the floor in the bathroom or cut open the ceiling out here to get to where it is. So, um, you know, there's a lot of things like that, that it would be great if we were upgrading plumbing

▶ 1:14:36 to whole bathrooms like we wanna do with high school. That project will include upgrading all the plumbing. Um, but if something starts leaking in the next six months that, that we haven't accounted for, then that will then be our top priority. And obviously we don't like to live in that sort of reactionary world, but that's, that's what we're faced with with facilities all the time. Great. Thanks. And where does the money come from in, in a situation that you absolutely have to do the work? We come before you and we ask for capital stabilization. Capital Stabilization. Okay. Thank you. Um, can I talk about snow and ice? Um, so we are gonna go in order and so You can Okay, because I can hold off on that if yes,

▶ 1:15:16 Robb Stewart: because I have questions, snow and ice possible. So if you're done with facilities, we can move to the next item. Well, It's kind of hard because you talk about a whole bunch of different things all over the place in the memos that you sent, but then we have to kind of go, uh, item by item here. And I don't want to go through the numbers and say, what do you mean by number four? You know, to me that's not valuable here, but I'm more interested in the strategy that you have given the situation that the community faces, um, with the, the current, uh, revenue situation, which is why, um, you know, I, I'd like to hear about how you're gonna handle, I, I mean you have a, a level fund of budget that's put

▶ 1:15:57 Robb Stewart: put forward, thank you for that. Um, but that tells me that there's a risk and with risk, there's potential cost and, uh, we'd like to, as, uh, a legislative body understand, uh, what those ramifications are as we proceed throughout next fiscal year. So that's really what I'm driving to. And I apologize. Oh, No worries. Yeah, I, I think actually facilities is a great place to talk about that because I think it actually impacts the facilities budget probably more than than any other, and you can jump into if you have other thoughts or disagree. But, um, I think a lot of our services that we conduct every year, it's easy to level fund from one year to the next. Um, let's say our fleet maintenance costs

▶ 1:16:43 or our parks and forestry where we're maintaining fields, we're maintaining pretty much the same locations. So costs might go up some of our contractual labor and, and such might go up a little bit, but it's easy to, you know, cut a little thing here, a little thing there, and still mow all the same grass or, um, but facilities is where I think we really are in a different position because we don't control the energy costs. Um, we have, again, so many unknowns with things that can break at any moment. We're not, we're not as concerned, you know, on the, let's say, well, water and sewer, I feel like we're, we're well funded with backup where if we have, we have the reserve funds, we have retained earnings, we can,

▶ 1:17:32 we can pivot when we need to. But I think facilities is really the spot where we're just up against the wall all the time. And we, we have to, we have a lot of things that we have to do. A lot of these budget line items like municipal building repair and maintenance, and school building repair, maintenance, those are pretty big numbers. But once you get through all of the required annual inspections of elevators and, um, you know, all the different equipment, the gym equipment gets, the bleachers get evaluated every year. All these things that we have to pay to have these inspectors come in and then we have to, we're required to fix whatever they come up with on a list. Once you get through all that stuff, we've eaten

▶ 1:18:09 through half of our repair budget for the year. So, you know, it, that's where we really struggle. And, um, I, I would just say that, you know, in terms of strategy, the scary thing to say is part of our strategy is to rely on hope and luck. So, I mean, we hope things aren't gonna break. We hope we get lucky that things make it through another year. That's just the unfortunate circumstance that some of these critical components are at. And when we're asked to reduce certain line items or we're asked to, uh, show reductions in the, in the overtime stuff, sooner or later you're gonna get to a tipping point that that's gonna affect services. So we're gonna have to look outside of the box so that we can continue to maintain a certain level of services

▶ 1:18:58 for those that have counted on them in the past. And we joke around at the DPW, they come to me for the money and my answer always ends up being, we'll get it done. So we'll use our budget and we'll use the resources available to us. I'm very thankful to this council for always being supportive of us. I'm very thankful for Patrick LaRusso and now for Kerry Golden for always being supportive. I'm thankful for Mayor Broder and now for, uh, mayor Greg for always being supportive because I can say we'll get it done because of the support of that group. So unfortunately that's part of the strategy, but we'll get this done. Alright. On to Facilit. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. So what is the wish of the committee, um, of

▶ 1:19:43 Maya Jamaleddine: on number item 4 0 2? I wish to make a motion to elevate this or no, to move the bottom line. Second. Second. I hope you do. Yeah. We have a motion, uh, to move to bottom line made by Vice Chair Williams, seconded by Councilor Ro on discussion At the same time. It's good. Seeing none. Mr. Clerk, vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councilor Repe? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Reky. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councillor Romanul? Yes. Councillor for Naro? Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Jamal? Yes. Motion passes unanimously Free. Next, um, we have, uh, uh, 4 22 Highway. Any question? Vice Chair Williams. And then, uh, Councillor gpe. Okay. Um, so the highway budget is

▶ 1:20:48 Ryan Williams: where we're holding the traffic, calming, road striping, street signs, all that stuff. Yeah. Okay. Um, Traffic calming, not so much because that's not really part of our operating budget. Yeah, Right. You purchased that stuff with a grant and now you have it. Correct. Um, um, so I wanted to ask how you think the Line Street pilot is going? Whether or not you're planning on adding other pilots or other streets if the budget allows for it. Um, what your experience has been with some of the structures that you've been using for that? Um, yeah, So the Line Street pilot, we've heard very few questions, complaints and such other than from surrounding streets that do feel a little bit like it's pushed some traffic

▶ 1:21:40 onto Summer Street. Um, and so, you know, the question from some of the surrounding streets is, well now what do we do? Do we just put speed humps on every street? Do we just cover the neighborhood in speed humps? And is that, is that practical or is reasonable? Um, so we have, we don't have an answer to that question, but that's one of the comments that we've heard. Um, our plan for the next phase of the rollout is, um, the engineering division and I are planning to, we have the list of requested streets, which is about 20 streets now. Mm-Hmm. And we have the toolkit and we really haven't the, like, it's a pretty fancy web application that's been built for us and we really haven't used it yet to run through

▶ 1:22:26 with all those streets and see which ones come up as the next priority. And so we are thinking of doing sort of a test workshop where me and vni and some of our engineers get together in a room and try to run through it together and see, see how it works, see if we think the sort of truth testing the, the system and seeing if we agree that it's putting the streets that we think are probably the highest priority at, to, at the top of the list. And then from there we will take whatever comes out as the highest and we'll reach out to that neighborhood and, um, conduct a pilot in their neighborhood. I will say, in terms of what we think of the materials, they are quite difficult to install in terms of the number

▶ 1:23:04 of holes you have to drill in the road just to install one speed hump is kind of outrageous. We are concerned about pavement damage. I don't think it was a big concern of ours initially 'cause I don't think we realized the extent of damage that gets done to put down a temporary speed hump. So we are gonna have a policy that we won't put them on roads that are better than a certain condition index. Mm-Hmm. We just can't, we can't have, you know, entry points for water that are gonna cause streets to fall apart more quickly because we've put these in. So, um, Have you talked to other communities that do temporary speed humps about their mitigation strategies for water infiltration? No. Might be an interesting conversation.

▶ 1:23:44 Ryan Williams: Plenty of communities are doing it. I don't know. They've all gotta get rain. Um, and I think on the topic of, um, resident concern and discussions, always helpful to monitor, measure the volumes on a budding streets before, during, and after the pilot so that you can bring truth to those discussions. Um, um, I saw here we have $70,000 for NIP d storm drain maintenance that did not get spent this year. Where are the NIP ds covered Storm drains are these Brooks? So, so Nty refers to our entire, um, so the national pollutant discharge elimination system permit is issued by the EPA and applies to our entire drainage system citywide. Right. So everything, every catch basin is part of our NIP D system.

▶ 1:24:32 And so the, um, the money that has not been spent yet, it has been POD to our consultant Weston Sampson. And they are, unfortunately, this is what happens, but you have a, a bunch of requirements that are required to be done by the end of the fiscal year, and a lot of times other things take priority and then the month of June is spent doing all those things because the report is due in September showing what you've done up through June 30th. Yeah. So that money, we, we have, um, a consultant under contract and they have a long list. Hmm. So we have a nip these storm drain line and we have a storm drain line, but they do the same thing. So We have three different storm drain lines. We have MS four, right.

▶ 1:25:17 Nip d drain and work store and public work strain maintenance, public works, drain maintenance is operational. That's like we have catch basins that are falling in and we rebuild the, the blocks. Um, that's really what that is for the, the distinction between the nip D'S drain and the MS four. Originally, I think it was more that one was meant to be the regulatory hiring, the consultant doing the reporting, all that. And the other was meant to be the more on the ground, um, you know, stormwater projects. But we just, each year, whatever we were required to do in that year, it's a 10 year permit and it has different requirements each year. And so we're just spending that money to do what we need

▶ 1:25:58 Ryan Williams: to do to keep up with the permit. Okay. That's cool. Thank you for enter entertaining. My question I asked because since I talked to Vanni about drainage issues last year with what we have going on at the Hoover School neighborhood, um, I've just been trying to keep a better mindset about where our drainage budgets are and what they do so that I can be more informed. So thank you. Okay. Councilor gpe. Thank you. Uh, mad president. Um, no, I'm sorry, Madam Chair. Sorry. Uh, gotta forgot what I was gonna say there. Um, quick question. I know what you're cutting the budget, but if, um, I'm not cutting level funding the budget, but if with the crosswalks, with the flashing crosswalk lights, is that, um,

▶ 1:26:46 Mark Garipay: under traffic signal or are those coming through free cash? Those have all been funded through free cash or other grants. Okay. And, um, I had another question, but I forgot, but I would be remiss if I should have said this first when I spoke, but I appreciate both of you making yourself available for to the council to, it's very helpful for us to, to be prior and, and get some of these questions out of the way. So I appreciate that. I should have said that originally, but I have another question, Mike. Thank you. Um, councilor Van Devin. Um, thank you. Um, is this an appropriate place to ask about Chapter 90? And could you, if so, could you say a few words about how Chapter 90 funding plays into the work that you do?

▶ 1:27:32 Sure. So chapter 90, we get approximately 530,000 a year. That's based on our length of public roads, um, that's entirely used for our capital projects. So you don't see any line items really in the operating budget that relate to the more capital work that we do, like sidewalk repairs, that's repairs, that's not, you know, when we pave the street and we do a whole section of sidewalk that tends to be chapter 90, we combine that with the road bond money that we request on average every three years, um, to arrive at a little over a million dollars a year that we spend on our paving program. Um, and we always publish the, uh, calendar for the year in the spring so that everyone can see what streets we're paving on any given year.

▶ 1:28:19 Great. Thank you. Any other question? Councillor Gpe for the second? Uh, just, just, and this is, if this isn't in the right budget, well, I'll talk about it later. The increase in the electric charging infrastructure, would that fall under We, so we didn't, it's you won't see it anywhere, but we had put it in under Fleet. That's where we requested it. Under fleet, under automotive. I'll talk about it then, then. Okay, thanks. I'll make a motion to move the bottom, uh, bottom line. Second. Second. We have motion, uh, made by Councillor Oppe to move to bottom line, um, and seconded by Councillor Stewart On discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Repe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes.

▶ 1:29:14 Councillor Brosky. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Na Carro? Yes. President Melli? Yes. And Chair Jamal? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next is, uh, number 4 23. Snow. Any question on this item? Councillor Stewart? Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, the question that I had was, uh, you, you talked about the, the average for the last five years. What was the average for the last two years? Last two? Yeah, I mean, did, did we supersede what we, uh, allocated for? Or did? We were, Last year we had a minimal, a minimal deficit. So you, let's call it about seven twenty five. And then this year, this year was a little bit less than the 7 25.

▶ 1:30:09 Thus over the last two years, you've actually seen a, a reduction in the five year average. Last two years have been tremendously mild. We did spend money on a lot, I think, I think the number off the top of my head was 19 events through whether it was plowing or sanding, uh, after a refreeze or something like that. And this year was significantly less than that. But, um, I'm, I would venture to say that it was about 800,000 or so last year. I could look it up to be exact. And then this year, uh, you see the bottom line, um, significant surplus. Great. So that gives us an opportunity to leverage that free cash for something else. You, you're actually gonna see that when we come forth with the, with the transfer.

▶ 1:30:55 Devin Romanul: Good. To cover The electrical costs. Good. Little, little positive news here. Right. Alright. Thank you Madam Chair. Councilor Romanul, do You happen to know of any other communities that do some level of consumption smoothing with regard to snow removal? So if you have a budget that's like, say triple, you know what you're expecting. So if you have a couple down years and then an up years, there are other communities that do that to sort of mitigate that risk of like, whatever we had. Was it 2015 when we got like Yeah. 20 years? Yeah. The simplest way to answer that is snow and ice is, is, has, has entirely different rules in terms of, in terms of funding. The city's allowed to finance any deficit over three,

▶ 1:31:34 the three following years. So, um, it really never, it never really makes sense to decrease the snow and ice budget because, I mean, this year if we decreased it, we would've ended up in a deficit. We would've had to cover that deficit. But you're always gonna look at that five year average and any chance that there's an opportunity to close that gap between your spend and what your budget is, there would be your opportunity. But, uh, uh, for the city of Melrose, they have planned in, in my time here, they have planned very well for snow and ice deficit and have not financed accordingly. We haven't had a 2015, but they've always had a plan in place that the, uh, deficit was covered. Great. Thank you.

▶ 1:32:18 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. Any other question? Okay. What is the will of the committee Make a motion to move the bottom line? Do we have a motion to move to bottom line? Uh, made by Councilor Finn Harris, seconded by councilor by Vice Chair Williams, no, m excuse me. Order by, uh, councilor Romanul By councilor uh, Romano. Uh, on discussion. Seeing none. Clerk Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Repe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Brosky. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councillor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Nicaro? Yes. President Ly? Yes. And Chair All? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next we have sanitation number 4 33. Okay. No question. What is the role of the committee?

▶ 1:33:20 The, the ev trash truck is out. Is it out making rounds? No. Okay. I maybe missed before I said that. The, um, we are getting a wrap put on it. Oh, I see. Okay. And we were told that it won't adhere to the sides of the truck as well, if it's been scratched by branches. Got it. Okay. So the truck is not being used until we have a chance to get the wrap on it and then it will be used. So Is it the truck that was at DPW Day? Yeah. That's cool. I saw it there. It was nice. I love how small format it is, honestly. Yeah, it works great for Mel Road Space. It's gonna be nice and quiet and small and yeah. Yeah. Perfect for Melrose Streets. That's it for me. Thank you very much. Councilor Ro I just want, um, to clarify if anybody else

▶ 1:33:58 that's looking at this budget thesis is negative 86 because the money was moved into the Enterprise fund, Correct? Yeah. The, the remaining money here are the programs that relate to solid waste and recycling, but do not relate to the curbside program. So I think I've probably had this conversation with some of you but not others. Um, the, the enterprise budget that's been set up now is covered by the, um, the trash fee, which we're saying will be $432. We have, we say that with confidence now. That's the number, um, per year, per dwelling unit. And, um, the recycling revolving fund is being absorbed into the enterprise fund. So that includes the items for which we get paid, like metal goods, pickups, we get paid

▶ 1:34:49 and then we have to pay to dispose of the items. So, um, metal goods might not be the best example. Computer electronics are a good example where we have to take money in and then we, then we have to give somebody money to get rid of it. Um, everything else are things that are available to the whole community. The curbside program is not available to our, um, our business property owners and our, uh, property owners of more than six units. And so they all still pay taxes, but they don't pay the trash fee because they're not trash fee customers. So we try to separate out. What's still in here is things like our, our hazardous waste collection days, our special collection days operations at the yard

▶ 1:35:31 Mark Garipay: for yard waste, drop off for recycling, drop off Saturdays at the yard where we pay overtime, um, pick up of municipal barrels all around the city, pick up of school dumpsters. These are all the things that are not covered by that trash fee. And so they're still in our operating budget. Thank you. Um, councilor get paid for the first time and then the, uh, vice chair William, for the second time, just Just a quick question. We voted a, um, last, last week or in the last few weeks, to, um, eliminate the recycling revolving account, roughly 103,000. Does that go back to the general fund? And then do we, do we does that in order to come down to put it into Enterprise Fund? Is that how? So, starting in fiscal 25, it'll all just run

▶ 1:36:19 Ryan Williams: through the Enterprise Fund, but in terms of what happens with the existing funds that are in the present account, I assume that has to pay for our, those work taken in for collections. That has to pay for what those collections were for. You know, if we paid to get rid of electronics, the money I would assume would come back into the operating fund. But I'm not certain, uh, I'm not sure if you've heard anything definitive now. Alright. Thank you. Okay. Vice Chair, William. I just wanted to say that Medford is doing a free organics service. That's it. I'm not suggesting it's the right time for Melrose, but it caught my eye and I know we've all talked about it. So, um, there's an example to look to free.

▶ 1:37:03 Maya Jamaleddine: It's free. It is actually free. Free, free, free. That's what it says. Okay. It says on the website free. It's, um, contracted with a group called, I don't know, you can look it up. Garbage to Garden. And I'll make a motion to, uh, move the bottom line. Second. Second. We have a motion to move to bottom line made by Vice Chair Williams. Seconded by Counselor Vandiver. On discussion. Team. None. Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Gpe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Brisky. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro. Yes. President Elli. Yes. Chair Jamine? Yes. A motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Number 4 75. Uh, parks and Forestry.

▶ 1:37:57 Maya Jamaleddine: Questions from my colleagues? Seeing none. Motion to move the bottom line. We have a motion to move to bottom line made by a councilor Repe. Second, uh, second by Councilor Van Devin On discussion? None Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Gpe? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Mki. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councillor Romanul? Yes. Councillor naca. Yes. President mcgi? Yes. Chair Aldine? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Awesome. We're moving smoothly. And next is 4 85. Automotive. Any question, counselor Gepe? Yes. Um, most of my questions were answered in our, in our meeting, but you brought up, um, the city electric vehicle charging infrastructure that, um,

▶ 1:38:58 all the repairs now were, are fallen into your budget, which was unexpected when we started that program. Were those, did we purchase those or were those grants that They tended to be grants and they tended to be purchased through the sustainability manager's office, um, with grants that she was obtaining. And was there warranties on 'em at all? Uh, Yeah, there was. And um, we did some frontline maintenance, uh, just onsite resets, things like that, working with them. But now that they're coming out of warranty, those costs are on us. So are our our technicians or are they equipped, do we have to send them to training? Is there additional training that we're not gonna see that could be also incurred in here that you have

▶ 1:39:45 to absorb in your budget? That's Where most of the diagnostics are done remotely with somebody on site being talked through how to do a quick troubleshoot. Mm-Hmm. Uh, and once that has failed or if that has failed, uh, that company will send out a technician. There's a cost, and then any replacement costs or repairs that cost is passed on to us. I don't know if you know, how many do we have in the city right now that we, that we're gonna be year, are we gonna be responsible for overseeing? I think we have 10 plus the pole mounted, which is probably another 10. So I would say about 20. And so the, the pole mounted ones, those, let's say 10, the ones at the commuter rail stations and the ones at City Hall are all public facing.

▶ 1:40:33 Mark Garipay: So they get a lot of use. Mm-Hmm. Um, so, you know, they do need to be repaired from time to time. So the, the money that is, is brought in for the charging. Where does that, where does that go? That go, that gets reported to the general fund. To the general fund. So in essence, you should be getting that back for, for maintenance. Now that we know that, that the cost, yeah. I think we conservatively proposed a number that it would take for us to maintain those for the next year. What, now what happens if one of them is, I don't know what the life is. I'm, you're educating me right now, uh, on this, what's the life on one of those charging stations? I mean, if, if one is can't be repaired and we have to go out and purchase it,

▶ 1:41:14 what's the cost of that? And it's, is it safe to say based on a level funded budget that we're not gonna be able to replace it unless it's a grant? Right. I would assume. Right. Yeah. So through various grants and, uh, incentive programs through, whether it's National Grid or or somebody else, you're looking at anywhere between 70 $512,000 for a charging station. Uh, just some, some components that we replaced this year we're about $4,000 to get one back up and running. So it's, it's a costly, it's a costly, uh, venture for us to maintain. And how quickly to replace one of those through National Grid, do they move pretty quick if we have to? Could it be a year or so before we put pull one back up on the Yeah,

▶ 1:41:59 I'm just, the lead times have really fluctuated. Yeah. In terms of the charging stations, what you are getting pole mounted, are you getting wall, there's all different kinds. Lead times have really fluctuated, but they're in a position now that they've been able to turn them over fairly quickly. There was a period when it was very difficult To train and, and those grant programs are still going on. They seem to always Yeah, I I've seen them ongoing for the last several years. Yeah. Especially for the public facing charging stations. Those grants are easier to come by than for just for our fleet. Yeah. I'm just curious if they, they, they, they break and we can't, we can't come up with the money.

▶ 1:42:31 And then we're, you know, if we have an inconvenience to residents too, 'cause we can't replace it, so. Okay. Thank you. Um, next Councilor Stewart. Thank you Madam Chair. I can't, I can't find where, where do you, where where's the budget line item for the electrical charge? For all the electric vehicles? So the charge itself will be part of our electric bill. There's a meter at City Hall or wherever. So if they're, uh, publicly owned, they'll be in our, they'll be in our utilities budget Facilities. Okay. Yeah. In facilities. In facilities. Okay. I didn't, I didn't see that. And So that would be basically that's the, the electric bill for the city yard? Yeah. So for our chargers as an example, some

▶ 1:43:21 of those pole mounted ones that you see, they'll be in our, uh, streetlight, uh, that those costs will sit in our streetlight budget. Uh, the charging station now that's at DPW will be in the, uh, DPW city yard facility budget. So we'll spread it pretty much wherever it logically fits, we'll add those meters to the accounts that pay for those, those bills. Okay. Overall, do you have a sense and projection of what that's gonna look like over the next couple of years? It's hard to say because it's, it's, uh, it's based on usage. So as usage ramps up, obviously our costs are gonna go up, but we're also gonna get offset by, you know, revenues that are collected from, from that type of usage. But yeah. Um, when I, when I, in a, in a previous position,

▶ 1:44:06 Robb Stewart: uh, in the parking garage, the costs were fairly negligible in the overall budget. Mm-Hmm. So, um, you know, the decision to charge in those locations was covered by the cost of parking. Okay. Second question I have is, um, you mentioned in some of the anticipated changes you talk about, um, considering a lease program. Can you, can you speak to that? Uh, because, um, I've always wondered why we capitalize everything and, you know, why can't we look at potentially some advantageous, uh, operational costs that then defer some of the, the long-term maintenance and end of life and all the things that we tend to get into that seem to like, oh my gosh, now we have to buy another a hundred thousand vehicle.

▶ 1:44:52 Right. So, um, can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So we had, um, started, uh, started discussions with Enterprise for their municipal division who does, uh, they do leases for I think Dedham and Cambridge and some other clients in this area, d pws. Um, and they do leases up to like a one ton dump truck size. Um, you pay extra for the body and for some, some of the ancillary things that you need. But they provide the vehicles and what they do is they swap them out every, they try to replace them on more of like a five to seven year cycle. So before they've reached the end of their useful life, when they still have value and then they put that money back into the lease and they found that that's actually a, a sustainable model.

▶ 1:45:39 Um, their cost to us to replace about 20 vehicles, we could replace about 20 vehicles in year one and it would be roughly just for a round number, I'd say $200,000 a year. Um, and then you continue to pay that, you know, for the foreseeable future of 200,000 every year. Um, it's an interesting program. I think it's the numbers probably, it's probably a break even over the long term or they, you know, they wouldn't be doing this if they were losing money as compared to purchasing the vehicles outright. Um, it does keep your fleet a little newer than what we have typically done here, which is drive things until they no longer drive. Um, so I, I think it's a very interesting concept. I think the finance folks here prefer bonding.

▶ 1:46:33 So, um, you know, we we're advocating strongly for a reco, a recurring funding source for fleet so that we can have an, an annual program rather than one-off requests. That's what we'd like to see. If that comes in the form of a bond that recurs every year, you know, that's like earmarked for that in the, in the bond model or if it's through the lease arrangement. That's either one of those is fine with us. We would like to see us move toward a recurring funding source. And that's where we started the lease discussion was 'cause we thought that might be a way to move in that direction without having as much upfront capital. Um, but you know, we, we respect the advice of our finance folks if they prefer a different arrangement.

▶ 1:47:15 Robb Stewart: But it's something we're, we're open to it. It's good to hear what, what is compelling about that alternative is the predictability of the, the cost long term. Not short term, but long term. And yeah, if you can structure that through a bond program, great. But I haven't seen it to date and I don't see that happening anytime soon just given the state of, uh, our vehicles and the, the need that I, 'cause quite honestly, we get put into a bit of a, a situation where we can't say no, right. Buy us the vehicle or we don't have the vehicle and, and what, you know, how can we come up with that? But I would encourage the, the administration as well as to work with the DPW to understand the, the, a little bit beyond just pure financial analysis,

▶ 1:48:12 Robb Stewart: uh, and understand what the long-term benefits of a leasing program can do. Uh, if it's working for Cambridge, if it's working for Dedham, I think that's potentially we can make it work for, uh, Melrose as well. Um, so the last question that I had, uh, was, um, it kind of related is one of the goals that you had for 2025 is, uh, fleet improvements, uh, on the aging infrastructure. Um, what, what needs, what are the immediate needs that you're looking towards this year, this fiscal year that are or are not in this budget? So any of our fleet capital needs are not in this budget. I understand that. Right. Um, The biggest needs right now, we have a handful of our one ton dump trucks that are really at the end of their useful life.

▶ 1:49:02 We have a couple at the cemetery in particular that are, are ready to be replaced. Um, we have, uh, a couple vehicles that even if we did a lease, these wouldn't qualify for the lease. The, the large dump trucks that we have, the CDL, um, I think they're class eight, probably they're class seven or eight vehicles. Um, they are on the more expensive end and they require replacement. Our, our operations folks have talked about that. Maybe we could replace them with something a little bit smaller. We use them mainly in the winter and because of their size, they're not really practical for, um, for use at other times of the year, other than sometimes on a water main job or something if we, if we do a small job ourselves.

▶ 1:49:47 Robb Stewart: Um, so there was a strategy recommended that we maybe downsize those a little bit and replace it with something that gives us more flexibility that we can use throughout the year. Um, so those, those are probably our biggest needs. Um, but we, we had no trouble and enterprise had no trouble identifying 20 vehicles that are beyond their useful life that they said they would replace in year one if we did move toward the lease arrangement. So we have, we have a long list of vehicles that could use replacement. Right. And when I look at the line items of parts and repairs, so if you, you know, if you don't go and buy a new truck, but you just try to repair what you have, uh, you typically, I would dip into something along one

▶ 1:50:30 Ryan Williams: of those operating costs. Uh, and I guess the strategy would be hope again, that new transmission doesn't blow and all that. We're Also very fortunate with our, our fleet staff right now, we have very capable individuals who can fix a lot of things in house. So we're, um, we definitely take advantage of that with not having to pay as much to send things out. Alright. Can we charge 'em to other towns, make some money? That's my idea. Alright. Thank you manager. Thank you. Do we have any uh, vice Chair Williams? I just want to know, um, what's behind the very precipitous drop in gas and oil costs? We've budgeted $140,000. Um, 2023. We spent 108. 2024, we spent 67,000 gas prices haven't gone down. So what's going on there?

▶ 1:51:21 So the last couple years has been a little bit of a shift in philosophy and where the gas and oil is charged and it's shifted more towards the snow and ice. Okay. Uh, because that's pretty much predominantly what we're using our vehicles for, is for the treatment of snow and ice. So, uh, those numbers really haven't caught up to each other yet. And that probably speaks more to Council Vander's point about moving the, the money from one line item to another. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Any other question? Seeing none, Mr. What is the will of the committee Motion to move the bottom line? Second. We have a motion to move to bottom line made by Councilor Van Devin. Seconded by Vice Chair Williams. On discussion.

▶ 1:52:07 Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Gpe? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councilor Bki. Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Council for Nicaro? Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Jamal? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next we have, uh, number 4 91. Um, is cemetery. Any question? Councilor Gareg. This is My favorite budget. Every year My expected, Uh, I have no questions. I motion To move the bottom line. Second, Second, second. Second. We have a motion, uh, to move to bottom line made by Councilor Guera. Seconded by Councilor Ro. On discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Kirk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councilor Gpe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes.

▶ 1:53:11 Maya Jamaleddine: Councilor Abramsky. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councillor Friend Cal? Yes. President Mei? Yes. And Chair Jamal? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Right. Next we have Ordinance 2024 dash two, recycling and Waste Management Republic account number 2 6 57. Any question? What is the will of the committee? Madam Chair, I motion to move item number 26 57 to the bottom line. Second, uh, Point of order. It's a motion to approve. Approve. Then I, a motion to approve. Item number 27 6 57. Item chair. We have a motion, uh, to approve, made by Councillor Stewart. Seconded by Councillor Van Devin. On discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes.

▶ 1:54:23 Robb Stewart: Councillor Gepe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Bruski. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councillor Romanul? Yes. Councillor Finocchiaro. Yes. President GL Yes. And Chair Jamine? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. Uh, next we have appropriation 2024 dash 26 Water Enterprise number 61 0 0. What is the will of the committee? Actually, Councillor Stewart. Sorry, Madam Chair. I actually had a couple of questions about this. I wanted to talk about the senior and low income water and sewer discount program. Okay. Um, so the, the, the discount thresholds have moved significantly, which I think is great. Um, but when I do the math and it says that you have to have, uh, consumption not to exceed 62 50 Yes.

▶ 1:55:29 Cubic feet. And then the average quarterly bill uses 1900 cubit feet. Right. And so, yes, I do the math. That's 7,600. And so the average supersedes, um, what you're saying that you have to not exceed. Could you talk a little bit about that? Sure. Yeah. So the, it's, it's just kind of a nuance where the average, if you consider our big users, like the hospital, let's say if you take a straight average, you're gonna end up with a number that's much higher because of those outliers that are skewing the average. So the median is more where you want to be looking. And let me just pull up the, um, the document that, Uh, A water and Erbil moisture put together. Um, Just take me a second. She shows, uh, that more than 50%, I think it's 55%

▶ 1:56:31 of our accounts citywide fall underneath that 62 50 threshold. So the 62 50 is actually set as its mass dps, um, what's considered essential water use. And, um, so that's what we've established. The discount program is made to be for essential water use. It's not made to be for lawn watering and other, what we consider non-essential uses. We don't really have an appetite to provide a 20% discount to folks to water their lawns. So the, um, the um, 62 50 threshold is set both to be, to try to capture the essential water use and also, um, to be below that median level, um, of our usage. So of the people who are getting the senior water discount right now, um, most of them are actually below 4,200.

▶ 1:57:32 Okay. Zoom in my eyes, aren't good enough to see the exact numbers. Okay. And then you had a statement in here that confused me. 'cause uh, it says there are presently no households that qualify for the low income water and sewer discount. Yes. So that's, so the thresholds that we're proposing to move are not for the senior citizen discount there for the, um, specifically the low income. So Nons senior, so we do have senior households who would qualify for the low income discount if they weren't seniors, but they're already seniors, so they're in the program already. Okay. So then we have these, um, we have this other threshold set which was exceedingly low, that was supposed to be a just income based discount.

▶ 1:58:15 And so we're proposing to move that up to the equivalent of the, um, the trash fee, uh, a hundred percent discount income levels just for consistency. And so that there'll be somebody who actually qualifies for them. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Okay. Thank, thank you MRAM chair. Thank You. Any other counselor? Vander? Um, can you speak to any plans in the coming year to look further at those Levels? Sure. Absolutely. Um, so we actually have our, our, uh, water and sewer rate committee chair. Ken Trusdale is here. Um, he's gonna probably come up here when we talk about rates. But, um, and Councilor Hamilton and I are all on the water and sewer rate advisory committee. And we have, we have unanimously recommended

▶ 1:59:00 that we look more closely at those thresholds and that we make some recommendations, um, for the next rate setting cycle, which we usually start setting the rates around January. So between now and January, we're hoping to have that analysis complete. We do have one member, a resident member who did an extensive amount of research and has concluded that every town does it differently within the MWRA system. Um, but our goal is to move to thresholds where we don't have to reevaluate those every year. Um, where we can set them to some metric that's set for the region or for the state or whatever it is, some metric that we can use that moves with the economy that we can just stay current with it.

▶ 1:59:43 Okay. Thank you. You're Welcome. Thank you. Um, any other question? Okay. What is the will of the committee? I'm trying to make a motion to approve. Um, we have a motion, uh, made by councilor uh Stewart. Second to approve. Seconded by Councilor Romanul. Uh, on discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Turk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Gpe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Besky. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Romanul. Yes. Councillor Finocchiaro. Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Jamal Dean? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Great. Um, next we have, uh, appropriation 2024 dash 27, uh, sewer Enterprise number 6,000. Councilor Stewart. Mad chair. I'll make a motion to recommend.

▶ 2:00:58 Maya Jamaleddine: Yeah. Second, we have a motion to recommend made by Councillor Stewart, seconded by Councillor Carpe. On discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Gpe. Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor b Mki? Yes. Councillor Hamilton. Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councillor Romanul. Yes. Councillor Finocchiaro. Yes. President Elli. Yes. In chair Jamal? Yes. Motion passes you, Ms. Unanimously. Awesome. Next, uh, is appropriation 2024 dash 28. Uh, salt Waste Enterprise. Uh, number 6,300. What is the will of the committee? Madam Chair? I'll make a motion to approve. We have a motion to recommend made by Councillor Stewart. Seconded. Second by Councillor Repe. On discussion.

▶ 2:01:54 Maya Jamaleddine: Seeing done. Mr. Clerk Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Gepe? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Reky. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councillor Romanul? Yes. Councillor naca? Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Jamal Dean? Yes. Motion passes the unanimously. Great. Thank you. Uh, we have next appropriation 2024 dash 32. Uh, requesting an appropriation from free cash in the amount of $80,000 to public works. Uh, accounts number 4 22 as set forth rain. Um, and for the Laurel Burnett FEMA project City Match. Do you want a little background On Yes, please. What that Is. Okay. Um, so this is, uh, goes along with the grant request that is next on the agenda. The grant is for $251,685

▶ 2:02:53 and the city's match component is $80,000. Um, this project is a planning, permitting design and land acquisition project. So this doesn't, this money doesn't actually build the, the ultimate project that we're trying to build. But, um, you might be familiar with, there are some properties in the lots behind Laurel Street and Burnett that are privately owned. They're wet, they're not buildable lots. They're undevelopable. And it's an area where we have chronic flooding issues and we'd like to use that property as part of a storm water solution where we can, um, put some natural features. There is a, there's a brook that flows through there. Um, that used to be one of the many rivers flowing

▶ 2:03:38 through Mel Melrose that have been, um, have changed course or been put underground. And so we want to restore that to floodplain area as it should be. We, we have very little area in the city that is real floodplain, where when it rains too much, there's a place for the water to go. Um, so that's the intent of this project. But in order to do that, that it tends to be fairly complex in terms of design and permitting, because there's a lot of hoops to jump through with, um, state and federal permitting to, um, sort of reinstate wetlands in areas that are already within Wetlands Protection Act jurisdiction. Um, so that is the goal of this project. We would acquire the property at very low cost.

▶ 2:04:19 I wanna say the whole property acquisition was under 25,000. Um, and then we would design and permit the whole project, and then we would seek grant funding for the implementation. We think it's also a very advantageous project to get grant funding for the, for the construction, because it would be like a, a nature-based stormwater solution, which the grant programs love Councillor Romanul. Um, no, thanks so much for this. Um, super interesting. I wanted to get a sense if you think there are other sites in the city that, for this, uh, for which this could potentially be a model, um, or is this unique in that Regard? Um, you know, interestingly, we were just working on with the consultant on the Lebanon

▶ 2:05:01 and Sylvan drainage issue. We're getting an earmark from the federal government for a million dollars toward that project. Um, and we're using our prior free cash right now to, to try to move forward with a little bit of the preliminary design and modeling. And the big issue with that project is similarly, we need places to store the water in that sort of flash flooding period. And so for that one, there are no good parcels in that area. So we're looking at underground, can we put something, I don't know, under parking lots, under roads, under who knows? Um, ball fields, whatever we can find in the area to put storage under it. So, um, this is sort of a rare opportunity to have an actual site where you can have open water,

▶ 2:05:45 which is the best solution because then you actually have, you know, habitat and other environmental benefits of an open water Course. Excellent. Thank you. Any other, uh, consortium? Uh, vice Chair Williams. Thank you. Um, is there any consideration to public access to the site? So the, um, there is one site in the front that is still privately owned and we'd be seeking an easement over that, that land. Um, so it would be, it would be tricky to have public access. Um, I think I'm remembering that correctly, that the, the site at the front would still be private property, so we would have easement access to get to the back to be able to do what we need to do to create the wetland areas and everything.

▶ 2:06:42 But in terms of, um, public access, there's our existing parcel that's on the corner. Mm-Hmm. I think of Burnett. I can't Remember what it's Burnett and Burnett. Okay. That parcel. We could have some, we have talked about having some sort of public ed, you know, maybe you have a little path through there where people can walk and see some displays of like, this is what a, you know, uh, floodplain should look like, what the habitat should look like, that sort of thing. So we, that was actually part of our grant application, was to do some public education, but it can only be on that one property. Am I misremembering this or was this not a location where there was a lot for sale? I think I'm misremembering.

▶ 2:07:24 This is somewhere else inward six closer to Mount Hood. We have talked before about acquiring this property probably a year and a half ago. Um, and then we applied for another grant that we didn't get. And so that's why that didn't go anywhere. So that might be what you're thinking of. Okay. Alright. This is a great project. It, it sounds great. Thank you very much. Great. Any other question? Okay. Councillor Stewart. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, I think this is a great opportunity, so thank you for bringing this forward and, and finding the grant money. Uh, I'll make a motion to recommend to the full council. Second, we have a motion to recommend, uh, made by Councillor Stewart, seconded by Councillor Romanul.

▶ 2:08:09 Maya Jamaleddine: On discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councilor Repe? Yes. Councilor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Reky. Yes. Councilor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councillor for naca? Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair All? Yes. Motion process unanimously. Okay. Next, we have grants, um, grants 2024 dash 16, and I think I, we've heard, uh, both of you speaking on, uh, this requesting acceptance of a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency building reil, uh, infrastructure and communities to fund the city of Merose, Burnett, and Laurel Streets, uh, stormwater Management Project in the amount of $251,685. Any question? What is the will of the committee?

▶ 2:09:16 Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to recommend to the full council. Second, We have a motion made by Councillor Stewart to, uh, recommend, uh, seconded by Councillor Van Devin On discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Gpe? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Brosky. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver? Yes. Councilor Romanul? Yes. Councillor for naca? Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Aldine? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Um, we have orders 2024 dash 36 proposed FY 25 water rates. So the water and sewer rates are, are all shown in the memo that we provided. Um, and as we said in the presentation, uh, the recommended for the average Melrose Household,

▶ 2:10:30 Ryan Williams: the recommended rate change would result in a 4.8%, um, increase to the average bill. We're happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Do we have any question from my colleagues? Cons? Um, vice Chair Williams. So I'm actually gonna, um, ask a question that came up, um, between a discussion between Councillor Gepe and myself, um, which was, uh, do we feel that if the override doesn't pass, that there will be enough money available for this budget with these rates to cover its costs? So the good news with the enterprise funds is that they are completely, as I mentioned earlier, completely self-sustaining. So they're outside of the general fund. They're not impacted by the override. Um, and the rates that we've recommended, we,

▶ 2:11:20 as you can see from the memo, um, or actually an earlier memo that we had also distributed to the council. The on the sewer side, we're being a little less conservative because we're hoping that people will use a little more water at least this year than they did this coming year than they did last year. Um, but we have a little flexibility, we have a little more retained earnings on the sewer side, so we feel comfortable with that. Um, otherwise the rate change would've been over 6% and we thought, or 5.9% I think, and we wanted to keep it a little bit lower. So we're being very conservative on the water side, assuming that we're gonna have the same usage as fiscal 24. Um, and yeah. Okay. Thank you Counselor Gpe,

▶ 2:12:07 Just to clarify, the existing enterprise fund will cover, should cover any potential shortfall. You won't have to come for free cash to the city. I think that Was correct. They, they could come from water and sewer free cash, but that's free cash generated within those funds. Thank you. Okay. Any other question? What is the will of the committee, Madam Chel, or Motion to Recommend to full counsel? Order 2024 dash 36. Second, We have a motion to recommend, um, order number 2024 dash 36, made by Counselor Stewart, seconded by Counselor Gpe. On discussion. Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councillor Gpe? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Bruski. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes.

▶ 2:13:03 Maya Jamaleddine: Councilor Romanul? Yes. Council Naro? Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Jamine? Yes. Uh, motion passes unanimously. Perfect. Thanks. Uh, order 2024 dash 35 Post, uh, F1 Ffy 25 Sewer rates. I heard you speaking on this item. Um, any question from my colleagues? Councilor Gpe. And It's the same with the sore rates as we want. Thank you. I'll make a motion to, um, recommend. Second. Second. We have a motion to recommend made by Councilor Repe, seconded by Councilor Ro On discussion. Seeing none. Mr. Clerk, Vice Chair Williams? Yes. Councilor Repe? Yes. Councillor Stewart? Yes. Councillor Bruski. Yes. Councillor Hamilton? Yes. Councillor Vandiver. Yes. Councilor Al? Yes. Councillor naca? Yes. President Elli? Yes. And Chair Aldine?

▶ 2:14:05 Maya Jamaleddine: Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Great. Thank you for being with us tonight. We appreciate all your patience and work. Thank you. Um, next we are done actually, uh, and, um, To Hold, I'll make a motion to hold, uh, excuse me. Order 2024 dash Nope. Mm-Hmm. I'm looking at the wrong. 2024 dash 25, 24. 25. 2024 dash 25 dash 25. Second We have, um, so in order to continue hearing from departments over the next month, um, um, uh, counselor Gar, uh, made a motion to hold appropriation 2024 dash 25 in committee, seconded by Councillor Stewart. Um, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That motion carries Madam Chair, I'll make a motion to adjourn. We may, I'll make a motion to Hold ordinance Supreme Court. What

▶ 2:15:22 Maya Jamaleddine: Is it? I Don't have it against 24 dash two Or 2024 dash two dash two in committee. Second, We have a motion made by Councilor Gfe, uh, to hold ordinance 2024 dash two in committee, uh, reauthorization of the city of Merose revolving fund table for fiscal 2025. And seconded by counselor, uh, Stewart. Um, on discussion, seeing none. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. This ordinance is held in committee. Um, next is, do we have a motion to adjourn? Madam Chair? I'll make a motion to adjourn. We have a motion to adjourn made by Councilor Stewart, seconded by Councilor Romanul on discussion. Seeing none. All in favor? Aye. Chuck.

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