City Council — 2025-05-05
Attendance
Cal Finocchiaro ; Mark Garipay ; Ward Hamilton ; Maya Jamaleddine ; Manjula Karamcheti ; Leila Migliorelli ; John Obremski ; Devin Romanul ; Robb Stewart ; Kimberly Vandiver ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE CITY COUNCIL BULLETIN● MAY 5, 2025 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City HallJoint Meeting with the School Committee 7:16 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Cal Finocchiaro Ward 6 Present Mark Garipay Ward 4 Present Ward Hamilton At-Large Present Maya Jamaleddine At-Large Late 7:18 PM Manjula Karamcheti Ward 1 Present John Obremski Ward 2 Absent Devin Romanul Ward 7 Present Robb Stewart Ward 3 Present Kimberly Vandiver Ward 5 Present Ryan Williams At-Large Present Leila Migliorelli At-Large Present City Council Cal Finnochiaro Mark Garipay Ward Hamilton Maya Jamaleddine Manjula Karamcheti John Obremski Robb Stewart Kimberly Vandiver Ryan Williams Leila Migliorelli, President School Committee Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Chair Dorie Withey, Vice Chair Jen Grigoraitis, Mayor Seamus Kelley Matt Hartman Jen McAndrew City of Melrose Page 1 6/25/2025 10:30 AM Minutes City Council May 5, 2025 Jennifer Razi-Thomas
(ID # 12676) Joint Meeting/School Committee Joint Meeting of the City Council and the School Committee to be held at 7:15 p.m. on Monday, May 05, 2025 on the financial condition of the City, revenue and expenditure forecasts, and other relevant information on the FY2026 operating budget Placed on file City of Melrose Page 2 6/25/2025 10:30 AM
Transcript
▶ 0:02 Leila Migliorelli: Good evening. The time is seven 16 on Monday, May 5th, 2025. This joint meeting of the Melrose City Council and School Committee is now called to order. I am President Elli and I am Dory Whitty, chair of the school committee 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? Role Yes. Councillor Ro. Here. Councilor Gar Pay. Here. Councilor Hamilton? Here. Councilor Jamine. Councilor Jamal Ledine. No. No, she's not here. Okay. Counselor Karen Chetty. Here. Councilor Bruski. Councilor Romanul? Here. Councilor Stewart? Here.
▶ 0:55 Councilor Vander Barr. Here. Councilor Williams? Here. President Melissa. Here. School Committee. ME member Margaret Raymond Driscoll. Here. Chair Dory Withey. Here. Mayor Jen. Here. Shamus. Uh, Seamus Kelly. Here. Matt Hartman. Here. Vice Chair Jen McAndrew. Here. Jennifer Razzie Thomas here. That Is a quorum. Um, for the record, please at this time join Rise if you're able to join the Pledge of Allegiance To The flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justices for all. I will now motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment. Seeing no objections, we are now open for public comments. This is the portion of meeting
▶ 2:06 Leila Migliorelli: where the public may speak on any item on tonight's agenda. Comments expressing any viewpoint on other madams are also matters are also welcome. Just a reminder that public comment period is an opportunity for the public to share comments. Counselors and school committee members will not respond. Just wanna also note for the record that we are now being joined by Councilor Aldine. Um, if anyone would like to speak in public comment, please approach, um, the table and state your name for the record and sign in. Hello, my name is James Horn. I'm also with the Melrose Tree Project. Thank you everybody for being here today. Thank you for focusing on our budget and the difficult issues that are facing the community.
▶ 2:50 I understand that there's, uh, decisions to be made in regards to free cash and what should we do with our free cash? So I urge you all to think about investing in the tree canopy using free ca free cash to replant trees. Really for two key reasons. One is we're all here, whether it's from school or for the overall community, is to preserve the value of our community. Our community is shaped by the look and feel of that tree canopy and we've seen radical changes over time. We've seen all the cherries, trees, right opposite whole foods gone. We've seen major changes in the tree canopy line over at L Pond. The amount of shade on the park right behind the Coolidge dramatically changed in difference.
▶ 3:35 We've seen the last beach tree on Beach Street be cut down and these changes affect not only the look and feel and the warmth of our community, it also affects our tax base. That's super important when we think about budget crisis. So for example, it's known that three to 15% of the, of a property value is tied to trees, especially if there are major trees on the property. And Melrose is prolific with properties with major trees both on Lynn Fells way and then also on properties. So I urge you both to preserve the nature of our community as well as our tax base to consider spending a small amount of that free cash towards the planting of new trees. Thank you very much everybody. Thank you. Is anyone else
▶ 4:26 interested in speaking public comment? Uh, thank you madam President and counselors and members of the school committee. Uh, thank you for for, for letting me address you tonight. My name's Alex Rodriguez a little bit at 45 Appleton Street in Ward seven and have real concerns about the budget that's gonna be discussed for the first time today. I've lived here for almost nine years and throughout that time have heard the well heard cliche at this point several times, the budgets are a reflection of our values and priorities from our elected officials. More time than I can count, although a cliche. It is true. It is very, very true. But if that is the case, it is abundantly clear that our schools are not a priority to this administration.
▶ 5:16 It is a budget that does not ask other parts of our city to make the kind of sacrifices our schools are going to have to make with consequences similar to the ones our schools are about to experience, to the degree to which they will experience them. The approach this budget does the, the, the approach this budget takes does not require one iota's worth of of proportionate shared sacrifice. Frankly, it's shameful and I vehemently oppose it. And if you're looking at it with any lens of objectivity, you should too. Now every elected official across this table from me has articulated at some point that this year's budget is terrible, especially on the school side, even with the passage of an override in the dollar
▶ 6:04 amounts that are being discussed. However, when brought in front of the school committee, only one member, Ms. Razzie Thomas was willing to vote against the school budget citing that it was not worthy of our kids. She could not have been any more correct and I will forever be grateful for her principled leadership and this community owes her a debt of gratitude counselors. You do not have to support this budget. You can defeat it and it will be and it will lead to one of two results. Either a, the mayor will have to spend every bit of political capital that she has to enact it unilaterally if she's unwilling to make changes to it or she will negotiate with the council to modify the budget to ensure a mandate of support
▶ 6:56 counselors, let me be really, really, really clear. This is your time for choosing. You can either choose to go along the go along to get along approach that will erode the confidence in your ability to actually look out for our schools or you can actually dig in and fight for our kids. The choice will be yours. In conclusion, I also want to ask those watching at home tonight to pay as close attention as possible to how many times you're gonna hear our elected officials tell you how much they care about our kids is if they're good intentions should be enough to earn our trust. That simply cannot be the case anymore and we must demand more from our elected officials other than performative nonsense to some on the council.
▶ 7:45 Perhaps such, such a demand makes me, um, how you put it ignorant. But we have allowed the council to get by on their good intentions as it relates to school funding for too long and it's time to stop listening to them tell us how hard they work for our city and our schools counselors. I say this respectfully, no one cares how hard you work. We only care about the results you produce. That is how you will earn our trust. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak in public comment? Uh, good evening. Jamal Locklin, 39 Lincoln Street. I'm eager to hear the administration present in this council discuss the fiscal year 2026 budget including planned service cuts and their impact. I have heard for example, that we can no,
▶ 8:54 no longer afford a principal or the team model at the middle school. I find that very disturbing as we all know, the kids who are 12, 13 and 14 need a lot of guidance and a lot of attention make or break years as kids transition into adulthood and we can't afford to fund it properly. I'm just as interested in learning what fiscal year 2027 looks like if an override is not successful this fall. As I understand that even deeper cuts will be necessary to balance the budget. Finally, I'm interested in learning the administration's basis for the override question, which I understand will be coming out on or about May 19th. I want a city government that provides a decent level of services and that is financially stable.
▶ 9:48 Of the three levels of government I most clearly see and benefit from services provided by local governments, whether that's putting out a chimney fire, three houses down from me, responding to a traffic accident at 4:00 AM two houses down from me, snow removal side mark repair and tree planting, providing services to seniors and veterans or educating my neighbor's children and keeping them safe. And to be clear, I mean all of my neighbor's children, local government takes the lead on these types of services. It needs adequate resources to provide them at a decent level. The money I spend on taxes in Melrose stays in Melrose. I'm not asking for platinum services, but I don't want lead or clay either.
▶ 10:45 It's not a surprise to me that an override is needed. As I've said at other public events, Melrose's is already providing services at a relatively low cost statewide. Melrose is at the 27th percentile for municipal services as a whole, meaning that 73% of communities are spending more than Melrose on municipal services. Melrose is at the 29th percentile for public safety, meaning that 71% of communities are spending more than Melrose on public safety with respect to schools, our per pupil spending is the ninth lowest of the 291 traditional commu traditional districts in the state. So we don't have a spending problem. We're a small residential community that is challenged to find alternative sources of revenue.
▶ 11:43 Our commercial tax base is less than 9% of the tax levy, which compares to 16%, 19% and 29% for Stoneham Wakefield and Saga. So their tax base commercial tax base is two or three times larger than ours. Conversely, Redding and Arlington, which have a relatively low commercial tax rate just like Melrose, have average annual single family tax bills that are two to $3,000 larger than those in Melrose. In the past five years, despite all of the new apartments and condos, new growth has averaged only about 0.7% of the tax levy, which certainly helps, but it's not a game changer. New growth is less than 1%. We did get about $8 million in a money which filled in some gaps and helped push out the need for the override.
▶ 12:44 But as I understand it, most of the ARPA money has already been put to use. Melrose has only passed two overrides in two debt exclusions since 1980 when Proposition two and a half first got on the books 45 years ago. This is important because this failure to pass overrides has led to significant deferrals on infrastructure maintenance and approval improvements. More importantly, it has contributed to our employees being paid at a low at the lower end of the spectrum, which has resulted in recruitment and retention problems and turnover Inefficiencies. Free cash is not new, is not new revenue, but it is also relevant to this discussion as it is another indication of how tightly budgeted Melrose is.
▶ 13:38 In 2025, melrose's free cash was only about 5% of the operating budget. This compares to 10% for Wakefield, 14% for saga and Stoneham and 15% for Winchester and Redding. So basically those communities have two to three times the amount of free cash built into their budget and free cash is a safety net, right? You under budgeted the beginning of the year to provide a little bit of buffer to handle uncertainties and revenue and uncertainties and cost. We're working right on the on the of the razor's edge there at 5%. In summary, the need for an override override is not a surprise to me. While I look forward to learning more details over the next month, I plan on supporting the override. I ask the community to listen, to learn
▶ 14:28 and to ultimately support the override too. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in person? Anyone online? Madam Clerk? There was and they're gone. They're so okay. Seeing no other further public comment, I will motion by unanimous consent to close public comment. Seeing no objection, we are now closed for public comment. Moving on to new business. Um, the informational item that is our one and only agenda item for tonight. Um, I ID number 1, 2, 6, 7, 6 joint meeting of the city council and the school committee to be held at 7:15 PM on Monday, May 5th, 2025 on the financial condition of the city revenue and expenditure forecast and other relevant information on the fiscal year 2026 operating budget.
▶ 15:29 Jen Grigoraitis: Welcome Mayor Greg, thank you for being here tonight. Um, this is about 25 minutes. Do are we gonna have a once a city counselor? Always a city counselor. Are we gonna have a procedural issue with your 7 45? We have 10 minutes. You're fine. Okay. Start talking now. Okay. Alright. Speak quickly. I will. Good evening, Madam President, Madam Chair, and honorable members of the city Council and School Committee. First and foremost, thank you for being here and for your service to our shared community. It is my honor to join you in service to the people of Melrose and my duty tonight to present my proposed budget for fiscal year 2026, which begins July 1st. Before I begin, please allow me to thank several others
▶ 16:09 Jen Grigoraitis: who have played an indispensable role in the budget process. Up to this point, I wanna thank city CFO, Carrie Golden. This is her first budget as our CFO and she continues to bring her deep understanding of municipal finance and her commitment to Melrose, to the work of stewarding the city's financial resources. I wanna thank my executive team, Lauren Grimm, Tom Dalton, Shannon Phillips, and Poll Lata. I'd like to thank our city department heads and senior staff who deserve particular thanks. During this difficult budget cycle across the city and the schools only the 60 non-Union City employees, mostly managers and senior staff, did not receive any compensation increase during this past year.
▶ 16:49 Jen Grigoraitis: In fact, several of those department heads offered to again not take a raise in this proposed budget if it helped to protect their own staff. Despite bearing a significant part of our budgetary burdens, they continue to show up and work hard for Melrose every day. I wanna thank school superintendent Adam Delany, business manager, Ken Kelly and the school business office staff for their work in developing a very challenging school budget. I wanna thank all of our employees, city and schools who are working hard every day for our community and doing so while holding their own anxiety and uncertainty about what these budget reductions mean for them and their families. I wanna thank my fellow school committee members
▶ 17:26 Jen Grigoraitis: and the members of the public who joined in thoughtful engagement for the school budget process over the past several months. I wanna thank our residents for sharing their thoughts, concerns, ideas and priorities for how to spend our city resources. And I wanna thank the members of the city council for your continued active and thoughtful stewardship of our city and our city funds. I know that this has been a hard year for all of us in elected office and in leadership roles in Melrose and we know that next year whoever sits in this chamber will be faced with the prospect of either working to set up budgets, funded by an override, or working to drastically reduce or eliminate parts of our city government
▶ 18:02 Jen Grigoraitis: and public schools due to insufficient, insufficient funds. I know that weighs heavily on all of us since I took office at the beginning of last year. City Hall has prioritized providing the most transparency into the city budget of any administration. To date you all joined us for a mid-year budget update on city and schools to both the city council and school committee. We've also provided regular memos with updates as we move through the budget process and regularly added documentation to the city website and we continue to work toward even more access by the middle of this month. The city's visual budget will be available on the city website thanks to our use of ARPA funds to support the adoption of clear gov,
▶ 18:42 Jen Grigoraitis: a platform which will enable us to share the budget with the public in a more comprehensive and digestible manner. Earlier this year, I also met with every city counselor who took me up on my invitation to hear your feedback and your priorities for this year's budget. As the elected officials with the shared responsibility of serving our constituents needs and allocating limited resources across countless important priorities, I believe we should all work together where we can. But as you all know, the council's formal role in the budget process is to approve, reject, or reduce budget lines, and we now enter the phase of the budget season in which you will exercise that chartered authority.
▶ 19:19 Jen Grigoraitis: At my request last year, the division of local services or DLS of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue began a financial management review of the city of Melrose. DLS will provide a comprehensive review of melrose's local accounting, treasury collection, assessing and overall administrative functions. At the conclusion of their work, DLS will give us recommendations and best practices and how to improve day-to-day management practices and procedures. DLS has already been on site to meet with key staff and we look forward to receiving their report and recommendations in the coming months. I think we can all be proud that the latest s and p review of our city's bond rating last summer return
▶ 19:57 Jen Grigoraitis: double a plus rating, helping us keep borrowing costs low and giving Melrose the best possible financial situation in the borrowing market. S and p cited our strong local economy, budgetary flexibility and liquidity and sound financial management practices as positive credit factors. Our city and school audit reports came back clean and our city finance team was awarded the certificate of achievement in financial reporting for FY 23. All of this means that despite limited revenue streams and funding sources, the city of Melrose maintains a strong and stable financial outlook and reputation with lenders. This high bond rating should provide us with access to more favorable rates when borrowing,
▶ 20:36 Jen Grigoraitis: which is particularly important as we begin bonding for the public safety building projects approved by voters in 2023. The budget before you is a survival budget. It is balanced, but it is not moving us forward. At best, we are treading water and trying to keep from being submerged as rising costs outpace flattening revenues. I cannot say tonight that I'm proud of this budget, although many say that towns and cities like ours should live within our means. I regret to reply that this kind of budget does reflect our limited means. This kind of budget which will not satisfy the priorities and requests of so many of our constituents is the best that we can do with the resources we have. Some of the biggest cost drivers
▶ 21:18 Jen Grigoraitis: for our budgets are employee benefits, both health and pension collective bargaining agreements, which account for over 90% of our city and school employees, regional school assessments and utility costs. All of these costs have increased well beyond the two and a half percent property tax levy increase. We are allowed under state law from city hall. I have the privilege of hearing from a broad swath of the community. Our residents ask local government to deliver on their priorities, but those priorities are not always the same For many, it is well-resourced schools and more frequently paved roads. Others prioritize expanding community gardens or ensuring that well loved traditions such as the Victorian Fair continue or that we maintain
▶ 22:01 Jen Grigoraitis: and expand veterans memorials that playing fields and parks are improved. Senior center programming expands bike lanes are added or fees for city and school services and activities are reduced or eliminated. And I know you all have priorities too. It is why you ran for office. I know it was not for the pay or the glory, but we do not have the sustained funds to deliver on all those priorities, which can mean that the dialogue amongst us and amongst the community becomes about ranking priorities or worst pitting them against one another. But we really need to get to a place where we can deliver for everyone. I know many of you are watching what is happening in other communities as so many are facing similar budget challenges.
▶ 22:41 Jen Grigoraitis: Milton, which is often used as a comparable community to Melrose, given our similar size and largely residential property tax base, successfully passed a $9 million override last week to avoid significant budget cuts next year. Meanwhile, our neighbors stoneham failed to pass an override and is currently preparing to eliminate or nearly do so all library and senior center services and to drain town stabilization funds to close next year's school budget shortfall. We too will be faced with a similar choice in what path we want to take for our community next year. I'm grateful to our state legislators, Kate Lipper and Jason Lewis for continuing to advocate in the state budget for increased funding to Melrose.
▶ 23:21 Jen Grigoraitis: However, the state is also preparing a challenging budget, anticipating the need to plug significant financial holes across Massachusetts as the federal government pulls away from funding things like Medicaid and special education. I know we all hear from residents who are disheartened by our current national politics and we like it to have no place in local issues. We need to acknowledge that at this moment national politics is very much present in our budget. We are doing our best to prepare for potentially historic reductions in federal funding. We currently have two multimillion dollar federal grants pending, one through FEMA and one through the EPA for which it is unclear whether we will ever be
▶ 24:00 Jen Grigoraitis: able to access the funding. We are awarded in our planning on much of our work on climate resiliency, including managing stormwater on our fields and roads, decarbonizing our city and school buildings and decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels is funded through or in partnership with the federal government and we are unsure if that financial support will continue. We will not be able to make it up if this loss of funds occurs no matter how creatively we try in light of our own financial outlook and the overwhelming likelihood of disruptions to state and federal funding, I want to be clear there is no improving this budget. It will not be impacted by a successful override later in 2025. The chance to save FY 26 was last June's override.
▶ 24:43 Jen Grigoraitis: The public told us what they wanted to see and we are delivering it to the best of our ability. Preparation for the FY 26 budget before you began right after last, the last override failure. My executive team and department heads have been making tough decisions all year, not filling vacant positions even though they were budgeted for this year. Carefully guarding, overtime spending and deferring important projects, repairs and initiatives to stay within our anticipated budget limits. In this budget, we eliminate 21 city positions across multiple departments, which is in addition to the three positions we eliminated last year. This brings our total staff reduction to 10% of the city workforce over the past two years.
▶ 25:24 Jen Grigoraitis: These reductions include both unfilled vacancies in the wholesale elimination of positions, including five positions in the Department of Public works, two positions in the police department, one position at the library, one position in the solicitor's office, one position in the emergency management department, the reduction of our veteran services staff by 50% and reductions to the clerk in election staff positions. All of these cuts will come in addition to the difficult cuts we made last year for the FY 25 budget, the elimination of the city's sustainability manager, economic development director, and social services coordinator, deferred investment in our information technology capital
▶ 26:01 Jen Grigoraitis: needs cuts to the health Department Veteran Services Department and Council on Aging programs and the painful elimination of far too many teacher positions at our public schools. As part of closing next year's budget gap, I am choosing to decline the compensation increase that the city council approved for the mayor, which would've taken effect on January 1st, 2026. Even though the mayoral salary for Melrose has not been adjusted in 12 years, the city of Melrose is also eliminating our ambulance in switching to a private ambulance service. And I'm grateful for the leadership of Chief John White, who has spent his entire career serving Melrose, including time as an EMT for making this difficult decision.
▶ 26:40 Jen Grigoraitis: Moving to a private service puts us in the company of nearly every community within 95, allows us to address forced holdovers in the corresponding morale challenges within the department and assists us in eliminating significant overtime costs required to sufficiently staff the ambulance. It will also reduce the number of budgeted positions in the fire department by eight as we move toward the changeover of ambulance service on June one. The Public Safety Facilities Committee is discussing how this impacts our work on fire station renovations and should at best enable us to produce savings for taxpayers on the cost of that project and at worse, better position us to respond to INS increase construction costs due to tariffs.
▶ 27:20 Jen Grigoraitis: Continuing to keep the project on budget. Chief White and our firefighters union are both at the table for all of these discussions and I thank them for their pragmatic leadership and guidance. As counselors are aware from their recent meetings, we have also begun to use this year's free cash to prepare for next year's budget cuts in order to preserve as many staff positions as possible. We have been asking the council to allow us to pay for more stuff, non-recurring non-personnel costs with free cash. Things like turnout gear for our firefighters and Chromebooks for our educators. The council was also asked to fill a gap in the fire overtime budget, which stems in particular from challenges in staffing our
▶ 27:59 Jen Grigoraitis: ambulance in the amount of $905,000 as we budgeted a higher percentage of local receipts last year to help reduce the school's FY 25 budget shortfall. We anticipate that an FY 27 we will have less free cash available for needs both planned and unexpected. We are also trying to put money away for a Rainier Day, a day even Rainier than this one. I am proud that thanks to the vote of this council, our special education stabilization fund balance now sits at just over a million dollars. While Melrose can never sustainably make up the over $2 million in school funding we receive each year via the Department of Education, I do believe we have taken meaningful steps to prepare and insulate ourselves from changes to
▶ 28:41 Jen Grigoraitis: or even the elimination of the Federal Department of Ed. This budget includes service reductions which our residents will see and feel firsthand. We have eliminated city support for the Downtown Flower Basket program that has been conducted for over a decade in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce because of the cost of overtime to water and care for the flowers. We will not install parklets this spring in spite of their popularity and high rates of utilization to save money on repairs, upkeep and removal next fall. And although we allocated $30,000 in federal ARPA funds to the Chamber of Commerce for their use to cover city related costs for their community events, the overtime needed for police, fire
▶ 29:20 Jen Grigoraitis: and DPW for the Victorian Fair Main Street trick or treat home for the holidays and the summer stroll have historically been paid out of these departments. Overtime budgets, a practice we cannot sustain going forward. While we have provided the chamber with an off ramp via ARPA funding, it will likely only cover one year of costs, especially as we implement new collective bargaining agreements across our unions. In order to balance the budget beginning July one, we will eliminate Sunday hours at the Melrose Public Library, reduce the number of Saturdays that the city yard is open for residents, reduce or eliminate the number of trash barrels at public parks around the city and will be adopting a carry in carryout
▶ 30:00 Jen Grigoraitis: approach for trash at these locations. We will eliminate the seasonal Sunday trash pickup from Municipal Barrel Citywide, including our main street Reduce roadway line painting and road sign replacements to only critical work, reduce sidewalk repairs and our field maintenance budgets require residents to purchase a sticker, one per vehicle to access the city yard during calendar year 2026. Reduce the part-time custodial staff hours at Memorial Hall, which is per contract not managed by DPW, resulting in periods of time in which the building is not available for rental use. Eliminate the DPW budget line supporting the Adopt A Site program and shift funding for a public health specialist. Our senior van drivers
▶ 30:43 Jen Grigoraitis: and our Milano Center part-time staff off budget to be entirely supported by grant or special revenue funds. This budget includes the wholesale zeroing out of several longtime budget lines, including my office's community outreach budget, which historically funded community events like kindergarten, welcome night, and provided supplemental support for one-time community causes such as new shirts for the Melrose United basketball team. Folding tables for the mailers high school proms brochures for the senior resource fair and a support for communications and publicity of the annual census and local elections. The Commission on Women, the Human Rights Commission, and the Disability Commission,
▶ 31:20 Jen Grigoraitis: which have pre previously utilized their city budgets for important community education and engagement opportunities will not have any city funding next year at my request. City boards, commissions and departments reviewed fee schedules for services and many have increased fees or are are proposing increases effective July 1st, some of which will go before the city council for appro approval, including increases to Memorial Hall rental fees for the first time in 16 years, increases to fees for Wyoming Cemetery for the first time in five years, increases to fees charged by the city clerk's office, increases to fees overseen by the planning board and the zoning board of appeals increases to certain DPW disposal fees and the Liquor Commission
▶ 32:04 Jen Grigoraitis: and Park Commission are reviewing their fee schedules as well in anticipating changes other fees such as those for the inspection of services department. The BB estate and the Milano Center have already been reviewed and raised in the last year. Many of these changes are in line with longstanding practices in neighboring communities. The bottom line is we cannot afford to continue to deliver services without making the users our fellow community members directly bear the cost. We are also creatively seeking ways to bring more resources to the budget. Our HR department piloted a program this spring to allow our retirees age 65 and under to opt out of our health insurance plans. If all of the eligible retirees had participated in this,
▶ 32:46 Jen Grigoraitis: the savings to the city's health insurance budget would've been close to $800,000. However, we saw no interest in the program from our retirees and have had no participants sign up. We did apply for and successfully received a technical assistance grant from the Metropolitan Area Planning Committee for an outside consultant to develop a strategic plan for Memorial Hall. How we can best maximize that building, which is a beloved community treasure by many, a key part of our city's arts and culture activities, and an aging structure that needs significant financial investment to stay functional and become budget neutral and ideally a revenue generator. We worked closely with all of our city unions
▶ 33:25 Jen Grigoraitis: to settle outstanding contracts and to negotiate one year extensions with unions whose contracts were set to expire in 2026. We are grateful to our unions for collaborating with us and recognizing the city's challenging financial situation while advocating for their members for the first time in over a decade. Melrose has active contracts with all unions, city and schools for the next fiscal year, which better enabled us to accurately plan for the budget before you. This means that in 2027, we will need to settle contracts with several unions, including the Melrose Educators Union, the Melrose Firefighters Union, the Laborers Union, and the Clerical Union. Collectively, these unions represent over
▶ 34:03 Jen Grigoraitis: 80% of our city workforce. The city will also begin the PEC agreement negotiation in FY 26 to set the premium split for the city in active and retiree retired employees for benefits packages. Changing this split requires a majority vote of all unions and special state legislation, and the outcome of these negotiations will affect our bottom line substantially. Next year, we will again ask the recreation department to continue funding itself from user fees alone without departmental funding from the city's operating budget. Based on current revenue projections, this reliance on user fees to support department operating costs will not be feasible in FY 27. Although we are cutting back library hours in spite
▶ 34:46 Jen Grigoraitis: of our recently reopening our beautiful historic library facility, there are also limits on our ability to cut costs through closures. There as part of the city's agreement to receive an $8 million grant from the State Board of Library Commissioners to support the renovation, we are obligated to keep our library open and in compliance in terms of staffing and hours, or we will be required to repay the full cost of the grant plus interest. So this budget comes at a crossroad from Melrose. Without additional investment, we will need to look next year to cut any spending that is not mandated by law or contract. I continue to believe that our path out of these budget woes clear in order for us to substantially provide the level
▶ 35:27 Jen Grigoraitis: of services this community needs and deserves. We need a greater and more predictable source of revenue. That option is available to us under Proposition two and a half. It is an option that Melrose has used once in the past 30 years. There was a successful override in 2019, which provided critical funding to our school district prior to 2019. There was not a successful override in Melrose since 1993, which is also the only time city departments received, received override revenues to support non-school services. I know that everyone in this room and in City Hall and the Melrose Public Schools will deliver the very best they can next year based on the budget that they have to work with. But we need the public to tell us
▶ 36:08 Jen Grigoraitis: what they want that budget to be. And an override in November is the right way to change our course. I look forward to discussing that topic with this council later this month. Based on the hard work of our finance task force and the input of countless residents and other stakeholders, everyone in Melrose has important decisions to make in the weeks and months ahead. But counselors, you're up first. Thank you for approaching your responsibilities with Gravity and Thoughtful care. I'm proud and honored to have the opportunity to serve this great city and I know you all are too. Thank you. Thank You. Thank you Madam Mayor. And, um, with that I'll just sort of explain next steps. The budget hearings will start
▶ 36:49 Leila Migliorelli: for the city council on Thursday in Appropriations and Oversight committee at that time. Um, this Thursday the mayor will be kicking off those budget hearings and we'll have an opportunity in the council to ask questions about the city budget at that time. And we'll be continuing the budget hearings for approximately six weeks after that. So, um, thank you very much for being here tonight and sharing that picture and, um, seeing no objections. I will motion by unanimous consent to adjourn the joint meeting. No objections. We are now adjourned. Thank you. I'm just really calling to order now. The time is 8 0 5 on Monday, May 5th, 2025. This is meeting of the Melrose City Council's call to order.