[Nicole Morell]: 22-354 committee of the whole oops. Meeting on a Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 9 a.m. is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Present. Councilor Caraviello. Present. Councilor Collins.
[Nicole Morell]: Present.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Knight.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Knight will be joining us later.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay. Councilor Scarpelli. Present. Councilor Tseng. Present. President Morell.
[Nicole Morell]: present six present one absent the meeting is called to order, there will be a meeting of the Medford City Council can be the whole on Saturday June 11 2022 at 9am. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the fiscal year 2023 city budget paper 22-354. The City Council will discuss proposed budgets for the following departments Department of Public Works the Medford Fire Department building facilities finance information technology and veterans. The City Council has invited Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Chief of Staff Nina Nazarian, Finance Director Robert Dickinson, Fire Chief John Friedman, DPW Commissioner Tim McIvern, and department heads for the departments listed in this notice. For further information, aids, and accommodations, contact the City Clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, Council President. Unless any councilors have any questions to start off, we will go right into the vices and affairs.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President, I just wanted to note one thing that paper 22354 is the paper that we filed for discussion in the city budget, not the actual paper for the city budget, where, because the city budget has not actually been presented to the council. And I just wanted to clarify that before moving forward. So that when we say just city budget, two, two, three, five, four, that doesn't mean he's actually received in council, the proposed budget we have, you know, documentation and that's what we're working off of, but we haven't received a budget book and the mayor has not formally submitted a budget.
[George Scarpelli]: If I can, I know that just to make it public, I know that next week I have a, uh, planned conference that I informed the president and my fellow councils in city administration that I won't be here. I'll do everything in my power to be on zoom for the remaining meeting. So I just wanted to make sure that people start talking and saying George is upset. So he's staying home. Um, like we had a few years ago. So, um, making this notice. So everyone knows if I could have changed the week I would have, but, um, That's the best we can do, and I appreciate it. So thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Scarpelli did let us know several months ago that he wouldn't be able to attend those times, and we worked our hardest to try to get these meetings scheduled earlier. And unfortunately, we did not get a document to work with him. We actually still don't have a full document to work with. Vice Chair Bears.
[Zac Bears]: It's just one more question. It's around maybe for Mr. Dickinson around the retained earnings for water sewer. I know you shared that with me and I really appreciate the quick communication on that, but I just had a question about how that's being accounted for in the comparing the initial proposed fiscal 23 budget and the amended proposed budget. So, and just apologies, let me get my, find the right paperwork. When you open up the fiscal 23 revenue summary. Yeah.
[Bob Dickinson]: Be about indirect costs.
[Zac Bears]: Sorry, that's what I meant. Yes.
[Bob Dickinson]: Just so we're on the same page.
[Zac Bears]: And actually, it's a question about both. I apologize. So for fiscal 22, we had the retained earnings of 500,000. Are we expecting any retained earnings for fiscal 23?
[Bob Dickinson]: I have not been able to do a calculation on that, that has not been finalized. All of the stuff for the state reporting has been filed. The state, our DOR rep, is working on it right now. I've been trying to gently say, as soon as you can possibly get us these numbers, we'd love them. And needless to say, I'm monitoring email and anything that she wants, she gets immediately. But as of right now, I have no estimation on what retained earnings would be. I would assume, given last year's retained earnings, that there should be funds available there.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. And that would increase the bottom line amount when you get that number for revenue for fiscal 23?
[Bob Dickinson]: Retained earnings is just retained earnings. It's like free cash for the city.
[Zac Bears]: Okay.
[Bob Dickinson]: It's not, it's one time funds. It's what you've built up in your bank.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. So we would find out the number and then if appropriate, the mayor may choose to add it to the revenue for this fiscal year.
[Bob Dickinson]: Well, it would be a funding source for this fiscal year. It would not be revenue. We've already got the money. It might be a funding source to fund the 2023 budget.
[Zac Bears]: OK, thank you. And then for the indirect costs, basically, is that just a transfer with no net impact on the bottom line of the budget from enterprise to general?
[Bob Dickinson]: Oh, no. It has an impact. It has been put into all of those calculations.
[SPEAKER_09]: OK.
[Bob Dickinson]: The last two years, it's been around a million and last year it was 1.6. The year before it was 1.52, I believe, 5.5, something like that. I put in 1.55. As far as I've been able to ascertain, there's no set policy on how this number is arrived at. Just for everybody's information, indirect costs, obviously the payments for health insurance, general insurance, workers' comp, come out of the general fund. So we would assess the water sewer department amounts that would cover their portion of those things. Plus, obviously, the general fund pays for finance department, the payroll to be issued, all of the cash receipts. One usually imputes a cost that you can charge the enterprise fund for those functions. where I came from, most towns have a set policy, there's a way to determine this number. As far as I can tell, in Medford, historically, it's been a conversation between the finance director and the persons doing the water sewer budget. So for purposes of estimation, I used $1.55 million, which would be what we used for the previous two years.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, and just just I'm just trying to get it all right in my head because as you just noted, it's it's relatively material. Yes. So, When I see here the DPW water line at 25036130 and then the bonds water at 681618, adding those two lines, that's about the expenditure for the enterprise fund, is that correct? Or is there another line item that would go in there?
[Bob Dickinson]: You would add in the indirect costs.
[Zac Bears]: Okay.
[Bob Dickinson]: On the recap, it's schedule A2. So when I'm doing the whole, basically how I do, how I come up with the numbers is I take all of the appropriations or estimated appropriations, what we're doing for the budget. I add all those lines up and then I simulate what we're going to do in the recap this fall. So water sewer would have expenses of the $25 million. that you're talking about, but then in revenues, we have $26.5 million coming in to fund the budget because the $1.5 million would come into the general fund and be a funding source for the functionality of the general fund. Does that make sense?
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. And I'm basically, I think you're saying what I'm asking, but I'm just saying, so I see the 27.1 estimated enterprise fund revenue in this revenue summary. And then I add the 25.7 from this sheet. And then if I added the indirect costs, that would be essentially the cost of the enterprise fund. And then I would be able to say the 27 million in revenue minus the additional cost is basically the... Right, that becomes funding for the city as a whole. Great.
[Bob Dickinson]: I have to keep getting used to that I'm in a city, not a town now. So if I make that mistake, I apologize. But yes, that's how it all works out. So for funding sources, we have state revenue. We obviously have the estimation of what our tax levy will be. Then we have free cash, we have revenue replacement, we have transfers in from the cemetery fund, the fund positions from the casino fund, et cetera, et cetera. And local receipts, obviously. So that becomes, because the net is $1.55 million.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, great. Yeah, I just wanted to, I think I have it down. I just wanted to make sure I had it, running my own numbers, and this was the one thing.
[Bob Dickinson]: Thank you for the email. Anytime anybody in this council would like to just call me up or step into my office and have me go through these numbers, feel free.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you.
[Bob Dickinson]: No, you know, I just I just add things up. So
[Zac Bears]: in the, in the, in the couple of three times you've been before us so far, I think I can at least speak for myself and maybe for all of us, we've appreciated your transparency and your, your statements about it's all public information and you can feel free to talk to us. And that's a refreshing change. So thank you. And that's all I have.
[Richard Caraviello]: What was left? What was in the enterprise account? How much money?
[Bob Dickinson]: I don't have an estimate for retained earnings for the S&P.
[Richard Caraviello]: No, you don't have a number yet?
[Bob Dickinson]: No. OK. That's all the state. When I started this job way back 15 years ago, I was told never give out a number as an estimate. Retained earnings and free cash are what the DOR says they are. And you can argue that. I roughly I could say, say that we should probably have plenty of retained earnings to fund things. Yes, I know. But again, cautionary free earnings are like free cash. They're one time funding sources.
[Richard Caraviello]: Is is there any discussion going on about taking money out of the water? So enterprise account to help offset the increase in water like we've done in past years?
[Bob Dickinson]: Has that been brought up to you yet? I have not been part of any of those.
[Richard Caraviello]: It's been past practice in some years that we've taken money out of there to help offset the increase by the MWRA. There's been no discussion on doing that yet?
[Bob Dickinson]: I have not had discussions about the sewer water budget at all. Okay, thank you. Just historically, One of the things you look at at enterprise funds, I'm getting kind of pedantic about the general way that municipalities are supposed to run. If you're building up tons and tons of retained earnings in your enterprise funds, probably your sewer and water fees are too high. That just makes sense. You're collecting revenue that you are not spending. There's a purpose for that if you know that you have big water sewer projects that you wish to fund with retained earnings, that's a good use of retained earnings. But if you don't have those projects, and all of a sudden you have a whole bunch of money in retained earnings, probably you're going to take some of your retained earnings to reduce the water sewer fees that people are paying. But that's a, you know, that's a,
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you You made at the last budget meeting at that meeting when I respectfully expressed my appreciation for the more moderated tone presented by members of the city council that evening. Perhaps you misunderstood where my comment was directed. So allow me to be clear, because I felt your comments attempted to minimize and normalize a disturbing and disrespectful set of statements made by one member of the city council. That member crossed the line, lost their emotional control, and behaved in a completely disrespectful and unprofessional manner. That was not the first time this member has lost their temper. Not one member of this council attempted to intervene. What happened to see something, say something? I will note that I appreciate one other member of the council who approached me after the meeting to apologize for their peer and their behavior. I was disturbed, however, that yet another member of this council made a sexist comment to me at the end of the meeting on Tuesday evening that members comments were, you need to take it easy you're about to have a baby. I believe that member had good intentions, but I'm hopeful that member will reflect on Tuesday evening's hearing, realizing their comments should have been directed to the one member who behaved in a completely inappropriate way. And this is to Councilor Knight. Just because we don't live in the borders of this community does not mean that we don't work hard for this community. Just because we weren't elected by members of this community does not mean that we do not meaningfully and impactfully serve this community. The vast majority of my waking hours per week are spent within the borders of Medford. I expect the city council's respect moving forward for myself, other employees, appointed officials, elected officials, and members of the public. I have been nothing but respectful to each of you in every one of my interactions. Thank you.
[George Scarpelli]: Madam President.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Madam Chief of Staff.
[George Scarpelli]: Councilor Scarpelli. So Chief of Staff Nazarian is obviously talking about my motions the other evening. And what I can say to the community, because I will not address this person who just made these comments, because it turns it back as if the comments were made as if it was attacking someone personally. What I will tell you in the community is that I've met with the administration. I've met with the chief of staff. I've met with the mayor personally because of the so-called feeling of outbreak maybe in the past because of my emotions. Because some days I get so inundated with negative discussions from the community and they feel that they haven't been heard, they come to us as elected officials. So what is then projected is the lack of communication from the chief of staff and the administration to talk with us and let us know what's going on in this community, to help us give the community members the answers that they questioned. So I met with the chief of staff and we talked about some serious, some concerns. And all we talked about that was really concerning, I said, all we need to do is please share in the successes that we have in our community and share in the failures as a team, because we cannot succeed unless this board, that office and the rest of the community work together to make what method needs to succeed. So my frustration that everybody have seen, that everybody that knows me, people can judge what you want, but I love the city of Medford. I have deep passion for the city of Medford. I've worked for the city of Medford as a volunteer since I was 14 years old, as a teacher, as a recreation Councilor, as a coach for over 30 years, as a school committee member, as a city Councilor. And one of my biggest, strongest attributes that are told over and over again are my emotions. I never came into this to be a politician. I came in to do what's best for the city of Medford, and especially the people in the city of Medford. So to come out and present today's budget meeting again, over personal feelings, it shows again where the direction and how warped the direction that we have in our city administration, where it should be. It shouldn't be in ribbon cuttings. It shouldn't be in how bad you feel because I'm emotionally invested and we have people in our community that are hurting and that are upset. It should be about this budget that we haven't gotten. It's about the phone calls we get for teachers. Yesterday, 30 more teachers are gonna be let go. We're told fire, police will not be replaced. We've asked for simple impacts in our community. I have neighbors that have grown up since I was a baby that are leaving Medford for the only fact that they don't trust our city anymore. We have teachers, former colleagues that have given their lives to this community for 43 years that are being thrown out the door. We've got teachers that are leaving, not because they wanna leave, they love Medford, they love our kids. They just can't work with this administration. So they're moving on to different communities. What's frustrating is I work in a municipality. I was told the other day to spend $60,000. I have friends that are principals in different communities that are hiring 30 teachers in one school. So if that's negative emotion and people's feelings are hurt, Out of all due respect, I grew up with two sisters. I have a beautiful wife, a beautiful daughter that I have love and respect for. And every woman in the world that I've worked with know what kind of heart I have. So if someone's taking this personal or their feelings got hurt, I don't care. I care about this community. Thank you, Madam President. And next time you can use my name.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. So as Vice President Bears has alluded to, we are going to be taking water and sewer first. Peter, if you could join us. I know we have kind of, people have varying levels of, I think what we're finding out, varying levels of kind of what's been shared with them with their own budget. So if you could just share highlights, anything you want to discuss, and then we'll go and we have questions, but of course we have finance director Dickinson here as well to answer some of those questions. So if you want to come up to the podium and we can, cover water and sewer and take questions around that.
[Zac Bears]: Madam President, if I may.
[Nicole Morell]: Sure.
[Zac Bears]: Just before we get into the water and sewer. The fundamental issue here, and I, I'm One kind of person who says we have to respect the impact of the actions that we take on anyone else. And we have to at least consider that. But at the end of the day, the issue with this budget process has zero to do with how this council has acted. It has absolutely nothing to do with the approach of this council to the basic accountability and transparency that we deserve, that the residents deserve, and that makes this community function. And, you know, I'm sorry that there are tough questions. We've been presented with a disaster and we haven't really even been presented with it. We've been half presented with it at the last minute, you know, because of assumptions and choices that were made by the leadership and the executive leadership under the mayor of this community. That's the reality. That's the reality that we are currently sitting under. And, you know, the function of Massachusetts state law, I'm sure everyone in the mayor's office would much prefer that they could just write a budget and never come to this council and never have to ask any questions and never have to have a vote on it and never have to have this process occur. The reason that this process is here is because checks and balances in a form of government are essential to making sure that information is transparent, that decisions are made and people are accountable for the decisions that they've made. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's going to be stressful because mistakes were made and people deserve to know when, why, and how they're going to be fixed. That's the role of this council. We don't have the power to add to the budget. We don't have the power to make appropriations. We have the power to approve, reject, cut, and ask questions. That's what we've done. Maybe Councilors have different approaches to that, but I personally believe in the good intent of everyone here behind this council. I personally believe that everyone here is just trying to get the answers that residents deserve and that, quite frankly, we deserve. And I understand the idea that maybe tonally and with the response and timeliness, there has been some level of basic professional respect given to us, but there has been no fundamental professional respect given to this council when it comes to treating us as an equal branch of government in this city, when it comes to giving us the information and answers we need to answer the questions that we're being asked. And at the end of the day, there are 14 people in the city that are accountable to the community. Seven of them sit here, one of them sits over there, and six of them are on the school committee. Those are the people who the citizens of Medford elected to answer these questions and get this information and make sure the city is running above board. And I understand the difficult position that staff can be put in because they're accountable to a single person who is accountable to the people. But when we don't have that person here before us to answer questions or to accept responsibility for mistakes or that they send other people out here to hold their water, this is what happens. you know, at the end of the day, if the mayor makes a call and then we ask the chief of staff, why was this decision made? You're not the mayor. You're not in her head. You don't know why. So when you take responsibility as the chief of staff or any staff member. You know, that's fine, but you're just holding water for the person who really needs to be accountable for the reason that we're in this situation. So again, we have four budget meetings this week. We have a regular meeting. Hopefully we'll be presented a budget on the 21st and not the 28th so that we have, you know, two days before the budget deadline to make incredibly difficult decisions. But that's fundamentally what this is about. And while the impact potentially of how people's words are interpreted by others should be considered, it certainly should not be used as a potential distraction from the fundamental issues here, which is a lack of information, a lack of transparency, and the fact that there's a resistance to this body being able to use its powers and its duties to hold accountable the equal co-equal branch of government that has presented us with this situation. So I look forward to looking over my sheets of paper my budget and asking questions that I can based on the information I have, because that's all I can do. Thank you, Madam President.
[George Scarpelli]: What information, Madam President? Just, there's been some questions in the community about political parties, where we lie. George Scarpelli supports Zack Baer's 100% of what he just mentioned. This council stands together All of us, forget about where we look, what side politics we look at, where we are, we all agree to this.
[Richard Caraviello]: So thank you, Councilor Bears, for presenting that.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. I take a little bit of offense at the comment that the Chief of Staff made. As a husband of 47 years, my wife who has had four pregnancies, and two daughters who have had four pregnancies, I was expressing concern of the pressure she was being put under. And if that was being offensive, well then, that's not the person I am. I'm a caring person, and I had concern for her. She's been put in a tough spot, and that was my concern just for her. being, you know, as a pregnant woman, and understanding, like I say, I've gone through this with my daughters and my wife, and say it was out of concern, not out of disrespect. I'm a little hurt by that comment that was made.
[Nicole Morell]: Anything else. I know we have several department heads here so I want to make sure you know make best use of their Saturday morning. back to water and sewer. I don't know if Peter, you want to come up and speak to it a little bit. And we also have my instructor or everyone's come and speak to water and sewer. Please, please come speak to water, water and sewer.
[Tim McGivern]: We have a new water superintendent. Hello. Anyway, good morning, councillors. Good morning, president.
[Nicole Morell]: Right.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you very much. So we have, I don't know if you want to do DPW starting with water. I sort of, yeah, we can do that.
[Nicole Morell]: I know. Yeah, I know. trying to help Peter get out.
[Tim McGivern]: Sure, sure, sure. And this is Dan Stone King. He's the New Orleans sewer superintendent for the city.
[Nicole Morell]: Welcome.
[Tim McGivern]: We have the full team here. If you want to do that, I'll be brief, but I just have a few words to talk a little bit about what's happened, obviously, since the last time this event took place, which when that happened, I was the city engineer. So I believe I was sitting at the table as representing the engineering division. Now, obviously I'm representing all DPW as the new DPW commissioner. So a little bit different. So this is obviously my first budget as a commissioner and you've already expressed some of those challenges. And as you can imagine, I've been working closely to try to make the DPW's budget work. So, you know, we've been working a lot on that to just kind of give you a rough timeline of sort of how things have taken place and I've landed here. So in November, I was appointed acting DPW commissioner. And then in February, I was appointed as commissioner. And in April, we hired a new city engineer, who I believe you've all met, Owen Wartella, he's here tonight as well, this morning. And so for a while there, we either didn't have a DPW commissioner or didn't have a city engineer. So that was, you know, five months of my life in the rear view, which I'm very happy that that's in the rear view. So, you know, that's kind of been the top priority is backfilling those positions. So that's been a top priority for me. As you can see, we filled the water sewer superintendent position. I'm very excited for Mr. Stoneking. And also since that time, we've built the city engineer position and we have one big opening now in the engineering department that We're really trying to focus on filling, which is one of the senior civil project manager positions, the formal title is assistant civil engineer. So, like I said, just have a just a brief presentation just to talk about some of the things that we've been up to. And obviously, I'd like to leave as much time as I can for questions. So I know I'm sure you have plenty. Some facts, you know, the DBW is made up of highway, water and sewer, cemetery, parks, engineering, and we have a fleet maintenance department as well. We get 115 miles of road, 119 miles of sewer, 144 miles of water pipe. We're comprised of about 57 people right now. And that's obviously broken up amongst those departments that I just listed. So this was my first winter as DBW commissioner. I felt it went successful. Uh, you know, we had some challenges. We had the COVID outbreak during one of the bigger storms. So that was interesting. And we also, I think as most folks know is in the globe, there was a shortage of pile drivers this year. So with those two factors in play, I think we did a pretty good job, uh, as far as the winter goes. And, you know, I did receive that feedback from the community. Now we do with some, issues here and there as usual but I think as a whole it went pretty well. One of the things that I'm doing is I'm trying to and obviously this council's brought it up plenty and I know the community very frustrated with the state of roads. One of the things I'm trying to do is get highway, our highway department. some more sort of skills and equipment and more of a focus on what's called box out and patching, which is a little bit different than pothole filling. You can only do potholes for so long in one section before you have to basically rebuild that small section of road. So that's one of the things I've been doing is trying to figure out that. We've already started, actually. We should see more patches around town as opposed to just pothole filling. So that's something I've been working on. You know, Highways also been helping out with outdoor dining, beautification efforts. Alicia Hunt was talking to you about some of those things. You know, an example of that is a governor's ad lot and the sealing and striping of that. This was also my first time doing the field prep season for the Parks Department and getting our fields ready. Again, I think that went pretty successfully. We tried to focus on communication and making sure that the multiple stakeholders involved, the programs, the parks commission, the rec department, the parks division of DPW were all in alignment, at least knew what sort of priorities are, what capacities were, and then making sure that that information was communicated. So I also believe that went pretty successfully this year. We also refurbished a couple of playing services, Duggar Park tennis courts placed at Barry Park, Barry Park basketball courts. As far as, I've been also trying to look at operations as much as I can. And a good example of that is continuing the implementation of cartograph. And I know water and sewer was the topic of discussion when I stepped up here. And that's one of the divisions that were up and running with Cartograph. Of course, there are issues to iron out, just like anything else. But up next would be Highway. So we've tested a work order system with Highway. It worked pretty well through Cartograph. But there are some issues with that, both on the software side and on the the personnel side that we're working through, nothing that we can't overcome. So I'm looking forward to continuing that process. And then of course, engineering maintains the GIS database that's associated with that operational system. Something that from an operational standpoint that is getting pretty clear is that we're going to see more regulatory compliance issues in the future. So whether that's issues to do with lead and copper, and water services or II, which is infiltration and inflow requirements. Also our stormwater permit to discharge to the river. So all of these things involve regulations and permits that the city holds. So that's another challenge that doesn't get a lot of discussion, but I think it's worth mentioning tonight is those requirements and obligations are only increasing. They don't seem to be decreasing at all. So it's just something to know because that does take capacity away from other things when you're trying to deal with those issues. So, and that's a lot of those are water and sewer and our team has been doing a great job from what I can see in making sure that we're meeting our regulatory compliance. So it's great to see that. And I think Dan is very well in tune with those and I've already seen great things happen just in the last few weeks since he's been on board. So great things to see there. engineering, obviously that's where I came from, and I'm still much involved in engineering, just to make sure that Owen is getting the information that he needs moving. So just a couple things.
[Zac Bears]: Would you mind if we. ask questions about Water & Sewer now that you've presented it, and then jump to engineer. I mean, we can take you in order, but.
[Tim McGivern]: Absolutely, let's make sure I just, I mentioned everything with Water & Sewer. So one of the things, a big project that Water & Sewer is working on right now is the water meters replacement for the city. So that's, let's see if there's anything else. Not really. So right now that's, we're selecting a vendor and working on finalizing the funding strategy for that project, which is a significant project for the city. So, but yeah, go ahead. We have the team here, so.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Thank you all for being here on a Saturday morning. It's much appreciated. And maybe a little short notice, and I apologize for that as well, if you had other things you'd like to be doing today. I actually don't have a complete copy of Water and Sewer in front of me. And to be honest, given that it's the Enterprise Fund, I have less concern this year about that, because we have so many problems with everything else. But I just on the regulatory compliance question. I know the main driver of this budget is generally the MWRA assessment, and that drives rates. Will the increased need for regulatory compliance potentially also increase rates in the long run?
[Tim McGivern]: Potentially in the long run. But I don't think for this upcoming year, really it's those regulatory compliance issues that I see increasing is more of like over the next few years. For example, a very good example of that is the new lead service rule coming down from the EPA. They're requiring us to have a full inventory, very specific, very detailed of all of our service lines in the city, water service lines. So, you know, that's probably gonna be in prime focus over the course of the next year, but it's going to be strategizing, looking for, you know, potential funding, which is available to help us do that inventory with the consultant, for example. So that's just one example. So, but that's, that doesn't have to be in effect until, let's see, calendar year 2023. but we know that there's also more requirements coming after that as well. So as these things solidify, it just gives us, you know, look forward to the future that doesn't, is not letting us off the hook in any way.
[Zac Bears]: And when you say, thank you, when you say that potentially affects capacity for other projects, could you just give an example? We might be focusing more on the lead lines than X. Sure.
[Tim McGivern]: You know, if we're working on, you know, GIS inventory. We've done a little bit of that. That takes usually an engineer's time. That'll take the GIS coordinator's time. So that's less time that engineers are working on capital projects.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. Well, and again, I think, I mean, I know it's Enterprise Fund, but I'm sure the capital needs are great. And so just wanna, I know you'll keep in mind, making sure that there's enough capacity to keep everything going while making the difficult choices you have to make.
[Tim McGivern]: I'm used to doing the best that we can with what we have. So I have no intentions of stopping that. That's what I do.
[Zac Bears]: I expect we will hear that refrain 25 more times over the next week. And while I deeply appreciate your ability to do it, I'm sorry that you do it all the time and with a detrimental impact sometimes to our level of service that we'd like to provide. So thank you. Those are my questions.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Tim, for jumping in and showing how important you are. You showed your worth in engineering and now at a bigger base now as a DPW director, so thank you. Questions I have is how many people are actually working in the water department?
[SPEAKER_09]: In water? Six. So we hit, yeah, six right now. Six? Right now, six, yeah.
[George Scarpelli]: And prior to this budget, I know you had a wishlist. Were we looking for more people in the water department?
[Tim McGivern]: As a wishlist, yes. Yeah.
[George Scarpelli]: And do you know what the normal capacity for towns our size for people, employees in the water department?
[Tim McGivern]: I don't have the average number, but I know it is more than what we have. Yeah, a lot more. So, I don't know, Dan, you have some direct knowledge. You're a good man. We taught you well.
[George Scarpelli]: But again, my comments are going to be the same with every department that comes up to DPW. I will tell you, I personally, a neighbor had an issue with finding a pipe that was, that had a question with, after DICSAFE came out, and Mr. Kerger and Mr. Tanagli came out right away. And that's the type of people they are, just to make sure people are safe in our community, making sure it wasn't a gas line. And I will tell you, we would be lost without the two of you, the institutional knowledge that you two bring to our community. I think it's the reason why we only, we can make this work with six people. because of your hard work and your commitment to Medford. I'm sure working, like I said, working in municipality, family members of work in other neighboring department, water departments, that all you have to do is work with certain companies. And I'm sure you've been approached by tens of hundreds of different companies that have said, hey, Pete, what are you making here? I'll double, triple that if you come work for us. I guarantee you that. And I know you can. So maybe people don't understand what goes on when they're sitting home and the water turns on, how much work we do here, but I find it fascinating. And I'm gonna make reference to this. Everybody told me, don't do this, George. Don't ever reference where you work, but I will. They have an army of employees. and still have issues. We have six people and you make it run like there isn't that everything smooth as can be, and I know it isn't. So we know how old our pipes are. We know how the infrastructure's crumbling underneath us, but some way you and your partner, you can't say Batman and Robin, I look at Batman and Superman and you and Steve and what you guys have done. So I wanna thank you. I think people really need to understand how important you are to this community. So if there's a legal age that they have to force you out because of age, I don't care if you're 150 years old, if I'm still sitting in this seat, I'm gonna make sure Pete Curry's around. So I appreciate it. So obviously budget wise, I'm gonna be honest with you guys to go over this stuff is, If you wanna know my comments, go to last year's budget meeting, go to the section we went to water, rewind it to George Scapelli speaks. Those are the same questions because it's the same numbers I have here. So I can't ask anything else, but all I can say is thank you for all your hard work.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thanks. Appreciate that.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Where did you find the $62,000 to cut out of six people? It says he had a change from last year to this year. You cut your permanent employees $62,834. Where did you find $62,000 from six people that work here, that work for you? Did they take a cut in pay?
[SPEAKER_12]: No, there were no cuts in pay.
[Richard Caraviello]: Or did we lose employees to find that $62,000? or is this a wrong number here?
[SPEAKER_12]: Okay. Yeah, that doesn't make a difference.
[Richard Caraviello]: We did reorganize fleet and that was... Well, the first line, the very first line it says permanent employees.
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I know what you're referencing. Yeah.
[Richard Caraviello]: That's a whole body. Did we lose a body?
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, I think we're down one.
[Richard Caraviello]: So we're down to five people now?
[Tim McGivern]: No, no, no, that's the number of people working. I think we have 10, 11 positions. Like we have, let's see.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't know if you're looking at this, but let's see.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep. Fixed that.
[Tim McGivern]: It may be a mistake, because what happened was, there were, there's a couple of different things going on. There's fleet folks in water, because we don't have a separate budget for fleet. And then we also had, early on in the budget, we were trying to look at who was getting paid out of what budget, and seeing if we could take things out of water. But we corrected that.
[SPEAKER_03]: That should correct it here.
[SPEAKER_12]: Seven, so this may not have that in there.
[Richard Caraviello]: So that number's incorrect?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Oh, we're still working on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: She hasn't gone anywhere.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think it was one of the previous open positions. I believe we removed one of the open positions. Councilor Caput.
[Richard Caraviello]: Okay, thank you. So, a lot of your work is done at night. So you cut your overtime budget $45,000. So, and I say these, Peter has been there out there nights, weekends, fixing stuff.
[Tim McGivern]: Yep, so what I did with overtime, what we did with overtime is we took a look at actuals and expectations. So we basically reduced overtime to meet actuals. So we're not taking it out of the work. So we expect the same amount of overtime, but we just match the number better to what we actually spend.
[Richard Caraviello]: So we're cutting our budget for repairing the catch basins by 40,000. What's the stormwater, $98,000, what does stormwater consist of?
[Tim McGivern]: So we have stormwater compliance with our permit. So that's some of that, actually most of it is compliance with our permit.
[Richard Caraviello]: So you cut your budget in half. Are you gonna still be able to comply with a half budget?
[Tim McGivern]: Well, some of that was just more operating capital type work that has been done. So we didn't need to have that in the budget. So what's left in the stormwater line are actually better, they are operating expenses for permit compliance. So that's what that is. So we didn't need to return money to that line for work that we completed. It doesn't need to be done again.
[Richard Caraviello]: Out of the $39,000 that we took out, that you took off, can't some of that money be recouped from the enterprise accounts? If that's, as Bob mentioned, that's what that money is for, to fix water and sewer projects. And I would think catch basins should be part of water and sewer, no?
[Tim McGivern]: We do have catch basin cleaning and repairs in this, some money set aside for this. But you cut it $39,000.
[Richard Caraviello]: The stormwater line. No, repair maintenance for catch bases. Can't that be funded through the water enterprise accounts? I mean, we've got catch basins all over the place that are sinking.
[SPEAKER_12]: that's in other services 5380.
[Tim McGivern]: So you'll notice that the other services line went up. So we did move some of the catch basis services into that other services line. So that line went up, but we did leave some in water and sewer for catch basin repair. There's also money in highways budget for that work as well.
[Richard Caraviello]: I lost the same question that I asked Bob, but is there talk of, I'm taking money out to offset the increase from the MWI rate to help the rate payers. I do know that I know we've done that in the past.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, I do know that the water and sewer commission is discussing that. So I don't know where they've landed. But I do know that they're discussing it. Thank you. Yep.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. Thank you so much for being here today. Really appreciate that overview. I just had a couple of clarifying questions about a couple line items. And I said this last week as well. I'm sure a lot of my questions will be colored by this being my first set of budget hearings as well. So forgive my unfamiliarity. I wanted to ask just about a little more specificity for the budget allocated for other services, just if you don't mind speaking a little bit to what that might comprise. And then my second question is, again, returning to the water MWRA line item, I saw that was reduced from over $20 million to a little over 20,000. So I was just curious about that discrepancy as well, if that was a couple extra zeros, or if that was a rate change, a very drastic rate change issue.
[SPEAKER_22]: You already went up 3.9%. Yeah, right. So we don't get those rates anymore.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, so it went up 800,000.
[SPEAKER_22]: So it went from 20.02 to 20.8. What was the first number you said, sir? 20.02 last year to 20.8 million this year.
[Kit Collins]: Okay, it is an issue of a couple of extra zeros on our spreadsheet.
[Tim McGivern]: Then thank you for confirming your first question. Other services. So other services are See, like CCTV pipe inspections and cleaning. We have maintenance on our city on two places to pump stations to industry industry. You have a backflow device program. where we're testing backflow devices. We have GIS services that are part of the implementation of our infiltration and inflow program. We have meter readings, holdings through a Clara. That's the system that is reading our meters and giving us information so we can generate bills. We have an item for on-call emergencies and maintenance of our water and sewer. And we have some sanitary sewer lining and sealing. And basically comprises that number of them. Is there anything?
[Nicole Morell]: No. Leak detection.
[Tim McGivern]: Leak detection.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you. I appreciate that.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Any further questions on water and sewer at this time? Seeing none. Thank you all so much. Tim, if you don't mind, if I could just let fire pop in and then we can get back to DBW, just because we have pretty much everything here. And I just wanted to get Chief Friedman up and out when I can, but I wanted to make sure I got. Anyone who asks if they can leave early, I'm trying to take them. Not that Chief Friedman has asked, but fire just seems pressing, so. You're good. You're free to go. Thank you, appreciate it. All right, so we're just gonna. We're gonna jump to fire and then we'll go back to DPW. So thank you, Commissioner McGiven for allowing that. Yeah, just so we can get Chief Friedman out, should there be any burning needs in the city.
[John Freedman]: Okay, I don't know how detailed you want me to get. I got a long narrative here if you want me to read through it.
[Nicole Morell]: Please, I mean, we have no narrative, so we just have spreadsheets, so any narrative you can provide.
[John Freedman]: All right. Let me just skip to the nitty gritty here. Okay, so the Medford Fire Department obviously is tasked with the protection of life and property. And I consider it a very serious business. It's 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We're responsible for protecting people and property from innumerable types of emergencies. We respond to calls, of need that range from many areas, including fires, explosion, hazardous materials, incidents, medical emergencies, water and ice rescues, motor vehicle accidents, and assortment of other emergencies. So the Medford Fire Department is staffed by a cadre of professionally trained personnel. The apparatus and equipment is constantly needed to be upgraded for safety and reliability reasons. The fire suppression division is ready at all times to respond to a fire or any other type of emergency. During the times we are not responding to such calls of need, the department is training, inspecting, checking equipment, testing hydrants, assisting the community with numerous other non-emergency calls. So we have we have a fire prevention division that's responsible for inspections and code enforcement of residents schools and businesses, the residents are inspected for smoke detectors carbon monoxide and oil permits and fire hazards. Community is inspected each month and a fire drill is conducted to ensure that in the event of a fire, all children will be safely evacuated from school buildings. And some businesses are required by law or ordinance to be licensed and require annual inspections developed by fire prevention and fire suppression divisions. And of course, there are complaints from many sources about violations that have to be followed up for compliance with safety of all concerned that are a paramount outcome. Fire prevention is also in the early phase to start the process of moving to a digital searchable database for record keeping, moving away from paper. We have our own fire investigation team. The team consists of members who receive training from the Mass Fire Academy in Stowe, Massachusetts. And these members work in conjunction with the Mass State Police Fire Investigation Unit, Medford Police. And together, they determine the cause and harms of every fire that occurs within the city of Medford We have a training division that is a critical component of all our operations of the fire department. Training is responsible for a multitude of functions. Uh, in addition to training all the fire suppression personnel and firefighting first aid, uh, now we have tablets or tablet operations, CAD reporting. Uh, they conduct school skills and drills so that we maintain our level of readiness. Um, they're also responsible for driver training, qualification, repair ordering. firefighting, clothing, turnout gear, and coordinating many other items. So the community, we also have a community room at Engine 5 that is available for all types of meetings, such as youth sports groups, community meetings, and AA meetings. The personnel from the Medford Fire Department are appointed and promoted by the mayor, utilizing a list of applications provided by civil service human resources divisions. We have six stations located strategically throughout the city. I'm not gonna list all of those, we all know where they are. And then we have, so in fiscal 22, the fire department continued with our fire station refurbishing projects. We have new kitchens installed, at engine two and engine five, they are now complete. We had new doors, overhead doors installed at engine two, and new roofs installed at engine six and engine five are now complete. We did LED lighting projects to upgrade the lighting in stations. Engine two, engine three, engine four, and engine five are now complete. We're working on getting engine six in progress. We have two new seagrave aerial ladder trucks that were constructed, now completed. We took the delivery and conducted over 364 hours of training, and the training still continues to qualify all of our staff. We have one 2020 Marauder 100-foot rear mount force aerial now in service, and then we have the other tractor-drawn 100-foot Marauder now in service. We installed new personal digital assistants, i.e. tablets. They were acquired and installed in all the frontline apparatus, and the tablet network is now up and running, so they're actually in service and they're being utilized. Since I took over, we received A new 2020 Silverado that was delivered, and that's now in service. A new boat was ordered prior to my arrival. That was delivered, and we trained on that, and that's now in service. And it's actually in the water at the Riverside Yacht Club. We have a new John Deere Gator utility. It's an off-road vehicle, i.e. a UTV, that was delivered, and we're awaiting the lighting to be installed on that. And then that will be in service once that's done and trained on. We purchased all the equipment to outfit the new aerials, Ladder 1 and Ladder 2. That was a daunting task to replace everything. We went with a lot of the tools and the things that we have now are all the latest state-of-the-art battery-operated tools. We got two new battery-powered HRSA Life setups installed on each ladder. Obviously, I have some goals that I'd like to work on in 23, and we're gonna begin working on the design phase for the new fire headquarters. That's a goal of mine. Create working groups to work with the OPM to conduct feasibility study and hire an architect. And work with Vertex to create a plan on headquarters, on where we're gonna go while they construct it, and what we're gonna construct there. We have another goal is to get the engine six kitchen renovation started, and the engine six LED lighting project, which I explained earlier is in progress. We're gonna create, I'd like to create an apparatus replacement plan for some of the older trucks that we have, we're gonna need to think about in the future. And obviously I got some longer term goals, but I'll stop there. And, you know, I'm not sure what you have for budget materials, if you have a copy of the one that you sent. If you have any questions on that, I can answer them.
[Nicole Morell]: Absolutely. We have Marston Bears, Cariello, and then Knight.
[Zac Bears]: Thanks for being here, Chief. Thanks for the presentation. I'll keep my questions pretty short. Basically, first one is just, a like 96% of your budget is people, right? So that's, that's really, I'm not so much. I mean, I'm obviously in the long run concerned about what's going on in the 4%, but just this year to next year, what's the difference or what, what may be between last year's budget and this year's budget is coming out? Like what's the, and you don't have to go through every single thing or give me the number, but like for you, what are you either gaining or losing that's most important?
[John Freedman]: Okay. As far as the last year and this year, It's pretty much the same number of positions, pretty much being level funded there. There is some vacant positions in there that are inherent in those numbers. And what we've done is, when I took over as chief, first thing I did was call around to the academies to try and get the earliest dates I could get to get people in. And I was only able to get three of the candidates into the Brookline Academy. So those those candidates have graduated and now on the line. We had one candidate that was a lateral from I think he's now on the line. We have 8 other candidates that have completed the process and when I called around But the problem was the process took so long that between the delays caused by the pandemic, what happened was during the pandemic, they shut the academy down. So then when they did restart it, it caused a huge backlog. So everyone's trying to get in there. And the earliest date I could get for the second group of four was September 19th. So I've locked those four in. The second four, I believe it was like November 28th was the earliest date I could get them out. So the Academy's 11 weeks, so we won't see the first group until November. The second group won't be here until February of 23. So it's, you know, it's delayed the arrival of all the work I did to get their background checks, medical, psych test, all that stuff done. And, you know, that's the soonest we can get them here.
[George Scarpelli]: Point of information, apologize if I'm jumping at something you're leading to. But Chief, were you told by the administration that no positions will be backfilled, or maybe the Chief of Staff can fill us in, because we were told that there'll be no positions. Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Well, as there was one.
[John Freedman]: you know, in an ideal world, you'd want to add positions that would be ideal. And then you could hire more. But honestly, with that deficit being what it is, I'm sure there's a balance in act there.
[George Scarpelli]: So we're expecting to add What about 14 new firemen? Is that right?
[John Freedman]: So there's 12 total? 12 new ones.
[George Scarpelli]: So if I can, I don't want to interrupt you, but can the chief of staff just answer that question? Are those 12 included in this year's budget to replace what's been left?
[Nicole Morell]: Madam chair, staff, are you able to address that?
[George Scarpelli]: What was left? Lost.
[John Freedman]: What's that? Yeah, well, obviously we lose people through retirement.
[George Scarpelli]: So the question is, are those is going to be replaced in this year's budget.
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you. Um, as as stated by the chief, there are several positions that are going through the academy. So at this point, if I'm not mistaken, there's eight of those. And so those are obviously going to be held. They're in the process of going through the academy. They've been given provisional letters of employment and there are presently five vacant positions. And I may be off a number chief. And if I am, please, please don't hesitate to modify our card.
[John Freedman]: Yeah, that's accurate.
[George Scarpelli]: So eight would be that are in the academy they're in.
[John Freedman]: So eight are all done. They're going to go through it.
[George Scarpelli]: So out of that 12, eight are in so that five aren't, will not be- There's five vacant positions. So we're not going to be filling those vacant positions, correct?
[John Freedman]: Well, let's see.
[George Scarpelli]: That's 13.
[John Freedman]: At this point, there's no plan to. You're asking if we're hiring five more.
[George Scarpelli]: Is that in the budget, we were told that we're not filling firefighter positions. So I'm just a little confused that yeah, there were eight in the academy that we were just told now they they'll be added. They're on there, they're, they're in the budget. I just want to make sure those other five, if they're going to be vacant, we're going to have five openings in the fire department.
[John Freedman]: I just want to make sure that the city expresses that right now that we know that even if I wanted to right now, if I started the process for those five, it would be well into 23 before it would probably be the end of the budget by the time we get them. But because of the time, the time it takes, the time it takes to do these background checks, do the whole process, the medical testing, site testing, and then they have to, we have to, we cannot even start the process at the academy until they complete that, and then we're allowed to, like, let them apply for the physical performance test.
[George Scarpelli]: So that's- Let me explain, Chiefs. Maybe, let's say they do that, right? Let's say they finish everything by the middle of the year, Oh, is that is the administration saying we do not have them in the budget. That's what I'm saying. We're saying we have five openings. So if those five finish, let's say in in November, if they're not in the budget, they're not in the budget, whether they finish the academy, the ones that are in the academy.
[John Freedman]: Right, so as far as I know, those five you're asking about, there's no process started yet.
[Zac Bears]: I think what may help here, we have in here, last year you had eight budget, other than the leadership and the office manager, there's a budget for 81 firefighters, not including lieutenants, captains, deputy chief. This year it's 80. Of those 80, how many are currently either vacant or in the academy?
[John Freedman]: Um, so right now, you're talking about just because when you say firefighters, you talk, I just mean the line that says firefighters not not including lieutenants captains. Okay, so right now, we have actively in the department, we have 66.
[Zac Bears]: Okay.
[John Freedman]: Okay, so so that's for once we get once we get those eight. Right? Yeah, back up to 74. Yeah.
[Zac Bears]: That leaves six further vacancies that are still funded in the budget. Okay, got it. So there's actually room.
[John Freedman]: I mean, I know the numbers are off a little bit, but there's one missing there somehow.
[George Scarpelli]: I appreciate it. I just want to make sure that there was a comment made. I had phone calls from firefighters saying that we heard that police fire will not, there'll be positions not being filled. Not that people being laid off, but people who weren't being filled. So I appreciate the clarity and making sure that they have that answer.
[Zac Bears]: So thank you. Six vacancies that are budgeted for, in addition to the eight that are.
[George Scarpelli]: So that's perfect. So if in November, we miraculously get six more firefighters through the academy, they're budgeted. So at least.
[John Freedman]: It would be impossible.
[George Scarpelli]: I know what I'm saying. I'm saying if the, you know, the fire academy.
[John Freedman]: They could do that.
[George Scarpelli]: Right.
[John Freedman]: Okay.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I'm good.
[Zac Bears]: Actually, no, no, no. Good. Sorry. That's what's so long on that I forgot my other question. I was really encouraged to hear about the apparatus kind of plan to repair and replace apparatus. You know, obviously you're talking about the OPM for the new headquarters. Have you seen and or been directed to create like a long-term capital plan, either in concert with them?
[John Freedman]: I put in several projects, we call them projects, and we're working on putting them in the CIP and finding the money. One of them, one of which is turnout gear has gone absolutely crazy price wise. It's when I got on in earlier years, it was $1,100 a set. It's now over $4,000. So, you know, just hiring 12 firefighters, right? You got to buy two sets for each firefighter because you need a frontline set and a backup set. If you do the math, it's $100,000 that we're looking for.
[Zac Bears]: Right?
[John Freedman]: So that's going to have to go in CIP. And we discussed all that we're going to work on.
[John Freedman]: And because that's obviously, and then the other thing that comes into that is we're working on making long-term plans for the rest of the department. Like when it, because turnout gear expires, like, you know, a fine, it's a finite number. It starts aging the second you it's manufactured. When it gets out to 10 years old, you no longer deployable has to be destroyed.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[John Freedman]: So we have several, uh, dates on when you, as you hire people that bought at different times and you really don't want to buy gear and have it sitting around because it's going to expire while it sits there. Yeah, so it's kind of and I'm seeing it across all the departments in the metro fire area is that they're running into the same issue. Turnout gear is taking longer to manufacture, it's harder to get. So you have to kind of think ahead. And that's what we're doing. I'm presenting that to them showing them what these are the the deadlines when the gear expires. This is the amount of money we're going to need for each thing. It's going to be a constant battle because we're gonna have to keep an eye on it so that we don't run into a situation where we have expired gear.
[Zac Bears]: Got it. Yeah, that's that's helpful and I asked not to put you on the spot but just to say, you know, I think one of the reasons we are where we are with the issues that we're facing, nevermind the capital backlog. You have a bunch of capital needs over the next 10 years DPW has a bunch of capital, you know, every department is going to end up. Yeah, having a ton of you know and something we don't have in the city is actually an assessment what's the total amount of capital need over the next 10 years and, and how are we going to get the revenue to get there and it sounds to me like you're trying to get there and I think I've only been here five months yeah and I am like trying on every level to make them aware so that these capital things.
[John Freedman]: Yeah, maybe in the past they weren't. on the radar, we didn't have the lead times we're seeing now, even the trucks, it's 540 days to manufacture a truck. That's after you complete finding the money, getting the design finalized from the second you pull the trigger from once the design is finalized, it's 540 days to build it. And then when it gets here, there's training. So if you have something that's aging out, you have to kind of think ahead of head because of these delays. And, and then the other issue is finding the money, you know, money is these things aren't cheap. These trucks are a lot of money. Now the prices are going up, up, up, right. Everything's going up. Even my, when I, when I purchased medical supplies, when I purchased stuff for the buildings, stuff for the, you know, the turnout gear, like I said, maintenance on the trucks, everything's more.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, no.
[John Freedman]: And I so that's why it's difficult to predict this budget. It's it's, you know, I know there's looming price increases. We've already seen like crazy price increases already. And, you know, when you try to predict this, it's it's like, all right, I think this is what it's going to do. And the worst thing would be to not put enough in there. And then we can't do something.
[Zac Bears]: Right.
[John Freedman]: So that's, that's where I'm coming from. And I'm gonna try and work with the administration. They've also been I do have to say this about the administration. They have supported me wholeheartedly on all this building maintenance stuff. They found money for me to be able to do any of this. Without them, it would be impossible. And the effort they put in to support me on this is monumental. I can't even say enough about it. It's allowing me to come in. It's daunting, because on top of all my other duties, we're adding in major renovations. We're doing roofs. You know, and it's so it's, it's push pulling me in 80 different directions, but in the end, the fruits of the labor. Now, if you go look at engine five, or you go look at some of these other kitchens that we did, and it's all starting to, you know, come together and I couldn't have done it without the administration. They, you know, basically, you know, we're able to find the money and I couldn't do anything without them.
[Zac Bears]: And I know like you're speaking of like the CPA money for the for the all that stuff.
[John Freedman]: That's all the administration. And like I said, they, they've been with me side by side. Yeah. No, and honestly, I know there's been some stuff that went on here today. But I do believe they are there's on top of my effort, their effort is monumental. And what Nina said about all hours of the day and night, that is true. We're on we're constantly working on stuff. It just things things are coming up after hours and you have to put the time in it, they put the time in it, her whole staff, Nina, everybody. So I do want to go on record as saying that. So somehow that gets missed. And if I don't say it and I don't make you aware of it, then I would be remiss.
[Zac Bears]: No, no. And I appreciate that. It's refreshing to hear. And it seems like on fire needs, there's been a real focus on getting you what you need. But I think what we really need to see in the whole budget picture is, you know, splitting out operating and capital expenses which we don't necessarily have right now, we have this facilities department that's supposed to be working with all of the city departments, you know, we haven't had the facilities manager. And I'm not saying this to dispute what you just said I appreciate and accept that they've put in the full effort to make this also the mayor and her administration.
[John Freedman]: Yeah, they're championing it I mean that they're putting it right to the top of the plate, right, that's what I'm seeing. I just need to go on record with that.
[Zac Bears]: No, and I appreciate that and I basically what I'm saying is, it would be, I think this council would love to see how can we do that replicate that across everything and have a full picture of our capital needs, you know, because what I'm hearing from you is fantastic. I'm getting a call from the library yesterday, no maintenance money in the budget, and we're not gonna be able to maintain the new building you know and it's like, we need all hands, we need that full picture of capital so that we can know how much money we need. And you know, I love that we've been able to get some projects done through the CPA to support you know but it's like it's through the historic and it's like it doesn't apply to every station so it's not a comprehensive and holistic thing. And I want the certainty for you and your department. to know what's coming down the pike, how long it's gonna take and where the money's coming from. And we need that across everything. So again, it's not a dispute. I'm glad that it's went well and that so much has happened in this short amount of time. I think that's fantastic news. And I just hope that we can see that in all the other places as well. So thank you. Those are my questions.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Chief, thank you for being here today. And like everybody else here, we're asked to be doing more with less. So I'm just gonna ask you one question. Um, what's not in this budget that should be in here for you?
[John Freedman]: Um, what's not in this budget that should be in there for me? Well, obviously, you know, obviously, like I said, it's a balancing act. The more firefighters you get, the less over time and the less You know, you get younger people and it's, it's, you know, if I can get more positions I would but in this environment in this climate what's going on, I don't know if that's possible.
[Richard Caraviello]: So, other than more manpower that's, that's, you feel like we're working on we're working on headquarters that's, that's something that the new.
[John Freedman]: We hired the OPM now we're going to start putting the working groups together to select an architect and. Then we're going to work on the design, we're going to figure out, you know, one way to build it, where do we go, when it's being built. How do we, you know, do we do a temporary headquarters somewhere else when we find my staff. So obviously that's, that's a huge goal and that's obviously, you know, it's it's in the administration's it's one of their goals and I'm sure they're going to find the money and help me get that done that's. That's it's actually their goal as well we share that goal.
[Richard Caraviello]: So, for business is right, you know, I wish that the administration put, you know, every department is putting into us.
[John Freedman]: I mean in a perfect world I'd love to have a dieting, you know, maybe we can work on some grants for that get the equipment. You know, the previous chief talked about running a heavy rescue. you know, maybe an ambulance, you know, things like that, like those are long term future goals that I think we could work on in the future.
[Richard Caraviello]: So going down the line here, we're looking to bring life science and bio into this community. Do you have the hazmat capability to handle something if again, You know, everybody that will talk to you know there's gonna be low level level but if there were to be an incident.
[John Freedman]: Do you have the capability of responding to a hazmat incident in a four story building, we are trained for hazardous material response and we do have hazmat teams that are available to us through Metro fire and the labs obviously be on a larger scale, it'd be more of them but There's a restriction in method they can't do three and four so it's only one right one and level two, and the quantities and the things that we would see in those types of labs, and the way we would, you know, basically design the buildings and the building code and the life safety code and all that stuff I think we could handle that.
[Richard Caraviello]: Is there like a special truck they need a special equipment that's needed to respond to a hazmat.
[John Freedman]: Well, I think the biggest thing is recognizing that when the, when the crews get the train, they have the training to recognize there is a hazardous substance there and then, in that case, it would be a non responsive call and has that team. And then, you know, we would mitigate it in that way. That's the way we handle all that stuff now. If we have an incident, we look at it and we say, okay, you know, this is outside of our, you know, equipment. If it's something we wanted to, it's probably not. We probably could go in and handle that, but we would still call them in and let them, you know, just tell us that it's safe. And then we would go from there. Thank you. That's it for me. Okay.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Madam President, thank you very much. And Chief, welcome aboard. Thank you for being here, your first budget. So far, so good. Thank you for doing a great job. It's great to see that the mayor is showing some loyalty somewhere. The firefighters worked very hard for her to get her elected. So I'm glad to see that she definitely has. I mean, that's some new promises that she's made to those rank and file working men and women over there. And looking at the overtime budget, it looks like right now at the end of the third quarter, you're about $200,000 over budget. And next year, we're looking at level funding this with the mayor indicating that she's not going to be backfilling any more positions other than the ones we already discussed. Do you think that you're going to be able to maintain?
[John Freedman]: over time control over time with that figure that all the time overages, the direct reflection of dealing with the pandemic. So we had a lot more. I mean, we go to COVID positive facilities, all day we're exposed our families are exposed. And we've seen an uptick in, you know, The amount of time people are out on COVID paid emergency leave because of that. So that caused a significant amount of all the time, I thought you're gonna say that was all from when Gilbert he was the chief. Well, the other. So, basically the it's it's it's not only that it's it's, you know, so now, if you add the staffing levels dropping, we have. several members that are out injured at the moment. Like I said, it's, as we get older, you're more injury prone. Then we have some members that are out with cancer. That's something we've seen in the fire service, you know? So if you add those in with a pandemic and, you know, people being, doing the right thing and being cautious, you know, like when they get exposed and being quarantined, you get what we have here.
[Adam Knight]: I guess it's one night enough.
[John Freedman]: Hopefully the pandemic is, you know, it winds down a little bit and we don't see this kind of numbers. If we do, that's the vacant positions are there. If we don't fill those, that's what we did here was we use that money to help augment that.
[Adam Knight]: But is one night enough. What's that is one night enough.
[John Freedman]: Um, well, I've only been here five months, and I came in at a time right in the middle of a pandemic where it was absolutely I could tell you from being a deputy for six years it's the sick time, because of the pandemic, you know, people were getting cold. If you look at the numbers, the union will tell you that we have members experience that we, even though we were vaxxed and boosted and everything, double boosted, people are still getting it, you know? And when you, when you're constantly exposed to it, you're going into facilities where people have it, you're transporting people that have it, the exposure level, even wearing all your equipment, we're seeing people getting it.
[Adam Knight]: So, so it was $1.9 million enough.
[John Freedman]: I hope so.
[Adam Knight]: This is my ninth budget. You said more words than Chief Gilbert. He's ever said at a budget hearing in all eight years put together. All right. So I'm very, very grateful for your presentation. Don't get me wrong. That's the only question that I have.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you for some real Thank you again for for being here and for your presentation. I just had a quick question about the hazardous duty pay the 285,000 allocated to that I was just curious if that was coming out of the general fund or if that was an ARPA allocation or anything else. You know, out of out of the ordinary about that funding source for that sorry let me look at her so yes saying the 285.
[John Freedman]: There's one that's zeroed out. That was something that went into the, it's an old line item. You're talking about the apparatus stipend?
[Kit Collins]: No, I see hazardous duty pay as proposed as such.
[John Freedman]: Yeah, it looks like they may have taken that out of my budget. Like see on the end where it says divisional one there. Oh, they added it in.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, and the reason I ask is because I know there was some conversation about hazardous duty pay to the firefighters.
[John Freedman]: And I wanted to know- Maybe you need to shed some light on that, why that's there. It wasn't there before. Maybe it's something that we added and, you know, it was added in late in the contract. So that's why I think it's there. Sure, my question is- And it wasn't there before. That's what my gut feeling is about that. Sure. It was previously, if you look at it, it was previously the same amount was in, the apparatus stipend. So I think there was some negotiation back then that moved it from there into hazardous duty.
[Nicole Morell]: I assume staff, are you able to speak to that?
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you, President Morales. Councilor Collins, I actually don't have that answer in front of me, but I'm happy to record it and follow up. I, I'm not sure if perhaps it was just categorized as the cheap set in a different category and then put in the correct line. It's, I believe it's a, it's a payment that is made and has existed for a number of years so I'm not sure why it's being presented as the first year there.
[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you. I would appreciate follow up on that. My question is just specifically, I know there was some conversation about ARPA being used for hazardous duty pay for firefighters. So I'm curious if that is the funding source, if it's coming out of the general fund, just looking for some clarity around use of ARPA funds. So at any point, if you could get some clarification on that, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.
[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell, if I may, the only thing I can say to answer Councilor Collins' question is at this present time, it is being presented as coming out of the operating budget. and not through ARPA.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay. Thank you.
[Nina Nazarian]: I'll get back to you, Councilor Collins. Thank you. And the council. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Any other questions for Chief Freeman at this time? Councilor Knight?
[Adam Knight]: It was brought to my attention recently that there was some promotions that were extended over there and then they were rescinded. Was there any situation that happened like that relative to the service list and the promotional opportunities for certain individuals in the unit?
[John Freedman]: I believe there was some confusion on the there. So we're working on getting that corrected.
[Adam Knight]: Is it going to result in a cost increase to anybody here in the city? We have people working over grade the data grade that shouldn't be a people that are working being great.
[John Freedman]: No, I don't think it was that I think it was just, uh, maybe Nina can answer, but it was basically, uh, I think it was just some confusion as to the names when we were submitting them, and then it ended up, um. You know, the paperwork wasn't complete. So, um, They're trying to correct it that's that's the impression I got when I, so what we're saying is some paperwork went up to civil service to give people a promotional I believe there's something that needs to happen in civil service correctly, we, we may have been partly my fault, because I you know we promoted the permanence.
[Adam Knight]: I went down and said, Hey, we got two temporaries where them right and what I'm saying that the reason I asked is because you know, a lot of times, these individuals sit in a temporary slot, as you're well aware for extended periods of time, waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting to become permanent. And then finally we have the opportunity to do it. And then we do it wrong, right. So that's my concern, you know what I mean? We have individuals out there that have been, you know what I mean? Stepping up to the plate, working out of grade, doing the right thing, waiting for the chance. And then when the chance comes, we drop the ball. So I just, I'm hoping that that gets rectified. And I'm just asking if we can include it in the committee report that we get a report back.
[John Freedman]: I believe HR is working on that very thing.
[Adam Knight]: Thank you, thank you. And I know that you don't handle civil service paperwork and stuff, Chief. You're too busy building a new station. You can't be doing that.
[John Freedman]: That's actually HR that does that. I make them aware of these positions. And then they go to HR. And then the mayor is technically the appointing authority. There's a process there.
[Nicole Morell]: I just have a few questions. What are the staffing levels? What's the formula that just decides on the full staffing levels for the city? Like how you get to that 80 number or 81 number for firefighters?
[John Freedman]: We have a 23 man per shift minimum. And then we have, you know, obviously day staff, and, you know, I have a clerk and so we have training to people in training, fire prevention. And then, you know, we have one administrative deputy that fills in for the vacations or when deputies are out sick. So that's where the numbers come from. And then the amount of firefighters, it's whatever positions. you know, authorized, and then we try to hire as many as we can. And, you know, go through that process. And what I found is that it's hard to get slots in the academy. It's hard to get that completed. It's, you know, to get all that stuff done takes time. And because of the fact that you can't years ago used to be able to reserve slots, you can say, okay, give me eight slots. And then you could go through the process and try and get them done in time. But what happened was You know, chiefs would fail to get it done and then those slots would go unfilled. So they changed the process and made it okay. Now you have to complete everything before you have to have names and social security numbers before you can even apply for the P at. And then that has a whole waiting game is everyone's in line. Then once they complete that, then you can apply for the academy. And that's a huge line. So what I'm seeing is it's just going further and further out. We have the Metro chiefs meeting. The last meeting we had that they're booking out into January, late January right now. So even if I were to like hire them all today, they wouldn't even get to the academy until January. Can we run our own academy?
[Adam Knight]: What's that? Can we run? I know like city of Boston has their own academy. I know some other places have their own academies.
[John Freedman]: You know, I looked at all those, the three that I got, I got them into Brookline. When I took over, the first phone call I made was Brookline, because I knew they were running one, and there was three left. So I got the last three.
[Adam Knight]: But I'm saying, can we run our own and then have other communities come to us and give us the money to do it and use it as a generator for revenue?
[John Freedman]: Well, we don't have it. We used to run our own. They stopped it. In fact, in 2003, when I was promoted to lieutenant, well, even before that, so I'll go even further back. 97 was the last class that we did in Medford. And then the administration and the chief and everybody decided to send them all to the, to the stow Academy. And there are other academies, Boston runs an Academy. Uh, I tried to get them into Boston. They were running one that started in July and Boston got some huge grant. They hired like 85 guys filled their whole Academy.
[Adam Knight]: So for us to investigate running our own Academy again, like we did in the late nineties.
[John Freedman]: We wouldn't need a tower for that. We don't have a tower. So that's a problem. So we wouldn't be able to run our own. And even Brookline, when we applied to Brookline, I talked to the Brookline chief, that's the last class they're doing, they're not doing them anymore.
[Adam Knight]: Brookline has a tower.
[John Freedman]: They have a tower. Yes, they have a whole setup there. So and what the chief told me was that it's, it's not cost effective for him to run uh, the academy anymore because the amount of staff it takes from his regular suppression and then, uh, the actual cost. It's for them. They're going to just send all their firefighters to the academy. I mean, there's different ways to think about it.
[Adam Knight]: Retirees and guys that are in jet is like duty. placements or something like that. There's different ways you can look at it. Yeah. So, I mean, I called around, I mean, believe me, it's going to take a huge capital investment anyway for us to develop our own fire academy.
[John Freedman]: But yeah, we'd have to build a tower again. And then supporting like in Brooklyn, they have a tower with a supporting classroom and all the other stuff that goes with that so that, you know, they can conduct that training. And then you need to take personnel which would inflate the budget because now those personnel when they go in, and then the Brookline chief was telling me after they're done they all go on vacation because it's daunting to do that work it's it's think of like a drill sergeant so you're going to do your training and then you need some time off. So that's what they do and he says it just wreaks havoc with this budget, and it's just not cost effective him to do it anymore. So, and that may have been what was going on with Medford. I don't know. You know, I, I ran myself and I was a firefighter at the time. He had just graduated the regular Academy and, and they were looking for volunteers, myself and Captain Rosie, we, we, you know, volunteered to help the current captain at that time. And a couple other lieutenants volunteered and we ran the last Academy. And then, like I said, the city administration and the chief at that time decided, okay, we're not going to run our own anymore. And then the tower is now gone. So it would virtually be an impossibility unless we build another tower. And then we'd have to, we'd have to come back to this and then say, okay, we're going to add staff to staff.
[Adam Knight]: You know, we have the tower to run the academies that we're not running the academies anymore. Correct.
[Nicole Morell]: I said two more questions. Any, any anticipated retirements this year?
[John Freedman]: I was asked that earlier. I don't have that number. I can get back to you with that number. I know we lost four last year before the year before.
[Nicole Morell]: And this is a bit more of a capital question, I guess, but I know the washing machines within stations are really important as far as safety for washing gear and taking all the really detrimental stuff out of it. Do you guys have what you need for those in every station?
[John Freedman]: Um, well, we have, we have, uh, extractors at headquarters that you're talking about the turnout. Yeah.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah.
[John Freedman]: Yeah. We, we, uh, have extractors at headquarters and the choking point is the dryer. We only have one dryer, so you can only hold three sets. So, uh, when we build a new headquarters, that's something we're going to correct. You basically want to build a system where you can take the whole division and turn it around in six hours, you know, rather than the way we have it now, it takes. The entirety of a shift. And that's the other reason we got to have two sets too because you can't just turn it around, you know, the, the extracting takes time and then the drying takes even longer because it's, it has to be dried at a lower temperature. You can't just toss it in a dryer. It's, it's, it's not good for the gear. So, um, they do make dryers that, you know, when we, yeah. Well, when we build the new headquarters, my plan is to upgrade that whole system and make it so that the way I said, make it so we can turn it around quicker. Hopefully that answers your question.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Yes. Thank you. Any further questions for the chief? Not seeing any. Thank you so much.
[John Freedman]: Okay. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Unless council wants a brief recess, we can continue back to DPW. All right. Yeah, if you wanna, we have a few sheets in front of us, so it's really up to you which order you wanna go through. And then if we did notice, I think we don't have a forestry budget in front of us. I think maybe one of the, we don't have a forestry budget, maybe one of the ones that's missing. I don't know if there's more missing, but that's the one that I think we noticed.
[Tim McGivern]: I don't know why. Okay.
[Nicole Morell]: President Morell over time for being. Yes, madam.
[Nina Nazarian]: If it would be helpful, I'm happy to email that to the council right now.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, we could email it and also include the clerk and we could get some hard copies up to us. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Sure, I will say so. Obviously, you know, we took a close look at the budget after meeting with the mayor. I had some goals in here.
[Nicole Morell]: Sorry, Commissioner McGuire, sorry. Vice President Bears seems to have something urgent.
[Zac Bears]: Sorry, just, you gave a great long narrative presentation on hot water and sewer. You can keep it to the highlights. No offense at all.
[Tim McGivern]: And I try to focus on the budget as well. And we got Steve Tegeler up here for highway lead. So I talked about some of the things that we've been up to in highway as well. I just want to say before we start talking about the rest of DPW's budget that's general fund as opposed to water and sewer, you know, DPW as a whole, we kept it at zero, but you probably have noticed that Mary and I have reallocated things to try to meet goals. For example, forestry, we're trying to build up forestry to something that is You know, more than just a couple of folks. So, you know, you'll see you'll see that we're trying to add some tree climbers in here. There was two things really that that we did in the budget that saved us money. One of them was reorganize reorganize that reorganizing fleet, which saved some money there and also making the overtime budgets match previous actuals. So we're not taking anything away, but we sharpened our pencil, so to speak. So that's why you're going to see some of these things moving around within the different departments of the DPW. All right, so we'll start with, well, we'll start with highway first. I did talk a little bit about some of the Things that we've been up to is that we had a successful winter, I believe, and you know we highway is really the go to department when it comes to things like events. So we've had dozens of events where you know the city turns to dpw to help Do things that people don't realize what we're doing, whether it's moving furniture around getting things set up working on beautification projects planters. things like that. When things are happening like that in the city, behind the scenes, it's the highway department that's really stepping up to the plate. And that's been the case for a long time. So, you know, that's something that is important to mention. So with that, you know, we can dive into highway and I can take your questions. Let's see if you had anything to say or...
[Zac Bears]: Just, would it be possible to update the highway contracts other services line item title to say highway contracts trash removal. Just, it's the third up from the bottom on the ordinary.
[SPEAKER_22]: Right, but that is down that is highway contracts, other services that 010433. That's my waste management line.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, could it would it be possible to just potentially update the title of that, the to say trash for waste removal somewhere in there so most definitely we can do that but keep it at the same account. Oh, of course, of course.
[SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, I don't want to.
[Zac Bears]: I don't, I don't marry. I'm not coming after what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_22]: We can do that.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I just think it's really reflective considering it's just such a high percentage of the highway budget for people if they ever in a budget. book wherever it ends up if it one ends up online to go in and say, what are all these is this, they may see highway contracts and think oh that's all going to the roads, it's like, no, that's trash removal and that's one of our fastest growing cost drivers in DPW and in the whole city. So I just think that's helpful for people, not that you know, maybe 10 people do it every year and look at it but if those 10 people they might want to see that that's trash or waste removal, sorry. My other question is around Freedom Way. Was that being... Got Steve laughing. Is that being transferred in terms of ownership and responsibility from the schools to the city? And where are we with that?
[Tim McGivern]: Sure, yes. The answer is yes. And the planning board just recently approved that. So the next step is to go to city council. So we're just working, we're making sure legally, we've got all the legal documents in order before it goes to city council. So you should be, that should be seen very quickly with you guys. And I know we have the curtailed meeting scheduled for the summer. So I believe and Owen might be able to talk more to schedule when engineering's up.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Awesome, thank you. That's it, that's all I had. And the only reason I don't have more is because I know it's the same situation we were in last year where there's a ton of need and not a ton of change in the budget and you're gonna work your best, work your hardest, try to do what you can, but it's really tough situation. So I'd ask a million more questions about what's our backlog, what do we need? But I've had those answers before and I know it's a serious situation and that this budget is not gonna fix it. So thank you. And thank you for your work, obviously, Steve.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Collins and Councilor Knight.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Merlin. Thank you again, Commissioner McIvern for being here. I had two more clarifying questions about just certain line items. Just wanted to make sure I was getting the full picture. Under the personnel section, I think one, two, three, one, two, three up out of grade. I was just curious what that meant. If you don't mind describing that for me.
[Tim McGivern]: Sure. So out of grade is if within, say, for example, if Stevie is out, who leads highway, then the second in command will take his position for the day. So that's out of grade.
[Kit Collins]: Gotcha. Thank you so much. And then under ordinary expenses, kind of in the middle of this section here, at least on my sheet, it says on highway food for inmates. Do you mind describing that light item for me?
[SPEAKER_03]: sure you want to do it?
[SPEAKER_22]: That's when the inmates come into the city and they assist the highway department, whether it's cleaning the park or cleaning parking lots, and they work along with the park department also.
[Tim McGivern]: Yep, so you found a similar line in the parks.
[SPEAKER_22]: So they get breakfast and lunch.
[Kit Collins]: Gotcha. Good to know. Did not know that we were using
[Adam Knight]: Mary, how you doing Steve? Good to see you. Great, thank you. I'm looking at ordinary expenses, one, two, three, four, five lines down, $10,000 for street repair and what looks like maintenance.
[SPEAKER_22]: Oh, five, two, five, four, all?
[Adam Knight]: We don't have numbers.
[SPEAKER_22]: Okay, that is a striping. That's our contract. When we have the sweeper, when we're sweeping twice a year, we have a contractor come in, Millennium, they come in and help us with the third sweeper.
[Adam Knight]: So that's the $273,000. Yeah, in the Wrights Pond Dam.
[SPEAKER_22]: Let's just skip down to the $80,000 for highway, streets, materials, and $80,000 appropriation, three down from Millennium.
[Adam Knight]: That would be 010-5422-5530-1539. Highway, streets, materials. Yep, $80,000.
[SPEAKER_22]: That's just like anything asphalt, potholes, well, it's not. Carving, yeah.
[Tim McGivern]: So materials.
[SPEAKER_22]: Materials and supplies that they need, paint, you know, anything that they need. Home Depot, they'll go to Home Depot and buy supplies. That's what that is.
[Adam Knight]: Modern hardware.
[SPEAKER_22]: Oh, that's not going to be there anymore. And even hillside hardware, too.
[Adam Knight]: And then the next one I'd like to look at is it's a $7.5 million appropriation And that's in the contracted services.
[SPEAKER_22]: That is your waste management.
[Adam Knight]: That's trash, OK.
[Tim McGivern]: And that's, if you saw earlier numbers, that has come down because we really sharpened our pencil on that one too.
[Adam Knight]: And then below it is the $50,000 appropriation for other contractual services. Is that mosquitoes or something?
[SPEAKER_22]: Is that 430? Because I have a 5295. Directly beneath the trash. OK. Um, that is, um, that's for the garage, um, for the DPW building, any kind of, um, maintenance or PM that needs to be done. That's what that funding's for.
[Adam Knight]: And I'm looking at, it looks like 23 positions budgeted in 22, 25 positions budgeted in 23 how many positions of these 25 a filled or even on the 23 1616 people. Sixteen and highway. Sixteen and highway. So there's eight wards in the city. Each ward has two precincts. So that gives us two highway people for each ward of the city. I think we can do a little bit better with the staffing levels.
[Tim McGivern]: I would love to.
[Tim McGivern]: Well, you know, one of the things that I think, you know, I brought it before and everybody's brought it before. The roads are in top shape. Yeah, they are. Highway takes a role in that, and it's really the maintenance role. So I'm not sure if you were here, but one of the things I mentioned, what I'm trying to do with highway, and Steve has been really good about this, and they're performing excellent, is moving, trying to take areas that are, we've hit with potholes so many times, they've fallen apart, and trying to do what's called box outpatching. So we're looking at some used spreaders to do that. We already have a grinder that they've been, making use of, um, and, uh, improving their skills as, as, as proves. So, um, you know, I want to keep us going down that road. So when we're trying to do maintenance, um, that is, you know, one, one step above just, you know, batching a puddle and walking away, which we do great at that too. So, but there's all kinds of different treatments for roads.
[Adam Knight]: I'm trying to keep our focus on, uh, on a personal note in front of Bob's food store.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's bad.
[Adam Knight]: I know bad. Yeah. You got three flat tires. They're frigging legit. It's not the only location in the city. I know, but it's still got the potholes there. It's been a year. Okay. We got to get that taken care of. I mean, it's like, you can't even drive down the street because the cars are parked. You can't avoid them because if someone's coming on the side and they're like, go to Australia.
[SPEAKER_07]: Sure.
[Adam Knight]: If it's not on the list, we'll make sure it's on the list. For sure.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah. It's a priority.
[Adam Knight]: Exactly.
[Zac Bears]: Any other questions from.
[Adam Knight]: That's it for me.
[Tim McGivern]: Just real quick, just commiserate. I mean, when I drive to work, there's a couple of puddles, but I, you know, every now and then I'll tell Highway to go up there, but, you know, I don't want to be like, oh, go fix my commute to work, right? So, we know it's a citywide problem, and Highway does a great job with Stevie as the lead, getting out there and doing the best we can to get as many puddles filled, and then again, like I said, moving to a farmstead. We're not the only, a lot of people say Medford's roads are really bad, but if you do drive around other cities, I think we're, we have a similar problem with other places.
[Nicole Morell]: It doesn't make it okay.
[Tim McGivern]: It doesn't make it okay. You're correct. That's right.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Scarpelli, then back to Vice President Harris.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President. Again, I'll be consistent. Again, Councilman, I stole my thunder. 16 highway employees. We realize neighboring communities, what they have for the highway department. So it's pretty bad. So again, we know, but I think again, I'm going to say it, like I said, with the water, there's one person that's, that stands above and that's, um, that's miss Tanaglia. I think that we have, it's one thing that I will tell you, Tim, that when you talk to a constituent that has an issue, um, there's never anything bad, as bad as the streets are, there's never anything bad about our crews because they go above and beyond. They find themselves doing one thing and it's not shocking that, you know, Steve would hop over and just go check something else to make sure that everybody's taken care of. And I don't know if anybody sees Steve, but whether it's eight 30 in the morning on a Monday or, 930 at night on a Wednesday or a one o'clock in the afternoon on a Saturday or a four o'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday, that blue truck is all over the streets with that bright yellow shirt. So it's, he's always out there. And I, and I, I appreciate it because I, you know, Steve has a lot of passion for Metro. We've talked often. And I think that it shows in his work. He's, doesn't take, he knows, I'll say it a thousand times, you guys don't have enough guys, you don't have enough people. And he just bypasses that and tells me how he has to get the job done, it doesn't matter. And if it was anybody but him, I think we'd be in big trouble. I think we'd be in really big trouble. So again, Mary, I'm also like, you know, you're always on the other line, always there to listen. And people tell us that, you know, that whoever that person is on the other end of the line, they've always been so positive. And again, as bad as it is, Tim, we're lucky we have the staff that we do. So I hope our community really understands that. Because they're our backbone right now. It's keeping it together. So I appreciate it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. I know, I know. Thank you. Absolutely.
[Tim McGivern]: The amount of experience in our DPW is quite large. So I feel I feel like a baby. So anyway, so without without the support of the division leaders, doing what they do best. So we have a very good team. And I'm going to continue to try to ask the best.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Yep.
[Zac Bears]: Just very quickly wanted to flag for you just if you haven't seen it, and maybe it won't come to fruition. But the State Senate did pass up on bill with 200 million more for chapter 90. and 150 million for grant funded projects. So if it does end up going through the house, I just don't know if I'm going to see it in July and August. Sure. Just keep it in mind because and I guess my guess is what that would just go to do more of what you usually do with chapter 90 if we got it. Yep, I am aware of it.
[Tim McGivern]: We are tracking it and we believe we know who would like to use that extra money for it. it's getting about $300,000, more or less, for that winter recovery money, which I believe you were talking about.
[Zac Bears]: It's maybe in addition to that, actually.
[Tim McGivern]: Oh, great.
[Zac Bears]: Something that hasn't passed the House yet. It's just the Senate.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, because one of the things that I didn't get to say, actually, when I was presenting earlier, my goals, basically. My goals are very, very simple. um there's two short-term goals really finding efficiencies and operations because we're obviously in the situation to do the best we can with what we have and that is directly associated with efficiency and operation so i'm looking at that um and i will look at that and the other sort of goal i have is alternate funding sources because again the situation we're in uh you know i think owen and i we have a uh good understanding with each other to try to come up with funding scenarios that are alternate, even though that requires sometimes bid onerous, grants require manpower, all that, but it's something that we need to get a very good handle on. So we're working on that.
[Zac Bears]: Sounds like good practice, and it sounds like it helped when at the last minute you were asked to change everything, maybe, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great to be seeing more of that across the city.
[Adam Knight]: Can we go to the personnel services summary please just a sheets cut off, so we don't have like the whole first column over here is gone, but only for highway, all the other sheets that we have has that except for building I think so building and highway at that first column cut off. So, in terms of the first item number of positions one I'm assuming that's you Tim, the Commissioner.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that's good.
[Adam Knight]: Okay, then the next four, I'm assuming you're going to be engineers.
[Tim McGivern]: Those are forming for those before forming amongst the leadership.
[Adam Knight]: Okay, so that's this is the highway budget, right?
[Tim McGivern]: So what are those four form and then Stevie, we have a signed foreman. Garage. Yep, you go to work in the foreman.
[Zac Bears]: Joe, you know, Stevie.
[Adam Knight]: Yeah, Brendan. Yeah. Okay, then the next one down is $97,000. Superintendent. One superintendent, and that would be garage? Garage, yes. Okay. Zero. And now there's a new position for $81,000. Okay, so this is,
[Tim McGivern]: So office manager and DPW director of admin, which that may be changed. But anyway, this is what I budgeted for. So the sum of the savings that I took within the DPW egg, basically, is I would like to pay Mary what she deserves. So that's what that is. So reorganizing office manager or a leadership admin position, which is what I'm going for.
[Adam Knight]: Okay, so that I'm assuming that the 61,000 from the previous would be.
[Tim McGivern]: That is, they're both married. What I'm trying to do is bump her up, give her the responsibility that she's undertaken.
[Adam Knight]: And you thought after everything that happened with the way that we did the Director of Human Resources that put it in the budget first was the way to go about doing that?
[Tim McGivern]: I didn't know but when when I'm given an opportunity in the budget is the opportunity from my perspective to say, we need to set aside this money for that position, regardless of, I understand the concerns I've heard it. But from my perspective, when I am putting this together and taking a very very close look at it, I don't really have any other places to put it.
[Adam Knight]: I understand. Mary I love you to death. It has nothing to do with you at all. This is like literally the reason why I voted against the budget last year was because of the way that the administration was handling funds and the approval of funds and creating positions that were done through the budget, not through an open and transparent process. You know, I don't, I don't want to cause, I don't have, I don't have a beef with it. I don't have an issue with it. But for the fact of the way that it's coming about in the fact that for two and a half years, we've been stomping our feet, screaming, saying, give us a legal opinion on how this is supposed to work. And we still haven't gotten it. And they're continuing to maintain the same practices. When I first saw that, I thought that that was, deputy dpw director and I almost had a heart attack because I remember about all 2007 2008 when we have one of those in the mail was the one that moved to eliminate from the budget so I almost fell off my chair when I first started I didn't know what it was I certainly have no problem that Mary takes on more of administrative function of budgetary and senior level function that that the most of the department clerks there's no question about that so I have no issue with that expenditure. What I do have an issue with is the way that the administration is going to go about putting it through, which is going to be funded in the budget, funded in her paycheck, and then never come through to this council and solidify it appropriately through the process of an ordinance.
[Tim McGivern]: I do believe it would require a position change, of course, because of the way that the charts are all set up. In my mind, simple mind is setting aside the money in order to do that, as opposed to starting right away. So I also just to treat climates in there because we need to
[Adam Knight]: those titles are already created. I know you could have 6,000 tree climbers because we already have a tree. Once they come in, we know what they get paid. But what we're seeing is that, you know, the administration saying, Oh, all right, well, you know, this guy's a good guy. So let's create a new job for him, give him a $30,000 pay raise, and then not have any council approval on it, then we'll just stick it in the budget and say, well, that's the work he's doing already. And that's not the way this works, right? That's not the way this works. And it's not what falls in line with the general laws from what I was able to research. That's what I'm saying. Mary, I got no problem with it. I'll support it wholeheartedly in terms, if it's done the right way, I'll support the pay increase. I got no issue with that whatsoever. I just want to make that clear, okay, that's not an assistant DPW commissioner. What that is, is an administrative services person who handles all the outside contracts and most of the money in the office. Correct, yes. You got it. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: It's just a quick point of information. just a quick point of information on this point too. What we've been hearing is we're not going to send you that stuff because we're doing a classification and compensation study that's maybe started now, maybe. I just, and this is not, again, this is not really directed to you, but I think it probably, to Councilman's point, it'd be best practice to send us CAF changes now, if you're changing CAFs now, and that can happen while the classification and compensation plan study is ongoing. And if that study suggests a change after the fact, then you submit something new and we change it then. It doesn't mean we're not going to send you any calf changes until the study is done. So that's just not the way that it works. But I hope they submit one for you, Mary.
[Nicole Morell]: Are you all set, Councilor Knight? Yes. Councilor Collins?
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. I just wanted to take the opportunity to say while we're kind of, you know, around the issue of this department, pavement repairs being a key function, one of the key functions of the highway department. I just wanted to take the opportunity to flag that as I think one of the really several things that the community is unified about, the pace at which you're funded and empowered to go through the pavement management repair plan, do the work that's very visibly in need of doing in the community. And I think these budget hearings are a really great opportunity to zoom in on individual line items and really laud The the work and the dedication and the skill of individual people, and you know this department specifically many departments. But at the same time, I just kind of want to take the opportunity to reemphasize you know at the beginning of the budget process we heard from the administration that we can expect next year's budget to look much the same as this one, you know possible level funding, and I think I just want to reiterate for. know constituents that are engaging in this process that are listening in that are, you know, the same people that show up in our inboxes week after week saying, you know, what's going on with the pace of highway repairs like why why isn't this going faster I think it's really important to contextualize. with the Herculean efforts of everybody in this department and across DPW departments, it's critical context for why we nevertheless see the pace of improvement, why it's so constrained. And so at the same time, the zooming in and really applauding the work of individual employees, individual departments, I think we have to keep that in mind when we're talking about the overall scope of work. And, you know, to sort of keep that in mind as we're figuring out how much we can do with how little this year to remember that we're probably going to be asked to do the same next year as well. And that's, that's why I want to keep bringing up the issue of expanding revenue in the overall context of dealing with largely budget cuts this year to sort of keep that overall critical. in mind, so not to detract from anything that we've discussed with your department. I have nothing but praise, and it's really great to get that level of granularity and detail. But I just want to infuse that sort of zoomed out perspective into the conversation as well for the constituents that are engaging with the process. So thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Collins and of course you know if we were to find a way to raise revenue to eliminate the structural deficit that would mean that new revenue that comes in next year could go to expanding projects, Tim.
[Tim McGivern]: Sure, I just wanted to expand upon that a little bit. So there's really two areas of focus when it comes to the payment management plan. highway is the maintenance portion of it. So that's the potholes, the patching, you know, resetting curb and doing our share of sidewalk repairs, things like that. And then there's capital projects. So a lot of the pavement is capital projects. So resurfacing, crack sealing, road rebuilding. So we have projects queued up, but we would like to have more. And that would be capital. But the city, in the future, as things grow, hopefully, then putting more money towards that is a good thing. We have a lot of very highly valuable assets in the city. And so one of my goals is to try to make sure that alternate funding is explored fully. So we're taking advantage of everything else.
[Zac Bears]: Great. Thank you, Tim.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. Tim, I applaud you and your predecessor before you and before then, you know, you guys do the most amount of work with less. And I think Steve's like the ultimate fireman in the city. It's the reason you see his truck driving around seven days a week is all he does is he's going around putting out fires that guys like me call all the time for. And it's been more than good to me. Every time I call for something, they really go out of their way to do it. And again, I don't know how you do it with the small amount of people you have. And hopefully going down the line, Maybe next year, we'll be able to find more funding for you. So you don't have to work 24 hours a day or seven. I mean, you do, you have to say, Steve, he's the ultimate fireman in the city. Out there putting out fires all day. Yeah. I know you don't do it alone, but I say, you know, you're the guy, you're the guy that everybody, we call Mary, Mary calls you, and you're the guy out there. So again, just thank you for your work. And I say, it's tough to do what you do with a limited amount of resources.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. Any further questions on the highway? All right, where are we going next, Mr. McGibbon? Forestry. Forestry, all right.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. All right, forestry. Feel free. Hey, Aggie, how are you? Maybe give us a short narrative, a couple changes and goals, and then we can ask questions.
[Tim McGivern]: Sure. So the biggest change I've alluded to a little bit, forestry has, you know, between folks out on comp and, you know, folks just out or whatever, we have a pretty limited amount of folks in forestry for the demand and services. So to me, it's the biggest part of the DPW that needs some help. So that's why you see some new tree climbers in the budget. So we worked pretty hard to get those in there. to at least get another crew going in forestry to help us, you know, get to where we need to be. So that's the biggest change there. You know, we've done a lot of work, and Aggie might be able to talk better to this. We've done quite a bit of work internally setting up stump removal contracts and internal stump removal with highway and forestry, new tree plantings, and things like that. So, you know, a lot of good work coming out of pretty small division that I can hopefully change that. So thank you. If there's anything else you want to say, highlights, please feel free.
[j0mqfzXKqXM_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you, Jim. Yes, I'm very happy to agree that we have made progress. of what's associated with that.
[Zac Bears]: Aggie, could you speak into the microphone? Sorry, just maybe swap with Mary, yeah, thanks.
[j0mqfzXKqXM_SPEAKER_08]: Yes, I just would add, we are making great progress on getting many, many stumps removed, sidewalks fixed, and new trees planted with various sources of funding. So that's very encouraging.
[Zac Bears]: Great, anything else before I go to councilors? We'll go to Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Mr. President. Again, Aggie, you know, You do as much work as you can with little. I personally want more trees. I've always been a tree person. And I was out last night, dinner with my wife, and we were crossing the street of another city. And I said to my wife, I says, I want you to look. And it says, tell me what you see here. Downtown business area, tree line on both sides. makes everything look so much more appealing. It doesn't look barren. It makes everybody feel warm. I wanna see more trees. I wanna see Method Square, all our main street, all our businesses. The trees, I'm telling you, they're appealing. They make the area look appealing. They don't make them look barren and dirty. That's really actually, again, I know you do as many as you can, but I, for one, Councilor, in every business district, I think there should be a hell of a lot more trees, whether the businesses want them or not, because I've gone out with you, and we've gone out walking, and the business, I don't want it in front of my door. Too bad. They look good. They should be there.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you.
[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. Councilor Tseng. Thank you so much for being here. I have two quick questions. I know trees are of interest for a lot of people. It's something that I've talked about a lot with residents here in the city. I guess the first question is, does the forestry department division have any, well, what are the goals for next year in terms of stump, where do we want to be next year in terms of stump removals and sidewalk repairs and new tree planting? with this budget?
[Tim McGivern]: Well, I will say that we do a lot of that work outside of this budget. some more money as well in the year mark for this work this year. So where do we want to be next year? I would like to be in a similar position where we have alternate funding sources to maximize wool stumps, to maximize wool of butts, and then planting as many new trees as we can. So those are ambiguous goals without numbers, but really, oh, can we swap the microphone back over to, sorry, yeah, you're just gonna have to point it at you. Besides the sort of the day-to-day priorities, which our forestry crew handles, so a downed limb from the storm, removing a dead tree because it's going to fall down. So internally, we do a good job of handling those. Of course, we could do better, but with what we have, I think we do a pretty good job. The rest is really what's going to be available for funding to take a, take a piece of the backlog away, which is, you know, stops for the most part, stops and butts. So, not the greatest answer, but it's what I have.
[Justin Tseng]: I appreciate your candor. And I, you know, I'm, I, along with a lot of residents are very thankful with where the forestry division is headed. I think it's headed in the positive direction. In terms of stumps, I know we passed some money in terms of stump removal. Does that, how much of, how much is that able to get you through? What do you think?
[Tim McGivern]: The number that was passed, it was the city council was 256 stumps. Do you know the number of steps for the city council money?
[j0mqfzXKqXM_SPEAKER_08]: I'm not sure what the city council money is. I can tell you about the ARPA plans and the CDBG.
[Zac Bears]: What was ARPA and CDBG total? That is $350,000 total. But I think we maybe did another two.
[Tim McGivern]: 250 maybe 250 i think so um yeah so i think what are we getting like 63 it's the chief of staff yes it was like 160 160 or with using the opera money to remove stumps that does not include sidewalk work but it it does include leaving removing the stumps and leaving the situation um That's the, that's the ARPA earmark, right? That's just removal of stumps, so getting a lot because we're not doing any sidewalk work. But then there's the $250,000 that is from Community Development Block Grant and another $250,000 from loan order from City Council. How many, how many were we getting with the, the 250,000 block right, that was, that was the question that I had was like, because it's like $5,000. Right, it's 42. Yeah, OK. 42 stumps. So we're thinking if we get the add alternate, it's between 42 and 50 stumps for that money. And the reason why those are so expensive is it involves sidewalk work as well. So you're mobilizing to remove the stump. You're mobilizing to demolish the sidewalk. You're mobilizing to replace the sidewalk.
[Justin Tseng]: Would you have an estimate of how many stumps are on our backlog right now?
[Zac Bears]: That number? So we're getting about 10% done, a little less. Yeah. So certainly not 95%. We're taking a bite out of the backlog and we got to continue to do that.
[j0mqfzXKqXM_SPEAKER_08]: Okay. Yeah. Sure. With the proposals or the contracts that will be covered, the list that have been submitted come up to about 260. So that's what the ARPA fund CDBG and interim. So it's not as dim as that sounds.
[Zac Bears]: That was just the loan order. Oh, got it. Got it. Got it. OK. So that's just the loan order. Got it. Sorry. So it's 260 of the 500 something, hopefully.
[j0mqfzXKqXM_SPEAKER_08]: We have organized lists because some areas are entitled to use some funds and others with different specifications on which areas could be addressed. Environmental impact. So it's divided up right now into three different areas.
[Tim McGivern]: Okay, not only not only areas, but limitations for funding too. So that's why there's three different sort of contracts happening.
[Zac Bears]: So we're looking at closer to half of the backlog being addressed with this initiative with all the different funding sources.
[Justin Tseng]: Yes.
[Zac Bears]: All right.
[Justin Tseng]: Okay. And then one more question, similar to what Councilor Carrie Villa said, I'd love to see more, I think we would all love to see more trees planted in the city. And something that I've had a lot of conversations about is heat islands in the city and the importance of adding trees to certain neighborhoods, especially in poor neighborhoods. in order to address the heat island effects in neighborhoods with more seniors as well. Has there been perhaps any coordination with OPD, OPDS, the planning department, or with other departments in terms of where we want to see those trees planted, perhaps creating a study or a more kind of long-term view of where we want to increase our tree canopy?
[j0mqfzXKqXM_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you, Councilor. I'm very happy that you asked that question, or those questions. I'm happy to report that we've just submitted a new list of trees to use up the rest of our tree budget, the regular in-house tree budget to plant 30 trees this month in South Medford, which has many areas of heat islands, which are extremely critical to address an equal justice, environmental justice areas and so forth. So that's just one small group that we've focused in those high need areas are some underserved areas as well. We also have worked very well with the DCR. And just recently, we're getting matching grant fund back because we planted in environmental justice areas. And that money is coming back to us too. So we're always looking for partnerships to help us with additional plantings that I could want forever about the benefits of trees. I know we have lots of tree fans and it's so important to stay in nature, climate change and so forth. And one thing I'll add is we have increased the diversity of trees in the city, which is extremely important too, so we can get through challenges of the environment in the coming years. So now we plant at least two dozen species and varieties of trees, which will help us, you know, look to the future and plan ahead for change in climate conditions.
[Justin Tseng]: I think I hope that helps. Yes, yes, that helps. I think this leads me to my next question is, and is there a goal in terms of, you know, we want to increase or treat canopy to this percentage by, you know, 2030 or by a certain date. Do you know if there's a stated goal.
[Tim McGivern]: we are involved.
[Justin Tseng]: And do you think the way the budget is heading right now next year's budget looks similar to this? Do you think we would be able to reach those targets? Or do you think we would need more investment in this division to reach those targets?
[Tim McGivern]: I would say that most of those initiatives are aggressive, which is, I think, what we need. So there will need to be continued search for alternate funding in that regard. These two new tree climbers will certainly help as far as maintaining our canopy, but when it comes to planting new trees and heat out of the back and all that, as Aggie was saying, we can do so much without 30 trees when I plant next month, for example. I know Aggie's always looking for grants, too, for extra money to get it done. can in our parks and things like that. So the goal in that plan, I don't know it by heart or anything like that, but I just recall going over all those rules, and they're all pretty aggressive. But our part would be to partake in forestry piece of it, which we can't be piece of it where we can't.
[Justin Tseng]: So again, I appreciate your work a lot. I guess the last question, forgive me if it's not directly related to the Forestry Division, I'm first year Councilor, so I might be asking this in the wrong department, but I know a lot of neighbors have talked about de-weeding and tackling weed invasion problems in the city. Does that fall within forestry and is there a capacity to do that within DPW?
[Tim McGivern]: I think it lands in just above the parks. Okay, oh, right. Highway, it's a fence field with weeds. Thank you, Chris. Well, parts will be next anyway, so we'll talk about it. Was there anything specific in mind? Because you've got weeds that are destroying the lawn, and you have a whole field of not weed that's destroying trees. Was there a specific issue that you were- It was the latter, basically, what you mentioned.
[Justin Tseng]: Some residents have been asking me about that, and so I wanted to see if there was money in this budget to tackle this issue.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Parks deals with all open spaces in parks, so maybe that's a good question for them.
[Justin Tseng]: Great. Thank you. Yes. Again, thank you all for answering my questions.
[Nicole Morell]: President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Thanks for the presentation and obviously for the work you do. I know that you have a lot of square miles to manage and trees and stumps and I'm heartened that we're looking at 260 stumps. That's great. And I was scared for a second with that 50 number. I was like, oh boy. You know, you answered his question. I didn't listen correctly. So I'll take that on. On the tree climbers here, I totally understand that would really increase your capacity. But I will add that we are in a pretty serious situation across the whole budget. This is one of the larger increases I'm seeing, especially relative to a budget this size. I'm not against it, obviously. I think you need a lot more. If potentially this was spread over this year and next year, you know, one this year, one next year, would that be something you may be amenable to?
[Adam Hurtubise]: No, the reason it is two is because two is basically a minimum group. Okay. Because they're for safety reasons. Okay. So I would say it's pretty slim.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, no, and I, I'm the last, I don't want to ask you this question. I really don't want to ask, but there's, you know, If this were to wait until next year, is that something you could consider, or?
[Tim McGivern]: If we have a similar budget next year, I'd try to go for it. So basically, the pencil sharpening that we did was to try to maintain two things. Maintain. Two timers in support area.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And we did things like right size our whole time. Yeah. To do a close look at place management, make sure that that number is correct. Yeah.
[Tim McGivern]: So as far as DBW budget as a whole,
[Adam Hurtubise]: So I'm hoping that it moves forward.
[Tim McGivern]: I don't really know, but the operations of forestry compared to the demand of services is the most drastic I see. And it's something that I'm going to fight.
[Zac Bears]: No, and I just, um, it's the only place in the entire DPW budget where I even felt comfortable asking the question. And your answer is no, we can't do it without this and I accept that answer. So thank you. And, and, you know, we're just gonna have to find something somewhere for some, you know, This library thing's just stuck in my head. We have a brand new building and no maintenance budget, and it's gonna put stuff in trouble, and I'm just trying to find a way to find something to help that out. So that's where my heart's coming from on this. You're just as much a priority, and I understand that. So thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further questions on forestry? Thank you for being here. So I think, Tim, you said we wanna go to parks next?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yep, we'll do parks next.
[Tim McGivern]: And we have Mike Nestor. Hello, good morning. And I will just reiterate some of the things that I said earlier. So, you know, from my perspective, Park's having a really successful season with the athletic field prep. I believe, like I mentioned earlier, I think we made some improvements there. More parties are involved in that process now. So we try to, you know, streamline those communications and making sure that everybody understands capacities, priorities, what program is doing what, where, when. So that was included in the mailing list this year. And I went over, oh, thank you. And again, some of the highlights, Duggar Park, tennis courts, play set at Barrie Park, v-ball courts were all resurfaced this year. And besides that, we're just doing our normal park maintenance and trying to keep things in shape for the city. Mike, do you have anything else to add? You certainly can. Otherwise, don't take questions.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President. I know that... Do we see, does the Parks Department see direct impact from the fees from rentals?
[Tim McGivern]: What type of rentals? Park rentals. Oh, like programming fees? Things like that? we get. Okay, no, no.
[George Scarpelli]: I don't think so. All right, so just just because one of the things we're hearing right now is, I know that, correct me if I'm wrong, Steve. Permits, yeah.
[Adam Knight]: We don't see them. That's what we know, we don't get them.
[George Scarpelli]: So one thing I will tell you is with the budget like this and not when the DPW commissioner and our money guru and director of parks don't know, it's fundamentally scary for the fact that it's a huge revenue source. that can come back and just fund the maintenance and the upkeep of those facilities. When you look at our park permitting process, it's once a month. And I'm sure Mr. Nesta can concur that when a field is rented in that month space, it's great. People, they follow the rules, they pay their permits, everything's great. I know, because I ask, do you realize we call them gypsy permitters that jump on our fields without a permit? Do you know how drastic that is that goes around the city of Medford? It's terrible. I know for sure, because I do the permitting for our fields in our community. And when we're filled, their exact words are, we'll just jump on a method field. I'm like, oh, really? I mean, just the other day I called the recreation department because there was, I'd say maybe 30 or 40 men on the outfield of drain baseball field. And I know that's not permanent for soccer. So, I mean, we see more money leaving because we don't have a streamlined process like other communities do. So we have my rec in the recreation department. There's a whole piece of permitting. If you go to my site, you have all of our parks. You go on, you request a site, we approve it pending the funding mechanism being taken care of. Boom, it's done, money goes to the side. So what we do is, Our youth organizations pay a fee of, I think it's $200 for the whole year, their permits done. But if you're an outside agency, you're gonna pay. And outside organizations like BSSC, Boston Ski and Sports, Volo Sports, all these adult programs that charge adults to play, mostly don't live in the city of Medford. What they do is the simple answer, because I've talked to their directors, Sorry, Mark, we're gonna have to increase this fee. You know what he says? That's okay, we're just gonna put it back on the consumer, right back on our renters. They don't mind, they don't care, but that money, that adult fees, those fees, that they go book a field. Let's say it's a Saturday, it rains. Now they have to book a field for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We have capacity. Unfortunately, there's no rental mechanism set in place. A lot of times those organizations will just jump on and no one says anything. And the money, the fees lost is dramatic. And I've been saying this, Tim, years ago. I've been saying this for years. This is a vital mechanism to create funding. We redid Trump Field, all of its fencing. That's a lot of money. All of its fencing from one spring rental season for the adult sports, for that one field. One season, done. We can do the same thing, but unfortunately, we don't have the system in place that allows us to capture revenue, not from our taxpayers, not from our youth, right? From our outside agencies. Because if you do your survey and you spend a week going around the city, going around the parks, I'm sure Mike can even tell us right now, there are maybe 60 to 70% of the fields being taken up by organizations that don't even live in Medford and don't even have a permit. And all those people want, because they'll rent it. All they want is a mechanism to do it other than once a month. So that has to be looked into. It has to. We're talking about funding, it has to be, okay? I know I have some other points, but I'm just trying to, I'm looking at, I know we're doing a good job with our fields, doing the best we can for making sure that our, our youth organizations are safe and have that. I called for a meeting. One of the things we're seeing right now is, and listen, after my children and my wife, Gabby's the most important thing in my life and my dog, but when we're hearing stories of dogs running off leash during youth events, dangerous in one place. Has it been daunting for our staff to, are they finding it? That you're seeing dogs leaving feces on ball fields and not cleaning up after themselves. How much of our staff, are we spending more time than we need to with that?
[Adam Knight]: There is a overburden. the fields, especially off-leash dogs, and with the dog feces in the yard. We actually had one of our guys at Gales Park, probably about three months ago, where a dog came up to him, and he had a break in his head, almost bit the bone in the dog, basically just giggled. Well, he wouldn't do it, but I got to know that at the time, and I've been trying to regulation that no dogs off-leash or on-leash should be on athletic fields. I think other cities and towns have it. I think it's much better for the field. When the fields are wet, even in the grass, you have dog owners that don't fall to the outfield, but the dogs are running back and forth. It might seem like it's not that big of a deal. That's where a lot of those leaving messes, dog prints, dog waste, everything. Yes.
[George Scarpelli]: I know that's one thing that we've talked about is having that enforcement officer. And I know we have an ordinance that you can't have a dog off leash, but there are other areas like we talked about Tufts Park. maybe finding a way to fence off the old pool area. So at least there's a space that there's a compromise. Okay.
[Adam Knight]: All right.
[George Scarpelli]: Cause there's gotta be a compromise because that's one of the biggest areas. I know that Morrison park officially is turned into a dog park. It's not an athletic field anymore. I haven't seen, at least you can correct me if I'm wrong, but other than the basketball and tennis sports and the playground area, the field itself isn't being used for the most part for any athletic event.
[Adam Knight]: last year in the beginning of my years for one or two games. That's what we are discussing with the commissioner about repurposing parks, the same thing with Barry Park. The baseball, the amount of baseball players that's dwindled down, unfortunately, and those parks are still there.
[George Scarpelli]: And I'll end on this, because I'm not, how many, how many staff, Mike, do you have?
[Adam Knight]: Seven, seven and myself.
[George Scarpelli]: How many, how many parks and playgrounds and basketball courts and tennis courts do you oversee?
[Adam Knight]: About 24 total basketball courts and tennis courts together. And, you know, all the playgrounds in Petersburg or something, doing a lot of it. Now, I don't know if you guys have, You know, a lot more vandalism and graffiti in a lot of the parks. And it's non-stop. The graffiti is non-stop. You know, it's Magoon Park. Magoon Park was last Sunday. You know, they enforced it. They made all the new electrical controls. And it's derogatory stuff.
[George Scarpelli]: And I feel the phone calls with how come our parks department, like another communities like the one I work in our playground. We have a crew that every morning goes out, and they walk every playground to check for sad, as it is syringes. And people ask why doesn't method have that they said well, all six people they do the best they can. If we're searching for syringes, you know, other communities. I'll say it again, six people. We have a third of what parks and community I work in with three times the staff.
[Adam Knight]: They do the trash barrels, the litter. Now, if you do the math, how many minutes they stay in each pot by the time they get to the end of the day. You know, sometimes, depending on the busy season, they might not get to all of them in one day. It takes a half hour a pot sometimes. How many minutes at a time, you can measure. And we do get a lot of those calls where, oh, overflow barrel, say, at parent's pot. Well, that might be on the end of the day. Yeah, so again, so I'm going to these two notes I'm going to, as I can go on but
[George Scarpelli]: As we're doing these great things with all the new park and permits and new grants and the rebuilding refurbishing I think it's amazing. But again, until there's a maintenance plan in place and a team in place in two years we're going to talk about. Why is the water pad not working Harris Park because we didn't have the proper maintenance. So it's not your fault. But again, these are the basic issues that we're seeing that we're following every single day and we're in that hole. And I'll end with this, as the high school fields, do they fall under the city or the schools?
[Adam Knight]: Right, the turf fields. Okay.
[George Scarpelli]: Right, and we and I know that I know you guys do what the point I'm trying to get to. I don't hear of any plan. of redoing that turf because as being part of that group that started that with Bill Carr, bringing those new fields behind the high school, one of the biggest things we talked about is making sure we're saving part of that fee to make sure that we can redo the surface. The surface is getting of age where as soon as they do the test, I'm sure Mr. Ness can tell us, fields are supposed to take a concussion test where you drop a certain weight and it's supposed to tell you if the bounce back is gone or now if it's gone, your liability is done and you have to close that park. I hope people realize that because from what I'm seeing, I know the guys are up there and they're sweeping it and adding the pellets and everything, but at the same time, there better be, I'm just getting nervous that if there isn't a plan in place to replace that turf and those tests come back with failing grades, our youth organizations and our high schools, we live on those fields. If we lose those fields, we're gonna be in some serious trouble in this community. And so before it gets to be a $4 million project, because we've let it go too long, I suggest someone really starts looking into this because I don't think there's been enough eyes on that right now, Tim. So thank you for indulging me. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: All right. Yep.
[Richard Caraviello]: You brought, you brought up some very good ideas. Thank you. We'll look into it for sure.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Over the last year, I was able to do our state delegation. I put in requests of funding for three different parks and I thought, you know, while we got $350,000 for Rice Ponds, and $150,000 for Duggar Park, and I did ask for money for Cape and Park, but unfortunately, that one didn't come through. Are you involved in how that money is going to be spent? I had given the administration my idea of what I asked for the money for.
[Adam Knight]: Yes, I actually had a meeting yesterday at 9 a.m. with Molly, who is the home chief of Chautauqua, and you guys have been communicating, and Kevin Bailey from Recreation. And we put a lot of ideas out there. So yes, on that hot.
[Richard Caraviello]: Well, she had asked me what I had asked for the money for, and I gave her what my thinking was when I had asked for it. And I'm hoping that what I asked for it, well, that's where it'll go to. What I think I asked for was, I mean, we talk about the jewels of Medford, Bryce Pond is probably one of them. And I was hoping to keep it open longer. I mean, not so much with the swimming in but you know, maybe putting a family area in there. Again, that's that you want you want to talk about a place that has potential for both revenue and in community use that's where it's fun is it.
[Adam Knight]: Yes. just maybe to keep it open to Columbus State, and they are working on it. Really, as a side. Working people on site. Keeping those gates open. Maybe Dustin gone. Yeah.
[Richard Caraviello]: I mean, that's one of probably one of our most underutilized areas of the city.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: I'm so embarrassed.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President, just want to add a motion separate from the committee report that we invite our Parks Department, Mr. Nestor to the It's on our agenda, hoping to schedule a meeting with Patrick Hogan to discuss general animal control issues, especially as relates to our ordinances, as well as staffing levels. And I think Mr. Nestor's experience with that would be a valuable addition to that meeting. I don't know when it'll be scheduled. I'm sure now that we're adding you, we'll reach out in advance and try to schedule it around your availability. Thank you. Yeah. And I know I was interested to hear the repurposing idea. Maybe that's a potential solution. We can at least drive people to a single location that would make Patrick's job maybe easier. Obviously, what we really need is more people in the parks department and more people in animal control, but that's not happening right now under this budget. Right, I really think that there really should be animals or pets on the athletic fields, especially when kids play.
[Adam Knight]: When kids go out there and stretch, they can put their hand down on dogs. Yeah. They can put their socks on for a bit. And then they put their hands in their mouths No, exactly.
[Zac Bears]: And that's, yeah. And that's why that's you're mentioning of that. I think that would be a really, hopefully we could add that in to any ordinance updates that we make. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: We can take that motion now while we're still thinking about parks. Are there any further questions for the Councilor Tseng?
[Justin Tseng]: Perhaps predictably. My question now is about weeding. about de-weeding, getting rid of knotweeds in parks. That's something that a lot of constituents have reached out to me about. Could you give us a picture as to what the capacities in this budget are for that? Do we have enough money to do that work? Do we need to invest more to de-weed? I don't know if any of you have a picture.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't have a specific. Yes, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_07]: Exactly.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Stuff like that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: We don't use chemicals.
[Adam Knight]: But basically, we try to keep on top of all the hotspots. Let's say hotspots. It's a commercial street, open roads, areas that we maintain on the spot and park a lot. There's a lot of bamboo up there.
[Zac Bears]: So yes, I do think we're okay with it. Actually, I saw a sequence yesterday on Japanese dumplings, so we'll address that during the week.
[Adam Hurtubise]: They basically go on the site, they're all over the world.
[Adam Knight]: It's a huge asset. There's bacon lots in the city as well. Yeah, that aspect of it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further questions for the Parks Department? Mr. Clerk, do you just have that motion from Vice President Bears?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, Madam President. Let me read it back to you. Hang on a second. Vice President Bears has moved to invite Mr. Nestor to the meeting with the animal control officer to discuss off-leash dogs in our parks that is pending because of a council resolution.
[Nicole Morell]: I believe, I don't think Vice President Bears is missing. I think we already have a motion for a future meeting, or a resolution for a future meeting. It's just to add form of nesting to it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, it's to add to the meeting that was established by that resolution.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay, great, thank you. the volume got a little low. So on the motion of Vice President Bears, seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you so much. Thank you, council. So where would you like to go next, Tim?
[Tim McGivern]: Engineering.
[Nicole Morell]: Cemetery.
[Adam Hurtubise]: We're going into here. Don't get distracted.
[Tim McGivern]: All right. We have Owen Wartella. Owen Wartella is our new city engineer replacing me, as I mentioned before. So things are- He's already doing that, but guess who his boss is? Pass the buck, baby. Pass the buck. Anyway, yeah, we're not gonna talk about those things. Anyway, you got both of us here, right? I'll just go, I just had a quick list I wanted to go through just to highlight the things that the engineering office has been working on over the last year or so. One that's on the top of the list is we've been doing a lot of work over the years on stormwater regulations. We're really close to finalizing those. So that's gonna be a sort of a big thing for the city. So more to come there. Water meters, engineering is involved with the water meter project that I mentioned earlier. So that's, it's a, another big one. That's that we're going to see a lot more of coming up. The engineering is involved in a lot of what I call PBOs. And I think a lot of people don't realize how much work goes into PBOs and projects by others. The engineering office does an incredible amount of work with other projects that are coming to town. I think this council has direct experience with that, with the Eversource project. Also, The Main and South Street project is another example of that. So, you know, not only Owen, but Todd Blake in engineering, they're keeping a close eye on the Main and South and the Mystic at Main intersection project. So those are making some progress. We actually have designs, they're pre 25% designs, but that's a really good sign. So all those barrels and cones you see out there, they will disappear at some point, and it'll be a construction project. Every source mitigation, that's another big one. I know Owen, since he has started, I'm wondering if he thinks that that's all he's gonna work on. because that seems to be front and center at the moment, which makes sense. The engineering division is also sort of the office arm of DPW. So a lot of the grants come through there. So we just recently won grants for blue bike stations, some snow equipment, a sidewalk pile basically, Route 28 bike lane, Wellington neighborhood pedestrian flyover study. So that's the first step in trying to get some pedestrian access to the Wellington neighborhood. And some other notable projects, Haines Square, which is out to bid Pinkert Street, which is going to be a complete rebuild. That's happening soon. That's actually, that bid was won, and we're just trying to get them to proceed with that project. We have recently finished up the Cottage, or it's close to being finished, the Cottage Street, Alston, and Prescott Street project. And then we talked a little bit about Freedom Way. That's another thing that's happened there. So those are some of the highlights over the past year or so. And Owen, if you want to mention anything else, please feel free. Otherwise, we'll take questions.
[Zac Bears]: Two quick questions. Thank you, Madam President. One, the engineering materials and supplies line is going from 23,700 to 5,500. What are we losing out of that? And we bought it.
[SPEAKER_22]: All right.
[Zac Bears]: Cool. Yeah. So it's still one time expense. It's no longer. Yeah. I mean, and again, if this just really, I think underscores the need to, and it's, it's this whole city's budgeting practices to separate out operating expenses and capital expenses. And I think that would help all of us. You remembered it, which, you know, great. It should just be easier than that, I think for all of us, and especially for someone looking at the outside who doesn't have the benefit of having you here to ask. And that's not on you, it's just a comment. And then on the personnel expenses, there's no headcount increase, but there's a $71,000 budgetary increase. And I'm just wondering what that is. Is that, it looks like it's under the engineers. So that is a, I know exactly what that is.
[Tim McGivern]: So there is one engineering position that is funded through the community agreement with the casino. That is included here, but it wasn't included in previous years. It was excluded because it was funded separately. It's still being funded through the casino's community agreement, but it's been listed here in the budget. There's another position like that as well.
[Zac Bears]: Why has it been listed under the general fund permanent employees line item?
[Tim McGivern]: That I don't, I don't know the answer to that particular question, but I know that That's what I was told.
[Zac Bears]: Well, I just asked, and maybe it's Mr. Dickinson. I just can't see behind Owen. Sorry. My apologies. Do you know if that's coming out of the, the, the special revenue fund for casino, but it's included in this number. And I would guess, is it, that would mean it's also included in the top line. So is that actually like $70,000 we could spend on something else?
[Bob Dickinson]: Okay.
[Zac Bears]: Okay.
[Bob Dickinson]: Okay.
[Zac Bears]: All right. And it just wasn't included in. You may certainly not have the answer to this but do you know why it wasn't included in previous years budgets.
[Bob Dickinson]: I don't know how they would have set that up properly. charge the salaries to the casino line. You know, this is accounting. So it helps to show, I think, I think it helps to show it as a transfer in. So if you see the total budget for the casino position, et cetera.
[Zac Bears]: Agreed. And then, oh, wow, that's loud. I agree. I agree with that. And I think just in the long run, and again, I know you have enough work, just keeping up with what we have now and versus thinking about the new budget formatting for next fiscal year or however you want to do it. But, you know, if we are going to have, I think it would just be great to see next to a line item, maybe the funding source that it's coming from, just so we can have that in our head. And, you know, and I don't know if you agree with me or not about the operating capital expenses and separating those out. So it's easier to see which is which, but. Yeah, so yeah, we have to go back to this guy.
[Bob Dickinson]: Yeah, sorry. This one I'm too tall for.
[Zac Bears]: Wait for Kevin.
[Bob Dickinson]: I'm trying to speak louder now. We've asked departments to identify actual capital things that would go into the capital plan, which is being worked on by a consultant. Capital items, long-term, anything over $20,000, say, that has a useful life of more than three to five years, depends on how you would like to do it. But those are properly capital expenses, and those would be, those are good candidates to be funded by things like free cash. Like you have the reserve, you say, okay, you know, the fire department's turnout gear is a classic example of that. It's a big ticket item that the last 10 years. Let's keep those separate and look to funding sources like ARPA like free cash to do that, especially grant funding for that. Yeah, then we can include them in the budget or we can keep them separately in a capital budget that you see separately, but let's identify those sources identifying identify the funding sources, identify the expenses and have that be clearly represented for you.
[Zac Bears]: Great.
[Bob Dickinson]: Budgets going forward.
[Zac Bears]: And one of the reasons I bring it up, I know under engineering, right, you just listed a million projects where most of the money is not in the engineering operating budget, you know, but it's what, you know, deep, I just think DPW is obviously one of the departments that's most going to be involved with either managing, assisting with labor or otherwise helping to coordinate capital, planning and expenditures. And so, um, you know, I just think that as we go forward, it sounds like it sounds like you're doing or planning to do exactly what I'm hoping, um, or at least something around those lines. And, uh, and, and that's great for the future. Cause just sometimes, especially this, this budget and the last couple of budgets, it's So that line item went down, you know, 75%, right? We just had that here, but it's because it was a one-time expenditure for $18,000 was spent out of, you know, the ordinary expenses, but I don't know that that's capital or a recurring subscription to something or whatever else. And I just think that also is just going to be very helpful in the future when we have more of the studies and stuff done that assess the total capital need across all departments, you know, to know, Well, if we have $400 million in capital need, which I'm starting to think might be a conservative estimate.
[Bob Dickinson]: Let's hope not.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. But if we do, and we're only spending five, $10 million on capital every year, and nevermind the ongoing depreciation and other things that grow that backlog, how much are we really knocking off every year? And it's hard to tell with the way the budget's formatted now.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I will say, we've talked about this before.
[Zac Bears]: You got to move the mic.
[Tim McGivern]: Not that I, I can hear you. I'll just, I'll just, um, so just to add on to what you said, and you and I have talked about this and I've talked about it in council. One of the important steps in order to be able to do that assessment is we're out. What's our baseline? So when I was an engineer, we spent a considerable amount of time doing that for some of our bigger assets, our asphalts, our concretes, our utility systems, three of them. So we have a pretty good idea of where our baseline is and what we need to do. It's just really, how do you do that? And that 400 million, how many years is that going to take? Over how many years, right? So in engineering, we're working on that basically almost on the daily. Right.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. You know, I know it's starting to get hot in here and we're still have budgets to go and it's already past noon, so I'll try to stop belaboring the point. But, you know, what, especially if we have a large, you know, capital need, how are we going to fund that? We know there's tools available, especially like the debt exclusion, which are specifically for issues like that. And maybe that's a way where It's still happening over a period of time, but we can accelerate the schedule and really get to a state of good repair at a much more reasonable amount of time that residents can actually physically see, and then hopefully experience for some extended period of time as well, versus kind of chasing after it perpetually forever. So, yep, thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Any other questions on engineering? All right, seeing none, we will move on to cemetery.
[Tim McGivern]: All right, cemetery.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Mr. Brogan, thank you. Mr. Brogan is not here, so. Cemetery is here.
[Tim McGivern]: I needed that. Thank you. Well, it's a good one. And you know what?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I needed a little laughter.
[Tim McGivern]: I'll just open up the narrative information here. Mr. Brogan isn't here, but last year we had 341 burials and 145 cremations. And there's not a lot of changes to our operating budget. But obviously, I'll try to answer as many questions as we have on cemetery.
[Adam Knight]: Madam President, usually the cemetery is somewhat self-sufficient, self-funding, right? I mean, we have the opportunity to generate some revenues through the perpetual care account. We've tapped into that in the past to continue to, I guess we can say, supplement funding availabilities for personnel over in that department. The cemetery operates for a profit, does a good job from what I can tell. One of the biggest concerns I have down there is less with the operating budget for the capital plants surrounding I and Mike and the project that they're doing up there. So if you could talk a little bit about that, is that still going forward? I know we've got some CPA funds to take care of it. I know Mike Durham at the time was working very hard to give that area an uplift and then there was some
[Tim McGivern]: couple of things going on. So that does continue to move forward. And then another CPA project that continues to move forward is a study that will turn into a project for the maintenance building, which is a historic building. It's a nice stone building, granite stone building. It's been pretty rough shape. One of the priorities actually And my office that I'm trying to help Mr. Brogan and the cemetery work on is short-term stuff in anticipation of that project. Like, you know, some basic HVAC needs, things like that. So these are all capital projects and they're all things that need to get done. There's some deferred maintenance on the caretakers building that we're gonna take care of. And that would be the next in line a capital project through hopefully the CPA, because I believe that building also was considered historically significant. So that's the avenue for that as well. So we're actually entering that process for the caretaker's house now.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It was already entered for the maintenance builder.
[Tim McGivern]: They'll do a study, which is architecture, basically historically accurate architecture, what needs to get done in that building. So they'll create a project on that study. So a couple of items in the fire. I'm trying to move them along as fast as we can.
[Adam Knight]: How much you paying for our messes this year?
[SPEAKER_22]: That's the deal.
[Adam Knight]: Okay, sounds good to me. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Gary.
[Nicole Morell]: Any other questions on the cemetery budget? I'm just seeing if there's any other questions on the cemetery budget. I do. I know we were, Tim, I don't know if you can speak to, I know they're facing kind of sadly record numbers, you know, seeking plots during COVID. Is that, have things kind of leveled off?
[SPEAKER_05]: Sorry, could you just repeat that? Sure. It wasn't loud enough.
[Nicole Morell]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_05]: I just couldn't hear.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I know during COVID, sadly, or, you know, the peak of COVID, there was a lot of demand, sadly, for plots. Has that kind of leveled off, or are we still dealing with outsized demand? It's okay if you can't speak.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't know the answer.
[SPEAKER_22]: Just a few, it just happens, my coworker, she's the secretary for the cemetery. A lot of times, you know, residents will come and say, oh, I wanted to have my mother buried here, but you know, we're not residents of Bedford. So she'll tell those stories like that, but that's, I don't think it's a lot.
[Adam Knight]: Okay, okay, thank you. Did there any prohibitions on raised stones in the remaining plots that are available?
[Tim McGivern]: I don't know, do you know? No, but I can find out the answer. I think prohibition on raised stones.
[Adam Knight]: Yeah, I think as part of the Brooks Estate land trust at some point in time, there was a prohibition on raised stones for a certain section of the cemetery. Quite frankly, I think it's foolish. I think that the raised stone should be allowed. Prohibition on raised stones, cemetery grounds leading in.
[Tim McGivern]: I'll look into it, because I know that at some point we'll run out of space. You're going to have to expand to that area that I'm talking about. Maybe like a conservation restriction or something like that from what I saw in the documents. We'll look into it. I don't know. We'll get an answer to the question.
[Zac Bears]: I can just speak to it a little bit, which is I know there's an agreement between the cemetery and the Denver Brooks Estate Land Trust around when the cemetery needs to expand. north of the currently old access drive, which is completely decrepit. And, you know, we have a design at the M-Belt to replace, but it's unfunded. So that's just currently where we are. Basically, we think, at least at M-Belt, that the access drive will need to be replaced in order to even make it possible to access that part of the land to turn it into lots.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, for a vehicle, yes, I would agree. Yeah.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah. It's definitely, worth coming at some point in the future.
[SPEAKER_07]: Obviously, we're not. Every binder that goes in the ground takes a little bit more effort.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. And so, I mean, we are at full design on the access drive. It really just is like one outstanding item with the cemetery and then approvals and then funding.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further questions on cemetery? I think this, unless you have other sheets we don't have, Tim, I think this wraps up DBW, correct? Correct. Thank you so much for all of your mourning and all of your work, much appreciated.
[Tim McGivern]: Absolutely, and I think as everybody knows, especially new Councilors, I've already talked to I think both of you, but any other questions, follow up, feel free to give me a call in my office and we can open it. Great, thank you, Tim.
[Nicole Morell]: Have a nice weekend. You too. So we have finance and auditing, building and information technology.
[Adam Knight]: I know those- Madam President, on the information technology budget, I'd ask that that be tabled until we get a response from the administration as to the IT insecurities that were in place that resulted in the termination of our prior director. I believe we requested this immediately when this personnel action was taken and to date, we still have not received any update as to what these IT insecurities were.
[Nicole Morell]: So on the Councilor, Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you. I just want to note, I'm totally fine with tabling that. I did notice some, I think, just numerical discrepancies in the spreadsheet that we did get for IT. So if we're tabling it, I would also request a, hopefully an updated spreadsheet. I think some of the change between fiscal year 22 and 23 line items, the numbers just don't make sense. So if those could be given a once over before we meet again on this topic, that would be really helpful.
[Justin Tseng]: It seems like there's a problem with Excel formula.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay. So on the motion of Councilor Knight to table the IT budget until we get the response from the administration, as well as updated, cleaned up numbers, seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Chief of Staff Nazarian, I do see you have your hand up.
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you very much, President Morell. Through you to the members of the City Council and to Councilor Knight's point, I apologize. I believe that this fell off my plate at some point, but I wanted to indicate that we will certainly get that information over to the City Council. It is gonna be a redacted report because a number of matters in the report are confidential from a cybersecurity standpoint, and obviously confirming that we will look over the budget and confirm numbers and follow up. Thank you.
[Adam Knight]: I'd be happy to meet an executive session on that to go over that, that the redacted document is fine. We can go into executive session and discuss it. Ultimately, it's a security issue for this community. It's going to cost us money at some point in time. So that's something that I'd like to know about. I'd like to know what's going on and why these, you know, personal actions happen based upon, you know, a cyber security threat and sensitivities and securities. And I think that's very important, especially based upon the direction that we're going in right now as a community, where we're spending much more time reliant upon information technology and IT protocols, where we're using the meetings a lot more. Maybe someday we'll be able to pay bills online and stuff like that, you know what I mean? But ultimately, you know, I think this is something that's important. It's something that we asked for. It was, you know, important enough for the administration to put our press releases about, but not important enough for them to come and follow back up with us about it, to listen on what's going on. And now here we are with a budget in front of us for what looks like, Oh, $366,000 in departmental totals, but we still would have the answers to the underlying question that was asked well over five months ago.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Knight. I also just, Alicia Hunt has offered to come here and turn on the AC. I know we should be wrapping up soon. So if we want to power through unless.
[Adam Hurtubise]: the settings are solid? Sure. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: I'll follow up on that. I'll see if we're given permission to do so. So moving on, so we have finance and auditing and building. I know building, we don't currently have a department head there. Finance and auditing, we have Mr. Dickinson. So Mr. Dickinson, if you'd like to share on finance and auditing, I don't know if you can hear me. You might be in the zone at the moment. We have finance and auditing before us if you want to speak to that.
[Bob Dickinson]: The main expense items would be ClearGov and the fiscal 23 audit. So we've reduced some of the expenses. We need budget for, obviously, training purposes to make sure that everybody keeps up on their certifications. But other than that, it's essentially what it was last year. We have no new positions.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Mr. Dickinson. Questions from the council? Vice President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seems like you've been digging out of a hole a little bit since you started. So that's a confirmation. Yes. And I guess my question is, is that a result of just kind of having temporary staffing for so many months this fiscal year, or do you think it's a reflection of a need for additional staffing in the future for this department?
[Bob Dickinson]: I think most of the problems, most of the current problems, are due to lack of having a finance director for a year. Consultants can only do so much because there needs to be somebody in there looking at the big picture, somebody who really knows municipal accounting and computer systems. And I have to tell you, down the road, once I understand how everything is done, we have to address the computer system problem because it is not functioning well. It doesn't give me the confidence level that I want to have when I'm presenting these numbers. That said, the staff there, Tyler especially, has been amazing, just amazing at keeping lights on while there was no finance director. There are reconciliation problems that are going back two, three years right now that have to be looked at, have to straighten them out, but that takes a good deal of time. So right now my plan is hopefully we can get budgets together, get everything before you. I can answer as many of your questions as you choose to throw at me. Get pre-cash certified, get the audit out, get the CAFR done. crossing my fingers that we won't be able to have all this done by June 30th. And then as we move into the summer, we have a budget in place. There may be tweaks down the line, but as we get that under control that I can concentrate on cleaning up fiscal 2022, there are a few issues from fiscal 2021 that still need to be looked at and addressed. And then once I really understand how everything is done here, how all the systems run, work with departments to figure that out, then hopefully down the road, we will be looking at getting all of our software integrated so that it works citywide. Because right now we're using, well, I mean, we're using admins, which is very antiquated. Only two communities in Massachusetts still use it. That's our general ledger. That's the audited record of the city. Treasurer's cash is on the soft right. Payroll is handled by Harper's. I have no idea what other software systems the school is using. This all needs to be integrated into one big package. And that's going to cost a lot of money. That's a big capital expense to actually get it all together in one thing. The auditors. Both Roselli and Clark and CLA, the consultants, are recommending Unis. That's what most towns use. It's mostly the only game in town these days, but it's expensive. Not on a year-to-date operational budget. It's pricey, but you're already paying for all of these different software systems. How about we just pay one? vendor for that, but the upfront costs of doing that, it's going to be easily a year-long project. And I haven't even investigated what the numbers are, but they're going to be large.
[Zac Bears]: In the seven figures?
[Bob Dickinson]: I hope not the seven figures, but I don't know. While I've been involved in many upgrades to the Munis system from the town I came from, I've never been involved in implementing a complete conversion from what's effectively three different software systems at least into one.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah.
[Bob Dickinson]: So I don't, I, you know, I intend in the next few months to actually talk to the people at Munis and see if they can say, okay, this is probably what we need. What can we roll out on a, not try to do the whole thing at once maybe, but get general ledger and treasury and procurement, which we are currently using admins for. want to get those in place to begin with. How much is that going to cost? How much support are we going to need? How much outside support we might need? For instance, CLA has been very, very useful in doing state reporting. They know what they're talking about. They can be very helpful, but that's another cost that we would have to factor into converting to a system like MUNIS. So that's what I'm looking at down the road right now.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Bob Dickinson]: Yeah. Get everything in place. Make sure my numbers are right. Find out how everything is processed immediately. And then hopefully we will have a nice discussion about this when we're looking at our 2024 budget.
[Zac Bears]: OK. This is incredibly valuable information. We had no idea about the state of our financial technology software. When would you say that admins was a deprecated software, 10 years ago, five years ago?
[Bob Dickinson]: I had never seen it before.
[Zac Bears]: Wow. And Munis, you've used that in your previous job? Yes. How long?
[Bob Dickinson]: Admittedly, I don't want to be the guy from Nantucket who says, you guys have got to have Munis. I started using Munis in 2006. Wow. And obviously, I was in Nantucket until I came here. So I have a fair amount of experience with it. Like all relational database software systems, accounting systems, it's got some quirks. It's difficult. It's, it's not the most easy program to use, but it would do things like, um, in the, you know, take APM tree for instance.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
[Bob Dickinson]: The school would have an invoice. You have a requisition, a PO, that if somebody's paying an invoice, the invoice can be scanned and attached to that PO. And then it just flows immediately into this. It's already in the system. Then it gets reviewed by department heads. It gets reviewed by procurement. It gets reviewed by, you know, if it's grant money, it gets reviewed by the grant coordinator. And then it all goes to AP and all that stuff is right there at a click.
[Zac Bears]: I'm an operations director for a small nonprofit. Nothing like the size of a budget like this, but that's how our systems work, right?
[Bob Dickinson]: payroll to there's payroll entry at the department level and then that should flow through everything so that So that it all works together yeah, and we're only entering the main thing about that is that the the documentation is all they're attached and also we're only entering it once one person puts it in and other people review it and then AP posts it.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Bob Dickinson]: So it would be a good deal. Hopefully it would be a good deal of time saved once that's in place.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Thank you for that. I mean, it just sounds like a hugely important project, uh, for streamlining the processes of making people's giving them hopefully more capacity to do additional work in the long run. Um, but also for, approvals for general confidence in the numbers, as you said, and given the fact that it's going to be such a large project, I want to add to your thought pile, and maybe I'll have to say it again next year, because we've got so much going on and we're not going to be able to get to this for a while, although I hope we can, you know, hopefully in the next budget there's funding to be able to start this process. And I don't know any of the softwares, I'm certainly not an expert in any of it, but something that I think would be incredibly valuable for the residents of the community as well is if this, if whatever we do somehow relates to potentially a public dashboard where residents could maybe see here is our actual so far this year. And I'm not saying necessarily it's updated every day or however you have to make it work, but month to month, quarter to quarter, that even starts to address are questions about being able to access information. If you can send me and I can look through the lines and the departments and want to know, you know, quarter three, and then you don't have to print out a hundred page report and send it to me, because I can access that at will, you know, something like that. I understand that some of it's more complicated and there's potentially confidentiality or, you know, some things you don't want people's social security numbers or whatever out there, but something, some version of that, I think we go a long way towards meeting this goal of transparency and government and letting the residents know, you know, the more that we can say this is where your money is at this given time and it's going to this, the more that we can back up the thing that we all know here that we really are operating in a bare bones level across basically everything, the better chance we're going to have to be able to talk to the residents of our community and say, we need to do more, we need to bring in revenue, and that's, you know, here's, go to this website, you can see why, you know? This is our actual budget that our staff worked so hard on to maintain and bring to you. So it's just something to throw out there as maybe part of the process. Maybe that piece costs another 100% of the whole cost, and it's not feasible to do in the short run, but.
[Bob Dickinson]: We will certainly look at, I know Tyler's systems proprietary company for Unix has software that does that. Nantucket's using it. I was not involved in a lot of how that, how it uploads from the, you know, the accounting system to it, but I know they do have that functionality. We can certainly look at that. Great. And that's a great way to do it. You know, that, that way people can click on buttons and at least get an overview of what projects we have, you know, where your money's going.
[Zac Bears]: Right. Thank you. Those are my questions and much appreciated for the, in my opinion, breath of fresh air when it comes to this issue here in Medford. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Any other questions? Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Do you see us having any compliance issues? coming up based upon the fact that we were without a director for an extended period of time. Do you see us having any concerns or issues with compliance with state or federal water requirements or anything like that at this point?
[Bob Dickinson]: Can I give you a qualified no? Yes. I do not believe so. We're working very hard to get. There's some things that have fallen by the wayside. I don't know why. There's some issues with reconciliation. Essentially, everybody at our auditors, everybody at the DOR, and the consultants know the problems that we've been facing, and they understand that we, you know, without a finance director for a while. I've been trying very hard. If anybody from any of those offices gives me, sends me an email, they get responded to immediately.
[Adam Knight]: No, Lenovo is a good enough answer. You don't need to go any further than that. That worked out for me. Right. Yes.
[Zac Bears]: As far as I know, no. Okay.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. And just something that slipped my mind again. And, um, if you, it may be kind of prefacing, it may be covered something coming back up on Tuesday, but just specifically since it's been such kind of a point and, uh, pointed out as the main issue between the reason we had to go from the initial proposal for fiscal 23 to the new one around the library donations. At least my understanding, and I don't have complete information, is that those funds were sent from the Medford Public Library Foundation 501c3 to the city, but they were placed in the general fund. Is that the best, is that correct, a correct assertion? Is that the best practice for the funds? And is there a way we could have brought them into the city differently so it wouldn't have affected the ARPA calculation?
[Bob Dickinson]: Okay, taking the last first, as far as I know, there's no way we could have accepted those funds in a different way that would have not affected the ARPA calculation. It's a donation, it's a donation, it's a donation. That's what we've asked this, of the feds, of the auditors, of the consultants every single time. The only way, not really knowing how this, the problem is that the funding for the library paid for bills that we, that the city paid to build the library. If somehow, the foundation had directly paid vendors with that money, then it wouldn't have flowed through the city, and it wouldn't have been counted as a donation. That's the only way I can really think of to actually have it work that way, and I don't know if it can even work that way.
[Zac Bears]: My understanding, if I may, is that, so there was the 3.75 million that did end up coming into the city from them. I think that's about the number. 3.4, well, the pertinent number is 3.4 million. 3.4.
[Bob Dickinson]: three checks, a million bucks, 1.2, 1.2, all in calendar 21, which is under the federal standards, what they have to look at our revenue for, just calendar, not fiscal.
[Zac Bears]: Right. My understanding is that the foundation actually raised close to $6 million and did do the direct payments to vendors for certain things. And again, I understand if you don't have the complete information, that's my understanding from speaking with the executive director, well, hearing from the executive director of the Bedford Public Library Foundation. So we only got a portion of the donations, the total donation amount. And my understanding, I don't know, personally, I don't know where, what that was expended on. You're saying it was expended on bills?
[Bob Dickinson]: I would assume so. I haven't ticked and tied all those numbers, so I could not tell you exactly.
[Zac Bears]: And then back to the first two questions, you know, Am I correct to say that the money, when given to the city, was put into the general fund?
[Bob Dickinson]: I don't know precisely. I would think that it would have been put to the capital project fund, which is 320, if I remember correctly. That would not have made a difference as far as the ARPA calculation. The general fund was put to the capital project fund. That doesn't make a difference to them.
[Zac Bears]: If a special revenue fund were created, would that have made a difference?
[Bob Dickinson]: No.
[Zac Bears]: OK. So the only thing we could have done is go back in time and not accept them in calendar year 21.
[Bob Dickinson]: I would love to be able to go back in time for so many reasons.
[Zac Bears]: But that's essentially.
[Bob Dickinson]: That's essentially, as far as I can tell, yes. That's essentially the issue. Of course. we won't have that revenue source next year. So that means hopefully revenue replacement next year will be more than we would have expected. But I have to, you know, if we didn't have the 3.2 in donations, 3.4 in donations against our revenue replacement this year, we'd be looking at 7.6, 7.7 in revenue replacement. But unfortunately, the bad news behind that, of course, is that means we have a big gap in revenue.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. A big structural deficit.
[Bob Dickinson]: Right. And that's what I've been saying. It's like, we need to address this crisis. Put it this way, if we really work on addressing this now, then It isn't really, it hasn't risen to the level of a crisis. If we don't address it three years from now, it's gonna be a crisis. So that's what I'm seeing. I'm the guy from outside and again, I'm still getting used to Medford and I'm getting used to your computer systems and trying to get the best numbers I can, but that's what I'm seeing.
[Zac Bears]: And this may be, I don't mean to set you up for an answer with this question, but I may anyway. Can I plead the case? You may. Well, I don't know if you want to do that, but I'll let you off the hook without doing that. Essentially, what you're saying is because we're using so much one time revenue in this fiscal year budget and probably what we used last fiscal year and fiscal 21 and expect to use in fiscal 24 or may expect to use in fiscal 24. that that structural deficit means that once those one-time revenues are dried up, we will have an inability to pay the expenses of the city, essentially. And the only way to address that structural deficit is either to raise revenues or reduce expenses. Is that correct? I mean, that's- Yes.
[Bob Dickinson]: You're balancing your checkbook. There you are.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, and you probably can't answer this question, but I think one of the reasons we do this process of due diligence every year, even though we're doing it this year with less information than maybe we would hope to have, is, I think, to show that $7.5 million or thereabouts of a structural deficit, which would have been closer to $11 million if we had had the full ARPA revenue replacement, at least under the initial proposed budget for fiscal 23, as I read it. Um, that, uh, there's not $11 million to cut in this budget. There's not $7.5 million to cut in this budget. If we start cutting that, you know, there's not, there's not that much left to cut. And I don't expect you necessarily to say yes or no to that. It's not necessarily your position, but, um, you know, I'll ask it, and again, feel free not to answer. Do you think it would be responsible to cut $7.5 million out of the budget of the city at this point, given the level of services or the testimony that you've been able to hear so far?
[Bob Dickinson]: Honestly, I wouldn't be able to answer that. That requires a whole lot. I don't like putting out statements without really crunching numbers. That's what I do. So I honestly wouldn't be able to answer that. That's a very difficult question. I don't know what that would mean to the city as a whole. Right. One thing about that, obviously, is we're basing these numbers on revenue streams that we've been looking at for the last two years, which, as I said before, is kind of wonky data information.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Bob Dickinson]: It's wonky data. One would hope that as everything gets back together and the pandemic issues recede, that Medford's revenue would go back into line with how they've been growing each year. At which point, hopefully we are not looking at that much of a revenue deficit from Trent. But it's very difficult to predict that on two years of pandemic revenue.
[Richard Caraviello]: Yeah.
[Bob Dickinson]: So the way I look at it right now is to let's try to be as frugal as possible. 23 and 24, you have more good data and we can see down the road what other revenue sources we might have and we might not have this problem. That's what I'm hoping.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. Last two questions, I hopefully promise. One, have you either worked in or know of people who have been in communities in a similar situation to what we've done now or to what we're currently facing? And could you explain maybe what they've done to get out of those situations?
[Bob Dickinson]: No, I don't have experience with that.
[Zac Bears]: OK. And then I guess lastly, I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Seeing none, thank you so much, Mr. Dickinson. We do have, I guess, we have facilities and we don't have, so the clerk is going to print us up and get facilities to us because Commissioner McGivery is going to support Chief of Staff Nazarian on presenting on that. Why don't I just take like a brief I know we're trying to get out of here.
[Adam Knight]: I don't want to take a brief recess.
[Nicole Morell]: All right, so well, let's go to the risk of sounding like a bully to building. Well, yeah, let's go to building and all. Yeah, Mr. Clark, you can tolerate that. Let's go to building, which I assume would be Chief of Staff Nazarian.
[Nina Nazarian]: Yes. Thank you, President. Um, so at this point, I'm happy to answer any questions that I can. Um, the This department is basically a budget that was submitted by former Commissioner Moki. It's consistent with the new contract provisions for the newest signed collective bargaining agreement for which negotiations began before this administration's time. And as you can see, there are a number of increases. There are also some other changes, if the council would like we can go through any questions that you have. There really isn't any overtime in this budget as that is one likely one that's the most notable, because this department has the staffing and the necessary funds to commit for the actual budget. At this point in time, overtime hasn't been required. Again, this was submitted by former commissioner, retired commissioner, building commissioner, Paul Moki. And I think that those are all my introductory comments.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Madam Chief of Staff. Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Madam President, thank you very much. After many months, these several members of this department finally have a collective bargaining agreement in a union to represent their interests and wishes, provide them with benefits. And as we look historically at the city of Medford, we had a position called the sealer of weights and measures. And the sealer of weights and measures is a CAF position. It's a position that's created by ordinance that provides a full-time job for a sealer of weights and measures. In past budgets, that position has not gone filled. And instead, that position has been turned into a stipend position against city ordinance I'm wondering if this position is going to be filled who's doing the work, and if the sealer weights and measures position is included in the articles of organization for the collective bargaining agreement that covers the inspectors and mid level managers.
[Nina Nazarian]: President moral.
[Nicole Morell]: Please go ahead.
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you. through you to Councilor Knight. Councilor Knight, if I missed any of the questions or comments that you made and I'm not answering them, please bring them to my attention. Since reverse order, I can probably remember them a little bit easier. The first was, the last was essentially the collective bargaining agreement. I will check that as we speak this evening and find that information for you. What I can say is, Prior to this administration's time, the position was a stipend position for which one employee was being paid for that. Those that work essentially it was a $5,000 stipend at the time, at the time of hiring to new code enforcement officers back in 2021. specifically Paul Smith and Mike Malerba. The work was split between two different individuals and both individuals were given basically half of that stipend. Since the collective bargaining agreement began in negotiations in the prior administration, that work had been split out and an increased cost or stipend amount was given to both Mr. Malerba and Mr. Smith.
[Adam Knight]: So the answer is no, the measure's position will not be filled by a full-time employee.
[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell, through you to Councilor Knight, at this point in time, there's not a plan to do that. Again, I'm not familiar with the position being. Thank you, yep.
[Nicole Morell]: Any other questions on the building department? Seeing none, last call for questions on building department. Okay, we can move to,
[Adam Knight]: Has the job of building commissioner been posted and when do we expect that it will be filled? And is there anybody acting in that capacity currently? And if so, who?
[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell, through you to Councilor Knight, the position is in the very, I believe we are finalizing the job description as we presently speak. Commissioner Moki provided a tremendous service. I will say, unfortunately, we only had two weeks notice. and when he submitted his retirement paperwork and put the city on notice, certainly wish him farewell in all of the work he did with the community. That being said, we are planning to post the position immediately. I expect it would be next week most likely if it isn't already posted. And as far as when it would be filled, obviously as quickly as we find the best qualified candidate for the city of Medford. And finally, as far as Acting, we're presently exploring options for that. We have been speaking with the state inspectors office on that question we've also been communicating with the union because the individuals who may be qualified to serve in that position would are under a collective bargaining agreement. the building commissioner's position is under a separate collective bargaining agreement, a newly formed unit. So we're walking through the steps to try to figure out the best approach to make sure we're not going through any direction that we need to go through checks and balances on.
[Nicole Morell]: All right, Senator Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Just a couple of quick questions specifically around this. Without someone as an interim or acting building commissioner, does that mean that no decisions can be made on construction permits in the city? And B, have you considered asking the former retired commissioner Moki to return on a temporary basis to at least facilitate the approval of permitting?
[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell, through you to Vice President Bears. At this point in time, we have inquired as to what operational impacts not having a building commissioner would have in terms of in particular, of course, permits. And it's my understanding that the city cannot issue certificates of occupancy. And at this point in time, we're keeping very close eye on certificates of occupancy that are being applied for. and we're exploring all options. In addition to exploring a potential acting within the current staffing in the department, we're also exploring other avenues. I don't know if we've directly spoken with former Commissioner Moki, but it's certainly not off the table. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam Chief of Staff, and I appreciate that, and I would recommend it may be a short-term solution to this problem.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further questions on building? All right, moving on to the facilities and ground. And I just want to note, Chief of Staff, Ms. Aron, we had veterans for today as well. We didn't get a veterans budget in our package.
[Nina Nazarian]: But if you want to- Thank you, President Rall. I will send that over. right away as I apologize. I see it in my email communication. I'm not sure why that one didn't come through, but I also see that there was at least one that wasn't in my email communication. So my apologies, sincere apologies.
[Nicole Morell]: If you'd like to speak to the facilities budget in front of us.
[Nina Nazarian]: Happy to dive into that. Thank you. As the council probably will recall, the facilities budget was established in For the first time in FY 22, that was done by pulling amounts from different departments to consolidate it into a centralized location. Obviously the city has been seeking to hire facilities director for some time. This is among one of the jobs that are known to be very difficult to hire for. We've had a number of rounds of interviews with limited applications coming in, and we have since, I think, posted the position at least two, if not three, and we just recently reposted it again with some modifications to the job description. For the purposes of this discussion to the city council, know, there are a number of positions in a number of communities who are struggling with a lot of these same issues. If you look to any city community across the Commonwealth, you'll find a number of department head positions that are vacant, and I think that's evident based on, in particular, postings on the Mass Municipal Association's website for, in particular, department heads and high-level department heads in a number of areas. But specifically focusing on facilities, this is one of the areas where finding difficulty, finding qualified individuals. That being said, we are actively continuing to approach the recruitment process as thoughtfully and as creatively as we can. The FY22 budget was essentially what I would call a trial budget. Let's see, we've taken all the costs in each of the respective departments where they were originally funding their facilities costs. and consolidated them into one budget. For instance, you know, fire, police, DPW, obviously Council on Aging, library, et cetera, placed them into this budget. And those make up the numbers for the FY22 budget that are before you now. At this present time, we've been very careful with spending on this budget, we want to make sure that we're within, you know, the appropriation. And as a result, I have been keeping my eye on it. As we've gone through the year, especially in particular because of my work with the fire department on the facilities projects, and also wanting to make sure that we're, you know, allocating the necessary resources that we need to allocate to our facilities. So at this point in time, I want to note that there is likely, I'm going to make, I'm going to likely make a push to get some contracted work done before the end of this fiscal year's budget and within the municipal finance law requirements to encumber funds. So I'm happy to answer any further questions, but there is some particular contracted work that we're going to try to do in both City Hall and other facilities that could utilize the FY222 budget that has been unspent to date.
[Adam Knight]: Does that mean she's going to come back and ask us for more money?
[Nina Nazarian]: I did thank you President morale Councilor Knight no I don't expect we're going to be approaching for more funds in fiscal 22 in the, in this budget.
[Adam Knight]: Certainly, I didn't hear all of that President wrong, getting the 96,000 in the personnel costs that we appropriated last year that was never spent because we never got a person to do the job right that's, that's correct. Yeah, so there's at least $96,000 in the facilities and grounds budget that was supposed to go to personnel who didn't. So the next that's in there. I just take to see, I mean, that was a council priority. We fought to get that position in the budget. You know, like I said, this city is a human resources nightmare. Chiefs made a clear civil service, we don't do that right. You know, I find it hard to believe we can't find someone to do a job as a facilities director for $100,000 a year. I really find it hard to believe. This is something that's been a council priority. This is a position I think should be filled. It's not something that should go fall by the wayside for another 12 months. So with that being said, I don't know if this is a good decision or not because when we appropriated it last year, it was to see how this was gonna work. And we never had the person to handle the purse strings and run the department. So we don't know how it's going to work. I think it should work well, but until that time is the position is filled. So I'd ask the administration to make this a priority. I mean, you know, we've seen a lot of turnover. We have no veteran service director. We have a new finance director that's been in for five months. I'm sure the chief of staff is going to be leaving us at some point soon. We have outside counsel that does the majority of our legal work. You know, so it's just, there's really a decentralization, I think, of what's going on here a little bit. And I think we need to tighten it up a little bit. But I appreciate the presentation. You know, I certainly have no problem with that with the facilities and grounds department as long as we have a person that's actually a coordinator. Because if not, who's spending the money? Where's it go? Who's the one that administers the funds and all the money that's in this department? Who's acting as the department head? Is it just the same department heads that were doing the same work before paying their bills and all this is it looks good on paper, but at the end of the day, the chiefs are the ones that are doing the work in the fire department, the police department, Tim's the one doing the work in the DPW paying the bills, you know, that's what I want to know. The idea was to kind of create a facilities and grounds manager that was going to be able to take some of those administrative tasks and burdens away from these department heads so that they could focus more on the nuts and bolts of their day to day. So with that being said, I rest my case.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further discussion? Vice chairs.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Number one. Just want to confirm that this facilities and grounds falls under the DPW. Is that correct?
[Tim McGivern]: There you go. Okay. That's my understanding as a temporary placeholder to begin some would be under DPW with the idea and Nina can jump in if I'm wrong, with the idea of it being its own department after that. It's gonna be a one man show, one person show at the beginning.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. If the chief of staff has additional commentary, I'm happy to hear it. Sure.
[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell, I don't have direct comments on vice, President Bears' question, but I, potentially through you, President Morell, and if Commissioner McGivern is willing, it's possible that Commissioner McGivern would have additional comments to add some information to the interview process and the number of rounds we've gone through since Commissioner McGivern has been involved in the process to attempt to bring on a facilities director.
[Tim McGivern]: Absolutely, happy to help. Yeah, I have been involved in the process. three rounds of interviews. There was some candidates that seemed like they could have done the job, but weren't the right fit. So there's a pretty good sort of, I think, I should put it this way, I think the difficulty is it's starting from scratch. So there's plenty of folks out there who have done this type of work, before and with our experience in it, but aren't interested in starting it from scratch. And then there seem to be people who, you know, are interested in starting from scratch, but don't have the interest to manage people down the road. So I think, you know, one of the things that I'm noticing when I'm involved in these processes for interviewing and trying to find someone in this position is that has been qualified candidates, but no one that we look at and we say, oh, that person is going to be able to start with nothing, begin contracted services right away, and then in the future be expected to manage people. So there's, and that has to do with some of the changes that were made to the job description, which I was asked to help with that as well. And that me and Alicia Hunt helped with that effort to try to see if we could, you know, hone in a little bit more on the market of available people out there, which, as Nina has said, has been quite challenging. I have seen that on the face of it over the past 12 months. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Just a few more questions. Noting the 885-445-FY22 actual, I'll assume that's at least as old as April 1. That would leave a 600 to $650,000 surplus or unspent, appropriated but unspent funds. Madam Chief of Staff, I know you mentioned that you're planning to do kind of a rush of contracted services prior to the end of the fiscal year due to accounting purposes. Do you expect to expend essentially most, if not all of the remaining funds appropriated to the department for fiscal 22?
[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell through you to Vice President Bears know at this point I don't think it's reachable for me to be able to do that or for me and the other team members who are assisting with this to be able to do that. But I do expect that it, you know, it should not be a reflection on the FY 23 budget. Obviously, we have a new library facility as well, so we want to make sure that we're retaining the costs and resources that we need for FY23. I expect a number of those dollars will fall to free cash for FY22.
[Zac Bears]: Okay, that's helpful. Do you expect it to fall to free cash and not be an end-of-year transfer to another line?
[Nina Nazarian]: It's possible that it may serve as a partial underwear transfer to another line, especially, you know, potentially the personnel costs. I can't speak to that right now. I'm seeking the finance directors, obviously constrained resources as is, to get those transfer reviewed. I also would note, if I may, I apologize, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
[Zac Bears]: No, I apologize, I interrupted you.
[Nina Nazarian]: So the only other thing I will say is up until his retirement, Commissioner Moki was, in essence, the facilities director and had been acting as such for quite some time. He had done a tremendous amount of work to the degree he had available resources. And so while there kind of was a very, very much a teamwork approach to getting facilities work done under Commissioner Moki. Obviously you heard Chief Friedman discuss it earlier, his work that he's done a considerable amount of legwork on for a number of the facilities, former Chief Gilberti as well, and other department heads. Obviously I've done some work myself, but at this point in time, I really, you know, I think we would have had, you know, a number of dollars spent greater if we had a facilities director.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you for that answer. And you actually kind of touched on my next question, which is, you know, there are significant concerns about maintenance for the library. And both, as we have a brand new library, lots of new materials under warranty, lack of, quite frankly, you know, there's not necessarily the staffing level or skill level to operate or maintain all of these systems within the library staff. Is the expectation that the facilities department will have sufficient funding to maintain the library and maintain our warranties on all these new systems, as well as providing the library with sufficient support to have full levels of service with the new systems that have been installed with the opening of the new building?
[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell, through you, yes, it is certainly a major priority to ensure that the city's capital investment in this library is taken care of and well-maintained. In this process, while the library's been being built, Director of Planning, Development, Sustainability, Alicia Hunt, has done a considerable amount of supportive work to ensure that there has been resources available for things like commissioning at the library to make sure that all of our newest facilities have been taken a look at, and she's really done a lot of the legwork to get a consultant on board that has assisted with the library, the police department, the DPW facility, even some of the newest buildings that have the most advanced technologies, obviously. And it's just all I can say is it's a high priority to make sure, again, to recap that we are investing properly in our facilities and doing all the things you mentioned to ensure that that building doesn't fall by any means to the wayside. It's a critical priority.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Yeah, if that number could be assessed and determined for the fiscal year, how much we think we're going to need to spend on the library to properly maintain it to the standards that are needed, or maybe even exceed just the minimum standards needed to maintain the warranties. If that number could be calculated and then communicated to the library director, her staff, and the library trustees, that would be of great and urgent priority, maybe even prior to our June 14 meeting where we will be discussing the library. There are other issues at the library that I won't get into right now. But whereas this is a facilities issue, they are greatly concerned about their budget, the fact that their budget is basically at the level when they were in the high street temporary facility, and especially as regards to accurately and sufficiently maintaining the new facility. So that those communications and that line of communication, I feel is really essential to happen if if at all possible, as quickly as possible.
[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell, at this point, I can say that I've spoken with the library director. The library director and I had a conversation on this matter yesterday when we reviewed the library budget in its final form with the objective of sending it to the city council as quickly as possible in advance of Tuesday night's budget hearing. I made similar statements to the library director at that time. And, you know, as far as assessing the numbers, I think that's going to take a little bit more time it's certainly above my head. I am not a facilities expert by any means I certainly attempt to understand enough about facilities, but I think that's going to take even longer than. That will take several months, I imagine. And that is something that we need to do, and we need to get moving on, obviously. We have been doing, there may be some information that's available based on work that has been done by the former building commissioner, that has been done by the director of planning, development, and sustainability. I'm not sure, I can certainly inquire to see what information, if any, is available. Or obviously, the owner's project manager or architect that may have information on that end.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, yeah. And I understand that. I think, at the very least, communicating some sort of guarantee that the funds that we won't spend all the money that the facilities line until we know that amount and that that amount will be protected and preserved for you specifically for the library. And if that could be communicated not just to the library director but to the entire library staff and the board of library trustees. by the administration that would go a long way to addressing some deep anxiety and emotional concern that I was fielding directly yesterday from multiple people. So, that level of community, I understand maybe the library director has heard something, but I really think that these folks deserve and quite frankly, need a guarantee that, and the community needs a guarantee. And it sounds like that's the goal and the commitment, but I think, maybe going a little bit beyond that and saying, we can guarantee you that this is not gonna be a problem in this fiscal year's budget, and we will have enough money so that we don't have issues, is going to be very important to a great number of people, not just, not limited to, but very much centered on library staff, who, as we know, are underpaid relative to comparison communities, even in jobs that require extensive certification and degree work. And the last thing we need is them not having that guarantee that the building will be maintained and them looking and leaving for better prospects. I don't want to say better prospects, because in my heart of hearts, I believe that Medford's the best prospect in the world, but for prospects that are better for them in their situation that they may find themselves in. So I do think that that communication and communicating it to a broader audience of folks who are stakeholders in this is essential for the health and safety of our library.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further questions on facilities?
[Zac Bears]: I have three small things. Okay. I apologize for this. Number one, and these are just straight up facilities things. I would much rather direct this to Facilities Director than you, Madam Chief of Staff, especially given the amount of work that you're currently under with this budget. But number one, during the pandemic, a habit of using the council chambers as a storage area came into effect in this building, and you can kind of look around and see the impacts of that on the chamber. Were we to have a large public meeting in this space, it would be At the very least, we would not be able to fill the room to full capacity, and at worst, people would think, why the heck is this public space being used as a storage room? If at all possible, if the items and materials that are stored in this space could be moved to an actual storage space instead of a functioning space like this, that's a request that I have. And then two other things, which I mentioned one of already. If we could be provided access to a key to access the climate control in this space so we can adjust it as needed, PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. and Amy are trained on the door lock schedule and how to adjust that. If we could provide some sort of training to someone in the clerk's department so that they can adjust the door locks as needed for special meetings or meetings like this on a Saturday, that would be much appreciated as well. And I'm happy to repeat those or potentially email them if they're not captured. I know that was a lot in a short amount of time.
[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell, through you, received. You're certainly welcome to email, but I've received them. Thank you, and I will look into them.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam Chief of Staff.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further questions on facilities? Seeing none, we do have veterans left. We were not given a budget form for that, and also the Chair of our Veterans Affairs Subcommittee is not here. I'd like to entertain a motion to table on the motion of Veterans Affairs to table the veterans budget for the time being, seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Okay, we are at the end of our agenda. I do not believe we have Chief of Staff Nazarian.
[Zac Bears]: His microphone was off.
[Nicole Morell]: I'm sorry, Councilor Tseng asked when we can expect, well, he asked if we have received anything for our Tuesday meetings and when we can expect that.
[Nina Nazarian]: President Morell, through you, to Councilor Tseng, I appreciate the question. I'm presently working on those documents. I have them all in semi-final form. I'm just working and I hope to get to them to you this weekend. In the event that I'm unable to transmit them all this weekend, I will transmit the ones that are immediately available. And then I will also follow up as soon as possible Monday morning with the remainder, if any remain at that point in time.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. On the motion of Councilor Knight to adjourn, seconded by Councilor Tseng. All those in favour? All those opposed? Meeting is adjourned.
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