[Nicole Morell]: 22-354 Committee of the Whole, Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 5.30 PM. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears.
[Nicole Morell]: We don't have audio. We don't have audio, Shane. Hang on one second, Mr. Clerk.
[SPEAKER_17]: respond to that lady about doing that overwrite?
[Unidentified]: No, I haven't responded to any emails in three days.
[SPEAKER_17]: I said, well, what do you want to overwrite? I said, well, just keep doing it. Overwrite it. I said, well, overwrite it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: You can't use it to pay bills or make payrolls. He said, no, you need to buy a subscription to go to school. He said, tell me what I would assume it's cool. She was, she wasn't even okay.
[Nicole Morell]: Mr. Clark, could you speak to see if we can hear you?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Madam President, can you hear me now?
[Nicole Morell]: Still can't hear him. He's going to be 10 minutes late. Mr. Clerk, can you try again?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, Madam President. Can you hear me now?
[Nicole Morell]: I can hear you in there. Can't hear him out here.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I can just come up and do the meeting by hand if you want.
[Nicole Morell]: Try now.
[Adam Hurtubise]: How about now, Madam President?
[Nicole Morell]: The people on Zoom can hear. We just aren't getting audio out here.
[SPEAKER_19]: Test one, two. Test one to watch right now.
[Nicole Morell]: Mr. Good.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Madam President, can you hear me now. You know, fabulous.
[Nicole Morell]: Please continue calling the role if you could, or start.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Councilor carry yellow. President, Councilor Collins, President Councilor Knight.
[Nicole Morell]: He will be a few minutes late.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, I see Councilor Scarpelli online. Hi, President. Councilor Tseng. President Morell.
[Nicole Morell]: Six present, one absent. The meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council, Tuesday, June 14th, 2022 at 5.30 p.m. 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, office of the city clerk, electrical, library, law department, and recreation slash form L. The City Council has invited Breanna Lungo-Koehn, sorry, Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, Chief of Staff Nino Nazarian, Finance Director Bob Dickinson, and relevant department heads and Medford Public School administrators to attend. For further information, aids, and accommodations, contact the City Clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, Council President. I know we do have a number of folks here for the library. We will, I think as we're waiting for Councilor Knight, we'll just see if we can take a smaller budget first so that Councilor Knight can be present as we get to the library. So I would suggest City Clerk, Law Department might take it. So as far as presenting for the City Clerk, Chief of Staff Nazarian, would that be you?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Madam President, I can do it.
[Nicole Morell]: All right, as long as it seems the Chief of Staff, Vice President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Just one request, Shane. Could you, the screens out here, could you make them full screen? Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Mr. Clerk, if you'd like to give us an overview of the departmental budget we're looking at.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Sure. Thank you, Madam President. I'm going to call it up on my screen while I'm here. Hang on just a quick second, please. So as you all know, since you appoint me, I am the city clerk. And in our office, we are responsible for all sorts of vital records, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, also municipal records, such as business licenses. We are the corporate secretary. We do a variety of other matters. As you know, we are the keeper of your records as well. I have the best team in City Hall, I have Assistant City Clerk Sylvia DiPlacito, I have Karen Fopiano, I have Evelyn O'Rourke, and I have Janice DePace working in my office. We have a fantastic team in there, working every day for our residents. This year's budget is essentially level funded with last year's budget, it's actually slightly less because when the former assistant city clerk, Dottie Donahue retired in 2018, she stayed on in a part-time role for about almost four years, which was just under $20,000 a year, I believe. And she fully retired as of November or December of last year. And so that's a cut from our budget this year. Everything else is essentially level funded from year to year.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Do we have any questions from the council on the budget before us? Vice President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Mr. Clerk, if you could answer, you know, are there any significant, I know you said it's basically level funded from year to year. Are there any significant changes that you'd like to note or are there any significant deficiencies that you'd like to see filled in in the future? For example, around tech support or different software, that kind of thing.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Um, that's a couple of good questions in there. In terms of, in terms of the changes, the major change is, is the elimination of that part time position in our office, because the former assistant city clerk. fully retired so that's that's the big change in terms of the other changes, Mr. Vice President make it you make an excellent point because, as you know, the council is the council spearheaded the software in room 207 that allows for recording of committee meetings and things like that. And that room has not been used for a committee meeting. It was used once for an executive session in the entire pandemic. And I don't think it's been used. I don't think it's been used in any other way by the council since then. So as you know, we are paying for legislative software that is not being used right now.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Mr. Clark.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Mr. Did I see the sick leave incentive? Yes. Who lost their sick leave? Did somebody lose it?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Hang on just a quick second. Sick leave incentive. I don't see anybody. that I don't know the answer to in terms of anybody losing it. What I can tell you is that there was a minor discrepancy earlier that was corrected today in which the assistant city clerk was supposed to receive a step increase and a longevity bonus and her longevity bonus got got marked as a second step increase in the year at some point. It's approximately the same amount as it would have been. The step increase and the longevity bonus are approximately the same amount, so it's kind of a wash. But that is the only issue that I'm aware of in this. I don't know of anybody losing any kind of longevity bonus, except that Jen Grogan, the former head clerk would, oh, she wasn't there long enough to get a longevity bonus anyway. I can find that out for you, but I don't know the answer off the top of my head about that missed longevity bonus.
[Richard Caraviello]: If I'm reading it correctly, the sick leave incentives has been taken out of your budget.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So if you could- Yeah, I'll find out what the answer is on that.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further questions from the council? Councilor Knight, we have the city clerk budget before us. I don't know if you, I know we got it rather late, so I don't know if you have any questions.
[Adam Knight]: I have had the opportunity to review it, Madam President. The only concern that I have is what steps we can take to ensure that our videographer receives the comparable wage to the work that he's doing. Other than that, I think everything looks like it's normal.
[Nicole Morell]: I see Chief of Staff Nazarian with your hand up. Do you need to be, oh, there you go.
[Nina Nazarian]: Thank you, President Morell. Just on the sick leave incentive, the way that that line is budgeted is if we know of a retirement that's occurring and we believe that the employee is likely eligible for an incentive, then that line is filled. If there are unanticipated changes in employment, whether that's retirement or somebody takes another position in another community or what happened in the city clerk's department, someone just decided to change their path and focus on family, then we would have to come back and or shift and propose a transfer. So at this point in time, I don't believe that there are any retirements that are expected, but certainly defer to the city clerk if he's aware of anything and I'm mistaken.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I can answer that question as well. I do not, I'm not aware of any pending retirements or any other changes on the team in my office.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, any further questions on the- Madam President. Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: I don't see, do I see Shane's paying on here? That's in the legislative. Under legislative. Oh, he's under legislative, okay. We'll talk about that later.
[Nicole Morell]: Great, any further questions on the city clerk budget? Moving on, so we do have library, formal, recreation, and electrical, and law before us tonight. Would we like to move to library or would we like to take a smaller department first?
[Adam Knight]: We can take electrical.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay, we'll briefly take electrical.
[Adam Knight]: I just think that'll be quick.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay.
[Adam Knight]: Best apartment in the city.
[Nicole Morell]: Mr. Randazzo here. So we're going to move on to the Electrical Department Budget.
[Steve Randazzo]: Good evening, Madam President and Council. I'm Steve Randazzo, Superintendent of WIAS. I try to oversee all the street lights, traffic signals, and electrical inspections throughout the city and try to help out with some of the city projects, such as car charges and stuff like that are being installed at some of our municipal buildings and lots. Nothing's really changed too much. We tried to streamline the budget the best we could. We saw that we were allocating funds for electrical for different things and we weren't quite using the funds. So we tried to give it back. I don't know if there's any questions I can answer.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Mr. Randazzo. Councilor Nyland.
[Adam Knight]: Madam President, I say this every year. Steve's probably one of the best department heads that we have. In his first year that he was here as department head, he worked to take over the maintenance and control of our streetlights that resulted in a savings of well over a quarter of a million dollars to this community. And every day, he continues to be innovative, I think, outside the box. He's someone that we value here in this community, someone that needs to be taken care of. He's someone that does a good job. I'm looking at his budget, and he's always done more with less. Quite frankly, Steve, you've probably been just about practically level funded for the past five years.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Correct.
[Adam Knight]: And you've been able to make it work, and with the cost savings that he's been able to embed into his budget from the successes of his initial term as the electrical inspector. by creating that cost savings of you know well over $300,000. He's been able to absorb some of the stuff so there's a strong fiscal manager. He sets an example for this community and someone that I'm that I respect. So I want to thank him for the work that he's done. He's really been ahead of the game. Steve's done a great job.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Knight. Vice President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. The only thing I have a question for you, Steve, and I second everybody's comments about the exceptional work that you do, is in the lease purchase line, I noticed that's gone down completely. I was just wondering what that was.
[Steve Randazzo]: Last year, we allocated for a bucket truck, but due to the pandemic and the crisis of vehicles, we ordered a new bucket truck back in August. They still haven't issued us a VIN number to stop production. Once we do receive that bucket truck, my intent is to try to not pay an outside contractor to fix a lot of our street lighting issues. A lot of it I feel we can do in-house with the staff that I have. So the sooner the truck comes in, the sooner we'll start with continued savings.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. And so that, does that money go to purchase the truck or lease it?
[Steve Randazzo]: I'm not sure how they shifted it, but that was a question of my concern. And they just said that it was put in last fiscal year and that it would be all set. And that's why it's not in this fiscal year.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. Thank you. And just to send a comment on this specifically, but I think it goes to the discussion that we had around operating and capital expenses and making sure that, you know, We're looking at an operating budget, but this is capital and then lines start changing year to year by 100%. You know, really being able to see those separated out would be of a huge benefit, I think, to this Council and to the community. And I know that there was a commitment just to look into doing that in our future budgets. So, just want to add that note. Thank you. You're welcome.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Carvill.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Steve, again, I reiterate that I made the Council's comments. You did a real good job. I see all your expenses have been cut down for a lot of supplies. Anything that you feel should be put back?
[Steve Randazzo]: I really couldn't give you an adamant answer on that because it all depends what happens. Traffic signal equipment's expensive, and when it fails, it's costly. When it doesn't, then I have a surplus in my accounts, and that's why we decided to scale it back.
[Richard Caraviello]: I'll assume that on your lease purchase, we'll do what we do with other vehicles. You buy it for a dollar buyout at the end, long-term lease.
[Steve Randazzo]: I'm sorry.
[Richard Caraviello]: I said, I'll assume when the lease purchase comes through, we'll do it like we've done with other vehicles, dollar buyout at the end. Correct. And you're working with four employees, right?
[Steve Randazzo]: Four employees, but three other, four including myself.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further questions for Mr. Randazzo and the electrical department? Seeing none, thank you so much.
[Steve Randazzo]: I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
[Nicole Morell]: Moving on to the library. We have Barbara Kerr with us this evening. If you could give us an overview on what you'd like to share on the budget before us. Okay.
[Barbara Kerr]: So this is a level funded budget so that's last year's budget with it has a little bit added enough to get us to the number we need for state certification. And yesterday we were able to come to an agreement about the maintenance costs which this budget did not include building maintenance. But as of yesterday, the city assures me that the estimated costs will be covered by the facilities fund. So that's a good, that's a few because that was a worry. So that's good. We are in a very odd situation though. It's good that that is taken care of, but we're still in a difficult situation because last year's budget was not for the full building. Last year's budget was for our temporary space mostly. We haven't had a budget for a full building since FY 18. And even that was reduced a bit because we knew we were moving. So FY 19, 20, 21, and 22, the budget was deliberately reduced because we had fewer expenses at Boston Avenue than we do with a full building. We were in somebody else's building, and we had no cleaning, no janitorials. We got through 18 months. on the same box of trash bags. So, and we did not have to take care of the bathroom. We reduced our materials expenditure and that is books and media, because we had less shelf space we had smaller space to grow. And when Several positions came vacant in FY 20 and 21, we didn't fill them at the time because it was right smack in the middle of it. And we were stuffed into a small spaces, you know it was bad enough. The last four years, our budget has been artificially low. It has been the budget for the temporary space, not for a full building. And I went in last year's, when my discussions with the mayor last year, I asked to fill the vacancies and I asked to increase the part-time, knowing that we were gonna get into the new building at some point this year, and we would have to stretch our staffing to cover that. And they said no to the vacancies and cut the part-time. We, unfortunately, are not going to be able to be open Saturdays this summer because right this minute, I don't have enough people. And that was last year's budget, which has not stretched to cover this year. And this was not a full year in the new building. So I've been through level funding before, and I understand that it is a reasonable way to allocate resources. But we're not really level funded because we're not in the same space we were in last year. I think that's where we are mostly I think that's what I was going to say so. And I there's an argument to be made that the reason we can't be open Saturdays is because several people went on leave, but we should never be so close to the bottom that a couple of people having medical leave shuts down Saturdays in the summer so. just a little background is the last time we were fully staffed was in 2003. So we have been making it work for 20 years and we make a lot out of nothing. We've done very well with very tight staffing, but we can't stretch any further. We really can't. And we tried, but so I don't know if anything could be done. I'm hoping that perhaps something could be done to increase staffing a bit.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Director Kerr, Vice President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. And thank you, Barbara, for answering some of the questions I had already with your presentation. I think that your presentation was succinct and clear and also dire, that we have built this beautiful new building, this temple for our community, and we're at risk of having half-empty shelves and closed days nevermind the fact that even the staff you have are not being paid competitively to comparative communities around us. And I think that that is a shame. You go back to 2003, just going back to fiscal 2018, we've had a lot of difficult budgets since then. And I know that when you move to this, you know, the temporary space, you took a cut and that helped other budgets at a difficult time to be okay. And I think at this point, given the situation that we're in, that that should, that sacrifice that you have made and the library has made and the staff has made and the people who want full services have made should be paid back. And I think that should be the principle at which we look at this budget. Now, you know, I look at this 1.614 proposed, I think 1.614 million proposed, and I believe Councilor Nettle here has older budgets, and that's like less than $100,000 more than what you had five years ago.
[Barbara Kerr]: My ordinary expenses request that I submitted was $20,000 more than FY18. Wow.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. So if what you requested was $20,000 more than FY18, this must be $100,000 less than FY18.
[Unidentified]: So yeah.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. So all of that $100,000 I think we get to be accounted for with COLAs and the normal growth of costs over time. So if we're actually looking at real Numbers, your budgets been going down level fund means going down. It's not even level service. So I have a couple questions. Just one is how much did you request for the new space in fiscal 23 ordinary expenses.
[Barbara Kerr]: I wrote it down ordinary expenses was my thing.
[Zac Bears]: 425, 100. So you requested 425, 100, and I'm seeing in here 328, 500. So almost 25% less than you asked for is what's in this budget. I think that's about right. Maybe I'll come read some math books at the library and make sure I can do percentages in my head later. And what, you know, Of the staffing and the ordinary expenses, what would be the top priorities for you to invest in if we did have additional funding for the library?
[Barbara Kerr]: Staffing is the most crucial thing. That's where we're stuck, is that we don't, we call them bodies. We don't have enough bodies to cover 63 hours a week and five service desks and open 12 hours a day. So staffing is the most crucial thing. I'm a little concerned about materials expenditure, but I think that we can make that work in another way. But staffing, absolutely staffing.
[Zac Bears]: All right. So again, those numbers are incredibly dire and it sounds like you need basically investments just to keep in the core services and the core staff just to provide the basic services. You know the powers of this council under our current city charter, which are we can approve the whole budget, we can make cuts to the budget, and we can reject the budget, but maybe we can't even really reject the budget, according to state law.
[Barbara Kerr]: just want to get the word out.
[Zac Bears]: But the other power we have is advocacy and getting the word out and putting pressure on the decision makers in the executive branch to make the right decision. Um, and, and I think that's what our intent is as a council on a lot of issues with this budget. I mean, as you know, I'm sure as everybody knows, we don't even have a budget book. We don't have the full picture of everything. So it's been difficult for us to, to you know, I was sorting my papers for about five minutes before this meeting and just trying to find everything. One thing that we did find out, and I'm hoping to have this discussion with the administration in the next two weeks as we come to potentially getting a proposal of a budget before this council, is that, and I'm not proposing, as I say this, because I don't want to be misinterpreted, cutting anybody in the longterm. We were told by the fire department, given the way that their academies work, they're currently funded for 80 firefighters. They're gonna have eight running through the academy over the next couple of years, I'm sorry, over the next few months and coming in this fiscal year. So that, and currently there's 66 on, so that'd be eight, that's 74. And then according to the academy schedule, the chief was right here and said it, those other six positions, they probably couldn't start in the fire department until, at least may and they probably couldn't start at the academy until next winter next spring like February, March, that would mean that there's six positions funded in this budget, at least for the first two quarters of the fiscal year that we're never going to be able to hire. I personally think that that is money that could potentially this year be shifted to address the issues this year at the library. That's going to be something that I'm going to be advocating for over the next couple of weeks. And again, this mayor has said that, you know, the hope is that next year is going to be better and we're going to make sure everything works. And I hope that that's true. I don't know. We've also heard that it may be bad, but at the very least, this would be a way for us to not actually hit the headcount in our fire department in any way, keep those positions in the budget in the longterm, keep them funded and make sure that the money's there when those people can actually start, but also this year to make sure that we have a library that functions. And I think that's the, you know, that's not even to me a hard choice because we're not actually gonna be hurting anybody in the short run. It's just finding the money and putting it in the right place. And I think that the library is the right place. So that's something I'm gonna be looking into over the next couple of weeks. And I hope that as this council can get that proposal over to the mayor and I hope that she accepts it. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.
[Adam Knight]: Madam President, thank you very much. Barbara, thank you for being here. I just had the opportunity to take a look and the 2018 levels were about $1.49 million. And here we have 5 fiscal years later and it looks like a total numbers 1.6 million. So you know just based upon inflation along the cost around the building. Even if we took utilities out and created this facilities thing that's not existent. You know that just doesn't have you know you look at the departments across the board over the past fiscal years the 5 past 5 fiscal years to see how much that but it's grown even though they've been level funded to impact services. The scene that it's a much higher rate than that you deserve better. No doubt about it. And I think that there is a number of places that we can shift and reallocate funds as consulate has said to meet this goal. Now the biggest question I think everybody how much right with $20,000 was an abuse that was that what I heard.
[Barbara Kerr]: I'm not 20,000. 1.8 million would solve a lot of our staffing problems.
[Adam Knight]: This was 200,000. I'm sorry.
[Barbara Kerr]: Yeah. We could work with 175 but 1.8 would I think that would allow me to fill most of the vacancies and up the part-time significantly.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you very much.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Barbara, thank you for doing that. So we've gone three years with virtually minuscule budget because we're outside and someone else is paying the rent for us and everything else. Where are those funds? Where are those funds that we've, not asking if you, but I'm asking the administration, where were those three years of funds that we should have been squirreling away? So, because we knew this day was coming.
[Barbara Kerr]: I've said it every budget season since FY19.
[Richard Caraviello]: So what positions are you empty with?
[Barbara Kerr]: Tech librarian. Sorry? Tech librarian. Although that one is actually, in this budget, so that one we can fill. But there's also a programming librarian that's a full-time job, a 30-hour children's position librarian, and then a 25-hour office manager. I've been doing the office manager job since 2020. Not very good at it, so it would be good to hire somebody.
[Richard Caraviello]: And I applaud you. You've been doing, as Councilor Marks would say, yeoman's work for the last three years in the basement of a building. So I think the big instance here was the maintenance budget. We're being told that it's in the facilities, am I correct?
[Barbara Kerr]: So that's good, that takes care of the big worry.
[Richard Caraviello]: And how much was transferred over?
[Barbara Kerr]: It'll be 100,000, that's what we agreed on.
[Richard Caraviello]: Madam President, I'd like to make a motion that that money actually be transferred over from facilities into the library budget, so they know they have it because I don't want them getting to be toward the end of the year and say, we don't have any more money left. I think we've all been around it long enough.
[Barbara Kerr]: We have nine bathrooms, just so you know.
[Richard Caraviello]: So I'm about to make a motion that the $100,000 be transferred from facilities over into the library and put on a line item in the library budget, so they know they have it. Not speculating they have it, I have to look for it going down the line.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. That motion would be to recommend to the administration that they take $100,000 out of the facilities, add it to a line item in the library budget.
[Richard Caraviello]: And put $100,000 in their budget.
[Nicole Morell]: Correct.
[Richard Caraviello]: I guess they're taking it out of facilities. I don't know what line they're saying.
[Barbara Kerr]: They probably put it in contracted services, I would think.
[Richard Caraviello]: I don't know if it's contracted or building repair.
[Barbara Kerr]: Or building repair.
[Richard Caraviello]: Building repair is $598,000.
[Zac Bears]: Madam President, just for pure accounting for, I agree with you on the principle of this. I think that number should be clear. Honestly, I think that every number in the fill solution budget should be, it shouldn't just every building in the city should be lumped together necessarily. It'd be nice to see what of that money is being spent on what would you support just that the money be separated out into a specific line item for the library within the facilities budget. Yeah, that's fine. You know, you can make that up.
[Nicole Morell]: We'll be like, do we want to just pop out the library?
[Zac Bears]: Do you want to, you know, ask them to delineate what I'd like specifically, I mean, given the time crunch that the staff is under with this budget, if it's just the library this year and then they delineate the whole thing next time, but at least that the library be delineated as a line item within facilities and if possible to delineate a line item for where all of the I wish I had that in front of me because I could tell you what the line item was.
[Richard Caraviello]: So that would be building repair.
[Unidentified]: Building repair.
[Richard Caraviello]: So it would be 010-410-5255. Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: Speaking about personnel, correct. Well, not necessarily just expenses, right?
[Zac Bears]: So there's kind of two separate issues here. One was the issue with the maintenance budget. And when we discussed facilities on Saturday, the administration said that the library maintenance is going to be covered under the facilities department budget. Um, and then the administration, I believe, communicated that to the library.
[Unidentified]: Yep.
[Zac Bears]: And so that's just, we're just trying to make sure that that's in what's in the facilities is delineated as, yeah. Yeah, but it still doesn't address the personnel.
[Nicole Morell]: No, we're just going to take this motion and we'll keep going.
[Zac Bears]: I believe to Councilor Knight's point that you know all of the facilities and utilities money that was in the budget in fiscal 21 was shifted to the facilities department fiscal 22. Of course when you were in a rented building so in fiscal 21 you didn't have any to be shifted in fiscal 22. So it's another example of where because these budgets are based on the budget for the temporary facility, it's not accurately reflecting necessarily what you need now.
[Nicole Morell]: Mr. Clerk, do you have the language for that motion?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I have some of it, but it has changed from Councilor Caraviello's original motion. The original motion I had from him was to recommend the administration transfer the $100,000 from facilities and put it into line under for maintenance of the library budget. But then there was, then there was a discussion between Vice President Bears and Councilor Caraviello about changing that further. That's what I don't have.
[Zac Bears]: I believe that the new motion would be that the administration create a specific line item within the facilities budget for the hundred was it 100,000 the 100,000 for library maintenance. Okay. And then, if possible, delineate for what's different buildings, the money in the facilities budget is being used.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right, I got it.
[Richard Caraviello]: President, so we have this brand new building, and we don't have a maintenance person for it, for all the new high tech stuff we get.
[Barbara Kerr]: No.
[Richard Caraviello]: So I know some of the stuff is under warranty for how long, for a year?
[Barbara Kerr]: Something like that, yeah.
[Richard Caraviello]: So we- Do those come with, does that warranty come with the service contract?
[Barbara Kerr]: No, that's what this money would be, would be maintenance contract with,
[Richard Caraviello]: So the $100,000 would be used to pay contract labor, correct?
[Barbara Kerr]: Yeah, that's what it would be. And the cleaning company.
[Richard Caraviello]: And the cleaning company. So everybody would be contract labor, correct?
[Barbara Kerr]: Yes.
[Richard Caraviello]: Okay. Like I said, we have all this new facility with all these new gadgets. And if nobody knows how to operate them when they break, then we're back where we were from the old days. They stay broken and they never get fixed. I would hope that the $100,000 gets you enough money to buy service contracts.
[Nicole Morell]: I'll take this motion before we move on. So on the motion of Councilor Caraviello, seconded by Vice President Bears. Mr. Clerk, if you could please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Councilor Collins.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Knight. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng? Yes. President Morell?
[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. The motion passes. Councilor Caraviello, does that cover your questions?
[Richard Caraviello]: That's it. Thank you, Madam President.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Collins?
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell, and thank you so much, Director Kerr, for being here today. Really appreciate it, and I think what you said in your opening really put it best, that the budget before us is artificially low. I think that really is a succinct way of putting how we've been trying to digest the proposed budget before us. And I just wanted to restate what I've heard from you, fellow councilors, many residents over the past several days. You know, is this going to be a fully functioning library, the one that we planned for and all of you and all of your staff worked so hard for and people to pitch in for? and that we really want the community to enjoy and benefit from? Or will we be forced to have it remain closed more often than we'd like and it'll just be a billboard of a library? Nobody wants that. You don't deserve that. The community doesn't deserve that. And obviously, level funding and artificially low budget is tantamount to a tantamount to a cut, in my opinion. I don't know if you put it quite that way. This whole conversation is hard, as Vice President Bears stated, because one, we don't have full power to make appropriations, to really follow through on recommendations, to take funding from here and put it here. It's also hard because we don't have a full budget in front of us to get the full picture of where we could be recommending those transitions from one part of the budget to the other. but seeing what we see, I know that I can't support what is effectively a cut to the library budget because this is too important and I don't wanna see any department, but I certainly don't wanna see the library be the consequence of a failure to appropriately plan or communicate those plans so that we can follow through on this commitment and all of this work. So thank you for being here and thank you for your advocacy.
[Justin Tseng]: Thank you for being here and thank you for really sounding the alarm on this issue and I think mobilizing a lot of members in our community to pay attention to this fundamental flaw in the budget that we haven't officially received yet. We don't really have the full version of yet. And unfortunately, I think like many of us, we found out about this whole situation with, you know, your posting, you know, with you engaging with people on Facebook and social media and through newsletters talking to people about it. I wish it didn't have to be that way. I wish there was more channeled communication so that, you know, we could have acted sooner and put more pressure on the administration sooner. But it is, this is a situation that we're in. Councilor Collins is absolutely right. We can't have a billboard of the library. And that's essentially, you know, if we have a level funded budget of an already artificially low budget, that's what we're going to end up with. If we really do care about community safety, if we really do care about education and, you know, long-term economic growth, investing in our Our education resources investing in our library. These are, you know, fundamental I think budgetary decisions that we have to make. And I think everyone in this room agrees that the library, the new library is a gem of our community. And, you know, if we really want to make it clear that we believe believe that we need to make sure that the budget we pass or the budget that we receive fundamentally reflects those values. And, you know, if the budget that we receive doesn't reflect that, then I can't find myself voting for a budget that would cut the, that would be paramount to cutting the budget. And I know a lot of community members have written to me over the last week about this budget. I'm preaching to the crowd here, but I think to really highlight the point of why we need why we need to fund the library. I mean, number one, it's just short-sighted not to fund a new library that we have and not to make sure that it's properly staffed. But number two, you know, we really should be having a discussion about how we can increase services and how we can really increase hours. That's what parents are reaching out to me about, you know, what can we do to increase service on Sundays? What can we do to bring more people to the library? And that's really the conversation that we should be having. And yet we're stuck here talking about, you know, shortening hours, not being able to open some departments over the summer during certain days. And, you know, that's not only bad for planning, that's bad for students, that's bad for children, bad for families, bad for elderly folks when we have heat waves and they need a place to come stay. And, you know, those those are just some some the tip of the iceberg when it comes to why we need to fund the library. As Councilor Beres has said and I think it's important to repeat the council can only approve a budget, reject the budget which that's there's an asterisk on that right now, or cut funds from the budget. But what I would support, I think Councilor Bears and many of our, those on the City Council have already stated, I want to find the space in our budget for a fully functioning library. I want to make sure that we have that money. And I think as Councilor Bears has alluded to, we have that, we have the opportunity to do that, at least for this year, without sacrificing too much. And I think this comes to the second message. It's unfortunate the position that you've been put in this year, but the saddest thing is we can't even guarantee that if we act this year, you won't be in the same place next year. And we've received message from the administration that next year could potentially be worse. And the year after that could be worse as well. And I think this really highlights that the real issue here isn't, you know, about the funding of library or isn't about prioritizing budgets, it's about the fact that we are, we have a long term issue of being underfunded in the city. We're not, we're not getting enough revenue. And we're really in this budget crunch that we really should not be in if we had, if we were bolder with the solutions that we were proposing to our constituents and if we were you know, being more truthful about what our city's budgetary needs are. Um but that's me talking about this whole budget situation as a whole. Um I would suggest I know we're gonna receive a presentation on the budget soon at tonight's meeting and I would suggest that people tune in but you know, from from the conversations that we've had over the last few it's becoming clear that that's, you know, this, the library problem is the tip of that iceberg of underfunding, especially services, especially when it comes to education, when it comes to our children, when it comes to the library. I think we, at least in my view, we have to hold our line right now and say, you know, we have to make these investments in our city or else we're failing our own constituents.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. I'm gonna go to Councilor Scarpelli and then Councilor Caraviello. And I do just wanna note, we do have other budgets before us tonight, as well as members of the public who likely wanna speak. So Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President. I appreciate my colleagues for understanding that I'm out of state. And for all the, for Barbara, thank you for what you do. I mean, people don't realize what you've done for the last bunch of years just to keep us afloat and keep us certified. So thank you with that. Again, I think I won't, I won't be redundant to share my I've been pretty vocal about my frustration about not understanding, not knowing the process that has hit us like lightning bolts and. I think that Barbara and I communicated probably about a month, a month and a half ago via email when we were asking for a subcommittee with the youth and recreation and meeting with Barbara's staff and involving Barbara's staff and working together. And again, if we knew this ahead of time and Councilor Tseng brought this up and between the recreation and the library, those are viable revenue creating programs. If we could work together as a partnership, there is plenty of funding that we can work together as a partnership to both the recreation department and the library department when we perform programming for our constituents, for our families, because as a father, I know my wife and I would pay whatever we needed to pay to make sure our children had an opportunity to participate in a library program with a partnership with the recreation program and bringing in revenue that could support both programs. And this is why it's so frustrating that we found this out so late in the game. where educated people or people that have been in the field, like myself, that could share what we know and sit at a table and sit with the library, sit with the school department, sit with the recreation department and bring in a collaboration. We could bring in an absolutely amazing summer program, fall program, winter program, where on top of what we're doing, bring outside sources to come in to create revenue. for our community, to create revenue directly to the library, create revenue directly to the recreation department. And this is what's so frustrating. So I want all of the constituents to send me emails and calls and text messages. I hear you loud and clear. I think my colleagues, I won't be redundant. They stated exactly how I felt. Unfortunately, I'm out of state. So getting to everybody's emails has been very difficult. But again, this is the frustration we feel. This is something that if we started coming, we have the constituents, we have the teams in place that can turn back to our residents and say, hey, we're offering A, B, and C. And all the funding will be sent back to the library, back to the recreation department as a partnership. I can guarantee you would have made a boatload of money and would have supported this fiscal crisis. And this is the creatives thinking that we're not seeing. This is the partnerships we're not having. And this is what I've been screaming from the rooftops since this came out so quickly and so violently to us. It's been difficult, but Barbara, I appreciate you have a great following. I mean, your team is great. You've been a great leader. I think a few of our Councilors brought up some great points to make sure that the library staff isn't hit once again and making sure that we can move this forward. Because again, when I voted for this library, when I vote for any facility now, we talked about not being in the same position where we were years ago. We built the new schools, but then we didn't put the effort into making sure those facilities didn't stay up to par. And we all see what's happening now. Those new schools are old, and they're in trouble. And now you talk about the library. When the library was built, and especially the meetings we had, Bob, remember those meetings that people talked about? What the infrastructure is going to be put into that location, we need to have educated, licensed facilitators that can make sure they can handle what those facilities need. And we were assured that that was going to be taken care of with the facilities manager. That has yet to be filled. To where we'll be not just in five years, in 10 years. Again, Thank you for letting me speak, and again, thank you, Bob.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Barbara, you and I worked countless hours, Dominic, many people in this room with the foundation, countless hours. The library trustees worked countless hours. The friends of the library worked countless hours raising money. What would have happened if the foundation and the trustees and all the other groups didn't raise any money? We would have been in bigger trouble than we already are. And I don't know if many people know, but the foundation and the trustees, they've paid bills for this library through foundation money. So, and again, the other thing we're not talking about here is this library was bonded like four years ago for a lot more. then what it is. So I mean, the numbers now, but at some point, the debt service is going to be on here too. Where does that put them there? And at what point is the mayor going to bring us the new bonds at the lower rate of money? I think we voted for like $27 million, like four years ago or whatever it was. We bought the whole project. So, and again, you know, we'll take, you know, the state will take them some like $12 million off, you know, the foundation donated some money, but say next year, there's going to be, there's going to be a debt service on here that we're going to have to contend with. And again, with the rates going up, I don't, I don't know where the rates are now or what they were when we, when we bought this under Mayor Burke. So again, that's, you know, that's something to look for going forward, Barbara.
[Nicole Morell]: I just have two quick questions. Barbara, I think I've seen emails talking about how patronage is way up at the new library. Could you share what those numbers are exactly? Oops, sorry. Wait for your mic a second. It'll come on its own. It should. Oh, I mean, Shane does it. There you go.
[Barbara Kerr]: Okay. We are currently averaging 571 people a day higher on Saturdays like 600 700 on Saturdays, we had 14,000 people in the building in April and our circulation. I don't remember, but our circulation has basically gone up 5000 every month since January. So we're busy. A little cafe just opened this last week. So we're hoping that that draws some people into.
[Adam Knight]: Can I ask a crazy question? If our busiest days are the weekends, then how come when we're coming into a spot, we're going to have to, you know, I guess we call them rolling, rolling round out days. Why those would be the weekend days if those are the busiest days that we have?
[Barbara Kerr]: Because there's no other way to figure out the scheduling for that. Summer Saturdays, one of the things for state certification is hours of operation. Summer weekends, do not count. So if we cut hours in the summer, it doesn't affect our solution.
[Nicole Morell]: So just to build on that just a little bit. So, you know, everyone in the city, you know, the library is a free service, everyone. It's an amazing gem of the city. Everyone in the city has paid for this library in some sense, through taxes, through donations. And conceivably, there are folks, you know, self-included. I work Monday through Friday. I spend my nights here a lot. I would be going with my son on Saturday. I, you know, I can't get that, you know, I can't get that time at the library that I, you know, we all paid for, that we all invested in. So I think that's, that's just an incredible disservice. And I think that's just so wholly short-sighted that a budget developed by the administration isn't reflecting what, again, essentially every resident of this city paid for to use.
[Barbara Kerr]: And we're very upset about the summer Saturdays. We really, we tried, but we were stretched too thin. And then we had a couple of people who were, not going to be there. So you can only stretch so far. Absolutely. And I know you're doing everything you can. And I apologize to the community for this.
[Nicole Morell]: My frustration is absolutely not with you all. It's never anything that we wanted to happen this summer, but yeah. Any further questions from the council? I know there's probably some members of the public would like to speak.
[Zac Bears]: Just to drive that point home again, We know that you're trying to make it work. We know that the people at the library, there are people at the library who have stayed years and decades longer, knowing they could get a job somewhere else, wanting to put in the effort, wanting to make this library everything it can be, wanting to put in that extra moment, knowing that if they left, there might not be someone else who would do the same. So we know it's not on you guys. We know 100% it's not on you guys.
[Barbara Kerr]: I just want, if it gets out to the community that, This is not anything we ever wanted. We're really very upset about it.
[Nicole Morell]: And I think that was a really helpful question from Councilor Knight to understand why, you know, the most popular day, because there's a lot of layers.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Nicole Morell]: And that's it. We appreciate your knowledge. Seeing no further questions from the Council at this time, are there any members who would like, any members of the public who would like to speak either on Zoom or in person? Thank you. Thank you, Barbara.
[Leilani Germain]: Name and address for the record, please. Good evening, I'm Ellen Tonello, and my address is 177 Lincoln Road, Medford. And I am the chair trustee to the Medford Public Library. I have been with the library for a little bit better than 27 years in the role of a trustee. And I first wanna start by saying thank you to the former councilors and the former mayors and the current councilors that have been so supportive with the building and the budget of our library. There are a couple of things that I would like for you to be aware of this evening. One of them just happened this past Friday afternoon. I stopped into the library and there was a van from the fire department of Amherst, Massachusetts, that brought down eight members of the Amherst library, patrons, trustees, administration. They came because they were told that the city of Medford just built a library beyond, and they wanted to see what our library looked like. So they had a reference of what they could do in their city. Our building is now equivalent to the size of one full city block. It requires the attention of maintenance and the town and the city's government here to see to it that the building that over a thousand people donated money to or a three-year-old painted a tile to be placed on the wall in the children's department, that this building that they sought to, that they gave to, remains the building that it is. And I ask you, and I know you're working extremely hard with the budget, that you see to it that our facility is taken care of, that the budget which we're discussing this evening, not only are we understaffed, but we need to be sure that this building remains. While I was sitting here, I just happened to look up and I noticed these are fluorescent light bulbs. There is not a light bulb in the library to change. We are so modern in our technology that we need to secure someone that will see to it that this building stays the way it was built, and it represents all of us from young to old, and that it's cared for. So I just ask that you please give full attention to maintenance. It's not a janitor that cleans the building daily. It's the management that we should have to protect this building. And I will close just by saying we had a dedication a week ago, and we had a gentleman who had a humble beginning here in Medford and came to celebrate that had donated $3 million. $3 million is a wonderful gift, but the painting of a three-year-old on a tile is just as important as that large donation. We, I may stand to be corrected, but at our last meeting, our treasurer is not here with us this evening. But a fact that you may not know is the households in the city pay only $5 a month for that building. And that's very, very short money when you see the building that it houses for your children, for your seniors, for your teenagers. So I ask that you do put pressure on our government to increase our budget and see to it that the work that Barbara Kerr has put in and her staff are rewarded. So I thank you very much.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Helen. Thank you for your many years of service.
[Tom Lincoln]: Tom Lincoln 27 Gleason Street in sunny Medford. I'm going to be brief here I'm one of the many people, my wife and I that donated to the library with the expectation, which I think is very reasonable that this wonderful new building would be available have reasonable hours, perhaps increased hours with the services that I think the taxpayers and the residents of this city deserve. Frankly, I'm a little more than a little dismayed at this turn of events. I think the maintenance issue is something that has come up for years and years and years in this city where buildings are built, And schools are a good example. I could think of some other things. And maintenance is not taken care of. But I think it's much more than maintenance. I think it's a little bit insulting to the donors, whether they were large or small, who made this building possible. And I think that this situation should be rectified as soon as possible. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Mr. Ligon makes the biggest point of calls I get, people say, you know, I donated money to this library and why are we in trouble? That's what everybody keeps asking. Money was donated, money hasn't been expended, and for the last two years, why are we in trouble in the library?
[Sam Sednick]: Thank you. Name and address for the record, please. My name is Sam Sednick, my address is 47 West Wyoming Avenue. I'm one of your librarians. So I understand where your budget rules are and what you can and cannot do. But since you are advocates, I am asking that you advocate for city employees. The city has not settled contracts for most of the city employees. That's the teachers, the carpenters, the secretaries, the paraprofessionals, and the librarians. The inability to find equitable terms for salary means that most of our city employees are taking pay cuts right now because of the cost of inflation, the cost of fuel to get to our jobs from our jobs. So I'm asking the city to find a plan to ensure that city employees get their compensation. so that we can retain our employees and so that when job openings occur, we can get qualified applicants so that we can keep all of our buildings and all of our different services up to the level that they've always been. So please help us.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Thanks.
[Nicole Morell]: Is there anyone else who would like to speak either in person or on Zoom? If you'd like to speak on Zoom, please raise your hand. Not seeing any at this time. Any further discussion from the council? Councilor Caraviello.
[Richard Caraviello]: Madam President, I want to thank Sam. I mean, we have probably one of the finest children's librarian in the area over here. And again, she works extremely hard. Kids love her. And again, when they're not being paid a fair wage, they move on to other places. But I'd hate to lose Barbara or Sam or anybody that works at that library who's dedicated many countless hours to that. But as I say, for those who don't have children, understand Sam is one of the best children's librarians in this whole area. So thank you to Sam for all the work you do.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Caraviello. Councilor Tseng, I invite you to say a few words.
[Justin Tseng]: Um, this library is a, you know, we talk we keep talking to the library as a space which is yes it's amazing. And we definitely should be raving about it, but it really is the people that that. run it that are at the heart of it. I prepped for this city council meeting today in the library actually. And what was, you know, what is, you know, so impressive and impresses me every time is when you go talk to the librarians, you know, they're not only friendly and serviceable, they know what, you know, they know what to do with the space and they've only had the space for a few months, right? They know where the books are, they know what, You know how like how the room system works and there's just so so friendly and so accommodating, you know, we, I mean just as a basis, we need to be fair to our city workers and we need to appreciate the effort that they put in. not only just say that we appreciate them, actually acted out in our actions as a city, but, you know, that's just the baseline. We need to be treating them well, and we need to recognize that if we don't treat them well, other cities are, and we're going to lose this wonderful staff. Um, and where it's not just unfair, we're hurting ourselves and we're shooting ourselves in the foot. And so, um, I just wanted to get that out there. Thank you all for the work that you do. And I hope that our city can come to fair terms with you, uh, you and very soon.
[Zac Bears]: I'll just be brief. Um, the point that Councilor Tseng made earlier about our longterm budget issues and not having the revenue to meet the spending needs of our community, one of those spending needs is our staff. And one of the excuses that I'm sure is being used in contract negotiations right now is we don't have any money. And you know what? I can take that once maybe as an excuse, but if the immediate response is that here's our plan to raise the money so we can keep you, and it's just over and over again, we don't have money, we don't have money, we don't have money, then it's just an excuse. That's all it is. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Seeing penny on zoom name and address for the record, please.
[Penelope Taylor]: Hi, thanks. I'm Penelope Taylor 29 Martin Street, number one. So I'm actually the daughter of a children's librarian full disclosure from Scarborough Public Library in Maine, but I'm. I work as a rental assistance advocate and something a lot of us take for granted is access to the internet and access to a computer or a smartphone. And increasingly a lot of services and resources require that tech connectivity. And hearing there's not a tech librarian right now in Medford, like it's so important. It's a critical neighborhood resource, something there should be like two of honestly, and moving to town. Like one of the first exciting things they did was get a library card. So it's really like a huge part of the community and a huge, like it's not just checking out books, posting the eBooks, it's like getting a Gmail account set up so you can apply for rental assistance or utilities assistance, keep the lights on. It's a critical resource that needs funding. So thank you so much.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you for helping. Councilor Collins.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. I know we have a lot to get through tonight, but I think this is just such an important point that I really wanted to underline it to, you know, reaffirm what we heard from people in the audience, Councilor Tseng, Vice President Bears. You know, it's been said many times by many, many people, a budget is a statement of values. And I think it's worth saying and worth acknowledging that putting together a budget under a budget crunch after two years of a pandemic, two and a half years, is not easy. It's not easy for the people in positions of power. It's not easy for the decision makers. But this is the role that we chose, the people it's really hard for. The people that this really comes down on are the people who are forced to do more with less, the people who are forced to effectively take pay cuts when you factor in inflation, the people who seek out city services, expecting city services and don't get what they need. This is what it comes down to. These are the people, these are the impacts that really matter and what we need to center this conversation about. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Any further discussion on the library budget? Seeing none, thank you for being here, Barbara. Thank you everyone for your comments and for coming out. Oh, I do see, sorry, one last hand. Karen on Zoom, name and address for the record, please.
[SPEAKER_13]: Hi there, my name is Karen Chung Larrabee at 770 Highland Avenue. So, I'm sorry, I know everyone is quite busy my, my four year old jack here he wanted to raise his hand and say that we are patrons of the library, we love going in library he just asked to go now. dismayed to hear that there are potential, potentially we would not have services on the weekend. We're patrons, weekly patrons, we love going to the library. It's really one of the few places, one of the few places that we can go to for free.
[Unidentified]: Do you wanna say anything? How much you love the library?
[SPEAKER_13]: And he says he wants to go to the library right now. So thank you for all of your hard work and I hope that you will give this some serious considerations to keep the library really up to par. It's such a wonderful institution and we love going there. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Karen. Thank you everyone. Moving on from the library budget, we will go to law. I believe we have law and recreation left.
[Zac Bears]: And if you do have the time to stick around, there will be more discussion about the budget at our seven o'clock meeting. Just FYI to the audience.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you for coming out. We have lost Councilor Caraviello. Give him a minute to come back. Give Councilor Caraviello a minute to come back. If he stays longer, we'll start without him. We'll start without him. He seems like he might be involved for a second. He's going farther right. Okay. Solicitor Scanlon, we have Solicitor Scanlon in front of us for the law department budget. If you could give us any highlights or things you want to pull out from the budget.
[Kimberly Scanlon]: Sure, thank you, Madam President, members of the City Council. My name is Kimberly Scanlon, City Solicitor for the City of Medford. With respect to the proposed budget before you, and I'll go through these quickly, beginning with personnel expenses, similar to the previous fiscal year, there are two permanent employees within my department, namely, well, me, and my office manager, Jana Spencer. With respect to part-time employees in the next line down, I am proud to say that Ms. Calaflores has rejoined the law department as an intern. She was with us a few years prior and is back with us for another few months at least. Both Ms. Flores and Ms. Spencer have been instrumental at assisting me. And the next line down titled travel, there's no change of previous years, which is nothing. Following that longevity, which is the one-time payment that is given to employees yearly based upon the amount of years have been employed. I believe that has been increased as a change by $150 an increase. And that's because the wealthy amount of years has since gone by that mean Janice have been employed there for the city of Medford. Following that is the sick leave incentive which only applies to Janice as a clerical and employee of the clerical union sick leave buyback again in previous years that number remains the same which is zero. As to stipends, there is a $5,000 stipend for the records access officer per year, and also a confidential stipend of $3,500 per year, which is for Jenna Spence's position. That total amounts to $8,500, which is the proposed amount you see in the FY23 proposed column. As to ordinary expenses, the repair and maintenance office equipment account pays for our printer, copier, and maintenance, as well as office furniture. The requested amount of 3,500 is the same amount that was budgeted as last year. Next line down, professional services is for services performed by KP Law, which covers the monthly fee along with court and associated labor costs and the like. The proposed amount of 8,000, excuse me, 81,600 is the same as last year. The professional services account, which used to be called the witness and entry fee, pays for constable costs and other costs associated with litigation. The request remains the same in previous years, which is $1,100. The printing of briefs account pays for transcripts of depositions and the like, remains the same as last year of $1,600. The office supplies account, next line down, pays for pens, paper, et cetera, and remains the same request as last year of $1,500. It goes on to the publications account, which pays for updated Westlaw materials with respect to law books, guides, and the like. Use of Lexis Advance, which is a software tool available for attorneys. The other expenditures account, we typically use to pay for computer issues or Janice's typewriter. Yes, she still uses a typewriter. And the requested amount is $1,500, which remains the same. And we come to the claims over and under accounts now. They're listed as claims under $1,000 and claims over $1,000, but are really claims over and under $2,500. Now for the newer Councilors, typically for claims that are filed within my office, they usually fall under two laws, namely the It's called the Street Defect Statute. Some call it the Pothole Law, and it's found within Chapter 84 of the Massachusetts General Laws, which makes the city liable for personal injury or property damage caused by a defective condition on our public ways or sidewalks. Chapter 258 is the second one, which is also known as the Massachusetts Store Claims Act, which makes the city liable for personal injury and property damage caused by the negligence of its employees. Now, each statute has its own provisions and limitations to the extent which the city may be held liable. Under Chapter 84, the liability limit is $5,000. Under Chapter 258, the liability limit is $100,000 per claimant. Other claims such as zoning appeals are litigated in land court and licensing appeals, which are typically appealed to Somerville District Court. Now, throughout this past fiscal year, my office has received 103 claims, which are broken up as follows. 36 claims were received under Chapter 258 involving property damage, three claims were filed under Chapter 258 involving personal injuries, 36 claims were filed under Chapter 84 involving property damage, and five involving personal injuries under Chapter 84. The remaining 23 claims involve licensing appeals, zoning appeals, personnel matters, and the like. And as records access officer for the city of Medford, I have received approximately 100 public record requests within the past fiscal year to which I have responded to pursuant to the requirements of the Massachusetts Public Records Law. And with that, I'll take any questions. Thank you. Thanks, Senator Scanlon. Vice President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam Solicitor, for being here.
[Kimberly Scanlon]: Thank you for having me.
[Zac Bears]: What you didn't have in the list was all the work we've asked you to do. over the past fiscal year. And I'm sure what we will be asking you over the next fiscal year, which I'm sure will be more than one ordinance a year. And, you know, it's my understanding. I haven't been around that long, but I'm pretty sure the city has had an assistant city solicitor for about as long as I can remember, except for the past three or so years. Is that correct?
[Kimberly Scanlon]: That is correct and I can say that with certainty because I was the assistant city solicitor.
[Zac Bears]: Yes. You just listed, you know, over a hundred claims and active cases or, you know, about that. Plus all the work you do on ordinance. Plus, does that include legal opinions that have been requested of your office?
[Kimberly Scanlon]: No.
[Zac Bears]: So all the legal opinions relative to the mayor or the city council or someone else are not included in that list of work either. And the city functioned, I think we have a room actually named after a former city solicitor, the Lee room. Is that correct? Can you repeat that just just the room in this building that was named after Richard Lee right he was the city solicitor. No, he was not sorry. My apologies.
[Kimberly Scanlon]: No, that's okay.
[Zac Bears]: Just um, he was worked for the city for a very long time. I just try to make the point that historically, the city has had a law office that was fully staffed with more than one lawyer. For the past three years, this law department has had one full time lawyer you in that office, and a bunch of contracted services requested by us requested by the mayor coming through you sometimes, you know, and and quite frankly those those lawyers work for a lot of different communities that work for a firm that works for a lot of different communities. We've even run into a situation if I'm correct where that firm was unable to represent us because they were representing a city where we wanted to potentially might have a legal issue with, with there's a conflict of interest. And I'm saying all this to make the point that you do a lot of work, but also to ask that given the lack of capacity in the office now relative to historical norms, would you say that there's a backlog of work that you're kind of constantly trying to get done?
[Kimberly Scanlon]: Always, yes. Always.
[Zac Bears]: And would you say that that now, given your many years in the office, is worse now than it was when the office was fully staffed with a full-time solicitor and perhaps when you were the assistant city solicitor?
[Kimberly Scanlon]: I can't say with that certainty, but I'd venture to guess based upon previous years.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. And I wouldn't ask you for the numbers on it, but your experience in the office and your feeling is a good enough guess for me. And I guess the only other question I have is, and if you're comfortable saying it or not comfortable saying it, I understand the position you're in, what do you need in a budget to really get the work done that comes before you on a daily, weekly, monthly basis in terms of staffing levels?
[Kimberly Scanlon]: And I'm not trying to be coy here, but aside from a cloning device, money for staffing, money for claims.
[Zac Bears]: I think even if we cloned you, we'd have to pay the clone. Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying all that to make the point that this council's priority for the past six months the past two years has been that the city budget fund and assistance to the solicitor to make sure that the work of this city when it comes to legal issues gets done. That's not in this budget it wasn't the last year's budget instead we're paying outside I don't think we're paying them $81,000 to be quite frank. I think it's probably a lot more than that and maybe that's what's coming out of here. And if I remember correctly from FY 22 we actually cut that so this FY 22 budget of 816 is not even the correct number. I think that we'd be much benefit from having an inside in-house assistant city solicitor doing the work of this community and making sure that when we have legal questions, that there's the capacity to answer them in a timely and accurate manner. And I don't think that anyone on this council is going to back away from requesting that as an urgent priority in this year's budget. And if it's not happening this year in a supplemental, and then if we're at next year, the same question, I hope we're not there and I hope this gets fixed. Thank you for all your work.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Collins and Councilor Scarpelli.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Morell. Thank you so much, Solicitor Scanlon, for being here today. It's nice to finally meet you in person instead of lengthy, lengthy Zoom meetings. I really appreciate your being here and taking us through the budget line by line. It's very clear from our experience, from my experience just the past six months, and my fellow Councilors many, many months before that, your office informs and supports so many departments, probably all of them across the city, and includes ours.
[Nina Nazarian]: Recording in progress.
[Kit Collins]: So many city departments are, your work is integral to their functioning, including ours. So that's what I'll focus my comments on to echo what Vice President Bears was just saying about the need. We want to see full capacity in the legal department. I want to see full capacity in the legal department as I do in any critical department that is critical to the functioning of the city. I'm glad that Vice President Bears asked after if the work that this council throws your way was sort of included in the rundown of what your office does because I was trying to do a tally in my head the other week about how many proposed ordinances we've sent your way so far this term and how many from previous terms we've passed. I got to at least a dozen that are in the pipeline or that were recently voted on. I think there's probably more because I didn't get what I'm guessing was a solid handful out of Councilor Knight. know we we need legal support to do what we are elected to do, which is legislate and I feel as strongly about this as I do about most anything else in the budget so I want to keep getting this drumbeat. I feel that restricting the capacity of the legal department hampers our ability to pursue the goals of the people that we represent and the goals of this administration, because it hampers our ability to effectively and efficiently do what only we can to address those goals, which is legislate. You've been incredibly helpful so far to this council with the hours and the resources that your department can provide. And I deeply want to see that expanded. So thank you again. I just wanted to put that on the record.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Scarpelli.
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam President. City Solicitor Scanlon, thank you for being here. And again, thanks for our hard work. I don't wanna belittle the fact, I wanna make sure people understand that what we've had, we've had great city solicitors that have always done more with less. Are you familiar with other communities and how many people work in their legal office?
[Kimberly Scanlon]: Is it? That was something that I actually, well, I can't take credit for it. I had my intern look into it the other day. I do have some figures and I tried to break it up by population. Obviously, those with the higher population may or may not have additional personnel. So with Medford, and this is according to the 2022 estimated population census, Medford has 56,702 approximately residents. Researching a little bit, Somerville has 81,369, so they are significantly higher. However, they have a city solicitor, special counsel, two assistant city solicitors, a legal administrative assistant, a claims contract person, and a paralegal. With respect to wall Pam which has a population of 62,291. There is a city solicitor, and to legal secretaries that I mentioned, Malden, with the population of 59,675 has a city solicitor to assistant city solicitors a law clerk and special counsel. book line has a population of 59,180 with a town council, three associate town councils, one senior paralegal and one office clerk. There are a few others as well, but I'll leave it at that.
[George Scarpelli]: Well, thank you that that's the point I wanted to make some of those communities that you brought up don't include the legal team they have that work for the development office of development services. So they have separate attorneys that work in separate departments, not just that are working with the legal team but this is this, and this is what. I fought so hard in making sure that we needed that second person in your office that could work for us. And especially with the council, I know that we've had some issues. And I'm afraid these issues are going to get more serious as we move forward. I know you worked very hard with the BJ's situation. And unfortunately, you weren't there the night that BJ's came and presented. And unfortunately, we weren't led the right way in our comments, which then led to BJ's filing a motion in court. And ultimately, the judge telling us that because of what we said that night, we have no legal standing. And granted, I won't say it's small because the people in that neighborhood really wanted their voices to be heard. And unfortunately, we couldn't do that because we didn't have the support in that chamber that other communities have or what we've had in the past. Because I know when you were the assistant city solicitor, we knew we had you on the other end, and we knew that, you know, City Solicitor Rumley was there, and, you know, it was helpful. But unfortunately, as we're growing, and we're talking about our zoning changes, and we're talking about future development, and we're talking about the growth that we need to support what we need in our budget, we need the legal support to make sure that we're not making mistakes, and we're moving our city forward, and we're getting the best bang for our buck. I appreciate your hard work in getting that information for me, but I wanted the community to really understand. When you talk about, well, we have a city solicitor, that's fine. And I don't know if it's in this budget, I'll be filing a resolution later to really understand where our money is going legally to our outside vendors and what they're being used for. Because I made comment the other evening when people have called me and asked me questions. you know, is our city solicitor representing us with these 40B projects or other zoning issues or other, and we're not, and it's outside council. And I'm not saying you're not, I'm saying that it's mostly from what I've gathered is outside council. So what I need to see, especially when you look at the budget numbers, is where this money is going. Could it be spent differently? You know, if it's $50,000 if it's a $5,000 that we were approached and told this consultants KP law, I believe was $5,000 a month to be consultants. Okay, that's we agreed on. But if it's 50,000 100,000 or over. We really need to know. where this money's going. So I thank you for your time. And I thank you for all your hard work. I know that, you know, your light's always on and there's a reason for it. There's only one person doing the job of six. So thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Councilor Carvejo.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, in our budget meetings in the past, this group was told that KP Law was charging us $5,000 a month. Am I correct? Was that the... Correct.
[Kimberly Scanlon]: I believe that is slightly increased, but yes, initially it was $5,000.
[Richard Caraviello]: Slightly increased. Well, the budget's up to $458,000. This council has asked on numerous occasions for legal bills from them. Through the work that they've done on the 40Bs or anything, And we have not gotten a bill on what KP law is charging us for. And I'm going to, I'm going to motion scratch the whole budget out until, until this council gets answers on where, where last year's money was spent on legal services. That's not your fault. And I'm going to say this whole budget should be scratched out until this council gets answers. We've been asking, we've been asking, and we've been asking and nothing has come forward to us. So that's gonna be my motion that I'll keep your salary in there, but I'm gonna motion to cut the rest of the budget until the administration comes forward and answers the questions that we've been asking the last two years. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Knight.
[Adam Knight]: 主席女士，非常感谢你。 在过去的三年里，我的首要预算任务是聘请一名副市检察官。 这并不是因为金·斯坎伦没有能力胜任这项工作。 一切都好。 金是我的好朋友。 他为这座城市做了伟大的工作。 她很有能力。 她非常致力于这个社区。 但20年？ 你来这个城市多久了？ 我不会撒谎。 是的。 20年。 你能想象这个吗？ 他来这座城市已经20年了。 一切都好。 所以她非常有资格，非常有能力，非常有能力。 我担心的是我们已经抵押了 法律服务，我们把她放进衣柜里，关上门。 我们允许这家第三方公司在很大程度上管理这个社区中发生的事情。 去年，我提出了一项将预算削减 65,000 美元的动议，以从预算中消除被称为 KP 法的专业合同法律服务。 该动议获得批准。 然后第一周， 新议会的新任务，市长将其放入，将文件放回并获得批准。 事情发生时，我们做出了虚假承诺，哦，别担心，明年我们会在预算中解决这个问题，并把它放在那里给你。 我们会解决一些问题，以便您可以获得所需的服务。 这不是对金的反思。 她只能做她能做的事。 如果我们看看上周的市议会一揽子计划，看看梅应该在我们批准的文件中给我们的答案，根据法律必须在 10 个日历日内回复，我们上周收到了 4 月份的文件。 这恰恰表明了我们受到的尊重和遵守程度。 当我们必须通过第三方签约供应商才能获得服务时，这种情况只会变得更糟，而该签约供应商已经非常清楚了。 他们不为我提到的城市工作，也不为市议会工作。 他们不为这个社区的人们工作。 他们为市长工作。 对于这一点，他们是非常清楚的。 乔纳森·西尔弗斯坦（Jonathan Silverstein），我想他的名字是，对此非常清楚，我不为董事会工作。 不，我不为你们城市的人们工作。 不，我为市长工作。 我是市长的律师。 市长有私人律师，我们找不到助理检察官来帮助我们。 现在，当我们停下来看看该委员会能够生产的工作产品时，每当我们能够生产出高质量的工作产品时，那就是我们有来自法律部门的合作伙伴帮助我们的时候。 金的努力以及帮助我们前进的努力非常成功。 正如议员斯卡佩利在 BJ 问题中提到的那样。 如果她从一开始就在这里，我知道我们就不会处于现在的境地。 但政府认为我们是橡皮图章。 政府认为我们是橡皮图章。 嗯，保护工作着眼于这个，这个也着眼于那个。 所以就过去吧，不用担心。 你的担心其实并不重要。 这就是为什么我们需要一名助理城市检察官。 这就是为什么该组织需要一名助理城市检察官。 现在，当我们回顾上次有外部顾问帮助我们时， 就在那时，鲍勃·罗斯科先生在这里提出了分区修正案，这是一项非常技术性的分区修正案。 这可能是这座城市过去十年来所做的最好的工作。 可能是这座城市有史以来做过的最好的工作。 毫无疑问，这是本届议会或之前任何议会（包括市长曾任职的议会）所做工作的最佳成果。 给我们工具，我们就会成功。 让我们坐在板凳上，你就会得到你现在得到的。 栅栏后面有七个不知道发生了什么的人，挠着头，要求政府告诉我们钱在哪里以及去向。 10 个月没有首席财务官，不是因为新冠疫情，也不是因为入职问题，而是因为你解雇了最后一位首席财务官。 这就是为什么我们处于这种情况。 这与新冠病毒或其他任何事情都没有关系。 上一任首席财务官被虐待至离职。 而且她离开时关系并不好。 他带着 MCAD 的投诉离开了。 目前该市仍悬而未决。 因此，当我听到参谋长来到这里谈论新冠整合问题时，我认为不是这样的。 我不认为是这样。 我真的不知道。 我不认为人们感受到政府的支持。 在这栋大楼里工作的人感觉不到支持。 我很高兴 Kim 在担任了近 20 个月的代理城市检察官后仍然留在这里，而市长却花了很多钱聘请外部律师。 我很高兴我们仍然拥有它，因为这是我们在法律部门拥有的最后一点机构知识。 最后一粒。 夫人。 斯宾塞不会在这里呆太久。 珍妮丝已经在这里很久了。 她是一位出色的员工。 这种制度性知识将会消失。 这个窗口每天都会关闭。 当我们环顾这座建筑时， 我们不再看到那些多年来一直在这里捍卫梅德福利益的人们的熟悉面孔。 我们再也看不到这些面孔了。 我们看到人们来上班、领取工资、开车前往托普斯菲尔德、海德公园或他们居住的任何地方。 但他们不是来自这个社区。 他们不住在这个社区。 他们不属于这个社区。 我可以看出这个女人就在这里。 我希望我们能有更多的她，我希望我们的董事会中有更多的她。 因为如果我们这样做，我们会比现在做得更多。 我们做得很好。 给我们工具，我们就会成功。 我无法支持没有梅德福市议会助理地区检察官的预算。 我不会支持预算。 我不会支持没有梅德福市议会助理地区检察官的预算。 这句话我已经说了两年了，我的观点没有改变。 我不会听爱斯基摩人来到这里并试图在四月卖给我们雪的说法。 没关系，因为我不会再买了。 我不再买了。 我们不能通过新闻稿进行治理。 我们不能通过新闻稿来治理，好吗？ 但事实并非如此，尤其是当我们面临危机时，即我们现在所处的危机。 我们不得不说，这是布隆伯格的错。 不，这不是彭博社的错。 不，这不是迈克尔·布隆伯格的错，好吗？ 这是政府的错。 10个月没有首席财务官是管理层的错。 政府的错是把首席财务官赶出这个社区，说一些麻木不仁的话，粗暴地对待他们，殴打他们。 虐待他们，以至于他们不得不为了自己的心理健康和福祉而离开。 一切都好。 所以我在这里想说的是，金，我认为你做得很好，我很抱歉你必须经历你正在经历的事情。 因为在过去的三年里我看到你像个士兵一样坐在那里。 像军人一样，每天上班，尽一切努力前进，确保阵地无论遇到什么困难都能继续前进。 我对你所做的工作表示祝贺。 我支持 Caraviello 议员提出的将专业服务项目减少 81,600 美元的动议。 我提供全面促销。
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor. Any further discussion on the law budget from the council? I do just wanna say that as one of the people who voted in favor of that funding for KP Law with the promise that we would have a solution and an assistant city solicitor position in front of us right now, I'm deeply disappointed. And I won't say anything beyond that, but I thank Councilor Knight for stating the facts of what happened. We were promised. I know I tried to act in good faith, and now I have a budget before me that hasn't made good on that request. Any members of the public who'd like to speak? Councilor Tseng.
[Justin Tseng]: I, like President Morell, was, you know, voted for that with explicitly the promise that we would get an assistant city solicitor or that they would look at it. And I was clear that if we didn't get more support for your office, I would vote no on this budget. It was one of my very few red lines because I try to keep an open mind on these things, but it's just too important of a red line and your office needs help. You've made it clear. And I think working on the city council, it's clear to us that, you know, if we want to work, if we want to serve the people of Bedford and we, if we want to get ordinances through and get work done, we need extra staff for your office. And I think it was very striking when you went through our neighboring communities and really talked about, you know, what other communities are getting versus what we're having in this budget and what we have right now. And it's just, it's, it's depressing really to see the level of respect that your office and that we as a city council have been shown in this budget crisis. And with that, I'll leave it at that.
[Nicole Morell]: So I think we have, we have two motions. I believe they're the same motion.
[SPEAKER_17]: Okay.
[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion, we have a motion from Councilor Caraviellolo to strike the professional services legal from the budget. Seconded by Councilor Knight, Vice-President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Just functionally, it's to reduce it by $81,600. Yeah, just functionally, we will have to make that again once we actually have a budget proposed before this council, because right now we'd be cutting from a budget that doesn't exist.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Madam President, I have that I have that motion typed up.
[Nicole Morell]: So just so you know, Oh, sorry, comes to Kirby. I was speaking as Mike's not on. He has another motion.
[Richard Caraviello]: I apologize. I'm sorry that that this council receive budgets. I mean, invoices from KP law for all the work they've done in the last two years. And it's nothing, this group has been asking and asking and asking. I mean, we're fighting battles in court that we don't even know what we're fighting anymore. Madam President, if you could put down motions that administration turn over all invoices from KP Law from the last two years. Second.
[Nicole Morell]: We have two motions before us, so. First motion by Councilor Caraviello to cut the legal services, professional services legal line within this draft budget by $81,600. Second by Councilor Knight. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. What? Is that a yes? Yes. Thank you. Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Knight. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. Yes. President Morell.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes, 70 affirmative, zero negative, the motion passes. The second motion we have is to ask that the administration turn over all invoices from KP Law. That's from Councilor Caraviello, seconded by Vice President Bears.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And that's from the last two years, correct?
[Nicole Morell]: Correct. Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Council Collins. Yes. Council night. Yes. Yes.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes, 70 in front of zero and the negative, the motion passes. That concludes the law department. Thank you so much, Mr. Scanlon. I know we have gone into our regular meeting and waiting patiently for recreation. And again, this is a challenge of trying to get the budgets done and with a very limited time, we have to squeeze things in when we can. So, but we will give you all the time you deserve. So again, we're looking at the recreation budget. If you wanna just give us any highlights or anything you'd like to cover, and then we'll have questions from the council.
[Kevin Bailey]: Thank you. Again, thank you again, councilors for having me here tonight. It's a very busy time of year, so I appreciate the accommodation to be here tonight. Um, my name is Kevin Bailey. Again, I'm the, uh, the recreation director in Medford. Uh, the recreation department is in charge of offering programs, uh, year round. We operate several facilities that includes the, uh, recreation center, Pomal stadium, Laconie rank, the con and shell. Um, and we also operate Tufts pool and rights pond during the, uh, uh, the season. So we do run programs year round, of course, a peak of our season is during our summertime. In addition to that, we also do for administration, we issue park permits. So anyone who is looking to receive a park permit, I'm the secretary of the park commission. Once it does get approved by the park commissioners, the recreation department is responsible for doing the scheduling and try to help make sure that there is no conflicts between our athletic fields. To give you just a quick rundown of some highlights for our departments, this year we have seen a very strong increase in our programs. When you look at our programs that are running between six or eight weeks throughout the season, we had an increase of 55% from last year. So it is nice to see people out, using the facilities again. We also last year just hired a facilities coordinator who is in charge of operating the Colony Rink in Hormel Stadium. In addition to that, that manager has also started an adult basketball league down at our recreation center that received over a hundred people signed up over the winter season. And this year we are working with Tony Bover and it meant softball to work on a transition for next year, running the Method Man's softball league. This year, we have also been able to achieve a department goal that we've had prior to COVID-19. And that was to have, Our ski trips. I'm very excited to say that we were able to finally move forward on that and this year we were able to offer a ski program to ski Bradford, and we were also able to just before coven we had to cancel a trip to Old Haven. And we were able to do that as well. So it's great to see those goals to be able to be achieved. And probably the biggest one that I'm really excited and proud of is having a team membership this year. And with that team membership, we were able to expand our team night programs, we were able to offer free teen nights on Friday nights when the Chevalier Theater didn't have shows. We also did a few on Saturdays when the Chevalier Theater didn't have shows and we did it year round during the winter time on Sunday afternoon. So it was really exciting to be able to offer that for the community. And we also try to expand on that doing monthly teen programs that are like a specialty one. And we just finished up last Friday was our first one at Wright's Pond. We had a team bash party that had about 25 people. There were more people that showed up to pay the daily fee. So I think that might've been up to 40 or 45, but it was a great start to be able to offer those programs. When it comes to our budget, you will see an increase. We really only have two line items. We primarily work off of a revolving account. But we do have an account on personnel expenses, permanent employees. There is an increase last July, mid July, the council did approve our full-time recreation employees to be under the union. So you'll see an increase with that under the contract agreement. We also have for part-time employees, the part-time employee budget is really our aquatics budget. That's the operations of Wrights Pond and Tufts Pool. As I have said over the years, the Wrights Pond and Tufts Pool budget, while we do collect the fees, then does get transferred over to DPW for the maintenance of the pond and the pool. So those employees are still under our general account. And there is a slight increase again with minimum wage going up in the state. Many of our employees are making the state minimum wage or making just a dollar or two above that. Every time the state minimum wage is going up, of course, you'll see an increase to that. And there's also an increase with our lifeguarding staff, again, a very slight amount, but trying to be as competitive as the budget allows to be able to make sure that we can maintain Wrights Pond and Tufts Pool this summer with adequate lifeguard staff. And that's about all the questions.
[Nicole Morell]: We have Councilor Scarpelli and then Vice President Bears.
[George Scarpelli]: I want to make sure people understand that during the pandemic, you had police, fire, DPW, other major departments working throughout the pandemic. And Kevin, I believe recreation was also there, correct? I'm sorry, I missed that last part. I believe the recreation department was there through the pandemic to assist in any issue.
[Kevin Bailey]: Absolutely. During the pandemic itself we did work with the YMCA with the summer with with the park program to distribute food. When everything was shut down we did household deliveries. all of the food programs at the different parks. When you look at coming out and being able to open up facilities, you know, MedFed, Somerville, there's very few departments that actually kept their pond and their pool open. And we actually had a recreation working group among Massachusetts, but particularly along this area. And there was actually an aquatic one specific that myself and several other recreation directors were a part of. And our goal is trying to figure out how to navigate through the COVID-19 restrictions and doing daily fees and trying to do some type of cost recovery. So fortunately, we were one of the few facilities that kept our pool and our pond open during COVID-19.
[George Scarpelli]: Well, I say this because I wanna make a point. Obviously, those people who know me know my background as in recreation, those people who don't know me, I was given the honor of chairing the committee that made our recreation department a full-time year-round program, something that I find very, very important. I believe that a recreation department in a community, a full-time recreation program is a natural municipal necessity. It's especially during the pandemic when we saw all of our children and seniors and adults looking at some very difficult times. And the recreation department was there to give them some sort of normalcy. so i i commend you and your staff as minimal as they are um people don't understand i have as a recreation a program developer which is also an assistant director we have a director a facilities operation manager a full-time administrative assistant i have six full-time program coordinators I have over 100 part-time staff. And then in the summer, I'm given 120 mere summer jobs students, 14 to 18 years old, that work for Recreation Department. So I understand the limitations you're working with. And you're doing so much, Kevin, with so little. And I applaud you. Because as a self-sufficient program, a self-funding program, It's very difficult to achieve that. And the way I was always raised in recreation is When it comes to making money off of kids, it's difficult to take, and we do the best we can, but more importantly, it's what we offer. When you talked about the teen program on Friday nights, when you're talking about servicing 100 Medford teens on a Friday evening, after the pandemic, looking to some sort of social connection to help with the mental state of mind, I thought that was amazing and something we should applaud. But as we move forward, you said some things that made me a little nervous. We know that the leadership staff at pools for the DCR are making between 25 and 26. Lifeguards are making between 20 and 21. I know in Somerville, what we've decided to do because of competition in neighboring communities and the lack of lifeguards, we had to increase our lifeguards fee to $21. I'm afraid two of the strongest well-used programs during the summer, especially the pool and the pond, that if we, from what I gather, minimum wage, I hope, because we ask for assistance from the city to make sure that the fees are going to be, the pay structure is gonna be comparable or else we're going to lose lifeguards. I know people don't think so, but I'll be honest with you. If my daughter's friends are working in Medford and they're making $18 an hour, and some of them who's still looking to hire can hire at $21 an hour, I'll tell you what, we're going to lose kids quickly. And what then happens is, with the lack of lifeguards, means the lack of hours of shutdown and the pool and the pond. I can only imagine that's what it'd be. Can you correct me if I'm wrong, Kevin?
[Kevin Bailey]: I think if anyone reads the Boston Globe, there's multiple articles out there about lifeguard shortages. I think even publicly, people know that it is a struggle. It is very competitive to get enough lifeguards. A lot of people think that we start getting the pond and pool ready around April, May, June. That's really not the case we started in December, we start December running lifeguard classes and starting on the school vacation weeks and we try to do a lot of recruitment. It is a very, very competitive environment to try to get adequate lifeguards DCR has really changed the aquatic community and it is a big talk. different aquatic professionals, not just in recreation, but YMCAs and all across anyone that is an aquatic director and friends and colleagues of mine have discussed the DCR right now is paying head lifeguards 21, sorry, lifeguards $21 an hour, head lifeguards $22 an hour. They teach swim lessons, they get an additional $2 an hour and they're giving them a $500 sign on bonus and a $500 bonus if they stay until labor day. On top of that, they also offer free lifeguard classes. When I was first hired, I started offering lifeguard classes for $50 just to cover the expense that the Red Cross charges. And that was relatively new. It was a recruitment strategy that not everybody had. It's the standard now. It is important to get the right lifeguard. You have to be able to offer that. And Councilor Scarpelli, I think to your point, It is true that we are trying to be as competitive as possible with that slight budget increase. But there are going to be other places that are competitive and that are gonna be able to offer more than what the city is offering right now. With that said, we have done a lot of work with recruitment. And right now we actually have more lifeguards working this summer than we have in years past. So we have done the recruitment. We have tried to create an environment that is fun, that again is local, being a part of the community. You can go lifeguard for DCR, but you're gonna be going to a different city or town. You're not gonna be working with the community. You're not gonna be in the facility that you grew up in. And we try to really hone that point down to our staff. And hopefully that will be another part to it that is important to make sure that we maintain operations. The other part to your point about having to close if we don't have enough lifeguards, that is stuff that we have always planned for, not just here, but in previous jobs that I've worked in. We make sure that all of our management team is also lifeguard certified so that if we do run into those situations, we do have staff that is able to jump in. It is not uncommon, at least a couple of shifts during the summertime that you will see me on the guard chair as well. And we try and make sure that we keep it open.
[George Scarpelli]: Okay, so what what is the fee for our per hour. What are we paying.
[Kevin Bailey]: What are we paying right now with the budget, we are at $18 an hour during the weekdays and we do an extra dollar $19 a weekend to try to incentivize which has actually helped to just try to give that extra dollar bump to work on the weekends
[George Scarpelli]: I'm glad to see that working. So I, that's one of my concerns. So I'm glad to hear that we, we at least stayed competitive. So thank you. Um, I know that I don't want to, there's a few other things that I want to make sure that we talk about that. I know that working in summer, we'll get a phone calls for drink time, um, during the summer ice rink time. And, um, I had to explain to people that we gave the rink back to the state because of its huge financial impact to that city. So a vendor called and asked if I knew anything about Method's rink being open. Then I found out that we might be opening the rink during the hottest months of the season this year for the first time ever. Is that true?
[Kevin Bailey]: That is correct. Our goal is to try to open it up after July 4th, so July 5th. It does depend on getting the ice built, but our goal is to open up July 5th or somewhere around that time.
[George Scarpelli]: have we done a cost analysis of how much it's going to cost to keep that rink open? Because I know what it's going to cost. It's a lot of money. To keep that pump going during the hot months, it's a lot of money. And so I would like to see, before we vote on this budget, Kevin, that If we did a cost analysis to see if we have vendors that are coming in that are going to pay the fee because we were an established rank and we couldn't even come close to making sure that we can make that rank run with the money. So I would also like to see what method programs are going to be running that rank during those months because I just don't in this fiscal crisis that we're in right now to see that we're going to open up the rank during the hottest months without knowing. The impacts, whether pro or con, I think it's going to be tough to swallow. Hard numbers are hard numbers. And I'm sure the electric company can give you the estimated cost of what that rink's going to be charged per month to run for their compressor. I know it's a lot of money. So I mean, that's going to be another issue. And then my last question, so everybody else can speak. I know people have other questions. that making sure that there's a good relationship with Chevalier. I know as we move forward, that that space is vital right now. We were hoping, you know, in past months, talking about different facilities in the city to make them our new recreational facility. I don't see that happening for a long time to come. So I just want to make sure that we have that consistent partnership with the Chevalier. We know how important they are, but at the same time, having that facility there for our youth is just as vital. So those are my last two points and I'll stop there. So thank you, Kevin.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Vice President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Actually, all my questions have been answered by Councilors Scarpelli and Mr. Bailey. So unless any of my fellow councilors have questions, I'll happily defer to them, but I would move to adjourn unless there are other questions.
[Nicole Morell]: We do have, yeah, Councilor Caraviello and then Councilor Knight.
[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, Kevin. Council Scarpelli brought up the part about the rink, you know, from someone who's been involved with that rink. Many years. If it wasn't for me that building wouldn't be there anymore. You see, I wanted to tear it down some years ago. That building was not made to run July and August. That's it kind of Scott plays right. That's it. I mean, how much I see think you're gonna sell to cover the cost of just the electricity. I mean, I don't even see the under budget.
[Kevin Bailey]: Yeah, our facilities coordinator is working with private rentals right now. we are trying to work with one of the hockey groups.
[Richard Caraviello]: I'm not gonna support keeping the rink open during summer. Again, that building was never meant, that building was meant to open till April, maybe May, and then it was meant to open up hopefully in September, late September. But that was, again, I've been involved with that building for many years, and that was never meant to be open June, July, and August. Again, that's ridiculous. I think to spend the money, and nevermind, now you gotta fill it. I mean, I'm sure you can use it for something else that's not going to be as energy costing as that. I'm not going to support keeping that rink open all summer long. Nothing against you, but it doesn't pay.
[Adam Knight]: Mr. Bailey, thank you for being here. I appreciate the work you do. You've seen me probably more than any other department head, because I have my kids signed up for every single thing you offer. This rink, is the rink currently self-sufficient?
[Kevin Bailey]: Right now it is self-sufficient. We'll see how much.
[Adam Knight]: So what's the monthly cost to run it? To rent? To run.
[Kevin Bailey]: To run it. Right now, the biggest expense is the utilities cost. Of course, during the wintertime, it's not nearly as much. We're talking about $2,000. When you're looking at the summertime, I'm expecting somewhere around $6,000 a month. That's just for electric. But again, I would have to really look at the bills to be able to give you a definitive answer to it.
[Adam Knight]: The utilities that you pay, or the utilities that get accounted for, out of the rink. Does that include water and sewer?
[Kevin Bailey]: It does not.
[Adam Knight]: It does not include water and sewer.
[Unidentified]: Okay, thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Any further questions from the council? Seeing none. Thank you so much, Mr. Bailey.
[Kevin Bailey]: Thank you so much. Thank you.
[Zac Bears]: Just since we've gone over into our regular meeting time, we are just wrapping up a budget committee of the whole meeting. I'm in a motion to adjourn, we'll be back hopefully in five to 10 minutes with our regular meeting.
[Nicole Morell]: We do have the Hormel Commission still, would you like to add tabling the Hormel Commission to that motion? Yes. So on the motion of Vice President Bears to adjourn and table the Hormel Commission for a future meeting, seconded by Councilor Collins.
[Zac Bears]: Kevin, if you wanna come back up.
[Nicole Morell]: Kevin, if you're able to do that.
[Zac Bears]: It's a level fund.
[Nicole Morell]: If you have to do that, sorry, I didn't realize you were presenting on that too. Nothing has changed, so apologies.
[Kevin Bailey]: I would say that our assistant director's on paternity leave and I am on jury duty. So if I can get it done today, that'd be great. Thank you. There's no change? There is no change, it works off a revolving account as well.
[Richard Caraviello]: Kevin, is the snack bar still open at the, at Hormel? I'm sorry, what? Snack bar?
[Kevin Bailey]: Snack bar. It's a storage area.
[Richard Caraviello]: There's a place for... My suggestion would be, why don't you guys go buy a food truck? and serve them there. You can take that food truck, bring it to all your other events around the city.
[Kevin Bailey]: That'd be great.
[Richard Caraviello]: I mean, it does have to, yeah. Again, that's a moneymaker for you. I say, because you're not making any money off a snack bar that's closed. I'm sure you won't find a food truck at a reasonable price. Take it, you know, use it at football games. You can take it to other events that we do and turn it into a moneymaker for your group.
[Adam Knight]: That's great.
[Richard Caraviello]: I would suggest you look into that.
[Adam Knight]: I'll do. Thank you. given the commission present.
[George Scarpelli]: Sorry, real quick. I know that I mentioned this the other day with the parks department when with DPW. Kevin, I think we should also, I'm going to recommend having a subcommittee with youth services with both formal and and the parks commission that we try to find a better way to streamline rentals because we're losing a lot of money to people that want to rent the facility, but unfortunately only meet once a month to approve. So people aren't even asking, they're just jumping on our fields. And I know you know that, I know that we've talked a little bit about that, but I think we need to find a better way and having that money come directly right to recreation to help fund programming, and fund your department because I think that's another way that we can look at a funding mechanism that could be implemented to make revenue off of the people that are using our fields, not our youth programs, not our method programs, mostly they're adult outside groups that are coming in and using the fields. Like I said, we started happening And in my profession, we stopped it. And we raised, within the first year, we raised $60,000 that helped us change all of the fencing around two baseball fields. So this is viable. It's easy. It's a plan that should be put in place. And I think that it's something we should talk about to create revenue. Again, thank you. And I know that we're in a rush, so I apologize.
[Kevin Bailey]: If I could just say thank you for bringing that up, because both the chair of the Park Commission and the Hormel Commission, where I do go to the Hormel Commission routinely, and the Park Commission, again, being the secretary, that is something that both parties have discussed about trying to be streamlined and be consistent, especially if you go to Hormel, not having separate rules versus going to the Parks Department. So thank you for bringing that up.
[Nicole Morell]: Councilor Knight? So thank you again. So on the motion of Vice President Bears to adjourn, seconded by Councilor Collins. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Councilor Collins.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Knight. Yes. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng. President Morell.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes, the meeting is adjourned. We will reset and reconvene for a regular meeting within five.